Session IX: The Clouded Truth

Opening crawl: 

Session IX: The Clouded Truth

Shortly after arriving at Cloud City, the former stormtrooper TK-182 (Turk) appears to have been caught in the act of murdering Dr. Issan Len, a key inventor of droid-CPU-to-clone-mind transfer tech, and the designer of the ExoExOne droid, which has the ability to control and redesign an entire ship or battle station.

Cloud City’s administrator Lando Calrissian does not believe Turk is the killer, but the evidence is too incriminating for him to ignore it.

Though Turk is innocent, the squad of wing guards is set to arrest him and his companions on murder charges, unless they can somehow prove they are clean. 

Hello, what have we here?

Turk is standing over the body of Issan Len, holding a still smoking blaster. Lando and about 15 wing guards surround the party with their weapons drawn.

Lando: Alright everyone hands in the air and let’s figure out what’s going on here. You with the blaster, identify yourself.

Turk: I’m Turk, and I’m kind of a big deal!

Lando: Okay big deal, and how do you know everyone here?

Turk: Well, let’s see. The Ewok over there, he stowed away on my ship a few years ago and he’s been with us ever since.

D’Wook saw that Lando was going to arrest everyone who Turk said he was with, and started to get angry.

Turk: ...and then this ... uh.. Clone here.. He’s part of my crew and...

D’wook bit Turk’s leg to shut him up.

The rest of the party realized what was going on.

Grundle: No see, so like we were just born a few days ago, and ... well, we’ve never even seen these guys before...

Lando: You’re ... clones? Cloning is illegal all over this galaxy. I have to ask now.. I know what happened to the versions of you touring with your band... but you guys have a lot of scars, so something tells me maybe you aren’t clones. Why don’t you start by telling me who you really are and how you got here...

Grundle: Well, ya see...

Vero: Here’s the situation, we came here with Dr. Blissex to check in on Len and we hired Turk and his... crew to bring us here on his ship. That’s the nature of our relationship. When we came into the lab we were waiting in the reception area ...

Lando: And that’s when Turk went into the lab and shot him?

Vero: Well, not exactly. See we entered the room and found Dr. Len had been shot. Then we looked around the lab and found this protocol droid here in a pile of broken droid parts.. and then Turk picked up the gun.

Lando: Hmm, well I don’t think any tribunal could possibly believe that a protocol droid is capable of murder. Tell you what... Turk, the older Fett Clone, and the furball are under arrest. The rest of you, you have to find out who the real killer is in 24 hours. If you fail, then you’re also under arrest. Do we have a deal?

Grundle looked at Vero and nodded in agreement.

(Editor's note: I had to figure out a reason to get Turk, Golden Wheels and D’Wook away from the rest of the party because these players were not able to make it to this session.)

One of the Wing Guards switched on F-3P0 for a second to see if he might still be functioning. 

F3P0: Oh... my... um... how did I get to this room? Where am I? Who are you people?

Vero: Yeah, you.. Said that earlier. What about all the tentacles and being afraid? Do you remember any of that?

F3P0: I’m sorry, but what are you talking about Ma’am?

Hal examined F3P0’s body and determined he was the property of Bioniip Labs, which Lobot recognized as the lab where Dr. Vreen works.

Lando mentioned that they’ve been looking for Vreen for the last 10 hours but they have not been able to find him. He suggested taking the droid to Bioniip.

The players told Lando that when they were approaching Cloud City some of the cloud cars with protocol droid pilots had attacked them and then a security droid had tried to kill them. Lando acknowledged that they had been having trouble with droids...

He and Lobot and most of the wing guards bit the party adieu and left. Five wing guards remained in the lab to guard it. 

As the party prepared to go to Bioniip labs, one of the guards picked up the murder weapon and threw it to L1, the clone caught it in mid air, did a little spin move and stuck it in his holster all cool looking.

Don't mess with CT-16-0215

Jeegn: It seems they train these clones well from a very young age.

One of the wing guards asked about the other protocol droid and the astromech, (L1 and Golden Wheels). Vero responded that they belonged to the party but they began malfunctioning around the time of the murder. The wing guard said he would have them delivered to the ship... the...

Vero: The Silverlight. It’s parked at platform 643.

Wipe to Bioniip:

As they arrived two big black blast doors opened.

On the other side was a reception room, where a female receptionist droid, built into a desk greeted the party.

