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Dreams of Erthe
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9146212" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 59: DRAGON DREAMS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 6/paladin 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 12</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Robin the Balladeer, human bard 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Scarlie Besker, half-orc commoner 5</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 23 September 2023</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"There's nothing here, Mogo."</p><p></p><p>"It's right there, off to your left, kupo!" insisted the moogle dreamwalker's voice coming from the dreamstone embedded in Thurloe Pulver's bastard sword, <em>Spellslicer</em>.</p><p></p><p>"There's nothing but trees!" insisted Thurloe.</p><p></p><p>"Then the dreamer's in a tree, kupo!"</p><p></p><p>"It could be a dryad or a nymph," suggested Xandro. "We've met up with a dryad dreamer before, remember?"</p><p></p><p>"It might even be the tree itself," offered Wakuren.</p><p></p><p>"Trees don't dream!" scoffed Alewyth.</p><p></p><p>"They do if they're treants," Wakuren replied. He then had to explain the concept of treants to the dwarven priestess, as they didn't have a whole lot of treants - or trees, for that matter - in the Underdark city where she grew up.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, by splitting up and having the moogles triangulate the signal of the dream coming from the unknown person trapped in a state of suspended animation while dreaming, the heroes managed to pinpoint the specific tree in question. "The dreamer's in there somewhere, kupo!" Mogo insisted.</p><p></p><p>"Well," suggested Xandro, "I suppose we could sit around the tree and try to do the ritual that way."</p><p></p><p>"And how are we to put a dreamstone on the dreamer's forehead?" demanded Alewyth, starting to get exasperated with the whole situation. And having peeked ahead at the dream they were about to enter gave no clues, for it was about a ruined wasteland of cracked earth and magma fissures - nothing to give a hint about who might be having that particular dream. Fortunately, Zander's keen elven senses came to the rescue, as he noticed a thin scratch along the bark low to the ground, between two large roots, that could easily be mistaken for the claw mark of a bear or similar creature - or the top of a cleverly-hidden door.</p><p></p><p>"If this a door," mused Zander, "the creature living inside is pretty small." He traced his fingers along the hidden groove. "It's only about three feet tall, and two feet wide."</p><p></p><p>"Can you open it?" asked Wakuren. The elf gave it his best shot, but could find no means of opening the potential door. He signaled for Xandro, the only one in the group with any lockpicking abilities, to give a shot. Xandro unrolled his masterwork lockpicks but couldn't find anywhere to try to place them - if this was a door, even the keyhole (should one exist) was not visible.</p><p></p><p>"We could just kick it in," suggested Thurloe, always one for a physical solution when the opportunity presented itself. But Alewyth pointed out that if someone lived inside the tree, it would be poor manners to break in their front door while attempting to help them.</p><p></p><p>"Okay, then," replied Wakuren, "maybe it'll open up easier to open from the inside." And casting a <em>gaseous form</em> spell upon himself, he slid through a crack and found himself on the inside of the trunk, a hollow area that had very obviously been made into a living room for a small creature, for there were two chairs facing each other, shelves nearby which seemed to have been grown out of the tree trunk interior, and a set of very narrow stairs leading down, with a wooden handrail leading the way. There was no light at all inside the interior, but Wakuren's innate darkvision - available to him even when he was a cloud of mist - allowed him to see just fine. He could have resumed his solid, half-orc form and opened the door to let the others in (for the knob was quite visible on the inside), although he'd have to duck for the ceiling height was a mere five feet tall. But, curiosity getting the better of him, he decided the others could wait while he made an exploratory excursion to verify for himself the dreamer was actually downstairs somewhere in a dream coma.</p><p></p><p>Gliding down the winding, narrow staircase, Wakuren's cloud-form ended up at a lower level, also with a five-foot ceiling. There was a small living area, a closed door (that, after he drifted underneath it, proved his guess that this was a bathroom was accurate), and two arc-shaped rooms with open doorways. The larger of the two was a kitchen; the smaller, which had no door but did have a curtain which was pulled shut, contained the body of a good-looking gnome woman asleep on her bed.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren dismissed the <em>gaseous form</em> spell and resumed his half-orc body, standing hunched over beneath the low ceiling. There was no room for them to perform the dream-waking ritual here in the little gnome's house, so he carefully lifted her from her bed and said the command phrase that brought the two of them into the extradimensional space of <em>Hesperna's lamp</em>, which Wakuren carried with him in a pouch at his hip. He set her down carefully on the floor in the bedroom, then returned to the exit circle and said the command phrase that returned him to the gnome's home. Picking up the lamp, he returned it to his pouch and carefully climbed the tiny stairs. Once back up in the parlor, he opened the door. "It's a gnome," he told them. "Got her in the lamp." He stepped outside, figuring they could perform the ritual either out there in the forest or inside the lamp.</p><p></p><p>But the gnome's "neighbors" were alerted to the fact that there were intruders in the gnome's home, and they did what they could to drive off these interlopers.</p><p></p><p>"Ow!" cried Thurloe as an acorn was dropped upon his head. The assault was followed by a chorus of squirrel chitterings from somewhere in the branches above. Upon Wakuren's direction, as he held out <em>Hesperna's lamp</em>, the others dodged acorns-missiles hurled from above and, one by one, entered the extradimensional space inside the lamp. "We'll be back in a bit!" the half-orc called over to Scarlie, who was still sitting in the wagon with the other mounts nearby. He waved his understanding, and then Wakuren re-entered the cramped tree home and said the words to shift himself back inside the lamp once again.</p><p></p><p>"She's cute," Alewyth observed, as she took out the leather headband containing a dreamstone and placed it around the gnome's forehead. Zander activated his <em>jade cooshee</em>, Robin promised she and the elven dog would look after them, and then the five dreamwalkers sat in a circle around the gnome and slowed their breathing in the manner in which Mogo had trained them. Before too long, they were all asleep and joined up in the Dreamlands with their moogle guides, who steered each one to the particular room where their primary dreamwalking instructor was waiting for them, flapping his little bat wings just outside a door. "In you go, kupo!" he said, opening the door to the gnome's dream and ushering them inside.