WARNING for some heavy violence in the fight. My apologies if it makes you uncomfortable.
Also, there is a quote from the one and only Bender Bending Rodriguez in this chapter!
oxoxoxoxoxo
The next pool brought them to a huge cave where a female green dragon sat, her eyes glassy but with a lot of pain in them. When Meg cleared her throat to attract her attention, the dragoness bowed her neck and stared at the human. "You can't pass", she rasped out, her voice cracking as if she hadn't spoken in a long time, "Master Abazigail forbids it". "We're here to free you", the Ilmatari replied, gesturing for Edwin to come forward and cast the spell to break the Geas. As soon as the curse was lifted, the dragoness' eyes cleared, any trace of pain vanished and her reptilian face twisted in a smile.
"I…I am free! You freed me, humans!", she cheered, stretching her wings and back with a satisfied groan, "Now I can leave this accursed place at last!". "If you will, maybe you can give us the wardstone to get inside Abazigail's lair?", Meg asked with a kind smile, though behind her polite façade she was more than ready to slay the wyrm in case she turned on them. The dragoness scoffed, "And why should I help some puny humans? I'm Fll'Yissetat the Great, I don't waste my precious time dealing with worthless two-legged meatbags like you!". "We've just saved you from being a slave for the rest of your life, you ungrateful lizard!", Edwin shot back, "The least you could do is hand over that stone without complaints!".
Meg nodded with a disturbing grin, "Yeah, also because it so happens that I have a mage capable of casting another Geas on your scaly ass and you don't want to become a slave once again, do you?", she added in a sickly sweet tone, hoping that the dragoness wouldn't call her bluff. Luckily for her, Fll'Yissetat recoiled in fear and her wings shook a little, "Fine, fine, here is your precious stone", she said, hurriedly tossing them the oval gem which buzzed with magic, "But just so you know, this is blackmail of the lowest sort". The human shrugged, "Oh, blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion, the 'x' makes it sound cool". "Whatever, can I go now? I've spent too long in this place and I want to get out". "Yes, you can go and thank you for the stone".
"Of course", the dragoness grumbled as she moved to leave, then turned her head to shoot them a quick look, "You're going to face Abazigail and kill him?". "That's our plan". "Uhmmmm", she was silent for a moment, debating something in her mind, then nodded to herself, "The bastard half-blood is a blue dragon. He is completely immune to lightning, obviously and also to poison, but he is vulnerable to fire". Everyone exchanged puzzled glances at those suggestions and Daniel spoke up. "Not that we don't appreciate the info, madam, but why are you telling us that?".
"He has kept me enslaved for nearly two years now, I was in constant pain and I was treated as if I were a mere tool for that lowly half-blood! He, a disgusting mongrel, had the gall to cast a Geas on me, a pureblood dragon!", Fll'Yissetat seethed, "He deserves to die for his arrogance and for his crime against dragonhood". "Ah. Makes sense", he admitted. "Kill that filthy bastard, or I will find you and kill you", she threatened before leaving for good, her head and tail held high with pride. "Nice lass, uh?", the male druid commented, dripping sarcasm.
"A real keeper", the Painbearer agreed, "Okay, you all remember the plan, right?", Everyone nodded. "Let's go then", she used the stone to open the massive doors and cautiously slipped inside the cave that was covered in ice, the others in tow. In the middle of the huge area stood Abazigail in his human-like form: he was relatively short, barely an inch taller than Jaheira, his skin was navy blue and scaly, his narrow eyes were yellow with a vertical pupil like those of a snake and he wore simple black breeches and a black long-sleeved shirt.
"You made it here", he said, looking Meg up and down with obvious disinterest, "I take it that you killed Draconis then". "He didn't give us much of a choice, but…". He made a dismissive gesture, "I couldn't care less. If he let himself be killed by inferior parasites like you, he wasn't worthy of living and being my blood. Now, I see you didn't come alone to face me", he added, nodding to the army behind her, "A wise choice, but it won't save you". "I disagree", she replied with a smirk, twirling her mace. He arched an eyebrow and just sighed like an exasperated parent faced with a troublesome kid, "So be it", he shrugged and his body transformed, growing bigger and bigger.
