Arabella shrugs at the woman's response, not sure what to believe.
Spirit
Result 7
"What's yer name, chile? Any idea what would give a man ol' enough ta be yer pa the ideer yer in love with him?"
Able heals Fred's wound, stopping the bleeding and patching him up nicely. Someone brings over a bucket of water for the pepper-sprayed guy to splash water in his eyes to relieve the pain.
Here's what I said at the time : by the book, Notice is used as D&D's "Sense Motive", but I just found a suggestion by one of the game developers : "use a Notice roll to detect that something is 'off' about a character, then a Streetwise roll to determine *what* it is (duplicity, anxiety, fear, etc.)".
But, having to make 2 rolls to determine something seems a bit harsh, so let's just use Notice. By RAW, it's used to detect many things about your environment, from seeing something lying on the ground to searching a room to reading facial expressions ("sensing motive").
= 13, 2 Raises
You are absolutely convinced that she is telling you what she believes to be the truth.
"Well, first off, he's younger than my pop, so that's no problem. I think it started one day a few months ago when I was in town shopping, and ran into him by chance. He asked me if I wanted to lunch with him, and I didn't want him to think that his problems with pop bothered me, so I did. We had a friendly talk, and I thought that was about it, but then he showed up the next time I went into town, which I thought was odd. Then he started writing me love letters, to which I didn't respond. I tell you true, I never encouraged him."
"Buhn Dahn! Typical. Give some men smile an' they'll rush in, arms wide. Let's get ya outta here."
Arabella helps the woman out of her restraints and into a pair of shoes or whatever she may need of her clothes, coat, etc.
She's fully dressed, just tied up.
What is everyone else doing?
"We done here folks? We should get gone..."
Daisy takes another look around, suddenly expecting an entire cavalry regiment or something else silly to come attack them...
Harold takes the guys gun, and then makes sure everyone else is out before he leaves the cabin.
Lets get gone as fast as possible
Are you taking the two living guys with you, or tying them up, or leaving them lying on the floor...???
Arabella escorts the young woman toward the front door but pauses to talk to Harold.
"So Harold, we're the Karma collectors. Ya done run up a pretty big tab in the greedy category, tryin' ta grab either yer competitor's land or his daughter. Got anythin' ta say fer yerse'f?"
She also gives the woman a chance to have a final word with her captor.
Harold looks at Arabella in confusion.
I am not trying to grab anyones land or daughter, Fred there might be, but not me.
However, we got to go.
Arabella says, "Sorry. I never was too good with names. I meant Fred here," and she points at the wounded rancher.
Arabella says, "Sorry. I never was too good with names. I meant Fred here," and she points at the wounded rancher.
Don't worry about it, but we really have to be gone, afore anymore of his hands show up.
He continues to cover the wounded and trussed up men with the shotgun intending to be the last one out.
The girl says to the group "Sorry, with all the shooting and stuff I forgot to tell you, my name is Sally."
Turning to Fred she says "I will NEVER love you. Don't come near me again or the next shot will be fatal."
In response to Arabella's and Sally's comments, Fred just looks sullen, with his head down, chin-on-chest.
On the way back, Arabella expounds on how this situation illustrates Buddha's four-fold truth. "He said Life is Suffering, which is to say you cannot escape suffering. Some of this is just hitting your thumb ith a hammer type suffering, but mostly its self-imposed mental suffering because you try to hold on to things you think you need or try to escape things you don't like. The remedy is the whole rest of the Buddhist program, the eight-fold path and the like. Buddhists have a lot of folds."
She natters on for a while and engages anyone with a mind to discuss the ideas. If no one says anything in response, she eventually reads the room and leaves off the sermon.
When she gets back to the ship, she talks to the captain about a possible berth on the ship, explaining the many times she has served on ships like this, helping to find jobs, and sharing her wisdom gained through many years of experience traveling the 'verse.
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On the way back Emma engages Arabella's philosophy with a some of her own.
