The party is split, Cheato and Fawna working on recent revelations in the office of Archivist Duvall, and Malkey, Sai, Gia, and Hung, trying to make some money for their adventures ahead. At the moment, they find themselves 5gp down and standing in front of a huge domed mausoleum to check the place out with hopes of finding scarlet red robes that they could use as disguises in a pinch. Hung, having the keys, leads the way and looks up at the large structure. It’s about 150ft wide, and 150ft long with a large dome on top with a display of
stained glass depicting a winged creature of some sort but he can’t make it out from this angle. You walk up the stone steps to the large stone doors of the mausoleum ornately carved with protective symbols and runes of safe passage to the underworld.
Duvall, and Malkey, Sai, Gia and Hung, trying to make some money for their adventures ahead. At the moment, they find themselves 5gp down and standing in front of a huge domed mausoleum to check the place out with hopes of finding scarlet red robes that they could use as disguises in a pinch. Hung, having the keys, leads the way and looks up at the large structure. It’s about 150ft wide, and 150ft long with a large dome on top with a display of stained glass depicting a winged creature of some sort but he can’t make it out from this angle. You walk up the stone steps to the large stone doors of the mausoleum ornately carved with protective symbols and runes of safe passage to the underworld.
“Are we really gonna do this?” Sai asks hesitantly.
“Is everybody ready to do this?” Hung looks behind him at his friends, his hand still on the door.
“It looks like somebody spent a lot of time building this uh … so we should leave,” Malkey says with a nervous laugh.
“I’m still of the opinion that this might be a bit respectful of the dead,” Sai makes sure to note.
“Also, considering graveyards are cemetaries, it’s one of the safest places to be,” Hung offers with a confidence as he gestures around them, the city streets muffled by the stone wall and the silence of those that lay beneath the headstones.
“What!?!” Malkey looks at him quizzically.
“I mean I guess there’s worse graveyards to be in,” Sai says as she looks around and then back at the mausoleum in the sunlight.
“Yes, we could be in a pauper’s grave if that’s what you mean,” Malkey throws his hands up. “Gia, what do you think, you’re awfully quiet. Are you ready to rob the dead?”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “Let’s do this.” They all face the doors together.
“Let’s put to rest the problem that’s in this building that’s been hurting people at night,” Hung resolves as he puts the key in the lock click click. He flings open the door, not realizing that it smoothly opens with the lightest touch, and sunlight floods in from behind the parties' silhouettes onto a massive carpet of red woven fabric with golden edging and filigree. Light also streams through the dome about 150 ft overhead and it is dazzling, you all can’t help but look up in awe at the stained glass dome that is throwing a brilliant array of light throughout the large chamber. It casts the sparkling shape of a dragon made of prismatic sunlight flying through a pink, purple and blue sky in a permanent sunset clashing with the carpet below. Every noise echoes throughout the chamber.
Hung looks at his raven, Nalthak, on his shoulder and thinks ‘he should be just as good as Nutbag, I’m sure he can go look around and tell me what’s in there.’ He reaches into his pack and pulls out some of those biscuits from the librarian’s office and crumbles them in his large hands and throws them into the room. Nalthak looks at Hung who says, “Search,” then looks at the crumbs in the room. He flies over to them, takes a few nibbles that echo into a crescendo through the large stone chamber then looks around the room before returning to Hung’s shoulder.
Seeing what Hung was trying to do, Malkey telepathy asks Nutbag to take a look around and report back what he sees or hears. Nutbag leaps off of Malkey’s robe and starts whirring and whizzing into the chamber carefully checking each of the doors that he found for any sounds from within. There was a sound that was quite curious that he noted and he relayed that back to Malkey, “cat.”
“Cat!?!” Malkey says inside his head, “which way?” as Nutbag gestures in a zipping flying motion to the back of the building where there are only two doors. Malkey understands that he means the left of those two doors.
“So, are we not going to die if we walk in?” Sai asks them curiously, thinking her friends pets and things might have some insight. They say nothing so she bravely takes those first steps. She looks around, taking in its splendor and can’t help herself, “Wow!” ‘wow’, ‘wow’, ‘wow’ The echo reverberates back and forth and up and down as if she had an army of her ethereal echoes in there with her in a chorus. She loves it so much she does it again, “Hello!” ‘hello’, ‘hello’, ‘hello’...
“Uh, my Nutbag’s giving me a feeling, and it’s telling me that we should go to that door,” Malkey points to the door. “He’s hearing cat sounds of all things?” he shrugs.
They all follow in and stand beneath the grand domed ceiling and become bathed in the colors and bedazzled by the dragon. They take a look around and they see an altar at the back, the red rug of which they’re standing on and 10 doors, 4 on each side and 2 at the back on either side of the altar. Between each door there are torches, but they aren’t regular torches, more like sconces with a magical blue flame dancing atop each one. Each door has a name over the doorway, Malkey takes note of a few as he makes his way to the altar to get a closer look. He briefly sees that there are names carved in the stone; Lincroft, Sanford, McRae, Juliard… ‘Hey wait a minute, McRae sounds familiar’, he thinks, but he can’t place it.
“Remember what happened last time we touched an altar,” Hung reminds Malkey, thinking of when they rested at the altar of Selune, the travel deity on their way here.
“I’m not touching, I'm just looking at it … really close,” Malkey retorts as he forgets the names and inspects the carved stone, circular in shape with 2 worn DE monogram tapestries on either side. He knew that to mean Dwendalian Empire. In the center is ash, a typical offering residual, and no denomination of any specific god anywhere. When he looks up, he sees the McRae name again, “Any of you guys recognize the name McRae?”
“Why you asking about McRae?” Hung wonders.
