Episode 1

Team Fugazi were interrupted at breakfast by an urgent mission briefing. They wolfed down as much as they could before reporting in full mission gear to the briefing room.

The briefing room was guarded by high-ranking Draca cyberlords, and the briefing officer was another Draca, Dremoch. He advised that a well-trained and equipped House of the Guides team was investigating the Vegra system when they disappeared and haven't been heard from since. He assigned the frigate Stardart to the team and after answering a few questions about the composition of the team (it was led by Dremoch's brother Tomar) and their mission, sent them off. The team got the impression that he was holding something back.

When they boarded the Stardart, the team found the massive and heavily armed a-frame on the bridge, but was able to determine only that it was programmed to defend the bridge of the stardart, and was not able to leave. Sharris tried to hack the droid's computer, but discovered that it was protected by more severe security than he had ever encountered. Its registry and programming were competely impenetrable, and utterly unmodifiable.

The Stardard rendezvoused with the superdreadnought Malicious, commanded by Admiral Kerns, Drake's father. Drake received a message marked Private and Confidential, from the Malicious' Chief Medical Officer, who asked Drake to board.

Drake was transported directly into Medbay, where he found his father in a private ward. The CMO advised that the Admiral had suffered three heart attacks and a stroke, and if he didn't slow down, he would die soon.

Drake and his father had a talk, during which Drake asked for whatever further information the Admiral could pull from channels about the mission. The Admiral suggested that Dremoch was not holding back, but in fact had little or no information about the mission. Dracan familial ties were very strong, and Dremoch has been very worried about his brother's fate. They parted on good terms, and Drake returned to the Stardart to continue the second leg of the mission. The First Officer of the Malicious ordered the wormhole to be opened, and the Stardart shot through and entered hyperspace.

About two-thirds of the way to the destination, the Stardart's proximity sensors went off and the team was forced out of hyperspace. They encountered an Arthirian science ship being pursued by a House of the Star Light Cruiser. Both ships were larger than the Stardart, and both were travelling along the Stardart's exact vector, but in the opposite direction. The lead vessel hailed the team and asked for their help. The trailing vessel also hailed them and instructed them not to interfere, explaining that the Arthirian ship was a pirate vessel. However, in the next communication, the team was able to see an Imperial squad entering the bridge and start shooting, and it was decided that they had to act. A scan of the ship showed no Anthropos life signs, although the captain of the Arthirian ship appeared to be Anthropos.

Drake and Tok transported across to the ship, along with a torpedo warhead that they intended to detonate if the Empire took control of the ship. Leaving the warhead in a corridor (it was too big to carry around), they started to search for life signs. The first such they found (in the crew quarters) was a terrified skrak in a closet with a high explosive grenade. Drake took the full force of the blast, but his armour was able to protect him and he took only minor damage. The skrak died.

The next room they entered held five cryotubes. Two were occupied, and when they were opened, two elite skrak leapt out and tore great big chunks out of the pair of Dha fighters before finally being overcome. One was skewered by Tok's sword while the other eventually fell to Drake's blaster.

After using some slap packs, Drake and Tok decided to head for engineering. They found the medbay and liberated some more slap packs before arriving at engineering and finding two mindspiders in a stasis field. Two kurg and some skrak headed out the back door into the engine room. Tok was unable to acquire a transporter lock on the mindspiders, even though a stasis field had already been prepared in the science lab of the Stardart.

Very little information about the biology or physiology of the mindspiders had been gleaned when the Paradroid had been cleared by Dha, as the inimical monsters fought until they were disintegrated. What information there was has not been released to the general public, and is still considered top secret.

Sharris was able to hack some information from a discarded handcomp in the science lab of the ship, and found a very small amount of data on the mindspiders, and nothing about the ship or its mission. Sharris beamed over to the ship especially for this purpose, and returned immediately. Drake didn't want him in danger.

Then the kurg and skrak returned to engineering wheeling a large ion cannon, which they discharged at Drake in his marine armour. The gob of ionised matter hit Drake square in the chest, but Drake was sufficiently grounded and there was no effect. In return Drake opened up with his hydro flamer and turned four skrak and two kurg into cooked meat.

Tok and Drake returned to the Stardart and detonated the torpedo warhead they had left, crippling the ship.

