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Ghourmand Vale (3.5 campaign)
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8968977" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 19: BREAKING THE RING</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 6</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 8 March 2023</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"I would like to say a few words, if I may?"</p><p></p><p>A chill went up Alistair's spine when his father, Lord Ambrose Pastlethwaite, stepped up to the front of the room where the elderly nobleman's grandchildren - less than three months old - had just had their official naming ceremony. So far, the gathering had gone well, with Alistair managing to keep his distance from his parents, who had after all jettisoned him from the family over his father's mistaken belief that his sudden sorcerous abilities had been the result of trafficking with fiends. Now that it had come out that his mother's brother, Conrad Mandelberen, had in fact been trafficking with fiends, Alistair was well aware the topic was even more of a sore subject. Alistair's older brother Atherton had taken the matter into his own hands, seeing that Conrad's intellectual abilities had been drained down to the bare minimum to sustain life, but he would spend the rest of his life as a drooling idiot confined to an asylum - and well out of public view, so as not to cause embarrassment to the family.</p><p></p><p>And the ceremony had gone so well up to this point, too! Atherton had publicly praised Alistair and his three companions, thanking them for keeping his wife Juliana safe during the last stages of her pregnancy with the twins, for bringing them back to Greyhawk City safely from Ghourmand Vale, and for ridding the <em>Silver Moon</em> of the evil elements Conrad had hired on as crew. He'd even told them after the naming ceremony had officially concluded, and the guests were now mingling amongst each other and lining up to see the babies, that he'd had 7,000 pieces of gold deposited in each of the adventurers' names with the Chandler's Guild, a sum that could be drawn upon here in Greyhawk City as needed. Things had certainly been looking up - until Lord Ambrose made his request and all eyes turned his way.</p><p></p><p>Lord Ambrose's eyes, Alistair couldn't help but notice, were aimed directly at him.</p><p></p><p>"I believe, Alistair, you are wearing a signet ring you should no longer be wearing," he announced.</p><p></p><p>Alistair visibly gulped. He was, of course, still wearing the Pastlethwaite signet ring he'd been given upon his thirteenth birthday; his only concession to having been thrown out of his birth family being he wore it with the family crest inward so it wasn't visible when in public, so as not to advertise the fact he was a Pastlethwaite in areas where it could get back to his father. (The young sorcerer proudly wore it normally when in Ghourmand Vale.) He was, after all, not fully sure of the implications of having been thrown out of the family: was he no longer to consider "Pastlethwaite" to be his last name? In that case, how did one go about getting a new last name? Still, if his father was determined to make a public spectacle of this whole affair, undoing all of the public good will Atherton had generated on his little brother's behalf, then by the gods Alistair wasn't going to make a poor showing of it: he'd take this new humiliation with his head held high. Slowly, deliberately, and without breaking eye contact with his father, he raised his right hand and made a show of removing the signet ring from his finger. A retort came to his tongue, and he wondered if he dared speak it aloud, but the opportunity vanished before he had to make a decision, for Lord Ambrose's next words were, "It is high time my son wore a signet ring more appropriate to his station!"</p><p></p><p>Reaching into his vest pocket, the heavyset nobleman pulled out an iron ring covered in platinum runes, with the Pastlethwaite crest in bold along its top face. "This is a <em>ring of spell storing</em>, much more suited to your proud new role as a Trained Professional Adventurer, bringing honor to the Pastlethwaite name!" Alistair moved forward through the crowd, blinking back tears, and shook his father's hand in the proper manner by which two members of the nobility displayed a public show of affection. But it was all Alistair could do not to wrap his arms around his father in relief.</p><p></p><p>Atherton took the Trained Professional Adventurers aside when he had a moment. "If you're up for it," he said, "I'd like you to escort Gundrun Clearspike back to her clan. Her father, Larson, took the barbarians you rescued, both on the way to Greyhawk City and from involuntary service aboard the <em>Silver Moon</em>, and headed back north to their homelands. They intended to have a go at the orcs who had captured them into slavery and wanted Gundrun left behind for a few days to ensure her safety. If you're willing, I've got a cargo ship that will take you to the northern shore of the Nyr Dyv and then it's about two weeks north from there."</p><p></p><p>Alistair looked to Harlan, the group's unofficial leader. "But of course," agreed the paladin at once. "We're ready to leave at your - and her - convenience."</p><p></p><p>And thus it was that two weeks later found the four adventurers, now outfitted in proper cold weather gear, riding their mounts northward through the increasingly colder lands. Gundrun rode her own rugged horse, purchased in the city for the trip, and she led the group unerringly to her family's traditional lands. But when they hit their small village, they found a slightly smaller number of the barbarian tribe than Gundrun had expected to see - and those, her father among them, that were about looked much the worse for wear, many sporting new scars and bleeding wounds.</p><p></p><p>"Father!" exclaimed Gundrun, leaping down from her horse. "What has happened?"</p><p></p><p>"We had it out with the orcs who'd ambushed us those months earlier," Larson replied, giving his daughter a fierce hug. "We managed to beat them back and slew them to the last, even though it cost us a few fighting men to do so. But then we ourselves were routed, by a giant and a pack of winter wolves. And when the dragon showed up...Hell, we lost seven there in one fell swoop when it attacked us out of nowhere. We had to fall back, tend to our wounds. But give us a day or two, and we'll give 'em another try!"</p><p></p><p>"How big was the dragon?" asked Chaevaris. The barbarian leader admitted it was a small one, not much bigger than a horse, and if that had been all they'd had to contend with they'd have been able to overcome it, but when added to a hill giant and a pack of five winter wolves, it had been more than they could handle at once.</p><p></p><p>"What do you think?" Harlan asked his three companions. "We know the slavers we fought employed an ettin, an elf spellcaster, and a group of orcs. This giant is obviously allied with the orcs, at least. I think we should take out this threat to the well-being of these free people." Chaevaris readily agreed, Alistair and Ageratum adding their support. Larson offered to bring along his men, but the half-elf had him stand down. "You are all in need of healing and rest," he told them. "We are all hale and hearty; let us see what we can accomplish on our own first. We will not hesitate to fall back and seek your assistance should their numbers prove too much for us to handle. And it seems you have done the majority of the work for us, in any case, taking out all of the orcs on your own." Larson, his barbaric pride thus assuaged, agreed to let the four heroes go off on their own to see what they could do about the situation. He gave them a brief overview of the lay of the land: directly north were the fens, beyond which lay a valley which branched off into a "Y" - it was to the right fork of the "Y" that the forces which had driven off the Frost barbarian tribe had laired.