Standing in a room with the dead body of the Lord of the house is not a position anyone wants to be in. Standing in a room with the woman you brought into the house, who killed said Lord, is an even worse situation. Lilith Zeizerer had plotted and schemed for years to get her revenge on the people who exiled her. And the crew of the Invictus were the perfect pawns in her plan. She faked her own death and was brought "home" to be received with disdain or indifference at best. As we stood there in shock, she gave us a proposition. We could either take the blame for the death of Zen's father and run from the wrath of the House of Zeizerer, but with riches untold in our accounts. Or we could walk away, but she will plant evidence pointing to us as the culprits which means we would be running from the wrath of the House of Zeizerer as very poor outlaws.
During the negotiations, Vicky was able to determine Lilith had more in her than just the nanites. There was a chip of some sort at the base of her neck. Vicky was able to disrupt the device for a short period. What greeted us was a kind, loving and confused woman who broke down in tears seeing her daughter dead at her feet, very undrow behavior. We were able to surmise that Lilith was afflicted with Lmyayra Disease, typically a death warrant for any Drow who has it. The device was surgically installed to suppress the unwanted emotions not typically expressed by the Drow. However, this particular chip had been hacked into and was controlling Lilith against her will. We were only able to carry on snippets of conversation with the real Lilith before her puppet master took over again. At one point we had Lilith bound and in our control, but needles shot out from beneath her nailbeds and injected Tybar with a poison that would kill him without an antidote. Tybar used his electric discharge to disrupt the device once again. We had no way to surgically remove the chip and we were running out of time before we would be discovered with the dead Lord Ziezerer. There was no way to save Lilith at this point in time. Joy encouraged her crew to take the deal, admit to the crime and figure out a solution in the future. But that didn't stop Ash from raiding the pile of weapons Lilith had presented, including some stunning grenade earrings. Goblina was agast, how could these heroes be so villainous stealing the property of others?
The crew of the Invictus had a couple of problems at this point. One, they still had a standing meeting with Lady Valeria, who had no idea her husband was dead. And two, they needed a way off this planet quickly. Joy agreed to meet with Lady Valeria in hopes that she might be an ally. It turns out, that no one else in the area was afflicted with Lmayara Disease so going after that angle wasn't going to work. But Lady Valeria had her own agenda that could change the future of the Drow regardless. She had in her possession some video and audio transmissions that she recovered from the Bleeding Edge Armor. But not the armor we had just recently given over to them. This armor came from the future. On it was a broken-up conversation between a Ratoid named Tyrese and his father Tybar. We were all shocked to learn that Tybar had yet another rat son. We also learned that the Bleeding Edge Armor was way more than just the newest technology in warfare, it had a greater purpose. But none of that mattered if we couldn't get off the planet pronto!
Lady Valeria had a mission for us. She needed us to take a man, named William, to the Absalom Station. This just happened to be the one place faux Lilith had told us to stay away from since she had a plan to lead the army who would be after us shortly on a wild goose chase to that exact location. But alas, there was nothing to be done, Joy agreed to the mission because it would accomplish the goal of getting out of there. On the way back to Invictus, Ash and Goblina had a little heart-to-heart. Ash admired Goblina and her moral position on life in general. Ash wanted to be a better person. Gonlina was over the moon and began to teach Ash the ways of the Goddess. That is until "Killjoy" told them to hurry it along. Once aboard the Invictus we were ready to flee. We were heading to Absalom Station, but it was too late. We had been discovered, well the death of Lord Ziezerer had been discovered and the Drow was out in force. Joy had to do the unthinkable and ask the evil Lilith for help. We ejected a decoy with our beacon tied to it in one direction and asked Lilith to lead the battleship in another. For our part, we had to go dead. We gathered everyone into a tight circle while Goblina evoked a life bubble around us. We drifted in pure silence as the Invictus headed toward an asteroid belt. The Invictus took hit after hit, the crew just praying her self-healing hull would stand up to the onslaught.
Join us next time to see how our crew accomplishes the mission from Lady Valeria with all and sundry after them.
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