Session 56

Chased From the Skies

Date: Wednesday, 9 June, 2021
Attending Players: Ashara, Embra, Ish'Mael, Victalyassa
Time 3 Hours (Total: 185 Hours)

Game Time 21st of Sowmeadow, 6:00 PM
To
21st of Sowmeadow, 6:05 PM
Game Locations:
Just outside of Valtaska in an airship

The guards stood tall on the southern tower of the four horsemen. They slowly meandered around the top, their duty largely symbolic in this peaceful age. From the northern end, they could see the busy activities of the guilds. The old base having largely been converted, expanded, and reconstructed into a miniature city of its own, detached but a part of greater Valtaska.

As the oldest of the three guards walked around the western bend toward the southern edge, he observed the strange clouds in the sky, what appeared to be another sandstorm rolling through the skies. They were told it was just spring storms catching, lifting, and dragging sand from the Novy Wastes, but it was always unsettling to see them in the sky like that, drifting in their own directions, seemingly ignoring the weather of the world for their own machinations. He swore it must have something to do with the gods, but the priests have all stated it was unrelated to the divine.

Pulling his gaze away, he continued his path southward.

A glint caught his eye, something in the sky.

Turning back, he focused toward it. It was at the back end of the sandstorm, but there was something shimmering within it. Airships constantly flew through these skies, so that was likely. He moved back toward the eastern wall and grabbed ahold of the spyglass that was built into the wall and shifted the large scope toward the storm.

For several moments, he turned and twisted the scope, trying to see through the heavy haze that the storm brought. A shadow passed through the clouds, and he swiveled to follow it.

His breath caught just as he saw the airship break through the bottom of the sandstorm. The front was smashed in, and both balloons were heavily deflated. The ship was crashing.

"Shayto, get the scouts. We have an airship going down!" The guard tried focusing on the ship, but could not zoom any closer. As he continued to scan it, he saw two more shadows in the background, each moving much slower and still obscured behind the sand. He hoped they may have been lifeboats. "And grab the clerics! There may be survivors!."

