Its the End of the World (as we know it)

Yokini is too overjoyed to have her mother and sister safe to care about remaining cultists or books or treasure or dragons or anything. The three gnomes are hugging and crying and saying many inaudible phrases.

Finally, Yokini is able to respond to their questions. "I didn't know you were here. My companions and I came here to help find something the kobolds stole. While we were searching the basement of the house we were sent to, we found the others, and they told us you two had been brought here." She beams at them. "I was so worried I was too late. But here you both are!"

With another glance at the frozen treasure, Thistle avoids the gnomes and also heads for the stairs. "Hold up, Z," she says to Zashier. "Let me check first." Thistle will cautiously climb the stairs, trying to make sure they are not ambushed.

Stealth: 22
Perception: 23

Quote: Raddunth

When Zashier is nearby, unlocking the gnome chains with the key he found, Raddunth will toss him the gauntlets (of ogre power).

"If you don't want them, I will take them back. But I think you will benefit more from using them, especially when you need to lift criminals by your trunk to shake some sense into them.

"It is also possible that these items were stolen by this riffraff. You would know, better than I, who to consult to find out if that is so."

 Zashier butterfingers at least one, and the other is only just barely caught by his trunk. "Well, I must say the thought is certainly appreciated. But, if these are stolen goods, as you more than rightly presume, I think it best I not even be holding these at the moment. Or more accurately, I do not feel all that comfortable holding on them. That said, given the situation, which I have not forgotten, uh... I will take custody until such a time as we may hand it over to the constabulary." Zashier eventually replied with as much.

At Thistle's later insistence and sneaking off ahead, he doesn't stop her, but rather canted his head at her retreating form. "Don't know how much that'll do, considering a dragon went tearing through just a second ago, but who knows." He crosses his arms and waits at the base of the stairs.

(What do Zashier and Lem know about Armos? I assume it's a big estate, and he has a family, and guards, and doesn't just live with secret cultists?)

Lem, you approach the bookcase, and you see several manacles on the bottom shelves and a few other chains, the middle shelves have a few tomes, and the top few shelves have several jars of humanoid body parts that have been mid-way transformed into dragon-like pieces. Arms have shown an increase in muscle mass and started developing scales; a pair of eyes where one has become yellow and taken on a snake-like appearance; a head that has lost its hair and is showing the bones being transformed into a longer snout; a spine where the vertebrae have been misshapen and have started turning into spikes and growing a tail.

As spine-tingling as these are, your eyes are drawn to the books. There are several titles in the shelves…’Physiologies of Magical Creatures - Biology of Beholders, Dragons, Unicaorns, and More’. You pull it off the shelf and flip through the pages. It seems well worn, especially the sections on dragon biology. Next to it is a small book, almost a pamphlet called ‘From Baby to Beast - Raising Dragons: A How To Guide’ which is not that helpful, but tells you a bit about raising your own dragon.

There are a few other titles - a mystery psychological thriller called ‘The Dragon with a Girl Tattoo’ about an inquisitor who befriends a shapeshifted silver dragon with a dark past to find a murderer before he strikes again; a black book with no title that gives off a magical aura; and one more that, when you put your hand near it, it falls over, and opens like a mouth and starts snapping at your hands.

You also see a couple of spell scrolls, one of them is a scroll of Beast Bond, another is Mass Healing Word, and a third is Ice Knife.

You also find a book that, once you open it, looks like a diary. It is handwritten, and documents several of the experiments they have been attempting, as well as a history of the Kamroth family. The handwriting has changed throughout the book. You get the feeling that it started out as a family devoted to Tiamat, but as the generations passed all they wanted was money and power. Armos has been using the kobolds to amass wealth, stealing from his own fellow Fallcrestians by intercepting these shipments. He let the dragon have some, but he was more scared of the dragon than worshipping it which is why he kept it chained up. He took parts of the dragon for his experiments and the did these things to the slaves that he kept. He was seeking some way to maintain his humanity but take from the dragon long (near-eternal) life as well as power, strength, a breath weapon…he wanted all the most powerful parts of the dragon without becoming a dragon.

