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Ceren gives you all a second serving of tea, and also some really good pastries to go with them, before she leaves you to it.
Death Certificate:
In order to fool any pursuers, Ceren needs to be declared dead. You can fake her body by obtaining a cadaver and using a Disguise or Medicine check to alter the corpse to match Ceren’s records. Shady coroners can provide fresh corpses for this purpose with a bribe, though PCs may come up with their own creative solutions. Alternatively, a Computers check can hack the medical system and change Ceren’s records to match the corpse. PCs can also use a Bluff check to convince the morticians they are grieving relatives and falsely identify an unclaimed body as Ceren’s.
Alternatively, you can simply bribe a mortician to file a fake death report for credits. If one of you happens to have Profession ranks in funerary, medical, or security field,you can file a false report on her own with a successful Profession check.
New Identity:
Ceren needs a new identity if she wants to survive her false death. You can help set up a solid new alias for Ceren with a successful Bluff, Culture, or Disguise check. You can use a successful Diplomacy check to provide Ceren with allies and contacts in her new life. A successful Profession check in any field can pull strings to get Ceren a new job, though she refuses degrading or dangerous employment. If you have the Computers skill, you can attempt a check after all efforts to set up a background have been completed to forge Ceren different identification papers. You will need several successful checks to reate a solid legal persona for Ceren.
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"Well, we know where to get corpses," Charli says. "What plan would we like to use for faking her death? We have several computer whizzes here. If I get the body, with someone to help me carry it, does one of you want to alter records to make it match up?"
Hopefully with the help of someone beefier than she it, Charli heads confidently off to the Vat Garden, and chats up the Ysoki that live and work there.
Speaking in Ysoki, she waves. "Hey Turnip and Sprout! I never got a chance to properly thank you for the awesome bulbs you provided on my last mission! I've brought some tea and cookies and a Starfinder friend with me!" She starts making some tea on the spot, heating and blending the leaves in pure water. "But I have a favor to ask. Is there any way I take one of your bodies off your hands? There's a fellow gardener in trouble, a grandmother who raises tomatoes that are almost as good as yours. One of the Corps is looking to shut her down, and she needs to disappear. Can you help us find a corpse so we can fake her demise?"
"Given the quality of her tea, I think that I could get her started in the Tea business unless anyone else has other ideas? We could come up with a good cover story. Maybe she's my old tea tutor, Sarah, from the capitol of Castrovel, looking to retire somewhere that is less wet and problematic for her rheumatism. Perhaps a recent arrival, who could not possibly have done anything with Bluerise!"
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“I can carry the body.” Mikkazuki offers.
When they get there, she lets Charli do most of the talking. She does add “It will likely save a family.”
As Charli is looking over bodies, Mikkazuki makes sure the one they take can be made to match Ceren. It helps that she has an idea of the augmentation’s needed to make it credible. I need a body that either already has a data jack and augmented eye, or one clean enough that we could add dead equipment there. Much better if they had the augmentation so we don’t have to forge the surgery scars. “The eye socket on that one will not work. There is an old fracture in the skull.”
Given Ceren doesn’t want something dangerous, Mikkazuki decides is unlikely any of her mercenary contacts would have a suitable job for her.
She is willing to help if someone wants to try the hack to create a new identity.
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"Well she's really good with tech so let me give my mechanic friends a call and see if they'd like to hire on a senior consultant or something!"
She can also auto-succeed on helping someone hack the system to create the new ID like Mikkazuki. On the fake death bit she can't do much except help someone hack into the system auto-aiding their computer check.
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All the GM is willing to say is that multiple checks will be needed for each part, so feel free to cover as many bases as you'd like :P
That said - you can each roll once for each of the parts (faking death / new ID) or Aid Another.
Ceren cannot help because she is helping Jubal with his first-time-ever doing the whole "disappearing" act (i.e. packing vital stuff, not bringing things that can be traced, moving money around through off-station accounts, etc).
Click. Whirr.
