[Tancred]

The door of the bar slams open, and in lurches a very tired, wounded, cold-looking Cavalier; but, unusually for Tancred, he has a fixed grin on his face, and his eyes are wide.
"I... I..."
This is all he manages before he topples to the ground, dropping the sword hw used as a prop in the process. As some of the bar's folks help pick him up, they notice - with some surprise - the sword glows golden, and lights up the bar as it did once of old.
Slowly, the Cavalier slides into sleep. But as he goes, helped to a seat by others, he remembers...

***

The cave was empty. Anyone could see that. There certainly wasn't a dragon in it. The party were getting nervous.
"It isn't here." Falco was a good shot and brave for a halfling, but he had a distressing tendency to state the obvious. The others put it down to basic inexperience.
Siona led the way, her Cleric's Staff bright in the darkness, a frown on her face. Behind her, Tancred and Bran, the young squire and heavy-set dwarf, looked warily from side-to-side, expecting trouble at any minute. Behind them, Gariad the necromancer and Falco tried to look 360 degrees around them. Malvolio, the cocky assassin, kept an eagle eye on their route of retreat.
"So where is it, then?" Karnas the sword was irrepressable as ever. "HELLOOOOOOOOOOO?"
"SHH!" The party didn't often act as a team as well as Siona might want them to, but on this one occasion they shhed with one mind. She smiled, shaking her head slowly at the world in general.

"I don't like this." Bran was getting more and more nervous by the minute. "It's a trap, I can smell it."
The party had walked now for fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes perhaps; deeper and deeper into the cave. Siona's scrying came up with nothing. Gariad's divinations were blank. It was quiet... far too quiet for a dragon's cave.
"What need has a Dragon of a trap?" wondered Falco aloud. "Surely all it has to do is just come out and go raaagh as breathe fire at us and stuff."
Tancred turned to the bemused halfling. "Dragons aren't your usual beast, halfling. They think. Damn clever, they are. We learn sagas about dragons at the Order."
Malvolio snorted his disdain for education from the rear of the party.
"Hold on... I can see something! Glowing in the distance!"
Bran squinted his eyes, trying to make out what he saw. The rest of the party readied weapons, said prayers, and prepared themselves.
"What kind of glow is it?" Siona tried to make out what the canny Dwarf could see. "Dragonfire?"
"No... not fire... it's... GOLD! Jeepers, lads, we've found the Dragon's hoard!"
Bran made to run ahead, but Siona caught him by the arm.
"Hold! We are not here to pillage this place!"
"To the Abyss with that," drawled Malvolio. "Hell, the Dragon's not here, the hoard has got to be far more than the Witches have promised us!"
Gariad and Bran echoed their agreement with greedy cheers, and began to run for the hoard. Siona yelled at them to stop, but greed had overtaken the three malcontents; cursing, she ran after them, Tancred and Falco behind her.
Gariad would never see the gold he craved so much.
With a deafening explosion, part of the cave wall was smashed aside as the party ran by; rocks and stalactites were sent flying in all directions, and rock dust billowed out. Gariad's screams were almost drowned out as the rockfall covered him, burying the wizard and crushing the life out of him in one horrifying instant.
As the dust cleared, a new sound echoed through the cave; the roar of a Dragon...