I said to the ai art prompt "Female receptionist robot built into a desk." Eh, it works.

Receptionist droid: Welcome to Bioniip Labs. How may I be of service?

Vero: We found F3P0 here and it says on his restraining bolt that he belongs to Bioniip. We thought we’d return him.

Receptionist droid: Hello F3P0, and welcome back! Your new master has been looking all over for you.

F3P0: New master? Oh dear, it appears I’m having severe memory problems. Perhaps I am due for a new memory wipe, but I certainly hope it won’t have to come to that.

Grundle asked if she could tell them who the new owner was, but the receptionist droid refused to divulge that information as it was confidential.

Grundle said they were made deputies by Lando Calrissian and they needed this information as they were investigating a murder case. 

Jeegn quickly nudged Grundle, saying that he should probably not mention murder.

F3P0 responded: Oh yes! I remember now! My new master is Lira Wolf, and she purchased me to be her assistant here on Cloud City while she is in town.

With that, Walex Blissex looked very dejected.

Blissex: It figures my daughter would be part of this. He sighed uneasily.

Jeegn: Well I’m sorry to hear about your family problem, but what can you tell us about your daughter?

Blissex: She’s an engineer like me, in fact she’s better than me. She designed the Executor class star destroyer, which is now the flagship in the Imperial fleet. She’s also married to Governor Andi Wolf, an ambitious prick of a fellow.

Vero bristled at the name Andi Wolf, who (spoiler spoiler) from her past.

(Editor’s note: There is no character called Lira Wolf or Andi Wolf in the Crisis on Cloud City Adventure. Lira Wessex, the wife of Imperial Navy commander Denn Wessex is the daughter of Walex Blissex in the adventure as written, but Vero’s player provided a bit of backstory at character creation and I thought it might be a good opportunity to incorporate some of her backstory into this adventure... so I had Lira Blissex marry Andi Wolf, who was someone in said backstory. Because the player hasn’t revealed to the party what the nature of Vero’s relationship to Andi and/or Lira is, I am not elaborating here, but there was a lot of inside nudges and winks going on between Vero’s player and me as we were discussing Lira.)

F3P0: My master Lira has an appointment with a Dr. Vreen at the Casino today. Perhaps we should go there and meet them, since we’re looking for Vreen. The meeting is in a few hours!

Grundle and Vero decided to use the next few hours to visit a Bacta facility and heal their wounds, the rest of the party went to go get lunch.

When they came back together on the way to the casino, Vero explained the plan, making sure Blissex could not hear it. They would identify Lira Wolf and follow her around until she makes contact with her husband Andi Wolf. At that time they would descend on Andi and take him out because he’s likely the real killer.

The rest of the party asked how he was so sure that Andi was the killer, given he is an Imperial governor and likely not too concerned with the goings on of a scientist living in a mining colony in a planet where the Empire doesn’t have much interest in.

Vero: Those Wolfs are just bad news.

Jeegn asked what Lira looks like. Blissex explained that she was a human female with black hair. One of the party said that could be anybody. Blissex said he knows his daughter so since he will be with them he can spot her.

The rest of the party told Blissex to park his rear at a slot machine and leave the searching to them.

Blissex insisted he join them because they wouldn’t be able to identify her.

Jeegn, smartly, asked him to show them a picture of her. Blissex said, “oh yeah, sure I could do that!” And he whipped out his datapad and found a picture of Lira to show it to them.

This is what Lira looks like in the module. The picture is actually a concept drawing of what Leia could have looked like in Cloud City scenes in the Empire Strikes Back. They went with a different design.

(Editor’s note: The adventure as written says that Blissex just follows the party around. They wanted to keep him away from Lira because they figured she, as an Imperial, would be alerted that the rebels were doing something on Cloud City if she were to encounter her father, a known rebel scientist. This makes perfect sense. Lira has no idea who the party is and that they are rebels, but she does know her father works for the rebels, so if they don’t want to tip off the Empire that they are here [which could eventually lead them to capture, and then they would have to reveal the location of the rebel base on Hoth, which they know the Empire is looking for] they should keep their allegiances secret. But the way this adventure is written, it only leaves room for them to meet in the casino. I suppose this adventure could take place earlier between episodes 4 and 5 then where I have it, and the rebels are still operating out of Yavin or have not yet established the Echo Base on Hoth, but we certainly have no way of knowing this.)

