At First Dawn Old Arno is already up and checking his belongings “I’m gonna go get my cargo skiff. Stay here and get yourself prepared I’ll be back by Second Dawn” the old man then left the docking bay, in the bright and hot morning sun he looked sprightly for his age.

Not long after this Old Arno returned. The skiff was large and battered. It rattled and sounded very much like it was about to fall apart as everyone got on board. Driving through town you notice something is different in the spaceport. Something has changed. The Mos Eisley steets are quiet and less crowded. The citizens go about their business with obvious ease and relief. Old Arno pulls up outside the general store, offering a slight nod of greeting to Tar Lup.

“Hello, Tar. Why’s out little town breathing so easy this fine morning?” asks Arno.

“Can’t you tell Arno? They’re gone” smiles Tar “the bounty hunters have gone. The whole lot of them got up before First Dawn and headed out into the desert”

With such surprising news Arno turned to his passengers “what’s our next move?”
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:54, Wed 30 Jan 2013.

Tera looked over the town feeling the ease with which people were wandering around the town. She could tell everything had changed before they even arrived in the city. The tension that was there had gone. "I guess they've found their target. Which means one of two things. They are either out of our hair...or headtails for good, or we're too far behind to catch them on this thing." Tera shrugged as she assessed the skiff's capabilities. "So I guess we head and if your skiff gets us there sometime before next year and the competition we win....and in any case, it's a good idea for us to be out of town when the hunters get back anyway...seeing as they want your head."

Lyla had wondered if it was a good idea to let Arno go off on his own, fearing he might either get captured by the bounty hunters, or run off. But thankfully he reappeared without a hassle. But as she saw his battered old skiff, she seriously considered renting a bantha or dewback. She'd had enough messing about on skiffs and bikes, she preferred the reliability and steady pace of a riding beast. Even if it was comparatively as slow as a wet week. She'd go find a place to rent one if it wouldn't put her far behind the others.

The news from Lup filled her with dread. "They've probably gone for the same folk that Arno's thinking of. We better move quick to catch up or beat them to it."

“Lank’s Farm then” Old Arno maneuvers his clunky skiff through the wider streets. When he reaches the edge of town he guns the engine and the skiff shoots off into the desert. Lyla realised that despite the battered look of the old skiff it would carry them much faster than any Dewback.

Soon Mos Eisley is far behind, just a speck on the scorched horizon “I haven’t been out this way in quite some time” he told them, the glaring sun shining on his sun-baked face. Burning sand stretches in every direction. Rows of endless dunes make everything look the same. Soon the journey becomes tiresome and monotonous.

Then as you come over a large sand dune you see a flat plain that stretches to the horizon. There, lying wounded just above the burning sand, is a large sail barge. Overloaded with bumbling, amateur bounty hunters, the craft appears to be ripe pickings for the creatures surrounding it. The sail barge is under attack by three huge, terrifying monsters! “them's Krayt Dragons” explains Arno, “some of the most fearsome creatures to walk the Tatooine sands”.

"This being Tattoine and all, normally I'd suggest going to help them as they're in trouble with Kraits. On other hand, we don't really need more bounty hunters following us." Tera shrugged "I still want to go help, but it's a distraction."

"We mind our own affairs and stick to the course," decides the gruff one.  "We're in no shape to be getting involved with neither bounty-hunters nor beast dragons.  Just take a wide berth of the issue and we'll waste less time getting to Lank's"

Mallox agreed silently. He took several deep breaths.


OOC: Taking 2nd wind.

Lyla had her coat pulled up high and her hat (specially shaped for a Twi'lek head) pulled low to keep the burning sun from turning her any more orange. She was about to doze off on the long ride, but she kept an eye out, always scanning for horizon and dunes for danger.

So she was quick to react to the sight of sail barge assault by krayt dragons, leaning over the side of the skiff as if she could get a better view. "Oh, frack. Poor bastards. I've faced krayt dragons before — well, we fled from them — and barely got away with my tails. They're vicious, dangerous."

She sat back down in her seat, but punched the side of the skiff in frustration. She felt like she ought to help, she had the experience. But she wasn't a ranger anymore, but a Rebel. What was the point of trying to save the Galaxy if she couldn't save anyone else? "Damn it. If I was doing my job, I'd be leading them away from that... Morons should have hired a guide. Well, they've got more people and guns than we do."

"Arno, you know these parts better: are we likely to run into any dangers out here?


OOC: Knowledge (life sciences) - what kind of krayt dragon? Garden, canyon, or greater?

Basing her analysis on the size of the Krayt Dragon Lyla would identify it as the common canyon species. After leaving the battle with the canyon Krayt Dragon behind Arno nodded to the Twi’lek “apart from the dangers of the desert there’s always the sandpeople” he warned. The battered skiff continued to travel across the barren sands despite the noises it made. As time passed the sands began to become stony until you reached a rocky canyon. Inside the canyon you can see high stone walls with the look of many dwellings within.

Arno speaks “that’s Sedi Fisk’s old manor” and steers toward it. Before you arrive there is evident that no one lives here anymore. The canyon is quiet, still. Nothing moves but the hot, midday breeze, and it blows unobstructed through and around the shattered buildings. The manor lies in ruins, as does every other dwelling in the vicinity. Whatever happened here occurred long ago. It appears Sedi Fisk no longer lives in this tiny community.

[OOC Make Perception checks.]

They left the hapless bounty hunters to the krayt dragons, silently wishing them to have the wits to just run and run and never look back.

After that scene, she kept a much closer eye on the desert, from the sands below to the horizon and to the endless sky. Lyla could be proud to say she knew most of what could be found in the deserts of Tatooine, but not all. The planet still had its secrets and surprises.

As they steered towards the canyon dwellings, Lyla looked at the walled settlement, curious to find so many living out here, far from what people laughingly called civilisation on Tatooine. "Who was Sedi Fisk, anyway?"


OOC: Perception 24

“Sedi Fisk was a settler and a land owner, came to Tatooine with his own entourage and set up a manor out in the wastes. As I said before Sedi Fisk sold it about the same time as this Adar Tallon was announced dead. Might be that your man came here” the scout answered Lyla.

Tera was more used to inner city Tattoine than the great open deserts. She'd been out in them for a while, but not to the extent that the others appeared to have been. Instead she was fascinated by the surroundings. All of her education about desert ecology was book learning, actually seeing it and experiencing the lesson was something else.

She scanned the horizon eager to see the sights and sounds of the deep desert. Here eyes drew to the settlement looking for signs of life or anything that just seemed odd and out of place. "What kind of people lived here?"

07:00, Today: Tera Inkari rolled 27 using 1d20+7. perception.

“Frontier people, trying build themselves up. Might come here ‘cause of minerals or something” the old scout answer nonplussed.

Willmar narrowed his eyes.  The wasted ruins looks like another dead end at first glance.  "If Tallon was here, maybe he left some sign behind.  There's a lot of mess to look through though."

OOC:  09:27, Today: Willmar Sutherland rolled 13 using 1d20+6. Perception.

"There's nothing there." Tera said "The buildings have started deteriorating and I only see tools that are broken. This place has been gone over. There's quite a lot of fresh animal waste. All of which comes together to tell me no-one has stayed here in a year or more." Tera shrugged "Let's move on to the next one"