DnD Tales: The Adventures of Rynalla the Artificer

History; Death of Runekille Nightwing and the Start of Blackpool's Ruin (2/5)

"This is my domain that you're treading. You'd do best to mind your manners in front of our daughter." Grimbreaker snarled as he stepped to the side. "Come forth, Nula. Know the miserable lizard who left you for dead and dared to hide you from me."

Upon hearing this and seeing a young Rynalla emerge from the plants fully in the light of a moon beam that had broken through the tree canopy, Runekille's previously calm facade fell away as a look of panic took over.

"...Mom?" Rynalla whispered as she took a few tentative steps towards the Black Dragonborn before Grimbreaker halted her advances by wrapping his tail gently around her midsection and carefully moving her back several feet before he let her go.

His message to Rynalla was made clear: she was to stay put, safely behind him.

"No." Runekille murmured in Draconic as she staggered a few steps back from the father-daughter pair, shaking her head in disbelief. "Impossible! That egg shouldn't have hatched! There was no acid-"

"According to one of those... cattle that you reside among, the egg was supposedly found and our hatchling spent the first few years of life under the care of a Dwarf of all things. They named her, but it was a name unfit for a hatchling of my blood, so I remedied that."

"...What did the Dwarf name her?" The Black Dragonborn asked in Common, once she had re-gained her composure.

Runekille's eyes never once left Rynalla as she spoke with Grimbreaker. Noticing this, the Black Dragon growled lowly and situated his body directly in front of Rynalla- effectively blocking Runekille's sight of their daughter.

"Why does it matter? It was a lesser name given by a lesser lifeform. I personally think that name sounded too much like a metal-scale's name than a proper Chromatic's."

The Dragon rolled his eyes before he continued.

"I have taken the liberty to name her Nula-"

Unable to keep quiet, Rynalla interrupted him mid-sentence.

"But Thurkham named me Rynalla! Rynalla Onyxfang!" Rynalla piped up excidedly as she peeked at her mom from behind Grimbreaker with a big, toothy grin. "He told me that he and a Red Dragonborn named Blazeteeth came up with my name a couple of days after I had hatched!"

At this, Grimbreaker directed his attention to Rynalla as the acid green glow in his eyes intensified with his rage. He wrapped his tail tightly around Rynalla and squeezed- almost to the point of being painful- and brought his head close to his daughter's; his jaws oozing acid.

"D-dad-" She whimpered quietly as she shied away from her dad and began to tremble slightly.

"I thought that I told you never to interrupt me and to not to use that blasted name, daughter." Grimbreaker hissed in Draconic. "You are to the use the name I- ow!"

The father-daughter pair both turned to their attention to Runekille; who had adopted an offensive stance and had the blades of several throwing knives nestled between the gaps in her fingers; three in each hand while the fourth blade was missing from each hand. One of the blades had missed its' intended target and had lodged itself into the trunk of a dead tree several feet off to the left while the blade of the second was buried halfway inbetween the scales on the side of Grimbreaker's neck. Ice crystals had started to form around the wound that the throwing knife had left on the dragon.

"Release our daughter, Grimbreaker." Runekille hissed lowly in Draconic as her normally purple eyes flashed bright green and acid started to leak from her maw.