The Twenty-Fourth Session

After discovering Ryan was the imposter who murdered Fredward, the Sentinels ran to the deck to fight him. He had turned into an Ebony shadowhunter, and the group dubbed him Fryan (Fake Ryan). A quick battle erupted after he used a small Blood Stone to summon 2 demons, and the Sentinels defeated them while the crew patched up the ship from the bombs that were set off.

After trying and failing to figure out what happened to the real Ryan, they took the rest of the day to relax. In the evening, they noticed a red sky in the direction of Draconia. When the red sky persisted into the night, Vissella decided to check it out and changed the fleet's direction. Approaching the shores, she saw that the town of Delthuntle that she was born in was burning, as well as miles of forest behind the town. While she was in shock at the sight, Yief chimed in "as Admirable, I command that we go to the shore!" at which point, Vissella said "Ya know what? Everyone follow that command."

While still on the ships, screams and the cracking of whips could be heard from the town as squadrons of soldiers could be seen marching prisoners through the streets. The fleet's sorcerers coated the ships in mist to cover their arrival, while each ship sent boats of 10 to the shore. Discovering just a few unburned ships at the shoreline, they decided to use those to escort any refugees to safety, and split up into groups to find and free prisoners.

Sneaking through the town, there were burned down buildings and corpses everywhere, mostly of Draconian soldiers but some regular townsfolk and even children. Approaching a group of soldiers leading a line of prisoners, Shag first attempted to trick them into thinking he was a child prisoner, but had to attack when the soldier saw through his deception. To distract the group, Halrek transformed into an Ebony Soldier and pretended to have arrested Aoth and Yief. However, when he failed to speak Abyssal properly, Shag had to charm the soldier they were speaking with to keep an all out attack from breaking out. When that happened, Halrek took advantage of the surprise and assassinated one of the soldiers. A skirmish broke out that ultimately involved Shag using eldritch powers to tentacle rape some of the soldiers (and accidentally Aoth a bit) and was finished when Yief went on a heroic skull smashing charge. After freeing the group of prisoners, they were directed to an Abyssal Cell where the younger and more able-bodied prisoners were being held.

Approaching the cell, they encountered an Ebony squad commander with two large Dralth demons by his side. Shag quickly broke the game and charmed him, causing him to turn on one of the demons, and during the brawl that broke out, delivered the killing blow to one of them. When both demons were dead, he said that they were named Spencer and Spenser, and his own name was Spensor. He said the group was lucky not to have been hit by any of them, as the Dralths were quite powerful if given the chance to land a blow. When questioned about everything, he told them he was the commander of the squadrons in this town, but was fairly low on the rankings in general, and his boss would be showing up. He also said the larger cities had significantly larger forces with more high ranking soldiers and much more powerful demons to combat the resident dragons. He freed the prisoners using his sword as the key to the cell, and was convinced to try and lead all the remaining soldiers out of the town.

As they got back to the shore and helped the survivors get on the ships, they could hear what sounded like giant wingbeats approaching from far in the distance. Getting the ships off the docks, they made it back to the Dragon's Wing as they saw commotion on the shore as the soldiers in the town congregated. They could hear Spensor trying to tell everyone to leave the town and go to the woods, but as a tall man in very decorated armor with a warhawk haircut, gazelle shaped horns, 2 rows of shorter horns along the sides of the warhawk, and Abyssal tattoos on the shaved parts of his head approached, all the soldiers on the shore knelt before him. Spensor tried to tell him they needed to leave town, and the man drew a MASSIVE claymore with a 5 1/2 foot long, 1 1/2 foot wide, and 3 1/2 inch thick blade and beheaded Spensor in one swing, sending both the head and his body flying. Just the sight of this blade caused the characters to have to pause the cutscene to process and debate what the fuck they just saw and how goddamn inhuman and terrifying it was, and tried to calculate the weight and approximate size with theoretical dimensions while knowing nothing about the actual construction of the blade. Seriously, they spent a solid 15 minutes debating this. When they finally unpaused, he lifted the sword over his as a black, pulsing shadow seemed to wrap around the blade, followed by a massive power swing that smashed through the sand of the shore and shattered the stone beneath it for a solid ten feet in front of him. The Sentinels looked on in horror and powerlessness as the shadow flew off the end of the blade in a giant wave resembling a Getsuga Tenshou, and destroyed one of the refugee ships. Like, one shot from 500 feet away on the shore, absolutely wrecked it, hull and mast totally shattered, practically cut in half. It began to sink, and 20 of the Draconian refugees on board survived and broke the surface. A group of 6 juvenile dragons consisting of 2 blue, 2 yellow, and 2 topaz, all flew up from under the surface of the water. They each grabbed a survivor in each hand, and one in their tail to awkwardly fly them to another boat, before immediately fleeing as an ear-splitting roar could be heard in the distance. The Sentinels locked eyes with the man on the shore, who seemed to not even be fazed regarding the other escaped ships, but more focused on the message he sent with the ship he destroyed.

As the fleet continued to pull away until all that could be seen in the distance was smoke and mist, Vissella fell to her knees, saying she had never witnessed power like that before, and seemed to actually be visibly afraid for the first time since they met her. She commented that she knew the invasion must have been terrifying to be able to overcome the Draconian army, but seeing it in person made her realize that it was so much worse than she could have imagined. At that moment, they heard a loud thudding rumble that sounded like a huge object hitting the ground. Through the smoke and mist, they could see the glowing of 2 massive red eyes, both high enough they must have been 150 feet off the ground, followed by another ear-splitting roar that struck terror into their hearts. They now knew the battles that would await them in the near future.