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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mahiro Satsu" data-source="post: 304807" data-attributes="member: 4970">Episode X Ooltugula’s Portal part 4from the journal of Velm TrueforgerFrom the darkness came Nightscale, who unlike the wild elf was completely at home in the water. Her great jaws clamped down on Saeita, and pain ripped through her. Claws raked in on either side; her breath clamored at the walls of her lungs. She could not see any sign whatsoever of Bronn, but she knew that to stay was death, and she made the only choice she had left. A second later she was with us, soaked and bloody.She recounted what had happened, and before we could decide what to do next a hissing voice reached our ears from the direction of the river: “This isn’t over…” The very same words Bronn had shouted at her during the battle of Arglarllur Bridge.“Nightscale,” said Van.Roman Gemalee drew his bastard sword Swift. “What do we do?”“We draw her out. In the river she’ll tear us to pieces.” Van nocked an arrow and gazed off toward the river in grim determination.“She’ll tear us to pieces out here,” Cara replied, clutching Hathos’ drum.“But out here we at least have a chance of doing the same to her,” said Van. He brought out the sack which still held the head of Yss-Fara, the troglodyte king in whose veins black dragon blood flowed. “A slight chance.”We moved closer, and tied the head upon the dock in full view of Nightscale. Retreating a good fifty feet from the river’s edge, we readied our weapons.“Nightscale,” Van shouted, “show yourself! We’ve killed your spawn and we’ll kill you as well!”The rest of us chimed in, lost for a few moments in the joy of taunting certain death, freed from fretting. Then Nightscale emerged from the river, inspecting the severed head of her offspring with yellow eyes the size of torch flames. We fell silent.“You have chosen death,” she hissed, and charged forward in a storm of buffeting wings and slashing claws.In a moment Roman was snatched into her maw, the life crushed from him as he struck out with his sword. Van launched arrows, Saeita and I moved in to land a few blows, and Cara inspired our hearts to battle with the beat of the drum. But Nightscale flapped her batlike wings and soared back, landing in the river with a great splash, taking Roman with her.There was no time for plans, only for Van to call out, “Be ready!” Nightscale emerged once again, this time coming straight toward me.Everything vanished except for those two yellow eyes and great scaly darkness rushing at me. I raised samryn, ready to strike, but found myself clamped in those jaws of death. Pain flooded from my every pore.Arrows soared from Van’s bow and found their mark; a keening cry of pain warbled past me and the dagger teeth embedded in my flesh and grinding against my bones. Through the haze of my own agony, I realize that now it is Nightscale who gives voice to pain. She makes her way back toward the river, carrying me with her. I know that I will die in those dark depths.I called upon the strength of Clangeddin, and with a shout I pressed upon Nightscale’s jaws, intent on breaking open her deathgrip. The river’s edge grew closer. A bellow of pure suffering erupted from my mouth, and in that second the dragon’s grip slackened. I fell free.And before she could escape, I swung my axe again and again into her writhing bulk. Saeita landed fist after fist, and many of Van’s arrows protruded from the scaly hide. A huge acrid exhalation roiled from her lungs, and there on the banks of the River of Slaughters Nightscale died.We healed what wounds we could and piled into one of the longboats. The calm and dark river bore us downstream with cool insistence. No one spoke; we had discovered the acid-scarred bones of Roman and Bronn in the gullet of the beast.</blockquote>

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