Blissex went to a slot machine and faced away from the rest of the party.

The party searched the casino far and wide, making extremely high search rolls, and even using the force, but they were not able to find her in the casino. They began to think it was a dead end.

(Editor’s note... they were supposed to ask people in the casino about Lira, rather than just looking with their eyes for her. A lot of roleplaying comes from talking to people but for some reason this group seems to avoid talking to random folks, unless I put it all out in their faces.)

A dealer approached Jeegn, asking if he’d like to play this new kind of game called 21. As they were playing, he the dealer and Jeegn chit chatted until Jeegn explained who they were looking for. 

(Editor’s note: Jeegn’s player was playing 21 using actual cards. One can alternatively roll the gambling skill in opposed rolls to play any kind of game, but that’s less fun that playing with actual cards).

The dealer said he remembered someone fitting that description over at the Sabaac tables.

So the party went there. As soon as they arrived an elderly dealer told the group to sit down and play a few hands. One of the party jokingly called him Dr. Vreen. 

(Editor’s Note: I informed the player that they know that Vreen has lighter skin and this elderly dealer definitely did not fit the description because he had somewhat darker skin. They immediately in jest called him Lando. The trouble is... this actually IS Lando in disguise. I made everyone in the party roll perception to see if they could figure it out. None of them rolled high enough, so although the players had figured it out just from his skin color, their characters were supposed to think that it was someone else. One of the players, who is African-American laughed, saying that racism actually worked to their benefit. I wasn’t happy that simply mentioning his skin color is what gave it away to them, but perhaps it’s my fault for even mentioning his skin color, since in a galaxy far far away it is possible that people don’t even notice such phenotypical differences as the go-to distinguishers when discussing the human species.)

Just as Lando, erm I mean the old man, was about to deal, a gold skinned alien came and sat at the table talking about his “big score” and how he was gonna retire young. They noticed that when he talked, little gold flakes would shed from his face.

Ok, so this is from a Marvel film, but... it's all Disney now anyway...

They played a few hands of sabaac.

(Editor’s note: Crisis on Cloud City comes with a sabaac game to be used here in the casino, but printing out the cards and familiarizing myself with the rules of a fictitious game that the cards are supposed to be digital, but we’d be playing with physical ones... seemed hokey. So for the sabaac game I used regular cards and Texas Hold’em poker. It still worked, to set the mood though.)

The alien introduced himself as Helm Israker. He lost a huge hand to Hal and looked a bit angry, but he said it was all good because he’s now richer than he could ever imagine, as soon as he meets his contact and gets paid.

Next, he won a huge hand, and the party asked him about what his huge score was. He explained (with some bravado) that he was hired a few months ago to travel to the Indellum system and steal the plans to seven card keys from SecuriCo. He didn’t know what the keys were to, but it sounded complicated. All he was given was a list of serial numbers belonging to card keys. The job was to steal the plans for the keys with the matching serial numbers. His guess is that the plans would be used to make copies of the keys. In turn, the keys would be used to open a series of lock boxes leading to something his “client” wanted.

They asked him if he knew anything about Dr. Vreen, and he said he’d never heard of him.

Then a furry little ball-shaped alien approached the table.

““D ...d ... did Doctow Vween show up yet, Hewm?” Whirling around, Helm stared down at the little alien and not-so-quietly whispered, “What are you doing here? I told you we weren’t working together anymore!” “Why aw you yewwing at me?” the fuzzball asked pathetically. “I just wanted to know if you we we aw wight.” With that, the frightened alien wandered off into the crowd. “A former associate,” said Helm apologetically.

The party then asked how he knew Vreen, and he quickly explained it was all... gambling debts.

Vero, out of the corner of her eye, saw that Blissex was now standing in front of his slot machine, talking to a woman who looked like Lira Wolf. He pointed it out to F3P0 who said that yes, that was indeed his mistress. Blissex and Wolf walked towards the sabaac table and sat down.

“I thought that you no longer had an interest in building battle platforms,” she said. Dr. Blissex seemed a bit puzzled by his daughter’s remark, but he replied, “I didn’t know you had an interest in killing innocent scientists.” 

Helm attempted to figure out what was going down. He asked them how they all knew each other and why they were talking so weird.

F3P0 kept calling Lira his mistress and she kept ignoring him, saying she had never owned a protocol droid.

Lira kept asking both Helm and the party if they knew Vreen and if he was about to show up.

