"As to who you are, why you are Shroktath, yet. Nothing more. Nothing less."
- Molator the Mercane
"Each of us begins where the other ends and ends where another begins."
- Crumnubbins Willybits
"The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes."
- Jennifer
"I am a rich man as long as I don't pay my creditors."
- Plaitus
When the time of Luckums's unravelling came, she went fast. And it wasn't just her physical being at risk from fading; it was every trace and memory of her having ever existed amongst those left to remember her. The heroes mobilized quickly to get her to Molator, avoiding distractions along the way. They peered into the Chronoverse, and watched in wonder as the Mercane worked, weaving her last remaining temporal tethers to each of them. When her physical self finally disappeared, those bonds held the memory of her in place. And for now, that would have to be enough. With heavy hearts, they returned to the demands of their adventures, all of them diminished. When they went back to the slavers' tavern for the promise information about Carmy Belhain, they found Braap surrounded by gnolls of the Hunched Wald. He was terse with them in going back on his offer of information, and the companions immediately took offense and insulted him terribly in his own establishment in front everyone before realizing that he was communicating far more than they realized. By the time they departed, they had made a powerful enemy. A Hunched Wald ambush awaited them outside. The heroes managed to extract some information, learning that Carmy's days were numbered. Then they moved to another problem, finding their pilot. Goodboy's leads took them to the Bandit & Bogey and from their, they went to the Bralean Naval base on Underside. From their contacts, they learned that Shilynn was being held in a private jail and that breaking her out would be no small feat. They also learned that the Ylfen Battle Herald, Morning Glory, was here to blockade the Inordinate Amount and chase it down should it try to flee. If not by the Inordinate Amount, they realized that the Ogre ship Boulder might be their only shot of reaching Yesyr in time to save the kidnapped Ibixian child.
It was easier to take Molator’s warning about Luckums’s temporal instability seriously, huddled around its workbench, speaking in tight whispers, inside its quiet chrono-boratory.
As soon as you emerged into the hustle and bustle of Bral, flooded with the noise and distractions of the nearby great market, all of the forboding melted away. You each looked at one other and nearly laughed. Luckums said that she felt fine and that Molator was full of it. Case closed. Untethered? Really!
You were back on the Inordinate Amount when she started to fade during the second dog watch. Each of you felt a subtle and indescribable tug that drew you to her quarters. You found her trying to say something but the words wouldn’t come. It sounded as though she were speaking backwards. Unravelling.
Basile laid a hand on her. After a moment, he sighed gravely, “Molator.” Shroktath didn’t need to be told twice.
He picked her up gently—already she weighed less than she had—and moved with uncanny purpose. He leapt over the side of the ship to the docks and disappeared into the city, trailing a blue nimbus of his life force spilling over as into a vessel overfilled. It was all the rest of you could do to keep up with him.
Basile: You notice the group of Ylfe keeping a respectful distance, but clearly and openly watching the Inordinate Amount. They are all wearing tidy naval uniforms and you can see at least one Ylfen Spelldasher (Bladewing). You get the sense that they want you to know they are watching you.
Shroktath had kicked open Molator’s door, and when you arrived, you saw the great warrior crouched to one side staring helplessly as the Mercane and its clockworks moved around what remained of her. The half-orc was completely exhausted having tried, and failed, and tried again, to pour his vitality into her.
Now it was all he or any of you could do to remember her…
Goodboy has proven his worth once again. His contacts have provided you leads on Edgar and Shilynn
Edgar is the featured celebrity chef at a high end restaurant in High Town called the Oyster Pudding Bar
Bronwyn has been sighted in the Temple District. She’s made a nuisance of herself trying to get into the Hive. Most people have stopped bothering her at this point, the Hive has thus far refused her entry.
[Placeholder: image - "A Crew in the Wind"
Hooper Meadowtop is with Torryoog – a catfolk who works for Chepo Driano, a Vanaras (monkey person) who owns "The Spine of the World" bookstore (Goodboy indicates that “He [Hooper] actually reached out to me…”)
Shilynn has been more difficult to track down. The last person to see Shilynn was a half-elf named, Sylneak Hallumin (half elf/half orc) at the Bandit & Bogey (a spelljammer pilot’s bar). Word is Sylneak is laying low. The Ylfe are looking for her.
[Placeholder: image - "The Rudderless Pilot"
Shroktath remembers Luckums's fierceness and unquestioning surety when she decided to resurrect two of the goblins that had died during the Battle of Algail.
