My search lead me back to the village of Greenest. I had been there before in my journeys as a way point on my way to visit magic schools in the south. I had hoped to find my old friends when I reached town. Instead, I now found myself in the company of several adventurers. Jericho Umbek, a strong and quiet Half-Orc who can fight like an army and who is as brave as the day is long (the dark parts as well as the light). T'hatguy, a dwarf druid, who is as odd as he adventurous. He is prolific hater of squirrels which I find difficult to bear. The dwarf, Felonious the Monk, is an amazing martial artist and fighter who does much of his fighting from a prone and mostly dead position. And finally, the aforementioned Twitch, I believe his Gnomish name is pronounced Go Go Power Rangers, but I believe many things I made up. His keen sense of hiding from all things dangerous, as is wise as shaving is for a Fire Wizard with knuckle hair. That said, I follow his lead when it comes to not being in the line of fire. We have Jericho for that task.
We met on Meyer Gold's Caravan, which took us almost but not quite to the village of Greenest. Failing to have Meyer Gold bravely provide us with horse and wagon to get to the village quickly, our intrepid band of do gooders set forth on foot. We arrived in town as the mix of Cultist raiders and their Kobold cohorts were rounding up the last of the villagers. Having none of this pillaging, I promptly set the nearest raider on fire killing him. The boon proved to be my folly, as I attempted to knock one of the raiders out cold, instead breaking my arm. In the first battle some proved brave and valiant, while Felonious proved to be nearly dead. We eventually made our way to the keep where Governor Nighthill and his trusty master of arms Castellan Escobert the Red saw fit to heal us and then set us about the villages defense.
We quickly cleared the hidden tunnel entrance and captured some nearby Cultists. They were able to provide us some clues.
We next we sent to free villagers who were trapped in the village's temple. Surrounded by three groups of invaders, we were forced to climb a wall and then sneak the folks out the back. We formed an adventurer ladder stack to get the folks back over the wall and safely back into the keep. It was a narrow escape.
Arriving back for more duties, we are told "There's trouble at the mill." When asked what kind of trouble, the fella responded "I don't know, I was just told to come down here and tell there's trouble at the mill - that's all—I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!" So off the mill we went. As we approached it became apparent the trouble was the raiders were attempting to set the bloody thing on fire. Here is when I thought to myself "I think I can help here". And I so did.
Promptly I killed several of the raiders with good old thunderwave. Knowing that you can never have too much of a good thing, I used my last thunderwave spell to fan the flames. I thought the thunderous wind would knock them out, but it did not. I did discover that I need to replace my light spell (I am dwarf who can see in the dark) with Prestidigitation so that in the future I could instantly put out flames. Sadly there has been little need since, but live and learn.
We watched as T'hatguy took himself and a couple of us into a trap. We almost died, but did not. In the end, I believe we were saved by a bucket brigade of villagers just in time to return to the keep for a dragon attack. We rushed back into the frenzy and were able through the deeds of T'hatguy and others to press back the dragon who was attempting to smash the keep into rubble.
In the waning hour of the night, a Dragonborn named Cyanwraith emerged from the smoke (mostly caused by fires whose origins will remain unknown and were not caused by a certain Fire Wizard as many believe) to challenge us to a mano y mano battle. When we figured out that meant only one of us could fight (none of us speak Spanish) we let Jericho do it. For nearly 6 seconds Jericho held his own with the visage of Dragonborn death. But coming close to dying allowed Jericho to rally back and an nearly defeat his now sworn enemy. The monster only knocked out our hero out and had mercy releasing the prisoners and leaving the now ruined village of Greenest.
The night being over we retreated to tend our wounded and take stock of our next actions. I would use the time to heal, study and reflect.
