998 Sypheros 20th-22nd

998 Sypheros 20th morning, the Elven village of Starsong Hill near the border of New Cyre

As I suspected the giant owls that I saw silhouetted against the moon were no threat to my company. Their masters could easily have had the great birds attack us unseen and unheard had that been their desire. But as fortune would have it these were instead the very elves for which we had been searching as per the messenger sent by Prince Orgev. The small party of forest elves recovered a ring from the emerald dragon-beast’s viscera and then questioned us about our business in their swamp. My companions and I explained to the elves about the massive horde of hobgoblins bearing down on New Cyre. Then we related the information we had obtained that indicated the existence of spawning facility for the draconic beasts in their very own swamp. Not surprisingly the elves knew something of these matters and offered to fly us to their woodland home.

Starsong Hill was a fairly typical elven tree village with dwellings merging almost seamlessly into the surrounding forest. We were brought before their leader Speaker of the Song Sellyria Starsinger and explained the situation to her and her advisors. It seems the elves were having some trouble with the same group of hobgoblins and their lizardfolk allies. Occasionally the old adage has validity; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Helpfully they offered to guide us to the sunken city ruins that the hobgoblins were using as a base to breed these unholy beasts.

Sellyria gave us free access to their village and my companions and I split up to follow our own personal agendas prior to turning in for the night. Elarin slipped out to console Trellara Nightshadow, the widow of the elf slain by the razor-wing that we slew in turn. Zed wandered, seemingly aimlessly, but in actuality he trolled for intelligence as he meandered around the village. For my part I trekked over to the Sovereign Host temple dedicated to Balinor. I engaged two of their priests in a lengthy discussion of nature magic and they offered to scribe a scroll so that I could learn that most useful of all nature magics, the ability to grow plants to enormous size and thus subsequently multiply crop yields. I plan to use this spell to ensure that New Cyre recovers from this war without the widespread starvation that typically accompanies total warfare. Of course I am getting ahead of myself as we still have to win the war and this is by no means assured.

I was at the Host temple and thus I was not to be a witness to the demonstration of Pazenga’s incredible skills in unarmed combat. However I was told that my gith companion located a small group of martial artists that served as monastery to the village. Pazenga sought them out in hopes of learning new fighting techniques but instead the gith has become something of an instructor to the elves. Apparently Paz sparred with a female elf by the name of Kala Forestfist who served as the mistress of the small temple. Kala was totally incapable of even touching Pazenga. A single nerve pinch delivered to the elf woman’s neck left her weak, shaking, and humbled. As powerful as the elven people are, they cannot hope to match a githzerai in unarmed combat. Enough of this for tonight, I must get some sleep to face the trials of tomorrow.

998 Sypheros 22nd morning, Starsong Hill near the border of New Cyre

On the day of our journey to Rhest’s ruins we rose at dawn and made preparations for our assault. We traveled via bark canoes provided by our new elven allies. The outpost at the Rhest ruins was in actuality two compounds. Ringing the perimeter of a small lake was a village consisting of the grass huts of lizardfolk. In the center of the lake were the remnants of two tall buildings projecting above the murky black water. The two buildings were further interlaced with a series of connecting bridges that facilitated traffic between the two structures. We had no way of knowing how many floors were invisible, buried under many feet of stagnant water and muck.

As per our standard reconnaissance protocol, we sent Pazenga ahead to scout out the lizard huts. Pazenga returned a few minutes later and reported that the lizard-people bore arms and armor with the scarlet hand sigil that indicated membership in the hobgoblin army. We reluctantly gave Pazenga permission to use lethal force against any lizard men he should encounter. I was to find out later that Pazenga followed the grim necessity to the extreme by slaying the humanoid reptiles mercilessly in their sleep. Although I would not have done this myself, I can’t fault him for it either. What was he to do, wake them, then kill them? How much more merciful would that have been? Neither could we leave such a significant force along our route of retreat, should events turn against us. I can only hope that he spared any of the small ones but I cannot bear to ask.

When the threat to our line of retreat was secured, we hid out of sight in a lizardfolk hut until nightfall. As we awaited sunset we spotted a dark scaled dragon and rider fly off toward the horizon. Taking advantage of the creature’s absence we silently paddled toward the two ruined buildings. Pazenga suggested we initiate our assault at the building vacated by the horse-sized black dragon. Again we sent Pazenga ahead to scout and he quickly returned warning us of four ogres guarding the roof of the structure. I placed a silence magic upon Pazenga and sent him ahead to begin the attack. For a short time Pazenga fought the giants alone and the silence magic prevented them from calling an alarm. Soon Zed, Elarin, Crucible, and the two warforged warriors Smelt and Prong joined the battle and made short work of the undisciplined ogres.