The captain of the 'House of the Star' light cruiser, now positively identified as an Imperial Ramship, hailed the team and threatened to blow them out of space, but fortunately Commander Meekem of the 6th fleet and his dreadnought Tiberioun arrived and disintegrated the ramship.

During the debriefing with Admiral Omboro, the team discovered that the 'Arthirian' science ship had come directly from the Vegra system, and that the Imperials must have picked up their trail after they came through. They also discovered that it was not an Arthirian ship at all, but in fact it was registered to the Company, and crewed by kurg and skrak.

After a short break to allow the team to recover, Admiral Obmoro opened the wormhole to the Vegra system and Treesh flew the Stardart to the other side...

Episode 2

Team Fugazi successfully negotiated the wormhole and entered the Vegra system. It is a dark, chaotic system of planets and planetoids all orbiting a close binary star. Navigating to the seventh planet was difficult, but Treesh managed it without mishap and took up a standard orbit.

Preliminary scans showed a distress beacon and what appeared to be a transport vehicle. No other ships or power sources were in the area. The team were able to pinpoint its location and set the Stardart on the surface nearby, making sure to set down on a rocky outcropping rather than letting the ship sink into the sand. Drake, Tok and Azreal went to investigate the Guides' transport while Treesh and Sharris remained on board their own.

The Guides' transport had been wrecked. Huge tentacles from a giant creature were wrapped around it and it was half buried. There were also signs of a battle - there were holes and pits in the hull which suggested nothing so much as the bio-weapons of the Kryll. There were no bodies, either of the Guides' team or their attackers, apart from the tentacles. A sample of the tentacled creature was given to Sharris and he set to work analysing it, eventually producing quite a bit of information about the sandsquid.

Meanwhile, Tok attempted to get power to the transport's computer systems. After failing to restore power twice, he used cabling to connect their own transport's power supply and read off a little data before the computer exploded. The intact data indicated which direction to go to the Guides' base camp. The distress beacon was coming from a survival knife stuck into one of the tentacles. The name engraved on the blade identified the owner as one of the members of the Guides team.

After recovering everything posible, including positive identification of the transport, the team set off towards base camp. They reached the cave under the ramp with little difficulty, and Azreal Ghost Walked through the repulsor field protecting the entrance. They found the computer and retrieved the files therein.

On the other side of the ramp form the cave there were fragments of marine and assault armour, and another couple of name tags were recovered, which matched the crew roster of the Explorer II.

Sharris also found a hidden chamber, which contained the only Guides corpse yet found. He died of starvation after the rest of his team had been wiped out by 'horrid aliens'. In this secret room the team also found a box containing two atomic grenades, a strange Sorce-based communication device consisting of a rod and bowl, and an ancient-looking vambrace with three coloured gem-like buttons. Sharris on an impulse pressed the green one and instantly vanished. Drake tried to contact him on the commlink, but he appeared to be out of range.

Sharris encountered Lord Lokoth in a bizarre space both inside and outside normal space. During the conversation he learned that Lokoth was a warrior in an ancient and terrible war (so great that he described the centuries-long Blood Feud as a 'skirmish'), and he was sent to this planet on a quest to free the entity which would defeat the great sorcerer and win the war. The horak were but a part of the enemy. Sharris also found that this animated suit of ancient armour was essentially dead. He handed the vambrace over to Lord Lokoth, who immediately touched a button and left Sharris stranded in the netherworld.

Back on Vegra VII, Lord Lokoth approached the repulsor field guarding the cave entrance and asked for admission. After ascertaining that Sharris was safe and that Lokoth's enemy was the same as his, Drake authorised dropping the repulsor field.

Lord Lokoth returned to Sharris and poked him in the chest with a forefinger before returning him to the planet's surface and disappearing.

After some discussion, it was decided to return to the Stardart and fly the ship to the coordinates given for the Explorer II rather than risking the transport being ambushed by a sandsquid. They packed all the equipment and data into the transport and headed back towards their ship. On the way however, Treesh was forced to stop.

Two Marines and a Calemora were flagging them down. A brief inspection established that there were no mindspiders clinging to their heads and they were let into the transport. The Calemora was immediately sedated by Sharris.

