[PLAYER EVENT] The Dragon in the Stone

[spaazmatism 1018]

 

The Dragon in the Stone

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We paid for the southern shore in blood. We burned their wretched ship and sent many of the drowned dead back to the depths. We thought, for a moment, that we had turned the tide. That we had won a piece of this damned island for the living. We were fools. The thing we are facing does not rest. It prepares new horrors in deeper places. My name is Theron. With the southern shore secure, we scouted the high cliffs, following the retreat of the few dead that escaped our purge. We found a cave, its mouth guarded by a host of the dead. Dead knights clad in rusted plate-mail, their weapons were stolen from forgotten battles, stood beside the shambling the shambling forms of peasant folk, still clutching the rusted tools that killed them. They did not advance. They simply stood watch. We knew this was no mere hole in the rock. It was a gate to guarding something way worse.

 

We fought. It was a brutal, close-quarters affair in the mouth of that dark hole. We killed a few of the dead knights, sent the peasant dead stumbling back. But they did not break. They fell back in grim order, retreating deeper into the cave. They were not running. They were leading us.

 

The air grew cold, a deep, sinking chill that stole the  breath from our lungs. The cave opened into a vast cavern, so large the light from our torches failed to find the ceiling. And there, in the center, coiled on a mound of bones and shattered weapons, it waited.

 

A dragon.

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Do not speak to me of scholars and their writing. I care not for their debates. What I saw was a creature of scale and wing and flame, a legend made into a vessel of malice. It was a foul, slick green, like the deepest part of a stagnant bog, its hide sloughing off in patches to reveal the yellow bone beneath. Its wings were vast leathery things, one torn and hanging like some sort of shredded banner. It did not rise.

 

Its head lifted. its eyes set directly upon us. There was a hatred in that gaze that was anything but that of a beast.

 

Before it stood some sort of knight, the commander of this deathly garrison. A cold green light smoldered from within this helmet. This Thing did not speak. It did not need to.

 

The dragon's chest swelled. A deep almost guttural sound rumbled in its throat, ending in a roar. And then the flame came.

 

A stream of  flame shot from its jaws. It did not aim to chase us. It painted the stone floor before us in ash. The air shimmered, and the beards of the men in the front rank singed. It was a warning. A statement of territory.

 

It did not move from its nest of bones. It did not need to. We loosed our arrows. They bounced from its hide as if it was made from steel. It ignored them, yet another clacking roar, another river of fire descended upon us yet this one  was closer, forcing us back a step. The heat scorched the  wood on our shields.

And then, it stopped. The knight looked at us, seeming to measure our strength, our fear. He made a some sort of gesture, and the remaining undead we had driven back into the rock,  were gone in moments into some deeper part of the cavern. The dragon lowered its head, the fire in its throat dying out, but its eyes remained fixed upon us, watching us.

 

It was not retreating. It was waiting. It was holding the line for its peers to retreat.

 

We were not driven out. We were shown the door and the impossibility of passing through it. They did not seek to destroy us. They sought to taunt us. To show us a power so great it did not even need to rise to face us.

We hold the shore. They hold the mountain with a lizard that doesn't move. We are at a stalemate with the dead, and that is a game the dead always win.

 

    My coffers are but dust. My pouch is empty. I cannot pay you in coin any longer.. I can only pay you in survival. If you have the knowledge to poison that thing’s fire, if you have a weapon  that can pierce its hide, if you have the magic to still its breath... your payment will be a safe passage off this damned rock. If we fail, coin won't matter anyway.

 

Find me in the hills. We have a dragon to bury.

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Captain Theron

Spoiler

Two parter event this time, 5 pm EST friday and saturday 4pm meet at the south-eastern pillar. let's go!!

written by @LichinCrocs

 

 

[Kudos 188]

The man arms himself in chitin, wood, and leather; shield, spear, and javelin. A battle to be had.

"Was it another undead dragon?"  He'd murmur. "What if it a straggler off what necromancers managed to escape—"  He'd muse.

The 'Tigrasi moving with his tower-shield in hand, a fire burning in his soul. "Let the Kharajyr rise to the occasion— this one should let them hear the word of battles to come!" The druii sprinted off into the distance, going to grab his kin at their shore-encampment.