5 July 2019
One very Angry Dragon
Our session begins with our heroes in the Deep King's castle in the presence of a very old looking duergar and a beautiful woman. The party is announced as Stool's Irregulars to await an audience with the Deep King. Each party member sees the beautiful woman slightly differently. Bree thinks she is a beautiful halfling, Kais and elf, and everyone else a beautiful human woman. She is wearing a beautiful golden dress.
We learn the figure on the throne is the Deep King, and at that Autun begins to relate the story to him. While he is doing this the beautiful woman begins to stroke the Deep King's head like a pet and distract him. It becomes clear she is distracting him to keep him occupied, charmed and ignorant of what goes on in his kingdom. Kais comes closer and the bitch tries to charm her, but fails. Ezri approaches, is almost charmed, turns away, and is attacked by claws in her back. Bree steps in front and gets in an argument with her telling her to back off. But finally Autun is able to make her with a command spell. She backs up and reveals her true form of a demon with horns, still beautiful, and reveals she is a servant of Grazd.
The Deep King comes to his senses and demands the party kill this demon. Then the fight is really on. In the ensuing scrabble she takes many hits but still manages to escape, and not without first charming Bree who helps her on her way. After she leaves Bree is still very clearly charmed and annoying her fellow party members. The party then speaks with the Deep King further and finishes their tale. He agrees they need to tell the deep gnomes and suggests they find a kuotoa guide. As the party leaves they see that they were not alone in the giant hall, and there were actually hundreds of dwarves on the side of the hall with them. Whether they just arrived or were there for the whole affair is not clear.
The party meets Hgraam at the exit and decide to make their way back to the surface. Hgraam is suspicious of Bree in her state, and Bree gloms onto Hgraam's leg, holding firm as he jogs back to the surface. The rest of the party take mine carts back up. Once they regather Bree sees that Autun is tired so casts light immediately in front of his face. This is when the party is certain that Bree is still charmed and intentionally acting annoyingly. Kais temporarily charms Bree for an hour turning her docile to provide a temporary solution.
The party then makes their way back to the Inn while discussing what to do about the bears in the caverns. Once back Bree begins to jump on the bed with Rumpadump and make a tremendous racket. The party gets a meal from the Inn keepers. Kais tells Bree to go to sleep, which she does for the whole night. Ezri has a terrible nightmare. When Bree awakens she is clearly still charmed and increasingly confused, so she begins cutting herself with her dagger. Kais tries to stop her but fails, but Autun successfully ties her up so well she cannot cast any spells, speak or really even move. Rumpadump is confused and scared at witnessing this intra-party conflict.
Thinking about what had happened earlier the party determines that the demon must have been a succubus, and this explains her relationship with the Deep King. The party decides to head to the giants with Bree still tied up. Shuushar and Rumpadump stay behind at the Inn. On the way there Kais gets annoyed with Bree and punches her. This breaks the charm spell and Bree returns back to normal, whatever that means, but at least the party now trusts her enough to untie her.
The giants are incredibly grateful for everything the Irregulars have done, especially freeing the Deep King. Rihud gives the party a diamond worth 300 gp. The party picks up the rest of their stuff they had left at the giants and makes their way to the Keepers of the Flame. Upon arriving the party is shown in to speak to Gartokkar and explains they have recovered the red dragon egg and it is a safe place, but do not tell him they have the egg with them. The party is suspicious of Gartokkar 's and the Keepers of the Flame possible involvement with the disappearance of the egg, especially since the party was never able to ascertain exactly who took the egg. Gartokkar tells the party that they keep the egg as a kind of insurance in case something happens with the Wyrmsmith. The egg is not of the Wyrmsmith, it may be his kin by chance, but not that anyone knows.
Learning all this Gartokkar, in cooperation with the Irregulars decides that they will plan a hatching party for the Wyrmsmith, and this is where things start to go wrong due to miscommunication. Half of the Irregulars believes that the hatching party will be for the baby dragon in the recently recovered red egg, and will thus be a way for the Keepers of the Flame to come clean with the Wyrmsmith. While the other half of the Irregulars believes the hatching party is a celebration of the Wyrmsmith's hatching and is intended to flatter him into not caring about the fact that the Keepers of the Flame have been hiding the fact that they have a dragon egg as insurance and it went missing.
After agreeing on a public hatching day and incorrectly assuming everyone is on the same page the Irregulars give the egg back to the Keepers of the Flame, and with Gartokkar in two the Irregulars go to speak with the Wyrmsmith sans egg. The Wyrsmith greets them gruffly and Caius begins to speak first for all of them. However, the Wyrmsmith cuts him off, summons Gartokkar to the front and reads his mind. The party watches as Gartokkar summons in four other monks with the egg, the Wyrmsmith crushes them, breaks the egg, kills the hatchling, and eats Gartokkar. Seeing this the party turns and runs for the door. The Wyrmsmith breathes fire on them as they run heavily injuring Jimjar, Ezri and Caius; while Bree, Autun and Kais go down. Moving quickly Jimjar gives Bree a gourd of greater healing, Ezri heals Kais, Caius heals Autun, and the party bolts for the outside running as fast as they can. As they make it out of the Keepers of the Flame's building they hear the crashing sounds of an angry dragon behind them.
Inventory (incomplete!)
Gained
- A diamond worth 300 gp
- The gratitude of a King
Lost
- Gourd of Greater Healing of Bree
- Red dragon egg
Party inventory
Prior: 28 June 2019, All: Play_Sessions, Next: 12 July 2019