Aslan Route 16: Dances with Vargr

Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
- Rudyard Kipling, The Law of the Jungle

Cordan, Week 51

Episode 16 came first in real-world time for scheduling reasons, but in game time it happens after episode 17 (next week). Think of it as a flash-forward.

It begins on an average evening, while Vila is buttoning up the ship ready for lift-off after the overhaul and test flights. Rex decides to make one last visit to the pub, and is having no truck with the local law level, so hangs both his laser SMGs under his coat.

He is pulled up by Customs, and growls in his most intimidating manner that the SMGs are part of his cultural heritage and anyway there will be trouble at the pub. Rather than have it out with him on the spot, or fill in a lot of paperwork this close to the end of their shift, the Customs agents steer Rex towards the bar where the Khuerga’s crew hang out, and once he is safely out of sight, they phone the bar to let them know he’s coming.

Mazun and Dr Matauranga realise this does not bode well, so after a quick check of the ship’s air/raft to make sure there are no identifying marks, they follow at a discreet distance and park up in a side alley with a clear view of the bar.

Rex enters, and mingles with the corsairs at the bar. He notes a human female and a vargr female in conversation at one of the tables, and a human male mixed in with the corsairs; as she is also from Umemii, he recognises the female vargr as the famous pirate Captain Onfu, and decides that both humans could be mistaken for Zhodani if one were so inclined; tall, lithe, dark-skinned. Belters, no doubt, shaped by a childhood in low gravity and harsh sunlight.

One of the corsairs engages Rex in conversation and each establishes which ship the other is from. They were on opposite sides in the fracas at the House of Shrouded Mirrors on Pourne, but agree that was nothing personal, just business. The corsair sidles over to Captain Onfu, talks to her for a moment, then returns to say she would like a word with him. Rex takes his drink over to the table, where after initial pleasantries Onfu shows him a picture of a runic spike made of precious metals and asks if he has seen it. Rex allows that he has, on Pourne, but does not admit it is in Dr Matauranga’s possession. He feels unusually talkative under the gaze of the human female, but says truthfully that he doesn’t know where the spike is right now, nor where others might be found.

Captain Onfu notices the air/raft and sends two of her corsairs to ask them what they’re doing. They explain that they’re waiting for Rex to pass out from drinking to excess, after which they will take him back to their ship. As Rex spent much of last week drinking with them, this is entirely credible, and they head back to the bar, satisfied.

Inside, Rex apologises for not being able to help and returns to the bar, but Onfu follows, and invites him to join her aboard her ship for further discussion. The human woman is still concentrating on Rex, and he feels unusually weak-willed, but when two of the corsairs move to grab him and carry him off, he decides this is what he has been praying for all night, pulls out both laser SMGs and lets rip.

In the ensuing light show caused by in excess of forty laser bolts over a six-second period, Rex guns down Captain Onfu (on purpose), the four corsairs around him (on purpose), and the two heading back from the air/raft (by accident). He also grazes the human woman, who he suspects of foul (and probably psionic) play; she is shaken, but not badly wounded, unlike all the others who are now dead or bleeding out.

Mazun and Dr Matauranga leap out of the air/raft – of course it’s open-topped, how else are the arboreal pouncers going to get in? – and run for the bar, Dr Matauranga muttering that he doesn’t do house calls and he will of course charge Rex for this.

While the human male grabs the female and hustles her away from the fight, the surviving corsairs create a dogpile centred on Rex and lay into him with their fangs and claws. One of them misses badly and bites a bar stool by mistake, losing a tooth, while another takes Rex’s throat gently in his jaws and tries to rip it out.

Mazun charges the corsair with his face stuck in a bar stool and uses all his considerable martial arts training to ram head and stool into the bar, while Dr Matauranga removes the unwanted accessory from Rex’s throat with a taser.

The final corsair is easily despatched by Mazun while Dr Matauranga is stabilising Rex for a fast transfer back to the ship’s medbay. Mazun thoughtfully considers Captain Onfu, realising that laser bolts are self-cauterising and she can be carried off for interrogation. He and the good Doctor manage to smuggle the pair of them back into the ship without incident, the doctor pausing only to inject all the corsairs he can find with rohypnol to muddle their memories of the incident.

“Vila,” says Mazun, “While the rest of the corsairs are arguing about who is the new Captain, this might be a good time to sneak over to the Khuerga and disable her.”

“Sounds dangerous,” says Vila. “What’s in it for me?”

“It’s less dangerous than having a heavily-armed ship twice our size chasing us.”

“Still sounds risky,” Vila grumbles.

“I don’t want it coming after us,” Mazun muses. “If we can’t do it I’ll see what Prasad can manage. It’s at its most vulnerable and it would be cost effective to disable or impound it now.”

