In this session, our party reported back, gathered some reinforcements, eliminated some, watched a child be sacraficed, and took their revenge…

Intro

• The party returned to the keep and reported to Governor Nighthill that the gate was open, guards posted, and that two groups of raiders (now dead) had been near the exit.
• Governor Nighhill provided his own update:
  • The raiders had ringed the keep with torches, just out of bowshot.
  • The dragon has been flying about, but doing surprisingly little, and had only swung by the keep to breathe its lightening breath a couple of times. It had not entered the keep or otherwise attacked with force.
• The party agreed to have everyone stay at the keep for the time being, since no place seemed safer than
• To the east, Zoyana spied the black-haired lady in purple robes, followed by a group of kobold guards
  • Zoyana wanted nothing more than to go bee-line straight toward her and attack. Nighthill showed the party that there were other leaders
• To the west, the party spied a 7+ foot tall blue half-dragon with his own entourage, who reached out and decapitated a citizen with his clawed hand.
• The church bells started gonging, and a guard called out: “The temple bells are ringing! They are being burned out!”
  • The party could see a plume of smoke and some light of flame off in the distance.
• The party agreed to Governor Nighthill’s request to help evacuate the Temple of Chauntea and bring those people to the keep.

A Short Rest

• Governor Nighthill, thinking out loud about the reasons for the raid and the raiders’ plans, requested that the party bring back a prisoner on their next outing: “Don’t be stupid and grab one of their leaders. But bring me back someone to tell me what in the minotaur’s balls is going on.”
• The party partook of the hearty stew being handed out and recovered from the first half of the night.
  • They healed up and refreshed.
  • Zoyana looked around for Eled the innkeeper, who she did not see.
• While the party was resting, Father Corlianus Falconmoon approached Aegar, hands shaking. After a small back-and-forth, Father Falconmoon lent Aegar Chauntea’s Amulet of Health, the founding relic of the Temple of Chauntea. He would rather it be out helping the town than sitting in the pocket of a priest being protected.
  • Father Falconmoon said a blessing as he handed over the amulet, and Aegar was able to immediately attune to it.

Prisoner

• The party left the keep via the tunnel, with the intention of charming one of the raiders and persuading them back to the keep peacefully.
• They snuck their way into the town, looking for a small party of raiders, preferably with a human.
• The party first spied a party led by an armored wizard-looking human, walking in front of a cart pulled by an ambush drake, and followed by what the party could only describe as dragon-dogs.
  • They stayed hidden as Pliny noticed the the wizard cast Detect Magic toward one of the houses.
• As the party snuck further towards the outside of town, they a single young man being followed by 3 kobolds and an ambush drake. The ambush drake caught the man by his leg, and Aegar jumped into action. Time slowed:
  • Aegar called to the party: “save one of the kobolds!”
  • Pliny missed with his dagger.
  • Pliny’s kobold responded with a successful stab.
  • Zoyana told Fang to breathe on the drake
  • Fang’s breath did little, and Fang turned invisible
  • The ambush drake took a large bite out of the young man’s leg, and swallowed down the flesh
  • The second kobold, seeing Pliny in pain, rushed over and stabbed him again
  • Aegar rushed the drake, and brought his smiting warhammer down upon its shoulder, doing massive damage.
  • Zoyana shifted into a grizzly and rushed the drake, grabbing its throat, rolled over, and pulled ripped out its spine, separating head from body
  • Pliny pulled his rapier and stabbed the first kobold in the belly, eviscerating it.
  • The second kobold turned and ran
  • Aegar ran close behind and threw his bola, right over the kobold’s head.
  • Zoyana ran up to the kobold. Her bite took a chunk out of it, and her claws knocked him unconscious.
  • Aegar tied the kobold up, and Laid on Hands the young man to stabilize him.

The Treant

• As the party started towards the keep, Zoyana noticed between the houses a moving tree nearly surrounded by kobolds.
• The treant swung a branch, sending a hail of acorns towards the northern kobolds, knocking 5 or 6 to the ground
• Then, in what appeared to be slow motion, the treant reached out a branch toward the other kobolds. Only when the branch connected was it obvious that the branch only looked slow because it was so big. The kobolds were crushed, then flung hundreds of feet as it hit.
• Fang, though excited by the sight of the treant, chose to stay with the party.

