TL; DR – prep time never equals enjoyment level, much is made of toilet roll, and the Kidnapped on Aramanx chapter goes (not quite) by the book

It’s interesting that you can spend three solid days (or more!) preparing for an evening’s adventure only for it to feel a bit flat and so-so. Or you can spend an hour over lunchbreak on the day itself quickly reading through the chapter and highlighting important bits only to find you have a terrific evening that goes on an hour longer than anyone expected. There seems to be no correlation between prep time and enjoyment. I did have a day off on Wednesday to prepare but mostly due to Chronic Fatigue affecting me badly, partly due to procrastination/distraction, and slightly due to the deflation of the last session I just didn’t get to it. Hence risking leaving everything till lunchtime on the day and just some highlighting of the chapter to remember crucial bits. To be fair, I’d read ahead and knew there wasn’t lots of preparation needed although I did quickly knock up a rather simple map of Zenfalen Island which I felt was required. More of that later.

Our sixteenth session of The Traveller Adventure didn’t get off to an auspicious start last night with tipping rain and wind on the way to the pub, one player having dropped out due to overcommitment, one not able to make it due to family stresses and another looking dubious an hour before game time with too much work to do. Not to mention that the pub was likely to be noisy, and it was, with the run up to Christmas parties in full swing. No chance of getting the function room this time round. But the reason we were meeting now was because yet another of our of number – one of the two computing lecturers – is heading up north in the new year and this would be his last session. I was fully prepared for a character death if it became necessary or good for the story. A proper heroic one rather than Fox’s accident-on-the-docking-bay way back on Psyadi. And a real possibility as well as we were moving onto Kidnapped on Aramanx with the hope that the evening would finish with the climatic rescue.

First, however, we tidied up the end of Zilan Wine. You may recall from last time that we’d got most of the way through the bureaucracy chapter I’d been rather dreading. The players had thrown themselves into it and there were lots of points of fun and interest, but we all agreed – even me who’d spent some time detailing and rehearsing 50 NPCs – that we would move on and take the forms as done.

But there were still a few things to sort out. First we had a catch up for our good Captain who’d missed the session and for our exhausted player who’d slept through large chunks of it. Although we could demonstrate Captain Loyd was present from his signature on some of the forms which surprised him. (Each player took on an absent player’s character as well for the duration. To give credit to my players no one had taken advantage of the situation – indeed, Jonathan playing Kunal the pilot as well as Loyd the Captain decided that on their overnight train journey out to Polykarp Province, he’d been given an ordinary coach seat while the captain took a sleeper berth). Ironically, Jonathan – the reason we were meeting in December’s party season – was delayed and missed this. He had to supervise some students doing a simulated evidence seizure for their digital forensics course. (Next month I sit as Judge in our mock courtroom while the same students deliver their 15 minute oral presentations as expert witnesses in a complicated case involving the computer seizure. The lecturers play prosecution and defence and I have to keep them in order.)

You may also recall that Fred, the wannabe steward acting in Lily’s place temporarily, had managed to order 40 tons of toilet rolls rather than 40 packs back on Aramanx. The hold and even the ATV were absolutely stuffed full of the things. Adma the medic had been trying to sell them as cargo while the others were meeting the administrators and trying to collect forms and signatures. No luck so far for Adma but eventually he had someone show an interest. The look on Adma’s face when he realized it was someone who only wanted one roll. But a couple of merchants do turn up expressing more serious interest. They were thinking of exporting them to a distant continent where the population didn’t use the stuff and the merchants were hoping to be first to market. However, it was a bit of a risk and they could only offer 50% of the asking price. With our first double six of the evening and a wonderful spiel from the player about why this was the best toilet roll in the subsector and just ideal for their purposes, Adma managed to talk them up to 75%. Only to have it drop back to 60% when the merchants realized they’d have to manage the bureaucracy involved in the shipment and export. There had been a quick discussion about the crew doing that themselves but the entire crew over-ruled Adma and said no way were they getting back into that maze. Not to mention that as they only paid for 40 packs, strictly it was all profit. There was a great moment when the two merchants were taken down to the hold and the obvious line came to me at the right moment rather than half an hour too late: “We’re going to need a bigger truck.”

