The Battle for Tarithnesti (Part 4)
07 Deepkolt 349 AC
EN ROUTE TO TARITHNESTI
Kysek watches Dusk as she runs off into the woods. He turns, peering through the branches, and pulls out a scroll. The parchment cracks as the elf unrolls it. He begins to read. The ink begins to glow and smoke as each word is spoken aloud.
As the syllable leaves his lips, a sizzling hiss fills the air as a gleaming blade of pure energy made physical appears. Kysek points and the sword flies through the air, slashing at the wizard-bearing wyrm as if wielded by an invisible hand, slicing through the scales on the side of its snout.
The green dragon jerks its head to one side as the blade hits, forcing wyrm and rider to split their attention as Raven flies past. The dragon's head whips around, emerald jaws snapping shut where he had been a heartbeat earlier. Raven twists aside, avoiding fangs the size of a dagger.
The robed rider turns in the saddle, eyes widening as the warrior closes. Despite the danger, a smug smile spreads across the wizard's face.
"Fool!" he shouts over the roar of the wind. "I am protected by a spell that makes my skin impenetrable!"
Raven drives Nightwatcher forward.
The black blade punches through the wizard's chest as if it were wet paper. Raven yanks the blade up, slicing the wizard in half vertically from waist to shoulder.
Meanwhile, Kysek’s summoned blade flies away as Kysek directs it toward the other green dragon.
The riderless dragon grins as its partner's rider falls. It roars "HOLD STILL" at the other green and unleashes a torrent of caustic gas. Raven hears the command. The All-Speak translates. He turns his head and says, "Uh-oh."
The cloud of poison engulfs the dragon's back but Raven has already fallen away, dropping beneath the wyrm and away from the cloud.
While Kysek’s summoned blade continues to fight in the air above, the elf begins moving silently through the forest, back towards where the mentally-dominated rider fell from the sky. Calculations run through his head. Dusk's speed as she tried to shake her pursuers. The dragon's speed as it closed in on her. The acceleration of a falling body. The rider should be about 170' to the west, somewhere along the backtrail of the flight path the griffon and dragons took.
That narrowed the search considerably.
The problem is the forest.
The ancient elven woods are dense enough to turn a fatal fall into something less predictable. A falling body might have smashed straight through the canopy and struck the ground. It might have ricocheted from branch to branch, breaking limbs and slowing the descent. It might be hanging unconscious from a fork high in the trees. It could even have landed in a thicket or become entangled in vines dozens of feet above the forest floor.
He turns his attention behind him, starts looking for clues...Broken branches, freshly stripped bark, leaves still drifting downward. Despite the distant sounds of aerial combat, there is no obvious cry of pain, no movement through the undergrowth, no desperate call for help. If the rider survived, he is either unconscious, trapped, or remaining very still.
A moment later, he catches the glint of sunlight on metal. His gazes drifts upward. Suspended in some forty feet overhead, the dragon's ex-rider is sprawled across a thick limb. His helmet is still on, though dented along one side. Blood stains part of his armor where bark and branches ripped through flesh during the fall.
And unless Kysek is mistaken, one gauntleted hand twitches slightly against the bark.
"Not all-dead then," he thinks to himself.
The mage allowed his conjured sword to continue chasing the second wyrm. He closed his eyes for a moment and willed his enchanted boots to life. He began to rise soundlessly, floating upwards toward the fallen rider. He gently brushed branches aside as he closed in on the man.
He drew a blade. A single slash.
The rider's body twitched once and lay still. Kysek remained only long enough to make sure the job was done before descending back to the forest floor.
As he reached the ground, he turned his thoughts back to his conjured sword and the battle still taking place far overhead.
ALSO EN ROUTE TO TARITHNESTI (from the second farmhouse)
With one dragon one the ground writhing in agony, Romulus turns his attention to the one still in the air. He inhales sharply, stepping out from beneath his dome of force with arcane words forming on his tongue as he tracks the white dragon’s movement through the cold air.
