Contract: Nightstalker
Previous: Shadow of What Was Lost
Next:

Returning to just after Dr. Dolabella dropped and Jerzac Scarlewe saw the orb shooting away. Jerzac ordered Genji keep eyes on it while the rest of #Team High Turnover Rate cleared the area of immediate valuables and information. Jerzac snatched the woman's pistol while Antonio Ban'Deras claimed her armor. Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss on the other hand went to the wrecked server stack and pulled out the datastick for later study. Finally, Bash spent time scattering the dust remains of the trooper drones to prevent them reforming.

On the ansible screens, Genji watched the orb float away. In the time it took the rest of the crew to return to the Kormoran it had travelled around 30 km away. Not long after he heard crew members on the ship he saw an arm force its way out of the orb. Its palm pressed on the orb's surface seemingly trying to escape. He called out to the captain but before Jerzac could get to the bridge the arms was forcibly reabsorbed. 
The captain joined Genji, with the rest of the crew on the way. Leaning over the pilot's shoulder Jerzac saw the pair of arms reach out and pull a head and torso free. Once again it was reabsorbed in short order. By the time it next reappeared the whole crew was gathered around the screen. The struggling humanoid finally tore its way free and the black shiny creature plummeted towards the ground. The orb instantly stopped midair, shot down, and reabsorbed the creature. The trapped creature did not have enough time to attempt another escape attempt before the orb slammed into a cliff face, dissolved into a cloud of nanobots, and swarmed through a crack in the cliff face.

Unable to pursue at the moment given the sorry state of the crew, Jerzac ordered everyone to rest, concoct medicines, or repair equipment. Antonio drew doctor duty and started manufacturing healing serums for himself and Bash. Bash tried to go straight to sleep to rest his broken and battered body but was unable to rest. Everytime he closed his eyes he was back in his underwater march to the sunken city and the Being. Since he was unable to rest he went to the medical lab to run tests on his new eye and its ring of tentacles.
As far as the medical lab was concerned and as many times as he ran tests the lab would decide one of two mutually exclusive things:
1) That eye had always been there as part of Bash's DNA
2) That eye didn't exist. When Bash dug into OS he found the machine considered the data as a bug and excluded it from the report.
While he was futilely running these tests over and over again Jerzac came for his own diagnostics. Bash gave him a moments attention and returned to his work then gave himself minor whiplash turning back to the man. Bash's new expanded sight allowed him to see thin lines on Jerzac's skin that would be too small to see normally. When he approached, Bash could see that the razor thin lines glowed from within.
Just like his subordinate, Jerzac observed Bash's eye. The double slit pupils that moved independently from each other deeply unnerved him. When Bash told him of the diagnostic results Jerzac claimed "Well you came from somewhere isolated enough. Maybe this eye is latent from an uncle-daddy in your family circle."

Unable to find answers in the medical suite, Bash chose to distract himself fixing his rifle. The damage from this malfunction was beyond his ability unfortunately so he sought out Rocket's help. She came in to help but got more and more agitated. While he was walking by the tech workshop Antonio heard a muffled angry outburst. Rocket stormed out and in the moments before she slammed the hatch shut he saw a very confused looking Bash holding his still damaged rifle.

On top of all the weirdness happening with their bodies, Jerzac had an uncontrollable impulse and spoke an incomprehensible word that rung out and carried far longer than it should have throughout the entire ship. The cosmic truth imparted by that phrase rattled Genji, Antonio, and Professor Solstarni, leaving them shaken for a bit. 

To calm down after her altercation with Bash, Rocket looked through the recovered data cards.
The Matrix card documented how it was found and the initial actions of the colony. Approximately 40 months ago the rains started in earnest. The lack of ground cover meant the whole planet was subject to dangerous mudslides. One of these uncovered a strange energy signature 45 km to the west. The resident Celonian advisor/scientist Go-i Ty saw the signature first. He kept the data to himself and snuck out in the middle of the night to investigate. He recovered the sphere and returned to hide it in a shielded trunk in his quarters. His poor luck meant one of the Praviin scientists had to relieve themselves and saw the glowing orb. The next day Dr. Iscalapius ordered the warehouse workers to confiscate the item as "It belongs to the colony and to a species with a future. Not to a fallen species actively causing their own extinction."
The one containing the Meridath attack data was very short. The only useful data indicated that the source of the attack originated from the west, near where the Geomantic Matrix was found.

Jerzac started spiraling thinking about the cuts and brand from his dream. He started chain smoking Lho sticks but their mild narcotics were not enough to calm him. Taking off his shirt he saw a thick ropy scar to the left of his sternum like the barbaric open heart surgeries of centuries past. Shaking he started to dig through his rather diverse collection until he found his small supply of echo. The first hit gave him the peace he sought in his long buried memories of the happy parts of his childhood in exchange for a new more pressing addiction. 

At the edge of his endurance, Bash was finally able to force himself asleep even though he continued his doomed march.

After awaking, he found Rocket and they attempted to fix his rifle. This time successfully and with a more amicable conversation. In return he helped Rocket rip apart all sorts of obsolete combat gear to make her new armor.

Once everyone was rested(ish) and healed(ish) everyone went looting the domes (minus one person in the pilot's chair at all times). They loaded up the other 8 replicators, all the seedstock, all the machine parts, all the test equipment, and all the raw material. They scrubbed the computers for every last byte of data to return to the Crimson Blades. They also grabbed the marred fragments of the monuments in the matrix chamber.

Finally the got to the room they had been avoiding: Isculapius' room with the creepy veiled altar. With Bash's new eye he saw the bust was semi-translucent and another bust resided within. It was utterly alien consisting of just a huge toothy maw and a tentacle on top that was curled tightly into a coil like a baby fern frond. He jumped nearly to the ceiling when this internal face turned to Jerzac and opened its mouth to speak though Bash was unable to hear what was said.

Now it was Jerzac's turn to jump and he heard Ň͇̼̙͙̏̊̅͘ỹ͈͔͈͖̥̇̽͝a͓̺̤͚̘̗̠ͪ̕r̹̺͖̃̉̀l̢̲̰͇͎̤̻͒ͩ̍̈́a͕̗̎͟t̵͈̗̮͆̍̉ḩ̥̳̥̘̭ͤo̤̜̼̝̱͂̽̕ͅt̻̝͌ͤ̑̅́e̲̦̮̻͑̎͞p̞̘̟̰͙̻͈ͥ͒ͧ͋́̿̑͘'̛̙̫͕͎͍̭̺͚̃ͭ̽͛s̢͙̠̗͇̝ͣ̓

T̺͈̋͋͢h̷̙̼̟̮̖͓̘ͪ̋́ͯe͚̟̮̰̠ͪ̔̽͟ ͙͕̼̻ͫͩ̕B̧̩̱͇̫̞̞̞͛l̛͙̭̗͎̈́̓ả͎̪͉̯̰̦ͤ̃͜c̎̚҉̤̲̹̟̮ķ̺͔͑͆̆̒ ̨̻̳͙͍̃͒P̳̰ͩ͆͌͌͞h̛͇͚̠ͨͯa̷̺͔̒ͬ̉ͨr͙͈̠̪̻̔͡a̫̙̘͈ͬ͌̐̈͠ơ͔̪̳͈̠̌ͥ͑h͖̜̣͉̰̫̎͠ ̻̩͙̺̝̗͓̙͆̿͢c̖̹̣͓̥̬̉̆́͊͠ą͖͔̤͇̗͌ḽ̜͍͖̟͓ͩ̃̏͠l̢̩͉̭̘̗͚̮̠̓s̵̭͖̻̥̭̞̞͂̆̅̐ ̨̘̜̰͉ͮͦḟ̻͕̩̰̬̗͖̕ǫ͈͕͒̈r̦͖͓͆̌͒̚͟ ̤̘͙̗̤̠̳̌͒̕i̩͔͖̓̊̀̔͜t̡̘̯ͦ̋s̓́͒҉̜͓̳ ̧̻̬͔̱̥̓̊o̺̟͚̦̱̹̒͟ͅw̴̳̩̼͎̮̽̃͐ñ̌͗̈́҉͙̖̻̟͈͇͖

"Can you understand me?" asked Jerzac. Bash looked over to his captain and saw an intense yellow rimmed black glow in the shape of an upside down black Ankh shine through Jerzac's armor.

Y̤̞̭̅͂̀ơ̰̣͇͈̮͂u̜̬͓̖̲͇̜̇̓͞r̡̝̰ͩ͗̅ͦͅ ̮͓ͮ̒͑͘n̸̗̙͓̱̩ͭẹ̢͍̲̣̦͚̖̑̊ͩw̳͇̭ͭ͢ ̍̍̏͏͉̖̻̙̦͙͔͇m̴̩̣̊ͅa̝̱͖̞̖̱͕̣̓̓͢s̸̲̝̲̝̫̟̃ͥ͒̊t̂ͤ͑҉̰̬̝̠̱̺͓ȩ̠̜̩̣̩ͬͩͪ̓r͖̖̞̹̘̜͐̀ ̠̣̩̣̔̚͜s̜̞̫̱̤̟͖̜ͯͪ̌͢e̘͇̘̝̱̮̥͌͟e͖̗͉̳̩̭͌ͨ̎͡k̦͔̞̭̝͖̬̣̑̓ͨ̿̕ṣ̼͔͙͙͚̏̄ͪ̕ ̱̜̲͌ͤ̐ͦ͝t̨͉̰̭̣ͮȯ̃̈҉̳̬̮̣̜̳͙̱ ̸̩͇̆̈́r̿̿ͭ҉̻̯̲̳̳̟͎e͕̤̟͎̪ͪͬ̇͋͜ͅţ̞̮͉͎̬̎ͥ̃ṷ̘̹̖͚̲͓̀̀͆̚͡ŗ͚͙̼̗͍̹ͣ̔ͬn͙̙̖̤̳̮̳̤͐̓͡ ̡̞̜̝͓͛ẗ̬͎͛ͩ̽͢ö̴̬͕̩͕̙̻̟̘́͒͆ ̢͙̘͕̹̗ͦt͖͚̯̅̌̽͟ͅh̴̳̙͙͉̩͙͕̋̂i͑̏͑҉̟̯̺̲̼̟s̬͇͚̿͘ ̥̫̣͎̟̖ͭ͂͟g̫̼͔͍͔̦̘̝̑ͦ̎̕a̷͓̥̪̜̙̮̪ͤl̶͇̖͕͎̜̣̫̤ͤͫ̇à҉̺̭̙x̽̑̊̋͏̪̤̩͓ŷ͚̲͚ͪ̀

"Who is he?"

Ḩ̜͈͚̻͉ͫ̉̚e̝̬͚̥͖̭̐ͦ́ ͈̻͒ͦ̽͘ĩ̦̬͙̯̞͍̦͋̆ͭ͠s̵͓͔͙̠̅̃̅ ̵̮̝̈͆̌ͫb̶͎̟̰̬̻̞̞̯̽̋u̠̠̱̹̔ͯͯ̕t̛̼̝̜̤̰͇̪̾ ̢̟̻̭̔̄a̡̗̼̯̮͓̣͆ͥͦ̿ͅ ̵̠̥̉͒ͪH̴̼̰̠̟̥͚̎ͦeͮ̆͑ͪ͏͓̣̣̦r̶̟̖̪̱̻͓̞̐̉à̸͇͙̻̥͈̬̣͙ͩ͐l̡̼̩͐ͦͤ̄dͫ̐̆͏̦̘̹ ͚̩͇̥ͮ͡H̸̜̦̔͒ͅí̧͇̻̭̹̘͊̈m͚̼̮̝̥̪̺̈͡s̷̰̥̳͇̮͔̰͍̓ͭ̑ͭe̹̭͙͙͍͖͖ͮ͟l̷͙̖̰͙ͤ͊ͥf̪̙͋ͧ͞

"I do not seek to serve this Herald"

T̞̙̟͇̝̼̤ͭ͘h̴̟̳̙̝̝̒ͮ͒e̤̞̽ͫ͢ ̨̠̻̝̒ͅS̠̖̩ͥ̎ͪ̚͟t̾͏̤̪̝̝͎ȃ̭̩͈̮̌ͫ͡l͆̚҉̯͈k̫̭̩̗͇̖̉͒͆̎͝e͋̐̾҉͈̤r̛̠̖͓͉̒͐ͩ͐ ̫͍̼̱̝̌́A̷̩̮̯̭̋̀̚̚m̵̝̙̙̻͈ͩo͚͉̣̫̰͎͈̅͗̀̕n̶͎̝̻̩̗ͨg͎̖͔͔̱̬̩ͥͫ̊͢ͅ ͬͩ҉͓̗ẗ͚̳̗̹̥͔̤̹̑ͨ̚͜h̯͓̼̳͇̪̍ͪ͜ḙ̶̰̖̻͇͎͍̯̐͋͒ ̧͓̫̞̫ͭͧ͑̚ͅŜ̘̭̲͙͕̫̘̓͠t̶̰̤̙̱͆ͅa̩̫̫͇͕͔͆̄̀ṙ̛͔͚͖̜̞̿̽s̴̗̰̣̭͍̮̺͑ ̞̘̲͑ͭ̂͛͟d̶̜̰̥̞̩͊ǒ̻̦̯̯̍̈́̈́͘e̬̩̩͔͈̲͆͂͝s̢͎̤͍̠̩͚̬ͥ ̨̯̗̳͖̖̟̊̆̓ṋ̢͔̺͌͋̉ͯo̴͙̦̣̭̫̞̦̲͐̉t̮̞̓̀ ̰͔̤̹̪̾ͪ̃̊͡n͚͈̠͖̼͚͛͢e̙͈̪̬̠̫͙ͭ̋͋͝e̴̝̳̟̠̗̳ͧd̰̠́ͯ͘ ̵̦͍̩̻̼̖̀̉̿̚w̩̼͌̌͝i̦͓͖̠̖͊̆̔ͫ͡l̶̖̥͓̒ͭḻ̻̫̬̱̹͓̬ͭͪ̉͜ḯ̡̮̳̻̩͕ͅn̷͙̱̊ͭg̣̺̼̘̜̑̋͒ͣ̕ ͙͖̖̺̅̌͢s̡͇̩͙̺͚̝̆̊ͦ͑ḙ̵̟͕͕̿r̴̻̻̟͚̤̥̖͉ͣ͂ͨv͙̯ͧ͢a̺͍̟̦̮̮͖ͩ̍̽̈́n̵̺̙ͦͥ̀t͂ͯ̉ͬ҉̗͙̻̞͚̯̙̫s̢̩̤̰͋.̐̂̿҉͉̼̣̙͚̪͓̼ ̜͈̦͓̐̏̀

H̼̫̙͎̦̉͞e̢͍̗͎͕̫̗̤͒͛̒ ̞̮͉̥̗̜̖̪͋ͤ̄̍͟w̻̮̬͋ͤ̿́ĭ̠̯̥̺̰͓̝̮ͣ̋̑͟l̯̤͚ͫ́́l̥͍͔̦͔̹̟̖̑̆̉ͨ͠ ̨̞͈͍ͩͅs̬̪̖̺̦ͤ̌͆̒̀ͅͅȗ̴̘̯̎ͭc̵̻̺̳̬̘̙̤̹̎c̵͉͍͇ͮͩe̡̳̱̮̝̔̏̓é̟̮̰͇͎̊̓́͜d̢̘̗̝̓̿ ̸̙̼̝̜̺̣̾ͅw̯͎̥̟̝ͥ͐̅͡i̖̺̜̻͛͒͟t̘͇̩͙̻ͯ̆̄̔͢h͈̳͂̀͡ ̛̖͇͈̒w̸͇̱̗̻ͩ̇̚h̷̖̟ͣͦ̅̅a̡̩̖̠̥̤̐̈́ẗ̻̝͢ ̡̫͎̻̻̱̪̲̈̎̇h̺̺͋͋͝è҉̥̝̟̱ ̷̲͙̝̼͖̝̓̽t̙̺̳̦̤̠̹̠͛͑̑͜a̷̘͙̱͒̐̌ͨk͎̟̖̮͔̖̓ͪ͢e̡̤̼ͭs͈͙͉͛̐̌͘ ̧̗̳̼͉͉̌͛ą͎̪̹̩̣̫̪̹ͤn̛̯͈͕͈̭̖̂ͨ̔d̶̫͓̘̱̽ ̗̘̣́̑̀f̣̙ͯ̈́ͭ͆͟ǫ͎͖̭̭̺ͤ̈͋r̨͉͎̼̠͉̠̅̾͌͒ͅcͬͭ͏̳̫̖e̷̦̻͉̝͎͙̟̓ ̠̼ͥͧ͝t̤̳̰̘̀̔͑́h̵͍̻̖̜ͯ͂ͮ̔ͅe͔̣̦̮̻͕͔͋̄̀ ̧̤͔̹̰̟̀ͤ̿ṵ̶͔̰͉̫̙͚̄n̨̟̟̖ͤ͌̑ͦͅw̩̺̞̝͓̥͔ͯͮ́́î̠͍̦̼̬̱̥̭͟l͎̹̙̤͗̿̎͝ͅlͥͮ҉̺̲̻̦iͩ̈̓͂҉̩̮n̦̻͕̦̻͚͒́ͅg̱̰̠̖̃ͦ͛͞ ̯͓̯̥̩̣̈́͘t̴̪̰͕͇͍̘̮̰ͦ̅̚ǫ̼̘̼̀̊ͥ̓ ̢̗̦͊̌ḩ̪̞̣͓̭͔̫͊͐̑ͣi̠̞͈͑ͮͩ͢ş͎̜̥̤͊ͅ ̢̬̩͒̓e͈̣͚̼̾ͫ̑͜n̞̹̞͚̝̪̞̅͞ḍ͙ͩ́̈́͛̀s̸̟͙̻̩̥̩̋.̛̙͚͚̍̒̒

The bust stopped talking but Jerzac's chest kept burning and the tentacles around Bash's eye writhed for almost an hour afterwards.

Bash lobbied to take the bust along for answers but Jerzac gave and emphatic FUCK NO! Bash ended up persuading Jerzac to his side when he explained how Rocket was acting weird and maybe she could sense something about it since jerzac could hear and Bash could see it. With the begrudging agreement, Jerzac had Genji bring it aboard. Interestingly, despite Genji mystical powers he was unable to sense anything in that whole exchange with the statue.

Once everyone was back on board the ship, Bash, Genji, Jerzac, and Professor Muhali took the jeep to inspect the exterior of the complex. They first went to the primary landing site to find the dimples had reset following the swarm ambush. Next they went across the wadi to look at some of the monuments Rocket saw from the agricultural hub. 
At the first one they recorded each of its 8' high faces then dug in the dirt several feet but the monument continued without change. Confused they dug out some ultrasonic equipment and hooked it up to the pillar. The powerful sensor reached down a full kilometer before the image started to fuzz out. Rocket was listening in over the comms and decided to start building an ansible powered probe to map into the ground.
While she worked on that the away crew cut off a slice of the lead monument for later analysis and continued to the next one to repeat these tests. After several monuments Bash saw some unnatural rubble behind some rocks. Warily approaching he saw a monument that had shattered like it had been supercooled and struch from above to shatter into sharp spikes like were already on the ship from the matrix chamber. Thinking about those and looking here, there still seemed to be a good amount of shards missing.
None of the other sites had any new information to add other than more of the untranslatable text. By the time these investigations were completed Rocket had her instrument rigged up. She hammered the probes into the ground around the ship and set off a system strength scan then looked on with awe. These monuments drilled all the way through Telecore's crust into the mantle and covered the planet like a pincushion. 

Unable to figure out answers other than saving lots of data for later analysis, the Kormoran flew west towards the last lead available: the crack the Meridath swarm escaped to and its odd prisoner.

Contract: Nightstalker
Previous: Echoes of Things to Come
Next: At Least Graverobbing Pays the Bills

Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss groggily reached across her current bed warmer to slap at the communicator trying to figure out who was calling at 7800 in the night. WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK THEY ARE!
She calmed slightly when she saw it was the head of the Palatinian Rhetor. It must be important but why contact her during this sabbatical and why couldn't it wait until morning. "What you want?" Slurred the mostly asleep, partly stil drunk, and partly still high from what the man beside her brought to the party last night.
"Dr. Dolabella, get packed for a long trip. You leave in 6 hours. One of the new colonies found an actually intact matrix. Get out there immediately before they wreck it the others that were found. Get to the purgatorium if you have to to sober up. We don't have time to deal with your vices."
She woke up enough to start moving and throwing gear in her travel chest. Her excitement made her feel more sober than anytime in the last full Aventine day. When she was mostly through, Rocket threw the man's clothes at him and woke him up "Party time is over, I have somewhere to be, apparently."
The excessively tall and well sculpted man stood looming over her. Seeing him for the first time in bright light she noticed shiny lines running along his muscles like they were chased in wire. There was also a small port on the back of his hands and behind his right ear. These details were quickly forgotten when he pulled Rocket in with a suggestive smile. "Dr. surely you have enough time to end this Aventine night off right."
Rocket looked at her comm as it buzzed. 6 months. That's a long fucking time to be stuck on a ship. With a wry grin she said "More than enough."
The next stretch of time was distracting enough that she quickly forgot the brief sting at the side of her neck and the small clatter on the floor.

Back on Telecore, the floating woman within the energy shields continued to look at Rocket as her mannerisms changed. Her face subtly shifted as the left half relaxed like it had had significant damage. A crooked smirk grew across her face and her stance changed to a cocky stance that is pure Rocket. The eyes, however, remained the same glowing void that pulled you in to such an extent that you felt it in your stomach like looking over a tall cliff.

Antonio managed to somehow claw his way free of the ethereal force choking him and retreated out of line of sight. Bash shifted towards one of the floating shards and attempted to puzzle out the symbols scrawled across it.

