>>453245

Once you make contact no effort is required to read her intentions. They come to you of their own accord, as the girl evidently makes no effort to guard her thoughts. In fact, they practically force themselves at you. You glean that she wants you to maneuver the guard over to the cell so she can knock him unconscious. You HAVE to move him over to the cell to knock him unconscious. You cut the connection off quickly, shaking off the growing sensation of your mind being aflame.

Well, that seems somewhat reasonable. You certainly need to do something. The guard is liable to shoot you if you don't, or worse, tell the rest of the crew you're here.

Acting quickly you decide to play to your strengths. You:

>Agree with the girl's plan. You try to subtly influence the man to move closer to the cell. You have a lot of experience dealing with people who are in over their heads like he is. Gain Skill: [Espionage (Adept +2), Discipline: Manipulation (Expert +3)] Gain Trait: [Familiarity: Mind Reading]
>Decide to deal with this on your own. You'll just punch the man's lights out. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Precision (Expert +3)] Gain Trait: [Familiarity: Unarmed Fighting]
>Try to talk the man down. He clearly doesn't understand how powerful his prisoner is, nor is he really high ranking. You can probably fool him into letting you walk away. Gain Skill: [Diplomacy (Adept +2), Discipline: Negotiation (Expert +3)] Gain Trait: [Knowledge: Time/Spirit Focus]
>Write-in

>(Note: These options are sort of like character creation, they determine some of who the character is. If a write-in option wins, I'll think of an appropriate skill/discipline and trait for it with equal value to the default options. The option with the majority of the votes is the one that gets chosen, but I reserve the right to ignore write-ins that don't make sense. I'll try to explain why if I ever resort to that.)
>(You'll get more of these choices as this session progresses and skills that you pass up on now might show up in a later choice, so don't worry about missing out on something.)

>It is currently Tuesday April 21, 3514, because there's no better time to ruin someone's day than a Tuesday.

>>453248
>Decide to deal with this on your own. You'll just punch the man's lights out. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Precision (Expert +3)] Gain Trait: [Familiarity: Unarmed Fighting]

>>453248
>>Agree with the girl's plan. You try to subtly influence the man to move closer to the cell. You have a lot of experience dealing with people who are in over their heads like he is. Gain Skill: [Espionage (Adept +2), Discipline: Manipulation (Expert +3)] Gain Trait: [Familiarity: Mind Reading]

>>453272
>>453281

Alright, It's been 20ish minutes and it seems we have a tie. Do you guys want to wait for a third vote or should I roll a d2 or something?

>>453248
>>Agree with the girl's plan.
Voting espionage for increased chance of complicated plot shenanigins later.

Alright we have a majority!

>Agree with the girl's plan. Try to subtly influence the man to move closer to the cell.

Now we need rolls to see how well you manage to trick this guy into moving into choke range of the brig cell.

Roll For Me: 3d10+18(Espionage: +2 Adept & +3 Expert Manipulation, Focus: +2 Adept & +3 Expert Perception/Mind, +2 Navigator, +2 Perception/Mind Focus, +4 Familiarity: Mind Reading)
vs DC 27(Base DC 15 Minor Manipulation, Scouting: +2 Adept & +2 Adept Detection, +2 Familiarity: Guard Duty, Espionage: +0 Novice & -2 Undisciplined Resiliance, +4 circumstance(warned), +4 circumstance(gun pointed at you))

The first 3 3d10 rolls are taken. You get a chance to spend Focus to bring rolls up to the DC if they don't make it. It's a dice system stolen (affectionately) directly from Banished Quest.

Rolled 9, 4, 1 + 8 = 22 (3d10 + 8)

>>453337

Rolled 8, 2, 5 = 15 (3d10)

>>453337

Rolled 9, 9, 7 + 18 = 43 (3d10 + 18)

>>453337

Rolled 7, 17, 16 + 18 = 58 (3d20 + 18)

>>453337

>>453366
>>453367
>>453379

>32, 33, 43 VS DC 27
>Great Success (3/3 rolls equal to or above the DC)
>easily because this was the option with the lowest effective DC: 9

I'll get to writing.

You think the girl has the right idea. You've got quite a bit of experience with high tension situations. You'll want to get a better read on man, so you break out your first resort: invading his mind. You gaze intently at your armbad for a moment, allowing it to bring you into a sort of trancelike state. The world goes out of focus a bit before resolving on the man in front of you.

You start with the most poignant question. At what point is this man going to be worried enough to call for backup. In return, you get a glimpse of his situation. This ship is his first ever. He's a midworlder, comes from the planet Somnia from this system. You catch a glimpse of a worn down house in a sort of ruined suburban area, roads are cracked and vegetation creeps through them, but there're still lights, still people. There's a name. His name: James Raleigh. It's accompanied by farewells. His family is seeing him off, happy but also somewhat... afraid? He's green, inexperienced, nervous about failing, disappointing his family. That's not all. He fears danger, death. More than anything else he's afraid of never going home.

There. That's what you were looking for. He's liable to call backup at a moment's notice, but before then you can cow him into submission. He's already been told about your attack on Morne's cruiser, so he has a healthy amount of fear of you.

"Of course I destroyed that cruiser. It was easy, honestly. What are you going to do about it, James?" You make a show of being disinterested, checking out the decrepit ceiling paneling and exposed wiring. You took a while to respond, and you need to scare him as well. You circle in the room slightly, positioning him in between you and the cell.

"H-how?" He responds.

"Do you want me to show you?" You take a step towards him. "I could, right now."

He's quaking in his boots. He takes a couple steps back, right into the girl's waiting arms! She pulls him bodily into bars of the cell and twists his arm at a painful angle. He wails in pain and drops his gun. It clatters to the dusty plated floor. She puts him in a stranglehold, arm around his neck, pulling him towards the bars of the cell. He gasps for air and reaches with his unrestrained arm for his comm. Seeing this, you move quickly. You snatch the thing off his belt before he can even touch it. You consider pocketing it for a moment, but decide against it when you realize that the people on the bridge might be confused as to why their prison guard decided to abandon his post and take a look at the records room at the far edge of the ship. You place the comm on the small table in the center of the room as the man collapses to the floor, unconscious. You can see the girl's pleased face looming over him.

She speaks. "Hey, thanks for the save, old man. Nice t' meet ya. Did you really destroy a cruiser like that guy said? That's so cool! Why are you here? Are you fighting the Somnius? Oh, my name's Araella by the way. What's yours?"

>1/3

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>>453486
"Call me Nathan." You respond. "We need to move quickly. Where are they keeping your pistols?"

She hesitates for a moment, confused. "In the lockers. That guy has the keys. Hey, do you know me or something? How'd you know I use--"

"Energy pistols? I read that information from your mind." You search the man for his keys, finding them in his jacket pocket. Not really having a good place of your own to put them, you toss them to Araella, picking up the man's pistol and holstering it for good measure. "Though I don't know why you're here. This isn't a slaving ship. Why would you be jailed here?"

She opens up her cell and walks over to the lockers. They're beaten and battered, much like everything else on this ship.

"I'm here to steal something. Actually you must be a Navigator right? If you read my mind?" She responds.

She unlocks the least dilapidated locker and pulls out a pair of laser pistols. They have a fairly old design, you think, though you're not particularly well versed in energy weaponry. It's always struck you as too unreliable. Araella is a spirit based Navigator though, so she probably doesn't have that issue. She spins one of them around her finger, then holsters both.

You respond to the affirmative.

"Right." She says. "Well I want to become a Navigator, and I happen to know that there's an unbound Trinket on this ship. I came here to steal it and bond with it. I figured that stealing's ok as long as it's from pirates, and it's not like I was ever going to get into an academy or anything. I don't even have a last name."

She wants to become a navigator? That can't be right. Most Navigators never even get close to the kind of power that her passive defenses had. She must be a navigator. But she couldn't have bonded with a Trinket without realizing it. Is she lying then? You lay a hand on your trinket and reach out again for her mind, prepared for her burning defenses. Once you pass them, information about her comes readily. You filter it out, seeking only one thing. No, she legitimately believes she's not a Navigator. How could that be?

"So why are you here?" She follows up.

You really ought to get moving. "Walk with me while we talk." You say. "I'll take point but you'll need to be prepared to shoot if we come up on anyone."

"Got it." She responds enthusiastically.

"Anyways I'm also here to steal something. This is a recordship, and there's a particular record that I'm looking for." You respond.

"Huh" She looks you up and down, examining your outfit.

You're wearing your exosuit, though you've retracted the helmet since you're on a ship. It's rather large and bulky, but it needs to be in order to survive explosions like the one you put it through a few minutes ago. You've also modified the right gauntlet to accomodate your Trinket, a small bracelet with a blue triangle on its face.

>2/3

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>>453488
"Must be important. Say, did you really destroy a Somnius cruiser? How'd you do it? Where's your ship? What's your crew like? Ooh. Can I join?" She fires off a bunch of questions.

She's practically vibrating with excitement. You can actually feel the pressure of it on your mind without even reaching out intentionally. Another Navigator without your experience might be thrown off, you can't imagine how much power someone with that kind of aura must have. She's not even revealed a Trinket, so she can't be doing this intentionally. This is all automatic. You shudder at that. Who is this girl?

After she stops talking, you continue walking in silence for a moment. She keeps looking at you, then at the ship, then back at you. You wait until you arrive in a corridor with a view of space. "Look out there. You say, gesturing."

Around you is the Somnius Flotilla. It's combat fleets have mustered around an enormous wreckage still in the process of exploding. It's greater hull is in pieces. Blooms of burning plasma flow from the ship, illuminating it's shattered components. Its internal systems have evidently been compromised, since there are secondary explosions happening in areas of the ship you never hit.

She is awestruck. "Do you have a fleet? How'd you do it?"

"I rammed it at speed. By aiming for the reactor I was able to cripple the ship with a single impact. The idea was to throw the Somnius fleet into disarray and distract them so I could get here. All it cost me was my starship."

"As for crew," you continue. "I don't have one..."


>"Yet." (Invite her to join you)

>"And I'm not looking for one. I work alone."

>"But maybe I could use some help, if you're competent. What do you bring to the table?"

>Write-in


Also, choose one:

>Mention that she's somehow already a Navigator.

>Wait and see if you can figure out what's up with her.

>Write-in?

>3/3

File: Araella_1.png (309 KB, 400x668)

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>>453486
>(Forgot picture for the first post)

>>453489
>"Yet." (Invite her to join you)
>Mention that she's somehow already a Navigator.

>>453489
>"But maybe I could use some help, if you're competent. What do you bring to the table?"
>Wait and see if you can figure out what's up with her.
I guess we'll be the Qui-Gon to her Anakin, or the Obi-Wan to her Luke

>>453489
>>"But maybe I could use some help, if you're competent. What do you bring to the table?"

We're clearly going to invite her to join, having a rundown of her abilities first would be nice though

>>453489
>>"But maybe I could use some help, if you're competent. What do you bring to the table?"
>>Write-in?
Don't tell her about her powerfullness in the middle of a job, she might get distracted.

>>453500
>>453501
>>453561
>>453562
Ok, so what I'm seeing here is.
>Ask her what she has to offer

and an even split between
>Tell her she already has space super powers
>Try to figure out the nature of her space magic abilities without telling her
>Don't reveal to her the full extent of her power

I think I can run with that, but would you rather say something and be vague or just not mention it at all and sort of humor her on the whole "Finding that unbound Trinket" thing she said she came here for.

>>453565
Don't mention it, humor her

>>453565
Humor her

>>453568
>>453575
Ok. Writing.

File: spacestationhallway_03.jpg (227 KB, 1000x500)

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"As for crew, I don't have one, but I suppose I might be able to use someone... skilled." You wink at her.

"...Oh." She says. "Well I'm not really looking to us my body like that. But I appreciate the offer I guess. It's flattering really. Thanks for saving me and all." She puts her hand behind her head awkwardly and gives a sort of nervous laugh.