Kima studies with interest the corpse that Charli and Mikkazuki brought in. As Dart tries to mess with it, she shoos him away. "No, Dart! If you want to disguise a corpse, this is how you do it." She pulls out her medkit and subtly alters the features.
"Don't worry, I know lots of people on the station who would be happy to befriend Ceren! There's a dear little retirement community in the Spike that would probably love to offer her some support!"
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As Kaylee prepares to plant the false records, Mikkazuki coordinates responsibilities with her. Mikkazuki offers to focus on highlighting likely code traps for her. She will also watch for any delayed code activations that may indicate reactive alarms or other defensive measures.
They agree on a simple messaging protocol that Mikkazuki will use to alert Kaylee with minimal delay. In order to minimize the chance of anything interfering with this, Mikkazuki wires her kit directly to the one Kaylee is using.
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Charli with Dart assisting (with Mikkazuki there for carrying purposes) are able to acquire a body from the Vat Garden. Kima is able to work on disguising it, while Ch'aya (with Kaylee's assistance) edit the computer records to make it appear that Ceren died, and that her friends and family relegated the body to the Vat Garden for a cheap burial!
Kima and Charli work to get the "new" Ceren (named something else now, of course) connections from "old high school buddies" to "used to work with them long ago - you remember her, right?", while Dart and Kaylee set up a work history for her, doing professional work on computers and vehicles for space-faring evangelical organizations. Finally, Kaylee (aided by Ch'aya and Mikkazuki) weave everything together into a new ID!
You are able to accomplish this in good time, and then it's off to meet your contact to give her the new identification papers and receive the data Historia-7 wanted you to acquire.
Open to all citizens, Jatembe Park occupies a wide portion of the Eye of Absalom Station. Filled with lush trees and open grass fields, the park offers some natural terrain to the otherwise metalclad station. Ceren’s meeting point is one such forested portion of the park, specifically a spot often ignored by citizens due to the winding path required to reach it.
As you approach the bridge, you see Ceren and Jubal waiting for you on it...but emerging from the trees on the other side are three people dressed in corporate-hitman-esqe attire with weapons held at their sides. They see you all approaching the bridge as well, and raise their weapons!
Ceren notices the incoming conflict immediately and drops prone, dragging Jubal with her (their squares are in Gray)
The Blue Corporate Thug advances onto the bridge and fires an energy weapon at Dart!
vs Flat-footed Energy AC
Nonlethal Electricity Damage
Round 1!
Charli
Dart (-1 NL Damage)
Ch'aya
Yellow Corporate Thug
Kaylee
Mikkazuki & BOB
Red Corporate Thug
Kima
Round 2!
Blue Corporate Thug
Click. Whirr.
Seeing the people we were designated to protect in grave danger, Ch’aya lets loose with magic missiles at Yellow. ”Leave, if you value your lives, and never return!”
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Charli's Arc Pistol hits the Blue Corporate Thug square in the shoulder, making him reel a little bit!
Ch'aya's magic missiles combined with Dart's threats are enough to get Yellow to see a different path through this.
"Screw this! They're not paying me enough to get killed over some old bag!" The (aptly-colored) Thug drops his pistol and throws a credstick to the ground as he Withdraws from combat completely!
Round 1!
Kaylee
Mikkazuki & BOB
Red Corporate Thug
Dart (1 NL Damage) Readied Action
Kima
Round 2!
Blue Corporate Thug (5 NL damage)
Charli
Ch'aya
Yellow Corporate Thug (10 Damage, fled combat)
BOB surges forward, running at full speed for Blue while waving it's assault hammer. Unfortunately, it's damage has made it somewhat unstable.
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Both BOB and Kaylee miss very wide. The Red Corporate Thug decides to take a full attack action against the bucket of bolts to try and give his only remaining ally more room to maneuver!
(Partial cover included)
(Partial cover included)
Round 1!
Kima
Round 2!
Blue Corporate Thug (5 NL Damage)
Charli
Dart (1 NL Damage)
Ch'aya
Yellow Corporate Thug (10 Damage, fled combat)
Kaylee
Mikkazuki & BOB (Disabled at 0 hp?)
