Episode 28
Session Summary
Trouble Below: With the council coming to order after a lively debate, the ground shakes, the chamber trembles, a hoverbug flies overhead and hurriedly lands outside, delivering a flustered dwarven miner.
Startling News: It's revealed that an incident in the mine a few days ago breached a previously undiscovered spawn nest. With the onset of rain, the necrobilin horde trapped within the sealed mine has begun to surge and has broken through the baricaded tunnels. They're pouring into the mine, getting under the city, and coming up out of the ground all over!
The Town Mobilizes: The party join the factions and fighting forces in defending the town. The dwarves take to the mines with some of the mornshields, their mission to colapse the mines that allow the surging nest denizens to enter the town from below. Farmers, fishers and engineers take to the streets and protect vulnerable positions around the towns perimeter. WAG adventurers deploy to strategic choke points where their small party tactics can do the most good.
Safety Briefing: The B-Team get airlifted to the Morncastle and receive a rushed briefing from Merra on how to conduct "safe" operations in the ringfall. Bulwark Renee assignes them a location to hold and deffend. Hurriedly armed and isshued Ashmilk elixir to improve their odds against infection, the party once again board a hoverbug which perofrms a quick hop over the town. As they deploy to their station, they witness battle already going on all around them. Fires break out, necroblins climb from the sewers under Highside and the midways to be met by armed townsfolk defending their homes and shops. In the distance, the farms are evacuated and battles break out as necroblins come out from under the fields, and dig their way through the cliff walls above Riverside. The hoverbug enters a ravine, performing an acrobatic trench run as the group apply their protective elixirs, and finally sets down at a choke point to be held by the party.
Deployment: As the team arives, Luka gives them each a blue crushable crystal to summon dragnonfly rider medics. The group also gets one green crystal to summon a hoverbug to "spray" their area with an Ashmmilk mist in the event they need a little extra protection from the ringfall, and a red "emergency extraction" crystal that will call for immediate evacuation if they are overrun. Luka then takes to the sky, with more WAG, mornshield, and brotherhood groups of warriors to deploy and support.
“Hold this position! Do not let them past you! Do not let them get into the town!” - Bulwark Renee
The Dying Mornshield: The team finds a dying man, two dead necroblins at his feet and him splattered with ichor. His Ashmilk elixir fading, his mind deteriorates before them as the spores saturate his brain, and he turns hostile. The party quickly dispatch him, Marjorie taking the last two vials of the Ashmilk he neglected to reaply in time from his body.
Breaches from Below: As the fallen mornshield is defeated, HJ spies several necroblins coming out of a hole in the ground across the river, and Peppercorn opens the door to a guard tower, revealing more necroblins within, the floorboards broken upward, uncovering another necroblin hole underneath. HJ warns the group, and Peppercorn closes the door and falls back.
Battle Ensues: The necroblins on the far side of the river open with a volley that takes down Peppercorn, the battle begins. Some of the necroblin surgers fall, but more emerge and are soon joined by two massive, twisted ringspawn butchers, vaguely recognizable with orcish features, and a cloud wreathed spore priest coming up from below. Three rounds of combat pass, and we leave off with two necroblins making it past the group, Marjorie and HJ in hot pursuit. Nedra and Peppercorn duck into the tower to take cover from the ringfall, facing off against two new surgers clumbing out of the hole. The spore priest and one of the butchers take up positions in front of the tower, as Dirk mistysteps to the second floor, also getting out of the ringfall. Three surgers take to the river, trying to escape Marjorie's flaming sphere, and a second butcher storms his way across the bridge...