Come fly with me Report

General Summary

Previously: A Choice of Two Enemies
Firing themselves off from Phandalin, the party set their flying machine on a course for Leilon.
They encountered a strangely solid cloud, which seemed to be the home of a travelling egg merchant of incredible size. They decided to take a rain-check on this meeting and flew onwards.
Another fight was avoided with quick use of Anathema's wand of fear and a judgement call about the flying speed of smoke mephits, as the flying machine sped forwards.
Nearing Leilon, they noticed foul weather alead, seemingly centred over the High Road north of Leilon. Anathema took flight to investigate, but turned back towards Leilon after confirming the site of the cyclone.
The flying machine was landed, without major incident, on the outskirts of Leilon. The dismount was less graceful, leaving Tharg and Herdyr dangling from one side of the machine. Untying themselves from that, an emergency gravity enchantment was activated, leaving the machine floating just above the ground and able to be pushed to safe storage in Leilon's fortified compound.
The storm effect, however, continued to worsen and the party left town and travelled north towards Wayside Inn, now obviously the centre of the calamity. Wind and rain lashed about, and they spotted three armoured figures standing in the ruins of the Inn, magic and lightning crackling around them. The remains of ritual sacrifices could be seen: victims pinned helplessly to the outside of the inn, then scorched dead with lightning. The tracks of an immense boar, also scorched into the earth, could be seen, travelling from the crater of the explosion that had ripped apart one side of the inn, out into the storm-drenched landscape north, towards where Fort Locke lay, from which the sounds of battle could be heard.
Just as they identified the moving suits of armor as being decorated with Talosian symbols, another figure, a female soldier in Guard uniform approached, seemingly angered by a voice calling praise to Talos (Herdyr's test to see where her loyalties lay), and ran to single-handedly engage these elementally powered suits of armour.
Next: Wayside Destroyed