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--- bards_tale [2026/06/28 07:59] – [Session 100: Race To The Top] spiffgent
+++ bards_tale [2026/07/09 16:04] (current) – [Session 101: The Smiths] spiffgent
@@ Line 1116: / Line 1116: @@
 His armour was immense and his speed made him utterly untouchable. Orion summoned a divine light that seared his feet while Percival apparated a radiant spear inside him to pin him to the ground. While he scrambled for his glaive, Vadaenlar snapped it in two permanently and avoided the acidic retaliation, forcing Blaidd Dhrug to rely on his fists: as the melee was unfolding, Sylvie made a dash for the basin, and was able to redirect its power into destroying the forge instead. Once Blaidd Dhrug realised what happened, he made attacking Sylvie his top priority, almost killing Percival in his charge. While Orion healed Percival from his miraculous recovery‚ the Entguard demanded Sylvie undo her spell. The forest sprite stayed firm, and was knocked out by Blaidd Dhrug before Vadaenlar took advantage of the distraction to rip the butterfly wings off his armour. He attempted to retaliate, but had ignored the presumed-dead Percival, who drove his greatsword through the gap in his plate, and smote Blaidd Dhrug, sending him and his zealotry back to the Plane of Life, before rushing to Sylvie's body.
+===== Session 101: The Smiths =====
+Orion's prayer healed both Sylvie and Percival: Tachy noted that the latter's blade had been stained with Blaidd Dhrug's ichorous blood, marking him as one who had slain an Entguard. Before they could truly catch their breaths, the fire elemental returned, having been left by the party earlier. Vadaenlar immediately reacted with a shuriken, and Forgelord stopped in amazement that the party remained alive. Seeing the Entguard's body, he expressed a tentative desire for a truce. Sylvie quickly established that he had nothing to do with the forges of Ahm (and in fact had no idea of their existence). Instead, his name was from the forge within Vale's land that he had escaped from. He was convinced by the party to lead them back into that dangerous terrain in exchange for them helping free his master: the legendary smith Masamune.
+Hauled by Forgelord across the tunnel in a rickety brass carriage, Percival talked to Sylvie and, in the wake of both of their near-deaths at Blaidd Dhrug's hands, shared their experiences of mortality. Orion wondered at how to interpret Ahm's writings and how best to live in response to the warlike command. Crescent too wondered how much of a justification of her own beliefs the text was, being unswayed by the parties attempts to bring up long-lost lore and claim temporal irrelevance.
+The train reached a red-rock, enormous sprawl within a huge cavern, with ruined stone towns and castles visible in between the dust-churning packs of tens of Abyssduer vehicles. Foreglord led them to one ruined castle, but one of the myriad crawling machines saw the party then scuttled away, ensuring that they would eventually come to Vale's attention. Inside the ruined keep they found Masamune, a towering and tubby stone elemental with golden skin and golden manacles, enslaved by Vale, happily tinkering on a regular-sized sword to occupy his mind. He greeted them gladly, and offered to make their Vandire-slaying weapon if given enough brass (Tachy had thoughtfully brought the tram with them, but it was unlikely to be enough). While trapping him was an option, permanently killing an immortal elemental would weigh heavily on them, as it weighed on Black Opal. While the party couldn't decide with entombing or inhuming was preferable (with Percival advocating for a final end), a tentative plan was outlined to steal the power of the storm from Vale and create a scalpel to excise Vandire's unholy power.
+Interested in the shackles, Vadaenlar and Orion threw their heads into the smoking abyss, witnessing a vision of Yeenoghu destroying Leurut and claiming such a fate was preordained. It shook the two deeply: Percival immediately clocked what was happening, and was able to quell Orion's faithlessness, but not Vadaenlar's. At that moment, Crescent ran in, warning of an incoming fleet of Abyssduer. Percival led the party to the top of a ledge overlooking the castle, and observed an enormous host of eighty vehicles bringing scrap into Masamune's workshop, and emerging with an enormous armoured gorget. They watched as the Dwarves loaded their vehicles and left, led by a presumed lieutenant of Vale's named Drebenan, electing not to do anything against the overwhelmingly larger force.
+Masamune told them that Vale had made him create many disparate pieces: their larger purpose was unknown to him, but Sylvie began to fear that Vale was constructing something utterly fearsome. Still, the party intended to free him, and while his golden chains resisted flat attempts to break them even from Tachy's mountain-destroying drill, Vadaenlar theorised that a key or other magic escape lay with or near Vale. The party departed the forge, aiming to track the rapid fleet with Sylvie's attuned senses.