Bob, Mork's cake guy, was pulled aside after Valerie gave her plan.
"Bob. I think that it's tracking you."
"No shit, Valerie," he said.
"No. Listen to my words. It think that it's tracking you in particular." Bob felt off.
Of all the possible things that she could have said to him... The fact that he was being targeted personally meant that perhaps he could draw their followers away.
"So what do you want me to do about that? Do you want me to try and pull them out?" He said.
"Well this is a theory, right? My theory is that if I put you someplace then that is a place that they are going to head towards. And again, I understand, you're one of the strongest people here. You're not going to go fight one of the death knights one-on-one, correct?"
Though he had said many times that he wouldn't, Bob wasn't above doing what was necessary if it fell into his lap. It just so happened that this one had really decided to come right to his lap. And oh, wouldn't you know? Bob had exactly the right implement to deal with this exact problem.
Bob flexed his crossbow arm.
"Bob?"
"I mean yeah it's that sounds totally reasonable. But what specifically do you want me to do?"
"Now that Zan has the gate spell unlocked, we're going to put the two of you together. Yes with Stella so she can save you."
At the mention of her name Bob smiled. Things have been good between them and with the possibility of another death knight kill on the horizon, he was pretty pleased. He just needed that chance to do what was necessary.
Sonya had gotten the last one through trickery. He would get this one.
"Alright. Storytime," Valerie started. "Back in the quiet wars, several pirate groups decided to break the truce of the Quiet Sea. It's fresh water so it's an enormous resource for all four kingdoms. One pirate decided that they would use their fleet to take advantage of it. They would run thick steel cabling in between two boats and then take out the main mast of smaller boats. It took the combined might of several dwarf and human ships to take them down. Since then, every ship has a steel cabling that is kept in the lowest decks."
Bob gave her the look that he reserved for his most interesting customers. She wasn't buying a cake right now.
"Where do you want me to be?" He said. "Am I in the center of the action?"
"Right in the center. You have that grappling hook card, right?" Bob smiled.
---
Finley could not believe how absolutely ridiculously stupid the humans were being. They were literally tempting a death knight to attack them, and the two dragons bearing down on them within a minute or less would be able to make quick work of Bob.
Of course they figured out a way to run a cable across the cleft between two mountains.
They figured out a way to hide the airship under some of the foliage on the far side. Of course they had all gotten into position and then briefly rehearsed their next steps. Finley knew his role. He was the backline support, trying to kill or capture a dragon with a net. More than likely he would be just helping the monks with the flow of the fight.
"I thought that they would make some noise," Brandon said, from his side.
The drop into the water was precipitous. Finley was so unsettled by the idea of falling that he had put an air bending card into his soul deck. He had even spent some time working with it so that he wouldn't be a menace to himself.
Others would probably see him as one.
Once this was all done, he was definitely staying on solid ground where there was no chance of him falling. He didn't much care for the act of falling, but the landing part really ought to hurt. So there he was, waiting for the humans to put another off color scheme into motion.
"I really hope that we don't do this too often. Fighting dragons is becoming too normalized for this crew." And far too normalized for himself.
Maybe it was just him trying to adjust to this new world, but he didn't think that he would ever see one dragon in his life, much less three. There was something to be said about facing down dragons. But he wasn't going to be the one to say it. Preferably if the topic was brought up next time?
He wouldn't even be in the room. He'll be far away from the violence that was about to erupt. Giant green wings beat against the air, desperately trying to keep the two undead zombies up. They approached the cleft with the single mindedness of a prom queen.
Any other flying animal, feeling suspected would consider going around. But these two monstrous beast locked in on the man standing in the center. Bob stood, defiant as he stared down the two of them.
Finley readied his spell. They would only get one chance at this.
The dragon in the front did not stop, swooping and trying to inhale Bob.
Bob, knew the plan.
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He launched his grappling hook towards the far side. Without any time to react, the first dragon's wings sheared off.
One second, the dragon was falling with him. The next second two wings and the dragon's body were falling in different directions.
The intense amount of force shook the mountain that he stood on.
It made him question his new career.
Finley lost a bet that day as the second dragon began to hover.
That was when Finley realized that he'd only had an approximation of what true fear felt like. With a start, he realized that not only did he not like it, every fiber of his being wanted to be somewhere else. He gulped.
He closed his eyes and tapped into the green.
The last time he used so much mana on one thing, he had paid the price. Today, before he committed to such an act, he was going to see how much the dragon needed. Dozens of rocks pelted the hovering beast.
Most of them from overhead. The goats were working their magic from higher up. Finley concentrated on the shape of a net. It would have to be the largest net he could create. He was trying to make a fishing net out of plant matter so that they could capture it.
He checked, watching as the dragon reoriented itself to the new threat. Either the death knight was with these two dragons, or and this was the worst part, a third. Plant matter flew out of him as fast as an sprinter. It got a rough shape as it got closer to the attracted wings.
He could feel time slow as he approached. The wing beats which had taken so little time previously now felt like they were slowly making their way up and down like a stroll. Then he saw it.
