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Previously on “Storm King’s Thunder”
I ran outside of the beached ship, and chaos raged around me. A loud snap followed by a monstrous roar raged in the air nearby, as I saw one of the dragons plummet to the ground, wrapped in a large net.
Just in the distance I could see Halfred floating in the air, holding a crossbow as big as his body.
“You think to evade me?” a mocking voice boomed to the south, signaling the other dragon’s pursuit. Who was he after? I only now realized that our party-wide invisibility prevented us from actually seeing other in a moment of crisis.
The dragons had no such problems. The southern dragon unleashed a blast of lighting inside a circle of pure blackness that had sprung up around the dock. Bryseis? Hopefully she survived.
The other dragon ripped out of its netting, called for his brother, deftly leapt behind Felgolos and unleashed a white-hot shot of lighting from his mouth.
Our bronze dragon ally shrugged it off but smoke rose from poor T.I.M.’s blackened, charred body. He remained standing, miraculously.
I turned just in time to see the the southern dragon leap off the nearby ruined building and hurtle straight for us.
Our plans fell apart almost instantly. We were supposed to get in and get out swiftly, but discovered to our horror that dragons have blindsight, rendering our invisibility plan completely moot.
At that point we had a choice: run like hell, or try to stand and fight a pair of blue dragons.
Of course we opted for the latter.
Korinn, T.I.M. and Kazin were still making their way out of the second dragon’s lair in the ship’s belly. Halfred and Felgolos were speeding to intercept the dragons, who were hurtling down from the sky.
Bryseis had sneaked off to steal from the first dragon’s hoard, a fact none of us were aware of thanks to invisibility. She rant to the dock and cast Darkness, hoping to evade the dragon’s wrath.
Dragons don’t care about visual impediment however, and blasted her with his lighting breath. Thankfully she made the save, taking severe damage instead of instantly going down.
The three of us ran outside to find the sandy beach erupted in chaos. Halfred, flying with his boots, shouldered the heavy crossbow and fired a netlauncher bolt at the second dragon, scoring a hit and causing the beast to fall to the ground, restrained in the net. Awesome! Felgolos and T.I.M. moved to attack and we felt a surge of confidence.
The dragon ripped out of the netting, flew behind Felgolos and unleashed its lighting breath, slightly singing Felgolos (whom we discovered also breathed lighting, thus making him resistant) and nearly vaporizing T.I.M. T.I.M. would spend the majority of the combat encounter retreating, attacking with Spiritual Weapon, and healing himself from his near death experience.
I ran up to join the fight with the blue dragon. He called for his brother, who was currently searching the nearby ruins for Bryseis. His sibling flew over, both towering over me, but allowing Bryseis to Misty Step and run up alongside and join the fray properly.
Korinn was the last out of the ship and ran into another whole fight. The gargoyle sentries on the ship were directed by the dragons to join the fray, and the carrion crawlers decided we were a more interesting meal than the dead whale carcass in the ship.
Two of the gargoyles and all the carrion crawlers converged on her after she used the magical ancient horn to blast one of the dragons for some slight damage (for a powerful ancient relic that thing is kind of lame, but I did have fun making horn noises).
Halfred’s continued arrow assault from the skies, Kazin’s unrelenting melee attacks, T.I.M.’s spiritual leech, and a solid Fireball from Bryseis brought one of the dragon’s down. Felgolos flew over to assist Korinn, who had lit up the ship with a Lighting Bolt spell, killing half the enemies. Felgolos’ lighting breath killed the other half, heh.
Felgolos had tanked much of the dragon’s onslaught, but I was taking my share of attacks as well. My Mirror Image spell was saving my life, and it had just run out.
The other two gargoyles had flown at Haflred, who used Fog Cloud to evade them, causing them to fly over and attack Bryseis and Kazin. Both would get solid hits on every round, but I was more concerned with the last surviving dragon. One more attack round or lighting breath from that last dragon would probably kill both of us.
Thankfully he never was able to recharge his lighting breath. We did enough damage (Fireballs were especially effective given their +0 DEX) that he tried to retreat, flying straight upwards. I was glad to focus my attention on the gargoyles, but the rest of the party, including Halfred, Korinn, and Bryseis, all took potshots at the fleeting dragon. Bryseis’ last Fireball slot sent it crashing to the ground as a flaming meteor.
And it was finished.
Holy hell! What a fight. Amazingly no one actually went down, though we all took heavy damage (about 50% HP, with more like 90% for T.I.M.). We defeated four carrion crawlers (CR 2), four gargoyles (CR 2), and two young blue dragons (CR 9). I initially believed they were both adults (CR 16), which prompted the Don’t Fight plan, but while very challenging they were actually doable as young dragons.
Of course we would not have even survived this fight if not for our own bronze dragon ally, Felgolos, who is apparently a fully grown adult bronze. As a balance the DM awarded him a full share of XP, and we gave him 25% of the loot between the two dragon hoards, which was a significant haul. There wasn’t much in the way of exciting magical items, a single Blade Bow being the most interesting find, which Halfred can definitely use.
Felgolos got his damn pipe weed back and even shared some with us (don’t do drugs kids).
As we made our way back through the tunnel we had a startling encounter. An inanimate dragon statue was staring at us from inside the tunnel with piercing blue eyes. It then spoke to us, revealing that this was the mother figure the dragons had been calling out for, though she simply chastised them for their weakness and stupidity. She was also the monstrous figure who had sent Zephyros’ cloud castle (and us) crashing down from the sky.
This ancient blue dragon revealed that she had killed – and eaten – Kazin’s former cloud giant mentor, which sent him into a rage (I initially envisioned him as Obi-wan Kenobi/Kanan Jarrus but god damn it he’s really more Anakin/Ezra). She also teased more of T.I.M.’s insane backstory, revealing that he was designed as some sort of soul-less construct general, and taunted Korinn for being a blue dragonborn who had just slain blue dragons. A really neat story moment.
The tunnels began shaking, whether it was through her magic or a coincidence we couldn’t say, but Kazin destroyed the statue and her presence flitted away.
Felgolos was shocked. Possessing statues from afar is not exactly a common dragon ability. He’d heard of ancient dragons who had fought during the giant-dragon wars of the Ostorian Empire, and of a particularly nasty blue dragon who wholly consumed her defeated enemies. But her name and whereabouts are unknown.
We’d won the battle but made a powerful enemy, and our adventures across the world are becoming more widespread. I had no idea a campaign about giants would so heavily involve dragons! Next week we continue on to the final relic resting place, and hopefully find Harshnag as well.
Streamed, recorded and uploaded every week. Subscribe for our weekly adventures. Join us live on Fridays at 7pm Pacific/10pm Eastern!
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