The day starts with a certain amount of confusion and a viewing of the last half of eXistenZ, but fills out pretty well. Nick (Brother Xavier), Chris (Peter Sangaree), Dan (Koa so t'Kerr) and Paul all show up at their customary time. Tim (Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat) promises that he will show up somewhat later, at his customary time, and makes good upon his promise.
As a change from last time, Paul has determined that he no longer wishes to play Korzhun the Vorox, and changes to Sean Punch, a heavily-cybered member of the local NPAE renegade band.
The vorox Korzhun decides that he cannot bear the thought that some of his adopted creche-mate's assassins still live. He equips himself with his long blade, a Sangaree Special, and 800 rounds of ammunition and marches upriver towards the site of the escape pod crashdown.
Most of the characters wish him well, and wave goodbye as he stomps away. Peter Sangaree notices the huge ammunition pouch he bears and runs off to the armory, where a shame-faced Harper admits that yes, he did give Korzhun 800 rounds of ammunition, and no, there isn't much more ammunition left in the armory. Peter thinks about criticizing Harper for giving in to the vorox's demands, then recognizes that if Harper had provided substantial objections Peter would probably be in the market for a new assistant.
The characters send Seaden Quinn and Linus Cossett out to survey the area they wish to grant to the Baronet Robert Arlor de Marlwen from the air. The characters want to avoid giving the Baronet control over any incredibly valuable Second Republic sites. They spend a day in the air and return to report several radar flashes, probably from old buildings. In Quinn's opinion, there is nothing hugely unique, as there are old buildings all over the place. He reminds the characters that the entire Fennen Marsh area was once heavily populated. On a more threatening note, Linus Cossett says that he spotted a few soul vultures, over 200 km away from the original cargo module landing site. Though the characters are not particularly happy to know that the creatures have adopted such a wide range, they are happier to know that Cossett and Quinn shot the things to bits.
The characters discuss the soul vulture problem, especially the fact that they are reputed lay thousands of eggs at a time. Koa so t'Kerr speculates that there are probably predators on Severus that eat most of the eggs. Unfortunately, none of these predators are currently available in Fennen Marsh. Brother Xavier expresses the fear occupying all of the characters' minds: when the next breeding season comes around, they'll all be up to their armpits in soul vultures.
Peter Sangaree and Koa so t'Kerr have been talking among themselves about reopening the old Gieresport Airfield to starship traffic. Their memories of the noise and vibration created by spacecraft landings suggest that the colony needs to be moved off the landing array. Peter charges Seaden Quinn, only recently returned from his overflight of the eastern section of Fennen Marsh, with the job of finding a good new colony site a safe distance away from the landing field.
If the characters are going to operate a spaceport, they will also need to be able to refuel and service spacecraft. Starships are normally powered by fusion plants, and use hydrogen fuel. Refining hydrogen fuel requires three elements: massive amounts of water, large amounts of electrical power, and a Hydrogen Cracking Furnace. Peter suggests that the characters adapt one or more of the fusion motors retrieved from the ruins to provide the electricity, but Koa happens to know that a standard cracking furnace will require much more power. Cracking furnaces are normally sited near full-sized fusion ground installations. Peter decides to look around for a pocket-sized cracking furnace.
The other major concern on Peter's mind is his contract to sell Sangaree Specials to the Sacred Knife Battalion. If he is going to meet his production targets, he needs to find a large number of artisans to work in his factory. He writes a letter to the characters' recruiter in Tuam to start looking aggressively for artisans skilled in firearms manufacture, or really anything even remotely close. He writes: "I absolutely need 20 people able to work firearms in 20 days: 10 specialists and 10 apprentices. If you can't find them, send who you can and send the rest later." At this point he feels that both Harper and Richard have gained enough experience through the prototyping process to be able to train others in their manufacture.
Peter vividly remembers that both Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat and his entire entourage were embarrassed by his inability to provide a presentable gift to the Hazat frigate captain when the Righteous Falcon landed at Fennen Marsh. To prevent a recurrence, Peter resolves to manufacture some appropriate gifts. He sends two prototype Sangaree Specials in to an artisan in Tuam to have them engraved at a cost of 100 FB each. He also orders up two engraved percussion-cap pistols for 200 FB each.
The characters have an uneventful flight to Tuam, in spite of all the letters and order they are carrying. Their number is rounded out at the last minute by a request from the NPAE Red Sash Master Processor-Wright Thorne, who brings along one of his aides, a cyborg named Sean Punch. He asks that they allow Punch to accompany them, as he needs to do some errands for the Red Sash group. The characters agree, despite the fact that several of them (Brother Xavier the Mad Monk in particular) look at the sheer quantity of artificial modifications planted into Punch's body askance.
