The Marshall Cooperative (T20)

We got into Cassel's apartment, and it turns out he left us a few clues...we followed them far enough to realize we need to go to one of Uzdiki's moons. We may have to run off to some far-flung water world, but first we need to get smuggled off-world.

Follow up:

January 17, 2010

Mike tells us that we should get personal medikits. They are in THB004, and are expensive but long story short, they provide antitoxin on demand and double the natural healing rate. 15k to purchase, 500 to reload every 4 weeks.

Combat: to hit: d20 + dex + bab, never strength.
Damage: If you hit, roll damage. Deal damage to stamina. Also it may do lifeblood. Remove 1 die per point of AR, starting with lowest rolls first. Reduce down to 1 die, then subtract any AR remaining. If anything reduces damage below 1, no damage. If you attack a vehicle with personal weapons, drop five dice. If you attack a starship, drop 10 dice. Vehicles attacking personnel add 10 dice. Vehicles attacking starships lose 5 dice. Starships attacking people ignore armor *and* add 10 dice. Starships attacking vehicles add 5 dice and roll twice on structural damage table.

We run a mock combat. The first question brought up is how to handle making your save vs. grenades and dealing with armor – do you halve the number of dice, or do you halve the damage dealt after armor is applied? To make it simple, do the damage just like normal, and then cut the damage in half at the end. (so 6d6 vs. 4 armor, drop four dice, take the last two, then cut the damage in half).

If you are specialized in a weapon, you add damage but only to stamina.
If you are using AP rounds, subtract armor rating from the target. So when Sergey shoots +2 AP rounds at Jose, he has the equivalent of 2 armor.

Running out of stamina puts you unconscious, further damage is applied to lifeblood. Zero to -9 lifeblood means you can make a will save to stay conscious, and a fort save to avoid bleeding.

We use normal d20 rules for missed thrown weapons (d8 direction, d6 squares). Reloading is a move action.

Being flat-footed means you are short your dex bonus.

At the end of last game, we had decided a few things. We talked about searching Cassel’s apartment and determined that his father may want to help us. We can’t find his girlfriend, and the family estate will not help us. There has been no gossip about Cassel’s disappearance. As far as people in the know, Alexia Nightingale may know something—but it’s really remarkable she hasn’t said anything. Has she been bought off, or is she involved?

Cassel’s place is nice enough but does not have any active surveillance or security. His apartment will have locks, of course. The IFIS has certainly searched it; if Cassel is there, they know about it.

Cassel took as much money as he was able to without asking the Board, which would be bloody unlikely. He took the easy, quick cash and split. Why would he have needed that so quickly? Some kind of illegal activity? We don’t know of any unsavory activities in his past, though. He’s not that industrious, but has to work some of the time. Constance is a pretty upstanding person, as far as we know, so it’s not that likely she’s in trouble.

We don’t know why he left or why he sent us a note, which is troubling. As far as John Sage, he has occasionally been accused of profiteering. His business isn’t that dirty, but isn’t squeaky clean either. We don’t do anything the rest of the night, and in the morning we roll up to Wiley deMessul’s place. There is a landscape guy working here.

We come to the place, and Wiley meets us at the door. He’s eating at the time. His housekeeper, Anna, is tending to him. Introductions, etc. Cas spoke highly of us; Wiley was there at the launch ceremony.

He mentions, “If anyone tells you to reach into a thresher and it’s ok, they’re lying.” He used to do some farming back in the day. These days, it’s cheaper to get things from offworld.

Wiley doesn’t like “that son of a bitch from the IFIS”. He had to call in some favors to get Derkins off his back – there was even a surveillance van outside, strangely. Even the gardener asked that!

Seems unusual for the IFIS to be *that* ham-handed. Maybe there was a bug placed here? Wiley doesn’t care. He does play poker once or twice a week but not for real money. His friends don’t have it.

Cassel never said anything about leaving. He hadn’t seen Cas for a few days prior to the disappearance. He was waiting for the party to come back, but that’s mostly a work thing we figure. Siblings didn’t have much to say to the IFIS. Fisher had dinner with Cas the night before he disappeared and said he didn’t seem too out of sorts.

