Session 18

The Road to the Petrified Forest, Part II
Sebastian, who had come along on the mission to reach the Petrified Forest, decided he was going to scout ahead, and left the rest of the group to take on the angry basilisk. Each of the remaining adventurers aimed for one of the beast's legs, and soon had damaged several of its haunches. In return, it delivered a painful bite to Taargus's haunches. At the same time, an overly ambitious Cora swung her mace around a little too enthusiastically and hit herself in the head. Despite their hijinks, the heroes won out, and the monster dropped four gemstones. They bickered amongst themselves over who would take the precious gems, and after a heated debate, only Fausto came away without one. They continued on, and the closer they got to the Petrified Forest, the colder the air became. Without warning, a white dragon swooped down in front of them, blocking their way. Pooling their knowledge of dragons, they suspected they might be able to bribe their way past the creature by offering it gems or meat. However, they did not have any meat, and a select few stingy individuals were unwilling to part with their gems. Before making a final decision, Taargus tried to reason with the dragon, and he approached it, roaring to it in his own native language. As suspected, the dragon roared out in reply that he would not allow the group to pass without payment of some sort. Twitch tried bluffing to the dragon, telling it that he had some meat, but Twitch was not a good liar, and the dragon was not stupid. Cora and Caraga wanted to hand over the required number of jewels and be on their way without a fuss, but the gentlemen called the dragon a "bully," and took up their arms. Thusly they entered into battle with the dragon.

Despite their misgivings, Cora and Caraga had Taargus's back, and rushed in with him to attack the dragon. As soon as they were all close to him, the dragon unleashed his breath weapon, a bone-numbing blast of elemental frost. The icy blow slowed and weakened the three front-line fighters, and they suffered significant cold damage. Twitch hung back just far enough to stay out of harm's way, attempting to work his healing magic on the wounded warriors, but the dragon was merciless, and lashed out furiously with its claws. Some color was just beginning to return to the adventurers cheeks when the dragon belched out another glacial gale. This time, Twitch was caught in the tempest as well, and could do nothing but watch as Caraga fell unconscious.

As usual, Fausto had been staying out of the battle as much as possible up to this point, but stepped up his game as he saw his companions begin to falter. He struck quickly and silently, like a shadow, launching arrows from seemingly all directions, giving enough time for Twitch to recover and to stabilize the dying Caraga. Fausto's distraction worked, and the dragon took to the air, swooping back down right near the ranger and emitting another flurry of frosty breath. Meanwhile, Cora forced a healing potion down the struggling Caraga's throat, and helped the paladin stumble to her feet. They ran to join Twitch and Taargus, and as a group they assisted Fausto as, shivering, he struck the killing blow.

By this time, they were all weary and worse for the wear, so they decided to stop in a nearby town to rest and replace their damaged equipment. They set off refreshed and restocked the next morning, and found the boarders of the Petrified Forest guarded by two Eladrin knights and their griffon mounts. Taargus boldly strode into their midst and blasted them with his fire breath, leaving the Eladrin slightly singed, as Caraga attacked the griffons with her brand new Magic Longsword. The angered Eladrin issued Feywild Challenges to Taargus and Caraga, and the dragonborn was stabbed and restrained in tangled vines as his challenger teleported away. Crafty as they were, however, the Eladrin were nothing compared to the dragon the group had bested the previous day, and they were taken down easily; Cora collected several vials of alchemical reagents from the Eladrin's corpses. And with that, they found themselves at the edges of the Petrified Forest...

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