LogFate of Souls-Jason-3

Game log for the 2018/01/28 session of Fate of Souls, as taken by Jason

We open with Ham in jail, Hirazoth at a pub, and everyone else in the stateroom on the Omdurman. Bartleby announces that the crew must be confined to the ship. The crew makes its discontent known by running for the rails, and about half the crew is off the ship before he can get a handle on things. Börk, Callow, and former second mate / new first mate Skudjin stays aboard. The first mate warns the Captain that once they're done with repairs to the ship, they'll need a new crew, and stories about a Hollow Man on board are not going to make it easier to recruit. They may need to up the wages for the crew. The Captain decides to keep the crew too busy to complain. Piro starts talking about busting Ham out of jail, and Weyden insists that she has to come with him now.

Weyden and Piro to to the White Stoat, where Weyden tells Scogens that things are accelerating and they need to move the timetabe up. Scogens sets a meeting for that night. Afterward, wandering around town, they both realize they're being followed. Weyden recognizes the person following him as the guard captain he tied up in the Archives in Iolanthus. Plus: that guy has no jurisdiction here. Minus: he wouldn't have followed us all this way if he wasn't serious.

Hirazoth makes his way back to the ship in the middle of the night. Some guy staggers out of the alley at him, coughing unpleasantly, and asks for help. Hirazoth is just beginning to pull away when the guy's confederate throws a bag over the wizard's head, while the supposed drunkard starts dragging Hirazoth into an alley. Knowing that he's at a huge disadvantage here, H plays like he's too drunk to resist. Someone else grabs his legs, then they tie him up, and then they take him away. It smells like he's probably in a stable, where they tie him to a post, and then they start arguing about what to do. Apparently they were expecting someone to come back, but they haven't, and it's making the rest nervous. They're expecting the Archivist to be dead and the book to be in their hands. They're discussing things so openly that either they're taking Hirazoth with them, or killing him. After half an hour, the tension has gotten worse. One wants to kill H and run off, and another thinks that if the Hollow Man has failed, Hirazoth is their best bet for a navigator. Hirazoth starts talking shit until one of them puts a blade against his left eye. Hirazoth decides to double down and threatens to still the air in their lungs, and tells them that harming the master of the Order of Coriolis will damn their souls. While they try to figure their plan out, Hirazoth produces a hidden knife and frees his hands, all without them noticing. Then he summons the wind. All the wind. He's huffing and puffing and threatning to blow their house down. One of them comes over to beat him down, but Hirazoth somehow manages to sideslip the blow by crouching, then whips the bag off his head and slices the bonds on his feet. He sees that his attacker has a carved walking stick he was using as a weapon, and now that he sees Hirazoth is armed, the guy produces a sword from it and impales Hirazoth through the shoulder into the post. The cane-wielder, very cultured, says, "I say, my good man, that will be enough of that." Hirazoth snarls back some vulgarities, and the guy introduces himself as Lord Haylen Valaroth. As the lord and the wizard talk, the men begin to look pretty scared. Hirazoth gets the impression he might kill one of them just to make a point. Hirazoth winds him up a bit, and sure enough, he kills one of his men.

Weyden and Piro decide to try to lose their tail. Unfortunately, Piro is stealthy, and Weyden is just big, so sneaking away isn't so easy. Instead, Weyden makes a hole through the crowd, and Piro follows in his footsteps, ducking away in the morning fog. They go to the Shrine of Saganthal. On the way, they do notice a mysterious wind come up and then suddenly die down. Weyden, attuned to magic, senses that there are air spirits dispersing from a stable with two armed guards posted outside. Piro looks into a gas lamp to try to divine what's up with Hirazoth, but he's never liked having her read his fate in the flames, so she can't see him. Weyden decides to stake out the stables until it's time for them to go to the meet. Piro wants to go eat something. Weyden snarls at her.

Hirazoth decides to play along and see where the conversation goes. Lord Valaroth doesn't trust him but he thinks maybe he can land the deal, so he's willing to treat the aeromancer as a sort of involuntary guest. Hirazoth is allowed to hang out - but there's a guard with a crossbow trained on him, and orders to kill the wizard if the candle flickers. Haylen then briefs his competent guard, out of Hirazoth's earshot, and leaves.

