Theta Campaign - Return of the Dragon Queen – Session 41 Pt. 2
Written by: Flamereptile
Written: 08/26/2026
Theta Campaign - Return of the Dragon Queen – Session 41 Pt. 2
This part of this week’s tale begins as the machinations of Sylverfang and the cult are brought into the light.
Everything had been going according to plan for Sylthion and her mate Zythera. Days prior, the mysterious Sylverfang had appeared before her, coming with a proposition that would rid the faith and the ghostly dragon of the Slayer.
The dragon, Myrathion, had been posed to strike the Slayer from the shadows and separate him from his group, which he had done perfectly with little coercion. Sylverfang would then separate the little kobold from the Slayer’s group, wreaking its vengeance in the process. Knowing the little kobold would choose to save its own hive over its own allies, Sylverfang would infest and threaten the hive’s queen. Finally, once things had appeared as if the tide of the battle could go either way, Sylthion and her mate would strike the healer and the vampire.
They had not anticipated the vampire’s absence, which had been a pleasant surprise after hearing reports from Azrakar Stormrender about his duel with the vampire. Azrakar had mentioned that the vampire was neither honorable, nor particularly enjoyable to fight.
Sylthion gave the signal to Zythera. The two had positioned themselves on either side of Myrathion’s Sanctum where they would wait to strike.
Zythera had kept low to the ground and in the shadows, but seeing Sylthion’s signal from across the sanctum, she crept around the corner of the Sinistral Hall. Out in the open she spotted the Slayer’s healer. He stood on the ground beneath Myrathion with his hand up, actively healing the wounds of the Slayer above.
She peered up at Myrathion and the Slayer. Judging by the duration of Myrathion’s roars, the healer had managed to keep the Slayer intact while it battled the dragon, but she would see that it would not continue.
While Alonzo was focused entirely on healing Prinze, he failed to notice as Zythera Nightfang closed the distance between the Sinistral Hall and himself. She crept up behind him, then Myrathion became still for but a moment, noticing the Justiciar about to strike.
In an instant, Zythera stabbed her dagger into Alonzo’s neck, narrowly missing his spinal cord. She followed up with a second strike, driving her second dagger into his side.
Blood began to pour from Alonzo’s neck and side as he let out a pained cry. He tried to turn his neck, but the dagger that was being drawn from him prevented the movement. His vision then began to become unsteady, waving in and out as, from the shadows, Sylthion Verdantspire wove an enchantment over him. Protected by the magics of his lance, Alonzo managed to shake off the hypnosis and turned to face his assailant.
Zythera Nighfang was a draconian, not unlike Prinze, being green of scale, but she was far more lithe in appearance. Clad in verdant leathers, and wielding a pair of wicked daggers that dripped with venom, she crouched low and snarled at Alonzo as he turned to behold her.
At that same moment, Allistair had begun to twirl his short sword and shadow blade. With a quick flick, the short sword ignited in bright flames, quickly turning the blade white with heat. He began to run towards the edge of the skyland, turning just as he leapt off. A moment later he weaved the magics for a teleportation spell and soon found himself landing nimbly on the floor between Beezul’s hive and the stairwell.
Allistair took a moment to assess the situation he had just teleported into. Beezul’s hive sat unattended, a green draconian crouched before Alonzo, and Prinze was elevated nearly sixty feet up in the mouth of a massive dragon, being shaken like a rag doll.
Seeing the new arrival onto the battlefield, Sylthion Verdantspire began to weave an enchantment in the air before her, casting it out over Allistair. Taking a few steps forward to capitalize on the, soon to be new position of the new arrival, she halted as he seemed unphased.
Allistair felt, for but a moment, another will push against his own, compelling him to group up tightly with Alonzo. He was familiar with magics that would control the will of another, and, using this knowledge, pushed the poor attempt from his mind. Allistair knew all too well how dangerous it could be to group tightly with one’s own party while fighting against spellcasters.
Just as Allistair regained his own sense of self, and fought off the magics of Sylthion Verdantspire, Zythera Nightfang vanished from sight, pulling her cloak over herself and disappearing.
Alonzo, who had just turned to face the Justiciar, stared into the empty space that was now before him for a few moments, then shrugged.
“Great, now I can ignore that problem.” He said to himself as he turned to face Prinze once more.
Taking a great puff from his cigar, he held his focus aloft and began conjuring forth Doug, Steve’s cousin and celestial warrior counterpart. As Doug began to take shape, a bolt of antimagics lashed out at the celestial, originating from the Oracle. Her will tugged against that of Alonzo for a brief moment before, ultimately, she lost out and Doug was fully manifested. Her attempt to counter Alonzo’s spell had failed.
