The strange event happened in the evening, four days before the ship was scheduled to arrive in Razor City. Thirty six hours later, the ship is two and a half days out and things have largely returned to normal. The bridge crew is certainly aware that sensors are not at 100% and won't be until spare parts are available upon docking, and that external communications are almost non-existent. However, for the rest of the passengers, things have mostly gotten back to normal as they awaken two days later.
By this time, the five who had been at Stella's dinner when the event hit, and who had acquired strange powers as a result, had gotten to spending a lot of time together as they examined their new abilities and looked for more. Thus, it was no surprise that all five were down in Stella's cabin shortly after noon of that day when Anita left the Sensor and Communications watch in the capable hands of her senior watchman and went below. All are busy discussing their new powers and practicing with them.
Twenty minutes later, the captain's voice comes over the ship-wide intercom. "ALL PASSENGERS AND CREW, EXCEPT THOSE ON DUTY, ARE TO ASSEMBLE IN THE COMMON AREA IMMEDIATELY, BY ORDER OF THE CAPTAIN."
LARS: "I wonder what this is about."
STELLA: The actress glanced over at the intercom with an irritated look. Setting down her glass of wine she remarked, "Hmm, this doesn't sound good does it?"
DALE: "I can think of a half dozen possibilities. I don't think it particularly concerns us, so we'd better attend.
DALE (OOC): I can think of a half dozen possibilities that would cause us all trouble, too, but almost none of them would occur to Dale as likely ;)
ANITA: “I have no idea what’s up. Perhaps the Captian wants to make sure we’re ready for the approach to the space docks. That should be some kind of fun without full sensors and comms.”
STELLA: Stella nodded at the various comments not really knowing what to expect. She grabbed a shawl as the group departed her quarters.
Stella, Curt, Dale, Anita and Lars head over to the lift and take it up a couple of decks to level 3. Other passengers and crew are also arriving, all of them wondering what is going on. As they arrive, they can see that some of the people are congregating in the main lounge, others are congregating in the dining room but most are making their way to the main gathering area (labelled Conference Room on the map). There the group can see that the captain is standing on a large table in the center of the room as he waits for everyone to arrive. He has a neutral expression on his face but some sense that he is not happy. The room is starting to fill up. The group can the chaperones standing in a group not far from the table where the captain is standing. They are talking quietly amongst themselves.
Once the room has filled up, the captain raises his voice and speaks. "As of this morning, the Promise of Andromeda is under new management. Mr. Li Cheng is the new owner of this ship and wants to say a few words."
The reaction of the crowd is, to say the least, one of complete surprise. The group watches as Li Cheng, one of the chaperones, smiles and climbs up onto the table. He looks at the captain and says, "Get back to the bridge." The captain's reaction is one of extreme fear and he almost falls as he jumps down from the table and runs towards the bridge.
Dale however, noticed something that no one else did. As Li Cheng spoke to the captain, there was a strange yet subtle "beam" of energy that emanated from Li Cheng's mind and struck the captain. Subtle though it was, Dale looks around, surprised that no one else seems to be remarking on it or even reacting to it. He wonders if it is something only he can see because of his awakened mental abilities. Perhaps it was some sort of mental attack on the part of Li Cheng against the captain?
"Quiet, everyone," Li Cheng begins and, as he says this, Dale again sees mental energy emanate from Li Cheng but this time it seems to spread out to hit everyone in the room, including himself. With a start, Dale realizes that Li Cheng just initiated a Mind Control attack against everyone in the room, essentially ordering them to be quiet. Dale is able to easily ignore the mental imperative, and so is Curt, but Lars, Stella and Anita are not. Nor are most of the people in the room. As a result, complete silence suddenly ensues.
"Because of the recent damage to my ship, we are forced to raise ticket prices for the remainder of the trip to Razor City. My associates and I," he says indicating the other six chaperones standing nearby, "will be happy to help you in ascertaining the exact increase in your individual ticket price. My suggestion to you is to return to your chambers, gather up all of your valuables, and return here where we will have one on one discussions with each of you regarding the new price."
He then looks around the room until he spots Stella and Curt. "You two," he says to them, "will sadly no longer be able to afford the price of the first class cabins you currently occupy. In addition to gathering up your valuables, you can also pack all of your suitcases and move to a new room. Perhaps some of your former dinner party guests will agree to help you." He smiles thinly as he says this.
STELLA: Stella kept her expression neutral and really was not terribly surprised by this move. The power play the thugs were making made it perfectly clear that they would take full advantage as they saw fit, including robbing and imprisoning the passengers. Normally Stella would had just dealt with the situation through her manager and agent. Not good they would do stuck out in the middle of space where might was right. Luckily, Stella had a new well of strength to draw upon.
