SWRPG

Once they arrived, Albot, being incredibly helpful for once, reminded the crew that weapons of all kinds were illegal here, and everything was under the control of the Empire. They all decided to stay armed but did try to hide their weapons, some better than others. The consensus was to find a somewhat shady cantina to try and glean more information about their target. Once one was found they were stopped by a Gamorrean bouncer. He insisted that everyone gets patted down for weapons before he can allow entrance. Knowing that he’ll most certainly find the weapons, TB bravely steps in to try and intimidate the bouncer to just let them all through. Gamorreans are not small by any means and certainly not built any more delicately than 1950’s era Earth fallout shelter. TB, a tough, albeit unlucky, soldier, failed to complete his mission and managed to find himself in a small fist fight with the bouncer. A few punches were thrown, and so was TB, onto his ass.

While the bouncer was distracted, Rara, Astrata, and QT snuck into the bar leaving TB outside to fend for himself. To try and fit into the new setting so they could listen for clues, Rara buys drinks for herself and Astrata. Though QT would have loved one, they are a droid and sadly could not partake. Unfortunately, Rara did not get enjoy hers as she forgot her ID to prove she was of a drinking age. Underage drinking is a problem the bartender was not willing to contribute to, so Astrata enjoyed Rara’s drink for her. While they were waiting for said drinks, they scanned the joint taking note of a mysterious hooded figure off in a corner, and a few tipsy patrons having a chat about someone quite interesting. Apparently, there was a cat burglar around who would cause trouble for the Empire by stealing whatever was worth any amount of credits, and then give it the poor people so they could survive.

It was then that Rara started to feel uneasy, a strong presence growing in her mind. She shut it out when she realized the presence was trying to read her thoughts through the Force. Suddenly Astrata’s face went blank and began to talk to Rara in a way that was particularly unlike the Zabrak.

“I know why you are in this bar, and I know why you are hunting me. You shouldn't be here,” she droned.

Rara was concerned, “Are you ok, Astrata? You know why we’re here.”

“Ah, one so young in the force; I’m surprised you weren’t captured sooner.”

“Uh, can you talk to me face to face? It’s super creepy talking through my friend puppet.”

“I feel safer using your friend puppet with your terribly concealed weapons and that assassin droid you have with you. If you feel comfortable having this conversation face to face, hand over your weapons to this puppet, and meet out back in the alley, alone.” The life returned to Astrata’s eyes as whoever controlled her released their hold. Rara gave the confused Zabrak her weapons and proceeded to find the back door. QT and Astrata shrugged at each other and followed, hiding by the door to listen, but remaining on guard and ready to fight.

Once in the alleyway, Rara watched a cloaked figure, the very same one they saw in the bar, jump off the roof and land in front of her. It was a good thing he made a mildly dramatic entrance because when he took off his hood he revealed himself to be an unremarkable human. Honestly, he was average at best. He offered his hand in friendship to the Twi’lek, which she took, knowing he wasn’t all that bad after what she heard about him in the bar. The man then offered her a death stick and upon her confused acceptance of, he chuckled and rescinded the offer.

It was then he spoke, “I invited you out here because, us being force users, we are a hunted lot. How experienced are you? How much do you know?”

“Until this moment, I wasn’t entirely sure any of it was the force. I’m still not totally buying it,” she confessed.

“If you completely ignore my bounty, I can teach you how to use the force and not be a bumbling fool with it,” he offered.

Rara considered this for a moment, “I would really like to not be a bumbling fool, and turning people into the Emperor seems like it might be a slippery slope anyway.”

“Yeah and you’d probably end up imprisoned anyway, what with you being a force user and all. So, if you could sneak me off of this planet, we have a deal.”

“Yeah, I have a ship, and I can totally do that! I’ll just have to let my travelling companions know.”

“We have to be stealthy about it, because I’m being watched by the empire,” he informed Rara.

“Ok, so sneak to the ship, and leave in a hurry! We can do that! Can you wait here while I grab my friends?”

“My name is Koren, by they way, and worry not, your friends have already heard everything.”

Rara looked over her shoulder to see QT and Astrata peeking out from behind the door where they had been eavesdropping this whole time.

She shook her head and turned back to Koren, “There’s another guy out front, he couldn’t come because he tried to intimidate the Gammorean bouncer.”

“I saw that whole thing. I was on the roof, laughing,” he admitted. They agreed to meet at the Monarch within the hour to make their way off of Corellia.

