Growing things

I am reminded occasionally that I have had different experiences and I know how to do things that other people don't, and I take it for granted that everyone knows these things and, as it turns out, very few people know them at all.  I grew up with a garden.  Moreover, both my parents grew up with a garden and many of my grandparents grew up with gardens and farms.  I grew up learning to grow things because I paid attention.  My sister did not.  Well she did but she did not evolve her thinking.  To be sure my father did not evolve his thinking on gardening either.  I can grow things. 

In the first home that I can remember, I remember my mother's garden.  It was filled with flowers and bees.  The foxgloves were taller than I was and the bees felt bigger than me too, but they were not, but bees can seem bigger to a child.  There was a round lawn, where the pool used to be and because my father liked lawns and there was the flowers.  When we moved again, this time to the country, my father got his long awaited big lawn and my mother her big garden.  The lawn was an acre in size and the garden was merely a 20'x100 rectangle and after a few years that was reduced a little bit.  The land was previously a pasture and before that it was forest.  So my parents had to work on the land before it could be what they wanted.  My fath had to cut the tall grass with a scythe and later my mom had to rototill the strip out.  My mom built a compost pile which my father hated, but that explains how my father thought gardens were made.  I learned you need to add stuff to the soil for things to grow well.  People don't know that step.  They think you plow the land and put the seeds in and then come back and pick e food out, very FarmVille of them.

My first garden was in a comunity garden many years ago, I worked in a garden centre then so it was really about experimentation for me.  Using the products I sold.  People in the community garden were a mixed bag.  Most planted from seed, some purchased larger plants and planted them in the ground, most did not augment the soil at all.  I bought ten bags of manure and compost and worked them into the 20x10 plot I had been given.  I asked for a full sun plot but I got what I got.  I also tried to water every day too.  Some people did not.  My friend grew using the methods she knew well, she planted her garden to grow food.  She planted so that she could harvest the veggies she liked many times, like three harvests of radishes in one growing season.  They key to growing food in a garden is watering and fertilizers.  We both added manure and with both added slow release.  I added Myke, she did not, but I was experimenting.  

When I gave up my garden and moved to the city I learned how to make a container garden.  Container gardening is for people living with people with lawn fixations and for people in appartments.  You need full sun.

You need to choose your plant.  I chose tomatoes.  I chose cherry tomatoes because they mature faster and they are more numerous and they are sweet.  

For a container garden you need to get your container.  It needs to be big.  And deep.  The bigger it is the better root support system the plant can have.  More roots means more water and nutrients the plant can get.  The more water and nutrients, the faster it can grow and the greater the fruit and the more fruit you can get.  Big roots = big plant = more food.

Your plant.  Buy it from a garden centre.  The bigger the better.  A medium sized plant from seed can take weeks to grow.  By planting a big plant you start your plant weeks ahead of a seed.  If you want to grow your plant from seed, start in february with grow lights.  

Myke your plant.  That means apply Myke to the plant's roots and then plant it.  For most plants plant to the depth of the pot you bought your plant in, that is, don't put soil higher than where the plant has soil already.  If you do, your plant will die.  Except if you have a tomato, then put that tomato on the bottom of your planter and pile the soil around it.  It this covers limbs and leaves, do it anyways.  Tomatoes can have roots emerge from anywhere on the plant, so it won't die and the roots of the plant will be bigger faster for tomatoes.  And the tomato will get bigger faster, bigger faster than if you plant it to a normal depth.  Myke makes your plant have stronger roots, deep planting tomatoes make stronger tomato roots, both will mean your tomato can pick up more water and nutrients and grow longer when it is dry than other plants, so more fruit. 

Fertilize.  I add a slow release fertilizer every 6 weeks and I add a water soluble every two week too… actually I add it every week, and people tell me that is too much, but the results speak for themselves.  Container plants only get nutrients from you.  They don't get it from the soil, because container soil has no nutrients.  Sugar is made from water and carbon dioxide and light through photosynthesis, sugar makes cellulose and it make starches and it makes the sweet part of the fruit, but it does not make the flower, the seeds, the chlorophyll or any of the important structures in a plant, so you need to add something for the plant to grow.  The readily availible, the faster the plant will grow.  In nature, when there is a component of growth that is limited in availiblity it slows the whole production of a plant down, that is why if you add phosphorus to a lake algea will grow (bloom), when you add iron to ocean water algea will bloom in abundance.  They have all their needs to grow except one thing, they can't grow at all.  If they have everything they need, they will grow fast and large.  If you fertilize them a lot and they are in shade, they won't grow, because the sunshine is the limiting factor.  Same with watering.  No water no growth.  So I fertilize them more than recommended.  Did I mention that my tomato plant grew more than an inch a day this week?

