Aersalus B-Team: Season 1, Session 12 – The Road to Ironhaul

Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

Unit Seven has been around for a few days listening. There’s talk among the miners noting that there’s plenty of profitable areas to mine out but they seem to be avoiding them for some reason and instead just quarrying out large amounts of stone and stockpiling it. Workers go to the quarry every day, quarry stone, go back home and it’s just sitting there in the transport area. The city itself seems fairly orderly for the most part but people aren’t certain what exactly to do with Unit Seven as they know what it is but they would prefer to ignore it, only dealing with it as little as possible. Unit Seven did secure the constabulary in Ironhaul as well, which is connected to the courthouse where they hold trials and judgements and such. The place seems unused for a long time but unusually clean.

Listens keeps walking around waiting for the council member to somehow stumble onto him despite no one being sent to inform the council member that they’re present. Looking around, Ironhaul does appear to be in pretty decent condition, far better than Wolftrap. There is a poor population around in a distant quarter of the city. There’s also fairly major Church of Lucent present made of stone and stained glass. It’s not a bad place, there’s a definite degree of have and have-nots around. They are getting food from somewhere, but there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of agricultural areas. Listens does notice wagons of trade goods from Wolftrap. No one actually finds Listens as he makes his way back to the constabulary.

Trapper, meantime, sniffs heavily inside the constabulary. The fact that it’s disused but clean indicates that there’s someone that cares enough to keep the place up and Trapper wants to know who that is by memorizing the smell.

Tessikai, meantime, has found a mouse and is having the time of her life with it, playing with it.

City, Counseled

Listens-to-Ocean
The House of the Founders
Windsday, Skure 15th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 1st hour of the Sun
Ironhaul, Western Span

The courtroom does have some furniture inside it, but not a lot. It doesn’t seem neglected, but it also doesn’t seem like it’s been occupied or seen by a lot of people. Listens now decides to head off to the council building. It’s rather posh and somewhat taller than it should be, though it was also likely added on later after the initial construction of the building. Upon entry, there’s a woman there in dull orange peasant dress and a series of Kymetic heaters all around, making it nice and warm and not at all smelling of wood smoke. The woman is looking at Listens over the top of her desk, asking if she can help him.

Listens asks to see whomever is in charge only to be told that the High Council is busy at the moment. He introduces himself and she goes to see if the council wishes to see him at the moment before introducing herself as Ketola ru Valasar and then rushing off through a door to the offices. The woman comes back out, informing him that her father, er, the mayor (Nantaan ru Valasar)  is busy at the moment and asks they return in the evening which Listens acquiesces to.

The Blind House

Listens-to-Ocean, Trapper, and Unit 7
Judiciary Building aka “The Blind House”
Windsday, Skure 15th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 4th hour of the Sun
Ironhaul, Western Span

Listens and Trapper are staring at each other in the constabulary when a knock comes on the door. On the other side is a dwarf looking for the magistrate to register a complaint. A bit of back and forth between Trapper and the dwarf he finally explains that he’s there because someone is stealing his work and selling it, having overlaid his manufacturer mark with his own which the guy had changed to do so on purpose. Trapper asks about evidence to which the dwarf slams down a large leather bag of evidence before looking for furniture, not finding any the dwarf leaves for some time before coming back with a large amount of similar looking dwarves and dwarf children, obviously a single family, with a large amount of furniture in tow and start setting up the constabulary.

One of the younger dwarven girls starts dusting Unit Seven who then speaks up, surprising the girl. She declares amazement and starts inspecting the cog and complaining about the state of the cog. She runs off, during which Unit Seven speaks with its ferret that can suddenly speak, or a least listen in Shenic. The girl comes back with a toolbox and starts fixing up and polishing.

