Green Dragon Lair – Swamp
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Author: Jawn2Dusk
Status: Complete
TaleSpire Version: EA - Chimera
Genre: Fantasy
Created On: March 30th, 2023
Last Updated: March 30th, 2023
Terrain: Jungle
Type: Nature
Creative Commons Lic. Attribution-NonCommercial

Creator credit:

description by @Kelaton:

You enter the tunnel leading into Hexia’s lair. Sunlight pours in through holes in the cavern ceiling, and vines drape the walls like curtains, while moss and grasses carpet the flooring, interrupted only by the occasional jagged stone and broken bit of bone.

A deep, powerful voice echoes throughout the cavern. “Do you think that I would forget, or forgive? How could I, when it is because of you that I am trapped in this awful land…”

You enter an area, large enough to accomodate the great dragon’s serpentine bulk, though Hexia herself is nowhere to be found. The immense cavern is lush, filled with tropical plants and blooming flowers. A great skylight allows sunlight through, though it is obscured by a lattice of thorns and carefully cultivated roses.

You hear Hexia’s voice boom once more. “Still I am sworn to uphold Oaths on your behalf. To keep your secrets and honour vows made by you, when you could not honour the ultimate vows you swore to me on our wedding day!”

A great lagoon makes up the centre of the cavern, a billowing green fog surrounds its lapping edges. A lonely island occupies the lagoon, the isle itself replete with wealth. Heaps of gleaming gold, shimmering silver, and burnished copper coins. Nigh numberless emeralds dot the horde like a spray of green blood upon the coins.

Sitting in a chair amidst the dragon’s horde, next to a massive harp of gilded gold that appears to be studded with emeralds, is your mother, Ophea. She plays the harp as beautifully as you remember from your childhood memories and your hazy dreams of her. She looks to you with relief, and holds back tears of joy. A trace of fear remains in her eyes, however.

“I have made this place a memorial to me and my suffering. Look upon its walls and gaze at your own follies, at each insult you delivered to me, and each bit of happiness I knew I had to steal back from you!”

 

At Hexia’s command, the vines that make up curtains across the cavern begin to recede. The walls are pockmarked with niches in which the skulls of hundreds of humanoid creatures have been stuffed. Beneath each one, carved in the deep grooves of a dragon’s claw, is a name. Five hundred years worth of Pythor’s consorts are on display in this place, their hollow eye sockets staring you down, the emptiness in them somehow still following you.

 

Pythor gazes on in abject horror. His eyes are wide, tears flowing freely, sweat marks his brow, his jaw hangs slack, and a sickly pallor has come across his skin. He shakes slightly, taking in the sight of his countless lost loves. 

“Each nymph you dallied with. Each handsome athlete. Each beauty with a charming voice. Every noblewoman, every scullery maid, each fawning sycophant, every ‘great love’ that you flaunted before me!” 

The surface of the lagoon stirs and bubbles, and Hexia’s massive form rises from it. Water washes down her well-polished jade scales. Her teeth, razorsharp and bleached white, are bared before you as she gnashes them over each word. 

“But you – Pythor,” and she spits the name as though it doesn’t belong in her mouth. “Were my great love. My only love! To whom I was forever faithful!” It is difficult to say, covered in water as she is, but it almost seems as though Hexia is weeping. 

“My life has been a tragedy. From the death of my own mother at the hands of the Dragonlords before Sybolkorax ‘adopted’ me, to the state of utter ruin I live in today – you, you were the one fleeting bit of happiness I could call my own! The one bright light amidst the dark.” 

Hexia throws her immense body around, her great finned tail toppling part of her horde, sending coins and emeralds alike cascading down into the waters of the lagoon. Ophea startles, though she continues playing undeterred, with incredible elegance, poise, and skill.

“You robbed me of EVERYTHING,” Hexia smashes her great talons down onto the ground, shaking the cavern. “And now another of your spawn has come here to try and rob me of my life as well!” Hexia’s yellow eyes focus on you, her amber eyes and slit-like pupils growing smaller as they follow your movements. 

“I know you,” she says darkly. “And I know why you’ve come. I am your destiny. Your last ‘great labour’ to overcome!” She spits again. “As though I have not had my own sorrows, as though I am not the wounded party in a playboy god’s torrid series of love affairs! The wife he had forsaken!” Her tears are apparent now, though the ferocity in her voice does not waver. “I fought so hard to overcome my nature, to be a soul virtuous and worthy of you and your love, and you – you discarded me… threw away everything we had, spat on everything I had ever done for you!”

She calms. Takes a deep breath, and coils back, half in her lagoon and half stretched onto land. Her eyes dart back to Ophea, then to you, Pythor, and the rest of the heroes present. “I was happy once,” she says, defeated and deflating. “I was happy once… But no more. And never again.” 

Her voice stirs with anger once again. “Fine then. Let this be the end! The end of you, the end of him, of her, of me if it must be! Let it be the end! Let it all come crashing down!” she cries, lunging forward, noxious green gas billowing in her throat and pouring from her mouth.

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