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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7641840" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 53: SIBLING RIVALRYPC Roster:  Daleth Stormsea, elf wizard 15             Galen Thorne, human paladin 16             Kaspar Hardstrike, elf monk 16             Orion Nightsky, halfling rogue 16             Syngaard, human fighter 16Game Session Date: 24 July 2019 - - - The fact that there were four shadowscale kobolds inside the Enchanted Flagon came as not much of a surprise to the conscripts; after all, there were such creatures camped out all over the city, refugees from the Sanguine Swamp to the south of the small kingdom.  They had been pouring through the southern gates all night and morning and as allies of Durnhill, King Leornic had allowed them asylum.The fact that there was a half-naked human woman standing among the quartet of kobolds in the tavern when they answered Skevros' summons was, admittedly, something more of a surprise.  Even more so was the fact that she had curving horns sprouting up from her head (causing Galen to immediately focus his attention on her aura, suspecting a fiendish ancestry - but no, it was free of the taint of evil).  But while the paladin was focused on her aura, Syngaard concentrated on her body - specifically, the fact that she sported splotchy patches of black scales among the otherwise human-looking skin.  As he peered at her with narrow, distrusting eyes, he could have sworn the patches of discolored scales were moving their location, as sections of scales were replaced by areas of flesh and areas of human skin were slowly encompassed by black, reptilian hide."So what's your deal?" he asked.  "You one of them half-dragons or somethin'?""I am Thriirnaryx, chieftain of the shadowscale tribe of kobolds," the woman replied, "and you have met me before.  I am a full-blooded black dragon...I'm just having trouble maintaining a human appearance...this isn't as easy as it had looked....""So you're the one who gave us those magic items from your hoard," reasoned Orion.  "When we took care of the druids turning the vegetation in your swamp blue, like in the Azure Glade.""Hey, that's where I got my human bane scimitar!" recalled Syngaard, smiling and placing his hand on the weapon's hilt.  "Good times.""I summoned you here at Thriirnaryx's request," stated Skevros, having no trouble at all pronouncing the dragon's unusual name.  "She would like to hire you for a dragonslaying venture.""This a payin' mission?" Syngaard piped up - his favorite question."What part of 'hire' confused you?" asked Orion, her voice dripping with disdain."It is," the dragon-woman answered the bald fighter, before delving into the background of the mission.  "There used to be three of us dragons living in the Sanguine Swamp: myself; my mother, Skavvanthar; and my older half-sister, Vuthaiejir.  With our mother's recent death, Vuthaiejir has claimed the whole swamp for herself and gave me the choice of leaving or dying.  As she is 800 years older than me and much more powerful, I had no choice but to leave.  I took my kobold tribe with me here to Durnhill to protect them from my sister and to gain your aid in ridding the swamp of her menace once and for all.""And the payment...?" prompted Syngaard."You may choose between the monetary portion or the magic portion of my sister's hoard - which now includes our mother's hoard as well."  Thriirnaryx then broke down the list of items contained in the combined hoard: an improved shadow chain shirt, a magic greatsword, a potion of enlarge person, two rods of extinguishing, a ring of protection, a metamagic rod of extend spell, a staff of transmutation, a wand of wall of fire, and three books: an Iron Golem Manual, a Manual of Gainful Exercise, and a Tome of Understanding.  "Had the tomes been written in Draconic, my mother would likely have already used them herself," said Thriirnaryx of the three magic books, "but her disdain for the mortal races kept her from doing so, though she wasn't above hoarding them for their magic value."  After tallying up the estimated coinage of the hoard, the conscripts decided the magic items were the way to go: there were some things they could really use and the stuff they found less useful could always be sold or given to those capable of employing them on the front lines in the war against Ossirna."What can you tell us of Vuthaiejir?" asked Daleth, likewise having no trouble pronouncing the dragon's name.  Syngaard scowled and assumed it must be a wizard thing - half them magic books they was always reading were written in the Draconic language, it seemed."She can cast the spells of a mid-level sorcerer and has a pet she takes with her everywhere she goes: a failed dragonslayer animated as a zombie.""Zombie?" scoffed Syngaard.  "Hell, that ain't nothin', compared to a black dragon.  You sure you're okay with us killin' your sister?  