Tim (Sir Brindal Karth), Chris (Peter Sangaree), Nick (Brother Xavier) and April (Sister Joann) all make an appearance. It looks like everyone else is planning on taking an extended (possibly permanent) hiatus from the game.
The characters start on the Jaf road, heading to Spada House. As they walk, they discuss strategy for Sir Brindal Karth's petition to Count Marco Linford de Hazat. Peter Sangaree suggests that Brindal Karth shouldn't say anything until he can get a private audience with the Count. He also suggests that Brindal Karth should try and get some money out of the Count in addition to the fief. Brindal Karth doesn't agree, preferring to use blackmail only as a last resort, and to ask only for the land. Unique among player characters, he feels it would be better to find above-the-board ways to get money.
Halfway to Spada House, the characters pass by the Jaf Road Wayhouse, a simple building with several locals sitting about in front. Sir Brindal Karth refuses to stop for food or rest, insisting that he's better than everyone else and doesn't need to stop. Peter Sangaree is much more practical, and purchases two steins of thick beer and a joint of meat on a stick for a tenth Firebird. He finds that the pace demanded by Brindal Karth is a bit stiff for a man carrying such a lot of food in open containers, so he dumps one mug of beer into one of his nano-mimetic food storage bags.
The characters get to Spada House by midafternoon. They pass between the outer fortresses, pausing only briefly to admire the substantial quantities of artillery emplaced there. They also notice that there are large numbers of grey-suited trainees marching around in grey uniforms.
The characters reach the door of Spada House proper, where they are stopped by a very proper-looking Hazat guard. Sir Brindal Karth tries to impress the guy enough to get inside, but he doesn't have much success until the rather more worldly Peter Sangaree passes Brindal Karth the purse he "dropped", along with the suggestion that he might want to bribe the guard. Fortified with this suggestion, he bribes the guard with a Firebird. The guard goes to fetch the Master of Keys.
The Master of Keys proves to be a portly, middle-aged man who introduces himself as Sir Peter Gehallen de Hazat. Sir Gehallen de Hazat listens to Sir Brindal Karth's story, including a rather vague description of why exactly he wants to speak to the Count, then regretfully informs him that the Count is out hunting in his preserve to the north for the next twenty days. He does extend the hospitality of Spada House, however, and arranges for a rather severe-looking maid named Pichest to take the characters to a suite of rooms in the guest wing. Peter Sangaree, ever impressed by opulence, immediately inquires as to exactly what kinds of services are available to him as a guest. Quite satisfied by the answers, he proceeds to avail himself of a bath, a haircut, and a massage.
Sister Joann, who has habits much more virtuous than Peter Sangaree, heads down to the training area gymnasium. While working on the weights, she gets into a conversation with three soldiers whom she discovers hail from Liegford, a province about three hours' flight to the south. She also notices three boys training with a fencing master across the room. One of them is dark-haired, like most of the local Hazat nobility, but the other two have the blonde hair and hawk noses characteristic of the Delphi Hawkwood families.
After the characters enjoy dinner in the guest hall, a servant approaches them to invite them to meet with the Master of the Keys in the library. They find Sir Peter relaxing in a velvet smoking jacket, holding a cigarette in a long ivory holder. He takes long pulls on it, and offers other cigarettes to the characters from a silver case. Both Peter Sangaree and Sir Brindal Karth accept one. Sir Brindal Karth determines that whatever is in the cigarette, it isn't tobacco.
Sir Peter tells the characters that he has spoken with the Count, and has arranged a way to get the characters an audience before the Count comes back from his hunting trip. He tells them that one of his householders, a man named Goff, will drive them out to the hunting preserve tomorrow afternoon. The characters agree to head out with him.
The drive to the hunting preserve is fairly uneventful. Despite the fairly short distance, it still takes Goff a couple of hours to drive, due to the uneven quality of the roads. The way ends in a dirt trail leading through a dark forest. As the characters' car bumps along the trail, Goff points out a shadowy form moving in the darkness to one side. "Spiny flieger. They are poisonous. We hunt them," he explains, with typically conservative diction.
The car is finally stopped by two men in Hazat householders' uniforms carrying massive rifles the characters quickly dub "flieger-poppers." While the two huntsmen are talking to Goff, Brother Xavier notices that there is a third huntsman hiding on a platform in the trees to the side, aiming an RPG launcher at the car. Sir Brindal Karth doesn't see the rocket-launcher sniper, but he does see the characteristic shimmer of a sensorweb about 30 meters behind the car, indicating that the guards almost certainly know about everything that moves within about a kilometer of the base station, probably in the center of the camp.
