isleofavalon | Dragon o'clock (Closed)

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Dragon o'clock (Closed)

🧙 WHO: Kadoc, Ritsuka, Beowulf
⚔️️ WHAT: Huntin' that dank dragon, on a quest for friendship, honor, and sweet, sweet reptile meat
🕒 WHEN: Dragon-slayin' time
🗺️ WHERE: Lotus Pod Mountain
⚠️ WARNINGS: Potential violence and language, depending on if they encounter any monsters or the dragon. You know, real metal stuff.

It was the dragon again, this time there was no city to save. No race against time beyond getting to the beast before it fully healed. Which probably would take a bit of time. No place for it to fly away to either. Fortune should favor everyone going to kill it this time, how wonderful.

“You two ready?”

He gave the two mages accompanying him a grin, quite clearly feeling his blood turning hot with anticipation over the chance to fight again. And not just fight, but actually fight. To let everything go against something worth fighting against. A giant, fire-breathing hell beast that had already torched one city and its inhabitants. He didn’t doubt that it would do it again either once it was fit to do so. A dragon needs a horde to guard after all, and food to eat, and things to be angry with. His own thoughts return to Wiglaf, to the beast that torched his own people. To the greed and lust for destruction, and hatred. Of his retainers fleeing for their lives and only Wiglaf by his side. His smile turned a bit more soft for them, even for Kadoc.

Beowulf adjusted the pack on his shoulders, Hrunting sheathed at his side, and large shield hanging off his backpack. They were probably going to be at this for a bit of time, may as well make sure they were fully prepared before entering the mountain. Best to make sure everyone was onboard before they head out into the unknown.

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It's the dragon again! . . . Kadoc had been occupied with the Stone Giant that night, and hadn't even seen the dragon before it'd made its escape. And, truthfully, he has no particular investment in being part of the effort to hunt it down himself. Kadoc is a man who knows his own strengths and weaknesses, and "hunting a dragon" is . . .

Actually, it had been among his strengths back home. He'd never taken down an actual dragon, but one of his magecraft specialties, and one of the few things he'd actually been good at, was anti-Demonic Beast magecraft, along with tracking and hunting in general. But here in Camelot, he doesn't have access to that magecraft, and what he does have here is entirely useless for this expedition. By now he's come to terms with having little to offer offensively and no way to push his body beyond its human limits as he once did. . . . Still. Experience isn't nothing, and not every single thing he'd done to hone this skill of his relied on magecraft. Just, you know, most of it.

The dragon should probably die. Kadoc does believe that, even if he feels no urgent sense that he needs to help make it happen. It seems like a given that someone will do the dirty deed before too long; enough people have been grieving. But he'd planned on letting it be someone else's problem, someone actually qualified, until Beowulf and Fujimaru had invited him along on this venture—and he'd still strongly considered saying no, but in the end, here he is. The thing is, it's Beowulf. It only feels correct that this whole thing should end with The Beowulf seeking the dragon out and bringing it down. And . . . being involved in that is secretly pretty cool. Maybe even awesome. There are situations, maybe even most situations, where Kadoc would just feel like a drag going along with someone else who was actually prepared to slay a fucking dragon on their own, but Beowulf? You can't even be mad. You can't put yourself on a level with Beowulf, or feel jealous of him, especially in matters of slaying dragons. And so coming along for the ride—and for navigational help, odd jobs, making sure Fujimaru doesn't do anything stupid, anything else he might be useful for—is an opportunity even Kadoc can't turn down.

He's got a pack of his own, well stocked, and some tricks up his sleeve, all of which he hopes he doesn't need to use. But he's been starting to hoard emergency spells for situations just like this, so if nothing else, he's got some unexpected trumps to throw down if it comes to that. He adjusts his own pack too, not consciously trying to imitate Beowulf, but it kinda happens anyway, because Beowulf is fucking cool.

"Yeah. As ready as I'll ever be. I can light the way, but we should still get started before night starts to fall."

"Readyyyyyyy."

Ritsuka stifles a yawn behind one hand, good-natured. She certainly has no real illusions about how useful she'll actually be, either; in her opinion, her best skill in an actual battle is her ability to get out of the way. (Most of the time. She's got the scars to prove that "mostly" isn't "always.") But she's also incapable of turning a Servant down when they want to have an adventure, so here she is. Kadoc was a surprise, but only a small one--the bigger one is that he agreed to come along in the first place.

And probably as a surprise to no one, she hasn't thought too hard about what she actually wants to have happen to the dragon. Obviously, if it turns out to be a continuous hostile threat, it should be dealt with, but... there's a small part of her that kind of hopes it doesn't have to come down to a fight to the death.

