Unstable Locomotion

The dragon surely hadn’t kept us waiting with his appearance. Just when we uncovered the dead body of its mother, a feral snarl could be heard from above. There clinging from one of the walls like a bat the creature was eyeing us with its bloody red eyes. It was a pale pitiful beast, the veins of the beast clearly visible on its albino body, and its stunted disfigured body hardly resembling the mighty torso of a grown dragon. Were these signs of the curse that doomed the dragon race those thousand years ago, or was it simply so malnourished and deprived of sun since its birth, that it became this thing? I don’t know. But even though it was a small and beast-minded specimen I can tell you one thing; it was still a dragon and that means it was bloody dangerous. While there was hunger in its eyes, it was obvious that those eyes were not as good as they should be. Realizing that the dragon was probably as good as blind, all of us froze in our places and we started sneakily reaching for our weapons. The situation was simple, we wouldn’t leave without the treasure, and the dragon wouldn’t let us take it without dying. As one of our goblin crewmembers reached for her bow, she accidentally knocked over a small golden bust lying on the floor, her futile attempts at stopping the bust from falling only made the resulting sound worse. In a blink of an eye, the dragon tensed up,leapt into the air and spread its membrane-like wings. Our crewmember didn’t even have time to scream before she was slashed to bits by the viscous curved talons of the creature and her body became a feast for the beast. We were stunned by this lethal display and our conviction began to falter, as no one wanted to be the next to be torn to shreds. At least the dragon was a little bit occupied with devouring the body, and we could make a little bit of sound, but what was one supposed to do in such a situation. I know that I’ve already told you of some truly dire inescapable situations, but there was always something one goblin like me could do, but not here. I couldn’t escape, I couldn’t fight because that would be suicide, and I couldn’t stay and wait for the dragon to find me sooner or later. I have to admit that I was on my brink and I thought that surviving would be a miracle; and that’s the only reason why I can say the following sentence without any damn regrets. Who would have thought that out of all people…we would be saved by the bloody Boom-Master. I jest you not, ’tis true I swear on my tricorne. When the dragon was preoccupied, the Boom-Master started taking something from his bottomless bag of explosives. I didn’t know what the big metal phallic object the size of the kobold’s body was, but knowing the Boom-Master…I could guess. What I couldn’t guess however, was the reason why that madman was strapping the thing to his back…and lit it under himself yelling “Race this you bastard!” Upon hearing the voice and the sound of the burning fuse, the dragon looked at the kobold and quickly darted towards him. A heroic sacrifice I thought, a noble deed indeed. But that notion didn’t stay long, for sacrifice usually involves dying, not a crazed kobold flying, outmaneuvering and evading a dragon on a giant unstable smoking explosive device. Which is clearly what had happened. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and neither would the dragon if his eyes worked. The crazed fool was cackling like a madman and was throwing one bomb after another at the dragon. They didn’t injure it much, but they sure made it angry; so much so that the dragon increased its speed and was about to swallow both the rocket and the deluded fool of a kobold. To my surprise, the Boom-Master was more cunning that I gave him credit for at the time and simply cut off the straps tying him to the device, making him fall before being devoured. The dragon didn’t notice any creature falling and did exactly what it was baited into. It munched on the explosive, a snack that proved itself too much even for a dragon. In a moment’s time we were being showered by bits of flesh and blood coming from the beast. This is the tale of how we faced the dragon wrath and we came out of it richer and stronger. Boom-Master of course survived without a single bruise, we took everything we could find here into our magical bags, and we made our slow way back to surface and then to Flotsam. What’s to take from this tale you say…well few thing: No matter the danger, we always end up richer. Never get on a kobold’s bad side…and good side neither, because both are equally dangerous. But mostly, join our crew, we get things done. If some of you want to mock or doubt, let me remind you that we have fought a dragon and won. How many can say the same?

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