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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMZ2112" data-source="post: 6778514" data-attributes="member: 78752">Dragons of Menace Session Report 5 – 2015 Aug-OctDragons of MenaceSession Report 5 – 2015 Aug-OctPalast, the 21st of Deepkolt, 352 ACThe trip up the Knights’ High Road to the High Clerist’s Tower was almost too quiet.  The Plains of Solamnia were seemingly deserted, in anticipation of the fierce battle to come.  On the second day, Lea caught up to the rest of the party, riding hard on a “borrowed” pony, and brought with him reports of the legions massing at Vingaard in even greater numbers than the party had seen as they passed through.The party’s resolve faltered, trapped between a colossal army and the teeth of a forbidding storm coming over the mountains, but in the end they pressed onward and reached the gates of the High Clerist’s Tower with the light of Solinari making every falling snowflake shine like polished silver.  Their welcome was not friendly, but eventually Dale and Poe, both loyal Solamnics, were able to talk their way into the western courtyard, where Arn revealed their precious cargo hidden in the vallenwood -- the dragonlances.  The captain of the guard had nothing but derision for their so-called legendary weapons, pointing out that his garrison was starving and freezing to death, and that the Dragonarmy would not need dragons to take the Tower, but at the very least the lances earned the party an audience with Lord Alfred Markenin, commander of the forces at the Tower, in the Knights’ Spur.Lord Markenin was more gracious but not much more grateful for the party’s mission, sharing as he did his guard captain’s grim outlook on the battle to come.  Still, he invited the party to what meager dinner could be scrounged from the stores and introduced them to his other guests -- Princess Lauralanthalasa of Qualinesti, Sir Derek Crownguard of the Knights of the Rose, the newly minted Sir Sturm Brightblade of the Knights of the Crown, and the princess’ companions Flint Fireforge and Tasslehoff Burrfoot.The hospitality at dinner was as meager as the fare -- Sir Derek and Sir Sturm nearly came to blows over strategy, if it could be called that, with Sir Derek eventually storming out of the hall swearing that he would march his knights out to meet the Blue Dragonarmy on the field as soon as the storm lifted, and that if Sturm did not follow his life and the lives of his men would be forfeit after Derek’s inevitable victory.  The High Clerist’s Tower had never fallen while it was defended by true Knights of Solamnia, after all -- the overwhelming might of the Dragonarmy was of no consequence.Lord Markenin was forced to acknowledge that this plan -- and this threat -- were well within the rights granted to Sir Derek by his court and military rank.  Although he agreed the strategy was foolhardy, he also held out hope as Derek did -- that the Tower had never fallen.  Everyone present had heard of the great magical treasures hidden within the High Clerist’s Tower and pressed Lord Markenin to open the sealed doors and see what inside might aid in the coming battle, but Lord Markenin was insistent that the Tower would not be opened until the High Clerist ordered it -- and there hadn’t been a High Clerist since the last one died inside the Tower during the Cataclysm 350 years before.Laurana and her companions, at least, were grateful to the party for bringing the lesser dragonlances from Rayne’s Drop, as their own plans to provide dragonlances to the Whitestone Army were shattered when Theros Ironfeld, a skilled weaponsmith and the wielder of the Silver Arm of Ergoth, was swept overboard in an amphidragon attack off Sancrist.This state of affairs did not satisfy the party, half of which wanted to abandon the Knights to their folly and the other half of which sought to ignore Lord Markenin’s warnings and search the Tower for artifacts.  Ultimately unable to reach a consensus, the party split -- Arn, Bryn, and Flynt Frozenflame remained in the Knights’ Spur while Dale, Lea, Poe, Tharivol, and Uri joined Laurana, Tas, and a reluctant Flint Fireforge in investigating the Tower.The explorers were ultimately unable to breach the broad portcullises at the base of the Tower, although Lea immediately surmised that the strange architecture was some kind of trap.  But for what?  And for what purpose?  The party gained access to the Tower at the temple level and found themselves breathing air that had not been disturbed for centuries.  The Tower smelled of ancient death.  It was a vast and monolithic tomb.No wonder the Knights wanted the Tower to stay sealed; it was the grave of hundreds of Solamnic souls, Knights and civilians alike.  In the Temple of Mishakal, the party rescued the souls of five pilgrims who had been crushed under a collapsed pillar when the Cataclysm struck the Tower by moving the pillar off their powdered bones and bringing an end to their terrified scrabbling.In a library on the third floor, a ghostly librarian conquered Dale’s mind and tried to force him to reshelve all the books in the ruined atheneum.  