Doomsayer Session 04

15 May 2022: The PCs explore the Mirror's ship and intercept a message from Tia Ba, a Kaminoan geneticist who claims to have created him. They are also tasked with getting a Separatist engineer and her family safely off Nar Shaddaa.

Session 04 audio log

Previous: Doomsayer Session 03

Plot Summary
The PCs (minus Somi Amersu and Efnir Kis, who stayed on the ship engaging in deeply meditative contemplation) left Lorn's apartment and went directly to his place of employment, a shadowport known as the Retreat. The Retreat was concealed on the underside of a large environmental processing plant, and the only easy way to access the ships docked there was through a single entrance monitored by an attentive guard. The PCs told the guard about Lorn's freak-out at the Lucky Kiss Casino, showed off Brawln's bounty hunting certification, and said they'd come to look for Lorn at Korrda the Hutt's request. Persuaded, the guard gave them access; Vic Dantor stayed at the security desk with him to keep him busy while the others began to search.

The PCs easily found Lorn's locker and a datapad that said his most recent assignment had been refueling a Firespray patrol boat with the evocative name of Stop Looking at Me or I'll Tear Your Eyes Out. They made their way to the ship's berth, and Vesper Syl'tine overrode the locks and deactivated a security alarm. Vesper, Brawln, and Nomi Amersu then entered the ship while Nawah Masin and Rhen stood watch outside.

Every surface on the inside of the Firespray was covered in shards of broken mirrors, making for a very disorienting environment (as well as making it pretty obvious that this ship belonged to the Mirror). The PCs blundered into a tripwire which dumped a massive amount of scrap metal and engine parts onto them from a net affixed to the ceiling, hurting both Brawln and Vesper. As they approached the ship's cockpit, they tripped another sensor which released a swarm of small, hovering droids armed with cutting torches and saws. Some of these drones attacked Brawln, Nomi, and Vesper in the cockpit, while others flew out the hatch to target Nawah and Rhen.

While Nawah and Rhen made fairly short work of the drones outside (with a little help from Vic, who took control of a cargo loading arm and knocked some drones to their doom over the side of the docking platform), Brawln and Vesper were both badly injured due to the difficulty of fighting in a disorienting, confined space. Hearing the commotion inside the ship, Nawah ran in to help and was also quickly incapacitated. Realizing that things were going badly, Vic alerted the security guard to the chaos and got him and the Retreat's patrol droids to draw out and finish off the remaining drones. Vic told the others to find what they came for as quickly as they could.

Brawln and Nomi, who were the only two people still conscious in the cockpit, looked around but didn't turn up much apart from the real Lorn's corpse shoved underneath a workbench - until they realized someone was hailing the ship on its long-rage commlink. They listened in on a message being left by a strange-looking long-necked being who urged someone named "CT-09X" to make contact with them, saying "It's not too late for us to fix what went wrong if you'll only let me help you." Brawln and Nomi made a note of this being's contact information, then revived Nawah and Vesper with stimpacks and fled back to Rogue Ronto before the security guard could give Korrda a call.

Back at the ship, the PCs described the being they'd seen to 3D6. It identified the being as a Kaminoan, a rarely seen and isolationist species renowned for their knowledge of medicine and genetics. Rhen and others also pointed out that "CT-09X" sounded like a designation given to a clone trooper. All of this made the PCs want to return the Kaminoan's call and see what they could learn, but it seemed like this wasn't a good time to pursue it since they knew they all had to report to Milla Cardon in the morning to complete the task they owed her.

When morning dawned, the PCs reported to Milla and received their assignment: escorting a family of Sullustans from their apartment to a hangar where they'd be boarding a private transport off Nar Shaddaa. This absolutely seemed like overkill, which induced Vic to look the family up to make sure they weren't up to something nefarious. While they didn't appear to have a criminal history, Vic's Separatist contacts revealed that the family matriarch, Mar Mayen, was well known as a Separatist droid engineer whose piloting algorithms had once been found in most Separatist fighter squadrons. Upon discovering this, the PCs planned a route from the apartment to the hangar that would keep them away from populated areas.

