Prophecies & Intrigue 20: 'Haul' of the First.

The battle now over and won, chests heaving as they catch their breath. A meow breaks the silence as Nalthak answers with a “Caw” from above before landing on Hungs shoulder and nibbling at his ear. The party gathers around the cult leader laying before them as Sai ties her up and Nutbag heals some of her wounds. The older human woman gasps as her eyes snap open, rolling wildly as she struggles against her constraints looking up at the group looking down at her. She screams, “Ughhhh, let me go you wretched nobodies!” as she spits on the ground before falling back panting and weak.

“NO!” Cheato yells and scoffs at her.

“What is the meaning of this, you won!” she growls back.

“Are you asking me questions? You’re the one tied up, we brought you back to life. Did you want to die?” Cheato asks her.

She narrows her eyes, “It would be better than talking to you.”

Cheato pauses, a bit confused. “Oh. Ok,” he says before winding up his leg and kicking her causing her to grunt as the air is forced from her lungs.

She cries out in pain then stares daggers at Cheato, “Tharizdun will get you for that!” she screams.

“Who will?” Cheato asks calmly before swiftly kicking her again causing more yells of pain as he continues. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Anyway, if you do wanna die, we can kill you but you still have to talk first.”

She struggles again, “What do you want? What if I talk, what then? To what purpose would that be?”

“Well you said you want to die, that’s your ultimate plan so if you talk we can just kill you and give you the gift that you wan …,” he pauses briefly before sarcastically taunting her. “Oh no, you actually want to live, that was like… she ” he exaggerates cupping his hand to his mouth and in a loud whisper to his friends says, “she was kidding, she actually has a will to live guys.” His face drops the sarcasm and he stares at her expectantly, “Right? You can say yes.”

She looks at him unblinking, “I am at the mercy of Tharizdun, not you.”

Cheato kicks her again and then leans closer for her response, “Who? Sorry, who’s mercy are you at?”

“Tharizdun,” she says defiantly.

“No,” there’s an interesting glint in Cheato’s eye, “No, Cheato is here. Chea-to,” he exaggerates his name to her.

“You are nothing, nobody,” she scowls at him.

“Oh, she knows you,” Malkey quips.

Glossing over his small party members remark Cheato continues, “Anyway, listen, what do you want if you talk to us?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” she resigns. “You’ve obviously already ruined everything I wanted,” she looks around at her fallen comrades littered across the floor of the mausoleum.

“Oh, well we want the same thing you do,” Cheato levels with her. “We want to get in the crypt.”

“You are in the crypt,” she looks away.

Cheato easily calls her on her bullshit, “No, the actual crypt, the hidden one you were trying to break into to. You guys didn’t berak into here to i don’t know, do the mummy dance. No the dragon crypt that you’re trying to break into that we read from your fucking,” he pulls out the cults journal and watches as she visibly becomes crestfallen.

“Is it true?” Gia asks her, coming up alongside Cheato.

The woman sighs, “Yes, it’s true. We have found it.”

“We also took the cat if you were wondering,” Cheato smirks.

Hungs voice booms from behind them, “Hey, that cat is worth 50 gold pieces!”

Sai also chimes in, “Yeah, what was the deal with the cat?”

“It’s part of the ritual, “Cheato answers but maintains eye contact with the cult leader and asks her, “Right?”

“Yes,” she hisses. “We needed it.”

“How many times have you done that ritual?” he fires at her.

“Never,” she responds pointedly then in a sad and sullen tone adds, “We were going to do it tonight, we were prepping for tonight, but you ruined everything.”

“Yeah, that tracks,” Cheato nods.

“It’s kind of our thing,” Hung adds.

“We’re good at it,” Cheato shrugs. “Anyway, What’s in there?”

“We don’t know! All we know is that there’s an old tale that the peasants tell of riches beyond belief buried beneath a dragon. When I bought this tomb,” she looks over to the tomb with the McRae name over the door but Cheato interrupts.

“I’m sorry I need to clarify, you say you bought this tomb? And you broke into it?

“Yes, it’s mine to do with what I will,” she states smugly.

“Why didn’t you just walk in the front door. Why did you dig a hole into the side if you were …” Cheato looks utterly confused as opposed to the previous feigned confusion.

