Loose threads: Under water cave tunnel off the coast of the dragon’s tail range, seems to lead to an underground part of Srasthadra. Serpentfolk ghostly guardian escaped underground, bound to a site in the dragon tail mountains. Massive half serpent folk half sea drake amalgamation left behind in the under water tunnels.
Participants: Zinlynndise Imare, Reiko Amiri, Bethany Claie, Hecret
Locations: City of Srasthadra, Dragon's Tail, Sea of Stone
Short summary:
Bethany, in hoping to upgrade her weapons with draconic features, needs a formula and parts for crafting the upgrade - both of which could be obtained by draconic creatures. Party opted to go after sea drakes, well documented to live in the coasts north of the Dragon’s Tail mountains. During the trip, the party encountered a serpentfolk ghost who commanded a skeletal serpent, and a warband of serpentfolk patrolling the area. Spotting a sea serpent with serpentfolk rider in the distance diving into the sea, the party opted to follow with a water breathing spell, discovering a vast cave network underground. They discovered a group of serpentfolk attending to two drakes, and were able to dispatch them after a hard fight.
Full Report
Zinlynndise here! Another report written by me. Time to stretch those old writing hands.
Okay, so my friend Beth was looking for a dragon blaster, which is supposed to be a big gun that hits like a dragon. So she explained that she needed two or three dragon like creatures to craft the gun from. A little snooping around and we realized from a few reports that several sea drakes live off the northern shores of watcher island, and would be great for this kinda thing. Great, so a hunt was on! Beth met up with Reiko and Hecret while I was getting ready and we set off to do that.
I guess that sounded pretty optimistic. And a lot of words. Easier wrote than done as we would figure out. Boooooooyy - and i mean to write that many ‘o’s - that whole City of Srasthadra situation was messier than i realized. I mean, there’s a few reports out there about moonflowers and what not - tried to be ready to fight some of those - but i guess some of us got to them first.
Oh!
Yeah, found a report for that. Cute tiefling lady said it was filed in while we were out. Here it is!
Anyways, tangents tangents...
Yeah our first few days went pretty smoothly; we weren’t bothered by the watcher kobolds or any other creature. Day 3 we got to the mountains, where all the serpentfolk activity was reported. While trekking through a pass, fog descended on us, as well as a spooky serpentfolk ghost lady. She was rather polite, at first, asking us a few questions. She spoke aklo which Reiko could understand, asking why are we here and talking about how elves haven’t been around here for a long long long time. Then she apologetically tried to kill us.
I know right? Really confusing. But it was something about spirits being bound to her people’s will. Then bam, earthquake and a giant skeleton showed up from the earth! With needles for rib cages that impale you and drag you around - aaaahh it was dreadful with the ghost throwing spells at us too. And hecret having fun with his confetti and dances, haha.
We’ll we survived, thankfully. The skeleton didn’t. The ghost got away, phasing underground. We really needed a breather so we didn’t gave chase. But ghosts don’t normally stray from one spot so I’ll have to make a mark where we found her.
Well, one rest later and we played with weasels! And quillam was paddle floating it was so cute! I should have brought my weasels from the Verdant Call to join them, but i was afraid they’d get hurt. Oh, and I think hecret was…doing something i forgot what. Maybe you can put a note in Hecret!
After the weasels we continued onwards, getting a good view of the whole island from the mountains peak. And there we found a whole bunch of moonflowers. Dead moonflowers thankfully. I posted the report that seemed to suggest why that was. Oh, right, during the fight with the lady ghost the day before we saw an explosion here. Forgot to mention that. Anyhoo, dead moonflowers, not a problem.
What was a problem is that it seemed like the serpent folk managed to tame a few of the drakes we were looking for. There was a rider flying on one around the skies, with a small army of serpent folk below marching on by. Well, flying drakes were easy to spot, so we snooped in invisible like towards the marching folks to hear what they were up to. Didn’t get spotted, somehow. Thankfully. I didn’t really want to kill more sorry soldiers and all. Even if they seem to be up to no good. Well, they are, but still.
