These are the minutes of the true events that transpired at a private session attended by Ash and General Nyneve only (and this humble DMA scribe, I suppose).
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The beatings continued but Ash persevered. Strong of spirit and mind, the dwarf could not be broken, and certainly not in only one and a half days. Still, the attempts to break him continued. The Fourth House was pressed because they had coordinated with General Nyneve of the First House to meet by ship in a neutral place in the multiverse so she could pick up prisoner Ash, or kill him on the spot.
During unattended moments in his cell, Ash used his dwarven skills to identify weaknesses in the chains that bind him.
General Nyneve prepares the crew of the Scorpion to meet the Fourth House aboard their flagship, the Pandoradox. The crew of the Scorpion is nervous from before that instead of completing her first mission of occupying ThunderRock, General Nyneve ordered the ship to leave when the peasantry of ThunderRock told her to; and that when Alandra de Winter left ThunderRock she told her people that if her daughter ever came back, they should oppose her and keep her from claiming the castle.
General Nyneve knows her position with her crew is uncertain when she receives the rendezvous coordinates from Grand Lady Malavox of the Fourth House. They agree to meet.
Ash is taken to the main deck of the Pandarodax, still shackled with manacles and chains. When the Scorpion arrives, General Nyneve orders her entire crew to board the Pandoradox. Already tensions are very high.
General Nyneve does not kill Ash on the spot but instead takes custody of him. In that moment, Ash triggers an arm tattoo and attempts to sunder the chains that bind him <rolls a 1>. The attempt fails; he struggles against his chains. Ash tries again with his second tattoo <rolls a 2>. The dice tower has betrayed him again.
General Nyneve demands that the Fourth House also produce all of prisoner Ash’s possessions. They produce Ash’s silver sword, his armour and his other things, but not the trump card of Alandra de Winter.
General Nyneve presses because she remembers Ash having it, Ash fighting with Grim over it, and even where Ash kept it on his person. The Fourth House loses an opposed roll and produces the card reluctantly and places it in General Nyneve’s outstretched hand.
General Nyneve presses more. “Why did you not produce the card the first time I asked?”
The Fourth House flounders to answer and now tensions are very high.
General Nyneve won’t relent. She orders Petrichor to board the Scorpion alone, and the Pandoradox to head straight to Tu’Narath with the Scorpion behind it to explain their actions to Queen Vlaakith and her father Morgan directly.
The Fourth House refuses.
General Nyneve does not accept the refusal. She hands the Alandra card to Ash expecting him to do something awesome, and orders her troops to attack.
But alas, the Fourth House finally wins an opposed roll and they pull their arms out first. Worse, they had readied actions prepared and clear orders from their commander of what to do in the event this exact thing happened. They prepared the battlefield for their enemies and they were ready.
With so many weapons drawn and initiative order established against General Nyneve and still-bound prisoner Ash, a Total Party Kill (TPK) of all PCs present hinges on the next decision made.
[All persons present take a break, pour more Prosecco and make sure the MANsion is safe. Approximately twenty minute break.]
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General Nyneve struggles mightily with the decision, but she ultimately decides to live instead of die.
Grand Lady Malavox snatches back the Alandra card and orders General Nyneve to get the hell off her ship. In this particular contest of honour and wills, somehow the Fourth House has won.
General Nyneve, prisoner Ash and the crew of the Scorpion re-board their ship and leave.
——-
Once back aboard the Scorpion, General Nyneve and Ash retire to General Nyneve’s chambers and conspire about what to do next. It becomes clear in these conversations that General Nyneve does not intend to kill Ash as ordered by Queen Vlaakith of the First House, but rather she releases him from his chains and expresses her intention for them to rejoin the crew of the Sea Ghost.
Regrettably, untrusting Queen Vlaakith had her mind-reading pseudo-dragon Absinthe hide invisibly in General Nyneve’s chamber aboard the Scorpion such that many unfortunate truths were overheard. “My family members are bags of shit,” she declares in explanation for her most recent reversal of position.
When Ash feels his brain licked by Absinthe’s mind-reading (failed oppose roll), General Nyneve and Ash both know they are in trouble. In fact, they immediately hear the sounds of boots on the deck above.
——-
What follows is a breakout dice-frenzy. Nyneve (formerly General Nyneve of the First House), cannot turn into a dragon below decks because of the limited space. She and Ash must fight their way to the top decks, and they do in dramatic form.
When the session is done, the dice tower is hot from overuse, but an alive dwarf flies away from the Scorpion into the multiverse riding an adult red dragon in search of the Sea Ghost.