When the group went to reunite with TB out front they found he had made a friend in the Gammorean, even sharing tips about how to throw proper punches. Rara informed TB that they should get back the ship immediately and she’d tell him about what happened in the bar later. TB’s new bouncer friend tells them to watch out for pickpockets and to try to conceal their weapons a little better. The crew departed from the bar, choosing to stick to alleyways and side streets, hoping that would avoid drawing any attention to themselves. Unfortunately, alleyways and side streets are exactly where delinquents prefer to spend their time.

Soon they found themselves surrounded by a rather large group of young thugs, each carrying a strange type of dagger. One of the braver youngsters lunged at QT, knife at the ready, but QT was quicker and tased their assailant. Before the kid fell he threw his dagger and it struck QT. They instantly knew that this strange dagger was a data dagger, and it was attempting to sap information out of the droid. Once the kid hit the ground, still twitching and writhing, his buddies collected him and ran away fearing they would suffer the same fate. QT removed the dagger swiftly and examined it. They were able to discover that the dagger itself was issued en masse by none other than their creator, Darth Vader. The messages on the daggers relayed that QT needed to be found and a stormtrooper travelling with his droid should be captured as well. Vader wanted TB dead or alive, and if turned alive he would kill the traitor himself. Of course this made the group a little more worried than before and they hoof it back to the ship quickly.

When everyone made it to the ship they discovered Koren had not yet made it. Suspecting the worst, they made preparations to take off emergently and awaited the arrival of their mysterious new friend. Soon enough they heard sirens and saw Koren approach the ship on a speeder trailed by the city’s guards. Astrata and TB watched as Koren conjured up lightning and used it to take out the squad pursuing him. TB recognized that feat as something that the Emperor does, and instantly gained a strong dislike and mistrust of this stranger. Astrata, however, had never seen such a display of power and confidence before and was completely smitten.

Soon after the surgery, the ship’s comms and every data pad laying around started ringing with urgency. When Rara answered the call the whole ship was shocked to hear a loud breathing and the terrifying voice of Darth Vader. He accused the crew of stealing his precious prototype droid. Using her quick wit Rara insisted that Sith Lord must have the wrong number and hung up but not before Vader threatened to send another assassination droid after the crew. The data pads displayed a message that the new foe will have located them within five minutes. In a panic they instructed Albot to input coordinates for literally anywhere else but where they were, and that’s when they discovered the ship’s navigation was jammed. Right then the hanger door was ripped off by a droid who looked remarkably like QT but had a much more sinister demeanor. Everyone rushed to the hangar while it went into a stealth mode and awaited the crew.

This new foe was equipped with a large vibro sword and it’s first target was QT. It lunged at QT with the intention to behead them but miscalculated a step and they were only hit with a glancing blow. Reacting quickly, QT opted to taser their doppelganger only for it to deflect the darts directly into TB’s chest stunning the poor soldier. Astrata took aim at the new droid’s arm with her ion pistol and hit a shield generator. This forced an emergency shut down, rendering the enemy useless for a few hours.

While they tried to figure out what to do with the bot, QT scanned it to try to learn as much information as they could. This droid’s name was Q3T2 and was very similar to QT but better built with more features. It was tough and obedient to it’s master, and not nearly as friendly as the beloved QT. The gang decided to have the junkyard crush the droid so they could leave it behind and in pieces. Unfortunately for them, the junkyard clerk was unwilling to just take it, insisting he could only take droids after having them checked out by the Hutts first.

It was then Rara pulled quite the amazing feat by mind tricking him into taking Q3 without gaining permission first. The rest of the party hardly noticed this cool trick, as Rara continued to use it to gain a new hangar door for the busted Monarch. Q3 was crushed while the door was replaced. Once all repairs were complete, however, the ships comms started playing the message, “You think you can crush me, that’s funny.”

The team entered the warehouse, and started the hunt . Two members of Ace’s crew exited a small office and entered the main warehouse, but were too busy talking about shoes to notice Astrata, Rara, TB and QT.

One of the crew went back to the office, but the other one spotted QT, standing still like a deactivated droid. QT tased him before he could alert his allies. Astrata searched the now-unconscious crewmember, and stripped him of a vibroblade, 50 CR, an earpiece, and even his pants, which she wrapped around her neck like a scarf (it’s all the rage, in space).

Rara snuck over to the office and peeked inside the door, and saw Ace (looking very drunk) raise his gun and fire. Ace and his crew attacked, slamming open the door and knocking QT over in the process. Rara got slashed with a vibroblade and TB missed his shot--almost hitting Rara instead of his target.

