This evening, as the adventurers chased the shadow bat that was flying away, then encountered two humans in a twist of the cavern. One was reading a book, and the other was standing guard while a black cat wandered about curiously. After a tense first exchange, they agreed to travel with the company to try to find an exit to the caverns.

After some more wandering, they encountered a large underground lake. Igniting a sunrod, they spotted an island with a large treasure chest in the middle of the water. Torrin began running across the water toward it - until a huge purple dragon burst out of the water and bit him! A long, intense battle ensued, with the dragon's psychotropic breath weakening the minds of the adventurers until they turned even on each other. At last, though, the dragon was put down.

That didn't mean the chest was free to get into, however. Ooka tried smashing it with her pick and only succeeded in giving herself a fantastic migraine. Codex, one of the swordmages, remembered seeing a trap like this before and deduced that the key to unlocking it was the dragon's claw. Torrin thought he'd try his claws as a substitute, but met the same fate as Ooka. The others ran back to their downed foe, chopped off a claw, and pressed it to the lock. Voila, the chest opened and revealed fabulous prizes!

Labels: dragon, index and codex, shadowfell fortress