</p><p></p><p>Leaving Gundrun to reunite with her people and tend to their wounds, the four Trained Professional Adventurers rode north into the fens. Ambrose flew ahead, scouting out the way, alighting on a tree branch every so often to allow those on horseback to catch up. But Alistair felt an excitement and a feeling of immediate concern over the empathic link he shared with his grackle familiar, about the same time Chaevaris's keen elven eyes spotted a figure in the sky ahead. "Flying creature, approaching from the direction of the sun!" the archer called out, drawing her longbow and notching an arrow into place.</p><p></p><p>"Where?" asked Ageratum, pulling one of her kobold spears into position to stab up at anything that might approach her on her pony, Munson. "I don't see anything!"</p><p></p><p>"Nor I," added Alistair, pulling out his trusty <em>wand of magic missile</em> and shading his eyes to glare into the sun. Then he saw a dark figure, with leathery bat-wings flapping the creature forward through the air towards the group. "Wait a minute, got it!" he declared. "It's the dragon!" Ageratum slipped from Munson's saddle and gave her pony a slap on its flank to get it to move away; she didn't want him to be in the midst of combat with a dragon is she could help it. She then pulled one of Alistair's "pebble-boulders" - which he'd been restocking each day for the past two weeks during their northward trek - and dropped it at her feet. It returned to its full size upon impact, granting her a bit of cover in the otherwise open field in which they found themselves. She hunkered down behind it, spear raised and ready.</p><p></p><p>Chaevaris likewise slid from her saddle, but only to ensure she had a more stable perch from which to aim her arrow. As the creature approached, the elven archer could tell this was much darker in scale coloration than she would have guessed, for she had assumed the dragon the Frost Barbarians had encountered was a white, given its association with winter wolves. These scales were a reddish brown. But no matter; the elf could affix an arrow through its reptilian head no matter what color its scales.</p><p></p><p>Alistair dismounted from Zephyr and hastily cast a <em>mage armor</em> spell upon himself as Ambrose flew off to the side, well out of the dragon's breath weapon range. Harlan dismounted by the sorcerer's side and cast a <em>bless</em> spell upon the group before unsheathing his <em>flaming burst longsword</em> from its scabbard. But it was apparent to all by now that this was no white dragon coming towards them and lowering its elevation as it moved in for a dive, it was a--</p><p></p><p>"Wyvern!" Chaevaris called out, releasing her arrow and watching it streak through the air to bury itself in the reptile's shoulder, right by the wing. She could see the creature had no front legs, and its tail, raised high above its head in readiness to plunge downward when it got within range, was tipped with a scorpionlike stinger, dripping with venom. The wyvern hissed in pain and dropped closer, now a mere 60 feet from Harlan, who as usual stood in the front of the assembled group with his sword readied for action. Ageratum raised her spear in a throwing stance, waiting for it to get closer. Alistair opted not to wait, for the aerial beast was now well within range of his wand; firing off a blast, he sent five missiles streaking unerringly towards the monster to crash into it head-on. The wyvern by now was looking much the worse for wear and altered its dive, opting to allow a few quick wing-strokes to gain it back some of the elevation it had lost in its dive towards what it had mistakenly thought to be easy prey. The change of course, however, came too late, for Chaevaris brought the wyvern down with a well-placed arrow through its head. It came crashing down to the ground in a tangle of limbs, lifeless neck and tail swinging around madly as it crashed and then lay still.</p><p></p><p>Harlan almost seemed a bit disappointed that he hadn't gotten to contribute to the thing's death, but Ageratum was perfectly fine not having had the opportunity to throw her spear. After all, she found fighting things that didn't have any noticeable loot readily at hand to be not at all worth the effort. Still, just to be safe, she drew her short sword and slit the creature's throat - one never knew how much interference Harlan's carried <em>Blood Mirror</em> gem could mess with an otherwise clean kill. Then, without a further word, the four remounted their steeds and returned to their trek towards the "Y" shaped canyon further north.</p><p></p><p>Ambrose resumed his role as forward scout, until they got to the "Y" and took the rightmost fork. Soon thereafter, Harlan and Chaevaris, with their elven sight, saw a score of dead bodies lying on the cold earth before them: a few human barbarians, but a much greater number of orcs. Harlan noted a few of the corpses looked to have been chewed upon and partially eaten by large wolves, and there was more than one place where an impression in the ground - usually accompanied by a rather large quantity of dried blood - showed where a body had been but was no longer. Chaevaris pointed out the lack of drag marks by the missing corpses and voiced her opinion they had likely been taken away by something that carried it aloft. "This is the work of the dragon, no doubt," she asserted.</p><p></p><p>There was a hill directly ahead, with a cave opening facing the group and the scattered field of corpses. It was dark inside the cave, with just a glimmer of flickering light from the very back. Fortunately, the cave opening was tall enough for Alistair to ride Zephyr directly inside. "I don't like the idea of leaving the horses outside, especially when there might be winter wolves about," he whispered to the group before dismounting. Ambrose alit upon the back of the saddle, Alistair instructing him to look after the mounts and keep an eye out. "We'll be going deeper into the cave," he told his familiar. "You give us a warning if anything approaches from outside." Then the sorcerer cast an <em>unseen servant</em> spell to bring forth Ogilvy, passing the human-sized force one of the small pouches of pebble-stones he'd been carrying with him; judging by the number stitched into the pouch, it was the one with the four stones whose magic would expire later that evening if not used up before. "Drop these, one at a time, on the heads of anyone attacking us," he advised his silent servant.</p><p></p><p>Chaevaris rode Talkacha into the cave, swinging down from the saddle as she did so. Seeing there was no immediate danger in this first chamber - although her keen elven vision picked up what Alistair had failed to note in the back: a screen of hanging furs along the northwest, no doubt blocking off a passageway to another cavern - and lit her bullseye lantern, which she then shone down towards the back of the cave. There was another passageway off to the northeast, this one free of hanging furs.</p><p></p><p>Harlan dismounted from his white horse Law and strode towards the back of the cave, flaming sword in hand. He was headed towards the northeastern passageway, but as he got closer, he could see a hill giant advancing from the other side of the hanging screen of furs, stepping beside a campfire that was no doubt responsible for the flickering light they'd noted outside. He tightened his grip upon his longsword, holding his shield up before him and allowing the giant to advance upon him.</p><p></p><p>The hill giant looked down at the half-elf and, apparently making no differentiation between the well-armored paladin and the Frost Barbarian tribe he'd helped capture into slavery, grumbled, "Stupid barbarians, good only as slaves and meat." The fact that his mouth drooled as he said it showed which role <strong>Grolth</strong> preferred for Harlan at the moment.</p><p></p><p>Ageratum had been the last one to ride her mount into the cave and was busy slathering on a quick dose of <em>stone salve</em>; a hill giant, a dragon, and a pack of winter wolves all sounded like plenty of good reasons for a little halfling to have as much protection as she could!