Trapper keeps listening to Kasaqar ru Ironhaul as the evidence is laid out. Receipts and testimonies going back nearly twenty years prior. Apparently, recently, stock of his has been disappearing and a human, Tekkuder ap Spineward, seems to be selling things very close to it or the exact item approximately 12 years prior. He tells Trapper that the man that’s doing all of this was previously his apprentice, except that Tekkuder was rather full of himself and quit and Kasaqar’s kept the money that Tekkuder’s father had paid since Tekkuder had quit of his own will. Trapper keeps taking down the complaint and asks a few questions including for evidence of their maker marks. Trapper learns that Tekkuder is the younger brother of one of the Church of Lucent’s higher ups and that the family of Kasaqar was responsible for the hot tubes and steam tubes running through the city.

All the while, the young dwarf is still buffing out Unit Seven and it slowly realizes that the young dwarf has some kind of magic of sorts as age old scratches vanish under her care. Unit Seven keeps speaking with her all throughout, something about her opening him up to speak. She keeps scrubbing hard and commenting on all the damage and saying that just because Unit Seven is a cog, doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to be clean. It starts to clean out the latticework in Unit Seven’s chest, determining that it’s possibly a kani crystal slot and heads out to get another tool.

Listens comes into the constabulary to find it warm and full of dwarves and the scent of food. Unit Seven fills in Listen about what is happening and the few details that it’s gathered before the team got there. The lack of shipping out of quarry stone, the upkeep of the town, various other bits of information. Listens approaches and speaks with Kasaqar, saying that what they’re doing is not to count as anything other than a gift and definitely isn’t a bribe. He also blows off Kasaqar’s complaint, saying to just keep giving it to Trapper before looking back around the constabulary.

The young girl starts working on Unit Seven again who tells her that aspects of his construction is not to be disclosed to others as she straps a contraption to his chest and then inserts a crystal causing him to start vibrating a lot. It’s rather distracting for Unit Seven before it stops and she unbuckles the device, a sort of ultrasonic cleaning device as she keeps cleaning off the mud and rest of the dirt, talking about the kani crystal slot in his chest. She pops the crystal from the machine and moves to insert it into Unit Seven’s chest receptacle. There’s something else in Unit Seven’s peripheral awareness now, almost like another part of Unit Seven’s body like a finger. It decides it would be best to experiment privately.

Kasaqar finishes the complaint and offers for his son to take a look at the crossbow before shaking Trapper’s hand and heading out, his family going with him excepting his eldest daughter who is speaking with Tessikai and the one polishing Unit Seven. After a bit, she shows Unit Seven what he looks like with everything nice and clean and shiny, now free of rust and grime. It compliments her handiwork before she has to leave for the night.

Unit Seven looks around to try to secure the Magistrate after Listens gets a note that the council member will speak with him in the morning in the council chambers.

Listens follows his nose to find someplace with a lot of spiritual energy, leading him into the mines where he can feel the steady thrum of some kind of spiritual energy like a rhythmic beat. It doesn’t feel hostile, but it’s definitely unfriendly. Listens gets the idea that it’s mad, but not at him. He decides that’s a good enough place to meditate, at least for the first day.

The Blind House

Listens-to-Ocean, Trapper, and Unit 7
Judiciary Building aka “The Blind House”
Woodsday, Skure 16th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 1st hour of the Sun
Ironhaul, Western Span

The next day, they get a message from Raito that they’ve found a valuable stand of hardwood old growth trees and that it’s fairly valuable. Altan is quite giddy about the idea of how much revenue it may bring it and Rhum is learning quite a bit. They also note that they have found a cave that they will be exploring.

Unit Seven has been staring at their new shininess for a while now, looking at the dark blue-green-gray of their metal exterior that is giving them flashbacks of sorts. Reaching up touching their forehead, they find a sigil that’s carved into their forehead, an ideogram for Seven. Trapper is woken up by Tessikai complaining about her prosthetic. Giving it a quick yank back into form fixes it and he slowly wakes up and gets up, noting that they’ve managed to get quite a bit of the wagons unpacked.

A Walk About Town

Listens-to-Ocean
Multiple Places in Ironhaul
Woodsday, Skure 16th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 2nd hour of the Sun
Ironhaul, Western Span

Listens wanders around and speaks with the miners. Unit Seven waits for the young dwarf to take him to the market. Listens finds a large group of miners hanging out at what looks like an abandoned theatre with food and drink being sold and passed around. They stare at Listens, not too certain what the magistrate is doing there. Most of the miners are older or middle aged with a strange lack of young ones there, only maybe one or two but there’s any number of reasons why they might not be there.

