Star Wars (7ABY; M05, D34 - FoL 1): Vacation on Spira
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Ganen, Ness, Roger, Morrigan, Garth, and Mon / [XP: 12]
Ruth did not play.
[Note: The Festival of Life is supposed to take place between M04 and M05 but I forgot, so rather than skipping it I decided to slide it in between M05 and M06 instead (for just this year).]
Month 5; Day 34 (Continued)
Mon had actually remained on Mandalore during the other PCs’ excursion to Skorrupon and Wayland. When he returned to the Revenant at around 19:00 that evening, Specter was gone but an older man in an ill-fitting ISB uniform was sitting on a cargo crate on the edge of the landing pad. He was smoking a cigarette as though it was the most wonderful thing in the universe, but he also looked really far away and a little despondent.
Mon introduced himself and explained that he was also a member of the Revenant’s crew, and Commander Maldeen introduced himself and explained that the other PCs had just given him a ride from Wayland. He then explained why he was still hanging around.
“I was able to get in touch with Coruscant”, he began. “They’ll be sending a shuttle to Wayland to pick up the rest of my people. It sounds like things have changed a lot during the three years I was gone… I don’t know who I can trust anymore, but you’ve done right by me so far; so tell me…”
“With the understanding that I wouldn’t be able to pay you until arrival, but also with the understanding that I could put you all up in luxury suites for up to five days; would 1000 credits be enough for you to take to me Spira, give me a couple of days, and then take me to Coruscant? I’ll make it 2000 if you can get me there in time to see the Regatta.”
Mon didn’t know anything about Spira, but did recall Badger mentioning that it would be one of the top competitors for his new resort on Scarif. Regardless, he explained that he would need to run it by the rest of the crew; but invited Maldeen to wait inside in the meantime.
After a couple more hours of hanging out, talking, and Viira stuffing her ‘granddaughter’ with sugar; the other PCs said their goodbyes and then returned to the Revenant; arriving around 21:00 in the evening. Ganen’s beskad wouldn’t be ready to pick up until the next afternoon, but Spira was less than 24 hours away; so there would still be plenty of time to get the commander to the resort which he had in mind before the Regatta went by on the second day of the Festival of Life.
Mon then dragged everyone out to a ramen place which he’d discovered the previous evening, and Garth bought a garish paining to go with his awful table.
Month 5; Day 35
“I’m afraid that I underestimated how quickly the occupancy of the Aspre Plunge would fill up so close to the Regatta”, Commander Maldeen apologetically lamented the next morning. “I was only able to get you two double suites, and they’re not near each other or mine; but they should still be pretty comfortable if you’re willing to share.”
The PCs dispersed to do this and that for the remainder of the morning and the early afternoon. They then headed to Concordia, picked up Ganen’s finished sword, a started down the Hydian Way.
Commander Maldeen continued to be quite gloomy and quiet for someone on their way to a high-end beach resort, and Morrigan eventually inquired as to why he was so down in the dumps.
“It seems that a great deal has changed during my three years of absence”, he said. “COMPNOR is out of favor with the new regime; and with the Emperor gone, I’m not sure what the state of COMPNOR has become. Right now I’m afraid that if Imperial Intelligence doesn’t quietly eliminate me for being on the wrong side, someone in the ISB might decide that I’m a loose end who knows too much. That’s why I want to make the side-trip to Spira… while I still can.”
“When I was a young boy, a saw a video of the annual Regatta on Spira”, Maldeen continued when pressed for more. “The sea and the sky were so blue, the boats were so colorful and they glided so gracefully and quietly across the waves… I thought it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen.”
“I asked my parents for years if we could go, but my mother hated being in the sun and my father thought vacations were a waste of time and money. By the time I was old enough to go by myself I was in officer’s training school on Corulag; and by the time I had graduated, the Clone Wars had started. I promised myself I’d visit when the war ended, but then I wound up getting involved with COMPNOR. Year after year I kept telling myself I’d go, but I just got busier and busier…”
After a distant paused, he snapped to and gave Morrigan a serious look. “A word of advice, young lady… years pass, but ‘next year’ never comes. Don’t put off doing what you want to do.”
