Moon's Haunted/Session 7

The away team returned to camp, Gant slung roughly over Abbey’s shoulder. To the glares of the miners, de Vranne’s hunters ushered Gant into the cleared freighter and began standing guard. The party congregated to discuss the multitude of choices before it: what to do with the shamblers? De Vranne offered they should just be put out of their misery, but his own opinion notwithstanding, he was deeply frustrated that any plans to “sneak” rations to them to avoid upsetting the miners were a totally inappropriate capitulation. And what to do with Gant—keep him safe and sound, or kill or debilitate him as vigilantes? Anything but the former, de Vranne was quite sure, would be a direct violation of McCabe’s orders. It became quite clear that all hands were against de Vranne: nearly everyone wanted to do SOMETHING to Gant.

As the party argued, Belle snuck away to rally the miners to move against Gant. To her surprise, she found that Moirin had been there before her, and had reassured the miners that Gant would be prosecuted and executed—five of the ten miners believed Moirin. Belle argued that this was indeed not the plan, and Moirin was only concerned with keeping the peace; though Belle didn’t change anyone’s minds, the five miners who still sided with her were moved to grab their pistols (full access to which had been granted by Kesdis) and assault Gant’s freighter.

As the party continued to debate, the five miners attacked the hunters guarding the freighter. The element of surprise and a lucky first shot into a hunter’s gut allowed the miners to advance, but two were wounded and dropped their weapons. The other three, however, decided the execution of Gant was a suicide mission, and continued pressing forward through the hunters’ slow black-powder volleys. Two other miners were killed. The final very nearly made it to Gant’s door, but was restrained and coolly executed by de Vranne’s hunter deputy, Irakli. Shouting profanities at everyone, but mostly Kesdis for arming the miners, de Vranne raced to the scene.

De Vranne attempted to interrogate the more cogent of the wounded miners, but was met only with stubborn defiance. De Vranne planted his boot (somehow, wet with mud despite having been in no water since Bata’s village—the Aeldman racial trait?) firmly on the prone miner’s chest, drew his pistol, and prepared to end the traitor’s life. Kesdis, however, feeling enough blood had been spilt already, stopped de Vranne and reassured the miner that if seeing Gant dead was what he wanted, he would get it, but that the miner had to do things the party’s way. At this continued negotiation with the rebellious civilians (and barely-veiled promise that the party planned to have its own way with Gant,) de Vranne became apoplectic and demanded to speak with Kesdis privately. De Vranne began to openly question Kesdis’ leadership, harshly criticizing the move to arm the miners and recommending that they be disarmed immediately. Kesdis stood firm, however, believing that despite the incident de Vranne was overgeneralizing about the trustworthiness of the miners and reminding him that five remaining ones had not joined in the assault.

As de Vranne and Kesdis stepped away from the rest of the party, Belle snuck back to the miners to try to convince them that they should take their chance to flee or fight, as it was very likely that de Vranne would take his rage out on them when next they saw each other. However, she was interrupted by the arrival of de Vranne and Kesdis in the remaining miners’ dormitory—de Vranne called Kesdis’ bluff and went to gauge how cooperative they would be in telling what they knew about the assault beforehand. Kesdis saw with relief that the remaining living miners were all Irish; Kesdis had earlier secretly sent Moirin to talk to the miners to investigate how they knew about the Gant mission and the hunters’ rituals, and thanks to their shared heritage with Moirin, the Irish ones had apparently been cooperative. Kesdis implored them to say what they knew beforehand and whether anyone put them up to the attack, but emotions belied her diplomacy and her platitudes enraged one of them. Shouting that his friends’ deaths were all her fault, the miner dove for his pistol, which by now had been confiscated by one of de Vranne’s hunter lackeys. De Vranne had been rearing for a fight, and with readied reflexes he drew his weapon and blew away the offending civilian with one quick motion.

Belle drew on de Vranne and declared he had gone too far, urging Kesdis to consider whether de Vranne was acting either morally or in the interests of the party. Kesdis drew her own weapon and initiated a Mexican standoff, revealing that she knew from Moirin’s spying that in fact Belle was the one who was leaking the information and that she didn’t know if she could trust either of them. Belle offered soundly that there was no way she could have known about Gant at least, and stated, riskily, that the miners would vouch for her. When Kesdis turned to them and asked them to do so, none said a word—all knew that Belle was their source, and had told Moirin as much, but were intent on following Moirin’s example of “keeping Irish business among Irish.” Just as de Vranne was about to become more aggressive in his questioning, Gaston arrived and offered an interesting (but unknowingly misguided) possible explanation: Eleanor's role as therapist for the party meant that everyone came to her with information. Perhaps Eleanor was the true leak, and had directed Moirin to lie to Kesdis about Belle being the culprit.

Both de Vranne and Kesdis were interested in this lead, and started to take Eleanor together to Gant’s freighter for holding and questioning. They forbade Belle from following them, but Belle argued for full minutes that she should come too as she didn’t trust de Vranne to be alone with Kesdis. Despite Belle’s insubordination which grew noticeably more suspicious the longer they debated, Kesdis relented and sent Belle and de Vranne off together to track down Moirin and Nolwen while Kesdis interrogated Eleanor by herself.

Finally alone outside the freighter, Belle and de Vranne traded barbs; confident he knew what was coming, de Vranne derisively asked Belle to get it over with if she planned to frag him. Belle obliged, and both drew their weapons—but de Vranne drew first, and fired multiple rounds into Belle with perfect accuracy, killing her instantly. But as she collapsed to the dust of Kamens, she emitted a death rattle which crescendoed into the chittering of the spider god, the eldritch noises of which reached into de Vranne's mind despite every effort to block it out. Finally, de Vranne knew for certain that Belle had been under the murderous influence of the spider god.

