Before the dragon got where it desired to move, it received both an arrow from the longbow of one Ashkar Brannor and a harpoon thrown by a raving mad (at least according to most bystanders) Orchid Wildflower, who had spontaneously jumped from the roof to face the dragon. The latter gripped on the rope attached to their harpoon, not for dear life since that was not something that troubled him, but due to the will to kill themselves a Blue Dragon.
One of the dragon's front legs twitched momentarily as Orchid's weight pulled on the harpoon that had already embedded into it's belly. Unfortunately for the berserker, the dragon's wings happened to beat at the very moment the tug happened and his grip was about to give in. His will, resolve and adrenaline strengthened muscles would determine whether he'd continue the fall or keep on hanging. Everyone else was likely hoping for him to fall, not to cause harm for the man but to avoid further harm by the dragon later on. Orchid had his own goal.
The dragon opened it's maw as it continued it's flight toward Parum and for a dreaded second, a few familiar sparks struck between it's teeth. However, they ceased soon and the dragon spoke the following words with a weird mix of hatred and indifference: "Irral wux bevi cuthezth si, Lennithon, ekess vin kiri turalisj lirol vur hak bisekimvi shartleg ekess ritrekilir persvek l'gra? Yor dout goawy, inloil di inik." It then turned towards east, turning it's visage to the skies and beat it's wings faster, gaining height. It then continued "Si tepoha ti halkiv persvek nomeno vargach persvek tikil krel..." and began flying away at a speed the party had not witnessed it use before.
@Lucius Cypher Please roll another athletics check for Orchid if you are really sure you want to hang on. Yes, I know that knowing the end result of the dragon's actions is... not the most correct way to do this, but I thought not to delay this further.
The dragon ends it's movement at 150ft away from the party, diagonally rising to the skies with or without Orchid in tow.
Irral wux bevi cuthezth si, Lennithon, ekess vin kiri turalisj lirol vur hak bisekimvi shartleg ekess ritrekilir persvek l'gra? Yor dout goawy, inloil di inik. translates (loosely) to "First you dare compare I, Lennithon, to an overgrown pawn and then suddenly switch to cowering in fear? Learn your place, grain of sand."
Si tepoha ti halkiv persvek nomeno vargach persvek tikil krel... translates to "I have not interest in this battle in any case..."
Orchid did it. He managed to spear the dragon! He honestly didn't think this would work, but he had somehow managed to pull it off. He was at the literal end of his rope, and he dared not look down. He could guess that the dragon was still high into the air and may go higher still. but if he rushed, Orchid was almost certain that he could reach the dragon's belly and get a good stab at it. First he had to maintain his grip, which seemed easy enough. Until the dragon swept his massive wings. Orchid was still trying to maintain a grip when the dragon summoned a great gust with a single flap, and Orchid's grip was gone. He swiped at the rope trying to grab it again but he had no luck. Orchid was falling. Instinctively he curled his body up and prepared for impact, not knowing how far he'll fall, not sure if he'd survive.
Health: 12/14 and about to drop Armor Class: 14 (Orchid dropped his shield) Rage: 0/2 Status: Raging. Orchid was still at the end of his rope and fell when the dragon made his first gust. Currently falling.
Just as suddenly as the Orc had actually followed their plan and jumped, they fell due to very unfortunate circumstances. Despite all their rage and shouting, they just couldn't hold against both their own weight settling down and the dragon tugging on the rope to head upwards, it was a miracle that the harpoon withstood said pressure. Well, less of a miracle now since Orchid was not weighing it down any longer.
A guard dove out of the way, not willing to catch the falling man with their head and barely managed to stumble out of the impact zone before the person would crash down if nothing would be done. Catching them by hand would only serve to injure both sides and it didn't seem like the guards had any ideas in the one second Orchid would spend in free fall...
Orchid hits the ground immediately, taking 16 bludgeoning damage on impact and landing prone unless damage is mitigated or speed slowed down.
The language the terrible blue dragon spoke with unceremonious directness clouded its boastfulness from the ears of many of the men below on the ramparts; the leaping sparks that danced from its even more terrible jaws were enough to mark its vendetta against the hin. They did not know of the "dialogue" the two had engaged in, although at this moment even if they did they likely would not have cared. It was only with the strong, whipping beat of scaled wings that the attacker proved to distance itself from but a stone's throw away and into the night beyond, ending the exchange on its mysterious terms.
Cowl still drawn over his head, the hunter emerged with bow at the ready as his wild heart was still well in the fight, tracking first the sound until his eyes could make out the distant shadow; the creature was gone, mayhap only for a moment, but with it so too was something else amiss. Lowering the weapon, easing the string forward, Brannor listened over the sounds of the wounded men, those few alive but forever maimed by searing lightning, for anything that sounded remotely like the orc's warcry, but found himself instead in apparent silence to that voice.
The entire field of battle atop the wall was littered with scorched stone, air full of static charge and ice crystals, and visibly numerous with arrows and arms abandoned by the living and dead alike, all strewn about... but none appeared to be the mad half-blood.
Turning on point at the sole of his traveled boot, having felt the hairs upon his neck stand on end to something his eyes could not yet see instead rather his spirit felt, Brannor witnessed the other man's return to the earth.
There was a sudden roar, followed by a short thud, falling some few feet away from Brannor and the others. The half-orc had miraculously survived and while, certainly bleeding, bruised, and wounded, he was somehow still alive. Blood covered his eyes and he was dizzy from his fall. He struggled to his feet and took out his chopper, still thinking that the dragon was nearby. He took a wild swing in the air as if he could still strike the dragon, but hit nothing. If he had another javelin he would have tried to hurl it at the dragon even if it was well beyond the reasonable range of his spear, but it was all the same: Orchid wasn’t done yet.
