Today brings the beginning of the new Aether Sailors game, and to mark the occasion Tim (Christophe-Joseph Pépin), Chuck (Quentin Lawrence), Paul (Smith) and Bruce head off to El Arroyo to be summarily ignored out on the patio. Chris (Dmitri Baranov) and Ernest (Carlos Juan Victor Sanchez) both manage to miss lunch, but show up just in time to observe everyone else establish a Code of Silence on El Arroyo's service.
Just for reference's sake, musket-rifle ammunition costs 3 Lv per 20 rounds (with powder), and revolver ammunition costs 4.5 Lv per 60 rounds. With appropriate thanks to Chuck for figuring this out.
The characters all start out the adventure in the town of Criqueronde, on the far northern edge of the French Departement de Nereidum. The place isn't much of a center of civilization, but it is far preferable to the desert wastes to the north and west.
Christophe-Joseph Pépin (Tim) is a world-traveling intellectual menace. He is every bit the decadent English aristocrat, with more breeding than he knows what to do with and enough money to make himself dangerous. Fortunately, he is also burdened with a large extended family that is (if possible) even more decadent than he is. He has traveled to Mars in search of new experiences, personal challenges, and cheap sources of really good drugs. He tells the others, "What do I hate about Martians? The taste."
Pépin has been on Mars for quite a while. He is fascinated by other cultures and has the money to travel. He has yet to learn any native languages, but he knows how to speak a wide variety of the European kind. His major interest in Criqueronde is that he heard of a good okku-nakal den. He has been in town for a while, longer than anyone else, but may know less of it than anyone else. He has been on Mars for almost a year. He still hasn't managed to live out his ambition of having sex with a Martian, even with his Xenophilia.
Quentin "Quint" Lawrence (Chuck) has had a troubled life. He has traveled across Venus, Jupiter and Mars, but unlike Pépin he has done his traveling in steerage. His youth was spent in a mission in the swamps of Venus, learning to read from the missionaries and learning to hunt from the ssaug tribesmen. After a desperate and failed stint as a Jovian whaler, he made his way to Mars where he lived among the Xea-Shvet tribes in the desert. He can speak two types of Martian language, several Venusian tribal tongues; he just can't speak to the rest of the group. Oh wait, actually he can. They just don't recognize any of the words.
Lawrence is a great hunter. He's been on Mars for almost ten years, with some intervening trips to Venus and a failed trip out to do Jovian whaling. He's spent much of his time out in the desert with the Xea-Shvet, but has been in Criqueronde several times to buy supplies. He is there now because he's heard of a crazy Frenchwoman who wants to build a school and a hospital for the locals. His last trip out was as a guide for some stodgy English squire who wanted to see some Martian towers and potsherds. He dresses in native garb.
Dmitri Baranov (Chris) has had the sort of upbringing that one usually finds in Paul Bunyan stories. He is stronger than twelve men, louder than a hurricane, and hairier than a bear. He can drink a brewery dry. He can eat a feast, and then go back for more. When lesser men fear to venture out into the Martian frontier, he hefts his mighty axe and strides forward. And when he's not lying about his background, he can converse with people of quality and play a mean game of whist.
He has been kicking around the Departement de Nereidum doing some prospecting, looking for artifacts, and playing cards. He does his best to hang out with the upper crust of Criqueronde, which isn't hard.
Smith (Paul) is a mechanical oddity, a wonder of modern tinkering built around a phlogiston boiler and a clockwork brain salvaged from Martian ruins. He knows that an English inventor built him on Mars. He served his master faithfully until the fellow was eaten by those giant bugs, the ones that live on Mars. His horrible experiments disturbed them. They let Smith alone because he didn't stop them: what they were doing wasn't technically against the law. Low empathy and all, you know. After that, Smith walked for a while until one day he walked out of the desert and into Criqueronde. The Legionnaire who found him asked him, "What is your country of origin, Mechanical Man?" He responded, "Mars!" The Legionnaire was unsatisfied, "No seriously, who built you?" Once again, he chirped back, "The English!" The Legionnaire named him Smith and told him to not make trouble.
