Quick Note
A lot happened in my life and I fell off from writing this. The game also had some unevenness and disruption, including at one point being canceled before being restored. So this will cover four sessions plus some extra roleplay. One player dropped out of the game as well.
The summary will be a bit more terse in this entry. Please forgive this one.
Dust of a Foreign World
Vargo’s ship arrives in orbit above Karangbesi, and the party takes the moment to admire the view through the garden window as they approach. Ira joins them and answers a few questions about the world before they arrive. Along the way, they catch sight of a stone satellite orbiting the planet, the Eye of the Dominator.
The party elected to descend to the smuggler’s den, one of three ports on the planet. The official spaceport, under the Mierastra’s control, would make their arrival too obvious, same with the Westerly colonial port. So, they descended over broad prairies and hills, to a place where numerous gaping holes in the earth pockmarked the surface. The ship entered one and landed on the sandy floor of the den.
After taking their leave of Vargo’s crew, the party discussed matters amongst themselves. Aeila shared the news that there are knights and two Akashic oracles after her, which alarmed Trinity and ignited Lee’s desire for revenge.
The Red Girl in Fur
Continuing through the cave network, they came to the main commercial hub, a cavern full of brothels, markets, and cafes. Passing by the slave market, they spotted a Loroko woman trembling with barely sustained violence watching from the edge of the crowd. When they spoke with her, she shared that her name is Shinane and she has come to find her sister Tavi but nobody is willing to talk to her. They offer to investigate and meet her at a cafe later.
Aeila’s search using her ESP finds no Loroko girls, but does find a fetus growing in Lyra’s womb.
Speaking to a Slaver who handles the financials for the market, they introduce themselves as buyers looking for a Loroko girl for their master. When he points out Shinane herself, they say they only want ethically sources slaves (lol). He recognized Aeila as a “Satemo Maradon” by her force swordand the palpable air of violence (Archetype Reputation: Bloodthirsty Warlord) around her and offers her a deal: a favor for latter, in exchange for info now.
She accepts.
The Slaver tells her that the girl was bought by the Royal Treasurer, one Gordo the Golden, who lives in the capital. With this information, the party goes to meet Shinane, but at the cafe Lyra spies a familiar figure. She rushes to hug Mera, another survivor from her shattered rebel cell as well as a proficient administrator. Mera fills her in on details of Karangbesi while the others speak to Shinane.
Friends and Enemies
Also present in the cafe is a Maradonian commando in the faded livery of House Mistral, whom Lee immediately mistrusts, but Mera points out as a potential ally if he could be gotten out from under the thumb of the smuggler chief, Tomo the Greedy.
After confirming plans to go to the capital, the group splits up. Lyra and Lee go to their room for the night, but get a text from Aeila about the Asrathi’s pregnancy. Lyra is stunned, and Lee offers her an abortion, arguing that a war is too dangerous a place to bear, deliver, and rear a child, but Lyra firmly rejects her offer. She resolves to keep the child, whose father is none other than Cero. The two confide in each other as Lee performs a medical examination, Lee warning Lyra to kill Helena without giving her a chance to speak and Lyra reminiscing about a former lover of hers. As they draw close, they kiss and lie back on the sleeping cushions for some private time.
Meanwhile, Aeila picks a fight with three Krokuta mercenaries who were bullying a seva, and almost dies. The flail-user went down under a surprise kick, before she ignited her sword and shield. However, the fight goes badly for her, as she is wearing only her battleweave (bad dice, versus good dice for the enemies). As the lancer keeps her at bay, the disc-thrower scores several bloody cuts on her. A handsome but scarred Ranathim man intervenes, stabbing a Niltanium knife deep into the flank of the disc-thrower, buying Aeila the space to finish the lancer off.
After the fight, they drink together, though he is a bit annoyed to be confused for the seva’s owner. He claims to be opposed to slavery, being devoted to Sefalina Midra, and introduces himself as Chief Tavarim the Lucky of the Grass Dancer tribe. He gives her word of several opportunities to win fame and respect around the area before the two part ways.
Meanwhile, Cero broods in darkness over the impending birth of his own child.
Dream Interrogation
Once more, Lee meets with Noelle in their dreams. They meet in Lee’s old apartment on a warm summer day, where Noelle is eating a popsicle. Lee complains that it never got this hot in real life, and Noelle reminds them that it is their dream. As Lee turns the weather overcast, cool and rainy, Noelle rushes to finish her sweet, giving herself a brain freeze in the process.
