Eberron Adventure: Twentieth Session

So there they were…

The party, consisting of Gnofulk the gnome barbarian, Turnin the human monk, Shadowale the halfling rogue, and Rhogar the dragonborn fighter, sat on the roof of a small building. Joining the party was Flappy, the dumb-looking familiar of a certain missing wizard was gesturing off into the distance at a dam holding back lava, and four goblins: three scared and one, named Zoop, hell-bent on defending his neighborhood and “soupin’ some guys!”

The party has a bad feeling about the dam. Gnofulk, having honed his skills enough to vastly improve his eyesight, could see the dam, but due to perspective, and the dam edge being way taller than the building, all he could discern was the gleaming of the occasional, very polished, metal helmet as it popped just into view. The party deduces that the Silver Flame must be trying to break the dam. They interrupt Zoop, who is still rambling about how much he wants to soup somebody for trying to kill his friends, with questions about the dam, but the simple soup peddler doesn’t know much. The goblin speculates that if the dam were to break, it would probably be bad? He cooks soup. He’s not an engineer.

Gnofulk is hoisted up in the air by Rhogar to survey the rest of the area. Several Silver Flame patrols are seen to the west – dead. Those are Daask neighborhoods, and while they appear to be in the process of leaving, they are still abundant in the area.

The party decides Zoop can’t stay; he is not on good terms with the Daask should they come this way, and his shop is not far from the ‘downriver’ lava flow, and if the dam were to break, the goblin would be undulated with lava. Unfortunately, the vats of hot soup are quite heavy, and the party insists that they must leave the soup behind if they are to make good time to the dam. Zoop relents, but insists that each goblin take a ladle of hot soup with them, you know, just in case.

The group descends from the group via a ladder, and mere steps into the trip, the three scared goblins immediately drop their ladles. On the ground Zoop sighs, and readies his improvised weapon.

The party determines that they will need to traverse the foundry to the north to reach the dam quickly, and set out, backtracking towards the bridge they “promised” to guard, and leaving the Daask in the neighborhoods to their immediate northwest unbothered.

As they approach the bridge, some of the Silver Flame soldiers, whom the party had originally duped into wandering off, returned. They did not look pleased, and spread themselves out over their entire side of the bridge, regarding the party coldly.

Turnin tries to bluff, asserting that the party has dutifully been guarding the bridge the whole time, but the zealots draw their blades, gesture to Zoop and the goblins, and accuse the party of lying and consorting with the evil the Silver Flame has pledged to destroy.

Zoop springs into action, sprinting out from the safety of the party, and hurtles his ladle of piping hot soup towards the accusative paladin, splattering him in the face. Souped! The paladins are too far to totally close with, Rhogar advances, stopping a little short of the line of battle, and flings a hand axe, striking the paladin wiping soup from is eyes. He then turns to face the two paladins on the flank, trying to draw them in. Shadowale, following behind Rhogar, is more fleet of foot, and as Rhogar’s thrown axe strikes, so does the halfling, his quick blades winding weak spots in the zealot’s armor.

The paladins find their footing and retort. The duo close on Rhogar, and through pure religious fervor, start raining critical blows and smites upon the dragonborn, though his tough hide and combat training manage seem to be blunting at least some of the damage, and allow him to keep his cool. The leader recovers enough to notice the halfling before him, and while he lands a blow, the rogue is able to uncannily position himself to mitigate some of the force of the strike. The final paladin advances, blade drawn, and readies himself for an attack from the monk closest to him.

Turnin obligies, skipping forward with his staff twirling in an attempt to distract the paladin, but the zealot sees through the feint. Blows are quickly traded, but with a powerful unarmed strike to the paladin’s chest, he is thrown to the edge of the bridge, where he slams into the rocky protective lip, and teeters, arms flailing. Gnofulk joins the fight, his small legs propelling him forward into the action. He gives the teetering paladin a shove, which pushes him over the edge into lava, and then moves to help Rhogar. Zoop shouts encouragement to the party, but is not a master tactician. Despite the distraction, in short order, the leader of the patrol is slain, and while bloodied himself, Rhogar, is able to accidentally skewer one of his two assailants while the other is merely knocked out by Turnin.

