Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic RPG

Recap the Fifth

12 August 2010

Recap of the previous adventure.

Caves Down, Lava Upwards

Trandosha was under a general quarantine. Reports of the sickness were of an incubation period of three days, after which severe necrosis would begin. Most people did not survive for longer than a few days after the first symptoms were spotted. Bacta would alleviate some of the pain, but would not cure the disease. The illness was limited to the Trandoshan population.

Though they were warned off, the crew and passengers of the Oota Goota broke through the light blockade and landed on the planet in an area that the Jedi thought had some remnants of Dark Force energy. All they found, however, were a few Czerka lean-tos a small distance away from an afflicted village, and lots of eyewitnesses who said Czerka employees visited the village briefly before the outbreak.

The investigation lead them to another village in an enclosed valley, half of which had been infected. Any of the sick were sealed away in one half, while the healthy were in the other half. Czerka employees were administering bacta (at a small price) as part of their "humanitarian efforts." There was a betting pool in the local bar that a cure for the plague would be discovered and distributed by the end of the week. Breaker put down a thousand credits.

The most pressing matter was that of the precursor console, which was likely to be in this area. The group ventured into the caves in the surrounding mountains, which wound their way through the rock. The passages were tight in places, and there were a multitude of traps, but the most persistent threat was a bounty hunter. He had been sent by Ryatt the Hutt after the pilot Shagarr for the significant loss of the mysterious box. The bounty hunter wasn't in the mood to talk, and the party wasn't in the mood to listen. It wasn't long before one of the traps the party had managed to avoid ended up exploding in the bounty hunter's face.

After avoiding a few more traps, they found an underground temple - and guano. Lots of guano. Guano so deep that it buried all but the top of the temple. The makers of the guano all too soon became aware of our heroes, and though it was difficult to fend them off and navigate past the muck, soon all were sealed safely inside the temple.

Inside the temple was a rogue Jedi, awaiting the return of her master. The party allowed her to think that they were the expected contractors, who were to rig the console with explosives. Knowing this ruse would likely only work for a few minutes, Shagarr took the initiative to casually hand her an active thermal detonator. Before she could react, it exploded.

After the cleanup work, Alora and Kistra investigated the console. They managed to download the coordinates of the superweapon, which meant they could finally seek out and destroy, disable, or capture the source. The trouble was: how were they going to disable this console?

Upon their exit, the answer came to them: the rogue Jedi's ship was parked in a caldera accessed by one of the tunnels. If they exploded the ship, they could easily cause a cave-in. After ferrying the rest of the party to the top of the caldera, Breaker set the explosives to breach the engines. As everyone ran for minimum safe distance, they set off the explosion.

The detonation proved to be more than they were counting on. The caldera had a minor eruption, the remnants of the rogue Jedi's ship falling into magma, and the volcano awoke from its hibernation. The console, if it had survived, was now totally unreachable through a river of molten rock. Unfortunately, the village in the valley was also in trouble, since the series of caves also acted as lava tubes.

Suspicions and Cures

The party had their own issues to deal with. Their ship was at least a day's hike away, and they had no water, no provisions, and certainly no method of transport available aside from their own feet. Exhausted, the two Jedi nearly collapsed due to the arid conditions.

While Breaker and Shagarr were carrying them to a nearby outcropping, they spotted a plume of smoke in the distance. Upon investigation, they found that it was the remnants of a crashed escape pod. It had definitely seen better days, and only just survived the entry into the atmosphere. Enlisting the help of Kistra and her lightsaber, they managed to rescue the only surviving passenger: a Kaleesh warlord named Chuurga.

Chuurga told them little, but was able to gather enough information about his current location to know that he had somehow been displaced in time. He was chasing an enemy, and his pilot had ended up navigating too close to a black hole. Desperate, they had abandoned ship in the escape pods, but it was too late. They had been pulled in. The pilot was now dead, and he was now in need of transport back to civilization.

