are you all moving out?
”Yes, I am sure you will be a safe distance behind. Heh heh hen. Hoping to pick up the pieces, but don’t bet against yourselves. If we kill it ourself we will be collecting the reward ourselves. If you want some of the payment you gotta come help put in the work.”
Hashik you see one of them eyeing the gold pile left behind by the now dead guys
Karla moves out with the party
so, unlike before Roak actually has a trail to follow, in the form of drips of dragon blood hundreds of meters apart. that survival check was just enough to follow it. at the end of the day there is a somewhat secluded part of the mountain range coming into view. if the dragon keeps going straight east it will end up somewhere in there.
those other guys never catch up with you.
the scorched shale planes slowly give way to obsidian the next day, and the mountain looms over you. this should be one of the most desolate areas in the country. you would already be thoroughly dead of thirst from the unnatural heat in the area if not for Roak's create water. as far as you can tell the small dragon went into a relatively massive and exposed cave in the mountainside.
how are you approaching?
"Presumably, this dragon is licking his wounds in there somewhere.
"Hopefully not expecting us to have gotten this far.
"Should we lie in wait for it, or just go in?
"Carefully, of course!"
"We should go in, it will have more confined movements in a cave i hope and be more vulnerable." says Raok hopefully
Karla looks at the approach.
decide now. Do we attack, or try to negotiate? It could be a strong ally, but trust is a fragile thing.
She casts mage armour on herself.
"I do not think we can trust that thing to not turn on us at the first opportunity after it has licked its wounds. We should kill it, then collect the bounty."
very well
”Heh. I think it’s too young to communicate yet. Those guys probably collected the gold and got ghost. I wish I knew where we could have escaped to with it.”
”the danger inside will be he can line us up with his breath weapon. Maybe the Oread can scout for us. See what the situation inside is?”
the cave entrance is 40 ft. by 40 ft. and shrinks down to 30 ft. by 30 ft. further in.
it's very smooth obsidian glass on the walls and ceiling with a well used floor by all manner of creatures it looks like.
I'll need your marching order and a will save
Raok moves beside a wall and investigates if he is able to climb the walls with his 20ft climb speed
"As good a plan as any. In we go then."
Raok, is smooth volcanic glass. you will not get far.
it narrows a bit further in, but not enough to affect your formation. after about 200 ft. you all feel waves of dread wash over you. only Karla is unaffected.
up ahead a looming shape walks out of one of the walls with a much smaller one behind it and shouts out "CAN YOU ALL EXPLAIN TO ME, WHY YOU ARE HUNTING ONE OF MY CHILDREN?!"
Whoa
Karla stops at the loud voice, the gathers herself
Ah, because said child has been weaving a path of destruction, and we really want it to stop.
She looks at the others, then back to the shadow. Maybe diplomacy might have its day. Weirder things have happened.
Or more correctly, to maybe better direct it. To whom do I speak. I am Karla Firemane, sometimes called the little inferno.
Raok gathers all his courage and changes to his natural form as he steps forth.. "As great Karla the Flame says, you child has been causing much wanton death and destruction and this needs to stop."
she walks into sight range of the darkvision people. growling and hunched over like a cat about to pounce "you may call me Naxx. and we have always been walking winged calamities to you puny things, we have always- Crackle -raided the caravans throughout the decades. what makes this time so special, to bring such DOGGED pursuit to my doorstep? HMMM?"
the air around her is crackling and sparking now
and to be clear she is huge sized
"Oh ... Bugger!" Draalûsh thinks to himself as he puts his weapons away.
"Well, *ahem*, yes, O great and powerful Naxx, the thing is all of use are strangers to this place.
"The locals FORGOT to tell us about your august presence, of course.
"Our arrogant doggedness was brought about by our unfortunate ignorance."
”To be honest your Greatness we don’t want to be here ourselves. Your offspring hasn’t just raided a few carivans here and there. It has wiped out every carivan for weeks and good sized portions of the two nearest big settlements have been destroyed through mysterious means.”
”The populations are starving and the rulers are getting desperate themselves. They have been hiring professionals to hunt down your wyrmling, but we are not them we are normal people being turned out to look for the wyrmling, which is preferable to starving to death in the burned out districts.”
”Our species are but rats to yours, but surely you must see how starving all of the rats and pushing them from the sewers at once could be detrimental.”
