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Eight brave humans came to the dragon. “Mighty dragon, we command you to release your prisoners!”

“Thou hast no right to command me!” they roared in reply.

“Then we want to ask you a favour: to release your prisoners.”

“Very well,” the dragon grinned, “I will release them if thou canst fulfill The Quest.”

The humans showed not the least bit of fear. “Give us the quest!”

“Thou hast to perform for me. Make music for me.” The dragon explained. “However, it has to be metal! And thou art not allowed to leave my domain, nor art thou allowed to buy instruments online. Nobody with a package will be able to come here. Leave, and I'll hunt thee down. I give thee one week to prepare. And if thou canst create an instrument within that week, I allow thee to use it. But only when created with materials that are right now within my domain! Not that it would be likely to help you.” These last words were said with an ominous chuckle.

The humans couldn't believe it. “That's all?”

“Yes. Thou think'st that it is easy? Fools! If it is not metal, or if it is not good enough next week, you'll be dead by the night!”

The humans just needed to create two things, both of which could take quite some time to build, so they started searching materials as soon as possible. First, they hunted down some animals for the drums. While three humans started working on the that, the other five searched for the materials needed to build a microphone, a speaker, and a guitar amplifier.

Believe it or not, they found a cave full of bare copper wire. However, when they entered it, they were halted by a furious roar. “Get thy hands off my gold!”

Huh? what!? Since when was copper the same as gold?

“This is gold! Thou art lying! Or else these bastards misled me ages ago to make me collect waste!” was the angry reply to this question.

“We can assure you that this is copper,” one of the humans said, “not gold. Would you please allow us to use it? True gold is what the prince, whom you captured, wears on his head.”

Almost immediately upon hearing this, the dragon leapt off to his prince. They almost forgot to give the humans permission to use that worthless bunch of mere copper waste.

Now, the only thing the humans needed yet were magnets, for one of the humans happened to have carried a transistor and a few diodes with them all the while.

For a moment, it looked like they would need to find another bunch of copper, though. “this wire might prove useless. All these dragon nails won't get off.”

Walking out of the cave, they noticed that even more dragon nails attached themselves to the copper. This must mean, they concluded, that the nails acted as magnets. Somehow. A few tests later, they were able to confirm this hypothesis.

Exactly a week had passed since the humans had first encountered the dragon, when they went to the creature's den again. “We are ready. We have all we need.”

The dragon didn't really believe the humans. “Only drums and a mess of... What is? A kind of microphone?” They smirked.

“Yes!” the humans replied as one.

“Well, let me hear thine metal then.”

And so the humans began. They sang metal songs of fighting for your life, turning back time, being the other ones, and so much more.

Many a rakka-takka and randandan later they had successfully completed their Quest for Roar.

The dragon was immensely impressed and surprised. “How art thou able to do this? Metal with only thine voices! And the songs, the lyrics!” A tear traveled down the dragon's chin. “A lot of them seem to apply to me.”

“We hope that you learned a lesson today.” the humans said.

The dragon was very sure that they had learnt quite a lot this day, and the humans had done what the dragon had asked of them. “Since I am a dragon of my word, I'll now release my prisoners.”

When Van Canto entered the Royal Court again, bringing the prince and others back, they were received as heroes. Their victory was splendidly celebrated for a full week. There were all sorts of delicacies, there was music, and there was laughter and happiness throughout the kingdom.

Meanwhile, the dragon was silently pondering over all the songs they had heard...

And the prince? He came to miss the presence of the dragon. Two weeks later, it was rumoured that the dragon and the prince were strong-willed and united.