Dragon's Demand: Big Bad Wolf

Game Date: 2/22/2014
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Dragon's Demand, Session 5
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Ranger
Lilith (James) - Tiefling Paladin
Raz (Matt) - Human Sorcerer

The Session:
We were down two players today, so we didn't accomplish quite as much as we usually do.  Tanith spent the session consoling his sister over Erevel's death.  The rest of us were quickly presented with a new job.  We are to enter the home of the dead wizard Hunclay, deactivate any magical traps, defeat any arcane guardians, and catalog his possessions so they can be sold at auction.  We agreed to take the job, but decided not to do it right away.

Raz spent the evening identifying the magical items we'd found in the Kobold quarry.  The small box was a "Phylactery of Faithfulness", which alerts the wearer if they are about to take an action that is against their alignment or religion.  She gave it to Lilith.  One of the cloaks was a "Cloak of Resistance" (+1 to saving throws), which went to Halfbeard.  The other cloak was a "Cloak of Fangs" (+1 saving throws and a bite-based melee attack) which she kept for herself.

While Raz was doing that, Halfbeard and Lilith visited a gnome named Bassy, who was the town's historian.  They asked her about the dragon scales we'd found.  Bassy said they looked pretty new, which was worrisome news.  One of the kobolds we'd encountered mentioned serving the Great Lord Aeteprax, a dragon who had been defeated centuries ago.  If this dragon was somehow back in business, that could be a problem.  Bassy told us that Aeteprax's bones were buried at Tula's Crypt, so we might check that out at some point.  Later we informed Lady Origena of the scales, and she was also concerned.

But rather than visiting Hunclay's home or searching the tomb, this session we decided to go wolf hunting.  A couple of sessions ago we learned of a wolf pack that had been killing livestock, and (despite some reservations) we decided now was the time to take the job.  Halfbeard in the lead, we set out into the woods to track them down.  The ranger's tracking rolls started off pretty good, but quickly got worse.  Eventually it was the wolves that found us.  Despite some great perception rolls, the wolves managed to get pretty close before we saw them.  There were three total; two normal size and one extra-large dire wolf.

Lilith rushed to the front, and was promptly knocked to the ground.   She tried to get back up a couple of times during the fight, but each time she was immediately knocked back down.  She took a lot of damage, and quickly used up all her healing powers.  Once she hit zero, Raz fed her a healing potion, but she didn't stay above zero long.  Halfbeard stepped up and tanked for a couple of rounds, but soon found himself making death saves as well.  It finally came down to the dire wolf and Raz.  Just as she was about to be ripped to shreds, Raz fired off the magic missile that took the last of the creature's hit points.

The enemy finally defeated, Raz found herself alone in the forest, with two dying teammates.  She fed them the party's last two healing potions, which kept them from dying, but still didn't bring them back to consciousness.  Raz looked around and saw a cave nearby, with shallow water flowing through it.  She dragged her companions into the cave, leaving her fatigued.  Then she beheaded the dire wolf so we'd have proof of our kill.  Resting beside her friends in the soggy cave, she heard some skittering noises deeper in the tunnels, but Raz stayed where she was.  Soon she drifted off to sleep.

Halfbeard and Raz awoke several hours later.  Halfbeard had healed a couple of hit points from resting, but he was still very close to zero.  Lilith, however, had vanished.  Halfbeard sneaked through the cave passage and looked around the corner.  The tunnel ended in a chamber where he saw some chests, Lilith's prone form in one corner, and a large crablike lamprey monster.  We really wanted to help Lilith, but we didn't think we would survive a fight with Halfbeard being so close to death.

So Raz and Halfbeard headed back to town, with the intention of returning to the cave as soon as possible.  We turned in the wolf head, and used some of the reward money to buy healing potions.  Halfbeard drank enough potions to get back to full health, and we kept a few more on us to prepare for the upcoming battle.  Next we sought out Tanith to accompany us.  We ended the session there.  Next session we'll head straight back to the cave.  Hopefully that creature won't have eaten Lilith yet.

XP Rewards:
Raz, Halfbeard and Lilith each earned 1067 xp, bringing them up to 4361.