The party came to in the midst of a violent battle in wildspace. The Moonraider was under heavy fire and the assault of a boarding party. Its commanding officer, Captain Sardax, urged the party to take back the ship in her dying breaths. The battle waged on as more and more astral reavers cames to claim their new prize. Despite the party’s valiant efforts to repel the the boarding party, the battle still led to defeat as the Moonraider was destroyed. The party watched as the ship was destroyed from underneath them. Then, the space around them gave way, distorting and blurring away, revealing that they were actually in a large, domed room.
They were addressed by Spelljammer Academy’s training officer, Boatswain Tarto. The battle-hardened hadozee gave them an after-action report, provided them with a brief perspective on the academy, and assigned them with a list of orientation tasks to be fulfilled before lunch.
The party worked its way through the orientation task list. After having a run in with security guards on high alert, they claimed their new uniforms from Sor’kur, the thri-kreen receptionist in the administration suite. Dressed in cadet uniforms, some of the party went to the stores to pick up assigned equipment. The others went to find their new bunks. At the store, they met shopkeep Master Blip, a well-liked autognome.
Once the shoppers made their way to the bunks, they were met by some other cadets. One such cadet, an elf named Veena, tried to claim the bunk assigned to Kiboko. It took a variety of persuasion efforts, but the party eventually convinced her to go back to the bunk assigned to her.
With their bunks situated, the party went to sky dock for some basic instruction on Spelljammer ships. While being given some basics in ship design and usage by gnomes Kip and Pik, Idakath noticed as a merchant and hobgoblin officer covertly exchanged a bottle of fine rum for a platinum. Idakath informed Kip and Pik, who seemed torn about needing to enforce the rules in this case, but nevertheless went to reprimand Officer Onkur. Onkur was taken away to the brig, but not before assuming the party was responsible for his being found out.
Upon returning to finish training, Idakath got an eye on the bottle of rum and decided to claim it for himself. Working together with Inrim, who managed to get Kip and Pik caught up in the details of the ship weaponry, they took the bottle of Yggdrasil Garden Rum and stashed it away.
Leaving that training, the magically-inclined made their way to the Spelljamming Nexus for Spelljammer training. Inrim stayed behind to chat up the sailors at skydock. At the Nexus, they were instructed by human Saerthe Abizjn. Their instructor taught them about the basics of spelljamming and probed a bit into their personal histories. They allowed the trainees to play around a bit with the simulation before sending them back on their way.
Meeting back up at the bunks to leave the bottle of rum, the party decided to head to cadet quarters’ tavern, the Weeping Goddess. There, the party managed to convince the barkeep to put their shots on Veena’s tab. Leaving the tavern, Inrim kept his shot glass. He left the shot glass with a gold piece in it for Veena, choosing to set it on the grease stain left from Kiboko’s earlier attempt to trip Veena and her associates up.
Finally, the party made their way to the physical training course. They were met at the obstacle course by Lilith, a young human female who worked for the academy. She gave them the view of the course and let them free. Kiboko and Idakath managed to complete the course on their first attempts. Charlie and Inrim had sticking points along the way, but they also finished the course. Charlie, thinking this deck was stacked against her, celebrated her success by ringing the gong at the end of the course with her magic missiles. Inrim, frustrated by slipping up on his first attempt, decided to run back after success for one more go at the climbing pole. This time, he had no issue, and rang the gong so hard that he could be heard outside the training facility. This drew a repeated poke from Lilith, shouting across the facility, and further locked in his already growing reputation as “a real tough guy” in the academy.
With their last orientation task complete, the party left the training facility. They were now ready to return to Officer Tarto, just as soon as they could take a minute to catch their breath…
Next chapter: Spelljammer 2022 – Session 02, 2022-09-28