So we left off with the party, to put it simply, raiding a nightclub belonging to the Downside Kings. They acquired evidence that the gang had specifically targeted Duravor Kreel to try and scare off the Hardscrabble Collective and the Starfinder Society from investigating the mysterious Drift Rock.
So imagine, if you will, a brief montage of the group reporting in to their Society contact Chiskisk, presenting the evidence they have so he can turn it over to the station authorities, and spending a couple of days cashing in some of their recent acquisitions and purchasing fresh equipment. Also, during this montage, we get a glimpse of the group checking in on Scrap to see that he'd taken off, leaving a note reading something to the effect of "See you later, suckers."[0] And during this little spot of downtime, trying to get an in with the Hardscrabble Collective, Virxidor managed to get contracted for some electrical work aboard some of their ships where he got to meet the unofficial 'face' of the organization -- more on that later.
Three days pass, and the remaining members of the group get a call from the front desk informing them that someone from the Starfinder Society is here to speak with them in a small conference room in their business center. (Random aside, it's weird going from medieval inns to hotels with modern amenities and layouts) They head down there to find a half-orc woman with a cybernetic arm, holding an envelope. She introduces herself as...
Kech Blackscar, played by Bryan -- A half-orc who escaped slavery at the hands of the drow on Apostae, who lost an arm as an object lesson. She got away, got her arm replaced, and has sought a new life working with the Starfinder Society. She's an envoy, a jack of all trades character who gets by on cleverness and luck, with a leaning towards social interaction/manipulation. (With regards to game mechanics and party role, an envoy functions a lot like a bard, but without the focus on performance) Basically, the Starfinder Society has been trying to find a team for her to work with, they have a new team that's already down a member, and they need someone to deliver a message anyways.
So after some quick introductions (which lead to a pause when she spots Zar's identity-concealing armor, because he has subtle drow house symbols worked into the design and she recognizes one of them), she presents a message printed on paper as black as the void of space, inviting the group to meet with the Eoxian Ambassador to the Pact Worlds, Gevalarsk Nor. Which is weird and awkward because Eox is a planet where almost the entire population is undead -- which means Nor himself is some sort of future cyber-lich thing called a necrovite. But Eox was one of the major political anchors pulling together the Pact Worlds into a cohesive alliance, so you kinda-sorta gotta deal with that.
Of course, she has trouble getting out that they've been invited to meet the ambassador because they've decided to give her a hard time and just troll her, for some reason (well, Zar's trolling her because she's a half-orc, but I can't speak as to the others' motivations). Kech excuses Virxidor's comments in particular because he's "just an elf," and Zar comments "Technically, so am I." And because Virxidor has managed to convince Malesinder of a bunch of weird biological 'facts' that aren't actually true about elves, he explains that Zar is different because sometimes 'stuff happens' when 'the eggs don't hatch right.'
Kech, having delivered the message, gets fed up and leaves in the middle of Virxidor and Zar messing with Malesinder, going on to the embassy without saying anything and waiting for the others to eventually catch up (which they do). The invitation gets them into the embassy, which is all black marble and bone-pale limestone with vaulted ceilings and organic-looking architectural details. A pair of skeletal attendants leads them to an office where they are introduced to Gevalarsk Nor, a humanoid with an elongated cranium (marking him as one of the native inhabitants of Eox) and a general corpse-like physicality and glowing green eyes (marking him as an undead abomination). Virxidor is already somewhat familiar with Nor, having done a bit of off-the-books smuggling for him in the past.[1]
He explains that the legal battle between Astral Excavations and the Hardscrabble Collective over the Drift Rock continues -- and has been heating up, after the allegations that Astral Excavations has been hiring muscle to mess with the Collective -- and he's offered to step in as a neutral third party, to mediate. But he needs someone to do some field work and investigate the ship (the Acreon) and the Drift Rock, and word has gotten back about the player characters. They're capable, new to the station (meaning nobody's had a chance to get hooks in them yet), and possess a wide range of skills -- making them a perfect third party to investigate. Also, he's going to pay them. The group is skeptical that he's doing this out of the goodness of the empty void where his heart should be, but as near as they can tell he's on the up and up. He's arranged for a shuttle that can take them out to the Acreon tomorrow morning, and informs them that to maintain an objective record of events there will be a small robot following along, recording everything. They won't have to do anything, it'll stay out of the way, but it's part of the deal.
