Once the two prisoners' gambesons are ready, they both wear their new suits of armor and, before they set out on their journey, they stop by a tavern on the road. The four travel with relatively light supplies, hoping that they can make it to the toll station into the night, and fight the dragon, too.

"Here's the plan: Ucry, stay hidden into the woods until the signal is given. Sulivac, try to enter the tower before I fly in for the first attack run, casting an alcohol spell in flight. I will then fall back and then Seloniel will cast fire magic at one of the wing joints. Everyone, watch out for the electricity attacks" Janick explains her plan to fight the electricity-stealing dragon.

"How am I to enter the tower without being seen by the dragon?" Sulivac asks her, fearing that he will die before he could get to the tower. "I'm afraid the dragon will see me and zap me as soon as I get within range!"

"I have that covered: the first attack run will be in two phases. First, a magical cloud of alcohol will be cast around its eyes which, while not making the dragon drunk enough to go to sleep, will buy you enough time to get into the tower unseen by the dragon since it won't be able to see anything for a few seconds"

Thank goodness for these gambesons and the wooden shield! They won't reflect moonlight like metal armor and shields would, Janick then sighs, when a familiar voice is heard close to her table. Otherwise, pray there's going to be a sufficiently thick fog tonight.

"I think I have a better idea to put the dragon to sleep than relying on alcohol magic!" Nyagullah announces in front of them. "Since I don't think the dragon will see me as a threat, I might climb up the tower, sing a song..."

"You do realize that you cannot assume dragons to have similar reactions to music compared to us" Seloniel remarks, without knowing much about dragons' musical tastes. "However, I won't pretend to know about the electricity-stealing dragon's musical tastes beyond that"

"No previous known attempts at killing the electricity-stealing dragon even involved putting it to sleep. Sure, these attempts might have involved different units each time, such as a ballista for a neighboring lord, or air superiority wizards for us, but since you believe you can sing a song that can put a dragon to sleep, we'll let you sing the song first!" Janick decides to have the bard join on the journey. "Just make sure you conceal any weapons you might have"

"If the dragon dies, I'll have songs to last me for a lifetime" Nyagullah continues to ramble.

The party of five, now with a fifth member whom Janick remembers as someone who admired her perhaps too much, continues their journey towards the toll station afoot. They do so because they feel the carpet is perhaps too risky to fight on when dealing with a foe whose electricity attack might destroy it instantly. And kill the people riding it, albeit not necessarily when the electricity attack hits.

They keep tramping for hours on relatively good roads until they arrive at a key junction where the road leading to the toll station is obviously much more poorly maintained than the other roads. The electricity-stealing dragon has been a thorn on everyone's side for years, and our lord just left the people living close to it, on our side of the toll station, to fend for themselves, Janick starts thinking as they approach the edge of the forest.

"We might have to sleep in the forest!" Ucry warns the other adventurers.

"That's ok, but we don't want to spend more time in the forest than necessary!" Janick voices her concerns over having to sleep in the forest. "Even without an electricity-stealing dragon in the area, forests are dangerous at night!"

By nightfall, they arrive in the forest where the toll station is said to be, and they tramp quietly through the woods, until they arrive at a point where they finally get the toll station's tower in sight across the trees. And the ghastly sight of corpses in arms and armor littering the space between their position among the trees and the entrance to the tower.

"Stay under tree cover, don't make any loud noise until we have confirmation of whether the dragon is sleeping or not!" Janick whispers into the ears of the other adventurers.

"Who will heal us if we get hurt?" Sulivac asks her.

"I can use alcohol magic to heal you but only flesh wounds, sorry for not telling you earlier because of the do-or-die nature of this quest" Janick responds, knowing that she is not a proper healer.

Welp. I guess being able to heal flesh wounds is better than no healing at all; I think Janick is too confident in the do-or-die nature of the quest not to have rented a healer, Sulivac feels a little uneasy before he walks behind Nyagullah, in an attempt to cross the no man's land between the forest and the tower and hence accomplish their role.

And the pair do so while walking at a pace that appears natural to the dragon, so they won't cause the dragon to notice something is wrong until they are well inside the tower. They enter the toll station's tower unimpeded, since the door was destroyed during a past attempt at killing the electricity-stealing dragon. And maybe even underneath the dragon on the toll station's top floor.

As the bard and the skirmisher both race through the tower's staircase without the dragon noticing anything, they start feeling like time is short to get onto the dragon and, from there, on its spine. For the bard, this means closing in on the dragon's ears, for the skirmisher, getting close to the wing joints is enough.

The two ASWs stand ready to take off as soon as Nyagullah's song ends, and, as such, have their broomsticks at the ready. And yet they know that, at that distance, they can barely listen to Nyagullah singing, if at all. So all they have to do is watch intently for signs the dragon could be asleep, as well as whether the song is over.

