Session Date: 09/01/2024
Reminders
The town of Ormarsa had relied on the money from Cruelwind Prison. Bertram and Major are still in the prison, working on a modified version of the ritual that Dia had uncovered to give the thuls different information than being a soldier.
The Prison
The party pilfers through General Chase’s normal office to find anything interesting, such as shipping manifests. It’s mainly Rohan and Dia that are searching for this information. He finds a partially translated note and a list of places and he realizes that these are where the thouls were sent - they numbers are in denominations of ten, with the most being fifty, sent just outside of the continent. He’s unsure who got that order. The closest order was definitelyAcria. The people attached tot he orders have code names, with the person picking the caskets up is just called “Lady”. There are two other operatives: Old Man and Loser.
Loser is the one outside of the continent and received 50. Lady received 10 in Acria. Old Man just has coordinates that correspond to a field somewhere further out than Acria.
Rohan takes note of how to translate these notes for later, and takes all of the papers. He lets everyone know what it was that he found. Dia is not at all excited at the thought of going to the capital of Acria as that is adjacent to the seat of her family’s power, though they are not directly there.
Dia and Bertram say their goodbyes, with Dia joking that she sold her soul to Denma just to make Bertram squirm. Bertram is sorry that Dia wasn’t afforded a regular childhood, but none of them were ever going to have a normal childhood or anything. They have a discussion about parting ways and Bertram mentions that he believes that we are fighting a battle from two different sides, and he hopes we can meet in the middle. He mentions that the ghosts of the north are unhappy with what’s going on and he needs to address it up here. Dia and Bertram finally say their goobyes.
Major comes up to Iskra and apologizes about the petting, explaining that his world was very difficult and he doesn’t have the words to say what he was feeling, and Iskra offers that he was looking for comfort.
The Mansion
As we enter Ormarsa we move past the mansion of the leader of the town - we can see him packing very quickly. We also see Crag and Bitsy, who are very visibly not leaving with him. Arythas can tell he’s running away while trying to steal things from the mansion while it’s still his, ransacking the place while he still can. Bitsy is berating the man and giving him a lot of shit. The son is apprehensive, unsure if he should follow his father or not.
Dia stops to speak to the son and stands behind him, explaining that he doesn’t have to go with his father. The son says that the man is his father, he probably should, and Dia asks why. She explains that he owes as much to his family as much as the son thinks he does, and if he thinks he owes his father loyalty, then so be it, but what about his aunt? He does like his aunt, and Dia suggests that he steps out from his father’s shadow - the good and the bad.
The father yells at his son to come to him, as they are leaving. The son denies, saying he wishes to stay with Aunt Bitsy. The man approaches his son to hit his son, and Crag begins to move toward the man, each step having him turn bigger, and hairier, and into a bear: roaring at the man and scaring him off.
Bitsy sighs and says that she assumes someone new will be assigned here, but they will try to fix things in the interim. Dia writes a quick note about the son and mentions that the boy has a good head of his shoulders and Dia signs it herself, recommending that they give this to her princess friend to give the son a chance to be placed as the next mayor.
Arythas’ Family
We are given a full meal. Nilmuk is here this time, and is as tall as Arythas. Nilmuk is surprisingly similar to Arythas, though he’s far leaner than Arythas is. Aphen and Nepin are glad to have us here and Nepin dotes over us and goes ahead and packs us all sorts of goodies and rations to take with us on our trip out. She sneaks a jar of pickled fish into Arythas’ pack as well when he isn’t looking.
Nilmuk has a girl that he’s been talking to that he thinks might be it, and Arythas might have a niece or nephew the next time he comes around. Arythas promises to write as the group leaves.
Transportation Secured
Neminna arrives with essentially a task force to take care of the city and our transportation. The prince has a lot of influence here, especially with the previous mayor being disgraced. There’s a new mayor that he’s already had prepared. Ford and Bitsy are in no trouble - the prince recognizes they were not the problem.
Bitsy decides to leave and visit some family to live with them as she is not a worker, but Ford stays, along with Crag.
