GLOGTOBR Day 2: Dragon

 Alexander bolted upright in his bedroll, soaked in the cold sweat of a fever dream. His eyes darted erratically like feral rats trying to escape torchlight and his mouth was agape in the shape unheard by mortal men.

"Fafnir?" Cleale asked him. 

Alexander nodded silently. Fafnir the fire wyrm had haunted his dreams since the day Alexander felled the great beast.

"We have to go back. I have to see it. I have to make sure he's dead." Alexander told the foot of his bedroll, ashamed to meet eyes with Cleale. He knew how foolish he sounded. There'd been no less than seven witnesses to Fafnir's corpse. Delmorte had even crawled into the beasts maw to pry out a tooth nearly as tall as himself. Four people had actually seen Alexander land on the snout of the beast and drive himself into its eye in a desperate bid to stab at the brain of the beast.

Cleale reached out and grasped his clammy hand. "Honey, you know he's dead. It took a full day to wash the gore off you. You dug a tunnel inside his brain. Fafnir is as dead as any natural creature can be."

"I know. I know that, but I have to see. I can feel him, Cleale. I can feel him in my mind. I have to see."

Alexander walked through the camp tossing a small coin purse to each man. Its weight was slight, but the gold snake head coins within were worth more than most normal men could hope to make in a years time. He spoke to them in a monotone that told them what he was saying was more for his benefit than theirs.

"We're going back to Fafnir's death place, back to Olentrine summit to verify that he's dead. I release you from any further obligation and pay you what I owe you as well as what we expected to take in per man for the rest of the year. If you accompany me to Olentrine, do so of your own free will." He spoke mechanically, repeating himself word for word to each man, even when two sat next to each other eating their morning meal. He knew some among them would think him daft, but he cared not. I do not do this thing for me, but for Fafnir. Fafnir deserves better. Alexander had been thinking about the Wyrm in present tense since he had "killed" it.

Alexander and his fellows - numbered four now - trudged up a steep incline, stopping every few minutes to catch their breath, doubled over panting with tongues lolling like hounds and swearing vehemently enough to make a madam blush. The climb was fucking arduous. 

His men watched in horror as their fearless leader lost his feet and fell to his knees, screaming in agony. "They're in my brain, I can feel them in my brain-" His words were silenced by a torrent of black bile that burst from his mouth before he lost consciousness and collapsed in his own sick.

Noughlin sat beside Alexander; they'd been taking it in shifts. A man in his condition shouldn't wake up alone.

Noughlin greeted his fearless leader with kid gloves, questioning him cautiously. "Hey, Al - how you feeling', bud? What's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember my fucking head splitting open and my brain catching fire. I remember agony the likes of which you couldn't imagine in a thousand years. I remember the trudge; days away from the summit of Olentrine." 

Noughlin sat with a look of consternation. "Huh. That's not good, but I guess it isn't bad either. You retained your memory, so probably no long term damage to the brain, but obviously being fully aware and conscious for that level of pain isn't great. How do you feel? Can you walk? We're bedded down where you collapsed; you've only lost a day." Alexander didn't bother to answer, instead he simply stood and began to pack away his belongings. He was finished and a few hundred yards ahead of the rest of the camp before Noughlin manage to alert the rest of the men that their fearless leader was up and moving.

They crested the last rise and hit the plateau, the death place of Fafnir the Wyrm. Noughlin was the first to speak.

"Well. That's not good, not good at all." The plateau was conspicuously absent of the massive dragon corpse they had left here weeks ago. And not "scavengers have picked the remains clean" absent, but "no body lay and decomposed here" absent.

Alexander stood in the back of his men and wept softly to have to see them die. Fafnir spoke directly into his mind and he was a grave harbringer.

They're almost finished, I don't have much time left. They're in my brain; burrowing and growing. Soon, I'll be as they are. I am the storm that drowns the age of men, Alexander. What few of you may live will wish for death, I promise you. I would die a thousand deaths before I allowed them to lay their eggs in my brain a second time. Your people will be as cattle; only a resource to be spent so that their empire may expand and they may bring this horror to other worlds. If you cannot kill me, then kill yourself. When a man falls, destroy his whole brain, leave nothing for these... these rapists to pillage. I'm sorry Alexander, I cannot kill them; they are already inside me. They know all that I knew and they are coming for you.

Foul, mutated things from beyond the stars had implanted their larvae into the brain of the Great Wyrm and turned him into a tentacled horror, an eater of brains, a thief of memories. 

I rolled dragon three separate times - i didn't want to do it, not even a little bit, but it was ordained. Brain Stealer Dragon is my all time favorite monster and the big bad of my current campaign.