Session Seventeen
Bull Market

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ” 

- Georg von Orwell, former chancellor of the River Baronies

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world",

- Anonymous and injured bystander after the Y'lfe Freeday Fire Riot as quoted in the "Rock of Truth" newspaper.

Following their underwater adventures and island vacation back on Sentar (compliments of the G-NOME and a time-travelling Other Luckums), the heroes returned to the Rock of Bral along with a new Monkey Goblin crewmate, Chet. However, circumstances were other than what they expected. They arrived much later than they intended. Six to seven hours later! This may have been related to the fact that the G-NOME now appeared damaged and malfunctioning. And this, in turn, seemed related to Luckums’s apparent loss of her ability to use magic after using her nascent chronomancy to remove the roots of her ability to use chronomancy during the battle with Ruinquake. Far more immediate issues were the empty streets and the apparent protest that some Ylfen high-and-mighties were riling up against the Inordinate Amount’s goblins in the Lesser Market. The Ylfe blamed them for the fires that hard recently swept through Dockside and other parts of Lowtown, displaying a beaten and bound Connor as if to make their point. While the heroes made their way through the crowd to rescue Connor, they were joined by a disguised Lewis and Dakota. Just as they were making some headway, an Illithid-made monstrosity burst onto the scene, threatening the entire assembly. The party sprung into action, rescuing Connor, leading the crowd to safety, and defeating the horrifying Brain Bull! They captured one of the Ylfe, compelling him to tell the truth of the entire affair in the presence of reporter for the Rock of Truth newspaper. He admitted that Ylfen authorities had started the fires in order to pin the blame on the goblins and convince the Braleans to hand them over to the advancing Imperiyon fleet. When the heroes finally returned to their spelljammer, they found it defended by the crew of the Ogre-ship Boulder and were introduced to Gurunk’s new husband and wife. Even more surprisingly, they found that none of their crew had any recollection whatsoever of Luckums!

Following the battle with Ruinquake, you spent a few more days in Talsantri, trying to make sense of what is happening and tying up loose ends. Luckums spent her time in the library, Basile and Hazel helped to re-establish rudimentary public services through the religious authorities, Shroktath helped with the mopping up for the resistance, and Khalid worked with the gnome Stormfizzle to gather magic supplies for crafting wondrous items.

But that only takes you so long. After a few days, the city begins to get back to itself.  The extraordinary times of the military coup and the resistance no longer require extraordinary individuals. More and more you feel like, well, fish out of water.

With the G-NOME in your possession, Stormfizzle and Luckums are confident you can return to the Rock of Bral not long after you left. The heroes of Ancorato invite you back to their island colony. Conferring amongst yourselves, you decide what would it hurt?

• Tropical beaches

• Azlanti Ruins, Libraries and Oraries

• Khalid: swimming in the ocean and walking the beaches every single day, having missed the Wine Dark Sea so greatly

• Luckums: searching out new spices and new recipes; cooking with Orag, in the colony's community kitchen and at the Smuggler's Blade; chatting with Stephen the goatherd

• Shroktath: Indulgences of the flesh - brothels, booze and barroom brawls. He broke some hearts, broke some heads, and broke some stools

• Hazel: Shroktath's slightly more sober wingman, he made sure the big R-orc did not drown in his own vomit

• Basile: Recuperates by keeping largely to himself. Exploring the Azlanti libraries and oraries through the eyes of island scholars and astronomers; meditating on the skies

[Placeholder: image, Chet]

Chet is a experienced sailor and shipwright. On Ancorato, he worked with Raerg, the half-orc boat builder to repair and build vessels. Spending as much time as he did with the humans of Talmador's Bounty, he also became something of a go between the Monkey Goblin tribe and the Colony. This is how his remarkable language skills begin apparent to everyone. He built a network of his tribes most talented polymaths not just to learn Common, but to teach colonists how to speak the Monkey Goblin's pidgin. These are the talents, along with his bravery and curiousity, that led to the late night conversations around the beach fires and at the Smuggler's Blade that eventually strayed into having him join the crew of the Inordinate Amount.  

