Chapter 2: Chapter 2: The Offer

With the minions out of the way, Jace had no problem leading his group through the wide tunnels of the cavern toward the dragon.  The evil presence of the awful beast stood out clearly in his mind when he wasn’t worried about dodging crystalline fists or avoiding fireballs from lava creatures.  Not all the passageways in this vast underground maze were large enough for a dragon to move through, and the party now moved through one such tunnel.  They could see this path led to the largest room they had found, and Jace warned them that the dragon was only a few hundred feet away.

The paladin paused briefly to go over the plan, and everyone nodded in agreement with their role.  The spellcasters were low on magic, but there were no viable rest options here, and they would have to make do with what they had.  Hopefully, with their enchanted sword, they wouldn’t need much more than the damage they could produce with their weapons.

Jace was the first out of the tunnel and felt the massive drop in temperature as he entered the frost dragon’s lair.  Ferrisbane sat calmly in the middle of the vast cavern, a mighty white dragon whose breath could make even the strongest iron brittle.  Now, she waited patiently for whatever foes had invaded her stronghold.  The beast was aware that her minions were gone and that the magic spell cast to provide her protection was no longer active within the cavern.  The mage she had hired to cast that enchantment had seemed loyal, but now she regretted not eating him after the spell.  Undoubtedly, he had sold her secret to these adventures.  Ferrisbane didn’t know that the magic that had protected her all these years could also be used against her.  Focusing her attention on the lone human approaching her now, she could feel a familiar power within the knight’s sword but laughed at the idea that a single warrior thought he could defeat the dragon.

At that moment, Preston and Alex stepped out of the tunnel, and Jace broke into a sprint.  The dragon’s attention was divided, and she didn’t know whom to attack first.  The priestess cast her last spell of magic reduction, lowering Ferrisbane’s invulnerability by 20%.  With her protection dispelled, her natural immunity was already relatively low, and after the priest’s spell, it was almost nothing.  The battle mage followed it up with an acid arrow aimed at the dragon’s underbelly.  The green bolt of energy streaked through the air and exploded into her chest with a sickening hiss.  Ferrisbane winced only slightly, but the chemical burn repeated itself several times, each blast less than before, progressively weakening the creature.

The dragon reacted in turn, blasting her icy cold breath across the width of the cavern at the two spell casters, but they were already running in opposite directions, attempting to flank the creature.  The attack missed, but the dragon angled her head down at the sprinting paladin, catching him full in the face as he closed the distance between them.

Jace felt Alex’s cold protection spell flex under the tremendous force of the dragon’s attack, knowing that he would have been frozen solid without that defense.  Even with the spell, he felt his health plummet and his joints scream in protest.  He grabbed the hilt of his normal sword, holding it awkwardly in only one hand, and brought flame to the blade.  The fire breathed heat into his body, and he found the strength to close the last few dozen feet to the dragon.

Ferrisbane reared back at the sight of the flaming weapon, knowing how much it would hurt, but she didn’t pull back far enough and only revealed the acid wound to Jace more prominently.  The paladin focused on that spot, acid still occasionally bursting the last effects of the spell, and lifted his new weapon to attack.  The enchanted blade shattered the weakened scale and slid into the dragon’s flesh.  The beast kicked out in pain, and Jace had no defense but to curl up into a ball as he flew across the cavern.  He trusted his armor would save him, which it barely did, as the impact with the stone dropped his health below a quarter.  But his job was done for now.

Back in the middle of the cavern, the dragon scrambled desperately against the wound.  It didn’t hurt as much as the fire blade would have, but now she felt like a bathtub filled with water quickly emptying through a massive drain.  The magical resistance that had been her savior for so long was vanishing.  Ferrisbane tried to remove the sword, but her giant clawed fingers couldn’t grasp the tiny hilt that had been left protruding.  And she had other things to worry about.

The mage who had thrown the magical acid arrow was now firing flaming arrows.  He had a bow out and was shooting almost without aiming but could hardly hit anything but the massive beast in this empty cavern.  Preston was out of magic now, but the crystals that gave his bow elemental powers were fully charged, and he hoped he had enough arrows to do the job.

