25th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Afternoon) The group suddenly gets on edge as they find the bastard Rod Grin staring at them once more, smiling at them as Kia cries out "What the fuck are you doing here!?" Rod holds his hands out in a hushing tone as he replies "Easy, there is a dragon nearby, and we don't want to wake it now do we?" Kia spits at him and barks back with a bit of reduction in her volume "You really think a dragon will stop us from beating your ass?" Briar looks down at his hand, the ball of flame already conjured and eager to throw it, but disengages the attack not wanting to hit his siblings who were all in between him and Rod. Rod continuing to smirk at them, gives a small chuckle "You really think you can fight both a dragon and us out there? Or did you forget what happened last time?" Kia bites her tongue but stares angrily at him before he continues "Tell you what, you're all formidable fighters, this I'm well aware of. We're not here looking to fight a dragon ourselves, or you lot while that thing is around. We're only here for its horde" Naisys perks up and looks past her sister, asking "..horde?" Rod nods "All dragons have a horde right? all the gold and treasures it collects, just waiting for someone bold enough to grab. An adult that size would have quite a bit wouldn't you think? So here's my proposal. We work together, find the horde, and split it 50-50, we go on our merry way with no one needing to get hurt. Deal?" Kia looks back to her party, there was some resistance to work with Rod, but the idea of taking him out later after finding the horde was much more enticing. Kia looks back to Rod and nods "Deal" Rod smirks wider as he invites them in "Excellent! Come, we're about to eat some grub. Nothing like some food to build bridges over, eh?" Rod beckons the party in, leading them up to the barbican of the guardhouse, where an assassin was seen looking over the path they were just on through the arrow slits while a bandit was currently cooking something in a cauldron in the fireplace. Rod has the bandit pour up some mystery stew-like meal in a bowl, offering it to the party. It looked like some kind of boiled meat and veggies, there was even a bone still in one of the bowls. The party, a bit wearily of Rod, started to eat, finding it to be decent in a place like this, warm but lacking in a lot of flavors. As they ate, the party discussed the plan on how to handle the dragon and the horde. After some time of preparing and planning, the party sets Naisys off with one of the assassins, opting to work together with them for the time being and sending the sneakiest members of both groups in to explore the ruined fortress. Once inside, Naisys and the Assassin make their way through the cold and dead fortress, finding most of the place in extreme disrepair and disarray, like whoever lived here between the owner and the dragon ransacked and broke everything of value. In the first room, they found the desecrated bodies of a dozen or so humanoids with rust-damaged armor and weapons. A few stirges fly around the area but they don't spot the two as they enter. Making their way forward, Naisys ignore the pests and enter through the dining room and kitchen, finding little value in these rooms save for a minor object of interest in the dining room fireplace. An old, stuffed, and mounted wolf head was thrown in there by the prior occupants. Whoever lived here did not like the owner of the fortress. They eventually made their way up towards a spiral staircase and a makeshift barracks, with dozens of leather and fur-lined sleeping bags littered the floor with various bits of refuse and trash. Naisys also noticed the doors leading in from the outside and leading to the hall she just came from was busted through, like some large beast broke through, leaving a path of destruction. Ignoring that for now, she follows the path outside, finding the opening to the southwestern corner of the fortress completely gone and broken away. Something destroyed this section of the defenses but it wasn't clear to her exactly what it was. However, one thing she did notice was below the fortress to the south was an icy ledge. Curious, her chaotic nature urged her to jump down to get a closer look, despite the ice build-up that would certainly cause her to slip off the small ledge. But, before she could, she felt something peck at her ear. She looks and sees Phoenix had followed them in, and Briar was watching her. Phoenix just stares at her for a moment before he flies down to the ledge, knowing full well Briar was basically telling her to stay for now. Which, thankfully he did, as Briar finds a stone wall immediately at the ledge, which would've easily trapped Naisys there with little hope of climbing back through the icy blizzard. Briar relays this to her as Phoenix flies back up to her, causing her a bit of disappointment before she presses on. Naisys heads back to the barracks and up the stairs she passed earlier, making her way to what looks like some barbaric throneroom with dozens of rotten heads of various species hanging along the walls. There, she spots a half-eaten orc chieftain slumped over in a fancy-looking