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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 167778" data-attributes="member: 150">The Goon Show takes it on the RoadThe Goon Show takes it on the RoadThe heroes gathered on the deck of the Mystery Machine to lick their wounds and read through their booty.  They’d taken quite a beating from the pair of drow assassins, although it could have been a lot worse. Pah, who had slept through the entire battle after succumbing to Drow poison in the opening exchange of missile fire, was sore from being carried around under Irk’s arm, and itching for a little more action – especially since she wanted to try out a new sword they had taken from the Drow – oddly enough, a sword that was not of drow manufacture, so it had not turned to dust in the morning sunlight. The group read through the letters a couple of times, passing them, around and reading over each other’s shoulders.  Meanwhile Nikolai was drinking himself blind, Alexei was no where to be found, and the last seven Dragoons clutched their muskets and refused to do more than peek over the gunwales of the ship when they thought they heard something passing.  While the debate was going on, they heard some movement and voices from down below the ship, in the compound where the Dragoons had trained earlier.  Looking over the gunwales they saw a cluster of men in the uniform of the Claws of the Dragon.  The leader, an officer and clearly a dragonpriest cleric (wearing blue-colored plate armor), looked up at the odd sight of a ship parked on dry land, in the middle of a city, and the faces peering out of it at him.“Is this the barracks of the Dyvers Dragoons?” asked the officer.“No.” shouted Irk.“Yes,” shouted Pah.Eli groaned and sat back out of sight, stringing his bow.The officer introduced himself as Captain Thorvald of the Claws of the Dragon, official city watch of Dyvers and special investigator.  “I understand there was a murder here the other night, we have come to investigate it.”“Hey, we’re the city watch, too,” said Pah.“We’re investigating the Murder,” said Irk.“He’s only mostly dead” said Eli. Thorvald looked a bit confused, with the three of them shouting down different things at him.  He considered for a moment, then started again.  “I have a charter signed by the Magister which gives me the authority to investigate murders within city walls.""We have on too!" said Pah.  Then she turned to the others.  "We do have one, don't we?"  They all shrugged.  Thorvald was obviously getting impatient.  "Is this the victim's lab?  I understand he was found dead in his lab, I would like to investigate it. "Irk, a little nearsighted like most dwarves, decided to get a closer look, and hopped down the gangplank to face the Claws.  Pah and Eli followed him down.  Thorvald was unimpressed.  Perhaps it was the sight of the other dragoons, peeking sheepishly over the gunwales of the ship behind the trio of short folk standing in front of him.  Thorvald held out his charter.  "Here are my credentials."Eli grinned.  "We don’t need no stinking --And Irk moved, quick as a snake, grabbing Thorvald's extended wrist and puling him into a grapple.  Pah and Eli whipped out bow and pistols to cover the other Claws as Irk used his favorite rhetorical techniques to convince Thorvald that he should have stayed in bed that morning.The Claw sergeant, a grizzled veteran, tried to talk his way out of the situation first, while Irk wrestled with the cleric, grinding his face into the ground and taking a few shots with elbows and knees when the opportunities presented themselves.  "Let him up."Irk drove a thumb into the cleric's ribs.  "No way."Pah and Eli surveyed Thorvald's retainers, who were itching to move.  Finally, the Sergeant couldn't take the tension anymore.  "Git em!" he yelled, and sprang forward at Pah.  Pah's pistols went off.  Irk's bow twanged.  The Claws surged forward, a few dropping, but the rest closing, trying to drive Pah and Eli back so others could try to pull Irk off the Cleric.  Irk, meanwhile, shrugged off their hands and continued to pummel the struggling cleric into unconsciousness, bashing the poor man's forehead into the ground repeatedly.  Eli managed to drop several of the Claw soldiers that tried to close on him and irk, while Pah emptied her pistols at the sergeant, who managed to avoid serious injury from them.  Nikolai, swaying a bit, bellowed down from the deck above that everyone should freeze, but no one did.  He ordered the dragoons to fire, and an ineffective volley of gunfire flew overhead.  The Sergeant, hoping to get the cleric up and into the fight to even the odds a little with divine magic, turned his attention away from Pah and gave Irk a quick poke with his double-bladed sword.  Irk looked up from his full nelson grip and scowled.  "yer next, sonny," which he punctuated by driving the cleric's forehead into the ground again.  With a crunch the cleric finally went limp, and Irk stood to face the sergeant.  At that moment Pah stepped up behind the man and lightly touched his inner thigh with the flat of her new shortsword.  "That's enough honey."  The sergeant, feeling the cold steel a little too close to his favorite set of genitals, dropped his sword and surrendered. Eli covered that last couple of Claw solders, who dropped their swords and moved slowly to try to help their fallen comrades.  In a few moments the group administered enough first aid to make sure than none of the claws that Eli had shot would actually die - - Eli went so far as to provide a couple of healing potions to the wounded guardsmen.  The sergeant managed to get the mangled Cleric Thorvald upright again, slumped over his shoulder, and the troop began to shuffle for the exit.  Irk brushed some dust off his Dragoon tabard.  "Hey, I thought you wanted to see the Lab?"Thorvald, barely conscious, peered out through one swollen eyelid at Irk, then they turned and left.As the Claws limped away, the heroes saw that there was another figure standing in the open gate to the Dragoon compound.  A young man, dressed in the uniform of a paid messenger, and holding a small rolled piece of parchment.  The boy told them he had a message to deliver to Solen.  Once they convinced the boy that they were Solen's seconds (after rejecting the next of kin argument) they sent the boy on his way and read the message.  It was from a person named Tivitha, the master librarian of the Dyvers Library in the university quarter, and one of the members of the Magister's council, and she demanded that Solen drop everything and come to see her in the library immediately.The trio decided to go in Solen's stead.  Nikolai was not excited about letting them go, although he had never been able to exert any authority over the heroes, so he was hesitant to try to do so now.  He was also powerfully drunk.  Pah yelled at him, telling him to get his men up and do something about securing the compound, and then the group headed off to go see Tivitha. # # #Entering the library, Pah quickly spotted several figures who did not seem to belong there, despite their apparent interest in the books on the shelves.  They were men in armor, badly concealed in cloaks, and all in position to see the entrance.  Pah tucked her thumbs into her belt near her pistols and walked over to one of them.  "Hiya honey.""Hello," he said, in a deep voice, pretending deep interest in the book he was holding.  "Do you want to tell me where Tivitha is?""You mean the head librarian?  In her office, I imagine.""You want to take me there?"The man looked at her, hard.  "And who are you?""I'm Pah.  I'm a friend of Solen's.""And the others?""Them too."The guard looked around, made eye contact with a couple of other figures in the area, and then shrugged. " All right, lets go. "The guard lead them up several flights of stairs, to the upper stacks of the library, which were reserved for special patrons and Library personnel.  There were many more guards along the way, to whom their escort nodded as they passed.  Then they entered a reading room, where a middle-aged human woman sat reading a large tome and studying some maps.  "Master Tivitha," he said.  "These are friends of Solen."Tivitha looked up.  "Friends of.  And where is Solen himself?""Dead." said Pah."Mostly dead." said Eli.Tivitha was taken aback.  "I see.  And you are his champions?  The ones they call the heroes of Spittlemarch, I presume?"Pah nodded.  "We have our own song.  Have you heard it?"In a few moments the party explained the situation with Solen's absence -- and his hopeful return in the near future -- and Tivitha nodded.  "I hope he can return shortly.  But we need to act now, and it was about you that we wanted to talk to Solen, so we can speak directly to you.""We?" asked Irk.At that moment Magister Larissa, stepped out of the shadows, where no one had seen her before.  "We, yes.  We must be very careful, for the Dragonpriests have spies everywhere.  And their power grows every day."The Magister and librarian were aware of some things -- like the recent arrival of Anathe, and his more recent departure on an important mission.  And his new allies, Brottkill and his goons.  They were not aware of Solen's death, nor of how close the Drow were to priest's actions, but they were not at all surprised.  Comparing notes and the letters that the party had recovered from the tower with the information that the librarian and Magister had, they were able to put together a fairly complete picture of what Anathe was up to.  He was traveling to the Bandit kingdoms -- now occupied by the empire of Iuz, to go to the great rift, where there was a great spire, an abandoned temple to an ancient dragon faith, that was rumored to be the home of the great wyrm Ashardalon.  Anathe was trying to find more dragon allies there.It would be a long trip for Anathe, and a difficult one.  He would be able to cross the Nyr Dyv without too much difficulty, but once he was in the bandit kingdom he would not be able to travel openly as a dragonpriest.  Iuz and his evil empire had no use for religions other than the worship of Iuz as a god,  even if the faith were evil.  