4 Hours before the Raid:
Satoru stared at the corpses of the hobgoblins who were killed by the King Witchthorn in his first battle against Claugiyliamatar and her minions. He took away the corpses in order to make sure that no hobgoblin were to be resurrected in the future. And her minions' population would go down.
However, the green dragon was lucky enough to find a Thayan necromancer named Zaralda, an exiled former resident of Thay. She was the main supporter of Claugiyliamatar to corrupt the Kryptgarden forest. She raised the dead spirits of many races and added them in her undead army. The rivers and lakes became poisoned, the air then had the smell of acid and the forest wildlife was killed regularly to feed the hobgoblin clan. And if the corpses remained, then Zaralda would animate them as a part of her undead legion.
Therefore, it was correct to conclude that Satoru was not just against Claugiyliamatar, but also other rivals as well. Fortunately, they were weak and his scouts had managed to collect the full capability of the other forces.
The old faction of the Dragon Cult were seeking an audience with her. They wanted to offer her immortality as a dracolich. And even when she refused this offer, they stayed at the Krptgarden forest.
The new faction of the Dragon Cult were also here and instead of lichdom, they desired her support on the name of their patron deity Tiamat — the evil Dragon mother of all Chromatic dragonkind. The leader of this new faction had somehow managed to gather a large number of cultists and dragons under this new branch.
Then there were the exiled Red Wizards of Thay who wanted to overthrow Szass Tam from his place as the ruler of the Thay. But they failed in their goal and left the country in order to raise their numbers. Zaralda was tge leading force behind these Thayan mages. They were showing interest in joining both the new faction and the authority of Claugiyliamatar.
And lastly, there was the dread queen of the Kryptgarden and the wife of King Witchthorn — Ishaldra — laying paralyzed in her area guarded by her maddened treant bodyguards.
Satoru considered his plan not as the perfect plan. But it was still the best plan he had right now. He only hoped that nothing would go awry to lose his face in the eyes of the fey lord.
He glanced at the hobgoblin warriors and sighed.
"Being a necromancer is very hard. Never in my dreams I have thought to use magic on real corpses. Oh well, no point to complain."
He decided to cast [Animate Undead] over them to bring some canon fodder when dealing with these invaders. Until an idea popped up in his empty skull.
"[Create Mid Tier Undead : Death Knight]"
Instead of magic, he used his skill to create some Death Knights. He thought that his undeads would be the surprising elements in this whole raid. They would not be prepared for his undeads and got themselves killed. If they used the teleportation spells, then he would use [Dimensional Lock] to shut them at one place for limited period of time.
However, his thoughts halted when he saw that one of the hobgoblin was engulfed in a black, tar-like liquid which morphed the said corpse into a hulking Death Knight he knew of. The very same level 35 monster, who for some reason, looked more intelligent than before.
His surprise over this new revelation turned into curiosity as he measured the changes in his powers with an ever growing interest.
"Now this is interesting."
In one of the tents of the Red Wizards, slept a human woman who was having a pleasant dream of being the new ruler of Thay. She dud not truly hate the authority of Szass Tam, but despised his cowardly nature that stopped them from ruling over the world. Despite having an army of tireless undeads under his command, he never claimed the nearby cities for himself.
Under her rule, Thay would become a world class superpower with the control over the masses. It would become the strongest empire in the Faerun. Even the gods would praise the name of her newly founded empire. But it would take time and immense patience from her side as well. She needed to stay calm throughout the plan of hers. She was not in hurry. Lichdom was always an opti—
"Lady Zaralda, wake up! We are in danger!"
"Huh?!" Her eyes shot open.
Hearing the word 'danger' from her one of her colleagues, she prepared herself for the worst. She knew that Szass Tam would try to punish her for going against his authority. He was not a type of lich to leave the rebels unpunished for long time. She buffed herself with some of her best spells to survive the confrontation against him, or his associates. Her escape plan was all set.
She took out her only [Scroll of Teleport] from the Bag of Holding. Normally, she would not carry these important items in the boundaries of the Kryptgarden, but her paranoia won over her ego and so, she brought it along with her other trinkets. She threw the scroll in the air and letting its magic to transport her out of this place.
