Dragon Lords, Faeries, Orcs and more dragons...
...ALL trying to kill US!
Ok, it's been a while since the last game, so let's recap what's been going on...
Gray and Forgan have been teamed up with Forlumb's army to chase down Justin and Ophelia - the Dark conjoined. They have been fighting dragons and villagers along the way through Dokorrel, losing many men, supplies and hope. However, things are getting done and we are making our way there. Elonora aided the king by being a vessel in which the dark god and the Dragon spirit could be separated. That in itself helped out our side immensly, but put Elonora out of commission for a few weeks. However, she's back now!
Gray has warmed up a bit to our Dragon friend Vorren and they are now linked! Vorren is Gray's mount and has major bonuses because of it - strength, abilities, and even charisma.
Khyros has been spending these two weeks studying magic spells. Although he now has an extensive list of low-level spells, he hasn't really been very involved in the plot. That is about to change.
In their travels with the king's army, Gray and Forgan have seen many a strange sight and met many strange individuals. Grolg York, the Dwarf/Orc that came to follow him has done just taht - followed him EVERYWHERE. They've also commissioned a group of Vorexian Dwarven fighters to their cause and somehow attracted a group of dragons to aide on their side. Not necessarily in cooperation with them, but at least against the same common enemy. Fights ensued and the army needed to split its forces to make it through dense forests. The Watcher (the oldest and biggest dragon on the Earth) was in charge of the ground troops while the King and his group of soldiers were in a small extra-dimensional bubble being carried along. The Watcher's troops were ambushed and a trap had been set for them. The forest was set ablaze and dragons came in vast numbers, ganging up on the watcher himself, wouding him badly. After recovering the best they could from the battle and the fire and summoning up Venna's son, the Healer, they moved to the edge of the forest and released the King and his men. Of course there was more battle on its way. Justin and Ophelia want to stay on top of things, you know. While fighting, Forgan received a message in his thoughts to go to Haggar's bluff on the eastern side of the mountains in Dokorral. Not necessarily knowing who was sending this message, Forgan insists we go. He then gets another message from the troops we left behind that the Watcher and the Healer are both MISSING! Well, crap.
Instead of freaking out, Forlumb knows that we need more allies. He sends Forgan and Gray to speak with Lord Wellshire of Cress. Cress is currently in a civil war of its own, but we could use any help we can get. They headed out to the meeting point with six of Gray's family members and scouted it out ahead of time. Everything seemed alright. Lord wellshire and his heavily armed guards arrived and negotiations seemed to be going well. He had lots of Vorrexians to offer - that's always good! Especially since Vorex is the God of honorable battle and all! WOO HOO! Right then and there, meteor showers and bombs start exploding everywhere! We're being ambushed! It's a trap! Lord Wellshire is killed! He holds a Vorexian relic (the hand of Marduc) and musters out something about giving it to Uther just before he dies. Everyone else is killed as well except Jarvis Yohan, one of Lord Wellshire's guards. The lady Katrina Tiershlok comes out of the sky on a flying chariot (trampling Lord Wellshire as she goes) and demands to have the Hand of Marduc for herself. She also makes an offer to Forgan for him to come to her house and try to kill her. You may be thinking "WHAT?" but it seems she's far from human. Perhaps Fae? Perhaps Zaird? All that is known is that she is quite mad and quite chaotic. After all the smoke is cleared and the villains have made their escape, Gray tries to figure out what the heck is going on. He meets with Jarvis and they figure out that Lord Wellshire's brother is behind this ambush.
So, in order to get the aide they need, Gray and Elonora accompany this soldier to the house of Wellshire where they are greeted many shocked servants and clergy. They had been told by Thomas, the Lord's brother that he himself was the sole survivor of the assult. Now Jarvis arrives? Wait a minute, now who's telling the truth? Vorex will decide! The knight and the soldier draw weapons and duel nearly to the death. Meanwhile, Elonora and Gray find out where the brother is hiding to make sure he doesn't set off any spells or traps to fix the fight. Jarvis wins and therefore de-thrones the V-count Thomas! YAAAY! We have allies! That's GREAT! Gray informs the others in the house about KAtrina Tiershlock and how she's not what she appears, but they already had a hint of that already. Elonora is brought before a forge of Vorex and her curse of Tohorne upon her is removed! Thanks! Gray goes shopping in Malfestus for some fun fun magic items and takes Elonora back to see some healers who get her body completely restored. Thank you Gray! That's when we all meet up with Khyros! When he finally pulled his nose out of his books, he picked up the cloak of dexterity that Sashraddon was holding for him.
