Aftermath Session VIII

[baronsamedi]

We are currently on Xagobah, which is a beautiful planet. Lush, warm, full of life, full of plants, full of spores, the ecology is more crowded than Yanab-Uru but it has a beauty of it’s own. It’s more dangerous than Yanab-Uru too; there are as many vicious flora as fauna here it seems. But there is more than flora and fauna to deal with, there is also a rival who wants to get to and capture the droid brain Ero Rameeda wanted us to acquire from the old abandoned (by us non-droids anyway) CIS base. Still, this is better than Ryloth. At least it’s pretty.

We were preparing to leave Susevfi when Jek called all us newly minted Bounty Hunters together and asked if we could see what the latest information was on his bounty. Greegan and I agreed to go, Sigma Seven was eager but given attacks on Droids in and around Yumfaal, we elected to leave him at the Sunrise. We checked and while Shackler had reinstated the bounty, someone called the Juon Corporation had set it up. Greegan and I agreed this was odd. We were just leaving the guildhall when we got a message from Khayall to make haste to the ship…we had a rival for our trip to Xagobah, sent by the Hutt Queen Umber whose lackeys we had encountered and used to our advantage on Ryloth. We rushed back and the Yanab Sunrise took off almost immediately upon our arrival.

We reported our findings to Jek. He did not recognize the name Juon Corporation, though Khayall’s eyebrows rose visibly. The two exchanged a look which I can but assume meant that they would discuss it later with fewer Ithorians around, and the matter seemed momentarily settled. I went to help Elili set up the kitchen to her liking. Elili and I chatted…she had been the daughter of the owner of a restaurant, so she knew mostly Twi’lek recipes. She was eager to learn more, which is good I think. Not much else occurred on the trip, but I did notice Sigma Seven looking at paintings on the Holonet.

Which is weird.

While we were coming in, Sheela investigated the CIS base and found it very operational. Teeming with defenses, spider droids, turbolasers the whole nine yards. After doing her sweep she flew her V-19 back to us, and we entered the jungle together.

We arrived on Xagobah and suited up. Despite some of my well-placed hints, Aya decided to go out with us. I understand why she did, looking at a new planet and all. Xagobah is positively teeming with life too, even more like I say than Yanab-Uru. Jek went to lead the expedition. Khayall suited up in his clone trooper armor and Greegan got in his AT-RT Walker. We also took Aya, Sheela, Namri, Tycho, Lucky, and Cam. All of us wore breathing apparatus…well, Khayall and the clones had their armor with internal air so not an issue for them, but the rest of us did. Aya says she and I can probably do OK in the atmosphere but better to be safe than sorry. We set out, leaving the remaining clones watching the Sunrise.

As we set out, we noticed a lot of fauna and flora. I did not exaggerate when I say the place is covered in fungi, and heavy in plants. We saw a lot of small, winged creatures flying around. Sigma attempted to take pictures of several for reasons that could only have been his own. Aya took samples. Me, I had to keep an eye peeled for threats, and I had to keep us on route, which was difficult as at least initially Khayall kept arguing with me about what direction we were going. I don’t think I convinced him but the majority won out. Yay for mob rule. Before we got too far, I noticed some low hanging vines looked a bit different from others. This led me to notice the skeletal remains beneath. I sensed a trap, and the others completely concurred. While I favored firing on the tree from which the vines were coming, the decision the group came to was to have Namri use her small headed force powers to control her lightsaber and have it carve the vines out of our way. Not surprisingly, some displayed muscle effects consistent with severed limbs; I was correct. We cut our way through and pressed on.

That was the first of those trees but not the last. Raka said they were called cayhno trees and were fairly common. Don’t worry about who Raka is; I am getting there. Anyway we had been going…awhile…when a few of us heard movement, which glancing over was apparently a Republic Probe droid, a Prowler 1000 according to Greegan. I did not get a good look at it at the time, but Greegan assured me it did not come from the CIS command center…it was not a CIS model. Jek and Khayall surmised our rival had arrived. Of course, they were right.

