Path To Godhood Session 9: The Three Lions

Characters:

Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths

The Assembly

The Tetrarchs sat on a raised dais, while Neilos made his case for instituting public trials, the Urbosan nobility in the crowd arguing with each other and him over the proposal.  One horrified noble asked if he was planning to cancel public executions; the crowd gasped, and one noblewoman fainted.  The ensuing discussion about whether trials overseen by the Tetrarchs would help stop the Eniadnan spies took several hours, and was only settled when Pan Metaxas intervened and brought up that the nobility would appreciate the new trials if they were accused of espionage.

It was all for show, as the gods had already secured the votes of three of the Tetrachs, and after some haggling between Pan and Lamia Michelakis, the new law was instituted.  The assembly continued on, but the gods left; they didn't care about the nobility's struggles with crops being seized by the battling armies on the highlands.  Instead, they headed to Natasa's to check in on the Acantha situation.  After a short wait in the lounge, Natasa emerged from the dungeon, lightly spattered with blood.  Apparently Acantha had given up enough of her co-conspirators that they were confident they could take down most of the spy ring, so they could start the trial the next day.

The Trial

The trial was held in the city's amphitheatre, dug into the base of Mt. Fotia, with nobles looking down from hot-spring balconies.  The Tetrarchs held court, with Neillos behind Pan, and Acantha was brought out.  The evidence Arethusa had found in her quarters turned out to be orders signed by an imperial official, and several co-conspirators testified that Acantha was the leader.  It wasn't particularly dramatic, but she was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Path To Godhood Session 8: The Circle's End

Characters:

Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths

The Konstoninus Estate

While waiting in their apartments, Neilos tried to use his powers to fill in the missing half of the map of the Raptis estate, but they weren't working.  A while later, Kallisto came to fetch them and took them out into the street to rendezvous with the 10-man goon squad she'd been able to call up on such short notice, and they headed to one of the side entrances of the Konstoninus estate.  Kallisto was sent forward to intimidate the pair of guards into letting them through on "Hunter's business", and they parted and unlocked the door, but stayed at their posts.

As they crossed the grounds to the inner doors, Kallisto suggested going in loud because nobody other than herself (and possibly Ajax) were remotely capable of stealth.  This lead to a discussion of how suitable their powers were for taking prisoners (Neilos somewhat, the others not at all), and a decision for the gods to take point as they headed to the second-floor apartments, where prisoners would likely be held.  Predictably, their large group was spotted by a lone man who cried out that there were intruders and ran off.

Neilos grabbed him with some decorative flowers nearby, and the party decided to rush forward and engage the foe before they could organize themselves.  They spilled into a long hall where 15 armed men were trying to form up and the two forces clashed.  Up the stairs, a dozen of the house Raptis guards in blue tabards waited, blocking one hallway but not intervening.  What was left of the warped mirror was brought out, and several of the enemy drew shards of it, but the gods wisely sent their goon squad in to engage the shard-wielders while they hung back and tried to use their powers.

Path To Godhood Session 7: The Warped Mirror

Characters:

Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths
Ursula Bearclaw   -   Klutzy Woodswoman and Aspiring Chelak, God of Bears and Independence

The Meeting

Just now realizing that they hadn't discussed any plan with Natasa, Neilos asked what they should do in a whisper.  She replied that they would listen in on the meeting to determine if Voula Raptis was associating with the Eniadnan spies, and then move in to apprehend them.  From where they were, she couldn't hear anything, so she snuck under the bridge on which the Tetrarch, carrying her child and speaking from behind a circle of her guards, was meeting the spies.  The negotiator for the spies had the pale white skin of a Mantean, which was somewhat odd, as the spies were supposed to be Eniadnans working with the local Urbosans.  None of the gods felt sneaky, so they held back, ready to charge up a rough incline to the left when Natasa gave them the signal.

Apparently Neilos' ears were sharper than Natasa's, because he was able to hear the discussion from their hiding spot.  Sure enough, they were negotiating the terms of the spies bodyguarding Voula in exchange for "the mirror", and once the deal was struck, a shrouded object was brought forward by two guards, the disturbance in the formation revealing a lion wearing bright silver "armour" beside her.  The cloth cover was removed and beneath was what could only generously be called a "mirror".  It was as though a fine 6' gilded mirror had been stretched and twisted, now utterly useless.

