WttSS session 38: 'The Deep Desert is Number One in the Queue'

General Summary

  The party returns to its home from home in the Caliban Crow, which is now mostly as good as new. In the city beyond, the story of The Princess Whose Heart was Stolen spreads out from its original telling beneath the palace walls, by word of mouth and broadcast by the reporter Samala Hafi-Joahn. Somewhere too, the Black Sparrow waits for her holiday to really begin, her contract officially ending when the party enters the Deep Desert.   As the Yazdan household engineers depart, happy with their work, they wish the party 'Traveller guide you' and 'may you go unnoticed', though in truth it is The Deckhand who is visiting. Though Caliban and the ship have been repaired, The Fox is present in the form of two stowaway marmosets from the Yazdan household that have taken a great liking to the party's belongings. Though they are happy to sit and be fed, they are equally happy to tear around the ship looking for whatever advanced tech the party might have hidden in odd places. The engineers declare these two a little harder to handle than most and leave it to the party to decide whether to keep them or not.   Oh, and there might be a slightly hacked-off djinn around the rooms somewhere...   GM note: Janet, who plays Zarzur, was unavailable this sessions, so Zarzur was suffering a feedback headache from the connection between her and the Crossroads AI set up a couple of sessions ago. She was always considered to be present but generally resting out of the way. The AI was terribly sorry about it all and of course will have coincidentally fixed the problem for next session.  

Last bits of business

  Knowing the desert tribes would wait until the 17th of The Deckhand to leave for the City of Brass, the party could afford to spend 3 or so days in Juldizin Demalisi on individual business.   Masruq's days: how do you solve a problem like Jihan?
Masruq managed to pacify the ship's angry djinn through discussions of history. He told her stories of events in the system and wider Horizon that she might have missed thanks to her imprisonment but whilst careful to speak through the veil of asking her opinion on things that of course she already knows, indicating that he would just be very interested in her perspective. His deferential attitude and the fact that he always spoke to her in the ship's empty suite cabin, as if it were her room, was well received. Left at that, Jihan would have transitioned into a reasonably good mood for a djinn bound by a promise.   Khalil's days: shuttle repairs
The party flew a borrowed Yazdan shuttle to many Ghodar locations but none so dangerous as near the angry Crossroads AI, after which encounter the shuttle was quite the worse for wear. As such, the party chose to pay 4,600 birr for parts but saved some money by having Khalil make the actual repairs. During this time he very much enjoyed discussing potential tech improvements for their shuttles with the engineers of the Yazdan household.   Kerman's days: ever the storyteller
Taking a dislike to the use of marmosets for labour and being wary of being locked in a small space with a djinn that hates him, Kerman spent his days at The Caravan. As he arrived there, the next episode of the Plantation Owner's Daughter had been released, which combined with his own stories, gave him many a tale to recount and discuss with The Caravan's ever changing roster of patrons and residents. He is the last to rejoin the party, who have to come and fetch him away from his disappointed audiences. During his stay he takes a reference from Lila at The Oasis on a trusted place to leave his vaulables before the party risks the Deep Desert.   Murad spends his time trying to drive marmosets away from his valuable belongings
This was not an easy task.   During these days too, the party reflected on their contract: there is a very real fear that they can't get paid
Their contract doesn't name their employer but it's looking likely that it may well be the same Professor Nasralleh that they are now working against. Dana had already raised concerns about her patron and the party's patron receiving missions to the same place on Ghodar at the same time and returned to the Rimward Reach to investigate both contracts' hidden employers. The Black Sparrow had then revealed what she had heard from the Foundation and the Legion about Professor Nasralleh arranging for Zarzur and Murad to be present on Ghodar. Proof these things are not but it doesn't look good. The party discussed the idea that if they and the professor did both end up in the City of Brass together it might be better if only one group returned...  

Into the desert

  The Caliban Crow leaves Juldizin Demalisi on the 16th of The Deckhand, early in the Ghodar morning. Flying for a couple of hours out into the middle desert, she treats her crew to the sight of the sands after the storms. The last few nine-days have seen many a sand storm and now the lower Ghodar atmosphere is full of tiny particles reflecting and refracting light of many colours through the air.   For most the journey is pleasant but now Kerman is trapped in a confined space with Jihan, the djinn who still resents how he treated her. Whilst he is checking over the ship's tech, making sure no marmoset has made trouble, he detects Jihan's presence in the room by the familiar change in the air as a delicate wind passes by. Before he can react, she offhandedly comments that Kerman would find it easier to check tech on ship if his Xinghur gene wasn't turned off. A confused Kerman doesn't respond and Jihan happily leaves with her words hanging in the air.   Kerman raises Jihan's comments over a late breakfast with the rest of the party. News of any lost Xinghur gene has passed him by. Khalil saw some medical equipment in the Abouelkassem labs that suggest they could have experimented on people but didn't get a chance to really look at their details. Zarzur saw exactly the information about the Xinghur genes in the Aboulkassem databases but deleted it to prevent people being tempted in the room of the Dark... There is, nonetheless, enough information to suggest that Jihan might be telling the truth but it is less than obvious why she would share the information, given how much she hates Kerman.   After the breakfast discussion, Jihan gets the last word as she closes the door on 'her' suite but Kerman plays with the controls of Shalla's suite, it's lights and sound system, creating a passive aggressive back and forth between them for the rest of the trip.  