Once in the High City, Koa gets Peter to let him into the Engineers' Guildhall library so he can look up old spaceport designs. As he stands in the library entranceway, Peter marvels: "why didn't I ever see this place before?" Koa suggests that it might be because he never made it past the Jeri-Curl stand near the Guildhall entryway.
Despite the rather quirky organizational style affected by the aging Engineer librarians, Koa manages to find about thirty volumes of ecclesiastic law governing the design, operation and consecration of spaceports, plus four volumes detailing the actual design of the original Gieresport Airport. Unfortunately, Koa is made quite aware that the Engineers' Library is not a lending institution, and does not make any mass copying facilities available to visitors like Koa. Just as he despairs of being able to bring along any quantity of useful information, the cyborg Sean Punch reveals that he is able to memorize several hours' worth of material, then download them later. Koa sets him to flipping through the Gieresport Airport designs as quickly as he can. He reviews them at a rate that should ensure a 14- chance that he will be able to extract accurate information later on.
His tasks in the library done, Koa turns to a related task. Knowing that pilots can be very particular about the ports they like to fly into, and those they do not, he decides to interview as many space pilots as he can find. He hopes to learn enough from them to be able to make the new Gieresport Airport popular among pilots.
He runs into a problem right away. The pilots he really wants to speak to are those who fly spacecraft. Unfortunately, most such pilots are Charioteers, and rarely venture out past Llanfyrth and Prince Cassius Field. He tries talking to those Charioteers who operate the factor's station in Tuam, but finds that they are mostly administrators and traders, and have essentially no experience with actual spacecraft (though they do know a lot about arranging transportation for other people on them). He reluctantly decides that this project is going to have to be left to another day.
Peter decides that he needs to have some guards for his firearms manufactory. After a short discussion upon exactly how many guards will be needed, he authorizes his new hireling Grigori to hire eight guards, intended to work in four shifts of two men each. He tells Grigori to find four "country boys" who show talent, paying them 3 FB per week, plus a Sangaree Special as a signing bonus. The remaining four should be professionals, for whom Peter is willing to pay 5 FB per week, plus a Sangaree Special as a signing bonus. As an added benefit, he tells Grigori that all of the guards will be allowed homesteading land under the same rules as any other Fennen Marsh colonists. Grigori seems confident that he can find experienced soldiers among recently-decommissioned Hawkwood troops.
Koa wants to learn about soul vultures. He finds out that most detailed information on training and raising them is really unavailable, as it is considered a Decados state secret. Oddly enough, the Decados feel some reluctance towards telling anybody else the secrets of training and raising the creatures. He does manage to find some information about the creatures in a biology text on the Severus ecosystem. He also speaks to a decrepit Engineer Librarian who thinks that the library of the nearby Six Martyrs monastery might contain unit histories from Brother Battle units who found on Severus, and who might have encountered soul vultures.
The characters recognize that the Six Martyrs monks might not be overwhelmingly eager to let strangers into their library, so they decide to prevail upon their local contacts among the Sacred Knife battalion. They find Brother Laszlo in the basement of the Church of the Prophet's Vision, engaging in some of the less-glamorous aspects of a Quartermaster's office. He is crouched over a small desk, surrounded by supplier lists, equipment inventories, and other paperwork. He seems desperately overworked. He listens to the characters' request, then scribbles out a letter of introduction, signs it, and stamps it with a Sacred Knife stamp. Peter spends an inordinate amount of time staring at the stamp and imagining what he could do with a copy of the thing.
Koa spends 4 FB hiring a car for the trip out to the Six Martyrs monastery.
While Koa heads off to study, the other characters go about their various errands and wait to hear back from the Baronet Robert Arlor de Marlwen. Sean Punch looks into buying software to translate text images into actual text. He finds that the NPAE can sell it to him for 500 FB, discounted 40% to 300 FB.
Brother Xavier anticipates that the characters will go hunting with the Baronet, and heads to a weaponsmith's shop to buy a pair of telescopic sights (+2 ACC, but only if you spend two rounds aiming), at a base cost of 100 FB each. Thanks to his tremendous bargaining skill, he manages to get a 20% discount.
Peter Sangaree tries to find a defrocked Reeve willing to look over the MachtArbeiterBank contract. He sets the recruiting agent to deal with the problem, explaining that he wants to find someone who isn't associated with the Reeves. The recruiter explains that this might take some effort, but appears willing to try.
