When we first get into the Likandry system things get a little exciting right from the start. Initially we are greeted nicely by three escort ships, which offer to escort us to their capital of Harmonia. Having looked over the information that we were given by the Ra on Saltrushia about this system, the name of their capital doesn't surprise me. The Likandry are a people who are very orderly in their ways. They believe in the notion that order breeds harmony. As a result they are very musically inclined due to the orderly nature of music, or at least the music they listen too.
So at this point I can once again point out that some people are good at getting the data, but can be absolutely horrible at using it. Kraig who happened to be piloting our Freighter at this point hails the escorts back, saying that our ship the Discordia and her crew would appreciate the escort. Yes, always a good idea to start off a new relationship by coming out and saying we are something your people highly dislike. Almost like walking up to a group of Wookies and saying, "Hi, my name is Washes with Soap, mind if we talk?"
NOTE: geeks are not good at first encounters and opening relations.
It turns out the escorts were nice enough to still escort us to their capital despite Kraig's giggling at his naming of the Discordia. Alas the initial introductions were not the worst thing to happen. As we started heading into the system, a group of four tie- fighters came flying out from behind a nearby moon that we were passing, and quickly destroy one of the escorts.
Kadlo in his Y-Wing peals off from the side of our ship, and quickly engages the tie-fighters. While we try our best to fend them off in our freighter. After a battle that rages for several minutes, we end up in the midst of the three destroyed escorts and only two destroyed tie-fighters. Before Kadlo can engage the remaining two tie-fighters a new cruiser appears on the scene, and hails us offering to escort us to their leader.
Seeing as how we only managed to survive the last battle because the tie-fighters were concentrating on the escorts instead of us, we figured it was best to be escorted. We didn't stand a chance against the tie-fighters and a cruiser.
So with our visit to Likandry already exciting we followed the escort cruiser to their base. Their base happened to be an old Imperial Biodome base on an airless moon. As we came into land it was obvious from the markings on the base exterior that this was a remnant of the old Empire. But seeing as how we were in no position to flee or do anything we land at the appropriate landing bay they instruct us too.
The rest of the group head down to meet the captain, Ben even wears his pirate hat, which he thinks is now his formal dress attire. Meanwhile I tend to the cargo, in the hold to make sure its safe and secure after all the heavy maneuvering that we had just gone through.
From the conversation with a Captain Rengar, the group learns that from this base they govern the whole Likandry system. The people that we first encountered were actually pirates who were raiding the people that come into the system. After the nice introduction, Ben fails to sell his bouncy balls to the Captain. The Captain though quickly turns the discussion back to what he really wanted to talk to us about.
Apparently he and his fellow members of the base want to break off from the governing body of old Imperial rule. They want to be a free and democratic society without living in fear of the tyrannical Moff who is currently in charge of the base and surrounding area. The Moff is the last of the Imperials left in the system, and is only managing to keep his rule due to his vicious and heavy handed control of the people. If he were to be "removed" from power, then the people would be able to take over and govern for themselves. Rengar would like our help in removing the Moff from power, so that he can help bring democracy and free rule to the system.
By this point I've wandered outside and managed to find the base quartermaster. After a brief bit of negotiations I'm able to sell all of the Saltrushian Ale on board for 2900 credits, and help him to start unloading the Ale. I also try unsuccessfully to sell him the "small orbular entertainment" devices, otherwise known as bouncy balls. No matter I got some money out of the deal.
As I finish up with the quartermaster I wander over and join the rest of the group as they finish up negotiating with Rengar for about 2500 credits apiece. It turns out that they negotiated for each of us 2500 credits, if we manage to remove the Moff.
Money is money, so it is not that bad of a deal. Although for that kind of money I could hire someone else to do the dirty work for us too. Now there is an idea, if I could find a bounty hunter and give him 2500 credits to do the work for us, it would save us a headache. That is what is called outsourcing. Then again the Moff is a high official and probably has some big guards to protect him. Even more so, since this Moff is apparently a really mean one, so getting close enough to even plant a bomb of some sort would be hard to do. Now that I think about it Rengar got a really good deal paying only 12,500 credits to get five people to do his job. Heck that much wouldn't even buy the services of one good bounty hunter, for that matter it might not even buy the services of a bad one.
As the discussion of cost wraps up it looked as though Roshan was going to object to the price as being too low for the job. But my hopes were dashed when he went on about how he isn't too thrilled about killing people anymore, especially assassinating someone. For brief second I had thought he might be making a scene to get more money, but then I figured its Roshan, he might not be that savvy to pull a trick like that. In the end the rest of the group calm him down enough to except the deal.
While the deal is being closed Ben lets it slip that he is a Jedi, and causes a few of the people to raise an eye brow, and Rengar looks at him briefly with a look of concern. Despite that little slip, and with the deal made, Rengar offers us a day of rest at his base before we must depart for the planet and the Moff.
The next day as we are readying things for the trip to the planet, Gaycerian, below, Captain Rengar pulls Kadlo aside and mentions that it might be a good idea to leave his Y-Wing at the base. This way it doesn't look too suspicious when we go to the planet. Kadlo agrees and sets up the lock on his Y-Wing so that no one can get into it, which I commend him on, considering I don't want to see my investment get stolen.
While the rest of the group take advantage of Rengar's generosity of his armory, I manage to secure of contract to transport some special Mycrodul "ale" from a small mine. At 20,000 credits a piece and I get 50% of that for transporting about 5-10 crates of the stuff. Then again if I negotiate for more money I get that much more money too. The "ale" has to be kept undisturbed in its special crates though; otherwise it might "spoil" it. It's a special brand of "ale" called "Deep Star."
As we begin our take off proceeds, and the freighter starts to lift off the platform, the cargo doors fall open, dropping all of the cargo out on to the landing dock. The land speeder crashes hard onto the floor, and the bouncy balls bouncy all over the place. Kraig quickly lands the freighter and rushes out to collect his land speeder. As Kraig loads the land speeder back up onto the freighter, Ben manages to pick up a few of his bouncy balls and put them back on the freighter as well, as it turns out on crate of 1,000 managed to survive the fall almost intact the rest were scattered out too much, or destroyed by the people at the landing dock.
Kraig tries to figure out what happened, but only manages to find a blank tape with no information on it. Then again, since we never actually had any surveillance equipment on the interior of the ship in the first place, why he was surprised there was a blank tape I don't know. It is almost like wondering why the holocron disk in the recorder is blank, when the blasted recorder was never connected to the holo-net in the first place.
Finally we make good on our trip to Gaycerian below. Not wanting to be spotted to easily Kraig lands us in the middle of a desert several kilometers away from the house of our contact. Considering the whole planet is one big desert it wasn't hard for Kraig to land the freighter. The trick I think would be hiding the thing in the middle of the desert. Fortunately we land far enough from any place that it would require anyone to want to look to find us. It also helps that once we land a dust storm is seen heading our way.
With the dust storm looming on the horizon, Kraig gets out his land speeder, and we all hop in for the trip to our contact's place. Our contact's place is fortunately built into the side of a mountain, and so we are able to avoid the dust storm. When we knock on the door an old haggard looking man, who is wearing a light saber on his belt, answers it. The guy must be a really good with that light saber because he invites us all inside his house, to sit down and talk. (Note: There was an apprentice here that Ben chatted with)
It turns out this guy is Sal-Res Tayate, and used to be one of the Moff's generals. He helped the Moff take care of rebellions and other insurgencies as they came about. As a general he was also in charge of the Moff's personal security as well and thus knows a bit about how the Moff operates. But he grew tired of working for the Moff, and his role in the Moff's government, so he retired from his service.
