Pre Queen of Air and Darkness-Session 2
Going to be a short update tonight as I am exhusted. After having to skip a session last week when a friend of the group was home from Afghanistan for only a couple days. Then I had to do all the preprep on the food and cake for my daughter's 1st b-day, so I had virtually no time to review my notes when we played this last Wednesday. Leading to a disheveled messy excuse of a GMing job and bolloxing up a later encounter that was going to be cool. Ah well I best get to it and end revisiting the painful memories
Well we ended in the midst of the growing sounds of the jungle and the impending darkness of night about to engulf the party. The sounds of a massive mosquito cloud didn't seem to alarm the party as much as I thought it would. So they went about setting up camp and watches. Grozarra and Mythia taking the first with Trangle and Syrius sinking into Force Trances.
Making attack rolls in secret I have my large bloodsucking saga edition stirge like critters stealthly latch onto the Grozarra and Mythia first. Their needle like stinger finding flesh and numbing the area quickly so they don't feel it (poor perception checks and beating fort defenses). 3 begin to feed voraciously on Mythia and Grozarra each. I revised these critters so that they only took 1 HP per round they sucked but for every 5 attack rolls that went over the fort defense they would go down 1 on the condition track. Only they don't realize this so once Grozarra starts hitting -3 ont he condition track I tell him he is begining to fell very exhusted and feels like he is going to topple over asleep any minute. I had several more begin to latch onto Syrius who also did not notice and Trangle who makes ungodly Perception checks often and leaps into action as the first lands on him. Trangle issues a loud warning to everyone as he leaps up.
He ignores his own peril and issues forth a loud bellow (Ithorian species trait) and manages to kill several of the bugs on Mythia and Syrius. Two more bugs latch onto Grozarra and in his already weakened state tries hard to fight them off. Mythia leaps over to help him trying to squash the bugs with strikes of her fists and takes on out. Trangle uses Force Grip on one taking his blood and it explodes under the pressure showering him with his own blood. Syrius rashly decides to take shots at the ones on Trangle and actually manages to snipe one off Trangles shoulder.
Grozarra collapses under the assault of the bloodsucking and Trangle quickly uses the opportunity to Force slam those groups over the Wookiee. With Syrius making short work of the last remaining one. Mythia immediately goes to work on Grozarra. With the persistant condition requiring atleast 8 hours rest they continue their camp. (had to endure a couple Blue Harvest quotes about Lightsaber bugzappers; "heeeyyy, why would you put that there, it looks so enticing" in his best watto voice
)
About midday they get back on the move. Syrius manages several good Survival check in a row and the group seems to be making swift progress through the jungle. Their luck turns though as a bad roll sends them back to my encounters table. They find a quickly over growing trial and as they proceed down it find a small blueish lizard standing in the middle munching on something indistinguishable. Not know what it could be Syrius talks smoothly to it and it simple cocks its head in his direction. Thinking they have lucked out on an easy encounter Tranlge uses move light object on a peice of food to entice the critter and once it begins to follow the floating bit he flings it off into the wooded area off to the side. The blue lizard races off on two legs after it and disappears.
Grozarra growls something out about feeding the local wildlife, and as if he was foreshadowing events, sure enough not only does the lizard reappear to them a short while later in their path but now their are two of them and a peception reveals two more making their way toward the group from either side. Figuring niceties have fails Grozara move up to the pair and roars and tries to look as intimidating as possible but fails epiclly and tries a reroll only to net slightly better results but neither is enough to evoke much of a positive response other than the original lizard lunges forward to nip the wookiee on the foot. A ready Trangle stops it mid lunge with Move Object and then flings it a little too roughly against a nearby tree. The other reacting to the sudden rapid movements emits his stunning charge (yup another monster I appropriated from MM1 to populate my encounter table with). It knocks Grozarra down 2 on the condition track (not grozarra's night every attack to his Fort defense seemed to roll high). The party then notices two more rustling sounds coming toward them. The next round the lizards all move within range and BAM they loose the big electrical discharge, zapping everyone pretty good. Though they are minced pretty quickly the following round and the rest run off.
After another several hours of progress and one more encounter with a sinkhole. They manage to get very close to their destination but hear a group coming towards them. The party quickly ducks into the brush and they send Syrius out to see who they are. Syrius hits a 1 on his Stealth ceck but quickly rerolls due to improved Stealth and gets a nat 20. So he gets within a few feet of the group as they move down the path. A young human male is in the lead of the group hacking away with his axe clearing the already over growing trail and looking positively miserable. Folloing him closely pointing a blaster rifle at his back is a large feline species a head and a half taller the Grozarra even (a Togorian) who tells the human to get moving and that they want to get to that ship by nightfall. Several other pirates looking individuals follow made up of an assortment of species including one Jawa trying hard to keep up swearing rapidly in it's own tongue. Rather then commlink once they are out of sight Syrius decides to head back to where the others are hiding.
He must not have been paying too close to my description or my storytelling just wasnt up to par that night and he botches up the description the group so I help him out with it. Then leaves out that they are headed for their ship. To which the other players were OOC'ing to him saying umm arent you forgettign something. o I allow him a Int check to recall the events in a better fashion and it fails as well. So advising the party that the jungle heat and dehydration must be affecting his mind they press on to the settlement figuring their best chance at trying to find the parts they need is now while some of the inhabitants are gone.
As they move closer in the following minutes they hear in the distance a echoing rapport of a slugthrower shot and then several blaster shots.
