Session 17 (Notes)

11/7/2026

• Session opens with Mr Gibbons confronting Bubba, telling him that his dog has been harassing people in their sleep, it’s been putting its tongue in their ears, looking into their eyes etc, behaving strangely. Crew are unsettled. 

• Dog was pressing its head to Autismus’ head  when he woke up. Autismus picked it up and moved it away from him, it was catatonic and didn’t move after he put it down.

• Fleet has split off to their anchor co-ordinates and the Second Wind is heading towards the Rock on its own. Suddenly slams on the brakes and then seems to be adrift, out of control.

• Joffrey charges up to the spell jammer throne, enraged, demanding a status report from Dexa, after being knocked off his feet. Her Spelljammer throne has stopped hovering, seemingly lost all power. 

• Autismus goes to confront Lilip the gnome engineer belowdecks and asks her what is happening, but she doesn’t know what’s happening.

• Joffrey says “for anyone else that doesn’t know this, because I do, what powers the ship?” To Dexa and whomever else is assembled in the room. The spell jammer throne powers the ship, but they aren’t sure why it isn’t working.

• Joffrey attempts to summon Bubba, but he’s in the crow’s nest smoking smokeleaf with the lizard man, discussing opening their fourth eyes and he doesn’t respond. He moves on to asking anyone else in the room if they can fix it, telling them to restore power immediately. He goes into manager mode, not being technically minded and badgers everyone as they’re working.

• Joffrey attempts percussive maintenance and kicks the spell jammer throne, unsuccessfully, but he does cause an unnoticed hatch to pop open, that Dexa starts inspecting but it’s too dark. Bubba comes by smoking a large doobie and draws hard on it, making it glow brighter so Dexa can see, but getting her high while she’s trying to work.

• Squelch investigates the open hatch with his dark vision and doesn’t see anything, just some crystals and cogs and things he doesn’t understand.

• Autismus arrives and attempts to shove his magic staff into the throne to see if he can poke around to see if someone is loose. He finds a foreign object in there that seems to be shorting things out, he gets the engineer to pry it out with an extending mechanical arm tool, it’s a short length of bismuth. Removing it restores power.

• Autismus thinks it’s a gift from Dave. Lilip says that that definitely isn’t meant to be in there, it’s a foreign object that isn’t from anything aboard the ship that she recognises.

• Joffrey asks if she can analyse the material and figure out where it came from or tell them more about it, she says she is an engineer, she can’t do that. Joffrey points out that material science is an important part of engineering and questions why they hired her at all.

• Autismus checks out the object and confirms that it’s a mundane pice of bismuth as they suspected.

• Joffrey says that the situation seems to be well in hand now and he starts to move off towards his cabin. 

• (Kye accidentally locks out his computer for 10 mins and can’t access his DM notes, because he’s a dangus)

• Dexa is high and can’t pilot, Joffrey quickly turns around and says that this is a job from him, he’s the most eminently qualified person here, he flew a lighthouse across a continent, he boasts. Autismus puts a seatbelt on.

• Joffrey inspires himself by playing “Rocket Man” before he takes the helm in the spell jammer throne. He rolls very high and is very confidently piloting the ship, at maximum speed, doing tricks, feet up on the dash, one hand on the controls, without knowing which direction to go.

• There is suddenly a blinding light in the room and a cherub appears, naked with a bankers visor on. He addresses them and tells them that he brings a message for Joffrey from Dave. “Joffrey Tiefstein…?” He begins “Yes, do you want an autograph?” Joffrey replies confidently. “From the desk of Dave, sole vanguard of The Endless, to the entity known as Joffrey Tiefstein, it has come to my attention that you have been engaging in unauthorised prayer routing-“ Joffrey interrupts: “What are you gonna do about it, nerd?” Cherub continues: ”consider this a formal cease and desist, you are hereby ordered to immediately stop directing prayers to a corpse that you have no jurisdiction over. Failure to comply will result in your immediate smiting, have a blessed day.”

• The party aren’t particularly impressed by this and squelch asks why the cherub has no pants on. The cherub pulls out a sticky note and looks to Autismus and says that he has a note from Dave saying that he enjoyed his drawing of a sheep. 

• Joffrey asks if the cherub can take a note back to David on his behalf. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists; you threaten my personage and my liberty, but no one tells me what to do.” He then says “oh you forgot something” and flips the cherub the bird before he readies to depart. “If Dave ever sabotages my ship again, I’ll smite HIM!”

• Squelch offers to kill the cherub for Joffrey, but he’s already vanished.

