USPS Session 21 & 21b: Its Curtains Report

General Summary

Session 21

After being informed by Tralljór's Jarl, Jarl Gudrun, of the fact that their group was specifically requested to assist in picking up the concert's sound equipment, Willow signed the group up to do so the following morning.
As Diaga flirted up Germaine of the band Vampire Weekend, learning more about his troubled home-life, Willow remembered that she had some letters to drop off and headed with Brynhil towards Tralljór's post office.
Upon arriving at the post office, Brynhil was filled-in about Willow's old friend Nessa whom she was delivering her messages to. Willow even added that Brynhil reminded her of Nessa, to which Brynhil smirked and wondered if "that means she has competition", to which Willow said "no way".
Upon payment of a fee, Willow delivered a letter and was given one back by the postman that had supposedly come in just earlier that day.
Opening the sealed envelope, Willow read a notice from her parents that they had caught wind of Willow ditching school and listed that they would send an evoy to clear the air.
Willow was dumbstruck, and so was Brynhil upon hearing this. Willow began immediately drafting a response letter to her folks and sent it off as well.
Roger and Harvoni popped in the post office, only for Roger to threaten the post office with arson. It was at this point at which Harvoni suggested that they change their name from Party 2 to The USPS, which was met with approval all-around
After Willow returned back to Tralljór's dining hall, Germaine invited Diaga back to the hotel his band was staying at, adding that she seemed like she would be pretty cool to party with.
After handing her a beer, the sleepless night of drunken practicing and story-telling began, which thankfully did not result in Diaga's exhaustion or in a hangover!
Sometime deep into the night, Diaga was even invited to help Vampire Weekend's performance in any way she could, and was even being considered to be inspiration for one of their future songs! Talk about fast friends!
Upon the next dawn, the rest of the festival was getting its final touches while Jarl Gudrun met our intrepid heroes in-front of the dining hall once more where two of the Jarl's own Vörubíll sat in waiting.
The whole crew as well as Brynhil were given the route which the Launcher was to be carrying the sound equipment on, and they planned out the long day of driving ahead.
Before setting off on the two vehicles, NPC Rumple offered Diaga a drink before getting behind the wheel to "steady her hands", to which she accepted and downed immdiately.
After driving for nearly 4 hours, stopping only to gather materials, Diaga heard the sound of an animal's cry for help come from nearby within the forests to the South of Tralljór.
Almost as if by clockwork, Diaga was able to go towards the cries, finding a young deer trapped between various differently-colored chemicals which seemed to have spilled from massive shipping crates surrounding it.
As Diaga used her telekinetic powers to transport the deer to safety, Diaga tried her best to salvage items from the remaining uncollapsed boxes while sending her bat to bring her friends to help.
Diaga managed to save 6 separate crates before the rest of Party 2, now the USPS, arrived to help out. After failing to stabilize the inevitable massive chemical explosion which was to soon follow, the party got out and dodged as they returned back to their Vörubíll as the chemical fire raged in the distance.
Right before leaving however, NPC Rumple notices that the crates are labeled with a Raseri crest.  "Typical" he thinks to himself...
After a few more hours of driving, the USPS got out of their Vörubíll to hear the sound of a loudly-roaring engine coming from the edge of the Feramonto Mountain range. They had found the stuck Launcher they were desparately after!
Upon walking up to the modified Launcher vehicle and assessing the major damages to the vehicle's wheels, a familiar face poked out of its cockpit, being Uta from all the way back in Utdanning!
Joined by a radio host from Ezlekh's Khuurmag named "Mountain Man Stan", Uta filled the party in on her research project and her journeys since they last saw eachother over half a month ago.
Uta then saw no time to waste as the USPS pushed the damaged Launcher out of the steep mud pit it wass trapped in, hooked it up to their Vörubíll and drove back to the village as to deliver the equipment on-time.
On their trip upwards, the group introduced their new compatriots to their old friend Uta, and got to learn a bit more of their other guest, Mountain Man Stan, whom Willow still could not recognize despite hearing of him previously.
At the end of the day, the crew arrived back in Tralljór to a crowd's applause, a crowd which the Jarl herself had assembled. As everyone was thanked for their hard work, Uta and Stan immediately went off to set up the equipment with other helpers as the rest of the USPS decided it was time to hit the hay after some quick shopping in-town.
Waking up the next morning, the USPS prepared themselves for the Soundwave Showdown which seemed like it was getting quite the early start already.
As thousands sat in the stands enjoying shows from various bands across the Malnovan continent, our adventurers checked out the different festivities to find a pie-eating competition going on just South of the vendor area.
Convincing Brynhil and Germaine to join the contest, Diaga, Harvoni, and Willow all ate to their hearts content from the 3 select pies they could choose from, those being fruit pies, spicy meat pies, and chess pies.
Though the competition was neck-and-neck halfway through the 30-minute competition, with each contestant eating between 11 and 13 pieces each, Harvoni wasn't able to keep up much long after and dropped out of the competition full and satisfied.
Willow began to cool off with just 10-minutes left on the clock, letting Diaga take a large lead over the competition, who's next best competitor was the Shifter named Venus from the band Night Shift.
At the 30-minute timer, Diaga manages to tough it out and win first place having eaten 27 pieces of pie, earning her 4 festival tickets! Tying for second-place and earning three tickets each are Willow and Venus.