The gods were inflicted with a sense of imminent doom upon seeing it, and Neilos froze in shock, rendering them unable to further hear the conversation.  Ajax walked Neilos back into the passage they'd come from to try and slap some sense into him in a place where they wouldn't alert the others.  One of the spies came forward to inspect it and seemed to approve, so the two groups went to leave.  Natasa signalled to Steidis and Ursula to launch the attack, but they failed to notice her, so she walked over and in hushed tones told them that it was go time and began to sneak up the incline, followed shortly by Ursula.  Steidis apparently had other ideas and went to check on Ajax and Neilos, leaving Natasa and Ursula alone.

Traveller Session 4: Verorum (Part 3)

Player Characters:

John A Rico - Former Star Marine

Rocke Ramora - Thief-Turned-Trader

Willy Warder - Noble Administrator

NPC Crew:

Zuleikah - Money-Obsessed Astrogator

A Quick Departure

Rocke gazed on in horror as "his" ship crashed into the bright-red ship one berth over and came to a stop at a 30-degree angle, crammed onto the platform.  He, Rico, and Overseer Paulus Calidius started down the concourse towards the ship, planning to climb up to the airlock intercomm.  A rocket launched from somewhere off to their right, streaking towards the star marine patrol corvette which they just now noticed hovering higher up in the dome, and the sound of gunfire echoed off in the distance.  They jogged towards the ship, Rico carrying their 5kg of immortality drugs.

Meanwhile, Willy and Zuleikah yelled at each other on the bridge ("You should have piloted the ship!" "I told you, I'm not a pilot!" "Well neither am I!").  The ship was obviously way off-kilter, but neither of them were certain if it was stable, or if it was about to fall off the platform.  The crowd that had been around the red ship they'd collided with dispersed, so Willy lowered the entry ramp; as the ship was still at a steep angle, the bottom of the ramp was still 6' in the air.  He then used the intercomm to ask if anyone was injured, but nobody responded other than Zuleikah, who was one chair over.

Wanting to check on their "passenger" Willy brought the camera for the main airlock up and heard a bunch of pathetic moaning from the nobles who had been aboard during the crash ("Are there any other secret cameras I can check?" "Only Rocke knows about those" "Hey, those were supposed to be secret!").  After some fiddling with the computer system he was able to force a connection to the room GX-415 had been locked in, and he claimed to be injured but it didn't sound urgent.

Traveller Session 3: Verorum (Part 2)

Player Characters:

John A Rico - Former Star Marine

Rocke Ramora - Thief-Turned-Trader

Willy Warder - Noble Administrator

NPC Crew:

Zuleikah - Money-Obsessed Astrogator

Clonelord

The crew made contact with the Clone Master Tiberius, who dabbled as a spice merchant on the side, and set up a meeting at the Veroran Super Brothel.  They arrived at the meet to find that the brothel was in full anti-gravity, lending it an appearance similar to an Escher painting full of floating naked people; Rico and Rocke took some sanity damage from the debauchery on display, but Willy, as a noble, was used to it.  Eventually, they found their man entwined with about 20 lovers, but after noticing them the clonelord disentangled himself and got a slave to spray him down with a can of Space-Axe.

Still nude, Tiberius sat down with the crew, and he and Willy got to business working out a deal.  Willy was able to get a phenomenal deal by pointing out that the spice was neither certified cruelty-free nor ethically mined ("It's mined with slaves, sooo").  Willy beckoned for a bottle of space-wine, but upon seeing the exorbitant prices, the crew took their leave.  While they were on the way back to the Suck-It in their rented spacecar, an air-raid siren began to sound.  Pedestrians on the promenade looked around, surprised, but no panic broke out.  Willy asked GX-415 if he knew what was happening, but their slave didn't have any idea.

