Doomsayer Session 19

22 October 2022: The PCs arrive at the Citadel, only to walk into a trap set by Seth Iscandar. In the ensuing chaos, they face deadly foes, achieve important objectives, and experience a wrenching betrayal.

Session 19 audio log

Previous: Doomsayer Session 18

Plot Summary
The PCs landed their stolen shuttle in the wilderness on Ord Mantell and continued with their plan. They stripped the six unconscious stormtroopers of their weapons and gear and dumped them in the woods, then put on the armor and their other disguises and recorded themselves boarding the shuttle to be used to misdirect the Imperials later. Since Lilikai Singan was needed to fly the shuttle while Vic Dantor was still programming the load lifter droid to take over later, they concealed her starfighter beneath some brush so they could come back for it later. The PCs and Lilikai loaded all of their gear into the shuttle and gave 3D6 a directive to go ahead of them and wait with Rogue Ronto in the Lola Sayu system until receiving the go-ahead from Vic to come and pick everyone up. En route to the Citadel, Vic successfully programmed the droid while Vesper Syl'tine hacked into the shuttle's computers to get ahold of necessary access codes. The computers held little of value (in fact, the shuttle and its original inhabitants all appeared to have traveled curiously lightly), but Vesper did retrieve some flight plans that he thought might be of interest to the Bothan spynet later.

As for Iscandar, Nomi Amersu found a stash of sedatives in a stormtrooper's locker aboard the shuttle and used them to keep him unconscious for most of the journey to the Citadel while she recorded him on the holographic disguise matrix. Toward the end of the trip she let him come out of sedation and tried to get him to talk about the Citadel's capabilities and defenses by adopting his image and making him think she was a hallucination. Iscandar talked quite a lot about various policies and procedures around the Citadel, and also claimed there were no protocols in place to deal with an infiltration as the Empire did not believe this was possible. (GM's note: this Deception roll gave us both Triumph and Despair and we spent a long and entertaining time figuring out what that meant!)

After Nomi was done talking to Iscandar, Nawah Masin took over and tried to interrogate him about why he erroneously believed her to be a Force user. Iscandar's training kicked in at this point and Nawah didn't get much useful information out of him. However, as she was leaving the room, she thought she heard him mutter under his breath as if to himself, "She doesn't even know her teacher was a Sith Lord."

Right on time, the PCs arrived at the Citadel. They could see that it was even more badly damaged than Lilikai had thought, with huge portions of it having fallen into lava already. Their access codes were accepted and they landed in the only accessible hangar. Right away they were met by an officer Nomi knew as Captain Olphen, the second-in-command who had been overseeing matters in Iscandar's absence. Nomi-as-Iscandar said she would be taking Nawah and her associates to the nearest cell block to be processed, and also ordered him to bring Sekar Mirah to one of these cells for further interrogation. Olphen complied, but asked Nomi-as-Iscandar whether he might not want to leave this to his subordinates so that he could deal with "more pressing matters." Nomi had no idea what Olphen was talking about but decided to play along. She walked off in a random direction with Vic (as the bounty hunter) and Rhen (as a stormtrooper) in tow. Brawln, Efnir Kis, Nawah, Somi Amersu, and Vesper, all in their respective roles and disguises and dragging the real (sedated) Iscandar along with them, let Olphen and two of his troopers lead them to the cells. Lilikai took the opportunity to blend in and slip away on her own so she could create a distraction later if needed.

The internal corridors of the Citadel were identical, unlabeled, and deliberately confusing; even Olphen needed a tablet to tell him where to go. Nawah did her best to memorize the route back to the hangar as they walked. Olphen directed the PCs through a door he said led to a cell block, only for it to close and seal shut behind them. Caustic gas began to pour out of vents in the upper corners of the room, and the PCs realized they'd walked into a trap. Efnir tried to push the door open with the Force, but only succeeded in warping it inside the frame. As gas filled the room, Vesper looked through the walls with his Force sight to find a safe adjoining storeroom, Somi used her lightsaber to cut through the wall to let the group into it, and Nawah shot out the security cameras to cover their tracks. Brawln and Efnir then shoved the cut section of the wall back into place to keep the gas out for a little while.