Afterward we once again we sent Pazenga ahead to reconnoiter and he came upon a two headed giant on the level below the roof. Since the silence magic was still in effect Pazenga chose to immediately attack the ettin in silence because he would not be able to report back while silenced in any case. It was a stalemate as the mighty giant was unable to strike our agile martial artist and Pazenga could not inflict any serious harm on the giant-kin. After a few heart beats we began to descend the stairs to check on our gith friend and we came upon the furious melee. Elarin, Zed, and the warforged waded into the battle, and although Zed was seriously injured, the ettin was quickly dispatched.

After searching the giant's lair we sent Pazenga down the stairs again to scout out the next level. There Paz found the black dragon’s lair and his treasure horde. We discovered two wands, an enchanted headband, a magic horn, and a great deal of coin. Crucible was later to identify these items as wands of paralyzing and lightning, a horn of fog summoning, and a headband to improve a wizard‘s understanding of magic. Significantly, we discovered the phylactery of a lich and a letter from the hobgoblin leadership indicating that they were blackmailing this “Ghost Lord” into joining his forces to their mighty horde. After collecting the items we began a room to room search of this level. Pazenga stumbled upon one of the dragon’s lieutenants and was attacked. The gith monk was able to fight off the goblinoid enchanter’s attempts at mind control through sheer force of will alone. Pazenga countered attacked and the hobgoblin mindbender was forced to retreat to preserve his life. Turning invisible, he slipped past Pazenga and would have been able to escape. Foolishly the goblinoid spellbinder chose to renew his attack on the rest of our party but he was vastly out numbered and was quickly slain.

After dispatching the hobgoblin spellbinder we set about preparing a trap for the dragon's return. We surrounded the acid-melted hole that served as an emergency escape route for the amphibious dragon. Stupidly we had not reckoned on the dragon arriving by air The black dragon landed on the roof and the four ogre corpses tipped it off that assassins stalked its lair. The dragon wisely burned another entrance into its treasure room with its vitriolic acid vomit.

Now our positions were reversed with the dragon prepared to ambush us if we entered the adjacent room. The dragon let out a horrible mind rending roar and all the warforged fled save Zed. Pazenga opened the door and was able to dodge the gout of acid vomit. The glistening ebony dragon was so large that it filled the majority of the ante-chamber and our gith martial artist was forced to leap and roll in order to maneuver safely to the reptilian monster’s flank where he delivered a debilitating nerve punch to its shoulder. Then the remainder of the Honor Guard surged into action. I cast a light bending illusion to protect Zed and he went on to attack the dragon. The warforged swordsman sliced a book-sized section of scale and skin from the dragon’s neck but the dragon seemed to barely notice. Elarin strode a few steps forward and the very air shimmered as he gathered the power of his fire ray spell. The elven sorcerer-soldier released the power of the spell and this time it burned, not orange, but white hot. The dragon roared in pain as the scales below his neck were incinerated. Zed drove his great sword into the seared and ruined breast and the dragon staggered, this time weakly screeching in pain. Seizing the opportunity, my beloved Bryanna blasted her own, albeit inferior, orange-yellow fire ray spell into the hole left by Zed’s great sword and fire sprayed out its mouth as the dragon‘s own throat burst into flames. The ebony dragon sagged and its eyes went dark.

As we smote the dragon to its knees its rider, a skilled goblin archer, charged in via the stairs and began a furious arrow barrage. Despite the goblinoid’s obvious skill it was far too little and far too late. The goblin archer managed to inflict only a couple of insignificant flesh wounds before Pazenga knocked him out and tied him up. We thought that this goblin captain would be a valuable source of information to take back to New Cyre but such was not to be.

Now that we had cleared out the leadership tower we decided to head over to the aquatic corral-like structure we had seen from the roof. Once again we followed standard protocol and had Pazenga scout ahead to flush out any hazards. As Pazenga scanned the corral for draconic eggs suddenly another one of the green dragon-like razor wings leapt out of the water and coughed acid gas at him. Pazenga easily slipped under the gas and thus the dragon-like creature chose instead to employ the appendages that give it its name. The razor wing was incredibly agile for it was the first creature I have ever seen out maneuver the swift Pazenga. The creature would dart in, slash at Paz with a wing, and dart back into the water before the githzerai monk could land a blow. We allowed this to go on only a few seconds before the rest of us strode into action. Reacting first, Elarin took careful aim with his powerful hobgoblin longbow and fired an arrow straight into the creature's eye. The arrow passed into its brain killing the reptile instantly. The four of us turned to Elarin in mute shock. I remember saying, “I had no idea you could shoot like that Elarin.”

