Dragon Harem Quest - Or: Saying You Were Gay Wasn't The Conversation-Ender You Hoped For

Oooh you're tempted, you are so very tempted to send him off on his own and creep after him like some thieving fox, watching and waiting for a moment of weakness when he reveals his true colours. But honestly you want to spend time with him and do these puzzles right more, so instead you point to the maze.

"Shall we?" you ask.

"You are the expert," he says with a flourish of his arm, "so lead on."

Well he's right. So lead on you do, chest puffed out self-importantly as you march to the hedge-maze in question.

It's just as beautiful up close as it is far away, the hedges so perfectly thick and trimmed and angular they almost seem to have been constructed brick by leafy green brick in a series of impenetrable walls rather than merely 'grown'. You take to the air for a better look at the whole thing, to better appreciate it of course, and discover that it's just as fancy on the inside too. There must be half a dozen iron gates complete with levers to raise and lower them, sometimes multiple at a time just to bend your brain, all in order to reach the emblem's resting place in the heart of the maze. You notice, as you do one last pass of the puzzle area, a surprising number of carven stone statues of beautiful winged mortals with weapons and exquisitely-cut topiary animals.

"Hey," you call down. "Wanna bet the topiaries and angel statues come alive and try to kill you? I've got 100 on 'yes'."

"No deal, I'm afraid!" he calls back up. "I like to pick and choose my bets a little better than that!"

"Aww! You're no fun!"

"That's me, no-fun Issachar!" And without further ado he steps across the threshold, striding purposefully onward even as the entrance seals over with leafy green boughs like a wound behind him. "Now, how does this work? I've never used a hedge maze before."

"They're deceptively simple, just put one hand on one wall and follow it." You perch atop one of the hedge walls - it's thick and tough enough to take even your weight. "There's some switches and gates too but I'll tell you which ones seem to be opening and shutting what."

"Aren't I lucky to have such a puzzle expert on my side!"

You preen with a wide, smug grin. "Damn right you're lucky to have a bona fide expert on your side. Okay now you've got two switches on this side of the gate coming up so I think you have to throw them in order so both gates actually stay down, try-"

It goes on in that sort of fashion for a while, you fluttering from perch to perch like a giant scaly songbird of thunder and death to advise Issachar as to the effects of his actions on the maze as a whole while he patiently follows your instructions. He even manages to figure out 'my left or your left' without being told once! He truly is the greatest partner a puzzler could have.

And then, just as he pulls his fifth switch, one of the angelic statues leaps from its pedestal and comes charging at him through the newly-opened gate. He mostly just seems confused and annoyed as he turns to face it, barely flinching as you obligingly blast it to smithereens with a bolt of lightning.

"Told you," you singsong.

"I indeed bow before your foresight." Issachar stoops to pick up its stone mace, pausing to gaze at the rubble and mentally piece it back together. "You said these were angel statues?" he calls up.

"Yeah, why?"

"They seem remarkably... pedestrian, as far as visions of heavenly warriors go," he comments, shouldering the stolen stone bludgeon and proceeding on ahead. You shadow him from above, finding a much closer perch as he comes to a set of three switches.

"Why, what're they supposed to look like?" you ask. "Flip them all back and forth, I wanna see what they do."

"This is very basic stuff," Issachar replies, flipping the switches in sequence as you suggested. "What would you say your current religious education or background is?"

"Ah... slim to none?" you say, trying not to sound too uncertain. "Try right-centre-left-right-centre."

"You've really gone this long learning so little about the faiths of the world?" Issachar asks with barely-restrained astonishment, going through the sequence practically unconsciously as he focuses his attention on you. "For someone operating in a major cultural exchange city like Söfnun for so long I honestly expected you to be a little more... well worldly."

"I like my privacy!" you say defensively as the next series of gates all descend. The mark of progress is an alarm bell for the guardians of the maze, as every statue climbs down from its perch and every topiary unroots itself in order to pursue Issachar. "Run, maze wants to kill you."