I go with cherry tomatoes.  If you like bigger tomatoes, do this too:  ignore the advice that people give to remove extra branches, the ones that develop in the elbows of the branches.  Let the plant grow and grow.  The more leaf space the more energy and sugar they can put to fruit growth.  If you do anything cut the flowers off.  Limiting the amount of fruit will cause the plant to put its resources into ripening the fruit you have, or push the plant to grow more.  The thing is, you are providing all the resources that the plant needs to grow except sunlight, so if you can support the leaf growth with fertilizer and watering then why not?  You will need something to support your tomato as it grows, a cage works nicely, but remember to put the cage on the plant before it grows in it as it can be nearly impossible to put the cage on after it grows.  You can use stakes or a trellis, but you will need to tie the plant to it then.  Usually at the end of the year, my tomato will have grown so large that the cage is demolished so this can be a problem.  

If you are planting anything else everything I have said applies, except you must plant the plant only as deep as the pot.  White cedar, tomatoes, and wild sumac are the only exceptions I know so far.  When I plant flowers, I cu the blooms off too; I do this to promote growth.  Flowers are the end goal of plants, reproduction, and if they are reproducing they will grow slower.  Also if you cut a annual flower it will branch at the first node before the cut and you will get a more full plant in about two to three weeks and more blooms.  Again if you are supplying all the needs of the plant except sunshine, the plant will grow bigger and faster than if a resource is limited in some way.  Make the sunshine be the limiting resource.  I put four petunias, four potato vines and a heliotrope in a planter, large planter (about 20") and in four weeks they are completely covering the surface and spilling over the side.  My only regret was not using a bigger plant than a heliotrope, and it has been overwhelmed by the potato vine and petunias, but next year I will have the same heliotrope and I will plant up the same pot and the heliotrope will be a year bigger.

Firsecond game session

My goal was for my friend and his children to have a fun time together playing D&D.  D&D was a game that we both played together and the new edition (5e) was interesting enough to get back into it and play it.  He invited me to play with his children as an honorary family member and when he got more and more sick I knew that I had to reciprocate.  It was what we have always done, he runs a game or two and I run a game or two for him.  

We have different game styles, mine is an answer to his own and his own is his own.  He likes story driven advancement, meaning you get to advance your character when he thinks that you need a new level, not when you earned it.  Like when at third level we defeated a troll, five goblins, 50 orcs, and five über Orcs, we were still at third level.  Verses, two sessions and two level gains, but really, the first session they fought 20 goblins and two hobgoblins, defeated a trap and solved a mystery, and the next session they fought some bugbears and 20 goblins and defeated a Minotaur, so I figure they earned the level rises each time.  My friend thought we were advancing too quickly, that I was advancing them because he is dying.  It was true, I intend to make this a quick campaign, I want to compress a lot into one summer for the kids and their dad before he dies, and I know what kids think is fun.  But I want the father, my friend to have fun too.  He texted me this morning saying that his son was talking about the adventure the next day, because he had so much fun.

The first session was just me and him; he wanted to make sure that the kid's characters fit with them, how he thought they would like.  Which is good.  His son was a ranger, which meant risk adverse but strong fighting ability good for him.  His race was a home brew Elf Character, a yellow elf, changed to Amber Elf for him.  Tall and thin, blond hair with bronzed skin, a grown up version of him.  Special abilities speed and armour class so he was more durable and faster than everyone else.  And he got a free useful pet dire wolf, which is a break from the racial benefit, because dire wolves are not herd animals.  

His daughter was going to be a rogue, eventually a swashbuckler.  Her race was a home brew as well, urban Halfling, gets a free unique feat called Scrounger which allows her to have 50% chance to have a useful item in her pocket at any time and advantage on slight of hand checks, bonus skill of slight of hand at double proficiency, and lastly a free cantrip Vicious Mockery; I essentially recreated the Kender from Dragonlance.  

