The Crucible of Khullnar

"The Crucible of Khullnar" is episode 54 of SuperQuest Saga. The Starling arrives in the cold vacuum of interstellar space amidst a sea of obliterated war vessels... Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian search for the Pirate Lich Queen Ryoka and infiltrate her ship, The Bellerophon.

Introduction

 * Will Stark shall be your necrotic dungeon master for this evening.
 * Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw, half-orc paladin Oathbreaker/Hexblade.
 * Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal the firbolg Galactic druid.
 * Brian is playing Codename: Echo, who realigned and is now a wizard and rogue. Space Wizard and Rogue Man in Space.

Recap
Last time a lot of things happened. The party was captured by Captain Davarax and imprisoned aboard the draconic ship, The Terrenthraxis, until the lights went out and a couple shadow members of The Black Legion rescued Sebastian, who rescued Echo and Persephone. Unfortunately, Archduke Ramazall called his favor due; he wants the party to board the legendary ship, The Bellerophon, to steal the Soul Eater from the Pirate Lich Queen Ryoka. In preparation for the unexpected mission the party went shopping and bought gear from Jimmy Ruffles. Ramazall had instructed them to be at certain coordinates by the 8th of Unum, and as they left Jimmy they heard a radio report of a huge battle commencing at their destination.

Grand Khullnar Has Fallen
The coordinates lie deep within the war zone of the Dwarven-Goblin Front, roughly a three hour jump outside the goblin system of Grand Khullnar. Over the past few days the party has heard news reports claim that The Cyber Federation has made a coordinated push to take the goblin system with support from the the Third and Sixth Fleet of the Eternal Imperial Armada. Further reports state that Justice Saint Darthorradin, Son of Elien, and newly appointed Justice Saint Dennethar, Son of Anaduir, personally led each fleet into battle. Draconic Star forces scrambled to come to the aid of their allies and the battle they are now calling The Crucible of Khullnar raged over the course of three days. Casualties have not been calculated, but draconic and goblin forces have been pushed back; Grand Khullnar has fallen.

The Starling arrives in the cold vacuum of interstellar space amidst a sea of obliterated war vessels. Hundreds of thousands of ships, elven, dwarven, goblin, and draconic, have been violently ripped and strewn across the starways in a macabre, weightless placidity; an endless graveyard where only the dead and silence dwell. It is pure carnage as far as they can see.

Echo turns down the electronic dance music that was playing. Percy is at a window with her hand over her mouth looking at the carnage and feeling upset about all the lives lost. Echo asks Sebastian if he sees any soul claiming going on and starts scanning the area. Sebastian checks out the battlefield for anything out of the ordinary. Echo doesn’t see anything so he begins to manually steer through the wreckage and, after about thirty minutes, Sebastian swears he sees a flash of some sort of light on the right hand side of the ship.

Sebastian points Echo in the direction he thinks he saw the flash and Echo heads that way. They zig-zag through the calamitous terrain and, after another thirty minutes of searching, Sebastian spots two sparks in the dark. Echo saw them as well, but every time Persephone tries to look where they point something outside floats by and obscures her view. Echo creeps The Starling closer and they see two small scrapper ships that appear to be sawing their way into the hull of a goblinoid dreadnought, sparks flying off their laser blades.

Echo checks his database to identify the ships and determines they’re standard scrapper vessels that are not armed with any kind of weaponry aside from the laser blades. Single-piloted, very small and maneuverable, the kind that belong to a larger mother vessel they can launch from. Sebastian asks Echo if they should be concerned, Echo reports his findings that their primary function is harvesting.

They decide to observe the scrappers to get more data before making any moves; they watch as the scrappers manage to crack the hull and start stripping away the metal shell. Echo notices that the discarded pieces of metal are being pulled upwards by an unseen force and he picks up a signal on the radio. He flips the switch to listen in on the signal and it starts off faint at first but eventually it starts to rise and becomes a droning, nightmarish sound of a hundred grinding gears pulsing, screeching, churning, and groaning. Echo turns it off. It’s very unsettling.

As he turns the signal off, the party sees that larger pieces of wreckage around them start to rise. When they survey their surroundings they see above them, diving down like a great black whale, is a monstrous ship. A colossal black ship hangs above them like a looming, ravenous leviathan; the bow of which is lined with a horrific, gaping maw, circular in shape and lined with blades rotating counterclockwise along the perimeter: The Bellerophon. The remnants of the battle around them begin to get inhaled into this monstrous vessel.

Echo makes moves to get the fuck out of dodge. Bigger and bigger things start to get sucked up and as Echo maneuvers away he feels the pull of the gravity well. At this point, they see the scrapper vessels get swept up as well.

Escape The Bellerophon
Echo successfully starts to maneuver The Starling away through some wreckage as The Bellerophon gets closer. The closer it gets, the more sluggish the controls feel, so they need to escape fast. Sebastian casts Expeditious Retreat on The Starling for some added mobility to aid in their escape. Persephone casts Enhance Ability to boost Echo’s piloting skills and helps him chart a path. They start boosting away and escape feels a little easier even as huge swaths of the battlefield are inhaled into The Bellerophon.

