Session 12 - Serdica's Solar Shock

Having claimed the small isle of Dragonrest for themselves the party turn their focus back on completing the false flag operation that they were tasked with by the Cove Keeper.   Knowing that The Solar Festival is coming up in a couple of days and that it is one of the most important days in the The Isurian Empire's calendar, the party decide to use that to their advantage. They plan to attack the nearby empire island Serdica during The Solar Festival while flying Principality colours, knowing that an attack like that will drastically raise tensions between the two powers, achieving the desired goals of the Cove Keeper.   The party spend some time preparing and planning for their attack during the sail there. They fill several barrels with black powder that they can toss behind them and detonate to deal with any chasing ships and spend some time examining their charts to plot the best route to take through the isles near Serdica to escape any pursuers the barrels fail to stop.   The party arrive at Serdica and during the evening of The Solar Festival the party open fires on Serdica targeting ships in the docks to slow down the inevitable pursuit and also targeting buildings of cultural worth and significance to further rile up the empire.   The party then proceed to follow along their planned escape route and drop their explosive barrels in a choke point between two of the islands. The only ships quick enough to give chase fell into the trap and are heavily damaged by the exploding barrels.   The party then used the Trickster's Topaz to change their flags while out of sight so they no longer looked like a principality ship and slowly made their way out of the isles before looping back round to their new keep.   The party  decide to spend about a week at Dragonrest both to let the immediate heat die down and to give the news time to travel. They return to Serdica a week later to hear what the word on the streets there are and discover that there plan worked as the people do indeed believe they were attacked by The Principalities.   Alongside this however they also mutterings that Shengzan are actually behind the attack and paid the Principalities to do so. This rumour appears to be due to the sightings of Shengzan ships in principality waters being mixed in with the gossip of the attack.   The party seeing that their plan worked leave Serdica and head to Corsair Cove and inform the Cove Keeper of their assault.   As they manage to achieve her desired goals of making the Isurian Empire focus on the Principalities and not on the Corsairs, the party were rewarded a large sun of gold and the bounties that had be placed on empire ships was cancelled as this one event was more than enough to increase tensions as desired.   The party decide to invest their reward into their keep and arranged for it to be repaired. As this would take some time they decided it was time to set sail for the Kobold Archipelago in search of the Forge of Souls that Hadwisa needed to find before she could give them her pearl.   Before setting out from the cove, the heard rumours of a pirate captain called Corwin 'Evil Grin' Griffin who had being claiming that he had found a way to become a pirate lord and was reported to have been seen wielding weapons that had belonged to The Once-Blessed. It seemed likely he may have found one of the pearls so the party took note of his name so they could keep an eye out for him on their travels.   During the trip their Xiao sought Tatiana's aid to examine an Arch-Tech skull he had found in Dragonrest. She was able to use her magic to allow Xiao to speak with the skull. Xiao used this opportunity to learn some information about the anti-magic crystal that was used at the keep.