We began the session with a Dragon Fight! Auric Goldtooth, the golden dragon, pulled himself out from under his pile of gold (revealing that there were several seemingly electricity-filled tubes connected to his body) before referring to himself as the ‘Golden Storm’ and blasting Monk and Bull with concussive waves of Thunder. And then they killed him.
It wasn’t that simple, obviously. Monk and Bull were both brought quite low by the breath attack and then they each yo-yo’ed a couple of times before Bull managed to get the killing blow, doing 46 points of damage when the dragon had 45 left (thanks to smite, because he is a paladin now). Importantly, Bull was not healed back by conventional means. Each of the two times he went unconscious, he actually drew energy from the world and the creatures close to him, causing damage to them and, in fact, bringing Monk to unconsciousness both times. This seems to be related to his new form, but probably requires further investigation.
And, of course, during the fight, Mortimer got lucky by not being targeted by the dragon’s breath attack and then spent the duration keeping his distance, pew-pewing away and chipping off some decent damage while not taking a single point himself.
Once the fight was over, the ground began to rumble. It seemed that whatever magical energy that was being siphoned from the dragon to keep the hotel running was suddenly gone and with it had gone its stability. The party rushed to the museum, snagging the shard and the outfit from monk’s order as well as three other items – one of which was quite important and we’ll get to in a minute – before making a daring escape on their magic carpet.
Outside, they could see all the hotel guests down below running in panic and screaming as the hotel collapsed. There were also dinosaurs coming out of the jungle and attacking them, as the barrier protecting the area was now down. Mortimer tried to help by blasting a t-rex to death, but more of them arrived and it was clearly a hopeless cause so the party took off and returned to their airship.
Successfully able to take off and fly away (again, thanks to the magic of the hotel having ceased, also evidently ending the enchantment caused by the party’s massive debt) the party was going to head straight to the next shard but then Bull requested they search for his body (which he scried on with the crystal ball and confirmed was where he left it, crushed into the earth from a several thousand foot fall) because that important item they had taken from the museum turned out to be a Rod of Resurrection, which, as the name implies, is capable of resurrecting people. It is unknown whether it will work on Brakken, since his soul is still alive-ish, but the party decided it was worth a try at the very least.
So then they went and spent nearly three weeks searching for it. Seriously. It took them about twelve days to find the wrecked train and a further six to find the body (needle, haystack, anyone?). But find it they did, collecting what remained before they set off towards Fallen Star in order to find someone who could help them with the resurrection (at this point, Fallen Star was the closest settlement they knew of and was almost directly en route to the next shard anyway).
There was one more thing. That evening, while Monk and Mortimer had nightmares, Bull was visited by the rat-summoning halfling creature that had attacked them once before. This time he came in peace, telling Bull that Ma-Ma wanted to know if he was true about his desires to end all the gods. When Bull said that he was, the halfling gifted him the shard that was formerly in the Nightmare (leaving one shard left to complete the set now) on behalf of Ma-Ma, telling him that defeating the gods required the power the shards would unlock.
And that was that. We ended the session with him disappearing into the shadows and everyone questioning the revelation that Ma-Ma had been watching their every step.
And with that, we finally leave the island of Auric Goldtooth (the party having destroyed it and caused dozens if not hundreds more innocent people to die first, naturally). The party managed to slay their third dragon (with surprising ease) and have a potential(?) way of getting Brakken back to his old self. Plus, that twist at the end. A truce with Ma-Ma? Boy, things are getting complicated.
Just what will come from this? Will the party find what they seek in Fallen Star? Will they collect the final shard and unlock the power? Tune in next week to find out.