An unintelligible magical scroll is looted from the corpse of the patrol leader by Shadowale. The party prepares to move north, through the foundry, but want to update Blume, the turncoat with a conscious second-in-command of the crusade with their worries about the dam. The party gives Zoop and the goblin troop a long list of things to tell the elf paladin guarding an exit for the fleeing Cogsfolk, to which the goblins blink, their tiny jaws agape. Rhogar the poet gives them a rhyming couplet to convery instead: “Tell elf Blume; Dam go boom.” The goblins nod and grin, scampering and skipping towards the protected exit, singing the rhyme to themselves, the song interspersed with Zoop asking the others if they saw how well he souped that one guy.

The party enters the foundry, but find it abandoned; littered with work discarded carelessly by fleeing workers. They rapidly traverse the walkways and catwalks, and exit, arriving in the northern, more populated side of the Cogs here.

Gnofulk is familiar the most with the area, and outlines the quickest path towards the dam, keeping the lava stream relatively close to the left of the party. This section of the Cogs is in an uproar. The party advance as quickly as they can, hurrying all manner of orc and goblin civilians back towards Blume and safety.

As they pick their way through streets and crowds alike, they happen upon a Silver Flame patrol. This trio of paladins brandishing blades and menacing nearly two dozen Cogs folk in a back alley. Turnin extends his staff out horizontally to his side, and brings the party to a halt.

After the briefest of conferences, the party draws their ranged weapons, and swiftly swing into the alleyway, close to within 15 feet of the paladins and attack. The paladins, unaware of the new challengers behind them, are devastated, and fortunately the party doesn’t have any errant shots into the Cogsfolk behind them. The paladins stagger, and try to turn to face the party, but are quickly overwhelmed. One is slain by Shadowale, another incapacitated by Turnin, and the third is spared by Rhogar, who bellowed the foot soldier into submission. The soldier knows only his orders – to keep the foul beasts disorganized and down in the Cogs – and cannot enlighten the party any about the dam. Rhogar snarls in disgust, and the soldier begins tearing off his Silver Flame regalia as he tries to outpace the Cogsfolk, who are being urged out of the area by the party.

The party continues on, and as they near the last cluster of hovels that pass as houses down here in the cogs, they hear two familiar voices (one deep; one not) arguing.

They discover Rhaaal, the orc pit fighter, arguing with his manager, trainer and corner goblin, Zeki. Gnofulk approaches, and the party is able to learn that Rhaaal wants to fight the shiny intruders in the Cogs, and Zeki thinks it’s time to flee. Gnofulk tries to convince Rhaaal and Zeki to join the fight, and help the party reach the dam, but despite every possible advantage, fails to do so, and Zeki’s position of discretion holds more sway over the orc. The party then takes a different track, and suggests that the greenskin duo take a long, meandering way out, and that they try to bring any Cogsfolk they find down towards Blume and the safe exit. Should they find any Silver Flame patrols though, Rhaaal shouldn’t hold back. The duo agrees to the plan, and stealthily depart.

Peeking out from the safety of this last cluster of hovels, the party sees their path to the upper part of the dam, a switchback carved into the little cliff side, blocked. Two well armored paladins guard the footpath on the ground, and two Silver Flame crossbowmen and entrenching themselves at the top.

The party bursts from the hovels, overrunning the paladins on the ground and catching them off guard. Rhogar lands a brutal hack and offers his apologies while the rest of the party closes in. A vicious blow is lined up against Turnin, but Rhogar manages to intercept it, knocking the assailant out. His fellow guard is also quickly incapacitated. The crossbowmen have established themselves above, and begin to shoot down into the party. Rhogar and his magical shield negates the first volley, and then the gnome and dragonborn begin moving up the switchback, Rhogar pausing to raise his shield as the crossbows are readied and raised again.

