Anthony’s ship was second. Mostly because Sophie was the one who was the guarding compass. As much as they had wanted to stay back, Sonya had teleported them onto her ship the morning that they thought they were going to make contact. There they hung, next to the easternmost part of the ice cloak mountains.
The airships had stopped far away enough to see the pair of dragons flying around the city. Several of the goats had passed messages around, and it finally made its way to Anthony and Sonya’s ship.
“What do you mean, it’s a real dragon,” the coxswain said.
“I’m not the one that sent the message,” the goat druid said. “I would take that at face value.”
“All right. Well, I guess past the message down,” he said.
Sonya shrugged. Anthony shrugged. In flying beasts that wanted to eat and or kill you, what did it matter? Whether the dragon was an actual dragon or just a cobble together piece of orc bones and flesh. In the end? It didn’t really matter. They were going to kill it, no matter what.
“So real dragons, huh?” Sonya said. “I wonder if they lay eggs. And if so, if I can get one.”
“We are not raising a dragon. I already had two sons. You would have to really, really want to have a child. How about a dog instead? I hear they have dogs here,” he said.
She made a face, and he rolled his eyes. Of course, it was going to be like that. He wanted her to just come out right and say that she wanted to have children. He didn’t want to bring children into this world without a committed partner who was going to stick around. But also, with all the sex they’d been having, he would have expected any of the chosen to actually have become pregnant by now if they had wanted to. And it seemed to be that they might not be fertile. Without all of this cool testing gadgets, he wasn’t going to tell. And he definitely didn’t want to say that in front of Stella or Sonya’s face. He definitely thought it was weird that he had to tell Sophie that she was going to have a. Now, but not be able to tell her she might have a baby if she had sex with a man, which seemed unlikely.
More likely it was that the gods had decided that if they’re chosen wanted to have children, then they were going to have to do their job first.
“Do you think that the chosen wanted us to finish this before we had kids? Hypothetically?” He said.
“I mean, it makes sense. It’s not like there’s a birth control card, but me just saying that means that there might just become one. Imagine that. You just put a birth control card into your soul deck and you can’t become pregnant?” Sonya said.
“People would have so much sex,” he said. “I mean, they do it already. Maybe you should ask your patron what the deal is?”
“I’ll ask her after this is all done,” Sonya said. “She has more important things to do for me right now.”
---
The first part of Bob’s plan involved figuring out how far into the enemy lines they could go without being spotted by a dragon. They thought dragons that were made by the flesh fever would have about the same senses as an orc. Perhaps better if they had worked on it. The next thing that they were trying to do was figure out a water source nearby. They were close enough to a tributary river that ran into the quiet sea, but it was on the opposite side of the Capitol from them. If they could get that water to flow using the two monks that were water benders, they could get the water to turn around and spray out the potential fires that they were going to bring upon the capital city.
There was no way on Novaria that they were going to be leaving without at least a call to the local fire marshal as well as the insurance company that had decided it was a good idea to build the entire capital city inside of giant trees. And that was the other thing. Two dozen large trees housed the entire capital city. Even though the tree was not as tall as the mountains on the western side of it, it was clear as day that the dragons had been living and sleeping in one of the layers of these former residences of elves there had to be some way that the elves were getting about as it looks like there was no external staircases.
Bob’s best guess was that the flesh Weaver had tossed as many elves as he needed into the dragons that were flying around. His second guess was that the flesh weaver had just pared down its needs to the bare minimum and kept that going.
Now, Bob was stuck between a woman who wanted to burn it all down, and three monks who wanted very much to go back to drinking hot cocoa.
The afternoon that they were going to spring into action, the fleet arrived. Because of course they did. It had taken them too long and now Bob was thinking about how he was going to have to rush to do this, otherwise he might lose his chance. The monks were happy. They found Bob and kept him safe, but when they realized he was just going to keep doing what he was doing, they were distressed.
“Guys, we just keep following the plan. If they’re here and they want to help? That’s on them. When we’re all done here, we’ll wrap it up. But for now? I know where the flesh Weaver is. And I’m heading straight there. After we cause a bit of a diversion, of course.”
With those words, Bob and Stella began their descent into the capital.
---
It was a descent into the largest group of zombies that they’d ever seen. Bob was using a lot of his attention, just keeping the undead away. His control of undead card skill had never come in so handy as now. The capital tightly contains a baker’s dozen of dense urban buildings. Bob was there to get his just desserts.
1 minute into controlling the undead to have them move away from him and they hit a snag.
“I can’t push them all. There’s a cap,” He said.
“Have them fought each other?” Brandon said from his flank.
“What about those big guys over there?” Stella said, pointing further into the capital. Elephant-sized massive elves dominated the interior. It looked like a grotesque reimagining of what a mammal was.
“I think that’s perfect. We can use one of those to wear them down.”