You wonder how he was able to get bits and pieces of the dragon for DNA and experiments….and as you put the book down on the table, you notice that the bookshelf has left a little outline of years being in one place, except its not right - its offset.

You call Raddunth and Zashier over to help you, and you slide the bookshelf away from the wall, and there behind the bookshelf is a little cavity in the wall, and set into this hole is an egg. A very LARGE white egg, and the outside seems like it has small scales covering the whole thing.

To answer a few of your research questions directly - from what you can tell from the diary and other tomes, the group here was small, and they were following Armos, not Tiamat. He fooled them because he needed their participation to generate enough meta-physical power to test his spells and experiments. He misled cultists, promising them glory and power, and maybe even summoning Tiamat, but all he ever wanted was more money and power. He was using them for his own personal gain. You get the feeling that he was acting alone with those in the room. The diary, in an early part of the book (probably by an ancestor) talking about the construction of the secret rooms of the manor outside of town, the dragon worship that went on down there, and the excursions they went on in the north. That is where they discovered a dragon’s lair. They visited over the years, even when Armos was young, but as generations passed, they got bolder, less fearful, and less concerned with worship of the dragons…one set of relatives, with Armos along (still very young) went up to the lair, and managed to sneak in and steal a dragon egg, which they raised in captivity. It died, and over the years they went back to steal more, which is where the young dragon you saw came from, and likely where the egg came from. Armos likely threatened to squash the egg in order to keep the dragon compliant.

Zashier you are able to heal Yokini’s mother of any poison that was in her system, then help Raddunth with tying up the others. You make your way to the stairs, and Thistle meets you there. Checking the stairs, and pausing to listen (and Zashier smelling) you can tell the house feels empty.

Zashier & Lem you know that Armos was not married and did not have kids. He was a loner, very wealthy, and no one in town really liked him, but they were afraid of him. He did have a team of guards that were with him, but they don’t seem to be here. You only ever remember seeing them when he was out and about, and stationed outside his estate. Maybe he didn’t like them inside. Maybe they didn’t know all that was going on inside, but they were paid very well…

Yokini, after the reunion of hugs and crying, your family thanks you and asks where you have been all these years! They wondered for so long. They bring up when you almost killed all of the children in the village, but they are smiling….they tell you that after you left, everyone that was sick got better, and even better than before. Whatever you had done had temporarily weakened them, but their bodies fought it off to have even better immune systems (essentially you developed your own custom vaccine, and some reacted poorly to the small amount of active virus in their system).

Zashier, if you choose to wear the gloves, I will say your trunk strength also increases. +50 pounds, and you can use a bonus action to grapple a creature smaller than you with your trunk.

As he takes in all this information (thank you for all of that!!), Lem sends Moon up the stairs and spends a minute or two toggled into the bird, trying to look around the house upstairs, and looking where the dragon likely went, and seeing if anyone is up there. Assuming no one, he will let Moon scout around and listen and look up there for anyone and return to alert the group if she sees anything.

He'll regurgitate the things he's found in fits and starts, lots of half-finished thoughts. He grabs the scrolls and the magical book for himself. The journal etc he puts in a pile of evidence. He will sit down by the treasure hoard and use fire bolt to light some torches to slowly melt things, and while he waits he casts identify on the black book, ritually. 

He'll also touch base with Zashier on what they know about Fallcrest, who runs it, who has power there, who runs the justice system, if there is a public information system. "We have to try to deal with this, even with a lot of proof and witnesses, so that Armos doesn't slither out of this. Who can we go to, and how?"

Thistle comes back down the stairs, "It looks clear, but we should wait for Moon to come back to make sure."

As Lem and Zashier begin talking, she adds, "I was wondering the same thing. Is the City Guard to be trusted? That diary is a lot of proof, but not if we hand it to the wrong person."

