Session Six: 

"Go then, there are other worlds than these." – Stephen King, The Gunslinger

“So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.” ― Isaac Asimov, Nightfall

"It's said that Lake Hall, where the Mattock's Throne sits in the highest point of the Great Tor above Riot's Gate, was once a prison. Long before the Dwarven Civil War split their Pantheon asunder, our deep-dwelling Ancestors sent their greatest criminals, heretics and dissenters into that aerie to suffer in the mountain-swept open air. There, where Lakes Seluna, Dakar and even Sular twinkling in the distance beyond Sunfalls, can be seen with the naked eye. These were the first Lake Dwarves. The rejects and ne'er-do-wells belayed down the mountain on ropes braided from their own beards to begin life anew, far away from the mines and the brethren who'd turned their backs on them. I always liked that story. Creation's most hidebound creatures leaving the Stone Deep from which they were born and reinventing themselves on the lakes-above? Shows the lengths a prisoner will go to be free... shows that none of us need be bound by the tyranny of our birth." - Regolith Loamtoes, Dwarven Fisherman

“Before the end began, there was everything. How do you account for everything? How do you thread it through the eye of a needle? How do you put it back together again the other side? Mistakes got made, and someone had to fix it.”

The blind locksmith was old beyond reckoning. His hands were so thick with knobs and knots, it was hard to imagine them moving at all. But, oh, how they moved. As he spoke, which he did almost ceaselessly, he would fidget with some gear, twist some device or manipulate some widget to assemble some puzzle box or disassemble some windup device at his over-sized dining table. It was as though sight might have given him an unfair advantage.

“So, now my house is full of heroes, arrived in the nick of time. Ha! You’re too late. How d’ya like that? You’ll probably be wanting some exposition now, won’t ya?”

You are sitting on tiny chairs in a snug little cottage nestled in the crook of a stony hill outside an abandoned village called Algail, spinning through Wildspace on a forested asteroid covered with sheep and goats. Your host is one Abraelo Gogwoggle Bonnydock. Brail to his friends. Havelock to everyone else. A tiny blue goblin child with black eyes, looks over the edge of the crowded table and watches everyone intently. For most of you, your knees come nearly to your chins. You are strangers eyeing each other carefully over steaming mugs of milky tea.

“Let me explain. No there is too much. Let me sum up.

“The first Sentarian through the Gate, the Feraln Elf Niern Coadali, has made contact with the Elven Imperyion, whose proxies are on their way here now to wipe us all out, find the Imperyion a path to Sentar to strip-mine its steelstone, burst through the walls of Creation and face the Architects themselves.”

Brail pauses for a moment and frowns.

“Now that I say it out loud, it may require a bit more explanation. Mauveen, where did I put those bellberry scones? Ah! Thank you.” He wipes his oily fingers on the shiny front of his leather smock and begins breaking off big fluffy pieces of scone and popping them into his mouth between gulps of tea.

At last he wipes his mouth, sighs, and puts down his mug. “Right. Fortified. Where to begin? Probably with Azlant, eh, and their propensity to create sphere-shattering weapons and devices that all manner of nasty creature want to get their tentacles and quivering pseudopods on?” His hands begin to fidget with his gadgets again. I wager you lot, exploring that empire’s ruins, know something about that?

“Thousands’a years ago, when the Azlanti got it in their heads that their little world wasn’t the only one, what did they do? Why they did what any prisoner does presented with the tools and time enough. They started picking at the walls. And after making a few holes here and there, they started improving the tools. That’s how we ended up with the G-NOME.” He puts his hand on the glass dome of the insanely complicated encased clockwork device at the centre of the table.

“It’s how I knew to expect Sentarians. Prophecy is only part of what it does – that’s just the calendar it keeps. As for its other purposes, that’s probably how it found its way to me. You see, I am a locksmith – some would say THE locksmith – and the G-NOME, well, it’s a key! Some would say, THE key. The key to everything.

“For some reason, when the Architects created the spheres, they nestled Sentar’s away from everywhere else. When the Great Cataclysm cracked open Magluon—this, the Shattered Sphere—that broke open the path between the two. But it is fraught, hidden and perilous. And so, it was millennia before anyone really found a way through.”

He pauses, sips his tea and turns to the crew of the Inordinate Amount.

“And so Magluon’s original goblinoid inhabitants tumbled out from their sphere, through the phlogiston, and ran headlong into the Architects’ own Gardeners – the Ylfe. Elves. Two less compatible people you could hardly imagine. No wonder the architects tried to keep them apart. But then the Architects vanished.

“Thousands of years went by. Now, the histories say the Un-Elven Wars began in order to confront the goblin threat. “They” started it. “They” brought this on themselves. “They” have it coming. Genocide always begins that way, I suppose. “We” were protecting ourselves. “We” had no choice. “We” are righteous. Well, under the banner of their One God, the Singularity, the Ylfe didn’t stop with Goblins. But besides a crusade for racial purity, they were also determined to find a way to the Seventh Sphere. To Sentar! The Architects had hidden it from them! ‘We were betrayed’ they cried. Faithful servants, forsaken!” He thumps the table with his hand for emphasis. 

“That’s where I come into it again. Indirectly at least. Mauveen’s great, great goblin grandfather secured the pathway between here and Sentar through something he called “the Cradle of Creation.” He was my dearest friend, and greatest enemy. Mauvious! A Blue. A psychic goblin.

