A second prisoner saved

We decided to press on and rescue Mertala. Treble threw a dagger into the room where the cook was held, and came back bloodied with a report that he had killed the goblin. The rest of us went in, and despite several misses, were able to finish off the three giant rodents and two gnomes without too much trouble. Although the rats tried to go past me to attack my ranged allies, I managed to slow them down so that they never reached the rear of our ranks. Rhogar got himself in a bit of a tight situation, taking on a rat and the two gnomes himself. I went up, drew their attention, and got a few nasty hits on them. Before the end of the battle, the last gnome disappeared. Thanks to me, he had already been slowed, which let us narrow his location down a small area only about fifteen feet on each side. Elaira just attacked the whole area and finished him off.

During the battle, some of us had felt some trembling of the earth and heard a giant roar followed by some cheers, so we knew that we needed to hurry before we found ourselves in real trouble. I cut the bonds that were holding Mertala, and gave her food and water as Elaira played a song to try to calm her. She was almost catatonic, and we noticed that she was suffering from some kind of disease, probably as a result of the bites from the filthy rodents. Rhogar and Elaira healed her (well, to be fair, she seemed frightened of Rhogar, maybe because of his draconic appearance... he decided it would be best to stand guard with me at the door instead) while Treble and Horadric pried the amber eyes off of the displacer beast statues. Shamash, Elaira, and Sertanian talked to the cook and convinced her that we could take her to safety. Especially in our wearied state, with our concerns about the noises we were continuing to hear in the catacombs, we decided that we needed to save the live prisoners first and return for Kartenix later.

As we left the castle, some of us noticed big clawed footprints that made deep trenches in the earth. They were clearly fresh footprints from a young dragon's landing in this very spot, and it seemed likely that it was the source of the roar and the trembling. We headed for cover in the forest, as the bard chanted march songs to spur us on, so we could make camp a solid distance away. I scouted for an area where I felt we would be safe from predatory animals, and Horadric chanted a ritual that set us up a campsite. As we rested, Mertala told us that she knew where Sertanian was held, and from there she knew that Adronsias was being held upstairs, in a family crypt which she was able to identify as the von Jallach crypts. Her fever got worse, so the next morning we hurried to Brindol and left her at a Temple of the Silver Flame with the clerics there, who we told about the defaced altars. The priest we spoke to, however, didn't seem to be terribly knowledgeable about those particular crypts, so I am guessing they were abandoned many years ago and that the Silver Flame has not been there in quite some time.

Councilman Troyas was out, so we gathered rumors around town and shopped during the afternoon. Several townspeople were talking animatedly about the blue dragon they had seen flying the skies.... yet others were sure it was all nonsense. To me, then, putting it all together led me to believe that dragons are rare enough in this region that the source of the footprints must have been this same blue dragon. We went and had another amazing meal at Councilman Troyas' residence as we updated him on the status of our adventure. He had nothing new to report; no new attacks had been made against Brindol while we were gone. This meal might have been even better than the last; either that, or eating travelling rations for the previous few days made it seem as though it was.

We stopped by an artificer's shop afterwards, where several of my allies bought some potions from the proprietor, Derrick. He seemed like a nice enough fellow who was genuinely willing to help us out, which was great, but I still find something unnatural about arcane power. I didn't buy anything. I did, however, listen with interest to his discussion of dragon anatomy. In my village we have killed and skinned various different animals for food, so I am somewhat versed in this area; however, I have never seen a dragon before, so it was fascinating to hear about his experiences.

We headed back to the catacombs, and I urged that we head into the von Jallach crypts to rescue Adronsias, even if it meant facing the dragon head-on. This is exactly what happened. Although it was asleep when we arrived, that didn't last for long. It seems as though Treble woke him up when he opened the door, since the dragon shot a huge bolt of lightning through the door, blasting it from its hinges and hitting several of us. It was at that point that I could see the large blue dragon, reared up on its hind legs and roaring at us. Although it was clearly a young dragon, its massive size made me marvel at how big a full-grown dragon could possibly be. I reached into the power of Earth's Winter Guardian, while Rhogar set up a circle of protection near the doorway to the room, which was filled with various kinds of poisonous mushrooms. Together we all faced four hobgoblin grunts, one formerly-harp-playing soldier, the dragon, and two drakes. Keh'r and Rhogar took quite a few hits; and Shamash delivered a very solid one to the dragon. As for me, I took a few, ending the battle bloodied; but I definitely gave it out better than I got. In the middle of the battle, Keh'r teleported into the mushroom patch and . . . fell asleep. He wasn't much good to us after that and woke up when it was all over.

After talking with Derrick the artificer yesterday, I think the next order of business is to help the others harvest some of these wild mushrooms and possibly gather some elements from the dragon before heading through the door to the East to pursue Adronsias.