RP:How To Slay Your Dragon

From HollowWiki

Summary: Khitti, Meri, Tiber, and Zahrani tackle several clutch-sitting red and blue drakes, allowing Khitti and Meri to get the scales needed to handed over to Iintahquohae and her tailoring business.

Harsh Wilderness, The Dragon Lands, Rynvale

Khitti || For once in… forever, luck would be on Khitti and Meri’s side. Or at least Khitti’s, anyway. Spring may have long since passed, but there were still dragon eggs to be hatched! But it was the dragon eggs the two were after for that vampire seamstress. No, it was worse. It was dragonscales. Those things don’t exactly come off easy, you know. This was where the luck came in, however: a flight of blue dragons and a flight of the red teamed up in order to better protect each of their egg clutches for this year. None of those elder dragons that had laid the eggs were around, instead leaving it to the much younger, more beast-like drakes to deal with anyone that might try to steal them.

Khitti || Some yards away, Khitti sat behind a nearly withered bush, using what was left of it to hide behind, while her shadow magic did its best to aid her. Somehow, they hadn’t seen her, hadn’t smelled her, hadn’t sensed her magic. The redhead chalked it up to the lack of real sentience with the drakes. Khitti had positioned herself in such a way that Meri and anyone else that happened to show up (with thanks from the note the sisters had left in the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters) would almost stumble right onto her. And once they got close enough? She’d try to grab them by the hand and pull them down into the shadows with her. “Shhh.” Khitti flipped through a book on dragons, one that she had checked out from the Mage’s Guild’s library several years ago to deal with another blue dragon. “Don’t go any further yet.”


Meri :: The hunt was on and Meri was dressed as appropriately as one could be for what they were hunting. The tattooed woman is currently wearing a set of armor that Khitti has seen Meri in many, many times. Okay, maybe some pieces have required replacement over the areas, but the formula is still the same. The woman has pulled her blonde hair back into a braid so that it's kept securely out of her face, a blackened metal chest piece is worn, sturdy bracers to help protect those lovely fully-sleeved tattoos that the blonde has. The pants she has selected were not armored, Meri needed to allow some ability to move freely as her fighting style really was not really suited for wearing a full suite of armor....but Meri's boots were definitely sturdier than the norm. Not that it would matter. A dragon could still probably take her leg clean off right at the knee. Meri is also armed with a bastard sword, housed in a metal scabbard that she's had for years. It'll be very useful for stabbing dragons. Poor dragons. The blonde did not entirely know who would be showing up yet, but she would be sure that Tiber was included in the communications sent out. Why not? He was still around, as far as she knew, and maybe needed to take his mind off a certain witch. And so Khitti and Meri would wait in the underbrush for the others to show.


Tiber actually shows, but he is not obvious about such a thing because… dragons. Tiberius Lowell showed. What? Who would have thought? Either way, the man looks… hungover. Scrubby. Meri and Khitti could probably get a clue why. He was dressed in clothes he could move quickly in thankfully, but never did the armor thing since he was some sort of city boy, but he did carry some sort of shield because—dragons, but who knew the power of it. He was not the noble type. He was hoping on luck for this one. Anyway, he is equipped with his typical traditional bow and arrows on his back and whatever thievery blade he carries for his sleazy business that is typically none of anyone’s business. A cigarette is caught between his fingers as he takes a drag and exhales out the small puff of smoke to the side before stomping it out before he gets anywhere close to the other members. Fortunately, he was not that rude today and not that stupid either to get caught by some dragons. As he approaches, he feels the clasp of his wrist and a tug to pull into the hidden spot. He lazily smiles at the red-head and whispers very carefully. “Did you miss me?” His tone is very, eerily soft. It was a rogue trait. Though, after he makes his snide comment, he slowly inches around behind the red-head’s back deeper within the shadows of the brush to have her take the lead. Amber eyes sort of look around for a possible chance to see the witch again since Lanara had stopped writing him, but unfortunately, that was not the case.


