[IC] Edge of the Empire: Trouble Brewing

[Dent-2020]

Spoiler: Recap

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Jim and Resin were called to the smuggler-stronghold planet of Formos by an old business contact of Resin's; a Devaronian information broker by the name of Snoo, who agreed to provide them with information regarding their next job for free if they would do him the favor of tracking down a former client of his who "stole" information from him - a human male by the name of Bando Snick. Snoo requires that you break his knee for breaking his contract. It should be noted that Snoo will not work with you again until this favor is done, and if he ever suspects that you, too, have failed to hold up your end of a bargain... well, you have three perfectly healthy kneecaps that he'd be happy to put contracts on. However, your aid in this matter will put you well on Snoo's good side, and he may be willing to perform favors for you in return in the future. Favored Client privilege, you know.

Upon landing on Formos, your ship attracted some attention from the local port authority, who might have recognized it as one featured on the latest security bulletins as having been stolen. However, Jim's contact, a forging specialist, did a good job on your registration papers, and the port authority begrudgingly allowed you to dock and go about your business. For all future checks, I'm setting the difficulty of spotting these papers as a fake as Hard (requiring the suspicious port authority to beat the result of 3 difficulty dice).

On your way into the Cantina, you discovered a dying droid, J9-B8, who begged your help in recovering his friend from individuals unknown who stole him and pressed him into their service in spite of his manumitted status. The droid was not entirely coherent, but he did mention that his friend, R4-W9, is an astromech droid with an uncanny knowledge of hyperspace routes used by successful smugglers. As such, J9-B8 suspected that a locally powerful smuggler by the name of Bandin Dobah may have been behind the attack that resulted in his friend's kidnapping. J9 expired shortly after imparting this information. His verbobrain and core processors were too damaged to be repairable and have no resale value.

Bandin Dobah, you discovered upon entering the Cantina, has two bounties on his head. One is being offered by the local administrator of the prison planet, Kessel, in the name of the Empire. This bounty offers 10,000 credits for Bandin, dead or alive, for crimes including the murder of the Empire's security operatives, destruction of the Empire's property, movement of contraband, black marketeering of narcotics, and acts of criminal conspiracy. Few bounty hunters have acted upon this bounty, and fewer smugglers seem keen to discuss it; this may be due to the need to appear before the Empire in order to collect the bounty. Snoo informs you, however, that a second bounty is being offered by the Hutt, Thakba Besadii Diori. Formos and the surrounding spacelanes lie on the border of Hutt space, and Thakba evidently feels as though Hutt territory is being threatened. He has offered a bounty for Bandin Dobah of 5000 credits, but Dobah must be brought in alive. Thakba wishes to make an example of him.

After speaking to Snoo in the Cantina, you stepped into an uncomfortable situation on behalf of a young Rodian woman named Zukata. She had attracted the attention of some members of a local smuggling crime ring in the Cantina, but your timely and discrete interruption prevented any violent unpleasantness from erupting. Zukata informed you that she was on Formos for two reasons; the first was to track down a young Rodian bounty hunter named Godon Netakka, who was last seen in the Cantina on the hunt for Bandin Dobah. Godon was last seen two weeks ago, and has not been heard from since. Zukata claimed to know him on a personal level, and was obviously concerned that he was dead. The second reason for her arrival on Formos was to secure the data belonging to an astromech droid she had heard frequented these parts. Her business is building a map of accurate hyperspace routes used by smugglers in the sector. The astromech she is looking for happens to be R4-W9, and she has offered you 2000 credits if you will deliver him (and the information he carries) to her.

Upon discovering that your conversation with Zukata was overheard by a local Toydarian wanting some easy cash, you followed the Toydarian to a warehouse that served as a base of operations for one of the smuggler rings here on Formos. When you eavesdropped on his conversation with the ringleader, you heard the Toydarian sell information about all he had overheard. The smuggler paid the Toydarian, and immediately left along with a number of compatriots to the Cantina, where they presumably intended to bash your brains in and prevent you from finding and bringing in the astromech for Zukata’s headhunting fee.

Resin attempted to bluff his way inside the warehouse past the remaining smugglers, but quickly determined with Jim that diplomacy was not their preferred method for entry. Jim surprised everyone by shooting the unarmed Weequay at the door, drawing the hasty attention of two more smugglers from inside the warehouse.

Jim is currently at medium range from the smugglers at the door. The injured Weequay has 1 wound remaining before he becomes incapacitated.

Resin suffered damage to his eardrum as a result of Jim's shot, and so is dazed and suffering from 1 wound. He will be unable to act until the next combat round, and has last place in the initiative order. Jim, who surprised everyone with his gigantic boomstick, will be first in the initiative lineup. The remainder of the action begins directly after Jim made his attack.