Great Caravan

  Fortunately, it is but a few hours into the desert before the Great Caravan appears on the sands. Between two and three thousand Xinghur have gathered, bringing over two hundred vehicles for the journey into the Deep Desert to find what they hope will be a permanent sanctuary: a City of Brass.   Kahina and Ifrahan, the Xinghur the party met at the Crossroads meeting place respond the codes they gave the party for this moment and the Caliban Crow safely enters the airspace around the caravan vehicles that have been circled for defence. No-one within the tribes would put it passed the Legion to use the PCs' ship as a Trojan Horse.   Too big to set down within the parked crawlers, Kerman sets the Caliban Crow down on the edge of the gathering. The Xinghur scouts and camp guards go back to their never-ending business as he does. Looking out over the caravan, it is clear that all the local tribes have come, bringing everything of value. Transport crawlers with wheels taller than even Murad carry water and valuable supplies, whilst smaller crawlers, sand buggies and the odd grav-shuttle carry the families.   The entire camp is set to work where they aren't occupied as scouts and guards, fixing up vehicles, measuring supplies and choosing what will come on the journey and what must be left behind. As the humanites move around the camp, a smaller army of teracca watch them with great curiosity. Out with the scouts they also defend the caravan but here they are one and the same as the humanites, with nests in the larger crawlers to maintain and younglings to protect.   Kerman wonders for a moment if teracca prey on marmosets...   Kahina and Ifrahan lead a well-dressed committee out to officially greet the party. The entire committee comes in thawb and trouser, not needing the thermostatic suits and survival masks that keep the party alive. This formality makes a stark contrast to the armour and overalls worn by the rest of the tribesfolk but matches the manner by which Kahina and Ifrahan carried themselves at the Crossroads.   Masruq trades official hellos with the committee and recognition is made of the uniting of two peoples to come, Star Singer bless their journeys and allow them to come together with peace and prosperity.   As the greetings proceed, Khalil is distracted by the Deep Desert, the caravan camp having been set up on the edge of it. Though utterly empty something about it draws his eye - and mind. Putting on a pair of spirit glasses he sees swathes of colour on the wind, as if flocks of spirits were dancing on the currents, and he exclaims his wonder to the people around him. The conservative Xinghur collectively frown at the interruption to the process at hand but Khalil's observance of the Icons recovers the situation, though Masruq is still given a warning: the Deep Desert can create a lure in the minds of some, who suffer a desert blindness and walk out to their death amongst the dunes; Khalil may be susceptible.  

Legacy of the Xinghur

  The party is then taken to a place within the caravan at which they can rest and conclude the business of aligning the desert tribes with the humanites of the Rimward Reach. Walking amongst crawlers and shrines, Murad is recognised by the Xinghur as Kharatuk, and hailed as 'sharif'. Kerman is further greeted by the smell of home: a mixture sand and vehicle exhausts that reminds him of caravans on Lubau.   And all of the party notice further proof of Jihan's claim that Kerman's people have greater ability than he realises, as they see even the children of the camp have a noticeable technological capability. At one point, as Khalil is making arrangements for combining and supporting the caravan's operation with Caliban's systems and supplies, he falls into a conversation with a 9-year-old whose specialism is engines. Though Khalil has had advanced conversations on tech before, he has never had one with a pre-teen and is left a little stunned.   At their designated resting spot, the party is given a couple of the Xinghurs' air purifiers that will allow the party to rest outside without breathing support and Masruq completes a political agreement with Kahina.   Kerman is left free to investigate the truth of Jihan's claims and is told a story of a once united Xinghur people who came to the Third Horizon from a lost home world, thinking to live in peace but enslaved by jealous human masters. The Xinghur people were forcibly split into tribes and spread as slaves throughout the Third Horizon, altered genetically to serve best their masters. Some retained the strength to work in hostile climes, others retained the ability to understand technology. None were given the choice. If he wants, the desert tribes would unshackle Kerman and his people, truly uniting them with the Xinghur of Ghodar.   Kerman decides it is not for him to choose and promises to raise the matter with elders on Lubau, asking for a storyteller to come and tell the story to them. The desert tribes are happy to comply. Later, Kerman thanks Jihan for the knowledge received but Khalil wonders what game she might be playing. He analyses some of Kerman's blood: there could well be some genes to turn on in fact but no way with minimal analysis to say what else they might do beyond grating the gift of technology if turned on.