“Because she’s lying,” Malkey loudly whispers up to him.

“Oh you don’t own it…” Cheato leans back with his hand on his chin, “Hey, real talk, I don’t want to kill you or hurt you, you’re just being really dumb.”

Malkey leans in closer to her and adds in a whisper, “Real talk, he doesn’t speak for the whole group.”

“They want to kill you,” Cheato points out

“We do,” Malkey nods confirmation.

“Well my life is ruined, I might as well die,” her gaze wanders as her sullen voice utters the words. She then snaps back to look at them and shouts ferociously, “You’re going to blow my cover, you’re going to ruin everything, YOU’RE RUINING EVERYTHING!”

“Oh god, she’s so emo,” Malkey complains.

“You could run,” Sai suggests with a shrug.

“Yes i could run,” she starts to respond.

Sai cuts her off and starts to pace, walking alongside the tied up cult leader, “We could just let you run, give you a head start against everything.”

“Ooo then we can hunt, the ultimate sport,” Malkey rubs his hands together, excited about the prospect.

Sai continues her psychological negotiations, “Depends how good the information is, how long it… keeps us busy.”

“I don’t know anything beyond, ‘riches beyond measure’,” she relays again.

“You must have had some idea where you were going,” Sai presses.

The woman looks up at the ceiling, “This is far as we got,” She then returns her gaze to Sai, “Once we got through the door,” she gestures to the McRae tomb again.

Cheato explains to them all that they have all the materials for the spell they were working on, “Sorry we took your materials and killed everyone and ruined your plan for you. Anyway, you stay there. Dont move, don’t go anywhere, he turns and mumbles tauntingly ‘because you're at the mercy of someone else, not Cheato;” as he walks towards the McRae tomb.

The others follow as Hung stays with the woman and Fawna continues to stay out of her sight holding the the large bulge in her papoose with one hand and the other holding onto the cat in a cage.

In the McRae tomb, Cheato, Malkey, Sai and Gia try again to remove the lid further off of the tomb with the hole dug into it. Malkey helps them morally, cheering them on as they struggle before reminding them that that hole doesn’t actually go anywhere.

Cheato marches back out to the cult leader, “Hey, how did you guys get these tombs open, you’re all weak as fuck!”

She sneers, “Many hands make light work.” She then burst out in a maniacal laughter as if it was some hilarious joke.

“Would it help if I stepped on her neck?” Hung offers as he moves to do exactly that.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Malkey shrugs as Gia is unable to stifle a giggle at the notion.

Cheato shakes his head and Hung puts his foot back down. He looks back at the woman, “Huh, ok so where were you casting the ritual?“ She looks over at the altar. He continues to question her, “But where were you going to direct the spell?” She stares defiantly at him but he is steady at his gaze upon her as well. “Hey buddy, we’ve already established that you have a will to live and that this is just a game we’re playing. You think we’re going to break and we’re not actually going to hurt you. And this bluff, I’m calling it! I don’t really care. I don’t think you understand what’s at stake.”

“My ruination!” she snaps back.

“What, huh? Your ruination because you’re at the mercy of someone else,” he mocks her in a ridiculing voice. “So where were you gonna cast it? Where is the actual like, tomb, tomb thing.”

Realizing she probably indeed has no choice, she heaves a large sigh before answering in a whisper, “Under the rug.” They all look around at the enormous and gaudy ornate red and gold rug beneath their feet that covers the large area almost wall to wall.

“Hung, can you go to one of the corners and start pulling it up?” Cheato crosses his arms and doesn’t break eye contact with her.

“Ok,” Hung says as he makes his way over and starts rolling up the huge carpet. About a third of the way from the door in the almost center of the room, Hung uncovers a large golden seal with a depiction of a dragon on it with writing on it that Hung doesn’t recognize. Hung grunts indicating he’s found something and they all take a look.

Malkey, Gia and Cheato see that the language seems to be similar to draconic yet with differences that made it illegible.

“Fawna can I hold the cat? The ritual has never been cast,” Cheato looks at his meek friend.

Before she can answer Sai steps in, “Will the cat live afterwards?”

“Yeah,” Cheato nods.

“That’s a huge assumption,” Malkey says unsure on where he stands with all this.