Shadowale and Turnin, being the most agile of the party, attempt a more difficult but more direct route, and attempt to climb the cliff wall, though Turnin misses a toehold, and only Shadowale makes any progress to start. The murderous halfling is just shy of the top, and will soon be on the crossbowmen.

Turnin gives up the climbing idea, and sprints up the switchback, joining the rest of the party as they overwhelm the crossbowmen. One is again mercifully knocked out, but a second is pushed viciously off the cliff by Gnofulk. As they establish themselves on the high ground, the sharp-eyed gnome spies a showdown on the dam.

Asmund, the half giant paladin towers over  Steve von Carlsburg Jr, grumpy, de-facto leader of the Silver Flame in Sharn, and leader of this violent endeavor. Steve’s three Silver Flame attendants form a circle, and single combat is joined-

-then abruptly cancelled, and two paladin attendants cut down Asmund’s legs and strip him of his weapon.

The party quickly approaches close enough to hear Steve deride the disobedient half ogre. They advance onto the dam’s walkway together and Steve shouts at them, in an attempt to dissuade them from obstructing his holy work. The party tries to comprehend the fanatic’s course of action, and while Steve denies being behind the massacre of the clerics, promising that the true perpetrators will be dealt with once the Daask are cleansed from the city, the party cannot believe him.

With an exultation to the Silver Flame, Steve commands his paladins to intercept the newcomers, and swings his hammer, striking an enchanted looking spike that has been driven into the center of the dam, which shakes violently with the blow.

Gnofulk charges toward Steven in a blind rage, but is stopped by a paladin attendant. After a few failed attempts, Gnofulk manages to catch the paladin off balance, and push him off the edge. The attendant skids down the side of the dam, and sloshes into the lava below, too shocked to utter a sound.

Turnin runs up, and launches himself over the gnome to engage Steve with a few probing blows. Shadowale also wades into the thick of things, stabbing wildly at the commander of the Sharn’s Silver Flame. The two remaining paladins slash at the party, and attempt to protect their commander, while Rhogar rallies Asmund, who blesses the party, and then moves to flank the attendants.

Steve abandons the spike for now, and swings his large blessed hammer at Shadowale landing a telling blow. Gnofulk tries to manhandle Steve, but fails, and finds himself handing one handed from the ledge instead, though Turnin is able to stand his ground and still help Gnofulk get the arm clutching his precious battle-axe up onto the ledge as well. Shadowale disengages from Steve, only to appear behind the paladins, ready to strike again. The paladins and Steve reply, landing blows and magical smites upon their foes, which manage to frighten Turnin and Rhogar.

Succumbing to fear, Rhogar abandons his training and relies on reptilian instinct, squatting down and belching at Steve and one of his attendants, momentarily engulfing them in a cone of devastating flame. Gnofulk scrambles back onto the ledge, and “squirrel-hugs” the dwarf before shifting weight and pitching him over the edge of the dam in an unwise but successful suplex attack. A Wilhelm Scream bursts from Steve’s lips as he, his blessed hammer, his shiny armor, and all his glittering (and probably magical) talismans and trinkets land in the lava below with a resounding, onomatopoeic *ploop*.

Asmund has found his blade, and shouts “Orders?” at the party, who sheepishly shrug at the towering paladin, as they had declined to take any of Blume’s sealed “time to call off the crusade” orders from earlier. Without the orders, the zealots cannot be swayed to surrender or stand down, and set about avenging their commander against impossible odds. One quickly falls to sharp blades, and the other is knocked off the dam by Asmund with a hearty kick.

Turnin asks what should be done about the spike, but Asmund replies that is not the concern of the party. It will soon be removed and the dam repaired. Without Steve to strike and activate it, the danger has passed for now.