"Frrriend arrre prrroved by deeds, not worrrds." Serrena remarked to Petraak.

As the group moved on Serrena easily kept up with the riders. and when they stopped for lunch she drew our a chunk if bread abd cheese, and sipped from her waterskin.

The arrival of the dragon was a surprise Eastern Dragons were wingless and moved though the air by commanding the winds, they were wind riders.

Serrena was quiet and listened, she understood all their words, Dragons were venerated by the Temple of the Winds. The great Celestial Cloud Dragon, Emperor of all Oriental Dragons, was a parton of the temple.

Again she listens, she was not with the group when they had met the old man. As they spoke of him she began to wonder if the man who had sent them might be this evil mage. Had any of them read his alignment when they were dealing with him.

Back at the fight
Miriele circle around after they killed the last hobgoblins to make sure no more were hiding out. What she found was a body of a hobgoblin out in the woods which surprised her. They had dropped all the hobgoblins and Worgs back where Petraak, Ula and the others were gathered. This one had not obvious wounds, nothing but a trickle of blood at his mouth, but he was most definitely dead with his hands on his own throat, though. That was weird to be sure. She quickly examined his body for any valuables but found nothing but his weapons, bloodless.

Miri called in Stormy and had her pick up whatever scent he could in the area and track whatever had killed the hobgoblin. Stormy lead her back to where she had come from. Even as she came through the brush with Stormy she hear an unfamiliar voice, that strangely rolled her r's

Miriele stepped through the brush with her near black shadow. The huge she-wolf moved straight towards the strange woman with a low growl vibrating in her throat.

~Cat~, was Stormy's clear thought. ~Hold~, came Miri's thoughtful reply.

Miri walks over towards Petraak and the Druid. Stormy moving with her but Stormy's attention was still on the cat woman.

After introductions were made they made camp a ways down the road well away from the bodies.

As Petraak said he would take the watch for the night, Miri shook her head. “I will share the watch with you, I am good at night watch and Stormy here makes it really two of us on watch. I trust her senses even before mine. It is best that we all share the watch, so all get rest.”

"Jonathan perhaps you will entertain us with your musical talents this night. Music is always appreciated."

The night passed quietly with no unusually occurrences. Miri took time to write of the days journey in her journal as she had for every day since leaving her home.

Journey Day 2

As they continued there journey towards the temple, several things caught Miri's attention as they traveled following the directions they had been given with no real problems, though what Miri noticed as she scouted ahead and behind that the trail behind them seemed to be closing in, hiding their passage. She also had a feeling they were not alone but even after sending Stormy out to investigate nothing ws found. it was not easy to convey the feeling to Stormy who could hunt if she knew what it was she needed to hunt.

Their next encounter was one of the strangest Miri had ever been involved in. As they had stopped and rest for their noonday meal, or coal rations and fresh water, the whirling of wings and the swirling and forest duff was kicked up by the mighty wings of a young Green Dragon who confronted them. Miri kept still and made no overt moves of any sort. She listened carefully to the story that unfolded by the Dragon.

Miri was left with a lot to think about. She was not sure the whole story was told and what was not told might cause them problems later. It left her with some uneasy questions. There was the old man who wanted them to go to the temple, some strange old magician that had tried to create and Dragon Lich. After what the young Green Dragon had told them, Miri had a strange thought cross her mind that left her extremely unsure about this whole adventure. The awful thought she had been to wonder if those two old men were one and the same. However she did not share her worries with the others. There was just too much she did not know. But she wouldn’t forget the thought, though she filed it away for now.

Miri settled for keeping Stormy out hunting for anything weird or threatening. It was all she could do for now. that and watch all around the group ahead, the sides as they traveled. expecially their back trail.

"Did anyone else notice what is happening to our back trail?"

Ula sat while the others continued with their mid day meal, the few berries she had eaten in the morning would be enough to sustain her for a time. The young dragon had certainly offered much to think over. Dryads were the fey spirits of the trees, more deeply connected to the forests and wild places than even her people. She could not believe them creatures of evil, true they were capricious but not evil. Fey folk had little interest in bones and burials, it did not make sense that they would seek to destroy burial grounds. Ula sighed, they were all heading in search of that very burial ground and that worried her.

