Also, my last couple of write-ups were written, edited, and posted late at night while I was tired. I've gone through and corrected some typos and fixed some links, just so you all know.
And here we go!
(Quick note before we begin: John, Malesinder's player, was unable to make it to this week's session. He should be returning in the future, but for now his character is just quietly off to the side.)
So where we left off, the group was headed back to Professor Muhali's office, in the hopes of sorting out the scandal with Ailabiens 21:2 so they can free up enough department resources to help the group track down the temple that reportedly has writings in the language they found on the Drift Rock.
And we pick up basically with the bickering that we left off on before (though with Virxidor contributing a bit this time, as we had Kevin this session), mostly kinda-sorta good-natured between N1-C0 and Zar, which included this gem from Zar:
"I'm not arguing _for_ mass-murder. I'm defending hypothetical past mass-murder." #funnygamers— Chris Shaffer (@mythicfox) April 30, 2018
But soon enough they get back to the professor's office where their ally Whaloss is waiting for them, eager to see if they've made progress. They head in and they explain to Muhali the contemplative's conditions: His academic suspension cleared, his restricted materials access restored, and this incident wiped from his tenure file. She's fine with the first two, but the third... she's a little shaky on it, because she's sure he's going to be a pain in the ass about it at meetings and such, but Kech asks if she'd be willing to wipe the incident if he agrees never to bring this up again.
She considers it, and will go for that if he agrees. And to thank them for their efforts, she tosses them a little something: a ring of resistance that Ailabiens requested as part of one of his grant applications that ultimately fell through because of this whole mess. Since its ownership is now up in the air, she decides they can have it. She also mentions she's still trying to get in touch with Dr. Solstarni, the archaeologist she mentioned before. But in the meantime, she asks them to make sure Ailabiens is willing to hold up his end of the bargain and she'll go ahead and start restoring his access.
They head back, explain the new condition, and he's willing to adhere to that. To show his appreciation he shares some credits he earned on a recent lecture circuit. He then discovers his access is already back, so he gets to work checking out Halkueem Zan's journals and notes -- some of which are digital, but some of which are also in physical notebooks that he'd carried on the expedition. The xenoanthropologist says he can go over everything and digitize it for them, but it'll take him 8 hours to get it into a useful form.
So, with some time to kill, the group decides to go out and hustle pool in the local seedy establishments, teaching N1-C0 how to do so and making a decent amount of credits for a few hours' work... until Kech, who's been flirting with Muhali when they've been in her office and thus gave the professor her number, gets a call. Professor Muhali hasn't been able to get ahold of Dr. Solstarni, and her friends and family haven't heard from her in a couple of days either. She's officially worried and would like the group to help her check the doctor's office.
As they still have a few hours to kill and this leads into their upcoming expedition, they meet Professor Muhali at Dr. Solstarni's office. She opens the door and the office is in shambles. It's been ransacked. Cabinet doors and drawers are open, artifacts are all over the floor, theres a half-packed bag on a tabletop. The group begins investigating, digging through the chaos. Muhali leaves them with a spare key and goes to call the authorities.
N1-C0 checks an open cabinet and finds where the doctor's field suit (fitted for a kasatha) has fallen off the hanger, like someone grabbed for it and accidentally pulled it off and just left it there. Nearby, there's a dent in the cabinet where it looks like someone's been slammed or thrown. Kech finds, tucked behind a cabinet, a printout of a message from two days ago where someone named Dr. Eyrub Paqual invited Dr. Solstarni to a local cafe called the Five Arches. Zar finds a collection of scans of Halkueem Zan's notebooks, printed out and annotated by hand by Dr. Solstarni, with a bunch of notes and unique conclusions. If need be, there's enough there to retrace a lot of Zan's expedition.
