Outside 49: I don’t remember what it looks like either

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

But that's a dragon! How can you even fight a dragon?
...
Looking at Spako,
well,
they kind of have a dragon on their own, so...maybe they can actually do this?
"...Why would 'wrong dragon' even matter?" she says, mostly to herself.

She completely ignores the soldier-guy. Nope. They're obviously awful people, not going to follow him. Better stick with the not-awful people like the dragon and the deer-lady.

Well...there isn't really much June can do, anyway. She's not a dragon and she doesn't have magic party poppers. All she has is...
She looks down and sees the ball of light.
What? Kick it at the dragon?

In the first place, she never tried to hit something in the sky before. Accurately getting the right height has never mattered. And she's never actually been the best at aiming in any of her friend groups. Can get some decent horizontal distance, but nothing particularly impressive.
Not to mention, with the grieves on, it might make it bounce weird and miss. Because she's not used to the shape of the grieves, she'll probably have to do some kind of drop kick, too, just to get it in the air, especially because they're definitely not designed to be the right shape to scoop and kick upwards.
Why would it even do anything in the first place? she wonders. But, even worse...let's say it does do something. She figures she's probably just as likely to hit Spako as to hit that firebreathing dragon. If it does do something, hitting Spako would basically make them lose and have no choice but to run.

She bends down and picks up the ball.
Considering that Spako's a dragon and that Pepper appears to have some sort of very-effective magic, it's probably best if June doesn't get in their way.

Well. . .
Okay. If it looks like there's an opening where there's a zero percent chance of hitting Spako, she'll drop kick the ball at the dragon. But just in case this actually does something, she doesn't want to accidentally hit one of the two people who can actually do something useful in this situation.

[Deathkeeper]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Spako pulls up, and the fire only manages to scorch his belly. It hurts, but between his gold-silver belly scales and his armor, it shouldn't leave serious burns.
Spako growls and draws a rune with a foreclaw, sending a blast of hot gas at the dragon. This probably won't hurt all that much.
But the dragon might want to make sure it takes a deep breath to clear that gas from its face before it breathes fire again, because it's flammable gas and that would really be unfortunate if it were to breathe fire with that in its face.

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

The evil dragon seems unconcerned about the gas cloud. What was that even supposed to do? Then he opens his mouth again as sparks begin dancing from his speech-

-and the cloud explodes right in his face.

Now that hurt quite a bit. Enough to send the dragon reeling away from Spako and giving June a clear shot to kick the orb of light! She may be surprised that it sails straight and true, or at least mostly true but definitely straight. She still needs to aim her kicks but it would seem the light orb does the rest of the work. The orb clips the wrist joint of the dragon's as yet unharmed right wing and shatters in a brilliant blast of radiance that shatters bones and rends membrane. Inflicted with TWO crippled wings, the dragon crashes to the earth!

At that sight a cheer rises from the villagers, soldiers, and even a few escaping prisoners. It seems like they've managed to shake off their stupor and are acting more naturally now.

The fight with the dragon isn't over yet, though. Not by a long shot. The beast rolls himself over onto his feet and lets loose another plume of flame into the defenders!

Pepper, meanwhile, is darting toward the downed dragon at deer-speed again, a two handed battle axe materializing in her grip as she makes a tremendous LEAP onto the dragon's back and SLAMS the weapon into its spine! Upon contact the axe makes a high-pitch whining sound as it chew through scales and flesh with terrific violence!

Apparently Pepper has a buzz-saw axe. WAY better than a chainsaw sword, in her opinion.

"Scoundrel! Blackguard! Take THAT you villainous MEANIE!" Pepper cries as she raises her axe to strike again, only to get swatted off the dragon by one of his wings. She goes sailing through the air and collides with a nearby wall.

THUMP!

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

The dragon going down is great, June thinks. Not that it really changes what she'll be able to do, but now all the people who actually have weapons will be able to attack it, probably. So, it seems, the best thing she can do is to still keep her distance.

...
Especially since she just got a visual example of what happens if you get too close to the dragon's muscles.
"Oh!" She watches Pepper fly and crash into a wall. That definitely doesn't look like it was good.
Giving the downed dragon a wide berth, she runs around towards Pepper. "Hey! Are you alright?" she calls out.

[Deathkeeper]

In Search of a Fortress

Spako continues his assault, spitting an old-fashioned spell that causes his claws to burst into electrical arcing. Spako dives and claws at the other dragon's back as he passes over.
The fact that it's on the ground means it's now grounded, which could be even worse as the electrical current flows down its legs to the ground.

