Doomsayer Session 01

10 April 2022: The PCs escape from the Jedi Temple aboard the Rogue Ronto after being entrusted with the artifact by the dying Firith Mobak.

Session 01 audio log

Previous: Doomsayer Session 0

Plot Summary
Opening crawl

After a long and mostly fruitless journey through the Jedi Temple, Efnir Kis found Nomi Amersu in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, having a serious conversation with Lilikai Singan. As soon as Efnir arrived and ominously proclaimed "IT'S HERE," an explosion blew the doors of the room off and clone troopers began streaming in, shooting every Jedi they saw. Lilikai, looking strangely resigned to the situation, told Nomi that she loved her and that Nomi should make sure Somi knew it too. Just before Force jumping over a railing and into the battle below, she told Nomi and Efnir to run, which they did.

Nawah Masin and Vic Dantor were waiting in separate conference rooms in the reception area of the temple. Nawah convinced a clerk that her urgent need to see Firith Mobak was more important than anyone else's business. The same clerk interrupted Vic while he was hacking the temple's computer system. She called for security, but before they arrived, grenade explosions and gunfire were heard nearby. Nawah and the clerk took cover behind a conference table while Vic sealed the door. Eventually the commotion seemed to pass, and the three of them emerged to find rubble blocking the path to the main door and the dead bodies of some other temple visitors. The clerk said she knew another way out of the building, and Nawah and Vic followed her.

Brawln, Somi Amersu, and Vesper Syl'tine were all outside the temple and hurrying back - Brawln to meet Firith with his own time-sensitive concern, Somi and Vesper to get to the class they were very late for after a night spent carousing. They found the main gate to the temple blocked off by a platoon of clone troopers who announced that "no one gets in and no one gets out", and that the Jedi were traitors to the Republic. Vesper recognized Brawln and got his attention, and the three of them agreed they all wanted to get inside the temple to find their contacts and/or friends and figure out what was going on. Vesper knew of a secret entrance that involved squeezing through a drainpipe that led into a droid maintenance closet, and guided the others through it (Brawln got stuck).

Rhen had spent the past few days in a cell in the detention center, waiting to be questioned. Smelling smoke and noticing that the cell block seemed abandoned, she escaped from her cell when the power to the force field across the door began to flicker. While trying to find an exit, she had to dodge a patrol of clone troopers and ended up in the same closet as Brawln, Somi, and Vesper (who told her in the Zabrak language not to be afraid of him). Rhen helped Somi and Vesper remove Brawln from the drainpipe and agreed to stick with them for the time being.

Efnir and Nomi ran into Nawah, Vic, and the clerk, and told them what had happened in the Room of a Thousand Fountains (which was where the clerk had been trying to lead Nawah and Vic). Efnir thought the group should go toward the hangars and look for a ship to escape in, while the clerk had other plans and went her own way. En route to the hangars, the group crossed paths with Brawln, Rhen, Somi, and Vesper. Various people in both groups recognized each other, and the Amersu sisters had a tearful reunion. (Somi: Do you know where Lilikai is? Efnir: Yes. [Incredibly long uncomfortable pause.]) Everyone agreed to follow Efnir's plan of finding a ship.

The PCs' path to the hangars took them through a mostly deserted wing of classrooms and offices. Vesper noticed movement inside one of the rooms and saw Firith Mobak staggering toward them unsteadily and then collapsing. Vic rushed to offer first aid using a medpac Efnir had found, but he quickly realized that Firith had been shot at least a dozen times and that there was no way he would survive his injuries. Looking around at the people he recognized (so, everyone except Vic and Rhen), Firith thrust a woven bag he was holding into Nawah's hands and spoke urgently and painfully:

"'Please...I need you to find Damasa Kovani and give her...Tell her she was right, about everything. It should have been Lilikai, but I don't know...I felt her...Please. Take my ship. Find Damasa. Give this to Damasa. She knows what to do. She can help you. Promise me you won't let this fall into the wrong hands. Promise me!'"

