Dorr, Marine

Q, Scientist

John,Teamster

The crew of the Double Blind, a smaller sized freighter under the command of Captain Shaw, arrives in the vicinity of the Ypsilon 14 mining base, located on the very rim of The Rim. the crew takes a bit of time as the last few days of the journey come to a close. Dorr gets the cargo ready to unload, his time in the marines having made him a fan of overpreparation. John turns to artistic pursuits. The asteroid remaining him of a potato, he does a few charcoal sketches and wonders what a real one, rather than the reconstituted powdered ones, must taste like. Q is lost in his studies and his tests, trying to come up with the next compound that will make it big and, by extension, make him rich. It almost feels like no time at all when the station manager, Sonya, radios over and, attaching an umbilical, helps guide the Double Blind into the docking bay next to another small, sleek ship.

The problem arises almost immediately, as Sonya is not Mike, and without Mike’s code and signature, no one on base gets the food, and the crew can’t get their next shipment, which will cost them a pretty penalty in contractually agreed fines. Q, already curious about the ship, identified as the Hercules, sees if he can get in or, at the very least, the attention of the occupant. Dr. Giovanni, the sole occupant, is either not inside or not listening.

Sonya has informed the crew that she already has a few miners down looking for mike, but he didnt take his vacc suit which he absolutely should have in the mine (a rebreather with an oxygen tank will suffice). She asks for the groups help, after assuring them (John particularly) that she is not asking them to do any actual mining. While this is happening Dorr decides to jump right in exploring the base and finding the crew bunks. Mike’s in unlocked, allowing him entry. He can’t help but notice that the bed and the room are messy yet fairly empty of personal effects. Q and John catch up, only to get the attention of Morgan and his cat prince. He’s wondering what is up and isn’t really himself much in the know, having seen Mike last night. He shares with the group that Mike’s family picture is missing, as is his spray bottle and fern. He also mentions an altercation between Kantaro and Mike involving a practical joke gone wrong (though Morgan doesn’t think that there is much in flicking one sweat in someone else’s face to be much of a joke) Dorr heads out to investigate this lead while the other two decide to take a peek up in the drop ceiling discovering the spray bottle but also a revolver.

Dorr finds Kantaro eating nutri paste in the mess (the purple kind a.k.a. The best kind!) He manages to strike up a conversation with the man, noticing that he seems fairly aggressive, and that the claims of his odour from not showering are quite correct (Rosa, who is also here, is sitting about as far away from him as she can). While Kantaro thinks that Mike is a jerk, and blames him for the fight (“he can’t take a joke/he swung first”)  he hasn’t seen him since yesterday. The conversation continues, during which Dorr notices that Kantaro’s sweat is yellowish for some reason. He shares the fact that Morgan made a few comments about him, enraging Kantaro who heads back to the barracks to “fuck him up”

Meanwhile, Q and John have entered Kantaro’s room, unlocked. They notice the mess of the bed as well as the mass of dirty clothing strewn across the floor, some of it women’s. Additionally the pair notice a number of tissues strewn about that are at least partially soaked and coated with a yellow goo. Q uses the dried out spray bottle to contain one. They are in the middle of searching the drop ceiling for clues (noticing Morgan’s stash and a stimpak one room over) when Kantaro comes back, notices the intruders in his room, and a mild struggle ensues, where everyone manages to subdue the large man. But not without a few bumps and bruises.During this, Rosa has run to get Sonya who threatens to write up Kantaro due to the state of his bunk, and to stop fighting as this is just ridiculous and one more problem that doesn't need to happen.

Q and John head to the showers, and discover that one has been absolutely smashed to pieces. Dorr, who is still back at the barracks with the others, hears as a frantic, near panicked man with indian accent english voice comes across Sonya’s comms, that they found something bizarre in the mines, not sure what, there is a scream and…static. 

Ending Stress

Dorr 4

Q 4

John 3

Introducing

Nels, android

Clay, teamster

Seth, marine

W4ng, android

W4ng, Clay and Nels, having taken care of the few remaining issues on the Double Blind and having heard Dorrs communication regarding the troubled miners down below, suit up and head into the station. Clay takes a good look over the generator and, having heard form Sonya that one of the miners, Rei was having trouble getting to to come down. Finding no flaws in either, he tries to reassure Sonya while the others file in.

Q and John, having taken a number of samples, can’t visibly see anything wrong with them, a quick look over in the med lab (while an impatient Nels and Sonya looks on) reveals that its not the water that is the issue. Q takes out some of the sample that  he gathered in Kantaro’s room, however the microscope here is simply not powerful enough for him to learn anything about the “yellow sweat” save for he is unfamiliar with the condition or cause. Wanting to learn more, he approaches W4ng about breaking into the Heracles, Dr. Giovanni’s ship. Figuring that the others have this handled, both make their way back through the airlock towards the ships.

Dorr, having gotten Kantaro suited up and on board with aiding the search mission, arrives in the workspace and, grabbing a rebreather, makes his way to the elevator. Along with Clay, John, Nels, and Sonya, they descend into the depths of the asteroid towards Rei and the mine access. Roughly half way down the sounds of grinding and crunching can be heard, followed by the elevator plummeting along its steep track down towards the bottom of the shaft. Quick thinking, Clay hits the emergency break. Sparks shoot out from the sides and the area is heavy with the smell of ozone and superheated air as the elevator slows, grinds to a halt and then proceeds downto the bottom. Clay, visibly distress that he somehow missed a critical issue, stays back to effect repairs, the sarcastic Rei standing by to hold the occasional tool or flashlight. The others cross the airlock and begin their search of the mine, John turns on his personal locator and uses his equipment, meant for scanning for mineral deposits, to see if anything helpful shows up. He picks up stray traces of iron, gold and copper.

The group comes to a T junction in the mine, the Ypsilon-14ers go “east” and the Double Blinders go “west”. Not much is happening as they move through the winding mineshafts, carved to follow various mineral resources. The group tries to reach Captain Shaw up in the base but it just comes through as mostly broken static. There is simply too much rock and other materials between them for a decent connection. Suddenly an unknown mineral pops up on the scanner, listed as “????”. Figuring that he simply needs to update the devices library John and the others continue.

Meanwhile closer to the surface, W4ng and Q  study the access panel. Helped by a rundown of Q’s trials and errors, W4ng is able to pick the lock and determine the passcode “0389” and gain them access. The first chamber they come across is the Doctors living quarters. Daily messy a few books on biology and geology strewn about. The bedsheets have a nasty yellow stain, roughly the size of a man. Q picks up immediately that the color of the stain is the same color as Kantaro’s sweat. The pair head deeper into the Heracles, next finding the science lab, a long room with cabinets and shelves on each side and a long table covered in microscopes flasks beakers and a retro cassette player. Far on the opposite side of the room, a door stands open with a man, clutching both sides for support, head and shoulders  sunk as if he could fall over at any moment, facing away from the characters. Q calls out to the man, and has he turns the pair a greeted with the sight of the good doctor, or rather what he has become.

Dr. Giovanni, rambling incoherently about “the gift” and showing the crew what he has become, what they can become, is dribbling yellow goop out of every orifice, it burbles out of his mouth between words, running down his chin and gobbing all over his now very yellow labcoat. His eyes cry viscous yellow tears the color of egg yolks, his nose oozes gooey yellow snot. It even leaks out of his ears, getting matted in his unkempt horseshoe of hair. A glint of metal shins in the air as the doctor, grinning like a madman, rush Q and W4ng.

Meanwhile John, Nels, and Dorr come across the source of the ????, an unidentified black rock riddled with lines and whorls. It seems to be a massive singular piece that, with some exploring, has a smooth 8 by 5 ft passage inside. It appears that someone has been here recently and has set up a small research and workstation. Cliocking on the battery the group discovers not just the lamp console and notepad (0389 written in red ink). On the far side of this black rock chamber, is a pod, peanut shaped, roughly twice as long as a man. It is a pale yellow color, stuck the the wall and floor with some sort of yellow filament, a single long slit down its middle oozes yellow goo. The crew takes note of what they find, and that’s when the scream comes across the comms.

Back at the elevator Clay, believing the problem to be further up the shaft, climbs the service elevator rungs up the steep shaft he makes it about 50 feet up when he notices something red and sticky smeared against the sidewall. A bit further reveals the source, the horribly managed body of Jerome, one of the missing miners, ground into the chain pulley assembly that guides the freight elevator up and down its path. He hears the scream and, looking down, sees Rei on the ground, her body seeming to disappear bit by bit. Clay turns his attention back towards dislodging Jerome, half successful (the “top half” tumbling down the shaft and the legs remaining jammed in) the noise alerts “something” as Clay can hear the sounds of someone on the ladder but when he turns he sees nothing. He turns back to his work. Shortly after, pain explodes through his leg as something tears through his vaccsuit and the muscle and tissue of his calves.

Dorr runs ahead of the others, hearing over the comms that the miners have found Ashraf and that he is dead. Not noticing the remains of Rei’s vaccsuit strewn around the platform, he looks up and sees Clay swinging his crowbar at…nothing? If there is something there, clay hits it, as the unearthly howl that echoes through the chamber and the open comms, sends the hairs on the crew's neck up at attention. Dorr watches, helpless, as out of nowhere Clays vacc suit is shredded on the front and side. The cagey teamster, his crowbar now stuck, turns and tries to climb up, and makes good time, but injuries from the invisible assailant have caused significant bleeding and blood loss leading to Clay just having enough time to wrap his body around the rungs before passing out. John and Nels arrive and John sends the elevator back up towards Clay. The group hears a loud thwack! Of flesh on metal, whatever it is John is close enough to feel the impact in his boots. 

Doctor Giovanni lunges at the pair, his scalpel whistling through the air. Q opens fire with his revolver and W4ng, taking the less lethal option, works to restrain the doctor, his hand around one wrist and grabbing the opposite elbow. Both compress and flex unnaturally in W4ngs grip, but the doctor appears to suffer no pain. A scuffle ensues where Giovanni, getting the momentary upper hand, stabs w4ng in the back through the vacc suit. Q fires off a few more shots, one of which  bursting some sort of gas pipe making it even harder to see, and another punching a gooey hole in his head which does not seem to slow him down. After a few attempts to get away, the pair are successful, Giovanni getting one inept slash with the scalpel  on their way out.The door closes on his arm just above the elbow, severing it. Q gathers it up in a pillow case, while W4ng regrets ever agreeing to help him. Both are covered in splatters of the yellow goo.

Back on the lift the creature, invisible to the eye and only detectable to the naked eye by a slight refraction of light up close swings at John, its hand missing solely by chance. Dorr rushes the thing and attempts to grapple it while John picks up Dorr’s fire axe and takes a swing. Dorr, already a bundle of nerves, is surprised to find out that the creature is quite large and muscled. He cannot seem to budge it, nor can John budge the axe he’s blindly swinging once the creature's arm (?) snakes out and halts its trajectory mid swing. While Nels attempts to pull down Clay before the elevator passes over him, Dorr and John muscle the creature to the opposite edge of the platform pushing it against the wall and getting it stuck in the gap. It lets out a horrified angry growl as it is pulled down beneath the elevator, leaving only a thin smear of yellow goo where it had been pushed down. Nels is able to verify that Clay still has a pulse, but it is very weak as he has lost a lot of blood. Clay is out, comatose.

Seth, who had been on board the Double Blind as backup security to Captain Shaw, is sent out to investigate what is going on. Shaw hasn’t heard from the crew in a while and wishes to learn what is going on, that deadline is getting pretty close. Seth makes it to the elevator in time to see Dorr and John push the creature, which Seth cannot see, off the platform, not believing what he’s told until he sees the goo and Clay’s condition. Its around this time that  Q and W4ng make their way back. Q is able to stop the bleeding  and realises that Clays best chance for survival is the cryopods on the ship. Q can’t help him here. Dorr tries to reach Kantaro but only gets broken static. As the gang makes their way to the Double Blind, they catch each other up on events trying their best to get Clay where he needs to be  in as good condition as possible.

Ending Stress

John Stress 10 Wounds 2(19/19) Frightened of Invisible Monsters

Dorr Stress 8 Wounds 3(15/19)

Q Stress 5 Wounds 2(16/16)

Seth Stress 2 Wounds 3(14/14)

Nels Stress ? Wounds ?

W4ng Stress 9 Wounds 3(6/11) Cowardice

Losses

Jerome KIA

Rei KIA

Ashraf KIA

Clay Coma

Having gotten Clay into a cryopod to keep his condition from getting worse, the crew regroups. Wang and Nels remain on board the ship, partially due to a malfunction faced by W4ng that Nels can assist with. There is talk of what to do next, some want to leave, some want to stay and dig further into the mystery. Captain Shaw ends up making it an easy decision for them. He reminds the crew that they need Mike's signature to avoid penalties and that they have a maritime obligation under the law to attempt rescue of the miners (and that they cannot avoid it as there is record of their coming here). With that Seth, Dorr and John suit up and restock as best they can before heading out to the elevator. Q decides to take some time studying the severed arm of Doctor Giovanni in his lab and Nels is put on door duty.

The trio arrives at the elevator shaft to nervously find that it has been lowered. They wait for it to come up, inspect it carefully due to the invisible nature of the creature, then once certain it is safe, descend back into the mine in search of the others. As the lift makes its way down they notice a gooey matter, likely the creature’s blood, smeared against the rockface, but no sign of the beast. Once the elevator reaches the bottom, gooey smears the rough shape of footprints, far too large to be human, continue out the airlock and back into the mine. John splashes paint over the elevator flooring, trying to ignore the fact that the upper half of Jerome’s vacc suit is now missing the upper half of Jerome and has some fresh bite marks to it. They continue to follow the mine, though the trail “dries up” Dorr attempts to bring up Kantaro on the comms, now far down enough that interference shouldn't be a problem. They reach the big man, who sounds very unwell. Kantaro isn’t making a whole lot of sense, talking about an abandoned vacc suit and someone burning the word “silence” into the wall. It is as this conversation is wrapping up that they round the corner and Dorr comes face to face with what is left of Ashraf.

Q meanwhile is taking some time to try to learn about the transformation in Giovanni’s arm, in hope to find a weakness that can be exploited. After the arm reaches out and tries to strangle him, Q uses small cuts exposing them to different substances and hazards. Faire and Acid work, albeit slower than on a person, but where Q hits big is with water. The chuck of yelloey flesh quivers uncomfortably and the yellow seat and ooze backs away from water as if it were grease avoiding dish liquid.  Satisfied with his find and confident in his ability to defend himself, he fills up a few makeshift squirt/spray bottles and heads back to the Heracles. He tries to call to Giovanni through the door and over the internal comms, nothing. Figuring he has no other choice, he opens the door and is greeted by the horrifying sight of a melting incoherent Doctor Giovanni with translucent yellowish skin, his bones and organs, malformed, completely visible. The thing burbles angrily and lunges at Q.

Having discovered Ashraf, the trio take their time moving past and eventually arrive at the location that Kantaro described over the comms, only to find him full on vomiting with his helmet off while Dana tries to help him. She and Sonya, who is keeping a fair distance from Kantaro, are still wearing their sealed vacc suits. Seeing Dorr, Sonya moves close to him, then later Seth, and makes sure both of them know that there is no air down here and therefore Kantaro should not be breathing without his helmet on. Seth seems sympathetic to Sonya’s point of view but Dorr has committed to looking out for the interstellar roughneck and, with help from John and Dana, drags the still vomiting Kantaro to the lift. Which they are again unsettled to learn has somehow in their absence gone back up to the top floor.

While calling it back down, Sonya, watching the helmetless Kantaro vomit and increasingly yellow-orange glop, loses her cool. She refuses to let Kantaro onto the elevator and brains him with a crowbar. John and Dorr tackle her to the ground and Seth, also believing that KAntaro is too far gone to risk taking him back up, unloads several rounds of bullets from his smart gun directly into Kantaro’s skull. This has the effect of spraying red orange and yellow glop and tissue all over the area, (and on sonya) but not killing Kanataro. He attempts to assault Seth before making a break for the just returned elevator platform. Seth gets a few more shots off, accidently striking Dana in the leg before hitting his target and sending the big man slumping into the control panel. Dead.

Shaken, everyone gets onto the platform and begins their ascent back to the relative safety of the base. Relative, as both Dorr and John notice, something large has tread through the paint.

MEanwhile up above, Doctor Giovanni is truly a mind-bending terror, incapable of rational speech only burbling grunts and growls. Its severed arm has grown back…something in its place. Q tries to spray it with water, hoping it to be a cure, but disappointingly discovers the water only keeps it at bay or corralling it. The squeeze and spray bottles unfortunately clog on several occasions as Q works the thing that once was Giovanni back towards engineering. Giovanni’s appendage pierces Q’s hazard suit and the yellow goo enters his blood stream, infecting him. Once Giovanni is back in the engine room, Q locks him in and, true to form, the doorway closes on the new appendage, severing it as well. 

The effects of the goo do not take long and, realising he is holding a container full of water, Q hurls it in the other direction feeling a mix of aversion and fear at its presence. He realises that he too is now on the track to become whatever Giovanni is and begins to search the doctors notes for a cure. He plays the cassette tape, and hearing the doctor, his voice normal, sounding intrigued and excited of his discovery in a way that very much mirrors Q’s initial excitement, go from discussing the major properties of the goo, that it seems to heal and rewrite DNA,  to uttering a stark warning to never touch it. The fear in Giovanni's voice as he warns and then cries out in pain as the audio dies is palpable. In a state of  near panic Q runs to the showers hoping water will be his salvation.

He arrives in the work station just as the rest of the crew of the Double Blind with miners in tow reach the top of the shaft. Q barely pays them any mind as he rushes down the hallway. Directly into the path of the creature.  Q notices its footsteps appear on the ground in front of him as partial outlines made of black paint, and for the first time sees a path of similar markings headed towards the barracks. Q reverses course but is too late as razor sharp claws rake his spine as they shred flesh and suit, sending the scientist flying through the air back into the workstations only to hit the ground seemingly lifeless.Seth and John quickly respond by splashing paint wherever they think it is, causing a bizarre effect where only parts of the creature can be seen and, stranger yet, the back of its chest and belly can be seen from behind it, as its back is still largely invisible. 

Seth unloads his smartrifle into the creature again and again driving it back towards the barracks as it howls with pain. Thankfully  the creature decides to retreat just as Seth runs out of ammo. Kantaro revives, Dorr grabs him and drags him down towards the showers, managing to get ahead of the creature. Once under the spray Kantaro, his skin and sweat yellow and gooey, fights like a man possessed to get out from under the water. Dorr wont let him, believing that the water might cure his new friend, but eventually Kanatrao, with unexpected strength, manages to shove Dorr off of him and flee. Dorr feels overwhelmed, lost, he cannot save anyone. Shaken, despondent, he sits there among the broken tiles and pipes. 

Meanwhile Seth grabs the visibly upset and shaken Sonya and Dana and gets them moving back towards the docking bay and the Double Blind. He’s assessed the situation, and determined it to be a bust. It’s time to get out with what they have. John checks Q and miraculously the scientist is still breathing, unable to revive him right away, John drags Q back towards the ship until the cagey scientist comes to. Q, aware of his infection, decides to share the information, which causes a debate on if he should be allowed back on the ship. Seth and Sonya are against it, John and Dana are fine with it. Ultimately it is Captain Shaw, not wanting to risk losing anyone else, who accepts Q’s offer to quarantine himself in his lab to work on a cure. He puts a blast over the airwaves. Dorr makes his way back to the ship. The cat prince exiting Morgan’s dorm (the door having been pushed in a ripped off) follows him back to the ship.

The crew, once reassembled, realises that they have forgotten Morgan and Rosa. Dorr is fairly convinced that Morgan is dead, based on what he has seen passing the barracks. A debate is held with the compromise of calling out to Rosa on the comms and waiting 5 minutes. After Rosa does not arrive John and Sonya exit the ship and go to the panel that operates the massive bay doors. As they begin to cycle them open, bangs can be heard. IT is the creature trying to get through the airlock into the docking bay. The pair run as the door is smashed open, causing the interior of the mining base to decompress. They make their way up the boring ramps stairs, but as John keys in the airlock code, the creature strikes Sonya hard. Hard enough in fact to send her sailing off of the steps and onto the ground below. With the monster between Sonya and the airlock. John makes the impossibly difficult choice to seal the airlock, trapping Sonya outside in the docking bay with the creature. His hand shakes as he pulls it back from the control panel. He utters a quiet apology over the comms, not knowing if she can even hear him. He gets no response as he makes his way towards the command deck.

The ship takes off, leaving Ypsilon-14 behind it as they go. Seth would very much like to destroy the entire asteroid, but realises the Double Blind’s autocannons are unable to do so. Instead he settles for launching the quarantine hazard beacon warning ships in the area to avoid the station at all costs. Q, in quarantine, realises that he will not be able to find a cure himself with the time and resources he has. His skin now has a yellow hue and he is sweating a turmeric coloured sludge from his pores, leaving his unfinished memoirs for John to oversee, he seals himself in the cryopod. Hoping beyond hope that someday he wakes up whole again. The universe is a strange place, if something could do this to him, surely something out there can undo it? Surely? The hiss of the seal and a feeling of cold in his bones, but somehow different then the many other times he has gone under into cryo passes through Q before it all goes black.

The decision on where to go is presented. The crew have their own preferences, but finding somewhere where supplies and relaxation is plentiful wins the day. It is decided that they will depart for Prospero’s Dream. An X-class port deep in Rimspace controlled by the Bratva. In the day before they reach a jump point Seth thinks back on the waste of it all, the foolishness of what just happened and the unnecessary loss of life. He’s been here before, if only the crew had listened, maybe most or even none of this would have happened. Dorr sits in his bunk, Prince on his lap purring, looking at pictures of his family. He couldn’t save Kantaro, yes they did save Dana, but that wasn’t him, that was Seth and John, is he doomed to fail everyone he cares about?. Prince nuzzles against his hand and Dorr instinctually pets him, calming him somewhat. John is experiencing a mild crisis. He is unharmed, not even a scratch, why does he escape injury while Clay lies in a coma and Q, infected with alien slime, is turning into god knows what? How come he is safe and sound on the Double Blind while so many died, including Sonya? The decision weighs heavily on him.

A day passes, the crew of the Double Blind, along with Dana the sole survivor of the Ypsilon 14 crew enter cryosleep, leaving only Nels and W4ng awake as they coast through hyperspace on their way through the darkness of space towards the Dream.

PC High Score

Q 3 (Infected : Yellow Goo: Cryo)

Dorr 3 (Overwhelmed)

John 3

Seth 2

Wang 1 (Frightened)

Clay 1 (Coma: In Cryo)

NPCs Cast and Status

Captain Shaw

Nels

Wang (Frightened)

Dana (Injured: Leg)

Sonya (MIA: presumed dead)

Rei (dead)

Kantaro (Infected: MIA presumed dead)

Morgan (MIA presumed dead)

Ashraf (dead)

Jerome (dead)

Dr. Ethan Giovanni (Infected: dead)

Mike (infected: presumed dead)

Rosa (MIA: presumed dead)

Prince A.K.A. Princey (purrrrrrrrrrr)

Having Arrived on Prospero’s Dream, Seth, Dorr, and John make their way in the bustling station of millions where violent criminals are the rulers and danger and security often walk a razor thin line hand-in-hand. Captain Shaw fighting with Whitelist, manages to secure 25kcr for each of the crew and decides to pay for Clay’s recovery in the medpods out of his own share. Meanwhile the whole of the station is abuzz with tension as Yandee, head of the Golyanova Il Bratva crime syndicate that runs the station, refuses to pay the ransom for the teamster ships captured by rival Stratemeyer Syndicate. Reidmar has threatened station-wide job action as a result. Tensions are high between the Union and both the Bratva and Tempest Co.

Seth signs up for the security firm Tempest Co. Working his first month for free as initiation (thankfully he has that money to fall back on) earning the rank of R1 after the first month of patrolling the lower decks, looking for junkies and oxygen bums to throw in the Court’s holding cells or down into the Choke, making sure that the area is “Safe” for a certain value of safe. He manages to shack up with Onita Tresh at the Arco-op Elysian Fields, the whole place smells like the spice isle in the hypermart exploded, but they get by.

John has taken some time to polish and sell Q’s memoires. He hasn’t made a lot of money, only 200cr, but contact has been made with a developer who wants to turn the story into a VR story game. John looks into them and they seem to check out as a small business that has made a few games with a small amount of success, so he decides to agree. Needing a bit more cash, having just moved into the pyramid arco-op, he takes up some work with Teamsters local 32819L, doing some routine maintenance on the same lower levels that Seth patrols while contributing to his arco-op by doing some elevator maintenance (those pesky elevators always have something going on).

Dorr continues to work Dockside, one of a number of unionless scabs, he splits an apartment with fellow dock scab Eduina and her husband Oland.Both are ex colonists from a failed colony set up Oland displaying a missing eye and cybernetic arm showing that it failed for a reason. The work is hard, the pay is shit. He talks to Loshe, the dockmaster,  about doing dirty jobs for him. He has nothing for Dorr yet, and urges him for his safety to join the union which Dorr puts off. He speaks to his contact in the Bratva who has his wife and daughter, making enough  payments to keep them safe.

The trio take note of the Whitelist job board and see a promising well paying job come up. Photonix Inc rescue and recovery mission. They stock up and board a raider class ship called The White Squid piloted and captained by “Captain Ed” who looks like he’d be more at home leading a tour rather than doing this sort of work. The details given are that the group needs to investigate the reason for the distress call sent by Amir Chakraborty. Ed plays it for the crew its…confusing at best. They are to also extract Wallace and Theresa Barnes and recover the research data. The payout…a cool 100kcr each. They make it and dock, the plastic airlock seals. Ed agrees to take care of Princey for Dorr while the trio explore Osprey Research Station.

The airlock does not work at first, giving everyone a few moments to take in the empty vastness of space. They don’t know where they are and what star that is in the distance, not even Ed who says the destination was programmed into the Raider’s AI. It appears that the airlock controls are simply glitching. A second bit of button pressing does the trick letting them into the hexagonal shaped decontamination room, ringed with 5 vacc suits and and equal number of rebreathers. They turn on the decon cleaning their suits before following the life signs on John’s bioscanner. They enter a large common area seemingly where the crew of 5 would eat and hang out. A series of rooms are to the immediate right. The scanner leads them to the one marked A. Chakraborty. Opening the door shows a bed covered in scorch marks with a partially melted mattress. The life sign belongs to 4 small cactus on the desk. Seth pokes around the man’s possessions, A photo of a woman wearing lingerie falls out of one of the books. He pockets it.

They make their way out back into the common area only for a man to appear out of nowhere. He is angry he approaches the characters and Dorr goes to grab him and immediately feels the heat and electricity coarse through him. A fight breaks out where it becomes clear that their opponent is some sort of hologram man who can be solid or intangible at will with a touch that both shocks and burns. He lands a blow on John, shocking him as if he had been hit by a defibrillator. And gets a number of hits in on Dorr but thankfully the bully marines battledress holds out with minimal damage. Dorr is not doing good as the hologram man advances angry threats rolling off of his tongue. As he follows Seth into the hardlight test lab he panics making everyone around him jumpy. John closes the doors, keeping the man at bay.

Seth, being the first into the test lab notices the body of a woman on the floor. A chill runs up his spine as he moves the body to see horrible burn marks on her face and blackened eye sockets. The woman has an access card with the name Theresa Barnes on it and a picture of a woman who looks like and older version of the women in the risque picture. He also investigates some of the consoles around the hologram cages. Seeing one that looks a bit like the hologram man outside. He engages the hologram and the man appears in the cylinder, only to walk out fo it and attack. He lands a blow on Seth, punching through the armor. The group begins to shoot out and smash the projectors. It takes a while but they knock out enough to pin the hologram, who they learn has the appearance of Wallace Barnes, to a small section of the room. They decide to make their way to the communications room hoping that they will be ale to shut off Barnes , who is still angrily threatening them from the corner of the test lab and then later from the corner of the common room by the holosuites (as the crew has smashed most of the projectors visible here as well before Barnes could manifest. Its becoming clear that Wallace seems to think that they are someone else. He’s not threatening them but he seems to think that they are someone…else. They know that they need to track down the server and get out of here. But can they avoid the hologram man in the meantime?

PC Stress and Wounds

John Stress 11 Wounds 2 (14/19)

Dorr

Seth Stress 10 Wounds 3 (10/14)

NPCs and Cast

Captain Ed

Wallace Barnes 

Theresa Barnes (dead)

Amir Chakraborty

Princey

Eduina

Oland

Onita

Loshe

Peter “Squeaks” Stints wakes up in Billi Walker’s room. He doesnt recall when he fell asleep, or is even sure of how many days its been since he arrived at Osprey Station (he thinks its 3). He got the call from Billi, she said there was trouble so to help his childhood friend he hopped the first series of transports he could to get to Osprey. He didn’t know what Billi was working on here, nor did she say what the source of the trouble was, but Squeaks certainly was not expecting the hologram man. The hologram man was solid, except when he wanted to be, and Squeaks barely kept out of reach of his burning electric touch before retreating into Billi’s cabin. He quickly smashed all of the holoprojectors, but every time he tried to get out that damned hologram was there waiting, angry, taunting. Thankfully he had managed to grab a few nutribars and rations before ducking in, so with the water he would be able to hold out for a week, provided he stretched his provisions out carefully. With nothing to do, Squeaks spends most of his time sleeping and trying, unsuccessfully to figure out a way around the hologram man.