“That’s what the ritual says, we’ve established this,” Cheato almost has an aneurism due to frustration and goes on to explain the cats role in the ritual that was in the cult book… again; fielding questions from Sai and handling Malkey’s doubt that Cheato is just making it up.

Fawna still had one more question though, “Will it get hurt though, we know it doesn’t die, but will it get hurt?”

“No,” Cheato pauses, “I don’t know, but listen; I really don’t want to have this argument again. We just murdered a whole room of people on the assumption that there’s information down there and we’re fighting over this damn cat!” He sighs and turns to the woman still tied up on the ground looking up at them while they argue, “Do you have any more information for us?” When he is met again with her blank stare and slight sneer he looks to his friends, “Alright, we can kill her.”

“She’s obviously failed at this point and will probably skip town, why don’t we just let her go to live in obscurity?” Sai offers.

Cheato looks at Sai, “So we kill everyone in their whole group but leave one alive, the most powerful one of them all to come hunt us down.”

“I don’t see a problem with that,” Malkey adds sarcastically.

“I don’t either,” Cheato joins him in the sarcasm this time and then looks back at the woman, “Do you?”

“Do what you will,” she responds through gritted teeth.

Cheato and the gang dig in on her with her non-answer to a simple yes or no question.

“You know as much as I know, I want to get through there as much as you do,” she nods her head over to the golden seal she knows is on the other side of the rolled up carpet blocking her view. “I don’t know your purpose as to why you want to get through there,” she looks at them curiously. “So I don’t know why you’re still asking me questions.

Cheato gives a huge grin, “Because this is fun.”

“Well for some of us,” Malkey hops up on the carpet roll and looks at the seal again thinking.

Cheato sighs, “Fawna, can I please have the cat.”

Fawna turns to the cat, lifing up the cover on the cage and says, “If you feel any pain, let me know.” To which the cat promptly answered, ‘meow’. Cheato holds out his hand, and Fawna hands over the cage.

He saunters over to the seal, “I’m going to read these inscriptions first, I just need a couple minutes.” He takes his time setting up the ritual around the seal and eventually, he looks at the letters and they now make sense. The seal reads, ‘Julous Dominion. Hall of the First. Enter with Dragons Fire.’ “Julous Dominion he wanders out loud, Ah yes, this secret dragon tomb has relevant information, thank you cat!” he says as he walks to the altar. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we enter this with dragons fire. These things can be trapped, explode, poison gas, the ceiling could fall. I’m gonna be real…”

“So just blow dragons fire on it and it magically opens?” Hung asks.

“That’s what I figure,” Cheato responds.

“So we just, stand back,” Hung nods understanding.

“I could totally just, breathe on it,” Malkey offers nonchalantly.

“Sure,” Cheato responds as Sai holds up her shield just in case.

Malkey pulls out a potion from his pack and takes a swig, feels the burn in his belly from the liquid, then breathes out onto the seal. As soon as the fire touches the seal it bursts into flames that take the shape of a great dragon before turning to golden ash revealing below it a golden spiral staircase leading into pitch darkness.

“It worked!” Cheato cries with a bit of shocked awe. “Who votes she goes first?”, he asks at large, pointing to the still bound cult leader lying on the floor.

“You just gonna throw her?” Malkey asks.

“No, we could walk her.” Cheato responds.

Hungs eyes wide, still staring out Malkey finally opens his mouth, “So you are a dragon!”

Malkey looks up and Hung, deciding how he’s going to answer this, “Sure,” he shrugs.

“Cool,” Hung looks down at his friend with a bit of awe.

“Yeah, you remember in the vision, his grandpa was you know lovers with a dragon,” Cheato states.

“Hey, knock it off.” Malkey gets offended..

“Well, the dragon was lovers with the grandpa,” Cheato continues on ignoring the gnome.

“Hey, knock it off,” Malkey says again, a little louder as his face reddens.

“You know, it’s a very interesting relationship, there are a lot of power structures there …” Cheato continues.

“I can’t be the only one wondering about the logistics,” Sai chimes in.

“Don’t be judging, that’s all I’m saying,” Malkey states.

“Plus it’s a gnome, and it’s a female dragon,” Cheato trails off in confused thought then notices Malkey’s face. “No?”

“Hey, all things are fluid, knock it off,” Malkey gives him a warning look.

