Advance on Arvandor

"Advance on Arvandor" is episode 66 of SuperQuest Saga. The party makes their way through an active warzone to reach Arvandor, the home planet of the Elven Empire.

Introduction

 * Will Stark shall be your returning dungeon master for this evening.
 * Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw, The Forsaken
 * Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal the firbolg druid.
 * Brian is playing Echo, space wizard and rogue.

Recap
A lot happened last time. The party had to make funeral plans. Percy crafted Victoria’s headstone and learned the Song of Stones. Sebastian and Primina spent time training; Sebastian learned the sentinel style of fighting from Hartha, a former member of the Deathwatch. The group went shopping. Percy bought an Ioun Stone, Echo bought the Gloves of Thievery, and Sebastian upgraded his armor to adamantine. Echo spent a lot of time with his family and plotted the route to Arvandor. Victoria’s memorial was held and it was very heart wrenching. The group named their dragonforged ship, Victory’s Ascent, and they left Arcadia for their next destination, Arvandor.

Metaverse Chess
According to news reports, draconic forces have converged on Arvandor as of three days past. The entire system is an active warzone with the hottest concentration of action a raid along the orbit of Arvandor’s two moons, Aquallor and Mithrandir. Due to the imperative nature of the fight, most elven troops have retreated behind their planet’s defense lines. Most of the outposts along the way have been abandoned or are minimally staffed, which is extremely convenient for the party. Still, elven forces from all over the galaxy are making their way back to defend their home, as well as straggler draconic forces looking to reinforce their main host. That, paired with the possibility of scout forces intercepting the party, has led Echo’s father to suggest they take the smuggler’s route, known only to him and Echo’s mother. The route is a convoluted course that bypasses all outposts by taking an extremely indirect approach combined with key knowledge of timing of scheduled military patrols, garnered by dangerous reconnaissance done by Arcadian special agents.

They have flown Victory’s Ascent deep into elven territory, undetected. An entire seven days has passed without seeing a single other ship or settlement. Victory’s Ascent is currently hidden among an asteroid cluster where, according to instructions from Echo’s father, an elven patrol is due to pass. Once the patrol has passed, the party is to wait a minimum of three hours, but no more than six hours, to set off again.

Persephone asks what the plan is. They need to get into this library and steal the map. The party usually just busts in fighting, but it feels like this situation requires a little more finesse, which seems like Echo’s area of expertise. There is a war going on but there will probably be people to stop them. Echo wiggles his fingers and snaps his new invisible gloves, he’s confident he can steal it.

Echo starts a game of mental brain chess with everyone over their shared psionic link. Echo schools everyone; Watt is upset because he played a perfect game but lost anyway. He really wants a rematch, but Echo needs a break. Primina interrupts because she’s getting a read on their scanners. The detection system pulls up on everyone’s consoles and they can see ships coming in from above their right. Within thirty minutes a group of ten elven scout ships made of white wood and blue glass sail over the party. At this point, the party needs to wait a minimum of three hours, maximum of six hours before going on. Echo sets a three hour timer.

Watt suggests to Echo that’s just enough time for a brain chess rematch. Echo needs some space first. Persephone is not interested in playing with the group, but Sebastian convinces her to play against him. Watt and Echo watch the most abysmal game in their life; neither of the players are good at chess so it takes forever and finally Percy wins. At the end of the game, Echo’s timer goes off. Echo is hesitant to play but Watt is aggressively seeking a rematch, and since they do have the time, Echo obliges. They make it about halfway through the game before they are both acutely aware that it is very likely to end in a stalemate outside of someone making a mistake. Echo makes a move, “Checkmate. Just kidding. Stalemate.” Watt does agree that is the likely outcome, but wants to play it through to the end. Just as Echo decides to forfeit, Primina alerts them to something incoming.

We're Doing the Right Thing These Days
Their consoles bring up the scanners again and they see three ships coming in hot from the left. Outside their ship they see a red and gold draconic ship careening past them, followed by two elven scouts firing upon it. Two more elven scouts trail behind. A signal comes over the intercom, the draconic ship is trying to reach anybody in the vicinity. They open the radio to hear the message.

