Ye Faerie Queene

 

 Present:

• "Liz" Holmes. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
  
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
  
• Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING: Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• MARMALADING: Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston

 by Jeff 

The above crew were summoned into the large family boardroom by Contessa Ende - Belle, Itzy, Hoff, and Penny's mum. Everyone had been staying for the weekend at the Ende mansion in Ravens End for the Ende family cocktail party to celebrate Contessa's successful "de-aging" treatment. Dressed as a nurse, she now had the body of a 16-year-old with plenty of curves in all the right places.

And as Itzy had noted at the party last night, "Money vell spent!"

Contessa was dressed as a schoolgirl

This morning, Contessa was dressed in a schoolgirl outfit as she strutted into the boardroom.

"Ve av vound Ye Faerie Queene" she announced, "And vou shall retrieve er!"

Belle, who had been taken sick with the dreaded Marmalade affliction, was looking to increase her influence within the Ende family, and Contessa had promised to give her some meaningful assignments. Ye Faerie Queene was an old Ende family scout-class starship, one hundred tonnes, fully equipped with two SABRE engines and a Jump-1 drive, that had been stolen from the family docks some month ago while awaiting deconstruction and component recycling. Everyone had suspected the rival Montrose family, but there had been no sign of the Queene since she had been taken.

"Da Montrose scum av da Queene at their outer estates" Contessa revealed, "So go get er back"
"Can't the Militia do that?" suggested Emerse.
"NO SOLDIERS!" yelled Contessa.
"Vou arn't from ere, so I vill forgive you dis once. Know dat dis is personal!"

"Hard to take her seriously ... dressed like that," muttered Emerse to himself.

The Montrose estates were about ten klicks out from Ravens End, so we were provided with an old farm van that we all squeezed into. Equipped with a looking-glass and Spanner's droid Scurry, we jumped into the van.

"Can anyone else drive?" asked Riley, as he leapt in behind the wheel.

The countryside was quite flat around Ravens End, predominately farming lands, and we blended in well as we puttered down the dirt road towards the Montrose place. Riley drove.

"Pull up about 500m from the estate" suggested Spanner, "Scurry's range is only one klick"

Riley pulled the van off the side of the road and got out the spare wheel.
"What?" asked Riley, "It's an excuse to be parked up here"

"Scurry, go get a good look at the Montrose estate," instructed Spanner.

"Is that what you want?" the droid asked.

"But don't get spotted," added Spanner.
"Yes mother," the droid replied before it shot off down the road, wings buzzing quietly.

"Did that just answer you?" asked Hoff, "How did you manage that?"
"I could make one like that," boasted Emerse.

We watched Scurry's progress on Spanner's hand-held monitor as she travelled up the road towards the Montrose estate. The estate was at the end of the road, so it was a good thing we hadn't decided to drive past for our recce. That would have been quite suspicious! 

Scurry passed over a gatehouse about 50m in front of the estate compound, which was enclosed within a high chain link fence. A couple of guards could be seen in the gatehouse building, and a couple wandering about inside the compound. There were a few small houses scattered around outside the compound, and most interestingly, a large camouflage tarpaulin was draped over something at the rear of the compound, inside the fence line.

"That'll be the Faerie Queene" noted Spanner, "Under that tarpaulin at the back"

Once Scurry had returned, we packed up and returned to town to await nightfall. Both suns would be down tonight, so it would be nice and dark for the "recovery".

"And" stated Anton, "I can see in the dark just fine"
"I've got a sweet set of low-light goggles" added Emerse, "Made them myself"
"Mum will have a set in the stores too" noted Itzy.

The Montrose compound

Equipped with Emerse's low-light goggles, the Ende family night-vision goggles, wire cutters, and some weapons, we returned down the Montrose road around midnight. Switching off the headlights about two klicks from the compound, Riley, wearing the low-light goggles, drove us up to within 500m of the gatehouse, and pulled off the road. The gatehouse was fully lit, and a couple of the other buildings also twinkled with lights.

Anton, Liz (wearing the low-light goggles), and Split (wearing the night-vision goggles) crept off into the darkness to circle left around towards the rear of the compound and get a closer look at the fence. 

Keeping low, they skirted round the gatehouse lights, past the lit house to the left, and approached the fence near the rear of the compound. A large ship glittered faintly from below the tarpaulins at the rear of the house. Two large, insulated storage tanks were located between the house and the ship, radiating coldness.

"That'll be the Faerie Queene" pointed out Anton, "And those look like liquid hydrogen fuel tanks"
"Good" whispered Liz, "Wait, that is good right?"
"What's that really hot thing on the fence there?" asked Split.
"Hmmm" grunted Anton, "That looks like an insulator, a malfunctioning insulator"
"Is that good?" whispered Liz.

"No" replied Anton, "That's bad. The whole fence is electrified. We better report back"

Anton, Liz, and Split retreated back around the lit building and the gatehouse to the van.

"The good news is that there is fuel" reported Anton, "But the bad news is that the fence is heavily electrified. There will be no cutting through that baby without some serious measures"

"Simple" suggested Emerse, "Just isolate a section of the fence before you cut it" 

"Any suggestions on how you isolate a 10,000-volt chain-link fence?" sneered Anton.

"Throw one of those goats at it" suggested Split, "That'll short the fence and let you cut through"

"Yes, but that will also bring the guards" countered Anton.
"Then we just shoot them" declared Itzy, "A nice crossfire kill zone for those Montrose bastards"

"We should keep the killing to a minimum" instructed Hoff. "None, if possible"
"You should be able to get over the fence with a ladder and a decent insulating mat" suggested Hoff, "We have some appropriate mats back in town at the workshop"

Riley started up the van and we took a quick trip back to the city to gather some ladders and insulating mats from Hoff's workshop at the Ende family mansion. Within an hour we were back, parked off the road about 500m from the lit-up gatehouse. This time was the real thing, we were going in!

Riley, Spanner, Anton, and Itzy gathered up the gear, donned the googles and set off. (Spanner had to travel without vision, she just hung onto Anton's arm as he led the small group through the darkness to the fence)

Arriving at the electrified fence, Anton tossed the insulating mats over the top and Riley leaned the ladder up against the mat, and quickly climbed to the top. With a quick look around, Riley leapt from the top of the ladder and rolled to his feet, now inside the fenced compound. Spanner quickly followed him, landing lightly beside him and grabbing his arm as he led off towards the ship. 

Anton recovered the ladder and pulled back to the van. Itzy backed off a way, found a comfortable spot, and set himself up in a prone firing position with his rifle covering the whole compound, front to rear. 

Cautiously climbing the access ladder to the personal hatch, Riley activated the hatch mechanism.
The door panel hissed, clicked back slightly into the ship, and slid silently open.

"We're in" he quietly called down to Spanner, "I'll get the fuel lines and get the fueling underway"
"I'll give the ship systems a quick check" replied Spanner, "In case they, you know, booby trapped it"

The process required to start up the engines wasn't a quick one. First the fuel tanks needed to be filled, or at least partly filled, with the liquid hydrogen. Then the auxiliary jet engine needed to be fired up, to prime the SABRE's compressors before they could be ignited for flight. We had figured about a twenty-minute process if we short cut the fueling and didn't full the tanks completely. 

