Session 14: "Into the Storm Dragon's Den; or, The Ruff Raiders' Revenge."
(November 11)
Lord Gimgem, head of the Rajgani Swords, has invited the party to stay in the VIP guest quarters within the Valorium, the main military citadel and training grounds in Rajgan. Each member of the party has their own room and access to the councils of Gimgem and other high-ranking officials within the Empire.
After the dockside showdown with Sashi and his gang, Dara settles into her new quarters to meditate. The specter that had once been the warlock Ignominy still accompanies her; ordinarily a specter Dara has summoned will dissipate during Dara's rest. Ignominy, however, seems to grow stronger, solidifying as Dara's link to her dissolves. Ignominy seems to knit together the broken remains of her body around her spirit, straightening crushed limbs, her hair turning a white so blinding it almost appears black.
In a whisper that carries with it the sound of raven caws, Ignominy warns Dara, "There is no escape for us, sister. The Mother of Sorrows always claims her own." Ignominy and Dara share the Raven Queen as their patron; they are sisters in service to the Queen. Released from Dara's hold, Ignominy's spirit is being drawn back into the Raven Queen's service before Dara's eyes. Ignominy tells Dara that the Raven Queen collects tragedies, and that some say the Queen creates tragedies. "What is more tragic than one sister killing another? Beware that you aren't helping Her shape a yet greater tragedy." With that, Ignominy loses her autonomy and becomes a blank-eyed servant of the Raven Queen. She casts one last cold glance at Dara before turning into a cloud of black birds and flying out a window.
In the morning, the party meets with Admiral Pethai, the head of the Winged College, for a briefing about their new quarry: the renegade wyvern rider Gargax and his fellow deserters. Pethai has located an informant, a young wood elf wyvern rider named Orry Axillar, who would have fled with the others had he not happened to be in the brig for harassing a female cadet. (He currently bears a black eye and a broken nose the cadet gave him.) Orry told Pethai's investigators that he had been recruited by Corporal Tahu, the deserter the party had met earlier. Tahu told him that the renegade faction called themselves the Brotherhood of the Storm, and that they had a secret hideout somewhere in the Lathini rain forests. He was told to fly high and bear six degrees starboard of true north for three days' journey, and to look for "the Stormcloud."
Admiral Pethai gives each member of the party a ring of feather falling, which is standard issue within the Winged College. She also tells the party that the Lathini Forests are a realm of small towns and independent states that retain their independence partly by how difficult it is to invade the vast forests, and partly thanks to the protection of benign dragons. These dragons don't rule the way Rajgan's Empress Sulana does, but they do protect and foster the humanoids within their territories.
The party flies north in their airship The Wind Wyvern. After three days' flight they see a vast, stationary storm cloud high above the jungles, lightning flickering along its base. The cloud vaguely resembles a castle built in the sky. With the aid of the spyglass, they see the tiny shapes of wyverns and their companions flying and patrolling around the high "turrets" of the cloud, sometimes landing upon the surface as if it were solid, in other places slipping inside as if it were an ordinary cloud.
They pilot the ship to take advantage of passing clouds to get closer while buying themselves time to plan. They decide to approach head-on, flying the colors of the giff mercenaries who had originally owned the airship, while Ward disguises herself and the rest of the party as tough mercenaries. Ward disguises herself as none other than Sashi, coming to warn Gargax that Orry flipped his loyalties and that a company of adventurers is a day's flight behind them, on their way to battle the Brotherhood.
Soon enough, Gargax himself, along with two human Brothers, arrives on wyvern-back, demanding to know why the party is approaching the Stormcloud. Ward and Vaelin convince Gargax of their ruse, but Gargax says he must return to talk to his boss, Galomere.
Gargax returns with a young silver dragon—who proves to be none other than Galomere himself. Galomere perches on the airship's forward cannon, then shifts to a human guise to admire its craftsmanship, saying he's never seen one like it before. He takes a liking to the rough-and-ready mercenaries who call themselves the Ruff Raiders, and expresses his admiration for the ambitious drive of humanoids (and especially humans). He says that dragons could learn a lot from humans.
Galomere tells the tale of how he came to own the Stormcloud. An ancient silver dragon named Arjend had fashioned the Stormcloud out of real clouds, using his silver dragon magic to solidify it into an intricate lair. Galomere scoffs at Arjend's memory, saying that Arjend had given away his hoard to aid the humanoids in his territories below, giving them silver and other help during times of famine and strife until nothing of his hoard remained. By that time Arjend was weakening with age. Galomere arrived, pretending to admire the elder dragon until he had won Arjend's trust—whereupon Galomere slew him with a silver sword. The ambitious young Galomere reversed Arjend's policies, using force and terror to extract wealth from the humanoid towns and farms in the forest below, taking inspiration from human empire builders.