Weyden sees Haylen leave, with the guards at the door in tow, and two more guards who came out of the alley. The guy travels with four armed guards. He's serious. Piro sneaks in through an unlocked milking door, but snags some clothing on the door, pulling it shut and locked behind her. She sneaks further in and sees Hirazoth, eating at bolt point, with two guards. One of them is watching the front door, and the other, Hirazoth.

Weyden gets a little nervous that Piro hasn't come back nor made a sound. He pulls his hammer and walks over to the front door.

Ham's in a private cell, so of course, he tries to see if there's anything worth noticing in this little spot. The cell has no obvious weaknesses. He writes a note, wraps it around a stone, and throws it out the window. From the next cell, someone tells him that it's no use throwing messages out, because they just end up in the middenheap. Turns out that Ham knows this Yul fellow, because Ham brought him in. Yul commits to making sure that Ham doesn't get any sleep. Ham offers to let Yul come along when he breaks out. Yul doesn't trust the idea of escaping jail with a bounty hunter. When Ham tries to find out what Yul did, Yul just mocks him. Yul seems to have trust issues. He may also have spent too much time alone. Still, he eventually tells Ham a tale about stealing a batch of soulstones. They were hidden in a gourd. Ham thought he was busting the guy for stealing pumpkins, but it was grand theft the whole time. Also, Yul knew that Ham had been on a ship, looking for soulstones. Yul also says Ham's cell is cursed and nobody put there lives longer than a month. After a while the conversation ends, with Yul responding to Ham's overtures only with snickering.

Over in the stable, Weyden kicks the door in. That creates a draft and the candle goes out. Piro looks to see what's happening. The wind picks up just as the guard with the crossbow shoots at Hirazoth, and the bolt misses. Weyden moves in to attack the guard who was on the door and breaks the guy's jaw with one stroke. Hirazoth tells the guard with the bow that he has this one chance to run, and hte guy runs for it - well, enough to run into Weyden.

Piro throws horse shit at the guard, just to distract him, but the guard dodges. The guard with the crossbow tries to use it as a club against Weyden, though his primary goal is just to get by the Purgator, and it works - Weyden's move to duck the blow lets him past. The sword-wielding guard and Weyden exchange blows, and the guard goes down. The other guard runs out, screaming, so Hirazoth grabs a bottle of wine, and the three of them go running toward the shrine of Saganthal.

They don't have long to wait before the older Purgator appears. When he hears about the Hollow Man, he admits that the news changes everything. Hirazoth tells them that Lord Haylen Valaroth sent the Hollow Man, and Piro knows who that is! He's an Iolanthan noble, once the Ambassador to the Celestial Court. Hirazoth asks to be introduced to the man, and though Weyden doesn't know his name, he introduces himself as Toth. Hirazoth introduces himself in return, and finds that Toth has never heard of the Ancient Order of Coriolis. Weyden implies that nobody else has heard of it either. Toth suggests that if the needs repairs, and everyone knows it needs repairs, they should leave before repairing it. Weyden tells them to be on board the Omdurman by first light. Weyden, Piro, and Hirazoth return to the Omdurman.

Piro checks to see if they're being followed back to the ship, with Weyden's help. They aren't being followed, but they see people watching the ship. She doesn't see any way to board it without being seen. Hirazoth suggests that they should steal a small boat and get to the Omdurman from the water. Piro tries to steal the boat, and thanks to the mist, she's able to make off with a small fishing boat without detection. She picks up Weyden and Hirazoth at the end of a nearby pier, though she does struggle with the boat a bit. Hirazoth, being an accomplished sailor, takes over from there. Unfortunately he's been stabbed through the shoulder, and he's splashing instead of making nice smooth strokes.

