Session XXXII: Return of the (Other) Jedi

 Welcome back one and all to another session as we edge closer and closer to bringing this epic story to a satisfying conclusion. We are currently overlapping with Episode VI, and I estimate that we will likely finish up around Session XXXVI, meaning that there are roughly 12 sessions per movie. That's a nice round number.

Anyway let's just get right to it. Here's the opening crawl:

Session XXXII: Return of the (Other) Jedi

Luke Skywalker has just returned to his home planet and executed a really poorly thought out plan to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt.

For his troubles, he now finds himself, along with a Gamorrean guard, in an underground chamber that is home to a very hungry rancor monster.

All in attendance, including an undercover Delta Team, watch with a mix of alarm, horror, and morbid curiosity.

You can't tell me he knew what he was doing here...

So we open up the session with everyone watching as the rancor ate the Gamorrean guard. Everything happened exactly the same way as it did in the movie scene. But then Grundle Chanken noticed that Luke picked up a stone to throw it at a switch to make the iron gate fall on the rancor. He instantly recognized that the switch wouldn't simply activate from rock being thrown at it because it is a  biometric switch, likely requiring the handprint of the rancor keeper.

He told Hal Brunchkiller, who now realized he had to spring into action.

He thought about igniting his lightsaber and jumping down there to save Luke.. but then realized that would blow his cover. He attempted to force choke the rancor, then realized he knew nothing about the rancor's anatomy.

The rancor edged ever closer. Luke threw the rock and hit the pad exactly square in the middle. He broke the switch, as evidenced by the sparks that shot out of it.

Hal concentrated and brought the gate crashing down onto the rancor a split second after Luke hit the panel with the stone. It all happened so fast that it looked as if Luke had killed the rancor with his quick thinking.

Note I never understood why Luke needed to use the rock. He can force poke the switch. Of course I had to switch things up so that the switch wouldn't have worked, so Hal could have a moment here.

Jabba was obviously very angry, so he ordered that Luke, Han and Chewbacca be brought before him for sentencing in the belly of the Sarlaac.

As they were being sentenced, Soan noticed that Bib Fortuna's head tails were moving ... giving HER a message.

Bib: Do you know where he is sending them? 

Soan: Sorry?

Bib: Have your.... friends told you about the Sarlaac Pit

Soan: Do I... know you?

Bib: I never forget a face. Your drummer? I know a clumsy smuggler when I see one. We had a bounty on him once you know. All of you, your disguises are terrible.

Soan: I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a backup vocalist and dancer in this band, and I've never met you.

Bib: Your "bandmates" have. I met them on New Alderaan. I know what’s up. You all are with the Rebels. You think I don’t know that pathetic asteroid is a secret Rebel base?

Soan: Okay ... even if that were true... Why are you communicating secretly with me?

Bib: So... I am guessing, you probably don’t want your pal Luke here to die.. And you want Han Solo and Princess Leia back too.. Am I right?

Soan: Well.. if I were a Rebel, that would be preferable.

Bib: Well, let’s say that if someone left all your weapons behind the bar on the sail barge... and... if something terrible were to happen to Jabba the Hutt... How tragic that would be. Afterall. He has no heir... and.. Gosh that would mean...

Soan: That would mean you would take over the whole criminal organization?

Bib: (smiling) Do we have an understanding?

Soan: I guess so... 

Soan noticed that their leku signing had caught the attention of Boba Fett.

Soan: But I am not responsible for what the bounty hunter will do to you after we kill his meal ticket.

Bib: You speak of Fett? Hmmf. Surely nothing will happen to him. He's an expert jetpack pilot. Why, he could fly right out of there... unless there were some kind of horrible malfunction... (smiling)

Soan: Okay all that's between him and you. We'll do our part against the slug, and we'll never be back here again.

Bib: Good. This is my domain now... 

Note: This discussion about Boba Fett did not happen during the session, but I think it fixes things that happened in Return of the Jedi. Boba Fett shouldn't have been killed so easily. It only makes sense if his jetpack was sabotaged. See? We're fixing these movies!!!

