Chapter 19: Chapter 17 After Math

Notable rolls in the fight

Manuel hit for 82 points with his breath weapon. The dragon rolled a 02 for her save and was left with thirteen hit points; she didn't have three because true dragons take one less damage per damage die in Babylon as a blessing. They support the system in various ways for this benefit.

The wards didn't even hold for a single turn, as the dragons basically auto-hit

 

Chapter 17

After Math

* Shard #31: Everyone in the area was actively attacked. 66,800 experience points are awarded, divided by the 32 survivors that were involved in the combat and did not flee the battlefield. All survivors of the caravan receive 2,087 experience points each. 19 people are capped at 2,000 XP for a fight. Two horses, Devoe and Slyphianne, who fled the battlefield successfully, all receive half experience. The dragons gain 200 experience each (rounded). All of the hired goblins, who were duped by the elves, gain half experience.

* Shard #31: Creatures who did not gain a level among the caravan were Tira, Etherstaria, Almeil, Blaze, Devoe, and Slyphianne.

* Shard #31: Fourth party detected Surviving chickens, hatchlings, and eggs evolve into heroic chickens and can be consumed by heroic creatures. They provide 50 experience to first level heroes. The value of adult chickens increases to 1 gold piece. Hatchlings are now worth one high silver piece. Eggs increase in value to one silver piece.

* Shard #31: Alignment hits to Phenaquar, Tira, Ameil, Raire, and Olier, Raythiel, and Syran. Processing. Olier falls to villainous chaotic evil. Olier gains a faintly evil aura. Informing Olier of his new alignment, Oiler indicates he would like to fight this change. a one-month delay in updating the villain's appraisal information. processing alignment gains for three horses. No alignment changes processing heroic alignment gains for Tira (healing another in battle despite her bloodlust), Alliasaz (tactically stepping in front of her friends despite being wounded), and Zip (putting herself in grave danger to protect her friends who were only in minor danger). Zip's alignment improves to heroic neutral good. There isn't a high enough level to assign auras or change the appraisal to heroic. Alignment remains fluid.

* Shard #31: Combat ends. I guess I will go see what happens to the goblins.

Zip flew through the air and suddenly found herself in an angel's arms. She rotated herself to look at Manuel. "Thank you for catching me, Manuel." He was covered in dragon blood, but the increase in his statistics made him hard to look at; he was already too pretty before the spell. Suddenly, his features returned to normal, as Almeil, in agony from the mana burn, dropped the other spells he was carrying, and Manuel faded as well. So Zip fell on her behind anyway, but at least the dragons were gone. She had bitten her tongue! Being bitten wasn't enough; now she had bitten herself! She stumbled toward the caravan and was grabbed by Star halfway there. She was fittingly picked up princess style by the princess.

"I lost my sword back there, Star," said Zip.

At that moment, a hooded figure appeared in front of them, upside down.

"Eek!" screamed Star as she made a run for it.

Almeil, the high chancellor, fell to the ground behind them as he was holding on to the tree upside down, with his legs, after he dropped his invisibility spell.

"I think that is the summoner, Star," said Zip, looking over Star's shoulder.

Star stopped and asked if Zip could make it back without her when Tira walked up to them.

"I'll go get the sword and the summoner, Star. Maybe I can find another dragon out here."

"Why do you want to find another dragon?" asked Star.

"I am 13 points short of a level," said Tira. I just need one dragon, or a deer, or something.

"I think you can get that soon enough, Tira," laughed Star. "Right now we are going to have to find a way to get away from here before the army shows up." Given how many horses we lost and the summoner being in bad shape, that might be difficult.

"Yes, well, that might be a problem," said Tira. "But not as important as leveling up. See you back at the camp."

There was a round of cheers as Star showed up with Zip. "We found the summoner; he looks like he is in bad shape," said Star. How many horses are left?

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"Seven," said Phenaquar. Three horses cannot be healed for a day, but they leveled up, so they are up and about. We are healing the other hurt horses. We will spend the night here and gather and repair what we can. We will need Blaze to repair some of the damage to the wagons tomorrow at dawn. I wish we could go looking for the dragons' treasure. I guess we'll tell the White Foxes about it and that we didn't find any villagers. Who knows, maybe the dragon left some alive? There are perhaps two horses alive out there, but I don't want to send people to look for them as there are still quite a few dragons running around out there. We will revelry in two shifts, in case they try again, but I doubt it. Even though everyone leveled up, we don't have armor, swords, or bows for anyone else."