The night before he left, the denizens of Goblin Hole held a ceremony for Chet. A wild bacchanal of chaos and flame in the cenote on the northeastern side of the island. He was bathed in the blood of a freshly killed shark and awarded a breast plate crafted of its teeth. His mission, given by the Monkey Goblin Boss, was nothing less than to "Go forth and fuck shit up. Make sure these Wildspacers know to fear the Monkey Goblins of Goblin Hole! Also, bring us back something interesting to eat and something cool to burn."  

You arrive in the neighbourhood you left when Other Luckums tapped your Luckums on the shoulder.

The Angle & Grand Street towards the Lesser Market. This is where you made way for a Huge Water Elemental to pass.

A lot has changed. To begin, Jennifer/Hooper is nowhere in sight.

The streets are virtually empty. Doors are closed and windows shuttered. The smell of smoke still weighs heavily in the air. Most all of the merchants have gathered up their wares and disappeared. Even in the Lesser Market. There is one nearby

• (candles, wicks, matches, lamps, lamp oil) that is closing up shop.

• He looks like someone beat him up (a frog person). Some of his wares are broken. You don’t know if frog-people cry, but his sooty face is streaked with liquid leaking from his huge rheumy eyes (after the fire, several street roughs assaulted him)

Foot traffic is almost non-existent, and most of the few passersby you see, gawp at you in fear and wonder. A couple of them stop in their tracks and head off in the opposite direction.

The streets are so unusually quiet, that you are startled when you hear the roar of a distant crowd, a single voice responding rhythmically in unison to some unseen speaker.

The G-NOME is silent. It no longer whirs. It no longer glistens. Beneath its glass dome, its polished brass and silver gears and whirling thingamajigs are grey and appear to be made of laces of ash. It resembles now, more a rusted and burnt husk. Luckum’s arcane mark is there at the bottom – no longer invisible but burnt in place.

It is inert.

As go deeper into Lowtown, towards Dockside and the intersection where Grand opens into the Lesser Market, the smell of burnt city grows thicker. So does the noise. 

The crowd is in the Lesser Market, which incredibly, seems to have been largely closed. The few merchants still open, that you can see, are being harassed by protestors

You are not far away from the crowd now and you can hear it being incited by someone. PERCEPTION: Someone is railing in Wildspace Cant about “these filthy goblins” SENSE MOTIVE: Inciting Violence

Well, you found all the people. Well, perhaps not all the people. Enough of them to egg each into becoming a mob. And they are ugly.

A mass of many-raced Brahleans are being worked up by a soot-faced Ylfen contingent standing on a makeshift stage amidst the burnt out remains of a city block. Actuaries hover at the edges of the crowd and on the tops of buildings, surveying. Looking on.  

People have signs: “Who’s the Ylfen Fucker Now?” // Goblins = Flaming Death // Meat Pies - Buy Three, Get a Free Fold of Bog Paper // “Smash Them!” // etc.

They have Connor! Bound and gagged and badly beat up. People are shouting for his blood.

Ylfen messages:

• “We have to find the rest of them"

• "The Board of Directors allowed them to dock on Bral. The Board of Directors should be held accountable, as well as their sponsors in the ACLU!"

• “We demand that Accounts be Balanced!”

• “Hand them over to us, and they will face Imperyion Justice when the Fleet Arrives”

• “They started this fire”

• “We need to smoke them out”

• “We warned the Board of Directors of the danger in allowing a single fire-obsessed goblin onto the Brahl, but they would not listen.”

• The caused consiyderable damage. Three Ylfen ships and two Ylfen warehouses in Dockside and Lowton were destroyed. As well as several other ships, warehouses and businesses combined

• The goblins of the Inordinate Amount started the fire! We seized the culprit at the site of the first fire! (Blaine) and we are holding him an undisclosed location. We demand that these accounts be balanced

• You are the goblins’ masters! You are responsible for what they’ve done!

