The party arrived at Commander Krux’ ship, the Second Wind. Krux clearly takes a great deal of pride in his ship, but the party was unimpressed by the state of it. He justified its excellence by pointing to Starbough, the treant that gives the living ship its life.
Upon arrival, a tiefling met Krux and the party. The party would learn her name, Fel Ardra, and that she had an active lease on the Second Wind to go about her smuggling business. Krux doesn’t much appreciate the work she does, but showed that he had hopes he’d be able to make a more honest merchant out of her one day. The party wanted privacy for their conversation, so Inrim offered her 20gp to go enjoy a drink or two at the Happy Beholder.
She initially left to allow them this private conversation, but had seconds thoughts about whether or not she could trust Krux. She returned with a handful of mercenary-looking folks and insisted that Krux buy out her lease. Krux was able to scrape together his every last coin and, with a contribution from Idakath, pay back the remnant of her lease. With this, she dismissed the mercenaries she brought back. However, she still wanted compensation for the opportunity cost. She talked the party into 15% of the wealth their adventure yielded, which they agreed to on Krux’ behalf since there was no money to be made in saving the world, and they were not hiring her for their ships.
With that whole matter out of the way, Krux forgot exactly what they were after, still recovering from his drink. Having to get the situation recap again, he regained his enthusiasm. He heard that there was a gathering of anti-Xaryxian forces in Doomspace. To get there, they’d need good maps. Krux had a long time contact for exactly this, a wizard named Topolah. Unfortunately for the party, that would mean traveling to her offworld observation tower, about a day’s travel from Bral.
Wanting to tie up some loose ends, especially related to handling their chop shop transactions for the docked star moth they overtook, the party decided to meet back twelve hours later. Krux considered it as good a reason as any to celebrate their plans with some of Lucky Luigi’s ale.During this time, Idakath’s fence gave them a sending stone to coordinate drop-offs and meetings.
Once the party reassembled, they set to the skies. As they navigated their way out of the asteroid field where Rock of Bral exists, they were set upon by a flamboyantly dressed reigar and their esthetic. As the reigar, who would introduce themself as Hastain, approached the ships, they opened a portal out of the esthetic and onto the Second Wind. Though out of earshot, it was clear they were hostile to Krux, so Inrim took a shot the stranger. His shot missed and instead stuck in Krux’s shoulder. Following the line of fire back, Hastain opened a portal to attack the party on their nightspider.
With only the delay of an arrogant villain needing to explain their plot to their soon to be victims, battle quickly broke out. Idakath wove a spell to paralyze Hastain. With them down, the rest of the party made quick work of the apparent foe. In response, their esthian used its own psychic ability to shut down the nightspider’s spelljammer helm. Responding quickly, Idakath and Charlie were able to largely resist that attack, though they gained massive headaches from the effort.
The esthetic then began to attack the nightspider. Its strong metal hull allowed most of the attacks to be repelled. The full complement of crew manning weapons resulted in a nonstop barrage of ballista bolts and mangonel stones putting an end to the esthetic.
With combat ended, the party and Krux exchanged a few words. Krux explained that Hastain was an ally of the Xaryxian elite and likely looking to gain more favor with them by taking out the group who killed multiple Xaryxian agents and stolen one of their star moths. With the immediate threat not longer a concern, they set to high speed and continued on to Topolah’s Tower.
Arriving at the tower, they found an interestingly shaped tower built on a rock hardly any larger than the tower itself. They were met by many birds and immediately met with Topolah herself. She was a kindly human woman excited for visitors. She insisted on taking them for a tour of her place, proud to show off the design she helped make, introduce the autognomes made in the image of her tower’s co-creater (Orwyck Cogsworth, whom the party may have met in their shopping excursion on the Rock of Bral).
When the tour was complete, she heard out their request: Maps for Doomspace and how to get there. She regretfully informed them she had no such maps available, but she did have a wildspace orrery that would help them find the way for themselves. She offered it up in exchange for help with a monster problem. She told the party about a void scavver attacking the birds and other creatures on her rock, a monster of a scavver she’s taken to calling Big Momma. Her proposal was simple: Kill Big Momma, get the wildspace orrery.
The party agreed. As they made their way to the ground level to figure out how they would kill this monster, Idakath pulled out a bronze orb collected from their prior adventures. Topolah was very excited to see the orb. It was a model of locked map she designed, usually bought by people with something very valuable to hide. She said that these had the capacity to hold multiple maps, though she wouldn’t know how many where in it until it was opened. She started tapping away at it, trying to figure out which lock mechanism it was built with. She told the party she’d keep at it while they dealt with Big Momma.
And with that, their hunt began…
Next chapter: Spelljammer 2022 – Session 12, 2022-03-08