Tahir flew the Aliya close to the Sogoi village and made his usual perfect landing. Gurgeh and Alqadi made themselves look as medical as possible, and accompanied by Lila and Sayah in case they needed better conversationalists, went out to meet the locals.
The smoke turned out to be from funeral pyres. The village was suffering from blood fever, a disease that was disproportionately targetting children. We met with one of the warriors and the shaman, who were a little suspcious of the two obvious Zenithian women, but Gurgeh and Alqadi managed to convince them we were there to help and got to work examining the sick, while Lila and Sayah worked on sampling and analysing the well water.
Tahir noticed another Zenithian in the area, and went to talk to him. He was a priest, there as a missionary to attempt to convince the Sogoi to update their icon worship. Tahir was rather suspicious of him, but he didn't appear to be actively hostile at this point.
Testing revealed the well water to have parasites that we definitely shouldn't be drinking, but which the locals were most likely adapted to. Nothing out of the ordinary. The medical team were getting more useful results, discovering an abnormality in the bone marrow that seemed to be affecting blood production. Alqadi was taking a spiritual approach to things as well, and found out that a shadow creature similar to the one we had encountered at the towers had been in the area. Could there be more to this disease than the merely physical?
Sayah suggested using the spirit glasses, so Lila put them on and went to take a look at things. There was a shadow clinging to many of the sick children. Something here was badly wrong.
Tahir went for a look at the riverside grove where the children were known to play, accompanied by Sayah in accordance with the four eyes protocol. He used his jetpack to fly across the river, leaving Sayah behind on the other bank and was starting to take a look around when he heard a shout from behind him. "Look out!" He was being rapidly pursued by nahangs - large reptiles that had crawled out of the river. Under the trees he couldn't fly straight up to escape them, but he still managed to use the jetpack to evade them and land back on the opposite bank with all his usual flair.
The final verdict regarding the disease was that the proper treatment was a combination of broad spectrum antibiotics and an exorcism. We asked the shaman to take the lead, but also invited the Zenithian priest for some extra spiritual power, offering him the chance to endear himself to the Sogoi. We watched the shaman as she lit a sacred brazier, and all prayed to our own icons while offering up the talismans that Tahir had made.
It was a long and grueling process. The shadows were eventually driven out, but by the end we were all exhausted, and our two mystics, Alqadi and Lila, had been particularly drained. As Gurgeh was attempting to do something about their nosebleeds, we got a message. People on grav bikes were heading our way. That had to be the Asturban guards.
At Sayah's insistence we made a hasty return to the ship, leaving the grateful Sogoi behind. Once we were all safely aboard, Sayah was finally convinced to explain why she was so afraid of the Asturban. She explained that years ago she'd been vetting some potential suitors her parents had found for her. After reading their Spinder profiles and Spoogling their names she'd next turned to the Web Between the Stars, where she discovered evidence of strong connections between the noble family of one of the suitors and the Syndicate crime organisation.
So the space mafia were after her? Sayah hadn't even considered that, although now she came to think about it it was another thing to worry about. The problem was that she'd found that information in places that she absolutely should not have been djinned into, without even having used a VPN. She'd packed her bags and fled, convinced the Asturban would be on her tail at any moment. Recent events suggested they were finally starting to catch up with her. The ship from the plateau was also heading our way.
Gurgeh turned off the ship's transponder and channeled power into the engines. Lila, as first officer, took command, while Tahir took the helm. When the pursuing ship failed to get a target lock on the Aliya, Gurgeh redirected power from the sensors and weapon systems into the engines, and with Tahir taking evasive maneoevres close to the planet's surface, we escaped and headed away from Kua. We needed to refuel and resupply, and set a course back to Coriolis.
Once we were well clear of the planet and Gurgeh had turned the transponder back on, Sayah took Alqadi and Lila to the arboretum for some R&R through the medium of oud music and recreational substances. They enjoyed the music, but both declined the offer of opor. Gurgeh was more receptive.
Once we arrived at the station (and Sayah and Gurgeh had both come down from the opor high) we got to work, selling the supplies we'd picked up on Kua, maintaining the ship, purchasing new equipment, updating Doctor Wana, and in Sayah's case, restocking on opor. We had a long journey ahead of us. The Rimward Reach was waiting.
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