Session 16 (Notes)

16/5/2026

• Session opens with the party still in the arena, having just defeated Vocath’s 3 arena challenge rounds; Joffrey is on the ground unconscious and Cinnamon the dog is completely dead.

• A Solar dragon being ridden by an astral elf has just burst through the glass dome over the arena and landed on the floor. The elf dismounts, raises the faceplate of her helm and the party can see that she looks like princess Xedali (It’s her twin sister, Xelith); she complements them condescendingly on winning 3 fights in a row without rest. Through the damaged dome the party can see a fleet of star moths on orbit of Vocath’s station.

• She proclaims that she’s here for her sister, demands that she be given to her now, and the party can faintly hear a pained gurgling from Joffrey, as a bloody froth trickles from his mouth. Squelch uses lay on hands and heals Joffrey for half health, he sits up and delicately dabs his face clean with a silken handkerchief, seeing the dragon and elf for the first time.

• “Hello, is it me you’re looking for ?” He says to the princess, “are you here to give us some medals?”.

• She says she is here for her sister, Joffrey asks if she means Toopla, she firmly restates she is there for Xedali. He rolls this word around in his mouth, repeating it, pretending he’s never heard it before. Squelch asks if she means “Ze Deli ?” And points to an ethnic meat vendor in the crowd, selling Gabagool and soft cheeses, among other things.

• They further try and obfuscate and tell her that their interactions with elves haven’t been great, so they generally try and stay away from them. While these antics are going on, Captain Garglinale starts casually walking towards the perimeter of the arena and Joffrey sends him a mental message, telling him to get aboard the ship and flee with Xedali.

• Xelith suddenly points at Garglinale and says that she knows that he captured her and has her; Joffrey lies and tells her to leave his servants out of this, Garglinale is just a poor castaway from a debris field that they nursed back to health, he’s now his manservant. Xelith brushes this aside and yells at Garglinale, demanding to see her sister. Joffrey acts shocked and say “Your name is Garglinale !?” And is ignored.

• Squelch says she should let them leave while she deal with Garglinale; just then, a voice can be magically heard around the arena stating that the party should give them what they want, they better not turn his arena into a crumbling mess, or there will be consequences! (it’s Vocath). He can be seen in his arena box, surrounded by a forcefield, sipping wine and glaring down at them.

• The party is incredulous and says that he seems to be acting pretty weak and tries to incriminate him, suggesting that he was going to join them and attack the Astral Elves and their imperial citadel. He scoffs, but sits down quietly and adjusts the tint on his forcefield, turning it into a mirror finish and discontinuing his broadcast.

• The party are conferring quielty and looking concerned, there doesn’t really seem to be a way out of this situation; just then Garglinale starts to run for the arena wall and Squelch attempts to cast Hold Person on him, to Joffrey’s dismay. Fortunately Garglinale resists this and Joffrey casts Darkness on him to help him escape by making him harder to hit as he Spider Climbs up the wall at a sprint.

• The solar dragon fires a breath weapon at him and hits him for massive damage, even with the darkness spell obscuring him; Joffrey suggests to Autismus to cast Darkness as well, overlapping the spheres, then moving them apart creating two targets for the dragon, possibly confusing it and letting Garglinale escape. He agrees and casts his spell, beginning to move them apart, as Bubba approaches Joffrey and drops to his knees by Cinnammon, lamenting her death; Joffrey kneels beside him and whispers in his ear, telling him that this is all Dave’s fault and he is so sorry that Dave has done this to him.

• The dragon recharges and fires again at Xedali’s urging, fortunately shooting the wrong sphere of Darkness, allowing Garglinale to escape; Joffrey cries out and says “oh no, they killed Garglinale, he’s been disintegrated!” hoping to confuse them further.

• As this scene is unfolding, a voice loudly cries out behind them “Stop this!” and Xedali appears, floating down into the arena beside them. Xelith waves the dragon back and it sits down, she greets her sister and asks if she’s come to surrender herself. Xedali asks if they are ok and looks over their battered appearances, as Joffrey and Autismus quickly heal themselves. She says she is here to diffuse the situation and that everything is going to be ok, before she starts walking over to her sister and the dragon.

• Joffrey follows and the rest of the party join her in walking towards Xelith. When they are part way there, Joffrey receives a sending, it’s Xedali, and she tells him that he has to take her ring, she dropped it in the sand behind her so her sister wouldnt get it and she says she has to surrender now to save them.

