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Hello?
I suppose there's some small chance that someone is still reading this, even after I've vanished for several months. On that chance, a couple of announcements:
1. I've mostly finished my Choice of Games game (currently titled "Choice of the Alien") and right now it's in Beta testing. I'm quite pleased with how it's turning out, and if all goes well, you'll be able to buy it around the end of July or beginning of August. It ended up being in the neighborhood of 125,000 words, so I hope you can forgive me for neglecting my Story Hour for so long.
2. For those half-dozen members of my audience who haven't abandoned the story, here's a new update. With any luck, these will start to come more frequently than once every four months!
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 341
Making Their Pitch
The tunnel near the peak of Cloud Mountain is a straight bore into its west-facing side, some fifty feet in diameter. Just inside its mouth, and then spaced evenly at the edges, are the remnants of smashed pillars. Kibi believes they were of dwarven craftsmanship. The walls are cracked and scarred and haphazardly blackened. Recently-created objects are not reflected in Ava Dormo, but Morningstar imagines that in the real world this place is likely filled with the rubble of a once-grand promenade, reduced to wreckage in later years.
Morningstar, Kibi and Aravis move quickly down the tunnel. Small, dark chambers are connected to this main hallway; each shows similar signs of ruin. After 150’ a pit opens wide in the floor, itself 40’ in diameter, heading straight down into the mountain’s heart. It’s wide enough that even a large dragon could fly up and down easily.
Floating through the Dreamscape, the three scouts descend into the pit, which continues downward for over three hundred feet before emptying out into an enormous empty cavern. (Of course, it could be filled with anything number of things – piles of treasure, ancient statues of dwarves, an angry and powerful dragon – but there’s no way for them to find out in their dreamwalking state.)
At the bottom of the vast cavern, a (relatively) small tunnel, no more than 15’ wide, snakes away into the north-facing wall. It’s well hidden by rocky outcroppings around the entrance, but Kibi can sniff out that sort of thing in his sleep. This new tunnel twists and corkscrews down deeper into the mountain, descending well over five hundred feet before opening onto the floor of a second, equally large cavern. Like the previous one above, this one could also be home to Azhant, but there’s no way to tell without coming back corporeally. There is one unusual feature of the lower cavern; near its top is an odd stone latticework that extends horizontally across the entire volume, like a very poorly-concealed false ceiling, or a huge stone grating. Above this rocky lattice by about 50’ are a number of niches, themselves about 20’ in diameter, set into the actual ceiling. The gaps in the latticework are typically about 10’ x 10’ – large enough for most things, but not for something the supposed size of Azhant the Ancient.
Kibi is certain that there are no other ways out of the lower cavern, so both he and Aravis take some time to memorize various teleport locations around both of the huge caves, before Morningstar returns them all to their physical bodies.
After a brief bit of talk about anti-dragon tactics, and some magic-item swapping for maximum fightin’ efficiency, they are ready to take on Azhant the Ancient! Buff spells are liberally applied, and Aravis teleports the party just above the stone “Swiss cheese” drop-ceiling of the lower cavern.
Their noses are assaulted immediately by a musty, lizard smell, which is a sign they’ve come to the right place. Even with their darkvision there is little to see, as the walls are all more than 60’ away. But all around them are sounds – rasping, scaly sounds and occasional high-pitched cries. Grey Wolf, with enhanced senses cast, sees faint shadows flitting on the walls of the niches above their heads. He flies up to investigate.
A scaly head on a sinewy neck pokes out from the nearest alcove as Grey Wolf arrives. The niches are nests! At least this one is, filled with bones, refuse, and a few rotting tree limbs. It also contains a small black dragon, about the size of a large cow, which Grey Wolf immediately pegs with a lightning bolt before flying down and away.
In the bright flash of electric light, the Company can see numerous black dragons – at least a half-dozen – starting to snake out of their ceiling caves. They have large, sharp teeth, and the air suddenly reeks of heat and tar. One of them flaps its way down toward them, opens its toothy maw, and spits a glob of steaming black glop into the midst of the party. Everyone but Grey Wolf and Flicker are coated with steaming black tar which burns their skin and immediately sets their clothes on fire.
