The company passed the next few days in more silence than not.
They came upon the long stagnant lake. In the center was a small isle they recognized all too readily. Little more than a heap of rubble and severely overgrown ruins of a tower sat upon it. Even the wise-cracking dwarf rogue was overwhelmed with a bit of melancholy at the sight of the glorious tower in which they'd just spent, as best they could tell, ten days and the good times therein.
Despite the lure of some small amount of cover for the night, the party opted not to figure out a way across nor dared to enter the black murky lake. Fear of more of the highly poisonous muck-vipers foremost int their minds.
They encountered, again, a group of lizardmen who were a bit more engaging than the past groups had been. Bolstered, it was presumed, by a shaman and very large chief warrior among them. The party was successful in slaying a few and routing the rest. The reptilians seemed somewhat "forced" to be there and slowed by the chill that pervaded the air even in the daytime.
Alaria had forgotten just how near and fast winter approached their Orea after so much time in the warm "summer night" realm.
Another encounter at night with a pack of stirges again disgusted them. But injuries were minor and Haelan seemed more than capable, these days, of meeting whatever healing needs they might have.
For Haelan, Buttercreamshadowfeet had proven to be significantly more vocal than he'd ever imagined. By the second day of their return, Haelan was more than happy to chat with the furry rodent, albeit in hushed tones, and more than once had to shush the ferret while he was doing his post at watch during the night.
The ferret seemed much more active and talkative in the evening and early morning hours. During most afternoons and at the height of most nights, she disappeared among the brush or whined at the Hilltender that she wanted or needed a nap.
On the second night of their return, with the expectation of arriving at the Gorathgraard "citadel", and presumably the treasures and perils thereof, most of the company's sleep was notably troubled.
Haelan was, again, keeping his watch when some motion from around the smoldering campfire caught his attention. The halfling raised his mace and lowered it quickly to see the tall warrior's form of Braddok coming toward him.
"Can't sleep?" Haelan asked softly. "It's not time for your watch yet."
"Can't sleep." Braddok replied, matter-of-fact. The warrior crouched down beside the cleric, who had also sat after recognizing the muscled human. "Where's Buttercream?"
"She's off...hunting I suppose. I pray thanks to Faerantha every evening for her boon. But I confess, I am happy for the quiet at times." Haelan smiled in reply. "Some hot chocolate?" the halfling offered as he pulled a small ceramic teapot out of the magical backpack Imgulg had prepared and gifted him. "Might help ya sleep. I fear the provisions of this pack will be exhausted by tomorrow." Haelan coaxed. "Might be the last batch in here." he added fishing out a small, perfectly daelvar-sized, mug.
"No thanks, Haelan. I appreciate it though. You enjoy." Braddok replied. His appetite, for the most part, was not what it used to be before his..."raising." He seemed to require less to maintain his strength.
"What do you think, my friend? Shall we see a dragon tomorrow?" the warrior offered quietly.
"By the Hillmother, I hope NOT!" Haelan said a bit loudly and cringed at his unexpected noise.
"As do I, Haelan. As do I. But what if we do?" Braddok asked, somewhat rhetorically. "I go over and over in my mind. Tactics, strategies, taking into our various and formidable abilities into account..." his gaze wandered up to the sky and the clouds that passed periodically before the waning silver and green moons. "It's all a folly, of sorts..."
"A folly?! Then why not return to Bridgetower?...or Daenfrii or even Welford. We can winter in relative comfort and come back in the spring." Haelan offered. He felt a twinge of shame at what he was afraid might sound like cowardice to the great swordsman. But, he reasoned to himself, it was only practical.
"Not in that way, I mean. We have the skills and power...I think. Alaria's mastery of her Art is formidable. Erevan is, of course, skilled...beyond even myself if you take into account his magic as well as his bow. you, my friend, you have surpassed any expectation I ever had of your divine might...even Festus and Duor are highly skilled in their chosen pursuits..." Braddok's voice, again faded off...as if there was something he wasn't saying.
"Braddok, are you concerned you are not up to the taste...or as 'powerful' as the rest of us? You are the most skilled of us all!" Haelan attempted to comfort the dark-haired man.
