Lefty had been hanging in the dungeon for some time when things began to smell.

Hours earlier, he had awoken disoriented and confused as to why he was there. Hanging by his wrists, chains holding him to the wall, he had spent most of the first few hours wondering if gravity was going to be enough to pull his shoulders out of joint and recounting all of the misadventures that had led to this point.

He had known this would happen. He had known deep down in his soul.

He remembered waking up in the woods with the ogre standing over him. He remembered Feathers and their escape from the goblins. He remembered the village that had burned to the ground and their escape via the river. Then Captain Padral had given them their mission. He remembered Kevin, the game master and the supposed way station that was supposedly hidden here. There had been their trek across the valley and the bear. Somewhere in there they had taken in Cat’s Eye, the goblin merchant. Then they made their way up the pass where they had found the fortress. Now he was here. Hanging from a wall.

However, as he hung there, chained to the wall, it wasn’t his memories from the past week that were bothering him. It was the last thing he had seen before he had fainted in the courtyard. The dragon.

He had seen this dragon before. It was familiar to him. It was the same black and purple dragon he and Calista had fought in Severin’s dungeon. Somehow, perhaps impossibly, that dragon had escaped the dungeon to make its way here and in less than two weeks had gathered an entire army of goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and gnolls.

He even knew her name. Vevic.

To make matters worse, in the course of their escape from the dungeon, he and Calista had killed Vevic’s mother, the medusa Narene. It probably didn’t matter one wit to Vevic that Calista had been the one to do the stabbing. Calista wasn’t here. He was.

It was just as Lefty began to wonder at the nature and depth of the dragon’s fury that things began to smell.

He knew immediately what it was and who had committed the crime. This was because, in all probability, there was only one being in the fortress in possession of a rotten egg. Feathers. Lefty tried to hold his breath as he thought back to the battle with the giant centipede and the strange egg the duck had taken from the loot box. I guess this is one mystery solved. He had not wondered much about the egg. The duck’s motives and machinations were not much concern to him as Feathers seemed to march to the beat of his own drum, even for a magical anthropomorphic waterfowl.

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Shortly after the smell appeared, there followed a struggle in the hallway complete with quacking and a good deal of screeching. Then things had been quiet again. And smelly. Very smelly.

Undoubtedly, Feathers’s plan had been to drop the rotten egg in the hallway and force the guards to vacate their posts. However, somewhere in there it sounded to Lefty as though the duck had gotten caught and now Lefty was left hanging on the wall with no option other than to take in the wonderful smell the duck had left for him to enjoy. That had been the end of Lefty’s ability to concentrate as the smell was so bad that his eyes began to water. Tears trickling down his face, he began to wonder just what circle of hell he had stumbled into that had him hanging from a wall in range of a rotten egg.

Mercifully, after several minutes a pair of guards came and carried him out. After they had escorted him into the yard, they doused him in warm water, and presented him with fresh clothing. Surprisingly, it was a regal looking robe of blue with silver trim and a pair of very stylish boots. Clearly I am being cleaned so that the dragon can turn me into her next meal.

Then he was shackled again and escorted to the mess hall where they sat him down at a table and chained him to a stone bench. There he sat, looking out a window at the stars as he wondered at why he was there. Not ten minutes later, the answer to this question walked right in.

She was a shapely woman in a dress made of burning fire and her heels clicked against the cobblestone floor as she walked. Her eyes were ink blots, her hair black as midnight, and her carriage was that of misplaced royalty.

Though he could not stand as his arms were chained to the stone bench, he managed to shift and face her. When she came to a stop, she stood over him with her hands on her hips with the expression of a woman who clearly meant business.

“I’m told you’re a wizard,” she said.

“Who told you that?” he replied.

Appearing puzzled, she tilted her head. “Uh … no one, actually I just assumed you were because you were wearing those blue robes when I caught you in the courtyard.”

Oh, so this is the dragon in her human form. Alarm bells were ringing in his head, but he did his best to ignore them. “Well, you guessed right. I am a wizard, though obviously not a terribly advanced one. I’m mostly harmless, really. You could let me go and no one would be hurt, I promise. I couldn’t hurt anyone even if I tr …”

“Quiet,” she snapped. “I don’t need you begging. I want to know why you’re here and who sent you.”

Lefty considered his position. He was being questioned. This dragon ruled both this fortress and the entire horde. He had no leverage and would likely be tortured if he resisted answering her questions. However, there was also the instinctual and very human reaction to being put to the question by a determined enemy wherein one does not want to answer said questions and however frightened he might be at that very moment, he also began to feel obstinate about this entire situation.

There was also the problem of his interrogator. She was hot. Literally. Her dress was on fire with blue and white flames that rippled up and down her body and she had obviously spent a good deal of time on her hair (Lefty did not know a lot about women’s hair, only that braids took time). He needed to come up with a plan to turn the tables to his advantage. Maybe she doesn’t remember me from the dungeon. It’s entirely possible she didn’t get a good look at me. Perhaps …

Finally, he said, “We came here looking for you.”

She tilted her head and blinked.

“We’re here to ask you about your fortress’s extended warranty.”