Cinzel Decorative; Trade Winds;
Morna Vaile
When the black flames appeared, Morna was working her way back through rubble toward the dragon's head after making a series of quick strikes to its side with her lightning. None of it had seemed to do more than mildly hurt the monster, but she'd noted the more effective blows being landed up front and thought to exploit them. Seeing others fail to make any headway against that dark barrier was enough to stay her own hand. She had no real plan other than wait and hope that somebody else figured out how to deal with the newly displayed magical ability from the dragon, but that was fine: waiting and hoping for the more tactically savvy members of the Hellhounds to do something had proved effective many times in the past.
This time, however, it seemed it was the General herself who took care of the problem. It didn't take a genius to understand what all that blood and the eerie sound of her incantation meant. Though this sudden revelation that the great and powerful Artemis Carrow was in fact a filthy blood magic user felt like a knife in the gut, she could not deny that the forbidden power was effective. The black flames gave way before the Princess' power, leaving the dragon vulnerable once more. The fierce and biting part of Morna's mind was glad to see the General struck by some form of backlash and plummet to the ground; effective or no, blood magic was forbidden for very good reasons, and it seemed only right and proper for someone wielding that power to be harmed by it. She set those thoughts, and the ones that followed regarding how this might impact the Rose Company and the Hellhounds as a whole, to the side to instead focus on the fight at hand. Whatever consequences befell the Princess for her transgressions, it would be foolish not to make good use of her abominable actions to kill this dragon.
Morna skidded to a halt in a rubble-strewn street some hundred or so feet away from the dragon. She had a clear light of sight on the patch of exposed flesh where Verus had knocked some scales away, and so that was where she focused her attention. Normally she kept light on her feet and in motion, but that came at the cost of her lightning being less powerful than it could be when she was stationary. That trade was generally a good one since even the weaker lightning tended to do plenty, but for a dragon it seemed prudent to pull out all the stops. Luckily she was at low risk of retaliation thanks to her distance and the plentiful distractions closer to the dragon, so she planted her feet without any worries in her mind.
Morna took a deep breath and started an incantation, long seconds of chanting that felt like a small eternity compared to her quick and snappy words used for lightning on the go. As the power blossomed up inside her, she held one arm straight out toward the dragon, fist clenched rather than using a pointed finger as normal. The quicker blasts were channeled through one or two digits, but this one was going to use her entire arm instead, and she knew from experience that the whole limb would be all numb and tingly for hours to come once she was done.
With a final syllable, harsh and booming like the thunderclap that would soon follow, Morna completed her incantation. A thick beam of writhing energy burst forth from her clenched fist, crackling and snapping through the air in a jagged path rather than a smooth line, before finally slamming home right into the dragon's exposed flesh. She didn't notice Vultog climbing up until after it was already too late, but luckily it seemed those thick scales provided enough insulation to keep him from being fried too. The lightning was so bright that Morna could still see it through her tightly clenched eyes, and doubtless the other Hellhounds would have to shield their eyes too, but that was a price worth paying for landing such a blow on the beast. If it didn't fry some organs immediately, it would at the very least hurt like nothing the monster had ever felt before, and if it wasn't a killing blow then it would hopefully distract the dragon from that giant ice spear now hurtling toward it.
Gamnuri Balgron
The swirling black fire made Gamnuri backpedal hard rather than continuing his second charge. Reckless though he often was, he wasn't suicidal. As the flames spread, he kept on backing away to stay ahead of them. This apparent ability to use magic was unexpected, but it fit in with his theory easily enough. Magic had been created by the gods, so if the monsters were sent by the gods then it made sense that they would be capable of using magic. He didn't have to retreat for long though: the General flew up into the air from somewhere outside his line of vision, surrounded by white flames to counter the black ones, and apparently it was a damned effective counter. The blood dribbling from her arm and the chilling echo to her incantation made it clear she'd been dabbling in blood magic. She came out the worse for wear from it, but she'd managed to get rid of that damned black fire and allow the attacks to continue, so that was hopefully a price worth paying.
Gamnuri had never been one for following the rules, so he didn't care care much about someone else violating a taboo. In fact, he'd done some studying into blood magic himself in the Consilium, but the only available tomes had been dry scholarly reports on the negative effects and the different forms of social taboos and punishments for the use of blood magic. Anything with more instructional sort of discussion were likely kept in the more secure vaults, and he'd never bothered asking to look at them since he knew the additional scrutiny directed his way would have interrupted his studies into the true nature of the gods. As far as Gamnuri was concerned, the gods hadn't decreed any form of magic untouchable, and by most readings one could reasonably assume that
all forms of magic use had been gifted to mortals with the intent for them to be used. He'd have to ask the General to show him how it worked. After all, he usually ended up bloody from any difficult fight, so why not learn how to put that shed blood to good use? There was probably a better argument to make for it, but he'd think about it more after the fight.
Others were going for big and showy final attacks, but Gamnuri was a simple dwarf. He'd already punched the thing once hard enough to shatter some scales, so what would happen if he hit harder in that same spot? There was only one way to find out. He ran out of the cover of mostly-destroyed buildings and used his wind magic to go faster than his legs could normally carry him, headed straight for the dragon's massive head. It spotted him coming this time, and out of all the many threats it seemed the dwarf merited a swift defensive response. The dragon raked the massive claws of one front leg in his direction, which would be plenty enough to bat him away and stop him from being able to pillar-jump his way right up into the dragon's jaw.
Gamnuri was not going to be so easily turned away from his solemn duty to punch that dragon in the face a second time. He stopped propelling himself forward with the wind for just long enough to magically grab hold of the earth a few feet ahead of himself, and he leapt to land with both feet in the right spot just as another pillar of stone burst out of the ground. This one was tilted at an angle, hastily calculated for the best arc to send him to his target, and he immediately let go of the pillar and wrapped himself in wind magic to push himself forward and correct course a bit. The massive clawed foot swept by a couple feet underneath him, unable to lift up in time to swat the dwarf out of the air. He took a moment to look around and saw the ice spear hurtling toward the creature's neck and the painfully bright lightning digging into its side, not to mention the orc climbing up the beast's side. He wished the dragon had at least one eye left, just to see if there was any fear in the creature as it sensed its imminent demise. And of all those deadly attacks coming its way, it had tried to stop
him, not the others. Clearly it knew who was the real muscle of the Rose Company.
Gamnuri let out a bellowing laugh at his own cocky thought as he wrapped his right fist in another potent and dangerous mix of fire and air, just a moment before it slammed into the tender flesh that had previously been covered by scales. The dragon had obliged him in turning to face him, perhaps intending to bite the dwarf out of the sky since the claw failed, but all it had done was give him an ideal angle of attack. He heard another crack, this one from somewhere beneath the bloody flesh, and the dragon let out a pained bellow as Gamnuri dropped and used his air magic to glide as far away from the beast as he could.
"Guess you won't be answering my questions then, what with the broken jaw and all. Too bad, maybe the next dragon'll be more talkative!" The dwarf let out another raucous laugh and directed his path toward the downed General, intending to help get her away from the fight. Seeing her safe and sound was the most important thing right now, and he was confident the rest of the Rose Company could finish the dragon off without his further assistance.
