Absentis Persona: VN Ysadora
General Summary
Wow, email to "Captain Eleni Benacor", " Private Investigator Ysadora", and " Khun"!
It's supposedly from Jangir Toth!
He wants us to piss off a Hutt -- Rogga, in fact -- by going and helping this farmer named Marcello on the planet Setolio in the Calipsa Province. The guy's son is missing. Rogga is screwing around on "support".
I totally got a week off to go do this! And not give a Hutt a noogie, and not start another intergalactic war.
Khun is going to blue up, and we're going to take his yacht, the Private Dancer. It has a current registration and everything!
Setolio was originally part of Pelagia Province. They got annexed by House VorCalipsa during the Galactic period. It has something in the soil that makes the plants grow REALLY well, so the locals build their structures Wookiee-style in the treetops. There are mixed humans and twi'leks living there since the time of Shey Tapani.
Main exports are jogu fruit, barnish moss, koba bark, and Tapin beer. Vor look down on Tapin beer, a dark stout that causes a natural sensation of warmth; it has a chocolate flavor to it. Koba bark and barnish moss are used in medicines, the jogu fruit is used for medicine AND (because it looks weird) is considered a delicacy.
The government of Setolio is TECHNICALLY an elected government. Every four years, they have a contest to see which of the seven lesser noble Houses (not the one ruling currently) is going to manage things next. Current House-In-Charge is House Vorgamik, who've been doing so since right before the outbreak of the current civil war. Each candidate campaigns to prove they're the best steward available, and the populace basically pay their taxes to the ones they think deserve it.
Marcello grows jogu fruit.
We get about a third of the way and the entire ship shuts down. And the emergency lights come on. We're somewhere in the Gambler's Run.
We're getting zotted by a shattered comet's ion storm.
And there's a black, powered Barloz-class medium freighter coming at us. "Good news is there's a rescue ship as soon as we take it over."
Eleni found a thermal well that didn't explode when the other two explosives did! It's hooked to the main power system.
The enemy ship is the Sadeet, which in Trandoshan means "Butchers His Enemies Slowly".
Each of those asteroids is effectively a great big chemical battery. Khun immediately logs his mining claim on his computer, to file as soon as he has extrasystem comms.
I'm glowing because of a feedback loop when the sensors came back online. Fortunately, Eleni degausses me when I get the bomb-and-camera-droids to drag the shattered comet away.
The power goes out again. The hyperdrive is getting ready to eject, taking the backup with it!
I set up a broken transmission to make the Sadeet hesitate, and then the hyperdrive is repaired gloriously by the two smuggler captains. It's so happy it has the ship take off!
We come to a stop again in the Sheva System.
No more bombs, so we finally go to the Setolio System. I've been meditating for a while (+6 to force rolls for a while) which comes in handy when the repulsorlift AND the comms fail. NO worries, we got this!
The Sadeet is already here! Its captain, Juuus meaning "tastes of his foes", has called dibs on the old House Vormecetti bounty on Vorboccioni.
The smuggler captains buy souvenirs.
The farming town is not far from the city where we landed. Jogu fruit is pod-shaped, grows hanging down from the canopies above. It's yellowish and about the length of a forearm.
Marcello, a Twi'lek, is walking with the cane and is bandaged, he's been beaten and stabbed, and is currently under a doctor's care. She didn't want to let us in and Khun made it even more so. When Marcello asks the doctor to let us in, we see a very simple but nice house. Some of the pictures show a human young woman, a twi'lek son. The doctor leaves for the rest of her rounds, after giving us a last glare.
Son is Lucente. He has been missing for two weeks.
We were in our speeder going to check the crops. My orchards are in the canopy of the menju trees, there's more moisture and the trees grow better that way. Market is soon of course. We were partway there when something hit the speeder. I couldn't control it very well, I didn't see what hit it. I blacked out. When I woke up I saw my son with my old blaster and vibroknife and fighting the night imps off as best he could. Those things only use spears but they outnumber us at least 10 to 1. I couldn't get to my spare blaster in time under the seat, they hit me with a rock. Before I went outI remember calling to Lucente and I remember seeing him dragged off with a net. The doctor said I had a lot of puncture wounds. I came to later and I don't know how much later it was, hours I guess, it was getting on towards night. I wandered, my head hurt, everything seemed swimmy, I just wandered until one of the local Wardens found me, they're our local law enforcement. They brought me in for treatment immediately. They keep looking but they can't find anything. So I got a little desperate. I know I shouldn't have made the deal with that Hutt, but I was a little desperate and I just want my son back.The deal was that Rogga would have his bounty hunters look for my son and I sell him some of my fruit at below market value (30 to 40% cut off market value) when it comes time for Market.
