WttSS session 47: 'The Door is Open'

Session report - Whispers to the Star Singer campaign

Written by Doctor Weather

General Summary

GM's notes to self:

• Challenge 1: your previous reports are up at ~2000 words; get this one under 1000
• Challenge 2: change the writing style to be more of a report and less of a narrative (the reports aren't really read but rather used as a reference to keep future plot consistent)

Post writing edit: not bad - report style half engaged and it's less than 1300 words; good enough to hope for further evolution next time

• Points of note could be merged into one section for easy future reference
• Keep the summary and then bullet details but commit to the idea of a fuller short summary and keeping the events to key points
• Stay up here? The other report sections don't look useful but reflect on them, just in case

Last time

• At the request of the Portal Builder AI, Zarzur shut all the locks down and the portal - a planet-bound portal - opened
• The PCs were victorious: Masruq cast Yochanan back into the city; the Legionaries were defeated, though some were left alive; the rock monsters had all shattered under Yochanan's power
• Masruq suffered a broken arm (he retrospectively used a talent to reduce the damage)

In the wake of the open door

The players moved to recovery and investigation here, working out what had happened and gathering any spoils. They took plenty of time to do things carefully and well, taking no chances. There were also a few lingering side effects of the past events to take care of.
Whilst the PCs did this, Caliban reported movement in the mountain area outside the entrance to the portal chamber. At this time the PCs did not investigate, requesting Caliban keep an eye on it.
Events

• Zarzur's adrenaline was still high after the interaction with the Portal Builder AI and its sudden loss from her mind left her with a lot of unused energy:
• Disturbed by the sudden movement of a waking Legionary, she went for him with her knife but could never hurt him through the suit
• She instead, took her successes out on the exo-suit itself, hacking at the mechanisms to get him out of it, which had been Murad's plan
• Murad commented that the release mechanisms would probably do the job better and the Legionary agreed
• Moving away, Zarzur used Medicurgy to fix up Masruq, getting herself some much needed focus and calm and healing him in the process (healing time halved)
• Khalil began calculations to transit the portal
• Kerman and Murad climbed the rock face to check on the Legionaries that survived the Orb of Ghodar
• 2 survived: one unconscious and the other completely terrified, as if Murad was the very Dark itself
• Murad kept the man from throwing himself off the ledge, knocking him out with a punch
• Khalil observed the black tablets, hanging ghostly behind the portal
• He saw one of the tablets had a single 'paragraph' of swirling text lit up
• The text faded over time and the tablets vanished again
• Zarzur saw an image of herself standing beside her - just a hallucination perhaps

Points to remember

• 3 Legionary prisoners
• 8 Legionary combat-exos collected, all assault variant

Now or never

Caliban's repeated reports and conversation with the Great Caravan's war leader awoke the PCs to the situation outside the portal chamber:

• The Caravan had fought off the Harir 5th, who were now scattered in the mountains but still a potential threat
• The Xinghur had lost many people and vehicles and wanted to know if they should mourn their dead here or in the City of Brass, if the PCs had gained entry
• The PCs asked the Xinghur to come forward, if warily
• Caliban uncovered another wing of Legionaries - with gunships - coming from a different path to secure the portal chamber

Events

• The Xinghur and the Legion ended up in a standoff, both at the top of two separate ramps leading down into the hexagonal chamber that preceded the portal chamber - they exchanged rifle and rocket fire
• The PCs summoned Caliban but Kerman remotely took control of the piloting through a connection established by Zarzur
• 4 missile successes from the Legion gunships trying to intercept the Caliban Crow
• 3 Pilot successes from Kerman
• Kerman flew the ship up and then into a dive, causing all missiles to impact on the walls around the hexagonal chamber
• Coming into a sharp recovery near the ground he then part slid, part bounced the ship through the adjoining corridor, losing the ship's comms array in the process but saving the rest of the ship (1 hull damage)
• Zarzur had another vision of herself working at the recovered ship's consoles and decided to interact
• The second Zarzur first acted like she was the real Zarzur, even to the point of thinking that the real Zarzur was a figment of the Portal Builder AI in her head
• Kerman witnessed Zarzur talking to, and shaking hands with, thin air
• The second Zarzur's inability to interact with Kerman threw her though, and she started to get other thoughts of the AI
• Throughout the interaction thereafter, the second Zarzur started to feel more and more unwell, lamenting the reduction of her billions of limbs to a mere four
• Through persuasion of Zarzur, the second her managed to realise it's link to the thousands of 'Zarzur' in the city beyond
• She felt their increasing dissatisfaction with the damage being done outside the city and to its walls
• She also noticed a build-up of energy in the hexagonal chamber, generated in response to this damage
• Murad witnessed the energy build up too, having gone to observe the Legion advance, and suddenly had to flee back to the ship when a wave of heat sloshed out of the chamber and down the corridor - safely back in the ship he could even feel the strength of the heat with a hand on the ship's internal hull
• Khalil backed up the analysis through the Orb of Ghodar's sensory inputs
• It had turned itself on at this point, recognising the energy build up as 'self'
• When it deduced the overall plan of the energy though - reporting a 'purge of hate' being initiated - it went into a protective shut down
• When Zarzur's second-self reported that the other Zarzurs in the city were 'getting fed up with all this' and had decided to just 'start again here', the PCs took the hint and prepared to head through the portal
• Everyone but Kerman sped to the stasis chamber, who used Khalil's calculations - with the help of the second Zarzur interacting directly with the console - to plot a course through the portal
• Kerman aimed the ship through the portal but tilted it up as it went (no-one says with graviton projectors you have to fly front of the ship directly forwards...), allowing him a faster, controlled slide through the corridors and into the stasis chamber
• And so everyone went into stasis...

Points of note

• Jihan had urged the party to head through the portal and when they agreed and started heading for stasis, she declared that she also had to "make my preparations"
• As Zarzur's second-self helped Kerman with the portal piloting she showed her faith by invoking "Lady of Tears be merciful"
• As Kerman jumped into a stasis pod, he saw lights in Zarzur's pod but there was no time to investigate

Welcome, brother

Jihan woke Murad from stasis, saying "sorry, I couldn't leave you there any longer and had to risk waking you early". She wanted to be free to investigate the new forested valley that was visible through the ship screens. She led Murad to the bridge, as someone was waiting there to talk to him and then went out on her own.
Murad was faced with a holo-image of a cloaked figure standing some 2.5 metres tall. The male figure had his face covered by his hood and further distorted his own image to make sure his face couldn't be seen. Nonetheless, two pairs of crossed forearms indicated his being kharatuk.
"It is good to see you brother," said the image, "it's time we talked."

23rd day of the Deckhand
Campaign: Contract: Whispers to the Star Singer
Characters: PC group: Whispers to the Star Singer
Timeline: Campaign timeline: Whispers to the Star Singer

Campaign

Whispers to the Star Singer (concluded)

Protagonists

Report Date

20 Apr 2022

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Contents

• General Summary
• Last time
• In the wake of the open door
• Now or never
• Welcome, brother