Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

"Greetings, Rangers!" called the Scholar as he walked up alongside the vessel, stopping just short of the gangplank. "I was told you would be my companions for the manhunt on the raiders! May I speak to your captain?!" he continued, having to shout over the hustle and bustle of the busy port. He got a few odd looks at that, mostly from people who didn't know who he was or how he thought he was going to take down a fleet of raiders. He left them to their ignorance. They'd figure it out once he took to the sky.

[C S]

Cassidy raised a brow at what at first glance she presumed to be an ordinary elf. She set down her coils of rope with the dawning of her realization, though she said nothing. Her boots thumped along the deck paneling, and shortly there after she stood in the doorway to the cabin. While Septimus spoke up for the rangers' benefit, he heard what was said aboard just fine.

"They got us a hero to help us out," Cassidy told Jhotan flatly.

Jhotan looked away from Luther, who up to then was discussing navigational details with her. "A hero, now? I know we aren't to have any other ships with us, but I would think they would spare more than just a 'hero'."

Cassidy shook her head. "They got us Septimus, the Rose's Thorn."

"That would explain why we won't be joined by any other ships today," Jhotan replied after a thoughtful hum. "He's requested a word, hmm?"

Cassidy nodded. Jhotan returned the gesture and got out of her chair, Cassidy stepping out of the way so that the captain could make her way to the gangplank. She slid her glove along the hot rails of the Dreamchaser and came to a stop before the Scholar. "Captain Kyrie Jhotan of the sled-ship Dreamchaser. It is a greater honor for me to be speaking to you, rather than you to speak with me, Septimus."

[The Kingpin]

"Greetings, Captain. The honour's mine. I hear you and your crew are rising stars in the fight against these...raiders? pirates? Pirate raiders. I think I'll go with that," stated the Scholar thoughtfully. Qutaiba had told him as much when he inquired about a potential bounty contract. Further down the docks, something of a racket was starting to build, though for the time being, it earned little more than a few curious stares near the end of the Dreamchaser's pier.

[C S]

"Our sails may be green, and we don't run black flags, but I'd like to imagine in the petty ways that men are prone to that we are the privateers that prey upon that sullied sort," Jhotan replied, putting her hands behind her back and puffing out her chest.

[The Kingpin]

"That would be venturing into the realm of philosophy. In any case, I wanted to inquire about any leads we may-" he had started, pausing as he glanced over to the running dockworkers. "Something going on?" he asked, looking to the captain confusedly, before heading down the pier to investigate.

What he saw was a small sand-sledder, a veritable sand-dinghy at best, drifting to a stop against one of the piers. The dockhands were down almost immediately to lift something out, what turned out being a totally nude, shivering Thimeyran stepping onto the edge of the dock, immediately being wrapped in someone's donated robes as he was led towards the main office that would lead to Thimeyra proper.

The Scholar rushed over to the noisy mob of good samaritans, intervening with a psychic pulse that brought a measure of calm to the situation so that he could inquire.

"What happened?" he asked, switching to the Thimeyran tongue.

"Raiders. They crippled his ship, captured the crew. Robbed him of his clothes and his cargo and sent him off in the auxiliary sled. It's a miracle he survived the night. The Life Bringer watches over him," explained one of the older Elves. "Get his feet off the ground before they burn! And get him to a doctor! Quickly!" he shouted, the group acknowledging the orders and hastening their departure from the dock.

"Did he say where they were?"

"Not specifics. I think he's too traumatised to speak of the matter. Probably can't get it out of his head. The poor man," explained the elf, the foreman of the dock the survivor had arrived at.

"I see," responded the Scholar. He couldn't wait for the elf to recover, and if he wasn't speaking, there was only one way to get the information he needed.

It was a simple effort, reaching into his mind for the information. For all the chaos of the mob of dockworkers, they weren't nearly as loud in mind as the elf they tried to carry off. Memories, vivid as though he were still living them, flashed through his mind in an endless loop. The horrific attack on the Bearer of Musk, the boarding after the sails were burned to ash, the humiliating stripping he'd suffered as his clothes were claimed by one of the raiders who had been wrapped in layers upon layers of rags rather than any actual clothing. The crew was bound and taken below deck; hostages, the trader whose ship they were sailing among them; the only reason this man was allowed to get away. He was to pass on a message. A ransom of twenty thousand gold for the merchant's release.

The vision was enough to make Septimus visibly shudder. Before breaking the link, he chose to give the man peace, allowing his mind to drift into a hazy sleepiness. He was safe, now. He would be cared for. The problem would be solved.

