Cindy, having taken her stock of their surroundings, begins to follow the conversation more carefully while studying the dragon carefully.
"Magnificence? Does that mean pretty, because she is for sure pretty. Snowball, you're cute now but when you grow up are you going to be that pretty?"
"What Bob says is true," Goldslip adds. She looks at Alloura with big, sincere eyes. "This demon threatens the whole world, Your Magnificence," the nixie says, "and if we can't stop it, then there will be no one left to enjoy your great beauty. Please help us. We need the artifact shard that you have, if there is to be any hope."
The dragon thinks a moment.
"I might know a little about this. Legend says that the Star is the most beautiful object in the world. That people have been struck blind by it's prepossessing splendour."
"But then, those people have never seen me. Tell me, can you conceive of anything more glorious than this?"
She twists lithely in the air, spreading her wings to their fullest extent.
As she does so, you notice among the gems embedded in her scales, a tiny object that glistens, but looks out of place with the other trinkets. It looks like a tiny point of a star.
Snowball sits and stares at Alloura, transfixed.
I wonder if I can get some of those shinies...
Sendi watched the dragon prance, and had to admit that she was pretty. But then again, she wasn’t as pretty as drops of blood falling from the air, each one shining like brilliant rubies. There wasn’t anything quite as beautiful as that. A small part of her knew that thinking this way was wrong, but she didn’t really care. Worrying wasn’t fun, and if something wasn’t fun, then why do it? Still, the artifact sounded like something worth pursuing.
Tina glowers at the implication that there isa creature more beautiful than her, but doesn't want to make a scene, so instead she simply offers, "Pardon me, but you seem to have something stuck in your wing. It's really distracting, like when my friend Gary gets spinach stuck in his teeth. Maybe I can pick it out for you?"
"No, no I know what it is. It's part of that star you're so concerned with. That's what it is to you anyway. To me it's just another adornment to accentuate my own radiant beauty - and something like that would demand a heavy price, wouldn't you agree?"
"One decoration I do not want though is this blasted collar. Not only does it keep me bound to this place, but it's ghastly - rust with silver? Who would put that combination together. Rid me of it and the shard is yours."
"Okay!" Snowball shouts happily before attempting to pounce on Alloura's shoulder and gnaw the collar off.
If I may inspect, perhaps I can devise a way to remove it.
Snowball's teeth are unable to make any impression on the clearly magical silver collar. Tina, however, is able to determine that the collar keeps Alloura from being able to go much distance at all from the keep. The collar is likely secured by a flesh memory, most likely both of the sorceress's own hands.
"Get off, get off me! Urch....."** Alloura quickly wipes away the slobber from her neck where Snowball tried to chew off the collar. Disgusting.
"Hmm. I've got some ideas on how to open this. Do you know where to find the person who put this thing on you?"
”Resurrection is also an option. Cut off the head, take off the collar, and then heal up!” Sendi said, helpfully.
Cindy wanders over to poke at the dead sorceress, playing with her cheeks and opening and closing her eyes and mouth to make interesting expressions. After a bit of fun, she stops giggling and starts to search the body for interesting trinkets to add to her dolls.
"From the way she was talking, I think this is the lady who put it on her"
Cindy finds a lot of interesting trinkets!
elixir of love (2), scroll of wall of force;
Other Gear masterwork rapier, masterwork shortbow with 20 arrows, cloak of resistance +1, hat of disguise, headband of alluring charisma +2, ring of protection +2, jewelry (worth 300 gp), 1,825 gp
Putting the trinkets off to the side for now Cindy grabs the sorceress's right hand and starts waving it around.
"Oooh, I'm a scary mean princess" giggles "I'm going to put a collar on that pretty dragon lady" giggles "Grrr. I'm mean!"
Pardon me, ah, dragon, but I do believe that if you come here, we can remove that collar. I would bring her to you, but..." Tina stands in the shadow of the sorceress' thumb.
”Do it again! This time with the headband on!” Sendi exclaimed with delight.
Alloura goes toward the creepy girl with the severed hands
Cindy, having finished removing the sorceress's right hand with her little knife, stared up at the pretty dragon's neck and concentrates. The hand slowly floats up towards Alloura's collar and starts fumbling around grabbing at it.
"ummmmm....can someone do the other one?"
Goldslip grabs the other hand and reaches up with it high over her head to reach the collar.
When both of the dead princess/enchantress's hands touch the silver collar, it opens with a very small click and falls off Alloura's swan-like neck.
"Yet another example of the benefit that the correct corpse can provide."
When the collar falls off, the floating hand returns to Cindy. She looks at the collar, then the hand, then back at the collar, finally picking up the hand and holding it out to the group.
"Can I keep this?"
Snowball looks between the severed hand and the rest of the sorceress.
"Snowball no need." she says as she starts to eat the rest of the arms.
Alloura rubs her long neck where the collar had been and for the first time in a long time she felt truly free.
"Oh that's wonderful.... Ohhhhhhhhh!"
She flies into the air and does a twirl.
"Well, disgusting as you may all be, you've done me a good turn. Here. A deal is a deal." she removes the fragment of the star from her scales and presents it to Cindy
Say, now that you're free, do you have any plans? Our band generally encounters some good treasure as we travel. You would, of course, be entitled to an equal share of anything we liberate from its prior owners.
