Strange New World

Present:

• Buzz "Cut". Solomani Soldier from Seven – Shane
• Dr Paczki Knodel. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Seven – Darryl
• Stella Cauthon. Solomani Rogue from Seven - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING Heidi Vasovagal. Solomani Scientist from Seven - Steven
• MARMALADING Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• Jon "Crash" Straker. Solomani Pilot from Seven – Jamie

by Andrew

Planning

On Vilis, Dr Strangelove, the head of the Vilis Cauthon Institute, gave some parameters for the party's next assignment. 

"Vis zis new FASSinating data, I vant your group to return to Fleet," said Strangelove. "Go into ze portal and down to ze ground. Set up a base zere and do many science analysis of zat place. You vil get  Knodel to drive zis. And zen Stella, she vill commune wis the locals.  Try to vork out where it arl is in ze cosmos."

"Aye, sir," replied Stella. "But first we have some business in Vilnius city."

"Ja. Very vell."

Sang's drone

1. Knodel and Sang go to work building a large drone that could be folded up and slipped through the portal tube. It would need to unfold at the far end and launch itself into the air. And it needed to be strong enough to hold two deck chairs below it - one for the pilot and one for a passenger or cargo. 
2. Sang already had the beginnings of a rudimentary AI, so she planned to get some more pieces off the black market and make it into a functional translator. The theory being that if it heard enough of a language, it could learn it. [ Usual caveats with AI applied. One 20 roll would involve the death of the party and probably a crater to replace the Vilis Cauthon institute when it was destroyed from orbit. ]
3. The Scanning Electron Microscope that the Zhodani Ambassador had arranged for, had arrived in the Vilis sector, but was held up by the Zhodani embargo by the Imperium. So Stella planned to visit Admiral Ramsbottom to get it cleared.
4. They needed a lot of supplies which would be ferried down to the ground from the portal - which was one kilometre up in the air. And all these supplies needed to fit through the half-metre diameter portal tube. So it would be quite a logistics problem to get this set up. 
5. Kerosine would power portable generators to charge the Sodium-ion batteries, so they also needed to take some tanks of this through the portal tube.

"Guns, germs and steel, and whisky," muttered Buzz. "That will fix the locals."

Embargo

Stella got Dr Strangelove's Cauthon connections to get a meeting with Admiral Ramsbottom up at the Vilis Highport. So she went up to see him. When he found out the multi-million-credit microscope was destined for the Vilis Institute of Technology and Management, and was being paid for by Zhodanis, he was happy to let it through. There was also a tank of true blood to be delivered as well. Stella requested that it be delivered to the Cauthon institute.

This all came to pass. Anya Lukashenko, the Zhodani Ambassadress was happy to pass on the SEM to the VITM, and Stella extracted even more money out of her to get the tanker of refrigerated True Blood delivered.

The "hostage" Zhodani scientists (rescued from Fleet) were allowed to go home (back to Zhodani Embassy). But only one of the three elected this option. The other two, Dr Denisova and Dr Romanovna, when they heard about the mission to explore the Portal World, were keen to join the party. This brought up the numbers to 11.

Back to Fleet

The group returned to the highport, back into the Cauthon ship, lodged a flight plan to Fleet, and then headed there on a "scientific" mission (we can even drop the air-quotes).

Here, Jon Straker flew several trips, via air-raft, from the orbitting Cauthon to the surface of Fleet to drop off all the supplies. Luckily he didn't live up to his epithet.

Then they ferried it all into the cave past the rock-fall.

Through the portal

In Portal World, the portal was a thousand metres above the sea and about 500 from the shore.

The first thing through the portal tube was the drone. It was shoved out into the air, and, while falling, unfurled itself, started its motors and hovered successfully, then returned to the portal, hovering, offering the pilot's deck chair close to the mouth of the portal tube. 

Drone controller

Jon Straker climbed into the claustrophobic portal tube, closed the Fleet-end door, then unscrewed the far end. Here, he got hit by a blast of cold air. It smelled a bit sulphury. He then wiggled out and climbed onto the chair, hanging beneath the whining drone. He grabbed the Logitech controller, and raised it up so that the second chair was now level with the portal.

Fat Anton was next. He struggled to fit into the 0.5m tight tube, so he needed to strip naked and they greased him up with butter, and then he squeezed his bulk into the smooth carbon tube, and they screwed tight the door behind him.  He then opened the outside door and awkwardly wiggled out into the cold air, and did the terrifying climb onto the floating chair where he gripped on for dear life - a kilometre drop below, buffeted by the wind and the prop-wash from the drone propellors. The poor drone engines whined in protest when 118 kilograms of dead-weight was suddenly added to their load. 

Jon executed a sickening dive and flew down to the coast. They went inland a bit and found a suitable copse of trees for a base. Anton got off the chair and Jon flew back up to the portal.

Thus, Jon spent the rest of the day, ferrying all 11 people and equipment down to the ground.

They all had headsets on which worked fine on this side. They even discovered that you could send comms through the portal into the Fleet cave; just not the other way.

View from above

As soon as Knodel was settled in base camp, he began some genetic analysis with his portable PCR on flora and insect samples from the copse. It was carbon-based life forms, with DNA similar to Terra. But no direct hits from his genetic database.

During Jon's ferrying trips, observing distant hills and mountains, he noticed that there was no vertical distance parallax. This planet must be huge. This was further backed up because there was no visible horizon, even up high; the sea just vanished into distant haze.

There were tides - the sea rose and fell two metres during the day. Maybe an 8 hour cycle.

The other weird thing, the sun had not moved the whole day. It was always in the same spot in the sky.

But when night arrived, they got a big surprise. The sun suddenly vanished, like a switch, and it was dark. The sky was instantly full of stars. 

Galactipedia was consulted and it could not find any star charts that matched this sky.

They settled for the night, posting watches. The stars did not ,move at all during the night - except for some shooting stars - one of two each hour.

The night lasted exactly 12 hours, to the second. 

"I sink zat zis place is a simulation," Knodel postulated. "Zee night vas exactly tvelve hours. Very suspicious. Flat earth - very suspicious." 

"Vargr"

Anton spotted six humanoid figures approaching down the beach. They were very tall - unnaturally tall. Tall and slender. 

"Vargr!" said Anton. "Vargr dog men."

These were much taller than any Vargr they had ever met.

Sang, Stella and Buzz went out to confront them. Anton hid and covered them with his machine gun.

The "vargr" had large bows. They shot at Stella and Sang at long range, who both managed to dodge the heavy arrows.

Anton opened fire, hitting and wounding them. Severely wounded, they ran off.

The Village

There was a fishing village at the mouth of a river of medieval tech (this was observed by the previous trip from the drone out the portal). About four hours' walk away.

Sang sent out a small drone to reconnoitre the village. There were three roads, a short one along the coast parallel to the sea which petered out, one went inland to a forest, one went the other direction. She was careful to keep the drone up high, out of whiney sound range.

She saw plenty of people, a few soldiers, and some wagons pulled by horses.

So a trip was in order. Sang (with translator), Anton, Stella, and Buzz headed off. Knodel, Hoff, the two Zhodani scientists stayed to do science. Jon busied himself as Camp Mother. And the the two marmaladers just marmaladed.

Anton stayed hidden (with his gun) while the other three walked to the edge of the village. Two men in chainmail armour, with swords, approached and bade them stop. Then they jabbered away in a bunch of words. Sang's AI started to listen.

Not making any progress, one guard stayed and the other scurried off. He returned with a man in robes.

More unintelligible noises.

He thought a bit, then waved his hands. Sparks and flashes filled the air. Then, suddenly, he could speak, in perfect Winston brogue, and the party could understand.

