An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Drift | Deadlock, Shockwave (Transformers)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, (specifically my d&d campaign but shhh), Implied/Referenced Medical Horror, Horror
Summary:
Deadlock doesn't like being in Shockwave's part of headquarters, not that that has any bearing on anything.
A very chilling scene from Drift’s backstory courtesy of @magicalspacedragon !
Team Ice: Adventure 8: The One Where it’s About the Vibes
Team Ice continues their adventure and we’re bringing you the latest summary! Last time the party made their way to Lotty’s hometown, Lotty might have had an encounter with her deity, and the party spots the Functionists meeting with the High Priestess and makes their way into the temple.
The Cast - TEAM ICE
Skids by Soundwave (human rogue)
Tailgate by Butter (dwarven barbarian)
Cyclonus by Ren (tiefling paladin)
Nautica by Robophelia (half-elf wizard)
Velocity by Cee (high elf cleric)
Brainstorm by Bex (air genasi wizard)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session | Fourth Session | Fifth Session | Sixth Session | Seventh Session
The party is in the temple in Paradisus Arbor. While they are looking around the temple, the Functionists return with the High Priestess, heading up to the High Priestess’s office. Skids sneaks up to spy on the Functionists up in the High Priestess’s office. He hears some small talk where the High Priestess is trying to cover that she’s surprised that there is a non-elven delegation here, she didn’t know anything about the Functionists coming, so she’s trying to get at why they are there. Seven of Twelve alludes to something about the temple, and the guards are asked to leave the office, heading out onto the stairs where Skids is hiding. Skids runs down to the prayer area below and fake-prays so damn hard that the guards step back onto the stairs and out of sight for the sake of his privacy, not wanting to disturb such apparently devout prayer.
Once the guards are out of sight, Skids returns to the party. The group decides that they have to hear more about what the Functionists are asking after. They make a plan: while Velocity distracts the honor guard, Nautica will cast invisibility on Brainstorm. Brainstorm will then levitate up to the window of the High Priestesses office. Tailgate will distract the guards with Luna to make sure they don’t notice anything funny.
Velocity talks to Roadbuster, the honor guard of the temple, about how Solus Prime never really clicked with her, and so she wants to be taken out of the register here, so that she’s sure she’s in her new deity’s register and there’s no confusion. Roadbuster insists there’s no register, though they can switch her raven mailings down to twice a year, and that she’s a Camian, so she’s always affiliated with Solus Prime. Roadbuster says that they should go down and review the texts and rediscover what, uh, what was the word, clicks? Clicks with Velocity. Velocity insists that Solus Prime doesn’t vibe with her.
Roadbuster: V-vibes??
Velocity: If you don't know what vibing means, it means you've never vibed with anything. Maybe this religion isn't right for you!
Velocity agrees to go with Roadbuster down to read the texts of Solus Prime in exchange for Velocity sharing some of her texts, some recipe books…. recipes with sugar!
Meanwhile, Tailgate has struck up a conversation with the guards, who are two nondescript human men named George and Andrew, which are definitely pre-planned names and not ones the DM made up on the spot. No one finds these names weird, despite this being a world where characters are named ‘Tailgate’ and ‘Roadbuster’. The guards stop Tailgate from going upstairs, because Seven of Twelve and the Head Priestess are in an important conversation. They recognize Tailgate from when they met him on the road and Tailgate introduces Luna as his lost dog, now found! Andrew immediately starts cooing over Luna. George is not amused; this happens every time they see a dog. Every. Time.
Tailgate says that Luna got further away than they thought, so they decided to stop in this town. Tailgate watches branches move as Brainstorm, invisible, levitates past the stairs. To distract the guards, Tailgate asks why they’re there, and Andrew says they’re on the way to the capital. Tailgate says it’s been a long time since he’s been there, since, he claims, he’s lived most of his life in the Port Town, and he and Andrew get into a conversation about how Port Town has more variety; more non-elves, different foods coming in with different people - why, they even sometimes get things with sugar in Port Town. They begin a discussion of desserts.
Having levitated up to the office, Brainstorm presses his ear to the window to listen to Seven of Twelve and the High Priestess. Seven of Twelve asks about the history of this temple, and the story that it was built on top of an older temple, built shortly after Solus Prime first arrived on Caminus. The High Priestess insists that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, this was the first temple in this city. Seven of Twelve says that he’s here for important alliance negotiations on behalf of the Functionist Empire, and that her honesty could forward such negotiations, and that her dishonesty could forward, say, their displeasure. She still insists she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but that the Functionist party can stay overnight before moving on to the Capital. They start to discuss housing arrangements, and Brainstorm exits stage outside-the-window.
Once Brainstorm is back down with the others, they reassemble the party. Cyclonus goes up to find Tailgate in the midst of a conversation with Andrew about cupcakes versus cakes. Cyclonus does not so much ask for Tailgate to come back to rejoin the party as much as loom ominously until the guards leave. Tailgate and Cyclonus come to the agreement that cupcakes are appropriate in any situation that cakes are, even if cakes would be considered more standard - like at weddings! They’re just miniature cakes!
Nautica comes down to rescue Velocity from Camian chick tracts and finds Velocity bamboozling Roadmaster:
Velocity: - and see, this word is spelled differently here, so what does it really mean? If we don’t even know how this word is spelled, do we really know anything?
Roadmaster, about to faint from the Heresy, practically shoves Velocity and Nautica upstairs. As soon as Velocity and Nautica are out of sight, Velocity does a hair flip, and Nautica high fives her.
Brainstorm recaps what he heard from the High Priestess and Seven of Twelve. Velocity notes that the High Priestess had lied: this was not the first temple in this city, the city is too old for that. Velocity has found some of the petrified remains of the old city off of the roots of the new city when running around and trying to get out of her art classes as a kid. She also knows that there are doors in the basement roots of the temple, though she never managed to get through them.
After some discussion, it’s decided that part of the party - Skids, Cyclonus, Nautica (because there are books!) and Brainstorm - will go and try to investigate the basement, and the other part of the party - Velocity, since she knows the city and the high priestess, Prowl, because he knows the politics, and Tailgate, because he knows the guards and is generally likeable - will go and talk to the high priestess and try to persuade her to help them thwart the Functionists. Prowl exhorts Brainstorm not to blow the temple up, but Brainstorm is skeptical. Velocity eventually managed to persuade him that ‘Trees are alive, don’t kill things.’ Brainstorm agrees to this, but only because he likes Velocity.
Prowl: Cyclonus, you’re the quietest and therefore probably the sanest of this group, you’re in charge while I’m gone.
Cyclonus, horrified: Oh god, okay.
Cyclonus now has babysitting duty!
The basement-investigation group finds a bookshelf of everything from chick tracts and worn-out prayer books to old religious texts. Cyclonus finds himself hyptnotized by a chick tract with just, the worst illustrations. So bad. Nautica finds some old texts of Solus Prime, including an illustration of her with her sword absent the large crystal that is usually depicted in the hilt. The party investigates the wardrobe to find it overrun with moths. Skids picks the lock on a trunk and finds holy water and silver dust, but decides against stealing it and relocks the trunk. Brainstorm investigates the door at the end of the basement, which is locked. Skids comes over and picks the lock, and the party stares down a long dark passage, slowly narrowing…
Upstairs in the High Priestess’s office, Velocity reintroduces herself to the high priestess who is surprised to see her back. She admits to the deception of the others being disguised as elves, and the High Priestess allows that as they are allowing the Functionist party of (mostly) humans through the city, so she can’t really be mad.
Tailgate also introduces himself.
Tailgate: I mean, I don’t know many things. I just got out of the hole I was in a few weeks ago.
High Priestess: You…. were in a hole?
Tailgate: Yup.
High Priestess: I… I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry?
Tailgate: Oh, I don’t think it’s anything you need to be sorry for. You know, when you’re down a hole, you’ve just got to get a shovel and dig yourself out.
High Priestess: That… is very wise. You know, Solus Prime can be very helpful in lifting you out of holes -
Fortunately, Prowl jumps in before the High Priestess can try to convert Tailgate. He explains that the Functionists are being dishonest about their purpose, that they found one of their party using symbols of Onyx Prime, one of Solus Prime’s legendary nemeses. He suggests that whatever they’re after in the city, they’re probably after it to nefarious purposes, and they won’t hesitate to take it if they can without your permission. He points to the fact that, well, he has experience dealing with them on the continent, and that’s what they’re used to there, and alludes to the resistance.
The High Priestess asks Velocity if she trusts Prowl, and she says he is right about this. The High Priestess is still not totally convinced, and says that they will protect the temple themselves.
Then.
Velocity.
Tries….. Something.
Velocity invokes that this mission has been called for and blessed by her deity, who cares about her. Her eyes begin to glow.
The High Priestess, not having been in the loop on Velocity’s general heresy, assumes that Velocity is talking about Solus Prime, and the mission is blessed by Solus Prime. With this blessing - well, what’s a priestess of Solus Prime to do? She gives Velocity the keys to go through either of the doors in the basement, though she says those doors have not been opened since she took on the position of High Priestess, and also her sigil, as a ‘I can do what I want’ card. Prowl asks her not to tell the Functionists about them, and she promises not to.
On the way back to rejoin the rest of the party, Velocity leaves an offering at Solus Prime’s prayer altar, some incense and a pipe she picked up in her travels, as it’s fitting of the arts. She feels inspired after leaving, because the DM just remembered about points of inspiration.
The party heads down the tunnel, until they find where the root tunnel breaks into a room of petrified wood. There’s one staircase leading down, and the party follows it until they reach another room, with one large staircase going down in front of them, and one large one going up behind them, and two smaller ones going up to the left and right.
Velocity asks her deity for help. Her deity sends the image of a glowing figure of Solus Prime, and then two other figures with her, neither of whom look like elves, one very small. This is a surprise to Velocity, as she was always taught that Solus Prime came to Caminus alone, to establish an all elf society.
Velocity’s deity is, however, unhelpful about directions, so the party decides to go down the big staircase heading down from the second stage at the end...
Team Ice: Adventure 7: The One Where The Party Considers Stealing A Tree (Or Possibly Becoming One)
Team Ice continues their adventure and we’re bringing you the latest summary! Last time the party started following the Functionists traveling across Caminus, and successfully fought an owlbear.
The Cast - TEAM ICE
Skids by Soundwave (human rogue)
Tailgate by Butter (dwarven barbarian)
Cyclonus by Ren (tiefling paladin)
Nautica by Robophelia (half-elf wizard)
Velocity by Cee (high elf cleric)
Brainstorm by Bex (air genasi wizard)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session | Fourth Session | Fifth Session | Sixth Session
In their camp in the Camien forest, the party wakes up tired, except Luna. The party examines the Onyx talisman again. It looks like part of a magical array and has a simplified, modernized version of Onyx Prime’s sigil. Tailgate is not impressed with the quality of the metalwork.
Prowl finds it strange that a Functionist official was carrying an object related to a Prime, especially since Onyx is associated with necromancy and the undead. Usually Functionists are focused on Primus and the Guiding Hand, and if they’re worshipping or using sigils of Primes it’s Prima, Vector Sigma, or Alpha Trion. Velocity and Nautica confirm that Onyx Prime is kind of a bogeyman in Camien lore, because of his opposition to Solus Prime in the war of the primes. Brainstorm thinks this whole magical array and necromancy was awesome, but also, you know, bad.
