3.06: Flare Comp

AGE of the DUAL BIRTHDAYS

When last we left. . . .

On the surface of Chalcedon, Lord Danar Vorpadaran in his guise as Scourge of the Spaceways Vance Kerplocken awaits the arrival of the rest of his adventuring party, hopefully before the impending arrival of the Aw'akeen who come by invitation to investigate the life-thieves known as the Bloodsmith Raiders. He watches Mayor Nalerine Kanter walk away, headed for her new future as the leader of the nascent Freedworlds Republic . There's resolve in her step, a new determination, put there by Kerplocken's insightful counsel.

A hovering droid loaded with an unidentified explosive device tried to deliver its deadly payload to the starship docking area for Port Greymouth on Monorik VI. Jedi Knight So'Zen Al Saba moves into the droid's path before it can reach the docking area. Calling on The Force, he attempts to block -- or at least, divert -- the terrible power of the explosion before it can hit Aerena Kolene and Sir Davish Tam aboard the grounded Kylo's Star.

The ripples of the thermite explosion
tuned to the harmonics of the
repulsor
engine
surrounding it

redirected by the power of the Force

wielded by one who has always been particularly touched by the orchestra of the stars

who also hosts a portion of the

Kwi Map

within his mind

.

reach out to connect all pieces of the Map for one instant

.

and almost succeed.

---

Jedi Knight Vanya Ysadora has exhausted the cordiality of legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett. He sent her back to her assigned prisoner cell, the one next to a Force cage. Along with the Dark Side shroud of Errol Vondromas, it is just barely enough interference for just barely a large enough fraction of a second

as, following a long-dormant emergency protocol, the Kwi Map moves its hosts to a different place.

Not the place it was designed to choose, alas.

Purple tentacles writhing with psionic energy fill the space in which our heroes find themselves. If even one touches a bearer of the Kwi Map, their life force will be snuffed out!

But the Light Side of the Force skids around the travelers like paper-thin fragments of methane ice, every time giving just barely enough resistance to block the tentacle attack. The ice fragments ignite under the force of their own cracking, burning off the very oxygen that the heroes breathe. By the time they arrive . . . s_o_m_e_w_h_e_r_e . . . they are overheated; their vision is dazzled, their hearing deafened by the roar of a thousand small flames; their clothing is stained with sweat; they fight to catch their breaths.

The flames go out all at once.

The heroes stand (or sit, or fall over) someplace solid. Smooth. Cool to their current perception.

Full of strangers.

• Everyone: until further notice, your comms are not working.
• Jedi Consular So'Zen al Saba: You have a handful of burnt, bloody, puckered gashes on both your forearms, mostly segments rather than full circles, about the circumference of the base of your water bottle in arc size. Each small wound is burned as if whatever tried to cut you was ignited at touch range. Once you begin to shift your weight, you feel additional bruises-maybe-burns on your upper shins.
  (You are at Wounded. You are also worn out as if you just spent twenty minutes all-out sparring in melee combat.)
  Something not quite sharp enough tried to cut through your defenses with more strength of downward smash than keenness of edge. It cut the sleeves of your robe more than it cut you. Oddly, while there are burns on you, there are no burn marks on your clothing.
  You have your unlit lightsaber hilt in your left hand.
• Captain Aerena Kolene and Knight Errant Sir Davish Tam: You are no longer sitting in the cockpit of a ship.
  (Both of you: Please roll a Dexterity check against a Moderate difficulty (11-15) if you wish to stay standing. Plunking down on your patootie is a free action, but not a graceful one. Davish needs the high end of Moderate, Aerena needs the low end of Moderate. If you get a 1 on the Wild Die, you're either flat on your back or flat on your face, whichever makes for better story.)
  Aerena: Davish looks gray. He is breathing much, much harder than you are, as if he spent all that surrounded-by-fire time jogging in place.
  Davish: You know durned well what you did, and it's a good thing you reached out to draw on So'Zen's connection with the Force to help you do it, because that did NOT go according to plan! At all!
• Lord Danar Vorpadaran: You are standing up straight, your feet firmly planted, your hand on your holstered weapon. You are soaked in sweat as if you just ran your entire final physical qualification test for graduating from the Academy, only you did it in full Vance Kerplocken outfit, and you maybe did it out in the wasteland near Port Etmar.
  You feel wrung out.
  You have a nagging anxiety about the state of your shield belt. You can't really check it just now. You are surrounded by
  er
  people in belted gowns
  The people have either blue or yellow skin, striped with thin lines of glowing red.
  They also have horns like a Lesser Kudu.
  They are very excited to see you. Some of them are hugging one another. Others are waving their (bells, and censers, and crystals on the ends of sticks, and chalices full of thick dark purplish stuff) at the ceiling while they make triumphant bleaaart noises.
  None of them even so much as gesture directly over the strange glowing shapes on the floor in a circle surrounding you. You've seen enough Jedi Quest to recognize that they are not breaching the perimeter of a containment circle.
  In which is . . . you.

An alarm sounds!

Parent Plot

Shards of Exploration plot

Related Locations

• Chalcedon system