Present Party: During session 5, Claudia was absent. During session 6, we had the full party of Aria, Claudia, Emori, and Steve.
Setting: Aboard the starship, Cave of Wonders, captained by a space pirate, Theron, and his crew.
The party made their way to the armory, where they discovered a plethora of fun and unfamiliar weapons. The place was run by a half-orc gentleman, Jorge, who the party would learn crafts many of these weapons, and allows the crew to use them for free. The two things that stood out to them were daggers with blades made from beams of different colored light, and a pistol that shot bullets that could cast certain spells on impact.
Emori had been playing around with one of the daggers, and seeing that she was going to catch it the wrong way, Confidence leapt in front of her and pushed her away. The light blade sliced his horn clean off, but they were able to fix it using Mending.
Aria wanted to test out her new gun, and was aiming for Steve, but had accidentally shot Confidence instead with a bullet containing the Haste spell. He'd attempted to come after her, but Emori talked him down, and he swore some revenge for later.
Emori bought a set of daggers, Aria bought the gun and some bullets, and Steve ended up with a dagger and the gun and bullets.
After that, Emori and Confidence went back to his room. She tried to convince him to set up a meeting with Theron, which he said that he would and that he could get the whole party inside. Emori was hoping they could convince him to let Ali and Dahlia see each other, and then hear them out. Dahlia had a plan that would be able to benefit them both. He just gave her a few pointers on what to avoid.
- Theron was the genie - not a genie, the genie. He had a lamp and he could grant wishes. Theron's lamp, as far as Confidence believed, had to be somewhere on this ship and someone had to be holding it. How else would Theron be able to walk around like he does? He advised her not to talk about the lamp, it could be seen as a threat.
- He also advised her not to ask about the specifics of his vendetta against the king - Dahlia and Ali's father. Theron doesn't like to talk about it.
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| Bardic Captain Theron The Genie Captain of Cave of Wonders (Art made by me, using Heroforge) |
"In my experience, it's not a very good thing when two Ababwas get together to conspire..." he sighed.
"Dahlia says she has a plan," Emori told him. "What was your plan, now that you have the princess and the prince?"
"Simple. Drop them off somewhere where nobody will find them. I've discontinued the royal line. Trust me when I say, that's enough in the way of torture for the royals." He shrugged. "And the queen is too old, she can't have any more kids..."
"Dahlia also mentioned something about killing the king."
Theron was definitely intrigued by this. He seemed more willing to help with that... as long as he was the one to kill the king, who the party learned was named "Aladdin."
Ultimately, they convinced him to let the two of them see each other, and let them speak briefly and supervised by the party. That way, they wouldn't be able to conspire without the party telling Theron that they'd done so. They collected Dahlia and some food for Ali. On the way, they hatched another plan: using Emori's Mind Link, the Ababwas could talk freely between the two of them and the party without any ears (such as Kay or Lysander, the guards outside the brig) listening in.
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| Prince Ali, the Amorous Human (Art by toherrys on DeviantArt) |
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| Princess Dahlia, the Courageous Human (Art by Sarctic on DeviantArt) |
Ali and Dahlia talked telepathically about the potential of using Theron and his crew to siege the city of Agrabah and overthrow their father. Ali was hesitant at first, but with Dahlia's encouragement, he warmed up to the idea. He knew that their father had no intention of ever rescuing Dahlia to begin with. He knew that their father was a terrible, tyrannical king. Dahlia wanted to leave Agrabah entirely, along with the woman she loved. She'd leave the kingdom in Ali's hands.
"You're smart and you're brave, but most of all, you're amorous," she reminded him. "That's something to be treasured, Ali."
What the prince and princess needed now was to convince Theron. Dahlia had some trouble with that before, but maybe if Ali could come with her, he might see reason. She was still, at this point, wondering if finding the lamp would be their best option.
The party reported back to Theron, and he seemed willing to listen to Dahlia and Ali once and if he did not like what he heard, he was holding the party accountable for bringing up the idea at all.
That night, Emori did one additional thing: she made a trip back to the armory, asking Jorge if she could have a shield bracer engraved with some kind of phrase for someone she cared about. Jorge guessed correctly that Confidence was who she had in mind. She told Jorge that Confidence had previously told her that people didn't remember him. So, she wanted to provide Confidence with something, in case she had to go (knowing she would have to go), to tell him that she'd never forget him.
He suggested, "Well, what if it was just something like an 'I love you' or-"
"Whoa, we haven't gotten that far yet."
"You can love someone in more than one way, you know," he reminded. "Love can be meant romantically or platonically. If you put 'I love you' on the bracer, it lets him interpret it."
"But... what if he interprets it the wrong way?"
"Well... love is love. Love is a good thing, in all its forms. It's good to know what kind of love, but regardless, I think it'll be important to him."
She decided on the phrase: "I'll never forget you, my love. - E." It would be ready by tomorrow night.
On her way back to Confidence's room to spend the night, she happened to overhear a conversation between Confidence and another woman. She recognized the voice; the party had met her only once before in passing. It was Scarlett, the first mate aboard Cave of Wonders. Confidence had said before that the two of them had a bit of a messy history. They were arguing in his room, and Emori attempted to listen in. It seemed that Scarlett wanted something she seemed to know Confidence had, and he wasn't giving in. She was growing increasingly frustrated.
Emori knocked quickly when she heard them advancing towards the door. Confidence let Scarlett out and Emori in. Confidence insisted that their conversation was nothing to be worried about.
