01 - Acid Rain
Date: 01/10/2022
Present
# Story
The Adventurers made their way to a village, in need of assistance. They discovered that the village was being besieged by bandits who would regularly rob them of anything shiny / metal, seemingly uninterested in any other materials.
The party asked around and tried to find information at the local village tavern. While Wunce entertained the crowd with a musical performance the party happened upon a dwarven Truther who they employed to help them question the villagers.
The met with a merchant of the 7 Star group who had been mugged by the bandits. After some discussion the merchant made a deal with the team (overseen by the Truther) and gave them use of his cart and horses in exchange for returning his stolen supplies.
The party decided to try to lure the bandits into a trap by purposfully getting ambushed on the roads beyond the village. Wunce used a terrible disguise (which he thought was perfect) and the ambush did not go to plan. The startled bandits ran in opposite directions; Wizarak was able to capture a bandit, soaring with them into the sky before an arrow from another bandit knocked him unconscious where he plummeted, almost dieing in the process. While unconscious the bandits robbed him of eveything shiny.
The party did, however, track down the camp of the bandits and Wizarak, enraged by his loss of funds, charged into the camp with Wunce chasing behind him. A battle ensued and all but two of the bandits were killed. The bandit leader, escaped in the opposite direction to where the party had attacked from, but a different bandit, Milo, was captured by Wizarak.
Upon questioning, Milo explained to the party that the bandits were in fact being opressed by an evil black dragon, Vellathdros, who was hoarding all the treasure nearby the camp and forcing them to raid for more. The party quickly made their way back to the village to decide on next steps.
They spoke with the alderman, Cornice Rice, and decided to attempt to ambush the dragon, fearing for the lives of the villagers and what Vellathdros might do in revenge for the destruction of the bandits. Cornice, provided them with a number of healing potions for their assault. They also acquired a long and thin crystal from the merchant, which, with the help of the village cleric, they infused with the Revivify spell, to also aid them in battle. Unfortunately, they didn’t discover until after the deal was done that the crystal was cracked, and therefore very fragile.
# Sneak Attack
The party successfully snuck into the lair of the dragon, a clearing in the forest where the beast had surrounded himself with an acid bog, that was filled with the non-metal cast-offs from the raiding parties. Once at the lair, the party found the dragon sleeping on his hoard, with the bandit leader forced to sit nearby on watch.
The party successfully fanned out around the outskirts of the bog steathily, not stirring the dragon, nor his guard and, on Wunce’s signal of a successful Faerie Fire spell, launched their surprise attack. A hail of arrows, spears, magic missiles and other spells rained down upon the sleepign dragon, almost finishing it off before it had time to stir. The dragon rose from his hoard, flying into the air to make a retreat before one final arrow from Abaddon thrust into it, dealing the killing blow causing it to plummet back onto it’s treasure. The party spared the bandit leader, and took their reward from the hoard (coin, equipment and dragon parts), returning the merchant’s crates and some money for the village coffers.
# Conclusion
Upon returning to the village, successful, the party received a letter, via Cornice, from an individual called Egregious Confounder, asking them to bring the body of Vellathdros with them to Falstaff where he would reward them. Before leaving the village, Wizarak used some of his money (450 gold) to pay Milo to act as his retainer/squire and join them on their travels. The party used some of their spoils to purchase a couple of wagons and horses, collected the dragon corpse (purchsing a gentle repose spell from the Cleric to keep it from decaying) and headed out for Falstaff and their next adventure….