Racknar made his way to a local alchemist in the city of August and entered it, walking at a fast pace that was hard for the others to match. Once inside they were greeted by a kindly looking old lady that seemed like she would fit in better as somebody's cookie backing grandma then an alchemist. “Well hello there dearies, how many I help you find young people.” Racknar didn't hesitate to get started, grabbing a piece of paper and writing on it. “I need some potions and ingredients and unfortunately I'm a little shy on funds right now so I'm going to sign a guild debt form so you can get paid later.” He then slides over the paper.
The grandma puts on some glasses and looks over the list. “My my, this is quite the list. I don't even have some of these in stock. Dragon's breath, bull’s strength, cat's grace, lamp oil, gunpowder, sand of Morpheus, banshee’s cry, grease, essence of Lethe… Some of these are rare due to how hard the materials are to gather and even if I had them in stock I don't know if I'd even be allowed to sell them to you. So unless the job you've taken is paying you in a lot of aurum coins it'll take forever for you to pay this off.” The grandma waves her hand and it glows slightly.
Racknar, in an extremely blunt tone, speaks plainly and simply. “We are off to kill what I suspect to be an Elder Brain Dragon or perhaps even a Great Wyrm Brain Dragon.” The grandma looks at him with a blank expression, blinking for a moment. Then after a long pause she speaks. “You wait right there sweety and I'll get your list.” She takes the paper and vanishes into the back of the building. She quickly pops back out. “I marked several large jugs for you to put in your cart and I'll get to work on the enhancements.”
Racknar takes several trips grabbing large jars and jugs. Then when he finished the party noticed the smell of cookies. The grandma eventually popped out with five bags with multiple cookies. “Some people don't like the taste of potions, too bitter. So ol’ Granny figured out how to get the same effect into tasty treats. I'm guessing you know when to eat them for the meat effect. I filled out the form and all you have to do is sign.” Racknar nodded and signed the paperwork before going to his spider drawn cart.
Racknar climbs into the seat to drive the cart. “All right, now I'll form a small army. Made up of all my unnamed siblings and as many goblins I can convince to help us. Then once we are there we'll roll this cart into the dragon's den, and light that shit like a Roman candle. We still have to fight through the minions, but that's what the army is for. I'll also use the badge of Arachne to summon a Dragon Spider. The strongest thing I can get with it. Unfortunately it'll then be unusable for a while after that.”
Marionette shrugged. “We can easily take a few days off after this mission.” Racknar nodded. “If I had the money I'd have bought a portable hole and a bag of holding to sacrifice.” Davy let out a loud “Bro!” Ariagoria and Marionette both looked confused with Krys’tal changing color to indicate they are also confused. Davy then explains “It's an infamous trick in Creatures and Catacombs known as the Redneck Black Hole Gun. You get a bow and arrow set up using a bag of holding and a portable hole so when you shoot something the bag of holding goes into the portable hole. Both items use pocket dimension shenanigans to work. Putting one in the other results is space collapsing in the area. It's absolutely garbage considering how expensive the items are and the fact they are destroyed.”
Racknar nodded. “But it sure as shit will do a lot of damage. Get enough archers armed with black hole arrows and you can take down the eldritch living planet of Xen’nah’ran even faster than the Zarr Bomba Mage trick can. Of course at that point you'd have bankrupt an entire nation. At least you prevented your home from being drowned in madness and consumed.” Marionette groaned. “There are way too many crazy things to keep track of in that game you keep talking about. We don't even know if everything from it is here in this world or universe or whatever.”
Racknar chuckled. “Let's get going and ruin the day of a space parasite.” Everyone hopped on the cart and off they went. Davy was grumbling about his mistake for the entire trip, since it was his blunder that led to this current problem. Davy finally asked “So what exactly is all this?” Davy gestured to the full cart. Racknar sighed. “We've got a number of explosive and flammable things, one thing that will produce a sonic burst, a sleep potion of sorts, and the equivalent of an AOE version of the spell Ray of Enfeeblement. So we're going to do a ton of damage leaving the monster burning for a while as well as being debilitated as it's made deft, dumb, and sleepy.”
Davy nodded. “So we are going to reduce its health as much as possible with little to no risk to ourselves leaving it with debuffs as we and a small army start chipping away at it.” Racknar shook his head. “The small army is for the minions. Only thing helping us fight the actual boss will be the monster I summon with the badge. If we level up the same way as the game then experience is split amongst whatever fought a monster. Meaning we would have to split our earnings with the goblins and spiders.” Ariagoria groaned. “That's not how real life experience works though.” Racknar nodded. “I know that, but things here often feel like it's straight out of the game so I'm going to keep being weird.”
