Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
Session 10 - Aethership
The companions poured up the stairs. Hearing hasty barricades clattering against the doors to the upstairs rooms, the companions battered at the walls instead, breaching through to the rooms of Blisseru and his men. In the midst of the short, vicious battle, Michkin – keeping watch down below - heard shutters blast open into the Monsoom upstairs and rushed outside just in time to see Blisseru sail through the air to a building across the street. At the same moment, Nise showed up smelling overpoweringly of sewage.
Michkin had no time to ask what was happening with Nise, rushing upstairs to tell the others of Blisseru's escape and barging in just as the last of Blisseru's men died. After hastily looting the bodies and rooms, the group headed back into the choking grit. They stumbled through a blinding hell lit repeatedly by the flash and rumble of distant explosions. The scramble sent them through craters, ducking around burning buildings, and, bizarrely, wading through ankle deep water where shattered aqueducts transformed streets into rivers.
On the way, they found themselves briefly in the lee of a wooden palisade, face-to-face with the young martyr who had warned Eliot Sam of the attacks the day before. Eliot Sam bolstered the lads' flagging courage and sent the young man charging off into the storm.
A short while later, the companions arrived at the gates to the Gantry Port – or what was left of where the gates had been: a several-hundred foot wide crater strewn with smoking rubble. Beyond, Aetherships blazed, setting the storm aglow as bucket brigades of sailors frantically attempted to quench the blazes. When questions, a passing sailor pointed them westward, directing them to the Independent Docks.
Storm-muffled sounds of battle reached them long before they reached the docks themselves and they raced onward to find two dozen Hollow sailors and citizens assaulting Captain Taggart's ship.
At the prow, Blisseru and his sole surviving agent battled a swarm of Hollowed while at the aft-castle Taggart, his first mate Steffa, and a handful of surviving sailors battled desperately against an even larger horde. Though the group launched a reckless assault to save the Captain and crew, only Blisseru remained standing of those aboard the ship when the last of the Hollowed had been dispatched. Worse, during the fighting Taggart ordered the mooring lines cut and the ship drifted in the storm towards a burning ship still tied at anchor.
Eliot Sam leapt to the ship's yoke, hazarding a guess at what manipulations might steer them clear. He guessed wrong, ripping the front of the ship off in the process and sending Michkin flying off the ship to his death – or would have if his Ghost Bank gift hadn't sent him back in time a few seconds to secure himself before the collision.
Michkin raced to the helm to replace Eliot Sam and steered clear of the tangle about the same time Maderu discovered the captain was breathing, barely. Pursus managed to heal him to consciousness while the group discussed what to do about Blisseru. Between Pursus and Maderu's assurances, Eliot Sam's killer instinct was reigned in and the group approached Blisseru warily but with weapons sheathed.
They had just begun to question the Continuum Agent when stared past them and pointed at Nise, accusing the unformed man of luring Blisseru's men to an ambush by Hollow Men the day before. At that moment, Nise lunged forward towards Captain Taggart with a knife. Michkin jerked the ship askew in an attempt to throw Nise off balance, but it was too late.
Nise whispered “I'm sorry” to Michkin and hurled himself off the ship as Taggart slumped to the deck with a knife buried in his skull. An unintended effect of the maneuver sent Blisseru stumbling into the aether catch that punched through the ship held it aloft, leaving Blisseru tangled... and at the group's mercy. After extracting a promise that Blisseru would do no harm to anyone in their association, Eliot Sam extracted the Continuum Agent from the mesh of the aether catch.
As they drifted off into the Great Rift, the Monsoom briefly thinned, revealing burning devastation across Aetherport The Aque-Sentinam seemed to be intact so Brassy had presumably done her job... wherever she was.
After taking an inventory of the ship and settling in, the group scattered and passed out, exhausted from almost two long days of hard riding and fighting and scheming since the last time they slept. Aside from a slight mishap with a flock of geese tangling themselves in the Skein, the next day passed uneventfully, finding them at the end of the Great Rift after a day of travel. The following day, Michkin and Elliot Jr. took turns steering them north from rift to rift, reaching the Flashing River that marked the end of the rifts and their free lift. Beyond stretched the crags of the Hollow Mountains and the dark sprawl of the Stonewood as dark began to descend.
Worryingly, a black storm twisted and churned straight through their path, setting forth a choice – brave the weather or divert and hope the jutting peaks of the Hollow Mountains might serve as a shield against the black fury of the coming storm...
