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mareastrorum · 2 years ago

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WIP Wednesday: TF&TS Scene

This will probably be my only WIP Wednesday because I’ve got the one story, but here’s a scene from a longfic I am working on. It is abbreviated TF&TS for now, though I’ll finalize the title later. I expect to start posting chapters once every 1-2 weeks beginning around June or July. I want to build enough buffer for regular updates.

Fanfic Summary: Mollymauk Tealeaf survived the encounter with the Iron Shepherds, but a short time later, a spirit had begun hunting him, claiming that he stole his body. This Campaign 2 AU begins with Episode 26 and continues on from there.

Of course, this inherently has spoilers, so you have been warned. I hope you enjoy it!

Chief Engineer Gren Copperfall was quite proud of his track record at the Hupperdook Assembly Yard. That, his gnomish intellect, and his expertise with brumestone were why he had earned the lead position on the Dwendalian Empire’s latest pet project.

When they handed Gren a design, he made it real, always better than they had planned. His team primed a prototype two weeks ahead of schedule, caught potential pitfalls before they caused any problems, and were prepared to proliferate a pack of copies once they received a military requisition. Gren’s team had passed every audit with perfect reviews, as predicted.

Which is precisely why he was perturbed to hear that yet another officer from Rexxentrum had decided to show up unannounced for a surprise inspection.

Gren made his way across the massive tent to the entrance, shaking out his annoyance before meeting with whatever high-and-mighty bureaucrat decided they needed to see this project up close. Half of them pulled this stunt just to get a sneak peak at the latest and greatest coming out of Hupperdook. Gren was certain he would have cut almost a day—maybe two!—out of the construction time if he had been allowed to tell them off.

The trio was easy to spot at a distance. They were just permitted entry by the guards at the front, now looking up at Gren’s masterpiece. A red-headed human dressed in a formal Righteous Brand officer’s red and yellow uniform, more suitable for a parade than the battlefield. Then an elf and a halfling, each dressed in proper military garb, weapons at their sides and on their backs. All three looked bored, as if they did not want to be there. They weren’t even impressed!

Perhaps this was a legitimate inspection after all.

“Well, we shall plan accordingly,” the Bright Queen said once the Mighty Nein had provided their information to the court. “They will rue the day they tried to assail us on their terms.”

Gren did not understand the meaning, but he recognized that the human started barking things out in Zemnian.

Oh gods, a Zemnian bureaucrat. This was going to be terrible. And boring. And thorough. And waste so much time.

By the time Gren walked up to the group, the officer was already badgering some of Gren’s assistants to start the walkthrough. He did not even look up at them while speaking. The man just read something off of a stack of papers. So rude.

“Excuse me, sir, I am Gren Copperfall, the Chief Engineer for Project Albatross,” Gren interrupted. “I understand you are here for an inspection, sir?”

“Hallo, I am Captain Leucht Jäger,” the Zemnian responded in a flat voice and a thick accent, casting only a brief glance down at Gren before he handed down several papers. “You are correct. Let’s be quick about it, ja?”

Gren hesitated a moment. He thought he saw a red light in the captain’s eyes, but no, they were just an icy blue, almost silver. They must have caught the reflection of something.

“May I be so humble to ask what that plan might include?” Beau asked.

Gren did not appreciate the attitude, but considering that this bureaucrat wanted to be quick, he could forgive some impropriety. The documents looked to be in order. Oh, he had been delayed in arriving, and he had a short deadline to return to Rexxentrum. This wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Now that Gren was closer, the two guards the captain had brought with him looked more sick of the officer than anything else. Well, spending a week with someone that dour would probably do the same to anyone.

“A walk-and-talk then, sir? This way,” Gren replied as he turned and waved frantically to his assistants. “Go prepare for launch, we’re doing a test flight A-S-A-P!”

“That is not of your concern,” the Bright Queen replied, “but we appreciate your diligence in offering us this information.”

“O-oh, uh, sir, but,” one of the assistants replied (Gren always forgot her actual name, but she was Pigtails), “we’ve been loading supplies to do that long-distance test today. Should we tell the crew to stop loading? They’re almost done though.”