”RAAAGH! COWARD! COME AND DIE!”
Orchid ran to the side of the rampart and shouted towards the dragon as he ran away, and he looked down to see if there was anything else he could kill. If Orchid could breath fire he would be blowing a pillar of flame. Orchid was just yelling incoherently as his fury and near-death experience fueled his rage-filled rant. However as the second passed, he soon lost steam. His rage was petering off, he was wounded, and feeling rather tired. Panting with heavy breaths Orchid went back to the tower and the others. ”Hgn. Dragon gone.” Then Orchid immediately fell onto the floor asleep.
"Chauntea protect us..." Kyra whispered as she watched the blue dragon fly away. She had no idea what the others had done to drive it off, or perhaps it simply got bored of laying waste to the fortress? As far as Kyra could tell they were still standing, but there may be more of it's minions trying to break the walls. So Kyra rushed down back to where the others were to see if everyone was alright. When she arrived she was surprised to see that Orchid of all people survived. She didn't want to doubt him but when he had jumped off the tower she didn't expect to see him alive. However when he got closer he immediately fell to the ground which is when Kyra went up to him and used her magic to undo his wounds.
"Both thorn and thistles it should bring forth, for us. For out of the ground we were taken for the dust we are, and to the dust we shall return." Kyra's hands glowed with magic energies as she healed Orchid's wounds to the best of her abilities, her hand moving over the worse of his injuries until the cuts were sealed or the skin returned to it's normal color. Worried that Orchid was still at the cusp of death she gave it her all and seemed to heal nearly all his wounds. But afterwards her body sagged, sapped of all the magic energies she could channel for today. "I did everything I could... We don't have any time to rest. Wake him up as soon as you can and let's see who else needs help." Struggling to her feet Kyra walked away from the ground and towards the rest of the walls. She had to find any survivors of the dragon attack, anyone who wasn't already dead. She needed to help them or if nothing else ease their pain.
Cure Wounds Lvl 1 = 14, 11+3 thanks to Diciple of Life.
Kyra healed Orchid and went to look for more survivors.
The startling shout at last signaled the fellow's descent from the skies above, collapsing into a frothing heap made up of battered and bruised flesh, but off again was the orc - ranting and raving as though he was possessed, which was quite apparently an ever increasing probability. Something had him in its throes, but just what it was no one, perhaps not even Orchid, knew yet it had the vibrant spirit to spur him from his dazed stupor by impact, one that would regularly have killed a man, and off to the edge of the stone ramparts; he yelled and spat, his bloodied lips smacking with incoherent but focused anger. Only narrowly had a guardsman been able to save his own life by avoiding the almost nude berserker, others surely dodging his charge as well, now left to watch along with his remaining company as the orc panted and collapsed, adding nothing more than, ”Hgn. Dragon gone.”
We can only hope it is.
Brannor spoke but to himself in thought, exhaling a long, deserved breath as the exhilaration of the battle petered out into nothingness. All that remained was the badly wounded guard and any other defender that took up arms here, the rest was destruction or death. The priestess, or what the imposing man could recall her as, knelt down to lay her hand upon the either foolishly brave or bravely foolish warrior. With a glimmer to her hands, she rekindled the light in his heart, the same that was nearly snuffed out and near effortlessly mended his injuries in a way that suggested a particular talent for the art of healing.
"I will see to it then." Brannor responded, looking the woman over as she took added time to rise to her feet, her own body obviously taxed.
If anyone was going to rouse the half-blood to his feet by muscle alone, it would be the hunter whose frame was no stranger to hauling arms, armor and quarry across rugged wilderness. What changed really now, was that this wilderness was worked by the hands of mortal men and that the thing to be carried was an unconscious man. Short of this, at least they could get off the damned wall before the lightning-gifted leviathan could return for another pass. They fought the beast off once, by divine mandate it seemed. The second time was unlikely to be so successful.
Approaching Orchid, whose body now bore not even the faint echo of the worst he sustained tonight, Brannor took a moment to note both the robed man and his strange icy stalk he had crafted with magic; it bloomed at its top as though it were a mushroom. It did not resemble anything he had ever understood or seen before, but wizardry and sorcery were strange arts. What was stranger yet was that the elder knew something of the Sylvan tongue, or at least owned a tome of the text, and more oddly kept vaguely familiar berries on his person. The outlander knew well what a druid was, but this timeworn fellow was off in his own ways as he fit none of those descriptions in just one way. There was reason to be suspicious, enough to nag at Brannor even now when he looked upon him again.
Brannor provided Torus with an ever so wary and subtle nod whilst sharing a glance, otherwise the man kept his keen senses scrying for another pass by the dragon. After putting his bow to rest, as well as the once knocked arrow, he knelt down to rest his arm around the half orc's back in preparation to drag the man out of the open where he fell into his stupor.
"Help the woman with the rest while I move him out of here." Brannor announced to any of their party who would listen, paying no mind if they did or did not act; that was on their heart and conscious, not his.
With the gritting of his broad jaw some, he hefted the sizable casualty as best he could with uncanny efficiency, ensuring he would not just simply drag Orchid wholly across the ground. There were a number of reasons for this, not the least of which was to avoid awakening the man from his unconsciousness with what might be seen as an attack.
Brannor has a Strength score of 18 and dragging an object multiplies this amount by x30. He can push, drag or lift objects weighing up to 540lbs. Because he is dragging an object, his speed is set to 5ft. He avoids any obstacles that he can while moving Orchid inside the entryway he was using earlier for cover and concealment.
Parum fell to her knees. She still couldn't believe what happened. An adult blue dragon shows up, starts laying waste to the soldiers here, Orchid tried to climb it, and she heard it's threat. She's been threaten before and she's been rightfully scared, but usually she could take care of herself around bigguns. But hearing that dragon dismiss them so easily made Parum realize that they never stood a chance. He was just toying with them this entire time. What would have happened to them if he actually took them seriously? Parum didn't know. But something shook inside Parum. An inquisitive, morbid curiosity.