As the others shoved Iscandar into a crate, Vesper tried to get into the Citadel's computers and figure out what was going on. As soon as he tried to use Iscandar's credentials for anything he was met with an impassible block. It appeared that Iscandar had set up a dead man's switch before departing for Ord Mantell which would lock him out and raise an alarm if he failed to log in to the system within a certain time frame. Clearly he had lied about the lack of countermeasures, and Nomi was now in serious danger...

Meanwhile, Nomi whispered to Vic to lead her toward Sekar Mirah's cellblock, since she had no idea where Olphen really meant for Iscandar to go but Vic had been able to narrow its location down through his knowledge of Separatist facilities combined with the now-inaccessible sections of the Citadel. Partway there she was stopped by a woman in an Imperial uniform who called Iscandar "darling" and tried to kiss him. Nomi-as-Iscandar rebuffed her, claiming to be in a hurry. The woman took this in stride but then asked Nomi a very specific and technical question for which she had no response. Nomi-as-Iscandar tried to simply walk away, at which the woman said something into her commlink. Stormtroopers burst out from neighboring rooms as blast doors on either end of the corridor began to close. Nomi, Rhen, and Vic made a run for it in the direction of the cellblock, with Rhen holding the closing door up to give the others more time to get under it. As the door closed Nomi overheard the woman saying into her commlink, "They're on the run. Implement the Warden Protocol."

Alarms began to blare as the other PCs emerged from the storeroom. Because they didn't know where Vic was, they chased down Olphen and his stormtroopers and stole the captain's tablet as a navigational aid. The hallways of the Citadel had become strangely deserted, and before long the two groups ran into each other again in a run-down hallway with flickering lights. After checking in with Lilikai, warning her of the change in circumstances, and asking her to make a distraction, they continued on their way. As they approached the cell block they were met by a group of four people who blocked their way: a man in a dark cloak who Rhen recognized as the person she and Sekar Mirah had fought on Coruscant, a female Lasat wielding a vibroknife who seemed eager for a fight, Castus (the Umbaran crime lord the PCs had turned over to Iscandar on Corellia), and Sekar Mirah. Castus had a hand on Sekar Mirah's shoulder and was whispering in her ear, and when she noticed Rhen her face twisted in rage as she drew her energy bow, screaming, "Die, traitor!" The man in the cloak ignited a red-bladed lightsaber, and a battle began.

Immediately, Efnir yanked the cloaked man's lightsaber away using the Force. Rhen shouted for the others to kill Castus as she shot him with an ichor ball. However, the ichor ball banked off a wall and grazed a damaged control panel on its way. Suddenly, a magnet above them activated, causing most of the PCs (and their antagonists) to lose their weapons and sticking Nomi, Vesper, and Vic (all of whom were wearing metallic armor or other items) to the ceiling as well. From his spot on the ceiling, Vesper used his stolen datapad (and the backdoor he had installed while accessing the Citadel's computer system earlier) to override the magnet, but he, Nomi, and Vic were all injured by the resulting fall. Sekar Mirah, in turn, shot Rhen and caused one of her old wounds to reopen again (GM's note: this was a crit, and the player rolled the exact same result on the critical injury chart as the one he had literally just finished healing the session before). The cloaked man, absent a weapon, launched a blast of Force lightning at both Efnir and Nawah (who had just shot him with her blaster after retrieving it). Meanwhile, the female Lasat began to grapple with Brawln while excitedly say, "Ooh, I've always wanted to fight a Wookiee!" The remaining PCs took Rhen's request to heart, so much so that Castus didn't even get a chance to act before falling. Sekar Mirah seemed to emerge from a trance and, upon recognizing Rhen in front of her, stepped forward and kissed Rhen passionately before saying, "We need to leave, now."

The cloaked man ducked around a corner and shot a lightning bolt again - not at the PCs, but at the control panel on the wall. A blast door began to close, with some of the PCs on either side of it (and the cloaked man on the side they wanted to be on to escape). As the PCs began to hurry through the closing door, the Lasat gripped a sensitive spot on Brawln's neck that abruptly rendered him unconscious (GM's note: 2 Triumph!). He collapsed on top of HC-7, crushing the droid's body and causing its (vociferously objecting) head to pop off and roll under the blast door. Efnir floated Brawln under the door with the Force while Nawah retrieved HC-7's body. Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Somi saw her opening and laid into the cloaked man with her lightsaber, swiftly cutting him down. The Lasat, seeing that the tide had turned, fled in the opposite direction and the PCs let her go.