"You can't do that!" says a somewhat heavyset passenger. "We've already paid for our tickets! The damage to the ship isn't OUR fault! You should work that out with the insurance company!"
Li Cheng looks at the man as he is speaking and for an uncomfortable period after he finishes. Then he gestures to one of the other chaperones, a large oriental man. Stella remembers that his name is Wang Fang (or was it Fang Wang?). Wang climbs up onto the table and points to the man, who is suddenly looking very afraid. As Wang points at him, the passenger begins to levitate into the air, clearly not under his own power.
Meanwhile, one of the other chaperones, whom Stella remembers as Zhang Wei, leaps easily onto a nearby table. His right arms turns suddenly gray and a long steel knife springs from his clenched fist apparently growing out of his body. Wang moves the levitating passenger, now pleading for mercy, towards Zhang.
"You have concerns about the new pricing policy?" Li asks the man as Zhang's knife touches his neck.
"NO!" the man screams. "NO CONCERNS, NO CONCERNS!"
Li nods at Wang and the passenger falls to the carpet where he quickly scrambles to his feet and backs away behind other passengers.
"Does anyone else have any complaints that they would like to voice?" Li asks as he looks around.
Predictably, no one voices any problems with the new arrangement.
"Then go," Li orders. "And return with your valuables." This is accompanied by another mass mind control and people immediately turn to leave. As with the first one, Dale and Curt are able to ignore it if they so choose, but no one else is. Immediately, everyone turns and files out of the room.
STELLA: Stella complied with the orders, not that she had any choice, and left the room. She would play along with Mr Cheng's game for now. It was important for the group not to tip their hand until it was the right moment. Though she had no mental training, she fell back on her acting classes where she would become the part through and through. She emptied her mind of other thoughts and fully embraced the role of helpless passenger.
GM: Dale clearly saw that Li Cheng had mental powers. Everyone saw that Zhang and Wang also had super powers. Wang's were telekinetic while Zhang's seemed somewhat similar to Stella's. But even beyond this, there was a sense that the other four chaperones had also picked up powers. The group did not spend their entire time staring at Li. They did their best to also see what they could of the other chaperones. At the same time that the passenger complained, Brandy surrounded herself with some sort of field of cosmic strings. Another oriental chaperone in a trenchcoat was holding a polished black cudgel that was highly engraved. The club seemed to phase in and out similar to what happened with the knife that Lars has. Another oriental chaperone seemed to surround himself with a field of darkness. Only the martial artist chaperone didn't appear to display any obvious powers.
GM: Unfortunately for the group that means that there are apparently seven super powered bad guys and only five of you. Clearly now is not the time to start anything, at least until you can even up the odds a bit.
DALE: Dale tries to hide his interest in the powers being displayed, and his ability to ignore Mr. Cheng's commands. If Curt looks at him he will motion with his eyes to play along for now. Once we are clear of that room and well out of Mr. Cheng's line of sight, he will try to move to stay near his new friends, and assess if any of them are free of his influence or still under it.
DALE (GM): I'm going to assume that I don't know IC about the ability of mentalists to 'help' others break mental holds and commands, but I would be trying without my powers at first, and maybe discover it during those efforts. My Ego Attack, perhaps? :) Or just trying to use Telepathy to break through to them since I'm more practiced with that?
GM: The "command" to leave was an immediate command and does not remain in effect for long. By the time the group has departed the room, no one is under any sort of mental influence. Neither Stella, Anita or Lars "felt" any sort of mental attack. They simply wanted to depart the room to further discuss what to do next. To put it another way, the mental command simply compelled them to do something they were already inclined to do anyway. If the group went their to confront and fight Cheng and his men, the command may not have worked.
GM: And yes, you are correct. Dale does not yet know about the ability of mentalists to help others resist attacks. For that matter, Dale probably doesn't know who in the group successfully resisted the attack since everyone basically followed the command to leave. However, if you want to send a PER roll (at -2) for each of the other 4 in the group, you may have noticed how the attack impacted them.
DALE (GM): Forgot to respond to this, sorry, here's my PER
rolls, need 11- with the -2 penalty:
Lars: [rolled 1 6 4 - Total: 11]
Stella: [rolled 3 3 6 - Total: 12]
Curt: [rolled 3 1 6 - Total: 10]
Anita: [rolled 2 4 1 - Total: 7]
GM: Dale sensed that Lars was affected by the mental command while Curt was not. He also senses that Anita was affected but it could simply because the command was something that Anita was inclined to do anyway and she was making no effort to avoid leaving.