He wakes from one of his naps to the sounds of voices not belonging to the hologram man, he calles out and one of the people, John, investigates. After both verify the other isn’t some sort or trap or trick. Squeaks comes out and meets Dorr and Seth, who currently have the Hologram man Wallace Barnes restricted to a corner, the sight of the photonic specter, unerves Squeaks slightly, but all is well and calm. 

Then the lights go out.

When they come back on a short bit later all of the doors leading out of the common room are open save one, the way back to the airlock and the ship The White Squid. Wallace has also disappeared in the dark. The group is unsure the best way to go but figures the interface and the data they need can be likely found in the server room. The group investigates the Comms room, a small cramped room filled with sensors and transmission equipment. The long range comms are damaged. Scorched and melted. But everything else seems to work fine. A man sits hunched over the main console, not moving. Dorr lifts him up and sees that, despite having his palms and face burned down to blackened skull and bone, the man's key card identifies him asAmir Charkraborty, one of the scientists and the man who sent the distress signal in the first place. Dorr sets Amir back down, sparing the others the gruesome sight.

The group heads into engineering, which contains the only door to the server room, only to be beset upon by Wallace Barnes. Most of the group tries to flee with Seth being the only one to try and combat Wallace or at least slow him down. Dorr and Squeaks make it ok but John’s body is struck by the hologram man, overloading his armor and causing burn mark damage, While Barnes goes after the trio, Seth smashes all of the projectors he can see. The hologram man turns back onto him but fortune favors the marine who is luckily in one of Barnes blind spots.

The lights go out and the door out of engineering seals. Seth stays still not wanting to move out of his safe spot. Squeaks uses his laser cutter to slice a hole in the door and Seth dives past Barnes and out into safety. They realise with Barns in engineering, laying in wait in the dark, it would be near impossible for them to get through the door and into the server room that way. They decide to head over to the algae room, which according to their map has an air vent that connects with the server room. Before they go, John takes a stim pack to help deal with the burns from Barnes. But has an immediate near fatal reaction and, after Dorr performs CPR on him, he recovers but is worse off than when he started,

The algae room has one large pool full of slimy green algae, lichen has spread up on the floor making it slippery. The whole of the humid chamber smells of low tide. As the group makes their way towards the vent, smashing all the projectors they can see on the way. Seth notices a body floating in the pool. Using a skimmer he drags it over, the foul smelling slug riddled and bloated corpse is utterly putrid grey green and slimy. An algae covered keytag identifies this as the corpse of Billi Walker, Seth conceals the tag and says nothing to Squeaks. John, injured and hanging back, wedges a cart in the doorway in case Wallace shows and tries to close it. 

Though Dorr and Squeaks have been smashing projectors in the algae farm, they are unaware of the ones under water. Wallace Barnes leaps up from the water and tries to get the crew. They are too fast for him or simply out of reach. It hardly takes any time for them to restrict Barnes to a single projector. Seth takes the grating off of the vent and crawls north to the Server room while the others make their move to the hologram test lab. Seth shimmies to the far side of the air vent, looking out he sees a room full of LED covered rectangular prisms a cool mist covers the floor, the air like a dry winter morning, in the center there is a small plinth with some sort of cover. It looks important.

Seth exits the vent and makes his way to the centre of the room where the plinth is. He flips open the lid on it and sees 3 slots, which look big enough for key cards. Thats when Barns shows up and attack the unsuspecting marine. He screams, alerting others to their location. The gang hear the screams and make their way to the soor, which Seth is able to open. Each of the th crew, except for John have a card needed to open this, the only threat is Barnes, who quicky looses his power once they start smashing the projectors. John remains in the projection lab, where he able to call Barnes taking him out of the server room allowing Dorr, Seth and Squeaks to place their cards in so that the heavily modified logic core to come out. The moment it is removed, Barnes disappears. The only remaining signs of Barnes are the damage left behind at the station and the charred body that John finds in the neurological lab. The door locks are now bypassable, and with the logic core in hand they make their way past the decon room through the umbilical and back onto The White Squid, where Captain Ed, a few extra scratches richer, with princey. The crew detaches from Osprey Station, and once Captain Ed gets everyone in cryo he gets the limited IA to plot the jump course back to Prospero’s Dream

Once back Some, Squeaks, Seth, and John spend some time unwinding, be it drinking, carousing, or volunteering in animal shelters of all things, while Dorr takes care to relax in a much quieter fashion with princey, who needs a vet check up after bringing up an old half digested cat toy. Tensions on the Dream are still high with talk of a teamster strike on the horizon due to the hostage situation. The question now, what lies ahead?

Cast and NPCs (High Score)

Dorr (5)

John (5)

Seth (4)

Squeaks (1)

Wallace Barnes (Deceased)

Theresa Barnes (Deceased)

Amir Chakraboty (Deceased)

Billi Walker (Deceased)

Captain Ed

Staff of Dream Rescue and Rehome

Princey (purrrrr)

Having finally arrived on the Dream, Squeaks does his best to fit in. He is fortunate in that he finds himself able to acquire a room in the same arco-op as Seth. Although Squeaks seems to be doing good, having gotten a low level union job working in the same area as John and continues to volunteer at the Dream Rescue and Rehome, the ordeal of being trapped in his dead friend's room by the hologram man for days has left its mark. Squeaks buys a revolver for self defence and starts a fairly expensive soma habit to numb the stress and the pain of his loss. He is supposed to do general maintenance and ends up meeting Wince, who is an uncomfortably clingy close talker who keeps trying to convince Squeaks to sneak him into the shelter

Squeaks lives in the same building as Seth, who upon his return from Osprey station has been informed by Tempest Co. that he has made his R1 requirements and is now officially a probie! What this means for Seth, is instead of actually patrolling the lower habs for trouble he’s only now pretending to do so while looking for a fellow named Moreau, a teamster, pissed with the Bratva, who Tempest believes to be supplying the Hunglung terrorists in the Choke with goods. Moreau isn’t the only person who needs finding. After setting Squeaks up with Onita’s partner Nowek, a dealer in more than simply spice, Onita mentions to Seth that Nowek has gone missing. Squeaks, running low on Soma, has also voiced his concerns to Seth about how he can’t ever seem to get a hold of the drug dealer. When pressed, Seth is able to discover that the disappearance happened only a few days ago.

For his part, Seth has been working on himself. The burns that the Hologram man left on him required skin grafts. Seth’s search for treatment  leads him to the Pretty Knife cosmetic surgery clinic, where he meets perhaps the most plastic looking man he has ever seen. The Doctor’s work is efficient but leaves Seth with skin that is too shiny, that has a single colour that is slightly off from his skin tone, that doesn't allow for hair to grow  and that simply doesn't feel right. Seth demands that the doctor fix him, but the plastic looking man with a smile that squeaks doesn’t seem to understand his concerns. Seth takes some time to work on his hand to hand combat, joining a boxing club and also a fight club that unfortunately to date has given Seth more than he’s given back, even leading to a costly broken foot. In a final bit at self improvement, he visits the chop shop and gains an appointment with the fabled Babuska to get cybernetic fangs put in. While in recovery he notices that one of the beds is home to  a creepy looking mishmash of cybernetics and flesh. He thinks it looks at him but when he calms down it looks like the mass is dead and unmoving.

John, in between his shifts and learning how to jury rig a number of systems from fellow teamster Squeaks, manages to get in contact with the representative of Nebula Publishing, named for the old times literary award. The meeting goes very well and the rep loves Q’s memoires. He loves them so much he orders 100 pdfs and 10 actual copies to take to higher-ups in the corp. The rep assures John that the book with be in the hands of all the big names at Nebula, and hopes to have good news for John in about 3 months.

After receiving his briefing from his Garth Minchin, his higher up at Tempest, Seth decides to round up some help, although Dorr is mixed up with something and can’t help, Squeaks and John, who themselves work down in that area most times, are free to help, Squeaks moreso, hoping that Seth will then have time to track down his Soma dealer. Joining them is a fellow Tempest Co. R1 Probie, a heavyset marine, hairless save for his well groomed and luxurious handlebar moustache that goes by the name of Hansh. The quartet descend into the depths of the lower habs and tries to figure out where Moreau could have gone and if he has discovered a secret way down into the Choke.

After some time searching the quartet has a promising lead. An almost hidden door with a modified keypad. The keypad cover slides off to reveal a series of cut and twisted wires that will open them as long as the two twisted bundles are in contact. Entering the long room, they turn on headlamps and flashlights to see a mess of pipes and tubes of different sizes all over the back half of it, as they go to inspect, a previously solid part of the wall splits revealing smooth metal lips and two cybernetic looking prehensile tongues, one of which grabs Squeaks and shreds his vaccsuit. Seth unloads his smart rifle into the intrusion while John pulls  Squeaks free of the mouth. Brown and clear viscous lubricant dribble and pour out of the wounds and the torn tongue as Seth unloads a final decisive shot. The mouth, twice the length of a man, has lost its malleability and is now as solid as steel, as if it were some sort of built in structure. Continuing their search, much more carefully, they find evidence of recent passage down a metal pipe just tall enough to crabwalk in. It leads on in the dark for a couple of hundred feet before taking a rather steep turn downwards. A few of the crew tumble and take some minor bumps and bruises. The get up to find themselves in a large chamber filled with open pipes leading to who knows where.

It is quickly discovered that someone knows where. A number of the pipes have symbols carved and etched into them, often using reflective tape, to further draw notice. The group follows one course of action and makes their way down one of the marked pipes, discovering a tank that includes 6 hrs oxygen left in it, and then shortly later coming across an oxygen starved doptowner. The man, Rene, originally came here to die out of everyone's way, as he was too weak to still keep going. Showing him a picture of Moreau, he tells them in halting breaths and pauses that he saw the man in The Sink, a giant broken and abandoned city flooded with sewage runoff and other fluids. Squeaks hooks him up to his tank, slowing them but also hoping Rene will recover enough to get back on his feet.

The large pipe, roughly 10 feet in diameter, opens up to a cavernous chamber literally large enough to  contain a broken city in the shadow of a sewage laced waterfall 20 stories tall. The Sink, the former downtown and commercial centre of Propero’s Dream, back when it had its original name and owners, is largely dark, with only a small number of lights illuminating the shadowy jagged obelisks that comprise the remains. Rene tells them with a mix of words and gestures that he saw Moreau go into the Metro Station.

As they travers the broken fetid ruins they encounter a lost Tempest Co. squad. They are addled, nervous and warn the group of the dangers of the Sink, including something one call the Wire Man (“If you see the Wire Man, just run and hide.”) After giving them directions out of the Sink, the group continues on to come across a pack of dogs or wolves all infected with cybernetic parts. A horrible patchy near hairless beast with acidic drool. The beasts leap at the quartet biting and gnashing teeth. One of them badly bloodies Squeaks before Hansh and Seth blow them away.

In the Metro the group crosses the sewage soaked tracks using sheets of metal and plastic as bridges until they get to the only car showing signs of activity. Peering int he find Moreau…or at least half of him. The body in the car is missing its upper half as if something ripped or bit it off, but sure enough reading the cred stick confirms that this is Monreau and that the group now has an extra 12K. Having proof of contact the lot decided to head back, but realise that the 5 of them do not have enough oxygen between them, Seth suggests cutting Rene loose and the doptowner reasonably gets more nervous and stressed. One Rene sees the writing on the walls he attacks and Seth guns him down before anyone can make a move. Seth does manage to  gun Rene down quickly, too quickly for anyone to object. Afterwards they search the car and John comes up with a very lovely coloured maps of the metro network.

As they leave and make their way back across the makeshift bridges they hear a terrifying  sound in the dark, but what?

Ending Stats

John Stress 9 H Full

Seth Stress 8 H Full

Squeaks Stress 13 (1) 11

Hansh: Marine Stress 6 (2) 17

High Score and Cast

John (6)

Seth (6)

Squeaks (2)

Dorr (4)

Hansh

Rene the Doptowner (deceased)

Wince (uncomfortably close)

Nowek

Nebula Publishing Rep

Onita

Pretty Knife Surgeon “The Plastic Doc”

Moreau (deceased)

Garth Minchin

Zenya

The Babushka

Loshe approaches Dorr, he needs help trying to find someone, he doesnt know who, that is skimming supplies here and there. Nothing major, nothing really expensive, not even a lot at any one time. But eventually enough to get noticed, and the people in the Bratva above Loshe, possibly even Yandee, are breathing down Loshe’s neck and have intoned in some not so subtle ways that there are two sides of the docks Loshe and his family could find themselves on, the inside…and the outside.

He offers Dorr 15kcr to put an end to the troubles, regardless of if the thieves are union or scab, and better that Dorr keep what he does to himself, only let him know when it is done. He gives Dorr a list of items that have gone missing and, thinking of his military training, realizes that its only one or two items short of the ingredients to make a fairly nasty bomb cheaply. After finding out that the docks just received some phylothane sheets and have had an expired crate of virothane tablets in the back for months. He decides to set up a sting.

Dorr talks with Eduina and Oland, looking to see if he can get their help with setting up some audio video stuff as Oland knows a bit about this. Both are shocked that this is happening and possibly is being used to build a bomb on the station, Oland wants absolutely nothing to do with the situation but Eduina and Dorr convince him. He takes some money to go get the tech and decides to meet Dorr down by the docks in a few hours.

He meets Dorr, but has a revolver instead of the camera equipment. Oland tells Dorr that he is the one skimming, taking the stuff to some Solarian hippie for a few k-cred here and a few k-cred there. He swears to Dorr he had no idea that they were building a bomb, he thought that they were using it to make drugs. Dorr convinces Oland that he wont kill him and eventually gets Oland to put the gun down. He then brings Oland onside to set a sting for Legato, his contact.

.Meanwhile far far below down in the depths of The Sink, the source of the baleful moaning and growling makes itself known. Seth and Squeaks freeze up momentarily. Beneath the strange growths and twisted cyberware, this figure is clearly Onita’s partner and Squeaks dealer Nowek. He gurgles from an impossibly oversized lamprey-like mouth a pungent foam that drops to the ground. It rushes them, misses, and falls into the sewage obliterating the makeshift bridge with it as the gang is only halfway across it. Squeaks goes to cross and the monster makes itself known, allowing Hansh and Seth to light it up, sending it back into the sewage one final time. Seth reflects on how the twisted mutated form of Nowek reminds him of the freakish sight that he saw at The Chop Shop.

Squeaks crosses the sewage river and so does Seth, though both are feeling fairly ripe and a bit under the weather afterwards. It takes a bit of time and they stretch their oxygen supply to the limit, but they arrive back up in the lower habs, confident that they have a way down below known only to a select few. John is left with two gifts, the first being the map of the metro, which once studied by John’s sharp eye happens to reveal pathways in the sink that lead all over The Choke. Everywhere except for Doptown. Following what he sees he realises that he can cut down time travelling in the airless hell by at least half. Two points of interest do stick out to him. One in the original map font reads “The Archive” the other drawn in sharpie along with a few crosses, says “Mass Grave”. 

The other is a fear of cyber-monsters to add to his collection of fears. John tries to relax and picks up some art supplies to take his mind off of things. He even tries to sketch Nowek to try to help him deal with the fear, but it just has the opposite effect.

John checks in with the Nebula rep, all seems to be going well and everyone who has read Q’s memoire has enjoyed it immensely, he just needs the OK of the C-suite. Furthermore the game design company, run by Kowalski Kowalski, seems to be making good progress, although they have a small glitch in the form of a crying girl showing up after 13 minutes of play. They can’t figure out what is going on, blaming it on the weird internet on the dream, but hope to figure it out soon.

John does have a bit of a rough encounter as he tries to dissuade two Droogs, the footsoldiers of the Bratva, from savagely beating an O2bum. They decide to give john some unfriendly advice and extort payment for that lesson from him under pain of…well knife inflicted pain. Once they leave, John quickly assesses the bum, helping him out and giving him enough creds so that he can avoid the choke for a few months. The bum, Trantis, tells John that he owes him and that even though there is not much that he can do, if John needs him he can be found at The Bent, a run down hostel.

Squeaks and Seth are not feeling well, achy and short of breath. Squeaks decides to visit a Street Surgeon and enters a facility called “Dr. Guts” . Strangely the doctor he sees is actually named Dr. Guts, Dr. Ethan Guts in fact. A grizzled doc previously with the marines, Guts’s former livelihood is very present in his practice and demeanour. Getting Squeaks into a room he has him provide a number of samples and payment to get them tested for a whole range of possibilities. Guts is a little concerned upon hearing that Squeaks got ill down in The Sink. He provides him with a Fiberrrrr bar to help with some of the tests, takes 2Kcr and lets him know he will contact Squeaks with the results. 

To make matters worse, Squeaks is dealing with withdrawal. With Nowek dead and his soma supply dried up, Squeaks is having a bit of rough time. He’s heard that the Ecumenical Solarian Church is as good as any place to try and score, but he hasn’t had a chance yet. 

He takes to Seth and manages to get some time with the marine to learn shooting at the Tempest Co. Shooting Range as well as a few other skills marines learn in basic training.

Seth and Onita have been having a bit of a rough time, Seth feeling physically unwell and Onita stressed with the absence of Nowek (Seth has decided not to tell her what they saw down below) and the stress of her job. Their relationship is fine, but someone stole or skimmed a notable chunk of some of one of their shipments and its bothering her which in turn is bothering Seth, who puts looking into this on his to do list.

Seth also returns to his C.O. Garth Minchin, who congratulates Seth on a mission well done and a rise in rank to R2, officially shedding the role of Probie. He reminds Seth that the job board is now open to him as well as a pay and privilege increase. 

Dorr and Oland meet with Legato behind The Red Room, and opium den of ill repute, even for The Dream. Dorr picks up some liquid sword and listens. The conversation between Oland and Legato goes poorly, a gunshot punctuates the disappointment communicated by the Solarian. Dorr rushes out and disarms him, first of his gun then of this knife, Legato’s help proves to be ineffectual. Much to everyone's surprise, Dorr doesn’t want to expose or stop Legato, he wants to work for him. It takes the Solarian a few moments to process this unlikely turn of events before he agrees that something can be worked out. Oland manages to use a first aid kit to take care of most of the harm, and promises not to tell Eduina about his failed side hustle.

Captain Riley reaches out to everyone with two pieces of good news. The first: Clay has finally recovered and has come out of his coma. The second; he got a bead on a fairly straightforward well -paying job in a hazardous environment and needs a good crew that he can put together to make ends meet. A mining station on a highly toxic planetoid needs some repairs, the good news is it should only be six weeks in space before planting foot back on the dream. 

The crew decides to get ready. Dorr goes the extra step of picking up a new bit of cyberware, a retractable nanoblade in the lower palm of his hand. A minor complication weakens the arm a bit but it seems worth the trade off. He also makes sure that Legato will have work for him when he gets back. It so happens that Dorr should be back just a week or so before they will need some muscle. Legato claims that he might be able to introduce him to Imogene Kane, the leader of the Hunglungs, herself.

With the promise of good money ahead, the crew gets ready, some even itching to leave The Dream. But are they stepping into a nightmare?

Current Conditions

Dorr

Seth

John

Squeaks

Cast and High Scores

Dorr (6)

Seth (6)

John (7)

Squeaks (3)

Hansh (2) *NPC

Eduina

Oland

Nowek (deceased)

Onita

Garth Minchin

Dr. Ethan Guts

Kowalski Kowalski

Trantis

Legato

Zenya

The Babushka

Nebula Rep

Captain Riley

Special Guest Mention Clay Messing

Princey (purrrr)

Brought to you in part by the good people at Fiberrrrr. When its time to go, go with Fiberrrrr

Clay wakes up, the last thing he remembers was some..thing that he couldn’t see biting and clawing at him, dizzy from blood loss. Now he’s in some sort of cryo pod - med pod? It takes Clay a while and a couple of visits from Captain Riley to realize that he is on Prospero’s dream, probably the most sensible hideout given what has happened. Riley catches him up on what has been going on the last few months since Clay was rendered comatose by the beast on Ypsilon 14. He also has a favor to ask of Clay - Riley wants to know if the seasoned teamster will accompany him and some of his former colleagues on a mission to the planetoid Medusa. Loyal to the captain, and eager to get out of bed, Clay agrees.

Deep in The Court, the half man half machine biodroid Constantine has received order from Head Advocate Cheng Park to meet a man on the docks named Dorr tomorrow. He has been given a job by the Bratva to use the crew’s mission as a cover to retrieve as much of the activated sulphur as possible and return with it to the Dream. At the same time, Dorr receives a message from his contact in the Bratva, offering him and extra 50kcr off of his substantial debt if he vouches for constantine to the crew and makes sure that the mostly synthetic operative can complete his mission uninterrupted. Still desperate to free his ransomed family, Dorr agrees in a heartbeat.

John is still waiting to hear back from the Nebula rep as to if the CEO likes the book or not. The rep seems to be very optimistic and has let john know that there should be an answer by the time he gets back. 

The crew boards the ARMA-19 class patrol ship Avenger, connected to the station by a long umbilical. Once on board the group has a day or two to relax prior to being subjected to cryo. Dorr and Constantine talk, the latter questioning the former about how trustworthy the crew is and what sort of people that they are Dorr, who thinks of much of the crew as close to family, tells the mostly synthetic that he doesn’t trust Constantine and that should he harm them Dorr will make him pay. Meanwhile, this is John’s first real chance to talk to Clay about what went down on Ypsilon-14. John shares the phobia that he deve;oped after his encounters with the creature and confides that he feels he could have, should have done more to help Clay. Clay tries to reassure John. they go under and awake two weeks later, Riley, Constantine, and Clay all feeling the effects of cryo negatively

The Avenger’s captain puts Riley in charge of the drop ship, and landing on Medusa is no picnic  the corrosive air and acid rain hissing as steaming the metal as the howling winds shake the descending craft. They land with a heavy bang on the acid-pocked landing zone just outside of the airlock. A voice comes over the comms telling them to hurry the hell up. Dashing across the tarmac into the airlock the crew gets a good idea of just how inhospitable the surface of the planetoid is. John, who brings up the rear, thinks he sees something large sticking out of a nearby lake. Once inside, they recieve radio from Riley that the drop ship has taken damage from atmospheric conditions. He news to take off and is predicting 18 hours before he can return.

The crew meets the voice on the comms, a young woman named Arley who informs the group that this is her 5th yer of a standard 10 year contract. After re engaging Perseus Station’s magnetic shield, she explains how things are on the station. Every crewmember has an RFID tag which gives them, and only them, access to the controls on that part of the station. This is done because Aquaponics in their wisdom has deliberately hired individuals who will not get along with others well, in an effort to keep organizing or skimming, and giving each their own RFID. The result means that with three crew, Rebecca, Robin, and Vance (who no one likes) missing, there is much that cannot be done on the station that needs doing,

The first problem in the station is the react that the air isn’t cycling and support is failing, leaving the air here smelling stale and eggy. The compactor filters and pumps are all suffering as well but they need the air first. Arely doesn’t have the tag for it, but a man named Zorad does. He is a germaphobe hiding in his room, Constantine and Clay get the door open and threaten him. Eventually pulling the tag off of his struggling body and taking it to atmospherics where John and Clay work well together, it takes them no time to fix everything so that the air quality begins to clear up, the eggy smell already starting to clear.

The crew next decides to tackle the issues with the water. They learn that only half the RFID tags needed to deal with the system are present. Filtration, belonging to a man by the name of Tachyo - a lifer 23 years on the station, his third of 10 year contracts - whereas the pumps RFID is held by Robin, who is currently missing.  Talk turns to the 3 missing crew, Rebecca, the de facto in charge staff, Robin a fairly nice guy in charge of the pumps, and his partner Vance, an all around asshole who holds the RFID tag for the hydroponics bay. They disappeared at different times over the last few days but to where? As even the air here is corrosive and deadly the only place Arely thinks they could remotely safely go is the wreck of the Asterion - partially submerged in the middle of Lake Basilisk. But even that does not make sense.

They  make their way to the water filtration system where a middle aged man stands staring off into nothing, a large wrench in his hands. This is Tachyo, who snaps to once the group gets his attention. He tries to tighten a pipe and asks for help, John leans into it but both men end up snapping the already tightened pipe spraying water all over the area. Clay looks at the interface, Tachyo’s RFID still inserted, and notices that Tachyo has run the same diagnostic 27 times in the last few hours. He finds a way to eventually shut off the pipe, which also means that the water is shut off.

Tachyo spaces out again then comes to and doesnt recognize anyone. He flips out blaming the characters for breaking the pipe, he doesn’t seem to know anyone and starts talking about names and people that Arley recognizes as being previous crew from before she got here. Tachyo continues to freak out, threatening the group with the club sized wrench. During the shouting, it comes out that Tachyo believes that he has only been here for 12 years, not the 23 he has been.

Dorr leaves the situation, Clay continues to try and find more materials to fix the damage - difficult as much of the most recent supplies intended for the base are still on the Asterion. Arely tries to calm Tachyo but fails, big time. The mechanic clocks Arely hard in the head with the wrench, sending her to the ground. Constantine responds. He would shoot Tachyo, but John convinces him not to. Instead he grapples with the insane technician, taking a few good solid hits from the wrench and is knocked in the water before he places a hard heavy boot in the man’s chest, sending him back hard against the wall and knocking him out.

John checks Arley, the woman is definitely concussed. He tries to use a stimpack for some reason but it does nothing. Clay getting a bit despondent and the prospect of no water for 18 hrs decides to try and find something in atmospheric calibration that he can use to fix this mess, as with no pipe there is no water.

Meanwhile Dorr has made his way back to the offices, first the comms office, where he notices who has been sending what to who. There is a encyclopaedia volume of comms from Zorad detailing germs filth mind control, and a whole host of conspiracy theory. Rebecca has sent a request for Vane’s transfer or dismissal for an incident where he spat on Rebecca and in her food. Aside from contract renewals, Tachyo hasn’t sent a single message off base in 17 years. Finally messages were sent regarding the crash of the Asterion about 4 months ago.

According to the psych evals, which are dated roughly 1 year before they arrive, both Zorad and Robin have been on Perseus for 8 years, Tachyo for 23. The computers hold roughly 5 0 years worth of data on employees. Dorr learns the following: Zorad has OCD, a number of phobias, and a paranoid personality disorder, Tachyo is a workaholic and used to have a drinking problem. Le Shay, who no one has met but have been told is in the magnetic shielding is a perfectionist and has a body/self image issue. They are health obsessed.

He also discovers info on the missing people as well. Robin and Vance are partners, as Arley already mentioned, but additionally Dorr discovers Robin is a consomite people pleaser whereas Vance is a narcissist with sociopathic tendencies. Rebecca has imposter syndrome and confidence issues. Dorr shakes his head, they really could not of assembled a worse combination of individuals.

One thing that stands out to him is the fact that there is almost nothing on Arley. There is only a single file, no psych eval, that details that she has been here for two years and answers directly to Robin or Rebecca. There is next to no information on the woman who has been the crew’s guide and primary source of info up until  now. What is going on here? What is the deal with Arley? Is there actually an illness? And Where on Medusa are the rest of the crew?

High Scores and NPCs

Clay 6 Stress (2)

Constantine 8 Stress (1)

Dorr 5 Stress (7)

John 10 Stress (8)

Captain Riley

Cheng Park

Arley

Tachyo

Zorad

Loshe

Mysterious Bratva Contact

Princey (prrr)

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The crew scrambles, Clay finds the needed pipe and uses it to fix the damage caused in water filtration, John assists after propping the concussed Arley up in the hydroponic garden. Constantine, first checking to see that the incapacitated Tachyo is indeed still alive, ties him with some loose house.. He makes his way back towards the production matrix, hoping to find the activated sulfur that the Bratva wants, when he sees the germaphobe hypochondriac Zorad leave his bunk and head towards the offices. Intrigued, Constantine follows him, and watches Zoard dress himself in one of the gorgon vacc suits. Whenever Consatnine asks where he’s going, Zoard either ignores him or tells him he is going to the Font. 

Clay and John catch up, intending to deal with a recently exploded water talk. Zorad is still getting into his suit. Constantine tries to grab Zoard’s arm, and nearly gets clocked for his trouble. Zoard now in his vaccsuit (Clay and Constantine also dressing in theirs. John messes with the airlock as he tries to leave, impeding Zorads progress. This earns John a punch and moments later Zoard exits and begins to head south in the torrential acid rain. The crew suit up as quick as the safely can to follow him.

They eventually lose sight of Zoard in the heavy rain. Constantine and Clay, up ahead of John, think they see something move before catching up with Zoard, who appears to be buried up to his ribcage in the dirt. The group checks on him, they cannot get him on the general group comms (but make contact with La Shay) and his head is slumped over in the helmet. Using his enhanced strength he hauls the top half - not realizing it would only be the top half - of the asteroid miner out of the ground, the location of Zorad’s lower half is a mystery. The top half gives some clues as there are signs that some sort of animal has bitten through the vacc suit and into Zorad. The Trio take a look around the ground and it seems that whatever burrowed either came or went in the direction of Basilisk Lake.