“Ok, do we wanna walk her through or are we just going to go ourselves.

“What is the best case scenario of letting this woman go, is there any?” Hung asks.

“No!” Cheato and Malkey respond in unison.

“It would be nice…” Sai offers.

“What is the best case scenario of taking her with us, is there any?” Hung asks.

“Oh yeah, she triggers the trap and dies before us,” Cheato points out.

“I prefer we let her go,” Sai quietly states her unpopular opinion again.

Fawna pipes up competing against the much louder voices all around her, “I think Cheato has been rubbing off on me… I was just thinking, you do have that ferret don’t you?” she asks Cheato, regarding something to set off any traps.

“No,” Cheato shakes his head and points to the McRae tomb. They all look through the open door and see the body of Mr. Mugwuggles the 18th. He had been skewered on the spike growth that Fawna had called up during the battle.

“Well, we can still use the same concept, we can still throw him down there and see if he sets off any traps,” Malkey offers logically.

“So we don’t need to use the lady then, we can just let her go!” Sai jumps onto Malkey’s suggestion.

Cheato hangs his head and slowly shakes it back and forth, as Fawna’s voice clamors to be heard among the commotion, “Um, I have a better idea.” Everyone stops talking and looks at her, “There’s a bunch of bodies on the floor.”

“Yeah but we can just have her walk, she wants to go down there too guys, Hung makes a great point!” Cheato goes on to remind them in exasperation explaining yet again that if they let her go, she’s most-likely going to hunt them down anyway.

“I just don’t want any more people to get hurt,” Fawna frowns.

Cheato’s brows furrow and bends down to gag the cult leader, “She doesn’t count, she should have been dead already. We brought her back so we actually owe a life to death.”

Hung nods, Cheato’s statement resonates with him, “That’s good logic. That makes sense.”

Addressing the gagged and bound woman, “Well, you had the chance to talk to us, now you can’t, and you’re going first.” They lift her up on her feet and adjust the ropes and handing one end to Hung. “Hung here is gonna hold onto the rope. If you do anything, we’re just going to throw you down the stairs.”

They arrange themselves and start down the golden spiral staircase down into the darkness with the cult leader first in line. Hung, Sai, Cheato (and cat), and Gia follow behind, stepping down into the hole. Malkey pulls out his lantern and steps down. As soon as he does, three braziers erupt with a magical white flame that illuminates a gigantic cavern of a room, the staircase descending into the center. A prismatic kaleidoscope of colors bathes the room as the light from the braziers reflect off of the motionless forms of 4 large gem dragons and an array of wealth surrounding each of them. One Amethyst, One Sapphire, one Topaz, and One Ruby. Fawna follows directly behind Malkey, the braziers burn brighter for a moment and from within the egg, Fawna feels sorrow. Cheatos jaw drops and he immediately casts detect magic and is happy to note that there seems to be quite a few in here within each of the dragons’ hordes.

They finally reach the bottom and head south towards the amethyst dragon and starts digging through the treasures coming up with a red potion, a pouch of dust, and a deck of cards. Cheato starts to hyperventilate.

“Cheato, are you ok?” Sai looks at him

“No,” Cheato continues hyperventilating.

“What is it?” Gia asks him.

“Nope nope nope,” he continues offering nothing more.

“What are they doing to you? What do you mean no?” Sai cries in concern.

“Don’t touch him, he’s sensitive. Give him a second, he’s almost there,” Malkey tells Sai.

Cheato flips through the cards and hands over the booklet to Sai. “Someone, take a look at this,” he continues to try to gain control of his racing mind and the possible danger they could be in just by messing with things they don’t know. That’s EXACTLY why he’s so nervous about the two Arms of the Betrayers in their possession!

Sai flips through the pages, “I think this is instructions on how to use them.”

Hung walks up, concerned for his distraught friend, “Are you ok, Cheato? Why are you acting this way?”

“I might be, I’m gonna be real; I have a handful of magic cards that have different names and different magic all over them!”

“So as a wizard, that excites you?” Hung inquires still confused at the reaction.

Gia glances over intrigued and as her eyes catch on the cards the necklace starts to pulse lightly, barely noticeable in the brightly lit and glittering cave. “Can I see?” Gia asks Cheato as she holds out her hand.

