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!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1466160" data-attributes="member: 143">You know me too well <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I'm at an on-site training event all this week, so this may be the only chance I get to post for a while. * * * * * Chapter 126“I do NOT sound like that!” Mole whispered, indignant. Zenna, lost in the intense concentration required to maintain both her silent image and the accompanying ghost sound cantrip, did not respond.  But Dannel, standing in the shadows directly beside the door out to the platform, turned and lifted one finger to his lips in warning. They watched as the illusory Mole offered her challenge to the dragon, and Mole had to stifle another complaint as Zenna embellished her figment’s challenge with the crude song and swaying dance.  But they all started in surprise when the illusion was engulfed with a spray of acid that swallowed it up, splattering fat drops of acid that reached as far as the doorway where the companions huddled, crouched, waiting and watching in the shadows. “He’s up above, on the statue!” Hodge hissed, his hands tight on the haft of his weapon.  With Betsy missing, he carried the heavy shaft of the high priest’s broken pincer staff, its ends shorn in iron plate by Arun, now a crude but functional quarterstaff.  Dannel slipped into the narrow gap of the doorway, keeping his thin body close to the reassuring presence of the stone portal.  He carried Hodge’s huge crossbow cradled in his hands, and even as he stepped momentarily out of the darkness of the chamber he raised the heavy weapon, sighted, and fired, drawing back into the room a moment after the quarrel left the weapon.  He handed the empty bow to Hodge.  They didn’t really expect to have time to reload the cumbersome weapon, but Hodge nonetheless took up his crank and started drawing back the thick string.  Dannel, meanwhile, had drawn up a second weapon from where it dangled from his belt; Zenna’s light crossbow, with a bolt already slotted into the firing channel.  It was a matter of a few seconds to ready the bow for firing.  A loud thump announced the arrival of the dragon outside.  Even though they’d expected it, the sudden appearance of the dragon outside the narrow slit of the door sent a sudden tremor of fear through all of them.  Fortunately this drake was not of an age yet to inspire the supernatural terror for which dragons were known; nonetheless, each of them felt a moment of hopelessness in the face of the considerable danger that confronted them.  Dhorlot was not an especially huge specimen, clearly still in that nebulous border zone between adolescence and adulthood, but all of the adventurers knew that size, in this case, meant little.  This was a dragon, a member of the species known above all in the Forgotten Realms for its ferocity and durability.  But the companions, battered as they were, were also experienced veterans, and the moment’s hesitation was just that, a moment that was quickly replaced by the execution of the plan that they’d developed earlier.  “Now!” Arun shouted, hefting his warhammer.  The dwarf started toward the door, but was not the first to exit; that was the golden-scaled form of Clinger, the paladin’s otherworldly mount.  Called once more from the celestial realms where it resided, its wounds healed by its rejuvenative time there, the giant lizard charged into the dragon.  Though the two creatures were of like size, the dragon’s wings and long tail gave him an edge, and Dhorlot’s superior mass was evident from the first collision.  The celestial lizard smote the black drake, seizing his throat with a powerful bite, trying to bring the dragon down with an incapacitating hold in the first rush.  But Dhorlot, even relatively young though he was, was still far too powerful to fall to such a ploy, and within moments had both torn free from the bite and seized the lizard in his muscular foreclaws.  But before the dragon could counter the charge of its adversary, Arun and Hodge were out of the doorway, and launching their own attacks upon the dragon.  The two dwarves split and came at the creature from the sides.  Hodge thrust his staff at his flank like a spear, but the dragon’s struggles caused the weapon to glance harmlessly off his hide.  His skin was corded and thick like boiled leather armor, and even though it hadn’t taken on the hardness of steel plate that would come with age, it was still incredibly resistant to physical assault.  On the far side, Arun’s attack did not even connect, as the dragon’s tail lashed out unexpectedly, forcing the paladin off-balance even as he was hefting his hammer for a powerful blow. The rest of the companions were not idle, each with a role that had been set in the discussion that had followed Zenna’s reawaking an hour earlier.  Dannel stepped into the doorway again and fired Zenna’s light crossbow, biting off a curse as the dragon’s movements caused the shot he’d targeted at his head to narrowly miss and shoot off into the darkness.  