Lockdown

As Rocke chided GX to properly refer to him as 'master', Rico tried to call Zuleikah on the spacephone, but had no signal.  Several minutes later, they arrived at their ship's berth, and found it on lockdown.  Rocke knocked on the door, and Zuleikah, awkwardly holding a gun she clearly didn't know how to use, opened the door.  She was spooked by the still-sounding siren, and reminded them that Rocke had told her to lock the ship if anything weird happened, so she'd locked the ship.  Willy tried to contact the control tower so they could at least get outside of the dome, but found that something was jamming their comms.

Traveller Session 2: Verorum

Player Characters:

John A Rico - Former Star Marine

Rocke Ramora - Thief-Turned-Trader

Willy Warder - Noble Administrator

NPC Crew:

Zuleikah - Money-Obsessed Astrogator

Gorod

Having sold the haul of Space Tobacco they'd picked up on Lucus III, the crew set about figuring out what to purchase and where to go next.  After some searching, they figured that Gorod's manufacturies produced a variety of finished and raw goods that would fetch a high price on the desert world of Verorum.  Remembering that the S. S. Suck-It's cargo hold still had some xenomorph acid coming from somewhere after a smuggling mission gone wrong, they decided on the raw goods, as if anything melted, at least the loss would be less costly.  They booked as many middle passengers as they could, though none of the crew were willing to double-bunk to squeeze out all the money they could (Rico and Willy heavily considered it, but they couldn't overcome their personality differences).

Willy was confident in his abilities as a medic, so they also filled all the low-berth pods.  The crew decided to leverage half of their assets for the buy (though for Willy this was only 1000 Spacebucks), and both Willy and Rico rolled poorly and dropped a wealth tier.  The crew went to Juan Ghoulio's Industrial Goods Warehouse, and picked up 33 tons of industrial goods, though Willy made a slightly bad deal, costing them another 5%.  With crew, cargo, and passengers aboard, the S. S. Suck-It jumped to Verorum.

Verorum

Verorum, a desert world, had a mildly toxic atmosphere, which would require a breathing apparatus if outside; Rico and Rocke had picked up full breather masks back on Gorod, while Willy could only barely afford a cheap filter mask with straps that chafed and a seal that dug into his face.  Anagathics, aka immortalitiy drugs, were produced here, and could fetch a high price throughout the galaxy.  Fittingly, a patrol corvette of the Star Marines sat in orbit, though it didn't request anything from the Suck-It as they flew towards the main settlement, a great dome which shared the name of the planet.

Path To Godhood Session 6: The Tetrarchs

Characters:
Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths
Ursula Bearclaw   -   Klutzy Woodswoman and Aspiring Chelak, God of Bears and Independence

House Raptis

As they left the Oracle's temple, Ajax mentioned wanting to go out and try Life Draining some more livestock, but ended up having a raucous night drinking and old-man dancing thanks to his Compulsive Carousing.  The next morning, Neilos asked around the common room and the piper who'd been playing the night before pointed him towards Voula Raptis' estate.  The gods hoped to go have a chat with her about the Hunters, as they were still unsure if they could trust Natasa.  The Raptis estate, famous for its menagerie of exotic animals, was under heavy guard, with a pair of men, in blue tabards with a crescent moon, every 50' down the walls, and three at each entrance.

At the front gate, Neilos introduced themselves under their godly names, and claimed that they were here for a meeting with Voula.  The guards refused to let them in, claiming that their lady was not accepting any visitors, and Ajax noted that Chelak's name in particular had sparked a negative reaction.  Neilos wrote a note beseeching the Lady Raptis to meet with the gods, and handed it off to the guards, who assured him that it would reach her.  Still wanting to meet with a Tetrarch, they thought over their options: Arethusa Andreas, the Scion of the Thief (whom Neilos had already met), Pan Metaxas, the Scion of the Sun, and Lamia Michelakis, the Scion of Violence.

House Metaxas

As House Metaxas claimed to be descended from Neilos, the gods figured Pan would be their best choice.  Neilos pulled aside a messenger to get directions, but he maliciously directed them to the "foreign district" down by the port, and the gods wasted the rest of their morning searching in the wrong place.  Annoyed by Neilos' failure, Ursula pulled a man aside and promised him a footrub in exchange for directions to the Metaxas estate, which he promptly provided: it backed right onto Mt Fotia, and was famed for its many hotsprings.  Ursula directed the man to meet her later, and the gods set off.