The Adventures of the Edo Sunset

2024-07-30

• Background on the game this googly doc over here

Background

• Holly and Sunny heading out to Rising Islands
• Attempting to get a picket out to a strange island on the arse end of nowhere, which is only inhabited by hermits and who tells their story
• CREW of the Edo Sunset:
  • Charlie the Captain (Tom)
    • Has a cool dramatic big swishy coat
    • Favourite food: not much of one, mostly just into having a sandwich on hand while on deck and forgets to eat otherwise.
  • Samantha (Sammy) the Stoker (Mark)
    • 5' 10" leather apron, big tool belt, cool pirate top to vent heat, has a cool Scottish accent.
    • Smells strongly of Ceruleum and a little bit of alcohol
    • Favourite food: Fish and chips because its hard to get at sea, only in port, like a treat.
    • Amenable, likable
  • Martha the Cook (Ceri)
    • Has a lot of delicious teas
    • Smells of teas, biscuits, food, good solid fare
  • Nishimura the Deck Hand (Tabitha)
    • Dressed in a mix of a few good quality underlayers, tunic etc, with a rough and ready wool coat on the top and a Newsboy cap, has only a small leather satchel of possessions
    • Smells very faintly of nice soap
    • Favourite food sushi.

Establishing Scenes

• On New Aberdeen heading to Patay (?)
  • It's sort of a Scottishy place
  • Has a slight air of expectations
  • Joanna who runs "The Ceruleum Miners Woes" an upcoming inn, the only inn.
• Gently raining
• Us and a large Ceruleum transporter thats offloading.
• The whole crew has a faint blue glow.
• Three weeks from Kyoto
• Martha attempts to give tea to Holly and we think she has an inner skill to talk to some animals (because Sunny talks to her) and they pitch a bit of a story to trade for travel to their destination to search for their missing person, which confuses Charlie a little who'd be out there!
• Holly reveals she's never met her target and thought they were dead.
• Charlie and Martha know that Patay is a former Cerulum mine that was abandoned in strange circumstances and weird conspiracy theories as to why and no ones supposed to be resident there, not banned, just empty and "a bit dangerous"
• Samantha comes up talking about needing a new alternator maybe, says we've got maybe 100 hours of flying, has *a* spare and if we lose too may it'll be bad.
• Plan: Stock the galley to cook, engine to engineer, everyone else to get whatever we can, and don't be careful out there!
  • There's a shindig at the Ceruleum Miners Woes, with specially brewed alcohol and its the talk of the town, we probably brought that in with the mail.
• Stock up:
  • Martha gets some good provisions including meat to hang
  • Nishimuri goes to restock the sky fishing kit, and also a small sewing kit.
  • Charlie is looking for news, but also stories of places no one has been before, starts with fishermen looking to drown their sorrows at the Harbourmasters office, they've retired and trading their stories.
    • Boat hunting the greatest Ceruleum deposit in the north, wanting to make a name in the Cartographers Guild, the crew have rumours that "the Great Cartographer" has been seen, he's voyaged more north than anybody else has done before.
    • Asks about Patay and there's a sharp intake of breath, been a while since people go there, a bit creepy things that go bump in the night, has a spooky blue/green glow a wrong blue! They suggest she steer clear and she gives that impression.
    • He once came through here in a one man air yacht called "The Southwark Belle" decked in Green and Blue.
  • Samantha heading for parts! Mostly getting parts and looking for things that take her fancy to have bits to maybe bodge, the crafter puts their mark on it and says you'll find no finer altermeter outside New Aberdeen good for an inch every mile of height.
  • Holly: Gets beef chowmein and is mostly window shopping, hears some of the rumours about Patay, hears the weather will be wet and surprisingly warm.
  • Sunny manages to act bedraggled and gets a hot beef sandwich which was made extra by accident, she gives a wet doggy kiss in exchange and gets ruffled
• The sun sets and its the boiling dual sunset that is ethereal and a reminder of how weird the place is