There is a scream from down the street followed by a great trumpeting roar and the thunder of… hooves?

A building collapses. An immense bovine lowers its head and snorts. It appears to be made entirely of brain tissue, twisted and heaving, except for its enormous horns. They are reminiscent of a stag, with dagger-like points spreading more than fifteen feet across.

With a sweep of its mighty head, the heroes witness a large number of people go flying into the air. The crowd is a single creature. Stunned into disbelieving silence like some helpless kit before a slavering wolf. The moment passes, and it flies into a wild panic.

The burnt out houses, collapsed structures, and broken merchant stalls have hemmed in a big part oft the panicking crowd. For many, there is no escape from the Lesser Market. Unless you do something, a lot of these idiots are going to die – killed by the Brain Bull itself, or by trying to escape.

The creature was wearing an arcane device around its neck. The collar is noticeably similar in construction and design to the psionic suppressors that the Illithid Collective has used to infiltrate the sanctuary of Bral, the Elder Brain. Those flying constructs generated a networked dampening field that limited the Elder Brain’s ability to maintain order on the Rock of Bral. You are able to determine that it provides protection from mind-affecting powers and manipulation, while allowing its own powers to function normally.

Freeday Eoweek Korda - Day 202 (The Y'lfe Freeday Fire Riot)

After the Ruinquake, we completed our tasks in Talissandri as its leaders and citizens re-established order and good government.  Anemora had gifted me a remarkable artifact and other treasures of incredible value.  They were packed with care as our duties dwindled and they were handed over to the residents of that underwater city.  We went to Ancorato with the Adventurers to get a break from the intense activities of the last four months and perhaps recruit more spacehands.  The journey to that island by Chenwulf’s Sea Hag was rapid and uneventful but highly enjoyable. 

[Placeholder: image, tropical beach]

On the island I swam in the ocean everyday as a purely carefree break from my normal responsibilities.  I had forgotten how much I had missed the Wine Dark Sea of Jendouba and savoured every moment I had on Ancorato’s sandy shorelines.  Somedays I swam for exercise with Chenwulf and others with the local Locathah for the shear enjoyment of the sea.  The afternoons were spend exploring the coves and beaches around the island.  I was able to casually discharge my own duties cataloguing the loot from Talissandri with Woog.  Central to this however was a full investigation of my new gun.  The facilities of the island were ideal for the complete synthesis of it with Albarud and Haraq into an entirely new weapon.  I was able to experiment with it to gain a full understanding of its entirely unique operation.  Reproducing its bullets was a challenge for the islands boffins as they were completely different from black powder charges.  In time, this foundational success will allow me to develop alchemical bullets on the Inordinate Amount.  With Stormfizzle’s assistance, I was able to maintain and improve my arcane bond with my creation Zahrat-Alkarma, the Vine’s Flower.  

Daily I would look in on my squadmates but only casually and at a distance.  Luckums kept to herself and, given how much she had done during the Ruinquake, I felt time and space were what she needed at that moment.  I would watch her closely on return to Brahl hoping that life among her goblins and Shilynn would help her healing.  I was happy however that she spent some time with Stephen the Goatherd and Orag cooking up fantastic meals utilizing the incredibly exotic bounty of the island and the region.  Basile was a common fixture at the island’s research observatory which was a wondrous facility I found myself drifting towards almost daily.  It was no shock to me that Shroktath fully savoured the fleshier experiences of Talmador in a daily cycle of wine, woman and song.  It was a bit of a surprise how often Hazel was partner to him and how much he seemed to enjoy it.

A duty we happily discharged though was recruiting a new crewmate named Chet the Monkey Goblin.  He was highly recommended by the leader of his tribe and several of the Ancorato Adventurers.  Not just a fighter of skill but an accomplished tinker (DM: More of a linguist and Macgyver-y troubleshooter).  I was hopeful he would add value to our team of painters and marines.  It accorded him great honour to be accepted by us and as a result his tribe sent him off in a goblin ceremony that was exciting and oddly respectful.