"Greetings. I am Alanzar, elder of the village."

"I am Stella," Stella said. "This is Sang and Buzz."

"Where are you from?"

"Vilis," said Stella

"Where is Vilis?"

"A long way in that direction."

"Other side of black hills?"

"We travelled by ship. Got dropped off at a spot on the beach."

"Why would a ship do that? It makes no sense."

"To be honest, we have an fellow in our group called Doctor Knodel, and he annoyed the captain of the ship so much he put us ashore."

The wizard smiled wryly.

"Show us some more magic!" said Buzz.

"It is taxing to cast spells."

"How many people can cast magic?"

"You don't know? Are there no wizards in Vilis?"

Stella stepped in before the lies got too far over-the-top.

"Our group would like to be accommodated in the village," said Stella in her sickly cloying way, waggling her boobs. "Please."

"We have a spare stables," replied Alanzar. "There is straw in the upstairs. You are welcome there."

"We want a house. There are 11 in our group. Find us a house, sir. Please."

Stella offered him some gems. She had 11 diamonds. After paying three, she got a maid servant, a cook, and a house to stay in for a week.

Then she arranged for a wagon to drive to the end of the road out that stopped out in the dunes. The group would ferry all their gear to this spot and get it loaded onto the wagon.

With business complete, Alanzar bade them well and they departed back down the short road.

Anton stayed hidden behind. He saw a sneaky guy surreptitiously follow the group back. They all had head-sets, so he reported this to Stella & Co. This allowed Stella to confront him and challenge him. He scowled and withdrew, and then tried two more times to sneak up and follow them. Each time Anton reported him and each time Stella confronted him.

He gave up and headed back to town.

Fleet Investigations

Present:

• Buzz "Cut". Solomani Soldier from Seven – Shane
• Dr Paczki Knodel. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Seven – Darryl
• Stella Cauthon. Solomani Rogue from Seven - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING Heidi Vasovagal. Solomani Scientist from Seven - Steven
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• Jon "Crash" Straker. Solomani Pilot from Seven – Jamie

by Ian

Fleet Investigations

The Cauthon transitions to a safe, geostationary orbit around Fleet - again. The party are back at the moon with the gas giant dominating the sky. "Crash" Straker wakes up and an awkward introduction is made to Tulsi (the Zhodani contracted air-raft pilot) as she grabs the air-raft command keys. Crash decides to observe Tulsi and see how she goes.

The party relocate the source of the weak radio signal on the surface and grab vacc suits. Stella and Dr Knodel decide to stay on the Cauthon and work from there. There is full comms with the away-team so were happy to stay. Anton is a little weary after "entertaining" Tulsi for the trip - but still ready and keen to go.

The rest of the crew board the air-raft and descend to the surface. Tulsi pilots and navigates perfectly, with a graceful and perfectly executed descent.

Nearer the target location, the party see what is obviously a crashed Imperium Scout ship. It is this that is emitting a weak emergency signal.

They park the air-raft about 100m away. Leaving Tulsi on the raft, the rest moon-hop to the wreck. Fleet has 1/8 G gravity so big bunny hops are effortless.

The craft is in a site that is close to the base of a natural cliff side. Closing in on the ship, it is obvious that a new rockfall has appeared on the face of the cliff, starting about 10m from the moon surface. Not directly involved with the wrecked ship, but maybe seismically - fascinating none the less.

Carefully approaching and checking the downed ship, it is clear that the scout craft had hit the moon surface hard. The hull showed many broken parts, cracks and obvious breaches. There is nothing moving or activated. Totally dark and silent. Looking in from outside showed very little, other than layers of ice and dust that would support the idea that the ship had crash-landed and decompressed within a short number of minutes.

The scout ship signage showed the Scout ship handle was the I.S. Roakey. Stella and Knodel looked up the ship computer and the Imperium logs showed this ship as "active" but had not reported in for many months. This type of ship has room for 2-10 crew and six escape pods.

While leaning on the side of the hull, the party noticed that, looking up at the stars near where the source of the rock fall was, the distant stars "shimmered". It seemed that there was a colourless gas jetting from the cliff face?

"Hmmm. Better check that out after checking out the downed scout".

The engineers of the team, used the salvage gear from the air-raft to pry open the external hatch. As it graunched and cracked and finally opened, the party were now in what would normally be called the air lock. Absolutely no air to be locked in the Roakey.

The inner door is opened up and the crew carefully enter. They edge their way up and down the inner corridor and find a frozen corpse. They grab the poor chap's ID (an officer named "Smith") and Stella and Knodel confirms was a crew member on the Roakey. There were supposed to be five others on the crew.

As the ship is bent and broken, navigation is slow but the gang eventually get to the bridge. Nothing is working, however the strengthened black box was there and quickly recovered for later upload. 

Looking for the other five, it seems that the escape pods had been used as they were no longer on the ship. A short while later the party consider the ship fully searched and nothing else can be learned. Certainly something to report back to the Imperium.

Sang then deftly climbs the ten meters to the gas 'vent' on the cliff face and sure enough - there is a cavity that has wind racing out at the rate of a stiff breeze.

Crash bounces up to join Sang as she tries to gather a sample of whatever gas that could be. Sang also confirms gamma radiation signal that matches Rose Planet is ALSO coming from the vent. After they gather the sample they decide to jump down in the low gravity. Just as they leap off, a large boulder spits off and the opening grows a bit. A strong wind accelerates out.

Anton climbs up and checks the situation and the rock wall is highly unstable, but enough to get a good look in. An amazing spectacle. After the smallish opening, there is a sizable cavern. The thing is, it is fully lit! There is a very strong light source on the far cavern wall, that looks surprisingly circular. Estimated 3m diameter. Sounds familiar. Anton summons the others. Not just because of the cavern and light, but the trees and grass that was growing in the cavern!

As the others get to Anton and look in, there seemed to be humanoid movement in the distance. Maybe three figures? The cavern was roughly 300m deep (to where the light was) and about 100m wide. Easily 40-50m high as well.

The team decide to regroup. They relocate a large boulder from the pile, and wedge it into the leaking hole. This works well enough with the main flow of gas (presumably at least oxygen now) slowing down remarkably. Enough to buy more time.

They head back to the Cauthon. Tulsi flies perfectly back and docks magnificently. Seems she is a reasonable air-raft pilot after all!

The Imperium Scout ship black box is located and uploaded and the logs examined. The gas is analyzed: is indeed a clean and beautiful Terran like air. Made up of Oxygen, Nitrogen and other typical trace gases. No wonder the plants were doing well. The air is NOT from planet Rose. That is totally different. There is no particular planet on the Galactipedia database that has this exact gas signature.

The logs from the scout ship showed that the pilot really stuffed up. As they approached the ground, the pilot managed to push the thruster to full instead of off. After the wreck, in the decompression and damage chaos, the five missing crew managed to get into the escape pods and fire them. Unfortunately, as all well-trained space-farers know, you NEVER fire an escape pod on the ground. They release via an explosive charge. It would be fully understandable if the five pods flew for a few dozen meters, smashed into the ground - killing the occupant instantly, then crashing across the moon surface out to about one km from the launch point.

As the party decide how to return, a couple of the more observant review the camera footage and observe the the three moving figures in the cave looked remarkably 'Zhodani'. Will be bringing Tulsi for sure this time.

The cavern

After an uneventful trip back to the surface, the away party are at the rock plug and carefully remove it. The air rushes out again. Anon forces his way through the headwind and secures a pull rope for the others to follow. [Means that the dexterity roll that the members need to roll is safer!]

