Another Yondering

# Incoming Transmission
# Source Identifier: The ACE Organisation
# Destination Identifier: TE3-Firebrand#Her Glorious Command#Starlight Ebbing#Muse IX#Unquiet Journey#
# Subject: Help Wanted
# Message Begins

Ace’s High seeks to contract skilled and discreet professionals to assist in interviewing ACE Organisation staff being considered for promotion, and to provide necessary support to these staff as they adjust to their new roles.

Interested parties to meet at ACE compound in Luckworth for further briefing.

# Message Ends

• Gunnery Sergeant Desiring Peace - Phil
• Blind Devotion - Alex ET

• Desiring Peace and Blind Devotion show up in Luckworth as instructed, and are briefed that the ACE organisation believes one of their employees has been granted visions that lead them to valuable creatures, and they have narrowed it down to two people in the same town, but are not sure which is the right person. The party are to go to the town, find these people, suss out which is the right one, then help them execute on the visions so the organisation can get these creatures. [OC: This is the result of the Intervention performed by Red Nine during Forging Ahead.]
• After dealing with a predictable encounter on the way there, the party arrive at a run-down town on the outskirts of the Ace's World shipheart range to find a large quantity of angry goosehawks mobbing the house at the address they've been given. They dispatch the goosehawks and enter the house to find two young ACE employees, Knave Blue and Fives Fancy, with a young goosehawk they have captured and are discussing what to do with.
• Knave Blue and Fives Fancy both work at the ACE casino in town, and both claim to have had a dream where they saw a baby goosehawk under a tree on the edge of town, so they've captured this baby goosehaw and plan to take it there to see if anything happens. They say they've both been having strange dreams about animals for a couple of months now.
• The party agree to accompany Knave Blue, Fives Fancy and the baby goosehawk to the tree, and defend them from any more angry adult goosehawks that might descend. Which they do. When they reach the tree, however, there is another baby goosehawk already underneath it - but it is spooked by the fighting and the angry squawks of the adult goosehawks, and flies off despite the party's best attempts to catch it. Knave Blue and Fives Fancy are thrown into doubt whether this was actually the baby goosehawk they dreamed of, not the one they'd previously captured (and which is doing its best to baby-attack anyone nearby, derailing most serious conversations).
• While conversation is ongoing, an old man with two trained Raktors shows up. This is Yondering Mountain, who says that he had a vision of meeting them all under this tree, and believes one of them has been blessed with visions from the 'Yondering Star' which will lead them to find special creatures to look after (and, as somewhat of a side-business, extract The Extract from in order to make money with which to look after the creatures). Yondering Mountain offers to train whoever this is. He cannot, however, comment on which goosehawk is the correct one, and suggests instead following a different vision so he can help the new Yonderer understand their calling when they meet a new creature.
• Knave Blue mentions another dream, which they were hesitant to follow up on because it was clearly in the Decay. But if the party, who are clearly much better fighters than two casino employees, are happy to come with them and fight any Decay that might occur….? The party agree to do so.
• Decay occurs. The party and their friends manage to evade a path full of Trackers (despite Yondering Mountain's slow amble), before finding the scene that Knave Blue says (and Fives Fancy hastily echoes) they saw in a vision: A military transport vehicle, apparently abandoned at some point during the war between ACE and HGC, which contains several large Goosehogs that appear to have climbed into it to eat leftover sandwiches. As the party arrive, however, the vehicle dissolves into large and angry Decay, fighting the hogs and the party somewhat indiscriminately. The hogs also fight the Decay and the party somewhat indiscriminately. The party attempt to discriminate at least far enough not to accidentally kill any 'special' goosehogs.
• With the fighting out of the way, Yondering Mountain attempts to teach both Knave Blue and Fives Fancy how to detect which of the goosehogs is special. Both of them seem quite confused by his lessons - there's nothing concrete about how to be sure the creature is the right one, or how to 'extract' the special liquid from it, mostly gnomic questions like 'what does your instinct tell you?' - but eventually Knave Blue manages to open a gland which oozes something incredibly sticky onto the kitchen knife she brought with her. Everyone immediately tells her not to touch it to anything else. Fives Fancy attempts the same but seems to struggle more with extracting the liquid - but does get some after Knave Blue helps him.
• Fives Fancy eventually breaks down and confesses that he doesn't really get the same visions, he just lied in their first conversation about having had a similar weird dream because he wanted to have something in common with Knave Blue, he just really likes her and wanted to talk to her, and then it kind of snowballed from there and he didn't know how to get out of the lie. Knave Blue is somewhat taken aback by this, but seems to not be too horrified by it - indeed, seems to think he's been helpful with the animals so far, and possibly she likes him too?
• As relationship drama continues while they attempt to lead the Designated Special Goosehog home (to keep it in their house?), more Decay attacks. While dealing with this, however, the party are surprised by a bandit attack - a very focused bandit attack. The leader of the bandits introduces themself as Wildcard Gilded, a long-time rival of Ace's High (they say they're the reason she lost her eye), and makes it clear that a leak in the ACE organisation has given them the info about these valuable young people and their lucrative ability - which Wildcard Gilded wants for themself. It's unclear whether they want the revenue stream, or just to take something valuable away from Ace's High. Could be both. The party do not sell out Knave Blue and Fives Fancy, but instead do their best to capture Wildcard Gilded - which might have been successful, if Wildcard Gilded were not extremely good at hiding. Sneaking. Disappearing in the middle of a fight. That sort of thing.
• Upon finally returning to town, the party leave the goosehog at the young people's house with Yondering Mountain to look after it for now, while they return to Luckworth with Knave Blue and Fives Fancy and ask for an audience with Aces High. They do offer Knave Blue the choice to go live as Yondering Mountain does, in the wild, rather than work for ACE, but Knave Blue rather likes civilisation and is okay with working for ACE so long as she's payed a bit more than her current entry-level croupier salary, and maybe if Fives Fancy can help her too.
• Aces High is happy that the mission has been a success, keenly interested in the extremely sticky knives which are handed over to her, but unwilling to pay more than one salary if only one person is delivering the valuable creatures and their extract. Knave Blue starts to panic a bit at the idea of doing this on her own, and Desiring Peace in particular argues strongly that, since ACE will have to hire more employees to help with looking after the animals anyway, one of those should be Fives Fancy who can also support Knave Blue because he knows more about what she's doing than anyone else will. Eventually this is agreed, and young love goes off to look after goosehogs together.