Gargax met Galomere quite by chance while on a patrol, and the blue dragonborn quickly became Galomere's chief follower, thirsty for conquest, riches, and glory unavailable as a mere protector of Rajgan. He accumulated ambitious and disaffected riders from the Winged College, and with this force began aiding Galomere's campaign of greed, helping shake down reluctant townsfolk and kidnapping respected members of the forest communities to ensure the cooperation of their loved ones.
Galomere wants to recruit the "Ruff Raiders" to his cause, offering to employ them so long as they can earn their keep by raiding the lands below. The party follows him into the Stormcloud, landing the airship in a "hangar" hollowed into the cloud. They discuss details at a dinner. Ward and Vaelin persuade Gargax to send most of his forces to confront the adventurers a day's flight behind them; Gargax selects his best fighters and departs after dinner, leaving only five Brothers to watch the prisoners and patrol the Stormcloud.
Galomere lets slip that the prisoners are housed in layers of cloud above, and his own hoard is below. He says that the lair is defended by various traps—some benign ones set by the late Arjend, some deadlier ones of Galomere's own devising. He permits the party to return to their ship as they please, but warns them that he will hunt them down if they leave and betray him.
As soon as Galomere goes to rest on his hoard, the party acts. They head upward to free the prisoners, encountering what appears to be a door, but is actually a transformed lightning bolt, waiting to discharge when anyone uses the dispel magic spell. However, there are lightning rods, which the party sets up before Ward uses a dispel magic scroll; the lightning door discharges harmlessly, and the party proceeds up to the prison level.
There they find about a dozen humanoid prisoners housed in crudely fashioned cells made of boards, guarded only by one sleepy elf and his wyvern. Ward makes an illusory feast out of her sword, and presents it to the guard, who is bitter at being left behind while his Brothers are taking the fight to the skies. Ward stabs him while Vaelin bashes him with his shield, and Sunrise rushes to subdue the wyvern using an immovable rod—but the monk fails, and the wyvern attempts to strike at him. A brief battle ensues, with the guard surrendering in order to spare his wyvern. Guard and wyvern are placed in the crude cells while the prisoners—a mix of different humanoids kidnapped from their forest communities—are set free, and told to head to the airship for evacuation.
The adventurers deal with the remaining Brothers, and head down to confront Galomere. At the entrance to the hoard, they encounter a benign puzzle set by Arjend: a silver door with a keyhole, a large chalcedony statue of a dwarven smith, and scattered lumps of chalk in the corners of the room. Dara tries to do a chalk rubbing on the smith's silver anvil, and the anvil produces a sheet of blank paper. Vaelin draws a crude key, and the anvil produces a silver key which exactly fits the lock and opens the door.
As soon as the door opens, a furious blast of frigid air hits the party, the entrance fills with fog, and Galomere roars upon realizing that he's been betrayed. The battle begins.
Dara edges into the room until she clears the fog, and hexes the dragon, who has launched himself into the air above his hoard. Sunrise rushes up a series of ledges (which hold historical treasures of little monetary value, including mummified skulls of the ancestors, entrusted by forest communities to Arjend's protection) and tries his hand at shooting the dragon with a pistol, but he can't get close enough for an effective shot. Ward and Vaelin rush straight into the room, readying themselves for any melee attack from the dragon.
The battle goes poorly for the party at first, thanks to the dragon's flying ability. But then Sunrise recalls that he has a potion of flying and uses it to bring his magical fists against the dragon. He manages to knock Galomere prone, allowing Vaelin and Ward to rush in and engage with their swords. One of Galomere's fangs is knocked out by Vaelin's shield-bash.
Badly wounded, Galomere attempts to surrender—he's a young dragon with thousands of years of lifespan ahead of him, so this one setback isn't worth giving up his life. The adventurers refuse to accept his surrender, however, and the brawl continues. When Galomere takes to the air again, attempting to escape via passageways to the outside, Vaelin snags him with a grappling hook, and he and Ward start climbing toward the dragon while Sunrise chases him in the air and Dara keeps on eldritch blasting. Vaelin manages to position himself atop the dragon, and stuns him into falling 120 feet to the ground below; Vaelin remains uninjured thanks to his ring of feather falling.
Galomere succumbs at last, felled by one final punch from Sunrise.
In Galomere's hoard, they find:
300 gp
9000 sp
A robe of useful items
A ring of resistance to fire
A silver chalice set with moonstones, worth 750 gp
An ancient golden war mask, worth 750 gp
A pair of carved ivory statuettes, in the shape of boars, worth 250 gp apiece
A potion of heroism
They also find a magic silver sword of strange manufacture, of a design unknown on Quol'. Using the identify spell, Ward determines that it functions as a +2 longsword, and when attuned to its user, it grants resistance to psychic damage. However, she is unable to learn more about who made it or where it comes from.
