03.02 Cusp of Sunrise club

[Deebee]

The card Celeste gives you is for the Cusp of Sunrise club located on Obsidian Avenue (the outer most and highest road, nearest the wall, and furthest from the (stinky) lake)

She has written her name on the back.

The Dwarf she introduces you to is Iron Lord Davked Splintershield.

Celeste, from your investigations, does not appear to be a residence of the city, but comes from the main city in the area Sasserine.

[slug]

We were in the Drunken Morkoth regaling the patrons with tales of our epic battle with denizens of the underworld (dark?) when a luxurious carriage was spotted pulling up to the pub, out steps a very attractive and well to do young lady and comes over to our table, none of the male members of the party (all of us) want to get up from the table and some sit in stunned (or maybe embarrassed) silence. 
A few brief questions about whether we were the heroes of the morning and the not so tongue tied amongst us stammer yes.  With that she hands us a card  with the title Cusp of Sunrise and an address in the very poshest bit of town asking us to go there this evening.
After she leaves we ask around and discover her name is Celeste but no-one really knows about her.
The scout decides to scout around the neighbourhood of the Cusp of Sunrise and feels distinctly out of place in his adventuring clobber.
Back to the pub and we all go shopping to buy some decent clothes to wear this evening, come evening time we turn up at the club looking out of sorts in our (almost) finery.  We are admitted and given a cursory inspection by this huge geezer in robes who seems part maitre d and part bouncer.
We are invited to go through into the very upper class club and mingle with the other members, a lot of us are not comfortable with mingling and study the books/ play the piano and eat and drink.  After several hours Celeste has not shown up, some of us have chatted with the rougher looking members of the club and we are on the verge of leaving, when Celeste intercepts us and guides us through into an ante room where an incredibly feeble dwarf  resides.
We are asked whether we would accept a mission to find Zenith Splintershield the son of the old dwarf, apparently he has been cursed and must make peace with his three sons, which he has done with two of them but the third Zenith went into the underdark from the Malachite Fortress 10 years ago to defeat some creatures and never returned, we are sceptical that he is still alive but the Dwarf knows he is, plus the fact that he will give us 4000gp's each to bring him back means we have got a good excuse to do what we have gathered for – defeat the evil and get rich.
Find out that the easy way into the underdark has been ruined by the Stormdrains (sorry Stormblades), so we have to go the hard way and ride 40 leagues to find a crazy hermit to seek another entrance.
A nice little ride into the hills turns ominous when our hawk comes hurtling out of the sky and hides under the horse, apparently something quite frightening is just over the next crest, at this point we see a tendril of smoke from the other side of the crest, we sneak up and see a wooden fortress (painted to look like stone) and a red dragon starting fires therein, all of this is about 200 yards away – plenty of time for archery practise then!  A huge volley of missiles are released and the dragon being a long way away and in pretty decent cover gets scratched by one of them.  Several seconds later the dragon is a few feet away looking quite angry, damn they are quick, luckily?! that puts into it short bow range and our one competent bowman sends several arrows into it, as it flies past it looks over its shoulder and turns Entwhistle to a crisp with a blast of its breath, thankfully Leorn is on hand with some curing and the dragon flies away. 

Here Entwhistles memory fades…