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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lars Frehse" data-source="post: 953061" data-attributes="member: 1674">Bosom of the mother- part 3 of 4Immediately, the soldiers stopped whatever they were doing at that moment, and readied their weapons and shields. Inaciel shouted over the rising wind: " Hold there, if you can! We're going to warn Tamlaine!", and the six elves vanished into the trees, ducking to avoid the branches which were now thrashing about in the wind."We have to shield the wagon!“ Torn shouted to Niklas, and they pushed their bodies into the wind as they ran to the wagon. Once there, the monk jumped on top of it, landing on his feet, and pulled Torn up to stand at his side on the hard wooden top of the wagon.Trepat and Jan stayed with the soldiers, who were looking anxiously around as the howling storm got stronger, shaking the treetops and whirling the clouds into a huge vortex above. For a few moments, nothing happened, and the scene in the clearing was frozen, until two large hags broke through the clouds and a construct made of wood and thorns came lumbering into the clearing from amidst the trees.Immediately, Trepat cast a lightning bolt, and since he feared that the hags couldn't be harmed by electricity, he altered the spell in a way that substituted the lightning with acid. Both were hurt, and in return, they let lightning strike from the clouds, killing one of the soldiers, and badly injuring Trepat.The soldiers surged forward in order to fight the golem, but after a few strikes, they saw that their swords couldn't hurt the thing. Jan healed Trepat and then ran as fast as his heavy armour allowed him to, swinging his bastardsword and charging at the golem.Meanwhile, Torn shot at the descending hags with his crossbow while Niklas held his glaive ready, daring them to come closer. In return, the hags shot fire at them, but then Trepat shot another acid lightning at the Mormo-witches, scorching away their flesh, and they both crashed uncontrolled and screaming to the ground, breathing their last upon their impact. Whenever the golem hit a soldier, the poor Veshian was tossed backwards several feet, since the strength of the thing seemed to derive from the power of the very oak it was made of. With the hags gone, Torn and Niklas shortly considered leaving the cart and helping the soldiers, but then their process of thought was suddenly interrupted, as they noticed that it was getting even darker, as something huge was blocking out the last light that had managed to penetrate the dark clouds above.Both looked up simultaneously, as if their heads were attached to invisible strings, which were jerked up by an unseen hand at the same time, and their eyes widened as they saw the huge form of a wooden dragon plummeting towards them. On it's back, they saw a storm hag, and over the noise of the storm and the rushing sound of the dragon, they heard her cackling, which sounded uncomfortably familiar. In a flash, they saw scenes from when had met her before: at the asaathi camp in the blood steppes fighting Chardun's servants and over the blood basin summoning the storm that had sunk their ship.However, there was no time for idle recollection, since the dragon seemed to have no intention to slow his flight and was crashing towards them. Torn jumped as far from the cart as his powerful legs would push him, rolling away once he had hit the soft ground, but Niklas stayed for the merest fraction of a second longer, raising his glaive and intending to impale the thing on it. There was no time to make a real decision, but he knew that there was too much at stake, and the servants of Mormo should under no circumstances gain possession of the amphora, even if it cost him his life.The dragon fell down with his front paws stretched out, and the glaive did not even puncture the dragon's skin. Then it had reached the wagon, which exploded into a shower of wood and iron, Niklas being just one item of many. One claw had ripped his side open and he was tossed in a high arch over the clearing, slamming to the floor some twenty yards away.Before Ben had reached the ground, however, the storm hag shot a long frog tongue at the now revealed chest that held the amphora. Right before the dragon would have hit the ground, her tongue was wrapped around it, and the dragon cast a spell with supernatural speed, finishing it just as the first of his talons had just entered an inch wide into the soft ground, and then the dragon was gone, nowhere to be seen.Niklas, who was hurting all over and barely alive, used his powers of inner healing, and he thought for a moment that from somewhere over the clouds he heard the faint cackling of the witch. As he was closing his wounds, ignoring the pain the way he had been taught, he saw Torn helping Jan, Trepat and the soldiers defeat the golem. Looking around, he noticed that for three of the soldiers, all help came too late- two had been killed by the golem and one had been fried by lightning.Again, he heard the cackling, and this time he was certain that the hag was indeed still close by. "Trepat, come here, I need your help!“ he called.The elf came running through the wind and rain, his friends in tow. The remaining soldiers had stayed behind, taking care of their brothers-in-arms."Trepat", Niklas explained, "we should get to Piridur- he still has the ritual, and I am certain that the dragon and the hag haven't completely gone from here. Do you think you can find his tracks in this weather?""I can always try", Trepat answered, and he hunkered down low where he had seen Piridur and Tamlaine disappear between the trees. Soon, he found one set of tracks- and seeing that heavy boots had made them, he was sure that the ranger had come this way. Tamlaine, being an elvish druid, had not so much as bent the grass she had walked on.After having followed a trail for about a minute, they turned around a corner to stand in front of Inaciel, who was apparently heading towards them. The haggard looking elf stopped dead in his tracks and said: "Come with me. Quickly."Without any further explanation, he turned to sprint into the wood, and the friends ran after them with Jan lagging behind. After a short but exhausting run, which was spent pushing through thick scrub and between heavy trees while they were sinking into the muddy ground, they broke through some bushes into another clearing.The earth of the clearing was torn and strewn in lumps, as though something large and clawed had recently stood there, and in the middle, several elves were crouching low, tending to someone. Seeing the four adventurers, the elves drew back, and now the friends could see whom the elves had tended to.There, lying in the mud, which was darkened by her blood, herself deeply wounded, was the druid Tamlaine. As the friends stepped into her view, she croaked:" Dragon! Come from...your direction. Couldn't... stop it. It took... it took your companion, Piridur."</blockquote>

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