Lord Gimgem, head of the Rajgani Swords, has invited the party to stay in the VIP guest quarters within the Valorium, the main military citadel and training grounds in Rajgan. Each member of the party has their own room and access to the councils of Gimgem and other high-ranking officials within the Empire.
After the dockside showdown with Sashi and his gang, Dara settles into her new quarters to meditate. The specter that had once been the warlock Ignominy still accompanies her; ordinarily a specter Dara has summoned will dissipate during Dara's rest. Ignominy, however, seems to grow stronger, solidifying as Dara's link to her dissolves. Ignominy seems to knit together the broken remains of her body around her spirit, straightening crushed limbs, her hair turning a white so blinding it almost appears black.
In a whisper that carries with it the sound of raven caws, Ignominy warns Dara, "There is no escape for us, sister. The Mother of Sorrows always claims her own." Ignominy and Dara share the Raven Queen as their patron; they are sisters in service to the Queen. Released from Dara's hold, Ignominy's spirit is being drawn back into the Raven Queen's service before Dara's eyes. Ignominy tells Dara that the Raven Queen collects tragedies, and that some say the Queen creates tragedies. "What is more tragic than one sister killing another? Beware that you aren't helping Her shape a yet greater tragedy." With that, Ignominy loses her autonomy and becomes a blank-eyed servant of the Raven Queen. She casts one last cold glance at Dara before turning into a cloud of black birds and flying out a window.
In the morning, the party meets with Admiral Pethai, the head of the Winged College, for a briefing about their new quarry: the renegade wyvern rider Gargax and his fellow deserters. Pethai has located an informant, a young wood elf wyvern rider named Orry Axillar, who would have fled with the others had he not happened to be in the brig for harassing a female cadet. (He currently bears a black eye and a broken nose the cadet gave him.) Orry told Pethai's investigators that he had been recruited by Corporal Tahu, the deserter the party had met earlier. Tahu told him that the renegade faction called themselves the Brotherhood of the Storm, and that they had a secret hideout somewhere in the Lathini rain forests. He was told to fly high and bear six degrees starboard of true north for three days' journey, and to look for "the Stormcloud."
Admiral Pethai gives each member of the party a ring of feather falling, which is standard issue within the Winged College. She also tells the party that the Lathini Forests are a realm of small towns and independent states that retain their independence partly by how difficult it is to invade the vast forests, and partly thanks to the protection of benign dragons. These dragons don't rule the way Rajgan's Empress Sulana does, but they do protect and foster the humanoids within their territories.
The party flies north in their airship The Wind Wyvern. After three days' flight they see a vast, stationary storm cloud high above the jungles, lightning flickering along its base. The cloud vaguely resembles a castle built in the sky. With the aid of the spyglass, they see the tiny shapes of wyverns and their companions flying and patrolling around the high "turrets" of the cloud, sometimes landing upon the surface as if it were solid, in other places slipping inside as if it were an ordinary cloud.
They pilot the ship to take advantage of passing clouds to get closer while buying themselves time to plan. They decide to approach head-on, flying the colors of the giff mercenaries who had originally owned the airship, while Ward disguises herself and the rest of the party as tough mercenaries. Ward disguises herself as none other than Sashi, coming to warn Gargax that Orry flipped his loyalties and that a company of adventurers is a day's flight behind them, on their way to battle the Brotherhood.
Soon enough, Gargax himself, along with two human Brothers, arrives on wyvern-back, demanding to know why the party is approaching the Stormcloud. Ward and Vaelin convince Gargax of their ruse, but Gargax says he must return to talk to his boss, Galomere.
Gargax returns with a young silver dragon—who proves to be none other than Galomere himself. Galomere perches on the airship's forward cannon, then shifts to a human guise to admire its craftsmanship, saying he's never seen one like it before. He takes a liking to the rough-and-ready mercenaries who call themselves the Ruff Raiders, and expresses his admiration for the ambitious drive of humanoids (and especially humans). He says that dragons could learn a lot from humans.
Galomere tells the tale of how he came to own the Stormcloud. An ancient silver dragon named Arjend had fashioned the Stormcloud out of real clouds, using his silver dragon magic to solidify it into an intricate lair. Galomere scoffs at Arjend's memory, saying that Arjend had given away his hoard to aid the humanoids in his territories below, giving them silver and other help during times of famine and strife until nothing of his hoard remained. By that time Arjend was weakening with age. Galomere arrived, pretending to admire the elder dragon until he had won Arjend's trust—whereupon Galomere slew him with a silver sword. The ambitious young Galomere reversed Arjend's policies, using force and terror to extract wealth from the humanoid towns and farms in the forest below, taking inspiration from human empire builders.