Receiving no more response than a soft snort, the Hilltender continued. "You are, by far, the toughest among us. You lead us...well, I mean, we all have a say in what we do...but, after a fashion, since Alaria has stepped down, so to speak, you're our leader. What you say, particularly in battle, is unquestioned. You think more than you act...that, Braddok, that is a wisdom that benefits us all. Moreso than my own." Haelan smiled a slight, close-lipped smile at the warrior from Barforth.
Bradok had been staring up at the sky through Haelan's vote of confidence and took a moment to look at and return the halfling's encouraging smile. His eyes returned to the sky.
"I thank you, Haelan. I had no idea, when we met in Hawkview, we would find ourselves here...that I would have died...been reborn...faced trolls and ogres and evil wizards and wererats. Or..." the warrior now looked to the halfling with deathly serious eyes, "that I would and could count a little daelvar priest from the Free Hollows as one of my greatest friends and allies."
"G'aaawn." blushed Haelan and smiled to himself.
Then both adventurer's attention was caught by some motion, shuffling, among bushes and reeds near them. With trained grace and ease, both adventurers were on their feet, weapons at the ready. They, then, relaxed to see Buttercream's snout and head poke out from beneath some fronds.
"Hide, Hilltender! Hide! A hawk is coming!" the ferret's voice sounded in Haelan's ears with hushed urgency.
"A hawk?" Haelan said aloud.
"What?!" Braddok responded.
"A giant hawk. HUGE! Its clouding the stars. You should hide!" the ferret replied before again withdrawing and disappearing from view beneath the brush.
Haelan's eyes went, wildly scanning, to the sky.
Giant hawks were not something to be trifled with. They were something daelvar children learned to fear and avoid at all costs, easily scooped up to never be heard from again. In an instinctual panic, Haelan dove between the long legs of the Grinlian swordsman.
"Wuh...?" Braddok said confused. "Haelan! What is it?!"
"SHHHH! Buttercream says there's a giant hawk coming." Haelan whispered.
"Giant hawk?" the swordsman's gaze again went to the sky.
"Haelan, hawks don't hunt at ni-..." the warrior's voice stopped abruptly as even his human eyes widened.
He could discern the long form moving across the sky, blotting out stars and crossing before the limited sliver of the greater moon.
It had a long serpentine neck, a slight bulk of body from which two huge bat-like wings were silhouetted against the moonlight, and a long tapering tail with some kind of fin or bulge at the end. It passed over in an instant, completely silent, with a single beat of its wings is continued on, to the east, and was quickly out of sight.
Haelan's eyes, similarly bulged from his head. "B-B-raddok? That wasn't a hawk, was it?"
"No, friend Haelan. That was not a hawk." the swordsman replied deadpan.
*
Haelan had opted to sleep, what little he could, with Buttercream, securely hidden among the brush. Braddok finished the night on his watch, none the worse for ware for having such limited sleep.
The company was less than happy with the report from the halfling and swordsman in the morning.
"Do we turn back?" Festus asked, with more than a little hope for an affirmative answer.
"Turn back!? We've been trudging through this muck n' mire fer weeks! I'll have my beard dipped in caramel before I'd turn back one day...or less...away from a dragon's treasure." Duor argued.
"It may not have been a dragon." Fen said stoically.
Questioning looks from the others warranted further explanation from the druid.
"There has not, to my knowledge, been any sitings of dragons anywhere around the Laklans that I can recall. Not by legend nor folklore, nor anything I was taught by the Ancient Holy Order." Fen defended his assertion.
"Well, the druids don't know everything, now do they?" Duor argued again. "If Braddok...n' the hairfoot...says they saw a dragon, that's all the confirmation I need." Duor answered out of hand. "'Sides, seems a giant dragon with wings ought to be able to get wherever they want, right? Not to mention, we ain't in the Laklans, are we?"
"Well, that can't be argued." Fen admitted. "However," the half-elf added, "we are close enough, I think, that some legend would have surfaced.
