3.6 KiB
| title | created | updated | public | syndicated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00074 | Tue, 21 Mar 2023 21:11:46 -0600 | Tue, 21 Mar 2023 21:11:46 -0600 | yes | yes |
00074
Blavin's vouchers enable you to far exceed your modest budget for retrofitting the cyberplasm balloonship for space travel.
Not only were you able to get a portable atmosphere and a starhelm from the ever resourceful Wandering Bazaar. But you were also able to mount a ballista on a turret in the center of the main deck so you can fire large bolts in nearly any direction. And even a mangonel on the top deck: a long range trebuchet that takes more time to load, aim, and fire; but which does considerably more damage than the shorter-range ballista.
Above the Milk Market, a crew of Alex's agents get the ship ready for departure. They have stoked the burners, and the resident sunspoke has happily filled the balloons with enough lift for the ship to start to pull and strain at its tethers.
You cut the rope loose, and Vay'Nullar falls away beneath you as the ship rises into the sky.
When the air becomes thinner and the sunspoke begins to sputter somewhat, you switch off the burner move the sunspoke into a cold locker in the galley to induce hibernation so that it doesn't accidentally burn through your limited reserve of oxygen.
You activate the portable atmosphere, a small block of newtonian covered with arcane runes and affixed to the cargo hold. Newtonian is an alchemical substance made of pure density. There are entire volumes in Nullar's cosmic library devoted to the timelines that met an abrupt, violent end upon the discovery of the substance. Luckily, the alchemists of Basmentaria in your timeline were able to stabilize the element before all of creation collapsed into a singularity. And now it is commonplace for runewardens to attune small pieces of the stuff to spacefaring ships so that each ship is able to sustain its own unique gravity plane. In this way, each ship retains an amount of breathable atmosphere relative to its size; and starsailors are able to confidently walk along the top (and bottom!) of their craft.
Next you head to the starhelm.
Even when it comes to magic, there are certain principles that tend to hold true. One such princple---when it comes to starsailing, at least---is the conservation of energy. There are lots of different kinds of starhelms. But they all consume something in order to propel your ship across the stars.
However endless the treasures of the Wandering Bazaar may seem, starhelms remain quite rare. You consider yourself lucky to find the one that you did. It could have been a costly Forgehelm, requiring constant fuel in the form of precious stones and powerful artifacts. Or an even more costly Bloodhelm, slowly siphoning away your life essence.
Yes, all things considered you could have done much worse than the Emotionhelm that you purchased. All that it requires of you to keep the ship on course is that you scream, rant and rave, and bawl and cry at it periodically.
You imagine it ought to be quite therapeutic, actually.
Portable atmosphere activated, and having fed the starhelm a bit of melancholia, the ship finally exits the planet's atmosphere. Your crew takes down the balloons once they start to deflate and stores them in the cargo hold. And you set sail for Lua, the Red Lady.
In the distance, you see a pod of gargantuan aetherwaels drifting through the void. Nearby, you see a small school of space guppies swim by and then quickly scatter as a space gull dives at them and tries to scoop up a quick meal.
You have a couple day's of travel ahead of you, and the very non-empty void of space on all sides of you.
WHAT DO YOU DO?