The Vault of the Dragons
Aleina shivered - she'd forgotten how cold it could be underground. This made her wonder how, after all the effort she and her companions had put into escaping a place called the Underdark, did they find themselves underground again?
But at least they weren't miles under the surface deep this time. All they would need to do to get back above ground was retrace their steps up the corridor a couple dozen feet, climb up a stairway a few hundred feet, and push open a trapdoor. Then they'd be back in Kalain's bedroom. Where they'd probably be eaten by a manticore magically conjured out of a portrait painted by an insane artist. Or ripped apart by a gargoyle from the other painting hanging in that bedroom. Or gruesomely ripped apart by one and eaten by the other. But at least they'd die above ground.
They stood in front of a set of solid looking metallic double doors that held a purple-white sheen under Dawnbringer's radiance. Aleina tried to read the blocky runes etched into their surface but found she could not. It wasn't Elvish or Celestial then, probably Dwarvish? Dust layered the floor and hung in the air, kicked up by the companions as they'd walked, telling the tale of centuries of abandonment with each dust-tinged breath. A few trails of footsteps from someone else's previous visits were present - probably Neverember coming and going to deposit his embezzled hoard.
"These doors were built by the Delzoun dwarves," Sky said. "They're made of adamantine and unbreakable. Only the stone and the three keys can open them."
So, the writing was Dwarvish. Not a surprise. Who else built with enough craftsmanship to allow the masonry and the metalwork to survive intact after the passage of so much time. Then again, Aleina's friend Eldeth would likely object to the term craftsmanship and insist on craftsdwarfship instead. The thought brought a smile to the aasimar's lips, which quickly flattened. She didn't know whether her fellow escapee from Velkynvelve had made it from the gnome city of Blingdenstone to the dwarven city of Gauntlgrym. The aasimar desperately hoped she had along with other former companions who'd have traveled with her - the darklings Rhianne and Diarnghan.
"So," Jhelnae said. "What do we do?"
"Present the keys," the tabaxi said, tail lashing.
She pulled the Stone of Golorr from her belt pouch and touched it against the double doors.
"Now the invisible creature," she said with a nod at the half-drow.
"This is crazy," Jhelnae said, shaking her head. "This is crazy."
Despite these repeated words, she pulled her moonstone capped rod from her belt and drew it down her body, whispering an incantation as she did. She faded from sight. Dust then stirred from her invisible footsteps until she stood directly in front of the adamantine doors, presumably touching them.
"Next the animated construct," Sky said with a nod at Kuhl.
Aleina found herself once again mourning the loss of the half-elf's tunic as she watched him produce Nim's little mechanical bird and touch it to the doors. She'd picked out that shirt in the Market with Jhelnae because it reminded them of the one the quaggoth, Derendil, had worn. But she also could admit she liked the way it fit on him. Now it was a tattered, burned, and bloody ruin, its ripped remnants barely hanging on to him.
"And finally the gift from a queen," the tabaxi said with a glance at the aasimar.
Aleina walked up and clinked the silver double ram headed ring the Open Lord gave her against the adamantine door. After a pregnant moment of anticipation, the doors swung open on silent hinges.
A vast underground chamber lay beyond the doors. The footsteps of the companions echoed off the unseen ceiling in the darkness above as they entered. Dust pervaded the floor here as well and also present were those footsteps trails worn by some preceding visitor that had come here before. Three massive columns rose from the floor to support something the aasimar could not see as it was both beyond the range of her dark vision and Dawnbringer's light, but the piles of masonry and rubble littering the floor indicated at least partial failure of even dwarven construction over the centuries.
"Be careful," Aleina whispered, first pointing at the stone debris and then pointing upward.
"There are three crumbling bridges up there," Jhelnae said, shading her eyes from Dawnbringer's light to use her dark vision.
She, out of all of them, possessed the best vision in the dark, even able to see through the magical variety.
Large metal doors were set at intervals in the chamber walls. On the nearest, those within the reach of the blazing sword's radiance, Aleina could just make out the images of embossed dwarf warriors in heavy plate armor still barely visible under the coatings of rust.
"The place is empty," Kuhl said, a question in his tone.
Other than dust, stone debris, and the doors, the place was conspicuously empty and notably absent was any form of treasure.
"To get to Neverember's hoard, we go through either of the two doors in the corner," Sky said, pointing to the left far side of the room. "All the other doors are false."
