Star Wars After the Fall The Story So Far

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== The Story so far: ==
=== Chapter 1: Flight ===
On the Idyllic world of Vestia in the Bettan system , the largest continent is ruled over by the Galatix dynasty, a long-standing noble house. One of the elite Palace guards Novus noticed something suspicious on his patrol. A group of armed guards in dark fatigues were being let in by one of his superior officers. 
He approached his superior, but the Captain was oddly keen that they not get involved and told him to go to the outer walls. 
Meanwhile the Prince Nikos attended his father whose health was in decline. His father Temeros lay on his bed attended to by physicians who informed the Prince that his Father was not long for this world. 
His father said that he trusted his son to do the right thing and to protect his people from the Corprocrats who desired to exploit Vesita's mineral wealth at the expense of its people. However he wanted to see Nika as well, who had been long absent from the Palace. 
Nikos left to search for her, and found her approaching her fathers room with a squad of dark clad mercenary guards. She informed him that she would be taking the throne instead of him and had her guards confine him to his quarters. 
Novus saw the prince being marched away and attempted to reach the throne room from which he heard a disturbance. The guards barred his way, but he got in close and was able to take them down. 
He wrestled with the two guards and managed to knock them out. However when he entered, King Temeros was dead. his attendants at gunpoint and Nika was at her fathers side. She announced that Novus should not have come and dismissed him. He obeyed, but seeing the coup play out around him, he saw an opportunity. The Blade of Vestia, the centrepiece of the Royal Regalia, was safely secured in a vault, to which he was one of the few with the passcodes. He took the blade and went searching for the next best thing he could do. 
Meanwhile Nikos being led away by the guards wanted to escape them, so he found a corner where a tapestry was prone to falling, kicking a table the tapestry fell allowing him to activate his strange ability to speed up time around him and flee into the warren of secret passages in the palace with Novus spotting the young prince and aiding in his escape. 
Rather than stay and fight, they fled to the starport, where they found Lor Wu and XN-3P arguing with a Rodian customs officer. Their ship, the Ako, was going to be impounded unless they could come up with the 500 credits needed. They tried to appeal to reason, mercy and greed, but the customs inspector was not having on any of it. 
However Nikos and Novus appeared, with funds he'd picked up as he fled and hired the Captain to get them out of there and the Rodian gratefully accepted the payment in exchange for letting them go. 
As the bundled into the ship they met the other traveller on the crow, a V'Bon by the name of Quita. Alarms began to sound and the ship lifted off into the sky swiftly pursued by a pair of Z-95 Headhunters. 
Despite not being particularly adept with them, Quita took up the tail gunners spot and managed to wing one of the enemy vessels. 
Climbing up to orbit the remaining ship was caught immediately behind the engine exhaust which blackened and warped the enemy ship's canopy causing them to fall back. They tried to plot a course by the hyperdrive spluttered and failed. XN-3P was able to fix it, although not fast enough for the damaged ship to come back for another run. Rather than leave it to the tail gunner, the captain put the engines into reverse, let the ship overtake and then Novus was able to shoot out the other engine and they made the jump to Hyperspace. 
Rather than risk the wrath of an Imperial successor state, they went out to Paeria. A slightly quiet system home to one of the biggest populations of V'bon, and was once Quila's home. 
They settled down in a field, spotting a YT1300 freighter on the other side of the planet, but thinking little of it. They landed and the mechanic was able to set the crew up with fuel. Whilst they waited, she directed them to the Saloon and General Store in the relatively small area of the one-horse town. 
XN-3P had a chat with a local droid and found out that some crews that come through do use restraining bolts quite heavily. 
As they walked through a V'Bon named Pasa approached Quita and asked if she could secure the help of the big aliens against some raiders. She was asked to invite the crew and passengers of the Ako to dine with them. 
