Game Session Eighteen

The game session started the morning of Reaping 25, 3080 YE. With the party camped inside the old kitchens of the dwarf stronghold.

Deciding to venture lower in the dungeon the party went back to the iron chain ladder they had found behind the secret door. The on that led down into the chasm beyond the forges. Going down one at a time, with Cebo in the lead (with his everburning torch) the party soon came to narrow ledges along side a dark fast moving river.

The sounds of the water falling from the foundry above was deafening and they could see two stone bridges of dwarven make that crossed the river. Crossing the first bridge, with Cebo in the lead again, they came to a rocky shore where it lay next to the pool formed from the water falling above. They noticed tracks in the muddy shore and after having several in the party look at them, decided they were made by a reptile of some sort, about 4-8 feet long, with a tail and claws. The tracks led to the water line in the north. Deciding there was nothing else to see, they decided to cross the second bridge.

This bridge was also of dwarvish make but looked in worse shape. The stone supports had sunken into the earth and the stone looked to be pitted badly. On the other side they could see another ledge that lay alongside what looked to be a large underground lake. Cebo was again the first to cross the bridge, only this time the bridge collapsed under his weight. Only by the slimmest chance did he manage to catch himself and not fall into the rushing water below.

Deciding they need ropes to cross this bridge, Moss drank a potion of spider climb and re-crossing the first bridge, climbed along the wall until he reached the other side. There they tied off ropes and while roped themselves slowly crossed the now ruined bridge. In the darkness they could see where the ledge ended and a series of stepping stones allowed crossing to another ledge further on. The cavern the lake was in was so large that they could not see either the other side or the ceiling. The party arrayed themselves with sword, axe and shield and started walking along the shoreline in the light of Cebo's everburning torch.

As they started walking Ulfgar noticed a green light and movement in the water, his warning cries came to late though as the water erupted in a spray about 40 feet from shore and a black-scaled dragon the size of a large horse burst out of the water. The dragon turned his head and breathed out a stream of acid that caught both Cebo and Rhino in it's path. Just as quickly, the dragon dived back into the water out of sight. fof_nightscale.gif (112245 bytes)

The party quickly split up, with Cebo running across the stepping stones to the opposite shore, Moss (with his spider climb still working) climbing up the cavern wall, and the rest stringing out. Rhino cast a bless spell on the party and they waited for the dragon to return.

The black dragon next popped out of the water in front of Cebo and attacked him with bite, claws, and wings doing a terrific amount of damage. In return Cebo attacked with his greataxe and Ulfgar with a magic missile spell. As for the rest of the party Flairian threw a javelin and ran toward Cebo and the dragon, and Moss ran full speed over the stepping stones and launched himself on the dragons back. After all this the dragon dove back into the water with Moss on his back. While underwater the dragon attacked Moss with his wings but failed to dislodge him. Moss, still holding on, took the time to down his potion of bull's strength and draw his frost dagger Neferon.

Up above the rest of the party were switching to missile weapons and readying themselves for the dragon's reappearance. Soon the dragon showed himself again, just long enough to breath another stream of acid at Rhino. When he showed everyone let looses with missile weapons, most missing due to the strength of the dragon's armor-like hide. Ulfgar did manage to get off another magic missile. After that the dragon dove back into the dark water but not before Moss managed to get a couple breaths of air. As the dragon dove under the water Moss was stabbing the dragon with his magic dagger, hitting and doing tremendous damage due to both his augmented strength and the chilling cold of Neferon's magic.

Again on the surface the party waited. This time the dragon came ashore next to Rhino and unleashed a flurry of blows that left Rhino barely conscious. Again there was a rain of missile fire, even less effective this time as everyone was firing into melee. Again Moss drove his dagger into the dragon's hide as he held on. After attacking and almost killing Rhino the dragon again dove back into the water.

This time up above the situation had changed little, Rhino cast a cure light wounds spell on himself as the rest reloaded their bows. As the dragon swam underwater it again tried to attack Moss with it's wings and claws, doing little damage to the wet ranger. The dragons attempts did give Moss another chance to attack with his dagger again wounding the dragon even more.