A week in paradise was a guilty enough pleasure and we carefully prepared our equipment and minds for the return to Brahl.  Luckums was confident that she would return us using the GENOME at the moment we departed but we were fully kitted for battle knowing anything was possible in Wildspace.  

end of an island

picture of simplicity

unending azure sky

In the wink of an eye we stepped from the white sand of that tropical beach into the streets of Brahl.  Immediately we knew all was not right.  We instantly noticed the GENOME had changed; it was silence, powerless, aged.  Also it was night on Brahl and we had left in the daytime.  We went to a local merchant to confirm the time and day and saw that he and his neighbours had been the victims of a wide and senseless riot.  I overpaid him for some of his trifles and helped him clean up as we confirmed seven hours had passed since we left.  That fact heightened my awareness to the fact that the city was covered with a low level of smoke.  I expected at any moment for some grey-cloaked adjustor to tell us our goblins had burned down the city.  I was shocked by how unusually quiet it was though when the market promenade was typically so busy in the evening.

We went to the Lesser Market looking for our goblins.  We found a crowd assembled by a y’lfe instigator standing over a helpless and bound Connor.  This effete poof was whipping the crowd up to violence towards our goblins all in the name of his politics and greed.  Shroktath pushed into the crowd to recover him and I followed him fully expecting to unleash violence on that ignorant mob.  Some ruffian crocodilian attempted to stop Shroktath who just ignored him like a fart in the wind.  I stepped past him without a glance as he was not even worth pistol-whipping.  Hazel and I channelled magical strength into Shroktath got into position to rescue our crewman.  The Y’lfe lord was inciting the crowd as the squad spread out around the square.  Basile came across Dakota and Lewis who had disguised themselves to also make their own rescue attempt.  As we poised to act, one of the buildings collapsed killing some of the spectators and injuring Shroktath.  From the ruble emerged a gigantic bull seemingly made entirely of brain.  I moved towards the stage directing the crowd towards the opposite exit knowing that left unchecked, that mob would be panicked into stampeding annihilation in seconds.  Our goblins (including Chet) were exemplary in the coolheaded discipline they showed controlling that crowd that had moments ago wanted their blood.  

[Placeholder: image, brain bull]

Suddenly the y’lfe lord slit Connor’s throat and incredibly Luckums grabbed his crumbling body.   Seemingly by force of alone she held his life in place.  The bull spewed acid on the crowd and then charged.  Shroktath went to shield us from the charge and was pounded down like a tent peg.  Sensing my opening, I ran under the bull’s head and in front of the y’lfe shooting the monster in the head.  My revolver worked perfectly.  The y’lfe thought I was going to harm him as was fully surprised as I stepped aside to let instead let the bull do its worst.  A wave of dread passed by me and completely destroyed the mind of the y’lfe lord.  The bull seemed to use the fears and failures of his vile lifetime as the fuel that shredded the y'lfe's sanity.  For the slightest moment, I paused to sympathize with the y’lfe’s sadma having recovered from mine so recently.  Instead, I jumped on to the bull’s neck as my brother had once taught me on the farm.  I blazed away with gunpowder and magic on that monster’s back.  In the end, a tattered but unbowed Shroktath delivered the magnificent coup de grace finally driving his spear through the monster’s head.  

The bull had barely settled to the ground before Shroktath turned and grabbed the y’lfe guard and squeezed him for information.  Under Basile’s steely gaze, the scum spilled the beans that in fact the y’lfe conspiracy lit the fires to increase goblin fear ahead of the incoming illithid fleet.  A young journalist from the “Rock of Truth” recorded all the sordid details so that hopefully the truth of that manipulation that caused the Freeday Y'lfe Fire Riot would be widely revealed.

[Placeholder: image, ?]