The spell he shapes is meant to be ice: absolute, crushing winter.
But at the last instant, he twists it.
The elemental structure turns in his grasp.
Cold becomes heat. Frost becomes flame.
A blazing cone erupts outward, expanding fast across the distance toward the white dragon and its rider.
The effect is immediate and brutal. The white dragon is struck full-on. Its frost-hardened scales, already adapted to cold, offer no meaningful resistance to the sudden inferno. Steam flashes violently off its body as rime becomes vapor in a heartbeat. The creature roars—this time in shock more than defiance—as flame pours over its head, neck, and wings.
The rider is caught in the same blast. Twin screams join those of the first dragon as armor superheats, as scales explode, as fire rages in the sky above the forest.
As the pair emerged from the cone, the dragon loosed its breath weapon at the archmage.
A whiteout breath surged toward Romulus, an annihilating torrent of frost and compressed winter, rolling across the forest canopy in a screaming wall of subzero force.
Branches flash-freeze mid-sway. Leaves shatter like glass. Mist becomes jagged ice particles suspended for a fraction of a second before they are driven forward like shrapnel.
Romulus raises his left arm instinctively, turning his shoulder into the blast. The cold hits but it does not bite the way it should.
Annath’s Draft holds.
The elixir flares through his system like a remembered promise—cold resistance locking into place at a fundamental level. Frost crawls across his armor and cloak but cannot penetrate deeper. The air around him drops into lethal temperatures, yet his body refuses to surrender heat in the normal way. Ice builds on his sleeve, on his bracer, on the folds of his robe but it does not sink in.
The first dragon swayed drunkenly. Smoldering scales continue to drop off of its fire-ravaged body. One eye was gone, boiled away in the leaping arcs of flame. It spread its wings and beat them with what little strength it had remaining and rose slowly, painfully into the air and turned away to the north.
Romulus smiled grimly and began casting again.
AT THE CRYSTAL QUARRY
Axe in hand, Grotto smiles through gritted teeth at the foul lizards. He points his axe at them saying, "I will protect the innocent from the unjust!" As he throws at the first. "Vengeance will not be swift but brutal!" As he throws at the second. "War blesses us!" As he takes on the third. "My Gods be praised! None shall be left standing!"
The tunnel becomes a killing ground as the enraged dwarf's axe flies. Vaelin leads the attack from the elven end. Spearmen rush the draconians from behind. As the turn to defend themselves, Grotto strikes again. Finally, the draconians go back to back, shields raised to protect against the wolf-pack tactics but there aren't enough to left to execute their shield wall properly and they are picked apart, falling beneath the onslaught of dwarf and elf.
He drew a blade. A single slash.
The rider's body twitched once and lay still. Kysek remained only long enough to make sure the job was done before descending back to the forest floor.
As he reached the ground, he turned his thoughts back to his conjured sword and the battle still taking place far overhead.
ALSO EN ROUTE TO TARITHNESTI (from the second farmhouse)
With one dragon one the ground writhing in agony, Romulus turns his attention to the one still in the air. He inhales sharply, stepping out from beneath his dome of force with arcane words forming on his tongue as he tracks the white dragon’s movement through the cold air.
The spell he shapes is meant to be ice: absolute, crushing winter.
But at the last instant, he twists it.
The elemental structure turns in his grasp.
Cold becomes heat. Frost becomes flame.
A blazing cone erupts outward, expanding fast across the distance toward the white dragon and its rider.
The effect is immediate and brutal. The white dragon is struck full-on. Its frost-hardened scales, already adapted to cold, offer no meaningful resistance to the sudden inferno. Steam flashes violently off its body as rime becomes vapor in a heartbeat. The creature roars—this time in shock more than defiance—as flame pours over its head, neck, and wings.
The rider is caught in the same blast. Twin screams join those of the first dragon as armor superheats, as scales explode, as fire rages in the sky above the forest.
As the pair emerged from the cone, the dragon loosed its breath weapon at the archmage.
