Family Matters
Jan. 31st, 2004 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothYesterday was the Friday Shadake game, wherein the party extracted their belongings from a government warehouse, rented a hotel room, were given a ticket by a traffic cop, and sold off their treasure. And... that's about it.
Before the ship was impounded, the party ran around trying to gather everything up. Jackie scooped up all the loose scales from the Gems of Io into a sack, and discovered that they appeared to be mana enhancers -- so he tried to use them to help bottle his herb garden. It worked, but covered them with sulfur crystals.
He also quickly made a 'strength potion' to increase his 'little sister's strength, in case it was simple weakness that was keeping her paralyzed. As he poured the liquid into her mouth, there was a spark between them, and both felt stronger... and, you know, in love with each other. This was not sufficient to allow the Illiski to move, however, at least not immediately.
Jackie tried to ask Ozar about building an exoskeleton for Kirrin (as the paralyzed Illiski was named), since she had a cyberjack and could control it that way, but Ozar had been spending too much time in engineering near the Wall of Jealousy that Jackie had accidentally set up, and was growing increasingly paranoid. He ranted that Jackie was just trying to steal his precious spare parts, and slammed the door in his face. It was an automatic, powered door, but Ozar was a gadgeteer and had easily added a 'slam' function to it.
When they got to Diemos Base, the UTMN outlined the ruinous fees that would be charged to get their possessions out of 'storage', and to keep their possessions in storage, and to take a shuttle down to the surface, and to stay in visitor housing on the base, and to fill out the forms to do any of this. Before anything else, of course, they had to fill out the forms explaining their side of the story, for which there was only a nominal fee.
The party discovered that while the UTMN would not allow a chartered ship to land at or approach their base, they did have a more reasonable fee schedule for towing possessions out to an 'orbital transfer point' outside their jurisdiction.
They wouldn't tow *people* out there, but Ozar had wing-thrusters on his suit, so Jackie bottled most of the party, and let Ozar carry him out to the meeting place, where 'Tom's Trustworthy Towing' was supposed to meet them. On the way, Ozar [now an NPC, and currently somewhat insane due to long-term exposure to a powerful jealousy field] mused that Jackie was the one who'd damaged his fighter -- smashing the extremely expensive and hard to find focusing crystal for its main gun. He pondered what would happen if he were to accidentally drop Jackie -- he'd be forced to take possession of the Gems for himself!
Jackie talked him down by promising to make some alchemical mixtures to heal the broken crystal, and Ozar was able to get himself back under control.
The trip to the surface was uneventful, except that Tom managed to get Jackie to pay him for the tow, even though Shadarack had paid him in advance. He dropped them off just outside New Skypass, one of the largest cities on Mars, which had originally been intended as a major spaceport, before starship technology had advanced to the point that spaceports were mostly irrelevant because everything just hovered. The only ships using the port now were water-navy vessels trading on the Only Sea, and a pair of UTMN cruisers, which looked much like the UTMN destroyers, except that they were much much larger, and painted in brightly colored stripes instead of brightly colored scale patterns.
Shad: "Wait, they're painted in brightly colored stripes?"
Me: "Well, yeah. They're based on lunar vessels, which are boring slate gray eggs, but the UTMN has a very large proportion of Manis in its ranks, and they're brightly colored, striped pangolins. They paint their ships in the same sorts of patterns."
Shad: "So they're giant easter eggs of death!"
The easter egs seemed to be quiescent at the moment, and after removing the packing material from around Ozar's fighter and the skimmer (but not the Gems) the party moved everything to a self-storage facility, and got a room at a hotel. Jackie auctioned off some of his alchemical stuff, while Shadarack tried to find a buyer for the Gems.
The prospective buyer that send the quickest response was an agent for the Constantines, a Martian crime family. They asked Shadarack to bring the gems to a warehouse they owned to discuss the price and let them verify that they were actually real. Shadarack agreed immediately, and with Ozar and Adam (Hesperious was out sightseeing, and Jackie was busy making more potions) immediately headed down to the waterfront in the converted burrower.
On the way, they were stopped by a traffic cop, who pointed out that their vehicle had no registration or plates, and that while that sort of thing was fine out in the boonies, in the city it was against the law. They'd have to apply for the registration in person at the Department of Hover Vehicles, but of course he couldn't let them drive there without a registration, and since they'd been stopped he'd have to give them a ticket as well.
