They leave Neapolis rested and restored of purpose. They head back east, having plotted their route using the new map. They will travel back along the south coast of the northern continent until they reach Mantua. They figure they will have the least risk of meeting powerful hostile evil dragons that way. They manage to travel for several days, still encountering many hostile creatures that they must deal with. They fight a shadow dragon one night that drains levels, including the highest spell levels of the casters. One morning, they are attacked by a forest landwyrm, a distant relation to a linnorm. It had burrowed under their campsite and in the morning when they went out, it burst out of the ground and attacked. Skilgannon is nearly killed during the fight, but the party prevails. Sensing an opportunity to find a dragon lair, Croom casts find the path to lead them perhaps to the dragon's lair. They travel deep into the forest that is home to the city of green dragons. They do spot some dragons, and are in fact forced to fight a young one briefly. They find the forest landwyrm's underground lair and in it some money and an altar dedicated to the linnorms. They recover a gold statue of a linnorm which will go nicely with their other idols at the house in Althofen. They stay the night in the lair.
The next day they return to the coast, having to elude and outrun some older green dragons. They aren't interested in fighting every dragon they encounter at this point. Traveling along the coast for a couple of hours, they spot a strange thing. A humanoid creature was hiding behind a rock as they flew over. After they passed, the sharp-eyed Skilgannon spotted it. They naturally turn around to investigate. They land and approach what looks like an elf maiden outfitted in strange armor, axe, shield, and traveling gear. What is most strange is that she has lustrous brown hair and gray skin with large almond shaped orange eyes and pointed ears. Her suit of full plate armor is battered and has spikes. After conquering the language barrier, they learn this: Her name is Feleia, and she is traveling to the city of Tomis to meet with the Battle Dragons. Her people are hidden in a city all these long centuries far to the southwest. They have remained hidden for the most part from the evil dragons. They have some contact with the good dragons who have agreed to help them from time to time over the eons. This is one such time. The evil Tarterian dragons have discovered their city and they are threatened. Emissaries have been sent to all the good dragons, the gold, copper, brass, bronze, and battle. She is the one going to battle dragons to ask for their aid. They don’t believe that all will be able to come or come in time, but their king thought it wise to send as many emissaries as possible.
The party is astonished to learn that there are humanoids on Draconia after all. They offer to travel together, and she agrees. John summons another phantom steed for her and they travel on. That night, they camp in Leomund's secure shelter that Hans summons and have their usual watches. They learn a bit more about battle dragons and the elf folk from Feleia and she in turn learns just a little bit about their mission. They are cautiously close-mouthed. The next morning, as they are preparing their spells and readying for the day, Feleia announces that she must go outside to pray in seclusion to Bahamut, the god of metallic dragons. The party converses a bit about her while she is gone and their suspicions rise higher. They ask Hans to look at her with true seeing when she returns just to be sure. When she does, Hans looks at her and goes white as a ghost. They are in the middle of eating their daily heroes' feast, and Hans passes a note to John Frie telling him that she is a shape-shifted fang dragon, bad news. John doesn't hesitate and immediately cast's mordenkainen's disjunction. Feleia had been alerted by this time that her disguise was probably pierced and was somewhat ready to fight, her intention all along. But the disjunction hit her hard, destroying most of her defensive spells. She managed to save a few and all of her equipment. The heroes' feast is disrupted as is the secure shelter. Combat begins, and they learn to their terror that fang dragons don't have a breath weapon but instead have a bite that drains health. Fortunately, a fortuitous stun from a bigby's clenched fist stuns her long enough to prevent her escape and is her doom. The party recovers some magic items that she was carrying and are left with a mystery. Are there really elves in Draconia, or was the ruse a total lie? If there weren't, how did she know the shape and get the humanoid-shaped armor? They may never know the answers.
They continue on with their travel east along the coast. The lands become hilly as a low range of mountains extends from the continent to the sea. It is here that they spot a strange kind of dragon in the distance on the ground. They are about to decide to give it a wide arc and leave it alone when the sharp-eyed Skilgannon spots something glinting. They realize that the dragon might be digging to hide a hoard. With greed in the picture, their decision changes. However, the time spent deliberating gave the dragon a better chance to spot them and it attacks. As it gets closer they realize that it is an unfamiliar species of dragon called a pyroclastic dragon, one that is akin to the power of a volcano. It shows this power in the opening moments of battle when it casts a firestorm spell on the party and then follows that up with a breath weapon that is a disintegrating line of volcanic fire. Starkad is immediately destroyed and crumbles to ash. Fortunately, Croom calls upon the power of Baldrin to alter Starkad's fate and he survives the breath weapon. The next time the dragon tries to breath its disintegration, Hans counters it with a wall of force. With that, the party is able to win the melee and recover the hoard the dragon was burying. They stay in the hole the dragon was digging recovering from the fight and identifying the magic items.