They played a few more hands and noticed that in the latest deal, the cards were completely blank, as if something was malfunctioning.

The display in the center of the table showed a sort of flying saucer shape with black tentacles coming out of it... and suddenly screams could be heard from the outside of the casino and they were getting louder.

It was a runaway maintenance droid which had a laser cutter and it was creating havoc on the casino floor, breaking slot machines, terrorizing people and being a general nuisance.

Several of the party tried to shoot it but their weapons weren’t working for some strange reason.

Grundle considered throwing a thermal detonator at it, but reconsidered after realizing there were still a lot of people there.

Hal attempted to light his lightsaber but that also didn’t work.

Everyone rolled very low perception so I wasn’t able to tell them why their weapons weren’t working.

Lando in disguise realized that the problem was the sabaac table, which disables weapons when players are seated at it as a security measure. Only it’s been amplified somehow so that even though they are no longer right next to the table it still prevents them from using energy weapons. Lando picked up a chair and smashed the table, very uncharacteristically for a supposedly frail old man. His grey hairpiece burst from his forehead a bit and revealed his luscious locks below.

With the table destroyed, the party all began taking shots at the maintenance droid, with most of them hitting, but having almost no effect.

(Editor’s note: This droid had a strength of 8D, and, maybe I am doing the rules wrong here, but there was no armor rating listed... as with all droids, so he was resisting damage with 8D... but in the case of droids it should be able to make them very strong but not necessarily as durable as they are strong. The 8D resistance made it such that none of the party’s weapons had any effect on it, except for Hal with a lightsaber. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but in retrospect it would have been better to just give it an armor rating of 2D or 3D. The book as written does not seem to have armor rating for droids, meaning a standard astromech would be absorbing damage with 1D, which also doesn’t quite seem right.)

The droid spotted the party and drove on its treads full speed towards them. It crashed into Jeegn and sent him flying. He was stunned.

Another round of shots had no effect. Hal ignited his lightsaber and cut a piece off. It wasn’t an important piece.

Another round of shots with very little effect.

The robot aimed its beam cutter at Blissex, but missed him as the scientist ducked below the remnants of the table.

Lira and Helm were nowhere to be found, likely having stepped away during all the commotion.

Hal cut off the beam cutter to disarm the droid.

It used its strong 8D arms to lift the remnants of the table and find a cowering Dr. Blissex. Hal basically bisected it in two, and the droid fell to the ground in a heap.

A calm rested over the now empty casino. Vero started tinkering with the maintenance droid to see if she could bring up anything in its memory.

The droid's eyes flashed on and it said, "Oh, I'm sorry Dr. Vreen, but I must go to the Royal Casino and kill some people. I'll return as soon as I can. I must say it's good to have you back at Bioniip." 

The message repeated a few times.

The party realized that Vreen was likely at Bioniip, and discussed if it might be wise to go there to look for him.

Suddenly the droid stopped speaking, turned its head and said, "Yes, I see," and ionized itself. Tiny blue bolts raced along the droid's connecting joints, completely burning out its circuitry. 

There was then a cut away scene. 

EXTERIOR: UPPER PLAZA ROOFTOP. Lira Wolf snaps the buttons on a small metal case and flips the top open, revealing a sophisticated portable transmission device. After punching in the proper scramble code, she picks up the headset. "This is a top priority scramble code message from Lira Wolf to Captain Piette of the Star Destroyer Executor. Your ears only. I repeat, your ears only. An attempt has been made on my life. I don't know if this is part of Vreen's demonstration, but things are becoming complicated. If you do not hear from me in 24 standard hours, notify my husband and whatever Imperial authorities you deem necessary. Remember that until then, this operation is still to be kept strictly between you and I, Captain."

(Editor’s note: While I lamented the cutaway scenes in the Graveyard of Alderaan module, because it made it such that the players had to act on information that their characters didn’t have, this, I think, is okay. It reveals that Dr. Vreen was in some way in cahoots with Lira, which we already knew, but it also reveals that she’s not operating on orders from the Empire, which is new information the characters would have no way of knowing, but it doesn’t really change much. As far as they know, Vreen is behind all the messed up droids and they have to go find him.)

Wipe to the blast doors at Bioniip Labs.

The doors did not automatically open. Hal ignited his lightsaber and jammed it into the door. The rest of the party anticipated that there might be something on the other side that might shoot at them, and they moved out of the way of the door, seeking cover.

