Salutations,
As the last of you enter the cavity, writhing black serpents made of steaming tarry goo drop from overhead amidst the ichor! Boamund is alert and hits his before it descends; the rest of you are caught less aware but not surprised. A nasty fight ensues-the draconic serpent-ichor is fragile but easily grips your bodies and leaves burning Hellfire-goo that continues scalding you even once they are dislodged; and the serpents grab shields then slither onto arms. Ahappi's wyrm form grabs his and holds on, biting it to death but taking severe wounds to his mouth in the process. Bog loses use of his arm before he and Fraud destroy his foe. Boamund gets rid of his without trouble. Shrett is hit on the head, knocks the thing off, then it grabs his shield and begins burning through his arm-armour until he and Ahappi kill it. The things turn to ash once slain; or were they even ever alive? But the ichor on you remains a menace, and Shrett finds that his Cleanse spell saves you from further torment. Now you see what that body outside the dragon's corpse suffered from. Not a good way to go. Bog uses False Healing on himself and Ahappi, as Fraud is unable to bind your wounds back to full functionality. It is a costly fight.
Descending the neck, the Sky world vanishes and you come into a world of unwelcoming shadows. The beating sound is slow and deeply resonant. Unclean warmth and hellish chills assail you in wafting currents that seem to have no source. You come to a muscular sphincter the size of a small city, which must be at the base of the neck; perhaps the oesophagus. It is tightly shut. You debate how to deal with this- the sphincter is not too thick and is old and limp. Shrett wonders if cutting it is Right Action or not but opts not to (wise!); he considers using Firewater to get it to swallow but does not. Ahappi meditates on the Night Dragon's intent and gains the mystic insight “Are you strong or are you weak?” so he reasons that it is time to flex his wyrmic muscles, and pulls the sphincter open for you.
Forcing open a gap in the sphincter, a flood of black blood and slurry of rotten viscera flows out, threatening to sweep you away in its currents. Beyond there is a tremendous space, an archipelago of lumps of tissue and lakes of gore. All of you make it inside except Bog, who is swept back beyond the sphincter. He calls upon his Love for the Night Dragon to inspire him with strength and pulls the sphincter back open just wide enough to squeeze in, then stomps his way through the flood of ichor and rot to make it inside.
The beating noise becomes thunderous as you navigate the draconic torso underneath an ever more expansive ribcage. Suddenly the thundering releases a cascade of black bone fragments from the ribcage! You all dodge clear or block the bone-slide with your shields.
Ahappi returns to his non-wyrmic form. You make your way around piles of tissue and find yourself by one wall of the giant cavity, where the whole wall moves in time with the thrumming beat. Something strange happens. A section of the wall takes on the appearance of a great leaden door, carven with serpentine, draconic motifs. Stark cold emanates from it. A voice shakes the space and your minds, paralysing you. “Somewhere in Time, Night Dragon eats a man-person whose mind had many words that danced with Right and Wrong Action. Such words would it digest before Time. Dance with these words. Hearken Ye Mortals to This Tale of the Golden Doom…”
Your minds reel with knowledge crammed into them. You have adopted new identities in the Night Dragon's dream-dance. Shrett and Boamund are the First and Second Sentries; and Bog the Boy, Ahappi the Girl. Boamund is the King as well, and Fraud his Chamberlain. Ahappi in turn is the Chief Prophet; while Fraud is the First and Second Prophets; and Shrett is Three Spies. Words flood your minds and issue from your voices as the dream-scene is set…
Scene: Outside the King's great door. Time: Some while before the fall of the empire. Two Sentries pace to and fro, then halt, one on each side of the great door. [See Golden Doom dream-dance]
You survive the dream-dance of the Night Dragon admirably, with most of you at some point failing to act out your roles momentarily and thus requiring the Night Dragon to force your words out in terrible voices. But also some of you perform very well, envigorating your spirits or honing your skills through this dream-quest. In the end, the King (Boamund) sacrifices his Honourable passion for the good of the quest, and a change comes over his personality. By playing with the golden crown and sceptre, the Boy/Bog gains a Firemaul spell befitting a Zorak Zoran, and he is very pleased-the Night Dragon has gifted him with plunder of the Sky Realm, much like the Hill of Gold!