Bob concentrated, thinking about one of the large ones. If the flesh Weaver had done what he thought it would do, his best guess was that a single intelligence controlled the being. And it had been intelligence that the flesh weaver had given. All he needed to do was to get it to bend to his command. There was no pressure, of course. Just the idea that zombies nearly cut them off on all sides as Stella and the monks picked off some of the more intelligent looking ones.
In fact, around them, it was the only area that seemed to be still. Further, in the Sea of elves looked like it was moving with a purpose. Like they were all heading towards the same battle and Bob was just going to miss it.
Based on his Pathfinder skill, he would head straight into the Center North. That was where the flesh weaver was. Bob saw an opportunity, ducking out of cover as he finally snared what he wanted.
“Brandon, can you make it rain? I don’t have a water bending card, but I need some cover,” Bob said.
Brandon turned to the other two monks. They shrugged but continued to cast something, so something was working.
“Let’s make it just really foggy around us,” Stella said. “Obscuring mist!”
With Stella’s power over ice and the two water monks, as soon as the elephant sized monster arrived, Bob used his grappling hook to climb aboard.
“Let’s go. We’ve got to beat the rest of the caravan in,” he said.
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The monks climbed up with Stella and Bob lash is grappling hook around the elephant a few times to provide them with hand holds. And then they were moving. Slowly at first, as the elephant had to move around other undead who were fighting each other, the group picked up steam as their fog trail missed them.
---
“Something’s going on down there,” Anthony said.
They had taken the two airships with anchor gates and set up for the invasion. Nearly every company had already poured out quickly, establishing a safe area as they built siege weaponry. There was a lot that a dwarf could do with a large trebuchet or catapult. These dwarfs had done this that and all the above, which each company bringing about three siege weapons. Countless iron ordinance balls arrived to be thrown summarily into the fray.
Three minutes after the first company arrived, the first stone was slung.
Of course, there was a competition, and it was less than a minute after, the second one began. Then it was on.
---
“Are they shelling our position?” Stella yelled over the explosions.
“That’s the legion,” Brandon said. “They’re trying to level the capital or something.”
Bob steered the elephant north, away from the sounds of landing rocks. The impact of the falling rocks at that speed and height instantly crushed whatever was there. Squashed. He preferred not to be squashed. And he knew what they were going to do. They were going to do as much as they can to stay away from the dragons and harass the city from a distance. But Bob didn’t care about dragons. He had already taken one down. Not today, but previously in Gloucester, and now he felt like he was on top of the world, or at least on top of an elephant.
That was about the time that several larger monsters approached them. As soon as you saw them approaching, Bob realized he snobby realized he wasn’t going to stop them all.
He could go around them, but he wanted to go through. He pushed the normal elf sized undead he was controlling into a frenzy. A circle of undead around him pushed the zombies that were trying to get to them. Bob quickly checked on the dragons that were flying above, some people that but none of them were heading towards them. In fact, they looked to be staying in place even as the ground was more and more littered with large rocks.
“Why aren’t the dragons moving?” He said.
“Fuck,” Stella said.
“Fuck, what?” Bob said, the elephant smashing through a line of elves.
“What if the dragons are there so they can pick up the death and light and move him away?” She said.
He gasped. The one thing that they hadn’t counted on was an enemy with a good escape plan. Far be it for Bob to tell the enemy what to do.
All that he wanted to do was tell him to die dishonorably, and he couldn’t even stick around for that.
It was just like his enemies to not lie down and take the defeat like they needed to. Bob would have to see that they listened to his demands.
---
Anthony did not understand why the dragons were attacking them. Clearly, they were assaulting the Elven kingdom. And just as clearly, their attacks were landing underneath the five dragons that were in a slow orbit around the largest building. He was speechless. If it had been any other enemy, they would have noticed them coming and they would have come down on them hard. They had fought dragons before. He still had scars from the last time they fought dragons. In fact, they still had a memorial service for some people that had fought dragons he needed to work through.
Being a cleric of Yil, he had a divine mandate to attend Dwarven funerals and give them last rites. No one wanted to attend a funeral of someone young who had died in battle, but he was just part of the job. But now? They couldn’t even get the dragons to come attack them. If he was in charge of them, he would use them as a harassing Force to try to that, get the legion to break away. The more the legion got entrenched, the more he was thinking that everything was going exactly as planned and that, more than anything, ticked him off. The legion was working. The chosen were there. They had spread out far enough that any single attack that came for them could be mitigated. Why did he have a feeling in his stomach that this was not exactly what he wanted to do? Instead of waiting around for his enemies to come to his door, Anthony pulled out one of his old favorites.
He calmly pulled up both hands and cast a Magic Missile at a dragon. At least he knew it would hit, no matter what. And if they just let him take pot shots all day, he would just do it. It hit, chipping the dragon’s scales, but nothing more. He knew it wasn’t going to be in a very effective, but he was just hoping that maybe he might figure out what was going on and why they were just acting like that.