After an agreement was brokered, Shagarr and Breaker retrieved the ship and their passengers, then took off. By incredible chance, their flight path intersected a cloaked ship floating in high orbit. The Oota Goota almost became a smear on the larger ship's windshield, but Shagarr managed to pull away just in time. But what was this ship doing here?

Everyone donned spacesuits to investigate. It turned out every concievable inch of the ship, from bow to stern, was full of kolto, a highly prized substance that made bacta look like mere tap water in comparison. Kolto could easily cure the plague that was wreaking havoc on the planet below. Shagarr unhitched one of the containers to take on board his ship.

Once he did so, alarms were signaled all over the ship. Droids poured out of the nearest hatchway and began blasting at the group. They managed to get the container of kolto to the Oota Goota, but only after some blaster fire pierced the EVA suits of Shagarr, Breaker, and Chuurga.

Breaker's suit was terribly damaged - he could no longer rely on his vaccuum seals, and some of the armor was broken away. He affected what repairs he could, but he would need more supplies to be able to restore full functionality.

Shagarr piloted the ship back to the surface of Trandosha, after sending out a planet-wide broadcast announcing a cure. Meeting with the planet's governor, ambassador, and a Czerka rep, they had a heated discussion over who the ship belonged to and how it had found its way into orbit. With little resolved, Shagarr convinced the Czerka rep to take responsibility for distributing the kolto to the populace at the absolute minimum fee. He made no mention that he had taken a couple liters of the medical gel for his own use.

While Shagarr was negotiating for the distribution of the kolot, Breaker searched the planet for the holder of the bet he had placed. He had laid one thousand credits on a positive outcome of the plague, and it was none other than his pilot that revealed the cure. Breaker intended to collect.

However, as their actions had ignited a caldera, the settlement had been evacuated. The healthy were sent to one city, the ill to another. Breaker hunted his man across several cities before finally discovering that he had succumbed to the plague in the last day or so. He barged in, blasters at the ready, pushing aside the sick and infirm and proceeded to beat the man until he showed Breaker his accounts - he was dead broke. He had never really believed anyone would find a cure by the end of the week, and too many others had taken him up on the long odds. Breaker aimed a blaster at the man's head ...

But he didn't fire. He wasn't sure why.

Star's Wonder, Star's Lament

The coordinates Alora and Kistra pulled from the precursor console pointed them to the very center of the galaxy. No one had dared map that territory; the stars were incredibly close together, playing hell with navigation and hyperspace routes. The closest the ship could get unaided was the small Republic world of Tython.

There, they found a braggart pilot, whose body was nearly consumed by cybernetic implants and replacements. He told a long and hearty tale about his ventures into the Deep Core, and even claimed to have piloted to the very center of the galaxy itself. Though his story was difficult to believe, he imparted some useful information to Shagarr about the nature of unexplored space and the best way to navigate through such a densely-packed sector.

Meanwhile, Breaker was looking for weapons. He discovered several resellers who had the material he desired, but no one was willing to sell to anyone in Mandalorian armor. It wasn't until Shagarr went in his stead that the anti-Mandalorian sentiments were laid to rest, and they were able to acquire more Detonite, a sniper rifle, and remnants of a Mandalorian breastplate. Breaker claimed all, and used the last item to (mostly) repair his armor.

The trip into the Core was exacting, and took a long time. They could only jump a single light-year at most, then scan for an hour for all possible obstacles before entering hyperspace for a brief stint. This had to be repeated some forty or so times. Fortunately, their objective was not in the center of the Deep Core, but just above it, so the going was not as treacherous as it could have been.

Upon reaching the coordinates, they discovered a star system with five suns rotating around each other. In the center of this complex path was a single asteroid, and on that asteroid, carved out of the solid rock, were three towers. Beneath the towers was a docking bay.

Was this the superweapon they had sought for so long?

The Adventure Continues ...