Listens purchases some food that’s definitely deep fried, basically a sausage patty and mincemeat inside pastry, and some beer. Sitting down, seeing if anyone speaks with him. An older dwarf saunters up and sits down right across from the magistrate, greeting him as he introduces himself as Alud ru Sathrayo. The dwarf inquires about the fact that Listens is supposed to be hearing Kasaqar’s case. Listens says he can’t say anything about it since he doesn’t know anything, but that Trapper will figure something out having assigned him as being a prosecutor. Alud explains how he’s one of the few remaining miners who remember how it was before and Listens mentions that he noticed the buildup of quarry material. The dwarf mentions they can’t get things down to Redfeather where it would normally get sent out further. When asked why it can’t go to Redfeather, the dwarf looks around and motions for them to move spots.

The dwarf talks about the last war (the War of the Ashen) that occurred, they say that they. . . lost. When you fight yourself you’re always a loser. After the war, there’s not a lot of people left alive and the locals from all over the Span were mad at them. He talks about the Halls of Fire (also known as the Emberheart Keep) and how the dark beings that live there were bargained with for domain of fire and flame. They could not be removed from that place so long ago a songshaper and a shen put them to sleep and sealed them away. And they remained that way until a enterprising young noble decided that fire magic would win the conflict between the noble houses of the Span and end the war. In a way, it did as the Empire go involved and mercilessly killed anyone who would not cease fighting. At the end, several Imperial spellweavers came in to place the spirits of the place back to sleep and to hope that they stay that way. But still they can’t get the road rebuilt since there’s too many wild things coming from the ground and now they can’t get things to Redfeather. Listens offers some empty platitudes about what the Duke is going to do for the area and that they’ve got a few stoneshapers as well. The dwarf mentions that if they could get the road semi-fixed then they might be able to haul it out of there, but it’s just complicated.

Alud tells listens that he reminds him of his nephew. A good kid, not a thought in his head whatsoever, but a good kid. His mother died of illness some time ago. They don’t go deep down into the tunnels anymore, but they still mine out the stuff on the surface, saying there’s things down there that a person would never want to see again. Listens asks about the rumbling or weirdness over the past few years, only to hear that it’s the Heart of the Mountain ticked off. Listens asks if it was the Church of the Lucent, but Alud mentions that the previous head of the Church was a goo man, but the newest one – Brother Clarity – has his head right up his ass. Alud explains that the problem is that the Sundered Hollow is the results of two groups of spirits fighting. The spirits of the west mountains greatly dislike the spirits of the east mountains…and Ironhaul is in the middle of both. So the spirit there is in constant war with itself and its two natures. But the ground is full of riches and the lands of the Hollow are fertile. Alud notes that some of the younger miners would grab what they can from the rich deposits and running down to Redfeather for a quick buck.

Apparently most of the food in town is going to the Church and they’re getting food in from where else they can, but Brother Clarity controls the safer paths around. And that’s because Brother Clarity is actually Clarity ru Valasar – the mayor’s sibling. Walking around, the dwarf takes Listens to Drop Street the start of the poorer area of town. There’s plenty of dark spirits around and most of the original inhabitants have been pushed down that way, only a few of the old families still living up on top of the hills. The dwarf purchases a flower from a nearby stall, giving it to Listens before they keep walking along. Listens gets a tour of the worse parts of the city and he sees all sorts of things he had rather wished he hadn’t. Off of Drop Street is Lilac Lane, which is the seediest of the areas. The Dwarf also shows him around some of the ritziest places as well, including homes carved right from the living rock of the mountain, showing off their wealth. They eventually head out to the theatre where Listens then heads out to the The Blind House.

