One thing I love about these authors is that they bring to life the serious, dark moments, but also do manage to bring some light hearted things as well. That makes it much more realistic for me. Yes, life has dark times, but it also has funny things that happen, even in the dark times. It is part of the writing genius of the duo Weis and Hickman!
Chapter 16
A bitter choice.
The greatest gift.
The dragon attack in the previous chapter left Riverwind burned so badly his internal organs were exposed in places, but he was just outside an ancient temple to the gods.
During that attack Goldmoon was inside the temple, and learned many things including being given the gift of becoming a true healer, and learning that she and the companions are to recover the Disks of Mishakal. (more on those later).
She emerges after the attack and orders Riverwind, or what is left of him, brought inside. Somehow, during the attack, she gained enough powers that with the staff she manages to save Riverwind’s life and brings him back to virtually perfect health.
Now, they must rest and then go and find the dragon’s lair, where it is said the Disks of Mishakal are hidden, and recover them…from the dragon’s lair. What could go wrong?
Chapter 17
The Path of the Dead.
Raistlin’s new friends.
The companions managed to get a night of rest inside the temple. They 
finally were no longer facing exhaustion, but were preparing for a day when they knew they may have to face a dragon!
Sure the plan was to just find the lair and make off with the disks, but is anything ever that easy?
We find out many things in this chapter, and a little bit of the twin’s backstory is revealed. Something massive and likely disturbing happened in the Tower of High Sorcery when Raistlin took his test, and they are forbidden to speak of it. What happened does come out much later in the series, but for now, it is enough to know those two have an amazing bond for some reason that goes far beyond mere brothers.
They find their way deeper into the ruins of the city, and start on their trek to find the lair of the dragon. Along the way we finally meet gully dwarves! Flint, is not a fan of these guys. They are not very smart, can be stubborn, and are known to be generally cheerful, but Flint has a whole thing where in his opinion they all need to be exterminated. But, in this case they are needed to help the companions.
We meet the gully dwarves when they are being used as a counter weight to operate an elevator of sorts to bring Draconian forces, who they call the big bosses, up from deep below.
With a little help from Raistlin they enlist the gully dwarves to help them make their way below, and hopefully recover the disks!
Gary Gygax (and I am a fan of his career) is a fantastic world builder. This book does set the stage with a whole new world. What Gary wasn’t as good at was getting us in the heat of the battle and feeling the emotion of it. However, some readers prefer that world building, some prefer the emotion. It is up to you to decide which you prefer, and enjoy appropriate titles!
In the Greyhawk books you will find an adventure novel in the World of Greyhawk game setting. Greyhawk itself began as just a simple dungeon under a castle designed by Gary Gygax himself, but it was expanded into a multi-layered dungeon, then added a city, and eventually expanded into an entire world with some novels set in that space.