“Because that’s the name that’s over the door that Nutbag heard the cat from,” Malkey explains.
“Cat noises?” Hung asks excitedly while Sai walks over to put her ear to the door.
She waits for the echoing of her footsteps to die down and then she hears it too and hurriedly gestures her friends over to listen too. She puts her finger up to her lips and whispers, “just listen.”
Even though Sai told him to listen, Hung sniffs the air, “I don’t smell any food.”
“No, listen! I hear a cat,” she whispers again.
“Hey Gia, what was the name of the lady that had lost her cat? The missing cat,” Malkey asks. “From the job postings.”
“50 gold pieces for that cat,” Hung adds.
“Oh man, it was somewhere in the West Outersteads, but I don’t remember the name,” Gia responds.
“Well, we know where the information is, we could always go back and see,” Sai points out.
“Yeah, I didn’t take any of the postings down, I just read them,” Gia nods.
“Before we open the door, let’s prepare ourselves for a cat that’s going to be running all over the place. Maybe we have something like a tarp?” Sai suggests.
Hung takes a few steps back from the door thinking about the cat … and Nalthak on his shoulder. Birds and cats don’t mix well.
Malkey goes over to the McRae tomb to open the door but it is locked, and he hears Hung jingle the keys behind him. “Well, unlock it then,” he says. Hung tosses him the keys which he sloppily catches. He puts the key in the lock and click click it unlocks. He opens the door just a crack and is about to send Nutbag in, but he can’t see in the dark. Gia realizes the problem and casts light on him and he starts to glow like a little faerie. Nutbag takes a good look around and sees 2 stone coffins with alcoves cut out of the stone wall where people place the belongings of the dead. There are 2 piles of bones in tattered black cloaks on either side of each coffin. He notices some rubble from a hole in the wall between the 2 coffins. In one of the alcoves sits a cat in a cage. He reports his findings to Malkey. He considers for a moment and then asks him to check the hole in the wall, to which Nutbag flies into the tunnel and lets him know it leads to the outside of the mausoleum. Malkey turns to his friends, “Ok, so we have coffins, typical dead people stuff like bones but there’s a cat in a cage and a tunnel to the outside in between the coffins.”
“I sense a trap,” Sai says. “Crack the door open again.” She sees the cat about 20ft. Inside.
Hung perches Nalthak on one of the sconces outside of the room and then walks in and sees the cat. He approaches the black cat with green eyes who looks up at him and mews sweetly. Hung notices the lock on the cage, “Hey buddy.”
“What was the description of the lost cat?” Malkey asks.
“It’s worth 50 gold pieces,” Hung repeats.
“I feel like we’re in the wrong region, I don’t want to unlock this cat,” Malkey states with some trepidation.
“We should still save it, what are we gonna do just leave it here in a mausoleum to starve to death?” Sai asks incredulously.
Hung goes to break the lock on the cage but hears Malkey call out, “No, don’t let the cat out!”
“It’s worth 50 gold pieces,” Hung repeats again emphatically.
“Yeah but we can bring it to them in the cage, we don’t have to let it out!” Malkey suggests.
“It’ll be easier to keep in one spot you know,” Sai agrees. “If it is the missing cat.”
“If it’s even the missing cat, it could be a witch in a cage,” Malkey points out.
“Then we’ll just let them free in the woods,” Sai shrugs.
“It could be a druid who transformed into a cat that they locked up!” Malkey offers up another scenario.
“Then we let them free in the woods. Either we get money for it or we let them free in the woods,” Sai tells him.
While they squabble, Hung picks up the cage and notices underneath it, a large emerald necklace. The emerald looks different than what he’s ever seen in books before. He looks at it, “Whoa! Pretty jewel!”
“Where did that come from?” Sai asks him in astonishment as she calls forth her echo to keep watch in the main room as she enters the tomb herself.
“Under the cage,” he informs her.
“Is it magical or just a normal necklace?” she wonders allowed.
“I bet this is worth 50 gold pieces,” Hung adds.
As the cat meows at them to be let out, Malkey approaches the necklace to inspect it more closely. He notices some similarities, to himself. It looks like a dragon scale, but it also looks like his skin patches. This is no emerald, he thinks. “I’m going to pick this up and see what happens.” He conjures his mage hand and lifts the necklace from where it rests. Feeling confident it wasn’t a trap, he takes it from his mage hand and puts it in his pocket.
“One of the jobs on the board said the man was in jail because he didn’t steal the Duchess’s necklace,” Hung reminds them.
“That’s right it was a wife asking for help for her husband, he was accused of stealing it,” Gia confirms.
“It was emeralds, that’s probably the necklace!” Sai says excitedly. “We could probably get some money for that, probably a lot more money than the cat!”
“Right, we have it, we’re allowed to take things, if they’re hearing noises and things, there’s a hole here maybe it’s not a ghost but a person. Let’s duly note that and check if there are any other clues in here,” Malkey tries to refocus the group.
They discuss their next steps and options trying to figure out if the door can be unlocked from the inside of the tomb to access the main room since they figure whoever is making the noises at night to scare the gravediggers is getting in through that hole in the wall. They then consider the bones … why are they outside of the coffins? Malkey gets an idea, “In order to maybe block anybody from coming in through this hole, maybe we can put something heavy over that hole. Like one of these lids, but I’m not strong enough to help with that. That’s all you guys.”
“That’s not gonna piss somebody off, from like the spirit world would it?” Gia asks with concern.
“They’re already pissed off i’m sure, they’re already dumped out on the ground here. I mean, we can put the bones back,” Malkey shrugs.
“Do we know those are the people that belong in there?” Gia asks.
