Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenobi65" data-source="post: 13777" data-attributes="member: 1515">Session #12 - 12/14/018/20 – 8/22Ulfgar spends several days recruiting a staff for the party’s new manor house, including an attempt to hire Laine, the halfling wizard, away from Halamir (the merchant in magical items).  Whitefire reveals that he has spent the past few weeks creating several magical wands.8/23The party once again is summoned to meet with the Duke of Valeram at the Breman Gardens.  Once there, the duke, along with Elena Winterhawk, inform the party that their new mission will be to destroy “Beta Base,” the nearer of the two Draco island bases.  Winterhawk gives the party a short briefing, and indicates that recent scouting missions have revealed that there are probably no more than 50 or so Dracos on the island (a mix of draconians, lizardmen, and kobolds).  The Dracos have built a stockade and several buildings on the northern shore, adjacent to a protected cove – in that cove, they have started to build a series of docks.  The Dracos have also built a small tower (apparently a watch tower) on the northeast corner of the island.  Winterhawk tells the party that she plans to Gate them in on the mountainous eastern edge of the island.8/24In the morning, the party uses their Keystone to travel to Wraith Base, where they complete their preparations.  Then, they travel via the Gateway to Beta Base.  They find themselves on a mountain ledge, overlooking the sea.  Quite suddenly, they realize they are not alone – a small group of kobolds is busily constructing a tower on the top of the mountain, about 75 feet above the party’s heads.  The kobolds and the party discover each other’s presence at about the same time, and battle is joined.  The party finds the kobolds to be surprisingly tough opponents (two are sorcerers, and the rest are experienced fighters), and the kobolds start the fight with the advantage of holding the higher ground.  Eventually, howerver, the party prevails.After a brief discussion, the party decides to head for the Dracos’ main installation – the stockade at the cove.  They find that there is a trail running down the mountain, and through the jungle, that the kobolds must have cut to reach the construction site.  The party warily follows this trail, with Whitefire (in falcon form), as well as the owl familiars of Ian and Magnus, flying reconnaissance.The party reaches the stockade just around nightfall.  It is a simple wooden wall surrounding a number of buildings.  There is a single, open, gate to the wall, and it is guarded by a single lizardman.  The party quickly dispatches the guard, and then sits down to wait for the camp to quiet down.Ian sneaks into the stockade to do some scouting.  He discovers that two buildings are inhabited: one, a long barracks, seems to have a fair number of lizardmen inside (perhaps a dozen), who are occupied with drinking and gambling.  The other, smaller building, has a small number of voices inside, discussing military tactics.  Just then, the door to the smaller building opens, and a red draconian walks out of it, heading for the gate.  Nivek uses a Change Self spell to impersonate the lizardman guard, while Phadian uses an illusion to make the rest of the party blend into the stockade wall.  The draconian briefly questions Nivek about whether the kobolds have returned yet (the party assumes that the draconian is referring to the kobold construction crew).  Nivek responds that they haven’t, and this seems to satisfy the draconian, who heads back to his building.8/25Around midnight, the inhabitants of the smaller building turn out their lights, then one of them bellows to the gambling lizardmen to do the same.  After giving the Dracos time to fall asleep, the party steals into the compound.  Looking into the smaller building, the party finds three red draconians sound asleep.  They decide to try to sneak in and slit the draconian’s throats while they sleep.  To do so, Nivek, Ian, and Ming-Jeh all move stealthily into the building, while Phadian attempts to conceal their presence with a masking illusion.  As Nivek moves to slit the first thoat, he accidentally bumps into something hanging from the wall, waking his target draconian.  While this draconian senses that there is something afoot, he is not certain of what, until Ulfgar plugs him with a crossbow bolt a moment later.  Now fully awake, and no longer believing the masking illusion, this draconian, and one of the two others, move to combat the party (the third does not immediately awaken, and Ian does manage to perform a coup de grace upon it).When the original draconian bats Ulfgar’s second bolt out of the air, Ming-Jeh realizes that that particular draconian is also a monk.  The monk-draconian then breathes a gout of fire into the party, singeing several party members, and also starting the building on fire.  Meanwhile, the other draconian, a tough fighter, scores a tremendous hit on Zeebee with his gli-fai.The lizardmen in the barracks begin to react to the noise, but not before Magnus Fireballs the barracks, thus wiping out the weaker Dracos.  The melee in the smaller building lasts for some time, but the party eventually manages to fell all of the draconians.  Phadian uses an ability granted to him by Navarra to extinguish the flames which were threatening to consume the building.In searching the bodies, the party discovers that two of the three draconians were wearing strange devices that actually seemed to burrow into the backs of their necks.  Further investigation reveals that these devices can act to improve the wearer’s speed, but also cause the wearer a small drain of his energy.  The party also discovers, in searching through the building, a series of scrolls which are apparently a brief Draconian-to-Orcish dictionary.</blockquote>

Verification