The woman turned back towards the glowing orb and resumed her chanting while Rocket continued dreaming.
Rocket finished installing the last piece of her new generator around the Geomantic Matrix. Surprisingly these knuckle-dragging warehouse laborers didn;'t damage a single compenent. Sometime later, while somewhat nervous she projected absolute confidence while directing the directing the startup sequence from the control dome., which went without a hitch. The Geomantic Matrix dome fully shielded the various effluent energies. Sitting at her improvised mater control board Rocket remotely engaged the different points on the semi-solid Matrix. 
With an earth shaking groan a new canyon 300 km long and 20 wide appeared less than 100 km from the base.
While hiding her shaking terrified hands Rocket turned to the handsome Dr. Iscalapius at the door and with a wink and a grin said "there's a reason you called for the best." (Fuck, I need a high after that.). Surreptitiously she grabbed the pocket injector for a hit. The needle broke skin but she did not feel the expected happy calm.
"Excuse me for a moment." Rocket walked calmly out of the control room then jogged towards her quarters in the hub. She pulled open the drawer with her stash and found it empty. She paused for a moment shocked and in a panic turned and flipped her bed. She scrabbled at the slit in the underside but could not find her emergency stach that she KNEW was in there. After pulling out every last bit of padding in the bed she collapsed in the tufts shaking in a panic.
.
.
.
.
*knock, knock, knock."
Rocket stumbled to the door sweating, pale, and looking like absolute shit. She looked through the peephole and saw Dr. Iscapalius yet again.
"Go away" she croaked.
"I have something for you." He said as surreptitiously shook a packet in front of the peephole. "It'll fix your problems."

Jerzac Scarlewe threw a grenade, whose energy was partly absorbed by the energy shield. Despite all the chaos Rocket stood there glassy eyed.

She rejoined the community as if the past three weeks hadn't happened. For the sake of morale the community did the same. Rocket spent a large amount of time with Iscapalius and when he wasn't looking trying to find his stash. He kept you in constant need, never enough to truly be sated. During the times you were alone, he started talking about the Veiled Ones who he served. Despite never finding his supply he was able to give you drugs whenever you truly needed them. One day he cut Rocket off completely but this withdrawal was much more intense and painful than any she'd ever felt before. So much so that she obeyed his order to kill Florian just for a hit. He ordered her to drag the body out into the wastes, disect it, and bring back organs to place in the cubby around the veiled bust. The high she earned from the act was absolute bliss. The next time, Iscapalius only  had to threaten withholding the drugs for her to kill Dioscorus.

Antonio ran to the side and shot wildly, missing the woman. Bash moved out, fired a missed shot, and faded back behind the floating shard. The floating woman turned her head to look over her shoulder to glare at the crew and a wave of strange energy burst from her. When it hit Jerzac he fell into a similar reverie to Rocket.

One day reports came in of strange carved monuments on this barren world. Iscapalius did not seem surprised and marched there almost without guidance. He had part of one removed and brought back for study. In the nights he instructed Jerzac how to split them, engrave strange symbols, and feed them into the Matrix and arrange them around the chamber.
This is when Jerzac started to hear the whispers he told you of. They began to quietly direct you in both modifying the matrix and using the harvested organs to aid in that. These activities made the matrix's power act 10fold, though the actual consumption meant it should be acting at 25x the previous effectiveness. Somehow that thought could never truly take root since his addiction would spike and drive all thoughts other than the drugs out of his head.
The colony was teetering on a knife's edge. only ~20 remain of the original 100. Luckily for Jerzac his murders were never caught on camera. He'd always check after each one but something was covering his tracks for him: From the time he snuck out of his rooms to the time he returned with his harvest every camera in the complex only displayed an upside down black Ankh on a field of sickly yellow.

Surprisingly, Rocket woke up shortly thereafter and shot her plasma fork at "that bitch." "That Bitch" calmly pulled a Lho stick that appeared behind her ear, twirled it through her fingers exactly like the captain always does, and lit it. Antonio and Bash tried the same techniques as last time to similar results. 
While on the Kormoran, Genji looked out at the dome the crew was in. The nanobot cloud had moved over to it and was forming a strange rune over the top of it. It looked like a Meridath glyph that the League of Worlds could never figure out but kept appearing during the Meridath War. It felt familiar somehow and when he investigated the feeling he was pulled into a buried memory of Zhoran Reygeiros.

Zhoran stepped into the Gate of Wonder. He strode out into a strange alien glen. The foliage all had a base shade of deep blue that faded at the edges of the leaves into bright fluorescent colors. He took another step and noticed the ground cover crunching oddly. He knelt down to see all the foliage is rigid similar to the coral found in Earth's oceans. 
He heard the first natural noise since entering the gate and looked up to see a beautifully plumaged bird swoop out of the larger 'plants.' When it flared its wings a bright yellow flash burst out at the same time as another flash shone from above with three hard impacts slammed into the ground. Zhoran fell back blinking the spots out of his vision to see the bird throwing itself at a cage of light. The impact points showed two robotic creatures and one armored individual standing up out of small craters. The squat armored person removed his helm to reveal a long snouted primate-like species with a thick hair crest that went down the back of its neck into the armor.
It started speaking in a dual tone voice in a language unknown to Zhoran (but somehow mentally translated by someone called Ganji??????) to the bird.
"Magin, you seek to sunder The Veil. Your corruption shall not spread."
He reached out a finger to the light cage and with a swipe connected several points on the rune. The cage turned a dark red before several points of light speared inwards destroying the bird. 
One of the robots turned towards armored creature. "Archon, orders regarding this one?"
Archon turned towards Zhoran and with a wearied expression said "I don't know where it came from but it is contaminated. Cleanse it."
Zhoran flung himself backwards through the gate ad the robots turned towards him. Now sprawled on the ground the rest of his order clustered around. Before he could even speak they recoiled. In a stunned silence one of the elders handed him a mirror. In the reflection he saw each eye had changed to have 12 yellow pupils that glowed with inner light.

Again a burst of energy came from the woman. This time Bash felt that itchy spot on his neck burned as he felt it inflame and burst like a boil. Inside his armor he felt strips of flesh writhing around on his neck and a new sense appear as a third eye awoke. 
Jerzac also was affected by the wave which carried him further through the strange reverie he was in:

The mMatrix had never been fed this much power before. He overrode every system safety and fed it every scrap of power on the planet, even life support environmentals, to really see what it could do. The light in the matrix dome flared brighter than the noonday sun. He attempted to shut it off but the controls refused to respond. In a surprising display of heroics and self sacrifice he sprinted towards the matrix chamber to manually disconnect the power supply. 
Running into the matrix chamber, Jerzac moved to the main cable to break the circuit as his skin started to crisp from the intense heat and radiation. Grabbing a fire axe he swung it. The absurd burst of electricity that arced through his body made him hallucinate in the moments between when his heart stopped and he lost consciousness. In the center of the chamber a glowing rift was open and a misty tendril of many eyes and teeth lashed through and impacted his body before the rift shut and severed the tendril.
While it was surprising that he ever woke up again he was also surprised to find himself uninjured, though there was a nagging feeling several of his limbs should be cybernetic. And something about an immense debt to a korean company? Despite that all seemed  fairly normal until he felt something moving within his body following its own orders.

The Peregrine was landed. The colony could get out messages, ask for help again. Most of the gear was offloaded and the majority of the boarded to abandon the colony. Only a skeleton crew was to remain behind to hold the base.
As the engines were spinning up the dust they kicked into the air zipped towards the ship and latched on as it formed into vague arachnid shapes. The screams of metal and crew alike as it was disassembled were horrifying to hear.
Jerzac was in the control room and watched this on the cameras when the voices screamed RUN. He sprinted towards the matrix chamber, turning the corner just in time to avoid the brunt of the blast that opened the dome to the Meridath trooper drones. They executed his assistants effortlessly and followed him down the corridor to the matrix itself. They fired but a field sprang up between Jerzac and their bullets. Looking around he saw he had backed right up to the edge of the catwalk and the matrix had somehow acted on its own to make defenses.

After they were gone Jerzac snuck out through the wreckage of the generator. Pulling together the scraps he tried to effect repairs. Much of the data stored in the computers was corrupted but enough remained from the feed from the day of the attack to triangulate the source direction of the meridath assault. He placed it in and external storage and hid it in the 3rd wrecked server bank, knowing his other self would find it later. 

Rocket shot Dolabella but again the field blunted the power of the attack. Bash's new eldritch eye saw the siphoned power flow through the field and suck into certain symbols on the shards of the monument. Calling this information out, he abandoned attacking the woman and obliterated on of those anchoring symbols on the monument in front of him. This caused the outermost field to flicker for a moment but it remained intact. 

Again the energy burst out and Jerzac and Bash again started to dream.
Jerzac lay on a table strapped in place. To no one's surprise this is not an unfamiliar occurrence for the captain. The room's door opened to allow a wall of yellow fog to spill in and admit a razor wielding gangly creature with dried writhing strips of flesh all over. It walked up and without words cut into the captain's chest just to the left of his sternum. It dug its long fingers in and ripped open his ribcage to expose his wildly beating heart. It turned to a forge that suddenly appeared and pulled out a brand of an Egyptian Ankh, inverted it, and slammed it into Jerzacs thumping heart. After it removed the brand it pulled its razor back out and carved an intricate latticework of symbols across the captain's entire body. Once every last square inch was inscribed, it returned to the open chest cavity to plunge its sharp fingers into the oozing black branded heart. With a twist of its wrist the carved symbols burst with yellow light.

Bash closed his eyes and opened them to an underwater landscape. He stood on a cobblestone path that stretched through the sea growth into the distance. On the edge of his horizon a strangely shaped cyclopean city lay in drowned ruins. Towering far into the 'sky' a figure squatted behind the city. It seemed at rest until an immense golden eye with double slit pupils lazily flicked open to look at Bash. Unwillingly he started a steady march towards his fate.

Rocket shot and distracted Dolabella long enough for Antonio to shoot her. This firefight also allowed Bash to move and destroy another shard and the first field dropped. In a rage, Dolabella turned from her ritual to mentally strangle and immobilize the large armored soldier. Jerzac remained in his nightmare.

Antonio's shot broke the woman's concentration and allowed Bash to breathe again. Now on a mission he smashed the third monument causing the second layer of shield to flicker. Genji successfully burnt off Kormoran's unwanted passengers and at the crews insistence turned back to deal with the dust swarm that started to form an odd symbol above the Matrix Dome. Once he started looking at it, Bash noted the similarity between it and the symbols on the shards. His new eye also sensed a thinning of The Veil at the center of the room. The captain returned to consciousness and threw a grenade despite the immense pain in his chest but it had little effect. Rocket tried to remote hack the woman but she was both able to resist and knew the source of the command.

Overhead the cloud darkened towards red while Antonio ran back into the fight and Bash smashed the fourth monument causing the third field to flicker. Genji took a risk at the captain's orders and shot the ship's guns at the swarm symbol and vaporized a good portion of it. Jerzac threw another grenade and based on the poor effectiveness abandoned that plan. Rocket, taking a cue from Bash, ripped out her bone blade to charge a shard. Unfortunately her foot slipped and the bone blade buried into the metal a hairsbreadth from damaging one of the symbols. 

Antonio sprinted around Rocket to get in position to attack the next shard. Bash moved again to another shard, this time on of the pair furthest from the door. When he destroyed this one he felt the rate at which The Veil was abrading decrease. Unable to line up another shot in time, Genji flew the ship right through the swarm taking some with which changed to the spiders to try attacking the ship again. In a rage Dolabella took her hailstorm pistol and with one shot knocked out the injured Bash. In his unconscious state he returned to his trudging march towards the sunken city. Jerzac moved to try to see the woman but couldn't line up a shot. Rocket tried to rip her blade free but was unable to. She pulled out her sword cane and slashed it through a symbol causing the 2nd field to fail.

Antonio sliced at the second to last rune but it wasn't quite enough to destroy it. Bash stabilized but continued his march. Wheeling around Genji hit the swarm again with the ship's guns. Dolabella stepped back into the final field. Jerzac missed his shot as he saw a writhing creature inside Dolabella clawing at the air and leaving yellow rimmed tears into an endless black void. Still embedded in the monument, Rocket slammed her sword cane down shearing through her own bone blade. 

Antonio broke a rune on the seventh shard causing the final field to fail and moved towards the matrix. Bash returned to the fight by injecting stim packs anf moved inwards as well. Genji got off another shot at the now angry red swarm doing enough damage for it to lose cohesion. Dolabella unveiled her stadust robes causing damage to all nearby then her hands dissolved into whips which struck Bash, knocking him out again. Jerzac missed his shot and Rocket missed the final monument.

Antonio dug through his pouches and raced towards bash's side, ready to save his friend. Bash could do nothing to help and continued bleeding out now on death's door. Genji flew over to the control room breach preparing for a retreat. Dolabella tried to shoot Antonio but her gun malfunctioned staggering her. Taking advantage, Jerzac dealt grievous damage and deafened her. Rocket activated her eye laser but it shorted out and messed with her depth perception forr a bit. This meant her follow up cuncussino grenade failed to nock over the enemy. 

Antonio slammed the healing serum down as the last vestiges of life were leaving Bash. Bash woke and tried to shoot from his prone position but his gun was fouled with his own blood and viscera. Diusgusted he flung aside the gun and stumbled towards his attacker. Dolabella unveiled her starburst robes again hurting the whole crew but not diminishing their resolve. 

Antonio sprinted by and grabbed the matrix. Bash ran up and punched her in the face with his battle glove. Undeterred she shot and enervating ray at antonio, draining him of his vitality. Bash took the oppurtunity to punch her again. The captain, irritated at his previous misses, walked up to the woman and executed her point blank. 

In the stunned silence Jerzac saw movement above them. The swarm remnants had formed into a ~5' diameter ball and zipped off to the west. 

Exxhausted and bloody the crew spent only long enough to harvest the woman's pistol and armor before retreating to the ship to heal.

Contract: Nightstalker

Previous: Come Out of Your (Armored) Shell

Next: Shadow of What Was Lost

#Team High Turnover Rate spent some time recuperating from the deadly fight with the Defrex. During that time Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss took another crack at the computer found on the rotting leaders last time. With a little bit of help from the peanut gallery, she successfully broke in, luckily avoiding the wipe functionality. In it she found the original Nightstalker contract that the crew passed up, a roster of this individual's crew (8 subordinates and herself), records of the attempts they made trying to bypass the locked door at the end of the hallway, audio recordings from ~8 months ago, and a separate partition protected by a firewall.

Curious, Rocket played the audio recording for the rest of the crew. It started off with some chatter trying to further troubleshot the locked door when a distant grinding noise could be heard. The captain opened comms to the ship to figure out what was happening only to be immediately interrupted by the ship's watch.

"Captain, spiders came out of the ground! They're swarming the ship and doing something! Oh god...... They're cutting through the hull!!! Help!"

Thoroughly unnerved, Rocket moved on to the partition at Jerzac Scarlewe's urging. After hacking into there too Rocket found evidence of regularly deleted files but one remained from an individual named "Whip" which reads as follows:

"Drop your current investigation on Ueclite immediately. The attached contract has been updated. I've collected quiet rumors that imply miraculous advances at the subject site. Taken together with the contract this indicates possible Meridath intervention. Determine if a minor response can fix this or if the full might of the Wardens must be mobilized to prevent the Agents of the Veiled from advancing their plots. Full response may be delayed based on the current Castrovel investigation and fleet build up. The faster you solve this the sooner we can fade back into the background."

While Rocket and Jerzac performed the hacking, Antonio Ban'Deras went to town on Antonio Ban'Deras body and the Defrex to make a display to ensure any new crew applicants know what they're signing up for. He took the head and carefully preserved it including the blood soaked teeth and armor fragments stuck between those teeth. He dug into the stomach and found small portions of Roswell's face and preserved that too. Taking the top portion of Roswell's armor, he frosted the faceplate except a small section where he could fit the face shreds to give the appearance the armor is still inhabited. That armor was skillfully slotted in the throat of the Defrex with an arm holding onto a tooth, trying to pull himself out of the beast's maw. It now rests directly opposite the primary boarding ramp to greet all visitors to the ship.

Their brief rest now completed, Antonio took Roswell's party slot and exploring the complex recommenced. Using the chip from the doctor's noggin, the locked door was trivial to enter. The next dome appeared to be the kitchens/dining/lavatory facilities for the colony. It was remarkably clean and orderly except for a single table. This lone table had some crumbs on the surface and the bench was pulled out at an angle. On inspection the crumbs were identified to be no older than 2ish weeks. These crumbs were also the only remaining food anywhere in the room. All the shelves were stripped clean with the boxes broken down and stacked neatly in the corner.

Lacking a more productive option, the crew continued on towards the next habitat. Partway down the walkway the ground shook and a bright light came from your right before the adaptive glass dimmed it enough to see the dome at the end of this leg was lit up with a moving silhouette projected on the glass. While most of the party was distracted by this surprise Antonio heard gunshots ring out in rapid succession in the intermediate dome ahead of the party. 

Bash ran into a wrecked dome and saw three of the now familiar trooper drones firing down the hallway towards the lit dome. Knowing that whatever else was going on, these drones were NOT on his side, he lined up a beam from his Prototype Rail Rifle which hit 2 of the drones. This meant one drone kept firing down the hallway while the other two saw Bash.

Y̼͙͂̌O̗̥̬̐͛͊̅͟U̟̰͆̆͟͡ HḀ͋͟͝V̞͇̘̰̽̀̇̐͐͟Ȇ͈̻͢͠͝ ̧̠̲̓͊̀Ḥ̢̘̺͂̒̆́A̙̭͍̓̉̒͘ͅṘ̫̗͓̣́̊͂͜͡M͇̉̀̊͢ͅE͇̓D̤͔̹̆̂̄ ̻̜̊̈͆͢T̢̐H̨̫̮̻́̊͑̊̚ͅE̗͞ ̪͇̼̙͕̏͗̃̊͛V͎̭̬́̇̾̕͜͞ͅE̛͎̙̟̗͌̆́I̻̙̓̽L̝̙̲̥̋̾̈́̃

Now knowing their weakness the team unleashed blasts of sonic energy into the fray. Antonio remained the attentive one and saw a blast of ice careen out of the unknown walkway and crash into one of the damaged server banks. One of the drones unleashed a burst of automatic fire which missed its intended target but hit Jerzac and Rocket regardless while a second severely injured Bash with its ceramic punch knife. This one became a priority target for the crew and bash ramped up the power on his rifle again. Unfortunately the kinks were not fully corrected and a miss fire exploded right at the muzzle, heavily injuring Bash, Jerzac, and the one perforating Bash. In a panic Bash tried to retreat but took a glancing blow on the way out. Utterly focused on finishing Bash the two drones moved in and laid Bash low. The leftover drone continued its lone duel with the hallway.

Seeing the extent of the damage on the drone that first hurt Bash, Jerzac chose to eliminate that one rather than try to patch up his buddy. Rocket chose to ignore her gun and bring a knife to a knife fight and attacked the one still stranding over Bash. To interject some good news to this dire situation Genji shouted over the comms that dust had sprung out of the landing field, formed into little pellets, grew legs, and the new spiders were attacking the ship. Without missing a beat Jerzac ordered him to break atmo and try to burn them off. 

Bash was unable to stem the blood loss himself as the drone over him continued stabbing with absolute determination. Jerzac also attempted to bind the wounds but it wasn't enough. Rocket let loose a flurry of blows to distract the drone while Antonio slipped in to finish stabilizing Bash. Taking a deep breath and returning to his senses Bash crawled away to hide behind a semi-intact console. The drone shooting down the hallway diverted its attention to try to shoot Bash but missed. The one that had been attacking Bash chose to stab Rocket this time.

In the chaos everyone started firing wildly. Two bolts of ice struck the dualist drone in the back, Jerzac missed his two shots, and Rocket barely grazed her drone though enough to destroy it. Antonio finally contributed to the fight and attacked the last remaining drone. Bash fumbled with his sidearm to no effect. Jerzac did the same though somehow shooting his own foot and causing him to operate at a limp the rest of the fight. One final bolt of ice from the hallway and a stab of Rocket's bone blade finished off the drones.

Everyone stood around tense for a moment looking to see if the troopers would reform. In the silence faint chanting could be heard down the walkway. Antonio was the only one in a position to observe and he saw a woman with her back to the crew looking into a blinding light. Shouting "We don't want to hurt you" he moved on into her chamber to investigate.

This final dome held an octagonal catwalk at chest height. In the center of the room rested the source of light: a roughly 4' diameter orb on a pedestal. Between it and Antonio were several layers of energy shields. Around the circumference of the outermost shield were eight hovering shards of dull grey metal that looked like they had been shattered off a larger piece. The final thing of immediate interest was the floating woman with violet hair and internally glowing eyes.

Hearing only Antonio's soft exclamation Bash popped a stimpak and hustled after the cat. Rocket and Jerzac followed somewhat behind (captain at a limp). When Rocket arrived she asked "What are you trying to do?"

