I'm Very Good At Punching Fish

Description

Blood lies on the tiles of the House Eternal. The Dragon Friends are far from home having lost their ship, their homelands and even their very memories… until an unlikely ally returns with some very welcome news. Also Ben makes a pun and is way too chuffed about it.

## Synopsis

Philge, previously eating some particularly chewy taffy, is shocked at Bobby Pancakes's suicide. Hearing Philge's panicked shout, Freezo calls through the door to her; Philge assumes Bobby has also escaped, while Freezo is shocked and saddened to learn that Bobby has killed himself and has not escaped - especially when he discovers that he could just have opened the door of the House Eternal from the outside and let the others out.

Freezo then sees a giant triple-masted flying ship approaching, which jogs his memory that this is Hyperion Max's flagship - piloted by Baston! Baston makes a theatrical entrance, accompanied by his stirring song I'm the best, only to see Bobby Pancakes' corpse and admit that he may have misread the mood. The ship's first mate Johnny Starburst hops down from the ship and throws a device to create a magical wall of ice isolating the Archivist and the rest of the House from the Dragon Friends, allowing them to climb onto the ship and escape with Bobby's corpse.

Johnny explains that the Dragon Friends had previously traveled with Hyperion Max with their ships in convoy, helping with his missions. When a stellar dragon attempted to crack the edge of the Cradle, they all went to stop it; this was the Battle of the Faultline, in which many of the crew died and the Friends were overcome, but Bobby, Freezo, and Max remained and were able to defeat the dragon and prevent the fault opening. After that, the Friends and Hyperion's crew separated, and Freezo also left the Friends to build a tower in the Deadlands. It was because of their role in the battle that the crew agreed to help Baston find the other Friends; and they will now take them back to the Heart of Glass, and help them rescue it from Steyr. Johnny also explains that he knows that Hyperion Max is not dead; he has a crystal shard representing each member of the ship's crew embedded in his cheek, and Hyperion's is still shimmering. Freezo suggests that the shard could be used to prove to the court on Primus that they are innocent and have their ship released, but Johnny points out that the bureaucracy of doing so would take too long and Hyperion Max needs to be found as quickly as possible. God/Dave also reminds them that Bobby's corpse will decay over time preventing him from being resurrected; Freezo recalls that Titania liked them and might be powerful enough to resurrect him.

Johnny also explains that in order to free their ship, they will need to destroy the Auspex on the bridge of the Heart of Glass that is transferring control to Steyr's ship. They climb into a shuttle that is set to dock with the Heart of Glass, and as they do they see the Heart from the outside for the first time since they lost their memories - and see that it is larger than Steyr's ship, and even larger than the Saturnine, a full Capital Class vessel. As they dock in the Heart's hangar bay, they learn that the hangar security officer is Bobson Dugnutt, who has been working for them since before they lost their memories. He is shocked to see that Bobby is dead, and suggest that his corpse could be stored in his "Hummingbird" - a combat shuttle with a sealed life supporting environment inside. Realizing that Bobson did not lose his memories, Philge asks what mission the Friends last left on. Bobson replies that they were leaving for the Charcoal Bazaar to steal the Lance.

Philge manages to rally the ship's security forces into storming the bridge, while results in the defeat of the Auspicer team, but also resulting in the brutal and horrific slaughter (as relayed by LOGAN) of 700 tinker gnome security crew. The Friends hand out the Auspicers' powerful Spectral Lance weapons to the crew, although Baston breaks his by using it to jimmy the lock securing the Auspex. Philge considers going to find Titania, but LOGAN warns them that if they remain on Primus, Steyr will retake the ship as soon as he realizes what has happened; instead they decide to use Bobby's Hummingbird's autopilot to carry his corpse to Titania on Primus with a post-it note stuck to his forehead reading "I am dead. Please make undead." Freezo as navigator decides that the ship should jump to the Deadlands to find the tower he previously constructed.