With little pause, we collected our gunna and returned to the docks.  We found the Inordinate Amount guarded by ogres of the MV Boulder.  Gurunk had married two of their crew and now they regarded us as family.  We celebrated their bold defiance of the shadowy powers of Brahl with hogsheads of ale from our stores and the fermented goat’s milk of Ancorato.  Tomorrow we would regret our revels but would nonetheless take our fight to the illithid at the Drunken Octopus.

hands that hold lies

cannot grasp truth

until someone lets go

Well hell’s bells - that turned out to be just what I needed. After helping out the heroes of Ancorato, we took some time for R&R on a beautiful tropical island topside. We’d talked it over and figured that, with the G-Nome safely (?) in Luckum’s backpack, we should be able to arrive back at the Rock really any time we wanted, so we could afford to carve out a bit of time for ourselves.

Barfights, brothels, booze… Hieronius’ holy arsehole, did we cut loose. I say we, ‘cause even better, I had some company! Hazel pleasantly surprised me, and joined in on the living - what a great guy! That’s what I call a priest.

The island even had loads of gujamellon, so I could easily rehydrate and return to the fray.

I wasn’t too aware of what Khalid and Luckums were up to, to be honest. Any memories I have of them from that two week party are kind of fuzzy. I think Khalid said he spent a lot of time in the ocean? Come to think of it, I can’t remember seeing Luckums. That doesn’t mean I didn’t.

Anyways, my suggestion to stay another two weeks wasn’t really taken seriously so we grabbed our gear and loot, Luckums and Stormfizzle worked something with the G-Nome, and after that never-get-used-to-it spinning, gut churning transition through time and space, we were back at the Rock of Brahl, at pretty much the same place that we left it. But we were off a bit with the time. The fire had subsided, the streets were (very) strangely empty. We pretty quickly made out some sort of commotion down in the Lower Market and headed down there.

In the pit of my stomach, I was worried that some of our crew were in trouble, and sure enough. In the middle of a square full of angry people, beaten within an inch of his life, being held aloft by some Ylfen asshat who was egging on the crowd about bringing “justice” to the goblins who’d “clearly” started this terrible fire, was Connor. My favourite of our goblin crew. 

Well, I pretty much saw red. I wasn’t just going to sit there and let them do something to Connor from far off. I had to get closer. So I just started pushing through the crowd, glaring at anyone who gave me any lip or the hairy eyeball. Excepting one alligator-person with a bad attitude who took a swing at me, it was working okay. Khalid, Hazel and Basile were in my wake. But then, as we were just closing in on the makeshift stage that the Ylfe were using to rile the crowd up, all hell broke loose.

A wall maybe sixty feet to my right nearly exploded, and out from behind it came changing another bizzarro creature. It was massive. It kind of looked like a huge bull, except with a huge, glistening brain for most of its body, and it immediately had another surprise for us, it spewed out acid into the crowd and onto me in a huge arc.

What a mess, in more ways than one. Some of our group were trying to get the crowd out of the battlefield as quickly and safely as possible, and some of us were trying to get to the stage and protect Connor, and I was staring down this brain bull creature.

Turned out that the acid spew was just a little sample of the horrors this monster had in store. It sent out a powerful blast from its mind. It shook me, hard. I felt like these hot daggers trying to stab into my brain, and I wobbled a bit on my feet and almost puked as I barely withstood this Illithid-like attack on my mind. Not everyone around me seemed so lucky.

The brainbull then charged me, and I barely pulled myself together enough to dodge and land a blow with my spear. And then, I could see it lining up me, Khalid and Hazel for a charge. Off balance I tried to leap in the way, and divert the charge with my spear, but I couldn’t quite get set in time. I took the full force of the charge, and the bull sent me flying. I flew a good twenty feet, and bounced off the ground. This thing was damned tough. 

It all worked out in the end, but it wasn’t looking too good there for a bit. Khalid and Luckums cleverly got the brainbull’s attention directed towards the Ylfe on the stage, but not before the lead fucker slashed Connor’s throat. I felt the helpless rage rise in me, briefly, but I also caught a glimpse of Luckums grabbing Connor’s body and disappearing into what I reckoned was some sort of invisibility. I felt some relief. If anyone was smart enough to figure out a way to save Connor, it was Luckums.