Belle’s alcoholism had the sublime advantage of offering her glimpses into her amnesiac past when she was intoxicated enough, but she had discovered early in her time in the Kamens-Nocturne system that the strange effects permeating the planets were somehow reversing her ability, giving her clairvoyant glimpses of the present and future. These visions, of course, were controlled and chosen by the spider god—but ironically, none had been false, but only the real firsthand details of various bad and occult acts by different members of the party. De Vranne and Gaston’s participation in the hunters’ rituals; Kesdis’ secret plans to help, rather than hurt, Gant; McCabe’s plans to exterminate whatever natives were left when Kamens was safe for the ATC to return. These visions had played straight into the hands of Belle’s sense of right and wrong, leading her to believe many in the party deserved to die. When one of Belle’s visions revealed to her the truth of her amnesiac past—she was a skilled FIRA insurgent captured and brainwashed by McCabe—she realized that her roots lay in fighting (and killing) for what she believed in. Unfortunately, they brought her to a violent end at the hands of de Vranne.

The wave of eldritch influence that washed over de Vranne as he listened to Belle’s death rattle permeated him, and mixed with the adrenaline of battle: de Vranne’s reflexive tendency to shoot anything that crossed into his line of fire, friend or foe, was primed, and the first person to try to approach him would probably take a few rounds. Indeed, the terrible noises made by Belle’s corpse were all too familiar to de Vranne’s hunters, and they stopped in their tracks rather than run to their master; instead, Eleanor and Kesdis raced to the scene, only for de Vranne to gut shot Eleanor in a fit. Seeing de Vranne shoot Eleanor while standing next to Belle’s body, Kesdis was finally convinced de Vranne had lost it and prepared to fire. Seeing her draw, de Vranne instinctively fired a round, which missed only because he lost his nerve to shoot a commanding officer at the last minute. Their master under attack, the hunters regained their will and tackled Kesdis to the ground.

Rather than help Kesdis, de Vranne decided to consolidate his control of the situation and went looking for Nolwen the sniper to neutralize. Nolwen, seeing the scene unfold through her scope and watching de Vranne shoot Eleanor, decided revenge was more important than rescue and began to draw a bead on de Vranne rather than shoot the hunters off Kesdis. Kesdis worked her arm out of the dogpile and reached for her weapon, dropped to the ground; one of the hunters caught it, however, and unsheathed his machete to amputate the offending limb.

As all of this happened, Gaston sat up in his bunk and began to feverishly write—perhaps chronicling the noises he was hearing outside for a later story? With a sinking feeling, he put the final period to paper, lay back in his bed, and waited. Nolwen’s finger hovered over the trigger of her rifle to snipe de Vranne. The hunter brought his machete aloft, to bring down upon Kesdis’ arm... When suddenly, from the ship graveyard, a great rumbling came. All on the scene froze in place and waited as the rumbling drew closer… and closer... until finally, from over the ridgeline, three big crater spiders scuttled into view astride 10 ft-long legs. Apparently attracted by the sounds of the fight, they were eager to divide the bounty of the freighters.

Remembering the strength that just one of these-sized spiders wielded, everyone outside began to sprint for the freighter and hope it would protect them. Abbey raced out to sling the wounded Eleanor over her shoulder and bring her to safety, leading Kesdis alongside her. The hunters started to scatter, but de Vranne ordered them to hold firm—the hunters realized, hearing de Vranne’s confidence in spite of the danger, that the strength he had just displayed in “dealing with” his party was the kind of true survival instinct they wanted in a leader, and remarkably, they all readied their weapons and came to stand alongside him. The hunters were his now, and de Vranne ordered them to the freighter with him. Nolwen, from the freighter door, began to snipe at de Vranne in a rage, inflicting a deep wound and slowing him down. As Nolwen aimed again, Kesdis radioed her to stand down—not for lack of wanting de Vranne dead, but because if he was killed they would have to fight his hunters next. Frustrated, Nolwen shouldered her rifle and allowed de Vranne’s team inside. Everyone made it into the freighter.
As all of this happened, Grandma Lockheart fired up the freighter’s engines, intending to use their etheric energy as a power source for her runes. Manipulating the gravity around a large boulder near the freighter, Lockheart made a sort of coilgun of energy and prepared to shoot the boulder at the spiders. Lockheart fired, and with the speed of a bullet the boulder lanced into one of the huge spiders. In an instant, the party had maybe its only optimistic moment since it had landed on Kamens, with some even breaking into smiles, as the great beast flew backwards and crumpled under the devastating hit—a hit so unexpected and powerful, in fact, that the second of the three spiders lost interest in the party and fled. The final spider reacted similarly, but as it left the scene it sensed some other etheric energy to consume elsewhere in the area... it zeroed in on the second freighter, where the party had been holding Gant—no one had remembered to rescue him during the mad dash to escape, and he was still inside. With preternatural accuracy, the spider’s sharp legs pierced through the openings and weak parts of the freighter, probing each of its rooms until finally it found Gant. It stabbed once, and the party heard Gant howl in agony as the spider withdrew its leg, Gant impaled about 2 ft up it, and galloped away on its seven other legs back to the ship graveyard.

Safe from the spiders and tensions defused by the joint struggle to survive, the party fell into an uneasy peace while de Vranne apologetically healed Eleanor’s gunshot. None in the party were ready to forgive de Vranne’s breakdown, but unable to execute him outright for fear of retaliation by his hunters, the party prepared to put him on trial...