Astrata slammed the door closed, knocking the door into Rara and pushing Ace and one of his crew back into the office. TB, Astrata and QT all teamed up on the remaining enemy; QT accidentally shocked him to death with their taser.

TB opened the door and threw in a grenade and Astrata and QT slammed the door shut after it. They heard a KA-BLEW as the grenade went off, and then silence. Astrata peeked through the door and almost got her head shot off by Ace, who was still very much alive. TB threw another grenade into the office, and the team slammed the door closed--but Ace and his remaining crewmember pushed back against them, throwing the grenade back out. Rara kicked the grenade away (badly) and everyone jumped for cover.

After the explosion, Ace’s surviving crewmember pushed the office door open slowly (to check if anyone was still alive), and Rara smacked him with her weapon. QT tased the crewmember, causing him to pass out. TB finished the job by shooting the crewmember while he was down.

Ace kicked the door open and shot Rara directly in the chest, making her pass out. QT shot their taser dart into Ace’s face, but Ace tore it out like it was nothing.  TB shot at Ace but missed again. Astrata took aim, rolled a natural 20, and blew Ace’s head off in an explosion of gore.

After dispatching Ace and his crew, Astrata, TB and QT turned to fuss over the injured Rara. QT made bandages out of Ace’s shirt to bind Rara’s wounds, and discovered a lightsaber on Ace’s body.

TB examined the lightsaber, which seemed beaten up, but turned on easily. The blade was bright green. TB used the lightsaber to sever Ace’s hand (for proof of the bounty), and the saber gained 1XP.

Searching Ace’s body, they also found a strange tech gauntlet, 1000 CR on a locked credit holder, three datapads, a spaceship key, and a heavy blaser which TB took for himself. QT stripped Ace of his clothes, and made the unpleasant discovery that Ace wasn’t wearing any underwear. They searched the other bodies, and found a second strange gauntlet, an enhanced vibroblade, and took everyone’s clothes for QT to use later.

Astrata helped Rara get back to the Monarch, and QT and TB stayed behind to see if they could find the spaceship that went with the key found on Ace. They found a pathway that lead to an underground hangar, with a two seat prototype TIE fighter inside. TB checked Ace’s datapads and discovered that the TIE fighter was going to be sold to the Hutts. Deciding that they could cash in on this deal, TB and QT ran back to the Monarch to tell Astrata and Rara about their plan.

As they detailed their plan, Rara asked if they had locked the TIE fighter. QT remembered that no they absolutely did NOT lock it, turned on their heel, and ran back to the hangar.

In the hangar, an RT unit named Shoot-You-in-the-Face (SYITF) was powering up the TIE fighter. QT interrupted, and started making friends with the RT unit, convincing him to not take off with the ship. TB ran in (not wanting QT to be alone), surprising SYITF, who mistrusts humans. The two droids chattered back and forth in binary about TB; SYITF insisting that if he wasn’t allowed to outright kill TB, he should at least be allowed to shoot him, just a little. QT agreed to a minor flesh wound to satisfy their new RT unit friend.

SYITF fired the TIE fighter’s guns, blowing off TB’s right arm at the shoulder, then disembarked the TIE fighter and self destructed. TB did not faint, gaining the feat of being diehard. QT carefully locked up the ship, picked up the remains of TB’s arm, grabbed TB by his remaining arm and led him back to the Monarch.

After QT breathlessly explained what happened, the group made a plan to go to Nal Hutta to sell the prototype TIE fighter, with QT piloting the TIE and Albot piloting the Monarch. Astrata linked the comms together so the two ships would be able to communicate en route.

While travelling to Nal Hutta,TB spent a lot of time in the Bacta tank. Astrata, not able to build a replacement arm for TB, dug up partial blueprints for a medical droid who would be able to, and got to work planning on building one.

The Monarch landed on Phu to refuel, during which time Astrata and QT worked together to build the medical droid.

Rara read through Ace’s datapads, finding logs about how the TIE fighter was stolen from the rebel alliance, who’d stolen it from the empire and had planned to sell the ship to the Hutts, before Ace had stolen it from them. She also stumbled on a document about a shield gauntlet. Remembering the strange gauntlet Ace had been wearing, Rara retrieved it from their equipment stash and put it on. The gauntlet immediately fused to Rara’s hand, making it impossible to remove, and projected a laser shield able to cut through objects.

