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[NRDL]

C

[Puppyguard]

C

[Playergamer]

C

[Iituem]

5, 8!

You creep through the crypt, opening caskets and then immediately driving your claws through the spines and skulls of the black-wrapped mummies within, which provides some difficulty as all of them appear to have quite stout bronze helmets on (still bright and burnished, implying a degree of undead maintenance work).  You get through five of them before one can bang heavily on its own armour in time to awaken the others - and Narsis himself.

As you turn to face the rising Prince, the seven surviving members of the royal guard emerge from their caskets, each gripping long-handled glaives and garbed in burnished bronze breastplates and helmets (complete with silvered face-masks), with what appear to be extended tassets descending from the breastplates but quite loosely, so as to give their tails plenty of freedom to move.  They form a circle around you immediately, moving with the grace and skill of long-trained warriors (somewhat marred by centuries of mummification).

Prince Narsis himself rises from his gilded casket, unarmoured but moving with a grace that surpasses that of his bodyguard.  The glaive he wields is of the finest make, perfectly maintained, and you can't help but notice entirely at ease in the Prince's hands.

"Who... dares... disturb my slumber?

A rattling, dry, dusty voice calls out from behind the Prince's golden mask, and the mask's blank eyeholes seem to radiate contempt.

"A wyrmling?  You are not the first of your kind to fall before the Ophidian Empire.  Die with dignity, drake."

6, 4

Fast as lightning, Narsis has already leapt down the pyramid's stairs and his blade passes through where your neck would have been a shred of a moment sooner.  You duck and roll, parrying with your claws against the supernaturally fast glaive, and are immediately surrounded by the royal guard, who stab in at you in one concerted motion.  You barely evade their blades and let loose a blast of flame that manages to immolate one, giving you an opening.  As you take it, Narsis miscalculates and you are able to drive your claws through the spine in the lower end of his tail, causing it to spasm and go limp.

0!, 5

Narsis pulls away immediately, slithering in a jerky and unsteady fashion, and his guard join up the circle to ensnare you.  You lash out with claws and teeth, defending yourself against the repeated onslaught of trained blades, and manage to wreck another warrior, but you are too distracted and unable to produce any fire to stave off Narsis striking high and down over the shoulders of his guards; his blade cuts you deep in the torso, barely missing your heart.  Blood flows freely up and out of the wound as you stagger back, feeling your chest grow suddenly cold and stiff.

6, 6

The coldness threatens to drag you down with it and you instinctively respond with heat - a blossoming of death for others to combat your own.  You expel a dreadful blast of thick, sooty orange fire, incinerating two more of the ophidian guard, and leap through the gap - narrowly avoiding Narsis' blade - driving your claws into his side and slashing through the tendons in his left arm to the point where you nearly cut the whole appendage off.

3, 2

Narsis, wielding his blade one-handed, fends you off long enough for the three remaining members of the royal guard to catch up to you - you try to fend them off with flames but they slither around them and go in with their glaives for the kill, giving Narsis time to slither back up the pyramid, the only avenue of escape.

7!, 7!

The three try to encircle and stab you again in unison, but it's a more effective tactic with seven than three.  You leap over the tail of the largest guard, getting behind him, then jump onto his back, digging your hind claws into his breastplate.  You then use your wing claws to rip the spine out of his neck, snapping the vertebrae, and as his twitching corpse slumps forward you exhale a gout of flame that engulfs both of the surviving royal guard.

3, 3, 4

You lurch up to the top of the pyramid, where a ragged Narsis is waiting for you.  You feel faint and cold from blood loss and your chest is a screaming beacon of pain, but Narsis' left arm hangs limp and his tail is jerky and unresponsive.  The two of you duel upon the pyramid's summit, steely claws and hummingbird glaive both erratic and uncertain, both desperately shifting to evade the enemy's strokes even at the cost of their own.  Two figures on the verge of death until one miscalculates and over-reaches...

And you seize the opportunity as Narsis overextends himself on a thrust and leap up to his arm and sever it, and the glaive, with both of your wing-claws.  The Prince, missing one arm and unable to use the other, tries to flee, but you crawl onto his back and break his spine at the hip.  All he can do now is twitch and wriggle his torso, so you roll him over so that he can see you.

A) He is a prince, you are a dragon.  There is only one way this can end.  !
B) Tear the rest of his limbs off and shove him in one of the lesser caskets for safe keeping.  He could be useful in the future.
C) He seems more intelligent than his companions.  Bend him to our service.

[Harry Baldman]

A

In the words of a wise dragon, kill it with fire.

[helmacon]

A
Die with dignity, Prince.

[Devastator]

A.  The best thing the prince can teach us is how to be more dragony.

[crazyabe]

A.

[Prophet]

A We are a dragon! The most mighty and powerful of all creatures! Any who challenge our regal right to rule all within our sight shall be destroyed.

[Criptfeind]

A

[chubby2man]

A

[Iituem]

"Die with dignity, prince."

The words are strange in your mouth, the first you've ever spoken, but your tongue forms the ancient Ophidian words perfectly and what little body language left to Prince Narsis relaxes, accepting his fate.  You inhale, flame blossoming within you, and incinerate the Prince in a pure blast of flame.

A glorious death.

