Greenest in Flames

This is the first episode in the An Unlikely Fellowship adventure. It is largely introductory, with characters attempting to aid Greenest, a small town under attack by kobolds and cultists.

Summary
A large party of adventurers (Andrew, Aust, Bleu, Dazo, Garrett, Lionel, Mateeko, Nevarra, and Wonder Woman) find themselves loosely gathered on the road east into Greenest, a town inland and south along Faerûn's Sword Coast. The town appears to be in flames, and under attack from a number of kobold and human raiding parties, led by a blue dragon hovering northeast of town. The group heads into town and is nearly immediately thrown into a number of skirmishes with the raiding parties, which the adventurers come to realize include human cultists–many of which have large dragon tattoos on their chests–as well as drakes under control of the cultists and kobolds.

As most of the party battles their way to the Greenest keep in the center of town, Wonder Woman strikes out on her own. She heads (rather recklessly) toward the chapel in the southeast tip of Greenest, fighting several small raiding parties on the way. Meanwhile, the rest of the party rests and meets Governor Nighthill and Escobert, his dwarf general. Just past midnight, they then clear a hidden tunnel leading from the keep into Greenest in an effort to further help the town, and emerge near the same chapel that Wonder Woman is approaching.

A large battle that erupts in two locations: first, just outside of the tunnel as the main party zeroes in on Wonder Woman; and second, around the back of the chapel as Wonder Woman is surrounded by humans and drakes. As the party defeats their enemies and closes in, Wonder Woman is first brought down by cultists, and then actually dies before any of the party can heal and save her. As the episode closes, the party hoists Wonder Woman onto several of their shoulders and seems intent on taking her dead body to the chapel, hoping to resurrect her. As they reach the back door of the chapel, another raiding party approaches the larger double doors in front of the chapel, and a deep THUMP-ing begins to resound throughout the chapel.

Dates
Summertide (Flamerule) 14-15.

Detailed Playthrough
Early evening falls on a warm day in the middle of Summertide, and 9 adventurers–along with a mixture of other travelers–approach the provincial town of Greenest from the west. The adventurers have little knowledge of each other, but are pulled into a heated discussion when they hear loud cries from the town and see pockets of flame all around them. The group moves closer to the town, and see a number of raiding parties consisting largely of kobolds and drakes, as well as fires burning throughout the town. There is a large blue dragon seemingly leading the forces, hovering just to the northeast of town. The dragon seems to be content igniting fires around the town's border, and is not attacking the town proper, or even engaging much in battle beyond terrorizing the guards atop the town's keep.

Garrett–a halfling rogue–immediately attempts to loot a building, but is quickly trapped behind a barricaded door and catches on fire. He does escape with the help of his new companions, but is put under arrest when he is seen coming out of the building with a rather obviously stolen amulet. The party quickly realizes that being marched toward Greenest's authorities with a thief under arrest is a bad idea; Lionel casts Fog Cloud and Garrett and the entire group escape in the ensuing confusion. Also during the chaos, Garrett slides the stolen amulet into an unknowing Bleu's pocket, chuckling quietly all the way.

As the group moves deeper into Greenest and heads to the keep, Wonder Woman leaves the party upon finding out where the town's chapel is from Andrew, a Greenest native. The rest of the party finds themselves in another battle, and fight off a number of kobolds and ambush drakes while simultaneously saving Cuth and Linan Swift and their three children, a family being chased through the streets of Greenest. They eventually kill the raiders and heal a near-dead Cuth, and then escort the family to Greenest's keep. They are led (somewhat) by the paladin Dazo, who seems wild-eyed and intent on marching headlong toward the blue dragon northeast of town. The keep is directly in his path, though, so the party ends up gathering at the keep's closed gates, along with nearly 50 harried townspeople.

When the adventurers enter the keep–still minus Wonder Woman, who continues her own march toward the chapel at the southeast corner of Greenest–they are met by the dwarf general, Castellan Escobert the Red. He is master of the keep and seems grizzled and more than willing to marshal the ragged forces into battle. When he sees the adventurers, he immediately takes them to Governor Tarbaw Nighthill atop the keep's single tower. Governor Nighthill seems in shock, and urges the adventurers to rest briefly and return to him.

After a brief respite, the party returns to Governor Nighthill, who has very little additional information to offer. By his telling, the raiders fell upon Greenest under the direction of the blue dragon to the northeast of town around 7PM, and have been raiding and looting since. The raiders–kobolds, drakes, and humans–seem mostly interested in looting rather than attacking the keep itself. Nighthill is more concerned with the townspeople still attempting to reach the keep, and the buildings within town under attack, than anything else. He asks the party for help in clearning the town of raiders, and sends them to Castellan for advice on how to proceed back into the beleaguered town without being detected leaving the keep.

As midnight passes, the party descends deeper into the keep. Escobert helps the group pry open an old door and head into a darkened, single-file tunnel deep underneath the grasses surrounding the keep. Bothered only by a few rats (and an arrow that goes hurtling over almost all of the party's heads), the group emerges into the southeast corner of town... remarkably close to a certain barbarian dwarf, still intent on reaching Greenest's chapel. The party has to take on a rather large set of raiders who descend on them as they exit the tunnel, and just to the east, Wonder Woman is similarly attacked by humans and drakes as she approaches the chapel from its rear.

Nearly 15 minutes later, both battles ended. The party continues east largely unscathed, but to their surprise, finds two humans and a dead barbarian... the same barbarian that ran off to the east from their original entry into Greenest, nearly 6 hours ago! The party mops up the remaining raiders, and tries to heal Wonder Woman. However, she is non-responsive, and appears to be truly dead. The party hoists her on their shoulders, turns to the chapel, and decides to look for a cleric–hopefully one with a helpful resurrection spell.