First they went shopping and found Pam's General Store where they were able to get decent food, drink and some crude disguises for Nikos and Novus (Dunagrees, a poncho and a wool hat) 
Passing around excellent rustic food and a drug bowl, they explained that this had been happening across the planet. Normally they would just give such raiders what excess they had, but in this case the raiders were killing the locals, something the peaceful V'Bon were unprepared to deal with. 
So they went back to town the next day to plan what to do, the YT-1300 freighter was in port and so XN-3P snuck onboard with a bundle of drugs Quita provided and disabled the atmospheric filters. When a Mon Calamari crew member stepped out. 
Before he could summon his friends, Novus knocked him out quietly and hid him. Whilst Nikos in the bar told the others raiders that there was fire coming from their ship and there was a suspicious droid in the area. The Raiders tried to contact those onboard the ship and when they got no answer they rushed back to see what was happening. 
One of the crew searching for a fire hose came across Novus and the unconscious Mon Calamari. Between the five of them, they engaged the raiders. Nikos in particular felt a strange sense from their resident alien Quita as she confused the minds of the attackers. 
After a hard-won fight they knocked out the remaining raiders, although Novus took serious and bloody wounds and Prince Nikos also took a blaster shot to the shoulder. 
With some question of what to do next now that Lor Wu had captured them, they found a mark of the Crymorah syndicate on the arm of one of the unconscious attackers. Thankfully as they had struck to stun rather than kill, they had a lot of people to question. 
=== Chapter 2: Corruption ===
In the aftermath of the fight they secured their prisoners and searched the ship. 
Xen explored the rear where he found a pair of droids. An 5D series loader droid with its vocal module removed and restraining bolt added and an R5 Astro-mech droid with several after-market components (including a restraining bolt) crudely added on. 
Meanwhle Lor Wu moved up to the cockpit where he searched for the documents of the gang. After breaking open a locked safe, he found information that the crew of this ship; the Silver Light, under Captain Vash, had been contracted to collect taxes from the planet by the official whose job this actually was. The official was safely at home on Aegina in the Bettan system. They seemed to be passing on the required amount to the official but abusing the locals to get even more than they were entitled to collect. He also identified that Mong Zso is the head of the local branch of the Crymorah syndicate and this crew were sending 10% of their profits to him as the local boss. He was based on the Ring station In Freeport in the Hospu system. 
Novus was still in bad shape from the blaster injuries and so they took him down to town where the local medic, a surly human by the name of Dr Sola Paneus did her best to patch them up, but did advise that she would be telling the sheriff about this after they leave. Novus still needed more advanced treatment.
They went back to the Silver Light where the imprisoned crew had woken up. They offered a deal. They would let the gang go, if they promised to stop hurting the V'bon and owe the crew a favour. With the alternative being death, they readily agreed. 
Not wanting to push their luck they decided to head to the one place Xen knew that they could get some high class medical treatment, the Droid Shogunate. 
Jumping to hyperspace the journey took about a day and when they arrived they were greeted by a pair of X-wings, one of which introduced themselves as X-Sho-R5, a compound name that seemed to refer to the ship, pilot and Astromech together. Fortunately they recognised Xen
Bringing them down into the port town, Novus and the Prince were taken to their hospital where a crowd of medical droids dashed over eager to help and put him in the bacta tanks needed. Local news told that the Prince's lands had been opened up to exploitation by the Zirca Corporation under the orders of his sister.
The next morning a representative of the Shogun, VR-0, came down and congratulated for their rescue, but asked if they would be willing to undertake a mission for the Shogun's interests in exchange for payment in the form of getting them a shuttle for the ship.
The Ven Consortium were in the process of making a new factory to create restraining bolts, something that the Shogun can not allow. They wanted the crew to shut the factory down by discrediting the corporation. Overt violence would only see them rebuild the factory and bolster security for the next time. Xen accepted and they were refuelled and repaired. 
They left the system travelling through the sparsely populated Hollas system where they decided to steer clear of a fight between the Valliant Protectorate and an unidentified force using ex-Imperial equipment. The fight was a stalemate with casualties on both sides and the unknown attackers retreating. 
