Upgrades Galore

We started this session a few minutes early to give ourselves time to go over Character Advancement. The previous mission our characters were given was intended to give us a feel for the rules and how the game plays, after which we were told that we would gain two levels for our characters. This means more Health and more Skills.

I like to use what goes on in-game as an explanation of how my character sheet improves and since I roleplayed interactions with Cyrus and Yannick, I thought it appropriate to give him a point in Know to reflect the knowledge Ian took out of these conversations. Naturally, I've improved his Shoot to the maximum possible as that's his main specialty. As a Partial Psychic, I'm also required to progressively improve my psychic skill, Telekinesis in Ian's case, which allowed me to gain the ability to walk on vertical and overhanging surfaces as if they were horizontal. In a way, this gives Ian the ability to ignore gravity.

Gun Kata anyone?

We also got to the point where we could gain another Focus or improve an existing one. While I was tempted to improve Gunslinger (Ian's other Focus is Alert), I found Close Combatant more inspiring in a combat situation. While another level of Gunslinger would allow Ian to deal 1d4 damage on a miss with a gun, Close Combatant allows me to ignore penalties from using pistols in a melee fight. I can't wait for a scene where this becomes relevant.

When everyone was done assigning points to their characters, it was time to return to our in-game adventures. It was approximately half a year since our initial assignment during which time we got to know each other better as a team. We were called in to the briefing room where we were told that the fugitive we caught at SS Aurelia, Arthur Smith, has finally started talking. We were given information about arms dealing proceedings taking place on a planet called Gograpaty. It was a planet with no land mass due to terraforming incidents, leaving it covered in an ocean, forcing people to live on floating cities made out of any salvageable parts. The communities there were organised in a tribes which prohibited selling weaponry. As these weapons were being sold to rebel factions, our mission was to stop their operations.

At the end of the briefing we were told we were being assigned a new ship, an upgrade from the previous one, but we stayed at the table after our superior officer left the room to discuss our strategy. We went through several suggestion and settled on posing as buyers so we can amass enough evidence to either allow the local authorities to deal with the smugglers or have reason to blow them up with a clear conscience.

In order for this plan to work, however, Ian suggested we'd need better weaponry so we can present ourselves as serious buyers who aren't interested in any low-tech equipment. Cole informed us that he might be able to reach out to a contact who would be able to provide us with above standard weaponry for a reasonable price. With that in mind we went off to the docking bay to inspect our new ship. As it turned out, it was SS Aurelia which we were inspecting on our very first mission. Captain Keiran re-christened it SS Second Chance before we got our entire crew on-board and flew off into space.

Our first stop was the meeting Cole set up with a merchant, codename Bob, who would provide us with sufficiently flashy and effective weapons. Bob requested Cole (similarly codenamed Bob) to come on-board his ship with no weapons to browse his wares and make a deal. Captain Keiran didn't want Cole to go alone and as Ian without his pistols would have been less effective in a fight, Cole was accompanied by Jokkenson who, quite literally, is a weapon.

This does not bode well

They both went through scanners that checked for weapons on-board the ship, inspected the wares, reached a financial agreement, transfered the funds and left with their purchases. Jokkenson was especially happy with the thunder gun he was carrying, a large two-handed weapon capable of disintegrating its target. They also came back with a sniper rifle and two pairs of thermal and mag pistols.

We were about to distribute the wares among ourselves when our radars picked up incoming spacecrafts approaching our position.