June 11th, 2017

The Day of the Dragon

From The Proving Grounds Back to Rimwatch

From my left:

CATHERINE gracing us with her presence to play Ydee the half-elven thief

Matt playing Mirin the human spellsword

Nicholas Picholas playing Merrick the human fighter

Chris playing Deckard the human ex-fighter thief

Zack playing LaVeya the human druid

Paige (spelling may vary) playing the new and name-changing halfling infiltrator

Sarai playing Desorna the elven axe-maiden

Hunter playing Strix the elven magic-user

and Nilo playing Kag the human magic-user

The adventure began with the party still on the fourth level of the Proving Grounds, but close to the way back to safety. Just through the door they would find the room with the chimes that would return them to safety. As they opened the door they instead found a halfling, alone and worried, who they invited to accompany them back to the safety of the world above. Heading south they played the chimes and were whisked back to the first floor of the Proving Grounds. Weaving their way through the hallways they returned to the door to the tower and passed through to begin climbing the stairs to the roof of the tower.

The passage upwards was relatively uneventful until they reached the floor where the lecture hall was. Some movement in the lecture room drew their attention and they looked in to find seven Trotarians armed and ready for a fight. Four were in black scale mail, two were in red scale mail, and the last was in somewhat ornate scale and chain. The party attempted to parley, but the one in scale and chain saw Merrick and said “I know of you.” before speaking a few words in his own language leading the Trotarians to attack.

The party entered battle less than enthusiastically since most of them were so badly battered that they were closer to unconsciousness than they wanted to be already. Strix, who while not being an abject coward is not very brave, decided to use alter self to look like one of the Trotarians in black scale and held a dagger to Kag's throat telling him to play along as if he had been captured so they could avoid the battle. Since Kag was low on spell points he decided that this sounded marginally safer than trying to engage the enemy.

The front line fighters did engage the enemy and dealt some serious damage to the black scale wearing front line. Some attacks were made on the red scale Trotarians which taught the party that the red scale mail had a version of fire shield on it as attackers took half damage from attacks they made on them, rounded up for those in close combat and rounded down for those in ranged combat. One of the red scale Trotarians blocked access to the more ornately armored leader which allowed the bodyguard to intercept Merrick's charge and give the leader time to drop a coma spell on the back row of the party, rendering Ydee, Kag, the infiltrator, and one of the black scale fighters unconscious. The remaining members of the party continued with their intent to kill and maim. The black scale warriors were dropping and as they did so the red scale warriors moved next to their leader and they vanished. Frustration at their escape was to be expected, and the party made sure they bound the comatose black scale warrior so they could try to interrogate him.

The remaining enemy warrior did not seem to speak common, so the party discussed what to do with him. Merrick held his sword point against the warrior's chest as a threat when the warrior unexpectedly seemed to lurch upward from on the floor and impaled his chest on the sword, seemingly killing himself to avoid capture. Nick commented that that didn't seem possible to happen since the warrior was lying flat on his back and had little leverage, but the DM said that though it certainly was odd and didn't seem likely that he could do such a thing, it had happened. *

The rest of the party was removed from their comas gently and then they searched the bodies and then climbed to the tower top where they invoked the phrase that activated the teleporter. And nothing happened. The week was over and the teleporter was deactivated until the next full moon. Which, of course, wouldn't come until after the drake's deadline. Luckily for the party the spellsword Mirin had a spell she couldn't cast in her spellbook, the feather fall spell. Since this would help the party greatly as far as getting off of the tower and back down to level ground, it was decided to have the party rest for the night so the spellcasters could all regain their spell points, and then the next day it would be feather fall spells and leaping off the tower to fall the half mile to the ground.

The party holed up in one of the top floor bedrooms, the one without the fear factor feeling, and rest for the night. The badly injured Ydee took the bed with the halfling curled up on the corner of the bed like a guard dog. The rest of the party found space on the floor and played sardines; a relatively uncomfortable situation except for LaVeya the druid and Kag in their magical sleeping bags of comfort. Merrick took first watch but dozed off near the end of his shift. Luckily, the creaking of the door being opened by one of the red scale clad Trotarians woke him, and he leapt up to do battle. Several others awoke at the sounds of combat and came up behind the human fighter to assist. Merrick decided that the most prudent course of action would to be to attack the Trotarian one more time before slamming the door and trying to keep it jammed shut. With his high initiative he was successful at acting before them and wounded the Trotarian, and himself from the fire shield effect, then slammed the door and braced it to keep the enemies outside. Deckard used three iron spikes to keep the door jammed closed and the party returned to sleep and Deckard started his watch.