I don't want any last-minute changes of heart or nothin'.""For the good of my adopted tribe, she must die," Thriirnaryx replied with narrowed eyes - eyes, Syngaard noted, that had regressed to having reptilian slits as pupils; apparently this "human form" business was something the black dragon really wasn't getting the hang of at all.  Nevertheless, the bald fighter nodded in approval and wished it wasn't so early in the morning - it had only been eight bells when they got the summons - because he sure could use an ale right about now.  Syngaard knew the next hour or so was going to be spent with the spellcasters deciding upon what spells they'd want to have ready."We'll want protection from acid," Galen suggested.  "I can cover two of us with resist energy spells; Daleth, can you get the rest of us?"  The elven wizard assured him he could, having not only that spell but also its more powerful version, protection from energy, detailed in his spellbook."I will take this time to scry upon Vuthaeijir," announced Skevros, waving a hand over the crystal ball before him on the table.  Kaspar looked over the adviser's shoulder at the scene unfolding inside the sphere: an ancient black dragon, easily some 30 feet or more from nose to tail and with a wingspan at least that long, judging by the size of the zombie sitting astride the back of its neck.  Unnervingly, the dragon immediately looked up at the scrying sensor brought into being by the crystal ball; she was certainly aware of the intrusion and didn't mind letting Skevros know that she knew he was watching her.  The fact that she didn't seem in the least bit bothered by the intrusion was itself a point of potential worry."Her lair seems to be underground, in a dry cavern," observed Kaspar."Correct," replied Thriirnaryx.  "It is accessible by some of those pools you see on the cavern's floors."  There were several such pools of brackish water in view, as well as a few floor-to-ceiling columns formed by stalagmites and stalactites merging together as one.  The elf noted one or two of them were likely big enough to shield the entire group from view of the dragon if they teleported in with a wide column between them and her.After Galen completed his prayers and Daleth finished flipping through his spellbook, they both announced they were ready to start the pre-battle slew of spellcasting.  Daleth, Todd, Galen, Kaspar, and Syngaard each got a protection from acid spell cast upon them by the elven wizard, while Orion and Burt - summoned by the paladin from the Beastlands - made do with resist acid spells cast by Galen.  Daleth cast a Rary's telepathic bond spell on the group and then followed up with his personal collection of "save his own skin" spells: stoneskin, greater invisibility, and fly; personally, Syngaard thought there were others in the group who could have benefited more from those spells than the stay-in-the-back-ranks wizard, but that was spellcasters for you: always hoggin' the good stuff for themselves.  Daleth did cast another stoneskin spell upon Orion, but as this was from a scroll that she provided the wizard (having been purchased for that purpose from her own funds), Syngaard couldn't fault the little halfling for her added protection.  She also became invisible, courtesy of one of the magic rings she wore, while sitting in the ghost touch saddle of her faithful-even-in-undeath riding dog, Carl.  She bent forward from the saddle and activated the stud on his collar, providing him with a false life spell that would hopefully keep him from being discorporated back into ectoplasmic mist, as had often been his fate.  "I'm ready," she announced, unseen on the saddle.Galen finished up his own spellcasting - a bless weapon spell cast on the sword of Zehkar and the spells magic circle against evil and death ward centered on himself - and announced his own readiness."Some of us been ready for the better part of an hour," grumbled Syngaard, swigging down the last gulp of ale that he'd had Karen fetch him after all - if he was going into battle with an ancient dragon this could very well be his last drink for a good long while!  Then Skevros escorted the conscripts - along with Todd, Carl, Burt, John, and Dick, the latter two being summoned right before the group stepped outside the gates of the city - to their starting point, they got themselves into the configuration they wanted to be in when they arrived in the dragon's underground lair, and one teleport spell later they were gone.The group appeared suddenly where Kaspar had suggested: with a wide, stone pillar hiding them from the black dragon's view.  But their simple presence triggered a clamorous alarm spell Vuthaeijir had prepared for their eventual arrival: she might not know their exact location but she knew someone had suddenly appeared in her new lair.Thinking to strike while the dragon might still be disoriented, Kaspar leaped into battle, dashing around the column at full speed and rapidly closing the distance between him and the foe he had been sent to slay.  As he approached, he saw the "pet" zombie sitting perched upon the dragon's back, right at the point where her neck began.  As the monk ran, he triggered a quivering palm reaction, focusing his chi into his right hand.  