Adventure Writeup: Travellers at a Formal Ball

Good bars are few and far apart in the 3rd Imperium. In the future, substitutes have been introduced to replace alcohol in drinks in order to reduce harmful effects and risk of addiction, sacrificing flavor for safety. These drinks cover the shelves of many bars across known space, and while each bottle is good, they are almost never great. Not that alcohol is gone. If you have a bartender who's willing to go out of their way to get real alcohol that will boost your confidence and destroy your liver, then you know you'll have a good bar. Say what you will about Balthazar; most of it is accurate. It's a burned-out war-torn hellhole that nobody and their mother would ever in their right mind want to visit, much less stay. You don't go to Balthazar; you end up on Balthazar.

But damned if it didn't have one of the best bars in the sector. 

High off our success with the train heist, we all went back to the bar where we'd been recruited by "the resistance". We could have gone back to the hotel room, but it would have been too small for all the party we were packing. The rest of the patrons couldn't have cared less about us being there, but for many of us, it was our first real victory for a long time, the first of many to come, if we didn't die horribly first.

We were causing a real scene, with Amelia having trouble holding her spiked seltzer, Daniel singing a nursery rhyme (poorly) with Alex laughing at him, and Vanai wishing she had been there. Most of the other patrons began to leave because of how late it was. At least, I think that's why they left. No matter. The night wore on, and eventually it was only the four of us and the bartender left. He's probably a psion, the way he talks funny and how fast he gets us our drinks and the way his eyes glow when he thinks we can't see. Psionics are totally illegal, but we aren't exactly saints ourselves.

It was at this late hour that the door opened, and we all turned to look in a drunken stupor. A man, sharply decked out in a tuxedo, strolled into the bar, eyes full of life, and anger, and tears. He surveyed us all carefully before taking a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and dabbing at his eyes. He turned to us, and in an imperative tone, asked us-

"Is this the place?"

We looked at each other in confusion. We weren't totally there, and it seemed like he wasn't either, looking not at us but through us, preoccupied with something. Daniel spoke up.

"Um, sure."

The man perked up. "Really? This is where Archduke Ferdinand the 2nd-13th-5th died? Where he was stabbed to death by a madman? The place where my best friend was taken from me?" He began to choke up. We looked at each other uncomfortably. Great, another Balthazar nobleman. He probably knew the guy Daniel had shanked just before we were hired for the train heist. Daniel made a move towards his blade; we knew things were going to turn ugly fast. The man looked up again. "Then you all must have been here when he died. You must have seen the murder-" He was overcome with emotion again. "You all were here. And now- now you must-"

He pulled a few pieces of paper out from his jacket and handed them to us. They were invitations to some kind of formal ball.

"You were all there. You saw what that killer did to Ferdinand. I'm sorry you had to witness the death of a good man, and now I want you all to attend his funeral."

We stared at him uncomprehendingly for a minute.

"So... you don't know who we are, then?" asked Amelia.
The man looked at her with confusion. "No, but clearly you're all regulars at this establishment. You must have been there when he died, so you're invited to his funeral."

We stared at him again. Maybe he was too distraught over the death of his friend to think straight. Maybe he was trying to trick us. Maybe he was just stupid.

Nobody said anything until Vanai spoke up. "On behalf of this fine party of travellers, I, Lady Dame Vanai Cordé of the House of Cordé do accept your invitation to the funeral of Archduke Ron Paul the 2nd-5th- what were the numbers?"
"2nd-13th-5th."
"Yes, that. I accept your invitation on our behalf, sir. What was your name?"
"Lafayette. You may call me Lafayette." He turned to the rest of us. "Thank you, friends. I eagerly await your presence at the funeral."
He quickly turned and left the building.


"Huh," said Alex.

"I didn't think people could be so dense," Amelia thought aloud. "Clearly, I was wrong. Is this a good idea? Who knows the risks of going to a party for a dead guy that we killed!"

"Hey, don't try to take credit for that! That was all me!" said Daniel. "Anyway, parties are fun, and there'll be free food, so I say we go."

"We ARE going," declared Vanai. "Didn't you hear anything I said to that guy?"

"Yeah, but we thought you weren't gonna follow up," put Alex bluntly.