"Are you alright, brother? Not like a man's eyes to change colour like that," noted the foreman as he looked the Scholar in the eyes just as they drifted back into focus.

"I'm fine. Just magic. I need to speak to someone about hunting down some raiders." And with that, the Scholar was heading back across the dock to the Dreamchaser. He had a location. Now they just needed to get there.

[C S]

Jhotan had been looking upon the happening from her ship's deck with a set lip and a spyglass in her hand. "I wish I could say this was the first time I've seen something like that. One of the few times I've seen one make it back alive." She stowed the spyglass away in a bandolier and said to Septimus, "The Dunefox over there fell on the edges of Thimeyra's authority over the sands, but we know where she met her assailants, marked for death they all are. I believe that is the lead you were wondering about?"

[The Kingpin]

"Indeed. And if our survivor over there is anything to go by, this may be the same group," stated the Scholar gravely. "They were attacked about twenty miles East by North East of here, near a salt plain in the shadow of the Razors," stated the Scholar, pointing in the direction. "The crew he came from is being held hostage. There's a ransom on the head of the trader that was travelling with them. I intend to board that ship personally."

[C S]

"Then the 'Chaser will tangle with any other ship that intends to interfere!" Jhotan promised with a warrior's zeal. "The Dunefox lends one of her ballistae, stowed in the aft of our sledder. We'll dash as a surprise from the rear and split their ships' spines as we pull out to the front! We sail when you are ready to fly."

[The Kingpin]

"Then you should have been sailing five minutes ago," stated the Scholar with a smirk. Leaping hard, the elf rocketed several hundred feet in the air, easily reaching five times the Dreamchaser's height as a smoky cloud gave way to vast leathery wings. The dockhands still at work in Dhul'Valen were graced with a close up look of the Son of Storms, his wings alight with magical power as he headed Eastwards, only lingering briefly to await the Rangers, to give them time to catch up.

Soon, he would be nothing but a speck on the horizon.

[C S]

"Full sails! Weigh anchors! I want to ride on the gusts of his wingbeats while they're still strong!" the sled-ship captain called out over the deck, her voice paired with a wave of her hand. Cassidy and Trist shouted their acknowledgement and with method refined by experience, they got to work. Trist took to the ropes and began opening the Dreamchaser's sheets while Cassidy put her spine into spinning capstans at the bow. By time the winds whipped into the green sails, she had sprinted to the stern to bring the anchors up there as well.

In the cabin, the captain and navigator continued to discuss their plans while the wheel was turned to pull out of port.

"Curious timing," Luther noted as he finalized his charts and paid due dividends to the ticking of his navigation tools, the degrees counting off.

"Fate calls for a ranger's strike," Jhotan replied with a soldierly graveness. She felt the speed build, and the runner-turned-destroyer was leaving dust in her wake, sleds parting the dust in front of her.




A while out in the desert, the ships of sandblasted ivory lazed about. Various bits of hull and repurposed chests hung from the sides of the cobbled together crafts as improvised anchors for the drag they created when lowered into the sand. Old, tattered clothing flapped from the tops of their makeshift masts as the closest things to flags they could manage. These were no scraggly pushovers. As ugly as the ships were, numbering five in all, they were undoubtedly deadly. Meshes of steel brandished barbs and spikes along the "belt" that held the dahasani sledders together. The bows were bulky, bladed battering rams that held whole hull sections of cannibalized ships. Multiple bowsprits were angled one atop the other, each one carved into stakes -- horns for these beasts of the salt plains.

Spaced out from one another, the ships formed a strange compound of sorts as the raiders awaited their ransom fees. For their trouble, they did what they could to stay out of the sun, sticking to the bottom drafts of their vessels.

[The Kingpin]

The chilling boom of the Scholar's roar echoed across the dunes for a good ten seconds, dragging out as his blackened silhouette shot up past a rise in the distance like an angel of death given physical form.

In seconds, the Hueilin shot past overhead, so low that his chest plates sheered off the improvised flagpoles atop the raiders' patchwork masts, wreckage tumbling down with an unholy crash. The dragon's wingspan was greater than anything they had ever seen, easily as vast as their smallest ships were long.

Rocketing upwards too fast for any ballista to follow, much less try and shoot at, the Scholar unleashed a stream of white flames, the glow momentarily rivalling that of the sun burning far overhead. Before they could do much to coordinate a retaliation, the dragon was once more out of range.