Red Corporate Thug
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Kima zaps the Blue Thug, who does a double-take in the direction the Yellow one went, then drops his gun as well, and withdraws! "Yea, wait up for me! I'm not dyin' for Bluerise either!"
Round 2!
Charli
Dart (1 NL Damage)
Ch'aya
Yellow Corporate Thug (10 Damage, fled combat)
Kaylee
Mikkazuki & BOB (Disabled at 0 hp)
Red Corporate Thug
Kima
Round 3!
Blue Corporate Thug (9 NL Damage, fled combat)
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"All your fa...buzzt! grind!" BOB says as it is hit by the pulsecaster.
Then it tips over.
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”Get ‘em!” Charli calls!
She hits a bush in Jatembe Park with non-lethal damage! Leaves fall off of it, and the branch shakes.
”That was a warning shot!” She lies to cover up her mistake. ”The next one will be at your head! Surrender now, Bluerise Scum!”
Although the lie was convincing, the fact that she was shooting non-lethally kind of undercut her threat.
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Dart smacks the remaining Corporate Thug upside the head causing him to blink and go, "who?" But when Kaylee deftly shoots him from the other side of the bridge, he too drops his gear and flees yelling, "Wait for me!"
You recover three pulsecaster pistols and three credsticks with 100 credits each on them. One of the credsticks also has a blurry image file that looks vaguely like Ceren with simple instructions: "Partial image of the suspect, though unlikely given her age. Kill her, her family, and any witnesses, then bring any potential data storage devices back to Bluerise where you will receive the rest of your payment."
Jubal is full of nervous excitement at the shootout that happened all around him, but Ceren is unperturbed by the gangers’ appearance, confident that your expert work at falsifying her death should throw off future investigations into her whereabouts. From here, you provide Ceren with her new identity and papers, and she gives you a hard copy of the data from Bluerise tower. The wizened hacker and Jubal depart to their new home, with a promise to visit Historia-7 at the Lorespire Complex in the next few days - because you did not threaten or harm her, her grandson, or her tomato plants, the aged hacker claims this is the most alive she has felt in ages and offers to assist the Dataphiles if they ever require her skills.
Historia-7 contacts you remotely shortly afterwards. She relays that Ceren feels so comfortable in her new identity that she is going to risk a return to public life, and congratulates you on your performance.
A rudimentary courier robot greets you as you head to your last meeting with the Acquisitives leader. It presents you with a gift box ontaining a standard datajack and 200 credits. A simple electronic message from Historia-7 indicates that the datajack is a token of thanks from the Dataphiles. The box also contains a frostbite-class zero rifle. The rifle is an old—albeit out-of place—acquisition of Ceren’s that Jubal
found while cleaning out the family house. Historia-7 entrusts both items to you for the rest of your mission(s) today.
End of Mission Three!
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The plain white doors of the office slide open to reveal a stark, dimly lit room. The chamber is bleak and expressionless in its emptiness—no vanities line its smooth black walls, and no signs of use mar its smooth black furniture. The only occupants of the suite are a bug-eyed tadpole wriggling in a glowing blue aquarium and seated behind an onyx desk. The vesk gestures to a number of chairs in front of him, his features sharply illuminated by the light of his desk’s green holoscreen. “The new graduates,” he greets, in a low and pleasant voice. “Good day. I am Radaszam, though since you are here, I should hope you already knew."
“I trust you are aware of our Society’s traditions, so I will cut to the point. I have a minor situation that needs resolution. One of our members, a human named Laboni, had a rather public altercation with a junk scavenger from the Spike. You might be more familiar with the scavenger than I, actually; he is a ysoki who fancifully calls himself Ratrod. I am told he runs a popular racing competition that has, hmm, several hundreds of thousands of viewers on the station’s infosphere. For some reason, Laboni felt the need to tell him that any ‘real’ mechanic could easily beat the garbage that Ratrod and his associates slap together. Now that Ratrod has issued an infosphere-wide demand that she race him and prove it, Laboni doubts she can back that claim up."
