The Dauntless III: Revenge of the Sith

"I don't think convincing you to go back to town and take shelter will work," Dorrak addresses the assembled crowd, moving to the front of them. "So I won't ask. But know that whatever comes next, whatever monster emerges, will be extraordinarily powerful, and we'll need to do the direct fighting. Don't throw your lives away. If you want to support and help, thank you, but above all you'll need to keep one another safe."

"Order of the Silver Scale!" Antoinette's draconic voice booms over the din of the assembled crowd. "I just want to say to each of you that I am incredibly proud of you. I know I've spoken of how happy your accomplishments have made me, but I cannot stress enough just how amazing you all are. When I met each of you, I saw a spark of potential. What I saw today was not only that potential realized, but the actions of some of the finest heroes this land has ever known. No matter what happens here today, our deeds and spirit will carry on!"

There's no resounding hurrahs from Dorrak's speech, but there is a sense of camaraderie and unity among the townspeople. The Order, likewise, has a lot of shoulder clapping and energy, but no big outbursts, knowing that the worst is yet to come. Most people funnel inside, armed with bows and crossbows that they take to the battlements and arrow slits in the Citadel walls. A few, including most of the Order, remain outside to run interference on the ground.

The end of your time is marked with a tremendous roar from the clouds above. Instead of lightning, a pillar of fire descends, filling the courtyard with divine fire, as from above a meteor shower of smoke falls, striking throughout the countryside. Where you can see, countless dragons of varying size, all in different shapes and flavors of true dragon, drake, wyvern, and others emerge from the smoke and begin prowling towards the castle. Emily gives a battle cry and rallies an attack, but before you can respond to them, another primal roar echoes, this one much louder and much, much closer, as the pillar of fire dissipates. There, flying above the Citadel courtyard with fury in its eyes, is a gargantuan red dragon; a manifestation of the Aspect of Dahak himself, concentrated into a single form intent on destruction.

As the Dauntless quickly ready for battle, Dahak's manifestation flies over the citadel wall and bathes them in a roiling chaotic storm of varied elemental energies. As the energies are fading he is met face-to-face with a very pissed off, very large (though not quite as large as himself) red dragon: Suki, in her full draconic form. Biting into his neck for leverage, she proceeds to wrap her entire serpentine body around him, entangling but not quite bringing down the great dragon god. As the rest of the group joins her, Dahak retaliates by snapping and clawing at her, to little avail. As they lay into him, he maneuvers around and manages to unleash another breath weapon such that it can not only strike the rest of the group, but even manages to wash over the still-entangled Suki.

Overcome by the sheer mass of unholy energy stripping away at her, Suki's grip slackens, and she plummets the several feet to the ground below with a mighty crash. As Antoinette, Dorrak, and Nova distract the dragon god, Django follows the fallen red dragon, and with a burst of healing energy gets her back to consciousness.

Knowing another fall like that would undoubtedly prove lethal, Suki decides to even the playing field. Or at least lower it. Heavily lifting herself to her feet, she rears up, and leaps in the way only Suki can, spinning her massive draconic form in the air to bring her tail down into the small of Dahak's back, right between the wings, bringing him crashing through the roof of the citadel's foyer as she alights safely back on her feet.

Rising ominously out of the rubble, a now very, very pissed off Dahak turns his full attention to the impudent little dragon. Lashing out with his full might, he once again brings her to her knees, only managing to not kill her because of some timely protective magic from Django. Standing over her unconscious form, he roars his rage to the heavens... before bursting with raging holy energy and collapsing next to Suki.

As the manifestation of Dahak collapses, you see his armies of smoke dragons, who the townsfolk had been fending off admirably and with surprisingly minimal casualties, begin to one by one dissolve into faint smoke that dissipates rather than returning to whirling stormcloud above. Over the next minute, the cloud also breaks apart, and when the first beams of sunlight pierce the clouds and shine down on the Citadel, illuminating the dark and dreary landscape and you all now standing with the corpse of a dragon god's avatar at your feet, the crowd finally, finally, allows themselves to cheer.

Antoinette flies up to survey the area. Once she manages to survey the overall damage to the citadel, she lands next to the members of her order. "Well, that was incredible. Great work everyone. We're going to have to spend some time rebuilding. Till then I'm comping all your inn rooms in town. Allison, Johanna, meet me in my lair tonight. I'll clear enough of the rubble to get the lower levels accessible. Yabbo, Jaruk, can you go make sure your clan is okay? Bring anyone injured up to Django. He'll heal them. Everyone else, take some rest if you can. Or do whatever calms you."

