It took Lyric a moment to regain her bearings. Just a few seconds earlier she had been acrobatically leaping atop a metal cage in an effort to gain elevation advantage on the strange undead drake that had materialized in the tomb, but the ancient steel bars had promptly buckled under her weight, and she now found herself in a small dark room a good twenty feet beneath the melee. She quickly scoured the walls for handholds of any sort, but they were worn smooth and climbing out was going to be impossible. Her only hope of escape was that her companions prevailed against the creature and would then be able to throw a rope down her way. If they lost, well…she dared not think too hard about that possibility. Death by fang or famine were the two options that awaited her should they fail. They won’t fail.
Trying to block out the sounds of the carnage above her, Lyric tried to get her bearings in the small room she now found herself in. It took her Elven eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness and she audibly groaned when she realized that she was in a small prison cell. Now she was certain that she would need to wait to be rescued as undoubtedly there was no way out of here but up. Thankfully the sounds of her friends could be heard above in near equal parts with the roaring and lashing of the beast, so they were still in the fight. Please, don’t fail.
The only other occupant of the small cell was a skeleton wearing a shining breastplate adorned with the insignia of a dragon, the immaculate condition of the armor hinting at enchantment given the decrepit condition of the body it encased. Likewise for an exquisite blade she found beneath the corpse. To have this much magic on him, the dead man must have been someone of importance in life it seemed to her.
Searching the body itself, Lyric spied a small gold ring on the figure’s right hand in similar pristine condition to the armor and blade, and in a fit of greed that surprised even her she slipped it directly on her finger without thought. She was immediately awash in a wave of guilt and promptly tried to remove the ring but found that she could not, or rather, she did not really want to. She had found it hadn’t she? But the guilt did not abate, but nor did her compulsion to keep on wearing it. She would reveal it to her companions when they brought her out of this pit, she promised herself knowing full well that she was lying to herself.
Surrounding the corpse were dozens of shimmering blue flowerlike petals that seemed to be made of steel. No, wait…were these…scales? Dragon scales? Gods, did they belong to that creature that her friend’s were still battling while she wiled away her time down here. Was that thing the magically animated corpse of a blue dragon? If so, Lyric held out little hope that her friends, powerful as they were, held much of a chance.
She listened intently to the sound of the tumult hoping for clues as to how things were progressing. She could hear Arnie’s battle cry – a ferocious sound that was always followed by the clanging of metal on bone as the creature cried out in rage as sharpened steel bit deeply into desiccated flesh and jagged bone.
Another noise carried beneath the savage call of the mighty kender, softer but one no less lethal: the sibilating sound suggesting the dexterous dance of Deuxdahl’s dual daggers, spiraling shards of sharpened steel that moved with a graceful lethality that rivaled even the deadly skill of her mother it seemed to Lyric, if such a thing were possible.
Further away she could also hear the rapid-fire buzzing twangs of Aparret’s twin crossbows. How it was that the strange beardless dwarf was able to reload so effortlessly and fire so accurately confounded - and astounded - her. The fates or the gods must have brought such a figure to them immediately following the death of her friend, DD.
Further still, far removed from the blades and bows and gnashing teeth, Lyric could hear Eros’ voice, strong and confident and no longer muffled behind his mask, called out to some dark and divine force, twisting the very essence of the gods themselves and drawing their divine will into himself and forcing it to bend and bow to his demands. Somehow, these were the people she found herself traveling with – a fact that astonished Lyric more with each passing day.
The sounds of the fight above showed no sign of resolving itself anytime soon, so Lyric began exploring her surroundings more intently. She soon noticed a section of packed dirt on the ground near the exterior wall of the small cell that did not match the hardpacked sections of floor around it. Had the man tried to dig his way out, but only made it a foot or so? That did not seem very likely. Perhaps he was trying to hide something?
Lyric used the sharpened point of the sword she had found to carefully dig out this section of the ground and soon uncovered a strange copper-hued sphere about the size of her head. She brushed the dirt it off as best she could, before carefully prying it free of the earthen grip that held it in place. What in the heavens was this thing and why had this man buried it here so very long ago? Is it a work of art, a bronze sculpture of some sort, fashioned into the shape of an egg?
An explosion of realization howled through, burning her to her core with the enormity and importance of what she held in her hands. It was an egg. A dragon egg. A metallic dragon egg! Lyric gripped it as tightly as she could, at once careful not to break it but deathly afraid that she might drop it if she did not hold it securely enough. Could there possibly be a dragon alive inside? She held it to her ear listening for sounds of life but could hear none above the tumultuous melee raging topside. She held to in front of her face and smelled it and a sickly sweet, acrid smell assailed her senses, the smell somehow hinting at something recognizable to her.
Lyric sat cross-legged on the ground and placed the egg reverentially on her lap, setting a hand on each side and she tried to focus her magical energy into it. There was no spell that she knew of that could help her in this moment, but she hoped that David might see fit to grant her some insight into the treasure she held in her lap.
She closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth as she directed her will towards the scaly ball of hope in her lap. And then she felt it, the wind in her face, the flap of leathery wings that carried her higher into the sky, the sun high overhead reflecting majestically off of tan-gold scales, her mouth open in a toothy grin as she rode the skies in defiance of gravity itself. And then it was gone, leaving only a faint lingering sense of impossible familiarity.
What in the hells were they supposed to do with this thing now? Possibly the most important find in the world, encased in a fragile, breakable shell. They could not keep it with them as they could barely keep their own thick skulls uncracked by the dragon army troops that hounded them at every turn, much less a delicate egg. Vendri and Darrett were at the head of an army and countless miles away. Kalaman seemed an impossible distance from them, in time and space. Where in th…and then it dawned on her.
“Will you hurry up and finish that sodding thing off already,” Lyric called out to the darkness above her, her skin tingling with anxious energy. “We have to get back to Nezrah!” She would know what to do.