"Why was he here?" Parum was not a brave person, but neither was she ignorant. There was obviously something more a foot here. If this dragon truly led the horde here then he would have no reason not to lay waste to everyone and pilfer their treasures, or whatever Greenest had to offer really. Yet he treated this battle with the same air of apathy as a mercenary doing battle. That must mean that the dragon, while no doubt the strongest enemy here, wasn't the one who truly led this horde. So Parum must know: who is the mastermind behind all of this?
A familiar scream shook Parum out of her thoughts as Orchid made a painful landing. He made an obvious remark before falling unconscious, and right after that Kyra went to heal him, undoing his injuries but still failing to wake him up. Brannor went to move Orchid out of the way as he spoke to the old man who created a blossom of ice, probably to protect them from the dragon's lightning breath. While Parum appreciated the gesture she wasn't confident that such a thin sheet of protection would have really saved them if the dragon did attack them. Regardless Parum followed Kyra and tried to help whoever was injured, though what she found... There weren't many survivors, if any at all. Most of them were fortunate to have been vaporized immediately. Others weren't so lucky. So many dead and maimed. If Parum wasn't shaken before, she certainly was now.
"Good Oghma... Just what can we do now? Kobolds and brigands are one thing, but to face a dragon..."
"We keep fighting." Kyra told Parum plainly. Like there was anything else they could do in the face of a dragon. Maybe she could run away, but Parum was an outsider. She had no stake here. Kyra lives here, her friends and family were here, and these people came and attacked them. Whatever logic or reason Parum was looking for wasn't going to be found here. This dragon was here and he had an army. Kyra intended to stop them.
Kyra didn't find any survivors. There were a few soldiers who were so traumatized by the attacks they were a gibbering mess, but no one who was wounded and could survive. If they weren't ash, they were body parts. Kyra felt oddly stoic in the face of such horrible tragedy. But maybe that was because if she broke down too, then there would be no hope left. She dragged dead bodies off to the side and piled body parts into a mat.
Slowly after the dragon had fled soldiers were returning to the walls. Kyra wasn't sure what to think of the ones who fled. She would call them cowards, but she didn't fight either. Maybe fools, but the braver ones died first. All she could really feel was anger. She was angry at the dragon for attacking her village, angry at these soldiers for failing to kill it. Angry at herself for being so weak. And she wanted nothing more than vengeance.
"We can't keep staying in this fortress. We're sitting ducks out here, and we're going to keep losing men day-after-day as long as they dragon is alive. Orchid's methods was foolish but the goal is the same. We have to hunt down the dragon."
An unjaded maniacal Ahab shrieked a raging harpoon whilst vaulting his half-blood into the lightning littered eve. His mid-jump scream and throw ambitiously embraced the monstrous Melvillian whale, echoing an orcish fairy tale of an innocent Taji’s endless pursuit for a serpentine Yillah, an obsessive mark that mumbles utopian impossibilities. The Olympian javelin matched the mettle of the now unintended flight attendant, securing amongst the scales of the Mephistopheles underbelly. A leprous twinge later sought a response from the blue dragon as buzzing arrows from Brannor and Kyra tested the tenacity of Orchid’s grip. Yet, a draconian gust easily conquered its tethered Damoclean warrior, dangling for verve and truth.
The subsequent imminent descent was coupled by the background rally of Parum’s music, between her incising bow-blade and heralding chanting, as she sallied away from the pirate’s icy, labyrinthine roof, bracing against the obsidian eyes above. Torus’ body cringed within the Minotaur hide and under the frosty shroud, sensing the mythic plummet would claim another Bladud. Without hubris or complacency, the verdant Icarus tumbled beneath the blackest of suns, his imaginary pinions melting from the brute force of the blue-winged Kua Fu killer, as gales of wind failed to carry the gravity of his boldness.
The desolator of Greenest then emitted not a bolt, but Draconic libretti against the blue-haired Hin, “First you dare compare I, Lennithon, to an overgrown pawn and then suddenly switch to cowering in fear? Learn your place, grain of sand.” The eaves-dropping elder recognized the injured vanity, that was curiously, quickly and serendipitously appeased, jetting now away from the trounced citadel, with a vibrant speed unwitnessed prior by many.
””WAAAAAARGH!”
The nubile decline converged into a bellowing, bloody meteor, crashing but dodging Cuth upon the rampart, that now continued as a mass grave. The brutish Sampati jarred miraculously with gusto and vertigo, a staccato nystagmus that mimicked his earlier gallantry. The hulking Babel of angst, fury, and vigor seemed to bend with the passage of tempo and garbled Common.
””RAAAGH! COWARD! COME AND DIE!”
The Himban phoenix, however, collapsed under the exhaustive trek of heaven to hell, after realizing and declaring his foe was beyond his reach. For now. Soon, Chauntean hands intervened before the Moirai claimed his mortality and, worse yet, his unfulfilled destiny. Kyra whispered as vivacity leached from her core to Orchid’s.
"Both thorn and thistles it should bring forth, for us. For out of the ground we were taken for the dust we are, and to the dust we shall return." Her worsening pallor accentuated the fatiguing expenditure of an already depleted cleric. “We don’t have any time for…”
Golden eyes suddenly chanced upon the druid's wearied gaze, surfacing both his talents and the halfling’s contemplation of the aftermath, with its underlying motives and consequences.
"Help the woman with the rest while I move him out of here."
