The silence of the mushroom cavern was broken only by the mournful braying of Rudy the donkey. It nudged the still form of Kristov the peddler, a lifeless heap of cloth and bone, as if mourning a companion it had known far too well. Then, with a shimmer that seemed to ripple the very air, the donkey’s form wavered, elongated, and solidified into that of a gaunt half-elf.
Overtaken with emotion, the weary man thinks back in his mind to how their adventures, and his curse, all began.
The sounds of confused townsfolk and yelling alerted the guards as they ran towards a mansion. A young, fresh-faced half-elf hides with his back against the mansion wall in the shadows.
“I thought you said this was a victimless crime!” He mutters under his breath. A reply comes from the shadows, “It is! That rich evil man won’t miss a penny, and just think of how many people we can help with his riches.” “If we can survive long enough to use it.” The half-elf replies.
Suddenly, a guard shouts and points, “There they are!” Another aims with a crossbow. The two thieves run for their lives into the nearby woods, bolts screaming past them as they flee. “Aaargh!” One of the thieves falls to the ground, grasping his leg. The half-elf pulls him up and helps him hobble to the woods.
“I’ll never make it,” the injured man says, “go on without me.” “I don’t even know where we are!” The half-elf says, annoyed. “I need you to get out of here.”
“Well, you can use magic, can’t you? Can’t you figure out a way for us to get out of here quickly!” The old man complains. “I told you I’m just a novice, I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll try…” the young druid replies.
The half-elf pulls out a lock of hair from his bag, which looks like hair from a horse’s tail. He starts to chant in Maha, the language of the druids. It is obvious from the beginning that he does not know the spell he’s trying to cast. He is stumbling through the words; his nerves clearly aren’t helping the situation.
As he gets further along in his incantation, you can see him starting to change shape. He grows taller, his feet stretch, and then burst through his shoes, revealing hooves. “It’s working!” The half-elf says excitedly. But then there’s an unexpected jolt of power surging through his hands, now hooves, and the spell has unexpectedly interacted with its components. A magical mishap, they call it. Well, the half-elf would call it a curse. As the spell completes, his cloak falls to the side, revealing a humble donkey. The donkey stoops down to let the old, rotund, injured man climb on its back. They ride away as fast as the poor donkey could muster.
When they made it to the next town over, the village of Werk, the old man said. ” Ok, you can turn back now”. The donkey shook its head from side to side and stamped its foot. “What are you waiting for?” he said. But the donkey just stamped his hoof again.
The old man, Kristov, found someone to heal his injury and inquired about ways to help his friend.
On and on it went like that for months and even years. Kristov had encountered friends, fought battles, and had made the lives of many measurably better and a small number measurably worse, like a certain dwarf craftsman. Until he met his fate somewhere that possibly no other human had traveled.
Clay, the patron God of druids, must have taken pity on the poor donkey just then because as he nudged his fallen companion, his features began to soften. And slowly the stubborn donkey before the adventures transformed into a still quite young but extremely road-weary half-elf.
“What happened… oh no, poor Kristov,” the man whispered, his voice raspy with grief.
Sturmberg, ever the suspicious one, gripped the hilt of his axe. “Who are you? And what did you do to my donkey?”
“YOUR donkey?” Lucia retorted, her eyes wide with bewilderment.
The transformed man, who introduced himself as Rudever, began to explain a tale of a curse, of long years trapped in the form of a beast of burden, and of a desperate search for a cure. Sturmberg scoffed, “Does that make sense to you at all, Lucia?”
She squinted hard, trying to reconcile the impossible. “I think that’s our donkey. But… Faus, is that you?”
“I don’t think it’s Faus,” Sturmberg mumbled, though Rudever’s eyes, filled with a longing he couldn’t hide, seemed to confirm a deeper truth. The party was still reeling, the implications of their past treatment of the donkey weighing heavily.
“He’s been trying to find a cure for some time,” Rudever continued, offering examples of his subtle, equine attempts to guide them towards a solution.
Zarah, ever practical, cut through the stunned silence. “How are we going to carry all our stuff now?” Grimnir, meanwhile, muttered darkly to himself about “blasted elves and their nonsense.”
Rudever knelt, offering a quiet prayer over Kristov’s body. “I think Kristov would feel okay to be laid to rest here. All of the people he cares about are around us.”
“Would he like us to hide his body from his debtors?” Sturmberg asked, a grim humor touching his lips.
