The heroes launched off of Bral with a ruse to make it appear as though their was a significant fracture amongst their goblin crew. The Boulder flew off with goblins towards the direction the Lost Goblins of Hel-Ezhan while they ran the Ylfen blockade. The heroes launched three Goblin Flamewing spelldashers to engage the Battle Swans and Wingblade spelldashers launched by the Ylfe to intercept their departure. Near the end of the dogfight, a massive Ylfen Spirit Warrior entered the battlespace piloted by Orcneas, the Ylfen Paladin who has been hounding them almost since they arrived in the Shattered Sphere. Spirit Warriors a re giant undead insectoid bodies operated like a cross between a spelldasher and a Wildspace battlesuit.  The surviving spelldashers made their way back to the Inordinate Amount which Luckums then piloted straight at the Battle Herald for a surprise boarding maneuver. Following Shilynn’s instructions, a team of Inordinate marines entered the Battle Herald and took out its array of communications mages before reboarding the Amount and making good their escape.

Janks: The day that you leave, the Bralean Navy will be out in force. It won’t be about protecting you, it will be about enforcing Bral’s  sovereign cordon and protecting the trade approach. Having the Batlle Herald and bunch of Ylfen Wingblades swoop down on the docks as you heave away would be terrible for business.

Crumnubbins: I’ve arranged for there to be a strike of the Scavver Control Guild a week before you leave. This will accumulate the Scavver hazard near the Rock and make things more difficult for any approaching Wingblades! Scavvers love the docks 

(Janks rolls her eyes, but Crumnubbins seems really excited by the project)

Bral’s sprawling complex of docks and platforms and towers is a symphony of motion.

Masted spacefaring ships gently sway, in a mesmerizing spectacle, following the movement of the Rock itself. New ships gently rise and fall, arrive and depart.

The crews and stevedores—an impossible mix of species from all corners of the Spheres—move about their tasks, tending to the sails, repairing, loading and unloading cargo; either recovering from their last or preparing for the next adventure in the vast cosmic ocean. Merchants peddle their wares on floating platforms, serving the docks with exotic alien goods and refreshments, rare treasures, and intergalactic artifacts.

Clockwork drones, imps, and other winged folk zip through the air, delivering supplies and messages between the ships and the port facilities.

A twinkling kaleidoscope of reflected light and colour shimmers on the spelljammers’ great hulls. Luminous signs and displays competing for your attention, animated by cantrips and spells to advertise various goods and services, regulations and taverns. And all the while, a colourful nebula rolls by slowly in the sky above the celestial harbor. Radiant hues of swirling gases and the distant star-spattered sphere.

In the dimly lit, cozy-cluttered interior of the Inordinmate Amount, your crew of space-faring goblins gather around their bosses, awaiting orders on how to trick their way through the formidable Elven blockade.

The constantly moving mass of green-skin, pointy-ears, mismatched attire, and wild expressions, chattered and argued amongst themselves, while the new crew members stood apart, looking on nervously. 

Some are perched on crates, others on makeshift hammocks hanging from exposed pipes, while a few stood on top of one another, making sure they have a good view or at least the opportunity to be seen by everyone else.

With some limited tweaking by the DM...

In the vast and improbable expanse of wildspace, a chaotic and even more improbable dogfight was unfolding between two opposing forces. On one side, there was a tight formation of sleek starfighters, graceful giant space swans, and an agile insectoid power suit, all working in perfect harmony. On the other side, a pair of flying wooden space go-carts, propelled by sheer audacity and a dash of madness, and a howling crew of Goblin chaos engineers.

The starfighters, sleek and metallic, glinted with the brilliance of distant stars as they weaved through the void, their powerful thrusters leaving shimmering trails of energy behind them. The pilots inside were skilled and disciplined, executing precision maneuvers with the grace of dancers. Their spell cannons fired in synchronized bursts, sending beams of scorching energy lancing towards their opponents.

In stark contrast, the wooden space go-carts were rough-hewn and rustic, held together by nails and determination. They were propelled by repurposed salvage and binder twine.

The giant space swans were the surprise element in this unlikely battle. Graceful and serene on the surface, their long necks and enormous wings concealed powerful energy disruptors that emitted dazzling beams of energy. They glided through the battlefield with an otherworldly elegance, their feathers ruffling as they adjusted to the vacuum of space.

The insectoid power suit, a hulking behemoth of jagged metal plates and bioluminescent eyes, added a touch of nightmarish science fiction to the spectacle. Its Ylfen pilot controlled the suit with cold precision as its appendages lashed out, firing energy blasts and grappling with the enemy.

