Fully refreshed now, the party members assembled for breakfast at 08.00 in order to decide upon their plans for the day.
Max is already busy – he calls Autumn and tells them that Gerald will be sending a truck to pick up the artwork and to let them have it. Once she has overseen the collection, he tells her to lock up and come to The Excelsior as she is getting cabin fever alone on the ship.
Stian asks him to ask her if she has contact details for the merc who traveled with them from Noctocol. She says that he didn’t have a commo though and so she doesn’t.
Max tells the others that he really needs to start looking for buyers for the trade goods and so the others will have to look after themselves for the day. With that, he finishes the last of his breakfast and heads off.
The party members discuss their plans for the day.
“Well then Gents, shall we take a stroll down to see the crewmen from the ships who have been staying in lower Lomburing for the past week, carousing in the tourist taverns and generally making a nuisance of themselves while trying to recruit new crew members?” Grim asks.
Stian agrees, but suggests that just a couple of them try the infiltration. Grim agrees, volunteering to be one of the two as he has good powers of persuasion and would be in a position to do some harm to the ships from the inside as an Engineer.
“It’d be good to know that the star port on the other side of the planet is being set up by who Zos say’s it is,” suggests Stian. “That there maybe a layer or two between who’s doing the work and who’s funding it/actually behind it would need some kind of investigative skills or hacking. Can Taeva cover that? I know Will can but why would anyone hire him as a security guard? Unless Grim can convince them that Will is his love toy and the two cannot be separated…”
The party realizes that they have a while to finalize their plans as there is little point starting to hit the bar before evening time.
Autumn arrives shortly after lunch, having successfully overseen collection of the artwork. Max arrives back in the late afternoon, looking quite happy:
“Gerald introduced me to the main merchants here,” he says. “I have unloaded the Ruthenium and Fusion Conduits already – made Cr. 310,000 across the pair of them. The offer on the isotopes and tools weren’t good enough so I left them. Gerald will introduce me to another buyer tomorrow anyway. We have over Cr. 5 million on hand and assets of Cr. 7 million, so we’re not doing too badly even if we have to hand onto them for a while.”
The party members return to the subject of how best to undertake the task that they have been given by Zos. Over the course of the conversation, they decide that attempting to infiltrate the TTC here in Lomburing is just too risky – there is a good chance that the mercenary that they brought from Noctocol will have joined up with them already and, if this is the case, the game would be up before it began. So instead they decide to go for a full-on assault of the TTC Base, which will require the assistance of the Aslandables. They also decide that a reconnaissance of the base will also be useful. It’s too late in the day to arrange either of these actions now and so they decide to leave it for the following day.
As a result, they have a quiet night in at the hotel, ready to make an early start in the morning.
Comments
At the Tavern later that evening…
Jie, realizing that if Zos was going to screw the team over, could do so easily as defacto ruler of Flexos. She comes up with this back-up plan after a few shots of whisky.
“I can stay behind and hidden. I have a fair knowledge of Survival and Stealth so as you all infiltrate the TTC compound I could remain here to set up a watch of sorts on Zos and his activities. I excel at Communications and Sensors so I’ll be monitoring the airwave chatter between Zos, his Aslandable Mercs and the TTC bigwigs. Any suspicious activity will send me to relay you guys a warning message, blab the news about the Find to our friend the Imperial Baronett and protect Max and Autumn.” She says as she pets ‘Black Betty’ fondly. A little later after the overly powerful Gin and tonics hit her, Jie comments about this plan.
“Although Grim has a manly mane of back hair that even the most experienced Holo-Porn starlet would become weak in the knees to run her fingers through, you needn’t use that as an excuse to bring the Captain with you. Will here has often regaled the passengers with his stories of when he used to work as a Construction Tradesman. To the TTC, he would be the most valuable of you all.” With that Jie orders up and drinks down 5 shots of scotch, which has the effect of making her more empathetic to the Aslandables.
“We Shhcould try to influence the loyalty of Zoshh’s home Merc’s, the Ashhlanbbils, with the second Patrol craft. If Zoshhie’s influence runs strong with the Vargr of Whaalston there would be a good place to kill us, there. Some Ahsslan back-up might do us well in Whaalshton. I’m shhure the dudes gonna do the fightin’ ain’t got no skillz at flyin’ a Shtarship, but maybe their females who might have followed them here do? Grimm-y here could use the piratical puppy pirate’s base to swap out Manuver drives and the Lil’ Kitties who like us will enshhure everything remains tip-top…” With that the inebriated Ex-Marine orders a round of 15 shots of Tequeila for everybody. Those who know her best know that this is often the last call. However just before Jie passes out she has an amazingly poignant insight into the existence of a real ‘Ancients’ ship and what this means for all of Humaniti.
“ Boss recon it’s too mouther to dos the barfly…’KICK OUT THE JAMMS, motherfucker!!” Then she vomits on Max’s shoulder and passes out.
Hey guys, I mearly come up with this plan because I probibly won’t be there for next Sundays game. Jie can be used as back-up insurance while you have all the fun. Good luck !!
Taeva isn’t an investigator- more of a breaker and enterer. She can use computers but for actual hacking she is probably best sitting down and Will remote guiding her via DDR.
One issue with infiltration is that the merc guy would likely have hired on and could thus recognise us.
It depends on security of course but might be better with other insiders. With their intel. Taeva then infiltrates in (dropping a bag of their weapons), disables stuff, plants charges, the team preps, before the Big Off.
It is possible that some remote/ ground recon might give all of the layout we need (possibly pretty lax, you never know).
What else is over by the new star port? Are the TTC planning a new city? If most people are living in the place we are now, close to the existing down port, why did the TTC build it so far away? Zos said something about the original plan but what’s that changing to now they’re building something to challenge Zos?
Taeva, when you say other intruders, who do you mean?
I know I sat down with the merc and botanist, did we all?
I have updated the map on the Flexos Wiki to show the location of both the TTC Base and also the Ancient Ship.
The TTC were originally given the rights to build a starport on one of the moons of the gas giant – a waystation between Trexalon and their Swordie allies.
Zos guesses that they built it so far away from Lomburing and the other few population centres so as to keep it secret. More than this, he doesn’t know.
Apart from their being allies, what do we know about the TTC/Sword Worlds relationship?
I meant ‘someone hire on just to feed data to us’. I can then use this to break in and find/ do stuff (with all my fancy stealth gear).
Sorry Lads, but I have been very busy all week. Will try and create an Aslan for tomorrow (thinking his name is Cow’Ardly) but, based on all the weird lingo you’ve been throwing around I doubt I’ll be able to comprehend enough in 20 minutes or so to get it done. Ian, do you have a spare puddy-cat I can borrow if necessary?
Also, I can only play until 12h30 (3.5 hours) tomorrow. Apologies.
Jay
Done and done. Meet Ch’ur (pronounced cur), the very opposite of the cowardly lion, lol.
The Aslandables Heavy Weapons expert, he is enormously strong…
I can’t but help think that Zos has us on ye olde iron trail…
? (missed the reference Tim :)
I wasn’t there for the ending yesterday, but I assume we won? lol! How did the Aslandables fare?
In any case, did we come to a decision about the second ship?
Ian