A transit manifest flashes across Rodney’s chipped contract, rerouting the shipment to Dock Nine. Freight traffic parts around the newly assigned container as its locks release without authorization.
Rodney’s gum stops clicking. Nearby, the armed buyer moves with the dock traffic, one hand close to his weapon while surveillance lenses pivot toward the opened container.
A frightened young adult man stumbles from the container, thin beneath a rain-dark courier jacket, his shaved head gleaming with sweat and a physical ledger clutched against his chest.
The Frightened Courier
This was not supposed to open here. The paper record names Jostan as collateral, but it contradicts the digital amendment.
The courier turns the ledger toward the dock lights. Its printed entries carry the logistics executive’s seal, while the amended contract on Rodney’s counter assigns different liabilities.
The Frightened Courier
I recognize that seal. It belongs to the logistics executive’s office. Whoever changed the network copy wanted this ledger buried.
Rodney
Then nobody touches the paper until we know who sent it. Jostan, the dock just became a lot less anonymous.
“Rodney bring the courier with us, we taking a trip the office”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +0)
Jostan Ordomo
Rodney, bring the courier. We’re taking this ledger to the logistics executive’s office and finding out who changed the record.
Rodney
Fine. But you just spent your first favor with me, and I collect favors before they become regrets.
Rodney snatches the chipped contract from the counter and steps between the courier and the armed buyer. Her calm holds, but the cost is clear: she now owns a piece of Jostan’s leverage.
The Frightened Courier
The office has controlled access. If we arrive with the paper ledger, they cannot quietly deny the amendment without exposing themselves.
Rodney hooks two fingers toward the courier. He tucks the ledger beneath his jacket and follows her through the freight stalls, keeping his head down as dock traffic closes behind them.
Rodney
Stay close. We’re going to the office, and from this moment onward, you answer questions only when I tell you.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the logistics executive's office
+ New Item Acquired
Physical Ledger
“Before we head i scan the camera that was looking at rodney also scanning the armed buyer. the courier and rodney, touching my ribs I grab my Jimmy and fiddle with it, I start to think about orin and I say outloud, I have a friend who can make sure this goes smoothly, rodney you know him”
SUCCESS (Fair Surveillance, rolled +1)
Before moving, Jostan scans the dock camera that watched Rodney, then sweeps the armed buyer, Rodney, and the courier. The feed reveals overlapping sightlines and a blind angle toward the office route.
He touches his ribs, draws the Jimmy revolver, and idly adjusts its mechanism while the camera completes another pass. A faint diagnostic reflection flashes across the weapon, and the armed buyer catches it.
Jostan Ordomo
I have a friend who can make sure this goes smoothly. Rodney, you know him.
Rodney’s gaze drops briefly to the revolver, then returns to Jostan. The courier keeps one hand over the ledger beneath his jacket as the dock traffic carries them toward the exit lane.
Rodney
I know Orin. If he can keep your hardware and your temper aligned, he may make this smoother. That is a very conditional if.
Armed Buyer 1
Nice trick with the scan. Try it again and I start asking why you brought a gun to a records dispute.
The armed buyer falls back into the moving crowd, watching without raising his weapon. Rodney guides Jostan and the courier onward, now aware that their quiet inspection was not entirely quiet.
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose who altered the corporate record
“Making our way to orin I see maya and caelen at a coffee shop, going up to them I say Hey and tell them the outsiders have to get together sometime chuckling at the thought of it”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled -2)
The route toward Orin’s laboratory passes a narrow coffee shop tucked beneath the transit decks. Maya sits across from Caelen, both watching the rain crawl down the smartglass.
Jostan Ordomo
Hey. The Outsiders have to get together sometime.
Jostan chuckles at the thought. Maya looks up from her cooling cup, and Caelen’s silver hair catches the shop’s blue signlight as he studies him.
Maya
That sounds less like a joke than a plan. I’m in, but I want everyone there, not another meeting where danger gets discussed after it arrives.
Caelen
Agreed. We should compare what each of us learned before the next sealed system decides our priorities for us.
Maya
You have my attendance. You also owe me a clear account of this courier and the contract before I call it trust.
The invitation lands successfully, but Maya’s condition gives it a price: the Outsiders will gather, and Jostan’s standing with her now depends on an honest briefing.