The Ceruleum Miners Woes

• Opens its doors, strange music of mixed improvised instruments emerge - Scottish, Irish, Japanese music with themes/philosophy of dancing, drinking, and fucking (themes of no sex, good sex, and bad sex, also the rain, and heart break)
• Sammy, Nishimura, and Martha definitely there early. Sunny has been there since she could get in to beg for scraps.
• Sammy shows up with a bit of cleavage on show, red curls, and looks happy and pretty and orders a drink, she has the vibe of looking for something, she's trying new things. Nishimura is obviously trying to copy Sammy and stuff gets ordered for her (but also she's far more of a lightweight)
• Holly opens her tab by starting on the story of rescuing Bow Bell, but with a theatrical person trying to force others to perform in their stories!
• Captain Charlie makes a showy entrance in the swish coat, chats to many people, wants to be a person of importance rather than a big shot, a lass comes up to try and get the tale of getting the first dance.
• A crafter (Ben) comes in to tell the tale of sad times not being able to grow enough stuff, then asks Nishimura what brings her there and she talks about the danger of the ship, talks up the skill of her crew, and claims she was a newspaper deliverer before reading too many exciting stories and signing aboard with Captain Charlie
  • Ben talks of multi-variant valves from the forges of Sheffeld (definitely how Paul pronounced it) and Samantha complains they may be too flimsy for high pressure, they get talking and then head to the dance floor
  • Nishimura attempts to deal with the overflow of drinks, Martha helps out.
• Sunny sniffs out the Ceruleum miners, begs treats, one lass attempts to dance with her, and she helps out.
• Nishimura works out that who dances with who first, is used to Kyoto hierarchy, here it's more about firsts. Slides up to Holly holding a pint in both hands and attempts to persuade Holly as the exciting outsider this will net her exciting social cache.
  • Judges Holly is a little out of the loop but socially high status, so leads her in the dance (success 3)
• Captain Charlie: chatting with the captain of the Ceruleum transporter, who says its a dry ship, doesn't want a drunk deck hand around 50k tons of explosives. It takes a week to load/unload so gets drunk that time. This is his 50th year.
  • He used to do a stop up at Patay, says its a story how it all closed out, some of which he saw with his own two eyes
  • Charlie says she's headed to Patay so he can invest in a future story and will come back and tell it.
  • Was a tank captain (in charge of a big storage tank on a ship) on the night that Patay was evacuated. A stormy night, lightning, half full and more to get filled. The crew said they saw ghosts, people with 4 arms, thought they could be drunk or having too many weird southern mushrooms, but he saw it stone cold sober.
    • men with pale skin, 4 arms and a spear the length of his arms doubled, tipped with a green glowing something or other.
    • Appeared from the depths of the island where they'd just dug a hole for a Roberts thingy, they found an archway while digging.
    • The miners ran aboard, they split the transport tube and made off.
    • The captain took them to Kyoto where he had to give a lot of statements to an administrator.
    • Heard they asked the great cartographer to go out and investigate and he knows there's a strange greenish glow at night.
• The group parties, people pair off, eventually the starlight begins to fade, the faint glow of one of the suns about to rise. Eventually a banging at the door and a man in an Imperial Cloud Navy uniform comes in shouting "She's gone! They attacked her! Devil's with spears! The survey vessel! She's gone beneath the clouds!" he got off on a life buoy and floated here, implores us to search for survivors.
  • The Captain suggests we can start early
  • Holly collects her stuff, Sammy is tasked with getting Nishi back to the ship.

The Edo Sunset - Rescue Mission!

