WttSS session 21: 'Mountains or Desert?'

Session report

Written by Doctor Weather

General Summary

Mountains.

Dana's conversations

On mystics

Dana arranges to be in the ship's galley at the same time as Murad and Kerman to ask them about the other party members' use of mystic powers. She has seen mystics on Coriolis, the strange, inexplicable things they can do and how they don't always seem to be in control of the power. Worried too about the rumours that it is a catchable disease, she asks if the power has spread around the crew.
Murad replies only with comment on the great amount of inexplicable truth in the Horizon and that he - honestly enough - doesn't understand it.
Kerman states that evil must be fought and if people develop the power to battle it then is that not a good thing, standing and leaving before the conversation can go any further.

On science

Heading to the workshop hoping to see Khalil at work in his laboratory, Dana finds a very cautious Khalil's experiments and equipment safely locked away. Undaunted, she pursues a conversation about Khalil's experiences on and within Ghodar. He plays it safe, asking as may questions as he receives.
Conversation turns to the Portal Builders, specifically Dana's mission to find one of their locations. She speaks of the stories of them, that all adventures to chase one down always end in disappointment: most often the seeker finds nothing but lies and illusion; and in the rare cases where the location looks to be real, it remains locked away behind some door to which there is no key. She has no doubt that the mission she has been sent on will end in the same way.
Eventually Khalil is drawn by a question on the strangest thing he has encounter. Revealing the flute he bought some time ago that plays all the more strangely the closer it gets to the dark, he plays Dana a short melody to demonstrate. Intrguiged, Dana asks to play the flute herself and does so, the notes of the flute again coming out inexplicably differently to the way they should. Cathing herself, Dana suddenly puts down the flute and politely - but hurriedly - takes her leave.

Getting affairs in order

In conversation with Khamzi Mazandarani
The party shares their success in dropping two sorecers into the star of Ghodar ...and the fear that they are not destroyed ...and that they are potentially reunited and conversing ...but that they cannot escape the star without the interference of humans. In light of this she presses the party on whether they will accept the charge of determining the meaning of the sorcerer Avihu's dream and stopping the sorcerers' plans once and for all. Khalil readily commits and Masruq follows up with a more reserved "we'll do what we can". During the conversation Khamzi also shares the exact location of the Seeker Sanctuary in the Nekatra Mountains.
In conversation with Bakhtiyar Yazdan
The party further unloads their concerns about the sorcerers, revealing what they know of the locations of the remaining three: the location of two being somewhat uncertain but that the third is currently riding his demon-ship towards Yesheriti Diri, due there on the 19th day of The Deckhand, in some 16 days time.
In return for saving Khamzi
Making good use of the goodwill earned, the party arranges the following:

• Repairs on the Caliban Crow can be completed in a 9-day and will be covered by the city
• Repairs on Caliban will be investigated by Tazjeddi Adebayo (lead scientist of the Yazdan household), the true nature of the ship intelligence being revealed to Bakhtiyar - she will keep it a secret between herself and a select team - in a 9-day they will have a good idea of the full damage to Caliban and what extra might be needed to fix him
• Repairs will be conducted in the security of allied Ghodar Station, where the Black Sparrow won't be able to spy upon it

...The Yazdan household thus takes the Caliban Crow to Ghodar Station.

Seeking the Seekers

The party borrows one of the Yazdan household's shuttles to visit the Seeker Sanctuary. Fearing that the Legion might be in the area of the Sancutary, Zarzur makes use of her hack into their database. She discovers three Legionaries in combat-exos are on a permanent detail at the site. Thus appraoching cautiously, Kerman flies the shuttle up the mountain ravine that leads to the sancutary location whilst Zarzur hacks the Legionaries' proximity scanners.
Unseen, unheard and undetected, the party reaches the sanctuary towers that line the ravine walls and hovers next to the central tower for a closer look. Murad sees evidence of vehicle gunfire on the towers, covered by repairs to some degree but not well enough to prevent him recognising a calibre that matches Legion weapons. He deduces that the Legion herded the Seekers up through their towers and out onto the clifftop above. They look to have not wanted to kill the Seekers at least, but Zarzur fears what it might mean for Seekers caught by the man of the echeveria plant who seems to control the Legion here.
Investigating the central tower further, Murad's attention is drawn to the main enlightenment garden. Here, as everywhere, the Seekers dropped everything and left it were it lay in order to be safe from gunfire - all but one thing: One stone lies out of place in an otherwise perfect garden. Not something a Legionary would think to investigate but nonetheless a stone that was left with a message in the language of flowers:

• A cutting from a blackwood creeper lies on top of a hastily carved word, the cutting taken from the garden where all plants represent one of the human groups on Ghodar
• The word is written in an old language from the First Horizon's Terra - unreadable therefore by any Legionary - and usually meaning the form of a human construction
• To the left of this pair, postioned then as if to be read separately and next, lies a cutting of the saifon plant - this being taken from the Icon garden, implying by its keen leaf blades to represent the Judge.

Looking at the position of the blackwood creeper in the representative garden, the party sees the creeper positioned to tower over a jenlian plant. As the jenilan plant is the source of the DNA changes that give the mountain natives their ability to breathe unaided on Ghodar - a plant altered by science their old masters - the towering creeper would seem to represent these masters: the Abouelkassem family.

Campaign

Whispers to the Star Singer (concluded)

Protagonists

Report Date

12 Feb 2021