Also fortunately, Fred did at least manage to spot in time that they were just about to sell the entire load and they needed to keep some back for their own use or they’d be back at square one vis a vis being caught short in the ’fresher which had started all this.

Finally, the crew needed to take the March Harrier out to Polykarp Province to load up the eiswein. It was tipping with rain there as well so it took a bit longer than expected but eventually they were finally ready to Jump away from Zila with Lisa Fireau and Boris Dree on board as well. By this time Jonathan had turned up, just in time for his Piloting rolls and another quick catch up. On hearing that Gvoudzon had passed Fred the index of an operating manual to sort out his immediate need in the ’fresher when the lack of loo rolls was discovered, he also found out that operating system in question was Windows 95. One of my favourite lines of the evening that he came up with as quick as a flash was “well it was a small operating system.”

And to catch up gentle readers who’ve lost the plot, here’s the cast:

Captain Loyd Kitman – failed Lothario but will chat up just about anyone, played by Carl, a School of Computing lecturer

Pilot Kunal Dins – dreams of a ship of her own, played by Jonathan another Computing lecturer

Adma Lews – medic and former gang enforcer so knows ‘stuff’ about hurting as well as healing, played by my library promotions assistant

Fred Squeaker – 7ft tall, bald army infantry vet and wannabe steward, played by Jane our mild mannered cataloguer

Tess Davies – a risk averse engineer, a good with her hands former scout, played by Tess our only experienced role-player and only non-University of Portsmouth player

Egon Trilby – Captain’s right hand and gunner, been an NPC for a while now and in a pretty comatose state for Reasons

Gvoudzon – Vargr emissary and as of now an NPC

Lily Lee – archaeologist hired by Carl for her admin skill, or was it her looks?, for tonight an NPC

Those who’ve been following the story may recall that the March Harrier is Jump 1 but with internal fuel tanks to allow a second Jump 1 so the trip to Aramanx takes three Jumps and includes a stopover on Carsten as well as an empty hex. Fred is tending Egon and feeding him – as well as looking after his pet squeedles back in Engineering. On one occasion as he is getting Egon to eat – about the only thing he seems capable of – he notices Egon’s small carved howood scroll on the bedside table. This causes all of them to reminisce about all their own howood carvings that they were given on Pysadi. [I provoked this for two reasons – first it gave Kunal whose player hadn’t been around at that time to decide what his carving had been. Secondly, it gave me a chance to ask where they all kept their small carvings so that I could identify where Gvoudzon’s was likely to be for the coming section where it could become relevant.]

On the first Jump it happened to be both Kunal and Adma’s birthdays so we (briefly) celebrated those. More presents wrapped in toilet roll. It’s becoming a tradition. Lily was a bit wary of Lisa at first as they’re both rather vivacious types of a similar personality but after a couple of days they were getting on like a house on fire. Fred might have been put out that Lisa rather took over in the galley and cooked rather better meals than he did, but ever the gentleman decided he’d use it as a learning experience. Although Lisa turned out not to be a great teacher and while Fred picked up a tip or two couldn’t keep up with much of it. [Spot the just failed learning task.] Boris Dree turned out to be very quiet – perhaps he is shy of his bad lisp – and rubs his hands together a lot, but he is a dutiful assistant to Litha, prethenting paperth for thignatureth and thupplying her with drinkth. He does have a nifty way of saying his name in such a way you’d not hear he had any impediment.

Also for those who’ve been following the story, you may recall the Two Days on Carsten adventure I’d added when they first went through there. This has meant that Loyd has had to decide whether to touch base with the Pretty Young Thing he was making good head way with or whether to avoid her to avoid her ever present mother. While he deliberated over this, Kunal was picking up the latest news feeds as they made their way to the ’port. Usually I try and prepare a few Imperium wide items and local items just for colour and atmosphere and also to hide any news items that the plot requires (e.g. back on Aramis) but this time I’d had a bright idea when I couldn’t sleep in the small hours. I was tired, I needed a break, why should it all be on me? Why not get the players to each offer one news item their character had noted and decided to share with the rest of the crew? This actually went really well and no one, again, tried to take advantage. I have such great players! We had local news inspired by memories of Carsten – a flister breeding group had been found and there was a run on (ordinary) wine which meant it was in short supply. There were wider items such as a new kind of filter mask that can utilise used toilet roll paper for the filter element – sorry, unwanted not used, toilet roll. There were rumours of a trade war with the Aslan (which connects nicely with the upcoming segment of TTA on Trade War), and to finish things off Fred noted in the social news that Pretty Young Thing was announcing her engagement. Loyd didn’t know whether to be relieved or a bit miffed! He thought about storming down to defend his ‘interests’ but was persuaded they needed to move on. It wasn’t clear in any case that he had really lost his heart to the girl or even that if he had, she would have been much of a keeper of said organ.

