Heather Under Moonlight

On the Slaying of Dragons - Saturday Group, 30/5 and 6/6.

Last sessions for a bit - exams for uni and stuff. Might be a little while before I'm back.

The party elect to pursue the dragon that dwells in the Northern mountains, fearing that an ascent of the Needle would be too dangerous. The crossbowmen refuse to follow them on this journey, and remain in Ambell. It's a long trek, and they meet a little trouble with a small patrol of firenewts mounted on strange flightless birds a few leagues out of Ambell. They rode through the heather-strewn foothills until the great granite sheets of the mountains rose before them. The twisted scrub and mountain birch, white and misshapen like unset bone, stretched through the steep-sided valleys of that place, silent but for the slow wind and chill rain of still-stirring Autumn.

They bed down for the night. Thistle and Rachel huddled against the rain, close to the fire, the inattention of the midnight watch. Thistle heard it first. A disturbance in the air, a low and inconstant throom-throom-throom, a black shape almost imperceptible against the grey-bellied clouds. The party is woken. A quarter mile away, the dragon spies the fire and banks toward it. Serenity starts to work her way through the party, casting Resist Fire. They spread out as far as they can, with Lucius taking the front, and Edith and Audrey preparing to attack it with Edith's Ring of Shooting Stars and Audrey's Lightning Bolt spell, respectively. The creature dives into an attack after three rounds of steady, level flight. Lucius fails his saving throw, but the Resist Fire saves his life - his unfortunate horse is not so lucky. The dragon takes more than 25 damage from the party's lightning, and mad with pain and panic tries to climb. Thistle chases it and fires arrows for two rounds until it climbs out of practical range. They pack up and follow it to its lair - a steaming volcano. They bed down out of sight and heal a little.

The next day, they ascend the volcano to a small bathing complex and decide not to enter through the main door, instead searching around and finding a secret entrance through some caves. They advance through the unguarded entrance, through a changing room with a fountain and another one with a window. One PC sticks their head up for a peek out the window, seeing the dragon lying in total silence on a little island in the lake of boiling water that forms the volcano's caldera, the black rock almost entirely covered by gold. A little bridge crosses from the room they're in to a structure on the far side.

The party withdraws to the previous room and prebuffs with Resist Fire which lasts like an hour so it's no worries. They then advance back up, with Audrey (the only PC not to receive a resist fire spell) beginning to cast Lightning Bolt at the window - but the dragon was only pretending to be asleep! It snaps up and blasts her with fire. She only has 9 HP and is completely destroyed with no prospect of recovering the body - therefore, unable to be resurrected except by a Wish. The dragon settles on the bridge. Serenity finishes casting Prayer, and the next round the party charges to contact - Rachel takes a hideous bite, and Thistle gets cut up pretty badly by its claws, but it doesn't roll another breath attack. Edith advances to the window to take a potshot, but collapses with panic and grief seeing her wife's incinerated remains.

As the dragon falls, dozens of firenewts (33!) emerge just a round too late to save their master's life. Edith flees up and out the caldera, to the top of the volcano, while Rachel and Thistle withdraw to the entrance they had come in. Lucius, ever the pit-fighter, holds up the head and blows a challenge upon his minotaur's horn, and the strange creatures fall about in panic and confusion at the death of their master. One firenewt elite, sword in hand, leaps at Lucius - but finds his Imperial plate to be near enough impenetrable, and is reduced to attempting to tackle the tall warrior. Lucius dispatches the creature in single combat and the rest of the firenewts flee, leaving the party to consider the matter of collecting the treasure from the little island. They rig up some ropes and have Lucius use his levitation potion for safety, and run the treasure up - and what treasure! 45 gems, 30k electrum pieces, a potion and scroll, a censer, a lance painted in brilliant red, and a matched set of black iron axes (one battle-axe and one hand-axe) decorated with silver etching.

As Lucius is on the island, collecting up the last of the money, a huge black-and-red amphibian creature clutching a spear of pure steel and radiating intense heat emerges from a door. It surprises Serenity and Rachel, who were counting the goods, as well as Thistle, who was away skinning the dragon. Both characters avoid injury in the surprise attack - Lucius spends the first round climbing up from the island, Thistle charges to attack, and Rachel and Serenity fight the creature. Rachel finds that her non-magical sword cannot harm the creature, and Thistle shoves Rachel out of the way while lunging at it with her Flame Tongue, inflicting a nasty (8 damage!) wound but being grabbed in the amphibian thing's tail. The next round, Lucius grabs up the lance from the pile and feels it meld to his hand - it's cursed! Thistle hits it again, but the heat and pressure are too much and she's crushed to death and discarded. Serenity hits it with the staff and is grabbed in turn, while Lucius dodges around and the badly-wounded paladin grabs her late companion's sword from the ground. Serenity is slain, then, but Rachel and Lucius just manage to finish the salamander off, and the battle is over.

They call Edith down from her mountaintop perch, and recover the recoverable bodies as well as the big-ticket items of treasure, but are forced to leave the bulk of the coin. In an attempt to get some money out of the endeavor, they try to leverage their fame with Lord Selred of Ambell, who pays them out a hefty fee and immediately starts preparing to claim the money themselves. The surviving party members identify the magic items, resurrect their late companions, and level up. They find:

That'll be all for a while except one for the Tuesday game, sorry folks! Exams and all. See you around!