So Anathe would have to have some allies there, and would have to travel without the power of the Dragon Faith behind him.It was the Magister’s idea that the Dragoons take the Mystery Machine and try to stop Anathe, and put a stop to his mission, get to his target before him and neutralize it if possible. Irk was game, and the others didn’t take any real convincing, either – they were already edging in that direction, anyway, with the clues they had been picking up in the Dragonpriest compound.  The Magister was very interested in the maps that Pah had stolen, and spent some time going over them in great detail.  Then, finally, it was time to go back to the Dragoon compound and get going after Anathe, who already had a two day lead.At the compound they found that Nikolai had actually started to get some things done.  He’d pulled the last of Solen’s gear and powder into the ship and had supplied the ship for a long journey.  There was another little surprise. Alexei was back, claiming to have spent the night with a barmaid, and that was why he hadn’t been around for so much.  The goonies didn’t believe him, and there were a few sharp words spoken.  Eli (who had some spellcasting ability as a ranger) took the helm and started to take off, as Irk pressed his debate with Alexei over where he had been and whether he was going on the trip with the rest of the dragoons. Eventually Irk settled the issue in standard Irk fashion, by grabbing him and tossing him over the side of the ship.  Nikolai didn’t argue with Irk’s decision to leave Alexei behind.The group did some planning, once they were in mid-air.  They wanted to give Uri some time to do some item creation while they were on the trip, but at the same time they had only two spellcasters on board, Uri and Eli.  Each could take a twelve-hour shift at the helm, but no more, and that meant they would travel several days only half of the day, until Uri was done with his item creation work.  Tivitha had provided good maps of their goal, and although the trip took nearly two weeks, they managed to avoid a lot of trouble by flying high above the ground, out of reach of even most flying creatures.  As they neared the rift, deep in the heart of the Bandit Kingdoms, they began to search the area from above for some sign of the temple site they were looking for.They saw several warbands below them, all very interested in the flying ship.  Those that had horses tried to keep up with the pace of the ship, which they were able to do until terrain or fatigue got in the way.  At one point a flock of Harpies took an interest in the flying ship, and attacked, but they were driven off fairly easily.  After a few days of searching the Mystery Machine came upon a small camp at the mouth of a deep crevasse.  There were about ten humans in and around the camp, but horses for twice that number.  Far up the crevasse they could see the top of the tower that they had seen a drawing of in one of Tivitha’s book.  The humans on the ground stared up at the ship, and the goonies stared down, until Pah made an important observation.  The men all had double bladed swords, the trademark weapon of the Claws of the Dragon, even if they were not in uniform.  Eli steered the ship closer, and the men scattered, running for horses.  Pah turned a small keg of powder into a crude bomb and dropped it over the side of the ship trying to disrupt their campsite, but only managed to wound a couple of Claws.  Then Uri cast Evard’s Black tentacles, managing to encompass half of the men on the ground and most of the horses.  By the time the ship was low enough to allow the party to hit the ground, those five Claws and the mounts had all been strangled to death.  The goonies did manage to shoot down one more escaping claw, and then raced to his side to try to keep him alive for questioning, but they were not up to the task of keeping the gravely wounded human alive without magical help, so he died.  Uri was especially proud of himself – Evard’s Black Tentacles is a nasty spell, and because he and the other Halflings are small creatures the tentacles leave them alone, so he was able to walk through the wriggling forest and check out the corpses of the Claws.  In the baggage left at the campsite they found a little more evidence of whose camp this was, including a truck that included a set of formal white clerical robes that were clearly Anathe's.  Irk relieved himself in the trunk.Eli found a nearby formation that would hold the ship nearly upright and provide it a bit of cover from the weather.  Nikolai, always pragmatic, volunteered to stay behind with the soldiers and protect the ship while the goonies went on ahead to check out the temple complex, catch up to and kill Anathe, Eldgrim, Brottkill, and the others.  It sounded so simple, the way he said it.  So the three Halflings, the elf, and the dwarf, started gathering up their dungeon delving gear and getting ready to head off to the temple.  Next time:  Why do the locals call it Nightfang Spire?</blockquote>

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