And so finally, they arrive back at Aramanx although not before Adma notices that Fred has had a shortish ‘brownout’ moment that reminds Adma a great deal of Egon’s symptoms a few weeks back. That gives them all pause for thought. [For once the noise of the pub worked in my favour as I was sitting next to Adma and could give him this information completely privately while some other discussion was going on and let him break it to Fred as though it was a genuine observation by the PC.] Was it something to do with the howood they wondered as that had recently been brought to their attention? I smiled and said nothing. Meanwhile, they did some discreet checking to see if anyone was looking for them or for payment for 40 tons of toilet rolls rather than 40 rolls. Our second, and final double six of the evening. Nope. No one was after them for the money. [I don’t think we’ve ever settled whether toilet rolls are ‘Common Consumables’ (~ Cr500/ton), ‘Textiles’ (~ Cr3000/ton) or maybe wood pulp (~ Cr1000/ton). Luxury Consumables anyone?!]

Tess – remembering the balkanized nature of Aramanx – is very keen that they stay on the orbital port rather than go down to the surface. You may recall that they nearly started a war last time they were here as they escaped the Kforuzeng attack on the mansion, fled through the woods, took out a guard post at a border crossing and another guard post deep in the woods, to finally escape on Bannerji’s ship from a mining station in the mountains. They left the planet with news reports about some ‘special forces’ unit operating in the area and destabilizing the delicate political situation. Hah! Special forces team, my foot. If only the locals knew.

I was looking forward to the auction having had some fun with auctions both in real life at TravCon and in-game for my Second Scions’ Society adventure so that went well enough and I could wrack up the tension about the bidding with Lorn Denveldt and then Oberlindes finally stepping in. Well, I enjoyed it. No idea if the players did. (Tess and Kunal didn’t even attend it. The former stayed to look after Engineering and the latter is reading up on her Astrogation in her aim to be a Captain one day.) As per the book, Lisa Fireau duly doesn’t turn up and they digest this for a moment or three. Just as I’m about to deliver the kidnappers message, they get to “she’s been kidnapped” thoughts without me saying and promptly start trying to hack into comms to see if they can work out where the message came from.

Boris Dree who has been getting increasingly anxious tells them her father will do anything to get her back and that Gustav can probably raith the ranthom – but only at the expenth of lothing the company. [Note to self: the lisp actually worked really well as an NPC trait to make Dree distinctive and the players instantly warmed to him because of it – although one reader of Terry Pratchett didn’t fail to make the Igor connection – but in the increasing humour of him repeating words that Captain Loyd wasn’t hearing thanks to the pub being loud and him being at the other end of the table from me, it jarred a little against Dree’s concern for the actually serious situation at hand.] In any case, a message is despatched back to Zila while I brief the players on the couple of paragraphs of information about Klavisur. Fair question from the players, and one I’d asked myself on first reading it, how can it be described as “liberal” given its treatment of women?

