The Dragon Riders and the Everflame - Wizard Craft 3.0 - #17 - A Bedtime Adventure

0:04 Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world. I'm Martin, and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories, the podcast that takes listener ideas and turns them into bedtime stories. Listener ideas like this one.

0:22 Hi, my name is Brielle, and I would like to suggest a story for the WizardCraft 3.0 series. I would like a story where you find a girl who's... family is like dragon tamers and they help dragons in need and they like breed them and like heal them and they are running away because the golem king has taken over their village and they had a lot of dragon eggs and he tried to steal them And they've joined your village and she has a wind dragon. And you get a nature dragon. And the golem king attacks you and tries to steal the eggs. I love your podcast. Goodbye.

1:25 Nice idea, Brielle. I did have to make a couple little changes that I hope you're okay with to make it work. One, it's the Wizard King's people who attack you in this case. And two, since you already have the Void Dragon, I might be doing something else with the Nature Dragon, but I'm going to include it. I promise.

1:48 If you have ideas for the podcast, my favorite way to get them is on SpeakPipe. Now, as a little hint, a couple little hints here to get a good SpeakPipe message. Number one... Keeping it short is always better. You know, just straight to the point, the main idea. Because the more complicated it gets, the harder it is for me to make. And number two, do your best to be in a quiet place with no other strange noises around.

2:21 Because I do have to have at least okay noises. audio quality to put it on the podcast as a reminder if you want to support the podcast there's lots of ways to do it first of all just listening that's enough I really appreciate it keep listening tell somebody else about it maybe if you want ad free episodes bonus content you can join us on patreon if you love reading you can check out the books and if you love games or just want some cards of power cards to you know pretend to be a cards of power character with you can buy our new board game slash card game. It's available print-on-demand through GameCrafter. You can find the links to it on my website, dadsbedtimestories.com. And yeah, I think it's going to be an awesome time, but

3:12 it does take a little while to get delivered. Now, because some of you have been asking about it, I thought I'd explain. The game itself does say it's 14+. And that's primarily because it does have some pieces with it, and it hasn't been tested for kits. So you kind of have to make your own decision on it. It's not because of the content of the game or anything like that. It's really just cards of power cards with a couple game pieces. Yeah, so you just have to make an informed decision on that yourself. Yeah, and in other news, I spent all weekend trying to create a Wizardcraft game. It's kind of like a 2D old school looking game, but you can craft things, collect things. Of course, you can create golems and get new spells and that

4:04 sort of thing. I don't know if I'm ever going to release it for people to try, but I've been having a lot of fun trying to create it. Because I've spent so much time creating the lore behind the game itself, I just thought I had to try to bring it to life in some way. So I'm trying. Maybe I'll post a sneak peek at some point if I get that far. Especially if people let me know that that's something they'd be interested in. So let me know.

4:32 Comment on it or send me a message or something. Now, it's that time again. Time to get as comfy as you can in that bed. Close your eyes and imagine yourself doing what the kid in the story does. You wake up to a familiar set of words floating in front of your eyes. Wake up? You mentally select yes and the world slowly forms around you. You find yourself lying inside your bed in the Royal Hill Village. Almost immediately, the all-knowing voice begins to speak. Congratulations! Character progress summary available.

5:22 Current player level, level 11. Unused skill points, 2. Current skills unlocked. Lockpicking, level 3. Ninjutsu combat, level 2. Arcane Engineer Level 3 Cyborg Animal Control Skill Level 3 Dominance Breaker Current Wizard Abilities Advanced Wizard current spells unlocked stone golem copper golem iron golem golden golem diamond golem laser golem emerald cat golem netherite golem cloud golem fire magic level four telekinesis level three earth magic level two lightning magic level two Animal Control. Level 2. Current Equipment. Iron Sword.

6:29 Sword of Stolen Skills. Flying Diamond Golem Mech Suit. Upgraded Armored Car. Current Mounts. Giant Hawk. Young Void Dragon. Flying Nimbus. Current Active Settlement. Royal Hill Village. The screen flickers. Congratulations! Your continued exploration, magical development, and growth of Royal Hill Village have increased your level. You have reached level 12.

7:06 New skill point awarded. You now have three unused skill points. Three, you say? For once, you don't immediately dismiss the menu. Three skill points is starting to feel like a lot, but you still don't know what you need, and waiting has worked out pretty well in the past. You close the menu and get out of bed. You head outside to see the Royal Hill Village is already busy. Copper golems are rolling between buildings. Stone golems are carrying materials.