Everyone is through and they re-seal the hole with a rock that can be removed later. They head further into the cavern and notice a small camp of tents. The Portal provides plenty of light and air, and the team can remove their vacc suit helmets. The smell of fresh grass and shrubs hits them.

Dr Knodel hails the tents "Allo, allo?"

Three Zhodani women come out and great the team. They are Zhodani scientists: 

• Armic Denisovna
• Poltorak Timubovava
• Matryosha Romanovna

They were tasked with tracking the Rose Gamma Radiation through this region of space. They had completed surveys of nearby systems:

• Garda-vilis
• Choleosti
• Arkadia
• Saurus
• Margesi

They were supposed to go to Zeta 2 next (the party had been to Zeta 2 while ago - this was the portal that the Imperium nuked unsuccessfully. The portal is still there.) 

While there were no hits from the other sectors, about two years ago the Zhodani picked up the signal in this sector (Vilis) and tracked to this moon.

They tracked the radiation through a natural gap into the cavern and discovered the vegetation and portal light. They had been using their transponder to update the Zhodani home world, about six months ago the cave entrance collapsed and trapped them in. Unable to move the debris, they have been stuck until the recent rock slides and air pressure had dislodged the blockage. They have not sent an update for over six months.

Their surveying was organized and sanctioned by the Imperium at the time by a "major functionary" named Joel Rostler. They had the single page crayon-scrawling as the permission document.

They share the various things they have learned over the last two years:

• The Rose signature gamma radiation is coming from the portal
• The portal can be looked into, but is one-way FROM this side to the other side. No way to pull anything back again.
• The vegetation seems normal enough, but they are not here to study it.
• The portal has a metal ring that seems to be a titanium-iron-nickel alloy is visible.
• They sometimes get mist and the portal gets shrouded in cloud.
• The portal is roughly one km in the air and just out to sea from a long, rough coastline. A plain with mountains in the distance make up all that.
• The daylight lasts about 12 hours and shifts to a night phase of the same length of time

The party convince the scientists that, while we are in Vilis, we work for the Cauthon institute. The Zhodani have been strictly advised to not collaborate with the Imperium and we strongly confirm that we also do not strictly collaborate with the Imperium. Crash winces at the deep hurt...

Anton helps with feeding

Feeding is discussed (the girls haven't had any fresh blood for two years) and Anton eagerly retreats to the tents with two of the scientists. The last one eyes up Buzz and reluctantly stays to talk with the group. Saliva dripping at every movement from Buzz.

Everyone other than Anton and two Zhodani, moves to the portal and look through with binoculars. The air in their faces is fresh, warm and clear. At ground level seems to be a low technology village, with rudimentary roads. No sign of power lines, or radio towers or anything that would indicate technology can be seen from this height.

The scientist asks if we could repair and get their messaging transponder working? Dr Knodel and others are reluctant to get full communications working direct to Vilis Prime (and presumably the Zhodani embassy there) and negotiate a relay to their ship. The scientist agrees and Knodel sets up a fibre-optic cable out through the rock wall hole to an external transmitter that is pointed at the orbiting Cauthon (Stella still there). (Direct comms from inside the cave was impossible.)

The team gather up a number of samples from the Zhodanis and head back to the ship. Anton volunteers to stay for the few hours they will be away. They dock at the Cauthon after a shaky air-raft trip, and set up a receiver and accept the transmission from the scientists. However they KEEP the transmission stored on the ship, and don't relay it on. Holding that for a later decision.

Studying the Portal

A plan is devised as to what to do next.

Dr Knodel decides to bring a newly built 'portal tube'. Sang helps and loads up with drone equipment and all sorts of scientific gear. They take extra vacc suits for the Zhodani in the cavern.

Again Stella remains on the Cauthon. This time Tulsi struggles and the air-raft lands heavily, breaking the inertial dampers. Crash glowers and grabs the air-raft command keys. Sang sets to repairing the damage.

"This is bad" she says... "but not beyond repair. Going to take me about 12 hours to get all this working again.". The rest make their way to the camp and catch up with a happy but ill-looking Anton.

Tunnel Test

While Sang is busy repairing the air-raft, stuck in a vacc suit outside, the party - led by Dr Knodel, head to the portal with all their gear.

The breeze coming through the portal is around 20 km per hour and the Drone can easily work against that. Will have a range of 2kms and enough power to last an hour or so.

The cigar shaped object is loaded up with the pre-programmed drone and the end poked through the portal. This time the Moon side party can see through the portal (of course) and can watch the progress of the drone for the first time.

The planet-side tube-end unscrews and the drone flies out easily. No sound comes through the portal, but there is a LED panel on the drone that transmits information back through (by light flashes), as well as recording locally.

The pre-programmed drone flies toward sea level and the coast. After a while, it films a village, from a safe distance. It's quiet and medieval. Human-based people bustling around completing chores and talking with each other. Small fires and pathways, with rudimentary huts and buildings (wood and stone). Still no evidence of anything technical or modern.

The drone returns safely after 45 minutes and lands in the tube. Then of the tube closes and the party draw the tube back to the cavern.

Mission successful!

To fill in the time while Sang repairs the air-raft, the party send the drone through again in the dark period while it is clear. The drone grabs a night sky scan and returns successfully again. From the portal at night the party can see the distant village fires. The experienced navigators like Crash, do not recognize any of the stars or constellations. Seems totally new. Hopefully the recording scanned by the Cauthon computer notices something familiar?

Sang is finally done and the crew invite the Zhodani scientists safe rescue back to Vilis Prime which they eagerly accept! They have been here for far longer than they needed to be.

This time Crash pilots the air-raft with everything aboard and after a bit of a shaky trip and docking, they are all together on the bridge of the Cauthon. They upload the scans to the computer and samples are analyzed in the lab.

Drone Scan and Sample Results

The drone information uploaded and scanned:

• Gravity is 1G.
• The air is terran equivalent and very clean (nitrogen, oxygen, xenon, and other traces).
• Sun is standard yellow dwarf.
• Plants are all standard, carbon based.

The Cauthon Institute

Stella and the crew contact Dr Strangelove via encrypted communications and provide a full de-brief of everything discovered.

"Hmmm, you better be careful trying to bring the Zhodani scientists back. They will be arrested on sight," says Dr Strangelove. Tulsi confirms this.

"But we have the permission papers!" the scientists protest.

"Sure, but that was from over a year ago. Things have changed. They will be arrested," Dr Strangelove calmly insists.

The group think on what to do. The decide to smuggle the three Zhodani but realize that the Imperium customs inspection know every nook a cranny of the Cauthon scout ship. The plan therefore, will be to try and get the inspectors to favour the group and NOT search the Cauthon too hard.

The party decides to recover the six Imperium bodies from the moon surface and return those. Crash and the crew head to the moon and search a 1km circle from the crash site. It works and they easily spot the broken escape pods and (what remains of) the corpses. They recover Ensign "red shirt" Smith from the main crashed ship and return to the Cauthon.

The bodies are carefully stored in the med lab, with respect and care.

Back to Vilis Prime

On arrival at the high port, the Imperium inspectors are overwhelmingly grateful for the return of their fallen crew. They quickly usher the group through Customs and happily receive the black box. The Zhodani scientists are easily passed through later, in disguise.

They all end up down on the surface in Vilnius at the Cauthon Institute and the Zhodani scientists secured in comfortable quarters.

The group collectively decides to destroy the Zhodani report. That never gets sent.

Anya Lukashenko
Zhodani Ambassadress

Stella calls the Zhodani ambassador, Anya Lukashenko.

"Hi Anya, we have rescued three Zhodani scientists from Fleet. They are doing well and are currently in quarantine. Wondering how you are getting on with the scanning electron microscope?"

