Last night we began our trek into Thirsty Sword Lesbians! Well, that's not quite accurate. We really began it a couple of weeks ago when we did session 0, but I didn't do a write-up about that.
Anyway! Our community is NEBULA, basically made of the refugees from the six planets that make up that acronym (Nero, Earth, Boultus, U?, L?, and Andromeda - we haven't named U or L yet, but it'll come up in play at some point). There are millions of people who have been displaced from those world (though all of them still have some population), many living on host planets.
The host planets include Dyson (a series of stratified land masses; one of the leaders, Asia of the Land Beneath, has done a great deal of work helping relocate NEBULA refugees). Also Kieron, which includes a Hidden Garden that is, they say, slightly out of phase with the rest of the universe - you have to have some secret knowledge or condition to enter it.
But the NEBULA has its issues. There's a lack of consensus on how best to proceed, and a lack of communication between branches and factions. For example, one John Greenberg of Sussex wants to create New Sussex somewhere, and advocates terraforming and even colonization to achieve it. And he's approachable and charismatic, too, so he's got supporters.
On the whole, though, NEBULA is good people...unlike our Toxic Powers.
First, there's the Warden. The Warden is a huge...civilization? It's hard to know. The face of the Warden is Erroll, and Erroll might be an AI or a robot or a series of clones. It's how the Warden communicates. The Warden collectively sucks the natural resources and life off of planets, making them (almost) unfit for habitation, but then arranges to get the native populations off the planet and take them along - and life becomes easy and safe. So the Warden grows into this big mass of ships, always searching for more planets to suck dry.
And in their wake, our other Toxic Power, the Circus. The Circus is a hodge-podge civilization that has formed in the Warden's wake. They're nihilistic, starved for entertainment, and violent. They arrange fights to the death in the Patchwork Ring, a huge amphitheater built into an asteroid. The Circus doesn't really have a leader per se, but their emcee and spokesman is Dancing Bear, a colorful and flamboyant Grandmaster-type person.
And into all of this, we have our characters:
- Hedera, the Nature Witch. Hedera is from Artemisia, one of the host planets (but I'll bet the Warden has been eyeing it hungrily). Hedera's people live in concert with the land and the creatures (and plants) thereof, but when they reach a certain age they go off-planet to learn about things. Hedera is in this "college" stage, and willing their special tree to become a spaceship. They have a little pet blobtopus called Helix. They are painfully, hilariously, naive, but also capable of shattering buildings by calling up the planets. They wield a sword of living wood.
- Cleo, the Beast. Cleo's planet was destroyed by the Warden long ago and the Circus mopped up most of the rest. What's left of her people follow in the wake of the Circus, now. Cleo (and her race generally) are capable of changing into small but very deadly black-footed cats. Cleo built her sword out of remnants she found.
- Esme Cooper, the Infamous. Esme used to be a recruiter for the Circus, but has left and sworn never again to harm the innocent. She still wears the tattoos of her former people, however, and carries a wicked and sharp blade. She is, perhaps, a little taken with...
- Izzy Rich, the Scoundrel. Izzy is from Boultus (though she was off-planet during the attack), but that's the least interesting thing about her. Izzy falls in love the way some of us change socks, and feels about you either a 10 or a 0; there is little in-between. She went on a date with Hedera and realized fairly quickly that Hedera didn't know they were on a "date", or that a "date" wasn't some kind of fruit. She is presently smitten with Esme, but it'll never work, and she knows it.
Our motley crew takes work as mercenaries, and if they happen to do some good or strike a blow against the Warden into the bargain, well, great. On this particular day, they have been hired by the Overlord Nero of Planet Nero.
Seems Nero's daughter Malfi ran off with Sarina, the Infanta of Planet Andromeda. Nero doesn't much care about that and he wants his daughter to be happy, but he's concerned for her safety because the Ruler of Andromeda is not, shall we say, supportive of the Infanta running off with a commoner. The team is in a bar on Nero talking this out. Kind of.
Nero, as the "N" in NEBULA, is a blasted, scoured wasteland. A few megacities still dot the landscape, but everything has to be important. This particular bar is high-end - it's near Overlord Nero's pad, after all - and it's called the Dollhouse. There are glass cases with doll's clothes pinned to cork like butterflies hanging on the walls. Very chic.
Izzy sidles up to the bar to order a rosé, and recognizes the bartender as Eizos, her former flame (well, one of them). She immediately rekindles said flame and entices Eizos to run off with her, at least for a few minutes. Eizos gets flustered and overfills the wine, and notes that she's not off for a while - she has a counter on her wrist that counts down to when her shift is over. But she does need to go clean that stockroom...
