The next morning the adventurers head to the docks. They learn the boat will be pulled upstream by two large dire pike that Tredok has trained. After two days of travel there is smoke on the horizon. The dwarf mentions there is a village up ahead, or at least there was…

Tredok brings the boat to shore and after about a mile walk north the party comes to the burning village. Three dragonborn are roughing up some villagers as buildings burn around them. Once they see the party approaching they leave the villagers alone. One of the dragonborn warns the adventurers to surrender or die. Tony quickly answers by firing 2 arrows into him, injuring him badlly.  He runs around a nearby building as the other dragonborn close with the party. One uses his breath weapon and swings at Render and the other steps up to take on Tony. Render and Donaar welcome them with weapons of their own. Suddenly the door of one of the buildings opens a mage throws thunder at the unexpecting party. Auidar casts wall of thorns blocking the mage’s line of sight to the group and impaling one of the dragonborn. Without the distraction from the mage the party quickly deals with the two dragonborn. Auidar dispells the wall of thorns and the mage quickly fires lightning at Render, Donaar and Orsik.

Render charges toward the mage and suddenly is flanked by a bugbear. The bugbear grabs Render and begins to strangle him. At the same time the first dragonborn reappears from the other end of the house and approaches Orsik with his longsword drawn. They exchange a few blows but Orsik lands a few more than the dragonborn. Meanwhile Donnar attacks the bugbear, but the bugbear deftly pulls Render in front of the attack. The mage steps away from the fray and casts magic missile at Donaar. Auidar follows after the mage as well. Tony attempts to strike the bugbear with a hail of arrows but hits Render instead who goes limp. The bugbear drops Render and turns his attention elsewhere. He is taken totally by surprise when Render stands back up and slashes at him. With no target to shield the attacks on him the bugbear falls. Shortly after that the mage id dropped by Auidar and Donaar. The fight is over.

The leader of the village returns, thanks the party for their help, and begins to get her people ready to move. They decide they will take refuge in Adakmi now that they homes are burned and lives have been destroyed.

DM Notes:
Again this was fun to run and a tough fight for the players. The bugbear is just vicious. The dragonborn were able to take a lot of hits but did not last too long. The mage added a nice range element that penalized the party for bunching up. The smoke and moving fire was hard to keep track of and I could have done a better job with that.