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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7517744" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 55: TRIPLE-HEADERPC Roster:  Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 15             Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 15             Darrien, half-elf ranger 15             Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 15             Gilbert Fung, human wizard 15             Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 15NPC Roster: Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 4             Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 9             MARCI, humanoid constructGame Session Date: 27 October 2018 - - - Queen Kaelanna sat upon her throne and looked down at the adventurers assembled before her.  "Thank you for coming," she said, smiling at the group.  "I believe you know how important it is – both for me and for the kingdom – to retain good relations with my half-brother, Clauguthrax.  Having him at Kordovia's side will be of great benefit to us all."However, the coalition works both ways, and he has formally asked me for help with a problem he's encountered.  As you may be aware, dragons maintain more than one lair throughout the territory they claim as their own.  We met Clauguthrax at his primary lair, but he has several others in which he occasionally stays.  He has recently discovered that one of his auxiliary lairs has been commandeered by forces unknown.  Whoever dared this effrontery, they have been rather blatant about it, crafting walls of thick tree trunks as a fortification before the main entrance.  My half-brother is eager to retaliate against these interlopers, but he, as are all dragons, is crafty enough to want to scout the place out before he goes crashing in, so he isn't caught unawares by what he might find there."As you might have guessed, that's where you will come in.  For the good of the kingdom, I would like you to scout out this area, gaining entry into the lair if you can and slaying – or at least driving away – whoever has taken it over.  Clauguthrax has asked only that we provide him information about the interlopers, but I would like you to save him the trouble of clearing the place out himself.  After all, it certainly can’t hurt to have him feeling he owes us one...."Will you do it?"The adventurers looked among themselves for a moment, unused to having quests for the kingdom's benefit being offered as optional.  "Of course we will, Your Majesty," Finoula answered for the group.  Queen Kaelanna gave out a sigh of relief - she was still new to the throne and unaccustomed to making demands of her subjects.  "I'm so glad!" she admitted.  "Here: I took the liberty of making a rough map of the cave system."  She passed over a scroll case to Gilbert, who removed the parchment within and unrolled it.  It showed a simple cave, with an initial entry room, two side caverns jutting off from it, then a 40-foot drop into the much larger main cavern, which had a side cave some 40 feet up its left wall.  A hole in the floor in this lower cavern led to a treasure cave off to the back right, whereas to the left of the lower cavern stood a back entrance, blocked partway down its length by a section of water and leading to a heavy rock slab that Clauguthrax used as both an emergency exit door and a means of ensuring nobody snuck in that way.  Finally, in front of the main cave opening there was a wall annotated as having been recently added by the intruders, made of sturdy tree trunks; Queen Kaelanna explained it was this feature which had first alerted Clauguthrax of the intrusion into his auxiliary lair.  On the back of the map, the queen had scrawled directions on how to find the cave system; it looked to be several hours of travel deep into the Vesve Forest bordering the kingdom."We will leave at once, Your Majesty," Castillan promised the queen."There are a few points I'd like to emphasize, before you do," Queen Kaelanna replied.  "First of all, I do not intend this to be a deadly mission.  I'd like you to clear the place out for Clauguthrax if you can, but if you encounter too dangerous an opposition by all means retreat - I do not wish anyone to die in the attempt of completing this mission.  Furthermore, Clauguthrax informs me he kept a 'bed' of coins in the treasure cave, to the sum of 7,500 pieces of gold.  If you are able to clear the place out yourselves, I must insist that his treasure remain in place.  If, however, the interlopers have added to that amount, then by all means take the excess for yourselves.""Thank you, Your Majesty!" said Castillan, a broad grin upon his face.  Now he was hoping some other dragon moved into the place; dragons were notorious for the vast amounts of treasure they tended to hoard.  The queen granted the adventurers leave to depart."That far into the forest, the dragonfly ship won't be of much use," pointed out Binkadink as the group exited the castle.  "We'll do best to take Castor and Pollux and the Vistani wagon.""I'm sure Aithanar won't mind driving the wagon," offered Finoula, smiling at the thought of spending a few pleasant hours with Castillan's handsome younger brother.  He was good with animals and, as a fighter, offered some amount of protection for the wagon and animals when the adventurers went off on their business.  Since this mission was taking place in the forest, the group decided to take their animal companions along: Grumps Junior, the dire bear cub; Finoula's pet timber wolf, Wrath; Malrin's trained dire fox, Taihar; and of course Binkadink's jackalope Obvious and Finoula's pony Daisy, who would be performing their normal duties as riding mounts.During the trip, the group discussed various options.  Binkadink was all for splitting into two groups and attacking the cave in a pincer movement, one group assaulting the new wooden wall while the other group entered from the back way.  "I don't like splitting up our forces," Finoula fretted."Plus, we shouldn't automatically assume we'll be in combat with the newcomers," pointed out Darrien.  "For all we know, it's a family of friendly gold dragons who have moved in."Eventually, the plan coalesced into the following: they'd approach to within half a mile of the cave, then leave Aithanar with the horses and the wagon.  The rest of the group would creep forward to just within visual distance, then Finoula would cast a commune with nature spell that would tell her something about the area around the cave network.  With that knowledge in hand, they'd be better able to work out an exact attack strategy.The adventurers crept soundlessly towards their target.  Once within range, the elven ranger cast her spell and told the others of her findings.  "There's a group of people on the wall and more inside the cave, in three groups.""I can see the guys on the wall," added Castillan, peering between the undergrowth interspersed around the trees just outside the clearing immediately before the wooden structure.  "They look like elves.""There's more: I sensed a draconic presence in the largest of the caverns inside, and there's been some recent digging through the front wall of the cave, just on the other side of that wooden building to the left."  The wooden wall was about 20 feet high with a set of closed (and no doubt secured) double doors in the middle, each 10 feet wide.  The wall was crafted of tree trunks of differing heights forming a sort of natural set of crenellations along the top.  To the side was a building butting up against the wall, also made of upright tree trunks."I think we cast prep spells now," announced Gilbert Fung.  He and Hagan each cast mage armor spells that covered themselves and their familiars, and then the heavyset wizard cast a stoneskin spell upon Mudpie and himself as well.  Both rangers cast their barkskin spells, making their skin tough like tree-bark.  Binkadink took out a pair of potions of delay poison and fed one to Obvious, then drank the other down himself.  "Just in case," he said.  Gilbert cast a Rary's telepathic bond spell linking all the heroes but Malrin together, so they could communicate amongst themselves without actually speaking.  And then he announced the group ready for action."I'm going to try talking to them," Castillan announced, striding into the clearing before the wooden wall.  "Greetings!" he called out in the Elven tongue to the elven archers - six in all - on duty along the top of the wall.  They each drew their bows and aimed an arrow at the bounder in the clearing."Halt where you are!" replied one of the elves - Castillan didn't see which one - in the Common tongue.  His voice was harsh and gruff.  "Explain your presence!"Castillan stopped as directed and held his hands out to the side, demonstrating to the elven archers that he was unarmed.  (Of course, all he had to do was snap his fingers and his weapons would instantly appear from the extradimensional storage spaces in his gloves of storing.)  "I'm just passing through the forest," he called back up to the elves, switching to the Common tongue in which they'd called out their demands.  "I happened to see your dwelling and thought I'd say hello.""Go about your business!" called down one of the elves.  "Intruders are not welcome here!"Deciding to try a different tactic since this one was getting him nowhere, Castillan switched to the Draconic tongue - after all, Finoula had said she detected a draconic presence in the back cavern so there was a chance its guards might speak the language - and called up, "Take me to your leader!"The response was immediate: all six archers unleashed their arrows; Castillan managed to only fully dodge two of them.  One of the archers then turned and called down behind him a few words in some strange, guttural language Castillan couldn't place.  But it was obvious he wasn't going to get anything accomplished by trying to talk to these elves, so Castillan activated his ring and a dimension door spell instantly transported him to the natural rock wall just behind the defensive tower, about ten feet up.  