"It's a real shame you didn't manage to get this registered before someone noticed. It would have been a lot cheaper than this ticket I'm going to have to write you." They didn't get the hint, so he wrote them a ticket, and watched to make sure they didn't try to drive off.
So they had their skimmer and the Gems *towed* to the meeting with the Constantines, and let the tow truck drive off, leaving them sitting in a lit circle in a dark warehouse, faced by a family representative, his pet mage, and a pair of heavily armed bodyguards... and surrounded by a dozen family enforcers, and -- Adam saw as the gems were un-boxed for the buyer's examination -- some of Taral's Lackeys that he recognized from the arena, that had chased him the day before.
The Constantine mage walked over to the Gems and touched them to verify their authenticity, which he did by viewing their past history. So, of course, he saw the party slaughtering the Maytag scientists without provocation... this led to a very low offer by the family, one that Shadarack was loathe to accept. But Adam got the hint (that (a) they were being blackmailed, and (b) that they wouldn't leave the warehouse alive if they refused) and convinced him to take the offer.
Shadarack agreed to accept a mere 5M (~$500,000) for the gems, but asked that the Constantines also get his ship free of the UTMN impound. The Constantine agreed to look into it if Adam would come with him to see his good friend Taral. Adam agreed to do so only if he had assurances that the meeting would be only to talk, and the family would ensure his safety. The family agreed to that, but that they'd only look into getting the ship free if Taral was satisfied with the result of the discussion.
Adam did not want to go meet with Taral immediately. The procyonisk minions grinned at him, and told him that resistance was futile, and that he should join them, but were really scary and disturbing (they were fondling nasty looking knives as they said this) and made the back of his neck prickle.
Since Adam didn't want to meet with Taral until he could talk to everyone and make sure they'd back him up, they went back to the hotel, and looked up possible treasure hunting to be done on Mars. Shadarack was interested in some horribly dangerous ruins that no one had come out of alive, but were rumored to have vast treasures buried inside. Jackie was interested in a random black spider attack, where they dropped down from outer space onto a group of ordinary farms, and killed or drove insane all the farmers, for no apparent reason.
last session next session
Not a lot happened, but it wasn't as mind-numbingly boring as the last session where not a lot happened. I still need to do better next time.
On the drive home, Shadarack boasted of his sexual exploits and all the mind-altering drugs he liked to take. All the way home. I didn't have a lot of add to that conversation, unfortunately.
Before the ship was impounded, the party ran around trying to gather everything up. Jackie scooped up all the loose scales from the Gems of Io into a sack, and discovered that they appeared to be mana enhancers -- so he tried to use them to help bottle his herb garden. It worked, but covered them with sulfur crystals.
He also quickly made a 'strength potion' to increase his 'little sister's strength, in case it was simple weakness that was keeping her paralyzed. As he poured the liquid into her mouth, there was a spark between them, and both felt stronger... and, you know, in love with each other. This was not sufficient to allow the Illiski to move, however, at least not immediately.
Jackie tried to ask Ozar about building an exoskeleton for Kirrin (as the paralyzed Illiski was named), since she had a cyberjack and could control it that way, but Ozar had been spending too much time in engineering near the Wall of Jealousy that Jackie had accidentally set up, and was growing increasingly paranoid. He ranted that Jackie was just trying to steal his precious spare parts, and slammed the door in his face. It was an automatic, powered door, but Ozar was a gadgeteer and had easily added a 'slam' function to it.
When they got to Diemos Base, the UTMN outlined the ruinous fees that would be charged to get their possessions out of 'storage', and to keep their possessions in storage, and to take a shuttle down to the surface, and to stay in visitor housing on the base, and to fill out the forms to do any of this. Before anything else, of course, they had to fill out the forms explaining their side of the story, for which there was only a nominal fee.
The party discovered that while the UTMN would not allow a chartered ship to land at or approach their base, they did have a more reasonable fee schedule for towing possessions out to an 'orbital transfer point' outside their jurisdiction.
They wouldn't tow *people* out there, but Ozar had wing-thrusters on his suit, so Jackie bottled most of the party, and let Ozar carry him out to the meeting place, where 'Tom's Trustworthy Towing' was supposed to meet them. On the way, Ozar [now an NPC, and currently somewhat insane due to long-term exposure to a powerful jealousy field] mused that Jackie was the one who'd damaged his fighter -- smashing the extremely expensive and hard to find focusing crystal for its main gun. He pondered what would happen if he were to accidentally drop Jackie -- he'd be forced to take possession of the Gems for himself!
