Session Log 2023-12-04

The burning flank of the zombified Urtholon cast enough light for Robin to see its ornately-armored Onyx part-dragon rider. She poisoned a bolt and launched her first shot of the battle from Angitt's ballista. The shot sailed far, but the rider still evaded it with uncanny reflexes. He glared at her and turned his attention to the city wall.

The dragon he rode twisted forward, slamming its burning side at the hole where Klaitos and Ekkels were perched. The two were knocked painfully into and across the stairwell, Ekkels deforming slightly with the impact. Klaitos seized him and raced up the already damaged stairs. The impact spread Klaitos's earlier destruction, and the walls and floor below them crumbled to rubble, crushing the drained soldiers three floors down.

Ignis left behind the disintegrating body, thrashing head, and smell of burning dragonflesh to get a better look out at the battlefield. He watched Urtholon slam into the wall below, and felt the structure shudder. Seizing the opportunity, he ran out across the hangar roof and scavenged a tattered tarp from a crashed aircraft. He flung it out overhead and leapt off the Golarth wall, diving for the dragon's back. As he plummetted, he spotted the rider for the first time.

Robin adjusted Angitt's crossbow to her height and comfort, then took aim at the dragon-rider once more. Her ballista bolt sailed true but was once again spotted at the last moment, and she merely managed to scratch the dragonborn's elaborate breastplate.

Klaitos stumbled on the stairwell, his normally boundless endurance at its limit. Urtholon's breath weapon had left him too drained to climb, and its demolition would soon catch up to them. Ekkels pulled free of Klaitos's football-carry and tried borrowing the magic of Klaitos's giant strength. He was able to hoist his friend off the ground and haul him up, escaping the collapse of the stairwell and making it all the way to the top of the wall. Klaitos was knocked around by the process, but the two of them were able to catch their breath in relative safety.

The two of them watched as Ignis parachuted at the dragon-rider. His tarp began to tear, so he threw himself off of it to try and unseat the dragonborn with a solid kick. His target, however, caught Ignis's foot out of the air, and slammed the would-be divebomber onto the dragon's back. He stood and turned back to face Ignis, expressing his eagerness to once again drink "Lord's blood".

Robin was forced to adjust her aim as Urtholon suddenly dove lower, hovering above the plaza about as high as her rooftop perch. Its throat began swelling to the point of rupture in anticipation of another cloud-sized breath attack. She abandoned her focus on the rider for the moment to fire a bolt into the zombie's long neck, piercing the dead scales and causing some of the pressure buildup to leak out.

Angitt, from her new position at the westernmost ballista mount, fired upon the dragon as well, rending its side with a distant strike. Klaitos and Ekkels had decided to follow her over there, for lack of access to the battlefield, and cheered the blow.

Urtholon noneless bellowed forth its cloud of ash directly downward, spilling out across the plaza and surrounding roads. Robin's earlier interference kept the volume and height of the cloud below her warehouse roof, and Klaitos's countering winds spared the westernmost part of the warehouse district, but the soldiers prepared for ground combat collapsed throughout the area.

Ignis's opponent advanced upon him, broadsword drawn. Ignis, wary of the part-dragon's earlier defense, tried to blast him backward with flame. The dragon-rider was knocked back a few paces, but used his wing to fan away the fire. The indiscriminate blast, however, had ignited the zombie around where Ignis was clinging onto it, and his clothes began to catch fire.

Robin took advantage of the sudden opening between the two figures and fired another bolt, laced with sleeping potion, at the part-dragon. Her shot merely grazed the figure's armor, and failed to deliver any alchemical payload. Angitt, for her part, remained focused on the larger target, and fired more upon the undead Urtholon.

Ekkels and Klaitos had joined her, resting beside her unconscious lizardman ally and cheering on her ballista strikes. Ekkels was a little unnerved to find the friend she had been carrying around was the same individual that had threatened him this morning, but figured things were fine as long as he stayed sleeping.

Ignis, painfully ablaze, threatened the part-dragon that he would end him as he already had several other dragons. The barb seemed to provoke a kind of competitiveness in the Onyx dragonborn, who responded only that he had killed more. At that, he opened his wingspan and flew at Ignis, barely missing the burning man with his broadsword. He evaded a further shot from Robin with a scornful glare.

Angitt's next bolt struck home, and Urtholon's vast wing was seriously torn. The undead behemoth plummeted to the ground. Ignis, unwilling to get trapped beneath burning zombie dragons twice in one night, leapt from the burning back to land painfully on the stone of the plaza. The part-dragon flew after him, sword in hand.