BECMI Chapter 275 – Dragons Falling
Dragons are not and were not stupid.
Here, as on the Far Shore, they had rapidly figured out some ways to deal with technology.
Resist Fire and Lightning spells could deal with lasers and plasma cannons, respectively, or at least vastly reduced their effect. Protection from the appropriate energy neutralized them completely, for a time.
Protection from Normal Missiles hilariously worked just fine on any ammunition smaller than a giant’s boulder, even if it came from a railgun or autocannon. So all the conventional firearms could also be protected against, unless the ammunition was magical… or Baneskulls were on the board.
Missiles annoyed them. They had rapidly figured out we had ways of seeing at great distances with radar, but they’d also noticed technology ran on electricity, and thus was vulnerable to lightning. Strong fields of electrical interference could thwart radar, like, the magically manipulated interior of a thunderstorm, suffused with sufficient lightning to scatter radar signals.
Telekinesis could either redirect missiles or throw things in the way of them, and they didn’t even have to be that powerful. A direct hit from a missile could be lethal, a glancing one could mostly be ignored, and shrapnel didn’t bother dragons much. They could even Summon up sizable flying help, like Elementals, and have them intercept the explosions. Unless there was magic on the missile, the Elementals wouldn’t even be harmed. Lesser Summoned creatures, like direhawks, hippogriffs, or the like, could just be told to charge into the missiles and suicide themselves for their masters, Walls of Force could take the hits all day, powerful vortexes could disorient them and send them off-course, and of course multi-targetable spells could swallow them in Area of Effect detonations, or split themselves among incoming targets at a safe range.
In a pinch, breathing at an incoming missile while tucking and rolling could detonate it at a non-lethal distance, too.
They didn’t have a good solution to our vastly superior speed in the air, and anti-grav’s ability to hover and turn in astonishingly small areas, or even fly backwards, was as good or better than a Fly spell… and of course they couldn’t beat a gravsled, shuttle, or wingplane on a straight shot by any stretch of the imagination.
That left dimensional movement, or striking unseen, but we had plenty of sensory systems, and dimensional movement with range was the province of older dragons of the more powerful types, not the young ones.
Well, most of the younger and smaller dragons couldn’t use magic, so they were destined to be fodder for autoguns regardless, but at least they’d divert some fire from their elders, right?
The dragons had become quite familiar with the noise of technology. Prop jobs driving through the air were not quiet, anti-grav had its own unique hum, lasers popped and sizzled, plasma crackled and snapped, railguns cracked, firearms boomed and smoked, mechanical engines grumbled and snarled. Only the dumbest and most foolish of the dragons did not learn to quickly respect the weapons of Eismoor, and especially the armored vehicles that came with it.
It did mean they simply weren’t expecting a magical attack on the scale I was giving to them.
If they stayed in the clouds I could pretty much kill off this whole dragonflight inside an hour, up to forty-eight every ten minutes. That would go down to twenty-four every ten if they stayed airborne below the clouds, and only twelve if they actually went down to the ground.
Lightning thundered, glows of The Light that stabbed at the eyes and hearts of the dragons as it flashed through the mists, and winding, twisting tendrils of living lightning ripped through more of them, sending them screaming to their dooms.
Their forward progress had halted now, aware they were under attack, but not from where and who. The direction the lightning came from and went to gave them no guidance whatsoever, and naturally Duum and I had Scentless going, not wanting to be sniffed out to a dragon by a stray breeze.
Death tolls mounted as dragons rose and dove in all directions, trying to find the intruder amongst them, their lack of forward motion making it easier to avoid them within the churning air currents of the cloud, particularly as they were roaring and bellowing… up until thunder and lightning that could kill a Blue exploded through the clouds, and they finally realized that staying there was death.
Still, dragons, pride and all that. I made sure one elder, one adult, and at least two young dragons died with every crackling, thunderous writhing vine-stalk of a forked Thunderstroke, and the watching dragons could only see the light twist past them in the mist and fog, then hear the screams falling off into the darkness below the storm front.
If they were closer together I would happily spend Valences to Chain the magic and really take out a bunch at once, but that wasn’t going to happen today.
The challenges to and wild searching for us went on, but we stayed inside the cloud and continued reaping as long as the dragons were willing to let us. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of years of history fell from the sky every time the sky clapped, and dragons died.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
His surprise invasion of us had stalled. Charred-Eye was clearly conflicted on what to do. He had clearly been motivated to break the treaty and attack us, most likely even compelled to do so. They had come all the way to this point without being detected, but it was equally plain that something was up here preying upon them.
“Dive out of the clouds!” the Red dragon king’s booming voice echoed forth, and waves of dragons gratefully turned and dove out of the cloud, into the rain and winds swirling about below them.
