DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: Beneath an Endless Sky (5e quest!)

You take a look at his movies, all brand new Personal Tape Cassettes. Among the romantic comedies and action flicks, there is only one that tempts you - he actually has a copy of Requiem, that historical epic by Kalkalazadakan. Nothing beat brass dragons for special effects. You hold out your hand, then jerk it back, closing your eyes. "Boots. Boots. You don't even have a PTC player." You stepped back, then started up the stairs.

You found Garren had a bedroom with some discarded panties on the floor, a rolodex full of little cardstock paper things that had people's names and phone numbers on them, and then a window looking out at the goblin's house. And here, you could smell the stink. It was faint and wafting through the window that was cracked an edge open. You swung the window wide, then pressed your cheek against the screen and saw that the gutter that ran along the edge of the house for the scheduled rainstorms was...jammed up with something.

"Huh," you say, then step backwards, then work your fingers on the edge of the screen. You wriggle it, tug it, and then wrench the screen back and set it down. Leaning your upper torso out, having to stand on your tip toes to see it, you can see that there's a moldering pile of slushy berries in the gutter, which are swarming with ants and other little critters. Your nose wrinkles as you see that...at least some of the berries are actually glowing faintly with a pale blue luminescence - and before your eyes, a few berries tumble down and land in the pile. You look up, craning your head back, and see a small crack on the wall of the house, through which the berries are coming.

"Attic!" you hiss.

Seems that way, Slack says.

"Who the fuck is casting goodberry up there?" you mutter to yourself, starting out into the corridor that ran along the bedroom. You saw the office with Garren's personal computer and...ah! AH! You grabbed onto the little latch dangling from the ceiling, pulled down, and the ladder that led to the attic unfolded and clattered down to you. You clambered up, your vision shifting from full color normal vision to the glittering grayscale of darkvision as you saw that the attic was crammed full of cages, each cage holding a sad looking little psuedodragon, each of them hunched low, licking at the water bottles and food stores set up by their side. There was a willow wand strapped to what looked like a severed hand attached to an electrical lead - the lead triggered as you watched, the hand spasmodically gripping, and then the grip triggered the wand. Right. Wands need physical contact from...hands...

Your nose wrinkled, and you had to ask some serious questions about where, exactly, Garren had GOTTEN the fucking hand. Not to mention the wand of goodberry. Still, as you watched, the goodberries slid along several narrow tracks that led to pseudodragon cages.

Except.

They didn't.

Instead, they got halfway there and were diverted by a bit of scrap metal that had been propped up and led to a narrow hole in the wall. Your brow furrowed.

"Huh," you said.

And that was when the weight landed on your head.

BAD BAD EVIL BAD!

The emotions hits you ALMOST as hard as the little claws and chomping. Teeth sink into your ear and you yelp, flailing your arms. You stumble against a cage, which rattles, while all the other pseudodragons, as if on a signal, start to fill your head with their own ire, screaming little jolts of psychic rage and upset as you stumble away, then knock over the wand and hand, which comes free and slaps on the ground. Electric wires spark and the portable battery that Garren has rigged up starts causing the hand to twitch on the ground like a helpful crawler. You flail around, grab onto the tiny dragon, but he's already moved from one ear to your head, batting at your face.

BAD BAD! EVIL BAD! BAD!

You grab up, and he scrambles along your back, around to your front, then bites at what is visible of your belt. "No!" You grab onto his sides, then hold him up and away from your arms, glaring at him as you do so. "Stop!"

The pseudodragon whips his tail around, the stinger hits your wrist.

"Hey!" you say. "That-"

You collapse to the ground in a heap.

When you wake up it is with a soft groan and ...a...bizarre sense that you can't feel your teeth. You probe your tongue around your numb mouth, but then open your eyes, slowly, painfully. Your body feels like someone has shot your entire flesh up with Novocain - and your arms are above your head and, currently, very crudely tied. Like...you crane your head up and barely see the knots and...they...look more like suggestions of knots. The kind of knots you'd tie if you only had paws and teeth to work with.

You're awake! A voice spoke in your head - piping and clear. Then a pseudodragon hopped up onto your chest, glaring down into your face, his tiny head looking quite absurdly draconic up close. You will listen to my demands or else...I will...BREATH FIRE on you!

He'll do it! He's crazy! One of the other psuedodragons thought at you from a nearby cage.

'Limited telepathy' your aching fucking ass! This was not the first time your school's textbooks had been fucking out of date. Of course, you were still fairly sure that none of them could breathe fire, that....right? They just had stingers.

...right?

So, first demand - you will free the all of us. Then you will give us real food and take us somewhere nice that's not here. Second demand, we deserve...um... he paused.

Payment! A female psuedodragon said. And! And free passage to Titan!

Yes! Payment in one thousand gold coins each and free passage to Titan and we should be allowed to join the Dragon Kings as full dragons and also, we should have steak! the leader of the psuedodragons said, glaring down at you. The ghoul jerk who captured us and kept us in cages, he had steak every night, and we could SMELL it!

Jerk! Jerk! Jerk! The other dragons chanted.

Also, we should get pretty dresses! The female psuedodragon added.

And gemstones!

The others were...clearly about to chime in with their demands.

---
What do?

[ ] Calmly explain that Garren is in danger and you're his friend and you need to get him out of it and that, uh...working together...you...could...something?
[ ] Agree to their demands. Garren can just deal, you have, uh, twenty six pseudodragons to smuggle to the outer planets.
[ ] Write In