A whiteout breath surged toward Romulus, an annihilating torrent of frost and compressed winter, rolling across the forest canopy in a screaming wall of subzero force.
Branches flash-freeze mid-sway. Leaves shatter like glass. Mist becomes jagged ice particles suspended for a fraction of a second before they are driven forward like shrapnel.
Romulus raises his left arm instinctively, turning his shoulder into the blast. The cold hits but it does not bite the way it should.
Annath’s Draft holds.
The elixir flares through his system like a remembered promise—cold resistance locking into place at a fundamental level. Frost crawls across his armor and cloak but cannot penetrate deeper. The air around him drops into lethal temperatures, yet his body refuses to surrender heat in the normal way. Ice builds on his sleeve, on his bracer, on the folds of his robe but it does not sink in.
The first dragon swayed drunkenly. Smoldering scales continue to drop off of its fire-ravaged body. One eye was gone, boiled away in the leaping arcs of flame. It spread its wings and beat them with what little strength it had remaining and rose slowly, painfully into the air and turned away to the north.
Romulus smiled grimly and began casting again.
AT THE CRYSTAL QUARRY
Axe in hand, Grotto smiles through gritted teeth at the foul lizards. He points his axe at them saying, "I will protect the innocent from the unjust!" As he throws at the first. "Vengeance will not be swift but brutal!" As he throws at the second. "War blesses us!" As he takes on the third. "My Gods be praised! None shall be left standing!"
The tunnel becomes a killing ground as the enraged dwarf's axe flies. Vaelin leads the attack from the elven end. Spearmen rush the draconians from behind. As the turn to defend themselves, Grotto strikes again. Finally, the draconians go back to back, shields raised to protect against the wolf-pack tactics but there aren't enough to left to execute their shield wall properly and they are picked apart, falling beneath the onslaught of dwarf and elf.
Grotto goes to Cor and Vaelin, "Sorry my friends. I got overwhelmed by the call of the tower when there were lives here to be defended." Then he suggests his plan of action. "Let us push further to be able to evacuate and defend the vulnerable. Collapse the tunnel behind us so to won't be flanked so easily. Our way is forward to safety or death. I will take the lead. What say you?"
Grotto then goes to the wounded to see what aid he can render. Six elves fell holding the entry to the mineshaft. All of them are beyond the cares of this world. He whispers a prayer over each of the dead.
He turns his attention to the walking wounded, stitching and binding wounds with professional efficiency.
For a brief moment, the world shifts. Not outwardly. No one else reacts. But to Grotto, something vast and familiar presses at the edge of awareness... The bison, steady, ancient, and unyielding. It does not speak in words so much as certainty. A presence that weighs against the chaos of impulse.
A warning against acting on urgency alone. Against mistaking motion for necessity. Against charging forward without understanding the full shape of what lies ahead.
The vision ends abruptly. Cor and Vaelin both have hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently.
"Grotto... did you hear us?" Vaelin looks him in the face. "We said we would fall back into the caverns and drop the tunnels behind us."
Cor frowns. "We need to know you're with us. Otherwise, we'll continue holding the entrance until reinforcements arrive from the Tower."
Grotto snaps to. "Yes friends, let's proceed with that. I will help weaken the supporting beams with a few blows of my axe. That should show them enough."
Grotto then thinks to himself, "I understand my lord. I put them in danger thinking in haste."
Grotto feels his runes burn. Not with pain but with a warmth. He takes a deep breath and smiles knowing he has pleased his gods. "Thank you my lords for the boons. Justice and vengeance will be spread far and wide in this war!"
RA'ZIIR'S SQUAD (FLYING TOWARD TARITHNESTI)
Far above the forest, time resumes its normal flow. The dragons continue their dives.
And find nothing.
No flying elves. No black-robed elf wizard. No griffon.
Just trees and wind.
The lead dragon, the one with the armored rider, spreads its wings a pulls up sharply. Its companion veers left, sweeping around it to the north.
Vertically-slitted eyes sweep the horizon and find nothing. They allow their vision to slip into the spectrum of light that reveals those cloaked in invisibility. They sweep the area again and find nothing.