They reached Assu system, with multiple inhabited worlds. A Star Destroyer named Imperatrix stopped and conducted a routine boarding and inspection, but found nothing, so let them go.
They found the HQ of the Zirca Consortium on the capital world of Catulo. The world was heavily patrolled and surveilled by troopers and cameras.
Xen managed to infiltrate the facility posing as one of the droids working there and found the server room. The new factory is being opened on the world of Glevum and he got the technical details of their opening in about 7 days time as well as the person in charge Bait Ven, grand-nephew of the CEO.
Rather than going to the factory, they decided to subvert the HQ. So they followed an office worker called Pasu out of the office. Lor followed her as she drowned her sorrows and told him about an accountant named Mish. He had access to all the company's dirty secrets. 
They went to his house, beat him up and threatened him until he gave up his pass-key and told them of a secret ledger that would explain all of the company's secrets.
As a Mirilan would be too obvious Novus had to go in with Xen. They managed to get all the way to the 4th floor. But one of the managers called him out on it and called security. 
=== Chapter 3: The Capital ===
Lor Wu, XN-3P and Prince Nikos had all found a café not far from the Zirca Corporation, where they waited to see if Novus's attempt to steal the ledger had succeeded. When suddenly they heard an alarm. 
Novus burst out of the building clutching the files above his head pursued by a pair of corp-sec guards and ran to the rest of the crew.
He asked where they get-away vehicle was looking to Lor Wu, however they had arrived by train and weren't expecting this. So Lor Wu dashed over to a chromed speeder outside the café and hotwired its controls. As he did so the Corp-sec guards had alerted a couple of patrol troopers on speederbikes, who began to give pursuit. 
Everybody bundled into the shiny speeder and its fancy three engines. Nikos noticed that in the back were various groceries including a bottle of alchol that looked like it would be surprisingly hefty. So he grabbed it by the neck and wound back his arm quickly. What he didn't notice was that Lor Wu was directly behind him and smacked him in the head. This caused the speeder to swerve violently into a flower shop.
Rather than wait for the troopers, XN-3P jumped out of the vehicle and ran deeper into the flower shop on the logic that such a shop would have a rear exit. Nikos and Lor Wu followed and they burst out into an alleyway. 
One of the two troopers had pulled around into the alley blocking one direction, but their colleague obviously hadn't caught up yet so they fled.
[Meanwhile elsewhere in a communication centre Captain Wrest brushed down his immaculate white Uniform. An operator told him of a break-in at Zirca and the perpetrators were fleeing. He demanded that more troops be assigned and that he would deal with this personally.]
Lor Wu decided that he could outpace them on the rooftops, so tried to climb a drain pipe. However it was not as structurally sound as he had hoped and ended up peeling away from the wall, leaving him face to face with a confused trooper. the two of them wrestled and Lor managed to get the trooper off his bike.
XN-3P had downloaded a map earlier which showed a nearby street closed off due to a parade, so ran towards it on foot. 
Prince Nikos focused internally and tried to draw upon the power of the force. However the adrenaline of the situation was overwhelming and he fed the fear into the force which pushed back on him, leaving him in a state of fearful paranoia. But it did enable his abilities, letting him run at the speed of a speeder bike.
Once Lor Wu got on the bike he picked up XN-3P and driving alongside Nikos they burst through to the parade. The MILITARY parade. Hundreds of stormtroopers marched past to the local crowds, with a military band, flags and all sorts of other military paraphernalia. They pushed through the crowd and the determined trooper caught up enough to spear-tackle Lor Wu and put him in cuffs. [Above an Imperial transport with guns pointed the crew out.] 
XN-3P tried to stun the trooper, but it bounced off their armour. Turning around the trooper tried to attack XN-3P with their stun baton, but their chassis was insulated well enough against such attacks.
