Session Twenty-Four

In preparing the Inordinate Amount to depart, the heroes discover widespread plots to infiltrate and influence their crew. Their Quest to Free Jormun Goss from an Illithid prison and their search for the Crown of the Lost Sphere is of interest to Captain Thaliose Hothex of the Brinkmanship, Braap the Slaver, the Ylfe, and a fourth party unknown. While the Board of Directors has ensured outfitting the Inordinate Amount for its voyage into llithid Space, they find that scrying devices have been hidden throughout the spelljammer as well as some sort of teleportation portal. They embark on a complicated game of cat and mouse with the would be spies, to plant misdirecting messages, disabling some, but not all, of the devices. They ensure that the new “hold of holding” cannot be scryed and use it and the Spind of Worlds as “safe rooms” to discuss their plans. They are confident that they have gotten ahead of the plotters in every instance but the influence of their crew. Connor the Goblin has already been convinced by agents of the Brinkmanship that there are surviving goblins in the Shattered Sphere. Jennifer confirms the existence of the Lost Goblins of Hel-Ezhan, and the heroes promise their goblin allies to make uncovering the mystery a priority… once they save the Sphere from the Illithid plot to extinguish the sun.

By the time you returned from the Spine of Worlds, the upgrades promised by Andru Prince to balance your accounts are well underway.

Coalman immediately begins to apologize. “They just arrived and started working on the ship. They had a sheaf of work orders that looked pretty official, so… uh…” Bronwyn tugs at your coat, “What’s a ‘work order’? Is it fairy magic?” You catch Blaine testing the flammability of a stack of construction material. It’s good to be home.

Later that evening, Hooper Meadowtop joins you on board for a special council on how to proceed.

(WHERE IS EVERYONE WHEN HOOPER COMES ABOARD?)

You are all immediately aware of one another when Jennifer-Hooper steps on board. There’s a tug towards one another. Something pulling you towards one another from deep inside. You feel a flash of nostalgia and your hearts ache, before you are suddenly aware of the presence of a sixth.

It only takes a moment. It’s as though millions of threads wove themselves into being, drawing from the very fabric of the ship as well as something from each of you in the process. And there she is on deck, a memory suddenly whole, walking towards you as though she had never left.

Alexis crosses her path, “Malingering again, eh Luckums?” and casually punches her in the shoulder.

Gurunk is married to Grapple and Smashleigh. Grapple is married to Grunt, Grope and Beckybites. Smashleigh is married to Rebeccut. They need to reach a consensus about what Gurunk does next. I'll leave it to your imagination how they reach it.

You are set to depart the Rock a tenday after your return from Yesyr. There’s a great deal you’ll be able to accomplish during that time. Send me a list of what you intend to do.

In that period, the Inordinate Amount won’t just be repaired, it will be upgraded.

What can we expect at the Illithid Prison?

The prison is said to have no entrances. New prisoners are phased in from the surface. Monitors phase in and out. The structure of the inside of the prison is, not surprisingly, protected from divination.

Refuse is not expelled. You can surely learn more from your contacts.

The Inordinate Amount will carry a cargo of ore from the Grinder through a Bral-based shipping company contracted by the Superior Races’ Rights and Slaveholding Cultural Practices Protection Union Corporation for Good Group (currently directed by Okkalappa). This provides you with some deniability for travel into Illithid-dominated space.

Connor’s been moping. A lot.  

It’s difficult not to notice. There’s been more stabbings amongst the crew. Coalman hasn’t been able to get through to him and reports that he spends a lot of time looking at a scroll that he rolls up and tries to hide whenever he’s approached by someone. 

His mood has been infectious. Some of the other goblins have also started looking glum.

Map (crude) APPRAISE: looks like a copy…

• Around the edges, a story is written in goblinoid, telling the story of a hidden tribe of goblins within the Shattered Sphere that escaped the genocide. The map purports to lead to an ancient Goblin Shrine that holds further clues as to their whereabouts

• He purchased it in the Great Market from a Githyanki who seemed to know him

• Starchart, KNOWLEDGE WILDSPACE (the coordinates are legit, the story is legit) deep in the shattered sphere… but in a direction that would take you far off course from where your determined destination

We were being spied on. No. Wait. That’s not what I want to start with.

Luckums came back! Luckums came back? It was the strangest, most wonderful thing. We were working away on the Amount, when we all felt it before we seen it. The amulets that Molitor had given us to keep some element of Luckums bound to our timeline and in our memories began to glow and get warm. And it’s almost like you could feel - this is gonna sound weird - memories of Luckums being drawn out of the ship like a rolled and iced gujamellon through a straw on a hot summer’s day. More than that, it was like you could feel parts of Bral, some of our crew remembering her too… And then she was there! Striding onto the deck like it was no big deal and heading to her quarters.

You could have pushed me over with a gentle breeze. I’m standing there, jaw around my ankles, for what seemed like an hour. Our goblin crew is acting like it’s no big deal. It’s a big damn deal. We thought that she was basically dead. Hazel comes up from below and gives Luckums a big hug. Luckums seems perplexed. I come running up to her, lift her up into an even bigger bear hug.

