Session 28: Red Report
General Summary
In a whiff of magic, the party is whisked away, the smell of the beautiful city of Orzhov quickly replaced by a thick ash coating every surface. The beat of wings in the air is drowned out by a loud bell rung from numerous places throughout the cobbled streets. Shouting, warrior cries, crossbows and their whizzing bolts, and the sound of armor clanking greets the party as they find that the city of Scalare is partly on fire. A soldier, carying a spear with a strange bone tip atop it, breaks from his unit to confront the party.
"NO CIVILIANS OUT OF THE BUNKER!" He yells out as his unit skatters to avoid a breath of dragon fire, coming from a huge red dragon as it decends onto the city, its hide pierced with several large balista bolts. "If you are here to FIGHT then grab a weapon and shoot these bastards out of the sky!"
The soldier notes the spellcasters in the party, "If you can cast spells," He shouts, pointing towards a few towers along the walls of the city with glowing bolts firing out from the top, "Grab a balista. If not, grab a crossbow, if still not, wait for one to come down. First come first serve!" He shouts in a warcry before charging off into the town, towards the sound of roaring down another road. "FOR SCALARE! FOR CINEROSA!" He shouts out, leaving the party to their own devices.
With a snap of Ayame's fingers, Sebastian materializes, a tower shield held high to keep Ayame safe.
A blue dragon flies directly over the party making a strafing run along the rooftops as metal shingles burst and clattering to the cobbled streets below while the dragon flies away, a few fresh crossbow bolts sticking out of its belly.
Eleanor clicks her tongue in frustration, letting out a sigh as she pulls out her crossbow Calypso, "Of fuckin course our timing is this bad." she says, looking to the sky and taking aim.
"W-what the fuck is going on!?" Naomi shouts as she comes out of her state of shock being in a wartorn city.
Ayame and Ragia scramble up to get to different towers as fast as they can. They both reach the top of one of the turret towers to also see that beyond the walls of the city, a small army of skeletons is starting to form, circling above them a black dragon shouting instructions in draconic. On top of that, another group of people seems to be barreling through the gates, though it is difficult to make out what they are from as far away as the party is. The two spellcasters finds a note on the balista in common. "Aim, then cast. Balista does the rest."
Ayame, listens as hard as she can, her fox like ears twitching to listen to the black dragon yelling in the distance. "Go minions. Take their lives, and bring me their bodies. More minions for Anguish!"
Ragia makes her way to the top of her tower just as a wyvern snatches up one of the soldiers from the turret, and consumes part of him in mid air, dropping the mans corpse somewhere around town.
Eleanor, after having issues shotting at dragons from the streets below, starts climbing the ruins of a nearby building as she shouts towards Naomi. "This is a regular event here! Kill what you can or find a safe place."
Ayame takes ahold of the balista, and starts aiming it at the black dragon while Naomi tries to find a balista for herself, making her way towards the gate. She finds that those trying to enter the city were panicked soldiers wearing nothing but rags and crude spears. The closer that the skeletons from the black dragons approached, the more fearful they became and vigorously fought against the soldiers of Credell, who were weraing more robust lether and metal gear.
Ragia takes her aim at the blue dragon going about town, cursing under her breath for a balista being way too big for someone her size before she fires, her aim true as she lets loose a fireball spell into the ballista, which lets forth a flaming bolt of lightning that strikes the dragon with a roar. The dragon, singed, but undeterred, turns around and starts heading for Ragia's tower with lightning crackling at its maw. "Oh shit!" She says before hopping as fast as they can down the hatch of the tower.
Meanwhile, Ayame focuses her most powerful spell that she can and aims towards the black dragon flying over its minions in the distance. She concentrates, and lets loose her spell, causing an explosion that knocks her into sebastian, who wraps his protective arms around her as they fall to the ground with a thud. The last thing she sees however was a pure bolt of energy flying out towards the dragon, severing one of its wings and causing it to plummit to the ground, destroying numerous soldiers it has just created. It licks at its wounds for a moment before growling and looking towards the city. Sebastian stands the two of them up, and pats away a little singe on Ayame's tail. She and sebastian look at one another for a moment before Ayame decides she needs to help out at the front gate, and hops onto sebastians shoulders, and runs to join Naomi in the fray.
Naomi meanwhile makes her way into the ballista, and quickly aims it nearly perfectly downwards at the tower, letting lose her divine energy to blast away a large portion of the undead that were approaching the scared anguish soldiers.
