Behind the Rune Door

The Stench

The party took the fork toward the smell and found its source: three xulgaths — reptilian, hunched, and reeking — fighting over a piece of meat. Ja-ja, a professional in these matters, offered them another piece, which went over well. Then they demanded more. When he declined to hand over his entire larder, they grabbed his backpack, and the negotiation ended the way negotiations with xulgaths apparently end. The party killed all three.

Ja-ja recovered his backpack, along with some coins from the xulgaths' belt pouches — and, naturally, harvested their meat, the sickening stench of which now travels with him. While he butchered, Herald gathered a patch of edible red mushrooms and Beans picked some poisonous blue ones.

The Elemental Workshop

The flooded way led somewhere no kobold had ever been: an ancient elemental wizard's workshop — by every sign, the rumoured laboratory of Zarmavdian himself. Three glowing orbs still hung in the chamber: one of earth, one of air, one of fire. Of the fourth there were only fragments; the shattered water orb is presumably what has been flooding the passage.

When Ja-ja approached the fire orb, it exploded, and a flaming cinder rat leapt out of the wreckage. The party dispatched it.

The earth and air orbs proved friendlier. The party examined both, and each granted an elemental blessing in return.

A Word with the Dragon

Then, the lair. Nobody's nerve had improved since the morning; only Beans was brave enough to go in, and he went in talking.

The dragon had no desire to talk. It swatted him with two claws and knocked him unconscious in an instant. Corpi walked into the room and healed Beans from a distance, pulling him back from the edge of death, while the rest of the party — Kolgan included — filed in and huddled around the door.

The dragon swooped toward them and loosed a single breath of poison over the entire group. It nearly killed Kolgan.

The party raced out of the lair. The dragon did not follow — could not follow. It is too wide to fit through its own exit.

No More Fish

Once everyone stopped coughing, Kolgan reassured the group that he has no intention of stealing any more fish. He wants the dragon dead as much as they do.

So the party went upstairs to give Tamily the news: their end of the deal was done, and no more fish would go missing. Also, there is a dragon under her establishment. Tamily was bewildered by roughly half of that sentence, but she paid them for their work.

Herald declined the coin. He would take his ten gold in fish instead, drawn down over time — a standing tab at the fishery, payable in stock.

Franz's Pay Grade

The famed monster hunter Franz Frangelico overheard their troubles and laughed at how inefficient they were. A dragon? He could do it easily — but it would be beneath his pay grade.

Beans offered him five gold to prove his skills, and Franz accepted. But not today: he already has plans to go boar hunting. The dragon will have to wait until tomorrow.

An Evening in Otari

Beans recounted the whole dragon adventure to Wrin Sivinxi and asked her about the blue mushrooms, which she brewed into a toxic tea.

At Blades for Glades, Beans turned his spritely charm on Carman Rajani — the bitterest, most glowering blacksmith in town — and somehow it worked. Carman gave him the petname "dragonfly", and the improved mood helped Corpi sell his goods at a slightly higher price. Ja-ja bought new armor.

Herald — out-of-work chef, and also a giant rat — let himself into the kitchen of the Rowdy Rockfish. Nobody in the common room saw him go in.

While the others shopped, Shiro inspected the current of the river, the fidelity of the log flume system, and the size of the docks. He did not explain why, and nobody asked.

Green Dragons, According to Carl

Rygel visited Odd Stories and asked Carl Morlibint, the shop's great lover of fantastical fiction, what he knew about green dragons. Quite a lot, as it turns out:

• Up close they are extremely dangerous, unleashing a flurry of powerful attacks very quickly.
• At range they breathe poison in a thirty-foot cone — best to spread out.
• The breath takes time to recharge between uses.
• They can be distracted by shiny treasure, which they have a tendency to hoard.

On his way out, Rygel noticed a poster: a casting call for a play at the Founder's Day Festival.