## People

### Dragon Friends

* Freezo
* Philge
* Baston

### Non-Player Characters (NPCs)

* Johnny Starburst
* Bobson Dugnutt
* LOGAN
* Tim and Stephanie, crew pilots
* Monty, Clive, and Kevin, navigation acolytes who are possibly mop-top masseuses
* Tinker Gnomes

## Places

* The House Eternal
* The Flying Dutchman
* The Heart of Glass

## Themes, tropes and running jokes

* I make an Arcana check
* After Freezo asks if Baston has a sad song, Freezo asks if he can sing *I'm The Best* in a minor key.. but the music was slightly ahead of him, and the background music changes to minor just *before* Freezo says this.

## Quotes

* ".. If.. if, somehow, and I don't know how it works.. but if we can find some powerful magic to bring Bobby back, somehow.. I think we shouldn't tell him that I could've just opened the door."
* "That's why we were in jail. We murdered him... we **were** **told** we murdered him."
* "No. We should go off into space. Let's go off into space and dangle Bobby out the window so he freezes. We could just like trail him along behind us and then he'll be all preserved in the cold and then we can take him to a witch and she's make him better." "But what about space fish? If you dangle a body outside the ship a space fish will come and chomp it up. Sure you'll catch that space fish, but then what will you do with it? Eat it? I don't think so." "Well, can't Baston punch them away?"
* "Jeremy, are you coming with us?" "Ooh, hang on a second, you want to take my Jeremy away from me?" "Well, you can have our Bobby!" "No, no, no, we need Bobby to take him to Titania!" "Also I don't want a corpse." "Alright.. we'll owe you a corpse."
* "When I woke up here six months ago, I heard the voice of Johnny Playstation saying 'I've saved you, as an afterthought', now I didn't know why he added THAT..."
* "But if you include the crew.. and want to storm the bridge.. then, yea, 15 thousand vs about 10." "Ok, so this is a classic Dragon Friends revolution situation. We've run this playbook before." "There's no revolution. They're *your* crew."
* "Ok, everyone listen up! It me, your captain!" "HELLO!" "What me favorite animal again?" "RAT!" "This is Jeremy. He's looking after Bobby's spot while Bobby has a very tactical think about the next move in his meditation plane. His favourite animal is.." "My favourite animal is a humble bunny." "And that's all you need to know about your new flight commander Jeremy Scaleson."
* "Does this affect our superfund?" "Hang on, well did you sign up with your own one or did you use the one we gave you when you signed up? Because.." "Sorry, never mind, I just realized I was imagined into existence six months ago by a mad guard." "Ok, well, just to check, if you want to go see Rachel in HR.."
* "Just lookin' at the bridge now.. it's the old, um, it's the blokes who have taken the ship.. oh, hang on, it's some of the Security Forces, what are they.. so they're trying to open.. right.. sorry, it's just a bit hard to keep up.. so they've all been, um, what's the.. massacred. Just sort of one after the other just sort of getting mowed down." "I'd say it's a ratio of about 60-70 security force to one auspicer."
* "We can jump if you want, but the moment we do they're going to bloody know. They'll realize we're not part of the bubble and Steyr will be on your feet again. But you've got a second, you can jump anywhere you want right now." "We want to get to Titania." "So, she's on Prime." "Let's go there then." "That's where we are."

## Table Talk

* "Shouldn't Bobby have to, like, roll to see if he hit himself?" "No. An accidental.. like in a combat.. you would get death saves. But you tried to kill yourself, and that is something that you are able to do, so congrats, I guess."
* "With your 19, you can tell that on this side you can manipulate the door.. the magic breaks from this side." "Oh, I open the door then." "The doors swing open." "Wait... what?" "... And you see Bobby's lifeless corpse." "WHAT!? Should we have tried to **open the door**?" "YOU IDIOT! ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!"
* ".. And waiting, with his arms crossed behind him, you can see backlit by this light, the dark figure of a goblin in a black suit." "Is.. is.." "It's not who you were thinking of. That was misleading."