</p><p></p><p>A flash of motion caught Harlan's eye. Spinning to the right, he saw a quartet of winter wolves advancing down the passageway from that direction, as Grolth stepped forward and forced the paladin to give him his full attention for the moment. He dodged a massive greatclub that the hill giant swung his way, ducking beneath the weapon as it passed by overhead. As Grolth was momentarily thrown off balance, Alistair gave him a blast from his wand, while Ambrose suddenly gave a frantic cawing from near the cave entrance. He'd heard the flapping of leathery wings outside the cave, off to the left, indicating the dragon was coming in for a landing and would soon be entering through the front cave opening. Involuntarily, a stream of white waste exited the bird's body and splashed over Alistair's saddle; the sorcerer would no doubt wish to cast a <em>prestidigitation</em> spell before he once more rode astride Zephyr.</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, a white-scaled, reptilian face peered around the cave opening, balanced upon a snakelike neck. He sucked in air and sent a blast of frigid vapors encompassing Ageratum and the riding mounts all standing there; Ambrose managed to take wing and shield himself behind Zephyr's body, but the frost covered each of the mounts, harming them all to one degree or another. Munson, the closest to the cave opening, took the brunt of the attack and toppled over onto his side, while the other three horses, in a fit of panic, raced back outside the cave to take their chances out in the open. Ambrose followed them, knowing full well he had given his master all the warning he'd been expected to - Alistair and the others would have to take it from there. The halfling, however, had dropped to the ground beside her pony and shielded herself from all harm in that fashion; rising to her feet with her short swords in hand, she swore she'd cut the dragon's heart out herself if Munson had been slain by its frigid breath weapon.</p><p></p><p>Realizing there was no way the group could take on a hill giant and five winter wolves from the back of the cave and a young white dragon from the front all at the same time, Chaevaris took out the sole arrow from her quiver that contained one of the clothlike items resulting from one of Alistair's <em>shrink item</em> spells that <em>wasn't</em> a small boulder. Shooting the arrow at the stone floor in the corridor to the northeast, the archer let it fly; upon impact with the ground, the fabric covering the arrow's head resumed its normal form, that of a blazing bonfire that completely blocked the ten-foot-wide passageway. With yelps of fear, the four winter wolves approaching from that direction backed off from the fearsome flames; leaving a much smaller number of foes for the Trained Professional Adventurers to have to deal with at one time.</p><p></p><p>Pulling another arrow from her quiver in a practiced move, Chaevaris shot it at the hill giant menacing Harlan. Unfortunately, that one missed its mark, but the archer took comfort in the fact that the shot she really needed to pull off - the "bonfire reactivation shot" - had gone off completely as planned. She figured they had several minutes before they had to worry about the large blaze dying down to the point the winter wolves might try to push their way through it.</p><p></p><p>Harlan moved up to attack Grolth, accepting a swing from the giant's greater reach as the price for doing business. He took a glancing blow off his shield that rattled his arm up to the shoulder, but then struck true with his flaming blade, cutting and searing the massive brute along his side. Behind the giant, Harlan saw the white-furred face of another winter wolf, but fortunately the passageway coming out of that side-cavern was too narrow to allow it to move past Grolth and help attack the half-elf paladin just yet.</p><p></p><p>A little fearful of closing with a dragon that much larger than her own spare form, Ageratum grabbed up one of her kobold shortspears and hurled it at the reptile. It missed, but the dragon flinched away regardless, allowing the halfling to retreat further down the central cave, closer to the relative safety of her friends.</p><p></p><p>Grolth slammed his greatclub into Harlan's shield again, bending it out of shape and almost making the elf's entire left arm go numb. Alistair sent another charge from his <em>magic missile wand</em> flying into the giant bully, at the same time calling out for Ogilvy to help Ageratum with the dragon. Obediently, the invisible <em>unseen servant</em> moved over beside the dragon - who saw nothing but a small coin pouch apparently hovering in the air - and released a "pebble-boulder" while holding it above the dragon's head. Upon impact, it resumed its normal size, resulting in a rather fearsome blow powered solely by the force of gravity. Better yet, it caused the dragon to look around fearfully, trying to pinpoint the invisible attacker from nowhere who had thrown a large boulder at it without it even hearing it come flying into the cave. It spun about, peering across the field of dead bodies looking for a hidden giant, knowing from personal experience that both hill giants and frost giants liked throwing large rocks at their enemies to soften them up. The dragon released another blast of its frigid breath weapon just in case, but there was nobody within range the way it had been pointed. (And now the dragon was worried there was an invisible giant there in the cave with it - possibly with a spellcasting ally granting it <em>greater invisibility</em>?)</p><p></p><p>Activating her <em>boots of speed</em> to grant her a few moments under the effects of a <em>haste</em> spell, Chaevaris used her faster-than-normal speed to shoot three arrows in extremely rapid succession over at Grolth, hoping to take him out before he landed a lethal blow upon Harlan with his massive greatclub. But while only one of the three hit hard enough to pierce the giant's flesh, it took his concentration off of the paladin long enough for him to get in a perfect stab deep within the giant's midsection, burying the majority of his flaming blade inside Grolth's massive gut. He pulled out the weapon and brought it in a wide arc, but the hill giant staggered back out of range, almost trampling the winter wolf behind it as he cried out in pain, clutching his wounded belly. Behind the bonfire, the other four winter wolves tried getting past the fearsome flames, yapping and barking at it to no avail.</p><p></p><p>Realizing the advantages to be had by concentrating on taking down a single enemy, Ageratum charged across the cave, away from the dragon and straight for Grolth. Her short sword slashed across the front of a meaty shin, cutting to the bone and causing a flow of blood to spray from the wound. Then another blast from Alistair's wand sent the hill giant toppling backwards, unconscious and bleeding out, until the impartial <em>Blood Mirror</em> automatically stabilized his wounds based on nothing more than his proximity. (Ageratum promised herself she'd come back later and take care of that oversight.)</p><p></p><p>Ogilvy, continuing to obey his master's last orders, fetched another pebble from the sack, held it above the now-paranoid dragon's head, and released it, to plummet onto its noggin as a boulder and crash to the cave floor. He wasn't dealing the creature a whole lot of damage by doing so, but just enough to make him frantic in trying to fend off his unknown and unseen attacker. In a panicked frenzy, the dragon lashed out with the claws of its forelegs and its mouthful of sharp teeth, trying ineffectually to catch its invisible tormentor in its powerful jaws and grasping talons.