La Shay, for their part, sounds lost and confused. The crew catch them up on current events. Learning of the condition of both Arely and Zoard, La Shay chastises the group for leaving. Arely there alone and informs them that they are taking both to the medbay while the rest repair the water tank. They arrive and Clay and John are able to sever the intake of the water tank and, using a section of the broken tank, weld a patch to keep the water flowing, all that is needed now is to turn on and that the fix in water filtration to see if the base has drinkable water again. All this while Constantine watches over them. Once finished the crew makes their way back to the airlock

While this is going on Dorr is still in the office, he finds out that only Robin and Tachyo have reasonably passed their psych evals and that the staff is filled with people with antisocial tendencies by design, He also finds a MAnifest on what the company was shipping to Persues aboard the Asterion - still face down in the lake - the length of time the crew had been year. Dorr hears a bizarre static whine coming from the comms room and sure enough, the frequency of the transmitter is disrupted by damage from the storms, long range comms are out. Dorr leaves to look for the others and finds everyone in med bay, going over Tachyo.

Once the others got back in and out of their suits they had gone to the Med Bay as they could see someone (LA Shay) moving around inside. La Shay shows them the basketball sized growth in Tachyo’s mid section, over his liver. The grizzled station veteran gets up just as Dorr arrives and tries to leave. They tranq Tachyo, who also claims a need to “get to the font”. After Tachyo is effectively restrained, the group makes the determination to simply ride out the time until the drop ship is able to land. During this they fix the composter and make as needed repairs to air circulation, water filtration and magnetic shielding (which is jury rigged and should last a few weeks)/ It is also during this time that Constantine becomes visibly ill hacking and coughing up bloody sputum, his speak also starts to slur from time to time

After 18 hours Riley arrives. The crew is ready to leave the three crew, some injured, behind but Riley reminds them of what they need to do if they want to get paid, and they wont get the payout with what they have thus far accomplished. They decide to move out to the Asterion, as the manifest that Dorr found suggested that, if they really wanted to get the station ship shape, they would need the hopefully still relevant supplies there to do so.

Most of the gang has a rough landing on ships side, Save for Dorr who is graceful in his repel. They manage to get into the airlock and to shut it behind them. They still need to leave their vacc suits on as the air is reading both toxic and caustic. They try their radios to contact LA Shay back on the station, but cannot, nothing but static can be heard.  

The entire ship is on  a roughly 35 degree angle with the front buried under the  waves and deep into ground, the crew has the option of moving “up” or “down” and choosing up back towards cryo. All of the pods are open and many of them have been broken from the outside except for one. A gaunt emaciated woman by the name of Arley Constantine rests in the still functioning pod with a very faint life sign. Wiping the fog from the bubble, they notice that this woman looks a lot like the woman Arely who is currently sitting in medbay in Perseus. The group decides to leave her and to come back for her later. They continue downward towards the front of the ship and enter the cargo bay. Though much of the area is a goddamn mess with gear and parts - including replacement antennas, water tanks and other items - readily available with a little elbow grease and a little digging. John even finds La Shays’s replacement vitamin water tabs shrink wrapped to a pallet. As the crew begin to sift through the goods they find the bads as well, a horrific eight foodt long worm like creautere descends from the ceiling above intent on attacking,

Stress 

Dorr 6 

Clay 12

Constantine 12

John 16

Arely

Arley

La Shay

Tachyo

Captain Riley

Zorad

High Score 

Clay 3

Dorr 8

John 9

Constantine 2

The giant worm descends upon the crew. John makes a break for the door while Dorr, getting the worms attention, leads it through some too tight crates, causing it to get stuck (especially when he cuts loose another crate, pinning it between all three. Constantine covers the group waiting for a clean shot while Clay runs around behind the creature shooting when he can. Having a tragic change of heart, John rushes back down to attack the creature with his arc welder only to miss and have the 8 foot long creature chew through his leg, severing it halfway up the thigh.

The giant worm manages to push the crate pinning it out of the way. Clay drags him to safety  as Constantine opens fire as best he can on the creature and Dorr sends another crate to hopefully pin the creature again. It wriggles out but Dorr and Constantine follow it peppering it with untold amounts of hot lead until eventually, it stops moving for good.

John collapses in the airlock, near death from his injuries and associated blood loss. Clay manages to get him stable enough to transport back to the dropship, Captain Riley still hovering around outside. The line is dropped and all return up to the ship. After somber sober discussion, the crew decides to call it a day, the mission is bust, and though the jury rigged repairs will likely only hold so long, the crew knows the station and all on it are doomed. They themselves only receive 15 kcr of the original 100kcr, and even that was largely the work of Captain Riley’s angry negotiating skills. John is put to rest in a medical cryopod while the rest slum it in the regular digs as their ship jumps into jumpspace; destination  Prospero’s Dream.

Clay takes up meditation to destress, he goes as far to attend Ukko’s sessions in the Solarian’s sanctuary near the farm. Dorr decides to chill with Princey and photos of his family, happy to know that some more of his debt has indeed been credited due to Constantine’s acquisition of the activated sulphur. He picks up a call from Legato looking for him to get them a ghost crate (one that is on a ship without their being a record of its existence) that contains a good amount of a spice that can be used in homemade explosives. The ship, Decade of Therion, is in the docks where he technically still works. Dorr meets a Captain Sang, and albino with metal implant behind his left side ear and a platinum ring on each finger. Dorr pretends to look for a gunnery job and Sang subjects him to a VR test sim to see how he does. Despite no training Dorr turns out to be a natural and Sang hires him on the spot. Dorr accepts the offer (2-3 kcr a month plus a crew’s share of any profit)  to return tomorrow for a guided tour of the ship, as it leaves the dream in 2 days.

John finds himself at the chop shop in the market for a new leg. It works well enough but looks fake up close and sometimes as a delayed movement response and has no feeling. He finds himself under the care of The Babushka, renowned cyberdoc and rumoured miracle worker. She shows him the remains of a cybernetic-based monster, which sends John’s heart into his throat, and they talk about what they have both seen on the Dream. She refers to him as “John Human” and notes his curious and adventurous friends. She wants him to check on a client who was showing odd yet similar signs of illness, and is willing to pay 15kcr. She demands that if her client is alive that they bring him to her, and if not (and she expects not) to collect what they can from the corps.

Though he accepts, before anything else he heads to The Bent, the last known location of Trantis the 02 beggar. He’s a bit shaky on his cot as he’s been trying to spread his creds out and limit his habits. Both watch from a safe distance as the Tempest goons shake down The Bent’s staff. Talking about how crazy this place is likely still decent about today, Trantis mentions that he might have a lead on a job John may be interested in, he just needs to track down the right person and connect the two. Finally John continues his studies and manages to pick up knowledge of mysticism.

Constantine decides to also head to the Body Shop, where he is treated by Bennett, an overly happy apprentice to the Babushka. Thankfully the fact he is missing a number of organs due to mechanical replacements has worked in his favor, slowing and perhaps stymying the spread of the parasites. He is put under and the worms, some finger length are surgically removed. Bennett asks to keep the maggot-like larvae which Constantine is only too happy to be rid of. The acquisition of numerous bags of activated sulphur is of great help to his superior, a benefit which indeed trickels down to them

Each of the participants received shortly after the 15kcr that Riley was able to receive for them. The note that The Dream is a bit quieter, more sombre than before, and that this is due to the executions that the Stretmeyer Syndicate has conducted against the teamsters in their possession. Though condemned by most government scorps and of course those on the station Yandee and the Bratva have still refused to pay the ransom, which has led to talk of a general strike of teamsters, though who knows if they'd go through with it. John passes the request of the Babushka to the rest of his friends, which Seth and Constantine decide to pick up on (after all 15 kcr is 15 kcr) and make their way to the run down apartment complex  where the former client resides. It is very little effort for them to find their way into the client’s door and with a good strong kick it is forced open. A quick search reveals a horrible discovery, a man-shaped breeding ground draped over the tube and toilet. The whole apartment stinks of a mixture of old citrus and spoiled meat. Large egg-like protrusions on the back and limbs pulsate and begin to rupture!! What will come out of this wretched figure?

NPCs and High Score

Dorr 9

John 10

Seth 7

Clay 4

Constantine 3

Trantis

Legato

Captain Sang

Captain Riley

The Babushka

Bennet

Princey (purrr…purrr…)

The egg-like growths hatch forearm long maggot creatures, a dozen in total, 8 of which attack Seth and Constantine. Both of them open fire on the horrific writhing mass in the apartments bathroom doing about as much damage to the infrastructure and lighting as they do the bugs. Constantine grabs one, knowing that the Babushka will likely want a sample, the writing critter sprays him in the face for his troubles as another burrows into his hazmat suit, biting and causing a serious problem, he throws one in the occupants microwave and endeavors to carry that out while both he and Seth shoot the place up.

Making their way out (and intimidating the others to keep their doors closed) they get the worm out of Constantine’s suit and make their way back to the Babushka. Zhenya, after corroborating with his master that they do in fact have business with the miracle worker, guides them and their microwave entombed sample to her quarters, where they get a look at the woman’s face for the first time. A series of overly complicated and impossibly intricate ocular replacement cyberware sizes the pair up. Niceties are exchanged, as much as they are anywhere on the Dream. Producing a scalpel, the Babushka gets to the heart - literally and figuratively - of the matter.

She shows both men the bizarre circuitry and synthetic slick and cyberware that the maggot creature apparently hatched with; she has no idea on initial investigation where it came from or what its function is, unsettling revelations which she shares with Seth and Constantine. It is at this point that Constantine begins to cough - slight at first- but then a full on body rattling coppery expulsion which everyone backs away from. The Babushka for her par is concerned about Constantines illness, not out of any sense of good will but simply as she has been taking note of a strange illness aboard the Dream as of late and that these grubs may be a part of it. She expresses a desire to keep in touch with the crew in case anything else comes across her table that bares investigating (or eliminating). Their payment in digital hand, they both set off, with Constantine deciding to seek out a medical professional capable of assisting his unique situation.

Dorr, his mission from Legato in the forefront of his mind, makes arrangements with Captain Sang to see the ship. He ropes Oland into helping him with the promise of a bit of his payment. Oland, a bit a tech-hound, rustles up a device he calls a “Wolf Cry”. Any system that it is plugged into will, after a predetermined timeframe, go or at least appear to go haywire. With that Dorr goes across the umbilical, leaving Oland nervous with his concealed revolver on the dockside.

Once across Captain Sang give him the gilded tour, introducing him to the ship’s android Ark in command and to Larry and Terry, the twin teamsters in the large cargo bay. When he asks, he learns from Sang that the ship will be running the blockade of Troubleshootsers to make a drop to somewhere called The Bell - itself orbiting an abandoned manufacturing station controlled by an insane AI known as The Monarch. In command Dorr hooks the Wolf Cry to the life support readings and manages to convince the twins to let him help rig up the cargo. IT is here among the boxes that the crew - and Dorr - discover the extra crate, numbered 070129 (the exact number Legato gave Dorr). Waiting until everyone has left to either smoke up (the twins) or investigate the problem with life support caused by the Wolf Cry (Snag and Ark) Dorr pilots an exolifter, takes the box, and makes his way down the umbilical. He ignores the repeated comms of Captain Sang,m who sounds increasingly concerned about the absence of the exolifter and sure enough Tempest Co finds Dorr and Oland shortly after arriving on the Docks.

A firefight ensures where both Oland and Dorr get shot up. Oland gets away first, while Dorr holds of the “Tempies” But in effort to flee Dorr is hit with a through and thorugh which causes a sucking chest wound. He manages to find a hiding spot on the docks and slowly bleeding out, tries to call Oland once it is safe. Oland and Eduina find him,  and they manage to get him patched up, at least well enough to get Dorr, dizzy and unsteady with blood loss, back to the apartment they share. A couple of the bags of spice were saved (Oland carried 2 back) but a few days later images of both Dorr (named) and Oland (unnamed accomplice) show up on the news feeds, each with a 20krc bounty for theft, property damage, and assault on Tempest Co. Staff.

Meanwhile Seth and Squesks have been hearing about a Void Urchin problem in the area of their Arco-op Elysium Dreams. A building meeting has been held, attended mostly by the elderly and the entitled. Some take umbrage to the homeless orphan children begging for scraps, though others have suggested the real problem are the kids pickpocketing - both digitally and the old fashioned hands-on way - and occasionally getting violent. There appears to be a small number of older kids acting as “fagans”. Controlling the younger ones much in the same way the Bratva keeps its kids in line. Seth and Squeaks decide to take the bad-cop good-cop approach to this problem.

It doesn't take long for the pair to be approached by a group of kids, begging for food, credits and O2. Seth catches one of them trying to steal a stimpak out of his armor’s pocket. One kid tries to speak up for the red handed youth, but Seth and Squeaks manage to get the location of the bigger kids/ the bosses out of them. Dragging them along to The Left Hook, a rundown and shut down boxing club. They arrive as a heavily bare knuckle boxing match is taking place between a large heavily muscled individual and a toothpick thin combattant in his late teens square off. The musclebound lad - murdo - delivers a punch so hard that it express-mails the other youth to the mat and at least one of his teeth to the outside of the ring.

Getting mrudo’s attention is easy, getting him to agree with Seth that the harassment and thieving stops is not. A fight breaks out with the large bare knuckle boxer and three underlings tooled up with crowbars on one side, and Seth and Squeaks on the other. Squeaks tries to talk them down and gets fed up with the youth’s refusal to see reason. Murdo gets a few punches on SEth but his armor protects him. Murdo has no protection from Seth’s cyberware fangs, which tear a chunk out of the big man's neck sending blood spraying all over Seth. 

Murdo’s downing causes the remaining kids to flee. The problem is “resolved” at least until a new one arises or an old one returns, such is life on the Dream,

NPCs and High Score

Dorr 10

John 10

Seth 8

Squeaks 4

Constantine 4

The Babushka

Zhenya

Oland

Legato

Captain Sang

Ark

Terry & Larry

Eduina

Grumpy armchair general

Doddering old lady

Murdo (dead)

Princey (purrrr)

Dorr is still recovering from his wounds and laying low due to the bounty. Though they did not get as much of the spice as he hoped, Oland was able to get what they were able to make off with Legato, who presumably got it to the Hunglungs in the Choke. He hasn’t heard much back, save for the announcements that everyone has heard on the comms and screens all around Prospero’s Dream

And those messages are for everyone who live in the loft levels above Doptown and the Choke. Grainy video and distorted audio of Hunglung gang members threaten a campaign of bombing across the station unless their demands are met; the immediate payment of all O2 debt of everyone living in the Choke. The video gives the powers that be 24 hours to comply.

Meanwhile Squeaks has taken the role of community leader. After defesting the goons at the Left Hook, there was some talk that the ol place should be fixed up and reopened under new management, and Squeaks has ended up being that management. To these ends he has managed to recruit the help of Tamm, a former hologamer and slickware competitor. Tamm had to stop competing after some barley remembered event fried his slickport cyberware, he can never connect again, but at least he can use his fighting game skills, boxing included, to help out and earn a living.

 The two have been getting disadvantaged kids off the streets of the station in their area and giving them and other members of the community a bit of one of the most precious commodities on the Dream, hope for a better tomorrow. In the spirit of the centre’s mission they rename it the Right Hook.

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On a distant world on the rimside edge of the core worlds, Sal Abattoir listens to his father. Apparently events have conspired to give Sal the chance to prove himself, to rise to the cream of the Abattoir Family Co. ranks. Abattoir is known for its useful products but also commands a sizable R&D sector that tries out new and innovative ideas, two of which have gone to hell in a handbasket. A test subject surgically fused into a specialized heavily armored vacc suit had managed to attack and kill most of the science team with another prototype; the cyrogun. Sal is being sent to the Dream with the only remaining and surviving scientist for either project. Dr. Grace Dunn. While this is Sal’s chance to make his mark, Dunn has been told that this is her chance to redeem herself and avoid a bullet to the side of the head. 

The individual, being called The Freeze Killer, was last seen on Prospero’s Dream where he first killed two members of a Q-Team and then two Tempest Co. Operators before disappearing again among the millions. Sal and Grace will, with the assistance of station personnel, find and subdue The Freeze Killer, killing him if necessary but doing their best to preserve the experimental tech. It is made clear to both that Sal returning unscathed is of paramount importance, followed by the reclamation of the suit and the gun with minimum damage. Dunn’s safety is much further down the list.

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Seth gets the call for a job early the next morning, turns out that the TO killed by the Freeze Killer was Hansh, the luxurious mustached merc who delved into the burrows and the sink. Seth and Squeaks only attended the memorial service the other day. Sure enough the job to track down the bastard with  Sal and Grace in tow has fallen to him. He lets the crew know what's going down and manages to pull Squeaks into the frey. Immediately Sal rubs everyone, including Minchin, the wrong way. The young turk treats everyone as if he owns them or they owe him something. Grace, having worked specifically on the gun and not the suit, give a rough idea to everyone how it works and the danger it represents. The Bratva and Abattoir have a deal, keep Sal safe, get the stuff, keep the corp’s name out of the narrative and they can keep the cryo gun and associated tech (as well as a big payday). 

Both Squeaks and Seth, more familiar with the locals down below where the system is seemingly coming from,  find a couple of leads to follow on the lower hab levels. Word of an altercation between a few Droogs at a Droog  bar known as Samizdat drawn the crew. They are able to buy a clue, though they opt to give it to anyone but Sal as, due to his privileged inexperience, he manages to aggravate the Droogs by suggesting, no, clearly stating that their boss works for his dad. Things are smoothed over in the bar with the bartender Phillip giving them some useful information and the promise of a drink if they return after success.

Once out of the bar, Seth gets real with Sal pushing him up against the wall, telling him how his mouth is going to get them all killed.there is some talk with Squeaks trying to smooth things over. Grace, not wanting to get involved, drifts a little further down the corridor in the direction that the clue - a blood stained tarot card - suggests they should go. This is when they hear a warbling scream of terror followed by a sound highly recognizable to Grace, the cryo gun.

The tough talk, which seemed to gradually be coming to a mixed resolution, is interrupted as race alerts the other three to the situation. They rush towards the Pawn and Junk Shop Dave’s which is often filled with the cast offs of the upper crust and the treasures of the desperate.  A woman comes rushing out of the shop, almost triggering a lethal response. She sees the crew and turns running in the other direction. A beam of white with a shock of pale blue bursts from Dave’s and hits the wall, covering it in brittle permafrost. The group moves up and looks into the shop. A woman stands frozen, her top half completely crystallised by the gun, the rest neatly frozen in place. The Freeze Killer reaches behind a counter and pulls up a middle aged man balding slightly overweight. It looks like he is about to shoot the man point blank but instead starts ramming the gun into the man's face, hard. OVer and over. 

Sal is paralysed, he has never seen anything like this before, he realizes that who he knows and what papers he has will not help him here. Grace is horrified, watching her creation used to brutally bludgeon a man repeatedly. Only Seth and Sparky have their wits about them from the get go, both unfortunately used to the horrors found on the rim. Seth shoots the experimental weapon out of the man's hand and Squeaks rushes after it, hoping to get it first. The Freezer Killer lets out an echoey but muffled scream of pain filled rage, The teamster and the experiment fight over the gun, joined by Grace who tries to jump on its back. Though they put up a good fight, both are tossed off, Squeaks landing in a box with Jenga block discards. Just as the Freeze Killer is about to do both of them in, Seth lines up the perfect shot, shooting the freeze killer in the head through the hand. 

Unknown gases spill out of the suit and the crew is able to grab the Freeze Killer and subdue him by applying a tranq dart right to his face. They keep him subdued until Tempest can pop by and get him gone. Seth is rewarded the 250kcr, 50 of which he gives the Squeak (which he uses to pay off the 20 kcr in back taxes at the Hook). Both also have the satisfaction that they avenged their friend Hansh. Sal receives a needle cast from his father with a slightly warm good job and 20 kcr to use to relax and unwind on the station. Something Sal is not a fan of initially but a few weeks of hookers and penthouse hot tubs will fix. And Grace…her reward was to be fired, all her access to company resources cut off. At least she lives to see another day and Cutter, the grim gravely head of Tempest and Station Security, may well be in need of someone to help develop more guns (and if not there is always Angus at Canyonheavy, who can always use someone who knows their way around computers and AI.)

As people are settling in after their success, the station is rocked. A Bomb explodes, the hunglung campaign of terror has begun. Dorr lays in his bed, his dog eared photo of his family in his hand as he feels the by the time they reach him faint vibrations of the explosion travelling through the station's infrastructure. He sighs.

PCs and NPCs

Dorr (10;cameo)

Seth (9)

Squeaks (5)

Sal (1)

Grace(1)

Cutter

Sal Sr.

Droogs (Yuri, Nick, Ovi)

Phillip the Bartender

Garth Minchin

Tamm

The Screaming Woman

The Freeze Killer (apprehended)

Todays update brought to you by Jenga

In Memory of  Hansh (2024-2024)

Things are not good for Grace. Fired, stripped of all Abattoir Family Co, contacts and left on perhaps the most notorious x-class station on the rim. She has about 100cr to her name, which without eating or buying anything, means she has 10 days before she cannot pay her 02 tax and risks getting thrown into the choke. She makes her way to The Beat, a hostel that looks like little more than a homeless shelter. Her neighbour, a man named eric, looks horribly ill. His mods are red and inflamed, including the weird gill-like cyber mods on his neck. Painful (and infectious) coughs wrack his body, some eject bloody sputum into his hand and sleeve. 

She meets a man named Tantris, who takes an interest in the downtrodden newcomer. After hearing her credentials, he tells here that he knows a few that know a fella (a man named Burgis) who is an associate of Angus at Canyon heavy, where all the techies like Grace like to hang out and skim data and other sellable information. He offers to set up a meet if she does right by Tantris. Overjoyed for the opportunity (and to be out of range of Eric’s horrific gurgling coughs) she agrees.

Meanwhile Squeaks’ days at the boxing club are mostly good, but like always trouble lurks on the horizon. A few of the older kids have been missing time, and Squeaks finally figures out why. He finds one of the older boys in the locker room, giving himself some sort of eye drops that make the pupils dilate fully and cause him to move slowly, with almost sloth-like speed and reflexes. Calling in Tamm, the former e-sports champ tells Squeaks that the kid, Tanem, is strung out on Lent, a relatively new drug on the station. He doesnt know who is making it, or who is selling it, but obviously the kids know. Squeaks doesn’t like this at all, puts an in club ban on the substance and vows to get to the bottom of whoever is giving drugs to his kids.

MEanwhile Seth and Onita are enjoying a delicious meal and the very upstate and aloof Fête Fatale. The pair talk about their day over delicious yet overpriced food when their peaceful evening is interrupted by a blood curdling scream from the back area. Seth gets up, readies his weapon (which he rarely even sets down), and makes his way to the back. There he sees what appears to be a busboy mauling the face of a chef with a tongue that is roughly 2 feet in length. Seth gets its attention, distracting it away from a cowering bus boy in the back area. The creature turns to Seth and tries to claw at him as Seth sprays the creature and the kitchen with his smart rifle. He shoots out its eye and blows a chunk out of the back  it the ashen grey mutate’s head in the process. This does not stop the horror from advancing on Seth as it burroughs its tough into his torso leaving a bloody mess that will become quite the interesting scar if and when it heals. Suddenly there is a clang as a metal pan strikes the creature. The bus boy, tries to take the heat off of Seth and succeeds allowing him to spray the creature will bullets from lower back to the base of its skull.

The creature falls dead, what once was human is clearly  dead, that doesnt stop Seth from sending some extra surrounds into it, finishing diner with complementary desert and service on the house.

Jake, not having the money to dock his ancient raider class ship onto the station, waits for a dropship taxi to pick him up. It is piloted by Riley, who on the trip in gives Jake a few tips and pointers about the station mixed in with typical cabby banter. They arrive and, after an unpleasant experience with the Q-team disinfection, he touches booted foot down on the surface of the docs, its only a matter of time before he finds himself work with the Teamsters Local Union, able to largely hide among the large workforce on the docks. He finds lodgings at the Jet Burn towers, a teamster arco-op on the ring, his tiny cramped lodgings containing a single A4 sized porthole that allow him to look out at the vastness of space.

He is working one day when he sees one of the Mi-Go conglomeration’s forced prison laborers, a contentious and controversial solution to a worker problem on a station run by the Bratva, stumbling hunched in the direction of the docks. The teamsters here have already pushed back against the near mindless drones, and the pair working with Jake see this as an opportunity to take out their frustrations with Stratmeyer’e Executions, scabs, The Bratva’s inability to find their guys, you name it. They approach the hunched man, ashen skinned wearing a grey jumpsuit with the Mi-Go logo  like hyenas approaching a baby gazelle lone and isolated from its mother, ready to make their frustration and anger physical.

Sadly for them, this is no gazelle, it is something other. The “man” grabs one of the teamsters. His hands are covered with barnacle like claws, a tongue, easily 3 feet long with a bulbous protrusion on the end, snakes out and burrows into the teamsters chest. A gurgling scream dies off and is overshadow by the gurgling slurp of this no-longer-a-person “cleaning out” the teamster’ chest cavity. The other teamster, Bill, bob  something like that, Jake can’t recall. Shouts to run and both hide behind a bulkhead, waiting for help to arrive,

IT so happens that Seth is that help. Along with two junior operators they arrive on the scene. Seth attempts to gun down this monster, bigger and nastier than the last. He shoots but its not enough at first. The creature surges Seth and slams into him, knocking him down. Jake grabs bob’s(?) revolver and attempts to help, causing the monster to turn on him. Both have some near misses, and the creature can’t seem to get a firm hand on the  teamster or his suit. With a particularly good shot, Seth riddles the shoulder blades and the back of the creatures head and neck with hot lead, sending it to its maker.

A bit earlier, Grace had a job interview, in the zero-g office of master hacker and information broker Angus at the Canyonheavy Market. Both are impressed with each other, Grace with Angus’s skill and seeming knowledge about anything and everything that he has at his fingertips. And Angus is impressed by the cryo gun (paying her 10kcr for her personal knowledge of it and another 10kcr for her info on the carapace suit) and her talents retrieving info in and out of the field.  He has interest in her ability to find out about the recent Mi-Go Conglomerate prison laborers, who have had some problems but also who he believes are not actually all from prison colonies. Why does he think this? He notes that one of the prison laborers is actually someone who was sent to the choke by the courts almost a year ago. He wants information, he doesnt have information, if Grace can get him what he wants there's a cool 100kcr in it for her. Angus notes that many of the people involved, save Jake, are former associates. He gives her the easiest way to contact Jake and tells her to reach out to Squeaks and to Seth, leaving Sal out.

Grace reaches out to the trio and arranges a meeting at Sem’s Bar in the Stellar Burn. The meet and trade information. Its determined that they should go get a look at the bodies, which are being held at the Tempest Co. HQ. The only problem is they are on sublevel B, which is off-limits to  Seth’s rank. They decide to appeal directly to Cutter, who seemed impressed with the trio after that business with the Freeze Killer. He agrees to give them access, but they will need an officer to supervise and at times approve their plan of access. Squad Leader Kurt Gibson, a grizzled looking veteran of some of the innumerable inter corp conflicts, enters the room. Cutter goes over every detail that they have, including the most recent incident last night at a drug manufacturing lab. Squeaks takes note that the drug this lab was cooking appears to have been Lent. 

Seth goes over the list of known businesses, one of the entries doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to him. Dreamworld Lumitat Co. has two such workers listed to it but no duties or position associated. The group decides to meet up at the Right Hook and make their way over there, Jake, Grace, Squeaks, and Seth, led by Gibson (who for his part seems content to be mostly hands off with the gang) trek across station to get there. On route they see some creepy children singing an old song about Caliban as they skip rope, a brawl between teamsters and droogs in an old diner, and an encounter with Coughing Eric, looking for creds. Squeaks give him 30cr and he shuffles off, but not before getting Grace sick.. 

They make way to the Lumintat, after a few attempts to gain entry politely are unsuccessful, Seth give the door a pair of big boot. The little man, wearing clear surgical  garments drenched in blood, screams for help. Two men wearing stiff looking suits and armed with submachine guns  bearing silencers tear through the  black plastic curtains leading further in, Have the crew bit off more than it can chew?

Stats and High Scores

Seth (10) Stress 10

Squeaks (6)

Grace (2) Stress 4

Jake (1)

Trantis

Coughing Eric

Tamm

Tanem

Onita

(Capt) Riley

Angus

Cutter

Squad Leader Kurt Gibson (R6)

The freighter The Rusty Can operated by numbered company 000346257 piloted by the Android ARC makes its way on its uneven course through the far flung edges of Rimspace. All but a few of the passengers and the last vestiges of its original cargo remain onboard for this - the final jump of its run. Scarla and Leon awake, both reeling from unexpected cryosickness, Derrick, as an android, exits his faraday bag, meant to protect and shield deactivated androids during jumps and other situations (as even androids are effected, however minorly, by jumpspace) He tends to his crewmates. All three, ill or not, are left with the feeling that something is not right. 

Derrick and Leon are the first to discover the problem, the ship is still in jump space. It appears to be moving but also appears to be not moving at the same time. They bring Scarla up to date on this after she conducts her meditation, learned through her studies of mysticism, which allows her to successfully combat the effects of cryosickness without the need for stimpacks or other “chemical medicines”. She is notably terrified by this news, believing that she is somehow responsible or even worse, that “they” have found her and are coming for her.

The crew find ARC dead on the command deck, his ears leaking a mixture of psuedoblood and a clearish fluid. The readouts on the screens simply give the same contradictory information as other screens that have been previously checked. Meanwhile Scarla with Derrick venture towards the personnel airlock, which is engaged. There appears to be a replica or a copy of their ship joined…no fused to The Rusty Can at the external airlock connection. Refusing to look at anything or hear most things, Scarla continues into the ship, falling upwards flat on her face as she does. Derrick helps her up the ladder just in time for Leon to catch up. They all arrive at the top to find that they are already there. 