“His vision was always greater than mine. That’s what made him the villain and me the hero. I was provincial and small-minded. He was willing to lose the village to save the civilization. And I was always willing to try to stop him, even if that meant losing both.” He wipes his rheumy eyes and blows his nose.

“Pah! Too damn sentimental in my old age. If it weren’t for Mauvious, the Imperyion might well have succeeded in hunting Goblinkind to extinction in the Outer Spheres. But the backdoor to Sentar provided a reprieve and then a base from which to run a guerilla campaign from the Cradle – from the ancient pathways of the Architects themselves. That infuriated the Ylfe. For over 200 cycles, Mauvious, his descendants, and I moved goblins and others from here to there. To relative safety. With the help of this. (He pats the G-NOME again)

“Certainly there were consequences for your world. Like all revolutionaries, we thought less of the consequences than we did of the our necessities. Which makes me the villain now, I suppose, and I am sorry. We’ve spent the last several cycles trying to mitigate the damage we’ve done. Well the Mauvinogion has – that’s Mavious’s legacy – a sort of secret network helping sentient races escape the Imperyion’s war of Purity. As I said, for a time, in my youth, I worked to try to stop him. At least until the Imperyion came for our world and destroyed that too. We’re sitting on the last piece of it that I could actually find.

“Now, I’m too old, and I let the young folk have their adventures. But every now and then, they trot me out. The last Sentarian to visit me before your lot was a political leader from your world. A Gnomish lawyer in charge of a sprawling state called “The Sunterranse Federation.” Such a grand name. Tufimatix. Chancellor Tufimatix! The Mauvinogion brought him to me to help secure a political peace with the Goblinoid Horde that we had inadvertently unleashed upon your world. He had other problems, and we promised to help him to bring it under control.

“After that, according to the G-NOME, the next visitor to expect from Sentar, well, I thought it was just your Elven friend – Nieran Codali. I was frankly surprised. He didn’t much care for Gnomes, that one, or anyone else. Not that he had the Imperyion’s Hate. He’s just a child, really. Anyhow, Mauveen confirmed that, although eccentric, he was not himself a threat. Leave it to an Ylfe to be a threat without even realizing it himself.

“It wasn’t long before he convinced himself that he could get the answers he wanted to hear from other Elves rather than me, and he made off on one of our spelldashers looking for them. Tumult went after Codali, before I could stop him, but the Gump hasn’t been back in days. Probably forgot what he was doing, dear creature. Anything out of his routine and he can get lost for cycles.

“Well, according to our sensor triggers, your man, Codali reached Fish Head and made contact with the Compact of Steel & Steam – proxies for the Imperyion in the Shattered Sphere. And now, they’re on their way here. Poor stupid Elven bastard. They probably have him chains, if they haven’t already removed his brain and put it in a box.

“Algail is hidden, but having found Codali, they’ll find us sure enough. Tumult is usually enough to shoo off unwanted visitors. If the Imperyion finds me, finds Algail, finds the G-NOME, any one of those things… the path to Sentar will be open to them.

“I need your help.”

• The Ylfen Impyrion had no interest in controlling this sphere… too much trouble for too little return. Better to keep it in chaos. A task to which the Compact of team & Steel are perfectly suited.

• If they begin to suspect that it is a gateway to the Phantom Sphere… they will be back in force.

• the Compact of Steam and Steel is coming in one of their Fortress Walkers – a sort of giant spelljamming clockwork.

• Fortress Walkers are armed with as many as four Spelldashers – Elven WIngblades. Like a goblin spelldasher, but, uh, better made.

• The Imperyion designed the fortress walkers to deal with the Gumps.  

• The Compact began as Special Forces during the Nyn’Ylfen Wars; now they are wellkitted band of outlaws. Now they are little more than deputized gangs of outlaws roaming the Shattered Sphere in Giant Robots. They stayed behind the Shattered Sphere to enforce order and gather intelligence as the Elven armies withdrew.

• Who are they? They go by many names. The planters of the first tree. The creators of the spheres. The Carvers of the Cradle. The Grey Men. The Inbetween Men. A force older than Faerie. Older than the gods. And yet they say that we are older than they are… from a time long before them? What does that mean?

• But that’s the wrong question. The real questions are:  WHAT? What do they want? WHERE? Where did they go? WHEN? When are they? HOW? How did they do all of this? WHY? Why are they doing this?

• If you pass everything through the eye of a needle, is it still what it was or does it become something else?

Mauveen helps Havelock enter the lead mine cart at the small boarding station in the abandoned town. He already has the handbreak in a fierce grip in front of him, before you even set foot in your own carts. His curly white moustache quivers in anticipation. “Hurry up and get on board already! This is the most fun I’m going to have all week!”

Peering over the side of her own cart, looking at you with wide eyes, Mauveen is bouncing up and down. Once you are all on board, he says loudly, “Hold on tight!”

When he pulls the leaver, you are jolted forward and take a sudden lurch down. You enter dark tunnels, speed briefly and then slow down on a straight away… Lewis says “Hey, that wasn’t so bad,” which of course was a mistake…

CUE SUDDEN DROP

Rather than describe everything, I will leave the next 17 minutes to your imagination. Enough to say that the mining cart weaves in and out of asteroid tunnels, trading places with swinging pendulums and massive plummeting and rising weights that narrowly miss decapitating you as you plunge and twist at mach speeds through great hollowed chambers. Your mine carts tilt on two side wheels and clang back on the rails in an explosion of sparks too many times to mention. The entire thing is a spinning clockwork device of Speilbergian proportions that makes Peter Jackson’s Escape from the Goblin Tunnels scene in the Hobbit seem original and understated.

