BECMI Chapter 277 – Hoard’erves
The Mick stepped through the Portal with his team.
It had been a long day, and now it was turning to night, but there was no resting here, and nobody really felt like taking a break. If that meant using up some Scrolls and Potions instead of spellpower for the Casters, well, that’s what they had to do.
There wasn’t any artillery backup here, either, but that was absolutely fine, too. They weren’t facing a whole mass of dragons who needed to be shot down.
If things went well, they wouldn’t be facing any at all.
He knew the Diviners were working overtime with the dead dragon skulls, using them for sympathetic focus as to the location of their hoards and private caves. Hundreds of dead dragons meant hundreds of ownerless hoards. The other dragons of the Dragonfangs would naturally jump at the opportunity to loot those hoards for their own… as soon as they knew the owners weren’t coming back, and didn’t have to fight another dragon for them.
Even the swiftest of dragons would still take hours to return to their nests after the attack, so they had time… at least until some older dragon Teleported home and started roaring out about the massacre that had just happened.
“On Disks! Lauren, flying, next to me!” he ordered crisply, sitting back on his own Disk, Laird out and ready for instant use. His fiery-haired bondmaga moved up and promptly took over control of the Disk Train, Devilsight reaching into the darkness ahead to see any surprises, mostly from worn Goggles at the moment.
Unsurprisingly, many dragons made use of cliffs, ledges, and crevasses to safeguard their caves from wandering land-bound intruders, like humans. Towed Disks behind a Flyer could naturally get around such things.
This was the cavern of a Wyrm, an elder of the race who likely had guardians left behind, possibly a mate and children, although the former was unlikely to have stayed behind.
Children, yes, but they could handle a gaggle of Red Dragon young, although those dragons might not believe it. He had White and Green Dragon Slaying in the Slaughter aspect of Laird, and was looking to add Red Dragon Slaying to his elective Slots come the dawn. Laird hummed with Enmity for Dragons as it waited to be used, a flat Bane to Dragons also upon it now from the White Dragon skull shrunken into place about its pommel.
Braun had a similar Baneskull upon his Battleaxe Chok, and was ready to spend an Artificer Infusion to further enhance his Weapon should it become necessary. Long-term spells of Bane Weapon and the like lingered on the Weapons of the other warriors of the party, the same as the longer-duration spells still present and ready for use against their breath weapons.
It was Messime, the elfin’s hair a gorgeous crystalline red now, jeweled scales growing about her throat and accenting the edges of her face, as well as her limbs and shoulders when she doffed her Armor, who straightened up in warning. Her blue eyes were more crystalline white now, flashing like jewels. “Two Reds ahead of us in high positions, younger in age,” she whispered under her breath, but everyone in the Fellowship heard her clearly.
“Prepare to spread the Disks out,” the Mick hissed, as their progress through what was half-canyon, half-cave slowed. “Entelia, Nico, Isa, Mess, aiming back and up. Izzi, Hammel, aiming forwards with Laur. Shooters, back and up.”
Bodies shifted on Disks, turning and trusting to the armored and shielded men in front to protect them… especially with what was coming.
They came out of the cloven tunnel, the cave suddenly widening to at least fifty yards wide and high, and extending a good quarter-mile ahead of them.
Clearly visible along a large ledge on the opposite wall, the scarlet flash of the Red Dragon had all their attention as it spotted them, and roared its fury at the band of intruders daring to violate this chamber!
It was very attention-getting, but half the party wasn’t paying it any mind, as Laur shot them out and away from the wall. They were looking for the second dragon, doubtless up and behind them… there!
It was just preparing to pounce on them when all the cold spells and Dragonbane Coldphasing Arrows and Bolt hit it.
The chill of the cavern grew a lot colder as the area above them detonated with blue-white arcane ice, and the strangled cry of the dragon echoed off the stone. The first dragon also launched itself from its perch, lunging for them… right into three Lightning Bolts that had also been altered to Cold, and the Mick put his foot down.
The Disks all instantly dropped down two feet, but everyone had experienced that before. Laur stuck her Staff on the ground, too, halting herself a couple inches above the stone and keeping her Flight spell intact.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
However, both dragons lost the magical aspect of their flight, and could barely control their descent as their overweight bodies, wings shredded by deathly cold, crashed to the narrow floor and the stream from mountain icewater winding through it, shattering stalagmites and getting impaled on a couple of them, while the astute adventurers jerked aside on their Disks or jumped off of them in the opposite direction to avoid one from above.
The Mick and Braun were already racing for the one in the front, splitting to either side as they moved with power and purpose towards their foes. Sword and Axe rose up as the dragon, wings broken, struggled to its feet, roared defiance at them, and filled the area before them with flame.
Flames which hit his Null and washed out of existence as the magic behind them, subtle and powerful as it might be, fell like raindrops into the pond of his Null and was gone.
