”Hack, what are you doing making fun of my sidekick? I’m know you are upset that you don’t have one, but that doesn’t mean you treat mine unkindly. Listen, friend, when we get back to Absalom station we can go sidekick shopping together. I promise you that we will find just the right kind for you.”
"Quit bickerin'," Booker barks. "So this place's a ship. Alright. Prob'ly the Devastation Ark. How d'we shut it down?"
"We got doors north an' south, too. Worth a look."
"North first."
Booker gives the northern doors a look-see.
Hack-It laughs hard, holding his gut. "Sidekick! I love it, Gig! That's a keeper."
Shaking his head but still smiling, the mechanic and his drone head towards the northern door. They keep a few paces back from Booker as he checks the door.
The door is safe, so in the party goes. This vault-like room thrums with the vibration of massive machines working together in perfect sync. Tall, blocky objects made of a strange black metal jut alternately from the chamber’s opposing walls, forming a tight grid throughout most of the room. Blue and orange lights blink intermittently from the metal objects’ displays as these computers carry out their silent tasks. The acrid odor of burning plastic permeates the stifling air.
"Oh look, more computers," Hack-It says with a knowing smirk. "Yeah yeah, I'm on it. But maybe someone should look into what's causing that smell."
He moves in and looks to determine what the computers are doing and tries to gain access.
”Out of the way! It’s my turn to push buttons!”
Gig attempts to access the computer system.
Stepping in the room makes it immediately obvious that something is wrong. The air is HOT, and were it not for the environmental protections on your armor, you'd likely be in danger of burning. It looks like something is causing the computers here to overheat.
Both ysoki see a pictogram of fire on the displays. It appears that the issues throughout the "ship" might stem from this.
BEFORE the computer skills are rolled, I'll take an Engineering check to ferret out the problem.
Hack-It, a master engineer, works to ferret out the problem.
Like a ferret, Gig works out the problem.
"Are you trying to use a pointed laser driver to work on that? That's such a rookie mistake. You may as well try and use your finger!"
Hack-it gets his finger stuck in a panel, and yanks it out, mucking a whole bunch of stuff up. Gig, however, finds a clogged filter system and clears it out. Before long the system alarms cease, and the terminal comes to life.
There are a lot of options here:
Janzi is quickly bored by the computers and the dueling ysoki, and subsequently he's quickly bored looking around.
Janzi looks around the room, even behind the back row of servers. The brittle but preserved bodies of two bantrids rest in the corner. Each is clad in an elite hardlight series suit of armor and carries a perihelion laser pistol. One of the bantrids wears an ornate pendant of polished agate that radiates magic.
Janzi looks over the items.
With Munro rolling, he stage-whispers, Two bantrids. Preserved as though through burial rites. Curiouser and curiouser.
Meanwhile he tucks away one of the pistols and ponders the armor, trying to decide if bantrid stains are easy to remove.
Janzi determines that the ornate pendant of polished agate functions as a mk 3 ability crystal.
Hack-It grumbles at Gig but doesn't say much more. He accesses the quantum communications interface...
... and after a few moments lets Gig at it. "Nothing interesting there. I'll check out the security module."
The mechanic then looks over the data on that system.
"Don't think they've been given burial rites," Booker says to Janzi, doing his own checking around. "Maybe left fer dead, but I ain't callin' that a rite."
Hack-it is almost disappointed at the lack of security here. It's like they didn't at ALL expect unauthorized users.
Hack-it does notice a blip on the map that appears a little while later. There's something activated in the power core cavern... It looks large, but not huge. The display doesn't give more information than that.
No one else finds anything of note in the room.
"Didja shut down the comms array thingy?" Booker asks.
Janzi determines that the ornate pendant of polished agate functions as a mk 3 ability crystal.
Janzi hands the crystal over to Gig and passively nods to Booker, in stark contrast to the way he actively ignores Hack-It.
Gig continues to work on the Quantum Communications
"I think this is a homing message, likely sent to a preprogrammed location. I also think that “Ark Prime” is the name of some kind of vessel. If you want, I can use this module to disable further incoming and outgoing quantum communications."
Booker nods. "Do it."
Gig takes Booker's advice and proceeds to disable the quantum communications.
"Hack it?! What did you do to this? I had it all figured out until you started playing with this!"
"Oh, you're blaming me for what you screwed up eh?" Hack-It snipes back. "Guess if it doesn't play chords you don't know how it works."
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Booker takes a long draw on a cigarette and talks over his shoulder to Janzi. "Doc, you wanna look at those two? They used t'be good at this kinda stuff."
Janzi nods and makes a perfunctory examination of Gig, and makes a great production of scratching his head before brightening. Gig! Try a new stick of gum!
Turning to Hack-It, he continues. And stick the old wad in this one's mouth.
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"Right," Booker mutters to Dunklezahn, stamping out the cigarette with his boot. "Forgot he's a crap doctor, too."
Booker takes a long draw on a cigarette and talks over his shoulder to Janzi. "Doc, you wanna look at those two? They used t'be good at this kinda stuff."
After a little more time, the communications on this ship have been stopped, and it appears that there's nothing left of interest here.
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"Janzi, I think you are right. I've been chewing on this piece far too long. I knew you would make a useful sidekick! Here, Hack, this is for you." He offers his ysoki friend his used piece of gum.
No, no, no, Janzi says, gently laying his hand on Gig's arm as he casts remove affliction. You'll need to shove it in his cheek pouch!
Satisfied with the seed implanted in Gig's mind, he casts another spell — restoration this time — as he sits back to watch.
All of the missing information in Gig's memory comes rushing back. It's a surreal feeling, and kinda tickles a bit.