What is a night imp?
Appearance: short as a really young human or twi'lek child, maybe 2-3 feet; skin color of black earth; hair same; eyes really big and almond shapes and glimmer like fresh-cut emeralds and always seem to glow. Always seen at night. They wear patchworkish clothes. He's seen them before *at a distance* but they had never caused him trouble of any sort before. There have been stories of the night imps attacking people before but nothing he can specifically relate.
Where do they tend to gather?
Nobody really knows. You run into them out in the forests, usually not far from the orchards. Most people don't see them near the moss but they are found around the bark.
Where can I find an exobiologist who's doing a paper on the night imps?
an Inquisitor from one of the Wardens, Tarquin Passek. He has an office here in town at the main station, about 2 blocks away.
Where is your orchard?
(he draws directions and boundaries on a map) It's not square, but it's a stretch that's the equivalent of about 50 acres. We take care of it ourselves because not all the fruit ripens at the same time.
Where are the menju trees you use for storage of the fruit?
that's {points at spot on eastern side of orchard} in a structure
Can you show me on this map where you think your speeder got hit, and where it crashed?
he marks a couple of guesses for hit and also marks where he was found
Where is your speeder now?
it's still at the crash site; the Wardens wanted it left there so they could watch it, and anyway he doesn't have the money to have it hauled back much less repaired.
Son is real bookish, reads a lot. He's got a head for numbers. When he was a real little boy, before the wife passed away, he accidentally broke the wife's bowl. He was determined to make a replacement. He worked very hard and got the shell of a jogu fruit and polished it up and waterproofed it. The thing is, a jogu fruit, the skin goes soft after a while. He didn't know that, so he went to show it to his mother how well it worked. As soon he put the water in it started leaking in certain patterns, so the wife used it as a colander instead.
Would expect typical price-at-Market for the jogu fruit to be 10credits per fruit before tariffs or taxes. Market is in about a week. A couple of neighbors are taking care of the harvesting for him while he's down.
Kev Vorgamik is the current law. He won the election the day before they heard about the Confederation's secession. He had to draft troops.
The law enforcement in Calipsa space is collectively called "Planetary Defense Force". Local area police are "Warden $name". Detectives are "Inquisitor".
Inquisitor Tarquin Passek is a thin Twi'lek with a runner's build. His precinct is obviously understaffed right now, based on the open office area to which he takes us.
Night imps have always been around, always been a bit of a problem, at least according to the records Passek can find. There's some kind of problem with them every 1 to 2 years. (Nomadic?) They kidnap someone, and/or they steal a huge amount of ... fruit. Or lab equipment. Or something.
He's got a night imp spear about a yard long, the head is iron. Possibly beskar? It has polished acorns strung around and tied to it.
He thinks some of what caused the crash was spear impact, but he also thinks there was an explosion. Something hit it and burned.
We're going to head out to the crash site next, and we're planning to stay out at night.
We get to the crash site -- Captain Benacor has rented a four-seater speeder -- and Benacor and Khun start examining the engine and body while I look at the incoming and outgoing tracks.
They dropped out of the trees. Looks like they're about hobbit-sized, wearing moccasins, and move pretty light on their feet most of the time. When they were dragging the kid they headed north, deeper into the woods.
Eleni says the Night Imps can use little animal-shaped plastic explosives.
We hear a bounty hunter cuss at something in the trees. I'm on the north of the clearing, Khun moves to the south, Eleni is between me and the wreck. She heads south to back Khun up.
Oh hey someone has an under-barrel grenade launcher! And launches a concussion-stun grenade at Khun! Maybe I should get to the south side of the clearing, by traveling around the edge and looking for hostiles.
There's a human guy in a net and a Zabrak with a black arrow in her neck-shoulder joint. She's going to die soon if she doesn't get some first aid.
Khun's gun malfunctioned as usual.
From the west side of the clearing, someone is firing a high-powered rifle Yeager would like at someone in another tree entirely.