"It would, also, not be beyond the realm of possibility for there to be a wyvern nest about. The peaks that surround Welford would be an ideal habitat...and I suspect, we are not so far afield from them to be outside of a wyvern's hunting grounds...Also, you said it moved with complete silence...and wyvern's are known to be remarkably stealthy in flight...They also are prone to hunt at night...both attributes like bats, if I recall my lessons correctly."
Erevan carefully asked Braddok and Haelan to explain what they'd seen. How large it had been to their vision, the exact shape.
Braddok traced the outline, as he well he could, in the morning chilled mud.
Erevan studied it carefully. Looking occasionally to the sky where Braddok said it had passed before the moon. "A wyvern sounds like a distinct possibility." the elf finally concluded...though how he had come to such a conclusion was anyone's guess.
"Fen, " questioned Alaria calmly (much preferring the option of one of the minor wyrms to their alleged quarry) "if you are correct, might a wyvern make a nest in the ruins we are seeking?"
The red-haired druid rubbed the small strip of whiskers that went from his lower lip to his chin. "It might, Magess. I couldn't really say. But it there were some aerie high enough for it to take flight or gain some vantage point from which to launch itself...it might."
"I'll take wyvern over dragon, any day." Festus said. Though, he silently admitted to himself, he'd never encountered a wyvern before and the only dragons he'd ever seen were the "good" kind that were viewed from afar high in the air, entering or leaving Daenfrii. But he'd never actually met one or seen one up close. "The ambassador of Wyr and tutor of the Dragonmage, Zhiranth, is purported to have some hidden grotto in the eastern reaches of Daenfrii's territory, but I've never dared to attempt to find it." he mentioned outloud without realizing that none of the other companions understood the relevance of such a statement.
"Maybe he'll give us his gold, then? If'n we ask nice." Duor mocked.
"Are we returning to Daenfrii, then?" Haelan asked innocently. Honestly confused and scared down to his toe-hairs of encountering any dragon or dragon-like creature on their current course.
"NO we're not 'returning to Daenfrii', " Duor mocked some more, repeating Haelan's question in a whiny child-like voice.
"Duor, that is uncalled for." Alaria now interjected, again calmly. She looked, somewhat unconsciously, to Braddok. She supposed and hoped the warrior would have some encouraging or important thing to note. Direction to give. Anything!
"Indeed, the Hilltender does not deserve your mockery." Braddok began with a disapproving look to Duor. "We shall continue on, as we have planned. With care and caution. As we had planned. If that thing I saw turns out to be the dragon, proper...then we will leave this horrid place with all speed." the warrior proclaimed.
"But..." Duor attempted to argue. Braddok cut him off.
"If the creature turns out to be a wyvern...or not in the ruins of Nor Gorthok at all, we shall see an decide what to do from there. But, as Duor noted, we have come a very long way for this. I've never encountered one of the dragon-kin, nor do I confess I wish to. But to turn back the morning of achieving our goal would be beyond foolish." the swordsman concluded, adjusting his pack and weapons as he did so.
"Agreed." Alaria and Erevan both said.
THe company set out and before noon came to a slight rise in the landsdcape. When they reached the "top" they realized they stood upon a ridge. A huge, circular ridge that extended hundreds of feet across, in either direction. Within the circle of swampy ridge, at its center, a second entirely black and rocky ridge rose from the surrounding swamp. It looked like a small mountain had been just "plopped" into the middle of the swamp.
Alaria gasped audibly.
"What is it, Alaria." the warrior said quietly to her.
Alaria stared at the next rocky ridge. She had seen it before...in vision of her spell sleep. "I have seen this mountain before." the R'Hathi wizardess replied in a near-whisper.
"You have?" Braddok knew better than to question a magic-user's visions. "Do you know...or remember...anything about it?"
"Only that it filled me with a soul-wrenching despair and feeling of doom." Alaria replied.
"Oh, well that's just peachy!" Duor said, having come up behind the two humans unnoticed. "Is there treasure in this doom or what?" the dwarf asked unabashedly.