"False?" the half-drow said, brow creasing in confusion. "What's a false door?"
"They don't go anywhere," the tabaxi explained.
"They don't open?" Jhelnae asked. "Or do they open and there is a wall behind the door?"
"The stone doesn't know," Sky said, cocking her head as if listening. A sharp-toothed mischievous smile spread. "Shall we try one of the false doors and find out?"
"No!" Kuhl whispered, his answer coming very fast.
The other companions looked at him in surprise.
"False doors in tombs are usually set with traps," he said. "To mislead and crush would be tomb robbers. I don't know if this was built as a tomb or a vault, but the dwarves probably did the same as the elves."
As a former member of the Tomb Guard of Evereska, he would know, and it made sense. Aleina nodded, but Jhelnae's eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"How do we know the stone is telling the truth?" she asked. "It could be leading us astray and into a trap."
It was a very good, and very disconcerting, point. The tabaxi's gaze went faraway as she mentally conferred before answering.
"The stone says it has no reason to do that," she said. "Why would it want to be trapped down under a big fallen metal door with our corpses for who knows how long until someone found it? Besides the footsteps in the dust show someone going through and coming back out of the doors in the corner."
She paused a beat and gave a lash of her tail before saying more.
"It also says you're an idiot for not figuring that out."
The half-drow gave an angry snort.
"Well tell it," she said, gaze leveled at Sky's belt pouch. "That unless it wants me to jam it into some crevice down here where no one will ever find it, it better be a little more polite."
The far away look came back into the tabaxi's irises for a moment.
"It apologizes," Sky says. "Which sounds really strange coming from its slithery, slimy voice."
"Slithery, slimy voice?" Aleina said, nose wrinkling in distaste. "Now I really don't trust it. What is it?"
The tabaxi led the way across the chamber to one of the doors she'd previously pointed at.
"It is Golorr, a trapped a-bo-leth," she said, sounding out the unfamiliar word as she walked.
The aasimar had never heard of such a thing and judging from the collective shrugs and shakings of heads, neither had any of the others.
"An ageless immortal god," Sky said, trying again. "Seeker and possessor of forbidden knowledge. I'm getting an image of a giant eel-like creature with tentacles."
That sounded sinister and scary, and Aleina decided to ask Shanathera, her celestial guide, what an aboleth was the next time the shard visited her dreams.
"By all that dances," Jhelnae mumbled to herself. "Just what we need, a glorified skipping stone with delusions of grandeur."
When Sky reached the door she wanted she moved aside and gave a wave to Kuhl. By unspoken agreement, the aasimar and half-drow stepped well back as he switched which hand held Dawnbringer and tugged the door open. For her part, Aleina reasoned that if the stone misled them and the door was trapped, someone needed to be out of range to try and save the others. Jhelnae clearly felt the same.
But other than the squeal of protesting hinges and enough resistance to make the half-elf's muscles visibly bulge through the tears in his tunic, the door opened without issue. Another chamber was beyond. The fresco on the opposite wall of dwarves battling goblins captured the aasimar's gaze as she followed Kuhl and Sky inside.
A thick layer of dust was present here as well, except on the fresco, which didn't hold one speck. It looked fresh and vibrant, as if newly painted, which it clearly was not. Dramatic brushstrokes conveyed action and urgency in a desperate battle in a grand subterranean city-scape. Aleina felt inspired by the valor and determination of the dwarven warriors along with a kernel of despair. No matter how bravely or ferociously they fought, defeat seemed inevitable for the dwarves in the fresco - as if they battled creeping death itself, which comes to claim all in the end.
"Hey," Jhelnae said, pulling the aasimar's focus to her with a tug of the sleeve. "You going to stare at it all night? Sky says it's this way."
Aleina blinked a couple of times. Stare at it all night? She'd barely had a chance to glance at it. Yet the concerned gazes of her companions told a different story. She shook her head to clear it, feeling as though she came out of a dazed stupor, and allowed herself to be led away by the sleeve to an ascending stairway as she gave one last lingering look at the fresco.
Up the broad stone staircase they went. The steps were smooth, well crafted, with some edges worn down by bearing the weight of countless travelers passing up and down them. Here too, however, the dust showed that this frequent use had occurred centuries earlier with only a few booted foot tracks being more recent. Despite her climbs up Mount Waterdeep to train with Hlam, the aasimar found herself slightly winded by the time they reached the top. They must have ascended the equivalent of seven or eight stories in one straight climb.