My friend wanted to game too, so we gamed, but the adventure that I had planned was not going to take more than two hours to play, and the kids were not going to be joining us so I had to stretch out the plan and add to it.  But that was fine, because as I said, he likes to roleplay, so we did his intermediary adventures, moving from his home to his finding his group and starting the adventure.  That was a lot of time, but it allowed me to introduce some specific world plot points to him that he was unaware of, like the deity structure, the world structure, and a few other things like slavery in the world— which is one of those things that most campaign worlds gloss over if they even mention it.  I also got to introduce the machinations of the Olgiarchs of the town they were in, how some guilds were on ascendance and others in decline and that new powerful guilds were trying to keep power and e older smaller guilds were trying to tear them apart and split them into smaller guilds to change the power balance.  Political stuff that if the game went off as it was supposed to would appeal to Natural20's husband, I hoped.  The goal was to provide depth to e world and thus realism that is important to adults.  Kids want monsters and fights, kids are easy.  I got to introduce the idea of accurate astrology, which my friend hates.  He hates the idea that someone can predict his actions and that he is fated to do something.  

That's the thing; it is fantasy.  The fantastic gets to be real.  You are the hero is the first fantastic thing in a fantasy.  RPGs also have gods with proof, they grant spells therefore they are real.  There is proof that there are gods see what I can do becuase of gods.  Astrology is fake, but in fantasy it can be real and demonstrable; if I have an accurate horoscope of someone, I can tell what you will have for breakfast next week, but the key is accurate.  I said to him a Diviner Mage can tell what is behind a door because he casts a spell that taps into the perfect horoscope for that room beyond the door so he knows what is there.  But you could commission an astrologer to do the same, and if they are good, you will know what is behind that door when you get there too.  So the oligarchs had a mission they needed accomplished and they were waiting for the right people to be found to accomplish the task, ones that are fated to succeed, as so many have failed.  The mission is to infiltrate a ruined city, abandoned five centuries ago and to find the treasure of the king who made the city great, his mythic treasure maps, which were thought to have been lost these thousand years… 

That was the mission and there was lots of roleplaying to get there.  The trip took a week to get to the site, nine days, and there they met a man who told them of a place not far from the city that would serve as a good place to make camp, a good clean spring and safety from the weather.  They asked him to guide them there and to take their cart and horses back to his dwelling with him.  He agreed and they set out the next day.  The place was all that he claimed it was, but cramped.  They set watch and prepared to set out the next day.  In the night, e elf discovered a patrol of goblins near the camp and he alerted th rest.  They tracked the goblins down and attacked them in their hole.  Unfortunately, there were traps and the entire abandoned temple went into lockdown and all the doorways were blocked off and the characters were trapped with the goblins.  The five in the room they were in were quickly killed, but the doors were locked down.  They cleaned off the offal plastered to the walls because they saw a mosaic and words.  The walls were cleaned and a door unlocked, they went into that room and killed the five goblins in there then they cleaned the mosaics in there and uncovered more words.  That unlocked the third room and they entered that room to encounter the goblin's leaders, two hobgoblins and two goblins with an altar and a statue.  They killed the enemies but the one full player went down and required the NPC cleric to revive him.  Once the room was defeated the PCs figured out the phrase to say before the altar and that unlocked the secret door!  The words said were also the words to join the knighthood of the Order of Awsland.  The Paladin joined the order by saying the words and he received the benefits of the Order.  The ability to fight magic vulnerable creatures and influence over the people descended from Awsland.  They also found a completely secure campsite with a secret entrance and a secret exit, complete with clean water and bed chambers.  Oh and a level gain, 1200xp/4

Oh and a blessing by the Hidden Goddess for uncovering the secrets of the Order of Awsland, lost for 500 years.  The paladin selected a spell of a higher level than he could cast once.  What? He said.  I explained the blessing system and I got a, "that is so cool!" out of him.  And then followed by a "Why have I never thought of that?". And "I should have thought of that".  Then I explained the mechanics and asked for refinement advice, explaining that e greater gods were morality concept based, the god of law, the god of Chaos, the god of Good, the god of evil and so on.  Only the greater gods and they had secret quests and secret blessings that give out rewards based on the challenge.  Another cool.

