Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 3950661" data-attributes="member: 5675">The dozen giants gathered around us, slapping one another on the back and kicking over the dismembered chunks of dragon with gleeful curiosity. Bending down towards us, the one who had let us into the now-demolished tower muttered deafeningly into our ears.“You have our thanks, tiny giants. You wish to see king?”“I thought you said that the king was dead,” I asked whilst looking at my comrades in confusion.“Nah,” said the hill giant whilst shaking his head. “Nearly dead, if that helps. Bagg now in charge. We stay here and rebuild tower, leader is down there in palace.” He gestured down the slope at a large building on one of the spires perhaps a mile away before continuing. “You be careful down there – dragons. Stay away from Tiamakh and Nulshaddha tribes; they in citadel hiding from dragons.”Thanking the giant, we headed into Kongen-Thulnir. The city itself was practically in ruins. Buildings stacked hundreds of feet high with giants and a bugbear slave-race both rebuilding the ruined defences and defending themselves from the dragons above. As we picked our way invisibly through the smashed city, we saw to our right a gigantic ladder leading downwards into the canyon – each of the rungs of the ladder easily as large as I was tall. Beyond that lay a colossal rope bridge which led out to another of the spires, which was littered with the ruins of ballista and catapult emplacements, some of which still smoked with heat or steamed with terrible other draconic breath weapons. As we continued onwards, the tremendous ledge on which the city was placed narrowed considerably as it rounded a corner in the cliff wall. Under an overhang stood a single ballista which was still intact. “Invisible Dragon!”It was Endo, still mounted on the fiery phantom steed he had summoned earlier he wheeled the mount about and began to move away from the rest of us. I had no sooner registered what he was doing than a flash of talons and teeth blinked in and out of sight, and the powerfully invisible dragon crashed down onto Endo.The brief glimpses I had of it were of a massive brown-grey beast covered from head to tail in spurs of bone. As it flashed in and out of sight, I could see it cast a spell at great speed and a lance of black energies bathed Fez’s annis-hag form, and he slumped as much of his strength was drained from him. As we were all invisible, I couldn’t really see what Janga was doing, but from the sounds he was making he was casting a spell designed to strip the dragon’s protections away – it had no appreciable effect whatsoever.I then heard Endo fling a blindness spell at the dragon. With this he appeared to my eyes, but then called up a dimension door to transport him away from the dragon as its toothy maw turned towards him. Fez quaffed something which made him look considerably stronger once more, and then moved to one side. I tried to help with a dispelling enchantment of my own, but the beast remained invisible, even if my magic-detecting glasses showed that a small number of the dragon’s many tremendously powerful protective wards had fallen. Whilst none of us could see the dragon, we could see Flynne as he materialised firing his bow repeatedly. Arrows could be seen to strike the dragon, raising sparks on its armour plates and ricocheting off in wild directions. The dragon, meanwhile, had moved towards Janga, and in a series of dreadful blows we could see the dragon appearing. One instant we could see it at the very moment that its awful teeth closed across his armour, and then it vanished again to show Janga standing gasping after some terrible power had taken effect, and we could see the massive series of rents and tears in his armour.Then the dragon was obscuring our view once more as its wings slammed home, crashing into the gnome’s helmet and leaving him dazed and bleeding from the mouth. The huge dragon disappeared once again, and reappeared as its tail crashed into Janga’s knees from behind. Then it was gone as Janga’s armoured form crashed to the floor.First one, then a second huge set of scythe-like bony claws drove home into the gnome’s chest and stomach, sending showers of blood into the air and forcing a flow of dark blood up from the tiny cleric’s mouth.With an invisible pull, the dragon was briefly visible only in the shower of blood and gore as it tore Janga into two pieces. The blood faded from sight as the dragon’s invisibility spell took effect once more, and it was too late for Janga – he was beyond any of our abilities to heal, lying on the floor in two pieces. I did not understand what spells Endo cast then, but it was clear from his oaths that they had failed, and then Fez charged towards the invisible dragon whilst screaming – but his scythe swing went wild. Joining him, I swallowed deeply as I ran in singing a spell. I managed to slap the flank of the gigantic beast, and could hear the dragon’s footsteps change; it began to shuffle and stomp along with the music I had managed to plant in its mind. As Endo had dashed to Flynne’s side, I then grabbed what remained of Janga’s body and cast a dimension travel spell of my own to join them, as Fez slashed and Flynne fired at the beast; much of the steel of their weapons glancing off the titanic plates on the creature. One of Fez’s swings, however, drove home in a titanic upwards swing, which would have utterly disembowelled a lesser creature. With the realisation that we were not going to be able to drag the raging Fez from the creature, I cast yet another dispelling magic upon the dragon, and it finally lost its invisibility protection.With a sudden sinking feeling, 9 identically wounded dragons appeared before us, snarling and twisting in the air as it lashed out savagely towards us. Flynne’s arrows began systematically whittling away the images with pinpoint accuracy. The Dragon, however, was equal to this as it shook off my spell which had made it dance, and unleashed its full savage fury on Fez, knocking him to the floor with a sweep of its wing and stamping down repeatedly on his head. The barbarian, however, was made of tougher stuff than the cleric, and his armour was, despite its shabby appearances, highly effective. He shook his head and swung the scythe upwards towards the creature’s belly. Endo then tossed me a wand which I had seen him use before, and as I started activating it to make my next blow strike true, he unrolled a scroll and read from it, ending “I wish that we were all healed”. Unwounded myself, I could see the terrible injuries on Fez close as his skin knotted back together. The massive injury to Endo’s scalp closed as well and we tightened our grips on our weapons in readiness. Flynne managed to destroy another of the remaining images, but other arrows sparked off the creature’s armour – more worrying still one of the shots slid through the beast – it was clearly protected with yet more powerful protections we had not been aware of. The dragon savaged Fez once again; smashing him heavily with its claws and its bite turning his flesh ashen grey. As I thought through the spells in my mind, I began fumbling through a scroll tube to locate the scroll I had which would help alleviate his drained condition. Though terribly wounded once again, Fez bravely continued to slash at the beast, causing it yet more significant damage.Quickening a spell through the power of his magical rod, Endo flung two spells into the creature – I recognised the second as a powerful spell which could reduce the target to ashes. However, neither spell had any effect – the creature was so powerfully resistant to magic that even my lich-like half-orc comrade’s spells had no effect. Ducking and weaving as I ran forwards, I tried to replicate my earlier success and distract the wounded dragon with the magic of song. Slapping my hand down accurately onto its flank through the power of Endo’s wand, I released my spell, and felt it strike, and then shatter completely on the dragon’s magical resistances. From within inches of the dragon’s massive flank, I saw its sinuous neck rise up and slash down twice onto Fez. Though the blood flowed freely from his many wounds, they did not look truly life threatening yet, but something from the dragon’s bite caused the savage to stiffen like a board, before collapsing to the floor. I could see that he wasn’t breathing, but then I saw the dragon’s savage maw twisted like a striking snake.The last thing I saw was the massive barbed teeth closing around my head. There was a brief flash of pain, and then nothing.</blockquote>

Verification