“Maya this is Rodney, Rodney these are my friends and fellow members of "The Outsiders", I let out a sigh and start by saying, "to make it short theres someone after me and could potentially be a route to uncovering some nasty corrutiopn, i look over to rodney and so a subtle shrug, we get up and enter orins lab with a nice surprise of orin lab smelling like something blew up from a failed expiernment and a strong smell of Ki”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled -1)
Jostan Ordomo
Maya, this is Rodney. Rodney, these are my friends and fellow members of the Outsiders.
Maya
Rodney, then. If Jostan trusts you enough to bring you here, you get a seat and a chance to explain yourself.
Rodney
Fair. I have a contract, a courier, and someone altering corporate records. I would rather explain before the records explain me.
Jostan Ordomo
To make it short, there is someone after me, and it could potentially uncover some nasty corruption.
Jostan looks to Rodney and gives a subtle shrug, then rises with the others. The movement pulls at his bruised ribs, but he keeps pace toward Orin’s laboratory.
Caelen
That is concise enough to justify further questions. Let us ask them somewhere with better records than this café.
They enter Orin’s laboratory to the sharp smell of something recently blown apart. Beneath it hangs a strong Ki scent, metallic and sun-hot, while Orin turns from a smoking workbench.
“Jesus Christ Orin I yell, what the fuck happend here, looking at his desk I notice a gun with a Ki emulator and nen fortifer, before I can say anything my hand reaches for the broken gun and scans it the eye of anylasis with exciement”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +1)
Jostan Ordomo
Jesus Christ, Orin, what the fuck happened here?
Jostan’s gaze catches on Orin’s ruined workbench. Among scorched tools lies a broken gun fitted with a Ki emulator and a Nen fortifier, its housing split around a glowing core.
Orin
A calibration test exceeded the weapon’s tolerance. The discharge tore through the bench, not the room, so count that as a partial success.
Before the explanation finishes, Jostan’s hand reaches across the desk and closes around the broken frame. The Eye of Anylasis wakes through his cybernetics, drawing every damaged circuit into focus.
Jostan Ordomo
The emulator survived. The fortifier failed at the transfer junction, but its design is recoverable.
Orin
You can read it? Then tell me whether I destroyed a prototype or discovered a better way to build one.
The scan completes cleanly, preserving the weapon’s architecture in Jostan’s buffer. Its failure is documented, its useful components identified, and the damaged gun remains in his hand.
+ New Item Acquired
Broken Ki-Nen Gun
“hmmm i dont knowww orinnnn, are asking me?? i say smugly, I dont know how all this works as I chuckle, now in a controlled enviorenment we talk about who mightve altered the corporate and why they would do that, getting flashbacks of europa I ask to get a breather outside while the rest talk in the lab”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Jostan Ordomo
Hmmm, I don't know, Orinnnn. Are you asking me? I don't know how all this works.
Jostan chuckles, letting the damaged weapon settle back onto the bench. Rodney spreads the paper ledger beside the altered contract while Maya, Caelen, and the courier gather around.
Rodney
The digital amendment redirects liability away from the executive’s office and toward you. Someone wanted a disposable owner for the discrepancy, not a clean correction.
Orin
That suggests concealment, leverage, or both. If the paper ledger survives, the alteration exposes whoever authorized the transfer and whoever benefits from burying it.
Caelen
The amendment’s timing matters. It was made after the shipment moved, which implies someone reacted to the ledger rather than planning the discrepancy from the beginning.
Jostan Ordomo
Keep talking it through here. I need a breather outside. The room is bringing back flashes of Europa.
Orin nods toward the side exit. Rodney takes over the contract, Maya begins questioning the courier, and Caelen starts comparing timestamps while Jostan steps into the rain-cooled air beyond the laboratory.
“Now outside I take a deep breathe and start mediatating, bring the Ki towards me, harnessing it a way that im radiating it off me, I grab the Ki-Nen gun and transfer some ki in it, it does nothing, when I open them I hear a phone ringing, its a phone pole, i pick it up and its Davin”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +2)
Outside the laboratory, rain cools the concrete and blurs Leonidas into neon reflections. Jostan draws a slow breath, settles himself, and begins meditating beneath the transit deck.
Ki gathers toward him in a faint sun-hot shimmer, radiating across his cybernetics and skin. He guides the current into the broken Ki-Nen gun, threading energy through its damaged emulator and failed junction.
