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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.
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.
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The command echoes in Benedict's mind even as he scrambles away from where he stands out in the open, his shaking legs feeling like they're about to buckle with every step, his eyes frantically darting from his destination-- the outcropping of rock behind which one person is already sheltered-- and those running to meet the dragon, looking so very, very small beside it.
He skids up behind the jut in the nick of time to avoid a tendril of lightning, barely noticing the other occupant as he takes a moment to steady himself on his staff. Hauling in a deep breath, he glances at Dick, then peers back out, visibly steeling himself as he positions the staff in his sweating, shivering hands so he can cast again.
He refreshes the barrier, this time around not only Jone, but anyone standing near her.
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He turns back to the great hulking creature. He asks anyone willing to answer,
"Do dragons have a weak spot or are we just fucked?"
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Not flipping them off. Wanting to very, very much.
Erik has swords, and they're not enchanted, so he's waiting to see where he's going to be most effective before he gets himself electrocuted. He's still within range of Bene's protection bubble, though, and isn't that fucking cool?
Possibly he should be more worried than amazed at all this, but hey.
"We could all try targeting the same spot, a leg or some shit, but eventually it's gonna fly away if it's got any sense and try to turn us into electric zombies."
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Fully armored, with her greatsword already in hand, she's on the front line of this as well. And while she is no coward, but the dragon's initial roar had plucked too keenly at the memory of the other dragon she'd faced. Does anyone get used to that sound?
But Jone and Gabranth have pushed forward, gotten strikes--Tiffany wraps her hands around her sword--the dragon rears back with another roar as Jone climbs to her feet, as her poleaxe gouges in.
"Overwhelm it!" is her suggestion, spare words half torn away by the rush of the dragon's wings flapping. She's off and running toward the thing anyways, the clanking of her armor like a battle cry. Approaching from the left flank, she ducks to avoid the clip of the dragon's wing. The air is sizzling with electricity. This is not the place to be wearing a lot of armor. The black of the dragon's scales is like a blot of night, looming huge--but a night you can stab, and Tiffany skirts around its hulking form to get behind it. If the others are going for the soft bits, she might as well draw its ire.
The tail, specifically. The dragon is angry, on the defense. Its tail thrashes low to the ground. That's where she'll strike.
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What's the point of an archer if you can't get shots in there? Underbelly and throat, armpits if you're lucky, but that's swordwork, running under the beast and screaming.
Then the air goes metal. She can feel it in the air. The dragon is preparing to singe them with the weather in its throat. "Get down!"
Touching the ground helps, a bit, when the thunder runs through you.
yeet for distance
(He wants, more than anything, to simply conjure a knifing tempest at range and cut those membranous wings down, but he’s not fool enough to be so reckless when Orlesian eyes are upon them.)
Boiling blood, the air gone thin. Those wings splay as the beast breathes, lowering the whole of its titanic frame, the ground beneath shaking and crackling as though in the midst of a cataclysm. It is a narrow opportunity. A thin line between seizing faint possibility and throwing away a crucial advantage in the middle of a fight. Febrile heat still clings to his longsword— his most cherished armament, as dear to him as any limb— and with a single slide forward across armored knees to ground himself, he throws that treasured weapon with all bought momentum, launching it straight into the thin membrane of the stormrider’s left wing.
With luck, between molten sharpness and comparatively delicate wing webbing, it’ll do the job of making flight a painful enough prospect to deter any potential attempts.
What he hopes, possibly more than that, is that someone else— someone capable of using that sword— might catch it as it descends at a distance.
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He aims his bow high and narrows his vision. Standing uncharacteristically tall, he's still only seeing wing when it rips open with a flying sword, revealing the eye. Edgard wastes no time and sends two arrows one right after another right through the beast's eye. He hears the shriek.
Edgard is still looking for the other eye when a rattle of metal on rock next to him startles him so much he lets loose another arrow, this one unaimed and wild. He jumps to his side. The sword has landed.
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Next time he does this, he'll think about being a walking tin can-looking motherfucker. Real weird, that there's probably going to be a 'next time he fights a dragon' story.
But first, he's gotta survive this one, which means moving out of the way when the dragon breathes lightning bolts in his direction. He does manage to dodge and grab Gabranth's sword from where it's landed near Edgard (and probably just about scared the shit outta Erik's friend in the process, judging by that last arrow that went up and nowhere) after sheathing one of his and finding himself fairly close to the dragon's forearms.
