by Lee Duckett
The party burst into action as the dragon charged, moving to take it down. Badger cast Magic Missile, his increased command of magic allowing him to fire off three from a single spell. The first one hit its draconic hide and burst uselessly, unable to pierce the dragon’s innate resistance to hostile magics. The second and third, both hitting its throat, impacted hard, cracking scales and drawing blood.
Fayne dashed down the path, putting more distance between herself and the others, firing an arrow into the bottom of its mouth, causing its jaw to twitch as it snarled. Aria chanted, “Solus, help us smite this dweller in darkness!” a burst of golden light coming from her and extending fifty feet in every direction, lighting up all but Fayne and the dragon, who were both out of range. The three of them were lit as if standing in daylight, a whisper of divine blessing helping to guide their strikes.
Rurik ran for the beast, swords crashing down on it as he met its charge with one of his own, cutting two lines, one burned and one bleeding, in its side as he yelled in Draconic, “Come at me ya gods-forsaken gecko!”
The dragon however, had a different plan, going straight for Badger, alligator like jaws large enough to break him in half snapping for the gnome. Badger threw himself forward, the dragon’s teeth missing him by inches. It started to pull its head back to try again, when Badger, panicking, leapt up and grabbed the arrow, still stuck deep in the bottom of its jaw, lifting him as it reared up.
Fayne’s next arrow sparked and skidded across its scales and Aria, crying out “Badger!” charged it, swinging her mace into its foreleg, scales cracking but doing little real damage. Rurik came at it from behind, slashing at its swinging tail, cutting deep but not severing it.
Roaring in pain and surrounded, the black dragon leapt to the wall, using it as a springboard to fly high above the dwarf’s swinging swords and fly out over the lake, Badger still hanging onto the arrow stuck in the bottom of its mouth. Folding its wings and impacting the surface, the beast disappeared from the sight of most of the party. Hanging on for dear life, the gnome dropped his staff to grasp the arrow with both hands, squinting as the water flowed over him at speed and the world went dark.
~Badger, where are you?~ Fayne called over the connection, near hysterical with worry.
He looked around, unable to give her a better answer than, ~In the lake. I’m riding the dragon.~
~You’re what!?!~ his wife cried in shock and fear. ~Why are you doing that!?~
~Well, it can’t eat me if I’m hanging onto its head,~ he quipped back, ~I- Gah!~ he cried out as he was slammed into something hard and smooth, which he was then dragged across.
~Jack!~ Aria cried in panic. ~What’s going on?~
He was slammed again, his ribs creaking from the impact. ~Found where I am,~ he groaned. ~On the bottom. It’s trying to scrape me off.~
~I’ll summoning something!~ Aria promised, ~but I don’t know where you are!~
The dragon tried a different track as it rose and started swimming somewhere else. I need a signal, he thought. If he still had the desiccating dagger, that would make a heck of an indicator, but he’d never asked for that back from Fayne. He could try to cast a light spell on the arrow, that’d let him see, but the dragon could just block it with its body. Its. . . body, he considered, starting to get a plan before he was slammed into something else. This was ridged and he could feel one of his ribs snapping, the pain a lance of fire in his side.
Trying not to be overcome by it, he used the agony to focus his thoughts. The light produced by a Light spell is proportional to what’s being used as the base. He considered furiously, knowing that if he was pulled off, he was probably going to die, eaten by the dragon. Anything bigger than a staff causes the spell to fizzle, but maybe if I- “gah!” he cried as he was smacked into something else, his left leg breaking. Out of time, make it up as I go, he resolved, trying to cast the spell not on the arrow, but the dragon itself.
His first attempt fizzled, unable to pierce the dragon’s defences, and he was dragged somewhere else and slammed into something that broke another rib. His second caught, and he forced it to take, his improvised spell slipping through the creature’s natural resistance and unfolding, the spell causing the dragon to light like a fluorescent bonfire, blue-white light pouring from the monster.
