As our heroes started to return to the elevator, the goblins that had previously let them pass unhindered seemed on alert and were all gathered, facing our heroes, weapons in hand. Soon after the battle began, hellhounds joined the fray. Shortly thereafter some fire giants, including Duke Zalto himself, joined the medley. Zalto and Mitsui shared an exchange of projectiles, Zalto throwing chunks of the wall, and Mitsui with her bow and arrow. Our heroes fought bravely and eventually managed to kill the goblins and fire giants.
As Mitsui was examining the body of Duke Zalto, she noticed that Zalto’s maul had a cage built into it. On the inside was a dwarf. After letting him free, he introduced himself as Jasper Dimmerchasm, a merchant that was trying to negotiate with the fire giants., When the negotiations broke down, they took him to Duke Zalto. Jasper asked if he could accompany our heroes to the closest settlement. The party agreed. They told him he could stick with them or join the slaves up above. He said he would be interested in staying with them.
Seraphina led our heroes in an effort to save some of the other slaves left in Ironslag. They climbed the stairs to the second story of Ironslag and moved through some portcullises. There were a number of cages with slaves guarded by hobgoblins. Our heroes half persuaded, half threatened the hobgoblins to join them and let the slaves go free. The slaves stayed by the eastern portcullises as our heroes and the hobgoblins went out the west ones to find some more slaves.
The next room had a couple of ogres and a number of slaves moving a wheel connected to the rails and buckets for ore. They tried talking with the ogres, but as they did, one hobgoblin slowly moved away. Shortly after, a fire giant entered the room from the direction the hobgoblin had moved off in. Our heroes threatened the fire giant with the duke’s head and managed to convince him to be a bit more tame. He slowly walked away, as our heroes watched him open a portcullis. He then opened a number of cages, releasing some hellhounds and ordering them to attack our heroes. They quickly swarmed and breathed fire upon Corvix, but our heroes managed to kill them all. The hobgoblins also turned and assisted the fire giant. They too were killed by our heroes.
Jasper was fighting an ogre, telling MItsui how they would kill it together. Mitsui on the other hand was insisting that he should leave the ogre alone. The ogres however were killed. Finally, the fire giant itself was killed. Thus the world came to a rest, wondering what would happen with our heroes next.