FIELD REPORT: DAY TWO 0800. I am filing this from Dragon’s Rest, where two kobolds have been married and someone spilled soup. I consider this a success relative to what we have weathered to arrive here.
A correction, before I proceed.
I have, across multiple field reports, referred to the monk — the large green-skinned orc who keeps skulls on his belt and wakes from naps in the hulls of sinking vessels — as Mr. Yaz.
His name is Mr. Yuzz.
I have it on good authority. His own. I have corrected my notes. I am correcting this record. I will not dwell on this further except to observe that it is a short name and the distinction is modest, and yet the distinction matters, and so I am documenting it accordingly.
Operational note: I am also recording, for the first time, a suspicion I find difficult to dismiss. In the hours following our exit from the mushroom folk cave, Mr. Brugan departed for sleep and Mr. Yuzz returned from sleep — from the boat, where he had been napping through the latter portion of our cave exploration expedition. They were not in the same place at the same time. They have not been in the same place at the same time for some time now. I am not drawing conclusions. I am logging the pattern. File this for later contemplation.
What the mushroom folk gave us — a brief accounting
The elder — Able, Mr. Able I should say, as Mr. Able is the elder’s name and the folk themselves are the Mushroom Folk, which I have only now fully processed; names on this island are deeply unconventional and I have stopped judging and started cataloguing — expressed gratitude for our intervention.
The gratitude took the form of:
- A spell scroll of significant potency
- An entry from a journal page
The journal page mentioned an observatory.
I read this once. Then again. Then I folded it into my coat with the care of a person who has just been handed the clue that will lead them to what they came for.
Note also: Mik and Min — the brothers of my colleague Ms. Myla — had traded those items to Mr. Able in exchange for ancient dragon bones. Mr. Able was not pleased. The trade was not fair. Mik and Min gave artifacts for bones, which are not food, and Mr. Able knows it. I have filed this under grievances with which I sympathize and moved on.
Exit from the cave — two applications of the hook
When we emerged from the cave, the hulk was wrestling the octopus.
I want to be precise about this. The undead behemoth that had been pursuing us across the sea floor for the better part of two days was now locked in direct combat with the enormous octopus that had, not hours earlier, attempted to eat our boat. They were approximately forty feet from shore. The violence was considerable.
Mr. Aurelian and Mr. Yuzz began a discussion about whether we should intervene — use the octopus as cover, press the advantage, engage the hulk while it was occupied.
During this discussion, our boat began to drift.
The magical, self-propelled boat. Drifting. Away.
I watched it go. I said nothing. I waited.
The discussion continued.
The boat reached approximately thirty feet of open water before someone noticed.
The consensus became: leave. Exit another way. But first — the boat.
This was the moment. I looked at Ms. Mephista. I presented the grappling hook. She obliged. She threw it with one motion, caught the stern, and hauled the boat back to shore with an efficiency that remains, to date, the definitive use of the tool.
Hook tally: 1 successful application out of 4 attempts. I consider this directional improvement.
Mr. Aurelian — doing what I have come to call Mr. Aurelian things — located a ridge above the cave mouth. A ledge. A path. An exit on foot, clear of the octopus and the hulk and the general maritime violence below.
We needed to climb.
Once more, I produced the grappling hook. I presented it to Mr. Yuzz.
He took it. He swung it. He hit himself in the forehead.
“It nailed me,” he said.
This is a direct quote. I am reproducing it here in full because the precision matters.
Ms. Mephista took the hook from Mr. Yuzz, applied it to the ledge on the first throw, and we exited the cave.
Hook tally: 2 successful applications out of 5 attempts. The pattern holds. I have stopped being surprised. I have not stopped offering the hook.
The path to Dragon’s Rest — and a clarification I did not enjoy
The walk was manageable. The occasional lone zombie emerged from the undergrowth, drawn to Ms. Mephista and Mr. Aurelian as they have been throughout — the curse pulls at them in ways that even the recently deceased can apparently sense. We dispatched them without ceremony.
Our client, Sassafras — whom I have in all prior reports referred to as she — approached me mid-walk with what I can only describe as a diplomatic correction.
Sassafras is a he.