Meanwhile once Nikos had a moment to calm down, he shook off his force-induced fear and came back to help the others. He snuck up behind the trooper and with the ceremonial vibro-blade threatened the trooper unless they dropped their weapon and backed off, which they did.
Helping Lor up they got back off the street just as a few Storm troopers had broken ranks from the parade and began a hot pursuit.
The crew found themselves in an alleyway, which gave the troopers a clear line of sight for their shooting. They took a couple of pot shots, but they were largely ineffective at that range. Turning the corner they found a maintenance hatch leading to the tunnels beneath the city. 
Lor was so quick that the troopers above didn't realise he had gone underground. They were able to make their way out some distance away towards the spaceport.
[Meanwhile Captain Wrest instructed his agents to search for the camera images and find out where they came from. If he could find their ship he could corner them.]
As they came up, Lor found another speeder and stole it. Much to the chagrin of the businesswoman who was its former owner. As they left they saw her reporting it to the authorities. 
After a while however they arrived at the spaceport. As there were posters with their faces already up there, so they decided to sneak in. They located a trolley with a couple of large boxes, the right size to hide a human. However they were full of commemorative models of star destroyers, so those were dumped in an alleyway and the organics got into the boxes to hide. XN-3P managed to sneak them through without incident. 
However XN-3P wasn't watching closely enough and Captain Wrest and four troopers were waiting for them in ambush. The captain demanded to know who they worked for. Nikos claimed they were a business rival. The Captain was more relaxed and open to them surrendering, but mentioned that for Interrupting the Grand Moff's Birthday parade they should be sent to a penal world. They handed over the ledger at gunpoint and then made a dash for the ship laying down cover-fire as they go thanks to some high speed doors and an instant start bypass to the engine.
They managed to escape otherwise unscathed and fled into orbit with a pair of TIE fighters following close behind. Novus managed to wing one and Lor Wu managed to outfly the other. Although the question was, where could they go next? They had burnt their bridges in the Valliant Protectorate and the Stormport Republic 
Unsure where to go, they jumped to the one place that wasn't automatically dangerous to them. So they jumped at lightspeed to Hospu, an independent systems with very little in the way of habitable worlds, but famous for its enormous and archaic ring station. 
They discussed on the ship that "that was a bit of a shit show", but didn't seem to know how to solve the problem immediately. 
Meanwhile in the office of the CEO of Zirca Corporation: 
CEO: "Thank you for your diligent efforts captain, even though they escaped, I am delighted you were able to retrieve our stolen property." 
Cpt Wrest: "I was only doing my duty, although I have noticed something unusual. This ledger seems to be the profits of your company, which are quite at odds with the taxes you are paying." 
CEO: " A minor discrepancy I am sure. Perhaps in recognition of your good work, I could pay a donation to the Troopers retirement fund? It seems only fair with all of the hard work you are doing." 
Cpt Wrest: "Bribery as well?" He gestured to the troopers who came in and arrested the CEO. "I think the Protectorate tax authorities will want to have a look at this. Take him away." 
Back on the ship: 
They arrived at Freeport, with no habitable worlds the system seemed filled with transports, haulers and other craft servicing the various asteroid mining and planetary resource extractions teams in the system. They made their way to the Ring station which encompassed the orbit of the second planet in the system, one of many airless rocks. However they were not accosted, seemingly nobody much cared for who was visiting here. But the ring station did have the Dock Workers guild and as they approached the Ring station one of them contacted the ship, offering refuelling, berthing and resupply. 
As they pulled in, the ship was assigned a ludicrously large hangar for its small size where a Dockworker with red skin and horns. They could repaint, refuel and repair the ship for a sizable amount of money, but to change the Chain codes, so that the ship doesn't get tracked would require a much bigger investment. Thankfully between Lor Wu and Prince Nikos, they were able to scrape together the funds, even though it would nearly exhaust them, The dockworker told them it would take 24 hours, but they should take a coupon for free ribs at Sho's wings. 
