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Session 161: Day 22 of Saedan (3/8)

Yolov looks towards Luna, knowing that she’s Maeve and Hava’s sister and likely to run towards the danger, just in time to see her vault over the railing of the second floor of the healer’s house. He sighs and casts Mage Armor on himself as he Misty Steps and speaks through the Sending necklaces the queen gave them to tell them that Elathias sent a package a few weeks ago and one thing was a metal object that the Nelath clan was examining, that’s where they need to go and where the danger is.

Galowen mutters that he’s going to kill that guy as they all begin to run. Around them are sea elves grabbing tridents and weapons and other people running away from the fight. Only Hava and Audacity catch sight of the streak of red and gold as Velik rushes past them. Hava knows that he is a very powerful warrior, as is Junius, one reason the two clans have often had such marriages.

The sand is hot under their feet as they all run, sharp with stones and shell fragments before they reach the central spread of dry, sparse grass that thickens closer to the palm and coconut trees.

The thread of people shifts from people fleeing to the warriors rushing towards the danger. By the time they get to the launching area by the water for the Nelath Clan, there is the deafening sound of metal and stone crashing together and a horrifying screech.

They turn the corner and see two clockwork dragons breathe out flames of soot and tar at a number of warriors. A few of the warriors immediately fall down and another staggers back, the smell of burning flesh filling the air.

There are four or five tritons and sea elves on the ground, bleeding on the sand. One of the drakes pulls back, its heavy steel claws kicking up dust and dirt as it howls at the approaching warriors.

Hava sees Junius slide under one of the dragons and stab it under the stomach. As it goes to attack him, another figure rushes forward and interposes himself between the dragon and Junius. Hava watches as the dragon leans down and bites into her father’s chest.

Diana, astride Adrin, rushes forward towards the clockwork dragon that has just attacked Velik. Her shortsword misses with her first attack but lands with her second, though she sees poison does nothing to this clockwork monster. Adrin bites it as well, denting the metal.

Diana looks up and sees reflections within the metal, a half dozen tritons and sea elves pressed against the plate like they’re trapped inside. She looks at the bodies and realizes the dead on the sand are now trapped in the metal. She says, “The soldiers, they’re in the metal dragons.”

Hava asks, “What do you mean they’re in them?”

Galowen reminds her of the soul metal and Diana says they’re in the metal now.

Hava sees her dad still in the dragon’s mouth. She rushes forward so that she’s up close and aims at the dragon’s jaw, desperately trying to get it to release him. Her arrow strikes home, right in a joint that makes it open its mouth to roar at her. Her father’s body drops motionless in front of her.

She frantically casts Healing Word as she touches him. She can feel the sticky wet blood seeping through his armor and clothes even as her magic pours into him and rolls off like it’s hitting a brick wall. He’s gone.

The realization strikes her with a weight in her stomach. She whispers, “Papa?” Her father is gone, killed by something wrought into something monstrous, something that even now slashes down with its tail and cuts into her.

The clockwork dragon steps over Diana and breathes out a fiery tar breath at Galowen, Audacity, and Az. Galowen and Audacity both manage to dodge, but Az is burned badly and restrained by the tar that sticks to his feet before he Misty Steps away from it. His attempt at Witch Bolt misses.

The second clockwork dragon strikes Hava with its tail as well, slashing into her. Hava turns and screams through gritted teeth as she casts Hellish Rebuke in retaliation. Flames burst around the thing’s tail and blacken the metal there.

Galowen summons flame onto his sword and strikes out at the dragon in front of him. Both attacks hit, the first one fiery, the second one radiant as he smites the dragon. He cuts through some of the plates like butter.

The dragon looks furious. It begins to beat its wings and attempts to knock everyone down. Diana falls off of Adrin but everyone else remains standing.

Audacity looks at the clockwork dragon that spewed tar at them and tries to hit it with his quarterstaff. Both blows hit it and the second one stuns it, its eyes going blank as it half slumps and Audacity hits it with a number of blows.

The second clockwork dragon looms over Az. He breathes out that fiery tar breath at Az, Audacity, and Galowen. Once again Audacity dodges and Az avoids most of it, but Galowen gets burned and stuck in the tar.

There’s something about the way Az can feel the tug of the steel the closer he is to unconsciousness from the last few attacks.

Yolov registers Diana’s words and realizes he cannot use the spell he was planning because they need to see if they can free these souls from this particular steel. Instead he casts Chain Lightning but changes it into force damage. The party watches as a more solid form of lightning strikes both of the dragons, destroying the one that killed Velik and badly damaging the other.

Hava looks at the steel, the dragon destroyed in front of her, and the figures are still moving within it, including a figure that’s a blur of blue and orange. She knows that the souls are stuck in this steel and that effectively what she’s looking at is a window into a demiplane or pocket dimension that is effectively imprisoning them.

