Basiliskses, Dragon (singular)
(N.B. Imagonna write these in first person from now on. IT'S ME, MARCELLA)
Buff time in C-Town! Once Gwyn's been de-poisoned, he's imbued with the ability to cast light wounds and slow poison; then he and Diogenes are shrunk to half size and strapped to Kolya's strapping back, thus extending the protection of his dragonskin cloak and also being really, really funny. I get to wield the tooth-cum-longsword Leg-Biter, hoping it's not cursed. Zombres then tries to reconnoitre magically into the dragon's lair--no effect--and then clairvoyances into the room we'd just left, whereupon he turns to stone. So, it's basilisks then! Also our wizard's a chunk of hag-shaped rock! Hmmm. Pete the pech says sure, he can help, but only with seven other pechs on hand . . . Cam & Eorl thus haul Zombres off to Albania, hoping that Zolvija will fix him up in exchange for some gemeralds or whatever. Of course, they teleport forty feet in the air, and while Eorl has a potion of levitation, it's a rough landing for Cam. Then they discover Zolvija's house is overrun with the same shiny metal spiders that Aralez ingested! They hie it on back to C-Town, crestfallen and dumbfounded.
"OK," says Pete the pech. "Howsabout I cast stonetell on this dude, so he'll have sufficient will to magic-jar his way back into his own scrawny, atrophied body? And then you'll have a nice hag statue to scare children with." DONE!!!
Believe it or not, this turns out to be the best part of Zombres's day.
We're all issued a mirror to defend against the stone-gazing basilisks, and teleport gingerly back to Drachenfels. Arben hears scuttling from both directions. SINISTER scuttling. To our east, where we're pretty sure the dragon lives, there's a porticullis; several of us try but utterly fail to bend the bars, and Gwyn can't pick the lock. Then we see something coming, and everyone sticks their mirror up in front of their face and hacks away at noises or peers underneath and whacks at feet. There are a bunch of these little bastards! Arben tries to draw their fire, as it were, by rubbing himself with his charisma stone (I get the feeling Arben does this a lot in the privacy of his bunk), but apparently to no avail? It's hard to tell, since we're trying so hard not to catch their eyes. We do manage to kill three, then set up a shield wall with the Eye of Baelor in the middle--hoist by their own petard! Then Z. lights a candle that acts as a passwall through the porticullis, and we bump into the two remaining, safely en-rock-led basilisks. Whew!
Then, of course, we walk into the room with the dragon, it breathes chlorine gas at us, and Diogenes and Zombres are killed outright. The ensuing fight is fierce, but we do triumph! And then in a berserker rage sort of kill most of the dragon cult who come barging in, understandably upset we've slaughtered their god. Once it's down to Horsrick and some other guy, H. surrenders, then points out, hey, notice anything MISSING from this dragon's lair?
Indeed, there is no hoard to be seen. He claims it's further into the volcano, past hot liquid rock filled with monsters. *Sigh*. In the meantime, we resurrect our friends. And hope this asshole's telling the truth.
