With the bustle of preparation all around following the arrival of the mysterious visiting “ragmen”, the following personnel, crowded into Portent Order’s command tent, report for duty:
Sqyylarr, human brute, local guide
Barika Yarcan, dragonborn barbarian, local guide
Hops Lagerson, dwarven cleric of Barronar Truesilver
Fefrallin “Frank” Viventa, half-elf sorcerer
Ander Brightiron, human artificer
Watc, warforged evocationist
Briar Stoneclaw, paladin shifter, commanding
Leaving no doubt as to which way the wild native goat spoor would roll downhill if there were any wild native goats, Portent Order’s top priority today is commissioning Briar’s command of the assembled Charlie Company. Briar’s top priority today, directed by Portent Order, is the acquisition of some wild native goats to power the caravan. An explosion from the direction of the villa cuts even shorter the already brief meeting.
Briar leads his new company through the villa and out into the valley, hastening toward a column of smoke rising ominously from the area where specially-constructed wagons have been loading from barrels conveyed from the mine entrance full of what Watc speculates is the highly volatile magic concentrate, vis.
In the twilight, torches illuminate the evident barrel explosion amidst a few blasted remains. Several white drakes feast on other fallen spellguard. Charlie Company fans out, skirmishing the drakes away from their victims. Ander introduces his fighting style, conjuring a self-propelled ballista that begins popping bolts into the drakes. Barika and Hops discover a mutual interest in the lodging of axes into the drakes. Sqyylarr opens with slung bullets before switching to her signature weapon, the maul, which makes the unit’s first kill. The dead drake sublimates away. Frank checks for potential survivors; there are none. He thunderwaves the drakes, gusting himself away upon one of the wagons.
The drakes get in a fair bit of rump biting, but are no match for Charlie. Ander’s scorching ray finishes Barika’s axed foe. Barika runs around the wagon to assist Hops’s axe and Sqyylarr’s maul to end another. Charlie slays all but one drake who cleverly climbs atop the open wagon of vis. Ander swaps his ballista for a firebolt cannon. Frank joins the firebolting to stop the drake, but it jumps into the vis. Any hope that it will simply drown are thrashed, thrashed like a tanker wagon when a magical drake infused with liquid magic bursts out of it in the new form of a baby white dragon.
Watc blasts the dragon with a fireball, enticing it to whoosh down some ice breath on Sqyylarr and Briar. The dragon lands to claw Ander and all but bite Watc in two. Frank alternates fiery chromatic orbs with Watc’s fireballs while Barika and Sqyylarr charge in to draw the dragon away. Hops pulls out all the stops, evoking an abundance of Revered Mother’s healing. Ander puts a shocking grasp on the dragon, allowing Watc to back away and sculpt a final, fatal fireball at the vis-drake-dragon. Unsurprisingly, the dragon dissipates before Ander can collect a sample.
Responding spellguard begin to arrive as the company investigates the now peaceful scene. The evidence suggests the misfortune began when a barrel of volatile vis was dropped into one of the torches. Two of the explosion victims are the two armed ragmen visitors who seemed to be the impetus for all the recent activity. Hops draws Briar’s attention to the skeletal structure of the visitors which is light weight, but not avian. Definitely not dwarvenoid, which is to say not dwarf, not human, not elf.
Briar delegates responsibility for the explosion, death of high profile VIPs, loss of productivity, etcetera back to the arriving spellguard. Charlie withdraws to report to Portent Order and rest up for the deferred goat rope mission.