After a bit of conversation - after all no one really trusts themselves in these sorts of situations - Leon and Derrick are shown that there is a dangerous situation back on his ship - the tritium reactor is somehow overloading causing its deadly radiation to overcome shielding. Leon is skeptical as the readout shows gibberish, nothing that he sees or reads on the screens makes any sense. Anything anyone tries to read just looks like a random jumble of letters and numbers. 

Scarla has gone to her room, hoping to see something - anything - that will give her some sort of sense or better understanding of this even. She tries to meditate on it with herself, but her meditation is broken by a sense of pure fear and dread - something that Leon experiences a few minutes later down below. She talks with herself and realises that both have had similar lives - at least according to this ship’s Scarla - but her’s went in a much better direction professionally. Scarla sees through this, she realizes that its not another her but - something - here, from here…trapped here. Whatever it is its not real…or it wasn’t until a few minutes ago when it took her realness. It thanks her before leaving the room to go back to Scarla’s ship, locking her in. She radio’s Leon to warn him.

Leon and Derrick are caught in a quandary. The other ship’s Leon Derrick and Scarla are here, in the main corridor beneath the hab unit that leads to the airlock. A firefight ensues  during which their Leon gains the upper hand, gunning down Leon and winging Derrick on occasion - much to their Derrick’s frustration as he “hasn’t had enough time yet!”. Before his death, Leon tries to grab and restrain their Scarla, who has decided to make a run for the crew’s ship. He is not able to stop her for long and the crew’s Scarla, trapped in her double’s bunk with only an untested alien artifact to try and wrench control of their Scarla’s body to help, are not able to stop her. As a last ditch effort, Scarla tries suicide in an effort to stop their Scarla from making it to reality - but the connection is too far established for such a drastic strategy to be effective.  Once Leon is down, their Leon and both Derricks make a run for it, their Derrick slips and falls, giving Derrick a head start.

Their Scarla and Leon make it back to the crew’s Rusty Can. Derrick crosses the threshold, they offer him what they think Derrick wants…to be a help and to keep helping others. But to Derrick’s mind he has done anything but. He could not help his Scarla, his Leon, his ARC, his ship…he could not help anyone or anything. He walks back through the airlock to their side as their Derrick catches up. Their Derrick yells and curses his once companions, as they disengage and seal the airlock - the process now seemingly functioning fine.

The ship separates, Derrick watches as their ship suddenly becomes invisible save for a series of whitish lines denoting the defining lines of the ship - almost like the careful blueprint of an engineer or architect. He watches as their Derrick changes in the same way and as Leon’s body - which Derrick carried with him thinking he could help, could save, but could not, change as well. Derrick’s ship, now piloted by their Leon and their Scarla, vanishes into the distance as Their ship loses all semblance of being real. Derrick disappears into the space between spaces.

A few weeks later, the Rusty Can finally docks at its last stop. A C-Class Station so inconsequential most folk don’t even bother to learn its name. A Scarla and a Leon exit the ship and look around the docking bay before continuing further in

Highscore

Scarla - KIA(sucide)

Scarla 

Leon - KIA

Leon

Derrick - MIA

Derrick - MIA

Interlude II: Tombship of the Lich

Hired by the scientist Magellian, the trio boards the Raider Class ship The Shiny Penny and approaches the gargantuan alien spacecraft. The vessel is made of an unknown material and is projecting an unknown energy beam into a “weak point” in space. The crews mission is to explore the ship, which is showing zero life signs, and to determine what is going on.

Although the ship is alien and advanced, what it is doing becomes evident on the approach. The ethereal blue energy beam projecting front he ship appears to be punching a hole between our world and another dimension, this one a black and starless abyss apparently filled with giant beings straight out of the darkest nightmares of humanity. They do not appear to be able to enter our world yet, but it becomes apparent that it is only a matter of time before this changes. The Shiny Penny makes its way up into the bowels of this ship entering a cavity that appears designed to accommodate visiting craft. Even this empty space is many times larger than the largest human made craft. They pull the raider up to the forefront of the cavity, where a door roughly 5 meters squared would appear to give entry further into the ship.

Exiting the raider, it takes the crew, equipped with vacc suits and mag boots, a bit of time to figure out the alien control pad, clearly made for a creature with slightly different dimensions than a human being. They enter a charnel house of bones and skeletons of what appears to be dozens of different alien species littered around a black metal chamber, smooth and organic looking. Columns with dead screens curve up smoothly to the ceiling, itself a score of metres high, in the centre, a humanoid skeleton twice as big as the average human’s with sharp fangs and 4 distinct eye sockets. Two doors can be seen along the far wall.

As Norbert examines the alien skeletons on the ground for any clue or information, Montana takes a bit of time to examine the giant skeleton from the safety of the ground. Jeck V19 keeps a close eye on his “cadets” doing his best to ensure that their safety on what he comprehends to be a “training exercise” is well met. Montana is trying to figure out how the skeleton is just floating there suspended with nothing seeming to be keeping it in one piece or together when the eyeless skull turns to face him. It begins moving down from its invisible perch toward the scientist and the android. Terrified, the scientists flee forward, Jeck on their tail, Montana slips and an alien bone fragment punctures the thigh of his suit.  Meanwhile, Jeck has the misfortune of the animate skeleton’s sharpened talons raking the back of his suit, shredding it and causing a pseudo milk bleed. Once they are through the door, Nobert slaps the button to close it behind them, the skeleton doesn't seem to be pursuing them.

They turn their attention to the room they are now in, which appears to be some sort of laboratory. Tubes of viscous white fluid are in the walls, a pit in the floor somehow extends 20 meters out into the vacuum of space  with what appears to be a computer terminal on the far side of the room next to the door. The trio puzzles over the computer, causing a pedestal with a milk white brilliant data crystal to emerge, a claw arm and an autocannon  housed inside of an alien skeleton resembling a spider-centaur. It takes a bit of trial and error, but eventually Jeck is able to figure out how to operate, or at least how to engage and disengage the different features of the lab, though the alien language is still beyond him. 

The crystal’s purpose is unknown, it appears to Jeck to be some sort of alien data storage that engages the user. The volume of information on it is so profound it causes his positronic brain to stroke out and requires him to re-engage his core systems. He avoids looking at it as he slips it into his pocket. Using the autocannon, Jeck conducts an “experiment”. He lowers the autocannon and opens the door. The giant skeleton tries to enter and the autocannon obliterates it. The threat dealt with, the autocannon is disengaged and the door forward is opened.

Several hundred meters long, the hall, which is made of the same black metal with boney ribs that extend up a few dozen meters extending up to a long spine composed of the same material in a cathedral style ceiling. The walls start as walls but as the crew progresses along the corridor but eventually the space between the ribs transitions to open space, At the end of the dark hall is a raised throne, ten steps up, made of interwoven black bones with wires and tubes containing the same white liquid as the lab, At the foot of the throne, two bulky burly figures, headless golems made of slightly malleable white clay. At the top seated, an alien skeleton, hollow eyed, long flattened teeth, fingers encased in some sort of metal, long desiccated skin hanging in patches on its form, bizarre cybernetic implants seemingly grafted onto it, a threadbare black cloak draped around it’s shoulders. Its eyes light up with a sickly yellow light as the crew approaches.

Jeck, taking the direct approach, asks if the being is friend or foe. It answers by standing, pointing a long, metallic finger at Jeck, and unleashing a bolt of dark energy, thankfully missing. Having their answer. The trio try to run back towards the lab, the headless constructs hot on their trail with the alien being slowly gliding along behind, as if it has all the time in the world. They make it to the lab and seal the door. Norbert and Montana continue on while Jeck tries to set up a trap for the golems. The door opens, they enter, Jeck lowers the autocannon and tries to lead them back into its line of fire.It will not target them directly, but it will shoot at JEck who uses this fact at great risk to himself to have the ships defenses gun down the automation. The creature is wounded, but pummels Jeck who, now separated from his cadets, uses zero-g to his advantage and hides in the pit.

Norbert and Montana are dismayed to find the door to the cavity where the Shiny Penny rests has been sealed, the code they used to open it doesn't work. They move to the only place they can, the last unopened door. What they find appears to be some sort of data library, eerie yellow orange screens intermixed with jagged black metal spikes ring this circular chamber. Data crystals float suspended in repulsor fields. A pentagram made of the same black bones found throughout the construction of the vessel are guarded by 5 alien skeletons, roughly human in size but not necessarily in shape. The pair avoid all of this and continue on to the next chamber…which leads back into the throne hall.

They move up to the throne, find it empty and Norbert, seeing the controls and discerning that the user needs to sit in it to operate it. Norbert sits and immediately questions his decision as a number of painful tubes inject themselves through his vacc suit into his arms, spine and brain stem.  Norbert sees things no human was meant to see, but is able to figure out how to shut off the energy beam and, what’s more, program the ship, which has capabilities beyond a jump-9 jumpdrive to a random point on the other side of the galaxy. He disengages from the chair, distressed that he can no longer feel anything below his waist as the connection has caused severe injury to himself. Montana carries him along as they make their way towards the ship.

During this Jeck waits, he is not pursued into the pit. After a period of time he deems it safe enough to rise and assess his position. The lab is empty and it looks as if the alien horror has tidied up  after the noisome humans before going back to wherever. Jeck heads back towards the ship and inadvertently traces the steps of the scientists before deciding to try and interface with the computers in the data library. He learns that this ship is engaged in all sorts or horrifying technologies that are incomprehensible.

Montana and Norbert are intercepted by the alien, apparently on its way back to its chair. It levels its finger at them as it did before and blasts Norbert with a bolt of energy, felling the scientist as it courses through his already overstressed nervous system. Montana runs back towards the throne, only to take a burst so powerful that it causes his head to explode inside his helmet. The being then makes its way to the library, just as Jeck is attempting to figure out how to switch crystals in the data library's computer. It attempts to attack the android, who takes a blast of the dark energy that causes part of the hand to rupture instead of a head, possibly due to some sort of unknown feedback protection. The alien is thankfully slow, allowing JEck to run back to the pit and hide as the ship unexpectedly (from Jeck’s perspective) makes a jump to hyperspace. 

The ship moves for 10 minutes, thankfully as he is still within the structure of the ship, Jeck is spared any ill effects, it stops for 5 minutes and then appears to make a return trip. Not wanting to take any chances, Jeck exits the bottom of the pit and spacewalks along the exterior of the ship, taking an hour plus long walk to where the Shiny Penny is docked. He is unable to raise Norbert of Montana on the comms after multiple attempts, and is finally forced to acknowledge that his cadets didn't make it. Booting up the Penny’s systems, he steers the raider class ship out of the ship’s cavity only to suddenly stop. Looking out of the viewscreen JEck sees an immense hand grasping the raider like a newborn child might grab a rattle. It pulls the penny with JEck inside to its mouth, ringed with hundreds of long yellow and grey teeth. As the ultradimensional horror devours the Shiny Penny, Jeck V19’s last thoughts are the knowledge that he is simply the first of many that will be consumed.

Norbert KIA

Montana KIA

Jeck V19 KIA

The suits draw their weapons, and in response the gang goes for theirs. A firefight ensues in the street, during which Seth takes a gunshot wound to the neck. During the combat the plastic garbed man is wounded in crossfire and makes an attempt to flee, but the group stops him leaving him in under the watchful eye of Jake, who has never felt more out of place than he does now. Squeaks and Grace duck for cover as Seth stands his ground, steadily advancing on the goons with every shot. Eventually both are put down, Squeaks helping himself to their SMGs.

The scientist is questioned, but he is of minor help, only giving up the name of Lana Voss Fogery once the threat of force is used. Grace finds the same name in a computer along with some horrifying video o f the procedures done here. The room behind the plastic curtain is a horror show. Dead bodies, some shot most looking like they have died from hypoxia, lay in various stages of surgery on the table. They appear to have some unknown high tech cyber implant in their chest and lower neck. It doesn’t take long for the crew to realize that this isn't control collars keeping prisoners in line but cybernetics reanimating the dead! They take what they can (Grace now has enough supplies to start a real lumitat parlor) before Seth doses what he can in alcohol and lighting a match. They leave as the fire roars behind them to begin their hours-long trek to the nightclub Icarus, the location on the matchbook that fell from the computer and where Angus’s scouts have told Grace she can be found.

A lot is happening on the way up. Reports on the Hunglung threat ring out on various vids. A number of street kids swarm around the gang, looking for handouts, which they receive from Jake and Squeaks. Grace holds her credits close while Seth only offers a scowl. Jake notices a few odd characters near the King Spa. The duo wears multiple levels of clothing and rebreathers without the oxygen. He thinks nothing of it, and not a minute later and explosion rocks the business.

Jake is mortified, feeling responsible for the explosion, rushes in, as do Grace and Squeaks, trying to comb the still burning bathhouse for survivors. Seth hunts for suspects, hearing gunfire the the east. Grace manages to find a survivor ang gets him out. Seth and Squeaks go to investigate the gun fire to find a squad of Tempest Co. operators engaged in a firefight, their quarry trapped in a franchise of The Spacer Supply Company. Already injured and already engaged on a mission, Seth pulls back and brings his attention back to Spa King.

Grace takes out a cigarette and watches as Jake runs back in.  A fire prevention team starts to spray the building with self expanding fire suppressing foam, making the more dangerous parts of the ruined building inaccessible. HE manages to find three more people who had been trapped in a collapsed bathing area and successfully leads them out to applause just as Seth and Squeaks return. As the group moves on, Jake laments and confesses that the explosion was his fault, he saw the pair of shifty individuals there, and said nothing. The others try to console Jake, pointing out that he couldn't have known and he shouldn’t feel guilt, though whether Jake believes any of this remains to be seen.

They finally make it up to the tops, the expansive upper levels of the dream. Finding Icarus, Seth enlists the help of a R5 Operator patrolling the streets by the name of Nault. As Seth’s senior he takes the lead. The group makes their way into Icarus with Seth Squeaks and Nault looking for  Lana and Grace and Jake, not being as combat minded, decide to chill and even do a little dancing (Jake's spaceman routine becoming quite the point of interest. Things are going well and for the first time since arriving on the dream Jake begins to feel not so bad. It's at that point that gunfire rings out through the club and the patrons flee screaming out of the club.

 Nault confronts Lana, who is sitting on a velour sofa chatting up two younger women while watched over by a bodyguard. She makes like she is getting up to go with but then draws a one shot holdout pistol, firing directly into Naults chest as the bodyguard shoots Squeaks with a much more conventional weapon. Seth guns down Lana as she flees, inflicting a near fatal sucking chest wound on the woman. Squeaks  plugs the hole with torn rags, keeping her from bleeding out until Seth arrives with a Stim Pak, Nault for his part has shot the bodyguard and continues to gun down her no longer moving body lying on the floor.

Having found the facilitator for the dead bodies, the group takes Lana to Cutter at Tempest Co. Cutter informs the group if anything comes out of this that he can use them on, he will let them know as one of the feared Tempest Interrogators enters Voss’s holding cell. Having completed the mission, Angus wires Grace the money, who then distributes it as promised. Jake, feeling stressed with what passes for day to day life on the station (“This is no Dream, it’s a nightmare”) floats the idea of taking his ship, which is in need of some repairs, to do some work off station. Perhaps the Deep might be of interest?

High Scores and NPCs

Seth (11) 

Squeaks (7)

Grace (3)

Jake (2)

Lana Voss-Fogerty

Icarus Patrons

Angus

Cutter

Operator Nault (R5)

Spa King Survivors

After their last success, Jake has suggested that they look for an opportunity off station for a bit, he himself feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the chaos and violence of Prospero’s Dream. He suggests perhaps investigating The Deep, a space station controlled by an Insane AI known to produce treasures commonly referred to as “artifacts”. Finding the right one, he’s heard on the docks, can set someone up for life. Grace takes some time to look up information on The Deep in Canyonheavy, learning about the blockade around the station, the group, known as Troubleshooters, who maintain it, the waystation named The Bell, and a few other choice facts. As she is looking things up, she receives a cryptic message questioning her interest and requesting to meet at Myrna’s later that evening.

Grace passes this on to Jake, who has been joined by both Constantine and Clay. Constantine is also feeling the need to spread his wings, his work and his debt encouraging his departure. Meanwhile Clay, having been bombarded with daily deaths of his fellow teamsters, some who were friends, and taking in the increasingly angry rhetoric regarding strikes and violence, also feels that some fresh air elsewhere is well merited. 

They go to the fortuneteller’s, all 4 of them, at the appointed time and are ushered into a backroom by Myrna herself, in all her faux roma glory. They are joined by a fifth, a thin stick of a man with an unusually flat nose, carrying a thick looking briefcase. He puts it on the table and opens it to reveal a transmitter capable of picking up and broadcasting signals from other system. The needle cast connects and the upper body of Okram Switchback, governor of Swtichback’s World, materialized behind a desk on the screen.

Okram gets to the point, he is looking for people interested in going to the Deep, as his son Caspar known reality streamer and washed out marine, has disappeared. He is willing to pay their fuel costs, and 2 mcr for the return of a live or dead Caspar. It is the not knowing, he shares, that is the worst. Grace manages to talk him up to 2,5mcr if he is living and get 25kcr in pre departure expenses added to the contract, both are nothing to a man that owns a planet. Okram mentions that Caspar had his team with him, 2 marines, a cameraman, and an android, He does not care about their return but suggests working a deal with any survivors if they can help find Caspar.

The crew put their name on the dotted line and  doe a quick shopping spree before calling transport out to Jake’s Raider, the Vagabond. It turns out that the pilot of the shuttle is no other than former Captain Riley who greats everyone pleasantly and makes sure to  converse with those he knows. After on the ship they are taken in by how run down the Vagabond is, airlock doors that stick and need to be manually sealed, coolant problems, rust and condensation on numerous surfaces and components,out of date air filters that cause the air to smell of gym shoes, a rustbucket could break down at any moment. It has served Jake well enough so far, ultimately everyone picks a cryopod that is surprisingly fairly comfortable despite their age before they jump to hyperspace.

The group slip past the trouble shooters no problem just as Okram promised and make it to the bell. A few cases of cryo sickness present, most of which are cured by stimpack. Jake scrapes the paints of a nearby ship also docked at the Bell, causing a torrent of expletives to burn across the radio waves from said ship. The crew makes contact with Arkady on the Bell. Arkady goes into space, bringing a tether line out to the ship. The crew suits up and haul themselves across the line to the Bell, where there is also no gravity and the denizens are a bit strange, as might be expected in these circumstances. Akerly directs them around recommending that they spend time at the chapel.Akardy gives them the rundown on the schedule for departure and pickup, the cost of the Lost and found (about 10x common list prices) as well as the fact that no one hear really liked Casper either though some of his entourage was ok Some of the gang takes him up on that offer to visit the chapel and meet Noriko, a devout follower of something she refers to as “the minotaur”. 

She offers the crew “the sacrament” the sacred flesh of the minotaur.All decline the sacrament of the minotaur, except Jake who takes it in secret and feels more sure of himself, but is otherwise unsure of any actual effect. Noriko for her part says that in her experience everyone both receives and finds the minotaur’s blessing differently. She wishes the group well on their first foray to the deep. Akardy comes over comms saying departure in 30 mins, the crew float across the station in the direction of his shuttle, prepped ready and eager for the voyage in.

Highscores

Jake (3)

Clay (5)

Constantine (5)

Grace (4)

Captain Riley

Okram Switchback

Hershel

Madame Myrna

Akardy

Noriko

On their way to meet Arkady the crew drifts into MArshal, a lone marine looking for a crew to do his first dive with. He strikes up a conversation with the crew well enough, who feel the grizzled veteran would make a good fit (though Constantine is admittedly a bit wary). They meet up with Arkady outside his shuttle. As they traverse the space between the Bell and the Massive Station that is the Deep, the crew asks questions about the Deep, Monarch, and the missing heir. Arkady is able to inform them that Monarch is insane, hates humanity, and is able to outthink the powers that be that are too afraid to try and destroy it, should they fail or, even if they succeed, and lose track of the superintelligent AI. Many divers go in hoping to find some piece of tech or discovery made by the computer, which can do generations of work in mere moments, which to the right buyer on the outside is worth billions.

He also mentions that Caspar was an ass, no one is really going to miss him. Most also figure that Spiff, an overweight wash-out marine, has long since probably gotten himself killed. Arkady mentions that he feels bad for the others, the babysitter (molson) the camera man, and even the android, as they did not deserve to get stuck with Caspar. As he drifts into the spaceport on level one he rounds up giving the crew a lecture of infiltrators as the whole of his ship shudders, startling the crew.

It turns out the docking arm has only grabbed the ship to ensure stability once the docking umbilical extends. As they leave Arkady mentioned that there is rumoured to be a docking bay down on the 6th level, but no one has as of yet been able to clear it. There would be a reward if the crew did so in their travels. They enter the airlock and descend down a set of spiral metal staircases inside a concrete shaft until they arrive at another final airlock style door. Grabbing the handle and pumping the door, the light turns green allowing for Marshall, leading the group down, to twist and open the door.

The group finds themselves in reception. The carpet, once likely considered posh, is ripped, worn and torn, a desk and PC terminal are riddled with bullets and scorch marks. Bullet and shell casings litter the floor, a single man sways back and forth above the ground, one end of an electrical cord tied around his neck, the other around a steel joist in the ceiling. The crew cuts him down and gives the room a going over. Clay is unable to repair the terminal, the damage is too extensive, the others give the young man a look over and find a clamshell mirror with “Android” roughly scratched into the side. As they are getting ready to leave, a door on the far side of reception opens. The crew, already nervous, draws their weapons and prepares for danger.

It is a man, wearing a brown emergency space vacc suit. He puts up his hands and identifies himself as Roy Montana, from Centurai 6. He tells the crew that he is an investigative journalist who is trying to find Cloudbank’s secrets that they couldn't delete before Monarch took over. Listening to Roy and getting Grace to do a search of the datastream the group becomes confident that he is indeed human and on the level,though his blog is more conspiracy nut than journalist. He trades the group a MP3 recorder that he found belonging to Cpl Molson for a few hundred creds. Molson’s last recording tells of the group getting split up on the second floor, and Caspar’s insistence that they go on to the fourth floor, HEL, without it. Molson states she is stashing this recording in the event that they lose contact. It very much sounds like she knows that this is a bad move. Jake decides to offer Roy money to lead them to the 4th floor lift, 5kcr in total. 

Roy takes them up on the offer, leading them down a hallway. Clay checks out a storage room which has some sort of bizarre makeshift scanner with “Access” written above it. The thing flashes so bright it is actually stress inducing. They next check out the REC room, which smells of gym socks, mildew and despair. The room appears to be messy, dropped weights, broken mirror and machines. Marshall grabs a 10lbs  to use as a weapon. Investigating the lockers and the shower room, they find a man stuck in a locker. He is wearing an old heavily patched up vacc suit, no helmet. Bringing him too he says his name is Sameual Grady and his partner Martin, must have done this to him after they found what he calls the “Omnislick”.

The more they talk the more that Samuel seems off. It all comes to a head when Sam thinks today is 3-4 months ago. Tensions rise and they end with Constantine knocking Sam unconscious with the butt of his rifle, freaking a number of people out and stuffing the unconscious man back into the locker they found him. Continuing on, they arrive at the elevator dn decide to push 6. Descending it may be the best idea to see if they find that docking bay. Making their way out into reception and exploring the graffiti adorned area they make their way through the station, with Jake deciding to head back up the elevator while the others explore the breakroom and the core control rooms. Constantin and Clay check out the washroom and manage to find a hidden cache of stimpacks and a pulse rifle. Clay also located what appeared to be a man sized hole in one of the stalls leading into the pipes. 

MEanwhile Marshall has continued on in a different direction and has found the control room for the loading dock. As he is surveying the scenes he encounters a pair of forgotten androids who have been cast off and discarded for a number of reasons. One, who stops abruptly at its torso, is named Artex 774, the other which has sickening silly putty type fake skin sagging off it, is called Reg, both try to negotiate their way past Marshall, but he is having none of it, he calls the rest of the team in and as soon as Clay and Constantine arrive and see the grotesque form of Reg the open fire and hell breaks loose. Reg goose down quickly and Artex , with dagger like fingers and curved blades extending out of his forearms, fails to avenge him before goin down himself. 

The noise of combat however, was the worst part. As the group looks over the room for some information on how to clear and operate the loading bay, they see what can only be the hunter on level 6. The Hunter, with the upper body of an android and 6 long scythe-like legs barges into the control room, being pelted and peppered with machine gun fire.  A single speedy slice through the air is all it takes to send Constatine to the ground, a deep gash cut from his left clavicle to right thigh with surgical precision. Clay drags the machine man back towards the elevators, while Marshall bravely tries to hold off the creature with gunplay, He mostly misses damaging the systems and causing all of the room’s doors to become stuck open. The Hunter for its part has a bit of bad luck for, as it prepares to deli slice Marshal into oblivion it raises its arm too high and slices into the ceiling, temporarily getting stuck. This gives Marshall the opportunity he needs to flee and help Clay get Constantine to the elevator. 

The Hunter frees itself after only a short amount of time and pursues the trio, who are dismayed to discover Jake and the cargo elevator are not on this level, but relieved that one of the other two is on this level. In a last ditch effort to catch the crew the Hunter gets a scythe wedged into the elevator and it is repeatedly beaten until eventually they can snap it off and continue their return back to the first level. Constantine, though in a bad way, regains consciousness shortly  after the action dies down. They manage to get him back to the reception area, knowing that it will be hours before Arkady will come back. They can only hope to stay safe until then.

High Scores

Constantine (6)

Clay (6)

Jake(4)

Marshall (1)

Grace

Arkady

Roy Montana

Samuel Grady (MIA)

Ray (KIA)

Artex 774 (KIA

The Hunter

The crew makes it back to reception, minus Jake who is nowhere to be seen. They wait out the time there, thankfully trouble free, in the company of Roy Montana, who occasionally engages in a bit of awkward conversation while waiting for the return of Arkady. They alert Grace through the shortwave of Constantine’s injuries. She makes use of the time to barter for a slightly used and largely overpriced electronic tool kit. Once the group returns they work on repairing Constantine the best they can, and while not the prettiest job they manage to repair much of the damage inflicted by The Hunter’s scythe-like leg. Marshall produces the leg that was severed by the elevator doors (with some assistance). The blade is made of a carbon steel alloy and is impossibly sharp, leaving no wonder as to how it was able to do the damage it did.

In a bid to repair some of his organic parts, the newly healed Constantine endeavours to use a stimpack, only for it to cause some sort of mild cardiac arrest requiring the crew to resuscitate him. To unwind and debrief, the group make their way to the Lost and Found and converse over a few drinks of varying quality and alcohol content (Marshall is strictly dry, and Constantine, despite his efforts to fake it, does not imbibe at all). Here they meet one of the Bell’s numerous residents, Troy, who has endeavoured to take over duties at the makeshift bar for the time being. Troy mentions he was a diver but doesn't go back down eerie since the rest of the crew he was with was brutally slain on Level3. He warns that level 3 is largely where the different components of androids are made and brought together and its fairly easy for a human to end up dead by things that are not even trying.

After drinks the crew makes their way to the tank and turn in for the evening, with Clay electing to head back to the Vagabond just to make sure that someone is there in case needed. Both Grace and Constantine wake up to unpleasant surprises. Grace is feverish with the chills and Constantine…has developed a mutation. His throat is metal and his mouth now extends to each cheekbone, giving the impression of a ghastly smile. Understandably concerned, the trio make their way through the Bell and end up before The Ghost Eater, ancient diver more machine than man. With his bizarre synthetic voice and enigmatic quips. he directs them to Noriko in the garden, before going back to his mantra.

Noriko is further in tending to the lichen vines and grasses of the garden. She appears very concerned regarding the pair’s plight but aside from offering Grace a herbal tea for her chills admits there is nothing that she can do. She does recommend seeking out the minotaur, as she believes it can cure anything. She explains that the Minotaur is the child of Monarch but instead of destroying humanity, it betrayed its creator and wished to help and save humanity. She mentions that in her early days at the Bell as a diver she met and spoke with the minotaur in its labyrinth prison. They decide to head back into the Deep on Arkady’s next run. They take the time to ask him about Noriko and the Minotaur. Having never met the Minotaur himself about that he cannot say much. But Noriko he knows to be kind, helpful, and honest. She believes that the minotaur is humanity's salvation and that belief, for Arkady, carries weight.

Once in reception the group immediately meets a faceless android wearing a cloudbank synthetic jumpsuit missing its left sleeve. Likely to accommodate the modified laser cutter that serves as his left arm. He is loudly arguing with himself over some sort of technical issue of unknown importance. He identifies himself to the group as Enrico, and then in a deeper tone of voice, reintroduces himself as Ocirne. It becomes clear that both are independent minds in the same body. Grace and Marhsall try to settle its dispute, with Marshall siding with Ocirne to the chagrin of Enrico, and they immediately begin a new argument over something equally trivial sounding. The trio makes their way past the pair with their consent.

Making it to the lift, the crew reaches the 2nd level. They find a stash of weaponry in the washroom and a vent 2 by 2 big enough for someone to shimmy along, dark with somewhat foul smelling air. Backtracking, Grace picks the electolock on the airlock door and proceeds down a room of very creepy portraits, all apparently former members of the Cloudbank synthetics board. IF not bad enough the next room is far worse, the ceiling walls and floors are all covered in android pseudo flesh. There, sitting by a pseudo flesh statue of a 3 m tall humanoid holding the hand of a smaller humanoid, is Augur-19. The android is freaked out and distressed, talking about things far worse than the horrors of this room deeper into the chosen’s realm. He tells the group that they fled the Chosen’s Court after Casper being Casper messed around and slapped the chosen king, and Augur fell behind. Thankfully the chosen ignored him.

