Aliana is happy to see her friends again, and tells them of her encounter in the city with the rogue elements that have been a problem for them all.  She will also, with reluctance, surrender Vernon's ring to Twiggy or Roenthelm if either person wants it.
"This has been amazing progress, everyone!  I'm so proud of all of you."

"Do you need anything from me, Nolan? Otherwise, I figure I'll go scry and you'll likely want to be working on those items you've been making.

Or you could right out notes while I scry and then I can come help you with your crafting. I'm not skilled at creating magic items, but I'm sure I can get you components and whatever."

Myarra gives Aliana a gentle hug.

"Welcome aboard!  It's so good to see you! Yeah, we've been making pretty good progress with repairs and supplies. She's going to need a lot more work before she's the queen of the fleet again, but I think she'll be ready to do what needs to be done in a couple more days.

And I'm really glad you didn't try to track those засранцы by yourself.  I worry about you sometimes. You're far too generous-spirited for your own health.

So, I was wondering what kind of spells you were planning on having on the day? We need to be able to tend to the worse off, but I don't want you to skimp on the protective spells. We're definitely going to need those as well.

I was thinking of decorating the captain's cabin in a pale blue motif. But then I thought maybe a pale green would be better. Any thoughts? Not that it's a priority, or anything.  Long way down the road, but I was just letting it percolate whenever I get five or ten minutes to rest.

Oh, and Dwight is here. Remember that really unpleasant man from the road? Well, he's on the repair crew. But he does a really good job and Shannon seems to like him. Still a bit of хуй, but not as bad as I thought.  I'd appreciate your opinion on that as well.

No, I haven't actually slept much in the last 48 hours, why do you ask?"

Aliana chuckled at her wonderfully eccentric friend and hugged her fiercely.
"You're very silly, but we love you. "
Releasing her Traveling Companion, the elf looked around the ship.
"I'm not a fan of manual labor, being a bit of a spoiled librarian, but i can dig in and help Dwight for a bit. I can show of my new strong hands. "
She grinned and held up her magic gauntlets.
"I'll definitely concentrate on getting everyone out of the mine, and worrying about healing and feeding when we're safe, barring emergencies."
Smiling,  she nodded
"As far as color, i guess it depends upon if you want the naval theme or a forest theme.  Your beautiful ship could go both ways"
The priestess put a hand on the winged woman's shoulder
"Why don't you get some sleep? i can stay up for a bit"

Nolan and Amara go into the Scrying room once they enter the Tower. Ashara also wanders in, happy to see somebody. Nolan is ready to continue with the map and take notes.
______________________

The rest of the party at the Mariasha lounge on the deck next to the Helm and open a bottle of the Basilisk Blue from Baldur's Gate to celebrate. It's been an exciting few days. When it gets dark, you Levitate the ship up to 50 feet, figuring that would deter anyone trying to climb aboard at night. You set up shifts with Vernon on each one, but nothing exciting happens and the new day arrives. When the dawn breaks, workers for the ship start arriving one by one, ready to put the second/final coat of Pitch under the ship and in the cargo hold.

It's a boring day for the crew of the Mariasha, as the only excitement is watching the workers do their job. People come and go to look at the ship, with Timber running off anyone that might get in the way. It is interesting to see Myarra fly onto the deck with buckets of pitch for the workers below decks when the time came, which made the job much, much easier to do and saved a bunch of time.

Is there anything special anyone wishes to do, or are you just going to have a boring day watching the workers do their job?

Aliana helped the workers off and on throughout the day, especially meeting with Dwight to see how he was doing.  She was there to heal any minor injuries as well as providing water.
She'd work on learning more about the ship, from maintenance to steering.  The odds of Myarra not being able to do her Captain duties was slim, but it was best to be prepared for any eventuality

Roen helped around the ship and cured any burns the workers might get from the hot pitch they were spreading along the wood, while talking to Aliana.

"I wonder what happened to Dwight? He has no family, people dislike him and he seems angry all the time, except for when he's near animals."

Aliana nodded, having noticed similar things, though she was less of a people person than Roenrhelm.
"Animals can have their own kind of healing magic, one that works on the soul.  And certainly I've heard that there are plenty of people more comfortable with animals than people, and not just druids "

Byron helps Myarra by carrying down the buckets of pitch that she brings up to the boat.  The work is relaxing in a different way to Byron than the others.

Roen just helped with the ship all day until it was ready to go. He had no reason to go into town.

Twiggy agrees with Roen and sticks around the ship. The halfling goes to the galley area and starts to organize it and the storefood they bought. He makes a list of

Aliana will review the areas where the rescued slaves will hopefully go, doing what she could to make sure it wouldn't be too uncomforable.

The ship is finally finished around 5pm-ish and with the weather being pretty warm still, the pitch will be completely dry in a few days. Only the smell will remain for the next few months. All the supplies that have been bought are now stored and the party flies towards the forest and back to Daak. No sense trying to hide the ship. People have seen it for the past 24 hours and many people know there is a magical tower in Daak, so people will put 2 and 2 together.

"Anytime you want us to build you that gangplank, we'll be here!" Timber said as you flew off
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:21, Mon 08 Apr.

"We will be back," Myarra tells Timber. "She's in pretty good shape, but I'd be lying if I said she didn't need some more TLC. As long as you're willing, you're going to have a loyal customer. But we have a few technical issues to iron out over the next couple of days, so we'll let you get back to normal for a bit."