• Joffrey returns to piloting and doing loop de loops for style points as they continue at breakneck speed. He asks Autismus to analyse the bismuth they found inserted into the spell jammer throne. Autismus is going to crush it up into powder and make a baggy of fake drugs for his collection.

• Dexa recovers from her high and returns to the throne, asking Admiral Tiefstein if he’d like her to take back over hesitantly. Joffrey exclaims that they are making great speed though! She says they are, but she isn’t sure where they are going, it’s not the direct course towards the Rock. He says he’s bored now anyway and then relinquishes control to her. It seems that he’d been looking at himself in the rearview mirror the whole time.

• Another day or two passes and the party notices that the rat population on board the ship is dwindling and there are an increasing number of rat corpses near cinnamon’s bed. There are more instances of people waking up and being disturbed by the dog.

• Mr Gibbons confronts Bubba again in a rage and says that he has to do something about this diseased animal! Bubba asks if he means the hippo (Crux) and Joffrey walks past, giving him a high five.

• Mr Gibbons says it was ok when the dog was just getting in his face, but now it seems to be putting its tongue in his ear and he’s worried about getting infected by a brain eating amoeba; it’s completely unacceptable. Bubba says that Cinnamon must just love him and that they should give it one more day. Gibbons says that it will start killing people, Bubba says that she won’t, she’s a good girl.

• Bubba asks if anything bad has actually happened and Gibbons says that it licked his ear hole in indignation, Bubba tells him he needs to “Grow up” and walks off staunchly like Connor McGregor.

• Gibbons tries to bring his complaints to Joffrey instead, telling him that he’s worried about the dog and it starting to eat peoples brains! Joffrey says it’s probably fine, there are a lot of crew on the ship and there’s plenty to go around. He tries to allay his fears and says that if he gets a brain eating amoeba, Squelch can probably just cast Lesser Restoration on him and he’ll be fine.

• Gibbons asks him what he’s talking about when he says “Lesser Restoration” and Joffrey says he means religious miracles, because he knows Gibbons is religious but doesn’t believe in magic. Gibbons asks what miracles he’s taking about and Joffrey just vaguely gestures to himself vainly, saying that miracles exist.

• Mr Gibbons starts trying to complain again but Joffrey stops him with a raised hand and says that when he has concrete evidence of something being wrong, he can raise it, but only through the appropriate chain of command. Joffrey is an admiral, so it has to go through everyone below him first, he tells Gibbons to talk to his “line manager”.

• Gibbons asks who his line manager is and Joffrey tells him it’s Bubba and he agrees with Bubba’s assessment, Gibbons needs to grow up.

• The next day Cinnamon is continuing to act strange and has now been seen covered in a brown substance. Autismus informs Bubba that she needs a space bath, Bubba baths her in the gravity fish tank, tainting the water brown. Joffrey casts polymorph on one of the fish to turn it into a catfish to clean the tank temporarily, while the engineer works on a filtration solution. Changing one of the gravity fish has caused the gravity to be slightly lowered on the ship and everyone is enjoying having a spring in their step. Maybe they should have low gravity Fridays from now on.

• Squelch has been having weird dreams, he remembers sitting in front of a fancy desk with lots of papers on it, then he smells sulphur and smoke and it starts getting really hot. He hears the words “Carve the sigil” over and over again, eventually it goes dark and he sees ten pinpricks of light before he wakes up. When he wakes up he has a terrible burning sensation in his chest, but he can’t see anything physically wrong with him. This dream is exactly the same every time it happens.

• The party finally arrives at the Rock of Bral and finds that there is already one of the ships from their fleet there, it somehow overtook them despite Joffrey’s masterful attempt at piloting. It’s a Hadozee ship that is meant to be handling logistics for them, Joffrey is annoyed they seem to be idle and not loading up with supplies; one of the Hadozee is waving to them and gesturing with a clipboard.

• Joffrey heads towards the shipwright to see if the lighthouse is done, Squelch starts talking about how the ship needs to be restocked and upgraded, but heads off towards Slowbad’s group, the Scrapjacks. Bubba heads off to find Jahn from the fisher’s guild, dragging off the big severed scavver head. Autismus heads towards the mages guild to see if they can help him with figuring out why he can’t summon his imp. Autismus also wants to see if Flapjack’s “training is progressing and if he can wield 14 crossbows now like a hellfire drone”.

• As Joffrey gets halfway up the dock, the hadozee with the clipboard runs up to him telling him that he is Patch the logistics rep and they are having trouble doing any trading in the city, they’ve been here for a day already. He tells him that the trading guild said they had never heard of Admiral Tiefstein and he can’t get a note of credit to trade with them. Joffrey has an immediate flash of narcissistic anger hearing that someone has never heard of him.