“Can anybody hear me? If you can, I don't know if you’re friend or foe, but if you’re not an enemy, this is Lieutenant Vermillion, CO of the Crimson Wings 4th Battalion, Third Division of D.S.S. Forces requesting immediate assistance! Does anyone copy? I have important intel I need to get back to command. Thousands could die if I don’t make it back! Does anyone copy?!”

He begins repeating the message. Every so often they can hear his ship shake as he’s hit.

Persephone fidgets as she hears this message. Watt asks what they should do, he thinks they can take four scouts. Echo states that they’re doing the right thing these days. Everyone agrees and Primina nods. Persephone has a big smile on her face, she really wanted to help this person. Echo’s thoughts are that it’s cool to stay stealthy, but he wants to do the good thing.

Victory’s Ascent sneaks out into the asteroid field. The draconic ship weaves through the field followed by the elven scouts.

The Old Dick Twist
Sebastian maneuvers their ship a thousand feet closer to the scouts and fires a blaster beam at the scout ship furthest behind the rest of the group. His attack hits, and the ship takes damage. Persephone strafes the ship to get a different angle and fires another blaster beam at the same elven ship, dealing more damage and taking it down to half health. Echo closes the gap, moving a thousand feet closer, and scores a critical hit with the blaster beam on the same ship the others fired upon. His shot hits the core of the ship and it explodes. The others hear Echo’s thoughts. “Surprise, cockface!” The three remaining elven vessels turn around. Echo poses Victory’s Ascent with its claws out to look like it is a roaring dragon.

The first scout catches Victory’s Ascent in its crosshairs and fires an explosive bolt; they are unable to dodge and the ship takes explosive damage. The scout maneuvers itself out to get some partial coverage from the asteroid field. Sebastian aims a blaster beam at one of the oncoming scout ships, hitting and bringing it down to half health in one shot. One of the other scout ships fires an explosive bolt at Victory’s Ascent; but this time they are able to avoid some of the damage. The scout ship moves down to get cover in the asteroids as well. The draconic ship turns around and opens fire on the last scout ship, but misses. Persephone maneuvers their ship to get a clear line of sight on one of the scout ships and fires a blaster beam, dealing some damage. Echo thinks about “the old dick twist” video and moves in for a melee attack; he grabs a branch on the elven scout ship and twists, destroying the ship. Echo looks very proud and embarrassed at the same time. Echo turns the head of the dragonforged ship to look at the third scout ship. The third ship immediately fires an explosive charge that damages Victory’s Ascent before moving to get some cover in the asteroids.

The first two elven scout ships attempt to hide; the party loses track of one of the ships, but is able to keep the other in sight. Sebastian decides to fire a pulsar blast through the asteroid field instead of trying to maneuver around to get a clear line of sight, and the blast vaporizes the scout ship. Lieutenant Vermillion searches for the remaining scout ship and is unable to find them. He attempts to open a line of communication with the party, but they decide it is safer not to talk to him. Persephone casts Locate Object in an attempt to find the last ship and moves in the direction they last saw it. She doesn’t find anything, but she informs the others that she’s got the spell going and will let them know if she locates it. Echo grabs hold of an asteroid and takes advantage of the ship’s camouflage feature to drift along and hide in an attempt to lure the scout ship out.

As they float freely, the scout ship comes into view as it searches for them. The pulsar blast is recharged and Sebastian fires it off. The pulsar beam vaporizes the ship; they've defeated all elven scouting vessels.

Double Shaka and Bounce
Lieutenant Vermillion sends over a signal to open a channel of communication. The party discusses trying to talk to him in disguised voices without revealing themselves, but eventually decides that it is best to not say anything at all. They wanted to save him, and they did. They throw him a double shaka, do a sick kickflip and leave, totally rocking his world.