throne, but before she would check it out, she noticed something out of the nearby arrow slits looking over the roof of the lower level. There, sleeping soundly in the dead center of the blizzard was the white dragon. The Assassin held her back from walking out there, opting to wait for the others as an adult dragon would be foolish to face alone. Taking that as the cue to head in, the rest of the party makes their way inside. However, Briar's natural curiosity leads him elsewhere, wanting to explore these rooms a bit more thoroughly before heading up. In the room with the stirges, they found the emblem of Delsendra Amzarr, the warlord that lived in this fortress many years ago, painted onto the floor under the rubble and corpses of what could only be assumed to be the warriors who served under her. Further inspection of the room led him to find not one but two fake walls that moved away to two areas. One was a secret stairway that leads down, while the other led out to the outer defenses that watched out over every angle from the fortress. This place was certainly made to be well guarded he thought to himself, before continuing on. Within the hidden stairway, he noticed the wall on the other side had a very similar seam along its edge, and with a push, he found himself within the warlord's chambers. Within, he found a few corpses on the ground, and one with the same emblem on the chest plate sitting slouched in a chair, a goblet fallen to the floor next to her. This, Briar realized, was Delsendra Amzarr herself. Having heard of the demise of this place, he knew these people very likely starved to death after a blizzard stormed them in for several ten-days, cutting them off from vital supplies. Delsendra seems to have wanted to go out on her own terms.. After finding this, Briar decides to head through the outer defenses, feeling it would be quicker to head through there than going through the path Naisys took, but finding a solid stone wall at the end. Relenting to his siblings, he followed them through the path Naisys took, until they made it to the stairway. Alatar spots a door near the stairway, and curiously he opened it to find the warlord's quarters were right there. Disgruntled by this, Briar goes through the barracks and to a part of the wall he figured would be where the outer defenses had ended "I'm going to be mad if this is also a fake wall..." he said as he gave the wall a push. To his dismay, the wall shifted and moved "Gods damnit!!" Heading up to the chieftain's throne room, the party gathers with Naisys and the Assassin to start preparing for the battle ahead. As they did so, Kia noticed the throne of the chieftain looked quite pretty and oddly decorated, before realizing there was some valuable stuff to dismantle off of it. There, she gets some red coral and she finds the decorated greataxe that Briar notices is the missing greataxe of the warlord of the fortress. Satisfied with this find, Kia and the others start preparing spells and gear for the battle ahead, Kia and Briar standing behind the arrow slits looking out across the roof to the sleeping dragon. They carefully cast a couple of curses on the dragon, making the dragon have disadvantage on its wisdom saves and a curse to lose its actions if it fails on a wisdom save. Satisfied with this start, and finding the dragon was still slumbering through that, the Assassin asked to take the first strike. The party agrees, and the Assassin heads out towards the dragon, everyone taking positions around it before the Assassin makes the first strike with his poisoned short sword. The dragon roars in pain as the blade sinks into its maw, glaring at the Assassin and the other intruders as it stands up, wings spread, and it lets out a mighty roar. Quickly springing into action, the party uses every ability they have, however they find it difficult to fight with the blistering blizzard buffeting them and the icy surface of the roof making it difficult to find footing. Nonetheless, they press on as Alatar rushes the dragon with the dragon rapier, however, he slipped on the ice and started sliding past the dragon. Ivaran rushes out and grabs him, using his acrobatic skills as a monk, he was able to stop Alatar from sliding further and off the destroyed corner of the fortress that leads to a far drop down the mountainside. Ivaran, the Assassin, Naisys, and Alatar all focus their strength and weapons on the dragon, but they find many of their blows simply slid off its hardened scales. Only a few strategic blows could find purchase into the dragon's hide. The dragon not being one to defend its own territory spreads its wings and it flies up into the sky. They watch as its neck bulges, before an icy dragon's breath blasts out at them, blowing most of them back along the icy surface. The dragon however drops back down to the surface of the roof, feeling the twinge of poison course through its body from the assassin's blade. Taking the opportunity, Ivaran and Naisys hop on its back, hoping to find more weak points there. The dragon flaps its wings again and it takes off, hovering 10 feet above the group as it reaches back to try and grab the unwelcome passengers. While the dragon