• Patch goes on to say that Crux has been labelled as a terrorist by the Astral Elves and no one will trade with them due to that as well. Joffrey is very angry but in pragmatic management mode tells Patch to go and round up as many men as he needs and just seize Crux and give him to the elves, he’s sick dealing with him. He also says that the last time he was on the Rock, he dealt with the trade guild and magistrate etc directly and if they are claiming not to remember him, they are going to remember real quick.

• Joffrey plans to bend the truth, tell the authorities, that they aren’t “with” Crux, they’ve actually “apprehended him” and were planning on handing him over to the authorities. “It’s fine, dad will fix it, you just go and get your carts and things ready to do trade stuff and I’ll sort these muppets out… Why do I have to do everything around here?”

• Joffrey asks him if they have any warriors on their ship, Patch tells him that all Hadozee know monkey-fu and are great hand to hand fighters. Joffrey tells him that is good news, get some men together, enough to subdue at least two Griffs. Patch tells him they can’t do that, they only fight in self defence, the Hadozee have no offensive move. Joffrey tells him that it will be in self defence because technically they will be attacked by the authorities if they don’t do it.

• Patch keeps trying to give him a list of resources that they need and Joffrey, already in a bad mood, chips him, giving him a dressing down and telling him logistics are his problem and his job, Joffrey is a manager. Just get a load of carts and things ready, assume there will an enormous amount of goods to move and that Joffrey will be successful, because of course he will. Doesn’t let him go until he says “yes admiral”.

• Autismus goes to the giant magical college on the Rock after consulting a city map, he summons his mage hand and has it floating above him pointing the way, even though that he is controlling it…

• He enters the magical university and hails a professor looking wizard who glares at him and tells him to go the front office. He meets a fat old lady stamping some forms etc in the office, she asks him if he’s checked in and makes him fill out the sign-in book and then asks if he’s sighted the magical asbestos register. He asks if there is someone that can help with his imp and she asks if he wants to enrol in a course, he clarifies he just wants to talk to someone and she says that is a magical consult.

• She advises him that they aren’t currently accepting “Magicare” and instead have a new scheme “Joffreylink” coming in next week, so all expenses will be out of pocket. She confirms there is someone free at the moment and takes him to see the on-call magical consultant, Bobbit Crapstein.

• Autismus says he feels confident in his magical skills but he can’t summon his imp at the moment, he can’t reach him in the magical realm. Bobbit asks if he’s lost his magical mojo and he confirms this. Autismus says he’s still subscribed to him on OnlyImps but he’s not responding to his messages.

• Bobbit says this is perfectly natural and common, sometimes young wizards get over excited and fail to cast a spell or sometimes smudge their spell book and fuck up the incantations, don’t worry. He asks to look at Autismus’ spellbook and he says he doesn’t have one, he’s a sorcerer and the wizard is slightly confused why he’s there, he’s never heard of a sorcerer having a familiar.

• Autismus attempts to deceive him with a farfetched story of how when he was young, on his home planet, a close friend who was a wizard attuned this imp to him. Bobbit says that he would probably have to talk to this “friend” and have him re-summon the imp for him, he’s not sure if Autismus has the right magical chutzpah to do it on his own. 

• Autismus says he isn’t a wizard and Bobbit says yes, he knows, but he is and he’s telling him that he’s right about this. Bobbit asks if he’s ever really summoned this imp, or if it was just there, Autismus is trying to tell him that he definitely has summoned it, at least twice, he performed a ritual to do it and he can still do it but now “nothing happens and it smells like eggs”.

• “I think that’s just what you ate last night, too many eggs and bratwurst…” Bobbit says to him. He says he doesn’t think that there’s anything he can do to help him, this “Friend” would have to re-summon it for him, unless it’s truly died somehow and then he’d need a new familiar. He says that he doesn’t think that Autismus has ever had the ability to summon him, it sounds like someone has tricked him. He tries to sell Autismus on signing up for a course in basic summoning as a level one wizard. Autismus asks if it’s an online course that he can do remotely and Bobbit says no, they don’t offer it via Sending. He gets a brochure for wizard courses from Bobbit, it has a lot of information on their facilities, including the squash court that is just a court where they grow squashes.

• The summon their mage hands and shake mage hands, Bobbit wipes his off after touching Autismus’ mage hand. Autismus asks if they have a uniform shop and if he can get “one of those talking magical hats” and they tell him, no. He leaves the mage school.

