Talbot’s dead. We arrived at the Jump gate today, and there wasn’t a queue of ships at all. Most curious, that. While we were making our approach to the jump gate, we were beset upon by a ship of the Muster. It fired upon us. Fortunately, the missile missed (exploded a ways in front of the ship), however, the concussion of the explosion rocked Lachesis. For whatever reason two of the consoles that have never lit up before lit up. A proximity alarm was sounding and a pistol grip came out of the console.

It was that pistol grip that took the fight out of the Muster rather quickly – one shot actually. Lady Olivia fired that weapon, and when she did, a blinding ray of light shot from the front of Lachesis. The light was, literally, blinding. I couldn’t see for a few minutes after the shot. Near as I can tell, it must have been a Maesson Cannon. I have never seen one fired, but the devastation I have heard they cause is phenomenal – and this was no different. The blast went through the front of the Muster ship and exited out its rear. I have never heard of a Maesson Cannon being mounted on a ship as small as Lachesis, though.

The concussion from the Muster ship exploding rocked Lachesis sending us tumbling out of control, and with me blind we had a hard go of it. We ended up tumbling into the jump gate before I could punch in our key code, but it appears that Lachesis has some back-up tricks that I’m just now finding out about. As we tumbled into the jump gate, it automatically locked and loaded an emergency jump code.

I’m still uncertain where we came out of the jump gate. However, I thank God that we are still alive and for Brother Gunderson. As we came out of the jump gate, all of our engines went off line. We were floating dead in space and Talbot came running to the bridge (along with Darik and Bruno, whom I had sent to the gun turrets to help fend off the Muster ship). He was reporting that all systems were off-line and was wondering what had happened. In an effort to keep everyone from panicking I sent Talbot back to the engine room to get the systems on line, however before he left the bridge, we looked out to try and figure out what star system we have ended up in – there were no stars. Literally, no stars – not a one. The panic this caused my mind cannot be expressed, but that panic was nothing compared to what came next. A huge eye opened right in front of us. Out in space. A huge creature filling the whole of the void and one eye. I still get the shakes, even now, just thinking about. I’m not embarrassed to say (well, not much anyway) that I soiled myself at the sight of that eye. The only ones that were unaffected by the appearance of the Deep One (for that is all I can assume that it was) was Brother Gunderson who let go with one of the greatest sermons I have ever heard – very inspiring, and the Baron, who was still blinded from the encounter with the Muster ship. When Brother Gunderson finished his sermon, the Deep One vanished and the stars returned. I was never more grateful to see those blessed points of light than I was at that time. The encounter did not leave us unaffected, though. The sight of the Deep One was too much for poor Talbot, who apparently had a heart attack and died – May he rest in Peace.

I will need to keep an eye on that Darik Teff – I don’t know what he did, but when Talbot died, he reached down, tore open Talbot’s shirt and placed his hand on Talbot’s chest. The next thing I know, Talbot’s body arched off the ground and spittle came out of his mouth, as if he had received a massive shock. I can only assume that the Baron knows about Darik’s secrets given the casual nature he performed this maneuver in front of everyone, but what a shock to me, no pun intended. We will need to be very careful around the Avestites and hope that Darik doesn’t do anything rash that brings us to their attention, or life could get a whole lot more interesting than it already is.

Without Talbot, I have only been successful in getting our emergency drives back on line which has given us propulsion, but not much more than that. Fortunately, there is a Docking Station within broadcast range – Blue Chicago Docking Station. We are currently heading toward Blue Chicago. I do have some some concerns, though. All of our attempts to communicate with Blue Chicago have failed or have been ignored. I don’t like that.

Once we were far enough away from the Jump Gate I gave Talbot a proper space burial.

Nothing to report – played a lot of chess. Beat the Baron at two matches lost, three. That Darik fellow needs to improve his game, he lost all three matches I played against him – still he has some style and may turn out to be a great opponent in the future.

Embarked on our journey to Pyre. This has me a little nervous considering the Barons reputation and the Temple Avesti’s feelings towards the good Baron. Still, I have long wanted to view the Gargoyle on Pyre. The Baron is wanting to go incognito, which may make the pilgrimage a little easier – however, I can’t help but feel that it may be a lot more dangerous should the Avestites discover that one of the pilgrims is Baron Bartelby.

The Passenger manifest for this expedition:

Baron Olsen Bartelby
Brother Gunderson
Lady Olivia
Bruno Keys
Darik Teff

Well - I have successfully figured out how to get the blog to look like it is part of my website… Actually, I guess it is, since everything is hosted on my site, but now it looks like it belongs on my site.

This is exciting. I am now ready to set up blogs for those in my gaming group that wish to have one for their character journals. I will be letting the group know this - especially since there will be rewards for those that keep a character journal.

I’m getting very excited about GMing Orb. I haven’t run a true campaign in quite some time. It will be good to be back in the saddle.

The next step I need to follow is getting Malachi’s journal entries ported over to the blog now. That will take some time, but hopefully not too much.

Well - I decided it was time to start experimenting with blogging. I’m getting ready to start a new Savage Worlds Campaign set on the world of Orb. As part of this, I will be allowing the players to create Character Journals to log their adventures. There will be game benefits to doing this, so I wanted to start experimenting with this to see how easy it is use, etc.

This should work just fine, but I do want to look at modifying the layout/skin of the journals to be more consistent with my website.