Eleanor sees her opportunity as the blue dragon starts to charge at Ragia's tower, she throws her crossbow to the side before Cassanda appears in her hand, and charges to intercept the flying beast. Just as it was about to blast the tower, Eleanor jumps and slams Cassandra into its face, the both of them dropping to the ground while the dragon roars in its pain and confusion.
Meanwhile, the black dragon starts its march towards the town, a red dragon is heard roaring from deeper within the center of Scalare, and wyverns start dropping boulders from overhead as one of the tallest buildings within the cityy open up its roofbound doors, with several flying creatures holding spears charging throughout the air to fight the wyverns 1v1.
Ragia peeks up from the hatch she hid in and sees the wyverns dropping their boulders, as well as a white dragon decending quickly into the city, dropping in like a falcon hunting its prey. She decides to run up to the balista again, and fire another fireball at the wyvern, before it explodes and knocks the kobold into the wall. Ragia feels the wind knocked out of her and starts crawling her way down the tower, trying to get to somewhere with a little safety.
Meanwhile, Eleanor has a huge grin on her face while she stands up and looks to the blue dragon she felled. She holsters Cassandra, and charges at the dragon while a corrosive aura begins to surround her presence, while she charges the dragon into a puch, before grabbing onto it, to let the aura finish it off. The dragon flails in agony while Eleanor fights, even getting one last bite into herleg before the acid overwhelms its defenses and drops dead at her feet. Eleanor lets out a chuckle, and spits on the dragon before moving towards the gate to find her comrads.
Naomi spots the white dragon divebombing the city as well, and lets loose a bolt of force energy nearly straight up at the white dragon, which nearly misses by the air along its scales aas the dragon lets a low strafing run through the city, shattering four small buildings as its lets loose a breath of frost throughout before trying to get back up out of the city with heavy wing beats. Naomi takes a moment to breath, and aims her balista again at the dragon, as its bolt of pure energy goes straight through the dragons torso. "Heck yeah! Sweet!!" Naomi says jumping up and down in excitement.
Ayame reaches the front gates, and seeing the skeletons still marching towards the panicked anguish troops, buffets them with bullets of air mixed with stray bone and steel, forcing their advance to stop, while she dismantles them bone by bone. She easilly defeats the skeletons, and clears the way for the army of anguish as they drop their weapons and fall to their knees to beg for mercy. Some of the soldiers pick up those surrendering and start bringing them to the bunkers while a few stragglers of the skeletons manage to make their way up to the gate while Sebastian charges forward, Ayame on his shoulder and decimates them via a few choice punches. Ayame takes the moment to simply watch, and breath after spending so much magical power.
The white dragon tries to fly over towards the party in an attempt to escape, but it seems his injuries aren't allowing it to take flight at this time. Eleanor takes a pot shot at the dragon as it approaches while Naomi lets loose another balista bolt at the dragon, which soars high over him and causes a building behind the dragon to explode. The dragon lets out a quick huff as its lands, letting out a layer of fog that starts to envelop the city streets, cutting off sight as it drops within the fog. Even ragia sees this as they are about to get into the safety of a bunker, before pausing and thinking to themselves for a few long moments, before letting out one last fireball before ducking into cover. Ayame sees this and hops off sebastian as he runs to engage the wounded dragon in a charge.
Eleanor looks to the party as they start to gather, save for the kobold, before Naomi cries out. "This is.. a little much dont you think? And yeah...I guess we should?? Im just...shocked that this is happening..."
Eleanor shrugs. "Welcome to Cinerosa." She says as the sound of a sword being drawn from the white dragon. Ayame doesn't see what happens, but she does see the freshly decapitated head of a white dragon land directly in front of her, and the fog starts to dissapate. Meanwhile, Naomi and Eleanor see a man running along the rooftops with a massive axe in his hand, towards the gate of the city, while a loud roar is heard from the center of town, with a large red dragon starting to fly towards the gate, with many of the dragons and wyverns above starting to retreat from the city. Ayame picks up the dragons head. "Good job sebastian!" She calls out.
"Eleanor... Did you just see that guy?"
Before even Eleanor starts to speak, the city starts to cry out, as dragon slayers from all over the city start shouting in Unison, to the man trying to stay ahead while he runs from rooftop to rooftop. "WREN! WREN! WREN! WREN! The city cries out as the red dragon starts to ascend. The man himself is very thin, with an axe that looks obnoxiously larger than any man his size, muscles or not, should be able to use. His boots glow with a magical aura as his belt and lether shorts start to gloow with an em blazoned symbol of a red hammer, one that Eleanor would recognize as the crest of Cinerosa as he jumps high into the air just before the red dragon is about to pass the gate. He swings down and chops his axe into the dragons kneck, decapitating it as its warm blood splatters over the the gate itself, and its body falls to the ground, along with Wren, the leader of The Kingdom of Cinerosa himself, using its corpse as a landing pad. Hurras then sing from every corner of the city as the dragons retreat.