"All battles are won or lost before they are fought," she states in her girlish monotone. "If you know thyself, and know thy enemy, you will never know suffering."
She pauses a moment, looking up to the sky. Then continues.
"Do, or do not. There is no try," she says, apropos of nothing, perhaps referring to better days long gone. Almost Lostech.
"Things are never quite the way they seem," she finishes.
Sally listens to Arabella and Emma, then turns to Arabella and says "Who's 'Buddha'?" That's all she seems to have taken away from your speech.
To Emma she says "How can you win or lose before you fight? That doesn't make any sense."
Anyone else want to say anything before getting to Harold's?
Daisy will listen to the easy banter and once safely on their employer's lands hand her borrowed rifle back to....Harold.
You get back to Harold's ranch, and are immediately escorted to his study by a servant that begins to fuss over Sally on the way.
When you all enter the room, Harold looks up and says "Sally!" while Sally says "Dad!" and they meet in the middle for a long hug.
You can't be sure, but Harold's eyes might be a little wet as he turns to the group and says "I can't thank you enough. Let me get your payment." He walks over to a heavy-looking safe on the floor, twiddles the dial, opens the door, and pulls out a large, heavy sack. "I didn't know if you'd succeed, but I was praying that you would, so to pass the time I prepared the money. Count it if you want, but 1200 platinum pieces will take a long time. I assure you it is all there."
Anyone want to count it now, or have anything to say to Harold?
Sally listens to Arabella and Emma, then turns to Arabella and says "Who's 'Buddha'?" That's all she seems to have taken away from your speech.
"Jus' a very wise man who spent many years trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions, kinda like a spiritual detective."
Arabella is content with accepting the payment as complete.
Arabella explains in a brief way that Fred appeared to be in love with Sally but not so in love that he was unwilling to use her as a hostage to try to force Harold to sell part of his ranch, apparently hoping Sally would fall in love with him and he'd get both more land and a lovely wife.
"If that sonofa... ever comes near my daughter again, I'll kill him!" Harold says after hearing Arabella's explanation.
It looks like no one else has anything to say, so you leave Harold's, and get back to the ship. Bryce (my NPC pilot) says hi and tells you nothing important happened while you were gone.
Arabella makes her pitch to Bryce from a previous post, and after thinking about it some, he says "Sure, why not, we could probably use a moral compass around here..."
The 1200 gets split 6 ways, so 200p per person. Those of you with the Minor Debt Hindrance only get 100p.
It looks like I never told you how much the cargo you hauled here netted you, the last numbers I can find were 400p / week, and the travel time was 2 weeks, so 800p total. Subtract 20% for overhead leaves you with 640p, or 107p each. Again, only 53p if you have Minor Debt.
We haven't made the rolls for finding a new shipping job (Harold's job came up right after you landed), so Arabella, you're up. Please read the current rules for finding jobs in the Campaign Info tab, and ask any clarifying questions you want. For Freight and Speculative Cargo, please feel free to describe what the merchandise is. If Salvage comes up, you can describe it if you want to, but I'll set the price.
Once a destination is found, and one that might be populated by people of substance and taste, Daisy will see if she can also book any work there while they will be in the area..
She'll also purchase her own rifle.
Networking roll using persuasion.
Modifiers: +2 from Shepard and free reroll from Charismatic, -2 rim.
TN: 4
Result: 6 + 2 - 2 = 6
Reroll
Result: 7 + 2 - 2 = 7
Outcome: single success.
We have found a middleman, who will take 10% of the profits for arranging the deal.
Core
salvage
Approximate destination
Central Planets
1 Ariel
2 Bernadette
3 Londinum
4 Osiris
5 Sihnon
6 Other
Osiris
Arabella heads out to find something the ship can deliver or trade. After visiting various corporations and businesses and coming up with nothing interesting, she locates a small run-down office with the name "Oddo's Odd Jobs." Not expecting much, she enters and meets Cranston Oddo. He's a small man in his forties who has lost half his hair. His office is a mess, with folders and data-pads stacked precariously on several small tables.
