Freezing Shadows, Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Dragon

Roaki’s Attack Roll (Iceblade): 11d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss

Iceblade’s Parry: 14d6 = 5 Hits, 5 Miss (No Net Hits)

Spirit of Water’s Attack Roll (Shadowgirl): 16d6 = 6 Hits, 3 Miss

Shadowgirl’s Reaction: 6d6 = 2 Hits, 3 Miss (4 Net Hits)

Elemental Attack (Cold): 12P, -half AP

Shadowgirl’s Damage Resistance: 9d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss (8P Damage)

Shadowgirl: 8/10 Physical Monitor

The next thing I knew, the massive form of a feathered serpent was between us and our boat. Not that getting to the boat would matter. Against a dragon, we’d have better luck inside the house than on the open water. That was just asking for death.

I didn’t have time to think more on the matter, however, because I had to bring my sword up to parry as those massive claws came in, trying to slice me into ribbons. Fortunately, I was able to bring the blade up, and angle it enough that the blow slid off to the side, carving furrows in the ground. Thankfully, the dragon appeared to want to rip us apart with his claws and fangs, rather than just bombarding us with magic from a distance. That meant we at least had a chance.

Shadowgirl cried out in pain as an icy shard pierced her gut. I hadn’t even noticed the Spirit of Water descending from the balcony, since I’d been more concerned with the dragon trying to fillet me, but it had launched an elemental attack at her. She was still up, but definitely hurt. Clearly, the dragon had decided that the two magic-wielding members of the team needed to go down, first. Smart enemies were always a pain like that.

Berzerker’s Attack Roll (Raoki): 12d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss

Raoki’s Reaction: 8d6 = 1 Hit, 3 Miss (3 Net Hits)

Full, Narrow Burst: 18P, -5 AP

Raoki’s Damage Resistance: 15d6 = 5 hits, 3 Miss (13P Damage)

Raoki: 13/14 Physical Monitor

Iceblade’s Attack Roll (Raoki): 12d6 = 5 Hits, 0 Miss

Raoki’s Block: 11d6 = 3 Hits, 6 Miss (2 Net Hits) (Glitch)

Winter’s Breath: 7P, -1 AP

Raoki’s Damage Resistance: Hardened Armor 8, No Damage

Sexkitten’s Attack Roll (Raoki): 14d6 = 4 Hits, 1 Miss

Raoki’s Reaction: 4d6 = 4 Hits, 0 Miss (No Net Hits)

Sexkitten’s Attack Roll (Raoki): 14d6 = 4 Hits, 3 Miss

Raoki’s Reaction: 4d6 = 1 Hits, 0 Miss (3 Net Hits)

Short, Narrow Burst: 12P, -5 AP

Raoki’s Damage Resistance: 15d6 = 6 Hits, 3 Miss (6P Damage)

Raoki: 19/14 Physical Monitor (Dying)

Babydoll’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 9d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Reaction: 10d6 = 3 Hits, 2 Miss (No Net Hits)

Babydoll’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 9d6 = 3 Hits, 0 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Reaction: 10d6 = 5 Hits, 1 Miss (No Net Hits)

Shadowgirl’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 11d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Reaction: 10d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss (No Net Hits)

Shadowgirl’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 11d6 = 4 Hits, 1 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Reaction: 10d6 = 3 Hits, 2 Miss (1 Net Hits)

Semi-Auto: 6P, -5 AP

Spirit of Water’s Damage Resistance: Immunity to Normal Weapons 11, No Damage

Berzerker clearly didn’t appreciate the dragon ignoring her, or him (the mental voice sounded like a ‘he’, anyways) attacking me. At basically point-blank range, she turned her LMG on the dragon, and unleashed a full burst on him. Buying all that armor piercing ammo proved VERY fortunate, as it tore through the dragon’s scales. That was enough to tell me that were dealing with a ‘normal’ dragon. Which, frankly, was a good thing.

Dragons came in two basic ‘levels’. There were ‘normal’ dragons, which could still rip through a team like a hot knife through butter if you weren’t prepared, and there were Great Dragons. Capital letters. No one in the Beta had figured out how a dragon went to a Great Dragon, but the power spike was beyond obvious. Great Dragons were the ones that casually owned cities, because even military forces could do fuck all to them, unless they were willing to lose billions, or even trillions, of credits in military materiel, and a whole lot of lives in the process.

