Synopsis:

Session begins mid-afternoon on November 18.  A light drizzle is carried on a southerly wind and the temperature is an unseasonable 50 degrees.  Kieren, Rhyawdd, and Dermid have just returned from collecting Kieren's daughter, Sarah, from a wise woman known as Denbecca.

Kieren introduces his daughter to the other party members and she exchanges pleasantries with them.  Sarah appears to know quite a bit about the individual party members and their recent exploits.  This knowledge surprises both them and Kieren.  Sarah must note this as she quickly explains that her father has told her much about the party and their travels.  Kieren, Rhyawdd, and Dermid know that this is not the case but they say nothing.

The party assembles in the basement of the Nine Fires Inn and discusses their course of action  for hours.  Several of the party members including the dwarves seem inclined to go after the dragon, Infyrana, who is either directly or indirectly responsible for the raids and strife between the clans.  The other members of the party are keen to head home with all haste.  Kieren has recovered his daughter, which was the goal of the expedition.  They did not bargain for tackling the dragon when they agreed to help Kieren on his quest.

The discussion is interrupted by a serving wench who asks the party if the intend to dine in the basement as it is nearing the dinner hour.  The party tells her that they will eat in the basement.  A short while later a hearty meal of lamb and venison is brought to the party.  They eat and continue their planning.

Shortly after dinner there is a ruckus in the kitchens and the acolyte known as William appears on the cellar stairs.  He is disheveled and appears winded.  The acolyte takes a moment to catch his breath and then proceeds to tell the party that they are in immediate peril as the Skaren and some MacLeod men are searching for them in the village.  William tells the party that the Skaren and MacLeods arrived in town before the dinner hour and began searching for the party.  They were headed to speak with Conor MacLeod just as he sent William to warn the party to flee Bracadale.

The party makes hasty arrangements to flee Bracadale.  The dwarves gather their stuff from the cellar and leave town.  Dermid goes along to lead them in the direction of the woods near Denbecca's cottage.  Meanwhile, Liana makes herself and Rhyawdd invisible so that they can return to the common room unseen.  The rest of the party leaves the inn via the back door in the kitchen and goes to the side of the inn beneath the window of their common room.  Kieren casts a sound bubble around the party to silence their activities.  Liana and Rhyawdd gather the party's equipment and toss it out of the common room window to the others.  Once this is done Rhyawdd lowers Liana out of the window and he climbs down to the ground.

The rest of the party makes a hasty departure from town and heads in the direction of Denbecca's cottage to the northeast..  The party follows the trail which rises out of town.  As they look back they can see many lit torches moving in the center of Bracadale.  Presumably these torches are carried by the people that are searching for the party.

After a while the party overtakes the slower moving dwarves and Dermid.  The regrouped party marches for an hour before entering the woods near Denbecca's cottage.  The party decides to make a camp that is well away from Denbecca's cottage so that she is not implicated in assisting them should they be tracked.  Liothien and Homer are sent back to the edge of the woods to act as advance scouts should there be any pursuit.

Sarah suggests to Kieren that they consult Denbecca for advice.  Kieren agrees and they go to her cottage while the remainder of the party makes a defensible camp.  Kieren and Sarah find Denbecca at her cottage and tell her about what has happened.  Denbecca agrees to scry the town to see what the situation is.  She casts an elaborate spell involving her bubbling cauldron and informs Kieren that there is a Skaren in Bracadale.  She also tells him that the Skaren is questioning the staff at the Nine Fires inn.  Denbecca says that things don’t look good and the party should plan to flee Bracadale as soon as possible.

Kieren thanks Denbecca for her wisdom and makes to leave.  Denbecca asks for a private word with Sarah before Kieren and his daughter depart.  Sarah goes into the back room with Denbecca for a few minutes and returns.  Sarah thanks Denbecca for something and then tells her father that it is time to go.  They leave the cottage and return to the party’s camp.

Kieren relates what he has learned to the party and they discuss  what to do.  Ultimately it they decide to return to Rutlett’s boat and sail home.

