06.0 A New Era

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Kalans Revenge Mercenary Company
Company members:-
Taran – Half Elf Fighter/Priest of Mannanan Mac Lir, cousin to Carinne and Galvish
Carinne Rhianne Talynnart – Half Elf Ranger/Mage, Cousin to Taran and Galvish
Galvish – Half Elf Fighter/Thief, Cousin to Taran and Carinne
Lanneus Tuard – Paladin of Manannan Mac Lir
Saeryn Ghent – Fighter – (Kalans Sister)

The Other Side of the Island

With our contract up with Carlton Blacks company we decide to take a leave of absence.  We form a new company with the same core we had from Jans Landing, plus some new elven scouts and cavalry who Carinne and Galvish will be in charge of.  
Before we leave Jans Landing we make some finishing touches to our properties and arrange for people to take care of our land before we leave for a prolonged vacation.  Whilst still at the Landing we are approached by a slightly mysterious figure, he is our new sponsor from the Garlithian side.  There town is having a lot of problems with their people going missing and they are blaming it on increased monster activity in the region, specifically a nearby swamp.
Saeryn Ghent requests to come along with us, this would give her some exposure to combat and gain experience and knowledge of the dangers we face.
The Garlithian organizes a mass teleport to take us to our destination, a town named Sevenfold, located on the South side of the island.  There we meet with the leader of the town, a man named Daltry Sinclair.  He says that an increasing amount of the townsfolk have gone missing when going out to the mines in the hills and other areas, the place is surrounded by wilderness with a large swamp area to the north.
We head out early the next morning and enter into the swamp, it is not long before we catch the attention of a band of trolls.  They rush us and with a word of warning to Saeryn about burning these creatures we lay about us.  In a brief moment the dozen or so trolls have been fireballed by Carinne and chopped into pieces by the fighters, we burn the remains and carry on.
A group of fire lizards must have smelled our approach as they rush out and attack.  These creatures breathe fire and have a fearsome bite, they also take a lot of punishment before they are finally killed.  Carinne recalls that their eggs are worth a lot of money so we hunt out their lair nearby and recover 4 eggs.  Not knowing how to keep them warm for the rest of our journey, Taran uses a Dimensional Fold to take the eggs back to Jans Landing so one of his assistants can keep them in the ashes.
We take shelter in the swamp that night using the Rod of Security to allow us uninterrupted sleep.
The next day we continue our trek into the heart of the swamp and disturb a troop of ogres who lay an ambush.  They have an ogre mage among their number and he cast devastating spells on us, we manage to kill off the ogre band and surround the ogre mage but just as we start to wail on him he departs through a dimension door.  Corinne quickly goes aloft to spot him and shes soon spies him about a quarter mile away and making haste away from our position.  We reluctantly let him get away and proceed to loot the corpses and bind our wounds.  
Later on we have more encounters with fire lizards plus some sort of flying beast as well as a Gorgimera and a Learnen Hydra – we have learned that as soon as a head of the beast is cut off fire must be applied to the wound otherwise two head grow back straightaway.  The beast came upon us with 12 heads and after the first bout of combat had 20 heads.
We finally spy a group of giants who are field dressing a monitor lizard.  Taran decides to speak to them and offers Corinne the chance to practice speaking their language.  She seems more interested in drawing her giant slaying sword and offering them death.  Taran advises against this as we need to gain some information as to what has lead to this increase in monster activity.  Through careful questioning it is discovered that a dragon has taken up residence in the heart of the swamp and the giants noticed much more activity around here than before, the giants are reluctant to give up more information but through the gift of a potion of fire giant control they inform us that it is a Black Dragon – ah rats, that’s the only type of breath weapon we cannot combat – acid.
We move into the depths of the swamp and a beholder appears out of the murk, ordering us to lay down our weapons.  Having heard of these fearsome creatures we spread out to attack it.  To our horror we find that some sort of Anti Magic ray causes our magic items to not function, we then experience the awesome firepower of this giant eyeball as it disintegrates Taran, having little protection without his magical devices.  Another ray from one of its eyes causes the Paladin to turn and flee, next Galvish had managed to close on it as Corinne had summoned the Djinn who is in our debt to wish Taran back into being and Galvish suddenly starts to attack Corinne.  Saeryn had slowly closed to the rear of the beast and attacks it as Barrigan is disintegrated and the reappeared Taran is turned to stone.  Another wish from the Djinn brings back the dwarf who destones Taran and the two of them close on the rear of the beast as Corinne is having to fight off Galvish.  The two warrior priests unleash a fury of attacks and slay the creature.  This was one of the hardest battles we can remember and we still have not come across the dragon yet.