Festival of Life; Day 1
The PCs reached Coruscant around 12:00 the next day, and the traffic around the planet made the insane traffic around Denon seem like nothing. But Commander Maldeen got on the comm and transmitted some kind of code, and the PCs were allowed to pass through the system and continue on to Spira within minutes.
Three hours later, the Revenant landed at the spaceport or Atoria Island; and the PCs boarded a monorail to the super-fancy Aspre Plunge resort. Of the two suites which Maldeen had reserved for them, one was above the water line and the other was just below it. Garth & Mon and Morrigan & Jacinta took the former while Roger & Ganen and Ness took the latter. After giving the PCs his own room number; Maldeen informed them that, once the Regatta went by the next day, they could either leave immediately or stay until the end of the Festival of Life.
While shopping for an incredibly loud shirt, Roger happened to run into his old CO (Commander Jir) who was doing the same. After spending a few pleasant minutes catching up, Roger gave him one of their cards.
Morrigan quickly noticed that Jacinta was acting just like she had back on Bespin: clearly wanting to run and see and do but instead just remaining vigilant and on alert. After Morrigan gave her a speech about the need to relax and unwind, she gave her 100 credits and sent her on her way. She then went to the marina over in Atoria City; wanting to check out the kinds of boats which were used in the Regatta.
Mon took J out and did a little impromptu sort of documentary on the festivities going on around the island. Among the many people he spoke with was a young woman named Hazel, who got very flirty with him and ended up slipping him her room number.
While out on the boardwalk over in Atoria City, Ganen at one point saw a man suddenly appear in his field of view for a fraction of a second and then vanish. He had longish hair and a beard and was wearing a fancy dark purple suit, but he was too far away and appeared too briefly for Ganen to get a good look at him. After scanning the area with every frequency which his visor would allow, he found no trace of him.
Garth spend the afternoon socializing and making friend. Ness spent some time sunning herself on the beach and working out in the resort’s gym.
At Morrigan’s suggestion, everyone got together for dinner around sunset; and the restaurant was playing a number of sporting events on big screens, two of which caught different PCs’ attentions. One was a replay of the recent Zugga Challenge podrace on Mon Gazza, in which Morrigan’s brother Aiden managed a third-place showing for the second race in a row.
Another was a replay of one of Ness’ old fights on Obana, and she was quite pleased with herself that it had traveled so far. She was less pleased when she overheard a young man at an adjacent table remark “She’s cute, but the only reason she wins is that she’s too short for anyone to hit”, but she decided to let it go rather than cause a scene and risk getting kicked out.
After dinner, everyone dispersed again. Ganen hit the casino, and Mon took Jacinta down to an illegal spice den where he gave her an impromptu ethics lesson centered on the distinction between morality and legality.
Garth went back to socializing; and after an hour or so and getting more than a little tipsy on a couple of appletinis, he suddenly heard a gruff and hostile voice behind him growl “You followin’ me!?” Slowly and cautiously, he turned to see Clev Barrant towering over him and hatefully glaring down at him.
Before Garth could say anything, Barrant’s expression suddenly snapped into a broad smile; and he let out a little laugh as he gave Garth a gentle slap on the shoulder. “I’m just messin’ with you, little man! How you doin’?!” Clearly a little intoxicated himself, Clev sat down next to him and ordered a drink for himself and another for Garth.
“This has been a terrible year, little man”, Clev started quietly rambling. “We lost little Kashan; all three of his brilliant plans went sideways and accomplished nothing but getting a lot of our people killed and captured. And now there’s a rumor going around that The Engineer is dead too. I don’t know if my little sister has heard yet; I hope I don’t have to be the one to tell her.”
Garth then made a friendly query about his sister. “Yea, she was kinda sweet on him. She’s a materials engineer for the Nubian Design Collective. She actually worked with him on that liquid-crystal explosive of his; pretty sure she can synthesize it if she can get her hands on a good sample.” Garth was rather distressed at the implication of this statement, but managed to hide it.