The Monarch and the TIE fighter took off again. TB escaped the bacta tank, and tried to dress himself with one arm (he had to roll two 20D to see how real the struggle was). He got his pants on, but was stuck shirtless. Rara thoughtfully lent him her poncho.

While in flight, Astrata worked hard at programming the medical droid and eventually succeeded at programming a very dumb droid. She turned to the internet for help.

After about two weeks in space, Rara used the force and “rolled to have a bad feeling about this.” She didn’t have a good feeling. She could tell that Astrata was mad and frustrated about her progress with the medical droid, so like a good friend Rara brought Astrata (and TB) some tea.

After three more weeks of travel, the group finally entered Hutt space, and found themselves stopped by a blockade. The Hutts hailed the Monarch, and Albot (being the only one aboard who could speak Hutt) told them “we come in piece! Because TB is missing an arm, get it?” resulting in the Hutts demanding to speak to someone intelligent.

TB took over communications, and convinced the Hutts to let them land so they could claim the bounty on Ace and turn in the TIE fighter. The bounty earned them 3000 CR, and the TIE fighter earned them 15,000 CR.

While on the planet, Astrata, Rara and QT dug up some junk parts to construct TB’s new arm, including a protocol droid arm, the skeletal remains of a robot hand, and surprisingly, an intact prototype model frighteningly similar to QT. They purchased the lot and took their haul back to the Monarch.

Once back on the ship, the group discovered that the remains of TB’s blown off arm had been eaten by the Jawa baby. They collectively decided that the Jawa baby’s name would be Handible.

The crew examined their options, and reach the consensus that the way to go is to shoot their way out but this plan falls to pieces fast as Astrata fumbled and the ship’s turret exploded big time, causing significant damage to the hull. With no other option than to try to find way out the old fashioned way, the girls lead the party out to explore, but only after Albot tries to lead the party himself and almost kills the organic members of the crew by opening the airlock before anyone has their pressure masks on. Astrata and Rara find the inside of the slug gross as anything they’ve ever had to deal with and both throw up a little inside their masks much to their chagrin. However, QT is mostly unphased, and TB who followed shortly after after retrieving a gun isn’t phased in the slightest by the spectacle, mentioning he’s seen worse in Empire cafeterias. While QT,  Astrata and Albot get to work to salvage pieces and patch the ship up well enough to get it to fly Rara and TB take that opportunity to scout around. Thanks to Rara’s keen eye she caught a split second enough of the space slug’s vacuous yawn to orient the ship. With the ship quickly repaired by a great team effort Rara took the helm and promptly smashed the craft into the slug’s stomach before managing a way more daring escape, complete with not being bitten to pieces.

With that adventure behind them they now Actually Arrive in Corrida, and together examined a job board at the stop, just off-world while refueling. After dickering the details among themselves they picked a few of the jobs they find reasonable which do not include offers of transporting slaves to slavers. After a wonderful six day doing-jobs-and-making-money montage they used their gains to get the turret fixed before going back on their way.

While reorienting themselves Astrata asked QT to take a look at her salvaged data pad and the droid’s great technological knowledge netted them some details about the previous owner, and a laundry list of bounties. Chatting amongst themselves they discovered TB had no further directives in his own strange agenda, and they agreed to take the bounties on, for lack of anything else to do. They picked their first mark, a tall man named Ace for 3000 CR, known for a bad temper, and a Space Irish accent.

They planned out their course to Ziorda where Ace was reported to be and took off. The trip began unremarkably but before getting to their midway point of Duro they were shot out of hyperspace by four TIE Fighters, who elect to shoot before they speak as the Monarch had been flagged for murder and reports of running spice under its previous owner. 

Rara and Astrata teamed up to pilot the Monarch, while QT managed the baby Jawa to avoid any extraneous disasters and the two pilots manage amazing feats of evasion while TB layed down cover fire as well as he could (which is not all that well) until one damaged TIE fighter smashed the back end of the Monarch and took out their engines. Dead in space the crew were boarded by the remaining TIE pilots as they all screamed at each other to figure out what the hell to do about it. Blaster fire ensued and shots are traded between all parties, and unfortunately also within the party as Rara accidentally opened fire on TB shortly after he managed to patch a large blaster hole in his chest. During the fray Astrata, who was nearly gravely injured, retaliated by blowing one pilot’s head clean off in a shower of blood. The remaining TIE pilot decided it  just wasn’t worth it, turning his gun on himself.