On the islands of Amedo

After a short interlude to rest and recuperate at the Lithofor, the PCs have returned to their luxury yacht and traveled onward, to Amedo, experiencing no threats or challenges along the way and arriving at the Amedo system’s main planet, Amedo, without incident. Amedo is the fourth planet in the Amedo system, circling its large star. Its population is small and scattered over primarily small islands far from its main continent. Amedo is the ancestral home of the Skavara, semi-intelligences that are exploited as trainable troops and labourers, and as a result the planet has a large and active spaceport despite its small surface population, as a brisk trade in Skavara attracts traders and businesspeople. The PCs arrived with the intention of passing on directly to Algebar, but decided to stay while they looked for passengers, and to explore the wonders and famed beauty of the planet’s archipelagoes.

Visit to a White Temple

The PCs’ main aim was to visit one of the planet’s famed white temples, temples scattered across the ocean surface that had been built by the firstcome and which had an ancient history of strict devotion to the Icons. Unfortunately there was no information available about the white temples either in the ship’s database or in any physical or digital media in the planet’s spaceport, and they were forced to travel to the surface and randomly select a white temple to visit. Siladan did a little investigation and was able to determine a likely order for the distribution of temples, so that they could find the temple they sought, so they took their shuttle and headed down to the planet.

The only way to approach the white temples was by boat, so they landed at a nearby chain of islands called the Resiler Isles, and took accommodation here in an old whaling facility called the Death Factory. Here they learnt that the Resiler Isles were a haven for people escaping harsh lives in the rest of the Horizon: former gangsters, soldiers, political activists, failed prophets and washed up adventurers all found their way here, to live in peace amongst the waves and storms of Amedo’s oceans. The PCs, too, took this opportunity to rest for a few days before they took a boat from the Resiler Isles and headed into the wild ocean, looking for one of the White Temple Islands.

They reached the white temple island after an uneventful few days of primitive sailing across calm blue seas. It was a small island built on a base of white coral, ancient and bleached to sparkling beauty by sun and wind. Their boat docked at a small pier of coral, and they ascended glittering white steps through a long chain of gateways made from the huge rib bones of long-dead whales. The stairs curved around the island and led them to a building constructed entirely of whalebone, its windows made of single discs of a strange, semi-translucent plastic-like material. At the top they were met by a monk, an old woman dressed in simple robes, and led into the small compound within the whalebone walls. For the next week they prayed and did simple menial work on the island, polishing coral and scrubbing whalebone floors and spars, and flagellating themselves regularly in the presence of the Icons. During this week they learnt that the White Island Temples were the reason for the extinction of the planet’s great whales, and also their prey, the huge jellyfish-like creatures whose internal gelatinous organ was used to make the windows and semi-translucent skylights of the temples.

After this week of devotions they left, enlightened, with new skills and talents, and returned to the Beast of Burden to continue their explorations of the Horizon.

The Hidden Cargo

Once they were back on the Amedo space station the PCs were contacted by a man called Elifim who wanted them to carry some cargo for him to Algebar 3, Tufsur. This cargo was a simple job, and he was not paying a lot – 10,000 birr to transport a crate of electronic goods plus himself, his assistant and four staff through the portal to Algebar. They agreed, and set off the next day.

The journey to the portal was uneventful, although some of the crew were troubled by strange dreams, and they passed through the portal uneventfully. The next day, as they traveled towards Tufsur 3, Saqr was woken from a nightmare, rearing from his bed with a scream of anguish and torn by visions of being trapped in darkness. Realizing that these dreams were definitely not right, he decided to go and find his cat, which had recently been spending a lot of time in the cargo hold.

In the hold Saqr found his cat sitting alert on the crate they were transporting as if he were looking at something. Saqr approached, and saw that the cargo crate was open. Something moved rapidly past him, and he realized he might not be alone in the hold. His cat jumped down from the crate to go after the movement and Saqr followed, waking up the others (finally!) as he did so. Following his cat he found himself facing a Skavara, hidden in the shadows at the back of the cargo hold. It was smaller than Saqr, had dark, matted fur and looked confused and scared. Saqr guessed it must have been in the crate – either as a stowaway or as cargo. Remembering his nightmares, he began to guess that Elifim had for some reason been trafficking this thing.

That was when he was attacked by one of their passengers.

The others reached the hold at this time, but Dr. Delecta had the sense to bring her motion detector, so they knew that there were 8 figures in the hold – their passengers, Saqr and something else. With Saqr’s warning they entered the hold fully armed and began shooting. The battle that followed was short and brutal, but not easy. Elifim’s assistant was revealed to be a mystic, who used his powers to stop them from acting, and the four “staff” Elifim had brought on board were actually fighters of some kind.

During this short and vicious battle they also discovered that the Skavara had mystic powers – it used them to cause panic and terror in anyone who came to close to it. It was this mystic power that finally won the battle for them, and after a few blood-drenched seconds they had subdued the passengers and had Elifim at their mercy, panting in terror and trying to crawl out of the cargo hold even though one of his legs had been partially severed by Siladan’s halberd.

A short and harsh interrogation of Elifim told them what they suspected. The Skavara was the first of its kind with mystic powers, and Elifim had captured it and was shipping it to a man on Tufsur 3 who he expected would pay a lot of money for it. He offered to cut the PCs a deal if they let him live – he would put them in touch with the agent and give them half of the million birr he expected to make from the sale. It’s only a Skavara, what could they care?

They did care, and they showed Elifim this in no uncertain terms. Once they had the name of his contact on Tufsur 3 they spaced him and his dead crew. They would meet his contact, but only to finish what they had started with Elifim. They welcomed their new crew member on board, and resumed their journey to Tufsur 3.