Broccli_Head
Explorer
Morte said:
That's a bit ominous...
So, how much prodding did it take to ge the PCs to go and do something?
-
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T20 Traveller - The Kursis Charter (complete Aug 8th 2005)
- Thread starter Morte
- Start date
That's a bit ominous...
So, how much prodding did it take to ge the PCs to go and do something?
peteyfrogboy
Explorer
Renfield said:
I've found that requiring some living family members makes for a good way to motivate even the most staunchly neutral adventurer. "Sure, you don't care about the villagers, but what about your baby sister?" Muahaha!
Morte
Explorer
Now that I finally got hold of a proper rulebook to go with the "Lite" rules, I've edited the second post of this thread to include proper details for the three starting characters. There's also a smidgeon of background.
I suppose I'd better get to writing the story then...
I suppose I'd better get to writing the story then...
Last edited:
Renfield
First Post
Write damn you! WRITE!!! You should be glad... no grateful! that I'm commanding you to write... more than I get on my storyhour. I've only had two people save myself post there and one is one of my players. So write and be thankful to the powers that be that people are posting here!!!!
By the way, great story so far
(Couldn't help myself... blame it on the caffein)
By the way, great story so far
(Couldn't help myself... blame it on the caffein)
Morte
Explorer
Act III: Miip - Down by the River
Date: 164-993 Imperial.
Location: Miip system (0819), mainworld, uplands.
It was, for practical purposes, a hurricane. The dense atmosphere, laden with water, hit them in the face at 100 km/h. It was slippery, exhausting, dispiriting work that drained them all. Their weather gear helped, keeping half the trouble out, but the other half was plenty to be going on with.
The wind shifted every so often, making anyone who’d leaned into it stumble. Everybody fell, even Thomas who was moving on all fours, and some of them collected bruised ribs or muscle wrenches on trees and rocks they never saw. Fish had a makeshift bandage over a gash within fifteen minutes. Sometimes Luan had to hang onto the Ursa’s backpack harness to stay on the ground. After half an hour she started checking the others for hypothermia. Only Silea could ignore the cold.
It took almost an hour to reach the river. “Halt” bellowed Thomas, just before Sir David went over the edge. “We must head downstream to the Kumminisquat tree, then find Yvonne. She should be within fifty meters of that.”
They found the tree, and were supremely glad of the two fuel-celled flashlights they’d brought from the ship. Yvonne was close by, on the outside of a bend in the river where the water was mercifully slower. She was half-sitting, half lying on her back, with a hefty log across her hips jamming her against a boulder. The water flowed around her shoulders, sometimes splashing her snout. She was about four meters from the shore.
Her eyes rolled slowly towards the torch light, but she didn’t move her head or respond to shouts.
Thomas and Sir David moved together to the top of the river bank and took in the scene. The river had cut itself steep banks, which would be tricky even in good conditions. Now it was rain-slicked and muddy. Then there were the five meters of swift, freezing water. On the up side, there were a couple of moderately sturdy trees along the bank which could be used to anchor ropes. But there was nothing overhanging, they could use ropes to pull but not to lift.
Thomas shouted over the storm. “I hope I can lift the log. But I cannot move Yvonne as well. Somehow you four must pull her out with ropes when I lift.”
Fish dragged himself forward and half-mumbled, half-shouted. He was clearly suffering, but still thinking like an engineer. “Bind her with the local rope, it’s thicker and won’t cut. Then use our three mil cordage to haul. We can tie it onto the pickaxe blade and use that as a handle. We need a tree to tie the pulley…” He scanned the bank and pointed downstream. “That one. We pull downstream, use the current instead of fighting it.” After a moment he added “The rope needs to attach low to her hips, to turn her under the log when it lifts. Loop it under her if you can.”
Silea joined the huddle. “Join the ropes. I’ll go in the river with Thomas. He can lift while I make a rope cradle. You sort the pulley out.” She stepped back and started peeling off her outer clothes.
Fish created a deeply unscientific and thoroughly non-reversible knot joining the 3mm and 15mm ropes, then moved downriver. Luan went with him to help, and Sir David stood by to keep the ropes running free.
