The Story So Far

Like any good story, ours starts inside a bar. Deep within the hulking towers of a spaceport known as Zelos Prime. A mischievous old man by the name of Arturo Reynolds recently went deep in debt in hopes to gather a crew and explore the universe. He quickly hires:

Anna Grodin, a skilled mechanic.

Dwan Grodin, her weird equally skilled little brother.

Anthony Weiner, one of the best techs in the system.

A gaggle of grad students to do his bidding.

Purity Tower
Looking for a way out of the Ivaldi System, they started reaching out and making contacts. One of these was actually a fellow man of science that previously worked with Arturo, Gangar. Passage out of the system was guaranteed by Gangar if they could assist him with an errand from his supervisor. The boss mans daughter, Ashley Galven had recently decided to go against her fathers wishes and run off with her crummy boyfriend. Gangar had the last known location for her being at the nearby Purity Tower, a deal was made and they were off.

After dealing with a bit of a gross overweight security guard by the name of Frank, armed with the apartment number their search was rather easy. That is until they reach their first obstacle, a locked door. Arturo and Anthony quickly started asking the neighbors questions about Ashley and her boyfriend. They seemed to know nothing about this Ashley, and hardly anything on her boyfriend Ricky Israel. Gathering this information did however make a perfect distraction for Dwan to break the lock and walk inside the apartment.

The apartment was empty, covered in trash and downright filthy, but empty. Somebody had torn this place apart looking for something, the team quickly searched the apartment looking of clues.

Arturo decided to do a bit of looting and put on a suit jacket that is much to small for him. In doing so he also found a cat, Jason Bjorn. When removing the cat from the bedroom they also discovered a horrific site, under the blanket on the bed is a human body tied up. Sprawled out in a crucifixion pose and completely shriveled up as if all the fluid in this person has been drained out of it.

Before they could investigate police raided the apartment and had them all arrested, all except Dwan who was able to use misdirection and crash through a sliding glass door in the apartment below to get away.

Lieutenant Hennessy would not listen to reason, had them booked and sent downtown.

Unable to prove their innocence the team was put on a shuttle headed to the nearby moon, half of which is a garbage dump, and the other is one of the worst prisons in the sector nicknamed The Wardens Playhouse.

The Wardens Playhouse
''"The first week in this landfill for the living goes just as miserable as you would anticipate. The food is terrible, the inmates are jerks, and the few guards this place has spend their time trying to cause as many problems as they can. After the first 12 hours the aroma from the nearby dump stopped burning my eyes, it does however take away from the natural odor of the food, making it a little bit more appetizing. Life in the playhouse revolves around food delivery, once a day a crane drops a box of supplies all the way down to a section of the prison referred to as “The Dust Bowl”. This section is the only part of the prison with actual ground and dirt, The Dust Bowl is also home to the only major gang that exists in the playhouse: The Crimson Circus. A lesser known gang in the Ivaldi System, few hundred members strong. Mostly small time pirates, crooks, and leftovers from the war. The Crimson Circus, and a majority of the interior of the prison is ran by their leader, Klarg.''

''Almost everything on this station is automated, the security drones, the lights, the water in the showers, and the daily food delivery. A series of buzzing drones, electronic alarms, and security cameras keeps the ambient noise to an almost tolerable level. Each Cell block has uncomfortable room for 48 prisoners, generally they are set up two a cell unless the Warden or Klarg say otherwise. Each block also has two sets of showers and bathrooms, along with two long and dangling staircases across the center of these open doughnut shaped floors. At the highest level of the prison sits the warden's office, the floors lined with blast resistant glass that allow him a front row seat of his domain."''

 -Arturo Renolds, Notes from a Bad Scientist 

Arturo immediately starts making connections trying to wheel and deal. Soon after one of his grad students starts getting the eyes from another prisoner, his attention now focused on making a statement, he trades up for a wrench and breaks the knees in on the new admirer. While getting acquainted with the locals  Arturo stumbles across Archie Shamgold, and old roadie and burnout just trying to make his way in the universe.

Privilege in this place does not happen on accident, and Archie's roommate is full of it. He hardly ever sees him in the cell and he seems to have sole access to one of the bathrooms on F Block. This peaks Arturo’s curiosity so he attempts to get a closer look at the bathroom situation.

A beefy guard watches over the door. Shamgold tries to ease the situation by trying to barter with the man, all he wants in his life is more sweet sweet jazz. Klarg, the leader of the Crimson Circus, barges his way out of the bathroom and into the conversation only to offer Shamgold a chance to earn his place in The Coliseum during the daily food delivery.

A confused and annoyed Daneicus Bow steps out of the bathroom after Klarg and his goon leave. His finds a colleague in Arturo, both men of science, and demands his assistance to get off of this god forsaken rock. Daneicus shows off his Toilet Wine laboratory, Making a liquid known locally as Klarvarx. It has a strange side effect where it makes the drinker believe their nipples are imperceptible. Daneicus is done dealing with Klarg and wants action, without a plan he asks for assistance making the beverage more toxic and dangerous so they can use it as part of a diversion to escape.

They science all night, long and hard. In the morning after a smoke they decide to take a crack at the security room across the block. Wrench in hand, Arturo smashes it open, setting off an alarm in the room. Two shock baton wielding security robots rush Arturo and Daneicus, both of them are no match for the cold steel of justice.

In the nick of time Anthony Weiner breaks through the security  system and disables the robots, while disarming the alarm. With access to the security room they come up with a plan to distribute the Klarvark and set off a prison wide alarm with the intentions of sneaking away in the scuffle.

