Dungeon 17 Turn 8
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Ricki leads Mac back to the upper room, across a couple of traps, and to the top left corner to read a third stack of books. Mac attempts to distract the grimoirm by throwing an enchantment scroll at it, but it seems more interested in Ricki’s equipment. Maybe the other one took the bait because nobody actually ran past it?
Hurrying to keep ahead of the crumbling, Ricki reads the final set of texts.
“The Glorious One is dying. She will take all of us with her.”
Welp. That sounds pretty bad. Still… Ricki’s gut tells her there must be something more to be learned here.
Ricki has gained the Well Read III ability.
Ricki and Mac flee from the grimoirm and return to the ladder at the bottom of this room.
I suppose the goal now is to get mac to WR3. Maybe we have ricki check the special door while he does that.
incoming turn 9: loosing another max. HP to the dust.
Did the grimoirm successfully get anything?
No. Ricki dodged
Plan: book it
Ricki: point out the traps to Mac as you get to them and avoid: ladder rung in next room, trapdoor. Move down and to the right attack the red books.
Mac: move down and avoid traps. Drop shock tail and ring of ambition at the bottom of the ladder just before moving to the next room (bottom right). Move right and go read blue book. End turn bottom left of room where you just entered
Mac will be attacked by worm and lose his other ring enchant. After we get red on Mac, we will have an action to pickup his stuff again while moving back. If Ricki fails all 3 dodge checks against the books, she’s left with 2 hp.
I’m calling it right now: the Glorious One WAS a benevolent dragon.
“At the direction of the Glorious One the full tribe has retreated to the deepest levels. This Emperor may be an enemy more dangerous than the rival dragons we are accustomed to. Hopefully one day we will be able to emerge again, but for now we can only endure the Dungeon’s magics and hope.”
This is the first passage we read, which indicates that the Glorious One brought her kobolds into her lair in retreat from the Emperor. Not too unusual- I could see an evil dragon doing the same thing to serve as protection- and so it’s not really indicative of any particular morality.
“All is not well. The Glorious One has taken to consuming the writings of the library. She dictates that we must record our history of exile that She will ever have more to devour. We have no hope for survival but to indulge her whims.”
That’s the second passage. Now, it sounds bad- but you know what the dragon ISN’T eating? Her Kobolds. Rather than resorting to eating them, she’s having them write to feed her- possibly in the same way that the book worms consume magical writings. What’s most interesting is the line “We have no hope for survival but to indulge her whims.” I think it means that so long as the Glorious One is being fed, she’ll have enough power to keep the Emperor/the Empire out of the dungeon, but once she’s out of power they’re all dead meat- dragon and Kobold alike.
As for the last passage:
“The Glorious One is dying. She will take all of us with her.”
So, the Glorious One is dying, and she’ll take all of them- ‘them’ being her Kobolds- with her. Now, it’s notable that there are still Kobolds alive even while the Glorious One herself is dying, which to me indicates that she was weakened enough by hunger to be killed, but that she didn’t actually resort to ‘cannibalizing’ her Kobolds. Neither did she send them to die senselessly against the Empire.
My theory is that the big revelation of this dungeon is that while there were plenty of Kobold tribes that genuinely did need liberation from their draconic overlords, there were also plenty of tribes (like the ones who followed the Glorious One) who served and lived under more benevolent dragons. And that, presumably, when those tribes took offense to their good dragon rulers being killed, the Emperor had them genocided so that the only Kobolds in his Empire who were left would be the ones who worshiped him for killing their evil dragon masters.
On another note… the book worm enemies make me think that the Glorious One might be a Book Wyrm of some sort herself. Or at least that seems like the obvious pun to make, considering how she also seems to eat books.