A short while later, there were some thumps and scrapes as several dreadar landed on the roof of the transport, which conveniently bogged down in soft sand. Drake immediately headed to the primary weapon turret and opened fire on the hordes of dreadar emerging from the sand around them. Tok noticed one of the marines about to attack Sharris as he dragged the unconscious Calemora to the med lab. Fortunately Sharris was able to dodge the attack, but Tok was distracted by two dreadar emerging from a cupboard in the rear of the transport. Treesh tried desparately to un-bog the transport but only succeeded in making it worse.

Tok cut one of the ambushing dreadar in half with his sword while Drake continued blasting from the turret. Azreal moved to the weapon arm and joined in, shooting the creatures off the sides of the transport.

The Calemora suddenly woke up, and started trying to bash Sharris with psychosomatically hardened fists, but Sharris was too quick and the blows missed.

With the situation in the transport more critical than outside, Drake leaned out of the turret and fired his blaster pistol at the marines. His incredible shot blasted through the heads of both marines, killing them instantly. Meanwhile a horak was attacking the front of the transport, but Treesh fired the forward guns and took care of it.

Tok dispatched the last dreadar on the inside while Sharris sedated the Calemora again, and then killed him with a lethal injection. Drake and Azreal continued blasting dreadar on the outside.

Two horak suddenly emerged from the sand and lifted the front of the transport enough that Treesh was able to gun the engines and run them over, escaping from the sand trap. However, the horak did some damage to the drive train on the way under. Treesh scraped the remaining dreadar off the sides of the transport onto the canyon walls and the team was safe.

Medical examination of the remains of the Calemora and the two marines indicated that the mindspiders had sumberged beneath the skin of their hosts, which is why they evaded detection at first.

Team Fugazi returned to the Stardart with no injuries (Tok had suffered a scratch, but it regenerated quickly). There was minor damage to the drive train on the transport vehicle, but it was not serious and Tok was able to repair it.

Episode 3

After much debate, the Stardart approached the location given in the computer files for the Explorer II. Extensive scans were made of the downed ship. It was buried under about three meters of sand, and one wing was broken. The scans showed life signs, but no details.

To protect from the threat of sandsquids, the team dispatched three of the Stardart's probes beneath the surface of the planet to set up a sensor net. The area was clear at this time.

Drake tried using the Stardart's landing thrusters to clear the ship, but was only partially successful. Tok activated the Stardart's tractor beam and hauled the Explorer II the rest of the way out of the sand, although the tractors were not powerful enough to lift the ship off the surface.

With the airlock now clear, the Stardart landed on the surface of the planet. Drake and Tok entered the other ship while Azreal kept cover in the primary weapon turret of the Stardart's transport vehicle.

The first area entered was the crew recreation area. The area was empty, although Drake spotted movement in the brig. It was a mindspider, scuttling from one ventilation duct to the next. Drake promptly crisped it with his hydroflamer, while Tok set about welding all of the other vents closed. In the brig, the team found a personal crawler with a survival kit, and a vibroblade. Tok claimed the vibroblade. With this task completed, they reactivated the ship's transportals.

Drake and Tok headed straight for Engineering, where they found the alien's nest. After determining that his hydroflamer was ineffective from upper engineering, Drake took the hydrolift down to the lower deck. Using his pulse cannon he blasted an encysted horak, but he was immediately attacked by a mindspider. He crushed the thing clinging to the back of his neck, but more were emerging from their nesting sacks, along with dreadar and horak. He fought a strategic withdrawal back upstairs and to the recreation area, where he deactivated the transportal in the vain hope that this would contain the creatures in engineering. But it was not to be. A dreadar appeared from nowhere, launched itself onto Drake's back, tore a hole in his marine armour and started crunching on the soft bits inside. Tok sliced it in half with his new vibroblade. Drake was severely wounded by this attack, but Tok picked him up and activated the slap-o-matic in Drake's suit, keeping him alive (using all three slap packs) until he returned to the Stardart and Sharris' medbay.

At that time the sensor net from the Stardart's probes showed multiple incoming signals. A horde of aliens attempted to pursue Tok and Drake to the ship. Tok used one of the atomic grenades he had retrieved from the base camp, but he threw it badly and it had no effect on the aliens. Azreal showed his prowess with the transport's turret and contained the threat. The aliens retreated back into the Explorer II while the Stardart lifted off and took up a position on the other side of the planet's larger moon to take stock and make plans. A violent storm was brewing on the surface.

