:: Link established. Now departing the Galactic Starliner, Goodnight Irene. Please check your personal items before exiting the airlock. ::
Port Verdigris.png (1.19 MiB) Viewed 1386 times
:: New link detected. Welcome to Port Verdigris. Please follow the indicated path and prepare for Border Agent Inspection. ::
:: Greetings, gentle sentients, and welcome to Port Verdigris. Port Verdigris: your gateway to the Free Starspiel! This space station is in orbit around the planet Truane’s Star. Truane’s Star: a world of comforts awaits you! Shuttles depart every six hours, book your trip to Truane’s Star, now! ::
:: Port Verdigris is happy to offer habitations, shopping, dining, and life support systems for most galactic species. As this is your first time visiting us, we’re happy to extend a special offer—your first thirty minutes of air are free! ::
:: Notice: your link indicates a balance of 0.00 credits. A loan has been taken out to cover border agent processing fees. Current balance: -5.00 credits. ::
Last edited by Pulpatoon on Wed Jul 06, 2022 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You are standing in the concourse of Port Verdigris, a low-rent orbital habitation on the edge of civilization. It is noticeably dingy and under-maintained. The air smells stale, with notes of old cooking oil and ozone. A susurration of voices, voxes, and movement fills the air with white noise, underscored by the bass thump of distant music reverberating through the deck plates.
Around you, life forms and mechanisms bustle about their business. A robot the size of a small truck whizzes by on treads, carrying stacked crates of yowling avian creatures. A mobile atmosphere tank hovers through, containing a slug-like alien in a cloud of green steam, followed by a trolley of its automated luggage. A trilaterally-symmetrical Osakar steps entirely over you on three long legs, squeaking anxiously into its link.
You and your companions find yourselves stuck on Port Verdigris with a single credit among you. This is bad, because the station charges for things like life support. You have a thirty minute grace period before the fees start to accumulate. At the end of that time, you need to have either secured a source of credit, or found a way off the station.
Each of you hears a chipper PING! from your link—a salutation from someone who wants to talk with you. Before you can reply, a human woman standing on a motorized platform zips up your group. After a second, you register that this woman is a hologram, and that the motorized platform is a robot with a holo-emitter.
The robot's holographic projection presents the sort of carefully-manicured approachability and sunny demeanor that marks her as a company liaison. “Greetings, gentle sentients! I’m Mirabelle, and I'll be your hospitality associate during your stay at Port Verdigris.
“If you have any questions, or need help booking travel or accommodations, you can reach me via your links.”PING! Her contact information appears on your link, along with a pointedly blinking countdown until your 30 minutes of free atmosphere expire. “Perhaps you would like directions to an institution that can help you transfer credits from abroad? Or may I assist you in accessing local job opportunities?”
Your link offers up a menu of job opportunities. Most are petty station work—food prep, cargo loading, janitorial, and maintenance. You are unsurprised to notice that there is a local PanGalactic recruiting office. The ubiquitous conglomerate dedicated to the commercial exploitation of frontier space is always hiring. There is also an awkwardly worded job notice from an organization called The Explorigator’s Guild, asking for “diverse independent specialists available for non-supervised asset retrieval and broad-spectrum situational resolutions in an environment to be determined.”
Those of you who are oriented towards such things would immediately surmise that a frontier post that is both as busy and as shoddily-run as this one must have an absolutely humming criminal underground, which would also have its own seedy, off-the books job market.
Mirabelle smiles as though there is nothing in the universe that could please her more than conversing with a bunch of deadbeats in the middle of a crowded concourse. Meanwhile, the motorized platform that contains her actual self rutches back and forth on its nubbly wheels, a sure sign of impatience.
Welcome to the game! Dive on in, get to know each other and the world. Don’t feel beholden to any breadcrumb trails laid out above—it’s a big galaxy, and you can do what you want. I just ask that you do it as a team!
Next update: Wednesday morning, Eastern Standard
:: Complimentary Life Support: 00:28:56 remaining ::
:: Current credit balance: -05.00 ::
Bertie's petit suitcase rattles on its little wheels as she pulls it behind her, Jeeves by her side with her bigger trunk.
She is completely absorbed in taking in the sights of the station, suddenly realising that she's finally here, at the frontier. She wonders if she should have studied some sociology or xeno-anthropology before she left, oh well, she'll just have to pick it up as she goes. How hard can it be? It's not like it's real science.