Khitti was not surprised by the armor Meri wore. Not at all. She smirked at her sister, snapped her book shut, went to open her mouth and then… did not. Because Tiber was here. His disheveled appearance wasn’t a surprise to her either. Sure, they’d not seen each other since… when? The tunnel in Xalious? It’d been forever and it wasn’t like she had a habit of seeing him anyway. His snark was met with an eye roll, but also a frown. She wanted to say ‘You need to learn the Catalian way of hiding your feelings. You’re so good at hiding them when it mattered. You remind me way too much of the way Brand used to be and I cannot fix you anymore than I could fix him when he was like this’. But, she didn’t. It wouldn’t matter. It would only make things worse. “I hope you fight as well as Brand does when he’s hungover,” she said finally with a heavy sigh. Her line of sight shifted to Meri briefly and then down at her book, “Long story short, we got kind of lucky. No big dragons. Just drakes and eggs. The blues and reds together. Reds are weak to ice; blues to fire; both supposedly to Meri’s type of abilities. And if you don’t have any abilities? Just stab them really good and don’t die. Their hides shouldn’t be as thick as the elders.” Khitti shoved the book up under the bush for now and grabbed her bow, Diamond Dust, as she pushed herself up off the ground somewhat into a crouching position.


Meri is half-expecting Khitti to punch Tiber as a reaction to his commentary to her, potentially blowing their cover. Meri is glad this did not happen, she's even more glad that Khitti did not go on a tirade about feelings. If Meri had to pick, she'd rather see Khitti punch Tiber than have to listen to much in relation to feelings. Meri shifts her blue-eyed gaze between Tiber and Khitti, brow lifting just a bit as she tries to make heads or tails of this interaction. It's sufficiently distracting Meri from the mission at hand, which is never a good thing. Khitti provides some focus for Meri as she closes her book and provides some basic instructions for how to deal with the dragons. The blonde only mildly pays attention to these instructions, in this case because this is not her first dragon encounter. When she's given room to speak, she finally addresses Tiber. "Good to see you have maybe decided to stick around. Hopefully you'll find there is some reward in hanging out with us." She meant the Adventurer's Guild, not 'us' as in Khitti and Meri. "Long as you keep your distance and aim for the soft spots, like the eyes, you'll get out of this juuuust fine." Hopefully everyone is ready, because for a change it seems Meri is the one intent on making reckless moves. Normally she leaves that to Khitti. At some point, someone would have to get this party starting by drawing the attention of the dragons and...Meri decided that this time that someone would be her. From out of the brush the werewolf goes, putting herself right in the line of sights of the young dragonlings. If the sight of her alone is not enough to pull their attention onto her, the blonde would step by step keep moving closer while drawing her weapon in the process. As her sword is drawn, the blade ignites. The blonde is hoping to goad them into making the first attack, rather than being the one to issue. If they take their sweet time in this, maybe someone else will jump in while they're distracted with her.


Tiber only smiles at Khitti’s comment. Tiberius would have said more, but well, causing a scene with dragons was not his intention today. The small rise that is given to him, although very small, fills him enough to shut him up with amusement. If only Lanara could see him now. A true piece of work. Man, he could really use the cigarette that is tucked behind his ear right about now. As Khitti begins to talk about the dragons, there is a small relief that makes the man close his eyes briefly. Luck was on his side today. Eyes open, and his face remains expressionless at the task at hand, although his head throbbed. Stab them. He could do that. Since, that was his trade and being persuasive with words. There is nothing but a solid nod that comes from him. Best to leave the commentary out today since there were drakes on the other side. As Meri addresses the man, amber eyes fall on her and they remain in that flat expression. Tiber assumes it is not to become Meri and Khitti’s new bff because heaven forbid… that man would not last a minute in the slightest. “You had me at reward.” Even if reward is the partial case, there was really one reason he was there. “Good tip.” As Meri gets up, the lycan watches her carefully, for, of course back-up. He does not move, though. Not until Khitti moves. After all, they had wicked sick abilities.


Zahrani is a bit late to the party, but she made it nonetheless. The armored feline reaches the rendezvous point, sizing up the young drakes guarding the eggs. She's not a fan of this much open terrain, but she manages well enough, even without tall trees or grass to conceal her approach. Her armor is oiled with a dull finish, to keep it from drawing attention from any of the flying beasts. The paladin cradles her crossbow, watching as Meri heads off to distract them. She nods to Khitti and Tiber, before setting up a sniper's perch on a rock out-cropping, taking aim down-range and waiting for one of the drakes to take the bait provided by the psionic lycan.