</p><p></p><p>With Grolth down, the giant's favored winter wolf was able to scramble over his body and move in for the attack. Chaevaris responded with a trio of well-placed arrows, each of the three hitting its mark and burying itself up to the feathered ends in its furry pelt. Pain and fear in its eyes and blood spilling from its canine lips, the wolf howled in agony but still kept coming. Harlan scrambled backwards, hastily laying on hands and healing up the worst of the damage he'd taken from Grolth's swinging greatclub. The wolf expelled a cone of frosty breath, similar but less powerful than that of the dragon, which engulfed only Ageratum, but the halfling dodged to the side at the last moment, warned by a keen sense of self-preservation that bypassed her own conscious mind and allowed her act without pausing to consider her actions. She landed on her feet off to the side, unharmed by the frosty spray.</p><p></p><p>But rather than stay out of harm's way, she immediately charged the wolf, both of her short swords stabbing in at it in a pinching maneuver. The wolf, in trying to dodge one blade, only made it that much easier for the other one to pierce the side of its shaggy neck. And then Alistair stepped up, casting the <em>scorching ray</em> spell he'd stored inside his <em>ring of spell storing</em> (it had ended up being a minor version of the ring, but no matter - although it figured his father wouldn't publicly broadcast the fact he'd spent the minimum amount possible for his gesture of forgiveness to his youngest son). The gout of flame flew over Ageratum's head to strike the white-furred wolf straight in the face, scorching its muzzle and causing it to stagger on its feet, barely able to stand.</p><p></p><p>Ogilvy, in the meantime, dropped a third "pebble-boulder" onto the white dragon's head, causing it no small amount of panic. It decided to change its strategy thus far and ignore its invisible attacker, in the hopes it might do likewise. Instead, it raced deeper into the cave and bit Alistair on the shoulder, causing the young sorcerer to cry out in pain. Chaevaris spun about at the cry and sent a trio of arrows at the dragon, hitting with two and burying them deep through the young dragon's still relatively soft scales. (Soft, that is, only in comparison to how tough they'd be if the dragon were allowed to grow to many times its current size, although that was looking less and less likely as the combat continued. Only now was it starting to get the idea that fleeing back to its own cave might not be a bad idea, for these "barbarians" were much tougher than the last batch that had shown up here.)</p><p></p><p>Harlan focused his attention onto the dragon's aura long enough to determine to his own satisfaction its evil nature, and then charged, channeling Pelor's evil-smiting energy through the flaming blade of his sword as he did so. The dragon fell back at the strength of the blow, a deep gash having cut a line of pain through the scales above its belly.</p><p></p><p>The wolf took in a deep breath and exhaled, sending a blast of frost breath at Ageratum; the halfling easily skirted out of the way, but the attack took every last ounce of strength from the staggered wolf, and it collapsed, unconscious, onto the stone floor of the cave. The little halfling, finding herself now closer to Grolth's unconscious form than anyone else, took the opportunity to run the edge of one of her blades across his throat, opening it up wider than the <em>Blood Mirror</em> could fix. Best of all, Harlan's back was turned as he faced the dragon, not that Ageratum was necessarily concerned that the paladin might not approve of that particular action in Grolth's case, given his role as a slave-taker.</p><p></p><p>Alistair dropped to the ground, rolled, and cast a <em>scorching ray</em> up at the dragon, catching him in the underside of the jaw. As anticipated, the cold-based dragon didn't like the fire-based spell any more than had the winter wolf. Ogilvy advanced from behind on the dragon and dropped the last of the four "pebble-boulders" onto its head, before moving back to its master to receive further instructions (or, failing that, another pouch of four more magically-shrunken pebbles). Doing its best to ignore the pain of its most recent wounds, the dragon made a full-out attack against Harlan, biting, scratching, and even buffeting the paladin with its wings in a desperate attempt to bring at least one of its attackers down. Harlan weathered the barrage of attacks, but it was evident he wouldn't be able to take too much more, for he almost stumbled under the frenzy of natural weapons. But then the <em>hasted</em> archer pumped another three arrows into the dragon, leaving it just as ready to fall as Harlan. It was anybody's guess which of the two would drop first.</p><p></p><p>Anybody's guess but Harlan's that is, for the paladin had full faith in his combat training and the protection of his deity in the face of adversity. He stabbed forward with his blade using all of his might, slicing effortlessly past the dragon's scales and piercing its heart with the tip of his flaming blade. The dragon dropped to the stone cave floor like a rock, and Harlan made a desperate - and ultimately successful - effort not to join his reptilian foe sprawled out on the ground.</p><p></p><p>That left only the four winter wolves pinned behind the bonfire. Chaevaris walked steadily toward the flames, popping open a flask of lantern oil as she did so. Peering through the flickering flames, she grinned wildly as she saw the side cavern was in fact a dead end; the wolves had nowhere in which they could retreat. Holding the flask alongside the end of her bow in her left hand and dipping the tip of one arrow after another into the oil, she fired them <em>through</em> the bonfire, igniting each arrow in turn mid-flight, to strike a helpless winter wolf. It was, she decided with a grim grin, very much like shooting fish in a barrel. It didn't take her long to take them all out, especially not when Alistair stepped up beside her and started casting his daily allotment of <em>magic missile</em> spells from the store of arcane energy he was able to wield on his own.</p><p></p><p>Although still fairly wounded himself, Harlan staggered over to the front of the cave and cast a <em>cure light wounds</em> spell upon Munson, bringing the wounded pony back to full consciousness. Ageratum would need him, he realized, to ride back to the Frost Barbarians' village. Then, with all of their foes slain (Ageratum having made sure the deed was permanent with a good throat-slitting as needed), the Trained Professional Adventurers explored the entire lair, seeking treasure. (Dragons, Ageratum informed them, were well renowned for their love of treasure.) Sure enough, there was a sloping passageway behind the giant's cave that led up to the dragon's lair, complete with an opening at the ceiling to allow it to come and go as needed. There, they found two cases of Furyondy fire schnapps, golden place settings, and bars of silver. At the halfling's suggestion, Alistair cast a <em>shrink item</em> spell upon the white dragon's corpse, for Ageratum said a dragon's hide could be valuable if sold to the right person - an armorer, for example. The sorcerer picked up the shrunken body - now in a clothlike fabric form that hopefully wouldn't decompose - and placed it carefully in his pack, while the others distributed the dragon's meager hoard into their own pouches, after the sorcerer had likewise reduced them in size with his spells.</p><p></p><p>"Well," said Harlan with a vigorous enthusiasm, "I think we can report back to Larson a fully successful mission!" He mounted back up onto Law and led his horse back south. The others mounted up and followed.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Not knowing what Frost Barbarians do to their deceased (burial? pyre?), we left their dead where they lay for now, figuring the way was now safe so we could return with the members of the tribe able to travel and they could tend to the matter as befit their beliefs.