Easthaven

With a spin of his bow, Zenithral wards off the brunt of the fireball. (Absorb Elements. Zenithral only takes 17 fire damage instead of 34)

"MOVE!!" Zenithral screams and gesturing to the armies, doing his best to point each group to the safest place for when the deathly blizzard breath befalls them. (Second Wind to regain 19 hit points)

"GO!" Zenithral shouts to those immediately around him as well, then looks at his mother with loving eyes. A wave of calm washes over Zenithral and those around him. (Calm Emotions. Suppresses fear for creatures within a 20-foot radius while Zenithral maintains concentration.)

He looks towards the dragons, then hears Alallas shouts. and flies off towards her, just above the ground.

111 / 111 HP
AC 17

Reòthadh casts absorb elements for acid resistance.

Gritting his teeth, the sorcerer casts a spell to lesson the acid's burn. As the great dracolich appears over the horizon, the dwarf curses under his breath.

"How many times does a dwerf have to kill that dragon!"

Reòthadh casts Crown of Stars and as a bonus action launches one at Icasaracht dealing 71 radiant damage.

Grumbling about how the dead should just stay dead, the dwarf follows his companions.

Alalla turns to the golem, hacking it to pieces. When it's suitably disabled she runs towards Jerrod's tomb, taking a slash out of a giant as she passes.

Golem takes 55 damage. FG 3 takes 15 damage.

HP: 82/164
AC: 20
Zone: as far through red as possible

Staring up from the ground at the dragons Ug realizes he can do no more good up here. Running past screaming and dying, Ug follows Al, delivering blows to the giants as well as he passes. Giant 3 takes 38 damage and is mooped
Giant 4 takes 34 damage

ug hp 15

He passes Mirek as he runs, as the bloodhunter is helping a battered brother to his feet. Ug motions for the two to follow but they shake their heads. Mirek tosses ug the family heirloom Ug had retrieved in what seems like a very long ago. The hunters look grim let up at the dragons above and then take flight once more.

No longer needing Mirek as a crutch the brother distances himself enough from his barmate so the dragon can’t attack them both at once. Bloody hands shaking clutching his crossbow, his bolt flies wide. Mirek is more for hand to hand, and even with his enhanced eyesight he also proves nothing against this nightmare.

Mirek hp 28
Brother hp 3

Below, among the dead and the dying, some of the bloodhunters rise and some don’t. A wolf man howls over his friend dead at his feet and the the old priest lay among the rubble, his tired eyes closed for a final time. The musicians still stand, but their music is now one of sorrow and loss. It is in the midst of this that their newest recruit comes up with an idea only he would. Old Jed, Accompanied by the thief who rescued him and the wolf man growling vengeance the trio rushes to the airship. Having landed at the start of the battle, it was still prepped to fly. Controls that would seem confusing to a sober person were actually much easier to navigate for the drunks. It was also easy to know which bottles were the most flammable, Jed having set fire to pomabs house with some of these very brands.

Pushing their chemical and alcoholic concoctions to rest next to the burners, the drunks make their way to the helm. Having saved one final case of bottles for last they each drew one out of the crate. The name scratched into the case was Nancy. Raising a toast to the mother of Ug, they shared a final drink. Jed aimed the ship directly at the dragon For Hrothgar he whispered, his last thought to his old friend.

Vincent follows the group.

Iggy takes 3 damage.

HP:23/115
AC:18
SP:2/2(+1)
Ki:4/8

Ras watches the dragons clash with his heart in his throat. Aeri! Then the dragons take to the skies and he feels a different sort of fear watching Icky, in all her might. His knees feel weak and his hands shake.

It's hard for him to tear his gaze away from the dragons, but when Al runs past, his concentration breaks and he feels the need to follow her. He reaches out a hand and brushes her arm.

Ras casts Stoneskin on Al and she has resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

HP: 75/115
AC: 19
Zone: blue
Afraid

As Zenithral calls out orders to the army, the smell of burned flesh assaults his nostrils. Natalie... The young woman’s body lies nearby, where it was hurled by the force of Merodach’s fireball. Skin cracked red and black shows between charred bits of cloth. And then some of the skin folds into itself, becoming pink and whole once more. Natalie gasps with life, many of her terrible burns faded away. Her eyes are still wide with fear.

Zenithral’s grandmother steps into view, and her own aged skin now shows the burns that marked Natalie’s, but she bears the pain without complaint. "Hush, child. Go find cover now, quickly!" Natalie gets to her feet and scampers into the shed where Druzil tried to hide earlier.

Saki moves up next to Zenithral, her small frame barely reaching his chest. She touches his shoulder lightly, and Zenithral feels the decades of love and care that this human woman has shown him. "This battle does not matter, Zenithral. Only what is happening there, where your friends are going. Where Belhifet waits."

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, as though drinking in life itself - an odd thing, on this battlefield full of cold and death and destruction. A small furry creature flaps through the air nearby, and Zenithral recognizes Maverick’s familiar. Saki reaches out to offer the bat a sleeve on which to land, then looks behind her, to where a pair of orcs carry a stretcher with Jhonen’s corpse-like body resting upon it.

Saki smiles. "The heavens are with us. With you. Go, Zenithral. Go!"

Ilmadia watches the exchange between her mother and her son quietly, then looks away with a wince as her eyes and mouth flicker with light. As Zenithral goes to follow the others, Ilmadia hesitates as though to say something to Saki, but grits her teeth and follows her son. With a frustrated grunt she pauses to hurl a firebolt at the dracolich's face. The spurt of flame that chars the dragon seems to give her some satisfaction, but the closer she comes to Belhifet the more drawn and pale with fear and dread she becomes.

