Voyage of the Golden Duchess: Session 2: Framed in Space

Dock Seven was already teetering on the edge of disaster when the void tore through its heart. The once-bustling pier became a battlefield as corpses rose as huskspawn, their flesh warped and their voices howling with alien hunger. At the rift’s center towered the Void-Touched Enforcer, a grotesque creature stitched together from voidstuff and muscle, its maw rumbling with an endless abyss.

The crew of the Golden Duchess met this nightmare with equal parts chaos and defiance. Miss Fortune fought with bedazzled pistols and booming insults, her voice shaking the Enforcer’s mind until it shriveled and collapsed under the weight of her Dissonant Whispers. Lady Fanny Snaps, shining in her radiant starry form, slashed with celestial claws and healed herself between blows, only to be mauled back down to single digits of strength. Still, she taunted the void with theatrical flourishes and struck true when it mattered most. Daddy Iggyo lashed the Enforcer with hexes and eldritch blasts, his illusions flipping between menace and comedy—one moment a demon, the next a perfect mimic of councilors and captains. Miss Lady Fontaine, panicked but determined, conjured phantasmal doubles of Fanny Snaps to confuse the monster and then ended the fight with a spray of glittering magic missiles that decapitated the beast in a shower of sparks.

Victory came at a terrible price. The mercenaries of Anchor’s Rest—the Ironwake Guard—arrived not to aid but to cut Dock Seven loose. With ritual chants and flashing sigils, they severed the chains that bound dock to city. The entire structure lurched into space, ships and cargo pulled into the void like driftwood in a tide. Guards and civilians screamed as the void swallowed them whole.

The Duchess was among the vessels caught adrift. The crew scrambled across splintering planks, Miss Fortune sprinting with hippo-like thunder, Fontaine holstering her pistol between her glittering bosom, and Fanny Snaps limping and bleeding. “Get to the Duchess!” became their rallying cry.

Among the tumbling wreckage, Fanny Snaps spotted something: Crate #77. Fontaine’s parcel lay half-disintegrated, silks and finery dusted away into the void. But the real horror was the crate beside it—a splintered container pulsing with a shard of black stone. It beat like a heart, every thrum sending cracks further into the dock. The manifest listed its destination as “The Heart of Anchor’s Rest”—Dockmaster’s Accord, the city’s council hall. Its order bore only a cryptic initial: C.

With a flourish of magic and desperate timing, the crew recovered what little they could before retreating. Fontaine clutched her ruined package, its edges glowing with residue of the void. Daddy Iggyo, with a spin and a shimmer, Misty Stepped parcels out from the brink, landing on the Duchess with glittering panache. “Who’s your daddy?” he grinned, clutching half a crate that crumbled in his hands.

The Duchess tore away from Dock Seven just as the void consumed it whole. From afar, the crew watched as the dock drifted further into the black, its broken timbers dragged into the abyss, screams fading into silence.

Respite did not last. By the time the ship limped toward Dock Five, the city already pulsed with rumor. Pamphlets plastered the streets: “Golden Duchess Found Guilty—Terror at Dock Seven!” Captain Cut-a-bitch’s portrait, scandalized and bedazzled, was branded across the front pages. Ironwake mercenaries moved to detain the crew, charging them with destruction of property and sabotage.

Only Daddy Iggyo’s quick thinking saved them. With a shimmer of glam and a shift of horns, he became the image of Dockmaster Ysilla Dregs herself, ordering the guards aside with perfect mimicry. The Ironwake bowed and scattered, leaving the crew free to slink into the city.

Their investigation led them into the heart of Anchor’s Rest politics: the Dockmaster’s Accord, six councilors who ruled the city through commerce, corruption, and cutthroat bargains. Among them were Ysilla Dregs, mistress of imports and curiosities and current high dockmaster; Marella Veyne, the cold-eyed Mistress of Manifest, rumored to keep a secret ledger only she can read; Shalindi Coram, the ruthless Mistress of Coin, nearly elected by a flood of mysterious votes; Grenther Saltjaw Broke, a half-orc captain whose lost contracts made him bitter; Edric Two-Knots Rall, a bribe-taking harbormaster with sinking revenues; and Corrin Two-Cups Daggart, a drunkard customs officer with ink-stained hands.

Someone on this council had reason to sabotage Dock Seven, to frame the Duchess, and to unleash the void into Anchor’s Rest. But who?

Inside Dockmaster’s Accord, whispers followed the crew: terrorists, scapegoats, saboteurs. The council chambers dripped with suspicion and self-interest. Miss Lady Fontaine leaned on her reputation and high fashion to secure an audience with Marella Veyne. There, in the cold light of her office, the truth began to unravel. Marella's immaculate ledgers confirmed it—the voidstone was signed into the Duchess’s manifest by someone inside the Accord.

Now the crew has leads: debts unpaid, contracts stolen, and elections tampered with. Every councilor has motive. Every dock hides secrets. And somewhere behind it all lurks the mysterious “C” who ordered the shard of the void delivered straight to the city’s heart.

The Golden Duchess sails on, but now she sails in the shadow of conspiracy. She is framed for terrorism, hunted by mercenaries, and caught in the games of Anchor’s Rest’s most dangerous powerbrokers.