Echo casts Enlarge/Reduce to shrink The Starling to a smaller size to further enhance their maneuverability. Sebastian tries to use his Robotics skills to divert some extra power to the thrusters, but causes a misfire instead. The misfire interrupts a maneuver Echo was trying to do and instead of flying clear they are heading towards some debris. Percy gets on a gun and blasts it out of the way, leading to their successful escape from the gravity well.

They see that dozens and dozens of miles of scrap are missing from the battlefield after The Bellerophon pulls up from its dive.

We Suck at Doors
Echo drops his Enlarge/Reduce spell so The Starling returns to normal size and wipes the sweat from his brow. The party decides to observe The Bellerophon for a while to figure out the best point of entry. After about ten minutes they watch the mouth of the ship closing like an aperture. Sebastian suggests they try to tune into the scrapper’s communication frequency to see if they can listen in on what’s happening inside.

Echo tries to look up some additional information on The Bellerophon and from what he can tell, the mouth is the major entry point and if there were any additional ships to launch, they would do so from the mouth. He doesn’t see any hangar openings where ships would launch and enter. If the party wants to enter the ship in any other way besides the mouth, they’d need to locate an emergency hatch to hack and squeeze their way in and hope they end up somewhere useful. Echo explains that when he infiltrates elven ships, he usually stealthily docks his ship underneath, dispels any magic that would prevent his entry, and teleports inside. This method wouldn’t work now because he has no knowledge of The Bellerophon. He thinks they may need to enter through the mouth in some of the debris floating around.

Persephone starts poking around her computer console to try to find information and Echo moves over to cancel the procedures she accidentally started. They decide the best way of entry is to try to go through the mouth on some debris. Echo pulls out some space suits for everyone and they finalize the details of their plan. Sebastian scans the area for a ship they might be able to fly into the mouth instead of The Starling but nothing looks operable.

Echo follows up on Sebastian’s suggestion to search for radio frequencies and tries to tune into anything nearby. Everything sounds very grainy and he hears nothing for over a minute. Then he hears a shrieking sound of something horrifying in the distance, and then more silence. He turns the radio off.

After another forty minutes, The Bellerophon begins to move again in preparation for another sweep. They maneuver into the path and Persephone spots an escape pod that will fit all three of them. Echo pulls The Starling up to the pod so they can hide inside and sends his ship away to safety. After a few minutes, the pod starts to move as it gets sucked into The Bellerophon, bouncing off of other debris. The shadow of the gaping maw descends upon them and as the pod spins they can see their destination. The spinning blades around the maw appear to be acting as engines to cause the suction that pulls the debris into a huge room. Something strikes the pod and they are flung violently to the left, bouncing off the walls and into the hazards of the room. They land amidst the heaping terrain of shattered ships and twisted metal dotted by the occasional frozen body. There is a hideous screech as the maw of The Bellerophon closes behind them; the great, metal, triangular plates spin together, sealing them inside the pitch darkness.

Time to Go Explore
Echo starts to look around the gargantuan room; the ceiling is way out of sight and he cannot make out where the walls are, there are piles and hills of scrap, debris, and bodies. The interior of the ship does not have breathable oxygen but is pressurized with nitrogen. Persephone casts Water Breathing which allows them to breathe in the hostile environment so they can conserve the air in their suits. She also casts Darkvision so that she can see. They have no clue which direction is which, so they decide to head towards the left.

Echo scouts ahead to make sure the area is clear before Percy and Sebastian follow, since Sebastian is incredibly loud. After about five minutes, Persephone sees a small glowing light rising from the trash heaps to their right. She recognizes it as a spiritual light and she sees a few more; then Echo and Sebastian see them too as hundreds start to rise, faster and faster, to converge at an unseen point on the ceiling beyond their view. As the flurry of lights pass, they hear the unmistakable sound of screams. They begin to feel their own strength being sapped and a light surrounds their bodies as if something is being pulled from them. Echo and Persephone manage to resist the pull but Sebastian loses some of his light.

Echo recognizes that it was some incredibly dark magic that was pulling the souls out of the recently deceased before they passed. He moves towards Persephone and Sebastian to check on them. Sebastian doesn’t feel too good. The movement of the lights upwards suddenly stops, and the room is silent and dark once again. Echo decides to stay within 30-ft of Persephone and Sebastian in case that happens again. Persephone thinks they need to move on before the ship does that again.

After about four or five more minutes, they hear the metallic sound of an enormous door opening followed by the same horrible screams from the radio earlier, and some shuffling. Echo suggests it is time to hide. Persephone casts Pass without Trace to boost their stealth as they try to hide. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes they hear two big, heavy creatures shuffling around the debris and they seem to be dragging pieces somewhere, making a sweeping movement and slowly but surely getting closer. Sebastian uses Divine Sense to get a read on these creatures and discerns they are really powerful Undead creatures. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian decide to try to creep around the creatures and successfully avoid detection. The trio decides to sneak forward and Persephone steps on a dead body, its ribs cracking under her weight, and they hear the screams of the creatures as they head towards them.