The simple command summoned ironic rainfall from under the frozen umbrella, while more aquatic earth erupted from the third waterskin, a marine djinn trickling from the druid’s persona to accommodate the paladin’s wish. Two wintry, almost frictionless stretchers anchored with jutted handles shortly materialized, fit for many bodies, whether dismembered, maimed or intact, to shovel and ferry, those most ill inside, requiring only gnome-like effort due to the nature of the incorporated slick ice. Glancing back at the naked Orchid heaved by Brannor and Kyra’s frenetic compassion, the old man offered all simultaneously:
“Oghma indeed! For life and death are united, even as the river and ocean clap in unison. Allow us to yoke together, young warriors. For I, Torus, sense the burden you are tethering.”
It was not a long walk to the landing before the stairs that had provided shelter, rather that it felt as though it had been a journey. The survivors, a title rightfully earned by the guards of Greenest atop the wall today, were tending to their own just in the same way the outsiders had taken care of their own fallen. The difference in these matters were that Orchid, though rendered quite unconscious, was not nearly as maimed as the mere men had been; some had suffered arcing burns across the breast and legs where the lightning followed their chain, others had limbs seared clean, others were blinded by unearthly blue-white heat. The list of causalities went on in variance, but all were most characteristic of unchecked electricity.
Brannor did not need the reminder that the sky and its armaments were well beyond the capacity of regular folk, or even those who might be considered heroic in caliber. Thus when he laid the orcish warrior down beside a now empty rack of arms, his boot sweeping aside some loose arrows that had been abandoned in the chaos, he was wise enough to remember he was blessed in a number of ways that had bought him a brush with a dragon and the fortune to live to tell such a tale. The only other sojourn he took in the calm after the storm, short of the effort to acquire the shield Orchid had abandoned on the wall and return it next to the sleeping figure, was one he set himself to solely in mind. He saw to sit himself down beside his companion and attune himself.
There needed to be time made to collect insight.
So when he unsheathed both sword and bow, with the latter resting beside the wall with its quiver and the former across his lap, he gave no added response to the men and women working their ways down the stairs following the battle. Instead, he closed his eyes and shut out the urges around and within him, as odd a gesture it was and certain to draw scorn at that. In this effort, hand resting upon the runed engravings of the sword's fuller, he unknowingly traced their designs methodically.
For Brannor and the supernature he was tied to internally, he asked only what else awaited them tonight; it was an unspoken, unmentioned plea, in spite of what he knew all along. After all, the Silver Lady did not illuminate the town for her own amusement on tonight of all nights. She did so to reveal the shadows from their hiding places, as even in darkness, a place so coveted by evil, light still found a way.
And she had a weapon born of her whims in her service.
Suddenly, the ghost picked up the green child, his body glowing with corporeal energies as the two flew at great speeds away from the rain and next to a riverbed. The child was unceremoniously dropped onto the floor in surprise and vertigo, nearly vomiting from the sheer speed and suddenness of his travel. Resisting the urge to vomit what little of his meal he had, the child looked to the rather smug looking elf ghost.
"Uuuugh... Why... Are we here?"
"You said, and I quote, that you were a 'wet, homeless, weak nobody out in the rain'. So I solved the rain and now you're not!"
The ghostly elf seemed very proud of her accomplishment, as if she had solved all of the child's issues. The child simply looked at the ghost in disbelief, looking around his surroundings and sitting on the floor. "Well I'm still wet. And now I'm lost. Could you just take me back so I know where I'm at?"
The ghost shook her head and seemed apathetic to the young boy's plight. "Pfft. 'Lost'. That's probably just a lie to keep people from having fun in new places. Have you ever gotten hurt while being lost here?"
The young boy shook his head and laid his face into his hands. He knew he was a child and that he didn't know how to express himself very well, but the more he spoke to this ghost the more the young child realized what it was like talking to someone stupid, insane, or childish. "I just GOT here." The ghost pointed her fingers back towards the green-skinned youth as if she was congratulating him.
"So for all you know, you could be some kind of magical, eviomentally aware mushroom who can spend days in in totally new lands with no ill effects. With no evidence one way or the other, it's entirely irrational to assume being lost is bad for you. Ergo, my solution was perfect and I just solved all your problems. Show a little appreciation!"
The boy instead just laid back onto the riverbank and looked up to the sky. At least it wasn't raining, but it was still cloudy. He couldn't see the sun beyond the white, puffy clouds. The youngster continued to look skyward, with no noise aside from the river trickling downstream and the occasional cricket of insects. The silence was broken by, of course, the ghost.
"So... Come on!
"What?"
"Get up! Go explode something! Go on an adventure! You're sitting there like a broken sack even though I TOTALLY just solved all your problems!"
At this point the child was getting angry. He was getting very tired of this ghost trying to help, seeing that all he's done is make things progressively worse for him. "I know you're just trying to help or something, but I'm already having a bad day on top of a bad life and I really don't need this right now. My problems aren't the sort of thing you can just "solve" with brute force."
"But we're barbarians! Solving problems with brute force is our... Thing! It's what we're good at! "
At this point the child got back onto his feet and roared at the ghost at the top of his lungs. "THEN WHY CAN'T I BE GOOD AT IT!?" The boy had his hands balled into fists, ready to hurt this ghost even though in the back of his mind he knew he literally couldn't even touch the ethereal specter. Soon the child sat back down, trying to calm himself. "Sorry. It's just... I WANTED to be good at it. More than anything else. When I learned how strong I was, I thought I had finally found my place. And... And I just got reminded that my best isn't good enough. I thought I was something special, and it turned out I was just as worthless, weak, and expendable as I always am."
Another moment of silence between the two. The child curled his legs up to his body and laid his head down onto his knees. He wasn't going to cry, as he's shed most of his tears already, but he was certainly depressed. He didn't know what to do anymore and he was certain the ghost didn't either. Of course the ghost was thinking about what she could do to help the boy and be the best guardian there is, because she's an elf. And an elf is the best at everything.
