While the party rested in the disused tunnel, Roscoe sent a message to the alliance’s commanders via flying snake, alerting them to the presence of the prisoners. A reply came back to say that a force would be dispatched in their direction to assist with the rescue mission.
Once they were feeling refreshed, the heroes sent some of their followers to scout the side tunnels while they headed back to the prisoner pits. They got the prisoners to start shuffling through the Red Wizards’ rooms to the disused tunnel.
Eventually some more cultists came to find out why the flow of prisoners had stopped. They were quickly cut down, although one was taken prisoner and dragged off to a side room to be interrogated. He didn’t know a whole lot, but he was able to tell them that there were lots of Red Wizards in the temple, along with Severin, and they were busy using magic to open a portal to Avernus. He also warned them to watch out for the Bladelord.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the Bladelord found them. He was an undead knight, and he had served as the Cult’s commander at the Well of Dragons for over a century. Shadowy beings flitted around him as he cut down the Lords’ Alliance soldiers guarding the intersection through which the prisoners were moving. The heroes rushed to engage him. Flint sent a fireball up the passage. It incinerated the shadows but the Bladelord kept coming. Skie rushed forward to meet him. The wight fought ferociously and very nearly drained the life out of the fierce barbarian, but he was ultimately no match for the combined might of the heroes.
When the scouts reported back that there was a room with some cultists resting in it down the main passage, the heroes went and cleared them out. They had sent the scouts to guard the passage leading up to the temple, and shortly after the last cultist fell, they heard screams.
Roscoe attempted to sneak up the passage to see what had happened to the scouts, when he was pinned to the ground by a massive claw that materialized – along with its owner, the green dragon Chuth – in front of him. As the others approached, they heard the dragon laughing and taunting them. He let out a terrifying roar, but Skie shook it off as she flew into a rage and charged forward enough that she could throw her axe at him. Flint stayed back and conjured a storm sphere around the dragon.
As the fight got into full swing, Neronvain, the green wyrmspeaker, materialized on Chuth’s back and proceeded to fire her poisonous magic bolts at everyone. Roscoe managed to escape from beneath Chuth’s claw and scampered up onto his back with the intention of attacking Neronvain, but the dragon knocked him off with one swipe of his tail.
With Skie’s axe and Flint’s lightning bolts raining down on them, Chuth and Neronvain were soon feeling the hurt. The wyrmspeaker leapt off the dragon’s back and went flying back up the passage to the temple, while Chuth turned invisible again and muscled past the heroes. They heard him mutter an oath as he went past: “To the hells with Tiamat! I’m not sacrificing myself for her!”
As the sounds of the dragon’s passage down the tunnel diminished, the heroes breathed a sigh of relief and withdrew to lick their wounds once again. They were getting ready for the final push.
A HOARD TO REMEMBER 