Continue onwards to the land of the dragons.
[5-1, 3-1, 5] The elements continue to weaken your party, with one of the guardsmen growing weak with sickness and frostbite. You are forced to stop so he can rest, [3] and it is nearly a week before you can continue. [1] Soon, the terrain changes as you cross from the mountains to the true open tundra. There is little but open plains to the horizon in every direction; little shelter, little food, little concealment. [4-1] You survive by digging holes in the ground and building shelters, but it is far from comfortable. At last, after nearly two months of searching, you catch sight of the first break in your expedition.
[4] Some distance away, you see a solitary cold drake the size of a pony on the ice by a pool. It appears to have caught a seal and is busy devouring its innards; it has cut the torso open with its claws. You could take on this foe here and now, if you wished. It does not appear to have seen you, but you probably cannot sneak up upon it unnoticed.
[6+1] You consider ambushing the drake somehow and the tracker suggests laying a trail of bait. You slew a seal a day ago and still have some of the meat and blubber, so you carefully lay a trail from your present position to a bluff you previously passed, ideal for ambushes. You wait patiently until you see the drake notice the trail and slowly meander along it, eating the scraps as it goes. It gets closer and closer until suddenly it veers off in another direction and starts climbing a tree, digging into the bark with its claws. You are puzzled by the movement until it stops on a high branch and stares right at you.
You signal the others to move into position to attack it. They draw their bows, readying to strike on your signal-
The drake leaps off the branch, [6+1 vs 4+2] and takes two arrows to the chest as it glides straight down toward you. The drake barrels into you, but your armour holds and you end up rolling with it across the ground.
[1+3 vs 1+3] You try to wrap your arms around the beast's neck as it snarls and bites at you, but it swings its head from side to side and you have trouble gripping. [6+1 vs 6+2] The drake turns and drags you into position in front of it. Your allies' arrows smack harmlessly into your own blue armour. [5+3 vs 2+3] You finally manage to get your arms wrapped around the drake's neck, holding onto its body with your legs. You adjust yourself despite its birdlike screeching so you can still use your sword. [No damage, drake loses part of its attack bonus for three rounds.]
[3+3 vs 1+2] You stab your sword into the drake's hide as it writhes beneath you, flailing in an attempt to score you with its talons. [4/5 drake hp] [6+1 vs 2] You twist the blade, blood flowing freely from the wound. Hot red blood spurts across the snow as the wound becomes fatal. [2/5 drake hp!]
[1 vs 6+1] The drake screams in terror and anguish and hurls you around. It bounds after your allies, who keep shooting - and the first of their arrows pierces the Blauritter armour, stabbing you in the arm! [2/3 Ursa hp]
[4+1 vs 1] You keep twisting and wedging your sword in, hot blood spraying through your visor. The drake grows sluggish, less responsive. [1/5 drake hp] [3 vs 6+1, no arrows hit] [6+1 vs 1] You wrench the sword out of the drake's hide and with it a fountain of blood sprays into the air. You slip from its neck and hit the snow, but the drake follows suit almost immediately.
Luck and tactics have played their part, but victory has been achieved. The only wound you received was friendly fire, no less. Clearly the gods are on your side. You could head back now and claim this as a victory, but if your heart is set on it, you may still try to track your dragon.
You butcher the drake and preserve what you can, though you are unable to take as much as you might have if you were simply heading back. You save the valuable hides, claws and teeth and some of the best bones, but the rest you leave, eat or dry for rations. You cook some for your campfire that night and find that drake tastes oddly like grouse, if perhaps spicier and even more gamey. You retrieve [4*2] 8 crowns in body parts, which you make the tracker and your aides carry.
[4] You continue tracking through the ice until you come to another series of hills - mountains, if they were higher. There are a number of high peaks and sheer cliffs in this environment, and up above [3] you think you can hear a drake call. Or possibly an eagle, they sound quite similar. The tracker warns you that the older drakes favour high places; places difficult to reach if you cannot fly, with plenty of points to ambush would-be hunters.
You advance, trekking up the mountain at a slow pace to remain hidden. [6+1] The tracker proves his worth again by pointing out the best hiding spots, though at one point your insistence on choosing the most hidden route over the safest proves unexpectedly dangerous - the rock is unsteady and cracks beneath your feet! [6,2,3] The tracker immediately grabs onto a piece of the rock face, but you and your knights come crashing down with the rock slide. Amazingly, you yourself remain unhurt, but when the dust clears you find one of the knights has been crushed by the fall.
The fall separated you from your tracker, though. You will either need to try and rejoin him, or continue venturing up without his assistance.
You decide that Haegar is worth his weight in gold and tell him to remain in place. [4,3] You sprinkle a bit of dust over your fallen comrade and say a brief prayer to Ziamdaka, then work on scaling the rockslide. It is not easy, and your allies slip at points, but you are able to make it back to the tracker safely. [5+1] You continue advancing up the mountain, paying a little more heed to the tracker's advice on when to take the safe route over the hidden one. Then your breath is taken away.
There is a city here. Was a city here. Carved into the ancient stone, you can see windows and doorways, great bridges of rough stone between the ravines. You see the remnants of a wall, long since fallen, and in places the archaic masonry still bears patterns carved upon them in cameo and relief. It takes a moment for the realisation to sink in; these buildings are far too huge for men. The windows, the doors, are five times higher than any even in the greatest palace or temple you have ever seen. The writing unlike any that survives in this world.
Here, long ago, there were giants.
You spot something after a few minutes of gazing. One of the more impressive doorways, supported by carven pillars, bears trails of soot around the exterior. Your tracker confirms it; there are deep scratch marks in the stone.
