NABC BECMI Chapter 493 – Crimson Reign
BECMI Chapter 493 – Crimson Reign
In the end, the Moon Dragon of this era didn’t wait for the Cataclysm, choosing to attack a mere year or two before Cirru was due to enter her GreatsleepShe collected over a thousand Red and Amber dragons, and about five hundred opportunistic others, for the biggest dragonflight in known history, leading them to attack the Ringlands and myself.
I saw them coming well ahead of time, draconic gossip being what it was and carrying across the miles with both roars and back-and-forth Scrying among the more powerful dragons, the ones in my lands all having acquired Scrying balls, pools, crystals, or mirrors long ago, even if they had to buy custom versions to do so. Scrying chambers had long become a required portion of any lair held for over a hundred years, and the practice had actually spread to Elders in other kingdoms who liked to gossip and brag to others of their kind.
That I could and did listen in on such stuff inside my realm wasn’t something I told them. I rarely acted upon what I learned directly, but preparing for treachery wasn’t hard to do.
The first thing that happened was that a thousand Crystal dragons with riders took to the air in a glittering swirl of crystalline white bodies, the air temperature dropping a hundred degrees as they did so. THEN the adults and elders of the other dragons came piling out from their caves, even as the storm above the Ringlands grew with frankly apocalyptic speed into the face of the coming dragons converging from the north and the west in two waves.
The Crystals went to fight the Reds, much to the utter astonishment of said Red dragons… both at seeing so many Crystals living in my lands, and for the smallest of the dragons daring to challenge them.
They were even more surprised when they died.
I had twenty going, and every thirty seconds, one or two dragons died to screaming Thunderbolts coming down, trailing black vines and thorns and smashing through one, usually two, and even rarely three invading dragons at a time and blowing them out of the air, or really setting them up for another dragon to come in and engage them with spell and fang.
A good half of our dragon adults and elders had riders, and some had even gone and recruited riders for this fight from the adventurers who frequented Dungeon Doomrose. The additional firepower and threat of the riders was far, far beyond what a unridden dragon of similar age could attain, and the magic advantage was overwhelming on our side, with a few custom spells among the devoted riders that could do things like enhance breath weapons, spells to really increase agility, spells to increase armor, boost natural weaponry, and so forth and so on.
The Crimson Reign that was supposed to take over the Firelands became a Crimson Rain of scarlet bodies falling from the sky, and nobody took more kills of them than the Crystal Flights that went after them wholesale. It was a full-blown blizzard rocking a thunderstorm above lava-fields in the middle of summer, and the Crystal dragons proved the cold was something to be very, very feared as they and their riders used it like the masters of it they were and had been practicing for at least decades, if not centuries, in wielding it.
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I reached out, ripped, and dimensions tore open.
The current Moon Dragon tumbled out of dimensional space, barely catching herself with a spat Word before slowing to hover in the air and stare at me.
For a thousand feet around us, the storm parted, the air went still, and even the Screaming Skullbolts descending from the skies on blood-red lightning were muted, even as they kept falling.
The dragons locked in fighting nearby were pushed back by hurricane-force winds, unable to intervene, only look on in awe as I faced down the Dragon Ruler.
Well, Duum and I.
I was an Eternal above Fifty, and Duum was still my Familiar and Animal Companion, such as it was. At full size he was now the size of the very largest of rocs, his wings could loom over a Great Wyrm easily, and he was much bigger than Cirruluxul, who was also out in this storm wreaking havoc among the invaders with spell and claw.
“You should have remained cowering in your lair, Dragon of the Moon,” I Said, and everyone within my Ringlands and a hundred miles outside heard every word.
There were roars of outrage as her Consorts began spilling out of nowhere, coming to the defense of their ruler.
They died.
My were acknowledging no Caster Level Limits or damage restrictions today. Their impacts were unbelievable, like cannons detonating against the skins and hides of the Great Wyrms who attended upon the Ruler of all Chaotic Dragons.
Five Amber Great Wyrms, plus a Red, a Green, and a Black Great Wyrm, nearly ten thousand years of history between them, raged and died in a radiant swarm of force and elemental energies punctuated with arias from the Sublime Chord that made the earth and sky shake with Thunder of the Heartsong. The Great Wyrms trailed fire and lightning, cold and smoke in long, disbelieving arcs as they fell limply from the skies.
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Moon’s iridescent mother-of-pearl scales seemed to falter and darken as the cavalcade of tore through her consorts as one and slew them all.
“Duum,” I just pointed, Moon’s defiant roar filling the skies and not managing to overwhelm my own words in the slightest.
With one flap of his wings, Duum was at full speed, and this time the was leveled in his two claws as he drove for the Ruling Dragon.
She still didn’t have his wingspan, but she was definitely of a mass with him. The spells she spit at us didn’t affect anything as we came in, me standing in the saddle on his back.