Dorrak turns to Nova, still catching his breath, and sinks down to the ground, taking a seat right next to the corpse. "When it's time for the big one, we'll fight it together," he promises her.

Nova seems to pout as best she can. "Django coulda at least made me fly." Despite this she's in decent spirits, knowing that, as certified Good Girl with a new holy code, she's on her way to earning her own wings.

The mood in town is fairly good, all things considered. There were a lot of deaths, but not nearly so many as the last major adventure-related catastrophe to sweep through Breachill five years ago, and the damage was relatively contained in large part due to the intervention of the Dauntless and the Order of the Silver Scale. Reconstruction is scheduled to begin the next day, with some priority placed on the Citadel as a reward for saving the town, and Trini Spizzlegig, in particular, pledges to spend her spare hours at the office planning a festival in your honor in a few weeks when the town is back to normal.

That evening, Johanna and Alison present themselves in the lair. Both are distinctly uncomfortable in the intense heat of the chamber, but then Johanna pulls out her spellbook, flips to another page and casts something on the both of them that alleviates the heat.

Antoinette lays down in front of her visitors after motioning for them both to take a seat. "Today what I saw from everyone was truly worthy of praise, but you two in particular have a particular combination of traits and interests that makes me want to extend a proposal to you. You see, when Suki and I created the ritual to become a dragon, I had no idea what I was truly getting myself into. Overall it has been an amazing boon. I think it can do more good.

"I want to form a suborder of the Order of the Silver Scale. The Reclaimed. The idea being to allow particularly exceptional students to undertake a quest, swear an oath, and become true dragons as I did. I think you two should be the first."

The girls are quiet for a moment, as what you just said sinks in. "That's..." Alison says slowly. "That's an incredibly great honor, Lady Antoinette. Are you sure it should be us? I mean, Johanna, sure, but I'm not exactly exceptional." Johanna shakes her head.

"You saved a lot more people than I did today, and in Elidir, and in the forest," she argues. "I'm just a researcher, you're a lot braver and stronger than me."

"Johanna, you have a deeply curious mind and are far more courageous than you think. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to act in spite of it, and in that regard you are perhaps among the most courageous of the order. What I saw from you in the church today was nothing short of the actions of an incredible hero," Antoinette states.

"Alison, you were chosen from birth with divine power. That power bears with it a curse, but you manage to persevere in spite of it and use your power for the good of others. Your actions today were also incredible and I will not undersell them. You were never meant to be a spy, but in the open field of battle you shine brighter than any star.

"And then of course that brings us to your temperament. Any one of the other members of this order is strong enough to be a great hero, and indeed they are. You two, however, are the only two among the initial group to have the right combination of willingness and personality to mantle a chromatic dragon successfully. With such a mantling comes new instincts. You will become more prideful, more aggressive, and more hateful by nature. But I believe both of you have the right combination of humility, kindness, and force of will to overcome such instincts and remain true to yourselves."

There's some more discussion and more convincing needed on Johanna's part, but eventually, both girls are on board.

"So what do we need to do?" Alison asks.

"The potion made from keketar blood, the dust of a gemstone aligned with the dragon's elemental attunement, a piece of their essence, and a portion of their horde," Johanna recites. "The ritual requires a valuable gemstone of the same kind, a phoenix feather, and the dragon's lair to serve as the ritual site."

"Not what I meant, squirt," Alison laughs, punching the smaller girl lightly in the arm. "I meant, where do we get that stuff. Phoenixes don't usually just hand out feathers."

"No, they don't," Antoinette replies standing. She walks over to a shelf and removes a small chest. Opening it, she reveals a single red phoenix feather, the one given to her by Vtrik. "However, I know a phoenix who is willing to help. This feather belongs to the phoenix Vtrik. He was trapped in a forge for some time and we rescued him. I proposed my idea to him, and he agreed to act as a second judge and source of feathers in the process of transforming worthy heroes into dragons. When I call his name into this feather, I will learn where he is and he will know you are coming. Once I know where he is, the rest is up to you two. You must make it to him and perform the task he gives you. I recommend traveling together for safety, but the quests he gives will be personal and more meant to judge your nature than your skill. You will each have a different task, and it will be yours to do alone."

With the explanation out of the way, Antoinette lifts the feather skyward and speaks "Vtrik!"

There is no verbal answer; rather, a moment of instant connection. Your mind's eye expands, zooming out to give you a bird's eye view of Breachill that rapidly zooms further and further back until your vision encompasses all of Golarion. It then zooms in rapidly once more towards northern Garund, and then further northeast, until focusing on the northern coast of Rahadoum, the town of Manaket. You feel through your connection to Vtrik that he will await your students near here.