Khalid remembers Luckums during the ship-to-ship battle, just before their arrival on the Rock of Bral. Luckums made the ship invisible, piloted amazingly and brought the Inordinate Amount through it all without a scratch. Piloting, she was a true warrior. Heart and mind.
Hazel remembers Luckums's ability to be both an agent of chaos and an agent of humanity. What stands out in particular was her determination to ensure that Shilynn was freed from the brain box.
Basile remembers Luckums's utter lack of self control around artifacts and magic. It would seem that she was seizing them for herself, but ultimately she would always use them for everyone's betterment. Ultimately, it was this dual nature that was at the root of her fading away...
She seemed somehow to be shrinking back into herself, and yet, she had always looked this way, hadn’t she?
Molator remained busy with its mechanical contraptions and magical rituals, seemingly existing in many places at once. Speaking in double and triple echoing voices, “I cannot reverse this, it was all I could do to slow it down until you all got here. Now, I may be able to able to secure the last of her temporal tethers to each of you, so that the memory of her does not fade.”
Molator does not wait for a response. With a sensation that must be what a shuttle feels shooting through a loom, you each suddenly find your perceptions split between the Prime Material Plane and what must be the Chronoverse. All around you, the Timestream appears transparently overlaid upon your own Prime Material Plane! When you concentrate, you can see silver lifestreams stretching out from each of you in opposite directions away into a bluish-grey mist.
It takes you a moment to come to terms with your ethereal surroundings. To comprehend the sudden manifestation of allegory - the passage of time made physical out of tiny threads of life.
You stand amidst a sort of tapestry into which you are mutually woven. Somewhere out ahead, one by one, each of your lifestreams begin to unravel and part ways with one another, moving individually again, as they did at some point behind you. Molator is entirely there, with multiple lifestreams moving in every direction. It holds something like a marionette of Luckums, severed strings (or lifestreams) flapping listlessly in the mist.
When you look around, you see tens of thousands more silver lines – some of them closer than others – some so much so as to be part of your tapestry, others a distant tangle. Coming and going. Going and coming.
Basile is struck by seeing the ending of the pack. The fact that their stories will one day, in the future, become unwound from one another.
Khalid is a leader. For him what is most important is the notion that no one ought to be left behind. And here he is looking to the future like a leader - accepting that we cannot change the past and wondering how to do something better next.
Shroktath's connection to life is all the deeper for his bloodline, and so too is his strong emotional attachment to his fellows. And so, he is all the more dismayed by the unravelling of their lifestreams. Would that be the end of their story.
Hazel pauses for a moment of reflection, as a newly awakened spiritual person. He carefully examines Basile's thread and sees how closely it interacts with his own...
When Molator’s work is done, you feel the movement sideways again, like a shuttle through a loom, moving in the opposite direction from before, and you are entirely back in what passes for reality.
Molator handed something to the clockwork, Maquuna, spoke to it in a high-pitched trill, and it scurried away with a clatter of equipment.
The Mercane explains, that a trained chronomancer can slip into the Timestream, find certain threads and follow them back and forth. A very good chronomancer can portal out at any point in the timestream. But even the best chronomancer cannot reach the beginning or the end of time. There are barriers to the structure of time.
Shroktath asks who or what he is.
Molator explains the Gardeners are exceedingly rare, but can be recognized in the Timestream for having some of the most robust lifestreams of any creature. Molator says that it has only ever encountered one in the Timestream. Shroktath’s lifestream is particularly robust – but there could have been a number of explanations for this. The fact that he is of the Blood of the Gardeners certainly explains a lot. Somewhere, one of Shroktath's ancestors must have been one of the great Nephilim - the word it uses for a Gardener - one of the ancient Wacthers. As to who he is, "Why you are Shroktath, yet. Nothing more. Nothing less."
The heroes try to gain other clues about what lies ahead for them, but Molator is evasive and speaks in riddles, warning "Be careful what you ask of the future." It is always in flux. Even knowing its current path is apt to change it. The past is more settled, for it has already occurred, but it can easily be misremembered. When enough of these perspectives shift, it matters less and less what actually happened and only what most timestreams believe to have been the case.
Perhaps most interestingly, they learn that the Illithid do not manifest in the Chronoverse. Their influence there is undeniable, and it is unclear whether their presence there is somehow beyond comprehension. The fact that there are no known chronomancers in their ranks is all the more curious given their insatiable appetite for knowledge and power. This in itself is one of the great mysteries of Chronomancy. Many researchers have dedicated their entire careers to this curiosity and what it might mean.
