Nocturne

As night falls, the (as of yet unnamed) party and their newest companion sit quietly in a semicircle around a campfire near the mouth of the cave.

"Let us share stories," Salbadore declares. "I for one would consider myself very privileged to hear some Dwarven lore, though the invitation is of course open to all."

Journey from the center of the earth

Sunrise heralds the start of the third day of the heroes' vigil over the dragon eggs.

Salbadore is perhaps halfway into his watch - his hands slick with deer brains as he slathers the oily mash over the eggs and gently rubs it into the leathery shells - when Mayna alerts him to the presence of an intruder!

His companions are still asleep, owing to the fact that their rest was interrupted by the encounter with the badger. Urgently, Salbadore shakes Orthos awake, inadvertently smearing the young wizard's shoulder with brainy soup. "An intruder!" He whispers.

The two creep out of the cave to investigate. As they pass the roar of the waterfall, they hear someone singing in a deep, resonant voice:

"A lusty young lad at his anvil stood beating,
Lathered in sweat and all covered in mucket;
When in came a rough lass, all smiles and good greetings
And asked if he could see to her rusty old bucket!

"'I can!' cried the lad, and they went off together,
Along to the lass' hall they did go.
He stripped off his apron ('twas hot work in thick leather),
The fire was kindled and he soon had to blow!

"Her fellow, she said, was no good for such banging,
His hammer and arms were spent long ago.
The lad said 'Well mine now, we wont leave you hanging,
as im sure you'll no doubt very soon know!'

"Many times did his mallet, by vigourous heating,
Grow too soft to work on such an old pale;
But when it was cooled he kept on a-beating
And he worked on it quickly, his strength not to fail!

"When the lad was all done, the lass was tearful:
'Oh, what could I give you my fellow do so.
Good lad with your hammer, I'm ever so fearful,
I ask that you use it once more ere you go?"

The two wizards soon spy the source of the singing: there is a rather stout fellow bathing in the pool of water created by the falls, oblivious to their presence. He appears similarly proportioned as Nibben did, though significantly taller and much more stocky; moreover, his beard is quite long and braided, and he washes it carefully as though it were a source of some pride.

"Can it be..?" Salbadore gasped.

"A dwarf?" Orthos guessed.

But what was such a fellow doing here, above ground?

I am the egg man

Ereazaru leads the group into the woods for over an hour, heading toward a tributary of the Siannan River, finally stopping at a picturesque waterfall. “Here we are,” she announces. “Isn’t it beautiful? The nest is behind the falls.” She follows a narrow, misty path behind the flowing curtain of water and takes you into a damp, shallow cave that still smells strongly enough of the dragon to sting your sinuses and make your eyes water. There is an indentation in the floor of the cave filled with composting leaves and other rotten vegetable matter. Ereazaru scoops the top layer aside briefly, exposing four cream-colored, leathery eggs, each as large as a horse’s head.

“Pretty much all I’ve been doing is warming them by keeping them buried in this stuff. And I think I read somewhere once that mother dragons keep the shells of their eggs supple my moistening them every few hours with oil from some kind of belly gland, which I don’t really have, so I’ve been using mashed deer brains instead, which seem to be doing the trick so far.” She points to a goopy, earthen jar against the wall before covering the eggs again.

“Hopefully this won’t take too long. I only hope I can make it home to see Nana one last time before she… um. Yeah, like I said, gimme about a week.”

“Please, please do your best to protect these eggs,” she implores earnestly. “I know most people don’t have much use for dragons, and would just as soon they all drop dead, but they’re increasingly rare animals who have a place in this world no less important than any other. And these little ones haven’t even hatched yet to do anyone any harm.”

She looks at the nest one last time and sighs. “All right, I’m off. Good luck! I’ll be back as soon as I can!”

Under the boughs

Their business in Corcoran concluded, Laurie and Salbadore leave the town via the southwest road to Dale-Town. They meet up with Orthos shortly thereafter and travel as far as they can on foot before making camp for the night, the weight of Horace's execution (and their role in it) lending mute tension to their journey and respite.

