Twilight's Peak, Part 3

 Where the adventurers finally find the octagon that was referenced in the epic poem and prepare to explore it. This note is from the May 4, 2013 session, as written up by Carl. The photo was taken by Jo Jo and the computer rendering was done by me using Kerkythea and Sketchup. The map is from TravellerMap.com

Location: The Planet Rech in the Lanth Subsector

Imperial Date: 106-1103

Continued from last month's adventure.

On Rech, ready to jump out.

Further consideration of the Epic led us to one more possible way to narrow down the candidate worlds. Since the crews walked a long way to salvage parts to rebuild one of the ships, we had become pretty sure that the world we sought had either no starport, or at most an E class port during the 3rd Frontier War. Anything more and they would have either walked to it, or if on another continent would have flown there instead of jumping out of the system.

Our next stop was planned to be Regina, and we figured we could get a listing of the ports that were in place during the 3FW, either from the Navy or some university history department.

Just in case, because we have in the past erred in our thinking, we spent a few days scanning Rech for a second Octagon, but though the terrain was interesting, we did not find one, and so on 110-1103 we jumped out for Regina, arriving uneventfully on 117-1103. The usual massive amount of traffic was in the system, and this time around we were inspected (scan only, but definitely an inspection) by the destroyer Archer Triumph. Good thing they were not calibrated to detect the Haunting Thunder's AI...

After the normal queuing delays, we settled in to Regina High Port on 119-1103, and docked right behind the Stellar Promise, a 5000 Ton freighter belonging to Al Mora Lines. If we had not been aware of how a remora feels, we learned then.

Everyone agreed that a two week stopover would be good, giving plenty of time to research more about the Octagon Society (It's HQ was here at one time), and also to take an intense weapons class (none of us could shoot as well as we would like, and that is still true). Sam did his normal excellent trading work, and Leon scored big with a full listing of 3FW era starports. Most of the worlds had E class, so this was not as helpful as we had hoped, but it was a gold star for researching what we intended.

The Old Octagon Society headquarters was located in what is now the Travellers Aid Society Hostel, located on the edge of Credo City near Regina Down Starport. The building is now only marginally octagonal shaped and covers an entire city block. It is run down and shabby.

There were no records at all at the hostel. The Traveller's Aid Society at the high port had no records either, but Kipenzi found a picture of an orbital octagon station over Risek in Rhylanor subsector, and navigational information on how to locate it. There was also a picture of an Octagon building on a rocky outcropping on Djinni, with lat/long coordinates.

Djinni is an interdicted system, off limits to anything except refueling at the gas giant, but we hoped Leon, with his Navy background and social connections (he never talks about them, but by now we KNOW he is a "somebody" and has connections), but all he could learn was that the system was interdicted in 1025, for some still classified reason.

Fig, former scout, went to the Scout HQ to research the task force, but though he came up empty in that respect, he learned that the Scout Service had a request for bid on a 20 ton delivery to Djinni from Dinomn. A quick comm to Sam got the wheels in motion to bid on that delivery, and soon afterward we were approved, on a fairly liberal time schedule.

Medicus learned that the Octagon Society was never actually shut down, but had gone into receivership and sold off most of its assets, with the rest being shipped to the new HQ on Woochiers. YAY, at least we had some renewed hope of finding paperwork on the specific locations of buildings... those planetary scans are soooo boring, except when they are soooo scary as the rocks race by the window.

Feeling pretty happy with what we learned, we jumped out for Denomn on 136-1103, hearing a newsflash from Vilis about the Garda-Vilis disturbances as we headed out to the jump point.

⑆Villis/Villis (0309-A593943-A)                     Date:  113-1103

¶ Traveller News Service reports that the rebellion on Garda-Villis has been put down by forces loyal to the Villis ruling council. Garda-Villis’ rating as an amber zone remains in place.

¶ The capital had been taken by the Tanoose Freedom League (TFL) rebels early in the rebellion but was taken back by two battalions of Villis army regulars reinforced by the Black Mountain mercenary company. Most of the rest of the rebellious regions were recaptured over the last few months.

¶  Fighting was especially intense on the North coast where there were widespread reports of atrocities perpetrated by Vilis troops and mercenaries against the civilian populace.

¶ Garda-Villis Down and the Imperial Scout Base remained open and were not damaged during the course of the rebellion.

