07.02a: Sufficiently Advanced (Scorched Landing)

[Sadie]

Both before and after the few posts respectively.

Kiss scene: In Solten's head while blushing, "I... I'm not taking charge... I'm just... winning the contest..." Said outload after Solten's verbal comment. "Yeah..." breathing a little heavier herself and blushing a bit more. "W...We have a dragon to slay."

During the trip she divulges her plan to the others, who agree it should work. Before they reach the cave proper she hides her leash and collar under a rock. "There could be a lot of fire flying about, these are special and I don't want to risk them being harmed." She explains.

The actual combat should be in another post soonish... maybe over the weekend, not sure.

[Joshua]

(after much back and forth and confusion.)

You enter the cave at teh top of the path. It is strewn with scorch marks and claws, many battles were fought here. The cave itself is strewn with gold and precious gems, giving it a yellow sheen that catches all ambient light from the setting sun.

In an impressive show of dark showman-ship, the dragon rears up almost 30' in the center of the room and booms "Who dares invade my-"

Oberon doesn't let him finish. Solten and Oberon move with their hooked polearms and scythes and flank the dragon. The back and forth takes a few minutes, the dragon is a hard to pin down master of death, but he's outmatched, and soon the polearms are tearing the wing membranes to uselessness.

"Sadie, now!" Oberon says maneuvering to give Sadie the shot she wanted.

[Sadie]

Sadie runs in hefting her BFC and says in a bad Cuban accent. "Say hello to my little friend!" And with that she takes a shot hitting square in the chest. Sadly it doesn't quite pierce all the way through to the heart. "Keep him pinned boys!" She shouts as she starts cranking the BFC string back into position.

The dragon roars, and then shudders a little as the acid and poison starts to creep it's way to his heart and his inevitable death. His gaze turns to Sadie with hate in his eyes, and with a roar he charges her with one though in his mind. "I'm taking her with me." He tears his wings to shreds in the process, to a dying dragon, however, it is of little consequence.

Sadie upon seeing the game is on, sooner than expected mind you, she with sad resignation throws the BFC at the dragon's front leg tripping him up slightly and giving her enough time to run to the ledge beyond the cave entrance and turn around with a imaginary look a fear on her face. This imaginary look quickly changed to a real one as she is suddenly gripped by a wave unnatural terror that freezes her in her tracks. This causes her to hesitate just long enough that the dragon's fiery breath overwhelms her enveloping her in vicious flames.

With a scream of pure agony Sadie snapped out of the dragon's hold on her psyche and pulled the shield and lance up just in time for them to do their jobs. This time it was the dragon that screamed but only for a moment as the lance pierced his heart and finished what the BFC bolt had started. As the fire clears Sadie can be seen cowering behind the shield sobbing as the dragon barrels her over as he descends over the side taking the shield with him. This leaves a terrified almost completely unrecognizable Sadie feeling around blindly eyes badly burned by dragon fire. Unfortunately it didn't end there as the dragon's tail spikes impaled her causing a sick gagging sound as she coughed up blood and was dragged over the edge with him into the canopy below.

PS: Of note 56 hours of manual labor this week plus no sleep since I got up yesterday, so definitely not my best work

[Joshua]

"Oh crap, dragon-fear... I thought I picked one that didn't have that..." Oberon runs to the cliff, and almost jumps over but thinks better of it. He watches in silence, making sure he knows where they land. He mumbles to himself, "This isn't the first time you've been killed... Let's hope it's not the last."

He will, if prompted, offer to hold a rope or similar to let Solten chase down the cliff, though that's the kind of thing you don't say out loud. He'll just do it if you want to cliff-dive.

[coldcandor]

Not having nearly enough speed to do anything about it, Solten cries out "Sadie, NO!" as she plummets over the cliff. He runs up to the cliff face and looks over in distress. He's in the process of slinging himself over the side to start scaling the cliff when Oberon offers a rope. They quickly secure it and Solten repels down the side as far and as fast as possible, grumbling about "It wasn't a competition you fool..."

[Sadie]

Not really a reply just a question as something occurred to me. Is this a magical spool of endless rope? This is a cliff off a mountainside, we're talking up to a thousand or more foot drop here potentially. If going to another ledge or something might help get a head start down the mountainside I suppose, but not much of one... Are we really carrying this much rope? If so, where in the world were we carrying it? Is this a dragon with a rope fetish? Does he hoard rope rather than gold?

[Joshua]

The crossbow can likely have between 100 - 200 feet of wound rope for it. (Since a single rope wouldn't' be strong enough to fire a bolt the size you were describing.) You're on a mountain, oberon likely had a spool of rope on him in case you needed to climb, and while Solten is using those, Oberon can probably grab more rope from the horses. Not going to get all the way down, but can likely get past the sheer drop stage. We're still looking at a half-hour or so before we even get down to the bottom.

Of course, Oberon or Solten could have just jumped and survived, but they probably don't realize that. They do possess the stats to hand climb at a reasonably fast pace, and again, can go faster than is safe because they have the strength and warfare to catch themselves given a minor slip. (Oh yeah, and Oberon know a lot about rock climbing... but is allowing Solten to take the lead.)

[coldcandor]

My assumption was that the cliff was relatively sheer (though it didn't stop Solten from starting over the edge anyway) but becomes more mountain-side like as it decends. He'll repel as far as the rope allows then climb the rest. I suppose I could write in a slip if you really want to add more injury to the tale just because.

[Joshua]

Zero-stuff, not a guaranteed slip. Again, you're looking at a half-hour-ish. (conversely, going down the path, then across the valley would be about 90 minutes. It's not a bottomless valley or anything... Plus, at least one of the pcs present can fly... so...)

[coldcandor]

So yeah. Not worth any further nonsense over this. Solten does what he has to do (rope + scaling + some skidding and/or brief falling) to get to the bottom of the mountain and locates the crash site. On with the story!