No problem though, provided we were quiet and got the fueling done without alerting the guards. Itzy was out there to provide cover fire in case that plan didn't work out, and once we had the fueling done, we could seal ourselves in the ship and use the ship's armour plating to keep the inevitable bullets out.

Spanner gave the Queene's systems a once-over as Riley coupled up the fuel lines and started the electric fuel pumps. No visible issues with the Queene, and all running to plan! But, about ten minutes into the fuelling process, a shot rang out from the darkness. Startlingly loud in the quiet night, the boom echoed around for what seemed minutes. A bullet ricocheted off the roof of the house and a startled shout was quickly followed by the patter of footsteps from the side of the house as someone retreated back towards the front. 

Itzy had spotted a guard exiting the front door of the house and heading round the side towards the back, where Riley was working on the fuelling process. Fortunately, the Montrose guard had gone around Itzy's side and been in his sight the whole time. Once it was obvious that the guard would have walked right into the middle of the fuelling, Itzy let off a round, just to scare the guard off and keep him away from the Queene.

Things were getting complicated now though, and there was at least five minutes of fuelling still required. Spanner leapt down to assist Riley with the fuelling process, standing by to decouple the lines, while Riley clambered into the Queene to prep the combustion engines and check the amount of fuel in the tanks. A few more shots rang out from Itzy's location, and a few return shots were loosed by the guards, blindly firing into the darkness in Itzy's direction. 

After five minutes Riley called down to Spanner that sufficient fuel had been transferred. Spanner shut of the hydrogen valves, decoupled the lines, and quickly coiled them up and stored them back on the Queene. As Riley stated up the auxiliary engine with a roar, Spanner ripped down the tarpaulins, throwing them to the dirt, slipped in through the access hatch, and sealed it shut behind her.

Ye Faerie Queene

A few minutes to prime the SABRE's, and bullets started to ping off the Queene's hull. Lots of yelling and shouting from the compound as Spanner and Riley strapped themselves into the pilots' seats. As the twin SABRE's roared into life, the jet wash picked up the discarded tarpaulins and wrapped them around the few guards still taking shots at the Queene. They were thrown off their feet and tossed into the compound fence as the Queene slowly lifted off the ground and headed skyward.

"YEEHAW" yelled Riley, hands clasped firmly on the joystick controls.

Meanwhile, Itzy had retreated back to the van and was picked up by the rest of the crew. With Split nervously in the driver's seat, they cautiously made their way back towards town, where they were redirected to the Ende family docks. The docks were where the Queene had been stolen from, and where Riley was to return her to. 

Running a full system diagnostic enroute, Riley and Spanner spotted an unusual software patch installed in the Queene's computer system. Activating a system quarantine protocol, Riley deactivated the patch for latter analysis and flew the Queene back to the Ende docks.

"Probably a tracking code" guessed Spanner.

Riley gently landed the Queene onto the waiting pad at the docks, and the crew were soon reunited.

Contessa appeared just after dawn with her retinue of guards and sycophants.

She set her computer experts to analyse the rouge software code, congratulated us on our slick operation, and told us that we were to stay here at the docks.

"I av some udder tasks for vou" she explained, "And vou can guard the Queene" 

"Assuming they have tracked us here" suggested Spanner, "Let's take the Queene elsewhere"
"Ya, das goot" replied Contessa, "Ve have other facility at Bitter End. Dat's four thousand klicks away"

The Faerie Queene had four state rooms. The women (Liz, Spanner, Split, and Belle took one) and the men spread themselves into the other three. Some additional weapons (five rifles and a collection of handguns), including three extra grenades, and some general supplies were loaded into the 6-tonne cargo hold, and Riley plotted us a course for Bitter End.

Traveller Intro

What you know

You're on the planet Winston which is the only habitable planet in the Winston system.
Winston is very similar to Earth in that it's about the same size (12,000 km diameter), the same gravity (rocky core, 1.05g), the same hydrography (70%), similar air pressure and composition (110 KPa, N, O, Ar, Xe), similar temperatures, and similar day length (23 hours). Axial tilt is 15 degrees, so the seasons are not as strong as Earth.

1 hex = 1000km, so New Zealand would be about two.

Sun and Friend

Winston orbits a much smaller star than Earth's sun (G2V). The "Sun" is a K5V orange dwarf (0.7M☉, 0.17L☉) at only 42 M km (0.28 AU), so the the year is only 72 days long.

And there is a second star orbiting further out at 0.4AU. It is a M5K red dwarf (0.1M☉) and appears in the sky as a bright reddish star that varies in size between 3/4th to 1/8th full-moon size. This is called the "Friend" or "Little Friend". It is thrice as bright as our full moon, and produces big tides.

Planet Winston was probably originally captured from further out in the system. It is now in an orbital resonance with both stars, and it's been stable like this for hundreds of thousands of years*.

* = All years here are "Earth years" to help understand.

But due to this origin, life would not have evolved here. The place was terraformed by the Imperium 350 years ago which took 160 years. It was then given to the Sword World Confederation in a political deal 190 years ago.

The combination of the two suns gives very large tides, and violent weather; hurricanes and tornadoes are common. Orange and red dwarves are more violent stars than Earth's sun, so there are regular solar storms and coronal mass ejections from the Sun and the Friend. The most violent of these force Winston's inhabitants to take cover in bunkers.

Winston Ende

The Winston system and planet was named after its first ruler, Winston Peters Ende. He was a benevolent dictator, or fascist tyrant, depending on who you ask. 

Winston Ende had life extension, so was 420 years old when he tragically died in a skyhook accident 20 years ago. The fuel governors on the air-raft thrusters malfunctioned, so all those on board were subject to 25g for a sustained time before the fuel ran out, as the craft looped around and around in a great arc. What came back didn't live long.

Politics

Planet Winston is still in settler mode. It is tech level 6: 1950 plus modern TL10 nick-nacks. The population is currently only 500,000, so there are lots of big farms and rural towns. There is a very "wild west" feel about this, with each town having a local sheriff appointed by the local noble, warlord or crime family. There isn't really a central government.  Entrope (the closest system) has stationed a battalion of Sword-Worlder peacekeepers to the biggest town Ravens End to maintain the control of the space elevator and star port, but they don't tend to venture out into the wilds.

Carrying of blades, single-shot projectile weapons and revolvers openly is tolerated, but not grenades, automatic weapons, lasers or energy weapons. 

There is one space port orbiting in a geostationary orbit with a space elevator to the ground, connected to Ravens End. It is an E-type "Frontier Star port" plus. There are no ship-building yards here, nor ship repair capacity. But they do sell refined fuel, which is stored in orbit.

When they can get a successful harvest, Winston farms make a lot of food which is exported mainly to the nearest system (and megalopolis hell-hole) Entrope. Space tourism is another big earner.

