Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The Vagrant

Previously: Winston and crew reached Zetaris, a Zhuh-zhuh controlled world, and sold some stolen cargo there. Now they must find another job.


Month #9
One night, Winston was heading back to his hotel when a Xeog and a friend surrounded him. He had seen it before: expensive clothes, unfocused eyes from drinking or something else. These were the stressed-out corp execs looking for a living punch bag. Axor had stayed behind, looking for who knows what, and reached Winston as the Xeog held him and the other girl hit in the stomach. The Xeog let Winston lose as she felt Axor's grip on her neck. She spun around impossibly and hit him with a kick, to which he barely flinched. While the two fought, Winston and the other human also traded blows. In the end the troblemakers were laying on the ground, knocked out.


Winston spent the rest of the month looking for jobs on Trellis. He had had enough of Zetaris but he wanted someone to pay for the expenses of leaving the planet to somewhere else. He got a delivery job with Togal, to bring a shipment of industrial components to Krema, another Zhuh-zhuh colony on the first sector of the fourth ring.


Month #10
Winston and crew went to the Mutant Shack, the night before they left the planet -- only Pingh stayed preparing the ship. When they left, they met the same corp execs they beat last month, only this time they had a Razor friend. The Razor let out a mental blast that hit Winston like a punch, and he hid behind cover. Tanya took a bullet and crumpled on the ground. The Xeog jump-kicked Axor, only to have him grab her in the air and smash her unconsciou on the ground. Winston then peeked from behind cover and fired twice at the Razor, taking her out of combat. Axor charged the remaining enemy. In an act of desperation, she managed to fire at point blank range. The bullet exploded through the back of Axor's skull and the giant fell lifeless. Winston then shot her down.

Pingh was enraged when he heard the news. He wanted to leave the band, but Winston convinced him to stay. Still, Tanya was now recovering from the shot, and in no condition to control the ship. So Winston went out to find at least one more crew member. He recruited Sheri, a young Razor who was hanging with a group of bounty hunters.

Month #11
While they made the last preparations before leaving the planet, Winston was called by the Trellis police for an investigation on some kind of trouble at the spaceport. He was worried that the someone might have traced him to the fight with the corporate execs but this was not the case and they let him go. Still, that was one more reason to leave Zetaris.

Finally, Winston and his group left the planet, setting course to the first sector. They crossed paths with a Star Navy cutter, a suspicious ship that might have been slavers, and a convoy of Gaea Prime freighters, but avoided trouble in all cases.

Month #12
The Vagrant landed on the spaceport of Kremalion, the main settlement in the Krema planet, and Winston finally delivered the cargo.

Winston spent the rest of the month doing small jobs and learning about the settlement. One night he bumped into a Zhuh-zhuh who was following him; she might have been trying to rob him but he convinced her that he was a dangerous bounty hunter.

Conclusion
It is always fun to have random elements providing you with a story -- such was the case with the random event rolls that resulted in the two confrontations with the same group and then the police investigation.

After these four campaign months, Winston remains at Rep 7, with a lifetime total of 9 Rep dice. With this report the Vagrant completes one campaign year. I have bought the new Legends of Araby from Two Hour Wargames and now I am convinced to stop using the optional, simplified Rep D6 table (given in the bonus section at the end of the Fringe Space book) and start tracking Rep D6 for each member of the group.

2 comments:

Fitz-Badger said...

Fun and interesting report as always! I could almost envision a sci-fi tv series of events.

Ricardo Nakamura said...

Thanks for the comment!
I've been reading the new Future Tales book, might start playing some stories with that too.