Of course, that said, there is one more thing. It also so happens that the Acreon was transporting a package for him with the ship currently tied up in quarantine he can't get it, and he'd like for them to bring it back to the station. It's his personal property, and he insists it contains no contraband and that there are no illegalities involved with its retrieval. It's easy enough to find, as it's clearly labeled to be delivered to the embassy.
The group is amenable, and Zar immediately begins discussing an additional fee for the group's discretion. Ambassador Nor says he's prepared to offer them an extra 500 credits each upon delivery of the package. Zar, who was about to start negotiations with that same amount, accepts on behalf of the group.
So the ambassador gives them the info on where and when to acquire the shuttle he's arranging as well as his own information. He sends them their initial payment of 600 credits for going on this mission at all. At one point, during all this, Virxidor asks if the group's identities can be scrubbed from any publicly-released footage, for fear of making more enemies on the station, and the ambassador finds that an agreeable condition. He then sends them on their way, after making sure Virxidor knows that the next time they get together for poker night, they're using his cards.
The group heads back to the hotel, finding a message from Astral Excavations asking to meet with them. So with a 'here we go' sort of mindset, they head to the corporate headquarters of Astral Excavations where they're taken to a small conference room. They meet Ms. Joss, a lashunta (an elf-like race with antennae) from Castrovel who gives them a presentation about what the company does: develops and manages natural resources on various worlds and asteroids. Of course, it's the sort of marketing presentation normally given to investors and the like. And she gives them a lot of bland, neutral statements regarding what's recently been going on, expressing confidence that the authorities will find that what happened to Duravor was the work of extreme outliers in the company, and all that. Nothing terribly surprising there, really.
But at one point she sets down a tablet (and when asked, sends a copy to Kech) and explains that she has the contract that the Acreon signed right there, and that the contract says that the company has all rights to any unclaimed, unexploited natural resources. Their argument is that the Drift Rock is such an unclaimed, unexploited natural resource regardless of whether it's located in another system or attached to the Acreon via tow cables. And she makes it clear that if the group's investigation were to cause Nor's mediation to fall on Astral Excavation's side, then the company would have plenty of employment opportunities in them for the future (especially since, the group observes, they took out the corporate's last 'freelancers'). Virxidor suggests that the Hardscrabble Collective has also made them an offer, trying to get her to lay some cards on the table, but she doesn't rise to the bait and emphasizes that Astral Excavations is considering future jobs. Virxidor just calls her out on this whole thing, though, insisting to know if she's the best 'corporate stooge' that they can send to deal with this, more than a little offended at the utter lack of finesse (the lack of a decent deal doesn't help, either). Ms. Joss, at this point, just bluntly sends them on their way.
As they leave, Virxidor decides to go ahead and call up the Hardscrabble Collective, expecting to get a pitch from them as well and deciding not to sit around and wait for it. He explains to the rest of the group from his couple of days working with them that the Hardscrabble Collective are a coalition of mining ships watching each others' backs literally and metaphorically to give them some leverage against the corporations. He then makes a call and gets Otal Serissi, a red-skinned human from Akiton who also serves as the unofficial 'spokesman' of the Collective. He's pleasantly surprised, as he was about to call Virxidor, and he invites them out to his ship to chat in person.