"But that makes no sense! What kind of person would just lie about going to a formal occasion like that? That's rude!"
The rest of us shuffled awkwardly before she continued. "It would be against protocol not to go after I already said yes, and it would be disrespectful to the dead guy. We are going to this party."

"See, I'm with this lady." exclaimed Daniel.

"Not you," she said.

"What? Come on! I'm great at parties! If anything, you should stay behind. You're the boring one. Eh? Eh?" He looked to Amelia and Alex for approval. He found none.

"Juvenile remarks aside, if someone was at that party who actually did see us- I mean, Daniel- kill the archduke, then we'll have real problems. The rest of us can claim ignorance, but not you. Besides, it would require changing out of your combat armor, and nobody wants that."

Daniel began to see the logic of the situation. Not that he liked it. "Yeah, yeah," he mumbled. "I was gonna stay back and, um, protect the hotel room, anyway. I hope y'all have fun."
He clearly did not want us to have fun. He disappeared into the hotel's parking garage shortly after that, muttering that he was going to go work on our stolen police car.

Back in the hotel room, Vanai nodded as if it were all settled and then started looking through pictures of what looked like prom dresses on her comm, sighing in delight now and then when she saw a particularly nice one. Alex checked the invitations, and saw that the funeral-ball for the guy Daniel shanked would be the day after tomorrow. Amelia sat down on the carpeted floor of the hotel room and pulled out a pair of woman's gloves, an industrial-strength battery, electrical wire, various electrical tools, and a soldering iron and started assembling some device while cackling softly to herself. Alex wondered once again what kind of group he'd gotten himself involved with and wandered outside.

Vanai's grey ball dress.
Shame about what happened to it.

On the day of the ball, Vanai assembled Amelia and Alex to look over their outfits before the ball. By golly, she wasn't going to go to a formal event without her 'bodyguards' looking tidy and professional. She was herself wearing an elaborate grey dress, loose and flowing and maybe a bit impractically long, but she had a smile on her face as she wore it. She nodded approvingly upon seeing Alex's pilot's dress uniform, looking well-kept and only about a decade out of style. Amelia had stubbornly decided to wear her lab coat, and was wearing the gloves she'd been working on earlier.

"Shouldn't we go check on what Daniel is doing?" Amelia said as we were on our way out.
"No, it's probably nothing," Vanai said, holding her dress to make sure it didn't get muddy in the gutter.

We learned on the drive to the ball every single one of Vanai's nervous habits. She was clearly worried and/or excited, as she kept clasping and unclasping her hands, and she kept on looking out the window, dreaming of meeting that one perfect guy or girl (after almost a year with her, we're still not sure) or something like that. Alex and Amelia were more wondering more about whether using the plastic baggies they'd brought to bring food home with would get them ejected or not. Balthazar may be a hellhole, but it's got good seltzer water.

We showed up at the building where the funeral was to take place, and we honestly couldn't tell whether it was supposed to be a funeral or a party. There was a live quartet playing classical music, a bunch of fancy-looking people wandering about talking and dancing, and an honest-to-God caller. "Dame Vanai Cordé, and escort," he announced as we entered.

Basically what the funeral looked like

Vanai practically squealed as soon as she got inside, and quickly went off to go hang out with some of the local bigwigs, ditching us. Alex wandered over to the buffet and made small talk with one of the guards posted around the room. Amelia did the same, but skipped the latter.

The party had been going on for a while, and the unkind, stingy souls manning the buffet were starting to give Alex and Amelia dirty looks, so the two of them quickly made themselves look busy by 'admiring the architecture' of the room. It was while they were trying to avoid making eye contact with the buffet servers that Amelia noticed the suspicious-looking person in a maintenance worker's outfit slipping furtively into an unmarked door near the back of the room.

"I'm gonna go check that guy out," Amelia said. "It'll give me something to do."

"Go ahead," Alex said, shrugging. Amelia went off to go follow him.

Atherton Beryl

On the dance floor, Vanai had just finished another waltz with another young officer in the Balthazari Space Force when she went to sit down for a moment and grab some champagne. She had just taken a champagne flute from a passing waiter when she turned and ran straight into a man in a tuxedo passing the other way, jostling some champagne onto his jacket.
He looked up. "You insult my honor," he said angrily. Then his eyes met Vanai's. "You!" he said. "You're that Cordé woman!"

"You're that Beryl war profiteer," she said. "Tell me, do you still charge your workers for their sleeping privileges, or just for their food?"