Khitti was extremely grateful that Meri opted to go first this time. She was just a squishy human amongst big bad doggos and a catto. It helped Khitti to keep her mind off the fact that literally all the Catalians she knew were “broken” in some fashion. It bothered her, damn it! If only because, well, she got it. She understood the alcoholism and the depression and all that stuff. Sometimes, Khitti had this thing about her where she wanted to try to help other people because she couldn’t help herself! She really couldn’t. There’s no helping Khitti. RIP. “If you don’t die, we might even let you keep a dragon egg or two,” Khitti said as she stood finally and took off after Meri, but not before giving a nod to Zahrani, “And watch out for their breath attacks!” She shadow-stepped away, positioning herself near where there was still a red straggler, and nocked an arrow back on Diamond Dust. Once she had her target where she wanted it, the arrow was loosed. The magic from the black ice bow let itself be known as the arrow hit the drake’s leg and exploded into ice shards, freezing the drake to the ground. Another was sent flying and then another, freezing three out of four feet to the ground. It’s safe to say that the dragon was pissed. It craned it’s long neck in Khitti’s direction and let out a wide arc of fire breath. “Ohhhh frak!” Just barely was Khitti able to create a wall of shadow-ice in front of her like a shield--something she’d learned from Brand long ago--only for it to melt immediately. When it had finished, more frozen arrows were loosed, the young egg-sitter eventually giving up the will to fight. The redhead put the red drake out of its misery with a well placed stalagmite of ice mage up through its neck, and soon went off to pick off another red.


Meri :: And the fight was in full swing. The 'wicked sick' abilities that Meri had were put to use once Khitti was in the fight, but it does not done so in a way that would benefit herself or Khitti. It's done so in a way that would help keep Zahrani and Tiber out of harms way as they offer support from a distance via their archery/crossbow skills. While the nest that they have come upon has drakes that were capable of breathing both fire or ice, depending upon color, both Tiber and Zahrani would find that they're safe from such attacks. Such safety may not be afforded if they end up making the decision to bring themselves to a more centered position in the fight. With the decision of where Meri will be focusing a brunt of her psionic abilities, the blonde will have to rely on her abilities to duck, dodge, and dart to keep herself safe. Thankfully, as Khitti put it, Meri is not a squishy human. She's a temperamental doggo, one who is capable of moving just a bit after than your average squishy human. Dodging, ducking and darting does not appear to be much of a problem for the psionic warrior. Neither does stabbing. Meri is capable of getting more than a few good plunges into some of the drakes. Still, doggo or not, it really hurts to be tail-whipped by an over-sized beast. As Meri is very quickly reminded of during this encounter. One minute Meri is fighting, and the next she has struck by a tail at about knee-height and swept clean off her feet only to hit the ground with a hard thud. She'll recover at some point, hopefully, as soon as she can find her breath.


Tiber watches Khitti fairly closely when she adds onto Meri’s comment. He gives her the version of ‘Tiber approval’ which is just a twitch in the lips. Then she wanders off. He is about ready to move until he spots Zahrani, but thankfully the red-head motions a nod otherwise the lycan might have done something rash. He remains behind the brush for a moment more as he slips a hand in his back pocket for a small bottle of confidence. Just a swig to balance out, right? Once that is done, he takes the bottle and shoves it in his back pocket again. He then slithers his way forward through the brush to look at the dynamic of the drake. He then takes the bow from around his torso and lines up an arrow smoothly. Soft spots. Got it. He angles himself a distance away to focus on a blue dragon that has, unfortunately, been awakened. “This is bull..” He then quickly knocks back an arrow to target the eye, instead, it hits the torso. “Of course.” There is annoyed eye roll, but also the loud roar from the dragon kicks him back into gear. He makes sure to avoid the breath of the beast because… yeah, it was mad. Amber eyes catch Khitti’s ice arrows, and it hits him. The man fumbles and reaches for the small bottle of alcohol and the next arrow. He douses a smidge on the tip before sticking the bottle in his pants again. He then reaches for the matches and strikes it to light the tip of his arrow on fire. He then rapidly loads and aims for the eye again. It pierces through, actually, and the blue dragon is now beginning to flame. Tiber could do some sort of ‘brush the dirt of yo shoulder’ dance, but he stays focused. The drake roars as it is blinded in one eye and is now flaming up. Tiber is able to roll out of the way to the blinded side of the dragon. It’s close and roaring, and breathing, and flailing with anguish and because flames. One step closer to those eggs, yes he was, but then Meri is going down, and instead of taking time to douse arrows with alcohol and inching towards eggs, he is continually launching them towards the dragon that knocked Meri off her feet. His plan was to distract them in his direction until Meri could get up on her feet, and hopefully it would be soon because, Meri dear, Tiberius is running out of arrows.