The dragon made one more attempt on the party by surfacing next to Flairian and Cebo and attacking Flairian. Luckily Flairian survived the attack and the dragon was once again pelted by arrow fire along with Moss attacking and scoring again with his magic dagger.

By this time the dragon was sorely hurt, fully half his damage coming from Moss and his frost dagger. The dragon made ready to once again to slide into the water but Cebo casting aside his longbow and grabbing his greataxe managed to get in one last blow, a blow that struck the dragon's neck and killed him.

The party rejoiced and figuring that where there is a dragon there must be a dragon's lair, and where there is a dragon's lair there must be a dragon's horde, they got serious about looking around. Ulfgar cast a fly spell on himself and went looking over the black lake. Soon he found a small island in the middle of the lake about 30 feet across. Ulfgar could see the glint of gold and steel in the darkness and as he approached he saw a great hoard of coins and arms gathered together in the middle of the island. His shouts of happiness could be heard echoing off the cavern walls.

Scattered among the coins were several weapons of Durgeddin manufacture along with several other items. He cast a detect magic and started sorting out the "good stuff'. There were several magic items among the horde, a great axe, several potions, a mithril chain shirt, a large shield, a light crossbow, a case of ominous looking black crossbow bolts, a wand and what looked to be a broken wand engraved with mithril sigils, studded with buttons and capped in mithril. Most of the items only glowed faintly magical with the exception of the broken wand, this broken piece of a wand glowed more brightly than any piece of magic Ulfgar had ever seen or even heard about before!

Gathering up everything except the silver, Ulfgar ferried it all back to shore. The party then retreated to a safe area and rested, healing up as best they could and looking over the items from the dragon's horde.

After they had spent a couple days resting they worked their way back out of the dungeon and took off cross country back to the village of Oblation.

Arriving in the village they wee greeted warmly. Their clothes and armor were beat up but at least this time they didn't have open sores oozing pus. They stayed in the village a couple days, sleeping in real beds and Flairian got to sing the songs about their adventures he had been composing during the trip there. They met with the mayor and head cleric of Yondalla and told them the tales of their adventures. The cleric managed to restore the wisdom lost to Flairian by the undead spirit in the dungeon. After telling tales and resting they started the long journey back to Greenswabs.

As they passed the rocky hillside where they had earlier found the temple to Tsaggotha, they noticed the hillside where the entrance had been was dug up and the entrance covered. Moss looking around decided that some large reptilian beast had used it's claws to bury the entrance in rock and dirt. A bit perplexed they continued on their way.

Stopping in the villages and inns on their way back to Greenswabs, Flairian took every chance to sing the groups praises and tell of their adventures, it isn't every day that adventures discovered ancient temples to forgotten gods, found long lost dwarven strongholds, battled dragons, and remained alive to tell of it. They scored many free drinks on the way back.

Arriving in Greenswabs the party quickly sold off most of the masterwork weapons from Durgeddin's fortress, garnering a pretty bit of coin for them. As the game ended the party were resting and thinking about how to split up the remaining booty and what they were going to buy with the remaining coins and gems they possessed.

The game ended here on Goodmonth 15, 3080 YE. With the party in Greenswabs, all the loot they wanted to sell sold, fully rested and recovered.

Character Name	Starting Experience	Session Experience	Total Experience	Notes Next Level
Cebo	24,328	72	24,400	28,000 for next Level
Moss	17,817	920	18,737	21,000 for next Level
Flairian	19,491	720	20,211	21,000 for next Level
Rhino	14,287	72	14,359	15,000 for next Level
Ulfgar	20,834	72	20,906	21,000 for next Level

The Party at the Start	The Party at the End
Cebo - Human (Ftr7)	Cebo - Human (Ftr7)
Moss - Half-Elf (Rng6)	Moss - Half-Elf (Rng6)
Flairian - Half-Elf (Brd6)	Flairian - Half-Elf (Brd6)
Rhino - Human (Clr1/Ftr4)	Rhino - Human (Clr1/Ftr4)
Ulfgar - Human (Mnk1/Wiz5)	Ulfgar - Human (Mnk1/Wiz5)