Character’s stats:
Denzel 11/11 HP, Wounds 0, Stress 8, Bends 17
ADA 7/14 HP, Wounds 2/3, Stress 10, Bends 22
Terese 12/17 HP, Wounds 0, Stress 5, Bends 13
Ollie 11/11 HP (reduced from 17), Wounds 1/2, Stress 18, Bends 10
In the last episode, the crew narrowly escaped from searching security androids. Ollie is severely wounded, ADA has a couple of bad wounds herself, and all of the crew are in bad general condition. They need to leave the Deep.
Chaos factor 9
Test the scene 1d10=7 Altered Scene
Scene adjustment table 1d10=2 Add a character
I rolled on the character table and got Commander Rachel Kilroy from the Blockade. I’ll try to find some way to get her added into the scene.
“She was a cold, distant woman.” Ollie mumbled.
“What?! Who?” Denzel was distracted, peering into the intersection ahead and worrying about the missing spider-like Hunter droid.
“My mother,” Ollie continued.
His eyes were closed, and his head was laid back against the wall. The wound on his forehead had soaked the bandage with blood. ADA saw something clenched in his fist and knelt beside him. She gently pried it from his fingers and saw it was a crumpled photo of a little girl standing with her parents in front of some monument. They were all smiling and happy.
“Is this your family?” She paused. A knot suddenly formed in her artificial stomach. “Who is this?” she almost whispered. But somehow she knew it was her as a little girl and those were her parents. She had a fleeting memory of the day this picture was taken. “Impossible!” she whispered. She was manufactured…or…wait…
ADA 1d10 Bends=10, now 32 Bends
She dropped the picture, and Ollie snatched it back. “I wish my family was happy like this one. My father was a whoremonger. She hated him…and later me…”
“Where did you get that picture?” she hissed under her breath. Ollie finally opened his eyes.
“You gave it to me.” He smiled groggily.
“I certainly did no such thing.” She retorted. He shrugged and dropped it on the ground. ADA avoided looking at it. In a bout of morbid curiosity, she snatched it up and placed it in her pouch. She grabbed him under his arm and hauled him to his feet.
“He is going to need help, and soon,” she said to Denzel. He glanced her way and nodded.
“Terese, see if you can get Arkady on comms.” He continued to look through the door for threats.
Mythic, is Arkady still here for the other crew? 30 vs 90 Yes.
Character Conversation tables: Glad + Refuse
“Oh, so you still alive? I very glad. Others say you probably killed.” His voice crackled through the radio interference.
“We’re still alive, are you on the landing pad?” Terese answered.
“I just land. The others loading, so not be here for long. Get here in hurry, or I leave.”
“How long can you give us?” The desperation in her voice was evident.
“10 minutes” was the staticy answer.
“We’ll be there.” She switched off her comms. “Arkady will wait for 10 minutes, then he is leaving with the other crew. We have to hurry!”
Denzel nodded and pushed open the door. He sprinted the best he could in his vaccsuit down the hallway to the garbage filled door that stood ajar. He looked into the smelly room, then waved them forward.
Encounter=75 No.
ADA stumbled forward with Ollie under her arm next. They shambled up to Denzel, and he helped them to clamber onto the pile of garbage. Terese was covering their rear and followed close behind, looking around desperately with her SMG raised. As she walked past the spiked intersection, the spikes shuddered slightly and she instinctively dove for the floor.
Terese Speed [-] due to vaccsuit 39,34 vs 44. Pass
Her feet slid past the spikes just as they closed over where she had been standing with a clang.
“That tube we found must hold an artifact, if we can believe the others about these spikes!” she gasped. Denzel stood in shock for a moment, then helped her to her feet.
“By Old Earth, we have had an artifact all of this time?!” he exclaimed.
This place was truly bizarre and full of constant surprises. They too crawled into the garbage piled room.
“We’ll check it out further when we get back to the Bell. We have to hurry!” ADA and Ollie were already standing near the bulkhead door leading out of the garbage room and into the long hallway out to the landing pad.
Encounter: 65 No.
ADA waited for the other two to catch up, then cranked open the door. The hallway beyond was blessedly empty. “Clear” she stated. Though there was an odd strain to her voice.
Denzel avoided the topic for now but decided to speak to her later about what was going on with her. They were all under so much pressure, it was no wonder she was strained.