A Child Will Lead Them

Unit 7
Truehand Forgeworks
Woodsday, Skure 16th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 4th hour of the Sun
Ironhaul, Western Span

Unit Seven meets up with the young dwarf, who compliments him again on its looks. She shows him to the bazaar, calling it really fun and saying that sometimes they have sweet root. Unit Seven asks Trapper about heading to the market for research which Trapper doesn’t seem any issue with. At the market, just about everything they could use is there, but not everything they need. Plenty of spices and plenty of merchants hawking their wears. The first place they end up is a cart that sells food that the dwarf girl purchases for herself, commenting on how Unit Seven is unable to eat while Unit Seven mentions that he’s powered by another source – elan vital. Something that the young dwarf has seen made within her family’s workshop. She shows Unit Seven around the market and the workhouses going to one of the family workhouse – Truehand Forgeworks. He keeps terrifying people, which the young dwarf swears is part of Unit Seven’s voice modulator so she tries to convince it to go to the workhouse and one of her brothers can take a look at things. It insists on going back to the constabulary that they’re moving elsewhere for further repairs before going elsewhere.

The workshop is sprawling like they kept adding on more and more to it. It’s taller than most buildings around it, but only because it’s actually got a second floor. The doors to it are massive, about 15 feet tall or taller with a smaller person-sized door set into it. There’s ash and soot and burning wood and metal being shaped. For some strange reason, Unit Seven feels at home there and it’s not sure why exactly. It finds itself reaching out and running its hand against the wall, touching a groove that it likely couldn’t see, but definitely feel. The young dwarf leads Unit Seven to the second floor as Unit Seven notes that it’s experiencing fragments of memories, perhaps fragments of lost programming. On the second floor, they pass a jewel forging station, something that Unit Seven hasn’t seen anywhere except the Empire for the longest time. Inside a door, there’s a dwarf working on clockwork that isn’t wanting to work, the springs going sprong in the wrong way. The dwarf throws the broken attempt away and tries to start over as the young dwarf girl mentions her brother broke all his fingers after an accident with unexpected explosive decompression of a compressed spring and now her brother is having to do all the delicate work with his bad hand.

The young girl introduces Unit Seven to her brother who is fascinated with the cog. Calling it an honor to meet them, introducing themselves as Narei ru Ironhaul. Narei notes the damaged voice modulator and mentions he isn’t used to working on a cog’s voice modulator, but it should be rather similar to other things they’ve worked with. Getting Unit Seven to sit down, they get tools, and pop Unit Seven’s faceplate off to clear out debris. Noting they they’ve got a face underneath the faceplate. They dig into Unit Seven’s neck, pulling it out to repair it, saying it’s just a cracked crystal. Taking a few minutes to repair it at the crystalforging station and then letting it cool slightly before placing it back into Unit Seven. Once Unit Seven starts talking, but their voice is quite a bit more human sounding, noting that whomever made the voice modulator knew what they heck they were doing.

Kala notes to Narei they can’t reveal everything while Narei asks if Unit Seven is one of the “rogue units.” Showing Unit Seven a book about cogs, almost like a dissected human, and then a journal from a gremian settlement up north that got reports of cog units becoming self-aware. Narei offers to try to help hide what Unit Seven is, which it accepts, saying it feels that news of their malfunctions reaching certain ears would be rather bad. Narei offers to look at Unit Seven’s control crystal, before he can do so, Unit Seven grabs hold of Narei’s arm and looks at his bad hand, saying that Listens is considered a good healer and that he should go and request healing when possible. Saying that he’s seen Listens performing healing on several people without requesting compensation.

Narei starts walking around the shop, looking for things, while the young girl asks if Unit Seven’s companions don’t know about its weirdness and if they would hurt it. She says that she won’t let them hurt Seven. Unit Seven says there’s just subroutines that say that they need to keep it quiet. They discuss people changing or being reprogramed with the girl saying that people don’t change, they just become more of who they are. Narei comes back with some unusual tools and says if he takes a look at Unit Seven’s control crystal, they may be able to mask what he is, showing Unit Seven a magnifying glass of a kind and saying to look at its hands. Looking through the glass, their hands are definitely throwing off some kind of energy, a kind of weirlight. It notes that others have noted that others have noted it. He sets up mirrors so that Unit Seven can observe what’s happening, saying he doesn’t even know what sort of kani crystal it is. Saying that someone may want to take it from Unit Seven, saying something about shadow crystals being used to set up some kind of field of deception, looking for a book for it, setting it down to check some things.