Of course, ‘normal’ dragons were still a pain in the ass to deal with. I slashed at the damn thing, but even though my blade touched its scales, I couldn’t actually hurt it. The only thing I did was cause the bastard to plant his clawed hand in the ground hard enough as he tried to block my strike that it stuck there for a moment. I needed to either hit harder, or find a more tender spot.

Or I would, if Sexkitten hadn’t come through with a pair of short bursts from her rifle. The first didn’t do anything, but that second put the giant lizard on the ground! Not dead, yet, but definitely out of the fight. We actually brought down a dragon!

Unfortunately, the dragon going down didn’t make the spirit he had summoned stop trying to kill us. Babydoll’s sniper drone and Shadowgirl’s pistol opened up on the thing, but neither could scratch its magical body. Ironically, they probably would have had better luck hurting the dragon than the spirit.

Spirit of Water’s Attack Roll (Berzerker): 16d6 = 7 Hits, 4 Miss

Berzerker’s Reaction: 10d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Miss (5 Net Hits)

Elemental Attack (Cold): 13P, -half AP

Berzerker’s Damage Resistance: 12d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss (11P Damage)

Berzerker: 11/10 Physical Monitor (Dying)

That spirit clearly decided that Berzerker was a bigger threat than the rest of us. Another blast of ice flew from the watery body, and impaled Berzerker in the chest. For the first time since we’d started working together, the big girl was down, maybe dying. The toughest member of our team went down in one shot. It was a stark reminder of how quickly the reaper’s scythe could come for you in the shadows.

Iceblade’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 14d6 = 5 Hits, 0 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Block: 18d6 = 3 Hits, 4 Miss (2 Net Hits)

Winter’s Breath: 7P, -1 AP

Spirit of Water’s Damage Resistance: 10d6 = 4 hits, 0 Miss (3P damage)

Spirit of Water: 3/13 Physical Monitor

Sexkitten’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 14d6 = 5 Hits, 1 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Reaction: 9d6 = 1 Hits, 2 Miss (4 Net Hits)

Short, Narrow Burst: 13P, -5 AP

Spirit of Water’s Damage Resistance: 21d6 = 6 Hits, 2 Miss (7P Damage)

Sexkitten’s Attack Roll (Spirit of Water): 14d6 = 6 Hits, 3 Miss

Spirit of Water’s Reaction: 5d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss (4 Net Hits)

Short, Narrow Burst: 13P, -5 AP

Spirit of Water’s Damage Resistance: 21d6 = 7 Hits, 6 Miss (6P Damage)

Spirit of Water: 16/13 Physical Monitor (Disrupted)

I didn’t have time to think about that. Darting forward, I did my best to get the spirit’s attention. Waving a magic blade that could actually hurt the thing was a good way of doing that, in my mind, and better than trying to cast spells on a being that probably out-magicked me, if the Dragon was the one that summoned it. And I cut it. Didn’t hurt it as much as I would have liked, since the thing was still tough, even if I could bypass most of its defenses.

“EAT THIS YOU WATERY SON OF A BITCH!” I heard Sexkitten’s roar just before her weapon echoed it. Two bursts of the APDS ammo tore through the thing, and actually managed to do enough damage to hurt it. Not just hurt it, but send it back to the astral plane it came from!

Shadowgirl’s First Aid check (Shadowgirl): 7d6 = 4 Hits, 1 Miss (Heal 4P damage)

Shadowgirl: 4/10 Physical Monitor

“Holy FUCK that thing was tough!” Shadowgirl cursed. I turned to see her injecting a syringe in her side as she removed the shard of ice from her gut. Apparently, she saw me looking, and held up the syringe. “Nanite-based medkit, especially good on critical wounds. Got enough for two shots. Just used one. Reduce my penalties before using it.”

Iceblade casts Heal (Force 5) on Shadowgirl

Iceblade’s Spellcasting Test: 10d6 = 5 Hits, 1 Miss

Damage Healed: 4P

Sustain duration until permanent: 3 turns (reduced from 4)

Resist Drain (2S): 13d6: 2 hits, 1 miss (Drain resisted)

Shadowgirl: 0/10 Physical Monitor

I nodded, and touched her shoulder, casting my Heal spell as I did so. “This will help the rest of the way. But I won’t be able to try healing Berzerker until after it fully sets on you. Even then, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help.”

