Fulgrim helps Spec with the table. Stuck to the underside is an ornate gold key with a wolf's head, affixed to a scrap of parchment on which the initials "HS" and other oddments of lettering are scribed.
Credit: "Midgard Key," by butterfrog, courtesy of DeviantArt.com
[sblock=Intelligence (Arcana) DC 16]Everything clicks into place. The mud coating the lower third of the walls. The ten-inch taloned tracks. Stonefast, its location in the Spine of the World. The coldness of the clime. Hell. This is no True Dragon. This has got to be some kind of landwyrm. Not an adult, by the size of the tracks. Probably a juvenile or young adult, at best. It almost doesn't matter, as whatever its size, the creature is sure to have a multipronged attack that includes a hell of a bite, two claws, and a whip-like tail. Wyrms are notorious for their poor flight--not that that matters inside Stonefast, since to date the group has seen no room with a ceiling higher than ten feet. Spec has heard tales that some wyrms are so monstrous as to have a frightful presence about them; a mere glimpse of a wyrm may render even a stout-hearted man into a spineless sniveling lump. Some dragons--and therefore probably some wyms--are known to be innately magical, with spells woven into their being. The best remedy when encountering a wyrm is to hide. Or run. Or, better, avoid the creature altogether. Failing that, one hopes for full plate armor, a wand of cure wounds, and--for the blessed few--defensive spells designed to obfuscate, hide, shield, or speed up the recipient.[/sblock][sblock=Intelligence (Arcana) DC 20]Since Spec rolled so well, extra information seems to be in order. A few months ago, Spec heard of an unholy terror freshly sprung from the Underdark. Whatever the creature was, it laid waste to small monastic order of six monks, and made off with the Order's reliquary. Although Spec didn't personally speak with him, a greengrocer who brought vegetables to the monastery reported the devastation to city officials. Stories abounded for weeks of a strange mist that lay in thick sheets about the ruined monastery, obscuring even the keenest eyesight. City officials found a witness to the event, but could get little out of the woman, who lingered in bed, her skin ash and her mind atremor, before dying within two weeks. The head of Spec's Order was of the opinion that the creature was an elemental dragon--an earth drake perhaps--but Spec, after consulting the library, privately began to wonder if perhaps it was an underdark landwyrm.[/sblock]