A snap of his fingers brought his stonepiercer dagger into hand, which he thrust into the solid stone of the cliff-side and used as a support to remain unseen up on the wall.But the rest of the heroes had seen the attack and retaliated immediately.  Darrien stepped away from the tree behind which he'd been hidden from view and sent a few arrows of his own flying up at the archers.  Grumps Junior moved to the ranger's side, growling at the enemies up on the wall and well out of his reach; the elven archers sent arrows down at the ranger and his dire bear cub in response.  Malrin wildshaped into owl form and took flight, taking a roundabout route to Castillan's side, where she cast a healing spell upon her wounded brother unobserved by the archers below.Finoula kept her weapons in their sheaths at her hips as she stepped from behind the cover of a tree and activated her lightning amulet.  She blasted up through two of the archers, landing on the cliff's side just below Castillan, clinging to the rough rock wall with her boots of spider climbing.  Wrath was unable to follow his mistress so he stayed his ground, there being no one for him to attack at present.Castillan and Finoula, being full-blooded elves, could hear the sounds of someone climbing the ladder below them up onto the wall, although nobody could be seen.  But then the unmistakable sounds of spellcasting alerted them to an invisible wizard among the elven archers' ranks.  The fact that a hawk - likely a familiar - flew up from below only strengthened their belief that there was now an invisible wizard on the wall with the archers.But if there had been any doubt at all, the sudden appearance of a fiendish rhinoceros on the ground below was all the evidence needed.  The rhino snorted and charged towards Grumps Junior, horn straight in front of him like a spear.Binkadink jumped up onto Obvious's back and rode the jackalope over by Darrien; the two adventurers had come up with a new strategy between them and the gnome was ready for the half-elf ranger to put their plan into action.  Gilbert moved closer to the action, for he had started further back than any of the others; behind him, Mudpie and MARCI moved forward as well.Castillan thought he heard the clomping of large boots coming from the cavern behind and below him, but he had already committed himself to his action: dropping down from his perch and attacking where his ears told him the invisible spellcaster was.  He struck forward with his magical short sword when he landed, impaling the unseen wizard.  The wizard turned to face his attacker, dropping his invisibility as he did so, and now the bounder could see he faced not a fellow elf but a hobgoblin - which likely explained the guttural language he'd heard moments before.  But now he was on the platform just inside the wall's length, surrounded by seven enemies!Back on the ground, Hagan cast a chain lightning spell targeted on one of the archers in the center of the wall, arcing bolts of electricity from him to strike the other archers and the hobgoblin wizard.  Behind him, Darrien activated the plan he'd worked out with Binkadink, casting an animal growth spell on Obvious that caused the already horse-sized jackalope to double in size.  He also included Grumps Junior in his spell, bringing him up to the size of a full-grown dire bear, as well as Taihar, causing the dire fox to attain the size of a horse, and Wrath, who grew to the size of a dire wolf.  Let's see how well these animals do in battle at these sizes! the ranger grinned to himself.Grumps raked the fiendish rhino that had crashed into his side with a pair of massive claws - and suddenly, it was a battle between two primal animals, each doing their best to tear his opponent to shreds.Still flying in owl form above the wooden wall, Malrin looked down and cast a wall of fire spell on the ground just behind the wall of tree trunks, allowing the heat from its flames to blast forward to those on duty on the wooden wall.  She stopped her flaming wall just before where Castillan stood, but the heat blasted a quartet of the archers on duty there, several of them catching on fire.  The two archers to the far right of the wall each targeted Grumps Junior with their arrows, as he was currently the largest target they could see in the clearing before them, then crowded along the far-right section of the wall (where it curved to touch the cliff-side) where they were safe from the flames of Malrin's spell.  The others tried rushing in the opposite direction, but Castillan was there preventing them from getting past him and Finoula snapped her flaming whip of thorns a those trying to rush the bounder, and they all burned alive while trying to escape.  As they burned, their illusions wore off and the Kordovian elves could see each of these "elven" archers was, in reality, a hobgoblin.  