He hasn’t seen Constance since Cas disappeared. He had spoken with Constance’s assistant recently but not Constance herself. Aloyisia (Wiley’s daughter) tried to contact Constance (with connections to the Navy) but no luck.

Is Constance with him? Well, Cas does well enough for himself but he’s not that rich. She’s not gold-digging on him.

Wiley only saw Baron Sage once; Cas never said much about Sage being angry that Constance was dating down.

The papers had plenty about Cas for days, but not recently. News gets old quickly. Anders, Wiley’s son-in-law (the naval officer) sent over some recruits to help keep the camera crews away.

What about the Moot courier box? Wiley sounds surprised that he was able to get his hands on one. So are we. The only person in the Moot that Cassel associates with is Angel and Juho Tukannen (on the board) or someone friendly to them. If you needed to get a box stolen and re-inserted it would be a couple hundred k.

He gives us a keycard to get into Cassel’s place and says that we have a lot more to lose than the IFIS, so we are more interested. He says we can call or stop out if we need anything. This has been hard on the family…Fisher’s been drinking, Aloyisia is upset, and he’s not sure what James is up to.

We head over to Cassel’s pad. Jack drives behind us in his motorcycle. It’s 11 am or so. We go in the front door with the keypad. Our driver stays outside by the vehicle. There’s no one watching this place, but a tiny bug on a different building will do a sufficient job.

We go inside; the house automation system says, “Welcome Wiley!”

The place is trashed. If it was in a drawer, it isn’t anymore. No one obviously broke in, but you could hack the door. His lock system is better than most of those in the building, though. Perhaps it was the cops, especially the IFIS. Stuff isn’t broken but the place is a shambles. The initial sweep shows his computer is missing…monitor is there etc but CPU is not.

We shake the place down (Search 32) – this takes 4 hours, but we find some stuff.

On the floor by the desk we find a picture of the party and crew of Rainwind, clearly before the mission. Digital picture. On the back is a sticker: 2-2148 (second year of reign, year 2148), TMC, the Serien Spire. Jack knows what this is – a monument to the Emperor Serien of the 2nd empire, giant black spire. Top is hollowed out and will shine the sun on a stylized Sol (from the Empire of Man). This is a Uzdiki planetary park in the middle of the park. The picture was not taken at that Spire…nowhere to set Rainwind down. We remember the shot but not being at the Spire. We pull off the note and there is a tiny quill – the end tip of a porcuswine quill. There are porcuswine on planet. The quill doesn’t feel smooth. We hand that over to Sergey and he checks it out. We pack the quill up and take it.

The Spire is in a city called The Dry Sea; Jack was there in grade school.

Everything else in this place looks like ordinary stuff. We do figure that he took clothing; there isn’t enough stuff here for him to have disappeared. We didn’t find any bugs in here.

It looks like someone took all the perishable food out of here. Maybe it was thrown out by someone?

What about building security…can we find the surveillance tapes? Not from here, you can’t. Nelson tries to access the security cams from the door panel. He finds that a local security firm monitors the security so data is off-site. The building super probably has access to the tapes. Sergey and Jack drive out to TMC residence to analyze the quill.

We find the super and shut him up quickly before he turns us down.

The IFIS was here twice, once to look and once to tear it apart. Derkin was with them a couple of times.

The super gives us the footage on a data stick. 3rd floor feed, lobby feed, 3rd floor stairwell feed. Wiley is paying the rent. Fisher has been by a few times; he cleaned the fridge out. We slide the super a couple hundred bucks and he agrees to let us know if someone comes looking.

We head to TMC house to meet up with Sergey.

The porcuswine quill has been engraved:

Lady,
False darkness at 10, barbeque on the quill.

Nothing else interesting. If we are worried about the shadow moving around based on time of year, we can maybe estimate the shadow. There are a lot of buildings that will be under the shadow (small quad, tall spire) – there is a BBQ joint, Ray and Miron’s Blasted Pig.

Can we get to the Blasted Pig tonight? The place is “open until close”. This is a well-respected barbeque joint.

We head to the shuttleport and prepare to depart for Dry Sea. We have a swanky shuttle…extra bags with Jose, Jack, and the Marquesa. Amaryllis got us some clothing packed.