While Steve had taken the form of a hulking warrior made from radiant light, clad in thick plates of metal armor, and wielding a massive two-handed mace, Doug, while also made of the same radiant light, was clad in armor that allowed for far more mobility. Doug flexed its thick arms, drawing a great bow that was nearly ten feet in length.
Alonzo had conjured Doug nearly forty feet in the air above himself, and not taking kindly to the Oracle’s attempts at stopping his spell, he said, “Doug, take care of her for me.”
Doug raised its bow and finished drawing the glowing string. Three arrows of radiant light manifested from where its hand pulled the bowstring, extending out past the bow’s rest. Doug’s fingers twitched and the string and arrows disappeared as the arrows were launched in streaks of light towards the unprepared Oracle.
The first of the arrows struck Sylthion Verdantspire in her left shoulder, piercing through her and sticking from both sides of her shoulder. The second planted itself similarly in the center of her chest, and the third in the same manner in her right shoulder. All three of the arrows that protruded from the Oracle formed a perfectly straight line that glowed brightly before shattering and dissipating.
Blood began to trickle from the Oracle’s wounds as she reeled back, then turned her head up to snarl at the celestial. Before her snarl could conclude, six more arrows made from radiant light peppered her torso, riddling her with bleeding holes.
Satisfied with Doug’s volley, Alonzo turned his back to the Oracle and held his hand back up towards Prinze, preparing to continue healing him once more.
Zythera Nightfang, who had simply turned invisible, was stunned when the target she had just stabbed displayed a complete lack of object permanence. Appalled a moment later that he would conjure a celestial to harm her mate, she stood once more, took a moment to line up her stab, and plunged one of her daggers into the back of Alonzo.
Overcome by the pain of being stabbed again, Alonzo’s attempt at healing Prinze broke, but Prinze still had not heard a bell.
Activating his wraps, Prinze drew forth all of the stored power he had accumulated while slaying members of dragonkind. The energies washed over him, sealing all of his wounds and restoring him as if he had taken a week of rest and relaxation.
With a new fire in his eyes, Prinze pulled himself free from the dragon’s teeth, stretched, and began delivering quick, precise punches to the dragon’s soft pallet. As Myrathion began to reel back from this sudden and uncomfortable sensation within its mouth, Prinze drew forth his Adamantine Folding Chair. Gripping it by the legs, Prinze quickly opened it then closed it again, as if cocking it.
Filled with energies that caused it to shudder, Prinze swung the Adamantine Folding Chair, slapping it against the roof of Myrathion’s mouth. The impact, and subsequent thunderous crack that followed, caused the dragon to reel so fast and hard that Prinze tumbled from its mouth.
Prinze was not the first to fall, however, as the magical crack produced by the chair had forced the dragon from the ceiling and onto the ground beneath him. Falling down towards it, Prinze braced his feet and plummeted down towards it like a missile, delivering a powerful kick onto it that carried forth all of his fury and momentum.
Myrathion roared out in pain, leaping from the ground, and throwing Prinze from atop him. Now hurt and furious, Myrathion stabbed two claws through the sides of Prinze, forcing him to the ground, then reached down to bite into his arm. Blood began to gush from Prinze’s body once more.
Continuing its assault against the prone Prinze, Myrathion withdrew its claws from his sides, then, using his other hand, raked his claws across his chest twice more, finishing the assault by biting down on him and lifting him into the air.
Beezul, unaware of the carnage happening outside of the hive, stared down at seven giant bees, contemplating how to bypass them and get to his queen. The eight stared off for a moment, still and quiet aside from the buzz of the bees’ wings.
Beezul was the first to move, conjuring forth a blast of webbing from his palm. The webbing covered the bees like a net, not wholly stopping them, rather slowing their pursuit as Beezul dashed past them. Beezul pushed farther into the hive, pursued by those he would once call sister.
A darkness would begin to set over the Temple of Venovarax as dense clouds began to accumulate above.
Wiglof turned to his wife, Hulda, saying, “Wife, I do not have a good feeling about this.”
“Neither do I, husband.” She said, “Perhaps we should prepare the skyland for an emergency departure once our lord returns?”
“Yes wife, I believe that would be wise.”
The two departed, leaving Dolgrak alone to contemplate his part in the growing darkness.
Down below, within the depths of the Temple of Venovarax, Myrathion, a green dragon of immense size, power, and age, crushed its jaws down on the body of Prinze Dragoon, a green-scaled draconian who had been, largely, fighting the dragon alone.
Over the last several minutes, the chambers of the Temple of Venovarax had echoed with the screams of pain emanating from Prinze as he was slashed, bitten, and shaken by Myrathion. His screams were only trumped by the roars of pain returned by Myrathion as flames wreathed around Prinze each time Myrathion slashed or bit into him.
