119: The Dragon

Hello, mum. We had a bit more travelling to do before we got to Gladbeich, and Guido spent much of the time telling everyone that we shouldn’t be talking to evil creatures and colluding with them. But really he was aiming it at Erina. It was hard to know what harm a bit of chat might do, even with a monster, but Guido said that nobody knew the real price, which sounded mysterious and ominous. Fred agreed and said it should be our priority to kill them not talk to them.

Guido said that that sort of thing can even drive you mad (I can’t see anything like that happening to me, mum) and there was a fine line between wizard and witch. And Fred said that what he had heard about our visit to Boegenhafen and Wittgendorf showed that wizards can easily turn nefarious, and the last thing we needed was a corrupted wizard on our hands. And they looked at Erina.

About mid afternoon we reached Gladbeich, and it looked like quite a pleasant little village surrounded by fields of barley, but it soon became pretty clear that not all was well. The two guards at the gate house addressed us very nervously, and looked extremely relieved when Fred told them we were from Middenheim on behalf of the graf, and here to help. And they directed us to the Floodstone inn to talk to their reeve, Ida Klein.

The guards were respectful of Guido in his priestly robes but you could see they were wary of Erina. And when Blume called them peasants Guido apologised to them. But I think they though Guido was apologising for Erina being a wizard.

And while we were talking to them, we heard a terrible shrieking cry coming from the forest to the east and decided that that probably wasn’t the sound of a rat-headed beastman, but more like a dragon or something else we had no knowledge of.

So we headed to the inn, and we didn’t see many people around but we could tell they were watching us. I expect they were worried about the dragon, and not us, though. Outside the inn there was a big rock, which they called the floodstone, no idea why, though, because it obviously doesn’t float.

And we passed a temple to Ulric, and there were a load of weapons inside, as it acted as the village’s armoury, but they had lots of old weapons outside, too, which were just rusting, and that annoyed Guido because he has a thing about looking after your weapons. I told Guido that in an ideal world all weapons would rust, and that shut him up for a bit.

We spoke to the barman, Gilbransson, and after we explained we were from the graf he poured us some free drinks and went to get Klein. When she came in she looked very suspicious of Erina, and almost everyone we had met in Gladbeich looked at her a bit funny. I think that sort of thing happens in out of the way places where you don’t get a variety of different people. While we were in the inn, a few locals came in just to stare at us, and Klein had to usher them away.

Klein filled us in with what had been happening. About twelve days before they had heard a massive explosion coming from the mountains. And a day later they had heard the screeching noises and one of the villagers had gone missing. The next day another one disappeared so they sent out a small band to look for them. And only one of them had returned.

A man called Joachim had been sent back by the scouting party to report that they had found a rat-headed beastman, but the rest of them had never been seen again. Some of the other locals had wanted to go out to look for them, but Klein had decided to sit tight and wait for help from their baron Holzbeck. And as he had been busy fighting goblins he had sent to the graf for help. And here we were.

Klein had made sure the village was well defended, though, and everyone seemed to think the screeching was the prelude to a beastman attack. Guido had some criticism of her arrangements, however, and told her the villagers needed better training.

Then we spoke to Joachim and he wasn’t much help at all. I think they had probably sent him back from the scouting party to get him out the way. We asked if he could lead us back to where they had found the rat-headed beastman and he didn’t seem very sure, but he described the beastman and it sounded like a rat man.

And then Joachim pointed his sword at Erina and called her a witch, so Klein sent him away. He was lucky Erina didn’t turn him into a frog, but Guido got really upset about it, and Fred had to calm him down.

It was a bit strange to call Erina a witch (although she probably is, mum), and Klein explained that there was a grey wizard who used to live in the woods nearby and the villagers had to burn him for witchery, so no one round that way trusted wizards.

Then we were interrupted by a villager, a young woman who looked like a hunter, who offered to help but Klein told her she wasn’t required. Klein explained that Veronica’s father had led the hunting party. But it was clear that Joachim wouldn’t be much help to us, and we needed a guide, so we asked if we could bring Veronica with us, and Klein agreed.

