Their forms partly obscured by the brilliant light, the Astradens snatch their crossbows from their sheathes and aim one-handedly at the half-dragon above. They wade a bit closer to the melee as Olidammara's blade of force strikes again for Velmane's feet.
The rapier again skids off Velmane's thick scales.
Carina aims her crossbow at the flying kobold and takes a shot!
She doesn't check to see if the bolt hit before looking down and reloading her crossbow.
Velmane gives a high-pitched shriek as Carina's bolt sinks into his leg.
He swoops, firing at Eben, then quickly rises back up.
Emboldened by their leader's hit, the other kobolds again lower their guard to start stabbing at Cuetzpalli.
The other two just keep shooting at Tanith, giggling at his irritation.
Astraden and her double drop their shield, then release a bolt up towards Velmane. The spiritual rapier makes another strike - this time for the kobold's wings.
Due to Velmane's petite form, Astraden barely misjudges the shot.
Cuetzpalli swings at the injured kobold to his right again, noticing its lack of defensive posture.
Spiny tries to help him, targeting the same critter.
Cuetzpalli cuts the kobold down, moving aside to let Spiny move in and rip apart another.
Noticing how annoying the kobold archers are, Carina opts to switch targets from Velmane to the nearest kobold archer.
She aims and fires, reloading after her shot.
Farrukh drops his sword and whips out his bow, firing at Velmane.
Carina's shot misses. The kobold she took aim at smirks.
Farrukh takes aim and fires. The arrow soars up, piercing the kobold-dragon's thick hide and going up under his chin, forcing Velmane's jaw shut. The son of Ilthane plummets.
Tanith drops his poleaxe, squeezes forward, and lunges for the next dodgy kobold in line.
"That's enough out of you!"
Tanith grabs the kobold around the corner by her tiny throat.
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Damn! That bow hurts! Wonder what magic it's got on it... Having now been wounded by Velmane, the archery battle has taken on some personal aspects for Eben. Fortunately, he's just finished laying down a superior spell to assist his aiming, so he's ready for the flying bastard now. He reaches back into his quiver, feeling for one of the arrow shafts that gives a slight electric tingle when touched. There. That one. He won't even see this coming... Eben thinks with a grin. He'll just fall out of the sky, dead.
Velmane falls out of the sky, dead, Farrukh's arrow skewering him through the skull. Eben's expression goes from eager, to shocked, to plain ol' dejected in the course of a heartbeat. Oh, my gods, Tanith is right about him! With a grumble, he pulls out one of his non-special arrows and just sends it at one of the non-special kobolds further down the passage.
Eben shoots the kobold in the shoulder, and it gives a cry of outrage. Velmane's death, however, has taken the fight out of the revolting lizardmen. They manage to get in one more hit on Tanith before being overwhelmed.
Masterwork composite longbow +4 (magic)
Masterwork chain shirts (9)
Masterwork daggers (8)
Masterwork hand crossbows (8)
A silver scalpel possessed by Velmane.
120 gp, 34 sp in total.
In addition, in a north corner of the room is a small, unlocked chest that contains four dark glass vials containing unidentified potions.
Beyond is the egg chamber.
This large chamber has a roof of intertwined mangrove roots and trunks. Shallow water no more than a few inches deep covers the floor of the chamber, lapping at the bottom of hundreds of tiny pale leathery eggs.
On the northern end of the pool, looming over the other eggs like a malignant gargoyle, is a halfling-sized black egg. A wide hallway leads west over a low dirt embankment with three wooden chests on it and beyond to another watery area.
"Shall we destroy the dragon's egg, or would that be dooming the lizardfolk to face her wrath?"
"They can destroy it themselves if they want. Let's check out that other chamber." Astraden picks her way through the egg, moving towards the embankment.
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"Destroy? Do you have any idea what a dragon egg is worth? It'll be a haul getting it out of the swamp, but it'll pay off the annoyance in spades." Any bother Eben might have felt at not getting to prove himself the better archer than Velmane is obliterated when he gazes upon the dragon's egg. His eyes are practically turning into gold coins and jumping out of their sockets.
Astraden keeps going. The wide tunnel quickly slopes downward and plunges underwater. The water is stagnant and covered with a layer of scum and tiny floating plants.
Astraden also does notice the aforementioned chest nearby the egg.
Eben carefully makes his way through the egg morass as well, headed towards the three chests. "Really, I think it would be the best thing for the lizardfolk as well. Gives them plausible deniability if Ilthane comes back and uses lie-detecting magic... A bunch of humans (and an undine that used to be a tiefling) came through, completely overpowered their war band, brutally murdered their chieftain and his lieutenant, slaughtered the kobold guards, and stole the egg away. I mean, Ilthane's already going to be pissed about this, let's face it, if we do steal the egg that puts the blame completely on us and gives the tribe a chance of wriggling out scott free with minimal dragon wrath."
Not entirely trusting his big feet among the delicate lizardfolk eggs, Tanith maintains his distance.
"That's fine by me. You think you can you can lift that thing?"
Eben calls over his shoulder, "We can jury rig a litter together or something, then a bunch of us can support it from all sides. We can cut up some branches and stuff to make a frame. I volunteer the sacrifice of my bedroll for the body."
Carina smirks as the kobolds are crushed. She carefully makes her way over to the dragon's egg.
"The egg does look valuable..." She says, her tone at once curious and distrustful.
Eben assists Astraden with a sweep for traps.
Astraden can't find any traps.
"I'm going to see if there's anything else down this way."
Astraden slips into the murky water. She plods along below the surface (moving at 200 feet per minute) until she feels Olidammara's guiding force has left her, then return to the party.
Carina takes a closer look at the dragon egg... how close was it to hatching?
She's pretty sure the shell is also too thick to be in much danger of being accidentally broken, though.
Carina shrugs her shoulders. No idea how far along it is...
"Guys, what do you reckon we ought to do with the egg?" She turns and asks the party. "I have no idea how close it is to hatching, and I'm pretty sure the shell's too thick to be broken by accident."
Her eyes narrow. "Just so you know, I'm NOT endorsing selling it. Even if it is a black dragon egg."
Once the three chests are confirmed as being trap-free, Eben goes to investigate further.
"You sure about that? I know the free city arena will pay good gold for griffin eggs; I can't even imagine what a potential dragon gladiator would fetch..."
Carina frowns at Eben. "I'm sure, Eben. A dragon can still think for itself--even as a baby, it would never allow itself to be a slave."
The three chests are unlocked and empty.
"I wasn't thinking, y'know, slave, more like giving it a really attractive job offer. I mean, you give a baby dragon a chance to do all the... killing it wants and... eat as many people as it can kill..." He trails off. "Okay, that sounded more happy when it was inside my head and I hadn't thought it through..."
Eben looks down into the empty chests with a distinct air of disappointment. "Oh, yay. No treasure. Gods, what kind of dragon is Ilthane?"
He digs his fingers through the empty chests anyhow, making sure there's no invisible treasure or other illusory silliness.
Eben can't find anything. If these chests ever contained anything, they've since been cleared out.