"Wonderful!" replied Anya. "We did not know they were there, but had been missing for a while. Good work. The SEM is ordered and built and the delivery is well-underway and on schedule for a few weeks time. Quarantine will only be a few days, so we can arrange delivery to us!"

"Oh" Stella oozes persuasively "You don't understand... the quarantine could be a few weeks. You know. Better to be safe than sorry."

"WHAT???" Anya recoils. "What do you mean? Are you suggesting holding them as collateral? That will NOT be looked on favourably to our working relationship. AND we were getting on so well" she angrily responds.

Stella replies "Well, you know, we have to do what we have to do..."

"Fine. This will be remembered..." Anya finishes the call coldly.

My Brain. My Brain.

Present:

• Buzz "Cut". Solomani Soldier from Seven – Shane
• Dr Paczki Knodel. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Seven – Darryl
• Stella Cauthon. Solomani Rogue from Seven - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING Heidi Vasovagal. Solomani Scientist from Seven - Steven
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• MARMALADING Jon "Crash" Straker. Solomani Pilot from Seven – Jamie

by Darryl 

"Right let's head off again and collect another one of these micro-portals" says  Anton. "Hoff's all fine with us entering his brain so let's go!"

Hoff was still spitting out marmalade as some of the group filled him in on what had been happening recently, and through his dizzy state, he agreed. 

"So I get to have a trip around inside my own body? That's sounds pretty cool, I always wanted to see myself from the inside out." 

"Yeah, it's all good, nothing goes wrong" could be heard from the noisy group as Hoff shook his head. "Well there is a small risk..." 

"What do you mean?" Hoff was able to question through the humming of conversation between Dr Knodel and his brother discussing deep science stuff.

"Well there is a small chance that your head could explode, but the odds, they are so small blah blah blah."

"Well in that case let's do it, I trust you all to have my best interests at heart." concluded Hoff as the rest of the group began organizing for another nano-bot field trip.

The group got settled down on to the beds they had used before, placed on the appropriate head equipment and set forth for Hoff's pineal gland, the pinecone-shaped region right in the middle of the brain.

"I reckon my sleep cycles will improve once we sort out what is happening in my brain." says Hoff, "maybe i won't suffer from the marmalade disease as much once we know what is going on."

We were all trapped into the nano vehicle best described as a small 4WD and set forth. Driving along we would see the odd antibody or two, but we were moving too fast and were ignored. we knew once we stopped, these antibodies would begin attacking us and it was imperative that we kept them away from the 4WD as the walk back out was going to be way too long for us to survive. 

Finally we saw in the distance the strange looking structure, a pinecone shape and knew we were getting close to where a scan of Hoff had indicated the presence of the radiation that emanated from the micro-portals.

"Right, keep your eyes open guys there will be one around here somewhere," said Itzy.

"Hey yeah, there's one." says  Buzz, "Why don't you have that cut out of you Hoff, looks pretty dangerous to me?"

"Yeah maybe," Hoff said "Just exploration but maybe you're right, in fact I will do it myself."

Hoff using the special surgical instrument we call a knife, that was supplied just in case  then cut around the micro-portal and we hauled it onto the roof to take back.

"You did know, didn't you, Hoff, that if that knife had got stuck. your head would have exploded?" asked Stella.

"Oh, that's bad." gulped Hoff. "I don't think I will do that again."

We travel on and see a glow a little further on. As we approach, four micro-portals, quite close together can be seen, and they are surrounded by antibodies trying to attack the cluster with every so often one of the anti-bodies disappearing into the center and being whisked off to the Rose planet.

"Look, each time an antibody hits the edge of one of the portals, they move and get a little closer together."  remarked Spanner.

"Zis is fascinating." Dr Knodel replied "Ve should wait and observe, i will watch what happens to ze radiation levels as zay touch."

Two merge into one

So the group waited and watched. After about 20 minutes, two of the portals touch and with a flash merge into a single much larger portal.

"Zat was incredible." Dr Knodel said, "And se radiation has gone up  by ze square, not so good."

"Um do we need to fix this now?" gulped Hoff.

"Let me see now I vill calculate." said Knodel. "It vill be just fine, only a 10% increase in background radiation once all four merge, you can survive this no problem."

"Right. Well then, let's get out of here before those damn anti-bodies decide to take a look at us." Anton said, and off we drove.

Stella's accident

The trip back was not as quiet as the trip in. Stella was piloting along thinking about the large amounts of commission she will be receiving once the Zhodani bring the new electron microscope and she on sells it, when she slams the vehicle into the side of the tunnel. 

"Oh Dear, looks like there was a bit of slippery stuff on the ground just there."

The vehicle is a write-off and the group unbuckle themselves and exit the vehicle.

"Too far to walk I reckon." Itzy says. "We gonna need rescuing from the outside."

Dr. Knodel's brother Powidła is contacted and he says he will put a rescue team together.

The next few hours are pure hell, P53 anti-bodies arrive at regular intervals and most of the time the group is able to  fight them off with no damage, but attrition begins to affect things. Dr Knodel screams and swears at his brother to hurry things up and all together fight as best they can. Anton is hit again and again eventually, despite much first-aid, goes down. Just as things begin to get desperate the rescue vehicle arrives with four nurses on-board. we strap the micro portal onto the roof, Buzz straps himself to the chest of one of the nurses and we head out to safety.

"Don't drive too quickly lads, we don't want another accident." the muffled voice of Buzz says.

We arrive safely and store yet another sample of the micro-portals. 

"Zis is fantastic." Dr Powidła Knodel says, "My publishing vill be able to continue for many more years with all these specimens."

The group heads back to the Cauthon Institute and spend a few days healing up. During that time Dr. Paczki Knodel begins planning his research for the next decade, and he also receives his large screw based tunnel made from the same material as the spiky eggs that can enter and exit the portals. it is large enough to allow a person  to travel through a portal.

Dr  Strangelove  contacts the group and asks about our space experience, there is a small task the Cauthon Institute wants done in the system. There is Zhodani activity on one of the moons around a gas giant. The institute wants to know exactly what they are up to. All of the group, except Dr Knodel are keen but he reluctantly agrees to join them all on this  venture despite the pull of his research.

Fleet

The name of the moon we are to head to is Fleet and after ship preparation, and after a few pleasantries  with Space Traffic Control, head to our destination. We are aware that whatever is happening is on the radio shady side of the moon and once we are in orbit we carefully and slowly enter this part of the orbit. There are some small electronic satellites orbiting but none of them are emitting any signals but a radio signal can be identified on the surface of the moon. we remain in stealthy mode keeping our EMF signal as low as possible while trying to decode the signal. to no avail. The only way the group is going to find out what this is will be via a trip to the surface.

 

"We have one problem." says Stella, "No air-raft pilot. Crash has marmalade extruding from all orifices and I can pilot this ship but not an air-raft."

With our tail between our legs we return back to the planet, with the sounds of "forgot your lunch did you?" coming from Space Traffic control.

Tulsi Nostrovia,
temp air-raft pilot

"We have a mercenary air-raft pilot  available." says Dr Strangelove "She is very good I hear, but she is Zhodani."

"No way, snowball's chance on hell, f off, are you joking?" can be heard from various sectors of the group.

Instead we decide to recruit our own, and with our great skills in recruitment street knowledge and the like, we end up hiring a ... Zhodani air-raft pilot, in fact the very same one recommended to us by Dr Strangelove.

Then with our lunch packed and an air-raft pilot to boot, we head back to the moon called Fleet, hopefully this time, ready to land and investigate the radio signals from the surface.

[ Ironically, Crash will have returned next time, so this hire was probably moot. ]

What do we have here?