With Izzy thus sidelined, Cleo and Hedera both sip suspiciously at the wine - well, Hedera sips, Cleo just necks it. Esme orders herself a whiskey (and she actually has the local currency, which is good because that's all this bar takes), as well as juice for Hedera and beer for Cleo. The three of them drink a bit, and then Esme goes back for another drink and the bartender (not Eizos, who is still busy) offers her to start a tab. She agrees, and the bartender affixes a counter to her wrist that goes up whenever she orders a drink.
Unfortunately, no one is watching Hedera, who goes to the middle of the bar, sits down, and awakens the wild. Their intentions are pure; they just want to beautify the place. Unfortunately, it results in vines growing up the walls and knocking doll-clothes cases off, rattling the foundations, and Eizos and Izzy pop out of the closet, perhaps a little disheveled. The bartender looks around in horror and Esme's counter goes bleeeep as the numbers go up. Esme initially refuses, but the bartender points out that this little troublemaker came in with her, as far as he's concerned it's on her tab. Esme tries to figure him out to suss out how to get around this, but all he does is reaffirm that he's not afraid of the Circus.
Esme growls that she does not work for the Circus, and Izzy steps in. She points out that they're going to Andromeda soon, and since everything here has to be imported, perhaps there's something on Andromeda that he needs? He considers (and she entices) and then says that he needs "liquid hate."
Izzy smoothly gets him to tell her what that is ("I know what that is, but if you had to explain it to someone who didn't, how would-"). He produces an empty bottle, stained black by whatever was in it. Cleo sniffs it, and it smells bitter...but also like the feeling of watching one's enemies die, pure distilled schadenfreude. The crew agrees to retrieve some for the bartender, and then they get the heck out before something else goes wrong.
They talk about their next steps, and Hedera points out that if Sarina and Malfi ran away, they probably aren't on Sarina's home planet (that's what "away" means). Esme points out that lovers wishing to marry against their parents' will often head for Gretna Green - it's traditional. To Earth, then!
The crew lands in Scotland, but sees no immediate evidence of the couple (no Neronian or Andromedan ships, for instance). They spread out - Hedera talks to a flock of sheep, her wild friends, and they confirm that Malfi and Sarina were there, but have left ("where did they go?" "...up."). Esme goes into town and finds a lovers' hotel, with a robust, red-haired woman sitting outside eating an apple (or whatever synthetic abomination passes for one). She asks after the couple and after a little figuring out (during which she realizes that the woman just wants to make sure the couple won't come to any harm), the woman allows Esme to go look at their room. She also mentions that the couple said something to the effect of "now we can get in" when they left...
Esme yells for Cleo, and Izzy stays downstairs and begins seducing the woman, who is of course all she's ever wanted. And that means, unfortunately, that no one is watching Hedera.
Hedera sits and talks with the sheep, and asks if there's anything they'd like. They pretty much universally respond "grass," since whatever they're eating isn't really, and Hedera obligingly awakens the wild. As they do, though, they realize that the scouring of Earth by the Warden, combined with the shit that the native people put the planet through beforehand, has made for some weird flora and fauna, and Hedera isn't really sure what they're gonna get...
Meanwhile, Cleo and Esme go to the room that Malfi and Sarina shared. Cleo rolls around on the bed, tears off the bedclothes, and paws at things, sniffing and tasting. She smells both Malfi (recognizing the scent from when she was at Nero's place) and an unfamiliar odor she assumes to be Sarina. She also smells gun oil and leather ("ooh"), and the scent from the woman downstairs, probably from her cleaning the room.
In the distance, a rumbling sound. Hedera has called up a temperate forest for the sheep, but there's moss on the trees. The moss has a greasy, meaty smell, almost like fried chicken, and it's already attracting bugs. The characters reconvene and decide to get the hell off-planet - Izzy invites the woman, Maisie, along, and, smitten, she agrees.
Back on the ship, they talk through what they've learned (and reassure Hedera that they have not "done a bad"). Esme realizes where the couple has gone - the Hidden Garden on Kieron! They set out, but as they're approaching Kieron, a ship looms into view behind them.
It's long and almost sword-shaped, with solar panels down the blade. Esme, with her wicked past, knows this ship - it's called the Piercing Gasp, and it's captained by Tranquility, the former Queen of the Moon. She was ousted in a rebellion, and is now a merc like the characters, though of a much nastier bent. She wants her former glory back. Izzy claims to know her, too ("I dated her sister in college, her real name isn't even Tranquility, it's Stephanie").
Hedera pushes a comms button and says "Don't hurt the plants!" In response, the torpedo ports on the Gasp open.
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