S2 Week 4 (Part 2) - "A Lesson in Complimentary Colors"

The party cramped themselves into one of the larger submersible transports, flanked by Thalassian soldiers and goblin engineers (whom the party was tasked with protecting). Erwise and Lia decided to strike up a conversation with the nervous goblins, who seemed quite proud of the massive bomb that they had created.

Erwise: "So, if worse comes to worse, we may have to set this thing off ourselves. How do we do that?"
Goblin 1: "By saying the magic word!"
Erwise: "Well, what's the... wait... err..."
Lia: "Can you write it down for us?"
Goblin 2: "We... don't know how to write..."
Erwise: "OK... then how does this thing work anyway? Can Book operate it?"
Goblin 1: "It's simple really! You non-Goblins think too hard. See, the force field is GREEN right? All we needed to was make a bomb that would explode the opposite color of green! So we made a bomb that would explode BLUE!"
Erwise: "..."
Lia: "..."
Goblin 1: "I know! It's genius!"

And so, Erwise and Lia begrudginly explained to the goblins that the opposite color of green was, in fact, red. Yelling, finger pointing, and a quick red paint job followed. Luckily, Erwise still had his paint set.

Cysero: "I can't believe that the fate of the world may rest on the fact that Erwise stole a paintset from some jerk in Chivil."

But there was no more time to prepare; the craft had landed on the desolute coast of the Deepforge, formerly the ruined town of Brineshire. The Eldritch force field flickered in the distance, slightly weakened. The Thalassian troops charged forward. Our heroes were in the next wave, assigned to secure the beachhead and then escort the goblins and their bomb into the town ruins. The final wave bringing up the rear consisted of Thalassian bombadiers, demolitions experts, and shock troopers, tasked with setting bombs inside the Deepforge once its shields were down.

The Deepforged machines were well-prepared against invaders. As the party and the Thalassian soldiers advanced up the beach, taking cover in foxholes and against muddy ledges, automated constructs rained down death over their heads with rapid-firing bolts of arcane energy. The machines had the high ground atop a ruined factory, repurposed as a fortified bunker, and fired mercilessly upon the hapless humanoids below. The group was slowed by barbed wire and eldritch mines, and to make matters worse, the Deepforged began to shower the beachhead with mortar fire, making even the most secure of foxholes potentially unsafe.

The remains of the ruined bunker, now a temporary base of operations for the party.

Advancing up the muddy hill toward the bunker was slow-going, and the party was assaulted several times by gun and mortar fire. At one point, a mortar struck dead-center on Erwise, Fernal, Lia, and Mootan, temporarily deafening them and striking Mootan down, who would have perished if it weren't for the healing powers of his shamanistic spirits!

The party caught a break when one of the Deepforged turrets misfired, causing a huge explosion and clearing the way for the party to enter the bunker. But first, Fernal wisely regrouped with one of the demolition experts advancing behind the party, and teleported him into the fray! The next thing party saw was a brilliant flash of light as the remaining Deepforged forces crumbled to dust in a fiery explosion. The bombadier had done his job, that was for sure.

The Deepforged Beachhead was secure, and the party took refuge in the bunker. The entire first wave of Thalassian soldiers had been wiped out. When the dust settled, all that remained were roughly fifty Thalassian foot soldiers, a dozen bombadiers, two goblin engineers, the Thalassian general, and of course, our intrepid heroes.

A stretch of derelict, smoldering ruins is all that remains between the party and the Eldritch field where hour heroes will activate the goblin bomb with the help of its creators. Will they achieve their mission, or will the machines win the day?