We decided to return to the dome to lick our wounds after the kobold ambush and head back again in the morning. During our planning the group debated which direction we should take. Wax and Jarvis wanted to take the shortest route and I wanted to explore a bit on our way there. In the end we took the direct path and managed to avoid anything on our way there, including any amazing discoveries...
We scouted the crevice once we arrived due to the previous kobold ambush. While scouting Kerberos felt a fiendish presence alongside a consecrated area somewhere in the complex within the crevice. I was surprised he could detect that at such a long distance.
Once we got back to the dome I used a mage hand to feel around the rift portal on the dome and my mage hand did not collapse like last time. We discussed if this meant that the portal doorway was becoming more permanent in nature or opening up wider.
We proceed down the trap door, which the kobold ambushers used, and got back to the armory level. This time we forced our way into the sarcophagus chamber within which we defeated a ghost. There was writing on the inside of the coffin that said:
We are guardians.
Exemplary, such we are seen.
Are we such
Exemplary guardians?
Are we?
We checked the library field again and we heard two kobolds talking from within. This time around two of the books that the robed statues held were missing. Wax concluded that the books allowed access into the library and grabbed one. After he walked through the field unscathed we followed suit.
What followed was a bit bazaar but we ended up talking to the kobolds after the librarian cast a spell that allowed us to communicate. One of them was the librarian Heleste and the other was Mepo, the kobold we once met on top of the crevice. Long story short, they were from a tribe from the jungle to the east that travelled here beckoned by visions. The vision that promised wealth and glory started when a green eyed women with great magic and a silver collar around her neck arrived in their village. Apparently within these visions they saw a creature in a mansion that made many promises if they could find a way to open and widen the rift.
Once they arrived Buttwaz, who I believe is Mepos daughter, mustered up a following within the tribe and passed into the dome with fifty of her brethren. Amongs those that went in was Guthber, a shaman and by all account Heleste's brother. Guthber is said to be obsessed with opening the portal on the dome. The remainder of the tribe got stuck outside the dome and have not been able to enter or communicate with their missing tribesman.
To make things worse some of the kobolds stuck outside the dome started to mutated into aberrations that attacked and cannibalized pretty much anything they could find...including other kobolds.
Mepo hired the best tracker in the area by the name of Sanzun to find his daughter. Apparently he and his gang were the kobolds that ambushed us. Apart from that, they mentioned some rock people that had tentacles and that the women with silver magic was helping open the rift.
We wished them well and we headed to the wooden door near the armory that supposedly lead to the dome. The chamber we entered would be best described as some sort of laboratory. Within the green eyes women and six kobolds attacked us on sight. She was a dangerous opponent and there were moments when I thought we might not survive the encounter. Furet used all her healing skill to keep us alive. Our attempts to take the women alive failed I am afraid that whatever knowledge she had was lost with her last breath.