Blacklaw Chronicles

Is there enough time during this jump for TANS to finish processing the comm data and translate the Precursor symbols?

Oracle : Likely : Yes

What kind of luck has she had?

Gather Information : Wits4 : Strong Yes

She has restored the comm fragment from the rescue team.  It is a horrifying cacophony of human shrieks and screams, punctuated by a final eerie moan that came from no human throat.

Can TANS identify that sound?

Oracle : 5050 : Extreme Yes

It is, she says, the sound characteristically made by undead balespawn when hunting.

It isn’t good news, but it also isn’t entirely unexpected.  This is, after all, the Forge.

What of the Precursor ideograms?

Gather Information : Wits=4 : Strong Yes

It is a rendering of a ancient myth cycle, the basic elements of which are common to several Precursor races.  It is a common form of decoration, and of no particular interest, except to academics and collectors.

Is it somehow related to Ayako’s desperate, unknowing sortie to the Shard, or is it simply a coincidence?

I ponder this, as I begin working on mods to Skōl’s suit.

Resupply (includes scavenging and fabrication) : Supply=5 : Strong yes

We drop out of jumpspace in the fringes of Kettir System.

(Your Humble Skald here – back in Pt1, the last thing we did was Set a Course, and we rolled a Strong Yes.  Set a Course covers the entire span of a given journey, in this case the starjump, so the Strong Yes sees us safely through to the end of the jump.)

Kettir is a much busier system than Ardon.  Because Highgate and Reverie Station aren’t major attractions, most spacers simply through-jump Ardon on the way to Kettir, using the mass-point of the former to boost them on to the latter.  Most of the traffic in Kettir came via that through-jump, so it’s quite a bit more crowded.  We would have through-jumped as well, had we not needed to meet Ayako at Reverie.

Kettir is also a rich system, and always wary, to one degree or another, of arrivals.  It’s best not to tarry in the dropzone, so we began broadcasting out in-system ID, and TANS burned us into a fast orbit to Carcosa.

Do we encounter anything untoward during transit?

Oracle : Very Unlikely : No

Kettir is an orderly place, and we are soon negotiating for landing space at the Hali Spaceport.

(YHS: There is one disadvantage we will likely suffer if we fail Gather Information rolls during this scene: Attracting the attention of someone or something we would rather not.  The odds are CERTAIN, when it comes time to ask the Oracle.)

Are we cleared to land quickly, or are we stuck in the queue for some time?

Oracle : Unlikely : No

(Oops.  I unintentionally asked an OR question, which is not proper for a binary oracle.  I’ll apply that No to the first part of the question, which then answers the second.)

We need the most current data we can get on the location and status of Bulwark.

We are not operating under the authority of any of the corporations that have interests on Bulwark, so pinging them might not be the best strategy, at least not this early in the investigation.

I have TANS submit a query to Traffic Control, appending my credentials as a Sentinel.  While we have no official standing as such, we are notorious busybodies, so such a request is not, of itself, suspicious.  Or so I hope…

Gather Information : Wits4 : Strong Yes

Match! Action: Raid Theme: Law

(Find out what a Match means)

(One definition of raid on M-W is: the recruiting of personnel … from competing organizations.  Since this was a Strong Yes, I’ll interpret Raid Law as the SOS attempting to recruit me to supplement their investigation of events at Bulwark.)

We obtain the current data on Bulwark, and TANS begins to sift through it.

Meanwhile, we are pinged by System Orbital Security.  They acknowledge and welcome my status as a Sentinel, and want to meet about possibly coordinating the investigation at Bulwark.

We have VIP docking at one of the SOS orbital facilities, and they have cleared and reserved landing space for us planetside.   

My goal in this meeting is to avoid any unnecessary entanglement with SOS and their agenda, while at the same time maintaining a fair and honest relationship.

(When I rolled up the stats for Hali, it came out with Initial Contact: Welcoming; Authority: Fair, so we can assume that Hali is known as a place where you may encounter bureaucracy, but not active hostility and corruption, and expect fair treatment in general.)

I figure there’s a 60% (Likely) chance that SOS is going to try to saddle me with a “companion”, ostensibly to help me figure out what’s going on at Bulwark, and represent them in that endeavor.  They may just be trying to dissipate heat from local players with interests in Bulwark.  It’s not something I’m particularly enthused about, and would rather avoid.

Oracle : Likely : 87=No!

The Oracle has spoken. SOS appears to have no agenda beyond solving the Bulwark mystery.

(My plan was to use the Compel Move to talk them out of sending someone with me, but the Oracle has rendered that moot.)

I do take the opportunity to enquire whether they have any additional data on Bulwark, over and above what was provided by Traffic Control.

(The chance of this could be low, in-game, so I’m going to roll an unmodified Gather Info check, just to be fair to the story.)

