Dune 2d20 Whalefall - Playtest 2

DrFaustusAU

 

Bene Gesserit Sister Wilhelmina fell. Her shuttle down to Giedi Prime exploded in flight and her sealed capsule fell out of the sky, stuttering descent barely slowed by the sporadic activations of the emergency suspensors. The suspensors failed entirely and the capsule fell the rest of the way. She was ready for the impact but an unsecured object left by the flight crew struck her in the throat, crushing her hyoid bone at the most inappropriate time. She was at no risk of suffocating thanks to her excellent physical control, but the injury prevented her from using the Voice.

The first thing she noticed was the stink, like a thousand animals being melted in a giant vat. She calculated that the shuttle must have been flying over the megafarms outside Harko. She levered the door open and was confronted with the reeking whalefields of House Texoco, confirming her suspicions. Cetaceans dangled from enormous derricks, penetrated with tubes that siphoned precious bodily fluids through pipelines to an enormous tryworks in the distance. The rendering plant sent up enormous clouds of foul smelling smoke, mingling with the sooty sky that reflected sunlight from all angles like a greasy mirror.

Chaak Tlaxxon, son of the Jaeger Katl Tlaxxon, and the Jaeger's Spymaster Vagar watched the falling star from a sniper tower overlooking the whalefields. Vagar called it in to Brine, Captain of the Guard. Brine promised the militia would ventilate the escape pod with bullets, killing anyone inside so that they wouldn't be tortured to death by their overlords in House Texoco. Chaak immediately dragged Vagar into his hotrodded grain hauler and swooped down to the crash site, heading off the massacre.

 

Chaak made a high-G turn and landed his souped up hauler by the crashed pod. Brine shouted at his game wardens to hold fire, then cursed the Jaeger's worthless heir for putting himself in danger. Vagar and Chaak negotiated with Wilhelmina, who agreed to leave the pod. She came out in her Bene Gesserit livery. The pyons watching from the derricks dropped to their knees and kissed the earth.

 

The law on Giedi Prime required anyone who encountered a lost Bene Gesserit to immediately turn them over to House Harkonnen for safe return to the Sisterhood, in exchange for a handsome reward. Both Chaak and Wilhelmina knew the Fat Baron would not actually return her to the Sisterhood safely. Wilhelmina told the Jaeger's son that if she helped her escape he'd be rewarded. Could she get him off world, he wondered? He wanted to see the universe, not spend his life torturing animals to produce industrial lubricants. Vagar felt similarly. He was a vagrant by nature and he had been stuck here long enough. Wilhelmina had a boarding pass that would get the whole group on a Heighliner offworld, no questions asked.

 

To the west, the pentashield protecting Presidio Texoco briefly flickered out, releasing a cloud of incense. An aircar lofted out from the platform atop the stone pyramid and flew over the whalefields toward the crash site. Chaak and Vagar knew who it was. Revered Speaker Ketzal Texoco, his personal Spotter and a handful of Zamburachiki, elite snipers with suspensor rifles for penetrating shields. They had to move fast. Sister Wilhelmina would hide in the forest preserve. By ancient law, only the Jaeger and his chosen men could enter. Even the Jaeger's liege, the Revered Speaker, required permission, which would not be forthcoming. Chaak would fly his hauler up to Tlaxxon Keep where it hovered suspended over the fields. Vagar would take charge of the scene of the accident and pretend the pod was empty. He swore the pyons watching to secrecy. If they wished to save the blessed saint who fell from the stars, they wouldn't give up her presence even under pain of torture.

 

Revered Speaker Ketzal Texoco hailed his subordinate and sort-of rival as they passed each other in the air. The black-mantled noble wanted to know what was going on. Chaak said the pod was empty and he was going to talk to his dad. Vagar was in charge of the crash site. Ketzal was delighted. His spotter, a woman with an obsidian black oil lens attached to her face by an eyecup, scanned the landscape below but didn't spot Wilhelmina. The four snipers clad in whalebone armor and red mantles fondled their bulky falling-block suspensor rifles and thought violent thoughts.

 

Chaak took his souped up hauler to the floating island. A sallyport in the side opened and his father, the Jaeger Katl Tlaxxon, came out, followed by the butler Cocoa Grinder. Dad was pissed off, like always. His bulky body was covered in squirming drug bugs that kept his violent rage under control. He asked his son what was going on and Chaak relayed the bullshit empty pod story. Dad kept his cool right up until one of the drug bugs swelled up and burst. Cocoa Grinder said something and the Jaeger swung his arm in a violent, uncontrolled motion, reflexively backhanding his majordomo.

 

From the treeline, Wilhelmina watched the Revered Speaker's aircar descend toward the crash site. A peasant approached and left a gift for her. She waited until he left and retrieved the package. Whale ceviche, so saturated with heavy metals she thought it was a deliberate attempt at poisoning until she remembered where she was. She ate up, neutralizing the toxins and ignoring the pain from her damaged throat as she swallowed.

