Seeing the sorry shape the alien is in Prospero lines up another shot and hits the alien right in what could be its neck. The large monster spasms and rears back, propelled by the force of the blast to fall back in slow motion before finally landing on the rocky ground with a large puff of ash that takes quite a while to settle down.
There is stillness again.
"Pew!" Leila sighs and lowers her gun once it becomes apparent that the skreelsire isn't just playing dead or something. The curious halfing then inches closer to get a better look at the corpse, but halts and turns around. "Oh Cueta and Astri - are you okay? And Astri *uh* do you feel like yourself again?"
"No!" Astrianna says pointedly over their comms before being wracked by a painful-sounding cough. "I think that thing broke one of my ribs...Ugh."
Dramatically clutching her side, she hobbles over to a nearby rock and gingerly sits down. "I need to rest for a bit... and take some healing serum."
She briefly digs around in their Durasynth (Tm) napsack that she carried their medical supplies in before taking out two serums and sequentically jacking them into the "medicinals" port of her armor located near her abdomen.
Sighing with relief as her chest stop hurting so badley, she shoots Leila an icy glance. "Why didn't you tackle me or something? Since when do I try to dive nose-first in green pools of acid without making sure someone is getting at least two other recorded angles first?"
As some of the group rests the other look around. The body has an amulet with the now familiar symbol of the Devourer on it. There's also a satchel settled next to the corpse on the right side of the ledge containing a hefty collection of various rare coins. They look valuable
Cueta and Leila also discover a trap door hidden two metrons away from the acid pool. Astrianna was sitting on it.
Leila sits down on a nearby rock so she could watch both Astri and the corpse.
When the half-elf glares at her she shudders a bit. "I tried! It's just.. *uh*" The halfling held out her arms to the side. She quickly corrected herself and raised one to the sky and the other towards the ground. "Just that you are pretty big I-mean-huge. Tall! You never think of that do you? Maybe you should leave the jerky to me? No?"
"Oooh! Look! A trapdoor! Wasn't easy to find because you know..." The halfling pointed at the trap-door and then gave the sitter-of-doors an apologetic smile.
"I apologize, Astrianna. I was not paying attention, nor did I detect anything out of ordinary in your behavioral patterns."
Prospero-4 reloads a fresh battery into his weapon, and moves to examine the corpse. Judging by the wounds, the cultist probably fell victim to this Skreesire. But no clues how many more cultists there would be around here.
"Whenever you have adequately rested, Astrianna, please get up and step side. As Leila pointed out, we should investigate that trapdoor you are sitting on."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Astrianna regards Leila with her arms crossed, foot tapping against the ground with enough force to cause small puffs of dust to rise off of the rocky surface. "Huge?! I'll have you kno-" The half-elf's rant is cut off when they point out there is a trap door under her butt, and she leans back to look at the outline with a confused expression.
"Well the only reason we found this trapdoor is because I sat on it. Must have been my elven instincts. They say an elf can see a hidden door plain as the sun from ten metrons!" She seems very proud of herself, sitting on the trapdoor like a roosting hen.
It seems obscurity was the main protection that the hidden door as, once found, it is easy enough to open. It slides back to reveal a tunnel that looks like an abandoned mining shaft with a ladder descending down into the interior of the asteriod.
The tunnel, its unworked stone walls reinforced by concrete and steel beams, is dark and oppressive and feels claustrophobic to everyone other than Leila. Soon enough though it opens up into a severe chamber crafted of metal and concrete. A wide sliding door stands in the far wall of the room, rust dappling its edges like rotten lace. A single light above the doorway flickers weakly.
Prospero-4 follows Cueta in silence. While he is no stranger to tight and narrow corridors, the extra bulk from his powered armor adds some difficulty in maneuvering here.
He gets closer to the door to study if the opening mechanism is still functional - and while he's at it, he also checks that the cultist have not left any nasty surprises on it.
"See? This is what I mean!" Leila points out when the others have to avoid banging their heads into things.
Astrianna grumbles something to Leila that can't be quite understood, possibly because she doesn't wish to alienate her halfling viewership, but whatever it was it was definitely rude.
She stands back while Prospero checks the door for surprises, impatiently tapping her foot.
Prospero-4 moves forward and examines the door. He doesn't find anything untoward. However as soon as Cueta steps up behind him a gentle green mist starts to spray from a vent in the ceiling, it descends on Leila, Cueta, and Prospero-4, barely missing Astrianna as she brings up the rear. The mist turns out to be very very fine spores that insidiously worm their ways past the breathing filters of the three's armor and all three start to feel dizzy and disoriented. Cueta is able to force the fuzziness away but Prospero-4 and Leila just can't shake it.
Prospero-4 does realize though that they are in an airlock. The way ahead will require either mechanical trickery to get past or brute strength to force open.
Despite being unable to concentrate fully Prospero-4 and Leila, with an assist from Astrianna are able to disable the locking mechanism and start the airlock cycle sequence. The door behind them slides closed and the air pressure in the lock increases to match the atmosphere further in rather than that of the asteroid exterior.
The door slides open smoothly. Rivted walls of steel around the airlock hatch extend into a cavernous gloom. It is dark. At the chamber's center stands a wide computer console that practically stretches to the ceiling. Rows of grimy buttons frame its blank display screen from which emnates the faintest of glows.