”We had hoped to communicate, because we are actually opposed to the Consortium which controls the cities and our very lives.”
”Last night we observed while the wyrmling ambushed and killed the majority of the professional dragon hunters. Good work indeed, but., they will be back and I in greater numbers the next time. And if you doubt aren’t looking for that type of attention I assume.”
”Perhaps working together we can be mutually beneficial to all involved parties?”
Raok detects evil on the dragons or at least the big dragon
evil dragon is evil
She looks at you for a solid 10 seconds and says "Huh" and proceeds to grab her baby, which screams in protest, rips off its head and spits it at you.
"I don't need that b&@@@~&$ in my life, though if you are lying about much of the cities being destroyed it won't be a lie for much longer"
she continues to stand there, staring at you lazily wagging her tail
Yeah ... gone... Raok leaves
Jarek looks down at the freshly severed dragon head. "If it is all the same to you, Your… Dragon-ness, I am just going to take this with us." Provided Naxx doesn’t object, Jarek takes the younger dragon’s head with him. After they have exited the cave and gotten a short distance away, he explains, "If it is dead anyways, we might as well collect the bounty."
ok, that was extreme. Jared, I hope you know what you are doing.
ah, yes, thank you for your time, your azure highness. If we take proof of your offspring demise, the hunters will relent. If we have no other business, we will be on our way.
Karla backs away, bowing politely, serupticiosly looking out for the best line of retreat.
"Thank you, oh wise Naxx.
"Our business here is well and truly over.
"We'll just be on our way now."
Like Karla, Draalûsh will step back bowing (groveling, almost)
"Thank you your Greatness, if we can take this carcass back to show as proof you should have no more intrusions. If we could ask are there any settlements of our town that we could leave to? and if you could tell us how far?"
she just stares at you
you going back to claim the bounty?
Provided Naxx doesn’t object, Jarek takes the younger dragon’s head with him.
I'll assume you're going through the same process to get your magic stuff back in the city, it works.
the journey back is uneventful, except when you're 2 miles out Naxx flies overhead and sends the guard into a panic. they mobilize the siege equipment and get a few shots and a fireball off before she veers off back into the desert.
the watch is sending out a patrol to greet you all, what are you doing?
Making sure i'm in my halfling disguise other than that looking a bit smug
Karla draws her hood over her head, and tries to be inconspicuous.
Jarek pulls up his hood and stays towards the back of the group. If he sees any wanted posters of himself or Raok, he will pull them down if he thinks it can be done inconspicuously.
I'll make a wild assumption that Hashik is holding the dragon head.
the patrol of 10 guards come up, stare for a moment, and ask "how did you outrun the big one?"
Under a new guise, Hashik looks somewhat exasperated with raised eyebrows showing ernest.
”Well, outrun isn’t the right word. What in the known world can outrun something like that? Winged death itself.”
He makes a sweeping gesture with his hand that’s clutching the dismembered head sending a bit of half dried dragon blood flying
”Now if you mean, evade, remain out of sight, survive?!—Those are the right ones—and to be honest! I can’t believe it myself that I was able to make it back here before it caught up. Thank god you guys had the engines ready to go!”
Something occurs to the successful dragon hunter and his hands snap to his hips.
”Wait! Now I’m kinda pissed. Did they know there was a big dragon out there!? What the freak! Had I known that was out there I never would have gone. As it was you guys have any idea what one this size can do to an entire host of professionals?! It’s . . . It’s just . . . Unimaginable.”
Slipping into the horror of it all the man covers his mouth with a bloodied hand.
Karla is now trying hard not to giggle at Hashik's performance
Hmmm. Hashik seems like he might get offended if I interject, so let's just play it helpful and silent."
Raok stands to the side looking stern and capable.
it took a whole 3 minutes before anything fired. and Naxx circled the city once
hey man no one I know knew about more than one dragon. you want a proper officer to take that up with you can talk to Carlos. you'll be seeing him when you collect the bounty. do you need an escort into town?"
you also notice some smoke coming from the workers district. Naxx didn't do a damn thing to the town.
"The few guards around us, the less likely we are to be recognised in the wrong way!" Draalûsh thinks...
"A generous offer, but we should be good to reach this Carlos on our own."
if you want Jarek to meet the guard captain it will have to be at night when he can sneak your weapons back into the city. are you doing that?