So the group takes a shuttle out to the Armada, a collection of ships just swarming around Absolom Station, mostly independent ships looking for work and the like. On the way, Virxidor just randomly tosses out the idea of rolling Otal and taking his ship, mostly (to my understanding) to see how the rest of the group reacts. Both N1-C0 and Kech are appalled at the idea, and N1-C0 argues that even if they should do it, they should finish the job they've been paid to do first. Zar points out that doing so would also involve betraying both Ambassador Nor and the Society, and that's just not a great idea. So with that resolved, they reach the Dust Runner, Otal's tramp freighter, and he invites them aboard. He gives them the tour of the ship -- it's beat-up, kinda old, but still obviously lived-in and loved and well-maintained.
Otal takes the group into the galley and gets them some coffee where he makes his pitch. He says that the Collective aren't just a business arrangement, they're a clan that takes care of each other. Their primary concern is finding out what happened to the crew and getting the Acreon out of quarantine so they can bring closure to the crew's families. Ideally, they'd like to be able to see what they can get out of the Drift Rock to compensate the families of the lost (almost certainly dead) crew members. The Collective feels that the Acreon obviously intended to stake their own claim on the Drift Rock, or else why bring it back to the station and possibly die for it?
They're more than willing to give Astral Excavations what they hired the crew for -- all of the surveying data, mineral reports, and so forth. But the ship and the Drift Rock should stay with the collective and go to the crew's families. That's what really matters to them.
Virxidor proceeds to tell Otal about the party's meeting with Ms. Joss, mostly in sort of a 'get a load of this' sense. Zar asks Otal what they expect to find on the ship, and Otal says he figures it's probably some sort of monster. He hopes it's some sort of monster, as opposed to a plague or something, because if it's a monster because if the group's in trouble, 'you can't stab a plague.' Kech asks for a copy of the ship's crew manifest, and Otal sends that right away. But after that, once they've wrapped up their chat, the party heads back as Otal wishes them luck and safe travels. They head back to the hotel and get some sleep.
The next morning they head out to the docking bay and find the shuttle that Ambassador Nor has rented for them, a Ringworks Wanderer[2] called the Hippocampus. It's lightly armed and armored already, but given the group's concerns about security and safety he's arranged to have its defenses and weaponry upgraded. He's also taken the liberty of having life boats (escape pods) installed, just in case. The recording robot is on-board as well, and everything's ready to go. Virxidor briefly suggests stealing the ship and running off with it when they get the chance, until he finds out there's no Drift engine[3], so there's no point.
The group leaves the dock and flies past the Armada. The flight path is prerecorded, so they don't have to do any sort of navigation. The quarantine zone is a couple of hours away, so barring incident the group should have a pretty leisurely ride out to the Acreon.
So cue the incident.
Once they're past the Armada, a small ship pulls out of the swarm of ships and heads for the Hippocampus. It's transponder is off so it's not transmitting any identification codes, and it doesn't respond to Kech's hails. As it gets closer, they can tell it's a Death's Head Necroglider[4], a ship of -- you guessed it -- Eoxian design. It's a single-person fighter, looking like a sarcophagus made of bone. The pilots plug their brains directly into it so they can lay back and steer the ship with their thoughts.
And this fighter is arming its weapons and taking aim at the group. So they immediately get to battle stations -- N1-C0 was already in the pilot's seat, but now we've got Zar at the gunner's station, controlling a coilgun turret with Malesinder and Virxidor as ship's engineer and science officer, respectively. And Kech
And we leave off there.
[0]-- After the first session, Bryan realized that maybe the group needed one less damage machine and one more social-oriented character, so he's retired Scrap to play another character whom we'll introduce very shortly. In the meantime, we just wrote off Scrap's disappearance as 'he got paid and he's tired of dealing with Virxidor's dog-robot-thing and so he just left.'
[1]-- A little off-the-cuff improvised detail that Kevin tossed out there that I decided to go with.
[2]-- If you have the Starfinder Core Rulebook, that's the yellow ship on page 311.
[3]-- In other words, a warp drive.
[4]-- If you have the SCR, it's the lower one in the art on page 307.
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