I hold doctoral credentials in multiple fields. One of them is anatomy. I assessed Sassafras as female on day one and committed this to the record with full professional confidence. I am now updating that record. This is the second significant update to personal records I have made in this filing. I am choosing not to examine what this says about the reliability of my doctorate. I am simply noting that two is a pattern.
Sassafras heard something in the undergrowth.
I explained, with what I believe was reasonable diplomacy, that on this island, noises in bushes frequently represent creatures engaged in behaviors best observed from a distance. This did not land as intended. Sassafras took off into the trees.
The kobolds and the owlbear — and a new member of the NEST
We found a clearing. In it: kobolds, several, who were tormenting a large owlbear with the specific energy of creatures who have not considered consequences.
Mr. Yuzz had not had tea.
I cannot overstate the relevance of this. There is a relationship between Mr. Yuzz’s emotional regulation and his access to tea that I have had ample time to observe. The teapot was recovered from the Compass Rose, yes, but the situation had provided no opportunity for brewing, and by my estimation we were well past the threshold.
He darted for the ringleader. Boxed its ears. Obliterated it. Then, in what I can only file as residual withdrawal energy, obliterated the ground where it had been for good measure. The other kobolds scattered. Horns sounded somewhere in the treeline. We did not follow up on the horns.
Mr. Aurelian — who I have not yet seen drink tea, but I have observed an anxiety that may too benefit from the calming effects one Mr. Yuzz requires — walked toward the owlbear.
Slowly. Deliberately. The way people walk toward things they are not afraid of, which tells you something about those people.
He named the owlbear Owliver.
The NEST was expanded by one.
The observatory — and the fall
Sassafras mounted Owliver.
I saw an opportunity.
My plan was this: mount the dragon, who was atop the bear, for an elevated observation platform. The height would be significant. The vantage exceptional. I am, for the record, three and a half feet tall. Any additional elevation is professionally useful.
The owlbear had opinions about this plan.
I met the back foot several times. I found several bushes. I found at least one tree I had not intended to find. And then, with what I will insist was prime agility and not desperation, I made it up the back of the bear, and then up the back of the dragon, to what I will describe as an extraordinary observation post.
From there, I looked out at the island.
And I saw it.
An illusion. Subtle — the kind of magic that reads as normal landscape to someone not actively looking for something. But I was looking, and I have spent considerable time cataloguing exactly this category of deceptive cartography, and I saw the seam.
Behind the illusion: an observatory.
The same observatory referenced in the journal page. The one mentioned in Able’s materials. The one that I had been told, in fragments, might be the location that houses the artifact I have been obligated to find.
I was still processing this when the owlbear spooked.
Something passed overhead — a shadow, large, fast — and Owliver bolted. Sassafras was on his back. I was on Sassafras’s back. The dragon compensated. I did not.
I fell.
I recovered.
Not all recoveries are clean. I am logging this one as not clean.
Sparkrender — the blue dragon, observed previously at altitude — dropped from above. A lightning bolt hit Owliver not one hundred feet from where I had landed. Owliver fell. Sparkrender took Owliver and flew toward the illusion.
The clearing was quiet.
Mr. Aurelian looked at the sky for a long moment.
No one said anything.
We continued to Dragon’s Rest.
The cemetery — and the amulet, finally buried
The cemetery was where we needed to be.
The amulet — recovered from the husk on the Compass Rose, connected to the affliction in Ms. Mephista and Mr. Aurelian, tracked by every undead thing on this island as some kind of signal — needed to go in the ground here. We found the site. One of us, Mr. Aurelian, knew it immediately.
Mr. Aurelian, in an act I will not second-guess in this report but will log without editorial, touched the amulet as he placed it.
The amulet responded. His life force dropped. He stood in the cemetery of Dragon’s Rest and looked like he may become its most recent resident.
He did not.
We buried the amulet.
The hulk pursuing us — gone. The undead drawn to the party — no more. The pursuit that had followed us since the first beach — ended. The statue of Bahamut in the cemetery glowed in a way that statues of dragon gods do not typically glow, and I took this as confirmation that we had done the right thing in the right place.
The wedding — and what we learned after
Dragon’s Rest prepared for a wedding.
Rix and Rex, two kobolds, were to be married.
I learned, at the wedding, that Rix is female and Rex is male. I want to note this not because it is significant to the wedding but because I had not assumed it, and making no assumption is different from making the wrong one, and I have been making wrong ones at a statistically concerning rate this week. I am noting the correct information and moving on.