The party continues to follow the path that Echo’s father shared. It takes three more days, but they arrive in the Arvandor system. The three travel days are eerily uneventful; they see no one, and as far as they know, no one sees them. Now that they are in the system, they’ve been advised to use fuel jumps instead of hyper-jumps. The fuel jumps will take longer, but they will be undetected.

The party has 18 hours until they reach their destination. Persephone has been researching curses to see if she can help undo what Ramazall did to Sebastian. She casts Guidance on herself in an attempt to make more headway; she taps herself on the head and says “Guide me, Universe, please!” She knows that this is big, bad magic from a big, bad entity. The only thing that could possibly partially undo it would be some big, big holy magic from a divine intervention with a high priest and clerics. Sebastian is expecting that physical combat will happen soon, so he goes through some fighting stances and motions to get used to his new fighting style. He hasn’t tested his new skills in battle yet so he wants to make sure he will be good. Echo starts writing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It’s going to be high fantasy in a medium magic setting in a place with a lot of forests. Watt psionically reaches out to inform them that they’ll be approaching within the next hour. “Keep your eye on the horizon.” Echo writes down that line to use for an NPC.

Arvandor
Victory’s Ascent approaches Arvandor at the end of the 18 hours. In the party’s view is the full on carnage of the war, which is a sight to behold. The glow of ten million laser lights across a black void shimmer as draconic and elven ships fire on each other. The light of the two moons, one white and one blue, cascades over the hulls of the great Seldarine ships and the wings of the pulsar and stellar dragons. A flight of meteor dragons, densely compact in build, tear through a vanguard elven force, leaving behind a streak of orange-red explosions in their wake.

An elven dreadnaught, with a Seldarine tree so massive it’s boughs extend above its hull, fires an iridescent cannon that streaks through dragon and elf ship alike; splitting targets in bloody twain. And beyond it all, the elven homeworld hangs in the heavens in all of its imperious majesty; a sphere of purple and blue, glowing brightly and encircled by two concentric but perpendicular planetary rings of ice.

In order to get to the planet, the party will need to make their way through the active warzone. Prim will be acting as the central psionic hub and Watt will be managing system balances.

Kick It!
Victory’s Ascent punches through the warzone and all around them is elven on draconic war crimes. Something they have seen before is on the verge of occurring again; about a mile off to their right they see a void dragon taken down by elven forces, and as the dragon collapses in on itself, a huge gravitational wave is incoming. Since the dragonforged is somewhat sentient, it is able to push and perform beyond its limits in certain situations. Sebastian mentally urges the ship to move faster to get further from the collapsing dragon. They manage to ride the initial explosive wave out and make it far enough away to narrowly avoid the pull of the gravity well.

Echo notices a trail of elven scouts begins to follow Victory’s Ascent and fire on them. He attempts to make some evasive maneuvers; the ship takes some damage before he manages to find cover. The elven ships get caught up in other battles and lose their trail.

The maneuver has landed them in a major debris field full of broken ships, bodies, dragon parts, and it is going to be difficult to get through. Persephone grabs a large chunk of debris to hold in front of the ship as a shield as they plow through. It works for the first couple of obstructions they hit, but when she tries to move through a dreadnought the shield just shatters. The ship takes damage as it is battered by the debris.

Once they’re through the debris field, it looks pretty clear except for a large elven dreadnought that is crashing and burning on a collision course with Victory’s Ascent. Sebastian sees this and tries to maneuver out of the way; he gets mostly out of the way but the front half of the dreadnought breaks off from the rest and clips the ship, damaging it.

Echo notes that one of their engines isn’t firing as well since they’ve been clipped by the dreadnought. To their right he sees a pulsar dragon letting loose its pulsar blast with Victory’s Ascent caught in the crosshair. The rest of the party see Echo’s intrusive thoughts as he thinks about Dragonball before he fires their pulsar blast into the oncoming one. There’s a split second where it looks like the plan will work, but the dragon’s pulsar blast envelops them.

