Chapter 25: Cunning plans and an Epic Battle

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10/7/1 070 There was much planning of how we would engage the Dragon; it can move faster than us. We needed a trap or lure of some sort. Ideas included:

§ Adan in drag (rejected).
§ Adan's cunning giant fishing lure / harpoon; a device of iron balls and steel hooks to be shot from an artillery engine (it would look like a complex spinner, but actually function as a harpoon - never completed).
§ A silver spiral = holy ground as a fort or containment device, depending upon whether the Dragon comes in or not. It would have to be made by stealth and the consecration ritual completed at the last moment. I went to fetch priests and other brothers from the Robbinians.
§ As Sir Zacharias cannot afford enough of the real thing; silver plated... copper as a lure. Also, appearing to gather silver.
§ A wedding celebration (guests were invited).
§ Adan used as bait, but injured (this was done).

Sir Zacharias persuaded the local, oldish priest, to screen his mind. Adan did his void thing (his feelings were suppressed and his conscious thoughts not as readable). Adan then goosed Lady Mercedes. Sir Z challenged Adan and they retired to a nearby hillock to have at one another. Sir Z knocked Adan to the ground, and stalked off. Adan feigned unconsciousness in the void.

During the night, the beast came, sniffed and scanned, and presumably made its first big error. Adan became aware that he was being lifted into the air. He struck at it with the Stone Sword, and the Dragon let him fall. Adan survived, just and was surreptitiously taken into the castle.
The beast was not slain, despite the stone sword usually killing anyone it wounded. I am not sure of its limitations, but it seems to suck the lifeforce out of its targets, perhaps drawing all of them into its own version of the Spirit World.

11/7/1 070 With Adan in the castle, the old priest bound his wounds, and sent for the Sisters of Mercy
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who arrived at around noon, and worked the beginnings of a miraculous HEALING upon him (later, he drank one of his own potions; I wonder how the HEALINGS combined).
Sir Z was uneasy about the Dragon being in disguise, so he asked the Sisters a riddle of such obscenity that the pure maidens would not understand it (I think the idea was that the Dragon could read the answer from peoples' minds, but not from Sir Z; his reasoning seemed a little vague). Some of the Sisters were widows and fairly worldly. The leather-faced Mother slapped him. The old priest checked her out, and she checked Sir Z (amusingly obtaining a false positive). Adan was not a Dragon, but appeared to be a heretic (the priest / Sisters would keep them quiet for a while, though not indefinitely, I fear).
Sir Z kept the unholy Stone Sword in a vault beneath the chapel.

I went to Valdelon, taking about 1 week to travel each way.
I found a book; Here there be Dragons, which needed copying (this required pulling in some favours from the Robbinian-Elousie), and pursuaded some of my brethren to return with me.
I have some political problems; some of my Brethren disapprove of my drinking, but we are not an aescetic order.

I returned to de la Roche on 24/7/1 070.

From the book:

§ Dragons may have invented magic.
§ They may be vulnerable to the miraculous.
§ They have no weaknesses in their armour, but perhaps inside the mouth or eye.
§ They eat metals, that colour (and harden ?) their scales.
§ They hoard precious metal (maybe because they are hard to come buy, maybe not).
§ They are masters of ILLUSION and magic, and can shape their breath into magical effects.

Adan was cared for by Veronique; a thin girl who quite fancied him.

I recovered Dragon blood from the Sword, but it had been severed from the Dragon (presumably before it was taken to the chapel). The Sword is not one of the GOD's artefacts. Adan knows that it had been recovered.
Guests, including knights, the Bishop, de Richelieu and my own brothers, continued to arrive.

25/7/1 070 Evening of the wedding party.
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I SAW the Dragon, in the East, beyond Chateau Mercedes, in a land with few hills and no caves. It had been changed and is linked to the Sword somehow.
We prepared the consecrated trap.

