Lords of RPG

The Homeric Team of the Odyssey started out on rough footing. The young psychic, Cam, was set to sell their ill-gotten gain to Veridian’s underground. Adamn put a stop to those plans and Corvus helped dispose of the Mist, a powerful hallucinogenic, by turning it in for a reward. The team decided to sell the biohazard through the mafia of Veridian and the guns to the revolutionary known as the Low Caste.

They approached the night club, the Nebula, during daylight hours. It was hoped that it would be a slow time for Tony Gold and his crew. They were ushered in and given a nice meal to entertain them while they waited for verification of the goods.

Tony explained that this level of government goods will require a certain kind of clientele. And he said we are talking thousands of credits. So, Tony could not give an exact amount and therefore we would have to wait for a payday.

This offer did not go over well with everyone. It was expected to get 10% up front and the rest upon conclusion on the sale. The negotiations went south from there and everyone except Cam left the Nebula in disgust.

Tony’s men returned and asked if we were still on. Cam indicated that given the level of specimens and list of unknowns, they were prepared to take Tony’s word. Some of the team was upset for not getting a pay day sooner. But Cam convinced them with Adamn’s surreptitious mind reading backing up Cam’s guess that Tony was being sincere. Cam shook hands with Tony and the deal was made. Hopefully, Corvus will forgive Cam for disagreeing with his approach and hopefully our payday comes due!

The next point on the agenda was to sell the Pre-tech weapons. Located in a shady part of Veridian, the Low Caste fortified themselves in a tower called Beaumont. Akhil contacted the revolutionary group ahead of time and the Cripple expected them.

The team approached the building, leaving Adamn to watch the street. They were escorted into and up to the tenth floor. Along the way they saw weapons and armor and battle stations. Once they met the Cripple, they quickly negotiated a sum of 600 credits plus 20 grenades that happened to be laying about.  Despite a successful negotiation, the Crippled proved to be just as perverted and disgusting as his reputation had suggested.

They made the exchange at the hole hideout in the jungle outside the city. The team flew the Odyssey down into the hole. The Low Caste arrived driving a tank of all things. That made Corvus and Zhukov put on the defensive and hid in the jungle. The grav-tank flew down into the massive hole and taxied next to the Odyssey where the gun cases were laid out.

Cam gave them a ration of shit for bringing a tank and making his two muscle heads collectively piss their pants!   The representatives of the Low Caste pointed out that the Odyssey had brought a spaceship.  Anyhow, the deal went down without any shenanigans. The team was up 7,000 credits and were ready to continue their mission to find a spike drive.

The team had a week before the biohazard payment. So, they left the planet and headed for the Oort Cloud outside the system. They came to a great disturbance in the gravity field coming from a point in the cloud. They carefully approached the anomaly and then flew straight into the rip in the fabric of reality. There was a breach in the space-time continuum and the ship was headed straight for it! They were hailed by a small fleet of The Plunder, that included a Dreadnought class ship.  A deep voice cheered on the crew of the Odyssey, lauding them as "divine gifts from Chaos," and imploring them to "grasp at the Fate of humanity!"  Other strange occultist questions about chaos ensued. The team on the odyssey ignored these pseudo-religious chaos-worshipping hails for the most part and continued onward.

Inside the rift, everything was heavily distorted by waves of gravitational disturbance that seemed to be issuing from a large ship in the heart of the rift.  The ship was being tugged by tendrils of shadow apparently coming from some dark and powerful entity that lay on the other side of a hole in time and space.  A window into the void.  The shadowy tentacles wrapped around the back of the ship and was pulling the ship toward the blackness of the void.  Navigating the heavy waves of gravitational distortion, the team boarded the ship through the airlock amidship. The dark shadowy forms wafted throughout the ship.

The team came upon a cluster of Xeno forms of unknown physiology. Zhukov wasted no time and tossed a grenade into middle of the group. They tried to get to the bridge, however they were stymied the further they went into the ship.  The more they fought the creatures, the more creatures seemed to be attracted to the sound and noise of battle.

After several encounters, it was clear they needed to retreat and head back to the Odyssey. Both Corvus and Zhukov were swarmed by the creatures and attacked from all sides. The team barely escaped with their lives. All the while, the tendrils were pulling on the large ship.