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Pepper gives an "Eeep!" as she smacks into the wall pretty hard and slumps to the ground. She's getting back up again, though she's a bit shaky. Definitely not one to give up, however! Hefting her axe back up she takes a few steps toward the dragon-

-and stops when Spako starts shocking the heck out of it.

Why?

Because she doesn't want to get zapped, too!

Lightning is usually pretty equal opportunity when it comes to frying things.

"I'm alright!" Pepper yells back at June, waiting for the ZOT to end before springing at the evil dragon again and smashes her battle axe into its ribs.

Wow, she's really getting into that.

The evil dragon is a bit twitchy still from the shock and its counter attack is mostly feeble. It does manage to catch a solider in the face with its tail, though.

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

"Okay," June says, glad that Pepper's alright.

She backs up away, a bit more, in case the evil dragon decides to turn towards her and breathe fire on her too or maybe hit her with its tail or something, as some sort of malicious swan song or something like that.
"Make sure to stay safe!" she calls out.

[Deathkeeper]

In Search of a Fortress

Spako lands beside his friends. This time, he doesn't use fancy lightning magics or gas-powered conjuration runes.
He just breathes his normal brass dragon fire breath in the spikey dragon's face.
Sometimes the normal approach is a perfectly acceptable one.

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

What Pepper is doing is basically the opposite of staying safe. She's smacking an evil dragon with an axe. Which part of that activity could ever be considered safe? None of the parts? Yes, none of the parts is the correct answer. There are precisely zero things safe about hitting an evil dragon with an axe, but Pepper is doing it anyways.

She's spurning your advice, June!

The dragon whips around, swatting Pepper away again (ouch!) with a wing and avoiding the worst of Spako's fire! Very possibly bashing him across the face with his tail, too.

Uh oh.

It looks like the dragon has zeroed in on June somehow.

Is that music?

Why is there heroic sounding music playing as the dragon stomps its way closer to June?

Why is she holding a sabre made of light all of a sudden? Not to be confused with a lightsabre, which isn't shaped like a sabre at all.

Would that thing actually be able to hurt a dragon?

June will get the very strong impression that yes, it would in fact hurt the dragon. The dragon is moving quite a bit faster than she could probably run away and if she DOES flee it might just ignite her instead of crawling up and trying to bite her, which is what it's doing right now.

Quick June!

Do something heroic!

[Shadowcaller]

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

Their claims certainly don't do much to ease the Speaker's mind. There's a thought, burning bright, that perhaps it wasn't treason from within that spread the tale. But the alternative is perhaps even worse.

"It seems you are right. And the implications of that chill me to my core." She pauses. "I feared, when you came here, that you were sent by the one the tale speaks of. I don't think you are, but nonetheless swear. On your hearts and minds, that you do not serve the one they call the King in Rags."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

Wretched existence. Good one. They sound like a sylvari knight on a quest.

"We have no idea who or what caused this mess," Thariza says. "I was here with a friend, then things started exploding and we got separated."

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

"We have no masters." Korrina states. It's something that Vax promotes strongly in their compound. "But I don't know any being by that name either." She looks at Zhareen. The teacher would know better.

[Journey to the Center of the Elves]

"The fourth tower servers man, as in all of man. May they be your people or variations of humans. Mortals." Zhareen claims with a nod. "So I swear that I do not serve the 'king of rags' by that name, or any other. Indeed, I've never actually heard of it before either. There are a lot of similar figures in stories I've been told as a child but never one with that exact name."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

As the lighting seems to die down, the warriors seems to be satisfied with Thariza's explanation but not with staying put.
Then we shall investigate. The apparent leader gestures into the distance, at the very center of the storm clouds where the explosion seems to have been centered. There's still smoke rising from the spot.

"...you sure that's a good idea guys? This whole area is kinda dangerous even without those lighting strikes. I mean, look at it." The mushroom forest have been partly replaced by seemingly random spots of other environments. Some simple forests while others seem to have been taken out of a desert, a jungle or even somewhere more exotic.

We shall find the solution or die for the glory of our people
They seem literary deadset on this and already starts moving out.

[Purple Eagle]

Rolling Hills

Asher searches. It takes a while. But far away, he finds what he's looking for. Underwater. There's huge mobile facility parked off a stormy island chain, where it would be very difficult to reach. It's heavily defended and armored, hidden well from normal detection, and just very isolated. As a fortress, it's going to be very hard to assault.

