Editing credits to Typhoonflame, ZzzSleepyCreeper and WindWolf19.

Vic’s Volumes - August Edition

Laid before the crowds on the beach, scales gleamed black, green and blue and gold and coated in the amber sunlight of a summer's coming night, were a gathering of metal dragons. Shortened spear shafts draped in whorls of painted flame, thunder and sea, their heads were shaped into dragons and their tails were made of string and hemp, ready to spit fire from the night’s rumors. Amassing ten or twelve upon the sandy banks, they were the fruits of a year’s making in the process.

Even as the evening winds began to cool down the heat from a summer’s day, every dragon
was still ablaze with anticipation, their chests rising with excitement and their eyes shone with promise at these strange tools. Forged from the Sky Kingdom, the inks from the Kingdom of Sea, the colors from the Rainforest Kingdom and what was inside being of Sky and NightWing collaboration, they were the waiting labors, ready to take flight for all of Pyrrhia to witness.

Gathered on the beach were a gaggle of queens and princesses, decked in their jewelry and their beaming faces, representative of the queenly parties too busy to attend like their lords and princes, dressed in their clothed finery, and the commonborn citizens, dressed in dirt, grime, well-worn cloaks and smiles. Some rested on the sands themselves while others laid large blankets on the coarse beach to seat upon with their families.

There were vendors nearby, IceWings and MudWings and SandWings selling iced drinks and food fares respectively for any parched and hungry watchers. The sun was descending down, making it harder with each passing second to tell whom from which, shrouding finer features in shadows. It was an atmosphere and thought unthinkable before the war now here to stay. In the darkness of dusk, all dragons were equal, awaiting the forged light tonight.

As we trekked, we saw fathers wrapping smaller blankets around their dragonets, blanketed grass seating mothers eating marsh rabbits on skewers with their young, BigWings wrapping their wings around their siblings, some of whom seemed like unsibs like the lack of shared features on them, but they took comfort nevertheless. Some of them, we saw were reading, by summer’s dying light, a newsletter in their claws… and whom the writer of such was before us.

The familiar peach-tinted dragon was handing, by the clink of them, coins to a MudWing vendor, who proceeded to hand two rabbit skewers to a pair of dragonets. With rushed thank yous, the dragonets had scampered and Vic had thanked the MudWing vendor with their appreciation and a smile clear as day in the evening. They had turned to face us and their face lit up, as if we were their oldest friends, reaching over to us with two hugging arms.

As we were waiting for the night’s main attraction, we asked Vic for a quick discussion while there was still some light in the evening. With a gracious nod, we walked over to a quieter part of the fields and started the interview.

New Rules Changes

“Ah, yes, the new rules. So, some of you might have noticed we’ve been changing up and hammering the rules to a clearer form, kind of like the business that sings in Wrought's Steelsong Street, refining the basic metal into a finer shape. Can you imagine? A bunch of blacksmiths singing in the midsts of a street? But the ring and chime of their hammers sounded like a song in the making when I visited there. Almost sounds like a story in its own right, a bunch of tall tales that'd make life so much richer!" Vic said with a chortle, their whole body seeming to laugh with them.

"But, in any case, the rules have been around for a long time. They've been around maybe as long as Darkstalker's nap, by my imagination. Thank the moons that the rules haven't nearly mass-murdered any tribes like he tried, but who knows upon the morrow?" Vic said with a shrug. "My point is, the community has changed while they've been untouched and dusty and we have to change our rules to account for the change in our community. I do trust you all to read through the new rules. There are instructions underneath the clear rules in bold so that they'll help oldcomers and newcomers stay out of trouble and help protect this community and keep it as friendly and welcoming as it's been, or even better, for we can always do better," Vic said in an earnest tone with a fresh gleam to their eyes. "Thank you all in advance."

New Front Picture Contest Results

"I'm proud to say that the New Front Picture Contest!! was a resounding success! Oh? Was I yelling? Apologies, whenever we talk about the New Front Picture Contest!! I feel the urge to yell it out. You try it, see how it feels," they suggested as we complied, realizing we were yelling the contest for some inexplicable reason amid a quiet field.

"See?" Vic said with a talon snap. "It's almost like the time I went to a Kingdom of Sea temple, full of foreboding mysteries, and found an artifact that made me talk as if I were a character written from a story by the whims of some sour, bitter-lipped grump of a writer. I managed to cope, but, for weeks, I kept yelling out my words in the middle of narratively dramatic scenes..." Vic said as they descended into mad ramblings.

"Oh, where was I? Ah, yes, every entry of the contest was a splash of color and wonder upon my eyes! They were all a success! Especially at the part where I don't crave the taste of smokeberries or cactus juice upon looking at them! Thank you all for that comfort! And some of us got together and, while we were looking over some of these entries, started to realize... that they were all good. They should all be on the front page. And that any singular picture wouldn't capture the spirit of the Front Picture. So, we decided. Who better to represent the Community of Fire... then all of those entries in the same space?"

"Every contestant's a winner here. I hope you all are proud of yourself. You've earned your spot on there and I hope to see more out of you all."

Last Reminder of August Batch Delete

"As promised, this is the last reminder of the August Batch Delete! Just to remind you all, back from your summer vacation and your beach funtimes and your off-continent enterprises, I've heard Pantala is lovely this time of year except for an on-going slavery problem they're trying to work out, that this is the batch delete where we're implementing the new 2.5KB minimum page size to keep pages policy for this and upcoming batch delete sessions."

