Now they were three. The half-elf and the centaur were looking
considerably less assured than before. They'd escaped the planar
Fluctuation Matrix and were able to drop their protective magic, but that
didn't mean they were out of the woods yet. Nervous, they had
unconsciously increased their pace and were beginning to outdistance House
again. 

"Will you slow down a bit," he snapped. "You don't need to hurry. You'll
only die tired." 

Forelock glanced over his shoulder and said just as irritably, "Why are we
waiting for you? I don't recall you doing much magic back there, O Mighty
Arcanopath." 

"His suggestions were valuable, even if he didn`t do anything to actively
help out," Alaceria said charitably.  

House bristled at her patronizing tone and was about to let fly a cutting
remark when the group rounded a bend in the cavern and entered a wide
open, low-ceilinged area. From floor to ceiling, this chamber was covered
in a variety of bizarre fungal flora. 

"Amazing," Alaceria sighed. She knelt gracefully to run her hand through
the compact, dark loam from which spouted delicate moonbeam-white
mushrooms. "Even in the underdark, life blossoms and flourishes! It truly
makes you marvel at the tenacity of wondrous nature." 

Even the arcanopath had to grudgingly admire the fantastic array. Besides
the luminescent wall-fungi and just about every multicolored variation
possible on the traditional toadstool shape, there were branching fans of
delicate lace, enormous smoking puffballs bigger than cottages, cottony
tufts, pools of gently quivering orange slime and shelves jutting from the
walls. Here and there were patches of moss and small insectivorous plants,
but they were rare compared to the mushrooms. Water trickling down
stalactites dripped into shallow ponds choked with stringy black threads.
A sound like vast bellows echoed hollowly and a warm fetid breeze bent the
torch flames. 

"Why is it almost entirely fungi," Forelock wondered. 

With a crooked grin, House said, "You know mushrooms grow best in manure.
This chamber must be the dragon's lavatory." 

"Eyew!" Alaceria recoiled, shaking her hands wildly and scrunching her
face up in horrified disgust. 

"It's a fact of life. Everybody poops, even dragons. They're big animals,
and the amount of waste is correspondingly excessive. Funny how that never
seems to be mentioned in the bard's tales. By the gods, I know heroic myth
and legends are usually full of crap, but - " 

"Stop right there. Just please, stop." The centaur stamped and massaged
his forehead. A little of the arcanopath went a long way.  

"All I was going to say is this particular dragon clearly doesn't feel the
need to go outside to do its business. Curiouser and curiouser," House
ruminated. "What's so important it won`t even leave the cave long enough
for a potty break?" 

"We have company," Forelock said softly. The centaur Battlemage dropped
one hand to his sword hilt and with the other prepared to describe one of
his more powerful arcane glyphs, perhaps the Blasphemous Summoning of the
Abyss or the Hail of Horror. 

House scrutinized the approaching creature with intense suspicion. Dragons
absolutely radiated mana, and after being processed through the draconic
gastrointestinal tract its metabolic leftovers were bound to be magically
contaminated. It stood to reason that whatever grew in piles of dragon
patties was bound to be rather . . . unique. 

Their new friend didn't disappoint. At first glance the figure appeared to
be a squatty, smooth-skinned gray humanoid wearing a oversized hat with a
wide, thick brim. As it came closer, they saw the body was almost entirely
featureless and the supple limbs bent without joints. The eyes were tiny
glistening black beads and the mouth a mere slit. The hat was a part of
the living organism.  

It was a mushroom, grown into the rough shape of a man. its hand stretched
out, the feathery rootlet fingers fluttering in a complicated gesture. One
by one, more mushroom men emerged from the wilderness of fungi. They made
no move to attack, simply standing around the spellcasters in a ragged
circle and waving. 

"Is this the best the dragon could do?" Forelock sidestepped the first
creature, jabbing it with the tip of his sword. Its rubbery skin gave
easily under the slight pressure. A clear, foul-smelling fluid leaked from
the wound. "No fangs, no claws, no horns, no corrosive slime, no poisonous
spines, no weapons whatsoever." 

"I think these guys are more byproduct than anything else. Nothing we have
to worry about. Come along, kiddies." House shoved an unprotesting
mushroom man aside with his staff.  

"Stop poking it, Forelock. The poor little thing. it`s not hurting you."  

He raised his sword. "I could really go for some of that sautéed on a
steak right about now." 

Alaceria swatted Forelock on the rump, then broke off one of the living
vines that wrapped around her to form her garment and solicitously rubbed
the plant salve into the mushroom man's wound. The ichor gummed up and the
mushroom man prodded wonderingly at it.  

The others jostled as they crowded closer to her, reaching out to stroke
her hair and face with their hairlike fingers. A knee-high mushroom hopped
up and down adorably. Alaceria gathered it into her arms, cooing at it.
The gills on the underside of the mushroom kid's cap fluttered and a cloud
of sweetly perfumed purple smoke wafted out. Alaceria inhaled with
delight. Obviously the mute creatures were trying their best to
communicate their gratefulness for her help. 