The fetid air of the warehouse district whips through the alleyways and feels like it’s coming at you through an exhaust vent. The air of Formos is drawing the water from your body straight through your skin. Jim’s exposed hands and face feel tight, and both of your eyes are bloodshot, stinging miserably.

In the doorway, a dark stain slowly blossoms from the side of the Weequay’s shirt. He screams and staggers, leaning heavily against the arch of the portal.

There are shouts of confusion from inside the building, and two more smugglers rush to the entrance. A male Twi’lek shouts something that sounds like “Gut!” and rushes to support the staggering Weequay. He aims the greasy muzzle of a large blaster from under his comrade’s arm. The third smuggler, a female Aqualish, rushes to pin Resin against the wall outside. She aims a wild swing at him with a heavy-looking torque-spanner, but misses in her haste.

Resin is still dazed, the piercing screech of Jim’s shot overpowering his acute senses. Blood trickles from his left ear as the Aqualish bears down on him.

Jim stands only a few short steps from the doorway's threshold, equally close to the disoriented smugglers and a pile of heaping garbage bins that reek of rotting muja spirits and leaking power cells.

Spoiler: Notes:

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Jim is at short range from the Smugglers, and may use one movement action to Engage (reach melee distance) with any of them. He is also at short range from the garbage bins, which may be used to provide cover.

Resin is Engaged with the Aqualish smuggler, and is at short range from the Weequay and Twilek.

It is now Jim's move.

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Quick Reminder: It takes 2 movement actions to go from long range to medium range, 1 movement action to go from medium range to short range, 1 movement action to go from short range to engaged.

[Redshaw]

Jim's expression hardens with the appearance of two more pirates. He affords himself a moment for tactical appraisal. Three villains, one nearly critically injured, another in the midst of attacking his partner, though barely armed, and a final one aiming a barrel of plasma-spitting death in his direction. No question which among them was the most immediate threat. It was a shame Resin was in such close proximity; explosives would be the simplest way to deal with this.

It would have been easy to give into a fury; to charge and scream like a rampaging Gamorean. There are few pleasures in life that equate to a true battle fury. Hate and rage saved his life on more than one occassion. But there was a time for rancor and there was a time for precision.

Jim keeps his back straight and barrel traced on the armed twi'lek as moves toward the most obvious cover, kneeling behind the refuse. He exhales a breath of air, steadies his aim, and fires from the defensible position.

[Dent-2020]

The bolt from Jim's blaster leaves the barrel with a low bdap and arcs toward the Twilek struggling beneath the weight of his comrade. Searing light from the blast trails in Jim's vision like an angry red comet has come to Formos. Before the burn of it has cleared his retinas, there is a sickening wordless scream. The Twilek falls backward into the warehouse, dragging the Weequay with him in a paralyzed death grip, his left leku ruptured and scored, spilling its contents in a wretched pink puddle on the floor. His body convulses unnaturally for a moment before going still.

At the thud of bodies in the doorway, the Aqualish woman gives a cry of rage and overpowers Resin. She grabs him bodily, twisting him around to interpose the Bothan between Jim and herself. Her torque spanner is wedged against his neck, slowly cutting off the blood supply to his brain. "Drop it or I'll cave in his shab skull!" She shouts, frenzied. Spittle drips from her long tusks onto the fur at the back of Resin's head.

From his vantage point, Jim can just see the injured Weequay's boots drag themselves ponderously over the corpse of the Twilek, into the safety of the warehouse.

Spoiler: Notes

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It is now Resin's turn. The Aqualish's actions have dealt Resin 2 strain, but he is no longer disoriented. Jim's shot generated 2 advantage, and thus will apply a boost die to Resin's next action.

[Dent-2020]

Spoiler: Recap

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Resin escaped from his headlock with judicious application of his fingers to his assailant's eyes. Having lost her leverage, the Aqualish woman used the moment of confusion to escape into the warehouse.

Resin threw a frag grenade into the building after the Aqualish woman, and he and Jim followed their quarry after hearing the explosive detonate.

Upon entering the warehouse, Jim and Resin discovered that the interior held a large stack of crates, a dismantled swoop bike attached to a grav-sled, a small kitchen area, and a locked door with a heavy blood-stain scraped across the floor leading up to the threshold. From their positions at the entrance, they could easily see the body of the dead Twilek smuggler (now significantly worse the wear for having been shot and then blown-up), but neither the Aqualish nor the Weequay were in sight.

Resin found a heavy blaster pistol on the body of the Twilek, and a paltry five credits tucked into the smuggler's boot.

