Theta Campaign - Return of the Dragon Queen – Session 40

Written by: Flamereptile

Written: 08/20/2026

Theta Campaign - Return of the Dragon Queen – Session 40

This week’s tale begins as our intrepid adventurers awaken from a long night of sleep, plagued by dreams of the mysterious Astral Equine.

Allistair, Alonzo, Beezul, Dolgrak, and Prinze awake from their long day of rest in the late hours of the evening. Normally they wouldn’t sleep all day, but due to the conflicts of the previous evening they felt it was best to tackle the next step of their mission well rested.

One-by-one they filed out of their various dwellings onto the upper level of Sky’s Reach. By the time the final few had rubbed the sleep from their eyes and stumbled out, Alonzo had already prepared a feast for heroes. One that would bolster their fortitude and will, and fill their bellies. They ate in silence until the food was all gone, and each was covered in a warm, magical glow. 

Alonzo was the first to speak, standing and muttering prayers of protection, warding his companions from the dangers of the battle to come.

“Well, are we ready?” asked Prinze.

“Eeh…” muttered Beezul.

“Yes, but we must keep an eye behind us this time so you aren’t kidnapped again.” Said Allistair.

“Yep.” Said Alonzo as he finished his prayers.

Four had made their way to the edge of the skyland and peered down. Sky’s Reach was far above the forest below, several miles in fact. They could barely peer through the illusory clouds produced by the cloaking mechanism that protected the skyland. Below they could just see the top of an ancient temple poking out from the forest that surrounded it.

A moment of silence passed as they mentally prepared for the leap to come.

One thing they don’t tell you when you set out to become an adventurer, whoever they are at the time of one becoming an adventurer that is, is how much of a mental game adventuring is. Most aspiring adventurers tend to believe that adventuring is a strong man’s game. Whoever can swing a sword the hardest or fastest will be the best adventurer, but that’s not the truth in the slightest.

The greatest hurdle to overcome, for the vast majority of adventurers, is overcoming the mental toll that it does on you. Sure, being strong and fast are important traits to have, but those aspects fail entirely the first time you watch your healer’s guts spill from their chest. The first time you witness the atrocities feral goblin tribes commit to those they capture. The toll that death has on your psyche, even with the knowledge that you will soon be resurrected.

This mental toll is one that even our intrepid adventurers may come face to face with some time soon.

Prinze was the first to leap, or drop really, as he simply leaned forwards and began to fall, having resigned himself to his fate in the coming battle. Alonzo and Beezul quickly followed suit. Allistair waited a moment, however, noticing Dolgrak pacing back and forth nervously, contemplating whether or not to join the quartet.

Though he was not the first to leap, Beezul was the first to land, having broken into a spear-headed dive rather than a simple fall. In his fall, fury overcame him, and he once again grew greatly in size. As he crashed through the canopy below, he drew his Bee Drills, specialized katars that had been created to emulate the stinging of a bee.

Beezul landed with a heavy thump upon the ground, absorbing most of his fall with his insectile wings. He saw two figures dressed in green robes guarding the doors of the stone temple when he landed, and without a moment’s notice he began to attack.

Like a savage beast, Beezul thrust his first Bee Drill into the torso of the figure on the left. He began to cry out in pain as his second Bee Drill pierced his chest. Beezul raised the figure over his head and tore him in half.

The second figure, startled by the sudden appearance of a ten-foot tall kobold tearing his partner in half, backed away into the outer wall of the temple he guarded. Beezul noticed this slight retreat and roared, throwing both halves at the man. As the two halves impacted his off-balanced body he fell backwards.

Scrambling to pick himself up, the guard fumbled to draw his sword. Just as he had, a second figure dropped from the canopy, landing on the tip of the sword, driving it into the soft jungle earth.

Prinze looked down at the man, standing nearly nine feet tall himself. He looked at the dismembered pair of legs twitch as they tried to charge, unknowing that they had been separated from their upper half. The upper half of the body leaned against the temple walls, bleeding out, trying to raise its spear one last time before falling limp.

A moment later, the guard whose sword tip was stomped into the ground was no more. With four swift punches, Prinze had embedded his head into the temple walls.

Alonzo would  land a few moments later.

The three looked up at the temple before them, a massive ziggurat constructed of heavy stone, overgrown by the forest that surrounds it. The two large doors that separated the interior from the exterior rested partially ajar, wide enough for an average man to pass through with ease.

The three strode in with the intent to kill anything that moved.

Days before, while dining at the Sky’s Reach Kitchens, Allistair, Beezul, and Prinze briefed Alonzo and Dolgrak on what they should expect from this raid. The last raid had taken place upon an iceberg in the far frozen north. With their previous companions, Blinky and Maximus, both of which had retired from this adventuring party, they had delved into the hollows of the iceberg to root out a white dragon.
“In its own lair!” Dolgrak interjected before being told to be silent and listen.

