Paul (Marik) asks, "What would the other members of the modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen members think of Agent Cooper?" Tim (Antok Six-Hearted) doesn't know, but he thinks it would be interesting to find out. He also nominates Tyler Durden. Chris (Gruul) suggests that adding in James Bond is just deeply unimaginative. Chuck (Galen) mentions that someone needs to mention Philip Jose Farmer. Bruce sits back and records it all. Mike (nominally Kellin, but today the archer Joven) concentrates very hard upon his magazine, unwilling to accept the horror of what is going on. He shudders when Chris comments, "Tim, you are more than welcome to stuff any snack foods you want down Paul's maw."
It is the 54th day of the 3090th Voyage and Marik has returned from his trip out to the Augurn Plain. Kellin is still out in the wilderness, primarily because Mike has forgotten his character sheet. . Marik reports that the thrux armies are finally crossing Spearhead's Bridge. Antok chirps out, "Shall we go assassinate a bridge?" There is widespread agreement.
The characters try to figure out just how far the thrux might have been able to get since Marik saw them. He left his sentry post the instant he saw the first scouting elements of the army moving across. By the time he has reached Nircharstal the thrux have had almost three hours to move troops across the bridge. Based upon his observations of the thrux host, he guesses that it will take them over a day to cross the river. It looked like they were planning to head towards the coast.
| Unit Type | Travel Speed (good terrain) | Travel Speed (broken terrain) |
|---|---|---|
| Marik's Flying Carpet | 61 kph | 61 kph |
| Fast Gua Far Riders | 30 km per day | 15 km per day |
| Regular Gua Far Troops | 15 km per day | 8 km per day |
| Thrux Troops | 20 km per day | 10 km per day |
Gruul listens to Marik's comments and muses, "They had razor kites over their encampment at the Heaven's Despair flute forest. If I were a thrux and I could make razor kites, I'd put them around that bridge. And I might even put golems in the water." Marik, who had been thinking about approaching the bridge supports underwater up until Gruul mentioned golems, offers, "That could be really painful, because I have no real defense against those things."
This opens up into a much wider discussion on how to attack stone bridges, extending into contemplation on using the Ethereal Body and Walk Through Earth spells to embed people inside the stone, and what sort of effects this might have upon the structural integrity of the bridge. Antok in particular is a huge advocate of this plan, even if he is forced to concede that it probably wouldn't harm the bridge all that much.
Finally, Gruul puts his foot down. He tells the others that time is of the essence and asks in his loudest voice, "Is there any reason we can't just leave now and take a look at the bridge? Is there anything we want to bring?" He points out that the original plan was beautiful in its simplicity: use Earthquake scrolls to destroy the bridge, and optionally use Create Fire to set the surface of the bridge alight.
The numbskulls finally head down to the bridge. Gruul packs clean underwear, which he has long held to be the key to any successful military campaign. Galen asks, "Clean underwear? I thought the key was painting our faces blue." Gruul grumbles back, "Just shut up and get on the carpet. NOW!"
The characters fly in towards the Zhen Trau river. Their intention is to land and take cover some distance from the riverbank to avoid detection. Unfortunately, Marik botches a Stealth roll and a razor kite spots the flying carpet. Joven saves the day by spotting the thing and downing it with a seeking arrow at 70 yards.
The characters sneak in closer. They first see a huge thrux camp on the near side of the bridge, with many companies of both thrux and thrux conscripts ranked up and ready to march. In the center of the camp, a company of stone golems stands stock-still. There are five siege engines, three huge rams and two torsion siege engines, making their way across the bridge. Each engine is pulled by a team of at least thirty graau, and overseen by a crowd of drivers and artillerists.
Joven takes a close look at the torsion artillery pieces. He can see that they are designed to fire massive projectiles in a flat trajectory, obviously intended to hit curtain walls from their weakest angle. Knowing the normal problems of torsion artillery, he speculates that they use Unbreakable Rope in their construction.
It will be dark in about three hours, so the characters quickly take the lay of the land. They estimate that the river depth varies from 1 meter at the edge to 30 meters near the center. The bridge is constructed atop a series of strong stone pilings set about 30 meters apart. There are strongpoints at either end of the bridge, and a small fortification at the center. From the coloration of the water, it looks like the central fortification was placed atop a submerged island. The pilings have HT 10 near the shore, HT 9 near the island and HT 8 in the deep sections. The towers at the ends and the fortification in the center all have HT 12. A strong earthquake will force each affected pylon to make one HT roll per minute or fall.
There are several barges moored upriver, probably loaded with grain for the army. The characters estimate that a barge impact on a piling could inflict 1d3 points of HT damage, but probably wouldn't be able to knock it down unaided. A heavy barge loaded with iron ore and propelled fast could do more damage, but may not actually be available.
Antok determines that if a significant chunk of stone at the base of a piling were to be changed into air this would reduce the piling HT by one. He becomes obsessed with this plan.