Much to her surprise, she was still inside her tent and the undead noises were increasing around her camp.
"Why did it not work? Was it the wrong one?" She assumed that the scroll was not working because of some malfunction in the scroll. But she had no time to think over it. If the worst had come at her door, then she had to face it by herself. If running away was impossible, then persuasion was the only way.
She would disclose the secrets of the Dragon Cult to him. He was known for blackmailing others on the name of cooperation or power.
"No point to think much. Let me see what I can do here."
She quickly came out of her tent and watched the hellish scene of her camp being invaded by the undeads. Her wights could handle well.
Zaralda was a Red Wizard of Thay. She might not be the zulkir like those eight servants of Szass Tam, but she was a fast learner and experienced of deadly battles. However, the scene in front of her was anything, but a nightmare.
Her camp, comprising of 13 members, was being invaded by none other than a Necroswarm Giant.
She was aware of this type of undead. It was not a single undead, but a mass of multiple skeletal undeads which formed a single gigantic form of horrifying undead whose height alone was 4 feet and its maw was big enough to totally devour an adult man.
Similar to slime, the undead had created a pseudopdia of bones and skulls, which hungrily devoured the members of her group. The others were fighting against it with fireballs and magical blasts, to open a pathway for escape. She must say that they were doing the smartest work. Fighting against this monster was impossible to begin with as its challenge rating was above them.
"Mybe they are not really useless at all?" She whispered so softly that it looked like breathing. Her eyes were searching any means to escape, but could not find one.
Feeling alone, she decided to help the remaining members of her small group.
"Wait, let me help!" She shouted at the group who were doing combat and launched the spells like [Magic Missiles] upon the less covered area of the Necroswarm Giant.
"Do not attack elsewhere! Focus your attacks at this area with everything you all got!"
"""Yes!"""
Hearing the cries of her men, she put as much focus as she could. Her daily spell charges were at limit, but they managed to make the gap for escape in time.
The rest of its body twisted around the camp to engulf them wholly, but it was slow. They penetrated through its line of covering and reached back into the forest.
Either the Necroswarm had lost its interest, or its target was their tents from the beginning. It did not follow them at all. Seeing its lack if approach, some members were about to stop running, but she denied this little bit of rest. They must run away from this place as far as possible. Staying anywhere closer to that mass of skeletons would be fatal.
After covering a good enough distance, they finally stopped their legs and fell on the floor.
To say Zaralda was angry would be an understatement. She was buring with rage. Her emotions were not in her controls anywhere. She lashed out at the escaped subordinates of hers.
"Who was planning to summon a Necroswarm Giant in the middle of the forest?! Who desired for death from me?!" Without caring about her composure, she glared at them with eyes that wanted to torment the wrong-doers.
Her subordinates replied in negative while some shook their heads. None of them dared to take the blame as they all were innocent.
Seeing their cowardly faves, she was about to ask again until she heard the footsteps. Her head snapped towards the trees where she heard them. A shadowy figure was coming in their direction. It was tall and hard to figure out its features.
She would punish her members later, for now, they must deal with this new guest. She had doubts that the Necroswarm Giant was this entity's summon.
"Who are you?! Show yourself!"
She ordered the incoming figure who stopped at its track and stared directly at her. Though she could not see him in the veil of darkness of the forest. She had this feeling that his focus was then totally at her.
Suddenly, multiple little feys appeared around him. They were glowing with their mesmerizing presence, similar to the [Dancing Lights]. As they danced around his face, she saw a handsome man's face with looks that could kill any woman. However, he was also glaring at her with hate-filled eyes.
She tensed under that gaze and asked in calm tone.
"Who are you?"
"My, you came into my forest. Littered around with your sorry group of friends and even killed some of my feys fir money. And you dared to ask who am I?! The Archfey of the Tsordvudd?!"
Her eyes widened in surprise as he announced the titular name of King Witchthorn. Her body trembled at the Archfey who was having a hard time to control his unadulterated wrath upon them.
"K-King Witchthorn, I can expla—"
"No more explanation. Because of you, me and my subordinates have lost many things in our home. And I will make sure that you lot will pay those debts with your cries for help."