The PCs looked under the cloaked man's hood and saw that he was a human man whose features had been twisted by the dark side, not recognized by anyone in the group. They chose to leave both him and Castus for dead. Vesper and Vic found a computer access port and worked together with the data breaker to hack into Citadel's systems. Without much difficulty they achieved their objectives: uploading the fake video and giving the droid the signal to take off, blinding the sensors around the exhaust port, and even finding a document in Iscandar's stolen Jedi Temple files that gave the location of Sura Sindo and overwriting it with false information. (According to this file, the Jedi Order had a standing directive to send a Jedi Knight to Sura Sindo once every 50 years, for reasons unknown.)

The floor beneath the PCs' feet rumbled as they made for the exhaust port; it seemed like the Citadel was losing its stability. The PCs tried to contact Lilikai on their commlinks but received no response. 3D6 contacted Vic to say it was on the way to the rendezvous point, and that it looked like the Imperials had called for backup and were also evacuating the facility. It urged them to hurry before the reinforcements arrived and to make their escape in the chaos of the evacuation.

As Brawln began to regain consciousness he found HC-7's severed head on his chest, babbling about what had happened. One of the things HC-7 said was that he had heard the escaping Lasat saying something in her native language about how "the First Sister" would now be on her way. None of the PCs recognized this name. As they approached the pickup point, Vesper sensed Lilikai approaching from an adjacent duct and greeted her happily as she arrived. HC-7 called out, "Oh, Master Singan, I'm so happy to see you! We've been told someone called the First Sister is on her way!"

Lilikai stepped forward, between the PCs and the exit, with a slight smile on her face. "That's right," she said. "The First Sister is here." She drew her lightsaber and ignited it, displaying red blade, and spoke to the PCs (but particularly to the Amersu sisters):

"Nomi. Somi. You proved yourselves today, even if you didn't know it. By defeating the Warden and his allies, you've shown Major Iscandar and the one who calls himself my master that my methods are superior. A chained brute, kept in a box until pointed at a target, will never prevail. Real apprentices, raised with love, are stronger, more resourceful. So from now on, I get to decide who's worth saving, and how. I get to be the one to keep all of you safe.

"When the wind blows, in the heart of the storm, the tallest trees topple. But the grass bends. A Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But there are times when the flow runs toward the dark. If our destiny is already written, if this is the future the Force has chosen for us…who are we to oppose it? Why stand tall in doomed arrogance when instead, by bending in the winds, we might survive? Please. Hide with me in the shadows for a while. In a great darkness, a little grey can go unnoticed. Come with me and let me protect you, so all of us can live."

Nomi tried to persuade Lilikai to let the PCs go by saying she knew that all of this was part of a larger plan because Lilikai was "the ultimate spy," and that if she let them go they could help her keep everyone safe in their own way. Lilikai seemed to contemplate this but quickly discarded it, saying the risks to all of them were too high if she went along with Nomi's plan. Somi then interjected to say she thought it was better if she and Lilikai went their separate ways as master and student. Lilikai became very still, said "So be it," and attacked Somi. Somi partially parried the first strike with her own lightsaber, but the second blade of Lilikai's saber caught her in the face and she fell (GM's note: 3 successes, 3 advantage, and triumph was bad news for everyone involved in this). Lilikai looked horrified, then turned to Nomi and said, "I am so proud of you," before Force jumping away from the group out the exhaust port.

The PCs picked up Somi and took her directly to Rogue Ronto and its bacta tank. 3D6 asked the PCs for a destination, and Nomi told it to take them back to Nar Shaddaa. 3D6 dodged various Imperial ships and jumped to hyperspace just as a Star Destroyer entered orbit around Lola Sayu. The PCs (plus Sekar Mirah) were left with four days' travel to process everything that had just happened.

Things to Remember

 * Lots of Advantage were rolled while using the data breaker on the Citadel's systems. It may have downloaded information that could be randomly useful in the future.
 * Nawah's mentor was secretly two Jawas in a trenchcoat, one good and one evil. Whichever one got to be Top Jawa directed her lessons for that day.

Next: Doomsayer Session 20