 

Present:

• MARMALADING Buzz "Cut". Solomani Soldier from Seven – Shane
• Dr Paczki Knodel. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Seven – Darryl
• Stella Cauthon. Solomani Rogue from Seven - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING Heidi Vasovagal. Solomani Scientist from Seven - Steven
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• Jon "Crash" Straker. Solomani Pilot from Seven – Jamie

by Richard

We are sitting supping coffee and debriefing with Dr Strangelove at the Cauthon Institute. Itzy has reminded us that for those who met with the Zhodani Ambassador, Anya Lukashenko, that we should check ourselves for bugs. None.

"Ve need to see how many of zee portals are inside someone – both those who were infected on Rose planet and those who weren’t infected. That is the vay ve vill understand this more," mused Paczki Knodel.

"We need a way of detecting them" Strangelove responded.

"Ya. My brother Powidła, Head of Genetic Medicines at the Vilnius Medical Institute, is vorking on zat. It vill involve fluid passing through a person with zee fluid containing zee necessary radioscopic components to detect zee miniscule radiation emitted from zee tiny portals"

"I vill take him another veek or so"

"If these portals are airborne then surely Anton, Itzy and Sang may be emitting them with their breathing" a worried Strangelove announced.

"Well, that horse has bolted hasn’t it?" Stella responded. "We've been travelling with them for weeks.

"Nevertheless, we should all wear N99 masks" and with that Strangelove rummaged through some nearby draws and produced a number.

Paczki's mobile phone rings, interrupting our thoughts and it is his brother Dr Faworki Knodel, from the hospital.

"Two of ze Zhodani girls are missing" exclaims Faworki. "Their guardian Ben is in an uproar. Can you please come?"

"Ya – zee team vill come now"

We quickly head to the monorail and catch the next one to the hospital where we go to Faworki's lab.

The investigation begins with the hospitals CCTV footage. The quality is very poor but it quickly reveals the two Zhodani girls walking though the hospital in the early hours and being met by what appeared to be two other Zhodani woman who then led them outside.

Switching to the hospitals outside, but equally poor quality CCTV, we see the girls being led to a white van and it driving away.

The quality of the CCTV is so poor that we are unable to recognize the Zhodani woman or see their features and nor are we able to identify the van's number plate.

We do notice however that there are a number of CCTV cameras on buildings and atop poles, clearly put here by the authorities.

"We should ask the police for the footage" says Stella

"They won't give it to us" responds Sang "better I hack in to their system"

"If we do that first and fail then we are at a dead end and perhaps in jail. Why don’t we see if the police will allow us to view their tapes and if that fails then we try and hack in" 

"I suppose" accepted Sang who was dying to continue to use her very impressive computer skills.

We obtain documentation on Z1 and Z3 (the Zhodani girls) stating they are patients under the care of Dr Faworki Knodel and head off to the police.

Stella with her blouse slightly undone and offering generous donations to the Police Benevolent Fund convinces Sergeant Sherbet to allow us to view the tapes. These show our two Zhodani, Z1 and Z3, being led to a white van, licence plate ZOD12579X.

CCTV footage

Using the police network of cameras, we then follow that vans route directly to the Zhodani Embassy!

"We should have another meeting with Ania, I think" says Stella

We head back to the Cauthon Institute and Stella texts Ania seeking a further meeting. Ania quickly responds and agrees to meet the next day for a drink at the Shining Rose pub at 1pm.

The next day Crash, Anton and Stella head to the Shining Rose where they meet Ania and several of her entourage and guards.

An amicable but pointed conversation occurs with Anya denying everything but struggling to explain why the van entered embassy grounds. Enough information is shared about portals and nano technology to clearly worry the Zhodani ambassador.

Returning to the Cauthon Institute, Crash immediately contacts Sergeant Bates of the Imperium soldiers and updates him with recent developments and seeks an armed presence at the hospital on the strong suspicion that the Zhodani will try and take the other 4 girls Z2, Z4, Z5 & Z6.

And our suspicions were well founded. The next morning Faworki calls Paczki advising him that Zhodani entered the hospital again last night and this time were captured by the Imperium guard. They were arrested but sought and were granted diplomatic immunity as they were Zhodani embassy staff.

We obtain a photo of the two Zhodani arrested from Bates and quickly verify that they were two of Anya's staff at the Shining Rose.

Now we commenced the experimentation part of the evening.

"I haf been contemplating" advised Paczki.

"Ve need to conduct a number of experiments to determine how many portals are within someone and where those portals go. My hypothesis is that there is 100's within those infected from the Rose planet and that they all lead back to the Rose planet at the point of infection"

"Why are we doing this?" questions Stella

"Because it is science and the Cauthon Institute is a science led organization" ( Little did Powidła know that the scientific component of the Cauthon Institute was just an entry point or trojan horse to enable the Cauthon Institute and its Imperium backers to infiltrate various societies to enhance its capitalistic and militaristic objectives. Stella of course knew of this and used it to further her own personal objectives. )

Stella raised her eyebrows "Very well, let's get on with whatever you have planned."

"Very good! We vill need to continue to analyse the genetic material, use nano bot technology to explore those infected and perhaps those not infected and also use my tubular technology to identify where the portals go."

"We vill start with one of the Zhodani girls"

We made our way to the hospital and advised Faworki that we wanted to use the nano bot technology to explore one of the Zhodani girls' systems to identify how many portals were inside. Faworki would only do this with Ben's consent which he provided on the basis that Powidła would not "cure them" for fear of his life.

"I vill not cure zem" he promised.

In respect to the genetic material, we learnt quickly by referencing prior experiments and analysis that the genetic mutations were extremely varied. No two genetic mutations were the same. We did though learn through that process that Zhodani were human 100,000 years ago.

"We could cure them from being Zhodani?" questioned Crash

"Yes, technically so" responded Faworki " but highly unethical and ironically we could turn Humans into Zhodani too"

All the group except Stella were keen to use the nano bots to enter a Zhodani girl, via the tear duct, given it was their brain that was impacted and mutated.

Stella was very reluctant given the harm caused to her last time but the group soon realized they needed her navigation skills and so convinced her into coming.

The voyage begins. Psych rolls are made and Anton fails and whines tirelessly in the corner. Space craft and navigation rolls are successful.

Crash's blade gets wedged in the portal

After 10 minutes or so we come across a portal. Sang and Crash go out to cut it out using nano bot blades. Crash misses and his blade becomes wedged in the portal and unable to be retrieved. 

Sang is successful and we begin the trip back portal in tow.

Suddenly our radiation sensors go into overdrive with significant radiation detected. 

"It is coming from ze portal" 

"Its unidirectional" said Crash "point it away"

We did and the radiation diminished and we continued our journey back. But shortly after the radiation levels rose again sharply.

"We have to leave it" said Sang urgently

"And get out of here" said a panicking Itzy.

We leave the portal and quickly make our way back to the needle and out the tear duct. Dr Faworki recognizes our return and completes the necessary procedures to bring us around.

As we all slowly wake, the more astute of us notice the Zhodani head throbbing red until moments later it explodes. Those who were perceptive dived for cover in time but Stella, Anton ad Itzy all look damage dropping hit points to 4,3,4 respectively.

" Zere was no radiation until ve cut it out – I sink ze portals are morphing and intelligent"

"Didn’t you say you got a nano blade stuck in it?" his brother question

"Yah"

"Vell that would be sufficient energy to cause this effect I zink. A normal blade wouldn't but a nano blade has its own energy and I would calculate half a giga electron."

"Zat explains it zen"

By now we have turned the air pumps off and using the filter system to see how many minute portals are in the air. We all have masks on to avoid inadvertent swallowing.

