Coriolis: Dark Corners (Part 2)
General Summary
The Story so Far...
One month has passed since the crew exterminated the Afyana gang in the Spice Plaza. A power vacuum was created and the different gangs vying for power in the Syndicate within Coriolis Station start consolidating power. Unfortunately, this has the unintended effect of dragging in the many individuals and factions directly connected or loosely connected to the Syndicate into the infighting between the Syndicate gangs. Because of this, the entire promenade is a battlefield between the Syndicate gangs, the Coriolis Guard, and the ordinary citizens trying to protect what little they have. Citizens are getting killed or forced to take sides. Because of this, the Council of Factions have mobilized the Coriolis Guard and the Legion in full-force, instituting a station-wide curfew. Those who break curfew are rounded up and are never seen again, or are executed on the spot by roving patrols. There are reports of extrajudicial killings from the Guard and Legion, so the denizens try to avoid them as much as possible. Neoptra Spaceport has been closed down indefinitely due to the Free League's stevedores and shipping unions protesting against the violence across the station. All ingoing and outgoing commerce has ground to a halt due to the strike. Rumors are circling that the Hegemony are using the crisis to take over the station. The Consortium has instituted checkpoints in all major parts of the station to limit the violence, but many people believe its just a way for the Guard to take advantage of the citizenry. Currently, the Spring Plaza is a contested warzone between the Syndicate gangs as it holds strategic access to all parts of the station. Furthermore, the Syndicate has heard of the missing portal relics and have sent people to hunt down the Deathwish crew in order to retrieve them.
The Stairdom
Our story begins with the Deathwish crew in hiding in the Stairdom, the block between the Spring Plaza and the inner bend of the Ring of Coriolis Station. The fighting has edged closer to the block, so the crew has determined that it is time to go and distribute the portal relics to neutral or friendly factions within Coriolis Station in order to keep the "heat" off of them. After doing so, they plan to escape the station and make their way to the portal gates to escape the Kua system until the Syndicate gang wars blow over.
The crew decide to split into groups and head to different factions to broker a deal with the relics. Amirah decides to go the Church of the Icons to see if they'll take some of the relics. Wahil and Izzaldin decide to head to the Mulukhad under Wahib's advice, to find a Draconite agent there. Yacoub and Hassan head to the Infotheca, the Foundation's data storage building to see if they can find a researcher interested in portal relics to study.
The Ozone Plaza
However, before they each go to their respective assignments, the crew needs to get past the patrols and gangs fighting around the Spring Plaza. The Deathwish crew notice a gang of thugs outside their safe houses wrecking the street and haphazardly shooting their guns in the air. Izzaldin notices that the gang outside are members of the Lama gang of the Ozone Plaza. Wahil decides to use his Modulation Mask to mask himself as a gang member taking Izzaldin, Amirah, and Yacoub as hostages. The gang members are initially suspicious of Wahil until Wahil decides to punch Izzaldin unconscious to prove his power. As the gang members forcibly round up people from their houses to steal their things and to execute them in cold blood on the street, Wahil signals Yacoub and Amirah to make their escape. Yacoub manages to escape, but Amirah is caught. During the street executions, Wahil decides to pretend to execute Amirah by cutting her and making it look like she was stabbed. Amirah falls to the floor and pretends to die. As the gang moves on down the street, Wahil stays behind to make sure to help Izzaldin and Amirah escape.
Meanwhile, Yacoub, through pure fear and instinct, successfully gets past two rival gang patrols and a Coriolis Guard patrol. As this happens, Wahil carries the unconscious Izzaldin with Amirah's help and manages to steal a gang patrol's car. However, despite Amirah's best efforts in using her chameleon suit, the gangers notice the hazy outline of her and a trail of blood from her injury dripping on the floor. As the gang members approach, she thinks quickly and smears the blood on her face and engages her implants as they are a few feet away. She pretends to be a physical manifestation of the bloody Lady of Tears and scares the gang members off. Wahil, picks her up in the stolen patrol gravcraft. They meet a different ganger patrol and Amirah decides to try her trick again and succeeds. They finally meet the Coriolis Guard patrol that Yacoub passed by. Wahil decides to ram into them and crash the car into the Spring Plaza. The crew leave the wreckage unhurt, but overhear a transmission on one of the dead Coriolis Guard's comm for the patrol to report back. Since there was no answer they hear the commanding officer over the comm for other patrols to go on high alert since they didn't hear back from the patrol lying dead at the Deathwish crew's feet.