Ms. Elder Ranara received from us some blue crystals. In exchange, she will craft a key to the observatory. Lord Ayden and Sparkrender are likely inside. I have confirmed the intelligence. I am preparing accordingly.
I pulled Ms. Myla aside.
Her brothers — Mik and Min — went with Sparkrender because Sparkrender promised to turn them into dragons. Ms. Myla asked us not to hurt them. I told her I had no plans to hurt the siblings of a fellow artificer. Professional courtesy. She accepted this.
I spoke with Ms. Varnoth — the ex-mercenary, currently committed to non-violence, though I continue to find this combination philosophically interesting on an island where the courting rituals of native fauna make non-violence and abstinence functionally indistinguishable.
She told me the King Killer Star will reach its zenith. Dragon behavior will be erratic. Irrational. Possibly dangerous in ways that do not fit any of my current models. I looked at Sassafras across the yard. I am worried.
She also told us the observatory was created in an attempt to help cleanse the star, and that there is some connection between the star and that city-sized Sharruth below. I have filed this under things I must understand before I go inside the building that houses the thing I have been looking for since I arrived on this island.
Before the festivities fully started, Ms. Varnoth gave me something.
She gave me something that made the feathers around my beak grow — literally, structurally, constitutionally — in a way that I will describe charitably as a significant enhancement to my personal hardiness. My constitution has been raised to levels approaching that of a dwarf. Mr. Brugan, wherever he is, may even appreciate this about me.
She also mentioned her hammer is inside the observatory and should we find it, it is ours to wield. I have filed this under items of considerable interest to one Mr. Brugan, should he ever be awake when we retrieve it.
Mr. Aurelian participated in a game called Spill the Soup.
The name is accurate. He spilled the soup.
At some point during the evening, Ms. Mephista drew Mr. Taurak aside. She asked him about his tattoos. I professionally confirmed — the marks are thieves’ guild, I remain fully confident in this assessment, I identified them on day one and have not revised the identification — when I was asked, with clarity, to excuse myself from the conversation.
I excused myself.
I do not know what was said.
This concludes my documentation of the wedding.
End of day — and what came after
Two kobolds were wed. Soup was spilled. This duck retired for the night.
And then.
I woke in a cell.
Stone walls. No window I could locate. The particular silence of somewhere underground, which I know well enough by now to recognize without reference materials.
I was alone for what felt like weeks. This is not precise. It is how it felt. I am filing it as felt-time rather than clock-time, which is a category I have invented and which I believe is operationally valid.
I was led out to a yard.
A prison yard. Overseen by a dwarf: Commander Arbek, the warden. My companions were there. Lord Ayden — the bronze dragon, the one Mr. Sassafras had been traveling to meet — was there as well.
The warden asked for volunteers. A problem at sea. Something that needed handling.
We volunteered.
We were outfitted. We took a boat. We found the target.
The target was a shipwreck sitting on the back of a dragon turtle.
Very large. Very angry. The particular anger of something that has been carrying an uninvited wreck for longer than it intended. The dragon turtle looked at us. Looked at the boat. Looked at me specifically, which is a thing large creatures sometimes do and which is never flattering.
It breathed.
I was roast duck.
I woke up.
The cell was gone. My companions were sleeping around me. The wedding had been the night before. I had retired from the wedding in Dragon’s Rest, and the entire preceding sequence — the prison, the warden, Lord Ayden, the sea, the dragon turtle, the roasting — was a vision.
A vision we had all shared, as I confirmed when the others woke.
Sparkrender’s work. Almost certainly. I cannot prove it. I am logging it under confirmed attribution, evidence pending.
In summary: Mr. Yuzz’s name has been corrected. The grappling hook achieved two successes in five attempts. I found the observatory. I fell off a dragon. We buried the amulet. Two kobolds got married. Mr. Aurelian spilled soup. I retired for the evening and was briefly roast duck.
The observatory key is being made. Sparkrender is inside. The King Killer Star is approaching its zenith.
I am Dr. Waxyl T. Feathers, and this is my field report. I have the location of the thing I came here for.
I have not yet gotten in.
This, if nothing else, is familiar.
— Dr. Waxyl T. Feathers Field Correspondent, The Nest Stormwreck Expedition, Day 2 0800