The PCs have destroyed the Nekatra guards protecting the Dabaran hacker, Livan, and are ready to ransack his apartments and capture him. The roster for today’s mission:

  • Adam, gunner and acting captain
  • Clementine, technologist
  • Siladan Hatshepsut, archaeologist and data djinn
  • Saqr, pilot and mystic
  • Al Hamra, captain and droid (with mystic powers)
  • Dr. Banu Delecta, medic
  • Kaarlina, mystic

First they began investigating the large warehouse room where they killed the nekatra, ignoring the stench of burnt fur and blood. They found nothing of interest in the cargo space but in a neighbouring storage room they found a collection of electronic equipment, and buried amongst it a box full of data chips with the names of important local figures tagged on them: The Grand Vizier, Inspector Aluf, and so on. They inserted one into their tabula, and Siladan was about to begin his data djinn work to decode it when a speaker in the corner of the room crackled to life and Livan spoke to them. He asked them not to take his data chips, and offered to cut a deal with them if they would return him the chips. After a very short negotiation he invited them upstairs to his living space.

They moved cautiously out of the room and into the hallway, where a previously locked door opened to reveal an elevator. They took the elevator up to the second level of the old abandoned ice hauler, into a small and messy kitchen. The centre of the kitchen held a large circular table, and on the far side of it a tall, thin, rangy-looking man sat in a chair with his legs on the table, an accelerator pistol pointing at them. He gestured to them to sit, and they cautiously joined him at the table.

The negotiation that followed was simple and effective. Livan revealed to them that Samina’s Corsairs were his most rewarding and most demanding clients, and he did not like working with them. He also thought they were very dangerous, but he was willing to cut a deal with the PCs in order to secure the return of his data chips, which were his insurance policy for his work on Atuta; if he lost them he would need to move or begin his entire career all over again. The PCs, seeing a chance to learn all they needed without any dirty work, agreed to return him the chips if he would tell them all he could about the Corsairs, and also scrub the registry of all their stolen ships. He agreed to both, and had refreshed the registry of their stolen ships in a matter of minutes. He then told them what he knew of the Corsairs:

  • Samina herself must be a powerful mystic, or at least had some mystic power
  • A mystic barrier of some kind protected the Corsairs’ home base from being found, so ships would pass it by without ever knowing it was there
  • No one on a Corsair ship knew how to pass through the barrier. Instead they visited Hamurabi portal station and met someone called the Oracle who then guided them through the barrier
  • The Oracle must have some mystic power, or perhaps carried some token or symbol that helped pass through the barrier
  • The Corsairs were run like a cult, and were fanatically loyal
  • There were perhaps 60 soldiers remaining in the Corsair base after the damage the PCs had already done to them
  • The Corsair base was rumoured to have a resident fleet of attack ships to defend it if ever the barrier is breached
  • There are perhaps 3 remaining Corsair ships that are used for travel across the Horizon, between portals

Livan also told them that he routinely dealt with three agents, who visited him occasionally. The most recent visit was from an agent in a ship called the Haymarket Massacre. Saqr asked him if he had video footage of that man approaching his home, and indeed Livan did. He shared this with Saqr. They asked after a few other details, and agreed to part ways in peace. Livan was sure their trouble with the Corsairs would soon get them killed, and doubted he would ever have to see them again.

They returned to their luxury quarters far from Livan’s rundown old freighter, and decided to take this time in Atuta to prepare themselves for the biggest action yet of their campaign. With their ships now officially registered as theirs they were finally in a position to upgrade them, and now they were in one of the largest shipbuilding spaceports in the Horizon. They took a month here, resting and recuperating from their many injuries, while the Beast of Burden was repaired and the Judgment of the Dancer upgraded with more modules and weapons. They also modified the Grace of the Icons to increase its armaments and prepare it for war. For a month they took in the airs of Atuta, enjoyed its thriving souks and bustling cantinas, and wound down from months of constant combat.

Then, a month later, on the day of the Founding, as they were relaxing in their quarters and preparing to return to their ship, Saqr took it upon himself to use his mystic powers to see if he could find Livan’s contact, and to scry upon him. He took his support cat Orange to his lap, made himself comfortable in his cushion room, played the video Livan had sent him and sunk into a mystic trance.

He found the contact easily enough, though in a bizarre place. His mystic powers told him that the contact was not in Hamura, but at a location far from any star, in the centre of the Dabaran Circle, a place light years from the nearest portal and not connected to any star. Had the Corsairs found a hidden portal!? He tried to investigate further using his scrying powers, but here everything went wrong: his mystic powers failed him, and a huge shadow of darkness passed over him as he fled the scene of his scrying. As he tried to draw his powers back into himself the great shadow followed him, and the Dark between the stars broke into his room.

It manifested as four huge, ghostly hounds, one in each corner of the room, which immediately broke into a great howl that almost tore Saqr’s spirit from his bones. Then they attacked him.

These were the infamous Hounds of Tirides. Fortunately their howl alerted the rest of the group, who were able to quickly come to Saqr’s aid, charging into the room unarmoured and with only the gear they could quickly grab to try and save him from the swarming Dark. This battle was nearly deadly: the Hounds had some mystic power to shift in time and space when attacked so that they took no damage, and every time one of them howled it tore at their souls. Within moments Saqr was a gibbering heap on the ground, Siladan was unconscious with his face torn off, and the rest of the group had nerves so frayed they felt they must flee. But they perservered, and finally through a mess of gunfire and mercurium they were able to cut the beasts down and send them back to the Dark from whence they came. Dr. Delecta and Adam between them dragged Saqr back from his catatonia, and as they recovered from the battle he explained the strange thing he had seen.

They realized now that some great and dark power was invested in the Corsairs. When they killed Samina it would not just be a dangerous bandit nest that they destroyed, but some sinister force from the Dark. They must prepare themselves for a bitter battle not just against human cruelty, but against the Dark itself …

A note on darkness points: My players have been pretty liberal in giving me darkness points, because failure has consequences in this game so they often reroll, especially with knowledge or observation checks where failure can be misleading. So when the Hounds of Tirides materialized they had given me 13 darkness points, and for the first few rounds they gave me a few more. This enabled me to liberally spend darkness points avoiding damage and using the horrible howl power of the Hounds, which causes 2 MP damage every time it happens. By the end of the battle it was clear to the players that if they gave me even one darkness point I would be able to use the howl again, and probably render half the crew catatonic (they were all pretty low on mental points by then, and most of the fighters don’t have a lot, maybe 6 or 7). So they had to fight the last part of the battle unable to pray for any rolls, with two of the crew down and desperate to beat the dogs before another person took a serious critical. It would have just required one or two more howls, or one serious critical on a fighter, for the battle to turn from a hard fight to a TPK. Darkness points can be very dangerous when the GM has a lot of them!