Hello, Everyone!
Happy December! And happy new Mary Windfiddle Arc! We had our second Mary-versary last week, but I was so busy with real life that I wasn’t able to write a proper post for it. But, rest assured, I’m really proud of how far I’ve come writing this story, and just as happy that our D&D group is still so awesome!
Anyway, last time we had a Recap of Arcs 1-4 so if you aren’t up-to-date with the story, you’ll find everything that you need there. But here’s where we left off: Mary, Bruno, Aurum and Agatha arrived in Pamagos to go talk with its ruler Dynatos Perres, but it turned out that his office building was surrounded by an angry croud.
“Join the rebellion! Put a stop to the witchcraft!” a person yelled in Mary’s face, and crammed a piece of paper in her hands.
It was a flyer, neatly designed and printed in black and white. Mary looked around and saw dozens upon dozens of the same flyers being waved around in people’s hands. Even more of those were just lying on the ground, stamped out by the crowd.
Loud shouts filled the air. “Fight the witch kingdom!”, “Down with the oppression!” and “Myth Adofhaer is right!” The common mood was against the authorities and their relationship with Zerakas tol. The name Perres was being yelled out (with contempt) from multiple mouths.
Mary’s heart tightened. Why were people doing that? The elves were the ones that were breaking the peace, not Mr. Perres or the Zerakastolians!
“Is the main entrance blocked? Can we reach it?” Bruno said, craning his neck to see above the crowd.
The door in the base of the building, which was known for always being open to the public, was now barred and a bunch of guards stood watch in front of it. It was strangely ominous.
“Even if we could get to it, I don’t know if they’d let us in,” Mary said. “They might be too worried about the crowd. Plus, is Mr. Perres even there? He might be at his home or somewhere safer…”
Bruno made the gestures of his Sending spell.
“He’s in,” he said. “Told me we can go through the roof if we want. There’s a landing space there, apparently Elaria’s pseudodragon uses it sometimes. If we don't go for it, he invites us to his home later in the evening.”
They decided to go with the second option. Since Bruno’s many Sendings through the day had left him quite tired, Mary used her familiars to deliver their response to Mr. Perres.
She wrote the message on a piece of paper and folded it into Aingels – the one familiar she knew Mr. Perres had seen with his own eyes. She watched the flight through the tressym's eyes. He made a few circles around the building, and found Mr. Perres’ window slightly open.
The ruler of Pamagos was sitting at his desk, writing. Aingels flew in and landed on the far end of the work surface. The man raised his eyes.
“What?” he said. “Oh, I see. Nice to meet you again– Miyuki, NO!”
Mary was thrown back into her own senses.
“Ugh!” she said. “The cat got him. But I think Mr. Perres will see the message.”
Back at ‘The Maimed Lion’, Mary found a moment when Agatha was away from them and beckoned for Bruno and Aurum to come closer.
“Do you think we can trust her?” she whispered. “She said she just wanted to come see Pamagos, but now that she’s here, she insists on staying with us. She even wants to come along to Mr. Perres’. Doesn’t that strike you as suspicious?"
“Look, Mary, Agatha’s fine,” Bruno said. “Ord himself sent me a sign that she’s trustworthy.”
“You sure that wasn’t because of the lizard meat she shared with you?”
The dwarf scoffed. “That has nothing to do with it! It was Ord’s divine enlightenment!”
Yeah, right. Mary could see the glimmer in his eyes and the way he was smacking his lips. She turned to Aurum.
“What if she’s a spy?” she said. “Or an assassin?”
The bard shrugged. “We can take care of that. Plus, Elaria will be there, too.”
“But if Elaria isn’t there and we let an assassin come too close…”
She stopped mid sentence. The door of their room creaked open and the tabaxi appeared on the doorstep.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I guess you can help me out with something.”
“Of course!” Mary said, a bit too enthusiastically. She felt her face redden. Had Agatha heard them talking?
“I need to find some information about dragons. You seem quite knowledgeable about them – having, like, met one. And, Mary, you seem like someone who can dig up even more at a library or something.”
“Why are you looking for information about dragons, of all things?” Bruno said.
“I…” Agatha looked away. “I have seen one.”
The trio stared at her. She sighed.
“The reason I left the islands--the actual reason--is that I witnessed a dragon gathering an army there in secret. I thought I had to warn people, preferably someone who can actually do something about it. Like your 'Perres' guy.”
Mary and her friends bombarded the tabaxi with questions. She answered every single one. She'd seen the dragon about a month ago. It was green, and his name was Morgax.
"He had a rider, just like your Nurvureem back at the plateau," Agatha said. Her ears lowered slightly. “And he was aided by one of Miria’s most powerful smugglers.”
"Why didn't you tell us that from the start?" Mary said.
"Would you have trusted me? A random stranger you found by the road?"
Mary bit her lip. She wouldn't. She hadn't.
"I can't promise you that we're going to get you to see Mr. Perres, as that isn't up to us," she said. "But I can take you to the library and we can both look up dragons. I want to learn more as well."
Mary and Agatha left the guys to their own devices and headed out. The librarian remembered Mary from her previous visits and helped her with the search. Soon, they were piled up with books, records, and other documents concerning dragons.
What they learned was partly reliable information, partly from legend or fairytale. There were two main types of dragons. The Metallic--Gold, Silver, Bronze and the like--were commonly considered good and helpful, while the Chromatic--Black, Green, Blue and so on--were thought of as evil and predatory.
Where Black dragons were cruel and loved torturing their victims (as Mary already knew from first-hand experience), Greens were master manipulators. They were known for lying and corrupting people, and their greatest pleasure was making someone show the worst part of themselves. Sometimes, they took on human forms and joined the local politics, and made it so everyone followed their cunning plans.
Dragons in human form sparked Mary's interest but she couldn't find much about them. Yes, they were known to be able to turn into humanoids, and there were stories about the horrors they'd done like that, but there was not much else.
They found some books mentioning a creature named Tiamat. According to legend, that was the Mother of all Chromatic dragons – monstrously huge, cunning, greedy and dangerous. At some point in time, she has turned against her brother Bahamut (father of all Metallic dragons) and was imprisoned in the first level of the Hells. The Cult of Tiamat--the one Kelian and the Dry Hand were a part of--had popped up all around history but they’d never been too prominent.
“That… isn’t much,” Agatha said after they’d done all the research they could. “Don’t you have some less… official means of finding information?”
Mary didn't.
The tabaxi looked pensive for a moment, then shrugged and stood up.
“I’m going to take a walk then,” she said, stretching her arms. “See you later at the inn.”
Mary frowned. That, too, seemed suspicious. She waited to hear the closing of the front door of the reading room and summoned a raven familiar. It cawed and flew after the tabaxi.
This Agatha, eh? So strange. So suspicious! Do you think she’s an enemy spy? Should we be worried?
See you next time when we’ll follow her and see what she’s up to!
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossary and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: These are my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum, Bruno and Agatha) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.