Lost Trails Chapter 15 The Mound

[SkiBird]

After hearing the sounds within the mound quickly devolve into a melee, Meela drew her sword, readied her shield and headed into the fray.

The sight of the terrible, black serpent swaying above the fetid pool threatened the maiden's resolve. For the briefest of moments, she considered withdrawing toward Karathos ... and safety. But the moment passed.

The young woman steeled her nerve and uttered a small prayer as she faced her fears head on.

"Mielikki guide my hand."

[ewancummins]

KATRIN sneaks in the breached entrance to find the main chamber of the mound a scene of reeking carnage: her companions dashing about a pebbled floor littered with dead reptilian humanoids, hissing pools of brown fluid, smoke billowing from the big fire in the central pit.
At first glance, it seems the party is winning and the enemy fleeing, but something feels off about the situation.

Alain, pressed up against a wall ahead of her, steps out quickly and barks a clipped incantation.
The burglar-woman's hair prickles and lifts off her neck, standing in air.
Alain hurls a sphere of coruscating energy past the curve of the wall.
The spellslinger leaps back behind cover as a noise like the biggest snake in the world hissing in irritation echoes from the direction he just fired that spell.


Sparkling lights roll out from the direction of the blast, motes like fireflies dancing in the smoky air.

Scouting with all her usual stealth and caution, she nonetheless jerks back involuntarily when she has her peek through a chink in the mud wall, at what is around the corner.
Big, black dragon! Before now, she has only seen such things in books of fairytales; and this one certainly won't disappear with the turn of an illustrated page. She didn't see wings, but it seemed as if the thing were coming up from a pool.
The jitters hit her, but not so badly she can't think straight or act.

[ewancummins]

After hearing the sounds within the mound quickly devolve into a melee, Meela drew her sword, readied her shield and headed into the fray.

The sight of the terrible, black serpent swaying above the fetid pool threatened the maiden's resolve. For the briefest of moments, she considered withdrawing toward Karathos ... and safety. But the moment passed.

The young woman steeled her nerve and uttered a small prayer as she faced her fears head on.

"Mielikki guide my hand."

Glittering motes fall from thin air to envelop the dragon.

The monster thrashes, hissing.

Shining water splashes over Meela as she steps boldly toward the pool and strikes. Her sword rebounds with a clang.

She steps back from the water's edge, peering over her shield rim at her terrible foe. The thick, snaky neck is at least as tall as a man and the head twice the size of a horse's skull, topped by big down-curved horns.

Not a sign of hurt.


Yellow eyes blink, a membrane sliding up and down with a flick, and it fixes its dreadful gaze on her.
Swaying above the steaming, sparkling waters, its head and neck dusted with flecks of gold that shine brighter still in contrast with the night-black scales, the dragon stares down at Meela.

It opens its many-fanged mouth, dribbling acid...

And speaks,

''Slaves or food? Which will you be?"

[SkiBird]

"You forgot an option, wyrm." Meela countered, hoping to sound braver than she felt.

"Conqueror." The young woman's fingers were vice-like upon the hilt of her sword to steady her hand and keep it from shaking.

"I am warden of these flooded lands, and you'll not bring your corruption here."

[ewancummins]

"You forgot an option, wyrm." Meela countered, hoping to sound braver than she felt.

"Conqueror." The young woman's fingers were vice-like upon the hilt of her sword to steady her hand and keep it from shaking.

"I am warden of these flooded lands, and you'll not bring your corruption here."

The wyrm coils like a snake and then springs out of the pool, splashing glittering black water all over Meela.
It lands on four clawed feet, fanlike wings folded down across its back, and snaps its jaws at the warrior-maid, fangs striking scoring her shield. Big! But not too large to wheel and strike inside the large main chamber of the lizard-mound.
She staggers back from the force of the bite.


---

As the monster pushes Meela, Klokulf, suddenly finding himself standing way too close to the dragon he'd hoped to keep at a distance, swings his newly-conjured axe of rime at the thing's scaly flank as he backpedals. He hits, not breaking the black armor but eliciting an annoyed hiss from the creature.

---
Sir Clive dashes forward and swings his sword. The moving dragon slides past the blow and Mercy cleaves six inches into the pebbled floor.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

It opens its many-fanged mouth, dribbling acid...

And speaks,

''Slaves or food? Which will you be?"

As the monster pushes Meela, Klokulf, suddenly finding himself standing way too close to the dragon he'd hoped to keep at a distance, swings his newly-conjured axe of rime at the thing's scaly flank as he backpedals. He hits, not breaking the black armor but eliciting an annoyed hiss from the creature.

Seeing his axe actually have some effect, Klokulf's expression does not become hopeful, but actually gains a tinge of dread---he will have to get close again.
In delayed reply to the wyrm's question, he retorts in the Draconic tongue, "I serve none but Bane!" and reverses his backward momentum.

[ewancummins]

KATRIN sneaks in the breached entrance to find the main chamber of the mound a scene of reeking carnage: her companions dashing about a pebbled floor littered with dead reptilian humanoids, hissing pools of brown fluid, smoke billowing from the big fire in the central pit.
At first glance, it seems the party is winning and the enemy fleeing, but something feels off about the situation.