Hal continued cutting and nobody saw the inherent problem. The hole in the door was complete. He used his telekenesis to gently nudge the hole in the door and it fell flat. The reception droid used two blasters in its hand and one coming out of its mouth to shoot Hal. He was able to deflect one shot, but the other two hit him and he went down. The rest of the party shot at the reception droid, taking out the guns.

Vero administered first aid on Hal.

Gratuitous post of Vero, her arms jacked.

They ventured beyond the desk, opening the back door to a long corridor.

(Editor’s note: this door was supposed to be locked, and they would need to do some tapping to unlock it, and it would immediately relock once they unlocked it. So they would need to rewire it away from the main network and then reprogram it. It’d be everyone waiting around for Vero to do these things, so I decided to just skip that part.)

A long, white corridor stretched before them, lined with offices and conference rooms on either side. Forty meters away the hall branched off in two directions. Signs on the wall indicated that there are more offices down the right corridor and lab stations down the left. The facility seemed completely deserted.

The party descended down the hall using the leapfrog method at Jeegn’s suggestion. Blissex remained at the rear.

When they came to the intersection, Vero, in the lead, heard Grundle up ahead say “They’re here!”

She turned around to see that Grundle was in fact behind her, so she told the group that she heard Grundle up ahead, and it may be that they are clones.

Four grenades landed in the intersection, and Vero quickly jumped into the nearest room. The grenades exploded, billowing a thick smoke.

Hal pushed the smoke grenades down the hall to the left.

Meanwhile, Vero found herself in a room with Grundle, only he was wearing different clothes than the Grundle she arrived with. He shot at her and missed. She shot at him and wounded him in the shoulder.

L1 entered a different room and traded shots with a Jeegn clone, inadvertently killing him.

Jeegn and Grundle ended up in a different room, where a Jeegn clone took some shots at them, and they returned fire, also killing him.

Hal entered a fourth room with yet another Grundle, who fired at him but dropped his weapon when he saw Hal’s lightsaber.

He then activated a thermal detonator, which blew out the windows and he got sucked out. Hal tried to hold on to something but he got sucked out too, catching the railing of the catwalk outside. As he looked below, he saw the Grundle clone get smaller and smaller, disappearing out of sight.

A blast shield began to close in the place of the window, and the room repressurized.

Hal was hanging by his fingers, and he put his lightsaber on its clip and used his other arm to pull himself up.

On the other end of the catwalk stood a hooded figure, as if he had been waiting. The hooded figure removed his hood revealing his Gungan visage.

Meesa need a toothbrush!

He held out an unlit lightsaber.

“Meesa thinkin’ thisa bein’ yousas.”

He threw the saber at Hal, who telekenesised it into his hands and ignited it. It was the yellow lightsaber that he had lost in the Alderaan palace ruins.

“And now, yousa comin’ wisa meesa, and meesa completin’ your training.”

Hal: Um... thanks for the lightsaber... do you come in peace or... what’s going on?

“Meesa and Yousa teaming up, defeatin’ the Palpy and bringing the peace on Naboo.”

Hal: I don’t want to complete my training that way. But let’s talk. Do you like breakfast burritos?

(Editor’s note: I don’t recall the exact conversation, but Hal’s player is really into brunch, hence his name, either Hal Starbruncher or Hal Brunchkiller... I can’t remember which).

“Meesa no like burritos. Now come along and complete yousa training, okiday?”

Hal: Alright, um.. What’s your name? Let’s discuss this.”

“Meesa.. Far Far Stinks.”

Hal began to laugh.

Far Far: Meesa name not funny. ‘Tis a Gungan name.

Hal: Well then, Far Far, how about this. We figure out a way back into Cloud City, and we can discuss what we’re doing with my friends.

Far Far: No! Cloud City is DOOMED! Yousa comin’ now Okiday?

Far Far ignited his red lightsaber.

Hal pulled out his pink one and lit both of them up.

Far Far ignited the other side of his lightsaber, revealing it to be a double lightsaber.

He lunged at Hal, who had carefully analyzed the catwalk, and cut the floor ahead of him. The catwalk disappeared from below Far Far and fell into the abyss. But Far Far leapt at the last second, landing in front of Hal, swiping at him with his double saber.

The two exchanged a few blows back and forth.

