Iconoclasm

Chapter Two: Vagrants in Transit

Evangeline decides that the best way to save her friends and fellow apocalypse-mongers is to lead the guards away from the tavern; at no point does it occur to her that there might be guards inside the tavern already, nor does it occur to share her plan with Nanda. She hisses at him to chase her, then runs away, loudly shouting for him to stop chasing her. Confused, he follows just to find out which one she wants him to do. This does attract the attention of the guards, who give chase and quickly overtake the poor cuttlekin. He's tackled to the ground and Evangeline disappears into the night.

Once she's back at the tavern, Evangeline slips inside and finds Tiliwo, who has been working on her engine. The situation is explained and the pair decides it's time to skip town and steal a boat before everyone gets arrested; Evangeline goes upstairs to fetch Zed and Klein, while Tiliwo stays to collect Nanda when he catches up. Someone suggests that the group leave through the window to avoid being seen as commotion starts downstairs, and despite some protestations from the dwarf, everyone safely descends to the alley. (As should usually be assumed, "everyone" does not include Evangeline, who falls out of the window. She walks it off.)

Concurrently, the interrogation of Nanda is going poorly, mostly because he genuinely doesn't know how to answer any questions and is too straightforward to lie (or even think to). Before long, punching replaces conversation, and he parkours back to the tavern with two very irate cops in tow so someone can tell him what he should be doing. When it becomes immediately clear that he's still being followed, Tiliwo starts a barfight to cover their escape. This gives Nanda a chance to do what he does best with gusto, an both guards are quickly brought down in a very effective demonstration of why the Extra Attack advantage is so expensive. One of the guards does smash some sort of bauble that is presumably an alert or summons before he meets the floor very intimately, so Nanda and Tiliwo head upstairs just in time to join the window escape brigade. Everyone quickly regroups and legs it to the docks.

It quickly becomes apparent that the boat Nanda chose will be literally impossible for five people to crew, especially since four of them know nothing about boating. A smaller, more sensible fishing boat is selected and the group quickly casts off with no supplies or navigation equipment, but with nobody imprisoned. The original plan was to head straight to their destination, but given that nobody has food and Evangeline has neither a blood slave nor enough water to recuperate in (but does have an incapacitating case of seasickness), they'll stop off at the next port over.

Everyone discovers that being in a fishing boat does not make you good at fishing; not being fed and potentially being pursued just makes it more frustrating when the boat is waylaid by merfolk racketeers. The leader of the merfolk points out that this is definitely not the party's boat, and as such they don't have permission to be in these waters; some negotiations commence, and Tiliwo (who has become a male for captaining purposes) reveals that he's developing a prototype engine that could revolutionize sea travel. The merman sees this as a threat to merfolk mersupremacy, and agrees to let the party pass if they hand over the engine and all the notes and blueprints relating to it and agree to halt all development. Tiliwo badly fails a self-control roll and gives the leader a handful of cutlass rather than a fistful of plans.

The remainder of the session is primarily Nanda fighting an underwater battle while the rest of the party tries very hard not to capsize or be knocked overboard (or drown, when Evangeline and Zed fail to stay embarked). Fortunately, while Nanda is only really good at one thing, he is really good at it, and the racketeers are beaten into submission and taken prisoner; unfortunately, one of them realizes they're losing and slips away. Evangeline has a nice feed on one of the captives, but is still wasting away without her recuperative sewer bath. The rest of the party considers whether eating merfolk is cannibalism, but once the leader regains consciousness, they realize that since word of the fight has already reached mersociety, it will be worse for everyone if the captives are killed. They are released instead, and everyone is definitely safe from any retribution, which is great since the remainder of the mission will require a lot more sea travel to rediscover Tiliwo's island.

Evangeline proves to finally be good at something, and it's catching fish. Apparently. Everyone is full and happy, and all's well that ends well.