The things we do to kill a dragon

Episode XXVII: Friendly fire

After patching up his wounds Lightfinger is persuaded to take the lead again, his unparalleled ability to move undetected recognised by all.

Once again, he begins to move along the walls of the room, stepping around ancient corpses of men and orc. As he brushes his fingertips against the stone walls, he notices a slight change in the coarseness of the grains in the bricks. On closer examination he finds a small protrusion between two of the slabs and with a bit of pressure it clicks, and a small doorway opens before him.

This leads the party into a small room which looks out over the entrance corridor, which Silas had peered through earlier. It carries through to a passageway which loops around the northern exterior wall of the fortress. Through a multitude of narrow arrow slits the party see the icy landscape surrounding this bastion and frequently they check the skies for sight of the fabled dragon they are hunting. They see nothing moving except flurries of snow and hear nothing but the howl of chill wind.

At the western end of the passage Lightfinger is baffled. "I swear this feels like it should continue but there is just a blank wall, Narvi your good with stone. What do you make of this?"

The grizzled dwarf steps past his companions to take a closer look. Some of the stonework appears less well jointed than the rest and jammed between two of the bricks, embedded in the mortar, is a small stone which to his expert eyes is out of place. "I recon if you push on that, this section of the wall should pivot out of the way. I hope there is something in there to smash."

The party quickly make their way through into another large room. This one obviously used to be a bunk house, but the previous occupants have smashed all the furniture, most used as firewood in the large fireplace. There are orcish runes scratched into the stonework of the walls. Upon the floor lie the decayed husks of several orc. Inspecting the remains, Narvi finds a large bag of old copper pieces and a small purse of silver coins as well as an ornate spyglass which is sadly in need of repair.

The room opens into a corridor to the south, the ceiling of which has collapsed, and snow gently settles onto the lumpy remains of the walls. "Best not to go that way we don't know how stable the structure is." Narvi points for Lightfinger to move off through the only other exit.

An open doorway leads to the east into a small landing. A spiral stone staircase leads upwards, there are two more doors to the south and to the east.

They continue through the eastern door. Inside the room a large table takes up most of the floor space, upon it are several tattered maps and a multitude of small figurines. Blare is instantly interested having seen figures like this in the past – used for mapping out battles by the commanding officers. He begins to stuff as many as he can into his pack.

The room also contains three decomposed corpses in heavy armour. The best-preserved sits slumped in a large wooden chair, an empty goblet at spilled at its feet. Lightfinger moves to examine the goblet hoping that it may be in a reasonable condition and perhaps worth some gold. The cup itself is of simple copper, though it is well crafted. The inside is rimed with a sticky substance which he recognises as some form of poison. "It looks like they took poison rather than yielding the castle or facing a fight. They were either seriously brave or absolute cowards. Not a good way to die."

The party all share a moment of silence before continuing to search the room. Once again Narvi finds a concealed doorway which leads to a narrow stone staircase which heads downwards into the depths of the fortress, next to the steps another hidden portal leads back to the large room they found earlier, where Lightfinger encountered the stirges.

"The dragon is most likely to be found on the roof, we could head up the spiral stairs or we could continue by heading down to see if there is a safe escape route if things go sour." Eluin advises. "Of course, in the basement of fortresses is where you find either the crypts or the dungeons – sometimes both. What should be our course boys?"