A very nice welcome back session if i do say so myself, love playing with you all and looking forward to the rest of this campaign
The party came up to a secret entrance that the human union army used to get inside the hold, they smeared human blood across the door and got in, just as Abshaloth (now in Orthon form), shot Eugene with a brass tracking bolt and forced the party inside, they dispelled the tracking on the bolt, preventing an ambush in the tunnels as they advanced through. They came across a cave in, with a banshee woman holding a earth elemental chess piece in the shape of a rook which Ariange collected with Raime's help.
The chess piece is named "Slave", once honored, now humiliated by the dwarven king who used him to slaughter escaping humans, he cleared the rest of the way into the dwarven hold. Upon entry they were ambushed by Abshaloth's elite force, who almost succeeded in stealing away Lars, their guide for some reason. He complimented the party on making things difficult for him as he enjoys a challenge.
The party then began exploring the city, going straight for the harbor where a giant battleship was seen floating, rather than try and sneak through the side streets, the party decided the best course of action was to charge straight across a flatened expanse of rubble, where they were promptly fired upon by the battleship, then flanked from the city streets by more human Union soldiers, singing the song of their people, a song Adamah recognized, her performance was able to stop the onslaught and secure a meeting with General Trent
Trent explained he was responsible for sacking the city, sent here by the Rommacoan union because the northern union army was lost in a blizzard, never to be found again. He shattered many dwarven holds, driving them here, then took the city and forced them to flee to Sheol. He was unable to breach the Fortress, but has throughly scoured the city, finding evidence the dwarves were building a hammer capable of freeing Beor, he believed they could assemble the hammer to break inside the fortress and uncover/control the ritual there to bring dwarves back from Sheol. He also recognized Adamah's authority and set about collecting all the gold and weapons they acquired, planning to bring it back to Rommaco as spoils
In no particular order, they went to the temple, where they met a mud mephit named Dum who told the story of how the dwarves fled here once the fortress was shut, how they prayed to Beor and elementals arrived, keeping them safe for at least a few minutes more before the humans overwhelmed them, dwarves fighting alongside their estranged elder siblings the elementals till the end... Defending a vault that had been emptied of everything save the hammer to free their god. All their gold had been given away to purchase freedom and safe passage for dwarves and humans, to feed the sick and needy during the siege, only the hammer remained... but the head was stolen by a pack of kobolds that Dum could not stop. Dum blessed Squire to bring back the other dwarves, praying to the statue of the fallen demigod Bwimb and recieving a mighty blessing to her armor
They traveled to the Craftsman quarters of the city, finding the fighting being fiercest here as a battle against a dragon had flattened the area. The dragon and its elven rider had apparently been delivering a powerful enchantment, one made by the dragon demigods and progenitors, in order to empower the hammer and allow it to warp reality. They uncovered this enchantment locked away in a celestial box hidden in a cellar below the dragon. The cellar was occupied by a dwarven family and their human slave, a journal detailed how the dwarven father had to slay the human twice, despite trying to save her, she was overcome with rage and undeath, forcing his hand. They starved down there with the enchantment, unable to move the dragon above them. The party unlocked the chest using pieces of each race or idea on the lock, acquiring the powerful scroll within
The party moved on to the marketplace, finding it largely intact, with plenty of gold strewn about and kobolds lying in wait to ambush them. They met Irene, a flameskull woman unaware of her undeath, she stated she was a graviturgy mage and was trying to defeat the kobolds but was failing. Bluesnout (cousin to Redsnout), arrived and was able to get close to the kobolds, learning of their ambush and using that information Kaden was able to lure the young blue dragon Staticos out into the open where they negotiated with it. Bluesnout was able to convince him that he would be a hero who saved the dragons if they worked together and used the scale of Niogdrassil to construct a mighty hammer, Staticos reluctantly agreed and the party continued on to a new place
The human hovels held a shadowy secret, one of the homes was actually for a coven of witches worshipping the Raven Queen. They were attempting to contact their goddess as the dwarves were slaughtering the human slave populace, but something went wrong, they exist now only as shadows on the wall. The party was able to restart the ritual to contact the Raven Queen, using the head of a hag named Mother Yurga, the same hag responsible for fucking over the shadowfell witches. She was acting through a necklace of tongues that were destroying the ritual circle and when Kaden stopped the tongues she attacked him mentally, he defeated her and used her head to do the ritual as Peter and the pixie had mysteriously gone missing. The ritual summoned an angry handmaiden of the Raven Queen, who tried to kill Kaden. She was furious to be bound to the ritual circle, to the site of her defeat, and to be made to answer very secretive questions concerning the Queen. Kaden was granted a small boon, his hand withering but gaining extra necrotic damage.
During this, Peter and the pixie had slunk off to the forges, there they tried to get to the main anvil but were stopped by twin magma elementals who forced Peter to fall back before he could get to the anvil, he heard laughing and met Puff, a strange black kitten who watched the whole affair. Puff was really odd, his body shifting and molding in strange ways, his fur more like energy, and black as the blackest void, an outsider. Puff was very interested in restarting the forge, claiming that he could hear the light in it, he showed off a fancy mural of the history of Beor to Peter and then the rest of the party arrived. Ariange was able to piece together the constellation puzzle on the mural and use it to contact Beor, who granted him the ability to forge the hammer. He teleported to the anvil, unleashed the magma elementals who had been stuck there suffering from the migration curse, and then forged the mighty hammer. It is capable of destroying any one thing it touches, as well as fixing any one thing it touches. That is where the session ended.