• Martha at -1 penalty, everyone else at -2 until the tea, then its 0/-1
• Holly is recruited to help make tea while Charlie gets the ship cast off checks.
• Everyone successfully casts off, and the Captain gives a big spin of the wheel to get going
• Charlie shares the gossip, tells people to keep a look out for a one man launch called "The Southwark Belle" and we prepare for doom
  • Reminder: Violence is abhorrent and may bring The Emperors Grace being brought down on people, which has only happened once far off to the Pyramid Island and to a non-Imperial Citizen. Death brings the end of a story
• We sail into the boiling red sunrise, seeing odd floating dots in the distant, perhaps life balloons!
  • First we find is empty, second has a passed out officer, Charlie does some first aid, a non-lethal concussion.
  • Nishimura helps loads him into a cabin, tells Sammy the news, then takes a message up to pass on the message of does she need to take the wheel
• Charlie starts to try and chart the perfect course to rescue as many people as possible - we get three more junior officers who are thirsty, cold, not feeling well but mostly healthy.
  • One of them goes to check on Sarcon and says they're not sure he'll make it through the day.
  • We turn it around to head back to New Aberdeen, there's a stumbling noise and someones comes up, hears the sounds of someone coming up from under the deck, Sunny can smell blood and death (like someone is about to die maybe?), Nishimura is hiding at the back doing embroidery on her coat and looking scared.
  • The captain comes up saying "If I'm going to die I want it to be on the deck, under the envelope of an air ship!" and Sunny goes to lick him, he looks deathly ill still but also more stable.
  • Sammy is under orders to pump the engines, which makes it cooking, a blueish haze in the room, we dump some stuff overboard.
• So! We haul arse! Nishimura gets recruited to hand out tea and sandwiches. Gets some roast beef for the injured captain. Tells Nishi he got hit by creatures, hit on the back of the head.
  • They were passing by Patay when they got attacked, they had a boat of their own, a crude boat of their own, floated wrong, no engine and they rowed with all 4 arms, large fan like oars.
  • Says he knows her from somewhere, they talk of Kyoto and how she used to deliver papers on the docks, he talks of the capital and how he once met the Emperor and danced with his daughter and it was one of the best dances in his time, she tells him to save that story for later but he says its to pay for the care/sandwich but they agree that him getting rescued will pay for treatment and everything.
  • Captain Charlie gets told the news and goes to talk to Captain Sarcon, leaving Nishimura to hold the ship on course which she nervously accepts and also Charlie is nervous about handing over the ship...

2024-08-05

The Edo Sunset hightails it back to New Aberdeen, drops off the crew and the miraculously surviving Captain Sarcon. New Aberdeen is a bit bedraggled by rain, and everyone's a little hung over with a few other Imperial Navy types on the docks having been rescued by us and others from the Kyoto Sunset

So a sensible days sailing, Captain Charlie tries to take a tighter route, Sammy keeps the Engine going, Martha keeps the food going and fishes, Nishimura generally helping out.

We head into the Calidonian Mountainous islands, this brings us higher, so it gets colder, as the suns start to set we can see the Roberts Aetherial Siphon like a giant fishing rod drooping off the edge of the islands, some of them have poor docks. Captain Charlie sends Nishimura to go check on the garou and knocks on Holly's cabin door and there's a lot of noise of things moving (she was sorting the Magpie Swag) then gets taken up to the deck. Sunny has been chilling in the Engine Room under a workbench getting pets from Sammy.

Captain Charlie asks for advice on where would be good to dock and Holly muses about Uncle Styles and how he appreciates aesthetics so looks for somewhere to set in, spots some of the weird green glow that doesn't make sense, it feels almost blasphemous... a rusted Robert's Tube, but no obvious camp sites. There's talk of maybe setting up on the island with the blue-green glow as that's where something will be, a discussion where Captain Charlie assures Holly she'll only put her in the amount of danger she can accept.

So the docks were initially metal, but that's rusted away and dropped off, now its a ramshackle, relatively recent rope and wood jetty.

The Dock's of Patay

Charlie and Martha can see some kind of entrance into the mines up the hill, it looks a little jagged, the area around the mine isn't inviting so camping inside is a plan, its underneath where the green glow is emanating. There's talks of the risks and vague dangers, Holly asks if we're aware of people who live beyond the Empire... we all speculate a little about this, Sammy talks in a bit of an imperialist way, Nishi talks of weird wise people from beyond the Empire, Charlie knows tales of basically earth Mythics, with powerful internal skills who talk of a vast realm where islands sit in lakes of water, where people don't float between places... seems strange, also they have money that makes everything terrible. Charlie broadly tells us about mages from Earth.