1. Fired & Forgotten

11th Eyre, 998 YK

We establish how (and if) each of the characters know each other and define fellowship tags.
Most of the group are from quite privileged backgrounds, Ruckus Gilbang is not.
We begin in medias res, with the party's initiation into the Clifftop Adventurer's Guild: Sharn Chicken!
Our heroes introduce themselves, as do their rivals from the Deathsgate Explorers' Club: Aena Thennas, Ferrin, and Gor'aashta
Damien d'Orien wasn't paying attention to the rules of Sharn Chicken, and has to have it explained.
The Deathsgate rivals shoot them dirty looks for ruining the moment, it was gonna be so dramatic!
The rules are explained, and their concerns about safety assuaged.
They jump!
Charlie Rannek quickly identifies an issue: he's heading right for a washing line! He bravely wiggles to try and avoid it, but ends up taking a sheet with him. He flails to remove it, and avoids being blinded.
Damien d'Orien finds that there is a skycoach carrying a palette of cabbages in his path. He uses his dragonmark to teleport at the last second to avoid the cabbages.
Ruckus Gilbang drew the short straw, and is heading straight towards a pane of glass that is being carefully levitated across a gap! He curls up into a ball and just misses it, but his fall distracts the magewrights and one of them drops it, causing it to start swinging.
Right into Banazir's path, as a gust of wind blows him off course! He barrels straight through the glass, using his frying pan as a shield and avoiding any harm.
Yashira Medani doesn't face a danger like the others, but something potentially more devastating. There's a lottery ticket being blown in the wind, just out of reach! She tries to alter her trajectory to grab it, popping one of the clips on her shoulder cape and swings her cape to try and blow it infront of her. She fails spectacularly and blows the ticket even further away from her.
All of them are then startled as a burst of prismatic light comes from one of the bridges, potentially blinding them. Damien covers his eyes in time and avoids being dazzled, Charlie is still flailing, which turns him around to avoid the light but worsens the flailing. Ruckus relies on his goggles and they fail him, blinding him. Banazir relies on his ol' reliable, and uses his frying pan to shield himself. It's just that easy! Yashira uses her cape (which she already unclipped) to try and block the light.
Ruckus, blinded, activates his token as he can't see. Yashira and Charlie's nerves break and they activate their tokens.
Ban and Gor'aashta activate their tokens at the same time, with Damien activating his last and winning the game!
They hit the ground and Yashira immediately leads them back up an elevator to investigate the explosion on the bridge.
They see the commotion, with the poor woman that has manifested an Aberrant Dragonmark. This gives them pause, as half of the group are from a Dragonmarked House. Ban wants to help the woman, and goes to do so even as the others hesitate.
Ban manages to talk down the watchmen and get them to step away, but fails to calm down the woman and another burst of light happens, blinding Ban, the watch, and the onlookers.
Yashira rushes to try and tackle the woman, but her fight or flight kicks in at getting so close to an Aberrant and she misjudges, tackling the ground.
Damien rushes forward and scoops up Ban, getting him to safety. When Ban's vision clears, he sees Yashira on the ground and the guards and townsfolk clutching their eyes. The woman is like a deer in headlights, and looks like shes' about to flee.
Yashira gets up and wraps some cloth around the woman's mark to try and mitigate it going off again. The woman flinches but Yashira takes control of the situation, and just breaking line of sight with the mark helps calm the woman down.
Yashira then gets the woman out of danger, taking her somewhere else and regrouping with the rest of the party in an alley.
The woman tearfully thanks Yashira and introduces herself as Chandra Thane.
Yashira asks what happened? Chandra explains how she was walking back from class when her hand just exploded. She dropped her books! That's so much money! And her dissertation! She was writing one on the Lhazaarite Migration!
Charlie's going to get it back. He saunters back to the bridge, seeing the watch looking for Chandra, and walks on over to get the bag as if he owns the place.
Charlie picks up the bag and is stopped by one of the watch, who asks what he's doing taking evidence from a crime scene? "That terrorist had the bag!"
Seeing this happen, and Charlie fail to blag it, Ruckus jury rigs a smoke bomb and throws it onto the bridge.
Charlie takes the opportunity to skedaddle, but there's not a larger manhunt for Chandra.
Ruckus and Charlie return to the others whilst Chandra is explaining that she has an upcoming trip to the Lhazaar Principalities, maybe she should do that sooner rather than later.
"We've got good news and bad news"
Yashira asks for the bad news first.
Ruckus gives the good news first. "We got the books and bag back, but Charlie is now an accomplice to terrorism"
Damien comments that's a bit harsh
Yashira explains that Chandra is dangerous, and she isn't sure sending her away is the right call here.
Damien mentions he's heard rumours of an organisation that helps Aberrants in Sharn
Ban has contacts, he's worked with House Tarkanan before. He sends Chandra to his family's bed and breakfast, and gets a message out to House Tarkanan.
"Trust me, my mother makes the best food in town!"
Ruckus agrees
They get Chandra to the B&B, and she thanks them profusely. She can't offer them anything as payment, but that's okay. Charlie asks to read her dissertation when it's done.
Right, their handler is probably waiting for them! Whoops!
They go to where they were supposed to meet, and Lhara gives them a withering glare.