T̟̯̘̰͍̲̝̀̔̔͡ͅh̦̣̩̜ͬͮͧ̀͟é̴̳̲̪͚̬ͅ ̵̥̹͌ͥS̺̤̤̟̖̜ͭ̎̎͆̀t̪̳͈̙̘̾ͫ́a̴͙̳ͤͦͣl̤̙̣̜̯͓̱͍͑ͨ̏̚͘k̢͚̝̥̙̉e̵̝̣̘͎̮̾̃r̶͔̻͖̲̲͙ͬ̊ͨ̓ ̧̮͎̠̳̦̓ͪ̋A̛̲̦̫̠̦̬̲̽̄͒ͭm̛̜̯̘̠̙̍o̦̩̙͗͛̀n̸̘͎͙͇͖̬̤͔̽g̵͔͚͙̟̼̭̗ͣ̇̀̇ ̦͍̓̀t̯̖̩̗͙̎͒͢h̘̠̩̳̳̟̪̐̀ĕ̢̯̫̘͖̳͓͍̯͐̋̆ ̨̥̺̘̪ͤ̏S̫̝̰̥͙̘̼̖̓̇̎͞t̖̣͍͖ͦ̿͘ͅa̵̜̩͇̹͔͎̲̬̐r̡͎̞͎̩̣̈ͩs̜͓̼͉̭̱̿̉̔̏͡ͅ,̞̣̦͉̼̽͌̅̕ͅ ͔̮͋ͪ͟Ṱ̨̤̪̤̣̆̔̎͗h̡͎̯̯̮̲̘͆e̛̗̳̥̫͈̜͚͂͊͆ ͧ͆҉̦͓̼͕̺C̶̬̱̙̠̩͕̻̜ͮ̀ͨȓ̗͎̺̺͑̈̈͡ạ̼͕̟͇̙̱̟̾̂͐̀w̪̠̝̗͉ͦ̑́ͅl̟̭̫̼̬ͩ͂̆͡i͖̺̣̠̼̜̟̺͒͘ñ̅҉̝͇͎̲g̜̟̲̘͙̋̆ͧ́ ̶̹͖̖̬̺̜̟̅ͯ͐͛C͇͎̗͈͙ͬ̃͗͟h͓̤̩̜̼͎̟ͩ̏͗̓͠a̸̻̜̗ͯ̒͐o̹̳̐̒̌̂͘sͭ̀҉͓̙̺̤̹̲̯̻,̸̥̻̻̝̙͉̈̎̅ͣ ͔͖̘̣̱͕͕ͫ͆͟ͅT̯̱̤͉̩͎͛̒ͦ̆͠hͮ҉̞̼e̦̺̯̎̀ͩ͝ ̧͔̙̄͌H̢͇̺̞̮̽e̷̻̫̺̺̭͓̯̎̓͑̅r̯̼̗̹͓͐͑̿̀a̢̱̦̮̺̳͙̹̒̈ͪͯl̤̙̔͋̿́d̙̣͙̯̱̞͈̫̊̒̔̋͘ ̵̹̘̣͖̣͙̈̐ȏ͓̱̹̤̫̝͙͜f̝̙̩̅̀ͧ̀͜ ̣͇͇͉̤̀̔̄͟t̮̫̖̖͉̘͇͆̕h̛̳̯̤̱͕̐̒e͋ͣ̽̍҉̭̮̱̯͇͓̺ ̯͓̬̳͍͛͠B̫̘͍ͬ̏̉͟l̖̥͍͓̃͘i̟̞̠̭͍̞̞̰̾ͩ̍ͪ͘n͖͕͎̲͇̭͛ͭ͗͞d͇͇̼ͮ͂̓̓̕ͅ ̦͔̼̘̞̥̪͑ͧ͞Ḭ̧̤ͧͬ̉ͅdͫ͒̓͐͏̮̭͓̣į̭̹̰̣̳̻͙̋͑̒o̿͑͋̚҉̙͖̜̭͔t̸̰͈͍̺̄̾ ̤̭ͫ̀G̢̹̮̲͉̲̫ͨ̌ô̹̜̼̦̤͆ͤ̏͝d̛̰̤̯͌̎̏ ̛̬̘͇̜̩̪̤̌̚c̛͚͈̲͕̭͗o̹̙ͫ͆̓̌́ṃ̨̳̩͇͕ͨ̒̌e̴͕̟̖̙̍s͈̥͉͍̪̩̳̘͒͛ͥ̂͞!̰͕͙ͪͣ́

Bash: "WE NEED HELP IN HERE"

Ț̙̺̓͒͞h̓̑͆҉̲̭̮͉e̤̠̫͓̬̗̰͌ͫ͗ͭ̀ͅ ̟̪̲̙ͯͥ͂͢R̵͕͇̮͉̮͆ṵ̷̹̈ͬ̔̇l̤̥͇̄͒͞ê̺̰̣͉̜͂͊̀͞r̵̠̜̩ͤͫͩ ͙̖͓͓̹͍ͨ̀ͅͅo͇͎̭̝̦ͬ̆͞f̖̱́ͫͦ͠ ̵̯̳̪̒ͥ̾ͤŨ̶̦̘͙̣͐ͅņ̻̞̬̗̮̻̔ͣ͌ͮͅk̡̠̳̥̰ͦ͑n̻͈̲ͧ͡o͕̤̟̯̞ͣͪ̈͝w̩̯̯͚̟̞̣̣͆͌͆̚͟n̡͖̗̣̪̜̼ͥ ̩̭̔̽͘K̢̭̬̞̠̈̄̑ͩa̧͎̮̪͎̰̝̩̽ͦ͌d̸̙̖͛a̮̖̤͎͖̰͖͊̒̌́tͮ҉̰̼̫̫͔h̻̹̲͎͈͉̦͓̍̋̅̓͡ ̊̿ͪ҉͍̗a̢̞̳̼̟ͩt̶͖̺͚͎̤͗̍̉ ̸̫͈̙͈̲̙̃t͎͓̻̬͓̯̟͌͗͝h̝̘̔ͩ̚̕e̶̟̖̯͖̦̳̦͍ͭ̈́̈ͨ ̷͇̠̭͓̻͕̄̓̚ę͚͗ͨͅd̲̞̤̹̖ͪ͝ġ̹͕̠̟̦̝ͦ̓̎͝e͓͇̮̿ͧ͟ ̢̮̟̠̼̥̬̹̱̊o̡̼͈̾ͪf̡͈͙̱̙̖̎ ̵̦̥̽ͦ͗L̻̮͖̏̅͟ȇ̸̦͉ņ̖̭̭̾̀̎̎g̴̭̙̮̘̲̲ͦ͆̔ ̦̹̠̦̥̓͡w̵͕̟ͮͨ͑ͪi͖͔͉̅̾̕t̑҉̬̝͙̰̘͈̘̯h͍̯̩̱ͬͣ͘i̫͙͓̤̲̫ͣ͟ň̛̘͙̯̤̟̠̫̮͊ ̧̙̹̦̦̱͈͂ͯ̓ͅt̪͖̅́h̜̖̟̭̜̳̮͑͒̿̕ẹ̹̪̥́̐̉͋͟ ̺̪͉̹̥̫̳̎̏͢n̼͔̲̮̻͕̟̑͢ͅi̴̮͍̲̖̼̒ͪͦg͊ͪ̆ͧ͏̹̟̺h͍͙̲͇̭͚ͭ͆̕ͅt̰̺̊ͬ̅͟ͅm̡͈̭̼͉̘̗̠̝ͯ̊a̵̬͉̳̤̥ͤͪͦr̷̼̰̱̆ͧ̌ͤͅḙ̶̤͎̩̻̘̤̰̄ͧ̆ ̠̥̙͔̌͛͘l̜̬̻̹̯̞̗̐́ả̺̯ͭ̑̑͝n̉͏̦͕̫̠͖͔͙̱d͉̲̎̒́s͉̮̼̗̗̗͈̭̊̉̽̏͢c̰͉͌͜a̗͚͈̥̠̲͇ͫͯ̎͜p̲̯̫̭͓̭ͬ͠e̼͕͆̔̀ ̭͓͈̻̣̈́͐̚͘o̦͎̳̙̖̥ͩ̉͆ͩ͠f̡̰̤̮̈ ͙̻̳̦͛̆̀a̧̹͚̯̪̱̎̿̽ḽ̥̯̻͔̹̤̥ͩ͘ĺ̮͇̳͕̠̟̜͑ͧ͟ ̼̻̪̊͠m̐̅̐҉̜̣e̷͇̜̱̤͎͚͇̬̒ͣ̔͊n̎҉͈̻͖ ̛̥̲̽̊̂̿w̱̣̫̽ͭ́h̖͉̦͎̫̠̉̉ͥ́̚ơ͈͉̘ͣ ̲̞̱̥͓̤͉͖̀̀̊͞ḑ̺̮̊ͧ̆͗r͉̝̹̈́ͣ͌͝e̥̟͈̹̭͎̪͗͠ḁ̶̲̩̺͔̝̔̾̐ͮm̯̩̬̳ͦͤ͠ ̓͛̽̓͏͙͓̪c̩͎͖͎ͣ͞o̩̝ͮ̓͛ͮ͟m̮͕͙̼͕͉̐ͤ͑͝ê͋͏̻̼͉̼̺͚̳͇s̝̣̼̹͍͍̈͐̚͘

Freaked out, Antonio took a surprise attack for massive damage though not quite to the level he'd expect. In an instantaneous flash the woman's robes burst with starlight and the cold vacuum of space, damaging the cew and lining them with light. Before anyone had a chance to react to that, she reached out a hand to the 15 foot distant Antonio and he rose into the air clawing at his throat as she choked him with the mental powers. 

Jerzac finished hobbling up with Rocket who was drawing a bead on the woman.

Jerzac: "We need to calm down and help each other."

Her: "G͍̜̠̯̦͆̉͘ͅo̷̻͚͂̂̚o̓̒̌ͦ҉̠͚͔̬d̢̰͖̼̲͈͔͛.̨͇̰̏͗̎ ̢̥̞͚̮͍̳̜͊̆̋ͮH̹̙̭̙͚ͭͤ̈́̀ͅe̝̹ͤ͊͜ ̟͍̯͕̼̻͔̀̕ṇ̛̮ͦ̚ĕ̉ͮ͏̱̤̻ȇ͉̬͜d͙͈͕̫̠̩̲̻͂ͥͯͦ͟s̪̠̣ͣ̔̎͠ ̵̙̖̲̤̞̗͆ͣå̬̙̤̫͞ ̱̞͇͔͕̱͎͐̈̓̇͡g̹̰͆̄̀̕a͈̞͑͡ͅt̡͕̙̊̆͑ͯe̵̖̠̫̖̫̯̼̅̅w̜̜̮̟̗̞̖͙̾͡a̫̫̲̤͉̺ͭ̏̾́y͒ͯ̆ͤ҉̠̮̲̘."

Jerzac: "That sounds terrifying. Is that something you actually want?"

Her: "T̖̮̃̃͘ḣ͂ͧ͏̰̳̮͔̦̼͍ͅi͎͓̱̻̪͊̉͞s͌͏̝̟ ̴̱̠̹̎̾i̵̥̦̝͉͓͍ͣͥ̾ͅs̡̮̜̣͐̌ ̨̠̫͚̺̬̯ͥ̇ͨs̒҉̰̼̹͔o̵̜͎̰ͬ̃m̔̄̔҉͓̣è͉̞͇̜̱̞͖ͤ͜ͅț̺̥́ͭ̾͝h̻̯͌̏͠í͚̱͖̫̥͕̖̭̕n̝͙̩̱͓͎͒̒͘g͙͓̥̲̟̙͈ͪͧ͆͞ ̵̼̙̪̳͂ͧW̜̼̮̬̹͛́̒̃͠E̙͎̣̮̩̺̔́͜ͅ ̳̝̣̞̏ͪ̋̀ẃ͎͓̉̂̓́ȃ̷͎͚̗̫n̶͔͕̙͉̬̊̎t̴̫̤͙̺͇̯͚̀."

Jerzac: "Who is we?"

Her: "W͛͆̌̉͏̹̦ẽ̇̾͏͚̦̠̪͓ ̠̺̄̽̈ͥ͠a̸̮̻̩̭̯̤ͮ̌r̤̦͖͙̤̂͒̽̍͘e͆͑҉̣̺̳̼̲̲ ̨̝̞̃͆̃l̑͐͏̠̲ͅo̩̫̥̠̫̦͔̳̓͗̽̎͞o̴̭̦̱̼͖̹͓̾̊ͩk̛̗̟̪̈́̋ͫͪi̔ͭ҉͖̣̣͕n̷̖̫͈͚̭̏g̬̪̮̮̭̲̏͐͜ͅ ̑͏̩̳ā̠̬̟͓̙͛͛̅͟t̳̲ͭ̎̓͘ ̰̘͔̆͋͠p̩͚̥̭̹͂͐̀́ǎ̲̪̙̘͆̾̄́r̡̝̝̫̓́t͈̙̞̲̩ͧ̐͆ͥ͝ ̩̹̾͘o͉͉͎ͯͯ́͝f̼̩̰̪̟̥̜͕̒̓͟ ͎͓̼̱̥͇̖̓̔ͪ̚͟u̡̼̜̤͉̬̝ͯs̨̰͔̘̗̉͒ͫ ̓͏̺̮̰͉̟̰̹r̵͔̬̞̟͗ͨ̎i̻͉͕̹̼̗̒͜ǧ̙͚̞̈́̃͘h̭̥͇̮̜̹ͩͦ̀t̘͈̙̳͗͘ ̞͇̠̣͍̥̳ͤ͐͢n̴̖̙̤̊͋̀ō̡̝̠͉̹̺̺̂ͮ̚w̄͆҉̻̩͔͙."

A different burst radiated out of the woman and everyone but Rocket shook off the mental cloud that threatened to engulf the crew. 
Rocket on the other hand woke up in bed trying to slap at a communicator that was interrupting her much needed rest at the end of a legendary Aventine bender.

Contract: Nightstalker

Previous: Lost Archives II: Initial Investigation of Telecore

Next: Echoes of Things to Come

#Team High Turnover Rate spent the night on their ship resting. Since Bash was so messed up by the Trooper Drones he elected to remain on the ship to continue resting. Genji chose to go out and accompany Jerzac Scarlewe, Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss, and Roswell Mogul while they looted the manufacturing hub. 

Rocket overrode the auto function on the door that led further into the complex, locked it, and rigged a shock grenade to explode if the door was opened from the other side. After that was complete everyone helped disconnect one of the replicators. Just after it was grabbed by the nearby loader, Genji noticed the way out of the complex was blocked by one of the oozes and a trooper drone when the drone took a shot at him.

Rocket took ranged shots while Roswell ran to engage in close combat and Jerzac ran to cover. Genji was able to recognize it as a trooper drone, the basic footsoldier of the Meridath but did not understand all the implications until he felt his mind thrust have no effect. Bash was woken up by the screaming comms chatter and started to don his armor. The trooper has laser focus on Genji like the previous fight and Bash. Despite taking a solid hit, it ignore Roswell attack to shoot Genji and advance on him. 

Having fought these before Rocket drew her thuunderstrike rifle, took aim, and hit with devestating effect. Taking a que from her, Roswell and Jerzac doubled down on the sonic damage to quickly end it. Genji tried to mind thrust the ooze, also to no effect. 

Rocket, Roswell, and Jerzac all focused on the ooze after it pulled Roswell's pistol away. Genji on the other hand used his psychokinetic hand to scatter the dust from the trooper to prevent any reformation. Possibly distracted by the intense noise directed at it the ooze missed Roswell on three seperate attacks. Rocket was able to blast the ooze apart with a little incidental damage to Roswell. Bash was a little grumpy about being woken up and not even being able to participate in the 'fun.'

In the aftermath Rocket and Genji expressed interest in further studying the dust the enemy combatants dissolved into. Since Bash was up Genji took the time to collect 5 seperate gallon samples to store on the ship while the others scattered the rest in the wind outside the complex. They also summoned Antonio to come retrieve the loader and replicator to store both on the Kormoran.

Now that the manufacturing habitat had been recleared, Rocket disarmed the grenade trap and opened the door. The group of four continued further in to the next dome which to all appearances was the living quarters/rec area. To the right is an open area with a cluster of computer terminals with several tables surrounded by chairs. To the left is a blank wall with one door. Across the way is a corridor and another large wall with another door. 

First investigating the door on the left it opened to a room with a large number of bunks. Continuing down the corridor the group opened the other barracks however this one is in disarray with the chests and cabinets arrayed on either side of the door as a killbox. Unfortunately that did not seem to have benefitted the inhabitants as there are a half dozen or so bodies rotting in the debris.

Deciding that room looked unpleasant Jerzac ordered Rocket to lock that door just in case. Moving on to the next section the doors opened to reveal a handfull of individual rooms. Two seemed to belong to Pravii, one of which was very traditionally decorated the other cold and sterile; one belonging to a Celonian, one belonging to a Kasatha, this one contained an Orache Tree which Jerzac made a note to deliver to Professor Solstarni to make her feel more at home; finally the largest seemed to belong to a human and contained a computer and piles of papers on the large desk. 

The papers both the name of Dr. Iscalapius and contained information on the agriengineering and bioadaptation projects. Every single piece of data indicates every single organism adapting perfectly, indeed even better than their natural emvironements. As an aside the doctor also gushed over the Geomantic Matrix's effects and how even that miraculous machine was working better than expected. Perhaps this all has something to do with the mysterious Xi Tablet-like monuments that were uncovered in one of the windstorms. "Must talk with Dr. Dolabella when she surfaces from the lab." All pieces were photographed and sent to the ship for the professors to start analyzing.

Rocket has able to hack into the computer and found video feeds with the final svae data from 10.5  months ago. This computer monitored the Agricultural hub, the Agriengineering Hub, and Bioadaptation Hub. During the last recordings there was an aggressive shaking on the screens. A short period later, on the "Agriengineering" feed, a human man ran into frame followed by a trooper drone. The drone paused just in frame then shot the fleeing man in the back. The drone turned and left, not noticing the small puff of yellow light that appeared on the bullet's impact. After the drone left the man pulled himself painfully to his feet and continued on into the "Bioadaptation" feed. Another shake occurred and the energy fields around micro habitats flickered and failed just before the camera feeds also failed.

Finally, Jerzac noticed an odity in the width of the wall between this room and the kasatha's. He started tapping on the wall until he found a hollow section. With some help he found a release and opened a cubby with what appeared to be a small alter and a bust of a skeletal figure covered by a veil. 

https://designtoscano-weblinc.netdna-ssl.com/product_images/samhains-veiled-maiden-death-bust-statue-cl7657-cl7657/606d806c315a120018acb42b/detail.jpg?c=1624327833 (only 1 image per journal)

Looking at the bust gave everyone present the uncomfortable sensation they were back in the dream of the twisted city at Temple of the Twelve (see Mad City Behind The Veil for why no one liked that). Rather than risking another group hallucination, Jerzac ordered the cubby shut without disturbing anything at all.

Once the designated items were on their way back to the ship, the group headed through the southwest door and found the agricultural hub. Despite thoroughly searching it, no one found anything of interest. Just prior to returning to the dormitory hub Rocket spotted an object across the canyon that may be one of those Xian monuments the notes mentioned.

Making a note to investigate that later, the crew returned to the hub and went through the southern door. There they found what is presumably the "Agriengineering" dome. This one's top was open to allow exposure to the Telecore environment. Despite being untended for almost 11 months these plants appeared to be in good condition. Rocket realized this dome is matches the camera feed where the troopers shot the doctor. Despite trying to find and investigate the impact point, the ground was clear from months of environmental exposure. 

Moving on to the next and final hab on this arm, the crew noticed some sandstone structures, a regulated pool of water, and some alien flora similar to the previous dome. Not knowing what dangers may lurk here, Bash entered cautiously to look around and possibly take fire for his less armored allies. Not far into the room, he saw a clean white skeleton at the far end but his augmented hearing also detected movement. Rushing around the sandstone structures an exceptionally large creature came into view.

Immediately on the defensive, Bash took a snap shot that missed. The creature was on him in an instant attacking. Jerzac took a shot and recognized it as a Defrex, though significantly larger than any other known specimen. Roswell attempted to crush it by tapping into the graviton mystery of the universe but it's immense strength allowed it to resist it. Rocket however shot it with her sonic rifle, dealing it a devestating blow and bowling it over.

Bash retreated and missed his shot. Finding a less armored target that brought itself within reach, the Defrex chomped on Roswell causing grevious injury. The captain missed his next shot as he was distracted by roswell stepping right up to the creature and attempting to punch it with his solar weapon. Hoping to distract the monster Rocket shot it again.

Seeing that the creature had hardly slowed, Bash turned up his Prototype Rail Rifle and a lance of plasma streaked out to injure and burn the beast. Still distraced by the meal in front of itself, the Defrex attacked Roswell again and knocked him unconcsious. In horror Jerzac took another shot and backed up to prepare for retreat. Rocket yet again shot the creature trying to be a sufficient nuissance to distract it.

Unfortunaly for Bash these higher settings appear harder to aim and he missed his next shot. The Defrex ignored all else. Finally finding prey to consume it ripped the dying Roswell in half and started trying to feast. Unable to cope with the stress otherwise Jerzac pulled out his Lho sticks and started smoking like a chimney. Shaken, Rocket missed for the first time oin this encounter.

Bash took the time to steady himself and shot the creature winging it. The Defrex retreated into the depression and under the stone bridge but not before sucking out the top half of its new treat with a sickening wet squelching slurp in full view of the remaining crew. In an attempt to stun the creature, Jerzac threw a stun grenade into the depression. Without line of sight on the creature Rocket had to step closer than she'd like to take her next shot. 

Bash tried to take advantage of his armor's capabilities. He used his blindsense to overlay the Defrex's current position behind the outcropping and fiddled with the dials of his rifle. He fired directly into the sandstone but his quick math failed him and the beam did not penetrate all the way through. The Defrex chose that moment to throw the now empty shell of Roswell's torso in Bash's direction and the crew heard the sound of screaming metal as it started crunching away at the waist and legs. Jerzac somehow distracted it by getting in line of sight, opening his coat, gesturing to his defrex hide armor, and shouting "I'm coming for your ass next!" This opening allowed Rocket to take a perfect shot at the side profile of the beast.

Bash took several deep breaths to steady himself and redialed his settings. Just as the last remnants of his crewmate spun over the rock, the Defrex moved right into his sights, and Bash drilled a clean glassy hole through the rock and punched clean through the Defrex's skull.

As the closest to the empty armor Jerzac nudged it with his toe to get a better view of the inside. "Well, he sure had some guts." And called Antonio to come retrieve the Defrex and Roswell's armor for material, supplies, and taxidermy pruposes.

While waiting Jerzac looked at the other two members of the orignal crew "Perhaps it has something to do with us? We seem to be the only ones who keep surviving."

Rocket said "I have no intention of dying before I clear some debts, and certainly never for allies of convenience."

After the grisly cargo is on its way to the Kormoran, Rocket approached the bones. Each had been broken in some way and the marrow licked clean until nothing was left. While inspecting the skull closer she saw a small chip affixed to the left temple. She picked it up and with some minor effort extracted access certificates for Dr. Iscalapius.

On a whim, the remaining crew further investigated the room with the corpses back in the dorms. Here they found several servicible guns as well as a computer on the best dressed individual. Rocket dug her inorganic hand into the rotting flesh of the apparent leader but found no access chip. She also attmpted to hack into the computer but the stress of the day must have clouded her mind enough to prevent access.

Once again, the crew returned to the ship to recuperate and evaluate the next course of action.

Contract: Nightstalker

Previous: The Lost Archives I: The Moonlighter Contracts

Next: Come Out of Your (Armored) Shell

Bash continued to feel that maddening itch on his neck. He would scratch it, stop horrified, and do his best to ignore it until he found himself itching it yet again. Terrified of his dream coming true he started to experiment with Jerzac Scarlewe's stash. Luckily enough the Lho sticks are enough to keep the maddening itch at bay. Unfortunately, This meant Bash was dipping into the addict's supply past the edges of civilization. While the journey out may not be a problem, the journey back may result in withdrawals for both parties if they aren't careful.

During the outbound journey the Tech Workshop got the dust knocked off. Each #Team High Turnover Rate member decided to turn their pocket change into potentially useful items for Telecore.

