The Quest for Dragon Blood

19 Dravago, 994 YK

We are headed to the world tree to see if we can tree-walk to Lake Galifar and take weeks off of our travel time. It's about 500 miles from here and this poor halfling doesn't want to walk all that way. Thinking of my halfling cousins of the Talenta plains makes me wish I had a clawfoot mount. I notice a flash of blue in the tall grass as we head out to the sapling I saw in the distance atop the spire. I do my best to sneak up to it and see nothing. All of a sudden, of all things, a clawfoot pounces on me and takes a big bite out of my hide! I suck up the pain of the wound and immediately set out to tame him. He's the biggest of the herd of them that set upon our party. I lure him with sweet talk and meats from my stores. Eventually convincing him to a lead. The others are killed by the rest of the group and we harvest the meat and skins from them. I call mine Snappy and set out to tame him for riding. He's not having it yet, but it's a long walk to the lake.

When we arrive at the sapling, it doesn't look cursed like the other. I am surprised I didn't think it would be, but everyone else was apparently worried. Donaar opened the tree with a moving dance of his people. It was beautiful to watch and added a side to him that I didn't know existed. Dragonborn are a very interesting people. Once we looked inside, it was a maze of tree paths. I have no idea which way we would go in there, and frankly, looking in there made my head hurt. I'll leave it to Donaar to find the way.

We get through the tree and end up near a large lake. It has all of the features of being where we want to go, but we are not sure we are where we wanted to go. Maybe there is a local we could ask. I notice a blighted area and think that maybe a dragon lives there. We head to the spot and see a humanoid being swallowed up by a shambling mound. We manage to distract the mound enough that the creature escapes: It's a kobold! But he runs off in the distance rather than helping us fight. We manage to kill it. It had a Khyber shard, fey stones, and a wand for Miles.

We head off in search of the brave kobold. Maybe he is a member of the Cult of the Three that we are looking for. We follow his tracks to a small campsite. Miles goes in and manages to secure us a campsite at the edge of the area. He wants us to camp about a mile away. Donaar isn't having that and heads to the camp to talk to them. They wonder why we are camped so far away and we mention that Miles was scared of them and told us to stay away. They laugh, and one of them calls Miles a coward. Miles takes offense to this and calls the kobold out for a duel. In short order, Miles has his clock cleaned by the kobold (known as Cobol). We all laugh that he is out cold and celebrate with a clawfoot meat feast.

We rest peacefully that night. My sleep was briefly interrupted by the chime of a small bell. I somehow feel stronger than before.