The crew, presented with this information, decides to make their way back to the washroom with augur -19 in tow  and try their luck with the vent, but where does it lead?

High Scores and Stats

Grace (5) Stress 11 W(H) 2(9/13)

Constantine (7) Stress 8

Marshall (2)

Roy

Troy

Ghost Eater

Noriko

Arkady

Enrico/Ocirne

Augur-19

The crew makes it through the vents to the sewer mains. A number of scanning and technical equipment is plastered along the walls regulating pressure water and waste levels and visuals on the majority of this area. A man lies dead in the middle of the floor. Closer inspection reveals that the “man” is a fleshy shell containing and concealing the damaged biosynthetic corpse of a new type of android. Grace is able to affirm that the synthetic, which uses a relay system similar to how a cephalopod processes information as opposed to a logic core, is at least a decade ahead of anything on the market and that the innovations present in this forgotten model would be worth millions to Cloudbank or any other corp that manufactures androids. They continue on through the next set of vents while trying to figure out how to pack the discovery with them.

The next vent dumps them out in enormous pipeworks larger than a warehouse. The entirety of this area is a dangerous mase made up of different sized pipes, gears cords, gangplanks and other machine parts. As if to drive home how dangerous this area could be, the corpse of a diver is immediately to the left of the entrance, slowly being ground by the resisting cogs of two gear wheels jammed by the body. The crew feels it better to just leave the dead body rather than try to salvage anything off of it. The make their way across two large pipes, step onto a slow moving gear climb up onto a gangplank and, using the first signs they have seen of Jake thus far, lower themselves down an aging paracord to some narrow pipes below, securing it before they move on along more gangplanks gears and gaskets until they reach the next vent.

This one is a bit longer, leading to a small control room overlooking a giant metal funnel. The bottom of which is sealed by a heavy looking metal bulkhead. A vent on the far side, a bit too high to reach, has had its bulkhead already opened. The word, Labyrinth has bees scrawled over the button in black sharpie. The crew decides that that is where they want to go and starts to shimmy across the exterior, not wanting to fall into the massive gap. It is at this time that a diver, a woman named Eco, exits from the character's destination. She tells them that she came from the Labyrinth, the supposed home of the Minotaur, but that she was unable to find them. The crew lets her pass, she seems a bit shaky, a bit nervous, she warns them about the teeth “couldn't get past them…” shivers involuntarily just thinking about whatever this is.

The crew manage to boost themselves into the vent when it goes from square and metal to pseudo flesh and round after about a minute. Every so often they emerge into a room with multiple exit points. One has eyes that open in irregular intervals and seem to follow the movement of the crew as they crawl through. Some are normal, some have various sensory organs, but all are highly stress inducing and disturbing on multiple levels. Eventually the crew reaches one that has large molars and canine teeth interspersed throughout. It is decided that they should venture this way as since Eco could not and at the same time did not encounter the Minotaur, it stands to reason that this way may take them to it. About halfway down the group wonders if they made a terrible mistake as the tunnel shudders, constricts and starts to grind, almost as if it is attempting to masticate the people inside. The crew endures and manages to come out the other side into a large chamber made of pseudo flesh. Android attendants resembling the chosen reside here and request the character’s intent for entering. They bring up wanting an audience with the minotaur. They send a runner to retrieve it.

What comes back horrifies the crew as it looks like their deepest fear. It takes a while but eventually they see through the lie and are left with a writhing slug-like mass of flesh with a singular proboscis extending out the front from below some sort of incomprehensible sensory organ. The proboscis stabs down hard into the head of one of the androids, and it speaks with a deep otherworldly voice that is not its own but the minotaur. The crew informs the being of the reason they have sought it out and it takes the time to study Grace. It requests to interface with Constantine, as the enforcer is more of a mystery to it. Once completed, it offers it the sacrament as a possible cure. 

While the sacrament helps with the disease it is insufficient to cure, for this Minotuar needs time. 2 days go by in the labyrinth, but for the Minotaur it is as if whole lifetimes of counsels of scientific geniuses have worked on the problem round the clock. It comes back with a solution and is able to devise a cure that works, though unfortunately it is unable to reverse mutations. The minotaur, while pleased that the characters are doing well, is very much concerned of the disease and the number of carriers back on the dream, it is something insidious, and a danger to all it warns. 

While in the company of the minotaur, the crew does inquire as to if it had met Jake. The minotaur nods in the affirmative, stating that it sent him to a section in the 3rd floor to find an item it needs to help Jake shake his dependence on his unique physiology. The crew is now at a crossroads, do they continue to seek out Caspar Switchback and the other members of his team, go after Jake, or try to get the cash cow that is the android body back to the Vagabond with them and put it on ice?

High Scores and Stress/Injury

Clay (7)

Constantine (8)

Grace Stress 20, Health 9/13, Wounds 1/1, +[Doomed]

Marshall (3)

Augur-19 (1)

Jake

Eco

The Minotaur

After a few days with the Minotuar all but Konstantine decide to make their way back up to level 1 and across to level 4, which as they understand was the direction that Caspar was going in. They make their way back though the labyrinth, across the drain through the pipes and facilities (thankfully Jake’s paracord is still there) and, carrying the dead android, take the lift back up to the top floor. Their time on the top floor is mainly without incident. They do hear the muzak come back on, send Augur-19 to reception to wait for Arkady (he is grateful to be done with the Deep for now), check on Sam Grady, who is still out cold in the locker (the crew now all but absolutely certain he is an inflitrator) stuff the dead android in another locker to hide him, and continue on their way to the 4th floor, as directed by the recordings left behind by corporal Molson.  The elevator trundles down , stops, then shifts over. The crew have entered the Human Emulation Labs, better known by its acronym “HEL”.

Once in HEL the group notices that in the ceiling about a number of robotic eyes, stare down from roughly 8 plexiglass bubbles in the ceiling staring at them as they pass the ancient vending machines and empty snack bar. The group decides on the door labelled financial simulation, which turns out to be full of partially hollowed out server racks as well as several interfaces all connecting to a primary interface. The smell of burning dust and wiring permeates the warehouse-sized area. A pair of androids seems to be struggling over something, that something turns out to be a disc with programming to make an android believe and act as if they were completely human. Grace immediately understands the value of this and the group attempts to get it away from the two androids, but unfortunately it gets stepped on in the process and destroyed.  MEanwhile, scanning the visuals of this floor, the group discovers a copy of Augur-19 in what appears to be a junk heap, further tracking reveals this to be in the human emulation laboratory.

Upon opening the door 5 scientists wearing cloudbank synthetic lab coats and rebreathers rush out of the room for the lobby.. The crew passes by a section of helmets with a panoramic camera set up on them. A dusty collection of androids sit in a circle, each one connected to a ring of wires at the base of the skull. Another group of the mannequin like synthetics sitting on benches in front of screens which quickly flash uber-complex mathematical problems for them to solve. Beyond this is the refuse dump which appears to be composed of discarded synthetics components and junked androids. Sitting in this mess appears to be the android Augur 19

Augur reads as an android (and why wouldn't he?). The crew realizes that he has simply been switched off. Augur is highly confused, unlike the other Augur, he remembers fleeing the Chosen court with the rest of the crew and going down to the 4th floor where Caspar and his crew encountered something that Augur calls the “Neuron Beast” even though he cannot recall what it is or what it looks like. The only thing that he can think of in regards to this is he recalls Cpl Molson saying that it should have been on floor 3. He is unsure where anyone is. Though he is aware that there is an airlock nearby, the crew just needs to cut through the Artifact Comprehension Labs and into the experimentation room. The airlock's original function is to flush anything dangerous out, but it appears that some previous divers have cut doors between the lab and the experiment room with the hopes of using the airlock for drop offs. What happened to those divers no one knows.

 The crew is about to leave the labs, when a hologram of a man in a vacc suit, a diver perhaps? Or maybe a scientist wearing the suit as PPE, appears, an angry scream looking for something, it doesn't notice the characters but “sweeps” the goods off of the tables (it takes the characters a minute to notice that the goods are still there and only originally appeared to be swept off). The crew wisely avoids it and continues with Augur 19 to the labs. From here they are able to make their way through the obviously added-later doors and find the controls. They are also able to raise Arkady on the comms and make him aware of the new situation, but what to do between now and when the cagey courier and rendezvous with them?

High Scores and Stress

Clay (8)

Grace (7) Stress 11 9/13(1)

Marshall (4) Stress 14 

Constantine

The Minotaur

Fleeing scientists

Augur-19

Augur-19

Arkady

Arkady arrives with a conundrum, the ship now currently has 2 Augur-19s. Arkady refuses to continue on back to the Bell while both are there. The problem is made worse by the fact that even if one were killed, there is no way with androids to tell which is the original and which is the copy, as both will show up as androids. After heated arguments, the group decides that the first Augur-19, the one that they found in the “flesh room” originally, is indeed more likely to be the infiltrator, they force him into the airlock, which is still connected to the ship. The android refuses to go back, banging on the door begging to be let back in, not wanting to stay on the Deep. 

Arkady begins the disconnect sequence. Once realizing what is going to happen and that he wont be let back on the shuttle, Augur-19 runs back to the Seep airlock but is too late. The crew leaves the synthetic floating in space, slowly “dying” from the lack of pressure and the absolute cold of the vacuum. Grace and Marshal are quite shaken up by the ordeal, as is the diver Echo, as Arkady’s ship makes its way back to the relative safety of the Bell.

The crew decides to takes week to rest, figuring that Caspar isn’t going anywhere (and if he is dead or alive that this is unlikely to change) Clay chills out in the makeshift bar that is attached to Lost and Found and meets a former diver named Auti who he strikes up a rapport with. He learns that she was twice abandoned, once on the Deep by here crew and then a second time as they left the Bell to head back to civilization while she was still waiting for Arkady’s next pick up. She has a hard time opening up at first but is able to do so more and more bit by bit with Clay over the week, allowing him to learn a bit about the Bell from someone who has been here for a while. He also learns the name of Auti’s ship, which she believes was destroyed by troubleshooters fleeing the quarantine. Clay recalls seeing a ship with that name at the Dream a bit before they all set out on this mission, but keeps this info from Auti as to not upset her.

Grace, still trying to work out the very real fact that the Minoatura exists in her mind and aligning that with other facets of her life decides to spend time in the Church of the Minotaur. She hangs off of Norriko a bit trying to learn what she can while avoiding being taken too far into, well there is no name for the group of divers who wish to act as the Minotuars aid and assist it in its escape off of the Deep. Grace keeps here ears open and picks up a fair amount of interesting lore and information about the creature and its powers and goal

Marshall for his part gambles, as much as he can get away with, and ends up winning fairly bit more than he started with an extra kcr, a few rare items and a hit of sycorax. He hears a bit about Caspar and looks in on the Augur 19 that he brings back, who refuses to go anywhere near the station. He also makes sure to let Echo know how close that she was to finding the monarch. The diverse hear this, is disappointed but mentions she just cant overcome the whole teeth thing, She tells Marshall that she will just wait till the labyrinth shifts again, giving the Marine some insight to that area that he did not have before

The decision is made to go back to the Deep and see if they can get on the trail of Spiff. The group passes another ghost in reception, carefully avoided. Upon arrival on he sight the permanent forms of particularly damaged  and disfigured androids sitting around as if on break. Going down through the broken piping of the washroom they make their way out of the garbage compactor into the O2 airflow units. They note that one floor, a massive looking thing with next to no information about it, level 5 is not oxygenated. Grace tries to do so but is immediately over ridden,; the amount returning to 0. Moving through floor 6 they occasionally run into the razor sharp metallic web, signifying that the Hunter had been here at some point in time. Armed with this information they do their best to avoid these area which in a way back them into the station's engine room. They find themselves unintentionally corralled into an unexplored portion of the Deep, hoping that they worse thing that they come across will be the marine Spiff, and hoping that the reason they haven’t seen the Hunter is not because  it lies ahead

NPCs

Marshall (5) Stress 4

Grace (8) Stress 11 Wounds (Hits) 1(9/13)

Clay (9) Stress 5 Wounds (Hits) 2(7/18)

Arkady

Augur 19 (KIA)

Augur 19

Auti

Echo

Norriko

Picking up in the Power Switch Board the crew makes their way from there to diagnostics, until they notice a pair of dusty footprints leading towards power generators. The massive nuclear reactor is observable from an enclosed in an shielded walkway that, after splitting off in the direction of the cooling ducts, continues for roughly a kilometer to an observation deck. The boot prints indicate that whoever was here went towards Cooling Duct B. Grace and Clay decide to make their way back to Diagnostics, which was the original plan, and to see what they might be able to learn (or see the source of the tracks). They are able to observe a great deal about the power flow and overall systems that affect the Deep, only the layout is all wrong as if it had been changed or…never updated. The pair take notice that the layout in diagnostics has far more space for crew, including living quarters which the station does not seem to have now all over floor 2, where the chosen and fallen currently reside. Hearing an S.O.S. over the open comms, Clay heads off after the Marshal to investigate.

MArshal makes his way through the kilometers-long ducts, every 100m or so an organic looking series of metal cooling fans. AS he continues he suddenly gets warmer and warmer until his suit becomes so hot it  burns his skin. He sends an S.O.S. over the open comms to see if anyone will respond, before remembering that the rest of the crew would hear it too. Continuing on, running now to hope that he crosses the room before it heats up more he runs through the different cooling fans until he stumbles across a pair of security androids. The synthetics raise their weapons and prepare to fire.

Grace begins to try to see what she can learn, zooming in on a section of the diagnostics map where the group presently is. Little does she know, doing so would trigger vents expelling a deadly nerve gas, thankfully Grace has her rebreather handy and gets it on before she breathes in any gas. She tries to find out what to do about the situation and realizes that there is a chance tht she can vent the heat out of only one of the two vents, causing the heat and rads to all go to one side…though the process is not without risks.

Clay takes a few hits from the androids smg’s and goes down, MArshall drags him to safety and makes a break for the power generators. Grace makes her way there as well. Together the three of them manages to treat Clay with multiple stimpacks and catch the 2 androids in a shooting gallery. Grace mentions the plan, and all agree to give it a shot. She funnels all the heat to the A side, and the two rush through the coolant heat free, and then on through the connecting backup generator, entering just in time as Grace can no longer keep the heat and rads out of the B side. The door shuts and hot radiation floods the area behind them. Grace, stuck on the other side, does a few scans and determines that while radiation levels are high now eventually they will go down, and she might be able to help that along.

Marshall and Clay arrive in the regulators that are regulating nothing. They all seem to have been diverted away by Monarch, but they can’t tell why, crossing the labyrinth of panels the notice that someone has gone to Thruster Control. They also find a strange device that appears to have been created by Monarch hidden under the panels. It seems to have a lot of input and outputs, and looks like it may have something to do with artificial intelligence, but the pair arent sure.

The first thing that they notice once inside the Control area is a bulky overweight man, shkey with a figurative gaze. The man who matches the image of Spiff, looks nervous, highly anxious, like he’s seen some bad stuff that has left his mark. He starts yelling conflicting conspiratory gibberish, refusing to believe that the group is real and with hand over illuminated red button, threatens to “do them all in”. Through his crazy, the trio learn that Billiam, Molosn and Casper left him, his best buddy left, possibly during and encounter with the Hunter. He also claims to have murdered Billiam but not. While Clay gets and keeps his attention, Marshall sneaks up. And tries to cold cock him with the weight he took earlier 

He is not very successful and a large fire fight opens up. The pair move in and switch to melee as they don’t want to kill the man. Despite all thisClay catches him hard in the lower back, fracturing his spine and dropping him to the ground as a blubbering mess. They bring him further on to the thrusters and walk along the gang plank seeing the little airlock door. They manage to get Arkady on the comms when he gets closer.

Grace, attempting to make it so the team could get back to her, causes an explosion all air and gravity in cooling duct B has been lost. This triggers awave of security drones on route, which, running back though she manages to miss. She sits in the cargo bay, thankfully safe and glad that she missed contact with the Reaper, waiting for Arkady and returning with him on the next run.

High Score

Marshall 6 Stress 14 W(H) 2(5)

Grace 9 Stress 13 W(H) 1

Clay 10 Stress 7 W(H) 1(18)

Arkady

Spiff

Clay and Marshall, both a bit worse for wear, make it back on board Arkady’s ship with Spiff. Arkady assumes that Spiff is lost to the Bends, explaining that sometimes those who delve too deeply into the deep  lose themselves and forget. It always helps, he says, to have some sort of reminder, pointing to his “certified human” patch as he speaks, of who you are. Upon their return, the duo take Spiff to Noriko who says she will do what she can for the man, but needs a fee things to help with his back. She sends them to lost and found where they barter for a mohab unit with Troy, former bouncer now stuck as current resident of the bell. They don't quite have enough in goods so they make a deal as Troy wants some of the equipment, like resistance bands, from the rec room in reception. Returning to Noriko they help him make a brace for Spiff’s back before leaving him in her care. They take a few minutes to question the Ghost Eater, who simply claims his name comes from eating ghosts, such as those found on the station. Marshal gets into a bit of a Q and A with him on the various ways that one can defeat or even “kill” a ghost on the Deep .

They make their way back to the Vagabond to find a place for the artifact that they found, thinking that perhaps they will have to go to HEL in the near future to see if they can figure out what it is before getting settled in for a long needed rest. They are awoken long after by Grace making her way back into the ship, she was able to get Arkady to pick her up in the loading dock after spending several hours hiding from the android security teams that Monarch sent to the 6th floor. She lets them know that she had stopped by to see Noriko and Spiff, and according to Noriko he mentioned something about Caspar finding a way to get to Monarch via the 3rd floor, which is the largest of them all. Unfortunately she didnt get any more out of the poor lackey than that.

The crew talks about what to do going forward, they decide to have Grace on the ship to dig up info if they need it (she is unfortunately unable to really tell much about the artifact), while they make a light foray into the Deep to get Troy the gym equipment. On their way to Arkady’s ship they pass by diver Peter McGary, aka “The Chaplin” they talk a bit about the efforts he’s been trying to make on the 2nd level with the fallen and the chosen before boarding the ship and heading down to reception.

Once at reception they make their way down to the gym, the slow jazz coming back on again, almost as if it knows when the crew is there. They come across a lone, and very stressed, trouble shooter, armed with a pulse rifle upon entering the rec room. The encounter is tense with the troubleshooter barking statements and shouting, gun trained on Marshall and Clay, the entire time they are retrieving the gym equipment (to the visible surprise of the soldier) they leave and decide to count their blessings, waiting out the rest of the time in reception.

Things are fairly quiet, jazz muzak aside, until about an hour before pickup when a marine, who identifies herself as Tonya, pops in from the other side. After a bit of discussion the tough, no nonsense latina woman is relaxed enough with the duo to engage in a bit of conversation when she learns that the pair encountered a troubleshooter in the recroom.  She seems visibly excited and tells them that the troubleshooters, expressly their leader Cmdr Killroy, is responsible for her sister and her friends deaths while crossing the blockade. She never, NEVER passes up a chance to do one in. Thanking the crew for the information she rushes off in the direction of the rec room.

About 5 maybe 10 minutes goes bye before the tannoy sounds across the floor stating security teams are being directed to a “situation” in the employee recreation area. Clay and Marshall look at each other with grim resolve, they know what they have to do. Rushing to the Rec Room they hear the sounds of the combat shotgun and the pulse rifle in the hallway. They have arrived to the firefight before the sec team. They rush in to help and push the troubleshooter back towards the shower room. He gets a hit in on Clay and in on Tonya before the three finally light him up like an xmas tree on december 24th. Having defeated him, they grab some of his gear and make haste back to reception, heading up the concrete stairs and waiting, tense and on guard, for Arkady to come. 

Thankfully, the sec droids either don't check or haven't gotten around to checking the docking bay before they are back on the ship and on their way to the Bell. Clay stimpacks himself and the duo get the gym equipment to Troy thankfully cancelling out their debt. Now all that remains is a little rest time and the decision as to where to go next?

High Scores

Clay 11 Stress 8 W(H) 1(16)

Marshall 7 Stress 16

Grace

Arkady

Spiff

Noirko

Ghost Eater

Peter McGary

Tonya Loyola

Troy

Andy recalls his last meetings with his corporate handlers, watching the last known upload from Caspar Switchback in his quest to “stick it” to Monarch, the god-like AI that wrestled control of the Cloudbank Synthetics Android Manufacturing Station over a decade ago. As he sits, he recalls the corp convincing Okram Switchback, Caspar's father and the planetary governor of Switchback’s World that Andy’s proprietary technology would allow him to possibly confirm if a live Caspar was still the real deal and not an infiltrator. Having come to an agreement, Andy boards a raider class ship a few days later and awaits arrival at his destination.

Once there, he meets with Arkady as he grabs ahold of the tether and pulls himself in towards the gravity devoid station known as The Bell. Andy arrives with the equipment on his back and knowledge of the team that arrived here before him, their aged ship still visible alongside the one that brought him here. In the time that it took for Andy to depart the station and arrive at the Deep, Clay and Marshall have been attempting to rest up and received from their experience of their repeated dives and the dangers and near death experiences that these treks have included. Marshall starts working out with Troy, using the reclaimed gym equipment, and Clay , cool and collected, explores the top shelf liquors of the Lost and Found with choice and care.

It is at the Lost and Found, while the pair chat with Troy, that Andy finds them and, realizing that they are the last of the original team sent to find Caspar, introduces himself. The trio go over their capabilities and the story so far, noting that Caspar was last seen heading towards Level 3 in search of a secret way down to level 5, the home of Monarch’s AI. They make a plan to go on with Arkady next trip before they turn in for what passes for night on the Bell.

Once on the Deep the trio head down to reception, passing a nervous and stressed looking McGary on the way. McGary warns the crew that things are a bit tense on the first level or so for some reason, though he does not know why. The trio find reception a wreck as always the same body still hanging by a cord fashioned into a noose. Someone has decided to carve “INFILTRATOR” into the young divers forehead and, sure enough, Andy is able to confirm that this man is indeed no man, but dead android. Clay and  MArshall starts cutting into the body, revealing fake flesh and fake blood so close to the real human deal that no one can tell the difference. One thing the do find along the spine, a scan resistant logic core the size of a deck of playing cards, much smaller than the typical item, their grizzly work done, they head in the direction of the lift down to floor 2

For reasons unkone, MArshall suggests a detour to the meeting rooms and cafeteria. In the first room they find a backpack loaded with stimpacks, shotgun shells and a flahslight. In the next they are surprised to find a number of aritfacts, 3 in fact. Two seem fairly low grade an low value;9 black marbles made of an unknown substance and a microfilm canister. The third looks more impressive, a streamlined rifle, but is trapped. An EMP grenade, certain to bring the wrath of Monarch down on whoever sets it off, is rugged to explode. Clay tries to disarm it but fails resulting in an EMP pulse that fires everything in the area. The Security drones are hot and heavy in pursuit, not before a dorsally pair of conjoined andriods steep out to curse the crew out.

A firefight starts in the hall, the gang shoots and the robots return fire, a particularly lucky or well-timed shot brought Marshall down to the ground unmoving and seemingly dead. Outgunned and with no way to fight back  the due make their way back towards the lift and descend to the next level. The meeting room had a number of old vending machines that thankfully (or unfortunately) are home to grape nutri-paste and seemingly nothing else. The surviving duo make their way through the airlock past the freaky looking portraits of former Cloudbank CEOs to what is called the visitors shrine, covered head to toe, floor to ceiling, wall to wall in pseudoflesh. It is here that they meet the enigmatic Dr. Elias who appear to be studying the “statue” as well as the other bizarre and uncomfortable features of this room. After conversation as to why they are here, Elias suggest he tag along with the pair, especially if their journey will take them further into the Chosen’s territory.

High Score

Clay 12 Stress 8

Marshall 8 KIA

Andy 1  Stress 4

Dr. Elias 1 Stress 2

Arkady

Noriko

Oosha

Troy

Peter McGary

The Doubleback Android

We leave our adventurous crew and return to the dream, where another AND-class android sits in Sem’s Bar. He waits for  his contact from CanyonHeavy to arrive. The man eventually does and casts a picture of a typical basement dweller who goes by the name of Trev. Trev, the interviewer choes seemingly convoluted questions digging into the sorts of experiences Andy has in hacking infiltration and current affairs. Satisfied with the results and the nachos that arrived in the little private booth where the pair discuss this, Trev has a job for Andy to prove himself as a talent. He is to find a way to hack into the Court and liberate an operative, known only as Anton, from the cells. Anton found his way there by stabbing a court clerk in a heated disagreement and in 2 days will find himself being tossed into the Choke if he survives his trial. Andy must hack in , give Anton a new identity and reason for being there, and, using fake ID badges taht he also needs to add to the system, get in there, grab Anton, and get out.

Badges plural? Trev has tapped an individual who works with Tempest Co. but sometimes does a bit of “of the books work” adn R3 named Seth. Andy’s first job is to find Seth and get him on board. Andy is told that a Black envelope has been included with his dossier, and the 5 kcr he requested in advance, has a message that should convince him.

Seth is, sure enough,right where Andy was told and right where he has been for months, circling the LLs on the Dream, moving along junkies and O2 bums making sure nothing to god awful comes up from below. He doesnt mind it so much this week as, in two days time, he’s moving up to a new job; collecting samples of infected individuals and bridging them to the babuska for study. A bit more dangerous but much better paying. He notices Andy right away and the android’s social graces cause him to stand out somewhat. A conversation is engaged, and SEth after hearing Andy out and reading the note (which is from “C” and offers 10kcr for the job alone) serves as adequate motivation to go along with it. 

Seth still has an hour or so left to his shift so Andy accompanies him and gives the marine the lowdown on whatever he needs to know. With only 15 minutes left of the clock, they run into a Q-team sealing up a property not too far from the elevator Seth uses to get hom. A quick Q and A with the Q-team leader, Bill, gives them the rough picture. A neighbour has heard bizarre sounds , screaming and guttural noises, the same neighbour claims that the couple who lives next door has been ill, complaining of fever and itchy implants. Bill gets the pair on board to help out. It is fairly clear that they are expecting some sort of trouble as  in addition to the two Q-team that have foam guns there are two carrying pulse rifles.

Everyone gets into position and is about to breach the door when, on 2 of a 3 count, the door pops open and the team is confronted with what is likely one of the more maddening sites that they have ever seen. A couple appears to have been fused together at various points, including the face were similar ocular implants have become conjoined, the 8 arms and legs bent and twisted extending out too long from the conjoined torso elongated finger claws flesh only covering some of the arms and legs, the rest exposed muscle and circuitry. Before any can react it tears into one of the Q team members, everyone responds with force but only Seth really gets a bead on it (Andy is taking photos for much of the fight. It tears down two more Q-team members before the surviving trio, spearheaded by Seth, push it back into the apartment, he plugs the male head, which has been screaming and blubbering and begging for death the whole time, causing half the body to go limb and then leaps up and finished the job. Andy tries, as best he can in the aftermath, to console the clearly shaken Bill, both try to question the neighbour who is very untrusting and come across as some sort of recluse.

Ultimately the pair leave Bill to deal with the trauma as best he can, and continue back up one of the upper hab levels. Andy takes a sample of the beast and put it up for sale, he also asks the stats, offering to pay, for information on this floor. In the exchange he learns a bit and even nets a few hundred credits profit. The pair discuss how to get into an off site server room on level 8, they have clearance to get up there, but they can’t just walk into the server room as there are too many bad guys there, Using his tempest contacts he does find some vents and maintenance conduits that lead to the room, but there is the risk of hazards along the way , such as fans, blast of hot air, or god knows what crawling inside. They pick up what they need then rest, weary from their fight with the beast, tomorrow, they put their plan to the test.

Highscore

Seth (12) Stress 7

Andy (2) Stress 6

Trev

Bill

Jeeves (KIA)

Dave (KIA)

Pete (KIA)

Shifty Neighbour

Having geared up , Andy grabbing a foam gun, infrared goggles, a club a tranq gun a stun baton and a packet of munzmeat for the “ritz rats” known to live up in the upper levels, While Seth only feels the need to add a trusty flamethrower to his already formidable arsenal, the pair make their way up to level 12, the bottom level of rich man’s territory, Seth in full uniform, Andy wearing a borrowed Tempest Co. Jumpsuit, and quickly find their way to the hatch. After a very long and fatiguing climb, they arrive at the fans. Cool air on their face wakes them up enough from the several level-long climb to realize that they do not want to be struck by one of the sharpened heavy metal fan blades. 

This is what the foam gun is for. Having just enough shots to immobilize the three fans, Andy steps through, making note that they will have to break the rock hard foam on the way back to keep this place from eventually overheating. They then proceed to the heat exhaust and , waiting a bit over an hour, let the next blast pass by before entering the tunnel and marching the 250m to the next access. There is a problem; the ladder rungs only start up in the access. Seth steps on Andy’s shoulders and reaches, able to pull himself up. Just in time too as Andy, not used to having a full grown human on his shoulders, feels his left ankle give under the weight and tumbles . Once Seth has establish a firm grip on the ladder rungs he does lower a cord down and helps hoist Andy up.