The Fixers vs The Laser Bois
Before any of them have a chance to react, they hear a strange shuffling, whooshing sound from the distance behind them, and, from a completely different location, Percy sees two red glowing orbs in the distance that fire lasers on her. She side-steps to avoid them and moves toward it, brandishing her staff. She sees a 12-ft tall humanoid, undoubtedly undead with a rotting body and a black metal skull with two glowing, bionic red eyes. At the end of it’s long, sinewy limbs are absolutely enormous hand claws made out of some sort of black metal. Percy points the opal on her staff towards it and casts Sunbeam, blasting a hole through its chest as it stands and screams. She now sheds 60-ft of light. Echo activates his Bladesong and moves towards Percy and Sebastian. When the creature is in his sights, he casts Magic Missile and blasts it. They hear a whirring shuffle and a second creature appears behind Persephone. It leers down at her and strikes her twice with its piercing claw attacks, grappling her with its left claw. Sebastian moves towards it; and the creature immediately reaches out with its free claw to swipe at him, but misses. He turns on his sword and hits it twice, dealing some damage. The creature in the distance fires on Sebastian and two lasers hit, burning through his armor. Sebastian reacts and unleashes Hellish Rebuke as the creature teleports away.

Persephone Wild Shapes into a Water Elemental to escape the grapple; she splashes to the floor and rises up in the form of a watery octopus. She attempts to strike it with two slam attacks and hits with one, bloodying the creature. Echo pulls out his soulbound sword and it converts to an arm cannon, he fires twice on the clawed creature, hitting once. Echo follows this up with a Fire Bolt to deal more fire damage before ducking behind some trash to hide. One of the creatures continues to hit Sebastian with its laser before teleporting away again. Sebastian takes a swing at the one in front of him and misses, but hits with his second swing. He uses a first level Divine Smite to see if the hellfire affects the creature. It looks really rough but it is still standing. It Shadow Jumps away, hurting Percy and Sebastian with necrotic damage as it teleports to the edge of their vision.

Persephone moves to cover Sebastian’s back and readies a slam attack in case any enemies get close. Echo looks around for the creatures but does not see anything. He prepares an attack in case any come in sight, and casts Zephyr Strike on himself. From a totally different angle, the one firing on Sebastian continues to do so, and hits him again before teleporting away. Sebastian uses Lay on Hands to heal himself and remains back to back with Percy to keep an eye on everything. The creatures sense weakness and the second one fires on Sebastian as well, but it misses. It teleports out of sight.

Persephone decides to wait and stays where she is, readying her action again. Echo scans the area again and spots one of the creatures. He drops his Zephyr Strike and casts Faerie Fire on the creature, surrounding it in a violet light. Sebastian and Persephone can now see it. Echo moves a little closer and hides again. One of the boneclaws continues to fire its laser on Sebastian, but misses. Sebastian loads his cannon arm with the Needler cartridge and shoots three charges of Magic Missile at the boneclaw he can see. The missiles tear the creature apart and it falls to the floor.

Persephone dashes in the direction of the last laser beam, about 20-ft out she spots the last creature and moves towards it with malicious intent. Echo dashes to follow Persephone; when she is at the edge of his vision he hides. The creature moves towards Percy and uses its long reach to attack her with its metal claws, striking her twice. Sebastian sees Percy engaged in battle and moves forward to get the creature in his line of site. He swaps the Needler cartridge out for a Supernova and aims three charges of Fireball above the creature, who dodges some of the damage.

Persephone moves in to do two slam attacks on the boneclaw and bloodies it, then she heals herself. Echo dashes closer and sees both Percy and the creature; he shoots and hits it once, but misses with a follow-up Fire Bolt. Persephone recognizes that the creatures they have been fighting are boneclaws that have been heavily modified with upgrades to their arms and a mechanic skull. The boneclaw swipes twice at Persephone again and hits her twice. Sebastian fires one more Supernova at it, and it dodges some of the damage again.

Persephone repeats her slam attacks, but misses. Echo stays at a distance and takes a couple shots, missing with his gun but hitting with his Fire Bolt. The creature is close to going down but is still up. Echo tries to get the attention of the creature, but it swipes at Persephone instead and drops her out of her Water Elemental form. It hits her firbolg form with its second attack and attempts to grapple, but fails due to her Freedom of Movement. Sebastian uses his BFG to fire on it at a distance and shoots off its head mid-shriek. The boneclaw falls over, dead.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: A half-orc paladin/warlock. So bad at those Dex saves.
 * Persephone Goldpetal: A firbolg druid. Can't hold her down.
 * Codename: Echo: An elf wizard/rogue. Willing to share the title of Father.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian

Mechanics

 * The Starling is size Huge.
 * The party has space suits with three hours of life support
 * The Water Breathing spell has been reflavored to help them survive in any environment.

Nat 20's (5 total)

 * Freeland (Perception)
 * Brian (Use Vehicle)
 * Brian (Stealth)
 * Special Guest Jake (Dexterity Save)
 * Brian (Stealth)

Nat 1's (3 total)

 * Brian (Perception)
 * Special Guest Jake (Stealth)
 * Brian (Arcana)