Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 9582202" data-attributes="member: 11760">Facula Albedo trekked along a long-abandoned road, split with myriad cracks and seams from seismic activity and blurred boundaries caused by punishing geothermal heat that occasionally reliquefied portions of the asphalt.He had gotten off his last hover-trailer ride and set out this way, after hearing reports that a rogue mystic had been hiding out in these badlands.The road led to what had once been a secure facility. But crumbling guard towers now stood watch over broken walls beyond even the ability of self-healing concrete to repair. The gates of the facility were now permanently half-open, a blast mark the only sign the top hinge on one of the gates had ever been there.Albedo slipped inside, hand over his pistol.He stopped, his breath catching.Inside was a massive ship's graveyard, filled with decaying merchant vehicles, cargo haulers, surplus military vehicles, all in advanced states of decay. Small critters nested here and there, viewing this as yet another sapient-built landscape to dwell in, without the emotional weight felt by Albedo as he walked through the graveyard, looking and listening for any signs of habitation by the mystic.What he found instead was something he'd been both hoping for and dreading once he realized what this facility was."Hello, beautiful," he whispered.Albedo walked slowly around the ruined Peregrine starfighter, the nimble spear tip of the Imperial Navy.He had grown up in Underslum 4 on the city-planet of Iyama, four miles below the nominal surface of the planet. Down there, there was no natural light, just visions of the suns on screens and artificial lights that never truly went out, even at night, because a portion of the underclass was always working a shift for the great and powerful living in the towers that stretched miles above ground level.But when Albedo was a boy, playing hide and seek in the air vents with neighbors from his sub-block, he'd forced open a loose panel that was missing a screw. Closing it behind him to evade his playmates, he'd been drawn by a light different from what he normally saw. Moving carefully and slowly, he'd found another panel, loose and banging in the breeze, letting in more of the strange light. Undoing the remaining screws with his fingers, he found it gave him access to the top side of the duct. Climbing slowly out onto it, he found himself in an enormous air shaft, as big as a sub-block, leading down into the infinite inky depths below and up, up, up, rimmed by the edges of the towers above, toward a narrow window of open sky, the first anyone in his family had ever seen.He laid atop of the duct for hours, staring up at the sky so far ahead, somehow so different than what it looked on screens. Flying creatures lived along the edges of the shaft, bats below, gloomy dark-winged birds and his level and, far above, flitting in and out of narrow bands of sunlight, brightly colored birds like emissaries from another world.At times, he would close his eyes and listen to the bird songs, mating cries and arguments over territory or signals that clouds of insects had been found.And every once in a while, very far off, there was the roar of something flying even above the sunlit birds: beautiful needle-like Peregrine starfighters, metallic dragonflies moving in formation, looping, spinning, spiraling through the air with a joy that surpassed even that of the birds.Back in his family's quarters, Albedo pored over online maps of the surface, discovering they were technically only a few miles from a great military base where Imperial Navy starfighter pilots trained.When he wasn't at his lessons, or at work picking rare earth metals out of scrap in Recycling Center 17, Albedo would be on his secret ledge out in the great airshaft or at Underslum 4's Grand Arcade, playing Peregrine Fighter for hours, using up all of his personal spending money getting better and better at flying the simulated starfighter through ever more difficult missions, putting down terrorist and anarchist rebellions and battling barbarians from beyond the edge of civilized space.He had no hope of a life beyond that of a scrap-picker. But someone had been paying attention.The Imperial Navy recruiters showed up at his family's quarters one day. Officially, they had a choice in sending Facula to the academy and there was a recruitment bonus paid to the family. But saying no wasn't really an option. His father accepted the credits -- the equivalent three months' pay for a family of scrap-pickers, although still a paltry sum by any reasonable measure -- in stunned silence while Albedo's mother quietly cried. The Navy was purchasing their son, who wouldn't be able to leave base before graduating the academy, something he was not guaranteed to survive.But Albedo had been excited, promising to visit them after graduation and to send them credits when he could, already picturing himself in the midnight blue uniform of an Imperial Navy pilot, winged skulls on his lapels.He shook himself out of his reverie. This Peregrine wasn't his and looked like it had been rusting here longer than he'd been alive. Albedo ran a fond hand across its pitted hull. The Sorcerer had a docking port that would allow it to carry a smaller ship attached to its belly, like a mother airwhale with its young. Maybe Albedo could find a surplus Peregrine in better shape than this one and slowly get it fixed up over time. Maybe.But not this Peregrine.Albedo continued his exploration, hearing and seeing no sign of sentient life here. And then he discovered why.Massive of toxic sludge, oozing from leaking barrels stretched across