Maybe more forces might be needed? It will be a very intense fight.

[Rolling Hills]

Zabb is silent as he scans, until finally he finds what he's seeking! "Found the fortress!" He announces triumphantly, and points in its direction. "It's in an island, well-hidden and well-defended. We should get other people to join us in fighting! Maybe your mum can come, Lapis? I can call Uri too!" So that Lapis will be willing to go along with the idea, he adds: "It'll be more fun that way."

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

If someone tells you to stay safe, then you are supposed to stay safe! Does Pepper not know how that works?

Speaking of not knowing how it works, why is the dragon turning towards her? There are clearly more threatening people around. If only she had realized that Pepper was clearly alright, then she wouldn't have had to run closer to the dragon to check on her.

Not in the mood to be burned to death -- at least, not before she gets a decent answer on where she actually is, June realizes that there is really only one direction that she can run that won't lead to either an agonizingly slow death or a lifetime of disability.

And! Luckily, June realizes that there is a sword in her hand. If it's anything like that ball, it might even shatter some of that dragon's bones. Maybe. Well, regardless, her only real chance is to pray that it lowers its head as it tries to bite her, instead of doing the smart thing like turning around and hitting her with its tail or holding its head out of reach and breathing fire on her.

So, she passes the sword from her right hand to her left, and then sprints to the evil dragon. When she gets close enough to be in biting range, she plants her feet, spread out, and swings upwards at the dragon's jaw while lowering her own chest down against her knees.

[Deathkeeper]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Spako is bopped on the nose by a tail!
Ow. Rude.
The other dragon is already charging its way at June and there's not much he can do to catch up at this point. Unless!
Spako pops back into his kobold shape and begins casting a spell. Lots of runes begin floating around him.
June may or may not have bopped the dragon by the time he's done.

[Rebonack]

[Rolling Hills]

"Aaww... but if mom comes she'll blow up all the robots herself! She's SUPER strong!" Lapis complains. "I think we should tell VIGIL instead! There are lots of heroes there who could help beat the robots and we would still get to help, too."

And stopping things like this is technically VIGIL's job.

Just sayin'!


[In Search of a Fortress]

Spako begins casting a spell!

Pepper shakily rises to her hooves again and looks really cross! She's not having much fun getting swatted around by this dragon.

And June?

She slashes at the dragon while moving to duck under a counter-attack bite! Probably. The sword gouges a deep fissure into the dragon, the wound burning with what looks like a sunbeam given coherent shape. With a roar of pain the dragon staggers back for a moment before snapping at June with its massive jaws!

Normally getting caught by this bite would mean getting crushed to death between the jaws of a dragon.

Instead, is the dragon should bite June, she'll just be... sort of scooted away from it and out of the dragon's mouth? She'll definitely feel pressure from the impact and see a momentary strobe of light. Probably the magical armor protecting her as opposed to, say, video game HP logic.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Job]

"Oh no I don't want to get the psycho murder-god angry." G'nichi says drily. But he doesn't comment.
He WILL lock the door.
But he's not washing his face with the sink. What if it's full of crazy-water? And frankly, he doesn't have an alarm to set, but if he wakes up before morning, he might go out just for the hell of it.

G'nichi says this only because he hasn't made a proper psycho murder-god angry yet. That first one was still half-asleep.
Anyway, he decides to not wash his face before he goes to sleep!

...

Terrible dreams come to his slumbering mind.

The sharp odor of burning trees and thick black fog corrupted by smoke, flashes of stretched,
vaguely lupine figures tearing through a home, he is so small why is he so small, cries of pain,
a child's warped laugh, blood covers the walls, all the walls,
the groaning of the earth itself struggling to support a great weight,
the deafening cracks of tree trunks and screams...

The crooked legs of an enormous spider pull little G'nichi out of the fog, into the web-filled shelter of his little room. He is pulled into the gentle embrace of its smooth abdomen, protected from the horrors of the world outside in a cocoon of white.

G'nichi awakens shortly after dawn, to a silent world. A small little spider is scuttling along one of his arms.
On the floor next to his bed lies the same ever-sheathed sword as yesterday, alongside a donut-shaped disk of gray metal, a chakram. Occasional glints of iridescence glimmer along its edges.

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Skyrim dragons sometimes activate a cutscene when they bite you, though, so it's pretty fortunate that June was just pushed out.

June was really hoping that it would just shatter its jaw or something, and momentarily panics when it doesn't, and only cuts in it. She tries to get away - not by running straight away from it, of course, but instead by running around it. (Not directly behind it, either; it still has that tail.) She hopes it's like a T-Rex and is just really really slow at stationary turning; she can check to make sure that she's alright if she manages to get away.