Rengar did talk with him about removing the Moff from power, and he agreed to help Rengar as part of a deal. But Rengar has yet to live up to his end of the deal so he is reluctant to help us in any manner in such a pursuit.
When pressed for more information, Sal-Res mentions that he isn't sure that Rengar's characterization of the Moff as a mean and evil person is entirely accurate. Even more interesting is the mention by Sal-Res that Rengar may not be so much as interested in removing the Moff from power as supplanting him.
With that information gathered we soon find out the real reason why Sal-Res left the Moff's service. As it turns out Rengar was supposed to help him find out why there is such a great disturbance in the force not to far from where he is now. This disturbance was relatively strong for such an area, and thus it warranted investigating. So he retired from the Moff's service to begin investigating the source of this disturbance. As it turns out the disturbance is in what once used to be a lake, that has long since dried up, higher up in the mountain range. But because of his age and failing health he isn't able to make it to the lakebed to investigate any further, and that is where Rengar said he would help. Rengar though has yet to come through with the help, and so Sal-Res is not willing to offer any help.
Seeing this as an opportunity we offer to go find out the source of the disturbance for him, and in return he will help us gain access to the Moff. Sal-Res agrees to the deal, and then says we should start finding the way to the lake by following an old stream just down the way from his place.
I'm just wondering why the old Jedi couldn't have gone and found the source of this force presence on his own. I mean if it is as simple as following a dried up stream why can't he just go do it himself, or better yet send his young Jedi apprentice. I think that would be a good way to see if the kid is ready. Heck isn't that what apprentices are for? This is a dirty job, let the kid do it, and it will be good training for him. The fact the Jedi isn't doing this himself or sending his apprentice does not make me feel very good about this.
It doesn't much matter as we all hop into Kraig's speeder and head up the streambed and into the mountains. Since the several streams seem to converge occasionally into this one from odd directions, we put Ben in the passenger seat to sort guide us down the correct path. Nothing like a techie who can barely drive and barely Jedi giving directions. I was just surprised that at no point in the trip we didn't see the streaking of stars go by us as we jumped into hyperspace. Then again I'm also glad we didn't see stars, due to smacking into the side of a mountain.
During the trip, Roshan, Kraig, Kadlo, Nar-Ny and I discuss the virtues and values of breasts on females. Well at least as far as human and Saltrushian females go. Me being the only one familiar enough with Rodian women, decided not to get bring them into the conversation. I don't know what Ben was thinking the whole time, because he seemed to be concentrating more on directing us to the source of the force, then talking with the group. I just think the poor Jedi doesn't have enough experience to join in the conversation; then again maybe he was trying to hard to give directions and take mental notes about the conversation.
After a while the streambed that we were following entered into a gorge that got narrower as we got higher up into the mountains. At this point Ben was still pointing the way, despite the fact that the streambed we were following was the only one to follow, but he had to show he was good for something, even if it was pointing out the obvious. Before the gorge became narrow enough to cause the paint to scrape off Kraig's speeder we came out on to a huge deep dried up lake.
Peering out into the basin of the dried up lake, Kraig spotted two caves at the far end, and took the land speeder into investigate. Before we could even get halfway across the lakebed, two giant dark brown-scaled beasts jumped from what used to be the shores above us, and landed just in front of the speeder. Kraig managed to stop and back the speeder up a bit to get a shot off at one of the beasts from one of the mounted blasters on his speeder. Alas the sudden jerking of the speeder causes Nar-Ny to miss with his blaster.
One of the beasts though, manages to leap and jump on the speeder, and I had the misfortune of seeing this prowess up close, as the beast landed on top of me. The sudden slam on the beast on top of me caused me to miss firing my blaster at it. Ben smiles at the beast that jumped me, and mutters at it, which doesn't seem to do much of anything. Roshan on the other hand is little more helpful, or tries to be by firing his blaster at the beast, but he misses.
Kadlo pulls out his two blasters and fires shots off at the one beast that hasn't jumped on the speeder, and manages to land both shots on the beast. The problem is that this only causes the beast to notice him, and it charges and jumps on to the speeder and him as well. Thus we now have a running battle in the land speeder.
Kraig tries to erratically drive the speeder to throw off the beasts, or at least I believe that is what he was trying to do. He didn't impress me much the last time he drove a speeder while under pressure. Fortunately this time his driving was able to cause the beast on top of me to fall of the speeder. Because of that fact I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was his good driving that caused it to happen.
Nar-Ny gets his blaster and trains it on the beast currently on top of Kadlo and blasts it in the eye, causing a nice big gash in the side of its face. Poor Kadlo though gets drenched in green bloody goo as a result. I'm sure he is happy it was the beast's blood and not his own that splattered.
Meanwhile the other beast manages to get its footing back and jumps back on to the speeder, this time it goes after Kraig and tries to swipe at him with its claws. Kraig though still driving the speeder erratically manages to cause the beast to not get a good enough aim to connect with him.
Seeing the one beast is injured I figured it was best to get rid of that one, before it can do any serious harm to Kadlo, so I fire off a shot at it with my blaster. Hitting it causing even more green blood to splatter over Kadlo.
At this point Ben goes a little strange in the head. He suddenly stops muttering to himself, and smiling at the beast that is swiping at Kraig. Then for some reason he tries to reach over and pet the beast. Then when Roshan fires his blaster at the beast, and misses, Ben gives Roshan a really mean look.
Kadlo taking advantage of the fact the beast is right on top of him fires his two blasters into its belly, causing more green blood to spill over him. The beast apparently doesn't like to be the only one bleeding, and takes a big bite into Kadlo's shoulder causing Kadlo to start bleeding.
Suddenly a third beast appears, this one though is a dark red as opposed to the scaly dark brown of the other two, charging out of one of the caves. This beast leaps and tries to grab onto the beast currently attacking Kraig, but falls short. Kraig meanwhile tries to do more of his maneuvering but only manages to barely miss the wall of the dried up lakebed instead.
Nar-Ny decides to try and finish off Kadlo's beast and fires his blaster causing some more green blood to sputter forth.
Meanwhile the beast that was attacking Kraig, seems to take no notice at the other beast that has appeared. Instead it clamps down on Kraig with its jaw causing Kraig to bleed from the bite mark.
I finally get a good enough bead on Kadlo's beast to fire a shot through the holes in its scaly head to make a big enough hole to kill it.
Ben pulls out his light saber and takes a swing at the red beast, but due to the erratic driving of Kraig, only manages to drop his light saber on to the lakebed. Ben then dives out of the speeder as he tries to catch it. With the greatest lack of dexterity Ben lets the saber fall through his hands and on to the lakebed, and manages to end up the lakebed with it as well.
Roshan seeing as how Kadlo's beast is no longer a threat turns and tries to fire a shot off at the beast attacking Kraig. Also the erratic driving and such cause Roshan to miss with his shot. Kaldo meanwhile grabs for the medkit and gives himself a quick shot of coagulant to stop his bleeding.
Kraig yells for Roshan to jump into the passenger seat and man the secondary mounted blaster, as he fails to get a shot off with the mounted blaster in front of him. Nar-Ny misses a shot with his blaster as well.
The brown-scaled beast, seeing as Kraig is trying to use the mounted blaster to attack him, manages to knock it clean off with one swipe of its claw.
At this point the red beast stops in its tracks and seems to take in a deep breath. But this doesn't last for long, amongst the missed blaster shots from Roshan and me, Kraig starts to slam on the power for the speeder and drive erratically once again. This causes the red beast to fall of the speeder, but leaves the brown one still in front of him.
