another d&d char illustration! well, sort of. character not included. it's an image from the char's backstory. the build is a Swiftblade focused on Manyshot and Planar Touchstone Oxyrhynchus to output a lot of arrows per round. and here's the backstory:
7 arrows, 6 seconds.
The 1st arrow. She lingers in the woods away from her peers, knocking carefully placed rocks off a branch with a sling. A shout of “Think fast!” behind her while she’s mid-shot. Whirling around, she strikes a stone out of the air before it hits her. Both her and the would-be bully stop and stare at the fallen stone for what seems like a very long time.
This arrow strikes the dragon’s snout.
The 2nd arrow. The greying elf places the book in front of her, open to the early pages. She hadn’t known elves could even get old. Every other elf she’d met seemed captured in amber, remaining youthful as she came of age and her mother grew wrinkles. Those wrinkles were deeply creased now as her mother watched her. She could feel the afternoon sun creeping away from the window.
“Please,” commanded the elf, “can you read this?”
It’s the written notation of a spell that shows the presence of magic. She tells the elf this, and he smiles. Her mother looks away.
This arrow strikes the dragon’s shoulder.
The 3rd arrow. Her mother hands her a bow and quiver, wrapped in cloth. It was her mother’s bow, and her grandmother’s before that, and her great-grandmother’s before that, though the limbs and string had been replaced so many times before that it could hardly be said to the same bow, or at least not in the way where it would qualify as a relic passed through the generations. A simple tool, often cared for.
“Please,” her mother hopes, “take it. I know it’s nothing next to what’s in that book, but…”
She takes the bow. Her mother’s eyes look right through her, towards the morning sun slowly pushing past the horizon.
This arrow strikes the dragon’s wing.
The 4th arrow. The journey is toil. There is a small relief in that the old elf always finds them a comfortable place to get a good night’s rest. But almost every other moment is dedicated to studying that book, translating its intricate diagrams into her own will against that of reality. She is allowed to hunt with the bow. The elf makes no commentary on this and silently accepts her catch after it is cooked.
At one point they are accosted on the road. The old elf stands tall before the bandits. They draw their weapons and silently cut their own throats. She thinks of the times she has noticed the elf follow her out hunting and watch while she catches them both dinner. She thinks of the later pages of that book, where a single spell might take up 6 or 7 pages of text and instruction. She thinks that maybe the elf isn’t old but encased in a different sort of amber than the other elves that only makes him look that way. She thinks, what a horrible thing, to exist outside of time.
This arrow strikes the dragon’s flank.
The 5th arrow. She arrives at a school. The elf speaks to someone at the gate and then turns to hand her the book.
“Please,” he wills, “Take it and learn. Be as I am.”
She takes the book, and wraps it in the cloth alongside her bow. She will never see the amber-old elf again. In her memory of this moment, she considers that she was wrong about elves aging and that he simply died of old age before she finished her schooling. This feels like lying to herself.
The person at the gate motions her into the school.
This arrow strikes the dragon’s hind leg.
The 6th arrow. Her schooling courses are decided for her. The courses decided for her require dueling to pass. The class size shrinks each year as the students kill each other in these duels. There is a danger coming to the kingdom. She will be conscripted as soon as she graduates. If she lives to graduate.
She faces off against a necromancer. Standing before the necromancer waiting for the instructor to mark the start of the duel makes her think of a time long ago, of a rock lying on the ground between two surprised children. A starting bell rings, and she encases the moment in amber, stepping outside of it herself. She unwraps the book and bow, fingers shaking as she strings it. Her nerves are jumping right through her skin as she strides up to the necromancer but muscle memory keeps her steady when she fires two arrows into his throat, point blank.
She thinks, what a horrible thing, to exist outside of time. And the amber cracks. The necromancer lurches forward, grasping her hand with a touch that surely would’ve killed her, if he could’ve spoken the final words of his incantation instead of gurgling around an arrow shaft. She stares at him like he is a rock on the ground, like he is a desperate man bleeding out on a dusty road from a self-inflicted wound.
This arrow strikes the dragon’s tail.
The 7th arrow. The dragon had flown low to sweep her comrades with its searing breath. She’d prepared a few with wards against the heat but there hadn’t been enough magic to go around after the earlier fights and there were just as many screaming and writhing on the scorched ground as there were magically unmarred and rushing for cover. Moments like this seemed to stay still in a way that she could linger in and stroll through like one might do in a museum. She assumes this leisurely pace as she passes through the flaming devastation, covering the distance between her hiding place and the screaming fury of the dragon like it was a distant memory of her mother’s afternoon walk. Calmly, deliberately, she knocks each arrow, and fires.
Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times. Six times.
Though hot blood streams off its scales, the dragon is not slowing down. She knows that if she cannot kill it now, it will use its greater speed to stay out of range, harrying her and her comrades from a safe distance until they are worn down for easy pickings. She slows her breath and listens. She can feel the dragon’s heartbeat, the predatory adrenaline of it matching time with her own. She knocks a final arrow. The roaring air from its wingbeats drowns out all sound, except their two heartbeats.
She fires the seventh arrow.
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dailybridgerton
snowghoul
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