Khun gets a knife to the thigh so he can't run. Didn't we do this once already? Eleni grabs him and rushes him toward the speeder.
I've taken the knife from the guy in the net, and used it to get the arrow removed from the Zabrak. I remove her weapons and her string of ears as I search her for a first aid patch. Once the patch is in place over the wound, I stun her unconscious. I figure the Inquisitor is on the way back and WHAT THE HELL!! Khun is using the tri-barrel blaster on the speeder to spray-and-pray for suppressing fire on a bunch of the TREES!
It's time for Lightsaber Combat. I put the blaster away and draw my second lightsaber, and get ready.
A tree explodes like it had a box full of grenades in it.
I get the guy out of the net and advise him to get off the planet, as I'm not here for HIM, I'm here for something much worse. Also much worse than the Trandoshan. He reluctantly agrees to go find his partner and they both get the hell off the planet.
Eleni has the speeder in the trees now where the camouflage helps. The Trandoshan gets tased and falls out of the trees, and I promptly shoot him. (He gets turned over to the cops when they arrive.) I then point out to the other bounty hunters that I'm here for SOMETHING WORSE and they are an ANNOYING DISTRACTION. They leave, still threatening Khun. Cops show up, and leave again, and the Rodian comes out of the forest.
Jogu fruit, if brewed just right, becomes a wine that causes its imbiber to be VERY suggestible. It's the Jedi Beer Trick -- only with wine!
While I help Khun finish recovering from the poison and antidote, Greelo and Eleni find the trail of the natives who swiped Lucente. Greelo finds a partial boot print and Eleni finds a piece of grey cloth that looks like something sold on Obulette, capital of the Mecetti Province.
We head north as far as we dare before the declining light makes it wisest to head east onto Marcello's orchard area. The actual fruit-producing trees are growing upside-down off the larger trees that make up the forest.
Greelo recommends we make our camp up in the trees rather than down on the ground. Fortunately there's a one-room shack up there, complete with a little porch; and on a nearby branch there's plenty of wide space for parking the vehicles.
We hear something moving around us with purpose. It's a night imp, slightly tainted with the Dark Side.
Because of the Jedi thing about trust, I partially fill 2 bowls with the food we were preparing and go out to see if I can get one to approach and be civil; if he stabs me, then Greelo will shoot him.
He's just starting to settle at the soup when a fire-breathing thunderbird bursts out of the foliage and grabs him! I grab him back via TK while Eleni and Greelo and Khun shoot at the bird.
This bird is made of metal. Or crystal?! Khun's shot to center mass bounced off the briefly glowing feathers. The jaw, however -- Eleni's shot -- does NOT reflect the shots.
I ask the imp if he wants to go in (the cabin)? he is real upset about the bird and not thrilled with us, but he tries to give me the word for that bird species and then says he hurts, he wants help.
Untar of Bantu tribe
Foreb tribe took the kid probably
Kiras tribe maybe Jedi
shots in the night-- I see a scuffle through infrared binocs, bright burst of energy weapons fire, and then a droplet of heat descends out of the trees, lands on the figure, brief struggle, then they both zoom into the ground. WTF?
Foreb beasts swim in the ground, have sharp long teeth, claws, three hearts, hard hide, two eyes in front of head and two in back, sticky long tongue. It's controlled by a box on the head made of mandalorian iron.
We save some Trandoshan slavers from a Foreb Beast and several members of the Foreb tribe. I explain to the Trandies that I'm "on vacation" and have to arrest them and turn them over to the authorities because if I let them go, they're gonna get eaten. They are sure Rogga will bail them out and they will come for me, clear-cut the forest in the process.
Their nightmare only gets worse when Captain Benacor turns out to be here!
We detach the Sith box from the Foreb Beast, calm it down, and I lead it to the corpse of the giant bird while Cap'n Benacor and Greelo take out the Sith box itself.
The Trandoshans have been turned over to the Inquisitor, who has been introduced to Untar and vice versa.
A Foreb Beast with a box on it is a "talek". A Foreb beast without is a "joren".
They call the town "Skyworlder" and the denizens thereof "Skyworlder tribe". In the opposite direction is Foreb in a dense forest.
