Chapter 1: The Start of the Journey
There he was. The boy everyone had known as Agro. He was seventeen now. He was going to Training Island. He had learned about this place when he was ten, when his older brother Ander had turned seventeen and moved on with his life. And he had waited for this day to come ever since.
Agro was 5'9" and weighed only 142 pounds. He was very muscular and always dreamed of finding a dragon egg, forcing him to become a Dragon Rider.
"All aboard!" shouted the ship commander, which happened to be Agro's uncle, Caden. Caden was a short, stocky man, at only 4'3" with a long beard that hung down to his knees. Everybody thought he was either a dwarf or an elf.
"All aboard! Last call for The Mainland!"
The island of Genolia, where Agro lived, was a small island off the coast of Ranator. The residents of Genolia knew Ranator as The Mainland.
"Goodbye, Agro!" called Agro's mother, Sistreia.
"You will become the warrior of Genolia, son! I have faith in you!" shouted his father, Hagath.
"Captain! Start the ship!" yelled Caden, and the ship left Genolia.
As the ship rocked and rocked, back and forth, Agro found that he was becoming hungry. He opened up his knapsack, and found some meat that his father had hunted and preserved. Agro had started eating when they had come to a sudden, jolting stop.
"Caden! What's happening?" asked Agro.
"Agro, have you no brains?" said Caden. "You are not the only child going to training island! We happened to be the first stop. After this island, we only have three more islands to go until we can start going to the mainland."
As Agro became aware of that, he looked around the docking platform. Fifty to maybe a hundred young men were waiting to go to Training Island.
"All aboard!" shouted Caden.
All the young men boarded the ship with their belongings. Most of them found their cabin and went to sleep. But, one boy, Agro had noticed, stared at him intently. Agro felt a sudden burn in his mind, and then it faded away as the boy fell down.
"You dropped your stuff, there, son," said Caden. He found a black stone and felt it, he could not tell what it was. "What in the…"
"Hey! That's mine!" said the boy, and he snatched it from Caden's hands.
Agro had wondered what that burn had been. His father had told him about people being able to see into others' minds, but he never knew anybody that could.
After a few more people boarded the ship, Agro saw two young boys try to board the ship. They were wrestling there way up the platform when Caden saw them.
"Hey! Aren't you a little young to be going off to Training Island?"
"Sorry, sir. My children have always been trying to go off with you," said a man roughly 35 years of age.
"It is all right, sir. They have done no harm," said Caden.
"Dad! I think he's saying we can go!" said the man's children.
"No, no, no, no, no, no" said Caden. "They are far too young to venture with me and my crew."
"That's what I thought," said the man.
"Captain! Start the ship again!"
And the lot of them rode off into the ocean.