”Yes. Quite ingenious they are making a trap, but the dragon is quite wily himself. I think he might make these mercs. What do you say we try to conceal ourselves and see who it turns out? If these guys don’t have a way to make water it could be over pretty easily for them.”
”My guess is they do have a water source. Maybe they beat the dragon, but we are in a position to take advantage or help. If the dragon wins it might be weakened. Or maybe we get a chance to work with it. The dragon might give us important information in exchange for our magical items?”
”As for this caravan graveyard I think we looted this one already right”
"Good plan Hashik, lets conceal ourselves and see what turns up..? I'll go hide."
Raok will climb a tree and hide
Jarek partially submerges himself in the ground again, keeping the upper half of his head visible to keep an eye on things.
this is a rocky desert, there are hills and wagons.
how long are you all hiding?
Ok Raok is just hiding behind a rock then.
"Sounds like we do have a few options, Hashik.
"Might as well lie in wait and see what happens."
Draalûsh will try hiding himself among the deserted wagons and other gear.
the enforcer group comes along(the rogues), talks with one of the mercenaries and they seem to come to an agreement. they start digging 4 shallow holes in the ground for all of them and they swing a camouflage tarp over themselves more than 20 feet away from the tent in different directions.
night falls and the mercenaries make a fire and light some torches and stake them into the ground. shortly after some lightning hits one of the mercenaries. they all flurry into action with their crossbows, but it's night time and no one knows if they hit. half a minute later another mercenary is hit by lightning.
are you all doing anything?
Jarek will move closer in an effort to see what he can with his darkvision, staying mostly submerged.
”The dragon is going to pick them apart one by one, but eventually he will come in to get the treasure. We can see if they can actually injure the dragon.”
Raok stays in place observing
it's still nighttime and very dark out
Jarek, you actually catch some glimpses of it as it's bombarding the mercenaries, it's flying in kinda low
it is systematically killing all of them, this takes about a half hour.
after all the mercenaries are dead, the dragon lands and walks into the tent.
the 4 enforcers whip off their tarps and the dragon immediately takes off shooting lightning at one of them. you notice they each have a metal net in hand. having their plan thwarted they immediately scatter
it will take 2 rounds for you to get to the makeshift tent, except for Jarek who is much closer who can be there in a move action. if you so choose.
what are you doing?
Draalûsh will come out of cover and try running over to where the mercenaries are fighting the dragon, with his crossbow ready.
I did not think anyone would come out when the dragon is sending out the aerial bombardment where almost none of the party can see it, and it can see you, are you sure you want to do this?
Then again, maybe not. Draalûsh will try and see if he can get a fix on the dragon first, before trying to approach it.
its flying around alot, it sends down it's lightning every few rounds, and you can only see it the instant the lightning flashes down. its 40 ft up
”Hold Fast!”
Hashik breathes.
”Once he is done with them, what do you think about me trying to talk to it? I know it sounds crazy, but maybe we can negotiate with it.”
”Or maybe we wait for it to carry off the goods and find its lair?”
”What do you guys think?”
knowledge arcana?
"Sounbds great" says Raok while looking at Hashik
"We'd be at a bit of a disadvantage following it, since it can fly.
"But I'd rather not negotiate with it.
"They're a capricious lot, dragons."
"I should know, with some dragon blood in my own veins", Draalûsh thinks.
again knowledge arcana?
and I've seen 2 suggestions, one of following it and another of trying to negotiate. are you taking one of them?
try to negotiate if you want, but dragons like that are treacherous. Myself, I think we should kill it. But I'm willing to let you try.
"I agree with Karla and Draalûsh. I like Hashik’s plan of tracking it back to its lair, but I doubt we could keep up with an airborne dragon."