 

Vagar bowed and scraped before the Revered Speaker. The pod was empty when it landed. He had posted guards and was investigating the surrounding area for clues. He convinced Ketzal that he hadn't found anyone inside, but Ketzal's spotter noticed the footprints left by the Bene Gesserit in the thin layer of tallow coating the ground. Convinced that Vagar had simply failed in his duties as the Jaeger's spymaster, Ketzal sliced off the poor guy's ear, salted it with an unpleasant but nonlethal poison and presented it to him for consumption. Vagar talked his way out of autocannibalism by telling Ketzal the truth: there was a Bene Gesserit in the escape pod who went into the woods to hide. He didn't say it publicly because he didn't want anyone to know. Spotter was part of whatever plot the rogue Sister was involved with. This delighted Ketzal. He could sell her to the Harkonnens for a fat reward, or test the Bene Gesserit resistance to pain through months of torture. Only problem was the law forbade him from entering the Jaeger's forest preserve without permission. Which was fine, he'd do nasty things to Katl's people until the Jaeger relented and granted him access.

 

Upstairs, the Jaeger dragged his son Chaak inside. The manor interior was beautiful sculpted wood, made from the ancient forests that once covered the land. One room was carved with beautiful hunting scenes, another was twisted like the interior of a massive tree, preserved forever by varnish. Cocoa Grinder followed them inside, one eye already swollen shut, and carefully attached a fresh drug leech to the spot where the old one popped. Chaak's mother Bergtora sat in front of a stock ticker, tapping out buy/sell orders on the communinet. His sister Opotchtli "Lefty" Tlaxxon squeezed liquid into mom's eyes, which were held open with hooks and couldn't blink. Jaeger Katl told both his kids they were grounded until the situation outside was resolved. 

 

With Spotter under arrest, nobody noticed Vagar sneak away to the forest. He explained the situation to Sister Wilhelmina, whose super-hearing couldn't penetrate the cone of silence the Revered Speaker used to screen his conversation with the spymaster. He gave up her presence to get Ketzal off his back, but they could still escape. Wilhelmina asked if there was a medical facility nearby. If she could repair her hyoid bone injury she could use the Voice again. There was a crude mechanical doctor in the pyon village, so that's where they went.

 

Schoenherr

 

A hunter seeker came through the vent into Chaak's room at the Keep where he was grounded. He ignored it until it bumped into him, then he relented and took the microdot mounted to its weapon hardpoint. It was his sister Lefty, asking what was going on and being annoying about it as usual. He replied back with a message of his own. There was a Bene Gesserit in the escape pod, she was hiding out in the forest. Lefty removed the detachable wall panel and poked her head into Chaak's room. She was excited to see what happened next. He went through the hole into her room, where she had a whole parallel surveillance system separate from the house cameras. She wanted to be a mentat and a Master of Assassins and loved to play with gadgets.

 

The cameras in front of the house showed Ketzal and his elite snipers. They came up in their aircar and the Jaeger intercepted them. The huge man asked why they were on his land without announcing their visit. He worked for the Revered Speaker but he was a free man, not some pyon they could push around. The beetles and leeches on his back swelled up like ticks gorged with blood. The Revered Speaker told his Jaeger that there was a Bene Gesserit in the forest preserve. The Jaeger didn't know anything about that. Ketzal said he would torture the Jaeger's wife Bergtora until he granted permission to enter. The drugbugs on Katl's back all exploded at once. He grabbed the Revered Speaker in a shield fighting choke, getting a good whole-arm grip on the slippery membrane and then slowly squeezing to compress the wearer beneath through the barrier. Ketzal stabbed with his poisoned dagger and Katl batted it away with a defensive swat. The Zamburachiki couldn't shoot without hitting the boss. Katl shouted that his wife should take the pills under the stock ticker. His children should run. Leave. Go. Take the Sister and get out.

Lefty hoovered up all the equipment she wanted on her great escape. The assassin's handbook. A shigawire garotte in her hair. A slip tip in her sleeve. She stuffed a vial of sapho and another of chaumas down her bodice, leaving no room for the brick of plastic explosives she dejectedly tossed in her bag. Chaak dragged her out while she fussed over the poison snooper and they ran for the garage where the servants parked his hauler. He hammered the switch for the shutter and blasted off. He spent all his free time tuning the engines for just such a scenario, fast acceleration. He got away from the flying island without incident, at first. One of the screens bolted to the dashboard flashed a warning. Missile lock.