"I do not know, Duor." Alaria answered evenly, the impertinence of the dwarf's question missed by the magess as she was again consumed with the memory of the feelings from the image of her spell sleep. "But I am almost certain we shall find a dragon within...a great creature of impenetrable black...and...and something else...I don't quite recall..."
"Back to Daenfrii then?" Haelan said, trying to muster as much lightheartedness through his quickly chilling blood as possible.
"I'm afraid not, Haelan." Alaria said with sorrow in her voice. "Whatever lies within, I feel it is something we, now, must seek out. I fear the dark grip of the wicked Tresahd is somehow involved, as well...but I can't quite make it out..." Alaria was annoyed with herself, not being able to fully recall the images she had seen in her magic-induced coma, what seemed, so long ago.
"Dragon treasure's within, I'll tell yeh that's wut!" Duor said happily and led the companions down the steep interior of the swampy slope. "And you, Festus m'boy, will be the most famous satyr in the known realms."
The ranger smiled, sincerely, at the idea. His mind became filled with images of him lounging in fine pillows of satin, being hand-fed pasties by the barmaid, Amber, from the Wyvern's Wing inn. Maybe he'd buy the whole inn. What a den of debauchery he could have then, if he owned his whole own inn...or a manse! A mansion and estate would be better, maybe...the satyr's face shone with a devious smile as the possibilities of endless wealth played through his mind's eye.
Duor turned his excitement to Braddok and continued, "We'll be wealthy men by the day's end, my treasure-hunting friend. Just like we said on the road from Hawkview" the dwarf smiled broadly and jabbed at Braddok's ribs as the warrior come up beside him.
Braddok made no reply but grinned weakly at the dwarf's familiar comradery.
"I'm gonna buy out that weasel's guild and live in luxury the rest o' me days. And YOU, my fine mercenary, you shall have all the wenches and ale you could hope for. 'Dwarf-lord of the Dusk', that's what they'll call me. We'll be the toast of Hawkview! Yessir, this is the mother-hoard. I can feel it in my beard." Duor was practically jubilant at the idea of their hoped-for wealth.
Braddok, along with most of the other companions, did not share his exuberance, focused more, it seemed, on the whole potential for "doom" than "gold."
They came upon the long stagnant lake. In the center was a small isle they recognized all too readily. Little more than a heap of rubble and severely overgrown ruins of a tower sat upon it. Even the wise-cracking dwarf rogue was overwhelmed with a bit of melancholy at the sight of the glorious tower in which they'd just spent, as best they could tell, ten days and the good times therein.
Despite the lure of some small amount of cover for the night, the party opted not to figure out a way across nor dared to enter the black murky lake. Fear of more of the highly poisonous muck-vipers foremost int their minds.
They encountered, again, a group of lizardmen who were a bit more engaging than the past groups had been. Bolstered, it was presumed, by a shaman and very large chief warrior among them. The party was successful in slaying a few and routing the rest. The reptilians seemed somewhat "forced" to be there and slowed by the chill that pervaded the air even in the daytime.
Alaria had forgotten just how near and fast winter approached their Orea after so much time in the warm "summer night" realm.
Another encounter at night with a pack of stirges again disgusted them. But injuries were minor and Haelan seemed more than capable, these days, of meeting whatever healing needs they might have.
For Haelan, Buttercreamshadowfeet had proven to be significantly more vocal than he'd ever imagined. By the second day of their return, Haelan was more than happy to chat with the furry rodent, albeit in hushed tones, and more than once had to shush the ferret while he was doing his post at watch during the night.
The ferret seemed much more active and talkative in the evening and early morning hours. During most afternoons and at the height of most nights, she disappeared among the brush or whined at the Hilltender that she wanted or needed a nap.
On the second night of their return, with the expectation of arriving at the Gorathgraard "citadel", and presumably the treasures and perils thereof, most of the company's sleep was notably troubled.
Haelan was, again, keeping his watch when some motion from around the smoldering campfire caught his attention. The halfling raised his mace and lowered it quickly to see the tall warrior's form of Braddok coming toward him.
"Can't sleep?" Haelan asked softly. "It's not time for your watch yet."
"Can't sleep." Braddok replied, matter-of-fact. The warrior crouched down beside the cleric, who had also sat after recognizing the muscled human. "Where's Buttercream?"
