Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Episode 3, Part 2 - The Party Meets Laerath

Our rag-tag group of adventurers are in the middle of a serious cavern. They fought a few cult guards to get in. Then had to deal with a crazy fungal garden. And tip-toe through a large cave area full of bats.

They were at a crossroads, in which they could go in a multitude of directions. They choose the path that they heard a large group of kobolds talking. As they entered the room the kobolds noticed them and started to advance. Seeing Crosis they felt he was a new group of cultists that had entered the cavern unannounced.

Cory send an arrow through the throat of one of them told them otherwise.

Crosis advances into the room boldly, demanding the kobolds lay down their arms. The kobolds, after seeing one of their own killed, ignore his demands and draw out their daggers.

Then Crosis notices a half-elf on the ground that appears to have been beaten and starved. He goes up to him and cuts his bonds. Making a rude remark of his condition.

Then a group of 4 kobolds, and a winged kobold attack the party. They mostly crowd around Crosis, attempting to stab him to death with their daggers. As they attack the winged kobold lets out a loud howl, which causes the party to hear down a flight of stairs some stirring of additional kobolds!

The party makes short work of the kobolds, but then another large group are noticed ascending the stairs. Crosis goes into the stairwell and uses his breath attack, being a dragonborn does have its privileges! Many of the kobolds are incinerated instantly, with only 1 out of the 5 hit surviving. The remaining group attempt to rush past the party to unleash the guard drakes that are below the party.

After defeating two groups of kobolds and winged kobolds, Laerath provides background information regarding how he had been captured and imprisoned in the caverns.

I was living in a nearby village named Iriabor. In that village I had stood up for a poor family that a group of cultists were harassing. They then knocked him out and I woke up in these caverns. I think I've been here for a couple of days. Watching the Kobolds, Cultists, and others debate when to kill me...

Then the party finds the barracks of the kobolds. Dirty and filthy, but the do find a bunch of gold, silver, and copper pieces. As well as 4 talismans that have monetary value.

The see there is an additional stairwell leading from this room that looks dark and dangerous. Instead of going down this stairs they back track to the beginning of the cave to pursue a tunnel they hadn't explored yet.

Going back to the beginning and checking out the side tunnel, they find a group of cultists and guards that were resting between shifts. Lereath and Crosis rush in and kill a number of them before they can respond. The remaining cultists and guards put up a pitiful defense against the parties onslaught.

Now the party is roughly half way through exploring the Dragon Hatchery, but they haven't found any dragon eggs, nor any real defense of these caverns!

Here we are playing online and the setup I currently have.

The gaming area!

Player Findings
Kobolds are craven reptilian humanoids that worship evil dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies. Kobolds inhabit dragons’ lairs when they can but more commonly infest dungeons, gathering treasures and trinkets to add to their own tiny hoards.

Final GM Notes

The party has been able to quickly kill many of the creatures in this dungeon. Making me wonder if they should have been more powerful. The true determination of this will be the final combat situations were they must fight higher level creatures.

Also, it was still the first time for a few players using roll20.net application. So there was some setup time and review of each characters advancement that used up a lot of time.