Mary winces as the dragon smashes Valeros to the ground like a rag doll. "Ouch! that looks like it stung a little. It's in your hands now Kyra. Not sure how much longer Ez and I can hold up against the dragon without Val in the fight."
She sees that the dragon will not be fooled again by her attempts to distract it so she shrugs and bringing her bow up again, sends two more arrows at the dragon before taking cover by pressing herself against the adjacent cavern wall.
Ezren's magic missiles blast the dragon!
Then Mary moves in and the arrow flies directly through the dragon's heart! It lets out an awful scream as it falls to the ground. With it's last breath, a small cloud of poison. Life drains from its eyes...
The brown kobold is nowhere in sight. Seems like it ran up the corridor at the other end of the room.
There seems to be a treasure chest on the other side of the room as well.
Mary lets out a jubilant shout as her arrow slams home and the dragon goes down for the last time. She pumps the air a couple of times and does a little jig in place before pulling herself together and rushing over to where Kyra is taking care of the downed Valeros.
She pulls a healing potion from her side and pours it down Valeros's throat.
Seeing that he was still not fully recovered, she grabs Valeros's own potion from his belt and pours that one down his throat as well.
"That should do it. Give it 10 minutes and you'll be good to go."
With Valeros taken care of, Mary glances over at the treasure chest and her eyes light up. "Now that's more like it" She hops up and goes over to the dragon's hoard to see what goodies are available.
Valeros starts to feel better, after being fed potions.
The treasure hoard is up on a cliff, unfortunately.
Marysiel looks up at the golden hoard and wonders how she'll go about getting up there, and more importantly, getting it all down from there and back above ground where it will do them the most good. She thinks about it for a minute and then snaps her fingers loudly. "I know!"
She digs into her pocket and pulls out the Feather Token they'd taken from the Kobolds the day before. Mary gives it a twist, and the token transforms itself into a 20-foot-long wooden ladder. "Perfect!"
Putting the ladder against the cliff, she scampers up to the hoard for a closer look.
The ladder is perfect! Mary scampers up it to inspect the hoard. In it, she finds a chest with a huge pile of coins. Slowly counting them, it amounts to 420 cp, 63 sp, and 18 gp in this vast pile. There is also a single giant emerald atop the heap that vaguely looks like the dragon's eye, which can be sold for 20 gp.
Ezren rushes over to examine the dragon's dead body, then he looks over to the tunnel the kobold ran down. He tries to see if he can see any sign of it.
Mary stuffs the dragon's hoard into her backpack and climbs back down the ladder. "We can divvy up the loot once we get topside. Now let's see where our little friend got to."
After a quick pass through the cave to make sure they haven't left anything of value behind, Mary takes her rapier in one hand and her shortbow in the other and goes to the opening at the back of the cave. She looks down the passageway beyond to see where it goes.
The passageway at the end of the room twists and winds, so it's hard to spot anything down it. It slopes gently upward and you feel a fresh breeze coming from this direction. After about an hour or so of travel, you emerge from a small cave in a ravine outside of the town of Otari. Remnants of a camp around the cave's entrance indicate that the kobolds had stayed here for some time before heading under the town to work their mischief. There are several footprints of kobolds, but no sign of the brown kobold anywhere.
Mary looks around the campsite and the ravine looking for signs of the brown kobold or where it might have got to. "Looks like the little bugger got away. Smart move on its part. Not much reason to stay behind once we killed off its dragon friend and the rest of its cronies I suppose."
After a pause to consider their options, Mary proposes, "How about we head back into town and report to Tamily. I'm guessing she'll be happy to hear that her disappearing fish problem has been resolved. After that we can decide whether to explore that passageway we found in that smelly lizard room."
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Sitting up form the fist potion. "Wa, what happened? Did we win?" Seeing the body of the dead dragon. "Darn I was hoping to be called a dragon slayer. oh well."
He removes what's left of his shield. "It served me well"
And pulls off his back the seal lion head shield and straps it into place.
He nods at Mary
"Those kobolds will think twice before stealing fish again."
The heroes return to the surface after some exploring, though no sign of the brown kobold anywhere.
Tamily is truly relieved. "The threat is gone? Hurrah! We need to celebrate.". But she's a bit disheartened to hear about the staircase leading down. "I'll send some masons down there to patch up the doorway. Who knows where it leads. But at least you cleared it out for now."
Over the coming weeks, news of the heroes' exploits travel all across town, and soon you receive opportunities for more adventuring work.
Ezren sits sipping some wine with his feet up on a table. "Indeed. I should think you want to be sure to seal off that tunnel. I think the kobolds made a right mess of the cavern down there. But some dragon's teeth will be a good ornament to display!"
Mary relaxes a little with her own cup of ale. "If that scrawny brown kobold has any brains at all, he'll put as much distance between himself and Otari as he can. I'll finish the little bugger off if I ever see him again." She fingers her rapier hilt in anticipation.