Once they aboard the Odyssey, Corvus let the rest of the crew in on an observation he had made.  The creatures had seemed to react to being attacked, but anytime there was no active aggression, the creatures seemed to sort of lose interest.  It was like stirring a hornet's nest.

Adamn suggested that Cam teleport onto the bridge to download Spike Drive parameters and schematics. They positioned the ship within 250 feet of the doomed spaceship and Cam teleported into the ship. Once situated at a console, he began searching for anything he could find on the Spike Drive. He found a trove of information and began the export.

On the bridge was a hideous creature that was puppeteering what was left of the human crew. Tentacles were flowing from the creature to the crew at each station. At that point Cam hears in his mind, "Little brother...small creature...will you join us...gather in the void...explore another world...beyond your comprehension...do you want to come with us..."

Cam replies, “I only need some information. We're not here to harm you. Give me the information and we will leave.”

He hears more invasive thoughts, "You are an explorer no...a brave soul among your meat puppets...would you not enjoy being my pet...and seeing another world...another way...in a void?"

Cam rejects the coercion and forces himself to continue, “Need…More…Time…” He then finalizes the last file downloads. Altering a compad, Cam placed a beacon under the giant creature so that the Odyssey can target its weapons and destroy the creature. So much for capturing the ship. Cam teleports back on the Odyssey. Once aboard,  the Odyssey targets the larger ship penetrating the bridge’s bulwark and into the creature.

With those actions the ship starts to break apart from the massive black tendrils from the void.  The large black hole closed on the large ship, cutting it in half.  The only thing left is part of the front of the ship drifting in the heart of the gravitational rift.  With the ship cut in half and breaking apart, the rift itself began to constrict and collapse in on itself.   Cam realized they had to get out of there fast, before the rift swallowed them whole or crushed them.  He contacted the Odyssey and told Striker to get the engines ready. Once Cam reached the Odyssey, Striker spun the Odyssey around and hit the thrusters.  The crew breathed a sigh of relief as the Odyssey shot out the end of the rift right as it collapsed and the gravitational anomaly was gone.  What had been left of the front of the large ship was broken into tiny debris by the collapse.

Both Corvus and Akhil were wounded by the Xeno attacks, and Adamn was running low on psychic energy.  Although the Spike Drive was lost in the void, the downloaded files should help the scientists back on Starlight Haven.

The deep voice came over the radio from the Plunder fleet nearby.  "Ah...the Dark Sea is lost.  This opportunity was not ours to attain.  I'm sure you did your best.  Our priests told us that a ship touched by chaos would appear, and we waited.  We waited many long months.  You came, you tried...but man's destiny was not yet in our reach.  Dine with me.  I promise you safe passage.  Board the Black Cosair, and dine with Mad Morgan.  Not many have received that invitation, I can promise you that...."

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Alternate Reality that Didn't Happen  :-)

The following  is an alternate  reality story from AI for entertainment purposes only...

“Damn it, we have company!” Cam shouted. “Striker get us out of here!”

Striker fired up the engines and pulled away from the doomed ship. He tried to avoid the rift, but it was too late. The gravity was too strong, and they were sucked in. The Odyssey shook violently as it entered the breach. The team braced themselves for the worst.

They emerged on the other side of the rift, in a different part of the galaxy. They looked at the star map and saw they were in an unknown system, far away from Veridian. They had no idea where they were, or how to get back.

“Great, just great,” Cam muttered. “We’re lost in space, with no spike drive, no biohazard payment, and a bunch of angry cultists on our tail. Could this get any worse?”

As if on cue, the Agents of Chaos ship appeared behind them. They had followed them through the rift and were ready to attack.

“Apparently, it can,” Cam said. “Striker, evasive maneuvers! Adamn, try to jam their communications! Corvus, man the guns! We’re not going down without a fight!”

The team prepared for the battle of their lives, hoping to survive and find a way back home. The Odyssey and the Agents of Chaos ship exchanged fire, as they raced through the unknown system. The fate of the Homeric Team was uncertain, as they faced a new and dangerous challenge.

