Skylark and The Eye

Having recovered The Eye of Yasterdray from the wreck of the Leopold on Caledonia, the crew travels to T’yana and explores the cave where it was originally found.

This chapter is based on Carl and Kay‘s notes from our October 6th, 2019 session. Since we are now scattered around the country, we used Discord for voice communications and the Roll20 online virtual tabletop to connect with each other.

Continued from: Outback - Part 3.

Location: Caledonia in the Glisten Subsector

Imperial Date: 220-1108.

1500
After completing final checks we leave orbit and head away from Caledonia. It will take us seven days and seven hours to reach the 100-Stellear diameter limit so we can jump for Glisten.

We now had The Eye of Yasterdray, but were undecided as to what to do with it. We had planned on destroying it, but now that we actually had it, we were reluctant to destroy such a valuable artifact.

The journey out to the jump point was uneventful, in fact we didn’t see any other ships at all.

227-1108
Jump out to Glisten.

235-1108  0001
Arrive in the Glisten system, 2 hrs flight time to their main rock, not the best point we could have wished, but close enough. We suspect that we may have precipitated out of hyperspace early, but two hours is not too bad.

On the way in we pass the Glisten Queen. a 400-Ton Type R. They were friendly and we chatted for a bit. They were a chartered ship leaving for Aki.

We got to docking by 1500, and started settling in.

We got news:

BENDOR/GLISTEN (2336 A756656-C) 228-1108

¶ An Imperial Naval Intelligence spokesman, in a press release issued today announced the interception and arrest of an Ine Givar cash courier. The courier was transporting an undisclosed amount of money in the form of precious stones. Intended to finance local terrorist activities, the stones are rumored to be worth in excess of cr25,000,000.

¶ The release stated that the stones were of Sword Worlds origin, although no definite proof of the culpability of the Confederation government was discovered. The Sword Worlds government has been suspected of financing Ine Givar activity for many years. Ω

No trading, just gas and go this time. By 1700 we were set and headed out. No karaoke today.

There was a job listed on T’yana to deliver some space probes and satellites. An in-system job for 20k credits, we noted the contact information.

235-1108 1730
Jump out for Craw.

242-1108 0530
Arrive Craw. The database says the atmosphere is tainted with radioactive dust from the worlds huge deserts. There is no known cause but they suspect nuclear explosives - current colonist Aslan never fought a nuclear war there and natives don’t have the tech for it.

Only one ship in system, the Loki's Honor IV, a 20 ton launch orbiting about 8000 Km out. They remained quiet when we hailed them.

It takes us about five hours to get to the planet and we are down before noon.

1200
There is only unrefined fuel here. We start to refuel at the port.

245-1108 1400
With full tanks of refined fuel, we lift off from Craw.

When we took off, Loki’s Honor IV, the ship that ignored us on the way in was gone.

On our way to to jump we meet the 1200-Ton Imperial Navy ship Sun Tsu, just above the planet. We say hi.

1900
We jumped out toward Candia.

252-1108
Into Candia, near a gas giant for refueling. We are out of the Imperium for the first time in a LONG time.

Gas giant refueling has been a hit or miss (literally) issue for us in the past. With nearly a full day travel to it, we had time to think about it. This time Medicus got in and out smoothly in one pass.

We did most of the refining near the gas giant, planning to get to jump point about the time the fuel was ready.

256-1108
As we departed the gas giant, we picked up a hail from a ship that we had not detected. It was a 400-ton fuel shuttle belonging to Imperial Navy ship Sharp Blade, a 50,000 ton cruiser. They warn us that there is an unidentified ship in the system. They were looking for the ship, a good sized one (destroyer+ size). It has been reported in the area, and they are investigating. Estimate of 10K tons.

At 1700 we jumped out, without a clue of the unknown ship.

263-1108
Out of jump in the T'yana system.

Back at Glisten we had seen a delivery job offered here, and we checked it out. Good to have a reason to be here other than 'just looking around, nothing to be concerned about'.

1300
Arrive T’yana orbit. We ask them if we can fuel up in water or go to port, we have to go to the port.

Sam’s cargo is low tech since they have restrictions on high tech imports. The world is low traffic, they see one ship every 1-2 months and won’t have any other ships to trade with.

1900
At the port, a local directed us to parking area, we parked and awaited customs. There are few enough ships passing through that the customs people could come out and visit us soon.

Customs came out to check our cargo and to familiarize us with the local rules. Being outside of the Third Imperium, there is no extra-territorial area around the starport.