We have a nice flight with complimentary drinks. We watch the local news while we fly; mid-flight, Amaryllis calls Angel and lets her know to call if she needs anything. We land and get in another shuttle and head out to Ray and Miron’s Blasted Pig.

We head inside Ray’s. We apparently have a reservation thanks to Amaryllis. The place is pretty standard except for one booth made entirely out of porcuswine quills. There are a few people in here but the porcuswine table is empty.

We can sit there since we’re true barbeque lovers, and Ray remembers us from the papers. He eagerly awaits the porcuswine from Gigakuuli. Table is 450 years old, supposedly from an Imperial Shuttle…been here for 30 years.

We don’t see anything while looking around on the table. We can’t see the spire from here. The shadow will be over the building around 10 am the next day.

Angel mentions that Cassel recommended the place. Dude knows that Cassel’s in trouble. Has he been in here? We show a picture on the hand-comp; he recognizes Cassel and had his girl. He spent most of the night, talked about the Spire, (slow night, spent a lot of time).

There is a stairway up to the top of the spire, but they closed it down years ago.

Jose takes a trip to the restroom and finds something interesting…there is a spire drawing, a weird symbol that kind of looks like a bird with a carat pointing town (the tail). We’ve seen that before…the marquesa wears it on her shoulder (a symbol) – the symbol of House Rigatos. The way it’s drawn indicates Angel, the daughter. It is faint and poorly drawn, but it’s there.

When we’re done, we get a picture of Ray and the Marquesa for the wall. Cassel and Constance are not on the picture. We depart and go cruise around the spire quickly. It’s large and black; no doors. There is a visitor’s center on one side of the square. There is an engraving on the spire, and some informational placards. It’s all touristy historical stuff; it mentions the Emperor was killed by Villani rebels (or freedom-fighters, depending who you talk to).

We head to the Imperial Hilton downtown. We break for the evening and will head out to the Spire at 7:30.

3-2148, March 19: 6:30 AM, Amaryllis calls Angel. Apparently Edward Derkin stopped by Amaryllis’s office; she lawyered up and Derkin didn’t ask too many questions. She also had Bob (one of our security guys) there.

After the phone call, it’s a maid with breakfast. She also helps Angel dress, which is a little odd considering she’s been off-world for so long. One of them helps Angel with her hair.

Mike: Going with the action ponytail today?

In the morning, Len meets us with his limo. He takes us to the Spire, and we’ll call him when we’re ready to leave.

The spire is very impressive in the sunlight; there is gold surrounding the Sol. The tower certainly does cast a shadow. There is a car in the lot so someone is certainly working yet. We roust the guy and mention that the Marquesa would like a private tour; a little bribery and a waiver and she’s there.

The inside staircase is a little rickety but safe. The dude goes up to polish the golden Sol (the real gold was stolen). There once was an old floorless antigrav lift but was replaced with stairs. It would be expensive to replace and it’s not very accessible to old people, kids, etc. And this hasn’t been a premier Imperial attraction.

Dude’s been here for about 20 years. Jack mentions that a friend of ours came in a year ago; he says that special requests are not that uncommon. He doesn’t recognize Cassel.

We go through the service entrance and up into the tower. We guide ourselves up inside; we can go up but he would like to avoid us being seen. Then he leaves us alone.

The inside of the tower is cylindrical; this thing was pretty fancy once upon a time. It’s also lined with tarnished gold-replacement (real gold was stolen). The internal metal for the antigrav lift has also not been tended to.

We climb to the top of the tower and look around. The view of the city is nice. We spot Ray’s place with the neon porcuswine on it.

We look out the view, and eventually find a datacard on the underside of the ledge. We nab that.
Two files: 001 is a briefing and biological profile of an unusual species of kelp, gnass kelp. It forms a big mat on waterworld called Sashlunsdham (delta quadrant of Iliash sector). The kelp has the unusual property of being manipulated to perform crude computing. There are experiments where people have made legitimate computers from the kelp.