It slammed him once more, and pulled, wrenching him free as the arrow finally snapped, leaving the wizard to flail in the water as he saw the dragon, glow shining from between its black scales. It turned to face him with a crocodile grin that said clearly that it was going to enjoy killing the caster who’d made it impossible to hide. “Your spell only will prolong their suffering,” it gurgled, the Draconic easily understandable underwater. “I can wait, and you’ll be dead.” It propelled itself forward towards him, jaws opened wide. Badger cast a Ray of Frost at the creature, but the spell glanced off its maw harmlessly.
The wizard could see down its throat, idly noticing that he’d made its tonsils glimmer, when he heard a clicking from above and a dark golden shape crashed down on top of the glowing dragon’s jaws, snapping them shut and knocking it off course. Badger blinked at he looked at the oddly colored dolphin that had saved him, wondering where the hell it came from.
Wait, Aria said she was summoning something, he thought, absently noting that it didn’t have a nose, so it was a porpoise, not a dolphin. Well, she does give me porpoise, he quipped to himself as it clicked again, bumping his chest. The dragon, twisting around for another pass, roared in frustration as Badger took the hint and grabbed hold of the dorsal fin in front of him, the summon starting to carry him back to the others, to safety. Instead of heading straight for him, however, the dragon arrowed up out of the water, where it could spread its wings and swoop ahead of them, diving like a gannet, torpedoing down underwater to try to catch them.
The porpoise pulled out of the way, but carrying the gnome slowed it down and the dragon’s claws caught it in the side, celestial blood spreading out into the water. We need to go faster Badger thought as the dragon breached the surface above them and flew up into the air, swooping around to come down at them once again, a flash of white streaked nearby as one of Fayne’s arrows tried to hit it, but missed.
I need my weapon, the wizard thought, and felt a pull on his mind. From the water itself silvery droplets appeared, flowing into shape in his left hand as if he wasn’t moving through the water at speed. Forming the staff, he pointed one end behind himself and the porpoise and held on tight, the staff itself seeming to bind to his hand. The gnome firmed his grip on the celestial creature, ignoring the pain in his broken leg, and concentrated on the magical item. The way it created water was similar to another device, known as a Decanter of Endless Water. That item had three settings: Stream, what he’d used before and which created a gallon every six seconds; Fountain, which was six times stronger; and the last setting, which was equivalently more intense, Geyser.
◆◆◆
Aria, Rurik, and Fayne watched the glowing dragon in the distance breach the surface, looking down at where Badger must be. The elf took another shot, but at close to a thousand feet away, the chance of her hitting was small, and hitting between its armored scales even smaller. This far away, the best she could hope for was to distract it, to make it miss her teammate just once more. It dove again and Aria gave another unconscious gasp, fearing for her husband when a mad laughter was projected across their telepathic connection, taking them all aback. As the blue glowing dragon twisted around, to swim to the surface once again, a dark shape blurred by it, quickly rising.
With an explosion of water it burst out of the lake, picking up speed as it skimmed across the surface, the laughter intensifying. The dragon, bursting up from the surface and flaring its wings, sped after its prey but could only keep pace with what must be Badger.
The gnome was illuminated by a bar of light that appeared in his hands, lighting up and revealing him to be sitting astride the summoned porpoise, glowing staff over his shoulder and poi
nting down and behind. A jet stream of conjured fluid was erupting from it, shoving both of them forward so fast they were hydroplaning, leaving a plume of water behind them.
The dragon unleashed another torrent of acid, but it fell short as the pair continued to pick up speed, leaving their foe behind as they rocketed towards the rest of the group. It was obvious they weren’t going to slow down, possibly not knowing how, and Rurik sheathed his swords, running over to where the pair would impact the shore, taking a catcher’s stance, the others running to join him.
Badger leant down, saying something to his ride, and let go, grasping his staff with both hands. It bucked, sending him flying upwards, his jet of water pushing him forward even faster. Holding on for dear life to the staff, he flew through the air at forty miles an hour, trying to angle for Rurik as he slowly dropped, the stream not enough to keep him airborne. Right before he reached the samurai, the gnome dismissed his staff, the metal dissipating into silver liquid as he impacted the dwarf’s outstretched hand. Rurik caught him perfectly, gingerly setting the gnome on the ground behind him.