Sho's wings, turned out to be a busy spot that served exactly one type of food, dripping in grease. The proprietor was a blue alien with 4 arms serving up massive plates of enormous bird wings drenched in sauce. The atmosphere was cordial but XN-3P saw a pair of Snivvian workers looking at Nikos as he ate his ribs daintily and they got a bad feeling about staying around. The workers didn't seem to follow them out but they started to make their way back to the ship. 
=== Chapter 4: The Bounty Hunter: ===
Heading out into the market promenade Lor looked out to the Right and saw a muscular bald human with a pair of cybernetic arms dressed in a poorly fit suit, Lor recognised as Zac Woth, the man who killed his family. Following him were a quartet of Trandoshans, each one armed with an assortment of long-arm blasters. 
Thinking quickly Lor couldn't find a good escape route, so ran for the closest exit. It led into a ship and cargo sorting mechanism in the guts of the station, with ships, freight elevators and containers whizzing past at high speed. Dodging through them the chaos the syndicate members eventually cornered the team at a loading platform. There were spaces for several elevators, although there were none present as they arrived. 
Zac held up his hand to get his bodyguards to hold their fire. He said he had no quarrel with the others, he just wanted Lor, because he killed his boss's son. Lor pointed out that that wasn't all that happened and Zac killed his family afterwards. 
As they were discussing this a trio of bounty hunters arrived on one of the elevators. The leader, a human woman with black hair, elegant Protectorate style clothes and carrying some sort of parasol asked Nikos to hand over the sword as it would avoid them having to take him in as well. She was accompanied by a KX-series security droid (a formerly Imperial design) and an Ugnaught who controlled two large canine-like beasts. 
Finally the Devarian from earlier, a dockworker who had guided them in to port and agreed on their repair, turned up with about a dozen dockworkers. Primarily concerned by the Crymorah syndicate overstepping into their territory. The three groups argued with the crew in the middle. 
Eventually the stalemate was broken by Quila, who used her powers to agitate the canine beasts against the female bounty hunter. 
XN-3P agitated the dockworkers against the syndicate and in a surprisingly impassioned speech seemed to strike a chord. The dockworkers advanced on the syndicate and he was shot in return by the Syndicate members. 
Zac closed the distance and slammed into Lor, but Quila managed to daze and confuse Zac, who fell to the floor and his Trandoshans fired ineffectually at them. 
Novus dragged XN-3P to the elevator that the Dockworkers had just arrived with, whilst the Bounty hunters tried to attack. The droid picked up one of the beasts and tried to grab the other. 
The Dockworkers despite being poorly armed managed through sheer weight of numbers managed to take down two of the syndicate thugs and the remaining two fled. 
The female bounty hunter attacked Novus and whilst his guard was impressive, she managed to strike him and use the attack as a distraction to steal the Blade of Vestia before XN-3P was able to activate the elevator and they zoomed away from the chaos. 
Thankfully Lor happened to know a place on the Ring outside of Syndicate influence. A commune of Gand monks, although their reputation was rather strange. The place was nearly an hour away on one of the express turbolifts that moved around the station rim. 
As they arrived at a part of the station that appeared to have been partially cannibalised and components had been shaped into a strange glowing hive with metal girders twisted into shape. They worshipped The Light and happily invited the crew in and treated Lor's wounds. 
At the door one of the monks, a Gand welcomed them and invited them inside, they were industriously working at various services as part of the hive. Some were working on construction and repairs, whilst others tended the food gardens that hung from the ceilings or tended other necessary processes. 
Lor was given some treatment, with the addition of some "healing" crystals and everybody ate at lunch, during which after their meal the monks all fell into a coma. Despite Novus briefly considering stealing the monks robes, but XN-3P discouraged him. After nearly a full day and night later they returned to pick up their ship following the repairs. 
[Meanwhile the Syndicate put the squeeze on the locals for details about where they went. But a black clad stranger came in and said that for a price he could locate them.] 
