Duendewood: Drood's Brood

In the dragon's lair with seven small dragons... but we will have that treasure.

Martini moves into the room, silently as only a rogue can, and invisible because she's also an assassin. Ruin moves up the passage behind her, but stays out of sight.

Unfortunately, one of the dragons hears Martini and comes to investigate her space. Another one hears Azrael moving up behind Ruin, and pops around to look down the hall, putting it more or less face-to-face with Ruin. "Brothers! There's someone in the lair!"

Ruin: "No there's not."

Geddy casts Invisibility Sphere, and Ruin steps up diagonally and attacks the dragonling, hitting it once. It and two of its brothers promptly cover him in acid.

Azrael responds with Black Tentacles, grappling at all six dragonlings and barely missing Martini, who is on the ceiling. Five of the six are now grappled by tentacles.

Martini moves outside of the tentacles and drops to the floor, deliberately making some noise.

Geddy drops a Rage spell on Ruin, who attacks the un-grappled dragon in front of him and injures it some more. It flies away, dodging between the tentacles.

One of the dragonlings rips loose from the tentacles, and flies out of the tentacles as well. The other four take damage from the tentacles. Azrael drops a fireball into the middle of the tentacles, scorching the four trapped dragonlings.

Martini steps up and pulls a full round of sneak attacks on the dragonling nearest her, which takes it down. Another turns and cries out for the death of its brother.

Geddy drops the hypnotic rainbow pattern on the trapped dragons, mesmerizing one of them. Another tears loose from the tentacles and moves out to the edge of the room. The two dragons who haven't used their breath weapons turn them on Martini, who spins aside (as rogues do) and takes no damage; the last one apparently hasn't learned anything from this and tries as well.

Two more dragonlings die of tentacles, and Martini turns invisible again. The last of the trapped dragonlings tries to escape but fails; two other spit acid at where they think Martini might be (but isn't). The last of the dragons in the tentacles goes down.

At this point, Martini is caught on one side of the tentacles with all three remaining dragons; the rest of us are caught back in the passageway, on the other side of the tentacles, with no go line-of-sight on anything.

Martini ambushes another dragonling, and perforates it. There are two left. They move in on Martini, trying to attack her.

Azrael swaps places with us, then Dimension Doors the three of us in past the tentacles. He switches us around in the process, so Ruin is flanking one of the dragonlings... and Martini takes advantage of its distraction and just wipes it out. She even manages to stab the one remaining dragon.

It cowers back into the corner: "Please! Call off the shadow-slayer!"

Martini: "Can I keep you as a pet?"

Dragon: "Oh please! Accept my loyalty, dark mistress!"

We have acquired a dragon pet/ally named Tetsuo, who is... not in good shape. He's been squeezed, burnt, stabbed... Martini pulls some meat out of her pack and hands it to the dragonling. Martini totally manages to persuade the thing to join us.

We start gathering treasure. It's... a lot: 40500 gp, 33000 sp, 90000 cp.

Plus:
1. Arcane Scroll (Charm Person (25 gp), Detect Secret Doors (25 gp), Spider Climb (150 gp)) (total 200 gp)
2. Arcane Scroll (Disguise Self (25 gp), Calm Emotions (200 gp)) (total 225 gp)
3. Divine Scroll (Doom (25 gp), Owl's Wisdom (150 gp)) (total 175 gp)
4. Divine Scroll (Entangle (25 gp), Faerie Fire (25 gp), Bear's Endurance (150 gp)) (total 200 gp)
5. Divine Scroll (Snare (150 gp), Snare (375 gp)) (total 525 gp)
Mike M. (GM):6. Feather Token (swan boat) (450 gp)
7. Potion of Bear's Endurance (300 gp)
8. Potion of Blur (300 gp)
9. Potion of Cat's Grace (300 gp)
10. 2 x Potion of Cure Light Wounds (50 gp)
11. Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds (300 gp)
12. Potion of Mage Armor (50 gp)
13. Ring of Mind Shielding (8000 gp)
14. Ring of Swimming (2500 gp)
15. Ring of Water Walking (15000 gp)
16. Staff of Earth and Stone (14 of 50 charges) (design provides clue to function) (22540 gp)
17. Wand of Knock (10 of 50 charges) (design provides clue to function) (Dependent curse) (900 gp)
18. Wand of Animate Dead (8 of 50 charges) (3360gp)

We hand the ring of mind shielding, the wands and the potion of mage armor and the swan feather token over to Geddy; Ruin takes the potions of Blur, Cat's Grace, and Bear's Endurance; The ring of water walking goes to Martini; and Azrael starts picking over the scrolls. Ruin grabs the ring of swimming, and Azrael takes the staff of Earth and Stone.

