By Brian P. Clausen 6/29/98
After recovering from their trances the party decides what to do next. Three potential destinations are offered by their visions: the flat top mountain, the mountain (of) gold, and a place called the Pinnacles. Since the flat top mountain apparently has the only guide that can safely bring the party to the mountain of gold, they decide to go there.
First, however, they set off northward to the Gathering to look for a local guide. There they find an ancient stone city that looks to have been burned into molten stone by a dragon. Demek learns that the city is from the time when the borderland tribes were one. The wigwams of the plainspeople ring that city and in honor of its memory they ground their weapons and do not engage in hostilities with one another there.
The party learns the names of many of the tribes and their relationships with each other. The Eagle and Hawk clans are on the eastern side of the region and engaged in hostilities. Likewise the Mountain Lion and the Ram clans are on the mountainous western side of the region and both claim that the City lies within their own jurisdictions. The Antelope clan might as well be the Scapegoat clan, for all the others pick on them.
As the party pokes around the city they encounter some braves of the Hawk clan who notice that the party has Eagle clan horses. They inquire how many Eagles the party slew, but Oxander staunchly defends the party’s friendship with the Eagle clan. This draws the ire of the Hawk and the entire clan challenges the party to a rumble to take place a mile away at dawn. The party makes a mental note to at least be that far away from here when the sun next pokes over the horizon.
The party continues to shop around for information and opportunity and finally an elder of the Rams offers Pole an opportunity to acquire a four-legged beast known as a Torm to facilitate his travel. To receive the Torm, Pole must join the clan, and to do that he must complete a deed of valor. Pole readily agrees to find out what happened to some travellers who went to a haunted volcano, because Pole needs to go there anyway in order to improve his axe. The party agrees to go with him in order to slay what sounds like a horror and to keep Pole’s axe out of trouble.
The party arrives at the base of the volcano but no entry is immediately apparent. Miles the windling spies a large hole in the inner side of the volcano’s caldera. With the aid of the Metal Wings spell the party is soon inside what turns out to be a fifty-foot wide tunnel. They make their way down the tunnel until their passage is blocked by a pile of rubble. They clear away enough stone to get through and continue on.
Soon however they reach a portal whose entrance is surrounded in red runes the size of dwarves. The fighters confidently proclaim that the runes cannot be tripped by humanoids and step through, tripping the runes. Some kind of transformation begins to take place at the portal and the rest of the party quickly runs through in order to stay together. Soon the portal is a ‘waterfall’ of lava, sealing their doom inside the lair of an ancient dragon. No doubt the rubble they encountered was the product of previous uses of this trap which the dragon merely pushed out of the way.
The party encounters a nasty stone-dropping trap which Aliou props up after the fact and then hears an ominous scraping approaching. They encounter the animated skeleton of a dragon and engage it in battle. A dwarven potling soon reveals itself by dropping stalactites on the party and then hurling its component dwarflings into the combat below.
A terrific combat ensues which brings the party to the brink of extinction. The dragon is slain and the potlings are routed. At the end of the session the field of battle is arranged like this.
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Copyright © 1998-1999 by Brian P. Clausen. All rights reserved.
