Personal dragon hunting diary of Deira Langschwert III, heiress to the Langschwert merchant house.

Dear Diary,

To be perfectly honest, my husband Oswulf and I joined the Noble Society of Hunters of Strange Beasts and Phantasmagoria only because they had been buying up so much of the local supply of decent wine, and we were keen to help them drink it all. I find that all the members have refreshingly refined taste in wine. The rest of the business of hunting strange beasts and phantasmagoria was never really my cup of tea.

It wasn't until Esmerelda Payne was explaining to me the meaning of the various lodges, over a particularly indulgent bottle of Gewürztraminer, that my interest became piqued. One of the lodges, the Dragon Slayer's Lodge, I was particularly taken with. Esmerelda explained that, owing to the fact that dragons had been extinct for about 300 years, there was no way for any new members to be inducted into the lodge.

It was at that moment, I feel, that I became a true huntress. I knew that, no matter what it took, I was going to become a member of that impossible lodge. I spoke to Oswulf about it that night and he decided to join too.

I hired an army of scribes and thugs to pour over Thule looking for every obscure reference to dragons. Through my tireless efforts I was able to track down a few sailors from Mu with tales of a dragon called Old Greeneyes that still lives on that untamed continent.

I am organizing an expedition to Mu immediately. We are going to investigate these rumors of a surviving dragon and, if they prove true, shoot it.

Dear Diary,

Oswulf and I sailed into the port city Ys three days ago, and have spent the intervening time assembling our dragon hunting party.

Our clear favorite is a man named Ballamy, a great mountain of a man with long beaded hair and a permanent look of worry on his face, who I'm given to understand is some manner of ranger. He's the only one of the locals whose name I can pronounce and he's pleasingly compliant so I've taken to giving my orders to the local guides through him. I'm fairly certain they all speak Lemurian and just pretend not to understand me, but it's more convenient for me to speak to them through Ballamy anyway. All told we have hired six locals, including myself and my husband that is eight dragon hunters in total.

It wasn't easy recruiting even our modest team, to be perfectly honest. The first queer thing that impeded us is the fact that the people of Mu, or Ys at the very least, seem very reluctant to accept paper currency. We were forced to trade in a large number of gold certificates for specie at a money changer at a significant loss, so right away our budget for wages was diminished.

Compounding the issue was the attitude the locals had towards Old Greeneyes. A great number of the small minded thought the dragon was a legend, making them entirely unsuitable as guides. Those that did believe in the dragon were often frightened of the beast, and unwilling to attempt a hunt or sometimes even speak its name. Regrettably, we were forced to go with some of our second and third choices for guides, and our little rag tag group is a tad more rag than I'm entirely comfortable with.

Ballamy is a good man, but he's very superstitious about things he doesn't understand. He keeps insisting that our rifles won't work in the jungles of Mu, and that we should use crossbows like him. I have noticed that none of the people of Ys seem to have firearms of any kind. Instead they all use some needlessly complex looking crossbows. It might be a local superstition.

Ballamy also didn't like our horses and didn't think we should bring them. I patiently explained to him that they were simply tame animals, and not monsters from another dimension. While he acted like he understood I don't think he really did, as he still recommended against the mounts.

The Mu weather is just dreadful. Under my pith helmet my hair is a tangled swampy mess and we haven't even left the city yet. This dragon hunting business is rough indeed.

Dear Diary,

After several days of torturously slow going through the thickening jungle, leading our horses over and around obstacles, we finally had to abandon them. Ballamy wanted to slaughter and eat them but I didn't have the heart to do that so I left them harnessed to a tree.

Ever since then Oswulf and I have been hiking, and we have both developed a distinct distaste for it. It is tiring work, and Ballamy is quite the nag about the length and frequency of our rest breaks. Even now as I write this he is giving me an unpleasant look, trying to guilt me into rushing through this entry so he can go back to driving me forward like some demented slavemaster. I'm going to have to have a chat with him about who is the employer and who is the employee.

The thick, wet, heat is simply dreadful. It fills me full of dread. It is inescapable and has completely ruined my mood. Oswulf doesn't care for the heat either. It's simply inescapable. At times one wonders if all this dragon business is worth it.

Wouldn't that just make Ballamy's day, if I turned back? No, I won't be giving him that satisfaction. I have been fleeced, boiled alive in my own clothes, robbed of my horses and drained of my last drop of blood by ravenous mutant mosquitos the likes of which I thought only existed in stories. I am owed a dragon. I'm not turning back, I am not going anywhere until I have made Old Greeneyes pay for everything he has put me through.

Dear Diary,

We found it, by the Great Patriarch, we found the dragon's lair!

We were deep in the strangest part of the jungle and Ballamy had signaled for silence. He pointed and I could barely make out, covered in living foliage, the rough reptilian shape of a sleeping green dragon. I had really done it. I had tracked down the last living dragon.

I yelled for Oswulf to get into position, right around the same time that the dragon awoke. It must have been sleeping for quite some time because vines snapped, trees were uprooted and earth was disturbed as he slowly rose to its full height.

Oswulf and I opened fire with our rifles, but the powder wouldn't light for some reason. Like the trained professionals we both are, we immediately took out our kits and began cleaning our weapons.

Ballamy and the other locals let loose a volley of bolts from their crossbows, which bounced off the skin of the dragon's underbelly as though the bolts had been thrown by children.

"Foolish animals!" the dragon said "My skin cannot be cut by weapons forged by mortal hands."

The dragon's voice seemed to resonate with every language imaginable. Its eyes were like green suns. It was quite unusual.

Of course our feckless locals guides took one look at the invincible dragon, no doubt pissed themselves, and ran in fear. Only Ballamy stayed behind and earned his gold. He was frantically reloading his gun at this point.

The dragon ripped through the jungle greenery as it approached Oswulf and myself. We were finished cleaning our guns and were ramming down fresh bullets.

Its great snout, as large as I am tall, came right up next to me and breathed in deeply. I could feel the rush of the wind.

"You are the apex animal here," the dragon said "You have sought me and found me. I offer you a wish, mortal. Name anything you can conceive of in this universe and you shall have it. Simply wish it."

I had heard of this sort of wishing business before, and knew exactly what I wanted.

"I wish," I said "That I be a legitimate member of the Dragon Slayer's Lodge. Oh, and Oswulf too."

Well, that must have been the right answer because the dragon began to scream, and to emit a colorful fiery light as though from the inside. If I had to guess, I would say it was magic. Whatever it was it ate up the dragon and in minutes there was nothing left but a pile of bones. Lucky for me all that is necessary for identification purposes is the skull.

Ballamy is attempting to round up some of the cowards that abandoned us. We're going to need them to carry all these bones.

Dear Diary

As of this evening's ceremony Oswulf and I are now the only two living members of the Dragon Slayer's Lodge. We're quite the envy of all the other members of the Society, I dare say. Old Greeneye's skull is now the primary conversation piece in the Noble Society of Hunters of Strange Beasts and Phantasmagoria smoking room.

All in all I would say it was a very successful dragon hunt.