This was originally going to be our backup game for when people can't show, but we have played this more often recently than the main game.
SPOILERS ahead as I have combined the AP and Scenarios in a blender! Woohoo!
The party started as:
40&2 - Android Mechanic
Ricket - Ysoki Soldier
Elaina - Lashunta Mystic
on a shuttle bound for the town of Maro on Akiton. It is making a stop before it heads to Absalom Station. 40&2 and Elaina chatted on the shuttle for a bit as Ricket made his way to the port to board and leave the planet. He really wants to leave.
Just as the shuttle lands Ricket hears screaming coming from behind him as the crowd scatters revealing a man being chased by two Ysoki and a Shobhad. The Shobhad guns the man down just as the doors to the shuttle open with stray fire going inside the shuttle damaging some components. The man struggles to push a datapad towards the shuttle occupants as he dies from his wounds.
The native Akitonians on the shuttle scatter into the crowd but the Shobhad levels her gun at the rest and tells the new-comers to leave, that the people of Akiton finely have something good going on and that the outsiders should stay away. The team attempt to calm her down but Ricket had had enough of this place and pulls his gun to fire.
*Combat commences*
Setting - Open air space port, wide walkways with evenly spaced pillars.
Most of the party stays in the shuttle to utilize it as cover but Elaina heads out to get behind a pillar. Fairly standard gun fight ensues except the Mystic fries a brain or two.
*Combat ends*
The party then goes about looting the assailants and investigating the data pad. On the data pad they find information from a Venture Captain Arvin detailing a mission regarding the retrieval of a Charlatan's Stone from a rogue agent, Reynald Talbot. The data pad also details the fate of the Starfinder team that was sent and their eventual death at the hands Talbot's loyal followers. The previously surviving Starfinder, now dead at the threshold of the shuttle, also mentions in the datapad's notes that while Talbot hasn't left the planet yet, he is likely to leave soon.
The party, seeking to gain entrance into the Society, decides to accomplish the mission.
-More when I have time to get this caught up-
-...and I'm back-
Without knowing where this guy is and without any assailants to question, they decide to investigate things in Maro and hope to do better than the last team.
(High Profession Roll later) Ricket remembers a contact of his that might have a clue so they go to visit Raszt, a Vesk that runs a store nearby. Raszt has been watching the money move around and clues Ricket in to a large amount that has been moved around Tasch, a normally quiet town.
The party borrows a vehicle from Raszt, who said he would give them their creds back so long as he got it back in one piece, and head to Tasch. The party locates the tavern bustling with activity and gently question a patron, get a free drink, and receive a polite request to talk from the oddity in the room, an Abadar-Corp member, Philt, and his bodyguards.
The party let the extremely blunt 40 negotiate, which turned out very well when the Abadaran realized that their goals were very closely aligned, but did not interfere with one another. The party mentioned they lacked the requisite firearms to take the target back alive, so they worked out a deal. They would receive a small loan to be repaid as soon as they returned to Maro with no interest so long as Talbot was brought back alive. If they failed to return him alive, they would owe twice as much. A tough bargain, but they accepted and bought some non-lethal small arms commonly used around town for various purposes. Finding directions to the mine Talbot was at proved to be as easy as asking someone since they hadn't revealed their goals to the residents.
A short drive to the mine and the party took the search nice and slow. Searched through all the different rooms and spotted the laser trap right before it would have detected them. 40 disabled the sensor and they crept slowly ahead. (Some terrible perception rolls later by the miners) The party had snuck up on the miners and tried to talk with them but to no avail.
*Combat starts*
Talbot exits his room and makes his way towards the cart, the miners charge ahead clubs swinging. Talbot and one of the miners gets hit. The cart begins making its way out of the mine, narrowly missing the party. The miners start clubbing the intruders while Talbot shoots one. Elaina and 40 stay and fight the miners, which goes poorly for the party members, while Ricket chases Talbot. Talbot is eventually subdued and unceremoniously dumped on the ground near the entrance. 40 is knocked unconscious while Elaina almost meets the same end before Ricket shoots the miner in the back.
*Combat ends*
After 40 is revived, and Talbot rounded up, the party searches the rest of the base for credits to help pay back the loan, any little bit helps. Satisfied with their looting and disassembly of the laser trap gun, they exit the mine to find Philt and his guards waiting for them. Abadar-Corp takes Talbot into custody and the party takes the Charlatan's Stone.