¶ The Villis ruling council filed an official protest with the Sword Worlds and notified the Imperium after capturing troops and equipment belonging to the government of Gram, a member of the Sword Worlds Confederation, aiding the rebels.

¶ The Sword Worlds Ambassador, Audfinnar Spillisson Slodi, denied that the captives were troops at all. “They were part of a non-governmental organization providing humanitarian aid.”, he said in his official statement.

¶ Garda-Villis was settled ca. -121 and originally called Tanoose. The settlement failed within a few decades (for reasons unknown), and the colony was taken over by the government of Vilis to prevent its extinction. Ω

143-1103
Arriving in Denomn, we contacted the shipper with our Scout Service code, and picked up our cargo. 20 Tons of radio responders, addressed to Aleem Vren on Djinni. It turns out that a scout base is under construction on Djinni, and will serve at least as an X-Boat stopover, but there was no indication of what goes on in the reserve there.

Our customary looking into bookstores, history aficionados, and such brought us no additional information this time, and on 151-1103 we jumped out to Djinni.

158-1103
In the Djinni system, contact and codes were passed successfully, and we landed to see LOTS of construction bots and frenzied activity (no coffee breaks here). Aleem Vren was the only person we saw on planet, supervising and monitoring the construction. We tried our best persuade and fast talk and alcohol, but nary a clue as to what goes on here did we gather. This world was not the one we were seeking, but we did learn where the Octagon building here was located and got approved for an air/raft visit. The remains of a former building were pretty much just an octagonal foundation on a nearby island, but we scanned the place anyway, and as anticipated we came up empty there too.

159-1103
With no reason to loiter, we began ocean refueling and processing, detecting considerable marine life, and one large (whale-sized) life form.

162-1103
Jumped out for Regina.

169-1103
Into Regina, and we got to dock a little more expediently that time, settling in on 170-1103.

With no further research to do, we stayed a week for additional weapons training and trading, and jumped out for Hefry on 185-1103, arriving 192-1103 in system, with a 3 day journey to the world.

Hefry had a Scout Base, so of course we visited it, and this time it was Sam who scored the good information, finding records. When The Blatant Lie was found at Treece, the books were closed on the Gyro Cadiz task force. The Scout Service figured they crashed on either Giladen, Fulacin or Kinorb, with a slight chance of it having been on Valhalla or Tureded. Slowly but surely we were homing in on success. (secret code for "slowly but surely we were running out of places to be wrong").

We did a reasonable air/raft search for the octagon building there, but were unsuccessful.

201-1103
Jump out for Woochiers

208-1103
Arrive in the Woochiers system.

The primary industry on Woochiers was crystal growing, and we were all privileged to buy a plant for the local hydroponics cave (call it a tourist visa charge). The Octagon Societyis still here, with a museum and archives to investigate. Sam and Leon found an almost complete listing of the coordinates of the Octagon buildings, missing only Paya, Rech and Fulacin, and we learned that the Octagon building on Vreibefger was purchased by the Imperium is now part of an Imperial Research Station.

Paintings of the buildings at Giladen, Fulacin and Kinorb were purchased by the Risek Space Authority, so it was definitely put on our list of to-visit Risek.

211-1103
Jump out of Woochiers for Paya.

218-1103
Arrive in Paya.

One of the places we did not get coordinates for, this planet was hit by an asteroid in the Southern hemisphere in 1075, and is still recovering. We found that an Imperial Naval Base was under construction near the starport. Kipenzi, Leon and Medicus took the air raft out, after getting pretty decent maps of the world from the starport, and searched mountains and valleys.

In port, Fig noticed a picture of the starport, showing the octagon building at the start of construction, right were the control tower now stood. After clarifying that all he wanted was the BEFORE pictures, not any current spy-type data, he got a good 3D scan set of the port area as it was after the meteor and before construction started, with a clearly run down octagonal building shown.

Thoroughly searching each of the four candidate sites took several days, and included one near miss with the ground as an unexpected weather front rolled over the air/raft. Medicus's quick reactions kept them out of trouble.

With the four coreward candidates checked and dismissed, we took the air raft south to look around some. The one possible site turned out to hold an old ski resort, but no tunnels or underground buildings were detected, and we jumped out to Dhian on 233-1103.

240-1103
Arrive in Dhian system

No atmosphere on this one, and the octagon building was just a shell. We soldiered on bravely.

244-1103
Jumped out to Valhalla.

251-1103
Into the Valhalla system.

We checked out the coordinates for the Octagon, and it is now a bar with a great restaurant. Sigh.