Neminna is involved, but not as much as the rest of her family. She slips away to meet up with us and says good job to all of us. She says that her father is not happy with all the prisoners that escaped - especially because some are already terrorizing the place - but, ultimately, that’s not really our fault and she’s aware of the group working on recapturing them.
Dia speaks up and explains that General Chase was not himself, and hasn’t been himself since The War. Dia explains that the mad mage took his place. Neminna stares at all of us, blinks a few times, and then comments that Dia now leads an interesting life. Dia explains that she didn’t mean for this to happen, she just didn’t want to be married. It’s not going well!
Neminna explains that the person giving us passage is a bit out of town because he doesn’t like cities or people, and she will go with us, but she cannot go through town. We understand. We go with her out of the city and follow a country road to the transport she’d secured for us. We leave a small forest and see an air ship - the sails are covered in runes. These air ships are uncommon though not unheard of. There is definitely a crew to man the ship, and a localized storm cloud over the ship specifically.
Dia mentions that she thought we’d have a caravan, or a train, and Neminna says that the air ship is faster. Neminna writes this off saying she also has adventures, and Dia comments that Neminna’s been holding out on her. Neminna just says to wait for the captain, and a man emerges from the cloud. He’s late 40s to early 50s, salt and pepper hair with a long beard, he’s an orc with some sort of sylphic (air genie) heritage. He has an eye patch and a tattoo on his right arm, holding an enormous axe as well. He is also not wearing a shirt.
The captain lands next to us with some of the storm still crackling around his feet. He bows to us and welcomes us. Dia’s got it BAD. She asks if the crew is ready to go and he says whenever we want to leave.
The captain’s name is Всеволод Воля” Васильевич Воронин (romanized: Vsevolod “Volya” Vasilyevich Voronin). Dia introduces everyone to Volya so that we are fully acquainted, and he bows yet again. Volya comments that we are familiar to him: he’s heard stories. Dia tries to write it off, saying he’s confusing us with someone else, and he denies it. He said that Captain Kearney, his dear friend, mentioned us to him. He gives us all a bear hug - Volya smells like rain - and says that we are all safe with him.
He says that it is good that he’s found us and that we are traveling with him, and not some other sky pirate. Volya apologizes to Neminna, promising not to kidnap her again. There’s a small conversation about how she was kidnapped before someone else kidnapped her therefore she wasn’t really ever kidnapped, etc.
We go on board and the crew is a mix of all kinds, including some sylphs. Arythas looks around and can tell everyone’s having fun, nobody would betray the captain and they love the guy. Arythas relaxes slightly and Volya explains they have a deal with Acria: they don’t shoot at Volya, and he doesn’t shoot at them. It took some time to reach that understanding, but they’re there now. Dia is excited as being so high in the air as nobody will recognize her, and Volya asks who would be looking for her, and she gives a noncommittal poorly lied answer of her brother with Iskra trying to back her up and saying her brother is overprotective.
Neminna and Dia say their goodbyes. Volya says that we are off and lightning comes from both Volya and the storm above, meeting in the middle, and the ship lurches off the ground. Volya seems to be steering the ship with his axe. We have our own cabin that is away from the crew’s quarters, and there is enough of a library for Inky to join (if needed).
Dia floats between watching the view, in their room, and in the medbay area. Arythas helps around the ship and splits the rest of his time between watching the view, and spending time in their room.
The crew is rather jovial, and a lot of them are treating this like a vacation as this mission seems incredibly easy.\
It’ll take us a few days to get to Acria.
Dawn of the second day, Volya notices a ship on the horizon. He pulls a spyglass out and Dia and Volya peek through. They see on the ship is Ace Freeman. Dia says “son of a—” and stops herself. Dia yells for her party members as Ace speaks up and says to give him Dia. Volya’s crew is grinning in anticipation of a fight, and Volya says that we will not be handing her over to him. Volya recognizes the ship and they aren’t a friend, so we will have fun destroying it.
Ace clearly has ACME-adjacent gear, and Ace calls out to ramming speed, and Volya conjures a smaller storm to ruin the attempt. Volya says to let him worry about the ship, and we will worry about Ace and his goons.