[4] You advance ahead, crossing one of the bridges and feeling awfully exposed as you do so. When you reach the archway, you can feel the heat emanating from within, like the heat of a cavern that has been camped in the night before. Some light streams in from the doorway and picks out the room within; stone bas-relief carvings and pillars dot the walls. The figures on the relief are humanoid, though of strange proportions. In places you can see where the faces have been deliberately scratched away. Broken stone furniture litters the room, providing obstacles for you to cross, but at the far end the floor has been scrupulously cleared to make room for its current resident.
The drake in the centre of the room looks very different to the cold drakes you have seen before. Large as those were, this drake is bigger than the largest warhorse the king owns. Her scales are not the translucent white of her younger kin, but a deep glossy red; they shine as if polished in places. She is facing the wall, and you watch as she breathes a gout of blue flame over something you can't quite see. Scattered around her are unexpected items; coins, goblets, pieces of jewellery and even a runic sword of Haegar design.
[?] If she has seen you, she is not giving any indication of it. You feel as if your life hangs in a strange balance; fleeing, with the victories you have already achieved, or risking death for the sake of glory.
[2] You try to sneak a little bit further in, but the rubble makes it hard to move without sound. [5] The Haegar tracker takes the initiative and crawls much closer, slipping over the rocks. He returns, half a minute later, with a pale look in his face. "Eggs," he whispers. "Three drake eggs."
You decide to leave, unwilling to kill a mother nursing her young. You cross back out onto the wide stone bridge, [1] when you hear the clarion call of a drake from above. You look up to see a second drake, a little smaller than the first, circling above you.
You run across the bridge as fast as you can, [1] as the male drake swoops down and seizes one of the knights between his jaws. You glance back once as you run to see him fling the knight down into the abyss below, then keep running. [3] The tracker points to a narrow canyon path and you hurry into it, the drake in hot pursuit. [6] You spot a ledge cut into the canyon face by wind and huddle into it, whereupon you discover it cannot take your weight. [6, 3, 3] You all sail to the bottom of the canyon on a wave of rock. [4] You hear the drake call a few more times, then he seems to pass. You pick yourselves out of the rubble.
[2] You have difficulty climbing back up the way you came, so you take another, more exposed route. [3-1] The exposure becomes something of a problem as the male drake flies back into view half an hour later, apparently satisfied that his mate was safe. [6] You are trapped on a narrow ledge on the side of a sheer cliff face, but on the bright side it limits his ability to fly
past you. You could probably try running along the face until you reach shelter, but there appears to be little around.
You run like the wind, but the drake swoops down and strafes the edge of the cliff. He breathes a burst of blue fire, which immolates your last knight. He falls screaming to his death hundreds of feet below. [2 vs 1] You narrowly evade another gout, [4] and as luck would have it you find a cave along the ledge! You and the tracker both huddle into it as the drake scratches and claws at the outside.
[5] The cave doesn't extend far, but toward the rear it splits into several small passageways before they become too small to traverse. [6] You both hide in the narrow passageways, waiting for the drake to leave. He doesn't. In fact, he doesn't to the point where he actually tries to fit himself into the cave. He snarls and looks around from side to side, [1] until he spots the tracker and lunges at him - [4] smacking against the narrow mouth of the passage as the tracker crawls back as far as he can.
[01:39] <Iituem> [3] You drag the tracker further in, placing yourself between him and the drake, who breathes a gout of blue flame at you instead. [5] Your armour goes purple where the fire hits, but praise the gods you were storing the cold drake leather in your breastplate against the bitter cold. You feel the heat close to your skin, but it does not burn.
[01:39] <Iituem> You force yourselves further in and the drake tries another couple of firebursts to little effect. He sits down in the middle of the cave and waits.
You find yourself trapped in a cave, with stone at your back and a fire drake at your fore. You breathe deeply and speak, to nobody in particular.
"This is how it ends? Well, so be it, but I'm not going down without giving that thing a fight for it's own life. I'm going straight out there, and I'm going to kill that drake!"You draw your sword and you charge, loosing a warcry that shakes the tracker to his bones. [5 vs 1+2] The drake is startled by your charge and you plunge your sword straight into its hide. It screeches, a much lower cry than that of the cold drake you slew before.
[4 vs 6+2] The drake bites into your shoulder, and purple-edged fangs crush the blue steel with ease. You growl in pain as you fight back, [2 vs 4+2] struggling in vain as the jaws clamp tighter, threatening to tear the arm from its ligaments. You try and ram your sword as deep into the drake's flesh as you can, to twist it like you did with its younger kin, but the strength has left your arm. There is a popping sound as it dislocates and the weakness spreads to your legs. You fall, your one good arm still gripping the sword, trying vainly to kill the drake above you. The drake rears back up and inhales.
As the world grows dark around you, the drake changes. Its scales turn from deep crimson to an obsidian black, tinged with gold. Golden eyes stare down at you and you feel the intense heat of fire around you, the fire of a thousand forges. The burning heat of industry. You lunge up with the last of your strength, but the sword does nothing to the dragon above you.
Razumajstar inhales. He breathes, and your world ends in fire.
****
Months later, a worn and scarred Haegar returns to Windheath, drawing a cart after him. He carries it all the way to Spiritusaer, and there he opens it up for the steward to see for himself. It has four items within.
The first, a simple jar of ashes, packed in clay.
The second, a set of blue plate armour. The blue paint is charred, and you can see where it bubbled away in places to reveal the blackened steel beneath. There is a massive rent on the left shoulder, where bite marks have ruined the steel.
The third, a sword. The hilt and blade are melted, save for the point.
The fourth, a pouch. Within the pouch there are two more items. The first is a shrivelled black heart, with a cut where it has been pierced by a blade.
The second is a fang, veined in purple, taken from the jaws of a fire drake.
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Topic: You are King III: Spring 938 AAL (Read 133560 times)