The Party

The party is a mix of Sword-Worlders and Solomani from Winston and Entrope, and one Daryen from Torment. All are legally freemen and have Winston citizenship.

Belle Ende drinking and flying

Your patrons, the Ende family, live in an impressive estate overlooking the sea and the town of Ravens End. The aging patriarch Sir Ledge and his ageless wife Lady Contessa run the Ende (crime) family. 

They have five children: Hoff, Itzy, Belle, Knob and Apres.

Belle Ende, socialite and lush, has come of age and wants to prove herself to her father. So, she, her two brothers Hoff and Itzy, her body-guard Liz Holmes, and her chauffeur Paddy O'Riley have collected a group of malcontents, recidivists and ne'er-do-wells from the local slums, brothels and doss-houses hard-working, loyal, honest advisors and stalwarts: Emerse Gee, Anton Tositova, Spanner Hoang, and Gnostic Hands.

Traveller 2025

Milieu

You are in the "Golden Age" of Traveller. Year 1105 of the Third Imperium (AD 4677).

The action is taking place in the Querion subsector of the Spinward Marches sector. This is the junction between four groups: Third Imperium, Sword Worlds Confederation, the Zhodani Consulate and the Darrian Confederation.

The Imperium is the biggest human political organization. It is a feudal confederacy where member worlds agree to pay taxes and obey a few fundamental laws (the High Laws). In return, the Imperium agrees to patrol the space between the worlds, to protect interstellar trade, to encourage travel and commerce, and to arbitrate diplomatic relations between worlds. Beyond this, individual worlds are left to their own devices.

All of Traveller takes place in Charted space, which is that little red dot on the map of the Milky Way.

Milky Way Galaxy

Zoom in to "Charted Space"

One hex in this final map is 1 parsec (pc) and that is the size of one star system, planets and all.

A parsec is a unit of distance, and it is 3.3 light-years = 206,000 AU = 3.1E16 metres =  31 trillion kilometres or 31 million million kms (31,000,000,000,000).

The yellow circles are indicators of population. The red and blue borders are the different political regions. Red to the right is the Imperium. Blue to the top is the Zhodani Consulate. Blue at the bottom is the Sword Worlds Confederation.

Jump Drive

The jump drive was invented on Earth 2500 years ago (AD 2088). It is the main way for travellers to move around Charted Space. Traveller follows the Star Wars hyperspace model:  A ship slides into "Jump Space" and travels there for one week, then slides out in the destination system. This trip always takes exactly one week unless something goes wrong.

The distance the ship can travel in that week is dependent on the engine size. A Jump-1 engine will travel one parsec in the week, Jump-2 two parsecs, right up to Jump-6 which is six parsecs. Jump-6 is the maximum jump with onboard fuel tanks. (Bigger jump drives do exist, but they need external drop tanks for the fuel. Like with the rocket equation, the weight of the fuel diminishes the load you can carry, and you eventually end up with all fuel.)

The jump must take place away from strong gravitational fields. 100 diameters is the recommended distance. (E.g. Earth is 12,000 km in diameter, so you'd need to jump at 100 x12000 = 1.2 million km, three times the moon's distance, about L2 where the James Web telescope is. To fly out to 1.2M km at 1G takes almost 6 hours)

You can try to jump closer than 100, but then you take a risk of a mis-jump. That means the ship can fail the jump, or end up somewhere random up to 6 parsecs away, or ... just explode.

To execute a jump, the jump fuel is burned which charges the jump capacitors - this takes an hour. It is the discharging of the capacitors powers the jump-drive.

The actual slide into hyperspace only takes a few seconds. The jump-drive field generators make a timed Einstein-Rosen bridge and the ship slides into Jump-space with the current movement vector (universe absolute). This is an incredibly complex set of calculations to time it right, so must be done with the Jump computer. 

The jump capacitors are lossy and can not hold their charge for too long, so the jump must go ahead within 30 minutes of full charge, or else they discharge too much to power the jump. If this happens, they need to be topped up with more fuel, or discharged. It takes an hour to dissipate all that energy safely.

Jump fuel can be on board, or stored in drop-tanks. Drop tanks are jettisoned after draining (and must be more than 100 tank diameters away before the jump engine is engaged.)

When a ship enters or leaves jump-space into real space, there is a huge electromagnetic pulse which can be detected within one light-hour (7AU). Plus the arriving ship's transponder will be pinging anyway.

If another ship is within 100,000 km of a jumping ship (and in line-of-sight), it can work out (by the "angle of entry" into jump-space) where the destination will be.

Note: Without jumping, interstellar travel not really feasible. Light takes 3.3 years to travel one parsec, of course.  For a non-jumping space-ship to make the same trip, travelling at 1g, turning half-way and slowing at 1g (and ignoring fuel concerns), it would get to 93% of light-speed and, because of time dilation, would take 3.2 years for those on board. For remote observers, the trip would appear to take 4.8 years.

Ancients

Scattered throughout known space are the ruins of a civilization that once dominated this region of the galaxy. We call them "the Ancients." The sites have been dated  about 300,000 years ago. 

The Ancients lasted less than 20,000 years in total. Their civilization was destroyed in a cataclysmic war. Over a period of about 2,000 years, they fought with such ferocity that archeologists today work under a severe handicap trying to piece together the bits and fragments that remain.

The Final War was fought with technology far beyond that available to the Imperium, or to any civilization extant. Estimates place the resources used at tech level 25 or greater: a level virtually incomprehensible to those investigating the war. Compare this to Earth 2024 which is TL 9. The Third Imperium is currently on TL 15.

The weapons they had were brutal in their power. They were capable of great destruction; entire planets were reduced to asteroid belts by what must have been planet-buster bombs. In other cases, planetoids and small moons were seized, moved, and directed toward planets to obliterate what must have been bases, cities, and installations. Many worlds still bear the marks of such attacks.

The weapons of the Final War were also sophisticated. Some worlds appear to have escaped unscathed from the war; only when an Ancient site is discovered does it become apparent that that particular site was the target of an attack. There is no evidence of misses, no pattern bombing, no random attacks. What was attacked was hit; high technology controlled the attacks.

This Ancient civilization was wide-ranging. Confirmed Ancient sites have been found in every sector of the Imperium, as well as throughout Vargr, Aslan and Zhodani territory. The total number of confirmed Ancient sites visited by the Imperium is more than 200.

After the war the Ancients just vanished. Whether they were utterly destroyed, morphed into something else, or ascended to another dimension, we just don't know.

The Ancients are responsible for scattering humanity around Charted Space. While humanity evolved unmolested on Earth without Ancient involvement, the Ancients certainly sourced their humans from Earth to do the scattering. All the traveller human-type races are from this origin. The Ancients also uplifted wolves, lions and lizards from Earth, and this is the origin of the non-human races Vargr, Aslan and Keerens.

Solomani were the humans left on Earth. They developed the jump drive in AD 2088, got to Barnards Star in 2097, and explored ever since. Vilani were humans taken by the Ancients and shifted to other star systems. They discovered jump drive themselves.

