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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy" data-source="post: 9640609" data-attributes="member: 1412">I was pretty relieved when we came out of jump space. We were close to our desired coordinates and almost immediately new mail flashed up. Less of the sarcasm, please. Do you want to hear the rest of the story or what?  The first was from Karl who said that someone called L’Orca was in town and was looking for Miskom with a mysterious package in tow. Damn right it was! And we all rolled our eyes at the thought of whatever Miskom was going to get us into. The second was to the crew of the Helena in general. One Qual Velhom, an employee of Tarlet Industries, a rival of Brocero Industries, wanted to discuss something, apparently to our mutual benefit. I’ll say. We all had suspicion in our eyes at that point, although I’d say we couldn’t help but be intrigued at the same time. Of course he didn’t. But we found out anyway. Yeah, you’re correct, L’Orca is a Aslan name, but I didn’t twig at first. Not until we met him, to be honest. Less of the cheek, if you want to hear the rest.Customs boarded us, haha very funny, child, and checked our manifest etc. Miskom thought this was suspicious and said he had never been searched at Glisten before. We’re pretty sure someone (Drasser) organised the search, hoping to cause us some problems. True, but not this time. After those shenanigans we mosied over to the Lola but Karl was no-where to be found. Hortal was supervising a delivery of some parts for their M-drive. You’d think, right, but no, it’s still in the same shape as ever. He was clearly worried and hadn’t heard from his boss for a couple of days. True, we didn’t like the idea of what he could tell certain people and Miskom was particularly worried. He had his own problem to deal with, first. Miskom contacted L’Orca and arranged a meet. Let me tell the story, sheesh. He led us through the teeming city of Glisten towards Downtown. Things got shabbier and shabbier as we got farther away from Uptown, although the tube system was just as, ok, well not everyone has been to Glisten. Our goal was a dive called the Drop. We arrived first and ordered drinks. Miskom looked anxious. He told us not to interfere regardless of what happened. Soon after L’Orca and his crew arrived, all seven feet of him. Sieben, alright? That’s well over two metres. Miskom had already put on his spiked gauntlet and flexed his shoulders a few times. L’orca carried a huge longsword across his back! What? Yeah, or Conan! “You didn’t wait at Mertactor” growled the cat.“I was in a rush."“We had an agreement, you broke it”“Let’s just do this shall we?”Miskom turned to Tristan and told him to put some of the anti-psionic agent which had developed on the spikes of his gauntlet. Fair, the whole thing felt pretty barbaric to me, too. He took some combat drugs and the duel began. Miskom is around 70 but spry. With the combat drugs L’Orca couldn’t land a blow on him. He feinted a couple of times before he landed a blow with the gauntlet. I know, right. It’s funny when you think about it - Tristan had spent weeks developing his psi-blocker and having seen the test results on Noah Miskom was using it as a poison! I would have laughed if I wasn’t concerned with Tristan’s feelings and the life of our captain. I most certainly did! Only this time it did something else. Where Noah had felt sort of faint L’Orca went blind almost immediately. He fended off Miskom for a few more seconds before the old man plunged his cutlass straight through his chest. A tense moment followed and we all had our hands on our stunners, but L’Orca’s crew accepted it was a fair fight and took the body of their leader, leaving another one of those suitcases which we had last seen when Miskom dropped a couple off at Zol’s. Our jubilation was short lived as Miskom fell back into his chair clutching his chest and left arm. Tristan had his scanner out in a flash and diagnosed a heart attack. We bundled our protesting captain into a taxi and sped uptown to Uptown. As we went he told us about his apartment in Midtown and handed us the key-pass. We couldn’t help but be aware that Drasser might try something and the Helena was an easy starting point for anyone who wanted to follow us. We dropped him off at the hospital, picked up my grad-car from the dealers and flew to the flat to discuss plans.We had three main tasks before us. One, we needed to find Karl. Two, we wanted to stop by Tarlet Industries to find out what they wanted. And finally, we had to prep for the Gala. Foxx had finished their short documentary but we still needed a plan to get it on screen. They intended to talk to Paulette Condi, their agent. I’ll say, tight as a badger’s arse. But even the tightest security was crackable if you worked hard enough. We decided to check out Tarlet first and, after looking them up online, flew over. We were shown into the offices of Quel Velhom who introduced himself as a lawyer and went straight to business. He offered 600,000 credits for all information about Brocero Industries which could be used to embarrass their rival and for us to sign over the material and agree to Tarlet’s full ownership of that material. We thought about it, but - I know right? 