Unit Seven stares at the book and it seems like it’s about to say something when a blip occurs and suddenly they’re all done. Narei is amazed by how much Unit Seven knew and how they knew what to do. Unit Seven is already all closed back up, and looking down notices they are holding a pen, obviously having been drawing things during the blip they skipped. They’ve got a field around themselves now, keeping the energy from showing through, showing the energy magnifying glass again to show that the energy is no longer flaring from Unit Seven. Narei notes that it’s getting later and that they best head back, while Narei will work on other things that Unit Seven asked for, motioning to the drawings. Unit Seven notes that there’s no way for it to pay, which Narei notes it’s fine since they’re friends.

Aftermath

Trapper finds the lack of documentation on local crimes suspicious enough to check the city council and the city library for the records regarding such things as registered maker marks, local trends on death, crime, etc., and any other information he can get his furry hands on.

After Action Report (GM)

There is so much to say about this session. I don’t think I have the time or space to put down everything I would like to because there is too much. Instead, I’ll sum up: what an amazing round of roleplaying. Every single player present brought their full – and even I didn’t do too bad. For some reason, this session was very cathartic to me. I wanted to finish my notes right after but I was just emotionally spent. I needed to try and sleep.

Listens-to-Ocean remained amazingly funny from a outworld perspective and just…sweet in world. The little haulflin is trying to do the right thing. He wants to be fair. He wants to give his best. He wants to make good impressions but somehow the player keeps sticking his foot in his mouth and it is the best thing ever. We sort of quasi decided last night that Listens was just going to make someone in the local power structure angry because of something he says. It’s a thing now. And we’re all kind of here for it. Still, Rory (Listen’s player) was just so…emotive in some ways and not in others and it really does work.

Unit 7…oof. Unit 7. Brice (7’s player) is not always at the table with us. And I am fine with that. Only a couple of players in my games get to do that. He’s one of them. Why? Because when he’s there he is there. He focuses on the game, doesn’t matter to him if he gets to do much, and makes the other players invest more just by his intensity. But when he gets a chance to shine boy does he shine. The interplay between 7 and the little dwarf girl (Kala) was supposed to be a one-off. He was supposed to just do the be-boop-beep and that was that. That did not happen. Instead there was a series of protracted scenes of utter wholesomeness that it left me reeling even a day latter. I suppose Kala is going to end up a NPC that shows up often while the PCs are in Ironhaul. And since I like the whole “That Darn Kid!” trope that is just fine by me.

World Lore Tidbit (Aersalan Crystalforging)

Aersalus crystalforging is the skill to manipulate kani crystals (and other mundane gems) through a combination of sound, special reagents, and tools allowing the crystal to be shaped in most any form the user desires. It is also the skill to properly cut and harmonize the spiritual energies within it to create a supernatural effect. In Aersalus, kani crystals are how skyships fly, how their fuel (elan vital) is created, and much more. While not super uncommon, properly cut and tuned ones are. Most crystals are used to power kymetic technology, but they can also be used in other ways. For example, a kani crystal when properly attached top a modulation socket can produce effects related to the nature of the crystal. So a ignis kani crystal attached to a sword could cause the weapon to burst into flame. It’s also possible to make items completely out of kani crystal, but they are so prohibitively expensive that only the nobility or wealthy can afford to do so. Aersalan technology is rather dependent on kani crystal and is one of the ways that a certain level of comfort for most is achieved. For instance, the thermics mentioned in this episode can heat or cool an area by using elan vital to stimulate kani crystals to either emit heat or absorb it. Some thermics can do both, most are just one or the other. This sort of thing was extremely important given that the planet is finally coming out of a mini-ice age and helps explain why the people of Aersalus didn’t regress but so far!

Other Notes

Bonus Report from Rory.

Soundtrack

“Everybody’s Talkin’ (Cover)” by Frank Watkinson

Aersalus B-Team: Season 1, Session 14 – Details, Doxies, and Displays