Gnomish Dragon Exhibit
General Summary
Ra Di Gas crossing the river worried me the most. He had been brought back from death’s door just late last night when I gave him a goodberry. He couldn’t have been feeling his best, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him to leave his horse behind and ride across the river on Red Dog's back and then leave him to walk the rest of the way to Bellaria. I just hope he is able to purchase something in Bellaria to help him with his health when we finally get there.
When Oriana Salali reached the other side of the river her horse began rearing and Valeara took a defensive stand between Oriana and a bush on the other side. Upon inspection, there was a fair-sized snake that had caused her horse to startle. We did not wish to engage with the snake, so we left it in peace and continued towards Bellaria.
After we were on the trail for a few hours, we noticed that someone was following us from a distance, hoping to go unnoticed. Ti'ock wanted the rest of us to continue down the path, although at a slower pace, while he hid off the side of the path and waited for the individual following us to pass him so he could observe who it was. He said that he would blow on his whistle if he wanted us to return and aid him if he had to engage with a dangerous individual.
Ti’ock was quite surprised to observe that it was a blue dwarf that had been following us. Since the last time we had encountered blue dwarves, they had been hostile and attacked us without cause, he made the decision that this one had similar intentions. So as soon as it had passed him Ti’ock attacked the dwarf by surprise. After each one of them attacked the other, the dwarf used something metallic and disappeared by the time the rest of us returned to assist Ti’ock.
Mirra searched for tracks, but there were none to be found. He didn’t simply disappear, he transported himself somewhere. Where did he come from? How long had he been tracking us? How did he know where we were? Was the metallic sphere that Ti’ock had recovered from their leader somehow telling them where we were? So many unanswered questions that we had no clue how to answer.
Since we had slept late that morning, we travelled a little later than normal before making camp. On the second watch, with Mirra and Ti’ock on watch, some noise started coming from the bushes. Ti’ock was able to stealthily approach the bushes but only found a rope attached so that when pulled would make noise. The rest of us were being woken by Mirra. At that moment, the horses began running away from the camp even though they were hobbled for the night.
Since I was the only one left with a mount, I summoned a flaming blade for both light for me to see with and a weapon that I could fight with. Red Dog and I ran after the sound of the horses, but were unable to catch them, so I returned to camp rather than pursue and enemy by myself.
This was a well planned and coordinated theft. It required multiple individuals, one to pull the rope for a distraction, another to cut the horse hobbles, and possibly more in case we were able to confront them. This was not their first time to pull something like this off. Looks like Ra Di Gas is going to have to walk the rest of the way to Bellaria anyway. At least he is looking a little better with each day that passes. Hopefully he will be able to stay out of danger until we reach Bellaria.
While breaking camp, those that had slept with a gemstone under their pillow told each other of what they had dreamed.
We tried to track the horses the next morning but lost their tracks as the ground got rockier just west of Bellaria. Since we were close to Bellaria, and were unable to follow the horse tracks, we decided to go into town and maybe recover the horses at a later date. I had been right when I was wondering if we were still going to have the horses by the time we had gotten to Bellaria.
We entered town and saw several shops along the road that we entered. We were supposed to look for someone named Abworth Kanard, so we decided to ask around to see if anyone knew him. We entered the general store and approached the proprietor. When we inquired about Aborth we did not anticipate the information that we received. Apparently, he owes everyone in town a substantial amount of money. The proprietor said we should probably ask the (insert derogatory term) gnomes that lived in the shoddy part of town. We noticed that there was great loathing towards the gnomes by the humans in this town. He then gave an odd look at Bing, as if trying to inform him that he was being watched and shouldn’t try to steal anything. We quickly left before Bing could respond and approached the area of town where the gnomes lived.
As we approached the gnome area, we noticed a very dominant 3-story stone building that was being attacked by a catapult on a hill. As we got closer to the catapult, we noticed that it was being manned by gnomes. We asked the gnomes why they are launching stones at the building. They said that building that they were striking, the Institute of Dragon Technology, is where Aborth Kanard lived. Aborth owed them 1000 steel pieces as a first payment for the construction of a mechanical simulation of a dragon that they created for him and had yet to be paid for. Wow, Aborth really knows how to make enemies. I tried to sympathize with them and agreed that they were being treated unfairly. They tried to converse with Bing in the gnome language, but he did not know how to respond.
We asked if they could stop attacking the building while we went to talk to Abworth, and maybe get the money that they were owed. They said it was just about dark anyway, and they always stop at that time each evening, but they would stop a little early so we could go talk to Abworth. We thanked them and went to visit the Institute of Dragon Technology.
I left Red Dog on the side of the building that was not being pummeled with rocks from the gnome’s catapult so he would be protected if we didn’t make it out before sunrise and the catapulting started again. When we knocked on the door we were greeted with only silence. The door was unlocked, so we entered and announced ourselves, again silence. Wondering if Aborth was even in the Institute, we began searching the building. No one was in the 3 levels of the building above ground, so we started looking in the first level of the basement. Soon we encountered 2 of his assistants, Erin (female) and Rimsi (male).
When we asked them if Abworth was present, they were very defensive, understandably so since he owed the townspeople so much money. We explained to them that we only wished to talk to him about the reduced number of sightings of the good dragons. With that explanation they told us that he had gone into the dragon simulation some time ago and had yet to come out. They were thinking that something had happened to him inside the simulation.
They showed us the simulation entrance. It was just like going down the throat of a dragon. Mirra, the strongest of us, led the way. As we entered the throat of the dragon the initial door slammed shut behind us, only path for us now was through the dragon. There were 3 doors in front of us after we had gone down the throat entrance. Left, straight, or right, who knew? Mirra chose the door on right side and bravely opened it. It was a short corridor of about 15 ft. with a closed door on the other side. Before she could enter the corridor, she was met with pillars slamming down from the ceiling about every six seconds. Mirra was dumbfounded by the four pillars randomly slamming down. Ti’ock stepped in front of Mirra, ran across the corridor, then opened the door on the other side only to be met with a blast of fire. The flames didn't appear to hurt Ti'ock much. Mirra crossed the corridor after Ti'ock demonstrated how to time it. Mirra hugged the wall and avoided being hit with fire. I followed next but was not blasted by fire, this was due to Mirra finding a valve on the wall that caused it to be activated and had switched it off. The rest of the group followed safely.
Obviously, this was designed by the gnomes, and we probably should have asked some questions about it before we left them. Oh well, live and learn (hopefully we live). I would have thought that a dragon’s fire would have come from the stomach, but maybe that is where the acid comes from? We continued our journey, now there are 2 doors out of the right lung, down at the bottom of the lung or off to the left and into the center of the dragon. Mirra chose the left and opened it.
Ra Di Gas had dreamt of a large horizontal tube with lots of blood covering the inside.
Ti’ock dreamt of 2 towers.
Oriana dreamt of a beautiful woman with ½ of her face scared while she was floating or flying.
Mirra dreamt of horses that were screaming and a Black dragon.
I had dreamt of a flying ape, not like the small monkeys that we had been fighting, but larger.
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