Bones held great power, mortals had found a way to unlock that power. Her own power was deeply connected to the land and the dream but she had lived long and seen much through the ages. She remembered well the forgotten ancient world, the primal tribes that had existed then were well versed in the magics of spirit and death. They had excarnated their dead, letting the wild strip their bodies to the bone. In those days skulls of the dead were kept and she remembered temples built entirely from bone. Tribal shamans had wielded great power by channeling the spirit world through the bones of their ancestors. The skulls of the most powerful shamans were kept in sacred groves allowing their people to seek the wisdom and aid of the elders even after they had passed. Death magic had once been a deeply spiritual path, but much had changed since those early days. Necromancy had been twisted into a dark art that even the most ancient of beings feared. Spirits and powers once wild and free could be commanded with bones.

Ula looked to her side and to the goblin staff that lay there. She had not felt the call of the dream since her hand first touched it. Through it she felt something else, a thing she did not know. The skull gave her a sense of unease and she began to wonder who it had belonged to. A constant feeling of being watched had troubled her through the day, and she had felt a presence even as the dragon was before them. She felt the watchers now, growing stronger and seeming to reach out for her.

Sister. A chorus of female voices, seductive and cool, echoed in her head. Sister. Again the seductive choir called to her. Join us sister Ula felt the voices deep within her being, they caressed her body and sung to her. Drawn into their call she closed her eyes and listened to the songs. Sister. Again. Join us. Dance with us. Again. Dance with us Sister. She began to sway to their song and trembled in their embrace.Take their spirits. Another voice, dark and insidious sang over the wild choir. It sang into her, dark and seductive, embracing her in awesome power. Ula opened her eyes, Petraak sat closest to her. Grasping the skulled staff she leaned over to him, just a touch of the lips and she could wrap the spirit in the dream world. Just a touch. The faery opened herself to the dream world and stepped into it. She did not walk fully and wholly into the dream but rather straddled both worlds, a part of both and neither. Ula began to fade, becoming ethereal like a dream but still as solid as the waking world.

As she moved within both worlds something in the dream caught her eye. A thick darkness covered the dream. It emanated from a blackened human skull near her hand, a blackened human skull very like the one atop the goblin staff. Ula narrowed her eyes forgetting the call of the voices. She focused her gaze on the skull. The dream world was a mirror of the waking world, but beyond the land what existed in one did not exist in the other. That skull should not have followed her into the dream. Something was not right. The darkness began to swirl around her, a foul black tempest trying to consume her wholly. Yet in that moment something else held on, small and subversive but always there. It was the dream and in its subtle embrace part her still remained. Ula reached out with all that she was grasping for the dream world. Moments passed like eternity, but slowly the swirling darkness receded back into the skull and the insidious voices fell silent. The dark power that had grasped at her being let go. Ula breathed heavily and shook her head in dismay. She had nearly attacked her companions, something was sapping her will.

The fey looked through the dreamscape frantically searching for some sign of the source of that power. Her eyes fell on the skull that still remained in the dream and the skeletal figure that now stood there. Those in the waking world would not see this creature. Tall and ominous the skeletal apparition moved forward stepping closer too her. She stilled herself, fighting off the darkness had weakened her greatly - too greatly to fight off this creature. It's power was palpable like the darkness that had been there before. Ula took a deep breath and opened the dream world enfolding some part of her companions in its embrace. She hoped it would be enough. The skeleton knelt to pick up the blackened skull and laughed in screeching voice.

"The dryads fought my power too, but they now serve me as you will. You fey are more spirit than flesh, and bound with bones spirits can be commanded," the creature moved closer with hollow eye sockets that seemed to bore into all they viewed. "My own skull will bind you to me."

With a shrill scream the dread being launched itself at her. Boney fingers grasped her neck and she felt the weight of that skull on her chest. Help me Ula called through the dream to her companions, hoping they heard her, hoping they saw. Darkness poured into her and she screamed.

Jonathan had been silent as the dragon approached them and had a little chat with Petraak. This was the kind of stuff that made good poems or songs, and the young bard hated the fact that the creature didn’t speak the common tongue, or he not the draconic one. Still, if the dragonborn didn’t translate at some point in the future, he would make up his own version of the conversation.
Luckily, Petraak did share with them what the dragon was all about. It was quite unfortunate that the translation came to late for any of them to react to the scaled creature. Jonathan would’ve loved to propose a coalition of some sorts. If the dragon hated the Dryads, and the dryads were going to give them hell upon entering the temple, they would both benefit from an alliance.