Back near the docks the group went to the bounty hunters guild, with Nikos and Novus staying some distance away to avoid attention. 
Lor went in and requested a bounty on Zac, alive and delivered to his ship. This would wipe him out financially, but he paid up half in advance and the bounty hunter he requested came. Her name was Zena Tillian. Lor discovered that she trained with the adepts on Cathedra and that she bunked in her ship which was moored nearby. But she did not seem to have the stolen blade on her person. She clarified the terms, wanting him alive and delivered to the ship., 
Satisfied they left and a figure dressed in black and wearing a helmet named Darth Knight telekinetically pushed Lor into an alleyway and positioned himself at the mouth of the alleyway, to prevent outside interference. 
Lor found himself facing Zac and a group of his mooks. Four humans, a couple of Trandoshans and a pair of Twil'leks were his support. 
=== Chapter 5: The Race ===
The black clad figure telekinetically threw Lor Wu and XN-3P into the alleyway separating them from their companions. 
The two of them were left alone and surrounded by Zac Woth and 6 of his heavies. He disarmed and cuffed the pair, throwing a black bag over each of their heads. Bringing them in to meet his boss Mong Zso whilst taunting Lor about having killed his father.
Mong was relaxing in a lounge surrounded by his lackies when the bags were removed. Sat next to Mong was Lor's sister Ako, although she regarded him with blank unfamiliarity and was fitted with extensive cyberware around the sides of her head and down her limbs.
He explained that regarding the death of his son, he considered that debt paid by the death of  Lor's father, but Lor still owed him the price of the ship that was destroyed in the same incident. Fortunately the pair of them were a good ships crew and there was an opportunity to clear that debt.
Lor asked Ako what happened, but she was confused by the use of that name.
Mong said that the 5 Star cup was coming up in a few days and his current pilot was clearly not the equal of Lor and XN-3P. So he fit Lor with a bomb collar and explained that XN's convictions against coercive technology were well known so as a joke Lor's survival would be contingent on both of them cooperating.
Then he bought in his existing pilot, a human who was apparently not equal to the task and shot him as he pleaded for his life.
The race is a regatta starting around the ring station at the star of Hospu then Rimwards towards Colos, a sharp turn back to Hospu then corewards to Nerid, then Cathedra and finally finishing at where it began at Hospu.
The vessels were solar sailing skiffs lacking in engines, but with a device that lowers the vessels mass, allowing for near lightspeed velocities. Their internal compartment was tiny with barely enough space for two racers.
But the craft was poorly maintained and suffering from extensive decay.
Xen tried to enlist the help of an astromech who was serving drinks for the mob boss, but was They had access to a small dock for a couple of days and enough materials to diligently work on the repairs and whilst they weren't able to coax any extra performance out of it, they did manage to get it back to work like new.
After those two days Zac came by and his guards removed the bomb collar. Replacing it with a bomb on the ship its self as he pushed them into the ship and sealed the door.
With deft grace, Lor pulled the ship out of the dock to join the starting line. There were about a dozen other ships, roughly one representing each major star system of the sector.
The Stormhold Republic had three as did the Valiant Protectorate, the Dockworkers unio and the nobles of Cathedra had one each, with the rest being corporate or independent teams. The clear favourites however were the 
Zirca Consortium, a professional team. Each vessel was allowed to interfere with their rivals but due to size and weight limits most held only a small blaster, enough to damage the solar sails of their rivals.
Immediately out of the gate.the racers opened fire before gaps could open up between them. The three Valiant Protectorate and the three Stormholt Republic ships exclusively targeted each other. Whilst a lot of the others targeted the favourites, who retracted their sails to dodge and then accelerated, taking only some minor damage. 
Lor Wu played it dangerously.taking tight orbits and risking debris for the shorter route allowing them to move up to 4th place. Fortunately their adversaries only had limited windows to shoot them, and Lor was able to evade with relative ease. 