Items of the Ancients that survive are akin to magic.

Chemistry & Physics

Fusion exists and is used.

Antimatter exists and is used.

Transparent aluminium exists.

So do carbon nano-tubes, nano-wire, and mono-filaments.

Some planets have nano-tube orbital lifts, other planets use skyhooks.

Quantum computers

Dark Energy (LCDM) was abandoned when MOND was discovered to be correct.

And Dark Energy was discovered to be a side-effect of Doppler shift on observations of moving galaxies.

Zero point energy and vacuum energy turned out to be nonsense.

Hawking radiation does not exist, nor do point singularities.

Gravastars turned out to be a more common fate for collapsing stars than black holes.

 

Grav Drive and Grav Plates

Grav plates and grav drive as per the Traveller canon is TL 10. Grav plates make spaceship interiors behave like Star Wars and Star Trek. There are miniature point-source graviton generators which can be ducted to warp space-time to form gravity surfaces. They do use a colossal amount of power.

Because of the grav plates, space-faring ships can not enter the atmosphere of planets,  nor land on the surface. So spaceships dock at orbiting space stations.  Air-rafts, other kinds of shuttles, space elevators and sky hooks are used to ferry passengers and cargo to and from the ground to the orbiting space station.

Drones

Drones were not around in 1977 Traveller, but they are wide-spread in this Traveller universe. There is even a dedicated skill for them.

A.I.

Like with AI in Dune (the Butlerian Jihad), the Traveller universe has had its psychotic AI problems too. So, sapient (self-aware) AIs are strictly banned. Some places will allow them up to the intelligence of a dog, but you won't get AIs like 2001's HAL9000, Avenger's Jarvis, HGttG's Marvin, Blake's Seven's Orac, or the Matrix's Architect.

Air-raft

Air-raft is a craft that can take off from the ground, reach orbital speed and go into orbit. Air-rafts can ferry cargo and passengers from the ground, between moons or between two space ships.

Air-raft is spelt with a hyphen and not as "air/raft" as per canon. Spelling air-raft with the slash is a capital crime in all cultures and creeds, and is enforced rigorously. Just like the universal restriction on grappling hooks, shoe buckles, camp-stretchers and soot.

Scanners

Visual-range is short in space terms. Visual-frequency on-board, 10m focal-length cameras can see 0.01 arcsecs. (10pt text,1mm pixel @ 20km, or ship-ID (5m pixel) @ 100,000km). Image-processing techniques can give you a five-fold resolution increase. This is the only form of silent running.

Short-range scan is used for most navigation and identification. It has a range of 1 light-minute (18 million km). 

Medium-range scan will spot any ship-size object within 1 light-hour (7.2 AUs).  Medium-range scanning radiates a lot of energy so is forbidden within a few million km of a space station or planet. Nav buoys do this. And this is how you detect jump-drive signatures.

Long-range scan scanners can see any ship in a light-month by sending out a powerful ping, but it is directional, so you can only "see" things in an 5 degree cone, and of course it is not very useful if you want to get the information back in a reasonable time (who wants the reply two months later?).

Ships Transponders

All ships have transponders. They are running all the time: a ping transmitted once per second showing ship name, origin, ship serial number, current owner. For redundancy, every ship carries three different systems:

1. Active - omni-directional one-second ping on 2.3GHz and 8.4 GHz. 
2. Passive - A quartz window that, when illuminated by a 704nm transponder laser, will transmit the normal transponder data both back down the beam and on radio (2.3GHz band). It gets its power from the beam so works when the ship has no power.
3. Writing on hull, like a QR code. Can be read at Short-range scan range. This is last resort if the ship's internals have been totally destroyed.

The transponder can not be turned off, and in fact it is an offence in all jurisdictions to switch them off; you will get shot out of the sky. 

Transponders can not be faked, but they can be changed - all three transponder systems need to be changed and the hull repainted. This is also highly illegal and can't be done in any system Tech 9 or greater because you will be spotted by diligent Space Control ("Where did that new ship come from? Ye Fairy Queene was not registered arriving in this system, nor was it built here, and we detected no arrival jump pulse".) 

Mechanics: Engineering roll to get at the Transponder. Then a Computer and Electronics roll to change it. Final Engineering roll to finish it.

Psionics

No psionics

Gabriella's Bequest

 Present:

• Phoebe Lacrosse. Human Barbarian from Pugtown – Andrew
• Griza Muso. Human Thief from Lakeside – Jeff
• Balder Dash. Gnome Wizard from Toluene - Jamie
  
• Bush Tucker. Human Rogue from Spite Anti - Darryl
• Red Feuersturm. Human Temple Fighter of Hob from Toluene - Chris
• Malcom Gandhi. Gnome Thief from Brian – Kevin
  
• Napolean Twig. Elf Priest of Caribou Gorn from Pugtown - Ian
• Joe Manco. Human Fighter from Toluene – Shane
• MARMALADING Galena Alfdis. Elf Priestess of Vingt et Un from Palantir - Steven

By Phoebe 

Having explored the tunnels under the Massimo tomb in Spite Battle, and having destroyed sleeping vampire Simeon Massimo, corpse-like Loris, and the two vampire children of Simeon and Gabriella, we followed a long tunnel from the cemetery which emerged into the basement of a house. There was a fully-fledged shrine to Canker here (god of Death), and various other rooms and chambers that contained accoutrements and nick-nacks of Canker.

Gabriella's Kitchen

At the end, up a ladder, we all emerged into a kitchen of the house.

An eighty year old woman was here, Gabriella herself.  Galena had confirmed that Gabriella was not undead, though Galena was in no fit state to do anything this second - except drool marmalade.

Gabriella introduces herself

Gabriella seemed to know that we had staked Simeon and the children, but did not appear to be too worried.

That's evil for you, I guess.

"You have killed my husband and my two children," she began with a strong Luln accent. "I don't think you are in any position to argue. What will you give me in return?"

Awkward silence.

"I have some suggestions, if you would like."

She pointed a steady finger at Balder. "I would like him."

"What will you do to him?" I asked.

"Carve him up," said Bush, helpfully, fingering his new knife.

"He will join me," she said "It will give us both enhanced power."

"Holy matrimony?"

"I will not marry a gnome!" Gabriella spat.

"Why not? Racist, biased, sexist, xenophobic?" 

"Not a woke lich-king... er ...queen," said Red.

"It's a lich's kitchen," quipped Gandhi, playing with the alliteration.

Gabriella fixed her eyes on Bush.

"I'd like my knife back too."

"Nah, yer cant have it," said Bush quickly. "I found it."

"You found it in MY home," Gabriella continued. "That's theft. Feel any urges with that knife?"

"Nah."

Bush's fever dream

"You don't feel like cutting one of your comrades here?"

Bush looked at the top of Phoebe's thighs, where her tight leather skirt met the skin. He could imagine in his mind's eye sawing repeated parallel cuts into the skin with the razor-sharp blade edge, and watching delightedly as the blood pooled up.

"Nah."

