OttL Session 6: A wide variety of deeply concerning things

General Summary

The session begins with Natsu, who has spent the last session telling fortunes in Lucileastil. She set up a small tent with a couple of candles and was taking complete advantage of the wealthy but naive populace, walking away with over 400 gold. As she is doing this, however, she spots Kiri, not-so-subtly watching her from a distance.
Natsu comes over to say hello, and proceeds to roll absurdly well at every check in their conversation. This includes two sequential natural 20s. As a result, a great deal of exposition occurs:

• Kiri herself is in town for work. When asked about this she simply shows the Ragnarok Brand on her left hand, marking her as a member of the Einherjar. Natsu is aware that this effectively makes her a superhero.
• Kiri has also been following the party. It is implied, though not outright stated, that she is also the one that was leaving scrying runes on Barry the Airship.
• When asked what she was doing, she launches into a long explanation about The World of Forms and Avatars. She explains that they believe the next avatar is already on the Prime Material Plane, and potentially poses a significant threat to The multiverse.
• Kiri also explains Conduits, individuals capable of channeling from a specific Form as a source of power.
• Kiri herself is the conduit of consequence, capable of seeing "major turning points" in a person's life. To demonstrate, she shakes Natsu's hand and sees her birth, the first day she was able to stand on two legs, and the day she lost her father.
• When Kiri tried this trick on Hobbs in Session 2: New friends Report, however, she was terrified to discover that it did not work on him. She could tell there were many, many branches, but she could not see what any of them were. The visions were dark, cloudy, and hazy. This lines up with some visions Natsu admits to having had about Hobbs, regarding a large number of people and a giant orb. Natsu deliberately withholds information about this vision and crits the resulting deception check.
• Kiri explains that she is trying to determine whether or not Hobbs is the next Avatar, which would effectively make him an apocalypse walking on four legs.
• She gives Natsu a magical black vial which, when broken, will break a similar one that Kiri holds on her person. She instructs Natsu to smash it if Hobbs proves to be dangerous and she needs help.

After this, Natsu returns to the ship. Bosgosho and Hobbs run into her on the way back. Memento Vitae, who was also searching, instead runs into an old beggar. He agrees to give the beggar some change and also his staff, at which point the beggar reveals himself to be The Traveler, a literal god, who claims to have spoken to Memento Vitae three times before. Comparably little exposition comes from this conversation, though The Traveler does tell Memento Vitae to "not take things so seriously" and that if he wants to get what he wants he needs to step up his game a little, meet interesting people, and collect "fun stories".  The Traveler departs, saying he has a meeting about the end of all things.  He is struck by lightning and disappears.
The remainder of the session is spent with a wide variety of travel scenes:

• Hobbs and Natsu brew copious amounts of beer
• Bosgosho banters with Ignacio Icarsus, plotting ways to get rich.
• Thaiva Phenol makes one more search for runes and finds nothing of note
• Ignacio Icarsus finds an unlabelled box attached to the engine with lots of knobs, buttons, and blinking lights.  It draws considerable power from the engine, but there is no apparent output and Ignacio has no idea what it does.  Ignacio Icarsus asks if he can mess with it, and is promptly warned that this may have dramatic, unexpected consequences. 
• He asks Bosgosho about it also, who deduces this box is some sort of prototype. 
• Ignacio then asks Izar about it, who says it was part of one of Murdoch's mad experiments, related to long distance travel and teleportation through The Void. 
• Izar suggests that they could ask Murdoch about it directly the next time they are in Durhambia.  Ignacio Icarsus agrees to this, and locks the box to prevent tampering in the meantime.
• Dreamonskii arrives on the airship, and has to slurp his wings back into his own body to navigate the cramped quarters.
• Dreamonskii grills Natsu about her presence, asking if she is "hitting on his man".  He also inquires as to why an angel is on the ship. This, of course, offends Natsu greatly, which leads Dreamonskii to realize that she is actually Zenko, instead of the Aasimar he had assumed she was.
• Dreamonskii banters with Hobbs for a good while.  A complete list of the names Hobbs uses to refer to his crewmates is discusses as well (Ignacio: The Short One, Vitae: The Loud One, Boshgosh: The Quiet One/Boyo, Thaiva: The Nice One, Dreamonskii: The Scary One, Izar: The Captiain, Natsu is Natsu)
• Dreamonskii does also go talk to Izar for a while, who apparently owes him money, and takes the time to badmouth whoever is tying some of the sloppy knots he is seeing around the ship.
• Bosgosho attempts to fix this problem while Dreamonskii is in Izar's office, but this does not go well.  He ends up getting a safety lecture from Dreamonskii, who is adamant that he needs to take his knot tying more seriously and teaches him a bit about the topic.  Bosgosho also takes this as an opportunity to discuss capitalism with Dreamonskii, and gets some more ideas about what to sell in Esma.  During this, Dreamonskii briefly mentions that fiends are immune to the Moon Plague.
• Bosgosho talks to Ignacio Icarsus and Hobbs about selling his "knockout juice" to the populace.  Neither of his companions are keen on this plan
• Thaiva Phenol talks to Izar about her bounty, and asks if they could take her to Montia to talk to her parents.  Izar is concerned about this, but still agrees.  He tells Thaiva Phenol that the crew would be happy to help her if she is in some kind of trouble, but Thaiva Phenol insists she has no idea why they placed a bounty on her capture.
• Dreamonskii and Hobbs briefly discuss how hard it is to have a relationship when only one of them remembers their history together.  Hobbs is very upset he can't remember anything, but Dreamonskii seemed willing to start over from the beginning again.  He also promises to check up on Hobbs at least once a month to make sure he doesn't forget anything again.
• Dreamonskii also takes the chance to thank Hobbs once again for how much he helped him on the Astral Sea.  According to him Hobbs has helped quite a lot of people during his time on El Pollo Diablo.
• Dreamonskii spends the evening drilling (not that kind) both Bosgosho and Memento Vitae.  They each gain half proficiency in basic boating but suffer a point of exhaustion in the process.
• Bosgosho takes some of the knockout juice and hides it under a candle in his room
• Memento Vitae makes an offering of knockout juice to Lolth, rolls surprisingly well despite being at disadvantage, and receives an answer in the form of a spider that appears, crawls into the tankard, and closes the lid behind it.
• When Memento Vitae opens the lid, a huge spider leaps out and jumps at his face.  Memento Vitae dodges, but the spider grows to tremendous size (about knee height) in only a few seconds.  Shortly after this giant spider explodes into 92 "small", tarantula-sized spiders.
• These small spiders turn out to be fey creatures, and begin spreading throughout the ship.  The spiders also talk.
• Dreamonskii eats one, and announces they are delicious, hallucinogenic, and "scream on the way down"
• The session ends when one of the 92 91 smaller spiders discovers the engine room and they all begin to stampede in that direction.

Report Date

13 Jun 2020