He Screeched, I tapped his back, and the up to something larger than a Titan’s Weapon, gleaming with and other interesting stuff.
bloomed across him, with +9 to basically all his combat stats putting him into a truly rarefied area… and my magic wasn’t something the Moon Dragon could touch.
They slammed together, I was airborne, and sprouted a lance-point ten feet long of its own as they hit and spun about, hundred of tons of Eternal Bat and Dragon Ruler whirling around as they ripped and tore at one another.
One might have thought the dragon had the advantage in that fight, with many more natural weapons, but then, the was sticking all the way through her from the impact, a shock and hit that was definitely going to be the reason she died… especially when my Familiar had released a spell through it at the moment of its impact and her insides had to be next to mush right now.
guided my hand, the Dragon Ruler’s head and neck wrenched around into the path of my descent. She looked up at me with blazing eyes, and I came down and finished her.
The explosion blew the storm out for twenty miles around, her death cry soared to the heavens as she perished, sticking completely into her skull and definitely the cause of death. Thousands of dragons turned to see her fall, her consorts still on the way down before her.
Intimidation check made! , inflict the shaken condition!
Duum’s jaws clenched and tore her head right off her neck.
Shaken condition improved to frightened!
His shriek went up into registers no dragon could hit, burned at the ears despite the distance, and proclaimed that this land was MINE!
The Crimson Reign shattered as a Fear greater than Dragonfear swept across the invading dragons, and Thunder SCREAMED at the servants of Moon.
I watched across a hundred miles of skies as the invading dragons turned and flapped urgently away, having lost all stomach for this fight. Some of my own dragons pursued, and I didn’t stop them, as this was an affair of dragons and they would resolve it as dragons did.
“NONE SHALL TOUCH THE HOARDS OF THE FALLEN, SAVE MY OWN,” I declared after them grimly, letting the air shake around them and drive their heads down.
Thousands of dragon’s roars followed the defeated back out into the wilder, lesser lands, beyond the Ringlands, beyond the greatest collection of dragons in the world entire!
Sprawled across the Fangs and forests were over a thousand dead dragons, but less than a hundred of them were our own. Just the carcasses alone could satisfy a desire for gold, but I wasn’t going to let the hoards of the defeated be taken by any others, that was certain!
“IF YOU ARE WOUNDED, JOIN ME AND THE HEALERS ON THE GROUND. DRAGONS AND RIDERS, COME TO YOUR KILLS. WE HAVE TO LOCK IN, AND YOU’VE SPOILS TO RECOVER.”
Priests of the Morning on certain dragons, mostly Golds, were already winging forth to help the direly wounded. The flights of dragons began to descend upon those they’d killed.
The would locate the hoards of any of the dead dragons, who could then wing forth with family and allies to claim them, and woe to any who got in their way! The carcasses themselves could be harvested or consumed, as the dragons who killed them desired, it was their choice.
I spread out sparkling with Phoenix Flame, which would only Heal those who bathed in them. Dragons urgently angled down to the ground to bathe in the flames and recover their injuries with speed and gusto.
The Crystals had suffered the most injuries, and also as a group taken over half the kills. They were ecstatic about their showing, and totally ready to sally forth and claim the spoils they had honestly earned, and in doing so rebuild the many hoards they’d spent down in order to get ready for this fight.
“MARK ALL OF OUR FALLEN, AND I WILL SEE THAT THEY ARE RETURNED TO LIFE.”
Even the dragons hissed at the power inherent in that statement. It took full to bring back a dragon, the cost was no joke, and I was going to do it for ALL of them.
That cost was the value of multiple hoards!
But that was utterly fine. The hoards of Moon and her Consorts were going to pay for it here. I knew where her extra-dimensional cave was, after all.
This was not the Moon I’d helped Sama and Briggs kill on the Far Shore, so obviously the holder of the position had changed over the millennia. Some dragon had gotten lucky and risen to the occasion to best Moon and take the position.
It didn’t matter, she’d still have a monstrous hoard, and I was still going to loot it all.
I was also going to convert her into Dragonwrought supplies and a nice handy self-empowering Dreadskull, among other things, one Duum was going to wear as a stylish collar bangle around his neck!
One of the great unseen tools for this fight were the Torcs of the Wyrm and Elder Wyrm made from the bodies of such who had attacked the Ringlands in the past, or who had died here and left their bodies behind.
There were a full dozen of them, made up and empowered by the sacrifice of many Crystal dragon hoards over the centuries. For this fight they’d been split up among the adult dragons of the Crystals, giving such the combat and magical power of Great Wyrms of their kind, if not the pure toughness and staying power.
Suddenly having a dozen more faux Wyrms on their side had definitely helped the performance of the Crystal Dragons!
More such raw materials would be harvested here, and I was going to create a collection of them, for use by the dragons who were loyal to me and my Ringlands...