Circling far above them, he took in the details of the various ships in the group. The Dreamchaser was up for a difficult fight against four of them, but he only needed a few minutes to take out those holding the merchant ship hostage, the vessel sitting as it did in the midst of the ring of ivory war vessels.

[C S]

The shock and awe of the moment left the raiders ignorant of the dust that spilled over the edge of the rise, though in all fairness, a dragon belching flame was wont to keep one's rapt attention. By this weakness that few men could best, the Dreamchaser crested the grain-hill, bow held over open air before it and the sleds mingled with the sifting sands as before. The green-sailed speeder found great haste by momentum's pull in addition to favor from the wind. The pale salty straight billowed like a white smoke around the curvature of the bow and drifted along the deck, almost obscuring Jhotan's view from the window. Nothing to be done from the front.

"Give Dole firing priority!" came the captain's order from the wheelhouse.

Cassidy was waiting at the ladder and rushed through the recreation lounge to pass the order to Trist. Trist rushed back through the soldiers' quarters to what would have been the storage hold. Doland was stationing the incredibly hefty Valenborn ballista.

"You've got firing priority," the ranger conveyed, and then was off to drop the rear ramp. The Dreamchaser was on the way to making a whole new kind of delivery.

Dole didn't have anything to say to that. "Crank the shaft, load the bolt..." And he did, turning the crank atop of the assembly, gears churning their metallic rhythm out of sight. Thick rubber bands were pulled taut, their draw strength the lot that would turn a hull into splinters with one well placed shot. The ranger then hauled a large metal rod into the oversize bow's feed.

"Knock knock, package for a bunch of depraved fucks!"

Trist pulled the latch and chains started rattling. The rear door thudded into the salt, kicking up another spray of dry white as the Dreamchaser dashed through the formation of idle ships. Making sure to target one that wasn't near the civilian merchant sledder in the heat of the moment, Dole turned the ballista and read the notches off of the semi-circular fixture as he aimed the end of the weapon high.

"It's like a giant sling-bow," he told himself.

Dole pulled on the release mechanism. The assembly fell into symphony, rubber snapping deafeningly as metal pieces clunked and clicked. The bolt soared out of the opening at the back of the Dreamchaser.

He did not see the bolt slam into his target ship. Instead, he heard the distant crack, and the lolling of a broken mast. Ropes stretched and then snapped, canvas coming down heavily on the rest of the junker sled.

"One down, pass it on!"

Trist hurried off to relay the message to Cassidy...

[The Kingpin]

"Get below deck! Watch the hostages! Don't let them get aboard!" shouted the leader of the boarding party that were in charge of keeping the merchant crew imprisoned. Shouts of acknowledgement echoed across the large merchant ship as crewmen descended to the lower decks. "I need archers and swordsmen on deck! If the greens get close, burn their sails! And someone keep an eye out for that monster!" The hustle of skilled raiders moving into position to defend themselves and counter attack distracted them from the growing shadow above them; one that disappeared a couple of moments after it became noticeable.

The deck crunched and creaked in protest as something heavy landed in the middle of it, the elf turning around to face the source, only to meet with the Scholar's Thimeyran form, kneeling before he straightened. Snarling, the raider swung his sword out almost immediately as it was drawn from its sheath, a loud crack sounding out as it met with the Scholar's own blade. The Elderfang parried the blow as Septimus thrust his hand forward, tearing through the raider's chest and out his back. The ice-blade that wrapped around the Scholarly Elf's hand was stained crimson as he pulled it back, tossing the raider at one of his subordinates. The body ended up plunging onto the subordinate's sword, The Scholar using the opportunity to drive his own weapon through a third raider, throwing the corpse at the remaining one with such force that he, along with the body stuck on his sword, were blown off the deck. A strangled cry came as he was sent through the railing and into the sand below, seriously injured by the blow. "Raiders aboard the Bearer of Musk! Lay down your arms and surrender! Your fleet will fall. Your leaders will be imprisoned and will answer for their crimes. If you surrender now, your fate will be no worse than the fair and just courts of Thimeyra, Daaven, Valenhad and the Abirus-Sahari. If you do not, then you have only yourselves to blame for what is to come."

The warning was answered with a burning arrow, fired at the Scholar from the captain's cabin. It clattered pointlessly as it hit the ice barrier that expanded on the Hueilin's hand, Septimus sighing as he shook his head. Forgive me, Syria. These fools simply never listen to the warnings.