We see a village in the trees somewhat encrusted by vines (Kudzu?). It looks mostly like a watchtower or outpost. The vines cover it enough that I could probably climb using the vines to get to the top. It could be metal -- it glints in the sunlight -- and it's definitely black. Heat patterns ripple across it like waves.
The Dark Side makes everything taste like bad oral hygiene.
The sentries have these ... critters. They look like a Rhesus monkey with iguana skin. It screeches dark side waves. I am sooooooooo not sneaking past the guards. A sentry goes for more guard-types and an old guy.
He's a definite dark-sider.
Being me, I bow politely in greeting.
They don't trust jedi, we're all destructive, and the kid has been chosen to marry the Queen and be the ruler. All sorts of unreason is involved in this conversation. Finally the shaman ( Kamalda ) demands my weapons, then has me marched to the village.
I get a chilling feeling clear in my bones, and there's the motion of a shadowy shape dropping between branches. It just stepped off the ledge of the tower and is fluttering down. It dropped off into the canopy. The shaman gets all incensed and dismissive when I ask who that was.
He gets even more incensed when Captain Benacor -- who successfully snuck past the guards, and now can be open about her presence because the rules say she gets to stay -- starts singing the Mando song "Vode An" after one of the guards was humming it. She's wearing her armor, she's got a blaster, they think she's Mando! And I have a holo-recording of the Roughnecks singing and dancing that song; for a Jedi to know that is "sacrilege".
I get the shaman to use the Force (dark side unfortunately) to sense whether I tell truth or not when I say the men in this recording are my adopted brothers and I love them. Each one of them. I would die for them. "She almost has, more than once," Captain Benacor adds.
Meanwhile, Greelo finds out about what the dark shadow thing was. It's a "hunter of hunters" that comes out to go after Jedi. "I think it's after you."
The town center has people from more than just the Foreb tribe.
I say I'm not intending to interrupt most of what might be happening here -- except where children and marriage might be involved -- but if anyone is curious, I am always happy to trade questions and answers.
Then I sit down. The non-locals from off to one side are coming in my direction.
There's this blood-curdling scream off to the west. We pass the village, cross a rope bridge; a sentry is rattling on about something and pointing. Another sentry is ... folded. He was wrapped around a branch.
Up in the canopy, I see the barest retreating form of the shadow. It oozes between the branches, heading into the area over the village. It's taking a circuitous route rather than going straight. It will enter near the most reserved-looking night imps. I start running back by the straighter route, while Eleni heads toward the tower.
The cloak flows like water, descends near the two guys, and I TK-yank the cloak. It hisses. "I don't speak your crazy moon language. Can I get that in Basic?" and now I'm in tremendous danger.
Mr. Cloak decides to attack, of course. He has Mandalorian Iron bracers grafted to his forearms, it turns out, but his legs are unprotected when I sweep his knees out from under him.
Literally.
The fight goes out of him; I use my blaster to put him mostly unconscious, then start first aid. One of the two reserved-looking night imps helps me try to stabilize the guy while the other collects the detached legs, then heads off to acquire blankets.
Where are my comrades, anyway?
Mr. Cloaky is a near-human of some sort, with ghastly pale skin and very thin build. He has cyberplates in his body for armor. They might've been grown into place, a graft rather than a straightforward surgical insertion.
Mr. Cloaky does not speak Basic. He's trying to learn by listening to me.
The guy leading the Vulcanesque contingent is Torim.
Mr. Cloaky is FIVE DAYS OLD.
What.
I don't even.
Okay, to take care of this poor kid, I teach him the Emptiness meditation.
By text message, Eleni asks:
Have I ever heard of Tleilaxu? No. Merglin? Yes!
I head into the pyramid/tower thing -- after a long debate with Yurin the multilingual guard -- and Greelo and I follow up on Captain Benacor's directions to find the medbay.
Among the many clones being grown, 3 are people and the rest are critters. Mostly those worm things. We get the three kids out -- Miles Vorkosigan's 2nd brother, Shindra Vortapani, and Jacen D'arcy -- and put the critter fetuses to gentle sleep, and then Greelo destroys the machine.
I'm about to go back to the building door and call for Yurin to get a bunch of colleagues and stretchers and get the hell in here, when the seal pops on the door further into the building. My Danger Sense goes nuts, I stand up with lightsabers activated; massive blaster fire comes booming through the door.
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