The Count’s Gambit, Part Three

• On Quopist, having just repulsed the initial boarding team from the Dzarukh, the crew contemplates counter-boarding but Haank orders them to hold. At the same time, Lee abruptly shouts for them to brace!
• As the Miss Adventure struggles to dodge, the Dzarukh tears free of the connecting umbilical, opening fire with one of the laser turrets. Eddy, who is outside the Adventure witnesses this, noting also that the corsair’s other turret is spraying fire in a different direction. He also observes several of the vargr who were boarding the Adventure come tumbling out; many of them are instantly incinerated by the engine backwash.
• It quickly becomes apparent that Resolute has dispatched fighters and the corsair is fleeing from them, but the damage to the Adventure is fairly significant … and Aris has been killed by an exploding panel. (To him, though, there was a massive power surge and now he seems trapped in the virtual headspace that he went to while remote-piloting his drone, Jim…)
• The Adventure limps toward the Resolute, which is in a geosynchronous orbit above Tel Bollin, the single major city on Quopist, and is allowed to land upon the massive warship. Soon after, Ella and Haank are escorted to meet with the ship commander, Angela Krin, though Haank knows her by a different name from their time at University: Elana Shankarr Muudashir, the heir to Duchess Delphine of Mora. Commander Krin advises them they are not allowed to land dirtside due to the quarantine, though she is greatly interested in information on the vargr corsair. This leads Ella and Haank to suggest she speak with Sae who knows a great deal more about them, which she will do later in great detail, a meeting that culminates in her shifting Sae’s Scout status from Detached to Active.
• Commander Krin assembles the Adventure crew – sans Ella, who is somewhat shaken by Aris’ apparent death … although by now, the Aris-driven drone has related his strange predicament – and advises Haank (who she calls “Henri,” much to the crew’s continued amusement) that she will allow some of them to go dirtside while the rest remain on the ship to conduct repairs to the Adventure; in return, the crew will halp her locate and seize the vargr corsair.
• The following morning, Haank leads his team consisting of Ar-Jim (the drone that may or may not contain Aris’ consciousness), Armin, Buck, Eddy, Sae and Doctor Lewys dirtside via an automated landing shuttle carrying supplies where they promptly discover Tel Bollin to be a miserable, wretched place thanks to the ongoing outbreak. Despite the fact that this is normally a ‘high law’ world, the security personnel are stretched too thin to care about blatant displays of weapons.
• With Eddy convinced he can ‘find a guy,’ they set out where they encounter several afflicted fellows and negotiate. One of them is rather untrustworthy so Sae punches the man rather fiercely and sends him running. The others led the crew to Skydove Freight which is owned by the count; they discover is ransacked but find hints pointing them toward the Fallen Warrior cantina.
• In the cantina, they find one of Lord Mika’s bodyguards, Orgamon, who is currently visibly afflicted with the plague and unconscious; a band of tempest-abusing gang members are harassing the poor man and Haank’s initial, quasi-diplomatic efforts to handle this without violence quickly go south. Because some of the crew have already had bad experiences with such addicts, they open up with lethal fire (much to Haank’s chagrin.) In seconds, the last of the addicts is down, either dead or dying, with the crew wholly unscathed…

GM Notes:

• I kind of messed up the opening scene. It was clear in my head what I wanted to do, but game-time came and I botched it.That’s turning into a very frustrating pattern.
• Mel is looking to retire Ella, so this was part of her phasing the character out. I thought she would have her be injured in the opening bit, but she decided against it. She’s taking over Armin since Loki is absent and we’ve already started a discussion about how we handle the captain leaving (since technically, Haank is the number two and nobody, not even his player, wants him to be in charger; there is some consideration of Haank picking up a Ally to act as the captain.) Aris being killed and then being stuck in the drone was something Andricus and I have discussed in the past and this was just a good opportunity for it.
• I’m retrofitting the Star Wars d20 adventure module, “Tempest Feud” for this although I’m definitely making some tweaks and adjustments to fit better.
• Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..