Yokini's eyes stream even more as she hears about the children. "When everyone got sick, I felt so bad. I felt like a failure. Everyone was mad, and the elders ... Well, I ran. I just ran. I ended up here in Fallcrest and got caught up in the war. I helped the army fight the orcs. That's how I met Lem and Zashier," she says, pausing to point out the dwarf and loxodon. "Lem has become ... well, he's my best friend, I guess." She lowers her voice. "He's like a big kid, and I kind of act like his mother," she smiles, even though she is still crying. "After the war, Lem convinced me I should go home and try to make amends. I missed you all so much. I did head back east, but I didn't go very quickly. I did make it home, but found the place a mess, of course. I searched for any hint that any of you were still alive." She grabs both of Nynoa's hands, gleaming at her sister. "I found your letters. Your wonderful, beautiful, loving letters. Oh, you can't imagine how I wanted to laugh and cry and dance and scream all at the same time. But I knew you had forgiven me, and most importantly, I knew there was a chance you had made it out alive. I traveled back this way, hoping to run into you. I just arrived back in Fallcrest yesterday. That's when I ran into the others and heard about the thieving kobolds. We had no idea they were kidnapping people, and had not an inkling that you were among them. I haven't said this in a long time, but praise Nebelun, we found each other!" She hugs her mother again and laughs a wet, choking laugh.

Yokini's reunion first:

Yokini as you begin to explain what has happened to you over the last few years, your family is hanging on every word. When you tell them about fighting in the war, their jaws drop open. They begin talking over each other . You were a soldier?! Oh 'Kini, you could have been hurt...Did you kill anybody? No, wait thats insensitive...What did you do in the war? We tried to avoid it....Orcs! You have seen an orc! and faught them too...oh my Yokini!....and so on and so on

When you get to the part about going home, and it being wrecked, your mother breaks down in tears. Our home...gone....  Your sister, Nynoa, takes over: We knew there would be trouble. Cant avoid the war forever. We knew the fighting was shifting into our own backyard, so we left the forest....Went North first, then West, looking for a new home and work to do. You know, what would our familie's normal look like after the war...but on one of our trips, our caravan was ambushed by those kobolds (and here she shudders). We lost all track of time. i dont know how long we have been captives here, but I am so glad to see you Yokini! Praise Nebelun! 

and joins the hugging and laughing.

You are so caught up in the reunion, you have really lost track of what else is going on in the room

Lem, you send Moon up to scout for you. Through her eyes you see the stairwell descending, made of stone, and its is empty. You see up ahead a wall, or what should be a wall, likely the secret entrance to the stairs, but it has been burst through by the Dragon. Moon continues to fly up through the house, but she is getting too far away for you to maintain your connection. What you see before you lose the connection actually surprises you, a bit. The house looks to be in disarray. The dragon has made a mess of things. not just stepping on furniture or breaking walls, but drawers pulled out of thiings, almost like the dragon was hunting for something...possibly looking for the egg you wonder? But beyond that, you see that the dragon has broken through the exterior wall, and there are places not in the path of the dragon that still look in disarray. The more you time you spend looking, and then thinking about it after you lost the connection is that Armos Kamroth must have been obesessed with his experiments. He went out into town, collecting his money, then came down here to the basement. His estate has not been taken care of at all. He was a man with an obsession you might say.

You lose the connection to Moon and go to sit down next to the treasure, light some torches, and set them up next to the iced-in treasure. It slowly but surely starts to melt - its obvious this is going to take a while...

