Meeting with the Dragon Sage(s)

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Several days after returning to Blackwater Keep, when Marzena was feeling better, the party got to talk with the wizard about the Black Scourge and the bone shards still embedded in their bodies.

Marzena told them what little she knew. It seems there were various mentions of this elder dragon, a piece here, a paragraph there, in various documents and journals she'd come across. Interestingly, one of the most detailed accounts of the Black Scourge came from one of the most unreliable--a kender tale.
Note: 'kender tales' is a krynish euphemism for a story where the veracity of the details is highly suspect.
It seems that Brother Eglin, a librarian at the Temple of Gilean in Flotsam, had been corresponding with Marzena on the subject of dragons, along with all the official documents and papers he could find, he sent along a collection of children's stories, all featuring a young kender girl who gets into one mischief after another. In one fragment of a story, the kender girl finds herself on a jungle island where she encounters a might black dragon. In this tale, the dragon is referred to as a Great Scourge on the island, a clue that this story might be referencing the Black Scourge.

One last thing she mentioned concerned the embedded bone shards. The party would need to confront and defeat the Black Scourge before those shards permanently infected/poisoned the each of them.

The party then proceeded to follow up directly with Brother Eglin. This meant a return to Flotsam, a town they had been away from for several months. When they arrived, the party was shocked to find that the city was in disarray. It seems the light house that had been the focus of construction in Flotsam for the last several years had been destroyed, and town ruler was dead.

In the power vacuum, many city council members were seeking to consolidate their base and seize leadership of the town. Amidst this background the players met Brother Eglin, learned more about the kender tales, in particular what island the story might be referring to. From there, they were able to find a ship captain that was willing to take them near the island.

After further preparations, they were off...

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