>>5673796>>5673796Using the <Ring of Elemental Command> upon your right hand—and grateful to yet have its one remaining elemental under your control—you begin to chill practically your cold-blood to slush. It takes every effort on your part to resist torpor. Luckily, it is then that you begin to exhale your draconic firebreath—lineage of your father, and his father, all the way back to the Red Dragon King who you can feel stir in your heart-of-hearts. Where once you froze, you now cook in your own juices, by the heat of your own breath, but this you are more naturally suited to resist—even in your unaugmented form.
Cold. Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. Hot.
You repeat the process, again and again, and silently pray that the Wisest One will see your wit here and bless you with success—or at least not impede your efforts with cruelest fate.
You pray that the others are still alive to rescue.
And then… You cast <Dragonshape IV> and with every muscle in your body you flex against you egglike mineral prison...
>18And it breaks! Almost as if hatching for a second time, to explode from the cracking and splintering egg of stone and behold…
“By the Dark Gods.”
The chamber is FULL of such stones as the one which contained you—and where they are absent, deep groves in he natural stone floor allude to their former presence. It is like a great rookery of rock… But for what purpose do these THINGS collect so many organisms? Is that even what each of these ‘eggs’ is: a holding-cell for another creature? You step towards one of the stones cautiously, clutching your faintly-glowing moon-blade, and tap upon the nearest ‘egg’. Nothing within responds—it is empty, or the inhabitant unconscious, or dead. You listen closely, hearing nothing of breath, and so move to the next…
And there you find, at least in part, and answer.
You spy a small hole near the top of the stony shell—similar to the one which, you suppose, you must have drawn breath while trapped within your own. This one has been expanded, though, as if by some form of drill or rough tubule… And the interior has been penetrated. Rusty red staining alludes to ample blood, and when you squint to see the inside, you spy only crumbling bones, still trapped in the pose which they were in life.
Not a rookery. A larder. They are keeping you captives here to age, ferment, and drink—like Ekaterine’s royal siblings’ wine cellar, back in Hawksong.
As understanding dawns, you feel a renewed urgency. You sought out these abominable entities for their danger, and they have ALEADY bested you once. You know well how dangerous this place is. You barely survived, and you are still bruised and battered. Your sword-arm is fractured—you know it. The bursting-forth which you just did, and your repeated physical transformations, have done little for your poor ribs, back, and legs. This is a dire situation, possibly fatal if not approached properly.