Alonzo Bolin, a human healer, stood below with a dagger plunged into his back. The green-scaled draconian, Zythera Nightfang, assassin and Justiciar of the Verdant Faithful sect of the Cult of the Chromatic Queen, withdrew her dagger, then plunged it, and a second dagger, back into the point where Alonzo’s shoulders met the base of his neck.
A magical barrier that had surrounded Alonzo, which had redirected the Justiciar’s strikes into non-lethal spots, shattered. Zythera withdrew her daggers once more, then plunged them into Alonzo’s back a few inches above the small of his back. The tips of the blades protruded from his abdomen and pulsed with venom.
As a final insult added to Alonzo’s injuries, the Justiciar of the Verdant Faithful hoisted Alonzo’s body above her head and belched a cloud of poisonous gas around him.
Prinze looked down from the jaws of Myrathion to see Alonzo disappear into a cloud of gas. A moment later, the cloud was cleared by the beating of Myrathion’s wings, carrying it back to the ceiling of the chamber where it clung once more.
As the opaque gas cleared, Prinze saw the Justiciar standing over the corpse of Alonzo. The life had drained from his eyes. In that same instant, Doug, the celestial archer that Alonzo had conjured, disappeared into a flash of light.
Kneeling within a corner of the massive chamber, casting a spell to seal the nine arrow wounds created within her chest by Doug moments before, the Oracle of the Verdant Faithful, Sylthion Verdantspire, pointed a claw towards Allistair.
“How about a taste of your treacherous friend’s own medicine?” she hissed as the tip of her claw glowed green.
Eleven large bees, each the size of a large toad, emerged from a wicker beehive at the feet of Allistair, swarming around him as they got their bearings. The half-vampire swung his flaming blade and shadow blade at the insects as they began to sting him with painfully large stingers.
Managing to sidestep the bulk of the swarm for but a moment, Allistair crossed his right arm over his chest then swung it up in an arc over his head. In previous instances when Allistair had cast this spell, his hand would leave behind several tiny glowing stars, but he was left surprised as the magics in his hand were shattered by a bolt of antimagics cast by the Oracle that opposed him.
Frustrated, Allistair stared at the Oracle for a moment, as if to say, “Seriously?” then took off in a charge straight towards her.
Enraged by the sight of the life leaving Alonzo’s eyes, Prinze entered into a flurry of strikes against the dragon’s scorched mouth, cracking the burnt skin and causing the dragon to roar out in pain.
Myrathion, however, had had enough. In an instant, the dragon bit down on the flailing monk, raked his claws across his body twice, and repeated the process twice more. Seconds later, it opened its bleeding mouth and Prinze’s limp body fell to the stone floor below, landing in a hard thump.
Haggard from a grueling battle against Prinze, Myrathion released its grasp on the ceiling and began to fly towards the exit of the chamber.
Still kneeling below, Sylthion Verdantspire watched as the dragon tried to flee the battle. She procured a green ceramic mask from her satchel, molded in the visage of a green dragon, and placed it upon her face.
The eyes of the mask glowed a bright green for a moment as she called out, “Myrathion, you are not permitted to leave.”
The dragon halted in its escape, green glowing from its eyes as it dropped down to the floor before the two great stone doors that marked the exit.
Unsure if Alonzo was truly dead or not, but unwilling to take a risk, Zythera Nightfang cut the throat of Alonzo’s corpse. Blood poured out, but the body did not react. She looked up at Allistair, pointed her dagger at him, then marked him with a magical tracking spell. Allistair tried to wipe away the mark, as if it were an insect that had just landed on him, but stopped the instant he noticed the Justiciar beginning a charge towards him.
Taking a moment to evaluate the situation, that of which a massive dragon stood between him and his escape route, Alonzo was dead, and Prinze was dying, Allistair burst into a puff of mist, grabbed the body of Prinze, then cast a teleportation spell to take him back to Sky’s Reach, abandoning Alonzo’s body and Beezul.
Allistair exhaled a breath of relief, then opened his eyes, expecting to be back atop Sky’s Reach. He was not.
A cackle rang out from the Oracle, antagonizing Allistair with the proclamation, “You’re not allowed to leave either.”
A final, labored breath rattled out from Prinze’s body as it transitioned into a fresh, warm corpse. Allistar dropped him to the floor and held his blades aloft, preparing for his final assault.
The eyes on Sylthion’s mask lit up once more with a bright green, as followed the eyes of Myrathion who turned and snarled at Allistair.