Brainstorm and Nautica spy on the Functionist party while everyone else gathers supplies. They see that the Functionist party is packing up and continuing on the main road. While gathering supplies, Tailgate teaches Luna how to fetch while Lotty finds the motherload of food while foraging.
The party regroups and continues on through the forest Paradisus Arbor. Prowl asked Nautica and Velocity, as the two Camiens, if they were familiar with this city. Nautica and Velocity admit familiarity, but Velocity doesn’t admit that the city is her hometown.
As they get closer to the city, the trees they pass get bigger and bigger, Brainstorm considers that they would be big enough to build in, giving him multiple floors of lab space. Brainstorm becomes excited about the possibility of a tree heist, especially when Lotty tells the party that the city builds within trees. Everyone was supportive of the heist, considering that they should try when they leave.
"If you can pull it off, live your dreams" - Cyclonus
When they get close to the city, Velocity tries to climb a tree, falls because of carrying Luna, and has a bit of a breakdown at going back home and feeling like a failure. She wishes she could just stay here and become a tree, and the party discusses the feasibility and pros and cons of being a tree - but they make it clear that, tree or not, they’re sticking with her. Velocity admits this is her hometown and talks about how she’s afraid of coming back, not having excelled in anything the Camiens think of as important or become a super badass baker/cleric. She feels bad for only being a level four cleric, for only having gotten a patron relatively recently and not knowing how to communicate with her patron. When she says that last piece, she and everything around her starts to glow. The party has to point it out to her, and when she notices it it flares a little and then fades. The party recognizes this as something depicted as having to do with gods, as they’ve seen it depicted in religious texts, but has never actually seen it before.
Tailgate gives a speech about how Lotty is being forged, because Solus Prime is the god of the forge, and everything in that process is making her stronger, and she’ll come out stronger like Solus Prime.
"If anything happens to you I will fight god" - Tailgate
Lotty manages to get back up and agree to put aside her breakdown for later, given a group hug.
Prowl basically does this
The party heads into town, making for the temple while trying to keep the members of the party that the Functionists have seen out of sight. They catch the Functionists on their way out of the temple, but the Functionists don’t see anyone they recognize. Skystriker, the high priestess at the temple, recognizes Lotty but doesn’t want to make a fuss in front of dignitaries, leaving Roadmaster, the honor guard of the temple and Most Ripped Elf You Have Ever Seen, to deal with them.
Roadmaster: what are you doing here? (in your hometown which you ran away from, which no one ever does)
Velocity: sightseeing!
Lotty claims that Solus Prime isn’t for her and that she wants to go to the temple to basically put a pin in All That, which, on top of everything else, is enough heresy to basically break Roadmaster’s brain. Skids plays Good Elf who is horrified by heresy and just wants to visit the temple while on visit from Port Town. After being assured that Luna won’t make a mess, Roadmaster agrees to let them into the temple, if Skids keeps an eye on Lotty and makes sure she doesn’t cause any trouble and/or heresy.
Roadmaster: your friends seem like reasonable folk
Velocity: *hysterical laughter*
Velocity: Oh that? That was coughing.
The party makes their way into the Paradisius Arbor temple, with Roadmaster keeping a close eye on them...
Next adventure!
Team Ice: Adventure 6: The One Where It’s a Ride or Die Kind of Group
Team Ice continues their adventure and we’re bringing you the latest summary! Last time the party arrived in Caminus and met Arcee and her wife Aileron, who were able to give the party some guidance. Having rested overnight, the party is now getting ready to follow the Functionists...
The Cast - TEAM ICE
Skids by Soundwave (human rogue)
Tailgate by Butter (dwarven barbarian)
Cyclonus by Ren (tiefling paladin)
Nautica by Robophelia (half-elf wizard)
Velocity by Cee (high elf cleric)
Brainstorm by Bex (air genasi wizard)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session | Fourth Session | Fifth Session
While the party is sleeping the night at Arcee and Aileron’s, Luna stole Tailgate’s shoes in the night, and swapped them for a game piece Velocity was carrying with her. It’s a canine gesture of affection for their friendship… that leads to Tailgate and others frantically searching for his shoes.
After Tailgate finds his shoes, the party gets ready to leave. Before leaving, Arcee tells Nautica to take care of herself, noting that Prowl will always end up prioritizing the mission, so she has to look after herself. Aileron gives her a couple of the sweetest pastries they have for the road.
Arcee recognizes Cyclonus as a kindred ‘tall and quiet with big weapons’ spirit and puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him to be sure to look after the others. He assures her he will.
The party makes their way out of the city and begins walking through the woods, staying off the main roads to avoid any runs in with the Functionists. Velocity shows others fireberries to pick while on the road, as she spent a lot of time in the woods growing up and recognizes some of the edible plants
When they make camp, Prowl sends Velocity, Nautica, and Brainstorm off to forage and get firewood, with exhortations to not let Brainstorm blow anything up
Brainstorm: But what if I need to blow something up
Prowl: … If you’re attacked you can blow something up
Brainstorm: How narrow is the definition of ‘attacked’? Say, if a tree branch falls on me -
Prowl: If you are being - if there is a reasonable chance that you might die, with reasonable being defined very narrowly, and blowing something up is the only way - look, Velocity and Nautica, can you just tell him if he needs to blow anything up?
Velocity: What if we let him use an explosion to light the campfire later?
Prowl: … If he can keep it contained… can we please remember we’re on a spy mission
Prowl sends Skids, Tailgate, and Cyclonus to go spy on the Functionist camp while he sets up warding around the camp. After some discussion, it’s agreed that Luna will stay with Prowl. Prowl acts grumpy about this but pets Luna anyway.
As they get towards the Functionist camp, the spy party sees the half-elf woman walking away from the camp, and manages to avoid her notice. She finds a clear spot, and recites a prayer in Infernal calling on Onyx Prime to continue to support her mission and to build his strength in this place, and buries a metal copy of his sigil in the ground. Skids decides to dig up the sigil after she leaves, and puts it securely in his component pouch. Tailgate worries that this will bring the wrath of Onyx Prime on them.
While sneaking closer to the Functionist camp, all three of the spy party roll terrible stealth checks all step on a branch, and 7 of 12 immediately starts yelling at them. Skids steps out and tries to cover the others to give them a chance to get back and pretend he was the only one there, but Cyclonus and Tailgate step out to try and have his back. They lie and say they are looking for their missing dog, Tailgate putting on an especially weepy performance. 7 buys the lie and tells them to go away, as the dog certainly wouldn’t have gotten this far into the woods.
Meanwhile, the foraging party has found a very lackluster haul. Velocity and Nautica discuss the limitations of Nautica’s shape water spell and whether it applies to water in someone’s body
DM: are you asking nautica if she can bloodbend?
They come to the conclusion that Nautica couldn’t shape water inside a person in terms of their blood or other fluids - so no bloodbending. However, she could maybe manipulate water as someone was drinking it if she could see the water - and if a person had water on them she could manipulate the water she could see, but more so to hit the other person with water, not to be able to drag them around by the water on them. And she can manipulate mostly-water fluids like tea.
That settled, Velocity asks Brainstorm about his sciency-magicy bomb making abilities, and also if he could make water guns for Nautica.
They’re so lost in this discussion, that they don’t notice the Owlbear until it’s nearly on top of them, and lets out a loud roar…
As the spy party heads back to camp, Skids discusses how dangerous it was that Cyclonus and Tailgate had stayed with him when they got caught, because if they had all gotten captured no one else would have known to come and help until too late.
Cyclonus: I made a commitment to look after you.
Tailgate: It’s a ride or die kind of group.
Skids says that they could look out for him by getting help from the others, and Tailgate says he’ll take it under advisement. Cyclonus hears a distant sound. Heading to investigate, they pass the camp, and Prowl, who had heard the roar more clearly and was just getting ready to investigate, leaves with them…
Back with the others Brainstorm attacks the owlbear with a flurry of snowballs. Velocity worries about attacking an innocent animal. Nautica tries to put the owlbear to sleep, but even under Brainstorm’s snowball fight attack, it’s still too strong. Velocity finally goes to shoot the owlbear, but it retaliates by slashing her with its claws. Brainstorm attacks with an ice knife while Nautica gives Velocity a potion of greater healing.
The rest of the party arrives, and together they successfully kill the owlbear. Velocity and Tailgate stabilize it and leave it some berries so that it won’t die, but isn’t healed enough to come after them quick either. They return to camp and Brainstorm uses his bonfire spell to light the small pile of twigs Nautica found into a roaring fire, satisfying his need for explosions. Skids shows the others the Onyx Prime sigil and tells them about the prayer the Functionist woman had recited. This is worrying to Nautica and Velocity, who grew up learning about Onyx Prime as one of the leaders of the old Primal war who opposed Solus Prime.
Led by Lotty and Tailgate, the group gathers in for a group hug around Luna - even Prowl gets close enough to pet her. Beside the fire, they rest for the night...
Team Ice: Adventure 5: The One Where the Spymaster Befriends the Dog
Team Ice continues their adventure and we’re bringing you the latest summary! Last time the party defeated a sea snake on their way sailing to Caminus. What - or who - will they encounter this time?
The Cast - TEAM ICE
Skids by Soundwave (human rogue)
Tailgate by Butter (dwarven barbarian)
Cyclonus by Ren (tiefling paladin)
Nautica by Robophelia (half-elf wizard)
Velocity by Cee (high elf cleric)
Brainstorm by Bex (air genasi wizard)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session | Fourth Session
After the party gets their various loot from the dead sea snake, and Prowl rejoins them on the deck of the ship, they are met by a bright magenta aarakocra - Misfire - and a bronze dragonborn - Grimlock. Shortly after realizing that the commotion has all been resolved, Grimlock goes over to the side of the ship to throw up, hiccupping fire over the side as well. The crew yells at him that he better not set their ship on fire.
Misfire explains that Grimlock was seasick, which is why they hadn’t left their room until they heard the commotion and Grimlock insisted on coming up topside to make sure everything was okay. Skids comments that staying belowdecks is actually worse for seasickness, and Misfire says that that explains a lot. “Grimsy! Hey, did you hear -” And Grimlock flips him off.
A goblin climbs out from under Misfire’s wing - it’s Spinister! He climbs up to Misfire’s shoulder and says “I don’t like the scaly thing, I’m going to shoot it.” He hops off and goes to shoot the sea serpent’s corpse repeatedly with his crossbow. Misfire comments offhandedly that when Spinister had said ‘I don’t like the scaly thing, I’m going to shoot it’, it could have gone either way - it was a good thing he hadn’t meant Grimlock. Velocity is a little concerned about the wasted arrows, but Misfire says that Spinister always recovers them - and indeed, he comes back with bloody arrows. When Velocity asks if he’s going to clean them, he pokes Misfire in the shoulder with one - which Misfire is not amused by - and, having confirmed it’s still sharp, puts it back in his quiver.
Grimlock compliments Lotty’s bright hair - she believes that hey, why let nature set the colors when we can have prettier ones, and Misfire approves - he has bright magenta feathers. So does Grimlock - apparently some dragonborn paint their scales for similar reasons.
The parties introduce themselves. Misfire says there would normally be more of them, but Krok and the others stayed back at the clinic. Velocity makes a mental note of this in case she ever wants to look for another job. The three of them - Grimlock, Misfire, and Spinister - are on assignment from someone called the Curator to retrieve up some kind of Camien artifact, it’s supposed to be good money. When the party all jumps to ask further questions about the artifact, Misfire says he wishes he knew more, but the Curator is being unusually cagey for this one, even for him - he’s supposed to find out more when they get to Caminus.
