The God of Hyperspace

Great revelations this week in The God of Hyperspace campaign, and a session that can only be described as "The Kira Chan Show".

Last week our heroes, Kira Chan (Twi-Lek Jedi) was coming back to her hotel room after a relaxing swim only to sense danger from the room of her friends, Mok Rebus (Coruscantian Homicide Investigator), and Ensign Crona Gock (Allooinian Starship Pilot). She grabbed her lightsabers and entered, still in her swimming suit, only to see Rebus and Gock bound and hooded, surrounded by 10 Doloun Terrorists.

There was a moment of hesitation, but Chan took the initiative, explaining to the terrorists that further violence will only hurt their cause and ordering them to give up peacefully. The terrorists nearest her responded by cracking her in the head with his rifle butt. Calling on the Force, Kira reacted instantly by cutting the terrorist in two (giving in slightly to her 1 DSP), and in a blinding flash of twin lightsabers, she had managed to disarm the remaining 5 terrorists confronting her by cutting their rifles in half. In the melee, Gock and Rebus struggled against their handlers (2 each). Gock was slammed into a table and injured. Rebus struggled, and briefly broke free, but was quickly recaptured. Chan's lightning saber attack resulted in her holding one of her sabers under the chin of one of Rebus' handlers, ordering the rest to leave, or next time they'd lose more than their weapons. There was a tense stand-off, but the terrorists opted to leave, repelling down the balcony the way they came in.

Gock was dazed but otherwise unhurt. Rebus and Chan, after checking on Gock, went to see where the Terrorists fled. They found a Proton Charge attached to their balcony with 10 seconds on the timer. With no time to spare, Chan cut the charge free and levitated it away from the building, but not far enough. The charge exploded, destroying the windows and much of the balcony on the Republic Colonist Center where they were staying, and wounding Rebus in the back as he was diving for cover.

After the explosion, the team moved to Chan's room while the maintenance and cleaning droids went to work on the damaged rooms. The body of the hewn terrorist was taken back to the local Constabulary, where Rebus went for some late-night investigation. There he discovered that the terrorist's boots were covered in muddy clay, found in the caves and tunnels below the city. The terrorist also had a tattoo on his chest of a circle and radiating jigsaw pattern. Afterwards, he returned to the Colonist Center and went to bed.

In the morning, the Allooinian sun felt as fresh as the brisk sea breeze. There was a knock at the door. Crona got up and answered it. It was three Military Intelligence Bureau agents and two scrambler droids. The team was woken and informed that their presence was required as a matter of supreme importance to the safety of the Galaxy. They were then shuttled to the far side of the planet to the secret installation.

There, they were given a history of the facility by the Mon Calamari scientist, Dr. Qadim. 8 Years ago a starship crashed on Allooine. The resulting recovery revealed a buried city. An archaeological team discovered the existence of the Dollophon, an ancient artifact of great power that holds great religious signifigance to the local natives. Fearing native reaction, the Republic began to study the artifact in secret, building a ultra-secure top-secret facility. They discovered that the Dollophon acted as a vastly powerful Hyperdrive. The Dollophon is to modern Hyperdrives as a Cray Supercomputer is to a cheap calculator. Similar in principle, but vastly superiour. They could not get the device to work. It required a specific genetic code of the operator to function. They explained that last night, the Dollophon was stolen despite heavy security. Apparently, the force-field guarding the Dollophon was deactivated by the dead Senator. Also, whoever stole it got past multiple layers of security, as if they just "materialized" inside the facility. The MIB knew that this was related to the team's investigation, and asked for their assistance in finding and retrieving the Dollophon.

During the briefing, Crona felt a mysterious urge pulling him to the Dollophon chamber. He got the head MIB, named "Agent Two" to escort him and the rest of the team down the long shaft to the Dollophon chamber. Two explained that the shaft was once filled with sand, as if to seal the Dollophon on purpose. The hall before the chamber itself featured great and terrifying statues of the Outer Gods, as if in warning to stay away. The chamber was sealed with a large round basalt door. The walls of the chamber hall contained ancient runes and heiroglyphs. Dr. Qadim explained the myth of Dolok and began reading portions of the wall. She stopped and explained that they could not translate the rest. Crona, mysteriously, read the untranslated portions, detailing the unknown history of Dolok.

In the core of the Galaxy, a world existed that produced humans, the first such world, whose name and location is lost. The world was alone. Then one day, a being was born with power over the realm of the Outer Gods, his name was Dolok. Dolok could travel with the Outer Gods and explored the worlds beyond that first. Dolok created the Dollophon, which gave him power over the Outer Gods. Using this power, he built an Empire, conquering and colonizing other worlds. Worlds like Corellia, Coruscant, Corulag, Chandrila, Allooine, and others.