"Whoa! Whoa. No. That is not what I meant." You scramble to correct the misinterpretation. "I mean what could you bring to a spaceship crew. Usually I'm hunting for ancient technology. It's dangerous. I end up in tough situations and don't want to deal with dead weight. As a crewmember, what skills could you offer me?"

"OH!" She looks down, blushing. "Oh I'm so sorry. I-I didn't mean to-- I--"

She takes a deep breath. "I'm good at a lot of things. I can aim really well and I know electronics well and I'm sneaky and uh..." She pauses. "I can run really fast too?" She raises the pitch of her voice with that last one, as though unsure as to whether it really counts.

"Alright." You say. "I'll consider you. We're working together to get out of here regardless, I'm sure you'll have an opportunity to demonstrate your abilities. We still need to steal my record. And find that trinket you mentioned." you bring up as an afterthought. "I can show you the ropes when we make our beacon jump out of here."

"Ooh, what system are we going to? Not Edura I assume."

"I still haven't figured that one out." You respond. You'll decide once you've gotten your transmission. You're playing this by ear, as per usual.

You keep walking until you finally reach the records room. It's way out of the way just like you expected, which is good because it means this is the right ship. No self-respecting records keeper would have the most important part of the ship be this far from its core, exposed and relatively hard to get to. Fortunately, these pirates are not self-respecting records keepers. It's very convenient for you that the transmission you're looking for is so innocuous, otherwise it might be stored on a less ramshackle ship. Yeah. It was definitely the right decision to board this ship and not try to break in to the Somnius home base to steal the records stored there.

>1/3

>>453631
You look around the room for an access terminal. The whole room is in a state of poor repair. Half the moniters are cracked and inactive. The rest flicker intermittently, displaying data that really means absolutely nothing as far as you can tell. If nobody's in here, then why is any of this stuff on in the first place? Regardless, you spot a point of access in the corner of the room, behind an old empty bookshelf. The wood and its faded polish really fail to give the room a rustic feel, considering everything else is metal or plastic, the roof is lined with wires and tubes, and the floor paneling worn and even bent in some locations. You walk over the uneven floor to the terminal, crouching down to use it since there are no chairs in here.

Araella follows, still brimming with excitement in spite of your dreary settings. She examines the monitors and wiring. She notices an exposed copper wire on the wall with most of the dysfuctional moniters and actually rips it out of its channel. You just look at her.

"What?" She says. "This is good copper."

You don't deign to respond, instead shifting your attention back to the monitor in front of you. Rather than actually use the built in interface, you opt to just access it with your Trinket. Really that makes everything a whole lot easier. You bring it into view and focus intently on it. You lay a hand on the computer, not because you need to but because it feels easier that way, and push your mental picture of your Trinket towards that of the computer. You are able to make a tenuous connection, but you still need to find what it is you're looking for. You specifically want a record that matches the ~600 year old encoding scheme of the transmission you found in the Viam System. The Somnius system is about 60 lightyears away from that one and the transmission there was received ~300 years ago. That means your window is about 240 to 360 years ago that the transmission could have been received. If you can match the encoding that should be enough. Most records don't intentionally communications directly from other systems because any transmission is going to be old and irrelevant at that point, if it can even be made out at all.

The bright side for you is that, as long as the encoding scheme matches, you can be fairly sure that your transmission is the same as the one on this ship, since most 600 year old encoding schemes don't show up in 300 year old messages.

>Skill Gained: [Archeotech (Grandmaster +5), Discipline: Communications (Grandmaster +5)]
>Traits gained: [Ancient Technician], [Beacon Hunter]

Unfortunately for you, the transmission is almost certainly garbled and nearly unrecognizable. Although the strongest part of the signal should be the part indicating the scheme, the signal still had to travel 300 or so lightyears to get here, so it's not going to have gotten here in any sort of good shape. Still, you'll find a way to work it out.

>2/3

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>>453632
You're on a time limit though. The Somnius don't take kindly to attacks. You know this all too well. And Morne knows you all too well. He'll know you're here for something and he'll have his men searching for you. This ship certainly won't be his first priority, but you can't wait here forever.

>Skill Gained: [Piloting (Expert +3), Discipline: Precision (Grandmaster +5)]

You need to find the record. Then you need to steal a ship. Then you need to make contact with the beacon in this system and teleport the fuck out.


>You'll do an extensive search of the archive, it'll hopefully be not that slow and you can just download the one transmission you need. Then you'll get out of there. Skill Gained: [Computers (Amateur +1), Discipline: Communications (Expert +3)]

>You'll just download the whole archive between 240 and 360 years ago. It might take a while, but it's easy. You can probably maintain this connection as you move about the ship, which will give you the chance to scope out potential excape possibilities and maybe find Araella's Trinket. Skill Gained: [Astrotech (Adept +2), Disciplines:Gating (Adept +2), Systems(Novice +0)]

>Fuck it. You'll just hijack the ship. It has the archives already. You'll just throw the crew in an escape pod and take this ship out of the system. This ship is pretty terrible, but you can start communicating with the beacon right now to set up your jump, which will mean a lot less time waiting to escape if the Somnius figure out you're here. Skill Gained: [Scouting (Amateur +1), Discipline: Detection (Expert +3)]

>Write-in


>(After you choose I'm also going to need 3 more rolls of 3d10+modifier.)
>3/3

>>453634
>>You'll just download the whole archive between 240 and 360 years ago. It might take a while, but it's easy. You can probably maintain this connection as you move about the ship, which will give you the chance to scope out potential excape possibilities and maybe find Araella's Trinket. Skill Gained: [Astrotech (Adept +2), Disciplines:Gating (Adept +2), Systems(Novice +0)]

>>453634
>>Fuck it. You'll just hijack the ship. It has the archives already. You'll just throw the crew in an escape pod and take this ship out of the system. This ship is pretty terrible, but you can start communicating with the beacon right now to set up your jump, which will mean a lot less time waiting to escape if the Somnius figure out you're here. Skill Gained: [Scouting (Amateur +1), Discipline: Detection (Expert +3)]
This seems like a super-simple solution to our problem. And the ship works, better than our old ship (which exploded into a million parts...).

Also: Really enjoyed reading up on this quest! We're the uber-telepaths that navigate the stars? Does everyone need those to travel? Or are there AIs that can help too?

>>453634
>beacon
Is that a target beacon we use to jump there? What keeps the pirates from following us then though? (they can detect beacons too, I assume?)

>>453634
>>Fuck it. You'll just hijack the ship.
You can always steal a better one later. Especially because you have lost the element of surprise now it will be harder to get on a different ship.

>>453634
>You'll just download the whole archive between 240 and 360 years ago. It might take a while, but it's easy. You can probably maintain this connection as you move about the ship, which will give you the chance to scope out potential excape possibilities and maybe find Araella's Trinket. Skill Gained: [Astrotech (Adept +2), Disciplines:Gating (Adept +2), Systems(Novice +0)]
Nope, don't trust the hardware.

>>453674
>lost the element of surprise
The fleet has to check on which ship we are though - and we haven't triggered an alarm yet.

I don wonder, how a pirate fleet gets this big... more like privateers or mercenaries, contracted to a regional power?

>>453667
>>453672

The way the galaxy works is that anyone can pilot a ship (well, as well as anyone could drive a boat in real life), but only Navigators can communicate with Beacons.

Beacons are a one-way teleportation system that can send you anywhere in the galaxy, but in order to communicate with a beacon you use your Trinket. You have to send it a bunch of information in an archaic format that nobody really understands anymore save for how the beacon responds to it.

Any populated solar system is going to have a beacon, because if it didn't people wouldn't be able to go anywhere else from that system.

When you use a beacon to teleport somewhere, you can go anywhere you want and can only be followed if people knew where you were going before you jumped, somehow. The main problem, of course, is that you never want to go anywhere where there isn't another beacon since there isn't any other sort of faster than light travel. There's also no faster than light communication.

Right now the main character only knows the locations of 5 solar systems with beacons in them, but before a cataclysmic event some 400 years ago there were hundreds linked together and more being created. They weren't all necessarily destroyed, but the locations of those hundreds of other systems were lost to the people in this particular network of beacons, and presumably nobody from outside has their location since nobody from another system has shown up. Incidentally the Somnius system that you're in right now actually joined the other four systems in this network when someone from it made a jump to the Viam system 350ish years ago.

Additionally, since Trinkets are something that people don't know how to create anymore and only Navigators can use beacons to teleport ships, it's not possible to randomly send ships to solar systems in the hopes of finding one with a beacon, since there are just too many. You've heard stories about how AI could use Focus and travel with beacons, but the technology to make that possible has been lost if it even existed in the first place.

The main character believes he's found a transmission from a solar system not among the 5 he knows of, so he thinks if he can find an instance of the transmission in 3 different systems, he'll be able to triangulate exactly where the transmission came from. Since any populated system basically has to have had a beacon to exist, presumably the system he finds will have a beacon, since it had the technology required to send such a transmission 600 years ago.

That's the premise of the quest.

>>453692
It's only sort of a pirate fleet. The Somnius Consortium controls this whole system and are somewhat notorious for hostile action, privateering and so on. They're not really welcome in any system other than this one or Edura, but it's not easy to check who's Somnius and who isn't most of the time. They do lots of small raids on planets with little security or military presence.

You in particular have a storied history of confrontation with the Somnius, and presumably Araella knows something about there actions since she called them pirates.

>>453701
>there actions
*their actions

>>453697
Once trinkets are bound can they be unbound? And can navigators have multiple trinkets (just trying to get a bead on this girl)?

>>453704
Navigators cannot have multiple Trinkets, but they can be unbound. There are only two ways to unbind a Trinket, either the Navigator has to willingly release their connection with it, or they die.

Additionally, there's not really too much difference between trinkets other than shape and some minor stuff. The ability to use Focus is the same for every Navigator, and specialization in abilities like Mind vs. Spirit or Time vs. Perception is based on the person rather than the trinket.

>>453697
>Beacons are a one-way teleportation system
>this particular network of beacons
A very interesting setting! So, the other systems probably still exist but developed in different directions (culture, technology) for 500+ years? The discovery of another beacon would make us very rich in an instant?
>[old] transmission
>Trinkets [ancient tech]
So, people would rather capture Navigators instead of killing them? Because they're so rare?

I like how the girl can be our apprentice!

So I'm seeing an even split between

>>453645
>>453682
Download a shit ton of records

and

>>453664
>>453674
Steal every record and the shitty ship that's storing them.

How do you want to break this tie?

Manipulation and Mind Reading means we can make people do what we want without too much fuss? Emperor Nathan? :)

>>453718
Changing my vote to Downloading it all to continue. Then we can fly away.

>>453715
Well there's not a huge downside to killing Navigators, because you can just steal their Trinket and have it bind to someone friendly to you.

However, navigators gain power (represented by max focus) based on how many beacons they've visited, gaining 1 per new beacon, and how much they've learned. Additionally there's a lot of time that goes into mastering the abilities that one gets when they become a navigator, so you can usually ransom them for a ton of money as well.

There are a fairly large number of Trinkets, but the amount is finite so governments or major organizations are always willing to pay a fairly large sum of money for a new one. You've found your fair share in old ruins. It's how you can be so nonchalant about the cost of crashing your ship (and several others).

>>453718
>>453723
Alright, writing for download the records. Search the ship for a way off to a better ship while you do and also to get that unbound Trinket for Araella if possible.

This is going to be my last post for tonight but I'll pick back up tomorrow in like 13 hours. I'll also get a twitter at some point so I can post updates there too.

>>453736
Post updates about when I'm running on twitter, I mean.

>>453736
>twitter
Very good!
>last post
Great story so far! You have a flair for writing!