Session 21b

Riding the high of their recent pie-gobbling mastery, Diaga, Willow, and Brynhil check out the rest of the minigames around the fair and choose their next game wisely
From their options, the crew end up choosing their next game to be Brain Sweat! a puzzle game taking place in a mysterious 15'-diameter tent
Brynhil warns that she went through the game last year and it can be very disorienting, as supposedly the space inside the tent works differently than the rest of Aekko
Walking through the tent's flaps, Diaga and Willow are greeted by a grey space where the air is very still and musty, with a large void sitting in-front of them and a singular piano to their right
As Willow begins playing random notes on the piano, platforms begin appearing that correspond to the notes being played. Spotting a few chests floating in the air, Willow carefully builds paths to go to those specific spots, earning the crew some pieces of adventuring gear, 2 Gold, and an additional Soundwave Showdown ticket!
As the crew loot all the chests in the void room, Diaga taking the lead on navigation while Willow makes the paths, the USPS then make a path to successfully all make it to the other side where one more chamber of this pocket dimension rests waiting for them
In the next chamber awaits 7 bells which all play different notes in ascending order. In the room's center lays a scroll which reads out a very long story of a seemingly pre-historic Malnova, Brynhil gladly plays storyteller here
The group then spot an inscription on the wall which seems to relate to the story, but has random blanks
After randomly guessing the right combination of notes, Willow and Brynhil end up filling in the first blank of AE
After a bit more time, as Diaga starts filling more blanks, Willow begins to slowly figure out that the notes she played spelled out the answer in the blank, leading the USPS to start putting two-and-two together, and completing the puzzle's incomplete story
As the last blank is filled with the word "baggage", the next chamber door opens, leading to a strange dwarven man in an outfit entirely covered in tickets. As the odd man rips 3 tickets off for each of our participants, he opens a portal behind him and kicks them all back right into the concert venue grasses
Upon their return, Brynhil lets Willow know that they are going to be on stage very soon. Acknowledging this, The Pläded Krona line up behind James Baylor and his band of fiends. As the two of them competitively taunt one another just before Baylor's set is to begin, Willow promises that she will come on top over Baylor despite him being the concert's headliner
As Germaine meets back up with Diaga, they begin to play the Peach Basket game, which Germaine warns Diaga is very rigged against them. Diaga also spots a sign which indicates that using magic is cheating, but nobody said anything about performance-enhancing potions...
Diaga tries her hand at each of the baskets and has absolutely no luck, and Germaine's encouragement does not seem to really get through her frustration
6 Silver down and 20 peaches without a basket, Diaga storms off to play some Glima and earn some tickets that way
After going over to the Glima ring and challenging her first opponent, Diaga easily takes the victory over the scrawny score-keeper, however it seems that was only the preliminary round
With another opponent to follow-up, Diaga faces a Goiiath whom she very easily defeats. Satisfied with her victories, she shops with her 8 tickets before lining up at the stage to watch The Pläded Krona's oncoming performance
Before going on-stage, Brynhil pulls Willow off to the side and has a discussion with her, revealing to Willow that she dropped out of school, and has been playing music to earn the money to pay for school
Willow offers to help Brynhil because her dad is in a fortunate position as a Tagnuul official.  Flattered, Brynhil responds with "(she)'s not always sure of what (she)'s doing, but is sure that (she) is always more comfortable being around her friends who are always travelling and helping people"
At this point, Willow asks if she can travel with the USPS, to which Willow gives an ecstatic "Absolutely!"
Realizing that they got caught up in the moment, James Baylor ends his set and The Pläded Krona are very-suddenly up next
