The party travels on horeseback with Allustan to Blackwall Keep. There, a siege is under way, with lizardfolk and the people in the keep in full battle. Allustan uses his scroll of teleport to quickly go get reinforcements, and the party rushes into battle to aid the people of the Keep. Vasco, using fly, provides amazing ariel support and an effective web spell and lightning bolt to even the odds, though not before some of the lizardfolk broke into the keep with the sounds of blood screams from the low-level soldiers inside. The battle ended badly for the lizardfolk, where all but the leader, their druid and a few that they helped escape fell. In an initially failed dialogue after the battle, the leader gets killed by a summoned ape, but Shesht the druid negotiates a peace through Arthur.
The guards, with only 10 left standing, work with the party barbarian Ubu, and Arthur to repair the keep. Vasco mends the door and Hammond, one of the guards, is given alchemists’ fire while Duncan, another guard, is given arrows and continual light stones. The party resolves to head into the swamp and re-cover the captured guards and deal with the wicked lizardfolk king. Shesht described how to get to the layer and revealed the lizardfolk lair door in exchange for her life.
The party made good survival and track checks and have expeditiously followed the lizard folk into the swamp. There, a viper attacked Rancik in his sleep and a huge spider attacked Rancik from behind. The party defeated the spider before he ate Rancik and now plans to rest for the night, 1 mile from the lizardfolk lair, though their sleep is interrupted by an attack by ghouls, which Rancik ends up commanding.
They approached the lair, but were seen by the sentinels. Three lined up and Vasco let go a lighting bolt, searing them and blasting the hidden door open. 2 harpies have their nest here and charm all but Rancik, who challenged them with spiritual weapon and sonic boom. Ubu snapped out and critical hit one harpy and sling shotted another. Vasco, charmed the whole time, took quite a bit of abuse from flyby harpy attacks.
The Party gets into the lair and a chase is on, with some lizardfolk being captured, others being kills and others escaping to warn others in the layer. A lizardfolk lieutenant challenges them, raging Vasco into the negatives just as Ubu strikes another one of his soldier lizardfolk dead.
When this lizardfolk falls, green worms writhe out of his flesh and die on the floor. The battle is instantly halted with all aghast at the sight of the worms. The lieutenant who raged returns to get the lizardfolk shaman battle ensues with the lieutenant and his mate with Arthur taking heavy damage. The lieutenant and his mate are finally killed by Vasco’s lightning bolt
While the party was looting his magic armor, the Shaman and her followers show up to negotiate peace. The party agrees to challenge the evil Lizardfolk King and to take a Mistmarsh Truce pact to the Free City. The Shaman doesn’t know much about the ways of civilized folk, but believes that if the party can get them to agree in writing to leave the tribe alone, they’ll honor it. The party goes to the King’s chamber (who had been warned of the impending attack so fled) and the Kings captives, including Allusten’s friend Marzena, were revived.
Arthur, invisible, sought out the King after Vasco detected his thoughts. A battle begun and the King with the last of the lizardfolk holding true to him, were taken down. The Shaman returned and explained the history of the loss of the loss of eggs whose hatchlings were, and the promise from the black dragon’s of ‘guards’, who she does not trust. About two years ago, a sudden blight of ravenous green worms ate through the entire clutches of lizardfolk hatchlings in numerous tribes throughout the Mistmarsh. With an entire generation wiped out, many tribes fell into desperation and depravity. A black dragon Ilthane seemed visited the tribes, knowing much about the green worms that plagued the lizardfolk, telling them that the magic users from the Free City were responsible. Ilthane graciously offered to guard the tribe’s clutch of eggs until they regained their foothold in the Mistmarsh. Their eggs are set in a special chamber which Ilthane herself sometimes guards, and at times leaves other little dragonfolk to guard.
The party presses into the tunnels where the eggs are hiding, but manage to take down the powerful Kobald egg gards. One of the guards is captured and explains that his men are Ilthane’s superior slaves and that the one dragon egg amongst them is one of Ilthane’s own, being left here as a token of trust for the lizardfolk king.
Arthur manages to lightly move about the chambre, recovering 4 dark vials, and the dragon egg. He drops it once, but it only very lightly cracks, then drops it again and green worms pour out, infecting six lizardfolk hatchlings. Little undead spawnlings, writhing with a wormy infection, show a tough battle before being killed, and the party manages to contain the contamination of the worms. The party takes the treasure and heads back, finding a few more of the lizardfolk loyal to their king were waiting in ambush with their friend Otyugh. A huge battle ended with the lizardfolk all perishing other than the shaman and her snake, who escape into the swamp.
The party reaches level 7 and head back to the keep and then from the Mistmarsh to Diamond Lake. Ubu decides to stay and protect the lizard clutch, knowing that Ilthane the dragon will be back and that other predators of the swamp might also take advantage of the unprotected eggs. Vasco is disturbed by Rancik who had privately cast a glyph on one of the lizard druid’s personal effects, cursing it with wisdom damage.
All this time, back at the keep, there was a battle inside the walls as a consequence of a strangely powerful zombie that they had locked up in the keep and had not told the party about. One of the soldiers had turned into a wormy zombie spawn after having defeated the original zombie. They had just held on long enough for the reinforcements from Diamond Lake to arrive. All together, there are three wormy, powerful zombies in the basement when the party arrives back at the keep, which they have to battle to restore order in the outpost.Leaving Ubu behind in the Mistmarsh, Marzena, Vasco, Arthur and Rancik return to Diamon Lake to see Allustan. Marzena tells Allustan what she knows, confirming that these strange zombies are increasing in number through the Cairn Hills. Allustan tells the group about an old friend in the Free City, a sage named Eligos who knows a great deal. The sage may be able to determine what sort of threat the green worms represent to the region and how it can be countered. Rancik reports to the Wee Jas temple about all the activities of the Mistmarsh.