"Vtrik awaits you near the town of Manaket, on the northern coast of Rahadoum," Antoinette states, placing the feather back in the box as her senses return to her. "Leave as soon as you are ready, but please do not leave Vtrik waiting for too long. You may inform the others if you wish, or keep this from them for now. It will be impossible to hide long term, but I leave it to you to decide when to talk to them about it. As you journey, consider what type of dragon you would like to hunt when you return. That is the type of dragon you will become."

"Alright," Alison nods. "It'll be a long trip." She begins counting on her fingers while Johanna flips through her spellbook. "We'll need at least a few weeks worth of supplies to travel to Ostenso, add another two weeks for a boat to Merab so I don't have to declare my holy symbol and divine magic at the border, then a caravan to-"

"Got it," Johanna interjects. "One teleport at sixth magnitude to acquire range, one teleport at seventh magnitude." She grabs Alison's arm, and the two of them disappear with a squawk from the older girl and a flash of blue light.

Antoinette blinks a few times, then shrugs and sets the small chest back on her shelf. "If Johanna keeps that pace and enthusiasm they'll probably already be hunting dragons by the time we get back from our business through the last portal, or even perhaps done if we take a month or two."

Antoinette then heads back toward her magma pool to rest for the evening.

The next morning you return once more to Alseta's Ring. Vengegate is intact, though there is an ugly looking crack down the center of it. You once more touch the Amber Wasp to the gate, and the portal opens normally this time, giving you a misty veil to walk through. An exceptionally long and narrow hallway on the other side, illuminated by soft magical light, leads you to a large chamber with 40 foot high vaulted ceilings and decorated with carvings of daggers and wasps along its walls. The image of a trio of daggers pointing outward adorns the ceiling above. A large stone platform in the center of the room is surrounded by four stone benches. Three halls extend out from equidistant locations along the northern half of the chamber, while to the south a secret door is set into the wall, well concealed enough for the average supplicant to this Calistrian chapel to miss but easy enough for your eyes to see.

After confirming that the secret door leads to the exit portal, you head to one of the side passages. A large pool, divided into three sections by low stone walls,
fills most of this roughly triangular chamber; a dagger lies at the bottom of one section. The walls are decorated with imagery of bathing elves. A hall extends out from the southeastern wall of the chamber. A young elven woman in a black and yellow robe stands in the pool, bathing her exposed skin. When you enter, she looks directly at you, no surprise in her eyes but a warm and welcoming smile. "Greetings, supplicants. Come, cleanse your bodies in preparation."

"This gate has gone largely unused for over a thousand years. Who or what are you to still be alive in here, if indeed you are alive?" Antoinette asks.

"Nonsense," the woman scoffs, waving you off. "I went out for sandwiches just the other day. Your travels have made you paranoid, supplicant. Come, let the hot water ease your stress."

"You're already dead. This isn't the first of these gates we've been to. The portals have been sealed for millenia before we reopened them. We're not supplicants, we're travellers, and we won't step in that pool," Dorrak explains bluntly.

The woman's face falls to a scowl. "Your ruse will not save you. I will have my revenge!" As she shouts the flesh peels away from her face, leaving only a bare skull atop an otherwise fleshy body.

The spirit's dagger flies forwards and plunges deep into Dorrak several times, landing vicious wounds, but he holds steady and Django tells him that this isn't a monster, but rather a haunt. Remaining calm, Dorrak fixes his gaze on the spirit. "I don't know who wronged you, but it was not me and my friends. I'm sorry for your loss, but it's your time to rest now. Leave vengeance for the living."

The spirit hesitates, her dagger halting in its latest shot. "... I didn't realize..." she looks sadly at the water, her skull returning to a full elven face. "I thought he was unfaithful... but in his final moments, Calistria showed me I was wrong. I hoped, if we died here together, we would find peace in the afterlife... but no one ever came for us." She looks at you all. "Thank you." Her visage fades away, leaving only her soaked robes and the amber-studded dagger behind.

After finding a tiny box in a room that was definitely used for orgies, you go back down to the portal chamber and step through the archway, entering a pitch-black cave. This grand cavern holds a large dais at its center. A stone archway bearing carvings of daggers and wasps stands in the center of the dais and a set of stone stairs lead down from the archway. A wide tunnel continues south from the dais. At the end of the tunnel, a large rug lies on the ground of this cavern. Several shelves surround the rug, each packed with books. The cavern continues to west