He calls Prasad.

“Ken? It’s me. Listen, the Khuerga’s crew just broke up a bar in a drug-fuelled rampage. Can the Port Authority seize it pending investigation?”

Prasad says he’ll see to it, and the Macavity lifts for the jump point.

“When the ship lifts,” Mazun says under his breath, “All debts are paid.”

Jumpspace, 1105 Week 52

The medbay is quite crowded, between Captain Onfu drifting in and out of consciousness buoyed on Dr Matauranga’s cocktail of painkillers and truth drugs, and Rex who is fully conscious and watching the readout of his credit balance being eroded in real time by Dr Matauranga’s fees – the good doctor has thoughtfully set up a display where Rex can see it easily.

Under interrogation, Captain Onfu reveals that the human woman is Captain Vipera of the Red Adder, who paid her crew to attack the House of Shrouded Mirrors to recover the spike. She gives them what little she knows of the Red Adder’s route and notes that Captain Vipera has a level of deference from her crew – who seem nervous, but not of her – that a vargr would kill for. And in her case has done.

Mazun decides that Captain Onfu is a mercenary who doesn’t know anything else useful; Dr Matauranga sadly informs the rest of the crew that she died of complications brought on by knowing too much, and she is buried in space without honours.

“It’s what she would’ve wanted,” Mazun assures them.

Later, in the medbay, Dr Matauranga has mixed news for Rex.

“I’ve had to rebuild your larynx and throat from scratch. Fortunately, I had a spare one lying around. Now, you may find your voice is a bit high-pitched initially, but it should settle down in a few weeks...”

GM Notes

Four critical failures in the space of an hour, plus Rex's overcharged laser SMGs hitting multiple innocent bystanders. I find the ridiculously extreme dice rolls a big part of the fun in Savage Worlds. Speaking of which, the bite to Rex’s throat did 43 damage, and thus 8 Wounds. Even with medical slow drug and Dr Matauranga’s skilled help, it’s going to take him several weeks to recover. Fortunately after the flashback in the next episode, I’m going to roll them back to Sink in fast travel mode as I don’t think anything very interesting will happen on the way.

As Dr Matauranga has used parts from Captain Onfu to rebuild Rex, Rex has the option of sounding like a lady vargr for as long as he finds it entertaining, but I won’t force that on him because it might not be entertaining at all, and I would understand that.

I'm going through a bad patch of anhedonia at the moment, and twice that day I convinced myself the game was rubbish and I should cancel both the session and the campaign; but one of the few advantages of getting older is recognising that these thoughts pass as quickly as they arise, so I went ahead anyway and we had a great time. I am noticing another effect, the gradual reduction of the number of people I'm happy running; ten years ago I found six players no problem at all, although nine was too many, but now I find four a challenge and am happier running three. Since it's the same people, the same setting, and the same set of rules, the change must be in me.

This was what I think of as a 'balestra' episode, one that adjusts pacing before the next main story beat. In this case, Vila's player is not available this week; he dislikes SWADE fights and Vila is optimised for heists, so this was a good chance to fit in a fight without making him play something he doesn't like or sit out half the session, even if he knew what he was signing up for when the campaign started.

Also, since the crew are obviously not going to touch the Fury with a barge pole, that needs to shift from being the A Plot to the B Plot, so Dr Matauranga's artefact needs to be repurposed (again); since he doesn't know what it does yet, I can change it without affecting the campaign. This led me to the Lazy DM's Checklist to spend half an hour preparing for the session...

• Review the characters. Flick through my copies of the character sheets, and consider who is attending and what kind of encounters they prefer. In this case, combat for Rex and a puzzle to solve for Dr M and Mazun.
• Strong start. Sly Flourish says "When in doubt, start with a fight." Since Vila's player missed this session, that works.
• Potential scenes. Bar brawl, talk to the corsair captain, talk to the Red Adder's captain, visit Baron Ferro's mansion. We only got to the first two of those.
• Define secrets and clues. Figure out why the corsairs hit the House of Shrouded Mirrors and what they want from the party. Figure out how the Red Adder is involved.
• Develop fantastic locations. As we play in Roll20, I mutate this step into selecting battlemats for the potential fights and exploration scenes from my collection of Loke Battlemats.
• Outline important NPCs. The captains of the vargr corsair and the Red Adder.
• Choose relevant monsters. This time people will be Soldier NPCs, with the captains being Wild Cards and the Red Adder's captain having a few Edges up her sleeve because she's a Zhodani intendant. By this stage I know what she's up to, and it doesn't necessarily conflict with the PCs' objectives, so we could see an honourable enemies thing going on later.
• Select magic item rewards. Dr M already has the spike, he should get a clue about it.

Job done.