"No, see, that's where we disagree. And disagreeing with an elf is more colloquially known as 'being wrong'. We. Are. BARBARIANS! The most powerful of all mortals! Or ex-mortals! Sure, you've got all these logical, factual reasons about why you're pathetic, or why you'll never amount to anything. And sure, they're probably good reasons that are perfectly correct... If you abide by ordinary, peasant logic. But therein lies your problem, orcshit. You... Are not thinking like a Totem Warrior."
"Think like a Totem Warrior?"
"Exactly! Anyone can use common sense. But being a Totem Warrior means having a more accurate interpretation of the world. You've got to see things like they really are, even when they might not be that way. You need to use things like history! Or bard songs! You have to draw from what you know, and what you don't know. They're basically the same thing anyway."
At this point the child was very confused, but also too confused to really deny the ghost outright. A bit curious, but mostly confused and in desperate need of clarification. "So what I know is... Also things I know I don't know?" The ghost seemed very excited when the verdant male sub-infant said this. "Exactly! Now you're thinking like a Totem Warrior!"
On the other hand the boy was just back to being frustrated and angry again. If he could crush his own skull to understand this dribble, he would. "No, I'm still confused, and talking to a crazy dead elf. What EXACTLY are you trying to say, and what does it have to do with totems or warriors?" The elf took on a very haughty stance, hands at her waist and chest puffed up. "What I'm saying, filthy casual, is that there's more than one way to use your strength. Warriors rely on power. Demons? Also power. Magical creatures? They're dumb, anything they can do is just plain old power. Power power power. Everyone who causes problems, it's just because they have pure, raw power. A Totem Warrior, though... A Totem Warrior has skills, like me! When faced with unstoppable power, we have the tools to stop it. We're cunning. We're twisted. We're dirty. We GET things."
The young not-girl just looked at the elf, who misinterpreted his blank stare as wordless understanding. "And if there's ONE thing orcs are good at, it's being cunning. Being skilled, being creative. Also, pirating. But apparently that's illegal now." The now orcish boy looked at the ghost, still a bit confused but also a hint of hopeful. The ghost at least was encouraging him, even if the boy still had no idea what exactly he could do.
"I'm... I'm not skilled though."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure."
"If you're not skilled, then how do you know you're right about yourself not being skilled? Check and mate!"
"I'm. Not. Skilled. Two days ago, I didn't know you could slap someone with a sword."
"You can also stab someone with a staff. Yester-you was just being open minded!"
"Okay, yesterday, I let a hunter convince me into giving her all my money and weapons and walked out of the building to hunt a monster, thinking I had done her some great service."
"Yet you apparently realized otherwise, implying you were able to gauge the strength of your quarry."
"I keep showing no understanding of my own limits! Just an hour ago I tried to push a rock and couldn't get it to budge."
"Interesting. How big was this rock?"
The kid looked around. While it wasn't the same rock, he pointed towards a fairly large stone near a cliff. "About that big. But-" Suddenly the ghost went over to the rock, effortlessly picked it up, and brought it back to the orc boy. Surprisingly enough, upon closer inspection there seemed to be some words written on the rock, unfortunately in common. "Well no wonder why you couldn't move that rock! There's an unsolved riddle written on it!" The orc was utterly flabbergasted. "What... How... Does this matter?"
"You must not spend a lot of time in ancient ruins. Let's see, in my long elven life I believe it is called a "joke". You use wordplay and insults to tickle the mind's funny bone. Idiots use it to determine when it is time to banish one from their fold. Solving it so you can push the boulder should be a trivial matter for a fellow barbarian like yourself!"
"I told you I'm not that smart, or skilled, or whatever!"
That's when the ghost approached the orc boy, a big smile on her face.
"Then prove it."
Orchid opened his eyes not long after they closed. He opened and closed his fingers, moved his feet back and forth and looked around. He felt himself and... Well everything was working just like it did before. A bit better actually. Last he remembered he was bleeding and knocked out due to the intense pain of falling forty-some feet onto cold stone floor. Yet aside from the bloodstains he wasn't even sore. "Huh." Next to him was his shield. Sitting up orchid admired his handiwork. Sure it could use some better work, since it's literally just stretched skin over his shield instead of a properly tanned and treated drakehide, but it looked awesome. He had his machete, his knife, his axe, but not his harpoons. That reminded that with them lost he also lost about 150 feet of rope. Both things which he could easily replace, as harpoons weren't complicated and he knew how to make rope out of rawhide.
More importantly however, where was everyone else? Did the dragon come back and kill them all? Did the dragon come back and they killed it? They did have an epic, world-shattering battle between a dragon and the forces of Greenest, and Orchid was asleep throughout the entire thing!? He needed to figure out what happened before they got into epic battles without him. So standing back on his feet (As oppose to skidding about on his knees) Orchid strapped his shield to his arm and looked outside. Only when he stood up did Orchid realize that Brannor was sitting right next to him this entire time. The half-orc smiled at the warrior, waving his hand in greeting. "Hi. What happen? We kill dragon?"
Health: 14/14 Armor Class: 16 Rage: 0/2 Status: Not dead.
Brannor's return to consciousness from his meditative place in mind earned him witnessing the almost casual greeting by Orchid, a man a number of others likely now thought dead.
"The beast left on the wing, but we can only pray that is for good tonight." He replied, certain to himself the orc would not be sated with that answer; after all they both survived.
The man grasped the weapon upon his leggings by its handle and bindings, taking it up with him as he rose from being seated. A time had passed, enough that the calm had returned in the world itself and in his own spirit. Again he had shrugged off the distractions as best he could, but now he was left to wonder what else was coming for them. A dragon was an impressive feat, one they would need investigate into in the morning when the sunlight removed what advantages the kobolds and the rest of their lot had.
