I Shot First

I am not above whoring myself out for some extra xp and that's what I'm doing with this post.  +Erik Tenkar ran his StarSlinger setting using +James Spahn's White Star system last night.  It has been many months since the B-Team got together.  +Douglas Cole and +Peter V. Dell'Orto rounded off our group for the night.

We decided earlier in the week to roll character for the first session.  Erik has a few very cool classes in his StarSlinger setting including the Scoundrel.  He suggested I give it a try because one of the class abilities is:

First Strike - Once per day the Scoundrel can make a saving throw (adjusted by Charisma bonus if any) before entering combat. If successful, the Scoundrel has the drop on his / her opponents and has a free attack (also adjusted by and Charisma bonus) before initiative is rolled. If the roll is failed, initiative and combat proceeds as normal.

I'm notorious for my bad rolls across any system, d20, 3d6, 2d6, and I even suck at flipping coins.  Erik said with the Scoundrel class I could get in one free shot.

I liked the idea of a con man.  Peter played a grizzled old Star Knight named Velo and Doug played a mercenary named Payne.  My guy was named Chicago Jones.  

Short of the long of it, we contract with a bad guy named Kyn Vitman.  Our group couldn't buy a box of Girl Scout cookies and I think Kyn knew it.  He wanted us to find a ship that crashed about a half's day ride away from his bar and recover Avionic Bovine DNA.  1000 units or credits, I can't remember which, for the job minus expenses.  We had no room to negotiate.  So we agreed.

Payne and Chicago traveled light, laser pistols, a little armor and a dagger.  Old Velo brought everything, he had a tent, flashlight, sleeping bag, a Ronco Record Cleaner and a med kit.  We took hover bikes to the site.  While we scouted around the ship I nearly did a header off my bike because something flashed in my eyes.  Someone was there, but we needed to get that DNA sample.  Were were already in the hole because the cost of the bikes was coming out of our pocket.

In we went. We explored the weirdly constructed ship.  One of the weird things was we didn't find any crew, dead or alive.  However, not too far into the ship we encountered a three men I imagine were the ones on the cliff.  Payne and Chicago cover the hallway they came through.  Velo was in the other room searching.  I was able to hit the first one who attempted to run through and Payne shot a big old hole through the second one.  The third one ran away screaming like a little girl.   

Velo soon after got munched on by a smart cockroach.  Velo fell down and twitched, but he lived.  After we disposed of the bugs we used the well prepared Velo's medic kit on him and wa-la, he rose from the almost dead. 

We were able to get a computer up and running.  Discovered where the sample was and fast tracked it over there.  When we got there, 250 some DNA samples were waiting for us.  We found the one Kyn wanted and used Velo's sleeping bag as a huge sack. 

When we left the ship there were three men waiting for us.  A little guy who did the talking and two meatheads.  I used my Scoundrel skill of attacking before anyone else.  Chicago allowed the little talking man to finish his ultimatum before shooting him in the heart.  While the little gurgling man lay on the ground, the two meatheads raised their hands and walked off.

We scored 650 credits off the little man.  And a piece of paper I recognized as a black market number.  I used my contact Leroy to trace the number, apparently someone offered 2500 credits to get the DNA sample from us.  I figure we could sell a bogus sample (since we scored all of them) and then sell the real one to Kyn.  

So the drop off was a bathroom.  I sat in one stall, another guy came into the other stall and slit a 2500 cred card under and I gave him the bogus sample.  We weren't quick enough to see who it was.

So we travel back to Kyn's place.  He looks surprised.  I knew then who my stall companion had been.  After a short discussion we sell him the sample he wanted and included all of the ones we took.  I tried to wheel and deal for more, but didn't get too far.  However we did score 3500 credits from him and did not have to pay for the bike rental.  

Payne and I leveled to second, Velo came up short.  Now I get 10% more xp.

Had a blast.  Glad to be playing with the B-Team again.