But no, they kept flying. The pit in his stomach grew. He thought everything was lost, and that they were flying into a trap, but that made little sense, did it? Why would they just stand there?
Zombies rushed the hastily prepared Dwarven legion lines. Already an old hat of this, the legion had formed a mile-long earthen fence in the style of Sonya’s favorite Tower Defense game. Anthony smiled. With airships in the air, providing excellent over watch, all they needed now was to make their way slowly to the interior of the Capitol towards where Sophie was so helpfully pointing at her airship. The gentle hum of the constant attack and barrage rained down upon the advancing horde.
Anthony steeled his resolve. This was his time. He had fought in worse conditions before. Now? He stepped up to the lines and fired.
---
Up above the advancing lines, Sophie continued to keep her airship pointed in the of the death knight. This gave her mortar fires a good view of the advancing horde. Everything has been going to plan so far and she knew Anthony was probably about to bust a nut or something. She didn’t want to say that things were going okay. Far from that, she was worried that the Flesh Weaver was going to pull out some last-minute trick that they would have to figure out how to deal with.
The problem was that she had been her own issues with Murphy. The Goat Lord had not been forthcoming with aid this time. She had a reason to think that it wasn’t coming. She might not save any elves.
To be fair, she never expected to save any elves in the first place, and the first two times seemed to be cosmic flukes. No one would have predicted that the Goat Lord would turn 30 random dwarfs into goats and then those goats would become mages by their side. But that’s what happened, and that was part of the reason that they had gotten so far as they had. And then no one had predicted that they would transform a thousand Orcs back to being healthy and normal, and that had been a shock to her sister.
When Sophie had gotten the initial set of dwarfs turned into goats, she had kept trying to cast that same card repeatedly. She wept, cuz she could not save anymore. The transformation of the thousand Orcs back to normal dumbfounded her.
Here it was that a capricious guy had given and now all she could do was ask for more. Those people died and then came back to life, and she didn’t want to complain, but she wanted to speak to management. She really wanted to make like a Karen and call the manager.
Setting up the final trebuchet caused the dragon’s flight paths to shift slightly. She expected it was a slight change that no one would notice, but Sophie was paying close attention. As one of the chosen that had remained inside of an airship, if the dragons came to attack them, she would be in the front lines in the air. So when the first dragon broke off, she was wondering if it was actually going to attack them or if it was just going to give them a fair bit of emotional damage. Damage. Sophie had wanted to be part of an Epic Fantasy adventure in the abstract. The actuality of the thing, the seeing a dragon charged towards her in the nearly made her piss her pants. Pants. Of course, she brought mortar cannons out to bear and had them all aim at the incoming dragon. Chances were the undead back at the orcish Kingdom could not pass the word to them about how effective Andrews’ new toys were. In fact, she knew Andrew was down with the legion, prepping another one of his toys for a special surprise.
She just wished that it had become more of a surprise quicker. The Mirage took its toll as soon as the dragon got into range and contacted the multiple Mana shots that tore through both wings. Instead of trying to climb its way back up into the air, the dragon lost altitude from its intercept path with the airships and continued on flying underneath them and passed the Dwarven legion.
For a second, Sophie considered wheeling the airships around. But then she realized that this was probably Murphy fucking with her. And if Murphy was going to fuck with her, she was going to fuck him back.
“Hold steady!” She yelled, turning to watch as several of the chosen on the ground peppered the dragon with their attacks.
The door was around her grunted. Sophie continued to think about what terrible things could happen as the dragon fell, never to rise again. Four dragons remained. She was considering that maybe there was some terrible battle plan that a deep death knight could not enact. Maybe it was going to throw things at them they’d never encountered before, and as she saw the first of the elephant-sized elves, she shuddered.
Of course they had elephant sized monstrosities made of composite body parts. It would make nothing but sense for them to have that.
She remembered the boys at school, talking about how trans kids were like Frankenstein’s and being offended. But now, seeing actual frankensteined monsters in front of her, that hurt. With lines holding at the earthen walls, several the chosen took that time to aim for the elephants. Not that easy to aim a catapult directly at a moving enemy, even a large one.
“Concentrate fire on those elephants,” she said to her crew. “We’ve got to take them down before they break through our lines.”
Her crew grumbled, but they did so. From the relative safety of being hundreds of feet in the air, Sophie was not going to be the one to complain. Everyone down the front lines deserved their respect. And it was because they didn’t have enough airships that they needed to have a ground crew as well. Sophie had argued that they should probably leave the ground guys until the aerial superiority had decimated most of the ground forces, but she wasn’t a military tactician, she was just a chosen. And in fact, she was a chosen that had chosen a rogue and then a warlock class. Her situation was dire. At least she still had a druid class.
Despite her combat ability and scouting prowess, they were not going to take direction from her for these bigger battles. Everyone knew she was great in a pinch, but without still and Bob, was she going to be the one scout?
No.
She was just going to be the weird girl who let people know when the elephants were attacking and to shoot them down.