Nar-Ny suddenly yells at the group to stop firing and let the two beasts duke it out amongst each other. At which the brown scaled beast jumps off the speeder and attacks the red one. In the middle of the battle between the two beasts Ben charges the red beast with his light saber. Kadlo having taking careful aim manages to fire both blasters off and hit the brown-scaled beast in the leg, causing it limp a bit in the battle. Kraig then tosses a grenade into the fray and causes some damage to the brown beast. I would have helped but I ended up jamming my blaster instead.
Kadlo slumps to the floor at the back of the speeder, as Nar-Ny fires a shot off causing the brown-scaled beast to bleed. But it is with a great swipe from its claws that the red beast manages to finish off the other beast. As soon as the brown-scaled beast falls to the ground dead, the red one takes a deep breath and falls to the ground as well.
As we quickly tend to our wounded a shimmering figure appears in front of the speeder. The figure introduces herself as Mel-Rain to Kraig. She apparently is a Jedi who had traveled to this planet millennia ago, to investigate a dark presence. Apparently the dark presence had such an influence on this area that it became noticeable across the galaxy to the Jedi order. Its force concentration almost rivaled that of some Jedi sanctuary. When she was exploring the two caves, beasts similar to the ones that attacked us attacked her.
At this point Ben seemed to come too from his desire to pet the beasts, and started giddily asking what the hell was going on. Kadlo not being in much of a mood to deal with a giddy Ben pulled out his blaster and was going to fire, but Mel-Rain waved her hand and Kadlo's gun didn't seem to fire.
Mel-Rain continued on, to tell us that it appears there is some very dark object deep with in the cave. As she got closer to the dark object, the beasts became more ferocious and attacked even more viciously than before. Finally she was mauled so badly that she was barely able to make it out of the cave, and into the other cave to rest. But before she could tend to her wounds, the beasts in the second cave leapt upon her. She concentrated all her will into her belief in the force, and the beasts stopped their assault on her. The taming of the beasts though was the last thing she could do, as it drained her completely and she slowly died in the cave.
But the sudden concentration of the force caused her spirit to live on in the cave, as well as to stop the corruptive influence of the dark object upon the creatures that lived with in it. The creatures in the other cave though she could not reach with her power, so they remained under the sway of the dark force lurking inside the cave.
The dark object in the other cave, must be something of value to the Sith, because the creature are hunted and breed by the Sith for their scales and poison, Sith use the scales for their armor, and the poison for their blades and daggers. The Sith must have buried the object deep with in the cave and put these beasts there to guard it.
Mel-Rain then offers us sanctuary in her cave, and heals Kadlo and Kraig of their bite marks. She asks that once we have rested if we could go in to the cave and destroy the dark object found with in and stop its evil influence from spreading. We agree to do our best after we get some sleep.
As we begin to bunk down in the cave, we notice in the back in a side cave a group of the red-beasts are cautiously watching us. But we must not have been too interesting or Mel-Rain might have done something, because they slowly settle down to sleep as well.
Roshan on the other hand, lies on the ground and tries to go to sleep, but instead is given a wet lick across the face, by a younger one of the creatures that had wandered from the back of the cave. Roshan wipes the slime off his face, smiles and pets the creature on the top of its head. He then falls asleep with his hand petting the little creature on the head, by his side.
The next day as we are readying things for the trip to the planet, Gaycerian, below, Captain Rengar pulls Kadlo aside and mentions that it might be a good idea to leave his Y-Wing at the base. This way it doesn't look too suspicious when we go to the planet. Kadlo agrees and sets up the lock on his Y-Wing so that no one can get into it, which I commend him on, considering I don't want to see my investment get stolen.
While the rest of the group take advantage of Rengar's generosity of his armory, I manage to secure of contract to transport some special Mycrodul "ale" from a small mine. At 20,000 credits a piece and I get 50% of that for transporting about 5-10 crates of the stuff. Then again if I negotiate for more money I get that much more money too. The "ale" has to be kept undisturbed in its special crates though; otherwise it might "spoil" it. It's a special brand of "ale" called "Deep Star."
As we begin our take off proceeds, and the freighter starts to lift off the platform, the cargo doors fall open, dropping all of the cargo out on to the landing dock. The land speeder crashes hard onto the floor, and the bouncy balls bouncy all over the place. Kraig quickly lands the freighter and rushes out to collect his land speeder. As Kraig loads the land speeder back up onto the freighter, Ben manages to pick up a few of his bouncy balls and put them back on the freighter as well, as it turns out on crate of 1,000 managed to survive the fall almost intact the rest were scattered out too much, or destroyed by the people at the landing dock.
Kraig tries to figure out what happened, but only manages to find a blank tape with no information on it. Then again, since we never actually had any surveillance equipment on the interior of the ship in the first place, why he was surprised there was a blank tape I don't know. It is almost like wondering why the holocron disk in the recorder is blank, when the blasted recorder was never connected to the holo-net in the first place.
Finally we make good on our trip to Gaycerian below. Not wanting to be spotted to easily Kraig lands us in the middle of a desert several kilometers away from the house of our contact. Considering the whole planet is one big desert it wasn't hard for Kraig to land the freighter. The trick I think would be hiding the thing in the middle of the desert. Fortunately we land far enough from any place that it would require anyone to want to look to find us. It also helps that once we land a dust storm is seen heading our way.
With the dust storm looming on the horizon, Kraig gets out his land speeder, and we all hop in for the trip to our contact's place. Our contact's place is fortunately built into the side of a mountain, and so we are able to avoid the dust storm. When we knock on the door an old haggard looking man, who is wearing a light saber on his belt, answers it. The guy must be a really good with that light saber because he invites us all inside his house, to sit down and talk. In the corner sits a young looking, fellow who the old man introduces as his young apprentice. Ben takes this oppurtunity to talk with the apprentice.
It turns out this guy is Sal-Res Tayate, and used to be one of the Moff's generals. He helped the Moff take care of rebellions and other insurgencies as they came about. As a general he was also in charge of the Moff's personal security as well and thus knows a bit about how the Moff operates. But he grew tired of working for the Moff, and his role in the Moff's government, so he retired from his service.
Rengar did talk with him about removing the Moff from power, and he agreed to help Rengar as part of a deal. But Rengar has yet to live up to his end of the deal so he is reluctant to help us in any manner in such a pursuit.
When pressed for more information, Sal-Res mentions that he isn't sure that Rengar's characterization of the Moff as a mean and evil person is entirely accurate. Even more interesting is the mention by Sal-Res that Rengar may not be so much as interested in removing the Moff from power as supplanting him.
With that information gathered we soon find out the real reason why Sal-Res left the Moff's service. As it turns out Rengar was supposed to help him find out why there is such a great disturbance in the force not to far from where he is now. This disturbance was relatively strong for such an area, and thus it warranted investigating. So he retired from the Moff's service to begin investigating the source of this disturbance. As it turns out the disturbance is in what once used to be a lake, that has long since dried up, higher up in the mountain range. But because of his age and failing health he isn't able to make it to the lakebed to investigate any further, and that is where Rengar said he would help. Rengar though has yet to come through with the help, and so Sal-Res is not willing to offer any help.
Seeing this as an opportunity we offer to go find out the source of the disturbance for him, and in return he will help us gain access to the Moff. Sal-Res agrees to the deal, and then says we should start finding the way to the lake by following an old stream just down the way from his place.
I'm just wondering why the old Jedi couldn't have gone and found the source of this force presence on his own. I mean if it is as simple as following a dried up stream why can't he just go do it himself, or better yet send his young Jedi apprentice. I think that would be a good way to see if the kid is ready. Heck isn't that what apprentices are for? This is a dirty job, let the kid do it, and it will be good training for him. The fact the Jedi isn't doing this himself or sending his apprentice does not make me feel very good about this.
