H:RotG Chapter 10: Goddess of War and Freedom

Dusty tyrian feathers drift to the earth as our intrepid adventurers are hailed by the spherical dragon that shed them, paws making contact with the earth with a surprising level of grace. He introduces himself as Gustave Theldirk, the leader of the Brigade, here to help the group stop Jacques’ wicked assault on Tephra. The formalities barely leave his mouth before Tephra lets out a painful roar, shaking the mountainous city to it’s very core. The group leap onto Gustave’s back as he bowls himself back into the sky.

The adventurers, still badly beaten from their previous battles, cling desperately to their newfound feathered friend as he barrels through the midsection of the Ashen Breach. Despite his aged look, even the densely packed buildings of the city were no match for Gustave’s strength, toppling in the wake of his powerful wingbeats. Embarrassingly, the party even crashed directly through a bathhouse-themed casino, scattering steaming hot water and towels all over the place. Amidst the terrified bathers Hydran picks up one of these towels, admonishing it’s absorbency before tossing it back to the earth below.

As they reach the upper echelons of the citadel, the party soon finds none other than P’targ himself chasing close behind their purple ally. He roars, enraged, and the group notices that both Judge and their ex-ally Zor Thachar are both on the orange menace’s back. Judge begins flinging spells out to the party, whom assist Gustave in his dodging by patting the appropriate wing or shouting out directional commands. Rising higher only brings more adversity as other orange dragons, led by the once-honorable war hero, all begin chasing the purple dragon and his passengers up towards the peak of the city itself. All the while, the heroes fending off their pursuers with whatever force they could muster.

Greying feathered wings crest the horizon of a blinding orange light, as the group of adventurers reach the peak of the Ashen Breach, the boiling magma pools of Cataclysm where Tephra spends her days. The goddess herself has her head raised from the bubbling depths, rearing back, her sheer size boggling and terrifying to witness this close. Braving the overwhelming sense of awe, the crew gets closer to the thrashing god only to be greeted by Jacques Nifeton himself, who stands proudly on the dragon’s head with axe in tow. The tiefling’s crimson skin is lit up brightly by the burning earth beneath him, flashing a smug grin before jamming it into the goddess’ head. She screams as dark energy  seems to corrupt the axe and begins to pulse across her snout; her wings, each narrow and long enough to cover an entire town, begin to thrash as they rise from the pool, sending waves of lava up and out as they dribble down the mountainside. Her violent departure from Cataclysm is like an eruption all its own, her colossal form still dripping massive gobs of molten rock and shimmering chunks of diamond to the city below.

P’targ and the others reach the volcano’s peak as Tephra tears herself away from her throne, clearly in some sort of immense pain. Amidst the chaos Jacques spots his “ally”, stifling his joy at the chaos only to mock the dragon that enabled him. The tiefling swears that there will be no new gods, no new masters, that dragons and their gods will fall before the power of people and people alone. Though enraged, the orange dragon can do nothing in the face of his own god falling apart at the seams, merely watching in horror alongside his lackeys as this man proclaims the death of society as they know it.

Aligning himself above the Dragon-God’s path of destruction, Gustave’s passengers leap from the dragon’s back onto the head of a god, nearly stumbling into the certain death beneath her. She begins to soar around the Breach, her wings throwing massive gales to the city below and flattening anything that dares be remotely near her path of destruction. With a cacophony of screams from the goddess and the people suffering below, the adventurers stand tall, facing off against the Nifeton as he continues to guard the axe he’s wielded against god herself.

Angered by his arrogance and inane monologuing about liberation and the death of heritage, the heroes charge at Jacques with all they’ve got. He soon proves his great strength by fending all five heroes off at once, exhausting them as he dodges their blows and strikes back twice as hard. His shadowy assistant breaks from his feet and also aids in the fight, as blades, spells, and fists clash furiously. Amidst the chaos Rabi attempts twice to rip the axe away from the wound it’s gouged in the deity’s head, only to receive vicious retaliation from the shadow that knocks him unconscious. Hydran, ever the ally to his “bodyguard”, picks him back up again to continue the fight.

Despite being knocked down and brought up several times over, the party’s unyielding persistence begins to wear the Nifeton down. He scowls, gripping into his chest and casting a spell to transform into a demonic beast, a red dragon with a chitinous hide. Fire flows from his maw, snarling and roaring in defiance at his assailants.

They continue their assault, cutting into the man that now fights with far more desperation. He reverts back into his tiefling body, struggling to breathe, clinging to the axe’s handle as the barrage of attacks continue. However, the party makes one fatal mistake- in an exhausted state, Gant’s sword swings too far out, striking down Rok as she attempts to end Jacques herself. Seeing an opportunity, the tiefling reclaims the corrupted sword from it’s profane nest and conjures a door, dimension-stepping away from the party and teleporting to who-knows-where. All the while, the city burns and crumbles beneath Tephra’s thrashing shadow.

Exhausted and with sunken hearts at the failure to capture or slay their enemy, the few adventurers who remain standing hastily gather their unconscious allies and make a leap of faith to the purple dragon that precariously hovers beneath Tephra’s tangled crown of thorns. Thankfully, he’s able to accommodate for the billowing gusts, and with the aid of Kris Nifeton the wounded heroes limp away from the Ashen Breach- bodies and pride badly wounded, but alive all the same. The deity lets out a final angry roar, ascending into the dark-clouded skies above.

The Nifeton they now call their ally assists in healing them, rising the badly wounded to consciousness. The group looks back as they fly westward from the Ashen Breach. Though the perils of battle have since passed, the full moon glows a violent and angry red, making proper rest difficult. The events of the day, which later became known as the Betrayal, replayed over and over in the heroes’ heads, every detail engraved into their minds as if done so with painful serrated daggers. Though Tephra flew far into the heavens her primal roars could still be heard in the distance, shaking the travelers so hard they could feel the marrow in their bones tremble. Still they could feel the hard, rocky texture of her massive scales and sharpened horns on their skin. The searing heat of her sheer existence still charred their lungs.

And yet, there’s something that frightens the to-be-named Knights of Nadir moreso than anything else that happened on this ungodly night. When they fought on the head of this massive deity, they could see her eyes- eyes bigger and wider than the tallest man, rounder than the purest pearl, brighter than even the most divine lights they’ve ever seen. And there was something in those eyes that shook them to their very cores.

Fear. The Beast Goddess, a creature that they literally couldn’t see end to end, whose lifespan surpasses all mortalkind,  whose power is matched only by the other Dragon-Gods. Her eyes were full of nothing but pure, unfiltered, feral fear.

(( support this summary project here :3c ))

 TBD