Boom! The dragon sweeps him off his feet and he does not manage to dodge quickly enough to avoid being tossed back a short distance. He's still got the swords, however, and takes a swipe at claws that come back towards him in an attempt to finish the job.
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Next to Benedict, Richard releases a deep-held breath in dismay, his brow furrowed.
Enough of the eye is left for a nictitating blink to clear the worst of the bird strike in the instant before she belches lightning down onto the lot of them.
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He catches Dick's sigh, casts an uncertain glance his way-- but the other mage doesn't look anywhere near as terrified as he is, and despite how Benedict's heart is threatening to lunge out of his chest, there's still work to be done.
A large barrier is refreshed around Jone, and everyone near her. Then, a spell right to the dragon's cranium; she shrieks and tosses her head, lunging to bite the nearest person-- only to miss by a mile, taking a clumsy sidestep as the Confusion spell does its work.
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"Nice one!" She calls to no one in particular, and also everyone in ear shot. She's ostensibly the leader of this outfit, she ought to make a shot for morale every once and again.
The dragon is close if its snapping, wing torn, black blood weeping down over black scales. Jone takes his moment to rush it, attempting to get her poleaxe into the soft underbelly of its throat. The creature roars, and while she manages to slash it, she's hit hard in the process, a giant horn smacking her in the elbow. She continues staggering forward, expression wild.
The beast uses its one intact wing to make a cyclone, the wind potentially dragging everyone closer to its screaming maw.
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He doesn't dare aim into this wind, there's no telling where it'll go. Edgard kicks out helplessly hoping to hit something.
"Kill it!" He shrieks. He has to rely on the others now.
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Unideal, when the beast takes to flapping and baying, snapping its head and thrashing hard enough to shift the winds themselves.
Still, he doesn't fight the current. On the near-immediate heels of that lowered knock that'd snapped at the edge of Jone's arm, Gabranth sets the whole of his focus: letting the wind current drag him— arm outstretched— towards that ragged path in its throat cut already, snapping it into the exposed flesh as keenly as a climber's piton. He has little idea where veinwork lies, no anatomy to draw on compared to the dragons of Ivalice or world-eaters in the void, so he can't be sure his knifing efforts will do enough damage to dull its flapping assault, but when compared to the alternative, this seems a far better course.
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If Benedict has a chance to look down again, it will be to find that Dick’s stalwart, steady presence has been replaced by a span of naked earth and rock. He’s gone, ripped loose like a gecko from a windshield to tumble ass over teakettle out into the open, where blades are flashing and great splatters of blood pit black into the dirt.
No sooner has he skidded up to his feet than he reappears, clawing his way back to press himself flat back to the stone, panting, pale of eye, and substantially more dusty than he was before.
“No injuries yet,” he says with authority, as if he’d just stepped out to check.
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Which: good. Closer is where she wants to be. There's a massive tail between her and the rest of the dragon and the battle going on at its front. That tail was lashing only a moment ago, but it is largely still now, the dragon's focus all on its pain and its wing. As she's dragged on by, Tiffany summons her strength, says a prayer to Andraste--and strikes out with her sword, stabs in to the meat of the tail.
The tail is thick, the scales laid like reticulated plate armor. There's a necessary suppleness to it, important for movement. The dragon is roaring and shrieking, there's dirt and leaves and debris everywhere, and Tiffany digs in her heels, gets a stance--fighting against the wind, she pulls back and strikes again, down, before the tail can be pulled away, aiming between the plate of the scales. Her sword bites in, through. This pins the tail, at least for a moment. This gives her a point to hold on to. This--hopefully--makes the dragon rear back in pain and expose more throat and stomach to her cohorts.
All she has to do is hold on, try to withstand the worst of that inevitable whip of the tail--and then also not get clawed whenever the dragon inevitably tries to pick her off like a nit.
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He ignores the claws in favor of slashing at the opposite, currently intact wing. The first sword rips through webbing and connective tissue, spraying blood in Erik's face and all around him; the second practically slices the wing in half.
It's impossible for Erik to know how much longer the dragon is going to survive this encounter, but based on it's screams and the abruptness that the wind is gone, he's pretty sure that it won't be causing anymore cyclones.