With an assuring nod from Brynhil, The Pläded Krona begin their set with a song called "Lines Drawn in the Sand" about being against a war fought between brothers on both sides
After that jam and a solo from Willow, the folk band get a large amount of applause as they play a few more songs before going into Willow's personal pick "Slim Pickin's" which is mainly dueted by herself and Brynhil
After another stellar performance, and a few other smaller songs, The Pläded Krona play their final song being their anthem "Stars Align" about enjoying the open road and the lives they've led up until now
Ending with a massive round of cheers for the both of them, and even a firework or two, The Pläded Krona walk off stage as the metal band from Heilagur named Spare the Dying play their best after a hard act to follow
Mostly done with their first song, the band stops as a large explosions rock the air in the distance, and a large forest fire can be seen coming from the South.  The Jarl quickly runs up on stage announcing that the people of the village are to quickly evacuate, as Tralljór has become a battleground between the Ezlekhian and Vomethndan forces
As the village erupts into chaos and panic, Brynhil goes to fetch her sister and her stuff, while Tseren does the same with his dad Naut.  Germaine goes to run after his bandmates and to help out the villagers, leaving the USPS on their own.
Thankfully, Willow follows Brynhil, meanwhile Diaga goes to help out various villagers.  Willow breaks the news of the battle to Brynhil's Promatican sister Zasha, all the while Diaga saves a couple of children in the local theatre as she continues her role as the warrior princess from the play they performed
Diaga then hands the kids off to Vanpire Weekend, as she notices a collapsed building with a man trapped by the collasped rafters on the inside.  Heroically saving the man with a show of brute strength, Diaga gets the man to safety and begins following people to the Northeast side of town
After meeting North of Tseren's house, Willow and Brynhil invoke the "aire of a true Vomethndan" in order to get Naut out of his chair and out of the village.  Just to the Northeast, a large congregation of people are gathered, waiting to escape the village when it is safe to do so.
As the rest of the USPS catch up, including Rumple with a large keg in-hand, the USPS begrudgingly roll the two Vörubíll forward to attempt to make a pathway for the trapped villagers
Just then, Uta points to the North where she sees her research project's inventions, the Iron Wardens, being used as weapons of war, leaving her totally distraut
The USPS then inch forward on their vehicles as modern Ezlekhian Launcher approaches the village and aims at the mercenaries
With quick thinking, Diaga grabs the flaming projectile out of the Launcher and embeds it into the machine, bursting it into pieces
Just as the rest of the crew clear the way, they are then swarmed by a squadron of Bombardier pilots.  Diaga does her best to try and knock them out, but they manage to break through the cloud of her smoke blanket and the troops ascend the vehicles and manage to take both Brynhil and Uta away with them
At the last second, Diaga relays to Willow that those who were kidnapping Brynhil were wearing insignias bearing elephants gazing at the sun, which Willow quickly realized belonged to Tagnuul's House Barimt
With an enemy now in mind, and a few Vörubíll for ease of travel, Willow seeks her revenge on her very own people, ending the session...

Campaign

Lines Drawn in the Sand

Protagonists

Harvoni Bodma

True Neutral* Shifter (Apothecary)
Druid 7

59 / 59 HP

STR
10

DEX
15

CON
17

INT
15

WIS
18

CHA
11

Roger

Neutral Evil Fallen Aasimar (Outlander)
Warlock 7
Fighter 1

59 / 59 HP

STR
13

DEX
12

CON
14

INT
9

WIS
13

CHA
18

Willow Ulgen

LG Satyr (Noble)
Bard 9

72 / 72 HP

STR
10

DEX
16

CON
17

INT
13

WIS
14

CHA
20

Diaga

True Neutral Yuan-Ti (Mystek Punk)
Fighter 10
Wizard 3

132 / 132 HP

STR
16

DEX
10

CON
16

INT
16

WIS
9

CHA
10

Rumple Bumpskin

Forest Gnome (Noble)
Rogue 8

34 / 34 HP

STR
11

DEX
18

CON
10

INT
14

WIS
9

CHA
7

Player Journals

The Battle of the Bands - Journal 21 by Harvoni Bodma

Report Date

08 Dec 2024

Primary Location

Tralljór

Related Characters

• Utathur Töfram