Eli Lamb organises the paperwork for the starship. Ship gets registered Milly Larssen – because ship has to be registered to a Heclan citizen. Eli Lamb contacts Frances who puts Milly’s name forward as the new owner. Ship has slipstream technology.
New slipknot has been discovered but don’t know where it goes yet. Heclan government is very interested in ceding exploration rights to Milly to explore the slipstream. Several corporations in talks with Milly including the Tyrell Corporation. Eli Lamb and Frances help in the negotiations.
Tyrell Corporation want to sponsor trip and for the ship to collect bio samples.
Fenrick Corporation also want to sponsor trip and want ship to collect raw materials – mineral rights.
Majority opinion favours working with Fenrick Corp.
Fenrick Corp. supply some equipment such as spare parts and tools for the ship. Drones and satellites for surveying, power armour, medi-tent, stasis pod.
Rachel’s character does some hiring of crew. She hires a pilot and a mechanic
Good pilot from Flare – Roger . Solid good character. Drinks when not on the job.
The mechanic is from Hel – called Chris. She still has to make her sonic screwdriver. Not quite as good as Rachel’s character.
Frances vets all the new crew. One member gets excluded – think he is in the pay of Tyrell Corp.
Hired 2 dogsbodies – cook, Leroy and cleaner, Abigail. Milly has a sergeant – Grimm Evervald plus a ‘red shirt’ – Red Hardstardt.
Once stocked up and staffed up, the ship Tanngrisnir leaves the planet and heads to the new slipknot – 2 astronomical units away.
Leave the slipknot with excess speed into an asteroid belt. Slow down enough to avoid any collisions. Then notice several asteroids are moving out of random orbit towards the ship. Do a scan. The sun’s spectra confirms that we have left the home system.
Receive a penetration warning in the hold area. Milly takes Red and Frances with her to the hold.
They find several spider droids in there. They start scanning with blue lights. There is also a hull breach. One spider has deactivated the safety foam mechanism to block the hole. A couple of spiders approach Milly. She blows one apart. Red, Vespasian and Frances also shoot and cause loads of electrical arcing but no damage.
They manage to disable/blow apart most of the spiders. Phoebe starts to open the hold doors to suck out the spiders. One spider manages to escape into the conduit.
Milly orders the hold doors to be closed and sets about jury-rigging a repair. Phoebe activates the screen on the bridge to track the spider droid. Chris in engineering screams. Phoebe unlocks all the doors as Vespasian heads down there.
Vespasian finds Chris looking a little frazzled and the droid in bits next to a sabotaged piece of kit. Phoebe identifies that it has tampered with the slipknot device and de-activated it.
Roger then reports a message coming through. It can be understood quite clearly. ‘They do not attack if you head in system.’ So Roger flies into the system. He pinpoints the radio signal to a large asteroid and goes towards there.
Milly converses with voice. He identifies himself as Vaughan Sheridan. Abandoned/ broken down ship on the asteroid. He also tells us that he has his daughter with him. He has also seen another ship which headed towards the third planet from the star. But they didn’t respond to any hails.
Two drone satellites are sent to the planet to monitor for any radio transmissions and signs of life and technology.
Head towards Vaughan’s asteroid. His language is similar but slightly different. He has been here for about 50 years.
Second planet of the system has a giant tree growing into space. Third planet looks fairly normal for a planet.
Most slipknots that we know about are ‘synchronous’ but this slipknot is ‘asynchronous’ which has only just been discovered by Hecla. Asynchronous slipknots take vessels further than synchronous ones.
Vaughan very evasive about his daughter and what he has observed over the years. He does tell the crew about a second crash site. Ship has been scavenged by the spiderbots.
After about 27 hours data arrives from the satellites. On third planet, there are canals but no evidence of a ‘modern’ neon city. No evidence that there is space-going technology on the planet. Some cities with walls, castle (500AD) type world.
On 2nd planet the tree is huge – it has lakes on the boughs. Could in theory walk from the top of the tree down to the ground – not necessarily recommended.
Phoebe has studied the broken slipknot device and come up with a list of parts that are required. There are alloys available on the asteroids but that there are spider builder-bots on there. They would ‘scavenge’ any satellite droids sent to asteroids before any harvesting could take place. There are also the necessary elements on the first 3 planets in the system. The 2nd planet with the tree has a higher than expected amount of the necessary elements.
Phoebe has the idea of building a small army of satellite droids to dive onto an asteroid with the builder-bots and collect as much as possible. Phoebe expects to lose 12-13 droids out of 15 in the mission. It also depends on how keen the droids try to retrieve the alloys afterwards.
15 satellite droids set off. 5 droids return with alloys. They are unloaded and released back into space. About 20 spiderbots that followed split up. Most go after droids but a couple continue onto the ship. The ship moves off flying into the system. The spiderbots stop following.
Phoebe starts work on the slipknot device. She gets it to the point where she thinks it will work BUT only once it is synchronised with the fields. Unfortunately she needs the information on the ship that Vaughan saw landing on the 3rd planet to be able to get the device to work.
The crew use the data gathered by the satellite and discover that the natural spaceport site has an abandoned spaceship in the middle of it. The ship is about 100 years old. The society of the city is noticeably different to the rest of the planet. It is militaristic. The shape of the natural spaceport is too perfect – has been eroded over time.
An initial foray is made to investigate the local society. Language slightly strange but understandable like strong Scottish or Geordie. Quite a medieval society – no guns but use swords and have currency. Party decide to observe another city so that they can act as traders from there when they enter the spaceport.
