Kitiara Uth Matar (dark_lady) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-07-15 16:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, kitiara uth matar, raistlin majere, tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who: Kitiara, Raistlin, and Tasslehoff
What: Fighting some draconians
When: During the Breach plot, early July
Where: Near Tas and Raistlin's apartment
Rating/Warning: Other than fighting, none
Status: Complete
When the sky opened up above Anaheim, many people decried the end of the world. Tas, on the other hand, had cried “ADVENTURE!” and promptly had dragged Kitiara and Raistlin with him to help save the world.
Kitiara, of course, didn’t give a rats ass about the world. Someone else would no doubt deal with the hole in the sky. But, well, was a little itchy for some action. Things were still slow as far as the Blue Dragon Motorcycle Club was concerned. She had found a few recruits and was working on building it, but it was still too small to do any real business.
Tas had led them both to one of the small green freak tornadoes that were opening up all over the county. When he’d been there earlier, there hadn’t been much there. But now the area surrounding the rift was surrounded by men. Men with large muzzles, bronze, reptilian skin, swords and armour.
Kitiara recoiled. “What the hell are those things?”
Raistlin also had no interest in saving the world, however, what was happening to the world interested him greatly. He doubted very much that this was The End. There was no way that anyone alive today was interesting enough to witness the Apocalypse. Besides, this wasn’t the first odd event Raistlin had witnessed since moving to this place. The strangest occurance yet had to have been the freak weather they had two months in a row with literal monsters roaming about. Yes. This had to be from someone’s Dream. The who wasn’t nearly as interesting as the why. Why was this happening, what was causing it. It had to have been magic of some kind and that was what fascinated Raistlin to the point that he didn’t protest too much when Tas dragged him out of the apartment.
He went along with Tas and Kitiara to where Tas had found one of these so-called rifts. The sight of the lizard-men caught him by surprise. “Draconians,” he answered his sister’s question. “They’re from Krynn. The question is...why are they here?”
“I can ask!” Tas chirped, and started walking toward the draconians. He was stopped in his tracks when Kitiara caught hold of his topknot and pulled him back next to them.
“From Krynn?” Kitiara asked, puzzled. Sure, she was still fairly young in her dreams, but she would have thought that she’d have at least heard of strange lizardmen before. “I’ve never heard of such things.”
“Oh, neither had anyone else until the war! They’re new!” Tas said cheerfully. “Maybe they’re Dreamers too!” Tas didn’t think he’d ever seen them on the Network, but then again, who said all Dreamers were on the Network?
Raistlin was about to reach out and grasp Tas by the back of his shirt to keep him from running off and getting killed, but drew his hand back when Kitiara grasped the other man by his hair. He winced slightly. Having actually had Tas’s topknot for a few days had given Raistlin a better understanding of what it was like to have it yanked.
He sighed patiently at Tas’s irritatingly cheerful voice. He had long since accepted that there was very little that got under the Kender man’s skin and while he did prefer a happy smiling Tas over a sniveling crying Tas, just once Raistlin wished that his roommate would take situations like these a little more seriously.
“They aren’t on our side, either,” Raistlin added. He was under no illusion that Kitiara was on the side of Good, rather the three of them - Tas included in his own way - were of a side all their own. And if these Draconians were anything like the ones in the Dreams, if they didn’t serve the Dark Queen, then they were enemies.
“I doubt they’re from the Network, Tas,” Raistlin went on, lowering his hand from his face. Even as he spoke he was making the mental preparations for his combat spells. How easily they came to him now, practically second nature.
“That’s too bad. I would have liked to ask how they typed with those claws of theirs. But I guess you’re probably right. After all, they’re headed over here now.”
Kitiara started, a little surprised. She’d been more interested in what Raistlin was saying than what these creatures had been up to, and she scolded herself for it. She knew better than to let her guard down when there were enemies afoot.
Tasslehoff had already drawn his hoopak staff and was gathering stones that he could load into his slingshot. All Kitiara had on her were her guns. She didn’t actually own a sword, and even if she did, she wasn’t entirely sure if she would know how to wield it. She doubted she was even as good as her dream self, and her dream self was half the age that Kitiara was now.
Oh what the hell? Raistlin really didn’t want to get caught up in fighting anything, much less an army of dragon men. And of course said army was headed in their direction because why wouldn’t they be? Well, if this was the price to pay for actually investigating the anomaly that had created the rift in the first place, then so be it. May as well get it over with.