The dragon went on the move, wanting to trap the archer in the cavern’s corner so she could crush him, but a ring of fire sprang up around her as the priestess unleashed her last spell.  Ferrisbane tested the boundary and recoiled in pain, the simple spell doing extra damage to the frost dragon.

Still, did these humans think this would be enough?  Then Ferrisbane sensed something jumping out of the shadows on the cliff wall above her.  A small rogue landed on her back, sinking his sword under her weakening scales.  A simple weapon it might have been, but the thief struck a nerve in her back, and tremendous pain coursed through her.  The attacker wasn’t satisfied with one hit, though, and continued to pry up scales with his dagger and shove his sword into the flesh.

Ferrisbane wanted to smash this insignificant human back against the wall he had leaped from, but to do so, would mean crossing the flame barrier, and she couldn’t bring herself to endure that pain.  Instead, she knew she would have to resort to her breath weapon again.  But as she inhaled to drench the entire cavern in an artificial ice age, she felt the air pass through her, no longer finding the source of her magic.  Instead, she got the archer’s last two flaming arrows in her open mouth.

Ferrisbane thrashed about desperately, trying to throw the thief from her back, and as she hopped about, flapping her wings, Kirk finally lost his grip and leaped to the ground, falling just outside the ring of fire and rolling to safety.  The flame barrier also ended, but instead of disappearing, it shrunk in diameter, burning the dragon’s wings and legs as it collapsed into a point.

Exhausted and weak, Ferrisbane thought she might still have a chance as it appeared this group was out of offense.  She saw them gathered in front of her, three standing tall while the paladin was just pulling himself away from the cavern wall and staggered up to his friends.  The knight smiled at the evil beast before him despite his weakened condition.  “Die, you evil fiend!”

Jace lifted his hand to the heavens, far above the ceiling of this underground stronghold, but his god heard his cry anyway.  A terrific bolt of lightning crashed down on the dragon.

 

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“The holy smite spell did . . .” Conor, the DM, paused as Jason rolled his dice, “46 points of damage.  Ferrisbane rears up one final time, looking at you with hatred in her eyes, and falls to the ground dead.”

Kirk and Alexandra hugged each other in celebration before Alexandra realized she was supposed to be mad at her boyfriend.  Preston did a fist pump with a subdued “Hell, yea.”  While Jason only nodded his head.  He had been hoping for a worse roll from a 10d6 attack so he could finish the dragon with his flaming sword, but killing the evil creature with his paladin ability was just as poetic.

“Did the dragon drop anything?” Kirk asked.

The other players rolled their eyes at the greedy thief.

“His body,” the DM replied.

“What,” Alex asked, “do you think she’s carrying around an armory of weapons she can’t use?”

Kirk just shrugged his shoulders.

“You can pry off a few scales,” Conor replied, “but since you sucked all the magic out of her before she died, they won’t be worth much.”

“Counterfeit dragon scales,” Kirk grinned.  “I can work with that.”

“Is there anything else we need to worry about in the cavern?” Jason asked.

“Nothing of value,” Conor said.  “I won’t make you walk back through the tunnels.  They are empty of enemies.  You can return to the village outside the mine if you want.  In fact, I think this would be a good place to stop.  You all earned enough experience points to level up.  So you can spend some time before the next session to work on what abilities you want to improve and what spells to pick.”

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Preston pushed back from the table, stretching his long legs and letting out a satisfied sigh.  “Thank you very much, sir,” he said.  “That was an amazing session.  Your level of detail made me feel like we were actually there.  The realism in your descriptions was first rate.”

“Agreed,” Alex echoed.  “I could almost see the looks on the faces of those goblins when we jumped them inside the mine before we made it to the caverns.”

Everyone else echoed similar praise sentiments and spent a few minutes reliving their favorite parts before collecting their dice, pencils, and paper.  They were meeting in a diner that only served breakfast and lunch, and it was 11 pm on a Friday, so they had the place to themselves.  Conor was friends with the owner, and they could have all the soda and water they could drink, and he often left out some lunch leftovers like deli sandwiches or hot dogs and hamburgers that could be reheated.