He was built for astrogation and to be handy on aether ships. He was also built to not harm innocents. When Pépin hears about him, he exclaims in horror, "You are Kryten!"
Since his arrival in Criqueronde, he has been pestering the local people about human emotions.
Carlos Juan Victor Sanchez (Ernest) is an adventurer and a swashbuckler. He arrived in the Departement de Nereidum quite unexpectedly, falling out of the sky in a stolen aether ship.
Carlos Sanchez is a great Spanish patriot! Through happenstance, he found himself in space, and in possession of a small aether yacht once owned by a Royal Navy captain who has many other reasons to be upset with him. He promptly crash-landed the ship out in the desert near Criqueronde. Some friendly Martians showed him to the town. He was pretty beat up when he showed up, and has made the acquaintance of the Lady Catherine Langlois. He spends a lot of time flirting with her. Is she worth flirting with? On Mars, absolutely!
It is late in the year, a time when the Martian weather normally turns nasty. This year does not look likely to disappoint: for days, the skies north of Criqueronde have been black, and everyone expects that a punishing typhoon is sure to hit the region sooner or later. A steady trickle of prospectors and residents of exposed outlying communities has been moving into the shelter of Criqueronde for the last several days.
Dmitri Baranov and Carlos Sanchez are sitting in the Water Lily Club, the nicest establishment in the Place de Liberté, playing whist. A messenger comes in and gives each of them a letter from Poste-Mistress Bédard, requesting their presence at the Carriage Station that evening. They notice that the messenger goes on upstairs to take a third letter to Christophe-Joseph Pépin. They assure the poor messenger that he is unlikely to get much sentient response out of the fellow, as they had seen him smoking a pipeful of some kind of native flower only a few hours earlier. This comment develops into something of a discussion between Baranov and Sanchez on how the local okku-nakal dealers stretch their product out. The discussion ends when Baranov proclaims, "Baking powder is too expensive, of course they're going to cut it with powdered mercury..."
Both Baranov and Sanchez are stunned when Pépin actually staggers down from his room, apparently lucid enough to have read Madame Bédard's letter. He meanders over to the table and notices that the others have been playing cards. He rather brightly suggests, "Let us play a few more hands while we wait! Here, I shall bet 10 Lv!" He counts out his money and proceeds to lose most of it to Baranov's deft skills.
Smith is sitting in Eliane's Tavern when a shady character walks up to him and offers to sell him a rifle-musket obviously taken from the Legion Étrangére, on the grounds that, "You're the sort of guy who looks like you need a quality firearm." Smith is nearly ecstatic, "You want to sell me a gun for 15 Lv! I'll buy it!" There is some measure of bafflement among the nearby patrons on what kind of black marketer might think selling guns to a robot would be a good idea.
Quentin Lawrence is sitting some distance away, watching this tableau unfold, when Post-Mistress Bédard's native servant Dap approaches him with a request that he make his way to the Carriage Station. Dap explains that stout men are needed for a dangerous task, and Lawrence is both skilled, and more stable than most of the prospectors. Dap urges him to bring along the Mechanical Man, as Madame Bédard thought he looked tough.
Lawrence sends the native off, then approaches Smith to ask, "Have you been concerned that some random colonial is going to take you off as property?" Smith replies, "Yes, I have been concerned about this... the law is quite unclear." He agrees to follow Lawrence until some more permanent arrangement can be made. Lawrence also persuades Smith that he could get him some gainful employment. Smith exclaims, "Great! But I don't know what I'd do with money! I already have a gun!" He holds out his just-purchased rifle-musket. Lawrence dryly offers, "You might want to get rid of that."