The three continue marching the next day, and sometime in the early afternoon are rejoined by Varel and Mercurio. The young druidess seems to have made a new friend in a feathered creature the likes of which none of you has ever seen before: some bizarre amalgam of reptile and bird, it resembles a brilliantly colored, long-necked chicken with teeth, only much larger and nowhere near as domesticated. Varel cheerfully introduces it as "Mr. Nibbles." Lacking any of the canine charms of Wolfie, Mr. Nibbles eyes each of you as it might a potential meal.

Two more days of travel through Lakewood pass uneventfully. You estimate that another day stands between you and Dale-Town. Most of the tension seems to have evaporated, or at least has been momentarily forgotten, with Laurie's singing and Mercurio's joking helping to relieve the monotony and fatigue of travel by foot.

So distracted are you that you almost do not notice the woman standing in the middle of the road until she speaks. "Halt!" She commands.

Her appearance is most striking. A long, untamed mane of red hair cascades freely down her back, reaching nearly to her ankles. Her skin is fair and unblemished by age, but the way her eyes cautiously appraise you indicates that she is anything but naive. Despite her slight frame, she appears more than capable of fending for herself. She is outfitted in armor made of “leaves” of leather that have been dyed green and stitched together in an overlapping pattern. She carries a gnarled wooden staff lightly in her hands, while a bow constructed of horn is slung over her back.

A tense moment passes before she relaxes her stance. “Forgive me,” she begins. “I was unsure of your intentions at first, but I sense that you are good people at heart. I don’t have much time, so let me get right to business. My name is Ereazaru, and I am a wandering druidess with a bit of a problem. A rather significant problem, actually, and I’m wondering if you folks might be in a position to help a girl out?”

“Well, hmm, that’s not a very fair question, is it? I’ll explain. See, the people of Dale-Town had something of a ‘dragon problem’ recently before they hired professional dragon-slayers to deal with the beast. So much for that, right? Well, I was on my way home through the forest when I stumbled upon her nest -- with her eggs still in it!”

“I didn’t know what to do. They seemed on the verge of collapse, so I just started, um, tending to them as best I could, and have been doing so now for many days. I guess my maternal instincts got the best of me. Now, I would continue if I could, but there is a very pressing personal matter back home that I simply must attend to. You see, my grandmother in Corcoran is very sick, and I… well, never mind, I don’t mean to trouble you with all of that.”

“Anyway, I'm terribly sorry to impose, but I think you can probably guess where this is going…”

Interlude

Salbadore and Orthos decide that the brigand leader will be taken to the sheriff to face justice. His accomplices, meanwhile, are made to bury the charred remains of the driver. Deprived of their weapons and armor, they are released to whatever fate awaits them after having to endure a stern lecture from Salbadore in which they are exhorted to never steal again.

The party makes camp for the night, setting watches to make sure their prisoner does not escape and that his friends do not return and take them by surprise. Fortunately, the evening passes uneventfully.

Deciding that the robbers' items may be traded in town, Salbadore elects to keep them. Speaking a command word, he activates the ebony figurine given to him by Qroc. It inflates into a fly approximately the size of a pony, and the young genomancer loads the brigands' weapons and armor upon the loathsome creature.

After three more days of unremarkable travel, the party finds itself still a day outside of Corcoran. The next morning, they awake to find Mercurio and Varel gone. A note has been left in their place: “Gone for a tick. Will meet you on the road to Dale-Town. M & V.”

To his dismay, Salbadore discovers that the ebony fly cannot be activated for more than three days at a time. Without a pack animal, and now missing two members of the party who might have helped bear the load, he fears he may have to leave the spoils behind; however, Nibben volunteers the use of his fantastically spacious sack if he can keep half of whatever money the stuff is worth.

