We began the session with the party landing their airship outside the squat, stone Temple of Dragons, with Brakken successfully touching down without accidentally crunching through the ice. Everyone disembarked and they approached the temple.
Temporarily finding themselves blocked by the massive frozen door that marked the entrance, Brakken figured a light tap ought to do the trick, and with a natural 20 it certainly did. Entering, the party made their way down a short flight of stairs and found themselves in a large chamber. Three walls of the chamber were stone, carved with a massive mural that Monk investigated and determined depicted two armies of dragons coming into conflict, while the fourth was made of ice. The ceiling was help up by four massive pillars, and one corner of the chamber had collapsed. And, most importantly, there was a plinth in the centre, surrounded by four golden dragon statues, which had clearly once held some kind of angular object but no longer did.
After a quick survey of the room, Brakken approached the plinth. However, doing so awakened the statues, and they attacked. The statues themselves weren’t too hard to put down, but because they could breath fire they quickly did a lot of damage to Poppy (who is vulnerable to fire, on account of being, you know, made of plant). Once the statues were all destroyed, the party continued investigating, but did not take a rest. Not for any reason, since they were fairly damaged at this point. They just forgot.
A more thorough investigation of the room determined there to be a hidden tunnel behind part of the ice wall. The party followed it and found a drop at the end, which deposited them in a warren of further tunnels. After some wandering and backtracking, they eventually found a larger chamber which contained a big, blue lizard.
They fought this lizard, which could breathe ice, and then they fought a second one which came upon them soon after they defeated the first. The fight was tough, but the party got through it, and rested immediately after. A wise decision.
Continuing on in their search, the party climbed down another (trapped) drop and found a massive chamber held up by six large pillars of ice and with some shiny object in the ice of the far wall. But, upon entering, they heard a voice they recognised. Stepping out from behind one of the far pillars, Mr White announced that he knew this was coming from the moment he ‘saw those damn pins’, and then turned into a dragon. Cue the combat.
It was a brutal fight. Brakken was up and down like a yo-yo. I think the party used up most if not all of their healing potions. And it still wasn’t without tragedy.
Towards the end of the fight, the dragon retreated for a moment and the party ended up all conscious but slightly split up and very beaten down. Now, at this point it was clear that the fight would have been long since done if it wasn’t for Poppy. She had been the primary force behind keeping the party alive. So, when he saw his opportunity, Mr White flew in and knocked her unconscious, damaged her for two automatically failed death saves, and flew high enough into the air that a fall would injure and thus kill her outright. Then he threatened the others that hurting him would kill her.
Of course, they didn’t listen. Brakken threw his hammer, but missed, and then the worst possible outcome for everyone happened: Poppy went and failed her last death save. With a natural 1, no less. So, she died, and immediately after, Monk flew in (he has winged boots now) and finished off the dragon’s remaining 3 hit points.
Mr White fell from the sky, landing atop Poppy’s body. Brakken, panicking, tried to get her out, but even with his prodigious strength he couldn’t lift the massive dragon, so he started trying to hack his way through it with a handaxe. Meanwhile, Monk went over to investigate the shiny thing.
Of course, he didn’t check for traps first, and ended up triggering one that knocked him unconscious. Brakken was 100 feet away across icy floors, so he started running but wasn’t getting close any time soon. Luckily Monk stabilised on his own. Brakken retrieved him and brought him back over to the dragon to get back to his hacking, and we ended the session there.
So, Poppy is dead. Will she stay that way? Who knows? She came back after being eaten by that sheep, so… But a dragon is a wee bit bigger than a sheep, and it is currently lying atop her. I guess you’ll just have to tune in next week to find out…