As the tournament quickly wrapped up, the big joust between Lord Cedric and Unglar Stronglance arrived. Eldon was able to distract Unglar by shining light reflected from Archanis' signal mirror in his eyes, causing Unglar to lose spectacularly. Celebrating their victory, Lord Cedric's servants tossed a barrel full of ale over his head, and the knight left to change his armor before it rusted.
Meanwhile, the group returned to the ship and recieved their share of the prize money from Stumpwater Jack, while Lothar sang in the streets for gold (he received 1 gold piece and 7 buttons). Gaspar discovered, to his lament, that Ashimar's wolverine familiar had defecated all over his bed. While Ashimar and Gaspar cleaned the Paladin's bed, everyone else enjoyed a peaceful night of sleep.
The next morning, Eldon and Marcus set out to find the group a cargo-hauling job. Marcus took Eldon to the home of a man he had met at the tournament, who had told Marcus that he had some cargo which needed to be taken to a nearby system. After some prying, Eldon managed to discover that the cargo was illegal spice, hidden by a cache of weapons (with full transport permits), and after a bit of haggling, agreed to do the job for 10,000 credits. The only catch: the spice had to be delivered within 24 hours. Since starcasting was instantaneous, Eldon figured that this should be easy.
After Ashimar went out and got an Extra-Large Shadowlord (tm) Brand Litter Box for his wolverine, the rest of the group took Chrysalis' loading skiffs to the man's apartment and began carrying the crates of spice back to the ship. As soon as the crates were completely loaded, however, a group of heavily-armed orcs stormed into the docking bay. Eldon managed to intimadate the man in the control tower into opening the landing bay doors, and Chrysalis took off in a hurry. Outside the planet's atmosphere, Chrysalis was confronted with two ships which probably belonged to the Red Falchions: a corvette and a free trader, both heavily armed. With the help of Marcus' navigation, though, the group was able to starcast away just before the ships came in range.
Chrysalis landed on the planet Tornen, and the group headed out to deliver the crates. On their way to the warehouse to drop off the crates of spice, Archanis was nearly run over by a young female drow who ran straight into him, cursing at the group for standing in her way. The group soon realized that she was being chased by a number of drow officers, and hid her behind one of the loading skiffs while Eldon bluffed his way past the other drow. Once the officers were gone, she introduced herself as Kelextra Halfblood -- a half-drow, hated by her own people for the weakness they saw in her heritage. She told the group that she was being chased because she knew the location of something the drow desperately wanted.
After delivering the cargo, the group took Kelextra back to Chrysalis to ask her more about this information she had. She explained in detail: she was on the run from a renegade Imperial commander named Torden Kerrick, a (former) human, now a soulmech, who was obsessed with regaining his former body. Kerrick's forces, a renegade force of Imperial ships and soldiers who answered only to him, were after Kelextra because she knew a set of coordinates which might be the location of a fabled item called the Sphere of Destiny -- something which, according to myth, could grant nearly any desire.
The Sphere of Destiny was last heard of in myth to be in the hands of a powerful necromancer a thousand years before, who had brought the Sphere onto his ship to try and control its powers. The Sphere destroyed him, though, killing him and everyone else on his ship, which, according to legend, had drifted aimlessly as a ghost ship ever since. Kelextra knew what might be the coordinates of that ship, and she knew that Kerrick could not be allowed to get his hands on the Sphere... if it really existed.
The group was intrigued by Kelextra's story, and contacted Stumpwater Jack, asking him to find them any information he could about Kerrick, and see if he could get them some more money or ships to go look for this relic. Chrysalis pitched in to help, telling Eldon that Torden Kerrick had been the commander whose men had taken control of the Chrysalis Project from the EBS scientists. The group decided to return to Mercyra to pick up the rest of their money, then deliberate on what they should do next.
TO BE CONTINUED...