Grimlock asks if Velocity and Nautica are from Caminus, because he doesn’t see a lot of elves going away from Caminus and coming back. Velocity awkwardly extricates herself from the conversation - but it’s not for bad reasons and she’s not lying! - and goes to huddle with Nautica to decide what they should say, because … they didn’t really talk about what they were going to say, they ran away from home, and no one really knows that, in Camien terms, they’re pretty young. They decide that they should tell the truth, they’re from Caminus. Velocity comes back and says this, and promises it’s not a lie even though they had to go off and talk about it. Misfire says she may be giving Spinister a run for his money. Velocity says she’s not great at socializing yet because on Caminus you could be set for a three hour conversation just by commenting on someone’s painting and letting them talk and not listening. Here you actually have to talk back and forth.
Skids drags Prowl for not having shown up to help with the sea serpent, and Prowl says he wouldn’t have hired a ship that couldn’t defend itself, but he’s glad the rest of them had it handled when they decided to get involved and didn’t manage to get themselves killed. Velocity and Skids ask Prowl if he’s heard of this Curator. Prowl says he knows of several people who trade in powerful artifacts who go by that handle. Tailgate asks if we can’t just patent these things; Prowl says people sticking to one name, (that is, one person per name) would make his job a lot easier.
The ship docks in Caminus, and after getting through the checkpoint at the docks, Prowl gave everyone pendants that made them look like elves so they could blend in. Luna was disguised as a normal dog. Tailgate became Tallgate. The group ducked into the only bar on this side of Customs, so Prowl could ask the barkeep where to find his contact, Arcee.
When they come into the bar, they find Javelin standing at the door of the bar, with a pirate eye patch, dyed purple hair, and dressed in lots of purples and pinks. She carries a shortsword by her side, and is standing as the bar’s bouncer. Acceleron, an elf with dyed pink hair, is standing behind the bar and gives them all a friendly wave. At the bar, Skids and Prowl order the beer on tap, Lotty gets a non-alcoholic version of the house cocktail and Nautica gets a very alcoholic version. Prowl asks whether Arcee still lives here, and Acceleron tells him that she and Aileron just moved to a house by the beach, on the southwest side. Prowl tips her extra for the information.
In the time the party is there, another elf, with dyed blue hair, white and blue clothing, gold sunglasses, and a three-eyed parrot on her shoulder, Proxima, who comes in through the back door of the bar. She kisses Acceleron before walking across the bar to give Javelin a kiss and take Javelin’s place so Javelin can go watch the lighthouse. Acceleron introduces them as her wives, and says that the three of them run both the lighthouse and the bar. Proxima sees Luna where she’s waiting patiently outside the bar and immediately goes into full dog-lover mode with lots of pets.
Looking at the dyed hair all around him, Tailgate decides he wants to dye his hair, probably blue or purple. Acceleron says that Lotty’s hair looks really good, so he can probably go to whoever she has do it, but if he wants to go to someone in town, she has a recommendation for the stylist who does it for her, which she gives to Tailgate. Prowl, however, reminds them that they’re all on mission, and if they could have some baseline minimum level of efficiency… he doesn’t sound terribly optimistic about this request paying off. Lotty insists that he needs to let the party have their silly sidequests, like learning to bake a cake! She says Prowl needs a hobby. Prowl insists that that’s not a real word, he would have heard of it.
The party notices when the Scavengers come into the bar, having clearly also bypassed the checkpoint. Meanwhile,Tailgate is still adjusting to his new center of gravity as Tallgate, as he now looks like an elf and is much taller. When Acceleron, seeing him looking kind of wobbly, asks if he had one too many before getting here, the party just says he’s seasick, and Acceleron makes him up a tonic for seasickness. Hearing this, Grimlock comes over to the bar - he could use a seasickness tonic too. While waiting, Grimlock gets very flustered by Lotty. “Anything to help pretty a lady - fuck! Anything to help lady a - fuck!” He flees the bar. Velocity asks the party if it seems like he was okay, or if he needs help. Skids says he was just flustered, but Velocity doubts that. Skids asks if she has an ulterior motive for wanting to go over and check on him, like a crush. Lotty uses shameless obliviousness. It's super effective.
Nautica, stressed out by returning to Caminus, had a strong drink. Lotty talks to her, asking if she’s okay, and if she’s only okay because she’s drunk enough to feel sort of okay, to which Nautica says yeah, probably. Lotty says that if it ever gets to a point where it’s too much and she wants to leave, they can leave together.
The party considers how to get through customs into the town itself where Arcee lives, and the rest of Caminus - particularly whether they’ll have to smuggle Luna through customs. Prowl says they aren’t going through customs - he’s trying to say it so Acceleron can’t hear, even though Acceleron wouldn’t give a fuck if she did. Proxima, on the other side of the room, is immediately distracted by the mention of a potential new animal friend, looking out the window and dashing out to pet the cute dog.
After leaving the bar (Lotty waving goodbye to the Scavengers) and extricating Luna from Proxima, the group sneaks along the rocky beach, Lotty carrying Luna. As they go, Prowl does a walk-and-talk about the people they also saw disembarking the ship - the blonde man he recognized as 7-of-12, and the other two humans he assumes are guards based on their dress, but he didn’t recognize the half-elf, and he doesn’t like that. Skids suggests that she might just have been brought along so that someone part-elven was with them to help pacify the Camiens, Prowl says he hopes that’s true.
They arrive at Arcee and Aileron’s door, and Aileron answers. Aileron is an elf with her red hair kept short. She’s short for an elf, wearing layers of ones, one of which is magenta and too long for her. Aileron realizes that is the Prowl she’s heard of when he’s particularly brusque in asking for Arcee, and she calls for her. Arcee comes to the door, she’s a tall, ripped, goliath woman in pirate clothes, wearing lots of magenta. The party can guess that the two women borrow from each other's closets. Arcee asks what on earth Prowl is wearing, and recognizes Skids (by pictures and description, they haven’t met before.) Arcee also recognizes Nautica from her time living in this town, calls her ‘little minnow’ and asks how she got mixed up with all of these folks.
Arcee and Aileron let the party into their house, have a whispered conversation in the kitchen, and then bring the party water and finger foods. Arcee wants to know why they’re there, and - she adds - it better be important, because she’s retired, Prowl explains about the Functionist party and the potential alliance with Caminus. In the discussion, Prowl mentions Arcee having settled down in an obviously disparaging way, Velocity objects, even if that’s not what Prowl wants, he has to respect other people’s choices. Skids and Velocity get into a discussion about Prowl and relationships “- not everyone wants -” “He doesn’t have to get married, but everyone wants friends,” and Chromedome gets brought up “he clearly cared about Chromedome, maybe they were friends, maybe they were something else -”
Prowl, to Arcee: “I’ve changed my mind, just kill me now.”
Arcee: “Nah, that’d probably get these kids in trouble.”
Arcee breaks up the discussion and says not to be too hard on Prowl, he chose the mission and she couldn’t, she has something to lose now.
Arcee says that she saw a few human men and a half-elf coming out from customs, who she assumes were the Functionist Delegation, because otherwise non-elves wouldn’t be allowed beyond the fence in Caminus. Aileron saw the half-elf in the context of her work at the library, and also around the temple. She says the half-elf claims to be a devotee of Solus Prime, but that her holy text looks like nothing Aileron recognizes, and that the half-elf messed up simple prayers to Solus Prime. Maybe the Functionists thought they were bringing along an expert on Solus Prime, but that wasn’t what they got. Whatever she’s here for, she’s probably up to no good.
Arcee lays out the most likely route the Functionist delegation would take to the capital, based on how expensive goods are transported - it’s not like an isolationist country has foreign dignitaries travelling to the capital regularly. The route, Velocity notices, but doesn’t tell the others, goes through her old hometown.
The group discusses their next move. Skids suggests that if, say, they killed the Functionist party, now, looking like elves and able to be presumed to be Camiens, their deaths would be blamed on Caminus, and the Empire would no longer want to seek an alliance with Caminus. Others point out that they would still eventually be identified as outsiders, even if they look like elves, Caminus is insular enough to be able to identify when people aren’t from there - and it’s not like elf-Skids looks that different from human Skids. Lotty doesn’t want to murder anyone. Lotty and Skids argue about the difference between murder and killing someone in a fight, and whether putting their own lives at risk makes the consequence of someone else’s death morally different - is there a difference between stabbing some and yelling ‘hey, we’re here to stop you’ and then stabbing them when they start to fight? Tailgate suggests that yelling ‘hey, let’s fight’ would be an even more efficient way of starting a fight, if that’s the necessary prereq. Lotty says that she won’t be involved with flat-out murder; she’s not trying to blackmail the rest of them into changing what they’re going to do, she’s just saying what she’s going to do. Cyclonus doesn’t think that murder should be their first option but he acknowledges that it might be a necessary last resort. Nautica is with Lotty on team ‘no murder’ - she’s also concerned that if the Empire does blame Caminus, it will drag Caminus into an international incident; even though she doesn’t have great love for this place, she doesn’t want to see that happen to it. Skids would prefer something else to murder, but still thinks it might be necessary.
The party also discusses whether it makes sense to try and warn Camien officials about the Functionist delegation. The issues discussed include the fact that they don’t know what the Functionists’ plan is exactly, so they don’t know what to warn of, and they have no idea if Camien officials would listen to them. The party asks the two Camiens whether Camien officials would listen to them. Velocity appeals to Prowl. “I’m a cleric, I don’t know anything about politics. Prowl, do you know about politics?”
Prowl chuckles - he’s been looking amused through this whole conversation. Looking at Skids, he says, “Well, at least you haven’t lost all the sense that made you a good agent.”
Arcee laughs and looks at Prowl. “Well, I guess you still pick them the same - he almost reminds me of me.” More seriously, she continues: “Look, Caminus is a little island, they’re isolationist, they want to be able to defend themselves - I certainly wouldn’t want to take on all the Torchbearers at once, though,” she adds, “it would have to be all of them for it to be a fair fight - still, wouldn’t want to if I didn’t have to. But, that said, you don’t come to Caminus for an army, or military might. Now, when I was working for you,” she looks at Prowl, “what we were finding on the Functionists was that they were looking into artifacts connected to the Guiding Hand, mainly Primus. Now, I don’t know why you’d come to Caminus for that, but that seems like the only explanation. And if whatever they’re after here is important enough, they won’t stop after one dead delegation. I’d bet the priority needs to be figuring out what it is what they’re here for.
Arcee continues, “Now, I’ve never found Camien officials to listen to much, unless it’s,” and she raises an arm and flexes. “But they’re nobs and they’re going to be travelling like nobs, so if you’re willing to cut off the road a little - not into the deep woods, of course - but you should be able to keep up with them, keep track of things and figure out what they’re after, if you haven’t lost all of your spy skills.” She elbows Prowl teasingly.
The party generally agrees this is a solid plan. As it’s getting into the evening, Aileron offers the party a meal and to stay overnight as the Functionist party probably won’t be leaving town until morning. Aileron offers to let them stay in their guest room and living room - though some of them will probably end up sleeping on the couch and the floor given how many of them there are. She adds that they’re welcome to go to the inn across the way if they want to try and fool the staff there that they’re all actually Camien. Skids says that staying here is probably safer, so they decide to accept the meal and stay over. Skids stretches out on the couch as people get up to get food, and Aileron asks if he’s okay and if she should bring food over to him. Lotty drops Luna on him in retaliation for the murder plan and he sits right up to lift Luna off him.
