Just a Harmless Little Heist....

It locks its eyes on the central building in town and takes a long, lumbering step towards it, roaring.

Brandice sighed. Lot of good THAT did. Now what? Clyde raised another field several feet in front of the monster, in hopes of deterring it. Alistair set her forehead against her staff and focused, trying to mentally contact the creature.

Alistair feels an overwhelming sense of evil, not the creature's own mind. It's so overpoweringly evil it's agonizing.

Alistair took a sharp breath and withdrew quickly, raising extra guards in her own mind as she rubbed her temples.

Brandice formed another sphere and glanced at Siegfried. He nodded, preparing to protect the buildings around the monster as she hurled the water and electric mixture into the creatures face.

It reared up, roaring in agony.

Brandice threw other as it roared, attempting to get inside its mouth and throat.

It's mouth pointed straight up, so the shot is practically impossible. It still charges her, biting.

Seeing that, she doesn't try for the shot. She scrambled backward, running for the city's exit and hoping the others had something good planned.

The creature's tail sweeps through the others.

The others, when they saw the creature coming, ran for cover or out of reach of the tail. Brandice stumbled outside the city and ducked into a ball as Siegfried signaled and covered her with a shield. Kajaise decided to take her turn, launching a spray of ice into its face.

It roars, angry and confused.

Brandice took a deep breath, recovering from the sprint. She got to her feet, leaving the protective shield, and arced a streak of electricity at the creature's neck to get its attention.

It screams, launching fire at her.

She stands her ground, trusting Siegfried to shield her, and sends a blast of water and electricity into its mouth.

It chokes, trembling.

Brandice keeps up the blast for a moment or so before lowering her hands and watching warily.

It collapses, hacking and gasping and whimpering.

Brandice let out a deep breath as the others ran over. Finally, it was done.

If Alistair, I think was the one reading it, chooses to read it again, she'll see that it's scared and hurting and confused and back in control of itself, with no idea of where it is or what happened. It also seems to have shrunk a fair bit, being only about elephant-sized, instead of whale-sized.

After seeing that it has shrunk and seems changed, Alistair does cautiously attempt reading it. Once she does, she strides to it and reaches a hand out to touch it, mentally conveying in the simplest of terms an idea of what happened and that it's all right now.

"What are you doing?" Siegfried stepped toward her in an attempt to stop her. "Stay away from it, Brandice will finish it."

Alistair glared back at him. "No."

It blinks its big sad blue eyes at her, letting her touch it. Its skin is smooth to the touch, almost soft, though undeniably strong.

She gives a slight smile as she strokes it, raising a protective shield around its mind so if anything attempts to control it again, she'll know. "Where does it hurt?" she whispers, but into its mind and aloud.

He (for the dragon is undeniably a he) opens his mouth slowly. There are burn marks all inside his mouth and throat.

Alistair kneels down next to his mouth and places a hand on the side of its head. She carefully begins healing the burn marks, both that are visible and that are further inside where she can't see. Though it hurts slightly, it itches majorly.

It twitches, claws scraping the cobblestone street, and its tongue rubs inside its mouth, trying to relieve the itch, and it whimpers slightly, but manages to more or less stay still.