“Ah, right, just finish it quickly, we’ll do that as soon as the inspection is done,” Gren replied as he led the captain away. Pigtails nodded and ran off, calling out orders to the team.

The captain was staring Gren down when he looked back at the trio.

“If I may offer one more word, my lady?” Beau added cautiously. “Being of the Empire, what we can for sure tell you is that they do not take kindly to being bested or embarrassed and they will retaliate with the full force of everything they've been working towards.”

“Apologies, you caught us right before we were going to do a long-distance flight test,” Gren explained with an ameliatory smile. “As I’m sure you’ve read, Project Albatross is an ambitious experimental skyship that we hope to shift into production within the next month. It’s designed for speed, combat, and distance, and as you can see, we’ve achieved that by making the build much leaner.”

Gren indicated up to the only fully-constructed skyship in the tent, two in-progress builds visible beyond it. Unlike most skyships, which were usually constructed to transport cargo, his Albatross clearly had very limited storage space. It was almost as long as any other skyship, but thin and only had a single deck. However, the stern rose up another twenty or so feet and connected down to the deck at a sloping angle, ending just at the base of the main mast.

A bevy of workers started gathering around the ship, removing tethers and quickening their pace to load boxes marked with white W on the side. Two armed guards escorted some workers carrying a single iron chest marked with a green R.

“As you can see, an Albatross features a sharp deadrise hull to minimize drag, and in the event of a water landing, to ensure a quick pace at sea,” Gren continued, indicating the dramatically pointed hull as they walked towards the bow.

“If I am correct in my beliefs, this is retaliation for our retaliation,” the Bright Queen noted.

Gren pointed out the stands holding the skyship upright, “The ground landings can be a bit tricky because of the need for support beams, but they are easily deployed from the ship itself, and the ship can hover via brumestone until they are in position.”

He continued his usual rant about the ship’s design, which he had memorized after the tenth time doing it. The trio still looked bored, but Captain Jäger made some notes on his papers as they went.

Gren spotted two rather burly workers, a tabaxi and a really tall human (maybe?), carrying crates up the planks rather than using ropes to lift, but he supposed that made sense given that they needed to be quick.

“Yes, it's a lot of retaliation,” Beau agreed.

“There are three key prototype features that we have been testing on this initial model,” Gren explained as they walked up several ramps to the deck. “First and foremost, there are five modified brumestone crystals built into the stern, designed to provide ‘thrust’ to propel the skyship forward rather than just allow the ship to hover. Of course, there are four normal brumestone crystals built into the hull for typical skyship hover-flight.”

“This will continue until one side cannot retaliate,” the Bright Queen responded, “and we hope with a swift enough and well-planned plot laid out with this information, perhaps we can keep them from being able to retaliate for some time.”

“Second, there is the arcane engine, which is designed to consume an experimental fuel—primarily made from whitestone or residuum—to power the modified crystals, allowing for a consistent rate of twenty-five miles per hour and bursts of up to fifty miles per hour, respectively, not taking wind speed into account. As you know, the average skyship can only manage ten miles per hour safely. Third, the masts feature collapsible yardarms and several sails designed to withstand greater wind speed and high altitudes, particularly useful for long-distance flights, all controlled remotely from the helm. They are even enchanted to change color between white and black to avoid detection, day or night.”

It bothered Gren that he had to list the wizards’ contributions to the project before his own, but they all knew none of it would have worked without a properly designed skyship to hold everything together. That engine could power modified brumestone all damn day, and it wouldn’t do anything useful if his ship wasn’t stable enough to maintain direction or hold itself together while going at high speed.

And those sails! They were gorgeous! He even designed some of them off of a splendens fish fin for added elegance, but no, all the Rexxentrum elite cared about was wizards. Damn Assembly.

As they reached the deck, Gren could see that most workers had left the fuel crates on the deck for the two larger grunts to pick up and bring below. Good, that would minimize the number of workers in the way. Now that Gren got a second look, that wasn’t a human, that was a goliath. Well, all the better to do the heavy lifting.

