Dragonlance Chapter 4 Dragons of Flame

After the long and difficult climb the party started to set up a small camp in the ruined temple and sort through the stuff they had grabbed from the dragon horde before it, and the building, fell into the sea.  Tasslehoff had scooped up a pile of golden coins on a shield.  Raislin pointed out the shield was magical and the Kender agreed to swap it for the Potion of Supreme Healing that Caramon had picked up.  Amongstly the other treasures Tanis found a ring of Water Walking and Raislin had a magical wand.

As this point the Aghar, along with Crank the Ogre, returned from their trip into the outside.  Over Crank's shoulder was the large barrel of Rum whose location Flint had traded with the Dwarfs for information.  A bit of argument broke out when they saw Tasselhoff was wearing the golden chains proclaiming him King of the Mountain.  Bupu challenged him to fight for leadership of the clan and when he refused the other Aghar started to pull out their weapons.  Goldmoon diffused the situation by explaining tribal customs to the Kender and saying "no" was not an options.  He promptly gave the raiment's to the Ogre who upon become King of the Mountain asked Bupu what he should do and followed her instructions.  The party was able to rest and recover for a few days and gather supplied during which time they saw the small dragons fly away from the pool they were in and not return.

Goldmoon has a vision her next quest was to find a leader of the people to unite them against the Queen of Darkness.  Looking at the map the plan was to head across the plains back to Solace and then return to Haven and speak with Elistan.

It was a long journey back through the mountains and across the plains.  Riverwind talked to the Owlbear again who spoke about how all the Elk had just burned one night and was now looking for food elsewhere.  Both Que-Shu and Que-Kiri were burnt out husks with marks showing an army has passed through.  In the first the party found some hobgoblins that had been hung as traitors with a message left from Highlord Verminaard stating this was the fate of cowards.  The party also hid to avoid patrolling dragons.

Fearing the worst for their home town the party were surprised to see Solace still there.  The town had not been burnt to the ground.  There was a platoon of around 100 Hobgoblins stations on the southern side of the town.  Leaving Flint with Sunstar the rest of the Heroes sneaked into town and headed to the Inn of the Last Home as the lights were still on there.  Here Tika served them spicy potato's and ale while telling them that Seeker Hederick had capitulated with the invaders and handed the town over to Fewmaster Toede the Hobgoblin leader.  Most of the able bodied men had been taken south to Pax Tharkas as mine workers along with their wife's as hostages.  Only the old and young remained as well as a few tradesmen the occupiers wanted to work for them.  Tika had a letter for Tanis from Kitiara (the Twin's sister and Tanis's lover) that asked him to take her brothers to the lake and winter there as war was coming.  She would join them there next summer when her latest mercenary contract ended.

A dozen Draconian soldiers came in and started drinking ale. There were also getting a bit handsy with Tika and Tasslehoff, who had been speaking with the only other patron of the Inn.  Riverwind and Caramon intimidated the soldiers and everyone, including the stranger, quickly fled.

Tasslehoff's friend introduced himself as Eben Shatterstone.  A mercenary from Gateway who was working with Theros Ironfeld the blacksmith as part of the resistance against the invading Dragon Armies.  The party snuck Eben out of town and then Tanis and Tass headed back to get Theros.  They found the doors to the forge open and Theros dying on the floor.  His arm had been cut off with a red hot blade.  The only reason he was not already dead was this had cauterised the wound.  A quick thinking Tass had Tanis hold the arm in place while he fed the most powerful healing potion in the land to they smith.  This allowed the arm to reattach and the three of them escaped the town.

Once he had recovered Theros told how he had been working with some younger, renegade Elves, to fight the invaders and provide useful information to the resistance.  He mentioned the Elven leader who had been spurred on to help Humans after their betrothal had been called off.  With this information the party decided to return to Qualinesti and find the resistance.

It took a few days of travel skirting Darken Wood (that some characters thought would be a good idea to enter) to reach Qualinesti.  Thanks to Raislin's magic allowing his brother to fly getting across the river turned out to be an easy task.  On the other side they met Kemiam Sungold who took them to the renegade camp.  Here were some fifty humans and twenty elves were living in harmony together.  Tanthalas Moonsilver told how a joint force of Elves and Humans from Gateway had been lured into a trap and most of them had been captured or killed, including their leader Laurana Kanan (Tanis's childhood sweetheart).  Moonsilver asked for representatives to join him in going to the capital to plead for the lives of the humans as the penalty for trespassing in the forest would normally be death.

Goldmoon, Flint, Tass and Riverwind travelled with Moonsilver and met with Solostaran Kanan, Speaker of the Sun, 11th of his Name, the king of the Elves.  They were witness to a ceremony where he passed the sun medallion he was wearing on to his son Porthios.  Afterwards Speaker Kanan agreed to allow the human refugees to travel with his people as they fled the forest in exchange for the Heroes rescuing people from the citadel of Pax Tharkas and taking them south.  Speaker Kanan said this should distract one of the three Dragon armies and would allow the Elven Woodshapers enough time to transport his people to the shattered lands in the west where they may be safe.  The Speaker and his royal guard were remaining in the forest to give the rest of the nation time to evacuade.  He told Goldmoon and Flint there was a secret way into Pax Tharkas through the tomb of Kith-Kanan founder of the Qualinesti nation.  His younger son Gilthanas would accompany them and open the way.  Flint asked if Tanis could not open the door and the Speaker replied "No the son of my brother's wife had no royal blood flowing through his veins".

Deciding who should go with them a vote was taken to bring Eben.  He was the common factor in all the betrayals of the resistance that had happened and people wanted to keep an eye on him.  Tika, Theros and Sunstar, now a priest of Mishakal, would remain with the Elves and other refugees.

After a long day travelling the party set up a trap for Eben.  Tass pretended to go to bed early but was actually turned invisible by Raislin.  He then followed Eben when he went to pee and saw him take a small stone from his pocket and start taking to it.  Tass stabbed him in the back before he had managed to say anything important and Riverwind quickly subdued him.  Once Eben awakened Raislin charmed him and was able to extracted much needed information.  Eben was working for the Dragon Armies and had been given the sending stone about a year ago by Kitiara and had been providing information on the resistance in exchange for being made Lord of Gateway in the New World Order.  It seemed Kitiara was in the employ of the enemy!  When asked about his lass message he informed the party he had told the Dragon armies to focus on killing the Woodshapers to stop the Elves fleeing.  Having gathered all the information they could Gilthanas ran Eben through.  They devised a plan to send a false message telling whoever was listening that the Woodshapers were on the coast of the Sirrion sea.  The stone itself was shaped like a five headed dragon each of the heads a different colour.

The next day Gilthanas led the party to dead end pass in the mountains.  Here he placed a small crystal against the rock and pricking his finger to allow a drop of blood to touch said a prayer to his ancestors.  Soundlessly the stone wall in front of him faded away revealing a passageway heading deep into the mountain.  Gilthanas wished them luck with the task ahead and then hurried back to Qualinesti to help with the evacuation.