While they eat, Luna - who’s still slowly getting used to the concept of not being used as a ‘lean and mean’ guard dog and being regularly fed - has scarfed down the bowl of food Aileron provided and is shamelessly begging for food from everyone at the table. Prowl is feeding Luna scraps under the table, and Arcee, noticing this, grins in amusement. Skids, disapproving of the dog being fed elven food, suggests that Luna should have a bowl of food. Aileron, not having noticed that Prowl was feeding Luna under the table, looks over at Luna’s empty bowl and goes to refill it. Prowl keeps feeding Luna under the table anyway, Lotty allows it, not seeing any apparent harm in his actions. The party considers that they may need to get Prowl an animal, since he’s clearly trying to befriend Luna.
Over dinner Nautica catches up with Arcee and Aileron. Since Arcee moved in with Aileron and left the shipping/spy business, Arcee and Aileron got married (“We would have sent you a wedding invite, but we didn’t know where to send it!) Arcee’s still working the docks, unloading, doing repairs and other odd jobs, and Aileron has moved from working in the church to working in the library, and she really enjoys the work.
After Arcee and Aileron gave the party the appropriate host tour of the house so they could find places to sleep and everything they needed, the two of them turned in for the night. The rest of the party stayed out and huddled in the living room. Everyone wanted to know how Nautica knows Arcee and Aileron. Nautica explains that she’s known them for most of her life; Aileron has lived here for as long as Nautica’s been alive, and worked as a cleric in the church in town for most of that time. Arcee’s been in and out of town for much of that time, working shipping and sometimes stopping in when her trade routes took her to Caminus. She’d left the shipping business and moved in with Aileron shortly before Nautica left Caminus. Nautica says that Aileron is one of the few elves who treated her like everyone else despite her only being half-elven; and that Arcee helped inspire her to leave Caminus, because she made her curious about the outside world. Nautica’s not feeling great about being back here...
Tailgate comments that if she hadn’t left Caminus, she would never have met this whole new party. Lotty adds that she wouldn’t have met Luna. Or Prowl. She would have missed out on friends! And Prowl.
At the mention of Luna, everyone looks around for her, and notices her and Prowl both over by the kitchen. Not everyone can quite tell what’s going on, but the more perceptive party members realize that he’s got some leftover table scraps that he’s using to try to get Luna to practice ‘sit’, keeping his voice low to try and go unnoticed by the others. Tailgate sees All, and could probably tell you what cut of enchanted ‘meat’ the table scraps were from and what kind of dog training school Prowl ascribes to, had the DM come up with either of those details to share.
Lotty asks Prowl how he knows Arcee. He looks a little abashed at having been caught out feeding Luna, but keeps patting Luna’s head while he answers. He explains that he and Arcee used to work together, and when she got into shipping and transportation she served as a cough informant, letting him know what was going on in other places, who and what was going where, doing things when they needed to be done somewhere else. She stopped doing that when she decided to settle down in Caminus, but Prowl acknowledges that she’s still keeping her eyes open and helping them out now, and admits that Aileron is keeping her eyes open too, and being helpful.
Eventually the party all falls asleep, ready to head out in the morning...
session 6!
Any oath can make you a paladin if you believe in it hard enough. You, for instance, were just really passionate about your entry level civil service position and now you can smite people over it
Item: bottle of the distilled essence of Michael Bay’s “Transformer” movies. If consumed, for the next half hour the affected character’s appearance becomes an unreadable jumble unrecognizable as their proper self and their alignment is randomized, plus they must roll a will save against getting distracted any time they see a pretty girl, a cool car, or a helicopter silhouetted against a sunset.
commission for @a-lonely-quasar ! tiefling sorcerer!rodimus (their character in a transformers-fantasy-AU DnD campaign we play in), about to unleash his fiery wrath on an evil regent!
Team Fire: Session 3, Egg?!; Part 4: Zeta’s Secrets! A Child, Rescued! An answer to: Egg?
The adventures of Session 3 conclude!
TEAM FIRE
Rodimus by Frosty (tiefling sorcerer)
Drift by Space (earth genasi rogue)
Ratchet by Hawke (firbolg cleric)
Magnus | Minimus by Tuna (half-orc paladin | human/tethyrian wizard)
Megatron by Briar (goliath paladin)
Rewind by Robin (high elf wizard) (out for this week, but back soon)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session: Part 1 | Third Session: Part 2 | Third Session: Part 3
The party makes their way into Zeta’s secret-er office and lab, leaving the egg behind for now. Nothing seems off with the door as they pass through. The first thing that catches their attention is that there is an aarakocra child in a birdcage. Sitting below it is a smaller cage with a rat (cue the cheers for the rat); it does not seem normally colored for a rat, rather colored blue and purple. The aarakocra child has some weird coloration on their wings, much more iridescent than a crow or raven’s feathers. Almost moving.
That’s all the party really gets to see because Whirl sees this kid and smashes through the cage to get this kid out. The split-second after he smashes the lock, something weird happens - and the whole party feels it. There’s this sudden rush of energy. Rodimus is feeling it most; it’s similar to the wave he felt the night before, but in reverse. It happens, and then everything’s back to normal just as quickly.
Whirl shakes his head before helping the kid outta the cage. They’re about ten, small enough for him to carry.
With that flurry of motion done, everyone moves to investigate the lab. The place where the kid was and the rat is has a table near it with what looks like a shrine on it. Next to that is a desk, like one you’d normally see in any office, with more secret stuff on it. There’s an open door that goes to the lab, but they can’t see too much of it at the moment. Lastly, there is a crate. Who knows what sinister things are in there?
Rodimus, spotting the rat, feels an instantaneous connection with the little creature and rushes over to his cage.
Ratchet meanwhile goes over to Whirl to check on the child. He kneels and tells them, “Don’t worry, don’t panic, don’t panic, I’m a healer; let me check if you’re good.”
“Okay,” the kid replies, sounding a little confused. They seem fine; uninjured. “I’m really hungry, he hasn’t come down and fed me for a while. Uh, who are y’all?”
“Uh, we’re friends of the captain of the guard and your mother,” Ratchet clarifies. Drift pulls out some food for them in the meantime. “He sent us to rescue you.”
“Oh, okay.”
Ratch smiles. “Don’t worry, you’ll get back to your mom.”
“Does that mean the bad man’s gone?”
“Oh yeah, he’s dead as fuck.”
“Fuckin’ sweet!”
“Language!” Magnus shouts.
“Sorry!” Ratchet shrugs.
“Are you?” She sighs. Honestly, what more can she do right now?
Drift is laughing again and the kid now munching on the food.
Back with Rodimus and the rat. As it turns out, rats are his favorite animals. As he gets closer, the rat seems to be paying attention to Rodimus. Not in a ‘I’m a rat and something bigger is coming towards me’ way though; he's pawing at the cage and rattling his dish around, eager to get out it seems. Rodimus opens the cage and also gets some food out for the little guy; delighted, the rat climbs into Rod’s hands and eats the food. Then he nestles into Rod’s hair. It’s super fucking cute.
Since the kid is fine and Rodimus is crying over a rat, Mags checks the office table
Magnus finds correspondences with the Functionists with oblique references to ‘the project’, suggesting that when the project is complete their power will finally be secure. There’s earlier correspondence with references to Zeta’s earlier works, that works drew the Functionists attention to him, the sort of stuff that was discussed in letters in Zeta’s tower office, the less secret one. But what she finds here makes it clear that these ‘earlier works’ are referring specifically to the fact that Zeta invaded Nyon, that’s what caught the Functionists attention. In the earlier letters there’s something about how Zeta and the Functionist’s ‘other associate’ - who they keep not naming - both failed in retrieving ‘the Knights’ Lock’. It’s implied that this is related to their project. In more recent letters, they have some new information, they think the Lock is underground, which is why they didn’t find it initially, and near ‘a seat of government power’. They haven’t been given the full details by their new informant regarding its location.
In the most recent letter, they talk about the fact that Adaptica is now stable enough that it is time to start pursuing this - ‘the Knights’ Lock’ - again. There’s some back and forth - Magnus is only seeing one side of this conversation, so it’s somewhat hard to parse, but the Functionists are basically saying that no, you aren’t going to be the one to go and get this, their ‘other associate’ is going to send someone to do that. They say that even though Adaptica is stable, there will still be continued attempts to take it back, so they can’t have Zeta away, and that their ‘other associate’ is better suited to dealing with this particular thing than Zeta is.
A thread through all of these letters is the Functionists telling Zeta off for putting too much focus into his research, they let him have his patron, but he needs to keep his focus on their side of the project. Another thing they keep telling him off about, though not as severely, is that Zeta’s trying to reverse engineer the enforcers (legislators), which are in some way associated with the ‘other associate’, they say he can keep doing the research on his own time but they consider their ‘other associate’ reliable and they don’t want to lose a bunch of enforcers to this research.
From Magnus’s knowledge, she recognizes that the ‘other associate’ must be Tyrest and she is livid, shaking from anger and from the memory of what happened in Nyon, remembering the feeling of helplessness, of being knocked out, and everything that’s lead to where she is now.
Rodimus, having cried over the rat and declared to Drift that this is going to be Hot Rat (Drift: “Okay?”) and goes over to the table. Unable to read any of it, he goes. “Hm, looks important, yep, sure does.”
Ratchet pokes Rodimus and quietly asks. “Can you even read?”
“Listen,” Rodimus says, defensive.
“I’m not judging you! No judgement, just asking.”
Rodimus very quietly says, “No I cannot.”
Ratchet immediately hatches a secret plan in his brain.
Rodimus flips through the papers even though he can’t read, to see if anything jumps out - any pictures, maybe. Rodimus recognizes the shape of the word ‘Nyon’ from having seen it enough times, in terms of visuals, some of the letters still have envelopes with them and the wax seal looks a little like a sun with eight points, a circle with eight outward pointing triangles, and when he touches it there’s a mild shock. Rodimus decides not to repeat that.
Some of the party goes to investigate the shrine where the rat and kid were being held. It’s not anything Drift or Ratchet recognizes. Magnus sees a symbol that’s a circle with eight inward pointing triangles that form an eight pointed star inside that rings a bell, but does not ring a bell as any one of the Guiding Hand symbols.
(Out of character, players ask whether this looks sort of like the mouth of a purple worm. When it is confirmed that it is not dissimilar, it is dubbed the worm symbol.)
Rodimus doesn’t recognize anything in particular, even though he sees the same symbol as Magnus, but this shrine - it kind of vibes with him and kind of feels uncomfortable at the same time. There’s a notebook on the shrine.
Investigating the cages, Magnus notices that the rat’s cage has been occupied for months, while the kid’s cage has only been occupied for a few days.
Rodimus flips through the notebook (even though he can’t read), Drift peeking over his shoulder. Even without being able to read, Rodimus can recognize that there is a series of entries labeled with dates - this is a lab notebook. The first few pages are a series of prayers in a language that Drift sort of recognizes, but it’s kind of like trying to read something in Olde English if you’re fluent in modern English, but he recognizes enough to recognize them as prayers. In looking at the lab records part, Drift recognizes that it’s tracking the progress of the rat as the rat has been living on this shrine, the worm symbol cropping up a few times throughout, and noting the rat’s changes - the rat turning weird colors (it is currently blue and purple), the rat eating more. It gets to a point about a week ago that is basically saying that it’s time to start testing this on something bigger and more sapient than a rat. Because there is no ethics board for Zeta.
