Theta Campaign - Return of the Dragon Queen – Episode 36 Pt. 2

Written by: Flamereptile

Written: 07/29/26

Theta Campaign - Return of the Dragon Queen – Episode 36 Pt. 2

This part of this week’s tale begins with Allistair witnessing the cultist he had just convinced to lay down his arms falling before him with a crossbow bolt in his forehead. Behind him, Allistair witnessed Dolgrak lowering his crossbow from behind the wheel, calling out, "I've got you Allistair!"

Allistair sighed in irritation. He had forgotten that Dolgrak and Prinze weren't in earshot to hear his peaceable arrangement, and he knew that Prinze likely hadn't been able to discern their age beneath their robes, or his unquenchable bloodlust..

"Well, seems you've got this handled." said Prinze as he dropped to the deck below, stomping on one of the sleepy cultists that had emerged from one of the cabins, breaking her neck on impact. Satisfied with himself, the nine-foot tall draconian walked down the stairs onto the lower deck and peered over a group of sleepy cultist teenagers with hate in his eyes. They stared back at him confused and paralyzed with fear.

Prinze reached out a hand and gently placed it on one of their shoulders, staring into the boy's eyes before shoving his head abruptly into that of another nearby boy, shattering their skulls against one another. Both crumpled to the floor in a heap.

He strode in, with the wraps of his Dragonbutcher Shackles unfurling, as he began to spin around to decapitate burgeoning cultists around him.

A darkness welled up within Prinze, one that the aspect of Jotunn contained within his wraps had not imparted upon him, infecting the rest of the party with his bloodlust.

Alonoz dropped the fresh, skeletal arm, wiped his hands upon his robes, and grabbed the nearest cultist to him, throwing him off the side of the deck. The growing darkness, cast by the encroaching storm above, coupled with the heavy falling of rain masked the sounds of the screams and cries of the cultists as the party began to tear into them.

Beezul, normally the first to fire, contemplated the age of the cultists for a moment before concluding that they were taller than him, making their deaths not his problem. He reloaded his Bee-Bee Gun and entered the nearby door where one of the cultists had emerged, finding a half-dressed girl. Without a second though he put a bee through her forehead, leaving behind a bloody splatter on the wall and bed behind her.

The last remaining cultist adjacent to Allistair, the one who had hesitated to attack at first, charged him, attempting to shove him down the stairs before pouncing upon him and strangling him while he fell down the stairs. Unfortunately for him, Allistair again sidestepped the attack, tripping the child and causing him to instead tumble down the stairs, landing at the feet of Prinze.

Three of the sleepy, frightened cultists below deck turned and ran towards the stern, throwing up a pair of bunks as a barrier between them and the encroaching nightmare. Another two ran towards Prinze as he stomped down towards the head of the lad that had tumbled down the stairs, both grabbing onto one of his arms attempting to restrain him. Another three charged over the barrier with daggers drawn with intent of putting an end to the draconian.

*Prinze ceased swinging his wraps, simply taring down towards the cultists as they drove their daggers into his torso as his foot stomped down onto the head of the cultists that had rolled down the stairs into him. The boy's skull crushed beneath his foot, and Prinze looked over the three that had stabbed him.

He could have avoided the attacks, simply batting away their daggers, but he wanted the cultists to have one last glimmer of hope before he tore away all of their hopes and dreams.

Frightened, the children stared up into Prinze's eyes, noticing they were filled with rage. They twisted the daggers, plunging them deeper into the looming nightmare. But he didn't react. Not initially.

After a pregnant moment, a smile twisted over Prinze's face, and his body began to spin. Like a macabre dance, he lashed out his Dragonbutcher's Shackles, decapitating the cultists within arm's distance. He then charged forwards, kicking the makeshift barricade, crushing the three hiding behind it against the wall.

Two more charged him from behind, but in a flash, Prinze tore the daggers from his torso and flung them around, embedding two in the eyes of one cultist, and the third in the stomach of the other.

He gave the bunk one last kick, resulting in the cracking of spines and ribs, before turning to the impaled cultist. Reaching down, he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her to the ceiling above. He pulled the dagger from her torso and dropped it to the deck, then grasped her ankles with the same arm.

With a slight tug, empowered by the titanic strength embedded within his wraps, he tore her in two, drenching himself in her blood. The final three cultists promptly wet themselves before turning and attempting to flee up the stairs.

Prinze, blinded by hate and rage, leapt across the deck, grabbing one by the ankles and swinging him around into another, breaking both of their spines on impact. The final cultist crawled up the steps, but was pulled back down by the ankles by the nine-foot monstrosity.

He held the lad upside down by his ankle and stared at him for a moment. In the moment of hesitation, the boy produced a dagger and stabbed it into Prinze's chest. They both looked at the embedded dagger for a moment, then locked eyes.

Prinze grabbed the cultist by the throat and the shoulders and separated his skull and spinal column from the rest of his body, roaring in bloody victory.*

Prinze withdrew from the horrors of his own mind, and stared down at the cultists as they plunged the daggers into his torso. He could have batted away the attacks, but shame had overcome him as he realized that all of these cultists were nothing more than children, teenagers by all rights, entitling them to an occasional ass-kicking, but children nonetheless.

His rage and hatred had blinded him, so he reasoned that the only immediate recompense was to allow them to "defend themselves" by stabbing him.

