Dragons: making ouch in our faces

Eric Ericsson's Journal Journalsson, day 675

We returned to the cave a different party than those who left it -- our paladin having religious matters to attend and our fighter parting our company for a time. Fortunately for us, an adventurer had just arrived in town and the innkeeper connected him with us. He was a skilled practictioneer in the arts, and he was also a warlock.

The cave was surprisingly quiet when returned, I had expected to be greeted by arrows instead of silence. We made our way back into the depths of the cave and faced a decision; the howling caves were on our left and some unexplored but probably habitated quarters nearby on the right. I wanted to clear our back before venturing further into the caves so I pushed the party into checking some of the rooms close by.

Surprisingly, we found an old chapel dedicated to Corellon (in the past, the current denizens clearly did not worship such a God and were not exactly.... maintaining it). Opposite the chapel was a living space more decorated than we expected; hoping it might be occupied by a leader of some sort, one who might have more information, we decided to explore it.

It looked like the quarters belonged to a shaman of some sort, the kind who would leave traps under rugs. Rugs in front of doors. Doors we wanted to go through. Hey! There was a trap under the rug by the door in the room. Sneaky. Some nameless wench helped disarm it.

It looked like the shaman went on walk-about when the dragon showed up... smart little bugger. Well, one less thing run into! We certainly didn't run into a kitchen by accident and face any scrap digesting blobs of acids and angry chefs with frying pans.

We continued on through the howling caves...pausing near a pool so we could get attacked by some giant spiders. Caves aren't really fun if you avoid the giant spiders. We didn't.

The caves lead us back to living quarters, through some unused tunnels we suspect were... unused. The living quarters were used. By a pair of hobgoblins being trained by a third who wielded a nasty looking staff.

Hey! We figured it would be great to get into a fight, since poetry night was the other eve. It wasn't so bad, since I healed everybody. Over, and over, and over.

This was just a taste tester... nearby were the icy caves of the dragon. We descended carefully into the depths, hoping we could catch the beast unawares. It...almost worked. Some chick with knives went ahead and tossed a dagger in it's face which pissed it off.

We decided to stick around and fight it out. It was a tenuous battle... frought with danger, fighting, froughting, and more dangerious fighting. We won, only because I healed everybody. A lot.

Next time, we should bring a bigger stick. But the town is safe!