Session 9

General Summary

The Battle of Forked Crossings continues as Feng, Mrek, and Slint reach the courtyard of the mayoral palace. Slint drinks his potion of frost giant strength. They cut their way through two swordsmen who use drug implants to spit lightning, as well as two sharpshooters behind the cover of rubble in the shattered courtyard. Meanwhile, the allied army continues its dominance over the elves on the field of battle. The Black Nails bring down the elven 1st Aerial Brigade and the Imperial Guard is butchered as they refuse to yield.   Slint pulls one of the drug implants from a dead elf and finds that it is a small metal plug with yards of thin wire that runs throughout his circulatory system. Mrek heals up and the party enters the mayoral residence. The rest of Jory Hammett's helwyr squadron is dead. Mrek shifts back to wolf form and immediately smells a hospital scent of antiseptic and metal, which he follows to a back bedroom of the house. There, Aquila stands over a dazed Hammett, who is missing the top of his head, exposing his brain.   The party wastes no time in attacking the elf. He fights with a small psychic scalpel which doesn't need to touch to harm, and a longsword that seems to flicker through existence uncertainly. He also seems capable of predicting his enemies' movements to a certain extent. The party corners him in the back of the room, but he cuts down Mrek, then slips away and reaches the door to the hall. Slint trips him with his glaive as Feng blocks the hall, and finally the lizardman cuts Aquila down as he tries to escape.   Slint searches the elf's body, finding a pin in the shape of an I that means he reports directly to Imperator Cruthen Beck, plus a note in Elvish. Just then, terror shakes the city as the first gargantuan erupts from the middle of the battlefield outside the walls. Their mission complete, the party heads to the roof to watch the battle as both the allies and the decimated elves work together against the new threat. The Gakhai Tsereg super-heavy cavalry of the Orkhon is the first to be devoured, though they fight valiantly to the bitter end to defend their comrades, a fact which the party notes sharply. The Red Lanterns Caravan is next to go. Finally, Edward the Wolf leads a desperate charge of his elite Dorian cavalry against the creature, keeping it busy as the 3rd Lucanian Infantry, 8th Imperial Marines of Ardatril, and the remaining elves wear the gargantuan down. The Regent's Own look doomed by the jaws of the beast, but the Wolf refuses to let them break, and a final desperate action brings the huge monster down...