• Arriving in front of Xelith, Xedali says that she is surrendering and that they must leave this place now, her sister is triumphant, tells her it is for the best, seizes her and re mounts the dragon, flying away.

• As soon as they are out of line of sight, Joffrey turns and sprints, then flings himself on his hands and knees, desperately feeling around in the sand for the ring, yelling out that he thinks he dropped a coin when he went down earlier. He finds it and hides it in his coat, he tries it on quickly to see if anything happens, it doesnt, and he hides it again.

• Vocath reveals himself again and says condescendingly that they handles the situation well, possibly saving a lot of ships and damage to his fortress; Joffrey agrees and says that Vocath should pay them a percentage of the damage that was avoided due to their actions. Squelch scoffs at Vocath and says that he isn’t much of a merchant prince, he didnt do anything, he was a coward. Joffrey chimes in and says that this is why he is only a merchant prince, instead of a merchant KING, popping his collar and is ignored by Vocath.

• Vocath tells them that there will be a meeting of all the faction representatives in 1 hour in his chambers and that they should be there, then teleports away as the party continues to make jibes at him.

• Joffrey continues to complain that there aren’t any rewards for winning the arena fight etc, Squelch tells him to shut up, at least they are alive, Joffrey says “yes, but how many days of your life do you want to live, being poor…?“. Joffrey offers the party 10gp in wages each for doing a good job in the arena fight, Squelch throws them on the ground and Autismus tries to slap him and he’s quite happy to take the money back if they are rejecting it.

• As they are moving to leave, Joffrey puts an arm around Bubba and consoles him about the death of Cinnamon, taking out his locket with the symbol of the goddess Waukeen on it, saying a brief rite over the dog’s corpse, before tossing it in the bag of holding. Bubba asks if they can have a viking burial for her and send her off into space on a flaming barge, but Joffrey says that they might be able to bring her back, there is still hope; Dave may have failed them, but they might be able to find someone that can help them.

• Bubba says they need some info, they should go to the men’s gallery and Joffrey says yes, he should go investigate those leads and gives him 20gp to get rid of him for a while. Squelch and Autismus settle down for a short rest on the docks while Bubba and Joffrey walk off in opposite directions.

• Bubba finds a ship full of Thri-Kreen, mantis people, and tries to talk to them, but they speak in insectoid clicks and strange noises and pretend they can’t understand him, snubbing him. He tries to make bug sounds back at them, not speaking their language, and just racially offends them as he makes finger guns and winks, walking off.

• Joffrey arrives at a ship full of Hadozee monkey men, none of them look dodgy or like necromancers or herbalists so he ignores them and keeps moving, trying to stay on task and ignore the merchants.

• He arrives at a lizardfolk ship and these definitely appear more shady and like they may suit his needs; they have cybernetics and some are dressed in shaman or warlock outfits. He approaches them and asks if they might know where he can find goods and or services that may be less than legal in many star systems. They ask what is less than legal and he says he is interested in necromancy, poisons etc but the Lizardfolk are unbothered and are happy to talk about them.

• An old crone lizardfolk woman comes out, she has a cybernetic arm and a rotten cloak, she’s covered with talismans etc. Joffrey asks if she knows much about necromancy and such and she says she knows everything about death and decay. He asks her if she can raise Cinnamon, she says she can but the soul has moved on, Joffrey doesn’t really care about that and asks her for whatever is cheapest, as long as it will move around and be about as playful as before. She says that considering it’s in a wheelchair, it probably will be about as playful…


• He asks for some poison or a paralysing agent that would be capable of disabling “a big green rat”, referring to Squelch, as he thinks about acquiring the second elven ring, now that he has the first, and is worried about him interfering.

• They discuss payment, the lizards aren’t interested in regular currency or precious metals, they are interested in death and decay. Joffrey offers them the brain of a dead intellect devourer that is starting to decay and they perk up at this and agree to the deal, selling him a Torpor Poison and raising Cinnamon as a zombie dog who now has 3 working legs.

• He gives the dog a pat and is very pleased with himself that he’s fixed her, proudly walking off to find Bubba and present Cinnamon to him.

• Bubba comes across a ship of Aarakocra (Bird People) and approaches them, desperately trying to find someone to gamble with as his gambling addiction kicks in. He tries to talk to them about how fast their ship and break the ice, before asking them to gamble, but they are sort of hippy people by nature and aren’t interested. They tell him they don’t know of anyone in the area that is running any gambling events and he tells them this place fucking sucks, getting very frustrated.