• Desiring Peace starts to quietly agitate among his networks both on HGC and on Ace's World with a view towards persuading the rank and file in both organisations towards ending the war, even if it means some level of 'losing'
• Blind Devotion just wants to make absolutely sure their debt to ACE from Finite Existence (-1 clout) is paid off.

• There is now a second Yonderer in system. This theoretically means that there might eventually be double the amount of Extract available for Various Forging. However, this operation is not yet fully up to speed, although it should be within the next month or two. When it is, the prices of Extract from ACE will undoubtedly be higher than what Yondering Mountain charges, since he only tries to make enough from it to live in the wilderness with two Raktors, while ACE will be attempting to run a profitable organisation with multiple employees. Still, it should mean that there is now some redundancy in the supply of the Extract as well as the Forge infrastructure itself, and there is no longer a possibility of single-point failure which would prevent all Various in system being able to access augments.

• +3 Clout with ACE organisation

• You feel that you are not the only one unhappy with how long the war has been dragging on. The ACE organisation seems to be pretty keen on the idea of some form of peace agreement, and really all they want is to have their planet back. It is a little less clear what HGC want out of the war at this stage, but in the rank and file at least you feel your quiet agitation is heard and shared.

• Ace's High reassures you that she does indeed consider your work on this mission to balance out the debt you owe towards the Ship Heart storage vault, and more. After paying that debt, you end with +2 clout with ACE.