Born of Blood

SESSION: August 14th, 2013

CHARACTERS: Alistair, Douglas, Felicity

SETTING: The city of Lothar, Mars. The city bazaar, the professional district, the hotel district. Sky City, above Mars. The Jolly Roger. And, partially, the King of Nothing’s domain (formerly known as Never Never Land.)

Alistair and Felicity returned to the third floor, but they were unsure of what room their companions had rented. As they began knocking on doors, they saw Jacquotte exit a door further down, half-dressed (much to Felicity’s embarrassment) and with sword in hand.

She yelled to them that Douglas had been abducted and they told her they already knew, which led to a brief, but uncomfortable discussion.

Felicity told Alistair to focus on Doug, to use his watch as a focus, and his did so. With their minds linked together (Felicity, being inebriated from her drink, was not able to do it on her own), and using Jarvis as well, they were able to home in on Douglas, who was being transported through the city streets.

A madcap chase ensued, but in time, they caught up with the signal – it seemed that Doug was in the back of a wagon drawn by horse-like creatures, steered by a Green Martian.

As Alistair, Felicity and Jacquotte hurried to catch up with the wagon, inexplicably, a White Martian appeared in the street. What few pedestrians there were (the wagon had exited the bazaar before they caught up with it and had entered a less crowded part of the city) quickly moved away.

Jacquotte and Felicity leapt to action, the pirate moving forward, running her sword through the alien’s gut. Felicity fired an EMP projectile at the Martian, delivering a debilitating shock to it. As the Martian fell, Jacquotte pulled her sword out and, placing the tip under it’s chin, rammed the blade home, delivering a coup de grace.

Alistair ran forward, leaping onto the back of the wagon and grabbed the driver from behind, holding Fragarach at the Martian’s throat, demanding he let their friend go free.

However, the Martian had no idea of what the Irishman was speaking of. He dragged the driver off the cart and had him open the wagon, revealing an unconscious, naked (again, a source of much embarrassment for Felicity) Douglas within. They pulled him out, upon which he began to waken.

The Martian protested, saying he had no idea there was anyone within – it seemed quite obvious that the driver was telling the truth, and knowing of the Blue Martians’ claims of mental magic, they decided to let him go.

Douglas woke and dressed and they brought him up to speed on what had happened. (At this time, Felicity found herself in contact with the King of Nothing, who was overjoyed that they’d rescued his “shadow knight” from the Blue Martians. She engaged in an argument with him, but cut it off for the time being.)

As time was tight, they decided to head back to the shuttle bay to catch the next skiff to Sky City, and the safety of the Jolly Roger.

Back on the ship, Bill was rather upset with them for returning without the captain, but saved most of his displeasure for Jacquotte. None of the other crew seemed to find it odd that a crewman was able to chastise an officer of the ship, but that was the nature of the position and respect that Bill Jukes held on the ship.

Jacquotte was tasked with returning to Lothar on the next skiff (They ran every six hours) and she asked Alistair, Doug and Felicity to accompany her – all three agreed.

During the wait, Felicity reached out to the King of Nothing. She wanted to know why he was so glad that Douglas was safe from the Blue Martians, He again claimed that Doug was “my shadow knight” and Alistair was his “assassin”.

They bantered, and Felicity asked what she could gain if she offered him what he wanted – Douglas. The King asked what she wanted and she asked if he could cure Alistair, and he said that he could. She asked if that would be a trade he was interested in, and he didn’t answer. She told him to consider it.

Breaking their connection, Felicity went to Douglas. She told him of the offer that the King of Nothing was considering and told him, “Make me want to keep you around.” She explained that she was tired of being treated as less than equal by Doug.

Doug tried to explain that he was only trying to look out for her, protect her – though it seemed obvious that some of his views, values were less than fair to Felicity. The conversation ended with Felicity reinforcing that she deserved to be treated as an equal.

Taking the skiff back to Lothar, they returned to the hotel, they found Captain Hook and his daughter, Cascadia, and her bodyguard, Caliban, were there. There was a good deal of bringing everyone up to date on what had transpired. Upon hearing of the attempted abduction of Douglas, the captain said that it seemed the priority was to discover why the Blue Martians were after him.

He instructed them to find a Blue Martian and bring them back for interrogation, saying that since they were all linked together, it should be easy enough to find the truth from any one of them.

Using Jarvis to tap into the Blue Martians’ psychic network, Felicity was able to locate one in the hotel, on the same floor as the captain’s rooms. They broke into her room and, using the threat of violence to her, kept her Red Martian bodyguard at bay, while they interrogated her about the attempt to capture Douglas.

In short, since they had learned of the King of Nothing, the Blue Martians had been working to find a way to keep the King of Nothing from expanding his interest to Mars. They had decided to introduce a “psychic virus” into the Folk to wipe them out, taking away the King of Nothing’s brutish force, if not actually strike directly at the King himself.

It was the Blue Martians, in fact, who had sent the asteroid to attack the pirate ship. They had taken the Folk member, killing him in the attack, as they needed the body to help engineer their attack.

Doug offered to give the Blue Martians one of the Folk for their purposes, but Felicity argued against this. She asked if there was some other way – for the Blue Martians’ way would wipe out all the Folk, including those infected but not fully transformed yet.

The Blue Martians said they would not have time, but would take her suggestions of trying to find a way into consideration.

The conversation over, it was agreed that it would be best for everyone to return to the Jolly Roger, and they did.