Or, if you're looking for a nice place to make a lair, You'd of course be welcome in Last Hill, provided you can follow the rules of tenancy there.
Cindy takes the star fragment and toddles over towards Goldslip.
"Hey! You're kinda quiet but you're pretty smart too. Maybe do you want to hold on to this? I might forget what it is and .... um .... accidentally make it into a doll..."
"Cinder's hole is bad lair. Very bad. Too hot. Ugly, stinky, too-hot, bad lair. Alloura need nice cold lair." Snowball says reprovingly.
she then announces her epiphany enthusiastically:
"Like Snowball's island!"
"Sure, Cindy, I'll hold onto it." Goldslip replies.
She carefully puts the artifact fragment into a pouch and shuts it. Then she looks up again and says to everyone, "I suppose it's time to return home so we can talk to Tylia and find out if they were able to get that other shard from the vaults of the Mage's University in the capital. And we'll need to begin locating the other ten shards."
She looks around at their surroundings and wonders aloud, "What will happen here, with this fortress?"
Your mission accomplished, you feel proud and begin travelling back to the dungeon of Last Hill with a spring in your step. Alloura comes along, if only to take a look at this odd little monster community you're developing.
It takes quite a few days to travel back, especially with large Bob much slower now than he was on the way here, but you spend the time getting to know Alloura and Sendi.
When you get back to Last Hill, you find a sleeping goblin, a small spear leaning across its legs, slumped against the entrance. Hearing you approach, she jumps to her feet and snarls in broken common. "Who goes there!? No dare encroach king Skank domain!"
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”King?!” Sendi exclaimed. ”Then...Tina! Why didn’t you tell me that you we’re married? This is so exciting! When did you marry King Skank? Is he handsome?”
Snowball gasps and looks to aunty Tina.
Another marriage?
Cindy, not at all fatigued but just plain tired of all the walking and wanting to decorate her lair with all her new trinkets, gives the goblin an exasperated glare.
"King? This is OUR home and when we left there was no King. Our home. Get out of my way and let me in my lair before I do something you'll regret!"
As she approaches him, she stops and looks over his shoulder into the cave "Oh, and what did you do with our friends? We left some friends here."
"These goblins are proving more trouble than they are worth. Perhaps they would be of more use as zombies." Tina scowls as she turns invisible, and floats into the cave, in search of "king" Skank.
As Tina is turning invisible, Goldslip tries to keep the goblin from noticing by talking and grabbing its attention.
"Don't you know who we are?" she asks the goblin while stepping forward and holding her head up regally, an effort made more effective by the diadem resting upon it. "It is we who rule this place, and your King Skank answers to us."
The goblin looks terrified as Cindy stalks past her, despite Cindy's itsy bitsy size. She gulps and asks "Uh... What friends? What do you mean?"
Tina zips quietly through the dungeon and searches for a while, noticing crazy paints all over the wall from the floor up to three and a half feet up on the wall. In the shooting gallery, she finds Skank wearing a crazy feather headdress sitting on a makeshift throne of wood and shouting at some goblins who are scurrying around and bringing him snacks.
"Hurry with snacks! Or King Skank can't protect you from terrible Tina! She eat you TWICE!"
"You know. Big people, look like 'ventrers." Cindy mumbles as she marches past the goblin and heads into her makeshift lair. "Supposed to get another piece of that thing."
She starts removing all of her new trinkets and placing them into piles near the others, laboriously labeling each pile with what person or creature it came from in careful block lettering on scraps of paper.
"I hope we get to stay for a while. Need to decorate my room and maybe finally make some doll children" she mutters to herself.
Having followed the group back through the woods, Mr. Snuggles perks up when he sees the cave entrance, recognizing it as a great example of the time honored tradition of bears in caves.
He follows Cindy to the entrance to her little lair, and finding himself a bit too large to enter, he turns and plops down on his haunches, watching the goblin 'guard' carefully.
As he settles in, Cindy pops out and points to the guard before returning to her tasks. "Mr. Snuggles, watch that goblin lady."
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Snuggles keeps an intimidating eye on the goblin while Cindy heads inside and finds matters mostly as they were but with garbage everywhere and all over the walls up to three feet off the ground.
Tina invisibly floats watching Skank from across the room and he hears a just whispering in his ear "Hello, Skank. Interesting decorations you've had added. I trust that everything is in order, and where we left it? We've been traveling for a while now, and I'd really prefer to not be forced to... rearrange anything."
"And what an impressive hat you've got there. I'm sure that Bob will love it when you give it to him. In front of all your subjects here.
Tina's voice lightens, Now then, do you have anything to report from while we were out? Did anyone enter or leave the cave?"
Skank shudders in fear and crouches on his throne desperately looking around for the source of the voice. He whispers back "N... n... no. Everything where need be. Nothing happen but some knight in shining armor. Say he pal of din or something. Here to cleanse cave. We like cave so no let him clean. He think he big deal but we kill fast. Nothing else happen."
He then lifts the headdress of his head, hands shaking, and looks around as if he is prepared to give it to Bob but has no idea where Bob is.