• Squelch arrives at Slowbad’s workshop and enquires if he can pick up his hammer, Slowed tells him the “weapon” is not quite ready yet, but pulls back a curtain and reveals a massive mechanical dragon that is under construction. He tells Squelch that they have reverse engineered the technology of the whack-splat and can use it to power this construct, he can insert the whack-splat into the centre console and it will come to life. He tells him that this weapon of war, the “D90”, should help him fight off any real dragons that he may come across.

• This is quite exciting and impressive but then Slowbad says that they currently can’t legally insert the whack-splat into the receptacle on the mechanical dragon, because there is currently a patent dispute with the person that owns the IP for Big Succ technology. He says that they need sign off from the patent owner for Big Succ technology, because they use big succ to suck the power out of the whack-splat to power the construct.

• He says that the patent holder is reportedly on the Rock somewhere, it’s a gnome guy called “B D Hoover” and Squelch says that he’s aware of him, they’ve crossed paths before. Slowbad suggests that the dragon could be powerful enough to “blow up a whole world” and Squelch says that that is the plan. Squelch takes the whack-splat back from him for now as they can’t use it at the moment.

• Squelch asks if there are any magical goblins in the city and Slowbad says that he’s never heard of a magic goblin, that’s for beard types. Squelch confesses that he’s trying to find someone that can interpret dreams, he’s been having strange ones and Slowbad asks if they are “scat dreams” and Squelch says yes. Slowbad says he doesn’t know anyone that could help with that, he suggests he try at the mage’s college or perhaps a temple. Squelch leaves to go for a wander through the religious district to look for any symbolism that might be similar to the formation of ten lights he saw in his recurring dream.

• Bubba is wandering around the city carrying around the severed head of the scavver looking for Jahn, slightly self conscious that he forgot to disguise himself and remembers that he was on a wanted poster being distributed by the elves but no one is paying attention to a halfling.

• Bubba heads to a tavern in a rough area looking for him but he’s not about anywhere, there aren’t any guards around, it’s a bit more wild west and its just understood that miscreants will be dealt with by other citizens. There are warning signs around that say “F.A.F.O”. He decides because its been fruitless trying to find him around the city that he’ll head over towards the lake instead to see if he’s fishing.

• Joffrey heads to the drydock to check on Tiefstein Tower and see if he can collect it, it’s looking amazing and he’s very pleased to see it sitting there, now painted in black and gold, armoured, with three ballistas installed on it. The foreman approaches him and says they have completed all the requested works and its all up to code and signed-off, Joffrey thanks him and says it looks magnificent, but then the foreman adds that there is a problem. He hesitantly mentions that they upgraded the security system and the control crystal that was biocoded to Joffrey has been stolen from them. He hastily adds that at least they can’t steal the ship as its attuned to Joffrey, they’d have to have his hand or something to activate it. Joffrey is hearing tinnitus style white noise and is internally imploding from the news that someone would dare steal from him, his most precious and valuable possession.

• The orange of his irises fades to black and he grabs the front of the foreman’s collar and pulls hard, demanding he tell him immediately who stole from him, if it was someone on the work crew etc. The foreman is terrified and coughing as he tries to splutter the word “note” only coming out as “no..” and Joffrey shakes him, telling him “no” is what he should have said to the people before they stole from him.

• The foreman draws a note from his pocket and tries to proffer it to Joffrey, who snatches it and drops him on the ground to recover. The note is written on the back of a flier for the Happy Beholder Talent Show and says “A lighthouse without a light is just a big grave, you’ve been making a lot of noise on this rock “Admiral” and it’s time to pay the tax. If you want your key back, come to the low city and ask for ‘The Second Brother’. Don’t involve the city guards or the magistrate and keep this in the family, capiche?”

• Joffrey is having irrationally murderous thoughts and asks the foreman if the control crystal only controls the lighthouse’s movement and if he can still fire the energy beam, intending to simply destroy the low city. The foreman tells him it’s the immobiliser for the entire vessel and its inert without it. Before he leaves, Joffrey checks his hidden personal vault in the lighthouse and recovers the gems he had stored there.

• Joffrey starts heading towards the Happy Beholder, musing over how to exact vengeance on this “Second Brother” considering sealing the low city and burning it down with everyone inside, not having recovered his persona yet. “No one steals from Joffrey Tiefstein…”.

• As Autismus is heading away from the mages guild, he takes a wrong turn and ends up in an alley, not quite sure how he made the mistake, must have been absent minded, he turns around and there are three figures behind him, blocking the exit. The figures have chains equipped and are advancing on him, he readies to cast two firebolts at them. 