Conor took longer than the others to get all his stuff together, and when the players rose to leave, the dungeon master grabbed Jason’s arm.  “Jason, do you need to run off?”

The man shook his head.

“Good; if you could hang around, I’d like to talk about something.”

“Ohhh, Jason has to stay after class,” Kirk laughed.  He was half Jason’s age and just out of school himself.  Alex punched him in the arm and ushered him out of the restaurant.  As Preston was leaving, Conor disappeared into the kitchen and returned after hearing the door chime to inform him it was just the two of them.  He was holding two beers.

“I thought those were off limits,” Jason said but didn’t argue further as he took the ice-cold drink and drained a third of it in one swig.

“I’ll pay him back,” Conor remarked as he took a seat.  He stared at Jason for a while without speaking.

Jason Hawthorne was a 45-year-old accountant.  He made good money and was currently living alone.  He wasn’t divorced, but from what Conor could tell, he hadn’t seen his wife and kids in years.  He kept himself in shape after a lifetime of sports that had ended when he hurt his knee in a rugby match five years ago.  He still played golf and shot hoops every chance he got.  He was a deacon at his church, volunteered at a local soup kitchen, and taught advanced math and science classes at a nearby inner-city school.  At six-foot-two, 210 pounds, with constant stubble that was more white than black, he looked and lived like the classic image of a paladin, the only RPG class Jason had ever played.  He was also the best and most innovative player Conor had ever seen, and he had seen a lot.  Conor felt terrible about what he was about to do to the man.

“What’s this about?” Jason finally asked, the silence between them growing uncomfortable.

“Jason,” Conor started, taking a long drink from his beer before continuing.  “I need your help.  Um . . . we need your help.”

“Who’s we?”

Conor had no convenient segue, so he just said it.  “A special division of the CIA.  It’s an issue of international importance.”

Jason wasn’t expecting that and took a moment to finish his beer before setting it down gently on the table.  “The US government needs an accountant?”

“No.  They need a gamer.”  Conor glanced at his watch and then his phone.  “Actually, I think it would be best if I explained on the way.”

“On the way to what?”

Conor started rising from his seat, picking up the large bin that held all his gaming material.  Jason didn’t move.  “Jason, you are the best RPG player I have ever seen.  Your ability to solve puzzles strategically and logically is a unique skill.  You can ‘Do the Math’ in any situation and instantly know the best course of action.  You keep me on my toes, and your ability to lead your other players is unrivaled.  Right now, my organization has half a dozen other GMs running this same scenario in five other cities around the country.  They’ve tried to pull together the best players they can find, and they are all running this same scenario,” he hefted his bin, “and no other group has even made it to the palace yet.”

Jason nodded his head, understanding the significance of that.  Their quest had led them to a palace where a king had told them of his underperforming villages in the area.  A farming community, a quarry, a mine, and a lumber mill had suddenly stopped producing goods.  They had all been immensely profitable before.  They had already solved the problem of the farms and quarry and had just now cleared out the minions beneath the mine.  That meant these other gaming groups were weeks behind them.

“You recruited the best players in the area?” Jason asked.  They were in a western suburb of Chicago right now.  “Even Kirk?”

Conor laughed at the accurate assessment of the weakest player in their group.  “I was after Alexandra.  Kirk was a package deal.  But he isn’t too bad.”  Conor said.  “Either way, you are the best, and I need you.”

“The CIA needs me,” Jason clarified.

“A special division of the CIA,” Conor said.

“They need me to play a game.  Is there a code they can’t crack?  Are the terrorists hiding their communications within sudokus now?”

“Something like that,” Conor replied cryptically.  He shifted the bin in his arms again as it was getting heavy.  “Look, I am authorized to offer you $100k if you come with me and try to solve our problem.  Are you interested?”

Jason had his papers in his backpack and stood quickly to relieve the out-of-shape man of his heavy burden.  “Next time, lead with that.  Where’s your car?”

Conor chuckled.  “This way.”

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