Vespasian stays in the background – hides outside the city so that he can come to the rescue when everyone else gets into difficulty. The city is called Kingslanding. The technology is higher quality than in other cities. Have a couple of mines – lot of high quality minerals that could be mined. Have a monarchy, church and state. It is fairly law-abiding with city guards. Frances takes charge of the investigations and exploration. The religion has a belief in the ‘otherkin’, they don’t like technology and the people don’t want to attract their attention. It is believed that technology attracts their attention.
Frances visits the local church and talks to one of the deacons. Frances decides that we need to speak to the King as he is most likely to know about spaceships particularly the one that Vaughan spotted 20 years ago. Frances has found out that locals know a ship arrived and the church advised that the ship is buried. The King met with the space-farers and that the ship decided to move on.
Frances arranges to meet the Chamberlain. At the end of the meeting, Frances has secured accommodation within the palace and a meeting with the King. Frances instructs Vespasian and Grimm to join the party at the palace. Vespasian is a black man – black people are part of the ruling class within the city.
When Vespasian turns up – he gets slightly better food and more courtesy than everyone else. Once refreshed, the party is taken to throne room. King Simba greets the party. Following a talk with Vespasian, the court is cleared and the King is told that we are travellers trying to get home. The King explains that the ship from 20 years ago went to the 2nd planet (with the tree). The king seems happy to help. Vespasian offers the King the data from the satellite orbiting the planet to repay him for his help. Frances also discovers that the King came from the same place as Vaughan Sheriden – the Helleck system. The King calls this system Oubliette. The King recommends going to see his uncle at the monastery. The King’s son takes us there.
The monastery is about 100 miles away. Vespasian is in his element when the caravan leaves behind the villages. He spots of a group of men following the caravan. He goes with one of the royal guards to check out the band. In discussion with Milly, it looks like the band is planning to ambush the caravan. Milly plans a counter-ambush. The only problem is preventing the Prince from taking part.
It is decided that some of the guards and party members go off the look at an ‘abandoned mill’. Milly the group to her ambush point and sets up her plan of attack.
Milly takes out 5 of the party and injuries a 6th in the first round. Several others die by Vespasian, Frances and the guard’s weapons. Milly then proceeds to take out another eight, leaving 2 injured. One of the injured is the priest.
The priest is taken back to the group and questioned by the royal guard. The priest is sent back under arrest back to the city. The priest’s aim had been to capture or kill the Prince to prevent him from learning about his family history and the use of technology.
After an uneventful journey, the caravan reaches the monastery. Everyone crosses a rope bridge to reach the front door. The party is welcomed by the Prince’s uncle. He tells them about the ship from 20 years ago and why they went to the 2nd planet. they went to investigate the legends.
The party are taken down into the basement where there is a fusion engine and bank of computers and equipment. The party is told of legends tell of a great beast or the last resting place of a hero is on the 2nd planet. Eli Lamb researches the documents for legends. Phoebe maintains some of their technology and collects all of their information on slipknots. Some of the methods are different to the Heclan system so Phoebe has to use the hints to work out how to get her slipknot device to work. Families controlled particular slipknots around Helleck. Another culture predated these families. This previous culture had an ‘Arthur’ figure who at the end of his life went to rest on the 2nd planet until he was needed again. Conflicting legends talks of him going into exile or taking his technology away so that it couldn’t be used by nefarious people.
The ‘otherkin’ are about 2000 years old, Arthur is about 1000 years ago, the king’s people turned up about 100 years ago and the ship from 20 years ago were the Malthians who said that they ruled the entire universe and went to the 2nd planet. The spiderbots react to technology level. On the 2nd planet are also loads of droids.
In the orbit, Vespasian and Frances notice load of droids on the treeless side of the planet. The droids are spiderbots and attacking the tree. The tree also has venus flytrap capabilities and eats the droids. The spiderbots also activated when party flew too close. Looks like a constant warzone.
Decide to fly down through the canopy of the tree. Very tight flying to avoid the all the branches, sub-branches and droids. Eventually get a point where we see a spacecraft on a branch which has grown up around the ship. The spaceship is ancient. Everyone gets out to explore the tree and the ship. Frances and Vespasian warn everyone else of tree traps – spore clouds, blades and pits.
The party gets to the ship. There is a palm-reader. Eli Lamb tries it out and gets jabbed in the hand. Nothing happens to the ship or to Eli. Vespasian tries next and then everyone else. The door opens for Milly. She enters and everyone else follows. There is a human shaped box but there is no obvious control screens or control panels. The box opens for Milly and she enters.
The ship talks to Milly. It asks her if it is time to wake and take over the universe.
The rest of crew suddenly get face-slapped with a an alien face-hugger.
We join Milly in a recreational park. There is another humanoid with her. It is the ship. We discuss whether or not Milly should wake the ship and kill the droids. The ship was in suspended animation. It woke briefly and found that the drones/droids had arrived. Could the ‘otherkin’ has delivered the droids once they had discovered Arthur was here? We do find out that Arthur is deceased.
The ship – Excalibar offers to enhance the party so that we can communicate with the ship. Everyone goes for the full enhancement package and then Milly gives the instruction to activate. The ship starts to glow and the pod opens to release Milly.
Everyone then hears a voice inside their heads testing the communication protocols. Everyone can also see head up displays of virtual screens. The ship takes off. We establish communications with the Tann and Excalibar reconfigures itself so that the Tann can dock inside the hold. The ship then releases various drones which detonate and clear the 2nd planet of spiderbots. It then re-lands on the tree and refuels.
The crew flies to the 3rd planet to set up contracts to protect the civilisation there. Excalibar disposes of the rest of the spiderbots in the system.
It is decided to travel home to drop off those members of the crew who wish to return home and then go travelling.