</p><p></p><p>As expected, this adventure brought us to the lofty heights of 7th level. Alistair opted to learn the spells <em>acid splash</em> (it can't hurt to learn a few more combat spells, no matter how low their damage output!) and <em>flame arrow</em>, the latter for the benefit of Chaevaris because I promised Logan I'd do so. (Plus, Alistair has a light crossbow as a fallback weapon, so the spell might prove to be useful to him as well.) But from now on, Alistair's going to focus on making himself the best Trained Professional Adventurer he can be, for he has a reputation to uphold - and that means making the most of the few spells he'll be able to master over his 20-level career as a sorcerer. After all, he "wasted" a few spell levels on comfort spells before even realizing he was a sorcerer.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8968977, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 19: BREAKING THE RING[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 6[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 8 March 2023 - - - "I would like to say a few words, if I may?" A chill went up Alistair's spine when his father, Lord Ambrose Pastlethwaite, stepped up to the front of the room where the elderly nobleman's grandchildren - less than three months old - had just had their official naming ceremony. So far, the gathering had gone well, with Alistair managing to keep his distance from his parents, who had after all jettisoned him from the family over his father's mistaken belief that his sudden sorcerous abilities had been the result of trafficking with fiends. Now that it had come out that his mother's brother, Conrad Mandelberen, had in fact been trafficking with fiends, Alistair was well aware the topic was even more of a sore subject. Alistair's older brother Atherton had taken the matter into his own hands, seeing that Conrad's intellectual abilities had been drained down to the bare minimum to sustain life, but he would spend the rest of his life as a drooling idiot confined to an asylum - and well out of public view, so as not to cause embarrassment to the family. And the ceremony had gone so well up to this point, too! Atherton had publicly praised Alistair and his three companions, thanking them for keeping his wife Juliana safe during the last stages of her pregnancy with the twins, for bringing them back to Greyhawk City safely from Ghourmand Vale, and for ridding the [I]Silver Moon[/I] of the evil elements Conrad had hired on as crew. He'd even told them after the naming ceremony had officially concluded, and the guests were now mingling amongst each other and lining up to see the babies, that he'd had 7,000 pieces of gold deposited in each of the adventurers' names with the Chandler's Guild, a sum that could be drawn upon here in Greyhawk City as needed. Things had certainly been looking up - until Lord Ambrose made his request and all eyes turned his way. Lord Ambrose's eyes, Alistair couldn't help but notice, were aimed directly at him. "I believe, Alistair, you are wearing a signet ring you should no longer be wearing," he announced. Alistair visibly gulped. He was, of course, still wearing the Pastlethwaite signet ring he'd been given upon his thirteenth birthday; his only concession to having been thrown out of his birth family being he wore it with the family crest inward so it wasn't visible when in public, so as not to advertise the fact he was a Pastlethwaite in areas where it could get back to his father. (The young sorcerer proudly wore it normally when in Ghourmand Vale.) He was, after all, not fully sure of the implications of having been thrown out of the family: was he no longer to consider "Pastlethwaite" to be his last name? In that case, how did one go about getting a new last name? Still, if his father was determined to make a public spectacle of this whole affair, undoing all of the public good will Atherton had generated on his little brother's behalf, then by the gods Alistair wasn't going to make a poor showing of it: he'd take this new humiliation with his head held high. Slowly, deliberately, and without breaking eye contact with his father, he raised his right hand and made a show of removing the signet ring from his finger. A retort came to his tongue, and he wondered if he dared speak it aloud, but the opportunity vanished before he had to make a decision, for Lord Ambrose's next words were, "It is high time my son wore a signet ring more appropriate to his station!" Reaching into his vest pocket, the heavyset nobleman pulled out an iron ring covered in platinum runes, with the Pastlethwaite crest in bold along its top face. "This is a [I]ring of spell storing[/I], much more suited to your proud new role as a Trained Professional Adventurer, bringing honor to the Pastlethwaite name!" Alistair moved forward through the crowd, blinking back tears, and shook his father's hand in the proper manner by which two members of the nobility displayed a public show of affection. But it was all Alistair could do not to wrap his arms around his father in relief. Atherton took the Trained Professional Adventurers aside when he had a moment. "If you're up for it," he said, "I'd like you to escort Gundrun Clearspike back to her clan. Her father, Larson, took the barbarians you rescued, both on the way to Greyhawk City and from involuntary service aboard the [I]Silver Moon[/I], and headed back north to their homelands. They intended to have a go at the orcs who had captured them into slavery and wanted Gundrun left behind for a few days to ensure her safety. If you're willing, I've got a cargo ship that will take you to the northern shore of the Nyr Dyv and then it's about two weeks north from there." Alistair looked to Harlan, the group's unofficial leader. "But of course," agreed the paladin at once. "We're ready to leave at your - and her - convenience." And thus it was that two weeks later found the four adventurers, now outfitted in proper cold weather gear, riding their mounts northward through the increasingly colder lands. Gundrun rode her own rugged horse, purchased in the city for the trip, and she led the group unerringly to her family's traditional lands. But when they hit their small village, they found a slightly smaller number of the barbarian tribe than Gundrun had expected to see - and those, her father among them, that were about looked much the worse for wear, many sporting new scars and bleeding wounds. "Father!" exclaimed Gundrun, leaping down from her horse. "What has happened?" "We had it out with the orcs who'd ambushed us those months earlier," Larson replied, giving his daughter a fierce hug. "We managed to beat them back and slew them to the last, even though it cost us a few fighting men to do so. But then we ourselves were routed, by a giant and a pack of winter wolves. And when the dragon showed up...Hell, we lost seven there in one fell swoop when it attacked us out of nowhere. We had to fall back, tend to our wounds. But give us a day or two, and we'll give 'em another try!" "How big was the dragon?" asked Chaevaris. The barbarian leader admitted it was a small one, not much bigger than a horse, and if that had been all they'd had to contend with they'd have been able to overcome it, but when added to a hill giant and a pack of five winter wolves, it had been more than they could handle at once. "What do you think?" Harlan asked his three companions. "We know the slavers we fought employed an ettin, an elf spellcaster, and a group of orcs. This giant is obviously allied with the orcs, at least. I think we should take out this threat to the well-being of these free people." Chaevaris readily agreed, Alistair and Ageratum adding their support. Larson offered to bring along his men, but the half-elf had him stand down. "You are all in need of healing and rest," he told them. "We are all hale and hearty; let us see what we can accomplish on our own first. We will not hesitate to fall back and seek your assistance should their numbers prove too much for us to handle. And it seems you have done the majority of the work for us, in any case, taking out all of the orcs on your own." Larson, his barbaric pride thus assuaged, agreed to let the four heroes go off on their own to see what they could do about the situation. He gave them a brief overview of the lay of the land: directly north were the fens, beyond which lay a valley which branched off into a "Y" - it was to the right fork of the "Y" that the forces which had driven