>>5311181You wait impatiently, tail-spade smacking with latent anxiety at the volcanic rock beneath you. The kobolds and your remaining fire-lizards wait likewise. Your gaze flits every so often from the path your intellectuals and their guide followed upwards, into the rooms adjoining this rookery-turned-tomb. You imagine you hear sounds of their return, and prepare to leave more than once… But, no, they take what seems to you like an altogether reckless amount of time.
…Perhaps that’s just because the rest of your time, your eyes—and your sixth sense—are settled firmly upon that dark passage into the deeper depths beyond, and the adjoining underdark. Every now and then, a chill wind wafts through the hole the barbed devils made, and you recall the deathly chill you experienced in your premonition.
>86 for interruption (NO interruption)As much as you were dreading and anticipating an interruption, none comes. No dark devil-captain rises up from the unknown to meet you. You’re almost, ALMOST, disappointed… But mostly relieved. You are holding up remarkably well, you’d say, but the kobolds tremble with exhaustion and exertion. You have driven them hard—marching for almost a full day, with only a short rest earlier and now this tense period of unrestful waiting to break it up. The fire-lizards, lacking the self-awareness to dread the future, are the only ones among you who seem at ease.
>96 for loot (EXCELLENT finds)When the Cartographer and the Translator return, they are, full of exhilaration and… Something else. Their packs look heavy, and their arms are full of books, scrolls, and rune-scribed tablets and slabs.
“It was intact!” the Cartographer gasps. “I knew it would be tehre, hoped we’d find something, but… But…”
“It was entirely intact!” the Translator exclaims, almost giddy, tail lashing and throat vibrating with a delighted rattling. “The library of the ancients, intended for the instruction of young dragon princelings and their high priesthood! Histories, books of political theory, star-charts, theological treatises written when gods walked the earth…”
“…Political maps, resource maps, biological analyses, alchemical recipes, books on magical theory!”
“Everything,” the Translator finishes, interrupting the Cartographer, who doesn’t seem to mind.
It is a lot to take in—an ASTONISHING find, and a great, GREAT boon for your people. You congratulate them, but it doesn’t distract you from the one thing they did NOT bring back:
“Where is Hapo?” you demand.
>1 for ??? (oh no) 