The entire core group shows up: Chris (Peter Sangaree), Chuck (Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat), Tim (Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat) and Paul (Sean Punch). We are somewhat disappointed to note that Barry (lately Razorhands Madge) is unable to join us.
The Jayjay pulls into the docks at the Yuwet Heavenly Mining Concern a broken, battered shell, it's think machines gone, it's navigational software erased, and it's hull pierced. Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat finally recovers from his bout with the flu, and takes the discovery that all of his clown products got erased to make room for navigational software with surprising equanimity. In addition to the characters and Cheevo's (surviving) crew, the Jayjay holds seven prisoners taken from the Powell: two Hawkwood Ensigns not yet old enough to shave and five crew led by the indomitable Box.
Sir Brindal Karth suggests that the ship might still be contaminated with Qlippolithic forces, and comments that Cheevo might be well-served by abandoning it. The other characters think that Cheevo will squeal and complain like Brother Xavier at the idea, as they had already seen what happened when they threw lots of his stuff out the airlock. In an unusual outbreak of diplomacy, the characters decide to refrain from suggesting this to Cheevo, instead resolving to find their own way back to Gwynneth.
Sean Punch argues strongly for the idea of sending something incredibly destructive towards Naauthivirc, with the idea of destroying it and whatever Qlippolithic influences live there. He proposes asking the Yuwet folk to strap some engines to an asteroid and send it at the planet. Peter Sangaree likes this idea, but is quite worried that the local demons might be able to take over the engines' control systems with catastrophic results. He prefers to simply tell the Hawkwoods about the place and let them deal with it. He points out that the characters weren't able to locate the wreck of one of the ships in the missing Hawkwood flotilla. There remains a small chance that it might have avoided the navigational problems that befell the Jayjay and returned to some Hawkwood base to report it's findings. Peter doesn't seem particularly convinced by his own theory, and none of the other characters like it enough to hold out much hope that the Hawkwoods didn't fly themselves into the void to become Void Kraken treats.
The characters spend a small amount of time discussing what to do with their various prisoners. They already recognize that the common crew from the Powell are not going to be an issue: Cheevo will hire them to take the place of those of his own crew that met with misfortune on this journey. The two Hawkwood Ensigns are more of a problem, given that they are young, loyal to the Hawkwood cause, and have relatives influential enough to get them officer's appointments into the Hawkwood navy. To their credit, the characters decide to avoid doing something horrible and hollow to the Ensigns. They finally decide to ask Koa so k'Terr to erase or rearrange certain portions of the youths' memories, then claim that they found the two of them drifting in space in a lifepod, apparently the only survivors of the Powell.
Vukjuk approaches the characters with an uncommonly hesitant look upon his face. He explains that he needs to know who is second-ranked among their group, as the Yuwet official he is talking to is not willing to talk to Sir Brindal Karth (who is clearly the first-ranked), nor to Cheevo. The characters, who have experienced a bit of the Yuwet taste for strict hierarchy and rigid adherence to protocol, debate among themselves before nominating Sean Punch as second-ranked. Along the way, they also conclude that Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat is third-ranked and that Peter Sangaree is fourth-ranked, for no particularly obvious reasons.
With that debate out of the way, the characters send Sean Punch out into the docking ring to talk to the Vicepater Auget vu Menvit, the Yuwet official in charge of the docks (and, apparently, second-ranked within his own hierarchy). The Vicepater looks very much like a typical Yuwet official: he dresses in a grey shirt with red cuffs (indicating his rank) and plain black trousers. He is dark-haired and tanned, with the same mélange of ancestry most of the Yuwet population displays. He offers his congratulations to Sean Punch upon their successful docking at the Yuwet Great Tower, particularly given the terrible damage that their ship has suffered. He then provides the bad news: while the parts needed to repair the Jayjay are available, they will cost some 20,000 FB. He further explains that he has given this information to the second-ranked aboard the ship, and has gotten a very harsh response. He offers his hopes that Sean Punch will be more reasonable. To hurry along the decision-making process, he further explains that a damaged Yuwet ore-hauler is due in about six hours from now, and that it will get repair priority when it arrives. If the repairs on the Jayjay are not already underway, they will not commence until the repairs on the ore-hauler are complete. He estimates that the Jayjay repairs will take about 18 hours, while the ore-hauler will require several days to repair.
