The Current Crew of the Pretio
Ne'vets Aharo - an exotic animal broker, both legal and otherwise, majority owner in the Pretio.
Evus - Twi'lek free mercenary, Ne'vets' armed muscle with a keen eye and a tendency to shoot first.Tarrie - Human pilot "under contract" to fly the Pretio, and drive the Piscopo. Brother of potential terrorist, rebel Latorna Savvn.
Frokazza - Wookie co-pilot, mechanic, and unarmed muscle. Very distrustful.
Kafla Thingvellir - Billionaire entrepreneur turned zoological enthusiast, in search of the Translucent Chromatic Trapper. Completely out of his element as the group is trapped underground.
With Tarrie piloting the recently stolen submersible, the crew let the auto-pilot guide them up a slow moving river, destination unknown, but allegedly and holy and very deadly place.
Underground Movement!
Trapped by a cave-in the intrepid crew
Of the Pretio ventured into the
Underground tunnels of Planet 576-908.
Encountering sentient life not of this world,
And with an unhealthy focus on death,
or heroes have absconded with their watercraft
and travel up an underground, to their "Holy Place"
Evus, who was stuck in the storage area, filled his time with searching the containers on board. Nothing too unusual: protein biscuits, carb pouches, and powdered blue milk. The crates weren't part of one full shipment. Some had been cracked upon and portions used, while others were completely intact.
An hour into the voyage, a droid voice turned up on the speakers, "ATTENTION PILOT! APPROACHING ICE FLOE! PREPARE FOR MANUAL NAVIGATION"
The auto-pilot immediately disengaged, sending the crew lurching around the ship. As Tarrie took over the controls, the river turned into a wide lake. Strewn across the surface of the lake was a surprising number of ice floes. Tapping onto the sonar, Tarrie found it too shallow to submerged, but also that the exit for the river was, of course, on the other side of the lake.
The pilot deftly swerved through the maze of ice. With the ship lurching quickly to the left, then to the right, the crew could only buckle up... Evus could only hope none of the containers in storage would come loose and smash him to bits.
Finally, one of the floes got the best of the Tarrie, and the ship began to navigate off course a bit, surrounded by a tighter ice pack.
With a press of a button, the sides of the ship rose up, sealed at the top and the submersible dove underwater. Despite the internal alarms going off, he turned up the throttle. Frokazza could only stare forward from the co-pilot's chair, desperately clinging to a well-place handle.
In the passenger compartment, Ne'vets was barely holding in his rations, while Kafla kept muttering under breath, "Thisisawasteoftime. Thisisawasteoftime. Thisisawasteoftime."
A few well-place shots with the dual-blaster on the submersible and the vessel emerged from the ice with only a few scrapes.
A relieved Tarrie, turned on the cabin comms, "Should I put the auto-pilot back on."
Ne'vets gulped a few breaths, regained his composure, and responded, "If you're good, keep it off for now. Perhaps we'll navigate around the long and painful death those other fellas promised."
Two hours later, the droid voice came on again, "YOUR DESTINATION IS ON YOUR LEFT."
As Tarrie ascended and the water poured off the windows, a series of crude docks appeared. A number of similar ships were docked there, with a scattering of people on them, unloading, loading, and moving cargo.
A further view was a bit more disturbing. The origin of the underground was the large lake the docks were located in. The docks connected to a huge, black mass of rock jutting out of the center of the lake. This rock rose into the darkness to wherever the caverns ceiling was.
Tarrie pulled the submersible at the dock, opening up the canopy. Evus, finally freed from the cargo hold, popped up and stretched with a much-needed "UGH."
"Hey, are you here to sightsee or to work? Start unloading your cargo."
There was an individual on an adjacent dock, datapad at hand. He appeared to be directing the other workers, human and alien, to move cargo into an entrance of the obsidian tower.
"C'mon, we've got a deadline."
Frokazza asked to the others, "Do we actually have cargo to move?"