The Deathwish crew eventually end up at one of the pathways leading out of the Spring Plaza, but stop due to a rather dangerous situation ahead of them. They need to get through a Coriolis Guard patrol camped out in a bombed out transportation terminal beside the street, and the first ganger patrol from earlier directly opposite from them in an abandoned cafe on the other side of the street. Fortunately enough, neither group has noticed one another. The Deathwish crew decide to goad one group somehow with a stray shot from their weapons so that they eventually shoot at each other so the Deathwish crew can escape amidst the shootout. The crew decides to fire a shot at the Coriolis Guard patrol to make it look like it was a bullet coming from the cafe. It succeeds and a shootout ensues between the guard and the surprised gangers inside the cafe. Wahil decide to reappear to the gang patrol disguised as the gang member that met them previously to see if he could provide cover for him. Both the Coriolis Guard patrol and ganger patrol eventually kill each other for the crew to escape unharmed.
The Infotheca
Yacoub and Hassan make it to the Infotheca to find someone willing to take a case of the relics they've stolen. However, they find out that the Infotheca is not open to the public and can only be accessed if someone is invited in by the Foundation through official business or research. Yacoub and Hassan search around on the street to find a public Coriolis Information terminal nearby to jack into with his datapad. Yacoub finds one and promptly jacks in. He quickly finds a backdoor on the net into the Infotheca's systems only to find strong cybersecurity measures in place. He thinks for a bit and then decides to see if he can social engineer his way into Infotheca. He looks into the staff directory on the Infotheca website and finds a general information cybermail address. He sends a phishing mail to it with a suspicious link. Sure enough, watching through the glass doors of the Infotheca's lobby, they see the receptionist see the mail they just sent and opens it. This successfully gathers all her contact information as well as her logins and passwords. This enables Yacoub to login to the front desk secretary's account, particularly her appointment scheduling system, and Yacoub promptly makes an appointment in 30 minutes with Malik Zitane, a project head for the Kuan archeology department. Simultaneously, he also writes a message from the secretary reminding themselves of an appointment happening today and changes the timestamps to a few weeks before today's date. After all of this, Yacoub and Hassan walk through the Infotheca front desk reception and lets the secretary know that they have an appointment with Malik. The secretary confused, checks her scheduling system, and is puzzled by what she sees. She appears to have forgotten about an appointment today from two mining prospectors from Algol Exports made a few weeks ago. She apologizes for her forgetfulness to Yacoub and Hassan and gives them guest access passes for the 9th floor of the building where Malik's office is. They are escorted by two Legion mercenaries guarding the front reception area to the elevator and up into the 9th floor.
Yacoub and Hassan, after a brief search around the 9th floor, find Malik's office where he is alarmed by unexpected guests. Malik asks who they are while threatening to call security to escort them out of the building. Yacoub and Hassan succeed at calming him down and reveals the truth to why they're here. They show the relics they have on the datapad and Malik is concerned, but interested. He says if they give the relics to the Foundation, they'll be safe from harm since everyone believes the Foundation being neutral in Third Horizon politics. They arrange transport for the relics from their safehouse to a Foundation research facility in return for 10 Foundation work passes with basic access to the Foundation's databases. With the passes, the crew hopes to be able to use them to get out of Coriolis Station somehow. They will contact Malik in 2 days to confirm the transfer.
Gifts to the Gods
Meanwhile, Amirah heads to the Dome of the Icons to see if she could get an audience with one of the herats of the church. As she arrives, she sees the Dome crowded and filled with refugees and injured from the fighting in the districts. Everyone is stressed and some people are seen to be fighting for space, food, and or shelter. Nuns and monks are amidst the crowded working to calm the people and give them whatever help the refugees need. She looks for a monk to see if he could help her with her injury. She shortly meets a young novitiate named Gupta who bandages her side. She tells Gupta she's seeking for an audience with the herat to which Gupta replies that there are evening vespers happening inside so the herat is occupied, but if she would join them, she might be given a chance to speak to the herat after prayers. She joins the novitiate in evening prayers to which she succeeds in performing the required prayers and rites. The novitiate, impressed by her knowledge of the religious rites of the church, invites her to a feast with the monks and nuns in the liturgical feast in the inner chambers of the church. She accepts the invitation and is ushered into a chamber with a long table with monks and nuns awaiting to start their feast. At the head of the table is the herat, Qassimah Umm, leading the prayers. She succeeds in observing silence while the herat is leading prayers, and notices that this isn't a normal feast, but is the fast from the nine rites of the icon worship. It is a symbolic feast where the monks and nuns abstain from eating food and instead pray for forgiveness and donate the food to the refugees outside. After prayers, the monks and nuns file out to their evening tasks. The herat, impressed by the guest's cultural understanding of their ways, approaches Amirah. Gupta whispers quietly that it is now the time to talk to the herat briefly. Amirah, looking to have a private conversation with the herat, asks for a confession. Qassimah leads her to a confessional chamber. Through a long and culturally veiled conversation to keep prying eyes and ears from the sensitive information of the portal relics, Amirah manages to convince Qassimah to take the relics with the help of the Seekers; a Church of the Icons militant cult.