As the battle began, Raistlin had a fleeting notion that this was a little reminiscent of the battle at Tarsis, minus the inn and the rain. At least they weren’t in danger of said inn collapsing on them, because Raistlin would rather not go through that again, thank you. Also, the idea that he had nearly killed himself defending the damn inn was also not lost on him. He would not be doing that here.
Tas’s draconian dreams were, for the most part, disappointing so far. The first time they’d met Draconians, Tanis and Sturm had stopped him from really getting involved. And when they met them outside of Skullcap, he’d fallen in a lake and missed everything. And then in Tarsis, a house had fallen on him and he missed all the fun again. But this time, there were no bodies of water to fall in, and it didn’t seem likely a building would fall on him, and Tanis and Sturm weren’t around.
“Raistlin, are you sure these are draconians?” Tas asked loudly so that the draconians could hear every word he was saying. “They’re ugly enough to be orcs and they smell bad enough to be gully dwarves. Pyoo!”
Kitiara laughed, and before the lead draconian could do more than let out more than a loud snarl and prepare to lunge, Kitiara shot it in between the eyes. Perhaps a sword seemed more fitting against these creatures, but Kitiara neither owned a sword nor had she ever used on in her life. Besides, her guns suited her just fine. The stopped, stunned for a moment, and she shot it three more times before it turned into a statue. The other draconians hesitated for a moment.
“I take it that means it’s dead?” Kitiara asked Raistlin. She a little surprised, both at the amount of bullets it had taken to bring one down, and the fact that they apparently turned to stone when they died. It was going to be a garden of statues by the time they were finished.
A distinct smell of something burning was starting to permeate the air. This was somewhat puzzling considering their enemies were turning to stone when they died due to one of Raistlin’s spells. Charred stone that looked as though it belonged in a fire pit or had gotten struck by a powerful bolt of lightening, but charred stone nonetheless. Bizarre. Then again, everything about this encounter was bizarre.
Raistlin was trying to keep his focus on the battle at hand and had to stifle a laugh at Tas’s quip concerning the Draconians being as ugly as orcs (he did ignore the comment about gully dwarves, what of it?). Maybe spending as much time around the kender was starting to rub off on him a little bit. “Yes, Tas,” he answered trying (and possibly failing) to keep up the appearance that this entire ordeal was more annoying than anything else.
Something that could have been considered a snort of laughter did escape him when Kitiara shot the first Draconian with her gun. Blam, blam, blam! A nice neat row of bullets in the body. Guns weren’t a thing in their little fantasy Dream World (Ha!) and watching Kit take out the first Draconian so decisively with one answered a question he didn’t even know he had about the idea of firepower against a medieval monster.
“They do that, yes,” he told Kitiara. “Anything impaling them when they die, blade or fist, usually ends up trapped inside when it happens. Best to keep your distance if you can.” He sure as hell intended to. Then again, he was a mage. Slinging spells a distance was kind of his thing.
Kitiara couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at the smell of burning… something. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever smelled, and she hoped it would be something that she wouldn’t smell again.
“I have no intention of getting closer than I need to. Don’t you have any other spells?” Kitiara asked, taking aim at another draconian and felling it too before she needed to reload her handgun. She kind of wished she had brought one of her automatic rifles with her now, but what was done was done. “Something that won’t stink up the place?”
Tas didn’t seem bothered by the smell at all. In fact, he was really rather enjoying himself, firing stone after stone at the draconians. To make things even better, Raistlin seemed to be enjoying himself too. This was way better than when they fought the weird monster that looked like Raistlin.
Part of him wanted to run right into the fray to fight, but common sense held him back for once in his life. He couldn’t fight the draconians swords with Rabbitslayer, and the idea of getting caught in Raistlin and Kit’s crossfire wasn’t especially appealing either. But when one of the Draconians managed to break from the rest of them, Tas ran up, jammed Rabbitslayer in the creature's throat, and managed to pull it out just before it turned to dust. “It’s too bad Caramon and Sturm and the rest aren’t here,” he called over his shoulder, putting blade back in his belt long enough to whack another draconian in the face with his hoopak. Kitiara finished it off with another series of shots.
As much as Raistlin was loathed to admit it, it would have been nice to have a couple of other fighters with them, even if said fighters were his own overprotective brother and a self-righteous knight. Although, Raistlin assumed Tas wasn’t concerned about their numbers so much as he was that Caramon and Sturm (if he existed in this world) were missing out on what the Kender considered fun.