Finoula snapped her whip at the hobgoblin wizard as he leaped from the top of the wall onto the roof of the wooden structure beside it.  She could hear thumping of some sort coming from inside the structure.  The cause of the noise became apparent when the door at the far side of the structure opened up and a pair of dire wolves raced out, followed by the pair of hill giants who had opened the door to release them.  The wolves made a dash for the nearest foe: Wrath, a timber wolf magically enlarged to their own size by the power of Darrien's spell.  As Wrath concentrated on fending off the teeth of the first dire wolf, he was struck by one of the hill giant's greatclubs, which came crashing down upon his head.  Wrath collapsed to the ground, stunned, as the dire wolves snapped at him with their wicked teeth.  But then help came from an unexpected quarter: Gilbert Fung, seeing Wrath's dilemma and knowing how much it would pain Finoula to see her beloved companion slain on the field of battle, cast one of the spells he'd just learned from Telgrane: an Otiluke's resilient sphere.  Instantly, Wrath was surrounded by a near-impenetrable bubble of solid energy which kept the snapping teeth of the dire wolves at bay.  Wrath was safe to lick at his own wounds, watching the battle rage all about him but unable to assist or be attacked.Binkadink, astride his even larger than normal jackalope, swung his magic glaive down upon the fiendish rhinoceros's head.  Obvious grabbed the rhino's throat in his teeth and worried it up and down, pulling the massive beast from the ground and then slamming it back down again; Binkadink had to steady himself in his larger-than-normal saddle with one hand to keep himself from being thrown, so violent were the jackalope's thrashings.  But eventually the rhino was slain, and - having been a summoned creature - its body disappeared upon its death.Hagan cast another of his favored chain lightning spells, catching both of the hill giants, one of the dire wolves (the other was on the far side of Wrath's solid sphere), and the hobgoblin wizard's hawk familiar.  The hawk managed to evade the spell, but the others were all struck with teeth-jarring convulsions as the electrical attack took its course; the dire wolf was outright slain by the spell.Finoula was still standing on the side of the cliff face, but there were more combatants down below in front of the wooden wall.  Castillan reached up and grabbed her by the ankle, then activated his ring once again and the two dimension doored over to between the barbaric hill giants.  Darrien dropped his ebony fly to the ground and leaped upon it as it rapidly attained the size of a pony; he called for Grumps Junior to attack the giants now that the fiendish rhino he'd been fighting had been slain.  In the meantime, he rode his fly up high enough to pepper the hobgoblin wizard in the middle of casting a spell, slaying him with an arrow to the throat.From her vantage point in the air in front of the cave's entrance behind the wooden wall (and the wall of fire which still blazed behind it), Malrin could see a group of ogres and hobgoblin fighters approaching from deeper inside the cave system.  She cast a flame strike spell that set several of the hobgoblins ablaze, screaming in pain as they burned to their deaths.  There were now only two hobgoblin archers still up on the wall, still wearing the forms of elves; they shot at Darrien mounted on his pony-sized fly as he rose above the wooden wall.  But they were pinned in place at the far end of their platform, for to move any further out toward the middle would be to become engulfed by the heat of the wall of fire.Finoula attacked one of the hill giants with her flaming whip of thorns and her longsword Tahlmalaera, scratching across his face with the thorns of her whip while her blade stabbed into the giant's thigh.  She caught a blur in her peripheral vision, but it was just Obvious hippity-hopping at best speed straight toward - and then over - both the wooden wall and the wall of fire just beyond it.  The jackalope landed softly just inside the cave's opening, facing the tail end of a quintet of ogre barbarians heading off to a side cavern to the jackalope's left, no doubt the cavern which led to the dire wolf enclosure, while a line of hobgoblins were about to climb the ladder up to the top of the wooden wall.  Binkadink struck at the nearest ogre with his glaive, killing him, and then the gnome cleaved the blade of his weapon into another of the ogres standing just beside the one just slain.  The ogre yelled in pain and fear, then screamed even louder as Obvious clamped down on his neck with his sharp rodent's teeth.  The ogre was lifted from his feet as Obvious started shaking him around like a rag doll; with a cry of pain, he released himself from the jackalope's grip and readied his weapon for another attack.  Three other ogres advanced through the hill giant's cave to go out through the dire wolf enclosure.Hagan cast a fly spell upon himself and rose up over the wooden wall, where he could see the hobgoblin reserves emerging from the cave and the ogre fighting Binkadink and Obvious further back.  