Finally you reach the Under-Asteroid…

There, spilling over the sides of what must have once been an open pit mine is the wreckage of hundreds of years of interstellar warfare. Steampipes and gearworks, rusted out hulls and blackened bombards, twisted steel and hammered bronze. Brail breathes deeply as Mauveen helps him from the mining cart and seems to come alive. “As much as I love the smells of the cottage and the woods, I’m still an old mechanic. The oils run deep in my veins. Smell that? Smells like solutions to all the world’s problems! We engineered our way into this. We can only engineer our way out.”

“Here, you should be able to find everything you need to outfit a small Flight of Flamewings, and all the equipment you need to complete the work!”

I NEED A MONTAGE!

The camera swoops over the is the wreckage of hundreds of years of interstellar warfare spilling over the sides of what must have once been an open pit mine. Steampipes and gearworks, rusted out hulls and blackened bombards, twisted steel, hammered bronze and rats nets of wire.

Basile takes in the piles of wreckage. He’s looking for something to use. He sighs and slowly starts to organize, classify and take an inventory of the piles of scrap. It’s overwhelming. He struggling to lift things.

Shroktath wipes the drool from his mouth and steps in. He stoops and looks Basile in the eye, and starts helping him lift things.

Khalid surveys the chaos. Goblins are sliding down piles of junk, running around, wrapping each other in wire and throwing gear boxes at one another’s heads. His eyes widen, overwhelmed by the engineering possibilities. Glenn runs by on fire. Khalid fixes his turban. Breathes deep and lets loose with his sergeant’s voice, “You fucking goblins!! Listen up! This is how we’re going to do this…!” All the goblins jump to attention and line up in front of him.

WE NEED A MONTAGE!

Stormfizzle happily starts using his archeology skills to sort through the piles of wire and greasy levers.

Woog stockpiles ballistae. So many ballistae. Cranking bolt action tension. One suddenly let’s loose and narrowly misses impaling Rip. Rip turns to face him slowly and glares. Woog shrugs.

Orag surveys the scene, rolls up his sleeve and starts preparing dinner, “Everyone needs a nice stew.” He lines up a bunch of tin cups. He begins pulling out dried parts of monsters that he’s been curing his meat sack for years. Some of it is utterly indeterminate.

Edgar the Goblin, surveys him, eating a pickle and nods approvingly, “Hey chef, that smells great!”

YOU GOTTA’ HAVE A MONTAGE!

Azariel is furiously designing ships. Not quite happy with the blueprints, she passes them by Luckums who turns them upsiade down, shakes her head and passes them on to Basile, who makes some marks, nods and passes them back to Azariel who looks at them and then looks up and  smiles.

Cole is peering into the clockwork guts of machines long past. Smiles his clockwork smile over a handful of delicate machine parts, “Ah that you my brothers. This will be useful for our efforts,” he whispers quietly.

Luckums makes sure there are no goblins inside the stew. Orag looks embarrassed and signals to his colleagues not to say anything. Satisfied, uckums turns her attention back to the rocket she is carrying. Hoists it up and smiles. Orag nods his approval.

The rocket takes off and explodes in cascading fireworks above the crater now full of organized ship parts, at the centre of which several Spelldashers have become to take shape.

THEY HAD A MONTAGE! MONTAGE *FADES OUT*

The Goblin crew of the Inordinate Amount are prepared for the battle on the ground – Brail expects there will be a Formian warrior landing party

• The Shannons are strapping ballista bolts to Gurunks arms

• Lewis: Why did the Moon stop eating? It was full!

• Baine: is sharpening knives and sticking-sticking knives everywhere, talking to himself and giggling

• Dakota: Would you rather be torn apart in an explosion of wooden splinters or asphyxiate slowly in Wildsapce?

• Charlotte: That Azariel is pretty tall. She thinks she’s so much better than me. I want to cut her.

• Bronwyn: Has buns strapped to either side of her head ‘ “I’m a space princess”

• Edgar: Hey, before you go into battle, eat your stoo!

• Connor: All present and accounted for sir? Where do you want us?

Lewis: But what good are a bunch of flying wood carts against a giant Wildspace Robot? This Compact thing is coming! They’re coming and they’re going to walk right in and they’re gonna’ role right over this place… WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!

 Who is it that says so? Lewis!? We are but soldiers and heroes for the working day…

There are only a few of us, but our hearts are strong together.

*GRUNT*SMILE*DROOL* Just get me close enough to those bastards so I can touch them.

(Orag climbs Shroktath like redwood and sits on his shoulders)

We’re the tower of power! Sky’s the limit! Space is the place!

Let’s go blow that tin can. I’m getting’ too old for this shit.

I’m trying to figure out how we got from the island to space...

May I count myself among the blessed at the end of this day.

I’m sorry, I don’t know what we’re doing.

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from otherwhere will…

I didn’t come 2,000 years into the future to get killed by a tin can.

So this is it. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done for this moment.

Don’t die.

A giant clockwork hovers upright before you: an enormous seamed steel golem, hovering in place, not quite in fighting stance and puffing steam out its back into wildspace. Shiphandling fins and spoilers fold and bend on its legs and extended arms to provide stability as it halts its approach on Algail Asteroid.