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With your Trinket connected to the ship's archives, you opt to just download everything from the time period over which the transmission could have been received. After all, it's not like you can run out of space in your Trinket, and you need to spend time scoping out a ship to steal in any case. You're not going to fly thing piece of junk unless you absolutely have to.

With that in progress you turn back to Araella, who is busy with a coil of wire glowing red hot, trying to hang it from the ceiling to do... something.

"What are you doing?" You ask. Do you even want to know the answer?

"I'm trying to make an electromagnet." She says. "If I run enough current through it then it might be strong enough to rip off a floor or ceiling panel. Either is fine really. And then I can grab some of the more valuable components."

"Ok." ... "Well while I'm downloading these ship records we have things we need to do. We'll need to find a way off this ship and onto a better ship that we can steal. And we should try to find the unbound Trinket you mentioned. That's a pretty valuable piece of technology so even though they're storing it on this ship it's bound to have some sort of guard."

"Got it." Araella says. "So what's the plan."

"Together we'll break into the security center of the ship. Once we have, we'll try to figure out where they might keep high profile storage. We'll also break into the communications system and try to locate a ship that we can steal. We can override the bridge and send out a minor distress signal to call it over. Or we can try to use an escape pod from this ship to board it."

"Got it." She says again.

You bring up the ship's schematics on your Trinket as a bit of a refresher. The security system is right where you'd expect the archives to be on a good archive ship: near the core. You signal for araella to follow you again, taking point and preparing to encounter any hostiles.

You make it to the security center with no commotion. The dilapidated halls of the ship were completely empty. Not even a rat stirred as you passed through. You thought this ship was going to be pretty deserted, but you didn't realize exactly how right you were. You can't help but wonder if the ship even has a captain. How can a ship even run with a skeleton crew this skeleton-y or whatever.

As you come up on the security center you realize that the door is actually open. There's nobody inside. Everything inside is deactivated. What? Do they just not have any security personnel? The only guy was the inexperienced guard in the brig?

>1/3

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>>453788
You look at Araella. "How did they even catch you?" You ask. You stop caring about stealth. There's not anyone around to hear you anyways. "What could you have possibly been doing to get caught by a the crew on this ship? There's nobody."

"Well..." She puts her hand behind her head again. Looking down. "I may have been trying to create a railgun in the cargo hold. Just a little bit."

"A railgun? What? Why?" You exclaim. "I thought you were trying to steal something."

"Yeah." She says. "But I was bored, you know? Usually there's excitement to hiding on a ship. Listening for guards, hiding in the maintenance shafts, outsmarting them, you know? But there was none of that on this ship. I mean I could have been scouting around for the Trinket, but I figured I'd just wait until they were offloading it and snatch it then, which is why I was in the cargo hold. So I thought to myself, what's interesting on this ship? And the answer was 'all this exposed wiring', and so my first thought was 'magnets' and it all just spiralled out of control from there."

You just look at her. "..." You say.

"Hey! Don't get on my case. You crashed your ship. That's way worse than getting captured."

"Intentionally." You snap off, perhaps a little too quickly. "I crashed my ship intentionally. To cripple a Somnius cruiser. It was a calculated tactical decision. Calculated."

"Alright, alright. If you say so." She says.

>2/3

>>453790
You ignore her and approach the security console. Powering it on. The first thing you do is check out the crew manifest and assignments. Just how few people are there really on this ship? And where are all of them? You see that there are exactly 5 crewmembers. That's far fewer than you expected. This is a frigate class ship! It should have at least 15 crewmembers. The crew is nothing special either. The only name you recognize is James', which is good. You notice that there's one engineer working in the core, and the other 3 crewmembers are on the bridge. So when do they sleep? You don't know. You doubt the engineer would have the Trinket, so that just leaves the bridge. Unless they just left it somewhere? But then why wouldn't they leave it in the cargo hold? Maybe it's in the captains quarters? Well whatever, you can check those when you go to the airlock, hangar or escape pods or wherever you're going to go to get on that ship you plan to steal.

Speaking of the ship you need to steal, you access the sensors. You're looking for a ship minutes away from this one that doesn't have a lot of crew. Ideally it'll be fast, stealthy, or durable. Any of those work. You just need to last long enough after stealing the ship to talk to the beacon and make your jump. You've got a bit of experience with astrotech, so you have a pretty good idea of what ships might work for your plans. Seeing a few reasonable candidates in the immediate vicinity, you decide on the:


>Milk Voyager. Despite it's odd name, the ship is both fast and durable. It'll probably have a relatively substantial crew, but the only person you'll really need to worry about is its navigator. The ship is quite large, so it'll be fairly easy to board with an escape pod, but maybe a bit conspicuous to dock with and board directly.

>Hyperdrive. True to its name, the Hyperdrive is fast. Extremely. It's got little in the way of armor, stealth or really anything else, but by god it's fast. You can just choose a direction and fly, the fleet's probably not going to catch up to you before you make your jump. There's no way you're going to board this thing from an escape pod though. You'll have to find a way to bring it over.

>Jet. A small ship. The jet can really only house 2 people, which is perfect for you and Araella to make your getaway. It's both fast and stealthy, so you'll probably have a lot of leeway before you need to gun it, which means less pressure when you're trying to negotiate the beacon jump. The archive ship's hangar is actually big enough to take this ship too, so that's another option open to you on how you might steal it.

>3/3

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Thanks for playing everyone! Sorry about the excess of metaposting about the setting near the middle. I hope that the updates weren't too slow or anything.

I'll be back in like 12-ish hours to continue the quest.

Also I forgot the picture of the last ship.

>>453792
>Ping the Jet. Say more manpower is needed to check something out, and that parking the Jet in the ship would be faster. Make it clear that we can just ask the Hyperdrive, it's kinda urgent.

>>453809
>>453792
I'll support this. Fuck off in the records ship in a funny direction, then sneak away on the Jet when no one's looking.

>>453792
>>453809
>>Jet. A small ship.
Supporting this. We're an explorer and researcher, so we don't need the much bigger ships - probably more cost efficient too...

>>453795
>excess of metaposting
I found it interesting to know more about the setting - maybe spoiler tags improve reading the story?

>>453795
>>453809
>Ping the Jet
Taking the crew hostage, we can make them make the call. Would fit our mind control abilities.

>>453792
>Jet
When you get to the new system something stealthy will likely come in handy. Would be nice to have the option of bringing on more crew though.

Also I appreciate the exposition posts (assuming that's what you mean by meta) because I'm less likely to vote if I have no idea what ramifications my decisions will have.

it was a good read
Hyperdrive gota go fast
thow we better make sure the girl dosnt get board and start pulling the ship apart

Alright, I have returned. Looking back I realize I forgot to make you roll for the last post, but it's fine because that was the easiest option anyways, it would have been almost impossible for you to fail.

Sneaky, fast
>>453809
>>453837
>>453870

Fast, fast
>>453950

Writing for call Jet over, knock out its pilot or something, hijack and use the records ship as a decoy, then leave. You still have a fair amount of downloading left to do, so you'll get some options on what else you want to do on the ship before you leave.

You decide you'll steal Jet. It's a small fighter, low profile, capable of housing two people though perhaps a bit cramped. It's the perfect getaway vehicle. It's unlikely to be noticed for a fair amount of time, and once it finally is it'll probably be too late for anyone to catch up to you.

You check the progress on your download. You've gotten about 8% of the archives in the range you're copying, which leaves you with a lot of time before you're able to leave, especially since you won't be able to start coordinating a beacon jump until your Trinket is freed up.

There're still things you want to do on this ship as well. You're still looking to find the unbound Trinket Araella mentioned partly because it's valuable and you can sell it for a hefty sum of money and partly because you want to see how it interacts with Araella, who doesn't seem to have a Trinket. You'll need to ping the Jet ship and fabricate a reason for it to dock with this ship, and actually open up the hangar as well. Finally, you want to actually hijack the Archive ship and use it as a potential decoy for your getaway once you have the download and the fighter.

You start by outlining the plan to Araella. "We've got four things to do," you continue, "We'll have the most attention on us once we take that fighter, until then we've got a lot of leeway."

You ping the fighter. Sending it a minor distress signal and requesting assistance whenever the fighter sees fit. That should hopefully bring it over here soon while giving you enough time to do everything else you wanted to on the ship. You get an affirmative response back from the Jet. That's all you need.

You leave the console, turning around. "So what should I do?" Araella asks.

"First we're going to find that Trinket." You say. "The captain is the only Navigator they have on this ship, which means he's the only one that can handle it without it binding to him. Since it wasn't in the cargo hold it'll either be with him, on the bridge, or in his quarters somewhere. You'll come with me, we'll search the quarters, then we'll go to the bridge."

"So what should I do?" She repeats.

You look at her. "Just follow me and keep an eye out. You can aim those pistols of yours right?"

"Of course."

1/4

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>>456247
You pull up the ship schematics on your Trinket. The captain's quarters are only a little bit out of the way of the path to the bridge. You're pretty confident the halls are going to be deserted again, so you adopt a quick pace. You and Araella run through the hallways, your footsteps echoing on the old metal paneling. The ship is rather large and lacks any sort of directions or identifying features, save for the various scars and broken technology that line the walls. You remain focused on the map so as to not lose your way. Araella follows behind you, looking around the ship almost deviously. You can only imagine what sort of jury-rigged contraption she wants to throw together from technology scavenged from the ship.

"Hey." You stop, turning to Araella.

"Sup?" She responds.

"When we steal the fighter, no tearing it apart for pieces. We need to fly that ship."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Obviously I wouldn't rip up the ship we're using. This ship is junk though. Pieces are all it's good for, you know?"

"As long as you understand." You keep moving.

----

Eventually you arrive at the captains quarters. Its door, unlike most doors on the ship, is immaculate. It's also closed. The shining metal sticks out like a sore thumb and you really don't need the map floating above your wrist to indicate that you've arrived at the right location. You consider how you're going to break in. You close the map and bring up your focus to analyze the door for vulnerabilities, but you're unable to. Of course. You kick yourself mentally. You can't do anything intensive with your Focus until your Trinket has completed its the download. You check your progress: 26%. At least you're making good time.

"Hey, potential future crewmember." You address Araella. She snaps her attention to you off of the exposed maintenance line peeking through the wall opposite the door. "This is your first test. I need you to open that door."

"Can do." She gives you a poor salute, then turns her attention to the door.

She places her hand on the metal, running it up and down the grooves that indicate where it will part. She puts her head right up to the spot between the door and the wall, looking inside.

"Hey." She calls to you. "Can you light this bit up, just bring your bracelet close so I can see the inside."

You oblige. You come up to the door and awkwardly position your arm over her head, the top of your wrist facing the wall. You activate the map again and the blue hologram lights up the area within with an uneven light. It reaches farther than it has any right to, but you suppose that's because the Trinket is generating the light in the parts of the map rather than actually projecting it directly.

Araella looks for a little while longer, occasionally maneuvering your arm by headbutting it in one direction or another, keeping her left and right hand on the wall and door respectively.

2/4

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>>456251

After a bit of time she pipes up. "Got it!" She exclaims, jumping up.

She knocks her head on your gauntlet. "Ah. Ow." She says. Rubbing the spot she hit.

A moment later she continues. "Anyways I figured out the wiring scheme. This is an Opprian wiring scheme. It's usually used in planetary military bases but it's easy to exploit. The wiring is actually a copper and ionium alloy that can be used to charge the metal of the door in the event that you're trying to force it open, so we can't just punch it. That leaves it open to attack though, if we can get access to the..."

You tune out what she's saying, nodding along. Electronics aren't really your strong suit, you've always been more of a software guy. An ancient software guy, really. The way engineers of the past set up their computer systems is fascinating to you.

You notice that Araella has stopped talking and is looking at you expectantly. "Right." You say. "What do we do?"

"I need you to take one of my pistols and point it right... there." She indicates a damaged portion of the wall beside the door. "When I say so, fire the lowest energy setting. You just squeeze the trigger very gently."