On the other hand, if it does, she has faith in Beowulf.

She's packed more for a hike and camping than any kind of real battle. There's a knife in her boot, and a better one at her hip, but for the most part, she's unarmed. Even if she has no real illusions of being super helpful in a physical fight, she doesn't want to be complete deadweight. This is better than nothing.

"I also vote in advance no fighting the dragon if it's dark out. Just saying."

Yosh~!

"Right then, lets get going. It'll be a bit before we reach the place. Be best for you two to rest frequently. I hope you've brought enough provisions for a few day's journey." And himself, he sometimes forgets that he wasn't a servant anymore. It was quite the change! But also a lucrative opportunity to find a decent battle or several. Like now, for instance. He was confident in both Kadoc's, and his Master's, abilities to hold their own. Should things come to it, or when they do.

To match it, he kept up an air of confidence about him, keeping his head up and smile on his lips. He both trusted them, and believed in them. Come what may.

And when things get down to it, he would absolutely lay down his life for them.

"It's always a good idea to not fight anything in the dark if you can avoid it." Another thought goes to Grendel's mother, and the creatures of the deep. He'll go ahead and start heading out. To the ~~Misty Mountains cold~~ Lotus Pod Mountain they go!

"You can save your worrying about me for when we actually need to fight anything. Just surviving on journeys through the wilderness is something I'm actually good at."

He has those things! Amazing. He'll even occasionally admit to them. When it comes to hiking and survivalism, back home, it's not like he hadn't used any magecraft to help himself out—but it hadn't been the greater part of how he'd managed. He'd also done his homework in more traditional senses. So Kadoc's packed well, including some extra for Fujimaru, because he has this sneaking, uncharitable suspicion that she just grabbed a dozen bags of Cheetos or something for the trip. Mean? He knows it is. Unlikely? . . . He hopes so, but he's not convinced. In fact, he shoots her a Look now. How prepared is she, anyway?

Beowulf he trusts, in this sense, though it's true that he keeps saying things like "best for you two to rest frequently." Now Kadoc's eyeing both of them as they set off out into the wilds.

" . . . Please tell me you didn't forget you're not a Servant anymore, though."

"They all kind of forget."

Ritsuka mutters that sotto voce to Kadoc, even as she holds up both hands in double V-signs. She's set. Better than set, in her opinion, even if she's not the survivalist that Kadoc is, or the warrior Beowulf is. She's good!

(She only grabbed one bag of Cheetos, thanks.)

Louder, though, she says, "You're gonna be the muscle, Beowulf, so you need to be careful, too. You know me, I'm always best as support."

And sometimes, support means being a nagging mother hen. She's okay with that. As much as she might still be kind of in the doghouse with Beowulf after her recent camping adventures, she's also willing to be as much of a nuisance as possible to make sure he's also taking care of himself.

"It's a bit hard to remember when you still feel like you're a servant."

You know, minus the whole needing to eat, sleep and take care of business bit. It was quite an experience being alive again! Not only alive, but also being back in his prime! Truth be told, Beowulf is still just as strong and powerful as he was as a servant. The same guy that beat the crap out of giants, demons, and other wicked big baddies of the evil, nasty, awful variety. Most of the time with his bare hands. All back before he'd been a servant.

"Yeah, yeah. I know my limits when not a servant." For the most part! Either way he'll never hold Ritsuka as a nuisance. Quite the opposite. It was nice to have someone remind you of your limits at times. Though in this case he might just have to go above and beyond. Just a little bit.

"So I'm counting on you Master-- on both of you."

A smirk and a little headpat for the both of them. Yes Kadoc, you get a headpat too!

"H . . . hey. C'mon."

That's Kadoc's only weak protest to that. Come on! But he can't get too ruffled at getting ruffled. He used to get that kind of thing from Pepe—though Beowulf is no Pepe, and what a thought that is—and figured out back then that there were certain people he just sort of let get away with it if they wanted to do it. Beowulf is surely one of those, for very different reasons. It's Beowulf. He got a headpat from Beowulf . . . !

He will keep that nerding to himself, but his ears do go pink as he trudges on, and not because he's exerted himself that much yet.

"Nnhh. Anyway . . . if you're counting on me to complain, I'm as good at that as I am at wilderness survival, so you're in luck. Totally unrelated, but am I right to assume your plan here is mostly just to kill it barehanded?"

Ritsuka accepts her headpats with good nature. This is pretty familiar, at this point; everyone in Chaldea has had their own ways of showing casual affection, and the headpat is the one that's one of the most common.