The dragon, denied its prize, roared “I’LL KILL YOU!” as it arrowed down, claws out like a bird of prey, giving up all pretense of stealth in its rage. Badger tried to hop to Aria, who picked him up and partially healed him in a burst of golden light while she stared at the oncoming monster.
An arrow from Fayne struck it, but didn’t divert it and Rurik, not having time to pull his swords, swung out with a fist. A thunderous crash rang out as the dragon, moving at sixty miles per hour, struck the eight-foot-tall, six-foot-wide mound of muscle and steel that was the dwarf.
Claws raked armor, catching on holes in the metal and finding purchase, piercing skin, but ham-sized steel fist sunk into scaled chest, ribs breaking with sounds like gunshots. It bit down on the dwarf’s shoulder, metal crunching in its jaws and blood running down his chest. Rurik grabbed it’s heads by its horns, but instead of wrenching it off he yelled, “I’ve got the cruddy croc, now kill the hell out of it!”
Fayne took the dwarf’s advice, running towards the dragon as it flailed, shooting arrow after arrow into its right side as she neared it. From the other side, Badger summoned another ball of flame, mentally directing it to slam into its left flank, shuddering as it fought the dragon’s spell resistance before surpassing it, sizzling flesh.
“Solus, grant Rurik strength to overcome his dark foe!” she cried, casting the spell of Bull’s Strength she’d prepared earlier. Golden radius shot from her hands and outlined the samurai’s form. The dwarf’s muscles bulged, and the dragon, which had been pulling away, found itself shoved back down, trapped.
“Yer not gonna be flyin’ away, ya scaredy skink!” the samurai yelled in Draconic, wrenching it back down to eye level, glaring at it balefully. It opened its jaws, not to bite, but to use its breath weapon at point blank range. Rurik roared in defiance, slamming his forehead into its snout, headbutting shut the dragon’s jaws with a crunch. Unable to stop itself, acid gushed between its teeth and out its nostrils, falling harmlessly to eat away at the stone beneath their feet.
Fayne, having reached the dragon’s back, leapt up onto it, jumping again to land on its muzzle, firing an arrow directly into the creature’s eye. It thrashed about in pain and terror, half blind, trying to throw the elf off.
Fayne obliged, flipping backwards to land on Rurik’s uninjured shoulder, shooting the same eye again, the dragon screaming incoherently as it raged, tail whipping about in a frenzy and claws raking the dwarf once more, but its blind flailing did little damage.
Aria healed Rurik as he forced the dragon over onto the Flaming Sphere, further burning it as it shrieked. Fayne used its skull as a steppingstone to land on Rurik’s healed shoulder, almost losing her balance on blood-slick skin before she shot its other eye, blinding it. It shuddered, once, before going limp, steam rising from its eye sockets.
Fayne hopped off the dwarf as he pulled it fully out of the water, dropping it to the side, the samurai still bleeding from over a dozen slashes and punctures. Aria’s healing decreased from the bursts of golden light to her regular singular trickle of golden sparks and Rurik gave her a questioning look.
~I only have a few spells left,~ she revealed, ~And I want to save them, in case I need to turn them into healing later.~
He nodded, looking to the gnome who was still burning the draconic corpse with Flame Bolts, though half the time the projectiles weren’t doing any damage to it.
~I’m just making sure it’s really dead,” the wizard shrugged. ~Just in case. It’s still got spell resistance, but I’m not sure if that’s innate or because it’s not dead yet.~
Rurik stared at the slow stream of projectiles, which were slowly burning a hole in its leg. “I think it be dead, wee man.”
Badger threw one more, which sizzled its flesh, then nodded. “Now it is.”
Fayne prodded it from the other side with her rapier. “Not that I’m not grateful, but how are we not dead? And how did you light it up, it should’ve been able to cast Darkness at will. It should’ve been able to do so much more.”
Fafnir laughed over their connection, ~Or, child, you’re missing something.~
“Like what?” she demanded of her armor, but it wouldn’t respond.