After a couple more days of travel, they leave the hills and mountains behind and enter a low wetland, marshy and full of rivers and swamps. As they travel, the party is again set upon by large creatures that might be distantly related to dragons. These they deal with as they always have, sometimes having battles that are close as always. From their vantage point on the phantom steeds they begin to see distant villages in the marshes of a more man-size construction. They see that these dwellings are inhabited by lizardfolk. When the party tries to fly in to talk with the lizardfolk, the creatures set up hasty primitive defenses. Despite trying to show their friendliness, the party has no luck communicating with them. The lizardfolk are just too primitive and fearful. After traveling deeper into the coastal marshland, the villages have become commonplace, but one day they spot another new species of dragon, identified as howling dragons, chasing and having sport with the poor lizardfolk. The party comes to the rescue and defeats the dragons, but in the end two of the dragons flee. While the party recovers, those dragons return with reinforcements. This battle is tougher, but again the party manages to be victories. The last 5 howling dragons flee the battle again, but the party overhears the dragons saying they are going to inform a "battle leader" about the party. Severely tired, the party is offered sanctuary in the village by the lizardfolk elder (through handsigns and gestures), which they use to rest in a shelter in a hole dug beneath a hut.
The next morning, Starkad leaves the hole while invisible to scout. He spots more of the howling dragons flying patrol, and he further sees some land-based half-dragon type creatures with obvious military training marching as a unit in the distance. Concerned that this is an organized effort, the party elects to travel while invisible from the village. They travel for a few hours when they spot a platoon of those half-dragon creatures, now identified as dracotaur, approaching a defenseless lizardfolk village. They decide they can't let the poor lizardfolk be slaughtered by the superior forces and move to interpose themselves in front of the platoon. Just as they are about to engage, dragons are seen to be approaching the village also, two different groups. As they draw near, the party sees that one group is more howling dragons while the second is a new kind - battle dragons. Hans' lore informs the party that the battle dragons aren't necessarily evil and might in fact be allies. This is confirmed when the battle dragons arrive slightly ahead of the others, confer when they see the party arrayed to defend the city, and offer words of encouragement in draconic to the party. The dragons then fly off to meet the howling dragons. The party easily defeats the dracotaur and are then able to engage an old howling dragon. One of the battle dragons engages the smaller younger howling dragons, keeping them out of the party's melee, while the other battle dragon sings inspiring songs and observes how the party defeats the howling dragon. After the howling dragon is killed, the battle dragon invites the party to come meet with his general. They agree.
After flying for a few hours, they come across a large encampment of battle dragons protecting a large number of lizardfolk refugees. When they land, the party learns that they have stumbled upon a war between the howling dragons and the battle dragons. The howling dragons are trying to expand and destroy the lizardfolk, and the battle dragons are opposing them because, well, because they want to and they can. Battle dragons love nothing but war and fighting, so this is right up their alley. After talking to the party, the battle dragon leaders make an offer to the party. The dracotaur are no match for the battle dragons and are no fun for them to kill. They would rather fight the howling dragons. But the dracotaur are decimating the lizardfolk. These creatures are mercenaries, so if their pay and their leadership is removed, they will likely leave the howling dragons' service. Is that task something the party will consider? The party thinks about it, and tells the battle dragons their tale, especially the part about devils and demons and war coming to the realm at home. Would the battle dragons consider coming to fight there? The battle dragons seem very interested, after all, it's more fighting, and not only that, fighting something they have never fought before. A deal is struck. If the party succeeds with the dracotaur and handle themselves well, then the battle dragons will come to the realm to fight. The party is quite happy, but Starkad points out that having an army of battle dragons around might not be the best thing to have after the war is done...Well, they'll have to deal with that possibility later.
The next day, they fly reconnaissance to find the camp of the dracotaur leaders based on the best information the battle dragons have. The party successfully finds it, but must out-fly howling dragon scouts to return to camp and plan. Their observations about the camp are not good. They spotted tents, 2 gargantuan dragons and a platoon of dracotaur. The plan they come up with is this, go with energy immunity sonic the night before, then the next day get back those spells and go invisibly to the dracotaur camp. There they will leave the horses, walk up, buff and then attack with hopefully surprise. They are assuming the worst case: 2 gargantuan dragons, 9 huge ones, a platoon of dracotaur and the leader. They figure out that reinforcements of other howling dragons from the lines can’t get there until 10 minutes after which the battle will be won or lost.