She tells Dwight that Shannon's going to miss him, and that she hopes he'll be free to work on the Mariasha next time they're in port.  She's not entirely sure why she wants to make the man's life better, but she suspects it has something to do with how she was treated during her introduction to civilization up in the Dales and that she wishes she'd had someone to reach out a helping hand all those years ago.  He's still an ass, and he's going to have to work on that or nothing Myarra does will make a difference, but she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  And the fact is indisputable: Shannon does actually like him, and that has to count for something.

Dwight doesn't say anything to Myarra. He just nods an acknowledgement and crouches down to scratch the Lynx once more. When he gets up again, Myarra can tell that he's much older than he looks when his knees and hip creak and pop a bit. He looks at Myarra one more time,

"Thanks."

Dwight then walks off.

Twiggy lets another fly back as he stores all the food and makes sure everything is secure before heading out to talk to Myarra " Once you feel comfortable with the ship we need to test its limits. While our plan is to use the ship to rescue the slaves we need to know its capabilities if we need to outrun the dragon. Seldom do our plans work out the way we want it to."

The group heads back to Daak. The weather is beautiful, even at 5:30 pm-ish. The food is stored away where it can't be spilt and the party holds on to railings for support. About 5 miles out of Soubar, you see the Dead Man's tree 200 feet below you. There is a horse-sized Green Dragon eating body scraps that quickly moves into the forest once the shadow of the Mariasha flies over.

How do you wish to test the limits of the ship?

Each of you (except Amara and Nolan, who are not present) takes a turn at the wheel. Byron is perhaps the worst, but at least he gets a feel of the controls and knows what things do. He's better off than the average person who hasn't been on board before. You test the controls right and left and realize you go around in big circles. You even do this in reverse. You see how high the ship can levitate up and you stop at 1000 feet. (Or your best guess). The height is pretty frightening and you can see forest tops for a far as you can see and the town of Soubar waaay off in the distance. You go back down and decide to do a speed test. You've already done one outrunning a Green Dragon a couple night before, but you really couldn't see anything. So, you start from Daak, with the farmers and village kids waving to you, and do your test to see how fast the Mariasha can go. You know the town is around 45 miles away. The speed is pretty frightening as you hold on for the ride and count the time. You make it to Soubar again in 24 minutes before slowing down to a more comfortable speed. Aliana does the math based off time and distance and comes up with her calculations.

The Mariasha's top speed is 100 knots or 115 miles per hour.

You do one last test and move towards the river and look for a deep spot. You hover about 10 feet from the water and pull out the rod from the wheel. You expected the ship to quickly fall into the water and prepared for the cushion. It didn't happen. The ship slowly sinks like a Feather Fall and relaxes into the river. You assume the same on land, but then the ship will probably fall off to the side, damaging her. You put the rod back into the wheel and you can steer in the water, but that test will be another day as you levitate up into the air and head back to Daak.

You make it back around 7:30pm-ish and meet up with Amara and Nolan inside the Tower.

"Welcome back," Amara said. "The good news is that we have finished scrying as much as we believe is safe. The bad news is that there is still the area of the dracolich - which I did not try to scry further - and there is a tunnel that leads to another level, which is protected by both physical guards and a ward against scrying.

How did things go on your side?"

"The Mariasha is sufficiently prepped for the mission," Myarra replies. "She needs a lot more work in general, but for this task, she's ready to go. All she needs to do is to swoop in, take the prisoners on board, and swoop back to a safe distance. Depending on how we do underground, that will probably need to happen multiple times.  We've got the cargo hold fitted out to hold them all for now. Nothing fancy, just a safe place until we can fly them all away.  Our last test showed we can get from Daak to Soubar in under a half-hour.  Someone able to do the math should figure out how long it will take to get from the mines to Eltural.

I'd like to hire some guards to stay onboard and discourage any attempts by the slavers to interfere.  And, if at all possible, is there any spell or magic item that would allow those of use in the mines to stay in contact? Mystra cursed me with a spell, but it only allows very short messages over very short distances, and only between myself and one other person."

Oona, Khayyim Vedim, Kalur Blackleaf, Rufus and Lorrik are around here somewhere. I trust them over a hired guard. As for a magical item to talk to each other from long distances, I'll have to think about that to see what I can come up with, if I can.

Twiggy takes his turn at the helm and not only tests the speed of the ship but its ability to turn at high speeds, to dip and gain elevation at high speeds, and mainly to quickly stop. Twiggy isn't just trying to mimic a Dragon's flight but to out perform one. Hopefully to get one mad enough to chase them and the ship out maneuvers it to make the dragon crash and hurt itself.

Getting back to the tower Twiggy feels a bit anxious, they are a out to go take on a dracolich. He isn't good at planning so he waits and listens.

Amara nods, "Alright, let us find Oona, Khayyim, Kalur, Rufus and Lorrik and finish any other preparations. But for now, back to the tower?"

Byron knows his services are going to be required for any underground fights so he spends any time he can practicing with the mace that Lord Dhelt has given us the use of.  He works with Aliana and/or anyone else who is willing to try and use the light hammer of disruption.  He does learn the very basic control of Myarra's ship so that in an extreme emergency he can fly her if needed.  Byron also carefully studies the map made from Amara's scrying, trying to find ways around guards and the like, knowing the less fighting the better, but also knowing that fighting is going to happen regardless.