Arrows were loosed in retaliation to the earlier blazing hiccup, which cremated many guards and cauterized the stark battlements beneath them.  

[color=a2d39c]"WAAAAAAARGH!"[/color]

Despite a roped javelin and a launched missile into the fray from the blessed orc and the recognizable, but bestial eyed divine aspirant, their monstrous foe circled above once again ignoring the scratches of Greenest’s best. The Halfling’s musical encouragement summoned optimism, granting courage to some within the motley crew. A cleric, named Kyra, nearby, rationed holiness to those willing to contest the fiery behemoth.

Soon, the scaly goliath descended and belched another bleak eternity of Gehenna, worthy of the Fourfold Furnaces, perdition stemming from legend and the reckoning of the ancient years of Dale.  Torus’ murky eyes and caved chest cringed, as the bird whispered severance, its pectoriloquy eradicating its telepathic bond due to inexplicable trepidation. The screams from the fraught raven’s wings expanded to the druid’s mental sanctuary; he was projected into a déjà vu, the enharmonic equivalent of an emotional Möbius strip colliding with a meteor of his previous iniquitous incarnations, as nightmares yielded elegy and dirge from the kender’s convulsive blade bow. 

[hider=Flashback of Fear: Green before Red]
[hr]Aside from the occasional over-sized Pooh bear belly obstructing the tavern floor, the collage of idiosyncrasies and races always noticed the entry of the aging pirate. He possessed a bizarre taste and an even more peculiar wit; his nefarious reputation seemed to precede his boots, anywhere they took him. It made orcs nervous and elves laugh, but the druid never left anyone nearby unscathed from his unruly tongue. Whenever he and the regulars, who hung around the Red-Eyed Owl heard a bard warble, “The Dragon Queen is dead,” every rummy would change that line to “Old Man Torus Said,” and follow it up with any bit of doggerel that came to mind and howl that dogma, as if dangled by a master puppeteer, brewing the greatest slogan in Waterdeep. They’d pound the heavy oak tables in that timeworn saloon, and for a brief moment, the air wasn't so heavy with a stale burning heart or the stench of failure. 

It was a vessel where all were first mates, with Torus at the hull.

The slab, entitled after a famous Waterdhavian noble who would oftentimes hoot after a full expensive palate of Alfengrape with enraged conjunctiva, developed in the Castle Ward into a haunted ruin where Odysseus-like witches danced as wasted protagonists stumbled home to their respective ancient Grecian odes. This wasn't a pub where deputized charlatans or slumming beggars trekked to guzzle ale from jugs. This served a hive where men who witnessed hard lives went to expire.

Slowly. Poisoning themselves along the way. 

The hostelry was always wintry inside, similar to the denouement of a forgotten Shakespearean tragedy, frigid and melancholy except for the few savory instances when infrequent droll occurred. Even then, though, that mirth was haphazard, like the time, a warlock slipped in a pool of spilled liquor and plummeted onto his already bludgeoned face, shoving his Orwellian monocles into his baggy pupils. The whole crowd guffawed at his goggled peepers. However, the dystopian fall rendered him entirely blind in one eye and mostly in the other. And, yet, despite the effervescent cackling, Torus still prized it, but more so when ice and darkness abounded.  

It was his watering hole, even if he didn’t own it or toiled there. He was present more than any other drunk dwarf. Hence, it was to everyone’s surprise when a gorgeous, crimson-haired belle, a quarter-century the middle-aged pirate’s junior, in an emerald dress, with eyes wide and dewy, legs long and strong, and a Poesque countenance able to fend numerous coarse words and whistles from hoary men, strutted to the inebriated Tethyrian. Torus was entranced by the ornamental purple dragon, branded on the skin of her left arm, in vivid portrayal, as he sat on his usual stool next to her. The druid had just returned from the shitter, carrying his shot glass with him.

[color=00aeef][i]“Thirsty work!”[/i][/color] he bellowed to no one in particular, and all echoed, at top volume and in unison, before returning to their own drinks.

[color=ed1c24]“Torus?”[/color] 

[color=00aeef][i]“That’s right, my dear,”[/i][/color] He replied in Common, flashing his barren tongue, mesmerized by the small brown parcel. 

[color=ed1c24]“I have brought you a birthday present.”[/color] She juddered in Draconic as she caressed his hand.

Then, suddenly, a hack full of blood erupted from his ligneous mouth, across the midriff of the opposing female’s attire, contrasting like tainted Thayan dirt in a jade pasture, whilst Vel, the Tiefling bartender, stood in bereft horror of a Red wizard.[hr][/hider]
His quarterstaff fell from his crippled grip, dropping in similitude to the Calashite guillotine plunged by Yaga-Shura upon the city of Saradush. The bo clanged onto the floor dissipating its magical glimmer evoked moments earlier as precaution. Quickly, his thoughts became a funeral to doubt, as Maztican gore seeped from his lips. There was no bated pause to commemorate the envisioned charred amputees or worse, the ashen dead. The fictitious memorial wake was wretched from his contemplation once the current surroundings completely materialized into view. His caked eyelids flickered about the distraught alcove, reminding the elder that the future of this world was not given by fathers and mothers but borrowed from their children.

Sweeping a tear from his cheek, shed for his sinful past, he mystically matured the lacrimation into a frosty scalpel. Disregarding his belongings but embarking his shield, the solidified dagger slowly cried and trickled from his palm, whilst the druid trotted towards the shrieks and momentarily oozed past Brannor into the open parapet, where the inferno had been beheld by his avian familiar. He gazed, with awe, upon the mysteriously illuminated dragon. 

The beast occupied the center of his failing but fearless vision. 

He welcomed death, like seeds dormant beneath the snow of his heart dreaming of the promised Fey spring, whether guaranteed in this life or the next. Torus hailed his only dart, casting and mirroring that hopeful shard which emulated all who stared into its revolving corkscrew, remembering the valor and mettle of those remaining ever present before the flapping calamity. 
 
[hider=Mechanics]
In the flashback, the Red wizard used Disguise Self and Inflict Wounds on the younger Torus.

Due to Frightful Presence, the raven will take the Dodge action as it seeks a place to roost and hide. Torus sees/hears through his familiar until the start of his next turn, which is now. 

During his turn, Shillelagh is lost since the staff left his grasp. He interacts with one object, specifically the turtle shell and casts Ice Knife which has a range of 60 feet, once he is at the rampart, at the Dragon who is within range.

For the initial Ice Knife strike, with the advantage from Faerie Fire, Torus rolls a [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/1726]  22[/url] and a [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/1727]11[/url].

If the Ice Knife lands, then the dragon takes [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/1729]5[/url] damage.

Whether hit or miss, the shard explodes and the dragon must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw against a target of 13 or take 2d6 cold damage ([url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/1728]9[/url]).

HP: 7
AC: 14 (with shield)
[/hider]