The sandstorm came out of nowhere, as it did the entire ship rocks and quakes from behind, almost as if it was an explosion. The ship tilts slightly with the party inside. "Ish Ma'el you fool, control the wind better...!" yells Ashara.
Ish Ma'el grumbles, "that wasn't from me, that came from the back..." He grasps his neck from the sudden jerking movement and stares out the front window. Victalyassa moves to his window and gives eye contact as if to ask what is happening without having to mouth the words. His looks of concern are answers enough.
Embra looks to the queen and Kivini before running to the starboard window and looking as far back as she can.
"Do you hear that?" asks Vic.
"Sounds like someone is on top of the ship," replies Ish Ma'el.
Out of the window in front of Ashara on the port side, a massive Drake, larger than a horse can be seen drifting through the wind, at home is the sand. "I don't think these are people boarding us, there is a massive Drake out the window and there may be more out there!" she yells.
The pilot seems stressed as he is pulling levels and pulleys. Ish Ma'el recognizes that the pilot is giving the ship full steam. Ish Ma'el asks the pilot to keep the ship as steady as he can while the party finds the access hatch to step onto the top of the airship. As this is said, the Drake on top of the ship slams his massive claw into the glass of the helm by Ish Mael and Vic. The pilot gives out a welp. "Well, seems there are at least 2," says Vic, looking up at the spider web-looking glass.
"I'm going out to fight, I won't sit here and wait for the beast," exclaims Ashara, opening the window, with her climbers kit in hand. The window cracks open enough for her to fit through, and she leans out. She throws it out the window, which gets caught on the air from the edge of Ish Ma'els bubble of wind. It whips around for a bit before flying back into the bubble and hooking onto the side of the ship. Ashara grabs the rope tightly and steps out onto the hull. She climbs to the top of the ship and can see the Drake on top of the ship, she begins to move to it. A hooded figure can be seen on top of the Drake, ominously. "If I can touch you, I can kill you" she says to herself with the loud wind just outside the bubble trying to force its way in.
From the port side of the ship, another hooded figure, clearly a sand cultist, fires a crossbow at Ashara. The bolt is seemingly redirected before it hits her as her guardian chimes in to get her attention. The drake in front of her falls through the window as her attention is brought back to the front. The Drake had slammed its mighty claws into the window, shattering it and causing it to stumble and slip into the ship. The drake lands on its side by Vic and Ish Ma'el, on top of the pilot, as it fails to keep itself upright in the accidental fall. A single Marleek arm can be seen twitching in a pool of blood before going limp.
A sand cultist and Bleak Priest get up off the ground between the heroes. The Sand Cultist strikes at Victalyassa, cutting through her hair and into her shoulder with a ritual dagger. Ish Ma'el moves to the far back wall as the Drake takes a snap at him, though missing. Ish Ma'el hits the back wall in fear, bouncing off and casting Shatter on all three enemies. The Sand Cultist is rocketed against the side of the ship as his neck hits a sidebar, he collapses instantly as the helm is slammed by the thunderous force of the attack; the bleak priest and drake rock in pain. Against Ish Ma'el efforts, what was left and operational of the wheel also shatters into wooden shrapnel.
Victalyassa, rocked by the sudden change of experience from only seconds before, goes into a primal rage of sorts and takes her anger out on the drake. She strikes hard and fast into the drake in front of her, breaking its ribs as its scales are broken and act as little daggers into the dragons own hide. She then unleashed a flurry of blows, jumping onto the drakes legs, but lacking the ferocity of her first attack, she can hardly crack through a new set of scales. She leaps off of the leg and dashes away to the back of the ship, hoping to avoid the retribution of the drake as it begins to get up.
Embra makes a mad dash for the open window that Ashara climbed through, Ish Ma'el moving back made her window unusable. She grabs for the hanging climbers kit that Ashara left behind and begins to climb up the side of the ship. She turns and pulls her hand crossbow off her belt, only grasping the rope with one hand, and firing at the Sand Cultists riding on the Drake. He falls off the saddle into the sand outside of Ish Ma'el bubbles, unable to cry out in fear or pain with her bolt lodged in his throat.
The Drake which he was riding tears into the port side balloon by the side of the ship as the ship rocks violently. Ish Ma'el is knocked prone to the ground, but the rest of the party remains upright as they grab for anything nearby.
"Okri knows about you, there is no where our storms won't chase you. We will hunt you down to the ends of oblivion, die now or forever live hunted," says the bleak priest standing over Ish Mael. She casts Blindness at him, and his world slips into blackness. Ish Ma'el answers the priest's monologue by sending another Shatter into the same area, damaging the priest and her drake as he grasps for the side wall and begins to shuffle away. He digs into his own eyes trying to remove the magic and somehow is successful in removing his blindness.
Ashara thinks hard as her original target is now out of sight and grasp. She casts the Haste rune onto herself and moves faster than Victalyassa could on her own. Ashara jumps onto the nearby rope, keeping one hand on the lateral rope and scaling across the port balloon. Within seconds, she is in the same location as the drake, which rocked the ship by biting the balloon earlier. Ashara unsheathed her Katana along her path and swipes it into the back of the drake. The drake and its single sand cultists passenger shriek and lift up as Asharas second swipe nearly misses. The sand cultist on top takes a swipe into the air where Ashara is, but in the speed of the action, he cuts a nearby piece of rope, missing her.
Victalyassa continues to move to the back of the ship to make sure that the passengers are okay. She sees Kivini against the back table and wall, keeping his face behind the table to prevent any of the sand on the outside of the bubble from Ish Ma'el, inside the ship, from whipping his face. She makes a hand gesture to Kivini to keep him quiet and out of the fight as she turns to run back to the drake and priest. She moves with such speed that she uses hardly any pressure to lift herself up into the air in a long jump, to strike at the back of the drake, which has nearly forgotten about her after the shatter. She strikes at it multiple times before she lands by its side.