In the ensuing conflict, the ghost struck at Flint cruelly, draining away much of what little life remained to the aging dwarf.  Only by threatening to destroy the library utterly did Poe and Tas finally succeed in getting the ghost to back down and relinquish their friend.  Poe sought to make amends by promising to return with aid, but the ghost was inconsolate.On the fourth floor, the party interrupted a grim tableau that had been replaying itself for 350 years, as the spirits of the tyrant Kurnos’ mercenaries continually stormed an eternal gala ball and slaughtered the undead revelers.  Wasting not a moment, Poe called upon the strength of Kiri-Jolith and struck the mercenaries’ leader in the face with such a blow from his warhammer that the soldier’s ephemeral skull was blasted into scattered ectoplasm and his spirit banished utterly.  Dale turned the other mercenaries in the name of Mishakal and the party had plenty of time to prepare for their return and exact vengeance for the suffering of the ancient dancers.  As they exited to the stairwell, they were accompanied by the sound of a rousing ovation.The party spent less than ten minutes on the fifth floor before abandoning its magical maze to its own echoing shadows, wondering if their lack of patience would come back to haunt them but unwilling to be delayed in their exploration of the upper floors.  Unfortunately, the upper floors proved to be as devoid of potential aid as the lower floors.  After skirting a grand melee between undead mercenaries and Knights of Solamnia in the great council chamber, the party took a long, spiraling stair to the gallery circling the dome hundreds of feet above and lowered Tas down to High Clerist Yarus’ dragonchess room.  Guided by Laurana and Lea, Tas completed the game in progress under the cold, ancient glares of Yarus and his opponent, Kurnos, leader of the mercenaries who attacked the tower three centuries before at the moment of the Cataclysm to free him.The apparitions of Yarus and Kurnos shook hands and vanished, Yarus reappearing at the base of the tower to order Lord Markenin to unseal the High Clerist’s Tower.  Shocked, Lord Markenin wondered aloud about what could have inspired this change in fortunes for the Knights, and Flynt, Bryn, and Arn informed them of their companions’ clandestine exploration of the Tower.  Sir Derek was enraged, but Markenin and Sturm shared a relieved smile.  They both knew this turn of events, illegal and unauthorized though it was, could mean the difference between victory and annihilation come the morning.  Back in the Tower, the rest of the heroes continued their climb through ancient war rooms and training halls.At the top of the Tower, the party passed through a tholobate open on all sides to the elements.  Wind and snow whipped through the archways on all sides, chilling the heroes but not deterring them from continuing upward to the lantern above the Tower’s final buttresses.  There they found a pair of eagles in a huge nest on a wide pedestal decorated with a kingfisher motif, weathering the storm with their eggs.  Disappointed, the adventurers peered about the small room, intent on anything that might aid the Knights in the coming battle.  The male eagle reared up, prepared to defend his mate and offspring, and Uri stepped forward, quickly and silently weaving a communication bond with the eagles.  He assured the eagles that the heroes meant no harm, and beseeched them to share any knowledge they might have of secrets hidden in the Tower.  The eagles were not aware of any weapons or treasure that would aid the fight, but Flint caught sight of something blue beneath the talons of the male eagle and sidled up to Uri, quietly pointing it out.  Although initially reluctant to give up any part of their carefully crafted nest, Tas offered his fur-lined cloak to be cut into strips as recompense and the eagle agreed.  The blue symbol was the sigil of the blue dragonarmy, and the broad if crumpled and torn parchment detailed the battle plan for the siege of the Tower.As they spoke with the eagles and set about preparing Tas’ cloak, the party could hear the wind dying below them -- the storm was ending.Majetag, the 22nd of Deepkolt, 352 ACAnxious to share their discovery with the Knights, the heroes hurried down the Tower, stopping only on the fifth floor to make one final attempt at the maze.  This time, they successfully navigated the twisting, disorienting passages, finding themselves at the Tower’s treasury, suspended by chains above the main floor’s atrium 50 feet below.Accessing the treasury was a simple matter for Lea and Tas, and inside the wrought-iron cage they found a wealth of magical arms and armor, enough to fit the whole party in formidable gear.  They also discovered a large crystal ball filled with blue mist, which Flint, Laurana, and Tas immediately recognized as a dragon orb, like the one Tas had destroyed at the Whitestone Council.Lea devised a makeshift pulley system over one of the suspending chains to lower their haul to the main floor of the Tower and followed it down while the rest of the party navigated the stairwells.  