600,000 each might have had us thinking but this was an insult. And four times would have made us think but it wouldn't have changed the outcome, no amount of money would. We wanted Brocaro and we didn’t intend to stop now. We bid farewell and went to the Traders Meeting Hall while Foxx spoke to Paulette. We bought some food and looked for Hortal. He was sitting in a cluster of captains: Captain Demorden, captain of the Eleana, Captain Grouf a vargr, captain the Maribel, and a few others, Amstril, Durbar and Vacras but I didn’t catch their ship’s names. Hortal was pretty excited and with all the crews milling around and looking angry we wondered what was going on. It turned out that Hortal had received a ping on his comm and thought it was from Karl. He had somehow managed to turn his comm back on and we had a location! Demorden and Grouf were for going straight away and breaking him out of wherever he was. Damn right we were too! Karl was an old friend of our captain’s and we didn’t intend to leave him with whoever. That too, we did feel a bit guilty. If this had something to do with Drasser then we had got Karl involved and should help. The guys had a plan.Demorden, Grouf and I all had grav-cars and we jumped in and took off. The plan was to fly along the outside of the asteroid that Glisten is built from and re-enter at the closest point to where we thought Karl’s comm was located. Then were intended fighting our way in and getting him. No, we haven’t become pirates. No, I wasn’t kicked out of the navy for turning pirate, arse. Stop laughing. Ok, it’s funny but not that funny. Where was I? Oh yeah. We sped through space, hugging the side of the asteroid. Within minutes found ourselves hovering before what looked like a service hatch, debating how we could open it. We needn’t have bothered as it opened as we bickered. A grav-car came out with 4 people in - one looked like they had a bag over their head. Karl!A phantasmagoria of a drive followed. Skimming the asteroid we flew at high speed back the way we came and into the rock once more. We stayed close on their heels which must have frustrated them as they opened fire on us shortly after we left the void. I was driving - damn straight I’m not letting someone drive my car. Why are you rolling you eyes? Do you want to hear the story or what? Noah grabbed my shotgun and hit their shooter with a foam round, taking them out in one. As we wove in and out of the traffic more shots were fired at them. That fool of a Vargr hit my car. Why are you laughing again, it’s not funny, there was a metre long scar down the passenger side. Idiot. Tristan lobbed a smoke grenade into the car with Karl and their driving became erratic to say the least. Foxx couldn’t resist playing with their new toy and vaporised the head of the drive! They’re a cold one, that Foxx, didn't bat an eyelid. The car flipped and everybody in it started falling. I gunned the engine and sped straight down. I’ll never forget it! We flew past Karl who still had a bag over his head and we could now see had his hands tied as well. As I flew past him the guys, Tristan and Noah I think, but I’m not sure, I was kind of busy not killing everyone, reached out and grabbed him. The others from that car hit the ground with a splat. We could hear police sirens by this point and I got us out of there as quickly as the local speed limit allowed, as we blended back into the background traffic. Of course Foxx had the whole things on camera. They had their new PRIS/DDR glasses on, same and Noah and I. They edited as a loop and stuck it on a Datanet feed or something. Miskom laughed his tits off when he saw it. Yeah, Miskom survived his heart attack. We took Karl to the hospital and had made friends of the captains who knew Karl. Hortal couldn’t praise us enough and Demorden was particularly vocal in her pleasure at seeing Karl again. There’s something going on there, if I’m any judge. Anyway, they stuck Karl in a room next to Miskom. Karl was pretty banged up. They had tried to get information about us out of him and he had done his best to resist. One eye was completely shut his face was so swollen. A couple of fingers looked broken, as well. We felt more determined to bring down Drasser and Brocero than ever.</blockquote>

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