WttSS 42: 'In the Maze of the Predescessors'

General Summary

The Great Caravan sits with Caliban Crow on the edge of a Portal Builder mountain range. The Deep Desert would reach for both and drag them back into the sands but the light of the Deckhand and Faceless One keep its tendrils at bay.   Having explored some of a maze of passageways up into the mountains the party have deduced some of the mountain range's defences. A feeling of safety guides people to choose pathways that lead to small rocky oases, places people could go to survive happily enough. In fact, there is evidence of someone having been here before: a food container left some years remains, though strangely now partial absorbed into the rock face.   Other pathways place a weight on the traveller's soul, making it feel wrong to walk that way. The Yazdan marmosets however, love these paths, running freely down them until they were corralled by Zarzur and drones.   The quiet sounds of life, of lizards and birds, was only ever disturbed once, by a crack of lightning soon followed by the drone of an in-atmosphere craft going down and its graviton generator rupturing on impact. The Legion may well be in here with the party, though perhaps faring worse at least.  

So where are the Legion?

  Zarzur scanned the area as best she could through the mountain's interference, looking for signs of the Legion. The mountains and Ghodar atmosphere stopped her getting an accurate ship and personnel count but she did detect their communications to prove the Legion were nearby. In fact, one group was very nearby. Though the main Legion force was up ahead, further into the mountain range than the party's expedition force even, there were communications from the area around the Great Caravan.   Kerman and Zarzur approached Ta-Nehisi, the Great Caravan's war leader, who was presently opening a bottle of arrack to celebrate the arrival of his people here in this safe place. Like many of the Xinghur, he was again becoming forgetful of their true reason for coming here because of the effects of the Portal Builder energy fields in the mountains. The PCs' news of Legion pulled him back on track however, and he, in turn, reminded his people that setting out their tents, carpets and curtains to make camp was not what they should be doing right now. He then asked for the PCs' advice on handling the situation: They could follow Kerman's idea to just attack but would the safety of the caravan's families be compromised by reprisal?   Looking through the scope of his accelerator rifle, Kerman scanned the mountain slopes either side of the ramp on which the Great Caravan was parked and thought he saw the glint of light on the outer edge of the slopes that faced back out into the Deep Desert. In this region there are ledges that could hide a small number of Legionaries a few hundred metres up.   Ta-Nehisi authorised requesting a teracca fly up for a look. One of the Xinghur made a hand signal to a teracca adult, questioning "nearby danger, that mountain?" and the teracca consented to investigate, having younglings to protect, after all. Gliding out and up it soon gained a vantage on the ledge and made a display in the air to confirm the presence of danger. Zarzur then sent a drone up for further information but, though the Legion appeared to be unconcerned about a teracca, they were bothered by the drone and made a move on the ledge.   A shot rang out from Kerman's rifle, knocking the Legionary down and sending his rifle flying. This gave time for Zarzur's drone to take some images, confirming the presence of a single Legionary. The spy turned to make a run for it and Kerman fired again, this time damaging the Legionary's dropsuit capabilities. As he jumped from the ledge, hoping to glide away, he found himself instead in a straight drop, disappearing on a slide down the mountain.  

A drive in the mountains

  Murad, Khalil and Masruq continued their investigation of the Portal Builder mountain maze. Taking the lead of the marmosets they pursued the path that weighed heavily upon them, that some part of their mind swore they were better off not taking - Khalil and Masruq that is, as Murad remained completely unaffected.   Murad took the lead. After a few hours he noticed a change in Khalil's behaviour. Though Masruq still felt the pressure of the choice of ways up here, Khalil's attraction to the weird (his personal problem) caused his attitude to slowly change: Where Masruq was burdened by the journey, Khalil became more and more like the marmosets, desperate to reach the end of this - it just must be - right path. Between the three of them they managed to stay on track, Murad occasionally having to get Masruq to calm Khalil down and get Khalil to remind Masruq where they were trying to go.   After a further length of time, they stumbled across something: another item somehow stuck in the rock face. This far into the journey, the sheer mountain slopes on either side of the paths had begun to increasingly recede back. The sides of the paths saw ever more shale, first only in odd pieces, then becoming piles, stacked up against the slopes. By the time they saw this other object, the shale slopes were some fifty or so metres high, the item wedged at angle near the top on one side.   It reminded Murad of the kharatuk obelisk he had communicated with at the Crossroads. It was similar, still being a rectangular prism, but here a much thinner one, the square end only being as big as a fist, though in height the pole was still as tall as him.   Approaching cautiously on foot, Murad made it up some thirty metres before the expedition noticed a static charge building in the atmosphere above the kharatuk pole. Deciding not to take unnecessary risks, they all decided better to leave well alone and carried on safely down the pathway, further into the mountains.  