He breaks into what can only be described as a light jog, entirely unconcerned with the small army of stone and nature baying for his blood at his heels. You swoop down once they've passed and flip one of the switches back, spoiling the solution and raising three gates again. The mob of monsters are trapped within, stuck stupidly walking against the iron bars and making menacing noises in impotence possibly for the rest of time. You take off again, skimming along the spiralling wall of the home stretch and alighting right over the plinth containing the first emblem piece to wait for Issachar.

"Got it," he says, snatching it out of its housing with a brief flash of satisfied flair. He cranes his neck to meet your gaze. "So what happens now?"

You take a quick look around. "Uhh... looks like it wants you to backtrack," you say.

"Mm." He shades his eyes. "What do you think?"

"I think we gave it its fair shot," you say.

"I think we gave it its fair shot," he agrees, obligingly spreading his arms out for you. You swoop down and deftly snatch him off his feet, claws wrapped tight around his biceps as you wheel around and bear the dangling man safely back down to the grassy ground. He raises the dragon-head emblem and wiggles it proudly, as if to say 'one down already'. You appreciate him trying to get into the spirit of it all.

"So why not explain things to me?" you ask as the pair of you move on counterclockwise to the next puzzle. The cemetery is wreathed in its own little sea of mist, seeming to absorb what little light manages to claw its way through the unnatural canopy overhead. Issachar's breath begins to steam as the pair of you draw up to the rickety, creaking old gate but if the cold bothers him he refrains from complaining.

"I would be happy to," he explains in a tone so genuine it's almost disarming. But first he gestures to the rows of tombstones around you, stretching out like a sea of broken stone teeth in the mist. You approach one at random, kneeling down to read the inscription.

Suddenly the earth beneath you buckles and shifts, a low moan slowly rising with the abomiantion making it as the zombie interred within the despoiled ground claws its way to the surface. It reaches up to you with a half-rotted hand, fingers locked like curled claws in rigor mortis, its eyeless sagging face staring accusingly up at you as its lipless maw opens wide-

"Shhhh." You place your hand against its skull and gently yet firmly shove it back down into the ground. The zombie lets out a confused moan - you continue to make soft shushing noises as you read the rest of the inscription, holding its head under even as it struggles and squirms, as if drowning it. You make a half-interested noise as the surname in particular seems to swim before your eyes, resolving itself multiple different ways. "Hmm. It looks like this place belonged to the Douglas house, but the name is constructed with two words from an older dialect basically meaning 'dark river'."

"Think it's relevant?" Issachar asks.

"I don't know! I think it's interesting and I don't get many opportunities to flex the gift of tongues," you say, somewhat petulantly. "Anyway, it seems like this son of the line died fairly young, Severe anaemia he never managed to recover from, I think. There's a symbol on his headstone."

You straighten up. The zombie resumes clawing its way to the surface, sounding somewhat more upset now that its big entrance has been ruined. Issachar smacks it back down again with his stolen mace, and this time it doesn't get back up. You turn your attention to something more productive and scan the rows of tombs, the shape of a mausoleum sluggishly resolving itself from the mist.

"Let's take a look at some headstones," you say, ignoring the shambling shapes of more zombies emerging from the mist. "I think I've heard of this kind of puzzle before, there should be some kind of pattern in the deaths and then we combine all the sigils in their headstones into a sort of key-glyph."

"Sounds like a plan. Would you like me to tell you some of what I know?" Issachar asks.

"Oh please do, this sounds like a time-consuming one and gods know zombies can't carry the interest there."

And so the two of you frolic gaily through the mist-wreathed rows of melancholy memorials to faded glory, occasionally swatting down the more persistently irritating zombies as they approach.

"This one was killed in a bar over unpaid tabs. Seems too mundane." Crunch goes a zombie skull as Issachar looks at you. "Where shall we start?"

"This one had some unspecified 'disease of the blood', somehow I think that's closer to the right track than bar bills." Whap goes your tail as you swat an encroaching zombie away. You make a mental note of the sigil on the man's tombstone, 'drawing' it on your palm with a talon to help you remember. "Why not start with Arosa? I live there and all."

"Fair enough. The Arosan faith is what's known as 'henotheistic', which- " splat "-is defined as a faith which venerates one divine figure or concept without denying the existence of others. One of the reasons I was so surprised you didn't know that-" splurtch "-is because the figure in question is Tiamat. You know, the salt sea of life from which even dragons sprang?"