[Morty]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"I won't stop you, I guess." It's not like she could if she was inclined to. "Just try to ask questions first and stab later."

[Deathkeeper]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Spako growls as his last rune slides into place. From it, five bolts of simmering arcane energy launch themselves at the dragon, burning and striking with heavy force.
When you can't close in on something? Start launching projectiles!


[A Brisk Afternoon Jog]

G'nichi wakes up to find himself in bed and a spider on his arm. G'nichi tries to cup his hand around the creature without hurting it.
"Good morning, my little tormentor. Or my savior?" he asks sleepily. Weird spider dreams. Normally he would brush these things off.
In a murder forest? No way. Could it have been a message? Was someone trying to warn him? It would sure make sense, because then the instructions to wash his face might be to block any such warnings.
Maybe G'nichi is reading too much into it, but with a situation this messed up being sent spider-related dreams via magic is not the strangest thing he can think of. He just hopes that he's entirely wrong and it wasn't a warning because wow that would be messed up. Being grabbed by giant spiders and coated in blood? Nothing good happens in this town, he's sure of that. G'nichi goes to collect his weapons, but he has no other gear to equip himself with. And it wouldn't do him any good anyway.

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

June dodges around the dragon's next count-bite as bolts of arcane power slam into it! About the same time Pepper buries her axe in the dragon's flank again and THIS TIME has enough sense to avoid getting swatted away with a wing slap. The dragon roars with rage, wheeling around to try biting at Pepper next!

And you know that that means?

That means the dragon's neck is exposed to June.

A very strange idea may occure to her.

You know what a good plan would be, June?

Leaping up onto the dragon's neck and stabbing it in the face several times with your sabre.

That's a normal thing to consider doing, right?

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

After seeing the bad dragon get hit by magic and get attacked by an axe again, June is actually kind-of relieved. This actually might be possible!

And actually, to be honest, that idea isn't that strange.
In the first place, snakes and alligators? Best place to grab them is probably just on their neck. That way, they can't get you. Dragons are probably the same, so it makes sense that you'd grab on to its neck. Especially since dragons probably can't breathe fire out of their neck.
Plus!
What little boy or little girl hasn't dreamed about riding a dragon?
Doing the dual-purpose of staying safe and fulfilling a childhood dream, June pivots and jumps up to the dragon's neck.

She holds on and then swings her sword at it, trying to make the evil dragon stop...being so evil.

[Deathkeeper]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Spako starts running to help June. He points a claw at the other dragon, and a rune flashes into place on a soft part of its neck.
”There, June! Whack him there!” he calls.

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

In an impressive display of gymnastics June leaps onto the dragon and rains several devastating swordstrokes into its head, the sabre of light cleaving through the scales and into bone with ease. Then, as a final coup de grace, she sinks the blade deep into the rune Spako has painted on the evil dragon. The beast howls in pain and rage, thrashing mightily, but as its roars wane a it voices words in the common tongue, the rage giving way to fear.

"Dovahkin? Nooooo..."

A cry that quickly fades into a death rattle as the monster collapses, giving June ample time to leap off heroically.

"We killed it!"
"Praise the Eight! The dragon is dead!"
"By the gods, something is happening, everyone get back!"

Something is happening indeed. Eerie flames begin licking across the dead dragon, burning it down to the bone as streamers of light and power swirl from the corpse and into June! She'll feel empowered. Like there's potential for that strength but it isn't clear just yet what it might be. She feels strong! And feirce! And maybe a little heroic? It feels like she's taken the dragon's power for herself. That isn't a normal thing right?

"By Talos she's... she's dragonborn!" one of the escaped prisoners in blue gasps.

That causes murmurs to begin spreading through the crowd. Dragonborn? What could this mean?

Pepper, meanwhile, bounces on over to give June a hug. "Good job! We saved the town!" For good measure she waves at Spako to come over and join the group hug.

"Wait, Helga, no!" one villager cries out as his small daughter decides to run up and join the hug as well. "You saved us, Dragonborn!" the child declares, looking up at June with her sooty face.

There's still quite a bit of stuff on fire, but the village isn't completely ruined. So probably success?

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

June's glad that that weak point was pointed out, because that was a lot faster and simpler than just whacking it on the head over and over.