The transfer takes. The weapon remains inert, showing no discharge or visible repair, but its fractured core records the Ki and holds it without rejecting the charge. Maintaining the channel leaves Jostan’s composure thin and exhausted.
When he opens his eyes, a phone rings from a weathered pole beside the service lane. The sound cuts through the rain. Jostan reaches up, lifts the receiver from its cradle, and brings it to his ear.
Daven
Jostan? Good, you answered. I have been trying to reach you. The settlement’s relay just flagged a fresh movement near the habitation sectors.
Daven
I do not know if it is a threat yet. I am outside Orin’s laboratory with the pilot cell readings, and they are changing in response to your signal.
The call crackles beneath the transit noise. In Jostan’s hand, the broken gun stays quiet, its newly held charge invisible while Daven waits for an answer.
undefined / undefined
Daven
Jostan? Good, you answered. I have been trying to reach you. The settlement’s relay just flagged a fresh movement near the habitation sectors.
Daven
I do not know if it is a threat yet. I am outside Orin’s laboratory with the pilot cell readings, and they are changing in response to your signal.
The phone crackles hard enough to sting Jostan’s ear. Behind Daven’s voice, a second transmission pulses through the line, repeating a settlement access code in broken fragments.
Daven
Wait. That code is not coming from the settlement. It is routing through the city network, and something just answered it.
The charged weapon in Jostan’s hand gives one silent tremor. Across the service lane, rainwater lifts from the concrete in thin concentric rings as a nearby access panel unlocks by itself.
Daven
The readings are spiking now. Jostan, do not follow the signal. Tell me what you see before that panel opens.
A narrow seam appears in the transit wall, revealing darkness and a single green status light. The phone falls silent, but the open receiver continues broadcasting Jostan’s own breathing back at him.
“Daven come inside orins office, Ill be right there, I reach my hand out to the green light feeling some energy, a gunshot shoots, i dodge it only because it missed me and I go inside orins office, orin activate the defenses and let Daven in, rodney check outside, i was just shot at, as I come inside the group is still talking about ifs buts and maybes with caelen looking ready to kill”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled +1)
Jostan Ordomo
Daven, come inside Orin's office. I'll be right there.
Jostan reaches toward the green status light. Energy prickles across his fingers as the access seam widens, then a gunshot cracks from the darkness. He twists aside, and the round misses.
He crosses the threshold into Orin's office, keeping the charged weapon low. The open receiver still carries Daven's breathing and the fading echo of the shot.
Orin
Defenses active. Daven, move through the door now.
Orin slams a palm against the defense console. Shutters drop over the office windows, a turret unfolds above the entrance, and Daven slips inside as the locks seal behind him.
Rodney
I am checking outside. Whoever fired that shot may still have a line on this office.
Inside, Rodney moves toward the side exit while Maya keeps the courier and ledger close. Caelen stands over the scattered records, silver hair bright under the work lamps, his posture ready to kill. Orin, Caelen, and Maya continue arguing through their ifs, buts, and maybes as Daven reaches Jostan.
“I lead everyone to the logistics executive's office”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled +2)
Jostan leads the group through the service corridors, keeping the paper ledger protected beneath the courier’s jacket. Rodney watches the rear while Orin routes them around public checkpoints.
Rodney
The quiet route was the right call. Nobody gets a clean view of us until we are standing in front of the office.
The route opens into a guarded corporate lobby beneath the transit decks. The logistics executive’s office rises behind transparent security glass, its access system already reading the contract’s authorization chain.
Orin
We arrived without triggering a public alert. That gives us a few minutes before the office decides how much truth it can afford.
The inner doors unlock. Inside waits a lean adult woman with a sharp pale face, cropped auburn hair, and a pearl-gray corporate coat. She rises from a glass desk as the group enters.
The Logistics Executive
You brought my paper ledger into my office. I assume you also brought the altered contract and a reason I should not call security.
The office seals behind them, placing Jostan, his companions, the courier, and the logistics executive inside the same controlled room. The ledger and amended contract now sit within reach of the executive who can explain their conflict.
Force an on-record explanation of the conflicting corporate records
Quest Complete
Reach the logistics executive's office
Attribute Upgrade: Willpower Superb→Legendary