Kadoc raises a good point, though. Ritsuka's casually familiar with Beowulf's legend by now, but she knows the stories the way he's told them, and the higher-level summaries that Mash and other staff members have given her. And at this point, she knows better than to think that the story that everyone knows is necessarily the story that she's been told.

...She does know about the whole "fighting with his bare hands" thing, though.

"How big is this dragon? I wasn't there when it went wild."

She'd only been there in the aftermath, helping with cleanup and first aid; despite all the rallying for soldiers, she'd deliberately chosen to aid, instead. Beowulf and the others might appreciate her presence, but that means that for her part, she doesn't want to be in the middle of a melee fight if she can avoid it.

But the question stands. If the dragon is too big for him to get his arms around its neck, that probably means they need to think of some other strategy, right...?

"Oh, not entirely bare handed. I possibly could, given that I'm in my prime now.. and was able to do so somewhat in advanced age." He gives Kadoc a feral smile. Beowulf is still Beowulf and is stupidly strong naturally. "But don't worry, that's what Hrunting and the shield are for. In order to kill a dragon you must go for the heart. There is no other way... except maybe with modern weapons I should imagine."

Where was Billy when you needed him? "The scales are far to thick, but the ones underneath are possible to pierce and cut. And if things get a bit dicey then I've more than a few tricks up my sleeves."

He'll get started marching away towards their intended target now. No time like the present to get moving now that he was certain this was something they wanted to do. "As for the size..."

He gives a shrug here. "...dragon size, larger than most of those you've faced so far, master. But about the same size as the one I faced as an old man. I know you've seen what it did to the city, and those unable to escape its fire."

As much as he wants to be positive about their chances, this is still a dragon. Still a very powerful beast they're going up against.

That's probably not a very good description though. So the Berserker thinks, and thinks...! It's lucky that his madness enhancement doesn't affect his sanity or reason too much. "Hm... it could easily tower over one of those small buildings we passed... maybe crane it's head up high enough to peak over Camelot's walls."

So yeah, big.

"Should be easy to find. Just remember, they tend to be poisonous and spread pestilence wherever they go. I don't know about this one, but stay on the safe side, and don't get bit."

He wasn't sure if healing magic would help with poison or not. Though apparently it works for disease.

Edited 2021-11-17 06:02 (UTC)

"A dragon that big bites me, poison is probably gonna be the least of my troubles."

Though he, too, realizes he's not sure if healing magic works on poison, while it definitely does work on getting mauled, at least if you're good and fast about it. Point taken. Either way, they'd better just avoid it.

"I never saw it myself either. I was dealing with the stone giant that night. . . . Or not dealing with it, I guess."

They sure hadn't dealt with it at all, had they? Kadoc trudges along with his eyes on the ground, as if it's very interesting and not just scrub and dirt for now.

It's a complicated thing for him. He's not among those in Avalon who thinks the failure was on their heads, or even on Arthur's, or anyone else's really. It had seemed to be a matter of people making the correct decisions all around and simply not having the numbers to pull off the miracle that would have been managing to deal with every part of that shitstorm at once. Sure, they can be better prepared next time, and discuss tactics until the cows come home, but losses happen when you're greatly outmatched on two fronts at once.

. . . At the same time, he can't shake the memory of how he'd felt that night chasing down the giant: confident, for once, assured of himself and their group victory. For someone like Kadoc, who never expects to win, having a victory you could almost see snatched away from you so viciously lingers. It'll be a while before he lets himself feel that rush again.

He's getting lost in these thoughts, letting out a sigh that isn't meant for anyone but himself—but it's quiet out here. It's not all that subtle.

"Bigger, huh... of course."

Do they really need to get bigger?! She doesn't actually ask that aloud, but it's potentially obvious in the way she sighs, deep and long-suffering. Just thinking about how a regular ("regular," hah) dragon could make the ground shake just by stomping a few times is enough to make her wince. Ugh. She doesn't even want to think too deeply about how hard it's going to be to just keep her balance when they find the thing.

Ah, well. She idly stomps her feet a couple of times as they walk, as if to assure herself of the steadiness of the ground before she lifts her arms, folding them behind her head. If she ends up elbowing Kadoc a little in the side as she does it, she has some plausible deniability.

"Well, either we're gonna have better luck because there's less of us to work around, or we're going to get our asses kicked sooner than later. We'll find out."

There's no real concern in her, though. Maybe she should be more worried--Beowulf might have a legend as a dragon-killer even as a mortal man, but they've only got him as the heavy hitter.

At the same time, they've dealt with worse odds in Chaldea. Even if they don't win, they'll survive, and she'll take that as a reasonable victory condition.

"Not everything will go according to as you want it. Sometimes it can go horribly wrong. What's important is that you're still breathing and going to stand to go after it again. My own strength wouldn't mean much if I had not the will to stand against odds stacked against me."

