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A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away there lived a dragon.
It was a tiny, harmless and defenseless one and who knows, how it would fare all by itself, if it wasn't for being found and adopted by an adventure-bound traveler. And he, as someone who has seen their fair share during the journeys, was quick to notice that the dragon's dung shows some amazing qualities. He has performed various trials, invited wisepeople and alchemists. Together they've established the wee dragon's poo as a miracle balm - enabling what's have been hitherto impossible. Running machines, brewing wonderful elixirs, heating up entire cities, procuring artifacts of amazing ranges of powers - and all this thanks to some dung from a wasteland dragon foundling.
Soon enough an entire court gathered around the whelp, proceeding to build it a palace, herding sheep for it, pampering it and, surely enough, selling its dragon doo-doo derivatives to kingdoms all around. The draccy, wholesomely fed, grew up to be a large, comely dragon, able to eat even more in order to produce even more poo.
Truth to be told, there were issues. Like, for example, findings of some other scientists from the middle of nowhere, who realized that the dragon droppings can be replaced with saliva taken from a basilisk. Right, maybe not in every single application, but as for the remaining ones, basilisk's spit was stronger a thousandfold.
For some time a shadow of diminishing income loomed over the dragon court. Luckily for the dragon, basilisks are really hard to tame, so it takes qualified keepers, plus some kingdoms have bred them for military purposes and, as if it wasn't enough, one of such farms has suffered a horrible accident. And so, the government has easily convinced everybody that basilisks are too dangerous to be relied upon and that they're a great unknown anyway, and the dragon, obviously, is a creature friendly and calm.
And so, the dragon and the dragonkeepers led undisturbed and bountiful lives and all the kingdoms flourished on the dragon's doo.
But one day dracologists of the dragon court have discovered something to worry about. Namely that a dragon never stops growing. If they're feed enough, they grow, grow and grow endlessly. And a mountain-sized dragon, despite being an exceptionally timid one, would be able to wreak havoc, even unwittingly. He could stomp on a village or cause a flood by taking a lake bath. What's worse, it's been established that when the dragon grows beyond a certain critical point, he'll actually become aggressive and vicious, proceeding to devour everything on its path by its own volition.
The dracologists have brought the news to both the dragon and the whole court. The dragon got scared. The court shuddered in terror. What to do? How to prevent the destruction? Unfortunately, the dracologists had no doubts. The only way was to put the dragon on a strict diet. But, a dieting dragon won't be able to push out enough poo to maintain the court and its ability to care about the beast and, to make matters worse, even the draconian diet might be insufficient to prevent the catastrophe.
The court has, therefore, decided, that nobody may know about the discovery. The risk of the dragon getting sick on the diet was too big. And if the people of the kingdoms realized the danger, they could even demand to stop feeding the dragon entirely, even despite losing all the dragon deuce wonders. And, after all, the court has been comprised of people who have devoted their entire lives to caring for the dragon, and they couldn't allow any harm coming to their pupil.
Years passed. Finally, independent researchers from different kingdoms have discovered the same. They exchanged letters, compared computations and, in conclusion, heralded so: the further feeding of the dragon will make it grow infinitely and eventually destroy all the kingdoms, maybe the whole world.
This worried the kings. And scared the knights. Terrified the villagers. Everybody came to the resolve that if that's so - something needs to be done!
And, therefore, the dragon stewards heralded that yes, it's a serious threat. The matter has been studied for a long time now. But the calculations are not confirmed, so it's still unknown if the draconian diet is necessary. They've devised other explanations. They claimed to study other possibilities. Attended public debates among other dracologists. And, meanwhile, they've been convincing heralds, criers and minstrels that maybe informing about the dragon's growth is not the best of ideas. And, finally, the matter has been forgotten and everybody assumed that if it's not being discussed, then most likely there's no problem. Why, if it were, someone would do something.
And the timid dragon, along with its guardians, lived together happily and in wealth for many long years, and the dragon grew and grew and grew.
And the kingdoms? Well. Shit.
THE END
Cast:
Fossil fuels
as DRAGON'S DROPPINGS
Greenhouse gasses
as THE DRAGON
Extractive industry
as THE DRAGON COURT
Climatologists and atmospheric physicists
as DRACOLOGISTS
And also, in a guest appearance, nuclear reactors
as BASILISK HATCHERIES
The tale has been written down by Marta Zofia Konopacka
and translated by Adam "Az" Rycki.