Thomas went over the lip onto the river bank, slid down the mud on all fours, and hit the river like, well, like an out-of-control five hundred pound Ursa hitting a river at speed. He recovered and started wading, angled upstream against the current. Silea took five huge breaths then slid down the bank after him, carrying the bundle of rope around her neck and shoulder. She seemed to glide into the water like it wasn’t there. A couple of meters from shore she started swimming, six powerful strokes taking her outward while the current carried her downriver towards Yvonne.
Sir David watched for a few minutes as the pulley was constructed, and the ropes set out taut. He didn’t see much of her, just her feet bracing against the log as she dived to build the rope harness, and her head when she came up breath. After a while she waved him to go and pull on the rope.
So he missed seeing her hands triumphantly thrust out of the river, pushing under under Yvonne’s shoulders, making the Ursa’s body rotate so her hind legs would slide under the log as Thomas lifted it. Three times he’d lifted the log, and after two failures Silea got the right footing, balance and timing to free Yvonne.
On the shore, the hauling team felt the rope slacken and began to heave. Thomas let go of the log and half-scrambled, half drifted after Yvonne to keep her head out of the water while Silea stroked hard to stay close in case of need.
A minute later they were all out of the water and on a relatively flat patch of river bank. There was no way they were getting Yvonne up the bank and past the overhang, and they hadn’t thought to bring a shovel to dig it away. Besides, Thomas wasn’t going to be lifting anything more until he’d rested.
So Luan came down on a rope, and wrapped self heating emergency survival blankets they’d bought on Sentry around both Usra. They only covered about three quarters of the torso, but she hoped they would be enough to get Yvonne’s core body temperature up and maintain Thomas’s.
The Avaricious and the Ursa huddled as best they could and hoped the storm would end.
Date: 164-993 Imperial.
Location: Miip system (0819), mainworld, uplands.
It was, for practical purposes, a hurricane. The dense atmosphere, laden with water, hit them in the face at 100 km/h. It was slippery, exhausting, dispiriting work that drained them all. Their weather gear helped, keeping half the trouble out, but the other half was plenty to be going on with.
The wind shifted every so often, making anyone who’d leaned into it stumble. Everybody fell, even Thomas who was moving on all fours, and some of them collected bruised ribs or muscle wrenches on trees and rocks they never saw. Fish had a makeshift bandage over a gash within fifteen minutes. Sometimes Luan had to hang onto the Ursa’s backpack harness to stay on the ground. After half an hour she started checking the others for hypothermia. Only Silea could ignore the cold.
It took almost an hour to reach the river. “Halt” bellowed Thomas, just before Sir David went over the edge. “We must head downstream to the Kumminisquat tree, then find Yvonne. She should be within fifty meters of that.”
They found the tree, and were supremely glad of the two fuel-celled flashlights they’d brought from the ship. Yvonne was close by, on the outside of a bend in the river where the water was mercifully slower. She was half-sitting, half lying on her back, with a hefty log across her hips jamming her against a boulder. The water flowed around her shoulders, sometimes splashing her snout. She was about four meters from the shore.
Her eyes rolled slowly towards the torch light, but she didn’t move her head or respond to shouts.
Thomas and Sir David moved together to the top of the river bank and took in the scene. The river had cut itself steep banks, which would be tricky even in good conditions. Now it was rain-slicked and muddy. Then there were the five meters of swift, freezing water. On the up side, there were a couple of moderately sturdy trees along the bank which could be used to anchor ropes. But there was nothing overhanging, they could use ropes to pull but not to lift.
Thomas shouted over the storm. “I hope I can lift the log. But I cannot move Yvonne as well. Somehow you four must pull her out with ropes when I lift.”
Fish dragged himself forward and half-mumbled, half-shouted. He was clearly suffering, but still thinking like an engineer. “Bind her with the local rope, it’s thicker and won’t cut. Then use our three mil cordage to haul. We can tie it onto the pickaxe blade and use that as a handle. We need a tree to tie the pulley…” He scanned the bank and pointed downstream. “That one. We pull downstream, use the current instead of fighting it.” After a moment he added “The rope needs to attach low to her hips, to turn her under the log when it lifts. Loop it under her if you can.”
