Ding Dong! The Claug Is Dead

We resume and find ourselves mid battle. “Well, well, surrender your weapons droop troop and the children will live! You’ve done a great job eliminating Clauth for me, and now there’s a Shard here for me. I offer you a choice: surrender now or offer these innocent people to die.”

• Trapped by the dragon we see Sister Garaele, Karp (Droop’s friend), and Droop. After Claug’s message, we reposition ourselves closer to the three innocents, vowing to protect them. 

The burns the field with a poison breath weapon taking down the three innocents. The battle goes on with Claug trying to take down the three of them at any point she can.

We get breath weaponed for a second time, taking down the innocents again. Pearl uses Eldrith Blasts, taking the dragon down. She’s covered in poison and says “this one's for Sister Garaele, this one’s for Karp, and this one’s for Droop” as the blasts make impact with the dragon. Her body falls over and into the water, splashing everyone with water.

Glittr walks over and talks to Sister Garaele who is surprised see the party once again. Droop runs up to the party and thanks us for saving him. He takes a liking to Baptiste, noting how tall he is. Droop then goes over the RC and Bahamut, who admires the dragon and he asks RC how he can get one of his own one day. 

As this is happening, Sister Garaele keeps speaking. She shares that the town has been in dire straights as of recent, and they were about to flee when the dragon struck. The town is mostly empty because the people were in the mine preparing for its grand opening. She shares that the only four people in town were her, the 2 boys, and the apple farmer Edermath. She starts listing off a bunch of names from people who met previously while in the town. 

• Glittr shares all of the information they have with her about the Shadow Shards. Brylwynn gives her one of our friendship bracelets so when Pearl teleports the boys and Garaele to Waterdeep for safety, they can find Larael for safety. 

• Caulkin gives Droop a necklace made of monster's teeth that we’ve collected along during our adventures and some festering, spoiled, chocolate milk. 

Pearl casts teleportation circle to transport the three of them back to Waterdeep. 

We investigate the dragon’s body. There is nothing on the dragon as it doesn’t have pockets. We take a short rest before heading back to Wave Echo Cave.

The sun is beginning to set as we approach the cave. We are cautious as we approach the entrance. As we near the entrance, we hear people shouting. We hear cries of people shouting and asking for help. 

• Caulkin looks for traps towards the entrance and as he does, two undead creatures emerge from the entrance. We quickly take down the two of them in combat without issue. We take a look at the bodies, but it doesn’t seem like we know them. 

Some people speak to us, calling us out by name. We see the two rock seeker brothers and the mayor come forward. Noticeably, they aren’t leaving the mouth of the cave. They can’t remember what happened or what is going on, but they feel as if they’re bound to the cave and they cannot leave.

As we talk, more and more of the villagers come to the entrance. Pearl tries using Thava to see if she is affected by whatever magic is affecting the villagers, removing their ability to “want” to leave the cave, but Thava is unaffected.

We decide to have Pearl enter and give us feedback about what she feels upon entering the cave. We tie a rope around her waist and she has Protecting from Evil and Good cast on her by Joybringer. As Pearl steps inside, she takes a wave of necrotic damage (14 pts.) as a wave of evil is washed over her. Next to Pearl, there are 5 villages nearby who all deny having seen the Shadow Shard.

• “The feeling started after we walked in.”

We decide to walk inside as a group now, not sure what to do next. As we enter, we’re hit by strong waves of necrotic energy, much stronger than we were expecting. We come up with a plan to use the Aura of Life to try and protect us a bit.

As they walk away to guide us into the wave, Halia grab’s RC’s arm and says, “Wait! I don’t know what fucking thing did this to us, but its by the water. I’m not a tradeswoman as you know, but I’m just pretending to be affected. Play along because whatever is going on is by the water’s edge. Don’t blow my cover!!”