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.