Session Forty-Nine

"This is all a big HR problem." - Fortuna

"The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel." 

- Terry Pratchett

While the cats were away, not my monkeys. The heroes returned to find their chaotic goblin allies had created their own logic, with most of them having disappeared for different reasons, depending on who they spoke to. Before they could give that much thought they had to fight off an external threat and now turned their attention to ordering their little society. There was a lot to sort out: a large and traumatized new warrenfolk labour force, homicidal plants that worshipped the heroes and slaughter-gods, and an eclectic cast of troubled and troublesome outsiders. They will also have to solve a murder mystery and maybe keep the Inordinate Amount from being stripped for parts, in the process.  Juggling monkeys who are themselves juggling chainsaws

• Wee-Walther Muzzy Wump: We’re going to need helms. For that we’re going to need market access to the Mercane. For that we are going  to need connections, with Dohwar or other merchants

• Popsicle the Dowhar: Dispatched to find the Kinori herd Dohwar village and secure access to a supply of helms (NO GIFTS, NO MESSAGES, NO OFFERS OF TRADE)

• Dancer the Illithid: Dispatched to meet with Jormun Goss and the Illihid Revolutionaries to ask for Psionic AMplifiers to help hide the Lumberstar and the hero's whereabouts (NO GIFTS, NO MESSAGES, NO OFFERS OF TRADE)

• Warrenfolk: Building their district and their Temple to Azael. Most get straight to work on the docks.

• Aartuk: Building their Temple to the Gods of Slaughter. Demand blood sacrifices. Alexis worries about the heroes ability to control them, now that they are out of their dormant state, and there are so many non-Aartuk to kill and fill with their spores.

• Obashayhydan the Beholder: drunk in the Sapsucker tavern. Frightening the patrons and irritating the staff. Hazel regenerates his severed eye stalks. Begins work as the "administrative arm" for Basile. 

• Telerann, the Neogi: A skilled Jammer pilot. Knows the Inordinate Amount by reputation. Won't board it. Believes it is cursed. Hiding a Secret: he's building his own spelldasher - he wants to go home because he thinks everyone hates him. He found a regular helm at a crash site of a small spelljammer in the Wilds of the Lumberstar. Begs forgiveness.

• Basile X7B1: Installed as Administrative Elder Brain for the Lumberstar. 

By the second week of building and planning, two warrenfolk go missing. Then a third turns up dead. There is evidence of foul play. Where are the bodies of the others? 

Misdirections: The Manzessine Bunch all seem suspicious... at first. There is also the "strange but familiar" presence detected y Skazz.

Clues unfold. 

• All the murdered are dockworkers and they disappeared between shifts. 

• Two are regulars at Sapsuckers Tavern and do some odd jobs to help pay off their tabs

• Working as porters moving sap between the mill and the brewery and then sap mead onwards to the Sham-Rackle Tavern 

• An animated body of one of the missing warrenfolk is moving barrels

• A gnome dockworker is implicated - he saw the Duergar kill a warrenfolk and was coerced into getting involved to save his life 

• One of the workers caught Markov at what he was doing, so he killed them. Then he just started just enjoying himself.

Markov the Duergar is the Culprit. He is a Barbarian but also a Cleric (Trickery, Death & Fire domains). Its hard to corner him to interview him. His goal is to strip as much as he can from the Inordinate Amount and hide stolen goods inside barrels that were used to transfer sap. He tries to appear as a slap-happy drunk. He stashes empty barrels in his quarters. Showdown on the Inordinate Amount.

SCAZZ: Something is here that wasn’t here before. Something that shouldn’t be here.

A skeletal grey cat sits in front of you. The way it looks at you is unnerving. And vaguely familiar. It turns and licks its side. That’s when you see all of the wounds and rotting flesh move beneath its scabby fur. It’s undead! Then you remember where you’ve seen it before. 

Braap! The vampiric toad slaver from the Obedient Thrall. This cat was curled around his neck, its eyes glowing from inside his cowl.

• "Yesyr is being used by the Ylfe as a massive prison camp for Braal. It had the right facilities.  Most of the slave trade is now completely controlled by the Imperyion.

• Braap is dead, well more dead, but I have other servants. However, none of them are as interesting.

TOTAL: 266 plus the heroes 4, that's 270. There were 35 yesterday. That's an overnight growth +235. There is not sufficient food or shelter.