Oberlindes hears about the kidnapping and offers the use of a Jump 5 courier to return news to Zila in just a fortnight plus a bit and I suddenly find there’s absolutely no thought of waiting for any return message – despite Dree’s pleas – as the crew have so bought into Lisa as a friend and patron that they are determined to rescue her. Well they are an elite special forces unit on Aramanx, aren’t they?! I tried to point out that was only in their own minds and some misinformed journalists’ heads rather than any reality, but what did that matter? They’d still got the weapons they’d picked up earlier, I was presenting them with a map of Zenfalen Island (always a clue that this is where the story is), and time was clearly of the essence. Plus they’d have the element of surprise as further comms from the kidnappers suggest that they’re not expecting anything to happen for a couple of weeks. We did the whole Gvoudzon in the back of the picture bit but it didn’t really matter as we skipped the whole deliver-the-ransom-money-and-maybe-get-Gvoudzon-kidnapped-as-well section. Still, we couldn’t sit in the pub all night so maybe it was no bad thing. But so much for my trying to establish where he might be keeping his brooch. [Which, given he’s now an NPC in any case, I can of course just decide. But I’m trying to play the game…]

The map was interesting. I’d knocked it up very quickly from the almost non-existent description in the text. A basic PowerPoint ‘shape’ with some colour and some roads with the town of Falenza and the villa marked. At the last moment – and the map was last moment enough anyway – I added a couple of other tiny, tiny hamlets on other bits of coast and some rocky islands just to add a bit of detail. What surprised me, but maybe shouldn’t have, was that from these meagre pickings the players were able to spend quite a lot of time working out tactical options as they planned the rescue. This even included deducing that with tiny fishing hamlets like this and islands further out and interesting politics more generally there must be smuggling going on and if there’s smuggling going on there must be tunnels from the rocky outcrops to the hamlets and suddenly I had this whole detailed infrastructure of stuff that I hadn’t even begun to imagine but I was very happy to play along with.

Which was funny, because when it came to it, their actual method of attack was just to go straight in, do some nifty flying to knock the comms antenna off the roof, land on the back lawn and charge up to the door. At 0430 in the morning admittedly so I gave them the element of surprise. Till they blew the back door off – Lily had been dying to do that. (She’d given me a briefing over tea break earlier in the day). I loved that one of the players was anxious about setting an alarm off when they’d just taken out the entire back door with explosives, but there you go. You might want to have the main house floor plan to hand for the next bit. Or if you want to miss the combat, skip on to the paragraph beginning “Loyd is trying to stem…”.

Kunal stayed at the March Harrier’s controls as getaway pilot (and to park out of sight which was sweet). Fred was helping Lily and then guarding her after the Captain gave instructions to booby trap the front door in case the guards from the back gate came up. Adma raced off to the eastern stairwell and up to the first floor rooms. Tess with Gvoudzon close behind took the western stairwell and up to the first floor of the west wing. They were rather dependent on no one being around in the offices and ballrooms on the ground floor, but then it was oh dark thirty and I gave them a break by having only guards awake. One is immediately encountered in the corridor of the west wing’s first floor, as it happens, right outside the door of Lisa although no one knew that. But to add to the fun Jelika Chan, in her Jamail guise appears from the master suite – so both at very close range and PCs and NPCs alike open fire. The guard is nicked but still in it, Gvoudzon is shot but his flak jacket takes it. Meanwhile over on the other side of the villa, Adma is finding his corridor full of surprised and distressed servants. He grabs one and demands to know where Lisa is. “Who are you talking about?” And he races up the second flight of stairs in disgust.

Back on the ground floor Lily has finished setting the booby trap and retreated to a safe distance when one of the guards from the back gate does indeed arrive and blows himself to smithereens along with much of the front of the portico. Lily then sets a trip wire across the area while Fred continues to cover her and Loyd, having heard gunshots from the top of the west stairs, heads up that way himself. Kunal is busy monitoring comms to see if there was any chatter. Nothing out of the ordinary unless it is very small scale in the mansion. Nothing outgoing.

Now I thought, after the first Aramanx incident and the fairly inept border guards, that I’d beefed up the Vemene agents in the house at least, so I was a little worried it might have all gone pearshaped for the PCs. But no, I’d forgotten their elite status… :-) Tess who has been training hard to develop her weapon skill after that lucky head shot to the Kforuzeng leader several weeks back (despite her -3 penalty at the time) and who had now managed to pass some basic certification, shoots an unarmoured and barely dressed Jelika Chan wounding her enough to have her hit the floor. But close by, Gvoudzon is hit and bleeding very severely from a nasty wound to his thigh. Meanwhile in the other wing Adma is on the second floor and waving his weapon around such that they all cower back into their rooms. He takes the first room, bursts in and finds a young and terrified serving girl and decides to interrogate her. She thinks Lisa is in the other wing but in her distress she falls over and manages to trip Adma up (having managed a double six earlier, he’s now managed a double one – the only one of the evening IIRC).

