Alys locks her grip around the rope tighter but cannot stop its movement.
Sammark and Alys are suddenly jerked through the curtain, both of their bodies being inundated by positive energy.
Sammark feels a sudden rush of energy in his body, like before.
Alys, on the other hand, just feels relief as some of her wounds close over and heal.
Both are on the ground in the dark room beyond the pale curtain. The room is black beyond 5 ft from the wall.
The rope is gone, taken off somewhere.
Alys and Sammark go tumbling through the curtain with yells.
"More vermin..." The dragon rumbles, and Connor begins to realize that the dragon's voice is rumbling in his head, not aloud. "Call to them, cockroach... call out your friends to save you... Or I'll rip you limb from limb..." The voice rumbles, claws drawing sparks as they gouge rock.
Connor's head spun. The back of his mind was saying Run away run away runaway!. But then he thought, Can he hear me mindtalk? ::Guys, gal, run away! Get away! Large dragon in here!:: Hero, say something, are you still stifled in there?
Still sitting on the floor, Connor looked down, anything to not meet that...thing in its' eyes. "I c-c-c-an't, you're t-t-t-o-o m-m-much. T-t-t-h-is is a hal-hal-ling-g city, did-d-din't you f-fi-find Ten-f-f-a?" he asked.
The calculating part of him reached out to Selvan's Net as he never had before. ::Tenfa, a greedy dragon is your squatter and it's going to eat us and if you can hear this then do something to make itrunawayandI'moutofmyleaguehereSOMEBODY HELP!::
"Let's go find our boy."
A piece of paper, shaped like a plane, flies through the curtain and lands near Reaghar. 'We are fine, going to look for Connor'
Oooh! Deary, men usually buy me dinner before I let them shove power into me... Is heard on the mental network (except by Connor)
Alys's voice resounds through Selvan's link: ::Selvan, Reaghar, are you guys alright? Sam and I got through okay, better than before actually. Sam suggests to see where Connor went. Maybe you should scratch each other up and come through as well, I don't think it would be a good idea to go at whatever got him in small bite-sized, easy to chew bits.::
"These goons are gonna be the death of me."
Reaghar jumps through the curtain.
The reptillian head grumbles, and a claw plucks a stick from the coins on the floor. The stick is pointed at Connor, and silence descends on the area.
Reaghar runs through, and feels as if he put his hand into an electrical elemental's cage. His eyebrows feel bushy, all his wounds seal over, and his heart races.
Reaghar joins Alys and Sammark.
It hasn't killed me. Connor thought to himself. Why hasn't it killed me? He looked down at Hero in his glass bubble. Can I smash this? Connor opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. No noise! Which meant...what? He could try to do something, but his hands were shaking so badly Connor knew he couldn't even stand up. He couldn't even concentrate, which was bad, because if he had his wits about him he would at least manifest a tiny dragon shape to warn the guys what was going to happen.
"Nice of you to join us," he adds as Reaghar comes through the barrier too, "C'mon, before something starts chewing on Connor's bones."
Sammark, Alys, and Reaghar go creeping down the hallway, moving slowly. Using Tenfa's crystal held aloft. As they turn left, they see Connor, about 30 ft ahead, his back against a pedestal, with a glass sphere on his lap. He's shaking and his mouth is going up and down in silent gibbering terror as he looks toward the group. He is, oddly enough, sitting on a pile of gold coins a foot deep, with a gem encrusted statue on his left and what looks like a stack of platinum bars on his left.
Just then Sammark's glowing Tenfa crystal winks out without warning. In the sudden dark, the group realizes that the mental link is also gone, as thoroughly as the light. Then light returns as something appears with a woosh behind them. A glowing red wall of light snaps into place at the end of the corridor behind them, lighting the way dimly.
"Come out Vermin, before I drag you out." A rumbling voice says, filling the cave the trio are in and bouncing back off the wall to rumble through them again. There is also the sound of something scraping on stone that coincides with the red wall appearing.
That voice seems like it's not speaking at full volume, despite the way it pounds against the bodies and ears of those in the hallway.
That voice seems like it's not speaking at full volume, despite the way it pounds against the bodies and ears of those in the hallway. It also sounds like it's coming from above the entrance Sammark is standing in.
"Always with the insults," Sam says to himself trying to re-light Tenfa's gem and looking upwards through the dim light.
"Right here big guy," he finally replies to the voice, "I could make a similar request, courtesy demands courtesy. We came here not wishing harm on nothing. We ain't been hiding ourselves."