The two make small talk about their strange relationship while Lee lights a blunt using a lighter they hadn’t carried in years. Noelle accepts the offer of a puff, but when she gives it back, it has warped to a candy cigarette, to the gambler’s annoyance.
Getting down to business, the two discuss the situation on Karangbesi, and Lee recruits Noelle to assist in hacking the treasurer’s systems. She will need to be plugged directly in, however, to help. She laments not being able to help in person, and exhorts Lee to find a way to summon her, revealing knowledge of the two hidden programs on her chip.
Lee is both intrigued and disgusted by the idea of becoming a part of a eugenics legacy, even via retroactive sorcery. However, pushing Noelle a bit does reveal a bit more about what is really going on: Yama-o, the Akashic Order, and the Satra Temos cult locked in a bitter game of conspiracy, each trying to bring their favored timeline to realization. She explains what it means to be a shadow time ghost, remembering two pasts each slightly different from each other, and gathering that neither is true in this timeline. However, she adds that her sister, or possibly niece, would know more.
While trying to explain her dual nature, she plugs her chip into the dream’s entertainment console and boots up Stratagem, allowing Lee to converse with both her adult and child selves simultaneously. She then explains both about the other Yama-o chips and of the Skairos, their enemies. She also gives Lee advice for battling Helena and her knights.
They also gossip about Aeila for a while.
At the end of the conversation, as a grey static rain falls, Noelle tells Lee not to pity her, and leaves them to their thoughts.
Upon awakening, Lee sees that only Trinity is up yet. Lee gives the Westerly girl a pair of mind-shield earrings, for her safety. Her crush on the gambler is obvious, but unstated. Lee tries to take on a bit more of an older sibling role, and the two spend a bit of time just being around each other. Trinity draws, and Lee works on hacking the chip on their datapad. By the end of an hour, the file to perform the transformation ritual is unlocked.
As the others wake up, Lee puts away the pad, but not before Trinity spots Noelle cheering cutely and says, “Cute virtual assistant.”
The Nomad and the Smuggler
Following a lead from Tavarim, the party goes to meet a nomad merchant by the name of Hanir, whose merchandise has been stolen by a Krokuta sergeant within Tomo’s cartel. He offers a favor for the return of his fine pelts, an introduction to his tribe’s chief, who is a powerful Chiva.
Using a cunning ruse, the party impersonates members of the cartel and steals the pelts using fake orders. After returning them to the grateful merchant, they decide to double down and actually meet Tomo themselves.
After some time waiting, they are led by the Slaver’s guards into the cave chamber where he holds court, styled as a traditional Lithian living room. There, the petitioners speak with him one by one. As they wait their turn, Lee notes that the two Trader girls Tomo clutches look strange and realizes that they’ve been drugged so heavily that their brains are working slower than a human’s.
They introduce themselves as adventurers, naturally, and are given a quest to deliver two letters to the planetary capital: one for the representative of Orion Arms, and one to the envoy from the League of Zang. They accept, and Tomo treats them to lunch. While they wait for him to write the letters, Cero drains a seva to recover some energy, but broods darkly about it.
Heading Onwards
From the smuggler’s den, they catch a riverboat down to the coast where they spend the night in a hostel in a Keleni fishing village. Lee mildly offends their hosts by gambling. There, the party splits, with Cero, Aeila, Shinane, and Aeila’s robot Kayleigh speeding ahead in the aircar while Lee, Lyra, and Trinity follow by boat.
The aircar flies along the coast, with grassland to the right and blue sea to the left. But soon, the grass turns to forests, and the forests to swampland, and the swampland to a hideous mire. On the horizon, black smog chokes the sky.
They pass a city, a huge, ugly city squatting across a river delta, all brutalist blocks of concrete. Cero spots many cylindrical towers, and a huge pyramid, massive factories with hundreds of smokestacks, and an arena. The map calls it simply: the City of Hungering Stone. Then, they are past it and flying on. After the swamp, the forests turn more healthy, with numerous farms dotting the landscape. Soon they are rushing over vast tropical plantations interspersed with rich, vibrant forest.
And ahead, surrounded by air defenses and massive roadways, loom the golden domes and spires of the City of Golden Petals, resplendent and glorious.
The aircar party arrives and quickly finds a covert room to rent due to Cero’s canny streetwise. Then, they await the others, who arrive some three days later.