"Sure we do," and a Evus raised a crate over the walls of the cargo hold.
Once the crew appeared to start working, the middle-aged man found another ship to yell at.
Grabbing a hovercart, they unloaded the cargo and transported it a pair of large blast doors into the tower. The first step inside and they were hit with the stench of dirty clothes and warehouse intermixed.
The area was certainly a storage area, with 10 meter tall warehouse racks lining the space. Off to the side were piles of clothes and a laundry operation taking place.
They dropped their cargo and worked their way to the only other door in the facility. En route, Evus ventured over to one of the piles of laundry, a pile of short, black cloaks, almost-robes. Discovering that they were clean, he grabbed enough for everyone... even the Wookie.
 |
| Frokazza, finally a cultist, not a pretend prisoner |
Of course, things went darker, when they all realized that the random piles of clothes could be from the prisoners they may have killed.
Hiding behind the industrial galactic washers, the crew pondered their predicament. Could they grab a boat and sail downriver? Does Tarrie's starfighter pilot skills translate to captaining a dingy? Are the dockhands cultists, or do they keep separate? Do they worship the Trapper? Was it easier to be above ground, where the local floral and fauna shot at them with their own weapons. Could they get the blaster shot and blood stains out of the cool puffy shirt stashed in the laundry?
The exit to the warehouse opened to a curved hallway, made out of a dark grey stone. Some of the people milling about looked like guards, other were cloaked cultists, and the third group were the smugglers/pirates from the docks. A Wookie in a cloak, brought some odd looks from the guards, but no one overtly questioned the crew.
The inside of the circular hallway appeared to be a dark, obsidian with no apparent entrances. Near it were two separated turbolift, they hit the button on the turbolift and found they only had two options, "1" and "3".
Going up to Level Three, they discovered stone equal to the center, with the same circular hallway. The doors on this level were covered with a strange script/runes. No one knew what they met, but it was definitely different that than galactic common everywhere on Level 2
Working the doors, the disguised crew opened the closest one to them. Inside was another vast room, akin to the warehouse area. It was carpeted, but empty, save a few orange lights, and three individuals in various meditative poses.
Grabbing a far corner, the crew tried to plan their next move in whispered tones. While the rest of the crew was rather nonchalant, the sight of a cloaked Wookie broke the trance of all three, at least for a few moments. Rather quickly they returned to their meditations and chants, with the occasional "Taking the planet back," or "Death to the Unbelievers" interspersed.
After the few minutes, and one Wookie growl, the crew got up and headed to the only other door in the room, besides the one for the hallway.
Walking into the next room was another warehouse sized room, save the religious paraphernalia adorning it, and lines of pews. They were struck in surprise of a loud, unified chant of two dozen of individuals worshipping in the room. Lea by a Mon Calamari with turquoise skin, wearing a black robe with streaks of red, chant increase in speed and volume, multiple languages being spoken, yet somehow keeping with the cadence.
As the chant reached a fever pitch, it stopped suddenly, and the worshippers stood up and casually headed for the back exit, right where the crew was standing.
Ne'vets ordered the crew to fall back to the meditation room, where they formed a receiving line on both sides of the doorway.
Despite Frokazza being the center of attention to many of the worshippers, especially an elderly woman who took a liking to him (although she was racist as hell), the cultists were quite pleasant and friendly.
Once the worshippers left, the crew worked their way into the temple. The Mon Cal priest had not exited with his flock, and he wasn't in the temple proper.
With the doors finally shut, Tarrie let his feelings known.
"I so wanted to punch that old lady in the throat."
The unsettling feel and untranslatable tapestries made the crew wish to find an exit even faster. Finding a hidden door near the lectern, behind another rune-covered tapestry.
Through the door, they found themselves in a conference room, dominated by a beautiful table, surrounded by comfy chairs.
As they began to look around, the chair at the far end of table spun around revealing a beautiful Twi'lek woman sitting in it. She raised a single finger to beckon you closer.
"Good, I've been expecting you...."
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