Kinunir Session 5: Into the Dome

Our intrepid group of 4 was down to 2 last session for reasons. Deciding the 2 would stay in the research pinnace while Jake and Moses entered the dome.

Moses tried to communicate with Professor Plutonis and his lovely assistant, Yvonne. Who for some reason I just picture as the character from Star Trek: Voyager's Proton holodeck series:

Yvonne

Plutonis was glad to hear from his comms: while he and Yvonne had been imprisoned for the last 2 weeks or so, and he had lost weight due to the bland seafood diet, he was okay. But his Mightiness was still debating whether to flush them out the nearest waterlock, or see if he could extract information and technology from them. Plutonis said they were on the same level as the sub but was not sure how far away. From a technical note: the Oollarians did not recognize the comm-dots, and those things have an amazing battery life!

Sinking the pinnace to what seemed to be the level of the moonpool, Jake and Moses get into the gel suits and get loaded with 2 spare gel suits and their weapons. It was decided that being submerged would not hurt the gauss rifle and things that could get damaged were placed in the convenient dry bags that Professor Cosmosis had brought along. He of such foresight. The might of the infinite ship's locker perhaps. 

outside the moonpool. The sub is the escape pod.

Swimming across the 10 or 20 meters, they got into the moonpool. There was a ledge and ladder going up to the double sea doors. The sub mas amber and red lights and is badly damaged.  After changing back into their armor (though not specifically mentioned I think leaving the gel suits either on the shelf or in the sub?), they ease their way past the doors. Rolling on my tables from the previous post, there were a few Greenies way down at the end of hall. Fortunately, the 2 that saw them, while they were His Mightiness' guards and police, were part of a nascent freedom league. They closed the doors behind them, and one trotted towards our two suspicious heroes. Keeping his arms well away from his large (and single shot) sidearm, he whispers that the prisoners are 3 sections away, past two pumping stations. He has to whisper pretty loudly as this is one of the engineering levels, and the pumps make a lot of noise. The guard backs up, and Jake and Moses start moving through the various sections towards the prison area.

In the middle of one of the pumping stations, they meet Jason and Thriss. The two agree to lead the characters to the jail. Jake gives Thriss his taser. Who immediately pulls a Luke Skywalker and stares down into the needles. Jake quietly pulls it back and explains how it gets used. Moving to the prison section, which according to Plutonis has not been fully guarded the last week or so after the initial surprise of illegal aliens wore off. His Mightiness or one of his counselors was concerned with spreading information about the rest of the universe and wanted to minimize contact with the professor and his assistant. 

Opening the hatch to the prison section, Thriss tries to shoot the guard with the taser. Rolling a 3, and with his -3 for an unfamiliar weapon, they were lucky he did not shoot himself! Rolling out of the way as the guard got up, drawing his gun, Thriss did not feel like a hero. Moses shot him in the back with a tranq shot, putting the guard to sleep. Grabbing the keys, they sent up and found Plutonis and Yvonne in adjacent cells. Putting the sleeping guard in there, they started to retrace their steps back to the moonpool. 

Unfortunately, I keep rolling 3s on the encounter table, and the tangle with 5 more Greenies. As they were pulling out pistols to shoot, Moses decided enough was enough and the gauss rifle came out to play. While our group was shot at, the players are fortunate the dice gods hate me even as a referee, and not a single shot landed (one roll was even snake eyes). Moses took down two of them, and I think Jake did as well. Unfortunately, gauss needles, while making hamburger of the guards, also ruptured the pump tanks behind the guards. Water was gushing out like a fire hose. Jason started to worry as automatic locks would quarantine each section, so they had to hurry to the next section. They got out as the water was above their ankles and rising. 

Thriss really wanted to leave Oollar, and said that his life expectancy as a sea miner is measured in a few years. Jason's wife had been killed by the dictator in one of the purges. He wanted outsiders to help arm the resistance but had no idea what Oollar could trade for. This discussion went on as everyone got into their gel suits. Thriss got into his suit, fortunately stored in the locker next to the moonpool. Without an air hose he ony had a couple minutes of air, but Jake and Moses maneuvered him to the air lock of the research sub. 

Thriss' diving suit.

And that is where we left the session. I'll need to fluff out the various NPCs, Plutonis, Yvonne and Thriss, a bit more, and poke around for some images other than Yvonne's above. Still no idea why that is how or why that was the image I had of her. Oh well - my brain works in strange ways!

Work update

The computer equipment shows up tomorrow, and I need to finish cleaning off that section of my desk to get it set up. The paints and minis will just have to be moved to the 3rd section only instead of being spread out. And of course, I have my normal jitters and nervousness about a new position. I've been that way since junior high school: the strangest and most uncomfortable dreams so I don't sleep well. Especially as I am not entirely (or even partially!) sure of what the expectations of this position are. Despite 73 items so far in the onboarding (all bureaucracy stuff), the software onboarding (source control trouble tickets, wikis and all the stuff around being a developer on a team) is yet to happen. So - I am nervous. Even after doing this stuff for 40 years, I still question myself. Which I think is a lot better than when I was being an arrogant a-hole and thinking I knew everything!

But: this may mean I don't get as far as I'd like in this game. I do want to get them to the asteroid belt, so that the player who dropped out can at least have his character check his claim. Perhaps joined by the engineer, who knows. But I may get caught up with work for a bit and need to concentrate on that more. We'll just see how that goes.