off the Frost barbarian tribe had laired. Leaving Gundrun to reunite with her people and tend to their wounds, the four Trained Professional Adventurers rode north into the fens. Ambrose flew ahead, scouting out the way, alighting on a tree branch every so often to allow those on horseback to catch up. But Alistair felt an excitement and a feeling of immediate concern over the empathic link he shared with his grackle familiar, about the same time Chaevaris's keen elven eyes spotted a figure in the sky ahead. "Flying creature, approaching from the direction of the sun!" the archer called out, drawing her longbow and notching an arrow into place. "Where?" asked Ageratum, pulling one of her kobold spears into position to stab up at anything that might approach her on her pony, Munson. "I don't see anything!" "Nor I," added Alistair, pulling out his trusty [I]wand of magic missile[/I] and shading his eyes to glare into the sun. Then he saw a dark figure, with leathery bat-wings flapping the creature forward through the air towards the group. "Wait a minute, got it!" he declared. "It's the dragon!" Ageratum slipped from Munson's saddle and gave her pony a slap on its flank to get it to move away; she didn't want him to be in the midst of combat with a dragon is she could help it. She then pulled one of Alistair's "pebble-boulders" - which he'd been restocking each day for the past two weeks during their northward trek - and dropped it at her feet. It returned to its full size upon impact, granting her a bit of cover in the otherwise open field in which they found themselves. She hunkered down behind it, spear raised and ready. Chaevaris likewise slid from her saddle, but only to ensure she had a more stable perch from which to aim her arrow. As the creature approached, the elven archer could tell this was much darker in scale coloration than she would have guessed, for she had assumed the dragon the Frost Barbarians had encountered was a white, given its association with winter wolves. These scales were a reddish brown. But no matter; the elf could affix an arrow through its reptilian head no matter what color its scales. Alistair dismounted from Zephyr and hastily cast a [I]mage armor[/I] spell upon himself as Ambrose flew off to the side, well out of the dragon's breath weapon range. Harlan dismounted by the sorcerer's side and cast a [I]bless[/I] spell upon the group before unsheathing his [I]flaming burst longsword[/I] from its scabbard. But it was apparent to all by now that this was no white dragon coming towards them and lowering its elevation as it moved in for a dive, it was a-- "Wyvern!" Chaevaris called out, releasing her arrow and watching it streak through the air to bury itself in the reptile's shoulder, right by the wing. She could see the creature had no front legs, and its tail, raised high above its head in readiness to plunge downward when it got within range, was tipped with a scorpionlike stinger, dripping with venom. The wyvern hissed in pain and dropped closer, now a mere 60 feet from Harlan, who as usual stood in the front of the assembled group with his sword readied for action. Ageratum raised her spear in a throwing stance, waiting for it to get closer. Alistair opted not to wait, for the aerial beast was now well within range of his wand; firing off a blast, he sent five missiles streaking unerringly towards the monster to crash into it head-on. The wyvern by now was looking much the worse for wear and altered its dive, opting to allow a few quick wing-strokes to gain it back some of the elevation it had lost in its dive towards what it had mistakenly thought to be easy prey. The change of course, however, came too late, for Chaevaris brought the wyvern down with a well-placed arrow through its head. It came crashing down to the ground in a tangle of limbs, lifeless neck and tail swinging around madly as it crashed and then lay still. Harlan almost seemed a bit disappointed that he hadn't gotten to contribute to the thing's death, but Ageratum was perfectly fine not having had the opportunity to throw her spear. After all, she found fighting things that didn't have any noticeable loot readily at hand to be not at all worth the effort. Still, just to be safe, she drew her short sword and slit the creature's throat - one never knew how much interference Harlan's carried [I]Blood Mirror[/I] gem could mess with an otherwise clean kill. Then, without a further word, the four remounted their steeds and returned to their trek towards the "Y" shaped canyon further north. Ambrose resumed his role as forward scout, until they got to the "Y" and took the rightmost fork. Soon thereafter, Harlan and Chaevaris, with their elven sight, saw a score of dead bodies lying on the cold earth before them: a few human barbarians, but a much greater number of orcs. Harlan noted a few of the corpses looked to have been chewed upon and partially eaten by large wolves, and there was more than one place where an impression in the ground - usually accompanied by a rather large quantity of dried blood - showed where a body had been but was no longer. Chaevaris pointed out the lack of drag marks by the missing corpses and voiced her opinion they had likely been taken away by something that carried it aloft. "This is the work of the dragon, no doubt," she asserted. There was a hill directly ahead, with a cave opening facing the group and the scattered field of corpses. It was dark inside the cave, with just a glimmer of flickering light from the very back. Fortunately, the cave opening was tall enough for Alistair to ride Zephyr directly inside. "I don't like the idea of leaving the horses outside, especially when there might be winter wolves about," he whispered to the group before dismounting. Ambrose alit upon the back of the saddle, Alistair instructing him to look after the mounts and keep an eye out. "We'll be going deeper into the cave," he told his familiar. "You give us a warning if anything approaches from outside." Then the sorcerer cast an [I]unseen servant[/I] spell to bring forth Ogilvy, passing the human-sized force one of the small pouches of pebble-stones he'd been carrying with him; judging by the number stitched into the pouch, it was the one with the four stones whose magic would expire later that evening if not used up before. "Drop these, one at a time, on the heads of anyone attacking us," he advised his silent servant. Chaevaris rode Talkacha into the cave, swinging down from the saddle as she did so. Seeing there was no immediate danger in this first chamber - although her keen elven vision picked up what Alistair had failed to note in the back: a screen of hanging furs along the northwest, no doubt blocking off a passageway to another cavern - and lit her bullseye lantern, which she then shone down towards the back of the cave. There was another passageway off to the northeast, this one free of hanging furs. Harlan dismounted from his white horse Law and strode towards the back of the cave, flaming sword in hand. He was headed towards the northeastern passageway, but as he got closer, he could see a hill giant advancing from the other side of the hanging screen of furs, stepping beside a campfire that was no doubt responsible for the flickering light they'd noted outside. He tightened his grip upon his longsword, holding his shield up before him and allowing the giant to advance upon him. The hill giant looked down at the half-elf and, apparently making no differentiation between the well-armored paladin and the Frost Barbarian tribe he'd helped capture into slavery, grumbled, "Stupid barbarians, good only as slaves and meat." The fact that his mouth drooled as he said it showed which role [B]Grolth[/B] preferred for Harlan at the moment. Ageratum had been the last one to ride her mount into the cave and was busy slathering on a quick dose of [I]stone salve[/I]; a hill giant, a dragon, and a pack of winter wolves all sounded like plenty of good reasons for a little halfling to have as much protection as she could! A flash of motion caught Harlan's eye. Spinning to the right, he saw a quartet of winter