“This terrifies me,” he says answering Hung’s question as he starts to hand the cards to Gia.

“Why would magic scare a wizard?” Hung presses on a bit nervously now.

“It’s not the magic, it’s the unknown. What if just touching them caused something to happen. I don’t trust anything until I know know, you know.” Cheato reassures Hung as best as he can then looks back to Gia and notices the necklace pulsing and then as she touches the cards it grows brighter and he tightens his grip not letting go initially.

“It says here that it’ll take 7 days to attune to these at least,” Sai says.

“Oh thank the Gods,” Cheato sighs a huge sigh of relief and releases the cards to Gia. “Whew!”

“Geez, you were acting like they were possessing you or something,” Sai teases him.

“Forgive me for not wanting to accidentally blow us all up as we go around grabbing up magic items we know nothing about,” he retorts. “Ok, so this wasn’t as scary as I thought.”

“But did you see her necklace?” Sai points out.

“Well yeah, but it’s a magic divination necklace and that seems to have heavy ties to divination magic so it kinda makes sense. What I also see, is gold. Sai there’s nothing else magical over here, could you uh,” Cheato gestures to the mass array of coins, gems, and non-magical riches.

“On it,” she says and gets to work gathering up all that she can.

Fawna walks up to the large Amethyst dragon’s head and reaches a hand up and takes her thumb up to an eyelid and tries to lift it, in hopes that maybe it was just sleeping. She lowers her head with a forlorn sigh as her thumb slides across the smooth surface. She lingers there, rubbing her thumb over the closed eyelids of the grand beast, paying her respects to the fallen. She then feels the little dragon within the egg also filling with reverence and honor to his ancestors.

Cheato notices Fawna and leans in and says, “Try saying this.” in Draconic he then says, ‘Please rest well, thank you for leaving this behind for us.” He then moves over to the Sapphire dragon hoard, and pulls out all the magical items from amongst the treasures a lot less carefully than previously.

They eventually make their way around the large cavernous chamber stopping at the Topaz dragon, then finally the Ruby dragon collecting all manor of valuables, Malkey making sure to stay far from Cheato all haphazardly snatching up magic items after freaking out about them minutes before, but that doesn’t keep him from hearing Cheato as he yells across to Malkey, “Hey, didn’t your grandpa sleep with a ruby dragon?”

“Oh, sorry can’t hear ya,” Malkey feigns as he pretends to clean out his ears with his middle finger in the direction of Cheato.

“Oh, that’s right, because you’re Ooold!” Cheato teases.

“Yeah, cuz that’s the problem,” Malkey pouts and makes a face at Cheato.

They finally all end up around the Ruby Dragon, the largest of the four, he is truly awe inspiring to behold; and there’s no denying anymore that Malkey’s skin problem isn’t a skin problem; those are ruby-red dragon scales. The direct comparison is uncanny, though Malkey’s are much smaller. Malkey reaches out and touches the petrified dragon and feels that fire in the pit of his belly brewing. He quickly pulls his hand away. They collect an array of fine magical items, a robe covered in eyes, a wand, scrolls, rings, a staff, strange magical powder, a magical dusty-rose colored stone, an ornate dagger, and potions. Not to mention all the coins they could ever hope for at this stage as adventurers. They start to organize everything together to get ready to go back to the inn with their spoils. “We can’t possibly carry all this,” Sai complains. “Is there any way we could hide the gold in the shadow realm, like where my shadow and Gia came from?”

“What?” Cheato says in disbelief and after picking up his jaw from the floor he looks at Gia, “You’re from the shadow realm?”

“No, they saved me from there yes, but I’m not from there and I have no idea how I got there. One day I was eating an apple, and then everything changed,” she explains to him.

“Wait, the spiders you guys talked about? That was in another plane!?!“ Cheato asked still in a state of shock trying to process this. It seems like every time these people recount anything, something new manages to pop up that should have been relevant in the first telling!

“Yes but it all worked out,” Hung shrugs as Cheato closes his eyes and starts praying as everyone tries to talk over each other and try to explain what happened back at that temple where they found Aryn Feyra’s skeleton.

Cheato shifts his attention to their hostage, “Hey, now that we’ve found all this, do you still want to live?”

She nods.

“Why should we let you live, do you have an actual reason,” he taunts.