The characters assemble at the Carriage Station at the requested time. There aren't many folk in Criqueronde, so they find that even if they might not know each other well, they do recognize each other. While they wait for the Poste-Mistress Bédard, Lawrence tells the others, "Whatever she might want us to do, you might have to accept payment in chickens, or spine-backs as they call them here." To pass the time, Sanchez and Baranov dice for ownership of Smith. Baranov wins, then proclaims, "Robot! You are free!" Both of them are obviously still deeply drunk.
The Poste-Mistress' request is simple: most of the long-time prospectors have already made it back to town ahead of the weather, but one of them hasn't shown up yet. He is called The Egyptian because he used to explore tombs outside of Thebes, but his real name is Gabriel Houde. She is quite concerned, because she knows he left town only a week ago. He has never been very open about his finds, but he seemed very insistent this time. She is worried that he has become too engrossed in some piece of old pottery to realize the danger he is in. She wants the characters to head out to his prospector's shack and a couple of his known dig sites to look for him and bring him back in. She can provide good maps, and all of the sites are within 20 kilometers of town. They'll have to leave right away, because the Bureau Colonial has news that the storm is no more than 24 hours away.
Poste-Mistress Bédard asks that the characters take on this rather dangerous task out of a sense of common humanity. Sanchez needs not be asked twice: he agrees instantly, exclaiming that he could not possibly refuse the request of a lady. Smith tells her, "I have no humanity!" Poste-Mistress Bédard counter-offers, "Then I can give you 20 Lv." Smith accepts. Baranov whispers to Smith, "You are a shrewd bargainer!"
Poste-Mistress Bédard also promises to sell the characters carriage tickets at half price, should they need them. By way of traveling supplies, she provides the characters with two riding daukha-apak with full kit, plus ropes, food and brandy. Her servant Dap will make certain the characters have whatever other survival gear they might require.
As the characters gear up, "Quint" Lawrence tells the others, "Here, some of you haven't been out into the deep desert before. Lemme give you some pointers. For example, the Martian sandworms are not that big, but they have teeth like straight razors and they're attracted by the sound of liquid hitting the ground. You head off alone to take yourself a leak, they'll come right at you and bite your lizard clean off. I seen it happen dozens of times."
Pépin excuses himself to use the Carriage Station's facilities and gather his equipment. Pépin returns bearing his umbrella, his pistols and his buff jacket. He dons a tricorn hat.
Dmitri Baranov looks over the provisions and complains, "But I will be hungry in an hour! And there is only enough food here for an ordinary man!" Smith clatters out, "I do not need to eat for another twenty-one days!"
Sanchez, who has never sat upon a daukha-apak before, shows off by taking his on a spin around the Poste. Baranov rides behind the fop. As the two of them lumber off, Pépin reassures the Spaniard, "When I rent these things, I always go with the oldest one. That way, if it dies in the bush nobody is surprised." Baranov rather loudly comments, "here's a trick! Take five pounds of jerky and put it under the saddle. Then that evening, it's tender from all the lizard sweat." Sanchez, looking a bit pale, tells the others, "I'm going to bring dried fruit."
There is no question but that Quint will do the desert navigation for the group, as none of the others wish to die of exposure or thirst. Sanchez leads the others in a rousing round of the traditional Spanish drinking-song "Qué Hará Con El Marinero Borracho." After a few choruses, Quint observes, "You realize that noise carries for miles across the desert, don't you?" The others continue singing. Quint turns towards the desert and yells loudly, "EAT THE SPANIARD FIRST!" in his best Xea-Shvet.
The characters travel for three hours before they see signs of the Egyptian's stead: the light of a small eternal lantern in the window of an adobe shack. Baranov asks the others, "Think he has a gun? He might think we're claim-jumpers." Pépin offers, "Perhaps we should send the robot in." Quint, ever the practical one, points out, "It is dark, so if he shoots at us he's more likely to hit himself than us."