As a final errand, Peter picks up his engraved firearms before the Baronet shows up. With them in hand, the characters send Fergus Genne ab Marlwen back with the Luftking and wait for the Baronet to send word.
The characters meet with the Baronet Robert Arlor de Marlwen at the Tuam airfield. His servants usher them onto his extremely impressive Lift Yacht, where he introduces the key members of his party:
The Baronet insists (as the characters hoped) that they all fly to Fennen Marsh aboard his Lift Yacht. The characters are more than happy to accept. Thanks to the miracle of contragravity technology, the journey takes perhaps half the time it would normally take aboard the Luftking. Peter Sangaree dryly notes that the colony possesses a VERTOL that could make the journey in just as short a time, except that it would run out of fuel and crash halfway there. The Baronet chuckles at this as if it were a particularly good joke.
The Baronet's reception at Fennen Marsh is appropriately respectful. Bob Lungflook greets the Lift Yacht with an honor guard armed with Sangaree Specials, and makes a point to bow very deeply. After the initial introductions are out of the way, the characters draw him aside and instruct him to prepare an appropriately sumptuous feast while the characters take the Baronet out on a hunting expedition.
The hunting expedition sets out in the assault carrier. It consists of Sir Brindal Karth, Peter Sangaree, Brother Xavier, Sean Punch, the Baronet, Sergeant Bors, Huntsman Tyn, and three of the Baronet's soldiers. Linus Cossett flies the carrier. On the way out, the Baronet asks detailed questions about what kind of game the characters expect to find, and regales them in turn with stories of his own hunting exploits. The characters quickly determine that the Baronet is very much a Great White Hunter.
The characters head towards the northern coast, then disembark to begin the hunt proper. The hunt itself goes well: Brother Xavier manages to spot a boar, probably one of those that Peter Sangaree released around the colony some months ago. The characters point it out the Baronet, and allow him to make the killing shot. In the process, the characters notice that the Baronet is more than willing to crawl through mud and underbrush, no matter the damage to his hunting finery. The Baronet shoots the creature dead with a single well-placed shot, then personally offers the liver to Brother Xavier, an act that Brother Xavier doesn't initially recognize as the compliment that it is.
Unfortunately, the characters' successes end with the boar hunt. A few minutes after the Baronet's men have finished carrying the boar's butchered carcass back to the assault carrier, the Huntsman Lawrence Tyn gives a surprised cry and falls into three pieces. The underbrush and bushes around him are suddenly shredded in a whirlwind of destruction.
Brother Xavier and Sir Brindal Karth see the Huntsman's death and rush to try and help him, though exactly how they plan to help is not clear. For their troubles, they are almost chopped to bits by a second whirl of destruction.
The characters quickly devote all of their attention to the weapon that killed the Huntsman. They use substantial caution when they realize that the Huntsman had been wearing a shield. After a bit of searching, the characters find several components left behind by the expended weapon, and determine that the original weapon was a monowire mine mounted in a tree branch. The second mine was placed in a bush some distance away. Both of them have a fairly simple structure. The mine's core contains an integrated think machine and a small power supply. It serves as a hub for a zero-friction nanoparticle bearing. Six five-meter lengths of monowire are wound around the core.
Once the characters know roughly what to look for, Sir Brindal Karth sets to looking for an undetonated mine. He finds two fairly quickly, then tries shooting one of them. It quickly becomes obvious that this is almost worse than letting the mine simply go off: the mine still detonates, but because the core is shattered, the monowire strands whip off into the distance, trailing destruction as they go. Sir Brindal Karth notices one of the strands rip across the surface of his shield.
Further searching uncovers the trigger mechanism for the original mine: a thin mat of metal weave placed upon the ground. Bits of grass and undergrowth are growing through it, indicating that it has been in place for some time. There appears to be one trigger mat for each mine. The characters very carefully retrieve the two mats associated with the detonated mines, finding that one is basically intact and the other has had a corner chopped off by the mine detonation.
Sean Punch and Peter Sangaree apply their technical skills to determining exactly how the mine system works. Their initial conclusion is that they need to have more sophisticated equipment to get good results. They also manage to determine that there is an integrated think machine in the trigger mat, and that the mines and the trigger mats form a radio-linked network. The trigger mats communicate with the mines in short, encrypted radio pulses.
Having decided that this situation really calls for more a more heavy-handed approach, the characters decide to head back to Fennen Marsh, then return with more firepower. Much, much more firepower. Plus Brian the Goat to use it without reservation. The Baronet, though he hungers for vengeance against the forces responsible for the death of his man, is willing to return to the colony so he can call in more of his own people.