• He uses thaumaturgy to create the voice of a butch shemale, like Emily from Little Britain, saying that he is a lady and asks them if they have seen his imp, confusing them, but they continue advancing. They launch their chains which wrap around Autismus, tying him up. He Misty Steps behind them, out of the bonds and then casts Chromatic Orb on them, but the fire damage from it seems to have no effect on them. He is feeling more panicked and turns, running down the alley towards the street.

• The enemies, that appear to be some of devil like creatures, launch more of these serrated chains at Autismus for massive damage, grappling him and dragging him back into the alley. They know his name and tell him that they just want to talk to him, Autismus tries to escape from the chains but fails miserably, they tell him they are from Trae’Vhors office looking for the imp known as “Schnitzel Von Krump” last seen with him. Autismus says that he doesn’t know where he is either, he came here to find guidance on why that is, he tells them that they can go and ask Bobbit at the mage school if they don’t believe him. 

• “I can’t summon him because it smells like eggs” he babbles at them, asking why they are looking for him, they tell him that they are looking for him because he hasn’t reported in and they need an update. They ask him for a report on the “Astral Broodmother” in the imp’s absence, he tells them that he doesn’t know anything, he hasn’t learned anything, he forgot. They tell him that this isn’t looking good for his side of the contract, he asks for more time, they say it’s not up to them, they will report this to Trae’Vhor, saying they will be back in touch shortly and Autismus’ time is running out.

• They reinforce that Autismus must find Schnitzel and the Astral Broodmother, they will be back for him later. They toss a coin at him with an image of the Ivory Tower on it, unchain him, leaving him bloody on the ground and then disappearing.

• Squelch is still wandering around the religious district, sightseeing.

• Bubba is at the lake now with the severed Scavver head, he sees Jahn on the dock fishing away, looking in to the distance, not noticing Bubba. Bubba claps near his head, trying to startle him, but fails, he turns and looks at the Scavver head and asks if Bubba really caught that, bubba says he did. Jahn nods and then takes Bubba to the dwarven district, they enter a building and then go down in to the basement, but the stairs seem unusually long, they are going a deep way underground. 

• As they get deeper, ritualistic carvings start to appear on the walls and there are carved figurines on plinths at intervals that look Illithid. As they get to these more mystical regions, Cinnamon stops following them and refuses to go any deeper, standing still.

• It’s starting to get quite stinky, like rotten fish as they keep going deeper, the passage finally opens up in a huge cavern with ten figures standing in a semi circle wearing hoods. The plinths in this room appear to made from bismuth instead of stone and still have these Illithid looking figurines sitting on them.

• Jahn walks to the centre of the semi circle, gestures to a stone table on the side of the room and says “the trophy…”, Bubba places it in the indicated spot. They tell him that if he wants to join their order, he has to complete the ritual, asking if he is willing. He accedes, saying that he’s already dragged this big fucking head halfway across the Astral Sea.

• Three dudes in robes start dragging a giant fish tank across the room, scratching the floor and making a terrible noise, it arrives in the centre of the room. In the tank there is a Scavver, only a small one, but they encircle it and start chanting “Catch ‘em” over and over, while Jahn gestures towards the tank.

• Bubba casts his rod into the tank and catches the fish, the chant changes to “Kiss ‘em”, he kisses the fish, the chant changes to “Throw ‘em back”, he throws it back in the tank, they all cheer “Aaaaahoooooooo!”. They congratulate him saying that he’s now completed the ritual of Rex’hont.

• Bubba notices that their robes are continually dripping and trickling, like they just got out of the water, they never seem to dry. Jahn indicates an object to Bubba, it’s a whistle and he says that this is their most sacred relic, he needs to take it and use it. He says it’s “The Whistle of the Void” carved from the marrow of the first Kindorei, according to legends, it can summon the Kindorei, but they have never figured out how to use it, they can’t find the right note. They tell him that as the newest member, he is tasked with figuring out how to use it.

• Bubba puts it on this lanyard/necklace next to his lightning vial and other substances he’s collected. Jahn says he must go now, avoid the golden jailor? and find the frequency of the jest/blessed? Bubba asks before he leaves what the best method of contacting them is and asks if it is on FishFinder or Finterest or PlentyofFish.

• When Bubba leaves this place and returns to the surface, it’s well into the evening.

• Joffrey is not sleeping tonight because he’s in good shape, he’s at the Happy Beholder meeting with mercenaries and offering them significant sums of gold and gems to assist in his vengeance. Autismus heads there too, talking to Large Luigi and telling him he was nearly raped, Luigi asks how that was and Autismus says “it wasn’t as good as you’d think, I didn’t even get to finish.”