If what Brail said is correct, there will be at least two spin saw projectors in its head, where the Helm and command party will be found. Its hands are dual docking clamps, now empty. A giant sword hangs from its waist. Three lithe ceramic-plated spelldashers float before it in formation, like a fleet of arrowheads. After a moment’s standoff, at some silent signal they move as one. Rushing to close the distance between you and your own ships, the battle of Algail Asteroid is on!

By the time you reach the Void Stalker, it has already landed on the Forest Asteroid. Towering above the trees, its mecha-piston legs have tromped a path through the woods. There are docking clamps outside an open hangar just at its belly.  Judging from what you can see of the inside from here, the hangar looks to be for repairs and only has room for one Spelldasher at a time. You can moor your ships outside. 

The Hangar

Steel girders crisscross the open landing bay. There is room inside for mechanics to undertake repair work on a single Wingblade at a time. Chain hoists hand from the ceiling, above workbenches with tools and parts. A small kiln squats in the corner, warming the entire shop. A doorway on the back wall opens to ladder that must move up and down the giant transport’s back. Hissing steam fills the air and a layer of spattered oily grime covers everything. Man-sized formian workers scuttle over the steam and gear-works. Tools clattering to the ground in their wake, as they rush to get out of your way. They run behind four more of these ant-like who level crossbows at you and fire.

A floating orb topped with eye stalks and dominated by a large central eye and gaping mouth full teeth floats through the ladder shaft from above and immediately enters the fight in the hangar, glowing with faerie fire. "WELCOME!"

VOICE IN MY HEAD: (LUCKUMS): “OH, wow, a goblin. I never liked goblin brains that much but I used to eat, like, so many of them, you know?  you know how when you haven’t had something for a while, you start to get weird cravings…? Like hobbit baby brains… I know, weird, right? Anyway, it’s like that. OK… I’ll leave you alone, but I’m looking forward to mind-blasting you and eating your brain. Thanks!”

The Command Deck

The head of the clockwork spelljammer is circular room with a domed canopy. Three massive spin-saw shooters sit on a track and pinion opposite the ladder hatchway to the command centre. The Helm sits on an elevated platform at the centre of the room, massive, gilded, ornate and covered in tiny sequined  pillows and draped with colourful silks and other rare textiles. The room is hazy and smells vaguely of patchouli.

Stretched out on the floor in front of the chair in a mound of pillows, puffing on a water pipe emitting a sickly yellow smoke, a vaguely humanoid figure lounges like a cat in a robe of scintillating colours that changes and shifts like a mind-bending aurora. Its flesh is rubbery and greenish-mauve, glistening with slime. Beneath a jaunty fez, its temples pulsate, as though it were chewing. Baleful white eyes are half closed focused on its toke while four tentacles where its lower jaw should be tug on the waterpipe, taking one last pull. A third milky eye in the middle of its purple forehead glares at you balefully with a cosmic hatred.

• “My dudes! Welcome…! Man, you are good. It is so nice to meet new people, blow their minds and eat their brains.”

• “These guys, as you can imagine, are super boring.”

• “Man. I haven’t destroyed a village in a long time. While you’re doing it, it’s kind of satisfying you know? But afterwards, I always feel kinda’ I dunno, just kinda empty…”

• Wow, it’s really nice to have someone to talk to that’s not a pathological narcissist or an insufferable paladin.

The Pelvic Thrusters

When you come down the ladder, you feel your stomachs turn as you cross the gravity plane on the ladder. The floor of this area sits opposite the floor of the Wingblade hangar above you. It is crowded with pipes, dripping steamworks, and glistening organic shapes. Hardened secretions have been shaped into tiny cells into which you can imagine insectoid creatures folding themselves.

One of the cells is filled with larvae, a worker cowers in the corner, standing between you and its young. 

You can feel the pressure from the boilers that stand alongside the steel housing that surround the Void Stalker’s hip joints. A massive worm gear spans the room, linking the two housing units and the perspiring engines. Cramped cells with metal bars covering tight windows line the wall opposite the ladder.

Nieran cringes as he looks up. He is in a miserable state. Stripped naked with his head shaved and marked with schematics, there are bronze bindings on his neck, legs and hands. His eyes flash defiant before they widen and a look of disbelief lights his face – “This is the second time you’ve rescued me from the consequences of my own stupidity!” // “Who are you? More corsairs?”

The Rooms

On the walls of the outer Hull, the housing for the clockwork transport’s arms and massive steam. In between, there are living quarters of sorts. 

1. One room has walls lined with numerous trophies, mirrors and tapestries celebrating the exploits of the same eye-stalk-covered floating orb. Defeating and army of goblins, brutalizing another floating orb, Flowers being thrown at it by young elven maidens, etc. The floor is covered in the splinters of cracked bones, that have been chewed and re-chewed to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.

2. Another is filled with all manner of scientific and alchemical equipment and experiments well underway. (DRUGS!). All manner of other equipment – a rack I the corner bears a tight leather suit.

3. The smallest cell is empty and austere, but for an armour and weapons wrack, an itchy woolen bedroll, neatly folded, an unlit candle and a spell-shaped wooden pitcher.

4. One room is clearly a larder of sorts, the stench is tremendous. In the corer are the remains of an orc, a human, and a kenku – each of their bodies have been ripped apart and their heads show catastrophic injuries. Their brains have been removed.

