The next few hours were rather anxious ones. Small One scrambled up to the rim of the crater with Clever One to watch the metal beast coming in. It loomed like a vicious cloud on the horizon, with a body of steel that tapered to a point at the nose, and two flat, inflexible wings spread out to the sides. Small One didn't really understand how it was flying without moving its wings or summoning winds like a sky-swimmer. Its underside seemed to be lighting aflame periodically, which Small One was hopeful was a sign of some sort of injury. All along its back, death-prey stood at the ready, arms gripping the spear launchers.
Fearless One had shifted her massive bulk partially up the crater wall, avoiding the rim in an attempt to hide. Small One wasn't too sure it was working. Stealth was a foreign concept to the living mountain, and the metal beast was up high enough that Small One was fairly certain it could see Fearless One's red spikes sticking up. Still, Fearless One made a token effort to press herself against the stone and cover herself with a thin, see-through late of foliage.
Soon, the roar of the metal beast grew louder, and it was close enough for Small One to hear the chatter of the death-prey and the metallic sound of spears being readied. Fearless One suddenly erupted from her 'hiding' place, standing on her hind legs and reaching her arms out towards the metal beast. Unfortunately, it seemed Small One was right. The metal beast had known she was there, and it quickly ascended in response to her attack. Though Fearless One stretched herself as tall as she could get and snapped with her jaws, the metal beast was just out of reach. With a roar of frustration, Fearless One effortlessly swatted several launched spears out of the air, with the ones that made it through bouncing harmlessly on her belly scales.
Small One's chest tightened. Fearless One hadn't managed to catch the beast and now it was crossing the rim and heading into the crater. Dragons were flitting off in every direction, squawking and snarling as they dodged launched spears. Several silverscales threw themselves at the beast's armoured belly and wings, but all their efforts seemed to win them were sore heads and barely-dodged spears. The beast stayed in the air, even if it did rock a little bit. On the ground below, Wise One and a small crowd of white one-horns readied their horns in unison. With a collective neigh of effort, they managed to summon an almighty thunderbolt, bigger than any Small One had ever seen.
The bolt struck the metal beast dead center, electricity coursing through its entire body. The gloating voices of the death-prey suddenly turned into screams of agony as the lightning surged through their bodies, though they somehow didn't die. The metal beast began to sway and lurch, slowly but surely listing to one side and getting closer and closer to the ground. Fearless One's eyes lit with opportunity, and she hauled herself into a standing position as quickly as she could. The death-prey scrambled to get their beast back in the air, but Fearless One didn't give them nearly enough time for that.
She caught the beast in her claws and, snorting lightly and squeezing her armoured eyelids shut against the spears that were frantically being thrown at her face, wrenched one wing off, just as she had before. Quite a few death-prey threw themselves overboard, extending huge, billowing flaps from seemingly nowhere to try and glide down to safety. Small One took a certain amount of glee in watching the falling death-prey get snatched from the air by vengeful dragons. One somehow managed to avoid being grabbed by a dragon and successfully landed in the lake. For a brief moment, the death-prey seemed pleased with itself, whooping and raising its arms in the air while it disentangled itself from its billowing glider.
Then the scaly beast with horns and spikes that lurked in the water lunged from the depths, snapping the death-prey up in one bloody gulp.
When Fearless One was done eviscerating the metal beast, she tossed it into the lake, where it slowly sank to the bottom. An earthshaking victory roar rolled through the crater, joined by the chorus of other dragons, including Small One. Fearless One moved to settle into her favourite sleeping place, but a loud whinny from Stern One stopped her, and every other dragon, in their tracks. Stern One seemed to be calling for a gathering, so Small One quickly scrambled down the inner wall of the crater to catch what was about to be said. To her dismay, Stern One did not have good tidings.
Stern One did not have grand speeches of victory. Stern One spoke of how ridiculously close that last skirmish was. One stroke of bad luck, and who knows how many dragons might have died? It was sheer chance that the white one-horns were able to stagger the metal beast with their thunderbolt. A single one-horn wouldn't have had the necessary strength, but combining their power like that was both dangerous and unpredictable. And it seemed the death-prey were growing wise to Fearless One's presence by simply flying out of her reach.
Small One's heart sank with each harsh nicker. Stern One was right. It really was only luck that they weren't being picked off with spears right now. Stern One carried on by saying that it was probably time to start planning attacks on a grander scale and bringing more dragons. To that end, he was going to send the silverscales out to see what was happening to the rest of the world in the ongoing conflict, and then they'd see where they stood. If Furious One managed to recover in the meantime, then Stern One would defer to him—but for now, Stern One wanted to think about ways to prevent attacks from happening in the first place rather than simply fending them off, because death-prey adapted much quicker than dragons, and he didn't seem to think they had much longer left.
Small One spent the rest of the day playing with the small chunks of the metal beast that had fallen onto the ground, attacking them and tossing them between herself and Bold One. But her mind dwelled on Stern One's words, right up until the sun sank and she fell asleep on Fearless One's great snout.
Does Fearless One catch the airship? (Finesse = 3)
Fearless One rolls a 15 (required 17). Failure.
Do Wise One and the other one-horns manage to bring it down? (Luck = 10)
Wise One rolls an 11 (required 10). Success.
Does Fearless One destroy the airship? (Strength = 18)
Fearless One rolls a 12 (required 3). Success.
I think this is the latest I've ever started writing a chapter, so if it seems rushed or unpolished, that's why. I spent most of the evening planning out a job I'm doing tomorrow. To the reviewer who suggested a name for Fatalis (I think it was Deven?), I actually already have a name in mind for him, but thanks for the suggestion.
And to the person with the really long name who suggested an idea for a story to do after this one, you actually rekindled my interest in an old story idea I had (it was, in fact, the idea which was scrapped in favour of the Mystery Dungeon fic). I may actually write it, but I'd need more time to develop it beyond that initial premise. Thanks for the shot of inspiration, though!