You guys are all correct about the party's power level, but Hookface isn't without a few tricks of her own...
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Chapter 459
Flying.
The sensation could not be beaten, in Mole’s estimation. The freedom of it, the speed, the grace, the rush of air past one’s head, the ability to look down at the poor ground-locked masses and laugh!
Uncle Cal should have bought one of those wands of flying earlier, she thought. Maybe she could convince him to craft for her a more permanent device, one that would grant her control over the exercise of the power. A ring, perhaps… although that would force her to make a decision over the two she already wore, since for some reason known only to arcanists and sages an individual could only wear two magic rings at a time.
All of those thoughts flashed through the gnome’s head like streaks of light, for she was being blasted roughly aside by the concussive force of the expanding plume of dragonfire, and the cavern wall was getting mighty close. The dragon’s breath had been way off to the side, instead of focused right in the knot of them as she’d expected, and it had sort of thrown off her evasion.
A stalactite promised an unfortunate collision, but Mole effortlessly twisted her body and slipped past it with at least a full inch to spare. She kicked off the wall behind it, using her legs like springs to transform her momentum into a bound that was further augmented by her magical boots. Her leap carried her out into the open air again like an arrow, rising high above the cavern floor below. The rush of heat from the backblast of the dragon’s breath had washed over her like an overheated oven, but with the wards against fire that all of them wore, she barely felt it. Not that something as basic as a dragon’s breath weapon would catch her, she thought.
A brief hint tickled at the back of her thoughts, a memory of a lava-filled cavern, and another dragon, its jaws opening to unleash a stream of death upon her…
But that memory was old, and she shrugged it off as the intensity of the moment, the adrenaline surge of battle, filled her. The warriors had emerged from the flames to fly toward the dragon, their oversized choppers ready for some hacking and slashing. As the inertia of her spring-leap began to flag, and the power of the spell reasserted itself, Mole looked down to see that the fire from the dragon’s breath continued to burn—no, she reassessed, recognizing what was happening, it was a thing that lived in the fire, an elemental unleashed somehow by the dragon to help it guard its lair. Ah, so that’s why its aim had been so poor, she thought. It had emerged from the burning lattice-crystal, now gone, shattered by the intensity of the dragon’s initial attack.
Damn, that’s big, she thought. And indeed, it nearly reached her current height, at least forty feet tall, a living bonfire with arms that swept out at her friends while she watched. The warriors had already pulled away from it in their charge against the dragon, but Cal and Dannel were vulnerable, her uncle staggering as it blasted him with appendages of living flame. Cal was protected against fire, she knew, not to mention about a dozen other defensive wards, but even so, those blows looked like they hurt.
“I’ll take care of it!” she heard Beorna yell, even as she distantly heard her uncle shouting for them to focus on the dragon. But the templar either did not hear or was ignoring him, for she flew straight into the elder elemental, swinging through the ephemeral substance of its body with great sweeps of her adamantine sword. How effective she was Mole could not gauge, for the elder elemental did not bleed. Beorna did seem to get its attention, however, as it lifted its arms and started pummeling her with powerful blows.
The dragon rose even as Arun and Lok charged into it, their blades flashing in the reflected firelight. The dragon’s superior reach allowed it to attack before they could get close enough to strike. Its head darted out on its long neck, its jaws snapping at Arun in an effort to snatch the paladin right out of the air. But the paladin, his own considerable strength augmented by powerful magic, tore free and slammed his sword down into the side of the dragon’s head. Hookface roared and drew back in time to take a second hit from Lok, who buried a foot of his axe’s blade into its shoulder on the opposite side of its body.
Rather than unleash a full attack upon the two warriors, the dragon leapt into the air, using its bulk to knock Arun and Lok roughly aside as it arced across the cavern to the far wall, some seventy feet above the ledge where Cal and Beorna battled the elemental. Along the way several arrows from Dannel’s bow bit painfully into its torso, punching through the thick scales with the force of the elf’s potent magic behind them. Dannel had withdrawn far enough from the elemental’s position to get a clear shot across the cavern, spider climbing along the uneven maze of chasms and ledges that spread out across the lower part of the complex, and now he put his deadly bow to use, tracking the dragon’s movements as he rapidly reloaded and fired.
Arun and Lok quickly recovered, and flew across the cavern after the dragon to reengage. But Hookface was not finished, and again it leapt across the open interior space, gaining more height with a single powerful stroke of its wings, taking hits and inflicting them as it passed. It drilled Lok with a snap of its tail that would have broken the breastbone of a lesser combatant, even through plate armor. But these foes were stronger than any the dragon had ever faced, and they followed it still as it again clung to the cavern wall with all four claws, perched like a salamander upon a rock. It was high up now, over a hundred feet above the lowest crevices of the cavern floor below.
Beorna, infused with the power of Helm, was singlehandedly unleashing a ceaseless storm of destruction upon the great elemental. Its blows pounded her mercilessly, but protected from fire as she was, and further resistant to physical attack through her divinely-granted gifts and the durability of her armor, she merely grunted softly with each impact and surged forward once more to the attack. Beorna had empowered her weapon to function as a holy sword, and although the elemental was not technically evil, the enchantment was more than sufficient to penetrate its resistances to mortal attacks. And it was becoming clear that she was having an effect upon it, for the roaring inferno that comprised its body was rent now with huge gaps, through which the far side of the cavern behind it could just be discerned.
Finally, the fact that this confrontation was heading inexorably in one direction seemed to impinge upon the elemental’s dim mind. It moved suddenly forward, enveloping Beorna, taking another hit in the process but wrapping its fiery arms around her. Those tendrils of coherent flame twisted around her until she was engulfed in fire. Even as she struggled to free herself the elemental drove her down, slamming her into a crevice into the ground. It held her there, looming over her, continuing to stream red-hot waves of fire and heat into the crack. Her protection to fire spell, overwhelmed by the earlier force of the dragon’s breath and the constant attacks from the elder elemental, began to falter.
“Over here, you overgrown bonfire!” Cal challenged, casting his newest and most powerful spell, weaving a web of shadow into a powerful blast of quasi-real elemental energy. Strength of will was not the elemental’s strong suit, and it failed to recognize the shadowy nature of the gnome’s cone of cold. The spell tore through it, vaporizing swaths of its body that were turned into great plumes of steam that exploded outward through the chamber. That was enough of an opportunity for Beorna, who tore free from the elemental’s grasp with a yell and leapt up out of the crevice, the still-active fly spell allowing her to ascend and bring her sword around in an arc that bisected the twin points of coherent flame that were the elemental’s “eyes”. The creature let out what sounded like a tired hiss, and then it dissolved into wisps of fire that quickly vanished.
But even as the elemental was overcome, a cry of alarm filled the cavern. High above them the dragon had dug into the cavern wall after its latest leap. Arun and Lok, still in pursuit, rushed toward it, their weapons already slick with its blood, several new wounds added to the dragon’s inventory of injuries. Thus far it had evaded their full attacks, and had inflicted several heavy hits of its own upon the warriors. But like with the elemental, it looked as though this could only end one way. Already it looked like the dragon was starting to flag, despite its incredible fortitude, while its two adversaries only came on with greater intensity, unrelenting as they drove Hookface further back into a corner from which it could not escape.
But then the dragon’s strategy became evident a moment later, as it turned and hurled a dispel magic at the closing warriors. The magical power holding them aloft faltered, and both plummeted toward the uneven ground, over a hundred feet below.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
) of a lifetime!
Heh, she must love the sensation of flying. Decisions, decisions... a ring of flying, her protection ring, or favorite invisibility ring: which she's wearing right now. 
