Upon arriving at the Delphi station, our heroes found that they had to declare every piece of technology more advanced than a flashlight to customs, or else be unable to take it off-planet again due to Delphi's harsh technology-export restrictions. Halley grumbled extensively, but was eventually talked down from trying to smuggle anything in.
Once down, Gwen called her eldest sister, Dame Amanda Hawkwood, who invited them to stay with her, and sent directions to Gwen's visitor ID card, a Second-Republic pager keyed to her DNA which entertained Halley endlessly.
To reach Dame Amanda's residence, they took the fast and comfortable mag-lev tube train, an infinite improvement over the cantankerous local fauna used for transportation at their previous stops. On the train, Jaana noticed that some people had peculiar dark smudges beneath their eyes, and Matsushida used his social skills to find out they came from the headsets used at a virtual-reality game center on Barter, run by some company named Margold.
Halley played with the visitor ID card some more, but was unable to get it to function for anyone except Gwen.
Dame Amanda's residence turned out to be in a somewhat deserted and cement-intensive part of the Delphi sprawl, where she was able to occupy a fairly substantial townhouse even on her meager fortune.
Amanda made the group quite welcome, but conversation over dinner was somewhat strained by the necessity of not mentioning the Other Matsushida Problem. In fact, Matsushida was so preoccupied with the matter that he almost failed to charm his hostess.
After dinner, Amanda took Gwen upstairs and showed her a picture of Zenobiah Hawkwood at age 35, painted from life circa 2620. Except for Zenobiah's short blonde hair and the ten years of age, the picture was a dead ringer for Gwen. It also established that Zenobiah had Coeur de Leon and had engraved the motto on it by that time. Amanda lent Gwen a couple of history books, The Complete History Of The Hawkwoods by E. Hoff, S. Torrenson, and N. Waith, and Thirty Fabulous Histories by Parabon. They then lapsed into more ordinary sisterly gossip, including scandalous discussion of Matsushida's abilities, which Gwen somehow misindicated that she hadn't sampled.
Meanwhile, Jaana, bizarrely offended by Gwen's claim that there were no rats on Delphi, went out and found one. Then she asked a somewhat bemused Matsushida's advice on where to place so as to call Gwen's attention to it.
The following morning, Dame Amanda announced that she had business that would keep her out of town for a few days, so rather than impose on her hospitality for that time, our heroes decided to make the inevitable visit to Barter then.
On the way back to the tube train, Jaana pointed out a dead rat lying in the gutter. Gwen was not impressed.
The conductors spun the train going back to the spaceport. Matsushida flew paper airplanes.
Other than another pass through customs, the flight up to Barter was unexciting. At the docking port, they were accosted by a youth named Will Peskin, who offered to guide them around Barter during their stay. Halley, drawing upon her vast Scraver knowledge, decided it would be expedient to hire him, and set him to showing her where to get her mail.
The mail pickup queue was rather long and slow, giving Gwen a chance to demonstrate her superior foresight in having brought a book to read: Thirty Fabulous Histories, which turned out to be dedicated to debunking popular misconceptions about historical persons and events.
Eventually, Halley reached the head of the queue, only to be told she needed to show a Barter ID card to receive her mail. She had never heard of such a thing, but Will knew where to get one.
Upon reaching the head of the queue, Halley found she needed a "Barter ID Card" to receive her mail, which required her to stand in another line to get an official-looking but meaningless piece of paper to humor the mail officer. Scaver organization at its finest.
Halley's mail turned out to be a "birthday present" from her sponsor in the guild, Uncle Skoros, which contained complete blueprints for a flux sword and a palm laser, one of the important components for the laser, and a charge delimiter.
Repairing to a coffee shop to caffeinate and let Halley cackle over her loot, the group encountered more people who spoke glowingly of the Margold VR games, and finally succumed to curiosity (but not before making Halley write a thank-you note).
Margold Virtual Entertainment seemed to consist mostly of a large room in the good part of Barter, with a whole bunch of chairs and VR headsets and a young Engineer to run it all. They offered two sorts of games: simple 90-minute games like Bounty Hunter (shoot 'em up) and Letters of Death (a murder mystery set on Barter itself), and longer more immersive games including ones designed for couples, such as Garden of Daishan ("Last night together on a doomed world!"). Since the more advanced games required waivers of liability in case of heart attack etc, and the game that had been favorably reviewed (and for which there was a prize) was Letters of Death, the group decided to play that. Royo, Father Orrin, and Elaine stood watch, just in case someone was minded to run off with the belongings of those strapped blind and helpless into the gaming gear.
The game was on the face of it simple: a dead body with obvious clues in a closed airlock, a whole bunch of somewhat goofy NPCs with various motives who all denied all involvement. However, after failing to make any substantive progress in two run-throughs, the conclusion was (supported by Jaana's use of theurgy) that there was no solution. The Engineer's denial was not particularly convincing, and he let the group try it on level two.
Level two took place in a house, initially without any corpse. However, as soon as Matsushida went to scout downstairs, everyone heard a scream and came running to find his unmarked corpse. (Matsushida in the meantime was collecting a refund and watching the game over the Engineer's shoulder.) A collection of love letters to Matsushida from someone named Sara, and the advent of Aaron Li Halan, apparently Sara's husband, did nothing to clear up the mystery, and even though Jaana tried theurgy again, time ran out before they got anywhere. Concluding the game was rigged, our heros departed.
Later that night, Gwen, in a fit of Hawkwood pride, dragged Matsushida back to try the Garden of Daishan game. Donning the simulation gear, they found themselves on the doomed planet of Daishan, surrounded by lurking horror, playing out games of dominance and submission without any regard for their real desires... which then became warped to fit the course of the game.
<<Overdue Fines [Index] Captured By A Jerk>>This file was last modified at 1635 on 22Jun99 by trip@idiom.com.