Once the existence and location of the temple were confirmed, we returned to Flotsam and relayed our findings to the captain. Overjoyed with the information, he immediately announced that a requisition party was to be sent, one that he himself would lead. That was rather unusual, as our captain didn’t usually join such endeavours personally, his leadership and skill were mostly given from the rear position, but I guess that this was an operation that required personal oversight. We of the scout party were to be a part of this group, along with a dozen and a half additional muscles and the Captain himself. It was said that a bigger party would be more prone to activating the temple’s presumed dormant defences, but I suspect that captain was afraid of being robbed of any magical treasures before due inspection and appraisal was done. Our journey to the temple was much smoother this time, now that the road had been laid out, and we arrived before sunset. We have quickly found the overgrown doors to the temple, and soon we found ourselves in an enormous main hall of this ancient complex. From first glance it was obvious that this had been a place of prayers and religion, as it was filled with a ridiculous amount of ornate altars, statues and statuettes made in dragon image. All these talks make me seem like I my way around this history stuff, but I’m only really paraphrasing what cap’n said, so let’s end this description with the fact that we started filling our bags and pockets with anything that was of some value and wasn’t too heavy to harry, and things that were too heavy to carry well blasted into valuable and mainly carriable smithereens. Captain left us to our devices in the matter of ordinary treasures, he had his sight on magic and that’s what he was desperately searching for in these dark halls. It would seem however that on this upmost level of the temple, no items of such kind were to be found. This was bad news, as it could have meant that this place had already been robbed before and what remained were only scraps the old robbers were too afraid to steal in fear of the dragon’s wrath. Well, that’s where we had the slightest advantage, Dragons are all but a dying broken race now, and their wrath was the slightest of our worries. And since we were probably to meant to be the first to rob this temple, we would possibly be the firsts to brave the lower levels. How did we know such lower levels were there you ask? We didn’t, but if someone were to have them, it would be dragons, so their non-existence never even came to our minds. The Boom-Master started coordinating the other kobolds and began remotely exploding one part of the temple hall after another. After few such detonations he happily proclaimed that about ten feet under our feet, the floor goes hollow and he believes that a hidden chamber is to be found under that layer. The pyromaniac then told us that he had already taken the liberty of calculating the explosion needed to surgically create a small hole to that area, and that he had already planted the tonnes of gunpowder kegs needed. Our captain told him to stop in his progress, that we would try to find access to that lower level in a less disruptive way, but the Boom-Master gave us that insane guilty look that meant that it was too late for that. The fuses had already been lit. A second later the whole temple was shaking, pillars toppling over, floor disappearing in a growing chasm and the room falling on our heads. The Cap’n and I tried to claw our way out, but we quickly lost the floor under our feet and began falling towards almost certain doom. The doom fortunately wasn’t so certain, and wasn’t so bad, because it came with a cushioned layer of running water that swiftly swept us away from harm’s way. I didn’t know what a river was doing, flowing through an ancient temple, but I was grateful anyway. In a few moments we were washed ashore and you wouldn’t believe where the river had taken us. It was a room much like the last one, but this one looked like a proper dragon’s nest. Filled with heaps of jewelleries and coins haphazardly thrown around. Items of magical nature were protruding from these heaps like reefs and our captain soon began revelling in the spoils. We started filling our water soaked bags with all this stuff, but we found something that had turned our joy into fear. Under all that gold, we had found giant scales and bones, ones still connected to something’s body. It wasn’t moving however and upon closer inspection we discovered, that under those piles a half eaten carcass of a dragon was hiding. A carcass that was clutching an egg to its breasts. An egg that was cracked open, empty. A dragon egg whose inhabitant was probably still lurking about.