The second session, they set forth the next day headed toward the city.  They kids played this time without their father, because he needed to go out for a bit. They were very silly but we got though a combat with some Kobolds and when their father returned they quieted down, but he was on edge.  That was the way we progressed.  I spread out a large map of the city they could see and explained what they saw.  Everything was flat except the red lines which marked the roads and the walls and important buildings— they were all ruined and fallen over and covered with grass and dirt so were just hills.  So the red marks were mounds disguising the ruins.  The green was stands of trees, mostly cottonwood trees because this was a desolate prairie location, but with the occasional tree too.  The blue was water lakes and rivers.  The black was the outlines of standing buildings.  

They passed by the large green area that was confined to straight edges and corners and found there to be skeletons mowing the grass and tending the trees and the monuments.  They left it and went deeper into the ruins.  At the first lake they encountered foot prints in the mud and the ranger started picking out all the different monsters that visited this patch of ground, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears and dragon kin.  At this point they decided that the Oligarchs had sent them on a suicide mission.  They continued and discovered the central plateau with the palace.  They were cautious and looked at the first building and saw writing on the building with clay.  The Ranger looked at the words and he determined that he could read them.  They were Draconic and stated that Goblins live here.  They quickly discussed options and determined they should at least look to see how many goblins were in here, if they were even in there.  They sent two stealthy people to look around the building and report back.  The ranger snuck through the tall grass and reported back that there was a goblin on guard at an entrance.  The Halfling came back to say there was a Kobold talking to twelve goblins and one bugbear.  The idea that there mig be an alliance between the two groups inspired them enough to attack and discover as much as they could.  The ranger and the rogue headed out to ambush the sentry.  The ranger missed, but the rogue killed the sentry. The party snuck up to the entryway in the building to spy upon the group talking.  They decided that a fight might be a good thing to do. 

They surprised the goblins and won imitative too.  They decided to position the cleric so he could spray the goblins with his powerful spell, Burning Hands.  The plan was a good one, but the goblins failed to cooperate and the players left a large opening in the killing zone, which they boiled through and turned the tables on them.  The players were almost all flanked at one point in the battle and they all took a critical hit from the goblins, but the paladin killed the bugbear with a powerful hit when he channelled his spell into a divine strike and burned the bugbear dead.  The goblins who saw this ran away, to get reinforcements.  But at still left another six goblins.  There was a total of eighteen goblins, one Kobold, and a bugbear in the battle, the Kobold fled and the fleeing goblins brought two more bugbears and however many hobgoblins they had with them.  The remaining six were slowly killed over three more rounds and the party decided to retreat.  Twelve dead goblins plus six fleeing 18x50xp bugbear 200, that is 1100 xp, plus they were out numbered big time and that means that they would get triple xp, but I decided against that, there was the four kobolds, dead earlier and the one that fled, 125xp and the guard 50, for 1225 exp.   They decided that that was enough for that day and ran away, um retreated.  When they retreated they saw that they were being followed from the air and the elf shot it down with an arrow, another 50xp.  It was a winged Kobold.  They decided that their earlier assessment was true, a suicide mission.  But they rested the night and another day and headed into the city from a different route.  Their first stop was to the goblin lair which they found deserted, odd.  They then headed on to the Palace.  There they found words in Draconic with emphasis and urgency, stating grave danger and to turn back immediately, which they did not, because they had to see for themselves.  They were cautious and say a silhouette in the entrance, a Kobold.  The Kobold was holding a bow and was drawing it back and was stuck their.  Closer they noticed that it was turned to stone!  And there was half a dozen other stone kobolds right there as well.  They decided not to go in there.  

They went to another building and found more warning signs, but less dire.  They also found the entrances walled up with loose stone.  The characters pulled down the wall and went in anyways.  They found a set of stairs going down and then another and they found themselves in a sewer system which was strangely in very good condition, no roots and clean.  Not too clean and not polished clean.  There was water flowing in the bottom of the tunnel and the whole thing was six feet in diameter.  They went exploring with little rhyme or reason.  They were looking for the reason why the Kobolds had closed off the ruin.  They did discover the reason why the sewers were so clean.  There were skeletons cleaning the sewer for the last five hundred or more years.  Wanting a bit of action the characters fought the cleaning crew for some excitement.  They defeated them easily.  Bunt the noise of the encounter drew attention to themselves.  They heard a Mighty roar echo down the sewer.  They knew, just knew this was going to be bad, so they turned and ran noting that they had failed to mark the path as they came in.  To bad they had not brought chalk!  Chalk, oh I have chalk, the halfling said rooting around in her pocket and bringing it forth, too late.  They guess at which way they had come, wishing for mud that could have left tracks to tell them which way to go.  A snort and a roar followed them catching up to them.  They turned to fight as a Minotaur with a gleaming Great Axe came charging toward them.  The great beast was encumbered by the ceiling, only six feet tall it did not easily hold his nine foot frame so he attacked at disadvantage and only hit once, nearly killing the paladin.  The paladin used his spells for smites that brought him low, the Minotaur fought recklessly and they were able to defeat it: 700xp. I awarded them experience for discovering elements of the story and for not fighting the medusa, yes the medusa that would have wiped the party out.  And gave them another level.