7:48 Eleanor's colorful slimes bounce around the new giant crystal house she created yesterday. You see a water slime filling a trough while two nature slimes bounce around a garden, causing little green shoots to push through the soil. Then... Something circles far overhead. You shade your eyes. It's your giant hawk.

8:19 And suddenly you remember something. You have mounts. Quite a few of them, actually, and, well, you haven't really used them lately. You've been so busy with the mech suits and the mines and, you know, golem kings, cloud castles, and All of those other things that... You haven't really spent much time with any of them. Especially your void dragon.

8:50 You mentally reach out using your animal control skill. Almost immediately... You can feel him inside your mind. Not far away either. You follow the connection beyond the village wall... towards a large rocky clearing, and there he is. The void dragon lifts its head. He's considerably bigger than you remember, probably because he's actually gotten bigger. When he first hatched, you fed him until he was large enough to ride, but apparently he hasn't stopped growing. His black scales shimmer with dark purple light, His wings stretch wider than one of the houses in Royal Hill, and the strange darkness around the end of his tail seems to twist the air itself.

9:51 He sees you and immediately bounds forward. Okay, okay. The dragon lowers his head and pushes it against you. hard enough to nearly knock you over. You missed me, did you? You feel a warm answer through your animal magic. Yes. Sorry about that. You rub the side of his enormous head. Well... What do you say we go for a ride? The dragon immediately lowers himself down. You climb onto his back.

10:30 There isn't even a saddle anymore. He outgrew that a long time ago. You settle between two large ridges along his back. All right, let's go, you say. The void dragon runs. THREE ENORMOUS STEPS THEN HE JUMPS HIS WING SLAMMED DOWNWARD AND YOU SHOOT INTO THE SKY WHOA YOU NEARLY SLIDE STRAIGHT OFF OF THE THING YOU GRAB ONE OF THE RIDGES WITH BOTH HANDS AND THE DRAGON BANKS TO THE LEFT YOU SLIDE RIGHT HE BANKS RIGHT AND WELL YOU SLIDE LEFT OKAY Maybe not quite so much.

11:20 You've ridden them before, but apparently riding a dragon this size is different. Then you remember the skill points. Hang on. You mentally open your skill menu. Constellations of glowing stars appear around you while the dragon continues gliding. You search through them. Wizard. Arcane Engineer. Animal Control, Ninjutsu, and eventually you come to a constellation you haven't seen before. One shaped like a dragon. Dragon Rider. You quickly select it.

12:04 Dragon Rider tree skill unlocked. Level 1, Novice Dragon Rider. Novice Dragon Rider increases your connection and bond with ridden dragons, improves balance, aerial control, communication, and basic riding. Well, that seems useful right now, and you have extra skill points, so you mentally spend it. Congratulations! Novice Dragon Rider unlocked!

12:41 something changes immediately. You can feel the void dragon underneath you differently. Every movement of his muscles, every shift of his wings, you somehow know when he's about to turn before he does. He banks hard to the left. This time, your body moves naturally with him. You don't slip at all. That's awesome. But there is another level glowing over top of it. Adept Dragon Rider greatly increases rider-dragon synchronization, allows advanced aerial maneuvers. Riders can maintain balance through extreme turns, dives, rolls, and sudden movement. Falling from a bonded dragon becomes extremely unlikely.

13:40 You grin. You still have two skill points after all, so, you know, why not? You select it. Congratulations, Adept Dragon Rider unlocked. Unused skill points remaining.

13:57 One.

13:59 You dismiss the menu. Alright, buddy. You lean forward. Let's see what you can really do. The void dragon roars, then dives straight down. The ground rushes toward you, but instead of holding on desperately, you decide to do something that would be absolutely crazy if you didn't just select these two skills. You stand up on top of the dragon as if you're surfing or something. Your feet somehow adjust to every movement of the dragon beneath you. Wind tears past your face and at the last possible second, the dragon pulls upward. You remain perfectly balanced like you're riding a wave. The dragon rolls sideways and you stay standing through the entire loop. He rolls completely upside down For one strange second, you find yourself hanging beneath him,

15:09 your feet magically and instinctively positioned against his scales and just away as to let you hold onto him somehow from your feet. Then he completes the roll. You laugh. The void dragon shoots upward again. Show me what you can do. He opens his mouth. Dark purple fire gathers between his teeth. Then, with a boom, a huge blast of purple-black flame shoots across the sky and explodes against an empty rocky hill. The stone disappears inside a cloud of dark smoke. Then, the dragon creates something else. A tiny black sphere launches from his mouth. It hits a boulder, the air bends, the boulder gets pulled inward, and disappears. Alright, that's still terrifying. You say as you, well, sit back down properly on the dragon. The void dragon just seems pleased. Then,

16:27 you notice some smoke in the distance. Not from the boulder, from further away. beyond the forest. You narrow your eyes. Take us over there. The dragon banks, heads straight for it, and minutes later you hear it. Roaring, metal crashing, people yelling. You crest a hill and see an entire battle unfolding below.