Loyd arrives behind Tess just in time to be rather shocked at the amount of blood that Gvoudzon is spreading all over the floor but recovers sufficiently to take a shot at the guard and miss. None of his crew would let him loose with his famous SMGs so he’s got an unfamiliar pistol in hand (and a bit disappointed to find he’s still at a -3 penalty!). Back on the ground floor Lily’s booby trap has just taken out a second guard and the entry foyer is looking a bit of a mess with bricks and body parts everywhere. While this is happening Kunal has seen two figures in the moonlight racing up from the front gate – they’ve made good time given it must be half a klick at least and he calls it in to the others. Adma, picking himself off the floor, races to the end of the corridor, smashes out a window and can just about see the first of the running guards. He takes aim and rather remarkably manages to take out.

Another of the Vemene agents has appeared from the direction of the master suite, sees Chan on the floor and shoots at Tess but misses. She returns fire and takes him out with a headshot. Meanwhile Kunal, who has no gunnery skill, has decided to try and shoot the second guard running up from the main gate by lining up the March Harrier and taking a shot with the ship’s weapons. [I said if he got a really good piloting roll, I’d allow him to drop the -3 penalty for no gunnery skill to -1.] He rolled high on the piloting check and rolled high again on the gunnery shot and now there was a smoking crater in the lawn and no sign of the vapourized guard whatsoever. Adma, the only one who’s seen this, is impressed with the fireworks and also temporarily blinded. But at this point the wounded guard outside Lisa’s room is desperately tapping his comm unit and trying to surrender at the same time. He can see the game is up. Another Vemene agent, rather sleepily descending from the second floor is quickly accosted and disarmed.

Loyd is trying to stem Gvoudzon’s wound and calling for Adma’s more skilled assistance. In the mayhem he might have been binding his wounds in toilet roll. I’m not sure, I lost track of whether it was a meta joke or an actual action. Fred has arrived to help keep things under control in the location where most of the nasties appear to be and there’s a quick discussion about marching order as they open the door the guard was in front of. Tess bravely goes first with Fred right behind. Inside, however, it’s Lisa looking mightily relived to see her friends and realize she’s been rescued.

Adma stabilises Gvoudzon, checks Jelika Chan will live despite being unconscious on the floor and the crew check the remainder of the floor and find Lorn Denveldt cowering in his bed in a room at the far end. He explains that the original plan was just to kidnap Lisa and to send Fireau and Fille into liquidiation. Then Jamail, aka Jelika Chan, saw Gvoudzon and everything seemed to change but he doesn’t know why.

Deciding to leave hastily rather than spend any further time hanging around they leave Denveldt [tied up? – I must check] and the villa and triumphantly take Lisa back up to the orbital starport where Dree is hugely relieved to thee her. Normally we wrap up around 9pm but evidently we were so into this time – despite the nearly too noisy environment – that it was nearly 10pm. So we don’t spend long on the wrap up – father Fireau arrives to hug his daughter tightly and be livid with the PCs for not waiting and trying his plan. But his relief and joy over their rescue of daughter and saving the windery overrides this and he offers them the deal as agents as per the text. Oberlindes steps in to take it on and take on ownership of their subsidy as per the book. I suspect he probably did some aftermath ‘cleaning up’ and paying for the damage to Lord Magistrate Vernor’s villa. I leave the players with the thought that those who took wounds – particularly Gvoudzon – seem to be healing at a much faster rate than Adma might have expected. “You’ve got something going on,” observes Tess – in character or out, I couldn’t say. But I accept the offer of a lift home and refuse to be bribed by that into revealing any more.

Finally, finally, we say farewell to Jonathan. Who it turns out just might be able to make it back down for a February date; so much for a farewell gig or a heroic death. Particularly as he took cover in the March Harrier for the entire combat! But it’s safe to say that I think he’s been persuaded to the joys of what he calls “being in a film in my head”.