After 12 hours being "imprisoned" in the lab, wearing masks and covered in Zhodani blood and matter, we discover 6 micro portals in the filters.

"Tat is very useful information" Faworki exclaims – we should just blow up more Zhodani!

We take a few days rest. Paczki puts the portals on slides.

"ve could make bombs out of these " he mutters. 

Anton, Itzy and Stella rest to regain all their hit points and Anton is psychoanalyzed to stop him being a whimpering mess.

After a few days rest we decide to take a similar voyage into Anton to see if he still has portals in him despite being cured. This time the voyage is relatively uneventful and we discover a portal but don’t cut it out, to everyone's relief. I say relatively as Paczki failed his psych roll and became a little crazier.

Upon our exit we tried to psychoanalyze him but fumbled and made things worse. Nothing a few days in a psych ward won't fix.

After Paczki returns to relative normality, we decide to undertake our last experiment – to use the tubular technology and a small bot to take photos through the portal. 

This in fact goes well – the tubes work and the nano robot is able to successfully take photos and return. We of course are not prepared to put one of us through it or open both ends of the tube at once.

All mcro portals to Rose, it seems

The photos are all of the Rose planet, in the wilderness where we suspect the infections occurred.

"I vould be interesting to see if someone who was on the Rose planet but not infected, had ze micro portals"

We all look at the marmalading Hoff – the only non-infected Rose survivor.

So, will Hoff stop marmalading enough to allow a further voyage into the unknown, or maybe he can be entered while actually marmalading? 

What further secrets can we unlock?

Nano Bots, Zhodani and Portals

 Present:

• MARMALADING Buzz "Cut". Solomani Soldier from Seven – Shane
• Dr Paczki Knodel. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Seven – Darryl
• Stella Cauthon. Solomani Rogue from Seven - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Heidi Vasovagal. Solomani Scientist from Seven - Steven
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• Jon "Crash" Straker. Solomani Pilot from Seven – Jamie

by Ian

Nano Bots, Zhodani and Portals

Our group of space travellers are eagerly sitting in the lab as the expensive equipment charges up. Finely tuned motors steer the electron gun toward the nano-portal, suspended in the receiving cradle. The voltage climbs and as soon as a critical energy level is met, the electron stream starts to scan the portal.

Instantly, the tiny portal defends itself and reverse blasts an explosion. The team later determine was the equivalent of about 1kg of TNT detonated in the lab!

A super-heated blast expands out from the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) and destroys the lab wall, sending glass and shrapnel all around the observation room. Luckily, everyone dives for cover in time and avoids any significant damage. The same cannot be said for the $1 billion-credit microscope. It stood significantly damaged in the centre of the room, while fire devoured the flammable materials.

The Imperium guards burst into the area and were reassured to see this was not another Zhodani attack. The university technicians and staff scrambled the fire extinguishers with the sprinkler system doing the rest.

An extremely pale looking Dr Faworki Knodel mentions the devastating loss to the University and how could they possibly recover? Their insurance excess alone could fund a small country.

"Vhere is the portal?" Dr Faworki asks? The party that were there all shrug "Dunno - sounds like a you problem?" (Spanner and Paczki were not present - the party members present were not smart enough to think through such problems). 

An astute lab assistant who looked remarkably like Jamie, suggested an air extraction through a filter. The nano portal was 3 microns in diameter so the filter just had to be small than that.

The room was sealed as best they could and the air pumps started. It was going to take a few hours. Meanwhile everyone agreed that keeping four Imperium guards (and Sergeant Bates) around would be wise.

A short while later, Stella gets a comms from Dr Strangelove. Apparently the Zhodani ambassador (embassy is based in Vilnius) wants to meet with the Cauthon crew that visited Rose.

Zhodani Ambassador
Anya Lukashenko

"The Ambassador is Anya Lukashenko. She is a big deal and you should meet" Strangelove insists. An appointment is quickly arranged and a small delegation of Stella, Crash and Anton head to the address of the Zhodani Embassy.

The three are ushered in with no issue or unnecessary formality. They are shown to a comfortable meeting room and Anya enters. Introductions are made.

"Well, sank you for agreeing to meet wit me" Anya starts. "Ve are very keen to work wit you folk that visit Rose planet and are now riddled with small portals. Ve can help research and get zem removed".

Stella immediately employs her talented negotiation and diplomacy skills. "Oh, that sounds interesting? How precisely would you do that?".

"It would be nothing. We would just haf to open zem up and dig round a little...".

The conversation went to and fro. Nothing was agreed with certainty, but also nothing was left off the table. The Zhodani agreed to assist with the replacement of the scanning transmission electron microscope if they could have access to a nano portal or two to study. While the Zhodani research facilities were not that good on Vilis, they were high quality (equivalent to the hospital here) back in Zhodani systems.

Anya denied knowing anything about the recent Zhodani train assault. Stella provided the images obtained from the police and security footage.

Anya asked Stella why Dr Strangelove was the head at the major Cauthon institute on Vilis? He was not well liked and known for being creepy and lecherous. Stella defended Dr Strangelove with a simple "He gets things done."

Anya was intrigued to find that Anton was one of the party that had actually visited Rose. She was keen to know as much as possible. Luckily Anton was not exactly a wealth of valuable information.

The three shake hands and depart via taxi. They watch for followers but see none. Eventually everyone meets up back at the University.

Dr Paczki Knodel then tries to determine the scale of the nano-portal and the explosion. Various math and beard stroking occurred. In the end, they knew that the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) would have used 400 Giga Electron Volts of energy (barely anything). 

A 3.6 metre full-size portal scaled to a 3.6 µm micro portal is a million times smaller. The portal-multiplier is about 100 (on planet Augustus in Zeta 2 system a 10MT device was put through and a 1GT explosion resulted). Assuming the explosion goes by the cube of the portal scale, this means we multiply the stream from the STEM by 1 million cubed and by another 100 for the portal-multiplier.

So, the 400GeV pulse yields 400x10^9 x 10^18 x 100 = 4E31 eV which is equal to 1.5 kg of TNT.

At some point the air pump signalled it had finished. The scientists examined the filter extremely carefully. Terrific news in that the nano-portal was indeed there! High fives all around, in particular that tech that looked like Jamie.

Dr Paczki Knodel was also brought an experiment he was working on that was making a nano-sized carapace shell out of his synthetic materials. A small egg shaped canister with screw cap was provided.

The group discussed the next actions:

1. Descend to the underground testing facility with the nano-portal to try and scan the portal for radiation. The underground facility was shielded from the natural radiation closer to the surface that would have swamped any detection attempts.
2. Descend to the underground testing facility with the nano-portal to try sending through the Dr Knodel carapace with a tiny custom bot inside
3. Go to the main Hospital and help Spanner with understanding her genetic issues

The party and the scientists decide to scan for radiation as this is an easy test. Everyone heads down the long elevator decent to 100m below ground, then to a chamber that is shielded by heavy water. A scanner is placed near the small portal and at about 1mm, they detect a very weak radiation signal. The radiation that matches planet Rose. Hypothesis confirmed, but difficult to use the information as the scanner has to be literally beside the portal. The original idea was to try and use a scan to detect the portals. That is not going to work with the current technology.

Portal Pod Experiments

A day waiting is spent as the Hospital research technicians build a simple nano-bot that does a series of actions:

- Wait for 1 minute

- Unscrew a carapace cap from the inside

- Move to outside the capsule

- Take a series of photos

- Return to the capsule

- Internally roll the capsule 'back'

- Screw the lid closed

- Stop

With this all ready, the party move the portal and equipment to the nano-remote control lab. Anton, Knodel and Spanner put on the bot control caps and get ready to go. The bots are put into a syringe and delivered to the portal slide. They carefully make their way to the portal with Knodel leading a wheelbarrow that has his capsule on it. At this scale its an egg shape of roughly 1m x2m dimension.

