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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kid Charlemagne" data-source="post: 2824590" data-attributes="member: 93">The skeletons that had earlier menaced Artimis rose up from the water, blocking off the investigators from their prey.  Up ahead, Orla could hear a man’s voice, but could not distinguish the words. She tried to move past the walking dead blocking her path, but found it tough going.  They had less bulk to create resistance in the water.The skeletons seemed to be covered with a sparkling, mineral-like sheen.  The began to spread out across the pool, moving mindlessly towards the investigators.“Ignore them as best you can!” Nigel cried out.  “If we can get past them, they’ll lose interest in us!”“Um, will that lose interest in us?” Orla replied, pointing.A small lizard-like creature with bat wings swooped out from behind the waterfall, its tail twitching in anticipation of a fight.  Its wingspan was about eight feet, and it sported sharp claws and some rather jagged, unpleasant looking teeth.  Its scales were shiny black, and a ridge of spines ran down the length of its back.“Is that a…” Amanda began.“…Dragon,” Artimis finished.  “Yes, I think so.  Small, probably very young, but definitely a dragon.”Nigel drew an arrow from his quiver, this one adorned with crimson fletching.  He had purchased it from the Artificer’s Guild with just this sort of incident in mind.  As he let the arrow fly at the dragon, it burst into flame, and struck the creature solidly in its chest.  The other investigators moved around the skeletons, trying to keep them at arm’s length and, for the most part, succeeding.  Nigel fired another arrow at the dragon, missing this time.  The winged beast flew towards Amanda and Sandor, hovering momentarily as it breathed a blast of acid at them.  Amanda avoided the worst of it, but Sandor was hit full on, and screamed out in pain.  The skeletons moved in to surround the two, and to their surprise, the dragon as well.  Both the dragon and the investigators, it seemed, were one and the same to the skeletal dead.Amanda brought her axe down hard on the skelelton blocking her path to the waterfall, and as she clove its head in two, it exploded into a shower of bony shards.“Aaah!” Sandor cried again.  “Do not do zat again!”Artimis by this point had made it to ruins on the opposite side, having avoided wasting time with the both the dragon and the skeletons.  The small winged beast swooped away from the skeletons, and approached him.Artimis picked up a small piece of wood he found laying on the stone floor.“Here, boy,” he called out.  “Here, boy!  Fetch!”He tossed the stick out into the darkness of the ruins.The dragon cocked his head to one side, hovering in place right by him.  Then it breathed a spray of acid all over him.“Drat,” Artimis said.Orla and Amanda had finally made it to the ruins, and with the dragon paying more attention to Artimis than perhaps was due, managed to block off its retreat.  A penetrating thrust from the elfling fencing instructor, and another strong blow from the axe-wielding sometime actress brought the creature down in short order.“Actress, huh?” Orla remarked glibly.“My mother always said I should have something to fall back on,” Amanda replied, patting the head of her great-axe.Orla turned to Nigel.“That was a dragon,” she stated.  “You know what that means.”“There’s someone powerful enough down here to have a dragon as a pet,” Nigel responded.“No,” answered Orla.“It means treasure!”However, search as they might, they found no gold coins or shiny gems in the columned ruin.  A dejected Orla led the investigators further into the ruins.  After a short the ruins became more complete, their walls painted black and adorned with swirls of paint, forming abstract shapes in black, grey, and light blues.  At last, their path was blocked by a heavy oaken door.Orla examined the portal, looking for any evidence of danger, and Amanda kicked it open.  A wave of magical energy washed over the two of them, spreading a sense of dread, of defeat and impending doom.  Orla shook her head as if to clear it, and stepped into the room.  Amanda, clearly less sure of herself, timidly looked in after her.The room beyond the ensorcelled doorway was large and elaborate, lit by candles and adorned with more spiralling abstract paintings.  It was dominated by a large, cyclopean statue with a table in front of it, cluttered with various strange-looking objects.  There was no one to be seen.  There was a door on the far wall, beyond the looming statue.“We should follow as quickly as we can,” Nigel said.“But some of these things could be helpful to us when we catch up to those rats,” Orla replied.  “We don’t even know if anyone else is down here.”“Someone latched that door there,” Artimis replied.  “The rats were distinctly lacking in the opposable thumb department.”Orla’s argument won out, though, and the investigators approached the table cautiously.  Artimis declared it to be free of apparent magical hazards.  He pointed to some of the bizarre bric-a-brac.“That necklace, with the skulls, is magical.  Those three small crystals as well.  Let’s see, the book, there, no not that one, the older looking one with the Latin title.  That gold helmet, though, I don’t get anything from.”Nigel looked at the helmet.  As it turned out, it was not a helmet at all.  It was sealed and the interior appeared to be filled with clockwork mechanisms.  He turned to the books, and one of them proved to be modern in provenance, titled “Of Mechanisms and Clockwork.”  The other non-magical book was blank, and also appeared to be recent vintage.The magical one was much older, and in Latin.  Artimis declared it to be full of written-down visions, but could determine nothing of its purpose.“There’s something under the table,” Cass said, pointing.  Whatever it was was the size of a small chest, and covered by a dark cloak.  Artimis stepped back and looked at it.“Don’t touch it,” he said, and passed his hand over another of his tattoos.  He made a gesture with his hand, as if flipping an invisible page in a book, and the cloak flew off of the object.It was a skull, apparently that of a dragon.  It measured about five feet from nose to the end of its horns.“I hope that means we’re not going to see Mommy Dragon here,” Amanda said.</blockquote>

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