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Before resting for the night, we talk over our prisoner. We set watch for the night. Miranda tries to talk to the sword, but it won't tell her its powers. We decide to tie the sorceress elf well, taking no chances. Dorn pats her down and finds a metal bracer on one arm. Black sun etched out on side. Small pipe on the underside looks like something comes out. Dorn figures out how to take it off. Also, he finds a dagger in her boot. His armor is starting to make him real hot, but sword helps (??--Anyone remember that?). The first watch passes without event. The middle watch comes. Phae is watching the prisoner, while Beren and I are at the front door. Phae fails a Will save and is held. Beren makes a 29 for his Will save and I, being an elf, don't need to make one. Beren hears a rustling noise from where Phae is, and when he looks, the prisoner is gone and Phae is just sitting there! I track the footprints of the prisoner to the center of the room and then they disappear. Beren is waking everyone up. There doesn't seem to be any help for Phae. Aranashator begins to hum. Miranda casts detect evil and looks around slowly. Landroval gets a little carried away swinging the sword around, and Aranashator starts whistling loudly, blue light arcing around. Miranda and I head down the stairs (where the prisoner must have gone). Miranda shoots at the invisible elf at the same time I cast dispel magic. The arrow hits her and all magical effects on her are gone. We discuss a trial. We've been wanting to start a new town, and here's our first official trial. But the seven of us will have to be the jury; Danarn can be the prosecutor but who will be the defense? Aranashator volunteers whole-heartedly. We decide to do it. Danarn lists the charges: theft, assault, attacking the town, destruction of property, etc. etc. Aranashator speaks of his client being on a mission more holy than we imagine (this is all through Landroval). He says, "My client was sent to recover an artifact og freat power, and her masters would have tortured her beyond belief if she did not obey. She serves the creators of the world, large than any gods put together. The ones you now call 'gods' banished all knowledge of the creators, and now only the 'faithful' can awaken them." Beren points out that raiding a small town by tricking and killing the villagers as a side adventure doesnt exactly fit the holy crusader image. What follows is some notes I jotted down about the lengthy interrogation session, where we try to get all the useful information out of this sun-elf before we kill her. The creators are older than gods; the Black Order are the ones who will kill us all. They are looking for the "swords of light." More than 5,000 rune weapons were made; less than 100 of both light and dark are left. He who sleeps: The client has no comment. However, Aranashator volunteers that this refers to one of the Old Ones, who were imprisoned by the younger gods 100,000 years ago. Those we now call gods had magic we can't comprehend and created rune swords with the help of the Old Ones, and then defeated them. The "Faithful" are those who serve the original race. The "true and faithful race of Minotaurs" are the ones with cloven feet and are all bastards. This particular elf was recruited from Waterdeep, along with her sister (who is now toast in the hallway). They were to be paid very well for helping the minotaurs. Yes, the name on the scroll is an Old One. Does she know where any other rune weapons are? Yes, there is one wielded by a champion of evil, and it is called Soulwalker. It is a scimitar that can steal your soul with the merest scratch. Her boss has it. She doesn't know his name or how to contact him; only as a shadowy figure, "Brother of Night." Always appears in an illusion. The rune weapons are the only thing that a mortal could wield to possibly fight an Old One. Their group only raided the town to get some cash to pay off the dragon in the ruins instead of fighting it. They never saw the dragon (named Elithare), but spoke to an elf instead. Closing statement: she will plead our lives to her master if we let her go and hand over Aranashator. (HA!) We sentence her to death. Lighting shoots from Aranashator and kills her (he can do electricity blast for 6d6 as a ranged touch attack, 3x/day). With that, we get some sleep. The next morning, we are ready to head down the passage to the left, the only remaining way to go. (Aranashator is a +4 longsword, keen, extra attack, and +d6 electric damage with every hit.) After a ways, it opens up to a big cavern. We can see the entrance to it from down the passage. There are two marble statues, one on either side of the opening. Looks like angels, but really grotesque: their hands are chopped off, they are gagged, and their eyes are gouged out (all carved into the marble). As we get nearer, we discover that there is a silence spell in effect within 30' of the statues. Looking out into the cavern, Phae sees a small shiny pile way out at the edge of her vision. Maybe a pile of coins? Looks like about 20 platinum pieces stacked neatly. Landroval casts spider climb and goes on in on one wall. Dorn follows. He sees a larger pile of coins, farther into the cavern. Everyone mostly follows in at this point, spread out on the right hand wall. It's very quiet in here. Dorn shoots an arrow at the first pile of coins, toppling the stacks. Miranda then shoots a light arrow into the cavern, which reveals a 10' tall elf walking toward us!!! This really freaks Gwaihir out--did you see that movie Event Horizon, where the lights are going on and off, and suddenly they come on and the chick is there? Too scary. Anyway, this rather large elf coming toward us is quite good looking, wearing lots of gems, a beautiful red robe, carrying a staff. His skin is very