We came to an area where some brightly colored spots in the ground looked wrong to me, and in examining them it turned out this was some other horrid plant which set it’s tendrils in the ground to spear and grab passersby. I examined it but for whatever reason Sigma was insistent we go around them, and began climbing an outcropping. I suggested Greegan use his walker, and he happily complied. The plants certainly tried to grab and coil on his AT-RT, but it was made of harder stuff, and they quickly retreated bloody from the path. Sigma, on the other hand, noted a hovercraft ahead, with three Salvage Droids, Greegan says P-100s, doing something Sigma guessed was laying mines. There was a lot of foliage between us and them, and Sigma had only lucked out, or perhaps been blessed by Mother Jungle, because he happened to climb the outcropping. We got confirmation they were hostile, and Sigma charged in and fired.

Now, I am slow. The fight was frankly pretty much over when I got there. When they came under fire, they attempted to retreat into the hovercraft but Namri used her Jedi powers to trap one outside. It had no means to fire back, and Sigma and the clones pretty much decimated it. The hovercraft flew off with the other two. I thought this time, surly, it was the Battle Droids, but Greegan cheerfully pointed out no, this was also not a CIS droid, and hooked some cables to Sigma to try to dig in it’s brain. It seemed odd to me, but then Greegan triumphantly announced he had hacked enough of the droid’s brain to get it’s master’s name, Zassh Kumida. Apparently Zassh was a Bounty Hunter but none of us knew or knew of them. Likes droids though. Once again, it was our antagonist, not the droid brain fighting us. Greegan walked fire across the ground to destroy the mines, and we moved on.

It was not too far away, past yet another cayhno tree that we found a valley full of odd worms. They were brightly colored, but were not so much hostile as carrying a nasty paralytic poison. We could simply avoid them but Greegan cheerfully noted that with so many a predator immune to their poison could show up.

Of course, then the beetles came.

A swarm of about six came down on us, attacking us and some of the worms. One attacked Namri, Khayall and Myself each. One was slain before it got to us, and one was gravely injured (and finished off by Aya) as well. The last attacked a worm. Good plan. I shot the one on Namri that she finished off, and Sheela shot the one attacking me. There was a lot of shouting from Khayall but he had a handle on his, I think…its hard to say as unfortunately then the droids showed up.

There were 3, each a small hover droid. Two were Prowlers like we had seen, the third, according to Greegan, was an ASN-121 Assassin Droid, which was kinda a floating gun with small wings for stabilizers. We returned fire, and the Prowlers were quickly destroyed. I badly damaged the Assassin Droid, but the others finished it off. I half noticed Sheela finish off the beetle that was trying to attack me sometime in there, but it was, I hate to say, kinda funny when the Assassin Droid dropped to see Khayall still struggling with the beetle he was fighting. Said beetle did not fare well under our full attention, fortunately, and Tycho finished it off.

Greegan was greedily examining the fallen Assassin Droid when we heard more movement in the bushes. This time, for once, it was not hostile. A small group of large eared primitive humanoids, Xamsters according to Jek, appeared, carrying several objects clearly scavenged from fallen droids or bases. Their leader, Raka Negak, did not speak the lingua franca, but Jek was able to communicate. Jek is smart. He figured out they sought to have the Battle Droids removed from their base so they could loot it. They knew about the republic and enquired if we were Republic, which Jek confirmed (why not?) and said we were out to dismantle the base. I missed the particulars, not speaking Xamster myself (I just got Rodian down) but they knew the patrol patterns on side entrances, so they could help us there. More tantalizing, however, was they knew a back way in, which was beneath the notice of the Battle Droids. It was, however, inhabited by insectoid creatures called a kien hive, which had a tree called a kien tree that served as the queen, or something like that. We could easily shoot down the tree from a distance, but the insects in the hive could still be a threat. Still, it was too tantalizing to turn down.

We are on our way there now. We have been talking to them and learning about them. Aya has been asking about the local flora and fauna. Those beetles are called ungua beetles, for instance. I have done this message since I can let the guard down a bit, but soon it will be time to move into the stronghold. I think we will