We managed to get a few passengers. One we're trading cabin space for his brokering skills for Mont. For some reason Mr. Klytria thinks there is a market for his services on Mont. From what I've been reading in the ship's library, he won't have any competition at any rate. Our other mid-passenger is an Aslan, a Respected Scholar Kea Tesi. Apparently from some large clan and is spending some time touring the League. If we had a high passage cabin she would have gone for that as she apparently does not lack for funds. Unlike Mr. Klytria, she is travelling pertty lightly - her comp and a large trunk on wheels is all she has, unlike the collection of bags our other passenger carries. Paying off the warehouse fees and our port charges took all of Cr500. As we were at the pax boards finalizing the passenger list with the port authority. Bobbis Elber, our broker on Montca, waved us over.
"I see you're taking Petria to Mont. Should be interesting - he had a good career with Mika and Daughters on Llamma but was struggling a bit here. I hope things will work out for him on Mont. Though I'd never want to step foot on that sauna!" We were seated at a small cafe in the concourse, drinking some excellent coffee while Ewo sipped her tea as we listened to Bobbis. "And Mont is not a well-protected as Montca, but with that piece of rock they call a starport, I don't think there is all that much to protect!" He ordered a small pot of coffee and another of tea. Always a business man, and he did make a fair anount of credits from us. I shared a glance with Ewo who merely raised an eyebrow, her tail twitching the only sign of her impatience at the interruption of our duties.
"Petria, he's pretty good, and would probably be an asset to a trader such as yourselves. If I were hiring I'd probably see if he was interested. But then, more business for me as I don't deal with Mont all that much. Mostly just rocks from there, though I've heard they do have some hot waters that are supposed to be therapeutic. And thanks, I'll cover the tab. Off to meet up with Sanford and his crew, see what sort of cargoes they are hauling in now. Good seeing you," and he got up, leaving a few credits on the table as he walked towards the tubes to head for the warehousing district. [my starport encounter was meeting a contact. He was the only contact I have on Montca. Plus throw in some little details about Mont that may or may not bear any fruit later]
Getting our exit coordinates and time was a simple matter and we were lifting off from Montca 4 hours later. Manning the comms, I signaled our final vector after verifying the course from Captain Laux and we headed for the jump point almost 5 hours away. As we were accellerating, a very fast shuttle was fast approaching our vector. Opening a comm channel, I alerted them to their proximity. It turns out they were part of the local Space Patrol. and while they did not require boarding us, they were escorting us out-system. Over the internal comms, Captain Laus told me not to worry. "Montca is pretty protective of their air space. I was surprised we did not get boarded on the way in last week. Unlike Mont which has nothing to even protect their air space! Don't fret, Malik, things are going as expected." And they did shadow us until we were almost at a standstill outside the 100 diameter limit. Gave me plenty of time to plot the course to Mont and recheck the figures against the computer a few times [rolled a 10 for his astrogation]. I signaled the ship that we were about to hit jump space, and dimmed the lights. I just like the old traditions. Got the okay from Lando and our new engineer Egg and closed all external ports and vid feeds as we made the gentle lurch into jump space.
The week was not made easy by Respected Scholar Tesi. Though she may have earned that honorific, she showed little respect to the crew, and by the crew, I mean mostly me. [rolled for an obnoxious passenger, and she is a haughty Aslan from a major clan; details below, The additional roll indicated soclal was the way to deal with the passenger]. Ewo tried to reason with her a bit, but from with her, but from what I could tell, Ewo's clan was not in the 29 major clans and the Respected Scholar seemed to not really respect Ewo's clan ranking. And though they both spoke different dialects, it still sounded as if harsh words were being spoken when they dropped back into Trokh. From what I gathered from Ewo, the scholar felt it beneath her to speak the common tongue or Galanglic. And, after hearing how she won two duels, I was not going to say anything! The week in jump was not entirely comfortable, so I spent a fair amount of time in the cargo holds, checking and rechecking the cargoes. It was with a sigh of relief when we were approaching the time to drop out of jump.
Okay, I've managed to move the story along. I've covered Petria Klytria's background. Let me cover our respected Scholar Kea Tesi. I used the Aslan module of RPGSuite to generate her, and it was interesting and pretty detailed. Except that now I can't get those details out: the PDF export seems to fail with her for some reason. And the Aslan character generation actually goes back 2 generations to cover land and clan status. So, I am going off of memory mostly as the history function (which lists everything they did) also appears to not work. I may have to put in a bug ticket. I did export her in JSON but that is a HUGE file that has the entire system in there it looks like!
Kea Tesi is the youngest, and apparently coddled, daughter of a major clan. Her social rank of 7 in the Aslan Hierate indicates some major family holdings. In fact, her grandfather managed to greatly expand their land holdings, and her father, though not as successful as his father, also increased their holdings. Kea is smart, and went into the sciences as an exploratory scientist. She roamed worlds and was promoted regularly. Twice in her career her findings were challenged. And twice she entered duels, winning both challenges, though barely. But they took a toll on her, and, suddenly more frail than she was expecting at the age of 36, she decided to explore on her own terms.
Respected Scholar Kea Tesi age 36, 5 terms Scholar: Explorer/Scientist
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