I used the newly found silver key to open the thick, locked, secret door and was greeted by a blast of cold air coming up from a pitch black tunnel leading down into darkness. While it was nearing wintertime and we were in an underground dungeon, this was an unnatural cold that indicated something far more dreadful than just a typical dungeon chill.
We decided to send Izzy down alone, as he was the smallest and sneakiest of the bunch and he could let us know what we faced. This seemed different than another hall leading to another group of kobolds, and we were going to let him sneak around to try to find out what was facing us.
We waited in the dark. And waited. And waited. Eventually, the little kobold came back. "Dragon. Told you it was a dragon. A sleeping white dragon. Asleep. Dragon."
He seemed stuck on a couple words. Mostly dragon, sometimes sleep. It was a sleeping dragon. Apparently this dragon was behind the kobold attacks. Who knows why or how. But this was going to be our final battle to rid Winterhaven of the kobold attackers, defeating a dragon in battle.
Rats. Dragons have a tendency to eat halflings.
Izzy gave us a general description of the layout. The passageway turned north and opened up into a cavern. It was a large square room with walls about 25 yards long. In the middle was what looked like a large ice patch. There were two large columns in the room and the dragon, not a very large one, was nestled asleep behind the western column.
We decided on what seemed like a reasonable plan. The three of us that could sneak silently into the room would do so (Listillin, Izzy and Akai-Tori), setting up on the east side of the room behind the eastern column. I would wait for 3 minutes to give them time to be in position, then charge and hopefully drag the dragon to the west side of the room, giving those three shots at the dragon's back and letting Findel and Idria find comfortable spots. Our entire goal was to keep the dragon facing me and everyone else spread out so when it breathed, only a couple of us would get hit by it. That was our big goal, not get grouped up and all of us frozen into one giant ice cube.
Our plan worked perfectly at the start. Izzy, Akai, and Listillin crept down into silence. I remained back with the cleric and the invoker, just out of light range of the room ready to charge in when the time was right.
The plan stopped working perfectly when we heard a draconian roar and a loud, hissing voice screech, "Intruders, die!" and the flapping of wings as the dragon roared into action, completely aware of our plan all along.
Rats!
I charged, screaming at the dragon, trying to divert his attention from my companions. He may eat us all, but he wasn't going to eat my friends I'd recruited to come on this mission without eating me first. I sprinted down the hall into the icy chamber and flung myself at the dragon, issuing Avandra's challenge to it, daring it to test its luck against an opponent such as me.
Now, the dragon wasn't huge by dragon standards. Its body was probably no bigger than a large bear, with powerfully built legs, a long tail, and a short thick neck with a thick, ugly beak shaped head. It's mouth was lined with large, cruel teeth and it was covered in dull, white scales that gleamed with a dim and unwholesome light. Its wings were folded tight against its body, but as I'd see later, when it unfurled them it had a It towered over me, but was only a foot or two taller when on all fours than the deva. I'd guess it was 15 to 20 feet long fully extended, but it was hard to tell as it was trying to eat me and I was spending more time dodging than getting a good measurement.
I battered it with my shield and tried my best to get it to turn and follow me as I ran west, willingly offering up what must have appeared to be an easy opportunity to attack in an effort to have him face away from the others.
It worked, and he lashed out at me with his claws, knocking me back hard, but I was able to gather myself and present a defense to him as he struck me again and again with his claws, trying to grab me and hold me still for his dangerous bite attacks. I was able to fend off most of his attacks, but still was being battered by him mercilessly. I healed myself repeatedly, as did Findel (when not firing arrows into the beast). Idria repeatedly called down strikes upon the dragon from her god and Listillin and Akai-Tori were navigating the icy terrain to keep stabbing it from behind. We were bloodied, chilled, and hurt, but we seemed to be gaining the advantage on it.
And then it roared, a deafening sound that nearly brought me to my knees. Its roar echoed off the walls and shook us all, stunning us long enough and giving it enough time to briefly launch itself into the air and turn sideways, knocking the rogue back and breathing a cone of deadly ice shards and frozen air into four of us. I believe only the kobold and Akai-Tori were spared. He tried to back up to breathe upon us again and I tried to gather myself to lunge back into the fray, when Akai somehow slid around it and stabbed it in the side, causing it to lunge forward back into me where I could attack and his breath would only be effective on me.
We once again had positional advantage on it, but I was out of blessings and we were running out of momentum. I saw Listillin strike it hard in the back and briefly saw Izzy get position along the wall where he could shoot more directly at its head just as its left claw pummeled me across my helm, knocking me sideways, causing me to lower my shield and stagger right into another sweeping claw, ready to grab me. If it grabbed me, I was a goner. I threw myself down to the ground and tried to roll, but got clobbered again in the head anyway, concussing me, but I'd avoided being grabbed and it once again missed trying to bite me. It reared up over me as I realized I could no longer stand up or even move as the last blow had completely immobilized me. As I lost consciousness I saw its maw descending on me to slice me in half as two more of Izzy's arrows pelted into it, one into its eye...
And then I woke up. The dragon was dead. My helm was dented in about 42 spots. I think my skull was, as well. Izzy's final arrow had slain it and they'd had to drag the beast off of me as it had landed on my unconscious body as it fell. We'd killed the dragon. It was a small dragon, but it was still a dragon.
We spent a good while recuperating, healing ourselves, congratulating each other on a fine effort.
We then did what every good adventuring group should do. We searched for treasure.
No comments:
Post a Comment