A Fighting Chance

A little one-shot from NWN: Shadows of Undrentide.

---------

“Go on, Perry! Tell us about the dragon!” The youngsters gazed at their hero in wide-eyed awe.

It was a stormy evening in Hilltop. The halfling warrior Perry Highlander and his dwarven companion, Dorna Trapspringer, were sitting at a table in the local tavern, surrounded by a swarm of young admirers.

“Well, alright,” he said, giving in. “We were sure we didn’t have a chance. See, Tymofarrar — that’s the dragon — he had a whole cave’s worth of kobolds ready to do whatever he wanted. And after Dorna and I fought our way down there —“

”You fought through all the kobolds? The ones that attacked Hilltop?” a small boy named Hin asked.

Perry glanced at Dorna. “Well, yeah. So, anyway, we got down into Tymofarrar’s caves.” The dwarf snorted, remembering the spectacle of a slew of kobolds jumping off a ledge into a huge bucket.

“What was it like?” Ginna, a half-elven girl, broke in.

“It was damn cold down there, it was,” Dorna said stoutly. “Like burrowing into a snowdrift naked.”

Perry snickered and continued. “So we went down there and a group of ice kobolds attacked us. Immune to cold, the little buggers, so I couldn’t use my hammer, Ice Grinder.” He patted the hammer currently lying on the floor. “But we took ‘em down, and got this.” With a flash of speed, Perry drew the dagger from his belt and stabbed the table. A fine lacework of frost spread about a foot outwards from the point of impact. A collective chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ echoed from the group of awed children.

“By now, we passed a huge corral, full of oxen and cows,” Perry went on. “There was a sign next to the gate that said, ‘Food for the master. Do not open gate, animals might stampede.’ So we passed it and went down the central corridor. Then we emerged into a giant cavern, bigger than this building.”

“Wow!”

“Probably bigger than this half of Hilltop,” Dorna added.

“Really?”

Perry nodded. “And there was Tymofarrar. He was a white dragon, with scales like glittering diamonds, and he towered over us. His eyes fixed on me.”

“Did he have bad breath?”

“Was his claws sharp?”

“Did he try to eat you?”

“To answer your questions, I don’t know, yes, and no,” Perry said, winking at Dorna, who smiled. “Tymofarrar wanted to get back at an evil sorceress he didn’t like, named J’Nah. I agreed to see what I could do, went to her place, and killed her.”

“Wow!”

“Neat-o!”

“Did she have really nifty stuff with her?”

“Excellent question, Lyndili,” Perry said, gracing the little elf with a grin. “Yes, J’Nah had a tube with the spirit of an ice elemental trapped inside. When broken, it would cause the user to be infused with that spirit, making them completely immune to cold. Since we were fighting a white dragon, this was really nifty. It also made the user take on the appearance of a frost giant. Imagine a little halfling like me turning into a giant!” The faces of the children lit up as he went on.

“So, Dorna and I went back into Tymofarrar’s caves, and when I said I’d killed J’Nah, he said that I’d saved him a great deal of work, but now he’d have to kill me.”

“No way!”

“That was really mean, after you did all that great stuff for him!”

“What a jerk!”

“What did you do?”

“Well, this is the part where I would have died had Dorna not been with me,” Perry said, glancing at her. She looked indignant.

“That’s absolute nonsense, Perry,” the thief said, laughing.

“No, it’s true!” Perry assured his audience. “So while he was blabbing on about revenge and how he thought halflings must be the dumbest race on earth because of how gullible I was, I slipped Dorna a Potion of Speed and told her what the plan was.”

“What was the plan?”

“I’m getting to that. Dorna slipped off down the hall while Tymofarrar finished his rant and asked me if I had any last words. So get this: I held up the tube, which was really called an Ice Phylactery, and I said ‘How about: phylactery?’ Then I smashed it on the ground!”

“Awesome!”

“What happened?”

