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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ambrus" data-source="post: 4633422" data-attributes="member: 17691">The small slate grey dragon waddled cautiously through the knee-deep brine. Rising up on either side, like the rotting bones of some long dead leviathan, were the sun-bleached ribs of what once had been a ship. Balancing along the ship's submerged keel, the odd little creature held a mechanical crossbow safely above its saurian head. Reaching what was once the hulk's aft, the small dragon paused to sling the weapon over its shoulder and to begin tugging on an old line tied to the ship's rudder. As it did so, a rusted chain rose out of the water; a line of empty hooks breaking the surface one by one below it. The little creature's maw broke apart in a many-toothed crocodile's smile at the sight of a juvenile swamp barracuda hanging from the chain's last hook. Whirling the chain around quickly in a wide arc, the small slate grey dragon smacked the fish repeatedly into the hulk's rudder; ensuring that is was indeed well dead before risking its claws on unhooking the deceptively vicious creature. After a few minutes of deft work the barracuda's head and guts were spread along the array of submerged hooks while its tastier bits were slung between the dragon's small stunted wings.After crossing a shallow sandbar and skirting pools filled with concealed spikes, the odd little creature hopped up onto the largely intact prow of an ancient ship jutting out of the silt at an odd angle. Scampering up to the nearly vertical bowsprit the small slate grey dragon hopped down to land atop of the ancient vessel's wooden figurehead; that of a serenely smiling winged angel covered in peeling paint. Wrapping its tail around the angel's neck for added purchase, the creature slowly turned its saurian head to survey the nearby landscape. All around it stretched a labyrinthine wasteland formed of shallow waterways and muddy embankments broken up only by heaps of discarded rubbish, flotsam and rotting hulks of wrecked ships. It was the Boneyard; Riddleport's dumping ground and the small dragon's home.Satisfied that all was as it should be, the creature turned to face a wooden plaque hanging next to the figurehead. Across its surface, stenciled in peeling paint was the former vessel's long forgotten name: The Seraphim. Pausing to carefully disarm a fine tripwire cleverly strung across the sign, the little dragon hefted the old wooden plaque to reveal a jagged hole in the prow's hull. Ducking inside, the creature turned to regard the one small blot of darkness in the otherwise bright morning sky. Lowering the plaque back in place, the dragon carefully reset the tripwire before pulling the smoke-glass goggles off of its saurian face; revealing a pair of glowing red eyes bleary with exhaustion. Stretching its maw wide to yawn, the little beast set its crossbow down, dumped the gutted barracuda into a nearby bucket and padded across the arcing interior hull to a row of makeshift shelves. There the creature examined a handful of salvaged bottles filled with oddly colored mixtures and reagents undergoing time-dependent alchemical processes. Nodding approvingly at their apparent progress, the dragon climbed up to a fishing net strung across the topmost ribs of the interior. It had been a long night for the dragon in the nearby city's shadowed alleyways and the creature was tired.As it settled in, the small slate colored dragon thought back to its earlier work, that of scouting out an old disused coal-chute which led into a pit beneath the Gold Goblin's pantry; one much too small to be of concern to large humanoids, but adequate to allow passage to the dragon's much smaller frame. From there it would be a simple task for the creature to climb up into the pantry, to pass through the kitchens unoticed and to enter the common room discreetly. The dragon's wide maw split merrily into a wide crocodile's smile at the thought of its planned assault upon the gambling hall.</blockquote>

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