Startled, you grab your horse's bridle before it can run off. The huge creature turns its kaleidoscope eyes on you and utters some hissing, booming words. The crested dragonewt hops off its back and takes a second to recover from its ordeal. It is unarmed. It rises and scampers over to you to the further consternation of your horse.

Once it reaches you it produces a flask and a cup from a sack. The wyrm once again booms words and it nods, pouring a measure of bright blue fluid into the cup and handing the cup to you. It then makes drinking motions.

Harnst looked dubiously at the wyrm then the dragnewt his free hand going to the medallion of the sleeping dragon he wore under his armour.  Initially he was fearful but then he was resigned to the situation, hopefully they didn't want much he thought.

As the dragnewt offered him the cup he took it with h8s left hand then said "What is it?" before drinking it down.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:04, Sun 02 Oct 2022.

Suddenly you find yourself able to understand what the wyrm and the dragonewt are saying to each other.

" . . . O Mighty Wyrm, this one has given the drink to the human-thing." Says the dragonewt.

"It is good, tiny thing. I am pleased." Answers the wyrm.

The dragonewt sees the look of surprise appear on your face and nods to the wyrm. The wyrm imperiously says "insignificant human-thing, I have a task for you. Something has been stolen from me and you will retrieve it. You will take this worthless being; 'Bearer of Flames', and he will guide you to a hole in the ground wherein lies an object of mine taken from me by stealth. Bearer of Flames will be given the ability make your spear burst into flames once and once only. You will tell him if you have need of this ability. Go now, follow the small creature to this hole which is no more than a mile away. Your goods and horse-thing will be safe with me as I have eaten already and covet not your worthless trash."

Not really have much choice and suicide-by-wyrm being unappealing, you follow the small dragonewt along a game trail. Once the wyrm is out of sight the little dragonewt seems to relax somewhat.

"I apologise human," says Bearer of Flames. "But O Mighty Wyrm was guarding the Coral Klanth of Aeschyanart when he decided to have a nap. During that time a couple of trollkin walked away with it. They have gone into a cave that O Mighty Wyrm can't fit in and they would probably kill me in a fight, thus you."

Crouching, he points to a cave mouth up ahead. "They went in there. O Mighty Wyrm is very keen to have the Coral Klanth of Aeschyanart back before it is missed. If you would lead, I shall follow."

Harnst stopped and looked suddenly at the little dragonewt "Trollkin had the balls to go steal from a wyrm!" he shook his head in disbelief.  "I don't suppose you have a light do you? he asked looking back at the cave.

Bearer of Flames, true to his name, readies a torch from his sack and holds it to his mouth. He breathes a little wisp of fire onto it and it catches alight, filling the air with a strong smell of burning pine resin.

"I will come with you and provide light but I prefer not to fight. I do have spell that will make you harder to be hit though." That said, he has a little bone short sword he tucks into his belt. He gets out an ovoid buckler that looks to be a turtle shell and has a sling wrapped around his wrist. The sack he carries has a shoulder strap.

He looks at the ground in front of the cave and points to it.

"Do those marks mean anything to you?"

Track Roll please


This message was last edited by the GM at 00:51, Mon 03 Oct 2022.

Harnst dropped down to one knee to examine the tracks, hopefully it was only a few Trollkin, but he feared there would be something larger behind the theft.

"Do you hunt Bearer of Flames?

The small dragon-man turns and looks at you, managing to to put a look of surprise on his lizard features.

"Why yes, that is one of my many functions, but I really don't think we have time to go hunting now. O Mighty Wyrm is rather strict when it comes to timetables."

"Aah in this case we aren't hunting for food but those who have stolen from your master.  It is good to know though it seems s9mething we both have in common." Harnst says to the little dragonewt with a smile.

"The drink you gave me, it is why I can understand you correct? Will it last long?"

"The drink?" Says Bearer of Flames, cocking his head on one side "why yes, it should be permanent in many ways. The poison in it might kill you, making it 'permanent' in an immediate sense. If the poison in it doesn't kill you there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to speak my language until you die of some other reason. What do you make of the tracks?"

(OOC: The tracks are three medium-sized humanoids wearing boots, probably due to the snow)

Harnst freezes in place he blinks once, twice and his eyebrows furrow "Poison, what do you mean poison and you better have a damp good reason why I shouldn't slay you here and now." he said angrily.

The small lizard-man raises his eye ridges and says "odd, I would have thought you'd not want to kill me, the person who told you about the poison, but rather you would want to kill the one that provided the poison, that being O Mighty Wyrm."

He looks you up and down before adding "I would not recommend that. If I die, yes it will be painful but then I will be reborn and no longer a slave. if you die fighting O Mighty Wyrm then it will be awfully painful and as far as I know you humans don't actually get reborn. I don't know what you do." He shrugs his little shoulders.

