It is time for us to depart from [[Drinax]]. [[Pent]] and [[Stigo]] get a little stipend from us to sustain them in our absence, and then we make for [[Hilfer]] on the first leg of our "Bacherlor party" trip to [[Sink]]. We've decided that Brick is to be the lucky man, though it's quite unclear who he;s supposed to marry.

Still. The trip is uneventful. The second leg is possibly even more boring that the first. Somewhere in the endless and vaguely star-studded tedium I sit for my first brokerage exams, but get confused on the difference between Indirect Off-planet Derived Income and Interstellar Non-salvage Profits and Gains, as redefined in the Empirian Taxation Protocol Update of 1101, and also fail to properly account for cryo-burn based value loss in perishable cargoes, and so I will have to do a resit.

Some of the crew are more successful like Diogo who gained adequate knowledge in all things related to sensors.

We make it down to Sink's spaceport, which is set up to process thousands but contains barely dozens, go through immigrations and make an acquaintaince with our government appointed guide. [[Almeca Bew]], pleasant though she is, is an unwelcome surprise.

She recommends us a hotel, but promises to scout for us something with a bit more local flavor. We tip her handsomely, go for dinner and agree to meet at the docks the next morning so she can help us find a suitable ship and captain for us to go fishing with. Much to her dismay, we settle on doing business with [[Captain Fred]], the worked-hard-and-put-away-wet-looking owner of the vessel The Loves Lost. Because there are not enough life vests on board, Almeca refuses to let us all board, and so Frankie and I go with her to see some local ruins - we're joined there by another guide, who seems to specialize in this area. Almeca seems very charmed by Frankie. Heloise takes boating lessons from Captain Fred, and Diogo and Randy manage to secure a catch of crabs and fish to supplement our dinner.

Our fishermen notice that our captain loves a sip, beer or otherwise, which is duly noted.

On day 2, we buy additional life vests for the boat and buy some whisky for our captain. Frankie and Almeca go to the local craft markets. No seahorses, just more crabs and fish (Diogo and Randy are getting terrifying with these harpoon guns) and Heloise continues her boating lessons and is allowed to try to dock the boat. We pay Fred for a minor repair (100 CR)

On day 3 we all set sail early, having agreed to meet with Almeca later in the day. We spot the magnificent sea horses, and I befriend one of the local crabs. We also locate our cache, which I mark with my communicator. Our techies rig it so that we can use it as a locator beacon.

We hand our beloved Captain the whisky and tell him that we'd like to go out extra early the next morning, but that we'd understand if perhaps that was inconvenient for him. For a 1000 CR deposit, he is willing to let us go out on our own.

Almeca has found us a local place to stay - someone who has some business off-planet lets us use their town home. This decreases our bills and gives us some privacy.

After having made ourselves at home in our new digs, we ask Almeca to take us hiking in the hills along the western shores of the lake. We have a little repast outside and we frolic to our hearts' content. We also very coincidentally happen to locate a secluded cove, hard to spot from land, but easily accessible from the lake itself. We take notes of checkpoints along the road, and spot two.

On day 4, I agree to await Almeca at our new location for a spa day at a civilised time. The rest of the crew sets sail at the crack of dawn - sans captain Fred - and retrieves the cache. Diogo, Brick and Randy work together to hoist the cache on shore, stow it in an out-of-sight spot in the cove and then install our state of the art fish finder on The Lost Loves.

I take to the steam baths and enjoy a rejuvinating facial treatment based on tea. Almeca seems to be enjoying herself, which is wonderful.

Diogo

2023-05-21T14:41:51Z

ChienMay: Created page with "The Third Imperium military academy was where Diogo felt he could make a difference and rise out of his lower middle class environment into something beyond just being a labor..."

The Third Imperium military academy was where Diogo felt he could make a difference and rise out of his lower middle class environment into something beyond just being a laborer. He wanted to serve the Third Imperium and hope one day he could rise up the ranks to become an esteemed military leader. But Fate had a different path for Diogo, after he failed his exams and had to drop out of the military academy. Ashamed of his failure, he pondered what would become of his life when he noticed the advertisement that "the Imperium needs you!" He jumped at this opportunity and enrolled into the military draft. Given he had some military training experience, he fared well and landed himself into the Marines, eventually advancing to Lance Corporal and obtaining a TAS membership too.

But over time this Lance Corporal began to feel irritated and exhausted about adhering to the hierarchy and rigid structure of the military. Like a pebble rolling down the mountain, this feeling continued to gather momentum inside him, which eventually led to his decision to abandon his position and get the fuck out of town.

Fast forward ten years and Diogo is doing well for himself. After his stint with the military, he fell in with the rougher part of society, met a comrade Dextrous, who together "run jobs" across the Trojan Reach for nefarious gang lords and other shady types. They do very well for themselves making a lot of credits shuttling contraband, weapons, and you name it across the sector.

Diogo did not come from a broken household so his outlook on life had its limits when it came to the nature of his work with Dextrous. To Diogo, drugs, weapons, etc. were commodities that fulfilled a certain demand and supply and why not earn credits connecting these dots? But his final job with Dextrous was something else altogether. In this line of business you don't ask questions about your client's cargo. However, this time something didn't sit right with Diogo about the size of this cargo and where it was going. He decided to investigate by hacking into the cargo manifest. After getting through several layers of security, he deciphered clues that the cargo was alive and human and its destination somewhere in Aslan territory. He and Dextrous immediately knew what this meant; this cargo contained slaves and the slaves were women and children.

This crossed the line for both Diogo and Dextrous. They agreed to abandon the job mid-flight, after seriously considering the impact of this decision against their personal lives. They re-routed Dextrous's ship, 'Feisty' to a garden planet, broke open the cargo and freed the women and children. They also left their 50% downpayment with the women to give them a fighting chance to survive.

Once again Diogo needed to get the fuck out of town; this decision would result in he and Dextrous being hunted for the rest of their lives. But being "in the business" of the underworld also meant they knew how to stay off radar too. They set a path way across the Trojan Reach to get as far away from trouble as possible. Dextrous sold 'Feisty' and went underground; Diogo found a good place to hide, on a planet called Marduk, where he could find menial work off the underworld grid.

A few weeks on the ground however, Diogo was not happy about the hours and the pay was shit given what he used to make for a fraction of the effort. Knowing a little something about computer systems like payroll, he decided to try to give himself a small raise...

Murdok Madness Player Characters

2023-05-21T14:41:06Z

ChienMay:

* [[Brick]]
* [[Franky]]
* [[Heloise]]
* [[Persy]]
* [[Diogo]]