According to the plan, the archers started shooting their arrows at him while he was still changing, since they thought he would be at his most vulnerable then, but the bolts simply bounced off of him without leaving behind a single scratch. "Bah, I have to do all the work as usual", Edwin grumbled, "Code Pause!", he then shouted at the mages, casting Time Stop and smirking in anticipation…Only for his eyes to widen with shock and horror as he realized that Abazigail was still moving, "Wha-", he cut himself off and dropped flat on the ground as the dragon's tail whipped in his direction and it was only thanks to his quick reflexes that his ribcage wasn't crushed to a pulp.
Everyone else on his side, though, was effectively frozen in time, which meant he had the ungrateful task to keep the monster at bay until the spell wore off, "Kossuth don't abandon me now", he prayed as he cast his contingencies as fast as he could while running all around the cave in order to keep the enemy distracted, so that he wouldn't think to attack his defenseless companions. Luckily, at least the spell to lower the magic resistance seemed to have a little effect and when the Red Wizard used the spell Dragon's Breath, the flames spit by the translucent disembodied head left behind several scorched patches on Abazigail's body, the scales literally melting off from the intense heat, causing the blue dragon to screech in pain and rage.
Suddenly, with a loud 'snap!', the Time Stop spell wore off and everyone blinked at seeing their companion running around like a drunken gnoll in a frenzy. "What happened, man? Why didn't you stop time?!", Daniel shouted, attracting Abazigail's attention and the dragon immediately turned and swiped at him, who barely had the time to step back to avoid being impaled by a giant claw. "I did!", the Thayan protested, fuming, "It doesn't work on him!". "Shit", Meg cursed, "Anomen, Aerie: summons, NOW!".
The two clerics kept themselves out of the dragon's reach long enough to summon a Deva each, a male and a female, then Aerie cast all the fire spells she had while Anomen rushed into the fray with his Flail at the ready, but only the fire head was actually doing some damage as the others were useless. "Use Dragon's Breath, he's vulnerable to it!", Edwin shouted to his fellow mages, who didn't waste any time in doing so and the blue dragon found himself surrounded by a solid sixty-eight floating heads spitting a deadly purple fire that covered him in more wounds, while the two celestials engaged him in combat.
Abazigail roared in fury and batted his powerful wings, sending all the mortals flying like leaves in a storm, only the two enormous Deva remained standing, but his tail and claws managed to injure them as well as he drew upon the power of the Taint to fuel his strength and to accelerate his healing rate. He spit lightning as soon as he saw the mortals getting up, the shots of electricity hitting many of the mercenaries, wounding some and instantly killing others and it was made worse by the fact that the lightning kept ricocheting in the vast cave for nearly twenty minutes, forcing the adventurers and mercs to stop their attacks and throw themselves down at random intervals to avoid being hit.
"Daichi, where are your spiders?", the Ilmatari shouted as she cast the thick grey fog of the spell Blast of Pain, which slithered in Abazigail's nostrils and quickly made its way to his brain, starting to corrode it from the inside and ripping a powerful screech from the dragon. Unfortunately, that wasn't even remotely enough to take him down: it did make some damage, but since he was using the Taint to enhance himself, his tissues mended fast, reducing the impact of the corrosion and allowing him to still retain a decent mobility and speed, which he used to slash left and right at the mortals around him.
"Danny, watch out!", Imoen yelled and without thinking, she threw herself at her brother and pushed him out of the way of the dragon's claw, saving him from being hit but at a high price: the paw hit her in the side and sent her flying against a stalagmite, the impact so hard that it knocked the wind out of her and she distinctly heard her bones breaking. "Imoen!", Sarevok's eyes widened in horror as he saw his little sister flopping on the ground like a ragdoll, but he didn't have the time to help her, not with Abazigail's talon rapidly closing in on him, "You bastard!", he roared, amber eyes darkening with rage as he swung the Sword of Chaos in a narrow arc and managed to slice off two fingers.
"You'll pay for that, lost one!", the dragon growled, smirking with satisfaction as the wound slowly stopped bleeding, though the lost appendages didn't grow back, "Better than nothing". He was so focused on the fighters, both mortals and celestials, that he didn't notice the small but deadly fake spiders crawling on his back until three quarters of them reached his neck and moved to surround it completely like a sort of white, clay-like necklace made of small bodies and spindly legs, while the rest split and stopped on other key points of his body, namely above the heart, near the ears and right around his eyes.
