Crown

[items here later]
"Okay, Baeshra, how the Shade did you manage this one?"

Baeshra had invited most of us over to view the newest addition to his collection. A dozen or so dragons had shown up; the rest weren't sure they really wanted to know what the collector had or how they had gotten it. This time, it was a stone statue of what might have been something between a Tundra dragon and a tigerblood Foo, twice Baeshra's size and surely many times heavier. It sat at attention in the middle of the biggest room in Baeshra's museum-like lair, and he had already decorated it - or maybe put it to use - with various amulets, bits of armor, and other magical apparel that fit.

"I found it at the Dustcarve digsite," Baeshra stated mildly, in a voice identical to Ethan's.

The voice's owner glared at him. It was likely no coincidence that Baeshra had chosen a Ridgeback voice for that statement. 'Found', indeed. "I think most of us figured that much. We aren't asking where, we're wondering how and why."

"Well, you should have seen them!" Baeshra exclaimed, now using Beppin's storytelling voice. "Hundreds of statues, half-buried in the mud! Such a shame, such beautiful things. I had to liberate at least one from the dirt. And there's so much power in every statue, can you feel it? A magical object like this is surely worthy of being the crown jewel of the collection."

"This thing has to weigh as much as I do, at least," Singe pointed out. "Magical or not, getting it here is extremely impressive."

"Thank you," Baeshra replied with Tinker's voice. "All it took was some of the rope they had lying around, and a few pulleys I fashioned out of minecart wheels and the like. No one even knew I'd done it."

The idea of a dragon with scales as brightly polished as Baeshra's, rigging up an entire pulley system to heist a Guardian-sized stone statue all the way out of a deep mine, without a single person noticing, seemed improbable at best. Then again, Baeshra is an improbable dragon. Perhaps they had convinced the miners that they were there on official business. And now there was not much hope of getting the statue out of Baeshra's claws and back to the digsite... we would just have to hope that the miners wouldn't miss one statue from the pile.

The statue was left alone for two days before something new happened.

Baeshra was alone with the statue that day. He rarely gets - or wants - uninvited visitors. At a seemingly random moment in the day, the statue came to life for the first time! He shook off the more cumbersome artifacts, but still wears a few even today. Baeshra's statue was the first Obelisk dragon to see our clan, and we - mostly - could not be happier about the arrival of the new species.

This dragon has taken the name "Crown", after Baeshra's referring to him, in statue form, as the hoard's "crown jewel". Crown has learned some other things from Baeshra, too, unfortunately - such as the art of thievery from the most obscure of places. Crown has become a partner in crime of sorts to Baeshra. However, Crown at least has a more definite natural moral compass than Baeshra does, and has already managed to dissuade them from a few more egregious schemes.

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