They hurried down the passageway and before they could open the door to the void of space, Terese cried out, “WAIT!” She pointed to a tear in her suit from the steel wool gunshot she had suffered during the fight with the androids earlier.
“Dammit!” Denzel started trying to remove his suit. “Here, take mine. I’ll hide until you can come back and get me!”
“What!? Are you crazy, we don’t have time for that! I can make a run for the ship. I can make it!” she slapped his hand away from the fasteners on his suit. “I can make it!” she reiterated.
“Fine!” he groaned after a moment.
He didn’t like this at all. They opened the door to the vacuum of the landing pad. The air rushed out of the hallway with a whoosh. There was the Acheron shuttle, squatting on the landing area, with the gangway door opened.
Terese Speed [-] due to vaccsuit 44,59 vs 44 Fail.
They all sprinted the best they could in their various states of injury and in their vaccsuits, ADA helping Ollie along. Terese desperately tried to keep a hand over the tear in her suit as she ran. She made it about halfway to the shuttle, then began to falter. She ran out of air in her suit and could hold her breath no longer. Her steps began to stall and she fell to the ground. Denzel saw her and picked her up under her arms, trying his best to drag her to the shuttle. ADA appeared next to him and picked up her feet. Together, they carried her the remainder of the distance to the waiting shuttle. Ollie stumbled in behind them. The shuttle door closed with a hiss, keeping the void of space at bay at last.
Terese Body save to see if she dies from lack of oxygen:
00 vs 35. Critical success! -1 stress. 4 stress
1d10=1 damage. 11/17 HP.
Terese gave a sudden gasp as the much needed air returned to her lungs. She looked up at Denzel and ADA and croaked, “Thanks.”
Grace interrupted. “Great! The butt sniffers finally showed up. Can we git now?!”
Arkady chuckled and lifted the shuttle into the air. As the skids left the landing pad, a trio of security androids emerged from the waste collection hatch. They fired a few bursts from their SMGs, but the bullets pinged harmlessly from the shuttle at that range.
“That was too close!” Denzel breathed.
“You bring lots trouble,” Arkady mumbled. After they left the gravity of the station, Lillian floated back to where ADA sat.
“You look like hell. I can take a look at those wounds on our ship. We have a special workshop for androids, and I’m a bit of an expert technician.” She bragged and winked at ADA.
“What about Ollie? He is wounded much worse than I. Do you have a medpod he can use?” ADA ignored the wink.
Mythic fate check, do they have a medpod on their ship, very unlikely? 55 vs 75 Yes. Random Event. D10 random events=3 Remote Event.
Meaning tables: Break + Completion.
I think this means that someone arrives from Hazmos to check in on our crew and make sure they are making progress in their mission.
Mythic fate check, is the representative an android? 44 vs 90 yes. Another random event! D10 random events= 4 Remote event again!
Meaning tables: Bargain + DisadvantageI’ll combine this with the other event and say the android will offer to buy artifacts for super cheap. Our characters won’t know the worth of their item unless they can study it. Back to the story!
“We got one, but it’ll cost ya to use it!” Grace piped up.
“I’m sure Hazmos will recompense your costs to allow us to stay in the field.” Denzel offered.
“Corporate credit? Bah, I want something of worth! They would tie up ‘payment’ for ages.” She used air quotes around payment. She leaned over to spit, then saw Arkady watching her from the corner of his eye. She swallowed loudly.
Denzel considered the data chip they had found and the artifact in their possession. He wanted to be able to look over both before offering something.
“We’ll see what we can dig up, but it will be something worth it, I assure you.” It was all he could offer. She smirked at him and turned back around in her seat.
The radio in the shuttle crackled to life, “Acheron, this is the Zangshui IV, please respond.” Arkady looked displeased. That was the name of one of the blockade ships.
“Dis Arkady on Acheron. What you want?”
“Do you have a passenger by the name of Denzel McNeely?” the voice inquired.
Arkady turned to look at Denzel. The teamlead shrugged and said, “McNelly”.
Arkady answered affirmatively, still looking at Denzel. There was a hint of something akin to impatience at all these inconveniences.
“He is to be brought on board the Zhangshui IV as soon as possible. No one else from your shuttle is to disembark.” The voice ordered.
“Oh, hell no!” Grace said loudly. “I want to go nowhere near those jarhead Troubleshooters!”