"That sounds... familiar," you say, desperately covering your ass. Whack, and a zombie's head goes sailing straight off its body. "This one died from getting blood in an open wound while hunting, I think it counts."

"Mark it down. So you might say that recognising other gods as existing as a little 'obvious', but-" wallop "-the idea is to recognise them as what the Arosa believe them to be, the children of Tiamat who've stepped up to take her place maintaining balance in nature in her absence. They're more like... merchant houses, I suppose? Powerful, and worthy of respect, but only if they actually do their jobs. You give, they give back."

"Makes sense," you say. "Let's go check the mausoleum, I think we're deep enough in this 'blood' connection to crack it by now."

You indeed have all the information you need, the only question is execution. There's a crustal set in the door of the mausoleum and you obviously need to make the combined key glyph appear within it - you scratch the accumulated glyphs and your best guess of what the combination would look like in the stone beside as a guide - but the input method itself is some fiddly thing involving buttons that you just can't fathom no matter how hard you try. Eventually you let Issachar take over, venting your frustrations by batting zombies over the fence with your tail as they approach. In no time flat you hear a click and a rumble as the door descends into the earth, the mausoleum laid bare before you. Rather than a sarcophagus you find only a second plinth, the centre head of the dragon awaiting. Issachar grabs it.

"So, shall we escape?" he asks.

"Let's go."

You escape the horde by moving at a brisk walk and shut the gate behind you. They're still walking into the bars, outstretched arms waving uselessly in the empty space between, as you round the main building and make for the greenhouse.

"So what's the Sulatanate faith like then?" you ask. "I certainly didn't miss the wars, at least the tail end, and I know there was some religious motives there."

"It is, at least for now, polytheistic," he replies. "One major holy city for each of the gods. The good news was that they worshipped Tiamat as well. The bad news is that they didn't worship her enough and negotiations broke down while trying to secure an open border policy for pilgrims. The war ground on for years and years and years, the city changing hands multiple times, and all the while Sultanate lands burned. Your kind may be some of the few left that remember some places were ever green at all."

"Well that's stupid," you say with all the ironclad certainty of someone who was only made aware of the entire topic this evening. "That's mortals for you, even when they agree they figure out a way to start fighting over it."

Issachar shrugs, sanguine. "History is a tangled web of perspectives and agendas, even with hindsight it can be difficult to extract a linear chain of cause and effect. And you might be surprised how easy it is for people to hate something familiar." He opens the north door to the greenhouse with a soft metallic 'click' and motions. "After you."

The greenhouse is an opulent two-story thing, all delicate wrought iron and spiral staircases and hanging plants festooning every unclaimed fixture. No common plants here, only the finest herbs and spices and medicinal growths imported from all over the world and left in their perfect growing conditions to be cultivated. The sun has set in earnest by now, plunging the estate into a night darker than any you've ever experienced, but your night vision kicks in immediately and you hear no complaint from Issachar - that's right, because you can see just fine, can't you you bastard. You quickly scan the surroundings, easily picking out puzzle-relevant pieces of the environment with speed only seasoned adventurers could hope to match. You only need the open journal lying on a table near the door and the vague shape of the massive plant growing in the centre of the room to piece it together.

"Ah, easy one. We have to mix a special type of weed killer to rot away the plant and find the third emblem inside I bet," you explain quickly. "You see the numbers all tallying up and some of them have '+0' for no reason? You get alchemical solutions from those numbered stations and mix them with plain water, and then once you mix them all together in the right order you probably-"

The air hisses, something long and tentacular lashing out from the darkness, scattering planters like leaves on the wind as it grasps for the pair of you. The two of you dart away, presenting a divided target, but it's no use - more pseudopods lash out, hissing and whipping and cracking loud enough to rattle all the glass in its housing as the mutant plant in the middle of the room keeps up its punishing assault. Your brow furrows as you duck and dodge back and forth, waving your arms about to fend off its grasp.