As it was, the story itself struck him as dubious, or to be more precise: their quest now seemed dubious. Thinking back, this thought had sat with him ever since the old man told them about their quest. He had heard too many tales of people being used or betrayed, backstabbed after doing the hard work. Looking around, he saw others thinking back. Were they realizing the same thing?

“I don’t know about you guys, but doesn’t it seem kinda strange that…”

At that moment he was engulfed by a strange sensation. It was as if a cloud covered his mind to mist his thoughts and rain on his mood. He had forgotten that he had dreamt the night before, but now it came back to him like a real memory. He was standing on a stage, with beautiful women around him, listening to his music breathlessly. As he bent over to kiss one of them she started to change into a… hey! He didn’t want to remember the bad part!

Shaking violently, he managed to shrug off the dream and noted that the gorgeous woman with fey heritage (he still was unsure of what she was), being confronted by a skeletal creature, its hands around her neck.

Help me! he heard clearly, and didn’t think for another minute.

Yanking on the shoulder-strap that held it in place, he moved his lute from its secure place on his back to the right position to play. An instant later he strummed a powerful chord that sent the strings humming with power. This was no ordinary bardic piece of crap, this was the instrument given to him by the son of Gib. Gib was a Saint, a martyr died defending his faith by song and string. His son had tried to take over the family business but had put more belief in Jonathan than in himself. The only thing that marked the guitar’s previous owner was a handwritten signature on the instrument’s head: Gibson.

The chord reverberated strongly on the skeleton’s bones, hammering like a dozen maces. Again Jonathan’s fingers jumped over the strings, this time forming a lower combination of tones that struck even more deafening. White energy started to form around the strings as he continued with a third chord, quickly followed by a feverish succession of fingerpicked tones that grew out to a piercing shriek. When he strummed a low E-chord, heavy on the base, a bolt of white energy sprang from his instrument and hit the skeleton square in the chest. It took a few steps backwards from the impact. If it would leave, he did not know, but at least it had let go of the pretty girl. That was all Jonathan needed for now.

(OOC: I altered everything just a bit, because Nimu seemed to neglect the entire sequence with the dragon. I place the attack in the dreamworld after that, for good measure.)

Petraak was amakened by the scream that reverberated through the night like a banshee loosed upon the world. It was Ula. He saw the skeleton reaching for her, and he heard the bard's instrument playing a deep, resounding chord that shook the skeleton away. Quickly, he traced a rune in the air and threw some dust through the rune, toward the skeleton. As the dust passed through the rune, it erupted into flame that caused the skeleton to burst into flame and combust into a pile of dust.

He helped Ula up and asked about what she had seen. She and Jonathan were both shaken by the encounter, obviously and reasonably so. Waking up to a living nightmare tends to do that to a person, even a fey creature. He gave her his thick knight's cloak, since she was shivering, and she began to recount her story.

He noticed, however, that in his peripheral vision, the skull on the staff seemed to glow slightly in the night with a kind of dark fire. Even though he was slightly schooled in the arcane arts, he had never heard of anything like this. The workings of necromancy were beyond him, and this staff was obviously a necromancer's tool. Whether a goblin toying with the possibilities of raising his fallen comrades, or some great wizard that had lost it to them, he didn't know, but it was obvious it was more powerful than they had thought.

Looking directly at it, he noticed no such glow, and tucked the thought away in the back of his mind, for now. He would have to read about it more in depth later. Perhaps some of the books in the temple would speak of them at length. Still, as comfortable as he was with basic magic, he distrusted the staff and the powers attached to it.

It seemed to smile at them in the night, taunting them. It sent a shiver down his normally unharried spine. What sort of magic is this? Are the fey creature's nightmares and the staff connected in some way?
Time would tell, but a part of him feared they didn't have time enough to spare. The wind whispered through the trees and made it sound like the staff laughed at them.