At the same time, Darrien slew the last two hobgoblin archers on the wooden wall.Out in the clearing, the hill giant fighting Finoula swung at her with his massive greatclub, catching her in the side and nearly bowling her over.  Castillan was fighting the other one, sending his blades to dart in while the bounder simultaneously did his best to avoid the hill giant's massive weapon.  But then the remaining dire wolf bit down on Castillan's leg, causing him to abandon his combat with the giant to deal with this more immediate threat.Gilbert, seeing combat all around him, cast a vampiric touch spell on his familiar and sent Mudpie underground to go deliver it by touch to one of the hill giants.  He then sent MARCI over to Finoula, instructing her to heal the elven ranger.  MARCI extended a thin needle from a finger and stabbed it into the elf, injecting a healing solution into her veins before retracting the needle and triggering a sterilization procedure upon it.Castillan got the dire wolf to release him and was holding his own against it and one of the hill giants, while Finoula fought off the other one.  Grumps backed away; these hill giants were more than he was ready to tackle, even at his own enhanced size.  (He was, after all, still a cub.)  But Mudpie reached up from below the earth and touched Castillan's giant opponent with his rocky hand, triggering the vampiric touch spell his master had activated within him.  The hill giant roared in pain, anger, and frustration as some of his vitality was drained away and sent directly to Gilbert Fung, the original caster of the spell.Malrin cast an ice storm on the ogre facing Binkadink and Obvious and a few of the rearmost hobgoblin reinforcements as the first of these reserves climbed up to the wooden wall.  Down in the lower cavern, just outside the range of the elf druid's owlish vision, a nobleman sat at a round table covered in an immaculate white linen tablecloth; he wiped his mouth on a linen napkin as he finished his meal.  "Ah, well," he said, hearing the ruckus up above him as his minions fought off the intruders, "I suppose I'd better take a hand in this myself."The nobleman stood up from his finished meal, set the napkin beside his plate, and took a moment to push his chair back beneath the table.  Then he turned and started walking towards the front of the cave.  As he walked, he began transforming, releasing his nobleman's form into the one into which he'd been born.  As his form grew in size, first doubling, then tripling before growing even larger still, his clothes merged into his body, his flesh gave way to greenish scales, and two additional heads on long, slender necks grew from his shoulders, matching his own transforming head.  Wings erupted from his back and with a powerful flap the gorynych rose into the air, flying up to the front of the cave.His three heads allowed him to see several of the intruders at once: a half-elf archer astride a ridiculously-sized housefly; a little gnome in red dragonhide plate mail riding a horned rabbit the size of an elephant; a hovering half-orc spellcaster of some sort with a weasel sitting upon his shoulder; and an owl - perhaps an animal companion of some sort.  He opened all three of his mouths at once and breathed forth triple cones of burning flames that engulfed all of the foes at once,  It also caught one of his ogre henchmen, but that was a matter of little significance, for what were the lives of minions in the grand scheme of things?The burning flames instantly slew several of the intruders.  One was the owl, which, upon falling to the stone floor of the cave, reverted to a slender elven female - interesting.  Another was the giant fly, causing the half-elf that had been riding it to plummet to the cave's floor as well, landing hard.  The others were badly burned, but no one else had been slain - not even the ogre, so he had nothing to complain about, really.Binkadink spun Obvious around to face this new threat.  He slashed at the gorynych with his gnomish glaive, scoring a slice across its scaly hide that caused it to hiss in pain with all three throats.  Obvious snapped at it with his sharp teeth, only to be slapped by the creature's tail for the effrontery.  And then the gorynych focused his attention on the gnome, snapping at him with three sets of jaws and raking him with the claws of his forelimbs.  An unexpected look of fear crossed the gnome fighter's face as he realized this three-headed dragon could easily slay him on the spot!  He called out to Obvious in the language of burrowing mammals, readying his mount for a combat move they seldom performed: a tactical retreat!Outside, the hill giants and sole remaining dire wolf were starting to take their toll on Castillan and Finoula, who gave back as best they could but whose damage potential couldn't reach the output of the giants' enormous greatclubs, each a chunk of tree trunk into which various metal blades had been hammered into place.  