Session 56 (9 August 2024)

Location: Larstown, the Manian colonial boomtown on Karth, a desert moon orbiting the blue gas giant Tabernas in the Mendezo-Eeren system (Halcyon 2022)

Date: 337–5600

Travellers: Sasha Danlami (comms), Jacobe Kyman (pilot), Nogudnyk (steward), Griff Kodiak (gunner)

[A note to readers: pleased be advised that this blog contains major spoilers to Joel Hines' excellent Desert Moon of Karth. Read no further if you hope to experience the brilliance of this superb Mothership scenario with your own group.]

It's early morning and the first rays of light from the star Mendezo are visible above the horizon of this tiny moon. When the sun sets in 12 hours, Karth will also pass into the shadow of the gas giant Tabernas and remain in darkness for 7 days. Larstown locals refer to this as the Long Night and generally stay within the town's walls during this period: they fear what stalks the dunes under the starlight.

But at present you're riding high on the exhilaration of having successfully pulled off two schemes designed to delay the Manian expedition to the Silver Spire. Dozens if not scores of soldiers are suffering from food poisoning and a computer virus is wreaking havoc on their comms and command and control systems. All thanks to you. A sobering thought occurs: it's only a matter of time until someone in authority starts looking for the cause of all this. You're not exactly inconspicuous these days (thanks to your various mutations) and eventually some intelligent Manian will connect the dots. Moreover, it's almost inevitable that at some point the remaining Dawnseekers — and perhaps Rena herself — will point to you as the authors of the disaster that has befallen them. In short, the Manians will soon figure out that you're their enemy and you don't want to be in Larstown, subject to the martial law of Marshal Moses Clarke, when that happens. You've already seen one rocket chair execution and you can imagine what fate awaits you if you're apprehended as a saboteur.

A critical decision imposes itself: take the morning's daily space elevator off this moon, reach the Dejah Thoris, and navigate to a place of safety, or flee into the desert, not knowing when your next chance to leave might be?

The safe bet is to leave now, but you're not ones to take the easy route. You feel you have loose threads to tie up in the investigation of Marie-Eve Onishi's disappearance. Plus, there's the vague promise of the Wigoy assisting you in the awakening of psionic abilities as well as Huwel's plan to get rich off a lode of coral he claims to know about. There's an obvious contradiction between your sympathy for the Wigoy and your willingness to export the fossilized remains of their ancestors for profit, but you repress such inconvenient reflections for the time being.

After quickly re-supplying yourself from the general store, you contrive to send an encrypted message to TL-3907 via the day's upbound elevator: he's to try to contact Captain Jonas Kelly and let him know that you've a significant bounty to be smuggled offmoon and you're willing to pay a good price. You're counting on the pirate's greed to bring him back to Karth sooner rather than later — only he can get you out of here without having to go through Larstown. It's a good bet but who knows where he is now or what he's planning? Putting that uncertainty out of mind, you head out into the sands to solve a mystery.

All the evidence you've been able to gather about sightings of Onishi's "ghost" point to a connection with the colossal half-buried statue head out in the desert northeast of Larstown. It's easy enough to find in the daylight. After a long day of trudging — all the camels in Larstown have been requisitioned by the Manian military — you approach the dome of a massive stone head rising from the sand. You perceive an opening where the neck was detached from the statue's shoulders: a dark archway that, to your surprise, has recently been sealed with a large sheet of metal welded across the opening. Partly buried in the sand nearby is a flamethrower, its fuel spent.

The stone head

Mendezo has now disappeared below the horizon and the dim bulk of the gas giant Tabernas fills the sky; soon Karth will pass into its shadow and the Long Night will begin. The sounds of the desert at night fill your ears. You turn on your flashlights to inspect the sealed entrance. Jacobe pulls out his electronics kit and begins scanning: there are some strange electrical patterns coming from the stone head. As the darkness deepens, they begin to intensify. You think you hear a faint sound from within as well; a thin wailing. Nogudnyk reaches out telempathically and senses fear, anger, sadness from the same place. They try to send feelings in return but it's like struggling against the tide. 

You set to work busting in. Griff's belter experience comes in handy as he directs Sasha in the improvised use of her laser rifle as a cutter, finding the most efficient way to dislodge the metal barrier. The process exhausts one entire battery pack but it gets the job done. Jacobe keeps tabs on the mounting intensity of the electrical field and you all hear the wailing clearly now. As the metal barrier falls away, your lights illuminate the hollow interior of the stone head. You see a scorched human skeleton against the far wall, a leather satchel nearby, and a tiny golden locket in the middle of the space. But what grabs your attention most is what's happening directly above the locket: a phantasmal form is slowly taking shape in mid-air. It's most definitely looks like Marie-Eve: she appears much as she did in the pictures you saw, but now there are hints of burns on her ghostly flesh. As she materializes, the wailing grows louder, more piercing; you struggle to repress the urge to flee. Sasha tries speaking to the entity, invoking the names of Onishi and her parents: it seems to give the ghost pause but Nogudnyk senses mounting anger and sadness. The ghost does not appear to be a good listener. Just as it begins to move towards you menacingly, Jacobe produces a container with an electromagnetic seal from his kit [at the cost of all remaining Spacer's Luck points] and pops the locket inside. The phantom immediately dissipates. You've trapped an angry ghost.

You respectfully gather up the bones, thinking to return them to Onishi's parents. The satchel yields Marie-Eve's field notes and an audio log that she kept of her discoveries and activities. They reveal her romantic liaison with Governor Steig Tanaka, their journey to the Silver Spire, Onishi's disorientation and panic after her encounter with the imprisoned Wigoy seedmind, and her anguish at killing innocents with some newly acquired psychic power that she could not control. The final log entries leave you with a pretty good idea of what happened during the young anthropologist's final moments and who was responsible for her death.

Huwel

You take your rest in the shelter of the stone head, keenly aware of the tragedy that took place here three weeks ago. No sun will be rising; the Long Night has begun. After eight hours, you partake of the unappetizing emergency rations you have and set out northward to rendezvous with Huwel. He awaits you at the entrance of the Old Seahorse Mine. You're quite exhausted when you arrive; Huwel brings you to his camp in the rocks nearby, away from prying eyes and roving sandsquid. He lost two of the camels to the predators (but not Airlock, thankfully) and he's short on provisions, but his eyes are glinting eagerly in the lamplight. He swears there's a fortune to be made from the coral fragments within. You just have to avoid whatever horrors the original miners released when they delved too deep...