9 goblins 

Charlotte - Brawler (bug face)

Alexis - Druid

Rodrigo - Expert

Paula - Ranger

Guadalupe - Fighter

Javier - Cleric

Eduardo - Rogue

Antonio - Fighter

Catalina - Sorcerer

(Blaine's body)

21 (surviving) gnomes (3 died in Aartuk attacks, 1 died in an industrial accident)

1 implicated in murder plot! 

214 (surviving) ratfolk refugees

169 dock labouerers

28 farmers

14 odd jobs

3 rangers, hunters

5 Manzessine refugees 

dowhar

neogi

beholder

Jormun Goss's liaison

Canto, Mreau Istorimancer, 

Coalman & Shilynn. 

The Sailor, the Diva

Crew of the Inordinate Amount 

Captain - Elder Blink Dog 

Drazda of Nix - Lizardman fighter and siege-weapon operator

Yoki Oshishan - Hedge Witch Tengu Level 5, spelljammer pilot

Campsis Grandifola - Leshy Monk Level 5, Spacehand (nickname Groot)

Cosine, Sine - Modron Monodrone #1, #2

Percival - Halfling - Spacehand

Maulatuff - a fire loving goblin, but is actually a Mongrelman

Boz - Gnome.

Dubloon McAnchor - Space Pirate!

Surprising to no one, our recently thrown together gaggle of traumatized refugees, escaped illithid inmates, goblins, and assorted other misfits were having a few issues.

The big one? Some of the warrenfolk were disappearing. It didn’t take much digging on our part for us to realize they were probably being murdered. By what? Skaz, Fortuna’s familiar, gave us our first clue. She felt a presence, just out of reach of her senses, the kind of thing that makes your hair stand up on end. Skaz told Fortuna that it was like this presence was toying with her… kind of like a cat toys with a mouse. It was a feeling which Skaz certainly understood, but didn’t exactly like. 

She also said it felt like a presence she’d encountered before, but couldn’t quite place.

A pattern became clear as we investigated. The victims were all dockworkers, and they always “disappeared” after heading home from a shift of repairing the trusty old Amount. Things came to a head pretty quickly after that. It turned out that a dueregar, rescued from Messanzinine, was using his powers to shift form and kill the warrenfolk. The murderer was confronted and dispatched by Fortuna, without much fuss. 

(Fortuna has always impressed me with her smarts and abilities… but by the nine hells she’s gotten powerful.) 

Which is when the “presence” that made Skaz so uneasy, the presence that had been observing the duergar murderer with some sort of twisted pleasure, I think, revealed itself. The creature was an undead feline wizard of (I suspect) immense power. And, as Skaz had suspected, it turned out that we had met before. This “cat” was what we had incorrectly thought to be Braap’s familiar in the slaver bar on Braal. In a surprise twist, we learned that Braap was actually its familiar. The being’s name was “Church.”

Church gave us an update, and the news was pretty grim. The Imperion had a tight grip on Braal. They’d taken control of the slave trade, and sent thousands of the more “troublesome” of Braal’s population off to Yessir. Which didn’t exactly warm the dark hearts of those who used to run and profit from that slave trade, and this was why she had tracked us down. Our interests were in step, it seemed, in wanting to rid Braal of its Ylfen conquerors.

Hmmmm… The enemy of my enemy? It seems like this was a theme that kept wanting to resurface in our story.

We’d managed to stop the murders. Good, but there was so much other shit to worry about, it's actually hard to put it all down.

Corruption among the shipbuilders. The threat of being discovered by the Imperion. Providing for the varied and now hundreds of residents of Fort Khalid. The warlike Hegsethians - what were we going to do about them? They weren’t going to stay passive for long. How would we finish our planned new ship and in what final form? I’m probably forgetting some stuff.

Oh. Yes. And there was the small matter of liberating an entire city from the clutches of the mightiest Empire in all of the sphere. Easy peasy.

Arriving at the Lumberstar, we began organizing the refugees in order to for them to barely survive.  Shroktath and I directed the individuals and teams and groups while Hazel and Fortuna worked in the background with magic and guile to plant the seeds for the immediate future.  They needed to do more than survive, more than live; they needed to thrive.  They needed to eat and have shelter in community, but they also needed hope and spiritual strength.  We needed them to contribute to the greater effort because time was short before the very likely annihilation of us and then the unraveling of All.  Amidst this we organized the defeat of the Aartuk.  The only way to do that was for them to worship us as gods; we had traded an immediate tactical success for a very dangerous future.  The Aartuks’ religious fervor was a hurricane in a bottle that we expected we could not stop from breaking.  That was our first week back.

