Dragon!

One hour later, Karag approached again and said last chance. With no response from the party, he turned to his lieutenants and said smoke them out. A dozen riders raced up, and fire arrows with something attached to the end. 4 fall short of the mark, the other 8, find their mark in the entrance to the cave and when they impact, the package on the end exploded into a thick smoke that began to fill the cave.

Traversing the second passage, to the dragon’s cave, was a tight fit, the horses needed to be led, they could not be ridden. After a couple miles, the feeling of change in the air caused the horses to become restless.

Crawling forward, Rudy found the entrance to the dragon’s cave. Fortunately, the dragon appeared to still be asleep on his large pile of gold coins. There was a narrow ledge that hugged the wall and ended near him. There was also a wider path that ran down to the floor.

Any attempt to bring the horses closer and they got more agitated, risking waking the dragon.

After a brief discussion, the party decided Ekeraath should attempt to parlay with the dragon, trading their information regarding the hobgoblins in return for safe passage. As a precaution, everyone took up a location where they could be useful should combat occur.

Unfortunately, the dragon had no interest in talk and after surveying the situation, attacked. Being a red dragon, it used it's fiery breath weapon in the direction of the largest clump of attackers. Battle progressed and Rudy, who had positioned himself on the ledge above the dragon, lept onto it's head, inflicting a painful blow and holding on for more.

It didn't take long till for Ekeraath and Alexander to move into melee position and for Leenia, Mara, and Kuppies to begin hammering the dragon with ranged attacks. Using many of their encounter and daily powers, the party was able to overcome the dragon without much damage and collect it's hoard of 10,000gp.