Space Heist
Minsk's Crew was hired by the Stickyeyes Mafia to steal a netherese scroll from a Sirach monastery on Athis in the Lega system. As the second planet from the sun it was very warm, but since it was also tidally locked the weather pattern was funky. The only thing on the dwarf planet was a temple built in the shape of a curled up snake. After successfully sneaking up and into the temple using a combination of wind walk and pass without a trace, Lux alerted the entire compound the presence of intruders and the party barely made off with a chest of scrolls, one of which was their target.
The party returned to the Rock of Bral to hand over the scroll. When they arrived they got some upgrades done on their ship, installing a medbay and upgrading the plate armor. They also investigated the scroll a little bit and discovered it contained a multitude of forgotten Power Words. There was some concern about handing over such a powerful artifact to a beholder, but upon arriving to their meeting with Blorgt the Beholder they discovered that he collected Netherese scrolls solely as decoration for his office.
Since they had proven so successful on this job, Blorgt offered the party another: to steal a Solar Dragon's egg from the upcoming Writhing. Solar Dragons, it was explained, are the apex predators of space, and an elder dragon lives in the local star. Adult and older dragons thus congregate at the star every so often to mate and produce offspring. However, the elder dragon, Maccatto, could cast Wish at will and the ancient solar dragons could cast it frequently. After some consultation with Velezark by Lux, it was deteremined that an adult solar dragon couldn't cast Wish and would be unlikely to seek assistance from older dragons if an egg was stolen.
Having determined that the job was theoretically possible, the party then began to bargain price with Blorgt. They walked away with an agreement for 30 astral diamonds, 10 up front and the rest after completion, along with a motley assortment of favors once they were done. Lux got an invitation to have a specialist look at the connection between him and Velezark, Avediin help to return back to his home planet, and Voyager 1 information on the location of their twin.
Contract made, Blorgt told them to first go to the thumb of the Hand of Moradin to the Starforger clan of dwarves to get equipment made to let them survive walking on the sun. The Hand of Moradin was in the same system, but closer to the sun. The party took off, stopping by each planet in the system between jumps to let the engines cool. At the first one they hastily navigated away from some space spiders that tried to eat them. A few planets later, they encountered a mindflayer ship that tried take them over. Avediin bluffed that they were eager to join the hivemind but were having techical difficulties getting the ship over to them. This stalling tactic lasted long enough for the engines to finish recovering so the party could take off before the mindflayers could react.
The party landed at the thumb and were immediatly beset by invisible flyinig sharks that were promptly electrocuted to death by Lux.
Sharks having been dealt with, the party lept off the ship and onto the narrow ribbon of road that connected the different asteroids in the Hand of Moradin. Minsk went a few asteroids over ot park the spaceship, with the plan being to have him return in several hours to pick the party back up.
Plans made, the party entered through the gates of the thumb, passing thorugh a jungle-park with bladed grass before catching sight of the city, Barim, past some enchanted pillars. The city seemed to be entirely populated by solar dwarves, with dark skin and white hair. After asking some directions from the locals, the party was given the address of the Sunforger home and went to find them. When they arrived, there were only two Sunforger's in residence- Gogh, a very old dwarf, and his many times over great-grandson Toma. Gogh chatted with Lux for a bit, agreeing to upgrade his armor once Lux had obtained some ore from the sun. He also advised that if Lux was going to attempt to talk with the elder solar dragon that he bring some new piece of information to him to bargain with. Gogh also told the party that he recommended if you were going to steal a solar dragon egg to choose the adult in advance and lay in wait in their lair. This was going to be complicated by the fact that not every solar dragon got to mate- the elder dragon had to approve the pairing, based on the information that the dragons brought to him.
In the interim, he would be happy to make the party some amulets that allowed them to walk on the sun, but some unwelcome guests had moved into the forge, preventing him from working. The party went down to deal with it and discovered some lizard people had moved in. Rather than fighting them, Lux and Avediin got them to sign a rental agreement/job contract with the Sunforgers. Forge again free to be worked in, Gogh cheefully manufactured the amulets.
Seeking to reunite with Minsk, the party attempted to contact him only to get static in reply. When they walked to Thinar Crook, where Minsk had parked the ship, they discovered that he had been taken over by a bunch of mind-controlling parasites. Working together the party quickly freed Minsk and cleared out the parasites, much to the relief of Thinar Crook's inhabitants. When the party returned to the thumb, Lux, Avediin, and Dr. Brook Chops elected to go to the sun and speak to Macatto. After making it to Snildar Rock, the three answered a series of riddles to ascend the mountain and speak with the elder dragon. They were taken to a demiplane, where Lux challenged the dragon to a basketball game for guidance, which he won. Macatto said that he could not provide the guidance, but that the hippo mount that Bahamut had gifted Lux could. He then sent Lux through another portal to presumably have some sort of training montage. Avediin inquired about being able to return home, since his home planet is blocked off from the rest of the galaxy. Macatto told him that there would soon be a time when the crystal sphere surrounding the planet cracked, but that until then there was very little to be done. Questions more or less answered, Brook Chops and Avediin traversed the solar flare back to the Sunforger's forge.
For the next few days the party carefully scouted out their target. A lair of an adult gold dragon was chosen and scanned for any magic that might block entry in, or teleportation out. While no such magic was found, traces of an inorganic construct was discovered, and the decision was made to commision the creation of a drone that could be used to scout out the lair. The drone found many librarian golems in the lair, constantly patrolling, but did manage to locate the brood nest. The drone was stationed in a hiding spot to watch and wait and send an alert when the dragon reentered the lair and began to brood over its egg.
When the alert came in, the party jumped to the surface of the sun and managed to carefully sneak there way to the brood nest, making good use of both a invisibility and pass without trace spells, coupled with a telepathic and emboldening bond between on the party members. Simomaton got seperated for a little bit, but the party figured it out and recombined.