[C S]

One crippled ship. Four immobile.

The dahasani aboard the ones that still had their masts scrambled to get their sails into the breeze and to retract their anchors. Until their canvases caught the wind and they broke the sand their ships had settled in, they were sitting targets for a highly mobile enemy. The orders of their captains were ferried along the chain of command, each captain out to save their own skin and the skins of the crew. Septimus' call for surrender hadn't even reached their ears.

Jhotan put her heart into the spinning of the wheel. Elisia, in the machine room at the front of the ship, made sure the internals of the sledder withstood the strain as the sleds bore the brunt of the turn. It was always tense, feeling that vibration in the paneling, hearing the lock and groan of the metal components. "Keep it together," Elisia muttered with her fists clenched. Be brave like Baaz. "Take the punishment and keep on going! We've built you tough!"

The Dreamchaser brought its bow around several of its own lengths away from the arrangement of ivory raiders. Dole took the time to hustle over to the rack of bolts and put another down the feed of the ballista, having rearmed it. "Another pass. You can do this. You won't get an arrow in here," he muttered to himself.


Trist and Cassidy set their tricorns on their heads. Their bows were in hand, quivers on their back full of bolts. Roundha was the one on call to take Jhotan's orders. Every time they stood at that threshold before the hatch, they stood in silence. They all had a basic understanding of what could have happened, the inherent risk of their duty. No one wanted to believe that the next time they poked their head up could be the last they did anything in this world. No one wanted to have their last words lamenting it.

Lenses down. Scarves over the mouth and nose. A nod to each other. We've got our differences, but in combat, we're extensions of one another or we die. No exceptions.

Jhotan barked her order. Roundha barked it to the two women. "Topside, now!"

Trist was the first one up, pushing the hatch up and then exiting bow-first. Her sling-bow was primed and loaded and in the process of lowering into firing position, she singled out her mark. Far away though the raider was, and the shot complicated by railings and the Dreamchaser's speed and heading, Trist set her ambition on landing a killing blow. She fired off her bolt and ducked down to cycle the lever, letting Cassidy take point and fire off her shot. Neither one could make sure they got the kill, only ensure that each shot was placed with a ranger's precision for every target. On a probability's scale, when Trist was done with her ten shots and Cassidy was done with hers, they wouldn't have much overlap in enemies.

That was the way things would work out ideally, and the alternating attack meant a high rate of fire that was difficult to face directly.

Can't make sure every body dropped with all the dust in the air. On the bright side, it made the raiders' attempts to kill them that much harder. They didn't have eye protection to take that stress off of aiming.

However, they had arrows that they lit on fire. The flaming shots came haphazardly, a volley of a select few at a time. If the archers were not dealt with soon enough, those poor volleys would soon become a gauntlet that the Daavenian sledder would ultimately succumb to. The burning arrows streaked over the deck of the ship. Trist and Cassidy popped up through the hatch a few more times as the Dreamchaser made its pass, following the black smoke to the archers on the enemy ship and sending off their retort with each outing.

The speedy sledder had its stern to them moments later. Jhotan was preparing for another turn. Dole was lining up his next shot, and when he saw the orange glints, he knew immediately that he had to take cover. He threw himself back into the protection of the ship's innards and heard the thwack and twang as cloth-tied arrows lodged themselves in the hull.

"Spoke too damn soon, Dole!" the ranger spat as he rolled onto his knees and scrambled over to the arrows, stomping down on them and kicking them out of the back as Jhotan started spinning the wheel again. "Next time. Next time. Keeping the ship not on fire is more important."

Those new cuts and burns in the hull were going to be one hell of a memento in the future.

[The Kingpin]

Stepping into the captain's cabin, Septimus saw the polished wood panelling was covered in the scars of blades that had missed their mark, blood stains and papers scattered all across the floor. Windows made up the front and back of the cabin, giving the captain a clear view of what was going on on deck and what transpired behind the ship. They were small, wide and rectangular, made up of many smaller panes, most likely to reduce the heat. Decorative paintings, skins and tapestries on the walls were tattered as though the raiders had intentionally damaged them. In front of the captain's desk stood one of the raiders, a scraggly, grimy looking man clad in dirtied robes and armed with a crossbow, hurriedly loading another blazing bolt into the weapon. The Scholar's eyes narrowed. A moment later, The glass at the back of the captain's cabin was blown out as a cry of pain rang out, Septimus's shield having been turned into a projectile that knocked the archer through the captain's desk and pinned him to the wall. Through the holes of the windowpanes, ice spikes could be seen, dripping blood; a telling sign of the fate of the archer.

