The Kuari Princess it Ain't...

23 August 2007-

Well, we have continued with the cruise theme, although we're back with the GURPS: Fantasy party, and our accomodations are decidedly inferior. Our characters awakened to find themselves recovering from being drugged, chained in the hold of an orc pirate ship at sea... and then it got worse. The orcs appear to have been trying their hand at slave trading, and we had been singled out for special attention by someone (someone we will almost certainly want to devote equally special attention to when and if we return to Freeport). Consulting with the other captives below-decks confirmed that we were bound to be sold as slaves to a nation which often uses slaves for sorcerous experiments, and we soon learned that another ship had been spotted.

While we readied ourselves for an escape attempt (it's not clear where we would have gone if we had somehow escaped a ship full of orc pirates and a slaver galley while two or three days out at sea), we heard the other ship tie up alongside. We were soon paraded up on deck, where a party from the other ship came over to examine the goods. In addition to a chest full of cash for the deal, they had a sorcerer and his pet creature with them. Evidently, the creature needed a certain kind of blood to help transport his master to Hell (I'm sure one or all of us would have volunteered to help him get there sooner, but no one was thoughtful enough to ask). The blue creature picked out the centaur and a half-elf slave who was in the hold with us as likely donors, and the purchase was underway when the lookout spotted a Drow warship approaching. As you can guess, our reactions quickly went from "Drow have warships?" to "Can our situation get worse?" The pirates and the slavers immediately decided that their best plan was to just outrun the other guys, and let the unfortunate losers of this improvised race deal with the Drow on their own, and a fight broke out as the slavers tried to get back to their ship with the money.

The creature, though, took the opportunity of the general confusion to talk to the centaur and offer us a way out, which she was very quick to accept, given our other options. After a quick bite to get the blood, the creature opened up a gate to another plane, and it grew until the pirate ship slipped through into a torrential storm. All of us grabbed hold of anything at hand, and the ship smashed itself to pieces on some rocks- we don't know what happened to the slavers... or the Drow.

Next week, we assess our next new situation.

Roll Credits

16 August 2007-

Our discussion of how best to escape with our lives, our data, and our unconscious Moff were rudely interrupted by the arrival of a pirate boarding party in the section of the ship where we were hiding, so we had to move. With the Jedi leading the way, we cut through the opposition (some of us more literally than others, who were using the less elegant-but very practical- "just blast them" approach) and made for the hanger bay. There, we boarded the same Imperial shuttle that Craig's character had previously been captured for boarding and prepared to "exit, stage right".

Unfortunately, our informant contacted us and informed us that the pirates had set the cruise ship to ram the Rebel base in the nebula- the very one we were supposed to get to, so we had to come with a "Plan C"- send our pilot and a gunner to go warn the Rebel base, while the rest of us saved the cruise ship and her passengers.

We immediately headed back to the engineering deck, where there were a bunch of rooms with names like "Navigation Support," "Power Control," or "Computer Core," thinking to stop the ship from one of these locations. In a stunning reversal of standard science fiction protocol, however (and here I am thinking most clearly of Star Trek, where this sort of thing happened so often that they probably should have just removed Auxiliary Control in favor of a zero-G hot tub), we found the controls locked out, and the bridge in complete control of the ship. The one saving grace was that we were able to call up engineering schematics on the ship, and get into the air ducts, thus allowing us to get to the bridge relatively smoothly. There, we were able to blast the pirates and seize control again. Another plan, flawlessly executed!

"This is some rescue..."

2 August 2007-

When last we left, Craig's character had been captured by the Imperial troops on the lower deck of our star cruiser, after an inspired (if very wrong) fast talk attempt. I say "inspired" because no one else had any ideas, and it just popped out- his guards were non-plussed enough to let Craig get at least some distance away before they pursued him, anyway.

So, with our stealth-hound captured, a platoon of Stormtroopers below decks, and no immediate rescue options, eMike's smuggler, Brian's doctor, and Jeff's Jedi regrouped in the cabins while eBill's bounty hunter and my Jedi continued to mingle at the ball, hoping for a lead.

As luck would have it, we got a break, in the form of a pirate attack on our ship (pirate attacks are only rarely considered "lucky" breaks, but it worked for us). In a more aptly-phrased "inspired" move, eBill and I shoved into an elevator with a bunch of panicked tourists and "mistakenly" headed for the lower decks, where the Stormtroopers were preparing to repel borders. In the confusion, we passed ourselves off as plain-clothes ship's security forces, and discovered where they were hiding Craig. We strode purposely through the Imperial forces on the lower deck to get him, "reporting in" to our buddies back in the room to let them know where we were were going, while at the same time boosting our cover by appearing to talk with someone "in charge".

We all met up to free Craig, who was in an ad-hoc interrogation room. The human occupants had been knocked out by a nearby hit from a pirate ship's weapons, and we took their uniforms. Now we just need to blast through the pirate bording parties, get to an escape pod with our data, and get away through a raging space battle. Excellent.