The corpse shuddered, causing her to leap back, Rurik to draw his swords, and Badger to hit it with another Flame bolt, which spent itself harmlessly against its scales. The entire corpse seemed to flex before it shrank in a way all too familiar to the party. The scout groaned, slapping her palm to her face. “I’m an idiot.”
The enlarged dwarf shrugged, “Don’t feel bad just ‘cause ya don’t got a big brain like me.”
She lowered her hand to glare at him for a moment, before raising it again to cover her shame. “It’s like Rurik, it was enlarged,”
Aria gave a start of realization, “Oh! You said dragons get larger as they get older, and get more dangerous as they get older. So if it looked older, others would think it was more dangerous! It would’ve worked too! If we didn’t have to go this way, we would’ve left after we saw it!”
~Indeed, chosen of the Dawnbringer,~ Fafinir agreed. ~All it resulted in doing was forcing you to take it more seriously than you might’ve needed to. Add draconic arrogance and greed, and this was the only possible outcome.~
“That be nice and all, but we be burnin’ magic,” the dwarf rumbled. “I know we got hours to swim with the fishes, but I’ll feel better once we’re outta this place.”
Badger nodded, pointing out across the dark lake. “I saw something out there when I was coming back. We should check that out, just in case.”
Aria nodded, but Fayne was looking between the corpse and her bag of holding, frowning. Reaching inside, she pulled out an oilskin bag, holding it next to the dragon. “Rurik,” she commanded. “I need you to cut off its head.”
“Why would I be doin’ that, lassie?” he asked, looking at her in confusion.
She looked him in the eye and said one word: “Trophy.”
“Ya make quite a convincin’ argument, lass,” he replied immediately, unsheathing his wakizashi and starting to get to work, sawing away at its neck with his non-flaming blade. While he did so, she moved to its feet with the mithral blade she’d claimed from the overseer’s office in hand, extracting the claws, each the size of a halfling’s dagger.
After Rurik finished decapitating the dragon, she directed him to its tail, removing the spike cluster at the tip as well. Wrapping up the bleeding pieces in her oilskin bag she dropped it into Shino’s Bag of Holding, tossing a ring to Badger. “It was wearing this,” she explained.
The wizard’s eyes glowed, “Nonstandard item, but it lets the user cast a dragon-only variant of enlarge person on itself three times per day, lasting five-ish minutes each time. It’s got one charge left, not that we can use it.”
“It used the other charge talking to the other dragon,” Aria mused to herself. “Is it worth anything?”
Badger shrugged, “To the right buyer? It’s worth a lot. Otherwise it’s an interesting bit of magic. I don’t know how it works, only what it does, probably.”
“Probably?” Fayne asked.
He pocketed the ring, “Nonstandard items are hard to figure out. It probably does that, but it might turn you purple and make you sing, ‘I’m a little teapot.’ Magic is complicated, and I’m doing this without a workshop. If it were easy, everyone would do it.” Looking out across the water, he nodded to himself, “We should really get moving.”
“Um,” Fayne said, realizing something. “Rurik, can you swim? You’re wearing heavy armor.”
“I’ve got these new muscles for a few more minutes,” he grunted, wading into the water. “And if I can’t, what am I gonna do? Drown?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
All That Glitters
Rurik was very, very glad that he’d drunk that potion of water breathing. While he could swim with his enhanced strength, keeping his head above water was something else entirely. He hadn’t put any points in swim. After all, how often was he going to need to know how to do so as a samurai. Luckily, he had his previous life’s experience to fall back on, though he lacked any sort of muscle memory to help him.
He was last to the rune-covered stone column that jutted out of the center of the reservoir, making one final effort to get to the surface and haul himself out. “Glad you could make it,” snarked Fayne, without any malice.
“We can’t be all be wooden an’ buoyant like your skinny elven behind,” he jibed right back, looking over to see Badger picking through an enormous pile of coins, easily ten feet across. The gnome’s eyes glowed the scintillating rainbow his eyes turned whenever he looked at magic itself, Aria watching over him as he worked, mace in hand.