A long hallway of around twenty feet in width leading off to their right waited at the top. A tall mosaic was on one wall and arched openings on the other. Unlike the fresco below, the passage of time had cracked the mosaic in places and dust marred its surface. Kuhl raised Dawnbringer high as they traversed the length of the hall, exploring what it contained. Three center pillars shaped like head down war hammers supported the ceiling and three archways led to the crumbling bridges Jhelnae had seen from below. The preceding footsteps in the dust led down and back the center span.
The mosaic was part painting and part sculpture and depicted a massive, powerfully built, stern-faced dwarf with glowing white eyes and dark flowing hair and a beard, both of which reached his knees. Clad in golden armor with matching bracers encircling his thick forearms and wearing a helmet that doubled as a crown, he lifted his ornate hammer high over an anvil that held the figure of a partially formed dwarf made of black metal and diamonds. Other more complete dwarves stood at rigid attention all around him in the art piece, almost finished but still made of raw metal and diamond and with no hint of life in their posture.
"I think this is the god Moradin forging the first dwarves," the half-elf said. "If Eldeth were with us, she could confirm."
"You know," Jhelnae said. "This place has had me thinking of her too."
"Three," Aleina said, for some reason partly raising her hand like she was back with her cousins with their tutor and volunteering to answer a question.
She glanced at Sky, expecting her to chime in and make it unanimous, but the tabaxi peered intently at a section of the mosaic instead.
"Something here," she breathed as she pushed against the protrusion of one of the carved dwarf figures being forged.
Nothing happened as she strained against it.
"Is this the way into the vault?" the half-drow asked.
"No," Sky grunted. "That is over the center bridge, but this looks like it can push in."
Aleina saw nothing that indicated this dwarf figure in the mosaic was different from any of the others and even though the tabaxi pushed so hard her boots scrabbled over the dust laden floor, it remained as fixed as solid stone.
"Cat Lord's Curse!" she hissed, giving up. "You try, Kuhl!"
She held out her hand expectantly for Dawnbringer and received her.
"Why do you think this figure is different?" the half-elf said, giving a half-hearted push then blowing out a breath and shaking his head.
"There is a seam or something," Sky fumed. "See?"
She traced a clawed finger in a path around the dwarf carving and for a moment the aasimar thought she did see something, but after a closer look decided it was just a series of cracks in the mural. Jhelnae beat her in making this observation.
"It's some random cracks," the half-drow said. "That your wishful thinking is putting into a pattern."
"Kuhl," the tabaxi said. "Just really try, alright? For the sake of my curiosity. Ple-e-a-s-e."
Her golden eyes pleaded and she held her hands together in a prayer-like gesture. Aleina shared an eye-roll with Jhelnae. Of course the half-elf wouldn't be able to resist that. It was how he'd ended up going down the well in the Yawning Portal into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage without his armor, without his shield, and without much of a clue. Then again, here he was with all of them wearing a burned and ripped up tunic for protection and sans shield, so perhaps it wasn't all Sky's fault.
Kuhl took a deep breath, exhaling it slowly as he pushed, really bringing to bear his full strength this time. His jaw set, his chin lowered, and his shoulder, chest, and arms bunched. She could even see his leg muscles flexing through his pants as he strained. Just when the aasimar thought he'd surely give up, a section of the wall shifted with a grinding of stone against stone. Plaster cracked as the outlines of a door grew around the dwarf figure the half-elf pushed against. He paused in his efforts to take a breath and give a wide-eyed glance.
"What in the abyss?" the half-drow said. "She was right! Push Kuhl."
The tabaxi crowded behind the half-elf, slapping on his shoulders in celebration with the hand not holding Dawnbringer, tail dancing back and forth.
"I knew you could do it!" she said. "See!"
"You loosened it for me," he grunted as he pressed forward again.
The door seemed to move with less effort the more it opened, gaining momentum as it swung inward. Sky matched Kuhl's progress step for step, free hand still on his shoulders until the gap widened enough for her to slip past.
"We should actually be…" Aleina started to say, but the tabaxi ducked past the secret door before she finished, radiant sword leading the way and the aasimar sighed the rest. "… careful."
The small dusty chamber beyond the door was crowded once all four of them were inside. Sky, having passed Dawnbringer back to her bearer, already rummaged through the contents of one of five patina green glazed copper urns on a raised stone platform when the aasimar entered after the half-drow.
