Adventure Overview
Players: Mr. Rhyze, Morton, Faust.
Enemies: The Postman, Virgil and his team.
Started: As Zaya placed the station on yellow alert.
Ended: With Blank's summing up of events.
Mr. Rhyze only paused in his headlong flight to tap a few keys on his laptop. He had already arranged a program to crash the station's communications systems, and activating took only a few seconds. Once that was done, Mr. Rhyze continued his desperate escape. However, he didn't go where Faust expected, and the mortician arrived in the military bay to find no sign of him. Instead, Mr. Rhyze had flown directly to space bay one. He found that the black-panneled Nightmare was already taking off, the bay doors of station closing even as he watched. Knowing that it was his only chance of escape, Mr. Rhyze took one of the deep breaths that the Zelzakian people were known for before zooming out of the bay. The doors closed right behind him, leaving him floating in Deep Space. The Nightmare hadn't yet gotten far enough away from the station to go into LSD, meaning that the communications officer had no trouble catching up to it. As could be expected, the hatch on the side of the ship was closed. But not for long. With all his massive strength, Mr. Rhyze managed to rip the locked door open. As he glanced inside the ship, he found the sight waiting for him to be extremely disturbing. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to react as a lead pipe descended right towards his face. Though the blow itself was damaging, the greater danger materialized as the air rushed from his lungs. Without the Iron Lung, there was no way that Mr. Rhyze could've avoided exhaling upon taking such a blow. With his precious breath gone, Mr. Rhyze could only watch as a laughing Shaimus pulled the door of the ship closed. Literally breathless, Mr. Rhyze was left floating to contemplate one final thought. As the Nightmare sped away, he felt total darkness descending on him. His final conclusion could only be that the old saying was correct. One really should always beware of men named Shaimus...
The pilots lept to their ships as soon as Morton reached the military bay. He didn't intend to let either Mr. Rhyze or Shaimus get away, and Falco was no less determined. After using the bonesaw he had purchased from the communications officer to hack through the lock on his ship, Morton led the way out into space. Despite their bravado, the pilots turned up no results. The Nightmare was already long gone, and they couldn't pick up any readings of Mr. Rhyze's corpse. They did find about twenty makrs floating in space, doubtless having fallen from the communications officer's bulging pockets. In the end, they were forced to call off their search and return to the station, almost empty-handed. Of course, there was still much to be done to sort out all of Mr. Rhyze and Shaimus' treachery. The computer systems were all screwed up, but this wasn't nearly as important as looting the communications officer's room. Falco joined Morton and Faust in this task, and they rejoiced in obtaining all the strange items that Mr. Rhyze had left behind. They ranged from a chemistry set to a bunch of sequence diagrams, and many other weird items in between. It seemed that the communications officer must have already stashed all his most valuable items, including his chair and recently won Matrix DVD on Virgil's ship, since none of it could be found here. All the same, the communications officer must have felt it would be too suspicious to be seen carrying all his possessions down to the docking bays, and had thus left quite a bit of stuff in the room.
While the three were busy with their looting, Blank had been continuing his investigations into Mr. Rhyze's illegitimate activities on the station. Some of this was confirmed in a long distance phone call from Chris Tucker, who wanted to let Faust and Morton know that there was no sign of Vandred's presence on Starbase station within the last few weeks. Noting that this call was racking up huge phone bills, Tucker went on at length about how he needed a vacation, and had heard that Epsilon had a nice hot tub and massage parlour. Faust quickly denied these rumours, and told Chris that the best way to avoid long distance charges was to make short calls. Tucker responded to this with a long, interminable rant that Faust eventually interrupted by hanging up. The mystery of what had happened to Vandred was explained soon enough, when Blank's team made a discovery down in the boiler room. Thanks to the fact that Faust had turned the temperature of the room way down, they were able to notice a Hammer of Justice within the station's incinerator. Blank confirmed that it had once belonged to Vandred, explaining that he was an Arsan Hunter who had been sent by Starfleet to look into rumours of treachery on Epsilon. It now seemed clear that Mr. Rhyze had arranged for Vandred's demise. With the help of the criminals he had freed, Blank was certain that Mr. Rhyze had killed Vandred, and then tossed his remains into the incinerator. After doing so, he had discarded the technician uniform he had worn in the boiler room, before helping the criminals take the Silverdust and make their escape. It would take a lot of time to restore all the damage that had been done by Mr. Rhyze's treachery. but at least now he wouldn't be around to commit any more.
It should be easy to see now that Mr. Rhyze's reports have contained a great deal of information that has yet to be made public. These reports were edited for content prior to their posting on this site, but they will now be posted intermiddantly to provide insight into the true colors of the station's only unranked officer. Obviously, certain of these reports contain information that has yet to be uncovered by the heroes, and these reports will remain confidential until it is deemed to be time for their release. But for now, I present the special edition of Mr. Rhyze's final report, with several lines of never before seen text!
Work log: Work…there hasn't been much of that going on at the communications station. Or so you assume. Actually, you're not really sure, because you haven't spent much time there. In fact, watching the big Blitzball game and all its surrounding coverage on the TV in your room has kept you quite occupied. But now it's all over, much like your duties on this station soon will be. Any more work you do will likely be for Virgil, who arrived on the station about an hour ago.
Incoming Transmissions:
-The Kessel Run seems to be receiving a great deal of news coverage, though you don't think it deserves nearly so much as the Blitzball Intergalactic Cup. Still, you are amused by the fact that Johnny and Morton were apparently beaten by a pilot with a one word vocabulary. In numerous post-race interviews, Yoshi gave his analysis of the event as a single enthusiastic WEEPBONG. At least his comments were more interesting then any given by Tyrus after a Blitzball game.
-The transmissions coming to your television last night were of critical importance. You watched TBN's entire coverage of the Intergalactic Cup, and you wouldn't have wanted to miss a minute of it. Don Cherry even mentioned you in summing up the shortfalls of the Crescent Moons, noting that they didn't have Mr. Rhyze to bail them out this time. Indeed, the first half went very badly for the Deksiilan team. Lorac's Evil Team launched a blistering onslaught, firing repeated flaming shots at Julio and any other players in their path. It was almost as if their goal was simply to injure enough Crescent Moon players to end this game. They certainly succeeded in taking Julio and Tyrus out of the picture, a turn of events you can certainly agree with. You were as shocked as the crowd when the legendary Jecht joined the game for the second half. Even the Monsoons' devastating attacks couldn't stop Blitzball's most famous player. And using his Jecht Shot II, he was able to squeeze out a narrow 6-5 victory over the Monsoons. Best of all, you had Jecht marked the moment he entered the sphere, and you think you've almost figured out his Jecht Shot. You're sure that you could master it on your next trip from Starbase. If you get a chance to take one.
-Virgil sent you a brief message on a secure channel informing you of his impending arrival. His ship, The Nightmare, should have already docked in space bay one. He has suggested that you consume your lunch before coming down to receive his instructions, as it might be the last meal you eat on this station.
Personal Notes:
-Your CSSS package arrived in the mail. It contains several items, though none particularly valuable, including some geeky Linux shirts, a CSSS mug, a DVD of The Matrix and tickets for their upcoming pubcrawl, to be held on Deksiil. Judging from Virgil's comments, you might actually be in that area in time to attend this event. Not that you'd really want to hang out with these geeks anyway.
-You're actually looking forward to taking action at last, and you're more than willing to do anything that Virgil requires. He has promised to pay you well, something that Starfleet has never actually done. This is your chance to fulfill the Zelzakian dream.
Mini-Objective:
-Help Virgil conclude his plot on the station through any means necessary.
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