After defeating the wave of hostile barbarians at the end of the last session, our party recomposed themselves on the outskirts of Edgetown with their ally Erik the barbarian and his small band of followers.

Edgetown, a barbarian settlement in the north lands, had been conquered by the evil witch Marjan. Her brutal law was being enforced by a host of barbarians who she exerted control over.

Praetor recognized that the barbarians all shared jet-black hair and black leather cloaks. He made the connection in appearance with the mysterious individual who bought a baby dragon from the Vermallian auction in Session 24.

The party accepted a skilled elvish thief into the party named Slade. Slade had been hoping to find a way to steal Marjan’s spell book for resale purposes. With both Slade and the party’s goals being so closely aligned, accepting this new elf into the ranks made good sense.

Slade immediately made an impact by going on a recon mission into the heart of Edgetown. Donning one of the barbarian’s black leather cloaks, he snuck around the city finding some safe travel paths.

In the town center, he witnessed some barbarians forcing some humans to drink the water that their dead family members had been drowned in. Apparently this was a punishment for breaking Morjan’s “laws”. Slade discreetly made contact with a human resident who begged him to save them from Morjan’s rule.

At this point, a drunken barbarian came wandering around and noticed Slade. Slade tricked the brute to turn around and then distributed a perfectly targeted crossbow bolt into the center of his skull.

Slade dragged the body into the home of the panicked human. Again the human implored for Slade to defeat Morjan for his life would surely pay the forfeit for this act.

Slade returned to the party and shared his intel.

With Slade’s information the whole group was able to find a safe path through the town until they arrived at Morjan’s base.

Morjan’s base was massive structure, hundreds of meters in diameter. It’s appearance can only be described as the explosion of a meteor hitting the earth with the resulting splash of earth being frozen and hardened into form. The structure was made of a black shiny obsidian-like material which was near impossible to climb. There was no visible entrance.

Dyme began checking the perimiter by dragging his sword around the wall until he found a place where his sword went through. The wall at that location was illusionary and the party was able to pass.

Inside they saw a long bridge crossing over a moat of deep black water. On the other side of the bridge they could see a central structure with a spire rising from the middle.

After a battle with some black water elementals (and losing a few barbarian friends in the process), the party continued along the bridge until they saw a door open from the central structure.

Out came the imposing individual from the auction (Narsic), riding his war horse with a group of black haired barbarian fighters in tow. Narsic yelled at them to leave but the party was not dissuaded.

Praetor launched a fireball at them but the entire party was shocked when the group charged out of the flame seemingly unharmed.

Narsic attacked by blowing fire on the group and killing some more barbarians. Fizban was able to subdue the other barbarians with a well placed sleep spell but even against a full party of skilled heroes, Narsic would not be an easy fight.

At one point in the melee, Narsic landed a crushing blow which killed Erik sending his lifeless body into the inky depths of the black water moat.

The party eventually killed Narsic, and despite the language barrier, Nedraw was able to rally the remaining two barbarians to finish the quest.

The main entrance to the central structure was magically locked and the party struggled to find a way inside until they realized that the black obsidian shard that Nedraw had in his inventory would fit perfectly into the keyhole.

Once inside, they realized they had entered a nest. The nest of a white dragon!

A quick thinking Fizban remembered his scroll of Hold Monster. He quickly cast the scroll and it worked! What could have been a very dangerous fight with heavy casualties was ended before it began! The party slaughtered the paralyzed beast.

Nedraw found the baby dragon that had been purchased by Narsic for 10,000GP. He placed the dragon under his furs and the whole group began the ascent up the winding stair case that would presumably lead to Morjan.

There was a mad, close-quarters fight with more of Morjan’s barbarian fighters inside the treacherous stairwell. Many of the attackers fell to their death and one tried to grab Slade and bring him down with him. While Slade began to fall, Dyme quickly tossed a rope which Slade caught. Slade crashed into the stairs, receiving some bruises that were far preferable to the potential broken limbs of a fall all the way to the bottom.

Now they would need to enter Marjan’s room at the top of the spire and complete their quest…

AD: Test your Star Wars trivia knowledge