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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 6224990" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 94b - Beasts of the End of TimeA Drakren steamship, the Cherno Bezna was berthed at Golden Point.  Kvarti told them that the name translated as Black Abyss.   Dockers were using a crane to unload huge crates that were then wheeled into a warehouse by dockers and dwarves. Bestial cries issued from the crates; the dwarven crew were all beardless; the captain a wild-eyed brute with a double-barrelled shotgun. In charge of the whole operation were dwarven undertakers Thered and Thangir Kharngraft - former members of the Rumschatologist security detail.  Korrigan wished he could have acted immediately, but judged it prudent to wait for reinforcements. The rest of Unit A arrived just as the largest crate was being unloaded onto the dockside.  Already two carts had departed, each bearing one crate apiece, destination unknown. Rumdoom had to be restrained when he saw Thered and Thangir.  He took his anger out on Kvarti, punching him square in the face, even though Korrigan had already explained Kvarti's position. The Drakren gunsmith nodded, after he had picked himself up, accepting his punishment stoically.Rumdoom calmed himself while Korrigan led Thered, Kvarti, Brajham and Ludo into position.  They would attack the warehouse and prevent any more wagons from leaving.  Malthusius would led a frontal assault on the dockside.  He began by following procedure to the letter, but his request for the dwarves to surrender was swept away on the wind, and they carried on working without even noticing the deva, or the team of officers moving up behind him. What did get their  attention was the sudden movement of the enormous crate they were trying to decouple from the crane.  Two dockers leapt away from it as it lurched upward, while a crazed dwarf clung stubbornly on.  All eyes turned to the cab where they found a grinning dark faen at the controls:  Uru  - who had been in position for some time  -  had ordered the dock worker out and was now swinging the crate back onto the Cherno Bezna. Thered and Thangir then saw the rest of the officers.  Knowing all too well what an angered Rumdoom was capable of, the brothers hastened back  owards the warehouse. Matunaaga took a shot and clipped Thangir;  Malthusius brought them both to a halt with a blinding blaze of divine light. Korrigan's team swept towards the warehouse, except Kvarti, who began picking off gunmen on board the ship.  Theren arrived ahead of the others and saw that the crates were equipped with rudimentary clockwork timers, set for an hour from now.  But the radicals began turning these devices one by one,  releasing the twisted Malice Beasts pent within. First out was a manticore.  It took to the air immediately.  Two unfortunate dockworkers were dragged into a crate containing a displacer beast. The dwarf on top of the crate Uru was handling succeeded in detaching it from the crane arm, and it crashed to the dockside close to the ship, breaking apart to reveal a ravenous behir. Crewmen aboard the Cherno Berzna manned an arcane turret mounted at the prow, and fired a ball of ice which slowed down Korrigan and his team.  At the same time the maniacal ships captain muttered a command word that caused an abyssal aura to surround the vessel with gloom, reducing visibility.  He then took aim with his shotgun. Some of the dockers had recognised Korrigan and greeted his arrival with a cheer. He urged them to defend their city, and identified the dwarves as the terrorists of Pardwright.  While some of the feckless stevedores turned tail and fled, one or two more plucky individuals grappled with the cultsists and prevented them from opening any more crates.  But enough chaos had been unleashed already:The behir lashed about seeking a meal. Uru, Matunaaga and Malthusius  attacked the monster, presenting it with a choice of targets.  The manticore attacked the crew of the steamship, driving them away from the turret.  The displacer beasts attacked anyone they could see, shrugging off attacks thanks to their disorienting defensive power. Thered and Thangir flailed about them and cursed.  Despite a magical protection provided by his brother, Thangir dropped beneath Rumdoom's relentless hammer.  Still blind, Thered was midway through a speech about the coming end when Sevitar cut his head off.  Deprived of Thered's magical protection, Thangir's skull caved in. Rumdoom was still hammering away at Thangir's corpse when the behir, chasing Matunaaga, bore down on him.  The enormous beast scooped him up in its aelectrical coils, but Rumdoom braced himself and the creature could not crush him, try as it might.  Their struggle went on for a time, before the behir tried a new tactic and swallowed Rumdoom whole.  This turned out to be a big mistake.  The dyspeptic beast thrashed about, discharged aelectrical bolts, clawed at bystanders, injuring Matunaaga and dropping Malthusius in the process.  In the end, Rumdoom  fought it to a standstill, and smashed his way out through its teeth.   (Uru made a point of collecting them at the end of the fight.) By now, most of the dwarves had been killed and the manticore and displacer beasts had been driven off to cause havoc elsewhere.  The last enemy to fall was the rabid captain of the Cherno Bezna who, like all of these crazy cultists, died ranting about the end of the world.</blockquote>

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