• The aarakocra observe that he isn’t from around there and must not be part of the crew on the next ship over, that appears to be feral looking halflings. He is crestfallen that they don’t know him, as he just fought in the arena and won 3 rounds. He leaves and heads back to the party on the ship, where Squelch is resting on the deck with his lizard steed.

• When he arrives, Joffrey says there is someone there that is excited to meet him and proudly presents zombie Cinnamon, saying he has accomplished what Dave couldn’t. Autismus is horrified and points out everything that is wrong with this situation, Squelch screams that its the evil undead, but Bubba is very happy to see his dog and picks them up and puts them on his shoulders. Autismus vomits and the zombie dog goes over and eats it, to his disgust.

• Joffrey takes Bubba aside and qualifies that Squelch has always been a bit funny about Cinnamon, but he might be even less amenable now that she is undead, being a paladin, and maybe he should keep them away from him. He dusts off his hands, says he’s done his good deed for the day and walks off towards his quarters.

• Autismus has an aside and says a quick prayer to Dave, updating him and complaining about the undead dog.

• They hear the tones to signify that Vocath’s meeting with the representatives is starting and they hustle over, with Squelch riding his lizard into the chambers.

• Vacath tries to throw the party under the bus, says that he has convened this meeting on their behalf, don’t look at him, he’s just a facilitator “have at it” and everyone in the room looks at the party. Autismus cringes away and doesn’t like people looking at him, Joffrey loves the attention and basks in it, Squelch stands on top of his lizard and tries to address the crowd and inspire them to attack the space elves. Joffrey says quietly behind his hand that they haven’t had anything to do with the elves in this start system and are probably nonplussed about them, just happy that they have taken their princess and gone away. True to form, the crowd are listening but not really sure what he wants from them.

• In Uncle Sam style, Squelch says that he wants all of them “We want you, you and YOU to join us in our fight”.

• In the crowd there are clans of Hadozee, Thri-Kreen, Aarakocra, Feral Halflings that are greek, and the cybernetic lizardfolk (Saurians) with the old crone necromancer as their leader; they all seem blank and uninterested so far.

• Squelch tries talking about the elves wealth being theirs if they wish to take it, but only the Hadozee perk up and Joffrey turns around, now excited and listening. He continues to work this point and says they could all get rich, except Vocath, fuck that guy, he’s got enough.

• Joffrey chimes in and tries to make it clearer that what Squelch is saying is that there is an existential threat hanging over all of their heads, and that is the elves. “That’s right and they’re coming for YOU!” Squelch bursts out and Autismus starts performing sign language, as their translator for the hard of hearing in the crowd.

• They start trying to whip up the crowd and continue to express how powerful the elves showed themselves to be there today, surrounding and threatening the fortress, while Vacath was as useful as a mewling child, hiding himself away. They tell them about how all of their races are buying overpriced garbage goods from him and he’s set himself up to have a monopoly over trade in this system and keeps them fighting each other.

• Vacath isn’t very happy that they are trying to turn the crowd against him, but also is too much of a coward to step in and do anything. Bubba is handing out leaflets into the crowd as they are talking. They continue to rail against him and tell the crowd that he’s done nothing but take everything from them and he’s got them frightened of him, when he’s pathetic and can’t stand up to a couple of elven women. Squelch talks about his garbage goods, rusting armour, glow sticks etc. Autismus calls him a “notorious pussy” and keeps signing to the crowd.

• Joffrey jumps on top of a crate and starts giving a very impassioned speech, saying that “they can burn the lands and boil the seas, but they can never take the skies from us, brothers, they can never take our freedom!”

• Some of the crowd are starting to talk amongst themselves and a hadozee representative approaches them, asking what would be required of them and what they would stand to gain. Joffrey says there would be a profit share in toppling one of the most powerful races in the astral sea; he says that they would be perfect for logistics for their fleets and offers them sole rights to the trade of war materials, provided they can maintain an adequate supply and don’t price gouge.

• He goes on to say that if they are successful and the hadozee refuse to assist them, they will be denied trade in all alliance ports. The hadozee are on the fence and say that if they had more followers, they might be interested in joining up, but continue to grumble.

