NBHK, Demon Blood has been used in Sharn to control and enrage dinosaurs. In order to investigate this further, House Vadalis sponsored my squad’s trip to the home of the dinosaurs: The Talenta Plains. Even before arriving we were hearing rumors of demon dinosaurs, and one of my squadmates, Xander, heard that they might be breeding. On the train to Talenta Plains, I read a tabloid about a certain “Rancher Ral,” claiming that he and House Vadalis were not to be trusted. I am ashamed to say that I was taken in by these falsehoods, and that my first interactions with the man were laced with suspicion, despite him proving to be nothing but trustworthy.

We arrived in Gatherhold and met Rancher Ral alongside his Stegosaurus. Within Gatherhold we saw many halflings with sickly grey skin that appeared to be missing their dino companions. We overheard some of these malcontents muttering about joining a group called the “Scales,” and additionally learned that the spirit would not talk to the tribes anymore. Ral took us to meet Holy Priestess Uldra, who let us borrow her Fast-Claws and informed us the “Scales,” are the demon cult we are looking for. She asked us to look for Carver Cal, a House Vadalis member that had been missing for a week, suspecting that he had been taken by the cult.

At Uldra’s behest, we began making our way to where Cal was last known to be, the Thunderbill sanctuary. Within the sanctuary, we encountered a Thunderbill with a strange bite mark and skin that was gradually turning gray, and just as it arrived it turned and attacked several of its own kind. We were forced to put it down, but not before it viciously ripped several other Thunderbills to pieces, despite being herbivorous. After killing them, we skinned them, and following this mission Helios kindly made me a set of thunderbill leather armor. Ina gleaned a bit of useful information regarding a dark god “Devourer,” that is somehow connected to these events and wishes to cause death and destruction.

That night, we realized that we should have burned the bodies of the dead Thunderbills, because we could hear the distant sounds of them attacking other dinos. I was able to spare a single Compsognathus from the plague when it came in bearing some tainted meat, but I still regret that we made that mistake.

The next morning, we found a slot canyon standing in the middle of the flat plains, seemingly created using earth magic. Several halfling members of the “Scales,” were standing guard outside with fast-claw companions, but thanks to the halflings amongst our own group, we were able to talk our way past them by pretending that the non-halflings were prisoners. We also learned from these halflings that Flamemaw was in the process of being resummoned by Dark Shaman Dratz.

Being allowed inside, we made our way into the canyon and shortly discovered Carver Cal. He seemed to be in a prison cell being forced to create potions, but upon closer inspection, the cage was not locked. With a bit of pressure, the coward revealed that he was working for the “Scales,” willingly. Cal told us that the “Scales” have been capturing demons from the Mournlands and bleeding them to make potions, that the drug was made from Abyssal and Primordial blood mixed together, that it works best on creatures with ancient bloodlines(dinosaurs) and that he was trying to stall us to let the ritual go on. As a result of the latter, we quickly tied him up and made our way inside.

The path to the ritual chamber was caked in strange black blood, and once we reached the entrance to the ritual chamber we found it filled with chanting half-demons. Shaman Dratz was in the process of calling forth the Mourning, and as we watched, a massive Demonic Tyrannosaurus began to form out of the mist of the Mourning. Mouth agape and jaws aflame, it was a terrifying sight, but realizing that the ritual was still in progress, we moved to intervene. The chanting half-demons were important to the ritual, so we sneak attacked them all simultaneously and successfully disrupted the spell. We also attacked Dratz, but as it got hit, it’s wounds spread the mist of the Mourning further, and we could not approach without entering it. Dratz disappeared as the ritual failed, and the remaining cultists began setting off traps designed to destroy the cave and bury the evidence, so we were forced to run for our lives. Cinque was able to quickly grab the scroll being used for the ritual before we evacuated, however. On the way out we also retrieved Carver Cal and his alchemical supplies. He will be a great source of both information and magical components until we turn him over to the authorities.

YLA,
Toryn Viphonastar