Mole darted out beside him like a shadow, her magical boots carrying her in great strides as she broke to the left, circumventing the base of the massive statue to approach the melee from the rear.  Zenna’s body felt leaden as she stepped up behind Dannel, taking his place as he leaned to the side and reached for a fresh bolt.  After refreshing her spells she’d laid as much healing as she could bring to bear on her friends, but with the mummy’s curse still holding its iron grip on her, she herself could not benefit from the divine power she channeled.  She tried to call upon the words of a spell, and for a moment she felt a surge of panic as exhaustion overcame her, driving the trigger phrases and gestures required to tap the stored energy from her mind.  Taking a deep breath, and clasping the silver amulet at her throat, she focused what was left of her strength and tried again. The dragon responded to the attacks upon him with a terrible fury.  He directed most of the force of his assault upon the lizard grappling with him, ripping deeply into its golden hide with his vicious claws.  The lizard, motivated by its hatred of all things evil, tried to press its attack, but the onslaught gave the dragon enough room for his head to strike down on his sinuous neck, his jaws seizing the lizard’s shoulder and literally tearing it free, hurling it across the platform.  The dragon roared in triumph as his foe tried to rise, but failed, slumping wearily to the hard stone, bright celestial ichor flowing freely from its deep wounds.  The two dwarves tried to press their attacks again, but the dragon buffeted them with his wings, driving them back.  Zenna completed her spell, calling forth a coruscating beam of flame that erupted from the palm of her outstretched left hand.  The scorching ray flared over the dragon’s chest, drawing from him a roar of pain as the heat of the flames penetrated his thick hide.  The dragon, his eyes full of rage, started toward the tiefling standing unsteadily in the narrow doorway, but before he could close to attack the wizard’s allies threw themselves at the dragon in a furious all-out assault.  Hodge cursed as his blow again glanced harmlessly off the dragon’s shoulder, but this time Arun’s powerful stroke hit true, slamming into the dragon’s body with enough force to draw an audible crack as bone gave way before the hammer’s iron head.  Even as the dragon drew back reflexively, nearly trampling Hodge underfoot, a tiny form darted in from behind, finding a very... vulnerable spot in the dragon’s anatomy, and sinking a foot of very sharp steel into it. Dhorlot felt pain everywhere as his enemies drove their attacks home.  He knew that he had made a mistake by letting himself get surrounded, but his desire to crush them was now replaced by a profound desire to get away, to preserve his own life against these foes who had already proven themselves extremely dangerous.  Flapping its wings to give him a moment’s space from his attackers, the dragon called down a cloying cloud of darkness upon his own position, cloaking him from view and hopefully blinding his foes.  Then he spun, feeling a reassuring impact as his tail hit something small and sent it flying.  A sharp stinging pain penetrated his body a foot behind his right wing, but he ignored it and with a mighty leap, his wings beating powerfully, ascended into the air toward the far balcony.  He did not head toward the low doors at the far end of the gathered waters, toward his lair; no, Dhorlot was set on complete flight, to return later once these invaders had retired from Bhal-Hamatugn.  The dragon flew toward the middle balcony, and the main exit from the kuo-toa temple out into the myriad passages of the Underdark. But even as the dragon arced painfully down toward the balcony, his lower claws extended to brace himself for a hard landing, Dannel emerged from the darkness at the edge of the platform.  The elf lifted Zenna’s bow, and with an instinctive motion born of skill and practice, squeezed the trigger and fired.  The bolt lanced through the air as the dragon, unaware of the danger, landed on the balcony and pushed at the heavy stone doors that formed the exit.  He didn’t even feel the impact at first, as the bolt poked neatly through his hide, disappearing into the thick frame of his body.  But Dhorlot immediately realized that something was wrong, as he heaved the doors open with his powerful claws.  Air gurgled in his lung as fiery blood poured in through the rent opened by the crossbow bolt.  The dragon, finally realizing what was happening, turned around in desperation, unwilling to accept the reality of his death even as the world around him grew hazy and indistinct.  Finally, almost anticlimactically, he sank slowly down to the ground on the edge of the balcony, a final snort sliding from his nostrils before he quivered once and fell still.</blockquote>

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