Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6309527" data-attributes="member: 6692807">As we arrived at the edge, I asked: “Where are we exactly?” Rantle replied: “In Menash’s house. This teleport trap was a very recent addition and we only just found out about it. We did manage to destroy four others but this one almost slipped through.” He smiled and continued: “Ah well, a miss is as good as a mile and we’re here so no harm done. The clock tower is that way!” He pointed and then handed me a scroll: “There is a bell on top of it; ringing it will be signal that you have defeated the dragon and when you do so, the population will rise against the oppressors. This is a magic spell that will help you repair the bell should it be damaged in your struggle with the beast.” Wordlessly I took the scroll. Somehow, I had my doubts that it would be that simple. The others had been quiet until Longhelim said: “Thank you for your help. We know the way to the tower; after that, we can only do our best.” Once he had said that, we all crowded around the paladin and he used the power of the Torch to transport us to the edge of the tower, on the other side of the door; we very much suspected that there was some sort of magical warning on the door. So, on the other side, Felix cast a strange new spell; it created a short corridor into the tower but it looked like a tunnel that went into ethereal plane and then back onto our plane but the other exit ended inside the clock tower. Basically, it was a hugely more powerful variation of the spell that I had, which created doorways into stone or walls; it was longer, invisible and undetectable. Before Felix finished, I looked around and I was dumb struck by the devastation around the tower. It was one thing to be told that the area had been leveled but it was quite another to actually see it in person. All the beautiful buildings had been either burnt or demolished or abandoned. Some of them looked almost intact until one saw the tell-tale blackened walls while others were just shells with no roofs. The one thing they all had in common was that what was once a thriving part of the city was now completely devoid of people. I almost cried at seeing the devastation that the dragon had caused. Felix finished his spell and a doorway appeared in front of us, looking just like a dark tunnel. This was it! This was the first phase of our attack and hopefully the first step in attaining the freedom of Gate Pass. Suddenly I had a thought: “We should put a magical silence onto a pebble; I doubt that we will surprise the dragon but there is no need to let him know exactly where we are at all times.” John did exactly that and now travelled in the middle of the group so as to cover everyone within the silenced area of his magic. Thus warded, we began the slow ascent up the stairs. We were magically silent although magical means of communication had been cast between Longhelim, Drudge and Felix and I presumed that they were making full use of them. Finally, after a seemingly endless climb, we approached the last set of stairs which would lead us to the dragon’s lair. Longhelim stopped and made a motion for John to put away the pebble, which he did. Then, quickly and quietly, we cast a couple of last spells before Victor began ascending, his boots loud on the wooden steps. As the warrior ascended, he stopped at the top and shouted: “The beast awakens!” That was all I needed to hear as I nipped past the others and wound my way up the stairs. I had one spell I needed to cast at it desperately. It could potentially make all the difference. Reaching the top and stepping past Victor, I confronted the dragon! Again, having the monster described to me and actually seeing it in reality were two completely different things. First of all, it was truly enormous! Much bigger than the Green dragon of the Salt Lake Swamp, Your Highness; even bigger than the skeletal golden dragon, Syana, which we had fought so desperately in the skies above Castle Korstull. It was also truly ugly. Its face was scarred and its forked tongue seemed to loll out of the side of its mouth and there were trails of drool from its jaws. This was not a fastidious beast.  There was also a bone mask modeled around its face; it seemed to be made of the bones of human skeletons fastened together by the bones of other animals. This was the mask that held the spirits of Inquisitors. The rest of the dragon’s body was also scarred but its skin shone with fire and its talons and teeth gleamed whitely as if they had been recently well used. The head moved leisurely, watching me, assessing, judging and without any concern. It was lying on a huge mound of treasure; almost half the room was covered with coins, objects and valuable things. The dragon lolled in one corner. I cast my spell on the dragon! Only to have it seized and turned on me and Victor. I sagged, suddenly so tired I could barely stand! So, the rumours that Inquisitor spirits were present in the mask were true; even though the spell had been seized and turned back on me, the dragon had done nothing visible! It was done by another entity, and an extremely powerful one at that. As I finished, I shouted, just as Longhelim ran past me: “It’s true! There’re spirits in the mask!” As the paladin reached the dragon, Vorax Hul reared to his full glory and with a snake fast strike, he snapped at Longhelim, causing blood to spray from a horrific wound; this did not stop the warrior though, as the Torch of the Burning Sky flashed and sunk deep into the dragon’s chest. The battle was joined! The others streamed by me and took their position. Drudge ran past and dashed behind the clock tower; I lost sight of him. Felix came up behind me and John positioned himself in another corner of the room. Victor managed to move forward and despite also being affected by the magic affecting which had been turned on us, he swung at the dragon and struck! Except that his target was not the dragon; instead, with almost delicated skill, his falchion cut deeply into the bone mask! I was no warrior but even I could see that it took almost extraordinary skill with a sword to target a mask this way; and to damage it to such an extent. Vorax Hul opened his mouth