Looking at the Dwarfs’ wicked-looking halberds and shining plate armour, it would appear foolish to resist. “A tabaxi and an aarakokra, spying no doubt on the Assembly of Kings! I think you two had better come with us…” “Now then, what do we have here?” says one. “Told you it’d be worth it,” winks Quelenna, and skips away back down the escarpment towards Cloudspire.īefore long, they round a bend in the trail and come face to face with two Dragon Wardens of the Humble Fellowship. One dragon swoops low overhead, and Aera could swear it looked her straight in the eye before it turned its massive head and flapped lazily off towards the Aeyries in the distant peaks. They circle upwards as Quelenna and Aera instinctively flatten themselves to the rock. The meeting disbands, the Dwarfs processing through a rune-adorned archway in the cliff face, the dragons beating their monumental wings and taking to the sky. “The Cantons need only toll, and we shall go to their aid immediately.” “Very good,” it says in a resonant voice that belies its power.
One of the dragons snakes its great head towards him, its breath steaming in the cold air. “It’ll be on its way tonight, if all goes to plan.” “Aye, the Copper Fellowship have excelled themselves with a fine piece of craftsmanship,” he says. One of the Dwarfs, who wears a jewelled eye patch, is speaking: She’s older than the mountains, so they say!” whispers Quelenna.Īera can only gape, her hooked peregrine’s beak falling open in wonder.
Upon the plateau is a group of Dwarfs, wrapped in furs and holding golden sceptres, their long, vibrant pink and purple-dyed beards flapping wildly in the icy wind.Īnd, looming over them, are four gargantuan dragons with beautiful curving horns draped in gold. They are looking down into a canyon whose base is a flat plateau, which steps to a sudden drop – Volund only knows how deep. They reach the summit of the ridge, and tentatively peer over. “Come on! It’ll be worth it! You’ve never seen anything like this before!” she yells, and runs on ahead. She beckons to her friend Aera, the aarakokra sorcerer, to follow.
Quelenna the tabaxi druid scampers up the mountain pass that overlooks the central bowl of Cloudspire, the great Dragon Bell hanging silently over the vast edifice of the Sky Citadel.
The Nineteenth day of Eleint, in the Year 2020 of the Nurian Era… They gently explained the Dwarfs’ error to them, and helped them back to their domain, and ever since the two have had a mutual respect that has formed over the centuries into an unbreakable alliance. Only one species did not laugh, so impressed they were by the Dwarfs’ skilful feat of engineering: the Cloud Dragons. Not recognising that their quest was complete, and being the supranatural cavers that they are, the Dwarfs continued to excavate, eventually breaking through the sky into the Elemental Plane of Air, where they were laughed at by the resident djinni, couatls, air mephitis, and sylphs. It is writ that once these Dwarfs lived far below the mountains, but the lurking threats and monstrous perils of the Underdark had driven them on a relentless Quest for Sky, and so they dug their way upward, ever upward until they broke into a vast, azure cavern like nothing they had ever seen. Within that vale, hewn into the granite bedrock of the mountains, is the great city of Cloudspire, home to the reclusive Skyseeker Dwarfs. Somewhere in the highest peaks of the imperious Stoneheart Mountains, looking down over the baking Terwan Uplands of Nuria Natal, lies a steep-sided hidden vale.
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