A knock still sounds at Sophie's door as the Star Streak glides from Close Space Nine. Sophie opens it to find a station courier holding a wax-sealed launch writ.
The Station Courier
Nana says the outer passage is clear. She asks that you make your departure memorable.
The courier hurries away. Above the asteroid docks, Nana raises one arm in farewell, her tight burgundy bodysuit bright against the stone and starlight.
The Star Streak clears the outpost. At Kael's order, the newly mounted runic cannons awaken, their carvings blazing with violet radiance.
Two purple beams lance into the nearby asteroid. The rock bursts apart in a silent storm of glittering fragments, and the cannons' recoil rolls through the ship.
The familiar vibration does not fade. The hull jerks backward. Beyond sight, something vast has caught the Star Streak, an invisible chain anchored to the station, pulling hard enough to make the timbers groan.
Sophie
That was never the ship's magic. Something has been tethering us all along.
✓ Quest Accepted
Sever the unseen tether
“Sophie can sense the exact location of the tether with her psychic connection to the ship. She guides Anna to fire the cannons at the invisible tether, and after a few corrections, Anna hits the invisible target.”
FAILURE (Great Perception, rolled -2)
Sophie’s crystal ball rolls across the helm table, yet her hand catches it before it falls. Her eyes close as the ship’s low vibration gathers beneath the deck.
Sophie
I can feel it now. The tether is not behind us. It is folded beneath the Star Streak’s keel, where the stars bend.
Kael’s hands enter the lower edge of sight, gripping the cannon rail as the deck pitches. Sophie points toward Anna’s firing station, but the ship lurches before her warning settles.
Sophie
Anna, raise the cannon three fingers. No, two back. Wait for the downward pull, then fire.
Anna
Holding. Now.
The runic cannon answers with a rhythmic violet flare. Its beam tears across the warped starlight and strikes the hidden tether. The recoil throws sparks from the hull ribs, but the Star Streak still slides backward.
Sophie
We struck it, but did not sever it. The wound is open. I can trace the tether through that breach to whatever anchors it beneath the station.
“Sensing the ship is in danger, Julia reveals her true self and turns into a small bat. She flies down to the area Sophie pointed out and with her keen senses she lands on the invisible magical tether. She turns into her humanoid form again and begins pulling and tugging away at the tether with her supernatural strength, trying to untie it or break it.”
SUCCESS (Great Strength, rolled +3)
Therefore, Julia steps from the helm passage and drops into the warped darkness beneath the keel.
Her form folds inward, cloak and limbs shrinking into a small bat that slips through the tether’s glowing rupture.
Sophie
Julia? That is not any kitchen magic I know.
The bat lands upon nothing visible, claws finding purchase on the bent starlight. Then Julia rises from it, feet planted on the unseen strand.
Julia
Then watch closely.
Julia seizes the tether with both hands and pulls. The ship’s rhythmic vibration deepens as the hidden strand knots around her arms.
She twists once, hard and deliberate. The tether tears apart with a sound like a distant bell, and its severed ends recoil beneath the station.
Anna
The backward pull is gone. The hull is holding.
The cannons’ violet glow fades to a steady pulse. Julia remains poised on empty air as the Star Streak drifts free, but the broken tether leaves a dark mark crawling across the station’s underside.
Quest Complete
Sever the unseen tether
Attribute Upgrade: Strength Great→Superb