The battle raged on, with the two sides engaged in a chaotic dance of lasers, energy beams, and splintering wood. The starfighters executed complex barrel rolls and evasive maneuvers, while the wooden space go-carts jinked and juked unpredictably, narrowly avoiding annihilation with each daring dodge. The giant space swans glided gracefully, firing beams of energy that seemed to cut through the fabric of space itself.

Amidst the mayhem, the insectoid power suit and its pilot fought with relentless determination, their mechanical limbs clashing with the starfighters and their energy blasts creating dazzling explosions against the backdrop of the cosmos.

The battle was not just a clash of technology and tactics, but a collision of imagination and sheer audacity. The two sides, disciplined and daring, wove a tapestry of story in the canvas of wildspace, creating a scene that would be remembered by gathering crowds witnessing it from the byways of Bral.

...thank you A.I. overlords!

The day had finally come.

We were getting off Brahl. We were sure gonna try, anyways. Pretty formidable opposition lined up against us - not gonna lie. All our planning and preparation had come down to this moment.

We came up with a plan - a pretty good one, I thought. Janks & Crumnubbins from the ACLU said that they’d arranged safe passage for us… for the first kilometre or so (gosh. Thanks.). The idea was, to prevent collateral damage to the docks. We decided to use this window. After we heaved away, Luckums would turn the Amount invisible, and we’d head straight at the Battle Herald. It’s exactly what they wouldn’t expect us to do - the Amount is far smaller and outgunned in comparison. Plus, we had a valuable insider on our side - Shilynn. She told us exactly the right place to hit, and what to look for on the Battle Herald so that we could make our getaway without them being able to follow.

In the meantime, though, the Ylfe were’t going to make things easy on us. They’d hidden some hired bugbears mercs at the dock, and just as we heaved off they launched a couple of chain cannons at the Amount, doing some serious damage to the aft deck. As we were patching that up, they sent some smaller ships out to get close to the Amount and keep a close eye on ‘er, so the fabulous five were going to have to buy some space. We’d make payment in blood.

So that’s what happened. I’m getting kind of used to these space battles now. Luckums was damn amazing. Again. Wow. Zoomin’ her ship, flipping it around like a child’s toy, cracking into the opposition ships and sending them all topsy turvy. Khalid and Basile’s ship had some bad luck. I mean, I was kind busy with my own part of the battle, but I did see what looked like a killer blow delivered to them by one of the Ylfen “Dagger” ships, but they somehow (?!?) survived it. I’ll have to ask the lads about that one.

Me? I’d come up with a ship that was designed to be a bruiser. Not fast, not flashy, but made to close with other ships and then make them pay the price. Which is what I managed to do. As one of the Battle Swans swooped past Basile and Khalid ahead of me, it put itself in my sights. I harpooned it, hauled it in, and I almost felt sorry for the poor bird - squawking, bleeding, struggling as I hauled it in like I used to do with the giant tunaki fish off the Red Wine Coast. The Ylfen “pilot” decided to climb aboard my ship - “the Grappler” - and it didn’t turn out very well for the Ylfe. Just as we crunched through the last of the lighter escorts, a nasty looking Ylfen ship appeared in the distance. It looked like some weird giant bug, or crab or something (I heard someone call it a “Spirit Warrior” - whatever that means). But it had an Ylfen pilot inside of it. We didn’t have time to deal with it, though. We needed to return to the Amount for the main part of our plan.

Which we pulled off without a hitch, really. The invisibility wore off just at the right time, with the Amount right on top of the Battle Herald, and right on top of the vulnerable midsection where the navigation stuff was. (Hard to fly, if you can’t “see”) The goblins attacked with gusto, I took charge and directed our crew to fend off the Ylfen marines, while Khalid, Basile, and Hazel stormed the navigators. No prisoners were taken, and the equipment was wrecked, and we left fires, destruction, and chaos behind us as we left. It was a beautiful sight - the Battle Herald drifting away from us, panicked crew running along like ants, smoke belching out of the hole in her hull. Sweet as a gujamellon on a midsummer’s day.

And one more beautiful sight. Turned out that the weird Ylfen insect ship was piloted by that damned Ylfen knight, Orchist, that we’d battled before at the first Battle of Aligail. That hair! It’s like a damned golden rainbow. And that face! Artists would line up to paint that face. Not that it was a happy looking face. He almost caught up to the Amount, but Shilyn managed to get away just in time. As he fell back into the distance he shook his fist at us, and yelled something at us. I don’t think he was wishing us “safe travels.” I blew a kiss at him. He gave a gesture that some people would tie in with sexuality in return, so there you go.

We were on our way.