Summoning Ocellus

The dam was a bit harder to reach than they expected. The various stairs and pathways didn’t go all the way to the top, so they’d have to either climb a few hundred feet to the top of the ridge and hope that it was navigable from there, or approach from the ground. They chose the latter, since it at least had a trail.

The dam was impressive, if macabre. A hundred feet high, it held back the Stormval Deep, with five skull-shaped spillgates making sure it didn’t overflow. The top was covered with missing pieces, cracks, and ogres banging away at the dam, trying to destroy it.

As they watched, a serpent-like head loomed over the edge of the dam and struck at the ogres, alongside some squidlike tentacles. The ogres scattered, but the impact was the last straw, and a good chunk of the dam collapsed into the pond below, a surge of water behind it.

The adventurers were already running for higher ground, but Keeper was a little too slow and was washed downstream. They chased after him, and found him after a few hundred feet, clinging to a small tree. Ijj levitated the end of a rope out to him, and he wrapped it around his arm a few times and then let them pull him to safety.

“I’m fine,” he said, coughing up a bit of water. “I barely had time to lament how you’d possibly survive without me before I hit that tree.”

Danielle cast a light healing spell on him anyway, just in case.

“Thanks,” he said, dismissively. “We should head back to Turtleback Ferry – this flood is going to do a number on the town.”

“Something’s wrong with the dam,” William said. “Did you see how the water was almost overtopping it? The spillways should have opened days ago.”

“Maybe the ogres got inside and sabotaged it?” Tixi suggested.

“What I want to know is what kind of monster was that?” Ocellus asked. “I want to dissect it. I don’t have any really large shapes.”

“Too much for us to handle, that’s what,” Danielle replied. “Hopefully it’s still up in the Deep and we’ll never see it again.”

“Don’t jinx us,” Flicker hissed.

===

It was a long slog to Turtleback Ferry, since the trail was submerged and none of them knew the second thing about building a raft – they were reasonably sure the first thing was tying logs together, but there was a distinct lack of perfectly sized logs sitting around waiting for them.

When they finally arrived, the town was a mess. The swell from the river hadn’t abated and most of the roads and buildings were flooded. The church or Erastil, formerly up on a hill, was now on an island, and a bunch of small children were being rescued off the roof of what used to be the schoolhouse. The party approached to see if they could help out, but as if on cue a giant snake emerged from the depths and lunched at the delectable morsels, closing its mouth around one of the children and threatening to swallow her whole.

A barrage from the part put an end to that – and the snake. Ocellus grabbed onto its body as it started to slide back into the waters, and Tixi and Ijj ran to help drag it back up onto what passed for the shore now. “Yes!” Ocellus said, pumping her hoof into the air. “I always wanted to be a giant snake!”

“Why?” Tixi asked.

“Best hugs,” Ocellus replied, nodding sagely.

Unfortunately, before she could get to dissection, the monster from the dam reared its ugly head up over the church.

“We’re doomed!” cried one of the teachers who’d been pulling the half-swallowed girl out of the snake’s mouth. “It’s Black Magga, come to devour us all!”

“It’s going to destroy the church! Dozens of people are sheltering there!” someone else cried.

“Well, what are we supposed to do about it?” a fisherman asked. “Sail out there and stab it with harpoons?”

“We’ve got something better to stab it with,” William replied. “Just sail us close enough that I can hit it with my sword.”

“We’re no match for that thing!” Danielle insisted. “I’ll try to support you from here if you want to commit suicide, though.”

In the end, Flicker and Ijj headed out in one boat, trying to get close enough to use their sneak attacks, while William, Keeper, and Tixi headed in another, planning to create a distraction. Ocellus and Danielle stayed on shore to play cheerleader (“and write the story of your inevitable demise,” Danielle added).

The story of their demise was quickly obscured by a cloud of black smoke, engulfing both boats, and then the tentacles snaked through dimensions to try to grab hold of the people on shore. Danielle stabbed at them while furiously dodging, aided by some telekinesis from Ocellus’ horn… but it wasn’t enough and she was wrapped up in a tentacle that squeezed tightly around her, cracking a rib…

Fortunately, the giant monster wasn’t very invested in the pointless battle against the town, and left after a few seconds – fortunately, because the black smoke had caused massive, seemingly irresistible confusion and both fisherman were dead by the time it wore off. Ijj wasn’t in great shape either, with Flicker’s claws at his throat as she got her senses back just in time. Keeper’s boat was on fire, and once it burned to the waterline the three on it had to use the flotsam to paddle their way to shore.

“Yeah, we were no match for that thing,” Ocellus admitted, once everyone regrouped and started patching each other up. “But at least the church was saved. Do you think we’ll get a reward?”

“From these guys?” the blacksmith asked. “Only if you negotiated one ahead of time.”

“Saving lives is its own reward, apparently,” William said. “I’d do it again.”

“And that’s why they won’t pay you,” the blacksmith replied.

As it turned out, not even the mother of the child they’d saved was willing to pay them anything, so Ocellus was the only one to get a reward from the entire battle. Her and Danielle, who got to experience snake hugs and did seem to thoroughly enjoy them, and Tixi who watched raptly as her familiar coiled around the bard.

===

The floodwaters receded after a few more hours, but the center of town was essentially a loss – the docks were ruined, most of the fishing boats smashed or lost, and all the buildings filled with filthy mud.

The mayor sent the party upstream to reinforce the fortress with a new contingent of rangers, since the Black Arrows were basically all dead. They broke off halfway to head to the dam, since it had other damaged parts that could send another flood if they didn’t figure out what was wrong with it – and the ogres might have sent reinforcements to continue the demolition, after the last batch was wiped out in the partial collapse.

They arrived around nightfall and camped at the bottom of the dam, carefully concealing their campsite since there seemed to be five ogres left on the dam – five exhausted, listless ogres that didn’t seem to be in any shape to fight, let alone finish the dam’s destruction. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

Tixi, as always, was scribbling in her spellbook before going to bed. “I think this might actually work,” she said, staring at the most recent iteration.

“What’s that?” Ijj asked.

“Dimensional Anchor,” Tixi replied. “I also upgraded my summon spell, so I might be able to actually summon Smolder this time.”

“Does that mean I can go home?” Ocellus asked. “To visit at least?”

“No…” Tixi said. “It might let us make a tuning fork for your world, but I’m still a long way off from casting Plane Shift. And trying to get Smolder to use the tuning fork properly was an uphill battle that we didn’t win last time anyway.”

“Smolder’s really good in a fight, at least,” Ocellus said. “All dragons are, but she’s kind of special.”

“And she can tell your friends you’re still alive,” Ijj added. “Maybe they’ll come get you.”

“For now we should focus on the dam,” William said. “A dragon fighting on our side is great, but if the spillgates don’t open I’m worried it might come down even if the ogres don’t do anything – and that’ll be a lot worse for Turtleback Ferry than the storm surge they just got.”

“Do we really care about Turtleback Ferry, though?” Tixi asked. “They’re kind of mean.”

“Yes, we do,” William said, firmly enough that no one argued.