Finally after an eternity and a half stuck in each other's company the Kormoran finally found solid ground once again. The crew decided discretion was the better part of valor and performed several orbits while scanning with the Ansible looking for any signs of life. Unfortunately the scans did not reveal anything of value besides the primary base and a some scattered terraforming equipment.

Upon landing at the scientist's colony the crew noticed several things:

A) A very distinct lack of any tracks

B) An entire field of dimples in the sand making the whole surface look like the skin of a golf ball

C) Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss noticed a metal plate half buried in the sand that contains the remnants of a word. The assumption is the Peregrine, the Telecore colony supply ship.

Nervously Jerzac led Bash, Rocket, and Roswell Mogul into the first habitat dome near the landing field. In it various metal crates and barrels filled the majority of the chamber. The air was stale with a faint stale of iron. The crate to the right of the entrance maintained some semblance of order while those to the left were a haphazard pile.

AFter stepping into the chamber to investigate, Professor Muhali's, Roswell's, and Jerzac's pistols flew out of their holsters to attach to the magnetic oozes that slid into view around the containers. Jerzac attempted to immediately retrieve his pistol to no avail. Muhali on the other hand chose to run straight back to the ship. Bash ran to shoot several of the oozes which in turn started pulling grenades from all party members. Once the team noticed the oozes were dissolving gear all bets were off. Bash kept kiting them to not effect his fanc y armor, Rocket kept trying to scrape off the attached ooze, Roswell surpernova'd to burn his off, and Jerzac threw an armed grenade into the magnetic field to detonate the one on Rocket. 

Now that the danger was ended in this dome, for now, the crew took the time to investigate and loot the area. The first item of interest found was a MK II temporary repair capsule that allowed Roswell's corroded armor to function at full for a short duration. The other pice found was information. Rocket was able to find and hack into a material management terminal that had the following information:

~8 years ago: Back to the start of the colony there is a log of material receipts then requisitions from the Peregrine to the colony then within the outpost. 6 personnel maintained the database throughout this period.

~24 months ago: the amount of personnel drops to 5

~22 months ago: The amount of personnel drops to 4

~17 months ago: The personnel drops to 2

11 months ago: it drops to 0

In the final two months of activity the requisitions abruptly shifted. It went from regular draw of different technological parts to a constant draw from the reserve stock of UPBs and plate. The loader was also frequently tasked to go out of the base, drastically increasing down time and the amount of required maintenance. 

Prior to continuing to the next habitat, everyone spent time loading the seeds from this warehouse onto the Kormoran to sell at a later date.

The next chamber had another exit across the way from the one the crew entered. Two tall machines resided to the right to the right of the current door behind some barriers. They seemed to be in different states of disassembly/repair with wiring strewn about them. On the other hand sat an out of play array of tables. There were scratch marks from where they were dragged in from other rooms. On them are newly fabricated small arms under a layer of dust. Directly across from the team sat an array of fabricators with a large block of wheeled boxes. Finally, while everyone was taking in this room, two smooth ceramic humaoid figures with guns integrated into their forearms stepped out. On sight of Bash their dim pale face glow turned a dark angry red and attacked Bash with a shout of 

A̬̤̼̓͡c̺̦̲̯͆̂͞ĉ̶͍͉̯̟͔ö͙̻̻̰̹̮͈̼́̾̾ͪ̀m̧̻̻̣̖ͣͫ͛p̷̤̬̽̽̈́̈́l̸̪̞̮̼̓́i̯̻͚͓̺̊͑ͤ͘c̝̥͙̻ͣ͘ë̶̠̉ͦ̈ͅ

They attacked Bash to the exclusion of all else. One let loose a spray of automatice fire to distract Jerzac, Rocket, and Roswell while the other ran up to stab Bash viciously with it's arm blade.

Ȳ̢̻̦̳͚͂̆o̼͈̞͗̈ͩ̚͡ư̙̫̬̞̭̂́̑ ͉͎̻̗͋̿́h͚̰͎̉́ͣ͗̀ȃ̻̣̻͖͔̬́ͅṿ̵͔̥͔͓̬͍̿͆̓ͅeͬ͏͇̹͚̯̣ ̸̮͖͙̜̘̙̞͒̑h͋̅ͩ̚͏̤̣̞̰͎̙̼̼a̱̜̯͚͍͇̿̐̀ṟ̢͎̤͎̑̈͒m̨͇͙̻ͩ̄̌̔e̫͉̓̑͜d̮͉̳̤͇͈̥̉͛̿͝ ̤̙̖̼̮̭͕̤̂̂͞Ţ̺͕̖̪̜̼ͩ̅ͤḧ̾͏̻͍͈͍͔ḙ̲̭͎̘̠́̇͆͢ ̷̙̣̖͂V̛̹̮̖̗̱̯͐̏͗ē̛̼͇͛͋̋i̺̭̥͙̖̬ͥͤ͢ͅl̲͇̦̘͖̗͗̀

Jerzac attempted to stick one into place and Roswell attempted to irradiate them to no avail while Rocket just barely failed to hack into the second. While she was briefly connected she understood these things to be Meridath Trooper Drones. They continued to team up against Bash causing serious damage. Bash chucked a grenade that was barely enough to take out the one that was in his face.

Y̨͔̣͎̥̘ͪ̾̇ȏ̶͍̜̲̦ͮ̆̅u͑ͤ͏̣̺͈ ̵̭̮̖̤͇͚ͧͦ̚h̶̥ͪ̿̋͌ͅḁ̟̟̱̭̬̺͙̓͝v͈̦͙ͪͤ̀e̷͎͚̣̗͍͇͈͛͛̒ ̵̘̝̖ͣȇ̤͇͖̠͉̊͌ͩ́ͅn̷̳̩̯̑ͅḑ̱̱̠͈̟̥̬̻̔̓͂a̸̮̣̥̫̠͗n̸̦̦̲̬͉̹̩̳͒̅ͨ̀g̨̮͈̼̎ͦ̃e͓̻͎̹̹̟͓̭̔̌͡r̡̘͖͖͓̐̍̊e̓̅ͯ̓͏̫͕͚̬̩̲̱ḑ̬͍͉͖̫̥̦̘̿ͬͪ ̩͓͖̝̺̳ͬ̓ͫ͒́Ǎ̸̜̥̈́L̢̼̯̟̰̱̺͔͊̆̅͋L̡̹̙̤̯͓̖̚

At this point Bash is incredibly hurt so he performs a "tactical movement to he rear." Once there he attempted to use a higher tier on his Prototype Rail Rifle to finish the fight in their favor. Instead the rail rifle bananad in the manner of a long lost Earth children's cartoon involving a rabbit and an unintelligent hunter. The resulting detonation knocked Bash unconscious and severely injured Jerzac. Though Jerzac did his best to end the wounded trooper drone,  it had enough to run up to the unconscious Bash and attempt to perforate new orifices in his chest. Rocket was able to finish the robot in time to save Bash's life.

Once again there is a computer that Rocket was able to hack. In it you find reference to a manufacturing order for a generator for a  "Matrix Test Chamber" started ~28 months ago. 

~18 months ago there is an order to produce panels for an exterior defense wall.

~12 months ago: Full stop on all other work. All production capacity must switch to weapons production.

After acquiring this information everyone retreated to the ship to lick their wounds.

Contract: Nightstalker

Moonlighter Contracts: Dead Drop, Removing the Head of the Mušḫuššu, and Runaway Bride's Regrets

Previous: Exterminatus and Interlude (2-for-1)

Next: Lost Archives II: Initial Investigation of Telecore

(This may be disjointed since it's been too long and I am just pulling from my scribbled and vaguely intelligable notes)

During the final days of upgrading the Kormoran at The Citadel, #Team High Turnover Rate split up on some final tasks. Antonio Ban'Deras had a sadistic gnome to find. While asking around the description of said gnome resulted in people turning pale and quickly exiting the conversation. Finally he found Jabaxa was willing to break silence. The tattood neon haired gnome is none other than Zun Aeclilpaeng, a crimelord of the Dispater Devils who rules Voltaic Village in the [Hephaestus_Arm] with a bloody fist. Even with the shaved body, brand, removed nipples, and Mindfire Antonio is the least damaged victim Jabaxa has seen so far. Realizing that it was too dangerous to get his revenge right away Antonio retreated back to the ship.

Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss got some happy news about her debt as well as a present from KS Choi.

Bash went to discuss the new mission with CPT Carver. The planet Telecore was recently (8 years ago) selected by a Palatinian terraforming company to be developed. While that alone isn't out of the ordinary, this lifeless ball is more than 40 LYs further than any other human endeaver and also in the opposite direction from most Roman expansion (242.5 LYs from Palatine itself). Despite the incredibly short time period the project has been in operation there is already liquid water. These waterways were also seeded with algae and other microorganisms to help the generators produce breathable atmosphere.

While you were under contract with Don Jose de Cordiliera two other groups attempted to fulfill the Nightstalker contract: the first a group of armed merchantmen and the second a handful of young nobles out for adventure. In both instances the last contact with them was before they entered the system (which has no Ansible of its own yet).

Jerzac Scarlewe trawled the moonlighter contact boards to find a contract in the vague direction of Telecore, finding Dead Drop. It entailed going to a rendezvous point between stars, travelling to another, then ejecting the cargo on a predefined trajectory. Despite it being super shady no part of that is directly illegal so Jerzac accepted. 

During the final loading before disconnect Genji caught news footage of a city dissolving in rapid decay, seeing the end state of his dream he had while you all fled Castrovel.

The first rendezvous was 3 days from the Citadel. Sitting in the dark between stars sat a huge bulk freighter of Vesk design. The captain Zekanoya Hatchbuster gave you a set of coordinates ~83 LYs away (adding 12 days total the Telecore journey). On arrival the cargo must be sent into the void at a defined vector at 30%c. Once the container was in your cargo hold she gave one last instruction: "Just ignore the noises" and cut the feed.

The first night in the journey Rocket suffered another nightmare that had been plaguing the crew since the Temple of the Twelve.

A large black bulk shimmering with heat stands before a well dressed Pravii who appear to be the planetary patriarch. The bulk shifts upright revealing 3 eyestalks, two arms, and 4 legs. The Quorlu held out a infoslate containing pictures of exotic plants and fruits. It gestured at the vast green fields and expounds on the greatly increased profits that could be realized with switching to the luxury market given the ideal climate. The patriarch considers with his advisors for some time and accepts the deal. 

The same quorlu is on another world, this one volcanic with rich soil. Now he is convincing this world to switch their primary export to one of their native plants that is used in the boardrooms of megacorporations and heads of state. This repeats across world after world, convincing the local population away from food crops to luxury goods by playing on their greed.

Time rapidly speeds up as seasons flash by in an eyeblink. Each world either fails to produce the suggested good or succeeds so incredibly that those goods become worthless due to their abundance. Each leader watches their citizens starve due to their own choices. Most of these leaders either kill themselves in shame or food riots drag them out of their strongholds to execute in the streets.

Two days into the dead drop journey Bash and Rocket were doing rounds throughout the ship and walked by the cargo hold containing the cargo. While the door was open for the inspection they heard some heavy metal on metal scratching. After a quick crew meeting Jerzac ordered both that hold and the adjacent one be vented to the vacuum of space. 

Over the next couple of days Bash had all crew members, including the captives?/crew Professor Solstarni and Professor Muhali, get a full suite of medical scans from the new medical lab the Crimson Blades had installed. Turns out the medical suite thinks Bash has a (debilitating) Mountain Dew™ addiction.

On the seventh day Jerzac just stepped out of his cabin when he felt a hard impact from the deck like something was slamming into it. After some quick mental decision making he ordered the most expendable crew member, Antonio, to crawl through the service ways and investigate. After much resistance he chose to do so rather than take a long walk out of the airlock. 

It took a little bit since the service ways don't correspond to the regular bulkheads but he eventually made his way to the passageway outside the captain's quarters. He was unable to find anything so Jerzac sent him towards the adjacent cargho hold with the container. There he felt some heat coming from the floor. When he made some noise there was a pause and the a THUMP THUMP from above him. He quickly shimmied out and helped the crew shove the continer out of the airlock on a lead just shy of the rear gravity wedge.

Another somewhat tense eight days pass before Muhali chose to look at the towed container using different ship instuments during her watch. The infrared cameras showed immense heat from the container and the tow cable. In fact the cable only had another 2-3 days before it failed and the container fell into the wedge and be obliterated. Reluctantly (after arguments about heat transfer) Jerzac had the container reeled back in with 100% remote watch on the video feed. 

Over the next several days, with the help of the ship's environmentals, the container returned to its previous equilibrium. A week after returning aboard another round of violent impacts rang out with enough intensity to rock the mystery container. That night while Rocket was on watch Antonio went to the bathroom and on the return trip attempted to access the cargo hold but Rocket wouldn't let himin.

Another week of intermittent impacts passed by with the crew on edge the whole time. During Jerzac's watch the sound of the impacts started to change from from clean rings to dull clanks as a cracked bell. Whipping his head around he saw a opalescent limb rip open a small slit in the 6" thick container. Without taking time to analyze the situation further he blew the airlock and let the pressure differential rip the container out. While he was calling the crew to arms he watched with horror as a immense beetle glowing with heat rip its way out and launch back towards Kormoran.

As the only individual already armed and armored Jerzac ran the length of the ship to respond and unfortunately took the initial brunt of the caged creature's rage. While the rest of the crew stumbled out and started to swing wildly Jerzac was heavily injured and fell unconscious. Seeing this Roswell Mogul decided to try to don his heavy armor, taking the rest of the fight to do so. This left the fight to Bash, Genji, Rocket, and Antonio. Antonio made a respectable first showing with the crew but Genji used his esoteric powers and Bash used his powerful new toy to barely kill the beetle before it finished the captain.

While the captain rested Genji inspected the creature and recognized it as a Dawn Beetle who live within stars and whose Dawn Beetle Chitin is a necessary material to make the Kzonchin Generator. Antonio was able to carefully harvest the remains to retrieve ~10% of the required quantity.

Since the Dead Drop contract had failed miserably (with an invoice for damages sent to Zekanoya Hatchbuster) Jerzac searched for more on the way to Telecore. The two the crew settled on were Removing the Head of the Mušḫuššu and Runaway Bride's Regrets.

The 12 day journey to Ezos the cult leader turning people from the war god Shivo back to their ancestral god Anata Sesha. After landing in Bhogavatyi, Genji remained on ship watch while everyone else followed Roswell to the not-very-reputable Different Moon to gather intel. There they found that Ici has a circuit she preaches on and that her next stop would be at a nearby village. 

Jerzac and Antonio attempted to eavesdrop on that gathering but Jerzac was noticed so he went to join the gathering crowd. As a result he was able to hear Ici's passionate speech about the use of the foreign Shivo to instigate wars for the elites. Following the speech Ici retreated into the largest building while the attendees dispersed. Jerzac attempted to eavesdrop by asking for a light, received it, and taught the very confused Lamia a sawing handshake.  Antonio on the other hand was able to sneak around back and see through a window. He saw a holomap of the city covered in indications but couldn't puzzle out what they meant. Unable to acquire any more useful information here they left to scout the next sermon site. (Somehow I have a note about Jerzac needing reptilian modifications for something fetishistic?)

At the farmland they were able to find a good observation post in a copse of trees on a low hill. From there Bash was able to record the general movement lanes and patterns of the workers. He also noted the large bays with automated harvester combines. Rocket came up with a plan to hack a harvestor and use that as the 'accident.' She snuck into the repair bay while barely avoiding being seen. She programmed it to trigger on sight, run her over, keep driving erratically, and reset memory to system defaults. 

Finished for the day the crew returned to the ship. In the morning they got up very early and settled in at the observation site to use it as a sniper nest if needed. Antonio concealed Bash to an expert level, greatly aiding their relationship (and reducing Bash's consistent requests to "space the damn cat").

Ici eventually arrived and the scene plays out much like the previously observed sermon, including the lack of murderous harvesters. Rocket had to sneak in again and manually set off the machine which then dutifully performed its previously programmed orders and mulched Ici.

The crew drove straight back to port, took off, and found the contract funds had already deposited in their accounts. Happy about the easy job they spent another week travelling to the Remreos system to find a runaway princess.

Without knowing when the smuggler vessel had/will pass by, Jerzac ordered an ansible scan within the system and then far out into the deep void for approaching FTL signatures. Finding very light in-system traffic, Kormoran lay in wait for several days for the 4 inbound gravity spikes. Those nights were plagued by dreams.

Bash fell into a fitful slumber and opened his eyes to the dark corridors of an abandoned station.

His footsteps clanged through the thin atmosphere with odd disjointed echoes. Each intersection he approached he cleared in accordance with his Blades training. He was keenly aware of his lack of allies and was reacting to the slightest sound, usually imagined. As he walked those phantom noises seemed to increase in frequency. Eventually he noticed they were rhythmic and were starting to fall into the cadence of galactic common.

He was now searching for the origin of the voice which finally resolved into faint words

Don't look it in the eyes. Don't look it in the eyes. 

Don't look it in the eyes. Don't look it in the eyes. 

Don't look it in the eyes. Don't look it in the eyes.

Turning a final corner into a cargo hold Bash saw Jerzac curled in a fetal position with his back to the door. As Bash cautiosly approached the mantra continued despite the noise. Nudging his captain over with an armored boot Jerzac flopped onto his back revealing empty eye sockets with dried blood streaked down his face.

Don't look it in the eyes!

Bash wheeled around in response to a dull thump on the ground behind him to see a thin glistening black creature with Jerzac's eyes staring into his. With a lunge its arm stretched out and swiped across Bash's face with two wrenching pops. The now permanent darkness does nothing to dull Bash's pain or quiet his new mantra.

Rocket on the other hand dozed off while on watch.

She jerked awake immediately and looked around to make sure no one else was on the bridge to see that. She was staring to settle into a periodic instrument check when she caught movement of something red out of the corner of her eye.

Not turning she said "Bash, go to bed. You don't need any more Mountain Dew."

When no response came she looked up again to an empty bridge. Standing up to investigate she saw something odd in the small mirror near the captain's station that Jerzac used to check his appearance before calls. Upon inspection the reflected bridge looked older, more dinged up, and like it had just been through a battle. Then the whole crew sprinted into the reflected bridge before slamming the hatch shut.

Bash and Rocket posted up behind the consoles to provide long range punch, Antonio and Jerzac stood to their sides to harry the foe, and Genji held his sword while Roswell summoned his solarian glove while attuning. Once Roswell was blazing like a sun Muhali opened the hatch, Bash/Rocket laid down suppressing fire, and the close combatants charged.

Almost immediately the bright solar light went out the shortly thereafter Genji's broken and torn body was thrown back into the bridge, hitting a console, then ragdolled out of view. Antonio pulled out his knife and charged in to meet a jagged semi humanoid silhouette which promptly tore him to pieces. Bash gestured wildly and charged while Rocket and Jerzac took a circuitous route to avoid the brief melee. After finishing Bash the shadow turned and loped after the fleeing crew members.

Choking back vomit the real Rocket continued to stare in horror at the mirror for a few more minutes. Soon she saw her reflected self stumble back in with prosthetic arm ripped off halfway between elbow and shoulder, a gashed flesh leg, and her bone blade snapped so short it barely protruded past her knuckles. Looking around frantically she saw the mirror and locked eyes with the real Rocket. She ran over and started to bang on the mirror surface. After a quick look back the was she came she locked her terror filled eyes on real Rocket's and placed a palm on the mirror. Unable to stop herself, real Rocket covered the mirror palm with her own.

With a wrench in the pit of her stomach and a blink she smelled and intense copper and ozone odor. Looking around she stood within a loop of Antonio's bowels on the ruined bridge. Turning to the mirror her reflected self smiled with a grin that kept stretching towards her ears and elongating teeth. The deformed smile snaps back into place when real Bash walks onto the bridge. Turning and throwing an arm around Bash's shoulders mirror Rocket led him off the bridge while real Rocket screamed and banged wildly on the mirror to no avail.

Neither Rocket or Bash tell the others what occurred in their dreams. Instead they chose to focus on the upcoming ambush of the Vengeful Sun which had just dropped its gravity spike. Quietly slipping to its rear Jerzac tried to hail the other ship and demand it heave to. Unconvinced, the opposing captain told Kormoran's crew to shove it where the sun doesn't shine and spun up its weapons. 

A lucky early salvo by Bash meant the enemy engineer spent most of the fight holding the ship together. Despite that though, the opposing pilot flew circles around Rocket and kept laying mines in Kormoran's path making the combat a grueling knife fight. Once the Vengeful sun was finally disabled, the crew prepared for a boarding action by attaching a soft umbilical to the enemy airlock.

Rocket hacked the airlock to allow access. Once Bash, Jerzac, Rocket, and Antonio squished into the airlock the second set of doors cycled open as a hail of bullets came from a turret mounted in the intersection up ahead. Bash moved up to try to take out the turret but and orc trooper stopped him cold with a sticky bomb. Rocket attempted the same maneuver but the second orc misses her and stickies Jerzac instead. 

In shock when the turret emptied its magazine Antonio stabbed himself with his new poisoned tail. Bash took on Orc 1 in a firefight while Rocket went toe to toe with Orc 2. Rocket was able to remote hack the turret and empty its freshly reloaded mag onto its old allies. While this was happening the Hobgoblin leader joined the fray targeting Rocket. Orc 1 get in a devastating blow that staggered Bash but Jerzac was able to keep Bash's focus. This let Bash to continue using his rail rifle to destructive effect.

The hobgoblin was able to keep the pressure on the party forcing Rocket to unleash her hidden body mod by breathing out an electric arc on the enemies, dropping Orc 1 and damaging Orc 2 enough for Bash to finish it. Seeing its allies drop the hobgoblin called for the others to take the princess and flee. He then dropped Rocket who was hauled into the side room by Jerzac. Bash shot and severely injured the hobgoblin then ran for cover.

"Take the Princess and leave them to me."

Around the corner stepped a soldier in a smooth helmet opaque, clearly a Roman trooper of some kind. Seeing this the dramatically weakened Antonio ran to cycle the airlock to "let friends in" while Rocket rejoins the fight, shoots, and crawls away. In his panic at facing a fresh powerful foe Bash powers up the rail rifle but missed this important shot while burning out his battery. The Roman feints and stabbed Bash in a chink of his armor. In a moment of extreme heroism and bravery the critically wounded Rocket stabs the trooper, stunning him for several breaths. Antonio tried to take advantage of the situation and, of course, fails so dramatically that he cartwheeled backwards stunning himself against the bulkhead. The newly arrived Genji and Roswell were almost as ineffective, though they did bring news the ship was broadcasting "Pirates!" Ever the opportunist, Jerzac grabbed the accelerator rifle and knife the stunned trooper dropped.

