Sod (and) the Damage Game

(122/1105, Caledonia/Glisten)

After landing on Caledonia, the team boarded the gunned gig and flew over to Mitori City, the location of the address they'd been given for contacting the Damage Cabal. Landing at the airport, they followed the directions and found themselves outside a nondescript terraced house in a moderately seedy city area.

Nose wandered on up the street a bit and checked for suspicous-looking people or people following them; Dliiavrnt went around the back and staked out the back door. Then, as the others prepared to knock, Dliiavrnt reached into the house with a light mental probe.

Four men were scattered around the house, doing nondescript things and thinking little; a fifth was seated at a data station on the ground floor working on lists of spectators and exhibitors for the Damage tournament. Dliiavrnt observed his thoughts for a while, hoping for a mention of Dreng, but got nothing.

Lasnus, Nose and Stpierb' knocked then, and when the man Dliiavrnt was observing opened the door, gave him the codeword. Admitting them, he brought them to a plain room with several chairs and invited them to sit down.

Nose asked for a detailed description of the game of Damage, as a stalling tactic, and the man obliged, describing the game and the spectacle with the enthusiasm of a genuine fan, and a clear view of the world as divided into sheep (with tedious moral regulations) and wolves (with a better idea of how to really enjoy life). He then broached the subject of their attendance, and delicately enquired as to whether they wanted to observe... or participate.

Nose asked the man if extra tickets would be available "on the door" and he was reassured that as long as they turned up with at least one valid ticket, late ones would certainly be available. That agreed, they proceeded to buy one ticket, costing Cr5,000. This, they were told, had directions to the venue, safe storage of their transport (ears pricked up here!), accommodation for the week-long tournament, and transport locally.

Leaving, they examined the tickets and discovered that the venue this year was the planet Sod, a waterworld moon of the gas giant Spicafna in the New Rome system. The scheduled date was 200/1105... seventy-eight days away.

(129/1105, New Rome/Glisten)

Leaving Caledonia, they jumped for New Rome, arriving in the inner system. Fortuitously, ClawBack LIC had a local office here, and the large starport and easy access to vouchers meant they could take the opportunity to have their ship serviced. While this was happening, the team bummed around on New Rome for a while, resting, resupplying, and - in Dliiavrnt's case - keeping up his new and tough physical excersise regimen. They scanned the starport and inner system for the Akhashuua - no joy. Finally, on 186, they set off from New Rome and ostensibly jumped out-system. In fact, they had micro-jumped to the outer system.

(136/1105, Sod/New Rome/Glisten)

Spiralling down to the waterworld of Sod, the team scanned for vessels and detected several, mainly civilian, starships parked on the remains of what was once the planet's class H spaceport. An abandoned colony, Sod had been left uninhabited for over a hundred years, and only the floating landing platforms remained. Cabal employees were on hand to lash the Baranduin to the pad - in case of storms, they explained grinning - and to direct the ticket holder to the docking bay.

There Lasnus - who had elected to go onward - found a huge 50-passenger submarine waiting to transfer the tournament attendees to the venue; an underwater arcology called Thalsal. The other team members made the excuse of waiting for friends and remained with the ship; their plan was to allow Dreng and his crew to land and go down to the venue, and then sneak off with the ship. While they waited, they performed deeply detailed sensor scans of the other vessels on the port, and established conclusively that the Akhashuua was not on Sod or anywhere in the vicinity of Spicafna.

As Lasnus was ferried down and down into the murky green waters of Sod, the passengers were handed their betting packs, information on the current "form" of this year's competitors. Included were thumbnail biogs, past performance, a holo picture, current odds, and a marker to indicate whether the player had yet arrived. About a third of the way down the field, Dreng was listed, and the little yellow sparkler next to his name indicated that he was already at the tournament site...

Lasnus entered the venue, and began to look around. The tournament was being held in what had once been a domed communal area of the arcology, cleared and refurbished for the occasion. In the centre, a 500m area was closed off with a chainlink fence, containing the six four-player Damage tables and a central bunker containing the referees. Around the perimiter of this outer fence would cluster the Moties, desperate for a touch of the emotional lightning from the game; a few were there already, sitting hopelessly or moving listlessly around. Beyond that was a circular grandstand, nearly a kilometre across, surrounding the arena. Steeply raked, the seating provided each spectator with the ability to view any table in close-up, monitor the scores, and selectively shield themselves from or expose themselves to the psychic wash from the game. While the effects were much diluted by distance here, many of the game fans enjoyed the feeling and felt it enhanced their enjoyment and appreciation of the game.

Beyond that, clustered against the outer walls of the 1.4 km dome, were the myriad tents of the sideshows, burger stalls, vendors, quacks, fortune-tellers, slave-merchants and - of course - bookies that made up the rest of the occasion.

Once Lasnus has communicated Dreng's arrival to the team above, Dliiavrnt settled into a corner and began to flex his mental muscles. Sending out a clairvoyant probe, he reached downwards and managed to place his psionic viewpoint inside the arcology dome. Rapidly, he scanned through the crowd. After a few moments, he spotted Lasnus, and moved on - then he saw her. Ramona Lasky.

Quickly, he passed this information to Lasnus, who made his way over. Lasky was performing to the crowd, obviously "larging it" on the street-cred of being part of one of the players' entourages, and Lasnus played up to this, acting the naive fanboy in the hopes of a personal meet with Dreng. This didn't get him anywhere. Spurred on by an obscure thrill at the danger of this lethal woman, he then had a try at chatting her up; but this didn't get him anywhere either. Finishing her burger, she disappeared into the crowd.