It doesn't work. Reaching for the psionic power is like sticking your hand into an empty imaginary sack.
A rumble rolls through the cave. "Of course, but that would mean crushing the other vermin to make room." The voice sounds amused, and also annoyed. "Vermin who sneak around my ruins and send their spies into my lair do not then have the right to lecture me on courtesy."
OH! There you are! Where did you all go? I had to sneak around some rules to find you again. Naughty naughty, if you're going to stop talking to each other and me, you have to give me back my stuff. No fairsy!
"Something is going on, this guy is suppressing our powers. Can you get through to the others?"
"Yours?" Sam asks, slipping back into his old social defenses but managing to keep his sharp tongue mostly sheathed, "You could have put up a sign or somesuch. Honestly, you give us too much credit. We get asked to find someone's father who'd gone missing, likely suffering from a terminal case of curiosity, and before you know it, we've got a goddess asking us for favors and... whatever this situation is right here. Would you be responsible for those Death Balls and the stone cat fella out there?"
"Told you all we shouldn't have come down here." If i'm gonna die, might as well be smug about it.
"Whatever are you talking about Deary? I can't see anything, turn your little light on or something. All I can see is Connor sitting down chewing air, and you three with a red wall. What guy? You really aren't making any sense. Who are you talking to? Did you know there's a ton of magic in the air where you are right now? Seriously, like, a lot deary."
"Don't worry, Rea, we can take him.", Alys whispers with an upbeat tone. "What did you do to our friend?, she now generally adresses the ceiling as she walks over to Connor, to inspect the sphere in his lap.
Connor tried to talk, but the silenced area - the magic - wasn't letting him. Too frightened to do anything but talk, he 'pathed ::Sammark, Alys, Reagar - run! Sam? Can you hear me? Big dragon!:: Connor tried another track. ::Tenfa! You said there was one interloper? Buthowcansomeonemakesomethingbadandsomethinggood? Theballsoflighteatpeopleandthecurtainhealsthem? Toomanydragonsinthisarea - they'vecomeSouth! It's using your city as a nest!:: Connor shared his fear with the godling in the walls. One hand went to the halfling lockpicks in his pocket, and Connor gripped them, hard. ::With a dragon here the halflings will never come back!::
What are you talking about deary? There's no... WOAH! Oh my, she's lovely! What a lovely dragon! So shiny and silver! CONNOR! What did you do to insult that lovely creature?!
Alys, assuming she doesn't fly into a panic, notes that there's a small red stone with spidery legs inside the sphere, hopping up and down in an agitated way. As Alys walks up to Connor, her voice cuts off about 20 ft from him, all sound vanishing from her ears.
Alys joins Connor on the floor, gibbering in terror.
For a moment Sam's eyes go wide, his pupils dilate, palms sweat, breathing quickens as he is faced with a primordial fear. Giant lizard, very small mammal. Then his mind snaps like a trap and that fear is pushed to the side. Fear is not the enemy, he was taught, fear is a tool and like all tools it had a place.
"I like what you've done with the place, harkens back to the classics," Sam said, feigning indifference as he glanced over at the effect the dragon's presence was having on Alys and Connor.
The dragon snorts, and a cold wind blows over Sammark's body as it does so. For that matter, the whole area is chilly. In fact, fog begins to drip from the dragon's hide as the temperature in the room drops a good 15 degrees. The dragon releases a ring of cold vapor that hits Sammark in the face, freezing the sweat on his brow into small salty crystals.
"Vermin. Tell me. Do you care what the rat that is stealing from your larder cares of your choice of drapes?" The enormous creature asks disdainfully. "The only reason I have not killed you yet is that you may provide information to me. Now, you will explain why vermin are infesting this continent. I assume, at least, to test your new weapons on the chromatics, foolish creatures they are to throw themselves into the teeth of such a thing without learning from the experience. Now, begin talking, or I'll rattle your bones until your ancestors complain of the noise."
You've annoyed her Sammark, what did you do? I swear, and Connor, Alys, would you please stop gibbering at me about big dragons. I know there's a big dragon. I'm so surprised at how you're acting, you'd think you'd never seen a dragon bef... Wait, Rattle your bones.. I've heard that before.. where have I heard that...
Connor, unable to do much other than clasp the glass sphere with Hero inside to his chest, kept his wings folded in as he sat on the floor. ::Sam? Alys? Reaghar? Selvan? Can you hear me? You can't, can you?:: he concluded.
