Into the Dragon's Lair

Posted by Jae/Eren, but written by Phil/Milo...

Well, the "simple exploration of the dragons' lair" turned out to be anything but. While we were dressing out the kill of the one green dragon that didn't explode, we found a large bag around its neck. It looked to be a large duffle bag of heavy leather that was big enough to hold a good size human. We found enough fairy dust inside to constitute a one ounce dose. Considering the bag was water proofed, we realized this must be how the dragons were transporting prisoners to their lair. And since fey don't shed a whole lot of fairy dust all at once, we figured there could be alot of prisoners down there and who knows for how long. Even without our mage, we decided we needed to hit the lair as soon as we could.

The prince and his rangers went back to inform the King that the rest of the community could come back. (btw, Did anybody else notice we were able to just walk away from the wild elf village for the first time, ever, when we took off hunting for the dragons? Unless that was a misprint, we now actually know how to get to their village, from the lake at least.) This left just our group in camp when we were visited that night by the strange hairy guy that gave her Illchin's soul to keep safe. Janna doubted the choice of guardians but was eventually convinced to take up guardianship.

Bill, the halfling sorceror, was pretty sure the hairy guy was Karl, somebody he used to know. We eventually found out that Karl used to be a big wolf who used to carry around some woman on his back. It was a strange story. If she asks, Bill might even tell Eren some more while they are travelling. (After Karl's visit, Eren and Bill teleported away with Illchin and his wagon. Milo gave Bill a list of craftsmen to try to hire for finish construction at the Landing.)

We got to the lake and explored the shoreline. Lots of smaller trees had been uprooted completely and thrown about. Some larger trees had been systematically clawed through and taken away. This fit with what some of the fey had said about the dragons building something in the lake. We didn't see any kind of a huge beaver dam so figured it must be something in the lair. We went to the southwest corner of the lake to start looking underwater.

Janna provided the water breathing spell and we went in. The rest of us used the Circlets to communicate because water breathing doesn't let us talk normal, but Janna still doesn't want to use it till she is assured the circlets aren't shadow weave magic. (Project one when we get back to Daggerford: Get Gareth to check these things real deep for us.)

The sandy shore only went out a ways and then there was a sharp drop off. The lake proved fairly rocky and got deep fast. Even though we had been warned about the water weirds, one snuck up on us. Turns out they are all but invisible underwater. (A whole LOT of solid hits became misses because of the miss chance rolls.) We did eventually take it down. It got much easier after Kyra nailed it with one of her blue dye pellets. On the bright side, Janna now knew what a water weird looked like and could now use a spell to keep us clear of the rest. And, Milo got to ride on a shark, so that was cool. (Janna summoned it but magic weapons were needed to hit the wierd. But the shark could swim fast and didn't seem to have a problem telling where the wierd was in the water. So it and Milo "teamed up" as it were when the weird went up to get away from us.)

Our elves spotted the secret entrance eventually. The tunnel proved to be fairly long and we kept running into stout log portcullises. We had figured out the trees that were cut down were fairly resistent to water rot, so this wasn't too surprising. On the other hand, just the construction of these would have taken more than a tenday, so the dragons were here longer than anybody thought. Something else that was disturbing was that this new construction really looked to be just repairs to a much older setup. It seems the Old One and these new green dragons were all quite fond of "gauntlet" type lair entrances.

We were real careful. Kyra and Theeg spotted the traps along the way and we muscled up the portcullises. (Easier said than done by the way.) The hardest part was the air pocket elbow that turned out to be filled with acidic gas and had another portcullis beyond it. Theeg scouted it out and Kyra borrowed Milo's shield for the acid resistance while she picked the lock on the far portcullis. Theeg opened the valves beyond that and cleared the gas. Tunnel went back underwater again and there was a couple more portcullises and traps beyond that.

The tunnel finally came up in a pool fed by a waterfall. And boy were we surprised when we saw the trees growing in the chamber. The large chamber (somewhere around 60 x 100, I think) looked to be dwarven stonework but the floor and ceiling had been torn up to expose dirt. A very close together ring of trees grew from both the floor and ceiling. We went through the trees to find a small clearing with a pedestal topped by a single globe of light. It kind of looked like an upsided down candelabra. There were only the remains of broken globes on the other arms of the candelabra.