Falco was the first to react; amazingly, the newest and least experienced member of the party was already firing arrows even as the others forced themselves out of their shock. The dragon, vast and threatening, loomed out of the darkness like a demon of old legend, flame licking around its' jaws. It's voice was like thunder.
"PERISH, PATHETIC THIEVES!"
Perhaps it couldn't see them in the dust; but it knew where to aim. Even as Tancred, Malvolio and Bran ran forward and Siona began chanting a spell, the dragon breathed forward a gout of flame in the direction the arrows were coming from. Falco didn't even have time to scream before he became nothing more than a pile of charred bones.
Tancred felt a moment of panic and fear - two members of the party down, and the Dragon wasn't even scratched. But as the vast creature advanced, all of them were swept up in the moment; it was too late to run now.
Siona finished her spell with a flourish, and at her command a great tree began to sprout and grow in the rocky floor of the cave, underneath the dragon. It forced roots down into the Earth seeking moisture, and spiralled upwards looking for light, driven by the holiness of Chauntea. The dragon was caught in it as its' limbs and body were caught in the suddenly enveloping branches, branches that stretched and whipped around it like willow. The dragon struggled, but to no avail.
The fighters reached the creature. Bran was already bezerk, Tancred noticed; his eyes were glazed, there was froth in his mouth and he yelled battlecries to the Dwarf gods as he swung his axe at the Dragon's vulnerable belly. Malvolio worked at the creature's legs, trying to use his twin swords to hobble the beast. Tancred swung Karnas, yelling his family's battlecry, carving deep but small wounds into the Dragon's flank. Siona began chanting again.
Panic began to fill the Dragon. what had started as an ambush had turned horribly - bu it was not a creature without resource. If the strength of its' limbs did not prevail, it knew what would.
Fire engulfed the dragon's form, spreading across its' body from its' vast mouth, burning away the wood and blasting the adventurers backwards, singed and sore. As the tree caught fire, the dragon pulled against it, snapping branches and freeing itself from the prison of wood easily. Of the adventurers, Bran was first on his feet; he seemed not to notice the burns he had taken and was already running forward, axe whirling in a circle of sharp steel. He leapt high towards the dragon's bulk, but underestimated its' speed; the dragon's long head snaked down and caught the Dwarf in mid-air, a single bite cleaving the doomed Bran. The Dwarf's battlecries were cut off abruptly as the Dragon swallowed.
Tancred got to his feet, groggy and hurting. He shook his head to clear it, and as he did so caught sight of a black-clad figure running for the cave exit; Malvolio. Tancred yelled after him, but the assassin did not stop. The cavalier cursed. Damn that coward! If I ever see him again...
"HEY! Holy-boy! The dragon..."
Karnas' yell brought Tancred back to reality. The dragon was on the move, already advancing upon Siona, whose chanting was becoming more and more urgent. Tancred ran forward, screaming atr the top of his lungs, hoping that perhaps he could distract the dragon enough to allow Siona to cast her spell...
The dragon paid Tancred no heed, but Siona was swifter. With a cry of exhultation, her spell was complete, and a huge wave of bees appeared from her outstretched hands, whirling towards the dragon's head. Their buzzing filled the cave, and they began stinging anywhere they could; the dragon's scales were no defence against these tiny pinpricks. But pinpricks they were, and a distraction only; Siona began chanting again, the words of power coming to her mind easily.
Tancred chopped down at the Dragon's shins, giving thanks to his great-grandmother as the enchanted sword cleaved through the dragon's scales like so much paper. Distracted, confused and in pain, the Dragon roared as it thrashed about, clawing at the air and wildly flailing with limbs the size of carriages. Tancred was caught by a buffet from one of its' legs as he swung for another blow, his shield splintering as it absorbed the blow - but he was sent across the cave floor, hitting the rock-pile with a jarring thud and clattering to the floor. He yelled in pain as several large rocks, dislodged by his passage, crashed onto his left leg. He pulled, but the rocks would not give.
The sword, where was his sword? Tancred reached for Karnas, lying a few feet out of his reach, but only clutched air. He snarled in frustration.
"Karnas! Help me!"
"Who do you think you are? Mordenkainen? I'm no dancing sword, holy-boy."
Tancred began a retort, but the sight before him drained him of bravery.
The dragon began breathing fire in its' panic, across the cavern, hoping to burn the insects that swarmed around it. Hundreds of the bees were caught in the maelstrom, charring and withering in the fierce heat. A blast struck Siona; only a glancing flicker of flame, but it was enough to send her reeling to the floor, her concentration broken and her skin burned.
Tancred yelled, and pushed at the rocks holding him fast, but they would not budge. He turned back, only to see the horrifying tableau of the dragon moving to stand towering over the elven cleric. As she looked up and saw the Dragon's mouth, wide open and studded with sword-like teeth, she screamed; a scream that echoed Tancred's own as the woman he had loved for so long was about to disappear down the throat of a dragon. He shut his eyes, and said a frantic, desperate appeal to Helm in his head, tears already streaming from his eyes...

[This message has been edited by Tancred (edited 08-24-2001).]