Next time they will take another way into the city and perhaps pass by the strangely completely intact building…

 

Friends Game, second session, with kids?

Adventure part two 

In the central dome there is a camp of a kobolds.  The Blood Claw Clan has quietly set up there.  There were 60 of them when they moved in.  There are 40 now, with six Dragonborn leaders.  The Blood Claw clan pushed into the ruin first among the rivals of the Dragon.  There are two other clans present, the Feared Talon clan, ten winged kobolds and the Fire Hearts, five elite kobolds second level fighters and one third level, but they are only Kobolds and they recognize superiority of he Dragon born; they lost all of their Dragonborn leaders.  So they fall in line with the Blood Claw clan, but this alliance is shaky.  

They ran afoul of a wight and now it has a bunch of Kobold specters too.  The wight occupied a barrow within the old city, a former temple to Scoria, a cleric who betrayed his oaths and was compelled to serve the temple after his death as a wight.  The temple is mostly intact due to the presence of the Wight.  Since e temple is intact, it is often the first structure that people investigate, and their last.  The wight has made five kobolds into specters.  The chapel contains a secret door that was unknown to priests back in the day, as it was gifted to the Priesthood Years after the structure was build.  There is a secret door under the main altar that leads to a hidden temple to the Hidden Goddess.  The hidden temple contains the treasure vault of the Rogue King Awsland.  

There is a Minotaur that was using the the ruins of the Palace as is lair and there is a medusa living in the chapel.  The chapel has some stone Kobold statues and some warning signs on the walls.  

The main floor of the Palace is controlled by a medusa.  She has killed a few of the Kobolds by turning them to stone and they mark the entryway of the palace, along with a number of other interlopers from the previous few decades.  The kobolds are hoping to end the threat caused by the Minotaur and the Medusa by collapsing all the entrances to the Minotaur's lair except the one that leads to the Medusa, hoping that one or the other will get killed in a fight and allow the survivor to be picked off easily.  They really hope that the fight kills both of them!  The attempts to kill the Medusa off with dropping rocks on it have failed, mostly due to the magic Longbow she uses (once per day an arrow fired from the bow does an additional 2d6 lightning damage, otherwise it is a +1 bow). She also has a canteen that contains a liquid that she made that will turn creatures she has turned to stone back to flesh, but unless it is done within two minutes of turning to stone, they are dead.  There are two doses left.  If time is spent observing the medusa they will see her use the canteen.  

The Minotaur has dined on a few kobolds, but his lair has suffered from having the kobolds being here; they have walled up a few of his exits and trapped others and there are signs by the Kobolds.  When the Minotaur is encountered it is hungry.  If the characters attempt to feed it it will offer to work with the party.  If not, it will fight to the death.  It guards the entrance to the treasure horde that was left of the palace, except of course the treasure was removed when the city started to die, so there is only a few things like silver and copper from the old kingdom, which are badly corroded.  There is a few Electrum in amongst the horde as they are corroded too.  There is an ugly necklace which is a necklace of missiles with only six gems left, 3 2d6, 2 4d6, and 1 6d6 missile left.  There is a shield with the markings of the knight hood of Awsland on it +1 which adds to interactions with Awslandish descended people.  

In addition to these threats, there is a small enclave of Goblins already living in the ruins.  They had been using the area as a raiding base for years and they see the winds of change and are making nice with the Kobolds and preparing for an alliance.  There are thirty goblins, five hobgoblins and two bugbears. Right now the alliance is very shaky and anything could disrupt it.  