The adventurers and mercs were starting to lose hope by now: the mages and druids had nearly used all of their spells, the summoned animals and monsters had been wiped out of existence already with just a few slashes of the dragon's claws, even the Deva themselves were heavily injured since the dragon was making full use of his Taint. Meg decided she had had more than enough and that desperate times called for desperate measures, so she called, "Slayer, take over!".
The creature grinned widely, I thought you'd never ask!, it said gleefully and merged with her, morphing her body and tossing her mace to the side in favor of using its own claws to pierce and rip away the hard scales until it reached the soft flesh underneath, which was mauled without mercy in a flurry of meat and blood sprays, Haha, I love it! We should do this more often, little Goddess!, it cheered. Shut the f*** up and focus on killing this scaly motherf***er!, she snarled back, then sent a quick look at Daichi, "Now!", she managed to shout and the word was clear enough for him to understand even though the Slayer's larynx and vocal cords were not made to speak and its voice was low, rough and similar to a lion's roar crossed with the rumble of a volcano about to erupt.
The blonde nodded and smirked before he shouted the triggering word and a second later, all of the spiders exploded at once, the sound was deafening and the result was something straight out of a horror movie: blood scattering everywhere like a thick, sticky crimson rain, along with pieces of flesh and other soft tissues. But even then, even wounded, blinded, nearly completely deafened and with missing chunks of flesh, Abazigail still fought with all he had, channeling the power of his dead sire into his body and his scales grew back, only they were not blue anymore, but black with a blood-red shine to them and from his eye sockets still came a golden glow strong enough that it lit up the enormous cave as if it was bathed in sunlight, the soft squishy tissue of the eyeballs slowly regenerating thanks to the Taint.
"Why won't he just go down?!", Yoshimo exclaimed in frustration: his katana was useless, his regular arrows were useless and whatever damage he could do with the explosive and fire arrows was nearly instantly healed by the accursed power of a dead god. Unfortunately for them, there was a reason why Amelyssan had chosen to recruit Abazigail into the Five: not only he was a dragon, powerful in his own right, but he was also the one among all the children of Bhaal to have the highest amount of their dead sire's Taint. In short, he was the strongest, most powerful and most dangerous individual among the whole progeny of Murder, just two steps behind his own father. And the fact that he was using his heritage in the fight meant they were in wayover their heads.
Meg/Slayer didn't stop the relentless attack on the dragon, pushing through and dodging whenever a claw or the tail came too close, but knew it was not enough, so she, or rather, it decided to try something crazy and without any guarantee of success out of desperation: it made her Taint expand and resonate with that of Daniel, Gromnir, Imoen, Chinchilla, Merlinious and Toop, awakening the power hidden within the six Bhaalspawn and forcing them to morph into an avatar of their sire.
Just as she swallowed the last sip of healing potion, Imoen felt her body twisting and changing and let out a scream of fear and horror, but then noticed her sister looking at her with what seemed like an imploring gaze and relaxed: she didn't want to use the Taint, but she trusted Meg and besides, if the fight kept on going as it was, they would more than likely die here, so what did they have to lose? She allowed the Slayer to take over and then charged against the dragon just as her brothers, now turned into the Ravager (Gromnir), Kazgoroth (Daniel) and the Slayer (Chinchilla, Merlinious and Toop) joined her in the attack. The seven of them fought with savage fury, using whatever they had at their disposal, be it claws, tails or teeth and they were satisfied to see that their blows were finally inflicting some heavy damage.
One Deva vanished from existence when a lucky slash by Abazigail tore its head off, but the remaining one took advantage of his distraction to plunge her sword into his head, the silvery blade embedding deep into his brain and coming out on the other side, just before the summoning time was up and the female celestial vanished too. Daichi sent one final spider, bigger than the others, to crawl to the enemy's nape and when it blew up, the explosion was so violent that it destroyed three quarters of Abazigail's skull. The dragon screamed in agony, the nearly regenerated eyes rolled back in the ruined sockets, he lost his balance and fell flat on his face with such force that the earth shook and then…
Silence.