</p><p></p><p>Little had changed since they'd first seen this dream: it was still a windy wasteland, with magma-scarred earth and the partially-standing ruins of what had once been a stone building the only real feature anywhere around. That didn't stay the status quo for very long, however, for a beetle-like creature burrowed up from the ground over by the ruins. It rose to its full height - at least 40 feet tall or thereabouts - standing on a pair of powerful-looking hind legs, while smacking its forelimbs together. There came to a point and could be spun back and forth rapidly, acting like a pair of drills that no doubt helped the insect-monster burrow rapidly through the earth.</p><p></p><p>"Guardian kaiju," observed Xandro. "You know what that means!" He released his own inner spirit kaiju and began growing, twice his size, then four times, then doubling in size again. And as he grew, his human body (and everything he wore and carried with him) transformed as well, until he stood at the other end of the dreamscape, no longer the bard/rogue known as Xandro Silverstrings, but an alien cyborg with avian features, named Gigan. Screeching a challenge, the monster flew forward, low to the ground, heading toward the beetle-like guardian kaiju, <strong>Megalon</strong>.</p><p></p><p>Zander was the next to react, but he opted to remain in his elven form for a bit and try to manipulate the dreamscape using the lucid dreaming techniques Mogo had taught them. Concentrating fiercely, the elf willed the beetle creature to diminish in physical strength and overall power. Megalon seemed oblivious to his efforts, however, and the elf got the distinct impression he was just wasting his time - some dreams were like that, and they'd had a particularly low level of success being able to change anything in the guardian kaiju dreams they'd encountered thus far.</p><p></p><p>Thurloe had no hesitation in changing to his spirit kaiju form. Growing eightfold in height, he became the metallic construct MOGUERA. Once in his new form, he wasted no time in getting down to battle, sending an energy beam out of his metal chest and striking Megalon from across the dreamscape. By his side, Alewyth ran forward, transforming as she went, eventually dropping onto all fours as she became the armored and spiked kaiju Anguiras.</p><p></p><p>Megalon wasted no time either, once the battle was on. He spat forward a gob of flaming spittle at Gigan, striking the reptilian bird-cyborg in the chest, and shooting a beam of energy from the tip of the star-shaped horn jutting up from his insect brow at MOGUERA. The beam lanced across the dreamscape but failed to hit its mark.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren transformed into the giant turtle kaiju Gamera and moved up, sending a gout of flame blasting from his tusked mouth over at Megalon. MOGUERA, staying far back, sent another beam of energy from his chest-mounted cannon. But it was Gigan who did the most damage, clawing at Megalon with his sharp-tipped forearm appendages, ripping into the beetle carapaced flesh with his wicked beak and teeth, and chewing up his front with his whirring blades. Megalon stumbled away in a daze, only to have Anguiras run up and bite at him as well.</p><p></p><p>Spinning about frantically, Megalon opened up his wing cases and flapped his wings rapidly back and forth, sending hurricane-force winds blasting into Gigan and Anguiras. Both monsters were blown back away from Megalon, landing prone upon the ground and giving the beetle-thing a moment to try to gather up his resolve and ignore some of the worst of the damage inflicted upon him thus far. Zander stepped forward, transforming into the humanoid foo dog kaiju King Caesar as he did so.</p><p></p><p>Megalon dodged the next blast of flame from Gamera, but then the turtle caught him with his claws and teeth. Anguiras, getting back upon all fours, crawled back over to Megalon and clamped down hard onto one of the giant beetle's legs. Gamera repeated his sequence of attacks, and now Megalon was starting to look to be on his last legs. Individually, he was much more powerful than any of the kaiju up against him, but with five-against-one odds, he didn't stand a chance for very long.</p><p></p><p>MOGUERA finally moved up, blasting Megalon a final time with his chest beam and slaying the beetle kaiju instantly. Megalon fell over onto his side with a crash that left a small crater in the landscape, and then the winds started breaking apart his body, which had started to flake away and crumble upon his death. Within a few moments, there was nothing left of Megalon's body to even show he had been there.</p><p></p><p>And that's when the earth started shaking like an earthquake, and another Megalon popped up out of the hole he had dug. He looked hale and hearty and at full strength, ready to take on the five kaiju before him in a five-against-one fight that didn't have him looking the least bit worried.</p><p></p><p>"The dream's on a loop!" cried out Wakuren from Gamera's body. And indeed, although the five kaiju didn't all instantaneously <em>teleport</em> back to their starting positions at the beginning of the dream, the dream was replaying itself in the same fashion as it had the first time. Disheartened, the dreamwalkers realized this dream could easily go on forever.</p><p></p><p>"Well, then what's the point of these stupid dream-bodies?" demanded Xandro, as he stabbed this new Megalon in the torso with his pointed forearms. Not sure of what else to do, the other dreamwalkers followed suit - all but Zander, that is. He concentrated and shrunk back down to his elven form, then ran off to the side, away from the kaiju battle. He put the ruins between himself and Megalon, who was (quite rightly) focused on the four kaiju trying to kill him. But as Zander rounded the corner at the back of the stone ruins, he saw something he hadn't been able to see before: a standard, wooden door, very much like the ones all along the Corridor of Dreams. <em>A dream within a dream?</em> the elf thought to himself, but then called out his findings to the others. One by one, they disengaged from the fight against Megalon and resumed their true shapes and sizes, gathering over by the wooden door at the back of the dreamscape. Megalon plowed through the ruins in pursuit, but by that time Zander had opened the door and the five all dashed inside.</p><p></p><p>Inside this "inner dream," the dreamwalkers were somewhat surprised to see a tea party taking place. Looking over at these five new visitors, a gnomish woman - the very spitting image of the gnome Wakuren had taken from her bed at the bottom of the tree dwelling - said, "Well, you seemed to be having a lot of fun out there."</p><p></p><p>"Do you want to join us?" asked Princess Caroline. "There's tea and cakes, and we can bring over more chairs."</p><p></p><p>"The cakes are really good," interjected Mr. Toad.</p><p></p><p>"Please forgive my manners," said the gnome. "My name is <strong>Argentina Quicksilver</strong>. Was there something we can do for you?"</p><p></p><p>The dreamwalkers were momentarily nonplussed. "We, uh," stammered Wakuren. "We're here to rescue you."</p><p></p><p>"Rescue me?" smirked Argentina. "That silly monster fight out there can't spill into our cozy little tea party here. Did you wish to have some tea?" she offered. Unbidden, an extra five empty teacups appeared on the silver tray beside the similar tray of small cakes.