Bash and Genji one-two punched the trooper who had finally come to his senses. In a final act of defiance the trooper shouted "FOR THE EMPIRE" and blew himself and his remaining equipment up. Sprinting back to the Kormoran Bash arrived in the bridge to a demand from the system defense to "Come with us to face judgement." Jerzac arrived soon after and started to do his smooth talking but the Vengeful Sun exploded right when he was making progress. Obviously dialogue broke down after that. 

Kormoran did some long range sparring with the defense vessels while the crew argued back and forth about following the departing escape pod containing the princess. While they were getting the upper hand against the 3 ships they ultimately decided to cut and run when more ships showed up, abandoning the contract. Given the substandard performance of these side jobs Jerzac made the decision to just head straight to Telecore.

But not before more dreams found the crew:

Antonio received his first night time revelation:

Standing before you is a hulking misshapen shadowed profile. As you step up beside the figure the ship leaves the shadow of the lush green planet it is orbiting, throwing the profile in sharp relief. Turning you look at the Grand Admiral of the Sahjon 43rd Investigation Fleet who is then looking at the verdant world.

Even with Ghaumnok's 9 foot frame his entire torso is festooned with medals and awards. A new and unfamiliar one with a shield wreathed in flame briefly catches your attention before the Grand Admiral speaks. "Captain, this world is declared anathema for not surrendering First Generation Species artefacts. Excise them from the League of Worlds per Statute 56481.5g."

With a salute you sprint from the CIC for the bridge. On the way you start bellowing orders into the coms. You arrive on the bridge just in time for the displays to show the quad array of nova cannons burst away from the yellow green ship to destabilize the planet.

Smiling to himself at his happy dream of destroying that shitty planet Castrovel Antonio simply rolled over and went back to sleep.

Roswell also returned to Castrovel:

He stepped out from his base disguised as a hovel in the outskirts of Qabarat to go about his day. He was very quickly derailed when he saw the bloated rotting corpse of his long dead uncle a few blocks from his house. He stood rooted to the spot unable to come to grips with the sight. In a daze he called the authorities to take the thing away. While disturbed he continued on with his life. 

The next day he took his standard route and there was the corpse again in the exact same spot. This time he had his thugs dump it outside of the city in their regular spot. He went about his day constantly thinking about the event. The next day he took an alternate rout, definitely not to avoid that spot. Unfortunately he ran into the body yet again. Now properly worried he had his goons encase it in cement and drop it in the harbor and he went to his compound in the country.

Happy that the situation had resolved he had a restful night. In the morning he opened the doors to smell the fresh country air and stepped down onto the deck with a squelch. Looking down his foot had sunk to the ankle in the corpse. Terrified he ran to his garage, grabbed all the fuel he could carry, and immolated the body.

Back in his primary residence in town he was sneaking around each corner praying to not see the body yet again. He got past noon without sight of one and he thought he had finally escaped before he tripped of a decaying body. He ran trying to get as far away as possible but didn't get far before he saw his mother's, then his cousins, aunt's, grandparents, etc. Ducking into a bar he drank himself to sleep. Waking up the bodies were there. Nothing he could do could get away from them. After many more days he was unable to bear it and he withdrew his pistol and joined the bodies right in the middle of the street.

Bash got the most unpleasant one:

He woke up feeling refreshed from a long night's sleep. Unfortunately his neck was itching like nobody's business. He spent the entire day scratching it and trying to get it to calm down with anti-itch cream. The next day Bash woke up with hives on that area. He went to the med lab for a work up but it couldn't find anything wrong. This continued for a few days as it got progressively more raw as the skin was scratched off.

Bash kept slightly better control of himself and it started to heal a bit. When new skin grew Bash felt a small ring about 3" in diameter of bumps. The itchiness lessened slightly but was still maddening and it is impossible to have perfect self control forever so Bash kept scratching. 

The bumps grew into small skin tags from the constant picking. One day Bash felt a tickle on his neck and realized the nubs were now ~1" long and.......

Did that one just move?!?!

No, can't be.

Bash kept the spot covered tightly to keep the rest of the crew from seeing it. Over the course of the next week it grew painful under the bandages and when he removed them there was a large blister in the ring of MOVING TENTACLES. He felt a spike of pain up his neck and temple then he watched the blister split open in a clean vertical line to reveal a blinking, yellow, double slit pupiled eye staring at him through the mirror he was using to inspect it.

When he woke up he thought his neck was itching.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Scouring Castrovel

Next: The Lost Archives I: The Moonlighter Contracts

#Team High Turnover Rate found themselves in a suboptimal split between the Kormoran and QUoXX Research Vessel_02 in the middle of a rain of void bombs. Jerzac Scarlewe and Roswell Mogul were with the two professors, Professor Muhali and Professor Solstarni, and none of them were skilled pilots or gunners. Aboard the Kormoran were Bash, Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss, and Genji with the new unwanted crew pet, Antonio Ban'Deras. 

QUoXX-RV2 made all haste to rendezvous with the Kormoran in orbit. Kormoran arrived first and set off a system scan with the Ansible. It didn't find any good news. In addition to revealing a fleet of warships and a swarm of interceptors it also showed a wing of those interceptors changed course the instant the ansible pulse went out.

Kormoran shot forward to engage and keep attention off the poorly armed, poorly piloted, and "acting casual" QUoXX-RV2. After a few short salvos Kormoran disabled one of the interceptors only for 6 more to arrive to close the jaws of the trap around both ships. Realizing the jig was up, QUoXX-RV2 joined the fight. Roswell took the captain's chair to direct the little firepower available. Throughout the next couple salvos his words of encouragement fell flat, his demands just pissed off Jerzac, and he was eventually ordered to sit in the corner, SHUT UP, and not touch anything. Meanwhile Rocket flew the Kormoran like it was part of herself thanks to Genji's gifts of foresight. While weaving through the interceptors Bash disabled another. QUoXX-RV2 reached the edge of the gravity well by the skin of its teeth and warped away. As a final parting shot another Wardens ship was disabled before the Kormoran left as well.

During the 24 hour journey to the designated backup coordinates, the cat, after some Tom and Jerry-esque antics, is confined to the monkey room to await for the captain's arrival. Upon said captain's arrival Antonio's story came to light. He was marooned by his crew on Castrovel so they could steal his cargo. He had chosen the Kormoran to 'borrow' since it had been unattended for a while, along with all of the goodies within it. The sudden lack of alcohol almost led to the cat being spaced but after his appreciative words on the captain's 'special collection' he was allowed to tag along for a while.

The conversation ended abruptly when a message came across the ansiblem from Jerzac's old friend R. Laga:

J,

Looks like you've become far more ruthless than you used to be. Your skills of deception and persuasion are just like I remember but who would have guessed you had it in you to murder my subordinates and take their place.

Let your master know I will not continue her personal vendetta. I am no longer being paid to interfere and even someone like me can object to the methods her associates used.

I didn't know you were on the ship we sent Paguk after. I'm glad you survived, my boy. Keep the ansible as my apology for the trouble.

I hope to one day meet in person on cordial terms so we cann talk about those last months and new opportunities.

Your Partner,

Rice

After some vague explainations that they ARE NOT on cordial terms you sent a message to Don Jose de Cordiliera saying the pirate leader was removed and the remaining subordinates have backed off. The crew decided that going to the Crimson Blades HQ, The Citadel, would satisfy the most needs/wants at once. Jerzac and the professors headed aboard QUoXX-RV2 with the plan to meet up at The Citadel. 

During the 8 day journey under warp power, Bash had target practice in the monkey room and Rocket had a dream:

She was looking out over an enormous round chamber with booths full of different alien species. After the disorientatin passed she recognized it as the League of Worlds Chamber of Quorum. A red furred Ysoki walked across Rocket's sightline and dipped into the ysoki booth in front of her. She walked up and whispered in the ambassador's ear then gave him a kiss and walked away.

The ysoki passed behind a pillar and a Khizar with red foliage stepped out. Rocket looked around and none of the others nearby seemed to notice. The khizar stepped into the next booth. This time it approached one of the armed guards. Complex colors flickered across both khizar's lanternlike heads and settled on a warm pink. Neither said anything but just stayed close for a short span before the red one moved on.

Similar scenes played out as long as the red creature was in sight, though the pairs were not always of the same species. Eventually the creature had moved far enough around the chamber that Rocket couldn't see it in the corridor behind the booths. After an interminably long time of boring legislative proceeds Rocket caught a glimpse of red directly across the chamber. A small red ysoki crawled into a Celonian's lap. The ysoki ambassador must have seen this too as he stormed into the hallway and started walking around. 

Again Rocket watched this creature flit in and out of booths. Eventually she saw the khizar form again in a booth across the way. A shot rang out from the booth with all the khizar and the whole chamber dissolved into chaos and violence.

On a near simultaneous arrival at The Citadel an ansible scan showed the behemoth of a fortress in front of you. It is a huge manufacturing and population center, civilians included. It has a 20 mile wide sphere (The Lense) with a horizontal plane through it in the center that houses traditional groundside buildings (both side of the plane) with 8 asymmetrical radial triangular spokes that stretch out (base towards the lense perpendicular to the ground plane) reaching out another 20 miles each. The arms are warehouses, drydocks, weapons factories, research labs, training grounds, anything a military industrialist would want in their wildest wet dream.

After Bash gave acceptable clearance codes you were directed to the Hermes Arm which contained the commercial district of the station. After landing Bash and Genji headed to give report to Bash's superior officer while all the others headed to a bar Antonio had heard of, the Fusion Queen in the Freemarkets.

At the bar Jerzac immediately looks for a fix. He approaches a SUPER shady looking ysoki named Jabaxa. Being his incredibly charming self Jerzac scored some Lho sticks, echo, and various acids/poisons/tranks. He also learned that the best ripperdoc has his practice in Drifter's End which is in the very center of The Lense. Antonio also spent some time asking about El Burro Parlante, his stolen ship.

Bash and Genji went to the Hecate Arm where Bash had his closed door meeting with his captain, CPT Carver. Genji got to sit out in the lobby until a Contemplative passed through into the office then burst back out telepathically grilling Genji about the Kzonchin Generator. In exchange for some esoteric items Genji wrote out the blueprints. CPT Carver promised to have the engineer provide a material list before the Kormoran was finished with its upgrades.

While Genji was drawing and Bash was oggling new tech, Rocket, Jerzac, and Antonio found their way to Fingers MD. A gaunt man wearing a fishnet tanktop, leapard print speedo, a pink fanny pack, and a dog collar answered the door. When Fingers learned you were perspective customers ha became quite excited. Upon seeing Jerzac's field amputation he started rummaging through a box of newish prosthetic hands where one hand a finger stiletto and another had its fingers pop off to be a taser. Not convinced Jerzac asked what else was available. Fingers rummaged through a very stained couch and then pulled it from the wall. It was a whole arm piece that when it was held up started actuating at the elbow. this was sufficiently enticing that Jerzac volunteered for a full arm replacement.

Rocket was thoroughly unamused by this but gave her requested upgrade list. Fingers had to "check inventory" in the back. He very carefully slipped through the door in the back and returned in a few minutes. When coming back through the door he dropped the cranial implant and while he was fumbling trying to catch it he bumped the door upon showing the unconcsious people wired up on operating tables. Fingers hastily closed the door and happily told Rocket he had all parts in stock.

Finally he turned to Antonio and asked of the two humans if they wanted any mods done to their "pet." He angrily made clear that he was no pet but he did have a desired augmentation, holding a Kaukariki stinger up. Fingers was interested by the idea until he learned the cat had no money. Desperate for credits Antonio went out for a long shift working the pole. He came back with enough as Jerzac was out front with a new artificial arm to chain smoke lho to numb his (various) pains away.

Rocket woke up to Fingers letting her know that the person who put in the implant had peerless skill and that she should focus on reducing the number of people controlling it rather than removing it.

Antonio got his scorpion monkey tail implanted. Emboldened by his previous success he went back out to earn more money. He was raking it in when a strange gnome offered a large amount if he left with the gnome. After some consideration Antonio took the offer and woke up in an alley with a brand on his ass, no hair on the left half of his body, every other nipple removed in a zig zag pattern, and infected with Mindfire but his account was full of the promised money.

While Antonio spent the next two weeks recovering from his syphalitic insanity Kormoran underwent upgrades. Bash also got his new present then spent every waking moment in his new suit. Finally CPT Carver informed the group that the kzonchin generator requires the following:

• Noqual - Monopolized by the Strigoi whose home star is 61 Cygni.
• A paleotech power core that has an energy output of ~1/2 a star.
• Incredibly dense shielding - only material known to the Blades that meet the requirements is dawn beetle chitin.
• A Remnant Core of the Meridath - Only known one is in CB custody and you'll either need a lot of favors or serious kneepad to get it.

Make sure your sheets reflect all of your purchases/abilities.

Contract options coming soon

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Mad City Behind The Veil

Next:

Waking from the horrific nightmare #Team High Turnover Rate prepared to depart with all haste. The only delay Jerzac Scarlewe tolerated was some further questioning of Panelliar. He did not have any knowledge of The Veil or how the lovingly named 'Door of Death" had anything to do with it.

The threat of global destruction lit a fire under your collective ass so you force marched through the entire night, day, and night again until you reached The Plague Warden. There you rested all through the next day. During the night Genji's rest was interrupted by a dream. 

He was sitting at a reader desk at the back of a forgotten library leaning over an ancient book. He was searching for lore on the Elves. Unable to find anything new he spent time reading other lost lore. His viewpoint in the dream focused on his book which faded away into the image and sounds of a busy diverse starport. A gleaming white ship settled into the last berth and lowered its gangplank. Out of this enormous ship walked a young girl with a holstered pistol and a thin circlet. As she moved through the port yellow fog started to roll out of the ship and follow her. No one seemed to take note of the girl or the fog but whenever the fog touched one of them their bodies underwent a dreadful process. All their joints seemed to loosen and bones hung limpley internally. As they spent more time in the fog their skin stretched and their bodies seperated at the joints.

She continued to walk through the town ignoring everything until she got to a small dilapidated building in the slums district. Finally turning from her path she climbed the two rickety wooden steps and pushed open the door. As she walked into the small library the door's hinged rusted away to nothing and it fell with a muffled thump. The only person visible in the building was a man huddled over a book in the back. She confidently stepped forward and laid a hand on the side of Genji's face.

In the morning while Genji tossed fitfully in his sleep Jerzac discussed with the crew what to do with Professor Muhali and Professor Solstarni. Given the crew capacity of the ship you could only take one. You all deemed Muhali the more useful one and planned to talk with her later about options. You also talked about trying to comandeer the Xi Tablet but came to the conclusion that you could just look up the text online if needed.

The next day's travel was more difficult, causing you to camp earlier than you wanted but the next day you pressed on. This next 2 day march brought you to the edge of the jungle where you set a rendezvous time with the Turhalu Point security forces for after you slept. Here Bash had his own nightmare.

He was piloting a Crimson Blades long range intercept vessel during a training run out in the depths of space. He followed the perscribed course eyeing his sensors trying to find his quarry. He had spent hours doing so with nothing more than space dust appearing on his sensors.

Suddenly something slammed into the bottom of the ship knocking it off course. Even while acting on instinct to regain control Bash stared at the instruments trying to find the source. Empty space.Since the instruments showed nothing he spun the ship to look with the MK I eyeball.

Another slam but this time he could see an odd ripple spreading amongst the stars in the background like someone had dropped a rock in a pond on a starry night. After riding the impact he moved closer to the epicenter. As he approached to ~1000 km a point directly in front of him started to stretch like something pushing from behind a sheet of plastic. In an instant it had stretched halfway to the small ship. Now that space had thinned around the point Bash could see swirling smoke bulging out. With a tear that Bash felt deep in his abdomen space tore and a ropey black tendril of teeth, tentacles, and eyes rocketed out and slammed through the cockpit to consume him.

He jerked awake feeling weakened like something had taken root inside his mind and twisting it. Unable to get back asleep he took the remaining watches.

Before heading out Jerzac pulled aside Muhali to talk about the planned evacuation. Despite being a kidnap victim she wants a ride off this likely doomed planet. When Jerzac mentioned you could only take her she dug in her heels. She did not want to leave Solstarni. Jerzac pulled out the "desperate times" speech. She reluctantly agreed but after a few minutes of conversation she got a sly grin. "Deperate times" means she would consider actions she wouldn't normally. She told that the Qabarat University of Xenoanthropology and Xenoarchaeology had a small fleet of research vessels. She couldn't gaurantee one would be available but most of ships seat about 4 passengers.

After marching partway across the Turhalu Point grasslands you met the security in their 3 vehicles. During the 10 mile drive back to the research outpost Jerzac worked his magic and convinced them to check out one of the vehicles to Muhali so the exhausted professors could get back home quickly. Losing no time you drove through the Aiudara and hauled ass to the small university landing port. 

Here Jerzac, Roswell Mogul, and the 2 professors got off while Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss, Genji, and Bash headed towards the docked Kormoran. The university crew approached the small building at the front of the port where Muhali suspected the keys were. With a little effort Jerzac was able to hack his way through the electronic lock. Turning to Muhali he ordered her to run and grab her research as fast as she could.

The starport crew pulled up to a minimally manned security checkpoint where a police officer challenged you. He asked your purpose and when you pointed towards the Kormoran he perked up and looked more closely at the passengers in the vehicle. Unable to find Jerzac or Zuri of House Du'Mansia Officer Well Endowed looked a little crestfallen. Rocket kindly said they're on their way. With a wink the officer let you through and asked you to make yourselves scarce when he and the newlyweds arrived.

Right after the university crew stepped onto the lot and the starport crew drove through the barricade the world ended. An enormous thunderclap and shockwave bowled over those standing and almost flipped ground vehicles. Turning towards the city center a perfectly spherical section of the high rises had completely disappeared. While watching in disbelief a black orb flared into existence taking another large bite out of Qabarat. 

Jerzac screamed into the com for Muhali to get her ass to the research ship ASAP and ran forward himself. Partway across the lot a hulking beast and a robot burst from an alleyway. Seeing the Jerzac, Roswell, and Solstarni there the robot zapped the creature with a cattle prod, sending it charging at you. Frightened by how quickly the creature moved into melee, Jerzac threw a sticky grenade. This allowed Jerzac to safely back away and Roswell to catch up an start fighting.

Back at the starport that crew pulled up to the ship just in time for its engines to turn on.

The creature broke free and savages both Jerzac and Roswell. Jerzac once again stuck it in place and Roswell savagely tried to beat it to death.

Rocket quickly wrested electronic control form the highjacker who didn't care anymore and just wanted off the planet NOW. He retreated to "his" cabin and awaited the crew. Rocket broke into the captains cabin to find a large cat person calmly sitting on the bed. Given the desperate straights everyone was in she didn't care and ordered everyone to the bridge.

Back at the university it broke free causing Jerzac's two shots to go wild. Unconcerned by Jerzac the creature clawed Roswell, knocking him out and leaving him gushing his lifeblood on the ground. Trying to distract it from his companion Jerzac shot wildly in melee. This reckless act let the beast strike him several times. In a burst of bravery and dexterity Jerzac repeated this action. Both shots actually landed while he dodged the creature's return strike. Before it could even fall Jerzac ran over to Roswell and with the help of the newly returned Muhali was able to stabilize the uncoinscious man.

With your new ship and new companions (one uninvited) both groups took off, fleeing the doomed world.

Review starship combat both base rules and the added roles in starship operations manual.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Battle of the Gods

Next:v Scouring Castrovel

After Mercedes surrendered, #Team High Turnover Rate spent some time divying up the accumulated loot. After doing so the questioning began, though more politely than previous sessions since she is your current employers daughter. Jerzac Scarlewe started grilling her on her relationship with R. Laga. Turns out her organization, the Wardens, are employing the Free Captains to interrupt Don Jose de Cordiliera's shipping. "Given your interest you must be J. Laga looks forward to seeing you again."

Mercedes left The Don's organization since he has been through Rejuvenation four times now and the mental degredation caused him to cast her out when she challenged him on it. Adrift she was inducted into the Wardens. Upon learning their purpose she sent them after her father since he was collecting artifacts and information that could inadvertantly harm The Veil

She also keeps repeating that the information you were exposed to in the Temple of the Twelve have contaminated you and your existance is a constant threat to The Veil. When Bash asked her what she was so afraid of she replied "The end". After she finally convinced you to tell her what you saw beyond the doorway she started laughing, "So they are waking up. That's one way for this problem to be solved."

Bash also questioned her about the Warden's symbol, the fire wall around an invisible shield. Why did they destroy his mining outpost? Mercedes said they probably found artifacts that were meant to remain hidden and the damage to The Veil had to be contained.

Still unhappy with her insistance that the whole crew must die you asked her what exactly was behind The Veil. "They are the embodiement of destruction and madness. Outside of this universe's laws. Likely the end of the previous one and likely the inevitable end of ours." You tried to visualize this as a sphere with them watching intelligent life for entertainment where they would remove those who tried to learn of them but Mercedes had a different view. "All of existence is like a walled fortress under assault from an invading army. They will exploit any crack to force their way further in. Those who have knowledge that pierces The Veil are people inside the wall with pick axes trying to escape."

Trying to delay the decision of what to do with her you had her lead you to the comm array up the mountain. Once there Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss and then Jerzac tried to hack their way in but after the second attempt a countermeasure hurt Jerzac and destroyed the machine.

Giving Mercedes a choice between dying here and being dragged back to her father she knelt down saying "You've contaminated me. Rather than damaging The Veil any further I will do my duty. My organization will be coming for you and this planet." Not liking her fatalism you tried to claim your abilities to keep secrets meant the information wouldn't spread and thus The Veil would be fine. To prove it you told her of the secret supernova you caused coming to end all life on earth. "You people are shitty at keeping secrets. Good thing two people can keep a secret if both are dead."

Bash executed the kneeling prisoner with his laser rifle and you walked away leaving her corpse on a mountain in a near impassable jungle hundreds of miles from civilization.

Returning to the Temple you decided to sleep there before heading out at night to avoid the heat. Posted up in one of the northern rooms Rocket's watch goes smoothly but during Bash's some yellow fog started rolling under the door.