Silea joined the huddle. “Join the ropes. I’ll go in the river with Thomas. He can lift while I make a rope cradle. You sort the pulley out.” She stepped back and started peeling off her outer clothes.
Fish created a deeply unscientific and thoroughly non-reversible knot joining the 3mm and 15mm ropes, then moved downriver. Luan went with him to help, and Sir David stood by to keep the ropes running free.
Thomas went over the lip onto the river bank, slid down the mud on all fours, and hit the river like, well, like an out-of-control five hundred pound Ursa hitting a river at speed. He recovered and started wading, angled upstream against the current. Silea took five huge breaths then slid down the bank after him, carrying the bundle of rope around her neck and shoulder. She seemed to glide into the water like it wasn’t there. A couple of meters from shore she started swimming, six powerful strokes taking her outward while the current carried her downriver towards Yvonne.
Sir David watched for a few minutes as the pulley was constructed, and the ropes set out taut. He didn’t see much of her, just her feet bracing against the log as she dived to build the rope harness, and her head when she came up breath. After a while she waved him to go and pull on the rope.
So he missed seeing her hands triumphantly thrust out of the river, pushing under under Yvonne’s shoulders, making the Ursa’s body rotate so her hind legs would slide under the log as Thomas lifted it. Three times he’d lifted the log, and after two failures Silea got the right footing, balance and timing to free Yvonne.
On the shore, the hauling team felt the rope slacken and began to heave. Thomas let go of the log and half-scrambled, half drifted after Yvonne to keep her head out of the water while Silea stroked hard to stay close in case of need.
A minute later they were all out of the water and on a relatively flat patch of river bank. There was no way they were getting Yvonne up the bank and past the overhang, and they hadn’t thought to bring a shovel to dig it away. Besides, Thomas wasn’t going to be lifting anything more until he’d rested.
So Luan came down on a rope, and wrapped self heating emergency survival blankets they’d bought on Sentry around both Usra. They only covered about three quarters of the torso, but she hoped they would be enough to get Yvonne’s core body temperature up and maintain Thomas’s.
The Avaricious and the Ursa huddled as best they could and hoped the storm would end.
Morte
Explorer
Padril said:
Oh yes.
Hah!
BTW, Fish went up a level after his moment of glory with ropes and pulleys. He put another point on most skills and took the "Naval Architect" feat. It seems all that time with his nose buried in technical manuals during jump has led to something...
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Morte
Explorer
Act II: Miip - Say What?
Date: 165-993 to 166-993 Imperial.
Location: Miip system (0819), mainworld, uplands.
Eventually, the storm eased off. A search party of Ursa from the village found them and dug away the river bank to get them out. They all made it back to the village alive. Pretty ragged, but alive. Fish looked like he belonged on a slab, but alive. Yvonne was incoherent, but alive.
Luan declared that nobody was going anywhere until they had some strength back. The Ursa put them back in the village hall, which was quiet since the festival preparations had been put off.
The villagers’ attitude had changed, and whilst they weren’t quite natives they certainly weren’t outsiders to be stonewalled anymore. Although the repairs meant the villagers were genuinely busy now, they had no trouble finding time to help the travellers. Half a dozen of them, some human and some Ursa, took turns to translate the video journal. There was a bit of trouble with the technical terms but they managed to get it worked out between them.
Some years previously a transport vessel called Vraidercalt had been hit by pirates in the vicinity of Aspiration (3232), an independent system between the Khuur League and the Galian Federation. Seventy diameters from a gas giant, with half the engine room shot to pieces and communications a mass of smouldering metal, Vraidercalt jumped out on a rush plot.