Deckard's watch passed uneventfully and Desorna took her watch. Near the end of her watch, Desorna felt something cold oozing under the door and panicked, remembering the creature that had attacked them when they first came to the Castle in the Sky long ago. Unfortunately she failed her discipline save and was possessed by the creature. She swung wildly at the sleeping druid and connected, dropping her hit points by half. LaVeya screamed and awoke other members of the party as Desorna continued the attack, hitting the druid and dropping her to zero hit points. Merrick the relatively sleepless and excessively cranky leapt to battle and took Desorna down near unconsciousness when the possessing spirit abandoned her and fled. Desorna managed to convince the others that she was back in control again, so she didn't die. Ydee gave LaVeya a healing potion so she would be up and capable again, and they were ready to go.

As it was nearly morning the party just skipped sleeping and decided to have Kag and Strix memorize feather fall (as they both had already cast read magic on Mirin's spellbook) and cast it on the party so they could safely fall to the ground below. The falling was nerve-wracking as each of them spent around sixteen seconds in free fall before the feather fall kicked in. Thankfully the drop was sheer and there was no wind to bash them against the cliff. Soon they were hiking to Ruinheath with Merrick carrying Ydee so they could travel faster.

They arrived at Ruinheath and after some debate they decided to go to the local Council of Eleven member's tower to see if he could send them directly to Rimwatch by magic so Ydee could rest there. It was arranged and the party appeared in the town center startling the mayor who was crossing the street at the time.

The mayor welcomed them back and asked how successful they had been collecting treasure for the dragon. He took them to his home where a large footlocker-sized chest was waiting for the prizes the adventurers had to offer. Four other chests were there too, filled with items, magic, and coins from the Council and the Archdruid. The party members each loaded many of their coins and quite a few magic and mundane items into the chest as their offerings. Then while Ydee rested after treatment from the village cleric, the party took steps to be prepared for the dragon's arrival.

In the evening of the appointed day the chests were taken out south of town and arranged in an arc for the dragon. A shape rose from the valley and flew toward them; it was not big enough to be the dragon but instead looked to be the drake Korvanthir, or Ashbeak. But the drake looked odd, like it had extra bits on it.

On landing the extra bits were known and inspired terror in the group as a lady that looked elderly but stood straight and tall climbed down off of the drake's back. She looked fully human except that instead of fingernails she had long talons in their place. She instructed that the chests be opened and Merrick moved to do so. After seeing the lady climb down wearing what looked to be a long mottled black and grey evening dress the first thoughts among many of the party were “Holy crap! She IS the dragon!” Desorna and Strix both knelt and pressed their noses to the grass while the others who were there eased back and away from the lady. She used her talon to slowly stir through the chests, but she stopped when she came to the black scale mail. Pulling the drakescale from under the normal sets the lady snifffed it and then turned to lower her gaze on Desorna, who was beginning to panic. “You wore this.” the lady said. An exchange followed that ended with the lady using the first talon on each hand to drag the skin away from Desorna's face, scratching a line from below her earlobes to just shy of the corners of her mouth on each side of her face. The lady told the elf that she could crush her skull with on hand, but instead satisfied herself with pushing Desorna backwards to sprawl on the grass. Looking around at the gathered adventurers and townspeople the lady stated that she would see if their gifts were enough to placate her, though it was very likely that the magic items were of far more value than the coins. Then she collected the chests one at a time, causing each in turn to hover to her upright palm where it vanished. Then she mounted the kneeling drake and they flew back to the valley in the gathering night. Once they were out of sight the party breathed a sigh of relief, even if they still feared that worse might come.

In the days that stretched to weeks afterward no news came from the valley and things returned to normal. The majority of the party traveled to Twinlake Vale to train to their next level with the few coins that they had remaining. Visits were made to the Archdruid's vale and from there communication with Bogdan was made. Deckard, with his many language points available, found someone who taught him familiarity with the base draconic tongue. With their encounters with Trotarians within the Castle in the Sky Deckard thought that some basic knowledge of the language of Trotaria would be good to have. Bogdan told him that the only person he knew of who spoke any of that language was a magic-user associated with the Council: a man named Glykras in Treefold. With some of the players excited to return to the town where the original adventurers began, the future looks brighter and interesting, though some ominous factors remain. Is the dragon content with the treasures that were given to her? Why won't the long and deep scratches on the side of Desorna's face heal? How did the Trotarians learn of the Castle in the Sky? And what will come next?

There we end for the night, and possibly for a little while with the “low level” campaign.

Experience points for the party:

Ydee (getting full xp for once): 1539

Mirin: 1539

Merrick: 1539

Deckard: 1539

LaVeya: 1539

Paige's character: 1539

Desorna: 1539

Strix: 1539

Kag: 1539

* While unlikely if not outright impossible that the prone warrior could launch himself upward to impale himself on Merrick's bastard sword, it is MUCH more likely that he could have been impaled on the bastard sword if he was lifted up by some unknown force like perhaps an unseen servant or even a person under the effects of improved invisibility. I am not saying that it was either of these things, but they are MUCH more likely than an actual self-impalement.