Worm Catchers
The Travellers in our Milieu Zero campaign arrive at the Vlaakier system. The main world is a large water world with a dense atmosphere and 100km deep oceans. They come out of jump near to a gas giant, where they refuel before heading into the system. This saves them some money, but adds several days to their journey.
Vlaakier itself has a B class star port, which is mostly in the high port. The world below has small floating cities, with no great places for landing spacecraft. Some craft are heading down to the surface in order to refuel from the ocean – several Cormorants (small 100t traders, designed for floating on water) and even a Moray Star Boats (larger 200t craft, designed for going under water) with a holographic hull.
The Big S docks with the highport, and they begin offloading trade goods and start looking for brokers to sell them stuff. Or at least Irian does – the rest of the Travellers aren’t that interested in trade. Their expenses are being paid for by their patron, KGG Corp, so they don’t feel the need to mess around with trade and passengers. Irian thinks that extra cash will help them with supplies and buying extras.
Walking out onto the concourse of the station, they notice that it seems somewhat underpopulated. There aren’t many visitors given the size of the station, and a lot of the shops are closed. Large advertising billboards advertise places to go on the planet’s surface (mostly restaurants and night clubs), plus there is a huge infomercial by One Nation, a political organisation trying to persuade the various city states to unify and form a single world government.
A visit to the burger bars reveals that most of the food is derived from seafood. There is a tourist information booth, though the person manning it doesn’t seem that engaged in their job. Dr Durunarar came here looking for specimens of the giant worms that live in the ocean, and he is pointed to Ocean Research, a research organisation that works down on the planet. They also have a office in the station.
This session was pretty much driven by the players. Other than the plot of “the university is wanting worm specimens”, there really wasn’t much going on here except for what the player’s made of it. We ended up filling the entire session though, since the players found stuff to do.
A visit to one of the star port bars (somewhat quiet, but there were enough people to chat with) got some beers and rumours. Recently, a starship had tried to reach the bottom of the ocean, but hadn’t been heard from since. There were also rumours back from Sylea, about plans to build a giant spire to house the Imperial Moot in. There is talk of politics as well. Some of the guests are supports of One Nation, that is calling for the nobility and other wealth-havers to support the lower classes, though patronage and conspicuous consumption. It is the job of the upper classes to provide, and for the lower classes to work in order to get a fully functioning society.
I think I used the name One Nation because it’s trying to unify the planet. There is also (amongst others) the concept of One-nation conservatism, which the early British conservative party argued for. So I mixed in a bit of this. Irian, being a rich noble, really didn’t like the idea.
After the bar, they find a hotel, which is relatively cheap because of the lack of demand. After baths and pedicures, they head up to find Ocean Research. It is staffed by Dr Jarin Eraten, who is happy to tell them about Ocean Research, and ask for donations.
There are worms down in the oceans, though their life cycle isn’t understood. They spend a lot of time down at around 40km deep, where the marine snow stops sinking as it matches the water density. Whether they breed down there isn’t known. They also come up to much closer to the surface to feed around the warm columns of water that rise from thermal vents.
The longest worm ever recorded was 1,183m long. They are generally only a few centimetres wide – the thickest may be as wide as a wrist. Apparently they have identified 27 different species, and have no idea how they breed, or very much about their lives at all.
So time is spent talking science. The Travellers are told that Ocean Research is based down on the surface, at the ship Big Yellow Tent, in the city of Big Steamer. The world has an odd naming convention. Other major cities are Shoal Thing, Unicorn Farm and Deeping Gate. The research there is run by Lara Gray.
So the next day they head down to the planet, and locate the Big Yellow Tent. It is a big 200m long ship, and it is yellow. It’s a typical ocean research ship, strapped to the side of other ships, which are strapped to other ships, and so on until you have a single ‘city’. Ships are free to leave and join cities, so the cities vary in size and shape all the time.
Lara Gray is happy to talk worms to Dr Durunarar, especially when he mentions that Sylea University is willing to pay. They work out details on how to share the money, and Miss Gray puts in motion plans to go down and try and catch a worm.
Whilst that is happening, the others get involved in a diving adventure, grabbing wet suits and swimming beneath the city. Dr Durunarar doesn’t like swimming, so goes down in the pressure vehicle. Way down. Many kilometres down.
Eventually they catch a worm – one over 500m in length, as well as a couple of much smaller ones. This should fetch them about Cr65,000 from the library – half to be forwarded to Ocean Research.
They bring the big bio tanks down from the Big S, sink them into the water, and fold up the worms into the tanks before enabling the cold sleep option.
After that, it’s back up to the ship and to prepare to head on to their next destination in their Shakedown Cruise.
This will be the world of Iirkkhu, where a civil war is raging and they have been given some military weapons and vehicles to sell.
As I mentioned earlier, this was a side mission that was going to be as complicated as the player’s made it. I didn’t much much planned out, other than a few bits of background. I think it went okay, and the players came up with things that they wanted to do. I’m hoping for the chance of a bit more action at the next world, though again I’m beginning to move away from defined plots and more towards given the players the job of deciding exactly what they want to do in order to achieve their goals.
Once they’ve finished the shakedown cruise, and are off to explore the big unknown, most of what happens will be down to them, so I’m trying to ease them into that for these last few worlds.