Sean Punch listens to this news, thanks the Vicepater Auget vu Menvit as politely as he can, and returns to Jayjay to hash things out with the other characters.
The other characters take the extremely understandable notion that the ship belongs to Cheevo, so he should foot the bill for the repairs. Cheevo does not see things exactly the same way, arguing with great enthusiasm that the repairs are only necessary because the characters got him to fly his ship to these insane places where his think machines and his cyborg all went insane. By the time he reaches the end of this tirade, he has completely lost the ability to use proper articles in his speech, but refuses to let that stop him. He continues on to complain bitterly about the terrible people who live on Yuwet Asteroid, noting that they have thus far completely refused to talk to him "because the Archpater is unavailable."
At this point, Sir Caine arches his eyebrows and asks Cheevo, "So, you have no contacts at all among these people?" Cheevo admits that he does not. Sir Caine and the other characters immediately sense a possible commercial opportunity. Brindal Karth tells Cheevo, "These people seem really, really repressed. You could probably sell them a lot of clown… products. And alcohol. And recreational drugs." Cheevo forgets his frustration, becoming interested at the thought of being able to flood the Yuwet market with all kinds of... clown products.
Noting that the rest of the group has managed to get Cheevo into a more talkative, reasonable mood, Peter Sangaree quickly gets him to agree that the characters' half-share of the goods looted from the Powell can be traded to Cheevo to cover 5000 FB of the repair costs, and that the characters should be responsible for at most only another 5000 FB of the total cost. Cheevo agrees to this bargain, and the characters swiftly turn to strategies for finding the remaining 5000 FB.
They enlist Vukjuk in a search of the crew's quarters for salable items. In particular, they strip the ship of liquor, cigarettes, and… clown products. They manage to find quite a selection, easily enough to serve as "trade samples" for the Yuwets. The centerpiece of their find is an entire sealed case of Leagueheim cigars.
Vicepater Auget vu Menvit tells Sean Punch that the Vicemater Laiga sai Baotet is responsible for community recreation, and that she is the one with whom he must deal. The Vicepater provides one of his underlings to escort the characters to her offices.
The Vicemater's offices are deep inside the Yuwet Asteroid. The characters reach it through a large spherical zero-G garden. Plants grow on all sides of the chamber, illuminated by an artificial sun in the center. Gardeners in black coveralls work the area silently.
The characters show their trade goods to the Vicemater, and are somewhat taken aback when she is visibly horrified by them: "Intoxicants! Combustible inhalants! Clown products! Such things are completely forbidden in the Yuwet Heavenly Mining Concern! They are unacceptable! They spread moral corruption! I can speak no more with you!"
The characters depart from the Vicemater's offices in a fog of both disappointment and confusion. Disappointment, because they had hoped to arrange some sort of trade with the locals to cover the remaining repair costs. Confusion, because they had assumed that the Vicepater Auget vu Menvit had known what sort of trade goods they would have to offer, and should have known that they were all prohibited items.
The characters' confusion grows further when they pass a large abstract wall mural (Peter realizes that it contains the subliminal messages, "Loyalty! Industry! Prosperity!"). One of the blackback workers cleaning the mural draws the characters' attention, briefly tries to communicate with them using a complicated gesture-language, then indicates that his associates would be interested in the characters' trade goods. Peter talks to the man, and arranges a meeting in the 18th hour, at the Jayjay. All of the characters are intrigued by the fact that the blackback doesn't appear to pay any heed to the relative hierarchy within the characters' group, a remarkable contrast to the behaviour of every other Yuwet resident they have dealt with thus far.
When the characters get back to the docking ring, Sean Punch asks the Vicepater about the reception the characters got from the Vicemater. The Vicepater Auget vu Menvit denies that he ever mentioned anything about selling cigars and liquor on the station. He then tries to communicate using the same gesture language as the blackback. Sean Punch asks him what the gestures mean. The Vicepater looks at him with an expression that says, "Gesture language? What gesture language?" All the other characters, sensing the social conventions behind the Vicepater's behaviour, try to get Sean Punch to shut up before he creates a serious incident.
