Dragons - Demo Version

(Instrumental)

"I keep my cool, I don't know how
This motherfucker's trying to give me low morale!
No no, YOLO, go so loud
I'ma pull a crowd to my last known locale
All they gotta do is follow the thunder
All over, y'all know the laws of the jungle:
Walls go asunder, lawns go to tundra
Dizzy carve it up like a marble rotunda
I am the hype, I'm a goddamn delight
Spit a few bars, cause a bystander fight
It's a Highlander, I could swing a Zweihander like
When I man the mic, I get five grand a night
How I'm 'bout to be scared of a lizard?
Kid better prepare to get injured
Wanna put my team down? You'll get buried in a minute
And I don't even care if you surrender
You ain't walking out of here alive if there's blood in my veins
That's just the cut of my fangs
'Cause of my pain, my joy, my love for my game
The sisters and the brothers I've made..."
The dragon looks pissed - I guess I said it all out loud
Ain't no use in hiding it, better go all out now
I grip the neck of my lute and set up the song I'll howl
And then I say "How about a callout, crowd?" ("NOW!")

Jayyra flies up over my shoulders,
Flipping through the air,
Flinging throwing knives close to the eyes of the beast
But he ain't surprised in the least
And his tail lashes out like a cobra
Ogavar slides underneath it and draws
He gets involved with a lethal assault:
Two quick cuts to the tail's underside
One fails, other's right where the scales are in line
And he hails the divine while my bass tune thumps
Thay shoots up to its face doing jumps
Then she takes two punches and they do nothing
But as she falls back down,
Her legs do a thrust to his right elbow and he goes off-kilter
Venti's arms whip around and her spell builds up
Until the air up over the dragon fills up with a cloud,
Raining an icy havoc to chill the fire that he spits
I already missed with the crossbow
But Artus fires and he hits
While his fey hawk and familiar fly up in the mix
And they deliver additional environmental tricks
While Thordrum throws his axe and his hammer
Both go wide,
But the attack wasn't planned to hit the dragon at all
They go past him and slam in the wall
And as they fall back to the clamor,
He calls out "Mera! Faster, goddammit!"
And Mera goes dashing in tandem
Quicker than a Ghast or a Phantom
Smashing the record that she set
Back when she ran track and they banned her
She catches the hammer by the grip, spins around
And she hits the axe in the handle
It flies through the air -
The dragon is distracted
The axe buries up to the haft in his ankle
("CRIT!")

The dragon lets out a roar,
Booming down the halls and out the door
"FOOLS! You were right, to cower before (RUN! RUN!)
You challenge a Wyrm to a battle? Sure!" (RUN! RUN!)
He turns and trips just a little bit
Limping on the ankle with the axe dug into it
His eyes narrow and he looks at me, inhales deeply (RUN! RUN!)
The end's what it looks to be! (RUN! BEWARE, COWARD!)

A huge whoosh of flames
That get extinguished immediately due to the rain
He moves through the pain,
Attacking with a brutal array of claw swipes and tail whips
He's loosing his rage upon the group in his range
Jayyra dodges nimbly
Jumps off the axe that was lodged up in the ankle
To try to cause the injury to get worse
It works! He thrashes his claws and then screams!
A whole torrent of obsidian blood
Comes gushing out the wound and into the mud
Thay ducks in and a couple hits are enough
To incapacitate the arm, he ain't lifting it up
While Ogavar is going hard, swinging and thus
Delivers a couple of cuts, then he signals to us
He's about to change position, he's switching it up,
Begins to adjust his footing and goes in for a thrust
I continue to pluck a couple notes more,
Going for arrogant joke based on our home port's folklore
Judging by the way the foe roars,
He'd rather I told that one behind closed doors
Venti's snow storm keeps on pouring
She makes a face to tell me that she's not sure if it's gonna last
Or maybe if a collapse is imminent
It could backfire and it'd be a trap for us
I see the axe of Thordrum - Mera grabs for it
While Arty keeps pace with the hawks
Takes him a shot,
And then relocates to the rock-filled corner of the cave with a hop
Thordrum roars and jumps toward the dragon's forelimbs,
Hurling an assortment of curses
Scores of aspersions
Until the dragon's lured in immersion
It was all, of course, a diversion

