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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7845343" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 242, Part FourObliatasWord spread that they would soon be moving out.  The party was over; most had gone to sleep, or sat up around makeshift campfires, exchanging stories. Calily came to sit alongside Korrigan. “It’s odd to find myself saying this, having held Egalitrix so firmly in my sights for so long,” she said. “But I can’t help thinking about him,” she nodded over at Catahoula, who was talking with some of the fey. “What if we don’t come back?  And no one ever tries to help his people? I don’t know.  Maybe they could be persuaded to ally with us if we offer them aid?”Korrigan considered her words carefully and was persuaded.   They would detour to offer help to Iratha Ket, and then begin to plan their assault on Egalitrix.  To avoid complications, he managed to convince Rock to remain behind – to rest up on Ascetia while they explored Iratha Ket. Uriel considered their map of the Gyre.  Obliatas lay between them and their destination.  Korrigan’s intention had been to travel around it, through the dead motes, but Uriel was intrigued by Obliatas, and his curiosity prevailed.  They would travel through the space the sun now occupied.   (Rumdoom was not best please.  “I’m hungover,” he said.  “I don’t want to go anywhere near the naughty word sun.”) For fear of what the undead-hating star might do to their ghost friends, they asked them to wait in the Dream palace for a time. Uru went there too, as it was impossible for him to divest himself of all the ghosts that inhabited him.The approach to Obliatas was fraught.  The plan itself was small – a glowing light at the centre of an otherwise empty mote.  But the object was so bright it was difficult to approach.  Uriel could not be blinded by radiance, and floated the idea that he weave the fate of blindfolded crewmembers, allowing them to perform their functions, but the crew were having none of.  So he had the ship approach as close as it could, and set off alone on a stone discs to investigate.  Korrigan meditated and accompanied him as an mental projection.As they drew closer they became aware of a telepathic ‘voice’ – a shrill and unhinged babble at first. Then it appeared to notice them and asked them who they were, how they came to be there and what they wanted – querulous, but not demanding.Uriel set about trying to communicate with the thing, first answering its questions in a careful, neutral and non-committal way. With patience, he was able to unpick its story through the babbling:The star Obliatas was the centre of a system where the planets were drained of life by a cosmic undead horror. Originally the avatar of a sun god, Obliatas was stranded after all the followers of the god perished. It swore it would destroy all the undead it found, but the horror left the system, and Obliatas eventually found itself in the Gyre.Obliatas had been in the Gyre for nearly a thousand years, and after a period of mourning (and gradually losing its mind), the sentient sun began to wander. Eventually it discovered the undead civilization on Iratha Ket, and has spent all of its years since trying to destroy the inhabitants – rising above them, until driven away by their magic. This, then, was the cause of the irregular day-night cycle in the Gyre.While he kept the sun ‘talking’, Uriel studied its energies and realised they could be used to fill any of the types required for the Axis Seal Ritual. Not as a sun, though, it was not powerful enough for that. That facet of the ritual still eluded them.  Uriel was careful to make no promises and eventually withdrew from his conversation with Obliatas.They continued on their way, but the sun followed them.  It demanded to know where they were going. They did not respond, but casually veered away towards the nearby empty mote, as if that was where they’d been headed all along. Obliatas tired of following them once it was clear they were not heading for Iratha Ket.In the ‘empty’ mote, they suddenly had to undertake evasive manoeuvres.  All around them floated dead ships of all sorts, most of alien design. “I thought you said this was empty?” Korrigan asked Calily.   Here, she confessed, was the drawback of her explorations: she had conducted them mostly on foot, and where she could not walk or run, had been forced to rely on the word of other travellers.If they’d had time, this place would have been a treasure trove to the archaeologically minded. As it was, they released their ghost friends from the Dream Palace, and Uru tried to make contact with the spirits of the ships. Though they were not truly sentient, they all pointed at the centre of the moat, giving inchoate ‘worship’ to the King of Ships. They travelled there to take a look.While they went, Uru knocked on Rumdoom’s door, and negotiated his way past the diffident dwarven wardens. To Rumdoom, he declaimed, “You are the Avatar of the End! And if you go outside, you will see a graveyard of ships and the King of Ships!”“Well, since you asked so nicely,” said Rumdoom and came up on deck to humour his friend.Soon they arrived at the centre of the mote, and there sat a red-and-white metal ship, not entirely unlike their own in design, but smaller and lacking a funnel. Not military in function, Uriel thought, but scientific.Korrigan used the Humble Hook to learn its name.  The king of ships was… Boaty McBoatface![ATTACH=full]115402[/ATTACH](Look!  It even has a teleportation circle!)</blockquote>

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