Drift calls Ratchet over. “Ratchet? Ratchet?”
“Yes?”
When Ratchet comes over, Drift quietly translates the jist of it. The pages about the kid are about the kid starting to undergo the same sort of color changing effects, to a lesser degree but more quickly than the rat did, and a few notes about the kid being uncooperative that are just Zeta complaining because Zeta was awful.
Ratchet immediately concludes that this is mighty fishy and searches his memory for any historical recollection of this worm symbol or anything on this shrine. It finally rings a bell as a very old religious symbol, from the ruins of an old temple to the Guiding Hand, where the worm symbol had been on one wall, the sun symbol on the opposite wall, a symbol with both of them on the wall in between, and a very tattered old book in a library.
Ratchet relays this to the rest, “I saw this, I know this - I don’t know what the hell this is about, but it’s old, it’s really old - I’m saying that as a three hundred year old. It’s old as shit.”
Having heard that, and having investigated the rest of the room. Drift goes to investigate the crate. It seems slightly cold, like standing next to a cooler or freezer, and has a simple latch. Drift opens it to find several containers of ice cream.
Upon noticing the ice cream, Magnus chimes in, “Do not eat something you found in Zeta’s secret lab.”
Ratchet does not hesitate to make his opinion known. “Do not eat this shit or I swear I will murder you twice!”
Rodimus, of course, wants to eat it.
Ratchet, seeing him move towards the ice cream, shouts “Fuck!” and moves to try and restrain Rodimus, Magnus and Drift trying to help, but they fail. Rodimus gets to grab the ice cream and shoves his face into the first container he can grab, which is chili chocolate ice cream. There is no ill effect from eating it.
Ratchet goes over to the table and bonks his head against it.
Magnus pinches her brow. “Sweet Solomus, why…”
Ratchet leaves Rodimus to his hubris to go investigate the lab, and Magnus follows.
With no competition for the ice cream, Rodimus sets out to determine how many of the containers of ice cream he can fit in his cloak. It might melt, but then he’d get a slurpy! In addition to the chili chocolate, there’s a thing of vanilla ice cream, strawberry, fancy dark chocolate, chocolate peanut butter, mango, and raspberry, and also a thing of chocolate syrup.
(Yes, most of these are the DM’s favorite ice cream flavors, plus answers to ‘so what would be your character’s favorite flavor of ice cream?’ Yes, this happened because the players joked about their characters and ice cream weeks and weeks before this game. The DM does not forget. The DM takes notes, goddammit.)
Ratchet is looking at the lab now. There are things stretched out on fantasy tables for dead people (the DM knows what things are called, definitely). They’re constructs of some kind - similar to the stone construct, Ten, in Swerve’s - but bigger and more combative. Magnus, looking with Ratchet, recognizes these things as a project of Tyrests, secondary enforcers, or legislators. They are clearly down and unconscious and are being dissected, arms taken off, some have had pieces added back on to see what that does. There is a tank full of green goo, but it is completely empty, like Zeta was planning a project but didn’t get around to it before he was killed.
“I do recognize these constructs,” Magnus says, “they are the legislators, secondary enforcers, that my former employer, Tyrest, used.”
“Replacements?” Ratchet asks. “Like, ‘cause you said you were the ex-Enforcer of the Tyrest Accords.”
“Yes I - hold on, did you say replacements?”
“Yeah, I asked if Tyrest is hatching some newfangled projects because -”
Magnus nods. “Definitely. I don’t know what exactly, but when I was kicked out, he was plotting something, definitely nefarious, and the reason he kicked me out was because I didn’t work with that nefarious plan anymore.”
Ratchet makes a note to ask more about that, but now he’s going to look around the area and investigate more, but he doesn’t notice much more than he’s already seen.
Rodimus walks into the room with a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, “What’s going on?”
“Don’t touch anything or so help you Primus!” Ratchet shouts.
“Rodimus these are very dangerous - I don’t know what to call them, creatures? Please don’t touch. Don’t touch, please.” Magnus repeats.
“Sure.” Rodimus looks around, investigating without touching. Investigating with his eyes.
In their investigations, they find the sun symbol on the backs of the constructs, followed by individual serial numbers. Magnus can surmise, given her context with Tyrest, based on their design, that they’re either designed to replace enforcers or to serve as backup. Their weapons are similar to Star Saber’s saber in design, though not in quality or decoration - they’re much simpler, and serve essentially as extensions to their arm and hand. Some of have had their weapons taken away, some have had the symbol on the back scratched out, they’ve been taken apart and put back together in various ways.
Magnus tries to investigate more, but the situation keeps reminding her too much of Tyrest and kind of freaks out and shuts down.
Rodimus goes over to Drift, who followed the herd in to look at the room. “So, forgot to do this, but we should totally see if Zeta knew anything about the Knights.”
“Oh, shit, yeah,” Drift rifles through the stuff on the desk, and gets the same information that Magnus saw, about the artifact of the Knights in Nyon, and that the Functionists think they know where it is. He relays this to Rodimus, who cannot read. Reading things out loud to Rodimus is an automatic reflex at this point.
Rodimus remembers a certain spot in Nyon that always felt weird to be around, and speculates to Drift that that might have something to do with this artifact. He also knows that the ‘seat of government power’ protecting the artifact is likely to be City Hall - while the strange spot isn’t too far from City Hall, it’s also not directly next to it or anything - and relays this to Drift.
“So our best lead is… Nyon.”
“So we’ve hit a dead end. Great.” Rodimus is not going to go back to Nyon.
Ratchet comes back into the office to rejoin Drift and Rodimus. He’s been thinking about the weird surge of energy he experienced, he knows it happened the split-second that Whirl broke the cage, but other than that, it does not match up with any spell he knows of or anything he’s ever experienced, there’s nothing in his memory that would seem to cause something like this, and he wants to talk to the others about it. He clears his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but - when we came into the room, that weird surge of energy, magic - you felt that too, right? Cause it’s not anything I recognize and I’ve seen a lot. Whirl?”
“Yeah, yeah, that was weird.” Whirl says. “Hey, spikey kid, is there any more of that ice cream? Because I’m like, real hungry.” He goes on. “But yeah, that happened, that was weird, I felt like, cold for a second, but, like - everybody else feels normal, right?”
“Now I do, yeah.”
The others generally agree that they experienced the thing and feel fine now.
The kid, whose name is Scrappy, says “Yeah, I kinda felt something, but I don’t feel any different.”
“Yeah, and I’m not spikey kid, I have a name. And I do have more ice cream.”
“D’ya mind sharing? And what’s your name, anyway?”
“Rodimus. What flavor do you want?”
“Chocolate peanut butter, thanks.”
Rodimus hands over the chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and Whirl opens his up and just sticks his beak right in and starts chowing down.
“I was mostly wondering if anyone has felt something like this before?” Ratchet asks.
“Oh yeah, I have. I felt it last night” Rodimus says. He knows that this was much more intense, and if that, the night before, had been a feeling of loss, this had been a feeling of something arriving. “This was way stronger, and also kind of different? It’s hard to describe.” He explains.
“Oh,” Ratchet notes, interested. “Can’t imagine it being too nice, something like that waking you up, coming over you in your sleep.”
“Is that why you were so hard to wake up this morning?” Drift asks.
“I may have cast sleep on myself?”
“So yes.”
“No idea what that’s about…”
“So we’ve got that checked out, kid found, weird lab found, weird magic experience, and we’ve got an interesting shrine with symbols from a forgotten age. Great! Just another day, I see no problems with this.” Ratchet says sarcastically, to scattered sarcastic cheers. “Should we maybe get the kid to safety and relay our findings to the AVL?”
In the background, Drift reaches out to try and pet the rat, who is still in Rodimus’s hair. The rat looks up and noses at Drift’s hand and lets Drift pet him, cozying up to his hand. While the rat is less enthusiastic about Drift than he is about Rodimus, he’s still friendlier to Drift than the average pet rat - which Drift hasn’t encountered - and much friendlier than the average wild rat, which Drift has encountered. Other than being purple and blue, he seems fairly normal.
As they get ready to leave, Magnus takes most of the papers, while Rodimus takes the papers with the references to the Knights and Nyon. Ratchet copies down the symbols on the shrines in his notebook and makes notes on the correspondences.
Heading out to return the kid to their mom, they walk past the egg and the dead snake. Magnus notes, “What are we going to do about this?”
Rodimus faces the group. “So, about this egg. Who’s gonna steal it?”
“Absolutely not, we are not stealing it.” Magnus says.
Megatron wants to keep the egg safe and not let it die.
Drift agrees, looking at the now-dead snake. “We should probably just take it. We need to steal.” He picks the lock super good. Drift lifts the egg out and gives it to Mags. “Here, it’s heavy.”
Mags carries the egg out. Together, the group are able to get back to Swerve’s and find AVL members who can reunite Scrappy with their mom.
Kid? Saved. Mysteries? Investigated. Egg? Stolen.
A job well done.
Team Fire: Session 3, Egg?!; Part 3: Whirl? And: Egg?!
The adventures of Session 3 continue!
TEAM FIRE
Rodimus by Frosty (tiefling sorcerer)
Drift by Space (earth genasi rogue)
Ratchet by Hawke (firbolg cleric)
Magnus | Minimus by Tuna (half-orc paladin | human/tethyrian wizard)
Megatron by Briar (goliath paladin)
Rewind by Robin (high elf wizard) (out for this week, but back soon)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session: Part 1 | Third Session: Part 2
The party heads towards the castle. Based on the construction plans they found in Zeta’s office, they know where they will find the entrance to the secret lab in the courtyard.
When they reach the courtyard, they find Whirl, kicking around some stones. He got bored hanging out at Swerve’s and dealing with all the politics there, so he came here to find some… more stuff to kick around.
He looks up as the party shows up. “Hello, everyone, so how are you? You look awfully suspicious.”
“We do have the Scourge of Kaon in our midst.” Ratchet notes. “You’re kinda right to be suspicious.”
“Yeaaah…” Whirl says. He’s standing right in their way, arms extended. “You’re not going to keep going until you tell me what the fuck you’re doing.”
Drift responds. “We’re looking for a kid.”
“We’re here for the search and rescue,” Ratchet says.
“The what?” Whirl asks.
Drift starts to explain. “Someone took a kid,”
Ratchet continues. “We’re here to get the kid out of Zeta’s super secret, secret room.”
“Son of a bitch. Okay. You want some help?” Whirl offers.
“You’re from the AVL?” Ratchet asks.
“We would appreciate it…” Magnus adds.
“Alright, let’s fuck some shit up,” Whirl says.
The party hits the stone that triggers the entrance to the lab and heads down a set of stairs to find two stone trolls, much like the one that stood in front of the entrance to the dungeon, both in front of doors. The door on the left is narrower than the one on the right. All the doors are short enough that the majority of the party - Magnus, Megatron, and Ratchet - is going to have to duck to get through (“We are a party of huge people.” -Hawke)
The party approaches the door on the left. The troll recites its riddle. “I am light as a feather, yet no human can hold me for long.”