Beezul continued his dash down the corridors and halls of Vespa’s Hive, dodging hostile drones, ducking into narrow tunnels, dipping beneath outcroppings of hardened wax, diving through walls of soft wax and honey, and dodging the two Broodguard that guarded the Queen’s Chamber by teleporting past them in a burst of mist.
As he entered into the Queen’s Chamber, Beezul beheld a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Since the day of his wish, Beezul had watched Vespa, the queen of his hive, grow into the form of a large humanoid bee. Her hive had adapted, growing larger in turn to care for their queen. He had cared for them, nurtured them, and acquired his power from them.
Beezul was not stunned by the sight of the massive bee goddess that flew before him, nor the sizable bees that swarmed around her, rather the literal mountain of bee corpses that they stood, and swarmed, above. The mountain itself grew taller and wider with each passing second.
Vespa hovered above the corpses of thousands of her slain children, both faithful and traitor alike, surrounded by a swarm of both. The traitors, hypnotized by the arrival of Sylverfang, created a maelstrom around her, trying to penetrate the wall formed by her faithful guards.
One after another, the traitorous bees would charge towards her with their stingers and engorged mandibles, and one after another her faithful children would put their bodies on the line to eliminate the traitors.
Slithering around the base of the mountain of corpses was the Wish Dragon Sylverfang. With her ghostly form, she passed through the maelstrom of bees that swarmed around her, creeping ever closer towards the queen. While it would be no issue for her to slither directly to the queen and deal with her directly, Sylverfang was waiting. Waiting for the arrival of Beezul.
Beezul shook away the stunning sight and drew his Bee-Bee Gun, taking aim at Sylverfang. The attention of both Vespa and Sylverfang were instantly drawn to the little kobold.
Slyverfang began to slither back down the mountain of corpses towards Beezul, calling out, “So glad of you to join us, Zul! We’ve already started the party without you.”
Ignoring her attempts to goad him, Beezul began to pray to Vespa, “My queen! Please, I beg of you, give me the power to slay this… Bitch!”
Knowing that her life depended on it, one third of the bees that swarmed around Vespa, those that were still faithful to her, that is, began to glow with a white light. They all shattered into particles, buzzed around for a moment, then formed into a single tiny glowing bee.
The bee, unphased by the maelstrom around it, buzzed and bumbled down into the hands of Beezul, and he knew just what to do with it. He loaded it into his Bee-Bee Gun, imbued it with the last of the lightning he could conjure, and fired it at Sylverfang.
The little radiant bee crackled and whizzed through the air towards the incorporeal dragon. Sylverfang reared up and deployed her hood, a remnant from her previous life as a green dragon, preparing to take the shot head on, anticipating it would harmlessly pass through her.
The little bee, however, was not harmless. By no means was it dangerous to the powerful Wish Dragon either, but it did not simply pass through her without a fight. The little radiant bee struck a blow into the incorporeal dragon, punching a tiny hole through her before splattering out from her hood.
The hope drained from Beezul’s eyes as Sylverfang peered down at him, smug and unphased. She loomed down upon him, closing the distance between the mountain and his little body.
As Sylverfang approached, Beezul scrambled, grabbing what he could from around him to fire at the dragon, but anything he fired from his Bee-Bee Gun after the little bee was useless, passing harmlessly through her.
Her snout was only a few inches away as the last of his shots passed through her. Sylverfang snorted with satisfaction, and her ghastly breath caused the Bee-Bee Gun to fall apart into nothing more than useless wax once more.
“Little creature. You continue to defy me. You strike out against my machinations when I have treated you so well. When I have cared for your queen. Tell me, what will you do to stop me from taking from you everything that you love?”
“You have threatened my hive.” Squeaked Beezul, “I will… I will defend my hive… my queen, until my dying breath.”
Sylverfang chuckled, “Then so be it.”
Allistair stood in the back of Myrathion’s chamber with the Justiciar of the Verdant Faithful bearing down upon him. He couldn’t dodge her and escape through the exit, as the hulking Myrathion blocked his only means of escape, and he couldn’t teleport, as the Oracle of the Verdant Faithful was preparing to counter any spell he would cast. He had one last option: to stand and fight.
One foot in front of another, Allistair began his blade song, stepping forward in a dance of blades, flames and shadows whistling around him in a cacophony of magic and steel.
Then, as sudden as Allistair’s final charge had began it had halted, interrupted by an explosion of force and magic. Allistair looked behind him to see the corpse of Prinze glowing, standing upright and growing in size until it stood as tall as Myrathion.
The glow faded and revealed the magnificent form of a storm giant. The storm giant. The Jotunn, Lord of the Vegvisir.
That is where this week’s tale ends, and next week’s tale will begin.
