The party, sans Kirio, marches back along the path, hoping not to hear the dragon crunching down on the elf. Instead, you hear the melodic tune of his flute which follows you for some time before being lost amidst the ancient trees and bubbling brook.
Lowduke is happily smoking from his pipe when you return and joins you in your walk back to the house. The egg is quickly prepared and then the group, hoping not to tempt fate or Naizelasa's taste for elf, begins to push the cart back towards the woods.
It is approaching dusk by the time you finally push the heavy cart down the side of the brook and up to the lake. Lowduke continues to wait by the edge of forest. When you arrive, tired, sweaty and sodden from the non stop rain, Kirio is seated on the shore of the lake. Naizelasa lounges in the shallows, watching the elven bard with an iron stare.
********
Kirio, you spend most of the day playing for the dragon and lounging on the beach. She leaves only once, for a period lasting no more than twenty minutes, and her return is heralded by the heavy heaving sound of wings and the death cries of a stag impaled on the fangs in her mouth. She feasts but always watches you until the party returns.
********
Seeing the cart loaded with the egg, the dragon bursts into the air and glides down towards the cart. You scatter from the huge creature, hoping not to be clipped by a wing or crushed underfoot. Up close, she is ancient and terrible and her front claws cradle the massive egg.
"My hatchling!" she cries,
"my precious, precious hatchling."
Her huge wings flap, kicking up dirt, loose moss and bits of bone into your faces. She lifts into the air and rests in a cluster of ruined masonry some hundred feet away from you. After delicately placing her unborn child in some special place, she returns to the air, only to dive into the depths of the lake. The splash is magnificent, as if some great boulder or catapult shot tumbled into the water. After ten minutes, she returns in another splash of water, clutching some items in her front claws. Landing with a thud on the beach, she lays out some items and speaks.
"You have acted honorably and lived up to your words. My child is safe and so too will your flute playing morsel go free." She gestures to the items before her.
"Take my Lyre and do what you will with it. However, know that I expect its return within thirty passages of Selune. I know your faces and will find you if you keep a borrowed item for longer than allowed. We dragons take our hoards rather seriously." Some dark blue-green gas streams from the edges of her maw, as if to punctuate the point.
"For your actions I also feel it incumbent upon me to offer an additional reward. Take these coins and use them for whatever purpose serves ... they take up too much space and silver is so pedestrian. I thank you again, but know this. Our business is concluded. Carry this message back to your community of sheep: this lair is off limits save to return my lyre within one month. Now go!"
With a final roar, she flaps her wings and flies back over to where she lay her egg. With narrow reptilian eyes, she monitors you as you collect the loot.
| GM: | On the beach is a gorgeous gem-encrusted and rune-covered Lyre. Next to it is a large sodden wooden chest filled with no less than 10,000 silver pieces. |
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