Philt lets them know that he was pleased by their interaction and may just be able to help out the people of Tasch. He wishes the Starfinders well on their return to Absalom Station (they said they were Starfinders earlier) and he departs in a shuttle. The party returns to Maro, sells the junk they don't need and wires Philt the credits while still making out with a decent amount of credits.
They board the shuttle along with a new arrival, Maxalio, and head to Absalom Station.
-I'll stop this here and get it caught up later.-
The SFS scenario (a modified #1-02) was run with three PCs thinking that a fourth would be joining us. I ran with the 4 player adjustment and just slightly tuned HP values to account for 3. worked pretty well I think.
The fourth player hasn't shown up so we added a fourth character and tweaked skills to accommodate. Now, for the beginnings of Incident at Absalom Station.
*The Cast*
40&2 - Android Exocortex Mechanic - "Forty" and his AI "Two" are the newest renewal of this android body. He has quite a bit to learn though as he has only been around for 2 years. Extremely blunt and frequently points out the foolishness of many things.
Ricket - Ysoki Sharpshooter Soldier - Not much is known about Ricket other than that he REALLY wants to be off Akiton. More than happy to stuff all sorts of firearms and explosives in his cheek pouches. Easier than carrying them.
Elaina - Lashunta Mystic - She really wants to join the Xenodruids, has a taste for fine booze, and likes overloading people's brains rather than shoot them.
Maxalio - Lashunta Solarion - Orphaned and raised to be a child star, Maxalio never really learned to control his Limited Telepathy. He eventually found his talent at Solarion teachings be he seeks to reignite his fame and hands out his photograph often, assuming people remember him. Scary with a Doshko
-Here we go, and boy was this fun-
The group chatted for a little bit as the Okimoro made its approach to Docking Bay 94, mainly with finding out why Max was wanting to join the Starfinders. A few minutes later the shuttle lands and the pilot and co-pilot let the passengers know that they will be a minute as they check the little bit of cargo they have.
The passengers disembark and easily spot their contact, Duravor Kreel, in the mass of people milling around. They also spot two groups of armed individuals making their way to cover. Just as Elaina waves over to Kreel and shouts out for him, a flurry of laser fire fills the air between the two armed groups (and thanks to one obscenely high Perception check I let them know which side the killing shot came from).
*Combat Starts*
Everyone made the Perception check so a surprise round was sort of pointless.
First round, one of the 21ers fires at the party while the rest exchange fire with the opposing crew. The party moves to cover, Elaina heads towards the nearby King, Ricket aims at his assailant, and the other 2 begin their assault on the closest 21er.
[Great, a fight was picked against both crews, thankfully everyone has cover]
A few rounds later, the closest 21er and King are both dead. The rest are wounded except for the King furthest away. The party took a total of 2 damage. (My dice are really cold it seems)
Enemies exchange fire some more, eventually the furthest 21er is killed by their rival King. The last 21er meets his end by Max's Doshko while the second to last King tries to get away but is shot dead. The final King manages to get away.
*Combat Ends*
Elaina, Ricket, and Max rush over to Kreel and find that he is most definitely dead. 40&2 begins looting one of the thugs. Then they here sirens.
Station security arrives and a sergeant orders the officers to check the area for any stragglers. He then approaches the party, standing around the corpse of Kreel with their hands in the air.
The sergeant rubs his temples with one hand and mutters to himself. He then tells the group to put their hands down because if they had started this they would have ran off by now. The party then tries to explain what happened but the sergeant notices 40 off to the side, looting the dead guys like nothing is wrong. The sergeant yells at him to get over here with the rest of them. 40 shrugs like nothing is wrong and heads back to the group, slightly richer thanks to the credits and gun he grabbed.
The sergeant figures they are new in town, they have that look about them and requests a brief statement before letting them go and offers the aid of the medical staff when they arrive in a minute. Only slightly damaged, they decline the offer and he tells them to copy any information off their friends computer that they need. 40 handles that task deftly and they set off to the Lorespire Complex.
*News snippets about events going on around the station, most prominently the Acreon*
They arrive at the Lorespire Complex and stand around dumbfounded for a minute. "Why did we come here exactly?" They quickly remember their reason as well as the contact in Kreel's computer data. They chat with a receptionist for a second before she tells them where they need to go to meet with Chiskisk. Up a few floors to Chiskisk's office and they see the shirren pacing back and forth in his office.
They see the party arrive and welcomes them, apologizes for the events at Docking Bay 94 and sets them off to investigate the matter.
-I'll end it here and get this more caught up later-
For those of you keeping track, no, the party hasn't turned in the Charlatan's Stone yet. Forgetful bunch.
