(G348 17/03/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA25

(G348 17/03/2018 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), MJ) WA25

DAY 312 (17th Hammer)(January) cont ...

Fenrir and his friends looted the room of treasure, of whic h there was a reasonable amount, explaining to Thunda and his men that they were 'gathering evidence'.
They also found a few books, bound in human skin, that were probably  religious texts on the subject of Kyuss, but no one could understand the language they were written in.

Having not found the drag on's treasure and at a loss as what to do next, Fenrir decided to go and search some of the other houses.

In the home of Berwin Bale, in a locked (and trapped) chest, which was opened by one of Thunda's men ( knownas 'Fingers' who was handy with a lockpick) they found three evil looking books written in Aboleth, a golden statue of a wormy type god and some religious vestments.

From three o'clock to five o'clock they searched the house of Aldred Marona, wine merchant, who had been one of the men Fenrir had killed in Lord Paynon's house. He left behind him a wife and three children.
The only evidence he left was some passages written in his journal, saying something along the lines of 'I wish I could get out of this cannibal business, but if I do I'm sure the others will kill me then probably eat my family.'

The next house they went to was that of Narrel Bitren, who had been one of the three town magistrates. Despite his best efforts Fenrir could not get inside, being stopped at the gates by one of Bitren's sons, a thuggish young man in his early twenties.

After all that they returned to the inn, arriving at about eight at night. They then arranged to meet the third town magistrate, the only one left alive (Lord Paynon had been the other one) and by about ten o'clock they had all gone to bed.

An hour later they were woken by the sounds of the bells of the town ringing and a great deal of destruction. Fenrir yawned, got out of bed and opened the window. He saw Kredzutah, the white dragon, using his freezing breath to attack the town. He watched for several minutes while the dragon
used his breath to freeze solid half a dozen buildings, one of which fell over. He could hear screaming, sometimes cut abruptly short as the frozen breath struck the terrorised streets below.

As he watched, the dragon was attacked by magic missiles, slung from somewhere in the darkness.
At first the dragon ignored them, shrugging them off with his innate resistance to magic, but as some of them began to strike home it turned its attention to its attacker.
Fenrir could now make out it was the wizard Tamba Wazerio, flying around over the town, bravely fighting the dragon.

Fenrir sighed and decided to help, turning invisible and flying up towards where the fighting was taking place. He could not see it, but Arahel was already out there, as an invisible will-o-wisp trying to whisper into the dragons ear. She was attempting to tell it to calm down as they were trying to find it's treasure for it. It didn't matter though, the dragon only spoke draconic, a language Arahel did not know.

Fenrir bravely attacked the dragon with his eldritch blasts, but none of them seemed to do much.
Kredzutah cast a 'See Invisible' spell so it could see Fenrir better, who had been popping in and out of visibility as he attacked. This also let it see Arahel, so it breathed its icy breath at the warlock, then racked at the druid with its claws. The aerial combat went on for a short while after that, with Fenrir shooting off eldritch blasts and Tamba blasting at the dragon with fireballs and magic missiles.

Fenrir was hit again and chilled to the bone. Realising he didn't stand much of a chance against the dragon, he landed and hid behind a building. Arahel also landed on a building and turned into
a troglodyte, a creature that could speak draconic.
'You have nothing to gain from this senseless attack!' called up Arahel.
Fenrir peaked from his hiding place as the dragon landed on the roof beside the fearless druid
and said, 'Who are you?'
'I am Arahel, me and my comrades are trying to find your treasure. We find it for you, so you do not need to kill all these people.'
The dragon chewed this information over then snarled, 'You have one day.'
It then spread its wings and swooped off into the night, returning to its lair.

Fenrir and Arahel also tried to talk to Tamba, but he did not seem in a good mood.
'Go find your ruddy treasure,' he spat. 'And I'll see you with the magistrate tomorrow morning.'


DAY 313 (17th Hammer)(January)

The third (and now thanks to Fenrir, only) magistrate of Klapton, was an elderly cleric of Tempus called Lomol Vecteria. He was the keeper of a shrine on the south side of the river which adjoined a small hospice for retired soldiers (and the like).