She's as relieved as everyone else that it's over.
A little less relieved when the dragon starts burning in front of her and the energy flies towards her.
She glances around. Dragonborn...is that what you get called if you're the one who killed a dragon? Is that a good thing or not? Or is it only certain dragons that burst into flame like that? What are they going...
Luckily,
a hug breaks off her train of thought before she overthinks it all. Actual relief washes over her with the hug.

Because of how potentially dangerous the sword is, June only has one arm available to hug with; however, she does her best to get as much use out of that one arm as possible.
She informs the child, "I only finished it; everyone else did more." Then she says, "But...thank-you."

[Shadowcaller]

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"I won't stop you, I guess." It's not like she could if she was inclined to. "Just try to ask questions first and stab later."

[Walk in the Woods - Thariza]

"Wait, we'll tag along!" The other Ambrosia proclaims as she raises her hand before looking to Thariza. "Right? I mean, whoever you're looking for, the other me or whatever, would probably have gone there too! I mean it's like the only location that stands out in all this chaos."

The warriors pause, giving the two an impatient stare but doesn't project more thoughts into their heads for now.

[Deathkeeper]

In Search of a Fortress

Spako is pulled into a group hug!
"It's okay June. You helped so you totally get credit."
He's definitely confused by terminology, though.
"Huh? But dragonborn are like...dragonfolk. Are you sure you know what you mean?" These silly people don't know what words mean!

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Well what would June need a sword for right now anyway? There aren't any dragons in immediate need of stabbing. When it isn't required the sabre of light will just sort of stop existing.

This is very handy when you need two hands for doing hand things.

Like group hugs.

"Different cosmology," Pepper whispers to Spako. "It's a human with a dragon's soul. They're all great big heroes."

The biggest heroes!

Speaking of heroes, our heroes today will be getting crowded pretty quickly.

"Who are you people?"
"Why is that argonian so small? Do they come with wings?"
"What IS that, some sort of daedra?"
"No, I think she's one of Kyn's forest servants; look at the flowers in her hair."
"No time for questions! Draw more water from the well we have fires to put out!"

Oh right, the fires.

Darn dragons setting everything on fire.

What are our heroes going to do? Help put out the fires? Keep moving? June could probably loot the dragon if she wanted. No doubt she would fine a bunch of dragon bones, scales, and gold coins (for some reason).

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

Well!
With both hands free, that makes participating in a hug a lot easier.

June has no idea how to answer all the questions, so she is glad that more important things come up.

To her two companions, she whispers (loud enough for both to hear), "So I personally think we should get out of here before that commander of those invading soldiers comes back and decides they need to finish their job." Namely, the execution that she only luckily escaped by being teleported elsewhere.

[Deathkeeper]

In Search of a Fortress

Spako looks around. Wow, look at all these weird things they're saying! None of these things make sense!
"Yeah I think we should just keep trying to find this fortress. This is...probably not the fort we were thinking of."
Yeah this is a regular old fort.
Not an old dwarven fort.

[Rebonack]

[In Search of a Fortress]

"Yeah, I'm thinking it's time to go, too, Bye kiddo!" Pepper says as she reaches down and snatches up Spako before setting him atop her lower body. She can make much better time than he can when he's got those little legs.

The child waves goodbye to our heroes as they depart. The villagers, meanwhile, seem far too busy making sure their village doesn't burn down to bother with trying to stop our heroes from departing. Awaaaay from the town they go and down a mountain road flanked by pine trees, snowberries, and the occasional fox watching them from the treeline.

After about fifteen minutes of walking they'll come upon a man in a colorful outfit seated atop a stump along side the road strumming a harp and trying to come up with decent lyrics for his song.

The lyrics are pretty terrible.

So is his song.

But hey, he's trying right?

"Ah! Hello friends!" he calls out, waving to our heroes. "My, what an interesting group of travelers. What brings you all this way?"

[5a Violista]

[In Search of a Fortress]

June waves at the child, too. She is glad that the kid was alright.

Seeing the snowberries makes her wonder if they're poisonous or not. Also, she's glad that this armor is pretty warm. And she looks at the mountains and the sun and other things, trying to see if she can figure out where they are. Probably somewhere in the north, she figures. Or far south.

"Oh, hi," June says back to the musician. "We're looking for a. . ." What was it that he had said? ". . .a fortress." Well, more accurately, those two are looking for a fortress and she's coming along because she has no idea where she is and only some idea about what's going on. And so she's hoping eventually they'll get somewhere.
"Do you know if there's any nearby?" She glances over at the other two, hoping they'll fill in which fortress they're looking for.