Gargax met Galomere quite by chance while on a patrol, and the blue dragonborn quickly became Galomere's chief follower, thirsty for conquest, riches, and glory unavailable as a mere protector of Rajgan. He accumulated ambitious and disaffected riders from the Winged College, and with this force began aiding Galomere's campaign of greed, helping shake down reluctant townsfolk and kidnapping respected members of the forest communities to ensure the cooperation of their loved ones.
Galomere wants to recruit the "Ruff Raiders" to his cause, offering to employ them so long as they can earn their keep by raiding the lands below. The party follows him into the Stormcloud, landing the airship in a "hangar" hollowed into the cloud. They discuss details at a dinner. Ward and Vaelin persuade Gargax to send most of his forces to confront the adventurers a day's flight behind them; Gargax selects his best fighters and departs after dinner, leaving only five Brothers to watch the prisoners and patrol the Stormcloud.
Galomere lets slip that the prisoners are housed in layers of cloud above, and his own hoard is below. He says that the lair is defended by various traps—some benign ones set by the late Arjend, some deadlier ones of Galomere's own devising. He permits the party to return to their ship as they please, but warns them that he will hunt them down if they leave and betray him.
As soon as Galomere goes to rest on his hoard, the party acts. They head upward to free the prisoners, encountering what appears to be a door, but is actually a transformed lightning bolt, waiting to discharge when anyone uses the dispel magic spell. However, there are lightning rods, which the party sets up before Ward uses a dispel magic scroll; the lightning door discharges harmlessly, and the party proceeds up to the prison level.
There they find about a dozen humanoid prisoners housed in crudely fashioned cells made of boards, guarded only by one sleepy elf and his wyvern. Ward makes an illusory feast out of her sword, and presents it to the guard, who is bitter at being left behind while his Brothers are taking the fight to the skies. Ward stabs him while Vaelin bashes him with his shield, and Sunrise rushes to subdue the wyvern using an immovable rod—but the monk fails, and the wyvern attempts to strike at him. A brief battle ensues, with the guard surrendering in order to spare his wyvern. Guard and wyvern are placed in the crude cells while the prisoners—a mix of different humanoids kidnapped from their forest communities—are set free, and told to head to the airship for evacuation.
The adventurers deal with the remaining Brothers, and head down to confront Galomere. At the entrance to the hoard, they encounter a benign puzzle set by Arjend: a silver door with a keyhole, a large chalcedony statue of a dwarven smith, and scattered lumps of chalk in the corners of the room. Dara tries to do a chalk rubbing on the smith's silver anvil, and the anvil produces a sheet of blank paper. Vaelin draws a crude key, and the anvil produces a silver key which exactly fits the lock and opens the door.
As soon as the door opens, a furious blast of frigid air hits the party, the entrance fills with fog, and Galomere roars upon realizing that he's been betrayed. The battle begins.
Dara edges into the room until she clears the fog, and hexes the dragon, who has launched himself into the air above his hoard. Sunrise rushes up a series of ledges (which hold historical treasures of little monetary value, including mummified skulls of the ancestors, entrusted by forest communities to Arjend's protection) and tries his hand at shooting the dragon with a pistol, but he can't get close enough for an effective shot. Ward and Vaelin rush straight into the room, readying themselves for any melee attack from the dragon.
The battle goes poorly for the party at first, thanks to the dragon's flying ability. But then Sunrise recalls that he has a potion of flying and uses it to bring his magical fists against the dragon. He manages to knock Galomere prone, allowing Vaelin and Ward to rush in and engage with their swords. One of Galomere's fangs is knocked out by Vaelin's shield-bash.
Badly wounded, Galomere attempts to surrender—he's a young dragon with thousands of years of lifespan ahead of him, so this one setback isn't worth giving up his life. The adventurers refuse to accept his surrender, however, and the brawl continues. When Galomere takes to the air again, attempting to escape via passageways to the outside, Vaelin snags him with a grappling hook, and he and Ward start climbing toward the dragon while Sunrise chases him in the air and Dara keeps on eldritch blasting. Vaelin manages to position himself atop the dragon, and stuns him into falling 120 feet to the ground below; Vaelin remains uninjured thanks to his ring of feather falling.
Galomere succumbs at last, felled by one final punch from Sunrise.
In Galomere's hoard, they find:
300 gp
9000 sp
A robe of useful items
A ring of resistance to fire
A silver chalice set with moonstones, worth 750 gp
An ancient golden war mask, worth 750 gp
A pair of carved ivory statuettes, in the shape of boars, worth 250 gp apiece
A potion of heroism
They also find a magic silver sword of strange manufacture, of a design unknown on Quol'. Using the identify spell, Ward determines that it functions as a +2 longsword, and when attuned to its user, it grants resistance to psychic damage. However, she is unable to learn more about who made it or where it comes from.
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