Janick is smart when she's sober, but make her use high-level alcohol magic repeatedly, she pays the price for it, Seloniel feels like the dragon isn't falling asleep despite multiple songs being sung by Nyagullah within earshot.

"The dragon isn't sleeping, captain!" Seloniel informs her captain.

"Once the alcohol spell impacts the dragon, the time has come to clip the dragon's wings!" Janick issues one last instruction before soaring outside of what she believes is the effective range of the dragon's lightning bolt.

Once Janick has a clear shot at the wide-open dragon's mouth, she casts a magical wine spell at it and the electricity-stealing dragon suddenly has several puncheons' worth of magical wine to swallow, distracting it. Which is welcome to Sulivac, who starts repeatedly stabbing one wing of the dragon shortly after it starts flying away from the tower with two people on its back.

But with her blood content increasing, Janick's flight path becomes a lot more erratic as she struggles to maintain control over her besom. It's the signal for both Seloniel and Ucry to start fighting the dragon. A dragon whose blood content is steadily increasing, which also makes its own movements less coordinated as the dragon flies, chasing Janick around in the moonlit sky.

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Ucry starts firing arrows at the dragon's underbelly from a hidden position that he knows isn't the best to cause it to bleed. However, because the dragon's flight path is erratic, he needs to be constantly on the move and on the lookout for changes in its flight path before he can even take aim. For this reason, he goes through his first quiver (or sheaf) of 24 arrows at a pace reminiscent of hunting.

Seloniel wastes no time getting underneath the wing joint Sulivac is not attempting to break with repeated halberd thrusting. She then flings a firebolt at that joint with little effect.

A regular firebolt is not going to cut it against an enemy like the electricity-stealing dragon! Seloniel wonders what other spell she can use, knowing her firebolt spell punched a hole in the scaly wings, but barely scraped off the scales around the joint.

Yet, the erratic movements of the dragon make Nyagullah fall off from it. And crash into a tree in his fall. At the same time, since the dragon, whose BC is steadily increasing as its stomach absorbs more of the magical wine, seems to believe the other ASW to be the bigger threat. Especially when Janick didn't seem to be in sufficient mental control to cast another spell for a while. Not even another firebolt.

So, rather than chase Janick in the sky, the electricity-stealing dragon is chasing Seloniel. Even when Sulivac is using the halberd like a miner would a pickaxe on the left wing's joint.

Then Janick doesn't quite fall back, but she instead flies near Nyagullah's tree.

"I'll help you off this tree, but stay close to Ucry!" Janick yells at Nyagullah.

"I need heals!" Nyagullah makes his distress known, having suffered some scratches in his fall from the dragon.

Janick catches his breath and then casts a rubbing alcohol spell on the bard's scratches. Which, fortunately for her, comes without any real increase in BC. Once the bard's wounds close, and are disinfected, he can then safely go back to the ground level. And pick whichever weapon he can wield to go fight the electricity-stealing dragon with it after throwing his dagger at a dragon's arm, missing it.

Meanwhile, as its left wing's joint is getting the electricity-stealing dragon in greater levels of pain, it's struggling to fly. The monster is losing altitude, and so much of it that it's about to crash. However, with Seloniel still flying underneath, she is at point-blank range. And also in a position where the dragon can't throw electricity at her without zapping itself.

Just before the drunken dragon crashes into the woods, Seloniel gets behind the dragon. Because the dragon is unable to turn quickly, she has a window of opportunity to hurt the dragon as she returns to face the dragon's back. She then goes on a rapid-fire blitz of casting fire magic, aimed at the dragon's joints, still flying underneath the dragon.

"Fuel bomb, fuel bomb, fuel bomb!" Seloniel shouts, focusing on the dragon's wing joints.

Three fiery explosions rock the dragon from underneath, causing both wings to fall off, as well as blasting its arms off. The electricity-stealing dragon can only walk and spit electricity now. And Sulivac is also sent flying into a tree, too. But Seloniel's arms are now charred by such rapid-fire casting of powerful fire magic. I did what I could, I must retreat, she starts musing as she falls back.

But now that the wings have fallen off the drunken dragon, Ucry shifts his focus to the dragon's knees, while remaining mindful to stay directly behind the dragon's legs, so that he wouldn't get zapped. And Sulivac also throws his javelins at dragon knees, too.

"Janick! My hands are burned, it's now down to you!" Seloniel shouts in Janick's direction, as she struggles to maintain control of her besom.

While Seloniel falls back with third-degree burns, the dragon still wobbles under the effects of its relatively high BC, Janick is flying again, also struggling to maintain a steady flight course. However, both the dragon and her own BC are lower by now.