“She’s got a few of her own tricks up her sleeve, too”, Barrant continued. “She just cracked… some kind of ‘contaminant’ that she can put into a hyperdrive engine. Every time it heats up, the contamination spreads and it gets more unstable until it finally explodes. Gonna see if she can get some onto some new star destroyers. Their run-ups will go fine, their shakedown cruises will go fine, they’ll get all loaded up, and then one day ‘BOOM’: 46,000 imps dead!”
As Garth struggled to remember as much of all of this as he could, Clev changed the subject. “No, seriously though… why are you here? I don’t know who dropped the communication ball, but by mid-day tomorrow you don’t want to be anywhere near this island; maybe not even on this planet!” Garth asked for more details, but Barrant just laughed and shook his head. “You know the drill, little man. I’ve said more than I should. Anyway, I should probably go; I really need to be sober tomorrow. But seriously, get your people and get the hell out of here.”
After Barrant departed, Garth got on the comlink and drunkenly announced something about a ‘party in the sky room’. The other PCs (including Mon, who had just been heading to Hazel’s room) got the message and made their way to the upper of their two suites.
It was a long and ambling conversation, but Garth eventually managed to convey the key points of what Barrant had told him. There was certainly interest in finding his sister, but they were more worried about what was going to happen the next day.
Clearly some kind of attack was going to happen around the time that the Regatta passed by Atoria Island the next day, but they couldn’t be sure whether the race itself was going to be involved in the attack or if they were just timing the attack to when the largest number of people would likely be on the island. It also seemed as though the rebels weren’t certain as to the potential magnitude of the attack but that it could possibly have some kind of global impact.
When Ganen suggested that the rebels might have hidden something in the nearby trench known as the Shinkai Abyss, Jacinta (who’d watched a video about it) pointed out that it was actually an enormous volcanic fissure which had been dormant for thousands of years. She also mentioned that it was full of carnivorous eels which grew up to 4 or 5 meters in length, but remarked that they were ‘babies’ compared to the eel which the PCs had encountered on Baralou.
Though the idea of opening a dormant volcanic fissure was rather far-fetched even by modern technological standards, so was the idea of blowing up a large police station with a small quantity of liquid. After some deliberation, the PCs decided to start by renting a submersible and some diving gear and checking out the Abyss.
Ganen, Ness, Roger, Morrigan, Garth, and Mon / [XP: 12]
Ruth did not play.
[Note: The Festival of Life is supposed to take place between M04 and M05 but I forgot, so rather than skipping it I decided to slide it in between M05 and M06 instead (for just this year).]
Month 5; Day 34 (Continued)
Mon had actually remained on Mandalore during the other PCs’ excursion to Skorrupon and Wayland. When he returned to the Revenant at around 19:00 that evening, Specter was gone but an older man in an ill-fitting ISB uniform was sitting on a cargo crate on the edge of the landing pad. He was smoking a cigarette as though it was the most wonderful thing in the universe, but he also looked really far away and a little despondent.
Mon introduced himself and explained that he was also a member of the Revenant’s crew, and Commander Maldeen introduced himself and explained that the other PCs had just given him a ride from Wayland. He then explained why he was still hanging around.
“I was able to get in touch with Coruscant”, he began. “They’ll be sending a shuttle to Wayland to pick up the rest of my people. It sounds like things have changed a lot during the three years I was gone… I don’t know who I can trust anymore, but you’ve done right by me so far; so tell me…”
“With the understanding that I wouldn’t be able to pay you until arrival, but also with the understanding that I could put you all up in luxury suites for up to five days; would 1000 credits be enough for you to take to me Spira, give me a couple of days, and then take me to Coruscant? I’ll make it 2000 if you can get me there in time to see the Regatta.”
Mon didn’t know anything about Spira, but did recall Badger mentioning that it would be one of the top competitors for his new resort on Scarif. Regardless, he explained that he would need to run it by the rest of the crew; but invited Maldeen to wait inside in the meantime.
After a couple more hours of hanging out, talking, and Viira stuffing her ‘granddaughter’ with sugar; the other PCs said their goodbyes and then returned to the Revenant; arriving around 21:00 in the evening. Ganen’s beskad wouldn’t be ready to pick up until the next afternoon, but Spira was less than 24 hours away; so there would still be plenty of time to get the commander to the resort which he had in mind before the Regatta went by on the second day of the Festival of Life.
