Crossing the Desert Part 1:
The Dragon's Lair
Dramatis Personae:
Oryn Talus, the mysterious and ancient "Halfling" who has employed the group
Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard; "The Silver Tongued Siren;" who has more instruments than she can carry, and sings to things she shouldn't
Pharin Braz'Dracon, the Half Brass Dragon, Half Drow Wizard; "The Dark Conjurer;" summoner of demon bunnies, and Andolin's twin
Skye Vindhalle, the Air Genasi Druid and saver of demon bunnies
Dervish, the Kasathe Fighter
Nanu, the NightmOrc Fighter who is late, slayer of innocent bystanders
Pimbin, the Halfling Shadow Monk of Nerull
Willow Liadon, the Eladrin Rogue
Willow Liadon, the Eladrin Rogue
Lan El'Mandragoran, the Human Paladin of Pelor
Lothar, the Sovani Smith and former Cleric of Moradin
Aeryn and Aerys Shayl, the Human Ranger twins
Aerathema, the Wood Elf Druid
Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue
Andolin Braz'Dracon, the Half Brass Dragon, Half Drow Fighter/Ranger, and Pharin's twin
Narg, there's really no way to describe Narg, Narg is just Narg
Haasenpfeffer, the giant positive energy bunny that Pharin regularly tries to summon
Comrades we have lost:
Jayce, the Human Barbarian- killed by Josiah
Jarrid, the Human Barbarian- killed by Pharin, Pimbin, Andolin, and Dervish during Kester Championship
Pieces of Vecna acquired: Hand and Eye
Other components being kept out of the cult's hands: Book of Vile Darkness, Fang of Kas, and the sword hilt
NOTE: Things will be mostly from Aurora's perspective. Anything in italics is from a third person.
***** Day 2 in the Desert
Shortly after the worm incident, as we were setting up breakfast, Nanu vanished; we assumed Oryn had taken her for some other project, so we didn't think much of it. Though it was still odd that she just vanished without a trace. Without her clunky hooves to draw the worms for us, Pharin decided to drag a bag of rocks on the ground behind his carpet.
While we were traveling we came across a group of nomads who had crap to trade. Even though their selection was absolute garbage, they did know how to make health potions from the local plants, a talent that Pharin found useful enough to ask them to teach him. Five hours later we were finally back on the road. We spend far too much time waiting on that damned wizard.
As we were setting up camp for the day, we heard the rumbling of a worm below us, so we decided to set up our camp for the night on the rocks, that way we wouldn't attract them during our sleeping hours again. A worm exploded out of the rocks as we drew near, with Narg right behind it. Pharin attempted to take it out and failed miserably, but Narg took it out with ease. Skye got the strange idea to turn the corpse into a zombie and use it to try to attract other worms using their mating dance. She's an odd little druid.
***** Day 3 in the Desert: the Dragons
That evening before disappearing, Narg used a wish to grant us all resistance to fire. We continued our journey south, with Skye's zombie worm doing its mating dance underground... it was ridiculous and really slow going. As we were flying, Pharin noticed a sink hole and decided that we should investigate it; it looked like a dragon hole, so of course we had to go check it out.
After some time traveling in the tunnel, which grew gradually bigger the further we went, Pharin announced that he thought it was a blue dragon's lair. Finally, after what felt like forever, we reached a massive chamber with a giant pile of loot in the middle of it, but there was no sign of a dragon. We soon discovered it had heard us coming and hidden under the pile of treasure; it exploded out of the pile and attacked- it was indeed a blue dragon.
Dervish and Pimbin immediately began assaulting it, and actually did some decent damage to it. Pimbin broke its arm and a rib, while Dervish sliced at its leg. While they sliced at it, Pharin summoned two hyenadons to assault it. The dragon, filled with rage at being hacked at by our group, sliced through Dervish's helmet and messed him up. I used one of my harps to drop a firestorm on top of the dragon, and it screamed in pain; a horrible blood-curdling screech that cut into your very soul- I need to figure out how to reproduce that sound. In a final attempt to take us down with it, it blew itself up, and fortunately failed to kill Dervish, who was still right next to it hacking away.
