The trade that Angolon of the Alchemist’s Tower had set in motion in the early days of the realm’s discovery had found home and purpose in a great many corners of Beardsgaard. Coastal inlets, calm river bends and mountain-abutting flats had grown bustling ports and cities and havens for trade.

At the foot of Blademount in the kingdom of Asgard, nestled beside the sea lay Honeyport, a bustling hive of trade so named for the golden honey tones of the water as the sky’s gold spark lay down its rays at the end of a long day. It was also named for the network of razor-sharp honeycomb-like sea caves that lined the water.

Honeyport was a jewel of trade set in the golden crown of the Sunset Sea, and traders from across the realm traveled to ply their goods and wares. Eagleswood came from the far twilight reaches of Shadowbough, iron stern herbs from the mountains of Strongfell, tender green buds and shoots from the foggy shoals of Fjordmist, but the true prizes of the markets were the bounties from the lands and waters of the Sunset Sea.

Curious scrubby shrubs dotted the sands, perfuming the beaches with a sensuous musk. Plumes of fiery flowers spilled from vendor carts pushed along the paving stones, pouring their honeyed, apricot perfume onto the breeze. Merchants shout the praises of their spices, and citrus fruits cleaved by blades shoot sprays of their oils into the air, a high soprano crescendo above the orchestral song of the market.

The curiosity of man leaves few places undiscovered for long. But while the harbor ports and markets of Honeyport bustled with life, no square inch undisturbed, the honeycombed sea caves set into the east and west cliffs of this young world were still unexplored.

The few brave souls who had tried to descend to the caves from the stable ground above by rope or ladder had been dashed by the waves and pulled under the roiling currents, and ship captains had the good sense to steer far clear. And then there was the matter of the smoke.

Most assumed the caves were tunnels to the center of Blademount, and it was well known that the fires inside the mountain, which the gods of Asgard used to forge their mighty blades, burned hot and deep. As far as the residents and visitors of Honeyport knew, the caves were nothing more than the bellows of a great mountain forge.

But as the demands for novelty in the markets grew, so did the bravery of some of Honeyport’s merchants - certainly those with a hunger for coin and little regard for life and limb. Rumors buzzed about the possible holdings of the caves. In a land so rich with ore and fine stones, curiosity more than men were what built the scaffolding down from the cliffs above.

And early one day, when the sun’s rays were low enough in the sky to throw light into the honeycombed sea caves set into the sheer cliffs, men first set foot on the stone floor of the bellows of Blademount. And in an instant - they were no more.

The honeycombed sea caves that lined the sheer cliffs outside the harbor of Honeyport erupted with a force felt throughout the realm. Their first explorers had not simply been destroyed, they had been erased.

Molten flame surged forth, igniting seabirds mid-flight and vaporizing the waters so efficiently the very ocean seemed to retreat in terror.

The fires flowed from the caves like thick poured honey at ten times the speed. There scarcely seemed enough mountain to contain it all. When the river of flames stopped, but a few laden heartbeats passed, and Blademount shook to its very foundations - the deep rumbling of continents at war, of a hundred ocean-sized drums beaten at the speed of sound.

The sky darkened and the heavy flap of beaten leather filled the air. There was scarcely enough sky to contain it. The people of Honeyport stood frozen in the markets and the streets for but a moment, arms and carts and stalls laden with treasures.

The mouths of a city full of people, men and dwarves and elves opened to cry out as the jaws of a thousand of the unknown dragons of Blademount rattled apart, sparks gathering in their throats. Not a sound escaped the ground.

A cataclysm the likes of Honeyport's destruction had been nigh unthinkable in the realm before it took the city. It might have been that none would know the fate of the merchant city on the sea, had the few lucky ships beyond the harbor had not seen it with their own eyes, and lived to tell the tale.

The sailors tell how fire poured from the leather-bound sky with such force that the underworld itself appeared to fight back. It was as water poured from a height into a bowl, its slippery path rebounding up again as it hits the basin. Moments later, the black smoke tumbled past the shore, and they could see no more.

Honeyport lives now in memories, stories and legends. That piece of the realm is now known as Dragonsea, for it is no longer a city, but a wide cathedral of melted stone, jagged teeth of rock dotted with bright bits of gold and silver and gems.

Those few who have set foot upon its shores say (and it is indeed few - the fire was not hot enough to destroy the spirits they say now walk there) that the stone forever holds the intoxicating scents of the market, the flowers and citrus and resins melded with the melted rock.

The world changed in the days and years after this first reshaping of the realm as it had been created. There were now dragons in it. Beasts whose wrath is no greater than that of a cat or an angry wasp, if the cat and wasp had arsenals of retaliation on par with dragons.

Where once the great beasts remained hidden away inside the great caverns of Blademount, now they flew free. Most kept their roosts within the caves as they always had, while some winged far and wide, finding other peaks in other mountain ranges in which to nest.

Dangerous things are not always evil, but the lands of Beardsgaard now contained dangers it had never known.