As soon as Nawah said "I promise," Firith seemed to relax. He mumbled something like "The Force brought you together," then sagged lifelessly to the ground and his body vanished. Vic was incredibly freaked out by this, while Efnir calmly stated, "He is one with the Force now." The bag contained an access card that Nomi recognized as corresponding to a ship in the north hangar, as well as a strange artifact. Before anyone could look very closely at these items, they were interrupted by a squadron of clone troopers intent on killing the Jedi in the party.

In the ensuing battle:
 * Brawln beat a clone trooper to death with his bare fists
 * Nawah killed two troopers with her pistol
 * Efnir used the Force to disarm some of the troopers and even managed to pass one of their rifles to Vic, who used it to kill a trooper
 * Vesper was badly wounded in the opening moments of the fight, but played dead and rolled onto one of the fallen rifles, which against all odds he succeeded at killing the sergeant with
 * Somi attacked a trooper with her training lightsaber, but something went very wrong and the saber was damaged. As the trooper was laughing at her, Nomi shot him dead with a concealed pistol no one knew she had (Somi included)
 * Rhen decapitated a clone trooper with her ichor blade
 * The two surviving clone troopers then fled, but Vic killed one as they ran, remembering what he had seen them to do so many innocents in the temple already

After looting a couple of rifles, the PCs hurried onward toward the hangar, since the sergeant had broadcast their whereabouts and description over his commlink before he died. Another squadron of clone troopers was stationed in the hangar, as well as a gunnery crew with an E-Web Repeating Blaster, blocking access to the ship. Vic improvised an explosive device out of quick-setting adhesive and had Vesper sneak over to plant it below the E-Web. However, Vic did not time the fuse correctly and Vesper was caught in the blast radius; he escaped, but without his shoes.

The PCs took advantage of the distraction to run aboard the ship. In the cockpit they found a powered-down droid crudely welded into an astromech droid socket, and activated it with the key card. As the droid powered up it said:

"'Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. The information I provide to you is for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please contact your attorney to obtain advice with regards to any particular legal matter. Master, how may I assist you?'"

Vesper spontaneously yelled for the droid to lay in a course for Kamparas, which it seemed eager to do ("Casual Observation: I've never plotted a hyperspace jump before. I hope I do well!"). Vic used his knowledge of Binary to assist the droid while Vesper, realizing the PCs needed to cover their tracks, tried to edit the ship's transponder codes to remove its association with the Jedi Order and rename it Rogue Ronto. On the way into orbit, a spaceport security officer hailed the ship and told them taking off from the Jedi Temple was currently forbidden and they needed to turn around and land again to submit to inspection. Thinking fast, Nomi told the officer they couldn't land the ship because the landing gear was broken, and fed her just enough technical details to make the explanation convincing until they could jump to hyperspace.

Now that the PCs were safe, they sat down in the cargo hold to introduce themselves and compare notes about what had just happened. Recently, many of the PCs had felt as though something bad was about to happen, but their warnings had not been heeded or believed. Rhen (who Efnir identified as a Nightsister) explained that the clone army had been created by the Sith to betray the Jedi, and that she had narrowly escaped from the Sith slaughter of her own people; she had gone to the Jedi to warn them but arrived too late. This also tied in with Vesper's claim that there had been a Sith spy on the Jedi Council - maybe it was Anakin Skywalker?:

Efnir: I think Master Skywalker was commanding the clone army to attack. Nomi: That doesn't seem possible. Anakin Skywalker is a war hero. Vic: ...To the Republic. [Awkward silence.]

Everyone settled in for the two-day journey to Kamparas, claiming their new bunks and trying to get some rest. On Kamparas they hoped to find supplies and to get more information about what had happened at the temple from the HoloNet, plus do whatever Vesper had been thinking when he guided them there in the first place. No matter what, for the time being it seemed as though they were going to need to rely on each other for survival.

Things to Remember

 * Vic's roll to hack the Jedi Temple's computers and retrieve files succeeded but generated 4 Threat (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
 * If by some miracle the nameless clerk from the temple survives the purge and turns up again, she should be considered Nawah's ally in the future (Nawah rolled Triumph)
 * See page for the artifact for details on what people learned about it
 * Vesper lost his shoes while disabling the E-Web and could not find replacements
 * Bothans apparently have hooves?

Next: Doomsayer Session 02