Gather Info : Unmodded : Weak Yes

(Ah, here we go.  “On a weak hit, the information provides new insight, but also complicates your quest. Envision what you discover. Then, take +1 momentum.”  So SOS drops some kind of bombshell, that’s going to stir things up.  I need to consider this.)

I attempt to Make a Connection with the senior officer of the SOS party, one Bruno Valk, callsign Chimera.

Make a Connection : Heart=2 : Weak Hit

(On a strong hit, you create a connection. Give them a role and rank. Whenever your connection aids you on a move closely associated with their role, add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit.

On a weak hit, as above, but this connection comes with a complication or cost. Envision what they reveal or demand.)

Bruno and I seem to be in the same orbit.  After a few moments of silence, he nods.  He has, he says, some additional information, highly secret, which he will share, provided I Swear an Iron Vow to remain silent about this intel.  I, of course, agree.

Swear an Iron Vow : Heart=2+1(sworn to a Connection) : Weak Yes

(On a weak hit, you are determined but begin your quest with more questions than answers. Take +1 momentum, and envision what you do to find a path forward.  Check out Vows and Momentum)

Bruno’s Intel:

A few days after Bulwark went dark, a small freighter, registered to that facility, was intercepted in the dropzone.  The pilots were discovered to be undead balespawn.  In addition, the freighter was carrying a shipping container with two dozen more undead inside.

These facts were determined later, because the pilots, upon interception, destroyed the ship.  But enough debris and bodies were recovered for a thorough analysis. 

An immediate search was initiated, and another container, delivered to the cargo area of Hali Starport only the day before, was found to contain a similar compliment of undead, in a dormant state of some sort.

What the purpose of these creatures might have been is speculative at best, but it was not one that would have benefited the people Hali and Carcosa.

This information is being heavily censored to avoid general panic.

I decide that, to understand what waits on the path ahead, I need to see what remains of the balespawn and their container.

Does Bruno approve and support this?

Oracle : Very Likely(70%) : 56 : Yes

With TANS docked, we leave in Bruno’s SOS skiff for the surface.

In Starforged, each character gets their very own starship, kind of in the manner of Han Solo, Boba Fett and others.  You can’t be a spacefaring rogue without your own ship.  There’s a table to determine how the ship came into the possession of the char, and the outcome I rolled was “Found abandoned in perfect condition.”

I decided to make TANS a Precursor ship, because that’s basically the plot of the excellent short story The Raven and the Hawk.

But I’ve written in a couple of governors:

• She was in a form of stasis for literal eons, and her memory has degraded somewhat over the ages, despite the stasis.  When it comes to knowing something specific about the Precursors, she has to pass a 50/50 Oracle check first, then make an unmodded Gather Information roll.
• TANS was created as a kind of “star yacht”, rather than a warship.  She was unarmed when Mourn found her, and her Eidolon drive, while superior to current human tech in some ways, is again somewhat limited by the inherent difficulty of star travel in the Forge.
• Her amor and armaments are all “after market” human tech that has been modified to fit her.  There are people and resources known to Sentinels that can be trusted with such weighty things.
• As a fully functional, albeit somewhat amnesiac, Precursor vessel, she is a priceless artifact that some people would willing go to war to acquire.  As such, we have to be extremely careful about revealing her abilities and true nature to others.  This curtails the freedom with which we would sometimes like to use those abilities.

This last relates to the name Mourn gave her.  If she had a name or other ID originally, she had forgotten it by the time Mourn woke her up.  In considering the ramifications of such an unprecedented discovery, Mourn realized that possession of this one-of-a-kind ship might well be as much burden as blessing, and thus not the “free lunch” that it might initially appear.

TANS’ personality is more or less modeled after Shad’s overly-buxom starship in Battle Beyond the Stars, but with a less irritating voice and a calmer, less girl-boss attitude.

(Really, Roger? Even for you…)

Externally, she is well camouflaged now, after years of trial, error and not a few near misses.  Her appearance very seldom raises and eyebrow now.

Most system law enforcement organizations, orbital or planetside, employ canids of one sort or another.  But neos are somewhat rare, especially in the Outlands.  And I daresay, Skōl is familiar with scents, physical and mental, that in-system doggos have never experienced.  So he goes with me.

Do we encounter anything untoward during our descent/landing at the starport?

Oracle : 11 = Random Event : 88, 62, 05

(When the digits of the Oracle roll are the same, a Random Event is generated.   In this case, the prompts are Focus: 88=Territory, Action: 62=Locate, Theme: 05=Balance.  I have no idea what this could mean in the current context, but it *may* refer to a “remote event”.  Focus is basically scope, so Territory could indicate a sector-wide Focus.  The rules provide for simultaneous “in the meantime” events in solo play.)

My scalp prickles at one point in our descent, but Bruno seems unbothered.  I look to Skōl, to find him watching me, as if to ask:

“Are you getting a bad feeling about this?”  I give him a jaunty wink.

The sensation quickly subsides, and I turn to watch the silhouette of Hali looming on the screens, as we enter the landing pattern for the starport.