Before midnight Liothien and Homer note a glow in the sky near Bracadale.  Shortly afterwards a fireball of sorts appears in the sky and heads toward the north.  Liothien and Homer see no signs of pursuit.  Around midnight they are relieved by Liana and one of the dwarves.

The party spends  an uneventful night at their makeshift camp.  As daylight breaks a heavy fog envelops the countryside and reduces visibility to less than 30 feet.  The party thanks their good fortune and departs camp under cover of the fog.

November 19,

Dermid uses his tracking abilities to retrace the  party’s original trail from two days earlier.  He is fairly successful at finding the original trail and by mid-morning the party is in the woods west of the orc encampment.  It is still foggy and the party is able to use  this concealment to bypass the orcs without incident.  By midday the party makes it to the main trail that heads north to Blackhill.  The  fog burns off  to reveal a partly sunny sky.  The weather is very mild and a light breeze blows from the southwest.

The party follows the trail toward Blackhill without incident.  At the last side  trail before Blackhill the party decides to follow the spur trail to the northeast to bypass the pirate enclave.  They are unsure where  trail leads.  It appears to go to the inlet where Rutlett’s boat is hidden.

The party follows the trail for nearly two hours as it winds upward to the crest of a wooded hill.  As they clear the woods they can see the barren hilltop.  They crest the hill and view the sea off to the north.  The trail they are following appears to be heading directly to the inlet where the boat is hidden.  Dermid reckons that  it should be no more than a mile distant.

As the party proceeds toward the boat they note a large red shape in the distance.  Liothien is the first  to realize that the shape is massive dragon that is guarding the crossroads leading to their boat!  A  hasty battle plan is formulated and the party splits into  four groups.

Sarah stays behind at the hilltop so that she is out of harms way.  Malcolm stays with her as a bodyguard.

Kieren and the dwarves advance ~50 yards to the left of the path to use whatever natural cover is available.  Prior to moving out Kieren casts levitate on himself as well as sound bubble  to silence their approach to the dragon.

Rhyawdd, Lio, and Dermid advance 50 yards to the right of the path so that they can use any cover that is available.

The remaining party members including the other spell-casters advance cautiously along the path.  These brave souls will act as bait to draw forth the dragon.  Both Liana and Joseph have spells at the ready.

The three groups begin advancing slowly towards the dragon.  As Kieren gets a closer look at the dragon he pulls out the Dragon amulet  to see if it can sense the presence of the beast.  Curiously, the amulet shows no indications of a wyrm.  Kieren becomes suspicious and consults the amulet about a possible ambush.  The amulet begins glowing a bright red, a sure sign of impending ambush.

The dragon appears to note the party and takes wing.  It bellows a  deafening roar that  rolls across the countryside, and then it turns to swoop toward the party.

Kieren attempts to disbelieve the dragon and discovers that it is merely an illusion.  He is convinced that a spell caster must be nearby to generate and control the illusion so he casts detect magic and begins scanning the area around the party.  Kieren tells the  dwarves that the  dragon is illusory and they manage to disbelieve it.  Rutlett exits the  sound bubble around Kieren and shouts to the other party members that the dragon is an illusion and the party is walking into an ambush.

At this news the remaining party members all attempt to disbelieve the dragon.  Most are successful except Liana who is convinced that the threat is real.  As the dragon nears she casts the most powerful lightning bolt that she can.  The beast attempts to dodge the lightning and avoids the worst of it.

Joseph realizes that Liana thinks the dragon is real and casts a dispel magic at the illusion to cause it to dissipate.

Mem casts a detect evil spell and begins scanning the surrounding countryside for any sign of ambush.  He finds none.

Things quiet down with the dispelling of the dragon and the party pauses shortly while it decides what to do.  Rutlett’s group decides to press on  to the crossroads while Mem uses his detect evil spell to scan for trouble.  Rhyawdd, Liothien, and Dermid head off to the northeast so that they can approach the crossroads from the east and flank any  would-be ambushers.

Kieren consults the dragon amulet and notes that it is still glowing red  to signal an impending ambush.  Given this turn of events he decides that it would be  best to collect Sarah and Malcolm  before pushing on the boat.  While he goes  back up the hill to get them the remaining party members remain on the path  to keep watch for trouble.

