Chapter 4: Summerwood Continued

After the ghostly battle, the Pushermen came upon a wall of ice several feet thick next to a sign pointing the way to Tear Shed. Melting through the wall would have taken more time than it would to die of hypothermia, and the ice wasn't clear enough to see whether the missing cargo was on the other side, so they decided to find another way after dealing with the dragon.
Moving cautiously forward, they found a goblin, magic rod raised, reciting the ritual to turn the magic shield in front of him into residuum, a silver dust that's essentially concentrated magic. Nalied turned into a goblin and attempted to convince the goblin that their leader wants the shield turned over to him, but the bluff failed: The goblin had no leader. With a cry, a beefier goblin joined him as well as two large ferocious bats, but they were all swiftly defeated, and Ka-Moh collected a proud and mightier shield with which to bash enemies, increasing the overall Pushitude of the Pushermen.

Moving past the suddenly irrelevant druid shrine*, the party encounters two hobgoblins and a cavern choker, but we all wanted to get to the dragon, so Nalied bluffed his way past that battle by convincing the hobgoblins to kill each other, and the choker decided to stop existing.

Up the steep slope to the highest point in Summerwood, the Pushermen ascended to find... nothing. No dragon. But on the far side were the crates of healing salve, undamaged. But they knew better. The dragon was hiding. They stopped to listen, and indeed, they could hear its breathing, though subtle. With a cry, the dragon burst from the snow and blasted everyone with ice, freezing them in place. The dragon swooped for the nearest intruder, Samel, and gave him two great swipes of his claws, knocking him to the ground unconscious. Ka-Moh used his new magic pipe to speak the dragon's language and taunted him, making him angrier, while Chrome made his way over to heal Samel. The battle wore on dragon and humanoid alike, but the Pushermen were gaining the advantage.

As the dragon was near its last breath, Ka-Moh swung up the dragon's neck preparing to chop at its head with the edge of his new shield. With his pipe, he offered two options: Become his personal riding dragon, or die. Far too angered to accept such a request, and being a proud and mighty dragon anyway, he refused with the final words: "I WOULD RATHER DIE TWICE!" followed by the pounding of Ka-Moh's shield into its neck and a crash to the ground.

Ka-Moh worked on removing the dragon's head for the reward while the others went to inspect what turned out to be the wrecked coach which the dragon had stolen for its polished steel lining. They found all the salves intact as well as a survivor of the men who were bringing them. Stowing the salves one at a time inside Chrome's extradimensional compartment, they carried the injured man to the nearest ring of mushrooms to give him some life back. Also in amonst the dragon's horde were some new magic armor and a morningstar, which was given to Chrome. Nalied was feeling itemless. But he'll probably find something good next time.

Before they could leave the forest, Ka-Moh caught a familiar sent. Something from home. Behind him came the voice of his clan sister Pethani. "Brotha Ka-Moh!" greeted excitedly. The exchange went from friendly talk to the realization that Pethani wanted nothing to do with the Pushermen and everything to do with the dragon's head and its reward. She and Ka-Moh wrestled at it, but Pethani's grip slipped, and she stepped backwards. "Fine," she said and disappeared out of sight at the first convenient moment.

Ka-Moh put his share of the reward money (and borrowed some from Nalied) to hire men to have some of the dragon's scales removed and grafted to his shield.

Father Osiris, whose church needed the salves, came to the Pushermen to ask one more favor. These salves he purchased were not cheap, and the man to be paid for them does not like late payments and isn't above taking lives to ensure he gets his money, and they were already three days behind. And so the Pushermen agreed to deliver the gold safely to Coverton, a mining town up in the Otblak Mountians.

End Chapter.

*When the party leveled up, their passive perception ability was bumped up just past what the healing mushroom rings needed to stay hidden, so the magic mushroom locating rod inside the shrine was useless, so I just said outright that there was no reason to go there. But it would have been cool. If they were near a mushroom, the rod would have made a Mario 1-up sound effect.