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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenobi65" data-source="post: 13742" data-attributes="member: 1515">Session #4 - 4/27/01The party sets up a defensive position in the nursery.  The ramp down from the throne room curves, so they find a position that lets them see as far up the ramp as they can.  General Winterhawk finds a corner of the nursery that is not visible from the ramp, and begins the five-minute incantation that will open the Gateway.After less than a minute, the party can begin to hear orders being shouted in Draconian from up the ramp.  A few moments later, they can hear quick, light footsteps on the ramp.  A group of 8 kobold guards heads down the ramp.  They fire their pipe-bows once each, once they can see the party, before continuing down the ramp to engage the party in melee combat.  The party responds by trying to cut down as many of the kobolds as they can with their own missiles.  In the end, the party makes quick work of the kobolds.  They then quickly stack the kobolds' bodies up, to act as an impromptu defense wall.About a minute later, Nivek and Phadian can hear the sound of wingbeats from the ramp.  Three draconian guards come flying down the ramp and into the room.  While this combat lasts longer, again, the party triumphs, and adds the draconian's bodies to their wall.After this combat, Phadian decides it would be better if he stands guard directly next to General Winterhawk.  This quickly turns out to have been a good idea, as a pair of draconians very suddenly appear in the middle of the room, about 20' in the air.  The two of them fall to the floor with a thud, as a piece of smoking parchment (clearly, the scroll that they had just used) floats to the ground.One of these draconians is a sorcerer, armed with a kal-gli-fai.  He attempts to use his weapon to electrocute Whitefire, but the druid had had the foresight to have cast a Resist Elements spell on himself, and he suffers little effect from the electical bolts.  Meanwhile, the cleric draconian tries (and fails) to affect one of the party with a Hold Person spell.  Again, the party manages to defeat the draconians, and drags their bodies off to the pile.By this point, Winterhawk is over half-way through the incantation.  Her voice is cracking, and she seems to be becoming physically drained by the effort.  Phadian casts several minor beneficial spells on her, in hopes of keeping her going though to the end of the spell.As Winterhawk nears completion of the spell, the party can hear Arvanath himself bellowing up in the throne room.  A final assault by the Dracos consists of four lizardman guards, who climb up the pile of their dead compatriots to attack the party.  Eventually, this offensive, too, is turned aside.By now, the party can see a shimmering beginning to appear in the air in front of Winterhawk.  As she completes the incantation, she nearly collapses from the effort; however, the Gateway does indeed spring into existance.  The party quickly hustles through, and Winterhawk then closes the Gateway with a command word.The party finds itself back in the inner courtyard of the palace at Marington.  It is mid-evening on the 24th.  They see a group of Marington guards ready to shoot them with crossbows -- behind these guards are several robed officials.  Once the guards see that it's members of the army, rather than Dracos, that have come through the Gateway, they stand down.  Then, the robed officials come forward, shouting questions at General Winterhawk.  She brushes her way past them, walking with a purpose, and signals to the party that they should follow her.  At the back of the crowd, Winterhawk spots a young, red-haired half-elven woman.  She flags her down, and gives her several orders.  The general tells the officials that she is going back through the Gateway in one hour to retrieve the rest of her force.  Then, she leaves the courtyard, the party following behind.They quickly head into the army's administration building, and up several flights of stairs.  They proceed down a hallway, to a doorway flanked by two guards, who look surprised as they salute the general.  Winterhawk tells them that, other than the party, only "Rory" and "Aryl" are to be admitted.  She then goes through the doorway, and indicates that the party should follow her.The party proceeds into the general's well-appointed office.  Winterhawk quickly strides to the back wall of the office, and presses a panel, revealing a concealed door into her apartments.  She and the party proceed through, and the weary general collapses into an armchair.She sighs, and then thanks the party for coming back to get her.  "I really didn't think I'd ever make it back here," she admits.  "That redhead, Rory, is my assistant.  She's gone off to get an old friend of mine, a cleric, to heal us up.  In the meantime, we need to make some plans."  The party quickly fills Winterhawk in on the events of the past few weeks, including the fact that Genevieve Firehawk, the general's daughter, is still alive.  Winterhawk tells the party that it is her intent to go back through the Gateway and rescue the remaining members of Efreet Team, then to use the Gateway to go to the West Base and see if Spectre Team ever made it back.  She tells the party that she will need their help on this mission.  Recognizing that the party's spellcasters are nearly tapped out, she sends one of them into her office to retrieve a small box from her desk.  The box contains four nearly-empty wands, which she hands out to the party's spellcasters to use in the rescue mission.  