Just after the characters leave the car and head towards the Count's tent, an air-horn alarm sounds. Before the characters really understand what's happening, three spiny fliegers leap into the camp. One of them jumps clear over the tent the characters are walking towards and kicks Brother Xavier in the chest. Sir Brindal Karth whips up his sniper rifle and snap shots the flieger in the chest an instant before Brother Xavier draws his blade and cuts the beast clear in half. Sister Joann rushes over to attack a second flieger, wounding it desperately before Brindal Karth shoots it through the eye. Meanwhile, Peter Sangaree reacts with extreme bravery by leaping back into the car and rolling up the windows.
Once the dust settles, Goff takes the characters to the medical tent, where a Hazat medic patches them up with elixir. By the time he gets to them, Brother Xavier is feeling the burning of the fliegers' venom, a burning that is swiftly dispersed by the elixir.
While the characters are in the medical tent, Count Marco Linford de Hazat steps in and introduces himself. He is a wide-set man with greying hair and a rock-solid hand, dressed in well-worn hunting garb. He takes them to his tent and introduces the characters to his hunting companions: Sir Leopold Firbolg-Hazat, the Count's Master of Borders; Earl Simon Mangonno-Hawkwood, lord of the neighboring Dorotea province; and the Baroness Karen Sirreya-Hazat. Along the way, he compliments the characters upon their performance with the spiny fliegers. He notes that his Master Husbandman released two score of the beasts into the forests ten days ago. He also promises to have the flieger Sir Brindal Karth killed and a claw of the bird Brother Xavier cut in half stuffed, mounted, and delivered back to Spada House. After a short conversation, Sir Brindal Karth convinces the Count that he needs to talk to him alone. The Count offers to let him join him in his blind, just outside the sensorweb border.
In the blind, Brindal Karth is quite blunt. He has with him all of Director Yie's documentation, and the blackmail information indicating that the Count has been smuggling decommissioned Hawkwood dervishes to Aragon as Hazat householders. The Count is clearly not pleased with the position he finds himself in, and notes that he can easily think of several other nobles more deserving of the fief than Brindal Karth. For example, he could award it to the Baroness Sirreya-Hazat, whose father died in battle during the Emperor Wars and whose ancestral homelands were devastated by Li Halan nuclear strikes. Or, he could reward his own Master of Borders for many years of loyal service by giving the fief either to him, or to his son. However, he concedes that he has little choice in giving it to Brindal Karth. He arranges to have the documents prepared and signed immediately.
The characters have Goff drive them back to Spada House, mindful of possible "hunting accidents" if they stay at the camp.
The characters arrange to fly back to Sonnbourg two days later, on the regular Flyers' Association transport. The flight costs them 5 Firebirds each, paid by Sir Brindal Karth. The plane is an aged Gassler Wren, a turboprop plane with articulated wings and an amazingly short takeoff and landing zone. Most of the other passengers are young nobles heading back home from the Spada House school, though two Lagan Family factors who boarded the plane at Arcagraad stand out.
The flight is uneventful up until the characters realize that the aircraft is curving around and heading for a small landing field nowhere in sight of Sonnbourg. Looking around, the characters are able to see two other planes tracking them, also Gassler Wrens marked as Flyers' Association North District transports. However, it is clear that the two other planes are armed with missiles. The characters make their way up to the crew cabin and bull their way inside. There, they learn that the plane is being tracked by air pirates who have ordered the pilot to land at an improvised landing strip about two minutes' flight away. The pilot tells the characters that he's sure of two other aircraft following them, and may have spotted a third on the radar.
Peter Sangaree and Sir Brindal Karth explain to the pilot that the characters are heavily armed, and a reliable source of violence on tap. The pilot isn't too enthusiastic about fighting the pirates, considering that his plane is loaded down with twenty tons of machine parts loaded at Arcagraad. The two pirate aircraft, in addition to being armed, are also going to be faster and more maneuverable. However, the characters prevail. They get the pilot to complain to the pirates of engine trouble, and put down on a length of highway some distance from the location the pirates specified.
After a touch of preparation, the plane puts down on a short length of highway. The characters, aided by the Cargo Master, boil out of the right-side cargo door and rapidly take cover in the surrounding shrubbery, doing their best to stay as invisible from the air as possible. They are soon rewarded with the sight of an aged cargo helicopter, modified to carry a shockingly large machine gun in a door mount, chuffing down into a field about 300 meters away. A swarm of ruddy-cheeked ruffians equipped with cutlasses and pistols rushes from the helicopter, shouting out "Arrrgh!" a lot. Sir Brindal Karth puts rather a rapid end to their charge by shooting one of them several times with his sniper rifle, whereupon violence breaks out in a big way.