was distracted, Kia and Briar head out to help, Briar ordering his undead army to form a line across the north while Kia summoned her spiritual weapon on its other side, rushing up towards the dragon. Briar seeing the dragon was out of reach, remembered he still had the charm of the storm he'd gotten from Talos' altar back at the lighthouse, or tower of storms as it was aptly called. Using this, he summoned a lightning bolt from the sky above, striking the lower back end of the dragon to force it down. This succeeded in bringing it down by 5 feet, which is within reach of the rest of his party, which Alatar, Kia, and the Assassin took advantage of to strike it hard and strike it fast before it flew back up again. The dragon not wanting to stick around, reaches back to grab at Naisys and Ivaran again, this time only getting Ivaran as he flung him off before taking to the sky once more. Ivaran lands with a hard thud near Kia, and before she could see to him she suddenly hear the unfurling of the dragon's wings. She looked up in time to watch as the dragon flapped his wings hard at her. A massive wall of icy wind hit her and everyone close by, sending her and the Assassin back as gusts of wind continued to blast the two backward. Not wanting to be outdone by these people, the Assassin pushes through the wind, finding the edge quickly along the second-story wall, and he made his way under the dragon. The dragon hadn't risen yet, so he pulled his blade out, and using his own momentum across the ice, he plunged his poisoned blade into the chest of the white dragon. The dragon bellowed in pain, the blade sinking in deep as the poison struck the dragon's heart directly. Flailing and falling to the roof, the dragon whimpers and falls over, as Cryovain, the dragon that came to the Sword Coast to find territory, slowly goes still and the blizzard that roared around the party died with the dragon. The dragon now defeated, the party takes a moment to take a breather, as the sun casts itself across the rooftop. In the moment of reprieve, Brair goes towards the ledge to the east, where he looks down and he sees the guardhouse below. Glancing back, he sees the assassin was busy attempting to retrieve his blade from the dragon's chest. Reaching into his bag, he looks back down to the guardhouse as he pulls out the necklace of fireballs he'd found in Dragon's Barrow. looking it over and seeing he's yet to use any of its beads. He glances back down to see the druid looking up at him from the doorway curiously. Remembering the druid and the endless irritation he caused before, Brair activated the necklace and he threw them down at the guardhouse. He watched with his siblings as the section of the guardhouse he was in suddenly explodes with a flash of fire. Flames bursting outwards from the arrow slits and doorway. He doesn't see the druid there anymore, and he smirks at this before he turns back to see the assassin looks at them in a bit of shock. "What was that?" The Assassin asks, having not seen what Briar just did, Briar only shakes his head "It was nothing, come, let's go find that horde" Briar however, being the intellectual, knew there was no horde to be had. If there was, it would be right under their feet where the dragon chose to sleep. He knew white dragons don't nest far from their hordes, preferring to sleep on the ice that encases the treasures. Scouring through the fortress once more, they did find a coin pouch with some money in it and a broken spyglass, so they added that to the pile of loot they've acquired here before they started to head out. Upon heading back over to the guardhouse, the assassin's eyes widen as he sees the darkened and charred inside of the barbican his crew was last in. Seeing the cindered remains of his friends, the assassin looked to the party with a hated and disapproving look in his eye, before he quietly turned away and he left the party. The party feeling the assassin was of no consequence at this point let him leave, taking one of the horses while they collected the spoils of his dead crew. Several days later, the party returns to Phandalin, all smiles and eager to utilize the remains of the dragon they've collected, they commissioned the smithy to apply its hide to their wagon and mount its head to the front, dubbing it the Dragon Wagon. As this happened, Briar goes to Townmaster Harbin Wester to inform him of the demise of the dragon. At which he throws open his door and happily shakes his hand "Oh thank the gods! We must inform the town at once! Spread the word! Tonight we feast in your party's honor!!" And at that, they did. When night came the party comes out to find the town on Phandalin, grateful for all they've done had set up a long table down the main road next to the large pile of ladders that had all been collected. The townsfolk had lit the pile on fire to make a celebratory bonfire, where they and the party danced to the music provided by the local minstrels. The party eagerly enjoys the heroes' feast provided for them by the town as they enjoy the first night together with a future of peace to look forward to. -=Adventure End=- 30th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Evening)