The surviving members of the hunting party reassemble at the assault carrier and strap in for takeoff. Seconds after Linus Cossett powers up the turbine and brings the carrier above the tree level, the carrier lurches and plunges back to the ground. Everyone on board blacks out momentarily. The characters come back out of the darkness to find the carrier hanging at a strange angle, with alarms sounding and the smell of smoke drifting through the hull.
It is quickly clear that Linus Cossett is unconscious and possibly badly hurt. One of the Baronet's soldiers wasn't buckled in properly, and is also severely injured. Several other members of the group are suffering from scrapes and bruises. Brother Xavier takes stock of the injuries, then uses his theurgic Laying On of Hands rite to heal as many of the wounded as he can. He then lapses into meditation restore his Wyrd.
Sir Brindal Karth pulls himself out of the wreckage to see what happened. He discovers that two of the carrier's aft control surfaces are simply gone. The remaining stubs are cleanly sheared off, with mirrorlike edges. He looks into the sky to see two or three small spheres flying in oblique paths about 500 meters above the tree level, and concludes that they must be monowire anti-aircraft weapons very similar to the antipersonnel mines. He tries taking a shot at one, and quickly determines that they are extremely hard to hit.
Except for the tail structure, the rest of the VERTOL looks to be in comparatively good shape. When he regains consciousness, Linus Cossett explains that something happened just as he brought the VERTOL above the tree line, before he had any opportunity to build up either speed or altitude. Several of the VERTOL's hull plates are buckled and cracked, but the trees slowed the craft's fall. It is clear, however, that the carrier isn't going to be flying back to Fennen Marsh under it's own power.
Left with few other choices, Sean Punch focuses upon the mine and sensor net components the characters recovered. He determines that he can probably hack the encryption on the communications between mine and sensor network. Given some time and a few salvaged components from the assault carrier's systems, he and Peter decide that they will be able to hack together a transmitter that will detonate a mine after some period of time. It will take them 1d hours to build the transmitter. It's effectiveness will be determined by how well their High-Tech and Comp Redemption rolls go. Success by 2 or less will produce a transmitter that can detonate a mine in 1d minutes. Success by 3+ reduces the time to only 3d seconds. Success by 5+ reduces it to only 1d seconds.
Only one Redemption roll is necessary, but a second character can help by making his own Redemption roll. Success on the secondary roll gives a +2 bonus to the primary roll.
Brindal Karth goes off into the forest looking for undetonated mines. He finds an undetonated mine, then encounters three men sneaking up on the VERTOL wreck. They appear to be well-equipped, with assault rifles and light body armor. He kills one by shooting a nearby mine, then gets into a brief firefight with the other two. After he trades a few shots with them and determines that they are also wearing shields, he tries to talk. He yells out that he is coming out, and that he has put down his weapon. The two fighters tell him to surrender, then open fire the instant he comes out of cover. Brindal Karth is appalled by their actions, but gives them a second chance. Once again, they fire on him even after he claims to have surrendered. Brindal Karth decides that the men he is fighting against have less honor than syphilitic hull rats.
Brother Xavier hears about the combat on his comlink and heads out to help. At the same time, Koa so t'Kerr senses that Brindal Karth is in danger through his psychic link and uses Bonding and FarSight to provide telepresent reconnaissance. Against this combination of firepower and psychic tricks, the two men eventually surrender.
The characters drag their two captives back to the assault carrier wreckage and interrogate them. They separate the following equipment from them, counting gear taken from the one dead trooper:
The two captives explain that they are low-ranked Muster members, working for the smuggler Patrice Cheroux. They are a bit unwilling to admit exactly what they smuggle, and why they are based on the northern coast of Sulesslund. Brother Xavier presses them until they admit the horrible truth. Patrice Cheroux is a slaver, who works to produce fanatic shock troops for the Stigmata war effort. The Muster guards explain that their orders were to kill anyone who entered the perimeter defenses.
The characters are not sure how to deal with Cheroux. On the one hand, his activities are clearly deeply immoral, violating almost every standard of human rights. On the other, even the Baronet admits to having used similar shock troops during his time in the service, and it is possible to argue that Cheroux's activities, though barbaric, are preventing the deaths of even more soldiers in the war against the Symbiots.
Brother Xavier continues to interrogate the Muster soldiers until they spill what they know about Cheroux's defenses. They know the layout and the staff, but they're not tactical geniuses.
The session ends with most of the characters trapped in the jungles along the northern Sulesslund coast, somewhere inside Patrice Cheroux's defensive perimeter. Alone among the characters, Koa so t'Kerr is safe in the library at the Six Martyrs monastery back on Lachann.
Each character gains four experience points.