Knowing they dont have a lot of time they reluctantly have Syrius go on ahead and take a look at the settlement. He contact them via comm link and advises them he sees a small village of a dozen or so stone buildings and a large tent surrounded by a large mound of refuse that rings the area.He also informs them that several ships are landed on the beach on the other side of the village. He moves to a better vantage point after trangle inquires what type of ships. Syrius informs then their are two more Dianoga class fights and a Freefall class bomber parked together and by itself is a freighter, intact but it's landing gear partially sunken in the sand indicating that it has been there for a little while.
They decide to send Syrius then Grozarra toward the freighter and then the fighters and see if they can swipe the parts they needs from under the pirate's noses. Hopefully before more pirates return. They manage to find much of what they need from the freighter and it only takes a short period of time to strip it off. They need one more part and its not on the freighter so they decide to strip it from the bomber. They make great stealth rolls and avoid notice of the village occupants who are all inside anyhow to avoid the heat. Once inside they locate what they need and begin taking it off. Just as they are doing that I have all make a perception roll modifies by distance for Listen. Mythia and Trangle hear it and then quickly see it right away and Grozarra picks it up too even from his distance. The band of pirates that went out has returned one number less with the Togorian loudly berating the rest of the group. Several other pirates join them outside. One human adressing the Togorian with authority as Ruukin asks what happened. Ruukin harshly tells him that Hallomar has escaped before he could get them to the new ship. The apparent leader replies unworried that he wont go far we have three of the other villagers left and he fancies the girl. He will be back. we will take the Freefall out to the coordinates and drop a boarding party on the ship from above. We will have our new ship and can leave this rock for good.
As they turn to head into the apparent Cantina though the leader spots the still lowered ramp on the freighter and then the one on the bomber. He orders his men into two groups. he leads one to the frieghter and Ruukin leads the other toward Grozarra and Syrius. Grozarra sees them coming and they both set up knowing they will be trapped. They set a couple frags nearby ready to toss and set their weapons to auto.
The first group of pirates get tot he freigter first and two toss grenades in which let off the telling sound bursts of stun grenades then two more rush up the ramp with large rifle type weapons with flared muzzles and each lets off an easily identifies stun blast. Trangle quickly relates this tactic to Grozarra. Grozarra pulls Syrous back into a side compartment instead away from the incoming pirates sealing the door. They hear te commotion just outside the door. Trangle and Mythia rush toward the Bomber coming in hard behind the pirates as the last ones are going up the ramp he attacks charging in and lays ones out with a lightsaber cut. Mythia providing coverfire for him as the rest of the pirates turn. Trangle then blasts the remaining 3 with force slam knocking them pron ebut not fully out. and starts inside. Meanwhile the door to the compartment slides open and a Gamorrean stand right in the opening taking the brunt of attacks from Syrius and Grozarra. Wheeling around from their cover on either side of the door, two pirates unleash stunning cones from their deck sweepers. It does nothing to Syrius who Evades quickly and Grozarra shrugs most of the damage off. The Togorian steps over the fallen Gamorrean and wielding a power hammer wades into Grozarra smashing him HARD. A following Gamorrean moves quickly into melee with Syrius doing some decent damage and the Decksweepers drop their weapons and pull vibro blades to join in soon. Ruukin demands they surrender the fact that an obviouse value of a wookiee on the slave market outwaying the species usual aggressiveness. Grozarra quickly realizing he is outmatched and not knowing where Trangle is drops his weapons. Syrius (his player playing rather erratic this session) decides he is going to toss a frag. It takes out a few behind the group but the Gamorrean in his face slices him bad and Syrius needs to use a Force point to survive in unconsciousness.
The other group of pirates having finished their search of the freighter craft come out and see the fight at the bomber and begin the charge over. Once their they all train weapons on Trangle and Mythia as the pirates holding Grozarra and carrying Syrius approach as well.
Even in the face of such overwhelming numbers my players are still in D&D mode thinking they can hack through anything. So it takes quite a bit of convincing conversation from the leader to get Trangle to relinquish his lightsaber.
Now that the leader is closer Mythia recognises him, "Tuval Vorn, I would have thought you'd be dead by now." her revulsion is obvious, "After all you pulled at my Father's company I am not surprised your in league with pirates as well, and it explains how you managed to evade the authorities those years back."
"Young Mythia Zahn," he licks his lip slightly as he leers at her, "my, you have...grown" moving close, lightly moving some of her hair to his nose and inhales. " I often marveled at life's little surprises. I am going to enjoy having you and your friend's as my "guests"." He turns to his men "See to it that they are made comfortable in their new accomidations." to which they all laugh and usher the party off.
The one carrying Syrius splits off and heads into a diferent stone hut. The conscious party members are pushed into an empty stone house with manacles haphazardly forced into the walls. Tuval asks Trangle is he will be a good little Jedi and enjoy his hospitality or is he going to have to remove his tongue for the safety of his men. Trangle agrees to keep quiet. Grozarra tries the strength of the manacles and finds they are strong. Trangle then tries to influence one of the guards into letting the go but only manages to eventually get himself gaged instead.
After the Bomber gets repaired back up they take it tot he coordinates of where the party landed their ship and return shortly with it. Putting it down on the beach as well. Trangel and Grozarra both audibly groan.
They decide to get their rest while they have time. Only later they here stone scraping stone ever so slightly. A rock at the back of the house is soon dislodged and moon light streams in. They se and axe being used to dig out the hole underneath to widen it. Soon a body slides under. In the dark he quietly introduces himself, "I am Hallomar, I will free you." He sets about wokring on the manacles freeing each of the party and leads them out to the jungles edge where the body of Syrius is already there along with an older man tending him.
We ended here befor emuch conversation could take place as it was getting late and I didn't to do anything more untill I could alter my notes to account for the changes made on the fly during the session. Wow this went longer then I thought it would
