War on Scales 7

Inside the Vents we find out that it's a horrendously complicated machine that has the exciting feature of filling with boiling hot water that can stop people using it to get through the mountains. We have to open the valves, then activate the controls... and there is an escape hatch to let us out after doing this.

We enter the boiler room to find some orcs already there, along with some bugs that are indiscriminate as to who they attack. Not really a huge problem, except... there was a goblin or gnome or something from the Shadowfell that seemed to be a mini-assassin, and our assassin took a shine to it. For some reason, he insisted on dragging him along on a leash everywhere we go. Hmmm... if I wasn't unaligned, I might have a problem with that.

Beyond we come across a chapel to Morridon that is currently infested with orcs, and a cave troll. The cave troll is something of a problem, but we manage to take the grenades off the bombardiers, so are able to sort it out properly once we put everyone down. This also appeases Morridon. Bah, he's no Melora. There's also an old storeroom that's already had orcs traipse through it, yuck.

We hit the final Nexus, with a catwalk going up the outside to the control at the top of a steel pillar thing. We head on up, and then an orc party starts arriving! We are running, but the dwarf is split from us. Fortunately, as a ranger, he gets a better idea of climbing up the walls to reach the top, getting away from the orcs around him. We manage to run up the catwalk enough to just get there in time to help him up, but then we are fighting a rear-guard action as we try to activate the controls, and very nearly destroy it before we finally manage to pull the right levers, and unleash the boiling water... which just left us trying to get out while there were orcs everywhere! We barely get up there, just the dwarf to go, and I reach through at the last moment, haul him inside, them slam the hatch closed and locked! Woo! (Death by scalding water quickly follows... neutral alignment!)

We return to town to much acclaim, with booty to sort out, and other minor threads to wrap up. [Not entirely sure what we'll be doing next week. Possibly minor wrap up with broaching the next adventure, with me as GM... we'll see.]

[END]