16:59 A caravan of wagons has been surrounded by Golems. Iron golems. Stone golems. Even several diamond golems. Blue and green banners hang from some of the machines and wagons behind them. The Golem King's men. But the people being attacked aren't ordinary travelers. They have... dragons. Dragons? One enormous red dragon breathes fire across a line of stone golems. A blue dragon blasts what looks like freezing mist, and soaring above everything else is a pale white dragon with enormous wings.

17:48 A girl is riding on its back. You watch as the dragon beats its wings and a tremendous blast of wind sends three stone golems rolling across the field. Behind the dragons are several wagons and inside those wagons are eggs. Dozens of eggs. Dozens of dragon eggs. Is the golem king trying to steal the dragon eggs? Your void dragon growls. And, through your animal control spell, you can immediately sense that he wants to help. I agree, you say. We need to help them. The dragon dives. You sit on its back as he plummets toward the battlefield. One of the iron golems looks up, but it's too late. Your void dragon opens his mouth. and unleashes a huge blast of purple flame. With a boom, two stone golems disappear instantly.

19:02 You leap from the dragon's back. Your adept dragon rider ability seems to tell you exactly when to jump. You fall through the air and summon your sword. You land on the shoulders of an iron golem.

19:18 Hello?

19:19 The golem says. but you just drive your sword downward. The golem stumbles and disappears in a puff of smoke. Your void dragon flies past and blasts another set of golems with dark fire. All of them instantly explode, leaving behind loot. That was amazing, the girl on the white dragon says staring at you. Who are you? Eh, long story, you respond. Her dragon beats its wings and hovers there.

20:02 A tornado-like blast smashes another golem backward. Well, my name's Brielle. Nice to meet you, Brielle, you respond. A diamond golem charges toward one of the egg wagons. You reach out with your telekinesis, and the golem slows. I could use a little help, you say, putting everything you can into stopping the gigantic diamond golem. Brielle reacts instantly. Her wind dragon unleashes everything it has. A blast of air hits the trapped diamond golem and sends it crashing through two iron golems. Your void dragon follows with another blast, only this time it's a void ball. The void energy strikes the diamond golem. The world ripples and immediately... The diamond golem and the two iron golems that were with it

21:13 get sucked inside and, well, disappear from existence. The battlefield begins turning. The golem king's forces weren't expecting another powerful dragon, obviously. Several remaining golems start retreating toward the forest. Keep them away from the eggs, Brielle shouts. Then, something launches from behind the tree. A gigantic, metal spear. No! It flies directly toward Buriel. Your void dragon twists. He throws himself between her and the weapon. Following your unspoken mental command, the spear slams into his wing. and the dragon roars.

22:09 He spins, drops to the ground, and smashes straight into it. Dust and debris flies everywhere. Then, you hear him. A low, painful growl. At least he's okay. You scramble up to him and find the enormous metal spear as torn through his wing.

22:39 Oh no.

22:41 Brielle's wind dragon lands beside you. She jumps down immediately. Don't pull it out. You freeze. Brielle runs toward the void dragon. Several other people arrive behind her, including an older woman carrying bags of herbs, a man wearing thick leather armor, and two other kids. They move with incredible confidence around the injured dragon. My family are dragon tamers, Brielle says. We heal dragons too. The woman examines the wing.

23:25 He'll be okay. You finally breathe. But he cannot fly. Can you fix it? You ask? With time. Brielle looks toward the wagons. We were leaving our village when they found us. The golem king? You ask? She nods. He took our village. We breed dragons, heal injured ones, and protect eggs until they hatch. When his soldiers realized how many dragons we had, they tried to take them. Brielle looks really, really mad. We got most of the eggs out, but they got some of them. You look at the wagons.

24:22 So where are you going? We don't know. You look toward the mountain. Well, I have an idea. Why don't you come to my village? I could make a home for you and your dragons, and, well, we've already fought the golem king off once. We'd probably have an easier time of it if we had, you know, a team of dragons. Brielle and her people speak for a little bit, and not long afterwards, they agree. Several of the larger dragons carefully lift your void dragon using some sort of enormous leather support straps. They flap their wings powerfully and, well, the dragon lifts up off of the ground. Brielle climbs onto her wind dragon, then reaches down. Need a ride?