Despite his charming looks, his words sent shivers in the spines of every Thayan mage. They tried desperately to come out clean, but the Archfey did not hear them. He clapped his hands gently and some new figures appeared around them.
They were not as tall as the Archfey, but Zaralda could feel the fey presence from them. Horns crowned their heads and their masculine features gave away their gender identity. Currently, her group had only 6 members including her, while theses figures easily numbered in 15. There was a big disparity in terms of numbers.
"These satyrs lived here with their dryad companions for a long time. But now, they do not have their mates. They want to satiate their carnal desires and you lot will be very helpful in that regard."
The Red Wizards paled at those words, but Witchthorn did not stop there.
"My satyrs here do not discriminate on the basis of genders. Have fun..."
The satyrs did not waste any time and jumped straight at them. That night, the cries of pain and pleasure echoed throughout the forest of Kryptgarden.
In other part of the forest, a hobgoblin warlord and a female cultists of the new Dragon Cult made a blanced deal under the nose of Claugiyliamatar.
Alandra was one of the most trusted member of the Dragon Cult with spells upto 3rd levels. Despite being a young wizard, she was sent to the Kryptgarden forest to secure an alliance with the ancient green dragon, Claugiyliamatar. However, they were being refused by the said dragon everytime they approached her. While they were going impatient to have her on their side, her new master — Severin Silrajin — told her to get the Green Dragon Mask instead of that dragon.
With this new goal, she changed her course of plan and got thus hobgoblin on their side under a deal that he could not refuse.
For the dragon mask, the Cult accepted the terms of Garbul to send Zartruss's family out of this forest. The cult's doors were always opened for new recruits. On the behalf of her cult, she came here tonight to retrieve the Dragon Mask, and then the new cultists.
So far, their conversation went well so far and she got the legendary artifact under her thumb. Now all they had to do, was to go back at the Skyreach Castle and gave this good news to Lord Severin. He would be pleased.
However, the gods had another plans for them tonight.
"Teleport us to the base." She ordered the mage responsibility for the transportation. She had yet to reach that level of mastery over magic. The cult wanted to put some good use of her persuasive skills, but she was more interested to learn magic instead.
He nodded and as he cast the [Teleport] spell, it failed. The mage tried again, yet nothing happened. The spell failed every single time. His eyes were filled of worries. Before he would lose his composure, Alandra calmed him.
"Do not put too much effort if you can't."
"But...!"
"It's fine. We will see what's wrong here." She paused and then called the diviner of their group.
"Find what's the issue here. And fix it immediately."
"At once!"
Hopefully, the Dragon Goddess would remove this obstacle as well. She prayed to her patron deity, Tiamat.
Her prayers halted when she heard the roars of a beast in the forest.
"Is there a magical beast in the forest?" She asked to the only ranger of their group. His face did not look composed, rather he was grim serious.
"No. This is the smell of a magical beast. I smell death and bloodlust coming from tge forest. It is most likely an undead. A powerful undead."
She further inquired, "What kind of undead? Is it one of the old faction at work?"
The ranger shook his head, "No. This reminds me of death, unlike the ones I have seen in the old faction. The temperature around is dropping as well and tge humidity is rising exponentially."
That caught her by surprise. She could feel the increase in humidity as well. She expected it as Thalder's doings. He was also present in the forest and wished for bringing Claugiyliamatar on his side.
She resigned the thought of him being the perpetrator. He was not a man to pull such tricks upon the members of the same Cult, no matter what faction they were in.
The roars increased as they felt the presence of something approaching towards their camp.
Coming out of the corrupted forest, a hulking figure ran past the guards and slashed the men into half. His hateful glare and horrifying visage was unlike any undead she had seen in her life.
"What is that thing?!" One of her companions shouted at the monster in front of them. She did not even need to order them for going offensive here. The one who offended them first was the undead knight.
His bastard sword cleaved through the drakes like they were made of butter. That sword was not normal at all. It turned ethereal for a moment and vanished in the mist of darkness and appeared in front of the ranger. It took less than a second to chop the elf into many pieces.
In front of her eyes, a massacre was occurring and she could not help, but watch in shock.
The spells of fire, ice, electric and light magic launched at the knight. The cleric dealt their best to provide support the wizards, but it was all fruitless. They were going to be killed here.