Gandhi broke the awkward silence and handed over a pair of Galena's knickers to Gabriella.

"I have a nice hat for you. Lovely big ear holes too."

Gandhi continued triumphantly when Gabriella took the garment "Now we are free! She has taken the gift, so we are free."

"Why would you give me those?"

Despite adamant protests from Gandhi over the value of the kickers and them being adequate payment, Gabriella did not seem to agree with him.

"How powerful are you, Gabriella?" asked Balder.

"Just an old lady. But I am very disappointed that you destroyed my husband and two children."

She didn't seem that upset. More like just stating a fact.

"I think you have been the source of all our challenges over the past few weeks," said Balder

"You are the source of your own challenge. I serve the god Canker. If you do not join me, your friend with the strange accent who took my knife ... will die."

Balder resolved the impasse. He suddenly cast Feeblemind, as an enhanced spell. 

[Feeblemind is a 5th level spell that reduces the MND of the target to 4, making them into a slack-jawed idiot. It is a contested spell which means the target gets a save. To improve his chance, Jamie spent 5 luck on this, which meant he got to roll two D20 and take the best one. ]

The misty bolt of the spell seemed to slide off Gabrielle and it hit Napolean, in a bright flash of light. Napolean blinked... but nothing happened.

[ Gabriella had some innate spell-diversion power, or, despite Balder's enhancement she saved well. The spell got diverted to Napolean. So, then it was his turn to make an opposed roll. Ian threw a 1 - perfect save! ]

Seeing this, Phoebe, Red and Bush all drew magic weapons, and all rushed Gabriella at the same time.

Napolean and Griza skulked away, cowering down the stairs. Perhaps this was wise.

We all missed our blows. Bush was the primary; Gabriella back-handed him. She had immense strength (especially for an 80 year-old). Bush stumbled back, ears ringing.

Red stepped in and took the brunt. We all whacked her again. Only Red's blow landed, but it was just a flesh wound. Not good.

... the split second before 
Gabriella vanished

Then Balder cast another spell. A spell we had never seen before.

 

[ He cast Dismissal. This is a fifth level spell that sends extra-planar creatures and powerful undead back to their plane of origin. Jamie spent another 5 Luck points to give himself the bonus D20. And he threw well. Gabriella got the opposed roll, but it was not enough.]

Gabriella suddenly turned into a horned winged creature, but she was now unclothed, young, blonde and stunning. This vision only lasted a fraction of  a second before she then vanished in a loud pop, leaving only some sparks, and clouds of brimstone and formaldehyde.

"A succubus," hissed Balder as the smoke cleared.

Spite Battle

Red pointed to the cooking fire in the hearth whose flames were now licking up the kitchen wall. Maybe he had enhanced those flames with his Hob gifts.

"We better get going," said Red.

Massimo house ablaze

So, we quickly exited the house as the conflagration increased in intensity. People were running about in the streets, panicked, as the house burned. So we merged into the fleeing crowds.

We didn't recognize what part of Spite Battle we were in, but headed for a main road and followed that to a familiar landmark. 

By now, there was a large plume of smoke billowing on the Spite Battle sky line.

I asked Balder to go to the UWG to check on the mechanics of demons. I wanted to know how easy it would be for her to return to ... seek revenge.

While he was doing that, the rest of us went to the docks and I booked a ferry for the trip back up the Spite Delta to Spite City. (After Spite, we intended to travel back to Quek, to reunite with Thursa, of course. The whole point of this mission.)

Ferry from Spite Battle to Spite

Luckily, there was a ferry leaving that very afternoon [I threw a 1 on Luck], so booked passage for whole group, then waited the few hours for Balder to return.

Return, he did. He had spoken to the Wizards' Guild head wizard Elowyn Frostglobe. Elowyn confirmed, from Balder's descriptions and the success of the Dismissal spell, that Gabriella was likely a succubus, a minor demon. To return to this realm, Gabriella would need a temple of Canker - not just a mere shrine, a full temple. Elowyn was sure there were no Canker temples in the Spite area. 

"There might be one in Two Frime, but I don't think so. There is one in Scabport. Highport and Porncity are also 'maybes'. And Canker has a cathedral in Luln and Sancho."

Scabport is the closest of all them and is about five week's travel away. Luln and Sancho are probably half a year's travel away. That, or 10 seconds by Teleport...

Spite ho 

The trip from Spite Battle to Spite took four days. It was all upstream, so Nicoli Sparetti's ferry was pulled by draught horses, and some sections of the delta had expanses of water that needed to be sailed.

The first few nights, the party spell-casters all took grapes and wafers to recharge their depleted reserves.

We had plenty of time to look at the magical items that we had bare-faced stolen acquired - there was a magical amulet, magical slippers, a magical hat and two magic thumb-screws.

We were starting to worry about Bush

Bush also had his knife (that he'd swiped from Gabriella's coffin). We were starting to get worried because he'd keep playing with it and sharpening it all day. And any party members who had large tracts of skin (mostly me), he'd fixate on them, obviously imagining the delicious feel of the keen blade cutting immaculate rows of perfectly parallel cuts. 

If anyone innocently asked if they could hold the knife, Bush would hiss and growl and make stabby motions towards the speaker. Not a chance.

On the third day, dark clouds formed from klibwards, followed by heavy rain. 

And then a large cloud of bats. All flying towards Spite Battle.

Did we care? "What is behind us is not important."

Balder cast Identify on the magic amulet first. [Amulet of +2 save (poison, arcane, divine)]. Napolean got this.

The ironic elf

We arrived at Spite and stayed in the Ironic Elf. (The clever irony being that the "elf" was a human who identified as an elf. "I can see in zee dark," as he crashed down the stairs.)

We spent three nights in Spite and that gave Balder enough time to cast Identify on all the other three items.

• Hat of Observation [+2 PER]. Galena got this.
• Slippers of Silence [auto-quiet when moving inside]. Joe got these.
• Thumbscrews of Truth [Detect Lie]. Red got these.

Also during that time, news arrived from Spite Battle. A section of the city had burned, and the authorities had discovered remnants of a Canker shine in the ruins.

No mention of the swarm of bats.

Bush was becoming a worry. He was getting more and more psychotic with his dagger. One morning we got up and he'd shaved hair, beard and eyebrows.

This had to stop, so that night, the three strongest of us all, Joe, Red and myself, grabbed him bodily. We hogtied and gagged him. Balder grabbed the dagger wearing gloves.

We all took it to the Spite REAL temple, and Balder and I got an audience with the high priestess. She was happy to destroy such an evil knife. As we were leaving the temple grounds, there was a loud CRUMP noise and some smoke drifted out of the REAL fume-cupboard vent.

At the same time, a wailing gagged scream from our room in the Ironic Elf.

We left Spite the next day, heading for Quek. Bush was sullen and miserable. He would get over it.

Quek ho

The next few days passed without incident. These were all familiar towns, and these roads were travelled quite a lot.

In Rouen we stayed at the Wandering Pony. Then Acruchet, stayed in Solemn Gargoyle. And then Burq, at the Rabid Monkey.

