The Warranty Don't Cover That (18-20 Patchwall 586 OY, 7/26/99 RL) The next morning, Melnar finds the Dardak and shakes them down for some more bribes. Fingle goes shopping for weapons. While juggling 6 hand axes in the shop, he drops them. One exceptionally sharp one, made by master weapon smith Topac III, nearly takes his foot off. The shopkeeper is so alarmed that he sells the axe at a deep discount. Back at the ship, the tinker gnomes make a hydraulic-powered walking stick with concealed blades for Axel. Viola and her luggage find the ship, and is allowed on board. Kyrios and Nagatho also find the ship to return to work. However, Camen decides Nagatho must fight him to be rehired. Camen takes a painful punch, is reminded that he is an unskilled boxer, and agrees to rehire Nagatho. Finally, the Dardak sails in the early afternoon. With Jos at the helm and a full crew, they manage to get away from the dock without breaking anything.

Natch, they filed no flight plan. Two wreckboats sail to intercept. The Dardak tries to activate its port wing's tinker-gnome steam-power system to accelerate them away. But it fails and the ship goes into a spin. When the patrol arrives, the Dardakers plead technical problems. One patrol helps to arrest the spin, and they resume their duties. Once the wreckboats are clear, the Dardak makes a break for it, headed into the sun. This time a fast, sail-less wreckboat comes off of Bral to chase them. However, the steam-power wing somehow works, and they clear enough distance to jump to spelljamming speed and escape.

While using the ship's charts to plot a course to Miraburg, Jos comes across the maps found on Pearball, and shows them to the others. Axel recognizes several locations on one, including the Hold of Beren, as being on the Wild Coast of Oerth.

On coming out of the ship's second spelljamming hop while closing in on Miraburg, the lookout spots a squat, humanoid figure floating near the Grinder. It seems to be gesturing to them and mouthing the words "Help me." The ship draws near, and sees that the figure is some sort of 60' tall giant. Fingle bravely flies into his air envelope to greet him. The giant says that his name is "Gump," and asks for help with "hurty things" on his back. Apparently he is drifting on a course such that he would not reach any asteroids for several years, and weeds and trees are growing on his back where he can not reach them. Fingle climbs onto his shoulder to investigate. While walking towards the trees, Fingle spots a thicket of white bushes that quiver and make a "whuf" sound. An instant later he is cut down by a barrage of flying thorns.

The Dardak closes in, and Camen and Mojo go "ashore" to Fingle's aid. While Camen blocks the thorns with his magic shield, Mojo operates on Fingle to stop the bleeding. They retreat to the ship to regroup and rethink. Mojo thinks he could make an herbicide had he some aidaberry sap, but has none. Gump mentions that he normally gets rid of hurty things on his back by rubbing against big rocks. This gives the crew the idea of towing Gump to a nearby asteroid. Fingle claims that the best place to put the tow rope is on the tail of the ship. They tie their 3'' hawser there and give the other end to Gump to hold. Jos gently accelerates the helm, and with many loud complaints from the tail section they get underway. They aim for a rock, get Gump on a collision course, peal out of the way, and tell him to let go. And they miss, as Gump goes sailing past the asteroid. It takes a couple more tries to perfect the maneuver. During one of these, an abrupt acceleration almost tears the Dardak's tail section right off.

When they finally succeed, Gump lands and gratefully scratches his back. He then offers the ship their choice of one item from his gigantic bag. Axel enters the bag and considers taking the dragon scale as a ship's ornament. However, behind the scale there is a small iron bound box, and he takes that instead. Gump says good-bye, saying he will continue looking for someplace called "Arhoad," and the Dardak sails for Miraburg. Inside the box they find 100 p.p. (split ten ways), a gold ring (given to Fingle for compensation), a potion of healing (according to Axel, who also wins the potion by dicing), and a gold armband (won by Camen by dicing).

The next spelljamming hop put them within reasonable distance of Miraburg. They see that it is a 15 x 8 mile planetoid, covered in forest. In one corner, there is some sort of gigantic starfly plant. On the opposite end, they spot a town. Coming closer to the town, they see that it features gravity docks, a shipyard, a few dozen buildings, a wooden stockade, and several watch towers. They ram the dock and tie up. The watchman guardedly welcomes them and inspects the hold. He warns that tinker gnomes must pay 5 g.p. a head to go ashore, and docking fees are 54 g.p. per day. The PCs are sure that when they talk to the mayor about the casino they are building, he will agree to more reasonable docking fees.
 
Last modified: Wed Jul 21 17:03:54 MDT