Changing of the Guard

General Summary

Introduction

Cassandra, Tidran , and Sirkel  celebrated their victory over the Yellow Serpents. They all took a minute to catch their breath after the intense battle. The Ivannian soldiers cleared the decks and the airships rose gracefully above the wreckage of their battle. Suddenly, a rhythmic clanging broke out, and the deck of the airship began to vibrate!

Meanwhile, back in Ivannia, Morganna Anne Louise Estelle of Ivannia was a bit anxious for her friends. She realized that they were experienced enough to look out for themselves, but she couldn't help but feel some trepidation until they returned. Dariyana  and Farren joined Morganna and the three discussed Bonaparte's report of the battle. They were all relieved when the report of victory came through, and they looked forward to rejoining their friends again.

Battle Damage

  On board the Ivannia airship, Cassandra was worried. Before the battle the ship had been silent and the decks had felt rock-steady even during a thunderstorm the night before. Now, the decks vibrated and a rhythmic clanging could be heard. Sirkel took charge of figuring out what was going on. He instinctively led the group towards the engine room for the might vessel, and soon spied a group of grease-spattered soldiers busy working on something. 

The Delve marched up to the men and demanded to know if the ship was in any danger. One of the soldiers looked up sheepishly. He answered "The ship should be fine, just this gyro-magnor is out of balance." Sirkel knew a vague answer when he heard one. He again pressed the soldiers to explain what had happened. Two of the soldiers glared at the third man who now looked mildly embarrassed. "Well," he explained "I, um, opened the hatch to watch when the Morl came aboard. A piece of its tentacles was, ah, flung through the hatch during the fighting, and the acid on it, um, messed up the engine. The ship is ok, but it will be slower and much louder until we get it fixed."

Repairs Needed

Cassandra knew from the incredible scarlet color of the man's cheeks that he was telling the truth. The trio trudged out of the now noisy engine room when their wrist communicators chimed with a message from Jean Bonaparte. He summarized the engine damage and suggested that while they could press on, they would lose their stealth advantage. He recommended it would probably be better to return to Ivannia and repair the damage before striking out at the Yellow Serpents again. Tidran messaged back the group's agreement. The massive ships both turned back and began flying back to the city; one was noticeable slower than the other. 

  Morganna's communicator chimed with a message from Bonaparte. He informed her the ships were fine but would be returning to port for some minor repairs. Morganna informed her friends of the message and they speculated about what the issue could be.

House Business

However, Morganna did not have all day to idly wonder about the military. She had received a breakfast invitation from her uncle which she planned on attending. The princess got ready for the day and then joined her friends and uncle in the Estelle dining room. Grazelle  was also in attendance for breakfast. 

  Morganna's Uncle Francois Estelle soon explained the purpose of their breakfast chat. He was quite happy with Morganna's decision to become the next councilor, and wanted to offer his advice on how to best achieve that end. He and Grazelle took turns going over some of the important things Morganna should consider to assure her appointment.

Firstly, Houses Pesant and Arouet would push hard to have a council representative as they did not currently have a council vote. Next, each house (with the possible exception of House Thibodeau) would probably prefer to have a second vote on the council but some of them could most likely be persuaded to vote for Morganna instead. Grazelle recommended that the princess visit each House and attempt to secure their support before the council met to decide who the new councilor would be. Francois Estelle suggested that her friendship with Bonaparte would help quite a bit in securing their vote. He further added that he would use all of his connections to persuade the council to vote for Morganna. 

A Castaway?

  Meanwhile, the Ivannian airships move on across the Sere Marica. Suddenly, a red light began to blink on the pilots station, and a soft alarm chimed! Cassandra quickly asked the pilot what the alarm was. "Its a humanoid proximity alarm" she replied. The pilot looked at her instruments for a moment and then continued "It looks as though there is a single human stranded on a bunch of debris in the ocean beneath us." Tidran asked if it was possibly a Yellow Serpent. "No" the pilot answered "we've moved much further from the wreckage. It's not possible for any of it to have floated that fast". 

Viktor shook his head and looked around. He remembered being in a terrible storm the night before but couldn't remember much before that. A wave washed over his foot. He sat up and found himself on some sort of wreckage surrounded by nothing but water so far as he could see. A shadow blotted out the pale sunlight. He looked up and saw two enormous warships in the sky. They paused, and then began descending towards him! He looked around for a weapon and noticed he was wearing a pair of rings that seemed to surge with electricity. He put his fists up into a defensive position and watched as the airships descended towards him. 

Tidran stood at the boarding ramp as the ship approached the wreckage. The pilot swung the side around to face the stranded man, and then opened the boarding ramp. Tidran saw a wild-eyed man with his fists up staring guardedly at him. Tidran introduced himself and his friends to the man on the wreckage. "I'm Viktor" the man replied, although he still kept his fists up in a guard stance. Sirkel saw that the man didn't really trust the group, and threw him a piece of rock cake from his pocket. To his surprise, the man caught it and easily crumbled the rock-hard confection into crumbs. After some back and forth conversation, Cassandra finally convinced Viktor to put his fists down and join them on a ride to shore at least. Viktor finally decided that the group wasn't going to kill him straight away and decided to take his chances and come along. 

Reunion

  Back in Ivannia, Dariyana, Farren, and Morganna all received a chime simultaneously on their communicators. The airships were back! They quickly ran and hovered to the docks at House Bonaparte to greet their friends. The airships came into view and then with a clang they settled into their docks. Tidran, Cassandra, and Sirkel came out and greeted their friends. The group spent a few minutes catching each other up on their adventures!