Before she could delegate any more orders, they were dwindled to only two members.
Alandra and the other wizard who were going to be the next. Somehow their legs were stuck at one place and their bodies were frozen out of fear. She quickly realized her mistake.
They were captured. Some sort of force spell had frozen them. Their movements had been seized. And before they could join the pile of corpses, an unfamiliar voice stopped the undead monster on its final hunts.
"You can stop, Death Knight."
She wanted to see the speaker, but her body was not hearing her commands. She was jammed at one place.
The only thing she remembered was the name of the undead monstrosity called Death Knights before she fell into the darkness. She could only pray to Tiamat to save her in future.
Claugiyliamatar was enjoying her oil bath in her lair. Handsome men, regardless of age and gender, were cleaning her green scales with great enthusiasm. And they were not being threatened at all, no, she just told them to take as much money as they could once she was satisfied with the result. It was the power of greed that she was using here to make the old faction members of the Dragon Cult to clean her.
After the formation of the new faction, the old faction became financially weak. The richest members of their cult left them on their devices. She could see the desperation in their eyes to maintain the weakened Dragon Cult.
"Once you are done with my left side, then don't forget to polish my nails as well. They have become quite dirty." She ordered.
And while their naked bodies were drenched in oil answer sweat, they just nodded their heads and kept cleaning her. She just enjoyed this time of pleasure, no matter how many times it happened.
"Strange, where is Garbul? He should be here already." She thought aloud.
Garbul was the first minion she ever had. He was once a goblin in rags, until she bestowed him the title of a warlord. He clearly enjoyed her blessings. Whenever he was injured, she told him to clean the roots of the forest floor to forget about his injury. When his family tried to brainwash him, she came to rescue him. Going as far as to threaten them without killing them on sight. After that day, her minion became very subservient to her.
Even tonight, he came to message her about the recent news regarding the Dragon Cult, a group of jesters who lived to be used by the dragonkind. No matter how insignificant they were, his loyalty brought him to her to tell the news. She would reward him soon.
Somehow, the temperature outside her lair was going down. The humidity in the atmosphere down here was increasing for some unknown reasons. Even her slaves were sneezing at this cold temperature.
"Stop sneezing at me! Wear your samn clothes and get out!" She scolded them and shooed them outside.
There's no way they were getting any money from her. Whether it was the fault of weather or not, she would not pay them so easily.
However, her anger subsided as she heard the cries of the cultists at the entrance of her lair. This caught her by surprise.
Her first thought was that she was under-attacked. It was obvious that the Archfey might order the adventurers to kill her. How typical.
Here she had the wife of King Witchthorn under her custody, and that was her mercy which put the Ishaldra alive so far. She was living because the Old Gnawbones wished for her to live.
She decided to confront the King Witchthorn on this and reminded him about what she could do with Ishaldra.
Claugiyliamatar might be a patient dragon with a great heart for her servants, but she also knew how to punish others. She reached to the entrance of her lairs with her magic items attached on her body. She also had rings of immense magic worn on her fingers.
Out of nowhere, water started to drip under tge cave. It was like the entire lair was getting filled with rainwater.
She had to go outside of her lair. And she knew who was this person.
Taking out her four magic crystals, she activated their magic to find the archmage who could perform such levels of feat. Once she found them, she would—
'Crack'
"Huh?"
'Crack', 'Crack'
Her crystal started to Crack one by one. Like someone was squeezing them from outside. And then, they cracked into many pieces. She watched all of this and decided to get out of her lair as quickly as possible.
A very powerful threat had been found.
Unfortunately for her, it won't be easy to leave her lair. As two powerful looking undeads were running straight at her position, with swords ready to gouge her.
Using her breath attack and magic, she created a dark mist to hide her own presence from the sights of the undeads. Though they were prepared.
The swords, in their hands, slashed directly at her body. It proved that theses undeads were intelligent as well, or just had the Blindsight.
"Hmph, I will win." She announced confidently, but she was afraid from inside. Knowing full well that she was surrounded her, the green dragon swiped her massive tail at the two undeads.
The first undead with lots of weapons died instantly, but the other one survived that hit of hers. Not only that, a huge of tsunami came right through her entrance.