Almost immediately upon alighting on the floor far below, a shout went up from outside the portcullises:“It’s them!  They’ve returned!  Open the gates!”  Unaware of High Clerist Yarus’ command to Lord Alfred, Lea prepared to defend himself or escape, but as the Knights rushed toward him it became clear that their intentions were not violent.  Cheering, they lifted the kender onto their shoulders and tossed him into the air as his companions descended into the courtyard and the Knights’ leadership approached from the Knights’ Spur.Arn, Bryn, and Flynt explained to the bewildered explorers what had transpired in their absence and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief that they would not be punished and the Knights would be marginally better prepared to face the Dragonarmy come dawn.  Flint and Uri turned the Blue Dragonarmy battle plan over to Lord Alfred, and Lea, noticing a similarity of form, tried placing the dragon orb in the concave pedestal at the center of the Tower’s atrium.  Nothing happened... but it was a perfect fit.The link between the dragon orb and the Tower was clear, but none present knew what it could mean.  Lea recalled his earlier observation about the architecture resembling some kind of trap.  A trap for dragons?  Activating the orb would require a powerful wizard, and there were only two of them in the Tower -- Bryn and Flynt.  Flynt refused outright to wield the orb.  He had seen firsthand the devastation caused in Silvanost by King Lorac and his dragon orb, where the king’s nightmares had warped the very land itself, and he was unwilling to repeat that mistake in Solamnia.  He could not see a beneficial outcome of using the orb.Bryn was tempted by the orb’s power, but also afraid to lose himself to it.  In the end, it was not his greed but his desire to save his companions that compelled him to face the orb and learn its secrets.  Fortified by his friends’ spells and prayers, he placed his hands upon the orb, and was drawn into its world.Bryn did battle on a craggy, stormwracked mountaintop, against the spirit of a powerful blue dragon.  Although the dragon’s claws tore at his flesh and its lightning breath seared his bones, Bryn matched it blow for blow and broke its will, driving it back into the orb’s deepest mists.Back in the Tower, Bryn’s companions anxiously watched him writhe and scream as he fought in his mind, only to ultimately sag to his knees, insensate, his hands locked to the orb by powerful magic.The next few hours were harrowing but all too short.  When dawn broke, Sir Derek fulfilled his promise to meet the Blue Dragonarmy on the field with his Knights of the Rose and Lord Markenin’s Knights of the Sword dutifully followed.  Sturm’s Knights of the Crown, spread too thinly to be adequate, tried to man as many of the Tower’s walls and defenses as they could.A few hours after the Knights’ charge, the commander of the Blue Dragonarmy and his adjutant rode up to the tower under a flag of parley and presented Crownguard’s and Markenin’s heads to the defenders.  Haughtily, the commander demanding unconditional surrender.Lea, concealed in one of the Tower’s many arrow slits, shot him in the chest, thoroughly ruining his day.  “That was far from honorable,” Sturm noted, scowling.  Then his mustache twitched, and he added, “Nice shot, though.” Kirinor, the 23rd of Deepkolt, 352 ACThe siege lasted for a full day until the Blue Dragonarmy’s ogres finally smashed down one of the side gates of the Tower and hobgoblin elites swarmed into the courtyard.  The three blue dragons joined the push and for a handful of moments all seemed lost.  The party met the assault in the courtyard and firing down from the walls, and at around the same moment Bryn regained consciousness, under Arn’s watchful gaze.  The wizard looked up, words tumbling from his mouth about the secret of the Tower’s dragontraps.  Arn ran to find Sturm, and the necessary troops to man the traps with dragonlances were found and assigned.  To buy Bryn the time he would need, Sturm went to the top of the wall with a few loyal knights to distract the swooping dragons, and Arn finally joined the grand melee in the courtyard, giving pause even to the massive ogres fighting there.  Finally, when all was in place, Bryn activated the dragon orb.  Sturm paid for his bravery with a mortal wound from the blue dragon highlord’s lance, and Arn nearly paid as dearly, but Dale’s quick thinking and fast feet kept Arn upright and were even able to close Sturm’s grievous injury with a Revivify spell cast just barely in time.*The Dragonarmy fared more poorly, with two of their three dragons swooping into the dragontraps to be executed and the hundreds of draconian troops on the field driven mad by the dragon orb’s power and proximity.  The Knights routed the shattered Dragonarmy back into the Plains of Solamnia and the High Clerist’s Tower was spared.(*That’s right, it happened: Revivify saved Sturm Brightblade.  D&D does not seem to be ruined forever, neither my childhood, but I will keep you posted.)</blockquote>

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