Interrogation

• With a call of “Thunder”: “Flash”, the party returned to the keep.
• Aegar pointed Tomas to the healers and food
• Nighthill congratulated the party, then questioned Aegar’s health when he talked of trees attacking.
• Aegar interrogated the kobold:
  • The raiders are looking for “loot! loot!”, “magic, gold, shiny things”, and “all the shiny”.
  • It said something unintelligible about Tiamat and then the dragon lady giving it flesh for loot
  • Aegar gently stroked the kobold’s hand, told it if it lied, he would break all its fingers, and broke one.
    • The kobold was adamant that they were in Greenest to get loot, because the dragon lady said so, and Aegar walked away

Zoyana and Fang

• Zoyana and Fang had a nice little chat about its relationship with the party
  • Fang wants to be an adventurer and the party is so brave
  • Fang is brave
  • The other faerie dragons are his family, but he wants to go on adventures!

The Widow Smith

• Pliny may or may not have voilated all that is holy with the Widow Smith in the short time between the party’s arrival and the upcoming interruption.

The Dragon

• Two things happen at almost the same time:
  • The party (and eveyone else in the keep) heard a bang at the door to the keep as some kobolds with a battering ram had snuck their way up the hill undetected.
    • Nighthill yells out: “Jamis, get the kitchen maids and put water on the north tower till the fire is out. Fronkin! Direct your archers at …!”
  • From a distance, the dragon appeared and flew directly toward the keep. Lightning and ozone crackled, burning Fronkin and his archers to a crisp.
    • The sickening smell of burnt flesh and hair hung heavy over their blackened bodies as the enormous blue dragon with razor sharp fangs and claws banked up and readied itself to make another pass at the walls, strafing the wall with it’s lightening breath.
      
    • Nighthill: “If we don’t figure out something, we’re dead. There’s no way we can run with that thing to chase us.”
• Pliny stepped forward from the parapet and addressed the keep with Calm Emotions: nearly the entire keep was enveloped in his sweet words.
  • Spirits immediately lifted and tensions eased, as the hope of survival enveloped the crowd.
  • Fang started calling out to shoot the dragon
  • Pliny entreated the survivors to gather arrows and arm the guards
  • Aegar calls for the civilians to find cover and the soldiers to man the walls and the balistae
• The dragon made another pass. The guards all missed with their balistae, and it fried another guard before swinging around
• As the banging on the gates continued, the guards atop the walls, began to pour hot oil down on the attackers
• The dragon made a third pass. Pliny yelled for cover, and two arrows struck the dragon. Aegar hears it swear out “Bullshit!” as it banked away.
• A moment later, the dragon returned.
  • Pliny yelled “Your mother’s a horror, and you’re still a shitty dragon!” before tagging it with a crossbow bolt.
  • Aegar hears again the dragon swear “Fucking bullshit!”
• On it’s last pass, Aegar tags the dragon with a ballista bolt. The dragon rears back and banks, yelling out “This is fucking bullshit!” and flies away.
  • The party may or may not have seen it grab a loot wagon, eat the teamster, and then fly off into the night.
• Seeing the dragon leave, the attackers at the gate pulled back, and tried to run. Aegar wasn’t having that, and the archers fired. Only one of the three made it back to its lines.
• The keep grew quiet in a sigh of relief.
  • One of the guards turned to the party: “Thanks for the assist man, I would have been a goner, like Rudy, without you up on the walls with us! Have a swig!” Pliny, of course, partook.

Half-Dragon Champion

• Before all the raiders departed, their champion challenged the town’s best warrior.
• From the darkness, a creature strode into the dim light of the dying fires around the keep. Although it was shaped roughly like a human, it wass at least seven feet tall, its skin covered in blue scales, its fingers bore wicked claws, and its face had the muzzle and reptilian eyes of a dragon.
• The creature stopped about eighty yards from the main gate of the keep and scanned the walls. A line of kobolds fanned out behind it.
• With their spears, the kobolds prodded six human prisoners into the dim light. The party could make out two men, a woman, a teenage boy in a blood-soaked tunic, and two children. Then the half-dragon creature hailed the keep:
  • “Defenders of Greenest! This has been a successful night, and I am feeling generous. Do you see these six pitiful, useless prisoners? We have no need for them, so will trade them back to you. Send out your best warrior to fight me, and you can have these six in exchange.”
• Before Pliny could send out Timmy Smith, Aegar began walking toward the gate with Zoyana hot on his heels.
• Nighthill addressed the party: “My friends, you’ve demonstrated your prowess all through this frightful night. I realize this is an awful burden to ask you to bear, but any of you has a better chance to defeat that horror than my militia have.”
• Aegar nods, and mounts grizzly-Zoyana, and has Nighthill put archers on the walls in case this was a trap.
• Pliny: “Aegar, do not get more than 60’ from the wall”
• As Aegar and Zoyana leave the keep, the half-dragon responded: “So you’re the one. A ranger it is. Fine, but any other interference,” he nodded his head toward the prisoners, “and they don’t live tonight.”

Summary