 

Baer (probably)

 

Spymaster Vagar and Sister Wilhelmina made it to the village. It was an ugly heap of stone buildings beautified by the villagers with paint and adobe. The villagers recognized the Bene Gesserit and kissed the earth as she passed. In the medical office Mayor Snakewoman argued with the village doctor. Her face was a mess of scars and artificial tissue. Nose, ears, lips, eyelids. As mayor she was the responsible party whenever the boss was bored or upset, which meant Revered Speaker Ketzal Texoco regularly mutilated her. She noted Vagar's missing earlobe and was amused that he finally popped his cherry. Then she saw the Bene Gesserit and dropped to the ground, mumbling apologies to the blessed saint for her weakness. Her hideousness. Her poor judgement. Vagar took a hit off the doctor's clay pipe and told him they needed to fix Wilhelmina's voice. The doc loaded the Sister into his primitive surgery machine, spooled up the shigawire to the correct operation and pressed the firing stud. A huge needle jabbed her in the throat, moved the bone back into position and repaired it with a burst of ultrasonics.

 

Lefty complained that she couldn't see the seeker projectile following the grain hauler. Chaak yanked the throttle and did a cobra maneuver, pointing the nose of the hauler upward and braking hard so the explosive round flew past and lost track of him. He stalled the engine and the hauler slowly descended with the nose pointed straight up, suspensors holding but losing altitude. He wished he'd installed shields.

 

There was a sound like a truck rolling over outside the doctor's office in the village. Vagar immediately recognized it as Chaak fucking around with his car. He went outside with Wilhelmina and they found the hauler upside down. Lefty tried to kick the door open but it was blocked by the curb. Wilhelmina yanked it off with Prana Bindu and the wannabe-Mentat assassin stared at her in awe. This was the woman who could give her all the super-training she needed. 

 

The raid siren went off. House Grindhvalur, owner of the adjacent whalefields, decided this was an opportune moment to raid House Texoco and sent a flight of Hackpoles across the razormetl fence marking the border. The goons floated across the perimeter in suits of sculpted fogwood reinforced with shields. The wood responded to the wearer's thoughts, a single sliver could act as a hunter seeker and bore through a victim's body to a vital organ. The Revered Speaker's elite snipers responded to the intrusion with fire from their suspensor rifles, whose projectiles slowly pushed through the target's shield to explode inside. 

 

 

Wilhelmina asked for Snakewoman's help getting off world. The mayor immediately agreed. She could provide transportation, disguises and a distraction. Snakewoman turned to Vagar and told him that if he wanted her help escaping, he would make sure Lefty and Chak Tlaxxon got out with him. He wasn't thrilled about his former boss' kids slowing him down, and was a little nervous what they would do if Wilhelmina told him about his earlier plot to betray them. But with the Jaeger and his wife dead, Chaak would be the head of a noble house, which would open a lot of doors to a spymaster. So he agreed to Snakewoman's demands. He sent a coded message to his smuggler contact at the transport hub. They'd have a trailer waiting for him which would take the party onto the planetary superhighway to the spaceport at Harko. The gang doffed their colored mantles and religious vestments and dressed as peasants in heavy work boots and coveralls. They got into one of the little golf carts used by the maintenance workers to zip around the whalefields. As the Hackpoles descended on the village and attacked the pyons the group zoomed out of the village and toward the bridge to the loading dock, pretending to be frightened workers fleeing the attack.

 

A maniple of House Grindhvalur's armored soldiers drifted out and blocked the road. Vagar pulled on his cibus hood before they spotted his face and randomized his appearance. He told them he was a double agent and had prepared the way for them, and they needed to let him pass. Priestlake, leader of the warparty, told him to dismount and accept his reward for disloyal service. The armored warpriest's hand bristled with wooden spikes, indicating exactly how the traitor would be rewarded. The warpriest's spiked wooden sabaton caught on the whale oil pipeline that extended across the bridge. Rather than unhook it he applied maximum torque with his suspensors and tore out the offending bolt. 

A jet of pressurized whale oil shot out, splashing him through his shield until he dialed it to maximum opacity. Which sent him flying off into the air on his suspensors from the recoil impulse. Chaak floored the gas pedal and drove through the jet of oil. It nearly blinded him and the licking flames from the burning runoff gutter below set the golf cart on fire. The flaming jeep shot down the road and left a trail of melted rubber until the tires melted completely. It skated up the ramp to the transit hub on bare rims and Chaak yanked the wheel to steer it into the back of the waiting semi truck. The smuggler in the driver's cab floored it and the jet engine flared to life. He bullied his way to the front of the queue and shot out onto the highway acceleration lane. The high g maneuver sent the burning cart tumbling out the back onto the road. Wilhelmina yanked the occupants out with her Prana Bindu enhanced strength, sparing them a messy road accident right when the end was in sight.

Vagar told Chaak that he owed him, dammit. Fired up by all the excitement, Lefy fished the vial of sapho out of her bra, sending the other spy gadgets hidden there spilling out onto the floor of the trailer. She took a hit, realized how uncool she looked in front of Wilhelmina, and offered her a hit. The Bene Gesserit told her she had a lot to learn, downed the vial in one pull, then immediately neutralized the drug before it could affect her.