Victory’s Ascent is moving even slower now, and two blood-raged meteor dragons who witnessed their attack on draconic forces are moving in to attack. The two meteor dragons in unison hit the hull from opposing sides; they hit once and it doesn’t seem to do damage. They move a little further out before coming back in for a second hit. Then for a third time they move back out and when they’re coming in, Persephone times her grapple just right to boost the ship up off of them and the two meteor dragons crash into each other and knock themselves out.

At this point, Victory’s Ascent is entering Arvandor’s atmosphere. An alarm blares on the ship and Prim warns them that there are defenses incoming; a series of magical photon missiles are targeting the ship. In an attempt to avoid the missiles Sebastian turns off the ship’s engine, sending them into a freefall, intending to turn the engines on again and blast off at the last minute so the missiles hit each other. His timing is not quite right, and they take the explosive damage.

Corelle and The Library of Ancients
Things seem to calm down and Victory’s Ascent flies below the clouds of Arvandor and they get their first view of the capital city, Corelle. The city is an ocean of skyscrapers with a lot of plant life woven in; most of the buildings have trees atop them, there is a lot of greenery growing on the sides of the buildings, and there are even Seldarine trees growing amidst and towering alongside the skyscrapers. A lot of the city on fire is from war and the sounds of gunfire can be heard. Victory’s Ascent is high enough that they are not being targeted by the ground defenses.

Echo knows that the Library of Ancients is located on a high altitude lake on a mountain outside the city, and he directs the ship there immediately. On a lake of crystal water the library stands on the edge of a massive waterfall over a thousand feet wide that cascades into the cliffs below. The library is a tower that stands about 800-ft. tall, archaic in elven design carved from ancient stone and engraved with intricate designs. The base of the tower, over 200-ft. wide, is overgrown with greenery. The dozens of minarets atop the tower are topped with spinning windows. Two enormous metal gears seem to emerge from the tower’s side as if there is some great machine integrated with the tower itself. There is nowhere to land the ship; it seems the only way to get to the tower is by landing somewhere near its top on a dock or landing pad.

The group runs a scan of the area to check for dangers. They find a few landing pads near the top and they bring the ship in without event. Within moments of their landing, ten elven soldiers come running up onto the pad brandishing staves.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: a half-orc Cavalier fighter. New class, who dis?
 * Persephone Goldpetal: an albino firbolg druid. She's a wise girl, not a smart girl.
 * Codename: Echo: an elf wizard/rogue. He's on the memes.

NPCS

 * Watt Wainwright: an elderly gnome. Crew member of Victory's Ascent. Can't stand to lose the brain chess.
 * Primina: a genetically engineered young woman. The MacGuffin. Very confident in her role now.
 * Lieutenant Vermillion: Commanding Officer of the Crimson Wings 4th Battalion, Third Division of Draconic Star Sovereignty Forces. Had his world rocked and doesn't even know who did it.
 * Bob: a pulsar dragon. Has two meteor dragon friends who have his back.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian

Mechanics

 * Sebastian is no longer a paladin/warlock. He is now a level 10 fighter, Cavalier subclass. He is three levels behind Echo and Persephone as a punishment for messing up so bad. He's focused on defense and locking down enemies now. This was mutually agreed upon by Will and Freeland as they plotted out Sebastian's character development.
 * Freeland feels it is very fitting for Sebastian; he needed to suffer some consequences for the way his decisions backfired on him.

Out of Character

 * Brian has now played Echo longer than he played Carter, by one episode.
 * Special Guest Jake is bad at chess in real life and decided to have Percy be bad at chess also.

World Building

 * Victory's Ascent looks like Ragnarok from Final Fantasy VIII, but black.

Nat 20's (4 total)

 * Brian (Intelligence)
 * Brian (Blaster Beam)
 * Brian (Stealth)
 * Special Guest Jake (Strength)

Nat 1's (2 total)

 * Will (Laser as Lieutenant Vermillion)
 * Special Guest Jake (Initiative)