As the plant matter was due to contact the dragon, the wing dropped down upon it. It misdirected the action of the net, pouring the net into the empty air below the dragon.
All of a sudden all of his efforts in mana were dashed against the rocks.
Finley didn't have a name for this particular mountain that he was standing near the top of. But if you could name it, it would be something like the amount of despair, or the cleft of hope.
Finley fell to his knees, spent.
He was going to have to wait a little bit and recharge. He gripped his spear. "This will have to do," He said.
---
Bob, Mork's best bait, slammed into the wall. It's not agree with him. His moving out of the way of line of fire, caused a flurry of attacks from the goats.
Using their innate ability to climb steep areas, the goats laid down suppressing fire on the dragons until it was knocked out of its flight by its own hubris. The second one narrowly dodged Finley's net attack.
Bob cursed the rock he was holding on to. He really didn't want to burn up his clothing but it was looking more and more like he was going to have to.
Bob drew out his crossbow and loaded the bolt, siding down towards the beast. Several magic missiles contacted the side of the dragon.
He could see the icons moving about in real time. Wherever the flesh weaver was, it was probably inside of the dragon. That just gave him a few more questions. Was the flesh weaver part of the dragon?
Or just the dragon itself?
A torso appeared halfway down. The dragon, as if it was a rider. Both sets of eyes looked down upon them. Bob, wished that Stella was there to soften her making this stupid mistake.
But this damn had chosen to come and do his grounds and he was going to do his best to make sure that it's stuck around. As it turned out, well, just a little tweak to his instructions, his grappling hook had two hook ends.
Bob was about to attend his second rodeo. All things considered? This was a low amount of rodeos for the thing he was trying to do.
But as the train looked around, it finally found him. This gave him the strength to carry on. Bob flung the rope towards the beast.
He wasn't expecting much. But now that he has full and undivided attention, he wanted to show it a few things.
As he threw, his aim was off. The rope banged the side of the rock face narrowly missing it.
It started to gain air as it got higher and higher up the mountain. The goat attacks continued, growing larger and larger.
Rocks were now joined by gouts of flame.
The dragon began to shoot black flame at the goats.
Bob winced.
"Come down here you coward," He yelled.
Either his words weren't loud enough, or it really just didn't want to listen to him. If he was a dragon, he wouldn't listen to anybody.
Bob had only had a few tricks unless it was going to stay close to him. He cursed as he pulled yet another bolt out of his quiver.
This one was going to have to count.
He did not want to have to track this thing down. It had come through their trap unscathed. That meant there was some sort of intelligence behind it.
Otherwise both of them would have modestly flown through. There was a very small chance that he could be bag himself with death knight in the very short-term. But those chances of getting one more remote as the dragon continue to climb, and now ascending to over the mountains.
---
"Fuck!" Sonya could hear Bob from the top of the mountain. Too bad for him. Sonya's resolve was ironclad.
She thought to ground herself in so lightning against the dragon but that hadn't worked. It had created a lot of sparks and given both the goats and interesting static to their hair.
The next time she talked to her patron they would have words about the specific encounter. She had gotten a hot tip that there would be two dragons. She passed that information on to the rest of the caravan.
Kara had also informed her that she would be giving her a special boon. That is, if she could kill the dragon.
A nice easy challenge.
It sounded like a challenge, and Kara made it clear at all that Sonya had to do was to listen and follow along. There was something between her earth elemental affinity and the grounding of lightning. She was going to have to look into it later. But if a patron had wanted her to do something, that day all it had done was to top off her reserves.
If there was one thing that Sonya wasn't going to do, it was waste all her mana.
The dragon could do that that, she didn't have the time. She itched the look down and see what had happened to the dragon who had fallen into three chunks. She supposed that it would have to wait. Instead, she took a second to cast magic missile on the undead abomination.
Rather than hope that one of her big moves would take it down, she would do as much damage as possible. She continually pelted it with the same spells.
Each one was little force blast and knocked off a chunk of the flesh that was holding the dragon in place. Slow and steady would win the battle if she had anything to do with it.
The dragon kept flying up. It was apparently not impressed with their antics. Neither was Sonya.
She hadn't thought they had it. Everything easily was in hand, but she was kind of hoping. Especially if a boon was on line, she would put a lot into it.
If the dragon was just flying out of range, then she wouldn't even get a clear shot. Sonya could barely make it to the lightning. She wanted to strike the ground and also that dragon as well.
Touching the ground beneath her, she willed it to be ready to receive a lightning blast. All she was doing was preparing the Earth to receive the blessing of one of the clouds above. It slowed.
Would it be bad if there was a dragon in between those two points? She was not going to have a lot of time to dodge.
What she did have was the ability to step through a portal and then activate it. She stepped through to the other side, pushing her mana into the ground behind her. She had jumped from the top of one of the mountains to the other.
A goat bleated at her.
Above, a lightning arc across the sky contacted the ground below her as well. It also went straight through the dragon. Of course that didn't mean that it fell so it just meant that part of when wine was damn blackened and on fire. Still, a win was a win and she was going to take that. That is until that they focused on her and began to dive.