2022/10/19

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms, the party went through the dragon's teeth.

The battle for Five Fingers was not going as well as hoped. While the party had relieved the anti air defenses they were now facing alchemical monstrosities replicating dragon's blight. As the blighted winter trolls were closing in on the Five Fingers front Shakes spared a minute to modify the grenades that he had made prior to the fight with the cores of the thermal hammers that the grenades would be incendiary rather than shrapnel based. That modification took all of the spare time the party had however, so they called out for the front to fall back behind them and to attempt to remove the beast handlers. With that the trolls crashed into the jacks in a test of flesh vs steel.

The party valiantly fought against the trolls, pushing on despite the sickening aura around the beasts. One of the trolls slipped through the defensive line that the jacks and Abe set up and began attacking Shakes, Charlotte was able to bail him out however with a well placed scorching ray that burned through the thick skull of the troll and melted its brain where it stood. The fight continued for a little bit longer, with the party eventually stopping the trolls, which caused the remaining handlers to flee the area. At the sight of the party's victory a cheer rose up around the Five Fingers soldiers. While it wasn't winning the day just yet, the actions of the party were still those of heroes and the morale of the general troops was greatly improved.

With the party plans were being made to try and finish this before they couldn't continue. The party realized that they couldn't keep repelling the Crucible Guard advances as that still left them on the back foot and the enemy commander had yet to take the field for them to face. Charlotte recalled from her time fighting for Cygnar that the best way for them to draw out the enemy commander was to make a concentrated push themselves. A warcaster and their battlegroup is a potent force on the battlefield, and not something that can be ignored or wished away. The enemy would have to respond to their advance in some manner, which would likely involve the enemy commander. With that decided upon the party began rallying their forces so that they could advance into the gap that the trolls had left in the Crucible Guard formations.

The push went rather well, given the average amount of training that the Five Fingers army was working with. As they advanced further into enemy territory they were supported by other columns preventing them from being encircled. As predicted eventually their attack was responded to, as those with military experience began noticing that their troops were beginning to be occupied to open a path to the party. Not far away was a fairly young woman in warcaster armor flanked by 4 warjacks. The party had forced a confrontation, now all that was left was for them to win it. Shakes did identify the enemy commander as one Ulana Istori, a Crucible Guard warcaster who was interested in the effects and methods of dragon's blight and was beginning her research right before he left the Crucible Guard. No words were shared between the opposing sides and the clash for the direction of the battle began.

The battle against Aurum Adeptus Istori was a brutal affair, made worse by the previous battles that the party had participated in throughout the day. Ulana opened the fight by blurring inside Abe's reach and landing a devastating blow with her heavy flail that dented his new armor and bruised flesh underneath. As the party dealt with the enemy warjacks as well as Ulana, things went further south as the trolls weren't the only thing that Ulana had experimented upon. Ulana's skin rippled from her chest up to her mouth as she exhaled a blast of elemental energy upon Xavier and Abe. While this was going on the rest of the party was being harassed by some rocketmen who thanks to their flight and speed were able to get past the Five Fingers forces. The fight dragged on long enough that most of the party was out of tricks to play, though thankfully for them Ulana seemed to be running out of steam as well. Kitten was disabled in a last ditch attack from Ulana, however eventually the party defeated Ulana. And with her defeat, the morale of the Crucible Guard was broken, and they began to mount a full retreat. The party secured the area and stabilized Ulana, hoping that keeping her alive to return to the Crucible Guard would be to Five Finger's advantage.

As the battered but victorious party made their way back to High Captain D'Lamsyn's tent they awoke Ulana to ask her some questions about what she though would happen next. Ulana was rather helpful, and harbored a sense of warrior's respect for the party for defeating her and her battlegroup. Ulana believed that the Crucible Guard would reassess attacking Five Fingers in the wake of her defeat. Ulana didn't know what they would decide though she was rather confident that they would be spending time evaluating what led to their unexpected loss. Ulana did say that while the Crucible Guard had good relations with the Ordic military, they were their own separate force, and she personally volunteered to lead the attack to test some of her experiments. Charlotte then tried to inquire what Ulana wanted to do after being a warcaster becomes unsustainable. Ulana said that she didn't exactly know, though she would likely stay with the Order of the Golden Crucible as they had been rather good to her. Even going so far as to fund a hunt for dragonspawn to advance her research. Charlotte accepted this answer though did pass along news about the plans to restart the Convergence of Cyriss in Five Fingers. And trying to get an idea if introducing Ulana to Laryana. Regardless, D'Lamsyn congratulated the party for a job well done and advised them to get some well earned rest.