Arkady looked at her with impatience as well. “I will come after docking at Bell. We have wounded needing attention.” There was silence from the receiver.
After a few moments the voice resumed. “Very well. Do not tarry. Zhangshui IV out.”
“What is that about?” Terese asked.
“No idea.” Denzel answered. He looked at ADA, but she was gazing at the photo she had taken from Ollie. The scientist was barely coherent and seemed to slip in and out of consciousness.
Denzel thought he heard ADA mumble, “It cannot be.”
“What is it, ADA?” he thought she was referring to the summons.
She glanced again at the photo and crammed it into her belt pouch. “It is nothing. I am concerned for Ollie.”
The woman Lillian lightly touched ADA’s shoulder. “You should be concerned with yourself. Those are two nasty wounds you have there.” Lillian actually sounded sincere.
“How much will it cost for my repair?” ADA looked up at the self-proclaimed android technician.
“I’m sure we can come up with a deal,” she replied smarmily, leaning across the seat with a sly smile. Denzel grimaced. ADA could take care of herself though. He decided to stay out of it.
As they neared the Bell, ADA passed her personal terminal and the data chip over to Denzel. “I will accompany Lillian with Ollie onto their ship. Perhaps this will be of use to you.” Denzel took the items and nodded.
Arkady landed the shuttle and allowed the other passengers to exit. Terese hesitated in the doorway.
“You ok, boss?” he waved to her with a slight smile and she floated into the Bell.
Denzel watched as she went toward their bunks in the Tank. ADA assisted Ollie through the umbilical that was connected to Grace’s ship. Grace saw Denzel watching, turned and waggled her fingers at him. When he hesitantly waved back, she flipped him off. He closed the door to the shuttle, removing himself from Grace’s repulsive presence.
Now that they were alone, Arkady asked, “Do you know why they want you?” He piloted the shuttle back out of the Bell.
“No clue,” Denzel worried at his lip with his toothy ridge.
It was a few hours to the blockade ships, so Denzel spent that time trying to hack into the data chip they had found in the Deep. ADA would have been more proficient, but he had plenty of time and his skills with computers were decent.
Denzel open encrypted data chip [+] due to extra time 17 vs 52 (Intellect + Computers). Success. Technically I probably should have just allowed him to succeed without a test, but I wanted to “offer” him the possibility of a failure.
In the end, the decryption password was a simple variation of the word Cloudbank with the a’s replaced by @ and the L with a 1. Denzel shook his head, whoever had created this chip had been careless amateurs. Stored on the chip were detailed dossiers on high ranking officials within Cloudbank, which was now a subsidiary of Hazmos, though maybe not openly. Some of the details were very juicy stuff! He imagined a criminal would get decent extortion leverage money for this type of data. That wasn’t something he was interested in, but perhaps someone like Grace would be. Maybe this would suffice as a payment. Ollie had looked in bad shape and needed that medpod time.
Denzel spent the rest of the trip trying to relax and read a little of the Whirlpool’s Edge sci-fi novel he had found on The Deep.
Rest Sanity save [+] for reading 17,90 vs 28. Success. Reduce stress by 1’s digit of 7 back to minimum of 2 stress.
Mythic, does the novel mention any characters that correspond with our party? 51 vs 90 yes.
Denzel was reading the pulpy fiction, then dropped it in disbelief. It described a crew of five going to a forest preserve station and facing a killer there who collected hands. One of the crew was killed and another had her throat ripped out. What was this!?
Denzel 1d10=7 Bends. Now at 24
Arkady interrupted his thoughts, “We are here.”
The frigate or troopship or whatever it was, loomed large and menacing in the shuttle’s viewport. Arkady called in his docking intentions and expertly landed in an enclosed docking bay. There were a variety of other shuttles present there already, parked neatly in a line. Denzel still wore his vaccsuit and walked with its bulk down the ramp into the large docking area. He breathed in deeply the ship’s air. The shuttle air had been…stale.
Mythic Descriptor tables: Anxiously + Soft
A handful of crew members worked in the docking bay, darting anxious looks toward one of the manager’s offices. An android emerged from the room wearing a high ranking Hazmos Security Force uniform. Denzel was not up to speed on what rank its insignia indicated, but the crew all avoided eye contact. Of course, some of it might have been due to its android uncanniness.