We decided that there was no point delaying, and there was still enough light to get things done today, so we loaded up Piano with the tents and some rations and Veronica led us along the trail that the hunting party had followed. I have been watching Boy track things in the sewers, and I am getting quite good at it, so I watched how Veronica did it, and picked up a few tricks from her, too.

And after a couple of hours Veronica found some large claw marks in the soil. They didn’t look like rat man tracks and if they had been, it would have been a very large rat man indeed. And so we followed those tracks and it grew a bit darker as the mists drew in and it moved towards evening.

And then we heard another screech and it all felt a bit tense and so when Guido got his crossbow and cranked it up I was ready to load my pistols. And everyone else prepared for something. And Veronica led us to a hollow beneath an old tree and indicated that that was where the tracks ended. And the tunnel continued into the darkness. Outside we could see some dead bodies and body parts. And it seemed strange that if it were a big predator in there that it hadn’t eaten all its victims.

And I hoped that Veronica didn’t spot any bits of her father there. Fred suggested that now Veronica had done her job she didn’t need to come in with us, but she just said that that thing had got her father.

So we walked into the cavern in a line and Fred lit his lantern and Erina made some magical light. And soon we came across a huge, monstrous body. It had the rear end of some great cat, or something, and the head of an eagle, and in had huge leathery wings. It was screeching and moaning like it was in great pain.

Guido approached it, and I think he was going to try to comfort it, but once the creature noticed him, it turned towards him, let out another blood curdling scream, and opened its wings. And we could see that one of its wings had a huge hole in it, but around the hole were snake-like scales, and writhing tongues, and eyes, oozing pores, and other mutated nefarious things. It reminded me of the giant eye in Boegenhafen, and the flying creatures in Castle Wittgenstein, and the finger hair lady in Middenheim. Classic dragon.

Blume immediately shot her crossbow at the creature, and despite the noise which was very distracting, and the poor light, it was so large she managed to hit it. And Fred swung his blade but the creature avoided it, and it swiped its talons at Guido, and hit him hard. And following up it ploughed into Fred, too, hitting him just as hard.

Guido’s blade missed the thing, but Erina managed to shoot a fire spell at it, I hit it with my pistol, and Veronica put an arrow in its eye. But having us all pile into it like that and hitting it several times, the creature seemed barely affected, while Guido and Fred were already looking hard pressed.

Blume managed to reload and shoot it again, but it had already turned on Fred knocking him to the ground, and fatefully, leaving him unconscious. And it continued against Guido, and after hitting him with its talons a snake-like tongue whipped out of its mouth and bit him, and the creature’s mouth followed, biting him again. I was surprised that Guido managed to stand up to that beating, and he hit back with his sword, and watery blood gushed from the creature’s wound.

Erina started gathering some magical power and I fired my second pistol and hit the creature again, and Veronica got another good hit on its head and it began bleeding even more. She was a very good shot. And Blume reloaded and shot the creature again. Blume is getting very fast at reloading.

But the dragon kept going and it raked Guido and then bit him with its beak, and as fate would have it, he fell to the ground unconscious, next to Fred.

I could just sense Erina alongside me gathering all that fiery magical energy together and then just as she was about to fireball the dragon, she must have lost concentration, and all the power was lost. So much for wizards.

I had no choice but to throw my pistols aside and charge at the dragon, but I couldn’t hit it, anyway. It hit me though, several times, and I was lucky to stay on my feet. Then Veronica and Erina both hit the creature again and I sensed it did not have much left. But it came for me one last time, and it was all I could do to use their attacks to help me dodge out the way. And finally Erina managed to envelope the thing in flames and it let out one last terrible scream as it caught fire. And we watched as its mutated flesh burned away and it became a pile of charred bones.

So that’s that, mum. We had killed a dragon, or whatever it was. I’m not sure how Fred and Guido are as Willow isn’t around any more and Guido was the only one of us with any medical knowledge. If they ever recover, it might be a while. Veronica had avenged her father and the other villagers, and I wonder what would have happened if she had not been there to help us.

I wondered about the original wounds on the dragon, and whether they were similar to those on the miner from Unterfraus. And if so, then I think he was very lucky to have died, because who would want to turn into a horrible, mutated, screeching, monster like that? Anyway, mum, I’ll let you know how Fred and Guido are recovering in my next letter.