Episode 34

Opened only by mortal hand and metallic breath.
*Be warned: keys here are not so easily gained,
And as we seal away the secrets of our time,
Let it also be known that none of our kind may trial,
That these doors are built for mortal allies,
Trusted and pure of heart.*

* The The Northmarch Party arrives on dragonback to The Withering Grove with Haven and Minerva. Vines and corruption tangle from the source of the ill magic that's been affecting the place. The source is a structure with a metallic door.
* The door can only be opened by the breath of a metallic dragon. The dragons' open it for us.
* Inside there are five rooms. Each door has an inscription (See: DOCUMENTS!) and is color coded: Red, Black, Blue, White, and a larger green door. The green door requires four keys. Minerva and Haven tell us that the four rooms will be tests, and that they as dragons cannot aid us.
* The first room (White Room) we enter is a chamber with that fills with water. The solution to the puzzle is to simply wait out the water and let it lift you to the ceiling, which was illusionary. Dangling from the REAL ceiling is a bronze key and a note that says "Trust opens more doors than any key." Olivia passive-aggressively tries to give the note to Bran, but he refuses to take it, instead stuffing it into the band on Olivia's hat.
* The second room (Red Room) we enter is a puzzle that involved speaking with the animated statue of the brass dragon Chronatus. The solution to the puzzle is to get the statue to say a codeword. Chronatus is very talkative and the statue doesn't want to lose its animation by saying the codeword, so it requires persuasion to get him to agree to say it. Once we accomplish that we gain a (brass?) key.
* The third room the party enters (Blue Room) is essentially a large room where the tiles on the floor act like Minesweeper tiles. It was super fun. Characters got shocked when they accidentally stepped on tiles that were equivalent to minesweepers "bombs" but with draconic runes instead of numbers/bombs.
* The fourth room we enter (Black Room) has a table with a set of unlabeled potions on it, and a riddle to solve to figure out which potion is the correct potion to drink. The correct potion is a strength potion that allows the drinker to lift an object and complete a mechanical puzzle in the room, revealing the key.
* We unlock the last door with the keys from the 4 rooms. We head down, deeper into the structure, and arrive at a final door. The door requires a song from a good aligned creature - the party (mostly of bards and good aligned people) begins to sing. The door opens. The party walks into the room, Haven and Minerva hear something in the hall and go investigate.
* Immediately, a spell is cast - Prismatic wall, separating the player characters inside the room from the dragons outside of it. The spell causes the caster to lose their invisibility, revealing that it is Noir, who has followed the party into the dungeon and used their success at the puzzles and their pure hearts to gain access to this room. Verde is with her. Inside the room, there is an altar covered with withered vines, upon which is embedded a green dragonscale sword - Necrotaush the Pestilent Fang.
* Verde reaches up and pulls the sword from the stone and vines it is embedded in. Immediately, the sword awakens and attunes itself to him.

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