In the end, the characters simply walk up to the hut and find that it is unoccupied. Baranov and Quint find several tables covered with neatly sorted Martian artifacts. Among them, Baranov spots a rare (and possibly valuable) dleyata flute. He picks it up with every intention of taking it along with him. Quint notices this and tries to show off his knowledge of Martian artifacts by saying, "don't take that, take this!" and handing him another, larger object. Baranov looks at it and tells Quint, "That's a broken latrine. Thank you, but I'll keep the flute." Quint decides that he won't try to impress Baranov with his knowledge of local artifacts anymore.
Sanchez searches the hut and comes up with the Egyptian's journal. Just as he flips to the last page to read about a new find the Egyptian has stumbled across to the northeast, he hears Quint outside yelling, "I've found the Egyptian's trail! He took two daukha-apak to the northeast!"
The characters head northeast.
An hour after the characters leave the Egyptian's hut, they are ambushed by desert savages. They first become aware that they are under attack when Sanchez's singing is interrupted by the whine of musket bullets.
The fight is fairly brief. Quint surprises everyone (including the savages) by putting spurs to his daukha-apak and riding straight at one group of them. He takes a bullet for his trouble, but still manages to stay in the fight and cut down one of his attackers. Baranov and Sanchez ride to his aid and manage to mop up the resistance on the right flank very effectively. Pépin stands back and watches as Smith runs down and chops up the savages on the left, pausing ever so often to blaze away at convenient targets with his revolver. He continues this behavior until he accidentally shoots Smith in the back, discovering rather to his surprise that the mechanical man is quite immune to revolver bullets. He then watches the way Smith chops a savage completely in half and proclaims, "I ride!"
Once the savage gang has been dealt with, Dmitri Baranov performs first aid upon the badly wounded Quent. Pépin offers to help, but nobody accedes. Then he points out that he is trained in medicine, and possesses several selenium-infused healing poultices. A couple of poultices later, Quent is once again the picture of glowing health. Having fixed up Quent, Pépin then suggests that he could also fix the ding on the back of Smith's head. Ever gullible, Smith lets him.
Pépin's medical and mechanical diversions are ended by Sanchez's concerned cries of, "La tormenta! La tormenta!" Everyone agrees that speed is of the essence, as the clouds on the horizon are looking much closer. The characters pause just long enough to collect seven muskets and seven bronze agtalek-iba (Martian shortswords), then ride on. Quent is able to determine that the dead savages were a mix of Xea-Osk exiles and Xea-Shvet outlaws.
In the course of searching the bodies, Dmitri Baranov finds something very interesting: one of the savages had some hexagonal coins wrapped in a piece of recently cut aether sail. The cloth is obviously fairly weathered, but it still has signs of aetheric charge so it must have been sliced from the main array of the sail only recently. Sanchez offers, "It could be from my ship! I think I crashed somewhere around here!"
The characters travel on for another couple of hours before they spot what seems to be a small hut half-buried in the desert. Quent asks the others, "Shall we go clear the hut?" Pépin hesitates, but Sanchez needs no encouragement. He kicks his daukha-apak into a gallop and cries out, "Hihyaa! That is what we call a rhetorical question in Spain!" Dmitri Baranov notices that Smith has lagged far behind the rest of the group. He turns to Pépin and comments, "Hand me your pistol, I need to signal the robot where we are."
Sanchez's early enthusiasm is dampened by two discoveries. The first is Pépin's realization that there is a badly wounded man lying on a nearby dune. He quickly determines that the man is the Egyptian, and that he has been shot through the shoulder. The second is the sight of what turns out to be a daukha-apak claw lying in the entry of the hut. This is enough to make even Sanchez a bit cautious. He peers inside the hut long enough to be convinced that it isn't really a hut, and to see that the daukha-apak claw is actually a severed claw. He calls other characters to his aid.
The characters don't need to wait long. A beaked creature with a long snaky body lunges out of the structure to attack Dmitri Baranov. The characters get down to the bloody business of dismembering it. Quent gets a good look at the thing and yells, "Everyone look out! The Martians call that thing a sal-tasska, and they always hunt in pairs! The second one is probably trying to attack one of us from behind!" About then, the second sal-tasska attacks.