Prinze's arms then fell slack and the wraps of the Dragonbutcher's shackles withdrew. He could not bring himself to consciously kill younglings, even if they were cult younglings. When he froze, the children froze as well. A stalemate of sorrow and fear.

Alonzo and Allistair descended the stairs, with Allistair calling out in a smooth tone over the beating storm, "Prinze, they're just kids."

Prinze looked back at him, rage replaced by sorrow, "I wish you could have told me that before I went on a rampage."

Allistair looked towards the least frightful of the children and asked, "Child, can you make the rest stop resisting so we can try to resolve this situation?"

The child withdrew his dagger from Prinze, charging Allistair and shouting, "Resist this you piece of shit!"

In one quick movement, Alonzo backhanded the dagger from the child's grasp, and slapped him across the face, shouting, "Sit down and shut the fuck up then."

The kid fell back, released his bowels, and began to cower as he pair finished their descent.

Alonzo asked, "Now, who runs this ship?"

"We do now." replied Allistair.

"Well, I know that. I mean, who is the adult here?"

"I'm an adult!" replied Prinze.

Alonzo grasped the bridge of his nose, pulled out a cigar, and lit it. He took a long drag off of it, flicked his ash towards the makeshift barricade, and blew his smoke towards the children still grappling Prinze.

"I believe this is our ship now." said Alonzo as beezul, followed by a host of angry bees descended the stairs behind him.

The remaining cult children all dropped their daggers and began to cower.

"Go on, scoot over there." said Alonzo, gesturing towards the stern hull.

As the children withdrew from around him, Prinze's head dropped low and he quietly ascended the stairs onto the main deck. He stood there for a few minutes, taking in deep breaths of wet air in an attempt to shake the guilt that crept beneath his skin.

As he stood silently in the rain, Allistair emerged from below deck in search of the captain's quarters. He went inside of the first cabin that had not yet been opened and began to rifle through the bed and nearby footlocker, and after a few minutes he managed to find a shipping manifest.

Shuffling through its pages, Allistair found the most current records, noting "new recruits" and "important - ogre". Concerned, he emerged on the main deck and touched Prinze's shoulder.

"I know you're having a moment right now, but this says there's an ogre somewhere on the ship." he said, shaking the manifest at Prinze. "Want to help me with that? Maybe you can command it with your wraps?"

Prinze stared down at the wraps that had blinded him with rage... or was that his own rage?

"Yeah, I can see what I can do." he replied.

The two ventured below deck and over towards Alonzo who was lining out the children.

"What do you know about he ogre?" Allistair asked to the group.

"There's one in the hold." replied one.

"I think that's the precious cargo." said another.

"It smells pretty bad." said a third.

Allistair nodded, and Prinze followed him below deck into the hold. While they ventured down, Beezul helped Alonzo in questioning the children, and giving them instructions for how things were going to be after they've returned to the Skyland.

Once below deck, it was a simple task for Allistair and Prinze to locate the ogre. She was massive and grotesque, obese beyond any normal means, and likely unable to walk, even if she hadn't been obviously beaten and tortured for some time.

The ogre was strung up, held aloft by massive chains, suspended between the hull and the deck above. Her rolls of fat concealed the shackles around her wrists and ankles, and the pair were unable to discern the difference between her breasts and sagging rolls of fat.

As the two approached, she lifted her head, neck rolls jiggling as she did. They recognized her, not only by the scale of her shear girth, but the hideous visage that she carried with her. The ogre's thin, wet, blonde hair gave way to an asymmetrical face adorned with a large, grotesque mole set upon her forehead.

Lady Blackhurst, while a gentle soul and valued merchant of adventuring gear, both magical and mundane, was by all measures grotesque and unsightly.

"Allistair? Is that you?" she asked, slowly with labored breathing?

"Yes. It's me. Can I get you a potion of healing?" he asked.

She chuckled and coughed, "I think I'm going to need more than that."

"What's this?" asked Prinze, as he reached for a wicked looking necklace tightened around her neck.

Lady Blackhurst finished the potion offered to her by Allistair, then replied, "I'm unsure. They put it upon me when they captured me, after besieging Wyvern's Tor."

Prinze gave the necklace a quick jerk, snapping it off.

Dolgrak stood above deck, at the helm, attempting to bring the skyship around and onto Sky's Reach. The rain had been battering him and making it difficult to steer, but just as the Skyland had come into view, it stopped. Everything stopped.

The Skyland, the rain, the ship. Everything but himself. He took a moment and looked around, seeing nothing but stillness and hearing nothing but silence for several seconds. Then a tearing sound emerged from the air just above the center of the main deck, followed by a bright light as the air itself was torn open.

First, a pair of red, clawed hands emerged from thin air, then, as the air was ripped apart like a sheet of cloth, they were followed by a head and body.

Dolgrak felt his body become heavy as gravity itself seemed to increase drastically, and before he fell to the deck himself, he watched as two children on the main deck fall flat.

The creature that emerged from the rift was cloaked in black and gold robes. It appeared to be a draconian, red of scale, with a mohawk and beard of colorful feathers, making a rainbow. A long, scaled tail and a pair of large, red wings trailed behind it as it stepped its clawed feet down on the deck and peered around.

Its expression was one of rage, and it peered down at the children as they tried to rise in fear and flee. A light flashed across its eyes and, in an instant, both children turned into frogs.

That is where this part of this week’s tale ends, and the next part begins.