7 hours, We’ve bought the town seven hours, Yaevinnthought. Surely a combat that employed sneaking up a cliffface, using a gnome flinger, and stopping a deadly messenger was a combat Ispin would have told around the inn’s fireplace. With the enemy faction slain at the north gate, Yaevinn and his comrades have bought the town time to escape, or prepare to be buried under the soon to be ruins of Vogler.
Back in the town square, some folk were panicked, but much of the city hadn’t even seemed to grasp the weight of their situation yet. The party urged Mayor Raven to act, and to begin shipping people down river immediately, while rallying those who wished to stand their ground and fight. Mayor Raven conceded to getting the port moving and to begin loading citizens into ships. Oscar brought up that as a timber hub, the city had enough timber and resources to begin building rafts to accommodate more escapees, and set to helping the city planners begin their raft building. Kat and Silverload eagerly went to help at the port in getting citizens loaded up, and poorly hid their intentions of making sure they sure as hell were getting out of town with or without everybody else. Vogler was fucked, and nobody seemed to be accepting that. Yaevinn knew this to be true, but just a day after the town had come together to support a hero of fairy tales leaving these people to a fate of subjugation, torture and death was hard to accept. Before he could run to the docks with Kat and Silverload, the Knight Becklin urged Yaevinn to complete a small favor for her before we left town. Taking her hand, Yaevinn swore he would see it through. Helping with a small favor before leaving Vogler to ruin seemed the least he could do. “In my room of the keep, under the bed is a chest. You MUST deliver it to Derrick in Kalaman. If we all get out of this alive, you’ll have my gratitude.” Taking the key, Yaevinn began off in a run to the keep. “Just under 7 hours. We can do this!”
“OY, Cudgels me cousin, we’re heroes of this fookin city, so where the fucks our boat lads!?” Silverload was impatiently asking who looked like the impromptu port authorities. He and Kat had decided the clear order of operations was: Secure boat, then worry about helping this escape plan and wait for Yaevinn and Oscar up until it was clearly time to head out. Oscar and Yaevinn were fucking fools if they couldnt see Vogler was about to be fucked 4 ways to the underdark. The portman fumbled his pocketbook, the ink smudged and paper wet from clearly dropping the book more than once today. “Yes yes, we uh, have your boat ready to go sirs!” Kat raised an eyebrow at him with more menacing intent than a barbarian dragonborn cracking her knuckles. “Its, uh, right over there I believe” he anxiously adjusted his glasses before pointing at a small ship that was about 100 feet from the dock now. It was leaving, and on deck was the weasley runt rich kid that seemed just born with a face made to be hit. Kat ran out to the edge of the dock and mocked “Ohhhh Woooowww, our plan worked perfectly Silverload! Perfectly! Those idiots actually got up and LEFT! We’re rich, and their estate and everything else is now OURS! Ahahaha!” The rich snob and the flabby father, clearly taken aback, began bickering amongst themselves, “The chest, boy, did you bring the chest!?” “No, I thought you had grabbed it from the house!” With a shared smirk, Kat and Silverload made their way back to the house to ravage through their chests. So their priorities had become, secure secret treasure, get back at rich assholes that took their boat, and THEN to leave the doomed town. They opened up the chest and revealed all sorts of incriminating evidence and documents that would immensely shape their paths in Kalaman. As they put it all in their bags, Kat stopped for a second to joke “Imagine some dumb thief just carrying a whole ass chest through town square.”
Yaevinn looked under the bed and dragged out the chest. It was heavy, leaving markings on the wooden panels. “They’re coming! We’re Under attack! Run!” He could hear a woman screaming from out the window. He lept up to see one of Cugel’s cavalrymen being bore down upon by three of the dragonkind soldiers the party had encountered on their way to Vogler. Dragonkind, the kind from fairy tale, myth and legend. He grabbed at his bow, but before he could even peel his eyes away the soldier was flung from her horse, an arrow already protruding from her armor. There was no helping her, even if he had been Ispin himself he thought. He opened the chest to see what this quick simple favor was he had swore to uphold, to find a burly, quality set of a knight’s plate armor, and an envelope. He put the envelope in his bag, thought about carrying the armor before deciding it easier to just carry the whole damn chest out. Heaving and huffing his way back through town to the ports, Oscar ran to meet him from his right, Kat and Silverload ran to meet them from his left. Upon seeing Yaevinn with a whole ass chest, Kat eagerly asked “You too? What did you take?” while giving Silverload a look as if to say ‘told you you'd look like an oaf just running around with a chest.’ “It’s for Derrick, I’ll explain later! We need to leave NOW, the city is…” a man screamed and fell from a rooftop above them, followed by several dragonkin flying down in all directions. It seemed just now in this moment that the people of Vogler had realized death was here, and death was hungry.
The party continued south at a fast sprint now, dragonborn tearing away at flesh and bone around them. They turned a corner, and found themselves faced with a group of dragonkin soldiers hellbent on engaging them. Yaevinn dropped the chest, took out his bow and put an arrow right through one of their skulls. The dragonkin opened its mouth in aghast before freezing to stone. He turned to see the white Dire Wolf dispatch of another, fangs bearing red, while Oscar and Kat each stood in front of their own prized statues. Yaevinn picked up the chest, when yet again they were under attack. It was clear that unless Derrick had already left, the young squire would never see this armor anyway. The party battle raged their way through town, before finding a route to slip down to the port.
“To the ships!” They all yelled in unison, when the building next to them violently burst into flame and hurled planks of wood in their direction, knocking the party to the ground. A few hundred yards down stomped a winged demon, red eyes, flame still burning from its mouth. A dragon, here in the flesh, right out of the new Vogler fairy tale. At least, it passed for flesh from afar. Oscar pointed out the beast was actually a machine, and likely manned by the enemy. “I have a plan” he said smirkingly. “They’re using this machine to shoot fireballs, meaning they likely have to reload each shot, much like any siege weapon of war. Its rather ingenious, but it lends itself weakness in so far as…” he trailed off realizing Kat had already snuck up to the machine, found a weak point in its armor plating where she threw a canister of oil into the furnace belly of the beast. She ran back and said “hows that for a plan.” The machine dragon began to rumble, to which Yaevinn wanted to waste no time and beelined it for the docks to secure a spot on the next boat heading out. As he was halfway down the pierre, he realized nobody had followed. He turned to see the party still out of line of sight from the dragon, their faces all aghast in horror looking upon him. As his confusion settled in, the cacophony of the towns hellish demise became quiet, time held still in silence and Yaevinn realized why he was being looked upon as though he were a ghost. The mecha dragon was beginning to burst to flame, but its mouth was glowing hot as if the power of the sun was being powered up. He took one more look at the party, and leaped into the water as the sun ball hurled past him, hot and close enough to leave some serious burns. As he breached the water he could hear the machine breaking down. He hauled himself up, and pulled Derrick’s envelope out of his bag. The ink had begun to melt away, dancing into shapes that resembled a kraken breaking a battleship in two.