Zahrani 's ears twitch at the sight of the fight below her, lining up her shots carefully. The panther sees her friends make short work of several drakes. Sighting a larger one in range, the beast preparing to take off and lunge for the bipedal intruders, Rani aims for where the drake's eye is predicted to be, loosing a bolt straight into the creature's socket. The young dragon makes a choking noise before falling to the ground, twitching involuntarily before ceasing all movement. Zahrani finds a new position along the periphery; armored as she is, she still prefers to fight conservatively until she can't. Sadly, the scenario of 'she can't' is upon her, as she sees Meri in a precarious position after getting knocked over. She reloads her crossbow, aiming for the drake's belly while Tiber unloads his entire quiver on the beast. She has no time to assess if she hits her mark; a frost drake has the cat in its sights, cruising in to try and enclose the panther in its jaws. The wind is knocked from her as she's swept away on blue wings. Her armor is the only thing keeping her from getting chomped in half, but the beasts jaws still threaten to suffocate her. With a feline growl, her claws unsheathe, augmented and reinforced with metallic extensions. She buries one set of claws in the drake's eye socket, destroying its nearest eye and prompting the dragon to open its mouth and roar in agony. Gravity takes hold, but is countered by her second set of claws gaining purchase on the animal's jaw. She swings from jaw to neck, not only clinging for dear life but also intending to create a counterbalance and force the drake to land.


Khitti || As it happened, Tiber was not as good as Brand when it came to doing things with a hangover. Maybe Brand was just more adept at it thanks to several years of his dedication to alcoholism. And besides, things die really quickly when you’re throwing fireballs all over the place. Who needs to aim? Things with Meri weren’t going much better for the moment and Khitti couldn’t help but let loose a long string of swear words. Some of them are Common. Some of them Dhavislaavian. There’s even a few Catalian ones in there too. And it’s not because she thought Meri was incapable. No, no. She just doesn’t want her sister to die to a bunch of scaly bastards. Khitti shadow-stepped away from the most recent drake she’d been working on, leaving it frozen to the ground as well, and went to rescue Meri. “Sorrydon’tkillme,” she said as she appeared in her usual cloud of shadows, grabbed Meri, and poofed her out of there to some place nearby to give the blonde a moment to catch her breath before she went back in again. You’d think she was Lithrydel’s version of the Flash as she shadow-stepped around like that, but no. Khitti was definitely starting to feel sluggish from all of the teleporting; this would’ve been far easier if she were something cool like a werewolf or a feline or, you know, a vampire. Khitti forsook the bow for now, tossing it aside in a bush to hopefully not get melted entirely by some lovely dragonfire. A wall of shadowfire found itself planted some feet in front of Tiber, trying to shield the Catalian from any oncoming blue drake attacks. It lasted long enough for Khitti to shadow-step to him, shove her quiver at him, and teleport away again. Zahrani was not left out of the ‘Khitti’s Gonna Try To Help Everyone’ equation, once Khitti realized that the kitty was very much up in the air. The redhead blinked a couple times and summoned up a rather large ball of shadowfire, aiming for the drake’s face once Zahrani was close enough to the ground to drop from the drake without injuring herself much. Hopefully things wrapped up soon with this fight because now Khitti needed to catch her breath. Maybe she should take a cue from Karasu and start carrying mana potions with her.


