My Lords and Ladies
1. Several hours later Crayon opens another Dimensional Fold and several of his followers come through. You are also surprised to see Kidzje’s colleague Adestra arrive. While she has almost no experience in this type of adventure (she’s an academic type), she feels that at least one of the Mages of the Black Star need to be present to keep the party alive.
2. Marching down the tunnel ahead of you came a contingent of Drow guards with a group of what appeared to be slaves. After passing them you decided to attack and free the slaves. All goes according to plan, and you continue on to where the slaves say is a cavern where more slaves are harvesting a glowing fungus.
3. There are indeed several Drow guarding slaves who are harvesting the fungus. As true heroes will, you storm the cavern, killing the Drow and releasing the rest of the prisoners. To Crayon’s relief, two of his followers and 7 of his converts from Scant are in the group. They talk about Larze’s attempt at freedom while they were being dragged down here, when he lost his staff and consciousness. They tell of a slave pen cave system on the left hand side and stables to the right of the Ul-Drakken cavern.
4. Adestra Stone Shapes a rock crevice to hide them all in and Billy Billy (one of Crayon’s followers) is dressed up as a Dark Elf and left to guard them. The party advises them to stay put until they come to get them.
5.
As the party approach the Fortress cavern, a
mysterious voice on the wind whispers:
To find the magical gate into Ul-Drakkan, go
to stables east of towers. Find reptile keepers quarters. Secret door to the south. 8 people only
6. The party wisely decides to enter Ul-Drakken by stealth and in disguise. Adestra casts a Seeming spell, and they party walk in the main gate bold as brass, noting the sleeping Fire Giant in heavily spiked plate armour and 10 Bugbears as they pass through. It looks like the plan has worked when a bugbear asks a question of you in undercommon. Crayon takes a gamble and tosses him a 50gp gem while shrugging, and it pays off.
7. You headed to the slave pens first, to free the rest of the slaves. After dispatching the 13 various guards, you find a large group of slaves in two caverns. Leader among them is Tim Toolman, one of Crayon’s followers. All up you rescue 7 more of the Essencia converts, 4 of Crayon followers, 12 humans, 9 elves, 6 Drow, 1 Halfling and 4 dwarves from the Iron Hills clans. You decided to get them out while the getting is good and march them through the gate as if escorting them to the fungus fields – the Seeming and your courage make for a potent disguise.
8.
Once again your luck holds and you get through
unchallenged. You get them to the others
who have remained hidden and there is much praise and thanks from the
slaves. Crayon opens a Dimension Fold to
9. From here you walk back through the main gate and around the main cavern which is about 1000 feet long by 800 feet wide, to the other side and the stables area. Once inside you meet 4 trolls, killing one and drowning the rest in rock turned to mud. You also dispatch 12 Bugbears to Essencia, and then battle some Hieractosphinx (one just watched its kindred get killed!). From here you head down to where the Dinosaurs are kept, finding the harnesses and sabotaging them just in case. You also note the obvious front door to the Keepers quarters – not for you though and you hedge your bets on a secret door like the voice whispered.
10.
After some extended searching you find the
secret tunnel behind the Hieractosphinx bodies.
You find a chamber filled with webs, a Drow and a Man-sized Spider,
which you overcome with the ease of practised veterans. After looking around a bit, you found a
secret door that leads to a chamber containing a red