Gaining Entry
Left with a puzzle and passive if curious watchers, the group cautiously looked around the area. Both Tiaumil and Arya prepared rituals in order to boost their skills, while Siax and Effie used their extensive training to look around. Even Naralis was interested in the surroundings, but from a more curious and awed mindset than the focused regard of the others. "Isn't this place wonderful? It is so alive!" he told Tiaumil when he came over, "The trees, they are more than trees. They are creatures of intelligence and sentience, and older than most alive creatures. I think these are able to uproot themselves and walk across the forest, across the Mere, if summoned by one that can control them."
Made more wary of the general area, the group redoubled its efforts into finding the way to open the dragon's cave. Tiaumil, his gaze enhanced, was able to read the inscription on the altar:
"Where breath drowns, her fang still waits."
"The house that thought itself sovereign now sees with her eye."
"The wooden crown knows best."
Arya's own ritual told her more about the area around them, and soon located the fang under the waterfall, trapped behind roots. Although they initially tried merely drawing it out with a magic hand, it took her altering her shape to a badger and ripping up the roots in order to retrieve it safely, placing it upon the alter.
Siax and Effie were focusing their attention more upon the remaining structure and the statuary upon it. It was here that Siax accidentally knocked something loose from an illusionary part of the statue, and thus they had found an eye-like gem. He left behind a gold coin in memory of the friend they were seeking.
Finally the group made their way up to the pool atop the area, where a large tree stood with a facsimile of a face upon it. Here Tiaumil, carefully polite in ancient elven, greeted the tree and was given a riddle in return. Upon completing it, the tree gave him the crown for the altar, and an acorn for himself before becoming inert once more.
With all three items placed upon the altar, they now only had to display them in a manner befitting the ancient dragon's might. Effie and Siax decided to play a powerful but calm tune, and were able to do so with sufficient sincerity that the cave entrance opened, and the group were able to progress.
Into the Cave
With Naralis staying outside with the elves they had met, the group made their way cautiously into the cave system. The caution was well placed, for although they had been granted entry, the trials of making their way through the cave was not without peril. They were soon beset by assassin vines in the stone corridor, before the cave afterwards held the webbing of creatures Siax had seen before: phase spiders. Unfortunately, in his hope to goad them out, they decided against engaging with him, as their ambush had been ruined, and the group were able to continue on unimpeded, much to Siax's personal disappointment.
The next cave room they came across was a chamber with a gloopy sort of river running through it in a rather vibrant hue of green. This, the group knew, was fairly typical of green dragon lairs, where the surroundings altered to their nature over time. However Siax spotted something interesting across it on a small island there: an old campsite, and a spot near the cave wall that looked like it might hold some manner of stash.
Nimbly leaping over the acidic river, Siax made his way over towards it, only to fall foul of a cleverly made pit trap. Injured and poisoned, he nonetheless found a hidden stash within the wall of the trap, and sheepishly made his way back to the group.
However, Effie, seeing that the ranger abandoned checking the far wall, decided upon doing so herself, the curiosity over it too great. But as she got there, carefully avoiding the trap, she realised that it had just been a lure to get people to fall into the trap, much as Siax had done and it held nothing. But her skill and pride as a rogue was not to be ignored, and she deftly placed some of her own coins into hole without anyone seeing, before coming over and presenting them to Siax. Surprised by her generosity, Siax took the coins, and handed over the small bag he'd found in the trap, entirely unknowing of her slight of hand.
The bag contained:
flawless star sapphire worth 500 gp,
The Dragons Tooth dagger
Letter by an unknown author
238gp
Vial of Dragon Poision
Effie showed the dagger to the group, but hid the rest of the contents of the loot in her bag. They moved on.
The next chamber was huge by comparison to the previous ones, with several female statues around, as well as bones strewn. This, it seemed, was the dragon's feeding ground. They soon had to wrap cloth around their faces, for the entire chamber was filled with toxic spores of some sort. However, it was while Siax was carefully edging into the room, behind one of the large rocks for cover, that a figure stepped out from across the room. One that was exceedingly familiar to Effie. It was her mentor, Baron Zorphus. The lizardfolk had been correct in their prediction that he was indeed [trapped beneath roots?].
Baron Zorphus
After a very brief standoff where both sides viewed each other with suspicion, it was Effie's own, intimating that Zorphus could not be trusted, that actually seemed to please the tiefling, and he opened a secret passage into the room he'd been using.
As they moved in, they had to walk past two cages, one having a live occupant within it. The prisoner, some manner of wildman that worshipped bear spirits, attempted to get her to free him, citing that he would merely be dragon food otherwise. He told her that he knew of a place in the swamp that, if people could make it there alive, it could grant anything you wanted. Thoughtful, but largely unmoved, Arya left the man there in order to see what Zorphus wanted.
The chamber was large, and upon the floor there was a large runic circle, one that seemed to be the making of a teleportation circle, something that would take a full year of daily spells.
At first, Zorphus attempted to get the group to turn back an leave the dragon alone, citing the danger, but then admitted that if anyone knew where Ebonidris had ended up, it would be her. He also told them that he had made an agreement long ago with Claugiyliamatar, his patron, and she had him training apprentices for her, of which Effie had been one. However, out of all of them, he let Effie go, which earned him the abject displeasure of the dragon, and ever since then he had been trapped there in the cave training her next apprentice, Silva.
The dragon, he admitted, was desperate to become a human in truth, and that knowledge might be of use to appeal to her, if a way could be found to give her that wish in more than just an illusion or temporary spell. He cautioned them though, never to know you knew this knowledge, for she would not take kindly to that. Effie's skills in persuasion would be useful for this, he admitted. The current apprentice, Silva, would also be good to get an advantage when speaking to the dragon, he told them, if they could get her on-side. Her wounds from the fight with Ebonidris might, unlike other dragons, make her far more likely to talk amicably with the group, as persuasion and manipulation were a green dragon's strength, and she was likely to use it as a survival method.
And so the group discussed amongst themselves how to go forward with their plan to try and get more information from Claugiyliamatar in order to save Idris. Hopefully without becoming a snack themselves.
