Here Be Dragons
James and Hywel Mawr went to Wales to pay the covenant's tribute to a dragon and ended up getting robbed and fighting a fierce beast.
Date
Early Autumn 1195
Player Characters
Non-Player Characters
Synopsis
In Summer 1195, the magi discussed at a council meeting that the covenant's tribute to the dragon Carax was overdue and someone had to deliver it. James volunteered and Hywel Mawr asked to come along to see the dragon. The brought the grogs Angus and Junior. Argus gave James some extra vis to assuage the dragon's ire at the late payment, with the instructions that if James brought any of that extra vis back, he could keep it.
The trip to Wales was a long one: four or five days' ride including a ferry ride across the Bristol Channel. The characters rode magical horses summoned by James. Junior proved to be expert at easing the magi's passage: he knew all the road houses where magi would be accepted as lodgers and negotiated all the accommodations, even the ferry ride, while the magi waited at the edge of town.
Once in Wales they spend the first night in Newport. There were no proper Roman roads so they had to follow a crude dirt path north into the mountains. On the first night as the time approached to make camp, the characters spied a campfire on the next hilltop. This proved to be a group of seven or eight shepherds. The grogs and magi approached them but only Hywel spoke the Welsh language. He attempted a friendly greeting but his Gift and his obvious faerie blood spooked the shepherds and they ran off. The group helped themselves to the shepherds' campsite and the food they had left behind.
During the night, Junior fell asleep on watch duty and the shepherds crept back and robbed the magi blind. They took everything that wasn't nailed down, including the bag that contained the dragon's tribute. It took all morning for the magi to track down the thieves. When Hywel found and confronted the shepherds, they contritely handed over the stolen property without a fight.
Junior noticed a large pall of smoke coming from the next valley. When they all went to look, they saw a swath of burned fields and farmhouses and slain and charred livestock stretching for more than a mile along the side and floor of the valley. They met a group of refugees who begged for help to get safely to their cousin's house. James deigned to cast Doublet of Impenetrable Silk on their clothes to protect them if they ran into the dragon. The old grandmother of the family recognized Hywel as a magus and had some words with him in Welsh. In gratitude for the magical aid she gave Hywel a cheap Celtic cross made of pewter and told him to return the cross to Madoc ab Elusdan if ever a poor Welsh farmer could return a favor to a magus.
The path of destruction led east and Carax's lair lay to the west, so James decided to head west in the hope that the rampaging dragon was a different one than him to whom they owed tribute. As Hywel pointed out, Wales is known as the land of dragons.
Argus had shown James the mountain where Carax's lair could be found, and Junior remembered the way from his one previous visit. They found it without difficulty but arrived near sunset. The magi decided to go in that night rather than camp without announcing themselves to the dragon. A thick mist began to issue from the cave mouth and the four intrepid adventurers waded right into it. The mist was so dense they could hardly see the cavern walls before bumping into them.
After a few minutes following the twists and turns of the tunnel they emerged into a large cavern the size of a cathedral's nave. Gleaming formations of white calcite made the cave look like a thicket of briars after an ice storm. Rainbow colors slowly played across the cave. The characters emerged from a ledge some forty feet above the cavern floor. There, coiled around the huge cavern, lay the enormous dragon Carax.
James did all the talking. He showed the proper awe and respect, promptly handed over all the vis he was carrying, and got everyone out of there alive. He did make sure to ask Carax about the dragon laying waste to the countryside and Carax replied he didn't care what the magi did about that dragon.
Then the magi decided to put a stop to the dragon's rampage. The next morning they tracked it down. Along they way they found an orphan Welsh boy, Rhys, hiding in the burnt ruin of his family's farmhouse.
It was a fierce fire drake the size of a pony that attacked them on site. Its first belch of fire badly wounded Junior. James was thrown from his horse. Angus was spared the flames because he was back guarding Hywel and thus out of range: he spurred his enchanted steed and charged straight at the "dragon." With a single blow of his sword he laid it wounded and helpless on the earth. Then he dismounted to finish it off.
After the drake was dead, James first put down the wounded horses (his as Junior's were injured beyond use by the drake's fire) and then blew the Horn of Stranggore. Moments later, Argus spoke with Hywel from his laboratory back in Stranggore. Merewen arrived shortly afterward on the covenant's flying device, the Roth Rámach, to administer first aid to Junior and carry him swiftly back to the covenant.