Babes of All Kinds

Ethan the half-elf rogue, Lewis the halfling Paladin, and the humans Gregory Calvin (Paladin), Sig (Sorcerer), Allister (Druid) in panther form, and Juniper (Warlock) were seated on a raised platform to watch the Champion's Birth parade, on the main street of Eaglehame. A white tiger charged them, set loose by a possessive and peeved young lord. The group dispatched the tiger, then grudgingly left the lord's platform. They kept the tiger, healed it, and set it free.

The parade contained a mixture of all kinds of regalia, both civic, religious, and popular. In the midst of a group of acolyte dancers rode the holy couple, the beautiful wife, Diamala, almost at term. Suddenly, a carved blue dragon on a circus cart became a real blue dragon snatching away Diamala and one of the dancers. The group mounted, shared, summoned, or tried to steal mounts and galloped (or loped) after it. Juniper and Ethan were foremost and noted that the dragon turned east after it left the city. Lewis stayed to resolve the tiger issue before also setting off. Gregory (Greg to his friends) took the time to kick Sig off his summoned charger. Sig sat in the street, refusing a ride from a pair of panthers, and failing to notice any dashing horses to steal.

Juniper, Ethan, and Lewis were all for riding off after the dragon right away (it seemed to have followed the eastern road) before they decided to come back and garner a few more reinforcements. Allister and Gregory stayed to chat with the great milling crowd buzzing around the southern gate of Eaglehame, hearing the distraught husband pleading for someone to help his wife. Sig was finally rounded up by the city officers as an able-looking person; perhaps he liked being carried by the scruff of his neck by a human more than by a panther, but carried by the scruff of his neck he was.

After buying some last-minute provisions (including a horse for Sig), and confirming that about half the group was adventuring for the sake of the stolen holy woman and the other half for the sake of the dancer in distress, the group set off and made good time to the East Road Inn. There Gregory ordered the best room and a hot bath, Allister (now looking like a frail old man) spent a few coppers for a spot by the fire, and everyone else enjoyed common comfort. The report of the travellers confirmed what Allister had scented - the dragon had passed overhead on the road yesterday.

The next day, they were attacked. By bandits. Four bandits charged down a slope brandishing greatswords and scimitar while three stood on the opposite steeper slope and rained down arrows and music. Juniper began charging them with her warhorse, Allister summoning dire wolves, Gregory swinging his greatsword and Lewis his warhammer, Sig firing spells and Ethan firing sling slugs. The bandits were quickly subdued. Allister challenged the last elf with claws around his throat. He said that he was working only for himself. Gregory found the bandit to be evil, and discerned that he was lying when he promised he would reform, so Gregory slit his throat. The other three unconsious bandits were stripped, tied, and left in the middle of the road with a sign announcing their (former) occupation. The dead were buried, and the one magical scimitar salvaged.

The party spent their second night in the wild.

The next day, Allister transformed into an eagle to do some serious scouting. Off the road, several miles to the south, he spied some worked stone amidst the endless hills. He reported to the group, who set out to investigate.

They came up to the well-kept but empty entrance to a large hall. Engraved on the stone was "The Museum," followed by "of thieves and look-alikes" in graffiti. Nobody answered when Gregory called into the room. Gregory, Ethan, and Sig were set outside to watch for the dragon, and the rest of the group went inside.

The entryway opened on a hall of statues. Allister, in his sharp-eyed panther form, noticed that two of the statues seemed to be alive. He alerted the others before two gargoyles attacked. Here the party's excellent tactics and good luck became manifest, as nobody got hurt throughout the entire museum experience, until, well, we'll save that for later. The gargoyles were soon smashed and slashed into quivering piles of rubble. Sig, hearing the commotion, joined the group inside. Closer examination of the statues revealed a chronological ordering of past heroes of legend and history. The two nearest the door had been broken off their pedastals to make room for the gargoyles, while the last pedastal looked as if it had never supported a statue. Juniper detected a magical presence in one of the gargoyle's pedastals, and retrieved an emerald-studded magic knife, which they decided to save for Ethan.

The statue gallery divided into two hallways at the end. The party took the right hallway first, and entered a small room filled with murals and frescoes, depicting the birth of a champion at dawn after the night of the full White moon and crescent Dark moon. Juniper noted that the change of month was but five days away, and would match this picture. The birth seemed to be set in the main temple of Eaglehame.

Next, they took the left-hand passage, and entered a room with skylights and wind-music blowing through the roof. Lewis was progressing with warhammer in hand, when suddenly Lewis was progressing with nothing in hand. The group had just enough werewithal to recollect seeing a strange, many-handed creature appear and disappear. They all decided to carefully watch the spot where it had manifested, and placed the jewelled dagger on the floor for bait. They intently watched the spot on the floor for about five minutes before deciding to move on.

