Session 131: Scallywags: Fallen Chosen and Choices of Throne or Future

As Pojin leads Teyos, Kevdae, Dosgratin, Chatukik, and Chogim to the Palace gates, a sneak and a punch to the queen before organization can be had and alarms to be blared--before a true counterattack can be waged--they find Hrodi, a Skaldyr warlord and a group of dragoon knights of the Queen and Mainwalk draconic gains and experimentations. And Teyos sees the powers within Hrodi, and the prowress of the others--they cannot let this group get further south. The fleet must continue without being waylaid by these warriors, so Dosgratin jumps forward in impatience and the decision made, hopping up to the rooftops from the castle wall they had already climbed. Chogim and Chatulkik quickly followed, wanting to aid and to maim and the distraction the dwarf most surely will provide; stealth is not Dosgratin's strong suit. Kevdae, Teyos, and Pojin, follow quickly thereafter. It works, on purpose or on accident, and their focus, these Skaldyr and Queen's Dragoons, up to the rooftop where Dosgratin stands defiantly. And they begin a volley of arrows, and psychic knives as Pojin, Chogim, and Dosgratin fight on rooftops and broken city floors, small shops and canopied vendors. Their victory tenuous at best, they were doing significant damage to the Hrodi and his followers, but not enough to gain the clear upper hand. 

With that, Dosgratin takes his chromatic flare, a device of Noodles, the Powder Monkey's, own design, and he fires into the air. With that, the Crimson Fleet sends a clear bombardment upon those city streets, those of Heckler's Journey. Some citizens run and scream and fear, and some die, but keenly, Hrodi and most of his other followers fall as well. Dosgratin, Pojin, and the others regroup, cleanup, pilfer pockets and weapons (Teyos and Dosgratin argued over the golden axe of Hrodi, and Kevdae gets Dosgratin while he is distracted to put it in her bag of holding). They then move on, to palace and beyond...


 

Lady Auna has also lead, from another more easterly angle of the city capital, a group of her Scions--76, Mercou, Roashii, and Kronk--with Freydis, Bangrim to a forward position on the same side of the palace gates. However, the explostion from the Crimson Bombardment provides some distraction to the draconians they find in the wake, they are additionally broken apart as a group, and they are not at the doors of the Palace when needed to help the siege truly continue.

Addionallyaboard the Horizon's Call, the minimal crew has to defend with cannons and trolls against draconian monstrosities trying to bring the prized vessel down We switch to the Scallywags--Ilknar and Nethpione, Brimstone, Orran, Wulfgar, and Lady Sash--aboard the Redwing, flying north of the Mainwalk, before they gather around Nethpione and teleport to the Collegiate Arcanum; to flank the queen's mages from assisting is their goal. Yet, before they do, time stops, and shifts.... yet the people will follow, the must, the truth and the hope for change? 


    We follow Xamila "Mila" Twinberry , as she takes magic tricks and traps, and distractions and the like--focusing destruction and decoys throughout the northern part of the City, Mainwalk, and above--the chaos adds elements of confusion to the siege to begin--with fleets traveling north, and the queen sending her own distractions east--only to be engaged with the Kobolds and their Kollect, for the Inquisitor's Sanctum to fall, and for the Crimson Fleet to slowly come into the Bay of Kings, ready to begin their own continued onslaught, and easily, it would seem already, able to succeed with these inspired actions from Kobolds, Fleets, potentional Kinds, Claimants to the Throne of the Faces of the Kings, and even so much more. Yet, Mila must go to the Librarian of the Collegiate Arcanum, and she must see his truth to the rights of the people, to those already so compromised by the actions of King Boveen and his lovely wife, the High mage and Queen Mother, Queen Jhusve Voidshard . She teleports, and rather than wait for her proper meeting, she meanders her way down to the lower levels of the college's library and arcanum halls. She eventually finds the door and the magical seal, and teleports to a demimensional plane suited for the Librarian's odd extraplanar existence. 

It is room filled with books, scrolls, lanterns, gems, and the like--spinning and dancing in the air, creating lights and spectral visions of magics from the beyond and the material. Mila has to dodge and weave, to find herself to the center of the Maelstrom of Knowledge, and she brazenly interrupts the Librarian's silence and studious time. She wants to know of his actions and stance to Jhusve, and she willing allows the elderly mage to filter through her mind and stories of her time aboard the Horizon's Call, the Fall of the Eighth Bloom, and the Claimant of Ilknar and others. 

The librarian listens, but he also begins to compose a list; at first Mila is unsure of the meaning, a language she does not understand, but then he writes in her native tongue, gnomish, and her request. It is a list of names: mostly familir, but a few not. Many aboard the Horizon's Call, one of Jhusve herself, and of six or so others she does not recognize. She asks what for, and he must then walk out, and he gathers heraldry, lineages, and a eventually a grand tapestry that outlines the many kings, those of the last age of 5000 years, to part of this Wall's Warden Claimants. Mila realizes she has her own claim to the throne, and that the throne does not have to be for the Kingship. The warden can exist without it; but will the people understand and follow? 

She gets some magical scrolls and pursuits from the Librarian, distracting him a with a discussion of his own lost name, presumably taken by a Fey Lord. Then, she leaves, using a magical scroll of teleportation prized by the Librarian himself, and then taking a foresight scroll and sending scrolls herself. She contacts Lady Sasha first, to pinpoint the Fleet's position, and then she teleports to Lady Sasha's room, where she explains the choice. The Wall, the Fate of the Grey Coasts or the Palace, the Siege, and the Fate of the Mainwalk, the Crimson Fleet and its people? With this heavy knowledge, they try to get some rest before the siege starts officially, and before this choice takes full effect upon the fate of the people, crew, and loved ones. 

The next morning, Mila nearly breaks down Captain Brimstone's door to get the meeting of the fateful future started.