"Rings and a bunch of silver coins," the tabaxi called out. "Hey, this one is warm to the touch."
She turned and held a gold, flame themed ring set with a fire opal and passed it to Kuhl.
"It is warm," he said, examining it. "I wonder if this is a ring of warmth like the one Sophiya told us about."
"Sophiya?" Aleina said.
"Our genasi friend," Sky said, unnecessarily.
The aasimar well remembered the genasi and was not sure why she questioned the name as soon as the half-elf said it.
"That would be the one in the barely there dragon-scale armor, right?" Jhelnae asked, voice sly.
"Yes," Kuhl sighed.
"The one to which, barely having met her, you just handed over an artifact level magic sword from Impiltur that we hauled all the way down to Undermountain for you?" the half-drow said, motioning to herself and Aleina as she did.
"That would be her," the half-elf confirmed with a shrug and slight wince of apology.
"We remember her," Jhelnae said. "Kind of hard to forget."
"We do the hauling of the sword," the aasimar said, joining in on the banter. "Not even a thank you for that, by the way. And he gets a hug and a kiss on the cheek for our efforts. Hardly fair."
"Hardly," the half-drow agreed, cocking her head. "No hugs, no kisses."
In truth, in the short time Aleina knew the genasi and her brothers, she'd liked them and wished them well in Undermountain and knew Jhelnae felt the same. But that didn't make Kuhl any less of an easy target or any less fun to tease.
"Thank you for bringing that sword down to Undermountain," the half-elf deadpanned. "More than willing to give out a hug and kiss in thanks as well if you want."
He pantomimed opening his arm with the hand not holding Dawnbringer wide.
"I meant from Sophiya," half-drow deadpanned back.
"Me too," the aasimar agreed. "Especially with you all bloody, burned, and dusty right now."
A bit of a lie there. He'd been far sweatier, dirtier, and sometimes bloodied during their escape from the Underdark. But if Aleina was fully honest with herself, she partly missed having a convenient excuse to snuggle in his protective embrace.
"Anyway," Kuhl said, drawing out the word in an exhale. "About this ring. I think it is a ring of warmth. A magic ring that keeps you warm no matter the temperature."
"Of all the possible magic rings," Sky said, "Why that one? I have fur."
She was back at ransacking the contents of the urns.
"Silver statue, more coins, more gemstones," she mumbled. "Cat Lord curse it, there better be something more interesting in here with all the effort I went through to get us in here."
Aleina did not have fur and happened to be quite cold at the moment. She reached for the ring in Kuhl's palm but found Jhelnae's hand hovering over it as well.
"You know how cold I get," the aasimar said, pleading her case.
"Also know how cold I get and am," the half-drow countered.
"Feel these hands," Aleina said.
Jhelnae gave a shiver.
"For the love of Eilistraee, how do you not have frostbite? Take it!"
The aasimar gave a sigh of relief as she slipped the ring on her finger and warmth suffused her.
"We can trade off," she promised. "Just let me warm up a bit."
"Ring of water walking," Sky complained as she sifted through the contents of the last urn. "Ring of wishes, ring of genie summoning, ring of feather fall like the griffon riders had so I could jump from any height, but oh no, the only magic ring had to be a ring of warmth when I have fur. The rest of this is just normal trinkets, coins, gemstones and stuff."
She brought a fist down on the raised stone platform in frustration.
"So, this isn't part of Neverember's embezzled hoard?" Aleina asked.
"The stone didn't know about this secret room," the tabaxi said, shaking her head. "It says it is probably a cache of the Delzoun dwarves, who are long gone."
"Which would make it ours," the aasimar said, voice hesitant. "Not something we have to give up to Laeral Silverhand?"
She didn't want to be greedy, but the stash of stuff the tabaxi so casually dismissed was quite valuable. Enough so that Aleina calculated she could transfer around five hundred gold through her bank in Waterdeep to her family's account in Baldur's Gate. Her uncle would be pleased.
"It's ours," Jhelnae said with a firm nod. "And we are spending at least some of it on full treatments at the Temple of Love and Beauty. We've earned it. After that, you can do what you want with the rest of my share."
The others indicated their willingness to give up their shares as well and the Dlusker family coffers promised to soon be growing considerably more than from just the expected profits of the Trollskull. Aleina's uncle would be beside himself with joy.
"What did I do to deserve friends like you," the aasimar said, shaking her head in wonder and tearing up.