They apologise for keeping her waiting, and she congratulates them on their official entry to the guild! She puts them to work immediately.
She explains that they need to collect an order for a client, from a workshop down in The Cogs. Drummond Independents.
She gives the notarised credit note to Damien, to pay for the idol. She explains what they're after and where to go, and then leaves them.
Damien puts the note away, and Ruckus comments on how organised his pack is! "Way more than mine"
Ruckus opens his pack and Damien blows a gasket. It's so disorganised! He immediately starts trying to sort the chaos.
Charlie says he's not letting Damien touch his pack.
Damien orien steps over to Charlie and takes his bag. Charlie tells him to leave his bag alone, he has a system!
Ruckus comments that their shoes are all too clean, they'll stand out in the Cogs. He gets some dirt and just muddies Yashira's shoes, which she made herself.
"Won't it stand out more if everything else is pristine, but my shoes are muddy? No! That is not an invitation to smear mud over the rest of me! I'd rather stay clean, I'll get muddy and dirty on my own terms!"
Banazir is not wearing shoes, so he just gets dirty feet. Gotta fit in! That's probably even better than dirty shoes.
Damien muddies his shoes, and groans while doing so.
They get into a lift down to Blackbones, a metal cage with ropes and pulleys. Ruckus comments "this is the authentic experience, let the hopelessness set in"
They emerge into Blackbones, Ruckus' neck of the woods. Ruckus calls out to his friend Jerry, another goblin.
Ban comments on the heat, he couldn't've imagined how hot it actually is down here.
Charlie rubs his hands together and blows out, and his breath mists as if it's cold. He creates a small area of comfortable temperature, and the others are amazed.
"I read it in a book"
"Oh, you're a magewright?"
"Uhh...yes"
Amazing!
Ruckus leads the way to Drummond Independents, taking shortcuts.
They have to keep Damien on task, as he keeps wandering off and looking at things, asking questions.
They arrive at the workshop and see a crowd of warforged on strike. A young gnome woman comes over to speak to them and introduces herself as Tresca Teesbeak. She's the one who's been contracted to make their order, but she's no scab and won't do so until her friends' strike is resolved. She supports them.
The heroes ask what's going on, and Tresca explains it's a pay dispute. The 'forged aren't paid fairly, and it's time that changed.
Stoke approaches them while they talk to Tresca, and further explains the situation and asks if they'll help. He's really stoked to meet them!
He provides some background on the Warforged and their situation, and suggests some ideas. They could gather some support from the Red Hammer, see if anyone in the picket needs help, or just try and raise morale! Stoke is also open to any other ideas they may have.
Charlie starts working on a song to mock Drummond to help morale.
They split up.
Ban, Ruckus and Yashira go to the Red Hammer to gather support there. Damien goes to gather support around the Cogs to draw more people to the protest.
Those who go to the Hammer are greeted by Blue, who asks if she can help them.
Ruckus explains that they're here on business, not pleasure.
Yashira provides more details, informing Blue of the strike action. Blue says most of the people here are on break and will have to get back to work, but if they can convince any of them, Blue and Crucible will help.
As a group, they try to convince the clientele of the Red Hammer. Ban gets up on the bar and gives a really inspiring speech about their comrades fighting for their rights, and for a living wage! They need all the help they can get! The other two wing man him and react dramatically to enhance the pizazz.
Ban successfully gets all of the clients in Red Hammer to help. Blue gets a bunch of wooden boards and they make signs with slogans on, and then the dozen or so recruited 'forged recruit others to go and help with the strike.
Damien wanders around the Cogs gathering support, but not everyone is receptive and he gets chewed out. He still gathers some support though!
Charlie writes and performs a satirical song about Drummond, which rouses the crowd further and pisses Drummond off enough that he goes back inside and stops heckling the crowd.
The group decide to do one last hurrah to try and rouse the crowd and reach critical mass. Ruckus makes a speaker for Charlie, and he gives a rousing speech (and diss track) to rouse the crowd. They gather support from all over the Cogs, as warforged at other workshops throw down their tools and join the picket, and they even gather a bunch of goblinoids!
Drummond emerges from the workshop, defeated, and concedes to the demands of the warforged crews.
Stoke comes over to the party, and mimes wiping a metaphorical tear from his eye. He thanks them for their help, and says they will always have friends in the Cogs, they won't forget what the group did.
They're ready to get to work on the Burning Idol! Tresca leads them (and Stoke) into the workshop and explains that the forge has been left unattended too long. It draws its heat from Fernia, so they'll likely need to stabilize it.
Tresca hands Damien a stone crucible.
Tresca and Stoke can handle stabilising the forge, but elementals may come out of it and the heroes will need to keep them at bay.
Ready to begin, we end the session.

Charlie's Diss Track

this is the song of the folk of the cogs

the home of forged and forges

where the people are all underpaid

but are still pretty gorgeous

the greasy man named drummond

refuses to pay them all that well

his heart is black and his attitude stinks

and he spends all of his money on hair gel

doesn't matter whether you're skin or metal

your work should be paid what they're due

we all stand here for workers rights

and if you don't then fuck you!