c02s04e08 - Sprung Trap day 155 the team is taking the Pickleship and the Three Clawed Monster back to the Llazhaar Principalities with relative peace... long rest; healing those cursed by Draegoth; and prostelitizing(?) to the crew. day 156 It's a 18 hour flight and after 10 the ship bridges start chattering.. the Monster is being pinged by Llazaar security protocols.. which is unusual for so far away.. jurisdiction borders don't take effect until within 80 miles of the islands. the team suspects trouble, and after a search find a dropped sending stone in the stables where 4 seahorses are missing... about 10 miles off the shore of Q'Barra. So.. the team figures they're in for a challenge when they arrive.at 80 miles the ships are intercepted by a squad from Leon's Brigade-- the 8th house of Llazaar that oversees homeland security... 200 gunships and a Hard Military culture needed to keep borders free from threats. Leon's marines board the two carriers and search the ships.. when they find the Draegoth priest in the brig, Frank mentions that the priest is being detained because he's been cursing crewmen with undeath under an agreement with Prince Maracan. ... which raises a few quarantine flags and they are ordered to detour to a military island; Darkstone. It sounds more menacing than it is.. the ships are locked in port while insepctors clear the threats from the ship; the team plus crew are quarantined on a giant luxury barge... food, drink, games, fun... Dhraksis spends 13 hours being interrogated because he keeps hitting trigger words that raise suspicion that they are on a mission to assassinate Maracan and take his place. Eventually he is allowed to join general population again at one of the onboard bars. At this bar in the quarantine ship, THX and Frank are trying to keep drunken pirates from killing themselves to prove that THX will bring them back from the dead. Endearing... but torublesome, and worthy of some strict guidelines about resurections. but... until they have a contract, the team is trying to keep them happy and excited about the possibilities they offer. but... THX is having trouble with revivifying them. The last pirate he tries to revivify doesn't respond; the magic is Resisted. Needing to save face, THX cranks up the juice and hits a Raise Dead... when the pirate's soul pulls into his body; from the Ether is dragged another Mechanus Construct which gates another spidery ball and they begin spittig out printer pages, reams of celestial text detailing THX violating Post-Mortal protocols. The team start attacking the silver balls when Dhraksis walks in from Interrogation. Frank botches a strength check and gets hooked by one of the electro-shock harpoons that drag him into the ether with the ball latched to him by mechanical pincers. The team watches frank vanish right before them, and focus fire the remaining threat, turning it to powder. Now with the Bar quiet.. THX and DHraksis start considering their options. Meanwhile, Frank is deposited in an infinite plain of flat wasteland comprised on nano-sized gears that interlock and shift under Frank's mechanized boots. He summons Princess out of boredom and they make play for hours.. digging doesn't really work. walking gets boring. they wrestle until the team figures something out. The team figures something out. With a Contact Spell targeting the Deva, Beyonce.. a lantern Archon materializes to assist their needs. After some quick background checks the Archon is able to verify that Frank, Rogar, and THX all have bounties on their souls by The Inevitables-- which are an independent celestial power center that punishes mortals that begin disrupting Natural Order and The Fate Strings that guide history. It's all the wishing. from the amount of Outsider exposure the team experiences, they've began warping their own realities. 1- Rogar ws stolen from Kazaraks eternal prison. he's a rogue soul in his own son's body and the Legions of Hell put a contract on him with the Inevitables to have him retrieved. 2- Frank has a very strong NonDetect effect active-- so strong that it's creating a null-zone in the fate strings where the team is creating major milestones in the developmen t between the Athasian city states and the nations of Khorvaire. The non-detection needs to be nullified for him to return to khorvaire. 3- THX is shredding fate strings with his "resurrec everyone" policy. folks are dying unexpectedly, and being brought back like some sort of game. It's pissing Fate off. So Frank got snared and is now in lockdown forever. Thx gets the coordinates from the Lantern Archon and imediately Planeshifts the team along with - Stuart the pirate union steward - wanting to keep the team under observation to assess their ethics for character evaluation during contract negotiations. - Gary the Skald - wants a story to tell the ship mates - Sneaky Dan - can't be trusted be cause he is too loyal to the Draegoth Priest - Janet the Notary - to certify Stuart and Gary's observations - draegoth templar - Because he's not to be trusted at all. they gate in right next to Frank and Princess... and immdiately find that the place has a dimensional anchor set on it... they can't just leave. They have to figure their way out. .. So they kill the Priest of Draegoth immediately because that was always the plan. Time for a long rest. Day 157 The team gets to walking. The only feature in the wastelnd is a distant mountain. Evetually they come across a trio of demons playing cards. It seems the prison has other prisoners, and whoever is keeping the place stable doesn't care how well they treat each other. The demons assure the team that the mountain is not a viable exit, but everyone gets snarky real fast and fightin happens. Both Sneaky Dan and janet the Notary are killed by a dog-demon.. stinky vulture gets cut down fast, but the real show stopper was the magma demon tha Frank shoved his fist down his throat and turned it insicde out into a lump of lava that proclaimed it cannot be destroyed. It also couldn't seem to move, so they left it there. heading towards the distant mountain, the session ends. <end of session> Day 157 Inevitable Prison, Mechanus The team is now Level 14! loot-- nothing gained, nothing lost.