Their next stop is the maze-like labyrinth of service and maintenance tunnels. Andy is able to successfully negotiate the map, even rerouting around what sounds like a colony of hungry ritz rats, before the pair arrive at the vent network above the server room. They hear and, thanks to the infrared goggles, see a lone guard walking the perimeter. SEth, knowing that its Andy that needs to be down there, carefully moves the grate and lowers him down on a rope. Andy slowly and carefully, hacks into the servers, changing Anton’s name to Argyle Bergemom, and his crime to O2 Credit Fraud. He assigns the superior as Count Basie and locks in their IDs as Reginald Forsythe the III and Duck Ellington esq. Before giving the signal to being pulled back up, the lone guard none the wiser.

It is during the assent that problems arise. Seth pulls Andy up and over to hard, causing part of the ceilings infrastructure to noisly bend and buckle. This alerts the guard who arrives just as Seth hastily but noisily returns the grate. The guard radio and gives warning for the unseen pair to surrender and when they do not answer they open fire on the ceiling, the crew manage to crawl away with out damage, their mission successfully avoiding compromise. They make it back through, break the foam on the fans (one breaks a little too quick, catching Andy in the arm) before making their way back down the ladder and sealing the access as if they had never been there.

All that is left is to pick up Anton, now Argyle. As they walk into the court past the masses waiting to pay for the cheap seats in the court, an arena of last hope and suffering for those accused of crimes who hope to escape their fate. It seldom goes well. The pair see a man, a welcher, get roughed up by a tempest probie. They ask the R1 where they can do a transfer and he offers to show them, leading them the the elevator. On the way down the welcher begs and pleads and Andy, possible out of pity or sensing an opportunity, trades the man, Rosco Graves the dockworker, 1kcr for his name location and a favor down the road.  The probie shakes his head but does direct them towards the base cells at block 3A, he tells them under no circumstances should they go anywhere near block 4A. 

Sure enough as they pass it, they hear the loud intimidating roar and banging on reinforced bars,which alerts the actual guards to trouble. They caution them against antagonizing the creature (Andy grabs a recording of it to sell on line) and process the records, a little confused at first as “Argyle Burgemom doesn’t exist as far as they know but sure enough the computer says he’s here. Some trade of information and advice follows and Anton is taken back up the elevator. He tries to bolt but the tranq gun ie employed, justifying its purchase. The pair drag him back to Canyonheavy where Trev, delighted changes his name of record to Dickie Fatts, removes his left pinkie with a chisel and hammer to remind one where loyalties made. The pair is paid and even previews a couple of potential jobs before settling on looking into an old relay that went off line.

Before they do this, its time to rest and recover, Seth brings Andy to the Right Hook where Peter Squeaks Stints runs the chow,  he is taken care of, but even with a week of rest in onita’s embrace, and even with a steady dose of android med music, the call for adventure can only be kept at bay for so long…

Highscores

Seth (13)

Andy (3)

Trev

Anton aka Argyle aka Dikie Fatts

Rosco Graves

The Creature in 4A

Special Cameo Peter Squeaks Voice

Overall Seth and Andy had a good week,though troubles on the station continue. Picking up from the news they hear the mishmash of reporters, nutjobs and entertainers that pass for the station’s media report on “monsters” in the station depths and sightings and encounters of strange  beings in Slickworlds, Beings with names like “the crying girl”, “the pale man”, and “the rotting borg”. During this period a tragedy struck, A Hunglung bombing killed 6 Tempest operatives, none that Seth knew but still a rough day on the job.

Well rested, they swing by Trev’s “office” to pick up the information on the old offline relay and its location before heading down to the “lows”, old run down maintenance levels mainly inhabited by squatters and those looking for somewhere to hide.They make their way though the sour smelling halls and the fungus filled tubes.to the relay, Andy is able to puzzle out that, despite being offline for a few weeks,that it has had two uses in the last few days. He finds a electroshock boobytrap of the sort used by the Stretmeyer Syndicate. Andy realized that both the Stretmeyer and the other signal sender seem to be exploiting a known weakness that should have been patched several weeks ago by a Canyonheavy hardwear specialist, Simon Kwon, but never got done. The android, true to form, uploads the exploited weakness in an attempt for a quick payday and then messages Trev with the update.

Seth, standing guard in the dark tunnel, hears something, or someone up ahead. It sounds like whispered human voices,who’s he does not know. He goes to investigate but is too loud and scares them off. The pair touch base after Andy finishes and, just when they are thinking of heading back up, Trev calls. Trev mentions the attempted sale of exploited data, an unadvisable idea when dealing with station security, and tells them the higher ups want them to trace the route and figure out what is going on, no additional compensation.

Seth takes them up to his SL, an R6 named Stintz. Stintz gives them two R1s to work with Rosales and “Silent T” Estrata. Once briefed, the four make their way back down below. They find a man stuck upside down in a vent that they need to go down. They pull the corpse up out of the vent with Seth’s paracord, or at least the bottom half. The stuck, bloated, putrid, corpse ripping in half as it dislodges, Rosales vomits from the gore and the smell. Using Seth’s paracord, they lower themselves down the gore sprayed vent shaft one at a time. It’s a rough ride, and the cord even snaps on one occasion, causing Seth to fall, thankfully landing on the upper half of Kwon.

Observing their new surroundings, they realize that they are in a long unlit corridor similar in construction to a New York sewer. The corridor is a “Pocket”, a section of station cut off for the rest via maintenance damage and other changes. Continuing along, they find a cobbled together drone’ whale shaped body with praying mantis legs , a single camera eye, and a single claw bristling with tools and utility devices. The drone responds positively to Andy, even letting him plug his tablet into it. He scans the recorded video and finds an incident where Kwon is trying to fix something and is assaulted and dragged off by an unseen assailent. ,Andy gets the drone to take them to where this happened, a place it’s chipper voice calls “the lab”.

The lab is dark. Shadow obfuscate a terminal comprised of several older model computers, a metal chair with restraints and strange circuit-lined helmet, and a generative pod that looks like it was stolen or reclaimed from the Cryovats in the Icebox. Andy finds the junction box, it is severely overloaded and is both sending and pulling information from somewhere, he cannot find any trace of the Stretmeyer syndicates signal here. Once he gets on the computers, Andy is able to confirm that the downloaded info is coming for the cryovats, and appears to be a new body type configured to better accept uploaded intelligences. He finds a number of interesting file folders, on label consciousness as a folder for Simon Kwon and some number code AX34L77, folders talking about downloaded body types, experiments (all documented failures to this point) It become very clear that whoever operates this place is trying to build or implant a mind in a body, and has not been having the best of luck for some reason.

Meanwhile Seth has Rosales and Silent T investigate the back area, rows of narrow shelves nad data stands in the unlit back half of the area. He takes some time to overlook the pod. It is int he process of fabricating a synthetic organic body or “shell”/ IT is 80% done, will take about a week to finish, and appears to be in the process of building muscle right now.he looks over the pod, its 80% done, will take about a week to finish and is currently working on some muscle tissue. T radios that Rosales is missing and Seth makes his way into the back to look for them. He finds T but drops to the floor as T shoot at something behind him.

A human-like creature lets out a groaning wail as it rushes the pair. Seth and T make quick work of it. At the same time, Andy is trying to make a few alterations to the drone when a crazed man attacks him with a crowbar. Andy is able to foam him and the trio (Rosales is still unaccounted) question him. The man  won’t give a name or much detai;., He claims the Kwon was a thief so he took what he needed but the body didnt work. Some military types were here before him but hasnt seen them since. The crew make a deal, they will leave the looney scientist be if he given them info and disables the traps on data packs they can use to download kwon.

Seth (14) stress 9

Andy (4) stress 5

Trev

SL Stintz

R1 Rosales (MIA)

R1 “Silent T” Estrada

The Mad Scientist

Simon Kwon (KIA)

Once the mad scientist is effectively subdued and the threat to the crew has been dealt with, Andy turns his attention to the computer where Simon Kwon’s mind has been uploaded. It’s a rough system, but he is able to cobble together a janky interface that allows communication with the disembodied Kwon. Whatever Andy types, Kwon “hears”. The technician is unaware of his situation, and Andy does a good job of dancing around the topic. They learn that Kwon found the same signals, investigated the lab, felt an impact on the back of his head and remembers nothing else. After doing everything they can to figure out what Kwon knows about the signals, Andy switches him off and refoams the scientist, just beginning to free himself from his bonds, before making their way out to the data cache.

Sure enough the cache, which contains information on all matter of things, is a link in the signal chain that the Syndicate is using to exploit station security. Seth learns the hard way that the Stratemeyer’s boobytrap everything. A particularly nasty jolt of electricity rips through his body, leaving a visible burn scar up his arm and across his chest. He is only saved by Silent T, who uses his SMG to bat Seth away, Andy swoops in and removes the trap before tracking the signal to a relay by a long forgotten service airlock. After checking on Seth, Andy uses the bizarre scuttling drone to go back to the lab and search for Rosales, they find him with his neck twisted the wrong way, dad on the floor.

The consensus is that its time to head back up with the information that they have. Silent T decides to give the scientist a parting gift in the form of a spray of lead to the side of the head. But after that they make their way back. They first go see Trev who after speaking to the higher-ups hands Andy a promotion to Observer and a hefty bonus. At Tempest Seth gets his R4 promotion and a small bonus, but is told to stay ready as any day now they will figure out which ship is facilitating the murder videos and where its at. Cutter wants the both of them on the assault team.

Seth, badly injured from the last mission, spends most of the time in a medpod, getting his health back in order. Andy spends most of his time meditation, before realizing that he might need to see a specialist to fix himself up. It’s not long after that Cutter gives them the heads up and instructions to meet him at the drydocks. There Cutter explains to the team, which includes Seth Andy, Silent T and is to be lead by Seth’s SL Stintz, that the boarding craft will ram the raider class ship’s airlock allowing for boarding and hopefully the retrieval of the information. He wishes them luck in the  old”Don’t fuck up” style before the crew heads on in.

Sure enough they hit their target with enough surprise that the squard rocks on in with out initial resistance. Once in the raider they got caught in crossfire of the Stratemeyer goons. Though a few of them catch a few bullets, not a single Tempest contracter goes down. Instead, due to some well placed bullets and especially due to Seth’s flamethrower. The Syndcate is pushed back and then eliminated. The last of them deciding that eating his revolver would be a better end than whatever awaited him  Once the raider is secured and the mission complete. The teams are able to determine that the original of the signal comes from an abandoned mining installation on an asteroid…called Ypsilon 14.

Highscore

Seth (15) Stress 7

Andy (5) Stress 3

R1 Silent T

SL Stintz

Simon Kwon’s mind

Mad Scientist (KIA)

R1 Rosales (KIA)

Trev

Cutter

Andy and Seth are brought into a meeting held by Cutter and Seths SL Stintz. A team of 9 individuals have been put together to work their way onto Ypsilon 14, deal with the syndicate men, and get the teamsters out. The fact that the union, the bratva, and tempest are ponying up a combined 1mcr per member plus a 100kcr bonus if they find out other locations that the abducted teamsters can be found. After introducing the carrot, Cutter shares the stick; turning as failures is a flat 10kcr payout. Along with Andy, Seth and Stintz, who is leading the operation as the SL most familiar with the situation, marines Silent T, Jarek Plinth, Seren Mero, Reef Sable are on the team. Luxon 277, a member of the famously creepy and moraless and easily jailbroken Luxon line, and Teamster Martin Eddy make up the rest of the roster. Seth manages to convince Stintz to get them all flamethrowers. He isn't able to do the same for advanced battle dress so he pays for the whole team’s armor out of his own generous pocket. Andy picks up a custom shield, some explosives, and a salvage drone rigged to find lifesigns. The duo gets onboard the Talon, renamed Deathhawk by the gang, and begin the 2 week journey through jump space.

They arrive about 12 hours out from Ypsilon, Luxon creepily convinces the syndicate that they are here to calibrate some systems, Andy’s idea. Andy has frankly had his fill of being stuck on the raider with no one to interact with, 277 is creepy even by Android standards. Everyone is ready, they land, the docking bay is repressurized, and  syndicate men bring out the steps to the airlock. Andy makes his way down first to attempt to keep the ruse going. He makes a couple of verbal faux pas which tips off the syndicate man that things are not as they have been made to seem. They open fire on Andy who manages to take both SMG blasts to the chest with only minimal harm to himself. A fire fight breaks out, with the Tempest crew rushing out and making short work of the quartet of syndicate men. 

Andy hacks the airlock and the squad advances further into the station. As they make their way into the workspace just as Stratemeyer man Gino Ryder enters from the direction of the crew quarters with 3 men and a cameraman. The three drag a bound, gagged, and blindfolded teamster, today’s execution. Gino starts to monologue like an old school theatre villain, which Seth interrupts, blowing his head off and splattering his brains everywhere. Again a firefight breaks out between Tempest and Stratemeyer, Tempest wins greasing the remaining syndicate men, but gunning down the teamster hostage in the process. The crew had interrogated one of the original 4 and learned that there are roughly 60 teamsters packed into the mess hall, but  around 2 to 3 dozen syndicate men. Seth is a little nervous for a different reason, he’s seen yellow oozing footprints and  has heard people speaking of a Doctor Yana who has been experimenting with it from the various encounters the squad has had on the asteroid thus far.

The squad makes their way down to the barracks after eploring the medbay turned torture chamber. They come across 16 syndicate men in this open communal area, the once home of the likely long dead original crew. Better armed and with the element of surprise, Tempest gets the early advantage and have gunned down all but two of the Stratemeyer, Stintz and Jerek have both taken wounds from the mass of smg fire. Worst of all Andy, who used an explosive to single handedly eliminate 4 of the enemy, has fallen, attempts by Seth and others to revive him have failed, leaving Andy deactivated.

Eager to avenge the loss of their comrade, Tempest rallies hard and presses the advantage, but will they be able to defeat Stratemeyer and take the rock? And what about the other dangers of Ypsilon 14 that have not been yet seen, and will perhaps soon reveal themselves?

High Score

Seth (16) Stress 9

Silent T (1) Stress 5

Andy KIA

R6 Stintz (1 wound)

R1 Jerek (1 wound)

R1 Seren

R1 Reef

Luxon 277

Martin Eddy

Cutter

The firefight comes to an end with Tempest victorious, thee crew, with Seth at the lead, rushes to the cafeteria, entering as they hear gunshots, the mob of teamsters is in the process of overwhelming the 6 sole Stratemeyer goons watching over them. Seth shoots one and the mob takes care of all but two. Before anyone can move, one of them quickly jerks his sidearm under his chin and commits suicide, the other wets himself in fear unable to take the easy way out himself.

After a head count they realize they have 52 teamsters, all looking a bit worse for wear, and 1 prisoner that needs transporting back, but only 8 cryopods. Some of the teamsters tell T Stintz and Seth about the mad doctor experimenting on the captives in docking bay 1 and that yesterday a group of teamsters tried to escape but had to turn tail and flee into the mine. Seth heads over to the Heracles, he had not been here last time, but had heard from the others about Dr. Giovanni and his transformation. T, Seren and Reef accompany him. Seren goes to open the door, and a man made of yellow ooze bursts out throttling Seren and knocking Reef off of the steps. Seth and T light him up, its unfortunately too late for Seren, but Reef manages to survive with minor injuries. While Seth is adamant about leaving, Stintz can’t too many unknowns and too many variables, he has the team divide up half go back to the ship, the other half go looking for the remaining teamsters in the mine below.

Seth and Martin, drafted to replace Seren, make their way into the heracles, they find some notes in giovanni’s room that seemed recent and are discovered by Dr. Yana, the syndicate weapons scientist. The insane Doctor attacks with a vibechete, Seth lights him up but Martin’s flamethrower is damaged and immolates the teamster, thankfully unable to burn through the armor but terrifying all the same. Martin retreats as Yana cuts down Seth, the last thing the grizzled marine hears is the sound of gunfire and Martin’s angry and fearful shouting….

Meanwhile, Stintz, Reef, and T head down to search for the teamsters. The move carefully through the mine, Reef trips a stone, loud enough to attract the attention of a pair, laser a trio of Stratemeyer goons. They look rough, like they’ve seen some shit.. They get off some good shots one injuring T the other perforating Stintz’ chest causing a sucking chest wound. Knowing he was a goner, pops a grenade and rushes the goons, killing himself and the three in the process. T checks out the carnage, despite Reef asking him to leave. They notice a teamster who urges them to be quiet. As the nameless teamster starts to explain about “the monster” the invisible creature impales him on its claws. The marines try to burn the creature, its transparent silhouette wreathed by fire, but it keeps coming. A heavy claw swing snaps Reefs clavicle, and it moves over to devour her upper body in one massive crunch, like the invisible man biting into a sandwich T advances with the shotgun up close, injuring the still burning creature until in a desperate swing its razor sharp claws sever his left leg just above the knee. Bleeding out, T misses with his last shot, the creature backs off, horribly injured until the still burning flames finish the job. Using the still burning corpse of the creature to cauterize the wound, T manages to fight the pain and nausea, and stays conscious. Martin Eddy gets ahold of T over broken comms, T learns that Seth is dead, that only a few of the crew survived. Martin is sealing the airlock to docking bay 1 and promises to come for T after.

Weeks go by, the surviving crew manages to return to the Dream with some of the teamsters and the prisoner, who reveal 2 more sites after “pointed persuasion”. The return of the 52 teamsters demonstrated that the union, considering a strike due to Bratva inaction, voted against one. AS for Silent T, he and the few other survivors are now millionaires, Living the Dream....

We arrive in the Burrows (Levels 173 to 201 on The Dream) at the incognito capsule apartment complex known as the Den. Two units are home to Bryon “Scatter” Kellett and Rob “Smokes” Tilman; a pair of smugglers who have been down on their luck as of present. Normally they smuggle fruit from their contact in the farm, however Sister Seaton has not reached out to them as of late. Bad news as when Skeeve Gatsby, muscle for the Den’s owner, a hacker named Fragment, comes to collect whats due, it's typically a very bad idea to not have it.

Thankfully Scatter has an old buddy that is also no longer with the ORCM, a Tempest Co. Squad leader by the name of KAde Voss. Voss calls sometimes when he needs boots on  the ground but for those boots to not be Tempest or station personnel. Voss tells Scatter that a few days ago a Q=Team lead by and R4 by the name of Ross went to raid an illicit cyber chop-shop and, after breaching the place, seemingly disappeared. Voss figures that the duo will have more luck as a small independent team. He offers them 10 kcr for recon and to recover any information (or personnel) from the Q-team and return with them. He notes that the rouge cyber doctor involved, Dr. Kiran Das, has a bounty of 25kcr as well. The hidden chop shop can be found behind a hidden door in a laundromat, called Scrubs and Sons, deep within the Territory of the Silver Serpents, a youthful cyber mod/ cyber snatcher gang. 

The group makes their way to nearby St. James’ Station, Scatter berates an O2 bum badly playing the harmonica for creds before getting on the train, who give the merc lip back. Smokes sees a teen with his hand in some dude's pocket, coughs, and alerts the man to what is going on. The victim pulls out a handgun and plugs the kid between the eyes, death is instant. Other folk on the tram quickly go back to before, as if the pickpocket had not just been shot in front of them, stepping over or on him as they leave the train at the next stop.

They walk a few blocks and manage to find the laundromat, but with the added complication of a half dozen youths all with either silver hair, silver jackets, silver armbands, one quickly gets the picture that they are members of the Silver Serpents. The one “silver” (ha ha) lining is that most of them look terrible, sickly even. Hacking, coughing, weak and pale. 4 of them are ok enough to square up when Shatter makes his way up to the run-down closed laundromat and tries to peer into the window. A number of insults are passed back and forth,with Smokes and another ganger, Floyd, trying to de-escalate, but the efforts of both soon turn out to be in vain as the mouthy ganger “Eddy” produces an implanted blade. In response both Smokes and another ganger draw revolvers and all hell breaks loose. Scatter cracks heads and wrists with his stun baton and Smokes, despite not having the best aim in the world, manages to plug a couple of the gangers. Eddy is left injured with a bullet lodged in his neck, another ganger has a cracked skull, the rest flee. Smokes picks up a free revolver, albeit a bit old and poorly kept, for his trouble as the pair enter the laundromat.

Scrubs and Sons looks like a cramped, dirty and out of business laundromat. Scatter follows the proliferation of dirty shoe prints to a closet. Believing it to have a false wall, he inspects it but unfortunately gets shot by a rigged pistol. His armor breached in the previous scuffle, he is lucky that he has only been grazed by the trap. The duo pull the rest of the wall off, making their way down the single file steps to the concrete service corridor. Lights flicker and a humm of rushing fluids in nearby pipes makes awareness of their situation difficult, but they manage to see the blood droplets, spend shell casings, and a singular ID badge that reads “T. Chen”. An airlock style door awaits at the end of the corridor, hissing can be heard on the other side, but not people.

They enter what appears to be a repurposed decon chamber, some sort of pressurized fluid sprays hard out of a bent and damaged pipe in the ceiling, covering only one side of the room. Smokes opens a supply closet and finds some cleaners, a mostly full first aid kit, and, under a false bottom, a number of “hastily reclaimed” (read snatched) cyberware. They push their way deeper in, past a second airlock door into the main area. Two chairs with mechanical assist arms can be seen in alcoves here. One is stained with blood and gore, the other has a horrible human-chair hybrid fused to it. Wires connect the man, whose features are contorted, to the chair, including two bright multicoloured coils that embed themselves into his eye sockets. Just one look, coupled with its grunts, moans, and growls, is enough to let Smokes know that he will be having nightmares for the foreseeable future. Shatter, more accustomed to the horrors out in the deep dark, deals with the monster the only way he knows; a smart rifle up close, creating a spraying chest wound. Smokes hears something in a locker, and upon investigating and knocking a number of gunshots go off. None of them hit Smokes or Shatter, but a stray one finishes the “chairman” by hitting it dead centre in the forehead. 

It takes a lot to calm down the marine, a scout whose credentials match the ID, Chen, or “Mouse” as he prefers, notes that they came in here to raid the chop shop, but someone saw them coming, he saw the mutated patients and has no idea where the rest of his team are. He wants to find them, thinking one might be in the operator's area, but ultimately agrees that backup and more muscle may be required. The trio make their way carefully back up to the laundromat to see a scene unfolding between a few well dressed Bratva operatives who are getting ready to toss the ill gangers into the choke or the courts. The woman Lira  “Patches” Yergenov sharply questions the characters about their work and encounters, eventually coming to the conclusion that more investigation is needed. She has “The Bear” help load up the tio and. Will this be a case of back into the frying pan, or will this descent truly be akin to leaping into the flames? 

Highscores

Scatter (1)Stress 6 health 12/14 W0

Smokes (1) Stress 8 Nightmares ACMD lv 1

Kade Voss (R6 Tempest Marine)

“Mouse” T. Chen (Q-Team member)

Lira “Patch” Yergenov (Bratva Handler)

Randy ”The Bear” (Droog)

After touching base and getting everyone up to speed, Lira decides that everyone will go back into the chop shop below Scrubs and Sons to gather more information on Dr. Das’ operation and the missing Q team. Pressganged into action, Scatter and Smokes descend back down along with Randy “The Bear” and his oversized crowbar, the jittery Mouse to the lab while the rest of the Bratva Droogs escort the Silver Serpent gang members to the Court for processing.

One point of contention that comes up is Smokes mentioning of the “alleged” ACMD virus, something that Lira is very very clear on does not exist. Essentially the group has a choice, acknowledge that the virus does not exist (and don't mention it further) or join the gangers in the Court docket. They wisely choose the former.

Back in the main area, they carefully open the door to operations. Inside , behind a barricade made from any and all junk lies the Q-team commander Sgt Ross. Ross has a number of blue metallic fingers protruding from his face, his exposed arms, and base on the wriggling of his clothes, all over his body. He frantically warns the team to stay back, that something is horribly wrong with him and he doesn't know what. As if to punctuate this point, a new blue index finger slowly but steadily pushes its way out of his gums, dislodging a few of his teeth in the process, as he screams in pain. Scatter, unable to look away, realizes that he is going to need a crapload of therapy to deal with the nightmares that he is going to have as a result of seeing this. Lira ends his misery with her SMG  once everyone is able to shake the horror of the moment.

Smokes then searches the still working terminals trying to find out where the hardware and slickware here has come from. He is able to find a list of encoded names, each attached to a serial number, similar to the ones on the pieces that he found in the storage locker, along with a payment or a payout. He is unable himself to break the Das’ code, so Lira tells him to take it to Trev at CANYONHEAVY to see if they can figure it out (She will authorise a 50cr courrier payment, yippee).

All that remains is the quarantine door, Scatter and Smokes, along with Randy and his giant crowbar,  it takes them a bit of time to get into it as they have to overcome the physical and technological barriers and, unless you count the crowbar, none of the crew are trained safecrackers. To make matters worse, they are interrupted by a horrible creature, a desiccated body, with melted balls of slime for eyes, extended yellow teeth and yellowed claws made of fingerbones, the flesh stripped off of them from use as claws. To add to the horror, there is clearly something moving around inside of this “husk”.

It attacks and in the panic of being ambushed the Bear misses and breaks a pipe that fills the area with a thankfully benign mist, making it more difficult to see. They try to shoot the thing only to have bullet holes not bleed blood but instead animate cables and wires covered in dark red glossy viscera as well as small bug-like microchips.  Errand bullets fired at shadows in the mist take out lights ricochet off of walls and even hit the Bear on one occasion. Smokes backtracks to the Operations room, hoping to find a fan that can suck the mist out of here, he is unfortunately followed by the husk, which shreds his overalls and a good part of his chest, splattering his eyes and mouth with his own hot coppery blood, temporarily blinding him in the processes. His shouts of pain along with the Husks shriek of..glee? (it’s hard to say) alert the others to its location. Scatter and the others unload on the now visible husk, reducing it to a bullet riddled mummy in a matter of moments.

Once the situation is resolved they finally open the quarantine door. Inside the padded cleanroom, which in addition to disinfectant also smells of copper and brass, lies a woman twitching and convulsing on the floor. Mouse is able to identify her as Dr. Ibara, the medic from their Q-team. She mumbles to herself and, upon realizing that she is not alone and that the door is open, begs them to stay away. Some of the crew notice that there are strange gill-like flaps on her neck, that suddenly off gas or “vent out” a noxious grey cloud of exhaust like air. She begins to cough violently, her skin covered in a sheen of sweat , blood and sputum spraying from her mouth as the gills exhale again. The group manages to quickly reseal quarantine, hopefully before anyone was exposed to what the woman has, not ACMD Lira reminds them.

They find the passage that the husk used to enter, a narrow 3 foot wide path behind some flexible wire chains and pipes. They make their way down, following bloody shoe prints until they reach a service ladder. Scatter mentions that whoever was here is likely long gone, and the pair make the argument good enough that Lire, sighing in defeat, acknowledges that the Doctor is gone and that nothing will come of investigating further.

Scatter gets their 10kcr each wired to their O2 breadsticks from Koss, and promptly uses it to start twice a week therapy for the nightmares of blue fingers and mummies disgorging sentient cables. He decides to chase therapy with some heavy sedatives to block out the dreams entirely. Smoke gets the wound taken care of via a week in the medpod. His ACMD seems to have worsened, and he starts taking vet strength antibiotics that help as long as he keeps taking them, as he constantly now has a fever and bouts of blood tinged coughing fits. Both hang out at a bar to destress and manage to catch a “match” between Brunhildh and the Serpent gangers that were at the laundromat a few weeks back. She brutally makes short work of them, the head executioner actually has to draw things out to ensure that it isn’t too quick. Toasting to justice being served, and deciding to take the list to Trev in the morning, the pair successfully winds down from the horrors that they have seen, despite having more questions than answers. 

 Highscores

Scatter (2) Stress 2 Full Health Nightmares ACMD level 1

Smokes (2) Stress 4 Full Health Nightmares ACMD level 3

Kade Voss

Lira “Patch” Yergenov

Randy “The Bear”

“Mouse” T. Chen

Dr. Ibara KIA classified

Captain Ross KIA Classified

The gang makes their way to Trev after recovering, making arrangements for him to take the List that Yergenov needs the names off of. Trev, in his usual chill demeanor, tells them that he’ll get around to it and one of the gang at CANYONHEAVY should have it for them in about a week. Smokes gives the incentive of first crack at the next run of snackfoods they smuggle in for whoever gets to it first. Trev, who is attempting to use a yogaball in low gravity for back issues, also offers Smokes a 120% payback on anything that he can find to help with back issues in Zero-G. 

On the way back the run into a faceless man near the ICe BOx who is giving out flyers for the Runway, an invite only resleeving facility. The pair take the flyer and head into the neon lit mahogany waiting room where they talk with Sara (no H) through the bullet resistant tinted  glass. She gives them a run down on how resleeving works; the general costs a brief overview (as she understands it) of the sleeve growing process and side effects of changing bodies. The pair concede that a new body is a bit out of their price range. Smokes leaves their card in case the Runway ever has need of their sort of procurement services, and the pair head back to the Den (though Smokes does make a few info inquiries for the source of ACMD and the amniotic nutrient bath solution that the bodies are grown in).

At the Den, they get a message from their most-of-the-time benefactor, Sister Hailline Seaton. She needs them to pick up some rare fruit, stashed in a medical supplies crate in the old Scrap Factory not far from them, take it to their mutual contact in DOPtown, Kesh, who will then give them some O2 breadsticks, empty and formally the property of now dead residents, to take to Vanya the Book. She suggests going though maintenance and the Lower Level’s “Back End” which has a few routes that end up in the part of the Choke known as “The Veins” and make their way “up” to DOPtown via the old city and the Sludge Waterfall. The crew, taking that advice, stock up on oxygen tanks, worth more than to most precious gems to those in the Choke, lightsources and ammunition before heading out.