wolves advancing down the passageway from that direction, as Grolth stepped forward and forced the paladin to give him his full attention for the moment. He dodged a massive greatclub that the hill giant swung his way, ducking beneath the weapon as it passed by overhead. As Grolth was momentarily thrown off balance, Alistair gave him a blast from his wand, while Ambrose suddenly gave a frantic cawing from near the cave entrance. He'd heard the flapping of leathery wings outside the cave, off to the left, indicating the dragon was coming in for a landing and would soon be entering through the front cave opening. Involuntarily, a stream of white waste exited the bird's body and splashed over Alistair's saddle; the sorcerer would no doubt wish to cast a [I]prestidigitation[/I] spell before he once more rode astride Zephyr. Sure enough, a white-scaled, reptilian face peered around the cave opening, balanced upon a snakelike neck. He sucked in air and sent a blast of frigid vapors encompassing Ageratum and the riding mounts all standing there; Ambrose managed to take wing and shield himself behind Zephyr's body, but the frost covered each of the mounts, harming them all to one degree or another. Munson, the closest to the cave opening, took the brunt of the attack and toppled over onto his side, while the other three horses, in a fit of panic, raced back outside the cave to take their chances out in the open. Ambrose followed them, knowing full well he had given his master all the warning he'd been expected to - Alistair and the others would have to take it from there. The halfling, however, had dropped to the ground beside her pony and shielded herself from all harm in that fashion; rising to her feet with her short swords in hand, she swore she'd cut the dragon's heart out herself if Munson had been slain by its frigid breath weapon. Realizing there was no way the group could take on a hill giant and five winter wolves from the back of the cave and a young white dragon from the front all at the same time, Chaevaris took out the sole arrow from her quiver that contained one of the clothlike items resulting from one of Alistair's [I]shrink item[/I] spells that [I]wasn't[/I] a small boulder. Shooting the arrow at the stone floor in the corridor to the northeast, the archer let it fly; upon impact with the ground, the fabric covering the arrow's head resumed its normal form, that of a blazing bonfire that completely blocked the ten-foot-wide passageway. With yelps of fear, the four winter wolves approaching from that direction backed off from the fearsome flames; leaving a much smaller number of foes for the Trained Professional Adventurers to have to deal with at one time. Pulling another arrow from her quiver in a practiced move, Chaevaris shot it at the hill giant menacing Harlan. Unfortunately, that one missed its mark, but the archer took comfort in the fact that the shot she really needed to pull off - the "bonfire reactivation shot" - had gone off completely as planned. She figured they had several minutes before they had to worry about the large blaze dying down to the point the winter wolves might try to push their way through it. Harlan moved up to attack Grolth, accepting a swing from the giant's greater reach as the price for doing business. He took a glancing blow off his shield that rattled his arm up to the shoulder, but then struck true with his flaming blade, cutting and searing the massive brute along his side. Behind the giant, Harlan saw the white-furred face of another winter wolf, but fortunately the passageway coming out of that side-cavern was too narrow to allow it to move past Grolth and help attack the half-elf paladin just yet. A little fearful of closing with a dragon that much larger than her own spare form, Ageratum grabbed up one of her kobold shortspears and hurled it at the reptile. It missed, but the dragon flinched away regardless, allowing the halfling to retreat further down the central cave, closer to the relative safety of her friends. Grolth slammed his greatclub into Harlan's shield again, bending it out of shape and almost making the elf's entire left arm go numb. Alistair sent another charge from his [I]magic missile wand[/I] flying into the giant bully, at the same time calling out for Ogilvy to help Ageratum with the dragon. Obediently, the invisible [I]unseen servant[/I] moved over beside the dragon - who saw nothing but a small coin pouch apparently hovering in the air - and released a "pebble-boulder" while holding it above the dragon's head. Upon impact, it resumed its normal size, resulting in a rather fearsome blow powered solely by the force of gravity. Better yet, it caused the dragon to look around fearfully, trying to pinpoint the invisible attacker from nowhere who had thrown a large boulder at it without it even hearing it come flying into the cave. It spun about, peering across the field of dead bodies looking for a hidden giant, knowing from personal experience that both hill giants and frost giants liked throwing large rocks at their enemies to soften them up. The dragon released another blast of its frigid breath weapon just in case, but there was nobody within range the way it had been pointed. (And now the dragon was worried there was an invisible giant there in the cave with it - possibly with a spellcasting ally granting it [I]greater invisibility[/I]?) Activating her [I]boots of speed[/I] to grant her a few moments under the effects of a [I]haste[/I] spell, Chaevaris used her faster-than-normal speed to shoot three arrows in extremely rapid succession over at Grolth, hoping to take him out before he landed a lethal blow upon Harlan with his massive greatclub. But while only one of the three hit hard enough to pierce the giant's flesh, it took his concentration off of the paladin long enough for him to get in a perfect stab deep within the giant's midsection, burying the majority of his flaming blade inside Grolth's massive gut. He pulled out the weapon and brought it in a wide arc, but the hill giant staggered back out of range, almost trampling the winter wolf behind it as he cried out in pain, clutching his wounded belly. Behind the bonfire, the other four winter wolves tried getting past the fearsome flames, yapping and barking at it to no avail. Realizing the advantages to be had by concentrating on taking down a single enemy, Ageratum charged across the cave, away from the dragon and straight for Grolth. Her short sword slashed across the front of a meaty shin, cutting to the bone and causing a flow of blood to spray from the wound. Then another blast from Alistair's wand sent the hill giant toppling backwards, unconscious and bleeding out, until the impartial [I]Blood Mirror[/I] automatically stabilized his wounds based on nothing more than his proximity. (Ageratum promised herself she'd come back later and take care of that oversight.) Ogilvy, continuing to obey his master's last orders, fetched another pebble from the sack, held it above the now-paranoid dragon's head, and released it, to plummet onto its noggin as a boulder and crash to the cave floor. He wasn't dealing the creature a whole lot of damage by doing so, but just enough to make him frantic in trying to fend off his unknown and unseen attacker. In a panicked frenzy, the dragon lashed out with the claws of its forelegs and its mouthful of sharp teeth, trying ineffectually to catch its invisible tormentor in its powerful jaws and grasping talons. With Grolth down, the giant's favored winter wolf was able to scramble over his body and move in for the attack. Chaevaris responded with a trio of well-placed arrows, each of the three hitting its mark and burying itself up to the feathered ends in its furry pelt. Pain and fear in its eyes and blood spilling from its canine lips, the wolf howled in agony but still kept coming. Harlan scrambled backwards, hastily laying on hands and healing up the worst of the damage he'd taken from Grolth's swinging greatclub. The wolf expelled a cone of frosty breath, similar but less powerful than that of the dragon, which engulfed only Ageratum, but the