Today's session is cut rather short by our efforts to create Alternity characters for a one-shot Paul is preparing. Almost all of the currently-active people show up: Chuck (Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat), Chris (Peter Sangaree) and Paul (Sean Punch). Tim does not show up, as he is sidelined by the combination of a trip to Corpus and two (count 'em, two!) flat tires.
Having he characters quickly travel out from the Byrrem Isles to Llanfyrth to meet with the bent Charioteer Cheevo. Cheevo had claimed in his letter that he would be staying at the Charioteer Guildhall, outside the city proper but near the spaceport.
Hoping to catch him in his rooms, the characters burn 8 FB on a phone call to Cheevo. He's happy to hear from them, and enquires in his own inimical way whether or not they are still interested in having his cargo go through their spaceport. Peter comments on how they are, but when they were on the verge of negotiating with him back in Fennen Marsh Cheevo just ran off without a second word. Cheevo comments that the armed cordon the characters placed around his ship made him rather nervous. He then invites the characters to meet at the Guildhall, and the characters accept.
The characters debate among themselves as to what they should offer Cheevo in exchange for a trip out to the most dangerous place in the Gwynneth system. Peter maintains that he probably wants to get access to the spaceport without too much inspection. Nobody else sees fit to disagree with this diagnosis.
The characters are quite annoyed to find that hiring a car out to the Charioteer Guildhall only costs 2 FB for the day, about a quarter of the cost of placing a phone call. Peter thinks about beating the phone-call guy to death for overcharging them, but the other characters dissuade him.
The Charioteer Guildhall in Llanfyrth is an imposing structure, obviously built to last against anything short of all-out orbital bombardment. Most of the compound is underground, with only a few high-density ceramsteel cones visible above the surface. The characters enter through a massive doorway in one of the cones, to be confronted with the almost ridiculous opulence of the interior. It appears that the local Charioteers are more interested in impressing visitors with their wealth than in any sort of stylistic statement: the floor of the huge entry hall is covered with several layers of fine woven rugs from the al-Malik worlds, while the walls are overlapped with embroidered tapestries.
The characters are met by a well-dressed Charioteer bearing a portable (if large) think machine in one hand who claims to be the Majordomo and who asks their business. The characters answer honestly, that they are here to meet with the trader Cheevo, and are rewarded with an excruciating episode of think-machine data entry. The characters almost wince as he enters their names into the "base of data" by hunt-and-peck, making wretched errors in the process (like spelling Peter's name as "Peeter"). The Majordomo keeps up a nerve-wrenching commentary as he enters each keystroke, categorically refusing suggestions to correct his various mistakes on the grounds that he would have to go back to the beginning and start all over.
The characters are almost to relieved for words when the Majordomo summons a functionary named Twillet and instructs him to take them to Conference Room 12, where Cheevo has probably already been waiting for at least a half-hour.
The characters find Cheevo in Conference Room 12, as promised. He is accompanied by two members of his crew. One of them is almost antiseptically clean, with the bald head and cybernetic eye of a true technological artifact. The other looks like Grigori's second cousin, is conspicuously armed, and turns out to be Cheevo's Cargo Master Bob.
Cheevo starts off with an offer to provide transportation to the characters in exchange for various concessions in his use of their starport. In particular, he wants them to use his contractors to inspect cargos for 5 years, to give him land for a warehouse and a barracks, and to provide him a subsidy on the warehouse constructions. He offers to pay standard landing fees for this time. He explains that his contractors are "very clever, very observant. See all sorts of things: teddy bears and melons, not war golems and grenades."
Peter isn't too enthusiastic about the five-year term, and offers one year instead. He explains that he isn't convinced that Cheevo attracts the "best element", and he is concerned about the sort of contractors that he might provide. Cheevo defends his honor by enthusiastically retorting, "Cheevo attract best element! Top good crew here! Plus Vukjuk!", going on to explain that Vukjuk is his ur-Ukar First Officer.
Peter is unimpressed, maintaining that, "Cheevo, the very fact that you're talking to me suggests that you don't attract the best elements."
