Hunt the Great Hellwyrm

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Asana looked at the dragon a long moment before nodding his head to Baros' statement and continued down the path assuming the Dragon could keep up. As the trees flew by they could start to feel the heat and smell the smoke thick in the air.
 
The ground levels out as hooves thunder across it and the trio find themselves riding hard through small copses of trees along a narrow hunting trail. The sky starts to darken ahead of them and the smell of sulphur begins to hit in waves.

"Close." Baros said as the temperature suddenly became noticably higher, and then the road forked to the right and there it was. A small village, five or six buildings, all on fire. A few survivors could be seen running for the expected safety of the trees beyond.

And the beast. Certainly it looked like a dragon. Bigger than all but the oldest of wyrms; abeit smaller than Fang. Horned of head and brown of scale. A haze of heat surrounds it and smoke rises where its four great claws touch the ground.

"By the Gods." Baros exclaimed as he brough his mount to a sudden halt. The horse let out a scream and tried to rear, but Baros just managed to bring it under control.
 
Given what he was, the sight of the beast did nothing to worry Fang. But the combined knowledge and the fact that the power signatures coming off the thing were extremely erratic spoke a different story.

He could feel the Elder's Council debating amongst themselves. None of them seemed to know what to make of the thing. But there was one, and only one personality within his mind that did not seem to join in on the discussion. Fang got the feeling of both confidence and concern from Darahnil, the oldest member of the council. Fang spoke to him, and only him. Realizing this may be their only chance to relay the information to the other two, Fang allowed to conversation to be expressed through his own mouth, audibly. The red glow of his eyes changed to a bright yellow as he began the conversation.

"Darahnil?"

The other elder's voice came through quite different than Fang's. "Hellwyrm."

"Why have I not heard that name before?"

"The last time is showed its face the council was spread through the universes dealing with different problems. It was when you were sent to retrieve the guardian Rayna from the Realm of Fear."

"When you were the only one to remain here. What is it?"

"Unfortunately, I do not know, Master Fang. The Guardians of Myst and the Burster family dealt with the problem at the time. I was preoccupied. I do not even know what they did to defeat it. I thought it had been slain. It would seem I was mistaken."

"And currently Dektr is the only Myst guardian allowed on this plane and once Flame Burster died all her siblings seemed to follow in kind."

"Inferno remains."

"Inferno has been banished from this realm and we do not have the time to cross summon him. Thank you for the information, Darahnil. We will find something to do to deal with this problem."

Fang's eyes waved back to a red shine and he looked to Baros and Asana with a quick explaination. "I am an elder dragon. That was the senior member of our council. Unfortunately it seems our information will be of no assistance. That beast is no dragon, or anything of the sort. It would not the first time I have dealt with an unknown problem, but you will most definately need my help."
 
Asana Looked at the beast as he came out of the clearing his feet pulling back from the stirups as his horse reared and leaped up clearly not enjoying the idea of barroling towards the great beast. With his feet out of the stirups when the horse reared Asana released the reigns slidding down the back of the beast and landing on his feet as his horse ran away with saddel and provisions out of the clearing around the beast. The sounds of wood crackeling and burning and the echo of the flames made sure Asana heard barely a word from Fang.

" Well thats certainly a beast" he said as his hands slid to the hilts of his dual rapiers. " Do we have a plan or just hit it till it stops burning things ? "
 
Baros took the bow and quiver of arrows from his saddlebags and then dismounted. "How good with one of these are you?" He asked Asana as he sized up the dragon.
 
"You two my want to speed up your plan. This creature is about to become very agitated very quickly." Fang said nothing more, but dismounted and let a low crackling sound come from the back of his throat. Immediately the alicorn he'd been riding took to the skies and let loose with a quick barrage of energy blasts. None were powerful enough to do any real damage, but it would be impossible to ignore given the sound and speed of impact, even if they didn't actually make contact. It was a diversionary tactic, to draw the beast's attention skyward while Fang drew his holy sword, the SevenStars and rushed forward with more speed than any mortal creature could ever hope to attain.

The weapon shone brightly as Fang came to a sudden stop and swung the weapon in front of himself, sending an arch of holy power streaming toward the monster's mid-section. Again, Fang didn't truly expect any of this to do any good. It would not have been necessary for the Bursters and Myst Guardians to team up against it if such a simple attack could dispatch it. Fang was confident he was more capable of dealing with any attacks the Hellwyrm may concoct than the other two were, and if he could inflict some amount of damage in the process of getting the attention on himself, all the better.
 