"She's off...hunting I suppose. I pray thanks to Faerantha every evening for her boon. But I confess, I am happy for the quiet at times." Haelan smiled in reply. "Some hot chocolate?" the halfling offered as he pulled a small ceramic teapot out of the magical backpack Imgulg had prepared and gifted him. "Might help ya sleep. I fear the provisions of this pack will be exhausted by tomorrow." Haelan coaxed. "Might be the last batch in here." he added fishing out a small, perfectly daelvar-sized, mug.
"No thanks, Haelan. I appreciate it though. You enjoy." Braddok replied. His appetite, for the most part, was not what it used to be before his..."raising." He seemed to require less to maintain his strength.
"What do you think, my friend? Shall we see a dragon tomorrow?" the warrior offered quietly.
"By the Hillmother, I hope NOT!" Haelan said a bit loudly and cringed at his unexpected noise.
"As do I, Haelan. As do I. But what if we do?" Braddok asked, somewhat rhetorically. "I go over and over in my mind. Tactics, strategies, taking into our various and formidable abilities into account..." his gaze wandered up to the sky and the clouds that passed periodically before the waning silver and green moons. "It's all a folly, of sorts..."
"A folly?! Then why not return to Bridgetower?...or Daenfrii or even Welford. We can winter in relative comfort and come back in the spring." Haelan offered. He felt a twinge of shame at what he was afraid might sound like cowardice to the great swordsman. But, he reasoned to himself, it was only practical.
"Not in that way, I mean. We have the skills and power...I think. Alaria's mastery of her Art is formidable. Erevan is, of course, skilled...beyond even myself if you take into account his magic as well as his bow. you, my friend, you have surpassed any expectation I ever had of your divine might...even Festus and Duor are highly skilled in their chosen pursuits..." Braddok's voice, again faded off...as if there was something he wasn't saying.
"Braddok, are you concerned you are not up to the taste...or as 'powerful' as the rest of us? You are the most skilled of us all!" Haelan attempted to comfort the dark-haired man.
Receiving no more response than a soft snort, the Hilltender continued. "You are, by far, the toughest among us. You lead us...well, I mean, we all have a say in what we do...but, after a fashion, since Alaria has stepped down, so to speak, you're our leader. What you say, particularly in battle, is unquestioned. You think more than you act...that, Braddok, that is a wisdom that benefits us all. Moreso than my own." Haelan smiled a slight, close-lipped smile at the warrior from Barforth.
Bradok had been staring up at the sky through Haelan's vote of confidence and took a moment to look at and return the halfling's encouraging smile. His eyes returned to the sky.
"I thank you, Haelan. I had no idea, when we met in Hawkview, we would find ourselves here...that I would have died...been reborn...faced trolls and ogres and evil wizards and wererats. Or..." the warrior now looked to the halfling with deathly serious eyes, "that I would and could count a little daelvar priest from the Free Hollows as one of my greatest friends and allies."
"G'aaawn." blushed Haelan and smiled to himself.
Then both adventurer's attention was caught by some motion, shuffling, among bushes and reeds near them. With trained grace and ease, both adventurers were on their feet, weapons at the ready. They, then, relaxed to see Buttercream's snout and head poke out from beneath some fronds.
"Hide, Hilltender! Hide! A hawk is coming!" the ferret's voice sounded in Haelan's ears with hushed urgency.
"A hawk?" Haelan said aloud.
"What?!" Braddok responded.
"A giant hawk. HUGE! Its clouding the stars. You should hide!" the ferret replied before again withdrawing and disappearing from view beneath the brush.
Haelan's eyes went, wildly scanning, to the sky.
Giant hawks were not something to be trifled with. They were something daelvar children learned to fear and avoid at all costs, easily scooped up to never be heard from again. In an instinctual panic, Haelan dove between the long legs of the Grinlian swordsman.
"Wuh...?" Braddok said confused. "Haelan! What is it?!"
"SHHHH! Buttercream says there's a giant hawk coming." Haelan whispered.