Placing the sizable buckled leather strap across his armored breast before donning the quiver and bow at that, Brannor then set about dusting himself off, adding in conversation during this process; "Now that you are with us again, we should probably see what the others have found themselves up to."
"Last I recall they were attending to the other wounded." The stern man finished, looking over the half blood who indeed was no worse for wear in the slightest.
At the moment Brannor was not about to admit he worried that Orchid would not have survived such an insane attempt; there would be time to ask later as he assumed the man was about to be on his way again, looking for the next monster to slay and the next enemy to defeat. It was as though nothing phased him, which for a mortal was an impressive accomplishment seeing that he had no overt magical aptitude in the slightest.
Parum could hardly believe what her ears were hearing. Was Kyra really suggesting they go after this dragon? What part of "We can't defeat it" do these people not understand? She commends their bravery but this just wasn't a good idea. "What? No! Don't be an idiot! We can't take on that dragon ourselves! We need to evacuate the people of Greenest away from here. This dragon is obviously raiding the village for treasure, and no one's life is worth risking over some gold and a few swords. I understand that you want vengeance, but you're only going to get yourself and others killed!"
As Parum walked by something grabbed her feet. She hopped away just to see one of the solders. Or rather, his top half of him. His entire body was vaporized from the waist down and somehow he was alive. He tried to crawl towards Parum, but then he fell onto his face, dead. Soon Parum started seeing even more bodies moving around in various states of mutilation. It seemed like the dragon's lightning didn't kill all the soldiers. But it only made the survivors even more horrific. It was too much for Parum. The death, the fighting, the blood, the gore. This was nothing like the stories. It was just too much. She had to run back to the tower, running past Brannor and Orchid where she vomited in a corner.
"There's no way, there's just no way... No way at all!" Parum cried as she leaned up against a wall. She was scared. This was just too much for her right now. When she left home on this adventure she thought she'd be ready for death. She's seen an execution before. She's killed a man once. She thought she'd be ready for it. But this? This wasn't anything like it. She doesn't understand how people could witness a dragon lay waste to an entire fortress full of soldiers and still think they stand a chance. "What have I gotten myself into? I can't do this! This isn't right, this isn't fair! I'm not ready for something like this!" The halfling continued to sob quietly. She knew she was being a coward. But sometimes fear was the right responds. These people wanted to kill a dragon and she doubts any of them even possess a magic sword. She didn't want to resign her fate to a pointless death for the sake of heroics.
As Parum was, quite frankly speaking, causing a scene within the resting area, a sergeant of the guard approached her. "Excuse me", he said and sat down, leaning against the wall next to her, being remarkably better at keeping his composure. For a moment, he just sat there without saying or doing anything, but eventually the man spoke up: "Tough things, them dragons. Barely made it out from there myself. But this is what war is. It's hell, nothing but that. This is the war of Greenest. But do you know what loses a war faster than an attacking dragon? Loss of morale. If we don't do anything, we cannot win or even break even. The big lizards gone now though. Breathe. If it comes back, it's an issue of another time."
The man raised his gauntlet covered hand towards Parum's shoulder, but didn't know if it was appropriate so he withdrew the gesture. Again, a few moments passed without them saying anything, until they pulled out a parchment with a few names on it. "Hate to do this part of the job though..." he said, with his voice evidently breaking down towards the end as he started dragging a piece of charcoal over names. Once he was done, he sighed, rose onto his feet and remarked: "But we've got to learn to leave it behind us. I wish you best of luck in that. Can be tough." With that, the man that had not even introduced himself walked away with the list still in hand.
Kyra didn't bother to look at Parum when she tried to change her mind. What Parum doesn't understand is that unlike her, if the villagers of Greenest just run away there wasn't anywhere else they could go. At best they'd be refugees and try to live in other villages or cities. But without the supplies to make the journey, many people would die just trying to reach the other places to settle down. And there was no guarantee for their futures either. Most of these people weren't adventurers or skilled laborers, they were farmers or foresters without their tools, wealth, or possessions. Even their guards only had whatever armor and weapons they had. Chances are if the people of Greenest really did just run away from all this army, they'd either die off in the wilderness or turn to banditry just to survive. And there was no way in the hells that Kyra would allow her people to fall so far.
Soon after her rant more soldiers started moving. Soldiers who Kyra thought were dead, but it was worse. The wounds they were inflicted was so horrible, even Kyra's magic healing wouldn't save them. They had lost limbs, burnt so horribly that she could see their bones, and somehow they were still alive. They were alive and suffering. Parum ran off at the sight of it but Kyra steeled herself. She knew that this was exactly what she would expect after the dragon's attack. And it was her duty to make sure these brave warriors got their treatment. For now however, the best she could do was organize them from the living and the dead. Once she goes back inside she can go about trying to treat the wounded.
As Kyra was piling definite corpses together, she spotted a familiar face. It was Edward Longwater, one of the militia captains. Although he wasn't much older than Kyra, he was an experienced mercenary. She wasn't sure why someone of his ability would settle down in a small village like Greenest, but he had made large contributions in training and protecting the village. Still, even his skills would fall short of a dragon. "Edward. I see you're... You're counting the casualties. I've organized the survivors from the others the best I can... Most are too disfigured for me too recognize them." Kyra said solemnly. While she does look up to Edward to lead the militia, part of her wanted to ask him if he knew how they could slay this dragon. While Kyra disagrees with Parum's instance that they flee, Kyra also knows that she doesn't have any means to slay that dragon right now. A trap maybe, or possibly even poisoning the massive beast. But she didn't have any ideas and hoped that perhaps Edward, being the experienced warrior he is, may have a few suggestions.
"What should we do? We can't run away from this battle. We can't run away from our home."
