Artifact traders on Algebar 3

Our heroes have rumbled a trafficking ring in Algebar, which is willing to pay a huge amount of money for shipment of a single Skavara with mystic powers. Seeing an opportunity to take a very large amount of money from some very undeserving people, they decided to raid the agent in Algebar who was going to purchase the Skavara, take the million birr he had intended to pay for it, and find out why this Skavara was so valuable.

The cast for today’s adventure:

  • Adam, gunner and acting captain
  • Reiko Ando, deckhand
  • Siladan Hatshepsut, archaeologist and data djinn
  • Saqr, pilot and mystic
  • Dr Banu Delecta, medic
  • Oliver Greenstar, colonist

They traveled to the main planet in the Algebar system, Tufsur, and settled into its spaceport in preparation for a raid.

The Algebar system

Algebar is a single main-sequence yellow star, similar to Sol, with 12 planets, an asteroid belt and a gas giant. Its unstable portal has isolated it from the rest of the Horizon, and most trading companies do not risk traveling past Amedo into Algebar. This means that the worlds beyond Algebar are relatively lawless, and primarily visited by free traders, and it also means that Algebar has developed relatively independently of the Horizon. Originally settled by Firstcome, Algebar is characterized by three main stellar objects: the planet Paru (Algebar 4), Tufsur (Algebar 3) and the asteroid belt, called Assager’s Ghost.

Paru is a large, earth-like planet, relatively cool compared to earth and characterized by seven moderately-sized continents separated from each other by wide seas. Its population of five million is spread over these continents and has slowly devolved to a technological level equivalent to that of the age of sail. The seven continents have slowly diverged culturally, having their own languages and cultures, due to the poor interconnections between nations using sail ships. The population grows slowly, and the planet is something of a backwater. Its people know of those on other planets, but their xenophobia and lack of education causes them not to care too much, nor to change. They trade foodstuffs for trinkets from space, giving them a science-fantasy culture something like that in Silverberg’s Majipoor books. In addition to foodstuffs, the people of Paru have two unique trade objects: Paru fabrics and their own people. Paru fabric is made from a shellfish that grows widely in the shallow seas of the planet. It fastens itself to the seabed using silk strands which, when extracted from the shell, can be spun into a fabric of extreme tensile strength and power, that can be used to make advanced armours. The people of Paru are famously beautiful, and are traded legally into courtesan work by Ahlam’s Temple, and illegally into slavery by the Syndicate. As a result of these trade goods, a bustling space port hangs over Paru, but its people itself have failed to benefit from the trade they provide.

In turn Tufsur, the third planet in the system, completely depends on Paru. Its population of 900,000 live on a desert planet with no water, in domed firstcome cities that have been maintained by a cult of technologists, the Emirs of Tufsur, who hold total power on the planet. The largest industry on Tufsur is spinning Paru fabrics into armour and advanced materials; they trade for food and the raw silk from Paru, and buy ice in bulk from free traders who collect it from Assager’s Ghost. There is no freedom on Tufsur, just religion and work; but the huge station hanging in orbit offers welcome relief and riotous freedom from all the religious restrictions of the planet below, its wealth built on trade in goods from Paru and ice from the asteroid belt.

This asteroid belt is a huge monstrosity, 10 AU wide and 10 AU wide, blocking sunlight to the outer planets and casting a gravitational pall over the entire system. Many theorize that this asteroid belt is the reason for the system’s unstable portal, but little can be done with it except to mine it for rare metals and ice. The rare metals are sold to free traders as they pass through, primarily from the spaceport at Paru, and the ice to Tufsur. The system maintains a bustling sub-stellar network of mining ships and ice-haulers, but interstellar vessels are rarer and their crew a foolhardy bunch at best.

Thus does Algebar’s business proceed slowly, as it has always done, largely isolated from the rest of the Horizon by its bad portal. And into this ossified network fell the PCs, carrying a miracle semi-intelligence, and a thirst for justice.

On Tufsur Space Station

Tufsur space station is a huge torus, 3km in radius on its inner face and 1km in diameter. It looks like a disc as a visitor approaches, because the entire toroidal central space is devoted to huge sheets of solar panels, which power the entire station. There are about 100,000 people living on the station, giving it a relatively low population density. The station is firstcome, old and slowly crumbling but still a millenium away from becoming unusable. It has several docking space internally that are large enough for class IV ships or smaller, and an array of external docking stations for class V ships. Ice Haulers typically dock away from the ship and their ice is hauled to special trade platforms by tug boats. Although large interstellar vessels rarely visit, a constant stream of class II and class III sub-stellar trade ships streams into and out of the station, and down to the planet below. The station has four primary residential levels, each perhaps 100m in height, with a simple structure consisting of an outer promenade and an inner promenade separated by a tube train that connects 9 stations (one for each icon) set not-quite-equidistantly around the tube. Central decks are the poorest, since their inner promenade has no windows, and there is a modest criminal population on the station consisting of a mixture of people running from other systems, people hiding from the Emirs of Tufsur, human traffickers, smugglers, and general criminals.

The PCs docked at an internal dock and found accommodation on an upper outer promenade, in a large villa with views of the system, near a pleasant park. They immediately set about finding criminal connections, and quite quickly managed to arrange a meeting in The Doldurms, a network of ancient fighter-repair bays that had been repurposed into markets. Here they bought themselves armour enhancements and armoured underweave made of Paru fabric, and also found the location of the Skavara dealer’s local contact, a certain Mr. Ting. They purchased some fake identities for themselves, and paid him a visit.

An unfortunate escalation of hostilities at Mr Ting’s warehouse

Mr Ting was based in a small warehouse with a view over the inner disc, next to a small and rundown park. They stopped outside and prepared themselves. Unfortunately the strict weapons laws on the station prevented them from being heavy weapons or armour, so they were wearing their new underweave and carrying only knives and small pistols. Siladan attempted (and failed) to access some local computer systems to see what was inside but was unsuccessful, so they pulled out their weapons, heaved up the main roller door on the warehouse, and entered…

… to be greeted by a hail of gunfire from a vulcan machine gun, that hit everyone on the front row but fortunately did not do any serious damage. The guards in the warehouse had been alerted by Siladan’s failed computer access attempt, and were on overwatch. Battle was joined!

The fight was short and sharp. Two men upstairs at the machine gun nest were quickly overpowered by Adam and Siladan, while a third man downstairs revealed himself by shooting at Oliver, and was taken down by Reiko, Oliver and Banu. Upstairs, Mr. Ting shot Adam in the head and almost killed him[1], but once his guards were down he surrendered and agreed to talk.

Unfortunately, as they were talking Siladan made an attempt to search Mr. Ting’s computers, and made another dismal failure. This alerted some guards, who came to the warehouse to investigate. After another short fight Mr. Ting gave up, and two of the three guards survived. Mr. Ting gave the PCs the million birr he was holding to pay for the Skavara. He warned them that he was just an agent for a greater power, and they would regret this intervention. They offered to let him live if he told them who he was dealing for, but he did not know. Instead he told them he had a contact, a man called Thrall, who would be returning to the station in 11 days. They could ask him.

The PCs let Mr. Ting live, took his 1 million birr and the information, and left. They would find this Thrall, track down his boss, and learn the truth about the Skavara in their hold. They had a feeling that something big was moving behind this scheme, and they intended to find out what … and get rich as they did so!

fn1: I rolled a crit of 66, but Adam’s player had just bought the new talent Tenth Life, which enables a PC to ignore a single 66. This is a one use talent, so Adam basically burnt 5xp.