DavesGaming

Sarah

The Cowled Wizards of all people, asked Chuck to oversee the Planar Sphere now nestled permanently in the Athkatla slums. Perhaps its because we entered successfully, neutralized it as a threat, and killed the Cowled Wizards who attacked us? Or am I the only one who thinks that?
Oh I know Chuck and Imoen agree. Chuck made a point of telling their representative that Imoen would be their contact with us.

I don’t think I really play intimidating well. But he was sweating a lot. And I do mean for them to be a little nervous in dealing with us.
They assigned a group of students for Chuck, Imoen and Aerie to tutor. I think this works wholly in our favor. Chuck is a natural teacher, and is always so winsome. I think we can have a good influence on the next generation of wizards in this city.

After a few days we decided it was time to head for the Windspear Hills, to check in on this monster hunt Lord Firkraag had asked us to perform. Chuck had just mentioned we seemed to be entering the Windspear area, when we were beset by a group of monsters, ogres mostly.
Shockingly, they turned into knights once they were down.

We met a Garren Windspear, former lord of these lands, who seemed to have a good idea what had happened. He was disgraced and dismissed as Lord Windspear several years ago in a similar series of attacks. Lord Firkraag had conveniently put an end to the trouble, and was undoubtedly behind what was happening. Maybe we’d offended him in some way?
None of us had even heard of him before he hired us. Garren offered to ride to Athkatla and explain the situation to the Radiant Heart. We were to hide out in his home for a day. And protect his daughter.
Several hours later we came under attack, we fought a number of intruders in Garren’s home, and his daughter Iltha was abducted. We’ve been set-up and framed before, this is a familiar pattern. We found a note that was an “invitation” to face Firkraag personally.
Garren soon returned, we told him what had happened and we promptly set out to find Iltha and Firkraag.

There was a lot to combat in this area. Werewolves were the most dangerous, so really no drama. And we did find something special and beautiful.

We were able to reunite the dryads with those who’d been held captive in Irenicus’ Dungeon.

And then we found something very different.

It was. We fought a number of orcs, golems, undead. It was an extensive complex. We found Iltha in a jail cell, that we could not open. There was a large opening beyond. This is where we met Firkraag. A red dragon. Who had been injured many years ago by Chuck’s real father, Gorion. After a lengthy explanation, he said we’d bored him and we could go. We could take Iltha, as long as we killed a mage who was holding the key to her cell.
Like a cat gaming with a mouse. We set Iltha free, then we knew had a score to settle.

We returned first to Garren. Iltha was fine. And he assured us we in the Radiant Heart’s good graces. We still had a melancholy task ahead of returning their fallen. But we had ended a great evil in this area.

We got back to Athkatla and returned the Radiant Heart’s knights to them. We were clearly forgiven, the situation was understood. But it was still bitter.
We found another bunch of slavers in the city that we cleared out. And the Radiant Heart asked to do a few tasks, that kept us busy for a few days.
There was one more item of interest from the dragon hoard.

Of course, she said it would be a useful tool and we were fussing too much. But we should thank Lord Firkraag if we ran across him again! Did Jaheira make a joke?!

We returned to De’Arnise Castle to rest for a few days.

*****

I remember so many years ago, in the very early months of playing D&D with my buddies, someone in the group got a “Girdle of Giant Strength”. Somehow the topic came up of “how far can you jump with that! If you’re as strong as a giant, but still only weigh around 200 pounds…” Funny.

But I guess I’ve always remembered that question. So I loved the idea of Sarah leaping onto the dragon and killing it from the head. The AI *did not* want to show my warrior up above the dragon. I finally was using a lot of text to spell it out very specifically (“leaping high into the air above the dragon … the dragon looking up at the warrior…”) It took a dozen renders, but I love what finally came out!