Shadow Dragon

Disbandment

The Bonner Boys try to trick Indigo into going through dragonbirth, only to discover what Braes has become since consuming a shadow seed.

Danger, Daryl, and Indigo ride onto Haven Battlefield with Hogarth in tow. They hear the sounds of a skirmish coming from the Council finding Bastion and Leonis sparring against one another. They aren’t getting on well. Both men judge the other on their perceived honor. As Hogarth begins the ritual that will allow him to comprehend languages, Indigo decides he should spar against Bastion.   Bastion is a hitter, to say the least. Wielding a war pick in one hand and a war hammer in the other, his entire goal in a fight seems to be to rip the opponent apart. Indigo shapeshifts, but Bastion just rips Indigo back into his humanoid form. The fight goes to the Black Dragonborn.   Hogarth completes his ritual and can now comprehend the yellow man. They ask what his name is and the yellow man responds, “Gith”. He tells them he’s hatching the new dragon eggs to prepare. He does not tell them what for. They ask where the eggs came from.   “The hatchery” he responds.   “And who built the hatchery?”   “The Architect.”   Useless. The party leaves Hogarth with Gith, hoping he can learn more over time. They sign off on his timesheet for the day and ride South West.   Indigo realizes they’re riding the wrong way as they pass through an abandoned holy site he knows to be on top of Braes’s lair. As the sun sets he calls Danger and Daryl out for leading him here. They try to convince him that they need the power of a Dragonborn right now and want to put him through dragonbirth. He refuses.   Daryl puts cards on the table. They know he’s under the Moonlit King’s sway and want to free him. Danger stops Indigo from running and Daryl puts him in a cone of truth to ask, "can you be trusted?" Indigo tells them he can’t.   Braes's roar rings out from the nearby canyon. Indigo begs for them to leave, or at least to let him go, but he’s too late. The sun sets and the brass dragon flies out from the canyon to meet them. His scales have turned black, his demeanor cold, his eyes gray. He has become a Shadow Dragon. The party argues, tries to think about what to do, but as Braes walks closer the ground beneath him crumbles, causing Danger, Daryl, and Indigo all to drop into his lair below.   Indigo rights himself in Braes’s tunnels. He senses somebody nearby and attacks, only to realize he's trading blows with Mirian Fireraven; the Revenant. Indigo runs and Mirian gives chase.   Daryl finds himself surrounded by dead bodies. His own attempts to shed light on the room cause malevolent Shadows to rise from these bodies. One hits him and saps away his strength. Daryl runs.   Danger drops into an altogether different room. It’s almost a display, with a large carving of a person with all their features worn off jutting out from the wall to reveal an orb, 10-inches in diameter in the color of lava meeting air, across from images of the chromatic dragons seemingly entranced by, and in fear of, the orb. He takes the orb. A trap activates that begins flooding the room, but Danger is simply able to lift the door and step out. He starts searching for the others.   Daryl runs into Indigo and Mirian. Mirian explains that he’s in his right mind. His soul cannot move on until he gets revenge against the Moonlit King. He can sense wherever he and his agents are provided he’s on the same plane. And now he can sense Indigo is an agent of the Moonlit King.   The Shadows attack, forcing the three to team up together. Danger arrives to help finish the shadows off. Then all four decide it's a much better idea to deal with all of this in a different setting. Especially considering Danger stole from Braes.   As they start moving, Mirian senses the Moonlit King far away. If he can gauge distances and directions, that puts him at Haven Battlefield. When he tells them this, the others say why that’s relevant. It’s where the Council of Dragons was built. It’s where they’re keeping five new dragon eggs. The Moonlit King is joined by an army back there. They have to go and find out what’s happening.   Running through the lair they find a random bridge, one that Indigo can open up an entrance to the Shadowfell through. He does, and they narrowly escape Braes. But in the Shadowfell Mirian tells Indigo he’ll be their prisoner until they figure out what to do with him.   “I’m nobody’s prisoner.”   Indigo unleashes a Lunar Devil from within his moonstone bracelet and fights against the rest of the party. He gives himself some distance, and the Lunar Devil erects a Wall of Ice to divide them. Indigo starts moving back toward the bridge to escape back into the material plane while the others fight the powerful Lunar Devil. Indigo puts it in a moonbeam to make it almost incorporeal, nearly impossible to hurt. Daryl moves around the wall of ice and meets Indigo under the bridge, but Indigo turns his obsidian key and opens up the way to the material plane, where Braes sits in wait. Braes breathes necrotic energy through the portal and, while Indigo is unaffected thanks to their bond, Daryl has to scramble out of the way while the ice wall is destroyed. Indigo steps through the portal and closes it behind him, stranding the rest of the party in the Shadowfell. Luckily, this cuts off the moonbeam, making the Lunar Devil especially vulnerable. The party quickly finishes it off.   They climb back up to the surface. All three agree that, now that Indigo’s gone rogue, the gloves have to come off. Yes, they would all prefer to save Indigo rather than kill him, but if the time comes and it's the only choice then they have to be willing to make that choice. But for now, they have to escape the Shadowfell. According to Mirian, the way out is back at the Library of the Gods. The only problem is there’s a necropolis between them and their exit.   Ludomir comes for Indigo and takes him back to the Tower of the Moon in the Shadowfell. He drops the sword and shield of Leonis Justus on the ground and tells Indigo that’s “two down!”. Indigo looks around at the strangers in the hall. This is his place now. He is with his king.