Having discovered an impending cultist ambush at the Boareskyre Bridge, the adventurers race to disrupt the plot. Beryl and Hurk warn the paladin Captain Khalia to summon reinforcements, while Garrett, Larion, and Jamna attempt to do something about the barrels planted at Bolo’s Tentside Inn.
While trying to sneak in the back of the inn’s pavilion, Larion and Garrett spot a rapidly approaching blue dragon. They realize that it is lining up a strafing run across the row of barrels. Inside the tent, Jamna disguises herself as an inspector for the Guild of Inns and Taverns and demands that the barrels be rolled outside. Unfortunately, her bluster isn’t quite convincing.
So it falls to Garrett, alarmed by the incoming dragon, to burst into the tent and start shouting “Fire! Fire!” His genuine fear convinces the crowd and sparks a stampede for the exit, just as Beryl and Hurk arrive.
Beryl stands firm against the throng but Hurk is immediately bowled over. Jamna likewise is knocked to the ground and trampled. Beryl senses a fellow dragon nearby and casts her gaze up to see the diving wyrm. She also sees several individuals in full Cult of the Dragon regalia dashing from one of the nearby tents into the cover of the tree line.
Beryl pulls Hurk onto his feet and warns him about both dangers. The two of them elbow their way out of the crowd as Hurk unslings the Longbow of the Golden Hart and readies a shot at the dragon.
Inside the pavilion, Garrett urges Larion to pick up Jamna and make a break for it. The half-elf collects the gnome and carries her to the threshold, where she wriggles free and slips into the crowd. Garrett himself rushes out through the back of the tent and up into a nearby tree a safe distance away.
By this point, the dragon’s approach is noticed by the crowd of evacuated patrons and an even greater panic starts to set it. Their surprise spoiled, the cultists decide to reveal themselves. The blue half-dragon leads his band of cultists out into view, shouting “The dragons rise! None can stop Tiamat’s return!”
The half-dragon then belches forth a long bolt of lightning that strikes Hurk square in the chest plate, thoroughly zapping him and putting his hair on end.
Three individuals in the crowd cast off their cloaks, revealing cult regalia beneath. They, too, shout “The dragons rise! None shall defeat them!”
The trio rush up behind Hurk and Beryl, their scimitars at the ready. Meanwhile, two of the cultists from the tree line dash forward and lift off, their capes taking the form of great bat wings to fly them over to the adventurers. They descend sword first, their blades crackling with electricity. Hurk and Beryl both take savage wounds from the attack.
The party realizes that these aren’t second-stringers. The cult is truly bent on killing them in this ambush, and has invested substantial resources to do so. From the shadows of the trees, their old enemy Frulam Mondath watches her cultists do their work.
The blue dragon dives low, flinching only slightly as Hurk wings it with his arrow. It is younger and smaller than the dragon that attacked Greenest so many months ago, but still dangerous. Its lightning breath scorches a line through the pavilion. There is a hissing sound and then multiple explosions tear apart the inn. Larion is singed by the blast. The dragon starts to wheel around for another pass.
Beryl struggles to heal the damage the cultists are dealing out, as she and Hurk bleed from multiple wounds. Garrett looses arrows from his perch in the tree, then ducks back into cover, hidden from view. Larion manages to sneak up to one of the cultists, but his scimitar glances off their armor. Jamna casts color spray and manages to briefly blind two of the three that are flanking Hurk and Beryl from behind.
Hurk drops the longbow and has a cackling Hazirawn to hand an instant later. The greatsword cleaves through one of the dragonwing cultists, but a slash against the second one is parried.
The remaining dragonwing calls for help and the half-dragon marches forward, cutting into Hurk with a vicious falchion. Garrett takes a shot at the half-dragon, but the arrow bounces off its armor. The sighted member of the cultist trio slashes out at the badly wounded Beryl, but swift as a sentinel Hurk lops the top of the man’s head off.
The wounded dragonwing cultist takes a swing at Hurk, but Beryl hooks his leg, throwing him off balance and allowing the fighter to easily bat aside his attacks.
A frustrated Frulam Mondath edges closer to the battle and uses a crackling orb of electrical energy to hurl a bolt of lightning at Beryl. The cleric barely stays on her feet, but is able to recite a healing word that bolsters herself and her allies. She then moves to flank the half-dragon with Hurk.
The young blue dragon swoops down and bites Hurk as it passes by, its teeth easily punching through his armor. The half-orc still has plenty of fight left in him however.
Larion sees his chance and cuts down one of the blinded cultists from behind, then wounds the other badly with a dagger from his off hand. Jamna decides against magic and instead marches out into the open to pop the wounded dragonwing cultist in the knee with her wrench, then splatter his head once he falls to the ground.
With Hazirawn whispering in his ear, Hurk lops off the half-dragon’s sword arm. He the grabs the half-dragon by the shoulder with one hand and rams the evil sword straight through the creature’s armor. Hazirawn’s necrotic energy drinks deep and the half-dragon wilts into a desiccated husk that Hurk casts to the ground.
He casts his gaze over to the last of the three cultists that had been flanking him from behind. This gentleman, having just regained his sight, realizes that he is the last cultist standing in the half-orc’s immediate vicinity. The man, already badly wounded by Larion, tries to disengage and flee. Hurk just flicks out with Hazirawn to spear the cultist’s heart.
Frulam Mondath stares in disbelief at the circle of six dead elite cultists around the blood-spattered Hurk and Beryl. She then uses her orb to fire a bolt of lightning into the sky and starts running. Garrett lets fly with an arrow, but just misses her. The silvery wrath of Beryl’s sacred flame scorches her but does not slow her.
Then the blue dragon, with an air of “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” swoops down to pick up Frulam Mondath and carry her off. Captain Khalia and a lance of mounted knights ride up in time to witness the escape. From his perch in the tree, Garrett flips them off for their tardiness.