Veronica: Oh man. I can see my guts all over the place and everything! They’re so pink and glisteny. If I poke this one, I wonder what it does… OH GODS! That hurts! WHY DID YOU LET ME POKE THAT ONE!? AHHHhhhhh…

Lewis:

• I hope when I inevitably choke to death on marshmallow bears people just say I was killed by bears and leave it at that. COUGH

• About a month before he died, my uncle had his back covered in lard. After that, he went down hill fast. COUGH COUGH

• I saw an ad for burial plots, and thought to myself this is the last thing I need.

• Lewis, you’re dying! No that’s my line. Then you say, “Hi dying, I’m Lewis!” No… wait… CROAK

"What is it about the fall of empires that invites armchair prophets and analysts? Why do we treat the idea of facing the future without them as so frightening? Is the comfort of order so overwhelming that we would sooner accept it in all of its oppressiveness than suffer its deconstruction? Would Sentar have been better off Azlant never fell? The Imperyion does not control two of the six sphere and casts a shadow upon the rest entirely on its own. People fear the chaos that would follow its absence. The chaos represented by the goblins.

"Trust me, before I’d heard it all before, I’d seen it all before. Several times. And I was usually the one running about, “Oooo, I’m a hero, oh look at me…” I’m going to be put things right…

"My time is done, its for others to do so…

"So which of you is going to take this?"

• When Azlant fell, the G-NOME was the seed that it sent into the future. It got stuck in the Cradle and became a great Macguffin for aeons. The Imperyion eventually decided that they wanted – because it’s an Empire, and wanting is what empires do – and they eventually hunted it down to my world, where it had not long before come into my possession. And after I gave it to them, for a mercy, they tore my world apart piece by piece because that’s what they had decided they would have to do to find it. And since it had been decided, they couldn’t let a little thing like having it given to them get in the way of their plans. So, I took it back. And they have been looking for me ever since. Well, for that and other reasons…

• Beneath its glass dome, it’s all gears and springs and pendulums, packed and beyond enumeration… some of the finest work you have ever seen

• Three groups of Sentarians. Looks like the G-NOME is losing track of the future. That may not be a good sign. Maybe it’s finally winding down.

• It’s missing a part. A ring at its base, made with one of the rarest substances in the all the spheres… a substance I suspect, you may have heard of. Whoever gets their hands on that ring wields power beyond imagining. And in true Azlanti style, whoever connects it back to the G-NOME, could crack the Eighth Sphere and reality itself.

• I’m getting too old for this.

[...]

Moraday Umberweek Berrona in the 48th Annum Independencia

Moraday. It was still Day 102.  How can so much be bundled into so small a time we call a day.  We moved into Havelock’s hut and found another group from Sentar already waiting inside.  I nicknamed them the Ancorato Adventurers.  They had come through an ancient Azlanti portal that connected that asteroid to the depths of the oceans around the Shattered Continent.  Even to write down such a statement is at once so banal but should have been truly wondrous.  To come so far from our homes that for our entire lives had been so far apart by such incredible paths was almost incapacitating to understand.

We introduced ourselves to one another while the Inordinate Goblins caused much trouble in the village.  Before Havelock spoke, Shroktath and Orag began to arm wrestle amidst screaming in and out of the hut.  It was a good contest but I never doubted that Shroktath would win. I noticed the slim islander called Chenwulf and considered how I would fit him into the Inordinate Privateers as either a painter or marine.  An experienced sailor would clearly be a good carpenter but he was clearly every inch a warrior.  I looked around the whole group and started assigning tasks and roles to each of them;  in my mind’s eye I had the charcoal and wooden board.  How would this group work to complete the mission?

[Image Placeholder: Havelock]

Havelock began explaining what had happened.  He spoke of the Cradle of Creation on Sentar and how it was under threat by the Imperium.  They sought to steal the Genome, a magical clockwork whirring away on the table in front of us.  It would be used to break through the walls of the Cradle and then the Imperium would strip mine Sentar of steelstone to in turn face the Architects themselves.  This would risk the very nature of creation itself.  On Sentar these Architects were known as the Grey Men or the In-Between Men.  Suddenly the clockwork called Cole touched the Genome and spoke of its vast importance.  Luckums spoke of her steelstone diadem and how it was part of this machine.

Havelock explained that the Compact was coming to destroy the asteroid and took us in his train to the Great Scrapyard.  He explained that it might be possible for us to build Spelldashers much like the damaged one we had recovered from Tumult.  This would be our fleet against the Compact

The Scrapyard had everything we needed:  it was an engineer’s dream of infinite possibilities.  I recalled the writings of the founder of the Federation who said that heroes are created by popular demand, sometimes out of the scantiest materials.   We had demand and materials in abundance…and chaos.  When Havelock stopped talking it was like a hurricane felt upon us.  I cannot recall if it was Glenn or Brendon that was actually on fire, probably both.  Everywhere I looked was movement and action and effort and dedication.  I did not know where to start.  How could I?  I was the insignificant son of a grape farmer from the edge of Sentar’s civilization.  I sat on a pile of junk and watched it swirl around me and felt a crushing weight on my spirit.  I could not act.  Then I saw Chenwulf standing like a stone pillar in the middle of it all just staring at me like he was expecting me to speak.  He had the gravitas to organize this mob but he was looking at me.  It felt like an hour but it could not have been a minute.  I stood up, adjusted my turban and climbed the tallest pile of junk I could find.   I surprised myself by how many goblin profanities I used in so short of time.  I could feel Sergeant Drott at my elbow giving me the words I needed to scream at my platoon to organize them into something like coherent action.  Scantest of materials…

[Image placeholder: space ship]

