FIELD REPORT: DAY TWO 1400. I am filing this from the floor of a treasure cavern beneath the Stormwreck Isle observatory. I am, at present, unable to move under my own power. I believe this is temporary. I am choosing to believe this is temporary.
Sparkrender arrived.
I was in the observatory’s tower chamber when it happened — a room I had, to my considerable professional satisfaction, correctly identified as the puzzle room. Four statues. Floor runes in constellation shapes. A book from the wizard’s quarters, recovered earlier and now fully decoded.
The statues needed to face the light from the dragon star.
I knew this. I had known it before I finished the second page.
I began rotating statues.
The puzzle — and the interruption of the puzzle
Four statues. One room. One correct orientation per statue. This is the kind of problem I solve before breakfast on a normal morning. On Stormwreck Isle, nothing is a normal morning, but the puzzle remained tractable.
I rotated the first two.
I heard the sounds of combat from the main chamber.
The rational calculation was this: complete the puzzle, inform the NEST, then handle whatever was on fire.
I did not make the rational calculation.
I heard it — the particular pitch of a battle being joined without me — and my legs made a decision before my mind caught up. I must protect the NEST. I ran toward the sound.
I left two statues unrotated.
I will return to this.
The main chamber — a brief tactical inventory
What I found in the central observatory:
- Sparkrender. The blue dragon himself. Present. Large.
- Mr. Sassafras. Adolescent dragon. Present.
- The central altar, now radiating a blue energy of the specifically ominous variety.
- Two new kobolds. One operating a fishing apparatus adorned with what appeared to be a scorpion. The other already in the water.
I want to pause here to document the fishing kobold, because what happened next was genuinely the most unusual thing I have seen since arriving on this island.
The kobold with the scorpion fishing apparatus reached into his kit and produced a sack.
The sack appeared to be full of hornets. Very hairy hornets. Very hairy, very angry hornets. One sack of very hangry hornets.
The kobold threw it at the one in the water.
The sack struck the target. The hornets dispersed. The kobold in the water went rigid in what I can only clinically describe as hangry-hairy-hornet-induced paralysis, and sank.
I logged this. I moved on.
The altar — and the mistake I had to make
Both Sparkrender and Mr. Sassafras moved toward the altar simultaneously.
When they made contact with the blue energy, both of them grew. Not metaphorically — structurally. The chamber filled with the sound a room makes when it is being occupied by more dragon than it was designed for. Sparkrender was becoming something. Sassafras was becoming something else. Neither was becoming something I wanted them to be.
I knew what must be done. I reached for the spell scroll gifted to us by Mr. Abel of the Able Mushroom Folk — a scroll of considerable potency, held in reserve for a moment that justified the expense.
This was that moment.
I read the scroll. A wall of fire engulfed the central altar, complete and contained, burning with decisive enthusiasm. My intention was clear: neither dragon would continue dragonmaxxing on my watch.
Then I looked at my colleagues and realized they had yet to discover the mystery of the dragon spirits entombed in the orbs. This had been information I could not convey. I conveyed it now.
Sparkrender — and the second roasting
Sparkrender turned.
He located me, identified me as the architect of this wall of fire, and closed the distance with the economy of motion a creature learns when it has done a thing many times.
He breathed lightning.
Note: this is now the second time I have been roasted on this expedition. The first was a dream. This one was not.
Mr. Aurelian also caught the bolt. He went down. The room kept moving.
Mr. Yuzz had been maintaining what I will charitably describe as a nuanced relationship with the concept of peaceful conflict resolution, and he now swung at Sparkrender with the full force of whatever accumulated grievance was available. The dragon bled.
Then things moved.
The kobold who had sunk — the target of the hangry hairy hornet sack — emerged from the water.
Sparkrender said: blow the horn.
The kobold ran.
Ms. Mephista — in a motion I can only file as signature Ms. Mephista, meaning it was inexplicable, mid-air, contained an obscene gesture aimed directly at Sparkrender, and was entirely effective — gave chase up the stairs.
The wink — and the pressed duck
The scorpion-fishing-apparatus kobold did not follow. He remained in the chamber, his gaze fixed on Mr. Sassafras, who was now large and unmistakably adolescent in a way that I will describe as his eggs had dropped, which is accurate if slightly informal.
Mr. Yuzz said something, Peace ducking sucks! For the record, his actual choice of words was not ducking but a word that rhymes with ducking but a bit more vulgar on the tongue.
He punched the dragon.
He was wearing a cloak. I mean to document this cloak more thoroughly — it is a cloak Mr. Yuzz appears to converse with. I have filed this under items requiring follow-up.
The dragon turned from Mr. Yuzz.