::C-c-cold!:: Connor exclaimed telepathically, as that was the only outlet left to him. ::Silver are cold. Wait, it wants to know why we are here? No, why ALL of us are here. Was the entire continent abandoned before the dragons came? I want outofhereIneedtostopshakingwhydoesn'tthisthinghavetodealwiththeballsoflight ?::
"Bah, feckless vermin. Mayhap I need multiple of you to speak, to get any sense from any of you." The creature says as an afterthought, and the overpowering sense of dread vanishes like a lightswitch. It's almost physically painful to Alys and Connor as the terror is lifted from them. "NOW SPEAK!" The dragon roars, bits of frosty breath flooding the room.
Rattle bones... rattle.. bones... rattle...
"You're going to have to be a touch more specific as to which vermin you mean. There are a lot of us after all. Winged or wingless?" Sam said, smiling and drawing things out. "Besides, you're running it wrong. I'm not going to self-aggrandize here. You could kill me in a single blow, I get that. Any power I could muster would likely be hopelessly outmatched. I'm a gnat to your... I had an metaphor but it just slipped away. Can't really describe a dragon as a dragon, the metaphor falls apart. Can I make a suggestion?"
"For the love of the never-present gods, if it'll give me an edge here Tenfa I'll build you a temple myself!"
DEAL! There is a resounding amount of smugness in Tenfa's mental voice as Sammark makes his offer. There is also, in Sammark's mind, a small distant sound, as if something had clicked around his ankle. Whether it be a geas, a trap, or his own imagination is anyone's guess.
Tenfa's voice begins speaking rapid fire in Draconic, and the dragon's head whips back in surprise, a blast of ice hitting the wall just above Connor and Alys's heads, forming a six inch thick sheet of ice in a circle as the blast barely misses them.
There is then a suspicious burst of draconic back, in a rumbling voice.
There then follows about 10 minutes of rapid fire draconic, back and forth, with the dragon starting off looking suspiciously at the group, then angrily, and finally with the dragon letting out a sigh that drops the temperature in the room 5 degrees before it's body stops giving off cold.
"Very well, Tenfa has convinced me not to turn you into small red bricks of ice." The behemoth says, sounding slightly surly. "However, if any other vermin enter my domain, or even come close to it after you leave, I will smash their ships into kindling, and rip their wings off, or their arms if they are unwinged sports." The dragon says with a voice that rises to a roar as it gets to the end of it's warning. "And do not think your fancy new toy will work as well on me as it did on the chromatics. You faced a culling, not a true fight. Remember that."
Oh, hi Deary, yes, you're kind of prickly. Goddess knows you've annoyed me at times. There's a small peal of laughter. And I should know. I suspect you'd annoy Kieweth to no end. If you do come in, I'd try to emulate Reaghar, and pretend to be a church mouse.
"So uh... If I might allow myself the impertinent question before we leave, did you turn the old catfolk to stone?", although the supernatural fear is gone, some old fashioned natural self preseration instinct has prevented Alys from standing up just yet and going back to her upbeat attitude from only moments earlier.
As soon as the fright lifted, Connor started thinking analytically again. Hero, report. was the first mindflash. The second was Sammark's speech. Connor's head started to clear from the crushing presence of the nearby dragon. When he started to hear an unknown language, he thought to himself, Oh no you don't, not now. I will understand what you are talking, Dragon!
Connor quickly manifested the translation power that had awoken in him recently.
Of course dear, prudence is the better part of survival, or something like that. The voice sounds mildly amused. She's not all that bad, but my goodness, your ancestors certainly were a nasty lot. Her voice doesn't sound at all amused. I'm so glad I wasn't in charge of that lot, I'd have been erased or something worse.
The dragon looks at Alys. "You mean that degenerate old catfolk? No, I found him solid stone and left him that way. If a thief gets themselves turned to stone trying to find my lair, I have no sympathy for them."
Now now, Kieweth, no need to bite the girl's head off... A small smile in that tone. ...even if she is bite sized, crunchy, and I'm sure tasty dipped in gravy.
The dragon huffs. "Don't tempt me, Avatar. Adding your gem to my hoard would be quite a coup."
Now now Deary, no need to get snippy...
Knowledge History.
Selvan shrugs and rifles carefully through his pack in the darkness suddenly his eyes blink as something brilliant emerges from the pack.
And the mindpower fizzled out. We're still being oppressed. Connor realized. Hero had never responded either. Magic again. Magic so powerful, it was selective. Or was the dragon itself immune from the spell it had cast?