“I’m assuming,” Malkey shrugs again.
Sai has an epiphany, “We should definitely open them up and find out because if that’s them, what’s inside?”
“I can’t even reach, so I’ll cover you guys if danger comes,” Malkey suggests.
“You want me to lift this stone lid and put it over the hole?” Hung asks.
“Well let’s open it up and make sure nobody jumps out at us and ahhhh,” Malkey
“Everyone is dead in here except for us,” Hung says pointedly.
“We hope,” Malkey replies.
“But the bones are outside of them so what’s inside?” Sai wonders aloud again.
“Let’s start with opening it and make sure that nothing is going to kill us and we’ll go from there,” Malkey says backing up to give them room and readying a firebolt in case anything goes wrong.
Hung, Sai, Gia, and Sai’s echo push on the stone lid they strain and struggle but eventually are able to slide it over just a bit, allowing them to see into it. “There’s a hole in this coffin,” Hung informs.
“What?” Malkey says confused and sends Nutbag to go check out that hole. Nutbag informs him that the hole is unfinished but the direction it goes is going towards the main center room. Malkey lets his friends know what Nutbag has disclosed.
“Why?” Sai questions in disbelief.
“All we know is that somebody burrowed in through the stone from the outside, and then started digging a hole through this casket,” Malkey tries to make sense of it.
“If we take the lid off of this to cover that hole, it will just expose this hole,” Hung mentions.
“Let’s open the other one and see what’s going on in that one,” Malkey suggests.
“The hole is working its way to the middle so it looks like they’ve already stolen everything from this section. Except for this necklace, which is weird that the cat is locked up and a necklace is here and everything else is stolen. Maybe it’s all coincidental.”
“Maybe they had to leave in a hurry, maybe it was the cat all along,” Hung considers then brings the cage up to his face. “Hey, did you do this?”
“Meow,” the cat replies.
Hung looks at everyone, “The cat says meow.”
“Can anybody speak cat?” Malkey asks.
“Yes, but our cat translator is at the library with Cheato,” Sai reminds them.
They move onto the other sarcophagus and push on that lid until they open that one a crack as well to see in. “Put your Nutbag in the crack, there’s a book,” Hung tells Malkey.
Malkey tells Nutbag to go in and tell him the name of the book. There is no title on the leather-bound book but he tells Malkey about the symbol he sees. A seven-pointed star made from chains.
Sai reaches in and pulls out the book. She flips through the pages and has a hard time making sense of the passages within. Nonsensical rantings mostly but she gathers enough to know that it’s meeting minutes of the Cult of Tharizdun. Towards the back of the book, she finds that they’re working towards a Dragonfire invocation spell. She reads the ingredients out loud, “Dragonfire Invocation: a scale from a dragon (consumed), witches cat (can perform 9 times before fully consumed), phosphorous moss, and fireflies. Allows caster to breathe the fire of the dragon (breath weapon depends on kind of dragon scale used) for 1 hour.”
They all puzzle over this, and Malkey instructs Nutbag to detect magic, but he doesn’t find anything magical, “Aren’t witches cats supposed to be magical?” Malkey asks the group at large. “This one isn’t.”
“The noise at night is probably them digging out that tomb,” Sai puts forth.
“Yeah, what did he describe that as?” Malkey considers for a moment.
“Loud sounds,” Hung offers.
“Banging and scraping or something,” Sai shrugs.
“We kind of chased him off pretty quickly by giving him money,” Malkey reminds her and looks over at Hung. “I wonder how that happened. We didn’t get to ask any questions.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’re in here now. What else are we doing in here, do you want me to cover up the hole?” Hung asks.
“If you can, they seem to be really heavy, it’s not like I can do anything with that” Malkey advises even though his current illusion seems very capable indeed.
“They’re likely to come back tonight, and they’re going to be wondering where their cat went, where their book went. If we’re going to try and catch whoever is doing this we should try and set it up to look like we didn’t change anything or take their cat sacrifice and instruction manual,” Sai offers logically.
the Hung leaves the tomb with cat in the cage in hand. He goes over to Nalthak and tries to get him on his shoulder but he definitely does not appreciate the cat and starts to caw incessantly which echoes throughout the chamber. “Shhhhh,” Hung tries to calm him but it does not and the cat joins in with spats, hisses and growls at the bird causing quite the cacophony.
Malkey quickly conjures up a small piece of cloth and covers the cage, out of sight out of mind he thinks. It does the trick and quiets down the menagerie. “Do we think this is where the noises were coming from and we don’t need to check the other rooms? Or are we going to just start opening doors and say screw it?”
“Start opening doors,” Hung votes.
“We can go on, but we probably shouldn’t just take. Someone is clearly doing some dragon scale fire breathing sacrifice stuff,” Sai tries to reason with her friends.
“This cat is worth 50 gold pieces, that is why I’m taking it,” Hung affirms.
“You’re assuming that that’s the same cat,” Malkey points out. “So five of the things posted on the job board are all related to this one thing. I’m not really into conspiracies but…”
“I guess so?” Sai shrugs.
“If that necklace is the necklace then yes, and if that cat is the cat then yes, and maybe it’s not this place that they’re tied to; but the people that put up the job board,” Hung deduces.
“Or maybe it’s a coincidence and this is a completely different cat, and that’s a completely different emerald necklace,” Sai suggests.
“Those are black robes, and we have to find red ones,” Hung puts the covered cat cage down next to the altar and moves to another tomb door, keys in hand, clearly done talking for the moment. He notices when he puts the key to the lock that this lock has been broken and he pushes the door open to reveal a single sarcophagus and empty remembrance alcoves.