"Save me from being an eternal statue," the half-drow said. "Shared a magic ring of warmth."
She held out her hand and cocked an expectant eyebrow. The tears threatening to spill down Aleina's cheeks immediately dried and the comforting warmth of the ring evaporated as she took it off and handed it over. The pervading underground chill of their surroundings settled into her limbs and core disturbingly quickly.
"Ahh," Jhelnae breathed with a mischievous wink as she slipped the ring with the fire opal on a finger.
"I really hate you right now," the aasimar said, hugging herself. "You know that?"
But her accompanying chuckle and smile probably gave away that she felt the opposite.
Sky had left her magic bag back in the Trollskull, which meant the dwarven cache was left behind for collection later. Leaving the secret room, the companions followed the tabaxi to the center archway where the bridge leading to Neverember's embezzled hoard, if the stone was to be believed, crossed.
"By all that dances," the half-drow complained, throwing up her hands. "It's the bridge to the portal out of the Underdark all over again, and this time, we don't have any rope."
They'd escaped the Underdark via a portal, but before they'd reached it there had been an ancient elven bridge over a chasm they needed to cross. That bridge shared one important feature with the dwarven bridge they wanted to cross now - a large section of the center span was broken and missing.
"This is the only one that leads to the vault?" Kuhl asked.
He looked to the left and the right where other crumbling bridges with full spans were visible at the limits of Dawnbringer's light.
"The bridges all lead to the mural hallway on this side," Sky said. "But they each lead to separate rooms on the other side. We need to cross the center one to get to the vault."
"I'm a stronger flier now than in the Underdark," Aleina said. "I could fly everyone across except Kuhl."
She might be able to carry his greater weight as well but wouldn't want to risk it.
"I can step into the mists," he said. "So, we can all cross, even without a rope."
"I can jump it," the tabaxi said, eyeing the distance. "Especially with my boots."
"This again," the half-drow sighed, "Why risk it when she can fly us across?"
"It's not a risk," Sky said, tone exasperated. "I can clear that easily."
"Uh-huh," Jhelnae said. "And you are going to tell me there is no risk of the bridge crumbling under you as you plant to jump? How about when you land? Just look at it."
The tabaxi golden eyes showed an uncharacteristic sobering as she studied the dilapidated bridge.
"I could clear it," she insisted, but her shoulders slumped, and her tail drooped in acquiescence.
They crossed with a mixture of wings of light and mist-stepping, no feats of athletics needed, but their next obstacle did require one. A locked, metal door with a purple-white sheen under Dawnbringer's radiance, waited on the other side.
Adamantine.
"This door will open for any dwarf," Sky said, conveying information from the stone. "Or with unlocking magic. Or for someone strong enough to force it."
"Hold my sword," Kuhl sighed, passing Dawnbringer to the tabaxi.
Aleina thought she'd seen the limits of his strength when he pushed open the secret door. She was wrong. By the time the door was open he was red faced and sweat matted his dark hair and the aasimar released a breath she hadn't realized she held. She peered past him into the room behind the door.
A square chamber had been carved into the rock, perhaps twenty feet in height and the same in width and length. Each of the four corners held a rusted suit of dwarf-sized plate mail without helmets. Cobwebs draped each suit, full of dust and practically dust themselves, the spiders who spun the webs having long ago abandoned them. Runes she couldn't read adorned the far wall in the same blocky style as was on the vault doors that had required the three keys to unlock. As Aleina followed the others inside, she watched the suits of armor intently, expecting them to spring to life, but they didn't so much as stir.
"A secret never before told will part Dumathoin's lips," Sky intoned pointing at the runes on the wall, then spoke with her regular voice. "One of us has to speak a secret aloud to open a trapdoor. Something you haven't told anyone."
"What kind of sick jest is this?" Jhelnae asked. "That's pretty invasive."
"I've forced open two doors down here," Kuhl said. "I think it's someone else's turn."
"Someone has something he doesn't want to reveal to the rest of us," the half-drow said, speculatively. "Wonder what it is?"
"Very tired from pushing that door open," the half-elf said. "Need a moment to recover."
He moved to study one of the rusty suits of armor, which he seemed to suddenly find fascinating.
"Well, I don't have any secrets from any of you," the tabaxi said with a dismissive wave.
