The diving dragon unleashes a fireball of epic proportions and follows it up with a massive bolt of electricity that melts the surface of the iron cube where it strikes.

Where it strikes is the trio of Dalliance, Abe and Nils. The trio dies – though Dalliance has her ring of nine lives and she pops back up – hale and hearty. She blasts away at the draconic monstrosity while the rest of the group scurries about and ends up disintegrating it. Zot!

The group scrapes up the remnants of the fallen and departs via a scroll-enabled gate. They return the dead to life and invest a tenday or so bouncing about while seeking magic items to replenish those consumed by the dragon’s attack...

The group moves across the face, using Demming to transport via plants, then teleportation circling the rest over to him. Alas, this is one of those times where Demming de-bushes next to a predator – a steel lion. It attempts to savage him, and he attempts to flee. Demming succeeds, and the cavalry appears…and gets a little mauled. Ron’j! dons the gloves of rusting and starts slapping the lion. It starts ripping him into bits. The group rallies and defeats the beast. Ronj hovers near death for a bit, but the group manages to make all hale and hearty.
Then, it is over to the next face. Some levitations and scouting reveals a large crevasse/cave, a bolted-togehter looking tower, a lot of grasslands and at one point a blue dragon, or two.
Further scouting/divination by Demming reveals the p...

Following another self-imposed exile, the group returns to a changed land. Their influence is waning in Shadowdale, and the prolonged bout of stability is bad for the adventuring biz. Luckily, there are always old friends who are getting sucked into interesting things and it is the news that ole Stumpy is having troubles that provides a raison d’etre.
It seems that the Stumpmeister has had his forge master killed and corpse-robbed, by a large steel lion no less. The omens are ominous and the portents are portentious, for the trail leads off of this world and into the outer planes.
Within days the group has made its way to the plane of neutrality and into the city of Rigus. In the warlike city, they ask questions, and eventually spot one of the steel beasts that was described to them...

The group pauses in their infiltration into the drow complex and shares a moment of reflection. The debate is more rhetorical, and after deciding that involvement in politics of the underworld is to be avoided, the group returns along the path they entered.
When they bypass the location of their contacts, who are understandably perturbed by the mass defection. Alas, Dalliance’s magics are stronger than drow dispel magic spells and the group escapes into the maze.
Rope trick into Find the path into multiple destructive spells to collapse as much of the path twixt Shadowdale and drow as possible and the group casts about wildly for a money making opportunity. Idle chat leads to interesting places and within hours the group has teleported to a fishing village on the coast of the sea...

Following the beholder, the party scouts a dangerous and well-trapped route. Eventually, they make their way to the lair of a tattooed yeti and his machete-limbed spider companions. A swift lightning bolt and that threat is preserved and teleported away.
Onward presses the party until a rope trick rest stop and a find the path spell speed things along. They move along, past shadow dragon and graveyard to the meeting spot. There they meet the dissident drow who encourage them to blow up some fundamentalist drow. The group agrees, if only to investigate further.
They ready themselves to foray further- seeking to disrupt the faction that seeks to reclaim Shadowdale from the party’s clutches.