Being the continuing dramatization of six friends Dungeons and Dragons adventuring…

Click here to read the preceding chapters.

Durnn’s body had barely cooled before the shape of power shifted in Goblinville.

Grenl, Goblin Shaman and tribal elder spoke, and goblins listened. Weapons lowered. Shoulders eased. The tribe, brutalized for years under hobgoblin rule, regarded the party now not as invaders—but as storm-bringers who had broken their chains.

It was not trust.

But it was close enough.

A Dragon’s Choice

Eric returned to Calcryx’s chamber with the solemn air of a diplomat and the pockets of a gambler.

Coins clinked in his palm.

“Come along,” he coaxed gently. “Much nicer over there. Kobolds. Respect. Probably fewer cages this time.”

Calcryx opened one eye.

She curled tighter around her growing hoard.

She did not move.

Eric tried Draconic phrases he barely understood. He tried flattery. He tried logic.

Calcryx yawned frost.

Decision made.

Eric sighed, patted the edge of the nest, and withdrew.

“If she won’t come to the dragon,” he muttered, “the dragon-talker will go to her subjects.”

He returned to Yusdrayl.

The kobold queen did not forgive easily—but she recognized usefulness. Over the next hours, Eric listened, repeated, stumbled, and learned the harsh, hissing edges of Draconic speech. Words of respect. Words of tribute. Words dragons liked to hear.

When he emerged, his accent was terrible.

But it was a beginning.

Rest Before the Descent

They slept after that—deep, dreamless, bone-heavy rest. The citadel’s upper halls had been blood and fire and frost.

What lay below was older.

And worse.

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The Pit

They gathered at the edge of the great shaft in Durnn’s tower chamber.

A reddish-violet haze drifted upward from the depths, smelling faintly sweet… and faintly rotten. Sickly vines crawled along the stone lip, their roots descending into darkness.

Grenl’s words echoed in memory.

Every six months the tree bears fruit. A white apple in summer that heals. A black apple in winter that kills.

Do not eat the black apple.

A rope was secured.

Isledie went first.

The halfling vanished into mist.

Ambush Below

His boots touched stone.

Shapes moved.

Two skeletons rose from the gloom, blades rusted but swift. From the roots beside them lurched two twisted plant-creatures—wood and vine bent into mockeries of life.

Isledie had time for one shout before they fell on him.

Steel rang. Claws tore. He fell beneath them.

Above, the rope jerked violently.

“Down!” Valder roared.

One by one they descended into the choking haze.

Will’s holy symbol flared as he landed, divine light burning through undead flesh. Alder’s blade flashed. Eric’s magic burst like sparks in dry leaves.

The plant creatures split and smoldered. The skeletons collapsed in clattering ruin.

Will dropped beside Isledie, voice firm, hand glowing.

Life returned.

The halfling gasped.

The Bugbear’s Charge

They had barely caught breath when heavy footfalls thundered from a side corridor.

A bugbear burst into view—massive, scarred, roaring—flanked by two enormous rats, his ‘hounds’ Grip & Fang.

Alder reacted first.

Sleep spilled from his fingers like falling dusk.

The rats crumpled mid-charge.

The bugbear did not.

It hit Alder like a falling wall, smashing him to the stone. Air left his lungs in a broken wheeze.

Will’s healing word crossed the chamber like a lifeline.

Alder sucked in breath.

Eric finished the rats in flashes of flame. Valder, Isledie, and Alder surrounded the bugbear in tight formation.

Steel struck.

The brute fell.

Among its gear they found serviceable weapons—grim trophies of earlier victims. They armed themselves in silence.

Then they rested again, breath slow, spells returning, nerves steadying.

Because the air below the pit did not feel empty.

It felt watched.

The Locked Door

When they were ready, they turned to the heavy locked door at the end of the cavern wall.

The lock yielded at last.

Beyond lay a corridor stretching into the underdark gloom—stone older than the citadel above, roots breaking through ceiling and floor alike.

Somewhere ahead…

The tree waited.

And the one who tended it.