06 Vampires and Wizards and Dragons! Oh My!

((A weekend of gaming featuring (in alphabetical order): Anders, Christer, Erik, Henrik, Molle, Mårdsjön. Directed by Jonas. :))

While masquerading as fellow cultists of the dragon, having followed a creaking cart filled with treasure across the bridge they volunteered to help cart the treasure to the main vault. Said vault proved to be guarded by a large white dragon named Glaznael, who agreed to not snack on them as they had indeed brought along a suitable amount of treasure. They then proceeded to walk all over the castle asking for the engine room - claiming to have an important thing to do there - but due to a rather bad swedish pun they kept being directed to the kitchen. Along the way they found where the castle was being steered from, but were ushered away by the ogre patrolling the upper courtyard, so they decided to camp out on the top of the hill in the center of the courtyard near a crumbling tower. Ogres approached them several times, saying that it was a bad idea to enter Sandesyls tower, and to remain outdoors after darkness. As indeed it turned out to be, as while the party was trying to enter the steering tower a vampire and her two spawn attacked. The vampire was not that hard to dispatch, but strangely the spawn proved more persistent. At the end of the battle some of the Ogres cowering inside their barracks peeked out and saw that Sandesyl was down, and they charged out. A massive battle followed, where all the ogres were wiped out along with several kobolds and a couple of dragonclaws coming up from the lower courtyard. During the battle Woah and Nergal teleported into the tower once a small hole was chopped open in the door to the tower. There first Nergal and then Woah tried to operate the castle from the control room. Nergal was soon shut down by the spirit operating the castle as it seemed that not only didn't he know what he was doing, he was a (bad) liar to boot! Woah however got a better rapport with the spirit - named Esclarotta - and convinced her that they also hated the cult, and that their slaying all her husbands guards was just case of mistaken identity as they had thought that everyone in the castle served the cult. She agreed to tell her husband that he should listen to them before killing them all. A good thing as it turned out that he - a Cloud Giant named Blagothkus - was indeed flying towards the battle. He told everyone to move away from the castle, and they managed to convince him that they were defending the steering tower from the cultists. He ordered everyone away after pretending to slay the only coscious pc outside the tower.

They had a conclave and he revealed his longtime political plans to use the rise of Tiamat to force Faerun's giants to unite against a common enemy. After some discussion he agreed that if they managed to wipe out the cultists onboard he would instead use the cults betrayal of him, and ally with the ones fighting Tiamat.

After some rest they set out to try to slay the Red Wizards and Rezmir, but their plan soon made contact with the enemy, and everything went wrong. Reomar, Grandulf, Nergal and their accompanying cleric Navara were all slain - though not without slaying Aszbara Jos - Bruno and Woah managed to kill Rezmir while fleeing through the tunnels. Rath Modar got away - bringing the magic items of the slain heroes with him.

Still, getting the cult off the castle and bringing him the head of Rezmir was sufficient to convince Blagothkus that the plan was worth continuing. After some dickering they traded Rezmir's sword (a greatsword named Hazirawn) for a couple of smaller items. Blagothkus was visibly - and perhaps worringly - excited after trying out the sword... He brought out some prisoners the Cult had taken, a Human Noble/Bard entertained called Sir Baha originally sent by the Lords' Alliance, a Drow Assassin agent of the Zhentarim named ??? and Pendar, a former Sergeant Halfling Fighter of the Order of the Gauntlet who all agreed to help the group take out the dragon in return for their freedom and joining the group.

Rezmir's mask was given to Baha after throwing lots for who was to use it. It turned out to be a Legendary item with a multitude of powers.

The following day they stacked a couple of Ogre bodies aboard a treasure cart and rolled it to the main vault, claiming to have brought food. Glaznael, only noticing that Rezmir was getting a bit skinny - having difficulty distinguishing all the small humanoids running around, but recognizing the mask - commented briefly on it before shouting 'Treason!' in outrage as the group attacked him. A difficult fight followed, but in the end they brought the dragon down as he was trying to flee, Pendar loosing the killing arrow, claiming his ekename of Dragonslayer.

After the dragon was brought down the treasure hoard was split such that Blagothkus took most of the money, claiming to need it to help raise a Giant army to fight the dragons while the group took the magic items.

Blagothkus dropped the party off at a town while he headed for his rendezvous with the Giant clans. There they reached out to their various contacts, and a talking raven soon approached them, bringing a teleport scroll.

With the scroll they got to Waterdeep where just as they were being brought to a meeting with the Council Quiet the Draakhorn was sounded...

At the meeting they told of all that had happened to them, were roundly praised, given writs that effectively gives them sheriff-like powers to draft men and appropriate items they need, under the oversight of the Council.

They learned of origin of the Draakhorn, the function of the Mask was revealed to them, as well as learning that as long as they kept it from the Cult, Tiamat could still be raised as only two masks were absolutely neccessary, but her Black Dragon head would be weaker.

They were told that the Council had two major leads for them to pursue, either go learn more about the Draakhorn in the Sea of Moving Ice, or go after the White Dragonspeaker, Varrak, and try to get his mask.

The group were inclined to go after the Draakhorn.

Baha revealed that he was actually a reincarnated Gold Dragon sent by Bahamut to lead the fight against Tiamat.