We always like to cover all the bases, so with a persuasive manner and a 50 credit donation to someone's retirement fund, we got an after hours tour and access to scan the lower levels. It was as unproductive as we feared.

The air/raft went up to look at a couple candidate spots, but again to no avail.

258-1103
Jump out of Valhalla for Risek.

265-1103
In the Risek system.

We docked at Risek High Port and got a shuttle to the octagonal orbital station which once served as Risek's high port before the current station was built. The pictures we sought were in the visitor's lobby, and to our great pleasure they each had coordinates of the locations!

Giladen showed hills, Kinorb just out on a plain, but Fulacin's Octagon was depicted in the mountains, and it looked like we were coming to the culmination of a long but overall well done search.

268-1103
Jumped out to Fulacin

275-1103
Into Fulacin

The first thing we noticed on sensors was a large ship some ways off from us. Estimated 600-800 tons, seen nearly at the edge of our sensor range, it vanished from our screens almost immediately. Did it jump out? Did it just get out of range? Did it go into stealth?

While we were trying to get in touch with the port, we calculated an emergency jump to Giladen, just in case.

When we were able to communicate with the port, we inquired about traffic, and were told that nothing was out by us. We had no other sensor activity on the way in to port.

Heading for the planet, we attempted to scan the world, but metal particles in the atmosphere prevented us from 'seeing' anything.

278-1103
In port on Fulacin.

The coordinates of the octagon are on the opposite side of the planet, so we took care of the cargo sales and purchase, refueled, and revisited with the friendly public relations person we had met the first time through. We learned that local fauna included Groats, vaguely goat-like and found all over the planet, and a "snow cat" (seems every planet with snow has a snow cat).

280-1103

We purchased a hunting license for Kipenzi (the rest of us would be porters, cooks, etc) and with the restrictions of 1) DO NOT MINE OR GATHER ANY METALS, and 2) DO NOT LAND THE SKYLARK ON PLANET we took off to orbit, and the standard away team of Leon, Fig and Kipenzi went down to investigate the site.

We got to the octagon, and one thing was immediately visible, and different from all the others. The standard off-colored band was at about eye level, but this one had a full set of the Coyne symbols instead of coordinates and cardinal directions. Hmmmmm. Looked very promising. Fig danced a little jig in the raft.

With a 2 hour trip each way, we decided to stay only about 2 hours the first time, and that the Skylark would come down for us stealthed, and to heck with the planetary rules.

Landing nearby, Kipenzi and Fig got out (grav belts on and ready just in case) and did an external sweep and scan. This one was very much like the first one we explored, with a few differences. There was a large ring on a universal joint mounted on the roof, as if cargo or something was hauled up from the ground, and a gun mount notch cut on the roof over the door.

What would have likely been the landing area was across a fairly shallow but wide area, with some paths but also some collapsed areas. Anyone walking here now would have to be in good shape.

The bioscanner showed no large life forms around, and the ground scan did show caverns or tunnels below.

We sent the probe down one chimney, and found an interior similar to what we had seen before, with some stuff inside. Most noticeable was a skeleton leaning against the entry door, but there were also a few sleeping bags, a stove and a heater on the ground level. There had been some repairs done to holes in the roof with sheet metal from a ship's streamlined skin. No windows were broken out as the Epic had indicated, but when we thought back to the summary we recalled that not all of the survivors were on the jump out, and figured they came back here to wait, fixing the place up. Five rock cairns and a skeleton made more sense with that recollection.

The probe down to the lowest level with a fireplace showed some water seepage below the entry door, and some sand see page opposite it, with an indication that not only was sand seeping in slowly, it was dribbling out through the floor, so there must be an opening below. Scanning confirmed this.

Fig and Kipenzi went inside, visually checked things for confirmation, and saw a patch from the Gyro Cadiz on the skeleton's uniform remnants. They went down to the 'basement'. A slow and deliberate scan of the walls and floor led them over to where the floor creaked, and an immediate scan showed an open area below. She looked for the bones mentioned in the poem, but they did not show on the scan. What did show was that the room below had a low ceiling, with less than a meter and a half overhead. The scan also showed a low stone bench along the Eastern wall.

Being absolutely sure to note the trapdoor area, and finishing the bottom level scan, the away team (having overstayed their time by some half hour or so) rafted back up to the Skylark 2 to discuss things.

Continued in: Twilight's Peak, Part 4

See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma.