Session 10 - Enter the Dragon

Not knowing how long Queen Titania was willing to extend her guarantees of safe passage through her forest, the party made its way north to deliver the Tear of the River Spirit back to the water elemental and hopefully cross the river.

After an eight hour trek back through the forest, the party once again reached the shores of the river. Jack fired a shot to attract the attention of both the water elemental and the hobbit in the ferryman's hut on the other side.

Vedica presented the stolen gemstone with a flourish, and the water elemental approached with open arms. When he took it, he held it aloft, and it caught the late-day sun, sending a shower of sparkles everywhere, despite being smooth and non-faceted. It was as if everyone was standing in a sunshower, but the "raindrops" were all light.

Tiv took the opportunity to remind the water elemental, "Someday - and that day may never come - we'll call upon you to do a service for us. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift..."

While ferrying them across the river, the halfling ferryman, Finnian Tornfellow, expressed the gratitude of his village, Zachthuis, for solving their second greatest problem.  While the party was resting up and being celebrated for placating the angry water elemental, they came to realize that the entire village believed them to have come to the village to fight a dragon.

The party explained that they had come to save kidnapped children and were only on their way to see King Shroudbane of the Gloomspring Court.

The halflings know of Shroudbane, although they don't have regular relations. They know that he is involved with something dark in order to keep something darker at bay. They had only assumed that the party was there to fight the dragon because that seems to be the main reason anyone visits their village anymore.

The halflings explained that, several months ago, a young black dragon, displaced for some reason, had taken up residence at the north end of the fen. The last party of adventurers that tried to fight him left without ever returning, despite being well-equipped.

The party suggested that they would get rid of the dragon for the halflings if the halflings would escort them to Shroudbane so they don't have to go blindly stamping through the forest, searching for him. The halflings agreed, and the part set out at first light.

Soon after starting out, the party was ambushed by a large party of troglodytes. Surrounded and outnumbered three-to-one, the party was suffering "death by a thousand cuts." Eventually, Vedica decided to use one of the two sticks of dynamite the party still had from their time in the Tummel Mines. A single explosion took out 2/3 of the troglodytes, causing the rest to fail a morale check and flee (two more were brought down while fleeing).

After healing up, the party continued searching and eventually came across three halfling travelers camping on the edge of the fen, afraid to light a fire for fear of attracting the dragon. They were able to direct the party to the dragon nearby (one hex southeast).

Upon locating the dragon, the party hatched a plan to surround him and attack with missile weapons from behind cover in order to allow Vedica to use her amulet of invisibility and get close enough to plant their last stick of dynamite.

As a mechanic, we developed the following house rule. Simply leaving the dynamite near the dragon would not count as an attack for purposes of breaking invisibility, but the dynamite would become visible to the dragon as soon as it left her hand. She'd have to use her pickpocket skill to drop it unnoticed (like sleight of hand in 5e), and she was given a +10% bonus to do it because she was invisible.

The party began attacking the dragon from the north and west (Jack and Tiv), but their attacks weren't very successful. The dragon cast two magic missiles at Jack and shot his breath weapon at Tiv, who made the save (still taking half damage). Jack took cover to reload while Tiv continued slinging stones at the dragon with Murchad from the south. None of the attacks were too successful, and the dragon chased after Tiv to the west (he was moving away from Vedica faster than she could keep up approaching from the east).

Tiv took cover behind a tree with Dwårfy, and the dragon crashed through the underbrush to close to melee range. He attacked the two of them (unsuccessfully), and Jack fired at him from the north. Tiv and Dwårfy ran around the cover to the north and east of the dragon respectively (trying to get away from him and lure him back toward Vedica), and the dragon used his breath weapon, catching both Tiv and Jack in an unprotected line. Murchad was shooting at the dragon the whole time.

The next turn, Vedica was finally close enough to plant the dynamite, which she did, but she failed the skill roll. She still caught the dragon in the blast radius, though, killing him.

Not being in an established lair, the dragon only had the treasure he had gotten from the recent party that he ate. It contained some gold and healing potions, but also a scroll of Remove Curse, a hammer +2; a mace +2; a sword +1, +1 vs. undead; and a two-handed sword +1.

That allowed Tiv to remove the cursed Gladius Hastilarius Necronicæ from Murchad, who thereafter happily left it sinking into the waters of the swamp.   Tiv took the mace, Dwårfy took the hammer, Murchad took the undead sword (of course), and Jack took the 2H sword.  They also took the dragon's head to prove that they had killed him.

The party still had to get back to Zachthuis, however, and they decided to leave the swamp to do it, returning through the forest and hills alongside (faster travel, so there would be fewer random encounters).

Along the way, they were attacked by a troll, but they made quick work of him with the aid of Vedica's arrows of fire.

Back at Zachthuis, the party was fêted (not fetid, like the swamp) by the halflings, who gave them a feast of local stew made of swamp grass, cattails, and crawfish and allowed them to rest up and heal. They were also able to sell the party a few more healing potions.

At daybreak, Finnean Tornfellow will lead them into the forest in search of Faerie King Shroudbane and the Gloomspring Court.