Drake recovered and repaired his armour, while it was determined that Sharris should keep his fuzzy claws on the computer and never, EVER touch the ship's comm unit. Once Tok had repaired it to a workable standard, Team Fugazi sent a data squirt through the wormhole to Admiral Omboro with a status report. Then they returned to the planet, as the storm had abated somewhat.

With great caution (and strategic use of an assassin missile) the team returned to the Explorer II. They found the bridge and Sharris installed the autopilot uplink. They also welded shut all of the ventilation shafts. Tok set up an open transporter link between the Stardart and the Explorer II to allow free travel between the bridges of the two ships. With this link established, Treesh returned the Stardart to orbit. Sharris used this link several times in order to minimise the danger to himself.

They went to the crew quarters. In a security locker they found a credit card and recovered 547 credits from it. They were not able to open the second security locker. In fact Sharris triggered a gas trap, but as all the team were still in their spacesuits (and Drake in his marine armour) this had no effect. No aliens were there.

Next point of call was the cargo bay, where they found the second of the Explorer II's transport vehicles, which showed signs of attack by horde creatures. There was nothing else there however. They returned to the Bridge.

The science lab was more interesting, at least as far as Sharris was concerned. The medical logs had been erased (except for a log which indicated that one crewmember survived mindspider extraction), but he was surprised at the quality and the value of all the equipment in this room. The Guides obviously get all the best stuff. There were six very advanced, very expensive probes here. But there were no aliens.

Finally returning to Engineering, Drake found that the nest had been emptied. The mindspider bags and the cysts were slack and empty. Tok restored power to the reactor, and the Explorer II was ready to fly.

One last check on the crew recreation area revealed Lord Lokoth battling a horde of aliens coming in the (damaged) airlock. Drake lifted the Stardart off the surface while Lokoth and Tok finished off the remaining aliens. The aliens on the ground scattered and melted into the sand. Lokoth requested that the ship be immediately returned to the ground. The team offered to help him with his quest, but he refused the offer and vanished.

Drake stayed on board the Explorer II to pilot it into orbit while the others returned to the Stardart. Halfway to orbit however, warning lights started flashing all over the console. The ship was losing navigation control and power. Drake was able to launch the highly expensive probes into orbit before the Explorer II crashed to the planet's surface. Drake transported back to the Stardart at the last minute.

Suddenly the ship's proximity warning went off, warning of an unidentified life form approaching from the planet's surface. A vortex was forming in the sandstorm below, and before long the horde's hive ship hove into view. It was many orders of magnitude larger than the Stardart, and shrugged off the effects of several torpedoes before the Stardart flashed through the wormhole and Team Fugazi was safe. Admiral Omboro ordered the team immediately back to Dha Prime.

The team arrived safely at Dha Prime, and received instructions to transport immediately to Admiral Nelos' conference room. After a few moments the highest-ranking members of Dha arrived to receive the team's report. The debriefing team consisted of Admiral Nelos, Duchess Murrus'sha Qrr'sh of the Zin-Shee, Gorak of the Draca, Korok of the Calemora, the team's briefing officer Dremoch, Honoured Dha Queen of the Kryll and Shakna of the Shanask. Drake gave his report.

Shakna retrieved the onyx rod and bowl from Azreal when it was mentioned. Something more unusual happened when Drake mentioned Lord Lokoth. All of the team members experienced a strange flash behind their eyes, and Shakna shimmered breifly before returning to normal. This happened a total of three times during the briefing. Dremoch was very agitated to receive news about his brother Tomar, and was saddened when Drake reported that they did not belive he could have survived.

Finally the team was able to retire and get some sleep. They were awarded a mission salary and two week's personal leave. However, all of them experienced very disturbing dreams. They imagined that an evil force entered their minds and fought for control. Eventually the entity gained control and they were transported back to Vegra VII and the transport vehicle that had been left behind, and it was no dream.

Sharris had a mysterious shard of black crystal in his hand, and without warning an arc of power leapt from the shard to the computer cconsole. Power in the transport flickered and returned. On the screen of the console was a single message:

"DELIVER THIS SHARD UNTO LORD LOKOTH OR DIE!"

