Session Log 2023-09-19
Klaitos and Robin debriefed on their respective journeys and encounters as Ignis worked to heal the fallen engineer. The man's wounds were sealed, but he remained unconscious and pale, so Klaitos continued to carry him. The party combined their individual goals and materials for the short term - they resolved to continue work on the hot-air balloons to challenge the undead dragons for the sky, but to also load them up with a payload of flammable oil barrels. Plans to seize control of the Lord's Town irrigation override were shelved for later.
Ekkels peeked into a few buildings and found some industrial carts to use as baskets. He also heard some kind of clamor from the south, but it was distant and incoherent enough that he saw little reason for immediate concern. Robin and Ignis headed back to the factory to recover the oil drums they had seen lying around, carting them back to the group. Klaitos found a textile manufacturer and hauled reams of unfinished canvas out into the ash-covered road. He used his storm magic to inflate the fabric, so that the engineers could get a sense of its sturdiness and ultimate design.
They worked by lamplight into the overcast, moonless night to bring the balloons together. The persistent wind dusted them with the ash of the burned fields to the east. The tumult to the south grew more audible, if no more coherent. Robin scaled a tenement for a better view, and saw a mob marching south across the Plaza of Legends towards the gate tower.
When the crude balloons were finished, the party, Torrix, and the engineers used a lift to get to the top of the eastern wall. The undead army beyond the city walls teemed with greater numbers than when the party had entered earlier, and the umbra seemed to hang lower in the sky. To the south, the riotous mob had reached the gate, and an even larger host of undead stood ready to greet them beyond it. The paltry Torch militia stationed at the tower seemed to be the target of the mob's ire. One guard manned a walltop ballista, and fired it backwards into the crowd within the city.
The group agreed that sending the balloons up in the dark of night would likely be a disaster. Klaitos and Ekkels went to go find militia to provide artillery support from the wall-mounted ballistae. Robin and Ignis travelled south along the wall, reluctantly bringing Torrix along to keep him from antagonizing the overworked and fearful militia engineers.
Ignis and Torrix raced towards the southeastern gate tower. Torrix revealed himself to be far more agile than his burly stature might suggest, and Ignis pressed himself to keep up, out of both pride and concern that the dwarf's violent sensibilities might impede diplomacy, or worse, result in the undead getting inside. Robin, far less accustomed to running for such distances, lagged behind. She eventually settled for a brisk walk along the city wall, far behind the men. She took the opportunity to look around with her lantern, and noticed that the dark clouds of the umbra overhead were forming fleeting images of tormented faces.
Klaitos and Ekkels didn't get any response knocking at the walltop entrance to the northeastern gate tower, and so took the lift back down into Sootcorner. They made their way east, Ekkels in his familiar backpack seat, with the aim of debriefing Captain Caergon at the militia headquarters and petitioning him for more soldiers. Their journey was ominous - the dark and silent streets of Golarth promised little safety - but swift, following the towers of Lord's Town illuminated by sporadic urban fires. Ekkels saw a church in their path, and steered Klaitos clear of the adjoining burial ground and its reanimating occupants.
Ignis and Torrix arrived at the riots in time to see the ballista operator struck by a bolt of equivalent size, fired from the crowd below. Torrix laughed as was knocked off the wall into the undead mob beyond. Neither man had a means of entering the fray quickly, or getting their attention from the top of the wall, so they took the lift down to the Plaza of Legends. As they descended, they watched the meager guard struggle to repel the attackers, led by a woman of Klaitos's size wielding what appeared to be the ballista that had struck down the wall soldier.
Robin saw them, up ahead, taking the lift without her. As she drew closer, she heard the sound of the rioters calling to "rush the gate". Recognizing the disaster brewing, she hurried forward, and conjured an illusion of the undead masses scaling the great wall of the city to terrify the mob into abandoning their suicidal rush. Ignis, arriving on the scene, saw the undead above and behind him, and shoved past Torrix to raise the alarm. The crowd balked at the illusion, and the assault on the tower relented.
Ekkels and Klaitos reached the headquarters, only to find the perimeter undefended. A soldier answered their knocking, but confessed that most of the remaining forces had been led by the captain to answer the mob attempting to break through the southeastern gate tower. The soldier wouldn't commit any of the remaining guard to the wall artillery without Caergon's approval, so Klaitos and Ekkels headed south to try and catch up with the Torch-loyal giant.