Mon then dragged everyone out to a ramen place which he’d discovered the previous evening, and Garth bought a garish paining to go with his awful table.
Month 5; Day 35
“I’m afraid that I underestimated how quickly the occupancy of the Aspre Plunge would fill up so close to the Regatta”, Commander Maldeen apologetically lamented the next morning. “I was only able to get you two double suites, and they’re not near each other or mine; but they should still be pretty comfortable if you’re willing to share.”
The PCs dispersed to do this and that for the remainder of the morning and the early afternoon. They then headed to Concordia, picked up Ganen’s finished sword, a started down the Hydian Way.
Commander Maldeen continued to be quite gloomy and quiet for someone on their way to a high-end beach resort, and Morrigan eventually inquired as to why he was so down in the dumps.
“It seems that a great deal has changed during my three years of absence”, he said. “COMPNOR is out of favor with the new regime; and with the Emperor gone, I’m not sure what the state of COMPNOR has become. Right now I’m afraid that if Imperial Intelligence doesn’t quietly eliminate me for being on the wrong side, someone in the ISB might decide that I’m a loose end who knows too much. That’s why I want to make the side-trip to Spira… while I still can.”
“When I was a young boy, a saw a video of the annual Regatta on Spira”, Maldeen continued when pressed for more. “The sea and the sky were so blue, the boats were so colorful and they glided so gracefully and quietly across the waves… I thought it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen.”
“I asked my parents for years if we could go, but my mother hated being in the sun and my father thought vacations were a waste of time and money. By the time I was old enough to go by myself I was in officer’s training school on Corulag; and by the time I had graduated, the Clone Wars had started. I promised myself I’d visit when the war ended, but then I wound up getting involved with COMPNOR. Year after year I kept telling myself I’d go, but I just got busier and busier…”
After a distant paused, he snapped to and gave Morrigan a serious look. “A word of advice, young lady… years pass, but ‘next year’ never comes. Don’t put off doing what you want to do.”
Festival of Life; Day 1
The PCs reached Coruscant around 12:00 the next day, and the traffic around the planet made the insane traffic around Denon seem like nothing. But Commander Maldeen got on the comm and transmitted some kind of code, and the PCs were allowed to pass through the system and continue on to Spira within minutes.
Three hours later, the Revenant landed at the spaceport or Atoria Island; and the PCs boarded a monorail to the super-fancy Aspre Plunge resort. Of the two suites which Maldeen had reserved for them, one was above the water line and the other was just below it. Garth & Mon and Morrigan & Jacinta took the former while Roger & Ganen and Ness took the latter. After giving the PCs his own room number; Maldeen informed them that, once the Regatta went by the next day, they could either leave immediately or stay until the end of the Festival of Life.
While shopping for an incredibly loud shirt, Roger happened to run into his old CO (Commander Jir) who was doing the same. After spending a few pleasant minutes catching up, Roger gave him one of their cards.
Morrigan quickly noticed that Jacinta was acting just like she had back on Bespin: clearly wanting to run and see and do but instead just remaining vigilant and on alert. After Morrigan gave her a speech about the need to relax and unwind, she gave her 100 credits and sent her on her way. She then went to the marina over in Atoria City; wanting to check out the kinds of boats which were used in the Regatta.
Mon took J out and did a little impromptu sort of documentary on the festivities going on around the island. Among the many people he spoke with was a young woman named Hazel, who got very flirty with him and ended up slipping him her room number.
While out on the boardwalk over in Atoria City, Ganen at one point saw a man suddenly appear in his field of view for a fraction of a second and then vanish. He had longish hair and a beard and was wearing a fancy dark purple suit, but he was too far away and appeared too briefly for Ganen to get a good look at him. After scanning the area with every frequency which his visor would allow, he found no trace of him.
Garth spend the afternoon socializing and making friend. Ness spent some time sunning herself on the beach and working out in the resort’s gym.
At Morrigan’s suggestion, everyone got together for dinner around sunset; and the restaurant was playing a number of sporting events on big screens, two of which caught different PCs’ attentions. One was a replay of the recent Zugga Challenge podrace on Mon Gazza, in which Morrigan’s brother Aiden managed a third-place showing for the second race in a row.