Mythic Character appearance tables: Rustic + Petite
The android was of an older model, not exactly human-like with no hair and odd plastic-looking skin and ears. And not just no hair on its scalp. The face was completely devoid of eyelashes or eyebrows as well.
It spoke to Denzel in a neutral voice, “You must be Denzel. I am Captain Lara-4794 of the Hazmos Security Forces. We received communication from the Cloudbank Production Station that you and other Divers,” it said that word with contempt, “were shooting security forces and causing station damage.”
“That is not completely false, but a bit twisted. We were fired upon with no provocation. We were simply defending ourselves,” he retorted with derision.
“Hmph.” Lara responded. Her disbelief irritated Denzel more than it should have. “You should take greater care in the future. Hazmos will not accept any collateral damage to its property. Any further damages reported to us will be deducted from your salary.” It stepped a bit closer to him, and lowered its voice. “How goes your search?”
“Nothing yet,” Denzel stepped back a step. He wasn’t about to tell this Lara anything extra.
“If you were to find any of these so-called artifacts, you are to consult with Lily Leesha on Gateway and describe it thoroughly. She has orders to gather any and all such items from your team. You of course will receive a 10,000 credit bonus for any item of worth.”
“How generous.” Denzel’s mouth was a thin-lipped line. The android stared at him, trying to determine if he was being flippant.
“Do not stay too long, I have been told crews suffer rather odd consequences after being on station for extended periods. Hazmos will pay for your crew to have shore leave at Gateway every month. Any medical treatment necessary will be assumed as carelessness on your parts and the costs will be deducted from your salaries. Understood?”
“Yes ma’am.” Denzel gave a mock salute. He normally wasn’t this disrespectful to authorities, but something about Lara did not sit right with him. The android scoffed and turned to walk over to a single person transport shuttle. It climbed on board and began its flight checks. Denzel assumed the meeting was finished and turned to board the Acheron when someone behind him called out.
“Wait one moment.” Denzel turned and saw a stern looking woman march up to him.
Her uniform was immaculate, and her demeanor brooked no-nonsense. She gave a disdainful glance at Lara before continuing.
“I am Commander Rachael Kilroy. I am currently in command of this blockade and lead the Troubleshooters. You have heard of us?” Denzel nodded. “Good. Hazmos contracted us to perform this mission and further asked us to accommodate Robo-Captain there.” She obviously had no love for androids, but she didn’t crack a smile at her own joke.
“We could hardly say no since they cut our checks.” Denzel gave a small smile in response, perhaps this Kilroy allowed a tiny bit of nonsense. She cleared her throat. “I need some eyes and ears on the Deep outside of my own troops. If your crew is interested, we could offer equipment, medical treatment, and…other things you might need.”
Denzel was a little puzzled, why would she trust him, a stranger? “Ok…” he started. She held up a hand to stop him.
“Before you say anything, know you would need to earn my trust before you gain anything from us.” She outstretched her hand and held out a small transceiver. “Place this somewhere out of sight in the Employee Recreation Room on Floor 1 of the station. It will allow me to monitor Divers and…other denizens of the Deep who frequent that room for rest. If you can accomplish this, I will consider giving you other work. And the payments I mentioned.” She left her hand extended as Denzel considered.
He guessed it could not hurt to have allies as powerful as the Troubleshooters. He took the device. “I’ll do that.” He said simply. She only nodded and turned on her heel. She walked off without another word. Was everyone in this system completely off their rocker?
End of Scene
Chaos Factor -1 = 8. Things should start to settle down while the crew is off of the Deep.Any time we leave the Deep, we must perform a d100 Bends check. For this roll, we want to get HIGHER than our Bends score.
ADA =63 vs 32. Pass
Denzel=54 vs 24. Pass
Ollie=24 vs 10. Pass
Terese=6 vs 13 Fail. Increased Empathy for androids. Increase stress by 1 if you see an android die. Just like Ollie.Character’s stats:
Denzel 11/11 HP, Wounds 0, Stress 8/2, Bends 24
ADA 7/14 HP, Wounds 2/3, Stress 10, Bends 32
Terese 11/17 HP, Wounds 0, Stress 4, Bends 13
Ollie 11/11 HP (reduced from 17), Wounds 1/2, Stress 18, Bends 10
Next session we will focus on the rest of the crew’s activities while Denzel was on this jaunt. I really enjoyed the addition of some new NPC’s, and I’m excited to see how the Bends affect ADA.