She hands you the pistol and takes off running down the hall. "Now!" she yells. You squeeze the trigger. She stops and examines an area of the wall in front of her, then runs off again. "Now!" you hear again. You squeeze the trigger again. She stops and looks, then starts moving again. She turns the corner, out of sight. You here a "Now!" echoing through the corridors, obliging again. Araella keeps moving and keeps telling you to pull the trigger for a while longer, until you actually here her voice coming from the other side of the hall you're waiting in. She comes back into view, intently focused on the wall, steadily moving towards you. She periodically faces the end of the hall she came from and yells at you to pull the trigger. Once she gets almost all of the way to the door, she stops.

"It's here!" She yells away from you. You're only about 10 yards from her at this point.

She plunges her hand into a hole in the wall and rips something out. The door in front of you opens.

"Did that work?" She yells, still facing away from you.

"Yeah." You say. She jumps.

Araella turns around. "Did I just go in a loop?" She asks.

You don't bother responding. Instead you enter the captain's quarters, planning on searching for the Trinket. The entryway is much better kept than any other part of the ship you've been through. It's clearly been added on or refurbished at some point. You walk forward up a small set of stairs towards another door. As you approach it opens automatically, thankfully. Inside is the captain's bedroom. In the bedroom is the Trinket you were looking for. It's on his bed. Lying there. Unguarded. In the open.

3/4

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>>456257
The Trinket is a sort of skeleton glove. It's solid on the fingertips and around the knuckles, but those parts of it are held together by lines of a sort of mettalic fabric. It reminds you of those sandals people wear that look like someone ran a shoe through a shredder. Its very obviously a trinket though. You can feel it and you have the sneaking suspicion that Araella can as well, though she doesn't likely understand why.

"Alright." You say. "I guess we found it. That was astoundingly easy. All we did was open one door." You hand Araella back her pistol.

She takes it with a bit of a huff. "Opening that door wasn't easy. I had to find the--"

"Alright alright." You interrupt her. "Good job." You pat her head. "You wanted to bind to this Trinket right?"

She nods. You toss it to her. Nothing happens.

She gazes at it intently. Nothing happens. She puts it down, then picks it back up, then puts it on. It doesn't do anything. You're not surprised.

"How does bonding work?" She asks you.


>"You just touch it. I don't know why it isn't working for you. Maybe it's already bound." You suggest.

>"It doesn't if you're already a Navigator. That's why you can't bond with this Trinket."

>Shrug. Change the topic to the urgency of getting hijacking the ship before the fighter arrives.

>Write-in.

4/4

>>456263
>>"It doesn't if you're already a Navigator. That's why you can't bond with this Trinket."

>>456274
Alright, writing.

"It doesn't." You say. "Not if you're already a Navigator. You can't bind with two Trinkets."

"Huh?" She doesn't get it.

"You are a navigator. There's already a Trinket bound to you. You can and ARE using focus right now."

"Huh?" She looks at you, then at the Trinket, confused.

"You--" you pause. "Let me teach you something."

You get no response save Araella's confused stare.

You disconnect your gauntlet and pull it off your arm. Then you slide your Trinket off your wrist. It rests in your hand, still displaying the download percentage for the archives. 37%. Guess you didn't spend as much time waiting for that door to open as you thought.

"How much do you know about the abilities of a Navigator?" You ask.

"Huh?"

"Ok, well one thing that all navigators can do is summon their Trinket to them. It's practically second nature, as easy as breathing once you've done it one time. It's usually the very first thing a new Navigator does when they bind a Trinket to them. It's hard to explain exactly how you do it, but all I do is spare a thought for my bracelet and it just appears on my wrist."

You toss your Trinket across the room. Your arm feels bare, odd and someone off. It's weird to not be wearing your Trinket but it's not something you're totally unaccustomed to. After all there are plenty of places where one wouldn't want to be identified as a Navigator, and you've been to your fair share of them.

You tell Araella to look at the Trinket on the other side of the room, then once it starts disappearing to look back at your arm. She doesn't respond, so you turn her head to where the trinket lies.

Then you drop your concentration and let your arm enter a more familiar state. The Trinket on the other side of the room shimmers and fades. It becomes a sort of blue mesh outline of the bracelet. As it loses coherency, the blue lines fade into the area around where the bracelet was, causing the ground and air to glow for a moment before the light disappears. You wait a few seconds. Lines form within your wrist, outlined on your skin. They grow, gaining a third dimension and floating in the air just beyond your skin, becoming gradually stronger. They contrast more with their background and become more coherent. All at once, the black color returns to the bracelet and the only glowing blue that remains is the triangle. Your arm feels right again.

"Did you see that?" You ask Araella. "Try to do it."

"Huh." Is the only response you receive.

This is getting frustrating. Maybe you could reach out with your mind? Share some of the sensations of summoning the Trinket so she understands? No. You can't reach out like that while your Trinket is still occupied. You still need to wait for the download to finish. Is there something easier then? Simpler? You have an idea.

1/3

You remove your Trinket again. This time you hand it to Araella. "Don't let go of this bracelet. Imagine that someone is trying to yank it out of your hands and try as hard as you can to not lose your grip. Can you do that for me?"

She nods.

"Alright." You repeat the summoning process, letting your Trinket come back to you. It begins to fade when you see Araella's grip tighten. Her fingers begin to move through the holographic mesh being left behind, but after a moment they begin to encounter resistance. The bracelet regains coherence in her hands but then shimmers again. It fades from view much faster, leaving her hands empty. You have to wait a bit longer this time before it begins reforming on your wrist.

"Good." You say. "You were able to hold it for a moment. Only a Navigator could do that. I want you to recall that sensation, the feeling of the Trinket being pulled away. You held onto it, but right now just try to let go. Imagine that there's something you need to release that you're holding onto."

"Ok." She says. "I'll try."

Her knuckles are still white from holding her hand in a fist. She relaxes her grip. As she does, her whole body begins to shimmer. From head to toe she begins fading into a sort of mesh outline of her body and clothing. The whole room glows blindingly bright, then darkens as the blue light dissipates into the walls and floor. Once all the light is gone, nothing happens for a moment, before the whole room starts glowing again. Once it fades Araella is standing there again, in the same spot she was initially.

"Huh." You say.

"So..." She looks at her hands, then at the room, then at you. "What does that mean?"

You don't know. If she was summoning her Trinket, then that would indicate that somehow she is her Trinket, which makes precisely no sense to you. On the other hand, that's also what would have happened if she had communicated with a beacon to teleport from her location to her location. That doesn't make sense though because she would have had to focus on her Trinket, which is certainly not visible on her person.

"You are your Trinket." You say. Yeah. You'll go with that for now. It sort of makes sense. Aside from the fact that it doesn't make any sense. "Congratulations. You don't make any sense."

"Cool? So what other cool Navigator stuff can I do?" She asks.

"There are a lot of things, but we'll get to those later. For now we need to make our way to the bridge and hijack an archive ship before the fighter we called shows up."

"Sounds like a plan." She says. "Let's get going."

2/3

----

The two of you walk to the bridge. Your short journey is uneventful as expected, but as you come up on the bridge you slow down and stop making noise. The door is open. You hear a conversation coming from the bridge. Something about a pilot requesting entry to the hangar. A mention of a minor distress signal. Shit! That must be the pilot of the Jet that you pinged. You were hoping that he'd take longer.

You glance at your watch again. 61%. Damnit. That's not enough. You need to act now to either incapacitate the crew on the bridge and the Jet pilot, or somehow defuse the situation. Maybe you could pretend to be the guard you knocked out? You need to do something, and soon.


You:

>Go in guns blazing. You kill or stun all the crew on the bridge and make something up to get the pilot into the hangar. Then you'll knock him out too. Gain Skill: [Aim (Expert +3), Disciplines: Speed (Adept +2), Precision (Expert +3)]

>Try to create a reason for the distress signal. Use Araella as bait to bluff them into think the guard James sent the signal for some reason when she escaped. Gain Skill: [Leadership (Expert +3), Inspiration: Persuasion (Master +4)]

>Create a real reason for a distress signal. Araella mentioned a railgun right? Well you can just make one right now and blow a hole in the ship. That'll give them something to be distressed about. Skill Gained: [Scouting (Expert +3), Discipline: Discovery (Mastery +4)]

>Write-in

3/3

>>456645
>Try to create a reason for the distress signal. Use Araella as bait to bluff them into think the guard James sent the signal for some reason when she escaped. Gain Skill: [Leadership (Expert +3), Inspiration: Persuasion (Master +4)]

>>456645
>Inspiration: Persuasion.
That should actually be "Discipline: Inspiration"
I replaced the wrong word by accident.

>>456645
>>Create a real reason for a distress signal. Araella mentioned a railgun right? Well you can just make one right now and blow a hole in the ship. That'll give them something to be distressed about. Skill Gained: [Scouting (Expert +3), Discipline: Discovery (Mastery +4)]

>>456645
>>Try to create a reason for the distress signal. Use Araella as bait to bluff them into think the guard James sent the signal for some reason when she escaped. Gain Skill: [Leadership (Expert +3), Inspiration: Persuasion (Master +4)]

>>456672
>>456770
*Faint sounds of Yackety Sax in the distance

>>456754
Blast a hole in the ship with magnets and elbow grease.

Writing.

Alright. You sent out the distress signal to draw the fighter in. It worked. Now you just need to make them think the pilot is there for a reason so they don't call for backup from any other ships. Hopefully everyone will fill in any inconsistencies involving only calling for help from one ship on their own.

"Araella." You whisper. You get her attention. "The ship I called has already arrived and thinks that this ship is distressed. You need to be the distress."

She looks at you inquisitively. Her face has an expression of confusion on it.

You elaborate. "You'll run onto the bridge, reveal yourself to the pilot of the Jet ship, snatch something or shoot someone, then book it out of there. Make sure your presence is known. They're talking right now with the pilot right now, we need them to let him in without calling for further backup and giving away our presence. Since you're a 16 year old girl, they'll be loathe to ask for significant help to deal with you. They'll likely want to keep it on the down low. So if the Jet pilot sees you they'll be inclined to bring him in. Got it?"

She nods.

"Don't get shot." You say. "I'm going to the hangar to wait for the fighter pilot. Meet me there."

The two of you split up. You start running for the hangar. Araella pauses, then runs into the bridge room, pistols brandished.

1/3

>>456934
----

>Araella rolled (unmodified) 24, 17, 21 vs effective DC 20. Regular success.

You rush back the way you came, heading for the hangar. You're bothered by the fact that you don't have any way to communicate with the girl, but you suppose that the task you've given her isn't too dangerous so long as she can run fast. Besides, if you're going to have her on your crew she's going to need to be able to handle these situations anyways.

As you're running you pop up your helmet. It blocks your vision for a second before the HUD activates. You have your Trinket display the map directly on it. There's only one real hangar bay and it's over by the cargo hold. You'll need to pass by engineering to get there. You keep running.

Your boots land heavily on the floor, leaving the sound of metal on metal echoing in your wake. You come up on the entrance to the engineering bay. Though you don't need to go in, you do need to get by, and it seems that the engineer had the good sense to close and lock the doors around this area. Fortunately, the doors you need to pass through are not reinforced or blast-proof. They're actually not even shoulder-proof, you find as you charge into them. The metal creaks and moans as you bend it in ways it should have been designed not to bend. Hopefully that engineer doesn't come out of there any time soon.

As you pass by the engineering bay you return your focus to your map. You make several turns through the damaged hallways until you come across something most people would call 'a safety hazard'. When you look at the damaged wall, arcing electricity and minor plasma fires along the power conduits, all you can see is a shortcut. You back up, then charge should first into the wall, punching through to the other side. Your suit gives you indications on environmental danger, but you know what it can and can't take. You pat out a fire that's caught on your arm and keep moving.