We also transport the money back to the wagon, which takes several trips. As we're dumping this stuff in the wagon, we notice that Eva is sitting in the back looking bloodied.

Ruin: "You're looking a bit rough. Bad dreams?"

Eva: "Uncle Geddy... can I talk to you alone?"

Geddy and Eva wander a little ways back. "So you know that dragon that came to help you guys?"

Geddy: "That was awesome! Very impressive."

Eva: "What would you say if that was me?"

Geddy: "Awesome."

Eva: "So... I was afraid you guys wouldn't help me save my sister if you knew she was a dragon. Because the wizardws are kind of... controlling her."

Geddy: "Look! Ring of Mind Shielding! If we can get it onto her finger, it might help."

Eva: "Will that work?"

Geddy: "If it doesn't, we have a million other plans. The other guys, they're assholes but they're the nicest assholes I've ever met."

Eva: "You're the greatest, uncle Geddy!"

Geddy: "So we're straight-shooting from here?"

She leaps in and starts bringing stuff out of the cave. Then she comes back and finds Martini with our new pet/buddy Tetsuo. "Wait, you can't take the Eeeevil dragon with you."

Ruin: "No, this is his chance to learn to be a good dragon. Or we kill him."

Eva's not going to ride in the same seats with him. There's a certain amount of harrumphing at each other, but they leave each other alone.

We continue on for another seven days, until we come out on the edge of Mar Dentro - an inland superlake (OOC: roughly the size of Lake Ontario). Azrael has added Spider Climb to his spellbook, and following the edge of the lake is faster; we might actually catch up with the servants of Vecna.

We're traveling along the edge of the lake, with Geddy and Eva up front, the lake on our right, Ruin on the roof, and the occasional dragon overhead. Apparently this was a major center of dragon activity, and there are still some really ancient and powerful ones around; Eva opens up enough to share that with us.

So there's a moment where a shadow passes over the wagon, and this really monstrously large red dragon passes overhead.

Eva: "We should hide."

Geddy calls us out and makes us invisible with Sphere of Inivisibility. The shadow goes out over the lake...

...and then a big-ass dragon dips into the lake and comes back out with this six-foot-long fish in its mouth. It stops facing the wagon.

Then he rips apart our horses, opens one side of the wagon, and starts rummaging through it. We just... sit and wait as it takes our copper and silver and a bunch of mundane treasure, and flies back off with its fish.

By now our invisibility has worn off, and we're hearing some sort of bubbling from the lake. There are some crustaceans that were dug in beneath the sand at the edge of the water; they start moving in on the wagon now that the dragon's gone.

Azrael, vaguely annoyed, drops Acid Fog and a quickened Web. He catches five of the six in the webs, and tags them with a bit of acid damage. Ruin charges out and attacks; Martini tumbles between two of them, and winds up flanking one of them with Ruin.

The two crustaceans move in on Ruin, and one of them grapples him. The ones in the acid cloud take damage, and Azrael blasts one of them with a scorching ray. Ruin tears himself back out of the claw, and Geddy angles himself to shoot and puts a couple of crossbow bolts into the crustaceans.

Martini shifts over and attacks the monster that hasn't been injured yet. And striking from behind, with flanking, she just rips it apart.

It dies.

The one that broke loose from the webs moves to the rest of the party; Azrael steps back and drops another scorching ray on it and finishes it.

Ruin kills the shit out of the beast in front of him. Tetsuo flies up tot he roof of the wagon and hits them with his acid breath weapon. They take further damage from the acid cloud, and Ruin eases around the edge and takes out another one.

We move around a little, and Ruin smacks another crustacean; Martini moves in beside him and tags the thing as well, finishing it off. The last one remains caught in the webs, and Tetsuo attacks but misses.

Ruin and Martini move around, settling in either side of Tetsuo, who tears into the remaining crustacean... who remains caught in the web, and the acid. This whole battlefiend smells like Red Lobster.

Tetsuo uses his breath weapon again, and finishes him off.

We have cleared out the crustaceans.

Tetsuo is eager to go into the water and see if the crab-things had treasure; Geddy uses the wand to restore the horses.

We stop to camp here. He's come back up with treasure.

Arcane Scroll (Magic Circle against Chaos/Evil/Good/Law (375 gp)) (total 375 gp)
2 x Heavy Steel Shield (Medium) (+1 shield) (1170 gp)
Ioun Stone (dusty rose prism) (5000 gp)
Oil of Magic Weapon (50 gp)
Mike M. (GM):Potion of Blur (300 gp)
Potion of Cure Light Wounds (50 gp)
Potion of Owl's Wisdom (300 gp)

The dragon keeps the coin, and hands us the magic stuff and art. Tetsuo is starting his own little horde.