Campaign 1 - Stolen Rain - Session 7 - Sacrifice of the Shield Maiden

The Party Line Up

Volspa Ichorstone, a shield maiden who rides her faithful Irontail mount

Belle Juju, a Merfolk pirate with a magic flask that meddles with the forces of life and death.

Krumpa Dakka Waaah, the master Orc painter warrior who breathes life into color.

Edgar the Anointed, a vampire cleric pacifist, who wishes to heal the world with the light of the Immortal Sun.

The session started with deadly boss fight against amassive bug later known as CARL. This massive insect had human like face that was split in half hinting that it may of had human like origins but is now spawning bugs from out of its body that have swarmed the mines. The party banded together but were quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of insects causing Volspa and Krumpa to fall unconscious and Sarah, Volspa's Iron Tail was eaten alive by the swarm. Death's grasp seemed inevitable for the party, but the shield maiden Volspa refused to let her allies fall and summoned all the strength she had left to get back up and finish off CARL with her family heirloom blade in hand. As the Leviathan sank its frozen teeth into Carl, Edgar found the light of the sun from within and brought light into the dark mine shaft so Belle blew up the other bugs with a makeshift bomb she threw together.

Krumpa was brought back up to his feet and the party celebrated their victory, but Volspa's adrenaline finally gave out and dropped to one knee making it clear she pushed her body to far and her time in this world was coming to a close. She gave the Leviathan Blade to Krumpa with her last breath as the Valkyrie escorted her spirit to Valhalla to be with her ancestors.
Afterwards Belle created a great bonefire to burn all the corpses that littered the map. Carl, Volspa, and Sarah's bodies burned in the holy purification of the flames. During this moment Belle was able to capture Carl's soul into her magic flask and she consumed the essence causing her to age 20 years younger once again taking on the appearance of a Merfolk girl in her early 30's.
The group found a group of surviving miners who huddled around a viking who was eating some very smelly pickles that seemed to ward off the insects but 2 of the miners were severely wounded. Belle decided to experiment with her magic flask and offered one of them a drink and she learned she was able to transfer part of her burning mark death gave her when he touched her to others when she healed them from her flask but one miner accidentally died and their portion of the burn mark returned to Belle. The Merfolk has much to think about with this new knowledge.
The elevator that brought them into the mine seemed to have broken and the miners said the pulley system was located a few floors below and that they could try and fix it. The party gracefully climbed down to the lower levels using grappling hooks and met a strange merfolk mage who couldn't speak any language they could understand. The Merfolk seemed friendly and joined the group as they investigated the mines and Krumpa and Edgar worked together at fixing the the elevator while Belle talked to an undead viking miner who had been working the whole time while the mine was attacked by bugs and he was eager to get all the iron he mined back to the surface to collect his overtime money. Once the elevator got working the undead miner rewarded the party with a key and an old scroll the miner dug up on an old mechanical creature.

The key and the scroll interested Krumpa as it looked to be linked to the great orc titan he had been searching for the last few years. He eagerly wonders where the next key is.
The party discovered that Fingers, the man linked to the changeling and the rain orb, had a hideout behind a God Gate inside the mine and Captain Cannon and his pirate crew were interrogating him.
They learned the the nobles of the Desert Clan were plotting together to sell off clan territories and resources to the Sky Clan. With the rain gone, the nobles believe the desert clan is doomed and want to secure their futures under new leadership and Cannon is going to escort the sky clan into Selbina using Finger's smuggler tunnel.
During the discussion Fingers details the plot to steal the Rain orb as graphed below.

Stealth is lost as Krumpa and Edgar reveal themselves to Cannon and Fingers. They lie and say that bugs had got into town causing Cannon to panic for his partner in crime, Lady Sweetwater. During the confusion, the party ambushes Cannon and his pirate crew and Belle lets out a devastating attack at captain Cannon, but Cannon grabbed hold of Fingers and used him as a human shield. Finger's head is blown clean off his shoulders and is revealed to be the changeling the party had been after this whole time leading to many more questions.
Sawtooth the Orc that Krumpa saved in session 1 was working for Fingers and swears a blood oath of loyalty to Krumpa and takes up his axe to fight side by side with the party as slowly cannon's crew is slain one by one. Another of finger's accomplices, an undead viking, opened the secret tunnel in the back of the room to escape the massacre and shortly after the Cannon's pirate Merfolk earth mage escaped into the tunnel as well.
Belle finally found the man who killed her husband and she didn't just kill him, she used her magic flask to burn Captain Cannon's soul into ash her vengeance complete.
The Session Timer ended at 11pm