Antok slurps down a Poseidon potion and walks to the bridge along the river bottom. He finds out that the bottom of the Zhen Trau river is dotted with occasional patches rivergrass, plus the wreckage of at least two boats and some human remains. At the base of the piling he casts Walk Through Earth upon himself, steps into the piling, and evaporates a four-hex space in its center with Earth to Air. This process costs him all the energy of a 20 ST powerstone and a good portion of his own energy to boot. He rests inside the cavity for a few minutes, then emerges and heads downriver.
He emerges from the river about a half-kilometer downriver. From his vantage point in a patch of reeds he sees a sentry. His first inclination is to rush out and disembowel the man. Unfortunately, he didn't actually bring any weapons along on his trip. He drifts back into the water before the sentry sees him. Half a kilometer further downriver he emerges without incident. He takes the scenic route back to the characters' camp, carefully avoiding the thrux army along the way. It is dusk by the time he returns.
By the time Antok returns nothing is traveling across Spearhead's Bridge except supply wagons, and not many of those. The characters decide to sleep through the night and attack when they are rested. Galen places a Watchdog ring around their camp to keep them from any unpleasant night callers.
The characters are wakened before dawn by the sounds of trumpets from the thrux camp. Marik grumbles, "Join the army, they said. See the world, they said. Get up at 4 in the fuckin' morning they forgot to mention." Galen (who was always proud of his own military experience) is already up and about. He can see that the army is getting ready to move, but that it will probably take them an hour or two to get under way. Even more troops are forming up on the other side of the bridge. Gruul spots them and concludes that they camped on the far side of the bridge last night. Marik concludes the exact same thing, and then announces it to the rest of the group. Antok responds, "Check out the big brain on Marik." Marik simpers, "Girls only want me for my brain." Gruul tells the deformed paurkend, "I wouldn't want to meet the girl who loves you for your hunch."
There is a tremendous group howl from the far side of the bridge. The characters look up to see that a sixth siege engine has started its slow journey across the bridge. They are instantly galvanized into action. Gruul tosses Chiron potions to Galen and Marik, just in case they need the extra juice. An instant later, both Marik and Galen both are flying. And thanks to Antok, invisible as well. With all the necessary spells cast, everyone sucks down some quick Chiron potions to avoid falling unconscious.
Galen and Marik fly straight and low, directly towards their target pilings. A minute later, both the characters back at the camp and the thrux troops hear the clattering crash as two pilings topple into rubble, taking three sections of the bridge with them. Two huge supply wagons tumble into the river, along with their horrified crews.
The thrux suddenly become very, very excited. Trumpets sound from the center of the camp. Razor kites boil up from the Citadel like fell crows. Masses of skirmishers, divided into patrols of ten and twenty, move out of the camp with grim determination, spreading across the countryside in search of the source of the attack. And almost unseen back at the Citadel, a flight of crossbow-armed thrux takes to the air.
The characters withdraw to a nearby cave. Gruul camouflages the cave entrance while everyone else stays very, very quiet.
The characters watch as several groups of patrolling skirmishers pass close by to their campsite. After a while, one group of ten skirmishers comes across the concealed ashes of the characters' fire. The characters watch. Antok starts making characters invisible, starting with Gruul. Joven takes a careful look at the skirmishers. He can see two sentries some distance from the main group, three more clustered around the ashes of the fire, and five more scattered around the hollow. He asks, "What kind of helmets are these guys wearing?" "Leather hats," comes the response. "That sounds like 'They rise to kneeling'.
Joven takes the lead by shooting down one of the sentries as Galen and Gruul move out, invisible to all. Marik transforms himself into a tiger, albeit a tiger protected by Missile Shield, and follows them out. The three of them make short work of the skirmishers as Joven picks off potential escapees.
Things become a bit more complicated when two flying thrux swoop in and fire at the characters with crossbows. Unfortunately for them, they start by firing upon Marik, which gets them nothing at all. Marik incapacitates one of them with Tickle as Gruul drinks down the only Flight potion he's ever seen and rises to the attack. He gets into the air just in time to see Marik finish off both thrux with Sleep spells. He feels just a little bit distraught.
Joven peels one sleeping thrux out of his armor while Antok arranges stone manacles for them. Gruul does his best to get some value out of his wasted Flight potion by surveying the area. He sees no other ground patrols in the immediate area, but he can see about two dozen flying thrux. Galen and Marik guess that the flying thrux serve as air cavalry. They fret that the thrux are heavily-armored enough that the characters' flelling mercenaries will be able to do nothing to them.
The characters strip, manacle and gag both of their thrux prisoners, then drag the skirmishers' bodies into the cave. The thrux equipment amounted to:
The characters load all this up onto a flying carpet and head back for Nircharstal as quickly as they can to ready their armies.
Each character gains three experience points, though they won't have much chance to spend them. Next session will be the great tactical battle between the armies of the thrux and the defenders of the Faian nation, and the grand finale of the campaign...