Stand up no matter what and all that. So long as they can keep fighting then they haven't lost a single thing. His master stomping around got him to chuckle and smile. That sort of energy was super infectious! They're always going to get bigger though, Ritsuka! Demon pillars, giant-ass trees that are totally not demon pillars....

He also shared her general lack of concern for whatever was ahead for them. Even less so given they already knew what their general goal was supposed to be. Get to the mountain, find the dragon, beat the crap out of it, go home.

Easy.

"Could always try to lure it out of its hole. But we could always find a way to use the tight corridors to our advantage."

Sheesh. Kadoc grimaces in Ritsuka's direction when her elbow catches him, but he's not even sure she notices, and he's not going to do anything any more obtrusive than that—even if he totally doesn't think it was an accident.

It's, well, not impossible to be gloomy around these two, but he's at least self-conscious about it, aware that he's fallen into the Debbie Downer role here. It makes sense. If he were with a group who all had the same outlook he did on all this, they wouldn't even be here at all; they'd probably have given up before even leaving Camelot and turned around to be very quiet in the corner of a bar somewhere. Possibly not even together. This is why Kadoc needs people who aren't anything like himself, and he knows it.

So what is there to do besides go along? Besides, it's not like he doesn't respect what Beowulf has to say on this. It's good to think strategy as early as possible, before they get there and have to figure out how to adjust it when something unexpected comes up.

Something unexpected always comes up.

"Yeah. No, I think that's our best shot at this. If it's hiding away somewhere cramped, it's not gonna have as much mobility as we will in the same space. It's also probably smart enough not to be lured out when it's already weakened . . . it's gotta know people are coming for it. I'm concerned about that."

"...Yeah."

Ritsuka's not concerned, exactly--not in the same way. She'd agreed to go along with this hunting quest because she's not such a bleeding heart that she doesn't understand the necessity of things. She recognizes that the dragon is a threat, and one that needs to be dealt with, and she doesn't think that it's really in the mood for negotiation.

But just because she knows and understands doesn't mean she doesn't also regret the necessity. The dragon surely does know they're coming, and is prepared... and it kind of (really) sucks that it's gotten to this point at all.

"I doubt it's going to be asking any questions, or waiting on us to make the first move. If it sees people coming, I'm sure it's going to just go for it. Us. Whoever gets there first."

"Suit yourselves."

It wouldn't make all that much difference, the dragon would still be dangerous in any case. "It will know that everyone is coming, and is very unlikely to take the time to think about anyone, or anything, entering its cavern. Cornered and injured it's likely to be far more dangerous now than before."

He didn't think much about it himself. And didn't really see any point to trying to talk to the thing to begin with. A dragon is still a dragon and will do what dragons do best. Destroy, pillage, kill, spread poison and disease, that sort of thing. Well, what was done was done, and all that was left for them was to deal with the fallout.

All that said!

The prospect of a fight, an actual fight simply egged him on further. They had to find the thing first.

Edited 2021-11-25 17:59 (UTC)

Kadoc feels blasphemous even looking at The Beowulf and wondering if this is really going to end up all right, as dangerous as the dragon's sure to be right now; they're all right that it's unlikely to want to do anything except lash out immediately. There'll be some extra peril involved in its desperation here, assuming they even find it. But he can't bring himself to say anything out loud. He just gives Beowulf a long, searching look as they walk, thinking about it: is this going to be a reenactment of the king's final battle?

He can't let that happen, even though he's just one relatively weak and ordinary guy in comparison. He needs to be on his guard, and to be on top of the tricks he's got up his sleeve.

Kadoc's quiet for long enough that he may as well not be continuing the conversation at all when he responds:

" . . . What can we do to back you up? I don't mean that in a self-deprecating way, I mean it as a real question. We should work out what Fujimaru and I are gonna do to give you an advantage when neither of us can fight."

Should she suggest it? Probably she shouldn't--she knows that Beowulf wouldn't be impressed for sure, and possibly not Kadoc, either. It's not an offer that would surprise Beowulf, at least, though he'd probably pull the I'm Not Mad, Just Disappointed (Just Kidding, I'm Mad) reaction. Kadoc, she's less sure about.

Ritsuka kicks at a small rock, watching it skitter and skip a short distance on the bath, then tilts her body so she can look at both of them sidelong. She also takes a few tiny baby steps to the side, putting a bit of extra distance between herself and the potential reaction. Maybe she's overthinking it, and maybe it won't be that big a deal, but just in case...

"I could be bait? I'm good at running and dodging things that are bigger than me. I've practically made a career of it."

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Dragon o'clock (Closed)

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