Children of Malagant

My companions:

• Vega
• Grrrr! - half-elf barbarian
• Eldaryth
• Anghil
• Race - bit of everything!

LL OF US apart from Grrrr were in the Elk's Roost having a drink - for some reason he was outside having a wash in the horse trough! an old man entered, white-bearded, with eyes that briefly flashed golden in the light. He came over to our table, and Anghil used magics to dry him off from the rain. The man smelled pleasantly of saffron. He introduced himself as Malagant, and told us that 3 days ago his 2 children had been taken to a cavern complex by a mage called Emrakan. I remembered this name, from the battle at Low Gate when Ankhar the bronze dragon had gone down. I remembered him firing off Chain Lightnings alongside guys from the Cult of the Dragon who were trying to get to Ankhar's dead body. I mentioned this to Anghil.

The two children's names were Baldur and Elfstar, both boys. Anghil asked what shape they were likely to be in, and was answered with "they will have a golden hue." Each child would have a gold necklace with rubies in that must either be left there or destroyed. Malagant's wife was nearby, watching the cavern, but couldn't approach too closely otherwise the necklaces would harm the children. We were given a map showing the best way there, 3 days' travel. Malagant asked us to keep his identity quiet.

We set out... the first two days' travel were uneventful as we headed into the mountains. On the 3rd day we noticed a piece of rough hessian cloth hanging from a bramble. I noticed there were some very fresh footprints of about 10 orcs, going the same way as us. We continued, and could hear an argument going on in guttural voices ahead. One was arguing that they should continue to the cavern complex., but some of the others were afraid to because they'd seen a dragon flying around up there. The orcs appeared to be wearing the symbol of the Cult of the Dragon.

We charged in and killed them very quickly, then continued to the area where the cavern complex was. A large gold dragon was flying around - we tried to attract her attention but she just ignored us At the cave entrance we could hear sounds of growling coming from inside. Anghil flew in scouting, and reported that there were wolves in there.

After preparing ourselves with magics, Race conjured a dog and sent it in - didn't seem to last long - there were a few yelps and some burps! Grrr ran in... there were 4 red-eyed wolves, and a raised dais containing a skeleton. Grrr was getting ripped to bits by the wolves, so we helped him kill them. Only then did the skeleton stand up - after fighting it for a little while Eldaryth banished it. Anghil was now a giant! A search of the dais revealed nothing interesting.

Some tracks led to the back of the cave and a secret door, that opened into a passage 70' long, opening out at the end. Race produced a light source and started down it, triggering a portcullis to drop in front of him. Some orcs appeared beyond it and started shooting at him, but they were nicely grouped together... so Anghil fireballed them. Once we were happy there were no more to deal with Anghil got the portcullis up. We found lots of dead orcs, a guard room, a winch room, their leader's bedroom, and a room with stairs going down.

Partway down the stairs there were secret doors, and at their bottom was a pair of ornate double doors. E;ldaryth said that the circle symbols on it meant the goddess Shar. We went through the secret door, into a small room with stairs going up, but as we began to ascend Eldaryth heard devotional music and whispering coming from behind the double doors. Race came back from his scouting upstairs and said he'd come out onto a balcony where he could see sacrifice going on - but it might not have been the room through the double doors? - the balcony was too high up to be sure of details.

We ran 200' up to the top of the stairs, into a room with marble flagstones, purple drapes, a lectern and a 4-poster bed. Emrakan was there. Race stabbed Anghil with a dagger! Anghil said "open" and a canoe appeared in the doorway, nearly blocking off Emrakan's retreat. Grrr had been freaked by something and ran straight through the room through another doorway. Vega ran in to engage though - and it proved to have been an illusion as there was a laugh, and an Evard's Black Tentacles appeared all around him. Eldaryth dispelled it, and Emrakan appeared at the other side of the room. Race stabbed Anghil again, and Grrr ran and smashed the bust of the mage - causing us all to be briefly engulfed in fire.

Emrakan appeared up on the wall above Eldaryth and tried to touch him. I started shooting him, meanwhile Race was now moving in to flank Grrr as Vega killed Emrakan. Anghil went all Stone Giant again and bounced Race around a bit to subdue him. We found a secret door behind where the bust had been, and this led into a room with lots of alchemy stuff in.

E WENT BACK DOWN to the double doors. They opened into a large room with tapestries, and an altar with a wall of water behind it. A beautiful woman in black, tight-fitting clothes was leaning against the altar, and the music stopped. "Are you here for the dragons? Ankhar's playing with the children. We're going to kill them, bring them back and use them to attack Sarbreenar."

She cast something and stepped back. Grrr ran at her, bouncing off an invisible wall. Lots of dispelling magic went off, and Vega fell over, Anghil threw boulders at the wall till it broke. Then it all went black for me as I got hurt by something. Eldaryth got me up again, and she'd gone - Grrr had pushed her back into the waterfall.

Race healed me up a bit more and we were ready to go on. The other side of the waterfall was a balcony, but it was broken. We could see a dot of light and the woman's body fallen at the bottom of a huge cavern. We went back to the other set of stairs and into it that way. As we made our way down, suddenly a huge skeletal bronze dragon appeared from below, coming towards us. We shot at her, Eldaryth fireballed her, and Race even summoned a celestial dog inside her skull! There was a strange green glow from her as she flew by us, and everyone except Grrr were nearly made unconscious. Eldartyh and Race healed us up, but Ankhar had already flown off.

Down at the bottom of the cavern there were two cages with a young golden dragon in each. I guess to make them feel better, Anghil turned into a bronze dragon, but they were still very wary. Once we'd let them out they flew through an illusory wall and out. Anghil followed them, to see that Ankhar was fighting the parents and getting beaten - she eventually flew off. Parents and children were reunited, meanwhile inside we were smashing the rubies as instructed.

Job done, we all went outside and were thanked by Malagant. He promised to try to help Sarbreenar but asked us to keep quiet about his family.

• As well as 1000gp each, he also gave us
• an Amber of Fire
• a Bag of Webs
• a Sash of the Dragon
• a Vial of Dragon Blood
• a Mystra-touched page of Explosive Cascade

1374DR   (Cabbagecon 2002)

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