It doesn't much matter as we all hop into Kraig's speeder and head up the streambed and into the mountains. Since the several streams seem to converge occasionally into this one from odd directions, we put Ben in the passenger seat to sort guide us down the correct path. Nothing like a techie who can barely drive and barely Jedi giving directions. I was just surprised that at no point in the trip we didn't see the streaking of stars go by us as we jumped into hyperspace. Then again I'm also glad we didn't see stars, due to smacking into the side of a mountain.
During the trip, Roshan, Kraig, Kadlo, Nar-Ny and I discuss the virtues and values of breasts on females. Well at least as far as human and Saltrushian females go. Me being the only one familiar enough with Rodian women, decided not to get bring them into the conversation. I don't know what Ben was thinking the whole time, because he seemed to be concentrating more on directing us to the source of the force, then talking with the group. I just think the poor Jedi doesn't have enough experience to join in the conversation; then again maybe he was trying to hard to give directions and take mental notes about the conversation.
After a while the streambed that we were following entered into a gorge that got narrower as we got higher up into the mountains. At this point Ben was still pointing the way, despite the fact that the streambed we were following was the only one to follow, but he had to show he was good for something, even if it was pointing out the obvious. Before the gorge became narrow enough to cause the paint to scrape off Kraig's speeder we came out on to a huge deep dried up lake.
Peering out into the basin of the dried up lake, Kraig spotted two caves at the far end, and took the land speeder into investigate. Before we could even get halfway across the lakebed, two giant dark brown-scaled beasts jumped from what used to be the shores above us, and landed just in front of the speeder. Kraig managed to stop and back the speeder up a bit to get a shot off at one of the beasts from one of the mounted blasters on his speeder. Alas the sudden jerking of the speeder causes Nar-Ny to miss with his blaster.
One of the beasts though, manages to leap and jump on the speeder, and I had the misfortune of seeing this prowess up close, as the beast landed on top of me. The sudden slam on the beast on top of me caused me to miss firing my blaster at it. Ben smiles at the beast that jumped me, and mutters at it, which doesn't seem to do much of anything. Roshan on the other hand is little more helpful, or tries to be by firing his blaster at the beast, but he misses.
Kadlo pulls out his two blasters and fires shots off at the one beast that hasn't jumped on the speeder, and manages to land both shots on the beast. The problem is that this only causes the beast to notice him, and it charges and jumps on to the speeder and him as well. Thus we now have a running battle in the land speeder.
Kraig tries to erratically drive the speeder to throw off the beasts, or at least I believe that is what he was trying to do. He didn't impress me much the last time he drove a speeder while under pressure. Fortunately this time his driving was able to cause the beast on top of me to fall of the speeder. Because of that fact I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was his good driving that caused it to happen.
Nar-Ny gets his blaster and trains it on the beast currently on top of Kadlo and blasts it in the eye, causing a nice big gash in the side of its face. Poor Kadlo though gets drenched in green bloody goo as a result. I'm sure he is happy it was the beast's blood and not his own that splattered.
Meanwhile the other beast manages to get its footing back and jumps back on to the speeder, this time it goes after Kraig and tries to swipe at him with its claws. Kraig though still driving the speeder erratically manages to cause the beast to not get a good enough aim to connect with him.
Seeing the one beast is injured I figured it was best to get rid of that one, before it can do any serious harm to Kadlo, so I fire off a shot at it with my blaster. Hitting it causing even more green blood to splatter over Kadlo.
At this point Ben goes a little strange in the head. He suddenly stops muttering to himself, and smiling at the beast that is swiping at Kraig. Then for some reason he tries to reach over and pet the beast. Then when Roshan fires his blaster at the beast, and misses, Ben gives Roshan a really mean look.
Kadlo taking advantage of the fact the beast is right on top of him fires his two blasters into its belly, causing more green blood to spill over him. The beast apparently doesn't like to be the only one bleeding, and takes a big bite into Kadlo's shoulder causing Kadlo to start bleeding.
Suddenly a third beast appears, this one though is a dark red as opposed to the scaly dark brown of the other two, charging out of one of the caves. This beast leaps and tries to grab onto the beast currently attacking Kraig, but falls short. Kraig meanwhile tries to do more of his maneuvering but only manages to barely miss the wall of the dried up lakebed instead.
Nar-Ny decides to try and finish off Kadlo's beast and fires his blaster causing some more green blood to sputter forth.
Meanwhile the beast that was attacking Kraig, seems to take no notice at the other beast that has appeared. Instead it clamps down on Kraig with its jaw causing Kraig to bleed from the bite mark.
I finally get a good enough bead on Kadlo's beast to fire a shot through the holes in its scaly head to make a big enough hole to kill it.
Ben pulls out his light saber and takes a swing at the red beast, but due to the erratic driving of Kraig, only manages to drop his light saber on to the lakebed. Ben then dives out of the speeder as he tries to catch it. With the greatest lack of dexterity Ben lets the saber fall through his hands and on to the lakebed, and manages to end up the lakebed with it as well.
Roshan seeing as how Kadlo's beast is no longer a threat turns and tries to fire a shot off at the beast attacking Kraig. Also the erratic driving and such cause Roshan to miss with his shot. Kaldo meanwhile grabs for the medkit and gives himself a quick shot of coagulant to stop his bleeding.
Kraig yells for Roshan to jump into the passenger seat and man the secondary mounted blaster, as he fails to get a shot off with the mounted blaster in front of him. Nar-Ny misses a shot with his blaster as well.
The brown-scaled beast, seeing as Kraig is trying to use the mounted blaster to attack him, manages to knock it clean off with one swipe of its claw.
At this point the red beast stops in its tracks and seems to take in a deep breath. But this doesn't last for long, amongst the missed blaster shots from Roshan and me, Kraig starts to slam on the power for the speeder and drive erratically once again. This causes the red beast to fall of the speeder, but leaves the brown one still in front of him.
Nar-Ny suddenly yells at the group to stop firing and let the two beasts duke it out amongst each other. At which the brown scaled beast jumps off the speeder and attacks the red one. In the middle of the battle between the two beasts Ben charges the red beast with his light saber. Kadlo having taking careful aim manages to fire both blasters off and hit the brown-scaled beast in the leg, causing it limp a bit in the battle. Kraig then tosses a grenade into the fray and causes some damage to the brown beast. I would have helped but I ended up jamming my blaster instead.
Kadlo slumps to the floor at the back of the speeder, as Nar-Ny fires a shot off causing the brown-scaled beast to bleed. But it is with a great swipe from its claws that the red beast manages to finish off the other beast. As soon as the brown-scaled beast falls to the ground dead, the red one takes a deep breath and falls to the ground as well.
As we quickly tend to our wounded a shimmering figure appears in front of the speeder. The figure introduces herself as Mel-Rain to Kraig. She apparently is a Jedi who had traveled to this planet millennia ago, to investigate a dark presence. Apparently the dark presence had such an influence on this area that it became noticeable across the galaxy to the Jedi order. Its force concentration almost rivaled that of some Jedi sanctuary. When she was exploring the two caves, beasts similar to the ones that attacked us attacked her.
At this point Ben seemed to come too from his desire to pet the beasts, and started giddily asking what the hell was going on. Kadlo not being in much of a mood to deal with a giddy Ben pulled out his blaster and was going to fire, but Mel-Rain waved her hand and Kadlo's gun didn't seem to fire.
