New Faces

The party flees and sets up camp in a tower, where they question Theo and check in on Laurana. She is still in a bad way, so they decide to stick around for a bit. On the way to their camp, Alphy used his necklace to alert his people that he 'minorly but grievously injured the Qualinesti Princess' so they wouldn't be unprepared if there was outrage from the Qualinesti elves. Alphy ends up finding set of metal stairs that are obnoxiously loud to go down - he ends up reaching the bottom where he finds a dragons lair, and he then starts going back up the stairs. Whilst camping, a group of adventurers led by a man named Vanderjack appear who asks to camp with the party for the night. One of his party members is an old fire Genasi that immediately attacks with a flamethrower as he comes back up, before the party quickly tells him Alphy is part of their team. Cinder calms down, but him and Alphy now have a beef between them. Vanderjack goes on to explain that he and his crew plan to get treasure from the stone dragon. Whilst he talks, Alphy convinces to Cinder to come with him to the top of the stairs then pushes Cinder down them, attempting to kill him. The party rushes to see what happened and Alphy is pleased with himself when they find Cinder motionless and disfigured at the bottom - luckily, Cinder was fine, popping his joints back into place and jumping up. The party questions Alphy and he makes a joke about it being an accident, and they laugh and do not follow up on it, going back to talk with Vanderjack. Alphy grows suspicious of Vanderjack's crew that night, however after the Cinder incident, the party ignores him as it's clear he's not totally reliable. Alphy and Cinder continue to bicker. In the morning, the party notices that Vanderjack's crew left, and he admits they likely betrayed him as they weren't the most trustworty, and that the party would need to hurry before they reached the Stone Dragon. Silvart, Elistan and Vinoth had been caring for Laurana and she was able to move now, however she wasn't the happiest and Alphy profusely apologized. She noted that he seemed to be very skittish and acting a bit odd, however couldn't pinpoint why. The party decided to check out the dragon's lair beneath their camp where they found a strange well with a silvery substance that turned brittle when removed - Cinder took samples. Silvart was acting strange whilst the party explored the lair, and Alphy called her out, saying that her behavior was bizarre. Vinoth and Alphy ended up finding a large silver dragon scale, and realised a silver dragon likely lived here - Vinoth was excited and began taking notes. Meanwhile, Silvart urged the party to leave and continue - Alphy ended up agreeing with her, and hastily leaving after announcing that the treasure was too tempting and everyone should leave before they get the urge to take it. Vinoth noted this was weird, as Alphy usually leaves treasure, and he was the only one near it, so he was clearly talking about himself wanting to take it. The rest of the party finishes and leaves, much to Silvarts relief. Slphy flags with the party that he's suspicious of Silvart, but they dismiss his concerns.