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.