Would a rocket launcher solve this?

  Kerman had asked for a rocket launcher. He'd wanted to start out small with the accelerator rifle but felt that a rocket launcher backup could be handy if it turned out there were more Legionaries up there. However, Zarzur's drone footage confirmed there was only the one. He and Zarzur recruited a couple of Xinghur to fly up on one of their grav-shuttles to try and capture, or retrieve, the Legionary before his fellows came looking. They recruited one person to be ready with a rocket launcher and one as a medic.   Flying the grav-shuttle up the outer slope of the mountain, they confirmed the location of their fallen enemy. Kerman messaged the Legionary, asking him to surrender, seeing him clearly injured with at least a broken leg if not internal injuries too. The Legionary responded with what he thought Kerman should do with the Dark Between the Stars, which all agreed probably meant no on a surrender.   The Legionary had lost his rifle in the fall but managed to keep hold of his Dayal-3 carbine, so Zarzur kept the shuttle more than 100m from the slopes whilst the group planned. Such planning was kept short however, when the mountain made its own decisions, the shuttle's scanners recognising the appearance of one of the ship-breaking aurora phenomenon close up above. There was still time for one manoeuvre but it had to be now.   Kerman bade Zarzur fly the shuttle directly at the Legionary, turning its open side door towards him at the last minute. Turning to the medic by his side, Kerman told the young man that it would be great help if he leapt from the shuttle with Kerman but that Kerman would understand if the man didn't feel he could. Staring up at one of the heroes of Ghodar, the Walker with Demons, he who had helped rid the desert tribes of an embarassment from their past, it was clear from the man's face that he would be jumping too.   As the shuttle swung round, Kerman saw the Legionary pointing his carbine - with grenade launcher - at the shuttle's open door. Never one to feel confident with a gun where a fist would be better, Kerman launched himself from the shuttle, throwing his hyper rope out before him.   (GM note: I asked Kerman to choose between ensuring that the grenade would never reach the shuttle but putting himself in danger and ensuring his safety but risking the shuttle's. He chose to save the shuttle and all on board. He then rolled a critical success.)   Kerman's hyper rope shot out and latched around the Legionary's carbine before it could be fired. Pulling harder than the Legionary could conceive possible, Kerman yanked the gun away. Still flying forward, he passed the carbine in mid-air and landed squarely, perfectly, atop the Legionary. Looking up, the Legionary saw Kerman standing above him, Kerman's silhouette lit by the bright light of the aurora above... and surrendered.   Caught quite by surprise, the Xinghur medic nonetheless jumped out after Kerman and managed to haul the injured Legionary in through the open shuttle door. Just in time, Zarzur flew them back down the mountain, the aurora hungrily chasing the shuttle as it went, only giving up as it reached the safe lower heights under which the Caliban Crow had had to fly across the Deep Desert.   Whilst waiting for news of the mountain expedition, Kerman regaled the enthralled Xinghur of the caravan with a story describing the battle in the mountains above. He made sure to tell the tale within earshot of the captured Legionary - still recovering from two serious injuries - but in fact kept it respectful rather than rubbing the Legionary's defeat in further. Speaking of the Legionary as a worthy warrior, he started to gather a small amount of respect from his defeated enemy - no shame in being beaten by a hero of Ghodar after all.  

I think we're here

  Towards the end of the Ghodar day, after some twelve hours grav-biking through the mountains, Murad, Khalil and Masruq saw their path alter more considerably than they had yet before. Investigating by drone and then in person ahead, they found the pathway began one final steep incline up to a plateau.   Much wider across their path than it extended before them, the plateau was more of a T-junction for the pathway, which then descended back down, on both left and right, along the side of a great, hexagonal canyon below. Hundreds of metres deep and fully a kilometre wide, the empty space was a perfect hexagonal prism.   On the two sides to the left and two sides to the right, further sloped passageways led back up into the mountain range. On the face directly opposite, there was an archway, some fifty metres in radius, trimmed with a rim that was decorated in the swirling patterns seen before on the Crossroads rock.   Scanning the area, with spirit glasses and scanners, they saw a slight energy within the hexagon's space, one that might explain the complete lack of life there, but otherwise nothing odd or dangerous. There was no evidence either of the Legion having beaten them here.   The main point of interest remained the archway that clearly began a tunnel through the rock wall opposite, a tunnel dark despite the strong light of the star of Ghodar yet showing two sources of light of its own within.