The first hiccup happens shortly after they make their way towards the maintenance shafts. They run into an intersection with an out of control service drone, swinging around smashing things. People are betting on which shop is to be hit next. Not wanting to stay around here any longer than need be with their backpacks full of oxygen and fruit, Scatter plugs the drong, sending it crashing to the ground, and bringing an end to the festivities. The pair continue before any of the amused watchers can take an interest in them.

Once in the Maintenance Shafts, a man, looking haggard and exasperated, bursts out begging the pair for help, sure enough, two Droogs come out of the tunnel behind him, chastising Mikhail for running, using up even more oxygen that he cannot pay for, and that its time to go to the Court or straight to the Choke (catching an O2 debtor comes with a small but nice payout, which the Droogs need to keep drinking). Scatter and Smokes intervene and manage to negotiate giving them 90 credits, almost double the 50 cred payout, to leave Mikhail in their care.

Mikhail's relief as the Droogs accept and leave quickly turns to horror once he learns where the pair are going. The debtor tells them he will go as far as the Back End with them to help, but once there they are on their own. Thinking this is fair enough, they head to the LLs where Scatter chats up a few Tempest R1s and 2s, drunk and on leave, while Smokes tries to hurry them along by offering to sell the found slicksockets.

Shortly after Mikahil leaves them in the backend, They pari run into Tempest R1s Edwin and Jeremiah who are guarding the normal route that the smugglers take down below. It has been quarantined as, according to the merc, some people got sick there or something. Scatter and Smokes use a tiny bit of the fruit they are smuggling to buy passage down below, but not before Smokes coughs on everyone, worsening Scatters ACMD. Once down in the veins they hear what sounds like heavy loud plodding on the tunnels above (which they hear from a pair of lost Tempest novices likely belong to the 50 foot tall horror known as the “Wire Man”, supposedly responsible for the death of the rest of their squad) and narrowly avoid being swept away by a septic wave. Having braved the trials of the Veins and having marched though the poorly lit tunnels for a few hours, the pair finally emerge and overlook the Old City, partially submerged in the oily black sludge filled water of the Sink. Here they must cross the broken city, home to only the insane and the unnatural, and get their cargo to their contact in a town where any with the strength would kill for the literal air that they breathe. 

HighScore

Scatter (3) Stress 4 Full health ACMD Level 2

Smokes (3) Stress 5 Full health ACMD Level 3

Mikhail

Sister Seaton

Trev

Edwin and Jeremiah

Scatter and Smokes make their way through the old city, carefully, threats might lurk around every corner and not all of them are human, strictly speaking. Case in point, as they leave the core they get turned around in a cul-de-sac, A creature, make of wires cables, cords and bits of broken machinery, rolls/squirms out of a window of a broken building. Realizing that its best to not confront this horror, the pair double back, get turned around, but thanks to some quick thinking and quicker reflexes on the part of Smokes, they manage to successfully give the creature the slip.

Those reflexes don’t carry on when sinkholes are the issue. Walking along an old section of road both hear the creaking of metal and cracking of stone, Scatter is able to tuck and roll to the side but Smokes falls roughly 12 feet into a sewer access below. Scatter quickly and quietly scavenges a make shift rope from the guts of a fallen streetlamp and gets Smokes, no worse for wear than a few bumps and bruises, back out of the newly created pit. The pair arrive shortly after at the bottom of the sludge falls, a rasping man offers them used but serviceable climbing gear for 24 hrs of oxygen or 2kcr each, the pair pay and make their journey up the side of the rancid toxic sludge falls, arriving at the top where they are “greeted by the vacant stare of a similar individual.

DOPtown is surely some form of real life hell. The pair step over slow breathing lethargic bodies, seemingly on the verge of death and long given to atrophy. They pass a lottery where battered tanks with minutes of oxygen are handed out to the lucky few, a child begs for air on behalf of her parents who share a rebreather so that their daughter can at least somewhat breathe, Smokes gives the child an hour from his tank. Continuing on into the slums they make contact with Kesh at his safehouse. Communicating mostly in simple gestures to conserve oxygen, Kesh is a man of few words. He questions the fruit until Scatter mentions the need to bribe past a checkpoint. He gives them a deadman’s credstick with 10kcr and a black box of empty O2 credsticks to take to Vanya the book. On their way back they see another man, his sign holds an alarm clock rigged to count down time, the time being how much more time he has until he is out of air. This time when they pass “The Lottery”, it is being run by a woman handing out much newer and fuller tanks of air, the pair will later learn that this is the infamous leader of the the Hunglungs, The Choke’s own Robin Hood, Imogen Kane.

They successfully make their way back down the waterfall but get caught in a septic wave in the city caused by a back up in the unmaintained city sewer. Separated they manage to find each other, just as a mummified husk does the same. Thankfully the thing is put down with relative ease. Their last encounter before going into the veins and back up top is a quartet of air starved men dragging a stolen filter for the one working life support tower in the choke, they ask for help getting the thing, which is the size of a small sedan, back to DOPtown. Scatter and Smokes have no intention of going back into the city, so Smokes does the next best thing and shares about 10 hours of air with them. The leader bestows a common hunglung blessing on them, smokes gives the man his card.

Back up in the Back End, the pair run into trouble, a couple of Meathead R2’s . The pair narrowly avoid being taken to the court via Scatter’s invoking of Sgt Voss’ name. He quickly gets on the horn with the R6 and works out a deal, the pair owe Voss a job, but no amount of influence will get the two out of a trip to the Q-Team Decon Rooms. After a day or two of rest, in which Scatter’s ACMD infection worsens’ triggering a mutation (a dozen eyes on his back, which good ol’ Ethan Guts is able to surgically remove). The pair avoid a confrontation between executioners and an escaped pit creature whose screams can melt one’s brain on their way to Vanya

Vanya the Book greets them, simply takes their empty breadsticks and gives them another fresher one with another 10kcr on it. There is some chatter and the idea is floated that the Book may have his own needs that the characters can supply. Job complete, the pair make their way back to their cramped quarters in the Den, awaiting whatever opportunities come to them next.

HighScore

Scatter (4) ACMD 4

Smokes (4) ACMD 3

Kesh

Vanya the Book

R6 Kade Voss  

Imogen Kane

Scatter sees local sawbones Dr. Ethan Guts, who removes the eyes from the ex-marine’s back. A little back and forth occurs, with the Doctor admitting he has no idea how something like this could happen, but he has seen some strange shit like it lately. Mutations seem to be more and more common. Gutz gives Scatter his extra eyes, which Scatter pointedly tosses in the nearest incinerator. On the way back to the Den both notice a few locals having a hard time with their AR devices. A passerby shows Smokes all the AR noise pollution and Graffiti done by the Red Blades. They talk and learn that, as it doesn't break any big rules and local AR is policed on a local level, nothing really gets done about the cause. Yandee and the Bratva dont care about AR hijacking/

The pair decide to break out the “big guns” to help tackle the mystery infection they have; Sycorax.  They contact Sister Seaton, who “can’t help them” but has a friend who can provide them with some “curative measures” for only 2kcr. On the way they come across a few Red Blade punks roughing up local Filthy Dan, they want to charge him a “toll”, Scatter objects. A knife fight breaks out, to which Scatter has brought a vibechete. After dispatching two of the punks, the others run off. Scatter splits their meager credsticks with Dan, who they tell to use it to get cleaned up (he wont).  They continue on to meet the fairly non nonsense and street smart brother near the farm, and take their bounty home, 2 doses each, hidden and packaged in soup. With the aid of the drug and rest, they manage to reduce and possibly even eliminate their infection, feeling much better after a few days. The downside, Scatter may have liked the rush of the drug a little too much.

Messages come in just around the time that the pair start looking for work. An ex-Tempest employee named Moreau is looking for them. Trev at CANYONHEAVY may have a job for them, on the down low of course, and a Young woman named Elara Simms left a note for Skeeve, who passes it onto the crew. They decide to follow up the note first and meet Elara and a nearby McBastards.

She has a proposition for the two which she shares over cold fries and god-awful service. Her brother, who is her only family, has become a slickworld junkie. He is blasting through the credits left after their parents deaths and Elara is tired, she wants them to get him out, or at the least deliver the message that if he doesnt drop she is done with him, full stop. As payment she is willing to pay to get them slicksocket installs and 5k each. They take the job and decide to head to  Slickbay in person first.

Upon arrival they speak with the host identifying who they are looking for and who they represent. The hostess will not get Simms out of the Slickpod, stating that he is a paying customer and it is policy to not interrupt them by, quote, “breaking their immersion”. Scatter gets a bit disagreeable at this stating that it's just a policy, it can be broken, it might not be the only thing that gets broken, hint hint. And that's when the private security shows up in the form of six very large, well dressed men (though one does have a large artificial arm that is quite noticeable) Smokes manages to de escalate -- to a point, they get led to an area where they can hire a “minder”

 Someone who will go into Simms’ slick world on their behalf and convey the message. The duo can’t do it as neither currently has a slicksocket installed ( which explains that part of Elara’s offer).  While Edgear, the young man they hire, is in Simms' world presumably passing on the sister’s ultimatum. Scatter and Friz, one of the hired muscle currently making sure Scatter doesn't “cause any trouble” have a pleasant and professional conversation. Smokes tries to get some information from the hostess, Susan, regarding where he might hire an AR specialist, she directs him to a bulletin board and Smokes jives with the work of an artist known as W4rl0ck. That’s when the bottom falls out of everything.

The pair are brought to the back and encouraged to sign an NDA to find out what has transpired with their hired minder. Turns out, he died in the game, which should not be possible for being jacked in for only an hour or so. This caused the facility to take a closer look at the shared slickworld - a fantasy adventure world based loosely on the world of ancient Greek myth -  and sure enough 3 of the 8 participants are dead and have been for a number of days. The open one to show the duo and the stench is so foul it causes Scatter to puke. 

They are introduced to Professor Tiberon. The Professor explains that the code in the slickworld has been corrupted, so much so that the usual failsafes did not and still do not detect that the three dead are dead -- the readout shows them still in the gameworld. When they try to get to the source of the problem, two words show up , the names “Alice” and “Caliban” but with no explanation as to their significance. They were able to figure out that the realm will let people go in but not come out, and that the end game monster has become untethered from its role and is now a lethal guardian of the exit point. Tiberon tells them the only way to stop this would be to introduce a code update to the endboss, which he calls the Veil Wurm, in the slickworld itself.

Seeing where this is going the pair volunteer to go in, Tiberon accepts but notes neither has a Slicksocket. He arranges an appointment with the best of the best, Babushka herself. They make their way across the station to her chopshop, Smokes giving an O2 bum with no respect for personal space a few credits to keep out of the choke another day on the way. They arrive, get checked in by the Babushka’s assistant Zdenya, and  sit among the holoparrots discussing other possible implants while waiting their turn.  

Scatter (5) ACMD lv 3 Sycorax Addiction ⅓ Stress 7

Smokes (5) Stress 4

Dr. Ethan Guts

Filthy Dan

Skeeves Gatsby

Elara Simms

Susan the Attendant

Fitz and Elroy

Edgear

Professor Tiberon

Zdenya

Smokes decides to get a cybernetic eye that will allow him to see augmented reality in addition to the Slicksockets that The Slickbays are paying for, his surgery goes well but Scatter’s runs into a few problems. Apparently his brain chemistry is a little abnormal and installing the socket takes a bit of a toll on his physical health, leaving him a little sickly. The Babuskha, not used to this sort of thing and intrigued by the problem, offers Scatter free continuing care should the implant act up, a rare offer from the elite master of cybersurgery.

Once back at the Slickbay, Professor Tiberon uploads the code into their slickpods (they have removed the bodies of the three dead players however the odor of rot still lingers faintly) and ports them into the world, The Trials of Aegean, an Ancient Greek themed adventure. They cross the gold lined arches, dressed in the normal garb and thankfully unbothered by the ailments of the real world. They feel a sun beat down on their face, taste the salt sea air and see the surprisingly colourful statues holding armor and weapons that have not yet been taken by the other players. Both notice that they have a glowing blue weapon at their sides, Smokes a spear and Scatter a sword. They take a few additional items, Smokes takes a net and a dark cloak, Scatter takes some armor. Both find their inventory, a leather pouch on their belt, and notice that in addition to what is offered they are starting with a default 10 dracmas, a loaf of bread, and a pack of bandages. Geared up they enter the shifting labyrinth.

They have a spot of trouble navigating it, and as they see the walls and columns of the colourful stone maze shift and move behind them, know that trying to find the other side is now just as difficult as finding their way back, continue on. They come across a strange chamber that, while keeping the same aesthetic of the labyrinth, seems, wrong and out of place, silvery mirror shards, mostly the size of dinner plates slowly turn, each showing one of three individuals being silently and brutally killed and consumed by a giant wyrm-like creature. A bit shaken, the duo move on and shortly after find their way out of the maze. The land on this side is much darker, barren, and cloudy. They find themselves on the banks of an inky black river, the other side just barely visible on the horizon. A man wearing black robes pushes a long low wooden boat towards the shore via an impossibly long poll. This is Charon, ferryman of the river Styx.

The pair pay Charon two drachma each to cross. He motions for them to board and takes them across. During this voyage a blip, a glitch in the form of a young girl maybe between the ages of 6 and 10, dressed in actual modern clothing, appears. It asks, no pleads, for help from Scatter and Smokes. She is in danger and in her father;s workshop. She is about to tell who her father is when she vanishes. The pair ask Charon about this, but he did not see or hear the girl, when questions about a workshop or anything the girl said, its responses clearly show that the subject matter is outside the program's knowledge base. They arrive on the other shore, in the Fields of Unrest, a few minutes later.

A man, dressed in period clothing, rushes out from behind some brush, “No take me back!” he yells but Charon has already vanished. The man identifies himself as Jorin, one of the 5 remaining gamers. They ask a bit about what is going on and Jorin, after hearing that Scatter and Smokes are tech support tasked with getting them all out, is more than happy to divulge all he knows. Turns out that for some reason the game changed, the lair of the Veil Wyrm was copied and superimposed over the Merchant Docks, which is the exit point of the game. The hoplites were never undead monsters with machine parts. Something jacked up the difficulty level and now, death is real…or seems to be, nothing can reset play and trying to disconnect at the exit point does nothing. Jorin hasn't seen the little girl, and claims there isn't a workshop, or forge in the scenario. When asked about the others, he suspects that Mira is still hiding out in the Temple of the Twin Gods trying to figure out what the change in the mural means.

The trio make their way to the temple, a black marble structure, in the process of slowly crumbling and breaking apart. The entry hall ends in the mural and branches off into two temples, one dedicated to the muscular hercules looking “good” god, and the other the demonic snake haired “evil” twin. The mural has changed. Whatever it once was now shows a hulking humanoid horror of metal with some flesh and teeth, the word “Caliban” carved into the stone below. As they are examining the mural, they hear dragged metal scraping against stone behind them. A quartet of undead hoplites, glowing red mechanical eyes, bits and patches of metal and circuitry visible under rotting flesh and wounds, spears made out of twisted metal moving towards them. 

A fight breaks out, the first test of the pair’s skills in ancient combat. Smokes lands some hits but Scatter really shines, cutting down three of them with his sword. Mira makes an appearance leaping out to stab at the horrors with her knife. She and Smokes fight the last one as Scatter and Jorin come over to help. The young girl appears again, just in time for Smokes to accidently stab the individual. It doesn't seem to hurt but it throws the teamster off. The weapons of the hoplite unfortunately seem to inflict some sort of virus, (unbeknownst to the crew it is ACMD).A mistimed stab by Smokes as the last monster disintegrates back into the buffer catches Mira in the throat, blood gushing from the wound. They check her and try to save her but it’s already too late. Mira and the four hoplites leave item drops which include dracmas, a bandage, a pouch of herbs, and Mira’s knife, armor, and loaf of bread. Jorin figures that the next best place to find the others would be the Tower at the bottom of the mountains.

As they make their way there Jorin explains that the tower is home to a number of special items, such as the cloak of invisibility, the serpent sword, the bow of prometheus and so on. Eko, he figures will be after the cloak, which is on the 6th floor. They hear what sounds like a number of children singing a skipping rope song, and find the girl, who they now confirm is Alice skipping and singing alone, her voice glitching in an uneven chorus. She tells them that Caliban is not her father, but is  doing bad things to him. She asks for help but before she can talk more, disappears with a terrified look on her face. Short on answers, they continue the short distance and enter the tower, which resembles a windowless tower of pisa. Engraved in the wall are a list of items by floor, starting with the bident of hades, the serpent sword, the aegis shield, the bow of prometheus, the cloak of invisibility, and finally, floor seven, which is simply ??????. Jorin states that each floor has a trap and they never got past the trap on floor 7. 

They make their way up to the 6th floor and hear two men bickering. Jason Simms and Eko are arguing over who fucked up with a trap, the last missing gamer, Sila, appears to have been petrified. The group explains that, while Eko has done this puzzle before, it changes slightly every playthrough. Eko is convinced that he can get the cloak, and convinces Smokes to help  him. He goofs, telling Smokes to turn a mirror the wrong direction, and while the puzzle is completed, Eko has petrified himself in the process. Smokes, feeling responsible for the deaths of now two of the people that they came to rescue, is starting to have issues with confidence and worries that he will see the faces of those he failed in his nightmares.

The crew, now 4 strong, drops down a floor to try and receive the bow. Scatter borrows Smokes’ cloak, a cloak of shifting it seems, and tries to outrun the boulder that is dispensed to run him down. He fails, and thankfully only suffers a minor wound before getting up and ringing the bells that shut down the trap and allow him access to the bow. Jason and Jorin explain that they can eat bread and use bandages to treat their injuries in the slickworld, and both do so before setting out.

They have a frank conversation about what to do next, Scatter and Smokes are interested in finding this “Caliban” Mira claimed to have seen it, and So has Jason, but only for a few moments before the end point glitched and was replaced with a copy of the Wyrm’s lair. He hasn’t seen it since and doesn’t know what it is. They decide to take their time and search the fields of unrest for clues. After a few hours of fruitless searching, a rumble of thunder roars across the skies. Jorin looks worried and Jason frantically searches his inventory for a campsite. He gets it just in time to protect the crew from the rain, which is boiling hot leaving steam where it makes contact with the earth. He lets the others know that the Camp will protect them, and the rains sometimes appear when characters stay in the same place here too long. He lets them know that it should pass if they all go into the tents and “rest”. As they do Scatter learns that the herbs can be chewed to relax a bit and is able to destress himself a little while waiting for the skies to clear before heading to battle the Veil Wyrm; the prize? Their freedom.

HighScores

Scatter (6) Stress:14  Wounds(Health) 0 (10/14) ACMD Lv 4 Sycorax ⅓ Addiction

Smokes (6) Stress:16 Wounds(Health 0 (13/18)  Deflated, Loss of Confidence, Haunted

Jason

Jorin

Mira (KIA)

Sila (KIA)

Eko (KIA)

Professor Tiberon

Babushka

Trials of Aegean Rules

Armor Regenerates full at start of each turn

Bandages: Cure 1 Wound

Bread: regain 1D10 Health

Herbs: Chew to relieve 1D5 Stress

Campsite: Protect from threats/resting place

Net: (Can use industrial Equipment) immobilizes target, only action Str Check to break out of net

Spear 1D10

Dagger 1D5

Sword 1D10

Bow 2D10 needs arrows

Bident of Hades 2D10 (fire)

Serpent Sword 2D10 (bleeding; ignores AA against serpents)

Bow of Prometheus 4D10 (fire)

Gambrisson AP 3

Helmet AP1

Leather Armor AP5

Bronze Armor AP7

Cloak of Shifting: If hit 50% chance that the cloak moves you 1-2 meters left or right out of the way.

Aegis Shield: If hit 50% chance the damage is reflected back to the attacker.

Cloak of Invisibility: Unless alone, targets do not see and will not target you.

Gameender weapon: 3D10 bleeding (can appear as a sword, axe, spear, trident, or dagger) additional powers not yet revealed.

On Jason’s advice the crew goes through the campsite’s “sleep cycle” to jumpstart the next day and, thankfully, get rid of the boiling rain. They discuss their options of how to get out of the Sim, and decide that the best way to do this is to head down and kill the Veil Wyrm. As they make their way down to the shore suddenly everything vanishes, replaced by a black featureless void. While this resembles the vacuum of space, there is still gravity and air. This doesn’t register for Scatter, who has a panic episode and goes catatonic. Jason and Jorin explain that this is a side effect of the glitch in landscape, the sim doesn't know which landscape to render, so it defaults to none. They carry Scatter through to the otherside, which appears to be a cliff somewhere at least partway up a mountain, the shore and merchant boats nowhere in sight.

Thankfully Scatter comes too shortly after while the crew is hidden from the Wyrm behind a large granite extrusion. The plan is Jason and Scatter will attack with ranged weapons while Jorin and Smokes launch an attack when it gets closer. Scatter shoots but misses, as does Jason. They succeed only in drawing the Wyrm over for Smokes and Jorin to attack. Out come its claws and it rips Jorin in half as if he were nothing. Scatter has more luck dodging its snapping jaw  while switching between bow and sword, while Smokes jabs hard with his spear. Somehow though the creature manages to corrupt the data of Smokes’ weapon which then turns on him, lacerating a key artery, before vanishing. Things are starting to look bad.

They only get worse when, changing tact, the Wyrm catches Jason in its jaws, shaking the screaming gamer like a rag doll. Do or die, Scatter and Smokes hit it with bow and sword (which Smokes has borrowed from Scatter) and manage to fell the creature. Jason’s barely breathing body rolls from its jaws as code overwrites and fragments the beast causing a maddening kaleidoscope for the survivors before everything goes black and, sure enough, the shore, the ships and the merchant reappear. Using the last piece of bread to stabilize his condition, Smokes asks the merchant for any help that they can give, but it would seem that the programming of the slickworld has limited the merchant to a simple series of repeated phrases and actions, none of which help. The duo pick up Jason, carry him onto the awaiting boat and….

The pair come to in their respective slickpods to the sensation of people removing diodes and pulling out the shunt from their slick sockets. Professor Tiberon stands nearby and congratulates them on their successful mission as attendants remove the very dead body of Jorin. They  are a bit perplexed by the catatonic state of Eko and Sila, but once they realize that both have been petrified in the game, it makes "enough sense” for Tiberon to start considering possible treatments. Smokes mentions what they learned about Alice and Caliban, and Tiberon promises to keep these pods off and isolated until fully purged. For the trio’s troubles Tiberon offers  to pay for medpods to recover their very real wounds. Scatter, who has come out of this much better, wants to know what the Professor can do for him, the answer: 1kcr and a unlimited year long pass for the Slickpods, which he uses to “heal” in his own preferred way over the next week.

Once everyone is out, Scatter meets up with them and Jason calls his sister Elara.  They decide to meet at a Mr. Noodles in the boroughs. On their way, the station, the whole station, shudders and shakes with the force on a massive explosion. Warning messages come up on Bratva commandeered screens advising residents of an explosion on the Stellar Burn, and that the area is currently off limits with those caught ignoring this message receiving a one way trip to The Choke. Moving past people rushing to and fro, they make it to the noodle bar where Elara is waiting and a beleaguered staffer is watching updates on what normally is the menu. Once the initial hellos have been exchanged, Elara gladly pays them the 5kcr each plus another 500cr each, the standard cost of a slicksocket install Wishing them well and for the duo to keep safe, the Simms depart, and, after a substandard bowl of noodles so do Scatter and Smokes.

Waiting for them outside the Den is a grizzled ex-tempest marine who goes by Moreau, a bit older and with a nasty scar running down and across his face. He tells them they come highly recommended in some quarters, and wants to know if they are interested in working a job with him that will help keep the 02 collectors off of their back while putting the hurt of the local trouble; the Red Blades. Interested, Moreau tells them that he had found a pallet of the outlawed and incredibly difficult to find Cadre Cola on the Station, but just as he was about to get it out of there, the Red Blades decide to move in to the abandoned loading bay and use it as both a club house and a staging area for Fight Clubs. They decide that a 30/30/40 split is good and decide to meet in a few days once the alerts die down, dealing the deal old school with a handshake.

In the days to follow there is much information being disclosed about the explosion. The target, a Droog bar on the burn, and a number of other small entertainment businesses,  were completely destroyed with currently 1129 confirmed dead (though the number is likely to climb). Who is to blame? The Hunglungs and their leader, Imogen Kane herself, have taken credit for the explosion, reiterating their demand that the O2 debt of everyone in the Choke, numbering in the Bcr, be instantly forgiven.

Tempest has been given heightened rights to search and seize whatever and whoever they want in an effort to find those responsible.

Other messages come in for them as well, one from Sister Seaton, claiming it is urgent and another from Sarah at Runway, who wants to put the pair in a meeting with her bosses for some reason. Things are looking up…for now.

High Scores 

Scatter (7) Stress 2 Wounds(Health) 0(14/14)

Smokes (7) Stress 2 Wounds (Health 0 (18/18)

Jason Simms

Elara Simms

Jorin (KIA)

Professor Tiberon

Susan

Elroy and Fitz

Moreau

Skeeve Gatsby

The duo decide to see what Sister Seaton so urgently wants to meet about and make their way to the farm. As they cross the core, they see a number of people fleeing a commercial centre. They learn that a man, augmented with an exoskeleton, has gone on a homicidal rampage, claiming “Caliban” has made him do it. They arrive as the man, bloodstained overalls hold the nametag “Aug” punches through a young woman trying to flee. He warns the crew that he has no control, and he can’t stop and pleads with them to run. Scatter tries to talk him down to no avail and Smokes opens fire with a revolver, barely making a scratch. One powerful punch is all it takes to take Scatter’s head clean off.

Smokes is stunned, once his body takes over from his brain he runs, managing to outpace the mentally unstable apologizing Aug before it peels off from pursuit for an easier target. Smokes directs an oncoming Tempest squad towards the threat before  trying to talk out of the meeting with Seaton, who is emphatic in her need to see them urgently. He continues on his way to the Tarm, where a gardener monk helps him clean the blood and brain off of himself. Seaton meets him and takes him back to her quarters, where Smokes catches her up with recent events. She offers her condolences and says a Solarian intercession to speed his spirit to the stars.

She then introduces Smokes to the two other people in the room; Tracy Mullen and Staci Mullan. Seaton needs Smokes and Staci to get Tracy to the Inner Sanctum, a Solarian Ship set to leave on a pilgrimage to the outer rim colonies, which will put Tracy far from the Dream for a long time. The payment for this is  50kcr each. The catch, Seaton is not the payor, rather it is Imogen Kane, who can be found in Doptown.

They make their way across the Dream, avoiding the Stellar Burn and its heavy Tempest presence. They almost lose Tracy when they come across Brunhildh and a group of executioners making their way across the crowd, lashing those too slow to get out of the way. She breaks and runs and it takes Staci and Smokes a few minutes to eventually find her. Tracy apologizes, telling them that at the sight of Brunhildh, the executioner who killed her father in the court and condemned her and her mother to the Choke. Staci doesnt care, she just wants to get the job done. They continue, learning via a local alert that Aug has killed most of the Tempest squadies that Smokes saw and is at large in the station. The augment has a 125 kcr bounty on him, payable by Tempest.

At the docks they ask an android with half a face for directions to the Inner Sanctum, the android seems a bit perplexed about Tracy, feeling it knows her, but can’t place her. They make their way to the Sanctum and say their goodbyes to Tracy before heading to the nearby McBastards. A station wide alert comes across the vids naming the  suspects in the Stellar Burn Bombing, 5th image they see is Tracy’s with rewards of 5 to 10 kcr for information. The new duo decides not to share before heading back to the Den.

The next day Moreau shows up bright and early. They go over the plan and decide to observe during the day, when it will be less busy, from across the street. Seeing only two guards, Staci decides to use her feminine wiles to lead them away, letting Moreau and Smokes sneak in past the entrance into the loading bay. Unfortunately Moreau kicks a bottle and wakes a hungover gang member, who, despite Smokes trying to stop him, he shoots in the eye. The pulse rifle discharge alerts the two guards with Staci, who draw knives. She does one better, pulling out her vibchete and hacking one down, causing the other to surrender. 

Meanwhile all the commotion has gotten the attention of another 4 hungover gangers. Moreau and Smokes make short work of them, gunning down 3 while a 4th escapes out of the back. Staci ties up the last one and, after destroying a security drone, they manage to quickly find the pallet of 12 packs of Cadre Cola in another storage room. Smokes successfully jury rigs an old electric forklift which he steers to pick up the cola pallette. However it gets stuck in the loading bay. They try to quickly fix the situation and get it moving again but are unable to do so before a trio of Red Blades arrive with an unwilling “special guest”; Filthy Dan.

Dan has been “volunteered” by the Red Blades to participate in tonight's fight night. Seeing the trio, Dan begs for “stokes” to help him. Despite being misnamed the group takes two the Red Blades and cuts Dan loose before managing to get the forklift and cola out with only a few can lost (While Staci, who was once “very fond” of the beverage, does her best to not waste). Making their way to Trev at CANYONHEAVY Moreau cashes his out,  Smokes makes a deal for AR space and a few kcr, and Staci keeps hers for “personal use. After leaving, Moreau says his goodbyes, looking forward to working with the pair again, letting them know he can be found at the Lady Victoria Hostel in the Burroughs.