Meanwhile, inside, the rest of the party began talking to the surviving Grundle clone, who explained that he was the original, and Vreen had told him that if he and the real Jeegn would complete their mission by working together with his clones to defeat the intruders coming into the lab, then they would be free to resume their lives as galactic musicians. But now that the real Jeegn is dead, there’s no chance of that.

The real actual real Jeegn began to sing and the clone Grundle noted how much better he sounded than the actual Jeegn.

Jeegn asked if Clone Grundle might have ever considered that he might be a clone.

Real Grundle whipped out his harmonica and told Clone Grundle to play it.

Clone Grundle played really well, but not quite as good as real Grundle.

Real Grundle took back the harmonica and played so much better.

Clone Grundle said it was because it’s a different model than then one he had for most of his life. He asked if he could try again. Real Grundle gave him the harmonica.

Clone Grundle unsheathed the harmonica/vibro blade combo and lunged at real Grundle, stabbing him badly and causing him to lose consciousness.

Vero, L1 and Jeegn all shot at him, killing him, but an errant blaster shot blew out another window. Everyone who could held on for dear life as the two Grundles got sucked out of the window.

Hal caught a glimpse of what was going on and tried to use telekenesis to catch his friend, but failed. He turned off his lightsaber and pleaded with Far Far to help him.

Far Far used telekenesis and picked up the wrong Grundle.

The real Grundle woke up and saw that Cloud City was slowly getting smaller as he descended.

Hal explained that no, he wanted the other one.

Far Far released the clone Grundle and grabbed the real Grundle.

The clone flew past him as he was pulled to safety aboard the catwalk.

Hal invited Far Far inside the office where the rest of the party was. Together with the real Grundle, they all went back through the window and began to talk. Another blast shield covered the window and the room repressurized

Far Far continued to demand that Hal leave the rest of the party and join him, explaining that Cloud City and everyone in it had but a few hours left. Hal again refused.

As Far Far made his case to everyone, Hal snuck behind him and prepared to slice him to bits with his lightsabers, but as soon as he took them out, Far Far ignited his and turned around.

Far Far: No. Hally, Yousa JOINING MEESA NOW! 

His eyes shone bright yellow and he appeared even angrier than before.

They exchanged a few more blows, the rest of the party began shooting at Far Far, who redirected their blaster shots to hit each other instead of him.

Grundle stepped forward and told everyone to “GET DOWN!”

Hal ducked and lay prone at Grundle’s feet. 

L1, Jeegn and Vero covered their ears.

Grundle let out a terrible Ithorian scream in the direction of Far Far. Far Far’s ears stood up straight and blood poured out of them. His eyes bulged and exploded. Parts of the station’s wall began to rip apart and once again, the vacuum would have caused everyone to fall out of the room once again, but the scream was such that it was keeping everyone behind Grundle exactly where they were because the air was being repelled backwards from him as well.

Far Far flew through the window and fell downward, never to be seen again.

(Editor’s note: Obviously this part with the clones and Far Far was not in the original module. Instead it was a showdown with some altered Maintenance Droids.)

With that, the party began searching the other corridors and they came upon a cafeteria that had been locked with a chain. People could be heard inside shouting for help.

(Editor’s note: it is again, another security door that requires hacking, and a shock if they fail. It doesn’t really make sense that someone who is keeping these people hostage would take the time to set booby traps on doors. A chain on the door handles works.)

They broke the chain and entered the cafeteria.

The room was full of frightened scientists and lab technicians. One of the scientists said in a hurried voice, "Please! Our Droids took some of the staff into the labs. We haven't seen them for hours. The Droids are mad. They locked us in here after forcing Vreen to pick scientists at blaster point. He chose five. We asked him what was going on, but he wouldn't tell us. The staff must still be in the labs. You must help them!" 

They continued down the hall towards the labs and found several bodies of scientists that had been operated on. Many of them appeared to have droid parts grafted into their skin...

This one is dead.

They all appeared to be dead, except for one, who was breathing.

His silver-tinted skin was smooth and solid. The party could see that the joints of his fingers were now held together with small bolts and that a Droid neck mount held his head in place. Yellow lights flickered dimly in his eyes. His mouth moved, but the words were distorted and synthesized. 

"My name is Dr. Vreen. I did something very wrong, but I cannot remember what it is anymore. Exo is going to do something to the city. I have to stop it! Please, you must help me!"

To be continued....