She was not an excellent swimmer, but her Ring of Water Breathing saved her life. She swam right through the tsunami and with her form out of the Deeping Cave, she sighed in relief. She might survive the water, but not the water pressure. It was the only right choice she had.
"What's going on here?! Show yourself, you coward!"
"Coward? And me? You are not wrong about that, but if this is how you wish to fight, then so be it."
The masculine baritone tensed Claugiyliamatar. Her draconic senses were boosted by her trinkets, while her wingspan became bigger than before.
Normally, a mage would think that it was a show of strength from her side. Little did this unknown enemy know, it was her escape attempt. Once this mage showed himself, she would remember his face and kill him at later date.
From the dark woods, a masked wizard is the dark robes emerged with a complicated golden staff.
The level of monetary value she could feel from his getup was incalculable. Out of instinct, she drooled at the walking treasure trove with widened gaze.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Suzuki Satoru, a freelance wizard and your opponent."
The masked mage introduced himself with an arrogant tone. Claugiyliamatar mentally laughed at the foolishness of the wizard in front of her. She would remember his name and kill him in future. His clothes and jewelleries would be hers once she was done with him.
"Nice to meet you, Suzuki Satoru. I am the Lady Claugiyliamatar, your opponent here. Let us fight to death." She smirked and launched herself to the sky, from where she flew away.
Or, that was what she attempted to do.
"What?!" The immense wind pressure punched her back at the ground. Her stomach crashed with a loud sound. Her medallion began healing her wounds.
"Before I came here, I heard a lot of stories of your running away from the battlefield. You should have changed your battle tactics." He said calmly.
The Green Dragon growled and swiped her tail over him, which he easily dodged through Teleportation magic.
"Hmm, I expected some magical attacks from you. But you chose close combat over magic. Can you even do magic at the first place, pathetic dragon?!"
Her eyes twitched at the clear use of angering her. She would not lose her mind so easily. She drew out her poisonous breath over and her surroundings. For the time being, it would stop him from talking.
He was correct to assume that her magic was pathetic. But she had her ways. Through her poison breath, she could use her magic to create an illusory realm where all five senses of the target would be under her control. It was her absolute illusion field where she could bypass the resistances of her enemy by recreating the whole area into her liking.
Though shevexpected to fell into her trap. He used another spell which sliced her body three times over.
"Gahh!"
"I wonder what you are trying to prove here, but you need to do it better."
Somehow, the mage was unaffected from her illusory landscape. But how come it is was possible? She trained hard to make this ability. On top of that,her poison was doing no damage to him.
Was he immune to poison breath and illusory spells as well?
This was going to be a tough battle for her. She must teleport away. She was saving the teleportation ring for the last attempt to escape, but she had no choice at tge moment. She concentrated the place where she should go for the time being. However, the ring did not work.
"How? Did you use anti-magic spell over me?!"
"Anti-Magic? That is a new term for me. I will keep this in mind. Now, here is my gift. [Grasp Heart]."
An ethereal human heart appeared in the gloved hands of Satoru, and then he squashed it.
The end result? She died.
Her body fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Satoru waited for her to rise again. But there was no reaction from her. He was cautious especially with this dragon. There were rumors of her being a great conspirator and liar. He attempted any sighs of her being acting like how she did in the past. Yet, nothing showed her being alive.
He closed his gap with her corpse and decided to test his theory.
"[Create High Tier Undead : Eternal Death]"
His undead creation skills were only applicable on the deads as he had checked his skills on the corpses of hobgoblins. And though he was little disappointed with his success in his first quest, he shrugged it off. He hoped that in future, he would get some bigger and stronger opponents to fight. Of course, he should be given information about his opponent first.
Since he had alreast secured the Ishaldra, there was no need to worry about his promise with Witchthorn.
There was only one last thing to do.
"Time to see this dragon's hoard."
Note : This is taking place at 1489 DR.
Fun Fact : The fact that Satoru's spells are working so strong because of DD logic. As a necromancer, your magic works better if you Charisma score is high. And this gut has the wildest level of Charisma. To the point of fooling 4 most intelligent being of the NW all alone. You can assume how strong he is.
Though there are beings who laughably stronger than him besides Gods.