Then, joining the fight as they raced from the door to the enclosed dire wolf pen, came the three remaining ogre barbarians, each wielding a greatclub of his own as well as a pair of throwing javelins.  They raised these latter weapons to throw at their enemies as they advanced into melee range.But Gilbert was ready for them.  He cast a prismatic spray spell, sending a rainbow of colors over towards his enemies.  The spell had a variable effect upon them: it seemed to have no effect upon the first ogre, but the second one cried out in pain as his innate constitution was suddenly drained from him; the third was slain at once, as was the dire wolf, which had been within the spell's effect.  A hobgoblin fighter up on the parapet of the wooden wall was turned instantly to stone, taking on the form of a statue wearing a look of total surprise.  The one behind himself suddenly disappeared altogether, as he was ripped from this reality and tossed down into a random plane."Think I like this spell!" Gilbert chuckled to himself as Mudpie continued punching the hill giant fighting Castillan.  The bounder did a double-fake-out and struck the giant from an unexpected direction, finally bringing him crashing to the ground, dead.Hagan, still flying in the air, cast a feeblemind spell on the gorynych, thinking to bring this battle to an immediate end by taking out the leader of the forces who had taken over Clauguthrax's auxiliary lair.  But the three-headed dragon had an innate ability to shrug off some spells, and such was the case on this occasion.  Hagan snarled in irritation at the upheaval of his plans.Darrien, having lost his aerial mount (the ebony fly reverted to its statuette form upon the death of its living form, but the ranger wouldn't be able to activate it again for the rest of the day), limped over to the ladder leading up to the wooden wall and sent an arrow shooting over at the gorynych attacking Binkadink.  The gnome gave a final swipe of his glaive at the dragon, then Obvious turned in place and hopped back over the wall, fleeing from the snapping jaws and scratching talons.  They approached Finoula and the sole remaining hill giant barbarian, just in time to see her bring it down with a well-placed swing of her longsword.  MARCI stepped up again and injected Finoula with a healing fluid.There were still two ogres on the battlefield and they targeted Castillan as one.  Gilbert cast a maximized enervation spell at the leader, severely diminishing his combat abilities.  Then, seeing the gorynych's three heads over the wooden wall, Gilbert called Mudpie back to his side and cast an Otto's irresistable dance spell upon his familiar.  "You do same thing to three-headed dragon as you do to giant," he instructed, and Mudpie swam through the earth in the dragon's direction to comply with his master's wishes.Hagan tried another feeblemind spell on the gorynych, but again the spell fizzled against the three-headed dragon's natural defenses against magic.  But then, looking down at his weasel familiar and seeing how badly Wezhley had been burned from the dragon's fiery breath, he opted to fly away back over the wall.  He landed back on the ground, took Wezhley from his shoulder, and placed him gently on the ground.  "You go find Aithanar and stay with him," the half-orc sorcerer told his familiar, and Wezhley bounded off to comply.Castillan attacked the ogre leader with his blades, scoring a deep hit.  Darrien, standing upon the wooden platform behind the wall, had pulled forth his arrow of dragon slaying and loaded it into the Arachnibow.  Carefully lining up his shot, he let it fly - and it went flying true, striking the gorynych at the base of one of its necks.  But the magic of the arrow wasn't enough to instantly kill the gorynych; he was apparently made of sterner stuff.  Darrien sighed - it had been worth a try.Seeing Binkadink's sorry state, Finoula had Obvious crouch down low so she could tap the gnome with the tip of her blade - and then channeled a heal spell into the gnome.  <That'll put 'im back into th' fight!> declared the mental construct of Ingebold, now resident in the sword Tahlmalaera.The gorynych once again spread its wings and flew, this time straight over the wall in pursuit of Binkadink and Obvious.  It flew directly above them and breathed fire down from all three heads again, catching its two primary targets and also getting Finoula within the cones of flame.  The gorynych was too high for either the gnome or his mount to reach, so Obvious leapt straight up, putting the dragon within reach of the gnome's magic glaive.  Obvious landed softly on his feet and repeated the maneuver, bouncing up and down in place so his rider could continue stabbing up at the hovering dragon."Mudpie!" Gilbert called to his familiar.  "Come back this way!  Dragon over here now!"  