Mel-Rain continued on, to tell us that it appears there is some very dark object deep with in the cave. As she got closer to the dark object, the beasts became more ferocious and attacked even more viciously than before. Finally she was mauled so badly that she was barely able to make it out of the cave, and into the other cave to rest. But before she could tend to her wounds, the beasts in the second cave leapt upon her. She concentrated all her will into her belief in the force, and the beasts stopped their assault on her. The taming of the beasts though was the last thing she could do, as it drained her completely and she slowly died in the cave.
But the sudden concentration of the force caused her spirit to live on in the cave, as well as to stop the corruptive influence of the dark object upon the creatures that lived with in it. The creatures in the other cave though she could not reach with her power, so they remained under the sway of the dark force lurking inside the cave.
The dark object in the other cave, must be something of value to the Sith, because the creature are hunted and breed by the Sith for their scales and poison, Sith use the scales for their armor, and the poison for their blades and daggers. The Sith must have buried the object deep with in the cave and put these beasts there to guard it.
Mel-Rain then offers us sanctuary in her cave, and heals Kadlo and Kraig of their bite marks. She asks that once we have rested if we could go in to the cave and destroy the dark object found with in and stop its evil influence from spreading. We agree to do our best after we get some sleep.
As we begin to bunk down in the cave, we notice in the back in a side cave a group of the red-beasts are cautiously watching us. But we must not have been too interesting or Mel-Rain might have done something, because they slowly settle down to sleep as well.
Roshan on the other hand, lies on the ground and tries to go to sleep, but instead is given a wet lick across the face, by a younger one of the creatures that had wandered from the back of the cave. Roshan wipes the slime off his face, smiles and pets the creature on the top of its head. He then falls asleep with his hand petting the little creature on the head, by his side.
After we awaken from our slumber, Roshan and Ben discuss their battle with the mynocks and rats back in the sewers of Saltrusha. At this point seems to have decided to take the speeder back to the Discordia in the middle of the night for some odd reason, leaving us to take care of business by ourselves. Maybe he feels better in the confines of civilization as opposed to the rough and rugged outdoors. That aside, as the conversation between Roshan and Ben gets a little louder, we notice that things are echoing a lot for a small cave. We then notice a little ways back that there is more to the cave than we had originally thought.
We all figure it is worth the time to investigate what could be down in the cave. I figure it there is a dark evil object in the one cave; maybe there will be a bright good object in this one? Instead we find something else. As we walk deeper into the cave, we come across a cavernous area in which the ceilings are higher than earlier parts of the cave. It was a shame we didn't look up at the ceiling until it was too late. Suddenly two slime white things land on my back.
I must admit that at first I was scared to have these white slimy things clinging to my back, but shortly after that I was all right with them being there. In fact I was feeling a little better about a lot of things. It was almost as if the day brightened up, even though we were in a cave. I figure it cannot hurt to ride the good feelings out. Meanwhile the rest of the group decides to look up as they walk deeper into the cave.
Almost immediately after the cavernous area, we came to the end of the cave. Here were the remains of a body, lying next to what appeared to be and old fire. The remains are encased in some kind of ancient armor, with an old helmet too. But more impressive was the nice big light-saber hilt beside that. As the group goes to collect the stuff Mel-Rain appears, and tells us that we are not allowed to touch this stuff until after we take care of the object in the other cave.
Roshan makes knocking noises against the walls of the cave, in hopes of finding a secret door or something but finds none. With a sigh of disappointment we slowly and carefully make our way back out of the cave, keeping an eye on the ceiling of course.
Once outside the cave, Kraig and Roshan try to pull the two slimy things off my back. At first they don't do much for it, but then they pull out their blasters and blast the slimes off my back. The two were nice enough to miss me in their efforts, but I was still left with a huge headache after that, and had a sore back from it all.
Having taken care are the slimy things on my back we decide to enter cave and go after the evil object. Roshan took the lead with Nar-Ny, Kraig, Ben and me taking up the rear. As we wander deeper into the cave, we spend too much time looking at the natural formations of the cave, that we forget to look up. This time the slimy things are dark almost black ones, but more importantly they land on Ben and Nar-Ny instead of me.
Roshan tries to blast the one on Ben's back, but thanks to Ben's flailing around, the shot hits Ben instead. Ben pulls out his light saber and tries to scrap them off his own back. Ben is able to slice one of the slimy thing on his back, but also slices into his own back. Nar-Ny instead of dropping a slimy thing off Ben's back with his blaster drops his blaster instead.
Before Ben can hurt himself any more with his light-sabre Kriag tries unsuccessfully to grab it out of his hands. Roshan then tries also to grab Ben's saber before he does more damage to himself, but also fails to grab it from Ben. Staying away from Ben and his swing saber, I walk over with my blaster and at point blank range blast the two slimy things off his back, but this only leaves Nar-Ny with a seriously bloody back from where they bit into him.
Roshan than turns to Ben and tells him to use his force powers to get the slimy things off his back. Ben complains that he can't do that, but Roshan replies with "If Jedi can lift ships they sure as hell can pull off sucky things." Ben then concentrates on casting the slimy thing off his, back while I walk up and blast one off his back, causing him to wince a bit. Ben then slumps to the floor and meditates a bit, while I blast the last slimy thing off his back.
While tending to Ben the two of us fail to notice that the rest of the group, Kraig, Roshan, Nar-Ny and Roshan's little friend have actually wandered on ahead. Before I can run on to catch up to them, I suddenly awaken.
I was startled awake by the hailing of an imperial inspection cruiser asking me to prepare for docking and inspection. Groggily I slow my freighter down and walk back to check that my cargo is suitable hidden. The troopers board and spend their time scouring my freighter, and it appears they haven't found anything, as they seem to head out with out giving me any warning. But as I start the walk the officer of the squad out the door he stops before stepping off my freighter. After the last of the troopers leaves he mentions that he knows about the contraband I've got hidden on my ship. I try to convince him that its not contraband but special native spices, but he then asks about the guns I have stashed with the native spice.
Not being able to explain the guns, he grabs my hands and leads me out from the freighter saying he is going to arrest me for the contraband. Quickly I mention to him that he didn't find everything, and he should come back inside to check out the slave girl stashed in the hidden room. As I turn to walk back into my ship, the officer tries to turn and stop me, but I use his unbalanced moment to knock him over and push him off my ship. I quickly shut the airlock and lock it tight, and blast away from the cruiser. Quickly I run to the bridge and with quick flying and maneuvering manage to escape from the cruiser.
Before I can celebrate I awaken to suddenly find myself being lunged at by a huge guy wielding a huge sword. The guy is comes down hard and rapidly and causes me to fall to the ground hard. Fortunately this only turns out to be a bad dream and I wake up just before the fatal blow lands on me. I come to in the cave with a loud scream, but because of the shock of the dream, I pass out.
Apparently while I was slumbering the rest of the group was battling two beasts. When the battle is over and the two beasts are defeated, Roshan manages to help awaken me from my shock-sleep. Kraig comes over and helps me out as well. While the two are helping me out Nar-Ny wanders over to the sarcophagus.
Nar-Ny quickly looks around, and pushes the lid off the sarcophagus. Suddenly an evil force sweeps through the room, but this doesn't deter Nar-Ny. As a dark figure begins to form above the open sarcophagus, Nar-Ny peers into the sarcophagus, and turns around looking disappointed, that all he could find was a roiling swirling mist of evil inside. Nar-Ny quickly thinks upon what he just saw in the sarcophagus and shrugs his shoulders and only says, "huh" then runs out of the cave. We all follow suit, and dash out of the cave, as the dark figure begins to coalesce into a real form.