Club Aladdin
Meanwhile, Wahil and Izzaldin head towards the Mulukhad Entertainment District to find a Draconite agent according to information from Wahib saying that there is an agent hiding there. They end up going to a gambler's den, The Aladdin, to try to find the Draconite agent. They find that in order to get information, they need to get the attention of the owner and high roller of the gambling den, Qassim. They decide to do that by playing the tables in the den through the night until they racked up enough chips that Qassim invites them to play at his table. Wahil and Izzaldin make a deal with Qassim to play for the whereabouts of the Draconite agent and the cost of all the crew's money and ship. They play a game of liar's dice with high stakes and eventually Wahil makes it to the last round with a showdown with Qassim. Qassim loses, and Wahil's pockets 10 million birr and the whereabouts of the Draconite agent. The Draconite agent is actually in a backroom of the gambling den where he tells Wahil and Izzaldin that they were expected and know what they came here for. The Draconites thank the Deathwish crew for the portal builder artifacts, and reiterate that they are always watching. The agent disappears from the Aladdin and is never to be seen again. Impressed with their gambling prowess, Qassim invites them back again when the situation at the station is clear.
The Deathwish successfully distribute the forbidden merchandise across the station. Only time will tell if their actions will carry fruitful consequences in the future or dire ones. Only the whirling filaments of the Dark Between the Stars hold the fates of the Deathwish crew.
One month has passed since the crew exterminated the Afyana gang in the Spice Plaza. A power vacuum was created and the different gangs vying for power in the Syndicate within Coriolis Station start consolidating power. Unfortunately, this has the unintended effect of dragging in the many individuals and factions directly connected or loosely connected to the Syndicate into the infighting between the Syndicate gangs. Because of this, the entire promenade is a battlefield between the Syndicate gangs, the Coriolis Guard, and the ordinary citizens trying to protect what little they have. Citizens are getting killed or forced to take sides. Because of this, the Council of Factions have mobilized the Coriolis Guard and the Legion in full-force, instituting a station-wide curfew. Those who break curfew are rounded up and are never seen again, or are executed on the spot by roving patrols. There are reports of extrajudicial killings from the Guard and Legion, so the denizens try to avoid them as much as possible. Neoptra Spaceport has been closed down indefinitely due to the Free League's stevedores and shipping unions protesting against the violence across the station. All ingoing and outgoing commerce has ground to a halt due to the strike. Rumors are circling that the Hegemony are using the crisis to take over the station. The Consortium has instituted checkpoints in all major parts of the station to limit the violence, but many people believe its just a way for the Guard to take advantage of the citizenry. Currently, the Spring Plaza is a contested warzone between the Syndicate gangs as it holds strategic access to all parts of the station. Furthermore, the Syndicate has heard of the missing portal relics and have sent people to hunt down the Deathwish crew in order to retrieve them.
The Stairdom
Our story begins with the Deathwish crew in hiding in the Stairdom, the block between the Spring Plaza and the inner bend of the Ring of Coriolis Station. The fighting has edged closer to the block, so the crew has determined that it is time to go and distribute the portal relics to neutral or friendly factions within Coriolis Station in order to keep the "heat" off of them. After doing so, they plan to escape the station and make their way to the portal gates to escape the Kua system until the Syndicate gang wars blow over.
The crew decide to split into groups and head to different factions to broker a deal with the relics. Amirah decides to go the Church of the Icons to see if they'll take some of the relics. Wahil and Izzaldin decide to head to the Mulukhad under Wahib's advice, to find a Draconite agent there. Yacoub and Hassan head to the Infotheca, the Foundation's data storage building to see if they can find a researcher interested in portal relics to study.
