The party agreed that they simply couldn’t leave the tower abandoned though. Percival still had hopes that his brother would return to it, and the tower was the closest thing to a home Shanris had (though he didn’t tell the party that). Suspecting that there was a lot about the tower they didn’t know, the party went to the library to try and find whatever books they could on it. At the very least, they hoped to discover if there was any significance to the tower beyond the school they knew it as.
While browsing through some books, Clarence noticed that a school handbook he had briefly skimmed through several days before had a slight glow to it. He picked it up and began to look through it. At the beginning of the book, he noticed that there were 5 pages that had not been there previously. He called the rest of the party and Denise over and they began to read it together. These pages seemed to be emergency instructions. On them were instructions on how to get the school’s magical power (and defenses) back online, as well as instructions on how to control the golems (which were disabled after the destruction of the crystal). The book said there was a room in the second floor of the basement that they should take an alternate power source to. This was confusing to the party, as they had no idea what could be used as an alternate power source; or that the school even had a basement for that matter. Further reading revealed that there was a secret enterance to the basement in the cold storage room, just off of the kitchen, but did not explain what to use as a power source. The party decided to find this room first and hope that there would be more clues in there as to what to use for power.
It didn’t take too much searching to find the trap door in the floor into the basement since the book told them where it was. It was pitch black down there, so the party grabbed some torches before heading down. It was rather warm down there, with the air thick and musty. After they were down the stairs, the party found themselves in a long hallway. They could go either left or right, and decided to go left. After going maybe 50 feet, they came to a corner. The only direction they could go here was right, so right they went. About 30 feet down this hall, there was a locked door on the left. Shanris and Clarence both tried to pick it, but with no success. Their picks were too flimsy to move the components in this heavy lock. As they had done before, Hyate froze the lock and Shanris bashed it with his longsword. It took several tries, but they eventually weaked the lock to the point where the door could be opened.
Inside, they found a desk with some papers scattered about it, along with some filing cabinents and various shapes and sizes of animal cages scattered throughout the room. The party examined the papers. They appeared to be records of people checking things in and out. It was all in shorthand and the party couldn’t understand most of it, but from what they gathered, it was talking about animals.
The party left the room and continued down the hallway. Another 20 or so feet down, they came to a fork where they could either go left or continue to go straight. They could see that the left path came to a T almost right away and decided to investigate that. Neither the left or right path at the T continued on down very far; only about 20 feet in either direction. Both paths lead to very large barred metal doors with several locks. Shanris went to take a look at the locks on one of them. Before he started to look into picking them, he heard movement on the other side of the door. He signaled for everyone to be quiet and continued to listen. Whatever was behind that door was very large. While the party was very curious as to what was being held back there, they decided it was too dangerous to risk letting it out and moved on.
They went back to where they were and continued down the hallway. It too came to a corner and lead to the right. They got the impression that the basement was set up as a rectangle at this point. About halfway down this hallway, there was another staircase leading down. The party decided to bypass it for the time being and fully exlore the level before moving on to the next. They continued down the hallway until it came to a corner, at which point they went right again. About halfway down this hallway, there was another hallway leading to the left. It too came to a T right away, and the party decided to explore it. When they arrived at the T, they noticed that the back wall had numerous small cages built into it. The party stood there examining them for a few minutes when Shanris and Clarence both heard a shuffling sound coming from down the hall to their left, just out of visual range. Everyone drew their weapons and proceded cautiously down the hall. They were relieved to discover that the sound was coming from inside one of the cages as opposed to outside of it, and what a curious source of noise it was.
Nobody in the party had ever seen a dragon or knew if dragons had babies or if dragons even existed, but they all imagined that if dragons were indeed real and did have babies, this is what they would look like. Inside the one of the cages was a winged, scaley lizard. It was a dull green color and just about 3 feet long. It gave them a curious look but didn’t seem to be alarmed by their presence. Hayate ran upstairs while the rest of the party stood there in amazement at the creature before them. Hayate returned about a minute later with several chunks of frozen meat in his hands, which he had gotten from the freezer. He tossed a piece of the meat into the dragon’s cage. The dragon sniffed it and then licked it. As soon as his tongue touched it, he reared his head back and wrinkled his face. He put his mouth close to it again and spouted a small burst of fire onto it, quickly unfreezing and cooking it. Again he licked it and, apparently satisfied with his culinary skills, gobbled it up. He then stared at Hayate and seemed to want more. Hayate wanted to keep feeding it, but the rest of the party wanted to exercise more caution. From what they knew of dragons, they were dangerous, so they decided to turn around and let it be, continuing their search for the power room.
Just as they turned the corner to go back from where they came, they heard the shrill sound of iron being quickly shredded or cut. They heard some shuffling coming from the same direction and before they knew it, the dragon was behind them staring up at them. With the whole party unsure of what to do, Hayate tossed it what was left of the meat he had. The dragon torched it once more, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy, and quickly devoured it. Hayate cautiously approached it and went to pet it after it had finished eating. The dragon seemed nervous at first, but let Hayate pet him. After a bit of that, the dragon wandered into the party and seemed to expect everyone else to pet him too. Not wanting to anger a dragon, even a baby one, the party all pet the dragon. He seemed to enjoy the attention. Hayate instisted that they take the dragon with them. The party agreed, if only because it seemed the dragon was bent on following them anyway. Hayate picked him up and they continued down the hall.
This hall lead to another corner and, after turning right once more, led them back to the stairs from which they came. More than satisifed with their exploration of this floor, the party decided to head down to the other flight of stairs they found with their imaginations running wild with thoughts of what it would hold.
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