Four more of the dragons do the same! Energy buffer spells are discharged, and several protection from energy spells are entirely burned off, as the party is thoroughly sludged with burning pitch. No one drops, but no one is exactly happy, either. Kibi is quite badly burned, having failed to evade any of the dragons’ attacks.
Dranko realizes that he’d need to waste valuable combat time to put himself out, so he lets himself burn while lashing out at the nearest dragon with his whip. It’s body is narrow, serpentine, with four sharp claws and two leathery wings. It hisses back at Dranko.
“You don’t date much, do you?” the half-orc quips.
Ernie casts mass cure serious wounds, easing the pain of his many burning allies. Kibi then puts himself out (and out of harm’s reach) by moving into the stone of the latticework.
Three of the remaining four dragons breathe, each horking up steaming balls of boiling tar onto Morningstar and Aravis. The last of Aravis’s elemental protections are gone, and he starts popping charges of his ring of evasion to stay (relatively) unburned.
The final dragon, finding itself next to Dranko, tries raking the half-orc with its teeth and claws, to only modest effect.
Aravis allows himself to continue burning; he has better things to do with his time. To wit: he shapechanges into a large yellow dragon, flies to a good tactical location, quickens a shield spell just because, and then unleashes a prismatic spray upon three close-clustered black dragons. One of the three is unaffected, and a second is only mildly singed by fire, but the third vanishes entirely, involuntarily plane-hopping.
Morningstar also chooses not to extinguish herself. Instead she casts a massive firestorm, engulfing all of the enemy dragons in cold black flames. Some dodge, some don’t, and all scream in pain. Then she grips Ells’ Will and concentrates on the nearest dragon. She learns exactly how spell resistant they are (SR 26), and knows just how much stronger her weapon will be against them.
Grey Wolf quickens a true strike and charges the nearest dragon, striking it with Bostock loaded with a maximized acid orb[/i.] Sploop! There’s a huge gout of acid, Bostock flares with blue light, and a dissolving mass of dragonish remains falls through a gap in the latticework and out of sight.
A number of the dragons launch a counter-attack. Instead of breathing tar, they set to their victims with teeth and talons . Two savage Flicker, while another two chomp down on Ernie and Morningstar. While painful, the traditional claw-n-bite attacks of the dragons are much less troublesome than the fiery pitch. Dranko and Ernie strike back, and Kibi unleashes a maximized cone of cold. Ice is certainly the right tool for this job; two of the dragons are badly wounded, one badly enough that it is forced to land on the stone lattice. A third dragon is flash-frozen -- a few seconds later everyone hears, somewhere in the darkness below, what sounds like a huge glass chandelier smashing onto a stone floor.
The Company slowly whittles down the number of enemies in a fast-moving aerial battle. As the dragons succumb to the might of the heroes, the barrage of burning-tar breath grows more and more manageable. Kibi dazzles one with a rainbow pattern (“Here, dragon dragon! Follow the sparkles!”) and while it snaps at the motes like a puppy chasing soap bubbles, Grey Wolf and Flicker carve it up like a turkey. Aravis invokes lightning ring and blasts holes in several more. Morningstar has perhaps the finest moment of the combat, as she strikes a dragon several times with Ell’s Will. Bolstered by her enemies’ spell resistance, she shears through the dragon in four successive swipes with the weapon, as if she’s in combat with a lizard made of cottage cheese. Her last swing takes off her foe’s right wing like she’s plucking a petal from a dying flower. As the pulped remains of the dragon fall into the darkness, she watches, stunned. Dranko just grins at her.
The final dragon, already struck by a maximized ray of enfeeblement, tries to flee, but Aravis gives chase and grapples it. Both of them start to plummet, but after a hundred feet of falling, Aravis dimension doors away at the last minute, leaving the tar dragon to splat into the stones.
“Don’t f**k with an archmage,” says Dranko.
/*/
The Company gathers at the bottom of the cavern to heal and regroup. Dranko may or may not engage in a “we just killed nine dragons” dance. But while Azhant may not be lurking in this lower of the two large underground chambers, there’s still the one above. Once again they prep for battle, and teleport as a group, but the upper cavern is devoid of dragons, small or large. Quickly they sweep the space with a battery of divination spells: see invisibility, darkvision, greater arcane sight. Nothing shows up immediately, but after several minutes of searching they do discover a huge illusory heap of treasure “heaped” in one corner. Ernie examines this with true seeing and finds that the phantom loot pile conceals dozens of tiny tripwires crisscrossing at ankle height. Grey Wolf sniffs the air; it smells distinctly draconic, and he thinks a dragon has been here recently, but not too recently.