Jackie talked him down by promising to make some alchemical mixtures to heal the broken crystal, and Ozar was able to get himself back under control.
The trip to the surface was uneventful, except that Tom managed to get Jackie to pay him for the tow, even though Shadarack had paid him in advance. He dropped them off just outside New Skypass, one of the largest cities on Mars, which had originally been intended as a major spaceport, before starship technology had advanced to the point that spaceports were mostly irrelevant because everything just hovered. The only ships using the port now were water-navy vessels trading on the Only Sea, and a pair of UTMN cruisers, which looked much like the UTMN destroyers, except that they were much much larger, and painted in brightly colored stripes instead of brightly colored scale patterns.
Shad: "Wait, they're painted in brightly colored stripes?"
Me: "Well, yeah. They're based on lunar vessels, which are boring slate gray eggs, but the UTMN has a very large proportion of Manis in its ranks, and they're brightly colored, striped pangolins. They paint their ships in the same sorts of patterns."
Shad: "So they're giant easter eggs of death!"
The easter egs seemed to be quiescent at the moment, and after removing the packing material from around Ozar's fighter and the skimmer (but not the Gems) the party moved everything to a self-storage facility, and got a room at a hotel. Jackie auctioned off some of his alchemical stuff, while Shadarack tried to find a buyer for the Gems.
The prospective buyer that send the quickest response was an agent for the Constantines, a Martian crime family. They asked Shadarack to bring the gems to a warehouse they owned to discuss the price and let them verify that they were actually real. Shadarack agreed immediately, and with Ozar and Adam (Hesperious was out sightseeing, and Jackie was busy making more potions) immediately headed down to the waterfront in the converted burrower.
On the way, they were stopped by a traffic cop, who pointed out that their vehicle had no registration or plates, and that while that sort of thing was fine out in the boonies, in the city it was against the law. They'd have to apply for the registration in person at the Department of Hover Vehicles, but of course he couldn't let them drive there without a registration, and since they'd been stopped he'd have to give them a ticket as well.
"It's a real shame you didn't manage to get this registered before someone noticed. It would have been a lot cheaper than this ticket I'm going to have to write you." They didn't get the hint, so he wrote them a ticket, and watched to make sure they didn't try to drive off.
So they had their skimmer and the Gems *towed* to the meeting with the Constantines, and let the tow truck drive off, leaving them sitting in a lit circle in a dark warehouse, faced by a family representative, his pet mage, and a pair of heavily armed bodyguards... and surrounded by a dozen family enforcers, and -- Adam saw as the gems were un-boxed for the buyer's examination -- some of Taral's Lackeys that he recognized from the arena, that had chased him the day before.
The Constantine mage walked over to the Gems and touched them to verify their authenticity, which he did by viewing their past history. So, of course, he saw the party slaughtering the Maytag scientists without provocation... this led to a very low offer by the family, one that Shadarack was loathe to accept. But Adam got the hint (that (a) they were being blackmailed, and (b) that they wouldn't leave the warehouse alive if they refused) and convinced him to take the offer.
Shadarack agreed to accept a mere 5M (~$500,000) for the gems, but asked that the Constantines also get his ship free of the UTMN impound. The Constantine agreed to look into it if Adam would come with him to see his good friend Taral. Adam agreed to do so only if he had assurances that the meeting would be only to talk, and the family would ensure his safety. The family agreed to that, but that they'd only look into getting the ship free if Taral was satisfied with the result of the discussion.
Adam did not want to go meet with Taral immediately. The procyonisk minions grinned at him, and told him that resistance was futile, and that he should join them, but were really scary and disturbing (they were fondling nasty looking knives as they said this) and made the back of his neck prickle.
Since Adam didn't want to meet with Taral until he could talk to everyone and make sure they'd back him up, they went back to the hotel, and looked up possible treasure hunting to be done on Mars. Shadarack was interested in some horribly dangerous ruins that no one had come out of alive, but were rumored to have vast treasures buried inside. Jackie was interested in a random black spider attack, where they dropped down from outer space onto a group of ordinary farms, and killed or drove insane all the farmers, for no apparent reason.
last session next session
Not a lot happened, but it wasn't as mind-numbingly boring as the last session where not a lot happened. I still need to do better next time.
On the drive home, Shadarack boasted of his sexual exploits and all the mind-altering drugs he liked to take. All the way home. I didn't have a lot of add to that conversation, unfortunately.