TERMINUS: The dream-scene fades back to the thrumming wall in the great chest-cavity of the Night Dragon. The wall where the door was wriggles with peristalsis and opens a tremendous sphincter, ringed with giant teeth the size of ships' masts. Beyond is a smaller cavity, ankle-deep in black ichor, where a giant heart booms the rhythm heard and felt throughout the Night Dragon's body, and rivulets of ichor spurt out of it with each pulse.
Enter: The voice of the Night Dragon booms in time with each heartbeat: “Golden doom danced Blue planet sailed East drips in shadow Dragon Pass drips in blood West calls for old shadow anew Words that hearken of the Golden Doom.”
You see a vision on the far cavity wall of a bare grey stone platform with a central obsidian stone obelisk rising high into the mist. The platform is etched with obscure, intricate geometric designs of the Sky Realm. One depicts a giant dragon-prowed ship which is either entering into or departing from a huge dragon's jaws on the shore of a river.
The words of the Night Dragon thunder again: “Blood on the tooth of Night Dragon Magic road dances forth To the dream of the corpse To the shadows sought, To bring back the doom; The dead dreamer stirs.”
You see a vision again on the wall, of a similar platform and obelisk, but standing in a tall, vast dark canyon. In the distance there is a cave where smouldering great eyes stare out. Ahappi mystically knows that this is the Night Gorge in far-off mainland Seshnela, and a way from Good Toad Food to it (via an ancient draconic magic road; very rare in the West), if ichor of the Night Dragon is brought to Good Toad Food to open the way. There in the Night Gorge, you could meet a dream of the Night Dragon to ask for power. Ahappi also feels a new understanding of the universe and his tiny position inside the infinite circle of the Cosmic Dragon “Ourobouros” and how future, present and past happen simultaneously for that vast, alien intellect. He is greatly blessed to be Draconically Illuminated!
The thundering heartbeat drives all of you except Ahappi out of the cavity back into the torso. In the cavity, Ahappi is able to linger just long enough to gain a new draconic energy, a single-use blessing of “Quicken the Reptilian Blood”. And his Truestone of draconic magic is filled again. Hurrah!
You leave the corpse of the Night Dragon easily. Once you depart, you see across the beach other questers are headed in a line toward another island nearby. Its dark mist-shrouded form is that of a rotting draconic head and jaws, with the jaws opening into the Celestial River. The river has shifted course, exposing a thin promontory of black cinder-covered land connecting the two isles. You cross it with other questers now coming together.
And you see that inside the draconic jaws is a great bay on the River, where the Boat Planet has moved close to. Within the bay are other ships, rivalling the size of the Sky Ship itself! But they are different-these are fashioned as elongate, armoured reptilian forms embossed with manmade superstructures of great artistry, each one of the several vessels truly being a floating city and a powerful military flotilla in its own right. Smaller vessels including more familiar little Waertagi Fastships, and water creatures, flit around and between the Dragonships of the Waertagi with great activity. The fleet is returning with Waertag the Reaver! Shrett looks for him but sees no sign.
Bog's False Healing now ends; ouch!
Next time: marvellous dragonships, a choice, and the Boat Planet sails again!
Glad you liked the “play”-it was fun for me too. I heard a podcast about it (Elder Sign-a fantastic podcast overall) and was immediately struck by how Gloranthan it already felt, and how perfectly it fit the quest/plot (gold, sky/stars, doom prophecies, kingdoms and hubris, fun characters that fit you well, great ending; a plot a dragon would find “amusing”), so I had to steal it. Lord Dunsany served us well!
On Friday; link to come John
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