The Ozone Plaza
However, before they each go to their respective assignments, the crew needs to get past the patrols and gangs fighting around the Spring Plaza. The Deathwish crew notice a gang of thugs outside their safe houses wrecking the street and haphazardly shooting their guns in the air. Izzaldin notices that the gang outside are members of the Lama gang of the Ozone Plaza. Wahil decides to use his Modulation Mask to mask himself as a gang member taking Izzaldin, Amirah, and Yacoub as hostages. The gang members are initially suspicious of Wahil until Wahil decides to punch Izzaldin unconscious to prove his power. As the gang members forcibly round up people from their houses to steal their things and to execute them in cold blood on the street, Wahil signals Yacoub and Amirah to make their escape. Yacoub manages to escape, but Amirah is caught. During the street executions, Wahil decides to pretend to execute Amirah by cutting her and making it look like she was stabbed. Amirah falls to the floor and pretends to die. As the gang moves on down the street, Wahil stays behind to make sure to help Izzaldin and Amirah escape.
Meanwhile, Yacoub, through pure fear and instinct, successfully gets past two rival gang patrols and a Coriolis Guard patrol. As this happens, Wahil carries the unconscious Izzaldin with Amirah's help and manages to steal a gang patrol's car. However, despite Amirah's best efforts in using her chameleon suit, the gangers notice the hazy outline of her and a trail of blood from her injury dripping on the floor. As the gang members approach, she thinks quickly and smears the blood on her face and engages her implants as they are a few feet away. She pretends to be a physical manifestation of the bloody Lady of Tears and scares the gang members off. Wahil, picks her up in the stolen patrol gravcraft. They meet a different ganger patrol and Amirah decides to try her trick again and succeeds. They finally meet the Coriolis Guard patrol that Yacoub passed by. Wahil decides to ram into them and crash the car into the Spring Plaza. The crew leave the wreckage unhurt, but overhear a transmission on one of the dead Coriolis Guard's comm for the patrol to report back. Since there was no answer they hear the commanding officer over the comm for other patrols to go on high alert since they didn't hear back from the patrol lying dead at the Deathwish crew's feet.
The Deathwish crew eventually end up at one of the pathways leading out of the Spring Plaza, but stop due to a rather dangerous situation ahead of them. They need to get through a Coriolis Guard patrol camped out in a bombed out transportation terminal beside the street, and the first ganger patrol from earlier directly opposite from them in an abandoned cafe on the other side of the street. Fortunately enough, neither group has noticed one another. The Deathwish crew decide to goad one group somehow with a stray shot from their weapons so that they eventually shoot at each other so the Deathwish crew can escape amidst the shootout. The crew decides to fire a shot at the Coriolis Guard patrol to make it look like it was a bullet coming from the cafe. It succeeds and a shootout ensues between the guard and the surprised gangers inside the cafe. Wahil decide to reappear to the gang patrol disguised as the gang member that met them previously to see if he could provide cover for him. Both the Coriolis Guard patrol and ganger patrol eventually kill each other for the crew to escape unharmed.
The Infotheca
Yacoub and Hassan make it to the Infotheca to find someone willing to take a case of the relics they've stolen. However, they find out that the Infotheca is not open to the public and can only be accessed if someone is invited in by the Foundation through official business or research. Yacoub and Hassan search around on the street to find a public Coriolis Information terminal nearby to jack into with his datapad. Yacoub finds one and promptly jacks in. He quickly finds a backdoor on the net into the Infotheca's systems only to find strong cybersecurity measures in place. He thinks for a bit and then decides to see if he can social engineer his way into Infotheca. He looks into the staff directory on the Infotheca website and finds a general information cybermail address. He sends a phishing mail to it with a suspicious link. Sure enough, watching through the glass doors of the Infotheca's lobby, they see the receptionist see the mail they just sent and opens it. This successfully gathers all her contact information as well as her logins and passwords. This enables Yacoub to login to the front desk secretary's account, particularly her appointment scheduling system, and Yacoub promptly makes an appointment in 30 minutes with Malik Zitane, a project head for the Kuan archeology department. Simultaneously, he also writes a message from the secretary reminding themselves of an appointment happening today and changes the timestamps to a few weeks before today's date. After all of this, Yacoub and Hassan walk through the Infotheca front desk reception and lets the secretary know that they have an appointment with Malik. The secretary confused, checks her scheduling system, and is puzzled by what she sees. She appears to have forgotten about an appointment today from two mining prospectors from Algol Exports made a few weeks ago. She apologizes for her forgetfulness to Yacoub and Hassan and gives them guest access passes for the 9th floor of the building where Malik's office is. They are escorted by two Legion mercenaries guarding the front reception area to the elevator and up into the 9th floor.
