Small One fought to keep her wings from twitching too much as she watched Furious One and his entourage grow smaller on the horizon. The sky-swimmer and silverscale both veered away from the rest of the dragons, soaring up into the thick blanket of clouds the dragons had brought with them and disappearing from sight. Meanwhile, Furious One and the four hardskins dipped their wings and dove beneath the flying metal beast, splitting apart to circle it from below.
Small One's sharp eyes could just barely make out the tiny shapes of death-prey on the metal beast's back, staring over the edge looking for the dragons and glaring out into the gathering storm. She had to prick her ears to hear the faint sound of Furious One's screeching roar, accompanied by the harsh sounds of the hardskins, just before all five circling dragons lunged in to strike at the belly of the metal beast. It was all happening too far away for Small One to see exactly what was going on, but by the looks of things, Furious One and his volunteers weren't doing as much damage to the beast as they would have hoped.
The metal beast began a laborious turn, sending the attacking dragons scattering. Suddenly a thin blast of pressurised water lanced out of the clouds, striking the metal beast on its wing. The sky-swimmer twirled and danced around the beast, peppering it with water blasts. Unfortunately, while the metal beast briefly listed to one side, its metal hide was too tough to be pierced by water alone. Furious One threw himself at one of the beast's wings, using his weight to try and pull it down while scorching it with fire. While the death-prey onboard scrambled to try and spear Furious One with sharpened bolts of metal, a booming noise heralded the arrival of the silverscale, diving down from above with a vivid red trail behind it. It smashed straight through the nose of the metal beast and out the other side, just barely managing to avoid plummeting to the ground.
Despite the best efforts of the silverscale, the metal beast was still flying and showed no signs of toppling. A hardskin went down, a spear sticking out of its chest. The death-prey who launched the spear had its arms raised in victory for all of a second before it was snatched up and tossed to the ground by another vengeful hardskin. Furious One dodged a launched spear and screeched at the other dragons to fall back. He clearly thought they weren't going to succeed with the original plan. As soon as the dragons had abandoned their attack, the metal beast began slowly flying after them.
Furious One and the others flew over the watching dragons at blistering speed, Furious One growling in a low tone which Small One recognised as Fearless One's language. In the crater below, the mountain dragon lifted her great head, gentle gaze staring up at the rim of the crater with curiosity. A few more orders from Furious One, and suddenly Fearless One was on her feet and walking, each mighty footstep sending small tremors through the earth. Her swaying tail threatened to push over a few trees as she went, slowly but surely climbing up the walls of the crater. Her progress was slow; by the time she was heading down the opposite slope, the metal beast was halfway to the ridge, and Small One could see the death-prey pointing at the assembled dragons.
Furious One, having rested his wings, suddenly took off again, flying towards the metal beast shrieking with vengeance. Once he had its attention, he dove at a shallow angle, flying below his usual speeds so as not to lose it. After another slow and arduous turn, the metal beast began descending after him, death-prey manning the spear launchers and keeping their aim at Furious One. Small One wondered what he was doing, until she noticed that Fearless One had made her way into the jungle, and was now flattening a path for herself through it. When the beast was just a little above the jungle canopy, Furious One suddenly pulled up and away, leaving annoyed-looking death-prey trying to shoot at him with spears.
Right then, a few of the death-prey finally noticed the sound of splintering wood and rustling leaves, looking down at Fearless One's great back. They opened their mouths in what Small One assumed was excited shouting, before training their launchers at her and firing. The spears didn't faze Fearless One in the slightest. A select few buried their tips in her scales, but most bounced off harmlessly. Fearless One's head began lifting from the trees as she stood up on her hind legs. It was only then that the death-prey realised the trap they'd been lead into—chasing Furious One had left them at eye level with Fearless One.
Fearless One puffed out her throat and roared, Small One taking a sadistic pleasure in the way the death-prey put their hands to their ears and crouched in fear. Fearless One clamped her huge jaws around the nose of the metal beast, dragging it down and shaking it as if it was a toy. As soon as it was low enough, she reached her arms out and wrenched off its left wing. Several death-prey decided to take their chances and threw themselves from the beast's corpse, rather than risk Fearless One's wrath. Fearless One continued shaking the flying beast, her claws and teeth shredding the metal with ease. After pulling its other wing off, she sheared the entire thing in half and unceremoniously dropped the remains into the trees and stomped on them, before casually lowering herself to the ground and turning to make her slow return to the crater.
Small One was very glad Fearless One was on the same side as her.
The other dragons had begun bellowing and roaring, congratulating Fearless One on her easy victory. Over the din, Small One just barely heard Furious One announcing that though the loss of the fallen hardskin was tragic, they had successfully deterred a threat and won their first victory. There were unlikely to be any survivors, but the missing metal beast would surely draw the attention of the death-prey. He seemed intent on coming up with a plan for another attack soon. Small One could only hope it would be one where she could come along too.
Does Furious One's plan of attack work? (Intelligence = 12)
Furious One rolls a 2 (required 8). Failure.
Does his second plan work? (Intelligence = 12)
Furious One rolls a 13 (required 8). Success.
Does Fearless One bring down the airship? (Strength = 18)
Fearless One rolls a 13 (required 2). Success.
I have a sneaking suspicion that last night's chapter may have gone up late, since I was having internet problems when I was trying to post it. On my end it looks fine, but FF be weird. If it is missing or otherwise glitched out, tell me so I can reupload it.
I very nearly didn't write tonight's chapter, since I was working on an assignment which sapped all of my concentration. I'm glad I got it done anyway, even if it is quite short.