They open one end and carefully place the programmed bot inside. They start the bot and a time and quickly screw shut the lid. The trio manoeuvre the pod to the portal and send the capsule through. There was a strong Gamma ray burst at the moment the portal was breached.

They wait the designed 5 minutes and the capsule comes back! Unscrew the end and the bot was there! The program had a green success status light blinking.

The explorers return to the syringe and are safely extracted. The tiny bot uploads its data and a series of low quality photos displays. The party members that were on Rose instantly recognize the photo location as the main Spire portal control room on Rose, within Spire City. It looks like the tiny portal exited around where the 128 bit mushroom control panel was.

Spanner Nano Mission

Everyone regroups and celebrates the success of proving that the carapace will work.

"What are we going to do now?"

Dr F. Knodel checks Spanner and Itzy by drawing another blood sample. He confirms that they are both still experiencing ongoing genetic mutation. Spanner decides that enough is enough and it is time to be cured.

Dr F. Knodel confirms he can direct the mission to a location where a fix can applied. Volunteers are called for and all but the group's Dr P. Knodel connect up to the nano-bot controls.

We zoom to the nano-submarine with Crash at the helm and the party are injected into Spanners arm.

Almost immediately the crew spot a nano-portal in the wall of the vein. The sub is parked and Spanner volunteers to cut out her own portal.

The bots are guided to a nearby 'body cell'. All but Itzy and Stella make it through the transition gate. Unfortunately they are stuck on the outside. As the inside team cut a hole to let them in, they notice three P53 proteins rapidly approaching to defend Spanner's systems.

"Fire missiles!" Anton directs as he cuts the wall. "Hmmmm, our only 2 missile fighters outside at the moment?". After a series of eye-rolls and forehead slapping, Crash, Anton and Spanner prepare to take on the 3 proteins, with Heidi as a backup. They have a short wait as the defence proteins close the distance.

As the Proteins rapidly approach, Stella squeezes through the fresh opening and has time to fire one missile! 20! She breaks her missile launcher permanently (for this trip).

Next Itzy comes though, has time to fire a missile and it goes wide.

The defence proteins arrive for the first combat wave. The party engage and suffer only minor hits. They cause significant damage and Stella supports Spanner to immediately destroy one of the 3.

They collectively clear the defence Proteins without further fuss and move off to the Nucleus. They approach the entry cilia channel and enter. Most make it but Stella and Crash take significant damage (6 and 4 respectively). A quick round of first aid to help and the group continue to the DNA strand where they follow the Professor F. Knodel instructions and replace a mutated section with a corrected section of DNA string.

As the cell starts to split and apply the correct programming, the crew speed back to the vein, submarine and portal. They carefully navigate with a successful pilot roll for Crash and easily make it to the extraction site and zap back to the syringe. Everyone leaves the nano-bot control systems without issue.

Dr P. Knodel's Tube

After a couple of days of healing, the parties Dr Paczki Knodel gathers the group with a new experiment.

This time he has a nano sized tube. This one has a screw cap at either end, but is much longer than the egg shaped prototype shell. The objective is to see if the carapace tube can stay in the portal and still protect the occupants through.

**Note that it was stressed that at NO time was the tube to be fully opened at both ends at the same time, therefore allowing a 're-pressurization' event. Basically the tube is to be used just like an air lock.**

P. Knodel, Anton, Heidi and Spanner connect up and get ready to go. They target the SAME portal as the first test (Anton's portal). Off they go with the tube cylinder and bot at the ready.

They load the bot into the tube and push the tube half way through and unscrew their end. The bot is sitting there in the tube perfectly fine, test program count down proceeding perfectly. They carefully close their screw end again.

They wait.....

The bot is again programmed to open the other end, take a photo - this time they are keen to get a photo of the tube as it extends from the portal.

They test and when they assume the bot end is open, they cannot pull the tube back at all. It is locked solid.

When they know the bot is finished and can safely assume that the end is screwed closed - they CAN pull the tube back to the party side.

SUCCESS!

They return to the lab and download the images and see all the same things. The destination had not changed.

One more experiment. This time Sang's Portal. The same team performing the same actions. All went well. This time on return the photos showed a wilderness area that seemed to be near the mountains, close to Ben's cave area it seems. The photo looking back just shows the tube suspended in mid air. There is no visible sign of any portal exit.

It is clear the party have discovered a different kind of portal that is similar to the static portals that transport users to Rose, but this time:

1. Nano sizing

2. Mobile. Able to move around. The portal is ALWAYS perfectly vertical, but can be spun around 360 degrees, move vertically and horizontally.

Once everyone is back together, rested and fed they start discussing the next options. Looking to answer some of the following questions:

1. Do Ben Gunn's brain-dead Zhodani girls that were on Rose have nano-portals in them?

2. Does each human have only one portal or are they carrying many?

3. How can we 'detect' Portals without being 1 micron away from it?

4. Does Itzy want to be cured of his genetic mutations? Or keep them and take the chance that his groin does not become mushrooms like Anton's did?

Complications

Present:

• Buzz "Cut". Solomani Soldier from Seven – Shane
• MARMALADING Dr Paczki Knodel. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Seven – Darryl
• Stella Cauthon. Solomani Rogue from Seven - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Heidi Vasovagal. Solomani Scientist from Seven - Steven
• Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• Jon "Crash" Straker. Solomani Pilot from Seven – Jamie

by Richard

The mission to Vilis has been meant to cure the mutations of Anton, Sang and Itzy.

Anton's fungoid member and secretion of formic acid appeared to have been cured or at least on its way to being cured, through our nano-bot medical examination and internal adventure, however entirely new questions about the Ancients' technology and the nature of the infection itself had been revealed.

We now had, in a containment unit, a microscopic portal glowing with faint rose-coloured light, a tiny doorway to a nightmare world that operated at every conceivable scale.

Powidła Knodel - Head of Genetic Medicines at the Vilnius Medical Institute, and Paczki's brother, was rubbing his hands with glee. Never had such an amazing opportunity for scientific research at the cutting edge of technology been at his fingertips.

"Ve vill need ze assistance with ze research on zis portal" Powidła proclaimed.

"I have such a man – ze Head of ze Physics Department at Vilis Institute of Technology and Management. His name is Dr Faworki Knodel" [ pronounce "fah-VOR-key" ]

"Don’t say another brother?" asked Anton.

"Ya, of course – I have six brothers – seven of us in all – all in ze sciences except Gołąbki who is a market gardener."

"I need you to take zee portal to Dr Faworki. He vill be very helpful".

"Best you take the monorail – there is a station at zee Institute. You three (pointing at Anton, Itzy and Sang) vill need to vear masks to reduce the impact of the prions."

"Can't we get a driver and car?" asked Stella, having woken up from her marmalading state.

"Nein. Zis is a big city with 25m people – car is too inefficient"

Stella thought about arguing. She hated public transport but thought better of it and with a sigh acquiesced.

Buzz gets the briefcase

We were provided with a briefcase, lined with iron, that fitted the containment unit holding the microscope slide (and cover slip) containing the microscopic portal. Buzz took it and we headed to the monorail stop.

The trip would be a little over an hour with several station stops. 

About 30 minutes into the journey, and between stations, the train came to a abrupt stop. Shortly after, the door to our carriage was forced open by four Zhodani.