While Resin was searching the body, Jim investigated the locking mechanism of the closed door. Before he had a chance to glean any useful information, however, he was fired upon from behind. The shot was well-aimed, but Jim's reflexes allowed him to side-step the bolt. Unfortunately, however, although the shot missed Jim, it did not miss the locking mechanism of the door - which immediately fused shut upon impact.

Meanwhile, Unbeknownst to Jim and Resin, their line of inquiry had intersected with that of another bounty hunter. Ness, a Trandoshan searching for a missing friend, had found his way into the office behind the closed door in the warehouse shortly before the shooting on the street began. There, he found an inactive astromech droid, fitted with a restraining bolt. Believing the droid to be of interest to his employer, Ness successfully removed the restraining bolt and activated the astromech, which confirmed itself to be R4-W9. R4-W9 is the droid known to have gone missing on Formos some days before, and being sought for its knowledge of uncommon hyperspace routes by Zukata, the Rodian woman from the Ri Jenks Cantina.

Ness's presence in the room, surely, came as a nasty surprise to the gravely injured Weequay smuggler who sought sanctuary and a medpac behind the relative safety of the office's locked door. Before his head was prematurely separated from his body, however, the Weequay did manage to communicate with the remaining smugglers, where they were hoping to ambush Resin and Jim at the Ri Jenks Cantina.

Hearing the shot fired on the other side of the door, but unable to see or communicate with whoever had fired it, Ness left the office through the window, discovered a small group of heavily armed angry men approaching on the street outside, and found an alternate entrance to the building in the form of the Cargo Bay doors.

Inside the Warehouse, Jim convinced the Aqualish woman that, being outnumbered and outgunned, her chances of survival were better if she chose to surrender. The smuggler stepped out from behind the stack of crates in the center of the room, blaster pistol still aimed at Jim. As she came into view, a small smirk appeared on her face.

From behind Jim and Resin, a human male voice interrupted from the doorway; four more smugglers had arrived.

The lead smuggler at the door gave Resin and Jim the opportunity to surrender, but Jim chose to shoot the Aqualish woman instead. She died immediately. In response, the smuggler at the door fired shots at both Jim and Resin. His shot at Jim connected, but was not powerful enough to breach Jim's armor. The secondary shot at Resin was wide. The second smuggler at the door dashed across the room and took up a covered position between the swoop bike and the pile of crates. A third smuggler worked his way around the side of the building towards Ness at the cargo door, and the fourth smuggler left sweeping the street for additional members of your party to join the fight from the slight cover afforded by the door frame.

Around the side of the building, Ness dispatched the smuggler attempting to sneak up on him, then thrust the head of the Weequay under the cargo door on the head of his Vibro-Ax, alerting Jim and Resin to his presence and immediate intentions.

Resin took the opportunity to sprint to cover behind the pile of crates, shooting and killing the smuggler pinned behind the swoop bike as he raced past.

Faced with the unassailable reality of the dead bodies of his crew littering the floor of their supposed safe house, and the very large threat afforded by Jim's gun, the lead smuggler agreed to surrender. His lone remaining fellow immediately dashed away down the street.

Ness entered the building and informed Jim and Resin of the astromech in the office. In the ensuing gonad-measuring contest, the remaining smuggler attempted to escape. Luckily, Ness managed to catch him. The smuggler is now bound at the ankles inside the warehouse, being interrogated by Resin.

Jim fixed the lock on the office door, freeing R4-W9, who has agreed to help your party in tracking down the remaining smugglers that attacked him and his friend. Currently, the droid feels some affinity for Ness, who rescued him, and is wary of Jim and Resin, who tried to claim him as their property in spite of his manumitted status, and who had displayed an appalling lack of tact when informing the droid of his counterpart, J9-B8's, dismantling.

Inside the office, Ness and Jim found 250 credits, one quick-draw light blaster pistol, three frag grenades, and a padded armor chest-piece fitted for a small biped. On the body of the Weequay, Ness found a vibroknife (I'll send the stats to you in a PM, Adam). The Aqualish woman had a slug thrower rifle, and the smuggler leader had 1 medpac, 2 stimpacs, 50 credits, 2 quick-draw light blaster pistols, and a large dark spanner bar that Jim recognized as a tool for fitting restraining bolts to droids. The crates in the center of the room were mostly empty, but one did contain three packets of glitterstim, which are currently in Ness' possession.

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Okay, I think that was everything, and apologize for any omissions or slight changes to individual actions in the timeline; I couldn't quite remember everything.