• Joffrey is growing tired of this bickering and noncommittal talk and pulls out a platinum rod, shouting to the room that the first faction to join them will receive it and the greedy hadozee turn around and immediately agree to join. He starts handing out contracts and asks for their pledge in writing, says that they can have exclusive trade rights if they can satisfy demand, otherwise they reserve the right to take their business elsewhere.

• Having locked in the merchant race, he encourages the rest of the party to go and talk to the other factions and see if they can find common interests. Squelch goes off to the talk to the lizardfolk and Bubba goes to talk to the feral halflings. 


• Bubba tells them that if they say them fight in the arena, they would have seen only a small portion of the power that Joffrey could grant them. They are quizzical and ask if Bubba always does what Joffrey says and he says no, but it’s bordering on a lie. They ask him what happened to his dog, they saw it die and Bubba tries to deflect them and says that they are mistaken, it’s actually evolved after that battle and no longer needs a wheelchair.

• The greek halflings tell him they are keen for benefits and ask what they will get out of it, Bubba says “oh you like benefits ? Well you can get some Centrelink, well, it’s called Joffreylink and you can get 1000 Joffrey-bucks and there is room on the ship for you”. They clarify that they have their own ship and it has a fully sick sound system, they don’t need the party’s ship. In any case, Bubba succeeds in persuading them to join in the battles and they are keen for the promise of benefits.

• Squelch tries to talk to a lizard man that is blankly licking his eyes in front of him, asking him what he would need to do to convince them to come on board with this venture. Lizard man says they are pretty impressed with the party’s combat prowess, but why would they abandon this system to join a foreign war when they are close to dominating this one.

• Squelch suggests they are under Vocath’s control, but they scoff at this and say that he is only an arms dealer. Squelch explains that they clearly need him, otherwise if they were truly strong they’d be able to pillage all the neighbouring races without him. They are still unconvinced about why they should fight the space elves when there are none in this system. He tells them that the elves are coming, they’ve just proved it by showing up and walking all over them.

• Autismus supports him and says that if the elves come, there won’t be a single egg in their hatcheries that will be unharmed by the conflict. He takes out an egg and crushes it in his hand and says “This would be your babies.” He says “you don’t want the space ethnics to get all the rewards, do you?”. The lizard men say they have just about got them all crushed and they don’t even make good zombies. Autismus nods and says they don’t even make good tzatziki. The lizard men say they do make good tzatziki when you cut them up and put them in it.

• Squelch says they should join the war effort and they can promise them mass casualties and all the war crime tzatziki they want. As the finish successfully convincing the lizardfolk to join them, the loud sounds of celebration, Zorba music and smashing plates can be heard from the greek halfling delegation, as Bubba is dancing with them and they have Joffrey raised up on a chair, bouncing him as he plays the flute.

• Autismus asks the lizard men to teach him that tongue trick and starts trying to lick his own eye.

• Squelch pats his lizard mount’s scales and they change colours like sequins being tilted on different angles.

• Aarakocra approach Joffrey and ask him what their history is with these Astral Elves, Joffrey explains that they attacked their planet, destroying his bank and causing all his belongings to fall into a big chasm created by giant vines. The aarakocra say they have heard about these vines before and they are very destructive. Joffrey says that they are about to go through a change of government and become far more destructive, as the very angry elf woman that they met earlier at the arena is going to become their new leader if they don’t stop them.

• The bird people agree that they are a scourge on the universe and they agree to join forces against them if the party is going to have a large enough fleet to threaten them. They agree to join as it seems that everyone here is more or less on board at this stage.

• Joffrey approaches the Thri-Kreen, the mantis people, as no one else wants to try and talk to them, and he asks if they’ve seen the light and the way things are going in this room, will they join them, too ? The lead mantis person is holding an object and he starts clicking and making bug noises for about 30 seconds, then the orb flashes and, in common, it says “indeed”.

• It clicks and continues making more bug noises for a long time, then the universal translator conveys that their only interest is food. Joffrey asks what they consider to be food, they say “anything” and he says that should be fairly easy to arrange them something to eat and he’s confused why they would be worried about that if they will eat anything.

• The bugs tell him that they aren’t interested in the petty squabbles that have been going on in this system and they are happy that the party is getting the factions to leave on this quest, leaving all the planets for them to acquire food from. They say that due to the ongoing calamity in this region, food has been becoming more scarce as the hunting grounds shrink due to the planets cooling. Joffrey asks why would they want to stay here and have all these planets that are dying, he could help them find a new, better planet somewhere else to live on.