One dragon circles lower, sniffing for scent trails among the trees. The other climbs, seeking a better vantage point. Their riders exchange shouted words, pointing toward patches of disturbed canopy, but there are too many possibilities and too little certainty.
The elves were simply gone.
A furious roar echoes across the forest, shaking stubborn snow from where it still clings to branches in the early spring morning.
Miles away, Ra'ziir and his scouts weave between tree trunks, ducking beneath branches that flash by in a blur of motion.
The crystal quarry lies ahead. If these dragons and their riders were waiting for them along this path, then odds dictate that other elements of the Dragonarmy wait ahead, perhaps already laying siege to the sheltered tunnels of the mine or to the Protector’s Tower.
The dragons continue to circle, searching for their prey, buying the elven defenders time to make it back to the city - to protect those waiting there for them.
THE PROTECTOR'S TOWER
Parnitha races through Shadow’s conjured portal, reappearing at the base of the Tower with her next step. She howls through canine jaws, a shrill cry that unnerves several of the Kapaks. Her hammer comes across, slamming into the face of the draconian Eilra wounded.
The former Councilor leaps to take advantage, stabbing it in the chest before it can recover. The kapak collapses, instantly spreading into a pool of acid, forcing both elven women to leap aside before their boots can be engulfed.
Cedron glances over the side once more, selecting an attacker, measuring the speed of his weapon's swing and launches a parry as he steps through the portal. The moment he appears below, his Harmonic Blade catches the thrust of a kapak shortsword and turns it aside. Before the draconian even registers his presence, the minstrel-priest slashes it across the belly, driving it back several steps before running it through. That kapak instantly dissolves into acid as well.
Shadow raises his voice above the cries of the battle. “STAND BACK!!”
Stone erupts from the ground with grinding force. It rises, melding the the tower itself, forming a seamless barrier, trapping the kapaks outside.
As the dark elf's spell seals the entrance, he calls his allies together, "Come on, we're going to the quarry!"
Cedron looks up and see the crystal still powering up. "No! Not til the beacon does what it needs to do!"
Shadow pauses “Very well, that wall should hold them. How long does the beacon need?”
All eyes turn toward Parnitha. The commander looks utterly spent.The fury that had driven her through the fighting is fading. Her shoulders sag. Sweat streaks her brow. The adrenaline is finally beginning to release its grip. Her face shrinks, returning to its original proportions.
She leans heavily on her hammer and draws a long breath before answering.
"About a minute."
A heavy thud hits the barrier Shadow created. The draconians have found something they can use as a battering ram.
Grotto then goes to the wounded to see what aid he can render. Six elves fell holding the entry to the mineshaft. All of them are beyond the cares of this world. He whispers a prayer over each of the dead.
He turns his attention to the walking wounded, stitching and binding wounds with professional efficiency.
For a brief moment, the world shifts. Not outwardly. No one else reacts. But to Grotto, something vast and familiar presses at the edge of awareness... The bison, steady, ancient, and unyielding. It does not speak in words so much as certainty. A presence that weighs against the chaos of impulse.
A warning against acting on urgency alone. Against mistaking motion for necessity. Against charging forward without understanding the full shape of what lies ahead.
The vision ends abruptly. Cor and Vaelin both have hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently.
"Grotto... did you hear us?" Vaelin looks him in the face. "We said we would fall back into the caverns and drop the tunnels behind us."
Cor frowns. "We need to know you're with us. Otherwise, we'll continue holding the entrance until reinforcements arrive from the Tower."
Grotto snaps to. "Yes friends, let's proceed with that. I will help weaken the supporting beams with a few blows of my axe. That should show them enough."
Grotto then thinks to himself, "I understand my lord. I put them in danger thinking in haste."
Grotto feels his runes burn. Not with pain but with a warmth. He takes a deep breath and smiles knowing he has pleased his gods. "Thank you my lords for the boons. Justice and vengeance will be spread far and wide in this war!"