We slipped up when we approached the dais the candelabra grew from without having Kyra check for traps first. Boy did we pay for that mistake. The gas released by the trap seemed to be based on the Old One's breath weapon and did a whole boat load of damage. Darn near killed Janna and took big chunks out of everybody else's health. (Except Theeg, of course, who was immune.)

We were about to heal ourselves up when somebody heard what sounded like a stone shifting. Theeg went to investigate and found the THIRD green dragon ready and waiting. Good thing was that it wasted its breath weapon on Theeg. There was a hell of a fight. The dragon hit a good deal and we hit pretty good. There was thought of retreat but the tide really turned when Kyra got off a sneak attack with the dragon bone bow and criticalled on one of her shots. She did something like 80 points of damage I think. Milo and Larkin tagged the dragon quite a few times for some good damage too. Just as we were thinking, "Boy. I hope this one doesn't explode like that last one when it dies," it most certainly did. The acid blast killed Larkin (unfortunately, boned the save), hurt Janna pretty bad and took Milo to zero hp. Kyra made her save and Theeg's immune.

We healed up (used quite a few charges from Milo's cure light wand) while Kyra and Theeg went in the chamber beyond to investigate the screams we heard when the dragon exploded. They found some traps and disarmed them. They also found a chamber with three mounds of treasure. (So at least we're pretty sure there were only three.) There were also 20 fey and 2 elf prisoner hanging in cages. The prisoners were freed and we shared out rations because they looked a little rough and we now knew we weren't getting all these folks out tonight.

The prisoners mentioned that there was somebody else down here and we went back on alert. We went looking and ended up near the light globe. The darn thing seemed to react to Janna and we started to communicate a bit. Milo went to put one of the circlets on the globe but when his fingers touched the globe, it turned out the circlet wasn't needed. The globe said "Hello" as soon as Milo's fingers touched the surface. The light turned out to be a lantern archon, named Aura (I think), that was imprisoned by the Old One to give light to it's garden some 400 years ago. The other globes contained other lantern archons but they died when their globes were broken. Aura was sorry to hear our friend Larkin had died fighting the dragon and said she could return him to us in the morning if we could find a diamond. We found one among the treasure.

Aura also informed us that the other being down here looked to be an elven female that had been brought down here as a baby by the Old One. That really floored us because that meant this elf had grown up down here for 300 years... totally alone. We got the fey to help us find her because it turns out she is very good at hiding. (The three could never find her even though they knew she was down here.) Kyra tried to get one of the circlets on her head because we figured she didn't know any languages. The circlet dropping on her head really freaked her out and she retreated further back in the cave the waterfall spouted from.

There was an observation that she was on an animalistic level and Milo realized that he might be able to use Speak with Animals to talk to her. That, some Wild Empathy, some food and Milo keeping out of sight so as not to startle her, were enough gain her trust for the most part. We were able to get a circlet on her and communicate freely, cause the spell only lasts so long. One of the elves recognized a mark on the woman and said that this could be Illeeyan, the King's baby sister. She was presumed dead after her father was killed by the Old One so long ago.

The next morning, we placed the diamond and Aura's globe on Larkin's chest and Aura made him alive. Aura really seems to like Larkin (the only Lawful type in the group) so he has volunteered to carry her globe. Turns out she is a cleric of Lathander, by the way. We're planning on taking her to the temple either in Daggerford or Waterdeep to see if they can free her. (Although, out of character, we are sorely tempted to keep the "cleric in a jar" for ourselves.)

The end of the game found us still trying to decide what to do with the lair. We can provide light for the trees with luminescent moss (we recognized the kind of trees and know this will work) but the waterfall is actually from a Decanter of Endless Water. We definitely want to take that item with us, but we don't want to deprive the trees and other plants of water. We're figuring out arrangements. We're also not sure what to do about Illeeyan. She has no concept of the world outside of this little lair. She is all kinds of messed up in the head and we're not sure how best to help her. We can't even get her to wear clothes. Her to-the-ground-and-more length hair is more than enough for her tastes.

That's about where we left it.