Thursday, May 5, 2011

We be Dragon Slayers

Last night was the last encounter of the March of the Phantom Brigade campaign we've been running at the gamestore. I'd been looking forward to this for days, in that jumpy-giddy sort of way. It was finally the end, the moment when we would wrap everything up, save the town, make the world a better place.

(I get into the role playing aspect of D&D, if you haven't noticed.)

Our task: Slay the dragon Actherimos guarding the Arrow of Time.

It was a bit more complicated than that, but because I haven't blogged about this campaign before, I'll leave it at that. We had to slay a dragon.

And we did it in the most awkward way possible.

After slicing through the dragon's minions with little to no effort, their gore painting the stalactite encrystal ceiling in the most creative ways our DM could think to explain, the dragon roared up and pounded the ground, sending earthquake tremors throughout the room. It had been evident that this was a catastrophe dragon, so without worry of dragon breath scorching/freezing/melting our armor, we dove in weapon first, slashing at the deranged beast.

It did pretty much nothing.

The dragon retaliated by turning us to stone, trying to bite us in half, and pretty much destroying our line of defense. That was when the dragon made his greatest mistake.

The dragon reached out with his huge jaws to bite down on some tasty and slightly-mentally-challenged paladin, and his jaw hit true. But before the dragon could real back, the paladin forced his jaw open, grabbed his tongue, and started to crawl down his throat.

I'm not even kidding.

The paladin pointed his sword first, slashing at the monsters tonsils and the tender meat of his esophagus, gashing him open from the inside out.

To his comrades, this action seemed fool hardy. They watched his legs squirm as the dragon reeled his head, trying to bite off the human paladin's legs and swallow him whole.

Hagen tried to use his mace to shove the paladin all the way in, so at least he wouldn't be in danger of getting his legs bitten off, but it was to no avail, as the dragon was flailing too spastically for Hagen to get a good shot at the paladin's rump.

The battle continued in chaos for a little while longer, the paladin's ally's gaining combat advantage because the dragon was slightly distracted. The dragon did his best to bite down and swallow, and the paladin found himself slashing from the inside of the dragons throat. The plus side: his legs were no longer in range of the dragons teeth. The downside: he would suffocate soon if he didn't get out of there.

Winrock slashed at the dragons belly with his hellfire sword, trying to tear open his stomach and open up the dragons insides to some fresh oxygen and an escape route for his paladin companion, but while the attack forced great damage, it did not pierce far enough to puncture the dragon's stomach.

It was then that Hagen had a brilliant idea.

He prayed to Pelor and charged his mace with the crackling power of 2[W] + Dex. modifier Lightning Damage, and delivered a heavy strike with true aim and intense fury...

To the dragon's right testicle.

The electricity crackled through the dragons body, spreading from his unders, and his testicle caved in under the heavy blow from a spiked weapon.

He was left stunned, and a few other status ailments I can't remember.

It is then that a chill fills the room and the members of our adventuring company hear the menacing and familiar voice of a once-enemy turned ally, the great ghost Sir Vladistone.

"What... are you doing?" He asks with what our DM describes as shock and awe, as Vladistone has walked in to see the great dragon that killed him in a former life choking on a paladin and wincing in pain while a Warpriest deals Lightning damage to his balls.

We offer to give Vladistone the Arrow of Time so he can keep his wife from being killed in the past (it's a time arrow, it can do that), because for all of our highly rolled insight-checks, his motives appear to be honest. In thanks, he slashes open the dragons belly in the final damage-dealing blow, and calls off the ghosts that were attacking the city of Hammerfast.

The dragon horks out our paladin before he dies, and the paladin takes 20 damage from the combination of digestive juices and being horked into a wall. Vladistone thanks us, as insane as he thinks we may be, and leaves to do what he needs to do.

The paladin hacks off the Dragons head, and declares himself a Dragon Slayer.

...

All in all, it was an extremely fun (and funny) encounter to play through, and the end of the plot was satisfying enough. I will also never forget our profoundly different way of dragon slaying

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