Coming back to Hospu they passed the flotillas of observer ships. But on the straight it was hard to gain ground on their adversaries. Passing Colos they were able to get up to third and with XN-3P’s help plotting a course they were able to get into second place before XN-3P was able to shoot the leader and break across the finish line in first place.
As soon as the race was over their ship was towed onto one of the cruise ships where fireworks were ignited in celebration where they were welcomed on board as celebrities. 
They saw Mong Zso entertaining wealthy looking guests with Ako and knowing that he was unlikely to honour his word they plotted to escape with Ako.
They found the deck below which had some shuttles used by the cruise ship. But they needed a way to lure Ako away, knowing that she was running some sort of artificial party girl personality. So Lor found a drug dealer and asked for the top shelf stuff, something exceptional. Nervously the dealer presented a vial of black liquid which he called “Liquid Omnipotence” and Lor offered the solar sail ship in exchange, which the dealer nervously accepted.
XN-3P found a smoke machine and turned it until it produced a thick mist near where Mong Zso was. 
In the confusion Lor offered Ako the drug which she accepted and allowed herself to be led down. When they had her alone, Xn-3P got access to a droid port socket at the back of her neck and disabled the false personality, which knocked her unconscious as they got back to the dock on the Ring station. They tried to offer the stolen shuttle to the Dockworkers Union member as payment for the docking fees, but the dockworker could smell the trouble on them and called it in. 
They were able to get back to their own ship, now fully repaired and transponders replaced and leave before the syndicate fighters could stop them.
Onboard the ship they found the personality files and one of them contained her original personality. Although she couldn’t live without the cybernetics now, they did destroy the other two chips. So she would never be forced into those personalities again. 
=== Chapter 6: Cathedra ===
Meanwhile Novus and the others had been driven back by Darth Knight, who flung shipping containers around wildly until the syndicate goons were able to make their escape. Whilst on the ship searching for their pilot and droid, Novus has taken delivery of a sealed crate addressed to Lor. 
When Lor and XN-3P returned they launched and some time later Novus pointed out the crate. Opening it up they found the bound and gagged form of Zac Woth, the bounty hunter had delivered after all.
They were torn about what to do with him. He had killed Lor's father and enslaved his sister, but Lor doubted if killing him would bring any peace. So he asked Zac what he could offer in exchange for his life. Zac offered all the security information he had on his boss, including schedules, pass codes, known employees and so on. Enough to make any attempt against Mong Zso much more likely. 
Going back to Ako he asked what she thought, but Ako had no memories of the years of trauma she had endured and the death of her father and her own mutilation felt like strange and distant memories. She was also starting to see things. She could see a glow around people surrounding her, but not droids and she herself glowed more brightly than anybody else. Even after a week this had not abated. 
Arriving on Cathedra, a moon defined by thick forests, deep oceans and an abundance of old stone structures, they landed at a spaceport that was little more than a series of corrugated steel shelters for ships. From there they went into town. 
As they went into town Novus bumped into a richly dressed human and he dropped his drink. Novus bought him a new one and apologised. The man introduced himself as Sir Vane of the House of Hoan, noticing his style of dress, he took him to be a man of culture and invited him to a party in a couple of days. 
Deeper into the town the found a market where a trio of veiled women argued with an Ithorian herbalist. The women said she couldn't afford to pay them protection money as another gang, the Cut had already shaken her down earlier in the week and that if they wanted their money they should have protected her from them. The veiled women left but as they went they added marks to a series of strange runic marks around the front display of the florists. The crew went up to her and she told them that the dojos bully everybody into paying protection money. As she talked they noticed a small lamp caused an electrical fire in the back room and extinguished it. She offered to help with Ako's condition for a small fee if they bought her in to examine her. 
They visited the bounty hunters office and dropped off the remaining payment for Zac. At the same time they found out that Zac had some minor bounties on his head as well, they were each minor but they did add up, not as much as they paid for the initial bounty, but still a nice recompense. 
