Our heroes needed a rest, so they took a short one hour break to tend their wounds. Recovering a bit, they were ready to start exploring, when they heard some noises coming from the western door. Our heroes readied for a fight, with Seraphina casting Sleet Storm to try and slow them down. They heard someone cry out to fight and then heard lots of slipping and falling.
Zesh tried out a new spell, Guardian of Faith, which was a help even in the midst of the storm. Slowly, beings approached, and our heroes could hear them falling. One by one, the creatures appeared outside of the storm, a mixture of ogres, fire giants, (including one youthful fire giant, the son of duke Zalto), and a salamander.
Kida was in the front lines, fighting fire giants as they popped out from the storm. Jasper and Zesh approached as well. Seraphina was a bit further away, shooting with her bow and arrows, killing the youthful fire giant as soon as he appeared out of the storm. Mitsui also fought from a distance, running around. As the fight went on, the more they killed, the more appeared from within the storm. At one point, Mitsui, worried for Kida’s life, manifested some sort of leathery wings from her back. She used these to fly over to Kida. They didn’t last long, vanishing a few seconds later.
Our heroes began falling unconscious from taking so many attacks from the enemy. Jasper fell first, then Zesh.
Mitsui, wanting to kill the salamander, ran to it. Angered and trying to hurt this thing as much as she could, her fists grew cold and ice-like, causing frostbite with each hit. Unfortunately, blinded by anger, Mitsui was ignoring the flames that were lashing out and hitting her with each strike. The salamander focused its attention on Mitsui, grabbing her with its tail and knocking her out.
Seraphina came to the rescue, casting Aid on her fallen companions, while Kida was taking out the fire giants one by one, holding them at bay.
Once awakened, Mitsui used her curse to cause fear to all things around her. The salamander started to flee, still holding on to Mitsui and dragging her along before realizing it still had her grappled. It released her before continuing to run away.
Eventually, all of the enemies were taken down, except for one ogre, named Agre, whom Mitsui convinced to follow our heroes. This seemed to be the final attempt by the fire giants of Ironslag at taking out the introducers, our heroes.
The party went through and looted the rest of Ironslag, finding a fair amount of gold. They returned to the elevator and rode it to the second floor, freeing a few more orc slaves. All the slaves, but Jasper, headed back to the village, as our heroes decided to rest in the mines.
During the night, Seraphina realized the mines were too quiet. The constant sound of the elevator had stopped. Flying up as a bat and then outside the mines, she noticed a group of five fire giants watching over the mine entrance. Flying back in, she alerted her companions to this new development. They decided to spend the rest of the night in the mines and, in the morning, explore the first floor some more.
They found three things of interest while exploring the rest of Ironslag. The first was the daughter of the Duke, Cinderhild, a spoiled little princess. She was tired of being stuck in Ironslag. She wanted to explore the world her father spoke of and see it for herself. The heroes agreed to take her with them.
As Cinderhild finished packing, she dropped her bags and told our heroes she was ready. Our heroes told her she couldn’t just expect people to carry her stuff for her, but Agre was convinced to carry it for her. Mitsui, Kida, Agre and Cinderhild went to the adamantine doors while Seraphina, Zesh, and Jasper explored more of Ironslag.
They found an iron statue with an ingot etched with a rune. While our heroes weren’t sure whether they wanted to take it, Jasper immediately went to pick it up. As they were exploring further, Seraphina pickpocketed Jasper and took the ingot. They also found an iron flask with a magical energy around it. Taking this as well, they then met up with Mitsui. Mitsui was giving a speech to Cinderhild about how the world worked and being good to people. Cinderhild opened the doors and then headed off with Agre. As the two left, our heroes sighed, stating they wouldn’t survive a week out in the real world.
Thus the world came to a stop once again, waiting for the return of the spirits of our brave heroes.