The negotiations go back and forth for while, but both sides manage to come to acceptable terms. In the final deal, Cheevo is allowed to use independent contractors for inspections for five years, but each time he does he must pay a 1000 FB "finder's fee" to the New Berlin Port Authority. The characters offhandedly grant him permissions and subsidies for his warehouse and land.
With his future concerns allayed, Cheevo leaps to organize the characters' trip out to their Mystery Planet on the edge of the Gwynneth system. Cheevo, Bob the Cargo Master (who claims to have been Boatswain on the al-Malik frigate Whispering Shadow during the Emperor Wars), and the nebbishy crewman arrange the details. The technical crewman tells the characters that Cheevo's ship will be able to assemble good topographical maps of the Mystery Planet from orbit. He also estimates that the trip will take four weeks, with five weeks saved due to an initial high-velocity burn out to an asteroid mining colony. The whole trip will be disguised as a trip to a series of (corruptible) asteroid mining colonies.
On the subject of equipment, Cheevo's crewman doubts that the Mystery Planet will have an atmosphere, but Cheevo offers to rent out air necklaces. In private conference, Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat suggests that the group should arrange for big guns, big personal guns. Big, elephant-gun type guns able to punch large holes in terrible Mystery Planet monsters. The characters make a point of not mentioning to Cheevo and his crew that the place might be inhabited by horrible creatures that can attack ships in orbit and slaughter crews wholesale. The characters further make certain that Cheevo agrees to provide both planetfall and pickup, and that he understands that the deal is off if the characters don't survive.
With the complicated negotiations dealt with, the characters make arrangements for the departure schedule. Cheevo explains that though his ship Jayjay is fueled and ready, the soonest it can leave Prince Cassius Field will be in five days: three days to allow the most recent military blackout to end, and another two days to clear up the backlog of civilian traffic. He proposes leaving then. Everyone agrees that this is good. The trip back to Fennen Marsh will take a half-day, as will the return, giving the characters four days of preparation and shopping time.
The characters dump 50,000 FB on Roger Padrea, make him sign for them, and tell him they'll take him to Tuam. He comments that he'll arrange his own transportation.
Peter tells the group that special deep-space ammunition (the shells include an oxidizer and use propellants that will both work and remain stable across a wide range of temperatures) cost about 1 FB each, roughly four times the cost of normal ammunition. The characters think about this, and then decide to go with laser rifles instead. They also purchase air necklaces and a supply of extra batteries. The complete list of their shopping endeavors includes:
|
Item |
Quantity |
Unit Cost |
Total Cost |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laser rifle | 2 | 500 FB | 1000 FB | |
| Air necklace | 5 | 300 FB | 1500 FB | PD 2/6; DR (5)/10; burnout 15; lasts for 20 hits or 48 hours in vacuum |
| Vacc suit | 0 | 100 FB | - | PD 3, DR 4. Last for 6 hours of use |
| Fusion battery | 40 | 10 FB | 400 FB | Will fit either a laser rifle or an air necklace |
| 5-man sealed tent | 1 | 150 FB | 150 FB | Masses 10 kg. |
| Air plant | 1 | 400 FB | 400 FB | Will support a 5-man sealed tent indefinitely. Masses 20 kg. |
| High-power flashlights | 5 | 30 FB | 150 FB | DR 10 and 10 hits, can be used as a club. Close exposure requires a HT-2 roll or be blinded. Can be defocused to light an area. |
| Fusion welding torch | 1 | 400 FB | 400 FB | Masses 10 kg. Lasts 15 minutes on a fusion cell. Does 8d impaling as a melee weapon with Reach 2, but has minimum ST 14. |
| Elixir | 40 | 10 FB | 400 FB | |
| Explosives | 20 kg | 5 FB per kilo | 100 FB | |
| Detonators | 10 | 10 FB | 100 FB | 5 timed, 5 radio |
The session ends with the characters back in Llanfyrth, ready to board the Jayjay and head to the Mystery Death Planet. Each character gains three experience points.