The people here look Vilani, maybe a bit taller. Kipenzi looks like a local, the first ten people look like some of Kipenzi’s cousins, she should fit right in here.

The Scout Service database calls the local government a Feudal Technocracy. Tech level is 7, up from 5 when they were recontacted just over 100 years ago.

They have rules prohibiting high tech imports to protect the local economy, as well as the ruling families controlling their monopolies on segments of it.

We sent a message to Eyon Sya, Ministry of Science Development. That is the contact person for the prospective job we heard of.

They’re doing space probes themselves, doing it the hard way to develop the expertise instead of just buying them off the shelf. The rocket science is behind so they’re hiring others for transportation work. The job is to put three communications satellites in specific orbits and some instrument packages on a nearby planet, something we could do in a couple of days.

Local communication is radio, land lines, TV broadcast. No internet, just corporate, government or royal family networks, nothing public.

The starport along with the nearby commercial airport is run by Duke of Transportation and his retainers. It is just outside of the city of Shalimar, capital of T’yana.

264-1108
We decided that 1000Cr for an air raft permit was a bit high. Fig got a license to drive locally, as did Kipenzi. Sam also tried to get a driver’s license and failed the test. It seems his experience driving an ATV on Mithril did not translate well.

That took until mid afternoon, while Leon and Medicus got the ship fueling arranged. One of our primary rules is to always to get the Skylark fueled up as soon as possible.

Sam and Kipenzi were wandering around and found the museum from which 'The Eye' was allegedly stolen. They wandered in to visit. Fig and Medicus went for coffee and to rent a vehicle for a few days. We got a rental for 20Cr per day.

At the coffee shop, there was a big TV. Northwest of the city there was a riot going on. It was on the opposite side of the city, and we passed the word on to all the rest of the crew. Seems that violence in the city is up all over recently, particularly in the last week.

On a separate note, the arrival of the Skylark made the news too, so no secret sneakiness stuff here.

At the museum, looking at historical information, Sam and Kipenzi viewed information covering about 15,000 years of known/recorded history. That is further back than when the Vilani invented jump drive and left their home world. QUESTION: how come so many people here look like they are Vilani extraction? Rumors of the Vilani being seeded on their world passed thru minds.

The people of the planet believe that they were an ancient colony.

According to Imperial Scout Service, it is colony from about 5000 years ago. The locals disagree with the Scout service and their government sent messages to the Scout Service and even to Emperor Strephon and haven’t received any responses. They are happy to talk to us and asked if there was anything we could do, being Imperials.

The museum folks disagree with the Scout Service's view that this planet was a lost colony from the First Imperium

Asking about other archaeological sites on planet, Sam and Kipenzi learned a lot about local history and religion. About 60% of the folks in the capital are Vektists, for example.

Veltism is a belief on T’yana in the existence of Vekt, a kind of Devil figure. Vektists believe that by indulging in sins, they can appease Vekt and thus protect the rest of the population from Vekt’s wrath.

Belief in Vektism dates back, in fact, to the beginning of written T’yanan history. It is, in fact, the planet’s dominant religion – most T’yanan households have a small shrine to Vekt somewhere.

Most of the time Vektists commit minor sins like drinking alcohol on holy days. Others, usually considered heretics by the mainstream sects, commit murders and rapes for their religion. Civil law comes down hard on that kind of behavior.

Many of the statues of Vekt in the museum look a LOT like the Droynezillas we encountered on Fulacin.

The skeleton from which the eye was stolen was there, and it is definitely not Human or Droyne. Little bit larger than Human, not quite Aslan size. Skull was good sized, allowing for a big brain.

Interesting rib cage with 2 breastbones, larger than humans, skull looks carnivorous and intelligent, it had a tail.

They have not dated the skeleton, but Medicus could possibly do that. Kipenzi offered our services, and they accepted. They would need permission to be sure that it would not be technological contamination of some kind.

Sam persuaded the museum staff to bypass the search for permission and just get the information. How they use the info will be up to them.

Kipenzi and Sam also found the location of the source cave. It has a visitor center, so access would be straight forward. FIELD TRIP!

Sam noticed some text on an ancient pot. It was very similar to their best recollection of the oldest writing in the base at Fulacin. Ancient, nearly certainly.

That evening Sam, Kipenzi and Medicus went back to the museum. Medicus took all the gear he might need short of the autodoc. They went to the directors office and waited for closing. The Director was there with one of techs and third man who he introduced as Professor Bars Katzl.