She nods again looking around at all the riches around them.

“Oh shit, you know how to get in here,” he points out.

“She can’t get in here,” Hung says matter of factly.

“Yeah she can, she can just cast that ritual,” Cheato explains again.

“Not if we keep the cat,” Malkey offers.

“There’s other cats,” Cheato says pointedly not breaking eye contact with the woman who is shaking her head vigorously. “We’re in a problem with you. Yeah…”

“Will she or the others have bags of holding if they were planning on picking up a lot of treasure,” Sai wonders aloud.

“Oh that’s fair, we never patted you down,” Cheato says to Duchess Mcrae as he feels under the ropes and finds around her neck the holy symbol of Tharizdun which he quickly tears from her neck and teases her, “We’re at the mercy of Tharizdun huh? I don’t think so.” He also pulls a ring from her ring finger on her left hand and it also glows with magic from his detect magic spell.

“Are you married?” Malkey asks her curiously.

She nods her head.

“Who’s the lucky fella, is he upstairs?” he continues to question.

She nods again.

A collective “awwwwww,” of pity resounds around the room.

“Did we just kill her husband?” Malkey asks actually sounding as if he feels bad about it.

“Yes, we killed the evil cultists’ husband, how sad,” Cheato shakes his head. “We probably have to kill her.”

“Oh, we do have to kill her,” Hung acquiesces.

“I feel like an obligation now, just out of sadness,” Malkey exclaims.

“Yeah, we have to reunite you with your husband. Sorry you wanted to live again … oops! Because you know really right now we’re in a bad situation. You can just run and tell on us and you know how to get in here and you know there aren’t any traps and that it’s safe. Oh wait, you don’t have any magic right now,” Cheato says as he holds up her necklace. “We can un-gag her, she can’t cast any spells without this.”

“Are you sure about that?” Malkey questions.

“Even I have spells that just call for a verbal component,” Fawna agrees.

“That’s true,” Cheato considers. “Everything I see is saying we should kill her.”

“Or we could revive her husband and send them on their merry way,” Malkey suggests. “I mean it’s not like she knows who we are Cheato, so she can’t go around telling people who we are anyway.”

“I think we kinda stand out though,” Sai pipes up as Cheato hangs his head slowly shaking it side to side.

Cheato straightens up and hands Fawna the cat he was still holding.

Fawna gladly accepts the additional charge and then asks, “Does anyone have a hammer?”

“What are you trying to do?” Cheato asks.

“I have a wooden mallet,” Malkey offers.

“Well, I want to take a tribute for the little guy,” She starts. “I want to chip of a piece of each of their claws and bring it with us for him,” she points to the egg. “I also want to say a prayer and let them know that the King will be returned.”

The room is silenced by the solemn weight of her words and they all agree and try in earnest to help.

“Hung could probably smack them off,” Malkey says.

“Oh, we could use the cultists weapons from upstairs, none of us care if they break,” Cheato states and gets up to go back up the long spiral staircase.

Sai follows behind him, “Maybe one of those guys has one of those bag’s of holding things.” After the 120ft ascent they look up only to see the way is blocked. The hole from which they entered had re-sealed back into a solid gold plate! “Did you close the door?”

“No, I didn’t close it,” Cheato says sounding defeated then starts mumbling to himself. After a while, he turns to Sai, “Sai, we might just be trapped in here.”

Fawna noticing that it’s taking Cheato and Sai a while to get the things she was going to use to chip of the dragon claws and looks up to see them standing at the top of the landing, and she also sees the door is sealed. Using thaumaturgy she yells up to him, “Don’t you still have the spell? You can cast it.”

Everyone turns to look at what’s going on now and sees the issue. “Oh yeah I could do the ritual as a last resort, Cheato thinks to himself then yells down dejectedly, “Hey Malkey, can you breathe fire again? Can you come try that, the door is locked. We may be trapped. Dragons are stupid, they do a lot of weird things, this door may open once a year or something like that,” he says dejectedly.

Fawna shouts back up after taking a long look at Sardior, “I’m pretty sure he just breathed on it as many times as he wanted!”

“Ok, lets gather what we want and open it this last time and get the flock out off here!” Malkey starts making his way up the long staircase to try and open the door.

“But the claws,” Fawna moans; crestfallen.