Another was a replay of one of Ness’ old fights on Obana, and she was quite pleased with herself that it had traveled so far. She was less pleased when she overheard a young man at an adjacent table remark “She’s cute, but the only reason she wins is that she’s too short for anyone to hit”, but she decided to let it go rather than cause a scene and risk getting kicked out.
After dinner, everyone dispersed again. Ganen hit the casino, and Mon took Jacinta down to an illegal spice den where he gave her an impromptu ethics lesson centered on the distinction between morality and legality.
Garth went back to socializing; and after an hour or so and getting more than a little tipsy on a couple of appletinis, he suddenly heard a gruff and hostile voice behind him growl “You followin’ me!?” Slowly and cautiously, he turned to see Clev Barrant towering over him and hatefully glaring down at him.
Before Garth could say anything, Barrant’s expression suddenly snapped into a broad smile; and he let out a little laugh as he gave Garth a gentle slap on the shoulder. “I’m just messin’ with you, little man! How you doin’?!” Clearly a little intoxicated himself, Clev sat down next to him and ordered a drink for himself and another for Garth.
“This has been a terrible year, little man”, Clev started quietly rambling. “We lost little Kashan; all three of his brilliant plans went sideways and accomplished nothing but getting a lot of our people killed and captured. And now there’s a rumor going around that The Engineer is dead too. I don’t know if my little sister has heard yet; I hope I don’t have to be the one to tell her.”
Garth then made a friendly query about his sister. “Yea, she was kinda sweet on him. She’s a materials engineer for the Nubian Design Collective. She actually worked with him on that liquid-crystal explosive of his; pretty sure she can synthesize it if she can get her hands on a good sample.” Garth was rather distressed at the implication of this statement, but managed to hide it.
“She’s got a few of her own tricks up her sleeve, too”, Barrant continued. “She just cracked… some kind of ‘contaminant’ that she can put into a hyperdrive engine. Every time it heats up, the contamination spreads and it gets more unstable until it finally explodes. Gonna see if she can get some onto some new star destroyers. Their run-ups will go fine, their shakedown cruises will go fine, they’ll get all loaded up, and then one day ‘BOOM’: 46,000 imps dead!”
As Garth struggled to remember as much of all of this as he could, Clev changed the subject. “No, seriously though… why are you here? I don’t know who dropped the communication ball, but by mid-day tomorrow you don’t want to be anywhere near this island; maybe not even on this planet!” Garth asked for more details, but Barrant just laughed and shook his head. “You know the drill, little man. I’ve said more than I should. Anyway, I should probably go; I really need to be sober tomorrow. But seriously, get your people and get the hell out of here.”
After Barrant departed, Garth got on the comlink and drunkenly announced something about a ‘party in the sky room’. The other PCs (including Mon, who had just been heading to Hazel’s room) got the message and made their way to the upper of their two suites.
It was a long and ambling conversation, but Garth eventually managed to convey the key points of what Barrant had told him. There was certainly interest in finding his sister, but they were more worried about what was going to happen the next day.
Clearly some kind of attack was going to happen around the time that the Regatta passed by Atoria Island the next day, but they couldn’t be sure whether the race itself was going to be involved in the attack or if they were just timing the attack to when the largest number of people would likely be on the island. It also seemed as though the rebels weren’t certain as to the potential magnitude of the attack but that it could possibly have some kind of global impact.
When Ganen suggested that the rebels might have hidden something in the nearby trench known as the Shinkai Abyss, Jacinta (who’d watched a video about it) pointed out that it was actually an enormous volcanic fissure which had been dormant for thousands of years. She also mentioned that it was full of carnivorous eels which grew up to 4 or 5 meters in length, but remarked that they were ‘babies’ compared to the eel which the PCs had encountered on Baralou.
Though the idea of opening a dormant volcanic fissure was rather far-fetched even by modern technological standards, so was the idea of blowing up a large police station with a small quantity of liquid. After some deliberation, the PCs decided to start by renting a submersible and some diving gear and checking out the Abyss.