Edge of Empire: Session 8

Since the group is pretty stable, I thought I would take the chance to give a quick rundown of the party members:

1. Neelo: a mechanic
2. Anoon: a twi'lek politico
3. Kal: a Mandalorian marauder
4. Tarn: a human smuggler
5. IG-13: a droid assassin 
6. Lockett: a human scoundrel
7. Sal: a hired gun
8. Caitlin: a slicer

Caitlin and Sal are the most recent additions to the group and I realized that I do not have all of their character details, even though they are late-comers to the group they have been good additions both in person and in game. The game plays very well with eight players, it really helps that everyone is very professional. We have a lot of fun joking around at the table, but all of the players are always ready to go when their turn comes up. I do play a little bit looser with the rules to keep things moving, but the game seems designed with this in mind.

Session 8 started with the group deciding to investigate the pyramid on Alamar that Mia had seen in her dreams. The situation on Elrood continued to deteriorate as the Imperials moved in to quell the droids' rights riots and killed 24 students during the crackdown. City services continued to degrade as the more of the droid workforce went on strike. 

They made their way to Alamar Upside, the near abandoned space station orbiting the Alamar. The station was built to be a resort/casino circling the tropical paradise of Alamar Downside. The company that built the station folded before the resort ever opened and it was bought cheap by a few merchants. Alamar is mostly frequented by students on spring break and archaeologists come to explore the many pyramids.

When the party went to get an expedition permit on Alamar Upside they learned that the whole station appeared to be run by one man, Gavin Tal, Fawlty Towers style. They managed to obtain a permit by posing as a student expedition from University of Tatooine Online. Gavin seemed skeptical that they were a legitimate expedition and attempted to point them to one of the spring break hot spots, warning them that some students had been attacked by schools of killer fish when they wandered off the beaten path.

 

As the party left the office Sal was targeted by an assassin. They made quick work of the assassin and determined that he was a bounty hunter looking to collect. Sal is an Imperial deserter who murdered his whole squad before leaving. They determined this after paging through the bounty hunter's datapad. As they were looting the corpse of the bounty hunter, Gavin ran up in his sheriff role and began questioning them. Caitlin managed to erase Sal's bounty notice from the datapad before she had to hand it over to Gavin. When Gavin handed it back she noticed that he had typed 357 on the screen. The party decided to investigate room 357, but found it empty. They determined that they had set off an alarm when they entered, but no one ever responded.

They made their way down to Alamar Downside and to the pyramid. During a flyover they determined that there was a large lens in the top of the pyramid. They landed the ship a few kilometers away and camouflaged it. After some investigation they found a secret tunnel into the pyramid in a well. They made their way through the tunnel and into the empty pyramid. After passing through a few empty rooms with strange patters on the wall they came to a huge metal cylinder with a hatch in its side. The cylinder went through the roof of the room. Neelo managed to open the hatch and the found that the cylinder went all the way up to the lens at the top of the pyramid and had a staircase winding up its side. There was a giant crystal sphere floating a few feet off the floor with a control panel on it. 

As the party was investigating the sphere, Imperial Special Forces cut a small hole in the lens and began dropping grenades on the party. The party scrambled for cover and Lockett turned all of the dials on the sphere up to max. A beam of light shot up through the lens and began heating the inside of the cylinder. Some of the party was knocked unconscious from a combination of the heat and damage from the grenades, the others managed to drag them to safety. Once they got back through the hatch, the characters found themselves trapped between the ISF troops making their way down the stairs and droids that were emerging from the geometric patterns on the walls. The droids were wielding large swords and the troops continued to harass the party with grenades. 

While Kal engaged the droids in melee combat, the others, led by IG-13, managed to kill most of the troops trying to come through the hatch. They noticed that the troops were being attacked from behind, presumably by another group of droids. The party managed a fighting retreat through the pyramid and back to their ship. As they hid in their ship they saw an Imperial shuttle lift off from the top of the pyramid.