Earth gliding through the ground, the earth elemental had been unable to detect the gorynych's sudden flight, but he reversed direction at his master's urging and headed back the way he'd come, the Otto's irresistible dance spell still dormant in his hand.  In the meantime, Gilbert gritted his teeth in frustration, since any further spellcasting on his part would cause the spell currently residing in his familiar's rocky hand to fizzle away to nothingness.But Hagan had no such constraints.  Disappointed in his two failed feeblemind attempts on the gorynych, he directed his attention to the two ogres - who he knew he should be able to affect.  Sure enough, one chain lightning spell later and both ogres had been slain, electrified in place where they stood.Preparing for the gorynych's imminent arrival, Castillan had bounded up into the lower limb of a nearby tree, hoping to blend in with the foliage and strike at the dragon from surprise as he approached.  Darrien sent a flurry of arrows - normal ones, as he had had only the one arrow of dragon slaying - at the gorynych's retreating back.  Beneath the hovering dragon, Finoula had no elephant-sized jackalope to get her within range to attack, so she used another daily charge from her lightning amulet to send herself blasting up at the beast as an arc of electricity, resuming her elven form at the end of her flight - and upon the creature's broad back, between his wings and just past his three necks.Unable to yet breathe another triple gout of fire, the gorynych landed beside Obvious and snapped all three jaws at Binkadink; the fighter jammed his glaive into one gaping maw but the other two struck home, clamping down upon the gnome's shoulder and opposite arm.  Obvious bit at the base of one of the offending necks, drawing blood.  But then Mudpie rose up from the ground just behind the gorynych and slammed its scaly hide with a solid-stone fist.  The blow was a solid one, but more important than the bludgeoning damage was the released spell he had held within his appendage; instantly, the three-headed dragon's feet started tapping the ground as he began dancing in place, three looks of anger crossing his draconian features as he found himself unable to resist dancing to an unheard tune.Now able to cast another spell, Gilbert chose haste, targeting Binkadink, Obvious, Finoula, and Castillan, the latter having leaped down from his hiding place in the tree to bring his swords to bear upon the capering dragon.  Blades flashed in the sunlight and stabbed deep into the gorynych's hide, but the dragon was oblivious to the pain, dancing away, his necks swaying back and forth in his forced caper.  Hagan's final chain lightning spell of the day finally put it out of its misery, having succumbed to the indignity of a lack of choice in its actions and forced to dance away the last moments of its life.As a gnome, Binkadink appreciated the spectacle of the irresistable dance and smiled at the dragon's humiliation in the moments before it died.  But any thoughts of levity were quickly set aside when Darrien walked through the door from the dire wolf pen, the lifeless body of Malrin draped in his arms.  Castillan turned from the gorynych's body and raced over to the body of his sister, helping Darrien lower her gently to the ground."Can you do anything?" Gilbert asked MARCI in desperation.  The construct walked over to the druid's body and scanned it with the red ray from her eye.  "She is dead," MARCI announced in a matter-of-fact tone, then turned away to deal with the wounded who still stood among the living. - - - There was indeed additional treasure inside the caverns, some of which the players jointly decided would be used to cast a raise dead spell upon Malrin.  Incidentally, as Jacob is now back to being a full-time player, we've handed him permanent custody of Malrin - not only is she the sister of his own PC, but he's also one of the few players in our group not otherwise dealing with an additional NPC, whether it be a familiar, animal companion, or trusted battle-mount.Incidentally, before this session Logan informed me of his desire to have an awaken spell cast upon Obvious; he was mainly interested in the additional HD such a spell could grant his riding mount, wanting Obvious to be able to handle the combats likely to be encountered by a 16th-level group of adventurers.  (Everybody but Malrin leveled up as a result of this adventure.)  As a result of the spell - cast by Malrin without the rest of the group knowing - Obvious now has a human-level intelligence and can speak the Common tongue.  But Binkadink and Obvious have conspired to keep this a secret from the others for now, thinking how funny it'll be to spring it upon them when they least expect it.Incidentally, had the hobgoblin wizard survived just one more round, he'd have cast an Evard's black tentacles spell on the PCs/NPCs in the clearing and Gilbert would have gotten a taste of his own medicine.  Oh well. - - -T-Shirt Worn:  My green dragon T-shirt, given this mission was at the behest of Clauguthrax, a green dragon.</blockquote>

Verification