Rooster ambles in with a mission of such low priority that no one has yet designated its priority color or numeral. Epi Glottis has been working on some applications for the blood emerald compass, ready for field testing, and he needs some personal protection. Since Bizzle and Slick overslept due to faulty alarm weasels when everyone else got dispatched earlier, this is their mission.
Epi guides the TURTLE (Train Of Regional Transport, Ox-Impelled Services Extender) towards a forest in Blamboof. In a couple of hours they find themselves loitering around some ruins where Epi gets a reading off the downward-indicating compass. Epi’s mechanical therapy cat, Artemus, goes to work digging for blood emerald shards inside the ruined walls of an old, fortified tower.
Three angry war horns interrupt the sound of easy money. Epi summons some expendable helpers from the TURTLE. Bizzle mans a fortuitously placed siege flame cannon with a little help from expendable Pyle who must pump together the oil / oxygen mixture. Expendable Keyop scales a tree ready to send out magic missiles to any approaching aggressors. Expendables Peika and Dod hang around with sneaky Slick, ready to provide distractions for her sneaking.
In ten minutes, the shard recovery team is surrounded by two hoards of orcs and a flange of ghouls. Bizzle and Slick sweep the orcs with gouts from the flame cannon. They take out a couple of Orogs, but by no means creating a local shortage of the brutes. A few Red Fangs of Shargaas appear around Epi. Shouts of, For Craig! rise above the din, giving a name to the menace as though the R&S operatives wouldn’t recognize the insidious handiwork of their nemesis, Craig the Insidious Lich & Co., LLC.
Craig’s OIC (Orc In Charge), Singular Sam, calls for unconditional and immediate surrender. In response, Slick decapitates an Orog. She looks up. Tiny dots in the sky grow larger as a murder of kenku descend on the battle. Beaky One! Beaky Two! Beaky Three! The noise is unbearable but gets much worse when a recorded message from Craig plays.
“Hello, Bizzle, Nanny, Beard, and others–”
“Nanny died,” interrupts Bizzle. The message starts over.
“Hello, Bizzle, Nanny, Beard, and others. This is Craig the Insidious Lich and Company (and Birt!). This is a prerecorded message. Surrender and hand over the blood emerald shards! I really need those to complete my colossus. No no, don’t record that part. How do I turn this thing–”
The orcs and ghouls, and now kenku, crush in around the flame cannon. Bizzle yells for the team to take cover and Pyle pew-pew-pews magic missiles into the flame cannon’s fuel tank. A massive fireball vaporizes nearly all of Craig’s armies while the R&S operatives shelter behind ruin walls or sprint out of range. Their elation at somehow surviving the explosion is interrupted by the thud of advanced metallurgy stomping across the smoldering ground.
Craig has constructed a massive exo-contraption with far too many piston-powered arms. Two of those arms launch green fireballs at Bizzle, Keyop, and Pyle. Pyle collapses, life oozing out in wisps of green smoke. Another two insidiously reaching arms produce longswords as Craig the Insidious Construct charges Bizzle.
All the remaining orcs are distracted by Craig’s insidious show of violence, and they stop to cheer him on. Slick, Peika, and Dod take advantage of the distraction to sneak destruction upon the orcs, thinning them out one by one. Keyop drags Pyle back to the sheltering ruins where Epi estimates another 36 seconds of digging before Artemus recovers the blood emerald shards. Bizzle fights Craig the Insidious Contraption, keeping Craig’s attention away from Epi, and scrambles over the ruin walls to keep Craig moving. Keyop draws Craig the opposite direction and gets knocked out giving Bizzle enough time to take a salvage bar / health potion smoothie.
Slick and team have created enough havoc that Singular Sam stops cheering for Craig and calls for a regroup to fight Slick. Singular Sam knocks out orc-surrounded Slick. Dod forces a salvage bar in her mouth, but now he’s knocked out.
Epi and Artemus finally recover the blood emerald shards. Artemus gathers up Pyle. Slick disengages from Singular Sam and drags Dod back to where Epi is tending to Keyop. Grappled Bizzle can’t run away from Craig the Insidious Contraption, but Craig does him a solid by hurling Bizzle through two solid walls and into the solid trunk of a solid tree where Bizzle falls twenty feet to the solid ground. Epi uses his OnStone service to remotely dispatch the TURTLE back to HQ. The moment his friends are all within ten feet, Bizzle activates the helm of teleportation. Smell ya later!
The team teleports victoriously atop Roosters desk, the most familiar of all objects to Bizzle. Rooster falls back in his chair. Craig the Insidious Lich and Co., LLC, has yet again been thwarted by R&S and the colossus project deprived of blood emerald shards.