Wings of Fury 2

Once her armor is properly extinguished, Rozenn nods happily towards her saviors, grinning ear to ear! She notices Gwen, gives her a whistle, and points her to the far end of the woods. A simple command, one Gwen ought to know fairly well - get over there and wait.

Once she's gone, Roze will scurry up the wall and try to start shoving rubble down onto the dragon! If that proves unfeasible, she'll try to reunite with Comete on the wall.

Holek and Brom jumped off Gwen and began tending to Rozenn. Holek quickly cooled her armor somewhat with the Second Song, while Brom administered some salves to aid with the pain. Rozenn didn't wait around long before sending Gwen to wait in the forest. Reaching the top of the inner wall after some stumbling and bumbling, she saw the dragon preparing to blast her two friends, and could do nothing but throw rocks to try to prevent it!

***

Guillairme, Caulind, and Grok managed to reach the gatehouse, rushing through and beginning to climb the inner wall. They reached it in time to see Henri getting ripped into by the vengeful dragon. The knight still had his sword in his right hand, and was doing his best to deflect the blows, but the dragon was far too resilient and powerful for him to match in this way! It was a terrible sight, and Caulind's mind was filled with agony from the link!

***

Avag threw his axe at the dragon's head, causing it to chip one of the dragon's face spines and GREATLY annoy her. She turned her head away from Henri to shoot a blast of fire at them as they charged down at her, which was fortunately interrupted by a rather sudden blast of ice...

***

Terzi and Zaya climbed over the outer and inner walls together, but that was where Terzi opted to stop. She wasn't nearly as foolhardy and bold as the rest of this ridiculous group! Zaya, however, ran around the wall to the point nearest the dragon and jumped off. Unleashing a blast of ice mid-air, the dragon's face was rather suddenly coated in a distressing amount of ice as she was turned away from Henri to blast the others. This blinding frigid blast combined with the sideways angle of her head was all the distraction Henri needed, and he raised his sword for a final plunge, stabbing it right through the dragon's eye.

She dropped him as she let out a final, reflexive cry. Stumbling towards him with a few shambling steps, she made one last weak attempt to bite him before collapsing to the floor.

Naissyri was dead, and despite his injuries Sir Henri the Red Thorn had not yet perished. Slumping back to lean against the keep's doorway, he let out a few gasping laughs. He was coughing up blood, was covered in mild burns, had a number of broken bones, and looked absolutely dreadful.

Zaya, her fall somewhat slowed by the torrent of ice she'd blasted down into the dragon's face, landed in a relatively graceful combat roll by the dragon's side. She started moving to get the hell out of the way when she saw, from the corner of her eye, a sword go directly into the dragon's eye.

He'd actually done it.

Zaya stopped, watching the dragon fall, then looked up to give a thumbs-up to Terzi. She was somehow uninjured from that stunt, which was honestly better than she'd been hoping for. It was a stupid move. But it was also the necessary move.

Before she had much more time to think about it, Zaya noticed Sir Henri's state, and raised her voice to call out to the others. "Medic! He's still alive! Barely! Might not last!"

Terzi would, surroundings allowing, do a sweet swing down with her whips down to Henri.

“Give me space, give me space. Rozenn, listen to my voice while you confirm the dragon’s death, please.”

She kneels next to Henri and starts dressing his wounds to stop him from bleeding out, humming a soothing Second Song to alleviate the pain of listeners and help Henri’s bleeding stop.

Caulind sort of, squinted out at the fall of Naissyri, with the others watching the end of such a powerful creature. There was a flash of twisted anguish at the stab into their eye, his own hand covering his own. The erratic song continued still anyway despite it all, trained enough to keep it going despite pain and distraction as he proceeded to continue to enter the keep, needing to get closer before the frayed connection snapped.

Once down there, he let himself crumple into a little ball about 12 feet from Henri, close enough to more easily keep drawing the pain off from Henri.

The hum of Terzi took an edge of it off, letting the death-spider-like curl up ease up into a more proper-looking meditative state.

"That was incredible!" said Avag, bounding up to where Henri was getting treated. He didn't have any magic that would help the knight, but he could offer him some more mundane encouragement. "You actually did it! You gotta pull through now! You stabbed her right in the eye! I mean yeah, we were able to keep her distracted so she didn't just kill you, but you really went ahead and did it! The dragon is dead! Now you gotta live to talk about it!"

Terzi looked up from threading a needle, having pulled out both a small sewing kit and a small kit of first aid supplies, and she shot Avag a sharp look.

