The story of the events in Kelvin's Clasp began a long way outside it.
Abruptly, in a patch of empty space above a lone orange-yellow star several dozen light-years away from the Clasp, a jagged, key-shaped vessel appeared. With nothing to judge it against but the star, it was miniscule, but as ships of the Dragon Empire went, the Negotiator was a force to be reckoned with. Her tiered superstructure bristled with the ports of laser and torpedo batteries, and thousands of running lights animated and rippled across her six mile long frame.
She was a Tyrant class battlecruiser, and her well-illuminated colors and polished, unmarred exterior proudly displayed the heraldry of House Osorus, the blue dragons, the house that was a byword for oppression and ruthless efficiency.
Within, the crew went about the duty-checks that came after each starcast. The act of thrusting a multi-billion-ton warship instantaneously through the Astral plane put interesting strains on its structure, and required strict, meticulous maintainance.
Among the tens of thousands of Osorus naval personnel that scurried about their tasks, one man, a human, stood out. Dressed reverently in fitted battle-armor, a Tech-priest of the Smith walked through the corridors, blessing the ship's hull, its electronics, and it's armaments with a sweet-smelling, holy oil. A small collection of acolytes from the ship's crew followed in the wake of the tall and broad-shouldered cleric, repeating the blessings after the Tech-priest has moved on.
When the last corridor was blessed, the last generator and turbine thanked for it's work, the senior acolyte stepped forward from his brethren and silently offered a datapad to the armored cleric...
Suddenly jolted from her meditation by the slightly disorienting experience of starcast-transit, a soldier-ascetic devotee of the Warrior opens her eyes for the first time in hours, allowing the noise and press of her spartan quarters back into her consciousness. What little furniture the stateroom had is pushed against the wall, leaving a wide open practice and meditation space.
Aside from the gentle, reverberating thrum of the huge ship's engines, a sound that was inescapable no matter where on the Negotiator one went, another technological sound fitted itself into the elven monk's consciousness: the quiet-but-insistent beep of the communications terminal in the corner...
In the core of the battlecruiser, beneath the thickest belts of armor, far away from the dead vacuum of space, a thick grove of trees grew in a huge arboretum. The Negotiator was home to thousands, and as a thriving, mobile city in it's own right, some accomodations were necessarily made to the comfort of it's crew. The grove, carefully arranged in spiritually relevant geomantic patterns, was the home of one of the onboard temples, and oft-patronized by the gnomes and elves aboard.
In this space, a druid awoke as well to the respectful, silent presence of one of the hooded grove-keepers. In soft, indirect words, a message was passed...
The Negotiator's chapel was one of it's largest internal structures. A huge cathedral dedicated to the tripartite worship of the Warrior, the Judge, and the Reaper, filled with iconic imagery of titanic battles - victories of House Osorus over the outclassed navies of both Outlands worlds and some of the smaller Imperial houses.
Here, a paladin of SOLAR, resplendent in her heavy, ornate armor, was departing from her afternoon prayers when a Lieutenant of the ship's watch caught up to her. In a brief exchange, he passed on the news...
They had arrived.
One more jump, a few hours away, and they would be in the Khalesh system, the starcast-gateway to Kelvin's Clasp, a collection of a dozen systems flung like a necklace into the Outlands of Osorus space, the place where the real fun would start.
Each of the four worthies had received their clearance orders. They would finally be meeting in a formal sense. The quiet swish of automated doors let them into a long, ornate briefing room. Dominating this room was a black marble conference table, with holoprojectors in the center and five datapads laid out in front of leather chairs.
At the head of the table, Captain Nokovros, a tall and regal half blue dragon in formal black dress uniform, stood waiting. He leveled a stern, commanding stare at the door as the quartet entered. But for the sure presence of hidden cameras as there would be on any Osorus ship, he was alone. He stood rigidly, waiting for them to be seated.