More than just the Prince's death, you feel your ancestors' inner approbation for his defeat as well.  Despite your nearly mortal wound, you summon the strength to return to the surface, roast and devour a small band of piglets and their sow rooting near the entrance, and head back to the flooded hole in the ground that was your lair.  It takes two trips, but you gather up all your loot to date and bring it back down to the crypts, claiming the pyramid chamber and the surrounding chambers as loot.

There is another passage leading on from the dome chamber, but that seems to lead to a maze of half-collapsed twisty passages that probably lead into the rest of the necropolis - you can explore that at your leisure.  The other passage leading from the pyramid room ends at what appears to be a massive bronze door with no mundane keyhole or mechanism for opening that you can find.  There are a complex series of circles and glyphs that do not directly translate to meaningful language, leading you to suspect a magical lock, but as you cannot currently pierce or melt bronze or the surrounding stone, you leave the apparent vault be.

You spend the next two days gathering up your loot and creating a suitable pile in your new lair.  First and foremost, you gather up the remaining loot from the 'favoured servants' chamber {3850 silver coins}, decorating the edges of your lair with the various statuettes and ceramics, {6100 silver coins'} worth of masks from the warrior chamber, plus {2000 silver coins} in precious trinkets and grave goods from their caskets, all of which are added to your sleeping pile around Prince Narsis' gilded casket {4500 silver coins}, into which you replace the garnets you took previously.  The royal guard's own twelve silver masks {2400 silver coins} are added to the pile, along with {2400 silver coins} in jewellery, small effects and grave goods buried with them.  Narsis' golden mask {800 silver coins} is given pride of place on your pile, and his black silk and gilt ceremonial robe {400 silver coins} is added to your hoard as well, plus a lapis lazuli necklace and a set of inscribed and jewelled gold rings buried with Narsis {5000 silver coins}.

On top of all this, neatly stacked in one corner is enough weaponry to equip 132 minions {6600 silver coins}, 12 suits of heavy bronze armour {2400 silver coins} and the perfectly balanced and almost certainly enchanted glaive of Prince Narsis himself {3000 silver coins}.

With an additional 39,450 silver coins' worth of loot to be added, your hoard is now worth:

Hoard Value:  42,880 silver coins

On top of that, the architecture of your lair adds additional worth:

Lair Value:  8,000 silver coins

Having assembled a very respectable hoard for such a young dragon, you decide to finally get some shut-eye.


One month later, you stir from a life lived in dreams to find yourself in pitch darkness.  A snort of flame re-awakens the bronze lantern in the centre of the room and you find that you are now sprawling gloriously over your sleeping pile of loot, the various bronze and silver masks and assorted jewellery and art objects nestling your form in the most restorative manner.  They nestle a lot more of your form as you realise that you are now the size of a riding horse, possess several more memories of skills and are utterly ravenous.

Due to your extreme boost in wealth, you may pick three options (you may select the same option multiple times):

A) Your breath heats up to a strong orange flame, capable of longer blasts at a time and further reach.
B) Your wings have developed some muscle, allowing you limited flight.
C) Your muscles have bulked out, granting you even more strength than your new size would allow.
D) Your claws are deadly blades, as strong as any steel sword or pickaxe.  You could now dig through soft metals and harder stone.
E) Your claws have become more nimble, allowing you greater manual dexterity.
F) Your eyes and nose have grown sharper, allowing you greater awareness of your environment.
G) Your scales have hardened, making you tougher and harder to harm.
H) You have grown stouter and hardier, making you harder to kill, able to take more damage and resist illness and poison.
I) Your soul has quickened, allowing you the spark of inner mana needed for magic.


Your glorious deeds in clearing the warrior chamber (and the manner in which you did it) as well as defeating Narsis and devouring a prince have awoken ancestor memories within you as well.  Pick four options (you may select the same option multiple times):

A) Personal combat.  Duelling comes naturally to you, and your reflexes have sharpened to the limit of ordinary mortal ability.
B) Mass combat.  You are better at countering group tactics and spreading your attacks to do as much damage to as many targets as possible.
C) Stealth.  You are skilled at hiding with only minimal cover and leave almost no tracks when moving.
D) Hunting.  You are better able to track down foes, lay traps and gather animal-based resources.
E) Apothecary.  You are able to identify alchemically useful ingredients and combine them to produce simple potions and items.
F) Metalwork.  You are able to work metal in simple fashions, as well as prospect and smelt common ores.
G) Presence.  You are able to speak well and inspire degrees of awe and fear in mortals you meet.
H) Construction.  You know how to improve your surroundings.  You can improve your lair more effectively, build with wood and construct pit traps and simple snares and other simple traps.
I) Elementalism.  You know the very fundamentals of channelling power from the cosmos, allowing simple elemental spells and modification of your dragon breath.
J) Necromancy.  Your recent experiences have awoken memories of the fundamentals of the magic of life and death.

[Devastator]

Scales
Muscles
Wings

BCG
//

2x Stealth.
Personal Combat.
Mass Combat.
ABCC

[crazyabe]

DII
- - - -
ABFJ

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh wow.

BCG
Flying!!, Strength, and just general health. All good picks.

ABGG
Let's make ourselves better at combat in general, then we pick Presence twice. Why bother with construction or any of that stuff when we can convince mortals to do it for us?