Before they set off for Flint the group discussed plans and strategies. They decided they could not tell people in Flint what they were doing except Gale by messanger wind as Sending did not work and Stansfield had a radio and their codes. They did decide to tell Flint they were coming on the Impossible and landing on the edge of Flint their theory being that it may pull some Danoran warships away from the Harbour, they also asked for an evacuation of the area around Cauldron Hill and the coast with preperations for a refugee camp in the Cloudwoods, they did not mind the Danorans knowing about that as they figured Lya would be happy to allow none combatants to evacuate from a combat zone.
I had Livia Hatsfield approach them with a suggestion that the forcefield they were hearing about could be linked to some of Romana's studies of the powers of the Monarch and could be drawing from either Stansfield or some other captured royal officer. Nevla immediatly signed a document sacking Stansfield and then they had another idea, if the forcefield was not in Risur anymore a link to the royal power would be weaker, they discussed this for a while and then decided to make Governors Island in Flint the official Eladrin embassy to Risur , Nevla signed a document for this and got the Eladrin ambassador to sign it and technically Governors Island was no longer Risuri soil. They figured they could persuade the Eladrin to give i back later and anyway an Eladrin outpost in Flint was acceptable.
Then they set off for Flint with an accompaniment of Ride of the Valkyries, Manuel made a note he needed a sound system for his Steam suit, to go along with all the other gadgets he and Tinker had attached.
Manuel know has a Nock Gun, a Rifle, a 6 Pounder Breechloading cannon, a Salvo grenade launcher, a Mortar and a Maxim gun on his steam suit along with the Expresso machine and Mithril Waffle Iron. The Maxim gun uses magical dodginess and a Ring of X-ray vision to shoot through up to a foot of stone, The Cannon and Mortar have anti-magic rounds prepared with bits of Methia.
They stopped in the Cloudwood when they reached Flint and met Gale who updated them on the situation, they decided that the situation at Cauldorn hill with no contact from Captain Dale sounded bad so they sent Asraby and Dame Jillian to evacuate him and make sure that people were evacuating. They then worried about a Bleak Gate Titan appearing and were relieved to hear no such thing had ever been seen. Moving onwards they headed for RHC headquarters to meet up with the local military and check to see if they could find evidence of what Drelft was up to.
At the RHC building they met up with some officers and the B-Team who gave them the latest update on the Danoran deployments , during the course of later discussions Beshala arrived and told them She Who Writhes was coming, Nevla asked if they could book an appointment as they were busy at the moment and was glad to hear she who writhes would stay at sea and not eat the islands. The only ships at sea in the area were the Danorans so they decided She Who Writhes could wait. The Coaltongues designer turned up and explained why the Coaltongue could not raise steam and produced the bits he had removed, he briefed Manuel on how to put them back. They also learned the shield had flickered at about the same time that Nevla had made it the Eladrin embassy, they deduced this meant it was weaker, Harkover believed that he could breach the shield with a great effort giving them an alternative to the Coaltongue. Examining Delfts office revealed he had got much worse at filling in the paperwork in the last few days so they decided that he had probably been dopplegangered, as they could not believe he was a Danoran or Ob agent because if he was they would have been totally screwed earlier as he had know their plans for the Symposium.
Then Manuel had a cunning plan. Harkover is a Blue dragon , they have a burrow speed so he could tunnel to the edge of the shield carrying along the Queen and her fellow constables protected by Ulvaar's life bubble then he would breach the shield before burrowing again while the pc's rushed in. In the meantime the B-team would lead an assualt to seize the Coaltongue it would be nice if they succeeded but it would also be a diversion drawing the attention of the Danoran warships from the minute or so Harkover would be exposed. With a plan in place Gale helped Nevla address the people of Flint. The player had some rough notes on the speech , which covered the high points of
1) The Ob and Danorans murdered the King , I am his successor
2) I am here to defend my home, this city and its people adopted me and now I will drive out the Danorans and their allies
3) Everyone should evacuate Cauldron Hill and the coastal areas, community leaders and soldiers will help coordinate that using the subways
4) Any information the Queen needs to know about the Danorans please tell the community leaders
Gale volunteered to move between the various community groups and coordinate the evacuation, and everyone was relieved that AA guns were not a feature of current ship designs. Then they began their attacks as they did so they noticed the stars begginning to fall from the sky and saw a tentacled way enter the bay and be annoyed by the mines before it started to sink Danoran ships. They noted that the Danorans did not have Depth charges either , yet.
Harkover was indeed able to breach the shield and the pc's rushed in. Once inside they encountered a manifestation of Stansfield who tried to keep them talking, they did not trust him and quickly managed to grapple him and stuff him in the Absurdist web.
The assault on the keep took advantage of a ripple in the planar fabric and dimension doored inside (Translation the GM Forgot momentarily that like all fortresses in this world teleporation is blocked by gold wire, I remembered half way through the fight and was not going to retcon)
On arrival Nevla started to address the Risuri Marines to try and avoid fighting them, Padme moved to stab to death the nearest Stansfield, Ulvaar and William moved towards Stansfields as well while Manuel ran up the main staircase....... He ended up knee deep in Mimic with no freedom of movement effect and no way to break the adhesive grapple. Until the next round when the players realised that a Collossal 42 HD Mimic attacking the royal party has made a dire mistake, Nevla empowed by the rites of rulership picked up Manuel pulled him out of the steam suit and put him down. The 10th level stansfield clones proved able to put up little resistance and got rapidly crushed , the Dopple-drelft went down and the soldiers were persuaded to lay down their arms, the Mimic did some damage before being killed by a lot of attacks. The group prepared to Dimension door to the roof but Nevla insisted on checking out the building with the column of light coming from it , there they found the real Drelft and with a lot of effort managed to break the ritual. The Lightning Weasel could manage Knowledge religion, Manuel could just about manage Knowledge arcane (the weasel could have done it better ), William managed knowledge nature and the combined efforts of Nevla, Padme and Ulvaar combined with several spells to give rerolls barely managed the Heal check. Drelft was saved and they prepared for the final assault