The group first went to grab the black iron spiders before locating the goblin settlement and asking for help. In addition to the twenty spiders the goblins offered forty men, half of whom would be cavalry. Ariagoria couldn't help but notice all the goblins had gear made from the chitin of razer locusts and black iron spider parts. Much higher end then what was typical for a goblin. “They are definitely more well equipped than I expected. Maybe that'll close the gap between them and the Vren.” Racknar shook his head. “We'll have to be tactical to reduce risks as much as possible. The goblins have Molotovs so we'll probably open up with those. Reduce the numbers and health of the minions as much as possible before we even engage them.”
Marionette couldn't help but be in awe at the level of preparation Racknar was putting into this plan. Once that party was ready they started heading to the abandoned mine that housed the corrupted dragon. They were still a bit away when they saw the guards posted outside the mine. There must have been twenty Vren and fifteen altered kobolds just outside the cave. Racknar growled. “They must be between raids, that's actually good for us. It means we won't be leaving a ton of genetically altered goblins and kobolds to their own devices after we finish. There's probably more inside so we'll need to clear a path to the dragon's den. Once that is done we send in the bomb. Stick to cantrips and the infinite range options we have thanks to magic items until we are fighting the dragon. Then hit it as hard and fast as you can. If we can't kill it in ten minutes, we're probably screwed.”
The goblin commander chosen by Rek ordered his men to attack. A volley of Molotov cocktails, flammable oil and grease, as well as flaming and poison tipped series flys at the small army guarding the mine. This attack catches them completely off guard as several of them are set on fire and poisoned. This opening attack actually managed to kill five Vren and two altered kobolds. Once alerted to the attack on their base the minions started moving. Racknar started throwing his javelins, Marionette her daggers, Ariagoria and Krys’tal fired arrows and bolts, and finally Davy launched his signature warlock cantrip.
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This killed three more Vren and a kobold, bringing the numbers down to twelve each. When the minions finally got into the fight they held nothing back. The Vren opened up with sonic attacks, defining many of the goblins. This opened them up to an attack from the kobolds who easily killed six of the twenty members of the goblin infantry despite their better armor, bringing them down to fourteen. The goblins were fighting back with the calvary taking shots and the burned and burning minions. They focused fire on the stronger kobolds, taking out four of the remaining twelve leaving eight.
Racknar hummed a tune as the party continued to throw and fire ranged attacks, coating them in either burning cloth or black iron spider’s venom. They were able to kill six Vren between them, cutting their numbers down to six. In the skirmish between the allied goblins and the twisted minions, four more infantry died bringing them down to ten. Davy looked over at Racknar who was humming. “Is that… The Monster Mash?” Racknar chuckled. “Fitting, is it not?”
The allied goblins continued to put pressure on the kobolds, able to finish off the remaining eight. The party then finished off the remaining six Vren. The outside cleared it was time to work their way into the mine. Racknar makes a series of clicks. “That actually went well, better than I expected. Now we can run a bottleneck phalanx down the mineshaft till we reach the chamber with the dragon and get the real party started.”
The second part of the plan went even smoother than the first as the goblin phalanx was able to work through the small groups of Vren and kobold that were in the shaft. Once they made their way to the entrance of the dragon's den, the infantry moved back out and the cart was rolled in. Racknar lit the fuze and kicked it into the chamber with all his might before everyone ran out of the mine. Within moments there was an extremely loud bang followed by what sounded like a scream as smoke billowed out of the mine entrance. There was then a distorted version of a dragon roar followed by a very pissed and somewhat injured looking dragon with a giant tentacled brain mass on its back that had forced its tendrils into the dragon bumbling its way out of the mine in a daze.
The dragon looked like it had been crossed with a naked mole rat, any scales it once had looked like it had been replaced by wrinkly pinkish skin. Its eyes were milky white, and any signs of what kind of dragon it once was were mostly gone minus the spine fin and webbed feet indicating it was likely once an ocean dragon. Racknar grumbled. “Great… quite possibly the absolute worst option out of all the biome dragons. Based on that thing’s size, it's definitely a great wyrm.”
The dragon, still burning, lumbered it's way at the party and their monster allies as javelins, arrows, bolts, daggers, magic, and flammable liquid were shot at it. Racknar shouted out “Whatever you do, don't let its breath weapon hit you!” Directing his words at the goblins. Once the dragon was within range, Racknar activated his infernal wrath ability and ran in while everyone else kept their distance. The dragon roared and flailed wildly as it was bombarded with attacks, seemingly unable to focus enough to do much else other than claw and bite on instinct.
Racknar was able to avoid the brunt of the wild attacks, only taking grazing hits. He then takes a moment to summon the dragon spider. A large spider about the size of a small house with skin like membranes on its legs and a glowing orange thorax. The goblin infantry also close in and start stabbing the burning dragon with poison of flaming spears. The goblin calvary remain in the back line, shooting arrows of fire and poison. Although the monster is resistant to poison, resistance is not immunity and damage is damage.