Now onto the voices in Forgan's head. Elonora, Gray, Forgan, Vorren, and Khyros found their way to the end of the dry riverbed at Haggar's bluff and waited to see what was to happen then. This was about a day's travel from the king's army. At first, nothing. There was nothing there but flat, dry gorund, bare, thin trees and a few small hills and ditches, neither more than 5 feet high/deep. The sun began to set and Vorren and Fogan both became over powered with fear. Understandably so since there was a dragon slaywer coming our way. He carried the watcher (in human form) over his shoulder and laid him down for us. He spoke very few words, but would not allow us to take the watcher to safety just yet. He looked off to the east where it seemed dragons should be coming, but nothing was to be seen nor heard. When he gave a signal, the watcher was sent through a portal to the King's army and other men were found running along the ground. Men we hadn't seen before! They were all pretty damned impressive dragon slayers! One guy (Rambo) had shotguns, a cannon and some sort of bazooka missile he designed himself! Another was a mage who could take the form of a full scale 2 dragon and fight hand to hand, the silent one who we first met disspelled many of the dragon's defenses and protections and warded off many other dragons from even knowing about it, and one other (Shaft) was an expert shot with a bow and arrow and seemed faster than light. Once the battle had begun, dragons of all sorts came out of nowhere and got their scaly butts kicked! Vorren took his full dragon form and killed 4 dragons - 2 were twice his size even. Gray single-handedly killed two of them and the dragon slayers as a team managed to take out six, both in the air and on the ground. However, the toughest one of them all - a very old, very powerful and very cruel dragon lord - had to be taken out by offorts on both sides. Khyros and Rambo worked together on the cannon aiming it at her with the missile aimed at her chest. She had reared up, exposing her chest because Shaft had shot her with an arrow dipped in Dragonsbane. That would have killed her eventually in itself! With her blood being tainted with dragonsbane and her guts chopped into kibble, the dragon lord fell over dead and the battle was over. The night was spent with the dragon slayers and the PCs off deeper in the woods where they could rest a bit more safe. They all needed tending to and we all needed a bit of rest. There were at least 40 more dragons looking for these guys! yikes! We really do have to take out Justin and Ophelia, though that seems to be rather impossible at this point. They seem to have an endless supply of cannon fodder and acid breathing dragons. However, we did manage to take out a big, old, fast, bad-ass dragonlord tonight. There is hope! YAAAY!
The next morning, we prepared to head out and learned a little about the dragon slayers - Shaft is really a female ninja and Rambo is an architect! Neat. We met up with a fighter guy named Zerschlagen Kreiger who was hiding out in the woods trying to avoid the dragon attack and he wanted to come along with us. Our next stop was to Barrett Durn's place! Funny that - it's only a few miles away! While shopping for expensive stuff, the party notices a shadow cat sneak away with a leather-bound book from the shop. In order to gain brownie points, they tried to stop the cat, but it ran towards its owner (a woman sitting atop a horse) and jumed literally into her pocket! She's then guarded by all these guys with shiney weapons and stuff and they refer to her as Lady Vir...as in Sean Vir?....as in KRAK VIR?!?! But he killed his whole family! Well, it turns out that these guys are knights working for some order that's NOT on the side of the good guys, but they're civil with us nonetheless and don't want to shed blood. They were taking back the book that belongs to Krak Vir - it's one of his journals on making Sorrell and it was planted here by Lecavian. a few years ago, Lecavian had stolen a bunch of the journals. Now he's planting them around his enemies' places so Krak's guys would most likely destroy the place and the people within to get at the journals. However, not today. They all leave in peace and everyone is all edgy and uncomfortable about it, but what else would we do? The party does a little more magic item shopping after they leave until Forgan gets another little message in his head.
His hometown of Calicess in Malfestus is beginning to get a little better even though Malfestus is falling apart. The Foreign Path has taken charge of things since the Protector of the city passed away. He fought bravely to save the people from the Kraken and he freed as many as he could. The Foreign Path as a whole is spread very thin dealing with the dragon war, the Daemon army, Vendral, and the Silver Cross, but their command structure is in tact as are their leaders. Forgan asks us to come with him as he checks up on his people. The Mansion is cleaned up and the maids are eager as ever to do their job. A feast is prepared and the white rock is brought into the jewlers to be refined. The Crown Prince of Malfestus has already been crowned Emperor. He has with him representatives of all the wizard orders, including the Silver Cross who insist that the accusations the Path are making about their treason are without grounds. He has set himself up in the city of Kuleel where he is attempting to deal with his Empire's current problems. The provinces of Mallaseal, Hackneol, and Sasswel don't have any major problems yet. Morand, Lakassel, and Xelgend have all had to deal with Vendral (Morand more so than the others), but so far the situation in all three provinces is under control and not requiring of armed escorts The province of Toserl is crawling with Vendral; it's so dangerous to go there that it has effectively split the Empire in two. Not much has been officially circulated about the north...because its ALL bad news. The country side has become scarred and ruined, economies are colapsing as farm lands and mines are abandoned for the safety of major cities, roving bands and armies of beasts have been kicking the poop out of the Empire's knights and soldiers at every turn, and Areal Pass is under seige. The mages and the Foreign path have their spells and wards to keep out the plague, but not too much else. The next step in Calicess is to rid the ocean (at least the part that is in the bay, now walled off) of Vendrill. The way they'd like to do that is to use the heart of the Mallory as a life bomb! YIKES!
So where to next? We could try to do our best to take care of Vendrill by going to Agapalleck and finding Jason, the spiritualist of the Wolf. Going there, we could also check in with Casser and see how he's doing and maybe see how he could help with any of these quests. Another option is to go to the King. He's the king of the fairies. Our thoughts were that he could come to Malfestus and ask Sir MArcus Roy where he found the fairies that made the anti-Vendrill Kylos Water and perhaps get them to work with some sylphs and make it rain kylos water! That could heal the land and Forlumb would be the one to command them if it's even possible. We shall have to see what is decided next time!...
Come back next week for the NEXT EXCITING ADVENTURE of JAYSTORM!!!!!