“Did you die?”

“Of course not, idgit, he’s right here in front of us!”

“I felt like I was floating, then suddenly I was about twenty or so feet
taller. I knew, even as a frost giant, I would never be able to beat a dragon! So this is where Dorna came in.”

“I went down the corridor to the corral Perry told you about,” Dorna said. “I drank the potion Perry had given me, then I opened the gate. The potion was so I got out of the way before the oxen and cows trampled me. They stampeded down the hall, and I used the Ring of Mystra that Master Drogan gives all his students. It teleports us immediately to Master Drogan’s side, so I was brought back to the school here in Hilltop while Perry was still in the Nether Mountains.”

“So there I was, fighting for my life against this great white dragon, when this stampede comes running in. I knew Dorna had done her job, so I used my own ring, and we waited for the herd to do their work.” The children waited with bated breath, then clearly realized this was the grand end to the story, and broke out in applause, whoops, and cheers.

“Wow!”

“That’s the best story I’ve ever heard!”

“It’s a lot better than all those stupid princess stories my mama tells me!”

“I’m gonna go tell all my friends! Come on!” The ringleader of the group led his peers out of the common room and into the afternoon sunlight. Perry took his dagger from the table and re-sheathed it on his belt. He stood up, grabbing Ice Grinder. They ascended the stairs to their rooms, preferring to stay here rather than walk back to the school.

“Were you really serious when we were in that cave, Perry?”

He froze, remembering.

—

“Dorna, take this potion. It’ll speed you up for a while. Go and let out the herd in the corral, then get out of here! Use your ring!”

Dorna looked at him fiercely. “Perry . . . if you die in here, I’m going to hate you forever.”

Perry stared at her, hesitating, then gave her a hard peck on the lips. “I know, Dorna. Now go! I’ll be okay; it’s you I’m worried about!”

She took off, and Perry turned to face Tymofarrar. He was terrified. What chance did a halfling stand against a dragon?

A fighting chance, that’s what, Perry thought determinedly, and threw caution to the winds as he spoke his ‘last words’ and let the ice phylactery fall from his fingertips.

—


“If you have to ask —“ he began, and she grinned in a fashion that made Perry uneasy.

“I knew it!” Dorna said triumphantly. “I knew you didn’t like me. Oh, this is good. Now I don’t have to worry about it.” She went into her own room.

Perry blinked. Women were strange creatures. He paused, then went to Dorna’s door and knocked.

“Dorna?”

“Oh, go away!” she snapped from within. There was a very odd huskiness to her tone that wasn’t normally there.

“Dorna, what’s wrong?” Perry asked.

“I said, go away!”

“I’ll break down this door!” he threatened, starting to get angry. “You know I can!”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Wish granted!” he roared back, hefting Ice Grinder and throwing the hammer forward with all his strength. The door splintered and flew inward off its hinges.

“PERRY!”

“DORNA!” There was a ringing silence in which halfling and dwarf stared at each other. Perry was standing by the door, breathing heavily from the force he had just exerted on the door. Dorna was sitting on her bed, and had smudges on her cheeks that looked a lot like hurriedly wiped away tears.

“You’re right, Dorna,” Perry said, breaking the silence.

Dorna’s expression turned as stormy as the sky outside. Perry dropped his hammer and stomped over to her, and kissed her just as he had in Tymofarrar’s cavern — furiously. She fought him and he broke away, as murderous-looking as she.

“I don’t like you. I love you. And if the pair of us can beat a dragon, then I think we’ve got a damn good fighting chance in making this work.”

“A fighting chance,” Dorna repeated. She could still feel the tingle of his lips against hers, and it was probably a good thing she was sitting down, because her knees were feeling a bit weak. “Aye!” And with that, she pulled his head down to hers again. Dorna couldn’t figure out why, but a line from a song she had heard the local children singing was running through her head. I never get enough of that wonderful stuff . . .