Not even dragons liked flying in the rain and high winds, and I made it worse by continuing the bombardment of them… only this time they could see the lightning coming down, that winding black vine drawing lightning from deep in the cloud over there, passing through a screaming Blue and frying it in an explosion of rose petals, then detonating on my chosen target of an adult Red in a bloody red flower ablaze with dragonbanefire.
Two more diving dragons headed for the ground rather more quickly than the others were, seared and smoking and silent.
“The Lady Edge!” Charred-Eye roared out, looking around wildly for me, my name taken up by those around in recognition. I must have had a recognizable style of spells or something, and an Archmage elf in the North had achieved some recognition that hadn’t filtered back to the south as yet. “Get on the ground and out of her view!” he ordered, doubtless recognizing the Druidic nature of the magic I was using now. “She cannot bombard what she cannot see!”
Oh, sweet Mithar, did he actually believe I couldn’t aim with my Detects? That was so wonderfully naive of him!
Alas, he was right about something. It would limit my multiple kills. Pity me, only having fifty-some kills before they chose to hit the ground.
I popped two more of them before they could hit the forested hills below. Some chose to go Invisible, which didn’t actually help them, but made them more confident about bright crimson, blue, and white bodies being visible against brown stone and trees just starting to turn. Even the rain wasn’t going to help them with camouflage, although the scattered Black, Green, and Jade dragons had it a bunch easier.
I wasn’t going to waste the magic, however. Some of them certainly had Detect Invisible up, and would see us the moment we broke cloud cover, but that spell didn’t help with Illusionary Walls screening out the view of us from below, and Detect Magic didn’t have line-of-sight range to it.
Well, the Upcast version did, but how many dragons used advanced wizarding techniques, especially ones living in caves in the northern mountains?
Yes, that number was precisely correct.
It also gave us a very good opportunity.
-Opening Portals for Striker teams,- Sama /purred. -My fellow Nulls, this is where we shine.-
The dragons had crashed to the ground through the trees, hunting cover from the floral lightning twisting down so garishly from the skies and bombarding them with exploding roses that didn’t obey immunity to lightning. They weren’t in a position to see the Mirror’s Portal pop up, and some impressively high-Level and coordinated teams pour through towards their nearest targets.
Dragons that were within ranges of Forsaken Interdictions weren’t going to get back in the air, or dimension-shift away. They were going to have to fight, on the ground, against mortals armed with Named Weapons and Dragon’s Baneskulls.
And Sama was leading and coordinating them, with air support just a few minutes out and coming in hard.
Six different surges of high-Level teams, and then the Portal shimmered into view along a hillrise. Six hovertanks slid quietly into position atop it, their lines of fire clear once targets were locked, railgun cannons and missile launchers racked and ready.
Archers and Snipers with Tracking ammunition were already moving into position. It was rather unsporting, but even the elven hunters found it really cool when they could shoot one arrow into a tough target, and seconds later fire support would come in from way over yonder and blow it to shreds.
I kept the dragons’ attention with a continued bombardment, Duum flying leisurely around as Primus kept the rain and winds off of us, spreading the love as the teams hit the first of the dragons. Magic, explosions, streaks of firearm discharges, and calls of alarm that there were humans present began to echo in between the now-thunderous bell-like clangor of the Rose Lightning exploding down from above.
The ridgeline cracked and popped, and arrow-straight railgun shots under Cyclonic, immune to gravity, wind, rain, and other obstructions for a few seconds after leaving the cannons, blasted out laser-straight at Mach 10+, covering miles of range in seconds and popping dragons in the trees from way over here.
Alternately, missiles were launched as Snipers and Hunters found their targets, marked them, and STS missiles arched up at speed, came down even faster and quite violently, indeed. With all the trees in the way, the dragons also had problems seeing them coming, and with the missiles orienting on the arrowheads or rifle rounds stuck into their hides, it was next to impossible to evade them at the speed they came in at.
Dragons were screaming about not being able to fly as the Nulls with the teams popped their Auras, and lo, did the world of Nown find that King Gravity did indeed have some muscle here. Distracted and frenzied as their wings clawed at the sky and yet only let them hop impotently rather than flee, dragons began to die as the teams hit them, magic softened them, and blades that knew how to fight dragons brought them down, one by one.
In their wake, Portals opened, Butcher Teams raced out with Mass Disks, rolled massive scaled carcasses onto said Disks, and immediately evacuated back through the waiting Portal.
There were going to be a lot of new Dragon Baneskulls in the near future, and a plethora of draconic spell components. This supply was going to last us years, if not decades, even if we slowly and continually sold things off…
Hugging the terrain, the wingfighters came streaking in from the north, ready to engage in close ground support as they slowed down and moved to anti-grav hover mode, keeping carefully out of those Interdiction Fields locking down the dragons.
Charred-Eye was trying to get them organized, but dragons are not soldiers, and his subjects were Chaotic things who’d signed up because of the threat of his strength, not loyalty to a greater cause. Even if it became known Pearl was behind all this, that didn’t make them devout believers!