• Joffrey is in a fury and with focused anger is telling a group of five mercenaries, including Kilgore the Destroyer, that he has a job for them, that they have to assist him with finding and killing a person that has stolen from him, that is on the rock. Other mercenaries have already laughed at this and refused to take a contract that will be carried out on the Rock, risking reprisal. 

• He tells them that they ride at dawn, the target is in the lower city and they are called “the other brother”, hearing this two of the remaining mercs immediately get up and say “we’re out” and try to leave, frightened. Joffrey attempts to ask them what they know but they are fleeing, he turns to the other mercs and says that they are going to attack at dawn, the available funds just went up, he just has one more thing to attend to before they go.

• Autismus attempts to halt and intimidate the fleeing two mercs as they leave the building but fails, shouting “wimps” after them.

• Joffrey explains to Autismus, Squelch and Bubba, now that they’ve joined the table, that they have been stolen from, by this enigmatic figure in the lower city. Joffrey is nothing like how they normally see him, there is nothing of the affable fop they know, just a darkness and a focused, murderous intent.

• Squelch tries to be rational and ask questions like “These brothers seem intimidating, how powerful are they, what do we know about them?” Autismus says the ‘brothers’ are probably responsible for 52% of the crimes but only make up 30% of the population. Squelch mentions that they have to find Hoover and Large Luigi interjects and says that he hasn’t seem in yonks, but he’s meant to be staying at the Golden Shower in the High City.

• Joffrey turns to leave for the temple district on his own, Autismus asks if he’d like to talk to Dave about his problems and makes him ten times angrier. Autismus intends to try and sell the bismuth powder “drugs” to the ‘brothers’.

• Autismus goes to the lighthouse to visit Flapjack, who is keen to show him the ‘skills he has learned’, he attempts to lift a crossbow with a tentacle and fails, but is impressed that he almost picked it up. Autismus is in denial and thinks this is good progress and that he has really has great skills, he has a beer with him and grinds up his bismuth sample into powder, he calls the result “Crackmuth”.

• Joffrey arrives at the temple of Waukeen and speaks to the abbot, he tells him that he wants to make a potentially final donation to the church, considering he has some likely very hazardous tasks ahead and he may not be returning. His request is that they use some of the funds from the donation to make a reflecting pool on the grounds of the temple with a bust of Joffrey Tiefstein and commemoration plaque to him, the rest of the funds are to go to the church itself. He gives him a platinum rod and expresses his wish that this addition to the site helps to inspire future generations to join the church, worship Waukeen and find success in business. He carefully provides him with the correct spelling of the name*. He tells the priest that these are his wishes, for this person to be remembered and that he has some terrible trials ahead. “Bless me, father, for I am about to sin.” The priest kisses him on the forehead and tries to pick his pocket apparently.

• The party returns to The Second Wind to sleep, everyone gets a good nights sleep except for Squelch who wakes up on the deck of the ship, to the smell of sulphur on the ship. He goes downstairs to investigate and find Schnitzel Von Krump hovering over a sleeping Autismus, having drawn a ritual circling around him and is chanting, casting a spell on Autimus.

• Squelch attacks the imp and attempts to grapple him, succeeds, but his spell goes off and suddenly Squelch is in some sort of void, feeling nothingness. The world starts to fade in around him, he’s suddenly in a richly appointed office with an imposing devil behind an ornate desk looking at him, it’s Trae’Vhor, they’re in the Ivory Tower. The imp is floating next to squelch, but it looks like its static-y and not solid, like it’s not fully real, Trae’Vhor snaps at the imp saying that he hasn’t brought him the right one, when the imp tries to reply it sounds like static. There is another devil in the office that is chanting a ritual that says “Something has gone wrong, they haven’t come fully through!”. Squelch suddenly disappears into nothingness again, then slams into the ground, from a significant height, next to Schnitzel, when he opens his eyes, he appears to be in hell, there are roiling red skies above him, intense heat etc. Xarveth, the black abishai is looming over them with his wings unfurled and he stomps on the imp, crushing him to death. Squelch blinks and suddenly wakes up on the deck of the ship.

• Autismus cooks the party eggs for breakfast

• Joffrey remembers to tell the party that the city thinks Crux is a terrorist and how mildly inconvenient that is, he recommends giving him to the city to be executed, says that Crux is pointless as an entity. Autismus says but they need to be careful so it doesnt feel like they stabbed him in the back, but Joffrey says he doesn’t care. Autismus: Couldn’t we just hide him- Jofrrey: no. There is a bit of debate where the others start asking questions about whether they should talk to crux and how his crew might feel about it etc, but Joffrey just ends up shutting them down and saying he’ll deal with it, don’t worry tm.