"So, as a last warning, please bump up your page sizes to at least 2.5KB so that we don't take down your pages by August 31th. Any pages lower than 2.5KB will be deleted, regardless of how active or old you are. There have been instructions on how to see how many bytes your page have repeated quite a bit and those repeating make one's throat dry. So feel free to look at my tips on this thread to check how you can see your page size! I hope you all bump up your pages in time!"

No More Highlight Requests

"I've talked it over with fellow Community of Fire members and we've decided to stop taking in highlight requests. I know the saying is "more is better", but having eaten too many rabbit pies for an eating contest in an attempt to keep the peace in a Mud Kingdom village, which is a fascinating story involving a princess, a bundle of princes and a few mushrooms that gave me visions for another time, and nursing an all-night stomach cramp, I can say there's such a thing as enough is enough," Vic said with a sigh full of hindsight.

If we think your contest is good enough, we will highlight it for the rest of the Community of Fire to see. You do not have to tell us about your contest, we will always be on the look-out for contests and other interesting threads to be highlighted. We shall be as hawk-ish as a SkyWing watchtower!" Vic said with the authority and the arched eyebrow aimed at us as a hawk looking from the skies.

New Tribe Contest

"As mentioned in past newsletters!" Vic started with a gust of excitement, "there's still a mysterious land between Springwood and the Kingdom of Sand that might house a new tribe. It's still all formless, left to the imagination and mystery lingers in the space over there. There is still more than two months left before the area becomes clearer to see into and we see what strange tribe might come out of the earth!"

"I've heard the one leading this exploration into the possible new tribe of the land is a brave soul (NightStrike the Dragon) and so you should talk to them about any questions regarding the new tribe. I hope to see what you explorers and freelance writers make of the mysterious rumored tribe of that earth!" Vic said with a smile that beamed light in the growing night.

Promotions and Demotions

"On a slightly somber note," Vic winced with a pained voice, "One of our esteemed helpers, Elena (Bermuda), has stepped down from her position thanks to her other personal matters that take priority. She was a content helper who, while may not have appeared as often as some might think, was always a friendly face who never had a cruel or unkind word to anyone who approached her. Mature, level-headed and professional when she needed to be, those qualities will be certainly missed among our helper company. Yet, she is still in the Community of Fire and we wish her the best of her life and personal matters, regardless of what position she takes up," they said with a tear streaming down their cheek. They wiped it away and collected themselves for a moment.

Wiki Welcome Directory

"On a last note, one of our trusted helpers (WindWolf19) has written and organized a simple, easy-to-access Wiki Welcome Directory, a page where all the help resources can be found in a single page! Ranging from rules, guides, tips, tricks, places where you can meet new dragons, ready-to-use pictures that you can use with your characters, notices, a box and numerous aids, there are countless resources to be read and used for your convenience! Take full advantage of them as you want!" Vic said, having used all of one breath to inform all that to us without panting or taking ragged breaths.

---

Upon those last words, the land and sky had grown dark in full, a black sea above, glitered with the diamonds of stars, as we heard the shouts and cheers of fellow dragons from where the metal dragons were. Without a word, we rushed over there, with the cool, night air caught in our throats as we ran. Finding a spot to sit upon the coarse sandy banks, we sat together with Vic, listening to two dragonesses, SkyWing and NightWing, wearing thick, leathered clothes on their chests, the SkyWing wearing a glass spectacle on one eye, and the NightWing explaining what we were about to see.

"--u see, using dragonpowder that we've put into these metal tubes, we've managed to crack the secrets to propulsion and we hope to excel our expectations with this demonstration!"

"... Flight, she means we figured out how to make objects fly and we hope they fly and explode properly, y'all," the SkyWing speaker cut in, looking like she'd been through this experience before, to the immediate nods of everyone who didn't understand.

The NightWing speaker had gulped in nerves and took a deep breath. The SkyWing inched closer to her before squeezing her claw with a firm gentleness, "Well, um, I suppose seeing is better than telling, I can see that," she said sheepishly, squeezing the SkyWing speaker's claw back, her face growing more confident as they held claws, "Stand back, all!" she called out to everyone.

The front row stood back across the distance set by the speakers apparently as they, dressed in their working leathers, took a deep breath near the rockets' string and hemp lines. Every dragon folowed suit and the night held a breath. Soon, a jet of flame erupted from one of their mouths and we heard the hiss of fire eating through string. The two dragons started running and flying away from the metal dragons and we waited.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The metal dragons had streaked through the night, streaming thick and thin tongues of fire in their flight of yellow and orange. Crackling through the black and blue seas, red tails burned bright and true across the surface and then...

KRAAACK!! BOOM!! BA-BOOM!! BOOM!!! KRA-KRAAACK!!!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! KRA-KRA-KRACK!!!!!

Light burst before our eyes that night. This memory will burn into our memories forever.

A rainbow of flames streaked and lingered in the night air, the crack and booms of the metal dragons giving way to glorious jade and gold and sunburst oranges and scarlet flowers and dragon-made stars blazed across the night sea. For one shining moment, it felt as bright as day, illuminating and bathing us all in one fire that revealed truths and burnt away the doubts of tonight. They were not done, shimmering their faint glows after the crack and bang of their explosions. They were real and, from a glance, I could see everyone's eyes alight with admiration and wonder.

And then I looked at Vic right beside us. Pure wonder and joy danced in their eyes at the flash and shine of the fireworks flaring above. They were alit with stars themselves. And a grin bright enough to light a kingdom's night. We spotted one thicker metal dragon about to launch. One last streak of fire blazed forth before summer's end came with a...

BOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!