"Yeah, right," Jhelnae said. "What made you leave your home? Where do you slip off to sometimes in the middle of the night? How do you keep your fur so glossy when I never see you groom it? Those are three right off the top of my head."
"To find adventure and escape boredom," Sky said, holding up a counting finger. "To find adventure and escape boredom."
A second clawed finger joined the first.
"And a mixture of good ancestry and some grooming," she said, bringing her finger count to three. "Which I do when I'm bored in the privacy of my room."
She made a show of glancing around the room to see if anything happened.
"See," she said, tail lashing when nothing did. "No secrets."
"Fine," Jhelnae said, in a tone that gave the opposite meaning to the word and leveled her emerald eyed gaze at the aasimar.
Aleina found herself in a staring contest with her friend as her mind tried to conjure an innocent little throwaway secret she could share, but for some reason she could come up with only one. Not innocent and directly involving the half-drow she locked gazes with in a battle of wills. Their contest extended for several breaths and the aasimar grew increasingly uncomfortable under Jhelnae's scrutiny until she broke.
"I broke the vase you bought at the Market on purpose," she blurted out,
"When I formed my pact with Lolth," the half-drow said at the same time. "It was sealed with a kiss."
A cracking sounded through the room as a trap door fell away in the center of the floor to reveal stairs spiraling down after they spoke.
"By all that dances," Jhelnae said. "That is the deep dark secret you chose to share."
"I hated that thing," Aleina said, words flowing easily with her admission. "Orange and green, really? It went with nothing else in our room and was so twisted and misshapen you couldn't even use it as a vase. I didn't so much as break it on purpose as dust it really hard and not try to catch it when it teetered."
"So completely on purpose," the half-drow said. "Then lied to me about it."
"Yeah," the aasimar breathed with an apologetic shrug. "It was a moment of weakness."
"Your soul is a well of darkness," Jhelnae said, rolling her eyes with a snort of laughter.
Kuhl chuckled as well at that.
"Oh, shut up," Kuhl," Aleina said, rounding on him. "So what was the secret you didn't want to share? Do tell."
He only laughed harder.
"Not really necessary anymore," he said, pointing to the stairway as his laughter subsided.
Retrieving Dawnbringer from Sky, he led the way down the steps. The aasimar blocked the half-drow from immediately following.
"Since we're sharing or whatever," Aleina whispered. "How was it?"
"How was what?" Jhelnae whispered back, brow crinkling in confusion.
"You know…" the aasimar said leadingly, but then realized she'd just have to say it. "The kiss?"
"She's an elven goddess," the half-drow said with a graceful lifting and dropping of shoulders. "And a demon queen of the abyss. About what you'd expect."
Which the aasimar translated as pretty amazing. Curiosity satisfied, she let Jhelnae past and they hurriedly spiraled down to catch up with the others. An unexpected sight waited for them at the bottom.
Sunlight.
Which didn't make sense as they were deep underground, and it wasn't even daytime on the surface above. But there it was, pouring down from the ceiling of this high vaulted chamber and catching motes of dust in their luminous pools. Ornate columns supported the ceiling which was adorned with carvings of dwarves basking in the presence of their gods. Deep alcoves lined the walls and piled in one of them was a golden treasure trove.
Aleina stepped on something amidst the dust on the floor and she lifted her foot to see what it was. It was also golden, but not a coin. Fear bloomed in her as she identified it.
It was a scale. A dragon scale. Several littered the floor.
She looked up as footsteps sounded in the room and an aged dwarf with red hued wrinkled skin, bright blond hair and beard, and wearing crimson robes embroidered with golden threads walked out of the dusty gloom. In his hand he clutched a staff carved and painted to resemble a pair of entwined dragons - one red and one gold.
"I wasn't expecting anyone," he said, glancing around in apparent embarrassment. "As you can see, the place is a mess. Perhaps you should come back later, after I've tidied up a bit."
"Oh," Sky said absently. "The stone did tell me earlier that the treasure is guarded by a dragon that likes to disguise himself as a dwarf. Did I forget to mention that?"
Alright… I know Aleina and Jhelnae can get carried away with their banter. As I've said before, I have a hard time controlling them to do what they are supposed to do in a narrative. They just take off in their own conversation at times. Let me know if it is too much.
For those of you familiar with the module, you might be thinking, "Where is the black pudding that attacks in the mosaic hall?" I cut it. I mean these characters have fought a whole army of such creatures in Blingdenstone, so I was like, "Why?"
Thanks for reading…