----

After more running, you make it to the inner door to the hangar. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the indicator for the hangar shows that it is occupied. This could be good for you actually. If you can ambush this guy as he comes out, then you will have probably dealt with the most dangerous person on this ship aside from yourself. You lie in wait for a while.

After some time you realize the pilot isn't coming out. You must have arrived too late to catch him. You suppose that's good, since he's on this ship somewhere, but it's unfortunate that you'll have to deal with him in less favorable circumstances. Araella must have caught their attention and gotten away, or the pilot wouldn't have left his ship, so now you just need to wait for her.

>2/3
dropped my trip. Those posts with my ID are in fact me.

----

You pass the time whistling a tune and lamenting the low download speed from this ship. You glance at the percentage another time, taunting you in the corner of your display. 96%. Nearly finished. Eventually a ceiling panel pops off and falls to the floor with a loud clang. Behind it falls Araella, landing awkwardly on her side.

"I made it." She says popping up from the ground with enthusiasm, though favoring her left side. "And I got this."

She pulls out a half-foot long metal rod with a winged spear tip.

"It was the captain's." She clarifies. "It's a retractable spear. I recognized it, though I can't get it to work." She hands it to you.

You spend a modicum of focus on the spear and it telescopes out. The various pieces slide together and become flush. When all is said and done you're left with a surprisingly light metal spear, slightly taller than you.

"Good work." You put your hand on Araella's shoulder.

>"Welcome to my crew. You're first mate but you're also the lowliest crewmember. Congratulations."

>"You've done a nice job so far. Maybe I have a place for you on my crew."

>"Though it could have been better. You work slowly and need to communicate more."

Also choose one of:

>You're at the hangar with Jet right within your grasp. You could abandon your better plans and just take it right now. You've only got 4% left to go. If you do, though, you're going to be in seriously bad shape on the whole 'not attracting attention part'

>You could wait and try to ambush the pilot once he loses interest. The ship's crew will be split up and will be easy to take out, but this will take the longest. You'll be burning precious minutes, bringing the greater part of the Somnius fleet that much closer to finding you. You'll get to use this ship as a decoy but the effect might be diminished. The Jet's pilot will probably have been missed at some point.

>You're going to meet this head on. You'll go back to the bridge and fight everyone all at once if need be. You can take them. Then you'll use this ship as a decoy like you planned and fly off in the Jet ship.

>3/3

>>456942
>"Welcome to my crew. You're first mate but you're also the lowliest crewmember. Congratulations."
>You could wait and try to ambush the pilot once he loses interest. The ship's crew will be split up and will be easy to take out, but this will take the longest. You'll be burning precious minutes, bringing the greater part of the Somnius fleet that much closer to finding you. You'll get to use this ship as a decoy but the effect might be diminished. The Jet's pilot will probably have been missed at some point.

>>456974
>You're hired
>Our first order of business is to stand here and do nothing because it'll be easy

Writing.
This'll be the last post for tonight, but I'll stick around to answer any questions, create character sheets and a create a twitter account.

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"Welcome to the crew." You tell her. "You're second in command, but you're also the lowliest crewmember. Congratulations."

"Awesome!" She jumps in the air. "So what's our first order of business, captain?"

"We're going to stand here and do nothing." You look at her, waiting for her to act surprised or say something in response.

She looks back at you and nods, saying nothing. You engage in a staring contest for a while, but you can't lose since your helmet covers your eyes. Eventually, Araella breaks the silence.

"How do you know I'm 16?" She asks, puzzled.

"I read you, not technically your mind but your spirit, since it's really hard to get to your mind through it. You wear your impulses on your sleeve, figuratively." You explain.

"Right." She says. "So can my spirit know things I don't know, then? That would make sense I guess."

You ponder for a moment. "Sure." You say. "You might not consciously know things about your spirit. The way I got your age is actually in terms of the time units used by beacons. It's actually a measurement of how long your spirit has been active and able to influence the world, which for everyone starts the moment they were born. You can get a bit of error when you make jumps, since in the intervening time between when you leave and where you're going your spirit doesn't 'age' per se. But a couple seconds doesn't have a big enough influence to change the number of years really, so I just do the conversion in my head loosely to get close enough to the right answer. If I wanted to actually get someone's birthday I'd need to sit down with a calculator and work everything out carefully."

"Huh." She says. "That's really cool actually. See, I don't-- well, didn't know how old I was. The first thing I remember is 11 years ago I woke up on a strange ship surrounded by strange people. They thought I was a stowaway, and that's basically what I've been doing ever since. Do you think you could figure out my birthday at some point?"

"Better actually." You say. "I can teach you how to read your own spirit. Your abilities are focused on the spirit, so it should be easy for you to get information about yourself. It'll be harder for you to reach out to others than it is for me, though. That's something that takes days to pick up the basics, we don't really have time right now. For now if you want to get better, just focus on summoning your Trinket... uhh, yourself-- for now."

"Alright." The two of you lapse back into silence, though now the monotony is intermittently interrupted by Araella vanishing in a blue mesh and reappearing. Seriously what's up with her Trinket? Is it somehow embedded in her? Is she the somewhat successful result of some experiment to create a new Trinket? You'll need to figure something out.

>1/2

File: somnius-pilot_brecken.jpg (109 KB, 600x1060)

109 KB JPG

>>457093
----

More time passes. Your download has long since finished. You left Araella to her disappearing act and decided to examine the hangar and the ship within.

Everything is roughly as you expected. The hangar is in pretty terrible shape, but it's serviceable. You scope out the manual controls and emergency overrides so you're prepared for your foes trying to vent the hangar or something of the sort. You also inspect the ship, as you approach it, you notice that it has an active motion sensor. You suppose the pilot was worried that we might try to take his ship. Smart thinking by him. You can't really get much closer to get a better look at the ship without setting off, but you are able to get a superficial evaluation of the thing. It's much better maintained than basically anything on this archive ship. It's even polished. The paneling and conduit work is sleek and efficient. The ship looks like it's seen some wear and has a bit of rust on it, but overall you're quite pleased with your decision. Stealing this ship is a great idea. You're looking forward to flying it.

It's a shame you can't start up your dialogue with the beacon just yet, since you can't get in the Jet ship and you don't have the necessary information to jump the archive ship. You suppose you'll just have to make do. You look around the rest of the hangar for anything of interest. Hazard suits, weaponry, really anything that might be worth taking. You find nothing but poorly maintained electronics and walls. Maybe Araella might want some of the stuff in here, but you'll leave that to her.

You go back outside to wait. Araella is still becoming a blue glow then reappearing periodically. She's become more consistent already, which is a good first step.

----

Eventually you hear footsteps. Heavy and rhythmic. There's only one person but he's marching, clearly with some kind of purpose. You'd be willing to bet that this is the pilot of the ship. Now's your chance to take him down.

You:

>Set yourself up at the far end of the hall so you can line up a shot without being seen. Gain Skill: [Aim (Adept +2), Discipline: Precision (Adept 2)]

>Wait beside the door in the hangar. You'll knock this guy out once he enters. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Speed (Adept 2)]

>Set Araella up in the roof by the hole she jumped down. You'll signal to her when she needs to drop down and fire while remaining unseen yourself. [Scouting (Adept +2), Discipline: Discipline (Adept 2)]

>2/2

>>457099
>Set yourself up at the far end of the hall so you can line up a shot without being seen. Gain Skill: [Aim (Adept +2), Discipline: Precision (Adept 2)]

>>457099
>>Wait beside the door in the hangar. You'll knock this guy out once he enters. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Speed (Adept 2)]

Anyways, thanks for playing tonight! I'll be around for a bit to answer questions and we'll also at some point need to roll for how well you do in whatever option you choose.

In the mean time, I'm going to make a twitter and set up some character sheets.

Here's a skeleton character sheet for the main character: http://pastebin.com/pcfyJGqm

And here's my twitter: https://twitter.com/consulbackwards

I'll be posting there whenever I plan to run a session.

And I'll be posting with my trip when I fucking notice that I dropped it.

>>457099
>>Wait beside the door in the hangar. You'll knock this guy out once he enters. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Speed (Adept 2)]
Gotta get some cqc skills so we can get out of sticky situations

>>457099
>Set yourself up at the far end of the hall so you can line up a shot without being seen. Gain Skill: [Aim (Adept +2), Discipline: Precision (Adept 2)]

>>457099
>>Wait beside the door in the hangar. You'll knock this guy out once he enters. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Speed (Adept 2)]
Super melee fighter! We can appear harmless and unarmed, when in reality we're in our element to punch people to a pulp.

>>456637
>"You are your Trinket."
Human experiment! Someone discovered how to create new Trinkets! Or: She's actually not human but an alien scout who is programmed to infiltrate and disrupt!

>>457168
Pity I can't catch the quest live.
Thank you for writing! Enjoyed reading it!

>>457099
>>Wait beside the door in the hangar. You'll knock this guy out once he enters. Gain Skill: [Melee (Adept +2), Discipline: Speed (Adept 2)]

Might as well use the butt of that extendo-spear we got.

>>457106
>>457265
Shoot him.

>>457109
>>457216
>>457309
>>459590
Ambush him with your shiny new extendo-spear.

Writing. I'll post on twitter and in qtg when I actually post the update though.

File: stonesong corridor.jpg (46 KB, 736x392)

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Upon hearing the footsteps, you signal to Araella to stop, hoping that the blue glow from her practice didn't reach to the hallway juncture the pilot is approaching.

You whisper. "Follow me. Stay quiet."

Attempting to produce as little noise as possible, you gingerly walk through the hangar door. Inside the hangar there are a number of crates and panels near the door. You direct Araella to set herself up in a firing position behind one, explaining that you'll be ambushing the man as he enters.

"Because he's the sole pilot of the ship," You mention. "He's guaranteed to be a Navigator with some non-negligible amount of skill. We'll need to take him out quickly: give him no time to react or prepare."

Araella nods in response.

You take your position on the left hand side of the doorway. You hear the man's footsteps grow closer. The noise of boots on the floor has a sort of pattern. The man is marching like he's frustrated. You don't dare to reach out for his mind in order to get a read on him. After all, that's how it all went to shit last time you were in this particular situation...

----
>-Tuesday November 5, 3501-
>-Somnius Cruiser Stonesong, Hangar A8 Entrance-

The sound of footsteps reaches your ears. This is your chance. You have him right where you want him. You can finally put an end to this. Your heart pounds in your chest. You can't mess this up. You need every advantage you can get. You raise your arm and focus your thoughts, expanding your perception past the doorway and into the hall beyond. You see the power flowing through the conduits within the wall, glowing in your mind's eye. You feel the strength of the metal. Your mind spreads along it. You feel the sounds around you. Marching, breathing, heartbeats, joints. He's wearing heavy armor.

You recognize it. You found it first. It was stolen from you. You scavenged the Atma research facility. You reactivated its traversal system. You found the intact laboratory and you braved the facility's dangers to get there. You extracted the armor.

>Trait Gained: Familiarity: Atma Archeotechnology

>1/2

>>461897
He took it from you. He left you there to die. Morne. Well now's your chance to take it back. You reach further, into his mind. How well does he know the armor? What is his first move once you ambush him?

The footsteps stop. In his mind, you sense something. Recognition. You've gone to far. He knows you're here. He reaches back. The connection loses coherence. He's in your head now and you don't know what he's taking. You hear a small sound: plastic on metal, you look down at it. And then the flash blinds you. The noise deafens you. You clutch at your face, struggling to regain your senses when you feel a fist driven into your side. You raise your arms in front of you, backing off. You stumble into a bench behind you. You crouch and place your hand on the ground to regain your bearings. You pause for a moment, then sweep your foot out in front of you. You know Morne, and you know he'll be pressing his advantage, expecting little resistance. Your leg connects, but all you hit is cold metal. The blast armor protects against strikes just as well as against explosions. And then there's a blow to your head. You go down...