"Her" domain? Well, scratch off any skyships wandering around south of Vuomik.
Connor listened in as best he could to the conversation. So Snowcoat had been turned to stone by something else? And Tenfa and the dragon knew each other. But Hero was still in the globe.
Connor got up from the floor, and the pile of coins, he was sitting on. "We come from Atalantius, in Atlantia. The flying islands in the sky. That's where we're from. Where magic, and magic things, blow up. Every time. As to why we're here..." Connor told the dragon, shrugging at the last. "Just to convince an old furball to contact his progeny once in a while. Then Tenfa found us. So we thought we were doing her a favor. There was no evidence of anyone, or anything, else here. Unless you count the life-sucking balls of light and the portal to a realm of death. Which, by the way, we took care of." He wasn't boasting, but the fear draining from him had left Connor rather blunt with his honesty.
Connor held up the globe with the red garnet inside, staring into the dragon's eyes that were as large as saucers. "I don't want anything here." he stated matter-of-factually. "But I'd like Hero back, please. He's no good to anyone in a fishbowl. But if you don't want to let him go," Connor smiled up at the dragon, "then crush him. Turn him to powder. He's a psicrystal, not an ornament." It wasn't a bluff. Connor just relied on what the old instructor back home had said, as well as the clockwork maker in his shop.
The dragon hisses, and several feet of floor glaze over with an icy sheen. "I know precisely where you are from, Vermin! You and your cursed islands are a blot on the world that should be wiped from existence!" The creature rears up, it's tail whipping and the tip slicing into stone as it whips around in anger. The dragon looks as if it is struggling not to breath ice over the entire lot. "And one of these lifetimes, I swear, I shall wipe your cursed island from the sky! The day of reckoning comes, Vermin! Now get out of my sight before I break a promise to an old friend!" The dragon lashes out with one clawed forelimb and sends the crystal ball Connor holds fort slamming sideways into the wall 20 feet away, it shatters in a fountain of crystal shards that tinkle to the cave floor before slowly melting as if made of ice.
Hero shudders amongst the shards, his body cracked, but still alive, if barely.
Connor flinched when the dragon's tail and then its' claw came near him, but his shaking hands held steady enough so that the scaled creature's flesh didn't strike him. Following Hero's flight with his eyes, he turned his head and then ran to pick up his friend among the precious refuse on the ground.
Putting Hero back into the spiral cage of his necklace, Connor said, "Alys, Sammark, I think we've overstayed our welcome. Let's get out of here." With a last look at the awesomely terrifying figure in its' cave with all of the treasure around it , he turned to leave, his heart still pumping fast.
"Remember when I said we could take him? I was wrong. It's a she!", with these words Alys turns on her heel and runs.
Reaghar, who had BEEN ready to leave, promptly leaves with the others.
As Connor walked through the now-dark cavern back to the city's smooth walls, he realized; no 'positive energy curtain', no healing. He looked down at his bloody sleeve and wounded thigh. Connor sighed. It's gonna be a long haul back to Vuomik. he thought.
Connor welcomed the silent member of their group still in the pillared room. ::Hello Selvan, you won't believe what you missed. A dragon that didn't eat us on sight but is sitting on a king's ransom in there. And apparently is chummy with Tenfa from way back. Still thinks this part of the continent is her territory, though. But the best part? She isn't the one making the negative energy plane balls of light.:: Connor looked around the room of pillars with his ring's cone of light. ::I've had enough, I'm with Reaghar. Let's go. Right now.::
Shrugging off his backpack, Connor winced at the pain in his arm, but got out his last sunrod anyway. Striking it, he looked again at Ragreth Snowcoat the room ornament with the increased light. ::You know, he's not attached to the floor. Snowcoat must have been on his toes, ready to run away. I bet I can take him with us to Lorieth. I can make constructs to carry him back.::
Selvan shrugs his shoulders as he adjusts his grip on the everburning torch and picks up his pack completely unsurprised. "And he hates us. We'll talk about it more when we reach the surface. My inner Reaghar demands this."
"yeah. Get your workers to take the snowcoat statue amd let's get out of here."
Sammark gives the dragon one last look but turns and leaves. His life had some meaning now as much as he would like to get his last dig in, it would solve nothing at this point. Maybe one day he would return to pay the dragon a visit and have a nice long chat under different circumstances.
"Are you satisfied Tenfa? Or do you want us to dig deeper?" Sam said as he left. The cause of the elder Snowcoat's petrification was still unknown so there was still someone with power lurking around down here.