Alain, pressed up against a wall ahead of her, steps out quickly and barks a clipped incantation.
The burglar-woman's hair prickles and lifts off her neck, standing in air.
Alain hurls a sphere of coruscating energy past the curve of the wall.
The spellslinger leaps back behind cover as a noise like the biggest snake in the world hissing in irritation echoes from the direction he just fired that spell.


Sparkling lights roll out from the direction of the blast, motes like fireflies dancing in the smoky air.

Scouting with all her usual stealth and caution, she nonetheless jerks back involuntarily when she has her peek through a chink in the mud wall, at what is around the corner.
Big, black dragon! Before now, she has only seen such things in books of fairytales; and this one certainly won't disappear with the turn of an illustrated page. She didn't see wings, but it seemed as if the thing were coming up from a pool.
The jitters hit her, but not so badly she can't think straight or act.

KATRIN HEARS
the snap of a stick at her back. Glancing back, she sees a scaly hand reaching from outside, griping the rim of the open doorway to the outside. She quickly moves to that side of the hallway, pressing into a dip in the mudwall where firelight shadows lie thick.

The reptilian warrior creeps through, yellow eyes fixed on Alain's back.

Snick!
Kat's rapier skewers the lizardman. It drops with a drawn-out hiss, kicks, and falls still.

But three more appear in the doorway, crowding in...

[ewancummins]

THE BRUTAL FIGHT rages on.

The dragon wheels about, striking with fangs and claws, slapping with its serpent tail, buffeting warriors back with gusts of wind from its wings.

Sir Clive wounds it in the side with Mercy.

Meela bravely stands her ground, bearing the brunt of the monster's attack.
Tooth and talon rip at her shield, nearly tearing it from her arm. The stink of the dragon's exhalation gags her.


Klolkulf , jumping over the swinging tail, slashes with his ice crystal blade.


Up at the ceiling vent Raen incants and then a dark cloud appears over the dragon's wings, many tiny mouths nipping at the membranes. Bats.

In answer to Klokulf's prayers, the Black Hand of Bane appears under the roof and swoops down to bedevil the dragon, a ghostly clawed gauntlet as large as a warhammer.



Benn hastily fires a crossbow bolt into the lizardmen that fill the doorway ahead of Katrin, before going back to aid the bruised and battered Meela and the acid-marked Sir Clive . The dragon snaps its jaws shut inches from his face, but Benn still gets close enough to lay healing hands on his allies.

Kat holds the door against the lizardmen, her rapier striking and parrying far too swiftly for her slow coldblooded foes.


The wyrm screams when Alain blasts it again and again.

''I'LL DEVOUR YOU ALL-- NEXT TIME!''
With a great slap of its tail in the fetid and shimmering pool, the dragon dives in, fleeing the combat!



.

Immediately after the dragon's very noisy exit, the two lizardmen at the door throw down their clubs and step back from Katrin.

One speaks in halting Common ''We no fight!''

Benn, casting about, gets a good look at the lizardmen's female prisoner, now freed from the thorny net and having grabbed weapons from a wall rack and buckled on light armor.

VIEW CONTENT:

It's Everline, his former adventuring companion. But he left her as an inmate of Saulbridge Sanitarium, after she had gone mad from the vile dream-assaults of Franklin Dodds, which she suffered during what the penny dreadfuls would later call 'The Case of the Ghosts of Gauntcliff.'
That was all on his homeworld, beyond the Mists…

[Lord Skybolt]

"Come on guys it's got almost be dead with all we wounds we have hit it with ."Alain Says leading his fellow party members on chase after the black dragon .

[ewancummins]

"Come on guys it's got almost be dead with all we wounds we have hit it with ."Alain Says leading his fellow party members on chase after the black dragon .

Alain dashes outside, almost knocking down one of the surrendering man-lizards.

No obvious sign of the dragon above the level of the lake.
Peering down, he thinks he sees something glowing in the dark waters, but then he realizes it is only the reflection of the halfmoon on the rippling lake surface.
The northerly wind, bitter cold, blows over the lake,whistling over the sound of shaking tree-branches and rustling reeds.
Was that a splash just now?
Where?

Alain keeps looking, now with magical lights cast on pebbles and dropped into the water.This way, he can see the lake bottom in spots where it is shallow.
Still nothing.

Others join the search.

Minutes pass...

Then the ranger-maiden discovers dragon tracks leading out the south side of the crescent shaped lake. Fresh in the sand and mud. Some red blood dropped along with the prints.
For the dragon to have gone that way, it would have had to walk right through the field of view of some of the searchers. Yet no one saw it.
The footprints stop beyond a small stand of trees a hundred feet from the southern lakeshore. Dank weeds and globs of slimy mud sprayed in wide backward arcs on the ground to either side of the last prints.

Some of the heroes hear, or think they hear, a noise like the flapping wings of a bat or bird, only slower and louder. If it's more than a trick of the wind, it has faded too soon too follow.





From the hiding place in the southern woods where the party left its noncombatants with the unicorn, a woman's scream suddenly rips through the night.

END OF CHAPTER