Maquuna returns with five tiny gearbox lockets. Molator explains that inside each is the knot of Luckums’s lifestream. What’s left of her timestream is now tethered to Temporal Prime through the most important people in her life.
There is one for each member of the party.
“The fifth is for someone called Jennifer.”
[Placeholder: image - "A Faded but not Forgotten Friend"
Inside the Obedient Thrall, a group of gnolls stands at the bar. They make no effort to hide their hostility or their interest in you. Gnolls slavver at the best of times. This group seems really to be working at it. To a hyena faced one, they are fingering their weapons (eight that you can see)
Braap sits in the same place you left him the day before. The same watcher stands behind him. The cat that once curled around his neck under his hood now sits on the table next to your pouch cleaning its undead paw. The 200 gp you paid him sits in the middle of the table.
“Take it,” he croaks. “There’s nothing I can do. I do not wish to get involved.”
The party responds to this perceived betrayal of trust by insulting Braap mercilessly in his own house. The crimelord's restraint becomes a message in itself. When finally they begin to sense the creature's motives, Basile realizes that he has been speaking volumes:
“You can get all the information you need from these unsubtle idiots" (the gnolls)
“They will follow you out.”
“I never want to see you again.”
“As individuals they are nothing. As a pack, they are more dangerous than you think.”
“If I see you again, you will pay dearly for your insults.”
The party later confirms that, from the pouch, he took his payment of a single gold piece.
[Placeholder - photo, battlescene outside the Obedient Thrall]
[Placeholder - image - "Gnollbody Knows the Trouble I've Seen"]
Having defeated the entire "message committee" the party learns the following:
The Pack Warden's name was - Grzzk Claytooth
Gang Name - The Hunched Wald
On Yesyr – They are one of 10 slaver clans
On Carmy:
He doesn’t have long.
Most of the leshy have died – some after being sold to now angry clients – only a few remain
The leshy have not been as profitable as expected. The children were kept to keep the leshy alive; now they are the fallback, being sold to offset their losses
The bartender is a bat person name Skreech.
“Harbinger (i.e. Shilynn's pilot call sign) told me that her crew might come looking for her and to cooperate… what’s that psycho gotten herself into now? Wait! Better if I don’t know.”
Yeah, I know Sylneak. Ylfe are looking for him.
I ain’t told them nothing that will help them find him
He's a mechanic for the Bralean Navy. The naval yards are off limits to anyone not bound to Bral itself before all other allegiances. If he's anywhere, he's there, laying low with people he trusts
Regarding the Ylfen Battle Herald, Morning Glory, parked next to the Rock of Bral, the group learns the following from Skreech and some of the patrons:
It is built for speed and is here to deliver a message, or pursue prey. There would be no outrunning it for the Inordinate Amount, even with a full crew complement
The bulk of the fleet is still several weeks away, if Bral and the fleet maintain its current trajectory.
They are here to lay their formal demands for "a precious cargo that belongs to the Imperyion" (i.e. the Crown of the Lost Sphere), the Inordinate Amount and the goblins
They are watching the Inordinate Amount and intend to pursue, capture and/or destroy it.
The naval base on Underside is a surrounded by a large complex of landing caverns, above-ground berths, and repair facilities. It squats before the defensive citadel that towers over Underside.
The Citadel is a radical departure from a traditional fortress design. It includes a series of towers and walls. However, the walls enclose no space. They link the towers and provide covered areas for the movement of troops from one part of the Citadel to another. The structure’s primary design maximizes the fields of fire for several powerful weapons and provides a secure shelter where forces can muster to repel invaders. There are four major parts – the central, port and starboard towers and the undertower.
[Placeholder: image - "Clockwork Machinations"]
The heroes manage to track down Sylneak at the Bralean naval base on Underside, and he tells them what he knows about Shilynn's whereabouts.
Shilynn is being held in a private prison run by Clockworks called, Dalliance Day Camp. It wouldn’t be impossible to break her out, but it would also be no mean feat.
He's desperately afraid to know that the Y'lfe are trying to find him.
Sularday Eoweek Korda - Day 203
Leaving Molitor’s, we went back to the Inordinate Amount for a much needed rest and to consider Luckum’s future. In the middle of the Dog Watch however, we heard Shroktath yelling. I looked above decks and he had Luckums in his arms and was running off the ship. The squad went in pursuit. As we arrived back at Molitor’s, we found Shroktath leaning over Luckum’s fading body, trying desperately to pour healing force into her. None of our arts or efforts could stop her from dwindling. We even struggled to remember her. Molitor worked to tether her essence to each in the squad. We shifted into some other plane as the life-strands were worn together. The past that was Luckums was disappearing even in that realm. I was in near panic at the loss of my crewmate, my friend and my mentor, but I focused being the leader. I had to look to make a better future and hold onto its hope. We returned to Molitor’s house and could not remember why or what we were doing.