and breathed a huge cone of fire, enveloping most of the room. Although all of us were protected, the intensity of the heat was such that it still hurt; considering the width of the fire, it was almost impossible to dodge the full extent. Then a shimmering magic covered the dragon: “It’s a defensive spell!” the shout came from Felix. I had recovered by this point and I tried to cast another spell. I was aware that I had to mask it from the spirits and this time I managed to release it. A powerful bolt of electricity shot out of my hands and struck the creature on its side; it hissed in anger so I must have caused it some damage. Then a volley of arrows came from the other side of the room and this was followed up by a series of skillful blows from Longhelim, who carefully aimed his axe at vulnerable points. The dragon was roaring now, no longer calm and collected; its blood was up and also spraying quite liberally across the room. Then the unexpected happened; the dragon opened its mouth and a ball of flame enveloped Longhelim but in this case, his defenses held; the beast stretched its talon and almost delicately touched Victor’s falchion……but nothing seemed to happen. Then the dragon disappeared! We looked around wildly and it was Drudge who pointed and shouted: “Look!” We looked out the window and saw the beast on top of a building some distance away; it was grasping a large piece of masonry and detaching it from the rest of the house. Then it took off and began to fly back towards us. Suddenly the devastation of the buildings around this area began to make sense and it didn’t take a genius to work out just what he was going to do with that large chunk of wall! As it flew towards us, it opened its mouth again and blew out another ball of fire; it moved in mid-air towards us at speed. In a vain attempt, I tried to put my invisible wall across the opening on the east wall; although I did not cover it fully as we wanted some sort of line that would allow us to either fire arrows or cast magic to the outside; then the magical wall actually appeared, obviously affected by some magic that revealed invisibility; the ball of flame leaked around the edges and struck me; thankfully my defences held. Felix had managed to cure Victor from his magical affliction and then he cast a very powerful defensive spell and not a moment too soon as three powerful columns of fire hit the group; mainly on Felix, Victor, John and I. Thankfully, again, our defenses against fire mostly held although again, due to the nature of the spells and their unholy energy, they did cause us some hurt. Finally the dragon flashed by and dropped his wall…..only for John to cast a spell and suddenly the wall began to fall down very slowly, as light as a feather! It was a superb piece of spell casting! As we watched the dragon flying away again, I turned to see Drudge running up the stairs. I believed he was going to the upper, open part of the bell tower to be able to gain a field of fire. The balcony ran on the upper part of this room, plainly visible. Still magically fast, the ranger sped up there and disappeared only for suddenly Felix to perk up and shout: “Drudge is in trouble!” We saw him run back, surrounded by a swarm of flying creatures, wielding glaives with blades made of adamantite. These were humanoid, with demonic features, horns and claws; their wings were bat like and their skin colour resembled stone; I recognized them immediately; they were gargoyles! Although Drudge was swarmed by more than half a dozen of them, he dodged through the swarm and jumped into the mechanism of the clock, where he hid. I just about caught sight of him inside it; he was in constant motion, dodging various levers, wheels and clappers. More importantly, the gargoyles were totally uninterested in chasing the ranger inside that mechanical mess. By this point, we were all on our way up the stairs to help Drudge, the way led by Longhelim; the last person was Felix who was still on the treasure room floor. The gargoyles flew down from the balcony and took advantage of his turpitude to surround him. Although he took a few hits, the priest wasted no time and magically transported himself into the middle of the rest of us; that left the whole flock of gargoyles alone and exposed. We wasted little time; first, I cast a new spell at them; it was a nasty piece of magic that sucked the very moisture out of their bodies; despite the fact that they looked like statues, they were still creatures and they certainly felt that magic, judging by the shrieks of pain and anger that met my spell. Glaring their hatred at us, they prepared to fly and attack when Longhelim loosed the power of the Torch at them. A veritable column of fire came down from the sky on top of them, leaving them little more than piles of ashes. Once they were finished, Drudge continued up to the cupola; we followed him but of course we were much slower. As we reached, we saw that the dragon had grasped a church steeple this time and was flying towards us again. This time, there was very little we could do about that and as the great beast swooped past us, he dropped the steeple; although it did not hit anyone directly, it caused a great deal of confusion, collateral damage and all of us took several moments to recover from this ordeal. We realised that we were in fact much safer in the treasure room; exposed on the cupola, the next time the dragon dropped half a building on us could be far more dangerous. So we all went back down with the exception of Drudge; the ranger had managed to escape the debris and was still firing his bow as fast as possible. His arrows were hitting but the dragon was healing, or being healed, probably by his allied spirits. Then, disaster! I was not sure exactly what happened but as we watched, we saw a flaming figure falling to the ground, or floating to be exact. John shouted: “That’s Drudge!” Then we caught a glimpse of the dragon as he flew away again; Felix took one look at the situation and flew down to the ground, next to the burning figure. We were all watching the priest below, hoping that he would be able to heal the ranger before the dragon returned; thankfully, Longhelim was watching for the dragon and then he shouted: “The dragon has disappeared!” We all turned, straining our eyesight to find it,  and when we saw it again, this time it had another wall grasped in its claws. It flew at us; it was difficult to tell, but I was sure that the allied spirits in the mask were throwing spells at Felix and Drudge; we saw that the priest managed to help Drudge on the ground as we saw the ranger stop burning and get up; it was almost too late as Vorax Hul flew by again and dropped the masonry on Drudge and Felix; this time, the ranger managed to dodge but Felix did not. We watched all of this fairly helplessly from above and I shouted: “We need to get down there. I’ll get us down!” Everyone crowded around me and I transported us next to Felix. Drudge in the meantime had collected his bow and was firing continually. Although his arrows were as pinpricks, they still hurt the beast and he was finding that his allied spirits had to use more and more spells to keep him healthy; or so we hoped, otherwise things would get very grim indeed. The dragon was approaching yet again with another piece of masonry in its claws but we took advantage of those moments as various spells were cast which allowed us to either fly or walk on air; or more importantly, these were cast on Victor and Longhelim. As Vorax Hul approached, he opened his mouth and emitted a huge cone of flame which could fry armies; even though the warriors were protected, some of the burning leaked past the spell and hurt them; than the dragon swooped by aimed the masonry at Felix yet again; it was as if he was particularly vengeful against enemy priests.However, this put it in reach of the two warriors and they took full advantage; Longhelim managed to strike it with the Torch, causing a few slight cuts but it was Victor who seemed to cause it the most anger as yet again the warrior concentrated his blows on the mask; as the dragon flew by, Victor bided his time and then struck it several times, damaging it to a much greater degree. The dragon flew away. By this time, I had cast most of my spells at Vorax Hul with a singular lack of success; either they had been rebuked by his allied spirits or unable to pierce his innate defences. So far, the person who had had the most success in hurting it was Drudge with his accurate archery; the warriors were finding it difficult to close, although Victor was targeting his mask and that was having a great deal of success. It looked to have been heavily damaged. I suspected that until it had been fully destroyed, than the dragon would still be helped by his allies. Longhelim was concentrating on hitting the dragon and although he had wounded it heavily, unfortunately, the beast seemed to have his own personal healers within that mask. We all looked into the distance as the dragon swooped down for another piece of masonry. Longhelim shouted: “Quick, we have to go back to the treasure room.” Using the power of the Torch, we did exactly that. Once up there, I cast a spell which enabled Longhelim to fly and the paladin flew up to the cupola to watch the arrival of our enemy. Victor stepped out of the window, held up by magic and almost acted as bait for Vorax Hul, while Drudge readied his bow. The beast approached and opened its mouth, disgorging another gout of flame at Victor; I winced. I knew just how incredibly hot that breath was. I knew that even with his defences, Victor would be badly hurt. It was almost impossible to dodge even part of the flame, due to the sheer size of it. As surmised, Victor looked very badly burned and had to run back to the treasure room; to add insult to injury, Vorax Hul reared back and again struck like a snake, biting Victor just as he was moving away; thankfully, although he stumbled and almost fell over, the warrior managed to get back. Seeing only Drudge visible, Vorax Hul swooped in just above the ranger and attempted to drop the wall on top of him; thankfully, Drudge was right next to the wall and managed to dodge most of it; unfortunately, that did leave him just below the dragon who then proceeded to rip into him; despite this, the ranger still managed to dodge most of the dragons blows and let loose a barrage of arrows. I tried another spell only to see it bounce off its defences; it was my ray of weakening. Felix had managed to cure Victor from the wounds that had been done on him and the warrior moved into harm’s way again. This time, the dragon opened its mouth and another blast of flame swept all of the room, catching all of us, excluding Felix, who had wisely stayed on the other side of the room. It looked as if the dragon decided to make a fight of it this time, though, since upon aligning itself to cause such devastation with its breath, it allowed Victor and Longhelim to close with it. The paladin flew down from the cupola and slashed at it with his axe, creating a deep cut on its back; Victor stayed true to his target and again struck at the mask; delicately, he cut if off the dragon’s head, bit by bit until it finally fell away. Vorax Hul let out a mighty roar and went berserk! He opened his mouth and another enormous gout of flame flew into the room, although the main target was Victor. The dragon was concentrating all his efforts on the warrior who destroyed his mask; those allied spirits must have somehow been connected to his survival instincts. Felix was healing everyone furiously and I watched as the warriors were able to engage the beast at close quarters. It was still a close run thing; Drudge fired his arrows but the most devastating blows were struck by Longhelim and Victor; after the dragon of course. Seeing it in a berserk fury with talons the size of swords and teeth like daggers as well as a tail, it was almost unbelievable that either Victor or Longhelim could survive for very long; and they would not have done so if it was not for Felix and John, who were both doing as much healing as they could. Finally, after a particularly strong series of blows by Victor, the dragon almost slowly lost control and began spiraling to the ground; as he did so, suddenly there was smoke and then his body was set aflame until rapidly his burning bones were exposed and these crashed onto the ground in a roaring inferno.</blockquote>

Verification