085. Two Rooms and a Boom

The motley face down a frigid threat. 
"Ever had a table flipped on you? Sometimes it's not easy to see if your isn't having fun, and they have to leave a mark behind."
Jigg Grifter is in the garden, taking in The Spark's baroness, Lady Sophia, currently a dragon. "Isn't you being a dragon a little… awkward?" he asks, timidly. Sophia plays the gracious host as Grifter offers to use all his resources to help repel the White Dragon, but Kyoko isn't convinced. Is the fact that he and the dragon showed up more or less simultaneously just a coincidence? The motley vows to learn as much as they can about this dragon from Little One, Scythe, and Millicent Paige. The latter is invited up to the Spark, where Braum tries to ease her into the knowledge that she is to meet with a dragon.
Sophia uses her soothing voice and Flicker Flies to evoke calm, and it's just enough to keep the sluagh from a full-blown panic attack. "You don't know what they're capable of," she whispers. And while she is able to meet Sophia, her anxiety and fear sends her running from the Exhaust.
Meanwhile, Patches had her call with Duke Granville disconnected, and heads over to Heart's Light to investigate. Just a moment too late: the freehold is encase in a block of ice, with the prone figure of a chimerically dead Sir Xaeron on the roof. Patches calls on the dreaming to "get Heart's Light out of the ice!", shifting the frost up into the sky, where it explodes in a small blizzard. Rushing inside, she finds about a dozen changelings, all chimerically killed by the white dragon's breath weapon, including the Duke. Calling Braum, Sophia flies over with the troll and Kyoko, ferrying the dead Kithain back to the Spark for a final stand. In the garden, a deep voice rings out: "Did I strike a nerve? This is your last warning. Leave your territory to me… I want everything." The dragon tells them that he will return to claim the freehold within one rotation of the sun. Patches is all business, turning to Zistor: can they make a mock-up of the force field? "It's gonna be one hell of a night," the nocker grumbles.
And one hell of a night it is! Zistor and Patches, along with the assistance of the rest of the motley, manage to create a working demo of the particle accelerator field. They know that it will be able to protect the freehold, but only for 24 hours. Patches rigs up a dead man's switch so that, no matter what happens, the field will at least turn on if there's trouble. But she doesn't quite get the chance… Sophia suddenly reforms as the graceful sidhe, cursing her luck. She's upset that she's "lost all her power," despite reassurances from the others that she's returned to her true self. "How can I defend us now?" she asks.
And then, the white dragon's voice rings out: "There is a park west of here. Meet me there, and bring your dragons. All of them." The motley is confused… dragons, plural? "By my count, there are four," the white dragon continues. Perhaps they are Sophia, Little One, and Scythe. But who could the fourth be?
Category:CTS-Ep