“Embarrassing, isn’t it? Not really the sort of troublemaker that suits our Society. Perhaps she would be better suited to the bottom of a trash compactor... Well, we cannot afford to throw her out, not after so many Starfinders were lost in the Scoured Stars. Besides, we can’t let people think we are so weak that we can’t control our own members, or that we cannot stand up to a scrapyard junker. No, I would like you to assist Laboni in winning this race. Show our detractors that even the least of our Society is not someone to be trifled with.”
He slides over credentials marking you as part of a pit crew for the upcoming junk race, but waits to hear if you have any questions before pressing the button that will open the office doors that lead you outside.
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"Ahh the races, like pit fighting...with fewer deaths, but more explosions."
Dart starts to chant, what he later explains is a pre-gap hymn to Kaydin Kalin.
I got the horse right here
The name is Paul Revere
And here's a guy that says that the weather's clear
Can do, can do, this guy says the horse can do
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After the battle with the thugs, Mikkazuki asks if the group can wait about ten minutes. She would like to repair BOB, or at least make it so the robot can walk on it's own.
She spends some time bending various things back into place and splicing some of the circuitry. BOB is going to need more than just a new paint job after this.
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"I am not familiar with these Junk Yard Races. Is it some sort of obstacle course they need run through and we would be setting up traps?" If so, it sounds like a fun competition! I wonder if they allow land mines? Looking to Dart, she adds "I assume that is where the explosions would be coming from."
Looking back to Radaszam, she says "If so, it sounds like fun!"
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Radaszam gives you directions to the track in Botscrap and tells you that these are races of vehicles made from the very junkyards that make up that area, organized and overseen by the ysoki Salvage Union. When you arrive, a robot will explain the rules to you, and direct you to Laboni, he says.
With that, he presses the button which open the office doors, hinting that it's time for you to get going.
When you arrive at the competitors’ entrance, a small robot scans your IDs and informs you of the basic rules of the race: racers and their pit crews are to build and improve their vehicles from the available scrap around the racetrack. Vehicles built at previous junkraces can return. Racers can fire upon other competitors during the race, but firing into the audience is grounds for immediate and permanent disqualification; racer weapons must be nonlethal and may affect only opponents’ vehicles. Sabotaging opponents' vehicles prior to a race is also grounds for being ejected - a first offense causes the caught party to be removed. A second offense sees the whole team removed from the stadium and disqualified from racing.
Laboni is easy to find in the crowd due to her paisley clothes and bright white lab coat. She is in her late teens and sheepish about the whole debacle—in truth, she was merely aping the opinions of her seniors in the field and got carried away. Laboni is incredibly grateful to you for showing up to support her, as she knows she cannot win the race on her own.
She has constructed a basic Junkracer with the following statistics:
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Speed: 40ft / Top Speed: 400ft
EAC: 10 / KAC: 12
Ship Modifiers: Piloting +2, Attack -3
Passengers: 1
Weapon: Energy Weapon (A hit vehicle takes a -4 to its next Piloting check)
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Each character may take FOUR actions before the race begins. Laboni informs you that she will be working on something special to improve your team's overall chances of victory during that time. You may each go off on your own, or combine your efforts with the Aid Another action (feel free to coordinate in the Discussion tab).
Option 1: Improve Your Junkracer
You can make a Computers, Engineering, Perception, or Physical Science check to find, repair, create, or fine-tune parts to improve your vehicle. Improvements that you can create are as follows:
- Increase base speed
- Increase piloting modifier
- Increase attack modifier
- Increase EAC
- Increase KAC
- Install an extra Energy Weapon (inflicts a -4 Piloting penalty to whomever it hits for one round)
- Install an extra Kinetic Weapon (inflicts a -4 Piloting penalty to whomever it hits for one round)
- Increase "damage" dealt by one of your weapons (from a -4 to a -6)
Option 2: Socialize
You can try to socialize with the other five pilots taking part in this junkrace. Laboni tells you that some might also dislike Ratrod and could be recruited to help against him, or might have useful information. Depending on which one you approach, this might involve Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Culture, or Sense Motive checks.