The ship misjumped – no surprise there – and ended up in the essentially deserted space around Kleister Beta, second star of the 069-526 system. The crew got their drives, hull and flight systems together but communications at anything more than close range were beyond them. There was nothing around Kleister Beta to talk to anyway. So they set to skimming fuel from the star’s only gas giant, Railarii. Something went wrong with that – they weren’t as repaired as they’d thought they were – and they found themselves stuck in the gas giant’s atmosphere with no way to get the Vraidercalt out.
So they put the ship in a stable orbit, programming the computer to use occasional contragravity bursts to compensate for atmospheric drag. The crew put Vraidercalt’s emergency low berths on a launch and abandoned ship. They went into cryonic suspension and hoped the automatics would get them to Kleister Alpha. The journey wasn’t measured in parsecs, but it was far enough to mean a short burn followed by whole years of coasting. They died on the way.
The launch had made it into Kleister Alpha’s space about a year before Avarice Rewarded came in-cluster. It was intercepted by a private vessel – the Malfeasant, whose captain’s diary the Avaricious were translating. From the launch’s records, Malfeasant’s Ursa captain (one Vilis Kline) figured there was a highly valuable cargo on Vraidercalt. He excised relevant data from the launch’s computer before handing it over to the authorities. He had a plan, and it involved salvage.
The villagers who were translating were not too impressed when they got to this part. Vilis Kilne would not have been an especially welcome member of their community. Fish pondered for a moment, then wondered aloud “Is that actually illegal, if they were all dead?”
Silea, their space lawyer, ran her mind over it. “It’s failure to report an accident… But if there’s an actual ship’s log which says everyone from Vraidercalt got on the launch, and they’re all dead, and he can argue that he’s protecting his legitimate salvage rights…”
“Depends on the judge” said Sir David.
Silea nodded. [1]
“But their families…” said Luan, pained, and the villagers nodded. They went back to translating, and deduced what they could from the rest of the diary.
Firstly, the Vraidercalt was probably still there. It was deeper in the atmosphere than fuel skimmers normally went, but there was no reason it shouldn’t survive for years on the occasional contragravity burst.
Secondly, Vraidercalt was legitimate salvage. And nobody knew she was there, excepting themselves and Captain Kline (whom they’d left in a coma after rescuing him from Malfeasant).
Thirdly, Avarice Rewarded could operate at that depth with some specialist gear. Malfeasant had been on a trial run when her drive failed and Avarice Rewarded came to the rescue. Apart from the drive problems, she’d been over-prepared. Kline noted the waste of money in his diary.
Finally, the 069-526 system (containing Kleister Alpha and Beta) was two parsecs away and another stop on their charter route.
“I was actually thinking of going there next” said Sir David. He drew a breath, and continued. “It’s our refit yard, Kursis are paying our bill there when we finish the charter. I wanted an advance visit, to see if I could book a fuel purifier installation. Once the charter ends, and Kursis stop paying for all this expensive refined fuel we’re buying, that’ll save us sixteen thousand a jump.”
“We should sort something out while we’re there” said Fish.
The Avaricious all nodded. An astute observer might have discerned that they had different ideas about what “sort something out” meant.
The diary played on, and they made some more notes. It reached the final scene with the Ursa captain standing in front of the engine room door and gesturing behind him in alarm. Their translators explained that he was trying to “blast out” despite the engine problems because he “didn’t want to end up like the Vraidercalt but with no launch”.
[1] As somebody put it, the Imperium is “a government of men, not of laws”. It really does depend on what the judge thinks is right, as much as what the law book says.
Date: 165-993 to 166-993 Imperial.
Location: Miip system (0819), mainworld, uplands.
Eventually, the storm eased off. A search party of Ursa from the village found them and dug away the river bank to get them out. They all made it back to the village alive. Pretty ragged, but alive. Fish looked like he belonged on a slab, but alive. Yvonne was incoherent, but alive.
Luan declared that nobody was going anywhere until they had some strength back. The Ursa put them back in the village hall, which was quiet since the festival preparations had been put off.
The villagers’ attitude had changed, and whilst they weren’t quite natives they certainly weren’t outsiders to be stonewalled anymore. Although the repairs meant the villagers were genuinely busy now, they had no trouble finding time to help the travellers. Half a dozen of them, some human and some Ursa, took turns to translate the video journal. There was a bit of trouble with the technical terms but they managed to get it worked out between them.