• He says that if they stay here, they will be able to hunt for as long as they want, but as long as they want will likely only be a few years before the black hole consumes their worlds and they will all die out.

• The bugs think about this for a while, it’s quite an alien concept to them, they agree to send their next generation with them to support them.


• Joffrey turns around to look at Vocath across the room and says to himself “it’s time for the smug face” and gives him a self congratulatory grin.

• Vacate sulkily says that he isn’t part of anything that is happening here, his station isn’t a staging ground.. however they are free to peruse his wares and buy whatever they like.

• The party have a brief chat, Squelch says they will need a lot of stuff to fight a war and Joffrey suggests that they shouldn’t buy from Vocath, he’s an asshole that holds a monopoly out here in the middle of nowhere and they can buy things elsewhere.

• Joffrey addresses Vocath and says that their bargaining power has just increased dramatically now that they have the backing of the races of this system. Vocath denies this and says their bargaining power is the same, he says that they will need to outfit this army with ships and weapons etc and Joffrey rebukes him and says he doesn’t want Vocath’s garbage, he’s seen his wares and there was nothing of quality or interest. Vocath says that these were only display models, he has wares stored elsewhere and Joffrey starts thinking there might be a warehouse or supply depot they can raid, but Vocath clarifies that he has dimensional storage and can pull ships etc from it.

• Squelch says to Vocath that his offer still stands and he will give him 100 gold for his “rusty armour” (magic armour) he had on display, that he’d previously tried to charge 2000 gold for; this is rejected again and vocath refers to him as a funny little green thing.

• The party has another brief aside after Vocath says his offer still stands and he will help them in exchange for salvage rights of the astral elve’s Imperial Citadel, but Joffrey says this is unacceptable, they can’t give him access to a super weapon that is capable of draining planets and ascension. Squelch asks what the harm is if they are planning on destroying it, he won’t be able to use it, but Joffrey believes its too dangerous, it could be repaired/restored and they currently don’t even have a plan on how they could destroy it anyway. They’ll circle back to that problem and the deal with Vocath, they can maybe work on a deal for basic goods etc with their new logistics expert monkey men instead to get them going.


• Autismus sourly says that he’d sooner trust the greeks than the monkey men, he just doesn’t like em. Joffrey brings up their resources and says they don’t have anything of real value to give vocath anyway, limited money and items. Autismus starts inventorying the other factions resources. Aarakocra have 6 ships, halflings have 5 ships, lizard people have 6 ships, thri-kreen ellusively are providing their “next generation” but dont mention ships or ship counts, monkey people have 4 space galleons. Joffrey asks if any of them produce anything, but no, they are the remnants of their civilisations that only consume goods that vocath provides, locked in conflicts. He suggests that they need to find someone that produces things so that they have a reliable source of goods at non egregious prices.

• Joffrey counsels that they have profited immensely in ammassing the fleet that they have, they don’t need to be greedy and push their luck trying to weedle vocath out of goods, because they will come out second best and only waste resources. The party starts talking about where to go to marshal their fleet, they eventually decide on the Rock of Braal as a good neutral, central location with a port and resources. The monkey men can handle all the logistics and establish supply lines and Joffrey suggests placing Captain Garglinale in charge of the fleet as their admiral, due to him having previous experience in fleet command. They can collect Tiefstein Tower as well, to add another ship to their fleet.

• Joffrey calls a vote on what their next step is and they all resolve to head to the Rock of Braal and leave the fleet some distance away in the same system so it isnt threatening the port. He suggests that now that things are in motion and they will need all their resources for the trials ahead, he will probably need to do a full audit of everything they have onboard the ship.

• They are going to have a week long journey ahead to perform down time activities, Joffrey is likely going to be experimenting with prayers to The Endless, in defiance of Dave, adjusting his spells in his ring of spell storing, plotting and scheming and inspecting Xedali’s ring.

• Autismus is going to spend some time praying to Dave and wants to research why his imp hasn’t returned and can’t be summoned.

• Bubba is keen to get back to Jahn, hand in the giant fish head and hopefully join the fishers guild.

• Squelch wants to get some information on their home planet and see how that is going and if the Astral Elves have finished destroying it yet. He also wants to check in on the Dragon Queen and her asteroid/ship and also collect his magic hammer from the Scrapjacks on the Rock/see where they have gotten up to with it.

• They all agree they will need to try and get more information about the Imperial Citadel of the space elves.