Arabella explains that she is looking for a shipping job. After asking her about the size and reliability of the ship, Oddo looks through the top few folders on a side table until he finds a page with some scribbled notes.
Long story short, Arabella travels to a small mining town where she finds a woman named Dr. Jayla Skydrome. She explains was called in to excavate a derelict spaceship mostly buried and very ancient, predating the settlement of the 'Verse. After documenting everything they could about the ship and removing many books and physical objects, Dr. Skydrome's team packed the lot into crates and headed to deliver the cargo to the University of Osiris department of archaeology along with the team of academics, mostly grad students.
Jayla stayed to continue researching the ship itself. Last week, she received a transmission from the ship indicating they were adrift, after having a breakdown. They provided the coordinates of their ship, about halfway to the Core. Jayla wants to book passage to travel to the location of the ship. She is concerned because she has sent several messages to them asking for details of their situation and has received no answers.
Arabella returns to the ship with Jayla, who explains all this and indicates that she wants to travel to the location the ship gave to investigate what happened to the ship and crew, rescue any survivors, and transfer the crates to the ship and deliver them to the university, who will pay a reasonable price and provide a salvage permit, in case they find the ship's crew deceased.
You are in the Rim right now, yes.
Does anyone have any thoughts or concerns about the job?
"Interesting job. Well, saves me some leg work for sure! When do we leave?"
Daisy will purchase the equivalent of a Spencer Carbine and ammo before they leave...
Daisy gets her gun.
So Bryce the pilot makes ready with the astrogation calculations :
And then applies his piloting skill to maneuver the ship :
Since we're going from Rim to Core, the travel time is :
days
Anyone want to do anything during the trip?
Arabella spends a fair amount of time meditating. The rest of the time, she talks with her new shipmates, asking about their lives and adventures. She'll gladly tell tales of her own travels or stories she has heard others tell. She also spends time reading various books on philosophy and a few trashy novels.
She makes sure to ask the archeologist, Jayla, to tell the group about the items on the ship. "You said the ship was from before we humans settled the verse. Do you know anything about the crew, what type of species they were? What kind of technology did they have?"
Daisy will spend a little time working on the empty rooms making them more 'homey.'
She'll also spend time with everyone else, just getting to know everyone better.
Harold takes his rifle back from Daisy.
I guess I got to find me a sight for this thing
He unloads his rifle after getting it back, and then puts everything in his room.
Jayla says (while everyone is present, like at a meal) "From the seats and control panel layouts we can figure out that they at least had arms and legs somewhat similar to ours, altho how many of each we're not sure. But the ship was buried in sediment we estimate is at least 100,000 years old, so it's pretty likely that their civilization has died out. And since we've never found anything like it in the rest of the 'verse, it's not likely they lived here."
To Emma: "Sure, I like games! What ya' got?"
Daisy smiles, concentrates on the number '2' and holds Emma's hand.
Arabella watches Emma and Daisy's game with interest. She interjects a quote from one of her scriptures.
"The Dao is the root of the One. People love dividing the One into parts. Parts get divided into more parts. Parts need names and numbers.
To understand the parts, stop seeing them as parts. Then you see the One and all becomes easy."
Daisy stares at Emma and smiles. "Lucky guess. Sure, what ya' got now?."
Daisy nods. "OK then"
She thinks, "Hah, she didn't say WHOLE numbers" and thinks hard on the number 1,987,201.895.
She looks intently at Emma and smiles.
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Emma closes her eyes and concentrates. In great seriousness she intones, "Three hundred ninety seven thousand, four hundred forty, decimal, three seven nine."
Just as seriously, with much seriousness, she opens her eyes and returns Daisy's stare.
Only then her face crack and the corner of her mouth turns up in a mischievous grin.
"Times five."
Then she recites "1,987,201.895"
Whereas before there was a slight tickle, as if not so much some one but some thing was lifting the number 2 out of your head, this time there is no trace, no mark, no discernable indication that the number came from anywhere except from Emma's own intuituion.