Next they came to a room with many tapestries. These seemed more eclectic, some depicting patrons' images and others with themes from legend. Poking behind the tapestries, they came upon a narrow passage leading to a locked stone door. The party decided to continue on.

The next hallway had faint scratches on the marble flagstones, which Sig deduced probably belonged to a dragon. The hallway opened on a room which had experienced a recent cave-in. A large chunk of the ceiling had fallen away, partially filling the room and leaving a small, but servicable, tunnel to the surface. Discovering nothing more interesting than worms and roots in the tunnel, the party turned to continue down the passageway.

Sig ran into the backs of his more aware companions as they checked themselves from walking into a clear jelly. They quickly backed themselves up the pile of rubble and fired at the cube from a safe distance. The gelatinous cube was soon just a blob of jelly on the floor. Lewis retrieved a longsword (which served as a greatsword for the halfling) to replace his lost warhammer.

The group then decided to check out the locked stone door. Juniper walked out of the museum to find the rogue, but decided that it would be more fun to use her new portable battering ram, so she did. After a couple of swings, the party burst the door open and discovered the odd-looking creature they had glimpsed before. Allister hit it square between the eyes with an ice spear and it dropped dead before it knew what hit it. Its carefully guarded lair contained an enormous number of pink sequins. Many of these were sewn onto a magical cloak which Juniper claimed. Buried in the shiny mounds were also two rubies and the halfling's warhammer.

By now it was getting late, so the group went back outside and persuaded everyone to spend the night in the frescoe room. Ethan and Gregory were getting along about as well as you'd expect for a philandering rogue and a judgmental paladin; that is to say, not at all.

Rested and replenished, the party set out down the hallway from the rubble room. The ceilings here became much higher as the passage led to a grand set of double doors. Allister, always watchful, noticed a deep groove in the floor fifteen feet in front of the doors when he was standing about twenty-five feet from the doors. He alerted the rest of the party to a potential trap. Gregory suggested that they throw heavy rocks at the crack to see what would happen. They procured such rocks from the rubble room and threw them. What happened was that the extra weight of the rocks tipped the two fifteen-foot sections of the floor inwards, knocking Gregory, Juniper, Ethan, and Allister into a twenty foot deep spiked pit trap as Allister's panther sprang to safety. Inside the trap, Allister reverted to human form and climbed to the top with the help of a spell. He carefully followed Ethan's instructions on how to wedge the the trap door open. He climbed out and secured a rope to a heavy rock from the rubble room, and everybody else climbed out.

Allister, still under the effect of the spider climb spell, now attached the rope to the handles of the big double doors. Ethan climbed hand over hand over the trap, and picked the lock on the door. The whole party pulled on the rope and opened the door to reveal a waiting blue dragon.

Most of the adventurers ran back around the corner into the collapsed room and drew their weapons as the dragon rushed onto them from overhead. Juniper took a blast from its electrical breath and Allister hurriedly summoned a dire wolf. Gregory stood his ground and swung at it, receiving its next attack as it landed and entered melee.

Gregory, Lewis, and Ethan moved to surround it as Allister and Juniper hid and strengthened themselves. Sig fired off a ray of enfeeblement, diminishing the dragon's strength. The dragon frightened Sig and Ethan as the paladins thanked their lucky auras that they were immune to fear. The dragon dispatched the summoned wolf and started taking a few hits from magical and nonmagical weapons. Gregory was exhorted to remember that he had possession of the magical scimitar.

Many fumbles were made both by the adventurers and the dragon.

The dragon breathed electricity again, not harming the protected Juniper but outright electrocuting the brave rogue Ethan, who went out in a current of glory. By now Juniper had joined the fray and shaken the dragon (to her great amusement), and Allister had summoned a flying hippogriff, and the dragon was nearly surrounded. It attempted to push Gregory back into the pit trap, but was instead tripped by a new summoned dire wolf. It lay kicking on the ground as Juniper finished it off.

The victorious heroes took a few dragon scales as mementos (or the whole dragon head, if you're Gregory) and pushed the beast into its own pit trap. They then carefully climbed across the trap with their rope and entered the dragon's grand hall.

At the other end of the hall were more double doors, which Allister pushed open dramatically. Inside this room were lots of birds, pixies, and pretty girls all kept in golden cages. On the floor was a pile of platinum coins, a silver picnic table with an ivory-and-gold mirror lying on it and a sapphire pendant, some potions, some scrolls, a box of magical dust and a pink stone which Juniper set spinning around her head.

The adventurers set the birds and fey and women free. They made their own way back to Eaglehame, hauling the the wealth (including the silver picnic table) with them. In the distance they could hear the celebrations of the Champion's Birth resume, knowing that they had rescued Diamala and her baby.