Khalid and I ended up taking down the brainbull, but not before it cooked the brain of the lead Ylfe. Just desserts. Hazel, Basile and our crew ended up doing a great job in getting the crowd out of the way. One of the peons of the lead Ylfe was left standing, and I managed to convince him it was in his best interest to be frank with us. Situation was what we reckoned - the Ylfe just trying every dirty trick in the book to get our goblins. Man, that hatred is just so dumb. Luckily, I’ve met loads of really good elves, or I’d be holding a grudge. 

The Brainbull, was a monstrous creation of the Illithids. Basile, commented that we needed to get after that job that Prinz Andrew gave us - to make the contact with the Illithid resistance, and put a hitch in their giddyup. The Illithid weren’t stopping coming after us, and it wasn’t getting any easier.

Oh, and, big news. Luckums has lost her magical powers. Uhh... shit.

by Eleahne Moonseile

From the Editorial section of The Vindicator

Another day with disorder, chaos, and injustice winning the day. Just another day on the streets of Brahl.

By now our readers will no doubt have heard of the dramatic and tragic events that took place on Freeday Eowok Korda, in the Lesser Market. In the aftermath of the fire that swept through Lowtown in the wee hours of that morning, a group of Y’lfe, with bravery and determination, set out to bring justice to the group we all know was responsible for this conflagration and chaos - “the Inordinate Odds.”

Fire? Goblins.

It doesn’t merit more thought than this, and it’s the very sort of thing we’ve been warning about in this column since these interlopers arrived on Brahl. In the interim, they’ve done nothing but sow chaos and mayhem. Flouting rules and expectations, carrying on to excess, putting order and lives in danger, and now this. A raging fire. All while some of the least respectable elements of Brahl’s Board have looked on or even enabled these destroyers of the peace. The ACLU, with its pitiful and overwrought tales of grievance and woe were predictably and plainly on board with such bedraggled troublemakers as this, but rumours abound that the cancer spreads further and deeper than this - even so far as the Chairman himself.

In the immediate aftermath of the inferno and devastation, who took action? Our fumbling (and probably worse) Board? The auditors? Of course not. Into the breach of inaction and injustice stepped Lord Auguste von Kotzebue and his retinue - a more noble Y’lfe it’s difficult to imagine. Von Kotzebue even managed to capture one of the malefactor “gobbos,” whom he presented to the citizens of Brahl for a proper public hearing and judgement. In his clear, commanding way, Lord von Kotzebue presented the facts to those righteous enough to assemble.

But, of course, any sense of Imperyion propriety and righteousness is precarious at best, given the current disorder fairly cultivated by our current Board. Who arrives to derail the understandable efforts of the citizens to bring about some measure of justice? The “Inordinate Odds.”  

I won’t recount the tragic events of the day here again. We all know what happened, and its been reported at length and many times elsewhere. But what are the key facts?

The Odds attacked von Kotzebue before he could finish questioning the gobbo to the crowd’s satisfaction. The Odds summoned some gigantic beast to cause maximum terror and destruction, and create a distraction.

Are they in league with the Illithids? Probably. Our inside sources whisper of a likely meeting between the Illithids and these rabble rousers in the offing.

Once done with this violent distraction, they dispatched the creature, but not before it had tragically snuffed out the life of a true hero - Lord von Kotezbue. The grief of the Y’lfen community shall have to wait amid the understandable anger. The Odds are trying to make themselves out as heroes - a preposterous claim that any right thinking citizen will properly disdain. How many lives were lost that day, and how much property was destroyed? How much more is still to come while these forces of chaos and terror are welcomed to walk our streets?

The citizens of this notable city ask for justice and order. But, more and more, it seems that the only real response to this plea must come from outside Brahl.