A second before the blue blew itself up, the wall behind us burst open, and a brass dragon fly in and attacked Pharin. Dervish decided to try to talk to the dragon, to no avail. Pharin had a plan, but knew it had resistances to certain things, so he asked Skye and I to attempt to whittle those down for him first. It didn't like Skye, and it began trying to eat her. Knowing that most creatures cannot drink genasi ale and live, she dumped a bottle it down its throat while she hung in its mouth, but the dragon survived.
Pharin summoned in an air elemental, but its whirlwind powers did nothing. While he was doing that I attempted to send a potion of gaseous form to Skye via my familiar, Eurydice; the dragon spotted her and quickly dispatched of my poor faerie dragon. Skye cast a web down its throat to attempt to keep it from fully swallowing her, but it can use its fire breath even when it has a mouth full of druid; it knocked her unconscious. I attempted to convince it to drop her, telling it that she would give it indigestion and it really didn't want to swallow a yucky druid. Fucker wouldn't listen to me and swallowed Skye, except for one arm that it bit off.
Dervish had given himself haste while fighting the first dragon, and it having worn out left him drained; he summoned a mansion in the sky and collapsed inside to recover without staring down a dragon. The wall to the cave exploded outward yet again, and this time another blue came out, with Ralliakkan hot on its tail. As quickly as she appeared, she vanished... Ralliakkan is good at doing that. While she was gone we continued to battle the dragons, but we didn't seem to be doing much to them. When she finally reappeared seconds, that felt like hours, later, she grappled it with an imprisonment spell, but the fucker escaped. She realized that Skye was missing and teleported herself inside the brass dragon's stomach, reappearing with Skye's corpse.
The spell required to resurrect Skye takes me an hour to cast, so Ralliakkan used an item that not only brought Skye back, but regrew her arm too. Skye was pissed, she bludgeoned the hell out of that dragon. Finally Pharin was able to finish it off by skewering its heart with his staff. For some reason that daft drow decided to go inside its heart. I don't think I'll ever understand him.
Skye claimed the brass dragon's scales, which was only fair since it had killed her. She decided that it was time for her to pursue safer ventures, and left to join Aerathema, after cussing out everyone except Ralliakkan and I. We were the only ones who weren't giant assholes to her.
We found a sword of legend in the dragon's lair, one that is said to kill anything once. So it will instantly kill a drow once, but we don't know what it will do if we try to kill a second one. It had runes on the blade showing each type of thing it had killed, but they were difficult to decipher. We also found a Vorpal sword among the loot, and since we all wanted it, we cast lots to see who would win it- Lothar was the winner. He teleported in briefly to claim his prize, and I gave him a belt that we had found that can make its wearer stronger.
Pharin decided he needed a time manipulation of sixty days, but he knew we couldn't spare that much time in reality, so he asked Oryn for assistance. Fortunately our employer is generous and granted us sixty days in a demiplane while only four days took place in the real world.
Oryn had an Eladrin with him when he brought us to him, a treasure hunter named Willow. She had been looking for that sword of legend we found, but Pimbin had been the one to end up with it, and he only does what Pharin tells him to, so she didn't get the sword.
We were given four hours to prepare ourselves for the time in the demiplane, since that was how long it would take Oryn to gather the components he needed for that spell to work. Pharin returned in three with a dead drider. An hour after that our employer appeared with pieces of a freshly killed beholder; he said he hadn't had that much fun in ages.
Dervish wanted to visit some merchants (that man shops more than anyone I've ever met), and Oryn found some, but they would only come to us for a large sum of money. Ralliakkan made them come on her own, and Dervish compensated her for her time. We shopped while Willow and Ralliakkan robbed the merchants. Willow snagged an Anstruth Harp and gave it to me for a super low price, and for me identifying a pair of boots she had stolen. I like her.
I had gotten a crystal ball earlier and tried to see what was happening in the Vale. I couldn't see anything, nor were any of my messages getting through. I asked Oryn about it, and he handed me an eye and told me to swallow it. It was disgusting, but it showed me what I needed to see, and the Vale was worse than I had thought. There were vampires everywhere, blood was flowing freely from my people as screams of rage and terror rang out from everywhere. I had to get home soon.
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