"Sometimes I ask people questions and they just answer. But, like, in the silent way. It is, um, a trick I, uh, sort of picked up.
We can stop if you want." she says, her head bowed.
In addition to meditation and interjecting philosophical tidbits into conversations, Arabella plays a violin to amuse herself, although she'll gladly play for her comrades. She explains she was once a companion and learned to be entertaining back when.
Daisy starts to grin as Emma starts, thinking of a joke to cover up the impossibility of guessing that number and then... she just sits there with her mouth wide open, a dumbfounded look on her face for a good 5 seconds while her brain mostly refuses to compute what happened.
She then shakes her head and leans in close.
"OK, that was pretty darn specific. I've been trained to look for tells and such but that...."
She once again pauses for a few seconds to gather her thoughts.
"That is amazing. Can you teach me this trick. I'll stop my current line of work, become a professional gambler and we'll all be rich enough to retire in a month!"
She finishes with a wink and a huge smile.
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"This one has not screamed enough to show effective conditioning. Connect the jumper cables again."
The very idea of someone -willfully- subjecting themselves as a science experiment for the Alliance to perform their every wish and whim on begins a psychotic escapade that avalanches through whatever sanity Emma had built up.
"Can't be quantified!" she screams, clutching her ears and smashing her head into the floor. "Error! Subject rejected! RE-initialize temporal shock! Increase to four hundred volts!" she yells into the floor, mimicking some of the recurring phrases that she memorized only from constant rote.
"Prep for surgery! Sequence 54-Alpha! Anesthetic denied--increased neural output required!"
Eventually the memories of The Treatment overwhelm her and she lapses into a dead silence, sinking, catatonic, into the floor.
Daisy lies down and gently hugs Emma to her.
"Oh, my friend. What did they do to you? Hush now, no one here is going to hurt you."
Arabella rushes to Emma's side, anxious to help her past whatever memories were evidently triggered. She repeats, "You are safe, you are here, you are safe, you are with friends, ..."
With the two other women rushing to her and comforting her, Emma very quickly comes out of her catatonic state.
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Comforted and tended, Emma returns to what passes for sanity for her and stands up. Wiping her eyes she replies, "Negative, the trick can...not be taught. However I will perform it for you for whatever conditions you require.
The engine needs a class-1 diagnostic or we will all explode and die."
Without another word she turns and disappears into the engine room.
As Emma heads off Daisy's first reaction is to follow but she stops and looks at Arabella, "I'll talk to her later. I think she just needs some time alone right now. Something horrible happened to her. She's a good person. I'll be sure to be there for her in the future..."
She pauses, blinks a few times, "So, you used to be a companion, eh? Any pointers for those of us just starting out?"
During the travel time, Harold is keeping a bit to himself, but working out along with running laps around the cargo bay using the catwalks.
As Emma heads off Daisy's first reaction is to follow but she stops and looks at Arabella, "I'll talk to her later. I think she just needs some time alone right now. Something horrible happened to her. She's a good person. I'll be sure to be there for her in the future..."
She pauses, blinks a few times, "So, you used to be a companion, eh? Any pointers for those of us just starting out?"
Referring to Emma, Arabella says to Daisy, "Sounds like she may have been a lab rat for someone. I hope she will feel comfortable telling us the story behind that. I can relate. I've been in so many firefights that ended nearly killing me, that I sometimes react badly at the start of a fight, not that I'm that effective when I do fight." Arabella pats her pistol and sword as if to make sure they are still there.
Arbella's Rim drawl has largely faded into more proper English spoken in the core and border worlds.
"As for advice, I guess the big one is think long an' hard before quitting on account of romance with a client. Back in 2490*, I fell for a rich, handsome fella, quit the trade, got married, even had a kid. Then he abandoned me in a backwater rim planet, took my little girl, and I haven't been able to find 'em since, though not for lack of tryin'."
"So, Daisy, what is your story? Or if you prefer I'll tell y'all mine."