A huge head rises out of the magma on an immense neck. A truly colossal dragon, larger than any living thing that any of them has ever seen, wakes and regards.
“Nooooo!” cries the Blessed, and she launches a pale blue ray of disintegration against the Colossal figure, which sparkles into ineffectiveness against its spell resistance.
Summing up the situation quickly the dragon uses a wingtip to pluck Trajan and Tania from the magma and deposits them on rock before they die, and then bends down and bites into the Blessed. She struggles in pain and attempts to concentrate enough to teleport away, but can't. Then she is utterly destroyed as the dragon looks upwards and issues a flaming gout of fire which washes against the ceiling and for a second makes the cavern blindingly bright.
Trajan alone isn’t shaken by fear by the awesome presence before him, but even he is struck by awe and bows to one knee.
“FOR WHAT PURPOSE HAVE YOU MITES AWAKENED ME?” thunders the dragon.
“Lord”, Trajan replies, “evil beings in a temple in the world up above are seeking to wake the Sleeper, and bring disaster and madness on all the world. No man can touch them”.
“I HAVE SLEPT TOO LONG. I WILL ACT AGAINST THIS TEMPLE. AND I WILL ONCE AGAIN WALK MY WORLD ABOVE, SEE WHAT MY SONS HAVE MADE OF THEIR INHERITANCE.”
The dragon climbs out of the sea of fire, magma dripping from its colossal flanks. Without a second glance at the company it bounds towards the chamber they entered by, as quick and lithe as a cat despite its size, then vanishes.
Garrick comes out from his hiding place with Zherinda on the pillar, and quickly undoes the repair work his friends had made to the weakness in the wall here.
“There. Within a couple of weeks pressure will build up and that caldera will be a full blown active volcano once more, taking over from whatever that dragon leaves behind”.
Garrick continues “My way leads down into the dark depths with my people once more. Your way leads out and then left… a long series of chambers will bring you to a surface opening, where citadel of the surface world once crashed down into a crevasse. It will take you a couple of days to reach it”.
There are thanks and manly hugs all round, then Garrick departs for the deeper underdark and Zherinda heals their wounds as much as she can. While they rest Dominic enters contact with Taran once again. He is tremendously excited.
“Taran, you won’t believe it” he starts
“Try me” Taran replies drily
“A colossal dragon just appeared above the caldera, it was vast, bigger than any dragon I’ve heard record of! Magical power rippled around it as it cast a powerful wish and then a lance of fiery breath unlike anything I’ve ever seen recorded cut through the inner sanctum of those evil cultists, the purple veined rock thrashing and spewing glowing blood around everywhere, writhing and blackening under the intensity of the flame. Lightning was striking up from the towers and scorching the dragons hide but didn’t distract it from its purpose!”
“The whole thing can’t have taken more than a minute, but in that minute the crater was filled with slag, the water boiled away.”
“Then the dragon vanished, teleported presumably, goodness only knows where. What do you think of that news then, old chum?”
"Let me give you a few additional details, my dear Dominic..."
...
Two days walking upward, upward, leads eventually to the cavern under the sunless citadel. None of this party were present when the company first broke the power of Belak the evil shaman who was using a foul tree for fouler purposes. None of them understand the significance of the Tree uprooted and a vacant space underneath it which they don’t investigate. They work their way up through the dragon-carved chambers of the ancient citadel until finally they reach the sunshine and breathe open air once again. The bright sunlight is painful to their eyes which have become accustomed to the twilight of the underdark, but a relief nonetheless.
Next: friends reunited