"As to the poison, far be it for me to guess at O Mighty Wyrm's motivations. I simply do as he tells me. If I was to guess I would assume he wants some sort of extra motivation for you, but then again possibly not. Who knows what's in the heart of a wyrm?"

"But that aside, from what I gather you have some time to accomplish the task at hand and O Mighty Wyrm will furnish an antidote, cure or other alleviation to the poisoning."

Harnst let out a loud sigh, "No I suppose you are right, it's not really your fault the big snake is pretty intimidating. Still it's a dirty trick to pull and it doesn't  mean I will be willing to do any more than the minimum." he snorts loudly before continuing "He will keep his word won't he?"

Looking over his shoulder, Bearer of Flames regards the huge wyrm speculatively.

"When possible, I try to be as accurate as possible but in this case I have no idea. I do know however that O Mighty Wyrm does indeed have many potions and so forth and it would seem logical if he had a poison that gave a gift of languages he would also have an antidote so he could interrogate his errand-doers. My suggestion, if you don't mind me giving it, is that we go into the hole and recover the Coral Klanth of Aeschyanart in an effort to put O Mighty Wyrm in the best of possible moods."

He looks over at the hole and gestures towards it. "Any second now O Mighty Wyrm will enquire why we have not accomplished his task. I would prefer not to be adjacent or otherwise close to any person displeasing O Mighty Wyrm, if you plan to disappoint him would you be so kind as to forewarn me so I can move some distance away."

Harnsy snorted as he looked back at the wyrm "Right well the sooner we get this Klanth back the sooner we get the antidote.  Oranth protect me but bloody dragons." then he turned and moved to the entrance to the cave he stopped to allow his eyes to adjust to the light before slowly and quietly moving in.

Just inside he paused, he tightened the grip on his spear and fidgeted with his shield on his left arm and waited for the little dragonling to follow.

Entering into the cave you soon lose the daylight behind you, the only light is the torch that Bearer of Flames holds aloft. The cave is filthy and obviously has had recent inhabitants. Scraps of garbage are scattered about and you get the feeling that what ever lives in here doesn't go outside to go to the latrine.
It gets damper. The walls of the cave are slicked with wet and greenish slime.
You are pleased that Bearer of Flame is almost entirely silent on his feet and says nothing.

After a few minutes of descending the cave splits.
To the left is a drier, wider cave while to the right is a narrower, wetter cave with softly glowing walls streaked with some sort of bio-luminescent growth.

Harnst looked at the slime with distaste then stopped to listen to see if he could hear anything from either direction.  "Nothing" he whispered.

Then he indicated the dryer path with his spear and began to creep up in that direction.

The cave starts to become oddly shaped in cross section, like an ellipse tilted 45º. The stalactites hinder your movement and Bearer of Flames and yourself start to have to clamber from ledge to ledge of a series of curved pools that go up to an opening above you.

(climb roll please)

Harnst attempted to climb with his shield still strapped to his arm but finding it too difficult he stopped and slung it across his back before attempting again with more success.

There is a long curve off to the left and you hear a roar of water. As your torch flickers in a cool, damp breeze blowing into your faces you see that the narrow passage abruptly swells into a cavern.

On the far side of the cavern is what you assume to be an underground river. A stone arch crosses it and connects to another passage beyond.

Two crouching trollkin spin around at the arrival of your torch light. They growl and ready weapons, looking down at their belts as they drag out small maces and shields.

(The Trollkin are 'surprised'. If you attack with a weapon right away you will get +20% to your attack.)

More out of reflex than anything else Harnst jabs out with his spear at the closest of the Trollkin striking for the center of mass. "Asrelia take you" he grunts out

The roar of the water almost drowns their cries of anger. Driving off your left foot you punch your spear through the squealing troll's right bicep, it's shield not getting between you and him in time. Screeching it drops holding the mangled limb.

The other one casts a spell and looks puzzled when nothing happens. It tries again with the same effect.

Harnst stabbed out at the remaining trollkin but his footing was not as firm as he had thought and he slipped ever so slightly throwing his aim off balance.  "Dogs balls!"

Form behind you at the source of the torchlight you hear the sardonic comment "would you like me to hold him still for you?"

"I don't need to give you back in one poece you know" Harnst replied to the snarky dragonewt as he lunged again at the trollkin

OOC: Attack & Parry

15:07, Today: Harnst Trueshot rolled 17 using 1d100.  1h Spear 76%.
15:08, Today: Harnst Trueshot rolled 5 using 1d8+1+1d4.  Spear Damage.
15:08, Today: Harnst Trueshot rolled 9 using 1d20.  Hit Location.

The squealing trollkin's cries echo above the water roaring through the cave. It slides its shield between the spearpoint and its navel but the effort makes its mace swing go wide.

Annoyingly, from behind you you hear more commentary.

"Nasty little thing, isn't it? Perhaps you should put more shoulder into your strikes?"