“Hey, I got an axe, maybe that’ll work for you. I could always sharpen it again if it doesn’t get totally ruined,” Sai yells as she drops the axe from the top of the stairs and it falls to the floor.

Fawna’s eyes brighten and she runs to pick up the axe and gets to work while the others haul up the goods. It takes a little while but she is able to chip away a bit from each of the little King’s ancestors as an heirloom for him, and she can tell he is pleased with this. She finds herself back at the large ruby dragon last and after she takes a claw, she decides she wants to save a ruby for him as well. As she digs to find the biggest one, Malkey sees this upon returning from successfully breathing fire again and opening the door and starts to help. As Malkey is elbows deep Fawna notices a nameplate that gets uncovered - Sardior. She bends down and runs her hand across the letters and says it out loud. As she does, she feels the egg respond with a feeling of affirmation as Malkey hands her a large ruby before gathering as many as he could carry (which wasn’t much) and starts hobbling toward the spiral staircase to leave.

As they move the wealth from the hoard to the main chamber of the mausoleum, they realize that can’t carry as big as their eyes could see. Fawna thinks for a moment then voices her suggestion, “I could turn into a draft horse.”

“That’s a great idea!” Malkey says. They all get to work making trips up and down the steps, even Sai’s echo, while Malkey cleans up the damage to the main chamber and they all discuss the logistics of where they’re going to stash this stuff while they’re still in the city.

“What are we doing with her?” Hung asks, pointing at the woman he’s got by the arm.

“Are we really trying to leave her alive?” Cheato stops what he’s doing and asks.

“Yesss,” Sai manages to eke out although a tad unsure.

“I’m good with keeping her alive,” Gia shrugs. “I mean, we have enough money to get far far far away from here.”

“She’s going to continue on her path, whatever that may be,” Hung wisely interjects. “We have to find out what moral threat does she pose those around her?”

“I’m down for whatever, but which one of you wants to look her in the eye when you do it?” Malkey asks looking around.

Without hesitation Cheato unaffectedly proclaims, “I’ll do it. It is my duty as a staff of light to guide and protect you all. That is specifically my duty. I cannot make these decisions for you, but I will kill her if that is what the actual decision is. I think that is the right decision because the cerberus assembly is going to find out about this tomb, we’ve caused such a big commotion. I don’t want her to give more information that we were certainly here.”

Fawna steps forward, “I have to agree. If there is any way we can prevent any others from desecrating this place…” she trails off as she looks towards the Hall of the First below the again re-formed seal.

“What are you going to do if we let you leave?” Hung looks at her.

"Just un-gag her, who cares at this point?" Cheato resigns.

“If you so much as make a move to cast a spell, I will crush your throat,” Hung warns her as he unties the gag.

“I killed my husband, he is the one rotted to bones in that tomb. You killed my followers. I needed the riches,” she explains.

“Look lady, if I give you 50 pounds, pounds i’m talking, of gold would you just take off?” Malkey asks her, hoping this would end this killing debate.

“It’s not enough, I need components,” she declines.

“For what?” Gia asks.

“Those gemstones, there’s things I must do to uphold my duty,” she starts speaking more desperately now.

“What are you going to do when we are gone?” Hung asks her.

“Help to release Tharizdun,” she says. No sooner had the Betrayer Gods name left her lips, the late Duchess McRae lay at their feet crisp and sizzling from the two firebolts that were simultaneously released from Malkey and Cheato’s fingertips, and Sai now had 50 less feet of hempen rope.

“I can’t believe she didn’t know enough to lie at that point! We can’t let somebody that stupid live,” Malkey casually remarks as he starts cleaning up the chamber using mending and prestidigitation as Fawna assumes her Draft Horse wild shape and gets loaded up to carrying capacity with enough wealth to clear up the whole squallor village they passed through outside the south gate when they first entered Zadash. Cheato sets up a ritual and takes out one of the pearls he had found and began to Identify the magic items he had placed before him while Sai and Hung and Gia move the bodies into the McRae Tomb and stuff them down into the hole that the cultists had dug within the tomb of the Duke. Last but not least, Hung and Sai roll the carpet back over the reformed golden sigil and in the soft red moonlight they make it safely back to the stables of the Song and Supper Inn.