Between Burq and Peignoir, we met some Spite soldiers on the road. They warned us of a half-elf brigand called Felix Amure who was a master of disguise. He and his band had been robbing travellers on this road.

"I think we can look after ourselves," I smiled. "But thanks for the warning, Sergeant."

We arrived at Peignoir and stayed at the Green Avocado.

The next morning, we encountered the most incompetent ambush known to man.

As fore-shadowed, it was Felix Amure and a bunch of three brigands. One threw his (magic) bow onto the ground [fumble]. Then they all took off when we threatened them. We were hurrying to get to Quek, so did not want to get distracted on a side mission to follow them, much to Joe's chagrin.

We camped out that night.

Five wolves attacked at third watch. Backed up by four figures. It was the same group. We killed their wolves and the rest fled. Again, we did not pursue. Again, Joe was furious.

Next day we arrived in Quek and stayed at Simon's Pouch.

Then, the next day we got the the Great Pillar of Quek. Here, we met up with our patron Thursa Demont.

"We have completed your mission," I said.

"Excellent!" she replied. "Where is Loris and his brother Simeon?"

"We have Loris. Well, his jaw bone."

I produced that.

"Now Simeon, he was a vampire. He was already dead. We couldn't transport a vampire. But, the next best thing, Ma'am. Here is his skull."

Griza hands that over too.

"Then you should have brought me someone who was living. One of his family."

"We killed them all," muttered Balder.

"But they were vampires too," I hurriedly said. "And his wife Gabriella was a succubus. And ... she has been banished to the outer planes. By our ... demonologist Balder."

"But, we would have brought Simeon back alive, had he been alive."

"The succubus, she will hunt you. She can return."

"Well, she is really after Galena."

"Why is that?"

"She has Galena's underwear."

I cut that tangent off quickly.

"So I get no revenge," bemoaned Thursa. "How can I praise Smackwater Jack without revenge?"

Red [whose talent allows him the best of two Persuade rolls] managed to persuade her, and she agreed to pay us the promised items.

• Phoebe: Bracelet of Aishwarya [ +1 APP ]
• Bush: Bag of Holding (200kg)
• Griza: +1 Sword
• Napolean: Lyra's Bracelet of Storage [ Store 5 MP - recharge with Transfer ]
• Balder: Bobbin's Amulet of the Goblin [speak the goblinoid lingua franca - kobold, goblin, orc, hobgoblin, gnoll]
• Gandhi: Lacy Underwear of Deftness [ +1 DEX ]
• Joe Manco: +1 double-sword
• Red: +1 studded leather
• Galena: Holy Symbol of 21; turns undead at +2

The jaw bone of Loris was needed so that Thursa could work on Balder and purge him. This painful ordeal with take many weeks and Balder would be doused in star-fall, receive star-fall purgatives, and of course the mandatory star-fall enemas. This would remove the traces of the blue egg that had infected him all those years ago.

"Join Me" - part 2

 Present:

• Phoebe Lacrosse. Human Barbarian from Pugtown – Andrew
• Griza Muso. Human Thief from Lakeside – Jeff
• Balder Dash. Gnome Wizard from Toluene - Jamie
  
• Bush Tucker. Human Rogue from Spite Anti - Darryl
• Red Feuersturm. Human Temple Fighter of Hob from Toluene - Chris
• MARMALADING: Malcom Gandhi. Gnome Thief from Brian – Kevin
  
• Napolean Twig. Elf Priest of Caribou Gorn from Pugtown - Ian
• Joe Manco. Human Fighter from Toluene – Shane
• Galena Alfdis. Elf Priestess of Vingt et Un from Palantir - Steven

 by Jeff 

... continued from part 1

"Crikey" stated Bush, "That's a lovely knife"
"Joe" continued Bush, "You may as well take my bow and the magic arrows, I'll be using this!"

A quick search of the room revealed no additional secrets or items of interest, and we continued to the end of the landing and down the stairs.

A pentagram was carved into the floor

The stairs ended at yet another room carved out of the rock. This room was also square, but contained a large pentagram carved into the stone floor. Strange figures and imaged were worked into the stone walls, and on the far side of the pentagram, another large opening could be seen leading on.

"Not liking the look of that pentagram" worried Galena.
"No traps around the bottom of the stairs" reported Griza, stepping into the room.

Immediately Griza stepped onto the floor of the room, and not even near the pentagram, a white light shone up from the pentagram shape. Starting at the nearest face, the light raced along the lines defining the pentagram until the shape was totally lit, illuminating the room in a bright glow. Leaping back out of the room with a startled exclamation, Griza prepared for some form of attack. As Griza's foot left the floor, the colour of the light flickered from white to a light blue, but continuing to glow. Everything was now illuminated in a soft blue glow.

The blue light reflected strangely from Balders face

"Hey" noted Joe, "Check out Balders face"

The blue light closely matched the blue colour of the speckles that could occasionally be seen in Balder's skin, and right now his face was twinkling as the blue speckles reflected the blue light from the floor. [This was the same blue colour of the strange egg from many adventures ago that had infected Balder, and was apparently the cause of his current "health" issues]

"That's not weird at all" mumbled Bush.

"Allow me" offered Balder, stepping down into the room.
"Not on the pentagram!" warned Phoebe.

The blue glow from the pentagram remained, and Balder, closely followed by the rest of the party, circled slowly around the edge of the room to the far door. A short passage led forward to a four-way intersection. Another pentagram was carved into the floor of the intersection, but this time there would be no circling around it. It filled the whole intersection.

"I'm sensing undead ahead" whispered Galena.

Griza made his way to the front and crouched down just before the intersection.
"Yup, and some form of magical trap right here" he reported.
"But I don't sense any magic here?" Balder questioned.
"No option" noted Phoebe, stepping boldly onto the middle of the pentagram.

Standing still in the middle of the pentagram, Phoebe cast her senses out along the three passages leading away. Nothing from the left, nothing from straight ahead, but some noises from the right. Peering down the right-hand passage into the darkness, sword held ready, Phoebe spotted some movement. The glitter of light reflecting from two large swords emerged from the gloom.

"Back" Phoebe called, "Back to the large pentagram room. And set for attackers!"

Everyone pulled back to the large pentagram room and spread out around the passage opening. Two large skeletons, wearing chain mail armour and wielding long swords lumbered forward towards us. 

"Get thee hence!" commanded Galena, attempting to turn these foul undead. Nope.

Balder cast a Dispel Magic, hoping to affect these creatures. Nope.

Red, wielding his mighty two-handed mace, laughed happily, and stepped forward to engage one.

Phoebe stepped in beside him, while Joe and Bush engaged the second skeletal warrior.

Making use of the space in the large room, and that the attacking skeletal warriors were confined by the narrow passage, the party felt that the fight would be quickly over. Only two of them after all.

Oh, how the Gods laughed!

Red swung his mighty magical mace, which carved through the air and swished over the skeletons head.
Phoebe struck, but her bladed weapon was only minimally effective.