~~~~~
The next morning, the party went all together to breakfast. They desperately wanted to pick up Claudia. She'd been sulking in her room for most of the day before, thinking about her fiancée back in her home world: Amera. At this point in the campaign, the characters had been away for thirty years and hadn't aged except when they were in worlds. Their ages always reset when they return to the System Space, back to how they were when they first arrived.
On their way to breakfast, noticing that she wasn't herself, Confidence attempted to talk to Claudia. The two of them, being tieflings, spoke privately at the back of the group in Infernal.
"I envy you," he admitted.
Claudia seemed surprised.
"I envy you because I've never had anyone look at me or talk about me the way that you talk about your fiancée... and I don't think I ever will. Because that life just... isn't for me." He smiled. "Where I'm from, we have a saying: distance makes the heart grow fonder."
"We have a similar one."
"If she loves you as much as you love her... then she's not going anywhere. And you have to have faith in that. It means a lot to people when they know that they mean something to you."
The conversation did cheer Claudia up a little, but it was definitely odd. She'd met another iteration of Confidence in her first world. One that had tried desperately to kill her, and who had killed nearly everyone else in the party she was traveling with before (luckily, death isn't permanent when you work for the System.) They all ended up okay, but she'd still watched them all be brutally murdered by him. Seeing him now, younger, trying to make her feel better, was a huge change of pace.
She punched him playfully in the arm... and the world stopped. She felt warmth in her chest. She felt like she'd gone home for a moment. This was something that had happened before to her, and to other members of the party with Confidence in other worlds. They were still unsure what it meant or why it happened.
Once they'd finished their breakfast, the party split up with their own agendas. All of them (sooner or later) led to them meeting Aquamarine, a water genasi who acted as something of a keeper for all things magic on board Cave of Wonders.
- Claudia took Aria along to look at spell scrolls. She wanted one for the Sending spell. She was curious to see if it would help her get a message to her fiancée, back in her home world.
- Confidence sent Emori to Aquamarine to pick up a few things so he could begin his revenge plot against Aria. He told her that he would teach her what to do, so she could replicate it if she ever had to do it again.
- Steve was curious about a Teleportation Circle spell, but Aquamarine didn't have one. She did tell him, however, that Jorge had been working on a teleportation device of some kind. When Steve asked Jorge about it, he was permitted to see it and study it. Apparently, it hadn't been successful. There were two crystals that powered it, and he was still trying to figure out how they were linked together.
Aria also told Claudia a bit more about where she came from, and her witches' coven back in her own home world. Even she missed home, the one person she had left there, and even the people she'd lost.
- They were a coven that had been ensuring the prosperity of their town by using their magic, but when they were ratted out by a rival coven, the townspeople were displeased.
- Aria's lover, Silas, had done his best to protect her and her coven, despite not being a witch himself.
- Aria's coven was hunted until all of them were killed except for her and Silas. This displeased the goddess that her coven had worshipped, and, as retribution, she had taken Silas away. That was why Aria's wish was to get him back.
~~~~~
Later in the day, Dahlia and Ali were due to meet with Theron. The party waited for their meeting to end, knowing that if it didn't go well, then they would be held responsible.
After several hours, they were summoned back to Theron's office, where he told them that he and the Ababwas had come to a conclusion. He would help them siege the castle, he would kill the king, and the children could do whatever they wished with the kingdom. Despite the good news though, both Dahlia and Ali seemed dissatisfied for whatever reason.
For now, the party brushed it aside and Theron explained part of the plan they'd developed and since the party had been so helpful, he offered for them to pick the part they'd like to play during the siege. There would be a ground team that would get certain types of armor, and an air team that would pilot certain ships. He claimed that he would be able to give them more information later; these ships were stowed away on another planet, and they'd have to go pick them up. He also offered the party a reward of their choice if they were cooperative and assisted in the siege.
Once that conversation was over, everyone dispersed. Ali was no longer considered a captive, and the party offered for him to stay in one of their rooms with them. He accepted, and he was tired, so he opted for a nap but not before receiving some encouraging words about his ability to lead a kingdom after his father's death.
Claudia and Aria decided to ask Dahlia what had happened in the meeting over drinks. Emori also joined them after a brief chat with Confidence. It seemed as though Dahlia had gotten exactly what she wanted... but it wasn't so.
"I want my father dead," she said pointedly. "But the way Theron wants to do it... I don't want to watch my father suffer, even if he was a terrible man."
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| Scarlett First Mate and Former Captain of Cave of Wonders (Art by kiikiibee on Tumblr) |
"Your love, she's the first mate, isn't she?" Claudia checked.
Dahlia nodded. "Yes."
"Does she knows where it is?"
"Not that I'm aware. If she did, she knew I wanted it before. I... I like to think she would have... told me or given it to me."
They needed a straight answer, so they asked Dahlia if she could get Scarlett and when she did, they asked to talk to her privately, where they learned a few things and confirmed some of their suspicions.
- Scarlett had actually been the captain of Cave of Wonders until Theron came along. She'd let him have the ship, mostly out of curiosity and because she wanted a break.
- She believed that Confidence had the lamp, or at the very least knew where it was, which was just as good as having it.
- She believed that Theron could be persuaded without using the lamp, but that it wouldn't be easy to do. It also wouldn't be easy to get Confidence to give it up, if he really did know where it was.
Emori smiled. "Well... then I guess it's up to me to get it out of him."
~~~~~
ART LINKS:
https://www.deviantart.com/toherrys/art/commish-Dmitri-700365428
https://www.deviantart.com/sarctic/art/Gwen-DeLancy-395324626
https://kiikiibee.tumblr.com/post/180196741082/commission-of-a-flirty-red-headed-rogue
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Credit to @ijaymendell inspiring this awesome campaign!
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