Venomfang

The party finally faces off the dragon in Thundertree

Synopsis
Starting from where we left off last time, the party just engaged in a fight with a few Zombies. Without much trouble and the use of a Turn Undead by Caelynn, the Zombies were quickly despatched. But neither this, nor the last remaining houses, contained a statuette such as they were looking for. To make really sure that the cultists were not hiding anything from them, they went back to double-check. With a successful charm person by Nate upon the leader, they were able to search the house themselves, but did not find the statuette they were looking for. They only found three diamonds, which they let the cultists keep. Nate then suggested to the leader that the dragon seemed to be in a fine mood and certainly would be open to negotiations. The leader took this as a fine idea. The party left and hid in the vicinity to see what the cultists were going to do.

Some 20min later, the cultists emerged, carrying the coffer containing the three diamonds. They did see the party hiding in the nearby building, but Nate was able to convince them they were merely searching the house. The cultists then proceeded to the tower, the party stealthily following. They entered the tower and went to negotiate with the dragon. The party followed into the adjoining room of the tower and tried to listen in. They heard the cultists offer the dragon the diamonds and asked him to join their cause, which was raising the dragons to their former glory again. They told the dragon he could inquire further at Castle Naerytar if he was interested. Nate then cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on one of the cultists, who then started laughing uncontrollably. The dragon was not at all amused by this, and in order to not anger him more, the leader offered the laughing cultist as a tribute to the dragon. The dragon commanded the cultists to leave, which in turn scrambled out of the tower. The party only just managed to get out of it without beeing seen. They then also heard the screams of one of the cultists being eaten. Deciding not to face off against the dragon just now they went back to Reidoth's place in order to take a short rest.

After the rest, the party decided that for some reason, the cultists needed to die. So they made their way back to their hideout. Brottor picked the lock and slowly opened the door in order for Nate to cast a spell on somebody. This failed and the leader angrily tried to shut the door again, since he did not want to fight them. Akemena however threw the door back open again and the cultist got riddled by arrows and bolts in the chest. The other cultists, seing their leader die in front of them, try to flee, but get hunted down one by one. On the leaders body, they find a potion of flying as well as a letter to the leader, Favric, from someone called Rezmir. The place Castle Naerytar falls again in this letter. Since they did not find the statuette anywhere in Thundertree, the party decided to go to the dragon the next day.

The next day, they decided to try to make a deal with the dragon; they would give him an emerald necklace in exchange for the statuette. Just in case a fight broke out with the dragon, they asked Reidoth to protect them against poison, a service he promised them beforehand. Since he could only protect three people against poison, Caldarion took over the remaining two.

Back at the tower, Nate and Akemena, both wearing cultist garb, entered the tower while the rest waited in the room outside. Nate played a song glorifying dragons and Akemena carried the emerald necklace. With this song he hoped to sway the dragon's favour in his direction. In the following discussion Nate asked Venomfang, the dragon, if he had a jade statuette. Venomfang denied, so Nate tried to trade the necklace for the dragon's knowledge about the statuettes location. To this the dragon agreed, and after some to and fro, the necklace was passed to him, upon which he said he had no idea what statuette they were talking about. Feeling betrayed, Nate used Phantasmal Force to make Venomfang think he's on fire, and a battle ensued. Due to some very convenient spells and lucky rolls, Venomfang was only able to make one breath attack (downing Caelynn in the process), before taking off and fleeing. Akemena climbed to the top of the tower and managed to shoot Venomfang one more time, but it was not enough and Venomfang escaped. His last words to them was, "You have not seen the last of me!"