Meri would indeed find her footing, before Tiber runs out of arrows too....! Mostly because Khitti also comes to her rescue and manages to shadowstep the woman to safety. When the lycan manages to recover enough to be back on her feet, she is more than a little bit pissed off...mostly with herself, but it does not really matter where the anger was coming from. It was there. Now, sometimes when Meri got into this state she loses her mind completely and turns into an even angrier and very bitey wolf. It's an issue, she knows this, and it's not one that anyone needs to deal with right now for there is no telling who she might turn on. Thankfully for the team, they will not be encounter this Meri. Instead the psion manages to channel this rage and funnels them into her psionic abilities, to a brutal end. All of those arrows that have been shot around? Meri will grasp onto all of them. They could be resting harmlessly on the ground, they could be imbedded within the side of a drake. It did not matter, Meri would claim them all and rip them free from their resting place if she needed to. And she would, which would only serve to further injure the drakes. With this accomplished, all the arrows seem to take on a life of their own. Almost in unison, the arrows rip through the air with the drakes as their target. The arrows were plunging themselves within the bodies of the drakes, focusing on all of the particularly tender spots -- like those eyeballs. This process would continue, arrows being ripped from drake bodies only to be sunk back into them, until...well...the drakes stopped moving. It just...might take her a moment to realize they're not moving anymore.


Tiber looks to Khitti as the different dialects spill from her tongue. He yells something at her in Catalian that said something firm along the lines of ‘do not panic’ from across the way. As Meri is teleported away, Tiber gives Khitti a firm stare of… ‘thank god you have what you have’. Yes, Khitti did not have the lycan blood, feline, nor vampire, but dang did she play her cards well. Especially when Tiber was the low life currently that he was. At least he had the stamina to keep him up, and some wits. From his peripheral, another blue young dragon is coming into view. “No, no, no, honey,” and thankfully Zahrani moves in where he is able to pivot and bounce the next arrow at the blue drake who now begins to breathe against the Catalian. In a blink, Khitti is there with the shielded shadow-fire, and the dragon stops momentarily. “Holy crap, woman,” surprised she was that stealthy with her magic. The quiver is accepted, thrown on his back while he looses another arrow towards the beast to stun it again. He darts off and dodges any attack to prepare another arrow. Bless the sweet alcohol as it is pulled out again and dumped on the rest of the arrows on his backside. Another match is lit on the next arrow and the flaming arrow flies to knock against the beast. Tiber wastes no time, for instead he risks the singeing of fingers by a match to prepare another arrow before stomping the match to the ground. He launches another arrow in the leg of the beast to take it down in a buckled stun with the flames. It sticks in. After that, he is on the move now as he targets for dragon eggs. Empty bag of arrows on his back, and one batch covered with alcohol. Though in this time, arrows begin to fly at drakes. Magically as if they had a life of their own. “Holy sh—“ he then mouths some other curses in Catalian as he dodges flying arrows. Stupid move, sloppy move, but a move. Surprisingly it was his luck today, but that meant next time there would not be. His blade is out now as he makes his run for it towards one of the eggs. If any dragon would try to approach him while being hit by arrows, they would have to prepare for a stick in the side and a glide by a blade too because Tiber was not stopping for nothing. Then, drake casualties started to a clash on the ground around him. The lycan ducks cover near one of the dragon eggs before he crawls to grab one and huddle into the fetal position in order to protect himself from flying arrows and dropping drakes. He was in the clear for the most part. Once Meri would realize that the dragons were all down, he would peek up to double-check if arrows were still flying with a large, flabbergasted gape in his mouth at the psion. That was… impressive.


Zahrani looks for a safe place to let go. She's not a huge fan of her current velocity, but the ground is swiftly approaching. Once the dragon gets hit in the face with shadowfire, the beast begins to tumble. The feline sends up a silent prayer before letting go. She tucks into an armored ball, skidding across some softened dirt before getting intercepted by a mound of earth. With a groan, the panther rises to her feet, checking her weapons and armor for damage (nothing that couldn't be fixed, but the plating where the drake bit down would need to be reforged). She surveys the carnage, her breath catching at Meri's ferocity. The psion is beating a dead horse at this point, so the paladin reacquires her bearings, before gingerly making her way to the female lycan and placing a warm armored hand on her shoulder, "It's over, Meri. They didn't stand a chance." The panther's hand is warm and strong, her divine aura casting a faint amber glow where the aura's of the two women meet.