002 is about Mansileer semiconductor project brief: Project Reclamation, billion-bit something about securing galactic communication. Summary talks about using certain materials in development by Rourke David Sinnon Sather at Mansileer to resecure hyperspace communication between worlds of the 4th Imperium. Technical detail talks about using gnass kelp to create the biological non-silicon computer – which in theory can’t transmit the virus. No results yet, obviously. They want money…initial investment is 500 million credits. Mansileer is not on the board; looking them up, a division of Sage Industries. RDSS is one of the Imperium’s smartest guys; he founded Mansileer which was bought out by Sage. He’s the chief technology architect for 15 years. Dude has done a lot of stuff; he’s wicked smart.

No obvious secret files on the chip based on the hand computer. Date is about 24 months ago.

Well, do we go see Sage? K: corp politics: We are holding dated, but extremely sensitive data. Sensitive to Sage *and* the Empire itself. This would be an unbelievable asset *and* very lucrative. It will turn the existing business system upside down. Anyone who knows this is coming will be ready to make a lot of money.

However, there is no proof of concepts (and the docs talk about difficulties in growing the kelp interface).

The planet was known from the 3rd Imperium. The kelp was exported from time to time along with fish. You can grow the kelp offworld but it only goes a couple generations as a scientific curiosity. It’s not particularly nutritious, though.

Sashlunsdham: hex 2027, EA8A8DB-4 Wa 414 Na G2 V

We head out back to Anpanman (sp); Nelson feels a need to get some BBQ to go.

Rooting through the datacard, there is a planetary coordinate that doesn’t fit Uzdiki. It *would* mean something on the third moon of Uzdiki, however.

There is no indication of anything known in that spot. The moon has two domed towns near mines. It’s not heavily populated. Mineral survey maps show an old mine there. There was a mining concern there with a sealed underground operation, but it’s been unused for 400 years. Listed as a possession of Cantwell Oberstein Minerals (a huge mining company). They are also on the board of directors.

¾ std grav, no atmo. The moon has been thoroughly exploited. The mines are mining iron and nickel at this point because it’s abundant, serves local needs, and it’s easier than an asteroid. Uzdiki’s main moon has a population, and this dump doesn’t have anything.

Is there a legitimate travel there? No, only those authorized by Cantwell (since they have the mining rights). No public flights, but Cantwell probably has a lot of flights. Annie Genuwin is the lady we need to speak to. We could also sneak into a free trader. Before we go sneaking anywhere, this is some surprising stuff and we are potentially in trouble if we get caught with it.

Basically there is no legit reason we have to ask Annie. If we go there, we have to sneak there. We could get a free trader to go there. However, we’d need a system boat to go there for ore trading.

If we stay away from the mines, the Cantwells won’t know we’re there. If we land on there, the Empire probably won’t care.

Jose calls up Cade and arranges a meeting in some bar later in the evening.

We still don’t know anything about Cassel’s motivations for disappearing. We suspect we know what he’s involved (or interested in).

RDSS is well-known and respected in academic circles, but he’s also kind of a jackass, politically radical (pro-empire), wildly erratic (he’s disappeared for months at a time), and he has poor business acumen. His deal with Sage is good though because he doesn’t have to worry about the little details (meaning everything but research). Sued for sexual harassment 6 or 7 times, public indecency, disturbing the peace, and up to inciting a riot after the 2nd battle of Gateway (Emperor Lucan fought the Dominate with the Empire and won). He’s a complete nutbar, but brilliant.

Proposed size of the kelp computer is too large for ship-to-ship (maybe warships), but would be fine for planetary stuff.

There has been no public work from this guy in two years (so he’s unlikely to be on-planet).

The coordinates were hidden on the card, not in the files. It’s likely that Cassel put them there (it wasn’t RDSS, for sure). The technology to do the research on the kelp is likely available on Uzdiki but not the moon…so either RDSS is hiding or he’s gone to the kelp planet. He is missing from the tabloids for about the right time that he’d be gone off-planet (or doing research here). His pattern has happened in the past, as well. We figure RDSS is hiding in a lab somewhere. We’d need to talk to Sage for access, and we may not want to admit what we know.

We suspect that Cassel and Constance may have found out about this kelp computer and things got too hot. If we talk to Sage, he may be able to get us in trouble.

Next week we’ll talk to Cade about passage to the moon because we don’t want to talk to Sage yet. We may be able to talk to RDSS if we can find him.

XP: 350 to all.