Dragons Give Disgusting Gifts
In order to infiltrate the local dragon cult, Zombres polymorphs into an acolyte of a different draconic sect--the Armenian one, where they're actually dragon-men. The rest of the DG pose as his retinue, though none muster the requisite obsequiousness like Arben! Together, they stride confidently towards a room whence issues chanting in a mixture of Latin and German, to wit: "Great Mother, thank you for the gift; Great Mother, we return to the old ways" and suchlike. Eleven black-robed cultists are grouped around a Mysterious Something in the middle of the room, and are of course nonplussed to see visitors. But as planned, the HEY WE WORSHIP DRAGONS TOO GUYS ruse proves reasonably successful. The leader introduces himself as Horsrick (not THE Horsrick, just A Horsrick . . . AN Horsrick? Hmm. Forget the aspirated-consonant rule), and explains that they worship the dragon, Ottolinda, as the representative on earth of its mother goddess, who bestows gifts upon them!
What kind of gifts, you ask? Well . . . the circle parts, and there's this ten-foot papery leathery seedpody THING, like a cicada moult, but HUGE. Horsrick says the mother goddess's boss is cranking these things out, and they were "lucky" enough to get one! Everything's comin' up Horsrick! Marcella overcomes her bug-willies enough to examine the casing, and surmises it's some kind of man-scorpion. Perhaps the man-scorpion that is one of the guardians of the octopodes? PERHAPS?!?!? Anyway, it's resting, Horsrick says, and is nice enough to tell the Gang about the dragon's other guards--the almost-defeated hydra in the other room, and some grubs with lizard faces that are "death to look upon."
That seeming to be about all the info the party is likely to get from these chumps, it's time to beat 'em up! Chaos proves very handy in this instance, and the fight consists mostly of confused dragon cultists--and the one Marcella cuts in half, just cause that's how she rolls and how was she supposed to know she wasn't supposed to kill anybody? JEEZ--until oh look, it's the man-scorpion! All half-formed and flayed and bony. He's a bit trickier . . . but just a bit. Far less formidable than previously thought, which leads Zombres to speculate it's actually a race of man-scorpions that the octopuses have at their disposal.
During the fracas, poor Diogenes gets whacked by Horsrick's whacking stick (a bone carved with eldritch symbols), which paralyzes him. When Gwynn tries to take the weapon following the cult's defeat, he turns violet and falls over foaming at the mouth! Rather than leave their new friends for dead, the DG heads back to C-Town to recuperate before continuing.