The sailor’s comatosed hippocampi rumbled the risks, similar to the odds in one of his many Dragonchess face-offs, permutating the rationale of Greenest’s Kolmogorov-like prison. Consolidating the causalities with the living would spread sickness like wildfire. The whispered voices in the distance forced his fretful hand, though, as a now left-sided grip on the frozen hammock, packing several dehisced soldiers, many panting in pain from the bolted heat of a survived Armageddon, towed towards the inner sanctums of the keep.
His elderly rheumatoid fingers remained shaky, as he sluggishly tugged on the callous fork-lift, knowing there were less arrows than ogling scalps of the courageous. The pink of Kyra darting along the parapet, reminded him of a lighter red, the Rayleigh scattering in the horizon and upon the citadel, promising hope to those who endured.
The sleek lady with carroty locks and strands beamed, elated. She first closed the shackled door, and the pirate finally heard the ouroboric rattle of the sliver helix bound on the other side. Once she unfastened the metallic umbilical cord and forced the hinges to squeak a greeting, her slender arms and smile became wide to embrace him. He didn’t return the familial act, as he paced in, but she didn’t appear snubbed.
Wretched loft. He was doing her an immense favor.
The oath grasped the alcoholic’s brainstem, gingerly reminding him to strike when the moment was right. And leave. Looking to his left, a black kitten hunched over its water dish in the kitchenette, lapping up a river. Torus could also notice the Kundalini hum of the hearth, the reek of frozen food sluggishly softening in its heavy sauces in a nearby cauldron.
“Do you want some ale, Uncle?” the woman extended.
He gritted his bark-textured teeth. “No, dear, I’ve brought my own.” He took out his flask and took a deep swig from the liquid lantern, ever-glancing at her, out of the corner of his peripatetic vision. Then he hid it away, without bothering to offer her any of its thwarted light.
She grinned, regardless, and snagged a vermillion bottle out of the blemished leaden ice chest. Pouring herself a magenta juice glass full, she skipped over to the couch, the food amidst the crotchety fireplace grabbing her attention again. “What’s this about a gift?” she called over her cachectic shoulder. “I don’t see anything wrapped.”
“You have three guesses, Wenonah. If you can guess what it is, I won’t give it to you.”
The feminine statue peeled her eyes away from the bottom of the pot and pored over him. “That’s strange. You won’t give it to me if I guess what it is?”
“That’s right. Now what’s your first stab?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she conjectured, intrigued by the weird, unconventional nature of the present. She hadn’t even planned on celebrating her birthday. No one at the tavern knew today was the day, and she was fatigued, from juggling two jobs and a new baby. Maybe she and some of the girls could get together this weekend, if Torus could watch over the new bastard addition again.
“Just indulge your Uncle, sweetheart.”
“Is it tickets?” She came over to stand with him near the armchair, hoping to gain a clue, to see if he held something that might give away some of the suspenseful surprise.
Old man Torus rolled his foaming pupils. “No, it’s not tickets.”
“Is it a new flute?”
“No, it’s not a flute. I wouldn’t know which instrument to bestow upon you, las. All your bardic experimentation sounds like a jostled racket to my salt-filled ears anyway.”
She cackled, as the meal’s aroma and smoke was filling the room. “Oh no. Is it a collar for Schrödinger?” as she quickly opened a window.
Schrödinger?What the hell kind of name is that for a cat? The druid wondered. “No, it’s not that. So now I’ll let you have it.” He sighed heavily as he drew the length of perfumed wood from the recesses of his Minotaur hide.
She concocted a confused face — just as all the women always did — and he swung the coumarin club at her face with such burnt ferocity that it burst her left eye at once. A spatter of copper blood showered across the oak floor and the oblivious furniture. The puzzled look remained on her contorted face, but her orbit bulged with burgundy pain and welled with scarlet lacrimation.
The possessed oaf struck her again, and she fell. “I’m sorry, honey, the price was right.” Then again. “And you know I exist.” And again and again and again. She didn’t move, slumping awkwardly against the lower cabinetry in the make-shift kitchen, her legs splayed out at a painful angle and her sweatshirt sopping up some of the spilled carnage.
The remaining murderer locked and manacled 3E and plopped down on the threadbare loveseat, his head in his caked hands, unmoving, his propitiated tears exuding slowly like sap from an Adonic tree’s severed limb. “Schrödinger, clean up some of that goddamn mess in there, would you?” The feline licked its stoic paw twice, then went into the hidden bedroom, towards the vengeful cries of the unattended infant, and curled upon the adjacent hamper.
By the time the vexed smolder had aired out, the Tethyrian was brutally drunk, more than a Moorish feudal lord, but he still had some agronomistic work to do. He pulled his corrupt corpus up from his stolen throne, with a suppressed sob and returned to the small alcove to tidy up the remains.
After the recent Titanomachy, he condemningly bore the brave, repetitively back and forth from the wall into the citadel’s refuge, noting the worsening immersion into the ever growing petri dish of sepsis, whilst Orchid arose, almost unscathed, next to Brannor. Perhaps a magical green beacon needled amongst a haystack of bereavement.
Miraculous.
Despite Torus’ and the cleric's tending to the wounded, the infectious shock was setting in those not completely cauterized by the dragon’s lightning breath, with serosanguinous fluid seeping from exposed peritoneums and compromised extremities alike. Disfigured rhabdomyolysis, deteriorating bradypnea, necrotizing fasciitis and the persistent clonus of intractable status epilepticus were all heralds that mere medicine and simple magic would not save these loved ones. Like the signs of the inevitable seasons that revolve around life and time, or even an unceasing Euclidean veil imparting flavorful consistency within fatal permanence. The wailing of the soon-to-be departed harked to all that borne of suffering emerge the strongest of souls.
Out of sacred scars surface the infantile flesh of revenge and righteous perseverance.