We did not have long to admire Elarin's skill with the bow as we soon heard the blast of a hobgoblin horn and the sound of many hobnailed boots hammering on wooden planks. We formed a defensive position on the bridge with the warforged soldiers forming a shield wall in front backed by Zed and Crucible and with Bryanna, Elarin, and I hiding in the room with the dragon corpse. Bryanna darted to the rear of the warforged formation and cast a fog spell that concealed our position. Unable to see what was going on, I screamed for Zed to destroy the bridge. I had in mind that warforged cannot drown but heavily armored hobgoblins almost certainly would. Unfortunately Zed did not exercise basic caution and instead of cleaving the bridge under a hobgoblin’s feet he cut the bridge out from under himself causing him to plunge into the dark water.

I quickly followed Bryanna to the rear of our formation and we both cast our mirror images spell. Meanwhile the warforged Smelt was driven back into the bridge gap created by Zed’s sword and disappeared beneath dirty water. Pazenga left the safety of the corral and attacked the hobgoblin rear. The gith monk tripped a hobgoblin swordsman and shoved him off the bridge to drown in the dark water. Then Paz did likewise to the next goblin-kin in the line. Other goblinoid warriors kept attempting to leap Zed’s gap to attack Bryanna but they were being slain by Crucible and Elarin, greatly assisted by the murky water.

Suddenly Bryanna and I heard the sound of booted feet tromping at our rear. Although they could not see us my wife and I knew we had to escape or be overrun by the deadly hobgoblin soldiers. I grabbed Bryanna with my right arm and cast my spell of levitation with my left while Bryanna hugged into me placing her staff around the back of my neck. We quickly rose out of the conjured mist and I cast my new prismatic sparks spell so that it would extend into the fog and the hidden hobgoblins. The spell did little damage but it did demoralize those hobgoblins participating in the flanking attack. By this time the living constructs Crucible and Prong had eliminated the primary attack and so they withdrew toward Elarin and the cooling dragon corpse. As we rose from the mist a hobgoblin sorcerer that was fleeing the rainbow flecked purple mist spotted us and retaliated with a fireball. Our hair was singed and we received superficial burns but we survived otherwise intact. I counter attacked with my own fireball blasting the spellbinder from his feet. The sorcerer cast another spell, probably invisibility, and was lost from view. I cast another prismatic mist spell on the other side of the building to discourage fresh troops from arriving on that side.

As Bryanna used the powerful staff to heal her burns, we discovered that Zed had gained the roof and was engaging the hobgoblin snipers in hand to hand combat. The other warforged and Elarin soon joined him, rallying our forces and driving the snipers from the roof.

It was at this time that Pazenga again appeared at the what would have been the rear of the hobgoblin flankers, had they not been fleeing my enchanted mist. The invisible sorcerer summoned a horde of bats to harass and lacerate the githzerai but this did not stop him from destroying the two remaining goblin swordsmen. Apparently the goblin-kin sorcerer chose the better part of valor and levitated out of Pazenga’s reach. When the spell-binder passed above the mist he blasted Bryanna and I with another fireball again causing painful but not life threatening burns. I countered with a blast of five force missiles to the sorcerer’s heart and he plunged back into the mist.

Silence again reigned around Rhest's ruins and we waited for the spells to dissipate before continuing our mission. It came as an unwelcome surprise when we realized that goblin captain had escaped in the confusion and mist. Pazenga and Zed destroyed the eggs while the balance of our party prepared the hatching facility for arson. This accomplished we disembarked in the canoe with flames roaring into the skies behind us. After paddling to shore we razed the lizard folk huts to the ground as well. For some reason I feel a small portion of shame over destroying the lizard man village. Perhaps this is because I suspect that the crocodile people were unwilling allies of the red hand horde. Perhaps under other circumstances we could have been friends but, given what has happened, there is little we can do to placate them. Perhaps someday in the distant future.

Now that we have returned to Starsong Hill we must prepare for an expedition to the lair of this “Ghost Lord”. We discussed many options and have decided to bring him his phylactery in the hope of ensuring his neutrality in this conflict. If things go poorly, I will call for a retreat leaving the phylactery in our wake, surely it will be found and the appropriate conclusions will be drawn. This may be our only hope, for if we are forced to fight the lich some of us will surely die, perhaps all of us.