Blundering through the Black. A Firefly RPG AAR.

[frunk]

It didn't die, it just retreated into the very nerdy shell from which it came.

[Korea]

Well, I can kind of see why. But it does seem like a lot of fun.

[Syt]

Roundup from last weekend.

Not much going on. One Eyed Charlie sends Tyrell and Jared off to intimidate a banker and threaten that something might happen to his daughter if he doesn't help tracking the payments that Rivera received for the Maguffin.

It's revealed that the Sergey Voronov's crime syndicate "Red Bear" seems to have possession of the item now. In order to open the box they'll need the help of a rather skilled slicer/hacker - Tad Soto. Voronov has hired two guys to get in touch with Soto, hoping to keep it low key.

Tyrell and Jared are sent to the bar where the two guys hang around. They are to observe and follow them when they leave. Unfortunately, Tyrell is greeted in the bar by a former war buddy, Gordon, who draws all kinds of attention to them and tries to get into a conversation with them. The Red Bear thugs leave, and when Tyrell and Jared try to follow, Gordon wants to tag along. Jared manages to convince him that he'd like some alone time with Tyrell, because they're fresh in love.

Leaving the bar the two notice that two guys from a different crime syndicate, the Black Rat, follow them in turn. Cue a lengthy car chase. The Red Bear guys are chased by Tyrell and Jared who are chased by the Black Rat thugs. Police join in on the chase. Eventually, two police cars are wrecked in the streets, the guys have shaken a small patrol craft and the Black Rat is held by police who caught up on them.

Jared crashes the Red Bear guys into a wall. They pick up one of the badly wounded guys and take him to a waste dump where they "question" him. He reveals the location of Soto. Jared and Tyrell dump him near a hospital and go to Soto's hideout.

Tyrell goes up to Soto's one room place, stuffed under the roof with computers while Jared waits in the car. He notices that Soto is quite dead, blood pouring from every orifice of his body. He snatches a portable computer and makes his way back.

Unfortunately, Jared is visited by lawman Major Womack and his henchmen. Jared slams the car door into Womack, and he and Tyrell try to make a daring mistake, though Tyrell drops the computer. After a couple meters they realize that it's quite stupid to flee from Womack, leaving an unexplained dead body behind.

So they drive back. Womack repays Jared with a punch to the face. Tyrell explains what they've found in the apartment. Womack isn't happy, but tells them to stay on the case, otherwise they might find themselves under suspicion of murder regarding Soto.

[Syt]

Charlie is not happy with how Jared and Tyrell fared in this situation. They inform her of Soto's death, but avoid talking about Womack. Jared is a bit nervous, because he's received a coded message from, Michael Can, a very good friend and warbuddy who often gets him some work, that he should be careful.

[I had asked the players to provide some extra characters from their past that I might use in plots.]

However, they get a chance to redeem themselves. Charlie's contacts have informed her that Voronov will try to move the item off planet from one of the little shuttle ports he uses for smuggling.

The place is heavily guarded, though, and Charlie gives Jared and Tyrell two guys as backup: a hacker/bodybuilder type guy and a rather disgusting fellow who's handy with the shotgun and grenades.

More thanks to luck than anything else, Jared manages to sneak up a guard tower and knock out the guard there. In the settling dusk he'll be unnoticed for a while and can scan the situation. Meanwhile Tyrell and the two henchmen approach through the sewers [Note to self - trigger Tyrell's claustrophobia in those settings]. Hacker dude comes out at a small warehouse, but can't move due to guards outside.

Tyrell and the shotgun guy come out at a different place where they examine several offices. Unfortunately, a secretary screams before Tyrell knocks her unconscious, Guards approach, two are killed by shotgun, the third by a vicious sword cut as they come through the door.

Other guards are alerted, and Jared tries to snipe them from the tower but fails. Things become messier as more guards close in on Tyrell and his other colleague, though a well placed grenade gives them a bit of breathing room. In an office two female secretaries are huddling together. Shotgun wants to kill them, because they're witnesses. Tyrell tries to stop him, but only manages to save one of them.

The four mercs manage to rendezvous in the main warehouse where they get into a violent shootout with crack guards and the port's boss. Smoke grenades are tossed by the team, so Jared has the advantage with the thermal imaging sights on his sniper rifle. However, as the shooting goes on they hear horrific screams from the far side of the compound, screams that slowly come closer.

[I'm insinuating that the Hands of Blue are approaching, which matches how Soto had died - the players know that, but their characters don't.]

Eventually, the screams reach the warehouse, and in the thick fog the enemies drop dead. The team decides to make a run for it before they're next.

The smoke clears, and the mercs see the corpses of their enemies, blood pouring from eyes, ears, nose, mouth. As they turn tail, they hear someone calling for Jared. Jared recognizes the voice of his friend Michael Can. The two shake hands, and Tyrell joins them. Their two henchmen stand back a bit, telling them to raise their arms. Jared and Can dive for cover, but Tyrell, trying to do so, lands flat on his face.

A laugh comes from the door. There's Womack and his scoundrels, including Tyrell's old buddy Gordon. They want to haul Tyrell and Jared in for murder (as they obviously failed to get the item for Womack), but Michael tells him to back off. After a serious exchange of glares, Womack stomps off, warning Jared and Tyrell against coming back to Persephone anytime soon. Michael also tells them that they've made many enemies. They killed plenty of Voronov's Guys; Charlie won't trust them, now that she knows she had moles (shotgun and hacker) in her ranks - by proxy that means Red Dragon Tong will also hate them; then there's Womack with his attachment to law enforcement; and they killed a couple of Black Rat guys.

Michael advises them to lay low. He used his connections to get them a flight out to a small mining company where they can get some work. Jared, however, wants to know what in the mysterious box was that they were chasing and where it is. "It's safe", Michael says. He only points out that it's something that will help the border worlds a lot and shouldn't be in the hands of criminals.

* * *

I'm glad I could wrap this campaign up, as a lot of it was heavily improvised and I was slowly maneuvering myself into a corner.

The players liked this session a lot. It gave them good action, covert actions, computer hacking, planning a raid, a few morality questions, an left them with a twist ending after they had braced themselves for certain death. Funniest moment was probably a guard trying to come out of the toilet. Tyrell swung his sword at him and missed. The guard closed and locked the door. Shotgun blasted the door open, but the guy had already fled through the bathroom window.

Or Jared trying to stun a guard with an stun baton and instead shocking himself. (He managed to headbutt the guard into unconsciousness, though.)

Or Tyrell totally botching a roll for hacking a computer and causing the thing to short out.


Unresolved issues:
- What was really in the container? (I'm leaning towards a cure for the PAX that created the Reavers)
- What's Michael Can's involvement with Blue Sun and the Hands of Blue?
- What's Michael Can's involvement with Womack, as they clearly knew each other?
- Jared's stepsister normally lives on Persephone (though she was elsewhere this campaign). Visiting her should prove interesting in the future.


For the next campaign I'm going more with a Wild West theme again. Persephone is nice, but overall not very otherworldish, neither too futuristic, nor too retro. I'm thinking mining town, with indentured labourers (former Browncoats, maybe, working as quasi-slaves), and a brutal (female) overlord running the town. Could have plenty of politicking, intrigue, maybe a worker uprising, or outside raiders (Reavers?) attacking ...

[Josquius]

So what next?
You're continuing straight through to the next 'chapter' with the same guys or finishing or what?

[HisMajestyBOB]

That's pretty cool stuff.
Always wished I could find a group to play these things with.

[Syt]

You're continuing straight through to the next 'chapter' with the same guys

Yes.