NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1457671" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 124“Well, I know you managed to overcome it, somehow, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Zenna observed.  “Sheesh, will you let me finish the story?” Mole said, returning to her narrative.  * * * * * Its hide was as black as night, is head angular and malicious, with twin horns jutting from its forehead and jaws lined liberally with razor-sharp teeth.  Its head swiveled back and forth as it scanned the chamber for its enemies, but they missed Mole, who had darted reflexively into the shadows where the wall met the floor, the dragon’s field of view partially blocked by the opening of the door.  The dragon did catch sight of Arun and Hodge, however, and opened its jaws in an angry roar.  Before it could move more fully into the chamber, however, Mole, using her magical boots to cast her into the air in a broad leap, sprang up from behind the door, her sword slicing upward in a fast arc that caught the dragon off guard.  In the instant that the gnome sprang past, the dragon’s neck jerked up, revealing a shallow but nonetheless bleeding gash a foot beneath the base of its skull.  The dragon had immediately turned toward the gnome, who landed with a splash and tumbled forward.  For a terrible instant Mole looked upon the full rage of the creature, and saw death glistening in the ebon orbs of its eyes.  But then it was knocked to the side as Arun impacted the door, thrusting it closed.  The dragon, caught off guard, with only its head and neck thrust through the door, was at first caught off balance, and it drew reflexively back, its head clearing the door a moment before it slammed shut hard.  Hodge, sending a plume of water up around him with every splashing step, arrived with a spike that Arun slammed into the doorjam with a quick blow from his hammer.  The door thrummed with the impact of the dragon a moment later, and the spike slipped out half its length as the door trembled.  But both dwarves hurled themselves against the narrow portal, setting another spike and driving the first one back into place.  The door continued to pound, for the better part of a minute, but held, the inexorable equation of leverage versus force working out in favor of the companions.  A fizzing spray of angry green droplets emerged from under the thin crack at the base of the door, acid that sizzled and bubbled as it hit the water, but the construction of the door in its heavy stone threshold meant that the dragon’s breath could not reach the spikes set into the jam on this side.  “And thus we reached a stalemate,” Mole said, concluding her account of the battle.  “We reinforced both doors with everything we had, but there haven’t been any more attempts to force entry that we can detect.  It’s still out there, though, waiting for us... or at least it was a few hours ago.”“How do you know that?” Zenna asked. “I used that potion we found, remember?  In the ruins where we battled Triel Eldurast, under Cauldron.  It gives the power of seeing things over a distance.  It worked great, but that dragon was still sitting out there on one of the higher balconies, watching.  I think it sensed me watching it, for it stirred and made an awful roar—the kind that doesn’t sound like it was very pleased with the situation, or planning on leaving anytime soon.”“At least there haven’t been any more kuo-toa,” Zenna said.  She tried to walk, and was able to manage a few steps before she reached the edge of a great stone basin set into the center of the floor.  It offered a welcome respite.  The basin was filled with several feet of water, and as she stared into it, the blue light of the magical flame glistening off its surface, she felt as though she could just sink into it, all of her problems falling away...“Zenna!” Dannel’s voice of concern shook her out of her reverie, and she straightened, drawing away from the elf’s reassuring hands.  She wanted to lose herself in his embrace, but knew that if she let her guard down, even for a moment, she would collapse.  She turned to where the others had laid her pack, against the wall.  Grateful that she was able to make it without falling, she knelt and undid the clasps, revealing her spellbook—carefully wrapped in oilcloth—nestled inside.  “It’s gonna be tough,” Hodge growled.  “Betsy’s out there in the water somewheres, the elf ain’t go no more arrows, and half our knives are stuck in them doors.”Zenna looked up at her friends.  They were all beaten down, ragged and exhausted.  She remembered that she hadn’t eaten in over a day, and her stomach rumbled.  It was almost comical, through the haze of pain and stiffness that suffused her body.  But there was no choice, except to give up, and that was no choice at all. She reached up to her throat, to the symbol that hung there around her neck, her finger tracing the one cut there in silver.  “I need some time,” she told the others.  “Then we’ll have to see about that dragon.”</blockquote>

Verification