This was an attack he'd only tried once or twice before and never before on a dragon, but the possibility of taking Vuthaeijir out with one hit was too good an opportunity to give up.  But the dragon, given the seconds of advance warning from her alarm spell, managed to dodge back from the attempted blow enough that the monk's intended strike barely brushed against her scales, the chi energy dissipating harmlessly away.  Behind him, Kaspar heard the skittering sound of John racing up, following his master's path to their enemy.Daleth followed the monk's path as well, but with a slight difference: he did it invisibly and rose up higher into the air as he approached the dragon, hovering in place 30 feet from the floor but still with plenty of space above him.  He cast a prismatic spray down at the dragon and her pet zombie, angling the spell such that Kaspar was not in the area of effect.  And then he crossed his fingers; the spell was one of his most powerful, but its chaotic nature made it unpredictable - it could easily send a ray of acid at the black dragon, an energy form to which the elf well knew the dragon was immune.However, the elf needn't have worried overly on that account, for the spell didn't even manage to overcome Vuthaeijir's inherent spell resistance; rather, the ray struck the dragon and had no effect whatsoever, short of causing her to squint into the air above her and try to determine the point of origin of the spell.  She saw nothing, but knew that merely meant an invisible opponent.However, despite its close proximity to the dragon, the zombie did not share her occasional immunity to spells and the ray that hit him caused his rotting, undead flesh to turn instantly to stone.  Just that quick, the "pet" zombie perched on her back at the base of her neck became nothing more than a stone ornament.Turning back to Kaspar, Vuthaeijir demanded, "Why are you here?"<What should I tell her?> Kaspar asked the others over the telepathic link.<Don't tell her nothing!> Syngaard replied.  <Keep her guessing!>Receiving no answer from the elven monk, the dragon snapped her powerful jaws at him and ripped her front claws along his torso with a speed Kaspar had not expected from a creature this large.  "Leave or die!" commanded the dragon.  "This is my only warning!"As warnings went, it was particularly effective.  Kaspar was bleeding from several parallel gashes along his torso and arms and staggered backwards, away from the foe who'd savaged him much more than he had thought was possible.  As much as it galled him, he realized he needed to use his great speed to escape her immediate reach so he could concentrate on healing his current wounds, for another such attack would likely finish him!Orion had originally thought to escape into the safety of the Ethereal Plane upon arriving in the dragon's lair, using Carl to position herself behind the dragon so she could later pop back in and deliver an unexpected blow from her nightflame short sword.  But then she noticed the mass of coins, gems, and magic items littering the floor all around the dragon - Vuthaeijir, like many dragons, apparently liked having her treasure hoard scattered about her so she could appreciate the individual items on constant display.  The halfling's thoughts drifted back to the last pair of dragons the group had fought, and how she'd pocketed a significant portion of their combined hoard while they slept....  The temptation was too great.  She eased Carl silently forward, slipping open the top of her bag of holding, then leaned over to one side and snatched up the first thing of value she saw: one of the books, apparently - and it didn't really matter at this point which one.  Dropping it into the extradimensional space of her magical bag, she sent Carl sneaking forward to the next appreciable bit of treasure.Galen, sitting astride his dire lion Burt, came racing across from the other side of the stone column.  He brought the sword of Zehkar crashing down upon the dragon's hide, drawing blood.  He had verified the evilness of the dragon's aura during their charge and had therefore channeled energy from Hieroneous, God of Valor, into the blade.  He grinned in satisfaction at the dragon's cries from the holy power of his sword.  However, at his current level of training, he knew he could only do that a few more times this day, for the channeling of divine energy took a toll on the all-too-human body serving as a conductor for such powerful forces.Burt's claws failed to pierce the dragon's thick scales, causing the lion to snort in anger and growl menacingly.The last to react after having been teleported in, Syngaard and Dick came flying around the stone pillar in the middle of the dragon's underground lair.  Syngaard sent the griffon diving down not at the dragon but rather at the petrified zombie astride her neck; pushing hard with both sets of front talons, Dick sent the undead statue toppling off the dragon's neck and falling to the stone floor below.  "You're in my seat!" Syngaard called to the undead thing, leaping from Dick's back and landing at the base of Vuthaeijir's neck.  