Okay those are the bones, what about the flesh?

What do the ruins look like?  What are the notable points of the old city?there was the harbour and the lock system that raised the river up to the city.  There is the dry river bed.  The inner city walls, the outer city walls, the graveyard.  The palace, the Church of the kingdom, other churches.  Sewer system. Coliseum.  Streets. Statues and columns.  Monuments

Things that live in the ruins.  Giant Scorpions.  Dust Mephits. Skeletons, because zombies would have rotted away.  Skeletal horses.  Rats, giant rats, giant ants.  Giant Spiders.  Manticore?  Dragon kin, wyverns, dragon wolves, harpies.  A Blue Dragon

The grass blows in the wind, each gust for miles telegraphed on the surrounding land bowled over by it and rising back in the calm.  The outer edge of the city is as plain as anything on the plain, the low hill that stretches for miles in a large circle ten feet wide and two feet high, interrupted by a taller round hill twenty feet in diameter dotted along the wall.  The city gates stand ajar before you still hanging from the crumbling remains of the city wall, the only part still present.  Hills rise through the ruined city to mark buildings that have fallen in and covered by the sands of time.  There are intact buildings and monuments still whole, but these are rare and odd by their completeness.  Beyond the old city are the mounds that mark the old inner city, the places where the palaces and the temples stood for a thousands years before being deserted, a few more of these was left unlooted of their rare marble facades and their gold covered domes, out of respect for the great kings that came before them perhaps.  All is not deserted, just to the left you see a great termite mound rise from the dirt as tall as a house and beyond a small herd of antelope browse near a copse of cottonwood, and pile of bones piled neatly at the base on the gate house wall.  

Encounter groups 

Ant nest entering the Ant nest quickly gets noticed and a fight with two waves of ants ensues, each wave has five ants in it.  The population of ants is nearly limitless but one fight per visit.  After exploring the nest even a little bit the players gain access to the sewer system.  

Termites Hill. Giant termites act just like the Ants only their tunnels do not interact with the sewer system.  The termites hills are frequently broken into by giant rats and wolf dragons 

Giant Spiders live in many of the ruins, even the ones occupied.  There are trapdoor spiders living in the areas near to the Giant Ants and Giant Termites, they normally go after the insects but a stray goblin or Kobold makes a nice snack too.   Giant Scorpions travel between empty ruins and these outer areas looking for food.  Like the spiders they often lie in ambush to grab prey.  

The sewers are filled with Skeletons move around clearing them keeping them clear of obstructions.  They are controlled by a ring on their fingers that keeps them performing the tasks they were commissions for centuries ago.  There are some estates in the city that the grass is kept under control and the trees pruned to perfection by a similar method.  Targeting the ring, -5 to hit distorts the skeleton instantly.  Interfering with the Skeleton's task will cause them all to attack the target. 

There is a manticore in one of the ruins on the outer city.  The grounds of the estate are maintained by a group of twenty skeletons, ten maintaining the grounds, five sweep the grass in the ruined lower level and five are dressed in Chainmail and carry rusted swords and patrol the inside of the estates ruined walls.  The upper level of the ruined house is the lair of a manticore.  It is very old and prefers to dine on the plentiful antelope but it is still eager to add to its horde.  

The graveyard is well maintained after all these years as it has a number of Skeletal caretakers, including a couple monstrous varieties.  Ogre and a bulete skeletons with normal human types.  If the players kill some kobolds and leave them lying around they will find new graves for them in the graveyard unless the skeletons are disabled.

If they players travel through the ruins at dusk or dawn, they will be spotted by Kobold patrols.  And they will be tracked from afar.  If they cause a disruption that the kobolds notice then they will surely start looking for them.  They will start with the paths that the characters seem to take a lot and build dead drops and ambush spots.  They are intelligent and will not want to engage the characters on anything less than their own ground but they will fight them none-the-less.  The six dragon born are third level and they are intelligent.  They are rangers, Sorcerors and clerics.  They will fight smartly too, sending the Kobolds out to die first if need be.  But they recognize that they are stronger with minions than without.  They are on a mission to get the treasure of King Awsland too.  But they do not have the resources that the party has, they may lead the players into the right location and hope to ambush them when they leave.  The dragon kin believe that the treasure chamber is in the vaults with the Minotaur and the Medusa, so they are not that eager to push forward.