As you sit, you begin to take in this book, spending some time with it to see if you can tell what it is... you open it and start to leaf through a few pages...(I will send you a personal message in Discord with some details)

Zashier and Lem know this, and will likely share it with the group (Zashier will probably post about it). The town of Fallcrest is run by the (hereditary) Lord Warden of Fallcrest, Faren Markelhay and his wife, and he has about 50-60 City Guards that protect him at Moonstone Keep and they also man the entrances and walls around Fallcrest. They do some law and order in Upper Fallcrest, but stay out of Lower Fallcrest, which is why there is a bit of a gang issue in Lower Fallcrest. The guards are straight-edge type. Zashier and maybe Lem know a few of them from their War days. Faren, though he inherited the leadership of the town, takes his job seriously. He handles business matters personally in Upper Fallcrest, and only visits Lower Fallcrest when he has to. He is a balding, middle-aged human.

Before he sits down with the book, Lem walks over to Nynoa and her mother, never making eye contact. "I'm Lem. You're even nicer than she said. Would have been a shame to lose you to a dragon death cult. A stupid one at that. But there's no way you were in any danger. 'Kini was here. She's... she makes the best hands in the world." He gives an awkward salute with his mechanical arm, and then shuffles off to the torches slowly melting some gems and coins, starting to open the book.

Lem should be more cautious with the book but his curiosity is strong and he reads a bit to get a sense of what it's about, trying to identify it.

He starts to think, as he's leafing through, about how Lt. Plank's with the town guard now, giving some orders last time he saw her, and she still owes him a couple favors, and how Scrub and Toggle were grunts-turned guards who might listen to them if they came to them with this story about Armos...

 Zashier just stands there for a few moments, still seeming shocked over the dragon egg discovery, as much as it was he awaited word back from Moon and Thistle. But eventually he did notice a few people looking at him expectantly, and smiled back dopely back at them. "... Hey man, and uh, Lady.... Oh! You were -- okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry about that, kind of lost myself in the clouds there." He admits with a small chuckle. "But uh, yeah man. In fact, I know three in particular that can be, seeing as we used to be soldiers together. Solid folk, they are, solid folk. Ideal can be a bit testy, but in fairness-..."

Zashier catches himself and simply shakes his head. "If it's all clear as it is, I'll go get'em. Should have'm over in less than half an hour if I run, don't you worry. So, hold down the fort, as they say." With that, Zashier heads for the stairs aiming to find a certain group of guards. While he didn't have much faith in running into Ideal, a female tiefling, and Salazar, the half-Orc brother of the other two he knew, seeing as both usually had the wall or night shift, the same didn't go for Bireal and Romero; whose more human appearance, one being fully human, and the other a female half-elf, made it easier for them to be in the guard than their brother.

When he thought of the two, rather than the event that made Zashier what he was to save them, it was their father's past proclivities that left him shaking his head.

“I’ll keep watch for you,” Thistle says, following Zashier. She’ll settle into some nook or other inside the house with a view of the front door/approaches and wait for Z to return.

Zashier takes off up the stairs, moving as fast as he can, Thistle with him. You both see all that Lem had told you, of the destruction in the house, and then of the areas of the house that are in complete disrepair because they havent been lived in. Food in the kitchen is rotted and has bugs in it, all furniture has mildew and is falling apart. Zashier, you realize you have only ever been here to drop off rent money, and have never been inside. Thistle, you post up at the top of the stairs with a 180 view of this side of the house.

Zashier, you make your way out of the dragon shaped hole in the side of the building, and see before you several Fallcrestians that have been frozen mid-step, and a few building that are icy. The air here has dropped 10 or so degrees, which is odd because it is early Fall and the days are still warm. When you and your party left Fallcrest, it was midday on Friday. With your travel, and your time in the underground rooms and tunnels, and some rest, it is hard for you to judge the exact day, but the sky has started to darken, and rain is coming down from the sky.

As you exit the house into the rubble of stone from the side of the building, you step down and squish into the mud, your extra weight making you sink down a good inch or so.

There is some destruction here as the dragon came out and got its bearings in the town. There are cries of the terrified citizens nearby. You dont have to go far to find the guards, because they are on their way to you. They see you exiting Armos Kamroth's house, where a dragon was just seen and reported. Your friends are not among the faces you see, and they start moving towards you. "Halt. Stop there. What are you doing in Sir Kamroth's estate? You need to come with us."

