Colossus Part V (Ironsworn: Starforged Rules)

 

Hi and welcome to my blog! Part V of Colossus with Ironsworn: Starforged rules is all written up and posted here. The adventures of Iris, Sora, and Parrot continue.

 

Colossus Part V

The first place they go is Cardinal’s garage. Cardinal agrees to both fix the motorcycle and watch Sora while Parrot and Iris do what they need to do.

Parrot and Iris go to the mayor’s mansion and climb in through the second floor. They sneak into her office. They search through her files and find a letter from the Diez Family demanding a cut of Quiet City’s profits from crimes like racketeering and prostitution or they’ll reveal the mayor’s affair. Parrot comments she certainly had a motive against the Diez Family. They search more. They find a letter from Lotus that says if she doesn’t start paying more taxes to them they’ll pull all of the Scouts out of Quiet City. That gives her a motive against Lotus, too. Finally, they find it. They find a letter from the Blessed Martyrs requesting more credits for a facility they want to build in the Sable Lands.

Parrot and Iris keep the letter, and when they leave the mansion they send the letter to Lotus Headquarters by way of a courier bot. They head to Cardinal’s garage but when they get there they find him barely alive in a pool of his own blood. Several of the house cats are dead and Sora is also severely injured. Iris and Parrot immediately start administering life-saving healing to them both. They manage to stabilize both Sora and Cardinal. Cardinal is sent to a hospital, still unconscious, and Iris stays with Sora at Cardinal’s home. Parrot stays with Cardinal at the hospital.

The next day, Parrot returns and says he spoke to Cardinal when he woke up. Cardinal was attacked by an assassin. Sora saved him. The assassin was injured badly and ran off before he could finish killing Cardinal and Sora. Iris says that no Scout is safe, not even the ones in the walled cities. Furious, they decide now is the time to interrogate the mayor.

They knock out her guards and burst into her office. She is sitting at her desk, looking mildly annoyed. She says, “So you’re the ones who broke into my home.” They tell her they know she’s working with the assassins and the cultists. They tell her to call off the assassins. She says she will. She’s already screwed anyway if Lotus knows about her activities. Parrot tells her the only way to save her position now is to pay Lotus its taxes and cooperate to take down the Blessed Martyrs.

Suddenly Kaito Crowley bursts into the office through the window. He shoots at the mayor, who ducks in time under her desk. Iris and Parrot immediately jump into the fray, Iris drawing her knife and Parrot drawing his dagger. They get in close to Crowley and stab him, but the blades barely penetrate his coat. Iris kicks the gun out of Crowley’s hand. It flies across the room. She kicks him again in the face. He bleeds from the mouth, but it was like kicking a rock wall. He rears back and punches her in the face, sending her flying backwards. Parrot manages to stab Crowley again but it does little good.

Iris stands up and realizes the back of her head is bleeding. She must have landed hard. She runs back into the fray just as Parrot is punched in the face, breaking his glasses and his nose. Crowley grabs Iris by her satchel and starts choking her with the strap. Medicine spills out of her satchel and onto the floor. Parrot jumps to his feet and tries to rescue Iris. Iris starts to fade from consciousness and she thinks of Sparrow.

His memory gives her strength and she breaks the strap of her satchel and elbows Crowley in the side hard. She gets away from him. Parrot and Iris both charge at Crowley with their blades drawn. Crowley fights with both of them at once, dodging blows.

Suddenly a bullet flies past Iris’s head and hits Crowley in the shoulder. Crowley jumps back out the window and flees. Iris sees that it was the mayor with Crowley’s gun who fired the shot. But who was she really aiming for? Parrot takes the gun from her. He tells the mayor she’s been marked for death, but they’ll protect her if she cooperates and tells them what she knows about the Blessed Martyrs.

The mayor tells them the Blessed Martyrs are building a facility near the Nameless Mountain. They are trying to recreate the super-serum that empowered Crowley. They need to study Scout DNA, namely Scout blood, to see how it is enhanced by miasma, one of the main ingredients in the super-serum. As they recruit and research, they are killing people to sacrifice to inter-dimensional beings that they believe are just waiting for their chance to enter the Spire. The Blessed Martyrs’ ultimate goal, however, is to destroy stability in the Spire by destroying Lotus. They believe this will create enough chaos that a rift will form, allowing the dimensional aliens access into our reality. The Scouts must die to allow Lotus to be vulnerable enough to be destroyed.

Parrot says these people sound like lunatics. They must be stopped. He writes to Lotus informing them of recent events and asking for back-up so they assault the cult’s facility near the Nameless Mountain.

Iris and Parrot rent a room at the inn and discuss their next steps. They need allies to storm the facility. Iris thinks back on all the bonds she’s made since she became a Scout. She writes to Goose, Posey, Seagull, Jasmine, Hydrangea, Lavender, Wren, Tulip, and Hummingbird. She asks them to join her in Quiet City, posthaste. It will take a while to hear back from Lotus and the Scouts.

While Sora heals, Iris spends some downtime with Parrot, practicing archery and telling stories about their childhoods. One night, after dinner at the inn, while they wait for the Scouts’ and Lotus’s responses, Parrot and Iris share a kiss.

The next day they go on their first date to the market to resupply. Parrot buys Iris a beautiful handmade necklace from a Red Rivers merchant, and Iris buys Parrot a handgun. Parrot vows to protect Iris, and Iris vows to protect Parrot.

The first Scout to show up is Goose later that day. Then all the others show up over the next few days as they make their plans. Finally, a letter from Lotus arrives giving them the thumbs-up to assault the facility, collect research papers, and burn the Blessed Martyrs to the ground. By this time Sora is healed up, as is Cardinal, and they join the group.

They leave at dawn towards the facility, all split up in different directions, in small groups so they can sneak up on the facility. Parrot, Iris, and Sora comprise one group. They are heading to the facility on foot by the east. They are armed and ready for a fight.

The terrain here is very hilly and mountainous. Sora has an easy time with it, but it slows the Scouts down. They finally find a clear path through the difficult terrain and start making better time. As they continue on, the mountainous terrain starts to give way under their feet. Parrot falls but Iris catches his hand in time and pulls him up. They find a freshwater pool in a valley and bathe and refill their canteens.

They come across another pool, this one full of miasma, blocking the road. It is safe for Parrot and Iris to swim across it, but not Sora. They go around the miasma pool, lengthening their journey.

They reach a ridge and can see the facility in the distance in a valley with the backdrop of the enormous Nameless Mountain. They are almost there.