When we get outside the cave we find that the speeder is back, but Kadlo isn't there. Before we can search for Kadlo, the Dark Spirit appears menacingly in front of the speeder. Mel-Rain then appears and starts to bicker with the Dark Spirit. Mel-Rain quickly turns to us and mentions that we need to destroy the sarcophagus to stop the Dark Spirit. Suddenly the Dark Spirit pulls out his saber and starts to attack Mel-Rain, Mel- Rain though is able to pull at her light saber and attack back.
Kraig taking his cue charges back into the cave, and leaves us to watch the sparks fly from the battle between the two spirits. After a few minutes Kriag comes running out of the cave, and dives behind the speeder. Seeing how this might be a good idea, we all jump to the other side of the speeder, well almost all of us, I don't get that far and end up crawling across the speeder. Suddenly a loud boom goes off and a cloud of dust and rubble comes billowing forth from the cave. As the cloud of dust sweeps across the scene, and reaches the Dark Spirit, it screams and dissipates as the dust starts to clear out. The loud scream was too much for me to handle and I pass out onto the bottom of the speeder.
Apparently as I was unconscious the group that managed to stay awake was allowed to collect the items from the cave. They first they go through the items in the first remnants of the cave that Kraig blew up. As they leave from the cave, Roshan is kind enough to wake me up.
Ben and I decide to head in to the cave we spent the night in and gather the stuff that's in there. Nar-Ny tags a long, but stops at the cavernous area where the white slimy things are hanging and starts tossing rocks at them. Obviously this irritates the white things enough for them to drop and latch on to him.
Ben picks up the large light saber hilt, and the armor as well, as well as two holocrons cubes. The third cube I pick up which turns out to be a Force alter toy. The two of us then head back out the cave, and pick up Nar-Ny on the way out. This time we decide to leave the slimy things on Nar-Ny to teach him a lesson about tossing rocks, but it appears he might be a little too happy with his punishment.
Once we get out to the speeder, we spend the day tending to our wounds and deciding what we should do now. Kraig comes up with the master plan of killing the Jedi Sal-Res Tayate, while I try to convince the group that maybe we can sneak in and get some information on him before we do anything. Kraig seems pretty adamant about killing the guy, so we all head back to Tayate's house on a bend to kill him.
Once we get to the house, Kraig takes the helmet that Ben picked up from the cave, and hides a grenade under it, then knocks on Tayate's door and runs. When Tayate answers the door he sets grenade off. The Jedi, must not be that old as he was able to dodge the most of the blast as the grenade goes off. Kraig then begins firing on the Tayate and misses but this lets Roshan know it is time to open fire, and he fires a shot into him with his blaster rifle.
Kriag then jumps back into his speeder and fires a shot off with one of the mounted blasters and manages to hit the Jedi with it. Tayate manages to fire back with his blasters hitting Kraig with both shots, and dives back into his house. Roshan's pet charges into house after Tayate. Ben moves over to the house along the outside wall so he can get closer to the door without being seen by Tayate. Meanwhile Nar-Ny and I run over the house, under one of the second story windows.
Kraig runs up to the wall beside Ben, while Tayate fires a blaster shot off at Roshan's pet, but misses letting Roshan's pet leap at him, who misses him. I try to lift Nar-Ny up to the second story window but only manage to drop him on to the ground. Ben quickly charges into the doorway after Tayate, as Roshan comes up to the other side of the doorway.
Despite earlier dropping Nar-Ny I manage to hoist him up to the window. Kraig tries to fire around the corner of the door, and manages to hit him. Tayate switches to his light sabers and slices into Roshan's pet, which causes Roshan's pet to miss him with its next leap. Ben misses Tayate with his saber, while Roshan tries to tell his pet to get out of there before it gets hurt even more.
Kriag tries to follow Roshan into the house and fire a shot at Tayate but misses him. Tayate despite looking seriously wounded manages to slice into Roshan's pet even more with his light saber. Nar-Ny grabs the bed sheets off the bed and starts feeding them out the window to me. Ben manages to connect with his saber on Tayate, hurting him some more. Roshan tries to make the finishing shots but in his haste jams both his blasters.
Kraig though blast Tayate hard enough to cause Tayate to drop his light saber, only after Tayate had hit Roshan with it. Ben quickly grabs Tayate's dropped saber and throws it out the door. Tayate though grabs one of his blasters only to find out that it has run out of charge. Kraig takes advantage of this moment, and draws a bead on Tayate and blasts him to the ground, killing him.
As the battle was raging downstairs I managed to climb up the bed sheet rope into the bedroom, only to find that Nar-Ny has delicately searched the room, by tossing all the books on the floor. I search around the room and do not find much of anything. In the other rooms on the second floor I manage to find a deed to Tayate's starship, as well as a contract stating that he sold it for the funds to build his current house.
After Kraig spends time trying to get information out about the Moff, he only manages to find a few short notes, but nothing of any interest. Nor does he find anything to justify actually killing him either. While everyone else is content with not finding anything more, I'm still a bit worried about the fact that Tayate's apprentice is no where to be found. No one else seems to pick up on this fact, and we all decide to spend the night at Tayate's place.
The next day we spend the morning discussing what should be done about the gross things that have attached themselves to Nar-Ny's back. While we are discussing them, Nar-Ny gets a little upset, and takes the bed sheet of Tayate's bed and drapes it over his back in an attempt to "hide" the white things from our sight. Which to be honest helps me a bit, because that is just disgusting. Kraig and Kadlo still are unsettled by it and spend the rest of the morning building a sled for him to ride on, because Kraig wasn't going to let Nar-Ny into his speeder while he had those things on his back.
Once the sled is built, and Nar-Ny is settled on it, we then head off towards the city of Harmonia. Surprisingly Nar-Ny seemed to enjoy the trip a bit. I think it was because he liked the feel and sound of his bed sheet cape flapping in the wind behind him as we sped along. We made a short stop during which Kraig unsuccessfully tried to slice off one of the slimy things of Nar-Ny's back with his fancy new sword.
Towards the late afternoon, as we sped along, we noticed a walled complex set into the side of the mountain ranges. This being the first sign of civilization in a while, and with nighttime only a few hours away I figured it would be a good time to stop, and maybe stock up on supplies. Especially Med-Kits, since we seem to run out of those pretty well. With a little bit of convincing Kriag turned the speeder towards the complex and we drove up to it.
The complex was walled for defensive reasons it appears, not just because the walls were tall and thick looking, but because of the guards wearing the old imperial style armor and holding blaster rifles at the ready at the top of the walls. When we got up to the gate, we asked for entrance but were asked what our business was. We said we were looking for work, and the guards said there might not be much work for us, but that we could enter and ask the officer in charge. So they let us in and pointed us to the office of the office in charge.
The complex was a mining complex. There were seven separate buildings inside the complex, and a big shaft with a huge blast door sunk into the side of the mountain range. The odd thing was that the guards for this mine were really heavily guarded. I wouldn't have thought too much of this considering that this was obviously a mining operation where gems were mined. Heck you don't want the workers stealing from your profits after all. But considering how underfed and scarred the workers looked, most of who happened to be of one alien race, I later learned they were Glycerians. I had to wonder if these people are actual miners or something more sinister.
We all made our way to the office, and met the Officer in charge who happened to be a Lieutenant, in old Imperial garb. When asked how the mine was doing he said they were doing fairly well. Upon further chatting he tells us that this is actual a penal mine, for criminals and the like. It just happens that most of the criminals are from the local populace of Glycerians. Not wanting any part of a penal mine we all decide that we should best continue our trip to Harmonia.
Before we leave though, the Lieutenant stops us and mentions that things are not actually going well for the mine. It turns out that something in the mines is causing some problems for them. If we would care to take a look and find out what the problem is he would be willing to pay us 200 credits. Now that money was offered up we decided we could stay and rest a bit, maybe take a nice tour of the lower mines to see what might be down there.
