[LM3] Fact Finding

[Yasim Orchid]

The bastard of Tyballum woke up to the task, finding himself pressed with duty. The young man took his personal thopter to the mountain, seeking what could be found there.

[Kannon]

Was his approach noticed? The Harkonnen would mind his choice of destination.

[Move (Stealth) 3]

[Yasim Orchid]

LM3 - Fact Finding - difficulty 3 (Move 5, Duty 7, giving GM 1 threat. TN12, 3d20): 3d20u12 3

While stealth wasn't his specialty, Yasim was prepared to fly in low, trying to avoid detection.

[Kannon]

Approaching from the south and ascending desert-side, he apparently passed by unnoticed. The higher altitude he tested, the more of the panorama revealed itself to him. To the south, there it was... a vast, apparently endless sea of sand. He had taken a risk here, the Harkonnen could have shot him down without warning, and none of the audit would be the wiser about his demise. His mother's words entered his mind and rang throughout unfolding, like a chime.

Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.

But there was more, the ancient Zensunni call, so deeply rooted in his family's psyche that he had long stopped contemplating its meaning, until now.

They denied us the hajj!

He didn't allow his own pilgrimage to be denied to him. He was here, on Arrakis, where those who had travelled onward finally settled after leaving Harmonthep those thousands of years before. Here, somewhere across this endless sand and rock, there lived his distant cousins, those of Ilm and Fiqh, unchained, free to wander. It felt righting the wrong, as if his ancestors' staying on Harmonthep, taking comforts instead of freedom, had committed a primordial sin he was now shaking off.

The mountain towered. He was sure the Fremen didn't call it Dmitri, but had its own name for it, ancient, in Chakobsa or Bhotani Jib. But he wouldn't know it... yet.

[Yasim Orchid]

There was something spiritual about flying over the mountain. In trying to find what was hidden here, what could give further proof of birthright, of what could be gained to cement his family, even as cut off as he was, to a secure future.

Yasim looked over the sweeping vista, trying to find a decent place to land, to get a closer look.

[Kannon]

He spotted a ledge facing the desert, difficult to land on, but not impossible, perhaps a kilometre below the summit. It seemed to be too flat to be entirely natural, and yet it led to no cave...

[Discipline 3]

[Yasim Orchid]

LM3 - Fact Finding - difficulty 3 (Discipline 5, Faith 8, giving GM 1 threat. TN13, 3d20): 3d20u13 2

Using Prana Bindu Conditioning go reroll the 17

LM3 - Fact Finding - rerolling the 17 Para Bindu Conditioning: 1d20u13 0

2 successes out of 3, failed. 1 threat to GM

Yasim controlled the Thopter, thought it was difficult upon approach. Had his senses failed him?

[Kannon]

[You can choose to succeed at a cost, which will grant you basic success with a Complication]

[Yasim Orchid]

(Of course. Give me that sweet sweet complication)

[Kannon]

With some thruster magic Yasim managed to seat the thopter on the ledge, though not before one of the flapwings creasing the rock and straining the hydraulics. He was fairly sure it wouldn't disable flight, but it was something to see to sooner rather than later.

[Complication: Light Thopter Damage]

[Is Yasim using the stillsuit Count Fenring gave to all mission members?]

[Yasim Orchid]

[I would say yes, as the character in setting would know to be prepared]

He chided himself for the sloppy landing, looking over the damage to the Thopter. Wincing a bit, he still wasn't used to the nose plug of the suit, trying to find a way to make it more comfortable.

No such luck. Yet the young man pressed on.

[Kannon]

The winds outside were surprisingly strong; they pressed him against the thopter's chassis when he exited, and howled amid the flapwings. The view though was simply breathtaking, an evocative. Something about the desert made human beings think of religion, and with the landscape like this before him, Yasim felt closer to the sacrum than ever before. The spiritual experience was hard to abandon.

And yet, if he finally turned around, the mountain-ward side of his landing was... suspect. Something didn't seem right about the rock.

[Discipline 2 to discern it without approaching, 1 on touch.]

[Yasim Orchid]

LM3 - Fact Finding - difficulty 2 - Discern w/o approaching (Discipline 5, Faith 8, giving GM 1 threat. TN13, 3d20): 3d20u13 3

Yasim was a curious sort, but given the reverence the area seemed to instill in him, he did not approach the oddity. Trusting in that spiritual experience to guide his observations.

(Would Hyperawareness apply here now?)

[Kannon]

[It would, but it's still success +1 Momentum]

There had been some stonework on the rock, later covered with boulders to hide the intervention; and was all of the wall actually physical? Maybe a solido-projection?

[Yasim Orchid]

He hunkered down, attention now taken by the oddness of the projection in the field. Pursing his lips, Yasim made his way down to investigate further.

[Kannon]

There was indeed a passage beyond the faux wall. Narrow and old, judging by the condition of plasteel beams, but still. Only the cloaking device seemed relatively new, no old technology would withstand Arrakis for so long without breaking. Someone must have known about this place and kept it deliberately hidden without bringing it back to whatever condition it had once enjoyed. There was a thin layer of sand on the rock beneath Yasim's feet, undisturbed since quite a while. But what was this place?

It didn't seem a place of religion, more like a technical facility, with its practical framing. It ended with a plasteel door that carried only one mark: that of House Corrino laser-cut into its surface.

[Yasim Orchid]

His brigh eyes looked over the laser etching, a tilt to his head as he considered the implcations. Lips formed a hard line as he observed the banner of the Imperial house. What does this mean? What's behind door number one? Yasim thought to himself, a hand run over the door. Looking to see how to open it, quietly.

[Kannon]

There was a palm lock, adjusted to the papillary lines of whoever was meant to access it, if they still lived. Insurmountable to many, but not to the Bene Gesserit. His attempts at this particular trick had produced mixed results in the past when mother had demonstrated it, but perhaps he would luck out this time?

[Discipline 4, Bene Gesserit trait lowers to 3. Prana applies.]