Right at the 18th hour, the local black marketeers show up. Their group consists of a half-dozen guys in vacc suits on board a cargo flat. They enter through the cargo airlock. They appear armed to the teeth, albeit only with utility knives. The characters greet them with lasers and air necklaces.
Once the locals are satisfied that the ship's atmosphere is breathable, they remove their vacc suits and prove that all six of them are blackbacks. Before the characters hand them off to Cheevo for negotiations, they ask about the gesture language that both the blackback at the mural and the Vicepater had used. The group's leader explains that much of the Yuwet Heavenly Mining Concern's population are blackbacks, especially the zero-G workers and beamjacks. They originally developed the gesture code to communicate in vacuum without radio, and it has since evolved to serve as an unofficial means for the blackbacks to communicate with the upper levels of the Yuwet hierarchy (who would otherwise never be able to talk to them). The blackback further explains that most of the upper-ranked Yuwets refuse to really consciously acknowledge that the gesture code even exists.
The actual arrangement made is between Cheevo and the blackbacks. The characters get 8000 FB for their role in brokering the deal, which is more than enough to cover their part of the repair costs. The blackback leader has no interest in being able to contact the characters in the future, and explains that future smuggling will be done using Cheevo's men and the normal Yuwet mineral shipments.
The characters go back to Fennen Marsh aboard Jayjay without any further incident.
The characters close out their problems with the Powell by having Koa so k'Terr rearrange the Ensigns' memories, making them think that the Powell was lost to an accident, and that the characters found them floating in a lifepod. After performing this one last feat, Koa heads away from Fennen Marsh to pursue his own business opportunities.
In due time, the Ensigns are shipped back to the Hawkwood claiming that they were rescued off the wreck of the Powell. Thanks to Koa's manipulations, the characters are able to make sure that their story makes sense in a way that casts little suspicion upon the characters' own actions. They claim that the Powell suffered some kind of Kursk-like accident. Something horrible and mechanical happened, and the Ensigns got off in an escape pod. In response, the characters get a very nice letter back from the Admiralty Office of the Gwynneth Fleet thanking them for their efforts in saving these unfortunates from disaster. The characters frame it and hang it on the wall next to their liquor license, reasoning that they'll never see another like it again.
All of the data the characters compiled upon Naauthivirc (also called Mystery Death Planet X) gets mailed off to the Count Marco Linford de Hazat on a memory crystal. It includes video footage of horrible qlippolithic entities devouring Ensigns ("crew") and some heavily edited clips of their other activities (the characters make sure that they don't send any images of the Powell along by accident). The cover letter says (in the politest terms possible), "Choke on this and die. Perhaps you will have something slightly dangerous to do for us next time." Brindal imagines that the Count will probably eagerly watch the video footage, hoping to see the clip where the alien kills Brindal…
A duplicate copy of the report gets delivered to Linus Link in Llanfyrth, with instructions to give it to a Church official, preferably someone honest and powerful, if Brindal Karth and Peter die suddenly. Peter recommends that Linus Link not actually watch it himself. Brindal points out that the crystal does not contain any skin, naughty tentacles, or clowns, which pretty much ensures that Linus should have no interest in it. He agrees to hold the crystal for 100 FB/year. Peter gives him 500 FB, so Linus gives him an extra year for free.
The characters keep a third copy of the report.
Given that the characters are all already in Llanfyrth, they decide to try and talk to the Hawkwood military. Specifically, they send the General Count Abelard Rouen-Hawkwood a request for an interview. They had previously been given his name by Sir Morgan Hawkwood as an officer in charge of military intelligence. Within a couple of days, they get a response agreeing to speak with them at the General's office in the Custom House.
The characters show up as promised for the meeting. They hit it off surprisingly well with the General, as he is something of a psychopath. He has little patience for the current state of peace with the Vuldrok, and is eventually willing to agree to the characters' request that they be given an amnesty to trade with the Utag provided that the Hawkwoods (in the person of the General Count Abelard Rouen-Hawkwood) gets the right to observe all trades and to approve or disapprove specific items. In gratitude, the characters give him a copy of their report on Naauthivirc.
The session ends with the characters in Llanfyrth, waiting to return to Fennen Marsh. Each character gains three experience points.