</p><p></p><p>"This is just a dream," Wakuren argued. "You're in a dream coma - we're here to rescue you from the dream coma. You see, there's this entity that calls himself the Nightmare King--"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, foo on all of that," scoffed Argentina, causing Princess Caroline to giggle. That caused the half-orc to look her way. "And just what are <em>you</em> doing here?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>"Mr. Toad and I were in the neighborhood, exploring," she said, swinging her feet below her seat. "We saw the scary bug monster outside and ran through the door here, and Argentina said we could stay for tea. She's very nice."</p><p></p><p>"Well, in any case." replied Wakuren, returning his attention to the little gnome and waving away her offer of tea, "you are currently in a dream coma, and that monster outside prevented anyone from coming in to rescue you. But we defeated him, and now you can wake up."</p><p></p><p>"Ah, I see. But supposing I'm not ready to wake up just yet?"</p><p></p><p>Alewyth furrowed her brow - they'd never met someone arguing to stay asleep in their dreams before quite like this. "But you can get on with your life!" she argued.</p><p></p><p>"Ah, but sleeping and dreaming is a part of life, is it not?"</p><p></p><p>The dreamwalkers weren't quite sure of what to make of this. Xandro tried laying out the history of their training as dreamwalkers, and the many people they'd rescued over their months of traveling across the continent. "But there were four others with special dreams like yours," the bard continued. "Dreams that were guarded by giant monsters, that until now we didn't have the ability to defeat. For whatever reason, the Nightmare King wanted the five of you - and who knows how many more? - to remain in your dreams. For that very reason, you need to wake up - if the Nightmare King wants it to happen, it's our job to see that it doesn't!"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, very well," sighed Argentina. "Fine: I'll wake up, if that will make you happy." Then she frowned. "Hmm," she mused. "I'm trying, but I can't wake up. That's odd - I've never had any trouble waking up before."</p><p></p><p>"Usually the dream dissolves once we've overcome whatever obstacle needed taken care of," observed Zander. "Of course, this being a dream within a dream...."</p><p></p><p>"You said there were four others like me, with dream monsters you couldn't beat," stated Argentina with sudden passion. "What were their names?"</p><p></p><p>"The first one was a dwarf from Deepshaft," replied Alewyth. "His name was...Altum Deepdelver."</p><p></p><p>"There was the bard Carmen Melodius in the Merry Minstrel Inn at Baron's Haven," supplied Xandro.</p><p></p><p>Wakuren added, "A paladin in the Temple of Telgrane in Devlinshire named Drakkar Pyropus."</p><p></p><p>"And that elf guy," said Thurloe, who hadn't bothered memorizing the names of the people they'd failed to awaken. "Chrysos Arkaurum," Alewyth filled in for him.</p><p></p><p>Argentina winced. "I know all of them," she said.</p><p></p><p>"What? How?" demanded Thurloe.</p><p></p><p>"Well, I haven't actually met them," Argentina backtracked, "but I've spoken with them."</p><p></p><p>"How?" repeated Thurloe, causing Argentina to squirm a bit uncomfortably. "I...I'm not quite sure how to explain it," she murmured. "Chrysos would do a better job of explaining it." The little gnome turned to Princess Caroline. "I think we should go visit Chrysos Arkaurum. He's currently asleep in the Sylvanholme Forest. Do you think you could take us there?"</p><p></p><p>"Sure!" exclaimed Princess Caroline, finishing her tea with a slurp and getting up from her chair. "Come on, Mr. Toad - we're going on another visit!" Mr. Toad dropped another tea-cake into his wide mouth before hopping over to the little princess's side. Argentina stepped over beside them and motioned for the five dreamwalkers to join them. Then, once everyone was standing beside each other, Princess Caroline caused a chunk of the floor of Argentina's dreamscape to lower into a sort of sub-basement, with winding passageways leading in all directions. It was very much like the Corridor of Dreams, but without the doors themselves. Still, Princess Caroline expertly led the way, diving down one passageway and then turning into another without any seeming rhyme or reason. But then she stopped, everyone caught up with her, and she then caused the floor beneath them to rise up like an elevator platform, bringing the group into a dank, damp cavern filled with phosphorescent fungus. The reek of mold and decay rose from all directions, but Xandro recognized the place - they'd been here before.</p><p></p><p>"Find the door - hurry!" he called, running to the back of the dreamscape as a gloppy pile of muck began bubbling up and slowly taking on a vaguely humanoid form. Fortunately, before the sludge-beast Hedorah had fully formed, Zander had found an incongruous wooden door standing out in the open, flung it open wide, and rushed inside. The others followed, and they were suddenly in a large study filled with shelves of books and tomes, a globe of the world of Erthe, and specimens of small creatures floating in jars. Sitting at a large desk was a white-haired elf, who looked up as he peered down his nose through his spectacles and asked, "May I help you?"</p><p></p><p>"Chrysos, it's me," replied Argentina Quicksilver, stepping forward so she could be better seen. "These five have quite a tale, and I think you should hear it."</p><p></p><p>Xandro once again took the lead, his bardic training making him especially good at persuasion. The elderly elf nodded once or twice as the bard recited his tale, then went to one of his bookshelves and pulled out an atlas. He flipped through it until he found the map he was looking for, and asked the dreamwalkers to point on the map of the continent of Armaturia where exactly the other four dreamers with guardian kaiju had been located. He placed a drop of ink from his quill pen where he was located in the physical world, deep in the heart of the Sylvanholme Forest, then followed suit as the heroes pointed out where they'd encountered the sleeping forms of Altum, Carmen, and Drakkar. Argentina pointed to her own home in the Broadleaf Forest, and Chrysos marked that as well. "Hrmm," he grunted in satisfaction to himself. "As you can see, the locations form the five points of a star." He connected the points, drawing in the star shape. Then, using a straight-edged ruler, he connected the opposite points and corners. They all converged at a single point, deep in the Centralia Desert.</p><p></p><p>"That's where the <em>Dream Gate</em> is located!" interjected Xandro. He then explained about the <em>planar gate</em> they'd helped to get constructed in the Centralia Desert, which allowed dreamwalkers like themselves to be transported physically into the Dreamlands.</p><p></p><p>"Oh dear," exclaimed Chrysos, getting up from his chair and fetching three <em>crystal balls</em> from various shelves, among the books. He placed these in a row on his desk and passed a hand over each. As he did so, a face formed in each crystal sphere, and the heroes recognized the visages of Altum Deepdelver, Carmen Melodius, and Drakkar Pyropus. Chrysos greeted them and explained what the dreamwalking heroes had told him thus far, bringing them up to speed. "I should like to hear your experiences," he told them. One by one, they told their own stories, about going to sleep without issue. None of them had any idea that they were unable to awaken on their own, but when, at the elf's suggestion, they tried to do so, they each reported back failure.