Beacon Before the Lair

Before the party stepped into the dragon's room, Jonah made the moment holy in the only way he could.

He prayed to Jeebus and cast Beacon of Hope over the group and their companions. The spell did not erase what had already happened on the stairs, but it changed how they entered the next phase. Wisdom held steadier. Healing reached its fullest possible strength. For a party that had already watched Morgan die and come back under Aboleth-touched hands, Jonah's magic gave them a cleaner kind of protection to stand inside.

Morgan prepared in her own language.

She made replacement zombies out of the dragon-grafted corpses, turning the failed experiments of the hidden path into a disposable front line. It was practical, grim, and exactly the kind of answer the lair deserved.

The party was battered.

They were also prepared.

Behind them, the mist pressed forward. Ahead of them waited the dragon's lair. Between those two pressures, Jonah's prayer and Morgan's dead soldiers became the difference between stumbling into the next fight and choosing to enter it.