While Hung does that, Malkey decides to show some respect to the bones in the McRae tomb and return them back to their stone coffins, even though one of them has a hole in it, it’s better than being on the floor though. He hums jauntily as he works, ‘dem bones ‘dem bones ‘dem dry bones …’ At first he’s very careful in his work but quickly gets fed up and becomes more and more careless as he continues his task, just to get it over with.
Sai hears hung struggling as he’s trying to push open one of the tombs and tries to help him but is unsuccessful. Gia sees them both straining and also tries to help. They feel if they had the time, they could definitely get these lids off it would take a while though and they’d need to rest and recuperate after it. All three give up on that one, Gia huffs and puffs and goes to the tomb door across the hall. This tombs lock has already been broken and the room has been already looted just like the previous one, yet still, she tries to open it and Hung and Sai join her. Gia’s strength drained, she crawls out as Hung and Sai open yet another door leading to a two-coffin tomb that hasn’t been looted. The memorial alcove in this one has a jeweled gold chalice, and an assortment of gold and silver rings and bracelets, yet their focus remains on the stone coffins. “I can turn my staff into a magic weapon,” Gia suggests.
“Oh, so now we’re going to start smashing the place up?” Malkey asks.
“The cat is getting angry,” Hung points out as it cries out yet again.
Back at the library, Fawna feels Cheato’s aura as his anger and frustration grow. He writes and writes and writes, feverishly copying something out of the book that they’ve had the whole time. There’s a knock on the door and Archivist Duvall checks in, “How are we doing in here, do you need anything?” Cheato looks up for a moment and shakes his head. The librarian also sees the red in Cheato’s face and realizes, that he is unapproachable at the moment.
As the librarian is about to leave, Cheato has an idea, “Actually, there is something. Any chance I could use that spending spell again?” Archivist Duvall agrees and a message is sent to Hung, “Cheato here, I have many answers that require discussing. Return to the Archives of the Cobalt Soul.” He then preps the room, ordering Frederick to bring chairs and student desks which he arranges around the room for his friends.
Hung hears the message echoing in his head, “Did you hear Cheato?” he asks his friends in the mausoleum.
“No,” Malkey replies. “Oh, did he talk in your head again?”
“Oh yeah, he could be doing that again. What did you hear?” Sai asks.
“Remember what he did to my spear? He did it to my head,” Hung responds.
Sai presses, “What did he say? We should probably wrap up here and get back soon.”
“He needs a book, right now,” Hung tells them.
sarcophagus“Maybe he’s talking about this book? Let’s at least try and close the sarcophogi that we opened in the McRae tomb before we go. And lock the doors and try to leave it as we found it,” Sai suggests holding up the Cult of Tharizdun meeting minutes and not realizing that there is no way to leave the tomb as they found it being as Malkey had already moved the bones while they were struggling with other sarcophagus lids.
Hung receives another message but keeps it to himself, “Cheato here, Hung it’s not your spear, it is actually Cheato this time.”
Sai goes around locking the doors that aren’t broken and trying to leave everything as close to ‘as they found it’ as possible before they head back to the library. “Hey, where did the bones go?” she asks in shock as she goes to the McRae tomb last.
“Where they belong,” Malkey states matter of factly as Sai makes a concerned face.
Noticing this, Hung asks with a shrug, “Who is going to bother us about it?”
“Uh, whoever thought they should lock up a cat and leave it alone here. It’s still alive so they couldn’t have been gone that long,” Sai points out.
“Well, we found a book and that’s what Cheato needs, so if you want to leave then I guess we will leave. What do you think” Hung asks looking at Malkey.
“The cat couldn’t have been there that long, there’s no poop,” Malkey reveals.
“So they’re probably coming back to feed it and for all this,” Sai offers. “Let’s go back to Cheato and Fawna, we’ll also check the listing again to see if it is this cat, hopefully, return him and we should definitely come back tonight and see who’s been trying to sacrifice cats for fire breathing.”
“As long as we’re safe returning to the tavern, that’s the only reason I wanted to come here,” Hung replies, and they all nod. They lock up and leave with the cat as well as the book and head back to the library.
The group enters the Valley Archives of the Cobalt Soul and Archivist Duvall looks up to see them and almost asks them to sign in before recognition washes over him and he nods his head towards the spiral staircase giving them the go-ahead to head up to his office. Sai, Hung, Malkey, and Gia file up the stairs and enter into the office to see rows of student desks and Cheato at the archivist’s large desk, with the Biography of Ioun open, and a pile of paper he’s furiously scribbling on. Mr. Mugglesworth the familiar ferret is turning the pages for him and when he gets to the bottom of the page he’s writing on it gets pulled away and stacked in a neat pile by some unseen hand.
“Hey Cheato,” Malkey smiles brightly. “Sai’s got a book.”
“Another book, another book. Yeah, is this like a month ago you found this book? Two years?” He asks sarcastically.
“Two minutes,” she says sheepishly as she hands it to him.
He takes it from her and places it on the desk without looking at it at all. He folds his hands and looks at everyone, “I’m going to turn around and I’m going to ask anything that anyone has, no judgment, I’m not going to ask where it came from unless we need to know where it came from, put it on the table.” He then turns around and from the back of the room he hears, ‘meow’. “Why is there a cat?” he throws his arms up in disbelief.
Hung places the cage on the table and proudly says, “I found a cat. It’s missing and it’s worth 50 gold pieces.”
“Oh, you guys went to the owner to get the description of the cat, since it wasn’t on the posting?” he raises an eyebrow at his party.
“Of course not!” Malkey smiles again. “It gets better!”
“We still need to stop by in order to confirm, regardless…” Sai starts to explain.