Asana looked an the impliments that Baros held smirking a little " I have pointy ears, and you ask me how good I am with a bow " he said quickly as he reached for them, the bow the old man had given him remained on his horse as it retreated. His eyes looking at the beast and the sudden attack of Fangs mount seemed to have atleast caused the beasts attention to turn from whatever it had been preoccupied with on thier arrival.
 
The Alicorn managed to draw both the attention and the fire of the beast. A great cloud of flame; deep red with an almost blackness to it that fell just short of the magical creature as it darted out of harms reach. Fang's blade hit hard enough to elicit a roar of anger from it although as the blade struck it was like steel on steel and seemed to do no damage at all.

"We need to draw blood." Baros shouted against the noise of the beast's firey breath at it tried to scorch fang with flame as hot as any dragon's. He spoke a command word and activated one of the crystal spell triggers in his sword. The magic released turned his skin a reddish hue and surrounded him in a shimmering glow. "Sadly I cannot offer you the same. Have you anything to protect against the fire?" He asked.
 
When it came to battle, Fang was not anywhere near as patient or forgiving as he was the rest of the time. He was a warrior at heart. As long as his memory served, it had been his purpose to be a guardian through warfare. The field of combat was where he was most comfortable, where his mind worked the best, and where he refused to fail. Blood would, indeed, be drawn, but instinct told him the purpose for which Baros wanted it drawn would ultimately prove fruitless, and Fang's instinct was rarely incorrect.

Singular blasts were easy for Fang to dodge, even in his human form. At the moment he was doing little more than feeling the beast out. It had done a very good job of mimicking a dragon. Fang guessed that it had studied a few dragons before taking on that form, which would explain the hardened scales and the breath weapons. It didn't seem that it had studied one close to Fang's age, though. Without concentrating energy into the blade of SevenStars, the blade would break against the scales of one of the elder dragons. Granted, with the nature of the blade, it would reform itself immediately, but it was a good gauge. Fang continued his run well beyond the monster. Now that he had its attention, Fang hoped his companions would be able to do something agaist it.
 
Asana's hands clentched around the bow, as he hooked the arrows under the strap to his bag. Slidding the bow up his right arm he nodded to Baros's statement. His eyes looking at the best showed little concern for the flames but he could feel the heat well enough that he could go for a walk down the spine of the world in the buff and not be phased. "Did you get a look at its eyes ? " Holding up his hands towards the beast he began to mumble a spell of elemental resistence aimed towards fire. He could only hope that he would have enough time to finish it with Fangs distractionary tactics.
 
Baros nodded. Indeed its eyes burned but not with a fire, simply a darkness that made a coldness run down Baros's spine despite the seering heat in the air. He moved off to the left to further improve Asana's chances of casting the spell without catching the beast's attention.

The beast meanwhile turned to follow Fang and beat down with its wings to grant the power to force it up into the air and then forward to try and slam its weight down onto the humanoid form of the dragon.
 
Fang laughed within his own mind. Such a tactic by the Hellwyrm proved, if any doubt had been left at all, that the beast was not draconic. So basic an attack had only ever been performed by the youngest of his kind, and it was a mistake typically not made more than once. Even a true human's speed was enough to get them out of the way, leaving the attacker to face the impact of the ground without the benefit of injuring a foe. Fang decided to add his own bit of insult to the attack and let SevenStars loose some of its energy as he darted out of the way, leaving the Hellwyrm to land, not only on the ground, but right onto a stream of pure holy wrath.

The alicorn remained in the air for the moment. It would only intercede if Fang seemed to be in trouble, which at the moment, did not appear to be the case. Fang was happy to simply have the creature's attention for now. He still did not suspect that his tactics and maneuvers would do anything more than minimal damage, but it kept the focus where he wanted it. In truth, he awaited the moment when he would have to change to his true form, but best to wait and see what the two-leggers were capable of first.
 
Asana's mutterings slowly grew the arcane energies around him pushing outward and coalescing around him as an infinitly thin sheet of energy that blocked out the large quantities of heat from aroun the beast. Breathing in and feeling the air far less unpleasant his eyes traced to where Baros stood looking with a raised brow but not hearing a response he stepped back and moved towards the edge of the destruction his eyes marking the location of the beast and Fangs position. Asana had hopped to learn from Baros weather or not the beasts eyes were vulnerable for the heads of the arrows and roughly what kind of discrepencies of the face he would need to steady the arrows around, but there was not enough time to waste to reask the question his spell preperation had taken all the time he was willing to waste. Slidding round the perimiter of what ground seemed the safest from the touch of the beasts heat, Asana croutched as he moved his ears alert for the sound of Fangs distractions.
 
