hexarchate_rpg | Chapter 2.2

[Sorry I didn't get this out earlier, y'all. Happy summer/winter holidays!]

The Cantata emerges from the rift on an approach to the Lanterner stronghold called Autumn Pyre. The Cantata hums very quietly to reassure the mothlings, then falls silent; it's been impressed on the Cantata that discretion will be necessary. For their part, the mothlings have free run of an enclosure with Fluffy the Vraselian pseudo-dragon, and both mothlings and dragonet seem to be entertaining each other with games of tag and hide-and-seek. They are happy to play with any humans who stop by, as well.

Scan reveals that Autumn Pyre is heavily fortified by the standards of the day, mostly with invariant weapons like railguns and missiles. A few dozen moths are already docked there, and several more are patrolling the area. Two small Lanterner patrol moths, nearly identical, veer lazily toward the Cantata.

Patrol moth #1 hails the Cantata in several different languages, including the high language. For its part, it transmits the Lanterner emblem--a stylized yellow lantern against a blue background--and the speaker is requesting that you halt and identify yourselves. "This is the Lanterner Federacy in the year 852," the speaker goes on, "under the benevolent rule of the Honorable Aramis kae Pharon. Are you human? What are your hospitality requirements?"

[Feel free to take advantage of the between-moves planning post if you need to, and to make whatever preparations, including rearranging the Cantata's variable layout, you deem necessary.]

[What name is Flute going by in 852, and what is her moth's name?]

Sasha instructs the pilot to halt, as requested. [

slybrarian, I have a feeling that right now Alaric and Remi are the closest thing we have to qualified moth pilots. Do you want to drive, or let Remi do it?]

Through the grid, she tells Reshad, "Go ahead and hail them when you're ready. You can tell them we're looking for Vel Vissen." [We need another fake ship name, this one slightly piratical! Hornet Waltz? Shard of Swarms? Something to do with the fact that wasps drum on their bodies when they locate food? We can start another column on the table of pseudonyms once we pick something.]

Sasha herself starts analyzing the web of signals between moths and the stronghold. She checks her access to the local lattice, and starts downloading news and entertainments, along with a list of moths in port if she can get one.

Once they're close enough to connect to the net, Sulen uses the protocol Aymad showed them to look up the history of their planet, Ulara 5, on Space Wikipedia. They're checking to confirm a few key events are the same- annexed by the Heptarchate in 629, gained full status as a Heptarchate planet fifty years later, had a planetwide purge of members of a populist political party in 805. They don't have high hopes that the removal of one ineffectual magistrate and a junior researcher would have much effect on galactic history, but who knows what else the rifts have been doing?

If nothing seems different they'll check a few famous events in Heptarchate history as well.

Once the Cantata has docked, Sasha gathers a group of people to visit the Catastrophe Axe: Reshad, posing as the captain, Seyli, posing as second-in-command/security officer, Alaric, posing as an engineer, herself, posing as a tech named Vauri, and Mafyyil, whom she gives a bag full of prototype armor. She checks that everyone has a lokwor, and has received a lesson from Aymad in how to use it. There are two channels, one that can transmit to anyone in the rebellion with a compatible lokwor, and one encrypted for Cantata crew members only.

finding our ostensible boss

shiny new fake ID - paging Alaric and Reshad

Has history been changed?

at the dock - paging Reshad, Seyli, Alaric, and Mafyyil

meeting with Flute, cont'd