[Bladed weapons only deal half-damage to skeletons!]

Joe's sword crunched satisfactorily into his target, but the skeleton barely noticed.

Bush, with a crazed cackle, swung his new knife with skill and precision, shearing between its ribs.

But neither Joe nor Bush dealt any damage to the creature!

[Joe's sword isn't magical, and the half damage effect against chain mail armour negated Bush's attack]

From behind, Balder cast his "Enchanted Weapon" spell on Joe, effectively creating a temporary magical weapon, while Bush stepped out of combat muttering angrily. Tabatha, the half-elven warrior we had rescued from the Massimo Island, stepped forward to take his place. She was wearing chain mail armour and carrying a glittering long sword. Surely this would be better now?

"There are two more of those things behind the others" called Griza, spotting two more down the short passage behind the first two skeletal warriors, and stepping forward to support Joe, "Hit them already!"

The battle raged on.

Joe, engaging the first skeleton while Tabatha and Griza moved forward to join him, attempted to Dodge, to minimise his chances of being hit. [A Dodge will win on a drawn roll during the opposed rolls of a melee combat scenario. A successful Dodge obviously avoids any chance of damage] But he failed his Dodge, and the creature struck him, dealing 4 damage after the effect of his chain mail armour was deducted. He also had to make a saving throw against Divine magic. [Shane just failed his saving throw by 1 point, but spent 1 Luck point to increase his saving roll to be a success. One never wants to fail a save against undead creatures if it can be helped!]

As a result of Joe being hit, he was forced back into the large pentagram room, and a third of the creatures stepped out of the corridor and engaged the party. Tabatha and Griza switched targets to the third creature, Joe batted on alone against the second, while Red and Phoebe pummelled at the first.

Red and Phoebe quickly took their opponent out, and the fourth warrior took its place.

Three combats were occurring in the room now. 

There was no way the previous instruction to avoid the blue glowing pentagram could be followed. Combatants were swarming around each other all across the room. The non-combatants had stepped back to the original entrance and were cheering the combatants on. The tide of the battle swayed first one way and then the other. The party dealt a reasonable amount of damage in the next melee round, although Griza's poisoned knife was proving minimally effective. The poison had no effect whatsoever, and the D6 cutting damage was halved due to the bony nature of the skeletons.

In the next melee round, Red was hit, taking 1 point of damage, but fortunately making his saving roll.

Phoebe was successful though, her sword breaking out a bunch of bones from the skeleton.

Tabatha was also hit, but the skeleton's blow wasn't sufficient to penetrate her armour.

But Joe, on his own against his opponent, had switched back to full attacks and finally managed a decent blow against the skeletal warrior. Even halved, his mighty blow cleaved its skull clean off and a second skeleton crumbled to the floor.

"YEAH" cheered Bush from the rear.

During the next melee round, Phoebe and Red both scored hits against their skeletal opponent, and it collapsed to the ground with a crash, bones shattering and bouncing across the floor of the room. Tabatha again took a minor blow, but again her armour saved her from actual damage. Unfortunately, Griza and Joe both missed their attacks against Tabatha's opponent. "Great elp vou lot are" muttered Tabatha as she readied for the next exchange of blows, relieved that both Phoebe and Joe were stepping in to assist. Just one of the nasty warriors left to defeat.

The Demise of Tabatha (npc)

In the next melee round, Tabatha was struck with a critical hit [Richard rolled a 1 for the skeleton's attack] and collapsed to the ground, dead! [The immediate damage, boosted by the critical roll effect, even mitigated by her 3-point armour reduction, knocked her into unconsciousness. She wasn't bleeding, so didn't need to roll against Constitution (or die), but she failed her saving roll against the undead effect] Her body quickly aged, her skin drying out and withering, her face collapsing in on itself and stretching tightly across her skull, then crumbling to dust leaving just a skeleton inside her chain mail armour. Her skeletal fingers still clutched her magical long sword, and her large shield lay discarded beside her body.

Stepping over Tabatha's body, Phoebe took the primary attack role for the next melee round. [Primary attacker engages with the opponent, leaving any secondary attackers to attack with a bonus roll (two rolls, take the most advantageous result). Good news when you outnumber your opposition, but not so good if they outnumber you and can get bonus attacks against the party!] 

Griza withdrew from the combat and joined Bush at the rear.

Phoebe, Red, and Joe all scored hits against the last skeletal warrior, and it was destroyed.

"Take that ya mangy undead monsters" yelled Galena happily.

As the bones clattered to the floor, Balder again heard a voice in his head. 

"BALDER .... JOIN ME" it called, "YOU ARE CLOSE NOW"

Joe gathered up Tabatha's long sword, Red spoke a few words, Galena shed a few tears, and then the party were off, forward to the intersection with the pentagram symbol. A quick foray to the left and right found a small room at the end of a short passage each way. Each room had two alcoves, presumably where the skeletal warriors had waited, but nothing else of interest.

Only one passage remained, straight ahead. No doubt our great battle had alerted whatever lay ahead to our presence, but gripping our weapons tightly, and straining our senses for any indication of danger, we boldly advanced down the dark passage.

The black sarcophagus dominated the room

In fact, the passage was quite short, maybe ten meters, and then it discharged into a large rectangular room hewn from the stone. A large black obsidian sarcophagus dominated the centre of the room, resting on an elevated stone table, its lid very obviously ajar. Symbols of CANKER were carved into the stone and scrawled across the walls and floor in what appeared to be blood. The pungent smell of incense drifted past us in the passage,

"Undead" noted Galena.
"Yup, I totally agree" confirmed Red.

The tracking compass, attuned to the amulet of Simeon Massimo, now known to be a vampire, pointed unerringly at the sarcophagus. Phoebe stepped cautiously forward into the room.

"Woosh"

Torches in scones around the four walls burst into flame, and a flickering red glow lit up the room. The red light glinted ominously from the shiny obsidian sarcophagus, highlighting the ajar lid.

"I want to cut something" yelled Bush pushing forward, caressing his new knife lovingly.

"Hold on" commanded Phoebe, "There's nothing to cut yet"
"Maybe you" leered Bush menacingly, waving his knife in Phoebe's face.

But Galena calmed Bush down with a gentle word, stepped forward with a vial of Holy water, and upended it over the side of the sarcophagus, without even looking in.

A loud sizzling noise emerged from the sarcophagus, and a cloud of stinking vapour bubbled up and spread across the ceiling before slowly dissipating. Before it had even stopped discharging vapour, Bush had leapt up onto the stone table, leaned over the side of the sarcophagus, and thrust in his knife.

"Take that" he yelled, then stiffened and slowly toppled backwards off the table to crumple in a heap on the floor, unconscious. Balder quickly stepped forward and kicked the knife out of Bush's hand, but as his boot connected and sent the knife skittering across the floor, a sharp pain lanced his foot.
[1 point of damage to Balder due to contact with the knife] 

"Bloody hell" Balder winced, "And I didn't even touch the thing"

Phoebe leapt up onto the table and peered into the sarcophagus. A skeleton rested there, Simeon's amulet draped around its neck and a bracelet wrapped around its radius and ulna bones.