Meanwhile Shamgold enters the dust bowl to prove his worth, however to everyone's surprise he is not there to do battle in the normal sense. He simply wants to play some music, in hopes to earn some new friends. Klarg still take this as a challenge and brings out a xenos prisoner to accept his challenge. This blind alien proceeds to put his hand over a large hole in his chest and pluck away at the air, a symphony of notes filled the dust bowl as he plays out “House of the rising sun”. Archie, without missing a beat joins into this jam session like a true blues musician, not taking away from the aliens song but adding to it. Archie takes over the next song while the alien attempts to join in, but he seems to be missing a beat here and there. The alien gets the third song and decides to go hog wild playing the fastest song he can think of (through the fire and flames) and its so fast that it starts to sound like the garbage live version. As Archie goes to lay down the finishing beat, the rest of the party arrives with armfuls of liquor.

Just as the battle ends the food delivery system comes right on schedule, except when Klarg opened the container instead of food and supplies he found a fat little boy all tied up. Handing out liquor Arturo recognized the boy to be Dwan, his mechanics weird little brother. He scoops him aside and unties him while the festivities start to fire off. Archie plays up a mad song to increase the tension already in the dust bowl, and soon the prisoners realize this their entire bodies are imperceptible. Thinking they are nothing but floating heads everyone starts to freak out, just in time for the alarm to go off.

Grabbing the guitar xenos the group makes their way to a large door, the only way to the landing hanger. As they get there the lights go out and five armed men run in and split into two groups. With some creative use of liquor and shock batons the guards are knocked out. They don their gear and proceed through the access tunnel stopping halfway when more guards are heard. They fake fighting each other and the new guards run past them without even thinking about it.

They find their way past a check-in station and without hesitation they bust in to look for their shit. 100% success and they get the fuck out of there to the landing pad as the guards start to return in a hurry. They enter the landing pad and pull up Arturos shuttle, the mooks and Dwan get in. Daneicus chuckles and calls his own class two starship from the hanger. Amazed and confused they all leave the station to see the shuttle under heavy fire, dodging out of the way they start docking maneuvers while a com link connection is started with the Schrodinger's Schooner. The warden gets to say a few words before Daneicus turns the channel off, remembering why he was even arrested he runs to the back of his ship to check his precious cargo. Pulling Arturo aside to show him the spoils of his work, he unveils several pallets of inter-species erotica.

Without an idea of where to go, Archie speaks up about how good the blues is on Atlas 2.

They make their way to the Ivaldi systems Stargate, and plot a course for the Zebulan system, home of Atlas 2.

A weeks travel between the Stargate and Atlas 2, the crew took this time to get to know everyone and their new home. Naturally the first thing they did was get loaded, during this time there was a bit of a weird object on the radar system however nobody was in the right mind to track it. Archie got extra loaded and decided to paint the inside of Arturo's shuttle to be the technicolor spaceship.

Atlas 2
Daneicus gathers up a sample box for the cargo so they can find a buyer, and most of the team takes the shuttle down to the surface. The team takes this time to explore a bit and wander through the night markets of The Crossroads, after getting lost and not having a direct line of communication to Archie Contact: Sundance. They decide to stop for a bite to ear and gather their thoughts. They stopped at Tortada Zenyatta, home of the best tortadas in the universe. They eat their fill and are relaxing a bit when Archie notices that one of the other tables seems to recognize him.

This couple is star struck when Archie comes over to sit with them, they seem surprised to learn that he had no idea he was famous. They also give up the information that the only one more famous than him is Sundance, and she does nightly sets at The Limping Bachelor.

With full bellies they take back to the streets and make their way to the club, a few blocks away they get distracted with a man in robes screaming about how the beginning of the world is coming. Arturo starts asking this man questions and mistakenly shows him some of the cargo. He does not pay attention to the porno printed on it but rather the paper itself, its not synthetic, the demeanor of this man changes quick and he starts making demands on where they got the paper.

Archie reading the situation steps in with his guitar and serenades everyone in the area into an orgy. After a bit the team leaves.

Reaching the club they notice a growing line around the block waiting to get in, near the line is a series of these robed men trying to get anyone to pay attention to them. In an effort to use his fame, Archie walks up to the bouncer and asks to go inside.

“Shit yeah i'll let you and your friends in, anything for you Jack”

The Limping Bachelor
They immediately take seats up at the bar and briefly introduce themselves to a Preacher sitting by himself. The show starts and Sundance takes the stage to sing a song. Totally entrancing the audience, a five minute song seems to make time several hours fly by.

After the show they butter up The Preacher a bit more and learn that he is trying to get answers for some bizarre things that have been happening. The robed men outside, Leafers, seem to be a growing movement. Growing so fast that all of the followers from his church have converted, seems that there is some street drug called The Jack of Hearts and it makes people see God. Unfortunately every person who takes the drug does not stay alive long enough for him to get any real information on this. His last lead and brought him here.

Archie and Dwan make their way backstage to see Sundance, and a glorious reunion is had. She gives them a lead on who can buy the cargo and starts making arrangements. This is interrupted by The Preacher rushing into the room yelling about getting answers, he informs them that Sundance took the drug and he demands to know what people are seeing.

Sundance elaborate on the situation, the drug gives you what you want most, and in some people that was to see god. She took it to be a famous singer, and didn't think twice about it.

With the bouncers getting knocked out and probably waking up soon, the party got back together and got into Sundance's rickshaw (now pulled by dwan) to go back to the shuttle, get the cargo, and figure out a way to save Sundance.

After driving across town they get back to the shuttle and notice six robed figures surrounding it. A conversation about the paper is cut short when they learn the cargo they brought is missing. The robed men appear to be mostly machines by the attacks they make on the party. They struggle their way through the fight, Dwan getting knocked out.

The Preacher climbs on top of the rickshaw, pulls out a very large handgun, and fires at seemingly nothing on top of the shuttle. This nothing explodes into a cloud of red mist and chunks.