Bash yelled to wake everyone up then walked to the door and opened it revealing a wall of the fog that starts pouring in and in came the sounds of several types of footsteps growing closer. Rocket moved up behind Bash and prepared to receive whoever was coming through. Genji's extensive knowledge about the esoteric made him realize that this fog isn't fully real and is a manifestation of things beneath the skin of the universe. Taking a chance he ran through the door into the fog and rather than seeing the Temple of the Twelve he stepped out into a city of madness. 

He looked around himself trying to understand what was happening. Behind him was an alleyway between two buildings from wildly different eras. Fog pressed up against an invisible wall at the alley mouth like it has a will of its own that wants nothing more to envelop the intruder. In front of him is an obelisk that stretches high but seems to curve around until the tip is pointed back at the ground like a spearhead aimed at Genji. To the left and right is a wide thouroughfare stretching far into the distance. The buildings he could make out do not make sense. Some are built normally but most seem to be growing out of walls or cliff faces. Balconies are upside down. Staircases are sideways or just terminate in mid air.

Jerzac lit a Lho stick, follows, and upon seeing the mad city complains about not taking enough drugs for this. He also looked around and Genji is nowhere to be seen. He is alone on a similar thouroughfare. Roswell Mogul froze up not knowing what to do. He attuned the photon mystery ands fired his new pistol into the fog hoping to hit something.

Bash, having felt his squishy allies pass him, hustled through the doorway into the city. Unlike the others he was not alone on the wide street for long. From the fog at one of the alley mouths a face starts to emerge. This face was a mask of grey rag strips at first glance. As it continued to emerge Bash could see that the strips looked like bits of skin that had been flayed back. Strips of skin that were writhing and reaching out towards him. The body that followed was almost human-like but way too lean, lean, flexible, and long limbed. Each appendage had a couple extra joints and more in the torso giving it a seemingly unlimited range of motion.

Bash fired once, landing a grazing laser hit, and ran into the foggy alley.

Rocket followed her allies into the fog through the doorway. Before she can even stumble onto the empty street she felt a spike of fire as a razor slid into her lower back. She turned and ran off in the fog.

Walking down the wide open street, Genji felt something small, thin, and metallic trace from behind one ear, along the back of his neck, and up behind the other ear. He whirled while firing his pistol but saw nothing. Frightened and lacking any better options he hustled towards the distant gunshot that must have come from one of his allies.

Rather than stepping out into the open Jerzac decided to fade back into the alleyways for the cover they granted. Unfortunately when he stepped backwards into the fog two exceptionally long arms with small hands reached around his waist from behind. These arms locked dowbn like a vise and six spindly legs wrapped around Jerzac's legs immobilizing them.

A quiet voice giggled in his ear then without really interrupting the giggling Jerzac heard

OPEN

and again

OPEN

On the second utterance the hands dug in on either side of his sternum and all six legs and two arms all rip apart peeling back his ribcage and splitting him like a wishbone.

Back in the original room Roswell had been overtaken by the advancing fog. In the fog he could barely see his hand that he braced on the wall. Suddenly blood and viscera sprayed on him from the side. After wiping his face so he could see he was looking at a word spelled out in blood on the wall.

LOCK

He turned to step out of the fog into what he assumed to be the last open spot in the room but stepped out into the jungle of Ukulam. More of the yellow fog stretched out behind him and on either side of the narrow path he was standing on. For a moment he didn't know where he was until he saw a particular patch of undergrowth where Nari pak Cordona had stepped out and kidnapped Jerzac to remove a hand. In the absence of a better option he ran down the path between the walls of fog.

Bash stumbled through the fog choked alleyway but only a few steps in he bumped into something suspended from a rope. Stepping back he saw Jerzac's body hung by one ankle with the other leg hanging limply with his entire ribcage pried open and his internal organs removed. Despite all this Jerzac's head turns to make eye contact with Bash and said 

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON'T

Bash turned and ran down a different alleyway trying to put as much distance between himself and the meat puppet as possible.

Rocket felt a tickle in the small of her back. That same knife dug in and ripped up her spine all the way to the soft spot at the base of her skull. Feeling the horrible sensation of bone open to the air Rocket whirled looking for something to kill. Even with the aid of her exocortex she couldn't pinpoint a target. Rather than fire wildly she let loose a fan of energy hoping to hit something. In the light from the attack, she saw a hanging body and saw a fleeing heavily armored form.

Genji nervously continued to walk up the street looking all around as he did so. One time when he turned his head the face of that flayed creature was within kissing distance with the skin tendrils reaching out towards Genji. During his startled jump Genji blinked and when he opened his eyes the creature was gone. Completely freaked out he started to run.

As he ran he saw the fog in the alleys press up against the invisible barrier and pile up against them. Within that fog he saw silhouettes start to coallesce. Some were mishappen lumps with way too many writhing limbs. Others were normal with odd lumps. Finally there was one that was just an enormous leg. Looking above the fog there was nothing there but the shadow lifted and reared back as if it was attached to a larger creature. With abrupt violence the leg shot forward crashing into the invisible barrier holding the fog back. With a crash all the barriers broke and the fog consumed the street and Genji.

Back in the jungle Roswell ran as fast as he could along the game trail, dodging around underbrush, trying to escape the encroaching fog. He got to a curve in the path and saw his flight was hopeless. The fog had cut off the path further on and was racing to swallow him.

Bash continued to run down the warren of alleys until something launched itself from above to land on his shoulders. A multitude of arms and legs wrapped around him scythed into his body and ripping off pieces of armor while giggling 

FREE 

Rocket felt an immense pressure in her skull as her nose starts to drip. The drip turned to a flood and as the blood fell from her face it turned in mid air and fell towards the wall next to her. On impact it writhed into a word

THEM

Running from this new horrible event Rocket ducked through alleys at random until she collided with two thrashing forms on the ground.

In a dead sprint Genji ran through the fog, right off a cliff face. With preternatural reflexes he turned and barely caught himself. With a triumph of mind over matter he pulled himself partway back up when he felt a finger reach out and touch the center of his forehead. A low noise quickly increased in pitch and volume until it was all consuming.The last thing Genji heard was 

WAKE

as with a wet sickening pop Genji's headless body fell down the cliff.

Cornered by the fog and with nowhere else to go Roswell stepped back into it. Right after he stepped into the same empty street he saw a flash as something moved left to right across his vision followed by a sickening splat. Looking at the wall beside him he saw a human body entirely rearranged. No head was visible but an arm was sprouting from where it should be. The fingers from that arm were ringing where the neck should be. A leg came out of a shoulder. The other arm sprouted from the knee of the remaining leg. A foot protruded from the stomach. Staring at the macabre scene Roswell was just barely able to identify the body as his new companion Genji whose blod seeped out to spell 

DON'T

Turning his head the other way Roswell saw a strange yellow symbol carved/branded into and adjacent building. Finally he turned back straight ahead to see a knife burrying itself in his stomach as that rag man shows a lamprey like ring of teeth in a rictus grin. The burst of pain manifested in reality as Roswell went supernova.

While still recovering from the shock and pain Bash tried to lash out twive with his battle glove to no effect. Completely ignoring him the creature started ripping out organs and spreading them around itself. 

Looking down Rocket saw the forms she ran into. The first was Bash with armor panels ripped free, blood streaming from the openings, and his head unnaturally far back and his jaw unhinged with yellow smoke shooting out of his throat. Looking over him was a grotesque spider human hybrid. Its main body was a sphere with all its bony legs with skin stretched tight over them sprouting from one location on top. The torso of a beautiful human woman sprouted from the front of the sphere two long chitinous arms ending in razor sharp claws. The beauty continued to her face until a vertical seam split and the skin of her face peeled back to reveal bone ringed with teeth.

Enraged and terrified Rocket's bone blades ripped out and she punctured the spherical portion of this thing's body causing it to start to deflate while spewing yellow fog.

The rag man's skin tendrils crisped and burnt from Roswell's supernova but that didn't stop him from enveloping the solarian in a hug. The tendrils dug into his skin pumping a paralytic into his entire body.

The female spider creature lunged at Rocket and flayed her alive before they even hit the ground. The creature flung the barely living freshly flensed lump of meat down endless stairs that were not there a moment before. In her last moments as Rocket cartwheeled down the stairs she saw an enormous bridge of web that stretched into the darkenss.

Roswell felt the rag man's head pull back and move its mouth over to the human's ear. A razor is drawn across his throat as the creature tenderly whispered

WAKE

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: The Final Flight of Zuri and Nari

Next: Mad City Behind The Veil

While stripping the mercenary's of their gear Bash saw a tattoo on the leader's arm that sent him into a rage. It was of a wall of flames flickering around an invisible shield. Not long after Bash started to calm down the leader's comm unit started speaking with a soft Latin voice.

"Avissa, we finally got the communications array assembled and operational. I am sending the warning back to the other wardens. Someone will come after us to finish the job if we fail to destroy those lore guardians and their records."

 With some skillful grunting from Jerzac Scarlewe the voice continued "We are returning shortly" but the ruse could only carry you so far. 

The voice asked for some specific personal information before you heard "Shit, that's not Avissa. We return at double time."

You quickly made the choice to clear the rest of the temple with at speed so you could be long gone by the time more enemies appeared. You hastily cleared the empty rooms to the north. While Bash was doing so Genji relayed a brief sketch of his background and his interest in the lost Elves. This came in handy when you entered the inner sanctum of the Temple of the Twelve. Here 2 statues and a "preserved" elf stood watch over the collected secrets of this place.

The elf dropped into a combat stance and questioned you on your intentions. Genji conversed with him and learned his name, Panelliar. After some questioning Panelliar granted you access to their collected works. Professor Muhali and Genji spent some time reading about the Oatian Elves, their love of astronomy, and their absolute fascination with a perfectly circular group of twelve stars that they took to calling the Gate of the Twelve. The more they focused on this bizarre constellation the more their scholars had dreams of strange symbols. The fascination turned to obsession. Various theories were thrown around like it was a battery, a weapon, a transportation gate (most popular), or even a child's science experiment from a First Generation Species. All resources were thrown at finding a way to reach this impossibly distant location. 

The solution? A Kzonchin Generator that could punch through reality and instantly bring their whole civilization to those stars.

While the nerds were nerding out Bash explored this small library and found a bright yellow orb floating at chest high. When he approached the elven gaurdian moved with impossible speed and held his spear Bash's throat and ordered Bash, via Genji, to step away since "He is unworthy of out knowledge." Instead he directed Genji to touch it. 

The orb grew a corona of hair like tendrils of light that stretched out for several feet then rapidly plunged into Genji's hands and burrowed their way just under his skin towards his head. His long scream was cut short when they reached his temples and plunged inwards imparting generations of elven memories. Them rest of you watched as the orb pulsed light up the tendrils, getting smaller each time. When it was all used up Genji collapsed to the floor. His mind was overflowing with information but one thing stuck out: the pride when an engineer finished the last entry on the blueprints of the first kzonchin generator.

Miffed Bash kept exploring and found a door in the back of the library that did not make sense based ion his knowledge of the building layout. It was surrounded by more of those strange symbols and felt similar to the Aiudara in Qabarat. When asked, Panelliar said it would take you to the precise moment you needed to see. Taking another chance, Basn and Genji walked through the door to so GODS at war with each other.

The small observation deck they stepped onto had an entire wall that acted as both window and HUD. It looked out at a supernova containing rapid intense flashes within it. Literally with a thought it focused on those flashes to show two fleets fighting within the explosion. The ships somehow manipulated their shields to scoop the ejecta, compress it, and hurl it FTL at the enemies. Enemies that seemed to blink out of existence and reappear behind other enemies while preparing their own shots. After watching for a minute the two crewmates started to understand the two sides. One side consisted of many types of ships all blinking in and out while the other mainly had large ships spewing out immense waves of small fighters and only the main ships blinked.

One of the fighters rocketed towards the observation deck containing the two humans. The floor and walls vibrated producing something resembling a voice:

Seeing the ship scooping ejecta Bash and Genji threw themselves back through the door and slammed it shut. After reassuring themselves they were still alive they recounted what they saw. Now that everyone had a moment to think you realized that had to have been a battle from the Meridath War. Realizing the importance of that gate Jerzac Scarlewe reversed the retreat order. You would defend this place to continue reasearching once the threat passed.

Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss and Jerzac planted the extra explosives left by the mercenaries along the trail up the mountain. After waiting some time a woman and 4 guards came down the trail. Once they stepped onto the trapped area Jerzac ordered the charges be blown.

The woman, presumably Mercedes, spoke out through the dust and smoke, "You've taken their knowledge and used their device haven't you? You don't know what you've done. We'll have to cleanse this system starting with you." For all her bravado, frightening Rocket, and confusing Bash you made quick work of the subordinates. Throughout she continued to play with your minds while also causing extreme mental pain. Jerzac was able to drive off Bash's confusion by the power of a "Nub Rub™". This allowed him to bring the fight in close. 

Realizing that she would lose, Mercedes pulled up her comm and shouted in "An opposing group has acquired the information. I am unable to eliminate them. Secure the planet." With that she threw her gun down and offered her surrender. (There was some minor questioning back and forth during the fight but we can cover that during the session.)

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Finding the Temple

Next: Battle of the Gods

The #Team High Turnover Rate travelled through the loam covered ruins of Loskialua and started up the steep narrow trail up towards what they could only assume was the Temple of the Twelve. Near the top of the tiring climb you turned a switchback to find the body of one of Castrovel's deadliest aerial predators, the sky eel, accompanied by the bodies 2 more of those mercenaries. Bash cautiously approached but all 3 were very dead, covered in bloody wounds on the part of the mercenaries and burns/bullet holes on the part of the eel. Sensing no danger for the moment you all went around the final curve of stairs and stepped onto the top of this small plateau.

Before you stood a curved line of ~6" diameter posts covered in those untranslatable Xi Tablet glyphs. Despite feeling a vague tingle as you passed through the line they seemed to serve no significant purpose. Your attention quickly moved to Nari pak Cordona who stepped out of one of the small ruins. The range favored Nari so everyone moved with haste to close range. After a misfire, Nari dropped her gun and ran into cover, just in time for the gun to detonate and hit Jerzac Scarlewe and Roswell Mogul. While Jerzac fumbled to pull and throw a grenade with one hand, he had to watch as Nari started to go for the kill. It only took a single moment of lethal intent and she caved in the side of Zuri's head. Enraged Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss joined the melee with Roswell and Bash. Realizing he wouldn't be useful in close, Jerzac took the time to line up a perfect shot that knocked Nari down and leaving her staggered. Bash took the final blow and ended the threat that had been stalking you this whole journey.

After unceremoniously stripping the two women of their useful gear their bodies were dropped from over the edge of the cliff. With nothing else of interest on the exterior you headed into the temple. Every surface of the entry hall was covered in constellations and scientifically precise travel paths of the stars as seem from Castrovel. There were two that stood out however, a jagged line of six stars one of which is Vega the Elves/Drow home star and the other is a perfect circle of 12 stars.

Taking the southern passage there were further star carvings. This time they were from the perspective of the elven home planet of Apostae (as it is now known). Unfortunately for the crew it contained a starstorm trap. The noise from this trap alerted the mercenary guarding two captives. He turned from his charges to fight you but quickly realized he was outmatched. You and the male captive killed him as he ran to get help. Help that had heard and was ready when you can around the corner. Once most of the group had exposed themselves the mercenary leader detonated charges on the ceiling, damaging only Bash. Since their trap did not work effectively they were quickly defeated between your new companion's psionic magics and the groups pinpoint fire.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: The Mold Maddened Beast and the Plague Warden

Next: Unknown

We rejoin #Team High Turnover Rate as 2 grenades clattered off the stairway within the plague warden which landed at Zuri of House Du'Mansia's feet. She deftly avoided the brunt of the damage and charged up to confront 2 Lashunta mercenaries. One lay out suppressing fire while the other ran up with a sword and knocked Zuri unconscious.  In that short time Bash, Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss, and Roswell Mogul finished the cleansing ritual and joined the fight. Rocket exchanged ranged fire while the others ran up to engage in melee until the enemies were defeated.

Cautiously proceeding further into the statue Bash found a large circular room in the head with a waist high pedestal filling the majority of it and a small and clearly modern box located in its center. Rather than taking a chance on what might be a trap the rest of the crew continued up the arm to the hand. It contained spent casings and a small pool of blood from when Bash shot the sniper. Since the entire statue had been cleared, you went to investigate the package. It contained a small memory chip with a sound recording of a raspy damaged voice and a text file with coordinates.

"Now that the captain and I have had our heart to heart I will leave you be for now. You are too injured to put up a proper fight. Stay here and rest. I will not lay any further traps or ambushes. I will await you at the Temple of the Twelve in the ruins of Loskialua. I expect you to take the time you need to be at your best. I don't want to feel cheated of my revenge when you are defeated as easily as a newborn ento mo."

Realizing the futility of following with Zuri gravely wounded and Jerzac Scarlewe almost crippled from the skyfisher's poison. Those two remained on bedrest in the cool chambers while everyone else kept watch. On the 3rd day of rest your old friends the ksariks returned at the edge of the tree line. Wanting to finally finish these annoying followers, you threw the dead mercenary bodies over the edge of the statue to lure them into an ambush. 

Once they got near enough, Zuri pulled her standard idiotic maneuver and tried to land on one's back and ride it. Of course it failed miserably. While Zuri was attacked the rest of the team efficiently focused fire on one beast at a time. Roswell joined the melee fray until he fully attuned to the light of the universe and burst like a miniature supernova devastating the opponents but also seriously burning Zuri. After that it was just mop up duty.

After a final afternoon's rest, the party started a brutal 36 hour forced march towards the supplied coordinates. The heat started rising around the exhausted party when you were about 5 out. Some sense worked its way through the mental fog and you all turned on your heat protection and passed out for the entire day. After you all woke up early early in the morning you hustled over rolling foothills towards the ruins on the mountain to take advantage of the relative coolness. 

As the sun came up you walked into a field of pyramids consumed in the verdant loam, leaving only ~2-25 feet exposed. Of greater interest is what was clearly a temple perched several hundred feet up a cliff face on the side of a large mountain.

contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Raise A Hand If You Missed Nari!

Next: Finding the Temple

On the 5th day of your expedition #Team High Turnover Rate woke up to a sweltering pink wonderland of mold. After quickly packing up, Zuri of House Du'Mansia led everyone after the enemy's party. She deftly followed their tracks through the brutally hot trek that left several of your party facing heat exhaustion. During the twilight hours everyone heard a loud roar from nearby. Zuri scurried up a tree to see what caused the frightful sound while everyone else prepared for a fight. In the tree Zuri was barely able to make out a large shape rapidly approaching the party before it burst into the clearing bellowing with anger.

The Whiskered Renkroda's skin was split in many places with pink and purple fungal growths protruding from them, showing the fate of something that was unable to find shelter before a moldstorm hit. In a rage from the pain of the infection it focused all of its saurian fury on the small creature standing in front of it: Roswell Mogul. Its attacks gravely wounded him while its roars demoralized other members of the party. In an effort to divert attention from her ally Zuri tried to jump from the tree to land on its back but failed miserably, losing her weapon in the process. Bash, Jerzac Scarlewe, and Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss favored the wiser course and attacked with a rain of lead, fire, and ice from range.

After the beast fell, you took a breather to bind your wounds. While doing so you saw an enormous reclining statue through the trees surrounded by an equally scaled plaza of cracked flagstones and semi-collapsed buildings through the trees. After some questioning Professor Muhali recalled a minor passage from Halqueem Zahn's notes about The Plague Warden. She explained that the reclining Elven form was suspected to "serve some ritual purpose, perhaps by absorbing the illness of some great king so he might live forever."

Not long after stepping out into the plaza a horrifying bluish clear mucousy tentacle parachute thing floats down towards you then launched a sticky rope and entangled Zuri. The crew focused all attention on the creature until a familiar sniper crack heralded a bullet that immediately laid Zuri low. Suddenly down a party member everyone dove for cover while still attempting to combat the newly identified sky fisher. Bash was able to break free from the entanglement in time for Rocket to be caught, Roswell ran north weathering a hail of lead trying to get eyes on the sniper, and Jerzac as usual was lighting up yet more Lho sticks from his ever dwindling supply. Gross sky hentai creature felt Jerzac was lonely so he got a tight tentacle hug which unfortunately carried a powerful strength draining drug. Rocket charged in and repeatedly impaled the creature with a gory bone blade while bash ripped out the medkit to treat the poison that was causing the captain to seize violently.

With the creature dead Zuri crawled to her knees, used a stimpak to get back on her feet, and sprinted towards the Plague Warden with Roswell to go after the sniper. Bash laid down covering fire which winged the sniper and drove them inside the statue then followed Rocket who was also headed to the statue's feet. Zuri entered a chamber containing a grimy pool and engravings covering all of the walls. Based on the ritualistic look to the engravings, Zuri started hastily scrubbing herself using the pool and directed Roswell to do the same. Right as Rocket turned the corner to enter the room Zuri finished and started up the stair only to have 2 grenades rattle off the walls and land at her feet.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Battle of the (Weak) Wills

Next: The Mold Maddened Beast and the Plague Warden

We returned to #Team High Turnover Rate as Bash, Jerzac Scarlewe, and Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss fell to the ground unconscious while Nari pak Cordona stepped out of the bushes. Nari and her two holographic clones ran up to attack Roswell Mogul with her sap doing some heavy damage. While slow to the draw due to her injuries, Zuri of House Du'Mansia attempted to convince Nari to stop the attack to no avail. Seeing the danger the crew was in Zuri slowly climbed down the tree and attempted to wake up Bash. Seeing this attempt, Nari ran over and knocked Zuri unconscious with a single blow then backed off. Roswell bravely tried to close and fight back but Nari was to fast and knocked him out as well.

Roswell and Zuri regained consciousness and realized that both Nari and the captain were missing. After rousing Rocket and Bash everyone took a small rest to recuperate from the short but violent fight. Zuri was able to find tracks along the riverbank and across a ford, presumably from Nari. As you followed the tracks you eventually started to hear hoarse calls for help and crying. Sneaking up to a glade in the jungle Zuri smelt burnt meat and saw Jerzac's back as he lay on the ground in a fetal position. When she approached Zuri saw a rock nearby covered in meat, blood, gristle, and bone shards. Finally taking a chance she rolled the captain over to see the cauterized stump with protruding chunks of bone where his left hand used to be.