25:30 You grin and take her hand. the wind dragon launches into the sky. Below, the rest of the dragon family follows, some of them riding on their own, others carrying, well, wagons below themselves, wagons attached to similar leather straps than the ones carrying your dragon. Together, you make your way into the air. Not quite as quickly as you would if you were riding your own void dragon, without, you know, a bunch of wagons and, well, injured dragons being carried, but you still make good time of it. Before long, Royal Hill appears beneath you. As you slowly lower yourselves to land in the town square... You see Gus walk out to greet you. He looks up at the sky filled with dragons and starts to look a little bit worried.

26:44 He waves for the golems around him to gather until you finally wave to him. Gus! It's okay! It's me! You shout. He looks at you.

26:59 Ah!

27:01 Oh, and I see you brought friends. You carefully land in the town square. The other dragons carefully place the wagons down, let go of the straps and land beside. The two large dragons carrying your void dragon mount place him off to the side as well. Oh dear, Gus says. Yeah, but he'll be okay as long as we have these people to help us. Speaking of which, we're going to need to make a little bit of room for them. Ah, of course we are. What exactly do they need? Brielle quickly explains to Gus what dragons need. It turns out they can live almost anywhere, but if you want them to settle permanently and lay eggs, hatch young, they need a proper roost, high ground, open air, sheltered nesting place, and, well,

28:19 most importantly, heat, lava, or some other source of magical or permanent fire. You look toward the top of Royal Hill Mountain. I think we can make it work up there, you say? And within hours, the village goes to work. Stone golems carrying, well, a ridiculous number of materials. Copper golems immediately begin building platforms and caves and, well, anything else the dragons might need. You use earth magic to tear open large nesting caves inside the mountain that's already there, and Grayson begins adding some reinforced walkways and storage buildings. Soon, huge landing platforms extend from the cliffs. A massive house is built into the center for Brielle's family and friends.

29:27 By sunset, the top of the mountain has completely transformed. Dragon roost established, but something is missing. At the center of it is a huge circular stone basin. Brielle points toward it. Ideally, we'd have fire there. Fire, huh? Maybe I can do something with the fire? Do you know how to create an eternal fire? That would be perfect.

30:08 Uh, no?

30:11 But maybe I can figure it out. You quickly make your way into your skill menu. You flip through all of the different options until you pass the wizard skills. You scan the different options available to you until you find what you're looking for. A fire specialty. One that forks off from the main wizarding constellation. Fire Master. Fire Master increases your understanding of fire magic. Fire spells cost less to cast. Fire becomes more powerful, and you just may unlock some more secrets, if you think and try hard enough. The voice says, You select the skill. Congratulations, you have unlocked Fire Master. You feel a new understanding of fire pass through your mind. Memories from fire mages that came before you. You suddenly understand what fire is. It's, well,

31:37 it's obviously heat, but it's more than that. It's living heat. It's built into the nature of the universe itself. You step to the center of You reach to your mana, fire forms between your hands, and you pour more mana into it, and more. You aim the fire down in front of you, and it begins to grow, larger and larger and larger as you continue to feed it more and more mana. It grows from orange to blue to white-hot as your mana quickly drains. Then, something else occurs to you. Life Force. That's how you make golems, after all.

32:41 What would happen if you added a little bit of Life Force to the fire? You reach inside yourself, detach a small amount of life force, and press it into the glowing white flame. Immediately, you feel something take over. The fire grows even hotter, and you no longer feel it pulling from your mana. You step backwards, and watch as the fire continues to burn. Congratulations, you have created a magical everflame, a magically sustained flame capable of providing heat and magical energy to the surrounding area. Oh, you say as you fall backward onto the ground. completely exhausted from using all of your mana and, well, a good amount of life force. Soon you feel yourself lifted into the air, carried down the mountain, placed inside your bed,

34:08 where the prompt appears. Sleep now?

34:13 No.

34:16 You answer yes mentally since, well, you couldn't even imagine getting up. You're exhausted. Fatigue passes through your body. Your muscles begin to relax. You quickly sink down into the mattress, more tired than you ever remember being. Your eyes become heavy. And soon, sleep takes you off to thoughts of new dreams and new adventures to come. Good night, everyone.

35:13 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

42:20 Thank you.

43:28 Thank you. Thank you.

45:00 Amen.

45:55 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

55:40 Thank you.

56:35 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.