“You can tell him this later. Space, please. I must stabilize him before I can pull out my instrument and channel the Song more strongly.”

She went back to humming as she returned to tending to Henri. Her voice was melodic but not consistent, as if she was searching for the right tune.

Comète came down and approached the dragon, venting the last of her built up heat and pulling her visor back up. She gave each of the people she walked by an appreciative nod and knelt to investigate the corpse of the powerful being. Wasn’t every day you get to see this.

Avag hopped backwards, massaging his burnt arms. "Okay, okay! I thought the encouragement might help him!"

Appropriately chastised, he went to go join Comète in inspecting the dragon's corpse.

With the arrival of a medic, Zaya managed to finally relax (as much as she could minutes after jumping off a building onto a dragon). She stepped away and joined Comète and Avag in inspecting the dead dragon.

"...Well. Guess that's. How dragons are supposed to die."

"I guess," said Avag, seemingly finally running short on words. He went to go and retrieve the axe he threw.

Comète reached out and pressed a hand to the scales of the dragon, looking thoughtful. She pulled out her notepad and started jotting down preliminary notes on the dragon’s hide, using that incomprehensible shorthand of hers to write down things like apparent tensile strength, hardness, etc. Partway through she seemed to realize something, turned to her two companions, and spoke briefly. “Good work. That was impressive.”

Guillairme could not scramble down the wall as quickly as Terzi with her whips, but stepping down to a rubbled portion gave a lower wall to drop down from. He spoke to Sir Henri as he went, using the link poor, pained Caulind had set up. <A fine end to the battle but you're not out of it yet. Keep fighting, Henri--can you Sing still?>

"..." Zaya stared at the dragon's corpse for a good while before speaking again. She was a little distracted. "Right. Yes. Impressive. ...Nice work. Both of you."

Another long pause as she walked around to the dragon's head area. Her expression turned nervous as she almost reflexively jumped away, looking the dead Naissyri in the eye. "Well. There she is. A real dragon. Never been this close before. ...Hate this. Remember anything? At all? Anything new? Just the same?" She was not talking to anyone but herself.

Holek hops into the ruins. He has seen, and kinda, warded off real dragonfire! Such an amazing day! He sees Sir Henri's sorry state, and takes off his hat in symphathy. "hanginthere..." he utters...

Rozenn stares sadly at the scene before her. The dragon had to die; there was no doubt in her mind, there. She had no mercy in her heart, no desire for peace, and demanded their subjugation rather than doing diplomacy. Still, it was a sad thing to watch such any creature die, and one so old and beautiful as this deserved special reverence.

Then Terzi speaks to her, reminds her of what duty she might still have. If the dragon is not yet dead, she still poses a threat to the party. More importantly, though, there's a chance she's still suffering. Her elders had told her stories of souls which refused to believe they were dead, and in refusing made prisons of their old flesh. Such souls would experience the final pains of death constantly until they accepted their lives had ended. This, the elders told her, was why it was important to give a slain opponent a final strike as an act of kindness and compassion. This would keep you from ever forgetting the cruelty of killing.

Naissyri wasn't a good person, but everyone deserved mercy.

So Rozenn clutches her fist to her chest and offers a silent prayer to the heavens.

<May you find peace in the gentle dark; and may soft sounds bring you eternal comfort.>

She turns to Brom and signs quickly, trusting him to communicate for her.

[I am going to make sure Naissyri is dead, for our safety and for her repose. Let the others know for me, if you would be so kind, so that I do not look like I am some wild stabber of the dead.]

With that, she turns once more to Naissyri and draws her blade. She approaches, looks for an open point near her chest or throat, and thrusts her blade into whichever part seems the most vulnerable. She's aiming for either the carotid or the heart.

Comète looked over at Rozenn and tilted her head slightly, curiously. She reached out towards her, trying to signal for her attention. "Rozenn, dear, please don't make any more wounds like that." Saying no more, Comète turned back and began writing in her notepad once more, though she did approach the place Rozenn had stabbed in and began to note several more things about the way the blade pierced the dragon.

By the time Grokzurl arrives in the fray, arrow nocked, the struggle is already over. It had all seemed to happen so quickly; he'd spent so much time trying to catch up, he hadn't even come within 20 feet of the beast until she'd already been slain. He looks towards Sir Henri, whose wounds look rather serious despite Terzi's efforts to mend him. Grok hopes that he can return home in one piece; he'd certainly proven himself worthy of the title 'Dragon Slayer'. Grokzurl on the other hand had only proven that he's no better than the glorified bard Henri had asked them all to be. He smiles with his new friends, sharing in their celebrations, but keeps mostly to himself, wallowing in shame and a piercing sense of defeat.