RA'ZIIR'S SQUAD (FLYING TOWARD TARITHNESTI)
Far above the forest, time resumes its normal flow. The dragons continue their dives.
And find nothing.
No flying elves. No black-robed elf wizard. No griffon.
Just trees and wind.
The lead dragon, the one with the armored rider, spreads its wings a pulls up sharply. Its companion veers left, sweeping around it to the north.
Vertically-slitted eyes sweep the horizon and find nothing. They allow their vision to slip into the spectrum of light that reveals those cloaked in invisibility. They sweep the area again and find nothing.
One dragon circles lower, sniffing for scent trails among the trees. The other climbs, seeking a better vantage point. Their riders exchange shouted words, pointing toward patches of disturbed canopy, but there are too many possibilities and too little certainty.
The elves were simply gone.
A furious roar echoes across the forest, shaking stubborn snow from where it still clings to branches in the early spring morning.
Miles away, Ra'ziir and his scouts weave between tree trunks, ducking beneath branches that flash by in a blur of motion.
The crystal quarry lies ahead. If these dragons and their riders were waiting for them along this path, then odds dictate that other elements of the Dragonarmy wait ahead, perhaps already laying siege to the sheltered tunnels of the mine or to the Protector’s Tower.
The dragons continue to circle, searching for their prey, buying the elven defenders time to make it back to the city - to protect those waiting there for them.
THE PROTECTOR'S TOWER
Parnitha races through Shadow’s conjured portal, reappearing at the base of the Tower with her next step. She howls through canine jaws, a shrill cry that unnerves several of the Kapaks. Her hammer comes across, slamming into the face of the draconian Eilra wounded.
The former Councilor leaps to take advantage, stabbing it in the chest before it can recover. The kapak collapses, instantly spreading into a pool of acid, forcing both elven women to leap aside before their boots can be engulfed.
Cedron glances over the side once more, selecting an attacker, measuring the speed of his weapon's swing and launches a parry as he steps through the portal. The moment he appears below, his Harmonic Blade catches the thrust of a kapak shortsword and turns it aside. Before the draconian even registers his presence, the minstrel-priest slashes it across the belly, driving it back several steps before running it through. That kapak instantly dissolves into acid as well.
Shadow raises his voice above the cries of the battle. “STAND BACK!!”
Stone erupts from the ground with grinding force. It rises, melding the the tower itself, forming a seamless barrier, trapping the kapaks outside.
As the dark elf's spell seals the entrance, he calls his allies together, "Come on, we're going to the quarry!"
Cedron looks up and see the crystal still powering up. "No! Not til the beacon does what it needs to do!"
Shadow pauses “Very well, that wall should hold them. How long does the beacon need?”
All eyes turn toward Parnitha. The commander looks utterly spent.The fury that had driven her through the fighting is fading. Her shoulders sag. Sweat streaks her brow. The adrenaline is finally beginning to release its grip. Her face shrinks, returning to its original proportions.
She leans heavily on her hammer and draws a long breath before answering.
"About a minute."
A heavy thud hits the barrier Shadow created. The draconians have found something they can use as a battering ram.
“Take cover in the stairwell and let’s hope the beacon fires up before the wall falls.” Shadow pulls his staff and prepares to meet his foes with it and his rapier.
“Shadow, we must protect the beacon. The kapaks can climb.” Cedron turns and runs up to the training hall on the second floor and then leaps out of a window. The Witching Cloak unfurls and he flies back up toward the top of the Tower and the Beacon.
Shadow says, “Fine.” He clicks his heels and engages his enchanted boots once again and races back up to the top of the tower. “Didn’t we just leave this party?”
“Shadow, we must protect the beacon. The kapaks can climb.” Cedron turns and runs up to the training hall on the second floor and then leaps out of a window. The Witching Cloak unfurls and he flies back up toward the top of the Tower and the Beacon.
Shadow says, “Fine.” He clicks his heels and engages his enchanted boots once again and races back up to the top of the tower. “Didn’t we just leave this party?”
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