Triumphant Return to Greenest

So last week (well last game session from this one) the players left off in the middle of fighting Langdedrosa and having him squarely on the back foot. Again I’m writing this long after the actual session so may not 100% recall the session).

Top of initiative was the fighter, he hit, finally. Langdedrosa was dead. To be honest, whoever hit him next was going to kill him, I was already over his max HP even if I gave him two extra HD (he had defeated the players twice after all and lead the sacking of Greenest, he should have levelled up). The players were easily able to now pick of the last Beserker and Cult Fanatic, and since they were blocking the only escape routes they weren’t going to be able to run.

Still, pretty beaten up, the players were hesitant to continue into the hatchery proper. They peered into the pit and saw at least 1 guard drake in the lower part of the chamber. With some more observation they managed to see that there were actually two in the area. The Fighter was of the opinion that they couldn’t leave them there to starve so wanted to kill them (because that makes sense) and decided to range attack them from above without first securing the stairs. He quickly regretted that when the first drake let out a cry and the second came bounding up the stairs to him.

Now forced into combat, the Paladin and Fighter were holding a front line against the two drakes, both of them with reduced HP even after healing from the previous fight. The rest of the party apart from the Druid were engaging the Drakes at range from the back lines. After a few rounds the players weren’t doing to badly until the Paladin dropped (who’s player was away and being run by the Fighter) and the Fighter decided to run away, leaving the drakes able to move up onto the Rouge and Life Cleric.

At this point the Druid got invovled in the fight and cast Spike Growth on the area the two drakes were in. One moved fowards out of it but the other was badly wounded, tried to move back and was taken down to 1HP and just had to sit and wait. I described how on it’s turns it was trying to move back but wincing at every attempt.Eventually the remaining players take down the healthy Drake and are able to finish off the hurt one and make their way down into the hatchery. They find all three of the Dragon eggs and the Druid identifies them as Black Dragon eggs. The Paladin insists on destroying them which I think was a shame, I was trying to convince them to take them out and sell them, they could have made a fortune.

Finally as they began to leave I had the Roper which was meant to be hiding in the back speak out to them. After some short conversation the party fed the body of Langdedrosa to it, but not before the Fighter hacked off his head as a trophy. Turns out he has plans for it.

After a quick search around the players made their way out of the cave and back towards Greenest, loot and trophies in tow. After reaching the town the players announced themselves to the keep and told of what they had done. They also let the town know about the cart of valuables they had abandoned in the woods and some villagers on horseback were sent off to recover the cart. The Mayor of the town told the players how Leosin the Monk had arranged for supplies to be sent back from Elturel and a set of horses to be sent down for the Party to travel to Elturel more quickly.

The Fighter went to the armoury to see about getting his trophy turned into a helm of some sort and came across nameless npc number 1, I’m pretty sure it was Dave the armourer. He could not help with producing the helm, but he did weave a tale of Garry the Master Armourer in Baulders Gate. The players pointed out that it should have been John Smith the Smith and since they hadn’t asked where Garry worked and so I let them know, John Smith’s Wonder Wares, he works out the back, on Armour.

Unable to turn the head into a helm here, the Fighter was concerned that it would decay too much on the trip and so went out to the local tanner to see if he could sort out the skull and skin. After a couple of days rest in the town the tanner returned with a processed skin and skull packaged up for transit. The party rested and resupplied we left the session with them about to head out to Elturel.