Off they set to investigate, or more like browse the infosphere. They quickly found that Astral Extractions and the Hardscrabble Collective were dead ends. They did dig up some info on Duravor Kreel that helped explain why he might have been targeted.
They also dug up basic information on the two gangs but deduced that they would need to interrogate someone to get more information. They decided to head to Level 21 first to try and get some allies against the Kings.
Ricket used his underworld knowledge to locate a fence down in Level 21 and Max used his charming personality to win him over. (I think my dice are broken in the opposite way the players dice are broken. Oh well) The fence let them know that most people around here don't have a problem with the Crew and if they want to talk to someone to let Mama know down at the bodega. Meeting Mama was a pleasant encounter that earned them a meeting the next day.
*Fast Forward to next day, they didn't have anything else they wanted to do, not even return the Stone, they didn't think about it*
They head to the bodega and Jabaxa meets them in the back room along with a few guards and Mama guarding the door. Jabaxa can't lend them any bodies but does give them the lowdown on the Kings. Needless to say, the differences in criminal activities and the hired hit on Kreel pushes the players to seek out the Kings at the Fusion Queen.
The party decides to head right over, late morning at a nightclub, not a lot of people around. The party is greeted at the door and told they need to relinquish their weapons to get inside.
*Maxalio once again breaks out a high Diplomacy roll, the encounter went something like this*
-Party approaches door-
Guard 1: Hold on a sec, before you get in I need to get your guns and other weapons.
Guard 2: *Eyes Max intently*
Elaina, Ricket, 40&2: (at once) I'm not giving you my gun.
*Guard 1, Ricket, and 40&2 all slowly reach for guns*
Maxalio: *Pulling an autographed photo out* Perhaps you've heard of me? I'm Maxalio Darrish, I'm sort of a big deal.
Guard 2: That's why I thought you looked familiar. *turning to Guard 2* Hey man, it's good. We can trust him. He's good people. *Takes photo* Sweet!
All: *Hands move away from guns, tension evaporates*
Party: *Heads Inside*
//How to mess with this AP\\
I got the Cantina flip mat a little bit before we played this and I figured it would be a disgrace not to use it.
Obviously some alteration is needed, I told the party to think of how they wanted to approach this while I mentally rearranged things.
Reference
\\--------------------------//
The guard at the door notes their firearms but figures they were let through for a reason. He does mention that the DJ should have some music going in a minute.
The party heads to the nearby bar and asks the bartender to see Ferani. The tender says that he wasn't told to expect anyone asking for her and they mention it was just set up. *One blown diplomacy roll later* The bartender says that he will head to the back. *To let the boss know she has some unexpected heavily armed company* Before he leaves Elaina says to make sure to say that Duravor is here to see her.
*Bartender calmly walks through the door at the back of the bar and they can hear him start running as soon as he gets through the door.*
Figuring they might have said something wrong, most of the party vaults the bar and takes up a defensive position. The people at the bar stop the door guard from seeing them but when two guards enter the dance floor on the far side with guns drawn he turns to the party and draws his gun.
DJ starts up the music...
*Combat starts*
The poor door guard gets killed in a hail of laser and small arms fire and collapses dead before even getting to fire. People flee the club or take cover. The guards on the fire side of the room exchange fire with the team but the range and lack of cover forces them to try a different strategy.
The party heads to the back hallway and runs into a guard coming around that way. One guard stays near the far door and fires at the party but nothing exciting happens. The door in the back is overwhelmed by the party and Max's doshko cuts him down. 40&2 and Max head through the back halls while Ricket and Elaina cut across the club floor.
The guard by the far door begins to retreat but runs into a perturbed Hatchbuster which forces him back into the fray. The guard gets chopped up by Max who was waiting in a side room for him.
Hatchbuster and 40&2 exchange fire but Hatchbuster misses and 40 hits for a high amount of damage. Hatchbuster retreats around the corner and pulls out his hammer. Ferani takes cover around the stage door and fires at Ricket. (minimum damage again) Max heads to the corner and spies Hatchbuster around the corner and steps back.
Hatchbuster moves forward and hits Max for 9 damage (Holy crap, real damage). Max counters for 14 damage, killing Hatchbuster. *sigh*
Ferani is quickly overwhelmed, tries to flee and is killed by Max's axe. (Max is by far the MVP this session.)
The party gets the information they need, finds all the stuff to loot and fences it to the Crew.
-We ended here-
Be assured, any comments made regarding the health and well-being of the PCs is made with humor.