With the dragon slain, the bells within the city cease ringing and warrior cries ring out from every street within Scalare. Wren pulls up his axe with one hand, holding onto the horns of the decapitated red dragon with another as everyone floods towards the gates to celebrate the victory.
Ragia makes her way out from the bunker and gets back to the rest of the party, still not too afraid now that the bells have stopped ringing.
Wren turns to the gathered audience of dragonslayers and warriors.
"What happens when a dragon attacks our CITY?" Wren calls out as many people chant, "They never leave alive!" the dragon slayers call out. "What happens when a dragon takes one of our OWN?" He calls out again, "We take ten more in his place!" The dragonslayers call out again. "Who are WE?" "Cinerosa!" "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" "CINEROSA" "ONE-MORE-TIME!" "FOR CINEROSA!" all the dragonslayers start to call out. Even the party feels envigorated as ayame chants along with the gathered warriors.
Eleanor puts away her weapons as a light smile crosses her face while watching the slayers celebrate. "Well, wish I could join em but I've stuck out enough for today. New leader seems charismatic though, good to see." She says cracking her shoulder and checking her leg for blood, finding only a bruise where she was bitten.
"NOW let me hear your battle cry dragonslayers of old!" He calls out, putting a hand to his ear as many MANY people let loud a roar. He waves his hand in the air, hoping away from the dragon calling for them to be louder, before putting his hand up to stop. "Now let us see new dragonslayers today! Let me see, give me your voices and give us your faces!"
two random people from the croud, a younger mage, and the soldier with a spear that gave the party instructions earlier make thier way forward, with the soldier shouts out. "I claim the title of Dragonslayer! he calls out along with the mage who triumphantly holds up his hands. Wren runs up to them both with a laugh and a hug. "Kill a thousand more before you sleep friends!" He says as Ayame timidly steps out into the open as well.
Eleanor seems to be enjoying herself conservitavely as she pats Naomi's shoulder. "Get up there Ms Dragonslayer."
Wren makes his way to Ayame and gives her a hug. "The whites may be easy prey for a normal wizard, but you are far from normal, and well welcome for protecting our people outsider!" He calls out with a yell as another wave of cheers are heard.
"If you say so..." Naomi says before stepping out of the crowd herself. "I am Nahema Dai'Gishkin, Slayer of Dragons!" She calls out.
The crowd is quiet for a few moments when she says her name, Wren approaching her with a beaming smile. "WE HAVE A CHILD OF A LEGEND GETTING A RIGHTFULLY DUE TITLE!" He cries out and hugs Naomi, kissing her cheek as the dragonslayers go absolutely balistic at the news.
Naomi frowns at the ksis on her cheek, but overall blushes at the cheering. "T-thanks everyone... no need to get so loud.." she murmurs. "But I have one more friend here that did some work killing these dragons, and I don't want her being left out." She says pointing to Eleanor, chatting with Ragia about wanting to hid their scales and making them part of the limelight.
Wren pats Naomi on the shoulder. "Being humble only prevents your glory, thank you sister." He says before basically jogging to Eleanor and patting the taller lady on the shoulder. "I know not your name, but the city takes pride in your glory, as should you." He says in a normal tone, while Naomi just looks at Wren with the most confused look on her face that she has ever kept. She has never held this level of comradery before from random people.
Eleanor looks a little awkward upon being approached, letting out a bit of a chuckle alongside a nod, "Well thanks, no glory needed for myself though, I've been here for these before, y'all did great yourselves Mr. Leader."
Wren smiles and looks back to the crowd, holding up his axe with both hands. "BRING OUT THE BEER! BRING OUT THE WINE! BRING OUT THE HEADS OF THE FALLEN TO REBUILD THE HOUSES THEY DESTROYED! TONIGHT, WE FEAST!" He cries out and the dragon slayers get to work, cheering and gathering everything they can. Wren points out the red dragon, "Keep his skin, I want that heart on a PLATE!"
"Ew." Ayame mutters about the plate.
Eleanor lets out an oo, before looking to the blue dragon. "That's temptin..."
The bunkers of the city start to empty out and people go about their business, putting out fires, and rebuilding the town, as music and entertainment flood the streets. Even the corpses of the fallen are quickly picked up, with everyone in the city doing their part.
After a quick consecration of the black dragons corpse from outside the city, the party collects the skin and bones of their dragons before the meat is carted off and taken away.