The First Battle of Algail

We assembled five spelldashers to fight off the attack of the Voidstalker and its escorts.  The mage Stormfizzle was my sharik, the pilot of our vessel, the Inordinate Fist.  The battle was incredible.  I had read about sea battles but this was a battle of flying in wildspace in all directions.  Skroktath and Chenwulf literally jumped from our ships to smash an elven fighter with their bare hands.  While we defeated the fighters with little damage to ourselves, the battleship got away from us and landed on the asteroid.  We landed inside it (!) and as we assaulted the ship on foot, we were attacked by a beholder guard.  My pistol was working perfectly just as Luckums had showed me to channel magic and blackpowder.  After defeating that monster, we climbed to the next level of the ship and faced an illithid and his formian soldiers.  Azariel delivered the final blow to it with a column of flame.  We then turned on the elven knight that remained…until his cowardice drove him to run away.

After defeating them, we searched their ship and found the elf Nieran an erstwhile ally of the Ancorato Adventurers.  We stopped the engines from exploding and left the ship to find that a Second Battle of Algail had occurred in parallel between the formians and our goblins.  It had been a pitched and terrible fight but the Inordinate Privateers had been victorious.  Veronica and Lewis were our honoured fallen.

Luckums would have none of it!  She would not even accept death as a final answer.

It took three weeks but she arranged through Girdlebirdle the sale of the captured Voidstalker to an enemy of the Compact.  Using those funds, she obtained the materials that Azariel needed to raise Veronica and Lewis from the dead.  Those weeks were busy but allowed us to rebuild and recover.  Chenwulf put in hours of time rebuilding the Inordinate Amount with my painters as Basile continued to destroy the neogi infestation.  Shroktath drilled his marines relentlessly with the help of his new friend Orag.  I split my time between ship repairs and learning magic from Luckums, Stormfizzle and Azariel-Odlidar.  Woog the Bolt Ace and I came up with a fair split of the spoils of our battle.  We even managed to get our Goblin Flamewing operational again.

Freeday Umberweek Moradina.  It was with grudging acceptance that the Ancorato Adventurers prepared to return to Sentar on Day 123.  They had to secure the Genome and find an aboleth bent on destroying our homeworld.  We wished them farewell and good luck on their quest and turned ourselves towards our tasks in Wildspace.

[a rough piece of paper tucked into Corporal Khalid's journal]

Day 103 - Rest and recovery.  Pay parade of ship's company.

Day 104 - Organized Chenwulf and the Painters to begin repairs to the Inordinate Amount and Algail

Day 105 - Arcane lessons with mudaris and sharik - my spellbook is made

Day 106 - Disassemble and study Hariq.  What wonders!

Day 107 - Continue repairs on Inordinate Amount.  Inspection of Voidstalker complete.

Day 108 - Arcane lessons - copying spells to my spellbook

Day 109 - Arcane lessons - writing scrolls

Day 110 - Feast and rest (Chenwulf claimed it was the "Irons of Valkur").  Pay parade.

Day 111 - Review progress of Chenwulf's repairs to Inordinate Amount

Day 112 - Work in Algail village making repairs and improvements

Day 113 - Arcane lessons - copying and practicing spells

Day 114 - Review repair progress and ship's accounting.  Repairs on Flamewing completed.

Day 115 - Arcane lessons

Day 116 - Feast and rest. Pay parade.

Day 117 - Review repair progress.  Preparations for re-supply run.

Day 118 - Re-supply run to Fort Kerium.  Arcane lessons.

Day 119 - Re-supply run to Fort Kerium.  Bought 30 days provisions and sundries.

Day 120 - Return from Fort Kerium.  Complete repair of Blunderbuss qabda.

Day 121 - Disposal of Voidstalker

Day 122 - Restoration Veronica and Blaine.  Birthday party.

Day 123 - Rest day. Pay parade.  Feast of "St. Cuthburt the Generous".  Departure celebration.

Well Luckums, we have a lot of catching up to do. We used to keep a parchment journal but alas, that was lost during the time fragmentation. Thankfully, we found a better medium to communicate with ourselves, but I will explain that in greater detail when we create it. For now, here is the recap of the time from our departure of Ft. Kerium to the creation of our time journal. Warning, never view the entries ahead of time – trust yourself on this one. Each entry can have several time layers, each one added when you add notes. You can tell them apart because they have different time frequencies. Kind of like this. Oh, and while I am at it, you are terrible at noticing details. You must work on that.

We left Ft. Kerium and navigated into the grinder, a deadly asteroid belt that only a fool like us would consider navigating. Thanks to Shilynn, we arrived mostly in one piece on the lush, sheep riddle asteroid of Algail. The asteroid itself, like some complex clockwork, navigate the grinder and repelled other rocks that would have otherwise impacted with itself. After docking and an introduction to the 2 residents of the island, we ventured into their hut only to find another Sentarian group of adventurers from an earlier time line.  They had come through an ancient Azlanti portal. After some introductions we soon realized that we had to join together in order to stop the Imperyon from getting the G-Nome. The steelstone coronet that we lost was the missing piece of the time artifact.

The blue goblin child with black eyes, Mauveen, is the descendant of Mauvious a psychic goblin of historic importance in all this.

Abraelo Gogwoggle Bonndock is the focal point of this story, he is THE locksmith of time.

Gallantine won the skywar on Sentar and destroyed the Sunterranse Federation with help from the Elven Imperyon Technology. Probably in exchange for rights on all the steelstone in the halls of creation. It would be good to get to the proper timeline and stop this alliance from happening.

