Session 1: The Mysteries of the Skyrunner Report

General Summary

Over the course of the festival of Renewed Light, celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the restoration of the sun in Greatspace, the crew of the Skyrunner (Zayre, a celestial priest; Windellian Circinae, an Aarakocra Scout, and Hunter of Vodoni, a Kzin warrior) have managed to recruit new allies, with funds to help repair and supply the ship, and an apparent urgency to get out of Port Shurius. They are Praxis, a merchant from Thesalys, Jessalena Glyphrivet, a tinker gnome from Krynn who has been on Hecht recently, and TBD-1138, a clockwork construct whose master was recently murdered.  

The Former Crew

  The group starts by interviewing the former crew they’ve kept locked in the brig. (See The Crew of the Skyrunner for more details.)   These include:

• Baragor, a big, imposing, short-tempered, bristly man with a massive girth.
• Gulug, the supposed helmsman, a squat balding little fellow, with no facial or body hair and precious little atop his shiny dome. Dressed in a green peasant shirt and breeches, he waddles around barefoot and looks uncomfortable.
• Skraal: A slight, wiry, gaunt man with beady eyes and a long, straggly mustache.
• Ralgir: A roughly handsome character with tight-fitting studded leather armor and a shortsword sheathed at his hip. He looks wild-eyed, like someone who has just made it back to town after being lost in the deep forest.
• Ralgir is the most forthcoming, and certainly had been the friendliest during the voyage. Ralgir explains that they have no recollection of their previous life. Their first memories are on the surface of world, where Hobart told them that he had rescued them from a wizard who had transformed them into animals. Killing this evil mage had broken the spell, allowing them to "regain their rightful forms." When he asked them to join his crew, they agreed out of gratitude. Ralgir has come to suspect that perhaps they really were beasts (a boar, a frog, a rat and a wolf respectively), transformed somehow into humans by Hobart. They have little loyalty to Hobart, and simply beg to be allowed to stay aboard the ship and serve the party, since it is the only home they know.

 

Exploring the Ship

(See Skyrunner Ship Map for more details.)   The party then proceeds to explore the ship, starting with the chart room, and the captain’s cabin.

• The charts in the chart room seem largely useless and irrelevant, but the Planetary Display is useful, as well as the navigational instruments.
• The captain’s cabin is well-appointed, but upon closer inspection they find that the desk, chair and bed seem pristine, as if never used.
• They find the secret door behind a tapestry, and beyond they find a pedestal stands in the middle of the room, three feet in diameter and four feet high, bearing a silk cushion. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the room are painted red. Each wall bears a bizarre, impressionistic mural painted in black. On the ceiling, carefully painted in black and gold, is the map, tracing the route the Skyrunner has taken since Realmspace, and showing a route beyond Greatspace to another, unnamed sphere. The route leads to what appears to be an asteroid, depicted as a gold eye. (By this point, the group has begun to suspect that Hobart was actually a transformed beholder, which is why he attacked the other beholder ship so rapidly, and that somewhere they will find an Orbus, a blind, mutated beholder that are used to power beholder ships)
• Opening a trap door, they find a ladder descending down, to a room occupied by a twin to the former first mate Stonecrop, a towering 7’ tall man that appears to be a flesh golem. Surprising everyone, TBD-1138 talks to him, construct to construct, and asks him if he’d like to be free. No one having every asked him what he wanted, and apparently Hobart’s control having slipped away, the golem nods, and grunts in agreement. He climbs the ladder and goes out on deck, where Hunter (KITTEH! NICE KITTEH!) and TBD keeps him company. The crew name him Lenny, for no apparent reason, and something that will be turn out to be ominous foreshadowing, at all. (See Lenny the Golem for more info.)
• Descending through another trap door, they find Hobart’s workshop. There are several small tables, a desk, and shelves along the walls filled scrolls, papers, maps, books, and various odds and ends. Zayre plans to spend some time deciphering this in detail, but they do a more detailed version of the map painted on the ceiling in the room above. It seems to indicate that Hobart was tracking a rogue asteroid which appears to wander through the phlogiston, into spheres, and back out. They find charts to indicate how to reach the current, unnamed sphere the asteroid is in.

  Returning up to the main deck and then descending into the hold and down into steerage, they face the final hidden chamber. The entrance to this room is a brass door sealed with a heavy bar, and secured with a padlock with three keyholes. Prax manages to unlock it with some assistance from Jessa that almost goes horribly awry. As they open the door, a strange smell like burning fish assaults the senses. Peering into the darkness,you see that the room is a labyrinth of strange devices. In the center is a sphere of a dark, crusty substance. Many glass tubes are connected to it.   A bubbling sound comes from the sphere. From within the orb, a sickly green luminescence illuminates the chamber, giving it a bizarre, otherworldly appearance.   Gliding smoothly, a creature rises up out of the orb's cavity. The creature's pale body is spherical with a gnarled hide like that of old leather. A single blind eye stares blankly at you, and ten atrophied stalks quiver atop its head. It opens its gaping mouth to show a double row of fangs dripping with yellow slime. A sudden smell of vinegar fills the air. Gurgling, the creature spits a puddle of bile onto the floor.   At this point, Hunter asks the Orbus if it wants to join their crew, drawing exclamations of protest and disbelief from the rest. The orbus doesn’t reply, but does glide out into steerage. The party quickly finds some meat to feed it, while arguing whether to keep (enslave) it, kill it, or release it somewhere.  

Merquat the Arcane

While this is going on, Hunter and TBD, up on deck with Lenny, see a tall, lanky, blue giant with an elongated face and thin fingers, dressed in robes approaching the ship with a retinue of human bodyguards. This must be the Arcane who recently took up residence in Port Shurius. The Arcane introduces himself at Merquat, and asks for permission to come aboard.   Merquat asks to speak to Captain Hobart, and quickly guesses the situation when the party is evasive on that topic. Eventually, Merquat explains that Hobarts owes the Arcane quite a bit of money (250K GP) for this ship and its special equipment, and enquires whether the crew would like to return the ship, or take on the debt.   After a bit of posturing, and some veiled threats about their future commercial dealings with the Arcane if they don’t respect the debt, and that Merquat is sure Governor Grane would be interested in learning about any potential mutineers, a deal is negotiated:

• The group will trade the Orbus and its supporting equipment back to Merquat, which will substantially reduce the debt. (Down to 150k GP).
• Jessa pays Merquat 25k GP as an installment on the debt, bringing the total down to 125k GP.
• The rest of the debt will accrue at 4% interest until paid.
• Merquat seems quite pleased by the deal, and offers to arrange for repairs of the ship’s damage (3 Wounds worth, which would normally cost almost 5k GP in repairs), while discreetly arranging for the Orbus and its equipment to be removed.

  The repairs will take a week, during which the crew intends to:

• Recruit additional sailors to man the ship. (They need 20 crew + 2 per ballista = 26, round up to 30 to have a couple of extras). There are 7 PCs + 4 remaining crew + Lenny = 12, need to recruit 18 crew members
• Jessa and Prax will do some networking in the port, to see if they can find any jobs to take.
• Hunter may hunt some Vodoni.
• TBD-1138 will work with Lenny, try to build a relationship there
• Zayre will focus on deciphering the notes and map in Hobart’s workshop, to try to figure out what he was looking for. Zayre will probably visit the local temples as well.

Rewards Granted

1 Advance