Episode 4

The PCs upon being transported back to Velke immediately summoned Lord Lokoth and offered the crystal shard to him. He refused, saying that this was not the keystone of his quest and that Sharris had clearly been sent as the bearer of the shard. Lokoth had been tracking the aliens' movements and had found what should be an entrance to the hive. On request he transported the party through the quantum realm to an open plain with a high cliff face. No opening was to be seen.

Sharris made extensive scans of the area, determining that there were lifeforms on the other side of the cliff, probably in a cave complex. He scanned the shard and determined that it was pure diamond, and scanned for diamond in the cave complex, but recevied ambiguous results.

Drake used his jump pack to scale the cliff face, reaching a height of 200 feet above ground level, where he found an opening. Tok was able to carry Sharris using his grapple gun in stages, and Treesh could levitate, but Azreal posed a difficulty as he could not be carried. Drake and Sharris both had a hudred-foot spool of monofilament wire, however, and by linking them together, Azreal was able to scale the cliff. Lord Lokoth was already there.

Entering the tunnel, the party came across a chamber filled with mindspider sacks. As they were pondering, Treesh noticed a horak emerge from the wall behind them and take up a sentry position at the cave's entrance.

All of the party was able to cross the mindspider room without mishap except for Tok, who was attacked by mindspiders. Although a mindspider attempted to take over, Tok's titanium endoskeleton made it difficult fot the thing to pierce his spinal column, and Lord Lokoth was able to kill it. Drake expressed interest in acquiring Lord Lokoth's quantum sword, but was advised that he would need to kill a Quantum Knight to do so, and thought better of it.

Further on in, the corridor branched. The team chose the corridor that smelled least like vomit, but were blocked by a white glob which appeared to be a floor cleaner of some kind. Rather than trying to find a way past it they returned to the junction and headed down the other corridor. They looked around for Lord Lokoth but he had vanished.

The next chamber smelled really bad. The entrance was perfectly circular, but Sharris determined that it was a natural formation. Drake entered the room and quickly exited the other side. However, when the rest of the party entered, the sphincter doors at either end (which were not natural formations after all) snapped shut and the whole room began to heave, tossing Tok, Treesh, Sharris and Azreal about the room while dripping digestive acid on them. Drake hauled the sphincter at his end open while Tok used his vibroblade to create a new ulcer. The party was spewed out on top of Drake. Sharris had a sprained ankle, but no major damage.

As they proceeded further along the passageway, a rockfall cut Tok (on point) off from the rest of the group. Azreal used an implosion ball to create a hole which the group could walk through and they proceeded on.

The walls here were no longer rock. They appeared to be a kind of organic material, as if the whole cave complex was somehow alive.

Drake cautiously entered the next chamber, with Tok's grapple attached to his armour for quick retreat if necessary. He saw a protrusion on one wall dripping a fluid of some kind and wanted to get a sample. The entranceway was again perfectly circular, but Sharris was certain that this time it was a natural formation. The entire room smelled of honey that had gone really rotten.

As Drake was collecting his sample, however, he was attacked by another protrusion in another wall that he hadn't seen. A dense web of sticky , honey-like string which bound his arms together and immobilised him. Tok quickly reeled him back out of the room with the grapple. The rest of the party was able to free Drake by scraping stomach acid from their clothes/robes/fur and applied it to the web. It did not dissolve all of the webs, but it freed Drake enough that he could move freely.

They returned to the last junction and took another corridor rather than braving the web slingers again. This passage led to a small chamber which contained many puffbal-like fungal growths. As Sharris tried to get a sample, he was sprayed with a green fluid which stank and stained his clothes green. But he was able to get through the room without further mishap. Drake was next, and he was also sprayed with green stinky stuff. Tok and Azreal were able to pick their way between the puffball patches without setting any off, but Treesh was not so lucky. She was sprayed with a concentrated acid, which burnt her badly and destroyed tufts of fur. Sharris was able to stabilise her and she could proceed.

They proceeded to the next chamber, the most evil-smelling room yet. There was a brownish-green fluid bubbling from rock formations, and when Sharris and Tok looked up, they were confronted with the largest, most horrible looking horak they had ever seen. They assumed that it was the queen, and retreated after making a few desultory (and ineffectual) attacks.

Drake opened his box and brought out the party's second atomic grenade. He hurled it with accuracy into the center of the room, directly beneath the giant thing and leapt away as it went off. He was hurled to the ground by the force of the blast, but took little damage. The giant horak was not so lucky and had been vapourised.