Wipe to: riding out to the Pit of Carkoon on the sail barge. The band was on the barge's lower deck. Jabba was one deck above them. This deck of the sail barge had a stage, many tables and a bar. Jabba's no gooders were drinking, breaking things and treating their waiters L1 and Golden Wheels with optimal disrespect.

Suddenly one of the higher ranked thugs signaled for silence. The band stopped playing and everyone walked over to the windows to enjoy the show.

From the inside of the barge they looked out over the Sarlaac pit and saw Luke and his friends being asked to beg for their lives.

At the moment that Luke ignited his lightsaber and all hell started to break loose, many of the thugs ran up the stairs while many of the others kept their choice spots at the windows, cheering the ongoing chaos.

Soan used the opportunity to flip over the bar and start tossing out weapons to everyone. But as the group started heading toward the stairway themselves, one of the thugs got the attention of all the others and a massive free for all bar brawl and shootout began.

At one point Hal Brunchkiller saw Boba Fett flying out of control towards an open window he was standing in front of. He closed the window.

They fought some more, and at one point D'Wook kicked a guy toward a window which opened just as Luke was climbing up the side of the barge. Luke pulled the guy out and he fell into the pit below.

D'Wook has just kicked this man out of the window. Luke will finish the job.

The team dispatched the rest of the thugs and Soan rushed upstairs to see Jabba being choked out by Leia. She watched the slug breathe his last, as the rest of the team caught up with her. Leia looked at Soan, looked at the rest of the team, looked back at Soan, saw their weapons. She instantly saw through the disguises. 

Vero got to work immediately, laying explosive charges here and there.

Leia: Clean up here and get your soldiers to safety, Major.

Vero stood at attention.

Vero: Yes sir!

Leia ran up to the top deck

Vero continued setting up charges in structurally important places. 

D'Wook: Well boys, I think that means its our cue to exit. 

They all ran upstairs and saw Luke shoot the deck as he swung to the skiff where Han, Lando and Chewie were waiting. Though the laser cannon would not have taken down the entire sail barge, it did set off a chain reaction in Vero's charges. 

There was another skiff that had been completely cleared of thugs, so they all made a jump for it.

The droids failed but everyone else either jumped well or were helped by the force and landed safely on the second skiff, and they zoomed away just as the sail barge exploded.

Then they rode back and picked up the droids. By then a thick sandstorm had appeared, so they lost sight of the other skiff. Figuring their friends could take care of themselves, they headed back to Mos Eisley.

On the way there Vero talked to Soan to assess the situation. 

Vero: So... Soan... what’s our next move? I saw you having that lengthy conversation with your sister. That couldn’t have all been “Hey long time no see.”

Soan: I'm going to kill Jodo Kast. 

Vero: Well do you know where he is?

Soan: He's looking for someone named Adar Tallon. If we can get to him first, he'll come to us.

Vero: You mean Adar Tallon? The brilliant Republic tactician and naval commander? He’s alive? And he’s HERE?

Soan: Yes. Apparently he faked his death and has been living on Tatooine in hiding. The Empire has discovered his secret and has put a huge bounty on his head.  Oola told me that they want to stop him from joining the Rebellion.

Vero: Holy smokes! We gotta get to him first!

Note: My memory, once again, goes fuzzy here. Why? Because we're doing a module, and we've leapt out of the stuff I planned personally, and know better, and back to the module, which I didn't plan, have never played through, and don't know so well. We'll be strictly within the module for likely the next two sessions, as it seems that it takes usually three sessions to get through each module, and in this one, simply arriving on Tatooine happens in Chapter 2. Chapter 1 happens aboard Kwenn Space Station, which is supposed to be this neutral space station that starts out many of these modules. In adapting them I've almost always decided to relocate to somewhere else, though I may have alluded to Kwenn's existence, we've never actually been there. Anyway on Kwenn, the team is supposed to meet up with a rebel agent named Dana, whom they find dead with a curious dart in her neck... suggesting she was killed by a person using Mandalorian weaponry. Dana had datapads on her person explaining about Adar Tallon and saying time is of the essence, so instead of checking in with HQ the rebels simply go to Tatooine and go search for Tallon. I used Oola from Return of the Jedi as my Dana stand in, and had Jodo Kast as the reason she's dead, so now the group wants to avenge her death, and yeah, helping out the Rebellion is also a secondary goal. Anyway, I'll try to make sense of what happened.

