Session 37
Freeday, 7th of Coldeven
ASSAULT ON ACESSIWAL
The next day, they began preparing. The plan was in place. They would scry upon Acessiwal, discern his location, beef up with as many spells as they could muster, then teleport in and kill him. No weeks spent tracking him down, working their way through his trapped and minion-laden labyrinth, no epic showdown. It was almost like assassination... but it would WORK. They would rid the north of an elder dragon. The ends would justify the means. They had to.
Katya and Rafflorn prepared their spell selection. Dartan and Jettok sparred. Kyla and Taigiel drew up a battle plan.
Vek looked into his own frosted armor's reflection and let his consciousness flex inward. He saw through the armor, beyond it, and suddenly his vision was crossing hundreds of miles. He had a link to his subject. He had Taigiel.
Show me the dragon, Vek willed. His scrying spell settled in a vast cavern. Walls of ice were lit from above, through a roof made entirely of ice. The sun shone through coldly, and blue light danced in the cavern. A carved alcove was dug into one wall, and in it slept the largest dragon Vek had ever seen. White dragons were the smallest of all the wyrms, yet its head was as large as a wagon. Its wings, though folded, were immense. Its claws were roughly two feet long. With each slow breath, it released a cloud of frosty air, obscuring vision of it.
Vek was dimly aware that the other Knights had stopped what they were doing and were looking at the dragon in his armor with him.
"That's Acessiwal?" Rafflorn asked.
Taigiel somberly replied "That's him."
Rafflorn grinned. "We can beat him." The others were oddly cheered by his sentiment, and they tried to ignore the nervous shivers they were coming down with. The wizard said "Okay, I can't teleport us all- we're too heavy. However, I have a plan. Dartan, come with me." The two teleported away. Within an hour, they returned. "We just sold a great deal of valuables and bought a
bag of holding. Now, this bag is huge. If you all hop inside, we'll teleport, and you fly out and attack."
Rafflorn said
fly out, and he meant it literally. On each Knight would be cast a number of spells suited specifically to maximize his/her effectiveness and longevity. It was a complicated system that took the mages some hours to work out.
When the preparation theory was done, it was time to put the entire plan into practice. Spells were cast and weapons were sheathed. Rafflorn exhausted each spell he'd planned to cast. He sighed with relief.
"Uh..." Vek sounded alarmed.
"What's wrong?"
"It's awake."
Rafflorn shrugged. "So what?"
"Well... it's watching us."
"What??" It was true. In Vek's armor, Acessiwal could be seen hunched over a patch of glimmering ice. In the ice reflected their own shocked expressions at being scried upon while scrying.
Taigiel cursed. "I should have figured that he'd be watching us. He's very interested in the goings-on in the world around him."
Rafflorn said "Let's hurry, then. It'll be only slightly more ready for us."
Vek abruptly said "We're not going."
"What? Why? I just spent a lot of time preparing us!"
"It just cast a spell and its own scrying screen winked out."
"So what? What did it cast?"
Vek looked very serious. "I'm not certain, but I think it was
Antimagic Field."
Rafflorn couldn't believe their ill luck. The clever old devil knew what they were doing, and prepared himself aptly.
Antimagic Field would render the spells cast on the Knights completely ineffective if they stepped within ten feet of him. They would be incredibly vulnerable. It would be a bloodbath.
"Damn. Settle in, everyone, we're not going." Rafflorn looked like someone had just spat in his face. He fumed. His wife put an understanding hand on his shoulder.
The Knights camped out again in their tent. They would try again the next day, and try to catch Acessiwal off-guard. Vek never slept. He scried on the dragon, deep into the night. "I'm watching you," he whispered every once in a while.
Starday, 8th of Coldeven
They woke to find the dragon watching them, and Vek watching him back. Talking would alert the dragon to their plan, so Rafflorn used Surge's ability to speak in minds. They would cast a small number of spells, then go invisible. Once invisible, they could cast a small number of spells in silence, and drop in on the dragon if Vek confirmed that he hadn't yet cast
Antimagic Field. It was as good a plan as they had.
They went invisible with a small number of spells cast. Rafflorn had transferred his consciousness into Surge, taking control of the mechanical pseudodragon. Vek kept his lifeless human body, shrunken to a portable size, in his backpack. He watched Acessiwal.
He's cast Haste, Stoneskin, and Endurance, but not Antimagic Field, he reported.
He knows we might be bluffing.
Are we sure this is a good idea? Dartan thought.
No, Rafflorn thought to them all.
Let's go.
They teleported.
Things happened very quickly. They appeared in front of Acessiwal and the Knights flew from Rafflorn's outstretched bag of holding. Almost at once, the dragon tore into them with a blast of blizzard-cold air from its open mouth. Dartan and Jettok flew forward, hacking and cutting. They found very quickly that their mightiest blows did only the slightest damage to the gargantuan beast.
"FATHER! I'VE COME FOR WHAT'S MINE- MY FREEDOM!!" Taigiel bellowed, sounding very much like a dragon himself. He began cutting at his father.
Vek, Rafflorn, Kyla and Katya stayed to the rear, doing what they could with spells. They were out of reach of the dragon, but it became clear very quickly that they weren't doing much good. Katya cried out in frustration. "Nothing I cast is working!"
"Keep trying!" Rafflorn answered.
Another cone of the dragon's freezing breath bathed the heroes. Rafflorn fell to the ground and shattered- or, rather, Surge shattered. The mechanical pseudodragon had seen his last day. Luckily, his consciousness transferred back to his physical body in Vek's backpack. He jumped out, turned to his normal size, and kept fighting. He picked up Surge's broken form with one hand, cast spells with the other.
Dartan and Jettok were barely nicking the dragon. With every bite and claw, it ripped chunks from them. The ground around them was slippery with their blood. Kyla healed as she could, but she couldn't keep up with all the damage being done. "WE'RE LOSING!" Dartan screamed.
Jettok was struck by a claw. He became so enraged that his face flushed red. "GRAAAAUGHHHH!!!!" He swung his greataxe upward, into the underside of Acessiwal's chin. The axe sunk in, and the dragon roared in pain. Jettok grinned with bloodlust, but was sobered when the dragon smiled down at him. He had hurt it- but the message was clear. It had hours of fight left in it. It swiped at him and connected hard. Jettok's body flew to the floor of the cavern, where he lay... dead.
Vek rushed forward, laying his hand on the dragon's scales. Dark energy coursed through the wyrm, and it snarled, attacking Vek. He was smashed back. "We're losing- just like Dartan said. We have to retreat or we will die. Everyone in the bag!"
"We'll meet back at the keep!" Vek grabbed Katya and uttered a word. The two vanished.
Dartan yelled "What about Jettok? We can't leave him!" He looked up in horror to see that the dragon was rearing back, inhaling for another blast of icy breath. He doubted they could take one more.
"Cut a finger off- we can resurrect him using the scroll! We don't have time to place his body in the bag!"
Dartan flew down, readying his sword for the fateful blow. He looked down at his dwarven friend and swung. The sword's hilt had taken frost from the dragon's attacks, and it flew from his grasp. "No," he said as he watched it spin away through the air. It thunked into the ice wall fifty feet away. "NO!!!" He moved for it. Without his sword, Dartan the Godless was just another civilian with a surly attitude.
"DARTAN, WE DON'T HAVE TIME!!!" The others were in the bag, ready to go. Dartan shouted a curse and flew into the bag as the dragon blasted at them with another cloud of bright white ice.
When the frost cloud cleared, they were gone. They had left Jettok and Dartan's sword- but they lived to teleport out of the Great Wyrm's lair.
NEXT: What now?