"Giant hawk?" the swordsman's gaze again went to the sky.
"Haelan, hawks don't hunt at ni-..." the warrior's voice stopped abruptly as even his human eyes widened.
He could discern the long form moving across the sky, blotting out stars and crossing before the limited sliver of the greater moon.
It had a long serpentine neck, a slight bulk of body from which two huge bat-like wings were silhouetted against the moonlight, and a long tapering tail with some kind of fin or bulge at the end. It passed over in an instant, completely silent, with a single beat of its wings is continued on, to the east, and was quickly out of sight.
Haelan's eyes, similarly bulged from his head. "B-B-raddok? That wasn't a hawk, was it?"
"No, friend Haelan. That was not a hawk." the swordsman replied deadpan.
*
Haelan had opted to sleep, what little he could, with Buttercream, securely hidden among the brush. Braddok finished the night on his watch, none the worse for ware for having such limited sleep.
The company was less than happy with the report from the halfling and swordsman in the morning.
"Do we turn back?" Festus asked, with more than a little hope for an affirmative answer.
"Turn back!? We've been trudging through this muck n' mire fer weeks! I'll have my beard dipped in caramel before I'd turn back one day...or less...away from a dragon's treasure." Duor argued.
"It may not have been a dragon." Fen said stoically.
Questioning looks from the others warranted further explanation from the druid.
"There has not, to my knowledge, been any sitings of dragons anywhere around the Laklans that I can recall. Not by legend nor folklore, nor anything I was taught by the Ancient Holy Order." Fen defended his assertion.
"Well, the druids don't know everything, now do they?" Duor argued again. "If Braddok...n' the hairfoot...says they saw a dragon, that's all the confirmation I need." Duor answered out of hand. "'Sides, seems a giant dragon with wings ought to be able to get wherever they want, right? Not to mention, we ain't in the Laklans, are we?"
"Well, that can't be argued." Fen admitted. "However," the half-elf added, "we are close enough, I think, that some legend would have surfaced.
"It would, also, not be beyond the realm of possibility for there to be a wyvern nest about. The peaks that surround Welford would be an ideal habitat...and I suspect, we are not so far afield from them to be outside of a wyvern's hunting grounds...Also, you said it moved with complete silence...and wyvern's are known to be remarkably stealthy in flight...They also are prone to hunt at night...both attributes like bats, if I recall my lessons correctly."
Erevan carefully asked Braddok and Haelan to explain what they'd seen. How large it had been to their vision, the exact shape.
Braddok traced the outline, as he well he could, in the morning chilled mud.
Erevan studied it carefully. Looking occasionally to the sky where Braddok said it had passed before the moon. "A wyvern sounds like a distinct possibility." the elf finally concluded...though how he had come to such a conclusion was anyone's guess.
"Fen, " questioned Alaria calmly (much preferring the option of one of the minor wyrms to their alleged quarry) "if you are correct, might a wyvern make a nest in the ruins we are seeking?"
The red-haired druid rubbed the small strip of whiskers that went from his lower lip to his chin. "It might, Magess. I couldn't really say. But it there were some aerie high enough for it to take flight or gain some vantage point from which to launch itself...it might."
"I'll take wyvern over dragon, any day." Festus said. Though, he silently admitted to himself, he'd never encountered a wyvern before and the only dragons he'd ever seen were the "good" kind that were viewed from afar high in the air, entering or leaving Daenfrii. But he'd never actually met one or seen one up close. "The ambassador of Wyr and tutor of the Dragonmage, Zhiranth, is purported to have some hidden grotto in the eastern reaches of Daenfrii's territory, but I've never dared to attempt to find it." he mentioned outloud without realizing that none of the other companions understood the relevance of such a statement.
"Maybe he'll give us his gold, then? If'n we ask nice." Duor mocked.
"Are we returning to Daenfrii, then?" Haelan asked innocently. Honestly confused and scared down to his toe-hairs of encountering any dragon or dragon-like creature on their current course.
"NO we're not 'returning to Daenfrii', " Duor mocked some more, repeating Haelan's question in a whiny child-like voice.