House and Forelock had almost reached the far end of the cavern before
they realized the half-elf wasn't right behind them. Forelock galloped
back to where they'd left her, followed at much more sedate pace by the
arcanopath. 

They found her sitting in the middle of a ring of mushroom men who had
joined hands and were swaying silently back and forth as more purple haze
drifted from their gills. Alaceria's pupils were hugely expanded and a
wide, silly smile spread across her face. She raised a hand and stared at
it wonderingly as she waved it back and forth. 

"Don't breathe the spore cloud in," the arcanopath ordered. "Damn, I
should have known. Those things are magic mushrooms." 

Forelock sketched out the Divine Lances of Air and a blast of gale force
wind slammed into the mushroom men, knocking them down into a patch of
blobby bladderwort.  

Alaceria giggled, cuddling the mushroom kid and rocking back and forth.
"Don't be a hater. They just want to spread their message of love and
peace and oneness with the universe. Rainbows . . . starshine . . .
unicorns . . . lollipops . . ." 

House grabbed Forelock by his harness. "Those things can't do anything
worse than give her a bad trip. She'll be safe enough here until we get
back." 

With great reluctance, the centaur agreed, and they left Alaceria babbling
to herself about hearing colors and smelling sounds. 

The tunnels beyond were darker, almost devoid of the glowing fungus.
Fanglike projections jutted from the greenish black floors and walls, and
the ground underfoot became slick and treacherous. House was obliged to
throw one arm over the centaur's broad, striped back just to keep from
slipping. A faint skittering could be heard, but neither of them glimpsed
more than a slyly scuttling shadow out of the corner of their eye. The
dark dissonance of the dragon's magic made the very air seem gelatinous
with the foreshadowing of doom. They were very close indeed, and still
House could not shake the feeling that there was something strange about
this particular dragon, some vital piece of the puzzle he was missing.	

"How're you holding up, bucko?" 

Forelock shrugged nervously. "Adversity's might has steeled my resolve." 

"A little hardship never hurt anyone, but this seems like a lot of
hardship," House groused. "Why the hell would that dragon bury himself so
deep in the ground?" 

Suddenly the air before them shimmered, emitting a silvery glow that
rapidly spread to block off the tunnel. The spellcasters readied
themselves, but the shimmering spell simply hung there like a floating
disc of quicksilver.  

"Looks a bit like Minor Sorcery of Platinum Reflection, but I've never
seen one so large," Forelock said, taking a hesitant step closer. "I think
we can walk right through it." 

"Beauty before age," House said.  

The centaur stepped into the floating disc, his tail lashing back and
forth crossly. He disappeared from view, but he called back, "It's
nothing. Just an illusion to freak us out." 

House prodded the spell with his staff, then screwed his eyes shut and
stepped into it. He felt no resistance, no frisson of magical energy.
Forelock might be right that the dragon was just jerking them around, but
he didn't trust one of those things as far as he could throw one. Forelock
was already trotting away, but some niggling suspicion made House turn
back to examine the other side of the floating mirror. He let out a yelp
of surprise and the centaur wheeled around to confront the new threat. 

Another centaur was just emerging from the mirror. It was an exact replica
of Forelock, right down to the chip in his left rear hoof, with a single
but striking difference. The double's human portions were white as snow,
the close-cropped hair a pale gold and the eyes sky blue, while his equine
portions were glossy black banded with white.  

"What are you supposed to be, you whitewashed freak," Forelock demanded,
pawing the ground. 

"Your better half," the double hissed. He drew his sword and licked the
edge. "I'm you. Brighter, purified and evolved." 

"Don't listen to it! Don't even look at it," House said.  

But the hotheaded young centaur reared up and flung himself forward into a
thundering charge. The double responded, and their heavy bodies crashed
into each other with bone snapping force, their perfectly matched blades
striking sparks as they met with a shriek of steel-on-steel. In a fierce
pas de deux of rage, the centaur stallions lunged and struck out with iron
shod hooves almost as sharp as the swords they thrust and parried with.  

House waved his staff and shouted to be heard over the thundering hooves
and screams of challenge. "If you pay attention to it, you're giving it
power! Ignore it and it'll die out. Hello? Voice of experience here."  

But it was hopeless. Forelock was too busy to listen, and the mirror image
centaur was so perfectly matched that this dispute would drag on until
they both collapsed from exhaustion. The arcanopath threw up his hands in
disgust. Kids these days! 

With Forelock stalemated by his albino clone, House took the opportunity
to slip away. He could see a great, multicolored light at the far end of
the tunnel, hear the sound of a great creature`s rasping breaths amplified
by the echoing cave walls, and sniff the distinctive molten, musky scent
of dragon.  

It was all up to him now, not that he'd ever expected any other outcome.
The safety of the land depended on one cranky, crippled old man who just
happened to be an arcanopathic genius. House grinned, adjusted his grip on
his staff, and entered the heart of the dragon's lair.