“Then why did you trap the cat?” Cheato asks exasperatedly.
“They were going to sacrifice the poor thing!” Sai cries.
“Who is sacrificing the cat?” Cheato yells out.
“Read the book, ok! Look, a lot has happened in two minutes, I don’t know what to tell you,” she resigns.
“This happened in two minutes?” he asks rhetorically, gesturing to the locked cage containing the animal. “Did you guys just take any random cat you found outside?”
“No, we found it in the mausoleum,” Sai explains.
“Oh well that makes sense yeah,” Cheato looks at his friends blankly, his face getting redder and redder.
“We didn’t put it in the cage, it was already in the cage,” she continues.
“This cat is locked in the cage, I feel that was odd. We felt bad for it, I felt bad for it, and we took the cat,” Hung adds.
“Just look at those eyes,” Sai adds trying to pull on Cheato’s heartstrings at least a little so he would understand.
“Please, all of you sit down,” Cheato says and everyone notices that the little desks have their names on them. They all oblige him and get themselves settled and he addresses them again as he passes each of them a packet from the neat pile on his desk, “I’m going back to writing. Again, I stress; if anyone has anything put it on this desk, I'm not going to be angry, and I’m not going to judge. We’re going to solve things because the reason we’re being hunted, we had the answer to!” Cheato notices that as he says this, Hung points over to Malkey.
“Narc!” Malkey glares at Hung.
“See how he reacts when we don’t tell him everything? We should tell him everything,” Hung responds to Malkey.
“Read,” Cheato says through gritted teeth as he glares at Malkey and then returns to his writing, taking mental note that Malkey is obviously hiding, or at least trying to hide, something.
They all look at the papers before them and read:
At the very bottom of each packet are personalized messages and pertinent questions from Cheato to each of the members of his party.
The room is quiet except for the sound of Cheato’s quill scratching across parchment as all are reading. Fawna, already knowing what her new friends are catching up on, sits back in a chair stroking her egg, but with the illusion, it just looks like she’s stroking the air in front of her, “Cheato, what are you doing?”
“I’m making us a bargaining chip,” he replies without even looking up. “I’m making a copy of this book to bargain with these people, they have a teleportation circle. Except, I’m leaving out all of the important information.”
The room goes silent for a moment, followed by gasps and sounds of astonishment and revelation as the party reads what Cheato, the academic, has found thus far.
Sai looks up from the parchment to Cheato, “I think I’ll have to look over this some more, but I do have some answers to your questions.”
“Tiamat’s Visor? Really?” Malkey rudely interrupts.
“Yep,” Cheato nods at him emphatically.
“You’d think Tiamat would have something cooler than a visor,” Malkey adds in disappointment.
“No, Tiamat didn’t wear it, her champion did,” Cheato explains.
Sai rolls her eyes at Malkey and then looks at Cheato continuing with her thought and explanation, “So anyway, long story short; my dad kinda rolls with the Children of Malice …”
“OK, we’re going to need more clarification on this,” Cheato starts. “What exactly does ‘rolls with the Children of Malice’ exactly mean?”
“He’s an active member,” she responds uncomfortably.
“OK, but is he like Jim-Bob who’s like I kill random people because they told me too, or is he the guy telling people who to kill,” Cheato asks.
whatnot“So he wasn’t exactly around. You could imagine activities like that bring you around for t-ball or what not. I’m not sure. I don’t know, sorry. All I know is that I tried to talk to him once and he’s high up enough that he got some help with getting rid of me for a while. I don’t really have any details,” she informs him. “But yes, I’m definitely willing to put aside my desires to serve the realm. Or are you concerned that I have allegiance to my father?”
“No, I’m concerned about the focus of the party,” Cheato assures her. “Does anyone have any questions?”
“So that means I’m the other staff person,” Malkey asks.
“If you’re not the half-blood,” Cheato says.
“Right, well we assume that’s Gia,” Malkey offers.
“Gia fits both roles,” Cheato explains.
“We need you to open the box,” Hung adds.
“We assume,” Malkey says. “No one has a bigger set of heart on them than me!”
“And you are the shortest of stature among all of us,” Hung points out.
“Oh, you’re just gonna throw that out there huh,” Malkey gives him the side eye.
“It’s prophesied,” Hung points to a line of text on his parchment.
Cheato breaks up the back and forth between Hung and Malkey, “The important part is we don’t know which Gia or you are in the prophecy. Because Gia isn’t really a half-blood, dragonborn are not related to dragons.”
“But you’re assuming that I am?” Malkey questions.
“I can’t assume either one,” Cheato says pointedly.
“So, I can’t really be sure why this makes sense, but in the prophecy itself, it says, ‘...the half-bloods are guarded by two staffs of light’ and then says ‘the prophesized one who is short of stature and big of heart’,” Fawna starts as Cheato nods. “It doesn’t refer to the staves of light as prophesied ones.”
“Prophesied one, I’m assuming, it means in regards to being in the prophecy,” Cheato tells her.
“We also don’t know for sure which King and if it’s this kingdom,” Sai wonders.
“I assume it’s the Dwendalian Empire, it makes sense with it just being the largest power,” Cheato offers.
“It could just as easily be the Kryn,” Sai shrugs.
“Actually, it says King, not Queen,” Malkey points out.
“I say we find Tiamat’s visor first,” Hung speaks up. “It says we should find it, and it tells us where it probably is.”
“We’re still missing gems too,” Malkey adds.
“First we gather the weapons, then we gather the gems, then we do the purification,” Hung nods.
“I think we need to get the weapons purified before the gems,” Cheato starts. “I think the gems might power the weapon but not in an evil way. The weapons still have something lingering in them and I worry that if I give them more power, we won’t be able to purify them.”
