Session 2
General Summary
Slavers, Suicide, and Saffron
We rejoin our crew of the Era Dawn split between two locales, we first rejoin the Vic and Satiah at the Rock Rat bar, a seedy bar in the lower city of Bral. Entering the bar the atmosphere was tense, most of the folks seemed to be waiting for someone to enter. Inside the space there are a good number of rough looking patrons that look like they likely belong to the less savory spelljamming crews. Vic and Satiah go up to the bartop with Vic taking the lead and grabbing a few drinks from a shaggy hard woman at the bar who tends to curse in every sentence before heading over to one of the tables that seemingly contained folks that very much looked like pirates. Vic and Satiah are trying to find out more about slaving trends in the city and these people are likely to know something so Vic works their magic and is able to amuse the crew enough to not be kicked out of their table, joining for a game of cards while they are at it. After talking with the drunk pirates Vic is able to piece together that these pirates aren't some random group but are part of Locke's freebooters from pod space, aka vampire pirates, vampirates. After pushing on the issue of slavers Vic gets a few details where they find out that there are chain-men (slavers) in the wilds hunting a specific type of person, instead of taking crews they are looking for the officers and skilled workers of ships to bring under their command. The pirates also warn that Bral isn’t safe in the best of times and it’s worse now. The conversation is put on pause though when a pale man with wicked scars and two lackies walks in and saunters over to the barkeep. This is the man who everyone seemed very tense about. On Bral there are several underbarons who unofficially rule over different areas of Bral who shop owners tend to pay protection to in order to stay safe from the other barons. The man with scars asks for payment from the barkeep and says that she knows that Ozamata can’t keep her safe. From there the barkeep begrudgingly pays the dues throwing the sack of gold at him and tells him to fuck off. Once the man leaves the atmosphere relaxes a little. From the corner of their eye Satiah catches a massive ogre who was tucked behind a wall that looks like they could steamroll anybody. From there the pirates clear out and Vic and Satiah decide to report their findings to the captain. Next we join Eris, Gwen. And Thera in the great market. As the trio arrives at the great market a panic starts to ensue as a giff’s head explodes and causes people to start to flee, Eris and Gwen get slightly trampled but are able to be pulled aside by Thera as they hunker down as the crowd rushes past. The trio sit there for a bit where Eris is eager to go investigate but Gwen and Thera hold her back. After a bit of time the middle magistrates crew comes over to investigate themselves about the situation. The trio is told to sit tight by the guard but Eris, trying to get closer, slightly incriminates herself and gets taken aside. Eventually the middle magistrate herself, Terissa Ketal goes and talks to Gwen and Thera. Thera shows off her expertise in medicine and is invited to come over and investigate with the guards. From that investigation Thera finds out that there was likely some type of collar that the giff was wearing that blew up his own head connected to a button in their pocket, the giff was likely some type of blacksmith, and someone from giff town likely knew who this person was. Before they leave the magistrate tells the party that their ship, the era dawn, is not to leave the rock of Bral until the investigation is over. Before heading back to the captain, Thera and Eris “pay for” some spices and saffron for cooking ingredients on the ship. Next we turn to the Rampant Lion Inn where Captain Areti and Purser Adam are staying. The first group to show up is Vic and Satiah where they meet with the captain and inform her that it’ll probably be best to be leaving sooner rather than later because of the type of people the slavers are looking for. Not too long after Eris, Gwen, and Thera walk on in to report all that had happened. Now being locked on the rock and being fearful that the crew might be targeted by slavers the only viable option seemed to be to solve the murder of the Giff so they could be set on their way sooner. Regrouping our officers decide to first head to the market once again to figure out if there is anything that they missed. The group spots a young human boy who was right near the giff when his head blew up and walked right on over to him. Paying him a gold Eris asks for a bunch of details to see if they could get any extra clues. The group finds out that the giff was alone, was wearing an odd metal necklace of sorts, seemed to be lost in thought and walking at a weird pace, and didn’t seem to have any sort of dedicated reason for being at the market. The officers then move over to giff town in order to find out more about who this giff was. Eris introduces herself to a giff who seemed to be the leader and showed off her own gun a little bit to bond with them a little. The giff introduced themselves as General Alfonso Lockridge and seemed to know quite a few details about what had happened and who the giff was. After heading to an office the group start asking General Lockridge several questions and find out that the giff who died was named Phineus Hacklethorpe, a well respected and supposedly genius powdersmith of the giff community. For the past few weeks Phineus was not in the best of mental states, saying he was hearing voices in his mind that were trying to do something. When asked what they were saying Phineus could never give a concrete answer like he couldn’t remember or couldn’t find the proper words to say. Phineus did say two days prior to current events that he would protect the giff’s secrets no matter what. From General Lockridge the party also found out Phineus had an apprentice, Mirabelle Keaton who is good in her own right but not near the same level that Phineus was. The officers of the Era dawn then decide to head over to the workshop that Phineus once ran and where Mirabelle now stands. Mirabelle, still grieving, helped assist the party best she could. Talks of some of the legends of the rock of Bral popped up where Mirabelle talked about a dwarf who just vanished about a month ago named Albridge Rockdelver. The party wonders if the legends could be connected to Phineus’s demise where instead of giving into whatever the voices commanded and just disappearing, Phineus was able to resist and slowly lost his mental state over time leading him to build a device to make sure he wouldn’t be convinced. There were also reports, although loose, of Phineus talking about being drawn to the underdark of Bral. The party asked about the necklace that Phineus was wearing and found blueprints for it, a device specifically made to only target the creature wearing it with enough force to kill a large and hardy creature like a giff confirming that Phineus built his own collar and set it off himself. From all the information Satiah is able to surmise that whatever these voices are that Phineus was hearing is likely Psionic in nature. After gathering all of their information the party decides to head back to the Rampant Lion to get some rest for the night and inform the captain of all that has happened. The officers pass by some priests of Ptah in the lesser market before making their way back to the inn. Satiah finds Uovo and Captain Areti in the market looking at some smut at a book stall before the whole set of officers reconvene to inform on the day’s progress. The party does eventually find sleep and wake up the next morning to some concerning news, Captain Areti has started hearing voices!
Report Date
05 May 2024
Primary Location
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