Nyagullah, Sulivac and Ucry will all take too long to kill the electricity-stealing dragon if left to their own devices, because the dragon's blood content will decrease at some point! Janick has a flash in her mind before she briefly regains control of it.

Once again, she soars on her besom and then nosedives, casting another alcohol spell at the spots where the upper joints stood. This time, as soon as the alcohol spell impacts the dragon directly into its bloodstream, her own blood content increases dangerously.

To her delight, or at least to the extent she can feel it in her alcohol-addled state, the electricity-stealing dragon's BC also increases dangerously. So much that its bodily functions are failing. The failure is so spectacular that the dragon is choking on its own stolen electricity when attempting to vomit. And zaps itself to death. The lifeless, electrocuted corpse of a wingless dragon lies on the ground.

Yet, at the same time, under the effects of her skyrocketing BC, Janick blacks out. And loses control of her besom. She free-falls off it some distance away from the dying dragon, crashing onto the ground. Flat on her belly, and unable to feel pain, she lies unconscious because of the side effects of casting alcohol magic.

"The electricity-stealing dragon will steal electricity no more!" Nyagullah shouts in the woods, triumphant.

"But where could Janick be?" Sulivac asks him, while Janick's besom is somewhere in front of the dragon.

"We're going to sleep in the tower for the night, and drag her body in it, too" Seloniel realizes her burned hands can't handle Janick.

The three adventurers start looking for Janick's unconscious body as well as her besom. The former is found shortly after the dragon's death by alcohol poisoning, However, only Seloniel and Ucry seem able to contribute to a search for a stray besom, since the other two carry the body back to the tower.

But compared to an electricity-stealing dragon, the other creatures of the forest are much less troublesome for Ucry to deal with. That, even though he used up the first sheaf and about half of the second sheaf to fight the electricity-stealing dragon. I'm exhausted, I really hope the captain's besom will be found quickly. We will be rewarded upon return, though. Thank goodness for these two witches; they understood that, for an archer, a bow that fits it user matters, Ucry has a question popping in his mind.

"Sorry if it's a stupid question, but how is a besom different from a non-magical broom?" Ucry asks Seloniel, clueless about the world of flying broomsticks, while looking for one.

"Much like there are different types of horses, so there are different types of flying broomsticks. Pack brooms usually have sturdier poles, but bristles made of twigs, while besoms might not carry as much as a pack broom, but are faster and more maneuverable, thanks to their straw bristles. Most lower-class wizards ride pack brooms, while those wealthy enough to owe forty days of levy time per year will usually ride a besom" Seloniel explains to him how brooms ridden by wizards differ.

"Thank you"

Pack brooms cost maybe about two hundred gold, about the same as a draft horse, whereas besoms could cost at least as much as a hand cart plus a draft horse to draw it, and that's the one I'm flying myself, Seloniel reflects on the cost of the besom they're looking for, and why they're looking for it.

But they realize also that a free-falling besom couldn't have gone very far from where Janick fell off from it. And that other creatures in the area couldn't fly or steal it. Luckily for its owner, it's only a little scratched when they find it between three trees.

Meanwhile, Nyagullah and Sulivac realize that, despite its name, the electricity-stealing dragon didn't actually steal a whole lot. Probably because the dragon couldn't go very far from the tower, and because barges, along with travelers, avoided the route passing through the toll station. And still do for a while until the news of the dragon's death spread.

"I expected the electricity-stealing dragon to have stolen... more loot!" Sulivac sighs, looking at the paltry booty stored on the top floor of the toll station's tower, behind crenellations and machicolations.

"What did you expect? The dragon randomly stealing from barges or travelers, both ground or airborne? And killing its victims before they steal?" Nyagullah asks the skirmisher. "Because dragons have no subtlety, dragons must take their loot by brute force to steal!"

"I guess, Ucry and I must wait for a final decision now that the electricity-stealing dragon is dead" Sulivac comments again, before going down the staircase.

The pair then returns to the third floor of the tower, whose only windows are arrowslits, to look after Janick, who's still unconscious from her high blood content.

"Thank goodness I'm not an alcohol wizard!" Nyagullah comments while Janick reeks of Kaeshana ice wine because of the alcohol spells she cast when fighting the dragon. "I admired her for a while because of her prowess with alcohol magic, but that's a bit much! She was willing to do whatever it takes to fight the electricity-stealing dragon"

"We're going to need to rent a healer. Not just for Janick to cure from her excessive drinking, but for Seloniel's burns, too" Sulivac then falls asleep on the floor, as do Nyagullah.

The other two return, tired, but having found Janick's besom, and go to sleep. With both besoms secured. Yet, Seloniel can't help but dream of all the money she can make by repairing the weapons and armor littering the no man's land around the toll station.