large portions of the graveyard, ships sinking into the muck. The smell was enough to warn him, but using his electrobinoculars, he could spot the symbols warning of radioactivity and chemical hazards. His mystic couldn't dwell here for long. This place was a dump in more ways than one.Albedo doubled back and out of the ship's graveyard, heading back to the road. He returned to the main road and followed it onward, between shift changes and easy rides.When he finally found himself at the next little village, there was trouble. Mercenaries, well-armed and armored, with bright white writing declaring "SECURITY" on their black hover-cars and uniform. Red Moon forces, looking for someone or something.A pair of them, a tall Ghol with black horns and blood red skin, and a quick eyed Murian, spotted him, walking over to him before he could get too close to the security perimeter.The Murian's eyes took in Albedo's pistols and his stun baton and muttered a quiet word to his partner. They calmly pointed autopistols at his belly but didn't seem the nervous sort."Identification?" the Murian asked, taking an official tone that the Red Moon Syndicate wasn't legally entitled to, but which no one on Storix had the power to truly resist. "What business do you have here?"Moving slowly and calmly, Albedo moved one hand away from his pistol -- although letting his left hand linger next to the other -- and pulled out and activated his data pad."I'm a Nomad. Looking for my target."The Ghol frowned a little."You have an accent. Iyama?" He had a similar subtle trace of an accent just like Albedo's."Underslum 4. You?""Maintenance Railway Z9."The Murian's whiskers twitched in irritation at them getting off-track."That's all very nice, but your target's not here."Albedo hadn't shown him that page, but it didn't matter."I'm on authorized Nomad Guild business. I won't interfere in whatever you're doing here."The Murian snorted."No, you won't. You're going to hand over your weapons and get into that security wagon over there. Spend a few nights with us while we verify your story."The Ghol said nothing, mouth twitching a little in concern as he listened to his partner and took in Albedo's lack of concern even with autopistols pointed at his torso."No, I won't be," Albedo said quietly, smiling slightly, eyes meeting first once mercenary's gaze, then the other. He slowly lowered the data pad until he was holding it beside his other pistol. He probably couldn't drop the pad and draw the pistol and fire both pistols faster than the mercenaries could fire on him. But something about his demeanor suggested otherwise."Girl I grew up with joined the Nomad's Guild," the Ghol said. "Djali Lupay. Ever heard of her?""Yeah. Killed in a gunfight with Targ Cartel thugs on Talus."The Murian smirked and started to speak. Albedo met his gaze and smiled."-- took six of them with her, of course."Silence for a long moment."That sounds like her," the Ghol said, aiming his autopistol away from Albedo and taking a step back and out of the way. "No reason for us to delay you any longer."The Murian opened his mouth to speak. His partner silenced him with a look.Albedo nodded, touching the brim of his hat, and continued past the town, ignoring whatever was happening there."Don't Get Attached."[SPOILER="This turn's rolls"]Rolled a 6 on Exploration, which alas, means "nothing eventful happens." I gain a point of Motivation and roll another d6 for the specific type of nothing eventful happening. I roll a 5: "What dangerous terrain do you successfully navigate?"Strorix's write-up mentions that its terrain includes "mountain passes, colossal machinery, dark tunnels and active volcanoes." Of those, the one I haven't really engaged with has been machinery.So, opening up the Roll & Play Game Master's Sci-Fi Toolkit book, there's nothing for industrial wastelands -- if I had Ashes Without Number or Cities Without Number, they'd probably have relevant tables -- but I go with the Restricted Areas tables instead. I come up with a spaceship graveyard full of long-abandoned vehicles which is now being used as a hazardous material dumping ground by unscrupulous locals.After that, it's back to the Notorious rulebook to roll for arriving at my Destination. I roll a 4, finding another small town run by locals, and choose to roll once on the Destination Events table rather than resting and getting yet more Motivation.I roll a 3, and then a 2 for what happens on that specific table: "A large group of soldiers from the controlling faction are here. There's no way to avoid catching their attention." I roll a d6 to see what happens: 2, "a pair of hostile soldiers approach you. Why are so many soldiers gathered here right now?" Since Storix is under the control of the Red Moon Syndicate, this means their hired "security guards." I roll on the Personality table, and they're both assured/calm/focused, which is better than it might have been. One is a Ghol, the other is a Murian.Looking on the Reactions table, I see my only options are to Threaten or Attack, since they're categorized as Hostiles. Neither seems like a great option, but Threaten seems safer, so I roll a d6, add half of my Notoriety, rounded up (so a +1), for a total of 6. They also roll a 6. I actually can't find what happens on a tie. So time to burn some Motivation and force the hostiles to reroll: They get a 5, which makes them back down from my threat. I roll on the Threat Neutralized table. 5, which means they grumble about someone they knew who became a Nomad: "You know who you remind me of?" "Why did that person join the guild and what became of them?"Turn ends.[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

Verification