</p><p></p><p>"And each of us - myself included - is wearing a dreamstone on their brow?" asked Chrysos. Alewyth admitted that this was true.</p><p></p><p>"Then it would seem," replied the elderly elven scholar, "that this Nightmare King has manipulated events to get you to place the dreamstones on our foreheads. And the dreamstones are channeling our power to open this <em>Dream Gate</em> in the desert. I would surmise that he wishes to be able to transport himself from the Dreamlands to the Mortal Plane."</p><p></p><p>"We can't let him do that!" exploded Zander.</p><p></p><p>"Wait a minute," argued Thurloe. "Why you five? And if he just needed you five, why all the others that he let us rescue from their dreams? That doesn't make any sense!"</p><p></p><p>Chrysos looked hard at Argentina, then at each of the three images in the <em>crystal balls</em> in turn. They all nodded their silent agreement. "I have an answer to your first question, and a guess as to your second. But first, I need your word - upon your honor" he added, looking at the holy symbols Alewyth and Wakuren wore, "that what I'm about to tell you doesn't get repeated to anyone else." Upon receiving such an oath from each of the five heroes (as well as from Princess Caroline; Mr. Toad, he realized, was just a dream figment created by the young girl), he said, "None of the five of us are as we seem: we are all dragons in humanoid guise." He went on to explain that he was a mature adult gold dragon; Argentina was an adult silver dragon; Altum was a young adult deep dragon; Carmen was a young adult song dragon; and Drakar was a mature adult bronze dragon.</p><p></p><p>"Nuh-uh!" argued Princess Caroline. "My brother says our family drove all the dragons out of Armaturia a long time ago!"</p><p></p><p>Chrysos smiled indulgently. "We have allowed the Royal Family to believe that," he said. "But some of us visit your lands in humanoid forms, the better to see for ourselves how things are running here in your small continent. That is a big secret among we dragons, one I must ask you not to repeat to your brother, the King, lest he decide to hunt us all down and try to slay us. And that, I fear, would not go very well for him and his troops." Princess Caroline frowned in consternation but nodded her agreement.</p><p></p><p>"As dragons, we sleep more and more as we age," Chrysos explained. "That time is spent here, dreaming, but we often communicate with other sleeping dragons through the Dragonmind - a sort of voluntary mental link accessible when we sleep. As such, we dragons are tied intrinsically into the Dreamlands, and it makes sense that the Nightmare King would have tapped into that power to fuel the <em>Dream Gate</em> that will allow him entry to the Mortal World in physical form."</p><p></p><p>"Hold on," Wakuren interrupted. "Argentina isn't currently in the physical world - she's in an extradimensional space inside <em>Hesperna's lamp</em>. Wouldn't that break the link?"</p><p></p><p>"If this lamp is tied to the Material Plane, it likely wouldn't make that much of a difference," Chrysos explained.</p><p></p><p>"Why don't we just remove the dreamstones?" argued Alewyth. "It'll take time to get to the others, but we can remove the one we placed on Argentina's--"</p><p></p><p>The dwarven priestess was cut off by a frantic voice coming from <em>Sjondra</em> - more specifically, from the dreamstones she'd had embedded upon either side of the warhammer's head. "Can you hear me, kupo?" came Mogo's panicked voice. "Something's going on in the throne room: there's a swirling, gray mist preventing anyone from entering the throne room, kupo! It's got to be the Nightmare King, kupo! Whatever his plans are, he's probably putting them into motion right now, kupo!"</p><p></p><p>"You need to remove Argentina's dreamstone at once!" said Chrysos. "And after that, you need to get to <em>Dream Gate</em>, in case he's already gotten through! Do you have the means to <em>teleport</em> there?"</p><p></p><p>"I, uh--no!" replied Zander.</p><p></p><p>"There's a scroll containing the <em>teleport</em> spell in among my personal hoard," explained Argentina. She quickly explained how to open the secret passage behind her stairs to get to her hoard room, and then how to activate the swiveling floor that led down to her treasure pile. "Got it!" Zander assured her.</p><p></p><p>"Wake up!" Wakuren called to the others, concentrating on waking himself back up. He woke up back inside <em>Hesperna's lamp</em>, then said the words that shunted him back to the Material World, cramped inside Argentina's gnome-sized parlor. He grabbed up the lamp and raced down the stairs, finding the knothole which caused the three bottom steps to drop down to the floor level, leaving a narrow opening just big enough for him to crawl through on his belly. Fortunately, the room beyond had a 10-foot-high ceiling, a little more appropriate for an adult silver dragon in her true form. He placed the lamp on the ground and found the hidden button that caused an elongated trap door in the floor to swivel up along an axle halfway down its length. By that time, the others were exiting the lamp, including Robin, Petey, and the cooshee, neither of whom knew what all the panic was about. But Petey picked up the gist of things from his master's mind and explained in brief to the others.</p><p></p><p>Alewyth said, "Argentina's body is covered in some sort of magic field, emanating from the dreamstone. There's no way for us to remove it from her forehead."</p><p></p><p>"Then go back in and get her," Wakuren decided. "We'll leave her here in her own bed while we go <em>teleport</em> to the <em>Dream Gate</em>. In the meantime, we need that scroll!"</p><p></p><p>"On it!" called Zander as he leaped down into the treasure chamber below. He spent a few moments looking for it - moments that Thurloe spent admiring the numerous gems and coins scattered all over - before calling up, "I got it!" Thurloe laid down on the floor and reached his hand down to help pull Zander back up out of the treasure chamber below.</p><p></p><p>"What about Scarlie?" Xandro asked once Alewyth had returned Argentina to her own bed and scrambled back.</p><p></p><p>"We'll back-brief him after the fact - every moment counts! Let's <em>go!</em>" he shouted to Zander, who was reading the words to the <em>teleport</em> scroll. As he pronounced each arcane syllable, the corresponding rune vanished from the parchment in his hands. Thurloe cast a quick <em>protection from evil</em> spell upon himself and Xandro cast a <em>heroism</em> spell upon the spellsword, while Wakuren told Robin to stay behind with Scarlie, and that they'd be back to come get them, although he didn't know how long that would be.</p><p></p><p>And then Zander was done casting the <em>teleport</em> spell from the scroll, and the five heroes, Petey, and the cooshee were no longer inside the treasure room of Argentina Quicksilver.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>This adventure took a lot less time than I had planned, for the simple reason that Harry made it abundantly clear that he hated playing through the Giant Monster Rampage game. (Logan had offered to swap running his Gamera for Harry's Gigan, but it turned out Gigan's lack of ranged attacks wasn't all Harry hated about the situation, he just dislikes how simplistic the game is and how few combat decisions there are to be made, just a lot of d10 die rolling.) So, while I had the PCs fight through the initial battle against Megalon, we skipped the subsequent fight, and I hand-waved having to fight Hedorah to get to the "inner dream" of Chrysos Arkaurum. I also set up the three <em>crystal balls</em> as a means to bypass having to fight past any of the other guardian kaiju to get to the other dreaming dragons.