Terzi glances over when Rozenn stabs the dragon. She’d meant for the knight to check for a pulse, but that would work.

She returns he attention to Henri, trying to finish stabilizing the man so she could move on to more potent Song healing. Her humming seemed to have settled on a soothing, consistent tune.

Guillairme glanced at the knight stabbing the dead dragon. Given that the scholar had confirmed the dragon's death, she probably meant to keep it from rising again.

Unfortunately, stabbing a corpse did little to prevent undeath, unless the implement itself was enchanted for such.

"Do not fret, Dame Rozenn. I will ensure the dragon is at rest, once the area is clear of patients. They do not rise in mere minutes." He reassured her. Guy was confident in his deathsinging, and did not worry that he would hit targets he did not intend to with an exorcism...but it was tempting fate nonetheless to sing near the gravely injured.

Terzi’s focus was briefly broken by a look of severe concern at Guy’s (likely accidental) implication that some dragons can rise from the grave. She shook her head and quickly returned to the pressing business at hand.

"Oh wow, crisp like a cookie, well...at least he's getting help."

Brom helps Terzi with the healery. Yay! Plant magic.

Terzi and Brom busied themselves tending to Henri's wounds, and the knight gave a thumbs up to Avag, Gui, Holek, and anybody else who expressed concern. Meanwhile, others in the group inspected the dragon corpse, gaining insight into the layout of the scales, tensile strength, anatomy, and whatever else they were looking for. After about a half hour, Henri's wounds were finally stabilized, and Guillairme got to work performing funeral rites for the dragon. The spirit had already passed on, so they didn't prove to be difficult.

After yet another half hour, Henri was finally well enough to stand, and he weakly stood up with a smile.

"Thank you both. What a fight that was," he finally said, his voice somewhat raspy. "All right...before we go check on the lair, I am going to commit to giving you each one-tenth of what we find in there. No ifs, ands, or buts. I'm not oblivious to the fact that your actions saved my life, and you've earned this reward in addition to what I'm paying you."

With a nod, he readied his sword and went through the gates of the keep with the party behind him. The entry hall was lit by numerous braziers and glowing crystal lights, providing a colorful ambiance. All of the stairways down into the lower levels had been caved in, and the building itself honestly didn't look that safe to live in. Some of the support pillars were crumbling, a few walls had fallen down, and the ceiling had a number of holes.

At the end of the great hall, where statues of the dwarven ancestors had once stood, was the dragon's hoard. Rather than gold, silver, or gemstones as one might expect, there were instead ten pristine dragon eggs. They were each a different color, being purple, gold, teal, blue, black, green, red, bronze, silver, and white.

"Ramay's divine ascendance," Henri said in shock. "She was protecting eggs..."

He seemed almost sad about this, knowing that he'd just slain a mother. He approached them, inspecting them closely.

"Zaya, do you know anything about dragon eggs?" Henri asked her, kneeling next to them. "Are these going to hatch?"

Terzi, who had been angrily inspecting the ruined exits into the lower levels, strode in, giving the knight a glare.

“Be careful, you fool, you’ll tear the stitches I put in. You shouldn’t even be moving, much less bending over-“

She noticed the eggs.

“Hm. Unfortunate. Hopefully they won’t hatch.”

Zaya had actually moved ahead of Sir Henri as the party marched through the ruins - this was her actual specialty, here, and she had to remind herself to let the rest of the party keep up. It was almost instinctual to move ahead, considering she normally worked with mercenaries who operated under a very strict "first come, first serve" approach.

On spotting the eggs, though, she froze, clearly not expecting that the dragon was a mother. That complicated things. She shook herself out of it when Henri addressed her. "Need to check. Unlikely. Dragon eggs... I think die without the care of a dragon, unless they're. Very close to hatching. Going to find out."

Zaya knelt by the eggs and pulled out a large book, which she quickly flipped through to a page depicting a diagram of a dragon egg. She set that on the ground and carefully lifted up the purple egg, inspecting it, listening at the shell, and so on. After a few minutes of cautious prodding, she lowered it again and turned to the group as a whole, a deeply concerned expression on her face.

"They're going to hatch. Within a week. These eggs are viable. Which means." Zaya glanced at the egg closest to her again. "Baby dragons. Baby dragons that need to be cared for. ...Maybe by us. Who else would? Another dragon, maybe. But we'd need to find one. Not enough time."