2023/06/07

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: Warjack Olympics

Enough time had passed since the death of Shakes that the wound wasn't as raw for the party. Things zzwere normal enough, even if there was one less person at the table. Abe's barges were doing better, especially now that it had a naval escort. Additionally Kita had had a breakthrough with Five Finger's first proprietary warjack design, the Delta class. Charlotte was working on putting the Delta-1 through its paces, especially in regards to how it responds to a warcaster's control. Charlotte's first impression of the Delta class was that it was fast, especially in close quarters. The arcantrik actuators that Kita had refined from Notus allowed for the Delta class to change direction on a dime, compared to other warjacks of its size. While the testing was going on an opportunity presented itself. Every couple years, Khador would host a warjack decathlon to boost its prestige and to foster better international relations. Despite the stated intentions, Khador isn't particularly well liked on the international stage and thus most other nations decline the invitation, leaving mercenary companies to fill out the field of competition. Five Fingers is on good terms with Khador however and the event would be a valuable opportunity to test the Delta class in a live fire environment. Thus the decision was made that Delta-1 with Gavin and Kita would go to Khador, with the party following along to act as security for the valuable prototype.

So the party and the jack mechanics boarded a ship and once again set sail to Khador. And after landing in the port of of Ohk, got on a train to head to the the village that was constructed to host the event. As the train pulled in, they were greeted by the organizers, pair of warcasters named Oriel and Prokhor Sorokin. The two welcomed the Five Fingers delegation to the event, and showed them to their cabin for the event. The party settled in, and then Charlotte and Xavier, along with Gavin, began to walk around the village to mingle with the other competitors. Charlotte caught up with the leader of Rigdon's Raiders, a mercenary group that she worked with back during her time with Cygnar. Rigdon gave the lowdown to Charlotte about the event, and did warn her that the event was known for sabotage, especially between rival mercenaries. Currently the big rivalry was between the Black Hand and the Griffons, who recently found themselves on opposite sides of a conflict. As the group continued, they saw Cygnar's observers to the event. While Cygnar wasn't going to send any of their warjacks to the decathlon, they did send some observers to monitor the competitors. Gavin noticed that some of the Cygnarian delegates were his former coworkers and asked Charlotte and Xavier to not engage with them.

The next day the decathlon began, with the first event being an obstacle course. Prokhor was hyping up the event and dramatically told the competitors that their warjacks would have to cross the dreaded pit of mud. As this was an event of dexterity and grace, the Delta-1 performed admirably, placing first in the event. With the end of the race, thus began the parties and repairs as those who succeeded began celebrating their success, and those who didn't began making sure that it wouldn't happen again. As Five Fingers won the first event they had just painted a target on their backs, so the party was working hard to make sure that no saboteurs got close to Delta-1 or themselves. The parties dragged on late into the night, and Abe saw the end of them on his second watch shift. As the parties finally ended for the night, the village was quiet for the first time in many hours.

As morning rose, the village was particularly quiet. As the morning dragged on it became evident that a number of the participants were nowhere to be found. With their gear and warjacks still residing in their cabins. As this information spread through the camp there was a large amount of fear and suspicion, as some believed that this was a ruse from Khador to get more soldiers. This seemed unlikely, though tensions were running high at the moment. Some of those present decided that they didn't want to stick around and risk themselves and despite Prokhor attempting to get them to stay, boarded a train to leave. With competitors missing as well as having left the competition the next event, Jack wrestling, was rather empty compared to the previous day's competition. Delta-1 did admirably though was eliminated in the semifinals of the bracket. The festivities were significantly more subdued this day as everyone eyed each other with suspicion. Not that Kita and Gavin noticed, with the two of them working to swap out damaged parts on Delta-1.

That night, during Abe's second watch, things took a turn for the worse. Abe felt something attempt to subvert his mind. Abe decided to play it off as if the attempt had succeeded, in the hopes that the perpetrator would get closer. The idea paid off, and Abe soon saw a figure in a black long coat with extra mechanikal appendages extending out of their back. Once the figure was close enough, Abe kicked the steam engine of his armor to full power and with a mighty war cry struck the person with his hammer. The malicious figure fled in the face of resistance and the rest of the party came outside to assist Abe. The noise had also drawn the attention of the Khadoran guards that were patrolling the area who wanted to talk to Abe, preventing him from giving chase to the person. As things were explained to the rest of the party as well as the Khadorans, the suspicion was that the figure was a member of the Cephalax, a group that is rumored to abduct people for their evil experiments. With that assumption, the decision was made to organize a search in the morning in the hopes that they could find the home of the Cephalax.

The morning brought with it one further surprise, someone was caught by the Khadoran patrols poking around the village. The man in question was one Dmitriv Volkov, who was saying that he was looking for a friend of his by the name of Petr, who he said was looking for supplies. This story was rather suspicious with the story of searching for supplies causing the Khadorans to assume that Petr was looking to steal from the decathlon. Due to the inconsistencies in his story, Dmitriv wasn't allowed to leave, though if he wanted to join in the search efforts to find the missing people, he was free to do so. Dmitriv accepted and was placed with the party, who were told to keep an eye on the newcomer. As the party went out into the wilderness, they found some large tracks that led them to a cave. Hector and Dmitriv, were the only two who were not hindered in darkness and thus were the two to investigate the cave. Deep within the cave they found a door built into the rock and decided against pushing further in, instead returning to the party and sharing their discovery. At this point the party wasn't too confident in their ability to infiltrate an enemy compound, so overwhelming force was their alternative. They were going to share their findings with Oriel and Prokhor and then mount an assault on the cave.