"I have a net I can try and capture it with and then we can do whatever .. if I get the opportunity to throw it."
from that roll you know that a dragon of this color is usually lawful evil and a dragon of this size is probably a hatchling without any greater concept of the world
babby dragons like this usually don't know common, only draconic
if you aren't going out to attack it the scene I described earlier takes place. the dragon touches down foils the ambush, and takes off again spouting lightning every few rounds at the enforcers this time. those of you with darkvision will see the dragon occasionally as it flies over the wagons. the enforcers seem to be doing a better job dodging the lightning than the mercenaries. after a few minutes they start running toward the wagons where you all are hiding.
what are you doing?
For the moment, Draalûsh will wait with his crossbow and try to shoot the dragon if it gets within range.
likewise, karla will wait for the dragon to reach her range with scorching ray if it gets real close (35 feet) or magic missile (150 feet.)
the enforcers are purposely leading the dragon over here
the enforcers get within 30 feet, and get lightning on them again.
you can see the dragon in the sky 40 ft. up, who are you shooting?
Draalûsh will fire at the dragon with his long bow
you hear a reptilian shriek, and those of you with darkvision see it immediately turn straight east and run away.
one of the enforcers screams, "TRAVELERS, IF YOU HELP US KILL THE DRAGON WE ARE WILLING TO SPLIT THE BOUNTY 50/50!"
Raok heads off after it trying to keep track of it's movement
He casts expeditious retreat to help him keep up with it
Karla moves after it (30 feet) and hits it with magic missile if she can.
"Sounds good to me!" Draalûsh says simply to the enforcers.
"Let's follow it, quick like a bunny!"
"Follow our fast tracker yonder!", indicating the now speedy Raok, as he chases after him.
Seeing Draalush fire, Hashik follows suit!
”Agreed! The battle is joined.”
Realizing he doesn't have time to fire his crossbow, Jarek runs after Raok and the dragon. (100 feet)
everyone who attacked I'll allow to fire off as a readied action, and I believe they all hit.
unfortunately it is still night out on a new moon so no tracking for now. the enforcers get into battle positions with crossbows out and start to get confused after a minute of standing around without any more dragon attacks. they even make confused sounds
Karla readies another magic missile
it doesn't appear again
one of the enforcers yells "WHERE THE HELL IS IT?"
they all shuffle around and eventually just huddle up next to you all next to the wagon
what are you gonna do?
Karla looks at the others
It's smart. It knows when to bail from a fight, but i wonder if it can heal. We should track it.
"I cannot track it, it's dark and it's flying, maybe we can just go in the direction it flew and hope for luck to find it's lair." Raok replies while looking around
one of the more singed enforcers asks "it's the dead of night how could anyone see where it went!? how are we gonna track it if they did? sunrise is in 10 HOURS!"
if nothing else that needs to be said at night we can skip to morning
”I think we hit it hard and even if we didn’t kill it, it may have gone to ground. If it landed, we might be able to track it. It’s going to want to hole up if it’s still alive.”
”We could walk in a spiral at first light, overlapping our search and sweeping the area to see what we can find.”
”In the meantime, we should set half of us to watch while the others sleep then switch off. Let’s make it through the night first off, huh?”
"Eh ok" he shrugs and starts setting up his sleeping gear
Karla looks at the loud mouth
Well, maybe you should keep your eyes open and mouth shut if you have nothing constructive to say!
To Hashik she says more quietly
It's worth a try, but dragons can fly a long way, ery fast.
She thinks a second
But it does like this area. So it could be close.
well as I said.... weeks ago darkvision peeps saw the dragon bolt east in a panic. I'll assume they speak up about it
the more battered enforcer speaks up to Karla "fine, civility is a small price to pay for cooperation." they proceed to set up a watch seperate from yours.
morning comes, the tent the mercenaries improvised burned down sometime in the battle up the hill. Raok finds success in finding dragon tracks on it's initial touchdown. the enforcers are making breakfast for themselves as you are ready to head out they say "we'll catch up later. don't worry about us we're big boys"
sense motive?
Raok looks atcthem sidelong
Raok says to his companions "I've found a track .. let's go see if we can find the besst."
"I concur. We're more use to each other as one group, not two."