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>T-shirt worn: My Einstein shirt, which depicts the smoke from his pipe turning into galaxies. I often use that shirt to represent the Dreamscape as a whole, and while I have several dragon shirts (and a "DAD: Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult" shirt) which would have been equally appropriate, I didn't want to flash any signals to the players which could end up being spoilers for the adventure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 9146212, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 59: DRAGON DREAMS[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 12[/INDENT] [INDENT] Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 6/paladin 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 12[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Robin the Balladeer, human bard 3[/INDENT] [INDENT] Scarlie Besker, half-orc commoner 5[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 23 September 2023 - - - "There's nothing here, Mogo." "It's right there, off to your left, kupo!" insisted the moogle dreamwalker's voice coming from the dreamstone embedded in Thurloe Pulver's bastard sword, [I]Spellslicer[/I]. "There's nothing but trees!" insisted Thurloe. "Then the dreamer's in a tree, kupo!" "It could be a dryad or a nymph," suggested Xandro. "We've met up with a dryad dreamer before, remember?" "It might even be the tree itself," offered Wakuren. "Trees don't dream!" scoffed Alewyth. "They do if they're treants," Wakuren replied. He then had to explain the concept of treants to the dwarven priestess, as they didn't have a whole lot of treants - or trees, for that matter - in the Underdark city where she grew up. Eventually, by splitting up and having the moogles triangulate the signal of the dream coming from the unknown person trapped in a state of suspended animation while dreaming, the heroes managed to pinpoint the specific tree in question. "The dreamer's in there somewhere, kupo!" Mogo insisted. "Well," suggested Xandro, "I suppose we could sit around the tree and try to do the ritual that way." "And how are we to put a dreamstone on the dreamer's forehead?" demanded Alewyth, starting to get exasperated with the whole situation. And having peeked ahead at the dream they were about to enter gave no clues, for it was about a ruined wasteland of cracked earth and magma fissures - nothing to give a hint about who might be having that particular dream. Fortunately, Zander's keen elven senses came to the rescue, as he noticed a thin scratch along the bark low to the ground, between two large roots, that could easily be mistaken for the claw mark of a bear or similar creature - or the top of a cleverly-hidden door. "If this a door," mused Zander, "the creature living inside is pretty small." He traced his fingers along the hidden groove. "It's only about three feet tall, and two feet wide." "Can you open it?" asked Wakuren. The elf gave it his best shot, but could find no means of opening the potential door. He signaled for Xandro, the only one in the group with any lockpicking abilities, to give a shot. Xandro unrolled his masterwork lockpicks but couldn't find anywhere to try to place them - if this was a door, even the keyhole (should one exist) was not visible. "We could just kick it in," suggested Thurloe, always one for a physical solution when the opportunity presented itself. But Alewyth pointed out that if someone lived inside the tree, it would be poor manners to break in their front door while attempting to help them. "Okay, then," replied Wakuren, "maybe it'll open up easier to open from the inside." And casting a [I]gaseous form[/I] spell upon himself, he slid through a crack and found himself on the inside of the trunk, a hollow area that had very obviously been made into a living room for a small creature, for there were two chairs facing each other, shelves nearby which seemed to have been grown out of the tree trunk interior, and a set of very narrow stairs leading down, with a wooden handrail leading the way. There was no light at all inside the interior, but Wakuren's innate darkvision - available to him even when he was a cloud of mist - allowed him to see just fine. He could have resumed his solid, half-orc form and opened the door to let the others in (for the knob was quite visible on the inside), although he'd have to duck for the ceiling height was a mere five feet tall. But, curiosity getting the better of him, he decided the others could wait while he made an exploratory excursion to verify for himself the dreamer was actually downstairs somewhere in a dream coma. Gliding down the winding, narrow staircase, Wakuren's cloud-form ended up at a lower level, also with a five-foot ceiling. There was a small living area, a closed door (that, after he drifted underneath it, proved his guess that this was a bathroom was accurate), and two arc-shaped rooms with open doorways. The larger of the two was a kitchen; the smaller, which had no door but did have a curtain which was pulled shut, contained the body of a good-looking gnome woman asleep on her bed. Wakuren dismissed the [I]gaseous form[/I] spell and resumed his half-orc body, standing hunched over beneath the low ceiling. There was no room for them to perform the dream-waking ritual here in the little gnome's house, so he carefully lifted her from her bed and said the command phrase that brought the two of them into the extradimensional space of [I]Hesperna's lamp[/I], which Wakuren carried with him in a pouch at his hip. He set her down carefully on the floor in the bedroom, then returned to the exit circle and said the command phrase that returned him to the gnome's home. Picking up the lamp, he returned it to his pouch and carefully climbed the tiny stairs. Once back up in the parlor, he opened the door. "It's a gnome," he told them. "Got her in the lamp." He stepped outside, figuring they could perform the ritual either out there in the forest or inside the lamp. But the gnome's "neighbors" were alerted to the fact that there were intruders in the gnome's home, and they did what they could to drive off these interlopers. "Ow!" cried Thurloe as an acorn was dropped upon his head. The assault was followed by a chorus of squirrel chitterings from somewhere in the branches above. Upon Wakuren's direction, as he held out [I]Hesperna's lamp[/I], the others dodged acorns-missiles hurled from above and, one by one, entered the extradimensional space inside the lamp. "We'll be back in a bit!" the half-orc called over to Scarlie, who was still sitting in the wagon with the other mounts nearby. He waved his understanding, and then Wakuren re-entered the cramped tree home and said the words to shift himself back inside the lamp once again. "She's cute," Alewyth observed, as she took out the leather headband containing a dreamstone and placed it around the gnome's forehead. Zander activated his [I]jade cooshee[/I], Robin promised she and the elven dog would look after them, and then the five dreamwalkers sat in a circle around the gnome and slowed their breathing in the manner in which Mogo had trained them. Before too long, they were all asleep and joined up in the Dreamlands with their moogle guides, who steered each one