While Mera dislodges the axe,
Tosses it back to the dwarf,
And she launches attacks
As she turns her assault on the gash,
The dragon flicks his wrist
And simply tosses her back
Then it spins and gloats at me, grinning openly
Gives a hiss and shows plenty rows of teeth
"You couldn't have really thought this would go too clean
What you think this is? Children's poetry?"

Wait a minute, hold up
Back when we left home, Venti told us
Most of the academics weren't getting close to
Any dragons to learn about them,
But plenty know of all the really old stuff, fairytales and ballads
We learned in class many may have been valid
Some were created in battle -
Made to establish the correct ways to attack with
Back then, everything you'd say about tactics
Could be intercepted by the foe
So they would hire bards to compose those songs by the boatload
And deliver them to the captains
Half of the time, they would be disguised
As some kind of story that was centered on killing a big monster
In fact, there was one where a mouse got the better of a cat
By tricking him into molten lava
I don't have a better idea
If I don't come up with something, he can end the fight here
I throw my lute down, and give him a light sneer, saying
"Honestly, I've been finding it quite weird
That you haven't killed anybody in here yet
I don't think we're even a sincere threat
But we still attacked you, trying to bring your death
So should we tell the King you're his pet, or...?"
Suddenly dragon doesn't look ticked off anymore
Instead, he just plops to the floor,
Onto the hoard of goodies he's taken off of the corpses
Of everyone that's crossed him before
Everybody in the group pauses, we're all confused
He says "I'm gonna take your lives off of you,
But if I'm honest, I don't really got a clue
How you made it this far or why you bothered to."

In the middle of his little rant
I focus on a cantrip I learned to enhance my showbiz
Feeling this could be the only chance, I target Venti
And I tell her what the plan I know is via Message
Tell her "Prep a Polymorph cast!"
Her eyes flash as she lets the ice storm pass
Sends a message back, mentally, telling me via telepathy
"If this doesn't work, it's your ass!"
Out loud, I tell the dragon that I agree
By all accounts, we could have died in the night silently
Bandits or animals could have got us
So why is he taking his time?
Unless he's still hurt from his prior beef?
He erupts in ecstatic laughter
As I send another Message to the Battle Master
Tell him Venti's gonna try to cast a risky spell
I need him to be ready to distract the dragon
He's apparently prepared, and the dragon ain't wise to it
Thor mutters that it's lying to us:
It's actually hurting from the battle earlier today,
But observing by the way it's acted so far, we might do it
The dragon finishes his laughter for now,
Does a lazy half-look around
"Make no mistake, I'm a dragon of his word,
And I said if you made me laugh
I'd give you a chance to get out."
He points a claw at the tunnel we came in from
"If you begin to run, you could hit the entrance by the time I get up
And if you all split up from there,
One might hide well enough to live, but...
That's if you depart right away
But none of you are moving in a smart kind of way
I'll have to assume that you think you have a shot,
But I'll say right now - you do not."