“I am no war strategist or battle advisor,” Beau began, “but if you want to live for this vendetta and to retaliate another day, I would highly consider evacuating your troops from Ashguard Garrison and defending amongst the border.”

Gren briefly showed the trio the quick access to the engine room through the hatchway openings on the main deck, which could be covered and secured when flying at high speeds. He then herded them towards the helm room, which was built into the abnormally tall stern with a door on both the right and the left side. There was a massive glass window halfway up the front with a barely perceptible green hue, allowing them to see inside.

The two guards at the helm room saluted Gren and Captain Jäger, then one opened the left door outward for them. Gren walked in, admiring the brain of his ship for a moment. He never tired of looking at the piping and mechanics built into the walls of the lower room. The engineers stayed below to observe and record during each test, while the crew worked elsewhere. Everyone else loved the helm room or the engine room, but this was Gren’s favorite part of the ship.

“After the inspection, we planned to do a long-distance test flight to and from the Wuyun Gates in a single day,” Gren continued. “We’ve loaded more fuel than necessary, enough for a few trips at maximum speed and some additional uses that I’ll cover in a bit. But it is best to have too much rather than trying to obtain rare fuel in the middle of nowhere if anything were to go awry. In the event that a crew runs out of fuel, they can still pilot as a normal skyship, though its speed will max out at perhaps fifteen miles per hour in good weather.”

“Trust that we do have military advisors,” the Bright Queen insisted. “We have individuals who have dedicated their entire existence and multiple lives to being tacticians on the battlefield. But you mentioned Scourgers. What can you tell me about these Scourgers?”

As they ascended the narrow stairs, Gren went on, “However, we have two more scheduled tests for the engine before any additional engines can be constructed for subsequent ships. For now, this baby is one-of-a-kind.”

The first thing anyone ever noticed was the view out the massive window to the front of the ship and a smaller window to the back. A helm room with windows!

Then there were the control panels on each side of the helm with several levers and gauges. The simplicity belied the complex mechanisms used to remotely control each of the many sails, eliminating the need for a rigger except in the event of serious structural damage.

In fact, the ship could operate on a skeleton crew of just two: one to steer and the other to operate the engine during high speed flight or to act as a gunner when the ship had slowed to attack speeds. Of course, a crew of at least four was recommended, as redundancy was always encouraged for experimental technologies, plus they should always have an engineer on board in case of emergencies.

Oh, Gren had said most of that aloud and not noticed. Well, it was important, and they should know it. Damn wizards demanding that he leave out details about his engineering marvel.

He should’ve stopped thinking out loud.

“I know a fair amount,” Caleb began. “Years ago, I was training to be one. I-I made it quite far in the process before I was cast out. B-but I know things.”

“Anyway, if you’ll stand at the helm, you’ll see that there is actually a glass panel to view the engine room from here,” Gren droned on as he walked to the panel that was partially built into the floor that displayed a frontal view of a metal contraption built into a wall rather than the floor below. “We arranged a set of mirrors so the engine room and helm room can see each other. There is a call box in each room so the helmsman can communicate with the crew. The glass panels are also reinforced magically to ensure that it can withstand combat, explosions, and high wind speed. Those stairs at the back of the room lead further down to the engine room, storage, mess, and crew’s quarters. It’s a very barebones layout, intended for combat missions only.”

Captain Jäger stood at the helm and looked it over, as well as through the panels. He seemed satisfied, even interested for a Zemnian. Meaning that he looked neutral instead of bored.

Caleb continued, “And I know I'm retreading past ground, but I hope that as you protect your people and your kingdom, you will consider instead of utter destruction, there are people on the other side of those mountains who are not happy with the ones running the show.”

Gren went on to his usual explanation of the need to seal the helm room and deck at high speeds, the various levers and controls for the sails and yardarms, the reference manuals that he wrote in plain Common (but a crew really wouldn’t need them, it was all so intuitive after a single test flight), and on and on…

And then he could get the last juicy part.

