April 10, 2011

A Tale of a Ruby Dragonlair
by Ludi

Finally! There it was - a nice plump baby ruby dragon, just waiting to be killed. All of Medieiva was eager to attack it and plunder the sweet ruby hide. Over a day went by while Medievians futilely scoured the corpses of Mob Factions sent by the Dungeon Master in search of the ruby map leading to highly sought lair.

The call came late. Extremely late. Most of Medieiva, and even most Earthlings were in deep sleep. The map had finally been found. Although my eyes and body were begging for sleep, I heeded the call of my Clan town and joined the adventure to slay the ruby beast.

We all met at the appointed location and prepared for battle. Boots, shoes, armor, shields, crossbows, and helms were removed and worn in a flurry of activity. Finally, we had acquired 18 men and women suitable for the task. Liono bravely led the way, with Chautheous taking command of the second group of Medievians.

The assault on the lair proceeded well, and we quickly advanced past the obstacles set forth by the dragon with little challenge or delay. Finally we reached the bottom of the lair and were only one room away from the beast. We could hear his snarling and pawing at the ground from the adjacent area and the heat of his breath warmed our armor, making it uncomfortably hot for us all. After making final preparations, it was time to confront the dragon in an attempt to force it to flee from its lair.

3…..2…..1….GO! All 18 of us rushed into the dragon’s room in perfect synchrony, attacking with swords, deadly shockwaves, and sickening plagues. The dragon was seriously wounded from our efforts, but his blind rampaging managed to kill off most of the form members,and we were forced to regroup outside the lair for another pass. We quickly made our way back down to the room adjacent to the dragon, through the now-mostly cleared lair. Surely this time we would force the dragon to flee. Again, as before…3…...2…..1….GO! This time, however, the result was slightly different.

Instant death. We were confounded, but the dragon was able to instantly kill each and every single last soldier with a powerful attack on the entire room. We felt as if the gods were mocking us, and indeed they were, as the dragon smirked in smug satisfaction and berated us as our corpses lay there, helpless to respond.

The third attack on the dragon was more successful and we succeeded in making him flee the safety of his lair to attack the nearest Clantown. We all followed suit and began our assault to free the Clantown of the ruby menace. The resulting battle was not different from any other battle following an attack on a dragonlair. The usual routine: Attack the dragon, some of us would fall in battle, and the dragon would flee to fight again. This went on for some time. Too much time, it began to seem.

My body continued to beg for sleep, and that surely was the case for many of the Medievians participating in the attack. We were too close now though to give up on our long-sought objective. Suddenly a thought occurred. Connecting to the magic of Medievia, I used the Dragonlair command to see that there were only 10minutes left to slay this beast dead once and for all, or he would flee back to the safety of a new lair! We did not want to fail in our quest for a ruby hide, and we certainly did not want to contribute to the creation of a new superbeast, similar to the seemingly immortal Zeksagmak or Iamoth Ruby dragons.

“Faster! Resurrect the fallen faster!” encouraged Liono to his badly beaten but not defeated attacking party. The time crunch was felt by all of us. The dragon pales visibly, but there are only several minutes left now for us to defeat him. Several more rounds of attacking, killing, and fleeing occur.

The dragon clings to life! Barely!!! Less than two minutes remain! Attack!!! Attack!!! There’s no more time, the dragon must die now!

With less than one minute remaining, we begin what will surely be our final assault, regardless of the outcome. YES! We collectively shiver in disgust along with the rest of the Medievian realm as the ruby dragon lets out a final, agonized moan before death. We all celebrated as we looted our precious ruby dragonhide from the corpse. Liono was glad that his perfect streak of dragonlairs had not been broken, and we were all relieved to have accomplished our goal, so that we could finally succumb to sleep. Everyone was grateful that the dragon died,and that things did not turn out differently, with the dragon living and fleeing to fight another day.

The only difference between these two outcomes was our fierce fighting to kill the dragon, and the difference occurred with less than a minute to spare.

Ludi