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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2086828" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 344“Spread out, take cover!” Beorna yelled, rushing forward to a ruined storefront whose edge had collapsed into the square, offering at least a modicum of protection to an archer.  As she ran, she called upon Helm, drawing her patron’s divine power into her, letting it fill her with the bright glow of divine energy.  Arun and Hodge went the other way, slipping out toward a line of overturned wagons that had been abandoned in front of the barracks compound of the Watch adjoining the town hall.  Mole, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Dannel did not move toward cover, remaining fully exposed as the dragon dove toward him, releasing arrow after arrow in a staccato rhythm.  The dragon was clearly magically protected, wreathed in a pale nimbus of soft red light that it wore like a suit of clothes.  Dannel had used up his phase arrow, but as the dragon closed his shots grew more telling, and could punch through even the thick scales of the drake.  But the hits that made it through were like mere pinpricks to the mature dragon, and it did not alter from its focus as it knifed through the air over the square, clearing the rooftops at its edge by mere feet. As it flew past at high speed, it unleashed a great gout of explosive red fire into the square.  The dragon pounded the air as it rose up out of the square, lifting into a broad turn, ignoring the projectiles fired by the dwarves that bounced harmless off its armored hide or stuck in the thick scales, doing no damage.  Without the imparted magical energy of Dannel’s song, the missile weapons of the rest of the group had little chance of affecting the dragon. The flames cleared to reveal a vast stretch of the square scorched black from the impact of the dragon’s breath.  Dannel was still standing; he’d dodged aside at the last moment from the full force of the streaming flames, and Jenya’s protection from fire spell had held against the force of the dragon’s breath—this time.  But the dragon was already coming back for more.  Winging out in a broad arc that took it out over the city walls, inducing yet another wave of panic in the fleeing townsfolk, it took its time scanning the threat, making a full circle around the town hall before turning into another descent approaching the square from the south, from the direction of the lake. A great, fat bulbous mass descended from the sky, a kelubar demodand freed by the swirling interplanar vortex. The fiend, too foolish for its own good, dropped close enough to Hookface’s intented path to draw its attention, and the dragon paused to unleash its breath upon it, blasting through its resistances easily and charring its oily, sick hide.  It tried to conjure up a cloud of acid to cover a hasty retreat, but the dragon simply ignored the obstacle, knifing through and seizing the demodand on the wing.  Crushing it in its jaws, the dragon snapped its head and sent the hapless fiend flying down into the city, where it crashed nosily through an intact roof and disappeared from view. The distraction gave Dannel time for a few more shots at long range, enough to draw a roar of anger from the dragon as it flapped its wings back into a swooping descent toward its foe.  “Take cover, ye daft elf!” Hodge blurted, lifting his crossbow for another shot.  His last shot had struck the dragon to no effect, but there was nothing else he could do except keep shooting and hope for a miraculous impact that penetrated its thick hide.  Arun, aided by divine favor and the considerable strength of his mighty bow, did manage a hit that punched through one of the dragon’s wings, but the hole was a handspan across in an expanse the size of a frigate’s mainsail, and hindered Hookface like a pin stuck in the flesh of an ogre. But Dannel’s bow was another matter, and the elf’s fourth hit was a telling one, half the length of his arrow vanishing into the dragon’s thick neck.  But he did not have time for another shot as the dragon bore down on him, ignoring the other foes whose attacks thus far had been trivial at best.  For a moment it looked like the dragon was going to drop to the ground and attack, but at the last moment it swept upward, unleashing another blast of flame at an almost horizontal angle ahead of it.  There was no place for Dannel to dodge this time, and he took the full force of the dragon’s breath, flying backward to land charred and unmoving on the cobblestones.  The flames penetrated to the wagons where Arun and Hodge had taken cover, although the barriers protected the dwarves from feeling little more than a brief rush of heat.  The dragon soared upward, looking almost for a moment as though it would slam into the town hall, but once more it narrowly cleared the edge of the roof to sweep out over the structure’s central dome.  But instead of banking to the left or right to avoid the spire that ascended from the cupola of the dome, the dragon reached out with both of its hind claws and took hold of that pinnacle, using it as a fulcrum to spin its massive body about and reverse its direction without sacrificing the full force of its momentum.  The maneuver was too much for the building, and as the dragon leapt forward, diving once more back toward the square, the dome crumbled, and with a loud clatter of cracking stone and falling debris the whole structure collapsed in upon itself. Beorna had leapt from cover as soon as she’d seen Dannel go down, and was kneeling at his side as the dragon rose up over the town hall.  Like the others she’d assumed that it would gain altitude and come around for another pass, but her eyes widened in horror as Hookface completed its maneuver and bored down on them like a boulder hurled by a giant catapult. Beorna healed Dannel and stood, drawing her holy sword and stepping forward to challenge the descending dragon.  She opened her mind and soul to Helm once more, calling upon the power of the god to infuse her sword with the holy might to destroy the dragon.  Helm answered her prayer, but before she could do anything further the dragon knifed down with incredible speed, lashing out its head like a whip to snatch her up in its maw with the crushing force of a vice.  An instant later the dragon kicked off of the ground with both of its hind legs, narrowly avoiding crushing the semi-conscious Dannel, and then lifted back up into the air with the struggling templar trapped in its jaws. Arun ran forward, loosing another useless arrow, too late to intervene as the dragon’s powerful wings carried it up over the city with its captive.</blockquote>

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