Descending to the lower deck, Septimus caught sight of the bulk of the boarding party, some at the back standing between him and the captives, while others closer up rushed to eliminate the intruder.

The telekinetic shockwave that shook the length of the ship sent raiders flying in all directions, some slamming into the base of one of the ship's masts, others colliding with crates that subsequently buried them with a horrible crash. His figure crackled with electricity; a harrowing display of power in the wake of the shockwave, the Son of Storms beginning his advance. An ice spike as long as a man's forearm materialised in mid-air, a frosty mist spiralling around the spike as it grew to a terrifying scale, thrice as thick as an arrow. A chilly mist washed off the Scholar's figure, his form beginning to glisten as a wave of frost washed over him until an icy armour had taken hold. "I will not offer mercy again," he stated lowly.

The answer he got was predictable, but no less disappointing. With a violent shout, one of the raiders charged the Scholar from behind with a mace, swinging the bone-spiked weapon with all the force he could muster. Septimus intercepted the attack, swinging the free hand around and letting the ice spike fly, nailing the man to the side of the hull by his forearm, a scream escaping him as the mace dropped from his hand. A volley of arrows flew forward from the other end of the cargo hold, Septimus sending a telekinetic pulse forth that sent the arrows spearing into the raiders between him and the archers, most falling instantly, arrows embedded in their necks, spines and skulls, their comrades' deadly accuracy becoming their undoing.

His eyes shone white as electricity crackled across his form once more, tendrils of light stretching to strike lanterns and the steel rings of barrels alike, the loud crackling quite literally hair raising as a field of static formed around him. The Scholar continued his advance as one of the few raiders still willing to fight cut off his path. Septimus could see him considering his options, clearly deciding engaging a man wrapped in electricity was a bad idea. With a furious shout he spun his blade in hand, several revolutions culminating in the weapon shooting forward like a spear. Steel met elvish wood with a deafening crash, electricity leaping across the weapon as an explosion of sparks sent it flying sideways, plunging into the side of the hull to the hilt. There was a split second of horrified realisation in the raider's eyes before the Scholar's free hand swung sideways. An instant later, the accompanying wave of psychic energy launched the ill-fated elf sideways to the corner of the ship's hold, the force of the motion so immense that it sent him smashing into a barrel with such force his body was all but pulverised, crushed and contorted in horrific ways as he plunged into a hole in the barrel far too small for a man to fit through.

Looking up from the raider's bloody remains to the archers, he saw them drop their weapons, hands raising as they surrendered. "Mercy...please... Please, Qahir... Please spare us," pleaded one of them as he backed away against the wall, no longer obscuring the Scholar's path to the trader and his crew. Flipping his blade in hand, he severed the ropes, freeing the captives tied to the base of the other mast. "Free your companions, and watch those three. The one nailed to the wall back there, too. The Thimeyran courts will want a word with them." As he spoke, the severed ropes floated over to tie the three archers and their formerly mace-wielding comrade; the only survivors of the boarding party. And with the raiders on the trade vessel dealt with, he ascended back to the deck. He had some ships to deal with.

[C S]

Owing to their greater size and, paradoxically, poorer construction, the dahasani vessels were only now pulling off with any notable acceleration, extended sails lurching forwards at the behest of the hot winds. Slower to get moving as they were, the deckhands not dedicated to putting sand behind their constructs of war took up their small arms. Crossbows and slingshots were held over the sides of the five ivory bruisers, and the combined fire -- very literally in terms of flames -- chased after the Dreamchaser.

The agile sledder spun about and turned its smaller cross section into the arcs of the bows and sharp stones. The majority of the onslaught dialed in for the ship's broadside ended up missing entirely as the bow was pointed towards the raiders, but the few that landed as intended were no small threat to be shrugged off. Rocks ricocheted off of the brass rails of the ship with bright sparks and reflected sunlight, chipped wood and cracked the windows on the side of the hull and cabin. Arrows ripped through the green sails, a few chance blows sending the edges of arrowheads past the thick ropes that bound the source of the Dreamchaser's haste. No fires were started yet, but the fibers were severed and frayed. An extended fight meant that the damaged ropes were liable to fail completely.