The air pirates quickly take cover and let their doorgunner spray bullets all across the shrubbery concealing Brindal Karth and the other characters, to little real effect. Meanwhile, Sister Joann places the Blessing of the Pancreator upon Peter Sangaree, who has persuaded the pilot to give him a detailed description of the most vulnerable points on the belly of a Gassler Wren. The three of them agree that the best thing to do is to try and shoot out the fuel valve on the belly fuel tank, and hope to start a fire. Peter Sangaree chooses to not reflect upon the fact that the incoming Wrens are armed with automatic cannon, and that he will be exposed to their fire while taking his shots.
Brother Xavier sneaks along the highway, seeking a way to attack three pirates hidden in a copse near the helicopter. He is surprised along the way first by a strafing run (which he dodges) and then by three other pirates, who had been sneaking through the waist-high pod-plants in the field. He notes that two of the pirates are equipped only with leather armor, while the third has a personal shield. He duels briefly with them, dispatching the two and capturing the third (intent upon taking the man's shield).
Sister Joann, protected by the Shield of the Pancreator, heads up the helicopter's other flank. She is fired upon briefly by three pirates, but her theurgy does a tremendous job of warding off their attacks. Exasperated by their persistence, she finally charges them and forces them to retreat.
Sir Brindal Karth, who quickly becomes the helicopter machine-gunner's favored target, responds by firing at whatever pirates he can see, right up until he runs out of ammunition. Along the way, he determines that the pirates seriously need to re-evaluate the quality of ammunition they purchase, as he is hit twice by machine-gun volleys to minimal effect.
Peter Sangaree manages to land two tremendous shots into the belly tanks of the attacking aircraft, although he endures several ineffectual (though very impressive-looking) strafing runs beforehand. He exults as the two planes head off into the distance, trailing fire and smoke from their broken fuel lines. Seeing their comrades forced to withdraw, the pirates on the ground retreat to the helicopter and head for the skies, leaving four of their number dead and one captive.
Shortly after the pirate aircraft lift off, the pilot emerges from the plane to announce that the pirate leader wants to negotiate. The characters debate among themselves for a moment, then send Brother Xavier in to do the talking. The pirate leader, from the sounds of it a woman with a voice to shatter stone, offers to let the characters take off if they leave their captive behind. Brother Xavier responds the only way he knows how, by sputtering and raging at the pirate until she concludes that the only humane thing to do is to put all of the characters out of her misery. When Brother Xavier understands what is happening, he yells out to the characters and other passengers to evacuate the airplane. Peter Sangaree and Sister Joann, along with the Cargo Master and the two Lagan Family factors, arrange a little game with the children on board: "Let's see who can reach the treeline first!"
Moments after everyone gets out of the aircraft, one of the pirates' Wrens swoops down and strafes it to oblivion. As the plane sits on the highway burning, one of the Lagan Family factors rushes up to Peter Sangaree and the Cargo Master, begging them to help him get his machine parts out of the hold. With dramatic inattention to their own safety, they agree to help him, managing to move most of them to safety. Finally, Peter equips himself with two fire extinguishers and fights his way into the cockpit to send a distress signal moments before the aircraft interior becomes an inferno. Peter is forced to escape by breaking out one of the forward windscreens and leaping to the ground.
With help on the way and their plane in ruins, the characters turn to looting the dead pirates. They manage to retrieve:
Brindal Karth takes one of the pistols and two clips of ammunition. Brother Xavier avails himself of another pistol, a clip of ammunition, and the shield. Peter Sangaree takes the third pistol and the remaining ammunition.
The characters' captive introduces himself as Bob Lungflook. He shows every interest in cooperating, and tells the characters that he works for Terry Suregut, a onetime Hawkwood householder. Most of her gang are either disavowed householders like herself, or escaped serfs. They operate out of a base several hours' to the south and are backed by a Hawkwood noble, though Bob doesn't know who. They had hoped to take some of the young nobles on the plane captive and ransom them off for staggering sums of money. Bob points out that if the characters turn him over to the Flyers' Association police, they'll kill him.
The characters debate about what to do with Lungflook for a bit, then come to a tentative decision to use him in their efforts to colonize the Fennen Marsh on Gwynneth. They also decide that for public consumption they will state that they're going to ship him to exile on a faraway world, playing up all the unpleasant aspects of Gwynneth's climate they can think of.
About an hour after sending the distress call, the Flyers' Association police show up, first with a couple of high-tech VERTOLs armed with impressive racks of web missiles, and then with helicopters to take the passengers to Sonnbourg. The characters are successful in their efforts to keep Bob Lungflook out of the police's hands.
The session ends with the characters safely returned to Lenbow care of Del Tarrant's runt. Each character gains six experience points.