The answer: Breath
The narrow door opens, sliding apart like supermarket sliding doors. The door is narrow enough that the whole party can’t go through at once, but looking through, the party sees a rough and rocky ledge on the other side of the door that extends a few feet. Then there is a crevice, though they cannot tell how deep it is from the door, but they can see it’s roughly 12 or 13 feet wide. On the other side of it, there is some sort of round alcove in the wall. The party can’t really tell if it’s a door or not just by looking.
Drift pokes his head inside the door to investigate, just to make sure he doesn’t plunge through the floor or anything. Everything looks fine to him.
Ratchet checks as well, and concludes the crevice may not look friendly but the door itself and the ground around it looks fine.
Drift goes to look inside the crevice. He sees the bottom, guessing it to be 20-25 ft. deep and would be an unpleasant fall but not kill someone.
Rodimus, not noticing much else, follows Drift in - of course. The others are wary to follow, but Whirl heads right in and is just sitting on the edge of the crevice, legs swinging. He does not care. It’s truly very Whirly.
“Imma chuck a rock in,” Drift says. The others are largely fine with the idea. Except
“God, yes!” Ratchet replies, before changing his mind and adding, “No, actually, lemme see if I-”
Drift cackles. “Too late, I did it!”
“Fuck!”
Said chucked rock hits the bottom in the time the party would expect it to - no infinite free fall or landing too quickly - so the crevice seems to actually be what it looks like.
“Jump in, ya cowards,” Whirl offers snidely.
“Should we try to open the other door? Because I don’t have a good feeling about this…” Ratchet says.
Drift takes a closer look around and notices Everything. When Drift looks straight across the crevasse, everything looks empty save for the alcove, which has what looks more like a mock-up for an actual door than an actual door. When Drift investigates the crevasse, going so far as to stick his entire head upside down into the crevasse, he notes that there looks to be something at the bottom of the crevasse, on the wall, but he can’t tell what it is. As he’s scanning the area, he sees a patch of ground on the side we’re on that looks like it’s made of a slightly different material compared to the rest of the stone around it. Drift immediately points that out to everyone in warning.
Drift puts a rock on the floor panel that looked weird, and a set of stairs appears, going down into the crevasse. The stairs seem to be made of light, magical in some way. It’s not certain if the stairs are actually solid.
Ratchet whispers, “Put another rock on it.”
Rodimus decides to throw a rock onto the staircase. It lands on the staircase, bouncing down a few steps, but behaves like it was tossed onto a normal non-magical staircase. The staircase is real.
“If someone takes away the rock- if someone follows us and takes away the rock… then we’re fucked,” Ratchet voices to the group before amending, “Could be fucked. I don’t know if there could be another entrance.”
“Someone can just stand up here. Is there anything even down there?” Drift responds.
“Someone should go check and then someone should stay up here,” Rodimus suggests.
“What about the rogue with the good stealth?” Ratchet says, none too sneakily implying Drift should be the one to check.
“Okay, yeah, I’m going down the stairs. I guess.” Drift agrees, somewhat reluctantly.
“You look sneaky.” Ratchet is lowkey worried.
“This is true.” Drift is sneaky.
Drift goes down the stairs by himself - though Rodimus offers to go with him, Drift insists this is his job, as the rogue. As he gets to the bottom he can see the part of the wall that was made of different materials is actually a door. Kinda an odd door made entirely of a slab of black stone with a single keyhole. There is no handle. Drift decides to try and lockpick the door but gets shocked by the door, injuring him a little. It does not open, either.
Faced with this setback, Drift shrugs nonchalantly. “That happens.”
“How’s it going!?” Ratchet shouts down at the rogue.
“I think we need to find a key, this isn’t working!”
“Alright!”
“Should we go in the other door?” Megatron asks.
The party lets out a resounding “yeah” in agreement.
“On the plus side, we’ll all fit through that,” Ratchet notes.
Drift heads back up the stairs and they all head to the other door and its troll. It’s riddle is:
I am a venerable relative, whose hands do not hold and whose face cannot see, but I can always tell you when you are late. Who am I?
Answer: A Grandfather Clock
The door slides open across the entire width of the room beyond.
Everyone investigates before going into the room. Rodimus doesn't even notice that the door has opened. Magnus, Megatron, and Ratchet are able to see a 4x4 pattern of tiles with numbers on them and a small alcove. Megatron and Ratchet are able to see a spiral pattern engraved into the wall by the alcove. It's a Fibonacci spiral.
“So we need to probably go across the tiles in the Fibonacci role…” Ratchet observes.
“The what?” Rodimus asks. He has not heard of a “Fibonacci” whatever before. He does know what numbers are but doesn't know how these two things are related.
“The Fibonacci Sequence, it’s a-” Ratchet doesn't bother to finish explaining seeing the blank look on Rod’s face.
Magnus looks warily at the puzzle. “Does anyone want to test it out?”
“Nah-” Ratchet makes a bunch of noncommittal noises.
“Like, not even step on it?”
Ratchet makes more noises generally meaning no.
“So what is it tiles? Can they be pressed?” Drift pipes up.
“Like we need- we obviously need to go across it in the sequence and it would be easiest to test it…” Ratchet explains.
The tiles don't necessarily look like they could be pressed or sink down in any way, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they would react to being stepped on.
Drift points out that “I mean they're a pretty clear path from the first one to 13 and if we need to hit 21 we can do that too…”
“I don't think we need to because the sequence is like 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 13…”
“Five, eight, thirteen,” Dirt corrects.
“Five- oh, yeah it is.”
Drift laughs a bit before announcing, “I’m gonna go for it, screw it, let's not waste time.”
He steps across the tiles in the order: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13. Nothing happens and Drift is able to walk across just fine. In the alcove, there is a small key that looks like it would fit into the door.
“Mine now.”
Drift quickly gives the rest of the room a once over just to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. He doesn't see anything new and crosses the tiles once more in reverse tile order. Again, nothing happens. He flashes the key and heads back to the other room
Ratchet is muttering to himself in the back as they head out. “Fibonacci spiral,” he scoffs. “How tasteless!”
“He really didn’t have any good ideas, did he?” Drift said, referring to Zeta.
“Nope!” Rod chirped back. “Not a single good idea!”
(The DM as Zeta’s Ghost is Offended)
“Classless,” Mags agreed.
Ratchet snorts and Drift cackles again.
(The DM feels Judged)
Drift reins in his laughter before saying, “Honestly, if we’re gonna build an evil citadel, I think you’d- I would do it differently.” He turns to Megatron, and in the smuggest way possible- “Wouldn’t you do it differently Megs?”
“...do I have to answer that?”
“Fair.”
“But, yes, this is very poorly designed,” Megs shrugs.
(We assure the DM we love them)
The party heads back to the other set of doors and back down the magical stairs to the door at the bottom of the crevasse. After using the key from the other room to unlock the door, Ratchet makes the suggestion that someone sturdy should enter first. Drift laughs and replies you send the rogue in first. Megatron sighs at him, of course.
Drift cautiously goes to open the door… or at least tries to. He fails, very badly. As he moves it, the door squeaks, getting a visible cringe from everybody, and alerting something quite large on the other side. And, whatever it is - it’s moving.
Our cleric is, of course, backing back up the stairs.
“Coward!” Drift laughs, again. “Well, no, he is the cleric; he needs to stay in one piece.”
“I’m squishy! And old!” Ratchet shouts back.
“I am not at my strongest right now, don’t at me!”
“Same,” Rod adds
“Cowaaaard!” Whirl screams, from his place on the ledge above the crevasse. And continues screaming.
Ratchet glares back at the rogue. “I’m literally the only one who can fix your legs.”
“Unless anyone has any better ideas, I’m opening the door,” Drift replies once more, exasperated.
The rest of the party lets out a variety of ‘yeah, just open it.’
“Weaklings and cowards!” Whirl is still shouting. “Open it!”
“The door is open!” the rogue shouts back.
“Whirl, you are not helping!” Mags snaps.
And that was true. With as much noise as Whirl was making, the beast behind the door is now fully awake.
Oh, fun.
As Drift pulls open the door, the beast behind it is revealed to be a giant snake! It lashes out at Drift, but misses as Drift dodges.
Ratchet raises his hands, mumbling to himself for a moment, and from his hands descends a flame. A flame with a holy aura. You could even say a sacred flame. The party groans at the pun, and unfortunately the snake dodges the flame.
Ratchet notices the snake doesn’t appear to be venomous, thankfully, and looks to be a constrictor. Based on size it looks female -- because these are fantasy snakes, so who needs real-world biology?
Upon realizing that the snake is a constrictor, Ratchet yells out, “Watch out, that thing’s gonna choke you!”
And all he hears is a quiet, “Great,” from Rodimus. The tiefling casts firebolt, hitting the snake and causing a fair amount of damage.
Drift draws his rapier and attacks as well, stabbing the snake and quickly ducking back to avoid another attack.
Next, the snake takes its turn to strike. It turns it’s aim towards Magnus, managing to pierce through Mag’s armor. She doesn’t look so good after that. The half-orc is wary now but chooses to attack anyway. She swings, but the hammer glances off the snake’s scales.
Megatron (being cheered on by Ratchet with a quiet, “Hit the snake, hit the snake!”) strikes the snake next, bloodying it severely.
Now it’s Ratchet’s turn again (also being cheered on, now by Drift with “Do your job, do your job!”) and casts healing words on the wounded paladin. Mags is in much better shape now.
Rod… does not even get a full bolt of flame cast out. A puny little ember putts across the air and leaves a little blister on the snake. Rest assured, everyone’s laughing. To which Rod loudly exclaims, “FUCK!”
Being the amazing partner that he is, Drift avenges Rodimus by stabbing the snake yet again. And he hits! After that he doesn’t move back again, not seeming to care about the risk of attack because of how wounded the snake is now. Ratchet is panicking in the back, and so Drift backs up a little to appease him. Drift tries to get a better look at the room beyond, but he sees is Snek.
Still in snake range, Megatron gets attacked now, but the fangs just scrape against his armor. The snake retreats.
Magnus, still wary of the snake, takes a look around the area to see there’s a door on the other side of the room the snake, and something next to the door, although she cannot make out what it is with all that snake in her way. Eager to get this over with, Magnus slams her hammer into the snake's nose. A stiff breeze could take this thing out now. But, rather than a stiff breeze, Megatron takes it out with one last blow of his great sword. The snake is now unconscious and bleeding out.
The party has solved the Snake Puzzle.
Now not having to fend for her life, Magnus points out the door on the other side of the room the snake was in. Everyone makes their way over to it not only to find the door but what looks like a cage next to it. Inside is a giant egg. A giant egg that probably belonged to the snake that was just knocked out.
Ratchet crouches down to look at it and does, in fact, conclude this is the big snake’s egg. It’s not close to hatching, but it’s well on its way.
This is when the party realizes that oh god, they just almost killed a mom. Hysteria and discussion of raising the snild (snake child) ensue.
“I think we’re obligated to adopt the snake,” Megatron says.
“Let’s steal a baby,” Rod says.
Megs nods. “Let’s steal a baby.”
Drift is silent for a moment. Contemplative even. “Why is the egg in the caaaage?”
“Because! A giant fucking snake will hatch out of it!” Ratchet exclaims. “It’s not that difficult!”
Besides the party panicking (again) over this egg, it can be guessed that Zeta was keeping the snake egg to motivate the mama snake to guard his office. Well, his secret-er office. Which happens to be in front of our heroes.
