22-23 Gozran, 44 NC
Poppy recovers and heads out of the compound to call in her ship. Meanwhile, the party clears the rest of the cave system, finding Leitus’ library. Over the course of the subsequent hours, the party transfers a majority of the contents of the library to the ship while Kagdir and Snot embed powder charges around the makeshift Waygate. They question the guard captain Gerard briefly, but only discover that he was a fanatic that knows very little about Leitus and Gideon’s motivations. They imprison him on the ship. Poppy secures herself in her quarters in a funk.
After the charges are set, Kagdir lights the fuse and the ship makes haste for altitude. A short while later, there’s the expected explosion immediately followed by a detonation so huge it takes off the top of the mountain and creates a bang that seems to strum the very strings of reality.
As the sun sets, the ship returns to the crater at what is now the top of the mountain and the party disembarks to investigate – wanting to ensure that the Watgate was destroyed. They arrive at the center of the blast and find no evidence that the gate survived. As they’re about to leave, they hear the sound of running water and see a woman on the other side of the crater, looking at them curiously. Matten and Jacob identify the woman as Cyan Marinetta, the Ringwielder of Water, and the party rushes away and sails clear of the mountain.
The ship sails North through the night. The next morning, a lookout notices another “ship” in the distance, resolving into a manner of blimp. It begins to pursue the ship, rapidly gaining ground. Attempts to get Poppy to emerge from her cabin and take charge prove fruitless. As the airship approaches and begins to fire, Poppy opens the door to her cabin and shoves a note into the hands of whoever is waiting outside. It reads, “the Etu’Sauri is in charge”.
It was.
While Kagdir was setting up the explosives, a couple of us raided the library, taking as many of the books as we could get with us. Not that I had any idea what the books were about; for all I knew, we might be carrying off stories of beautiful elven maidens and handsome oak trees or something. Still, it probably wouldn’t hurt to bring books from Leitus’ library back with us.
The sole surviving enemy, the captain with the shiny armour, didn’t seem to know much about motives and plans and stuff. He seemed to have been happy to follow orders, without actually asking too many questions. I know it is a valued trait in soldiers by some commanders, but it makes it hard to improvise and adapt if you don’t know what the goals or targets are. In addition to that, he was pretty much a fanatic.
Anyway, we ended up bringin him aboard the ship, together with the books. Leaving him behind when we were planning to blow up the place seemed wrong, I suppose. I mean, I don’t mind killing in combat, and killing someone when the alternative means risking the mission I’m ok with. Getting rid of someone just because they’re an inconvenience when we have other options, that’s something else again.
Kagdir finished setting up the explosives, and off we went.
The explosion was spectacular. Or rather, the [b]second[/b] explosion was spectacular. I suppose that is the word for it, and not necessarily in a good way. Definitely not in a good way. It blew the top off the mountain. And that’s not hyperbole. The entire top was gone, and the complex we had just vacated seemed to be gone as well. Including the Waygate. Judging from Kagdir’s face, it was somewhat larger than he had expected. He had said he did not have sufficient explosives to blow up the Waygate, but it seemed he had been mistaken. And while getting rid of the Waygate probably was a good thing, it was guaranteed to have attracted some attention.
And then, of course, Jacob insisted on landing and taking a closer look. Considering who our enemies are, someone might be on their way in our direction, and fast. We had just, most likely, drawn the attention of someone extremely powerful (or several someones), someone who would most likely want to investigate what had happened as fast as possible. And we were staying at the crime site. Brilliant.
Most of the team went off to check the crater. I stayed that the ship; I could see enough from there. After a short while, the others came rushing back, telling us to take off, as they had pretty much run into Cyan Marinetta. Sometimes, it is very hard to not say something, you know, like “told you so” or “what did I say?”. I did manage, though.
That became even harder the next morning, when we woke up to the delightful news that another airship had been spotted.