The PCs met Mayen and her family, and things began smoothly. But as the PCs approached the hangar bays, they saw that a group of soldiers in Republic uniforms (so, personnel of the newly formed Empire) had set up a checkpoint at a bottleneck in the corridor. Nomi used Rogue Ronto's credentials to get through alone and see what was on the other side. Not finding a readily accessible back way around, she told the others to take the Mar family back to Rogue Ronto and have the ship fly them around to dock. In the meantime, Nomi made contact with the transport pilot and convinced him to wait, then whipped up a Separatist-hunting mob to keep the Imperials distracted. Thanks to some deft flying by 3D6, Rogue Ronto then made a perfectly timed landing and delivered the Mar family to safety, much to Mayen's gratitude.

With their obligation to Milla fulfilled, the PCs briefly considered leaving Nar Shaddaa, but decided to stay at least long enough to reach out to the Kaminoan who had left the message for the Mirror. They found an establishment offering an anonymous HoloNet relay and called the number. The Kaminoan seemed surprised to hear back from someone other than the Mirror, but agreed to talk. She introduced herself as Tia Ba and told the PCs the following:
 * Tia Ba was a geneticist assigned to perform experimental cloning projects for the Grand Army of the Republic. She said Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas had given her these orders, acting on behalf of the Jedi Council, but she also said it had been well over a decade since she had any direct contact with Sifo-Dyas. The PCs got the sense that she had been working without real supervision for a long time.
 * Tia Ba's main scientific pursuit was the creation of a specialized clone trooper capable of hunting down Jedi who fell to the dark side. By splicing clone trooper genes with genetic material from other species with natural abilities related to camouflage and disguise, she created CT-09X - better known to the PCs as the Mirror.
 * Five years ago, CT-09X was sent on his first mission, hunting down a fallen Force user. He never returned from this mission, and Tia Ba eventually realized that he had snapped and become the Mirror. Ever since, she has been sending bounty hunters and tracking droids after him without success. Tia Ba was clearly proud of her creation and displayed a strange affection for him, and wanted him to be returned to her alive so she could try to fix whatever had gone wrong with him.
 * There had been no intentional attempt to give CT-09X Force abilities; indeed, Tia Ba believed it was impossible for any clone to use the Force.

Tia Ba asked the PCs if they would capture the Mirror and bring him to her in one piece; the PCs said they would do their best if she could give them any leads on how to find him. She told them that the Mirror was relatively old for a clone, so due to his accelerated aging he would likely need to seek regular medical care to stay in fighting shape. She also said she would consult her records of the Mirror's creation and inform them of anything relevant she found. Tia Ba was evasive about her current location, saying only that it was "unstable" and she might not be able to stay there for long. If the PCs did manage to capture the Mirror, she would arrange for a neutral location where they could bring him.

Back at Rogue Ronto, Vesper had a message from his sister Jari, saying that everyone in their family had been assuming he was dead and that if he didn't tell their parents he was alive, she would do it for him. Vesper's response was to call his dad and leave the shortest possible anonymous message. Ori Dantor also made contact with Vic to reassure him that the rest of Vic's family was safe in the wake of the Separatists' defeat, and that Ori was working to make sure they would stay that way. Vic took this opportunity to send his stolen files to Ori and ask for Ori's help in decrypting them. The PCs then spent the rest of the day resting, recovering, and waiting for word from Tia Ba.

Things to Remember

 * The security officer from the Retreat is definitely going to tell Korrda the Hutt about what the PCs did there (Vic rolled Despair on a Deception roll)
 * Brawln will remember a key piece of information from the interior of the Mirror's ship later (4 Advantage on Perception roll)
 * Ori is working on decrypting Vic's stolen files; this will happen at the speed of plot
 * It is now my official headcanon that the Mirror's ship got its name because the Mirror does not understand how speech to text works

Next: Doomsayer Session 05