to the particular room where their primary dreamwalking instructor was waiting for them, flapping his little bat wings just outside a door. "In you go, kupo!" he said, opening the door to the gnome's dream and ushering them inside. Little had changed since they'd first seen this dream: it was still a windy wasteland, with magma-scarred earth and the partially-standing ruins of what had once been a stone building the only real feature anywhere around. That didn't stay the status quo for very long, however, for a beetle-like creature burrowed up from the ground over by the ruins. It rose to its full height - at least 40 feet tall or thereabouts - standing on a pair of powerful-looking hind legs, while smacking its forelimbs together. There came to a point and could be spun back and forth rapidly, acting like a pair of drills that no doubt helped the insect-monster burrow rapidly through the earth. "Guardian kaiju," observed Xandro. "You know what that means!" He released his own inner spirit kaiju and began growing, twice his size, then four times, then doubling in size again. And as he grew, his human body (and everything he wore and carried with him) transformed as well, until he stood at the other end of the dreamscape, no longer the bard/rogue known as Xandro Silverstrings, but an alien cyborg with avian features, named Gigan. Screeching a challenge, the monster flew forward, low to the ground, heading toward the beetle-like guardian kaiju, [B]Megalon[/B]. Zander was the next to react, but he opted to remain in his elven form for a bit and try to manipulate the dreamscape using the lucid dreaming techniques Mogo had taught them. Concentrating fiercely, the elf willed the beetle creature to diminish in physical strength and overall power. Megalon seemed oblivious to his efforts, however, and the elf got the distinct impression he was just wasting his time - some dreams were like that, and they'd had a particularly low level of success being able to change anything in the guardian kaiju dreams they'd encountered thus far. Thurloe had no hesitation in changing to his spirit kaiju form. Growing eightfold in height, he became the metallic construct MOGUERA. Once in his new form, he wasted no time in getting down to battle, sending an energy beam out of his metal chest and striking Megalon from across the dreamscape. By his side, Alewyth ran forward, transforming as she went, eventually dropping onto all fours as she became the armored and spiked kaiju Anguiras. Megalon wasted no time either, once the battle was on. He spat forward a gob of flaming spittle at Gigan, striking the reptilian bird-cyborg in the chest, and shooting a beam of energy from the tip of the star-shaped horn jutting up from his insect brow at MOGUERA. The beam lanced across the dreamscape but failed to hit its mark. Wakuren transformed into the giant turtle kaiju Gamera and moved up, sending a gout of flame blasting from his tusked mouth over at Megalon. MOGUERA, staying far back, sent another beam of energy from his chest-mounted cannon. But it was Gigan who did the most damage, clawing at Megalon with his sharp-tipped forearm appendages, ripping into the beetle carapaced flesh with his wicked beak and teeth, and chewing up his front with his whirring blades. Megalon stumbled away in a daze, only to have Anguiras run up and bite at him as well. Spinning about frantically, Megalon opened up his wing cases and flapped his wings rapidly back and forth, sending hurricane-force winds blasting into Gigan and Anguiras. Both monsters were blown back away from Megalon, landing prone upon the ground and giving the beetle-thing a moment to try to gather up his resolve and ignore some of the worst of the damage inflicted upon him thus far. Zander stepped forward, transforming into the humanoid foo dog kaiju King Caesar as he did so. Megalon dodged the next blast of flame from Gamera, but then the turtle caught him with his claws and teeth. Anguiras, getting back upon all fours, crawled back over to Megalon and clamped down hard onto one of the giant beetle's legs. Gamera repeated his sequence of attacks, and now Megalon was starting to look to be on his last legs. Individually, he was much more powerful than any of the kaiju up against him, but with five-against-one odds, he didn't stand a chance for very long. MOGUERA finally moved up, blasting Megalon a final time with his chest beam and slaying the beetle kaiju instantly. Megalon fell over onto his side with a crash that left a small crater in the landscape, and then the winds started breaking apart his body, which had started to flake away and crumble upon his death. Within a few moments, there was nothing left of Megalon's body to even show he had been there. And that's when the earth started shaking like an earthquake, and another Megalon popped up out of the hole he had dug. He looked hale and hearty and at full strength, ready to take on the five kaiju before him in a five-against-one fight that didn't have him looking the least bit worried. "The dream's on a loop!" cried out Wakuren from Gamera's body. And indeed, although the five kaiju didn't all instantaneously [I]teleport[/I] back to their starting positions at the beginning of the dream, the dream was replaying itself in the same fashion as it had the first time. Disheartened, the dreamwalkers realized this dream could easily go on forever. "Well, then what's the point of these stupid dream-bodies?" demanded Xandro, as he stabbed this new Megalon in the torso with his pointed forearms. Not sure of what else to do, the other dreamwalkers followed suit - all but Zander, that is. He concentrated and shrunk back down to his elven form, then ran off to the side, away from the kaiju battle. He put the ruins between himself and Megalon, who was (quite rightly) focused on the four kaiju trying to kill him. But as Zander rounded the corner at the back of the stone ruins, he saw something he hadn't been able to see before: a standard, wooden door, very much like the ones all along the Corridor of Dreams. [I]A dream within a dream?[/I] the elf thought to himself, but then called out his findings to the others. One by one, they disengaged from the fight against Megalon and resumed their true shapes and sizes, gathering over by the wooden door at the back of the dreamscape. Megalon plowed through the ruins in pursuit, but by that time Zander had opened the door and the five all dashed inside. Inside this "inner dream," the dreamwalkers were somewhat surprised to see a tea party taking place. Looking over at these five new visitors, a gnomish woman - the very spitting image of the gnome Wakuren had taken from her bed at the bottom of the tree dwelling - said, "Well, you seemed to be having a lot of fun out there." "Do you want to join us?" asked Princess Caroline. "There's tea and cakes, and we can bring over more chairs." "The cakes are really good," interjected Mr. Toad. "Please forgive my manners," said the gnome. "My name is [B]Argentina Quicksilver[/B]. Was there something we can do for you?" The dreamwalkers were momentarily nonplussed. "We, uh," stammered Wakuren. "We're here to rescue you." "Rescue me?" smirked Argentina. "That silly monster fight out there can't spill into our cozy little tea party here. Did you wish to have some tea?" she offered. Unbidden, an extra five empty teacups appeared on the silver tray beside the similar tray of small cakes. "This is just a dream," Wakuren argued. "You're in a dream coma - we're here to rescue you from the dream coma. You see, there's