PING! PING! The noise of her link brings her back to reality. She looks up at the holo of Mirabelle as she's introducing herself, and scrolls through the messages and jobs that have appeared on her link, not impressed with what she sees "Thank you Mirabelle, my friends and I are certainly looking for work, but I can't see anything that matches my skillset. Perhaps some kind of science officer on a vessel of exploration?" she looks at the others " What do you all think?"
Last edited by shaidar on Mon May 09, 2022 4:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
His few belongings clasped in a satchel between two of his larger boulders, Chip clatters his way out of the Goodnight Irene lock. He's not terribly sorry to see the last of that vessel, even if his future is uncertain. The myriad sounds of Port Verdigris wash over him, and Chip's attention wanders as Mirabelle begins her spiel. Bertie and Kallina's voices snap him back to the present.
He chimes up,Yes, I'm not quite certain what an explorigator is, but exploration would certainly be of interest. But we have just arrived
addressing Mirabelle (or at least her platform) Are there any bars or watering holes nearby? Particularly one in search of an entertainer?
To the group, with a trilling whistle Not create my own wind, but I've sometimes been able to earn my keep in such places, and I've heard there's work to be had that may not be in the official listings
Skur Vonn"Not to denigrate talent or anything, but ship work sounds great. And we apparently have a time limit. Personally, i like to breathe. And i hate working off a debt."
gaming since 1980 cybersavant.proboards.com
- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - Andreas Larson; Law of the Gun <Boot Hill 3e> Nah Olos; Earthquakes in the Jotens <AD&D 1e> Asxerthsis ; In The Year 62,062 <SWN> Rehtai Khtao ( Rehleh Tharee Dar ); Shadow of the Storm <Traveller MgT2e> Carter Stone; Lore of the Plains <1e/OSRIC Weird Wester>
Chip shapes the sounds of the station into a low clatter of disappointment in response to Skur Vonn and Kallinna,. Yes, I guess there will be no singing without air, so work first...
In a barely audible whistle he says to himself, .. but I was almost done with the new verse of The last moss of Cold Mountain-henge
Last edited by cybersavant on Thu May 12, 2022 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
gaming since 1980 cybersavant.proboards.com
- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - Andreas Larson; Law of the Gun <Boot Hill 3e> Nah Olos; Earthquakes in the Jotens <AD&D 1e> Asxerthsis ; In The Year 62,062 <SWN> Rehtai Khtao ( Rehleh Tharee Dar ); Shadow of the Storm <Traveller MgT2e> Carter Stone; Lore of the Plains <1e/OSRIC Weird Wester>
Mirabelle beams a holographic smile. “It sounds like you have arrived at a plan of action!” She sends a deck-plan to your link with arrows directing you towards the Explorigator’s Guild Local Office. “Happy job hunting! And please reach out if there’s anything I, or anyone at Community Associations, can do to improve your stay at Port Verdigris. Port Verdigris—a universe of possibilities awaits you!”
As you make your way through the concourse, Kallina of Furie’s combat-honed senses alert her to a body moving towards the party at perilous speed! With elegant efficiency, she pivots out of the way and puts a hand out to arrest the motion of a careening dralasite youth, skating through the concourse on frictionless-soled shoes.
The dralasite,instead of crashing into Bertie, as was her trajectory, bounces off Kallina’s hand and tumbles into Bertie’s trolley suitcase, falling over it and into a heap on the floor. “S-sorry! Sorry, folks! Whoopsy-phasey!” babbles the dralasite, picking herself up and immediately continuing her pell-mell through the crowd.
Jeeves picks up Bertie’s suitcase. “Excuse me, ma’am. It appears the youth has tampered with your luggage and accessed the interior. I suspect an act of larceny has occurred.”
The Explorigator’s Guild is just around the next bend. The youth has disappeared through a group of life forms that look like bundles of mauve dryer lint.
What do you do?
:: Complimentary Life Support: 25:14 remaining ::
:: Current credit balance: -05.00 ::
If you do anything action-y, please provide whatever you think is the appropriate roll!
Next update: Friday morning, Eastern Time!
"Thank you Jeeves. This is my first experience of suffering a crime. How interesting. I wonder what was taken? If you want to continue on I can catch up, I just want to check my case."
She retrieves her case from Jeeves and has a quick look through to see if anything was actually taken.
Kallina chuckles, "No, when investigators try and trick someone into breaking the law with an investigator as the victim or even a participant in the crime we call it a sting. The allusion probably originates with an insect back on Earth but I am not sure."
