Session 9, VP1

As our heroes set sail down the Himinglaeva river, they enjoyed the ease of travelling via boat, something Bergie had never done before. Thanks to Crematasm's flames, the rain falling down would turn into steam before reaching the deck the players were resting on. After only being on the river for an hour or so, the party heard cries of pain coming from around the next riverbend. Eager to discover what was happening and lend assistance, the party had Crematasm drift towards the shore.

 

Upon coming around the riverbend, the party saw two bandits attacking and robbing a young woman. All of our heroes immediately leapt into action, springing off of Crematasm and into the fray. Bergie tackled the bandit currently kicking the young woman, as Westie and Gunnar knocked the other one out with a Water Gun & Karate Chop combo.

 

Bergie attempted to punch his bandit unconscious, but the bandit pushed him off and started running away. Stompy charged after him. As the bandit turned around to see if he was being followed, Stompy slammed into him, sending him tumbling 20 feet through the grass and dirt.

 

The party helped the young woman to her feet, and helped her collect her belongings back into her backpack. She introduced herself as Saffa Bynne, and thanked the party for coming to her aid. Saffa explained that the bandits must not have enjoyed her jokes, which spurred them into attacking her.

 

After exchanging introductions and explaining that they were planning to ride downstream in the direction of Ever Dam, Saffa asked if she could accompany the party on their journey for a bit. The heroes whole-heartedly agreed, and Saffa joined them aboard Crematasm.

 

Their journey resumed, Bergie showed great interest in the odd instrument Saffa was carrying on her back. Saffa explained that she had invented the instrument, called a Ragglewaithe. The Ragglewaithe was a large marching drum, with various flute-like tubes on top of it. Saffa gave a brief performance, taking care to beat the drum extremely gently.

 

As Saffa finished her performance, Gunnar noticed that Crematasm was slowing down, and there was an odd stream of bubbles rising from the water in front of the prow. He ran to the front, and leaned over the edge to see what could be causing this, only to take a Bubble attack directly in the face.

 

The party watched in bemusement as three Surskit floated into view aloft flotillas of bubbles, and combat was soon joined. After the party knocked out one of the Surskit, three Masquerain entered the fray to protect their fellows. Gunnar leapt off of the prow in an attempt to bodyslam one of the Masquerain, but missed and fell into the river. He suddenly felt something beneath him in the water; whatever it was started rising, in an attempt to help Gunnar out of the water.

The rest of the party continued to fight off the rest of the assailants. Suddenly, Gunnar was lifted back into view. He grabbed hold of the Masquerain he had missed before, and help it beneath him as he belly-flopped into the river, knocking it out.

 

The rest of the assailants were defeated in short order, and Gunnar met the Pokemon trying to help him in the water, a Narpoon. Gunnar tied a club to his head, and engaged in a duel with the Narpoon. The sparring was intense, but Gunnar won out in the end, and the Narpoon gladly joined his party.

 

The party spent the rest of the day relaxing on Crematasm as they floated downstream. In the middle of the night, a few arrows came flying out of the dark, one of which gave Bergie a glancing blow. Bergie & Saffa awoke in time to see the silhouette of the archers disappear behind a hill.

 

Unsettled by the assault, the two had a conversation for some time. Saffa seemed particularly interested when Bergie mentioned his hopes to work with Pokemon eggs in the future. The two eventually fell back asleep.

 

In the morning, the party went through their morning routines, preparing to face the day. Naivara attempted a pushup, but was too worn-out from the previous day's efforts. Gunnar decided to go swimming with his Narpoon. To avoid being left behind by the boat, he tied a rope around his waist, anchoring himself to the balcony of Crematasm's deck. As he and Narpoon swam laps, Gunnar suddenly noticed something large beneath the waters was speeding towards Crematasm.

 

Thankfully, Gunnar had enough time to give a warning to the rest of the party, allowing them to brace for the impact. All of the trainers managed to maintain their footing, and they all ran to the back of the boat. A Harwhal, Narpoon's evolved form, had plowed into Crematasm, causing heavy damage to him. The Harwhal dove, with Gunnar and Narpoon in hot pursuit. As the rest of the party deliberated on what to do, they felt smaller impacts coming from the front of the boat, and ran to investigate.