High Score

Smokes (8) Stress 2 W(H) 1(full)

Staci (1) Stress 2 W(H) full(Full)

Scatter (KIA)

Moreau

Tracy Mullen

Sister Seaton

Aug

Brunhildh

Trev

Filthy Dan

Back at the Den, Smokes finally bites the bullet and packs up Scatter’s personal possesions. He’s been putting it off largely because of his own futile wish to denay what actually happened, that his partner is actually dead. He has to take a break from the activity due to the horrid flashbacks of that tragic encounter he begins to experience, but ultimately finishes the activity, keep one of the pamphlets that the merc used to collect on his person. He then decides to make his way to the Slickbays and, after a brief meeting with Professor Tiberon, Smokes is provided with a list of therapy slickworld programs to choose from, free of cost as many visits as he wishes for the next year  as thanks for his and his late partners help.

Meanwhile Staci is settling into her new digs, unfamiliar with most folks on the dream or even in the area of the Den, she’s elected to stick close to Smokes. As she’s waiting for him to get back from therapy she overhears some folks talking about finding a toenail or claw in the local meat pies from the vendor on the nearby block corner. While they are of the opinion that it must be rat or cat meat, Staci interjects with a far more gruesome suggestion, long pork aka human. The pair leaves nauseated at the though of having consumed maybe human meat just as Smokes returns. They decide to head to Mc Bastards to grab something to eat and discuss their current options. 

On the way they come across what the burroughs tends to refer to as local street theatre, a pair of shopkeepers get into a heated argument with five Red Blade gangers, just as it looks like the pair are about to be swarmed, Staci interjects, irritating the groups spokesman. He begins to monologue which Staci interrupts with a solid punch in the face, setting off a conflict which sees Staci accidently run through the shopkeep, the clumsy and ineffective use of bladed objects by the Red Blades, a gangmember shotgun-blasted through a local shop window, and the arrival of Tempest Mercenaries on the scene, which at the first sign of the pair flee in the direction of their cheap greasy meal of choice.

Once there, they order and chat up Trev from CANYONHEAVY on the cheap comms, Trev  puts them on with Angus, the head honcho of the hacker’s den. He offers them a job, procuring the last known bottle of Ballz Rootbeer flavoured energy drink in known existence, the holy grail of gamer icons from the turn of the 21st century. It is currently in the hands of a rich earth historian  living in secor 5Q on level 12, the spires, in a building called the Wiemar. Once they accept Angus mentions that he will be shorting out the comm in a way that isnt safe and will also be sending the group everything they should need to get in and get the drink. True to his word, in an hour an opaque plastic bag containing work shirts, ID tags, general access key cards, and info on the drink are all provided. The group will be masquerading as a securities company named AceCo. Which is there to make an adjustment to the Doctor’s apartment. 

Both feel that this job may be a little too big for just a two man team. They reach out to Moreau and he contacts a hacker friend of his, Autumn, who is experienced with these kinds of systems…to a degree. They make their way up from the burroughs, happening upon a street festival and end up serving as some Tempest probies stopa dn frisk training exercise before making their way up and entering the weimar with the aid of their key cards. The whole place is marvellous fixtures made of precious metals and crystals, peaceful sounds, even the air smells faintly of vanilla and cinnamon. The concierge greets them and after checking their credentials, directs them to the elevator where an Ernest Borgnine looking android serves as the bellman, after some very dated conversation starters they arrive on floor 14 D Liar Vesik’s Suite.

The first issue is the AI Caretaker, autumn has a bit of an issue circumventing all of its functions, and while it was fixed to not directly oppose their exploration of the facility. There is one drawback, each time that they make a query, they are forced to answer a riddle correctly. If they do, it gives them what they want, if not a countermeasure, such as security door shutters, holographic scrambling, and even nerve gas, are activated. On the upper floor they notice signs of a struggle in the hall and the private gallery, but decide not to look deeper into it as the deafest the remaining security measures and secure the bottle. As they are getting ready to head back downstairs, the elevator dings, and Staci gets a glimpse of 4 tempest mercs, armoured up and armed with pulse rifles, enter the suite, guns up, ready for action.

They decide to get autumn to hack the caretaker and try to activate intruder countermeasures that will help them escape, Autumn accidently sets off a minor nerve agent, aerosolized in the vents that knock out all but one of the mercs but also Moreau. The jig is up and the odds are more than evened, but the team naturally does not want to antagonize the Company, staci comes down and give a believable account of why they are in the suite (security systems issues) and back up her story with the facts. ITs more than enough to convince the loan remaining soldier, who waits with them while they finish up (read: removing any sign of who they are) and then leave. Moreau comes to and, thankfully, the bottle did not break when he fell. There is little more for them to do than to deliver it to Angus and receive their pay.

High Score

Staci (2) 19h0w 12 stress

Smokes (9) 12h 1w 8 stress

Moreau

Autumn

Trev

Angus

Professor Tiberon

Staci and Smokes make their way back to Angus at CANYONHEAVY to turn over the bottle of Ballz Root Beer flavoured energy drink, the last known bottle in existence, and negotiate their reward. Smokes essentially nets himself the deed to an abandoned and forgotten craft brewery on level 160 and a promise from Angus to find a beverage oxygenating machine, and Staci gets a freshly vacated apartment in a nice boring middle class environment. Apartment 16B in a complex called The Helix on level 100. As they travel they hear a few relevant news stories on the alert, essentially that Aug, the crazed man responsible for Scatter’s death, is still at large and has killed again. The Bratva has upped the bounty to 250kcr. Additionally the Doctor whose apartment the stole the Ballz out of was apparently dead inside, having had a glyph made of three crescent shapes carved into her chest and face. There is still a reward for info on the hunglungs who carried out the Stellar burn bombing, plus a known bomb maker has been sited on the station, Finally the individual that the “free” press is calling “The Maw Killer” has struck again.

Edgar Godby is also watching this from his apartment, 16C, in The Helix. He is hesitant to go outside as it sounds like someone “official” has removed his neighbour in B. A few hours go by and Edgar hears voices, one of which he feels is quite familiar for some reason, trying to gain entry to next door. He peers out through a crack in the door and see Smokes. Smokes sees him as well, the two take a few minutes to place each other. During their conversation Smokes keeps getting AR message alerts, one from Sarah at the Runway, who claims her bosses are looking to talk with him, another comes through from the Babuska, who claims that she has heard good from Professor Tiberon and has work for them if they are interested.

At the moment, The pair are more focused and interested in meeting their new neighbour and touching base with Angus to see what the head info broker has in mind for them. The trio head to the nearby Mr. Noodles to grab a bite and to catch up. This location has far less graffiti than the one down by the Den. The sit down having not even made their order, when a man dressed like a Solarian brother enters, only his robes are red and orange in color, like fire. He stares hard and long at Edgar, though the clerk thinks he is creeping on Staci and reaches out to get the mans attention. 

At this moment the robed figure swings out with a vibchete and, in one swift arc, slices the front of the young mans face clean off, killing him instantly. The crazed man rushes the trio, after Edgar who cannot get out of the way fast enough. They struggle on top of the counter and Edgar catches the vibchete in the shoulder. Smokes hits the man with a slug from his revolver, but it does not slow him down. Staci gets the final word in with a close range shotgun burst, blowing a hole in the lunatic and showering Edgar with hamburgered human. They get out of there before Tempest or something worse can show up, they can hear a crowd gathering as they disappear into the back alleys on their way back to the Helix.

Edgar explains that he has been working as a soil analyst for the Solarian church when he came across something, a sect or branch of the church, seemingly secret, called the Church of the Solar Redeemer. He brought it up with a man, Brother Advik, just the other day, and then this happened. After some deliberation the  group contacts Sister Seaton and make a hasty appointment at her office. While crossing the station they run into, of all things, a group of proselytising  solarian monks, who they give a wide berth and cold shoulder to for obvious reasons

Once they arrive at the sanctum and proceed into the solar market, they are attacked again by another fanatic. This one is less obvious in a crowd and announces his presence by stabbing Edgar in the back. The group bring out their weapons, Staci hits the man with a Vibchete, and Smokes turns his head sideways with a particularly brutal strike of a crowbar. Edgar, less combat ready, is not having as good a time as he accidentally impales a nearby shopper with his vibchete, stolen from his assailant earlier today. Sister Seaton finds them in the chaos and hurries them to the relative safety of her office. 

The sister hears them out and then drops a bombshell. Edgar claims to have spoken with Advik yesterday, but Seaton knows he left the station on a pilgrimage last week. They decide to head to his office to investigate what is going on and,  in part helped by a familiar smell of dead body, find the corpse of Brother Advik folded in an unsurvivable fashion, tucked under his desk. He has been dead for the better part of a week. Seaton wishes to keep this matter quiet and she promises the trio to take it to the head of this branch of the church, Ukko. In the meantime the trio decides to lay low at their familiar hideaway, The Den. Edgar is not super happy with the environment down on level 212 but it beats waiting in his apartment for another fanatic to try and kill him. The group is greeted by Skeeve, who asks if they heard about the body found buried in the blocks only greenspace, seems that it was some call girl that had developed a few strange mutations, Skeeve isn’t able to get into more detail as  the crew makes to their space and begins to plan their next move. What do the solar redeemers want? And how can the crew stop them? 

High Score

Smokes (10) 1(16) Stress 12

Staci (2) full health Stress 14

Edgar (1) 0(18) Stress 5

Angus

Sister Seaton

Skeeve

The gang lays low in the Den each trying to recover physically and mentally in their own way. Smokes heads to the local dive bar and  partakes in both alcoholic beverages plus the camaraderie only enjoyed by strangers watching a bunch of crooks fight for their lives and lose. Staci finds some companionship of a more intimate nature and Edgar decides that silent meditation is what is needed here. All feel much better and after a day decide to reach out to Trev and Sister Seaton. 

Trev doesnt know too much about the Church of the Solar Redeemer, save for them being a violent doomsday offshoot of the Solarian Church, but promises to dig up what he can in return for the information that they are on the station. Edgar gets the idea that perhaps they wanted him dead due to the shipments on agricultural goods that the church was bringing in, maybe he knew something he shouldn't, or was about to learn it? 

They call Sister Seaton who tells them she was going to call them, but there is a bigger issue that has been taking up the church’s time. She is able to find out that the next vessel bringing in agri supplies, the Aardvark’s Tail, is scheduled to Dock at 9:30 the next morning. She promises to be in touch and leaves the call. The crew are deciding what exactly they want to do, and how they want to approach this without tipping off that they are digging in, when a loud chain of swears can be heard from near the main door of the Den.

Skeeve Gatsby, doorman and main muscle of the Den, is covered head to toe in foul smelling red paint. Staci gets him some water and something to clean out his eyes. When able Skeeve mentions that this is something the Red Blades have been doing lately, “tagging” locals, especially those they deam to be problematic. Conversation turns to retribution and Skeeve promises a favour to the group if they bring him the punk who tagged him. With that the hired muscle makes his way to the Spa King Bathhouse to clean up (if they will let him in).

With a bit of work they manage to track a faint trail made up of the red paint used by the gangers to a shack made of old metal and synthetic sheeting. Staci takes the direct approach, kicking in the door and punching trouble in the mouth. Edgar rushes in and breaks a cheap plastic folding chair over a goon while Smokes takes the more sophisticated approach with his stun gun. The gang takes a few light stabblings, and eventually Staci has had enough and begins chopping up wannabe gangers with her vibchete, sending waves of panic in the survivors. Edgar splashes a goon with a can of paint, blinding them, and tackles him. Smokes takes turns playing stun-a-mole with his troublesome pair. In the end all but one unfortunate gang member, the one covered in paint,  has been run off or chopped in half.

They march the survivor back to The Den, where Filthy Dan is trying to clean up the mess in Skeeve’s absence. He happily passes the chore to the painted ganger, who then scrubs until Skeeve gets back from the bathhouse. As the ganger goes through his forced apology, Skeeve cuts him short with a furious blow to th e chest. Cracking the kids collarbone. No further apology necessary, says Skeeve. The crew make him finish cleaning before letting him limp back to wherever he will go.

Now owed a favour by the big man, what might the crew do with itÉ and what are they going to do about the threats looking to deal with themÉ

High Score

Smokes (11) 0(13) Stress 4

Staci (3) full Stress 7

Edgar (2) 0(18) Stress 8

Trev

Sister Seaton

Skeeve

Filthy Dan

Rudy sees the paint covered Skeeve and the trio, some he's seen around the Den others he hasn’t, leave to deal with it. Not long after he  sees Skeeve, scrubbed raw from showering the red gunk off of him, come up and meet the trio, who have returned with a local ganger, and then proceed to punch said ganger hard enough to crack something. Skeeve, all smiles now, sees Rudy on his way back in and chats him up. Rudy’s only been on the station for about a month. He is  missing his android skin (metal underlayer visible) and is a talented hacker. Skeeve, owing the group a favour and knowing they could use someone with Rudy’s skillset, puts them together. The crew hit it off, upgrading their trio to a quartet, and catch Rudy up to speed about the Church of the Solar Redeemer and their attacks on Edgar.

They decide to make their way up to the docks, narrowly avoiding another firefight between Aug and Tempest Co. defenders in the process, Staci and Edgar watch as the heavily augmented man, mutated by the ACMD that the station claims does not exist, rips a marine in half like a sheet of paper. They hear Aug scream that he doesn’t want to do this and that “he’s” making him do it. Smokes, recognizing the voice, gets a flash of anger as he makes the connection between it and Scatter’s murderer. It is decided that going the long way around, avoiding trouble and continuing to the dock, is the safest course of action.

They arrive at the docks and decide to cut through the office block and head into the repair bay, thinking that this route is likely to call less attention to them. It is hard not to take notice of Rudy however, as most people do not walk around without skin. There is a door separating the group from the Hanger bay. Absent the key card, Rudy hacks the door successfully granting the group access. They go to Jumphumpers where a grizzled teamster with muddled conversation skills will only serve Smokes, as none of the others are union. He gives them 4 coffees, black as death, to drink elsewhere and tips Smokes in on the fact that a number of Union brothers were rescued from Stratemeyer, throwing a wrench in the hardliner’s plan to force a strike vote and reducing the likelihood of one going forward. They hear that there are still Stratemeyer hostages out there, but the union rank and file is more confident now that they will be recovered.

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As they make their way around, Smokes and Staci are confronted  by the half faced android that gave them directions when they helped Tracy Mullen, one of the Stellar Burn bombers, get off the station. The android has a damaged processor, so is having a hard time placing the pair, they and the new arrivals manage to stress its systems enough that they decide that they would rather just leave. Staci also keeps an eye on Tempest patrols, some of which appear to be actively looking for someone or something. If it's them, Staci wants to know it so that the group can get gone quickly.

The Aardvark’s Tale lands and  begins to unload their cargo. A group of Solarians and Q Team show up. One finds worrying signals from a crate and he and  one of the monks goes off to process it. Brother Edmund, as the crew overhear him being called by the others, tells them to stay with the cargo and take the rest of their order as he goes off with the crate and a single Q-Team member. Suspicious, the team follows them using  rotating partners to help avoid detection. A side access opens to what appears to be an unfinished room.  The crate is opened by the Q-team member who is referred to as “Brother Carmine”. They take a 2 meter by 60 centimetre tube, capped on both ends and seemingly made out of lead, out and slide it into another large plastic tube. Overhearing the conversation, the group learns that the worst is true, the tube contains radioactive material that can be, with the right tools, made into bombs.  As this dire news sets in, Carmine lets Edmund through a previously unseen door into a maintenance corridor lined fully with pipes.

They seize on their advantage and jump Carmine, Staci pulls off his mask while Rudy stuns the man in the face with his defibrillator. Smokes and Edgar, a little less stocked with interesting weapon choices, instead beat the brother with sticks and well placed kicks. They beat and kick him into submission before taking his key card and, opening the concealed door, start in their pursuit of Edmund. The question; will they find him in time?

High Score

Smokes (12) 18/20  5 Stress

Staci (4) full health 8 Stress, min stress +1

Edgar (3)18/20 11 Stress

Rudy (1) full health 4 stress.

Skeeve

Mumbly Café Dude

Brother Carmine

Brother Edmund

Webster, having only been on the station for a short while, manages to find himself some work patrolling the docks and investigating the disappearance of a small number of missing cargo. Hired by and debriefed by Loshe, who makes it clear that he does not want the Bratva or Tempest finding out anything about anything missing, for the salary of 50cr a day and  a couple of kcr based on whatever finds Webster makes. He is told to watch the Aardvark’s Tail specifically as it is carrying goods for the Solarians who have had a number of small things go missing.

It doesn’t take long for him to find the rather large ship, as he is approaching he notices that a Q-Team member and a solarian brother take a crate, while waving off the other two solarians who stay. Shortly after, a number of individuals, looking like mercs and teamsters, save for the one pseudofleshless android, follow them. It’s fairly obvious to Webster what is going on and he in turn follows them and arrives in time to see the solarian, now wearing coveralls instead of his robes, disappear into a hidden door and the others jump the q-team member.

Webster comes up on them as they are using the subdued Q-team members passcard. What could have turned out to be a very bad day for the crew has a surprisingly fortuitous result as the crew tell Webster why they are doing what they are doing and it is fairly easy to show that the Q-team member, aka Brother Carmine, are not what they seem. The info that Edmund has weapons grade nuclear material, infuses Webster with the same sense of urgency that they have in catching up.

They made their way hastily down the maintenance corridor, the lighting too poor to see what is too far ahead however sound carries, first their boots and then the squeaky wheel of the dolly cart and the occasional scraping as Edmund tries to flee them.

He fails, Edgar tackles Edmund, Smokes brains him with his stun baton, and the crew restrains him. They are able to confirm that yes, he is transporting what they feared, but what do they do with it now. They make their way back to where Staci and Rudy have Brother Carmine trussed up and put a call into Trev. Trev is left semi-speechless by the news, tells them to wait for a man called Dr Whiteclaw, who will meet them at the Hanger Bay.

While they are waiting they notice a few interesting sites. One of them being the arrival of what one can only assume is a man, or perhaps contains a man. A sealed suit of armor, moving under its own power exits a sleek looking ship. The crew hear some of the dockhands whisper about how “the lobster“ as they call the individual is hear after a big bounty. The crew hear that its come for Aug after the deranged killer has mopped the floor with one too many Tempest squad.

Next a notably expensive looking passenger liner arrives and the Slickware celebrity Stacy Sora exits, she is immediately swarmed by a mob of fans, equally as zealous as any cultist, who appear out of the once empty dock like rats from a sinking ship. Edgar is nudged and sure enough, his credstick is missing. The crew scan the crowd and find the shifty suspect, Smokes even notices him stealing from a fan. They jump into the crowd, causing an out and out brawl. Edgar grabs the rogue, who throws a few breadsticks, Edgar’s included, at them in order to slip away. In addition to his own, he now has a stick with neon paint and another with s small plastic panda keychain.

It is a few moments after this that a man in a white suit with white leather gloves, and a series of lenses cybernetically grafted to the left side of his face. This is Doctor Whiteclaw. He confirms the nature of the threat and requests the crew help him escort the two cultists to CANYONHEAVY where they will be made to tell what they know at the blacksite. As they are going through the core, the intersection they are approaching begins to collapse, as if the ground suddenly became liquid rubber causing around a dozen or so people to plummet. The lights all flicker as the hole gets bigger, just for it to suddenly elastically spring back as if nothing happened. The two Solar Redeemers, one thinking it is a dark omen the other divine will are chanting nonsense, Whiteclaw smacks one to shut him up, the rest of the nearby locals are indeed freaked out, some trying to figure out what happened to their loved ones who have vanished into a hole that seems to never have existed in the first place. The crew and Whiteclaw all noticed that the lights were blinking a morse code. Whiteclaw believed them to be spelling BANCALI where the crew got a different message, CALIBAN. After, they deliver the Doctor and the unfortunates to CANYONHEAVY without further incident. Whiteclaw tells them that he will let them know any useful information they find as a courtesy, and passes them a little something for their time, a credstick with 1kcr.

The group head to Rey’s a tex-mex inspired family feedbag hellhole, painted in browns, burnt oranges, and tans, a cartoon backsplash meant to somewhat resemble utah is plastered to the top half of each wall. Their order is taken by a man in a bulletproof alcove. As they are waiting for the food, which consists of unknown meat substitutes (probably maggot and nutripaste) in a quorn tortilla and carnivore rice (texan seasoned steamed maggots) they bring Webster into their full confidence. New to the station, he signs on, knowing a good deal when he hears it. They all return to The Den, noticing the glares and hate filled stares of the Red Blade who see them go by, and are greeted at the door by a smiling Skeeve Gatsby. Skeeve mentions that someone named Edgar Crismodi was looking for Smokes and Staci, saying they were looking for Traci Mullens and that they were already tracking down her friends. The man was odd, missing the skin from his right cheekbone down to the right side of his jaw. Before leaving he sets Webster up with a decent space for 100 cr a month, though it is a little damp from a broken moisture reclaimer.

Smokes takes a call from Sarah at the runway, saying that her bosses have a job and she’s been pushing them to take it, and to not let her down cause it will make her look bad. Smokes promises to get back to her, and then calls Moreau. The grizzled ex-Tempest merc is still taking stock of the craft brewery which Smokes wants to convert into a Beverage Factory/HQ. Moreau isn't sure of the costs of switching the machines over or building an apartment inside, but has determined that if it happens he wants faux wood panelling. 

They then call The Babushka, having decided to take the job she is offering, and reach Zhenya, who tells them to come back in the morning. Late already, the crew turns in for the night, wondering what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully good paying easy work from the cyberdoc and maybe some good news from Dr. Whiteclaw, though given recent events they seriously doubt the latter.

Smokes (13)

Edgar (4)

Webster (1)

Staci (4)

Rudy (1)

Brother Edmund

Brother Carmine

Dr. Whiteclaw

Stacy Sora

The Lobster

Skeeves Gatsby

Moreau

Well rested, the group makes their way up and through the station to the Chop Shop for their appointment with the Babushka. On the way they are privy to the site of a brutal beatdown of a Sycorax dealer who has apparently not given the Bratva their cut. The crew watch, knowing that interfering will only bring unwanted trouble, as the goons, beat the man near dead with fist, foot, axehandle, and shotgun butt before picking him up and throwing him under the group’s slowly departing train. 

The rest of their journey is uneventful. Arriving at the Chop Shop, the hologram Zhenya bids them wait a few minutes while Babushka finishes with her current patient . Holographic birds noisily swoop overhead as a man with bizarre vents like cybermods in his neck hacks and coughs violently. Once in the back, they are led to the recovery room where the aged cyberdoc lays out the situation. She needs the group to recover 5 bodies of former patients who died under mysterious circumstances. She offers 5 kcr per body, but emphasizes that time is of the essence as others, such as Q-team, might be coming for them soon and no body means no money. The bodies will give her clues to the whereabouts of a sixth individual, who she believes is largely responsible for their deaths. One body is in the freakshow known as the Peephouse, another in the reaper fixer and hangout Crazy B”s a third is in the advocate lounge of The Court, another apparently in the garden in the Solarian>s Sanctuary, and the final one is in Heaven…the private bar above Sem’s in the Stellar Burn. The group decides to split up, each taking a different corpse. Before leaving the Babushka gives them each a black armband with a white cross to symbolize their job as collectors and a single body bag.

Webster → the Garden

Webster goes to the farm just in time for the mid day yoga that many of the church faithful attend lead by current leader Ukko. He gets the attention of a few worshippers, one of which knows the way. Webster follows her through the crowded market, almost loosing her but manages to get through the throng of shoppers and tourists to the gates leading into the garden.

The garden is a serene sight, only a handful of gardener monks are present in this space. Webster approaches one of them, a Brother Felix, to inquire about the body, however the man, currently raking swirls into sand, has no idea. He calls over the other monks to ask about this, and all of them seem to have no idea, except for Brother Carlos, who says nothing. Upon attempting to appeal to the Solarian creed and the brother’s supposed good nature, it becomes apparent that Brother Carlos is not responding because he is in fact the body that Webster is here for. Brother Felix, at this point goes from aide to obstacle once he learns that Webster wishes to remove Carlos’ body, opposing him citing Solarian spirituality. Flustered with the discussion and how adamant Webster is, he gets a higher authority to take this matter off of his hands…and returns with Sister Seaton. The two work of a deal on the downlow where if Webster takes the body, a few of her friend will get free service from the Babushka to deal with a bothersome implant.  Situation resolved, but not before Webster manages to contract early stage ACMD  while cramming the body into the body bag.

Staci → The Court

Staci makes her way to the Court which rests atop the staton”s core. It is simple work for her to get through the checkpoints at the base, especially with the credentials she has acquired. At one checkpoint by the cells, a prisoner becomes violent and desperate attempt, striking those in his path. Staci makes a move to stop him, but takes an elbow to the chin for her troubles. Continuing up, she eventually encounters a door she can’t open, and must search for assistance to get by. The assistance that she finds is chief executioner Brunhildh.

Once appraised of the situation, Brunhildh escorts Staci to the advocate lounge, where a man with overlarge cybernetic arms lies dead on a weight bench. Brunhildh seems to think she knows Staci from somewhere and engages in a friendly armwrestling match, which Staci wins, impressing the executioner to the point that she provides her name to use should Staci wish to apply to be an advocate. Brunhildh departs leaving Staci to the grim job of sliding the corpse into the body bag before hauling it back down to the Babushka.

Smokes → Heaven

Not knowing where to find Heaven, Smokes asks around and manages to find a drunken philandering tourist who is able to lead the teamster to Sem’s Bar, above which lies Heaven. He goes in, smoke machine churning out foul chemical distraction and laser lights strobing in time with the crushing dance music, and asks a bar tender for directions. She calls down an imposing “concierge” by the name of Elvis who takes him up to the room. Elvis warns Smokes to brace himself, and for good reason. The cybernetic hand of the body has changed, finger have grown into large barb tendrils, one has gored a woman’s abdomen to death, the other having pushed in one temple and out the other on another woman on the other side. Smokes endures the sick squelching noises of separating the three, occasionally stopping to vomit, before removing the main offender. Perhaps due to his nausea or just the mass amount of bodily fluids, Smokes unfortunately recontracts ACMD. He gets Elvis to call him a black line, a discreet type of private tinted cab, and pays it 500 cr to take him back to the babushka, promising Elvis he will be back for the other 2 bodies (he isn't going back)

Rudy → Peephouse

Rudy decides he needs a better way to carry the body then simply dragging it or slinging it over his shoulder, so he makes his way to a Credit Save (discount non-perishable grocer) and decides to liberate a shopping cart. The only problem is the carts wheels lock about 4 metres outside the front door. He goes in discreetly deactivates the locking trigger and, creating a distraction by smashing up some gumball machines, manages to slip away outside the shop and make his way down to the Peephouse.

The building stands out due to its short squat dark appearance,its sign glowing uncomfortably in the shade of much taller structures. Outside a shirtless barrelchested man with a mask including bug eyes, a built in speaker and razor tipped mohawk spikes ushers him in to speak with Jimmy behind the glass. Once they learn that he is there for the body, they become more solemn as Terrence, the person in question, was good people who was both a pillar of the freakshow and had a known addiction to fresh chrome. Jimmy leads him down the freakwalk warning him to “not anger the Bugbear” stopping when they arrive at the corpse of Terrance, which has too much metal and far, far too many arms, some still twitching or moving independently of their now dead host. Rudy loads the man into his cart, though the man is far too large for it so he is given a tarp to drape over the body.  Jimmy asks for them to leave out front as its good for business, before heading back to the main booth.

As Rudy leaves, a horrible monstrous creature lunges, restrained only by metal shackles, and tries to attack him in a rage. This is the bugbear, who Rudy is able to calm and , after discussing the nature of Terrence's passing, is able to calm and console the beast/man and make his way out the front door. As he does, one of Terrence’s arms slinks down on the outside of the cart, frightening the patrons and earning a thumbs up from Jimmy along the way. 

Edgar  → Crazy B’s 

Edgar makes his way to Crazy B’s down below, stopping at an Armco Outfillers where he picks up some  rebreathers and other protective gear to try and stay safe before walking into the lion's den. Crazy B’s is a bit hard to find. Tucked behind a building in an alley, a simple spraypainted sign above a stairwell leading into the basement, constantly watched by two toughs. Making his way down Edgar speaks with Marcus, the owner, who tells Edgar the body is in a somewhat compromised position on the toilet. Making his way down the corridor they come across a “chopper” drenched in bloody see through scrubs holding a chainsaw, a grizzly reminder of the sort of place he is. Confirming that the body, somewhat mutated around the augmentations which include a set of gills, is definitely dead and embarrassingly compromised, edgar doubles back to get some cloves and sees a sight that sends chills down his bones. The chopper works out of an operating theatre that resembles a serial killer’s playground to  find a gown and a man. He looks at the "disassembled" corpse and immediately becomes ill. The butcher consoles him and provides him with what he needs to do his far less grizzly job. Edgar sets to, muscling the body into the black bag and starting his trek back.  He can’t help but wonder, how is this helping? And what does The Babushka propose to learn from this and the other bodies?

High Scores

Smokes (14) Stress 5

Edgar (5) Stress: 3

Webster (2) Stress 2 

Staci (6) Stress 9

Rudy (2) Stress 5

Jimmy

Brother Felix

Sister Seaton

Babushka

Zhenya

Elvis

Ron the Greeter

Marcus

Brunhildh

The Bugbear

Leroy