The companions poured up the stairs. Hearing hasty barricades clattering against the doors to the upstairs rooms, the companions battered at the walls instead, breaching through to the rooms of Blisseru and his men. In the midst of the short, vicious battle, Michkin – keeping watch down below - heard shutters blast open into the Monsoom upstairs and rushed outside just in time to see Blisseru sail through the air to a building across the street. At the same moment, Nise showed up smelling overpoweringly of sewage.
Michkin had no time to ask what was happening with Nise, rushing upstairs to tell the others of Blisseru's escape and barging in just as the last of Blisseru's men died. After hastily looting the bodies and rooms, the group headed back into the choking grit. They stumbled through a blinding hell lit repeatedly by the flash and rumble of distant explosions. The scramble sent them through craters, ducking around burning buildings, and, bizarrely, wading through ankle deep water where shattered aqueducts transformed streets into rivers.
On the way, they found themselves briefly in the lee of a wooden palisade, face-to-face with the young martyr who had warned Eliot Sam of the attacks the day before. Eliot Sam bolstered the lads' flagging courage and sent the young man charging off into the storm.
A short while later, the companions arrived at the gates to the Gantry Port – or what was left of where the gates had been: a several-hundred foot wide crater strewn with smoking rubble. Beyond, Aetherships blazed, setting the storm aglow as bucket brigades of sailors frantically attempted to quench the blazes. When questions, a passing sailor pointed them westward, directing them to the Independent Docks.
Storm-muffled sounds of battle reached them long before they reached the docks themselves and they raced onward to find two dozen Hollow sailors and citizens assaulting Captain Taggart's ship.
At the prow, Blisseru and his sole surviving agent battled a swarm of Hollowed while at the aft-castle Taggart, his first mate Steffa, and a handful of surviving sailors battled desperately against an even larger horde. Though the group launched a reckless assault to save the Captain and crew, only Blisseru remained standing of those aboard the ship when the last of the Hollowed had been dispatched. Worse, during the fighting Taggart ordered the mooring lines cut and the ship drifted in the storm towards a burning ship still tied at anchor.
Eliot Sam leapt to the ship's yoke, hazarding a guess at what manipulations might steer them clear. He guessed wrong, ripping the front of the ship off in the process and sending Michkin flying off the ship to his death – or would have if his Ghost Bank gift hadn't sent him back in time a few seconds to secure himself before the collision.
Michkin raced to the helm to replace Eliot Sam and steered clear of the tangle about the same time Maderu discovered the captain was breathing, barely. Pursus managed to heal him to consciousness while the group discussed what to do about Blisseru. Between Pursus and Maderu's assurances, Eliot Sam's killer instinct was reigned in and the group approached Blisseru warily but with weapons sheathed.
They had just begun to question the Continuum Agent when stared past them and pointed at Nise, accusing the unformed man of luring Blisseru's men to an ambush by Hollow Men the day before. At that moment, Nise lunged forward towards Captain Taggart with a knife. Michkin jerked the ship askew in an attempt to throw Nise off balance, but it was too late.
Nise whispered “I'm sorry” to Michkin and hurled himself off the ship as Taggart slumped to the deck with a knife buried in his skull. An unintended effect of the maneuver sent Blisseru stumbling into the aether catch that punched through the ship held it aloft, leaving Blisseru tangled... and at the group's mercy. After extracting a promise that Blisseru would do no harm to anyone in their association, Eliot Sam extracted the Continuum Agent from the mesh of the aether catch.
As they drifted off into the Great Rift, the Monsoom briefly thinned, revealing burning devastation across Aetherport The Aque-Sentinam seemed to be intact so Brassy had presumably done her job... wherever she was.
After taking an inventory of the ship and settling in, the group scattered and passed out, exhausted from almost two long days of hard riding and fighting and scheming since the last time they slept. Aside from a slight mishap with a flock of geese tangling themselves in the Skein, the next day passed uneventfully, finding them at the end of the Great Rift after a day of travel. The following day, Michkin and Elliot Jr. took turns steering them north from rift to rift, reaching the Flashing River that marked the end of the rifts and their free lift. Beyond stretched the crags of the Hollow Mountains and the dark sprawl of the Stonewood as dark began to descend.
Worryingly, a black storm twisted and churned straight through their path, setting forth a choice – brave the weather or divert and hope the jutting peaks of the Hollow Mountains might serve as a shield against the black fury of the coming storm...