"You have no idea of how a business is run," he said coldly. "Perhaps that's why House Beryl continues to have larger revenues and a stronger shipping fleet than House Cordé." A crowd of people, including Alex, had begun to gather around as voices were raised. The two evidently had some history.

"I had no idea that being a merchant of death was so lucrative," Vanai replied. "Of course, I suppose you need the cash to pay for your older brother's- Gavilar, I believe his name was- gambling debts. 7.4 million credits to a Mondasian mob leader, I believe?"

"Slander. Remember, everyone," Beryl gestured to the assembled group, "my family's honor is being slandered, openly slandered, by this woman who has fallen in with a group of vagabonds and Travellers!"

Vanai's lips tightened. "You talk a lot about honor for a man with none."

"Honor?" Beryl shouted. "Tell me, Cordé, how many of your Traveller boys have you slept with? How many? Give me a number!"

With a quick gesture, Vanai dashed the remainder of the champagne in the flute onto Beryl's suit. He looked down at it, then looked up at Vanai, rage in his eyes.

"You Cordé bitch!" he spat. His hand went to the sword at his side. Vanai turned to Alex, who had a shocked expression on his face.

"Sword," Vanai said. "Pass me my sword."

And then the old guy we'd met at the bar, Lafayette, swept in. "This will be an affair of honor," he declared. "Dame Cordé, you may prepare with your retainer in that corner. Mr. Beryl, you may do the same over there." The two duelists did as he instructed, and the assorted nobles watching split into different camps surrounding their preferred victor.

"Huh. Did you just get yourself into a fight at a fancy party?" Alex asked Vanai. "I kind of figured it'd be me doing that."

"His family's an old enemy." Vanai said. "I'm fairly certain that provoking duels with Beryls is a family tradition. Pass me my sword."Alex handed her Navy rapier to her from where he'd been holding it, and she swung it around experimentally. "I'm going to stretch beforehand," she said. "I hear Atherton Beryl's good with a sword."

"Don't you want to change out of your dress?" Alex asked.

"I'm wearing my cloth armor underneath," she said, "and, FYI, dresses are actually fairly easy to move around in in combat. Ask me how I know this."

While the insults and duel preparations were going on on the dance floor, Amelia had snuck into the maintenance door and was looking around. It was dark back there, as maintenance passageways tend to be, and so Amelia felt her way along to the left until she bumped into something on the floor. She looked down. It was a body, dressed in a maintenance worker's uniform, and he was not breathing. Oh shit. Gripping her only weapon, her gloves modified to give an electrical shock, she crept past the body and encountered a set of stairs leading upward. She considered for a moment, and then crept up them.


Back in the main room, Vanai stepped forward, blade in hand, to face Beryl. He had a rapier in his own hand, and crouched slightly, blade in front of him. Vanai turned to assume a classic fencing stance, side turned to face Beryl.
"Begin," Lafayette called. The poor guy held himself together pretty well, considering that there was going to be a swordfight at his best friend's funeral.
Vanai charged forward, slashing at Beryl, who easily parried. Vanai stabbed at Beryl's chest, and he stepped to the side, slashing at her head. She brought up her blade just in time to parry it, once, twice, and then again, before stepping back to recover. Beryl gave her no time to rest, however, as he stepped forward, slashing at her defenses. Vanai blocked the first slash, and the second, but the third slash nicked her arm. Despite the bleeding, she recovered quickly, pressing the attack and forcing Beryl backwards behind a flurry of blows. Beryl fell back, forced to defend himself, as Vanai slashed at his cheek, cutting it, before using a superb riposte and lunge which caught Beryl in the torso.

Back on the maintenance stairway, Amelia had just crept up to the top and was looking out. There was a balcony there, overlooking the entire ballroom below. Behind the balcony railing, out of sight, crouched an assassin in the classic 'I'm-about-to-shoot-someone" pose, staring down the sights of a sniper's Gauss rifle. The assassin was wearing full battle armor, which had some form of camouflage active which made it blend into its surroundings. Amelia took a look at the assassin, took a look at the combat armor, took a look at the sniper rifle, and glanced down at her own electrified opera gloves. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, she carefully took a step backwards towards the stairs.