They are seen, and someone shoots a crossbow at them through the mist. Hirazoth rushes to get them to the ship, successfully. They kick the rowboat loose next. Everyone trades stories and shares information. There was no specific time set tomorrow for the ship to move to her repair slip. Hirazoth asks for medical attention, but Bartleby wants to have a full ship's meeting first. Bartleby suggests getting out of the harbor before the tide turns, gambling that they enemy won't be ready to follow. Skkudjin figures they can make it work, and Dundas hopes that the ship's barely adequate (or possibly inadequate) crew means the can stretch supplies long enough to get to a new port. Bartleby and Weyden have to spend a lot of emotional energy trying to keep Piro from running out to free Ham by herself, since she knows there's a weak brick in his cell wall.

Piro goes to the forge, starts a fire, and tries to divine our way of getting the ship out of Hightower. She sees the ship that would follow us out of the harbor - one with blue and white sails and a bright green penant.

Callow tries to treat Hirazoth's wounds, but doesn't have the skill.

Toth and his apprentice Abner board at first light.

The next morning, at first light, Piro, Weyden, and his fellow Purgators leave the ship. They have no trouble spotting the guys watching the ship, nor the people tailing them. Weyden has no trouble getting a fisherman to agree to row them and the provisions out to sea, albeit for an inflated price. Now, time for a jailbreak.

Our band of criminals make their way up to the Citadel of Hightower. Piro tells them exactly where they need to climb. Abner distracts the guards from noticing Weyden's climb by slapping Piro until she starts screaming. Weyden then muscles hs way up the crag. Ham's about dying of boredom until a shadow passes over his window and he sees Wayden looking in. Ham gives him the finger-over-mouth signal for quiet, and Weyden does his best, but it's not a silent process, and Yul wakes up. Weyden tosses a rope down and they start climbing down, but Ham gets stuck. Weyden has to break out the olive oil. Once they're out, they're able to climb down.

A sally port opens and some Guards come out to save Piro from her attacker. That's their cue to run. Piro gets away but Abner has lead the guards away from her, and she doesn't know where he went. She heads for the rendezvous point at the pier, but the people following her try to grab her before she gets there.

Weyden, Ham, and Toth run for it. Toth hands Ham a dagger. They run into the two guys who'd been following them and immediately come to blows. Weyden tries to just push past them, but has to give ground when he sees that they have blades drawn. Weyden's hammer knocks the wind out of one, and Toth catches the same guy on the shoulder with a club. Ham tries to stab one, but he's rusty and starved, and almost loses his balance trying to avoid the fellow's riposte. The two things try to focus on Weyden and his big ass hammer, and they press him hard. He focuses his counterattack on the guard who had the wind knocked out of him, and takes the guy out. Ham tries to finish off the other guard and it's all the guy can do to protect himself. That's about all the action this guy wants, and he tries to flee. Ham throws a knife and sticks the blade into the base of the guy's neck, killing him. All of this has attracted some attention and caused some yelling, but there's nobody to try and stop them from escaping. After a few minutes, all the bells of the town start ringing.

Piro tries to run away through the crowd but can't get clean. With only two pursuers she knows of, she decides to run for the pier and hope her friends are waiting for her to help.

On the ship, the dockmaster tells Bartleby the repair slip is free. He gives the orders to pull the ship out of her current berth and make way across the harbor. Hirazoth ensures favorable winds, and Bartleby makes shiphandling look easy. Everyone's completely shocked when the ship changes course and leaves port.

At the end of Widow's Pier, the boatman is feeling pretty nervous about the gig he signed on for. Weyden, Ham, and Toth arrive first and the boatman asks for more coin. Weyden makes the payment but tells the guy they aren't leaving yet. Piro's pursuers see Weyden, Ham, and Toth, and decide that it's actually OK if Piro gets away. Also, one of them pisses himself. As they leave, Piro points out the ship that will be pursuing them. The fisherman rows them out, and they meet up with Omdurman as planned.

Piro tells Hirazoth and Bartleby about the ship chasing them as well, and the aeromancer tries to change the wind to keep the pursuing ship from clearing the harbor, but the wind resists. The enemy ship seems to have its own aeromancer. Bartleby rounds the island to get out of sight before changing course, then chooses a new course and eludes pursuit in the fog like the master navigator he is. He heads for a small unsettled island with a spring and some fruit. It also has a beach where he could careen the ship, though with the short crew, that will be a leadership challenge.