Psi-Wars Tūrelil jē Sekhmet Part 4

Today’s post is a continuation report on Tūrelil jē Sekhmet. It won’t be entirely chronological in order to make the summary more coherent. See part 1, part 2 and part 3 for more information.

Note: The PCs are given aliases. I refer to them with their aliases when acting with their false identities and with their regular names when they are not.

The Interview

There was an Imperial expedition to Temjara and interviews to be held shortly. Shoko Sun and the SRA arranged for false identities for Kaglen (Vance) and Kayta (Lūa) with credentials qualifying them for the job. Lūa was a researcher from the university at Kronos, and Vance was her assistant/bodyguard. In exchange, Kaglen was tasked with reporting information about the expedition to the SRA. The SRA believed that the goal of the expedition was a special communication device.

Lūa and Vance were sent in to meet with the expedition’s leader, Xiao Tan-Shai. She was accompanied by her bodyguard, Tai-Kai Shrike, and speaking with an Imperial Knight. Dr. Tan-Shai seemed to be arguing with the Imperial Knight and insisting that she was in charge of the expedition and that her Shinei was sufficient special protection. The Imperial Knight examined Vance and Lūa closely before leaving.

During the interview, Lūa was asked about her studies, and Lūa’s player asked if Lūa studied with Xaka. I decided that was an interesting idea and so said that she did. When Lūa mentioned Xaka during the interview, Dr. Tan-Shai seemed intrigued. They Lūa and Vance did pass the interview, and Lūa was hired as a “cultural expert.”

Kayta attempted to contact Xaka, explain what she was doing and ask for information about the Contemplation Chamber of Sekhmet. Xaka was busy but gave a brief explanation about eldoth and their cruel ways. He promised to do some research and instructed Kayta to be careful. Kayta promised to report her findings.

Arrival at Temjara

Lūa and Vance passed the blockade around Temjara without much trouble. Leo’s ship was still awaiting repairs, so they brought him along as an assistant. The designated landing location was a remote island.

Paperwork, Waiting, a Cook and Strange Birds

After arriving on Temjara, the heroes were instructed to wait for instructions. The location contained a prefab, Imperial base camp with lots of required paperwork. Vance attempted to request an additional blaster and some power cells. He was required to submit paperwork and wait.

While waiting, the heroes befriended a cook, Abagail. She was quite popular at camp since she could make the military rations taste like real food. Lūa attempted to befriend Abagail with cooking with traditional ingredients such as local eels and seaweed. Vance attempted to befriend Abagail by hitting on her. Harvard considered Abagail a rival for his master’s attention.

The waiting was an ordeal, but it was not without complications. Some strange birds infiltrated the camp. The heroes reported the birds, and Dr. Tan-Shai and Tai-Kai Shrike did not seem surprised. They both agreed that the strange birds were likely rust vultures sent from the the dig location.

During the wait, Xaka got back to Kayta with speculation that “Sekhmet” was likely one of the eldothic servitors and likely a daemon. He urged caution.

Drones and a Master

While waiting, the heroes were given patrol duty. They patrolled the area around the camp and found signs of others on the island besides the Imperial military but were unable to locate the others. Vance found what appeared to be ancient, advanced drones of unknown technology. They were disabled and covered in plants, but he decided that he could use the drones to understand the tech to replace the mysterious “communication device” with a convincing replica to go above and beyond the SRA request.

While on patrol, Lūa received a telepathic message from a mysterious individual wishing to meet her in person. He purported to be a keleni guard who protected the Contemplation Chamber from outsiders to keep its dark secrets buried forever. When they finally met in person, Sālaren explained some details about the Contemplation Chamber and confirmed Xaka’s speculation.

Lavitna Strikes!

For the next few days, Vance and Lūa would go on patrol and would separate to work on examining the drones and meet and train with the mysterious Sālaren.

One day while Kaglen and Harvard were working on the drones, they were attacked by a jagarathi slave catcher working for Gorum named Ska. The battle was fierce. Harvard did his best to protect Kaglen, and Kaglen fought well, but it went in Ska’s favor. When Kaglen was beginning to lose consciousness from a stun grenade, blaster fire could be heard from multiple locations. Reinforcements had arrived, and Ska was forced to retreat. When Vance recovered, he discovered that Abagail followed him and managed to trick Ragtime into believing that there were multiple rescuers. Abagail was a “simple cook” who was worried about Vance and “happened to learn to shoot from her father.”

At the same time, Kayta was on her way to visit her tutor when she and Crank were attacked by Ragtime. This time, Crank’s sirens were not effective thus Kayta was basically on her own against Ragtime. Kayta did a decent job defending herself against Ragtime for a while but was unable to launch an effective counterattack. Ragtime attempted to avoid hurting Kayta too badly but managed to land a devastating punch. When Kayta was about to be captured, Sālaren came to the rescue. Sālaren taught Kayta breathing and staff exercises, but Kayta had never seen Sālaren in actual combat. He was far more powerful than his frail, elderly frame would imply and was able to force Ragtime to retreat.