Davy switches tactics now that the main target is out by casting Eldritch Hunger on the dragon. Ariagoria and Krys'tal continue to take shots from the distance while Marionette uses her shadow movement to get behind the dragon, slicing at it four times in rapid succession. The dragon made distorted noises that almost sounded like it was trying to talk before it took two claw swipes, rending two goblins to ribbons and biting a third to bits, cutting down the goblin infantry to seven.
Racknar takes out his bag of cookies and downs them all in just a few seconds as the dragon spider shoots fire at the elder brain dragon who's enveloped in a ball of whispering shadow. The goblins don't let up shooting and stabbing at the corrupted dragon. Ariagoria and Krys'tal continue to fire at the dragon with Krys'tal’s ice bow clearly doing more damage than the crossbow. Then they down their own cookies. Marionette moves to avoid friendly fire but continues to slash at the dragon with her scissor blades before eating her batch of cookies.
The dragon switches its focus to the giant spider, seeing it as the biggest threat. It claws at it twice before biting it. The spider takes damage but is still standing. Racknar finally draws his weapons and attacks the twisted dragon six times. Four times with Rip and Tear, twice with his regular greatswords. The dragon roars out clearly three words in draconic. Davy, too busy concentrating on Eldritch Hunger to cast another spell, translates. “Apparently he just said: death, self, plead. I think that's the dragon talking and not the Mother Brain.”
The goblin commander responds “If it want death, Grakka help provide.” As the goblins continued their assault. The spider bites the corrupted dragon, injecting it with its venom. The dragon responds by point blank blasting it with lightning leaving the spider looking like it's near death. Ice and rot spreads on the skin of the dragon as Eldritch Hunger slowly chips away at it. Marionette slashes into the dragon six times in rapid succession, now moving faster. Ariagoria and Krys'tal start launching arrows faster as well, now firing off every second rather than every other second.
Davy keeps his spell up focusing on dealing damage over time and Racknar savagely attacks the dragon with four attacks with each weapon for a total of eight times. “One of those cookies must have been a haste spell because holy crap.” The dragon spider makes one last flame attack before it is torn apart by the corrupt dragon that roars in triumph. Its eyes suddenly go from milky white to black and it snarls at the party before saying something in a language that wasn't draconic.
Davy coughed. “The damn thing just spoke in deep speech. You probably don't want me to translate what it said but I think the mind fog wore off.” Racknar cursed. “Fuck, that didn't last nearly as long as it should have. If you goblins have any more explosives, I'd suggest using them now.” The seven remaining goblin infantry toss jars of thick honey like liquid that coats part of the dragon. The liquid bursts into flames when the arrows hit, setting the dragon on fire again.
The dragon flapped its wings to try and put itself out and take off, but the moment it gets airborne and reaches the edge of Eldritch Hunger’s range the fire in the dragon flares up worse and the thing grunts in pain before dropping back down. It snarls as thick saliva drips out of its mouth. Racknar shouts “Watch out, it's about to use its tadpole breath.” It then fires a thick stream of slime with large tadpoles in it at the seven goblins engaged in melee with the dragon.
After gripping their heads the seven turn to attack the calvary, their eyes already black from the changes being made by the tadpoles. The cavalry has no choice but to shoot down their fellow goblins. The infantry all lay dead leaving only the cavalry. The party continued their assault on the dragon moving faster than normal with the exception of Davy who was still concentrating on his spell. Marionette kept attacking the thing from behind and actually severed its tail in her assault.
Ariagoria decided to cast Hellish Retribution instead of using her crossbow that didn't seem to be doing much while Krys'tal managed to shoot the dragon in the eye with one of her ice arrows. After impact the ice spike exploded, freezing half the dragon’s face. Racknar took the opening and continued carving into the dragon’s chest with his chainsaw swords. “Come on, just die already!” The dragon laughs. “Can't you see how futile your struggle is? I resist all non magical damage, meaning your wild flailing is mostly useless. I'll admit, you've done more damage than I expected, but now playtime is over.”
The dragon tries to charge up its lightning breath, sparks shoot from its mouth and then die down. “What the?” Racknar laughed. “an Illithid mother brain may be immune to the Sand of Morpheus, but a dragon is not. Have fun trying to fight us while literally half asleep. You're on your last legs, based on my calculations I just need one more round to kill you." The dragon lets out a mighty roar as it flows slightly, wounds closing up a bit as it seems to cast a healing spell to recover. “This body is capable of magic, and although I may not have access to most of it because of what you did, it's enough to call lightning on you miserable insects.”
The dragon flies up, this time successfully, the flames almost go out but are increased by some sort of effect. Davy fires a thick lightning bolt at it dripping Eldritch Hunger. Ariagoria, Krys’tal, and the goblins continue to fire at it with Marionette throwing daggers again. Lightning arcs around the dragon as it shouts in draconic. Its words translated: “Call Lightning Storm!”