Back on the ballroom floor, the look of shock on Beryl's face was beautiful to watch. He'd evidently been expecting to win, and was staring at the bloody hole in his torso with a look of complete dumbfoundedness. Then he recovered his composure, and bowed theatrically to Vanai.
"A good day to you, Dame Cordé," he said. Then, smirk on his face, he stepped aside to give the sniper a clear shot at Vanai.

The sniper fired, a magnetically-propelled tungsten-alloy dart exploding out from the barrel at a speed of over 3,000 meters per second towards Vanai. And inexplicably, it slammed into Beryl's back, sending blood spraying out over the assembled guests and Vanai's gorgeous grey dress. And the ball erupted into chaos and screaming. Alex, with the trained reflexes of a combat veteran, yelled "Move!" at Vanai, and ran for cover, pulling out his own cutlass as he went. The nobles were practically tripping over themselves to get out of there, and Vanai was staring blankly at Beryl, who was lying in agony on the floor, and wondering how it all could have happened.

And then the Imperial Intelligence kill squad broke in through the massive picture windows on one wall, and the chaos really started. There were four of them, wearing full tactical gear, brandishing automatic rifles and spraying bullets at anything in sight. The nobles who had been fleeing in that direction turned and ran, some of them falling to the kill squad's indiscriminate fire. From the balcony overlooking it all, the assassin fired again, the Gauss dart splitting the air directly above Vanai's head. She finally saw sense and ran for over, sensibly hiding directly below the balcony with Alex, the only place in the room where the assassin couldn't fire at her.

Near the window where the kill squad had burst in, Lafayette, the host of the now horribly off-track funeral-party turned to his retainer. "Give me my sword," he said. The sword in question, Adrienne, was a massive broadsword, a family heirloom of the Lafayette lineage. Forged in the fires of Mount Hestian on Imperial Prime using techniques now lost to the ages, it was the blade of centuries of great warlords and leaders. Now, it was being used in it's eternal purpose: to kill or maim as many of the enemies of the Lafayette line as possible. Lafayette drew Adrienne from its scabbard, crying "For the memory of Ferdinand the 2nd-13th-5th!" He swept upon the kill squad like a storm, hacking and cutting at those who had dared dishonor his dear friend's memory.

Seeing the chaos that had erupted in the ballroom below, the assassin, known only as 'Wolf', stood and crossed quickly to the stairs leading down, shouldering her sniper rifle. She would have to deal with the target quickly, lest she escape in the chaos. She quickly took the steps down at a jog, and was about to exit the maintenance chamber when, from behind a corner, a pair of hands in white gloves grabbed her armor by the neck. "Got you!" said Dr. Amelia Straffin, before clenching to activate her gloves. Thousands of volts of electricity arced into Wolf's neck.

And did nothing. The combat armor was completely insulated, and impervious to pesky little things like water, the elements, and near-lethal doses of electricity. Amelia suddenly realized, with her gloves ineffective, exactly how much trouble she was in. The faceplate of Wolf's helmet turned to face Amelia. "Give me one reason that I shouldn't kill you right now."

Outside, Vanai and Alex were firing potshots at the kill squad from their cover, and Lafayette was carving his way through the would-be assassins, his broadsword seeming to gleam with bloodlust. He ran an assassin through with Adrienne, before wrenching it out and hacking at another, a fierce grin on his face. And then, as if fate herself had flipped us the middle finger, a band of anarchists burst in through the front doors, firing at everyone in sight.

"Today is just not our day," Alex observed dryly.

Vanai ignored him, firing at the assassins threatening to overwhelm Lafayette from all sides. One of them, seeing the muzzle flash from her autopistol, fired a quick burst at her, and she screamed, blood spreading outward over her dress.

Amelia, back inside the maintenance corridor, was utterly terrified. To her credit, she tilted her head to the side, as she always did when she was concentrating, and started to think. "Well," she said, "you were probably hired by my brother, Erik Straffin, the Mafia boss. You know him? Looks like me, but a bit taller, scar on his cheek, and a burning psychopathic desire to utterly destroy his enemies?"

"Yeah, actually," Wolf said. "Sounds like him."

"Think about it," Amelia said. "Your target's Vanai Cordé. A tough target at the best of times, but you failed. She's still very much alive. As I've said, I know Erik well. I should. I'm his sister."

"Really?" Wolf asked, looking up and down.