Rutlett’s team makes it to the crossroads without incident.  The scan the area all around and see no sign of trouble.  Rhyawdd, Liothien and Dermid make it to the east-west road and follow it the crossroads and Rutlett.  They too see no signs of trouble.

As the two groups meet at the crossroads  a shimmering curtain of purple flames surrounds them.  The flames tower  20 feet overhead and blast the party members with intense heat.  Overhead a massive black/red figure over 12’ tall materializes in the air 100  feet above them.  Before anyone  can react the figure disappears from view.

Rhyawdd is the first to regain his composure and he charges through the flames with Dermid following right behind him.  Both of them are seriously burned in passing but as they clear the wall of flames they realize that there is no heat on the far side.  Liothien decides not to risk the flames and instead enters his warp marble to avoid injury.  Rutlett notes the sudden disappearance of the elf and sees the warp marble fall to the ground.

Rutlett calls upon Mem to use his magic to defeat the flame and he complies by creating some water to dowse the flames.  Unfortunately the water is insufficient to put  out the flames and vaporizes instead  which scalds the dwarves with a steam cloud.  Rolf panics at this and runs through the flames.  He is seriously burned and collapses to the ground on the far side of the flames.  Mem follows Rolf through the flames and is singed by the flames.  Rutlett lingers in the circle of flame for a moment to pick up Liothien's warp marble and toss it over the wall of flames.  Then he flees the flame circle and is burned by the flames.  Mem begins tending to Rolfs injuries just as Liana arrives to cast  a cloudburst on the flames.  Her spell effectively quenches the fires after a few minutes.

The remaining party members regroup with the others at the crossroads and they scan the land and air all around for signs of the giant spell-caster that they glimpsed earlier.  They find no sign of it so Kieren and Mem tend to the wounded.  Kieren uses the healing powers of the dragon amulet to heal Rolf, Dermid, and Rutlett  while Mem heals himself and Rutlett.

Kieren checks the dragon amulet again and notes that it is still glowing red.  He tells the others to make haste for Rutlett’s boat which is less than  10 minutes away.  The party presses on to the inlet with Rhyawdd bringing up the rear and being watchful for trouble.

The party makes it to the inlet without further incident, but Kieren quickly notes that there  are  several sets of fresh tracks in the area that lead to the cliff face where Ruttlett’s   boat was hidden away.  Upon further examination, the party notes to its dismay that the cliff face is  gone as well as the boat!  Someone has turned the cliff to mud and taken Rutlett’s boat.  By the signs of it this probably happened within the past day.

Panic begins to set in as the party members realize they are stranded.  There is heated debate and recriminations that someone has betrayed the party.

During the confusion, Sarah pulls Kieren aside and tells him that the party has another option.  They can proceed east into the elven lands on the Trotternish peninsula.  Sarah confides that Denbecca has given her a totem  that will allow the party to travel safely through the faerie realms.  There may yet be a safe way home…

Session ends.

Map of Party's travels:

 
Experience point awards and character status:

Liana Ashwood - Fighter/M-U
Total EP’s           1483
Spell point total:      24 / 32
Hit point total:         38 / 38

Kieren Urquhart – Ranger
Total EP’s            983
Spell point total:       8  /12
Hit point total:        33 / 33

Joseph Kerr – Invoker
Total EP’s            383
Hit Point total:        36 / 36
Spell point total:     31 / 34

Rhyawdd MacPherson – Rogue
Total EP's            533
Hit  point total:       58 / 74

Cedric – Fighter
Total EP’s             83
Hit Point total:        50 / 52

Rutlett Trollcrusher – Fighter
Total EP’s            383
Hit Point total:       61/ 73

Homer Goodmead – Rogue
Total EP’s            83
Hit Point total:       15 / 15

Mem Hammerworker - Priest of Loki
Total EP’s             533
Spell point total:      9 / 18
Hit point total:         27 / 35

Rolf Trollsbane - Fighter
Total EP’s              83
Hit Point total:         30 / 35

Liothien Snowhawk – Fighter
Total EP’s              83
Hit point total:         74 / 75