Finishing Day 24
The party cautiously crests the hill. Before them, they see what must be Blackwall Keep. However, all is not well. The horse corral next to the keep appears to have been broken into, and a dead horse can be seen in the doorway.
In addition, between the party and the keep are two groups of five lizardfolk that had been apparently attacking the keep. Erdolliel cautiously scouts the area. The keep is surrounded by a total of six such groups of five, each group takes shelter from direct view of the keep. The elf can also see that the doors to the keep itself had apparently been broken down and hastily repaired.
Allustan expresses great concern for those inside the keep, as there is no way of knowing how they fared after the keep door was broken. The sage requests that the party attempt to aid whatever survivors remain at the keep while he uses a scroll of teleport to return to the Garrison in Diamond Lake and, hopefully, return with a force. Without hesitation, the party agrees.
After the sage departs, the party decides that their best option is to stay out of sight and wait for the lizardfolk to, presumably, make another strike at the keep. The plan works well. The party hears the lizardfolk signal each other. Two of the groups rush straight for the doors to break them. Two of the groups rush to the back side, presumably to attempt to climb up to the tower balcony of the keep. The remaining two hold back. While Kushnak, Eskard, and Nethezar rush to charge one of the groups hanging back, Bazrim utilizes his knew fireball spell with miraculous results. Both groups attempting to break down the keep door again are annihilated. Bazrim and Erdolliel strike the other group hanging back while the other three finish off the apparently leader of this attack. In short order, the only forces remaining are the ten that where trying to climb up the back. That force flees into the Mistmarsh.
Inside the keep, the party is met by hagggard men, overjoyed at their saviors. The men inform the group that they'd lost nearly half of their soldiers, including their commander. To make matters worse, four of their number where captured when the lizardfolk first broke open the door, include Marzena, the Free City battlemage that Allustan had been coming to see. The party attempts to interrogate a surviving lizardfolk, but even Bazrim's application of acid to the thing's extremities isn't enough to make it talk. All that the soldiers can tell the party is that the lizardfolk captors would be at least half a day or more out, and that they went straight south into the Mistmarsh. Kushnak uses speak with dead on a lizardfolk and learns that this tribe of lizardfolk lair due south and that the tribe itself has approximately 60 members.
Given the late hour, the group takes their rest and sets out on the morrow.
Day 25
The group sets off into the Mistmarsh. While the travel is wretched, Eskard is thankfully able to point out the best path through the swamp and the barbarian easily follows the lizardfolk trail. During the day, the group is attacked by two crocodiles. During the night, a giant crocodile also attacks.
Day 26
The group wakes from their sleep in the swamp and carries on. Eskard is still able to pick out the best of paths. The group is surprised by a group of ghouls laying in shallow water for an ambush, but the party makes relatively short work of them.
At nearly the end of the day, the party finds what must be the lizardfolk lair: a massive structure formed in the entwined roots of a grove of mangaroo trees. The group takes but a moment to prepare, deciding that the best approach is to strike quickly. The clerics provide some magical enhancement, most notably Kushnak gives Eskard the power of fly, and the group enters.
Not taking any chances and not stopping to examine the place, the party goes on a rampant offensive. The group quickly moves through the lair, cutting down the lizardfolk defense mostly before it is even able to mobilize. By the time some resistance is truly able to fight back, the lizardfolk are down too many to be effective.
The party quickly kills one stronger-looking lizardfolk that was guarding two of the human prisoners. The party then finds a hermaphrodite shaman, who quickly surrenders to the overwhelming force and, oddly, requests that the group quickly enter the next room and kill the lizardfolk king. The party obliges.
The king, like the other stronger warrior, has a black tinge to his scales. While he is clearly a strong warrior, and even boasts about fighting in the area, he is simply unable to stand alone against the party. While both Eskard and Erdolliel require a good amount of healing to get through the battle, it seemed nearly a foregone conclusion.
The party returns to the hermaphrodite, who had been watching over two more captives, including Marzena. Marzena is freed. Through questioning the hermaphrodite and Marzena, the party discovers that the reason the lizardfolk had been attacking was because, some time in the past, this tribe lost an entire generation of eggs. They had been infested with worms that seemed like the same ones the party had heard of before. The tribe had believed, convinced by the king, that the humans were responsible. Now the hermaphrodite tells the party that there is a new generation of eggs, but it is guarded by kobolds that are even more draconic in nature that the creatures typically are. The group sets out to help the, now sole surviving, lizardfolk. The party is led to the egg chamber, where they make quick work of the kobolds.
In the group of perhaps 200 lizardfolk eggs, the party sees a large black egg. It appears to be a dragon egg, but Bazrim notes that something about it looks amiss, though he cannot place it. The party gingerly removes the large egg, leaving all of the lizardfolk eggs intact. The group manages to acquire a good sum of treasure. And the hermaphrodite indicates that, should the party ever make it to the Free City as they plan, it (the hermaphrodite) would appreciate if they could do anything to help arrange a treaty of some kind with the lizardfolk.
The group takes its rest in the nearly empty lizardfolk lair.