this entity that calls himself the Nightmare King--" "Oh, foo on all of that," scoffed Argentina, causing Princess Caroline to giggle. That caused the half-orc to look her way. "And just what are [I]you[/I] doing here?" he asked. "Mr. Toad and I were in the neighborhood, exploring," she said, swinging her feet below her seat. "We saw the scary bug monster outside and ran through the door here, and Argentina said we could stay for tea. She's very nice." "Well, in any case." replied Wakuren, returning his attention to the little gnome and waving away her offer of tea, "you are currently in a dream coma, and that monster outside prevented anyone from coming in to rescue you. But we defeated him, and now you can wake up." "Ah, I see. But supposing I'm not ready to wake up just yet?" Alewyth furrowed her brow - they'd never met someone arguing to stay asleep in their dreams before quite like this. "But you can get on with your life!" she argued. "Ah, but sleeping and dreaming is a part of life, is it not?" The dreamwalkers weren't quite sure of what to make of this. Xandro tried laying out the history of their training as dreamwalkers, and the many people they'd rescued over their months of traveling across the continent. "But there were four others with special dreams like yours," the bard continued. "Dreams that were guarded by giant monsters, that until now we didn't have the ability to defeat. For whatever reason, the Nightmare King wanted the five of you - and who knows how many more? - to remain in your dreams. For that very reason, you need to wake up - if the Nightmare King wants it to happen, it's our job to see that it doesn't!" "Oh, very well," sighed Argentina. "Fine: I'll wake up, if that will make you happy." Then she frowned. "Hmm," she mused. "I'm trying, but I can't wake up. That's odd - I've never had any trouble waking up before." "Usually the dream dissolves once we've overcome whatever obstacle needed taken care of," observed Zander. "Of course, this being a dream within a dream...." "You said there were four others like me, with dream monsters you couldn't beat," stated Argentina with sudden passion. "What were their names?" "The first one was a dwarf from Deepshaft," replied Alewyth. "His name was...Altum Deepdelver." "There was the bard Carmen Melodius in the Merry Minstrel Inn at Baron's Haven," supplied Xandro. Wakuren added, "A paladin in the Temple of Telgrane in Devlinshire named Drakkar Pyropus." "And that elf guy," said Thurloe, who hadn't bothered memorizing the names of the people they'd failed to awaken. "Chrysos Arkaurum," Alewyth filled in for him. Argentina winced. "I know all of them," she said. "What? How?" demanded Thurloe. "Well, I haven't actually met them," Argentina backtracked, "but I've spoken with them." "How?" repeated Thurloe, causing Argentina to squirm a bit uncomfortably. "I...I'm not quite sure how to explain it," she murmured. "Chrysos would do a better job of explaining it." The little gnome turned to Princess Caroline. "I think we should go visit Chrysos Arkaurum. He's currently asleep in the Sylvanholme Forest. Do you think you could take us there?" "Sure!" exclaimed Princess Caroline, finishing her tea with a slurp and getting up from her chair. "Come on, Mr. Toad - we're going on another visit!" Mr. Toad dropped another tea-cake into his wide mouth before hopping over to the little princess's side. Argentina stepped over beside them and motioned for the five dreamwalkers to join them. Then, once everyone was standing beside each other, Princess Caroline caused a chunk of the floor of Argentina's dreamscape to lower into a sort of sub-basement, with winding passageways leading in all directions. It was very much like the Corridor of Dreams, but without the doors themselves. Still, Princess Caroline expertly led the way, diving down one passageway and then turning into another without any seeming rhyme or reason. But then she stopped, everyone caught up with her, and she then caused the floor beneath them to rise up like an elevator platform, bringing the group into a dank, damp cavern filled with phosphorescent fungus. The reek of mold and decay rose from all directions, but Xandro recognized the place - they'd been here before. "Find the door - hurry!" he called, running to the back of the dreamscape as a gloppy pile of muck began bubbling up and slowly taking on a vaguely humanoid form. Fortunately, before the sludge-beast Hedorah had fully formed, Zander had found an incongruous wooden door standing out in the open, flung it open wide, and rushed inside. The others followed, and they were suddenly in a large study filled with shelves of books and tomes, a globe of the world of Erthe, and specimens of small creatures floating in jars. Sitting at a large desk was a white-haired elf, who looked up as he peered down his nose through his spectacles and asked, "May I help you?" "Chrysos, it's me," replied Argentina Quicksilver, stepping forward so she could be better seen. "These five have quite a tale, and I think you should hear it." Xandro once again took the lead, his bardic training making him especially good at persuasion. The elderly elf nodded once or twice as the bard recited his tale, then went to one of his bookshelves and pulled out an atlas. He flipped through it until he found the map he was looking for, and asked the dreamwalkers to point on the map of the continent of Armaturia where exactly the other four dreamers with guardian kaiju had been located. He placed a drop of ink from his quill pen where he was located in the physical world, deep in the heart of the Sylvanholme Forest, then followed suit as the heroes pointed out where they'd encountered the sleeping forms of Altum, Carmen, and Drakkar. Argentina pointed to her own home in the Broadleaf Forest, and Chrysos marked that as well. "Hrmm," he grunted in satisfaction to himself. "As you can see, the locations form the five points of a star." He connected the points, drawing in the star shape. Then, using a straight-edged ruler, he connected the opposite points and corners. They all converged at a single point, deep in the Centralia Desert. "That's where the [I]Dream Gate[/I] is located!" interjected Xandro. He then explained about the [I]planar gate[/I] they'd helped to get constructed in the Centralia Desert, which allowed dreamwalkers like themselves to be transported physically into the Dreamlands. "Oh dear," exclaimed Chrysos, getting up from his chair and fetching three [I]crystal balls[/I] from various shelves, among the books. He placed these in a row on his desk and passed a hand over each. As he did so, a face formed in each crystal sphere, and the heroes recognized the visages of Altum Deepdelver, Carmen Melodius, and Drakkar Pyropus. Chrysos greeted them and explained what the dreamwalking heroes had told him thus far, bringing them up to speed. "I should like to hear your experiences," he told them. One by one, they told their own stories, about going to sleep without issue. None of them had any idea that they were unable to awaken on their own, but when, at the elf's suggestion, they tried to do so, they each reported back failure. "And each of us - myself included - is wearing a dreamstone on their brow?" asked Chrysos. Alewyth admitted that this was true. "Then it would seem," replied the elderly elven scholar, "that this Nightmare King has manipulated events to get you to place the dreamstones on our foreheads. And the dreamstones are channeling our power to open this [I]Dream Gate[/I] in the desert. I would