The party reaches Corcoran just as the sun begins to set. Salbadore and Orthos immediately escort the brigand to the sheriff while Nibben and Laurie head directly to the marketplace in an attempt to find someone willing to buy the spare weapons and armor. They all agree to meet at the Stumbling Squirrel once their business has concluded.

Upon receiving them, the sheriff (a corpulent slug of a man) asks the two wizards to detail the allegations against their captive.

On the road again

Consulting a map, it seems your journey will be leading you back into familiar territory; the most direct route is the road leading southwest out of Freybourne, which passes through Corcoran before terminating at Dale-Town, which itself is not far from the heart of Lakewood Forest. This seems to please Varel, whereas Nibben is not at all eager to go anywhere back near the lair of the snake people. For his part, Salbadore requests a coach rather than traveling on foot, and Orthos is able to negotiate a reasonable fare for a one-way trip.

*****

The group departs Freybourne on a bright, auspicious morning with clear skies and a pleasant breeze. The driver estimates six days to Corcoran, and then four more to Dale-Town. Three days of travel pass uneventfully for the most part, though there are a few moments of tension when a wasp flies in through one of the carriage windows.

*****

The fourth morning’s ride begins under the pall of a light drizzle that lingers throughout the remainder of the day. As twilight approaches, the driver begins talk of stopping for the night to make camp when there is a sound of thunder in the distance. Is it a mundane storm, or a harbinger of something dire? The group decides to press on for now, hoping to put more distance between themselves and the source of their unease.

Two hooded figures suddenly leap out from behind a stray boulder on the side of the road, their weapons drawn, and shout, “Stop!” The driver, seeing that an arrow is pointed directly at him, reins the horses to a halt.

A third fellow, his face hidden by a helmet, floats around the boulder on a white disc of light and settles between the other two. All three have conspicuously pointed ears.

He speaks. “Greetings, travelers! Lovely evening for a storm, is it not? Your poor horses seem awfully fatigued; surely you don’t mind if we Elves do them the favor of lightening their load a bit? And lest you get any big ideas, I should warn you that six more of my people are hidden in the grass around you. So exit the carriage, if you please, and place your valuables on the ground.”

Beginning of rounds:

End of Round 1:

This one went to market

As eager as he is to learn more about his inheritance, Orthos agrees to wait a day to give his companions sufficient time to prepare for the journey ahead. Mercurio spends most of it sleeping off the night before, whereas Salbadore continues to pore over Flavius' Kreisbuch in solitude while considering which operations he should commit to memory.

Laurie is in search of new clothes and, hoping to cheer Varel up, insists that the young druidess accompany her, if only to give her opinion. Orthos decides that his purse could endure some lightening as well and volunteers to escort them to the various markets and bazaars about the city. Nibben tags along as too, excited to see just how much his new bag will hold.

Breakfast of champions

After they have risen and bathed, the adventurers reconvene in a courtyard garden for a breakfast of succulent fruits, fresh flavorful breads, sweet butter, and tender honeyed ham sliced so thinly that it almost dissolves on the tongue.

The hour is early, so the midsummer sun has not yet warmed the air to an uncomfortable degree. Songbirds twitter their morning madrigals; bees and butterflies go about their business from flower to flower, while one of the college's cooks hums softly to herself as she harvests some herbs.

The quiet, pastoral ease of the moment is suddenly spoiled by the appearance of Qroc, a jarring reminder of yestereve's various dramas.

"Good morning, assholes," he chirps. "What a pretty day! Wow, you all look like stir-fried shit. Long night, I guess." He grabs a roll of bread and shoves it in his mouth whole, but this does not keep him from saying unpleasant things as he chews noisily.

"Nice tattoo!" He quips to Laurie. "I have one just like it on my ass," he brags, showing her a full moon.

To Varel he says, "Oh, one of the maids almost got her face eaten off by that fuckin' wolf of yours this morning. You just gonna leave it locked in your room the whole time? No wonder it's pissed."