Chirpers on Board

After the plot skipping events of last session, the Deepnight Revelation jumps to the system of Orasu, coming out of jump a safe distance away from the star’s jump mask, and a good distance from the planet. It was a small star, so the planets were close and within the stellar jump mask.

Not that they were paranoid or anything, but they still had 3 parsecs worth of fuel, and had positioned themselves so they could easily jump quickly to another star system if anything went bad.

After sending a message of greetings, the Deepnight gets back a response in Oynprith asking for their identity and reason for being here. They explain that they are a scientific vessel on a voyage of exploration. In response, they are told to wait.

Shortly thereafter, a vessel that is heading in-system from the outer belt, and vaguely past the Deepnight (it will come within five million kilometres), drops off a shuttle which begins a harder deceleration burn, and changes its vector to intercept the Deepnight. It’ll be eight hours before they meet.

As usual there is a discussion about parasites and infections from a new culture, and a welcome party is prepared. Surprisingly, the Priestess Talliena comes out of her quarters (with her pet rock), and wants to meet the Droyne.

The shuttle docks with the Deepnight, and three old looking Droyne step off, stumbling a bit as they do. Greetings are said as they are welcomed aboard. There is some confusion since someone on the bridge is telling the security detail to keep control of the ‘children’. However, there are no children…

Eventually Zanobia spots something out of the corner of her eye – Prietess Talliena talking to something that is not there. The Droyne are not alone – they have chirpers with them. Chirpers are a smaller, less intelligent and uncasted form of Droyne. They are also known to have the psionic abilities to allow them to go completely unnoticed.

The players mention Moties, not something that had at all occurred to me when thinking about the adventure earlier in the day. Honest. Not a single thought of small creatures running around the ship pulling it apart to see how it worked….

The Droyne look old – but also not. They don’t seem fully developed, but their bodies show signs that they are getting towards the end of their lives. Zanobia asks about the ‘uncasted ones’ – indicating the chirpers, but this seems to upset the Droyne, who eventually admit that they themselves are uncasted. It’s a sore topic with them, but they haven’t been able to cast for a long time.

The conversation gets around to talking about destinations, and when told that the Deepnight is heading towards the Rim, the Droyne get fearful. They say that at the Rim dwells the End of Life, which waits beyond time. The Droyne do not know of the expedition of the Tressvuess – the Droyne science vessel which made the same journey as the Deepnight 300,000 years ago.

Most of the Chirpers are found, including one that got into a maintenance hatch. They might be some that were missed. An award is offered to anyone who is able to hunt down and retrieve any Chirpers that might be still missing.

The crew are invited down to the planet, where they get to meet with the world’s leaders. It seems that the Droyne here have tried to keep their society secret. There are dangers out there – not just the End of All Life, but also the humans that are to Coreward, as well as the Droyne that have become “like humans”.

The Droyne want to stay secret, so the Deepnight is a threat to them in that regard, but they decide that trying to destroy the Deepnight would probably be worse an idea than allowing them to go as friends. Information is shared, including the Deepnight providing them with their standard “how to build a TL 12 civilisation from scratch” multi-volume series that they have now had many years to improve upon.

The Droyne, though they are descended from the Ancients, lost the ability to Caste many generations ago. When they reach adolescence, their bodies begin to age rather than growing into one of the standard roles a Droyne is meant to grow into. Some have tried to re-create the Casting process, but it always goes wrong. Such attempts are now outlawed because the costs are too high.

The Priestess, who was raised in a society that worshipped the Droyne and their machines, decides to stay on this world (along with her rock). She seems to think that she can help them.

The Droyne do know of the Biologicals, but the Biologicals have never come here. Thinking that there may be something special about the Droyne’s jump drives, the crew ask them to demonstrate one. The idea is to try and tune their own drives to match the signature of a Droyne jump drive, so that the Biologicals won’t attack them.

From here, the Deepnight will try to get back on track heading Rimward.