For our second week, we worked to resurrect Blaine and for an encore, we would transform Basile into a Warren Elder.  Two years ago I was a junior squaddie in the Federation’s battle against the Horde.  Now I worked to lead a community on a spaceship in Wildspace that was a planet-sized tree and populated with 261 souls from a dozen species.  Somehow we would weld it all together into a functioning something or we would fail.  As we were working through our overwhelming tasks, two mysteries occurred.  Ratfolk who at first began disappearing, turned up murdered.  While conspicuously coincidental, but without an obvious connection, Skaz started sensing a stealthy presence in the woods: toying and watching him.

As that investigation unfolded, I roughed out a campaign for the next few weeks to bring the Integrity to life as a new ship:

1.      Salvage crashed spelljammers for spare materials and assemblies

2.      Use Fortuna’s magic to laydown a new frigate

3.      Using a team of gnome ship masters and rat folk labourers combine with Alexsis and the Aaturk on the ship’s superstructure and power systems.  They would tap the living force of the Integral trees

4.      Dedicate these personnel to this project and surround them with sustainment resources like housing and feeding

5.      Use neogi and their spelljammer to integrate the propulsion and control systems

As this shipbuilding project began forming into a viable effort, it was necessary to launch and prioritize an investigation into the ratfolk losses.  In short order Fortuna and Hazel determined that Duregar had been possessed and was killing ratfolk to then re-animate them as zombie minions.  Fortuna went into his ship and then the battle broke out.  We tried to subdue our opponents and their leader Brap but they fell under Fortuna’s blasts.  Sensing another power on the site, Fortuna turned her attacks on to the ship’s cat.  It was instead a vastly power entity named Church.  It had been following us for quite some time,  especially when we were in conflict with Thaleous.  Since the Ylfe capture of Brahl, Church decided that we were useful allies for the time being.

It’s time for our Diva to have her first concert. Time to Rock Brahl. (Think goblins singing against facism in a bar taken to an EPIC level) 

OP LEWIS

Scene opens. Khalid has built a small hut with the help of the two remaining Modrons, Cosine and Sine. Perhaps Tangent can be reanimated, resurrected, whatever the term is, but not now: that can wait. The hut would hold his cot in a hidden corner but would serve as his War Room. He put up maps of the system of Brahl, the surface of Brahl, sketches of organizations on Brahl and ideas of plans. In the Center of the room, the Modrons built him a sand table for downtown Brahl. 

On a small ramshackle table only Shroktath would call a desk are papers and objects related to the organization of the town and its inhabitants on their infantile journey crawl away from most certain annihilation. Everything else in the room focused on Brahl. 

For four days, Khalid spent all day of the third week back organizing the people, industry and actions of the town some were starting to call “Hope’s End”. He would get an hour of sleep and then work on plans for Brahl. Maybe another hour of sleep or food and start it all again. 

He was starting to get sharp with the various leaders amongst the ratfolk, gnomes and his own crew. Swearing in goblinish in increasingly less polite ways became a tell. When on the evening of the fifth day, an attempt at intervention by Shroktath became an argument and ended in a one way harangue that might have been hurt the orc more than a spear to the gut, no one knew what to do next? 

On the six night, Khalid was leaning over the model of Brahl and suddenly through his cup of ersatz coffee at it and slumped into his car. Then Catalina walked in, she looked at everything quietly and thoroughly. Khalid looked up at her and was obviously struggling with asking “what do you need?” And “get out..” followed by a goblinish profanity. Catalina just said “would you rather develop a perfect plan and see everyone here die screaming in pools of their own blood, would you rather let the goblins do what we do best?”

Khalid picked up his cup from the table and said, “OK, let’s hear about Operation Lewis”

Meta. I propose that for the recon of Brahl, in the spirit of a Lewis-level epic concert, the goblins and random other volunteers from Hope’s End will perform with the Diva. Separately, the four Privateers beam in (whatever) and do the actual info gathering. This would perhaps be the ultimate definition of “reconnaissance in force”. 

An alternative I would propose would be, this is the invasion. Turn the Recon in Force into Strike. Boldness at the level of General Patton 1943 Sicily making rock soup (Google it). [Perhaps in honour of Edgar’s absence, we have a new military tactic called “gravel stoo”.] 

