01.2 - Smoke on the Water

Nature: Scenario
GM: Jonathan
Players: Reed (Torstein), Bubbles (Hilde), Nyan (Kim)

Description: Reed, Bubbles, and Nyan notice smoke billowing from a building site and investigate. They discover that the townsfolk are building a hotspring to placate a local water spirit, but that the boiler the town wanted to use is producing too much smoke. They ask Lapis, a smith and town elder who was clearly taking charge of the situation within the building site, how they can help. She suggests examining alternatives to the wood they're using, the boiler they have, and/or maybe even the heating techniques at all.

With these statements as guides, they head out to talk to Saffron, a gemsmith specialising in waterstones that Reed had met briefly previously. While the team notice that it might be possible to use Saffron to create an alternative heating source, they decide not to as the requirement to be able to do so would be to force Saffron to undergo something he specifically does not want to.

The team then head off to the logging camp in the forest to investigate the wood situation. At the camp they run into Asher, a charcoal burner with the caravan, who was finishing up some business with the logging team. They learn that charcoal has far less smoke when you burn it, although you have to create it in the first place which can be smoky, and negotiate with Asher for some charcoal and his advice in how Lapis to create a charcoal kiln. Reed takes the opportunity to approach Saffron to request a water stone, and is given a small stone on the condition that he have a word to a member of the caravan who had taken a large water stone without asking.

The next day the team oversee a meeting between Asher and Lapis, with Asher agreeing with Lapis that the boiler the town has needs urgent upgrades. As neither Asher or Lapis are super experienced with boiler systems, the players approach Springtide, the caravan's water expert and part-time tinkerer. He agrees that the boiler is out of date, and luckily has some knowledge of how to upgrade old boilers like this to some degree, but can't provide plans for a better boiler in general. He enlists the help of Thyme, another tinkerer with the caravan, and between the two of them the upgrades are completed within the day.

The team then contact the water spirit, and, with Reed using water walking on top of the puddle within which the spirit is residing, perform a ritualistic welcoming for the spirit into the hot spring, accessed through the boiler. The spirit takes his spring, quickly changes its flow so it feeds directly into the intake of the boiler, and shoots through out to the other side, quickly filling the hotspring with steaming hot water.

Player Retellings:

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