“How should we go about purifying them?” Sai asks.
“I still need to figure that out,” Cheato states. “They weren't ready to do it."
“Oooo oooo,” Malkey raises his hand then continues. “I hear urine’s sterile. No? Ok, geez tough room, just trying to lighten the load. You guys are so serious.” Hung interjects, “Aryn Feyra decided to remove the gems prior to attempting to purify the weapons, that sticks out to me. So the weapons together without gems would be our priority.” He points to Sai, “you have the sword, I have the spear.” He points to Malkey, “You have …”
“Nothing,” Malkey states.
“None of us have any more secrets to share?” Sai says looking directly at Malkey.
“Secrets? Nope, pretty open book,” he shrugs.
“Nothing that’s maybe chilling in our pockets that maybe we should show the rest of the group?” She insinuates.
“Oh, I got a necklace but that’s related to the cat and the grave, that’s not related to what we’re doing,” he explains. “I’m not hiding anything, you guys were all there.”
“I’m still confused about the cat…” Cheato shakes his head.
“Can you unlock this cage,” Hung asks Cheato.
“No, sorry. I don’t have that spell,” Cheato replies.
“Why don’t we find out if it’s the cat we need before we go taking it out of a cage,” Malkey tells Hung. “We should get moving, it’s getting late.”
They start to pack up their things and Cheato asks, “So you found this cat in the mausoleum?”
“In a crypt in the mausoleum,” Hung affirms.
“We gotta go back there,” Malkey says.
“Someone is paying 50 gold pieces for a cat?” Cheato asks.
“Now you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” Hung says.
Fawna tenses and sits upright and starts to hyperventilate a bit and turns to Malkey, the egg responding favorably as she faces him, “What do you have to do with dragons?”
He shrugs and makes a face, “Nothing.”
“Why does this say otherwise?” she says pointing to the parchment.
Cheato sees where she’s going with this and switches to draconic, “You understand this, we’ve talked this way before. How do you know this language.”
Malkey shrugs again, “I don’t know.”
Sai also joins in on the interrogation, “What’s up with the eczema thing you were talking about?”
“I feel very uncomfortable. You’re all being accusatory!” he exclaims.
“Malkey, I just found out that these two were holding the book with all the answers the whole time,” Cheato tries to level with him.
“That’s different, I don’t have anything to do with that, I’m not hiding anything from ya,” Malkey shakes his head.
“For one reason or another,” Fawna points to the egg. “It doesn’t want to be close to Gia, the dragon. It’s wanted to be close to you since you arrived.”
“Well, I mean who doesn’t,” Malkey quips.
“A lot of people,” Cheato says under his breath.
Fawna feels the baby dragon within the egg is getting enjoyment from Malkey and seems to be laughing even though everyone else seems a bit annoyed with it, “The only thing that doesn’t make sense with everything that’s going on is; what part do you play?” She then points to the egg, “and why he thinks that you’re familiar.”
“Whoa, you know it’s a he?” Malkey looks at her in surprise.
“Yeah, it’s a King,” Cheato adds.
“It’s a king?” Malkey looks even more confused now.
“Did you even read the thing?” Cheato asks getting red in the face again.
“Yeah I read it,” Malkey says defensively.
“I explained it,” Cheato shakes his head and sighs. Sai and Fawna show him where to find the information on his parchment.
“So why is he interested in you?” Fawna presses again.
“Listen, you can ask the question four different ways, but the answer is gonna be the same; I don’t know!” Malkey insists. “We really gotta get going!”
“I guess the cat is staying with us tonight,” Hung interjects heading to the door. They all gather the remainder of their things and head out of the library and back to the inn with Cheato in the lead. They take a moment on the way and stop to get a second look at the job board.
“I think we should just go straight back to the graveyard,” Malkey suggests.
“I would like to regroup at the inn so we can discuss more and understand what is going on with this graveyard,” Cheato says.
“But if we do then we’ll have to sneak over to the graveyard later. I think we could just hide in the mausoleum, no one could see us in there anyway,” Malkey offers.
“Well with the mausoleum we’re opening ourselves up to traps,” Cheato worries.
“Oh no, we’ve already been there, and if we get there first there can’t possibly be an ambush,” Malkey adds.
“There are multiple entrances there that we may not yet know, and there are probably other entrances. If they’ve already dug into one, we can safely assume that there might be another one,” Cheato points out.
“These guys tore up a lot of the space though,” Malkey tells him.
Hung busies himself writing down the information about the cat in his messy scrawl while they talk. He also takes note of the posting for the necklace.
They make it to the Song and Supper Inn and go into a nearby alley until their disguises dissipate. They enter the inn to see nobody in the reception area. “We should probably all go into one room if we want to discuss things, we’re right down the hall here,” Malkey offers.
“Sure,” Cheato shrugs and they all file into Hung and Malkey’s room.
Hung hangs in the door and then holds out the cat in the cage. “What, you’re not coming with us?” Malkey asks.
“I’ll be right there,” he responds. “Hung is going to get food for everybody.”
Fawna reaches out and grabs the cat from him. Sai, Malkey, and Gia fill in Fawna and Cheato on what happened and what they saw in the mausoleum and Malkey shows them the necklace. Cheato and Fawna look it over and both realize that this is no true emerald, it looks like a dragon scale but not one that they’ve ever seen before. Malkey takes it back before they say anything and puts it on for some levity because the size of it on Malkey is just ridiculous to look at.
Cheato looks at him in shock. “Do me a favor and see if you can take it off,” he says with caution. Malkey easily removes the necklace. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t cursed or anything.”