"Now, in our family, I'm the nice one. I don't work for Erik. But do you know what Erik does to people who fail him?"

Wolf furrowed her brow inside her helmet.

"Trust me when I say you don't want to find out," Amelia said. "He's a sadistic and extremely inventive man. Right now, your best move is to run, and run as far as possible. Trust me." Wolf thought about it.
"What did you say your name was?"

"Amelia. Amelia Straffin."

"See you around, Amelia." She quickly strode out the door. "I'd love to talk with you more, once this whole thing with your brother is sorted out."

Amelia watched as the professional assassin in full battle armor reached the grounds outside and started sprinting away.

Inside the ballroom, it was complete and utter chaos. Machine pistol-toting anarchists were spraying bullets at the nobles, the Imperial kill squad, the Travellers huddled in the corner, the walls, and basically anything that moved except for each other. A stray bullet hit Vanai and she went down, clutching her arm. Alex picked up her autopistol and returned fire, pumping shots at the oncoming anarchists. Lafayette thrust his sword into the chest of one of the assassins, and the man fell, dead before he hit the ground. Alex fired at the anarchists, killing one, while fire from a member of the kill squad dropped another, and the remainder fled. In another part of the ballroom, surrounded by the corpses of fallen foes, Lafayette faced only two survivors from the original kill team. He swung at one, a vicious overhead cut which bit deep into the assassin's neck. He screamed, and then his partner shot Lafayette in the back. As Alex watched, Lafayette staggered, and the assassin shot him again. Alex desperately fired at the assassin, who shot Lafayette once more, before fleeing towards the window.

Alex surveyed the room. The shooting had stopped, and those who had survived began to stir. Alex quickly assessed Vanai's condition, noting that she was still breathing. He tore off a few strips from the bottom portion of her dress, and quickly binded them around her wounds. "Much appreciated," Vanai said. "I don't suppose you could help me walk?"

Alex helped her up, and together, they slowly walked over to Lafayette. He was on the floor, and in bad shape. He looked as if he was quickly bleeding out, and his breathing was ragged and slow. "Thank you," he whispered, "for doing...your...best." He relaxed, and grew still. Alex felt for a pulse, saw there was none, and stood up. The few nobles able to walk had gathered around Lafayette's body, heads bowed. Outside, they heard the sound of police sirens, coming to the scene. Vanai and Alex walked to the door, slowly, to greet them. Amelia came out from the maintenance area and fell in alongside them. "Hey guys! I just bluffed this professional assassin into fleeing! How cool is that?"

"Huh. That is something," Alex said.

"Also, you two look like hell. Actually, just Vanai," Amelia said. Vanai was bleeding in two places, and her dress was torn and covered in bloodstains.

Alex patted himself up and down, as if to check all his limbs were still there. "I seem to completely fine," he said. "How about that?"

Afterwards, there was a lot of bureaucracy to wade through. The police had to investigate and tag dozens of bodies in what was already being billed as the massacre of the century, which was pretty impressive, given that the new one only started eight years ago. Of course, given that this was Balthazar, there'd probably be another one equally horrific next month. We had to do a great number of interviews with police and detectives, in which we expended a lot of time and energy in proving to the police that we weren't, in fact, in cahoots with the assassins. Beryl's official cause of death was the crossfire from the kill squad, although the Gauss rifle shot to the back probably hadn't helped him. We didn't hear anything from Wolf, but given her occupation, we presumed that was a good sign.

As an unexpected plus, it turned out that the party guests who gave interviews to the police had been suitably impressed by our heroism (or rather, to Alex's disgust, the heroism of "that brave young noble lady with the sword and gun, and her plucky sidekick") that when the executor assessed Lafayette's will, we were given a small portion of his estate. Lafayette's family had all died years ago, and, as befits the man who we learned was in fact Lord Admiral Gilbert Lafayette, of the Balthazari Space Navy, that we were given one of his older ships, an aging 'Free Trader'-class ship with a full jump drive, multiple staterooms, and a 64 H-ton cargo bay. So like that, we were real Travellers, in possession of a good ship and the means to fly her. We weren't quite sure what to call her: Vanai lobbied for a suitably grand name, such as Atlantica or Lady of Aquitaine or Galactica, while Alex was reportedly partial to Battle of Dessel. In the end, though, Amelia won out, and our ship was called Wolf.