Brannor rested a gauntlet upon the barbarian's shoulder in a gesture of acknowledgment, adding in comment to the gesture before he departed.
"All the same, your ferocity was admirable." Brannor remarked, "The men of this tamed land I hope can learn its essence."
With that, the cloaked huntsman strode past the orc and back out through the archway onto the ramparts. The scent of char and... for lack of better words, blood and suffering, had mostly up and vanished into the late night air. Or perhaps it was that the knight-aspirant had recollected his thoughts in meditation and a delve back to the soul. Whatever its case was in root, it made the ordeal more survivable for both the mind and the heart. Two places the enemy could only wish to reach to destroy the defenders most expediently, as such was the nature of despair and its host, those forces of evil principality.
Surveying the keep itself and just beginning his walking along the wall, ever so faint rattle of his chain against his chest announcing his otherwise silent footfall, he happened into the tail end of a conversation that had been ongoing for many minutes; at least as long as he and Orchid were gone, but these concerns seemed deeper, ever more sincere and honest. The Chauntean priestess and a seasoned militiaman were those involved, with Brannor only overhearing... "... We can't run away from our home."
But there was more than this now that he paid heed to it again.
Most notably, the sobbing he had unattuned himself to was present again and it was clear now where and what it came from. No longer detached, he honed in upon the source, which was in fact past him and down a ways, and soon found himself towering over a rightfully weary, rightfully afraid halfling, whose expression spoke just as many volumes as her actual words had earlier. Brannor had not been there to hear them, at least not in mind, but he had enough insight to see she was disturbed and had come unchecked emotionally. For a moment it impressed upon him to hesitate, just as he did when they first met the dragon, but for vastly different reasons. It was a realization he was in many respects, cold and unfeeling, almost animal.
The divine power the suffused him made him a predator of men and monsters alike, but to see Parum internalize what surely many others felt struck a different chord he had only vaguely understood; kindling the light. A message not so much for him, something he burned brightly with inside, but for those who lacked that otherworldly gift. The ones who needed it sheltered and fed.
"Parum?" Brannor said, proving to no longer stand over her like a mountain but rather crouch down.
When addressed by Kyra, Edward replied in the form of a mumble. He raised his head and spoke in a clearer tone: "Positive. Someone has to." As he listened to what else the pink haired elf had to say, he nodded at some key points, but only opened his mouth after she asked about the future plan. "Are you asking this from a citizen of Greenest, or rather the guard sergeant Longwater? Well, whatever be the case, we'll do as the governor instructs." He kept a short pause as he scribbled something into his list and then continued: "Between you and me though, it doesn't seem the raiders are really trying to get in. We'd have had much bigger trouble if we had had to split the forces against the dragon. We didn't have to. Most likely they are only after loot. We'll be in relative safety. Now, if you'll excuse me..." he finished the conversation and continued his walk along the battlements, making notes onto his list.
Meanwhile inside the keep, a wounded figure with a certain aura of importance walked behind two armed men, with a third following behind him. Governor Nighthill believed this sort of escort to be absolutely ridiculous at a time like this, given the men could easily find other work to do if they just went looking. It was not like he was in any danger within these walls. Nevertheless, they were with him now and refused to leave his side, so it would probably be the easiest this way. The two guards before him cleared him some space for him and the governor stepped into the room where Brannor, Orchid, Torus and Parum were currently in. "Ah, you are here. I was considering to send someone looking for you. Come with me onto the roof of this tower, if you would. And if you know where to look for the cleric that was with you, they are welcome as well." With that, he and his bodyguards continued on, ascending the structure.
Orchid just sort of looked blankly at Brannor and the others trying to process their words. As if it wasn't already apparent, common wasn't Orchid' strongest language so he had a bit of difficulty trying to understand complicated words or sentences. A few minutes passed and eventually it clicked that no, the dragon wasn't slain, and right now everyone was attending the wounded. Simple enough. Shortly after Parum stormed passed and the all too familiar sound of vomiting was heard (Orchid was still learning what is and isn't safe to eat). He wondered if Parum had tried to eat one of the corpses, but from the sound of her muttering there was something else that was bothering her. Unlike words, Orchid was more savvy about emotions. He could practically smell it: Parum was scared. And unlike common, Orchid could quickly figure out why. Dragons were scary: not everyone has the strength to face them. Indeed, Orchid only would knowing that he could still rely on his animistic fury to give him strength when he needed it.
But that doesn't mean now was time for coward talk. Orchid understood why Parum was fearful but that didn't mean he approved. The strong will save themselves: Orchid was more than willing to fight this dragon because he was already here and the dragon would kill him regardless if he was a member of Greenest or not. But those who want to flee, or those too weak and cowardly to fight, would not have his sympathy or his help. Parum confuses him because she seemed so determined to help the people of Greenest yet fearful of facing this dragon. To the half-orc, accepting to do the former means accepting to do the latter. If she couldn't find the strength to stand up against this threat, then Orchid wasn't going to bother standing with her.
Leaving the tower Orchid looked around for his harpoons but only found one, the first one that had missed when the dragon had approached. The rope was still attached to it so he wound the rope back and slid it into place. "Found one." Shortly after the mayor had arrived and wanted to speak to the four, plus Kyra. Orchid didn't realize she was a cleric (Or as he calls them, holy mages) and thought she was just an archer. That was good to know. Regardless the mayor wanted to see them on top of the tower where Orchid was previously. Nodding his head the half-orc berserker put his weapon and shield away onto his back, following the govenor to the top of the tower. Orchid would have attempted to scale the wall like he did previously, but his body was still feeling fatigue. While he could move his limbs and fingers easily, he could sense a certain weariness in them and would need a few minutes of rest. Perhaps a meal too. Orchid wondered when the crows would arrive.