Ratchet clears his throat. No one hears him, so he throws his arms into the air and shouts, “Maybe! Before we contemplate stealing a giant snake -- Magnus, Megatron I can’t believe you’re doing this -- maybe we should investigate the fucking office, of the vampyric overlord we killed yesterday!?”
“No, yeah that does sound like a good idea, we should do that first,” Megs concludes.
“Perhaps!”
“I’m not saying- I never agreed to steal it!” Mags protests.
“It’s not really stealing! I mean, it’s not likely to survive in this particular condition anyway,” Megatron notes, gesturing to the environment around them. “It kinda needs to either be taken out and released into the wild or given to someone.”
“True.”
Ratchet looks kinda in pain because holy fuck they are looking for a child in danger.
With Ratchet’s urging, the party goes to open the door to the office...
---
Team Fire: Session 3, Egg?!; Part 2:“I still have no idea who half of you are.” Introductions... over Brunch?
The adventures of Session 3 continue!
TEAM FIRE
Rodimus by Frosty (tiefling sorcerer)
Drift by Space (earth genasi rogue)
Ratchet by Hawke (firbolg cleric)
Magnus | Minimus by Tuna (half-orc paladin | human/tethyrian wizard)
Megatron by Briar (goliath paladin)
Rewind by Robin (high elf wizard) (out for this week, but back soon)
First Session | Second Session | Third Session: Part 1
After finishing breakfast, Ratchet and Roller head back to Swerve’s. Magnus heads upstairs to join the others for brunch.
Rung and Nightbeat have already returned to Swerve’s, and they’re also sitting around. Warthog is around the bar, they look like they are not so much hungover as still drunk from celebrating the night before. Prowl has briefly emerged from the downstairs headquarters area, and he has a mug of coffee that the party can smell all the way across the room, and it’s terrifying; if it spills, no one knows what’s going to happen, but it’s not going to be good. Ratchet side eyes the mug.
The rest of the party is beginning to congregate around a large table.
Rodimus is still sound asleep. Ratchet asks Drift about his absence at the brunch table, “Your little friend, he isn’t here?”
“I tried to wake him, I think he needs a little longer.”
Not satisfied with that, Ratchet goes upstairs to kick Rodimus’s door three times, as hard as he can, and yells “Wake up! Wake up, there’s food downstairs!”
This does the job and wakes Rodimus up. “Why… let me sleep.” In spite of his groaning, Rodimus gets up and comes downstairs with his cape around him like a blanket.
The team orders brunch from Swerve. Ratchet gets eggs and bacon for his brunch. Drift gets the first thing that catches his eye, which is also eggs and bacon, and tea, and Rodimus follows suit. Megatron, having no desire to stick out from the group, also gets eggs and bacon and coffee.
Magnus breaks the trend. “What is the largest meal you have?”
”Uhh… Uhhh…” Swerve considers. “There’s a breakfast platter, but that’s normally for five people”
“Perfect. I’ll take five.”
“Five… platters?”
“Yes, five platters. I am not exaggerating.”
“Ooookay.” Swerve takes that order. Everybody else’s comes out first after Swerve makes the tea and enchants the food. Swerve then burns basically all his spells for the day on Magnus’s brunch.
One platter has a pile of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage links, pancakes, french toast, and a side of fruit. Magnus now has five of these. Magnus eats them as politely as possible, but just keeps going and going and going…
As they eat, Rodimus looks around the table. “Okay, so I know we kicked Zeta’s ass, had a bunch of emotional stuff and all that, but I still have no idea who half of you are.”
“Well, I’m Drift.”
“I know who you are, Drift.”
Ratchet, being snarky, asks, “But does he know who you are inside?”
Drift makes a noncommittal hand gesture.
“Since no one else wants to talk,” Rodimus starts, “I’m Rodimus. I’m a sorcerer, obviously.”
Ratchet comments, “Yeah, you set things on fire.”
“Yes. I do. That’s kind of what I do.”
“That was impressive, yesterday. Very impressive. Impressive as shit, even.”
“Thank you. And who are you, by the way?”
“Name’s Ratchet. I’m a cleric.”
“Thanks for making sure I didn’t die. That’s kind of important.”
“Yeah… y’know, you did a bit of a stupid there, and for a minute I thought you were going to croak, but you made it through, and - it’s nice to not see kids dying. War’s dangerous, Rodimus.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Drift adds. “I’m Drift, I’ve been traveling with Rodimus for a while. I don’t do anything fancy. Uh - it’s nice to meet you?”
Ratchet waves his coffee mug at Drift in welcome.
“So that’s great, I know three of you. And you, over there,” and Rodimus points to Megatron, “who exactly are you, tall, dark, and scary?”
Drift starts laughing, knowing that Rodimus knows exactly who he is. “Roddy!”
“Megatron. Of Kaon. You may have heard of me.”
“Sure, I just wanted to make sure.”
Rodimus turns to Magnus, “Okay, you, hungry.”
Magnus stiffens and vaguely points to herself. “Oh, me? I’m Ultra Magnus, uh, former Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord.”
Rodimus does not know what that is. “Okay, nice to meet you Mags.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well. You were absolutely amazing yesterday.”
“Thank you. I get that a lot.”
Ratchet side eyes Rodimus. Just a little. Just a tad. He’s mulling over the fact that Rodimus asked who Megatron was.
Megatron is also staring at the table quietly hoping that Rodimus was just fucking around.
Ratchet does something that may be extremely stupid, and asks Megatron, “You look a little lost, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I am - fine? I mean, I did get tortured for a week, so as fine as you can be, considering.”
“Eh, that’s fair.” With a mouth full of egg, he asks, “y’don’t get many people asking about your name, do you?”
“I am… fairly sure he was joking.”
Across the table, Rodimus has finished the food on his plate and is now eating his fork.
Drift, “Roddy!”
Megatron is looking at Rodimus like he’s lost it.
Magnus stares at him. “Rodimus I - do not believe that is proper etiquette.”
“You’re going to have to pay for that one, kid,” Ratchet says.
“Drift can pay, don’t worry,” Rodimus says
“You can’t just rely on your friend like that,” Magnus says. “Oh, sweet Solomus…”
As the topic of paying comes up, Warthog, still at the bar, drunkenly yells out, “You’re not payin’ for nothing, Swerve! Swerve! They’re all on my tab! None of you are payin’ for nothin’ in this town! And Swerve! SWERVE! Don’t water down the spiky kid’s drinks! We all know you do it!” And then Warthog collapses on the bar.
Ratchet’s eyes and wallet light up. Magnus breathes a sigh of relief.
Rodimus starts to eat the plate.
“Roddy - Roddy - Roddy,” Drift says, “Just order another plate of food!”
“Drift, please, I still have a perfectly good plate.”
Drift puts his face in his hands briefly before going back to his breakfast.
Megatron is definitely not going to ask about the all-eating tiefling. He stares straight ahead. He is not seeing this. This is not his problem.
Magnus is staring in disbelief. ‘How… how… that shouldn’t be possible.”
Ratchet turns to Magnus, “Hey, former Duly Appointed Enforcer, aren’t you going to do… anything?”
“Seeing as I’m former Duly Appointed Enforcer, uh... I don’t think I can do anything.”
“Oh, well, I know Magnus is very famous for being this very uptight, very by the book person, so I was just curious.”
Magnus, of course, takes this as a compliment. She blushes a little.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, kid,” Ratchet says, leaning across Megatron to talk to Rodimus. “You probably shouldn’t eat shit that belongs to people, y’know?”
“I know…” Rodimus says, “but I can.”
“He’s a lost cause.” Drift says, mournfully.
Ratchet grabs the plate out of Rodimus’s hands and shouts to Swerve, “Hey, this kid needs another plate of eggs!”
Swerve notices that Rodimus has eaten part of the plate, but Rodimus is also sitting at the same table as Megatron so he’s not going to say shit.
When Swerve hesitates to get close to the table, Ratchet shouts again, “I’ll bring it over, just make the eggs!”
Ratchet keeps the chewed on plate to contem-plate / analyze later, as he’s very curious about Rodimus’s munchery. Ratchet’s seen a lot of shit, but he’s never seen such an … omnivorous tiefling.
Rodimus, without his plate to munch, tries to take a piece of food from one of Magnus’s platters. She slaps his hand away. Drift eyes the fruit but doesn’t make the same mistake. Magnus is through about three platters now. Rodimus can relate to the eating part, and Drift is used to Rodimus. Ratchet has glanced at the half-table consuming scene of Magnus’s food with wonder and appreciation.
Rodimus asks, “So… what are everyone else’s plans? This has been lovely, just fantastic, but are we going our separate ways, or? This breakfast has been great, don’t get me wrong, but you're still all basically strangers”
“For the most part,” Drift says, giving Megatron a Look.
“I am staying here,” Megatron says, “and joining the rebellion, I guess.” He considers, then continues in a tense voice, “it will be so much fun to work with Orion again, I cannot wait.”
“Speaking of Orion,” Ratchet says, “I was talking to him, and someone’s child went missing, so I guess I’m going on search and rescue, so if anyone wants to come with, you’re invited.”
“Cool, me and Drift are going too,” Rodimus immediately chimes in.
“Great, I would love to,” Megatron says.
“Absolutely,” Magnus joins in.
“Because apparently our lead for the Knights was a bust, and so we have nothing better to do, so why not save a kid?” Rodimus continues.
“Uh, save a kid from what, exactly? And whose kid?” Drift asks.
“A fellow guardsman of Orion’s. Apparently, while she was under mind control, Zeta took her kid.”
“Oh - oh, okay, I’m in, where do we start?” Drift asks.
“Do you remember what we found in Zeta’s place? Do you remember the plans? Do you remember the secret - thingy? I have a hunch that what we’re looking for might be in there.”
“Well, no time like the present, we’ve all eaten, let’s go.”
Magnus finishes the last of her five platters. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
Team Fire: Session 3, Egg?!; Part 1: Reunions? Breakfast?
Team Fire has continued their adventuring and at last we can bring you more of their shenanigans! Thanks to Hawke for providing recordings for this session and for the rest of the party for taking so much of their time to help with the transcription of all ~3.5hours of it - now you have an even more detailed account of all the hijinks! The full summary came to 30pages/10k+words, so we’ve split it into four parts to make it a bit easier to read on tumblr - click through to Session 3 part 2 at the end to keep reading!
TEAM FIRE
Rodimus by Frosty (tiefling sorcerer)
Drift by Space (earth genasi rogue)
Ratchet by Hawke (firbolg cleric)
Magnus | Minimus by Tuna (half-orc paladin | human/tethyrian wizard)
Megatron by Briar (goliath paladin)
Rewind by Robin (high elf wizard) (out for this week, but back soon)
First Session | Second Session
We begin our adventure with the party asleep after their long day defeating Zeta. In the middle of the night, Rodimus wakes up in the room he shares with Drift, with the sudden sense that someone has gone, like that feeling when people say they know that a relative has died, but also a sense of relief, like it was a shitty relative. To help himself get back to sleep, Rodimus casts sleep on himself.
Ratchet passes out in bed asleep, just conks right out. He dreams of his memories of what happened to the hospital. What Megatron did. But still, Ratchet rises early and rolls out of bed. He’s getting ready for the day when there’s a knock at the door.
“Yes?”
Roller’s voice comes through the door. “Ratch, it’s me, can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure.” Ratchet opens the door.
