On the Galactic Rim

Our game this week is Galactic by Riley Rethal where we’re a group adventuring in a galaxy far, far away. We are fresh-faced, young scholar and innocent Nova, Liam; Yin, the tired Mechanic and her droid BeeDee; and Ayden Daviron, a Scoundrel who seems to know everyone.

Our story begins with Liam having a nightmarish vision of his older brother as a suffering child. Yin goes into his room to wake and calm the young Nova down. She’s worried about him and asks if he thinks the vision is the Force trying to guide him.

When they first met, Liam sold his research books to pay for passage aboard Ayden’s ship. In exchange, Ayden agreed to fly wherever the kid’s search for his brother takes him, at least as long as his credits hold out. Now the visions guiding the young Nova are getting stronger and more disturbing.

Yin joined us mostly involuntarily after being stranded on a world at the edge of Mandate control after her baby, a souped-up starship had been stolen. Ayden, with Liam aboard, had hired Yin to repair his ship after something rattled loose and it became near impossible to keep her level, probably some stabilizer broken when he’d crashed into a tower while stealing it. In town while the repairs were underway, Ayden and Liam encountered a bounty hunter and outraced him back to the hanger, exchanging blaster fire along the way. Yin and BeeDee were still aboard and completing repairs when Ayden rocketed out of the dock and into space. He explained to us that the bounty on his head should really be on the head of his ex-partner, a Rhodian named Pons, who betrayed him and stole a shipment that left him in debt to some very unreasonable people.

After his nightmare from the opening, Liam meditates to determine his brother’s location, and eventually emerges to tell Ayden they need to visit a forest world. Is there one close by? Ayden flies us to a popular smuggler redoubt on a forest moon in the Ebonite system. We land safely because the smugglers all know Ayden, but that includes one outraged guy named Chett, who’s got old beef with the smuggler. Once they’re off the ship, Liam feels a strong pull and goes running off into the forest alone. Meanwhile, Ayden gets into a fight with Chett at the local cantina while Yin tries, unsuccessfully, to enjoy a drink. When we’re later driven from the bar, Yin notices her stolen ship in one of the docking bays. We concoct a plan for her to sneak aboard and steal it back while Ayden distracts the thief. Ayden walks up to the current owner as he’s working in the hangar, a man named Cylus, complaining about Chett. They exchange stories until Ayden asks if Cylus has any jobs that he could cut Ayden in on. But Cylus doesn’t trust Ayden and wants nothing to do with him. Unfortunately for Cylus, Yin sneaks aboard and gets away in her ship before he can react with anything more than a few ineffectual blaster bolts.

Out in the forest, Liam approaches an abandoned, crumbling Nova temple, drawn to it, sensing an intense presence within. Inside, he finds his brother, Victor, but Victor is strange, hard and uncaring. He says he’s been calling to the young Liam to bring him here, so he can join him. Liam learns that his brother has studied here to learn the ways of the dark side, which he needed to overcome his pain. Now that he’s mastered his pain, he plans to use this power to take down the Mandate, and he needs Liam’s help. Liam agrees to help Victor in his noble cause, but surely, they can do it without the dark side. Victor rejects his brother’s naïveté and insists they discover the other temples of power and master their dark secrets.

Once Yin and Ayden have reconnected, they go off to meet Liam at the temple. He’s clearly troubled when we find him, and we try to convince him to come with us, to join us in our adventures rather than getting involved in an impossible quest that’s going to get him killed. But Liam can’t abandon his brother now that he’s found him, so he pays Ayden for his passage. Unsure what else to do, Ayden and Yin watch Liam say goodbye and walk back into the temple, determined to save his brother and the galaxy at the same time.