Adventure 15

Party Members:
Hammar – 4th Level Cleric
Cloverdung – 4th Level Ranger
Othello – 4th Level Thief
Gubikla – 4th Level Magic User

As our adventurers are eating breakfast, Kavis suddenly falls out of his chair. It is discovered that he has passed out because he did not drink enough ale the day before. So, Hammar tosses Kavis into his bunk and the rest of the group head out for Fire Top.

The group takes a barge across the lake and disembark at a dock where there is an old wooden walkway stretching across the swamps. Cloverdung pays the barge captain a few gold pieces to return to this spot every other day for a couple of weeks, to pick us up for our return to town. The going is bumpy and slow on the old wood trail, with the cart bouncing around.

The group sees some smoke in the distance and as they get closer notice a few straw huts on a small piece of dry land. Just when Cloverdung sees something in the bushes to the right, a group of lizard men attack the party. There are a couple trying to knock the party out with poisonous darts from their blow guns and the rest have weapons to smash the group. Gubikla burns, freezes, and thunderwaves a few while Othello is trying to hit them with his balista from the cart. Hammar crushes a couple and Cloverdung takes out a few as well. Once the lizard men are dead, everyone starts searching the bodies, alter, and huts. Othello makes the mistake of entering the trapped hut, which bursts into flames. Hammar notices the nut he is searching also begins to catch on fire. Not from the trap, but rather from the torch in Cloverdung’s hand. Oops. A couple of other huts a lit on fire and the group leaves after making a nice mess of the place. And leaving a sign saying “You’re Welcome.”

After a several hours on the walkway, it suddenly stops and the group is walking on dryer lands now. They approach a small clearing with a few mud pits scattered around. Othello notices a head stick up out of one of the pits and so he shoots it with his balista. Bam. Head disappears. Suddenly, several mud men pop up out of other mud pits and charge the party. Along with the mud men are two larger mud men, who are quite sturdy. As the mud men are slowly being killed, the party is taking some substantial damage as well. When Hammar tries to heal himself, he notices that his spell fails. Gubikla also notices the pressance of something attempting to block the use of spells. It appears the larger mud men are radiating some type of magic field that cancels the ability to use spells. As there are only a few of mud men left, the party is starting stress over potential deaths because health is getting really low for our heros. Gubikla goes invisible as he is reaching death. Cloverdung casts darkness from his sword (which passes the magic field of the larg mud men) and so he is currently protected from further attack. As the last mud man is finally dropped, the adventures decide to rest, right here, right now, to try and recover some health. Fortunately, whatever passed by their camp did not find the party, so everyone was able to rest up.

Starting the next day, Cloverdung is able to find a path heading twoards Fire Top. As the group reaches the base of the volcano, there is a cave entrance found in front of them. As they approach the entrance, suddenly, a small number of kobolds appear above the entrance, hurling flaming casks. One of the kobolds accidently drops the casks on himself, and dying. The other two miss with their throws, but Cloverdung and Gubikla are able to dispatch the last two. Before the group can decide to enter the cave, several kobolds come running out, towards the group. More kobolds also appear above the entrance with spears. The party begins to repel the attackers, Gubikla leading with his thunderwave. Othello knocks out a couple and Hammar smashes the ones reaching his part of the group. Cloverdung drops some above the entrance. Pretty quickly, the kobolds are all killed, with minimal damage.

Cloverdung leads the party into the cave. It is a natural looking cave, mostly. There are some huge claw marks where it looks like it was enlarged by something that was originally too large to pass through. A coupl of side paths seem to dead end, so Cloverdung heads down the main path. The tunnel opens up into a very large chamber in the base of the volcano. There is some lava flowing but the important sighting is the large dragon in the middle of the room. After the shock leaves the minds of the adventurers, they  notice the dragon is not moving. Upon closer inpection it can be seen that there is a pike stuck through the head of the dragon. At the other end of the pike is a human, also not moving. It seems the two opponents killed each other in battle a couple of years ago and have been in this staged position since that time. Othello grabs the pike, the reason for this quest, and is thrown back as electrical damage almost jills him. Apparently, Othello is not good enough to touch the weapon of a paladin. Oddly enough, Gubikla is able to hold the pike without damage. Go figure that someone who thunderwaves a palankin is good enough to hold a paladin weapon. As Cloverdung is staring at the dragon he suddenly realizes that it was not flying hogs breathing fire that killed his parents, but rather a pair of dragons.

Mass looting begins, of course. Some nice equipment is found on the body of the dead paladin and plenty of coinage is in a pile getting scooped up by everyone. Cloverdung also grabs some dragon teeth and claws. This will be used as proof of the party killing the dragon that had killed the paladin a couple of years ago. The party sets up camp to prepare for the trip back.