Megagriffinin'

JESUS CHRIST IT'S A DRAGON GET IN THE CAR

Or, rather, assemble a crack team of the good people of Chrysopolis and fight that mutha. The Danger Gang (minus its Irish contingent, who flee in low-level fear)! Can! Eorl's Thief Takers! Abner! Even Lugurix! Everyone, it seems, wants to split some of that sweet dragon-slayin' XP. When the critter finally succumbs to the onslaught, he (or she--how do you sex a dragon? Beside buy it a bottle of Riesling) turns back into a broken horn.

During the congratulatory aftermath, Lugurix shares a Secret Secret in exchange for the bean-house on his property: seems Evelake's got himself a ki-rin protector, bonded to him by the Emperor of China 700 years ago. Of course, Lugurix doesn't know how to defeat it or anything, but it's worth making him the proud owner of Bean Manor. In other news, the Gang catches up with Martialis, who's gotten his arms back but is now feeding eaglets to re-earn his arms. Oh, and when Gershom and Zombres cast some evil-dispellin' and -protectin'-from spells on Arben, he feels mysteriously much better, and also like he probably won't try to convince anyone to go back to Ireland anymore.

That done, Eorl's got a mission for the DG: go snarf up some more treasure for oracle-palm-greasing purposes. Sure! Oh, wait, you mean clear out Drachenfels in Germany and grab the rest of the Narts' gold from Prometheus's megagriffinated cave? Oh. OK, why not.

In front of said cave is a gentleman--not Syrdon, just looking for him--pacing worriedly. He says his name is Aralez; he's a moondog suffering from an unpleasant ailment: he feels like he's got some clockworks of Oqba actually inside him, possibly having snuck into his body at night. He's got an incessant craving to eat gold. Perhaps, says the DG, we can find a way to help? First we've gotta kill some monsters.

Here's the plan: set up a blade barrier at the entrance to the cave, then have Arben play his pipes of luring to draw the beasts into the meat grinder. Eight make it through. The party kills 2; one's killed by a chaos'd compatriot; and the five remaining, wounded, slink off. There still seem to be more in the cave, though, so Arben switches to his pipes of panic, which call out one more, a bit the worse for where. How many are left? Only way up is through.