Session 45
A bit of background:
I intended this session to be tough for the players - and I mean
tough. They weren't playing their regular characters, after all, and Lorcan Kell has a reputation that I felt needed justifying.
The first part of the encounter would be with Kell's 'animated horseless carriage' (a witchoil fuelled vehicle designed by the Ob) and outrider bodyguards. The party would assume Kell was in the carriage. When/if they opened it, it is rigged to explode. (Turns out Kurt Hawkins is a double agent and has warned Kell of their plan - ho ho!)
Part two of the encounter would feature the arrival of ogres, 'necrotized' like the flayed jaguars, and sent through from the Bleak Gate. (Indicating beyond all shadow of a doubt - if you'll forgive the pun - that Kell is now in league with the forces behind Macbannin.)
Part three of the session would be the arrival of Kell himself... A level 12 solo brute, based on a daggermaster brutal scoundrel.
The day of the session two of my players (Screwloose and Khoomrung) called at the last minute to say they couldn't make it. I duly removed a couple of foes from parts one and two, and added a new story element to account for the characters' absence. But I decided to go ahead with Kell as written (not wanting to mess about with a well-crafted solo monster).
The original plan of the hit squad was as follows:
Black Star Mining (unaware that Kell has already made contact with the Ob) has been pretending that
they are the force behind Macbannin, in an attempt to lure Kell into a meeting. But Kell will only agree to meet on his own territory, and will send word of the meeting place just half an hour in advance. But through Kurt Hawkins (their supposed spy) they know where the meeting will be, and the route from Kell's HQ takes him just past a run-down clergy church. With the help of Bishop Antonescu, the hit squad arrives one-by-one over a couple of days, so as not to attract attention.
Their simple intention is to bring Kell's coach to a halt with a
phantom chasm (courtesy of Fidalgo), and then gain access to the coach using three keys Hawkins has informed them are carried on the persons of his bodyguards.
Here's how the session went:
- Having been convinced that they are the real force behind Macbannin, Kell sends a message to Black Star Mining, agreeing to a meet.
- He stipulates a location and Valchek sends Khoomrung (with Screwloose acting as his bodyguard) to lure Kell out of hiding.
- The hit squad receive a sending from Kurt Hawkins telling them that Kell's carriage will pass right by the church they are holed up in.
- Alfonso heads out across the rooftops to provide cover for Louis and Khoomrung (should they need it).
- The rest of the squad take up their positions.
- Kell's carriage chugs into view, belching clouds of black smoke and flanked by two mounted outriders.
- The carriage seems to have a 'face' and runs on mechanical legs, not wheels.
- Fidalgo plunges the outriders into an illusory pit, while Gregor drives two ox carts behind the carriage, trapping it in the square before the church steps.
- Pak Cha and Blackthorn take out the drivers, only to discover that the carriage is in fact a kind of golem, and can keep running by itself.
- Fidalgo prevents the outriders from escaping, while noting that the carriage appears to be fueled by gloom oil.
- Alphonso arrives, warning of danger approaching through the streets.
- Gregor, Pak Cha and Blackthorn bring the carriage to a standstill and Fidalgo grabs the security keys Hawkins spoke of: they need all three to open carriage without Kell's consent.
- They reposition themselves and take a breather before the 'danger' Aphonso spoke of arrives:
- Four ogres, well-armed and seemingly swathed in shadow - as if they have recently stepped from the Bleak Gate - barrel into the square.
- The hit squad take them out effortlessly, and gather to open the carriage.
- They give Kell a chance to surrender, then Pak Cha uses all three keys.
- The carriage explodes!
- While the half-dead hit squad picks itself up, coughing and spluttering, a second carriage arrives and two figures disembark.
- One asks the other if it was a good idea to blow the carriage up.
- The second, Lorcan Kell himself, responds that 'if our new friends are as rich and powerful as they say they are, they'll give us a new one'.
- He then strides into the square, and asks, "Looking for me?" before throwing an object at Fidalgo's feet:
- It is Screwloose's severed head.
- "Cippiano ain't the only one can buy himself a turncoat," Kell gloats. "Now come on. Let's be having you."
- Then he throws off his top hat and cloak and draws his infamous knives...
We will draw a discreet veil over the bloody events that follow. Safe to say that Kell single-handedly turned the tables on the hit squad, killing them one by one.
A carriage arrived at Valchek's mansion later that day. Inside was the mangled, but still-breathing body of Khoomrung Morkanstall: sans tongue, sans hands, sans eyes.
In a pouch around his neck was a pair of crumpled pixie wings...