The two-ranger counterattack continued as the sledder rushed into danger, threading a daring needle between ivory ships and returning the pressure on the archers. Some fell by their Daaven-point bolts. Some faced the threat of wayward shots from their peers on other warships, those that went wild upon deflection off of the runner, or missed the fast sledder entirely and ended up onto an allied vessel and its crew. The smell of smoke, burning, the constricting hatch-space and the choking dust. This was not the glory of combat, or an exercise in skill.

This was desert duty. Only the sun and the Life Bringer were ever victorious out on these dunes.


"Sluggish ********, this is what you get for weighing down your front ends like that!" Dole muttered disdainfully, hunkered down at the ballista. From his limited view at the back of the Dreamchaser, he could have seen the bulky masses sharpened into terrifying rams. Intermingled in the clutter and debris were the skulls of animals and people alike, symbols of horror and promises of malice. Dahasani ships really were like armored monsters that prowled the soft desert.

Sluggish monsters. They lost precious speed in turning to track the Dreamchaser, which was already leaving them behind. Dole had his prime firing position. Defying the arcs of smoke and flame trailing after the ship, he sent off his next shot. A fixture of many bowsprits exploded into shrapnel that undoubtedly cut down a great number of that ship's crew. The deformed metal hooked the mast next, and toppled it like a tree, dragging down the sails and all onto what would have been the quarterdeck, a cacophony of destruction.

[The Kingpin]

The rumbling roar of the Scholar tore out once more as the Hueilin ascended from the merchant vessel. Clouds of dust churned up around the sledship, temporarily blinding everyone to the goings on at the hostage ship, until the vast shadow ascended over it, the Son of Storms already picking up speed, choosing the first of the three remaining targets as he took in a breath. Crippling shots. No killing unless forced.

[C S]

Two crippled ships. Three lumbering war-behemoths.

Over the gravelly sound of sleds coursing through the sand, Cassidy and Trist heard the shouting from their enemies around their sledder. Below deck, they had a moment of reprieve to exchange words.

"You think there will be a time when they see our ship and piss their pants like that?" Trist asked, pumping the lever to drop another bolt into her sling-bow's feed. While she opened the box to fill it up with another ten shots, Cassidy scoffed.

"Our sails are green. We could string this lot up by their guts and paint the sands all the way back to Dhul'Valen red with their blood, or dangle them from our masts, or even hang them from out bowsprit like barbarians. None of that will have the same effect as a dragon's roar or shadow in the sky."

Trist replied with a flat "Mm". She then held her weapon at the ready, gesturing with her chin to the hatch. Stray shots whizzed by overhead. "A pity," she replied, and then stuck herself through the door to continue the fighting. Cassidy continued their cycling of bolts.


The dahasani ships laboriously disengaged with the Dreamchaser. One by one they brought their broadsides to bear at the dragon that, with the beat of his wings, could be on the opposite side of them entirely. They did not fire upon Septimus. They knew they had no chance of getting past his scales, not even the underbelly.

This was a mad play for a retreat.

[The Kingpin]

A retreat that they knew was impossible. It was only moments after the first vessel disengaged that a fireball as bright as the sun flew forward, the roar of hurtling flames almost as spine-chilling as the snarl that accompanied it. It was only a couple of seconds after it was unleashed that a deafening explosion rang out over the dunes. The fireball blew a hole in one side of the ivory sledder that caused the entire hull to fracture and break apart, metal plates, wooden planks and rope alike rended instantly by the strike, the vessel coming to a violent and abrupt halt. The force of momentum was not one to adhere to the disappearance of one's footing, and the sledship's crew was launched from the deck with a cacophony of horrified screams, airborne for several moments before striking the soft, scorching sand, left tumbling to a standstill tens of feet away from their broken vessel. A second fireball blew the mast of another to splinters almost instantly, the tattered sheets and leather that made up the sails burning to ash as the dragon shot past overhead with a menacing snarl, quickly cutting off the escape for the final ship. They couldn't have known he had no intention of killing them. But that only made them less willing to fight, for fear that to incite the dragon's ire was to invite a particularly agonising death on their heads.

[C S]

The final ship swerved in the sand before coming to a weighty, listing stop roughly underneath the dragon. It was preferable to surrender before the crew and captain were subject to braving the sun brought to Leyuna. The Dreamchaser arrived no later, triangular green sails circling about the vessel and kicking up harsh sand that washed over the decks. It disoriented the dahasani elves and left them coughing. The crew was left stricken no sooner than the mast's collapse, after Dole took the opportunity to smash the timbers with one last shot from the Dunefox's weapon.

"I think a mister Vern will appreciate this."