As he wraps up, so do I
I brace myself and turn up the vocal fry
I say "Venti, you can do it if you only try!"
Then I cast Heat Metal on the golden pile
At the same time, Thordrum throws an axe swing
At the dragon's tail so hard, I hear the crack ring
I've got to assume it's pretty distracting
'Cause the dragon is snarling directly at him
And the gold's collapsing under all that weight
We've only got one chance, it's for all our fates
I give Venti a wink. She holds the jar up, takes the lid off it,
And makes a bizarre arcane gesture
Grabbing a cocoon from the bottom of the jar
Solemn as a guard watching the sarcophagus of God
Time slows 'til it's frozen, it's all about to drop
The dragon's about to levy an assault upon us all
Every claw bigger than the room I grew up in
Venti's hands are a blur as she moves up,
Finishing off dramatic with a clap
While the dragon is distracted
Snapping at Thor when it's opportune to hit ("You little shit!")
The magical mist crawls across the floor
As the dragon's jaws close down onto Thor,
Mera holds her hand out with an awesome roar
And puts ethereal armor upon him before the bite connects
I can hear him trying to defend
While the dragon shakes him around, then finally relents
Just as the mist thickens and it's climbing up his limbs
To envelop him before he realizes what it is
Venti doesn't say a word to her foe
She holds the cocoon with a nervous approach
As the dragon rears back, all immured in the smoke,
Weight crushing all his red-hot purses and gold
I see fur start to grow through his carapace
NO WAY
The hair, it gets thicker as it spreads to some areas
The dragon's head snaps down, furious
All he can do is stare at us

He begins to shrink slowly at first,
Then it picks up speed as he grows in reverse
And the rest of him is covered in a snow-colored fur
'til we're looking at a little white rodent
And we're all stunned, there's a beat all around
Even the mouse isn't squeaking a sound -
Until he starts feelin the ground,
All the treasure and the metal
That I reddened up and heated this round
He gives a leap and a bound to flee,
But Arty's hawk swoops down like it found a treat
It's really trying to get him before he bounces
We all get into position to catch the mouse
Venti warns us:
"We have one minute, don't let him get away
If he switches back, we're done, we never can escape
And we can't do it again, that cocoon was consumed,
So we have to make sure this room is his tomb!"
The little mouse runs quick with agility,
Switching up directions, tricky as it can be
Runs up a wall, to a little alcove,
Starts digging at the corner - he's gonna get out, NO!
Thay leaps forward and hunches down low while Jayyra dashes
"Everyone look out, go!"
As she runs up Thay's back, the monk jumps ASAP
And launches the rogue like she was a foul throw
BULLSEYE, Jayyra snatches the mouse
And she tosses it as she falls back to the ground
It lands back on the mound of gold again,
But part of that falls down to enclose it in

"Perfect," I mutter as I drop my spell
The metal stops glowing red hot,
I smell something burning a little
I think he got fried well, but he isn't turning back
That's not right -
"Tell me it's over" the dwarf says, as the group gathers
Venti says "No, he's gonna regroup faster!
If the mouse dies, he reverts to himself,
So our only real chance was to trap him-"
(gasp) "WAIT!"
Arty shouts, looking like's got a tight plan
He points at the rock floor with his right hand
And a big cube opens up under where the metal-covered mouse is,
Causing it to fall and close around it
Just as we hear the sounds of the dragon morphing back,
On the surface of the stone, it begins to form a crack
Ogavar, runs and he slams down his hand,
Making a dome appear around him, immobile and sort of black
Arty fills in the cavities that burst,
Guided by the dwarf, predicting the patterns that emerge
While the whole floor quakes like some magma's gonna surge
It's a terrifying moment to be standing where we were
Ogavar's got it scarier, maintaining the barrier he put it place,
While the floor under him is flaring up
But Arty keeping it repaired is what's doing it
And by the time we're through with it,
We're all pretty aware of the black blood
That's coming up out of some fissures
I think we did it, I think we've become victors
No more rumbling or quaking,
Everybody's waiting for a sign, but there isn't one quiver
We finally did it, despite probability
It's still early, and the light isn't finna leave anytime soon
That fight with our enemy
Was literally shorter than the hike to get into these caves
I don't know what to do now
Part of me is afraid to begin to move out
The sentiment is obviously shared;
Everybody's obviously scared,
But I've got a clue how I can help...
I turn to Arty and I say
"Look, I know he coulda burned the party
So, good job, but it's probably better for morale
If we don't melt and bury all the treasure in the ground."

("Dude, are you serious?", group laughs)