• Joffrey goes to see the magistrate, jumps the queue using the VIP line again, pays the bribe to the teller and regains access to the magistrate. Joffrey is having a bit of an identity crisis while waiting and looks to his locket at the picture of Joffrey for guidance but it seems clouded by bismuth, his eyes gain and lose their orange colour, he adds “jewellers” to his shopping list.

• He has a fruitless discussion with the Magistrate after telling him that they have apprehended the terrorist Commodore Crux, they are not affiliated with him*. The magistrate pulls his file and says that Crux isn’t currently wanted, the record was expunged, by Joffrey in the past. Joffrey confirms that this is why he’s confused, he thought he’d already dealt with this, he tells the magistrate that his employees are having difficulty trading though. Magistrate tells him the record might have been taken care of, but that doesn’t necessarily affect this person’s reputation with private trade entities, they are well within their rights to refuse service if they dont want to trade. Joffrey is exasperated and asks who he should be talking to, the merchants guild ? does the magistrate have a contact there he can talk to? he’s starting to have trouble maintaining character and is getting angry. The magistrate says he has nothing to do with them, joffrey says “thank you for your time”, magistrate says “thank you for wasting mine”, Joffrey lets it go and leaves, seething with a clenched fist by his side.

• Squelch heads to the high city to go to the Golden Shower to see Hoover, Autismus and Bubba are secretly tagging a long in disguise, Bubba is the monopoly guy and Autismus is Mrs Doubtfire. They arrive at the inn and go to the spa, there is an admin lady there and she asks for their room number, they dont have rooms, it is going to be a public access fee of 10gp each, Squelch and Autismus pay, Bubba uses sleight of hand to steal and then give back 10gp. 

• They they find Hoover in a tub in the spa after they get their towels, Squelch raises needing to sign off on their use of Big Succ technology. Bubba and Autismus are entranced by Hoovers loch ness monster in the tub while Squelch is talking to him. Hoover says that Big Succ is a big ticket item that will cost them big, Squelch tells him that it’s for personal use, not commercial. Squelch offers him 50gp in exchange for a one time use of his patent, Hoover suggests 10 thousand gold for an ongoing use of his patent. Squelch explains that he just wants to use some of the power from his whack-splat for a minor use case, offers him 100gp, Hoover says that as they are friends, can they get him an audience instead with his son, Dyson, in the light house, without his brother or mother’s knowledge. Squelch agrees. Autismus goes to shake his hand and shakes his wang by mistake, a lot of slaps-dick comedy. They leave.

• Joffrey goes to the trading guild to see a rep, he encounters an admin lizard lady in a wheelchair, he says that he has to clear up a clerical error that is causing issues for trade. She offers to get him an appointment and asks for his trade license number, Joffrey gives her a random string of numbers, she tells him to take a seat and wait while she looks that up, she is agonising slow moving her wheelchair around and struggling with filing cabinets. Joffrey is getting very frustrated almost immediately, starts checking the door to the offices, sees the magical fob lock, considers casting knock on it, then looks at her, sees her fob and starts looking around to see if anyone is looking, considers theft/incapacitation/murder. He grits his teeth and keeps waiting while he daydreams about all these things he could do.

•   The rest of the party return to the lighthouse to see Dyson, they tell him that they saw his dad in a Turkish bathhouse, he says “wow, how do you know he’s my dad?” while wearing shorts during a workout, with a big dong clearly visible. They decide to take Dyson to the other ship to meet his dad, considering they low key stole the light house from Hoover.

• Hoover meets them at the other ship, is keen to see Dyson again, signs their agreement for a one time use of his patent for non-commercial use in exchange. Hoover and Dyson start talking about science related shit that no one else understands, getting on well. Squelch runs the signed patent use agreement to Slowbad who is very keen and says they can get the dragon done in a week, it should be capable of spelljamming, combat etc.

• We cut back to Joffrey still waiting in the trade guild’s office, the disabled admin lizard lady is apologising that she can’t find his trade license on file. She says she might have to get him to come back another day and he interjects saying its his fault, he had a license for a different region, he forgot he doesnt have one for this region yet, but lies that he has already spoken to a guild rep previously he just needs to get back in to see them. She asks for the name, Joffrey starts fishing and describing generic people, waits for her to suggest a name and says “yes, that’s the one”, it’s Phil McCrackin. He tries to ingratiate himself with her by saying its good they hired her when there are so few opportunities for alternatively abled people in business, she looks at him clueless and asks what he means, he tells her not to worry. She says that she will take him through to the offices now and she stands up and walks to the door… Joffrey almost snaps when he sees she can walk and considers killing her again.

