player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 3

[cozen]

WHO: Anyone who's not dead!
WHAT: Various & sundry steps on the path toward time travel, including a dragon hunt and other fetch quests.
WHEN: August 9:49
WHERE: Miscellaneous
NOTES: This is part of this player plot. We have two (2) plot logs still coming up—one for time travel, one for reunions—but this is the last log the dead characters are banned from. Time travel will go up soon!

Following Tony Stark's announcement and its glimmer of slightly insane-sounding hope, there's work to be done. The magic/science, of course; anyone with the ability to help construct a dragon-blood-powered time machine may be enlisted into that effort.

For everyone else, there are fetch quests: everyone collect three Stormheart and five Volcanic Aurum. Swiftly negotiating for raw materials or for jewelry or weapons that can be melted down—or stealing them, because whatever, there will only be consequences if this doesn't work—requires venturing out of Kirkwall to track down miners, merchants, and collectors. And then there's the dragon blood.

In the meantime, keeping things afloat and planning contingencies remains necessary. For now, this remains only something that might work. If it doesn't, this is still the world and the war they're stuck with, so keeping it from getting worse in any avoidable way would be ideal.

Comments

[notathreat]

Staying at a distance is the smartest way to deal with a dragon. The problem is, the dragon can close that distance with frightening speed, her hide is absurdly thick, and fire and acid and the rest of the old alchemic standbys don't do a whole lot of good.

She's so big that Ellie's never seen all of her at once, and she really doesn't want to.

They've scattered, all of them to corners of the thaig, keeping themselves moving with feverish abandon. Ellie reminds herself that they can't stop. Not for anything. If even one of them survives this, it'll be worth it.

Holding her breath to keep herself invisible and silent, Ellie peeks around a corner, watching the dragon's person-sized nostrils flare. She's sweating buckets inside her armor. Fuck.

Silently, Ellie slides an arrow out of her quiver, going slowly so it won't rustle, and commits to the idea that as soon as she fires, the dragon's going to know exactly where she is.

She steps out, and Gold burns itself into the tip of her arrow as readily as it does her eyes, coalescing on her target: the tender flaring nostril.

She lets it loose, and the magically-guided arrow strikes true. The dragon jerks back, a thunderous roar shaking the earth around them, followed by a wash of hot, dark blood on the stone splattering the stone like rain.

Ellie books it as fast as she fucking can.

[inkindled]

Even the wounded shake of the dragon's head is heavy, like she is moving through water. Ponderous, pained, she turns her gaze to the floor. Her eyes are small for her face but still stand larger than a man, and she rakes them across the ground. She is quick to fix on the small figure that is running, and she gathers her bulk to follow. She'll close the gap in two steps.

Next to Ellie's feet, fire threads through the stone on the floor of the thaig--liquid, first, molten. The dragon's first footfall shakes the ground and the fire leaps up with a blast of heat, curves swift between Ellie and the dragon, forms a half wall.

A whistle, rising high over the noise. Matthias, peering out from a hole in one of the tumble-down walls, waves to Ellie. Marcus' staff is on the ground, the source of the fire. He snatches it up before he backs into the space to make room for her.

[notathreat]

Some part of Ellie still jumps at a shrill whistle, but she's quick to change direction, to skirt the fire, curving around one of the giant pillars of the thaig and breaking the dragon's line of sight on her.

She draws a breath as she does, plunging into invisibility, and keeps running as hard as she can until she's able to slide into the hole with Matthias. She breaks it, panting, and puts a slightly scorched hand on his arm.

"Thanks," she mouths, automatically laying a hand on his arm, glancing back towards the danger. They can't stay here, they need to keep on moving.

"Where do you need to go?"

And as soon as he indicates, Ellie will draw another deep breath, plunging the both of them into the veiled, ethereal place that makes them invisible to the rest of the world. She'll hold it for as long as she's able.

[inkindled]

The slow stomp of the dragon's footsteps wakes tremors across the ground, even here, where they're tucked away--her bellow so low it shakes the air. Ellie's skin smells burnt, a smell Matthias knows well. He touches his fingertips to the raw flesh of her hand. At first the contact will be painful but then it will feel cool, a little brush of healing. Not enough to knit back the skin but enough to temper the pain.

"Back," he says. Dragons see better than they hear--humans are like insects to them--but instinct keeps him quiet all the same. "Back, this way--we can loop around and get some of the blood--"

When she plunges them into invisibility it feels like nothing. Or maybe it's only that they're running, clumsily, squeezed between stone, and Matthias has got to concentrate on that, on putting one foot before the other, on not knocking Marcus' staff about as they go. Once he nearly drops it--he's got to stop dropping staffs--and when he looks down at his hand he doesn't see it, and a little thrill passes through him--but he keeps going.

Out the other side and the dragon's roar comes from behind them now. The blood Ellie had spilled forms shiny blackish puddles on the floor.

gate crashes

[tender]

There is a split second, just a breath of a moment before Ellie's invisibility takes hold of them.

The timing is narrow, very precise in which to work.

Still, the sweep of Derrica's barrier envelops them both, chilly magic swathing their forms and cinching tight just as they vanish from view.

Go forth, and lure a dragon.

[notathreat]

Ellie winces slightly at the touch of Matthias' hand, but then the familiar cool feeling of healing magic soothes the burn, and Ellie exhales, shooting him a grateful look. Adrenaline can keep out the worst of the pain, but burns always fucking suck.

She nods as they make their way, and in a moment, the swath of Derrica's magic rolls over them, wraps around them. It goes with the sigils she'd painted on Ellie's skin before the battle, the wards to keep them all safe.

It's that little edge of protection they need right now, to keep them safe in their audacity.

Ellie and Matthias run hard, and her lungs burn. The puddles are blackish, a little bit rainbow like an oil spill, refracting in the dim light. She moves her hand to the back of his shoulder to give him another one to work with, the better to scoop up as many vials of the stuff as they can carry.

It helps that it's viscous, thick. The thing's so huge it'd have to be. Ellie can't sense magic but if anything had a fucking pulse it'd be this.

The sound of the thing prowling is far enough away for her to risk it.

She takes a breath, struggling to breathe slowly as the invisibility breaks, and reaches into her pack for the vials they were all equipped with. One. Almost two. There. She's got her ear trained on the Thaig, and they have only seconds before she rounds on them again- but she might be clever and switch directions.