The tunnels of the iceberg were filled with kobolds well adapted to the ice. Between them, and the Oracle and Justiciar of the Frost Sect, the five had their work cut out for them. But none of that would compare to the difficulties of dealing with the dragon that made that iceberg its lair.

They described to Alonzo and Dolgrak the grueling battle that ensued, and how they had all nearly lost their lives. Dolgrak would shudder at the thoughts of what was to come. The last the three had told the two was to be prepared to enter into the temple and kill the cult indiscriminately. 

Alonzo took this briefing to heart, and, as he entered alongside the other three, said, “’Bout to show you how we did it in the trenches.”

Nervous, and unsure of what he meant, the other three stopped as Alonzo raised his hands and began chanting a psalm. Alonzo reached his hands out and the tips of his fingers began to glow. Then the glow spread across his hands and up his arms, blackening them at his elbows, and glowing bright white at his fingertips. Suddenly, pillars of fire shot out before him.

Moments before, Ilya had been conducting a sermon on behalf of her lady, the Oracle of the Verdant Faithful, Sylthion Verdantspire. She had been instructed to take on her appearance for this sermon and prepare the faithful for the coming of some unwanted guests.

Ilya had been left in the dark as to the nature of these guests, but lady Sylthion had ensured her she would know. Faithfully, Ilya dwelt on every word of her mistress, hoping one day to carry the same grace and beauty that was afforded to her by the Chromatic Queen.

She began her sermon, preaching to the faithful below on true faith, faithful works, and then the purging of heretics. She would assure them of their importance here, and their purpose in restoring this temple, and she would assure them against fear of Myrathion, all while disguised as lady Sylthion.

As she preached, she looked down upon her supplicants and thought about those that toiled within this temple towards its restoration. But her sermon was cut short.

Shouting was heard outside of the temple doors, and moments later, three figures walked in.

Ilya had heard rumors of the slayer and his brood over the last few months. A den of vipers riding on the tails of giants to destroy their faith. They had caused quite a stir amongst the faithful, with some believing they had not only slain the lord and lady of the Night Faithful, but those also of the Frost Faithful. She knew these were just false rumors, however, made of the slayer’s corruption to sew discontent amongst their ranks.

She recalled the slayer was once one amongst their ranks, a blessed draconian with beautiful green scales on the path of becoming a Justiciar himself. But he had turned against the faith, and the Chromatic Queen, vowing to bring about their end.

His trusted brood were known to be a half-blooded vampire, likely of noble birth; another draconian, though hideous and gray of scale, with a propensity for beekeeping and heretical worship of his own hive; a human man who rarely wore clothes, and was quick to shed his when entering battle; and a leonine descendant, which had been corrupted, nearly beyond recognition, through fiendish pacts.

Immediately she recognized the slayer, but she was unsure of the other two. A hulking kobold adorned with the same beehive along its back as the accursed draconian. Perhaps it had a change in form but not identity? The other was a human man, but unlike the one described in the tales, this one was well dressed, almost aristocratic.

When they strode in, Ilya ceased her sermon, pointed out, and began to command the supplicants below her to…

The halls of the temple were filled with the roars of flames and the reverberating echoes of screams.

Moments passed, and the flames dissipated. Alonzo’s arms were left blackened to the elbows, though he was uninjured. He brushed the soot from them and stared out at the beautiful recreation of the war that he had created.

The hall was well over a hundred feet long and filled with cultists and gray stone. Now it sat, completely immolated and covered in soot, filled only with charred husks that whispered of a sudden end. For a moment, it was silent to the humanoid ear. But that silence would soon be broken.

From the four doors ahead of the party, which flanked the side of the hall, emerged nearly a dozen green-cloaked humanoids, and nearly three dozen green kobolds. They exited their doors, curious of the racket then sudden silence, then stopped to behold the carnage that sat before them.

At once they looked up at the approaching adventurers and broke out into pained wails of grief and rage as they charged down the charred hall.

Beezul, engorged to a size too large to pass through the front doors easily, grabbed one in each hand and tore them open with the immense strength granted to him by his magical belt. He charged forth into the crowd of approaching cultists, running one through with his Bee Drill. He lifted the suddenly dead cultist above his shoulder and flung her down the hall into another. Upon impact, the second cultist fell limp with a broken neck.

Prinze, seeing an opportunity above, began to run up the walls of the temple, keeping his motion in a circular pattern, he reached a brazier that hung above the charging cult. He leapt and grabbed ahold of its chain, giving it a quick yank, causing it to snap. He kicked off from the brazier as it fell, flipping mid-air before plummeting below.

The brazier plummeted down onto four of the kobolds, venom dripping from their fangs, and instantly broke their little bodies beneath its weight. Flames from the brazier, recently lit by Alonzo’s fiery spell, spilled out and burnt several kobolds and cultists around it.

