Episode 16: The Bronze Lady

## Episode summary

Having concluded their business in Hengal, it is time for The Party to do the job they've already been paid for and deliver the Spoons of Plenty to Vistria. They had previously decided to get there by fighting their way through Verandi, but having recently acquired three eldritch eyes from various sources, they realise that it is now possible for them to teleport directly instead. This is preferable both because it massively reduces the danger and because it massively reduces the travel time, which would otherwise be about two months, which is not a great length of time to spend in hostile territory during the winter.

Given the restrictions on the teleportation of eldritch eyes, they store the Goominoid's eye in a Bankton bank before beginning their preparations to leave Laric. Draven begins to think about a gift for his wife, startling both Angel and Little One, who are surprised he is married. Black, however, confirms that he is married and also that he has a son.

However, before they can finally leave, Little One requests that the party help him with the small matter of acquiring some Dragon scales to make some new armour. From a Dragon. A giant plenipotent magical lizard enriched with the divine essence of Tiamat herself. The good news is that the Dragon in question is already dead, but the bad news is that they'll still have to contend with a small army of Deluvians. Little One explains that he is the son of Lady Vasarus of the Bronze, a Dragon, who had raised him in a cave on the coast of the Peacebond. She had trained him in combat and magic resistance but never socialised him much, which explains ... a lot. She had been slain by the Deluvians some years ago, but he wished to use some of the scales he had shed to forge new armour, allowing her to protect him once more.

Given that the cave is about a day and a half past the border of the Peacebond, this will be a dangerous mission, but it's one The Party are willing to attempt. They leave Daggerface behind in Bankton and don their magic travel cloaks, soon riding across the sharktooth border into the Peacebond.

The light wind and snow cover their tracks as they go, and with the aid of Little One's permanent see invis, they easily dispatch the few Deluvian patrols they come across. After the first, a brief discussion of how the bodies should be disposed of ensues, with Angel contributing that they normally cremate those that die on land. Little One, by contrast, wishes to mutilate the corpses, impaling them on stakes, and nobody else particularly objects. This is replaced with the second group, except with the corpses beheaded, the KT placed upside down and the heads placed on the top.

Although they are only about 2 hours' ride from the cave, it is growing dark and they need rest, so Draven casts rope trick. A large force of KT passes the portal created, who Little One theorises are headed toward the Deluvian settlement ~10 miles from his mother's cave, as this would be the logical place to assume they are headed. Curiosuly, the fishmen do not notice the portal, almost as if they can only see *moving* invisible objects...

The Party continue onward, rather than taking the risk of resting in the rope trick portal. Suffering from fatigue, they finally make it to a rock face, where Little One points out a crack that they can just about squeeze through, although Black is forced to remove his armour. They pass through a winding yet widening passage, eventually emerging into a cave. Little One explains that his mother had warded the tunnel such that a Kua Toa would be unable to notice it, even if they were looking right at it.

He searches the cave and finds a small chest containing a bronze amulet his mother had forged, containing a drop of her blood. It gives +2 CON, prevends 2d6 spell damage to the wearer 3 times per day and gives +1 to hit against KT. While Draven identifies it, Angel wanders off and finds a mysterious armoured strager standing in the cave, providing the end-of-episode cliffhanger.

## Trivia

* This episode marks the first mention of Ivana Rowe, Tobin Rowe and Darius, although none of them are named.
* This is the last time Daggerface is seen until he returns for the Shadowfel arc.
* This episode contains the first mention of Black's retributive amulet, which lets him inflict half the damage from a melee hit back onto the attacker 3 times a day.