"What's this all about!?" you exclaim, offended. "It's not even letting us move from the door, how are we supposed to mix all the chemicals?"

"I think it's the darkness!" Issachar replies, grunting softly with effort as he tries not to let the vines back him into a corner. "Nightfall must have made it more aggressive!"

"Yes well, there's 'more aggressive' and then there's 'unwinnable'!" you protest. "This is a complete breach of puzzle etiquette, and right when we were through doing the others completely fair and square!"

"I'm sure -ngh- you can take it up -hah- with the management," Issachar comments.

"You know what, I'll do just that!"

You step out into the centre of the room and stand stock-still. A lashing vine wraps around your midsection and the plant seems to pause a moment, as if shocked that you would just hand yourself over like that. A moment later it decides you must just be stupid and wraps the rest of its vines around you like thick fibrous ropes, arms and legs and throat, all squeezing as tight as it can as it slowly begins to drag you in. Details become clearer as you're pulled forward, talons scraping across the stone floor. The beast's immense flowerbud-like eyeless head seems to split completely open, revealing a rounded wetly-glistening fang-lined maw. You wonder if its fangs would leave a mark on you. Maybe chewing on you would just lead to a dental emergency. You're too upset to stick around and find out. Instead you tense your muscles, draw your head back, and breathe a sizzling bolt of blue-white lighting straight down its throat.

BZZZT. A tremor runs through the vines wrapped around you as the plantbeast freezes completely in place - you imagine it'd be blinking if it had eyes. It opens its maw again to let out a dry, wheezing cough, expelling a puff of smoke.

BZZZZT. You hit it again, right between the jaws. Its vines fall slack from your body like unknotted rope, each landing limp with a quiet slap as the main body sags back on its roots, punch-drunk. You stomp your way over to its side, crouch down, and lift with all the might in your body. For just a moment you fear that your draconic strength won't be enough and the beast will embarrass you one last time in front of your sort-of-date, but sure enough you feel the root system slowly begin to give way, snapping free of the earth one grasping tendril at a time as you tear the whole thing free and dump it unceremoniously to the floor.

You give it a kick for good measure. It lets out a bassy, distorted dog-whimper of a screech and spits up the third emblem, the brass dragon-head ringing and clattering as it falls to the ground beside it. You stoop and scoop it up, pausing just a moment longer beside the defeating plant.

"And let that be a lesson to you," you say. It lets out a low, hungover rumble and lies still. Satisfied, you turn and walk away.

"It seems there is some truth to the stories about a dragon's power," Issachar remarks playfully as you return to his side, gold-flecked black eyes twinkling in the darkness. "The challenges that still remain in our path had best pray that they remain fair lest they awaken your rage once more."

"Yeah yeah mneh mneh," you mock him, unlocking the other greenhouse door from the inside and leading the way back to the locked door that started it all. It's as close to pitch black as anything can get, the main building little more than an ominous silhouette painted in greyscale tones, every window cold and dead. "You saw it, it wasn't playing fair, and we still got the third emblem. So now we can get inside and solve whatever puzzles are in there, then probably unlock another area underground where we may not have to complete the rule of three with a couple more puzzles before we get to the treasure vault and/or whoever it was the map was pointing to here."

"You are quite the knowledgeable one," he observes. "What a pair we make, covering each other's weaknesses so well."

You scowl in the darkness. You're 99% sure he's teasing you for not knowing anything about religion, which is perfectly understandable really I mean who has time to learn about all the various silly cults mortals form in their spare time when everyone already knows dragons exist? He thinks all this puzzle stuff is silly too, the tosser. Shows what he knows. As far as what you know...

[ ] Impress Issachar by saying you know the story behind the three-headed dragon in the emblem you're assembling. Super secret dragon lore, no mortals allowed. You just uh, hope your memory is actually correct here.
[ ] Ask Issachar flat-out if he's an angel and if so in service to what god. He's so obviously something more than human and being passive-aggressive about it clearly won't work so it's time to rumble him good and proper.
[ ] Ask Issachar what it is he believes. Well... you don't actually know and you're curious. He seems to open up the most when you ask about him only semi-solicited or less, and it's got less chance of backfiring than trying to one-up him.