I think these words that Brail spoke hold some importance to our future past: "Before the end began, there was everything. How do you account for everything? How do you thread it through the eye of a needle? How do you put it back together again the other side? Mistakes got made, and someone had to fix it.”.

I wish I had known that Abraelo Gogwoggle Bonnydock had played such a huge role in all this. There are so many questions I would have asked him these days on Algail. When and why are the Inbetween men?

It took me a while to remember his words but here they are. I often think about them:

The first Sentarian through the Gate, the Feraln Elf Niern Coadali (ally of the other adventuring group – he was rescued from the voidstalker) , has made contact with the Elven Imperyion, whose proxies are on their way here now to wipe us all out, find the Imperyion a path to Sentar to strip-mine its steelstone, burst through the walls of Creation and face the Architects themselves. Thousands’a years ago, when the Azlanti got it in their heads that their little world wasn’t the only one, what did they do? Why they did what any prisoner does presented with the tools and time enough. They started picking at the walls. And after making a few holes here and there, they started improving the tools. That’s how we ended up with the G-NOME.

Don’t forget your wizard’s mark on the object.

It’s how I knew to expect Sentarians. Prophecy is only part of what it does – that’s just the calendar it keeps. As for its other purposes, that’s probably how it found its way to me. You see, I am a locksmith – some would say THE locksmith – and the G-NOME, well, it’s a key! Some would say, THE key. The key to everything. For some reason, when the Architects created the spheres, they nestled Sentar’s away from everywhere else. When the Great Cataclysm cracked open Magluon—this, the Shattered Sphere—that broke open the path between the two. But it is fraught, hidden and perilous. And so, it was millennia before anyone really found a way through. And so Magluon’s original goblinoid inhabitants tumbled out from their sphere, through the phlogiston, and ran headlong into the Architects’ own Gardeners – the Ylfe. Elves. Two less compatible people you could hardly imagine. No wonder the architects tried to keep them apart. But then the Architects vanished.  Thousands of years went by. Now, the histories say the Un-Elven Wars began in order to confront the goblin threat. “They” started it. “They” brought this on themselves. “They” have it coming. Genocide always begins that way, I suppose. “We” were protecting ourselves. “We” had no choice. “We” are righteous. Well, under the banner of their One God, the Singularity, the Ylfe didn’t stop with Goblins. But besides a crusade for racial purity, they were also determined to find a way to the Seventh Sphere. To Sentar! The Architects had hidden it from them! ‘We were betrayed’ they cried. Faithful servants, forsaken!” He thumps the table with his hand for emphasis.  That’s where I come into it again. Indirectly at least. Mauveen’s great, great goblin grandfather secured the pathway between here and Sentar through something he called “the Cradle of Creation.” He was my dearest friend, and greatest enemy. Mauvious! A Blue. A psychic goblin. His vision was always greater than mine. That’s what made him the villain and me the hero. I was provincial and small-minded. He was willing to lose the village to save the civilization. And I was always willing to try to stop him, even if that meant losing both. “Pah! Too damn sentimental in my old age. If it weren’t for Mauvious, the Imperyion might well have succeeded in hunting Goblinkind to extinction in the Outer Spheres. But the backdoor to Sentar provided a reprieve and then a base from which to run a guerilla campaign from the Cradle – from the ancient pathways of the Architects themselves. That infuriated the Ylfe. For over 200 cycles, Mauvious, his descendants, and I moved goblins and others from here to there. To relative safety. With the help of this. (He pats the G-NOME again) Certainly there were consequences for your world. Like all revolutionaries, we thought less of the consequences than we did of our necessities. Which makes me the villain now, I suppose, and I am sorry. We’ve spent the last several cycles trying to mitigate the damage we’ve done. Well the Mauvinogion has – that’s Mavious’s legacy – a sort of secret network helping sentient races escape the Imperyion’s war of Purity.

Don’t forget to search out the Mauvinogions on the rock.

As I said, for a time, in my youth, I worked to try to stop him. At least until the Imperyion came for our world and destroyed that too. We’re sitting on the last piece of it that I could actually find. Now, I’m too old, and I let the young folk have their adventures. But every now and then, they trot me out. The last Sentarian to visit me before your lot was a political leader from your world. A Gnomish lawyer in charge of a sprawling state called “The Sunterranse Federation.” Such a grand name. Tufimatix. Chancellor Tufimatix! The Mauvinogion brought him to me to help secure a political peace with the Goblinoid Horde that we had inadvertently unleashed upon your world. He had other problems, and we promised to help him to bring it under control. After that, according to the G-NOME, the next visitor to expect from Sentar, well, I thought it was just your Elven friend – Nieran Codali. I was frankly surprised. He didn’t much care for Gnomes, that one, or anyone else. Not that he had the Imperyion’s Hate. He’s just a child, really. Anyhow, Mauveen confirmed that, although eccentric, he was not himself a threat. Leave it to an Ylfe to be a threat without even realizing it himself. It wasn’t long before he convinced himself that he could get the answers he wanted to hear from other Elves rather than me, and he made off on one of our spelldashers looking for them. Tumult went after Codali, before I could stop him, but the Gump hasn’t been back in days. Probably forgot what he was doing, dear creature. Anything out of his routine and he can get lost for cycles. Well, according to our sensor triggers, your man, Codali reached Fish Head and made contact with the Compact of Steel & Steam – proxies for the Imperyion in the Shattered Sphere. And now, they’re on their way here. Poor stupid Elven bastard. They probably have him chains, if they haven’t already removed his brain and put it in a box. Algail is hidden, but having found Codali, they’ll find us sure enough. Tumult is usually enough to shoo off unwanted visitors. If the Imperyion finds me, finds Algail, finds the G-NOME, any one of those things… the path to Sentar will be open to them. I need your help.”