The scarred fighter grabbed her left horn in his left hand for leverage and brought his powerful morningstar in a long arc to crash into the side of her head.Dropping temporarily out of the fight, Kaspar used his circlet of blasting to send a wave of energy crashing into the dragon, then retreated to the relative safety of the stone column.  He was disappointed to see Vuthaeijir shrug off the blast as easily as she had earlier shrugged off the effects of Daleth's prismatic spray spell.  But such, the monk reasoned, were the hazards of fighting dragons.Daleth dropped down from his aerial vantage point to slap the dragon's wing, transferring a touch of idiocy spell to her as he did so.  He was pleased to see this spell at least had its intended effect, or so the elf supposed by the way Vuthaeijir shook her head in irritation at having her faculties scrambled.  It didn't look as if the spell had done a whole lot of damage to her mental abilities, but at this stage Daleth decided he'd take anything he could get.With a sudden lurch, Vuthaeijir sped forward and submerged her front half into a pool of brackish water, hoping to drown the annoying pest on her back.  But Syngaard had seen the approaching pool of water and, keeping a firm grip on the dragon's left horn, took in a big gulp of air before being submerged.  Vuthaeijir also spent the time casting a burning blood spell upon herself.  Orion looked up briefly at the nearby commotion, then continued stuffing magic items into her bag of holding.  This was starting to become a habit for her: stealing from dragons while they were right there in the same chamber as she was!Burt followed behind Vuthaeijir, allowing Galen to get in a smiting charge with his longsword.  The lion's sharp claws managed to dig furrows into the dragon's flank, but the attacks - the lion's claws and the paladin's sword of Zehkar - triggered the dragon's spell and the blood spilling from her onto her foes burned them with acid.  This might have been a concern had the paladin and his mount not both been shielded from acid damage by the preparatory spells they'd had cast upon them before combat began.Orion heard scratching noises coming from the zombie statue, which was somewhat unnerving.  <Uh, guys?> she called over the link.  <That...is not normal,> Daleth confirmed.Still holding his breath underwater, Syngaard got in a few good whacks with his morningstar, no doubt causing Vuthaeijir to rethink her current strategy.  In the meantime, Dick flew around behind John - who was still scrabbling to catch up to the dragon - and grabbed the edges of his carapace in his talons and hind claws.  Then the griffon airlifted the stag beetle over to the black dragon, dropping John onto one wing before snapping at the other with his own eagle's beak.  Vuthaeijir flapped her wings in irritation, but the two beasts continued their attacks, refusing to be flicked away.  The still-invisible Daleth cast another touch of idiocy spell at Vuthaeijir, this time causing much more of an effect than the first time.  Vuthaeijir roared in impotent fury beneath the water of the pool as entire levels of spells were stripped from her mind, no longer strong enough to contain them.Closing his eyes in concentration and focusing his chi energy, Kaspar used it to heal up the worst of the damage caused by Vuthaeijir's claws and teeth.  Then, refreshed and eager for further battle, the elven monk approached the dragon's current position.Syngaard was still pounding away at the side of the dragon's head when he felt himself being plucked from her neck.  <--the Hell?> he called, not having expected the dragon to be able to reach behind her own neck with her forelimbs.  She disdainfully tossed him aside in the water, expecting the weight of his armor to pull him down to the bottom of the submerged shaft, where he'd no doubt drown before he could wriggle out of it.  She did not expect him to remain where he was in the water, his boots of levitation - activated by mental command - preventing him from sinking.  In fact, he raised himself up high enough for his head to poke up above the water's surface so he no longer even needed to hold his breath.  And in the meantime, Galen and Burt kept the dragon's focus on them as they continued their attacks with fangs, claws, and magical longsword.Worried about whatever it was inside that petrified zombie-skin, Orion took time out from her hoard-plundering to send a tanglefoot bag splurtching over the undead thing.  That seemed to do the trick, as it was now pinned in place atop the stone floor of the cavern.  But the silence from the imprisoned form now stuck inside a petrified zombie-skin and glued to the floor was due to him considering his options.  Arcane syllables spilled from his teeth, and while Orion couldn't determine what specific spell the thing was casting, she was able to identify it as some sort of spellcasting.  <Guys!> she called over the link as the mithral skeleton disappeared from within the stone statue of the zombie dragonslayer's flesh and reappeared on the floor several feet away, still lying prone on it back."Much better!" said the Mithral Mage to himself, rising up to a sitting position.