The following day they implement their plan. They travel out invisibly and find a small nook with some trees at the base of the hill where they can leave the horses and buff up. Unfortunately, an ancient howling dragon at the dracotaur camp hears them and warns the camp. So as the party takes several rounds to buff up, so does a druid dracotaur there. The ranks of dracotaurs are put in formation and the adult dragons ready breath weapons when they sense the party. One dragon is sent out for reinforcements. The party is almost themselves caught by surprise when they sneak up and find that the camp is completely ready for them. The battle is long and difficult. The leader and the druid don’t show up for two rounds while the party clears out the scrubs and takes out lieutenants and the younger dragons. However, the ancient dragon snatches and swallows Croom and is saved only when John Frie uses his ghostform to go inside the dragon and feed Croom a potion of gaseous form. When the druid and dracotaur leader appear, the druid is in raven form. The party is suspicious of the raven at first, but not enough to get it entirely. Until, that is, John casts mordenkainen’s disjunction that includes the leader and the raven. Most of the loot, but three items, are destroyed. And all their buffs are dispelled. This has a serious impact on the fight. Still, the raven gets off three greater dispel magics that debuffs Starkad, Skilgannon, and Felgarn badly enough that they are in serious trouble. Enough trouble that Starkad is killed twice during the combat and Skilgannon is swallowed whole and then ultimately killed with the dragon’s breath weapon, after he had cut himself out of the dragon, at the very end of the fight. Spells are what finally whittles down the dragon until it is killed. The druid is in bad trouble without his buffs and is chased down by Starkad. Away from the rest of the party, Starkad is separated and taken by surprise by the druid's tyrannous rex pet. Starkad is killed for the final time.
They quickly pick up the bodies and run into the tent to grab what they could see there. Croom picks up the disjoined magic items since they are now merely masterwork (but they can be enchanted again). Hans and John pick up the chest of gold and the documents from the table. They mount up and make their escape to the east and then swing around to the Battle dragon camp. On the way they see a human walking through the swamp. It is Helbrecht, the wizard of Felgarn and Skilgannon’s former party. They pick him up, after Croom uses a miracle to summon him a phantom steed. They return to the battle dragon camp where Hans tells the battle dragons about their feat. The dragons listen intently and then tell him they will talk to them tomorrow. John identifies the magic items (the 3 remaining) and then they camp. Their mission is a success. That night they hear Helbrecht's tale.
However, the next day, before they can celebrate securing the battle dragon's help in the war against the Lemegeton spirits, a wyrm battle dragon named Malani comes up and challenges the party to a duel. He gives them 3 rounds to prepare and he will attack them at that time. The party protests, notices the dragon is still silently counting, and quickly prepare for battle. The fight doesn’t take too long, though they are hurt by the opening breath weapon, since multiple use of the moon bolt spell reduces the dragon’s strength so much that even as he tries to escape by flying, he reaches 0 strength and must fall to the ground helpless. Helbrecht’s elementals did a bit of damage, but it was the strength that did the worst. They receive their rewards from the battle dragons and more tales are told about their homeland to satisfy the battle dragon curiosity. At last, they have secured allies to help in the war.
They leave the next day to continue on their mission to Mantua. After a couple of days of travel, something strange happens in the middle of the night. Hans, Helbrecht, and Skilgannon suddenly wake up and try to leave the shelter and walk off into the north. Hans even dispels the shelter in order to get out. The rest of the party tries to restrain them, but they seem unwilling to stop their urge to go to the direction they are being called to. Only after John Frie casts mind blank on them do they return to normal. Thinking everyone is cured, the party goes back to sleep. The next day they refresh mind blanks and travel on, with minor incidents from some small drakes. The following morning, when the mind blanks have worn off, again Hans, Helbrecht, and Skilgannon try to return to where the party had traveled. Knowing now that they are not cured, John casts mind blank on Hans and Helbrecht, and the party follows Skilgannon to see where he goes. After backtracking almost a full day, they arrive at a deep and gloomy part of the swamp. On a small island they find skeletons of massive dragons and strange twisted trees growing from them. It's these trees that were calling out to the party. Battle commences, and John quickly mind blanks Skilgannon so he won't work against the rest of them. Most of the tree's psychic powers are negated by the mind blanks so it is an easy fight. The party manages to uncover some interesting magic items buried in the ground, but they discover the real legacy is a death curse placed on Helbrecht and he is unable to sleep that night. They try many spells to cure it: remove curse has no effect, nor does consecrating the ground where the night twist trees were. They contact the gold dragons for help, but they have no suggestions. Finally, Hans has the idea of summoning a greater spiritual helper to assist their brain-wracking. This results in them coming up with a limited wish to remove the curse, which Felgarn does with miracle.
At last, they can continue on, freed of the compulsions and curses. They have one more encounter before they leave the swamp. They spot something glinting at the edge of a dank pool. Investigation reveals that its a pile of gold hastily hidden at the edge of the water. They sit down to start counting, but a suspicious Felgarn casts true seeing, and this enables him to spot the invisible black dragon sneaking up on them. It was a trap. Felgarn, seeing the dragon first, reacted with a greater dispel magic, stripping the dragon of much of its power. It flies around recasting its spells while staying out of the range of the party, but they also spend the time preparing with spells. The ranged attacks manage to slowly bring the dragon down until it is finally killed as it tries to flee. The party searches for the dragon's hoard for a full day while Hans and Helbrecht exchange and scribe spells. They have no luck finding the hoard and have to carry on with the mission.