In the month of Wintermarch, as the snowmelt began, the thaig received a visitor from Nevarra - Auric Pentaghast. He told the tale of how he had tried to slay a young dragon in his home country, who fled after killing his apprentice. For months he tracked the dragon, until at last he found her in a ruined tower on an island in the middle of a frozen glacial lake in the Frostback Mountains. The dragon had made her lair in the middle of the tower, where there was a breach in the wall. Pentaghast had tried to take on the dragon alone, but she was guarded by a pack of drakes, which made approaching her undetected impossible. Hearing of the thaig, he had come looking for adventurers who will aid him.
Now news of the dragon roosting near the thaig caused concern among the dwarves, for a dragon roosted to raise her brood, and when her eggs hatched she would no doubt begin hunting for food to raise the dragonlings, and her hunting could quickly strip an area of prey and drive her to attack man and dwarves alike. The records found in the halls of records indicated that the tower found by Pentaghast was likely the High Gate of the thaig, which of old was where the dwarves had their trade with nations west of the Frostback Mountains. Rolf Khundar thus gave permission for Pentaghast to take the Long Stairs to reach the High Gate, on the condition that he would keep the head of the dragon.
Pentaghast tried to recruit the adventurers, but the Orlesians considered the venture suicidal. Our heroes (see PC profiles here) were skeptical of Pentaghast's credentials, as although he came from a famous family of dragon hunters, no one had slain a dragon in more than a hundred years. Nevertheless, when they were offered each an equal share of the value of the gold that the carcass of the dragon would fetch, they agreed.
But before they embarked on the quest, our heroes wanted to test their mettle against the drakes, which the Avvars told them were taking prey in their lands. They laid the carcass of a deer out as bait, and when the drakes arrived they attacked, and quickly slew three of them. Their confidence boosted, they began preparation for the hunt, and had an arbalest fashioned for them by the dwarves, from which they purposed to launch a harpoon to catch the dragon to prevent her from fleeing.
Venturing east from the Quarters District, they came upon the High District of the thaig, which did not have the signs of carnage they witnessed in the other districts of the thaig - it seemed that the higher caste dwarves had evacuated the district in good order before the thaig fell. They soon found the long stairs - its stone steps wide enough for four dwarves to walk abreast - which ascended some five hundred yards over three thousand steps to reach the base of High Gate Tower.
As soon as they entered the tower they were attacked by drakes, which they overcame. Venturing further, they came across more drakes, guarding the stairs that led up into the tower, and by means of a sudden assault were able to slay all of them before they could flee and alert the dragon.
Ascending the tower, they at last came to the chamber where the dragon laired, sleeping atop the clutch of eggs she had laid. With Lorca's aid, Boggart launched the harpoon at the dragon. The bolt pierced the hide of the beast, but only barely; yet the barb had taken, and did not come free. The dragon let out a mighty roar and charged at the intruders - all but Lorca and Zunn turned and fled, and the two were engulfed in dragon breath. But the others soon regained their wits, and returned to aid their friends.
With so many attackers, the battle soon turned against the dragon. She severed the rope attached to the harpoon, and then turned her breath onto her own eggs, choosing to burn them than to have them fall into the hands of men, and fled through the breach in the wall.
Lorca had fallen to the dragon's breath also, and despite Bertil's magic the burns on his skin and his throat would not heal. Pentaghast told our heroes that the burns from a dragon's breath did not easily heal by magic, and instead told them to feed Lorca the blood of the dragon that remained on the tip of the harpoon. This they did, and instantly Lorca began to breath better, and they began their long trek back to the thaig.
Prepping and Running the Game
I have foreshadowed the dragon hunt by prefacing the previous few sessions with news of dragon sighting. When Lorca's player reached level 4 and took the Reaver specialisation, I asked him to delay the features he is supposed to receive until we could play this session, since the rules suggested that a ritual involving the drinking of a dragon's blood be required.
According to the lore, dragons were though to have been extinct for more than a hundred years by the time of campaign, hunted by the famed dragon hunters of Nevarra. I thus decided to involve one of them, specifically a Pentaghast, of the royal house of Nevarra. However, as no one had slain a dragon in more than a century, I reasoned that he was probably learned in the theory of hunting dragons, but lacked practical experience. As such, I played my as a pompous middle-aged nobleman who sought to overstate his abilities. I had a lot of fun roleplaying him, while the players were (probably just as their characters would have been) both annoyed and amused by his pretensions.
I left the preparation for the hunt to my players, and they rose to the occasion, suggesting a practice fight against drakes to gauged their threat level, and commissioning an arbalest.
The next session will take place in a couple of weeks, but we have a wargames session scheduled, so stay tuned.
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