The fight is over quickly. Sanchez brings it to an end with a rapier strike that goes right through the last sal-tasska, back-to-front. The tip of the blade ends up protruding from the creature's bloody beak. Dmitri Baranov gasps at the sight of the sal-tasska suddenly being skewered in front of him. He admits, "I think that's going to put me off sex for a couple of weeks. But I'm still glad that that killed it."
With the sal-tasska dead, Quent ventures into the structure. He is still glowing in the dark from all the selenium, and finds that he can make his way around the interior easily even in the dark. Sanchez follows him inside, then notices something metallic. He calls over to Quent, "Come over here, I want to read this." Quent replies, "What? I can't hear what you're saying." Sanchez's find turns out to be the brass nameplate of the HMS Farwander, a small unarmed aether sloop that vanished with all hands some six years ago. Looking around, they realize that the "hut" is actually the semi-submerged wreck of the ship. The doorway is actually just a big crack in the hull. Even with that, the interior of the ship seems surprisingly well-preserved.
Outside, Pépin administers medical care to the Egyptian, explaining, "We've saved you!" The Egyptian gasps back, "You must know! The savages have been storing the okku-nakal in there!" Pépin instantly abandons the Egyptian to look for the okku-nakal, then thinks better of it and helps the Egyptian in out of the weather first.
The characters drag everything into the crashed Farwander to shelter from the storm, then watch as Quent butchers the two dead sal-tasska for dinner.
Sanchez looks for interesting things. He finds several: an aetheric compass, and a heavy dispatch box. Sadly, the box is locked. Sanchez admits, "I have no lockpicking skill. That could be quite a conundrum!" Quent mentions, "From a certain point of view, a firearm is a lockpick." Even Pépin is happy: he finds a half-dozen bales of okku-nakal stored down in the hold, apparently left as a cache by local Martian savages.
Pépin returns from locating his drugs to find the others pondering how best to open the dispatch box. He demonstrates that a bit of fiddling plus a good whack from a gaff hook will get the box open. He proclaims, "Never underestimate the power of fiddling with knickknacks! That's how I taught myself to be a physician!"
It turns out that the Farwander had orders to go to Saturn, to evaluate a new set of navigational tables and a new technique for course calculations. Pépin turns to Quent with a sheaf of papers and says, "Dude, I have a course to Saturn!" Quent replies, "Dude, doesn't look like it did these guys any good!" The dispatch box also contains a sizable sheaf of personal letters from the crew, obviously long delayed. Smith comments, "Oooh... We'd better make sure those get sent properly! And those sealed order must go back to the British as well!" Dmitri Baranov rather dismissively comments, "No problem. We'll just be delivering all of them to an Admiral as soon as we can." Smith clatters in foolish satisfaction.
Having thoroughly explored the Farwander, the characters spend some time securing it against the storms under Quint's direction. The typhoon strikes a couple of hours later, but everyone makes it through without injury.
Christophe-Joseph Pépin muses, "I don't know if we have anything to carry five bales of weed, do we?" Sanchez points out, "Not if you want to hide it from the Egyptian." With great regrets, Pépin is forced to agree that most of the okku-nakal will need to be burned. He takes out just enough for his own personal use ("for medicinal purposes") before letting the other characters put all six bales to the torch. Everyone speculates that they're probably making some smugglers very, very upset.
Smith carries the dispatch chest and the Farwander's nameplate. He still insists that the personal mail needs to be delivered properly, and that the orders should be returned to the appropriate authorities. He believes the others when they tell him that they haven't looked at either of them. He is also blissfully unaware of the fact that Pépin has the Saturnian navigational tables stashed in his backpack underneath the okku-nakal.
The session ends with the characters back in Criqueronde, having delivered the Egyptian back to a very grateful Poste-Mistress Bédard. Each character gains three experience points.