white. He tells us to leave all of our money and magic items and we may leave in peace. Landroval tries to ask his name, but he won't answer. We gather in front of him to talk (except Beren, who's off to one side, and Gwaihir, who's back by the entrance); when all of a sudden, he breathes a massive breath on us, spilling out green gas over us all! With that, he transforms into a dragon and the combat begins! The dragon roars and scares Phae, Corbin, and Beren, who go running off immediately. Then he flies up into the air and attacks from there! It chomps on Miranda, gets Landroval with one of its claws, and Danarn just gets hit with all kinds of things. Things are indeed looking grim! With the dragon 20' off the ground, no one can reach it with their weapons! (By this time, Phae, Corbin, and Beren are running back; and Gwaihir has come forward to join the fray.) Next round, Landroval gets the initiative and runs up onto Dorn's back. He then leaps upward, Aranashator in hand, getting high enough to attack! He gets in two good hits (thanks to Aranashator's speed) for 41 points of damage! Unfortunately, on the way down he tumbles a little poorly and takes a small amount of damage from the second, larger pile of platinum coins. Then the dragon attacks... Danarn gets hit first for massive, Dorn gets clawed badly, then the dragon makes a critical hit on Landroval, dealing all kinds of damage! Landroval goes flying, mauled horribly, and lands in an unmoving heap. Dorn picks up Aranashator from him and aims it at the dragon, letting the sword shoot out its bolt of lightning (for 32 pts!). I run straight for my brother, but it's too late. He's dead. Miranda gets transformed by something--at least she's floating off the ground and might be able to hit the thing. Next round, I point Aranashator at the dragon for good damage. Corbin smites for the third time, really getting it! The dragon turns and flies off. We chase after it, catch it, and slaughter the thing. Miranda heals Danarn (who was quite badly hurt). So we want to loot. I tend to the body of my brother while some of the others find the dragon's hoard: about 83,000 gp worth of coin, jewelry, figurines, and art; 40 pp, 13 gems (4 hematite x25gp, 3 amethyst x100gp, 1 emerald sapphire x5,000gp, 2 black things, 1 black emerald x2,000gp, and 2 pearls x300gp), one ring with a ram's head (which Dorn puts on and tries out), one set of full plate armor, and one longsword. Dorn says, "Well, Landroval's not here, someone's got to try this stuff out," and points his ring out ahead of him. "Go!" he says. With that, we see a shape of a huge ram's head hitting the wall, there's a thud, and dust falls from the ceiling. Corbin has a raise dead scroll, but he won't be able to do it until morning. He casts some spell to keep the body fresh until then, and Aranashator insists on being wrapped with the body. Meanwhile, others are butchering the dragon, skinning it, drinking its blood. Danarn does it first and goes floating off into the air. Dorn turns a lovely shade of blue, Miranda spreads flowers wherever she walks, and Corbin just gets wide-eyed and jittery. We decide to stay there for the night, rather than leave the loot. When the morning comes, Corbin successfully casts raise dead from the scroll, so Landroval is raised completely with only a single loss of level. (Hurray!) Then we have the problem of how to get this stuff out of here. We could use the cart that was in the other cavern; but what do we load up? We could fill it with coin, or we could take the items, some of the dragon stuff, and about half the coin. We decide on that. Dorn wishes that he had a mount to help pull the cart, and one appears! (Whoa.) I transform into a nice big strong horse , and help pull (since Dorn's mount won't be around all the way back to town). And so, we trundle off back to the manor house. When we arrive, we find that repairs seem to have been going well. There are a few unusual characters milling about: like three minotaurs (none with cloven feet) and a weird halfling. One of the minotaurs is Kain, the nephew of Kord (so that's cool). The halfling is built like a solid brick. According to Kain, he is their "battlepriest," and he goes by "the Vicious One." We get a little news from Olga--there were Drow sighted in the woods, and something about a dragon running rampant in Justford. Apparently Danarn needs to apologize to Olga for something. She doesn't like drow, but says it's our house. Dorn goes with Danarn to help smooth Olga over for the apology (she likes Dorn!). We keep the minotaurs and dwarves away from the wagon full of gems (thanks Corbin!) for long enough to get it inside and stash the money in the secret mage's room downstairs that Landroval claimed. Dorn meets with the halfling--maybe confronts is a better word. This guy is dumb as a post, with a chip on his shoulder, not to mention the filed teeth and shaved head. His quote at this time is: "The only thing you can chop heads off of is a sandwich!" Riiight... Phae has her books for translation from Norster. These will allow her to translate the books we found here in the manor house. Olga's stew that night is not bad! The dwarves have converted one of the lounges in the house into a kind of barracks. We will get to sleep in our new beds upstairs for the first time. That evening, Miranda is out for a walk when she spots a lone figure on the road: an older man with a gnarled staff, white and blue robe, bald on top. She greets him. He replies, "Ah, Miranda of Coldwater, I've been looking for you...." Dorn is boozing it up with the dwarves and minotaurs. I put Landroval to bed for some recovery and then join the fun, but not drinking quite as much as Dorn does. By the end of the night, he has to be dragged off to bed by Olga. Well, all's well that ends well!
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