As he fell, Prinze, targeting one of the higher-ranking cultists recognizable as a Hoodstrider from his time within the cult, stomped down on their neck. The force from his fall, and impact from his kick onto the Hoodstrider left her dead in an instant. 

Prinze tumbled as he landed, then kicked a kobold as he recovered. Seconds later two additional strikes with his wraps had left three fresh kobold corpses at his feet.

Three Drakeweaver Adepts, aspiring spellcasters within the cult, each loosed a volley of magical darts. Dozens of tiny, octarine missiles streaked through the air towards Beezul, puncturing little holes throughout his hide. Recognizing their effectiveness, magic surged from deep within them, and each released a second volley.

As the exhausting effects of surging magic overcame the Drakeweaver Adepts, Beezul was again peppered with tiny magical darts. He let out a roar of pain, but another roar drowned him out for but a moment.

A Fangsworn Adept, one of the aspiring warriors of the cult, became filled with fury, bellowing out a war cry as she dropped her shield and grasped her sword with both hands. She made a mighty chop into Beezul’s leg, sinking the blade deep into his engorged muscles, then tore at the blade to swing again.

The blade, however, had not cut as deep as she had anticipated, and the flexing of Beezul’s muscles in his engorged state made it difficult for the Adept to withdraw her blade. Taken aback, she swung three more times, but each slash was batted away by Beezul’s hand.

Beeuzul responded in kind, driving his Bee Drill through the Fangsworn’s torso and raising her above his head. The small group of kobolds that had surrounded Beezul, and began gnawing and scratching at his legs, halted at the sight of the impaled Fangsworn. Having left negligible wounds, they turned and fled back towards the door on the far-right side of the temple hall. At the sight of this, the remaining kobolds within the hall followed suit, fleeing down the hall.

The following group was not so lucky, however, as the first group had closed and, presumably, barred the door behind them. They cried out and scratched at the door for a few moments before stopping and turning in unison, noticing Alonzo flying above them, smirking.

On the other side of the door, five panicked kobolds caught their breath. Sacrificing the stragglers was a necessary evil. They had to protect their females and their nests. Their eggs were their futures.

They considered for but a moment the terrible cries of betrayal upon the other side of the door, but their consideration was replaced first with curiosity at the sudden silence on the other side of the door.

Alonzo loomed over the kobolds that cowered at the foot of the locked door. He floated to the floor, then bent over them as they cowered. He looked up at the door for a moment, only to see a single green eye peering back through a gap in the old dried boards. He looked back down at the kobolds at his feet and his arms became wreathed in flames once more.

Cries of pain and terror mixed once more with the roars of flames on the other side of the door, followed by silence. Alonzo stood up straight, dusted the soot from his arms, and cleared his throat.

“This was your fault.” He said, “Remember that.” Then he walked away, back to his party.

The four kobolds sitting outside of the door fainted, and Alonzo turned to witness the carnage of Beezul.

Facing down the last three cultists, the three Drakeweaver Adepts, Beezul aptly impaled the first with the Bee Drill in his left hand, then impaled the second with the Bee Drill in his right. He looked down at the third Adept, then promptly crushed it between the two fresh corpses, driving the ends of each Bee Drill into her sides.

Roaring with rage, and being drenched in the blood of the freshly slain cultists, Beezul raised his arms over his shoulders and threw them at the four kobolds passed out against the door behind Alonzo.

Moments later, the dust and ashes settled and the four looked amongst one another.

Prinze was the first to break out in laughter, then Beezul followed behind in his currently deep, engorged voice.

“You know, laughter is only one letter away from slaughter.” Said Alonzo, chuckling slightly.

In his laughter, Beezul’s rage subsided, and he began to deflate and return to his normal size. The changes in his tone, transitioning from large and deep to his normal small and high-pitched, caused Alonzo and Prinze to laugh even harder.

The four took a moment to search over the bodies of the cultists, hoping to find anything useful, but found nothing of the sort.

Having taken a moment to catch their breath, the three continued on, over a charred, raised stone dais, and through another pair of heavy stone doors.

Beyond the doors darkness masked a massive stone staircase carved to accommodate the steps of even the oldest of dragons, flanked by two smaller sets of stairs easier for the three to descend.

They noticed the walls were etched and painted, but none of them stopped to look. They were too focused on taking care of the cult, too focused even to realize neither Allistair nor Dolgrak were with them.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, they stood before a third massive stone door, wrenched wide open. Beezul and Prinze began to step through it, but halted at the sound of gnashing teeth sinking into soft flesh.

Both turned their heads to see the massive maw of a dragon, reaching down from the darkness above, to grasp the upper half of Alonzo.

That is where this week’s tale ends, and next week’s tale will begin.