Setting the Stage

Rumors, suspicions, rippling waves of fear, all drawing aspiring adventurers from their comfortable homes in search of glory, treasure and renown. The reports are running up and down the seacoast, winged terrors dropping down out of the Iron Teeth, sweeping across towns, fields, even ships at sea. On the coast north of the mountains, there haven’t been many encounters with the dragon, only stories from the mountains and sea travelers. This makes the tales taller, and the threat more fantastic, but almost belittles the actual danger. Many leave on the dragon quest, but few get further than the wooded hillsides of the lower mountains.
Our party struck out up the river, chancing upon a kobold raid looking for a special spell-storing necklace of symbolic interest to their cult. This brought an encounter with Everett and the kobold cultists. The party recovered the necklace, but really didn’t understand its significance. Everett suggested they visit a nearby wizard for more information, then promptly disappeared. The party continued upriver, eventually meeting Ference Trensal. Ference is a ranger with a deep understanding of ancient dwarven history, seeking a legendary weapon, the frost battle axe of Rain Thana. With his help, they managed to recover the axe, but shortly after got waylaid by kobolds. Ference was gone when the party awoke as prisoners, but they kept the axe, unaware of its true properties.
They continued on their journey, drawn by their resolve to locate the dragon, to ferret it out and destroy it. They hold two pieces of a much larger puzzle in their hands, and have had very little luck uncovering any further information on either one. Now, poised to cross the volcanic morass separating them from the dragon’s lair in the volcano of Scarred Peak, the party is about to be revisited by old acquaintances, each with information important to their mission, but with very different motivations.
Ference has been trailing the party, looking for his moment to attempt to recover the Frost Battle Axe of Rain Thana. For now, he is still content to shadow them, but for how long… As for Everett, yup, as for Everett… where is he coming from? How does he reenter the story?