“Ah, hey, you doing alright? You sleep okay?”
“Ah, yeah, yeah, Slept pretty well.”
“That’s good. Hey, uh, I got a message from Orion, asked if we could meet to catch up since we didn’t really get to yesterday.”
“Oh, did we now.” Ratchet says sarcastically. “Yeah, the little screaming match yesterday,” Ratchet coughs. “Anyways - yeah, did he want to meet with both of us, or?”
“Yeah. To, y’know, avoid any shouting matches again, there’s a cafe a couple streets down, if you wanted to walk over, they open pretty early, and the coffee’s better than what Swerve serves - but don’t tell him I said that.”
“I’ll always take a good coffee.”
“Alright,”
“I’ll be ready in ten,”
“Okay, I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Ratchet and Roller walk over in companionable silence. Ratchet’s still reflecting on the last day, after having spent the evening mostly drunk, and Roller doesn’t force any small talk.
As they walk into the shop, they see baskets of bread and bagels and rolls, rows of pastries in glass cases, and in a large, round case, a whole cake, decorated with frosting shaped like yellow flowers. There are a few others in the cafe eating breakfast or picking up a loaf of bread for the day, Rung and Nightbeat are finishing up their breakfast.
Orion is in a back corner, halfway through a mug of coffee and an apple turnover, and, talking to an Aarakocra woman, dressed in similar armor to Orion, who looks upset and angry. As Ratchet and Roller get closer, she stands up to leave, and they overhear Orion say, “Alright, I’ll ask him.” Orion looks up and acknowledges Roller and Ratchet.
Ratchet grabs a coffee and then joins Orion. There’s a bit of awkwardness because the last time they saw each other, Orion was screaming at the scourge of Kaon and they had just killed Zeta. Roller follows, getting a coffee and a bearclaw. Ratchet and Orion both sit with their backs to the wall, while Roller has his back to the room.
“Thank you for coming,” Orion says, “It’s good to see you again in better circumstances.”
Ratchet stares into his mug of coffee for a little bit, before taking a deep slurp. “So, Orion, how’s the mind control been?”
“Well, better now that you all got rid of Zeta. Things aren’t quite yet coming back, but I’ve been talking with the AVL folks and they’ve been filling me in on what’s happened, they’ve been filling in all the guards. That’s also - the woman who just left, she’s also in the guard, she had the mind control, and, well, we both had the same thing, but she had it worse because - well, we can’t remember, but her kid is gone, and from what we can piece together, she thinks Zeta ordered her to bring her kid to him and leave the kid.”
Ratchet makes a horrified face at the notion.
“I take it from your reaction that you didn’t see any sign of the kid when you made your way through the castle.”
“To be honest I was a bit preoccupied on our way out making sure you got out, so no. We might be able to go back, search the premises if it helps, if - I’m not sure.”
“Yeah, I - assumed if you’d seen someone you would have made sure they got out, but I promised Ekalu I’d ask, since you were in the castle.”
“Yeah, I - I could ask the others when I get back to the tavern…” Ratchet says, trailing off to mutter, “her fucking kid...”
“I appreciate that.” Orion says, to Ratchet’s offer.
“Her fucking kid.” Ratchet mutters again, shaking his head.
Orion looks very downcast. “Fortunately from what we can tell it seems her kid was only gone a few days at the most, maybe a week. So at least not the entire time Zeta has been here.”
“So - you want to stage a search and rescue?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s the map the AVL showed you, I wouldn’t know where else a kid would be,” he considers, “unless there’s some part of the castle that Zeta built recently, something the AVL wouldn’t know about.”
“Yeah, I have an idea.” Ratchet says, “and you can rule out the high-security dungeons, we combed through those.”
“I heard. I -” Orion pauses, frowning, “ - what happened in there? I - You don’t - you don’t have to give me all the details.”
“Ah, not much, freed a lot of men, stumbled across a repentant warlord. Ya know, everyday things.”
“So you really buy it?”
“Coming back to this city was a mistake. I - I’m,” Ratchet considers. “He didn’t try to murder us. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it. But - well, for now, he hasn’t tried any shady things, so - that’ll have to be enough for the moment. Drift - one of my companions on that job, Drift, seemed - rather opposed to taking Megatron down or securing him, or, or even just letting him say in the cell - you know, he was in a variable voltage harness, we didn’t have to let him go.” Ratchet sighs. “This whole thing’s been weird from start to finish.”
Orion sighs. “Well, for what it’s worth, seeing as you’re part of the reason I’m not under Zeta’s mind control anymore, I wouldn’t say coming here was a mistake,” he says. “How’ve you been? It’s been, what, fifteen, twenty years?”
“About. On the road, odd jobs. Trying my best. Trying, sometimes failing. Hmm,” he pauses, considers, “patching up people, the old wandering cleric life. I’ve - I’ve come here for First Aid originally, didn’t think I’d, you know, do the whole fighting a Vampyric overlord thing. I’ve been - y’know, I’ve been undercover.”
Orion nods. “Oh, First Aid’s here, that’s good,” he says, then adds. “They were debriefing all of the guards, they said they’re going to start up city council elections again, get things running back the way they were supposed to be.”
“Oh, well that’s good.” Ratchet considers his coffee. He’s not much of a morning conversationalist, not that he’s much of a conversationalist at any other time. Then, “I’m really glad you’re okay. I’m really fucking glad you’re okay.”
Orion smiles. “I’m glad you’re okay too.” He sighs. “After everything happened in Iacon - just - it’s been hard not to worry, these past few years. And, knowing what you were up against in there - I’m real glad you made it out of there okay.”
“Yeah, I got out, and I -” Ratchet huffs, “I might be so foolish to say I might have some opportunity here, which is - better than nothing. Better than nothing at all.”
“Well, that’ll be good to hear. I don’t know if I’m going to stay in the city.”
“Wait,” Roller interjects, “why - why wouldn’t you stay here?”
Ratchet leans in, skeptical. “Any plans, Pax?”
“Y’know, I - in Iacon, I tried to see what I could do working within the system, and in Kaon I tried to see what I could do outside the system. Then I tried looking for a reformer in Zeta and that obviously didn’t work out -”
Ratchet scoffs.
“- yes, I know, if you had been around you would probably have had more sense and talked me out of it, but - I don’t know what happens next. And I don’t know if there’s a place for me in rebuilding this city. I don’t know how many people recognize me only as someone who worked for Zeta.”
“That’s… if it’s any consolation, if the mind control thing gets out, we might be able to stir up some ruckus, get some new souls on the crew,” he says. “The mind control - it wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault. I get not wanting to risk things. I get - having been forced to spend time as Zeta Prime’s mook, I get that.”
“Yeah.”
“So - what’s your plan? What’re you doing? Where’re you going?”
“I don’t know yet. I think I’ll have to see.”
“All right, well, hit me up when you’re going out into the world. I’ll prepare a big well-wishing speech, and maybe some flowers; hell, I could arrange a cake.”
Orion laughs. “If that’s true, you’ve changed more in the last twenty years than I could’ve imagined.”
Ratchet grins. “Hey, you never know how the times change, you never know where things go.” Ratchet looks at Orion’s plate. “Suppose you want to get proper breakfast food; you don’t look like you’ve eaten much.”
Orion takes a couple more bites of his apple turnover, “Eh, I’ll be fine, I’ll - well, I suppose I’ll get something else.”
“Alright!”
Ratchet finishes the rest of his breakfast in the cafe as well - exactly three and a half peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fancy ones. The cafe staff are a little confused by the order, but they make it in good time, the bread is delicious, the peanut butter is good, and the jam is made in house, and it’s just prime.
As Ratchet sits back down to eat, Roller asks. “So - what about you, Ratch? What are you planning to do? I know you talked to First Aid about maybe setting something up here.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking of - looking around, looking for people who can help, Y’know, we’ll need a place, people to help, to spread the word. It’ll be good to have a place again, where people - where anyone can go to get themselves patched up. For now, I’m staying, helping Aid, so I suppose I’ll keep to the headquarters.”
“Yeah, that’ll be where most of the political decisions are getting made. I, uh, I don’t think Prowl’s slept all night. I saw him on the way out.”
“Oh boy.”
“So if you want to know where things are being decided about how to rebuild, how to get things back running again - I know back before Zeta, there was - I don’t know if it was quite what you were talking about, but there were some clinics, a couple of them, in this town. Might be getting those back up to what they used to be.”
“So I’ve got a point to start. That’s honestly more than I would have hoped for.”
“Glad to have you here, Ratch.”
Ratchet lets out a long sigh. “Same.”
Roller chuckles.
---
After waking up, Magnus goes downstairs to check in with Dominus, and Rewind steps out so they can talk. Magnus walks in and immediately Dominus tries to leap out of bed to hug her but falls instead. She catches him before he can hurt himself.
“Thank you, sister, I -” Dominus sighs, “I keep thinking that I should be feeling better but it’s - it’s still taking its toll.”
“You have - you need as much time as you can possibly get! Don’t worry about it.”
“Ah thank you, I’m terribly sorry.” Dominus lies back down, propping himself upright just enough to give Magnus a hug.
“I heard from Rewind that you and your friends were able to kill Zeta and free the city”
“Ah - I - yes.”
“That’s unbelievable, sister. And I -” Dominus looks at his sister, very sincere, “thank you for keeping yourself and my husband safe.”
“Of course! Of course.”
“How are you doing now? Are you alright?”
“I - I do not know. I’m here now, I saved you. It’s been a long road to here. It’s been three years and - and I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Dominus reaches out and pats Magnus’ forearm before sighing. “I think everything will be alright. I think it will take some time but everything will be - will be alright now. Found a place that I think can be a safe home in a way that -” Dominus pauses. ”In a way that Iacon couldn't.”
“That’s good. That’s very good.“
“Maybe not,” Dominus says quietly before continuing. “Of course that’s - that’s because of you, because you freed the city, so thank you and thank you for coming to find me.”
Magnus is trying to hold back tears.
“I - thank you Dominus. I -” she trails off. Dominus hugs Magnus again, not wanting to let go.
After all the heavy talk Magnus tries to make small talk with Dominus.“So - uh, the hammer?!”
“It’s - it’s quite alright, I know you sister; you don’t need to try and make small talk. It’s quite alright.”
Magnus sighs. “True. Thank you. No - but seriously- why did you make the hammer?”
“Oh, I - Rewind said he gave it to you. Do you like it? Do you like it?!” Dominus asks excitedly.
“It’s absolutely fantastic!”
“I’m so glad! I thought you’d appreciate it. I certainly hope it was useful to you. I’m glad I was able to finish it before you came, although I would’ve liked to give it to you under better circumstances.”
“Heh - yeah it’s - hm,” Magnus considers. “I don’t know how else to describe it; it’s just- useful. Very nice. And you put so much detail on it, so it’s nice to see your work again.”
“From you sister, that’s the highest compliment.”
“Thank you.”
Seeing that Dominus can’t take much more conversation and needs to continue resting, Magnus says, “you need to rest more and knowing me I will pass out if I do not eat something in the next five minutes so - please do rest.”
“I will. Rewind brought me something to eat earlier but please make sure you get yourself something, many things.”
Magnus laughs a bit at the wording. “I intend!”
Dominus gives Magnus one last hug before leaning back on the pillows and closing his eyes. Magnus places a hand on Dominus’ forearm, kisses his head, and says, “Please sleep well brother, I love you.”
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