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RollingHolyStarMission

Notes taken by various people, later edited by Toma for spelling, grammar, and removal of bragging.

A first look at the Iron Star shows that it's something made, rather than natural. It hovers across what we now known to be a magical boundary line, and passes overhead twice a day -- we don't know if it goes around the world or not. We also don't know what it's for. It appeared in the skies two or three weeks before the Five Minutes of Dread a year ago, however, it looks much older. It's clearly been damaged.

While we prepare to attack the Enemy, we are going to attempt to reach the Iron Star. It may give us the high ground in the coming fight.

The netting under it looks like it was a very loose basket held by the four small iron frames, one of which was ripped out. It is torn, but it looked newer than the rest and can probably be harpooned.

Our second airship, the Double Entendre, can almost reach the Iron Star if it is lightened and stripped of weapons -- we are going to try to do this next morning.

IFB warriors attending: Naeko; Commander, Milktea; Second-Commander, Ran; Mooring Specialist, Bin; Shield Bearer, Kiri; Medic, Lewi; Ranged Support.

Gear carried: Warm Clothing, 6 rebreathers, 4x Lightened Brigandine (Bin, Kiri, Lewi, Milktea), Leather Armor (Naeko), 4 waterskins, 4lb rations, rope, Xeclo rope, adamantine wire, simple book, charcoal pencils, 2x light crossbows (Naeko, Kiri), 20 xbow bolts, 10 arrows, appropriate weapons.

Plan: Ran is going to jump off the Double Entendre with some adamantine and xeclo string, and hopefully be able to come back to the Double Entendre. A bigger rope will be tied to the string, and reeled in. This should let us moor the airship to the Iron Star and maybe climb aboard.

Log - Attempt 1 - Dawn

• Initial climb went well. The Double Entendre is performing well. It seems that it is best to wait until the Iron Star twinkles at the ground, just before dawn, and launch.
• Milktea notes that the Iron Star goes almost exactly eastward when going past the World Mountain. It is not easy to fly eastward and let it catch up, because there is no rearward visibility. Follow the river, and stay a little to the left of it.
• The Double Entendre can keep up with the Iron Star for a brief period of time if the Warlock's Wheels are allowed to eat up a bit of magical energy right near the encounter. This causes exhaustion in the caster.
• Lewi notes that near the encounter, the air is so thin that shooting oddly-shaped things out of a crossbow, like a lump of coal, does not affect aim very much!
• Ran notes that the air was actually a little warmer going upwards.
• Ran notes that her embers let her put in a precious few flaps of her wings, although the proximity of the magical barrier and the Warlock's Wheels make this very tiring.
• Biggie notes that the best way to hoist the Double Entendre to the Iron Star is to fly someone or something with the adamantine string, make a loop, and use that to pull up a thicker rope before actually hoisting.
• The purple things are definitely of ancient shadow elf make and could be air tanks.
• The ropework is obviously very recent, as is the damage to the structure.
• Our best efforts at high altitude show that we are tantalizingly close. The Iron Star flies overhead at dawn and dusk, roughly. We have enough refined coal for four more attempts.
• Unconfirmed report of dragonfire to the north. Has the Enemy ceased her hiatus?
• Study of Iron Star netting fragment by Ardi, Genny and Toma confirms that the ropework was done in the modern Broken Lands, as the fibers are maidenhair of a type that mostly grows there. There is little fraying, so the work was done recently. The netting should be able to hold up the Double Entendre enough for a longer mooring line to be secured in place. We should make a mooring line that is long enough to be easy-ish to catch, either way, so that as soon as we latch once, we will be able to do so easily in the future.
• We still do not know if the Iron Star circles the world, or if it does a narrower circle.
• LESSONS LEARNED: A few. The first mooring attempt technically worked, after all! It may be easier to control the Double Entendre if she moves backwards; throwing things works surprisingly well to help someone stay aloft (Remia's suggestion of bringing pillows and a light ballista instead of the crossbow has some merit); Ran's embers are the only form of powered flight that works any more than zero; carrying a few magical trinkets so that the Wheels can temporarily drain them may be useful, but as per Naeko's experience, they seem to want to drain casters first -- that is also a possibility.
• Effect of farting upon high altitude flying unconfirmed. Keep beans away from Dasher. On that note, Dasher is not allowed to fly to the Iron Star by means of hugging a glider rocket, even if she's telling the truth and a squat greenskin merchant called Jebediah gave her the idea while the mission was underway and the resupply folks showed up.
• On THAT note, it seems that a lot of people around Izwald and in the Bartok clan believe that the Iron Star belongs to the IFB. Farok says he hasn't started the rumor, but hasn't contradicted it either.

Log - Attempt 2 - Dawn

• Same crewmembers attending.
• Same gear carried, plus two rockets for Ran.
• We have enough coal for three more attempts.
• Lining up to meet with the Iron Star, if not done perfectly, wastes velocity and gives a smaller window of opportunity to tie up to it.
• The antimagic barrier is thin: there's a possibility of it dissipating when going further up than the limit.
• SUCCESS! Writeup to follow.

Milktea
-Platform seems good enough to build on, potential to place a crew on board for use in future.
-Shacks have portals to plane of air, which provide breathing space.
-Make and types of supplies are recent, and lead credence to Near's hypothesis of it belonging to one "Ambrose"
-Derpy writing is familiar, currently unable to place it.
-Steward taken care of, probably. Strange manufacture, but notably it used magic above the antimagic line.
-This, along with the decanter's function, and the portals function, suggest magic can work up here.
-The Ironstar could also be used for very fast travel, it's kind of scary...

Ran
-Rocket propelled harpy idea worked for getting onto the iron star. Movement is strange, and there is an extra degree of direction to account for. If we need to do this again in the future, bringing spare rockets is recommended.
-Lewi kissed Kiri! We all pretended not to notice.
-Big metal guy tried to throw me off the thingie, it hurt! Lewi helped me out, zo.
-Need to bring stuff for mapmaking. World is pretty big!
-Lewi has a cute butt, and it's comfy~

Kiri
-It's fucking cold.
-This mask is uncomfortable. At least I get constant access to the decanter.
-I'm tired, stupid magic draining.
-Don't want to come back up here, it sucks. Boring. Don't know why Tits and the black cat are so excited.
-Really don't want to come back up here, even if that thing is broken. Zapped by it and passed out. Fortunately was helped by Naeko.
-The antimagic line is draining going up and down; we may want to find something to protect against that.

Bin
-No comments so far.
-Captain and the Magister seem excited about the finds, hard to not feel excited myself.
-Hard to breathe up here, but working on making a base could be interesting?
-The world looks rather small from up here. It makes me think.

Lewi
-The view is rather beautiful
-We may wish to redo the rope rigging to make it easier to dock.
-Kiri is rather annoyed, sneaking a kiss improved her mood somewhat, hope we weren't caught.
-It's like a child's ball... Blue and white and green and brown...