Diana breathes out acid at it, burning away some of the metal, and she realizes it’s vulnerable to acid damage.

It sinks in for Hava that her father is dead and she can’t revive him. She casts Holy Weapon on her trident, a hunting weapon and not the weapon her father taught her to use, before she stabs the remaining dragon with all of her strength. The trident glows with radiant light as she drives the trident into one of the loose plates and releases that bolt of energy into the wires and mechanisms.

The dragon is rendered apart plate by plate in a burst of raw tidal divine energy. The plates land in the sand around her, smoke billowing from the two draconic corpses. Acrid and burning, it turns the sky from the brilliant island blue to a dull stormy gray, the smoke drifting higher and higher.

Hava looks down on the beach. There are ten or eleven dead on the sand, including her father. Junius is wounded deep in the side, but alive. The soul metal begins to dull, a fail-safe mechanism to hide away the demiplane where the souls caught are being held.

This place doesn’t smell like the island or home. It smells of metal and smoke.

The clamor of battle quiets and then goes silent.

From the edge where the sand meets the grass, the Hooligans hear a thin, small voice say, “Hava?”

Luna stands at the edge of the chaotic scene, barefoot, a few soot marks on her.

Hava can’t see a point in hiding anything from her. She goes over to her and asks if she’s okay. Luna says there were a few smaller bush fires because of the attack, but she helped to put them out. She asks if Hava is okay, starting to crane her head towards the battle site and wilting at the sight of some of the bodies.

Hava asks where their mother is, and Luna says that she is back awaiting the injured, under guard because of the attack. Luna asks where their father is, she saw him run towards the fight.

Hava says their father is a brave warrior. As she tries to explain that Velik is dead, she begins to understand why her parents didn’t tell her the truth about Maeve. She doesn’t like it, but she understands. She tells Luna to go and tell their mom to await the wounded.

Luna heals her and then runs off down the path.

Hava goes to Junius, who’s gone to Velik’s body and is arranging him for transportation. He claims he is all right, but she insists on healing him, and he tells her that she’s always been a very good healer. She says she doesn’t want to think about this and then looks at Galowen and asks him to carry her dad back.

Galowen hugs her. She hugs him back.

Then she turns towards the twenty injured, half of them badly. She begins to walk back towards her mother’s house, her friends around her, and her people behind her. It is a somber march spearheaded by her and her companions as she leads them all from the battlefield to the beaches.

There are a handful of individuals ready to take in the wounded, Luna between the healers and Fala, who is flanked by armored tritons. Behind them all are non-healers and non-warriors, clearly here because this is where they could be protected.

Fala’s eyes fall on Hava first, her hands twisting in front of her. Hava watches relief fill her face for a moment as she sees Hava uninjured, but it’s temporary as her gaze drifts past her towards Galowen carrying Velik’s body. Her expression collapses.

Hava goes to her and embraces her. Her mother holds her, pulling Luna close as well.

Hava says she’s so sorry.

Fala says not to be sorry.

Hava says it’s her fault.

Fala takes her face in her hands and says it is not. When Hava protests and says she shouldn’t have come back, Fala reminds her that these things came here long before her return. Hava says then she never should have left.

Fala tells her that if she doubts all of her past decisions, she will drown. This was the work of evil people. Then she pulls Hava close, tucking her head against her collar, and says that for the warriors of their people, it has always been the greatest honor to defend the island.

Hava can feel her mother’s arms trembling around her. Hava apologizes to Luna, saying she didn’t know what to say. Luna is sobbing, soft, hiccuping sounds, and buries herself in Hava’s side.

Behind them, Galowen and Audacity have been helping to lay the fallen out, guided by the other warriors.

Fala pets Luna’s hair and tucks her chin onto the crown of Hava’s head. She says that the only people to blame are the ones who did this to them.

Hava says that she’s going to find the person who did this and kill him. That was always the plan, but she’ll make him suffer for what he did here.

Fala thumbs away one of Hava’s tears and says that it will be a difficult path forward but that Hava should look back for a moment. Look at her people.

In a semicircle behind her friends, Hava sees her people.

Fala leans in and repeats that those things came before she returned. The strength Hava gained on her travels is what allowed her to contain the damage. More people returned than would have without her.

Hava says that her friends are not to be trifled with in a fight. Then she asks what Fala needs her to do.

Fala says that they were supposed to have a ceremony tonight. She looks out, down the line of fallen, her eyes drifting shut with a heavy, shoulder-set sigh as she looks at Velik. They will have a different sort of ceremony tonight.

Hava says she wants to help.

Fala says of course. She takes Hava’s hands, still sticky from Velik’s blood, in hers and says she and Luna will both help. But first they’ll clean her up. She guides Hava away from the rest, gesturing for the rest of the party to follow.

They do.