Khitti was gonna go home and make Meri a three tier cake because of how awesome that was. But, she’s probably gonna take a coma-nap first because she was sooo tired. “I’m getting too old for this. How does he do this? How does Brand keep up with me? With Dominic? He’s ancient.” Okay, he’s not -that- old. But, Khitti does call him a ‘fossil’ on occasion. It’s said with love though! Loves of love… and strawberry cheesecake. All that aside, Khitti was unfazed by Meri’s wrath--she would’ve totally joined in if she hadn’t been playing support! But alas, now Khitti was dead. Dead dead. Only on the inside. “I -had- planned on going after the other types of dragons for their scales,” she said, to no one in particular, “I was gonna get some nice armor made… but frak that. Frak all of that. I will help tailor-girl find a supplier if she wants but… No more dragons.” Silly Khitti. There will probably be more dragons in your future. Having failed at bringing along some sort of knife suitable for skinning, Khitti just stared at the whole lot of dead drakes, “Goddamn it. We didn’t bring something to haul them back with.” But she didn’t waaaaant to walk all the way back. “Tiber, I choose you… to go get us the biggest cart and horses you can buy.” Cue Khitti throwing a pouch full of gold at the Catalian’s head. “I’m… I’m gonna lie down and take a little nap.” And she did. She would totally wake up when it’s time to haul the things back to Rynvale to skin them! She’s just… feeling a little mana-drained right now.


Meri :: Everything they sought to hunt might have met it's demise but that does not seem to quell Meri's anger the moment she realizes. Honestly, the lycan is going to have a bit of an attitude problem for at least the next couple of hours. Rather than subjecting the rest of her guildmates to her poor mood, the tattooed woman just sort of walks away. Khitti will be left to collect the dragonscales on her own and everyone else will be left to fend for themselves. Were it not for Zahrani, Meri's departure may have been on the moodier side. However, the paladin does manage to ever so slightly ease Meri's rage, enough that she at least nods and issues a, "Yeah...Good fight everyone. Thanks." Before she does the whole brooding departure thing. Some how Tiber was the lucky pokemon selected to take their haul back into Rynvale...? Oh boy. He was probably thrilled.


Tiber was a sweaty mess at this point. He breathes in heavy when everything dies down with that dumb, gaped smile on his face. “Oh man!” He exhales before collapsing on his back with the exhilaration. “I get it now. I get it,” he calls out as if they had just one the Lithrydel Cup. “You guys are totally adrenaline junkies!” He always had been, but in the business guy sense. Steal a wallet sort of sense. Sell a faulty gold watch sort of sense. Cut off a guy’s fingers for the secrets for the boss sort of sense (not his best moments, mind you). His chest puffs with breath before he sits up at Khitti’s comment. Khitti was resting down, Meri was walking away? ‘Tiber, I choose you…’ he stares at Khitti with a frown now. He had a knife to skin, but that was a lot of scales. Ironically, however, Tiber always had people who owed him favors. “Fine. Give me an hour or so… I’ll be back.” It was a small pout, but one he would easily recover from. The lycan then moves to his feet and sluggishly throws the still-full quiver to the ground. “You,” he looks to the feline. “Watch her,” he gestured to Khitti. “Don’t think you’re leaving me behind.” And that would be the last words he would say before moving off.


Zahrani surveys the carnage once more, taking a seat next to Khitti and watching Meri walk away. The feline inhales sharply, before exhaling in a more controlled manner. Their guild leader is beautiful and terrifying, the paladin thinks to herself. With a sigh of fatigue while Tiber goes off to fetch a means to haul the drake corpses, the panther turns her muzzle to Khitti and simply says, "I'm glad we're all on the same side." She leans back against the hill, cyan gaze staring out towards the horizon.