Where is Azhant?
Kibi has his own ways of getting answers. He touches the wall of cavern and casts stone tell. He senses the stone’s ancient and lugubrious cognizance.
“Kibilhahur,” says the stone.
“You know my name,” says Kibi. He’s been told before that all the stones know his name, but it’s startling all the same.
“Of course,” says the stone.
“We’re trying to find a dragon,” says Kibi. “We were wondering of there were any other rooms he has nearby, besides this one, and the one below.”
“I have heard rumblings from far down.” The wall speaks in the slow voice of aeons. “Rooms made by your kind – dwarven kind – but they were destroyed long ago, by your reckoning One other large cavern, far from here, made by dwarves also. A great hall, a town, below, far from me.”
There is a pause, as the stone wall collects its slow, massive thoughts. “A large creature comes here sometimes. Small creatures live here, too. New creatures, small, near to you.”
Kibi frowns. “Do you know, does the big creature go to the dwarven halls?”
“I don’t know,” answers the stone. “That is far from me.”
“Where are the dwarven halls?”
“Down,” says the stone. Thinking in more earthy terms, it adds: “toward a very large concentration of silver.”
“Are there gaps between here and there?”
“Not near to me.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” asks Kibi.
“I am in pain,” says the stone. “All of the stones are in pain. You should help us.”
Kibi grimaces. “What can I do?”
“I do not know,” the stone laments. “The source of the pain is far, far, far below me.”
“In this mountain?”
“In all mountains.”
Kibi thinks, The Thorn in the side of Abernia.
“I’ll try my best to help you,” he says. “I don’t wish you to be in pain.”
There is silence, and Kibi thinks the stone is done with him, but then the wall speaks one more time.
“Kibilhathur? Your ancestor says hello. He is always watching.”
/*/
Kibi relays his conversation to the others. Upon hearing that Cranchus had conveyed his greetings, Ernie asks Kibi if the ancient dwarf can help them out.
While Kibi shakes his head, Dranko lights his cigar. Dwarves above all. Ah well.
“Hm,” says Dranko. “So this isn’t his home. All the little dragons lived here, but the big one took up residence somewhere else in the mountain.”
There’s nothing else to see in this upper cavern, so they return to the lower one and do a more thorough search. They find another pile of treasure, bigger than the one above, and this one is more promising. It radiates magical auras, but is not disguised by illusions. Gems and coins glitter among a collection of valuable-looking items. Flicker reaches down to pick up a shimmering dagger, but something catches his eye at the last minute and he yanks his hand away.
Dranko casts detect poison and discovers that every coin and gem and object in the hoard is coated with venom. Flicker dons gloves and gingerly fishes out a gem. It’s glass. Then he picks up a gold crown, one which Dranko indicates is magical, and finds that’s actually cheap tin, painted gold. It’s not even of enchantable quality, though someone has cast a low-level magical aura upon it.
“Crap,” says Flicker. “We’re zero for two on actual dragon hoards.”
Morningstar takes Kibi on a short excursion into Ava Dormo, so that they can scout the lower halls of the mountain. They find the enormous entrance, now collapsed and clogged with debris. Staircases and tunnels once led upward into dozens of smaller chambers and halls, but all of these are now in ruins, choked with rubble, bones and decay.
After they return, the party ponders their next move. With no better leads, they cast find the path to find the “place mentioned by the wall that contains a large quantity of silver.” The spell indicates that the best way to get there would be to first exit these two huge caverns via the shaft and tunnel Morningstar discovered on her first dream-scouting trip. That indicates they’ll have to leave the mountain altogether and reach a new entrance farther down.
The Company is made to wind walk, and they waft up the long vertical shaft, and thence to the long tunnel that leads out the side of the mountain, just above the cloud layer outside. They can see the exit, a bright spot of blue some fifty feet away, when they hear the sound of heavy, flapping wings. There is a flash of glittering purple outside the tunnel mouth, as something huge and draconic rises up from below, breathes a torrent of lightning into their tunnel, and then vanishes upward and out of sight.
There is no longer a need to find Azhant. He has found them first.
…to be continued…