“Finally, there are the two arcane cannons we have built into the ship,” Gren said as he motioned to the oversized bow, visible through the window. “One can be lifted up from the hold, moved on wheels, and affixed to either side of the ship. The other is built into the front of the bow, capable of shooting ahead in a 120 degree arc. Either is capable of firing lightning or, well, fire, at an accurate distance of up to 100 feet or 150 feet, respectively. They both operate using the same cartridges as the engine, so the crew needs to ration them out accordingly, but each whitestone cartridge has enough power for ten shots. We included the extra fuel I mentioned just in case there’s some need for combat, but it’s really just a precaution given our planned route. Finally, each cannon can be operated by a single crewman.”

“Use us,” Caleb insisted. “Use us for your ends. Use us to find this other missing relic. Use us and our contacts to help supplant the Cerberus.”

Gren looked out at the deck and saw that it had been sealed, all the ropes had been removed, and the top of the tent had been pulled open. The mirrors showed the two workers below were organizing the crates to clear space for the crew to operate properly. It was a cozy fit, but six crew, four guards, himself, an extra engineer, and the captain should be comfortable during the test. The ship was designed to quarter up to fifteen anyway. Now he just needed the workers to disembark and to call up his test crew.

Loud rumbling echoed from below, and the ship shook. An earthquake perhaps? Not uncommon given Hupperdook’s prized volcanic Underbellows, even if it was a little ominous.

No, just a small shake, it would be fine. Yep.

Peachy.

The captain and his guards looked up, then through the window, concerned.

Gren waited a moment for the ship to settle before speaking assuringly, “Ah, that happens sometimes. Nothing to worry about! Just some typical seismic activity in this area and definitely not a volcano erupting. That would just be, haha—no, no, we’re good.”

“We can help you break the cycle,” Beau added.

There was another, stronger shift as the rumbling returned, boisterous and continuous. Then Gren heard screaming. There shouldn’t have been screaming.

Oh gods, it was finally happening, Gren never wanted to live near a volcano, he told Pofan, he told him that was the worst decision they ever made, but no, he wanted to live near famil—

The rumbling overlapped, multiple sources below, and getting closer. Suddenly, a burst of dirt and stone shot from the starboard, pelting the deck with debris as a trilling roar filled the air, then a second, then a third. Then chirping, overlapping buzzing louder and louder, so much like a swarm of crickets.

Gren swore he saw a column of lava rise up, visible just at the right edge of the helm room window. It tore through the side of the tent. But lava was not purple and did not have yellow teeth and spikes.

No, that’s a worm. That’s a purple worm.

“Krick attack! To arms!” someone bellowed from below, barely perceptible over the din of screaming workers, roaring worms, and shrilling crickets.

“The cycle cannot be broken, until there is nothing living,” the Bright Queen responded somberly.

“It sounds like it is time for an emergency launch, ja?” Captain Jäger said with a hint of urgency. Maybe that was how Zemnians panic. “Get to it.”

“R-right, yeah,” Gren replied, frozen a moment before he slapped himself and got to work initiating the launch. “Make sure the engine room is secure! We’re going to need speed!”

Gren quickly activated the brumestone crystals in the hull as the captain’s guards rushed down the stairs and the captain went after them. As it began lifting, he reviewed the panel to confirm that all systems were normal and that the yardarms were secured.

Once the ship had lifted several feet, Gren triggered the pulleys to retract the landing struts onto their horizontal resting place parallel with the bulwark. He heard the mechanism loudly turn and lock in place.

It would take perhaps half a minute to lift out of the tent, and then they could activate the engine and rush away from whatever chaos the Kryn were unleashing.

It’d be fine. Totally fine. The skyship’s fast.

“All we can do is our best to keep it slow.”

“Open the door on the wall!” Gren barked rapidly into the mouthpiece by the left panel while watching the mirror network. “As soon as you see out that window that we are passing the lip of the tent, add one cartridge of whitestone fuel to the opening, seal the door, and flip the left-most lever!”

The guards and workers in the engine room started at Gren’s voice, but the tabaxi and goliath quickly began opening a whitestone crate to pull out a cartridge. The elf kept an eye out a port window. The halfling opened the engine intake and looked over the rest of the controls.