Meanwhile, Virxidor brings her computer out of sleep mode and cracks the security like an egg. Her calendar says that she's due for a research sabbatical in two months, with all the authorizations and paperwork needed to undertake an exploration of the ruins of Ukulam. But there's also a document, supposedly from Professor Muhali, authorizing her to take the sabbatical early, which Virxidor is easily able to establish is a forgery sent by a computer off-site with Muhali's identity spoofed. He also locates about 15 messages between Dr. Solstarni and an academic named Eyrub Paqual, wanting to discuss her research into the ancient elven settlements of Ukulam. And lately, he's been trying to convince her to meet him at the Five Arches -- Virxidor can find the original message that she printed out, which Kech found. But with the context of the other messages, reading the conversations, Virxidor gets the impression that she'd been growing increasingly skeptical about Dr. Paqual.
The group does a quick search of the infosphere regarding Dr. Paqual, and Virxidor finds a lot of inconsistencies in online biographies and public records, suggesting that perhaps this is some sort of flimsy cover identity. N1-C0 finds that while Dr. Paqual does have an established academic record, most of the papers he's been attached to are either sloppy and ill-favored by the rest of the community, or he's one of several secondary authors, like he's just trying to pad out his CV.
At this point, Professor Muhali shows back up to check in, and a detective shows up a moment later. He quickly takes the group's statements and asks about their findings. The detective says he's had someone check the security cameras, and a couple of things stand out: In particular, a trio of people in Port Authority uniforms showed up at the university, but vanish from the video logs -- not only can he not see where they went, he can't even see when they left the building. It turns out there are a number of inconsistencies in the footage of various floors, including the floor where the office is, suggesting that some of that footage was replaced with a loop of other footage.
So Dr. Solstarni has certainly been kidnapped, almost certainly by this 'Dr. Paqual,' whomever he might be. Virxidor, who's an underworldly sort of fellow, happens to be familiar with the Five Arches[0] and knows that, while not a hive of scum and villainy, it's definitely a bit of a bar for low-grade criminal enterprise. As they are still waiting on Ailabiens 21:2 to finish with Halkueem Zan's notes, they decide to head out there and poke around for a bit. The detective offers to temporarily deputize the group[1] and give them some authority, as long as they're willing to wear a couple of bugs (which they hide in Zar's armor and on Virxidor's drone) and agree to be shadowed from a distance by some plainclothes officers. They agree to those terms -- well, everyone but Zar does. He wants total indemnity in case things go wrong, and the detective grudgingly agrees as long that Zar can have that -- at least with regards to things that happen in the detective's jurisdiction.
So they head out to the Five Arches, a cafe that attracts very few normal, reasonable, right-thinking people because of its reputation for eclectic food dishes of variable quality. The proprietor, an android named Uilee, insists on experimenting with and recreating "authentic" dishes from the various Pact Worlds, with only vague and inconsistent success because her own artificial taste buds are a little lacking.
So the group goes in to find about a dozen people drinking alone or in pairs. N1-C0, upon finding out that the dish of the day is some sort of avian cutlet smothered in a fig-like compote paired with a mashed bitter tuber from Triaxus, wants to give it a try -- if nothing else, he's hoping the Triaxan veggie reminds him of home. It does not. Virxidor goes right up to Uilee and says he's trying to recruit for a job and that he's looking to hire the people who might involved with a job involving a Dr. Paqual. She doesn't know anything about that particular job, but suggests he ask around.
Everyone notices, however, that a lashunta in the corner suddenly takes notice when Virxidor mention Paqual's name. N1-C0 starts sneaking over to the guy's table while Zar asks Kech if they're going to do this his way, or her way.[2] They decide to play it by ear, and Virxidor jumps up on a table and begins announcing to the whole room that he's looking to hire someone for a job and where prospective applicants can line up for said job, just making a huge distraction. Kech and Zar head over to the guy in the corner to talk to him, and when they mention Paqual again he hits a panic button on his belt, summoning allies who'll be here in a few minutes. Zar grabs him by the face. He makes it clear that he's not planning on sticking around long enough to face any consequences for what he might do, and the only reason he isn't already about to kill the guy is because Kech wouldn't want him to.