<Alexandros!> warned Kaspar over the link, having seen the lich's sudden arrival on the cavern floor.  He changed course immediately; the others could deal with the dragon but he wasn't about to let Orion face off against the Mithral Mage all by herself!  Thoughts flashed through his brain as he sped toward their hated foe: this might very well be the day the Mithral Mage killed the conscripts, inadvertently allowing them to attack the osteovox cloud serving as his phylactery from the inside.  That, at least, had been Hirek's plan, and as part of that plan the conscripts were to give it their all against Alexandros, despite the unlikelihood that their best would be good enough to prevent their deaths.<We still gotta deal with the dragon if we're gonna get paid!> pointed out Syngaard.  He was fine with fighting the Mithral Mage; he was even okay with being slain by him so they could take down his phylactery (something they could apparently only do while dead; the details didn't make a whole lot of sense to the fighter, but the bottom line was this was something that had to be done if he was ever going to get to see Mezz again in the afterlife and that made it perfectly okay to Syngaard).  But this was a paying job: they needed to take down this Voothajeer or whatever before they got killed by the Mithral Mage!  With that thought in mind, Syngaard rose up on his boots of levitation and brought his morningstar crashing down yet again into the dragon's side, the points of his wicked weapon stabbing through the beast's thick scales.  He also called to Dick to quit chewing on her wing and go mess up her face; even though he doubted the griffon could deal the dragon much damage, he could at least serve as a barrier if she tried spitting out that acid breath she was supposed to have.Kaspar sent his right fist, powered by the tenryutsume he wore on that hand, crashing into the Mithral Mage's jaw, causing his whole skeleton to whip to the side by the force of the blow.  That was more like it!  It was definitely easier than trying to punch through the ancient dragon's heavy scales.  Orion tossed a thunderstone at the lich's side, trying to deafen him - it had proven to be an effective tactic when fighting other spellcasters.  But this time it didn't seem to do the job, for Alexandros got to his feet and grabbed at Kaspar's robe, taking a reeling blow to the skull again as he did so.  But Kaspar resisted the attempted paralyzation and the two faced off, facing each other like boxers in the ring.Daleth brought out the big guns, casting a cone of cold up at Vuthaeijir from just beneath her head, ensuring she was the only one caught in the spell's effect.  She reacted, perhaps instinctively, by trying to spew a stream of acid from her horrid jaws, but Dick was there to block the breath weapon, taking the full damage himself.  Fur and feathers from his underside burned away at the touch of the acidic fluid.Galen summoned the power of Hieroneous for the last time that day and sent the energy coursing through his longsword, smiting the dragon a mighty blow on her flank.  Syngaard continued his own attacks, transforming a section of her right side into hunks of bloody flesh.  Daleth repeated his recent success, sending another cone of cold spell blasting through the dragon's spell resistance and coating her bleeding body in frost.  Vuthaeijir turned and spit acid at the offenders, but Dick was there to block the acidic blast, although doing so caused him to seize up in midair and drop to the stone floor of the cavern in statuette form.Kaspar's mood improved as he dealt a flurry of blows at the Mithral Mage, sending him stumbling under the force of his rapid-fire attacks.  Then Orion decided to go for broke and sent a handful of four thunderstones crashing to the floor at Alexandros' feet.  She knew there was a chance she'd be deafening Kaspar as well as the Mithral Mage, but she also knew the monk could deal with a loss of hearing much better than could a spellcaster who relied upon hearing the words to his spells as they were cast.  Judging by the cry of anger coming from the mithral lich, at least one of the thunderstones did the trick.Galen, Burt, and Syngaard pressed on with their attacks upon Vuthaeijir, neither of them noting the Mithral Mage taking a step back from Kaspar and lining himself up to cast a lightning bolt spell at the elven monk, the paladin and his leonine mount, and the scarred fighter...but fortunately, nothing came of the attempt as the spell fizzled to nothingness, Alexandros' deafness causing him to mess up one of the words to the spell.  With his mithral-coated skull, there was no face upon which to read an expression, but the current of slurred curses gave a good indication of how Alexandros felt about this latest setback.After another series of lightning-fast blows from the elven monk, Alexandros started fearing he might actually lose this battle - as unlikely an occurrence as that had seemed when he first approached Vuthaeijir and offered to be a hidden-in-plain-sight backup for her; it had seemed like an amusing way to pass the time.  