Wilderlands: Session 22

 

 

 

This is part of an ongoing campaign. You can find the other sessions over on the sidebar.

This session was run on October 17, 2022.  

 

 

This session was the first interlude of the campaign. In interludes, the players take on the role of different characters than their usual party of PCs. The purpose is to show them another part of the world or time period. I use them to set up future events in the campaign.We also stepped away from Castles & Crusad
es for this interlude. I used Tiny Frontiers to run this adventure.

 

In this interlude, the players took on the role of members of the Elder Alliance Space Patrol. Historically, the Elder Alliance has been opposed to the Markab Empire. The two powers have been in a state of cold war since the end of the Uttermost War thousands of years ago. This war was terrible and left many planets in ruin. One of the terms of the treaty that ended the Uttermost War was that neither power would interfere with the Ghenrek system or its inhabitants.

 

Prior to the war, both the Alliance and the Empire had bases in orbit and on the surface of Ghenrek IV. The planet, and its inhabitants, suffered heavy damage. Both powers were prohibited from returning to the system under the terms of the treaty.

 

Recently, the Elder Alliance heard rumors that the Markab were violating the treaty and sneaking down to the surface of Ghenrek IV. The PCs have been dispatched in a stealth ship to an abandoned Alliance space station in orbit around the planet. While it has been decommissioned for thousands of years, Space Patrol hopes that its sensors (made of unobtanium) will have recorded any attempt by the Markab to violate the treaty.

 

The Space Patrol agents assigned to the mission are:

 

·      Stefan LeRoche: Head of Security for The Beagle. He is a genetically engineered super soldier who is skilled in the use of the laser sword and the pulse rifle.

·      Brand Kirk: The team’s sniper, he also comes from a well-educated background with a father who was a history professor.

·      Lynn Raupp: A skilled psionicist who is highly trained in the use of her laser sword.

·      Willis Storm: The sneaky one.

·      Diane Mendel: The team’s hacker and medic.

 

 

The Beagle, an Elder Alliance stealth ship, jumped into the system and deployed the infiltration team on a shuttle to the abandoned station. After docking, the team ran some scans and determined that the life support system on the station was still working and there was breathable air present. Mendel hacked the door, and they entered the cargo bay.

 

 

Moving through the cargo bay, they were presented with several options as to which way to go. They decided to use the classic “go left” strategy and found themselves in an abandoned office. The office had been stripped in a hurry when the Alliance pulled out of the system. The shelves were mostly bare, but some binders containing manuals remained. There was a computer on the desk, but no monitor.

 

They flipped through the manuals and found that one seemed to be for a coffee machine while the other was for some kind of security robot. While the manuals were written in Galanglic, there was a lot of archaic phrasing and use of metaphor that seemed strange for an instructional text. Mendel decided to take the computer with her, in hopes that she would be able to find a monitor elsewhere in the facility.

 

They moved through the office and up the corridor on the other side. They turned the corner and found a hall with several doors, one of which had a conspicuous pressure plate on the floor in front of it. They decided to avoid the pressure plate until they knew more and entered a door on the opposite wall. Behind this door was a utility area with a maintenance hatch set in the floor. Strom opened the hatch and found a cramped vault with breakers and shutoff valves.

 

 

Mendel decided to risk the pressure plate and laid down on the floor to carefully push it. The door slid open to reveal a hazmat room filled with vats bearing cautionary notices. Since the vats appeared to be empty, they decided to leave it alone and move down the hall.

 

In the station commander’s quarters, they found a crumpled uniform blouse with gravy stains. Around another corner, they found a bathroom/open shower. Above one of the urinals, hung a monitor that began playing a commercial for Fix-a-Flow, prostate medication for the spacer lifestyle, when they entered the room.

 

Mendel hooked the computer she found in the office up to the monitor and was able to access the station’s library. After some poking around, she discovered that both the Alliance and the Markab empire had been mining a fantastic mineral on Ghenrek IV prior to the Uttermost War. The mineral had the ability to alter the laws of physics in strange ways. As a result of this mineral, there were gates on the surface of the planet that allowed for instantaneous transportation to places many light years away. They surmised that this was the reason for Ghenrek IV’s status under the treaty.

 

 

They moved down the hall and found a cafeteria. When they opened the door, a security robot sprung to life and attacked. They made short work of the robot and it collapsed into a heap on the floor. Mendel leaned down to examine it and it leapt back to its feet and stabbed her. She collapsed, bleeding out. The others drug her out of the room while fighting the robot with their guns, laser swords, and psionic attacks. Several attempts to staunch Mendel’s bleeding failed and her pulse weakened and stopped. As Raup finished the robot with her laser sword, Mendel gasped, and her eyes opened. They quickly applied first aid and psionic healing.

 

As they were recovering from the fight, The Beagle called and told them that a Markab Battle Carrier had jumped into the system and was launching fighters at an alarming rate. They needed to finish the mission and get off the station immediately. The Beagle informed them it was doing its best to draw the fighters’ attention away from the station.

 

They quickly moved to the next room and found the computer controlling the sensors. Mendel hacked it and downloaded the data collected over the last decade. They moved past several barracks and found the command center for the station.

 

 

The radar revealed that the situation in orbit looked bleak for The Beagle and their chances of making an escape back to the ship with their shuttle. They decided to use the escape pod functionality of the command center to make it to the surface of the planet. They programmed the shuttle to launch and fly towards The Beagle as a distraction and set the station’s reactor to override.

 

As they started their rough reentry, the saw The Beagle explode in orbit. They crashed into the swamp below and a group of frog men approached the ship.