Yacoub and Hassan, after a brief search around the 9th floor, find Malik's office where he is alarmed by unexpected guests. Malik asks who they are while threatening to call security to escort them out of the building. Yacoub and Hassan succeed at calming him down and reveals the truth to why they're here. They show the relics they have on the datapad and Malik is concerned, but interested. He says if they give the relics to the Foundation, they'll be safe from harm since everyone believes the Foundation being neutral in Third Horizon politics. They arrange transport for the relics from their safehouse to a Foundation research facility in return for 10 Foundation work passes with basic access to the Foundation's databases. With the passes, the crew hopes to be able to use them to get out of Coriolis Station somehow. They will contact Malik in 2 days to confirm the transfer.
Gifts to the Gods
Meanwhile, Amirah heads to the Dome of the Icons to see if she could get an audience with one of the herats of the church. As she arrives, she sees the Dome crowded and filled with refugees and injured from the fighting in the districts. Everyone is stressed and some people are seen to be fighting for space, food, and or shelter. Nuns and monks are amidst the crowded working to calm the people and give them whatever help the refugees need. She looks for a monk to see if he could help her with her injury. She shortly meets a young novitiate named Gupta who bandages her side. She tells Gupta she's seeking for an audience with the herat to which Gupta replies that there are evening vespers happening inside so the herat is occupied, but if she would join them, she might be given a chance to speak to the herat after prayers. She joins the novitiate in evening prayers to which she succeeds in performing the required prayers and rites. The novitiate, impressed by her knowledge of the religious rites of the church, invites her to a feast with the monks and nuns in the liturgical feast in the inner chambers of the church. She accepts the invitation and is ushered into a chamber with a long table with monks and nuns awaiting to start their feast. At the head of the table is the herat, Qassimah Umm, leading the prayers. She succeeds in observing silence while the herat is leading prayers, and notices that this isn't a normal feast, but is the fast from the nine rites of the icon worship. It is a symbolic feast where the monks and nuns abstain from eating food and instead pray for forgiveness and donate the food to the refugees outside. After prayers, the monks and nuns file out to their evening tasks. The herat, impressed by the guest's cultural understanding of their ways, approaches Amirah. Gupta whispers quietly that it is now the time to talk to the herat briefly. Amirah, looking to have a private conversation with the herat, asks for a confession. Qassimah leads her to a confessional chamber. Through a long and culturally veiled conversation to keep prying eyes and ears from the sensitive information of the portal relics, Amirah manages to convince Qassimah to take the relics with the help of the Seekers; a Church of the Icons militant cult.
Club Aladdin
Meanwhile, Wahil and Izzaldin head towards the Mulukhad Entertainment District to find a Draconite agent according to information from Wahib saying that there is an agent hiding there. They end up going to a gambler's den, The Aladdin, to try to find the Draconite agent. They find that in order to get information, they need to get the attention of the owner and high roller of the gambling den, Qassim. They decide to do that by playing the tables in the den through the night until they racked up enough chips that Qassim invites them to play at his table. Wahil and Izzaldin make a deal with Qassim to play for the whereabouts of the Draconite agent and the cost of all the crew's money and ship. They play a game of liar's dice with high stakes and eventually Wahil makes it to the last round with a showdown with Qassim. Qassim loses, and Wahil's pockets 10 million birr and the whereabouts of the Draconite agent. The Draconite agent is actually in a backroom of the gambling den where he tells Wahil and Izzaldin that they were expected and know what they came here for. The Draconites thank the Deathwish crew for the portal builder artifacts, and reiterate that they are always watching. The agent disappears from the Aladdin and is never to be seen again. Impressed with their gambling prowess, Qassim invites them back again when the situation at the station is clear.
The Deathwish successfully distribute the forbidden merchandise across the station. Only time will tell if their actions will carry fruitful consequences in the future or dire ones. Only the whirling filaments of the Dark Between the Stars hold the fates of the Deathwish crew.
Report Date
03 Jan 2019
Primary Location
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