The party meets at a tavern, er um, I mean a traveling space bar. A Rot Water Bar to be exact, where they serve up the finest rotten libations. Get your rotted grapes, your rotted rice, your rotted potatoes, and drink it on down, if you can. Anyway, that is where our little band of misfits were summoned. Each member of the team owed someone a large sum of money and the cunning Drow House Zeizerer, needing a disposable team, bought up all the markers. This mission is so vital to them, they even sent one of their own, Zendarian "Zen" Zeizerer. Included among the team was Joy, personal assistant to Zen. An AI chatbot, N.I.K.K., who thinks it is a Space Pirate Captain, and also annoyingly streams everything that it does. Azura aka "Ash", a human who was in a horrific accident that has caused her to now be half android. Her best friend in the whole world, Tybar "T-bone" Wrathbone, a shiny lizard fighter. And Chanterelle, a Hortus Mystic, in other words, a personified magic mushroom. With the team all assembled, Zen could proceed with her family's wishes.
Zen was having a friendly little chat with the barkeep, Llyod, when they were rudely interrupted...
"Benny! Benny’s the name. I’ve got the best ride in town." As he slaps the side of his cab and a piece falls off. “Not needed, not needed. I’ve got sparkling water, I’ve got magazines, the seats are, er, um ‘clean’. I know all the best hook ups. Hotels where the sheets are cleaned at least once a week. Food joints, while not the best food, I can at least say you most likely won’t get sick from eating there." We ignore Benny, well all except for Azh. She can't help herself. If she sees a broken machine she has to try and fix it. During the process, Llyod informs us the shuttle he called for us has been delayed. Shortly after the relayed message, a giant spacecraft lands, and space soldiers begin to disembark.
N.I.K.K. was devastated to learn that the heavily-armed space soldiers were not, in fact, cosplayers. He was even more alarmed when the “cosplayers” opened fire on the Rot Water Bar. Everyone else could easily see that these were definitely paid-for-hire soldiers, usually contracted to protect corporate executives, but none of us felt the need to stick around to learn why exactly they were there...especially when the battle-armor individual started emerging from the ship.
At that point, Benny’s cab looks like the most luxurious ride in the universe. We pile in like a can of sardines. As we fly away, we notice the lack of restraint harnesses and hear the soft hissing of the atmosphere leaking out of this not-so-air-worthy vessel. We have to space-hop from planet to planet in order to refill the chamber with breathable air on our way to the next part of our orders.
We need a ship. Nothing that could be traced back to us, nor the House Zeizerer. We’ve been given a small endowment of credits to procure such a ship. It should be one suitable to a team of researchers, not some battleship. Just outside the bustling city of Artus, we find just the type of shipyard we need. Nebulor Outfitters Shipyard LLC, is one of those shipyards that will take your credits and not ask for a background check, or have you sign the usual legal registration documentation. In order to enter the shipyard, they require all guests to lock their weapons into a chest, N.I.K.K. was so down for putting items into a chest, being a pirate and all. We were then required to complete a full body scan, where we were notified to speak to Mister Big himself. Mister Big was a very short halfling named Ethan Brumble. He was given instructions that our dealings were strictly off the records, someone had paid for the security cameras to be turned off during our visit and the body scan disks destroyed.
If you thought used car salesmen were bad, you ain’t seen anything compared to used spaceship salesmen. He kept trying to upsell us on the fast space fighters, which is something Ash really wanted. Joy, the universe’s best personal assistant, knew to bypass the salesman and deal directly with his PA. Soon our adventurers were on their way in a dilapidated research vessel. The diamond in the rough. No one in their right mind would have purchased this vessel, but our gut was telling us this ship was something special.
We found it half buried in sand, tucked into the back corner of the lot, all but forgotten. Most of the specialized research equipment including the high-tech drift drive had been stripped and sold as parts. Trying to get the thing to turn over was an ordeal all itself. Anyone else would have walked away, but our little Ash has grit and third time's a charm. The ship came to life. Our little Invictus, built for intergalactic, scientific travel. Ash immediately gave the ship's computer the nickname Vicky.
Benny, whose cab crashed and caught fire landing on this rock, asked for a ride. T-bone decided to make him the crew's janitor. Which was very much needed given the state of Invictus.
Ash was living her best life. Sailing along through the deep black of space, when all of the sudden, the ship's computer gave a warning. "Warning, warning, an emergency is happening," a spaceship was coming upon us fast. And then another, and another. We had no time to react, but one of the ships hailed us. They informed us a giant energy wave was coming, there was no way to outrun it, all was lost. Then the ship went silent. By that time Invictus had picked up the energy wave on the scanner. More than 50 vessels were fleeing in its wake. Joy asked the ship's computer what could be done. Invictus said to turn into the storm. It was built to withstand the most severe of space anomalies, it was a research vessel, it had thick lining meant to take beatings. It did not run from the likes of this, it was meant to meet it straight on.
Soon we were being pelted with the debris of the ships that did not survive. The energy wave dissipated and we were left surrounded by flotsam and jetsam, with the intermingled pod of those who tried to escape. Invictus systems were all offline. N.I.K.K. immediately volunteered to go rescue those in the pods, it would definitely boost his views. T-bone, the only one with any real strength tagged along. Joy, Ash and Chante called different spaceship parts that we needed, just in case N.I.K.K. and T-bone floated past one. Chante even found a magical create floating out there, but T-bone threw N.I.K.K. right past it. Joy found a more powerful computer that we could transfer Vicky into so it could think faster. All-in-all we found a lot of gear that we couldn't have gotten with our credit back at the shipyard and 10 survivors.
Join us next time to see what the new crew of the Invictus does, after all, they are supposed to be on a secret mission, and now have a hold full of strangers.
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