Option 3: Sabotage
You can try to sabotage another racer's vehicle. To do this, you would need to make a Stealth check followed by an Engineering check. If successful at both, you could decrease a vehicle's speed by 10ft (100ft max) or impose a -4 to either piloting or weapons checks.
Option 4: Investigating the Enemy
You can take an action to scout out one of your opponents and their skills as a pilot/gunner using Sense Motive or one of your opponents' vehicles and its statistics using Engineering.
Special: Each of you can make either a Sense Motive or Engineering check for free *once* during your first action during this part of the scenario unless you are choosing Option 3.
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Charli's Sense Motive is able to get some basic details about your opponents:
- Ratrod, a male ysoki with mottled gray-and-white fur. He has a showman’s personality to match his icon status. People in the Spike consider him something of a hero to the ysoki-dominated Scrap Union.
- Lemgem, a blue-haired female gnome covered in all manner of piercings, tattoos, and augmentations.
- Nyizin, a female ryphorian (triaxian) bearing many scars wearing a racing suit that is augmented with pieces of dragon bone. She seems to have a "thousand yard stare" that unnerves others.
- Orsis, stoic, dark-haired male damaya lashunta who looks unfairly good in a black and gold racing suit.
- Velocity, a beautiful android with silver hair and skin. They have self-modified to have both masculine and feminine attributes, and have decorated their clothing, eyelids, and lips with bright, colorful patterns.
Mikkazuki (being the only one to try engineering) is only able to tell that Orsis's racer is very sleek, Velocity's racer is slow and bulky, Nyizin's is very well-armed, and Lemgem's is strangely spherical. Ratrod's racer is kept under a tarp for the time being and Mikkazuki was unable to get a glance at it.
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Kima with her 1st action is able to increase your racer's speed by 5!
Dart - Who would you like to talk to from among the other racers? (Hint - diplomacy won't work with Ratrod, but might with the other four)
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Kaylee is able to learn more about each race vehicle with her amazing eye for vehicles (and reducing the DC by 5 for her being an Ace Pilot on top of that)!
- Ratrod's vehicle is rumored to be the fastest here, fitting for his champion status. It has a bonus to piloting but a penalty to attack rolls (like most vehicles do while trying to fire weapons in the middle of racing through a track). It has a higher KAC than EAC. It has an energy weapon of some kind, but discovering more about that would take specific probing requiring a full turn's worth of actions.
- Lemgem's vehicle is spherical and is fairly fast. It also has bonuses to piloting and penalties to attack rolls. It has a better KAC than EAC and has one onboard kinetic weapon. It also sports numerous modifications and alterations that don't all make sense at first glance.
- Nyizin's vehicle is heavily armed, with a kinetic weapon that can do extra damage beyond a "normal" weapon's ability to disrupt piloting, *and* an energy weapon as well. It's ACs are lower as a result of the extra weaponry, but it is still fairly fast.
- Orsis's vehicle is red, shiny, sleek, and has 0 weaponry at all. It is rumored to be just as fast or maybe even faster than Ratrod's, with focuses in having higher piloting bonuses and AC, because of its lack of weapons.
- Velocity's vehicle is slow and bulky - arguably the slowest one present. It has two kinetic weapons and a decent KAC, but its speed and EAC are very low.
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Kaylee with her first action is able to increase your vehicle's speed by 5!
The GM misread Kima's first action, which was still a success, and boosted your Piloting modifier by +1 (not a speed boost like I thought originally).
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Dart starts with the gnome Lemgem.
"Blessing of the Drinkless God to you on this fine race day! Have you heard about the grudge between Ratrod and Laboni? I find myself in the camp of the underdog of this bout"
Dart tries to gauge the gnomes reaction and see if she has any leanings one way or another. And will press the issue if it looks like there is something he could do to gain some favor.