Both men came right through the flames, not touched, not even slowing, and the dragon’s surprise was its last thought as the Weapons Burning with Flames the color of dragon’s blood came hacking in for it.
A minute later, Nico said for them all with a tap to his temple, “Central, we’ve got two more for the butchers, on Seal 9724.” Said Seal placed on the ground midway between the two younger dragons’ corpses.
-Copy that, Team Seven. Go find those hoards,- Hanvol’s /voice came back to them promptly.
The bodies were a hoard unto themselves, but took more care to move. The real hoards, well, they just needed containers, then either dimensional containers or an Item or Tapestry spell.
The Mick looked to Messime, who glanced around, sniffed the air, and pointed down the length of the cavern. “Should be a couple side caverns for the younglings, maybe an egg chamber… but there are no more dragons in here,” she stated confidently.
“Hoof it out of the Interdiction and then on Disks,” he ordered, and everyone quickly followed him down the path flattened at the bottom of the cave by draconic claws and bodies of great size, clipping off and scraping away any impediments to a strolling dragon. Fifty yards wide would be cramped to a Wyrm trying to spread its wings, after all.
---
This final area had been shaped by tools, claws, and magic, the archways smooth and detailed, with runes of draconic script proclaiming the names of the Wyrms who had nested here throughout ages of time. Messime informed them that the lineage of dragons here might go all the way back to before Darkmoor itself!
Still, walking into that final cavern and seeing the spread of a truly massive hoard there, the inheritance of multiple Wyrms added onto that of each newcomer piled up in small hills and piles of gold scattered about, shaped to accommodate the massive bodies that slept there, was still a very, very pretty sight.
The winking of multiple objects of precious wood, metals, ivory, and gemstones glittered here and there. There was the fancy golden prow of a Delphan skyship, torn off and carried here as a trophy. The banners of several armies or companies of humanoids, dozens in number, festooned one wall in a tale of triumph over puny humanoids and their forces. There were entire sets of furniture looted from noble abodes, and not one, but TWO entire Orto longships, with the crew arranged in skeletons at the oars on one and the funerary chest and loot of the other still intact, carried away before being set alight, doubtless to the chagrin of the watching Northmen.
Statues and carvings and chests and coffers and urns and pottery were overflowing with all manner of coins, and even knowing much of it underneath was base copper kept tastefully hidden from sight, it was still quite the most ostentatious display of wealth that any of them had ever seen.
The largest? No.
They’d all seen Lady Edge pull up a cubic meter of solid gold in ingot form, plunk it down and just leave it there. Not coins, not scattered wealth, just a solid meter cube, so many tons, of pure gold, just sitting there, to be expressly used to Burn away for the Gear of the warriors, mages, and artificers underneath her.
Then she did it again when that cube ran low.
And again.
They always had enough gold to Burn.
As a result, while none of the romantic drama of a great hoard of gold was lost on them, well, the pure value of it wasn’t going to overawe them with dreams of greed anymore.
“We all done gawking?” the Mick asked everyone in a bored voice.
“Ah, give me a second, Mick. Making a Visual Gem of it,” Nico answered. Everyone waited patiently while he brought up the flat quartz crystal and scanned the whole of it for posterity, moving forward to get views they might be missing.
“Sanlor, those bones. Clear them or cleanse them!” He didn’t much like the way they were still intact and in armor after having crossed a dragon. He supposed they might have been drowned or something, but how would the bones stay together?
Laird going white as Vivus came up instantly put everyone on alert. Caergards had to live with undead made from their own ancestors, and his instincts regarding them were spot on.
“There’s necromancy bound about them in the boat!” Laurentine hissed out. “Strong! Probably from the Wyrm!”
“Oi, greater undead, then,” the Mick said, moving forward ahead of the Dawn-priest. “Wait for it as we get closer, then…”
When the flames ignited on the undead in black and crimson, and white bones turned obsidian while Hellfire licked around them, aye, they were ready for them. One last set of guardians to overcome for a legendary hoard… which valuables they’d throw into a Tapestry pit, shrink down, and haul away, then go looking for the lesser hoards in the side caverns that were home to the other dragons who’d lived here.
It was a bonanza unlike any other, and the Mick wondered just how much they were going to net off of all of this in magic and gemstones. Given the incredible demands of the Artificers and those fighting to improve their Gear, well, he expected it would all be gone soon enough, but at least they had earned it themselves, and didn’t have it dropped on them by Lady Edge.
He realistically figured he was a hundred thousand in gold in debt to the Lady, although it was never mentioned in the slightest...
As the undead rattled and clattered over the side of their long-dead vessel, he led the charge into them as The Light of Dawn flared behind him, and the undead raised bony hands against true Holiness in disbelief and pain.
The vivus on the Weapons coming in to cleanse them wasn’t any more merciful, but it did the job of Cleansing them away right proper, it did.