Taking the chance to do a little pilfering Zuri dug through Jerzac's pockets, taking a few things. She bandaged up the mangled remnants of his hand the best she could. Finally coming to a little bit Jerzac frantically dug through every pocket trying to find his Lho sticks. At this Zuri pulled out the stolen lho and lit one up. After receiving threats of dire consequences the Drow gave back the captain's drugs. Everyone realized they were too injured to continue so you rested for the night and most of the next day.

About an hour and a half into the next day's march a large plant creature (a ksarik) started to trail you but ran off as soon as you noticed it. At the 3rd hour mark it appeared again, trying to repeat its same behavior. For some absolutely unexplainable reason Jerzac was a bit grumpy and lobbed a grenade at it. The ksarik flicked its tail at jerzac, launching a spine which did little damage, and ran away. It did not reappear all through the night as you force marched to make up time that was lost while tending to your injuries. 

The morning light helped Zuri follow the tracks easier but it also let the ksarik and its buddy track you and attempt an ineffectual ambush. They each launched a dart while the crew took potshots at their retreating backs. After another couple miles through this god-awful jungle you heard more hoarse calls very similar to those of Jerzac the day prior. The cries lead you to an open clearing where a wounded Lashunta woman was collapsed against a tree stump. She cried out when you all approached begging for medicine. Jerzac pumped her for information with the promise of aid. You learned there are about 10 more mercenaries, Nari, Professor Solstarni, and Mercedes in the expeditionary party.

Staring to perform first aid, Zuri pulled the dart out from Kalkawri's leg. As the dart came out of her leg the larva that had been crawling under her skin started chewing their way out to ear-piercing shrieks of pain. Those same shrieks called out to the source of the thorn, your old buddies the ksariks. Jerzac, remembering that the ksariks could ingest their prey's knowledge knew that they would be able to understand galactic common. Promising them immense pain before their deaths he successfully intimidated them into running away. 

Unable to find anything useful on the lashunta's corpse, you set out yet again on your grueling trek. This day Zuri struggled to follow the trail causing you to lose the ground you made up on the forced march, now 2 days behind the other party. Attempting to continue the forced march, you continued on into the night. Not long after sunset kaukarikis left their nests and sprinted up the trees, settled into cup shaped leaves and pulled them tight around themselves. Looking around to see what would cause such panic in those devil monkeys Zuri was able to make out billowing pink clouds in the distance, a moldstorm. You scrambled to set up your tent and all 6 of you packed into the single one you could set up in time. Everyone spent a fitful night sleeping out the moldstorm and exited out into a pink deadly wonderland in the morning.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Yaruk Stampede

Next: Raise A Hand If You Missed Nari!

We picked up with Zuri of House Du'Mansia moving with all haste towards the Rune Obelisk. #Team High Turnover Rate stepped up to assist when Bash fell under the same compulsion to run. Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss saw some of those evil Kaukarikis coming to feast on the enthralled party and took some preliminary shots at them. Suddenly the flowers at the base of the tower detached as a large lumbering creature that moved in towards Zuri. Zuri broke free from the control in time to be paralyzed by the scent coming off the creature.

The kaukariki arrived and swept towards the party despite being wounded by some of Jerzac Scarlewe's grenades. When they got into range one successfully poisoned Zuri while the others held up the rest of the party. In the midst of this melee a shot rang out, punching through Rocket's armor and seriously injuring her. Jerzac threw out a smoke grenade to provide some cover for Bash and Roswell Mogul to clear the way towards the plant creature. Just before Rocket could retreat into the smoke she was nailed by another round. The 2 kaukarikis nearby followed her in and with an odd electrical discharge noise they weren't seen alive again.

Back over at the pillar Zuri was flanked, further poisoned, and knocked unconscious. Bash arrived with Roswell to save her and destroy the plant creature. Wanting to get back in the fight, Rocket exited the smoke cloud to get shot again. Figuring discretion was the better part of valor she ran back into the cloud and curled up into a nearby rootball to nurse her wounds. Since all other enemies were eliminated Bash, Zuri, and Roswell ran into the jungle trying to get to the sniper. No other shots rang out. Zuri found the sniper nest up in a tree but was unable to find a trail leading away despite searching a wide radius.

While most of you were searching for the sniper, Jerzac took Professor Muhali to the obelisk to inspect for any clues. Finding some runes under the vines, she asked you to cut back the vegetation. After it was cleared she spent some time trying to translate it. She only found fragments that indicated it may have acted as a signpost. One side contained a bas relief of 12 Fear Neimhe and a picture of the Singing Range with a dot "Loskialua" "Ministry of Starsong" "Embassy of the Spheres" "Piercer of the Veil" and ""Temple of the Twelve." The other sides had fragmentary words that mentioned paying respect, messengers from beyond, and academy, and "interpreters of the Beacon." After Zuri returned and you rested she confirmed the tracks of Eyrub Paqual's party lead towards the mountains as indicated in the obelisk's diagram.

Zuri led the party on the trail for a couple of hours until Bash suddenly fell into a rather deep pit trap. Realizing that there may be further traps ahead, Zuri slowed down looking carefully. She successfully found and disarmed a swinging log trap but failed to do so on the second one that was slightly further down the path. Diving out of the way she adroitly avoided a potentially lethal trap. When you all joined her you figured that travelling off of the path would be worth the added safety at the cost of speed. Zuri remained in the trees so she could observe the trail and guide the way. As dark approached and you were thinking of turning in for the night Bash, Jerzac, and Rocket all crumpled to the ground asleep while Zuri and Roswell maintained consciousness. Stepping out of the forest was someone the sleeping party members would recognize from their first contract together. Someone much harder and more battle worn than they would remember.

Nari pak Cordona

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: The Double Crossed Smuggler

Next: Battle of the (Weak) Wills

#Team High Turnover Rate stepped out of the Turhalu Point Aiudara first thing in the morning to oppressively hot and muggy air. You went into the small outpost and found the cafeteria. Once in there you started asking the local scientists if they had seen Professor Solstarni. The thought he had seen her in the group that had come through about a day and a half previous. He recommended you go talk to Dr. Khair al-Nuaf, the outpost's head scientist and administrator. The administrator's hab building was evenly divided into a clean high level administrator's office and a messy in-use scientist's lab. The doctor was leaning over looking into his microscope when you arrived. It took a bit to get his attention and he asked you to wait just a few since he finally had the organism he was studying in the display. 

Once he was finished, al-Nuaf turned to you and sked how he could help you. After spinning a tale about being part of Solstarni's group but being delayed you asked if he has any clue where to go to catch up with them. He said they mentioned something about a Rune Obelisk. He pulled out some old recordings from the days Turhala Point was a military outpost. They showed a white stone pillar poking out of the top of the jungle about 40 miles from the base. He allowed you take photos of an old paper map of the area.

After some more back and forth he calls the security force to ask them to give you a ride out to the perimeter. While they were assembling, he also was able to convince some of his colleagues to sell their environmental clothing that they weren't using any longer. The security contingent was waiting for you when you exited the building. They escorted you to the perimeter while there was a barrage of texts back and forth on whether to eliminate them. Jerzac successfully kept the crew's bloodlust in check long enough to realize the downsides of acting recklessly. 

They took you 10 miles out from the base, leaving you about 20 to the jungle edge and another 10 to the obelisk. You marched 10 miles through the brutal heat. Realizing the resource constraints you may be operating under if the Rune Obelisk is not your final destination you decide to force march through the night to both make up time and conserve your environmental protections. Sleeping through part of the day (we need to account for the hours used) you started your march into the jungle. After a couple of hours, while Zuri of House Du'Mansia was scouting ahead, she stumbled around a corner to see a moot of several dozen Yaruk. They were milling around the path you were following so Zuri climbed a tree and travelled through the jungle canopy to get to the other side of the moot. After descending she cast around the area trying to find the trail again. She just found it again as the rest of the party arrived. Realizing that the majority of the party wasn't dexterous enough climb over the creatures, you decided to weave your way through. Zuri climbed up again to observe. While the group was halfway through Zuri saw a muzzle flash out of the corner of her eye as one of the Yaruk reared up and bellowed in pain as it was hit in the hindquarters.

The crew scattered as they raced for their lives. Jerzac Scarlewe spent the whole time dodging and hiding behind trees, Bash and Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss kept stymieing the Yaruk following by scrambling and squeezing their way around obstacles, while Roswell Mogul and Zuri kept trying to distract the Yaruk. With a final squeeze between some boulders, Zuri found a fallen tree that you could use as a bridge to cross a steep narrow ravine. Just as you all stumble across the lead Yaruk took a few steps onto it before the log started to shift. The Yaruk all lined up at the ravine edge and trumpeted angrily across at the creatures that hurt one of them. 

Taking stock of your surroundings, you saw a clearing with a large stone pillar across the way, clearly the Rune Obelisk. Zuri cast about again for tracks but as she stepped into the clearing her posture changed and she rapidly moved across the clearing towards the spire.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Bash Mildly Dislikes Journos

Next: Yaruk Stampede

#Team High Turnover Rate took some time to regroup and discuss the current problems you faced. 1) Travel visas to Ukulam, 2) What to do with your hostage Professor Muhali, 3) What happened to Professor Solstarni, 4) Where are you actually trying to go once you get through the Aiudara? Also whether Jerzac Scarlewe or Zuri of House Du'Mansia wanted to call officer blueballs back. Zuri and Jerzac recommended that you go to the Five Arches to track down both the lead from Muhali and possibly find alternate means to Ukulam. 

At Five Arches, you were greeted by extremely odd smells and an overly eager hostess who was excited to have Human guests so she could serve the "authentic" daily special of vanilla chicken, mashed rice, and raw asparagus with a cherry compote. Thinking better of the food everyone got drinks while surveying the other patrons. There was a party of a half dozen Lashunta, a human and two Formians, a table with 2 Formians quietly talking, and a lone human nursing a drink. 

Jerzac approached the man while the others remained at the table maintaining control of Muhali. Soon after Jerzac got seated and learned Roswell Mogul's name a crew of 5 (1 human, 2 hobgoblins, and 2 spathinae) entered the diner. The obvious leader informed Roswell that Eyrub Paqual would like to tie up the last loose end in Qabarat now that Roswell's 2 subordinates were eliminated. Jerzac asked them to come back later since Roswell was occupied but they didn't take the hint. Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss and Bash started to amble over to assist when the proprieter shouted and pointed towards the  obviously placed sign saying  "Take All Fights Outside."

After everyone was outside, the fight began in earnest while Zuri was inside handcuffing (using Officer Handsy's handcuffs) Muhali to the table. Despite some focused fire at the leader's orders you quickly take them all out with minimal damage. After the fight was over Jerzac spent some time negotiating the cost of fake travel visas while Bash/Rocket looted the bodies and Zuri retrieved the hostage who had been trying to escape. The negotiations were successful, reducing the cost per visa down from 2k to 0 and an even split of treasure with a side of revenge against Paqual. 

Roswell told you some information about Paqual, her crew, and the work he did for her. Paqual ordered 15 fake visas though he only had to make minor adjustments to Paqual's and her sick Kasatha colleague's legitimate academic visas. Mogul had doubts that Paqual was her real identity but the money was good enough to not ask questions. Finally Mogul knew Paqual was shipping a considerable amount of firearms, heavy gear, a disassembled comm unit, and she also received special permissions for fungal spores.

The miscellaneous armor and equipment was liquidated (some shopping might have happened off screen between sessions) and you slept before heading to the Aiudara in the morning. On the approach you watched people walk in one side and as they approached the plane of the arch they appeared to be sliced open so you could see their internals. First a hand, then arm, then chest/face with internal organs/skull and brain showing. None of them showed even the slightest pain. While these people were being reduced others were being built as they walked out of the other side of the gate. Feeling uneasy you approached the only working gate that had no line and stepped through to Turhalu Point on Ukulam. You saw a small research outpost at the tip of a broad penninsula amongst a large plain of vibrant green grass that has a violet hue when the wind moves the stalks. Short lived blooms of magenta fungus tower over the landscape but most have begun to wilt and others with large bite marks missing. Loud trumpets echo over the plain as enormous six-legged beasts with long necks walk towards the distant treeline as a herd. Even further beyond the jungle rises the Singing Range.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Indiana Jones Impersonator Enslaves Evil Scorpion Monkeys!

Next: The Double Crossed Smuggler

TL:DR at bottom

Zuri woke up to the ship's bell ringing like crazy. Sleepily opening the door she saw a Lashunta named Whaloss. Whaloss took a small step back quietly saying "Fear i Bhfolach" (roughly: Those in Hiding) before launching into an endless torrent of questions about them, the "Fear Neimhe" (Those Who Ascended), and the Áirse Tógálaí (Arch Builders). All in an academically condescending way when speaking of the Drow. 

After silencing the endless questions and the crew was all gathered, Whaloss introduced himself as the contact that The Don sent. He explained that he did not have the necessary expertise to translate the heiroglyphs himself but he could get a meeting with Professor Muhali who would at the very least know who in her department could help. After a short cab ride to campus #Team High Turnover Rate stepped into a scene of chaos within the main building of the xenolinguistics department.

About 20 journos were clustered at the other end of the room and all talking over each other. Snippets such as "Argued for genocide," "Utterly inappropriate," "Why won't the university make a statement," "Only a suspension," "Do the deans support these statements?" A brief exchange between Whaloss and Ikimsi, the department secretary, revealed that Professor Alabiens 21:2 gave an incendiary lecture the previous night. In it he examined the first conflict between the Lashunta and the Formians following the Meridath War and argued that the Lashunta tactics of total war and genocide against the Formains were not only a necessary evil but a societal good based on the aftereffects of that round of hostilities.

Since this clusterfuck had nothing to do with you, you tried to force your way through and continue to Muhali's office. Ikimsi kept the door locked since he didn't want the reporters spilling into the building. He asked you to drive them off somehow and in exchange he'd rearrange Muhali's schedule to see you immediately. Zuri started brandishing her best knife and threatening violence. This only sent some of them packing so Bash drew his sidearm. The way he fumbled the process was amusing enough that one of the journos had to stifle laughter. Despite Rocket's attempt to knock aside the gun Bash kneecapped the one who laughed. Reporters ran, Ikimsi hit a button on his desk, and Rocket jumped to perform first aid on the injured man.

Six campus security guards come in and asked what happened. Rocket did her best to bluff her way out of the situation but the guards quickly went to ikimsi to review the security footage. Seeing no other way out the crew started dropping bodies between a combination of grenades, Bash powerfisting people's esophagus' out, and Rocket's gross bone swords that ripped their way out of her forearm. One guard made a break for it out onto the quad so Rocket and Zuri ran after him to silence witnesses while Jerzac Scarlewe and Bash dragged Ikimsi up to Muhali's office at gunpoint. The two ladies quickly finish off the guard and start hauling ass back towards the Kormoran to prepare for take off.

In Muhali's office, the boys eventually convince Muhali to come with them in exchange for letting Ikimsi go. Bash threatened to come back for Ikimsi if he didn't erase the security tapes. Bash, Jerzac, and Muhali calmly walked to her car like nothing happened. You reached the car and started towards the starport. En route Jerzac handed Muhali his datapad to review the hieroglyphs. Unfortunately she was unable to translate them, but did at least recognize the name of Halqueem Zahn. Her colleague Professor Solstarni had recently dug his notes out of deep storage and was taking another attempt at translating those hieroglyphs. Jerzac demanded information on Solstarni and how to get in contact with her. Muhali was able to pull up the calendars of all her professors, only to be confused. Solstarni had left for her research sabbatical two days ago, several months before she was supposed to.

During this conversation Zuri made it to the starport on her stolen motorcycle to find it in lockdown with a solid police cordon around it. She turned around to pick up Rocket and regroup with the other two and their hostage. You all headed towards the run down Gateway District to lay low. This destination reminded Muhali that Solstarni had been getting messages from an offworld researcher who wanted to meet her somewhere within there. Five Arches maybe?

Once Zuri and Rocket arrived, you hacked into the police frequencies to find that there was only the most vague descriptions of two humanoids killing a guard in the quad, the security cameras appeared to be down that day, and reports that all travel locations were on lockdown (implying they don't know which ship is yours). You wanted to set off immediately to Ukulam to let everything die down while you are away. Three problems with that are you have no idea where to go once you get to Ukulam, a lack of travel visas to use the Aiudara,  and a lack of weaponry. Enter the newlyweds to fix one of the problems.

Zuri used a five finger discount to get tacky souvenirs while Jerzac acquired clothing. They approached the starport police line as newlyweds on their honeymoon who were grumpy at being kept out. Zuri was gearing up for a real Karen fit while Jerzac was his usual smooth self. The patrol officer called over the captain who waved them through with the officer as a escort. Once on the ship the "couple" started coming on to the officer.

After seeing his interest Jerzac went ahead to "get ready." The officer was too impatient and started pawing at Zuri who led him into the captains bed. Somewhere around here Bash and Rocket muted their communicators, but recorded anyways for later use. Jerzac took his sweet ass time field stripping Bash's two rifles, long enough that he came back to the Lashunta's chocolate starfish staring at him as the officer was stripping off his pants getting ready to play hide the sausage. Jerzac was complementing the man's enthusiasm until he turned around to reveal his fear spear, his green headed warrior of love, his heat seeking moisture missile was just a little lacking, helping explain Zuri's horrified face. Unfortunately for the impending ménage á trois, the lovebirds had to check in to the hotel before they lost their reservation.

The officer (hereafter known as Officer Well Endowed) sadly got dressed but perked up when Zuri asked to borrow the handcuffs for when he comes to join them after his shift. He made sure to tuck his number in Zuri's bra. The threesome walked back to the cordon where Zuri flirted with the captain too. The "newlyweds" got sent on their way with a slap on the ass. Once they turned the corner Zuri sucker punched Jerzac in the face warning him to NEVER mention what just happened.

Back in the gateway district on the scanner:

"Did we at least get something out of this?" -C

"Oh, sorry sir. I got a little ....... distracted. I'll at least be getting something out of this after my shift is over." -O

"Damn it." -C

"Can I get her number too?" -C

TL:DR

Fuck Murder Hobos

Fuck Rogues

Fuck Bards

Fuck Jeff in particular

I Lost control of the players and lost control of my game.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Return to Lalande 21185 (The Hole)

Next: Bash Mildly Dislikes Journos

After arriving at Groombridge 1618 you proceeded on to the planet of Castrovel. After a brief visit with a customs official, all of Qabarat lay open to you. After downloading a visitor's guide several things piqued your interest, the Aiudara, the Qabarat Museum of Forgotten Worlds, big game hunts, and of course why you actually came here, Qabarat University of Xenoanthropology and Xenoarchaeology.

Jerzac Scarlewe mandated that before any other business was conducted he must have a proper explorer's outfit. After visiting the future alien Spirit Halloween store he walked out with an Indiana Jones costume, hat and prop whip included. From there you went to the museum to view the main exhibit, the Xi Tablet. It is an enormous chunk of metal the size of a 21st century bus. The real reason why it's interesting is that it is a 20 billion year old object in a 15 billion year old universe. It was found on Xi, a lifeless atmosphere-less geologically dead check of rock. No one knows it's true origin or able to interpret the worn symbols inscribed upon it.

After leaving the museum you started to approach the University but realized you had no clue who to talk to and no leverage to get a meeting with them. You quickly sent a message off to Don Jose de Cordiliera to see if he had any local contacts. While waiting for him to arrange something you decided to kill time by going on a game hunt. 

While shopping around for guided hunts you learn about a local pest called Kaukarikis. In your infinite wisdom these very cranky very poisonous scorpion monkey things sounded like a perfect pet to keep in a confined location while you sleep. You went to the run down gate district to find a sketchy guide. On the way Jerzac and Zuri of House Du'Mansia kept their eyes out for possible local smuggler hangouts, seeing a shabby cantina called Five Arches.

Upon procuring a guide and a rental gun for Bash, the hunt began. All told you mercilessly slaughtered kaukariki mothers, accidentally killed a couple of babies, and captured 3 male and one female cubs, Zuri used about half of the Anvil and got poisoned, all to the absolute bewilderment of the guide and the other two customers on the hunt. The crew now has four terrified critters smuggled on board Kormoran.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous: Crew Quantity -20% 2: Electric Boogaloo (Same Session)

Next: Indiana Jones Impersonator Enslaves Evil Scorpion Monkeys!

Back to the present, the four remaining crew members looked over The Hole. Jerzac Scarlewe spent some time shaving his head and making himself look like a life time grease monkey. He talked with the traffic controllers and got the Kormoran landed at the port. The crew hurried over to Shodri's Tavern to investigate the ansible conversation you had with R. Laga. He pointed towards a pretty Lashunta woman on the other side of the bar. Before Bash and Zuri of House Du'Mansia head over, Shodri plunks down a tiny glass and pours out a shot of a green brown slime. Jerzac runs over, knocks it back, and immediately goes numb and woozy. Even in his inebriated state, he realized this must be the rare Sahjon Hamarr, used as an anesthetic by a race that considers a 9' 400 lbs individual to be diminutive.

The Lashunta woman, Krisha Semakil, complained about your tardiness in completing Laga's mission (as Paguk's crew) to kill 'that captain.' Upon learning that you had no proof of success she had a lengthy discussion with you about how 'unsure of success' and failure may as well be synonyms to Laga. She said that without proof of a kill you should either run as far and as fast as you can or through yourselves at his mercy and prepare for pain. After being sure you still wanted to rejoin Laga, she explained that they were headed to Ukulam on Castrovel to find Halqueem Zahn's notebook to translate the hieroglyphs Don Jose de Cordiliera said were retrieved from a pirate vessel.

