[Ralis] Journey to the Old City

[Lev Lafayette]

Marginal Notes by Brother Ney

By the Sun's face, we are travelling into dangerous territory.

The Lich Yarragan provided us the location of the serpintine Blue
Dragon's lair and suggested travel through the ethereal with his wraiths
from a gate in the base of the old fire metal mine. For his part the Red
Dragon Emperor took a half dozen of his normal-sized iron golems, the
giant ones unable to fit into the mineshaft, along with a favoured
wizard, Garthag and a dwarven natived named Grampian. These two replaced
Larqus and Ismael who travelled north under the Dragon's geas to seek
Queen Joni and demand her vassalage and provide autonomy. 

It is not the first time I have been in the ethereal, and I suspect it
will also not be the last. Co-existent with the Sun's world, items seem
hazy and insubstantial; we can float at will, and move through objects.
We can see the Sun's world, but it cannot see us. During the journey we
were approached at different times by both the Lich and the Dragon
suggesting that we turn on the other at an opportune time. Truly there
is no lasting peace among the evil. At one stage we were confronted we
were confronted by a number of ghosts and spectres, but these were sent
on their way by Yarragan. During the journey Yarragan also sketched out
the Blue Dragon's lair; called 'The Pan-Optican', it allowed the Blue
vision of all possible entrances to it's lair. The few remaining side
passages were inhabited by two score half-dragon creatures, mainly
locals, who had joined the creatures cause - or had been captured as I
remembered the fate of the Mardu elder's daughter.

Ultimately we arrived at the Old City, a ruined rocky landscape atop a
windswept hill. Yarragan described an entrance that would appear with
the shifting of the sands, which the Garthag recognised as an opening
between this and another plane. We spread out as a psychic wind picked
up, looking for such a change - then Grampian and Gwilmas espied a tall,
thin creature - a mimi who took them to it's abode in the rocks. In this
tiny passageway, with its thin air, the Mimi spoke of the story of the
blue dragon, and how it had formed; when the Rainbow Serpent tricked the
Devil, and the Devil tore it apart in anger, how the spirit of the
Rainbow Serpent was now trapped in dragon called Tiamat, and how in the
heart of a red frilled-neck dragon, a blue serpent dragon, a green
crocodile dragon and a gold goanna dragon there existed a gem the size
of a man's head, and these are placed in the altar where the blue
resides, the Rainbow Serpent can reform.