Coral Sun Drifters

Session 13: Low Magic in High Nest

Part 1

The First Light nearly crashed when its lithic engine failed after passing into the region around High Nest. Our heroes managed to get the ship turned around and then repair the engine, Devon shrinking the runic core to a manageable size so that Jack and the others could get it into position to resume synchronisation.

With that crisis averted, the crew glided down to the town on goblin skiffs. They learned that the problems with magic began around the time when an expedition from the Unseen arrived. Tracking them through the forest, where the plant and animal life seemed to be thriving more than usual, the party was accosted by bandits. The bandits were unprepared for the savagery of Jack and new crewmate Elthing, and quickly were decimated despite some setbacks due to the strange behaviour of magic.

Jack reanimated one of the fallen bandits to carry Stitch, whose magically animated cyborg limbs were failing to operate. They convinced one bandit who’d been spared to lead them to the caves where the Unseen had sent their expedition. Inside they found a massacred group of Unseen… and an open portal.

Part 2

Through the portal, the party found a campsite and a handful of rough folks who killed the Unseen researchers… but turned out to be followers of Johnny. Cannibal Pete soon rejoined them, and told Jack and the crew about their progress. They’d completed the ritual at Quelimane and two more: one here at High Nest, and another at an island called Morgane, where this group had been recruited.

Pete also summoned an avatar of Johnny, who explained that only his magic would function properly in places like this where he was taking control back from the Lithics. He recharged Stitch’s power stores with his own so that his magically powered cybernetic limbs would function correctly. He also granted Drop the ability to detect and open or close portals, and gifted Jack with two additional plantlike arms that are still growing to full strength from his human torso beneath his other two arms. Finally, he offered to remove Mordecai’s cursed ring, but Mordecai declined.

Exiting the Fade, Drop closed the portal, but the normal flow of magic did not return. Ghost girl, having been notified by Mordecai before entering the portal, arrived and found that her minions survive on High Nest, even though they normally do not within the Fade. Between that and Zombie Steve’s survival in the Fade, it seems that Johnny’s influence is changing the rules of magic…

Part 3

Jack recruited a group of desperate villagers to come to the Fade and join Johnny. When re-entering the cavern where the portal is found they encountered a crew of skeletons led by two dark knights… the Eternals attempting to collapse the cavern and rebury the portal. At first Dr. Steiner leapt to assist, “borrowing” a bone shovel from one of the skeletons and joining in. Seeing them as friends, the skeletons returned to digging with no objections.

Before long however, Jack’s insistence on reopening the portal and Dr. Steiner’s awkward interventions led to hostilities. Our heroes re-deaded the Eternals, except for the disarmed (de-shoveled?) skeleton who Stitch befriended, accidentally absorbing necromantic magic in the process.

Meanwhile, Mordecai flew high above to meet with Ghost Girl on her dark airship, extracting a promise that she’d get the librarians to research the origins of the Lithics for him.

Rumors