Anyways, that is my proposal 

I figured that a perfect military plan is boring and completely inconsistent either way every success we have had. I thought embracing the chaos was better and statistically more likely to succeed spectacularly. 

He would (yes, conditional tense is used here since none of the other players have agreed) give the “go” to the epic rock concert plan with the Diva. He would then enable those that can affect the teleportation or whatever to jump them and figure out how to jump the Four of us. Next would be to line up a strike force (likely Aaturks) and figure out how and when they could get to Brahl. 

By that I mean: the goofy TV version of KISS and the A-Team from the movie where they flew a tank. I refuse the advice of Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr ) from “Tropic Thunder”: I want to go “total retard”. I will accept the judgement of HR when they haul me in the day after to explain my use of that term. 

DM ADDS

• Never interrupt the players while they are making a mistake...

• The Sailor flatly disapproves. "We have no idea what we'd be walking into. She could respond by going catatonic or kill thousands. If its a body count you crave, why not just release the Aartuk in Braal and have done with it." His confidence in you is wavering. 

• He could probably be convinced, but is skeptical and protective. Says the plan as is is very risky.

• When he sees you, he says he feels the presence of another Glitch on the Lumberstar. 

“If ‘Harumph’ was the type of sound that Shroktath made, he would have made it, and with feeling. 

He had just left Khalid’s war tent and endured the worst tongue lashing that he’d had in a long time. And from his brother-in-arms, no less. The old Shroktath, the one that Khalid had first met, might have been tempted to throw a punch. But Shroktath now, Shroktath the Gardener, was concerned for his friend. Concerned for their plan. 

While Shroktath always admired the drive, the zealousness, that Khalid brought to the table. He seemed almost like he’d driven himself into madness. And he couldn't shake the feeling that flinging the Diva at Braal in the hopes of having her somehow work her charms (to what end? How?) would likely end up in disaster. The Diva seemed like an enchanting, yet indiscriminate, death dealer. She didn’t seem to be a scout. 

But they did have a scout, of sorts. At least something who seemed to be allied in the purpose of removing the Ylfe from Braal, and something that had indicated it knew information on Braal. It’s just that this creature gave him the creeps. Shroktath looked up at the heavens and decided to go see Hazel. 

‘Hazel, my friend,’ he said. ‘I could use your help. I think we need to go and have a talk with Church. Hopefully it can tell us more about the situation in Braal. Some inside knowledge that might be helpful.’” 

The Beginnings of a Plan

1. MORE Intel.

Church + scrying

2. Attack and liberate our natural Braal allies currently imprisoned on Yessir.

2a) Diva and Ishmael might be quite useful here. 2b) Smaller mission, building strength as we liberate.

3. Infiltrate Braal

3a) Make contact with bigbrainBraal 3b) Make contact with potential allies still on Braal

4. Stage a distraction for the Ylfe. A few ideas come to mine

4a) Use the Aartuk (on, for example, the big nautiloid that we came in on) to attack an Ylfen outpost or ally (like the Compact of Steam and Steel). This might draw away Ylfen resources/attention. 4b) Tempt the Ylfe with a boon or threat elsewhere The promise of the Crown? The potential to capture (fake) us? 4c) Tempt the Psulron to attack the Ylfe (again, maybe with the idea that they could take the crown or whatever the heck it was that Jennifer had) 4d) other?

5. The attack on Braal

5a.i) From outside: Using the Kinori as transport vessels for those liberated from Yessir. 5a.ii) Others? 5b) From inside Us Dissenters/allies still on Braal BigbrainBraal 

Allies to pull together

Goblins and crew, Diva and Ishmael, Estooa (& Thatou? & other Architects?), Yurgon Gos and his mind flayer allies, Dowhar, The Kinori (space whales) ACLU, Janks (probably currently imprisoned on Yessir), Warrenfolk of Braal (currently likely either in hiding or imprisoned on Yessir), Big Brain of Braal (likely coerced/under control of the Ylfe), Our warrenfolk (likely not much help) 

(i) The Heroes of Ancorato (ii) Jennifer (iii) Other agents of The Unspoken (iv) The Lunar Elves on Sentar (v) Havelock (vi) Gump (and his brethren) (vii) Slyneak (the navy mechanic on the underside of Braal that helped us out rescuing Shilyn) 

Enemies of our enemy (i) Church (ii) Slavers (iii) Most of the factions on Braal likely are unhappy with the takeover (iv) The Psulron 

First Things, First

We solidify Basile 2 as the admin brain for the entire colony. He watches, he helps, he punishes. . . 