“Oh no, there’s no magic,” Malkey reassures him, “Nutbag would have picked up on it.”
“More gold,” Hung states pointing to the necklace.
“We should probably get the guy out of jail with it unless we want to be really douche-y about it,” Malkey proclaims.
“I worry that the cat is a trap. Not the cat itself, but who the fuck pays 50 gold pieces for a cat? Unless it’s someone who wants people to go looking for it,” Cheato wonders aloud.
“It’s one or the other,” Hung adds wisely as he enters the room with meals for everyone.
They all begin to eat and between mouthfuls, Cheato says, “So hear me out, there’s a hole that leads into the room that the cat was trapped in and the cat was crying and that door was locked and then there’s a hole from that room that digs into somewhere else.”
“They never finished the hole inside the coffin, it doesn’t go anywhere,” Malkey explains.
“And there was a book that talked about sacrificing the cat something like 9 times,” Sai adds.
Cheato takes out the book that Sai had given him and flips through the pages. Most of the writing is crazy scrawls some kind of cult meeting minutes from the Cult of Tharizdun which Cheato recognizes as one of the Betrayer Gods from his studies. He sees that they’ve tried digging to reach the dragon’s chamber. It also talks about fire, and they’ve finally know how to get into it, they need to do a dragonfire spell invocation. It then lists the spell. Cheato takes note of the ingredients: scale from a dragon (consumed), witches cat (can use up to 9 times before consumed), and phosphorescent moss and fireflies. This will allow the caster to breathe the fire of the type of dragon, from which the scale was harvested, for one hour. He then reads that they’re almost ready they just need to collect the fireflies and phosphorus moss.
“Malkey, mind if I have a look atthey the necklace for a moment?” Fawna asks him. She takes hold of it and holds it down to the egg and is overwhelmed with the feeling of sadness. “I don’t think this is a Green dragon scale.”
“Why? What are you getting off of it?” Malkey asks.
“The book on dragons and the prophecy saying this to be an ancient king,” she gestures to her egg. “While many know of the Metallic and Chromatic dragons, but there used to be another type known as the gem dragons. They are said to have once ruled all of Exandria. I think this may be the scale of an emerald dragon.”
“OK, so what does the dragon feel?” Malkey asks her, remembering that he also thought it looked somewhat like a dragon scale but also his own skin disease.
“He feels really sad,” she says sympathetically.
Cheato breaks in, “The books says they’re trying to get into the dragon’s chamber.”
“Yeah that whole place was centered around a dragon motif,” Malkey lets them know.
“There was even a dragon shadow on the ceiling,” Hung adds.
Cheato nods, “I think we need to let them open the chamber. We have to understand more about dragons.”
“But we can’t let them just kill an innocent creature like this,” Sai interjects.
Cheato looks at her and rolls his eyes, “You can use a cat nine times in this spell before it will actually die. Have you cast the spell before cat?” He looks at the cat then back at Sai, “No.”
Sai gets frustrated, “We don’t know how many times, this could be the ninth time.”
“Oh shit, you speak cat?” Malkey asks.
“It’s the witches cat, it’s not the witch,” Hung adds.
“Yeah, and he just said that in common,” Malkey points out.
“I’m joking guys,” now it’s Cheato’s turn to roll his eyes. “It’s a cat.”
“No shit,” Malkey exclaims.
“It’s still a living creature, it doesn’t deserve to be consumed in a spell,” Sai states.
“Sai, are you a vegetarian?” Cheato asks and she drugs her shoulders. “Oh, so you do consume meat.”
“Not for fire spells!” She says incredulously.
Hearing enough, Fawna holds the cat up to eye level, “Um, do you know how many times they’ve killed you?” In response, she feels a sense of fear but no experience. “That’s a little conflicting, I don’t think they’ve actually done it too many times.” Fawna notices Malkey holding his hand out for the necklace she still held in her other hand close to the egg and hands it back to him.
“So maybe we can keep the cat safe for one more night? Maybe use him as bait?” Sai suggests.
“I still think we should just let them do it,” Cheato persists. “Then we can stop them afterward. We need more information about dragons. What if this is an ancient tomb of dragons.”
“So what do we need we just need someone to breathe fire?” Malkey asks.
At that moment, Fawna’s bracelet totem to Melora starts to glow moving along the woven branches and flowers growing so bright it’s almost blinding. She feels the baby dragon move within the egg faster and faster like somersaults. Something is happening. Malkey then feels something too. His eczema spots all of a sudden feel like they’re on fire and he starts to itch like crazy. First, his knuckles, then his elbows the patches grow larger as the burning sensation crawls across his skin and he feels something coursing through his veins.
They both drop to their knees, their muscles start to tense, then seize as the sounds of this world become muffled; as if they’re drowning underwater. Their eyes get thrust upward and their arms are thrown back simultaneously, turning white as they project light onto the ceiling. In their mind's eye, they see a woman, the same woman’s image is projected onto the ceiling, and everyone can see what Malkey and Fawna are seeing.
She is beautiful and has kind, loving eyes. Her head is wreathed in flowers and she wears a cloak of leaves in an ombre of fall colors. She smiles, and holds out her hand to each of them. “Melora,” Fawna utters in her vision and reaches her hand out. She feels warmth and love flow through her freely, almost overwhelmingly.
Malkey also reaches out and feels the same thing though it makes him uncomfortable.
They are both transported through space and time as her cloak whooshes over the projection. In an instant they find themselves somewhere they’ve never been and before them, they see a distinguished man in a dim room, he is exchanging coin with other men in armor, all different races, adorned with the symbol of a dragon. Melora points to the symbol. And even though Fawna does not have her egg with her in this vision or dream or whatever it is, she can still feel the excitement the egg feels when she sets eyes on the symbol. A flash of light and they see the man standing before the walls of a city and behind him the army that he created, a coup; he smiles menacingly.