Lord Lokoth returned at this point and advised them that he had found the chamber to which they needed to take the shard. He led them through corridors, up hills and down dales, until they arrived at a tiny chamber, through which they passed three at a time. The chamber teleported them to a slimy room which contained an upright black obelisk. Lokoth raised his arms and intoned a single word: ZODAR!!

The room shook as if in an earthquake and a circular opening appeared in the obelisk. Sharris placed the crystal shard in the opening and the obelisk opened up like a shiny black wardrobe. Lord Lokoth vanished again at this poinrt, the shame at having failed his quest being too much to bear in the Zodar's presence.

Inside was revealed an obsidian boulder, floating in the air. The thing spoke:

"I can speak only three times during my existence, and I choose now to be one of them. Who are you and why have you disturbed me?"

Sharris at this point lost it. He shouted at the thing, yelling that the group was under a threat of death to deliver the shard to Lord Lokoth but hadn't been told why. Tok was more sedate, explaining about the aliens, describing them and Lokoth.

"This is most disturbing," intoned the Zodar. "Darmoth must be trying to return."

At the mention of the name Darmoth, an evil blackness started swirling about the floor and a sense of dread and fear washed across the whole party. A spark issued from the Zodar and the blackness was dispelled. The Zodar warned the group not to mention the name Darmoth (evil and blackness again, dispelled again by the Zodar), as they were not powerful enough to close the portals.

Sharris immediately said "Was that Darmoth?" and the dread and blackness returned. The Zodar dispelled it again, and warned the party once more not to mention that name. The Zodar transformed into a huge statue and did not move.

At that point, a sphincter door hidden in the slime opened with a splash and dreadar and horak started pouring into the room. The party fought alone for a while, taking some damage, before the Zodar acted.

The Zodar threw aliens all over the room, tearing into them, ripping them apart, crushing horak with strength that could only be imagined. More and more horde aliens piled on top of it, burying it beneath a mountain of chitin.

After a while the horde aliens started getting up from the pile and turned their attention back to the team. But the Zodar rose. It had two glowing points where eyes would normally be. In an awesome display of power, the Zodar destroyed all of the aliens within a thousand yards before advising the party to flle the area and transforming back into a floating ball.

The party was able to escape the cave complex and they returned to the transport vehicle. The Zodar settled on top of the transport's hull, denting the external armour and forcing the transport to settle an inch or more into the sand. At that moment the horde aliens started emerging from the sand and the cliff face, and Treesh gunned the engines. As the transport lurched forward the Zodar fell off and was buried in the sand.

As the party escaped the Zodar was seen running after them, hip-deep in the sand in its statue form, and throwing up a huge cloud like a speedboat through water. Finally the team lost the aliens and they were safe.

Stopping the transport, the team investigated a strange transparent bubble. They found that they could get into the bubble but could not get out. Once all of the team was inside (including the Zodar) the bubble launched itself from the planet's surface at inconceivable speeds. The team admired the light show (blue in front, red behind) for about twenty minutes before the bubble slowed down and deposited them in Shakna's chamber on the Sorce moon orbiting Dha Prime.

Drake made his displeasure at being coerced and thretened with death clear to Shakna, who was not impressed. A small amount of Shakna's power incapacitated Drake and rendered him unconscious. Tok gave Shakna the party's report instead. Shakna explained that Darmoth was an ancient extradimensional entity who had once almost consumed this Scape, but with the assistance of the five Dark Races (which included the Shanask, the Zodar and the Quantum Knights) was dispelled before the Scape was lost. Shakna also revealed that it was he who had given Lord Lokoth his quest millenia ago.

Shakna apologised to Drake for coercing him, and explained that it was because he had been exhausted and drained by making contact with Lokoth during the briefing (that was the flash and shimmering that the party had experienced) and transporting them back to Vegra VII. The phrase "Deliver this shard unto Lord Lokoth or die" was not intended as a threat. It was meant to be interpreted as "If you do not deliver this shard unto Lord Lokoth you will die along with the rest of us". Drake was not impressed.

Shakna gifted each of the team members with a tiny Sorce crystal, explaining that they would each know what to do with it when it was needed, before transporting them back to their quarters for a real sleep.