The Odyssey and the Agents of Chaos ship enter a stalemate, as neither can gain an advantage over the other. The team decides to try to communicate with the cultists, hoping to find out why they are after them. They discover that the cultists believe that the rift is a portal to a higher dimension, and that the ship they were trying to salvage contains a powerful artifact that can grant them access. The team realizes that they have unwittingly stolen the artifact, and that it is hidden somewhere on the Odyssey.

The team searched the Odyssey for the artifact that the cultists were after. They had no idea what it looked like, or where it could be hidden. They checked every corner, every compartment, every crate. They found nothing.

“Maybe we’re looking for the wrong thing,” Adamn suggested. “Maybe it’s not a physical object, but something else. Like a code, or a signal, or a frequency.”

“Or maybe it’s not on the ship at all,” Corvus said. “Maybe it’s inside one of us.”

They all looked at each other, wondering if that was possible. Could the artifact be a psychic implant, or a nanite injection, or a genetic modification? Could one of them be unknowingly carrying the key to the higher dimension?

They decided to scan themselves, using the Odyssey’s medical equipment. They took turns, lying on the bed and letting the machine scan their brains and bodies. They hoped to find some clue, some anomaly, some indication of the artifact.

They found nothing.

They were all normal, as far as they could tell. No implants, no injections, no modifications. Nothing that could explain why the cultists were after them.

They were baffled. They had no idea what the artifact was, or why they had it. They wondered if the cultists were lying, or mistaken, or insane. They wondered if they were wasting their time, looking for something that didn’t exist.

They decided to contact the cultists, hoping to get some answers. They hailed the Agents of Chaos ship, and waited for a response.

They got one.

A voice came through the speakers, distorted and eerie.

“Hello, Homeric Team. We’ve been expecting you. I invite you to a dinner your honor.”

The Homeric Team accepts the invitation, hoping to find out more about the rift and the artifact. They board the Agents of Chaos ship, where they are greeted by a mysterious leader, named Mad Morgan, who claims to be searching for the artifact for decades. He says that the artifact is a fragment of the Fleece of Chaos, a powerful relic that can alter reality and grant any wish. He says that he needs the team's help to activate the artifact, and that he will reward them with anything they desire. He also warns them that there are other factions who are after the artifact, and that they must act quickly before it falls into the wrong hands.

Mad Morgan led the Homeric Team to his quarters, where he showed them a hologram of the Fleece of Chaos. It was a golden fabric, covered with strange symbols and patterns. He explained that the Fleece was once a whole, but it was shattered into pieces by the gods, who feared its power. The pieces were scattered across the galaxy, hidden in ancient ruins, forgotten planets, and secret vaults. He said that he had spent his life collecting the fragments, and that he had found all but one. The last piece was the one that the team had unknowingly taken from the ship in the rift.

He asked the team to hand over the fragment, promising to share the Fleece’s power with them. He said that he had a device that could reassemble the Fleece, and that he needed their help to activate it. He said that the device required a special key, which only Cam had. He said that Cam was the chosen one, the heir of the Fleece, and that he had a mark on his body that matched the Fleece’s symbol. He asked Cam to show him the mark, and to join him in his quest.

The team was stunned by Mad Morgan’s revelations. They looked at Cam, who seemed as surprised as they were. He said that he had no idea what Mad Morgan was talking about, and that he had never seen the Fleece before. He said that he had no mark on his body, and that he was not the chosen one. He said that Mad Morgan was either lying, or crazy, or both.

Mad Morgan insisted that he was telling the truth, and that he could prove it. He said that he had a scanner that could detect the mark, and that he would show it to them. He reached for a device on his desk, but before he could grab it, a loud explosion rocked the ship. The team and Mad Morgan were thrown off their feet, and the lights went out. They heard alarms and screams, and smelled smoke and fire.

“What the hell was that?” Cam shouted.

“It’s an attack!” Mad Morgan yelled. “Someone has found us! We have to get to the Fleece, now!”

He grabbed the device and the fragment, and ran out of the room. The team followed him, unsure of what to do. They ran through the corridors, dodging debris and flames. They saw cultists fighting and dying, and enemy ships firing at them. They reached the hangar, where Mad Morgan’s ship was waiting. He boarded the ship, and told the team to follow him.

“Hurry up, we don’t have much time!” he said.

The team hesitated, wondering if they should trust him or not. They had no idea who was attacking them, or why. They had no idea what the Fleece was, or what it could do. What could they do next?