Tracking The Raiders
The group awakens the next day in Greenest's keep. They are surrounded by a multitude of townspeople who are injured, scared and dying from last nights attack. Governor Nighthill is doing his best to restore order in his town. He approaches the group with a mission.
Nighthill is bewildered by last nights raid. He wishes to know more about the group that perpetrated this atrocity. He tasks the group with tracking the retreating army and find out as much as they can about them. Where are they now? Who are they? Why did they attack and raid the town? Who are their leaders? Will they strike again, and where?
Harbek the dwarf is busy helping repair the town but he has come across his nephew in town and sent him over to the group as his replacement. The group is introduced to a six foot tall blue dragonborn named Smallfang.
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There is not much money left in the town but what small amount he can scrounge from the town coffers he offers them in compensation. 200 gold pieces per person is what they can afford. He gives them over to a clerc, Pippa Hillbelly, who will give the group what they need for their endeavour. The group asks for a few items such as travelling cloaks, a quarterstaff, horses and cart. Smallfang asks for healing potions. Pippa informs him that it would be near impossible to find healing potions after last night's attack but she is able to scrounge 4 vials for the group.
They travel through rolling countryside following the deep scattered tracks of the large raiding party of last night until the land begins to grow rocky outcroppings. T'an is riding ahead standing in the stirrups scouting the landscape. He notices a smoking column coming from behind a rise in a rocky hill ahead. The party halts as he crawls along up to the crest of the hill. Below him within a large depression between hills is a collection of 4 humans and 8 kobolds arguing over whether or not to cook some prairie chickens. The humans are obviously the leaders of the group as they have taken to roasting the chickens over a fire while the larger group of kobolds looks on and grumbles and complains. A couple of the human raiders are removing their outer robes with the sigil of the Zhentarim faction of the shoulders. The same sigil that was on the monks that had decimated T'an's village just a few days ago. Were these raiders and the ones that killed T'an's family the same?
Stragglers
300 XP
The adventurers group together hiding just at the precipice above the arguing raiders below. The party decide to hit first and hit hard. T'an runs down the steep slope and slashes through two of the humans by the fire and is able to return back to the top of the precipice all in a flash. Smallfang rises up from behind the rocks and is able to skewer one of the humans right through the chest with his spear. Arno and Danifae lob spells in from above to devastating effect. This all happens before the raiders even realize they are under attack. Once the group raiders are able to come to their senses and weapons, the adventurers are able to move in again and kill. T'an runs at one of the humans and performs a bicycle kick crushing the skull of the human.
Smallfang snaps his neck with a simple squeeze.
T'an moves to the human which he has kept alive and moves his feet to the fire while positioning himself above the human, knife at the throat. The human awakes at the burning pain to find T'an above him. T'an and Danifae question him and find that he is only a hire mercenary. He has been paid to raid several towns, including Greenest, along with the rest of the assembled army. The human decides that he has said enough and spits at the feet of the group and says that he will not speak as they will probably kill him anyway. With threats of pain worse than death from T'an and a roasting stick thrust into the ground beside his head from Smallfang he changes his mind. He says that there is a dedicated group ahead which is supposed to be waiting to ambush any unwise townsfolk who may be following the raiding party in hopes of revenge or recovering treasure.
Danifae asks him his name. He is Lei.......gurgle.
T'an has opened his throat.
Arno says, "That was easy". It is then that the rock gnome realizes that he has used up much of his powerful spells only to find that there is a possible ambush that they will have to deal with.
After searching the area and bodies they come up with a few copper pieces and a few pieces of silverware that the group has obviously held back from the treasure hoard collected from the raid. The horses are able to come up the rise and down the slope easily enough but the cart is another matter. Smallfang simply turns the cart backwards, picks up the cart's shafts and proceeds to push it up the hill to the top of the precipice. Unfortunately the slope is too steep and the dragonborn looses his grip on the cart and it tumbles uncontrolled to the floor of the valley below. The axle and wheels are broken. They proceed without.
The Rearguard
275 XP
It is dusk now as they move to what they know to be an ambush site. They are wary and stop a few hundred yards away from an obvious ambush area as it had been described by the tortured human. Danifae, feeling now more in her element of approaching darkness, scouts forward trying to flank the ambushers. She moves steathly up to rocky slops, but not stealthily enough. Two acolytes who are waiting unleash their Sacred Flame. A large column of fire descends upon the drow. Unable to escape in time she is injured badly. That is until the second column of flame descends dropping the drow and leaving her lying unconscious.
T'an who was following closely behind Danifae is able to seek cover and releasing an arrow at the attackers kills one instantly. T'an is torn between keeping cover and trying to reach Danifae to keep her from dying. He is able to feint behind the rocky outcrops just enough to escape the same fiery column of death that had laid Danifae low.
Smallfang seeing the fiery spell decides to approach the site from the other flank but only to encounter several scimitar wielding cultists. They are quick to surround him as he tries to take cover behind rocks. Arno seeing this, sighs, and follows as quick as the gnomes little legs will carry him.