----
>-Tuesday April 21, 3514. Present day-
>-Somnius Lesser Archive Ship, Hangar Bay-

Your heartbeat is steady.

The pilot rounds the corner, armor glowing slightly. You recognize it, as well you should. It's of Atma make, probably taken from one of your finds some time ago. Scouting armor. You know its weaknesses and you have the element of surprise. You drive your spear into the knee joint, and kick out the man's other knee, knocking him to the ground. You go to strike his armpit while it's exposed, but as your spear hits it it's simply deflected.

It shouldn't have been though. That joint is exposed. You're sure of it. The only explanation is that the man has reinforced it. Unfortunate. You were hoping he'd be too off guard to use any focus, and his discipline must be space and body, which puts you at a distinct disadvantage in a melee fight. Still, he's on the ground and you have an ally. This fight is still in your favor.


>Roll For Me: 3d10+20(Melee: +2 Adept & +2 Adept Speed, Archeotech: +5 Grandmaster & +3 Expert Structure, +2 Navigator, +4 Familiarity: Atma Archeotech, +2 circumstance(favorable position))
>vs DC 39(Base DC 15 Melee Takedown, Melee: +4 Master & +4 Master Power, Focus: +1 Amateur & +3 Expert Space/Body, +2 Navigator, +2 Space/Body Focus, +4 Focused Endurance, +8 Relic Scout Armor, -4 circumstance(successful ambush))

>2/2
Sorry about the long time before this post. I ended up going to eat dinner. Though hopefully nobody was waiting since I didn't announce anything.

Rolled 5 (1d30)

>>461902
Here goes...

Rolled 1, 9, 7 + 20 = 37 (3d10 + 20)

>>461902
>>461909
WOW, did I fuck that roll up...

Proper dice this time.

If no one else rolls in the next ten minutes or so, should I roll again?

>>461954
Sure why not.

Rolled 8, 1, 8 + 20 = 37 (3d10 + 20)

>>461902
We gonna take his armour for the girl too?

Rolled 2, 7, 6 + 20 = 35 (3d10 + 20)

>>461967
All right then.

I'm sure I'll completely fuck this up this time.

>>461913
>>461983
>>461999
>37, 37, 35 vs DC 39
>Severe Failure!

Fortunately for you, you still have 11/13 focus. You can spend focus on any roll to raise its value. The roll goes up by 1 for each 1 focus you spend. There is a limit to how much you can boost rolls though. For any particular group of 3 3d10 rolls, you can spend up to half your total bonus on the roll in focus points to raise the die roll and achieve success.

In this case your bonus was +20, so you can spend up to 10 focus. That said would you like to:

>Spend 8 for Great Success
>Spend 4 for Regular Success
>Spend 2 for Regular Failure
>Accept Severe Failure

>>462029
>>Spend 4 for Regular Success

>>462041
Writing. You are at 7/13 focus.

You know how to fight someone with these abilities. You pull back; you won't be able to hurt him while he's trying to protect himself, but he's frozen the joints of his armor, so he won't be able to stand up. You'll need to wait for him to release his guard before you can strike. You consider for a moment signalling to Araella. Her energy pistols, after all, would bypass his channeled defenses entirely. They wouldn't bypass his armor though. If you want her aid you'll need to damage it first. It's better if she stays hidden for now. You're waiting for a better opportunity.

His eyes are on you, or at least his lenses. He knows what you're doing. You know he knows and so on. You tense yourself, ready to move, but more than that you reach out with your mind. Your Trinket is in view, but it's not in an ideal position. Not wanting to drop your guard you expend extra effort to expand your thoughts rather than reposition your arm. All you need to feel are your foes impulses. You need to know when he's going to move. You make contact.

...
...

Now! Before he begins moving, you lash out with your spear. Halfway through your strike your opponent moves. He twists awkwardly, his rigid form suddenly becoming fluid. He launches himself of the floor from his prone position, sending a kick your way at the same time. Your spear passes by the man's leg as he twists. Bringing your body forwards ever so slightly. You're too late to block or dodge his attack. The armored foot impacts heavily into your armored shoulder, the entire weight of the man spinning through the air behind it. You're knocked over. The man's abberant leap causes him to land beside you.

You still have your connection to his mind though. As he springs himself onto his feet you elect not to move, instead reaching further in. You need more than impulse, you need tactics. There's no way to predict how someone with his skills is going to move in a fight. At least, not by being observant. You close your eyes instead, reading the man's intentions. He's aware of what your armor is capable of. While it helps you little with your offense, its defenses are quite resilient. He'll need precise strikes on a small surface area to get past them. You see his plan.

>1/2

>>462269
He thinks you think your armor will protect you. You see it. He runs over and throws a kick at your side. It does little, reverberating off your armor. He then pulls back. He waits for you to stand, bringing his fists in front of him and widening his stance. As you rise, he throws several punches at you, striking for weaker portions of your armor but doing little regardless. He gets in close and twists a bit farther than he ought to, leaving side exposed. Specifically his knee joint. You take the opportunity to strike the perceived weakness in his defenses, overextending with the expectation that your armor will absorb any blows he might throw your way. You step wide and lunge in. No contact is made. His leg flows away from the blow and launches him into the air in a front flip. He brings down his other leg and puts all of his energy into magnifying the blow. It impacts your neck, hitting just in between the helmet and the greater part of the armor, ending the fight.

The plan is a good one. You play into his hands. He runs over and throws a kick at your side. It does little, reverberating off your armor as expected. You let him pull back, standing as he expects. He raises his fists and throws several punches at you, pretending to attack weaknesses in your armor. He gets in close and seems to twist a bit farther than he ought to, exposing his knee joint. He's channeling focus though, prepared. You take the opportunity to strike as he expects, feinting overextension. You're ready though, he sees what he wants to. You don't go nearly as far as he expects. You make no contact. His leg flows away from the blow and launches him into the air in a front flip. He brings down his other leg and puts all of his energy into magnifying the blow. You step aside, bringing your spear up to meet his armpit.

You rend the armor. It sparks and the lights along his entire left arm flicker out. He's surprised. He rises quickly, bringing his unharmed arm in front of you, reinforcing it as though to use it as a shield. In the commotion of your fight, Araella's spot has ended up to your right, leaving the damaged side of the pilot's armor exposed to her, though it's a bit farther than you hoped.

You:

>Direct Araella to fire on him. He can't defend against her pistols and the left part of his armor is too damaged to take the hits for him.

>Take the opportunity to attack him again. You have the read on him. You can take him down by yourself.

>Have more than a huge advantage in this fight. You can probably disable him without crippling his armor any more than you have. You'll use the armor's new weakness to just beat him down without damaging it further.

>2/2

>>462274
>>Have more than a huge advantage in this fight. You can probably disable him without crippling his armor any more than you have. You'll use the armor's new weakness to just beat him down without damaging it further.

And hope to hell we can fix his shit.

>>462274
>>Have more than a huge advantage in this fight. You can probably disable him without crippling his armor any more than you have. You'll use the armor's new weakness to just beat him down without damaging it further.

>>462289
>>462292
>Do the hard thing because you get sweet loot from it.

>Roll For Me: 3d10+18(Melee: +2 Adept & +2 Adept Speed, Archeotech: +5 Grandmaster & +3 Expert Structure, +2 Navigator, +4 Familiarity: Atma Archeotech))
>vs DC 39(Base DC 15 Melee Takedown, Melee: +4 Master & +4 Master Power, Focus: +1 Amateur & +3 Expert Space/Body, +2 Navigator, +2 Space/Body Focus, +4 Focused Endurance, +4 Relic Scout Armor(damaged))

Rolled 6, 1, 6 + 18 = 31 (3d10 + 18)

>>462313

Rolled 10, 10, 7 + 20 = 47 (3d10 + 20)

>>462313
Here goes.

>>462365
Well, minus two from it, that still gives a 45.

Sweet lootz, dawg.

>>462365
>10, 10, 7
Holy shit. I should mention that I take natural 3s and natural 30s as crits if they appear anywhere in the first 10 rolls, since they're so unlikely and I fucking love crits

>>462368
>natural 3s and natural 30s
You mean the same number 3 times? Or that the result is 30?

Rolled 1, 1, 1 = 3 (3d1)

>>462371
As in one of the 3d10 rolls is all 1s or all 10s, so the sum is 3 or 30 respectively. A nat 3 would look like the above roll, but on 3d10 rather than 3d1

File: humiliation suffering despair.png (81 KB, 190x259)

81 KB PNG

>>462376
Would having 1, 1, 1 be some kind of critical success or a crit fail on the level of "oh god give up quest is over"?

>>462376
Gonna be honest with that, you're almost never going to see three natural 10s or 1s on a roll for 3d10. In one of my absolute favorite quests, I've only seen three ones once. It ended up getting our arm shot off by a razor wire bola. I'd recommend your crits be around 3 through 6 for crit fails, and 27 to 30 for crit successes.

>>462396
>>462398
1,1,1 would be a disaster. 10,10,10 would be you automatically succeed even more than you knew you could. It's 2/1000 per roll for one or the other to appear which I think is good because I'd like to write crits as stealing the spotlight and doing something extraordinary. I think it's very likely that there will be no crits in this quest's entire run, and that that's probably a good thing.

>>462274
Nice fight scene! Good read.
A new relic armor will help us, surely! And then, woosh, fly away!

Rolled 7, 9, 10 + 18 = 44 (3d10 + 18)

>>462313

Excelent read so far, good job OP. Im excited to see where we go with this

>Rolled 31, 47, 44 vs DC 39

Regular Success!
You are incapable of spending the 8 focus necessary to achieve great success.

----

You have the advantage. You're on even ground but the pilot's left arm in now weighed down by a bunch of inactive technology, providing only a modicum of protection in return. He holds his right arm up defensively, prepared for any attack you might throw at him. He's acutely aware of your knowledge of his weak points now, so he's opting to stay on the defensive. He's waiting for you to make a move, to go too far trying to get through his defenses and into his weaknesses.

You opt to just charge him. Putting your head down and shoulder forward, you sprint at the man and deck him. The impact as you hit him was more than you expected. He was trying to keep himself still and steady. Still, he lies on the ground, his defenses now a hinderance, prevting him from moving quickly or righting himself. You loom over him, considering your next move.

Ideally you'll be taking this armor, it's quite valuable and would probably be yours in the first place if there had been anyone around to enforce archeology laws in the Edura system. You don't want to damage this armor any more than you already have. How do you want to deal with your foe exactly? His right arm is still in front of him even though he's lying on the ground. He moves stiffly, trying to right himself while maintaining his defenses. You focus on his left arm.

Using the butt of your spear, you smack his arm out from under him. He falls back to the ground. You spin your spear and place its tip against the rent in the armor. Whenever the man makes a movement, you dig it in slightly. You've got him. Now you just need to remove his armor.

"Surrender." You command. You receive no response.

You're not surprised but you are a bit disappointed. You'll have to do this the hard way. You reach down. With one hand, you undo the seals holding the man's helmet off. He resists and makes moves to stop you with his free arm, but every time he does you simply dig your spear in further, forcing him to immobilize himself to prevent it from penetrating his skin. After a frustratingly long time, the man's mask opens up and the helmet slides off his head. You toss it aside and reposition your spear. It now threatens your defeated opponent's face and neck.

Your opponent is rather young to be as high status as he is. He has his own ship and armor, so he must have either been some kind of crack pilot, or he found a Trinket on his own. His face is unmarred by any scars and has only faint stubble. He has short brown hair. On his right eye he wears a sort of lens. His brow and mouth are bent into a frown. He's not even looking at you right now, as though distracted by something.

>1/2

>>468042
He brings a hand up towards your spear. In response, you poke him again, prompting him to raise his metaphysical defenses. As he expends his focus the lens on his eye glows subtly. That lens must be his Trinket. You swipe it off his face, breaking his concentration. His expression changes. His eyes focus on you, widening. He quickly brings both arms up to your spear, holding it back and then concentrating. You feel his throughts move towards escape. He knows he's beaten and wants to get away. He tries to channel his focus, but can't.