Le sigh ... I had a nice post written up, but it looks like I didn't actually get it posted before I had to reboot my computer this afternoon. I hate trying to recreate something I was happy with the first time, but let's see what I can do ...

"Oh, no," Yokini says, "I wasn't a soldier. I was just hired by the army to work as a doctor. I was stationed in a tent far enough away from the battlefields to be plenty safe. They kept me busy patching up the wounded. I tried to sell them on a couple of my gadgets, but they wouldn't listen," she says with a hint of lingering frustration. Her sister and mother exchange a knowing look. Staring at her hand, Yokini continues, "I did invent my gadget glove, though. And, er, Lem's arm." She makes a half gesture back at Lem, but looks a little reserved about admitting to it. "Oh, and I only saw two orcs. One was just a body. I'm not sure why they brought it back to camp. The other was a prisoner they captured for questioning, I assumed. I never did see him or her again after they brought them in." Finally, taking one of her mother's hands in both of hers, Yokini says, her tears finally stopping, "And as for Gorin, I'm sure we can rebuild our beautiful village. There were still several buildings standing. I guess the orcs didn't feel the need to do as much damage because they didn't meet any resistance. They probably just looked for food and treasure and moved on." She turns her smile on Nynoa. "With a little hard work and cooperation among the families, Gorin could be remade ... and maybe better than ever."

Can Thistle see what is happening to Zashier from her vantage point?

Zashier very carefully raised both his hands and trunk in the air, realizing in hindsight a flaw in the plan. Even so, his easygoing demeanor outwardly hardly seemed to change over the predictament. Rather, he looked upon the approaching guards as warmly as any others; silently thankfully that he hadn't come running with a weapon in hand.

"Hey, hey, hey, man-..." He squints. "Or madam? Sorry, either way. Took a few lumps over the past few hours, as you can probably tell. That, the vision was never so good. Which some of you, having likely seen or heard of me, are likely to surprise. Good 'ol Zashier." Zashier chuckled up until one likely yelled at him to approach or get on his knees or something. "Oh! Before I get too off topic here, which I tend to do, and I apologize for that. But, if we could delay on a possible arrest, I would like to inform you that in addition to the dragon, it has been uncovered that Sir Kamroth has been putting everyone in danger for some time now."

Persuasion: 24(Dis or Adv?: 17.)

Yokini, your family once again embraces you, secure in their freedom, secure in the knowledge that you are alive and well, and comforted at the thought of rebuilding their home.

Thistle, from your vantage point at the top of the hidden stairs you can see in all directions around the main floor of the estate. A few walls are broken down as the dragon escaped, and you can see through the hole in the exterior wall. I will say that Zashier didnt get far - the Wizard Gate to the East is very near the Estate. It wouldnt have taken the guards long to get there. You probably dont see the guards, but you do see Zashier through a window in the wall. you see him leave, you see its raining, you hear the screams, but I dont think you see the guards just yet. You see Zashier exit the house and look around, then you see him stop in his tracks and raise both of his hands...and his trunk...into the air.

Zashier, in a form of surrender with your arms and trunk up, attempts to negotiate and persuade in typical Zashier fashion...

The guards respond (there are 4 of them): Yea, I heard of you. Its that elephant man that lives across the river. He has that farm...No sudden moves Elephant Man!...Keep that trunk where I can see it...Dont even think about grabbing that axe.... Oh Yea, him. Zashier, what are you doing here? Are you responsible for this mess?...We need answers Zashier! We havent seen a dragon in these parts in years!...Why have you been keeping a dragon? You need to come with us back to the Keep so we can get to the bottom of this...Whats this about Kamroth? You must be talking sideways! Kamroth is a well respected citizen...On your knees Zashier...

The four of them move up, Thistle you see them know, as they encircle Zashier, on their guard, and attempt to put manacles on his wrists....but they were made for humans, and dont fit.

Are you going to come along peacefully?