Red offered to torch the body, but Phoebe took one of the wooden stakes and drove it repeatedly through the body, especially in the vicinity of where the heart should have been. The bones crumbled to pieces. Reaching into the sarcophagus, Phoebe grabbed the amulet and the bracelet and jumped off the table. 

The bracelet rested on Simeon's robes

Balder cast a Detect magic spell.

"Oh" he exclaimed, "The three amulets are no longer magical. But that bracelet is"
"That clinches it" Phoebe declared, "Simion is dead"
"Well, that's torn it" stated Griza, "Thursa wanted him bought back alive" 

"Sigh. No magical item reward then" grumbled Napolean.
"Let's take back some evidence" suggested Bush, having just revived from his unconscious state.
"Oooohh" he Bush, "I feel terrible. What happened, and where's my knife?"

Spotting his knife on the floor in the corner of the room, Bush scrambled over to it and clutched it to his chest. "Ahhhh" he sighed happily. Then he leapt up to his feet, bounded over to the table, sprung up onto it and hacked off the skull from the rest of the skeleton. Holding the skull up in the air and staring into its eye sockets, he declared "We'll take this back to Thursa!" 

Galena confirmed that the strong sense of Undead previously here in the room was much reduced, if not gone altogether. There was no exit from this sarcophagus chamber, apart from the passage we had arrived through, so a thorough search was undertaken. Sure enough, a secret door was discovered in the far-right corner of the room (from the entrance) and Griza began a scan for traps.

"Magical trap" Griza confirmed.

"Allow me" offered Balder.

Griza spotted three small holes through the door panel, a gaseous form sneaky exit, and plugged them up. Everyone then cleared out of the room and Balder cast a Dispel Magic on the door. That seemed to do the trick [A successful opposed roll of Balder's skill at level 3 spells vs. the caster's skill at the level 2 Traps spell. Balder got a larger margin below his skill level, yay] and Griza opened the door.

A short passage led off to the bottom of a shaft, where a series of metal rungs protruding from the stone formed a ladder leading up. The sweet smell of incense lingered in the air here, and Galena confirmed there was still no sense of Undead. The shaft was about four metres in height and led to a stone landing and yet another passage leading off into darkness. This passage was long, very long. We cautiously moved forward along the passage, 25 metres, 50 metres, 150 metres, 200 metres.

Then we came to an old iron portcullis that blocked the passage. The flickering of distant torches lit the passage ahead, but on the other side of the portcullis. Griza carefully checked the bars, the passage floor, walls, and roof overhead.

"No sign of traps" he concluded.

Phoebe and Joe each took a grip on the lower bars of portcullis and lifted. With much effort and strain, the old portcullis creaked and groaned but eventually lifted with load scraping and graunching noises. Jamming the portcullis open, everyone scurried through to the other side.

The passage ran on for about five metres, then turned right and ran straight ahead. Torches were mounted along each side of the passage, their flames casting odd flickering shadows across the walls as we passed.

"Careful" called Galena, "I'm sensing Undead here now"

"Look" pointed out Joe, "My shadow isn't me"

Joe had noticed that our shadows cast by the torchlight weren't moving in time with us, in fact they were different shapes and numbers altogether. These were shadows of much larger things than us! This discovery didn't bode well. "Time for some healing" decided Napolean.

Napolean cast a couple of Cure's on Joe, one of our key fighters.

Balder was feeling quite unwell. The atmosphere of the tunnels was getting to him, or perhaps it was the Undead presence that pervaded this unholy place that was influencing him. Red cast a Transfer spell, transferring magic points from his reserve to Balder. 

[Chris was about to leave for the night, so wanted to make sure we had magic power to deal with whatever came up next in this section of the adventure. Joe and Phoebe would be the only real fighters left, hence the healing. Balder had also been having his Strength stat. reduced by Richard (DM) as a result of circumstances unknown to the party. In fact, Balder had just lost another point of Strength, and was thus suffering from the effects of physical degradation]

A strange Shadow attacked Griza

Setting off down the passage again, we were soon "surprised" as one of the strange shadows actually peeled off the wall and launched itself at Griza [I rolled the worst Luck roll! The strange creature easily struck Griza, doing 4 points of physical damage and requiring Jeff to make a saving throw against divine magic, which fortunately was successful]

Galena hastily called on the powers of her God, Vingt et Un, successfully Turning the shadow creature from its attack. Griza shook off whatever nasty effect would have befallen him, and everyone rushed forward along the passage. 

Galena managed to keep the Shadows at bay behind us. After another two-hundred metres or so, we arrived at the end of the passage. Metal rungs protruded from the wall, with a shaft rising up above us to a closed wooded trapdoor.

Griza clambered up first, checking for traps on the trapdoor (clear) and dropped back down to allow Phoebe to climb up and fling it open. The trapdoor opened into a storage room cluttered with domestic supplies and lots of other "stuff". A stair led upwards, a carved stone archway opened into another room on our right, and a closed wooden doorway stood in front of us.

"JOIN ME" reverberated into Balders head, "YOU ARE CLOSE NOW"

Balder staggered over towards the archway, which Galena noted did not have any Undead sense beyond and led everyone through the arch into a cold chamber adorned with religious symbols and strange implements of torture. A blood-stained table stood in the centre of the room. Balder staggered forward and flung himself to the ground in front of the table.

"Ewww" exclaimed Galena, "This is a shrine to CANKER"

But there was nothing much of interest, and certainly no magical treasure, so we dragged Balder out into the storeroom and checked out the stairs.

...

The smells of cooking drifted down the stairs from the room above. But nice smells this time.
"Another undead creature cooking?" wondered Phoebe.
"Smells too good" noted Bush, "Definitely a Sheila up there"

Assuming that our element of surprise had been lost by the previous battle and noise, if we ever had the element of surprise, we rushed up the stairs into the kitchen. A well-appointed kitchen, in a nice setting. Sunlight poured in through the large windows, which looked out over a garden with some part of the city on the far side of a tall stone wall. An older woman was standing at the stove stirring something in a large pot. She turned towards us. Holy symbols of Canker clattered from around her neck

"Welcome Balder" she stated, "I am Gabriella Massimo, the wife of Simeon"
"Ah, hello" replied Balder, "So not a vampire I take it"
"Definitely not" she responded.

[At this point Richard had everyone make a saving through against arcane magic.
Surprisingly, and probably fortunately, everyone succeeded]

"I see you are carrying my knife" she noted, gesturing at Bush.
"It will not work against me, but maybe you should try it on one of your friends" she commanded.

[At this point Richard made Darryl make a saving throw against arcane magic.
Surprisingly, and probably fortunately, everyone succeeded]

Balder steps forward. He feels a familiarity towards this woman and wants to protect her from any harm that might be directed towards her. But he is also conflicted. Is this not a follower, even a priestess, of Canker, one of the evilest of evil gods, the purveyor of pain and suffering?

"Fuck it" he thinks to himself and .....