The beast landed with a crash and let out another roar at the sting of the sword's energy blast. It retaliated by lashing out with its tail at Fang. It moved fast.

Baros nodded to Asana and used a cantrip to send a message to the elf's mind. "We need to get its blood onto one of those arrows without ruining the arrow." He sent, then began searching his memory for a spell that might help with such as task. "If only we knew what it was." He spoke under his breath and then settled upon on course of action. He needed to get closer to it, so with his sheilding spell currently intact he began to move in at a brisk jog while Fang had its attention.
 
It would seem it was time for Fang to let the beast know it was not facing a human. Given the proximity and the creature's size, it wasn't possible for a human to avoid the Hellwyrm's tailswipe. True, because the enchantment of the armor Fang wore made it nearly as durable as his scales in his true form, he could have taken the hit without being damaged, but he still would have been thrown a good distance, and he couldn't take the chance of the Hellwyrm's attention being diverted from him just yet. So, he used his heightened physical abilities and simply jumped into a backflip. This would not only send him over the attack, but would put him farther away from the beast. Not to be taken by surprise, he spun the SevenStars in a figure-8 pattern as he flipped, creating a barrier of holy energy until he was safely back on the ground.

In the spare second, and only second he was likely to have, he contacted the Elder Council with a plan. -I am going to touch it soon. I need everyone to be prepared to analyze the beast and try to find a strength or weakness when I do. It will have to be fast. I doubt it will enjoy me making contact.-

This was the best way they would have to figure out the beast's alignment, power base, and vulnerabilities. The council had masteful command of every classification of magic, between them all. They would be able to assess the creature through Fang's contact and tell what sorts of attacks would be the most effective at putting the creature down, and if it could, in fact, be killed.
 
Asana recieved the cantrip his eyes looking closely at the beast as best as he could. His eyes were scanning for an open wound on the beast. His hands holding tightly onto the bow as he took stock of what he was holding. His hands set the bow and the arrows down before slidding over his sides to his side holding up a very cold Dagger his eyes narrowing on it .
 
The beast's tail struck the barrier and it roared, moreso than for any other attack thus far, although still there were no signs of any damage. Evidently magic of a divine nature was not to its liking.

Baros got to within a few yards of the beast's flank and dropped into a crouch. For now it was eyeing Fang warily and allowing the flame of its breath to send a great plume of smoke skywards. Then it reared its head back and there was a crack of thunder in the air as it send forth a ball of the blackest darkest matter Baros had ever seen. It was wreathed in a flame of the same obsidian hue and it almost seemed to draw the light into it, causing the area to dip briefly into twighlight. The sphere was aimed squarely at Fang, who would recognise this immediately as the raw power of the hells themselves.
 
It was no secret that the power from a breath weapon was stronger than nearly any other innate ability. Fang could have counteracted the attack with a simple blast from SevenStars, but it would take the sword a few seconds to recharge the power necessary to perform such a feat, and those were precious seconds Fang could not afford to waste. In his natural form, with the extreme number of immunities and power affiliations Fang had, he could have taken such a blast. But he was not in his natural form, and he wasn't quite willing to reveal himself for what he was just yet.

The orb was larger than Fang was able to jump even with his heightened abilities. Inexperienced as the Hellwyrm may have been, it learned fast. Thus far Fang had only used holy energy against the creature. An attack so blatenly opposite of that was actually a very intelligent choice. But it would do little good. Fang was able to process battle-related information much too quickly to be caught off guard by the ploy. With the help of a small downward blast of energy from his weapon, Fang was able to successfully leap out of the way of the orb. Plus, when the orb struck the trail, it would be weakened enough to lessen the damage it was capable of causing. Even if it ended up that the beast could control the direction of the orb and send it back after Fang rather than hitting the ground, it would have to go through the energy trail to do so.

For now, Fang signaled to the alicorn, and his faithful companion streaked through the sky to catch Fang in mid-air. There he would share his plan with the magical animal and hope the other two would come up with something quickly.
 
((Lowthor, this Knife that Asana and Baros Picked up at the Order are there any effects it will have or noticable enchantments beyond the simple Cold ? ))
 
((It should be able to do something to the creature, but we'd need to his a soft area like the belly.))
 
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