We gave chase to the sea drake all the way up to the coast at night. It was about a quarter mile off the coast, flying about with its rider. Then suddenly is nose dived into the water. Which was like…weird? So we waited. No drakes. Waited some more - surely they’d have to surface? No drakes. Well, I guessed there had to have been some cave down there for them to head to, cus a serpentfolk drowning like that just seemed rather…dumb? We opted to wait the night to make absolutely sure though.
And no drakes!
Well, good thing we waited…I totally forgot to prepare water breathing like a dumb butt. Though apparently reiko could cast it for me so…i’m still dumb. Anyhoo, anyways, we casted it and went swimming off to where we saw the drake dive. Underground cave and everything was right - it was a full on river tunnel that went on and on. Until eventually it emerged into a space with air to breath. And approaching footsteps. Lemme just say, that sound is terrifying when you’re doing a trespassing?
So thinking fast, we casted a few wards and dived straight into the fray. I hasted and turned into a dragon! Roar! I’m sure Ariana Yaxiri would be jealous! But we ran into like…a lot of serpent folk. And our two drakes! But mostly a lot of serpent folk. Hoooooooooo booooyyyy.
So I flew up, started blasting dragon breaths. But apparently all the drakes were like ‘challenger, threat!’ And chased me. I did the best i could to keep them away from everyone but i was getting bit and scratched real bad. A troop of serpent folk tried getting to Reiko and Beth, hecret was every which way trying to get behind them. Scary big granite colored serpent folk was looking scary, and two very annoying and super lucky mages were lightning bolting and slowing me!
I don’t even know how we pulled through. Reiko was absolutely fantastic and i owe her so much for helping everyone though. But like, little by little we survived with a few wounds on Hecret’s part. We had a small breather after that. Time enough to patch up, pick up the pieces left behind by those serpent folk. Beth managed to cut up the drake, harvest more than enough of what she needs to craft the blaster she wanted to make. Obviously a bit of an icky process...One day I'll be normal again I swear.
Then out of nowhere (okay, maybe not nowhere. We were there for 20 minutes and all the serpentfolk that got away from us probably spread the word we were there.) this giant legless serpent with blue scales and full on dragon wings burst from the south! A big scary monster, like, being near it was heartstoppingly terrifying! Everyone thought we should run but, well, call it bravery or courage but I felt like we had to try fighting it. At the very least to let anyone in the future know what to expect. And, well, we had to run off but I'll write down what i saw.
- The creature is gargantuan in size! Like, bigger than the tunnels in that place. Maybe that can be used to an advantage?
- The creature breathes lightning like a sea drake. The first target gets hit hard, though its slightly easier for people around the target to dodge. Oh, the lightning arcs from target to target. Like the Electric Arc or Chain lightning spells!
- It has wings. I assume it can fly pretty fast, even if it looks way too big for that
- Being near the monster is like...terrifying. I dunno how to explain it but it has the bearing of a dragon that makes you wanna go 'eep' and run away. And it knows that.
- I'd say if you were like...an expert at avoiding things or shrugging off mental effects its pretty hit or miss for skilled heroes to avoid this thing. Sometimes Hecret and Reiko got hurt where i scrapped by just find and sometimes i'm the one in trouble. (DC 33 on its Aura and Breath Weapon)
- I presume it has the salty bite of a sea drake that will sicken you. Its not poison or disease so you just gotta shrug that off.
- Its smart and intelligent and speaks draconic and aklo. Being like, half dragon, I think it wants to hunt other dragons. I may or may not have used dragon shape earlier in the fight against the actual sea drakes so that might have sent some false information.
All in all, its the worst and scariest parts of a sea drake and serpent folk. So if you're heading down these tunnels after us, be very very wary.