T'an has dealt with the stronger spell wielding acolytes on his side of the rocky outcrop and has poured a potion of healing down the throat of Danifae who quickly comes around. T'an runs to the edge of the outcrop which is separated by the other side by a 25 foot wide crevice below which was the path the cultists had hoped to ambush unwary travels in. T'an uses his arrows to fell a couple of humans on the other side which are harrying the others. Soon enough they are standing looking for more attackers and find none.
From their vantage point atop the rocks they see in the distance a vast swath of faint camp fire light. They have discovered the raiders camp. Moving more stealthily this time T'an and Danifae approach the site. Lying low among tall grasses they view a large horseshoe canyon below which is busy with activity. People are arriving carrying large carried bundles and carts filled with stolen goods from raids. The camp is distinctly divided into the kobold's area, human's area and finally the command center at the most protected area in the back.
After great debate, the group decides to enter the camp as fellow raiders. Slipping in among the returning raiders they pass guards who give them only a cursory glance. Smallfang, a dragonborn, seems to have no problem, either in spite of...or because of the fact that he is carrying a gnome by the head as he walks into the camp. T'an flashes his silver candlesticks which seems to bring looks of contempt at the paltry amount of treasure being brought in. Danifae who has donned the cultists robes found back at the ambush site, walks in but brings glances of suspicion, which is to foreshadow the rest of the encounter.
The Camp
2,100 XP
Moving through the camp the group tries to listen to conversations in order to collect information about the raiders. They easily see that the kobolds and humans do not mix together. Some of the humans here are simply hired mercenaries. But some of the humans are devout cultists of various rank. They befriend one of the mercenaries, by way of Danifae's spell Charm Person. They bring him back to his tent and there find out that one of the lead cultists is named Frulam Mondath, a female high ranking officer. The cave is being used as a store house for all the treasure as well as a place to try and raise dragon eggs as well as other dragon creatures. Hunters are used to bring in meat to feed these creatures in the cave. Greenest was only one of the nearby raids used to amass treasure in order to raise a dragon. The cave is guarded though day and night.
After killing him and cleaning up the mess they are barely able to escape notice of one of the higher ranking officers as he commands Danifae to go clean out the cesspools that the raiding camp has produced from the latrines. Danifae is fortunately able to pawn this horrible duty off on a junior acolyte....barely.
The soon come across an area guarded by four dragonclaws. It is a cage with several prisoners in it. T'an whispers "Leosin?" which results in a half-elf turning his head to face the group. T'an is able to jump across to the top of the cage and unshackle Leosin but T'an is surprised to hear Leosin reply that he does not want saving. He is here of his own accord to collect information. He feels that he can escape anytime he needs to. Smallfang intervenes by pointing out to the half-elf that the rest of the prisoners in the cage are in fact dead. This changes Leosin's mind. T'and simply picks the lock and jumps back to safety while Smallfang tosses a rope to Leosin and instructs him to tie himself to the rope and he will quickly pull him to safety past the guards who are on chains. Leosin, wary but wanting to escape, ties himself on. The quick and forceful pull from Smallfang is enough to pull him to the group but not without inflicting considerable damage. T'an tosses him a healing potion.
With that Leosin straightens his clothes and simply strides forth, passing several guards and walks right on out of the camp. The others seeing this stride in behind and do the same. All leave quite easily except Danifae who has to explain to one of the guards why he is carrying gold. But a bit of false accusations towards the kobolds fixes the problem.
Finally arriving back at Greenest's Keep, minus a couple of horses, the group rests and regroups.
The next morning, they are informed that Leosin is being called away to the city of Elturel. He and the governor implore the group to re-infiltrate the camp and somehow destroy the dragon's eggs that the cult is trying to hatch. Any treasure they may find is theirs. T'an says that they will need to be carrying treasure to get back in. With that Leosin's faction produces sacks of small treasure, worth about 150 gold pieces each as treasure that my get them back into the camp.
The spend the day preparing while Arno tries to rig up some sort of cart that will be able to withstand the weight of the dragonborn and still be able to move. The next day he reveals a weird contraption that is part tank and part wagon. It's not his best work but it will have to do. Once loaded up they depart back towards the raider's camp.
Returning To Camp
Once back near the camp, at a vantage point above the camp they see a camp much changed. Most of the tents are either gone or dismanted. No movement is seen in the remains except for a couple of humans near a camp fire near the mouth of the horseshoe valley.
Approaching them they are introduced to Kerner and Verner, brothers who have been hired to hunt and provide meat to the creatures within the cave. It seems that not everyone has departed the camp. The party learns that once Leosin's escape had been discovered as well as suspicions that a group had infiltrated the camp it was ordered the camp be disassembled and the treasure removed to an unknown location. What remains is the dragon's eggs and a few to guard them.
The group decides to approach the cave.
There is movement that they can see within.
Are they ready?
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