She then has Zeebee help her into a suit of full plate armor, and Zeebee regretfully gives the general back her bastard sword.Rory and Aryl arrive.  Rory has brought a tray of food and drink for the general and the party.  Aryl is a very tall man, in his early 50s, wearing a holy symbol of Heironious.  Aryl chides Winterhawk for having had him rousted from his house, but the party can see that there is a friendship between the general and the cleric.  Aryl quickly heals Winterhawk, then several party members who were beat up.  Finally, he gives the party several curing potions and scrolls, just in case they need them.Having had a bite to eat, and being in as good a shape as possible, Winterhawk leads the party back downstairs to the gateway (remembering, at the last minute, to retrieve the only remaining Gate Key from her desk).  As the party heads back into the courtyard (which is now full of soldiers and government officials), a very important-looking man steps into Winterhawk's path.  He says, "General, I demand that you tell me what is going on here."  Winterhawk replies, "Lord Prime Minister, I have a mission to complete.  I will gladly brief you once I return, but, in the meantime, get out of my way!"  Cowed, the prime minister steps aside, and the party proceeds to the Gateway.Winterhawk opens the Gateway up to Gateway Base in Virdea.  There, it is still the middle of the night, and the party surprises the ranger Jehan, who is on guard duty.  The base, as it turns out, has been unmolested since Firehawk moved it on the 19th.  The general has a quick reunion with her daughter as the camp is quickly struck.  Winterhawk again opens the Gateway back up to Marington, and the party, along with the base personnel and Efreet Team, go back through.  Before Winterhawk goes through, she pulls the Keystone up from the ground, and brings it back with her.Back in Marington, clerics begin attending to the bedraggled members of Efreet Team.  After waiting for the Gateway to recharge, Winterhawk again opens it, this time to West Base.  The party goes through, and enters a strange scene.  They are in a smaller version of Gateway Base, but there is no one alive there.  The body of a male human lies near a small campfire, in a pool of fresh blood, with numerous pipe-bow bolts piercing his body.  At the edge of the camp, the party can see two more bodies, but these are wrapped in canvas, and appear to have been dead for some time.  They can see, off to the north, lights flickering amongst the trees, and can hear the sound of combat.The general and the party quickly hustle to the scene of the fighting.  There, they discover three members (of the original eight) of Spectre Team, engaged in melee with seven draconians and a small green dragon (small being relative, as the dragon is still the size of a large horse).  Two other members of Spectre Team already lie dead on the forest floor.  The party joins the fight, with Ian using his new Lightning Bolt wand, and Phadian using his new Magic Missile wand, to beat on the dragon.  Nivek uses the Hold Person wand to immobilize the draconian sorcerer, and Whitefire tries out his new kal-gli-fai on the dragon.  Ming-Jeh closes on the dragon, and suffers several nasty bites from it in the process.  Zeebee goes to help out the Spectre cleric, who is surrounded by draconians.  After a fierce fight, the draconians, and finally the dragon as well, are dropped, and the party helps Spectre Team carry their dead back through the Gateway.Winterhawk instructs the party to get a good night's sleep, and meet her in her office at 1pm the following afternoon.6/25The party returns to Winterhawk's offices the following afternoon.  General Winterhawk is there, as well as Genevieve.  The general tells the party that her first order of business is to take care of the Burrowers at Tun-Kashila.  She asks Phadian to cast an illusion of the Burrower's great hall, so that she can picture it well enough to open the Gateway to there.The party accompanies Winterhawk through the Gateway to the Burrowers' caves.  There is a lot of commotion there; while the Burrowers are happy to see the party again, they also tell the party that the Dracos have been asking a lot of questions about the party's use of the Burrowers' tunnels.  Senki, the Burrower elder, tells the party that the Burrowers have been telling the Dracos that the party had forced their way through the tunnels, but she is not convinced that the Dracos believe this story.There is much disagreement among the Burrowers as to what to do next.  Many of them wish to flee their tunnels, and take Winterhawk up on her offer to take the Burrowers back to Dorlomin.  Others are concerned that this might doom the Burrowers in other Draco cities, since fleeing in this manner would make it clear that the Burrowers had aided the humans.  Eventually, Winterhawk and Senki go off by themselves and discuss the options.  It is decided that Winterhawk and the party will take the children and the infirm back with them to Marington immediately; Winterhawk will return via the Gateway on the following day to retrieve the remaining Burrowers, who will have spent the day making it appear as though the Burrowers had been massacred.Thus, the party brings dozens of young and infirm Burrowers back through the Gateway.  Winterhawk tells the party that she has been in touch with several gnomish clans in Dorlomin, who are willing to help find homes for the Burrowers.After all of this, Winterhawk takes the party back up to her offices.  There, she presents them with two service medals, promotions to the rank of lieutenant in the army reserve, and a monetary token of her gratitude for their service.</blockquote>

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