Some years previously a transport vessel called Vraidercalt had been hit by pirates in the vicinity of Aspiration (3232), an independent system between the Khuur League and the Galian Federation. Seventy diameters from a gas giant, with half the engine room shot to pieces and communications a mass of smouldering metal, Vraidercalt jumped out on a rush plot.
The ship misjumped – no surprise there – and ended up in the essentially deserted space around Kleister Beta, second star of the 069-526 system. The crew got their drives, hull and flight systems together but communications at anything more than close range were beyond them. There was nothing around Kleister Beta to talk to anyway. So they set to skimming fuel from the star’s only gas giant, Railarii. Something went wrong with that – they weren’t as repaired as they’d thought they were – and they found themselves stuck in the gas giant’s atmosphere with no way to get the Vraidercalt out.
So they put the ship in a stable orbit, programming the computer to use occasional contragravity bursts to compensate for atmospheric drag. The crew put Vraidercalt’s emergency low berths on a launch and abandoned ship. They went into cryonic suspension and hoped the automatics would get them to Kleister Alpha. The journey wasn’t measured in parsecs, but it was far enough to mean a short burn followed by whole years of coasting. They died on the way.
The launch had made it into Kleister Alpha’s space about a year before Avarice Rewarded came in-cluster. It was intercepted by a private vessel – the Malfeasant, whose captain’s diary the Avaricious were translating. From the launch’s records, Malfeasant’s Ursa captain (one Vilis Kline) figured there was a highly valuable cargo on Vraidercalt. He excised relevant data from the launch’s computer before handing it over to the authorities. He had a plan, and it involved salvage.
The villagers who were translating were not too impressed when they got to this part. Vilis Kilne would not have been an especially welcome member of their community. Fish pondered for a moment, then wondered aloud “Is that actually illegal, if they were all dead?”
Silea, their space lawyer, ran her mind over it. “It’s failure to report an accident… But if there’s an actual ship’s log which says everyone from Vraidercalt got on the launch, and they’re all dead, and he can argue that he’s protecting his legitimate salvage rights…”
“Depends on the judge” said Sir David.
Silea nodded. [1]
“But their families…” said Luan, pained, and the villagers nodded. They went back to translating, and deduced what they could from the rest of the diary.
Firstly, the Vraidercalt was probably still there. It was deeper in the atmosphere than fuel skimmers normally went, but there was no reason it shouldn’t survive for years on the occasional contragravity burst.
Secondly, Vraidercalt was legitimate salvage. And nobody knew she was there, excepting themselves and Captain Kline (whom they’d left in a coma after rescuing him from Malfeasant).
Thirdly, Avarice Rewarded could operate at that depth with some specialist gear. Malfeasant had been on a trial run when her drive failed and Avarice Rewarded came to the rescue. Apart from the drive problems, she’d been over-prepared. Kline noted the waste of money in his diary.
Finally, the 069-526 system (containing Kleister Alpha and Beta) was two parsecs away and another stop on their charter route.
“I was actually thinking of going there next” said Sir David. He drew a breath, and continued. “It’s our refit yard, Kursis are paying our bill there when we finish the charter. I wanted an advance visit, to see if I could book a fuel purifier installation. Once the charter ends, and Kursis stop paying for all this expensive refined fuel we’re buying, that’ll save us sixteen thousand a jump.”
“We should sort something out while we’re there” said Fish.
The Avaricious all nodded. An astute observer might have discerned that they had different ideas about what “sort something out” meant.
The diary played on, and they made some more notes. It reached the final scene with the Ursa captain standing in front of the engine room door and gesturing behind him in alarm. Their translators explained that he was trying to “blast out” despite the engine problems because he “didn’t want to end up like the Vraidercalt but with no launch”.
[1] As somebody put it, the Imperium is “a government of men, not of laws”. It really does depend on what the judge thinks is right, as much as what the law book says.
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