Dolok was not a benevolent ruler, however. He was a despot and demanded much from his subjects, causing great suffering when he was not appeased. Eventually, his army rose up against him and overthrew him on Allooine. Defeated and threatened with death, Dolok used the Dollophon to exile himself to the Realm of the Outer Gods forever. Fearing his return, the rebels built the city of Echechs and sealed the Dollophon away. They formed a society of watchers, the Doloun, who would be forever vigilant for Dolok's return.

The team agreed that over the millenia, the nature of the Doloun changed from fear to worship, and the threat of his return became prophesy. Now Dolok has returned, and he is prepared to reestablish his Empire over the Galaxy using his Dollophon. Time was short.

The team was assigned 5 Shadow Jedi, including Agent Two himself. Their first objective was to explore the caves Crona knew as a child. Once there, however, Crona received word that his father was near death, and that he was calling out for him. Crona and Kira decided to go.

There, Crona found his father calling his name. Kira hid on the roof with the intent of using the Force to read Crona's father's thoughts. Crona's father was accompanied by two hooded Doloun Elders, the religious leaders of his people. Crona took his father's hand. His father told Crona that he was sorry. He was sorry for how he treated him, and that he must understand, he was never a part of the plan. With this last statement, he died.

While the Elders performed the death rites, Crona confronted his hysterial mother and twin brother, Kashan, about "the plan". While his mother cried in Kashan's arms, Kashan revealed that Crona was unexpected, an unwanted child, that is why he always protected him. Crona, flustered, stormed out and was later re-joined by Kira. Kira informed him that his father's dying thought was of discovering an underwater cave in a Volano 50km off-shore. The volcano was very important to him for some reason. They told the others and it was agreed that it should be investigated.

Crona rented a utility sub, the kind used in the undersea aquaculture farms on Allooine, and several pressure suits, including an uncomfortable one for Kira. Kira also rented a Vibro-Harpoon, in case of trouble (her lightsaber would be useless underwater). They then set off in the rusty old sub.

Half-way there, they were struck by an impact from the rear. They were being attacked by a giant Sword-Lizard, the local equivalent to a shark, rather like a large Ichtyosaur. The creature damaged the thrusters and another impact killed power inside the sub. A third impact knocked many of the passengers, including Crona who was piloting, unconscious. Kira entered the airlock with her Vibro-Harpoon and flooded the chamber. They were being taken back to the Sword-Lizard's lair. Kira used her Force Powers to confuse the creature into thinking its lair was near the volcano they were headed for. At the base of the volcano, they were dropped and the Sword Lizard began trying to open the sub.

Kira left the sub and snuck away. Once far enough away, the Sword-Lizard noticed Kira and came after her. Kira called upon the Force to aid her, and attacked the Sword Lizard in a beserk strike. She spun out of the way of its clamping jaws, rolled under it, and drove the Vibro-Harpoon deep into its body. The creature shuddered, but was dead. After a few moments cooling off from her beserk fury, she returned to the sub and helped the other escape. The sub was flooded and scrapped due to extensive damage.

They searched the base of the volcano and found the cave entrance. Entering, they swam up the dark tunnel and found another utility sub at a small dock. It was dark and empty. They swept the area and checked for security alarms at the turbolift shaft. Suddenly, at that moment, large interlocking doors slammed shut in the flooded tunnel below them. They were sealed in!

To be continued!

This week's game was almost all exposition. The team learned lots of secrets, but nothing they hadn't figured out already on their own through pure speculation and evidence. I was very proud of them. They figured most of it out on their own. I felt somewhat bad by letting Kira (played by Paul Fields) hog all the cool combat this session. But seeing as how Crona (played by Neil Baumgardner) got all the great role-playing LAST session, I think things are balancing out. Everyone gets a session to be the star. Of course, everyone contributed too. That's what I like most about this campaign so far, everyone's working together and doing their part. No PC is going unused. I can't stress enough how well I think this game is going.

Now we're moving into the third and final act. This is another action-oriented act following the movie formula of action-story-action. We're moving into the big climax, and the PC's still don't know what to expect. Well, they THINK they know, but they have no idea.

Coming up on The God of Hyperspace...

Dolok is going to hyperspace the whole island into deep space. He will take it to the core of the Galaxy. His plan is to "reset" hyperspace and only he alone will control access to it. Then he will conquer the galaxy. However, Crona will mysteriously "know" that by doing so, he will actually DESTROY the entire Galaxy by causing a complete Hyperspace Inversion. He must be stopped. Of course, this is just more evidence that Crona and Dolok are, indeed, twin brothers. Dolok is Kashan. At some point, the PC's will be captured, the extra Shadow Jedi will be eliminated, and Dolok and Sone will gloat over their captives while they reveal the entire plan to them. Then they will leave them to die/escape from some fiendishly clever death-trap.

Dolok is doomed, however. Once they get to the Core (just as the PC's escape and arrive on the scene), Sone will kill Dolok and assume his identity. Remember, only Dolok's genetic code can use the Dollophon, and Sone will assume Dolok's genetic Code.