He makes a quick move to throw the spear off of him and scrabbles over to his lens. You grab him as he crawls, but he lays his hand on the thing. Immediately his whole body begins flickering, his armor included. He's trying to teleport himself away. This complicates things even further, you hadn't counted on this man being such a capable Navigator of space.

You focus on the man, attempting to disrupt his teleportation. You're in his head and connected to his leg, but it's too much. You simply can't expend the effort necessary to stop him. You're determined to not let him off with his armor though. Casting your spear aside you lay both hands on his back as it flickers in and out of existence. Pulling your mind away from the man you turn your thoughts to just his armor. It's inanimate and can't resist you directly, and the man is thinking only of escape. You allow him to fade away but keep your hold on the armor.

As the blue light that replaced his form fades into the ground around you, you notice that the armor is unfortunately missing its left arm. It seems that the damage to the armor was too severe and the major connections to that arm were disrupted to the point where the arm was no longer part of the same whole, metaphysically. You've seen such things before. It's worse when it's a person's arm. Still, the armor is mostly intact. With a several repairs and a lot of refitting it should certainly work for Araella. Atma style technology such as this is a bit of a specialty of yours, though you're more experienced with information and communications than the actual structure of the armor. You'll certainly be able to fix the armor up.

In the mean time, you've dealt with the pilot of the ship you're planning to steal, but there are still a few more obstacles in the way of your escape. The pilot, having teleported to wherever it is he went is very liable to give away your presence. He probably knows who you are, and now he knows where you are. You need to act quickly. Additionally you haven't dealt with the rest of the crew on this ship and you're a fair distance away from the bridge.

>2/2

>>468043
You decide to:

>Stick with the plan. Controlling the archive ship and sending it in some abberant direction should still draw most of the attention put towards finding you. The pilot didn't know that you called him and shouldn't know that you intend to escape in his ship.

>Get out of here quickly. Hop in the Jet ship, pick the direction with the fewest ships and gun it. In the mean time communicating with the beacon to perform your teleportation.

>Try to be stealthy. You'll hop in the Jet, but instead of flying off in it and trying to outrun any attention, you'll just wait in the hangar. You can still communicate with the beacon to perform your teleportation once you get the necessary information about the ship's shape and construction, but this way you won't attract any attention beyond the attention already drawn to the archive ship.

>>468047
>>Try to be stealthy. You'll hop in the Jet, but instead of flying off in it and trying to outrun any attention, you'll just wait in the hangar. You can still communicate with the beacon to perform your teleportation once you get the necessary information about the ship's shape and construction, but this way you won't attract any attention beyond the attention already drawn to the archive ship.

>>468047
QM, you wanna alert everybody on /qtg/ that you're back?

>>468090
Good idea.

>>468047

>Try to be stealthy. You'll hop in the Jet, but instead of flying off in it and trying to outrun any attention, you'll just wait in the hangar. You can still communicate with the beacon to perform your teleportation once you get the necessary information about the ship's shape and construction, but this way you won't attract any attention beyond the attention already drawn to the archive ship.

>>468070
>>468150
Teleport from inside the ship. It's easy, not incredibly dangerous at all, at least for you.

Writing.

"Araella!" You call out. She pops up from behind the crates. Guns brandished with a determined look on her face. Her expression falters when she sees that the only enemy is an unoccupied suit of armor.

"Fun fight." She says. "Really glad I got to help out, you know. I'm glad I got to shoot some people. My pistols don't see a lot of use when I'm sneaking around and all. What'd you do to the guy anyways, disintegrate him?"

"No." You correct. "He teleported away."

"Oh great job." She says. "If only you had backup, maybe a crack shot with blasters capable of incapacitating any foe. I mean it's not like there was a signal you could give to get such a person to help or anything. I guess his escape was inevitable."

"I'm sensing sarcasm." You respond. "You know I'd think you'd be a bit more greatful considering I stole this armor for you."

She starts rolling her eyes, but they stop partway through as you finish your statement. She brings her eyes back around in the other direction to their starting position looking at you, as though reversing the roll.

"What?"

"It's Scout armor, Atma style. Very useful. It got a bit damaged in this fight and it won't fit you, but that's nothing I can't fix. Archeotech is my specialty." You explain.

Her expression immediately shifts from confusion to elation, a stark contrast to the disappointment on her face only moments earlier.

"Awesome!" She exclaims. "What does it do? Is it special armor for Navigators? Will it let me punch through walls? Why is it missing an arm? Can I--"

You cut her off. "It's missing an arm because I needed to be able to attack the guy and the area under the armpits of the armor is a weak point. I severed too many connections in the joint so the guy ended up taking the arm with him when he teleported away. Anyways that's not important. I need you to shoot the ship we're going to escape in."

You're hoping for a reaction, but Araella just waits for you to explain.

"Really? No, 'Why would we want to shoot the ship? You just said we need it.' at least feign incredulity for me."

Araella humors you, speaking in an obviously fake and overly theatric tone of surprise. "Why on Earth would I want to shoot the ship!? Didn't you just say we need it to escape? This is so strange!"

"I'm glad you ask." You say, ignoring any patronizing vibes you may have gotten from her statement. "There's a sensor on there that we need to destroy. It won't trigger for energy projectiles so your pistols are ideal."

You point out the sensor. She shoots it. It explodes. She says nothing.

>1/3

File: another somnius cruiser.jpg (476 KB, 1600x832)

476 KB JPG

>>468401
"Alright" You continue. "Now we're going to sit in the ship and wait there." You look at her expectantly.

She looks back at you. "Ha!" She says. "I actually know this one. You're just going to have us teleport out from the hangar. That's why we'll be sitting in there not doing anything."

"I'm glad you asked." You say. "We'll be tele--" You stop yourself as what she says registers in your mind. You continue disheartened. "Right. Let's go."

You sling the armor over your shoulder and jog over to the ship. You're familiar with its design and need only to touch your trinket to the right location to pop its hatch open. Both you and Araella climb in. Inside the ship is surprisingly spacious aside from the lack of vertical space. The whole cabin area and behind it are actually hollow and fit for human life. There's even a small bathroom, though there are no beds or anything, only a bench and the pilot's seat.

You sit down in the front and access the ship's jump information. In order to properly coordinate teleportation with a beacon, there's information you need to know about the ship. Every ship is going ot have this information stored wherever a Navigator might need to access it. You also have an advantage since your discipline is perception, which means you don't need to spend a bunch of time memorizing the data for the ship in order to use it like someone who's a space and body discipline Navigator. You just need to transmit the information through the ship's systems assisted by your focus. It's easy, though it's only lightspeed.

You've been in this business for a long time and have needed to make your share of quick getaways though. Though you're limited by the nature of your space magic, you can still take some shortcuts. You can't just expend a ton of effort to teleport instantly and then pass out like a space Navigator, but you don't have to wait the 3 or so hours for the transmission from this ship to reach the beacon like other perception Navigators do.

>2/3

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>>468402
Shortcuts aren't without their risks though. You could bounce the information between ships in the Somnius fleet until it reaches the beacon. At the short ranges between the ships, you can teleport the information, so it'll end up at the beacon much faster than lightspeed. Doing this requires a bit more effort on your part. It also virtually guarantees that you will be found. The moment the transmission reaches a ship with anyone who's anyone on it they'll know exactly who you are and where you are. You're certain to have some trouble in this situation, but hopefully you can get out before it becomes too big of a problem. They'll likely think that you're using the archive ship as well if they don't try to parse any ship information beyond the location.

On the other hand, you could play it a bit safer while still taking shortcuts. You could send innocuous signals at lightspeed to all the nearby ships. After they're received you'd be able to bounce those signals between ships through teleportation until you reach the beacon. It'll take longer to trigger the teleportation, but it'll only let your foes narrow you down to the general area, rather than the specific ship. They probably know you're somewhere around here at this point in any case. That pilot did teleport away, after all...

You ultimately decide to:

>Take the shortest shortcut there is. It doesn't matter if they know where you are. You're still in the hangar of another ship. That'll be enough to distract them before the signal reaches the beacon as long as you're quick enough. (Spend 2 focus)

>Opt for the safer shortcut. If they only have a general area it will be much harder to find you. They might even know your area already, in which case you wouldn't even be giving them more information. (Spend 2 focus)

>Take no shortcuts. It'll take a long time but you'd rather not guarantee conflict. You'll take your chances and wait the whole time, hoping they haven't found your location from something else you've done. (Spend 1 focus)

>3/3

>>468408
>>Opt for the safer shortcut. If they only have a general area it will be much harder to find you. They might even know your area already, in which case you wouldn't even be giving them more information. (Spend 2 focus)

>>468408
>Opt for the safer shortcut. If they only have a general area it will be much harder to find you. They might even know your area already, in which case you wouldn't even be giving them more information. (Spend 2 focus)

>>468425
>>468440
Quick getaway, but not dangerously quick.

Roll for 3d10+17 vs DC 37 to get away without attracting dangerous amounts of attention.
I'm just saying the total bonus and total DC because in the previous dice roll calls the modifiers have been way harder to parse at a glance than they need to be. I wanted to lay them all out because I thought that would make what's happening with the roll and the reason for your caps on focus spending much clearer, but in retrospect it only made reading the roll less approachable. I still have all the bonuses written down, so if you want me to post them I'll put them in a separate post below the dice so they don't clutter everything up.

That was also my last post for tonight because I'm a lazy piece of shit. I'll probably run tomorrow and post the results of this vote/dice roll then.

Rolled 6, 7, 3 + 17 = 33 (3d10 + 17)

>>468521
Okay, thanks for running QM

Actually, considering the sheer size of the posts, what about you just update whenever? Not set a strict schedule of when you're gonna run

>>468538
I sort of want to do that, but I worry that I'll just keep putting it off. Fortunately /qst/ is very friendly towards lazy pieces of shit such as myself, so I might. I'll probably occasionally post updates and random times and occasionally run sessions where I try to get 3 to 5 posts in. I'll try to announce in the qtg discord and thread whenever I post something and on twitter when I plan to run a session.

>>468538
Also thanks for playing!

Rolled 10, 10, 6 + 17 = 43 (3d10 + 17)

>>468521
Woosh and gone! Without scorch marks, without our pirate nemesis firing on his own archive ship to destroy us!

>way harder to parse
I prefer this modifier presentation! Thank you!

>>468554
Thank you for writing this quest! Looking forward to teaching our young apprentice what it means to be a member of the Holy Order of Navigators :).

>>468554
Yeah, thanks for writing this quest. It's one of the best, if not the best, I've read so far.

Is OP kill?

OP? Is you kill?

If OP is kill I will hero.

>>476948
do it faggot

Rolled 7, 8, 3 + 17 = 35 (3d10 + 17)

>>468521

>>468538
>>468870
>>477367
33, 43, 35 vs DC 37
Regular Failure.

Focus pool: 5/13 (2 focus spent on beacon travel)
>Spend 2 for Regular Success
>Don't spend

You are incapable of spending 6 to Greatly Succeed

>>478097
>>Spend 2 for Regular Success

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You're running out of time. You've been pretty high profile ever since you got into this system and you're really just coasting on the fact that nobody would expect you to steal something that everyone considers worthless. At this point though you've probably raised too many flags. You've been traipsing around this ship for a while now and the pilot of the ship you've called over has escaped somewhere. You don't know how far he could have gotten or if he's even skilled enough to have teleported off the archive ship at all, but you're sure he's going to be raising the alarm sooner rather than later. You simply can't afford to wait out the normal time for normal contact with the beacon. So you don't.

You elect to instead use the Jet's mundane communications in order to send a signal to every ship in the surrounding area. Upon doing so, you find that the ship has priority access to local area communications. Just who exactly was the guy that you called over? You throw in a request for all recent communications while you're at it. It'll be nice to have a handle what's happening, even with a 30 or so minute delay. Once your signal reaches those ships, carrying the message you've constructed for the beacon, you'll have your work cut out for you. Until then, you just wait.

