Me: Also, my brain fed me a thing for Alexis
Friend: Ya
Me: It was pretty rad and centered around people's reinforced preconceived notion that Alexis *hates* magic. So she makes a drinkable wish spell or a power word potion, using her in-depth study of magic and magical effects
Him: Neat
Me: Yes
Him: But why?
Me: Well there's a dragon
Me: A big dragon
Me: A big, fuck off, ancient, evil, red dragon
Him: That would do that
Me: Yeah.
Him: Making something magical is a bit outside her zone
Me: Well yeah if she were straight Tinkerer, which means yet another version of Alexis (thank you brain). Anyway, she made it a while ago, but she never used it, just kept recharging it 'in case of emergency'. Also the aftereffects of the potion are rough; HP, exhaustion, strength damage, etc.
And she managed to bully and cajole and rally a fighting force (or perhaps Vox Machina did that) against the dragon
But things are not going well
Because, well...dragon.
And the dragon knows that.
Him: Things don’t typically go well against a big, ancient, red dragon
Me: (No they do not). And he’s laughing and mocking them and generally demoralizing them, further hampering their efforts.
And he’s all, “Pathetic! You are ants! Kneel before me and I might spare you. You cannot defeat me, feeble nothings!”
And in the middle of that is Alexis, who’s banged up and bleeding and almost out of tricks, ducked behind a building that hasn’t been knocked down yet, and looking out at what she can see of the battlefield that Emon has become. Leopold is laying strewn in small, metal pieces along the street, his parts almost indistinguishable from the rubble. Bruno is barely visible from where she is slumped against the cracked, unstable wall, his massive, metal plated form looking small - lying there in the street, his sword shattered, his shield rent. One arm is missing, revealing the soft, sinewy bark beneath, which has been scorched with dragonfire.
And she stares at him for a while as Thordak continues to monologue about his superiority. How weak they are compared to him. How they are finished.
She spits blood from her mouth, grits her teeth against the pain, and reaches into the third pocket of her toolbelt, hand disappearing past the wrist.
“You think so, do you?”
And she pulls out a small glass vial that shimmers with a pure, white light. She stares at it for a while and looks back at Bruno’s corpse and shakes her head.
“Sorry, mama,” she says, before slamming it back like a shot of everclear.
Him: As the dragon’s like, ‘Oh shit’.
Him: That’s pretty boss of her.
Me: And these veins of light pour down her throat (Oh, he’s not even paying attention to her. Like, he’s making a big show of being the boss of this fight, but he is taking damage, and it’s not like Vox Machina is sippin Mimosas somewhere else), and up her face and into and out of her eyes
Him: And takes one level of Badass.
Me: And she steps out onto the shattered street, with this light pulsing through her veins, and it doesn’t look holy, and it doesn’t look cool, it’s like every supernatural poisoned vein shot, complete with bile dripping from her mouth, only it’s made of light. And she takes a few breaths and then yells, ‘Thordak!” And her voice is magically amplified to the point where flames sputter away and whatever’s left of glass windows shatter around her.
Him: That’s awesome, or it is in my head.
Me: His massive head turns at the sound of his name and he growls at this insignificant human standing defiantly in the rubble of the city he’s conquered. She reeks of magic - powerful magic - even from this distance, and he will not allow this. This city is his. His. And he turns entirely away from the fight around him, lips pulling back, flame pouring from the sides of his mouth. And she just stands there as he barrels towards her, and just as he picks up speed, she says - not bothering to raise her voice
He seizes, eyes constricting in pain and surprise. His arms buckle, suddenly useless.
Him: Fucking epic
Me: He tries to flame, but he can’t breathe. He slams into the earth, rubble spewing in all directions as he writhes, tongue lolling from his mouth as his panicked, furious eye fixes on Alexis, who stands in the street - broken, bloodied, hideously glowing, and unmoving - blood trickling from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Glaring down this hideous, evil Wyrm, who expends its last breaths trying to claw its way to kill her.
With one last surge of strength, he heaves forward with one massive claw
She doesn’t move.
She doesn’t flinch.
Only watches as this massive claw slam into the broken cobbled street eight feet away.
The earth shudders violently beneath her and she falls to her knees. She stares at the claw for a moment, feels the last, shuddering exhale of evil leave the world, and allows the tension to leave her shoulders. The glow leaves her. Her skin pales, and she coughs up a gout of blood before collapsing forward into the broken street.
She did it.
She got him.
But...
Her eyes dim, even as she fights not to close them. The fight is half-hearted.
She’d known the risks.
She’d known there’d be no turning back.
With the last of her strength, she turns her head so she can see Bruno, laying not ten feet away, his broken body facing her, the sockets of his face where once the ghostly blue of his eyes lived are dark and empty.
She’d known there’d be no going back.
But that scaly fucker had it comin’.
Him: Jesus.
Him: If I were reading a book and then it said "Bruno is irreparably shattered" I would be like "Nope, I'm done" Close the book probably wouldn't pick it up till the next day.