[ DM note: Zhodani make up about 10% of the normal Imperium population (along with pointy-eared Daryens and Viking Sword-Worlders), so despite the diplomatic incident at Winston, there is little anti-Zhodani sentiment in normal society, apart from the normal latent racism. ]  

They had side-arms and were yelling for everyone to get down. Everyone did.

Buzz tried to slide the brief case under a seat and attracted a bullet that intentionally missed him by a few millimetres.

"Hey – no need for that!" Buzz yelled, and immediately attracted two more bullets this time to the chest and abdomen. Buzz fell back, a pool of blood forming around his unconscious body.

"Can we tend to him?" Stella asks in her most appeasing tone.

"Get on with it" grunted one of the Zhodani. "And give us that briefcase."

Heidi attended to Buzz, stopping his bleeding. In the commotion caused, Anton [with a superbly successful Stealth roll] opened the briefcase and discretely removed the microscope slide containing the portal and secreted it on himself.

On the Zhodani command he slid the briefcase across to them.

"What's the combination?" they grunted.

"1,2,3,4,5,6" responded Anton

The Zhodani open the now empty briefcase.

Angrily looking back at us they demand "where is the slide?!"

At this point Stella speaks up (being the one with the highest appearance and Persuasion).

"We do not know of any slide," she quizzically responds. "We are on instruction from the Vilnius Medical Institute to travel to the Vilis Institute of Technology and Management to pick up a package and deliver it back – we know of no slide."

Stella said this in the most eloquent and non-confrontational manner using a limited amount of Zhodani.

"We were told you were delivering a slide to the Institute," grunted the Zhodani.

"Well, I can't possibly know what you were told, Miss, but unfortunately that information is not correct. We are to pick up a package, and we don’t even know what that is," continued Stella.

The sounds of sirens can be heard getting closer above the Zhodani tirade and the even louder feminine-like squealing of Buzz in agony.

The Zhodani glance at each other, leave quickly, climb down the monorail pylons and disappear from site. 

The monorail resumes its journey and at the next station the police swarm on board and quickly gather us in one carriage to question us. An ambulance is also called for Buzz.

We are fully cooperative with the cops, and remain consistent with the story we told the Zhodani (that we are travelling to the Vilis Institute of Technology and Management to pick up a package). 

Sang with her photographic memory was able to describe the Zhodani perfectly and the carriage had CTV which confirmed what happened. It did not however pick up the fact Anton had surreptitiously opened the briefcase. It also did not pick up Stella's claim that her Rolex had been stolen.

After the police left the party quietly discussed next steps.

"Clearly someone is a leak – we can't completely trust anyone"

"Let's get the slide and its contents to the Cauthon Institute for safe keeping"

"That’s a good idea – how?"

"We can call Dr Strangelove and ask that a lower functionary meet us at the Cauthon stop and we can discretely deliver them the slide – Anton could do that – no one expects a fat man to be discrete."

"Also ask for a radio frequency monitor"

"And then we carry onto the Institute and look to pick up the package"

"Good idea – we need to stick with our story"

And so, the plan was laid, and Stella rings Dr Strangelove and agrees that we will discretely give the package to Cauthon operative Jane Wally at the Cauthon Institute monorail stop. A picture of her is sent to us, and we send back a photo of Anton (taken on wide lens).

"I don’t like the look of her," comments Stella

"Why?" asks Itzy "She's gorgeous."

"Exactly!!" [Stella has an appearance of 17 and Jane was 18 – creating a not-so-easy-to-like jealous Stella].

Jane Wally at the Cauthon
Institute monorail stop

Our monorail stops at Cauthon Institute Station, and Anton uses his stealth to deliver our package to Jane, and pick up the cigarette-packet sized radio frequency monitor. Where Jane hid it was anyone's guess.

We carry on to the Institute of Technology and Management and head to the Physics department and find our way to Dr Faworki Knodel's office. His Zhodani(!) assistant meets us and asks us to wait. We all look at each having the same question running through our minds – is this the leak? (all except Anton whose mind is 6 and has very little running through it)

Knodel, like all the Knodels we have met, is eccentric and loud, with a strong accent. But eventually we get him to listen to us away from is assistant's keen ears. For extra precaution we use Anton's Hall Pass. (This is an Ancients' technology bracelet that he picked up months ago - pre Rose - that stops all devices that use the Hall effect - i.e. transistors, ICs, MOSFETs - within a 3m radius. Note that vacuum tube valves don't use the Hall effect. )

Deciding that we have little choice but to trust Faworki we tell him our stories – both the truth and the fabricated one we told the Zhodani. We ask him to play along with the fabricated story, which he agrees to.

Faworki's main concern is cooperating with the Cauthon Institute, which he lambasts (he doesn't think much of Strangelove) until Stella is fully introduced to him. She then, as she is apt to do, works to convince him the Cauthon Institute would willingly form an alliance with the Physics department and fund valuable research. Stella loves contracts.

Playing along with our façade, Faworki gets a slide from the biology department and has it delivered to us. This is in front of his assistant and we will soon see where her loyalties lie.

We then start our monorail journey back to the Vilnius Medical Institute, a journey which is uninterrupted (maybe we can trust Faworki's assistant after all).

Getting back, we rejoin with Buzz, who had luckily been brought by the ambulance to this very hospital facility, and quickly regroup with Powidła Knodel.

We use the radio frequency monitor to detect for bugs and find several through Powidła's office and on the office phone. Itzy writes a warning down for Powidła to read and asks him to go along with us.

"Yes, we will take the slide in two days" we say, over-emphasizing the point.  "We will be back then".

We now head to the Cauthon Institute and are welcomed by Dr Strangelove. The slide had been placed in a secure safe in Stella's apartment and with a guard on the door at all times.

"We need to work with the physics department and Dr Faworki" says Strangelove after lengthy discussions. "They have the technology and the scanning transmission electron microscopes that we don’t, and which will be needed to property investigate and observe the micro portal."

"I think we should tell Admiral Ramsbottom" suggests Crash and Itzy.

"Yes, we probably should"

We send a message to Ramsbottom, leader of the Villis Imperial Forces, explaining the circumstances, and quickly get a reply advising that a Sergeant Bates will be at the Cauthon Institute shortly.

"That was prompt" muttered Anton and indeed within two hours Sergeant Bates and four heavily-armed Imperium soldiers arrive. Bates, who we smirkingly in a teenager-type of matter, refer to as Master, is fully up to date with who we are and our backgrounds.

We inform him fully of what has occurred emphasizing the Zhodani plot to steel the micro portal and feeding on the Imperium's paranoia of the Zhodani ambition to take Imperium space using Ancient technology.

We explain that we need to take the micro portal to the Institute of Technology and Management to be fully assessed utilizing their technology. 

"We need to ensure the Zhodani don’t intercept us"

"There are 800 million on Vilis Prime" explains Bates, "they aren’t all bad."

"Nevertheless, we need to be careful"

"Would you like an armed escort of Imperium soldiers? – maybe a squad"

"How about a platoon" suggests Stella fluttering her eyes.

"That would seem appropriate" responds Bates staring at Stella's ample cleavage.

The Imperium help out

Three hours later a platoon of 32 Imperium soldiers, with two mechs, arrives and safely escort us to the Institute.

We quickly connect with Dr Faworki and search the facilities for bugs. We find several and destroy them. Clearly the Zhodani have been watching these facilities for some time suspecting they were investigating Ancient technology.

Now the investigations begin on the micro portals.

And do Sang and Itzy also carry then? given they are suffering the Rose Planets DNA modification.

And will Stella's attempt at a contract between the Cauthon Institute and the Institute of Technology and Management, Physics department reap reward?

And will we meet another Knodel brother?

These questions and more will be answered next week.