 

By the prow, two Narpoon and a Wishiwashi were attacking Crematasm. Naivara, Saffa, and Bergie worked together to defeat the attackers. Beneath the water, Gunnar and Narpoon were engaged in battle with the Harwhal. After seeing that his own attacks were more effective than Narpoon's, Gunnar came up for air.

 

Working as one with no need to speak, Narpoon allowed Gunnar to grab his dorsal fin, before using his speed to launch Gunnar straight at the Harwhal in mid-charge. On impact, Gunnar's mighty blow shattered the metallic horn and armor of the Harwhal, and it sank unconscious into the depoths.

 

The party reconvened aboard Crematasm, and Saffa applied a potion to heal some of his wounds. Fearing that they may be in for some more nasty surprises courtesy of the bandits they had encountered, Naivara released Westie and linked up with him. About an hour down the river, Westie was able to spot something on the shore. At this distance, it was impossible to make out exactly what it may be.

 

The party decided to stop when they were roughly a half hour away from the location, in order to see if they could gain a better vantage point. This time, Westie was able to determine that three bandits were lying in wait to ambush the party as they passed by. Thanks to Naivara, the party had gained an edge over their opponents.

 

The party convened to plan a course of action. After managing to talk Gunnar down from simply walking into the ambush, the group decided that Gunnar & Bergie would attempt to ambush the bandits by land while Naivara and Saffa remained on Crematasm as bait.

 

Bergie and Gunnar leapt to the shore before mounting up on Stompy and Mary. The cavalry took off, moving as quietly as they could as the sun began to set. Gunnar managed to reach a perfect spot to jump the bandits. As Bergie attempted to move into position, Stompy accidentally stepped on a large stick, drawing the bandit’s attention.

 

Crematasm rounded the corner, allowing Naivara and Saffa to see their allies jump into action. Mary used Bulldoze to heavily damage all three of the bandits, knocking two of them into the river. Gunnar sprung from Mary's back, tackling the third bandit into the water. As the boat drew closer to the battle, Naivara had Westie knock out one of the bandits attempting to swim for the shore.

 

Bergie and Stompy waited at the shoreline as the third bandit floundered onto dry land. As he realized Stompy was standing right over him, the bandit let out an exasperated sigh. With one gentle kick, Stompy knocked the bandit out. Gunnar and Bergie fished the other two bandits back to dry land, as Naivara and Saffa joined them on the shore.

 

The bandit that Gunnar had tackled was still conscious, so Gunnar began questioning him on why the bandits were so persistently following the party. Having seen how capable the party was firsthand, the bandit explained that the leader of their gang, Colborn, was following them to retrieve something stolen from him. When questioned further, the bandit pointed at Saffa, claiming she was a thief before passing out.

 

The party climbed back onto Crematasm and had a conversation with Saffa. She told them of how she ran across the gang on her travels South-East: in search of Pokemon eggs to both sell and use to raise more Pokemon for nefarious purposes, Colborn and his men had massacred a large amount of wild Pokemon in order to render their nests defenseless.

 

Having been moved by this, Saffa had snuck into the bandit camp during the night, grabbing as many eggs as she could carry, and hiding them inside of her drum. She opened her drum, showing the eggs to the party, and apologized for getting them involved.

 

The party, incensed to hear what Colborn and his gang had done, told Saffa not to apologize, and decided they needed to put an end to this cruelty. Though several plans were volleyed as options, the party eventually decided on having Crematasm stop at a point slightly further down the river. After finding a spot with good cover in the form of bushes and tall grass, the party hid as best they could. Saffa left Trixie onboard Crematasm to guard the eggs in her drum.

 

Saffa sent out her Pawniard, Stiletto, to scout out the bandits' approach. Shortly after the sun had set, Stiletto returned, indicating that she had seen 6 bandits all creeping their way towards Crematasm.

 

Waiting for just the right moment, the party hunkered down. As the bandits entered view, the party saw that 4 of them had bows strung and at the ready. Realizing that the archers were the biggest threat, the party sprung attacks on them from two directions. The flanking tactic worked beautifully, and the archers fell quickly, followed shortly by the other two bandits.

As the last bandit fell, Saffa felt a chill run up her spine, and turned back to look at Crematasm.

 

Limned by the glow of the stars and moon, a hulking human figure was making its way across the deck, heading straight towards Trixie. Saffa yelled at the figure, alerting the rest of the group. Colborn turned to face the party. He stood well over 6'5", and bore a toughened leather helmet, with a metal helm. Over his shoulder, he carried some kind of gigantic weapon, easily twice his size. He laughed at Saffa's jibe, before continuing towards Trixie and the eggs.