There is a brain chamber building built of stone, shaped by Hazel. Hazel has also formed a shadow well as a temple to Azail in the refugee camp. 

He has resurrected Blaine. 

He has cast regeneration on the Beholder 

He casts miracle on the Ratfolk refugees to awaken their ancestral knowledge. 

The influence of Basile and Hazels Alchemy dominion start to form an alchemy group within the refugees. Given the verdant environment seems like the way to go. 

DM ADDS

• After he is resurrected, Blaine gets drunk, tries to light Sapsuckers on fire and then disappears into the woods.

• Obashayhydan gives Hazel cause to wonder about the alchemical qualities of Beholder tears, shed in joy

Making the Liberation Happen

A question for me is what are the critical points we need to hit to allow the liberation to happen.

1. Weaken fleet

2. Uprising on the streets

3. Wipe their leadership

Etc. I do have a planetary teleport spell that can get us to Braal to do scouting and start off quiet. Through some Soldering rolls, divination and scrying I want to answer the above question first. 

SHROKTATH

4. Trying to get big brain Braal (literal nerve centre of the planetoid) at least semi-liberated should be added to that list 

Between sessions, bringing Church into the conversation, this is what she has to say: 

• The Board of Directors, even the Auditors, miscalculated the Imperyion’s hunger to reach the Phantom Sphere, I think. 

• After you broke the Ylfen blockade and disabled the Battle Herald, the Ylfe abandoned all pretext to diplomacy with the Board of Directors. They still did not have enough assets in place to invade and garrison Yesyr, let alone the Rock, but they had to show strength and save face. 

• On my behalf, Braap tried to broker an Ylfen takeover of Yesyr. Something that could be dragged on and on. That’s how I lost him. Though he was occasionally moist, he was useful. I admit, I had also misunderstood Ylfen intentions. I presumed they wanted a exert a bit of influence--move some undesirables from the Shattered Sphere and perhaps even from Braal--before again retreating. Not make another attempt to reorder the Spheres.

• On Yesyr, he gnolls put up a fight, as they are literally a “dog with a bone” and will only change when they no longer have balls to lick. As the Ylfe showed their willingness to sustain casualties, the rest of slaving interests slunk away to dominate the weak another day, simewhere else. Had the Braalean navy struck the Ylfe at that point, they might have avoided what came next. But they thought the Ylfe were making a mistake, and what’s the old Dwarven adage about not interrupting mistakes in progress? 

• After finally dispatching the last of the gnolls, the Ylfe dismantled Yesyr’s slave trade entirely. They began using its facilities as a gulag to redistribute surviving undesirables throughout the Imperyion, by The Lady’s Mercy. 

• This will of course push local slaving into the darkest corners, where even the Compact is unable to supervise and regulate it. So much for my life’s work. Try to do hominids a favour and out comes the spray bottle. *SIGH*

• I no longer believe the Ylfe intend to retreat. They make a show of wanting to destroy your beloved goblins – but why, really, when they’ve always proven such an effective bogeyman? They want the Crown of the Lost Sphere. I now see they are prepared to shatter Maglulon all over before they allow it to slip from their fingers again. In all likelihood, they fear the Psulron will get it first. 

• I thought the worms must have come close to getting it, but I see you are all still alive… so pwrhaps not that close. I am dying (again) to know how you threw them off. Frankly, that is what made me re-evaluate your potential usefulness. 

• So the Ylfe... First Yesyr. Then Braal. Then the Shattered Sphere and onward to mythical Sentar. My networks have since confirmed that a Hostile Takeover of Braal is all but complete. 

• With the Illithid tearing one another apart, there is no power in the Shattered Sphere that can slow their progress.

• Braal, as I knew it – all subtlety and maneuvering to maintain the balanced ecosystem between predators and prey, buying and selling, species and interests – is doomed. Whither the Auditors? Who knows? 

• What comes now is Vision Enforcement. Fundamentalism. Zealotry. And, if we are not careful, an apocalyptic Ylfe-Psulron war. 

• How far Braal has fallen since my departure, I know not. My network is no longer what it was.