After something of a hiatus, we managed to play Epyllion last night. More fantasy hijinks abound!
Our dragonic heroes bed down for the night. OB wakes up early to start working on the beavmingo tapestry, and gradually as the sun rises the other three rouse, too. Stars goes to dris pack, and finds it entirely empty - all the food is gone, which dre figures was probably the raccocelots, but so is dris book! Panicked, dre asks Toverinn to go ask the raccocelots what's going on.
Toverinn goes to the tree and taps on it, but no raccocelots are hiding there, just some very nervous-looking chiptopi. Toverinn asks them nicely what happened to Stars' stuff, and the chiptopi reluctantly reveal that a drake - bigger than the characters but still not an adult - snuck in and stole it. Dre also warned the chiptopi that they would be turned into chipomari if they squealed, so they ask for Toverinn's protection. Toverinn asks for a description of this dragon, and the chiptopus stretches out its tentacles to look like wings and changes color - deep purple on the back and creamy white on the underbelly. The drakes recognizes this dragon - Cyclos! They met them back here when they first got to Woodsedge.
The dragons start climbing up the plateau, looking for other dragons to ask about Cyclos. They find an elder dragon with dris snoot poking out of a cave in the wall, asleep and snoring. OB flies up and says "EXCUSE ME" in a loud, clear voice, and the dragon wakes with a start and sneezes.
Unfortunately, the force behind the sneeze blows all four drakes back into the air. Even less fortunately, Stars doesn't have wings. Dre drops, and Zeblek and Toverinn swoop down to caught them. Zeblek doesn't notice, but something in the underbrush below seems to notice...
Anyway, the drakes talk to the elder dragon. Stars explains the situation, and it turns out the elder, Jallain, was once quite an avid reader but now dris paws are too big to turn pages. Dre takes a big breath and bellows "CYCLOS", the sound echoing over hill and dale. Cyclos swoops up a moment later and clings to the wall.
The drakes interrogate Cyclos, and while they're younger, Jallain is very obviously watching. OB asks Cyclos where the book is, and Cyclos indicates a spot off to the east where the ground glitters - that's a lake. ("IT'S IN THE LAKE?!" "No, no, by the lake.") Clearly there's more Cyclos isn't saying, but dre flies off and the drakes are more interested in finding the book than chasing them. Stars thanks Jallain for dris help, and Jallain asks that when Stars gets the book back, maybe dre could come back and show them the new entries dre has made.
Now with some direction, the drakes decide to glide from the plateau as close to the lake as they can. Trouble is, again, Stars doesn't have wings. OB grabs some spare fabris and rigs up a harness so Zeblek and Toverinn can carry Stars, and they fly out!
They get a ways toward the lake, but then something tackles Zeblek! Dre realizes its dris shadow (which you may recall dre severed last time after an elder dragon brought it to life and told it to snitch on them). Zeblek and the shadow wrestle and tumble towards the ground, and the harness fails. Stars drops like a brick, and Toverinn tries to grab them but fails.
Stars panics and screams, but also summons moon magic and uses the power of the Stone Moon to turn dremself into a sparkly, rocky projectile. Dre hits the ground with a whumpf not far from the lake. Zeblek and OB land as well, and Zeblek, furious, tears dris shadow into smoky, wispy shreds. OB tries to save a few ("you need a shadow!") but it's like trying to grab, well, a shadow.
Toverinn lands and Stars extricates dremself from the ground, and the drakes hear gargly bleating from the lake. They walk over and check, and see a school of goaltfish (yellow/gold scaled fish with little horns and beards). They also see the footprints of a very large dragon by the lake, but no book. Toverinn asks the fish where the big dragon went, and the goaltfish signal for the drakes to follow them.
OB flies above the lake, and the other three swim to the other side. They arrive to find a very large dragon snoozing on a hillside, orange-red scales resplendent in the sunlight. Stars looks around the dragon and sees dris book under the dragon's paw. Zeblek considers ways to sneak it out, but Stars chooses a more direct path and wakes the dragon.
The elder regards Stars with some bemusement, and does return the book. The drakes inform them that they were cataloging unique or rare creatures ahead of the ritual burn, and the elder nods and flaps dris mighty wings, taking off. The drakes, not entirely sure why this dragon felt the need to get Cyclos to take the book in the first place, head into the woods, following the stream off the lake to the waterfall with the beavmingos, and then deeper into the Black Forest.
Zeblek watches and listens, surveying this ancient place, but realizes dre has become lost and dre has no idea where the others are. Dre chooses not to get concerned by this and just keeps wandering. Meanwhile, the other three find an archway made of twisting vines and branches, adorned at the top with the crest of House Myndoth. Stars surveys it and figures that there's probably a code phrase or gesture to get the place to reveal its secrets. OB just heads right in, and the crest at the top of the archway twists and reshapes into a dragon's face.
The wooden dragon talks with the drakes; they ask it about the serpent, and it responds that it's a monster that would as soon eat them as look at them - does it deserve to be saved from the flames? Stars says it does, it's a living creature. The wooden dragon reveals that their companion (that is, Zeblek) is wandering right into the serpent's lair. If it eats Zeblek, does it still deserve saving? The drakes stick to their guns, and so the wooden dragon says to follow the path through the archway to find Zeblek. Along the way they see statuary and carvings covered in years of overgrowth, but they stay focused!
Meanwhile, Zeblek finds the walkway into this hollow, but chooses to walk the other way. The drakes hear them up ahead and calls up. Zeblek turns...and sees the fearsome, open maw of the serpent flying at them!
The serpent bites into dris leg and coils around dris body! Zeblek tries to call on the Storm Moon to zap the serpent, but can't quite do it. Dre is missing something, something that allow communion with the moons, something that now slips through dris fingers like...a shadow.
The others arrive just as the serpent is starting to swallow Zeblek. Toverinn, thinking quickly, convinces the serpent that Zeblek is poisonous, and the serpent spits them out. The serpent hisses that the drakes owe it food, something at least as big as Zeblek. "Sssswear, dragon," it says. "I swear," replies Toverinn.
The serpent slithers off, and the drakes take stock. They need to bring food to this serpent, something big, and they really don't want to feed it anything they've talked to. They discuss their options, and they decide to go and find a herd of dison (very large winged herd animals) - their eggs are huge, and one of two of them would do the trick. Of course, dison don't like to part with their eggs...
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