After the five depart the common area, they make a quick decision that, for now, they will simply play along with the Cosmic Pimps and pay the higher fees, amounting to extortion. However, the event gives them impetus to vigorously pursue their new abilities in order to resist the thugs in the future, hopefully before the ship reaches Razor City. They speak in low voices as the collect their valuables and then head down to level one to assist Curt and Stella in vacating their suites.
After going through the unpleasant process of turning over their valuables to the pimps and being lectured by them about how they need to be good little passengers for the rest of the trip, they meet again, this time in Dale's second class cabin.
Dale is careful to keep an eye open for any hostile mental energy that might signal that Li Cheng is mentally snooping as the group discusses the new reality.
LARS: "Well I'm not going to sit still while they rob us all blind! I say we spend some time making sure we really know our new powers and then we take them on. We can even the odds a bit by trying to catch one or two off by themselves and neutralizing them before taking on the rest."
DALE: "Agreed. I'm not sure what my powers can do to an enemy yet, so I'd better work on figuring that out. We definitely want to reduce their numbers a bit and not take them on head-on. I noticed that Li Cheng has mental powers and his commands had force behind them, he was using them to cow us and keep the crowd quiet, but I was able to resist them easily. Did anyone else notice that, or feel that they were able to resist? That may become an issue if we have to confront him later, I just hope he hasn't learned to control them so well that he can force us to turn against each other.
LARS: Then the miner frowns and adds, "One thing that bothers me about my new powers is that, unlike all of you, I don't seem to have any resistance to knives a bullets. Anita, do you know if there is any armor on the ship anywhere?"
GM: Anita knows that there is a small armory on the ship where some weapons and armor are kept. Of course, it is likely that the Cosmic Pimps already looted it.
DALE: "Yeah, I know what you mean, I haven't really discovered any combat abilities, my powers seem to be more in the realm of information gathering. Although I guess I haven't really experimented with how strong my Telekinesis is, if it's strong enough that could be used in a pinch.
STELLA: "I'm still coming to terms with what's happened and this latest twist makes me feel like I'm in a poorly written script. I really wished I had played in more action movies! Anyway, I'm not confident with my powers yet though these thugs have it coming. I'm happy to do what I can to stop them. Do you think we need to practice more or is that too risky?"
DALE: "I definitely need to practice more if we're planning to get into a fight As of now about the only thing I could do is try to telekinetically levitate one of our enemies to keep him out of the fight while you others take the others on. There must be something more... I don't really like the idea of experimenting on any of you, but I may have to to figure things out :(
DALE (GM): I was looking through old back posts to find the info but couldn't, I remember activating my force field during our practice session on Maptool, do you keep record of which powers we know about?
GM: Dale was successful in discovering that he seemed to have some sort of highly unstable force field. Basically he knows he can bring up a force field but it does not consistently provide the same level of protection. This is in line with how the character is designed with the various activation rolls on different parts of his FF.
STELLA: "I do like the idea of isolating one of the pimps and taking him or her out. I don't think I can bring myself to killing even the most vile pimp so I'm at a loss at what to do if we beat them."
DALE: There should be no need to kill anyone, we can confine them or if worst comes to worst I can figure out a way to drug them using the meds in the med-bay, put them into a medically induced coma or something.
GM: Dale doesn't have medicine skill but he can probably work with the ship's doctor to come up with something to keep them out for a while. This assumes that their internal processes haven't mutated so much that they are no longer susceptible to such medicines.
DALE (GM): Are we assuming that I have already done so or do I need to roleplay this? I might also be able to get the information from him telepathically so that I wouldn't take the chance of exposure to the chaperones, no telling if he might be a collaborator (or under duress).
GM: I'm fine either way. If you want to role play it, you can or you can just say that you managed to put together some meds that will hopefully keep them out once they have been defeated.
DALE (GM): Jason mentioned the idea to me that maybe there's stasis pods on the ship that could be used to confine someone and keep them out of commission, I am guessing that's not the case but let me know if I'm wrong. You said FTL travel is in its infancy in this game? Or just not publicly available? Do they use stasis / hypersleep for interstellar travel and exploration?
GM: There is no widespread interstellar/FTL travel yet. There have been some exploration vessels sent out but as far as anyone knows, there was no plan to put the crews into any sort of stasis. At this point, space colonization is limited to the Solar System. Your best option for keeping captured bad guys out is medicine and Dale is confident that sickbay can produce what is needed. The primary cause of uncertainty is whether any of them are immune to such medicine.
|