Aethera session #2: We didn't start the fire

My players have at times called me God. I don't fathom what it might be like to be the supreme creator. I have an idea for a weekly game, and my players follow through. Sometimes, they make mistakes. The kind of mistakes which, if you were a parent, you'd feel obligated to punish your child for. And it's not out of malice that you do either; it's out of the sincere hope that they'd learn to make wiser decisions in a life full of tumult. 

Our St. Louis friends ignoring homework and gainful employment opportunities.

So, let's say that God's here. Let's say that free will is objectively a cornerstone of the reality you have created. After all, it's barely interesting for everyone involved if, as God, you pushed your independent humans towards a road they couldn't walk away from. Your followers would revolt against a strifeless life that didn't push or challenge them. Burden is the hot, hyperkinetic water that a man is steeped in to brew glory. This is simply the way humans are.

John representing a team of scum and villainy.

The party entered Orbis Aurea through its atmosphere. Granted, this shouldn't be possible because there's a layer of netherite in the atmosphere that should deactivate an aethership upon entry. Most expeditions to the planet have thus resulted in scattered ship debris and lost, misspent lives. However, I kind of forgot about that detail when I had the party visit the planet. So I made up a caveat; the planet is currently in it's spring season, and the netherite layer ebbs and flows and it was out of sheer dumb luck that the party made it through.

I also said the party would be visiting a town called Freeport but then I remembered that Freeport is the name of an already published campaign setting and I'm totally not one to just jack a name like that.

I've never read it so I know nothing about it. You can buy it here though!

So I said, "the GM made a mistake last session and called the city you were visiting Freeport. That is incorrect and its real name is Noctis."

That's technically not any better.

So we visit Noctis, a walled city of modest size. It's populated by local panda okanta, bipedal beastmen with horns on their heads. I chose pandas only because I bought a dozen of these small panda figures from a Goodwill for $2. They were told last session they need to extract a Hierarchy deserter named Aleksi who has stolen information about a secret crisis-level war machine. The party heads to the bar to gather info and find out he was arrested a few nights before for the murder of the mayor's son, Bobo. The Hierarchy is aware of this and wanted to extradite him back to Akasaat, but the Orbis Ourean city-state demands to try Aleksi here. The case suddenly has very important diplomatic consequences.

I imagine he looks like this, but he flash kicks less.

The party visits Aleksi in jail. Kyle/#3 and Austin/Rokkel attempt to steal keys from the guards to break Aleksi out, but they fail and barely avoid getting caught. Aleksi confides in the party that he was at the scene of the murder and remembered having an argument with Bobo, but didn't kill him.

Rest in peace Bobo. 

Without any better options, the party offers to take the role of Aleksi's legal council. However, it's a ruse to buy them enough time to buy enough flammable material to craft molotov cocktails. Bri/Dread Hawk and #3 wander around town in the morning before the trial to find an appropriate building to light on fire, to create a large enough diversion that they could whisk Aleksi away during the trial. However, it doesn't take, because two robots in broad daylight trying to light houses on fire in the morning will draw attention from the panda police. After getting into a quick scuffle with some of the okanta, Dread Hawk and #3 are called by their allies to sit at Aleksi's side.

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright is pretty solid, btw.

So here's what happened. The day before, the party investigated the alley where Bobo was killed. They learned that it's really dark and found an empty bottle which contained... something. Analysis from an apothecary revealed that it was a bottle of invisibility potion, so the party had this submitted as evidence. The first witness was Mei, a panda opera singer. She claimed to witness the defendant slash at the victim violently with his lightsaber psionic blade the night of the murder.

John/Benny was all over that. He said the testimony was a direct contradiction of the victim's autopsy; killed by a single stab wound from the back, to the heart. No slashing wounds indicated elsewhere. Dread Hawk chimed in, stating that the alleyway was too dark for visibility even during the day.

The prosecutor suggested that it was dark enough for the witness to mistakenly assume Aleksi's slashes hit Bobo, but the light emitted from the psionic blade was enough for the witness to determine the identity of the attacker. Rokkel called the prosecutor out for leading on the witness, but it was too late and she amended her testimony with those exact details.

She said that saw the brilliant red light of Aleksi's blade illuminate the blood coming out of poor Bobo. However, the party asked to see Aleksi's blade activate, and saw that it had a blue light. With that, her entire testimony was thrown out and the witness was held in contempt.

The next witness called to the stand was Hierarchy agent Mary Fairweather. Fairweather was sent to retrieve Aleksi, but was unable to extradite him after he was charged with murder. Fairweather's testimony was different; Aleksi struggled with Bobo, hence the wild swinging, and stabbed him through the back afterward, adding it was impossible that anyone else could've been there. The party objected, presenting the bottle of invisibility potion as evidence, noting a Hierarchy seal on the side of it suggesting that the killer was a government agent sent to frame Aleksi expecting to get him off the planet. But after some diplomatic difficulty, it'd be easier to simply have him lose his trial and await a swift execution.

Don't fuck up. 

Because of the highly political nature of the trial, and the sloppy investigation by the prosecution, enough reasonable doubt was established to let Aleksi go. The party takes him on board the Jessyn, but only make it out several miles before Fairweather bursts out of the ship's windows and fights the party.

They knock her out, and Rokkel vents out his frustrations by trying to chop off a forearm of hers. Only he misses and cuts off his own hand. Enraged at himself, he relieves Fairweather of two whole arms instead. 

The party makes it to the space elevator, finding Hierarchy guards there. I think this is the part where I fucked up because I'm now not sure if they would be acting as gate agents for the elevator, but whatever. Benny tells them that they have Aleksi and they want passage. The guards surround the party and attack them until Rokkel blasts the shit out of them and the elevator, rendering it inoperable for the time being.

Their only choice now is to wait until they can fly out of a netherite layer deaf spot. They have two weeks until the next one forms, so they'll have to camp out and avoid contact with civilization until then.

You fucked up.