9. Centaur help with the fort, and 2 idiots

Faylyn runs to the other side of the tower and uses her grappling hook. I follow her, and hope that today I can climb. After we arrive, Thalassa (that cute centaur girl) comes to us, having been asked by Raven herself to see what was going on, why we are taking so long. Lucky for us, she is tall, so she helps lift me, and I finally am able to climb up. But there's a draconian guard up there! I'm not here to fight - I'm here to open a damn door, so I disengage and wait for my elven friend. Faylyn follows, and somehow Thalassa herself climbs up behind me, helping to keep that big guy off me. I'm up there just in time to see Sterling be skewered by the guard captain.
 
Still, the mission is the door. I jump down and try and run across the courtyard to the door. But one of the people there, dressed as a Kalaman guard, turns into a silvery draconic beast, and hits Faylyn and I! With his paws AND tail! Another guard comes down and tells me to surrender, in a very condescending tone. I think about trying to trick him into believing I am just heralding the Kalaman army, but instead I decide to run and hide. Faylyn stays and get knocked out, the poor girl.
 
Turns out, I was right, and just in time to miss the big dragon! Some other draconic asshole rode into the courtyard on top of a large dragon! When I went to hide, I just found the closest door to me. Turns out, this is not one of the rooms that connects to the rest of the tower. And these jerks that asked me to surrender followed me in here. I'm trapped. I need to get out of here and climb onto that dragon so I can open that gate! Or maybe I can create a diversion - either the sound of the army's beating drums, or maybe I can create a fire through the lantern. Something to get these guys off my back.
 
I do both. The sound of drums help get the guards away from me and back out into the courtyard. Then I use my lantern to create a small fire in the courtyard. That causes less of a distraction than I expected, probably because after a fight with Sterling and Mal, the silver dragon guy flew up and said something in draconic and left Some people really know how to steal the show. It is time for me to climb the walls again, but this time with the ladders from inside the keep. I go find the key to the lock that won't let us open the gates. On my way, I try to wake up Mal. At least he's alive. By that time, the 2 draconics remaining take off. I ask the remaining soldiers on the tower looking for the drums to surrender, mimicking what they said to me. "surrender now little ones, or else you'll be in trouble." I grinned the entire time, too.
 
I finally open the gate. Everyone is a little worse for the wear. I'm happy that Sterling is not dead, but Waah is missing. I'm not sure where she is. Well, the troops march in, but there isn't much for them to help take. At first they want to be very loud and celebrate, but are told by Raven to lest us rest. Sterling tells them to continue to feast, as this was a worthy victory. The next morning, we need to take the message back to the Marshal about our victory. I also lend a hand in interrogating the soldiers.
 
We also find 3 large crates that were not left here by the Kalaman army. They have valuables, and we are invited to look at them first. In the first crate, there is a lot of jewelry that glimmers and glistens. Probably about 1100 worth of gold. We'll split this loot, but not with Waah, since she'll just give it away anyway. Then there is another crate with additional dragon army foods and rations. About 250 days worth of meals. We decided to donate these to the Kalaman troops. Also, we don't really want to carry these with us anywhere. I mean, they are heavy, and dragon army or Kalaman, a hard tack is a hard tack is a hard tack - disgusting. In the last crate, there are 30 standard issues dragon army long swords, with the ugly symbol of Tahkisis on it. Ugly as they are, they are still worth about 450 gold all together. Between the weapons and the jewels, we all get about 310 gold. Maybe next time, if we can find Waah and she gets that much money, she may find something fun to buy, like a dress or a cool magic light or something. We'll see.
 
The soldiers that we captured and I'll interrogate are young and brash, and kind of helpful. Like a child is helpful if you ask them if they think their dad can beat up your dad. I wanted to know who they were, where they came from, what their goal was, and Sterling wanted to know what that Draconic guy said. They are from Taman Busuk, that huge mountain range SE of Kalaman. They want to conquer everything for the Dragon Queen. They tell me that the red dragon army is here, which I can see. And that the white dragon army is securing the south. And that the green dragon army, or is it the blue dragon army that is taking care of the elves? The point is that they want to take it all, and apparently have many colored armies.
 
That silver dragon that we saw was a messenger who will tell their leader what happened here. They tell us that when the time comes, red wings will darken the skies. I ask about how many troops they have, and they tell me that the portion under the High Master Fire Eyes has between 1 thousand and 20 thousand troops. They wanted to take the outpost because it was of strategic interest to slow down the raid of the supply lines from Kalaman.
 
What their flying leaders were saying as they abandoned their troops like the cowards that they are, is that they were going to report to command that the outpost was under attack, and likely lost. So, yeah, it was just their exit speech.
 
How many High Masters do they have? The Red Dragon army has one, but he does not run the army. That is the Dragon Lord. But just in their branch, Fire Eyes is in charge.
 
The goal is for the army to continue to consolidate outlying villages, and soon enough they will march on Kalaman when they have the air advantage with the dragons, and we are all doomed.
 
As they are chatty, I go ahead and ask about the exploding guys. They tell me that it is a gift to the followers of Takhisis, who gain their powers through their devotion to her. They are taken as eggs and warped by her power. They are doing this as a form of justice (or revenge) for the crimes of the metallic dragons. They even scoff that the metallic dragons have not showed up yet, even to save their own children from being taken and corrupted. Which is a fair point.
 
At least these jerks were just trying to get us to surrender to them and join the army. They were not talking about how they turned on innocent villagers, like the last guy back in Vogler. Seems so long ago, anyway. I leave them to Vogler herself.
 
Then we travel back to Kalaman. Of course, we use the apparatus to report to Kalaman before we reach the city. That is when Darrett informs us that Bakaris is leading the troops to ruins at the Steel Springs. That jerk and his son somehow convinced the governor to let them lead an army against the draconics while the Marshal and Vogler were away. Poor Darrett cannot disobey a command, but he wants to keep everyone else from being killed by Bakaris and his stupidity. We need to head that way and help as soon as we can. They are west of Kalaman, by the In Water river.
 
The good news is that we don't have to speak to the governor about relieving Bakaris of command - we are special operatives, and we need those troops. To be safe. And not follow an idiot.
 
Even without much rest, we force ourselves to walk the 30 miles west to keep Bakaris from having too much time to mess things up. Thalassa was kind enough to help me march that far with some of her magic. Sterling is also a doll and carries me through some of it. It was dreamy. At some point at a grove, we see a pasture with 3 dead cows and a huge lizard thing standing between them. It has wings, a tail with a stinger, and scales. Faylyn tells us it is a Wyvern. Apparently these beasts are protective of their kills, so we either need to fight it, or it may think that we are threatening it's food. Plus, going as far around as necessary will take too long. Again, Faylyn and Thalassa both help us move faster and without notice of the beast, so we are lucky to only make a small detour.
 
We finally arrive where Bakaris and his son, in shinning armor are at, trying their best to direct the troops to do something stupid. Luckily, for them, as soon as they see "reinforcements", they run away. Maybe they could be locked in at the fort with Vogler along with those two other idiots from the Dragon Army...