After resting, the party moved to a nearby park and watched for the next part of their prophecy: a cloud of darkness. As time passed and night fell, the remaining pedestrians vacated the streets, and the lovers meeting under moonlight vanished to their homes and hideaways. Alone, and in the early hours of the morning, the party watched and waited. Eventually Yurgrim saw exactly what the Dead Man predicted: a cloud of billowing black smoke drifting out of an alley and down the street.
Yurgrim tapped his fellow party members and pointed. All of them immediately tried to hide and stay quiet, but a startled Alfred accidentally shouted in surprise: "OH SHIT, THERE IT IS!" He tried to recover from this misstep: "THAT HOUSE, OVER THERE... uh... THERE IT IS!" The black cloud froze in place for a moment, then continued on its path, quicker than before. The party gave chase.
The party was easily able to keep close to the cloud and eventually found it sinking into the ground in the middle of the street. After it was entirely submerged, the sewer manhole that it had gone through became visible, and the party followed it through. The damp rain tunnels were pitch black, and the party relied on Dela's magical torch to light the way. The party followed the cloud further until eventually it turned a corner. When the party came near, they found what the cloud had been hiding: a group of kobolds, descending upon them in attack.
The battle was quick, but fierce. The kobolds (small draconic creatures) shifted around the battlefield maddeningly and nearly brought down Alfred, who had successfully drawn their attention. The kobold leader, a wyrmpriest, fired orbs of chilling frost and did his best to rally his compatriots, but the party did not relent, and by the time the battle had been effectively decided, it was too late for the wyrmpriest to run.
Dela weathered the priest's icy orbs especially well, with much of the cold being swept into her backpack. When she checked, she found her tattered cloak to be not-so-tattered anymore, and to be showing slight signs of magic that had not been there before. She put it away again.
The kobolds had apparently dropped a small pile of valuable baubles before attacking. Platters, goblets, and jewelry made of gold and silver littered the floor. Recalling the Dead Man's instruction to "destroy the treasure", the party set about disfiguring and demolishing the loot, bashing and jumping on it. The clangor carried down the sewer halls.
The kobold's hallway led to a 50-foot precipice, which sat above a slowly moving channel of water. After finishing with the treasure, the party took a moment to rest, sitting near the edge, as the prophecy instructed. But their rest was interrupted when a figure appeared behind them, said "Boo", and threw a magical blast of wind that pushed the entire party over the edge into the water below.
A last-minute feat of mental discipline from Dela allowed the tiefling to resist the spell, and she stood her ground. The figure in front of her appeared to be wearing the same clothes as the mysterious monk who guided them to Master Vilarr the previous day, except that the strange glistening string necklace appeared to be glowing. Beyond that, the figure had utterly white skin, long black hair, and an entirely different face than the monk's. It smiled at Dela, and it ran. Dela followed, using her psionic powers to slow him down. The figure snarled at her, its eyes and teeth growing to twice their size for an instant before returning to normal, but it continued running as fast as it could. Dela, thinking of her friends, gave up the chase and returned to the precipice.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party landed in the water with only a few bruises thanks to the mud and moss at the bottom of the waterway. Unfortunately, their only light source had been Dela's torch, and they could hear something large approaching them from ahead. Yurgrim quickly cracked a sunrod, filling the waterway with light and revealing an equally-surprised young white dragon. It immediately attacked.
The dragon swung out viciously with its claws and teeth, and its icy breath froze the party in place when it caught them in the water, but the party kept the battle well in hand thanks to their skills, teamwork, and new magical aids. Yurgrim's amulet kept out the cold especially well, and Alfred's wolf pelt kept out the worst of the dragon's breath. Addy fired arrows as fast as she could, while Winter snuck up behind the dragon and dealt devastating blows with her katar. When Dela returned she contributed with psionic assaults from above. Yurgrim stayed busy with his healing powers, and at one point Winter fell unconscious, held up only by ice, but the dragon was cornered and slain.
Dela eventually found her way down to the rest of the party by way of a dagger jammed into the wall and a coil of rope. The dragon was stripped of its intact scales and teeth, and the party decided to follow the frosty tracks it had left. After traveling up the waterway for some time, the party found a passage carved through the wall. Following it, they came upon a massive domed cavern. Several kobolds, evidently surprised to see the party, made an effort at an attack, but they were far weaker than those encountered before, and were dispatched with little effort.
The contents of the cavern bewildered the party. In the center was a pile of less-valuable treasures made of bronze and occasionally silver. But near the wall, equally spaced, were a dozen large eggs, each of which glowed a bright white with veins of another color. One had hatched. The party recognized them as dragon eggs.
Dela approached a red-veined egg to try to ascertain how close it was to hatching. It answered by showing a crack in its shell. Dela responded by launching a psychic attack upon the creature inside. The infantile dragon was already dangerous, but unsuspecting. It quickly died under Dela's mental siege. Prying open the shell a bit more, the tiefling revealed an unborn red dragon, just about ready to hatch. The rest of the party, excepting a distraught Winter, proceeded to the other ten eggs, smashing them and killing their contents. Yurgrim wondered aloud at how such a collection came to be: dragons did not associate with dragons of other colors, nor did they lay eggs in groups. So many eggs in one place should have been an impossibility.
When their work had just been completed, the party glimpsed three humanoid figures approaching from the tunnel. The party readied weapons and called out to them. The figures revealed themselves as Asharans: two humans and a gnome. They demanded to know what had happened. After hearing part of the story and consulting amongst themselves, they demanded that the party come with them back to the city. The party agreed, and were marched up to the surface, where dawn awaited them. The gnome stayed behind, curiously inspecting the smashed eggs.
Eventually they were led inside one of the largest towers in the city. At the second story, they were guided to a prison cell and instructed gruffly to enter. The party pleaded innocence, but the two Asharans would brook no argument. "It will only be for a short time", said one, and assured them that the Elders would be deciding their eventual fate. The party reluctantly agreed and stepped into the cell. The door was closed and locked behind them, and they waited patiently to be summoned to the Elders...
Next Session: THE TRIAL OF SPRING
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