Olier made his way over to Star next. "Yes, what is it, Olier?" said Star. "I need to talk to you, if you wouldn't mind."

Star activated her sense motive and saw that it was of a personal nature, but he wasn't going to attack her or anything like that. "Very well, let's go over here."

Meanwhile, this turn, Allie was sitting in many gold's worth of broken chickens, eggs, and hatchlings. Raire jumped down to the open doorway to check on her. Alliasaz was sitting there looking at the mostly broken dragon and hatchlings that were using the dented tubs to make their escape. Her appraisal stated that they were worth a high silver value of 100 copper each. Or rather, 10,000 zinc or pewter coins that commoners most often used. She watched 100,000 worth of zinc coins escape while she was setting in an egg bath worth about that much as well. How exactly was she going to pay for this? She looked up at the night sky through the roof. Then to her shattered long bow worth 750,000 zinc coins, which was now a broken stick as the dragon had landed on it when he went through the roof. Even the arrows, doused in eggs and probably ruined, were well beyond her means. She started to cry.

"Allie, it's ok," said Raire, avoiding the hatchlings and climbing on top of the dragon to reach her.

"I broke everything! I am so clumsy!" wailed Allie.

"It's alright; there is magic that can fix things like your bow. Rathiel and Blaze should be able to learn it, prolly."

"I broke our food! We are going to starve," wailed Allie.

"We won't starve; almost everyone has leveled up; they can take survival skills, and we can gather and hunt for food. With most of the horses dead, we'll be moving at a crawl. We may have to even abandon some wagons. Let's go see if everyone is alight, ok, Allie? These chickens are too valuable to eat right now. We will have to wait for the chickens to lay normal eggs. Then sell these in the GERV for things we need, like swords and bows."

Ambrose joined them, and then so did the boys from the third wagon. The elves began capturing the fleeing, overpriced chickens and removing the dragon from the wagon. Meanwhile, Ambrose started trying to build something that would contain them. There were bodies of dragons everywhere; it was a real mess.

Raire moved to the third wagon and climbed to the roof to look out for predators that might be attracted by the bodies. She leveled up while she was watching. She decided to advance her strength. After having that spell enhance all of her attributes, she already missed the extra strength the most. More than being prettier, that was for certain.

Blaze stared at the dozens of dragons scattered around. She hadn't leveled up, even from this level of battle? What was it going to take? She looked at her system sheet and saw she was only three-quarters of the way to fourth level. She realized how precious the levels that the Sandshields had power leveled were. She had been a bad girl, trying to kidnap elves for coins. Now she had gotten eight goblin warriors killed or, worse, made into dragon chew toys. Everything she touched was wrong. She had lost her last elf, as they sent Leblanc back to prison. She had heard Phenaquar talking about polymorph spells and realized that she could learn a few of them. There was no one to stop her. She'd take one when she leveled up and see if they could help her stop being a goblin. Goblins were barely good enough to die for elves, it seemed.

Atlanta, Rixande, Twixia, and Grey started leveling up and discovered a skill that they could take: skills for disassembling monsters, harvest. By appraisal, these dragons were worth some serious coin! They all learned the skill. They looked over at Angel, who hadn't opened her screen yet.

"Go take the level up, and you can help us get rich, Angel," said Grey.

"Yeah, stop messing around, Angel," said Altanta.

"Is there something wrong? Do you not want to level up, Angel?" questioned her best friend Rixande.

"We were almost killed by splinters," said Twixia. "Do you really want to stay that weak? No matter what happens, we are in this together, and everyone needs to pull their weight."

"Of course, you're right, but I'm not all elfess; I don't know what will happen, so I'm afraid," said Angel.

"It can't be much worse than what happened to Raythiel; we will support you, even if you turn into a Wood elf or something." said Twixia.

"Hey, I am half wood elf, you know!" complained Atlanta.

"Oh, your hair is turning red, and your eyes are turning green!" said Angel. I guess something like that will happen to me as well, so I guess I just need to be brave like you, Atlanta!

"Becoming a half Wood elf is not bravery, though," said Atlanta.

Angel went ahead and leveled; seeing the warnings and what she would lose made her want to cry, but two hit points could get her killed by accident, or worse, it might put someone else in danger, and she couldn't stay with the caravan if she turned down the level. Taking the plunge, she saw her racial advancements were actually in strength and charisma. She chose to advance both of them by two levels.

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