After taking him up on his offer, the Lieutenant shows us the way to the quartermaster's so that we can pick up supplies we need for the lower mines. The quartermaster gives us some gas masks, just in case, and one med-pack, as well as the maps of the lower mines. Kraig promptly scans them into his little data pad for future reference.
On the way to the mine, Roshan ties up his little pet to the speeder, so that it doesn't wander off. I'm thinking Kraig was also glad Roshan did this, as it might prevent his speeder from "wandering off" as well.
While Roshan was tying up his pet, Kriag chatted with some of the "miners" who only managed to tell him that there was some strange goings on in the lower mines. The "miners" point out on the map, where they say the strange happenings were going on. This affords the rest of the group the opportunity to see how badly underfed and treated the "miners" were.
After a brief little discussion, we put Nar-Ny in the lead and head forth to the spot marked on the map by the "miners." It takes us almost an hour to get down to the lower mines, where we notice that the number of "miners" seems to start dwindling. Eventually we get to a very narrow point in the mine, where the last "miner" we passed was heading out of the mine, about fifteen minutes earlier. At this point it appears that Kriag must have been a little upset or something, because he stabbed his sword into the mine floor almost breaking it.
The rest of the group decides to look around this narrow point for any clues of anything strange, before proceeding onward. Of course I stood watch for whatever strange thing might come at us. It also was a good time to stop for a bit because to proceed further meant having to skinny through a narrow crevice in the wall, one by one.
Nothing was found so we decided going through the crevice was the only way to proceed. Before doing so, Kadlo tosses a rock through the crevice, which luckily enough, does not hit anything besides the sides of the crevice. Once again we send Nar-Ny ahead first, followed by Kadlo, Kraig, Roshan, Ben and lastly me. I'm going to let them all find the strange stuff first and maybe take it out before I have to worry about getting "stranged" myself by the something strange.
As we proceed through the crevice, Roshan suddenly kicks a rock down the crevice and shouts forward to Nar-Ny, "Hey, Nar-Ny, I didn't hit you?" For some reason Roshan kept talking during our walk through the crevice which, I guess is his way of dealing with his fear of tight places. I kept hoping Ben would nudge him with his light saber to shut him up, but then knowing Ben, in such a tight place, might hit me instead.
A short bit later, I hear the sounds of blaster fire from ahead of me in the crevice, it turns out that the party had stumbled across two big four armed creatures in the cavern ahead of us. I quickly turn off my helmet lamp, so as not to draw attention to myself, and wait my turn to come out of the crevice. The rest of the group kept their lamps on, I guess in the heat of battle they didn't realize that pretty much gave their position away as well as made it easy to find them amongst a crowd.
In the end it didn't really matter, because when I got out into the crevice I found that one of the beasts was clubbing Nar-Ny, and the other had Kadlo in a four armed bear hug. I quickly ran to Kadlo's aid and with Kraig's help tried to stop the creature from squeezing Kadlo's life out of him. Kadlo tried to help, by head butting the creature a few times, but I wasn't sure who got the worse end of the deal. Meanwhile Roshan, Ben and Nar-Ny were busy firing their blasters at the club-wielding creature trying not to get their heads bashed in.
The commotion ended with us killing both of the creatures and us coming out with some scrapes and bruises. Although oddly enough, even after getting hit hard by the creature with a club, Nar-Ny didn't seem to be hurt that badly. Granted he still had those slimy things on his back, he didn't look like he was too bad off. Kadlo though ended up having to stick his fingers in his nose to stop the blood from oozing out, which was an amusing sight.
Kraig though was more interested in Nar-Ny's seeming lack of injuries, and pulled his blaster on Nar-Ny. Kadlo though cut Nar-Ny a bit to see what the deal was, and was surprised, as the rest of us were, that the cut healed. Kraig though, apparently not having fully gotten his mind out of the "blast anything mode" fired his blaster at Nar-Ny, seriously scarring Nar-Ny's arm.
NOTE: Never let a techie investigate things of a medical nature
This time, taking a note from Ben's book of Evidence Collection, Roshan takes the head off one of the creatures, and we all head back out of the mine. As we come out of the mine, some of the "miners" come up to Kraig and tell him they are happy that the creatures were dealt with, but that being slaves this is only a brief bit of happiness in their enslaved lives. Roshan I guess tried to cheer them up a bit by using the head as a hand puppet, but that only managed to gross them and me out.
At the Lieutenant's office we show him the head of the creature and ask for our money. He gives us 200 credits, some of us taking it in refined gems, while others taking the credits. During this time Kadlo chats up the Lieutenant allowing Kraig to sneak around and download some data from his computer to his datapad. He then offers us some bunks in the barracks to rest up for the night, which we all decide to accept.
As we were shaking his hands, thanking him for the bunks, Nar-Ny, reaches into the Lieutenant's desk and starts to rummage around, but is easily caught. Holding a gem he found in the desk Nar-Ny asks what is so special about it. The Lieutenant says that it was the first gem pulled from the mine. Kadlo quickly tells the Lieutenant that Nar-Ny is a bit of kleptomaniac and we have to keep our eye on him, and offers his apologies for Nar-Ny rummaging through his desk. This is enough to convince the Lieutenant not to send Nar-Ny to the mines.
Before we make it to the barracks we head over to the cafeteria to get some food. Over dinner we discuss plans as to what to do next. Kraig and Kadlo along with Roshan and Ben decide that blowing up the mines would be the best means to help the "miners," so they begin to start making plans to do that. After dinner, they head to the barracks to start making preparations for their plan.
While they are making their preparations I make a stop by the quartermaster's and get some "Deep Star" materials.
That night as the rest of the group goes to get some sleep in the barracks, I wander off to talk to the Lieutenant, to negotiate a profitable deal. Having made a decent deal I make my way back to the barracks, and see Kraig fiddling with something on his bunk, under the covers. Apparently the rest of the people in the barracks were too tired to notice the small sparks from Kraig’s bunk.
Before I could get to sleep, the doors to the barracks burst open and stomps in a couple of guards. The guards quickly make their way over to Kraig’s bunk, quickly covered up what covered up whatever it was that his was working on. The lead guard pulls his blaster and points it at Kraig telling him that he, as well as Kadlo and Nar-Ny are under arrest. Apparently the Lieutenant had a camera in his office and he spotted the three of them doing something wrong in his office when were last there.
Kraig, being the smartest person in a blaster fight, decides he can take on all the guards by himself. Of course the fact that he is in a barracks full of guards, and surrounded by several already pointing their blasters at him, doesn’t do much to change his opinion about that. So he quickly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a grenade.
Maybe Kraig didn’t have too much to worry about; three of the guards fired their blasters at him, and completely miss him. Roshan seeing all this jumps out of his bunk, and puffs up his chest and lets out a loud scream. This was enough to cause one of the guards to become startled, but that was about it. It was probably more from surprise than actually fright if you ask me.
Kadlo from his top bunk spots Kraig with the grenade and the fact that there are more of them then us, swings off his top bunk and knocks Kraig on to the bunk, and starts to wrap Kraig up. The officer takes advantage of Kraig being wrapped up and walks up and tries to blast him in the head, but Kraig manages to squirm around enough to dodge the shot. Still struggling, Kraig “tosses” the grenade which lands beside the bunk and goes off. The blast kills one of the guards out-right, and knocks a few of the others back a bit. Kadlo and Kraig survive the blast by being knocked off the bunk and on to floor on the other side.
