Session Date: 08/25/2025
Session Begin
We make it back to the city and Mary suggests that Akker and Bosch make the siege engines backfire on themselves. Akker is glad that Mary’s finally speaking his language, and Bosch comments that we need to figure out what’s funniest: if the siege engine explodes on itself, or something else.
Akker says that the Breakwater Company has been here for about half a day - he thinks that they’re trying to be intimidating. We do think it’s a good idea to push Bosch and Akker into their own stealthy plan.
We are told that the Breakwater Company hasn’t actually sent anyone up to greet the city, they arrived and have just sitting there. They haven’t sent anyone with demands or direct threats.
As a reminder — Ciril Minechest is the guy who is running this leg of the Breakwater Company - we had faced him in the past and he eventually stood down.
Bosch & Akker Sneak Off
The two of them move toward the Breakwater area and scout: they look for how many people there are, breaks in the patrols and guarding, etc. They don’t see much. They begin to look over the war machine and find nothing much on the front, and they discuss options on how to create a good distraction. They see a hatch on the back of the war machine that they go up to so they can investigate.
Discussing Negotiating
The metal wall that the Breakwater Corp set up splits open and stairs emerge from it. A portly dwarf very slowly begins to approach - he stops halfway between the siege engine and begins to set something up.
Mary asks the animals here what’s going on and they tell her there’s a table with chairs set up, documents and a quill. There’s some amount of food there as well. They’re setting up a negotiation table. The documents essentially say to surrender the city over or otherwise violence will ensue. We decide that we should go along with Orvel Onyons.
Bosch & Akker in the Siege Engine
Bosch and Akker get inside and take a look around. They begin to sweep the siege engine - it’s pretty big, and most of what seems to be inside is machinery. There is one extremely fancy room that’s almost like a small apartment, including a bathroom and bedroom. There aren’t many people here, just a very small contingent. There’s a lot of clockwork robots, but not many actual people. The robots are not intelligent. The robots are designed for working and doing what they are told, and there’s some level of combat capability (but they can definitely do procedural stuff, like loading and firing a canon).
Bosch searches through the office and finds a paper that looks important — Akker comments that it’s clear that they’re going to fire Ciril if he doesn’t succeed on this, it’s his last chance.
The Party’s Negotiations
We approach the negotiation table and sit down. It’s pretty clear that Ciril is nervous as he sits at the table, smoking a cigar. He’s less than pleased to se us at the table.
Mary explains that we wont the competition and there was an agreement made. Ciril essentially says that he doesn’t care, and of course he’s cheating: it doesn’t matter we won as long as Breakwater winds up on top. He has canons pointed at the city and has no qualms with destroying the city.
We begin trying to convince him to back off: the druid of the forest that will fight them, we have people in Jewel that already know that we won, honor, corporate honesty, etc. Ciril explains that this is why we sign the paperwork to admit that we cheated.
Tabby loses interest in diplomacy and jumps on the table with his rapier drawn, saying to either back off or we will kill him.
Bosch the Robot Whisperer
Bosch approaches one of the automatons and asks them to fire a warning shot. He doesn’t use the correct wording and they ignore him. He does some digging around and finds essentially the operator’s manual and the quick start guide for the automatons and he figures out the commands he needs to use to change target and fire, so he changes the target toward the direction of where the giants lived.
The canon fires the shot and there’s enough recoil that Akker falls backwards. Bosch tips back and turns the momentum into a cartwheel. Bosch realizes that these were created quickly by contractors not paid enough - much of this impact goes straight into the frame of the canon. They try not to laugh too hard and draw more attention.
Breakwater Negotiations
It’s clear that Tabby’s intimidation has worked and Ciril takes pause. He starts to threaten again, but about that time the canon goes off and in a direction he doesn’t expect. He’s flabbergasted, then asks where “the small one is” - to which we play mockingly stupid. Ciril starts to comment that he worked hard to get to where he is in the company and he’s lost everything, asking if we have hearts.
Tabby comments that perhaps they’ll keep him on or show some forgiveness if he convinces them he stopped things from blowing up. Ciril considers it and comments it won’t save him entirely, but it’ll give him a fighting chance.
He counters: we can leave before he destroys the city. We decline. He ultimately comments that he will go join the Warhawks but he wants to take them the siege engine. Faylen comments that he can go join the Warhawks if he would like, but he will still run into us as a problem, and we won’t let him take the siege engine to them.
Blowing Things Up
Akker turns one of the canons straight up. There’s some back and forth and Akker says he’ll get us out of the area once we’re done here, trying to get us away from the Warhawks before they find us here. Bosch accepts it, and they set a 5 minute timer for the engine to fire straight up and get on to their tasks.
More Negotiations
Ciril starts to grow strong and say that we need to give him the siege engine and he needs to have this so he can move on. As he’s explaining he’s going to turn his canon on the city and blow it up, the canon fires again and the payload fires into the air, then comes back down and destroys the siege engine.
Bosch is outside, watching the explosion, and takes some damage because it’s more fun to be close to the explosion. Akker is nowhere to be seen.
Ciril sees the explosion then looks back at us, then looks at Tabby’s rapier, considering if that’s the better option here. Tabby offers that he can turn this around for himself, since it was defective. He gets up and runs.
What few people were there have magicked chains fall off of their wrists, and they thank us as they no longer work for Breakwater.
Moleheart emerges and gives everyone the spiel about how they no longer work for Breakwater Company, and you don’t have to fight for a paycheck, and the like. Deprogramming begins.
The Warhawks Approach
Slowly approaching from the valley is an airship: the Warhawks are approaching. We have time before they arrive. Akker waves us over and says he prepared something for us: he used some of the siege engine to cobble together a vehicle we can use as a getaway. He says that the Warhawks do not care about the town, but they will slow them down, and he’ll blow some things up and become just as hated by them as we are.
We say our goodbyes and head off. The vehicle is very, very fast, and it rockets us away from the town.