halfling dodged to the side at the last moment, warned by a keen sense of self-preservation that bypassed her own conscious mind and allowed her act without pausing to consider her actions. She landed on her feet off to the side, unharmed by the frosty spray. But rather than stay out of harm's way, she immediately charged the wolf, both of her short swords stabbing in at it in a pinching maneuver. The wolf, in trying to dodge one blade, only made it that much easier for the other one to pierce the side of its shaggy neck. And then Alistair stepped up, casting the [I]scorching ray[/I] spell he'd stored inside his [I]ring of spell storing[/I] (it had ended up being a minor version of the ring, but no matter - although it figured his father wouldn't publicly broadcast the fact he'd spent the minimum amount possible for his gesture of forgiveness to his youngest son). The gout of flame flew over Ageratum's head to strike the white-furred wolf straight in the face, scorching its muzzle and causing it to stagger on its feet, barely able to stand. Ogilvy, in the meantime, dropped a third "pebble-boulder" onto the white dragon's head, causing it no small amount of panic. It decided to change its strategy thus far and ignore its invisible attacker, in the hopes it might do likewise. Instead, it raced deeper into the cave and bit Alistair on the shoulder, causing the young sorcerer to cry out in pain. Chaevaris spun about at the cry and sent a trio of arrows at the dragon, hitting with two and burying them deep through the young dragon's still relatively soft scales. (Soft, that is, only in comparison to how tough they'd be if the dragon were allowed to grow to many times its current size, although that was looking less and less likely as the combat continued. Only now was it starting to get the idea that fleeing back to its own cave might not be a bad idea, for these "barbarians" were much tougher than the last batch that had shown up here.) Harlan focused his attention onto the dragon's aura long enough to determine to his own satisfaction its evil nature, and then charged, channeling Pelor's evil-smiting energy through the flaming blade of his sword as he did so. The dragon fell back at the strength of the blow, a deep gash having cut a line of pain through the scales above its belly. The wolf took in a deep breath and exhaled, sending a blast of frost breath at Ageratum; the halfling easily skirted out of the way, but the attack took every last ounce of strength from the staggered wolf, and it collapsed, unconscious, onto the stone floor of the cave. The little halfling, finding herself now closer to Grolth's unconscious form than anyone else, took the opportunity to run the edge of one of her blades across his throat, opening it up wider than the [I]Blood Mirror[/I] could fix. Best of all, Harlan's back was turned as he faced the dragon, not that Ageratum was necessarily concerned that the paladin might not approve of that particular action in Grolth's case, given his role as a slave-taker. Alistair dropped to the ground, rolled, and cast a [I]scorching ray[/I] up at the dragon, catching him in the underside of the jaw. As anticipated, the cold-based dragon didn't like the fire-based spell any more than had the winter wolf. Ogilvy advanced from behind on the dragon and dropped the last of the four "pebble-boulders" onto its head, before moving back to its master to receive further instructions (or, failing that, another pouch of four more magically-shrunken pebbles). Doing its best to ignore the pain of its most recent wounds, the dragon made a full-out attack against Harlan, biting, scratching, and even buffeting the paladin with its wings in a desperate attempt to bring at least one of its attackers down. Harlan weathered the barrage of attacks, but it was evident he wouldn't be able to take too much more, for he almost stumbled under the frenzy of natural weapons. But then the [I]hasted[/I] archer pumped another three arrows into the dragon, leaving it just as ready to fall as Harlan. It was anybody's guess which of the two would drop first. Anybody's guess but Harlan's that is, for the paladin had full faith in his combat training and the protection of his deity in the face of adversity. He stabbed forward with his blade using all of his might, slicing effortlessly past the dragon's scales and piercing its heart with the tip of his flaming blade. The dragon dropped to the stone cave floor like a rock, and Harlan made a desperate - and ultimately successful - effort not to join his reptilian foe sprawled out on the ground. That left only the four winter wolves pinned behind the bonfire. Chaevaris walked steadily toward the flames, popping open a flask of lantern oil as she did so. Peering through the flickering flames, she grinned wildly as she saw the side cavern was in fact a dead end; the wolves had nowhere in which they could retreat. Holding the flask alongside the end of her bow in her left hand and dipping the tip of one arrow after another into the oil, she fired them [I]through[/I] the bonfire, igniting each arrow in turn mid-flight, to strike a helpless winter wolf. It was, she decided with a grim grin, very much like shooting fish in a barrel. It didn't take her long to take them all out, especially not when Alistair stepped up beside her and started casting his daily allotment of [I]magic missile[/I] spells from the store of arcane energy he was able to wield on his own. Although still fairly wounded himself, Harlan staggered over to the front of the cave and cast a [I]cure light wounds[/I] spell upon Munson, bringing the wounded pony back to full consciousness. Ageratum would need him, he realized, to ride back to the Frost Barbarians' village. Then, with all of their foes slain (Ageratum having made sure the deed was permanent with a good throat-slitting as needed), the Trained Professional Adventurers explored the entire lair, seeking treasure. (Dragons, Ageratum informed them, were well renowned for their love of treasure.) Sure enough, there was a sloping passageway behind the giant's cave that led up to the dragon's lair, complete with an opening at the ceiling to allow it to come and go as needed. There, they found two cases of Furyondy fire schnapps, golden place settings, and bars of silver. At the halfling's suggestion, Alistair cast a [I]shrink item[/I] spell upon the white dragon's corpse, for Ageratum said a dragon's hide could be valuable if sold to the right person - an armorer, for example. The sorcerer picked up the shrunken body - now in a clothlike fabric form that hopefully wouldn't decompose - and placed it carefully in his pack, while the others distributed the dragon's meager hoard into their own pouches, after the sorcerer had likewise reduced them in size with his spells. "Well," said Harlan with a vigorous enthusiasm, "I think we can report back to Larson a fully successful mission!" He mounted back up onto Law and led his horse back south. The others mounted up and followed. - - - Not knowing what Frost Barbarians do to their deceased (burial? pyre?), we left their dead where they lay for now, figuring the way was now safe so we could return with the members of the tribe able to travel and they could tend to the matter as befit their beliefs. As expected, this adventure brought us to the lofty heights of 7th level. Alistair opted to learn the spells [I]acid splash[/I] (it can't hurt to learn a few more combat spells, no matter how low their damage output!) and [I]flame arrow[/I], the latter for the benefit of Chaevaris because I promised Logan I'd do so. (Plus, Alistair has a light crossbow as a fallback weapon, so the spell might prove to be useful to him as well.) But from now on, Alistair's going to focus on making himself the best Trained Professional Adventurer he can be, for he has a reputation to uphold - and that means making the most of the few spells he'll be able to master over his 20-level career as a sorcerer. After all, he "wasted" a few spell levels on comfort spells before even realizing he was a sorcerer. [/QUOTE]
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