Our time in his house was confusing; we were groping with filaments and clouds. We wrestled with the future and past, the large and the small. Molitor managed to explain that the Ilthilids were unique in that they had no interest in time, in chronomacy. They were obsessed with the wholesale restructuring of the Spheres and the destruction of the Twin Suns but not time. As we tried to grasp all of it, Makuna returned with locket and gave us each one. On wearing them, the memories of Luckums flooded back. The locket was not a link to Luckums or a simulation of memory but actually in some way I could barely understand actually some essential element of all that remained of the being that had been Luckums. There was a fifth locket that was intended for Jennifer/Hooper Meadowtop and I held on to that one.
[Placeholder: image, magical starscape]
We slumped our way back again to the Amount and tried to get some rest. I could not immediately sleep and did a frantic inspection of the ship. In all, we would later learn that no one else retained any memory of Luckums. Her clothes, weapons, spellbook and her gewgaws were gone from a space on the Inordinate Amount that none but our squad of four recognized as her cabin. Even her notes and annotations in the ship’s library and cookbooks were gone. Only my administrative records and diary notes about her remained. Before I dozed off therefore, I nonetheless posted standing orders about Acting Warrant and Chief Thaumaturge Luckums.
Selunday Menteweek Korda - Day 204
I closed my eyes in the dark and opened them in the early morning light to that standard mix of dockyard sounds, ogre growling and goblin chaos. I fully dressed and prepared my magic and emerged on to the deck. Sergeant Coalman and Connor were trying to organize the rump portion of our crew to achieve some effect that was not negative. As Basile, Hazel and Shroktath imposed some temporary order on that, I caught sight of Goodboi. He had brought Shannon One back from the market with some pile of high fashion in tow. Goodboi told us that he had learned Edgar was working as a chef of some renown at the Oyster Pudding Bar, Bronwyn was at the Hive and Hooper was at the Spine of the World. He had learned that Shilynn had been last seen with a half orc-ylfe named Silinic Halloumi at a bar called the Bandit and Bogey. I gave money to Coalman, Connor, Goodboi and even Shannon One with a message to entice our wayward crew back to more fortune, battle and glory. Chasing them around was like trying to pick up quicksilver from a mirror. While I had little hope this would work, nothing else had worked yet either. My father would have balked at my waste of funds but a problem that I could solve with money was not a problem, it was an expense. Or I was just throwing coins into the vast expanse of wildspace…again.
[Placeholder: image, gnoll battle]
We returned that morning to the Obedient Thrall and sat with Brap the Toad. He was more obstinate than the night before and refused to honour our agreement. We tried to negotiate in good faith but he refused and threatened us with his hired muscle. We took our money and left. He had his knolls set an ambush for us in the alley however. They were a disciplined pack and luckily using Basile's insights, Hazel had anticipated it and created a stone wall on the bar’s exit to keep half of them out of the fight. I tried blasting the ones in front of me with gunfire and magic to get a targeted shot on their pack-warden. Fortunately, it closed with Shroktath who dispatched it in short order. I was able to disarm and disable the last foot soldier who we questioned. He was able to tell us that Carmy was a prisoner of the Hunched Wald slaver clan and only had days to live. We knew we had to get off this Rock and that meant we needed a pilot.
We went to the Bandit and Bogey and began speaking to the bartender, a manbat named Skreech. He did not know where Shilynn Harbinger was but did point us to Silinik. He was lying low at the navy repair yard on the Underside. We went there and made our way through. All military bases are the same: if you look like you have a purpose, everyone is too busy to bother you. We found his repair bay and began to question him. I had heard of those of orc and elf ancestry, the Uniya of Jrusar, before, but the descriptions were poor. Silinik demonstrated characteristics of both races in an interesting mix. He told us that Shilynn Harbinger had been settling accounts too vigorously and had been put into the Dalliance Daycamp, a private and harsh prison. To break her out, we needed to go to the Axle and Lever. To save Carmy however, we considered an alternative: to use the ogre's Boulder to sneak onto the slaver asteroid.