Another flash and now they hear screams, shouts and growls. They look around and you can see the most beautiful dragons you’ve ever seen, like they were made of gems. Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz, Obsidian, Sapphire, Ruby and one, just one, of pure Crystal. Some of these dragons have riders on their backs these riders bear wooden shields with the same symbol as the men they are fighting in full armor and battle regalia. They both stand and watch, it doesn’t seem like anybody sees or hears you. As the battle rages on, it seems the dragons are losing, they seem to be trying to protect the innocent people of the city rather than themselves. One after the other the dragons fall. A ruby dragon falls at their feet, sending earth everywhere with the impact, as the dust clears and you look at the downed creature, the unscathed yellow-haired gnome rider, screams and cries in grief, completely forgetting the battle around him. “Kaia, Noooooo!” he lovingly strokes the red crystalline scales of the large dragon. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to our son. Until we meet again.” He kisses her lovingly then shakes himself from his grief and runs toward the city center. Malkey watches on.
One by one they fall, there is one dragon left. The Wildmother points to the crystal dragon soaring above. She pats Fawna’s hand before letting go and starts to float towards it. It’s directly overhead when a well-aimed arrow strikes it’s rider who starts to fall… The crystal dragon let’s out a furious roar as it evades a boulder from a trebuchet and releases it’s breath weapon of prismatic light at a line of what you now realize used to be it’s own soldiers advancing against it. It’s at this moment that Melora, the Wildmother seems to catch and cradle the dragon rider in her cloak and softens the fall. Melora stands and you see the rider, eyes wide, in pain, blood stained spittle coming out of her mouth; an arrow protruding from her chest. She looks like your Fawna’s mother, but it’s not. Like she could be her mother’s sister or something though Fawna has never met her or heard of her; yet she still feels a kinship. The dragonrider lay there fighting for breath when in the blink of an eye, the crystal dragon grabs the dying woman in her talons, and retreats off into the horizon. Cheers and jeers from the attacking army in their wake as they celebrate their battle won.
Melora looks at Fawna and Malkey then swooshes her cloak over both of them. When they open their eyes again, now they’re standing on the rubble of a city wall, they can hear the battle though the noise is farther away now. They see the gnome man from before climb over the rubble and rush into a stone home, one of the walls of which is just rubble. Frantically he climbs over the rubble and starts yelling out, “Nan?, Jr.?” Relief washes over him as he hears a response. “We’re in here.” He rushes into the nursery and sees a human woman with tear stained cheeks cradling a gnome baby, but the baby’s face has patches of ruby red scales on it. “I’m sorry Nan, but we have to get out of here, the dragons have fallen. They will inevitably seek him if they knew he existed.” The woman visibly upset and audibly crying scurries off and you hear banging and shuffling among the sniffles. She comes back with a pack and tries to say something but can’t get it out, she hands him the pack and runs off with her face in her apron. The man calls after her, “Take care of yourself Nan, and thank you for all you’ve done for our family, especially little Malarkey here.” The gnome man takes the baby from her and they run, they run as fast and as far as possible. Malkey recognizes that name and realizes, that baby is your grandfather, his mother’s father, the one who always wore a mask over one side of his face that scared him as a child. Now he knows why. He always did love his grandfathers magic tricks, he definitely had a way with fire.
Another flash and Fawna sees her home, before them is the crystal dragon and it’s rider. In an ice cave, Fawna knows this as the place where her mother bestowed upon her the egg. They watch as the dragon lovingly takes care of the rider, pulling the arrow out, giving her the last healing potion she had had on her belt, and letting her rest. Using snow to take down her fever as best as she could as the woman heals. As the dragon does this, it’s light; its essence starts to fade. Once she feels her rider friend is out of the woods, she goes further into the cave.
Another flash. The dragon rider awakes and takes in her surroundings. “Bora?” she stands looking around for her beloved friend. Her calls get more and more frantic as she searches then falls to her knees in cries of despair as she finds her friend, dead from a grievous wound. She throws herself on the beast with tears of agony and heartache, “No, Bora, NO!” she starts pounding her with her fists, but she is gone; stiff and cold. She turns and slides down her friends body crumpling to the ground. “Long live the queen,” she whispers aloud as she looks over to pat her friend’s large clawed arm and sees that it’s covering something. She sees that with her last bit of life, Bora had laid an egg.
Another flash as the cloak envelopes them once again, the distinguished man that started it all is laughing as he oversees an exodus of all he used to help him, “The Dwendalian Empire is no place for disgusting creatures like you, You are all exiled to Xhorhas, you’re abominations. You are no longer needed or wanted here! Get out!” He laughs again. “Disgusting things, now the Dwendalian Empire can flourish in beauty and purity, they are banished.”
They gain their senses, tears flowing from Fawna’s eyes. They blink and the projection disappears. Fawna feels the baby pushing against the egg close to her and she feels something from him enter her. He has bestowed upon her, the gift of the gem dragon.
“Are you guys ok?” Sai asks them in amazement trying to process what she just saw.
Fawna barely catches herself as she stumbles forward, the cat meows as she almost drops the cage when Sai comes over to steady her and Fawna can feel Sai’s comfort and concern supporting her
Sai guides her over to a seat by the small table, “Here, let’s sit down for a moment.”
In the back of his head, Cheato hears the voice of Archivist Duvall, 'I'm preparing your letter of ... recommendation, what can I use as a singular name to refer to all of you?"
***If you'd like to listen to the audio of this session, click here!***
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