Vecteria, in his old age, felt somewhat repentant for all the men he had slain in his youth and now dedicated his life to helping veteran fighters, warriors and soldiers. He hated the poor though, unless they could prove they had once been in battle.

Fenrir put some of the story to Vecteria. In regards to what had been found in the town he said, 'Distasteful as it may be, worshipping of evil deities, is not a crime here.'

There was a bit more discussion, but in the end it was Fenrir's word against Tamba and it was agreed that the treasure should be found and returned to the dragon before any sort of trail was thought of.

Fenrir then admitted that he had no idea where it was.
'It must be in Lord Paynon's house, young man,' said Vecteria.
'We searched there... oh but wait, we didn't do an expert search I'll admit...'
Thunda, who was present, said, 'I'll get Fingers to look the place over.'

Fenrir, Arahel, Veddic, Thunda and Fingers returned to the dungeon under the house. The first thing Fingers said when he looked about the place was, 'Has anyone been down that pit?'

They admitted they hadn't so down they went. There was a door, which was trapped with a pit trap, but they all avoided it. They found a cave behind the door which contained two strange spider legged creatures (they didn't know it, but I think they were rasts) which they very easily killed.

Also in the cave, finally, was a big chest of treasure. Fenrir sent word back to Vecteria then stuffed the chest into his bag of holding. He and Veddic then flew back to the hermit's cave.

Fenrir floated the idea of hanging onto the treasure.
'If you steal it,' said Arahel. 'Our days as companions are over.'

Fenrir grumbled to himself, but used one of his magic stones (or what it keys, I forget. Some magic item that cast the 'Knock' spell anyway) to open the chest.

His eyes lit up as he saw it was stuffed full of coins and gems. He roughly estimated that there was easily a hundred thousand in gold coins in the chest! He looked longingly at it, then at Arahel, but she was most insistent - every penny went back to the dragon.

Arahel stuffed the chest back into the bag and taking it, flew up to the entrance of the dragon's lair. As a wisp she flew into the dragon's main chamber and saw that it was dozing on a bed of ice.

The tunnel she had come out of looked over the chamber, so she turned into a troglodyte and taking the chest from the bag put it on the wide ledge so the dragon could see it. She then called across the cavern to wake it up.

'Get out of my house, you filthy creature!' bellowed the dragon as it got out of its bed and unfolded its wings.

Initially terrified, Arahel fled back up the wide tunnel, but then calmed enough to return to have a look around the bend of the corridor. She took the precaution of turning into a wisp and going invisible.

The dragon was standing over the chest, but sensed her somehow and came charging up the tunnel.
Initially Arahel may not have realised that the dragon could see her, perhaps having forgotten that it had used the spell the night before and that it would have been wise enough to cast it now incase that pesky warlock was hiding around the place too.
As a result, instead of immediately fleeing she retreated down the tunnel a little and hid around a corner again.
Not only did the dragon keep coming but it breathed its icy breath down the corridor, injuring her.
At this point Arahel, badly hurt, again did not flee, but instead drastically misunderstood the motivations of this dragon and moved only a little way further down the tunnel.
'Surely it values treasure above all things,' she thought. 'I will wait here as it
must soon be lured back to the chest by the desire to see its stolen wealth once more.'

Sadly Arahel had forgotten the warning of Haggam the Hermit who had told her and the others that 'The dragon will kill anyone he finds in his lair without question. Like a man killing a rat in his house.'
The hermit knew that the dragon would always see killing all intruders as its top priority.
Arahel had one last opportunity to flee as the dragon drew in its breath again, but she did not take it. Instead she stood there and died, poor thing, frozen do death by the dragon's icy breath.

Back at the cave Fenrir and Veddic waited all day, but when she didn't return Fenrir eventually flew up there himself. He flew all the way in and saw the splat mark on the wall where Arahel had died. He flew back to the dragon's bone pit and after a search found the kiloren's discarded corpse.