The dragon turned toward me.
The dragon winked.
I have been on this expedition long enough to understand that a wink from a blue dragon is not a good sign. I had time to form this thought. I had time to recognize it was correct. I did not have time to act on it.
The tail came down.
I became pressed duck.
I dropped.
The battlefield went dark. From somewhere inside the dark I heard a voice — Classiver — and I felt the particular sensation of being knit back together, which is not comfortable but is preferable to the alternative. I came back up.
The aftermath — what was left
The kobold with the scorpion apparatus screamed.
Then it transformed.
A silver dragon stood where the fishing-rig kobold had been.
I have questions.
Mr. Sassafras left.
I assessed the chamber. Mik — brother to Ms. Myla, and one of the two kobolds Mr. Brugan had knocked unconscious on our entry — was dead. Roasted in the fighting. Min, the other brother, was alive but crushed in a way that had nothing to do with their physical situation.
I am a doctor.
My assessment: this is heartbreaking.
The statues — finished
I went back to the puzzle room.
Two statues remained. The task I had abandoned when my legs made their independent decision.
I faced them toward the dragon star.
The floor responded.
There is a particular satisfaction in a mechanism doing exactly what you told it to do. The room whirred. The floor shifted. A staircase opened in the center of the chamber and descended into the darkness below the observatory.
The treasure cavern — and what we found
The stairs led to a cavern. The cavern was large. The cavern had treasure in it.
I did not stop to catalog the treasure.
Mr. Brugan found it first.
In the center of the room, buried in gold, sat the ancient warforged chassis I had been obligated — tasked, indentured, pressed into finding — by my taskmasters. The thing I have been carrying this debt toward since before I set foot on this island.
I watched Mr. Brugan reach for it, my quarry. I tensed.
He retrieved a cloak from beneath the chassis. I eased.
He said the word: Agnus.
I noted this. I note here also: Mr. Yuzz has a cloak he speaks with. Mr. Aurelian arrived already carrying one. Ms. Mephista, I have come to believe, likely owns several. Mr. Brugan now has one that answers to a name he has been looking for. I am logging the cloaks as a pattern requiring investigation, and pressing on — because there is a dormant warforged chassis in front of me and I have been owed this moment for longer than I have been on this island.
Mr. Brugan stepped away from the chassis.
Then he turned back and slapped it on the top of its head.
The chassis did not respond.
Dormant. Inert. Not threatening in the present configuration. My taskmasters were specific about the stories — but the stories did not match what was in front of me. Whatever it had been, it was not that now.
Which meant I had a window.
The scheme — and why it was not wrong
I want to be precise about my reasoning, because I believe the record demands precision.
The chassis was dormant. The credits this chassis would fetch could clear my debt. But my taskmasters are — to use the technical term — my taskmasters, which means the credits are a line item in a ledger that does not favor me. The chassis in front of me was a transaction that could close that ledger entirely.
I am an artificer. I am a doctor. I have expertise worth something. I did not choose this debt. I have been carrying it across an expedition that roasted me twice, and the thing I was carrying it toward was sitting not six feet from my mechanical webbed feet.
I retrieved the cooler from my pack.
I reconfigured my wing. The manifold tool — used for spark extraction — emerged from its housing.
I began my approach.
The intervention
Mr. Brugan’s hand came down on my shoulder.
I paused.
Mr. Aurelian spoke.
He asked me if I was okay.
If I was okay?
I had never been better. I had my prize within reach. I had my wing configured for extraction. I had the moment.
They were between me and the chassis. I read this — not inaccurately, I maintain — as a threat to what I now see as the means to secure my freedom.
I turned toward Mr. Aurelian to address this.
End of file
I felt a hand.
It came through my chassis. My mechanical duck chassis. Not past it. Through it. The dimensional geometry of this should not have been possible. I am a certified artificer and I can tell you with confidence that it was not supposed to work that way.
I watched my spark exit my body.
My vision was the last thing to go. I had time to see my eyes reflected in the gold — or perhaps I am reconstructing this; the margins of consciousness are not always reliable — and I will note, for the record, that they were red.
They have been red.
I do not know when they became red.
Then they went dark.
In summary: I solved the constellation puzzle in two stages. I set fire to a dragonmaxxing altar. I was lightning-bolted by a blue dragon who winked at me first. I was healed. I found the warforged chassis I came to this island for. I attempted to extract its spark and return to making maps for the joy of making maps.
The chassis extracted mine first.
The field report ends here.
Status of Dr. Waxyl T. Feathers: unknown.
— Dr. Waxyl T. Feathers Field Correspondent, The Nest Stormwreck Expedition, Day 2 1400 Final entry — End of File