Making New Friends
We intrepidly travelled from Shatrab through the forest which apparently was filled with nasties just itching to separate us from our valuables and other tiresome encumbrances such as the need to continually pump blood and circulate oxygen. However, our journey was uninterrupted and soon our airforce was scouting the blood elf/angel complex where their dastardly leader was developing his weapon of mass destruction.
Puderillo confirmed that the WMD existed, or if not, a pretty good approximation of what one ought to look like. Four three storey towers surrounded a central square. Each tower was topped by an ominous glowing green crystal, no doubt seized by the schizophrenic blood elves in their blood angel guise from lovable peace loving Necrons who used the crystals for medical research.
The crystals fed their glowing green down to a machine bearing a master crystal set in an armoured chassis. I should probably mention the large number of heavily armed blood elves who seemed to think this was a good place to mill around. It’s shocking the number of blood elves who cannot find anything better to do than to hang around waiting for trouble in this manner.
At least thirty guarded each platform that surrounded the three levels of the tower, but after taking into account the 120 or so on the towers there were still more than this number left to surround the device. Then there were the mages, large numbers apparently channelling to focus the energy flow between the crystals, both on the towers and below.
Meanwhile our approach sweep also detected another party out in the forest. A horde caravan showing signs of distress a few miles away. We moved in, the Tauren and Orc front and centre to show some inter species solidarity, however the Horde force turned out to be mainly forsaken with some troll outriders and only a sprinkling of other horde races. The Horde leader was surly, but having lost over two hundred of his original strength to blood elf attacks, we thought he might prove open to a little of our patented assistance in all matters of violence and mindless destruction.
He was on a mission to recover the very weapon that we sought to destroy; apparently the Banshee queen had taken a fancy to it. He was not terribly friendly towards the non horde party members and took quite a bit of persuasion before he would accept our help. He also suspected because we mentioned Shatrab that we might want to destroy the artefact. The very idea!
We spent a considerable amount of time and effort concocting various plans to attack the complex to destroy, sorry steal the weapon. Our essential sell was that we would provide a diversionary airborne attack, but beyond that there were a number of approaches. Quid the parrot mage seemed to feel interrupting the energy flow might be enough to cause destruction,* the Horde offered us bombs to assist the ploy.
*Which he repeated over and over again. Maybe a parrot was not the best choice of receptacle for him.
Plainsweaver proposed flooding the area with a fog cloud to spread confusion and help the Horde units infiltrate. I was keen to take a tower top and fire the ramp to secure it from reinforcements from below using oil. We cobbled together a plan of attack and I reloaded with appropriate spells. We then awaited the cover of night for the attack.
Plainsweaver and his carpet flew in at around sixty feet and threw his fog shroud, followed by the eight bombs thoughtfully provided by the orc quartermaster. As the explosions boomed I moved up on my carpet to join the assault. The effect of the explosions was devastating, with feedback causing devastating destruction on top of the feeder towers, frying the luckless mage squads.
The main crystal was damaged and I opened fire with arcane missiles and followed up with my fire and cold wands, alternating to maximise stress on the metal. Eventually the tactic worked and the doomsday device exploded ferociously. Job Done.
At this point unfortunately both of our carpets were hit by grappling hooks and brought down. By our Horde allies. They were upset by our ‘accidental’ destruction of the item we had planned to steal. Seemed perfectly reasonable from their point of view I suppose. Wanker, Upubumia and I fell from our carpet, but fortunately I had learned Slow Fall three times and heroically saved all three of us with it, and we floated down gently only to be trapped in a net.
The Horde leader began to explain the error of his ways, clearly he was old school, inspired by those all too common villains who have a confusing tendency to explain their nefarious plots to their captured enemy just before leaving them to die horribly but without anyone watching because he always has an urgent appointment to go and do something very important.*
*They usually say something like ‘I need to present my final demands to the world to the world’s leaders and finalise the programming of my XK3000 Death Ray.’ In reality they are probably popping out to watch the latest episode of Revolution or Game of Thrones. It’s thought that the installation of Sky Plus systems in the average super villain’s lair will make them up to 35% more dangerous by allowing them to remain to watch the laser cut their opponent in half or remove the need to lock up their prisoners prior to execution in a large building filled with heavy equipment and the raw material to build an armoured vehicle, heavy missile launcher and or complete super villain destruction kit.
Fortunately he did not get too far in outlining the fate awaiting us all before I got off my burning hands spell, dropping two of our captors. This triggered Plainsweaver and Lutzbar to spring into action too whilst those of us netted concentrated on trying to escape.
The leader’s bodyguards came for us and began hacking at the net whilst the leader and his other troops were engaged with the orc and Tauren. I fired a cone of cold but unfortunately the forsaken are immune to it. D’oh! I paid with a severe injury. Wanker meanwhile escaped from the net and got into the fight, and Plainsweaver had more success using fire on the enemy. Upubumia also escaped to join the fray.
I cast mirror image on myself to protect myself from further injury, and six of me now writhed in the net. My bold companions, especially Lutzbar were able to finish off the luckless Horde eventually and we emerged triumphant at last having betrayed our allies, destroyed the weapon and really upset the Blood Elves. And possibly Angels too. No doubt or reward will be enormous. Yeah, right.
6.4.13
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