"Duor, that is uncalled for." Alaria now interjected, again calmly. She looked, somewhat unconsciously, to Braddok. She supposed and hoped the warrior would have some encouraging or important thing to note. Direction to give. Anything!
"Indeed, the Hilltender does not deserve your mockery." Braddok began with a disapproving look to Duor. "We shall continue on, as we have planned. With care and caution. As we had planned. If that thing I saw turns out to be the dragon, proper...then we will leave this horrid place with all speed." the warrior proclaimed.
"But..." Duor attempted to argue. Braddok cut him off.
"If the creature turns out to be a wyvern...or not in the ruins of Nor Gorthok at all, we shall see an decide what to do from there. But, as Duor noted, we have come a very long way for this. I've never encountered one of the dragon-kin, nor do I confess I wish to. But to turn back the morning of achieving our goal would be beyond foolish." the swordsman concluded, adjusting his pack and weapons as he did so.
"Agreed." Alaria and Erevan both said.
THe company set out and before noon came to a slight rise in the landsdcape. When they reached the "top" they realized they stood upon a ridge. A huge, circular ridge that extended hundreds of feet across, in either direction. Within the circle of swampy ridge, at its center, a second entirely black and rocky ridge rose from the surrounding swamp. It looked like a small mountain had been just "plopped" into the middle of the swamp.
Alaria gasped audibly.
"What is it, Alaria." the warrior said quietly to her.
Alaria stared at the next rocky ridge. She had seen it before...in vision of her spell sleep. "I have seen this mountain before." the R'Hathi wizardess replied in a near-whisper.
"You have?" Braddok knew better than to question a magic-user's visions. "Do you know...or remember...anything about it?"
"Only that it filled me with a soul-wrenching despair and feeling of doom." Alaria replied.
"Oh, well that's just peachy!" Duor said, having come up behind the two humans unnoticed. "Is there treasure in this doom or what?" the dwarf asked unabashedly.
"I do not know, Duor." Alaria answered evenly, the impertinence of the dwarf's question missed by the magess as she was again consumed with the memory of the feelings from the image of her spell sleep. "But I am almost certain we shall find a dragon within...a great creature of impenetrable black...and...and something else...I don't quite recall..."
"Back to Daenfrii then?" Haelan said, trying to muster as much lightheartedness through his quickly chilling blood as possible.
"I'm afraid not, Haelan." Alaria said with sorrow in her voice. "Whatever lies within, I feel it is something we, now, must seek out. I fear the dark grip of the wicked Tresahd is somehow involved, as well...but I can't quite make it out..." Alaria was annoyed with herself, not being able to fully recall the images she had seen in her magic-induced coma, what seemed, so long ago.
"Dragon treasure's within, I'll tell yeh that's wut!" Duor said happily and led the companions down the steep interior of the swampy slope. "And you, Festus m'boy, will be the most famous satyr in the known realms."
The ranger smiled, sincerely, at the idea. His mind became filled with images of him lounging in fine pillows of satin, being hand-fed pasties by the barmaid, Amber, from the Wyvern's Wing inn. Maybe he'd buy the whole inn. What a den of debauchery he could have then, if he owned his whole own inn...or a manse! A mansion and estate would be better, maybe...the satyr's face shone with a devious smile as the possibilities of endless wealth played through his mind's eye.
Duor turned his excitement to Braddok and continued, "We'll be wealthy men by the day's end, my treasure-hunting friend. Just like we said on the road from Hawkview" the dwarf smiled broadly and jabbed at Braddok's ribs as the warrior come up beside him.
Braddok made no reply but grinned weakly at the dwarf's familiar comradery.
"I'm gonna buy out that weasel's guild and live in luxury the rest o' me days. And YOU, my fine mercenary, you shall have all the wenches and ale you could hope for. 'Dwarf-lord of the Dusk', that's what they'll call me. We'll be the toast of Hawkview! Yessir, this is the mother-hoard. I can feel it in my beard." Duor was practically jubilant at the idea of their hoped-for wealth.
Braddok, along with most of the other companions, did not share his exuberance, focused more, it seemed, on the whole potential for "doom" than "gold."