48. April 28, 2019

Cute L'il Dragonnes

We continue east, overland. Uneventful for 3 days. Until we take shelter in a cave, which turns out to be occupied by four scaly, winged lions [dragonnes]. They are the size of horses! One is gravely wounded. We give them food and water and heal the injured one. Calith speaks to them; they agree to let us sleep in the cave overnight.

The Battle of the Soggy Bottoms

Near dawn, we hear something winged land; it's huge dragonne, about 9 feet long. And it's not friendly, it won't talk to Calith. And the little dragonnes, whimper and scurry away from it, to the back of the cave. It roars, causing nearly all to lose 9 points of strength [for 10 rounds, which is 60 seconds]. Several of us are too weak to move from its disheartening attack. Happily, Illial is not, and grabbing up the

Staff of the Woodlands, casts a Wall of Thorns in the chokepoint of the cave as the beast is leaping into it. It screams as the thorns rend its flesh and wings. People with some strength left shoot and stab it through the thorns. It backs out, sustaining more damage, and unhappy, it backs out of the cave entirely. We recover. The little dragonnes are even more grateful to us now, warming to us.

The Zoo

The four dragonnes, now fully healed, follow us when we depart the cave in the morning. They gambol and cavort around, pouncing and flying. At some point, one of them nabs Ghaard in its paws, and glides down the slope, depositing him further down. [They are low intelligence creatures, and we protected them, so we are equivalent packmates and the leaders of them. They bond with us.] Our travel goes much quicker with the pack's willingness to glide us over ravines and obstacles, saving us days of travel.

Chimeras, Three

Four more days path. We catch glimpses of the dark eye in the sky, but we are moving pretty fast, staying ahead of it. We are coming down out of the mountains, into Evangier. When we see a 3-headed dragon (one is a lion head, one is a goat head, one is a dragon head—it is a chimera! Augh!) buzz past us. It wheels, then lands in front of us. Our dragonnes are hissing, upset. Ghaard tries to talk to it. It is bobbing and weaving its heads. Calith tries to speak to it.

Two more sneak up behind us, and snatch Ghaard and Aishling/Horic (who falls unconscious immediately). We summon Giant Eagles to rescue them. Not that Ghaard needs a rescue—he wrangles his way from its head onto its back, and negates each of its attempts to buck him off, and finally kills it.

The Mace of Aerdin

Calith takes our Staff of the Woodlands to try to recharge it; he returns with the Mace of Aerdin in its place. As his Duke's daughters are okay, Calith wants to return home. (Against orders.) Aoife dismisses him—she never liked having that supervision very much. 25 Days More We travel through Evangier, into Honal, in the next 25 days. We are still in Honal, and reach a major city that is across the river from the Imperial lands. We get information from Genard, that Odette has reported she has been in the dungeons.

Odette's Report

Pre-unification, there was war among many people; one side was Aerdin and Star Elves; the other side was the Emperor and Honal and others. The sitting emperor at the time made a pact with an otherworldly entity to end the war. The Aerdin people had petitioned the elves for help, and the elves were going to bring their 2-headed avatar in to attack; so the Emperor made his pact. The pact was the monsterous races that sided with the Emperor (orcs, giants, ogres) would not be harmed in any way, but the otherworldly entity would take them in so they'd no longer be loose in the world, so long as the sacrifice was maintained to the otherworldly entity—and it looks like something disrupted that sacrifice. And the Emperor also got to carve the big mountain housing Aerdin's god off from Aerdin and gave the property into Kirenweld's borders. Odette has found proof that the bargain was struck by the Emperor. The reigning Emperor reaffirmed the pact as part of the coronation procedure.

The Imperial City is untouched; but other places are under siege; new islands have arisen in the Heart Lake. Calith says he will return to Aerdin, as he is useless to us. We fire him before he can resign and run away.