But as I do, I can’t help noticing… there’s something a bit different about her. A slightly different feeling? Plus, she’s wearing this new ring, and a new amulet around her neck. The necklace really draws my attention. It’s metallic, a disk, and engraved into the disk are a bunch of spheres that interlock, and reveal a kind of an interconnected maze. It’s like a part of my brain is working that through even as I lift her up into a hug. It’s like there’s a part of my soul that connects to this thing? Weird feeling. But even as my brain’s trying to process it, I feel suddenly almost pushed away by the amulet. Even weirder feeling. But such a powerful one that, in my shock, I drop Luckums who (sorry) fell awkwardly to the deck.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m as overjoyed to have Luckums back with us as anyone, but I found the whole thing with the amulet disturbing enough that I tried going to see Molitor for any extra info. Not much doing, really, except that Molitor reacted like it was perfectly normal for Luckums to emerge back from the timelines and into ours. Well, good? One thing that Molitor said that stuck with me - we had to be careful with our Luckums amulets, especially when we weren’t on the ship. Sounded like if we took those off (or worse?) off the ship, that it could be very bad for Luckums. Gave me a chill thinking about it. I was gonna be damned careful with that thing.

Luckums was back! And a damned good thing, too. For loads of reasons, but it turns out she was just what we needed. It was Luckums that first started perceiving that we were being spied on, messed with. And it was Luckums, and her good ol’ - I don’t want to call it paranoia, cause it was real - careful nature about these types of things that really got us to clean up our own house.

Turns out, Thaliose had cleverly planted a story designed to demoralise and maybe even divide our goblin crew. A tale of a lost tribe of goblins hiding away in the shattered sphere, and a map to finding them. It was spreading like a disease through our original crew, but the most serious case was “typhoid Connor.” A shock, really. He was almost defiant. It seemed like we might have to either go after the lost goblins or maybe start losing our crew. But we consulted with Jennifer, and thank the gods. One, the Spine of the World Bookstore was magically protected from prying eyes, so we didn’t give away much on what we knew (more on that later). Two, she ended up putting the whole thing to bed. Yes, there are stories floating around about the lost gobbies. Yes, there might be some truth to ‘em. Yes, even Jennifer would want to look into a real lead… but this wasn’t that. Jennifer was able to determine that, ‘cause of the location. this was a total red herring designed to lead us in the exact wrong direction. She was willing and able to communicate that with Connor, and it seemed to start settling the whole thing down.

But that really twigged Luckums, Basile and the rest of us. If Thaliose was messing with us this way, what else did he have up his sleeve? After checking out the whole ship, we found three scrying “eyes”, and several spies among our quickly hired new crew. And it turned out that it wasn’t just Thaliose keeping a hand in. Braap (the nasty slaver toad), the Board of Directors, the Ylfe, and some other group that we couldn’t ID all had plants on board! And Basile and Hazel even discovered that one of them even had some sort of a portal thingy smuggled on board. We decided to play it cool, and keep it under our hats for now though. That way we could feed them false information, and maybe find further ways to mess with them.

Or just kick some of them off the ship? I wasn’t quite sure why we needed to keep Braap’s guy or the Ylfe plants around.

Oh, and one more thing. We added one more member to our crew - an ogre from "the Boulder" named Blarg (or is that, "BLAAARGGG!"?). I admit, I wasn't too keen on the whole thing, but the rest of the group seemed adamant that it was the only way to bring back the Shannons from near suicidal sadness on the loss of Garunk (who decided to stay with his new family on "the Boulder."). From what I saw in the Shannons - launching themselves into the grooming and training of Blarg - the idea seemed to work. I'll give them that. Weirdly, I kinda miss that smelly bastard (Garunk), but we all wish him well, I'm sure.

Dakarday Umberweek Korda - Day 214

We continued with our preparations to launch into the Void.  Khalid was on deck watching Shroktath whip the crew into shape but otherwise everything was relatively normal.  It was a good occasion to do paperwork in the open air and also supervise the crew.  Suddenly, Luckums walked on to the deck as if she had not been missing for several weeks.  The crew reacted as if she had never left.  The Squad however remembered her departure with a vague sense of awe since our amulets were all warm; somehow it was significant.  It was Luckums but something was different.  I could not determine if it was her deportment or her strange amulet or even unexpected jewelry.  My instinct was reinforced by the cues and behaviours of Basile and that screamed that this was Luckums.  I approached her, shook her hand hand and asked her to resume her duties and post.  As she has been missing and presumed lost for almost two weeks, a party broke out:  whiskey for the men and beer for the goblins.

Meanwhile Shroktath and Hazel went to Molitor’s to seek some kind of answer.  He explained that brining the five amulets together to the Inordinate Amount was what manifested Luckums back into existence.  He was emphatic that despite the small and itching differences, it was truly Luckums, but perhaps the only one we could have found.  They returned to the ship and walked into the unfolding of Gurunk’s family settlement.

The young, male orge and his bonding mates agreed that he would go with the Boulder on its journey.  Sensing the gap this would leave in our team, I tasked Basile to find a replacement.  The captain of the Boulder readily volunteered a young ogre male named Gurunk to our crew.  The Shannons were less heartbroken by this addition to our crew and spent the week intensively training him to be be less than completely chaotic.

In parallel, we found Sailor Connor to be surly and insubordinate, well out of sorts.  We determined that he had been manipulated by our enemies through the legend of the Lost Goblins of Hel-Ezhan.  A thorough investigation determined he had been tricked by a doctored map.  This led us however to uncover a number of infiltrators and spies in our crew from neutrals and hostiles.  We were able to oust some and kept some others to feed misinformation to our enemies.

Luckums was able to discuss some items of her situation with Fortuna but that story is not yet fully told.