"All right," Mythram said. "I'll climb up on the the walls here and we can approach quietly.
Caress nodded and tried to slip quietly around one of the ruined corners, though the clanking sound of her armor's scales clacking against each other chimed loudly, through the abandoned village, causing several voices to call to each other in alarm and concern. Behind her Caress heard the exasperated sighs of her party as she took a deep breath and stepped forward trying to channel everything she could about the sinister reputation of yuan-ti in general.
"Hello, I suspect we might have aims that align with each other," she said, letting the magic slip off her forked tongue... and slid right off the mind of her target as he glanced down at the buckler she was trying to keep out of line of sight.
"What's that symbol on your shield?"
"Ahh, well, it was a good plan while it lasted," she said as she pulled the hair pin down and set a golden energy into it.
Ravyn's purple blasts ripped past over her shoulder into the cultist, staggering him. Silvery fire came down from on high which the cultists luckily escaped, Caress stepped forward stabbing with her divinely guided hair-pin dagger to eliminate one cultist.
"Defilers of the rituals!" a cultist shouted angrily as he ran forward, only to be cut down. by an arrow from Mythram.
Caress heard the sound of Lyra's teleport and the sound of cultists being struck down by her friends' magics. Pushing through the door, the courtesan saw a pair of the cultists and drew one of her darts to lash out at them a moment before chilling breath washed over the lot of them, eliminating them.
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| Boring conversation anyway |
Sliding forward, a snake with a disappointed mien shifted into the shape of the druid who looked about at the fallen cultists as if wondering what he had been concerned about.
"Well, perhaps this is possible, after all." He suggested.
"But if we're talking a dragon, we should probably take a rest and approach it at full strength."
"And I would suggest waiting until you see Venomfang return with a meal before you approach, but I shall provide you with protections from poison and these..."
He held out a palm holding some berries.
The party slipped forward quietly following the druid's lead as they approached a ruined building with a small tower outside of which were the scattered dead bodies of giant spiders. Watched as Lyra enchanted herself and Ravyn's imp with dragon breath before she whispered a prayer to Sharess, laying down a blessing of protection upon the other three and druid similarly protected them from the touch of poison.
"Remember, the berries won't give you too much healing, but they can be used to bring someone back to their feet."
"Right, I think we've got it." Lyra commented.
"All right then, Caress, take point."
The yuan-ti nodded and stepped forward, not even bothering to hide as she moved toward the gate and waited. She didn't have long to wait before a green dragon the size of two oxen flew up and over to land in front of her.
"Who dares intrude on the land of Venomfang!"
"Greetings, I am Caress Melani, Courtesan of Sharess, and I was wondering if I might encourage you to relocate to some other lair, further away from settled lands where you might feed on game rather than people's livestock."
"Who are you to demand anything of a dragon?"
Caress looked at the dragon and cocked her head. "I believe I already answered that question?"
The dragon snorted and loomed over her. "And where is the offering that you are bringing me to buy your pitiful life?"
"I am offering you the chance to leave quietly and peacefully."
"I see you bring no offering then!" And the dragon started to rise up and take in a deep breath.
"Well, can't say I didn't expect this," Caress said with a sigh as she unfurled and cracked her whip, filling it with golden power.
Before she could react any more, a cloud of noxious gas washed over and around behind, enveloping Mythram as well. Coughing at the burning sensation as the gas filled her longs, Caress glanced over her shoulder briefly before darting forward and pivoting around the dragon, cracking her whip at it to draw it's attention, though the enchanted whip only skittered off of the dragon's scales harmlessly.
The sound of an eldritch joke carried through the trees, drawing a brief snort from the dragon, but the creature shrugged off the spell even as Lyra appeared across on the dragon's other side and lashed out through her mind into the dragon's psyche, and ripped through it, stunning the beast and hampering its attention. It had enough presence of mind to turn and unleash a breath of poison into Caress's face again, staggering her.
In response the yuan-ti lashed out with her whip again, this time, it found a line between the scales which she drew along, flooding the leather with her will and effort and burning a line along the beast's hide. A growl erupted from the beast a moment before an arrow and purple bolt of eldritch power both found their own points of purchase. And then the imp and sorceress unleashed their own draconic breath, chilling the beast's body and settling ice into it's joints.
In a rage, it lashed out at Caress, the first claw threw her shield far out of position and rocked her back on her heels leaving her open for the next claw to rake across her torso everything was dark as she collapsed to the ground bleeding even as the dragon world about and crushed his jaws around a shimmering shield from Lyra's staff.
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| Dragons hurt |
She was only vaguely aware of the surroundings as an eldritch blast skittered off into the air and another arrow sank into the beast ahead of a blast of pure ice erupting from Lyra's mouth. Meanwhile the imp crept closer to where Caress held tightly on to life. The dragon ripped into Lyra again, drawing a line with his claw and then savaging her with his fangs even as the imp shoved a goodberry into Caress's mouth and suddenly everything came suddenly into a sharp focus again.
A moment later the dragon was trying to lift up into the air and Caress lashed out with her glowing whip, ripping a line along one of the already existing injuries and the outpouring of her paladin's divine wrath causing the dragon to collapse in a shriveling mess to the ground some feet away, Pushing herself to her feet, she stumbled over to where Lyra lay and poured all of her healing power into the sorceress before leaning back to a wall and praying for some relief to her own injuries.
"What the heck is this?" Mythram asked as she considered certain parts of the dragon that she'd managed to recover as the beast's venomous body devoured itself.
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