“It isn’t the spell that smells,” Raistlin said to Kit at his side. “It’s the smell of dying Draconians. But, if it bothers you so much…” he turned his attention towards one that had broken free from the pack. He had studied magic other than his own under Regina and while it was easier for him to tap into his own magic, he didn’t mind showing off just a little bit for the other two. He pointed at the straggling dragonman and uttered a word. A moment later a bunch of little spark like orbs flashed over the Draconian’s body accompanied by a popping sound, before the entire Draconian exploded causing bits of flesh and chunks to fly everywhere. Hey, at least it didn’t stink.
This could have possibly have been considered fun if it wasn’t for the fact that the waves of Draconians seemed endless. Just when it seemed as though the three of them were gaining the upper hand the rift came to life and burped out another wave to take the place of the one that had just been defeated. The longer this continued, the weaker and more drained Raistlin felt himself becoming. To add insult to injury his cough was back in full force presenting itself as more of a hack. This trade off for his abilities as a mage was maddeningly frustrating, especially as he watched his sister and Tas continue on.
Tas stopped to watch the exploding draconian, and even took a minute to clap enthusiastically. He stopped suddenly to roll out of the way of a draconian sword. “You guys are slow. You’re not even dead yet and you’re moving like a statue,” Tas taunted it, gracefully hopping back a few steps out of range.
While Kitiara was originally impressed with the exploding draconian, despite how disgusting the flying flesh was, it quickly turned to worry as she realized that Raistlin’s cough was not letting off. “I’m almost out of ammo and there’s no end to these things,” Kitiara called over the din to Tas and Raistlin, even though she had been sure to bring plenty of extra ammo. “It’s time to retreat.”
“Retreat,” Raistlin attempted to look incredulously at his sister. Who the hell did she think she was fooling? Since when had Kit ever backed down from a fight? Besides, he wanted to get a better look at that damn portal, figure out what caused it, what made it work. The problem was that he could barely keep standing. The fits were bad enough to nearly double him over. He was no good here, not anymore. At least Kit was allowing him to keep some of his dignity. “Yeah,” he panted, finally relenting. “It’s time.” He cleared his throat and tried to shout to Tas. “Tas-” cough, cough “Tas, we’re leaving!”
Tas pouted, ducking just in time for a draconian sword to sail harmlessly over his head. He jabbed it in the eye with the pointy end of his hoopak staff, and quickly retreated over to the siblings.
“Already?” he asked, clearly put out. “Really Kitiara, you should have prepared better! What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that they wouldn’t keep pouring through that portal,” Kitara said, gesturing vaguely toward the portal. “Now stop complaining and start heading home. I’ll take rearguard.”
Raistlin attempted to frown at his roommate. His shoulders shook as he attempted to stifle more coughing. “If you want to stay here and fight, you’re welcome to.” Raistlin paused to fight down another fit. He held the back of his hand to his mouth, the other reaching out to grasp hold of Kitiara’s arm to keep balance. When it seemed to pass he continued in a wheezing pant, “but we’re getting out of here while we can.” He shot a look towards the green glowing portal. It sparked to life and burped out its latest wave. The frown pulled harder at the corners of his mouth. Damn it
Icey eyes turned back towards Tas. “Don’t get yourself killed. I don’t want to have to report that back to Caramon later.”
Tas frowned, though this time more in concern than irritation. He took a closer look at Kitiara, who’d moved her arm a little to help support Raistlin and his most recently coughing fit, specifically at the clips she still had belted around her waist, then back to Raistlin. “Well it’s no fun by myself,” Tas said, giving a tortured sigh. “Fine, I guess we can go. But Kitiara has to buy the drinks when we get back to the apartment.”
“In your dreams,” Kitiara snapped. “Are we moving or are we chatting?”
“We’re moving, we’re moving!” Tas said quickly, before Kitiara decided to make him start moving by kicking him in the behind. He took Raistlin’s arm and started to walk away while Kit kept the draconians at bay.
Neither Tas nor Kit were fooling anyone, but Raistlin appreciated the attempt to save his dignity here. That being said, the outcome of their foray into battle that afternoon had been less than desirable. Coughing fit passed and once he was in control of his own breathing once again, Raistlin took his arm from Tas’s grip. He threw a glare over his shoulder as the three of them hurried away from the rift and the Draconian army that was amassing. Wasted opportunity, he thought to himself. However, knowing this place, more opportunities would present themselves sooner or later.
“Do you suppose the army will vanish once the rift has closed?” He mused aloud to no one in particular.