We all agreed to help fight the imperium together and used a mining cart system to get inside the deepest parts of the asteroid where there was an old scrapyard. Working hastily together, we assembled 5 spell dashers to fight of the impending attack. With our patchwork spelldashers we speed off into the void to meet the Elven Imperyon capital ship Voidstalker head on. The speed of our spell dasher ship was unlike any experience so far. We cut through the advance patrols, all while avoiding the beam attacks of the Voidstalker. Landing on the capital ship, took on it’s forces and destroyed a Beholder. We later had to face and defeated the formian soldiers lead by an illithid. A cowardice imperium knight escaped.

Should we have stopped him from escaping?

During the battle of Algail, Veronica and Lewis died. Thankfully, we where able to trade for the reagents the mage Azariel of the other adventuring group needed to bring them back from the dead.

After studying the G-Nome, we agreed to let the other adventuring party take custody of the G-Nome before they returned to Sentar past. (Not without hiding my wizard’s mark on it)

It still surprises me, and it shouldn’t by now. Things just keep getting weirder. We’d just made it to Havelock’s place, and then we were joined by… another group of adventurers from Sentar (what our world is called, I’ve learned). What a great group, plus I may have met my brother from another mother - a dwarf named Orag. He liked drinking and fighting and eating weird shit. What a great guy.

Havelock tells us that Sentar is in trouble. I had some trouble following along, but here’s what I got. There’s a device called “the G gnome” that was constructed by the Atlantian civilization a loooong time ago. It holds great power over all of creation and its fate. It could, I guess, be used by the Elven Imperyon to forge a path from their Sphere (the ruined one, I think), to the sphere with Sentar. Which I guess they really want to do because Sentar is special somehow. It has a great supply of this moonstone or starstone or whatever the fuck all the big brains call it, and I guess nowhere else has so much. They’d strip mine Sentar, probably enslaving or wiping out life as they did so (They’re welcome to Gallantine’s turf). But I get the feeling there’s something else too.

Anyways, Havelock has the G gnome, and he gets us all on board - it’s important. We need to defend this thing from an Imperyon force that’s sailing (flying? Flying. Fuck this is still weird) here to take it, and we don’t have much time. He takes us to the other side of his home and there’s a junkyard of old ships. In a fever of curses and sweat, grease and tools, we all set to work to build up some ships - goblin flamewings - to try and defend the Genome.

A space battle took place. We won. I felt like tits on a bull. My one “contribution” ended up with me nearly floating off into the airless blackness of wildspace. Fortunately, I was rescued by my new group. Luckums seemed to be doing great with her ship though, zipping about, blowing up the enemy ships. I kind of lost track of Khalid and Basile in the confusion.

By the time we got through the enemy fighters, the big ship had landed on the Asteroid. We were in a race against time to stop the Imperyon, and it seemed we were behind. A rushed pair of battles took place. First we took on a… “beholder” I think I heard people call it (I think some others called it a “void stalker?). Scary fucking thing. Big floating eyeball with a toothy, slobbering mouth and a bunch of eyestalks up above. Oh, and the eyestalks shoot different types of deadly rays out of them. I was really glad we had that other party with us. They were more seasoned than us and  took the brunt of it. In the heat of battle I lost track of who landed shots on this thing, but it was badly hurt before I closed in a rush to deliver the finishing blows. I could hardly believe it as I quickly wiped the gore from my spear like so much fermented gujamellon juice.

Not that I had time to try, as we were off to find the command centre of this craft. I was a few rows back, and I could hear a commotion ahead of me, but little did I know what I was in for. As I stepped off the ladder onto the command centre, a bizarre and confusing battle awaited me. Ant-like warriors, a good chunk of our group engaged in battle or strangely frozen… and then I saw it. An “Illithid,” I think they’re called. “Brain sucker,” I think someone else called it. We’d been hearing about them, and not exactly warm and cuddly things. But it too seemed frozen under a magical, thunderous cloud. I took in the scene in a heartbeat, and then I saw it was wearing the most fascinating cloak. It’s colours twinkled and shifted, and I felt myself drawn to it….

I don’t know how long I was out of it, but the battle had proceeded a bit. The Illithid thing was dead (thank the gods), but there was this elven paladin - he looked like some sort of Gallantine-ish recruitment poster. Shiny armour, hair, silky moves… but I recognized them. I’d seen Illeyesar practicing the same kata when I was a child. Anticipating his next moves, I stepped in and caught him with two quick rotating shots with my spear.  He seemed almost… offended? And then, in the blink of an eye, he vanished.

We’d won, but not without cost. Our goblins had done a helluva job defending the asteroids against the ant soldiers, but Veronica and Lewis lay dying as we returned, beyond the help of any healing magic. But not beyond the help of more powerful magic. Through Havelock, we managed to secure some diamonds so that the Cleric (Azariel?) from the other group could raise them from the dead. I was surprised at the relief I felt rushing through me as their eyes caught that spark of life again, and they breathed. I felt like crying. Damn it.

Did I not say the story just keeps getting weirder?