[Placeholder: image, half orc]
The tears kept coming for a long time. We were at the Chronomancer’s place in Brahl, and it was weirder than the last time. I wasn’t quite sure why we were there. I was struggling to remember - something about a crewmember in trouble? A friend of a crewmember? Someone I’d heard others talk about was in trouble? But then, after the Chronomancer placed those enchanted lockets around our necks, it all came back to me. We’d come here to try and save Luckums. We’d failed, despite all of our best efforts, and she’d faded from the timeline. And when she had, it’s like I couldn’t really remember her anymore, and had no cause to grieve. It hurt like hell, but I was so thankful for the gift of memory the chronomancer brought with those lockets. Luckums came back to me in the only way she could. I remembered the glory of that magnificent life. I cried at the loss of my friend.
The chronomancer had also given us a look inside the weaving of timelines. It was jarring, but beautiful. I sensed my friends having different reactions, but I was caught up in the wonderful richness of life, it’s mad chaos and patches of order, it’s “shine.” The Chronomancer gave us a chance to ask some questions but, to be honest, the answers weren’t so amazing. Usually something along the lines of - “ooo, time is mysterious and unpredictable. Our knowledge of it changes it.” Yeah. Thanks. However, he did tell me a little something about my background that I didn’t know. Not only was at least one of my ancestors a Gardener, but one of the “Nephilim.” I hadn’t heard that term before, and it sounded like they were maybe the original or first generation of gardeners? I’d have to find out more.
Luckums would have wanted us to keep on with what we were trying to get done. So, we regrouped and focused on what we still could do to make things better. First, we went back to the slaver bar. I suppose things could have gone worse, but that’s not to say they went well, and it was mostly my fault really. Sometimes it would be better if I just shut my big yap and let the big brains do more of the talking. I pissed off Braap pretty good when I insulted his “honour” for not following through on his deal with us to provide us info on the slavers that had taken Carmy. (Turns out, he did provide us this info, just in a strange and violent way) Thankfully, Hazel stepped in and cooled the situation down otherwise I think we might have had a really tough fight on our hands with Braap, whatever that undead “thing” was behind him in the shadows, and the gnolls.
We ended up fighting the gnolls anyways, but at least we knew it was coming. The whole group of them had been chucking hostility, taunts and aggressiveness at us since we walked into the bar, and it turned out that these asswipes were Braap’s way of giving us the information we needed. The gnolls were slavers, and they knew info on who had Carmy and a bit on where they were. Turns out, all we needed to do was to defeat the gnolls, capture one, and make it talk. Which wasn’t that difficult to do, as Basile smartly picked up on the signs of what was going to go down, and Hazel channelled the energy of his god to create a stone wall that stopped the gnolls in the bar from leaving the place and surrounding us in the ambush that awaited us outside. Hazel and Basile turned what might have been a touch-and-go fight into a more manageable one. And when the second group of gnolls finally did arrive, they took one look at the bloody scraps of their mates all around us and fled.
We regrouped again, but we were stuck in our thinking. We were fixed on the plan that we needed to get Shilynn (who everyone kept calling “Harbinger” - was this her old pilot name?) back so that we could pilot the Inordinate Amount to Yasir, the slavers’ den not far from Brahl. It took us some time and a fair chunk of gold, but we moved down this track. We made our way to bottomside, where the naval base and Shilyn’s contact was. We managed to meet him, and found out that Shilyn - no surprise at all - had rung up quite a tab/body count in her mission to bring a measure of justice to all those responsible for having her basically imprisoned, bodiless, in our ship all those years ago. Eventually, her luck had run out, and she’d been captured and was being held in a for-profit prison (shocking no one, at this point, this was the nature of prisons on the Rock) called “the Daliance Daycamp.” [Dalliance Daycamp is not just "for profit," it's a private prison, which will imprison almost anyone for a price - DM] Unfortunately for us, Goodboy indicated that it was high quality. It was looking tough to get her out of there.
We were still stuck in our thinking. Hazel had used his powers to mystically figure out the right type of bribe to give to the guards to gain access to Shilynn, but even then we, finally, were struck by the scale of our problems. We’d need to gather not just Shilynn, but our whole crew to work the Amount. We’d have to evade the Ylfen corvette - a far bigger and more powerful vessel - in order to get to Yasir. And the captured gnoll had made it clear - we had days, not weeks, to get to Carmy before he was sold/moved, or dead.
We were racking our brains and then it kinda hit me. What if we snuck on board another ship, maybe a slaver ship, and got to Yasir that way? From there we had the realisation that it didn’t need to be so dramatic. The Boulder - the ship operated by our friendly Ogres - would likely be willing to take us to the slavers, and we could save a lot of time and effort, and have a better chance of saving Carmy. I think we had the beginnings of a plan.