>>5645554>>5645554“Lady Marese, Shield for the Faithful, grant your child <PROTECTION FROM FLAME>.”
Wait… What? You can’t even speak the familiar refrain, as your mouth is full of dragonfire, but you certainly think it. The Paladin’s prayer rings out with the subtle vibration of magic. Still, the dwarf is engulfed, and his pack and the wings of his accursed mount with him. Surely no feeble spell fashioned by weakling servants of false gods could—
>BOOMF!
>20You choke, and where whence came flame now vomit forth blood. You claps a hand to your mouth, barely staying airborn, and stare at the lifeblood staining your humanoid hand’s yellow-pink skin.
Wh-what?
The fire and smoke clear, and the gryphon bursts forth like a demon from the Seven Hells—no, like a fiery angel from on high, a truer and more immortal foe than any fiend of the pit. You scarcely have time to register it before…
>CLANGG!>16…You catch a mace to the skull, dislocating your jaw and causing you to see stars that should not yet be speckling the sky. You beat your wings, but they are out of sync. You spiral, and big to plummet.
“HahaHA!” Deepvein’s voice booms out in victorious laughetr. “We did it! The bastard’s as good as dead!”
You adjust yourself, spread your wings wide, mutter prayers half-remembered for your wings—temporary structures of woven flesh, after all—to hold together. You struggle to maintain consciousness, even as a bitter, icy cold seeps out to your extremities from down below—from SOMEWHERE in your torso, wherever the metal ball struck and pierced you, though you dare not look and see how mortal the wound might truly be.
“…No,” your hear the paladin say. “No, the accursed thing yet lives!”
And indeed, you do. Slowly, but surely, you begin to rise again, to sail towards the stars and void beyond, even now swallowing the sun in their spreading blackness. You grit your teeth, and scream forth with blood and fury (mostly blood). Smoke billows from your mouth, though you can muster no more fire. Is your firelung pierced, then? Are your other two lungs? Is that why it feels like…?
No. Focus. You have a mission. You will not fail. You are Theral, Dragonborn Antipaladin, King of Bloodrise, Prince of Love, Conqueror of Hawksong, Dark Prophet of—
>SCREEEAAAHR!>20Your own roar is overwhelmed by the twisted shriek of the massive eagle-lion diving to meet you. You’d envisioned yourself as predator when you launched yourself to pursue this chimera and its riders, but now you feel like scarcely more than prey—a lizard clutched in the talons of a great hawk, a snake at the mercy of some desert cat.
“Taste heaven’s wrath, monster!”
“Don’t mess with Dragonsbane Adventuring Solutions, you kitten-eating lizard-lipped FUCK!”
Broken ribs. Pierced shoulders. A razor-sharp peak ripping at your false face. Blood filling your lungs.
Falling.
“No.”
Drowning in your own blood.
“NO!”