Still, he wasn't overly worried; even if they did manage to smash this current body to pieces, he'd simply remanifest in a week - it was one of the many advantages a lich had over a fleshly form, especially one that had been as weak and feeble as Alexandros' human frame.With no more cone of cold spells in his current inventory, Daleth cast a chain lightning spell at Vuthaeijir.  He looked over in Alexandros' direction before casting the spell, but quickly determined the lich was too far away to be included as a secondary target.  Still, despite his oafish demeanor, Syngaard was quite right: they needed to kill Vuthaeijir if he was to get his hands on the items in her treasure hoard that were of particular interest to him; the Mithral Mage they could always fight again later, and even if he managed to kill all of the conscripts that would still be playing into their hands.  Best to concentrate on slaying the dragon and pretending he was unaware of the lich's presence - at least for now.Getting quickly fed up with this nonsense, Vuthaeijir reached down for the figurine of wondrous power on the floor of the cavern before her and gave it a quick rub with her forefoot.  "Attack your former master!" she commanded as Dick took his full form for the second time that day.  With a shriek of fury, the griffon launched itself at Syngaard.  "--the Hell?" sputtered the scarred fighter as his own Dick attacked him, sharp talons clawing at the fighter's eyes.Orion leaped down from the saddle of her ghost-dog and, using her magical vision, stabbed Alexandros in a juncture where several different lines of negative energy joined together along his metal spine.  The blade of her nightflame short sword scratched along his spinal column, causing sparks, but her vision saw the lines of negative energy being severed even as the mithral-coated bones showed no damage.Alexandros staggered forward, back into range of Kaspar's striking fist.  The lich tried casting an ethereal jaunt spell to escape for now, but in the span of time it took to complete the spell's words and gestures, his body had been stabbed again by the halfling's magic blade and pummeled by the monk's steel-hard hands.  Instead of fleeing into the Ethereal Plane as desired, Alexandros' spirit was engulfed by a swirling mist of tormented souls trapped within the osteovox cloud of his phylactery.  The mithral-coated skeleton fell to a pile of bones on the cavern floor and Kaspar grinned in triumph at Orion, who grinned right back at him.Vuthaeijir roared in fury as Galen and Burt continued their attacks with varying levels of success.  The paladin might not have been able to channel any more smiting energy into the sword of Zehkar, but the sword's blade was enchanted with holy energy that dealt additional damage to creatures of an evil bent.  Syngaard, for his part, lacked any sentimentality towards his former griffon, and beat Dick back down to statuette form with repeated bashings of his morningstar.  This time, though, when Dick collapsed back into a hunk of carved bronze the fighter scooped him up and put him back into a pocket.The black dragon was seemingly on her last legs.  Bleeding from a dozen or more wounds and with a diminished intellect that made it hard to think properly, she suddenly realized death was at hand.  "Wait--" she began, thinking to bargain for her life.But Daleth didn't wait.  Instead, he cast a simple magic missile spell through his metamagic rod of empower, dropping the black dragon lifelessly to the ground.  By the time Syngaard had pocketed his bronze griffon and approached the dragon, Vuthaeijir was already dead.  "Well, crap!" cursed the bald fighter, giving her corpse a swift kick with his boot.  He'd made the killing blow against both of the red dragons they'd fought earlier and he'd kind of hoped to land the killing blow on this one as well.So instead, he turned to Orion.  Seeing she and Kaspar had likewise already taken care of the Mithral Mage (Really?  Just the two of them? Syngaard thought to himself), he called out to her to grab all the treasure in her bag of holding so they could return it to the Enchanted Flagon and divide it up."On it!" called back the halfling cheerily, for that was one of her all-time favorite tasks. - - -Logan really surprised us with Alexandros' sudden appearance, especially since he'd let us know the only reason Vuthaeijir kept a zombie "pet" was because the only Huge black dragon D&D Mini we have has a human rider on it.  Had Alexandros not had a teleport spell at the ready, he could have easily become permanently imprisoned within the petrified "skin" of the zombie flesh-suit he'd constructed from the black dragon's "pet" and we would have inadvertently stumbled into a permanent solution to the Mithral Mage problem.  Funny how things work out sometimes.  But now we have a week before he regains a corporeal existence.This adventure gave every PC enough XP to level up.</blockquote>

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