At Uilee's request, they take it outside and the guy agrees to talk and sends the 'all-clear' signal to his buddies. He says that he's a smuggler who did some work for Dr. Paqual, securing papers for 15 people and their gear to travel to Turhalu Point, a research station on Ukulam. He knew that 'Paqual' was an alias, but the money was good enough he wasn't inclined to ask questions. He said that the paperwork wasn't too bad -- he had to fake some Port Authority IDs to help get the group's equipment moved, but a couple of the visas were legit academic visas that just had to be adjusted a bit, belonging to Dr. Paqual and his 'ill kasatha colleague.'[3] But beyond that, he does know that the group was hauling a lot of firearms and heavy gear, including a powerful sniper rifle and a comm unit so bulky it had to be broken down into three pieces for transport. They also needed special permits for transporting fungal spores of some variety.
So now that they got everything they needed out of him, they're about to let the smuggler go, when Virxidor decides to talk to the guy about business and what it would take to get him to dummy up some fake IDs for him and the rest of his group. Once they've had an incriminating conversation, he uses the code phrase that will call in the plainclothes cops over the bug, making it look like the cops are after them both and basically letting the police chase away the smuggler.
They head back to the university to check in with Professor Muhali and update her, and get the paperwork they need to travel to Turhalu Point themselves -- after all, Dr. Solstarni is out there in addition to the ruins they wanted to look at anyways. Professor Muhali also provides them a stipend from the university to help fund their assistance in recovering her colleague.
Speaking of which, Dr. Ailabiens 21:2 finishes digitizing a mostly complete copy of Zan's account of his expedition. He mentions there's some gaps in the material, either because Zan was negligent in documenting his journey or because someone else has removed some documents. He's also annotated it as best he can, highlighting what look to be the most relevant parts, and he sends them the data. There's a lot there, and between the materials provided by the doctor and the notes found in Dr. Solstarni's office, the group is more than well-equipped to find the ruins they seek. They skim over the highlights, and are various degrees of horrified and alarmed at the description of a jungle creature referred to as a 'stingbat,' described as a 'hellish cross of monkey, bat, and scorpion,' that 'travel in troops' and constantly harassed the expedition.
So they get some rest and buy some rope for the expedition, and the next day they head out to the Port Authority where they can ask a few questions and travel to Ukulam by portal.[4] They easily get the Gate Controller, a damaya lashunta named Raiyiri, to answer a few questions. More than a little disturbed at the implication that Port Authority employees have been connected to the kidnapping, she pulls up the assignment logs for the last three days and confirms that nobody was sent to the university. Also, because Turhalu Point is a pretty uncommon destination, the records only list one group that comes close to matching what the party has described in the relevant time frame: A team of 15 people (a kasatha, a shirren, two humans, and 11 lashuntas) carrying lab equipment, cryogenically-frozen organic compounds, and specialty foodstuffs with specialty authorization from Qabarat University. Customs confirmed the contents of all of the crates, though the paperwork is a little sparse for her liking.
Fortunately, this is less of an issue with the PCs, as their papers are all in order. So we leave off on them girding their metaphorical loins and stepping into the aiudara portals to travel to Ukulam, where we'll pick up again next time!
[0]-- He off-handedly mentions that while the food there isn't terrible, it's 'like that cousin that's just not right,' leading to a discussion about various cultural equivalents. Zar comments that his people (the drow, in case you need a reminder) would at least sacrifice such a cousin to Shax, so everyone has a use.
[1]-- It's not particularly relevant to the narrative, but Virxidor and N1-C0 look into hacking the IDs they've been given so they'll always show as valid even after the cops revoke the deputization, but it turns out a) they're rigged in such a way that it's not feasible and b) the jurisdiction is so limited as to be effectively useless.
[2]-- There really isn't a good way to translate this in-character, but it's explained that "Zar's way" means "Batmanning someone."
[3]-- The group implies that she might not have been ill, and he might have actually been party to a kidnapping, but either he didn't pick up on it or quickly made it clear that was unknown to him and changed the subject, I can't recall which.
[4]-- Because the continent of Ukulam is a wilderness preserve, any sort of environment disrupting travel is heavily prohibited, and thus there's no good place to park a spaceship. So normally, access is provided via an elven portal device called an aiudara, colloquially referred to as an "elf gate."
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