“He did like to annoy people at times,” Lucia agreed, a faint smile playing on her lips. Both she and Sturmberg exchanged worried glances; the thought of Kristov’s debtors arriving in Stonegarden for him was a chilling prospect. Grimnir, typically unconcerned with such matters, saw no harm in leaving the body. So, they sprinkled some fungus on Kristov, a morbid farewell to keep the spiders at bay and hasten his return to the earth.
After navigating the echoing depths of the mushroom cavern, they emerged into the harsh light to find dwelvers Rangmar and Arvi waiting, their faces stern. They berated the party for their tardiness, thrusting a crude map into their hands and pushing them onward.
As they approached a chasm, Rudever, with newfound agility, scrambled up the side of a colossal, dormant stone spider. He realized, with a jolt, that these weren’t just creatures, but vehicles. He called for the jugs of glue and tar they carried, and as Lucia watched, the viscous fluids began to seep from the spider’s legs, slowly, steadily. Sturmberg and Zarah clambered onto the spider’s back, Lucia settled onto a nearby sled, and Grimnir, with a grunt, took his place.
They encountered the ore wellers — mindless beasts made of rock and mineral — but this time, the party dealt with them with cunning rather than brute force. Grimnir, deciphering the vehicle’s controls quickly, urged the spiders faster, leaving their troubles behind.
They pressed on, finally making it through a treacherous landslide. As they made camp, Sturmberg found a brutal release for his grief. He stripped to the waist, a sweaty, heavy, bare-chested dwarf, and began chucking the largest rocks he could find into the darkness, screaming into the night. It was his way of processing Kristov’s loss, a raw, primal display of sorrow and rage.
“That is, uhhh, intense,” Lucia remarked, watching him. Zarah, meanwhile, found solace in practice, loosing arrow after arrow into the gloom, honing her aim.
Later, as the fire crackled, Lucia and Rudever overheard a hushed conversation between Rangmar and Arvi. Their words sent a chill down their spines: a plot to unleash Scarne, the ancient dragon. It was a terrible idea, a catastrophic thought. Grimnir, though shocked by the truth of Scarne’s legend, agreed with their assessment – the dwelvers were dangerously misguided.
Sturmberg, still seething from his earlier outburst, was utterly confused. “Why would they even consider not keeping the dragon caged? And I’m mad they’d even come up to create the mission if they might let her free anyway!” Zarah, fear etched on her face, regretted her decision to join this perilous journey, a giant, ancient dragon now looming in her nightmares.
Rudever suggested that the party’s dwarves should be the ones to decide the next course of action. Sturmberg, after a moment of tense deliberation, voiced his concern that telling Arvia would lead to disaster. Grimnir, surprisingly, deferred to his decision.
“We should tell Arvia and Lupendus,” Sturmberg finally declared, his voice firm.
Pulling the dwarven warriors aside, Sturmberg and Grimnir passed on the troubling news. Lupendus took the revelation surprisingly well. “I didn’t come here to survive,” he said. “Whether I die caging the dragon or let it free means nothing to me. You all decide what’s best, and I’ll follow — though sentencing the surface to that calamity seems unwise. In any case, there’s nothing up there for me anyway.”
Princess Arvia, however, flew into a rage after hearing the story. The fact that Scarne — the ancient enemy of her clan — was still alive, undid centuries of Crombe storytelling. It was her ancestors who had killed the beast in the first place!
“I came here to find my family’s legendary hammer — Scarnesbane — and lead my people to victory in Vond,” Arvia said. “And now these dwelvers dare to not only slander my family by saying the monster is alive — but to consider setting it free?!”
As she began to stomp off toward the dwelver’s tent, Sturmberg and Rudever stepped into her path, their eyes filled with determination to see the mission through.
“You need to think about this logically,” Rudever said. “If Scarne gets free, the entire world will know of the Crombe’s shame, not just those of us here.”
Sturmberg nodded and continued, “If we can cage the beast again, your family’s secret — and the surface world — will remain safe. We plan to mend the cage, but you have to make your own decision. We pray it is the right one for all, and not just for your vain glory.”
Properly chastised, the princess pondered their words for several minutes before replying.
“Perhaps you are right, clanless ones,” she said. “I will ponder your words tonight and follow your lead for now.”
Sleep did not come easily for the group of adventurers that night. Each of them knew he fate of the dragon, and perhaps the world, now rested on their shoulders.
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