 

Bergie hopped onto Stompy's back, and the two leapt onto the boat as Saffa helped boost Stiletto up as well. Naivara swapped Westie out for Peach, preparing to attack from range. Seeing Colborn was endangering Trixie and the eggs, Gunnar used his incredible athleticism to vault onto the boat, rolling to a stop in a fighting position directly in Colborn's path.

 

Colborn laughed scornfully, hefting his weapon high into the air, revealing it to be a massive, moss-covered anchor. With terrifying ease, he swung it in a wide arc, landing heavy blows on Gunnar, Bergie, and Stiletto.

 

Naivara had Peach Paralyze Colborn, as Stiletto, Gunnar, and Stompy all rained blow after blow on the bandit leader. Although he was clearly taking damage from their attacks, it wasn't yet enough to take him down. Stompy charged with a Horn Attack, and managed to knock Colborn over a stair railing. As he got up from lying flat on his back, Colborn laughed. "You're giving me quite a good fight. An easy feat for cowards who outnumber and swarm their opponents...allow me to balance the scales!"

 

Colborn let go of his mighty anchor...which floated in the air of its own accord, rotating towards Trixie and the eggs. The anchor let out a metallic ringing cry, revealing itself to be a Dhelmise. At the same time, Colborn reached into his leather chest armor, removing a Wishiwashi. The entire fight, he had been deliberately absorbing blows to his chest in order to damage the Wishiwashi and make it cry out for help. As the weakened Pokemon weakly tried to escape his grasp, Colborn squeezed it in his giant fist. The Wishiwashi let out one more sobbing cry, before being ground into paste.

 

The water of the river began to roil beneath the glare of the moon. With a discordant roar of hundreds of voices, a massive School of Wishiwashi breached the surface. Joining together, they took the shape of a massive, terrifying aquatic monster.

 

Taking the risk of letting Colborn grabbing her, Saffa slipped past him to help Trixie protect the eggs from the approaching Dhelmise. Gunnar and Stompy stayed locked in combat with Colborn, desperate to take him down.

 

The Dhelmise lashed out at Trixie in an attempt to get to the eggs, as Saffa tried to drive it back. With the Wishiwashi ready to force a battle on two fronts, Gunnar decided the fight with Colborn need to end. In a moment of righteous fury, he grabbed hold of the Dhelmise, swung it up over his head, and sent it crashing down onto Colborn. As the dust cleared, the heroes could see that both Colborn and his Dhelmise had been knocked unconscious.

 

Devoting their attention to the Wishiwashi, Bjargulf managed to Flinch it with a Bite attack. Realizing that the Pokemon was lashing out in rage from Colborn's cruelty to the small Wishawashi, Saffa attempted to calm the School of Wishiwashi down with Bergie's assistance. Unfortunately, it was too dazed and disoriented to listen to their pleas.

 

The School of Wishiwashi snapped out of being Flinched, ready to unleash its fury on the party. Gunnar readied himself for an impending battle, but Bergie and Trixie were undeterred in their decision to resolve this without causing further damage.

 

The two of them approached the edge of the boat closest to the School of Wishiwashi, and made an empassioned plea for peace. Trixie held one of the eggs aloft, showing the Wishiwashi that the party was only trying to protect them from harm.

 

All the fighters stood still with held breath. The Wishiwashi School stared deeply at the group, before turning, grabbing Colborn and Dhelmise, and diving beneath the water. The final threat had been stymied, and our heroes let out a collective sigh of relief.

 

Crematasm began to carry them onwards once more, leaving the party to take a well-deserved rest. During the night, Bergie, Gunnar, and Naivara all had dreams of their patron gods radiating approval at their actions in defending the weak. The heroes awoke to find themselves moored a few hours walk from Takav's farm. The rainy weather had broken during the night, and a gentle sunlight lit the Varfjell Fields.

 

The party disembarked from Brunick's Crematasm, and it began its trip back to Forgerun. The party asked Saffa where she was planning to go, and convinced her to accompany them to Takav's farm. Before they set out, Saffa asked the party if they would take care of the 3 eggs they had rescued from the bandit, much to Bergie's elation. Buoyed by their recent victories, the party began the short jaunt back to meet their friend Takav.