When last we left our intrepid Duchess-Constables, they had been taken prisoner by the Gidim in Ursaliña.
Cazara escaped the prison and headed toward the Bards' College, where she suspected the Gidim base to be. She managed to find her way to a tunnel leading down to a strange sphincter which led into a large bio-ship. Outside the ship, there was a great pile of discarded equipment: guns, armor, entire warforged wizards, etc. She revived Ms. Gear and the two of them gathered up everyone's gear (except the Crown of Risur, which was missing) and -- through Cazara's memories of Xambria's memories of Sijhen's memories --were able to convince the Gidim bio-ship that they were Gidim thralls who were authorized to enter.
Once inside, they proceeded along a fleshy tunnel that led to a larger cargo bay / mouth area. Gear made them both invisible and they snuck further into the biological vessel, which resembled a whale, or at least what one would expect a whale to look like from the inside. Traveling down a throat-like hallway, they came upon a sort of vivisection chamber. The unconscious form of Summer was laid out on a table wearing only a simple gray garment. Various tubes and tentacles had connected themselves to her body.
Gear and Cazara were able to reverse-engineer the connection process and revive Summer. However, they remained invisible, causing Summer to have a bit of a crisis as she tried to determine whether she was hallucinating or not. They got her cleaned up and began to explore the experimentation/medical area of the ship, where they found Alienor hanging inside a chamber in the wall. Gear managed to order the Gidim tentacles to deliver her to the "operating table" and also disconnect her from the ship. IronPeak was similarly freed. However, the king was not happy that her crown had not been recovered.
The group explored further into the titanic beast. They found a large control-room chamber. In that chamber was a ten-foot-tall pillar that was projecting a semi-translucent image of the entire city of Ursaliña. Beyond that pillar were many eye-like displays showing various areas around the ship and city. Near all of these controls was a single, somehow-familiar Gidim, holding the Crown of Risur.
"Hello," said Sijhen into their heads. "I am ready to negotiate the surrender of Risur."
When the various Duchesses who had met Sijhen mentioned that he had died, he explained that you could not kill a thought. This did not stop the group from trying. Sijhen's terms were that IronPeak would surrender control of the nation, and in exchange the Gidim would allow the entire nation to live. The Gidim would treat the people of Risur as their most favored livestock, keeping them alive for the purpose of consuming their thoughts. When tempers flared, Sijhen commented that they Duchesses were thinking delicious thoughts even now.
The negotiations were over. As the Duchesses attacked, Sijhen kept splitting into duplicates. Alienor used some grenades to seal the two entrances to the room, keeping Gidim reinforcements from arriving, but Sijhen was doing his best to be an army of his own. That all ended once Alienor broke out her repeating musket. She was able to keep Sijhen down to no more than two copies of himself at once. Cazara avoided the fight and tried to steal the large projecting rod from the center of the control room. Unfortunately, she lost control of her mind at this point and instead tried to attack IronPeak, which was mostly ineffective. The ship started to move out into the air above Ursaliña, flying higher into the dark sky as the fight progressed.
Eventually, the Duchesses prevailed and Gear was able to identify the large rod as a detector of planar energies. The group felt they might need this powerful piece of Gidim technology and removed it from its place, causing the Gidim ship to initiate its self-destruct sequence. Since Alienor had sealed the only entrances to the room, the group had to get creative. They worked out that the display panels were actually at the base of numerous eye stalks. Hacking their way into and through these muscular tubes, the were able to cut their way to the outside of the ship before it exploded.
Unfortunately, most of the Duchesses had used up their Jaunt abilities in the fight with Sijhen and could not easily escape from the ship. Fortunately, a flying ship swooped under them and they were able to jump down to the deck where they were greeted by Benedict Pemberton and his pantsless gnoll sidekick, Pardo.