We were supposed to stay relatively sober (I didn't touch a drop, all night), but could not tell the knights. Consequently, we were not totally ready when the Dragon attacked.
Sir Zacharias had briefly taken leave of the main company in order to avail himself of his wife. The cry arose that the Dragon was without, and burning the stables. Pandemonium ensued; Sir Z running with some of his lady's clothing caught in his armour, as he had armed himself in great haste. Knights dashed forth, first on foot, then mounted, later on foot again. They could not see as the night was dark, and the land scattered with bogs and ditches.
Most of the priests, including myself and de Richelieu, ran up to the engines on the roof.
I could not BLESS the knights as they rode out too fast. One of the Robbinians sent them each a BLESSED acorn.
2 Robbinian Brothers had a mechanism with lenses.
De Richelieu stood by his own machine, with 8 of his men.
Adan (still wounded) started sneaking about.
Sir Gregory took his horse Bastard, and was not thrown.
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A WARDING was raised (I started it, others sustained it).

When I could SEE (I saw that the Dragon, Adan and the Sword were linked, and sent Jeanette to fetch the Sword), we shot flaming bolts (mostly for illumination for the knights) towards the Dragon. It flew towards the tower, but appeared somewhat odd (I suspected a decoy ILLUSION, but we discharged various machines anyway). At least one bolt passed through it. The beast then materialised, splashed flame on our WARDING, then faded again.

Later analysis suggested that the normal effect of the Stonesword is to drain lifeforce into the realm of the Stones. The Dragon was clever and powerful enough to resist this, but was drawn in bodily. It retained (or learned) a degree of control, but at the expense of its judgement (and, perhaps, its sanity).

Jeanette found that bearing the Sword was difficult, but she met Sir Zacharias, who took it for her. Even he stumbled. Olivier bolted the door and denied Adan access (although there was another way up).
I took up the Sword and could see into another world; in the distance, mighty grey entities that must be the Stones. Adan was grey as well (and there were other, lesser / more distant presences). The Dragon was dark black.
I prayed to the Stones, that they might grant me symbolic passage through their realm. They gave grudging permission. I opened a conduit through the strange realm, and Jeanette called HAND OF GOD. This smashed the beast into the physical world, but stunned and hurt us (even with the WARDING).
Sir Z called for everyone to kill the Dragon, which lay torn and befuddled at the foot of the castle. Knights charged (mostly on foot), hacking and hewing. The Dragon bit, clawed, slashed with its tail and flamed. Sir Armand died and others were sorely wounded. Sir Z, employing a stratagem, rushed from behind and planted his Grandfather's sword beneath its wing. The Dragon TELEPORTED to another place that would strain the limits of our engines. Sir Z, Adan, and Lady Mercedes Father arrived first.
The monster felled Adan once more, and began to fade away to sparks but Sir Zacharias, cunningly approaching it from behind, grasped the hilt of his Grandfather's sword, twisted it, hammered it in, and eventually slew the monster. It convulsed and expired.

I decided that de Richelieu would have questions for Adan, as a heretic, infidel, unbeliever, etc. He was also a bit of a hero, so we sneaked him away to the vault (and I put up a WARDING, and took other precautions). We also took the Sword, which is of definite interest to the Robbinians. Officially, both were destroyed by the monster.
We also took large portions of the beast for examination. Sir Zacharias took the head to hang above his seat (causing him to stoop, staining his plumes, and cracking the plaster). It is huge. Sir Z gave scales to all who had lost livestock (and noted the amount of livestock for tax purposes). He compensated Sir Armand's family as well, with the tail. There was plenty of material to go round.

We moved Adan as soon as we could, as de Richelieu could ask people who knew of the vault. We burned an effigy of Adan, as a heroic foreigner.
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We Robbinians will study the Sword for a long while. We will guard Adan most carefully, and question him. One of our order has to learn of the Stones, perhaps become an initiate of them. Possible candidates are Jeanette and myself (but I am already the Demons-and-Undead expert; Dragons and Stones would be too much). We will not mention that we have the Sword to him, unless he cooperates.