Embra finishes her climb to the top of the ship and fires a crossbow bolt at the Sand Cultist nearby Ashara. The shot perfectly cuts through the neck of the Sand Cultists and in the speed of the movement, his head erupts in front of Ashara. As this happens, the drake had turned to attack Ashara, barely missing with its razor sharp teeth. The drake flies up into the air, kicking its tail up and slamming it into Ashara. The blow shatters through her guardians protects and seemingly cracks her rips for some major damage. In the blow, Ashara loses the concentration on the haste rune on her skin and the magic dissapates across her body once again. The drake flies to the top of the ship, out of her reach, as she struggles to keep her balance on the balloon. As the drake lands, the ship rocks and Embra nearly slips off the top of the ship, hanging above the caged propellers below.
Ashara notes her options and steps 5 feet up onto the balloon. She latches her arm through the rope nearby and pulls the Soulshard she has from her belt pocket. In hand, Ashara can feel the sad and pitiful fragment of the Geomancer, confused of its broken and fragmented state, and she crushes it in her hand into a powerful dark energy. She, coldly, flings it at the Drake hoping to damage it, but mostly hoping to distract the beast, so she can jump across to the top of the ship without opposition. She leaps and, purposefully, lands by Embra, pushing her forward to stop her from possibly falling off the side of the ship. Ashara then moves to hopefully be the first thing the drake sees as it recovers from the Geomancers soul.
Back inside the ship, Victalyassa narrowly avoid the tail swing of the drake, still standing over the top of the dead pilot. As it swings its tail back to the center, it is caught in Ish Ma'els third Shatter attack and the tail does just that. Bits of scales and meat from the tail of the Drake fill the helm of the ship as it lurches forward in pain. Victalyassa takes the opportunity to strike into the face of the Drake with such a quickness that it rocks its brain inside its skull. She then jumps onto his back, punching him over and over into the ball joints that attach the wings as the crack and fall limp. The Drake begins screaming and writhing in pain for several seconds as it slowly collapses to the ground, dead. Victalyassa quickly jumps off the fallen drake and runs back to check on the passengers again.
Embra gets up from her prone position that she was knocked to when Ashara pushed her forward. She sees the burning dark magic on the chest of the drake, and she grabs for her magical scarf. She whips the drake with the scarf and pulls her rapier out with another hand, stabbing the blade of the rapier into its chest cavity. The drake jumps backward to remove the blade and pulls back. Ashara and Embra both try to swing and hit each other's blades. Before they could react, the drake unleashes a blast of Sand from its mouth, cutting into the two heroes as they try to block their face from the pain.
The ship continues to tilt, now reaching a near 20-degree tilt as air continues to blow out of the port balloon. Ashara moves toward the drake and activates the chain rune on her Katana. Three black and purple smokey chains extend from her blade and reach out to surround the drake, she uses the dark energy to get perfect strikes on the drake and damage it as it tries to wriggle away from her, leaping and jerking its wings violently. Embra stabs into the beast again as the drake beats its wings rapidly to shake sands out around it in a defense mechanism. Ashara takes two more swings with her blade, using her chains to give her an advantage, as one of the swings connects she attempts to restrain the best, but it uses all of its strength to continue on.
Ish Ma'el picks up the devastated wheel, covered in blood and horribly destroyed, and notes that the ship is fucked. He remembers that there are a pair of lifeboats, small wooden boxes which have the Featherfall spell effect that can be cast on the inside by pulling a special lever, which can be found nearby. He moves to the devices by the ship control and maneuvers the levers in a way that they can be used to keep the ship steady before its inevitable crash. Victalyassa corrects her balance from the ships continued tilt and runs to the queen and Kivini to gather them. The queen is screaming into her bag as Kivini begins to get up and move towards Vic. "Where did the others go?" asks Vic to Kivini.
He explains that Embra and Ashara jumped out the window, but he didn't see where or what they are doing. Vic goes to the window, where Ish Ma'els bubble is pulled too far from now to see anything other than the sand in front of her, and she tries to yell for them. The yell falls on deaf ears as it cannot penetrate into Ish Ma'els bubble from her current position. The drake leaps up into the air away from Embra and Ashara, who both miss yet again in their attempt to hit it. In a last ditch effort, Ashara draws the rune for Fireball into the air and launches it at the drake as it flies up into the air. The ball hardly clips the drakes wing, as it bats it to the side while flying away. Ashara throws her hands into the air and starts to move to the cracked, open window of the helm. Embra is not shaken, and she fires her crossbow bolt into the back of the drake, hitting it as the final action taken against the drake before it flies away completely.
Ashara drops into the helm of the ship, landing in the blood and guts of the battle that occurred here in the last few minutes. "I was in the wrong battle" she says, looking up to Ish Ma'el. "How are you saving us? And you better be fixing this situation, not killing us..."
Ish Ma'el explains what happened and how the lifeboats in the back of the ship can get them out. They all move to the back of the ship. Ish Ma'el, Ashara, and the muffled screaming, completely confused, queen get into the starboard raft. Embra, Victalyassa, and Kivini get into the other raft, and they begin to descend out of the ship and through the surrounding sandstorm. "Wow Ish Ma'el, this is the most useful you have ever been. Don't get too cocky though," says Ashara, as Ish Ma'els bubble keeps them free from any Sand, and they descend into the forest nearby Valtaska.