With skeletal fingers wrapped around her throat Ula felt the dark power wrapping around her. It bored itself into her sapping her will away. She fought it at the core of her being, but to no avail. Slowly she felt her spirit slipping from her into the dark grasp.

Suddenly the skeletal hand was gone and the darkness loosened its grip. The fey opened her eyes to see Jonathan standing in the dreamscape holding a strange lute. The strings vibrated with power as he strummed the chords, sending white energy into the skeleton. The creature hissed with rage and pain as it stepped away from her. Tendrils of darkness still connected the skeleton to her and it began to advance once again. Ula narrowed her eyes and spun a web of dreams around herself severing the darkness from her. Rage radiated from the creature as it continued its advance, but flames shot through the air consuming the skeleton and leaving only ash and dust in their wake.

Watching the fires sear the creature to ash Ula released her hold on the dreamworld freeing her companions from the dreamscape. The faery touched her hand to her neck, feeling for any sign of the skeletons touch. Her fingers found only smooth skin. Ula took a deep breath and sighed before looking at the waking world. Everything was as it had been. Her companions moved about in a daze, seemingly unsure of what had happened. With any luck they would remain ignorant that they had pulled into and pushed out of the dream world.

Ula stood up and moved to stare at the campfire. It's flames danced in the wooded shadows reflecting an orange light on her skin. Their flickering silhouettes flashed in her eyes as she resumed the calm repose. Things had grown to reach an unexpected complexity, and that worried her. Some force had managed to take hold of the Felwood dryads, that same force now sought to consume her. She had to find this power that now hunted her and release the dryads from its grasp. It seemed her own fate was tied to theirs.

The faery turned to face her mortal companions. Incandescent eyes stared into each of their faces. They had saved her, by the most ancient of the fey laws she was indebted to them and thus bound to them. She took a step forward and smiled.

"My thanks," Ula began "I owe you all a debt of gratitude."

Ula knelt down near the skulled staff. Holding her hand just above the skull she closed her eyes and reached out again to the dreams. Invisible threads of spirit spun themselves around the staff, constricting its power. The ward would not hold forever, but she would know the moment it broke. That would have to be enough for now. Though conflagration had consumed the skeleton its power and spirit remained, vigilance would have to be maintained. Ula stood to face the others.

"A new threat has revealed itself," the fey spoke as she pointed to the staff. "Flames may have seared bones to ash, but this entity yet remains. We must keep this, it is the key to defeating this new enemy."

She looked at the staff, empty eye sockets seemed to glitter with delight and she could almost hear a maniacal laughter wild in the air.

No one slept through that night, not after everything that had happened. Petraak the least, his natural protective instincts keeping him up, forcing him to keep a watchful eye over the companions. Judging by the map, they'd arrive at the temple the next day, and as the sun rose, they set out through the maze-like path that continued to close behind them. They were all aware of this, but unspokenly decided to cross that bridge when they came to it, and deal with it on the way back, perhaps with the dragon's aid.

They made it to the temple shortly after breakfast, and it looked every bit as if it grew out of the forest, and perhaps it had, in a way. A great, stone pyramid covered in brush and vines, with a tree growing through the center of it, rising out of the top of the pyramid triumphantly.

There was a door directly in front of them, hewn out of stone, with no handle or knob. This presented a problem? How to get in? A further look around revealed a pedestal at the top of a much smaller pyramid on the right side of the door, across from what appeared to be a giant lens. At the base of the pedestal read an ancient inscription - Call forth the gods of the heavens/that of ancient yore had riven/this temple out of stone/that we ancients call home
Above the door, there was also an ancient, ominous inscription, which Petraak read from the draconic runes - Only the pure shall pass this ancient door of stone, abandon hope, seekers of evil in this holy place
The crest above it was the same crest of Petraak's ancient order, which surprised him, was something in this temple a key to his peoples' homeland?

Breaking his concentration, creatures that had been following them leapt out of the forest, hissing at them with voices as the whispering wind in the trees. Bodies made of bark, and hair of leaf, these were the dryads the ancient dragon had warned them about, and they looked angry. Very angry. Still hissing, they attacked with whips made of vine and sharpened staffs, seeking to impale the adventurers.

Petraak drew his sword. "Ahh, BATTLE!" He saluted his opponents and lunged toward them, "Prepare to die, honored foes!"