Professor Katzl was the Director, boss. He looked about 45 yrs old with a beard. He was fascinated by all of this. Medicus tested the skeleton, magnification showed some extra connections, micro holes in and around the eye socket where the eye had been.

Sam’s probe also scanned the skeleton but didn’t turn up anything else.

Dating 250,000 yrs old they estimate, 170k based on rock around it. Locals think they’ve been here about 200,000 years and were a colony of the Ancients. This certainly backs them up.

They had pictures of the eye, but its theft was long before any of the staff came to work there. Skeleton was found in 1010 and the theft was in 1032.

Sam says he’ll write an article to Imperial Archeo about it.

DNA testing came up empty - no known species here. Cladistic analysis came up empty too. This thing is unique unto itself.

On Vland, there were legends of fighting machines from the Ancient War that were still around and were a hazard until they ran down. The early civilizations broke up the remains to make sure they did not wake up again and little remains today. Could there be something like that around here?

Kipenzi buys a Vektish statue, a copy of one in the museum from the gift shop. It was one of the Droynezillas, one they considered demons.

265-1108
Kipenzi, Leon and Medicus decide to visit the cave north of the city where The Eye was found. Sam loans them his drone to help with exploring while he heads out to start selling the Skylark’s cargo. Fig will stay with the ship and keep an eye on things.

We accept the job for delivering the space probes, they will be ready for delivery on 272. We will be picking up three communications satellites, two orbiters and two landers. Checking the positions of the nearby planets, we can get them there in about three days.

We left for the cave with Kipenzi driving. Local regulations say we can take our weapons, just don’t shoot anyone and don’t sell them to locals, so we went armed.

At just under 4 km from the starport, we hit a traffic jam. Traffic was backed up by some kind of parade. There were some robed figures in the street chanting and swinging censors, we lost about 40 minutes waiting for them to pass.

The crew got to the cave at noon.

At the visitor center we were charged 3 credits each to see the museum and public part of the cave. The private part is a scientific reservation where the skeleton was found.

The cave has been known about for a very long time but people stayed away from it. Historically, the cave was believed to have a curse on it and was taboo. It was only in the last 100 years that people had dared enter it, and then they found this alien skeleton. They began serious excavations after that, but didn’t find anything else.

Shortly after we show up, Bars Katzl, who we met at the museum, shows up and he can get us permission to see the rest of the cave. He says, ”Just don’t damage anything”.

Medicus put Sam’s drone in heavy scan mode and walked behind it as it mapped the cave.

Kipenzi used her X-ray scanner on the walls.

She initially found an open space on the left about two meters down that turned out to be a side passage that the found later.

In the Cave

 

About 100 meters in, Kipenzi found something under the limestone floor. They were animal bones with cut marks, probably butchered. She marked it on her map and moved on.

Bars looked at the pictures but couldn't figure out what animal it was from.

Medicus tried to climb up on a ledge and falls. Luckily, he lands OK and doesn’t injure himself. He decides to let the drone go up instead. Leon finds some hand-holds and climbs up but doesn’t find anything the drone didn’t already find and first, then he notices some pottery shards embedded in the limestone and takes pictures.

Bars shows the group where the skeleton was found, embedded in a wall.

Kip finds a cylindrical object made of ceramic and plastic near the skeleton embedded in the floor under about 5 cm of rock.

Leon’s says that his connection with the Skylark is fading. Kipenzi checks her connection and she already can’t reach the ship. Too much rock between us and the ship for a connection.

Kip finds something strongly magnetic on the scanner to her left.

Kip moves to the wall. It’s in the wall. There is a niche carved into the wall with shelves covered with flowstone. On one of the shelves is some kind of magnetic liquid in a thin or non-existent container. She marks it on the map. The floor nearby also has metallic deposits in it.

Kip continued along the wall. Soon she came to a climb up to an upper gallery and slipped.

The fall caused a minor knee injury. Fortunately we had Medicus with us and he was able to wrap the knee and give her something to prevent any pain. Unfortunately she dropped her scanner as she fell. Leon checked the scanner while Medicus was looking at her knee and determined that it could be repaired, but he would need to take it back to the Skylark to work on it.

At that point everyone decided to head back out of the cave.

The Adventure continues in Skylark and The Pit.

See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet, Leedor on Aramis, First Call at Zilla, Trade War, The Bloodwell, ANNIC NOVA, The Kinunir, Kesser's Return, Justice, Mission to Mithril and Outback.