They parked the skiff just on the outskirts of town, leaving the two Jeegns behind to watch things. (Also remember that the other Grundle is chilling on the Silverlight with Gonner.)

It was about midday and they decided to search for clues to the whereabouts of either Jodo Kast or Adar Tallon. They split up and decided to visit different locales in Mos Eisley.

Note: This module has a rich description of the city with many locations they can visit and comes complete with a map. But I don't have an original copy, so I printed out the map key and we just agreed that if they wanted to visit one of the listed places they can walk on their way there.

Golden Wheels had sand in his circuits and wanted to visit the "milly-ta." At first it was difficult for everyone to understand what he was saying. Turk gave him a kick and then he explained that he wanted to visit the militia, to try to get weapons from the stormtroopers.

Note: Golden Wheels' player kept pronouncing militia wrong. And you know what, that's ok. If you mispronounce a word because you learned it from reading rather than speaking, that means you're kind of well read. I did this all the time as a kid. A queue was a "kwayway" until I figured it out that it was pronounced "cue" I used to also say "inovace" for invoice. I also always thought that when I was reading X-Men comics, Magneto was "Magnet-o" and not "Magneeeeeto" and Professor Xavier was "Professor Javier" not "Professor Ex-savior." And you know what? My way makes more sense. I've conformed to what the rest of the word says though because I guess readers have been saying it the other way since the 1960s.

Okay so fuzzy memory aside, they went to and fro, learned that an "oldster" named Heff has been killed, but didn't care about and didn't pursue the lead to find anything about what an oldster is and how he died... because Turk was more concerned with gathering Bantha poop from a religious zealot who worshiped Banthas as dieties.

Note: For readers, Heff is a rabbit alien who runs an antique shop an "oldster" someone who had come to Tatooine on the first colony ship that started the recent settlement of Tatooine. Before these recent settlers, the only thing around was the Jawa scavengers and the Tuskens who fought over the scraps of abandoned mining outposts from centuries ago. According to this module, once the settlers arrived, that is when cities like Mos Eisley (and presumably Anchorhead and Mos Epsa and other known locations) sprung up rather quickly.  In fact, Mos Eisley sprung up around the first colony ship. After a while, more people arrived and ventured out to farm moisture, seek treasure, and become criminals and gangsters. I'm guessing that the colony ship landed maybe 80+ years before the present day, given that in the prequels we see a vibrant Tatooine civilization, and the Phantom Menace is around 36 years before Return of the Jedi. This also presents a major plot hole with this module, because Tallon faked his death long after the rise of the Empire.. and we've already established that Tatooine was already a vibrant place that had been settled for quite some time. Thanks prequels. I've not yet decided how I am going to retcon this. Anyway if they had pursued the lead, they would have found his Heff's grieving daughter who would have told them that Heff had been shot in the neck with a poison dart. 

Through asking around and visiting people, they determined that if they wanted to get to Adar Tallon, they should first find Labria. Labria knows people, or at least knows people who know them.

Someone in the party asked if Labria had a partner named Clitorix. It got a few chuckles.

As they were walking through the streets of Mos Eisley they could see that there were many groups of bounty hunters, wearing all kinds of makeshift armor, forming search parties, and riding out together into the desert to find Adar Tallon. 

Anyway, they were about to head back to the Cantina when they stopped a group of bounty hunters from mugging a guy in a back alley. It was a drunk who the bounty hunters were harassing. They were about to let him go, when Vero asked his name. He introduced himself as Labria.

The group asked Labria to help them find Adar Tallon, and Labria said that he didn't know any Adar Tallon but people keep talking about him these days. It appears that only the "oldsters" remember when he might have arrived on Tatooine, because they've been around longer than everyone else. Labria also knew an oldster who he worked for named Slag Flats, and Ithorian that lives just outside Mos Eisley.

He asked them to meet at "first twilight."

Note: I think it's neat that these guys who write this are so clever. Tatooine has two suns, so there is a first twilight and a second twilight. Pretty rad.

It stands to reason that there is also a first sunrise and first dusk too?

To be continued....