Recap: The Sabotage

Duchess Ethelyn wasn’t answering the knock at her cabin door and her handmaiden, Sokana Rell, was making excuses. The Squad wasn’t sure if the Duchess was in trouble or just stalling. Mireya cast knock to unlock the door; the spell’s loud sound went unnoticed because it happened to coincide with the band striking up the royal anthem.

There were a few surprises when the door opened:

• The Duchess was glimpsed through the window, riding away on a fey sea-beast, apparently willingly.
• Her handmaiden, Sokana, an eladrin disguised as an elf, used fey step to bip past the squad and make her way down to the engine deck.
• A halfling assassin tangled with Gruul and Uraesco to delay the group, but he didn’t last long.

The squad followed Sokana to find some dead crew and two more saboteurs. Sokana threw an elemental gem into the overloaded furnace while the engineers worked to disable the boiler’s protection mechanisms.

When Aleric realized that the boiler was set to explode, destroying the Coaltongue and killing everyone including King Aodhan, the squad’s focus changed (mostly) from arresting people to saving the ship.

• Gruul snatched the elemental gem out of the furnace to get rid of the fire elemental, scorching himself badly.
• Malachai shovelled firegems out of the overloaded furnace.
• Aleric and Gruul tried to fix and/or break the boiler to keep it from exploding, or at least delay the inevitable.
• Mireya went topside to warn everyone, casting thunderwave to get their attention.
• Uraesco carried the unconscious halfling saboteur up to the main deck to make sure he got on a lifeboat so he could be interrogated later.

Having been warned of the impending disaster, Duke Fulton and Chief Engineer Massarde bravely rushed below to help save the ship while Capt. Smith, Minister Lee, and King Aodhan supervised the evacuation via lifeboat.

Meanwhile, Uraesco tried to chase down Sokana as she ran to escape the ship. He shot wildly at her fired a warning shot but she jumped out the window after her mistress with a final shout of “Fuck you, cogger!”

Engineer Massarde worked on using kegs of firepowder to blow out the fire in the furnace, while Fulton shouted at people ineffectually.

But in the end it was Aleric who figured out how to calibrate the energy transfer to the ship’s arcano-technological weapon – the Brand – and fire it to drain energy and snuff out the fire in the furnace, thus saving the Coaltongue.

Aftermath

In the end, all of the saboteurs escaped except for Ilton, the halfling assassin. He was quickly interrogated with the help of Mireya’s detect thoughts spell, revealing the outline of the plot.

The squad was debriefed by Principal Minister Lee. King Aodhan also had a private word with them.

The King then gave a version of the speech that had been meant for after the banquet. He declared his intention to end hostilities with the nation of Danor, negotiate a peace treaty over the next year, and seal the deal by marrying a Danoran.

Over the next week, investigation by the RHC uncovered all the details of the coup/sabotage/assassination plot. The constables were kept busy with this, but at a low level, tracking down witnesses and making paperwork. They had the gratitude of their boss, and their sovereign, but no noticeable prestige in the wider world.