• She takes him to Phil’s office, its a glass cubicle and he’s visible to other people outside his office, he meets with him and outlines his issue with trading in the city, the false association with Crux etc. He tells Phil that he is happy to hand over the ‘terrorist’ Crux, along with all his contraband in exchange for a trade license, he wants to get trading as soon as possible.

• Phil starts to suggest he may need to talk to someone else and Joffrey cuts him off “Phil, Phil, Phil-PHIL!” he tells him he isnt interested in talking to more people, he’s very patient but its wearing thing today, he’s had a bad day and wants this resolved immediately. He starts bullying him, being quietly intimidating, making thinly veiled threats etc. Phil starts mansplaining the bureaucracy of the city to Joffrey and its complicated, Joffrey tells him that no, its very simple, he wants to buy goods and they should sell them to him. 

• He asks for a trade license again, Phil says he can arrange that for him, but they need to work through banks with promissory notes, they can’t use physical currency, Joffrey will need a proper bank account and get a promissory note for the funds that he has in his account. Joffrey interjects with another aggressive series of “Phil”s again and tells him that may be how it works for peasants, but not noble merchants of stature. Phil starts trying to talk again and Joffrey shushes him and keeps talking, going on to say that they should have people on staff that can take care of all these minor issues for clients, trying to make it as frictionless as possible for them to do business to open up more avenues for trade. Phil continues being Phil and Joffrey gets increasingly hostile, punctuating his uses of “Phil!” by clapping his hands at him.

• Phil says that they’d probably need an initial deposit of a large sum of money or sufficient collateral, Joffrey says that he has plenty of assets, a whole fleet worth hundreds of thousands, Phil asks if its insured and Joffrey tells him yes, comprehensively. Phil says that could work but the problem is that he doesn’t work for the bank, he may need to tal- “PHIL, stay with me PHIL” Joffrey insists they must have an aid or clerk that can do this for him. Phil reckons that he might be able to arrange that for him, he just needs the insurance paperwork for the ships, Joffrey offers him 500gp if he doesnt need that, Phil refuses and says the bank wont do anything re loans etc without insurance on the assets, what if they are in a war zone and are damaged etc. Joffrey is getting angrier and angrier, Phil keeps circling the issue of the trade license, Joffrey suddenly tells him that he is going to need insurance in a moment, of the life variety. He asks him if he has a life insurance policy and if it would cover his body suddenly being in a war zone, he accuses Phil of making this intentionally difficult.

• Joffrey tells him that bureaucracy can only go so far and there is a point where people start trading in lives instead of currency, he stalks around being Phil and grabs his shoulders, squeezing uncomfortably hard and asking him to imagine a scenario. Imagine this, a previous person that had an established account at this bank, who’s living status was questionable, perhaps they were a distant relative of Joffrey’s, perhaps he could take over their account. (he keeps excessively using Phils name to punctuate every sentence, aggressively) Phil asks if Joffrey has a rich uncle that was banking at the bank, he could check the ‘destroy files’, he just needs a name. Joffrey immediately agrees that he definitely has a rich uncle that banked there, Phil is still oblivious that he is asking him to do something wrong or bribe him and is still not quite on the same page.

• Joffrey just says in plain English in the open that he wants an account, he doesnt want to deal with bureaucracy to get one legally, he’s happy to deal with unscrupulous people to get one, immediately. Phil is still not 100% and asks for the name and he will go and look into it for him, Joffrey says “Bartholomew” is the last name. Phil says that is fine, he will get right on it, he will get the paperwork delivered to Joffrey’s residence at Tiefstein Tower by the end of the day… he just needs a service fee of 400gp. Joffrey is at his limit but resignedly just pays it out of the party’s gold, he is done arguing for today and can’t kill Phil in public.

• Joffrey returns to the ship and meets the others, they go back to the Happy Beholder, collect their mercenaries: Kilgore the Destroyer, Macho Man Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan, then head to the low city. They are investigating the low city, Autismus is on the lookout for fried chicken or watermelon vendors. Wherever they go and mention the name ’the second/other brother’ people look around nervously and say that no one around here likes hearing that, they nod over in a certain direction. Eventually they arrive at an industrial laundromat called “Fluffy Clouds”, seems to have sheets etc coming in and out, some conspicuous wound up rugs. The session closes with the four of them in a row, looking at Fluffy Clouds from across the street, there is a lot of sombre tension and drama, then Macho man cuts the silence from behind them with “Thats where I get my outfits CLEEEAAAAANNNED, Yeah”.