There was also a slave market which they visited. Where slaves were displayed in areas behind glass-like screens, the Bothan running the place had a human secretary who told the crew a bit about the operation and gave an estimate on Zac, pending an actual medical evaluation. 
But in general the slavers would probably offer them more money for Zac by as much as 50%. They tossed up the question of what to do with Zac, but settled on giving him to the Bounty Hunters guild. 
The went back to get Ako and Zac and bring them back through. They dropped Zac with the bounty hunters in exchange for recouping some of the money they earlier spent hiring bounty hunters in the first place and as they left they saw a pair of gangs carefully avoiding each other as they moved through the market. 
Going out of the Bounty hunters office, they went back into town they saw a man down a nearby street causing a lot of noise outside one of the gang dojos. He claimed that his sister joined the cult and that she had died not long ago in one of their gang wars with a rival dojo. Now they wouldn't release her body to be buried in the family crypt but was being given a funeral in line with the Dojo's own traditions. He had asked for her back, but they wouldn't give her body up. Novus asked what he would get for looking into it. The man offered everything he had on him (About 80 credits) and they looked around at the Dojo. They noticed a huge mural of terrible monsters near the front, but the doors were locked and seemed almost unused. It appeared that they entered and left the building via the rooftops, which must have required some significant leaps. Novus considered how to investigate, but he hadn't asked the man his name or the name of the sister or in fact any pertinent details, so gave up. 
Taking Ako to the Ithorian herbalist. The Ithorian was able to identify the "liquid omnipoetence" as a concoction made with local ingredients. But she didn't know how to reverse its effects. Ako might be permanently open to these strange energies. Ako went back to the ship where she tried to work out if she had any powers. Novus advised her to write out a list of 100 things and then try them to see if any worked. Whilst at the hangar they saw a mid-sized exploration and surveying ship and a couple of people got out and were greeted by a high end speeder with a chauffeur. 
Later that evening they hired a speeder to take them out to a country estate at the invitation of Sir Vane. The building looked built out of spun grass and nestled at the foot of stone ruins similar to other ruins that dotted the planet. The food and wine was good and many of the nobles seemed to be wearing fashions inspired by pilot flight suits and others showed signs of being skilled pilots. Apparently star fighter training was an important element of nobility here and Sir Vane bragged of having helped drive off 8 pirate attacks over the last 2 years. The explorers that they had seen arrive at the starport were introduced as Major Graves (Ex- military and from the Stormholt Republic) and Doctor Shawn (A weedy academic woman also from the republic) they revealed that they had been hired by Lady Nika to investigate an archaeological anomaly in the Northern continent. The Stone structures were from different time periods, but the oldest were made from native stone that lacked traces of copper. They had found a pattern of such older structures forming a rough circle and were seeking out what was at the centre. The crew agreed to join them on the expedition. 
=== Chapter 7: Welcome to the Jungle ===
Getting back to the ship the expedition would happen in a couple of days, so whilst Novus and Quila went out to explore the Dojos, Lor and XN-3P went hunting for details about the mysterious Ranger. They were able to find her communication frequency from a trader in "force user artefacts" (mostly junk that a force user may or may not have used) and contact her, but she explained she had a contract elsewhere and would not be available for another couple of weeks. 
Novus went to visit the Cut whilst Quila visited the Flow dojo. They passed through trials and had a day or so training. 
They left for the expedition with the Major and flew to the Planetary North.
They were ambushed by velociraptor-like creatures. Quila found that the natives V'bon shaman was directing them with force powers.
She snuck off to negotiate with them. The V'bon were guarding a powerful secret and could not allow outsiders to approach closer. So they said that if she could drive off the Major and his guards then they would talk about helping each other.
They poisoned the guards food as they took a break making them violently ill and forcing them to retreat but then came up with the idea of forcing the scientist and the Major to lure Nika out to the planet where she would be vulnerable.
They captured her, the V'bon shaman drugged them and they sent the signal. 
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