Shadowgirl’s First Aid check (Berzerker): 12d6 = 6 Hits, 3 Miss (Heal 6P Damage)

As Shadowgirl moved to work on Berzerker, Sexkitten looked my way. “What do you mean? Why heal herself and then the person who is down? And why can’t you heal Berzerker like you did Shadowgirl?”

“Three reasons. First, any wound penalties you have apply to all the stuff you do, like trying to heal yourself, and others. If things go wrong, you can most certainly make things worse. So that’s why Shadowgirl hit herself with the first shot.

“Second, you can only attempt First Aid once on one set of wounds, even if you have three different people with medkits. And you can’t use it at all if magical healing has been applied. Anything left after that needs to heal the slow way.”

I took a breath, and said, “Third, you have to understand how magical healing works. It doesn’t just wave a hand and restores HP. You’re basically knitting flesh together and trying to trick it into staying that way until it sets. Doesn’t take long, a few seconds, usually, but I get penalties if I try and sustain multiple spells at once, which can end up hurting someone I want to save, just like with regular first aid. Making things worse, I take a penalty to any magical healing checks I make on people who have implants, because I have to keep from ‘healing’ those cybereyes of yours, for instance.”

“Oh. That would be bad.”

“Yeah, yeah it would.” A groan from the ground next to us drew my attention to Berzerker, who was just opening her eyes. “Well, enjoy your nap, Berzerker?”

“Did someone get the number of that truck?”

“Sorry, but Sexkitten sent a strongly worded letter to the DMV on your behalf, don’t worry.”

“That’s good,” she said, before struggling to her feet. Then, she turned to look at the massive dragon body laying on the ground next to us. A rough guess said this one was nineteen, maybe twenty meters from head to tail, with a wingspan of maybe fourteen meters? Either way, we were standing, and it wasn’t, and that’s what mattered. “So, that was an actual dragon? I wasn’t just having a near death hallucination?”

“Actual dragon,” I nodded. “Not one of the stronger ones, fortunately. Given the way he charged in at us, might even be a younger one. Too sure of himself. If he’d hung back, and used spells or other such things on us, he’d have done far better. But I guess invading his lair pissed him off, and he wanted to take us on face-to-face.”

“So, what do we do now?” Sexkitten asked. “Take trophies?”

““NO!”” Shadowgirl and I cried out. We looked at each other, and she motioned for me to talk. I sighed, and said, “This is going to get ugly enough, as is. Our contact definitely didn’t tell us about a dragon, and the only reason we’re alive right now is because we overprepared. So, we aren’t taking anything from this place, because the dragon undoubtedly has friends, and if there are pieces missing of him, they might try and use ritual magic to track us down.”

“And on that note,” Babydoll cut in over the network, “Twilight just contacted me. A chopper just took off from the company HQ in Vancouver.”

“Everyone back to the boat!” We all turned and began hustling for the beach. “Babydoll, clear your drones from the airspace. They won’t be taking chances with a ‘harmless’ blimp drone.”

“Already sending them back to base.”

There wasn’t any further conversation until we were all back in the boat, and well on our way back to Seattle. We all kept ourselves ready for action, though. Just in case. Finally, as our dock came into view, Babydoll (who was back in her body by now), looked at me, and grinned. “So, did you ever get to do something like this in the beta?”

“Take down a dragon?” I grinned. “Hell no. The few times we ever even heard word of a dragon, we turned tail and fled. The one time we got trapped, and had to fight, we died. Like I said, this one was either too arrogant or too pissed off to play to his strengths. And he still would have wiped the floor with us, even without his spirit, if we hadn’t been loaded up with heavy weapons and the really good ammo. We overprepared, and we got lucky. Either one of those changed, and we’d be back at the starting screen.”

“But one hell of a story, right?”

“Oh, one hell of a story, just don’t spread it around in game. Any other dragons in town might decide we’re taking things too lightly, and feel insulted. And we don’t want them thinking we’re insulting them.”

“There are other dragons in Seattle?”

“Well, unless the one that killed me has moved since then? I know of at least one.”

“Ah. Maybe share that knowledge with us, when we’re back at base? I want to know where not to go.”