Nar-Ny seeing all the commotion tries to make a quick exit out the door, but is tackled by a few of the soliders in the room as he rushes by. Roshan just watches Kraig and Kadlo roll on the floor dodging the bad shots and misses of the guards. Finally Kadlo pins Kraig down to the floor stopping him from moving around, and allowing the guards to arrest the two of them. Nar-Ny though manages to slither free from his captures, and flees out the barracks, he is found and arrested an hour later, after the place is locked down and everyone searches for him.
Roshan goes up to the Lieutenant that the guys he arrested are good guys, and should be let go. I convince Roshan that it maybe best to leave the three of them in the “care” of the Lieutenant and we figure out a better means to save them from their plight. Away from the Lieutenant I explain to Roshan and Ben the fact that we can start a rebellion amongst the slaves, and with the three of them on the inside they can help with starting the rebellion on the inside. With that explained we set about the day to see what we can do to help with the slave’s rebellion. Besides maybe Kraig could learn what a real days work is all about.
As night falls the slaves appear to be pretty riled up and ready to revolt. The sudden appearance of small pockets of weapons seems to help with the idea of starting a rebellion. While Kadlo, Kraig and Nar-Ny are put into the slave’s barracks, I sneak over to the window and manage to find Kraig sitting up in his bunk. Through the window I tell him that the rebellion will begin at dawn, and to watch for my signal. Kraig apparently being dumb without his computer stuff, can only go what? So I quickly tell him again, that the rebellion will begin at dawn, and he should be ready, for us on the outside to start blasting. Not wanting to spend the rest of the night explaining this to him, I snuck back to my own bunk.
Geez, a techie with out a datapad is like a person missing half a brain, I tell you. “I have to do what, let me look that up..oh wait I don’t have a way to do that, explain it to me..” or “A rebellion, I can just hack into the security systems and we can…oh wait I don’t have my datapad. If you get it for me I can be of some use..” Makes we want to just tie a gun to both of their hands with the triggers pulled and let them wander out into the midst of people for all they are worth with out their datapads. If you can’t explain it to them with bright flashy graphics it is probably not worth the time and effort to explain it to them. Seriously, is it worth posting everything up on the holo-net just so he can look it up, instead of having him just listen to you?
NOTE: Techies without datapads complain more about their situation then a protocol droid does about having to talk to moisture evaporators.
As dawn rose on the next day, Ben, Roshan and I leaned up against our speeder, and waited for the slaves to be paraded to the mines. We didn’t wait too much longer as the slaves were let out of their barracks and started walking towards the mines. When they got about halfway to the mines, I pull out my blasters and start firing, which Roshan quickly follows up on with his own blasters. Ben charges forth with his light-saber and starts unshackling the slaves. Kadlo had palmed a weapon so his starts helping out with some cover fire as well. Nar-Ny ducks behind some cover and makes his way over to the speeder, while Kraig tries his best to get to the speeder and dodge blasts at the same time.
In a short time the mine has changed hands and is under the control of the slaves. The soliders and officers that survive have been pushed back into the mines. I head into the Lieutenant’s office and call the capital to let them know the mine has been freed. Apparently they didn’t know of the mine, because they were surprised when I told them. We give them the location of the mine and they agree to send a unit out to help secure the mine, and with the slaves who have been freed.
While we wait Kraig tries to un-mount one of the weapons from the guard tower in the hopes that he can attach it to his speeder. Kadlo gets up some tools and beings to weld the huge doors to the mine shut. Nar-Ny scavenges around for something worth taking, while I just sit and wait for the help from the capital to arrive. Roshan tends to his pet and plays a short game of fetch while he waits as well.
The delegation from the capital arrives, and quickly takes possession of the mine, and starts to render aide to those slaves who need it. At one point the technician they brought along upsets Kraig, by telling Kraig he can’t take the mounted gun. So Kraig leaves the weapon in place, and disheartened slowly walks back to his speeder. Nar-Ny apparently not wanting to get on the wrong side of things, wanders back to the speeder as well. Kadlo continues to work on the door, while Roshan and I explain to the delegate from the Moff what happened at the mine.
The delegate then asks us to join him in Harmonia so that we can meet with his boss who is a general. We all agree and follow his lead into the capital. Once they the general is so impressed with how we freed the mine that he tells us that he told the Moff all about it, and gave the Moff the delegates advanced report on the situation. The general then surprises us all by saying the Moff would like to give us all a medal for our heroic deed.
We quickly spiff ourselves up, and head to the Moff’s office, but before we are allowed to enter we had to turn over all our weapons, except for Ben’s light-saber and Kraig’s sword. The Moff then greets and as he presents us each with our medals he congratulates us on a job well done. Once the medals are handed out and the small politico chit-chat is dispensed with I mention that Captain Rengar had sent us to actually assassinate him.
This Moff really knows how to stay in power, because he told us he already knew about Captain Rengar’s idea, and in fact already had a plan prepared for it. He was planning on faking his own death. This way Captain Rengar would come out from his safe haven of the base and have to come down to the planet to assume power. Once he is outside the safety of his moon base, the Moff’s loyal soldiers would arrest him.
Our arrival has sort of changed his plans, but for the better. The Moff decides that he will still fake his own death, but this time it will look as though it was an assassination. This way it can look as though we did him in, and they we can go up to Captain Rengar. Once we get close to Captain Rengar we can then arrest him if that is possible. To help us out the Moff gives us his Moff insignia to show Captain Rengar proof that it was us who killed him.
With the plan setup we decide to spend the next day resting up and relaxing. During this time we manage to pick up a few things, a neat new sonic blaster and sonic rifle, and Kadlo picks up some hold out blasters and tries to fit them up his sleeve. I take the time to talk with the trade minister and at least convince him that I can talk to him later about some trade deals, although it may not be trade directly with the new republic.
The day before the Moff’s death, we sneak out of the city and being our flight back to Captain Rengar’s moon base. On the way the news breaks that the Moff was assassinated that morning. I quickly hide my Medal of Commendation from the Moff on me so that I can use it to convince the rest of the people on the base to join with the Moff. As the plan goes, a group will approach Captain Rengar and take care of him, while I convince the second in command to take over and join with the Moff.
We make it to the moon base where we are greeted by Captain Rengar with praise for a job well done. Kadlo and Kraig ask for the money, and Captain Rengar takes the two of them as well as Ben and Nar-Ny to his office to get the money. Roshan and I tag along, but once we get to the office, we hang outside, when I spot Captain Rengar’s second in command and pull him aside.
As Roshan and I chat a bit with the Officer, the sound of a blaster going off comes from the office, followed by more blaster fire. I explain to the officer that it would be in his best interest to consider where his loyalties lie, with the Captain or with the Moff who isn’t dead. The office seems shaky on the situation as the blaster fire continues to come from the office. I pull out the medal the Moff gave to me and Roshan steps behind the officer and looms large over him, as I explain that I can honestly say that the Moff will not be severe on him if he joins the Moff.
By this point several guards in full armor and armed have arrived at the office door. In fact Roshan and I are not the only ones to notice this, because briefly the door to the office opens up and is quickly shut. Before the guards charge into the office, the officer tells them to stand down. He agrees that he should join the Moff’s government and he will take charge of the base and put it under the Moff’s charge.
The blaster fire quiets down from the office shortly there after. Roshan and I convince the armed guards to stand in a circle around the door to the office and do a little dance as our group comes out the door. The door opens and Kraig and Kadlo step cautiously out the door to find us and the guards doing a little dance, and laughing together.
With the moon base now under the Moff’s jurisdiction we all head back down to talk with the Moff. I talk with the Moff about joining the New Republic. He tells us that he will maintain his position as governor of the system and using his position will convince the locals that it would be a good idea to join the New Republic. Having done the job we were sent here to do, we then go find a nice place to stay and get a bit of R & R.