surmise that he wishes to be able to transport himself from the Dreamlands to the Mortal Plane." "We can't let him do that!" exploded Zander. "Wait a minute," argued Thurloe. "Why you five? And if he just needed you five, why all the others that he let us rescue from their dreams? That doesn't make any sense!" Chrysos looked hard at Argentina, then at each of the three images in the [I]crystal balls[/I] in turn. They all nodded their silent agreement. "I have an answer to your first question, and a guess as to your second. But first, I need your word - upon your honor" he added, looking at the holy symbols Alewyth and Wakuren wore, "that what I'm about to tell you doesn't get repeated to anyone else." Upon receiving such an oath from each of the five heroes (as well as from Princess Caroline; Mr. Toad, he realized, was just a dream figment created by the young girl), he said, "None of the five of us are as we seem: we are all dragons in humanoid guise." He went on to explain that he was a mature adult gold dragon; Argentina was an adult silver dragon; Altum was a young adult deep dragon; Carmen was a young adult song dragon; and Drakar was a mature adult bronze dragon. "Nuh-uh!" argued Princess Caroline. "My brother says our family drove all the dragons out of Armaturia a long time ago!" Chrysos smiled indulgently. "We have allowed the Royal Family to believe that," he said. "But some of us visit your lands in humanoid forms, the better to see for ourselves how things are running here in your small continent. That is a big secret among we dragons, one I must ask you not to repeat to your brother, the King, lest he decide to hunt us all down and try to slay us. And that, I fear, would not go very well for him and his troops." Princess Caroline frowned in consternation but nodded her agreement. "As dragons, we sleep more and more as we age," Chrysos explained. "That time is spent here, dreaming, but we often communicate with other sleeping dragons through the Dragonmind - a sort of voluntary mental link accessible when we sleep. As such, we dragons are tied intrinsically into the Dreamlands, and it makes sense that the Nightmare King would have tapped into that power to fuel the [I]Dream Gate[/I] that will allow him entry to the Mortal World in physical form." "Hold on," Wakuren interrupted. "Argentina isn't currently in the physical world - she's in an extradimensional space inside [I]Hesperna's lamp[/I]. Wouldn't that break the link?" "If this lamp is tied to the Material Plane, it likely wouldn't make that much of a difference," Chrysos explained. "Why don't we just remove the dreamstones?" argued Alewyth. "It'll take time to get to the others, but we can remove the one we placed on Argentina's--" The dwarven priestess was cut off by a frantic voice coming from [I]Sjondra[/I] - more specifically, from the dreamstones she'd had embedded upon either side of the warhammer's head. "Can you hear me, kupo?" came Mogo's panicked voice. "Something's going on in the throne room: there's a swirling, gray mist preventing anyone from entering the throne room, kupo! It's got to be the Nightmare King, kupo! Whatever his plans are, he's probably putting them into motion right now, kupo!" "You need to remove Argentina's dreamstone at once!" said Chrysos. "And after that, you need to get to [I]Dream Gate[/I], in case he's already gotten through! Do you have the means to [I]teleport[/I] there?" "I, uh--no!" replied Zander. "There's a scroll containing the [I]teleport[/I] spell in among my personal hoard," explained Argentina. She quickly explained how to open the secret passage behind her stairs to get to her hoard room, and then how to activate the swiveling floor that led down to her treasure pile. "Got it!" Zander assured her. "Wake up!" Wakuren called to the others, concentrating on waking himself back up. He woke up back inside [I]Hesperna's lamp[/I], then said the words that shunted him back to the Material World, cramped inside Argentina's gnome-sized parlor. He grabbed up the lamp and raced down the stairs, finding the knothole which caused the three bottom steps to drop down to the floor level, leaving a narrow opening just big enough for him to crawl through on his belly. Fortunately, the room beyond had a 10-foot-high ceiling, a little more appropriate for an adult silver dragon in her true form. He placed the lamp on the ground and found the hidden button that caused an elongated trap door in the floor to swivel up along an axle halfway down its length. By that time, the others were exiting the lamp, including Robin, Petey, and the cooshee, neither of whom knew what all the panic was about. But Petey picked up the gist of things from his master's mind and explained in brief to the others. Alewyth said, "Argentina's body is covered in some sort of magic field, emanating from the dreamstone. There's no way for us to remove it from her forehead." "Then go back in and get her," Wakuren decided. "We'll leave her here in her own bed while we go [I]teleport[/I] to the [I]Dream Gate[/I]. In the meantime, we need that scroll!" "On it!" called Zander as he leaped down into the treasure chamber below. He spent a few moments looking for it - moments that Thurloe spent admiring the numerous gems and coins scattered all over - before calling up, "I got it!" Thurloe laid down on the floor and reached his hand down to help pull Zander back up out of the treasure chamber below. "What about Scarlie?" Xandro asked once Alewyth had returned Argentina to her own bed and scrambled back. "We'll back-brief him after the fact - every moment counts! Let's [I]go![/I]" he shouted to Zander, who was reading the words to the [I]teleport[/I] scroll. As he pronounced each arcane syllable, the corresponding rune vanished from the parchment in his hands. Thurloe cast a quick [I]protection from evil[/I] spell upon himself and Xandro cast a [I]heroism[/I] spell upon the spellsword, while Wakuren told Robin to stay behind with Scarlie, and that they'd be back to come get them, although he didn't know how long that would be. And then Zander was done casting the [I]teleport[/I] spell from the scroll, and the five heroes, Petey, and the cooshee were no longer inside the treasure room of Argentina Quicksilver. - - - This adventure took a lot less time than I had planned, for the simple reason that Harry made it abundantly clear that he hated playing through the Giant Monster Rampage game. (Logan had offered to swap running his Gamera for Harry's Gigan, but it turned out Gigan's lack of ranged attacks wasn't all Harry hated about the situation, he just dislikes how simplistic the game is and how few combat decisions there are to be made, just a lot of d10 die rolling.) So, while I had the PCs fight through the initial battle against Megalon, we skipped the subsequent fight, and I hand-waved having to fight Hedorah to get to the "inner dream" of Chrysos Arkaurum. I also set up the three [I]crystal balls[/I] as a means to bypass having to fight past any of the other guardian kaiju to get to the other dreaming dragons. - - - T-shirt worn: My Einstein shirt, which depicts the smoke from his pipe turning into galaxies. I often use that shirt to represent the Dreamscape as a whole, and while I have several dragon shirts (and a "DAD: Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult" shirt) which would have been equally appropriate, I didn't want to flash any signals to the players which could end up being spoilers for the adventure. [/QUOTE]
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