Good. Gren had only mostly recited the manual he wrote, so it seems it really was plain enough Common for anyone to figure it out. He also heard the doors below locking, likely done by the captain. At least he was helping. Better than most bureaucrats would do, anyway.

The ship was not yet halfway to the top of the tent when a single cricket’s chirping intensified.

Through the window, Gren saw a flash of silver and purple as a Kryn soldier covered in chitinous armor landed on the deck below, their purple cloak swirling behind them. They wielded a massive glaive, with a shield strapped to their back and a sword hanging at their side.

The two Righteous Brand soldiers guarding the doors charged with weapons drawn, but the Kryn felled both in six sweeping slashes, cutting them down as sprays of gore painted the deck.

“Why can’t the cycle be broken?” Jester asked.

Gren froze and stared through the glass. It happened so fast. Just a few seconds for one Kryn to kill two soldiers.

And then the Kryn looked up. They vaulted onto the main mast and leapt off it into the air towards the window. Immediately after the jump, a shadow apparated inside the room, a gray copy of the Kryn mere inches in front of Gren.

It was looking at him.

Gren had to run, had to move, but he could not get his body to do anything. Where would he even go?

The Kryn switched places with their shadow (how did they do that? Gren thought that was made up, that’s ridiculous), impaled Gren on the glaive, then flung him to the side in one fluid movement. He couldn’t even scream as he bounced off the wall and collapsed.

It hurt. More than Gren ever imagined what he could suffer, it hurt, it stung and it was sharp, even with the blade gone. The world was askew, and his own blood formed a growing puddle on the floor. He felt colder, rapidly colder. Oh, this was not what he wanted either. He should have never come to Hupperdook.

“Because life is pain for many,” the Bright Queen explained.

“Fáilte,” another man said blithely.

Gren did not recognize the voice or that word. He shifted his eyes to Captain Jäger, who stood at the head of the stairs as though he had just arrived. No one else had come up, but that had not been a Zemnian accent, nor did it sound like that language.

The Kryn stared down the captain, who had not even drawn a weapon. It was surreal to see the bureaucrat’s spotless decorative uniform of red and gold and the Kryn’s bloodstained armor of purple and silver only a few feet apart.

“Tragic,” the captain commented languidly as he smirked at Gren. ”I had use for that one.”

Gren saw it then. He had been right before. There was a red light in the human’s eyes.

The captain looked back at the Kryn with a smug grin, “Fair trade, I suppose.”

“Jealousy, strife…”

The Kryn did not seem to care, thrusting forward with their glaive to skewer the captain as well and hoisting him up to keep him on the blade. The human almost looked upside-down from Gren’s point of view, crimson spilling from his gut up to the floor.

Bright light suddenly burst from the windows, daylight illuminating the scene clearly.

Gren had difficulty paying attention over the agony, but he was certain he heard a wheezing laugh from the captain. It did not sound right; not a he anymore, an it. Did not sound like a Zemnian, not even like a person.

It got louder. Why did it echo?

The captain gripped the glaive, and black ooze slithered out from his sleeves and hands down the weapon like a snake. Gren felt all the warmth drain from the world in an instant, his own weak breath and the others’ all visibly puffing in the air. The light from the windows dimmed to almost nothing.

“Oh, I like you,” the captain drawled in two layered accents, one Zemnian and agonizing, and the other lilting and predatory. “We’re going to get along so well.”

“Some need to conquer.”

The last sight Gren Copperfall saw before everything went dark was an outpouring of luminescent silver and red glass in inky mist rushing into the air from the captain’s orifices and wound, swarming the Kryn in a horrifying storm of bloodied mirror shards and writhing shadow.

The last sensation he felt—beyond the cold and pain—was the floor sliding below him as the skyship accelerated.

The last sound he heard was two voices laughing in unison.

#wip wednesday #critical role fanfiction #TF&TS #the tombtakers #lucien critical role #lucien nonagon #mollymauk tealeaf #Azazel!Lucien

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