April 24, 2016
The Fight to Clear Feyford – Solo battle 1
The city was clearly a battle zone. Tents sprawled about on Dulan’s complex giving only meager shelter while others in the city huddled in their own homes hoping their house would not be the next to go up in flames. Guerrilla warfare was ugly. A bell began ringing wildly followed by a cry of, “Dragons! Dragons a’coming!” from one of the guards on the top of a hastily constructed tower in Dulan’s complex.
Gulduron looked up. Sure enough, two large blobs were making their way to the city and with haste. But was that a glint of silver on one and gold on the other? Within a second or two Gulduron’s eagle eyes could tell these were not evil dragons, but friends come to help.
“Hold!” Gulduron called out. The guards continued loading the massive crossbow but kept them pointed away from the dragons for now.
Within another three seconds the two huge dragons had landed inside the complex, one gold and one silver. Bree slid off the back of the silver.
“Gulduron, ye old fool! Teruven tells us that ye been a’fightin’ without us. Ach, that’s no way to be treatin’ a friend, ye ken?!” she said on the ground.
The huge gold morphed into Brawn who said, “Aye, Teruven sent us to ye to help on the hunt for dem eye people and critters. So let’s skip the expositioning and get to it shall we?”
Gulduron, happy to see his friends back in the fight, quickly got the two up to speed on what was going on in the city. They knew they could track the eye by their magical wards, but only so long as they didn’t figure out that was how they were tracking them. They decided to go to one of the poorer sections of town first. Many who lived there had moved into Dulan’s complex as it had been hit hard in the first days of the attack.
Bree unsummoned her silver dragon and Brawn had to stay only as a large dragon to fit down the streets as the three patrolled the area. “Wait,” said Gulduron. “This one. This one has an aura.”
“So what be the plan?” growled Brawn. Bree stepped forward and quietly tried the door. It was locked.
Gulduron thought for a minute before saying, “I know you could just bash down the door, but I have an easier idea. I think I can turn the door into a leaf, and I mean a true leaf. You can charge through and morph into your huge dragon form assuming there’s room in there. I’ll come in behind you and throw a globe of darkness. Everyone have darkvision on?”
Brawn whispered a few words as he touched his sister’s shoulder and said, “We do now.”
“Ok,” replied Gulduron. “Then here we go.” He touched his hand to the door and shot out tendrils of power which began realigning the molecules of the door. It slowly changed from the dark brown wood to a deep sage green, almost the reverse of what happens to leaves in the fall. He withdrew his hand and nodded to Brawn who tore through the giant leaf-door roaring and morphing even larger as he went.
Brawn landed what appeared to be a dining/living room with a table and chairs to his right. There was a hallway in front of him and another room to his left. Nothing was there. “Seems clear,” he yelled back over his shoulder.
“Doubtful,” muttering Gulduron who flew inside and brought down the globe of darkness anyway. It was almost like the darkness was a trigger because four bright missiles of magic seemed to come from the end of the hall and struck Brawn in the chest. “Ahh, happy to be wrong!” he yelled as if the pain only excited him.
Bree summoned her silver dragon companion and told it, “Get to the roof and look down. You won’t fit inside with Brawn already in there.” The dragon jumped to the roof and began tearing a hole in it while Bree ran inside looking down the hall where Brawn had just been shot. “I still see nothing!” she cried running around the table for cover.
“Beavers and ducks,” thought Gulduron. “Whatever it is, it’s invisible.” He pulled up the crystal that he wore around his neck, but before he could look through it, a sentient looking undead sauntered around the corner to Brawn’s left wielding two wicked looking pistols.
“Uh oh,” whispered Brawn as the Pale Stranger unloaded six shots into Brawn’s hide. “We need to end this fast!” he yelled sounding like he no longer enjoyed it.
Gulduron pulled the crystal to eye and saw a Rakshasa with an eye symbol on its tunic standing at the end of the hallway. “Gotcha,” he whispered and released a bolt of power designed to stop the Rakshasa’s magical abilities. It looked like the tiger humanoid noticed, but only smiled. Lowering the crystal, Gulduron saw that his spell hadn’t worked. “Beavers and ducks,” he muttered.
Brawn, finally having a target to hit, unleashed his pent-up fury on the Pale Stranger. Four claws and two bites later, the Pale Stranger lay on the floor trying to keep hold of its ghostly pistols.
Meanwhile, Bree’s silver tore a hole through the roof and snaked its head and neck through. “Down the hall!” Bree called out pointing for her dragon to see. The dragon inhaled and let out a giant cone of acid that hit both the Pale Stranger on the floor and the tiger down the hall despite it being invisible.
Bree fired a magical bolt of her own at the Pale Stranger (since she still couldn’t see the Rakshasa) only to have it bounce off harmlessly, almost if her spell had been resisted somehow.
Sensing blood, the Pale Stranger grabbed only one gun from the floor and lined up a shot. A massive bolt of ghostly energy flew into Brawn’s scaly head and blood flew across the room. Brawn had only slightly recovered from the shot when another round of magic missiles flew down the hall at him. He stumbled, looking like he might go down.
Gulduron knew the Rakshasa was the most dangerous, especially if it stayed invisible. He drew even more power into himself and silently loosed it at the spot where he knew the tiger creature still was. This time, the result was immediate. The tiger was visible…and frowning.
Brawn raised himself up with a huge effort and seemed to spend his last strength unloading on the specter on the floor. His final bite was met with a satisfying crunch as he tore the head from the Pale Stranger and spit it back out. His form seemed to melt a little and then quickly ran off his body leaving him a normal humanoid again. “Get out!” Bree yelled to him as he began crawling to the door.
The silver dragon’s weight chose that moment to collapse the roof and it fell inside the room next to the Rakshasa. Happy with it’s circumstances, it triple clawed and triple bit the Rakshasa who looked annoyed, but still not worried. Bree tried another bolt of magic to no avail.
The Rakshasa grinned again and vanished. “Beavers and ducks! He’s getting away! Block the door!” Gulduron called out as he watched through his crystal.
Brawn had made it outside but was in no position to fight. Bree and her silver couldn’t see the tiger beast anymore. Gulduron scrambled thinking of what to do. He couldn’t keep wasting power turning the thing visible if it merely cast invisibility again and just ran. They also couldn’t risk this creature getting back to the priest letting them know how they had tracked them. Then it came to him. He had dropped a large wooden crate on that stitched together dragon, but now he thought he could make something even better.
Concentration scrunched up his wooden, fairy face and a huge encasement of solid steel dropped into place around the invisible tiger who immediately began pounding on it trying to get out.
“That will buy us some time to regroup,” Gulduron said aloud. Bree ran out the door and around the steel trap to check on Brawn. “I’ma fine, just had the wind knocked out’o me,” he said. Getting to his feet, he morphed back into dragon form.
With Brawn on one side, the silver on the other, and Bree at the door to the house all surrounding the steel encasing, they were ready. “On my mark, I’m releasing it. All you have to do and attack that spot like there’s no tomorrow. Ready? One. Two. Three!”
While the Rakshasa was still invisible, it did make an interesting stain on the street after that.