Bash returned to the ship while everyone else went shopping. Jerzac got drugs, Zuri got sedatives (Anvil), and Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss went off to do her own shopping alone. After returning to the ship the crew beat the everloving shit out of Jerzac to provide images the Laga proving you 'killed the captain." The resulting images were clearly staged and the second attempt was equally bad. You gave up after that attempt and just hurried on towards Castrovel to find what secrets the pirates are searching for.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous Log: Contract Negotiation and Smuggling Runs

Next Log: Return to Lalande 21185 (The Hole) (Same Session)

#Team High Turnover Rate had a a brief group flashback to the ballistic flight during the third shipment for Don Jose de Cordiliera. Scotty was on the end of a 60' lead attempting to open Hannah Boucher's briefcase. After failing a very critical engineering evaluation of the briefcase, the nanobot mimic dissolved into a swarm and attacked. As the screaming started, Bash, Zuri of House Du'Mansia, and Jerzac Scarlewe started unloading at the swarm. Various grenades (effective), gunshots (effective against Scotty), Jolting Surge (utterly useless), and full auto (effective against both Scotty and Swarm). Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss strafed the ship away throughout the combat to keep the swarm off of the ship. After suffering some significant damage it coated onto Scotty. He touched the swarm (and himself) with a second very powerful Jolting Surge that caused the two of them to blip out of existence. Assuming him dead, the crew goes to the mess for a smoke. 12 seconds later Scotty blipped back into existence unconscious. Jerzac and Bash ran back to the airlock but had to wait for the airlock to cycle. While waiting (rather than risk their own hides rapidly opening the airlock) Zuri hopped into the gunner chair. A perfectly precise shot annihilated the swarm but carried on to evaporate Scotty due to the insanity of using starship scale weaponry in tactical combat.

Rocket leaned over to Zuri to whisper "Excellent choice."

Almost before the red mist that was Scotty froze in the vacuum of space, his crewmates were gambling over his effects and resumed their mission for The Don.

Contract: The Don's Request

Previous Log: Adventures in Accounting and the Used Spaceship Lot

Next Log: Crew Quantity -20% 2: Electric Boogaloo

PC CREW completed their test flight of the Kormoran. While flying you decided to express interest in Don Jose de Cordiliera's contract. After receiving instructions, the crew flew to the Lone Star Republic to land at a small landing pad near the Don's compound. The compound is walled, heavily guarded, and covered by a nearly invisible energy dome. After a short challenge at the gates you entered into a very pretty lawn bordered by groves of trees and flowers. This led up to a well kept old spanish styled villa.

You were guided to the Don's office and after a short wait he received you. The office is well furnished with comfortable seating, very well made furniture, and some antiquities throughout the room. He is well dressed with his salt and pepper hair and beard perfectly in place. After some brief pleasantries you learned that pirates were hitting his shipments with much higher frequency than random attacks would account for. Any time he would send ships out with escorts other shipments would be hit. He suspects there is a mole within his organization which is why he had turned outside help. While he is loathe to do so, he is in a position where he must offer a future favor rather than the one who will be owed a favor. Knowing the value of someone like The Don owing you a favor, Jerzac Scarlewe accepted the contract.

Immediately after the contract had been accepted and unable to be backed out of, Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss dropped the bombshell that KS Choi of SamTech has leverage on her and demanded she get the group to accept the Don's contract. The Don explained that Choi was once in an asset of his that could cause things to fall off the back of a truck. Sometime ago he broke ties and recently started his own rival organization. This might be a case of something his enemy wants would benefit him as well. Jerzac gave Tralia Lightfoot's SamTech key card to the Don as everyone in this conversation would like to get more information on Choi's doings.

Luckily unknown to everybody else, Zuri of House Du'Mansia decided to be a suicidal idiot. She decided to pocket one of the artifacts off a shelf. Later she put it back (maybe in a moment of second guessing or maybe there's some other plan going on).

As the conversation continued the Don told you there was only been one instance of one of his crews overpowering the attacking pirates. The only thing of note they could find on the pirate ship were a couple pieces of paper in the captains safe. They contained strange hieroglyphs that none of you could figure out. Zuri felt the slightest suggestion of something familiar about them but that was all. Since there were currently no leads based on the papers you decided to talk to the surviving crew of the Alexandro. Don Cordiliera called out to Mercedes to take you to them. When Pablo stepped in instead, a brief look of extreme grief crossed his face before apologizing to Pablo.

Pablo guided you on a long walk through the compound to more industrial looking buildings. You spoke with two men and a woman who had several recently healed scars. They told of the shipment that was from Titan to a warehouse in the Asteroid Belt (officially recorded in their flight logs as going to Mars). Part way there while they were in the ballistic section of their flight another ship came in ballistically on an intercept. They bombarded the transport ship until it was disabled and then boarded. What they didn't bargain on was the majority of the Alexandria crew having military training.

You recommended to Pablo that you act as surge transport capacity for the Don, both filling in for his manpower and ship shortage and act as bait.

Once you're back on the ship Rocket and Bash started to get in a fight about her being a corporate shill. rather than leaving well enough alone Zuri also joined in the argument. Jerzac calmly spent time microwaving popcorn (using his treasured microwave) and watching the show. Once weapons were drawn and Rocket armed her exocortex to stimulate the controller implant if she was killed, Jerzac stepped in and tried to defuse the situation and caught even Zuri off guard with his apparent masochism fetish when she held a knife to his crotch.

In the morning you got a call from Pablo with some very complicated approach instructions to fly into the compound to take possession of the shipment for your bait run. What followed was a very boring week on high alert as you went out to Titan (really a different warehouse in the asteroid belt) (total 11 days).

Since nothing happened you messaged back to Earth to pick up another contract. This one was similarly tense and boring. You did it yet again. This time during the journey you finally remembered about the briefcase from Hannah Boucher. Since you were in the ballistic section you sent Scotty out on a lifeline to open it. It dissolved into a swarm of nanobots that attacks Scotty (we will come back to this point next session to see if you have to pick up a new crew member before the next section of your journey). You did one more contract that was also quiet. You were starting to come to the conclusion that being bait for this was a pointless endeavor when you got a message across your ansible from R. Laga again.

Where are you.

-Cpt. R. Laga

We are picking up work in the Sol System to pay for repairs. We are on our way now.

-Cpt. Paguk

Our last conversation said you made repairs. What is going on.

-Cpt. R. Laga

We made enough repairs to fix our comm system and limp back to a maintenance yard. We needed money for those repairs.

-Cpt. Paguk

You know full well the money is available for repairs. 

-Cpt. R. Laga

Report. To. The. Hole. Now.

-Cpt. R. Laga

Heading towards The Hole immediately.

-Cpt. Paguk

You told the Don that you felt these bait runs were not getting anywhere beyond a little bit of extra information for him to figure out who the mole is. You felt your time was more productive looking into the note and going to The Hole to see if anyone there had a clue given how frequently disreputable individuals go through there.

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

Previous: Pirate Ambush

Next: Contract Negotiation and Smuggling Runs

#Team High Turnover Rate spent some time divvying up loot and working on leveling up at the beginning of the session. Following that they performed some basic repairs on the Free Captains freighter to limp it back to port. They left Acquisition Vessel 14 with a horrified docking agent then left Tralia Lightfoot’s corpse with an even more horrified secretary on their way up to the Undersecretary of the VP of Special Operations, KS Choi.

KS Choi has a kind demeaner and appeared horrified at the difficulties you went through. He authorizes Zuri of House Du'Mansia to receive Tralia’s pay. He asked for recordings of the fight on the station. If they doctor them right, SamTech could pin the death of dozens of worlds on the Southern Alliance (certainly satisfying the second clause of your contract). He tells you to drop off the recording with the data analysts on the 18th floor and go to the 23rd for accounting to pay you. Just before you left, Choi calls Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss in for a private discussion.

Floor 18 goes very quickly but there are some delays on the 23rd.  The front desk attendant could not believe the size of your payment. He had to get his division head to authorize it. The div head called Choi and verified the payment. The payment is processed very fast and everything is going well until Jerzac Scarlewe said they “lost” one of the keycards for AV 14. Queue an incredible number of forms that had to be signed. By the end he was drawing fish and the like (and probably dicks) in the signature blocks. Hopefully one of the forms didn’t authorize SamTech to harvest his organs.

You guys got a new insanely armed and armored ship, the Kormoran. With the help of all the crew you were able to transplant the Ansible and keep it reasonably disguised during the process. Soon after hooking it up, a message comes across it:

Report. You’ve been silent for 3 days. Did you kill their captain? 

-Cpt. R. Laga

The crew hustled over to the freighter to dig through the computer system. After breaching the unsecured area, you saw two sections hidden behind beefy firewalls, navigation and comms. Scotty was able to hack his way into the navigation section finding that this ship primarily operated in the general neighborhood of the Sol system with the exception of some trips out to The Hole. Scotty then tried to breach the comm section but triggered the wipe function, deleting the data.

Yes. Our comm system and PCU were heavily damaged in the fight.

-Cpt. Paguk

Good. Proceed to the contact for further instructions. Was the ansible damaged?

-Cpt. R. Laga

No, but our comm records were fried. We need new contact info for the contact.

-Cpt. Paguk

This isn’t Paguk is it?

-Cpt. R. Laga

No, this is Zharor. Paguk died in the boarding action while Vauhon was lost with the interceptor.

-Cpt. Paguk

Speak with Shodri. He will guide you to the contact.

-Cpt. R. Laga

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

Previous: Crew Quantity -20%

Next: Adventures in Accounting and the Used Spaceship Lot

The freighter and fighter that you encountered last time opened fire on Acquisition Vessel 14. The following dogfight was rather one-sided in your favor. The fighter was quickly disabled, coasted into an asteroid, and blew up. After the freighter was disabled, Scotty was reviewing the fight in his mind and realized the enemy ships were reacting to AV 14 faster than the light delay would allow. this mystery led #Team High Turnover Rate to perform a boarding action.

Bash and Jerzac Scarlewe led the assault while Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss and Scotty remained behind to protect your ship. Bash and Jerzac walked into a rather ineffectual ambush and quickly turned it around on the defenders. After Bash punched one of the pirates faces in the other two ran. Jerzac followed one into the crew quarters and had a discussion with him while Bash followed the other on a merry chase through some traps. Bash's quarry locked himself in the cargo bay while Jerzac's comes out to surrender. Then the power hiccupped and doors in the crew quarters unlocked.

"Don't let her get me" said the terrified pirate.

A slight dark figure bursts out of the unlocked cabin, shouts "Where is that bastard," and moved at full speed towards the bridge.

After a quick execution of the captive Jerzac and Bash followed the Drow woman. The following fight with the captain left Jerzac, Bash, and Zuri of House Du'Mansia on death's door while Rocket and Scotty came across to finish the fight. Upon a search of the ship, you found a ship mounted Ansible.

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

Previous: TPK Razor's Edge

Next: Pirate Ambush

Your crew sought to complete the contingency portion of the contract by destroying the Southern Alliance ship. This would have prevented them from returning with technical data from a fallen galactic superpower.

You swing around the station and start attacking the SAIS Paranga only for their opening salvo to punch your teeth in. Following that Bash paid special attention to point defense to detonate a well aimed missile that you feel would have really fucked you up. Some very skilled piloting from Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss allowed you to consistently stay on their 6 and just ram shots up their aft. While their gunner was less skilled that didn't matter as much when each hit counted for two of yours.

You would have likely continued until only one ship could limp away but Tralia Lightfoot noticed an unusual indication on the nav computer. The Dyson sphere was deliberately collapsing itself into the star. The supernova was no longer imminently arriving. It was here.

Acquisition Vessel 14 separated from SAIS Parange and shot away at full speed, engaging the warp drives the second they crossed the minimum safe distance from the gravity well. Just as you thought the crew was safe, the true danger of the fight on the station appeared. Radiation Sickness.

Jerzac Scarlewe never contracted the sickness, only the immediate poison effects. Bash, Tralia, and Rocket attempt to practice medicine on each other and Scotty. Bash and Rocket start feeling better after a couple days. Scotty had a couple false starts and declines to a bed-ridden state. Tralia quickly worsens to a bedridden then comatose state. She was starting to show signs of recovery when she quietly slipped away between med passes. As horrible as the loss was, this allowed bash and rocket to focus on keeping Scotty alive long enough for his body to heal itself. You are currently maintaining Tralia's body to return to SamTech coroners.

AV14 powered down it's warp drive as it came into the Sol system on a slight ecliptic near the asteroid belt. T̶r̶a̶l̶i̶a̶ Scotty is taking a turn on the bridge at this time and sees two ships that are not broadcasting transponder codes appear on the navigation array, guns blazing.

How will you react to the loss of a crew member and what impacts will the lack of a science officer have in this dog fight?

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

Previous: Fleeing The Hole

Next: Crew Quantity -20%

#Team High Turnover Rate started to talk down the Celonian artificial conscience before being ambushed by Hannah Boucher showed with a crew of technicians and very heavily armed and armored Southern Alliance trooper. The only reason anyone survived was because Scotty the red shirt managed to finally be useful in the fight and deal one point of damage.

We picked up with the conversation with hologram dude. He thinks the Meridath War is still going on like those Japanese soldiers marooned on islands after world war ii. You tried to convince him that you are not on the Meridath side but he pulls up DNA from the samples he took and compares them to DNA from the Meridath. There is a large amount of similarities scattered throughout your strands. You guys remembered he said there was also celonian so he pulled that up as well next to them. The celonian portions were more discreet and grouped together but despite that there was still less than the Meridath portions. He starts running simulations backward through time trying to figure stuff out. The celonian appears around ~50-80k years ago. The meridath pieces in your DNA slowly coalesce into large chunks of pure meridath genetic code about 200-250k years ago. 

He says "meridath uplifted" and starts to get hostile again. You again press that the war is over and it doesn't really matter. He wants some form of proof. You say it ended about 10,000 years ago so he powers up a sensor array that looked very unused and again rapidly watches through years of recorded information. You saw him zoom in and look at a bunch of supernova and black hole formation in the 100k-10k (ish) range. There was a lot near what corresponds to the end of the war and then few and far between after. He shuts down the stellar collapse system as he's looking through this star record. There is also a large metallic clunk through the station while he was reviewing this.

Very shortly thereafter Hannah and her crew arrive. She orders the technicians to get the data and the trooper to "destroy them." A fight immediately breaks out. You guys take a couple shots at the trooper as the technicians move up to the consoles. Jerzac Scarlewe sends a grenade at the two technicians at the main console killing them, hurting Tralia Lightfoot, and damaging the main computer core. Hologram guy shouts no and the gravity of the station is suddenly doubled.

Trooper calmly shoots tralia and almost kills her in one salvo so she's running away to hide and heal. The captain demoralizes the trooper, Bash takes a couple ineffectual shots, and Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss focuses on the trooper. 

Next 2 round were much the same. Hologram started venting the station, the station started to shake, Hannah made Bash off target, the captain calmly lights a Lho stick to numb the pain of a brutal hit he took, and Scotty starts pulling data off the computer himself. The remaining SoAll tech and Boucher start to run after grabbing the data

Then the gravity went away and the radiation started becoming a threat. The crew had to deal with disadvantageous positions while the trooper had his jump jets to maneuver however he wished. He would duck in and out of cover taking devastating shots or throwing a grenade. Rocket was able to calmly wait for a target and deal some serious damage to him. During the first exposure of radiation about half the crew started feeling the effects of radiation poison and they only went downhill from there.

Seeing the threat the crew makes the wise move of trying to run (drift) for their ship. The trooper pursued them laying low the captain along the way. Part way down the hallway heavy gravity returns and everyone slammed to the ground. The captain was able to return to consciousness and continue stumbling away. The debilitated bash fired some shots that hurt him more than the enemy. Tralia and Rocket get on the ship. 

The trooper turns the corner and shoots the captain in the back as he's running away. Bash weakly lifts his gun to take a final shot before falling unconscious. Tralia thought a little longer than she should have about just shooting the ship guns to end the threat at the cost of two of her crew members. The trooper makes a final shot destroying part of rockets prosthetic leg when Scotty comes around the bend of the corridor and takes the final shot to end the threat.

The crew (you guys should pick a group name sometime) now has some sweet loot and a new level as they prepare for potential starship combat in a system where the sun is still under threat of going supernova.

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

Previous: Baby's First Torture Session

Next: TPK Razor's Edge

Our intrepid H̶e̶r̶o̶e̶s̶ bloodthirsty murder hobos survived their first starship combat only to find themselves a butt puckeringly short distance from a soon to be collapsing star.

The recently arrived Sahjon destroyer declared the The Hole system in lockdown. All vessels were to immediately power down all systems except life support and await boarding. as a show of force they destroyed a cargo vessel that had previously been tried in absentia in a league court for smuggling of Meridath artifacts.

Jerzac Scarlewe knew that if the sahjon found possessed the coordinates you would be quickly executed. Skillful piloting by Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss allowed Acquisition Vessel 14 to avoid notice for 2 rounds. Bash must have sneezed and inadvertently fired a torpedo off into the debris field which alerted the sahjon interceptors to the Vessel's presence.

The interceptors took turns hammering your ship while you raced towards the edge of the gravity well. Not long before you were able to warp, the destroyer peeked around the debris field and raked your stern with laser fire. The attacks devastated your sensor array, damaged your turret, and left you warping out with a hull that was starting to look like swiss cheese.

You took a break in your warp travel to repair the ship. Through some skillful engineering from Scotty and Tralia Lightfoot the crew was able to fully repair the ship.

At the end of your 20 day journey, you cautiously dropped your warp field to view what should have been an empty void of space. Instead you find a massive gravity well, no visible light, and an odd infrared reading. After another warp closer you discovered this stretch of space contained a Sol sized star surrounded by a dyson sphere with a small station tethered to the sphere.

On the final approach, Scotty determined the station was being ripped apart by the gravitational forces and then a further inspection revealed the more pressing concern was the stars corona leaking through the dyson sphere. The station has roughly 2 hours to live.

After docking with a huge rent in the station, Scotty skillfully bypassed the archaic Celonian interface on one of doors. Environmental pressure, temperature, and gravity lower than humans prefer greeted you. 

The party travelled along the outer corridor of the cylindrical station until they reached another corridor going towards the center. After turning down the corridor they notice a plaque on the wall. After a bit of puzzling out, Tralia and Jerzac realize 1) this archaic celonian says "wall of dead suns: fortification 8749" and 2) the text looks like cuneiform, the oldest writing on earth. 

Finally the party reached the core of the station. It was a large cylindrical void with yet another cylinder in the center connected by a platform and catwalks. Looking down you could see large window showing the dyson sphere.

Just as Scotty stepped in to go after the core computer, a large hologram of a celonian appeared before them. It said (as near as I can remember and you could translate) "What....these?" Bash and tralia failed to avoid needles taking blood samples. After lightning fast analysis it said "intersting.....old traces.....meridath....celonian.  Who....side......war.....meridath or celonian?" Bash elegantly said neither. Hologram dude retorted with "stellar collapse initiating."

How will our level 1 H̶e̶r̶o̶e̶s̶ bloodthirsty murder hobos survive basically standing on a collapsing star?

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

Previous: So It Begins

Next: Fleeing The Hole

Jerzac Scarlewe broke 2 of Nari pak Cordona's fingers to convince her to unlock the case. He also had Scotty injected "explosive nanobots" to ensure the proper attitude. She remotely opened her ship for Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss to send the decryption key back. 

Key in hand Bash was invited back into the hotel room. He was given full authority to do whatever he pleased with Nari if anything happened while the case was opened. This was enough incentive for Nari to stop the crew just prior to opening the case. The code must start with the 3rd number in the string or it would detonate. After opening the case and acquiring the coordinates the case was rearmed while the crew prepared for the transaction. Jerzac, Bash, and Scotty were in the Tavern with Nari, Tralia Lightfoot waited in Nari's ship to tie up loose ends, and Rocket had your ship on hot standby.

Hannah Boucher and her 2 bodyguards arrived and performed the handoff quickly and efficiently. Once the SoAll personnel took flight the tavern crew left with Nari. Long spacing in the street allowed your captive to take a sharp turn and sprint toward the security force building shouting "Bounty hunters!"

A short chase ensued to the star port with the security forces taking fairly ineffectual pot shots. In the mayhem Tralia took some shots at Nari's ship and one at the security guards obliterating part of their number. As Jerzac boarded the ship he turned on the comm jammer. 

After take off a fuel tank was detonated which incapacitated Nari's ship. After the communication jammer was turned off decryption codes were exchanged with the SoAll contingent. You decided to wait until you were in orbit to attempt to open your briefcase with the money. Once an orbit a scan revealed the SoAll ship emitting a gout of flame from a cargo bay and the heavy gravity signature of a warp drive coming into system. The grav spike dropped  and revealed a Sahjon Destroyer, the military force that hunts down and destroys artifacts from the Meridath War.

You now have 1 very angry Niterian, 1 SoAll ship/crew, 1 pirate community, and possibly 1 advanced alien ship VERY ANGRY with you

Contract: Reclamation of Auctioned Goods

FIRST SESSION

Next: Baby's First Torture Session

#Team High Turnover Rate was dropped into the only tavern (has no name beyond Hole Tavern) in The Hole. Arriving one day before the hand off. Through talking with the barkeeper they found that the seller, Nari pak Cordona, comes through irregularly but has a reservation for the next couple of evenings. Roquesta (Rocket) Strauss stayed behind to chat up the bartender (Shodri) while the rest of the party went to the star port.

At the star port the traffic controllers gave similar information as Shodri. He was offered a 10 credit  bribe to report when Nari or Hannah Boucher landed. Jerzac Scarlewe  also stayed behind to watch as additional assurance. They investigated the warehouse complex. Tralia Lightfoot debated stealing from a shopkeeper that sells exotic furs such as polar bear hides that were artificially resurrected from extinction for that purpose.

Bash, Tralia, and Scotty return to the tavern to catch up the rather intoxicated Rocket. Together they discuss various plans with varying degrees of murder and kidnapping. They decide to get a comm jammer (generously paid for by the captain at 80 cred). Jerzac reports that Nari landed and was heading to the tavern. Radio silence from the traffic controller.

Nari arrives and goes to her room. Jerzac rejoins the party. With the captain back, cooler heads prevail and the plan turns to just sedation vs murder. The rest of the party pools together to get a dose of sedative.

Nothing interesting overnight.

Morning comes. Party attempts to get a hold of Nari's breakfast to dose her. Shodri shuts that down.

Tralia goes upstairs in wait with the sedative in a syringe. Nari heads up after breakfast and Rocket follows.

There was a brief struggle while the sedative took effect.

Nari's room was tossed, finding a brief case with a numeric input and a bio-scanner and items on her person. Conspicuously nothing else.

Nari regains enough consciousness to whisper. She offered to give the code if SamTech paid the purchase price. Reveals the bio-scanner is a dead mans trap.

Rocket leaves to warm up the ship for fast take off while the party devolves back to various levels of murder and kidnapping.

Shortly before entering the star port, Rocket turns a corner and passes right past a woman matching the buyer's description and 2 men.