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Hack-It doesn't blink, taking the pre-chewed gum and popping it into his mouth.
"Let's keep moving." Booker heads over to the southern doors and gives them a look-see.
Southern door seems perfectly fine.
Booker opens it.
This room is identical to the port side. The systems here seem to be devoted to other things. The terminal has a beautiful looking abstract crystaline statue atop it. Janzi and Gig confirm it's magical.
Access to this module allows you to change the lighting on the Worldseed’s decks (currently set to darkness) and control the power to various equipment in specific areas of the ship.
There are many documents found within these files, a LOT of documents.
Millions of years ago, a war between sivvs and kishalee ranged across multiple star systems and lasted for centuries, culminating in the creation of a sivv doomsday weapon known as the Stellar Degenerator. The Sivv Dominion’s greatest military accomplishment ultimately proved to be its undoing when kishalee operatives located the weapon, captured it, and managed to hide it from its sivv creators within a secret demiplane. With nearly all their resources thrown into the development of the Stellar Degenerator, the Sivv Dominion’s economy and defenses soon fell into shambles. The Dominion was eventually defeated, but not before a sivv military leader launched a last-ditch effort to preserve their civilization.
Located on a forlorn and icy planet at the edge of the Sivv Dominion, Commandant Vheiransch’s remote military facility desperately raced against time. The highly decorated and respected Vheiransch had feared the worst when their government began the creation of the Stellar Degenerator. As a failsafe, they devised a scheme to save the Dominion in the event of defeat.
Cannibalizing resources from past projects, Vheiransch’s inventive team managed to build two massive generation ships that could travel undetected through “quantum hyperspace,” a sivv discovery for faster-than-light travel. The first, Ark Prime, would act as a forward scout, searching for suitable locations to colonize. It had the capacity to carry hundreds of sivv soldiers in stasis alongside sivv scientists and engineers capable of analyzing and terraforming newly conquered planets. The second ship was even larger, approximately the size of a small moon, and aptly named Worldseed. This vessel was large and versatile enough to transport construction equipment, terraforming machines, and siege engines, but it could still be disassembled into raw resources if necessary. In addition, the Worldseed was designed to hold many of species the Dominion enslaved.
With the capture of the Stellar Degenerator, Commandant Vheiransch accelerated their project’s timeline, rightly sensing they were losing the war. Vheiransch gathered as many sivvs as they could on Ark Prime before the vessel launched into quantum hyperspace. Unfortunately, building the Worldseed to Vheiransch’s specifications proved a far more difficult task. The quantum drive required to transport a ship undetected over great distances constantly malfunctioned within the larger craft. Vheiransch and a small team of engineers stayed behind to finish the Worldseed’s quantum drive, but their slaves—small, wheeled creatures the Pact Worlds would eventually come to know as bantrids—revolted. The attempted uprising was quick and bloody, but the bantrids managed to sabotage the facility’s reactor in the ensuing chaos. The resulting explosion and radiation killed everyone in the facility except for a group of bantrids laboring within the Worldseed and Vheiransch’s elite squad of scientists, who were protected within the facility’s innermost nexus. In their final act, the bantrid rebel leader launched, the Worldseed into space on a random heading.
However, the Worldseed’s quantum hyperspace engines were still unfinished. Those bantrids within the hull had no choice but to place themselves in stasis, knowing the pods would erase their memories—a common practice used on slaves of the Sivv Dominion. These bantrid survivors hoped that one day, someone kinder than the species that enslaved them would awaken them.
Millions of years passed. The Worldseed eventually drifted into the prehistorical Golarion system and was caught in the orbit of the gas giant Liavara. For thousands of years, the Worldseed gathered cosmic dust and other debris around it, becoming indistinguishable from a regular moon. The massive ship’s true purpose and its sleeping passengers remained a mystery. A little under five years ago, some of the sivv stasis technology inside the Worldseed.
"Want me to turn the ugly lights on?"
"Sure," Booker shrugs. "Maybe shut down wverythin' else though."
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Hack-it flips a LOT of switches. Pretty much everyone is sure he flipped more than he needed to, and Dunklezahn definitely watched him flip the same switch 4 times....
It worked, Janzi says, cos it's obvious you're ugly.
To the others, he says, Should we get outta here?
”Okay, I’ve got the information out of these machines. I think I’m set to go. Where to next?”
Fate itself answers Gig's question. There's a massive crash from the massive power chamber. Leaning out to look, it appears that the last defense of the Worldseed is fully powered up. Roughly the size of a hover bike, it's quickly making its way to the bridge. Given the avalanche-class zero rifle mounted dorsally, you don't think it's here to serve tea.
Round 1:
Dunklezahn: Go
Booker: Go
Hostile: TBD
Gig: TBD
Hack-it: TBD
Janzi: TBD
Dunklezahn charges towards the robot, but misses on both swings. The spidery arms, wrapped around the gangway, make it pretty nimble.
Round 1:
Dunklezahn: Misses
Booker: Go
Hostile: TBD
Gig: TBD
Hack-it: TBD
Janzi: TBD
"Man, they didn't skimp on these things, did they?" Booker sighs, opening fire with his X-gen gun, newly mounted at the shoulder.
Booker's opening salvo scores a single hit, and a light one at that, if the size of the damage if an indicator.
With Dunklezahn holding down the advance, the robot directs its two forward appendiges to strike Dunk. They accelerate with shocking speed, as Dunk takes a hit with more force than he's accustomed.
MISS
for
All eyes turn towards the vesk...
Round 1:
Dunklezahn: Misses
Booker: Hit
Hostile: ATK
Gig: Go
Hack-it: Go
Janzi: Go
Robot: 25