One thing that I have almost no certainty of is how much strain/ how many wounds each of you are suffering from. If you all could please update me as to the current health and gear of your characters in the form of a character sheet, it would be greatly appreciated. A fillable character sheet can be found on the OOC board, here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...4#post18286724

TL;DR:

*PewPewPew!*

*PewPewBOOM!*

*SliceSliceSlice* "Hey Look at this droid!"

"Keep the Droid, but the bike is mine!"

"Who the hell are you?!"

"Who the hell are you?!"

"I asked first!"

"I asked loudest!"

The complex interplay of gravitational bodies in the Kessel sector give the planet of Formos a variable diurnal cycle, and when night comes, it comes swiftly. The barkeep at the Ri Jenks is fond of claiming that it takes more time for a glass of Correlia's best to evaporate in the heat than it does for the Formos sun to set, once it has a mind to. You can see it sinking toward the horizon even now as you go through the warehouse, picking the depot over for weapons and supplies.

The captured smuggler glares balefully as Resin plucks his pistols from the floor, where they were surrendered earlier. The twin blasters gleam in the dying light, somewhat lighter than expected; they slide smoothly from their holsters with hardly any effort when drawn.

Where the guns are clean and neat, the human is unkempt. His red-rimmed eyes peer out from a gaunt face; the skin of his nose and lips is blistered and cracked where it has been exposed to the sun. A three-day growth of stubble obscures his cheeks and jawline, while dirty black grease has been allowed to collect beneath his fingernails. His beige flight suit bears the accumulated stains of several days of hard wear, with dark rings developing around the wrists, ankles, and neck seal.

"You'd best be careful; I get those back from you and they aren't exactly as I see them now, I'll kill you and wear your furry hide for a hat." He spits, eyeing Resin resentfully.

[tmehringer06]

"A Hat?" Resin asks followed by a mumbled chuckle as he carelessly examines his new blaster pistols.
"Surely my furry hide would provide something a little more substantial than just a hat."

Resin uses words just as Jim uses his arsenol; where the rogue soldier might use a grenade to buy time for his next move, the bothan uses humor to initiate his. Because humor comes naturally to the Bothan, whether the joke was good or bad was irrelevant; it was his way of clearing his mind for his next verbal attack.

"A rug, perhaps? Or, a blanket? Or if cooking is your fancy, perhaps an apron.... yes... yes an apron would be very nice..." Resin looks up from his blasters slowly, gauging every sound, every breath, every look. Is he sweating? Is he even looking at me? He asks himself.

Resin makes eye contact for the first time with the smuggler quickly scanning for any micro expressions that might give Resin any indication of the smugglers thought process .

"You do like to cook, right?" Resin asks sarcastically.

Establishing a communication baseline was Resin's specialty, and once he has an idea of what kind of person he is dealing with, he uses that intel to his advantage.

Resin sighs. "Ok, so you do not like cooking. Thats fine; I am not much of a chef either. My mother was always the one to cook, and it was probably best that I did not learn the culinary trade from her because, well.... lets just say that her cooking was about as good as the situation you are currently in my good friend; and in case you have not been informed of this particular situation that you are in...... it could use a little salt" Resin looks around to see if Jim was listening and then chuckles. This was not the first time he had used this joke and Jim would not have been impressed.

"In any case; I am going to assume that when I ask you questions that you are just going to tell me that you do not know anything, and you just work here, and your boss doesnt tell you anything, and you are just in it for the money, blah, blah, blah. Right?" Resin asks in a patronizing manor.

Resin does not expect to be accurate with these accusations; maybe a few thing here and there, but his over all goal to allow his new found smuggler friend to talk. Not about why he is doing the things that he is doing, but just to talk. Making accusations and then allowing the person you are questioning to answer, gives you an idea of who you are dealing with. If they become defensive and begin correcting you, that means that you now have information that you did not have befor; it also means that the person you are dealing with probably doesnt know the information that you are inquiring about, because they are more worried about their role in the organization, instead of the fact that they are bound and being questioned.

Spoiler: OOC Notes

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Making a Coercion Check; 2 Green Die

[Dent-2020]

"You sure like the sound of your own voice." The smuggler sneers, picking at a scab under the ring of one of his wrist seals.

"You think you're scary. Couple Big Guns and a Big Mouth." His eyes flick between Ness, Jim, and Resin, appearing almost bored. "You're not scary. Think you took us out easy? This is just a warehouse. We own this moon. We've got guns from here to Kessel. Formos is a bright spot of rock stuck between the Hutts and the Empire, and we're the crazy mynocks that saw that and called it an opportunity." He chuckles. "You don't scare me, and you sure as hell won't scare Dobah."

"You should run while you still got five legs between you."