Finally the wait was over, scouts had spotted the Scourge flying citadel heading towards Kampung Gajah and it was now time to rally to stop the cult once and for all. Many adepts quickly gathered at the town, just in time for the enemy arrival.
The list of the brave namegivers that fought that day is long and may be incomplete:
Arphen
Barag
Dale
Nergae
R'edtarian
Amhran
Bloodbeat
Vralino
Zivilyn
Thorkell
Vlolkir
Sandrin
Karl
Zil
Daldorer
Xeviouz
Dubhan
William
It was good to see both so many familiar faces and new ones rallying against this threat. Benneth Shalecraig was in charge of coordinating our efforts and was about half way through explaining the situation when a massive rock was dropped in the Coil from the citadel. On one side was a carved door from which hydras started emerging. At the same time lookouts reported a large number of undead approaching from the mountains.
We quickly split to deal with the threats: Karl, Dalodorer, Zil, Xeviouz, Dubhan, and William charged the hydra, the new faces moved to intercept the undead horde, and the rest of us took the Arngeir to take the fight to the citadel.
It seems the Scourge had learnt from out previous engagement and they now had gargoyles screening their air elementals so that our cannon fire would not be as effective. Still we flew right into the horror cloud and fought through it. Shanktooth flew by on a cadaverous wyvern and I jumped to it to try and send the ork to his doom, but he countered my first attack and jumped onto the Arngeir... in Vlolkir's waiting arms, before he could even begin to recover from that brutal beating Zivilyn closed in for a unicorn punch that ended the ork. Bereft of my target I had to content myself with punching the wyvern knocking it out of the sky before I returned to the ship.
At this point we had mostly broken through the horror cloud and we had to decide what to do with the citadel itself. There were too many troops waiting for us to attempt a boarding, much to Vlolkir's and my chagrin. Instead we loaded up on all the spare ammo we could, disembarked the crew to our tenders and flew in for a bombing run. Between Sandrin, Throkell, and I we flew true and the others were able to release our explosive cargo right into the main courtyard (Vlolkir mostly frothed at the mouth).
The elementally charged explosives did a bang up job of clearing the courtyard and disrupting the portal sending troops to the ground. Maybe too good. The citadel started drifting north east and losing both altitude and chunks of rock, unfortunately one of those chunks ended up lodging itself into the Arngeir. Thanks to some able damage control we kept the ship together, dislodged the rock and non catastrophically crash landed into the Coil.
As we regrouped from dealing with those three immediate threats we realised that they were naught but a diversion, as the four remaining pillars around the town activated. I think the Haressa-Tis Elisen had mentioned them? Maybe Bloodbeat? There have been too many crazy scourge plots to track. Whoever had first encountered the "Pillars of Sin", the job had not been completed and four still remained surging in power and calling a horror into our world.
We quickly split into four groups to go and disable the ritual before it was too late. Joining me on the way to the pillar of sloth, were Sandrin, Zil, and Karl. We quickly reached the pillar sitting in some swampy ground to the east. Surrounding it were many dead (some less dead than others) bodies lying in the muck. As we approached several bodies got up and started trying to sap our energies in addition to the expected murder attempts.
I made a beeline for the tower intending to crush it into dust as fast as I could, when the tower was enveloped in darkness, not a huge problem by itself, and something took control of my body. First the horror tried to have me kill poor Reuben and then had me close the distance to the rest of the party, no doubt with ill intent. Thankfully Zil was able to expel it and it was quickly dispatched together with the other constructs. At this point we turned our attention back to the tower, not a moment too soon as it started swelling with power.
With that threat deal with we returned to the town to find the other groups similarly victorious and started working on helping the city, a very enjoyable diversion from trying to talk dwarves into parting with pieces of paper. A couple of hours in, an old t'skrang who definitely had the air of a retired pirate captain approached me and offered me their tricorn as a gift. They said it had been their companion on many adventures and it was time for the hat to move on to a new bearer. Definitely a nice hat, I wonder if it will help my credibility with those stuffy beard in ThroalStatistics:Posted by sigfriedmcwild — Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:53 pm
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