While Eleanor was skinning her own blue dragon, Ragia speaks up to Eleanor. "Why were there a bunch of people attacking the main gate? And why did they have such terrible equipment?"
Eleanor hums as she packs away the skin. "Anguish abducts folks for slavery. If they get them alive, they end up like that." she says, gesturing to the people being cared for, "The ones who don't live during the abduction end up in those skeleton army's I believe. Basically colored dragons attack, kill and steal whatever folks they can, then attack again later with those folks as slave soldiers. Truly makes killing these fucks guilt free."
Ragia looks over and sees a green dragonborn having some wounds patched up while she hums. "So they're good guys who really need a good hug after all they went through right?"
"I guess maybe. Never know what they went through though, and how they adapted. I've never really gotten involved if i'm bein honest."
Ragia takes Eleanors words to heart , and makes their way over towards the green dragonborn.
The dragonborn looks strong, like all dragonborns, but starved and weakened. He looks exausted to a point where he looks more like a skeelton wrapped in scales than an actual dragonborn, but he slowly eats some rations while his stomach growls at him. Ragia helps him by bringting him food and blankets, and even feeds him by hand while the dragonborn looks over the golden scales while he eats. "Rynasen?"He says softly.
Ragia blushes, fiddling with their rags they used to try and cover up their scales, but nods in acknowledgement.
"I always hoped to be saved by Rynasen... Its the only hope those in anguish can cling too."
"ah, well i'm not an official envoy of rynasen, sadly, but i am planning to go there once we're done with the information gathering here. i'll try to give an update on the situation once i'm there. in the meantime, if you need anything, just let me know, i'd be happy to help any way i can."
"They said they would look into getting me a place to rest, some coin to get me started, and some work to get life back on track..." he says in Draconic to Ragia. "I don't know what else I would need... I'm native."
"Well.. if you need help getting back on your feet, or just some company, i'm here, how about that?"
"Im not familiar with that expression..." He replies. "Back on your feet?"
"oh, uh, hmm.. i guess it's something like getting back your strength, getting better. i mean, i hope no offence, but you look like you need a lot of rest and relaxation.. and food."
The dragonborn looks at Ragia for a few moments. "I... I suppose I could use my strength. Where umm..." he thinks for a few long moments."Where do we go?"
As naomi finishes her concentration, a dragonslayer happens to be passing by, and notices. He talks to them about using the skin to try to make it into armor to see if it has any special effects, but it would take two days to prepare and 2000 gold. Naomi agrees and allows him to do what he needs.
Naomi hands him 1500, and he starts to skin the beast. "Do you have a place to stay? Its easier to get a messenger to you there."
Naomi frowns at this and shakes her head. "No but... I assume it'll be a local tavern for the night. Do you have a reccomendation? I just got here today after all."
The dragonslayer nods. "First time? Go to hell." he says with a serious nod. "Everyone goes to hell first time in the city."
Naomi raises an eeybrow at the man. "O-ooookaaaaaay... I'll go do that... Thanks??" The say before the man nods and continues his work on skinning the dragon.
Naomi makes her way to the party, and lets them know to go to thell to find a place to sleep, before making her way to the tavern, with the rest of the party following.
The party arrives to "Hell," Save for Eleanor, who steps away to grab some supplies. They find themselves a tavern with four giant skulls making up the roof with different effects spouting from each face in the cardinal directions. To the south, a torent of flame shoots out from the dragons mouth. Painting on the south side of the building, on the door, paintied on the fire dragons skull it reads out "Hell." The building is also painted bright yellow, and stands at two stories tall, with the front door having people entering and leaving at breakneck paces. The other heads aren't nearly as entertaining, with ice chips firing upwards from the north head, and falling back into the building every so often with the wind. The east head is a green dragons head, dripping water, and a blue dragons head shining a light towards the west, though it is not very visible during the daytime that the party arrived.
"Oh, I see why it's called Hell now Ayame." Naomi says with a nod.
Ayame nods in return. "Y-yeah! So do I..."
The party after admiring the skulls, make their way inside, as even Ragia has to pull her green dragonborn cohort along with them as he is in awe from the massive size of the skulls above the tavern, denotating only the most ancient of dragons ever to have been fought, and slain, only to be used for the purpose of amusement for the masses.
Rewards Granted
Dragonslayer: Given to Ayame Shiori, Nahemah Dai'Gishkin, and Eleanor Primrose.
Blue Dragon Hide: Eleanor
Consecrated Black Dragon Hide: Naomi. Being turned into magical armor.
White Dragon Hide & Teeth: Ayame
Character(s) interacted with
Wren
