Friday, July 2, 2010

Gavorran

Oh, I almost forgot. You also learned from Calais that a very effective assassin/bounty hunter, Gavorran, is after you. Be Careful!

Goodbye, Froggy

Synopsis of 6-28-10

Volya piloted the Infinity to follow Pi as it headed out from Telemachus Station, but she avoided radio contact to unsettle the crew of Pi. It is almost completely unheard of for two lighthuggers to head off in the same direction or follow each other. The act would seem ominous and hostile, even though it is also unthinkable for two lighthuggers to engage each other in combat; since there are so few left, they are viewed as almost sacrosanct. There has only ever been one incident between lighthuggers after the end of the Conjoiner civil war. So, after a couple of days someone on the Pi gets nervous and radios to ask what the hell is going on.

Volya says nothing.

Another day passes.

The Pi is getting downright edgy and fires a “warning” shot across the Infinity's bow. Volya knows this is a bluff, so she chooses to ignore them, but pulls the ship closer to theirs, just to put the pressure on.

A day later, the crew of the Pi is making desperate offers to share profits or trade leads or something. Now Volya acknowledges them, but doesn't say much yet.

Meanwhile Node, Svarturinn, Oki, Landros, and Khouri hop on Theoninn and use the FTL capabilities to travel back to Telemachus and the moon to see if they can learn something more about what the “item” was that got secreted out of the mining facility. A little spying reveals that Grunner Corp does not believe the item has left the moon and they seem to be more concerned with the arrival manifests of The Elegance of Pi.

Khouri searches for an alternate way in to the mining facility and finds one: a cave that leads to an old abandoned service entrance or shaft. Oki bypasses the airlock security - “Fr33dom” - gaining entrance. Everyone agrees that, because of your high profile exit last time, Landros should stay back and guard the ship. Long story short, you all drive the Mako vehicle down the service tunnel as far as possible, get out, walk some, and easily foil an ambush by Resistance Fighters who didn't know who the hell you were. The Resistance folks quickly figure out who you are and they show you their find – the item you thought you had been searching for. It turns out to be an ancient alien power coupling that comes from the wreck of a many million old ship now covered in millions of years of sediment on the moon. (Hint: now airless, barren moon that can no longer have sedimentary processes...)

Grunner doesn't want this info to get out because it supports the theory of the Inhibitors, which is largely considered to be bunk. Also, the alien technology might prove useful, but if the crackpots start a media campaign about Inhibitors, then they lose the ability to capitalize off of “their” discovery.

You all go to see Calais, the Mystic, who explains this situation to you and asks you to help “spread the word” about the alien artifact (and help to get it off-world). You also find out mainly from her that there is a bad Androsien, Orlos, who has Vaka-Svefn and he represents a great threat to you. He is on the Pi and headed towards Mesmuth where he hopes to find Castlerake.

Oki has an odd experience, like someone is poking around inside her head. You decide to leave the moon in pursuit of Orlos. When you get back to Theoninn you discover that Landros has had an strange episode of sorts: he walked around the ship looking at things like the cockpit, the weapons locker, the engineering room....he seems fine, and nothing was harmed or touched, he just did some “sleep-walking”.

You decide to just go directly to Mesmuth to retrieve Castlerake before Orlos can get there (it will take him five years via lighthugger). This goes well, and you find yourselves above a moon that Sylveste research has turned into a biological testing/gene splicing facility. Not wanting to mess around too much with what these mad scientists might have come up with, you hone in on exactly where Castlerake is and go straight for it.

Khouri deftly pilots the ship down into a large, deep sinkhole type cave. At the bottom you all head out on foot towards the signature of Castlerake, but, before you can go very far, Landros pulls out four guns and locks the rest of the party in his sites. He forces you all to march into what ultimately turns out to be an albino dragon's lair, complete with two babies.

Landros fires at the dragon, but only pisses it off. After all, it isn't really Landros piloting the frog suit, but Orlos using his body (Orlos rolled an 06% in his attempt to gain control of Landros and got it hands down. Saving throw didn't...well, save). The dragon grabs Landros in its mouth and violently throws him against the cave wall, rendering him unconscious. At this point, I thought Landros was safely out of combat harm's way, and he was, but...Khouri runs over and, using her decades of training on the frog suits, accesses control to release the unconscious Landros. The idea was, of course, to use the suit to save everyone else's asses, which she did.

The rest is humdrum. Dragon was M7 helper. You acquired Castlerake and everyone got out safely.

As for Landros, although obviously somewhat crippled from a past injury that no one else present saw happen, he is/will be fine ( i.e. Not die). He is still unconscious aboard Theoninn and will wake when we next meet to discover that he is no longer in suit.