The Gala, Part 1
Between Lee’s cunning plan and Lyra’s streetwise, the party learns of a party being held soon by the treasurer. Taking the opportunity, they dress up for the event and go as a married Maradonian couple, their bodyguard, and their guide. Savoir Faire quickly sees them past the Krokuta guards at the gate, even without an invitation.
Who is the first one they see but Ira the Liar.
The put-upon Keleni escorts them to where Vargo converses with other dignitaries, Vance and a collared Julie attending him. One is a golden Temkorathim backed by a masked Ranathim gladiator. Gordo the Golden knows that he did not invite the party, but he is intrigued by their presence and offers of future cooperation.
Also present is an armored Temkorathim, and a beautiful Ranathim woman in a bejeweled collar who introduces herself as Nipha, an envoy from Zang. Lyra is instantly smitten with her, and even more so when she sees her dance.
While Lyra watches and the others mingle, Cero sneaks up to the second floor to find Gordo’s computer room. As the treasurer, he has one of the few home computer systems, and Cero wastes no time using both the hacking software Aeila gave him and the drive containing Noelle to get in and disable the cameras, after locating Tavi in Gordo’s bedroom. He also downloads any sensitive files he or Noelle find.
Around then, Nipha leads Lyra off somewhere private, and utilizes her skill at pillow talk to make the half-Asrathi squeal.
Aeila and Lee wander outside, where the latter sits with an Orion Arms representative and two half-Ranathim, half-Keleni military men: Admiral Sima and Captain Sora.
The knight, meanwhile, takes a liking to a Domen Khemet priestess, the dangerously enchanting Lady Astra. The two are hitting it off when a royal prince intervenes. Prince Therim, the elder son, demands Aeila hand over Astra, and Aeila refuses. Under cover of the confrontation, Cero and Tavi slip out of the compound.
Duel of the Fates, Averted
As the Ranathim prince and the Maradonian knight amplify their insults and feel their shared bloodlust, battle seems imminent. One devoted by oath to both Meret and Sonostrum, the other inspired by her sinister ancestor, the clash between the two would certainly leave at least one corpse on the ground.
But Lee doesn’t care for that outcome.
Hurling both half-eaten pastries and invectives at Aeila, Lee successfully uses the power of public shame and embarrassment to postpone the duel. After all, to a Lithian, watching a powerful knight undercut by the hysterics and fury of their seemingly weaker romantic partner is something straight out of a comedy play. Mollified when Astra chooses him, Therim merely promises to kill Aeila someday, a promise she returns in kind.
The Gala, Part 2
Once that excitement winds down, the young bastard Sora approaches Aeila and reveals his discontent with his father, the Mierastra. He is angry about how his mother, a priestess, was forced to be his seva and then banished to an island monastery when he tired of her. He made no solid promises, but hinted at a willingness to conspire against him.
Before the group departs, Lyra has one more objective. With a tiny little EMP shaped charge and some finesse, she manages to tag Julie’s collar without being seen. Then it is only a simple matter to plant the collar on one of the party guests, a big game hunter by the name of Anor Galiantim, whom the party had noticed earlier speaking to a tall androgynous Ranathim named Zadi.
Lyra quickly led Julie to a spot in the compound wall where a shed and a tree made escape easier, and the two parted ways.
Post-Gala Regroup
The party reconvenes at the safehouse and goes over what they accomplished. Overall, it was a wildly successful evening. Tavi and Julie are free, they have financial records for the kingdom, and caused a bit of chaos.
Vargo does call them, quite irate, and accuses them of cheating him, but Lee assuages the Temkorathim with polite lies and the party’s business relationship survives another night.
Trinity reveals the contents of her father’s journal. Apparently, he was studying the Eye of the Dominator, an ancient Tyrannic superweapon powered by three stones imbued with the gestalt powers of Communion. Each stone was later removed and brought to the planet’s surface. One is held by the king, one by the Keleni, and one by the nomads. The weapon also requires a key, which the king possesses a copy of.
Lyra compares the new information and the treasury records with her friend’s map and the stories of a powerful new dam the nomads told them. And she begins to realize something even as Aeila begins to glimpse the future. Bouncing ideas off of each other faster and faster, they realize a plan here: unite rebels, pirates, and nomads to destroy the dam and cripple the king’s power, before taking the stones for themselves.
Their first stop would be the Westerlies.