With Zenithral’s spell freeing her from fear, Natalie gathers the courage to peek through the window of the shed in which she is hiding. Across the shattered fishing village men and women scatter as the dragons high above roar and fight. The only one who seems to not be moving at all is Saki. The short woman stands over a corpse laid out on a stretcher, eyes glued on the white-haired figures making their way across the battlefield. The dead man on the stretcher looks familiar… The sad little fisherman who followed the heroes around Kuldahar sometimes?

Natalie wonders what has become of Jermsy, and looking out on the field of dead, she can only let the tears fall. A small hiccup escapes her as she notices something large leave the ground nearby.

The airship!

Maverick works each of the four spikes into a peculiar metal circlet, binding each one as it snaps into place. His pale fingers work quickly as arcane words stream from his lips. Next is the black gem. Sweat pours down his face as he holds the necromancer’s stone in place on the circlet between the spikes.

He abandons the chant now and begins speaking as though to someone next to him. "I know what you want. You wanted it from the beginning, and I made you a promise to help you get it. Well, now I have the power to give it to you, finally. But here, in the moment of your rebirth, I have one last term to our pact." A grimace crosses the gnome’s face, a rictus of a snarl, as he holds up the completed crown. "Give my friend back his soul, or I drop this thing to the bottom of the Sea of Moving Ice, with a spell to keep it hidden from all your other followers forever!"

Icasaracht shrugs off Aerihykloarara’s attempts to keep her attention, and her baleful, undead gaze falls on the rising airship. Her jaws open wide and unleash a killing frost on the vessel. Those aboard die instantly as their blood turns to icicles, and even some people on the ground find themselves frozen solid.

But the ship, set in its course, continues to ascend.

Aerihykloarara is no fool. This is not a fight she can win, perhaps not even on her best day. And with the wounds she has already sustained… She looks at the incoming airship and guesses at the mad plan the alcoholics aboard must have had in mind. In a desperate gamble, she clamps her teeth down on one of Icasaracht’s wings and pulls.

Icasaracht roars as all Aerihykloarara’s weight on her desiccated wing causes both dragons to tumble through the sky towards the rising airship. Several blood hunters stand on the deck alongside Old Jed, all frozen in place with bottles raised in one last salute.

For Hrothgar...

Ras sighs and looks at Aeri. He pulls the large cloak a little tighter around himself and then speaks, his voice shaking slightly. "I'm..." he searches for the right words. "I feel lost. This battle, this whole thing," he gestures vaguely around, "we can't win this. No matter what we do, terrible things happen. And we just keep fighting and... and... people die. Good people."

He stops, fighting back the tears burning his eyes. "I keep going, keep healing, keep fighting. I can't just stand by and watch, especially when my friends need help. But am I the one they need to help them? I feel so helpless, so useless. I wish I could do more. Help more. Save more. Maybe then..." He stops again, realizing that he has been rambling. He doesn't like the pity on Aeri's face. She can't understand. How could a dragon even fathom a feeling like weakness? Hopelessness? He pulls the cloak even tighter and stares at the ground.

"How many more have to die?" he whispers quietly.

The explosion engulfs airship and dragons (79 damage to all the creatures up there, from the 2d100 roll Jabbbahut made above). Burning wreckage, all that remains from Oswald’s airship, falls from the sky. Among the debris falls Aeri, her bad wing flapping loosely in the wind. The silver dragon plows into Pomab’s warehouse, the building that until recently held the Easthaven prisoners. The warehouse collapses in on itself.

All is still… for a moment.

Then a hoarse roar shudders through the air, and the dracolich appears from the smoky cloud in the sky.

Icasaracht is not destroyed.

Maverick raises the crown over his bald head, eyes closed as all about him on the battlefield are screams of the wounded, the dying, the fighting. "Yes, those are my terms, you black-hearted knave. Now give him back!" Maverick brings the crown down onto his scalp, and small rivulets of blood flow down from the four spikes, which now appear more like the horns of some beast. The black stone on his brow turns clear, then emits a sickly gray light.

Across the battlefield, another light begins to shine. And this one is golden-white.

As he runs, Reothadh hears something familiar on the winds. A song… one of both love and sorrow. Of loss. But now it’s different, as though it has finally reached the last verse and come full circle. A lesson learned, a life lived. A new cycle begun.

There, standing on the rippling waters of Lac Dinneshere, stands an ethereal elven woman with green skin and a gown of lakeweed. Elisia sings the song of Aihonen’s fall, three hundred years after her beloved fell to the same wicked dragon now plaguing the skies.

But somehow Reothadh understands that the song is not only of Aihonen, but of his legacy. It lives on.

A man in shining armor stands up among Easthaven’s defenders. Though the man’s face is not Aihonen’s, the determined expression is as familiar to Reothadh as if his old companion were the one standing there with gleaming sword.

Fueled by a sudden rush of memories, Reothadh flings his star up towards Icasaracht with tremendous arcane strength.

Jhonen, his soul restored with vibrant life, holds his ancestor’s blade high. Looking up at the undead dragon still high in the sky, he bends his knees and then jumps (Quickened Thunder Step). A crash of thunder resounds from where his feet leave the ground, sending out a rippling shockwave of dust and ice, and Jhonen’s bright form shoots higher and higher in the wake of Reothadh’s star, sword pointed up at Icasaracht. Blade and star hit the dracolich at the same time in an eruption of blinding light!

(Jhonen deals a crapton of lethal damage to Icky)

This time the debris that falls is dragon bone bleached to a radiant white. Jhonen descends lightly to the ground (Feather Fall) and stares in awe at the dracolich’s remains. He looks around with wide eyes as his own glow dims. "Uh… What just happened?"