faderift | CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

WHO: Erik Stephens, Gabranth, Diana, Benedict, Edgard, Tiffany, Dick & Jone.
WHAT: The Gang Fights A Dragon.
WHEN: Cloudreach.
WHERE: The Thenuviet estate on the Exalted Planes.
NOTES: if something looks wonky or is misspelled, please know I’m typing this on mobile & have mercy.

GETTING THERE isn’t a short journey, and they’re hardly traveling in comfort. Most of the horses are carrying equipment, armor, weaponry, and anything else those volunteered for this expedition thought to include. And there’s camping equiptment. Anyone who said the travel overland involved staying at inns was lying. Inns are notoriously stuffed with murderers, anyway.

Every night, there’s a campfire and food. Sometimes it’s fresh caught, but if it is, Jone certainly didn’t catch it. Just as likely that it’s rations, salt pork and jerky and whatever dried fruits and nuts Riftwatch can spare.

There’s a STOP AT A BATHHOUSE in the town near the Thenuviet estate, however. It’s stupid, they’re just going to dirty themselves up later, but presentation is important to these people.

Surely all of you brought fancy dress and masks, because IT’S TIME TO SCHMOOZE. There’s a small party of Orlesians dressed to their finest, having a cozy little soirée on the edge of a cliff. Literally on the edge. Don’t indulge too much in the fine wines and cheeses, because there’s a dragon waiting, but for now? It’s never a bad idea to look good in front of rich people of influence. At least, not these days.

Eventually, it’s time to move forward, which means PREPARING FOR BATTLE. Climbing down the cliff is easy stuff, if you’re good with rope or have basic upper body strength. But now is probably the time to set up any traps, get in good positions... because it’s not long before the party on the cliff above begins to cheer.

...Because a few dead swine are unceremoniously kicked off the cliff to fall into the ravine now filled with you and yours.

The cheers from the cliff face only increase as loud thrashing, howling sounds start and become increasingly closer. How long have they been feeding the dragon like this?

But then it’s DRAGON KILLING TIME. You probably know how that goes. Stormriders are huge, dark scaled, and shoot thunder instead of fire. This one is angry you’ve interrupted lunch time.

AFTERWARD, it’s time to heal, take a breath, poke around the dragon bits for fancy heirlooms, and climb back up that cliff.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“Significant,” says Richard, a little breathless. Not from the fight, but from the struggle of pushing slack jaws apart in the saliva-sticky dirt, with both hands braced around a fang under the curl of the top lip, and a boot set in a gap between scooping incisors at the bottom. He’s paused to rest but holds his position, huffing and puffing, lest he lose what little progress he’s made.

“But if you only kick a few of them, the others might cheer.”

"Whoever threw the pigs down. Or ordered the pigs thrown, if they couldn't be bothered to dirty their hands."

Speaking of. She pushes herself up and heads towards Richard, hands moving to help brace the jaws open. "Here, let me help."

Her strength might have been reduced from the norm, but she still has enough to help pry open a dead dragon's jaws without too much fuss.

Between the two of them, the jaws give enough to admit light, and eventually, the rawboned slip of Richard Dickerson. The tongue lolls lifeless from the trap of the teeth, rotten breath still sharp with ozone.

Dick doesn’t seem bothered; he’s busy shucking a vial up from a holster at his belt, gloved fingers tracing faint channels along fangs, probing the gum tissue for promising secretions while the glands are still warm. He tests, also, at a fang that looks ready to be replaced, reaching up to wrest against visible rot at the root.

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t think to say it until he’s stepped over the tongue to make a cursory examination of the bottom jaw. Better late than never.

Diana's nose wrinkles at the stench, but she rests her hands firmly against the dragon's jaws, making sure there is no closing snap that might trap either of them.

The thanks hardly registers as delayed, it earns a smile regardless if he turns to see it or not. "What are comrades in arms for if not prying open a dragon's jaw?" It's certainly not the strangest thing she's helped with. And Diana is not remotely a scientist, even by Thedas' standards, so she asks, "Are you looking for anything specific? Or is this research?"

“I was curious about venom, but I supposed it would be redundant for a creature of this size.”

Still. There’s really no reason not to catch a stringy drip of saliva through cavernous teeth in the open neck of his vial, when the slow descent of it catches in his periphery. He fishes a cork out of a pocket while it’s still filling.

“The scales, bones, and teeth are used in smithing and seem to hold some inherent magical properties, if I understand correctly.”

"Perhaps venom would be useful against others of its kind?" Diana says, glancing around the huge mouth as if the venom might suddenly begin to glow green, while Richard continued doing a slightly more emotive impression of Batman. "Hera, I can't imagine the undertaking it would be to skin a beast like this. Usually in the stories, the skins have the decency to fall off."

“Given the constitution and size of the creature it seems unlikely.”

A deft turn of his wrist breaks the stream off before the vial overfills, and he thumbs the cork in before tucking it away on his person. This, only to wash, rinse, repeat with a second vial. He’ll eventually move on to filling a few more with blood, but seems content for now to crouch and peer down the cavern of the throat, where the static prickle of ozone in the air is at its most unbearable.

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything about a dragon’s hide sloughing off after a battle.”

"I suppose that really is the stuff of legends then," Diana says. She takes a few steps after Richard, with an automatic "Careful."

There’s no answer for her warning; he holds the crouch for a long moment, dwarfed by the root of the beast’s tongue cooling beside him.

“Just looking.”

He doesn’t say so until he’s stood up again, a practical kind of knife drawn out of his boot in the process.

“Are you squeamish about dental work?”

"I've never witnessed it? I am not normally very squeamish."

She suspects she would find out regardless.

CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

IV

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