Jean Bonaparte greeted the group as well and then strode purposefully toward one of his soldiers wearing a greasy uniform. Jean produced a very small brush which he handed to the greasy soldier. The man appeared to by trying to sink into the ground as Jean thundered "You will proceed to the 83rd sub-basement of the tertiary storage complex and you will use only this brush to clean the mold from ALL of the 1,824 expired nutrient storage bins. Do I make myself clear?". With a dejected look, the soldier replied "Yes sir!" and trudged away with a heavy tread.

Mo noticed a rather damp man with wild eyes follow the group off the airship. Cassandra quickly introduced Viktor to the group, and Morganna have him permission to stay as part of her retinue if he so desired. As the group was getting acquainted, a messenger approached with several notices addressed to the entire group. 

Choices

  One message, marked "Extremely Urgent" was from the founders of Beyonder's Blades. The settlement was under attack from Skysmashers and begged the adventurers for aid and food. Another message was from House Cousteau and mentioned that one of their security artificial intelligences was malfunctioning; Cousteau requested aide in fixing the issue. Bonaparte too sent a message saying that the airships would be repaired later that day and would take off again as soon as they were ready. 

Dariyana decided to go see if she could help with the airships; she wanted to help bring down her previous employers, the Yellow Serpents, any way she could. Morganna chose to visit House Cousteau and see about the malfunctioning AI. The rest of the group were extremely worried about their settlement, and they asked Morganna for an emergency permission to use a teleporter to return to Beyonder's Blades in time. 

Morganna agreed to ask the Ivannian council about the teleporter. When she explained the situation to her uncle, he agreed and called an emergency meeting of the council to be held that day. With a little bit of time to spare, the group visited the merchants for some much needed supplies. They all stocked up on powerful cyphers to aid in their fight, and several bought portable food generators to bring with them as well.

The council met for their emergency session. Morganna quickly explained the situation and was successful in persuading the council to allow a portal to Beyonder's Blades. The group thanked the council, took their supplies and quickly stepped through the shimmering portal. Morganna watched her friends disappear through the portal and then resolutely walked to House Cousteau to see what she could do.

Desperate Encounters

  The group appeared from their portal a short distance from the settlement. Instead of the lush green forest they had left, they saw a black and gray landscape of burned trees. Smoke hung in the air, small fires still burned here and there. In the distance, a crashing sound told of an enormous creature moving about. The party quickly hurried to the settlement which looked scorched but was still standing. 

They located the founders at the inn. Many people were coming and going asking for advice and carrying out urgent tasks. The founders wearily greeted the party. Bane's armor was scorched and his shoulders slumped with fatigue. Irond sat cradling his head in both hands. Nilsa was trying to fix a blunted battle-axe. Tobeon was gingerly wrapping bandages over his blistered knuckles. Spensa's staff with melted nails leaned in the corner. Kae's lizard looking creature curled in the corner nursing burns to its scales. Adaelia sat trying to patch up some broken armor. Ephyra leaned tiredly at the counter. 

Bane explained that they had defeated several sky-smashers and finally been forced to retreat and re-group. He warned of the creatures abilities but pleaded with the adventurers to try and eliminate the one that was closest to the settlement. The group agreed and hastily set off. Guided by the sound of snapping trees, they tracked down the enormous creature which at first completely ignored them. They charged in and a fierce battle ensued! Despite taking some damage, their preparation paid off and they were able to finally slay the alien creature. However, as it died it emitted a massive wave of searing plasma in all directions! The group was caught and suffered burns, with Viktor catching the worst of the damage. 

Meanwhile, back above the desert wastes, Morganna arrived at House Cousteau. The head of the house was grateful and explained that the Ivannian security outposts were controlled in part by machine intelligences. One of them had somehow gained full sentience and was now preventing anyone from entering that outpost. He asked Morganna to either fix the machine or destroy it.

Morganna entered the security outpost's out door. The sharp lines of the outpost stood in firm contrast to the surrounding architecture. As she opened the door, she saw the large, insectoid machine working at a control panel. Suddenly, a force field flared up preventing her from going any further! Morganna smiled, vanished, and then teleported beyond the force field next to the creature!

Unfortunately, this was a military machine will full access to all the advanced sensors of the outpost. It sensed Morganna's presence and slashed viciously, catching the Jack with a sharp talon. Morganna attempted to reason with the machine, going so far as to offer it control of all the outposts if it would agree to cooperate once again. The machine however pulled up a hologram of Ivannia and showed the princess how each outpost had its own intelligence, and those intelligences would not allow it to control them. The Accelerator's narrow-minded logic baffled Morganna, and she finally decided to surprise the machine with an attack!

The Accelerator surprised the princess however when it managed to counter all of her attacks. Furthermore, it kept trying to run away which puzzled Morganna. She even tried using her gravity abilities to drop it from a tall height, but it was able to hover gracefully down instead of crashing to the floor. The fight ebbed back and forth down a long corridor as the creature continued to try and get away. Morganna chased it for a time but suddenly her massive output of effort caught up to her. She nearly stumbled as a wave of fatigue crept over her. The accelerator slipped into a maintenance hatch; the princess watched in disappointment as it disappeared. 

Morganna dejectedly and tiredly returned to Cousteau and informed him he would need to start building another artificial intelligence. He was disappointed as the cost of such a machine would be very high. The princess was chagrined at having been fought to a stand-still and determined to come back with her friends at some point in the future.