In the mean time, you prepare. You're not one for the superstitions of many Navigators, but that doesn't mean you're just going to take it easy. You also resummon your trinket a couple times. Not for any particular reason! Just for fun, you know?

"So how long do we need to wait?" Araella interrupts your totally scientifically rigorous and well researched beacon jumping preparation techniques.

"It depends." You say. "I'm cheating, so hopefully not too long."

"Do explain."

"Well I have to send the signals to the beacon, we're too far to just make direct contact, and the only way I have available to do that is the ship's communications. However, every ship around here has communications which I am close enough to directly contact. So what I do is I use my trinket and jump the signal I need to send between ships, piggybacking off the systems of each one in order to get the signal where we need it to be much faster than light speed. It does take a lot of concentration, but it saves even more time."

"If it takes a lot of concentration then why aren't you concentrating? That guy teleported away and you blew up a cruiser. Aren't we on a clock?"

"We are." You confirm. "But I don't think they have our exact location yet. My method is very obvious. Morne will figure it out in a few minutes and would figure out where we are soon after if it wasn't for the precautions I'm taking."

"Cool. How does that work?"

>1/6

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>>478973
You give her the short version, finishing off by mentioning the ship's priority communications access. "While I'm speeding up the jump signal I want you to monitor communications. Alert me when people are on our case. I'll know once the signal reaches the first ship. You'll start getting information about their intended movements about 15 minutes later."

She nods. You settle in to wait for about 10 more minutes.

----

10 minutes later you can tell the signal has arrived. You bring your armband into view and focus intently. This is the hard part. You force your mind through to the signal you created. Whatever force binds it to your Trinket pushes you away as you reach. You aren't supposed to exercise this kind of control, not really, but you've been doing this for a long time. You weasel your way around the obstruction. It's an ethereal thing, honestly. You don't really know how it's stopping you and you don't really understand what you're doing to get around it. You go on autopilot. Your mind reaches your message, interfacing with it through means that are completely opaque to you. You wield your intellect and bounce the signal.

You are aware of every ship near the Jet. You are aware of every ship near each of those ships. Your awareness extends, exponentially straining your consciousness. You hold on.

You move the signal between each ship, extending from the ships you initially sent it to. You direct them to each connected ship. You push with your mind, straining to force the information over space and time to each nearby ship. It's much harder to exercise the control necessary to move information that isn't your own perception across the distance. It's unnatural. You spend an inordinate amount of effort simply focusing only one piece of knowledge: the information that the beacon needs. The information travels slightly closer to its destination.

>focus pool: 6/13

After the first jump things don't get easier, but they do become simpler. You've already achieved your control over the signal and now you're just going through the motions. You continue your painstaking process. It seems that only moments have passed since you started when you feel a tap on your shoulder.

You keep your focus on the task at hand, but divert yourself just a little bit to address Araella. You don't bother to say anything and simply look at her expectantly.

She doesn't take the cue.

Lamenting your crewmember's inexperience you force out a word. "What"

She launches into an explanation. "They're looking. Someone's got it out for you. His callsign is Wailer. He's directed every ship in the nearby area to look for you. Literally every single one. Like, there was a ship that's not even part of the fleet just here on trading business, and that one got privateered to seek us out. Seriously. The whole area."

>2/6

>>478977
The identifier 'Wailer' gets your attention. Morne noticed you, as expected. "How big?" You muster.

"20-ish light minute radius. Max 20 minutes before someone gets here. Probably about 10 or more-ish past that before the main body of searchers starts showing up in response. We're in trouble."

You pull your focus away for a moment. This qualifies as more important. "How long has it been since I started zoning out?" You ask.

"About 40 minutes. I only just got these communications but based on what they say someone noticed like 30 minutes ago."

"We have even less time." You say. "Morne will have near-lightspeed capable ships on us. I need to get back to this. Interrupt me again if theres an emergency. Thank you for telling me this." You return to your task. Investing even more effort in it before.

You push harder. As you extend your mind far beyond its normal boundaries and move around information that is not truly your own you feel your resolve fading. You continue, allowing chunks to be taken from your thoughts and understanding. You'll get those back later, once you have some time. For now the effort is needed.

>focus pool: 4/13

----

You are interrupted again. A hand lies heavy on your shoulder. Your thoughts are more sluggish than they were minutes before. If you had an indicator for how much mental energy you have, it would probably read about 4/13. You turn your attention to the appendage's owner.

It's some girl you met a couple hours ago. She's the most powerful Navigator you've ever seen. She's also not aware of that at all. Your thoughts drift to possible explanations. Is she an amnesiac then? She said she remembers everything from after she was 5 or so years old. Maybe those are false memories? Planted? But nobody would have the sort of metaphysical clout to do such a thing to her. Maybe she did it to herself? But that's not her discipline. She's time and spirit. Maybe she's blocked off a part of her own memories? That would be possible, but it wouldn't explain the lack of gaps. You continue pondering.

The hand on your shoulder shakes you. You snap out of your reverie. "Yo." You hear. "We've got a problem."

You look up. The girl is looking at you. Araella. She points out towards the cockpit window. You have a problem.

The external doors of the hangar are bent and battered. The emergency seals have engaged and broken aready, and now the an aperture is being rent open. Your ship indicates that the air has drained from the surrounding area. No noise reaches you as metal arms drive themselves through the hole and pull sideways, widening it.

You turn to Araella. "I'm not done yet. We need to stall. I'll fire up this ship. You'll fly it from where you're standing. Take any calls you get and do anything they say. We just need them to not fire on us. It's only a little while longer."

>3/6

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>>478980
Araella objects. "Woah woah woah. Hold up. I don't know how to fly this thing? What am I going to be doing?"

You don't have time for this. You gesture to a console. "Activate this. Keep the ship green. This is the floating console. It means we're not hitting anything." You gesture to an interface with several switches, buttons and sticks. "This is the go console." You explain. "Press the forward button to go and the stop button to not go. Good luck. Our lives depend on this."

You return to your task. The beacon feels near. You only need a little more time.

--

Araella stands awkwardly to your side, reaching over you to use the 'go' console. She gingerly activates what you called the forward button. The ship begins gently moving. Its body grinds along the metal floor. A steady screeching sound reverberates through the wings to the cabin. Araella quickly shifts her attention to the other console you mentioned. The ship rises off the ground.

As Araella works to wrangle the ship, the opening in the battered hangar doors continues to widen. It's wide enough now that a sizeable portion of the outside is exposed. A legion of ships is visible. All of them are directed towards the hangar, watching and waiting.

After the scavenging or constructing ship ripping open the hangar finishes its work, the communications console receives a ping. It indicates a message from Wailer, with a notification that his ship is not the one registered he's registered as haviing. You don't get the chance to take notice of this, and the humor is lost on Araella. She answers the communication as instructed.

Upon the screen appears a man clad head to toe in high tech armor. It's black and obscures his face. Araella is not aware of the make, though. The torso is a sort of cluttered composite of armor plating, conduits and containers. The shoulder panels are multilayered and designd for blasts, extending beyond the armor somewhat awkwardly.

"Atmus." The man addresses you directly. "Do you think I am a fool?"

You don't respond, being presently incapable of doing so.

Araella interposes herself between you and the camera instead. "Hi." She says. "How has your day been?"

The man pauses for a second. His mask betrays no expression. He turns his face slightly away from the camera. "Before I obliterate you, answer for me one question." He waits for a response.

Araella stares him down, not deigning to respond. Her head sideways on the camera as she twists hersef to remain in view.

The man waits a bit longer than seems necessary before continuing. "What did you come here for? What drove you to develop the audacity to return to this system?"

Araella doesn't really have an answer so she looks at you. You're still caught up in your space magic. Araella improvises "Well, you know, I thought the weather this time during the solar cycle was supposed to be nice. There's plenty of sunshine on Somnia and all that."

"Fine." The man says. "Goodbye."

>4/6

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>>478983

"Wait wait wait wait." Araella blurts out. Seeing that you're still not finished. "We were, uh, here to steal something. Ummm.. This ship! Err, no. The archives. The archive ship! We needed everything from, ah... We needed something... Look. I'm the lowliest member of this crew. I just follow orders, this is above my level."

"Atmus wouldn't take on more crew unless he thought they were capable. No. I don't believe you. Tell me what was so important in this system and I'll only cripple your ship, leaving you alive."

--

You make contact with the beacon. You see it in your trinket, the blue glow penetrates your mind and soul, extending beyond your perception. You feel the power from the beacon infusing you. You feel the pull towards your destination. You only need to push a little bit and you can get there. You're free to go. But first, you've got something to say.

You look up. "Hey Morne." You gently push Araella's face out of your way. "How many cruisers is that now? I've lost count."

On the screen Morne looks down. He's trying not to give anything away but you know when he's frustrated. You tense yourself, power coursing through you, ready to make the jump at any moment. The transmission cuts off.

In front of you, you see the largest ship fire. Out! You jump sending a message in text to Morne immediately before you do. 'u r ghey', it reads. As you, the ship around you, and Araella fade into a blue matrix, you see the lines of plasma pass through where you are. They slam into the interior wall of the hangar, detonating and sending crates flying. You don't get to see the rest as the system around you fades out.

You reappear at your destination, ready to continue trying to narrow down the location of this lost system you're looking for.

>focus pool: 3/13

>5/6

>>478989
You've traveled to:

>The Viam system. Specifically the planet Merita. With a couple favors you might be able to splice together some of the old transmission, once you find it in the archives. Once you've done that it'll be much easier to find a third instance of it the transmission, plus it'll be nice to catch up with some friends. You're going to have to lay a bit low though, since your ship identifies as Somnius and people who don't know you aren't going ot appreciate that.

>The Edura system. You've not got a particular planet in mind, but you're sure to have somewhere safe to land. People outside Edura and Somnia aren't going to take kindly to a Somnius ship flying around, after all. You might be able to fabricate some ship credentials here, and maybe buy some 'rarer' information from the right places. You don't really have a great lead on where another instance of the transmission you're tracking down might be but you might be able to find one here.

>The Vesua system. You might not have a great lead on where you could find a 3rd copy of that transmission, but you've heard a bit about the old facilities in this system. You've never had the chance to investigate the ruins on Illica because of the Vesuan's strict regulations and mistrust of outsiders, but if they think you're Somnius then all the people you antagonize by breaking their laws aren't going to be pissed at you personally. At least, as long as you don't get captured. If you did find the last copy you need here, it'd be worth it anyways.

>6/6

>>478992
>The Viam system. Specifically the planet Merita. With a couple favors you might be able to splice together some of the old transmission, once you find it in the archives. Once you've done that it'll be much easier to find a third instance of it the transmission, plus it'll be nice to catch up with some friends. You're going to have to lay a bit low though, since your ship identifies as Somnius and people who don't know you aren't going ot appreciate that.

>>478992
>>The Vesua system. You might not have a great lead on where you could find a 3rd copy of that transmission, but you've heard a bit about the old facilities in this system. You've never had the chance to investigate the ruins on Illica because of the Vesuan's strict regulations and mistrust of outsiders, but if they think you're Somnius then all the people you antagonize by breaking their laws aren't going to be pissed at you personally. At least, as long as you don't get captured. If you did find the last copy you need here, it'd be worth it anyways.

>>478989
>The Vesua system. You might not have a great lead on where you could find a 3rd copy of that transmission, but you've heard a bit about the old facilities in this system. You've never had the chance to investigate the ruins on Illica because of the Vesuan's strict regulations and mistrust of outsiders, but if they think you're Somnius then all the people you antagonize by breaking their laws aren't going to be pissed at you personally. At least, as long as you don't get captured. If you did find the last copy you need here, it'd be worth it anyways.