Session 35

# May 9th, 2019 - The Hunting Lodge

## Trespin the Four Armed Troll

The session began in a mountainous pine forest as Thia encountered a four-armed troll and it’s four white guard drakes just beyond the standing stones where the party emerged from the portal beneath Castle Naerytar. With Elysian’s scent by her side appearing to draw the attention of the guard drakes, she stood from her hiding place in the bushes and tried to communicate with the troll. The troll was startled, but wasted no time in ordering his drakes to attack. Thia and Elysian fought back as they retreated towards the rest of the party, who heard the sounds of the commotion and moved forward to help. Elysian almost fell to the white guard drakes, but took to the air to avoid death, and the party was able to kill the guard drakes and take the troll prisoner - after chopping off one of it’s four arms.

The party used some of their rope to hog-tie the troll and interrogate it, and found it dim-witted and loose-lipped. Pleading for them to free it, the troll told them his name was Trespin and that the black wyrmspeaker Rezmir instructed him to slow down adventurers coming through the portal behind her. Rezmir did not warn the cultists in the hunting lodge within visible distance, but instead went directly to the stable outbuilding and flew one of the wyverns away. There were three more wyverns there, and the troll said they were trained to fly to a flying ‘ice castle’ nearby. Trespin said the lodge was controlled by the white faction from the cult, and that a white dragon had been seen flying around.

When the party got all the information they felt they could, Cadmus executed the troll. They then plotted how to approach the lodge, and decided against infiltrating it directly. Instead, Elysian flew Rufus up to the roof where they saw one of the three chimneys was billowing smoke. He used their recovered wearer or purple robes to cover and block the chimney smoke, and then the wyrmling flew him back to the ground. The group waited by the single back door while Rufus crept along the edge of the clearing to watch the front door.

## The Hunting Lodge

After about ten minutes or so, a commotion could be heard within the building, and then the backdoor burst open as four human cooks emerged. The group waiting at the back struck them down quickly and quietly and shut the door once again. At the front door, Rufus saw it open and about two dozen kobolds came out alongside six humans in scale mail, most of them coughing. One of them was clearly the leader, a female wood elf who had white-painted scale mail with purple robes over them. Rufus began stealthily going back around to the rear of the lodge while he watched about half of the kobolds scale the building trying to find out what was clogging the fireplace.

The party split into two groups and went around the building on opposite sides. One group contained both wizards and two of the group’s melee combatants, and they signaled their ambush as the meleers charged forward while Lachlan cast his last *fireball* at the group of cultists. The rest of the party struck down the surviving guards while Thia and Rufus easily shot down the kobolds on the roof the building, one at a time with expert precision. The wearer of purple leader shouted at her attackers to stop and let her live, and the party obliged by tying her up. The wood elf wearer or purple said her name was Talis, and she valued her life greatly, and would tell them anything in exchange for it.

And so, Talis told them everything, especially once the party told her that Rezmir had come through and not warned her of their imminent arrival. Talis clearly despised the black wyrmspeaker, and was happy to see the party disrupt her treasure hoarding operation for the cult. She described how the lodge was merely a safe way station guarding the exit of the portal underneath Castle Naerytar. Rezmir and her lieutenant would bring treasure through the portal, and ride their trained wyverns to the nearby iceberg cloud castle hiding in the foothills of the mountain near the town of Parnast, just a few miles away. Talis said the castle belonged to a cloud giant named Count Blagothkus.

The party did not tell Talis that they had heard of this giant previously, but exchanged glances of understanding among themselves. He was the father of the ghost they found in the giant’s Eye of the All-Father temple - who was serving the cult because he believed his son was still being kept alive. Talis told them the wyverns had been trained to respond to the special whistle around her neck to fly to the cloud castle and back again. She also told of a five colored banner in the linen closet that could be flown to tell the cultists in the castle they were friendlies. Finally, she gave them the passphrase to prove they were part of the treasure smuggling operation - “*Tiamat, our mother and strength*”.

When they asked about treasure in the lodge, she told them everything, including about the strongbox in her bedroom and the key she had on her to open it. The party searched her and retrieved the key, as well as an icicle looking magic wand. She also mentioned there was a large magical tapestry in one of the parlors that acted as a one way teleportation device when hung up on any wall, taking them to a random location five miles away. The group stood her up and had her show them the tapestry in the lodge. She assured them there were no traps in the building, but they had her lead the way regardless.

The building was still filled with a thick haze of smoke, and in one of the front parlors the party saw the impressive tapestry that glowed with a faint magical light. The room was also filled with trophies of animal heads on the walls, as well as two black suits of armor. Before they removed the tapestry from the wall, Talis ordered “attack!”, and the two suits of armor came to life and each cast *evard’s black tentacles*, filling the room. The party slit Talis’ throat then and there for betraying them, and fought back, barely surviving against the enchanted armors. Gravely wounded but alive, the group then searched the rest of the impressive hunting lodge.

The party recovered the five-colored banner, and found Talis’ strongbox. It contained not only a magical suit of *chainmail (+1)*, but also about four thousand gold pieces. The largest meeting room in the building had five impressive tapestries of dragons in it, with the largest inlaid with dozens of precious gemstones and depicting the five headed Tiamat erupting from a volcano. The group’s *bag of holding* was getting full, and so instead of taking the heavy tapestry they pried the gemstones from it.

That is where the session ended, with the party having tossed the lodge for valuables and debating on taking a rest before using the wyverns to pursue Rezmir to Blagothkus’ cloud castle. There were clearly strong obstacles ahead, but they did not know how long the castle would remain. They felt confident even if the castle were to fly away that with the wyverns and the banner they could reach it.

It was mid-day of the one hundred and forty fifth day since the raid on Greenest.

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