Cueta cocks her head and silently watches as her companions struggle with the spores, her hand slowly inching towards her doshko. She'd feel terrible if they were impregnated (having been there), and would feel even worse if they got turned into zombies or possessed or something and she had to put them down.
Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case.
In the chamber with the console, she whispers, "I can light the room up, chinney? Just say the word."
"*Cough* Bleh!" Leila flails around, trying to somehow wave away the spores despite the fact that they now seems to be inside her suit.
---
Once inside the secret asteroid lair Leila tries her best to focus on the task at hand. Figuring out where they were; and what. "Oh. Hmm. What-do-ya-think? It looks like an evil outpost of some sort. A place to receive the coordinates and transmit further; either by courier or ... Hmm Probably by courier."
She couldn't see any sort of broadcasting system so she imagined the cultists have simply transferred the information further by ship. Though to be fair she couldn't see much at all. And she really wasn't sure if Cueta's 'light up' would be *just* illumination or pyrotechnics as well. Hesitantly she asked her giant friend. "Astri do your elven senses see anything in here?"
"That was unfortunate... Leila, let me know if you manage to analyse this spore infection." the android asks, he himself having no clue what just happened.
"Are evil outposts different from good outposts?" Prospero-4 asks in a serious tone, as he walks further into the revealed room. He walks around the console to check that there are no enemies lurking in the shadows. And then, like a moth attracted to light, he moves to the computer and starts to see what he can learn from the device.
"Well this one glows red. I mean, if it wasn't some world ending cult, they'd probably use real lighting right?"
Astrianna flinches backwards as a green mist descends on the hallway, and she's really glad she wasn't in it. "Ewwggghh what the hells was that?" She says with a mixture of concern and disgust.
As they try to open up the air lock, Prospero and Leila are discussing something about seals and servos or some kind of nerd garbage and Astrianna decides to deal with it herself- the only way anything gets done around here. She gives the door a swift kick, then stands by with a smug look on her face as the locking mechanism disables.
A whistle is heard over their coms as the massive computer comes into view between the doors. "Elf senses are negative, unfortunately. They don't work on advanced technology." She says with a shake of her head. "But my Astri senses tell me that is one evil outpost." Her sentiments echo Leila's words without the slightest bit of recognition the halfling said them first.
"Yeah, give us some light Cueta. I didn't drop 10 grand on this camera rig strapped to my forehead so my viewers could watch grainy footage of Propero's ass." A slight pause follows.
"My metrics show they want well-lit footage of his ass, is what I'm saying." She clarifies matter-of-factly.
To make her point, she follows behind Prospero until they reach the computer, at which she tries to help him with the system by pointing out things he probably already knew.
Indeed Prospero is able to access the computer system with little trouble even without Astrianna's help.
Within he finds lighting controls, access controls for the entrance, and two secured modules. One is marked Entrance Deterrent, while the other says Chamber of Devouring.
Prospero tries to unlock these modules but almost trips an unexpected failsafe that Astrianna and Leila are able to point out to him.
The modules turn out to be simple controls of remote devices. They can be toggled on and off.
Tapping the end of her doshko, Cueta grins as it flares to light, banishing the darkness to the end of the room.
Cueta looks over everyone's shoulder as they do their egghead thing, flipping her concentration from the computery stuff to points of entry and back again. One module name catches her eye.
"I'd toggle that one - Chamber of Devouring - off, yeah?" she offers, before turning her attention back surveying entryways.
"They built this whole system for two toggles switches? Though The Chamber of Devouring sounds pretty ominous. I can see why they'd want that one behind a firewall." With a shrug, the half-elf gestures for Prospero to turn both of the switches off.
Cueta's spell does light up the scene but that hardly improves matters. This is not a cheerful place.
Behind the computer half a dozen tiered pillars are interspersed throughout this wide hallway, which ends in a concave wall made of plated steel. A strange pile of body parts and viscera lies next to the easternmost pillar.
The tiered pillars are 2 metrons tall and constructed of treated adamantine alloy. They're very very shiny for some reason.
Your armor sensors indicate that the atmosphere is safe to remove your helmets if you should so desire.
Approaching the weird pile of eviscerated body parts fills Cueta with a sense of revulsion over and above even what she would normally feel at such a horrible scene. Her growing ease with the supernatural allows her to identify why she feels repelled. The remains aren't of a formerly living creature... But an undead one. The only thing that survived whatever happened to it is a shoulder patch that looks vaguely military in nature.
The only way forward is two doors from the pillar area. One to the north and another to the south. Both lead to the same place.
A long, curving, claustrophobic hallway suffused with cloying gloom. A red light on the western wall blinks slowly, giving the scene a sinister atmosphere. There are doors on the north and the south side. Four each.
"Undead? Can we trust these ones to stay down?" Prospero-4 says, keeping his distance to the pile of body parts.
In the curving hallway, the android tries to ignore the blinking light - although it is quite unnerving even for a synthetic creature such as himself. "Is that some alarm signal? Because of us? Or did something happen here before our arrival."
With so many option on where to go, he navigates to the door on the far right on the northern wall. "Start here, and continue counter-clockwise?"
"Eww. This looks nasty!" Leila exclaims as the scene is illuminated. Needless to say, she keeps her helmet on. Didn't want to smell whatever this place smelled like. Or any other nasty things.
"I think you are right Prospero. Hmm. I wonder what. Maybe someone also figured out the broadcast coordinates and got here first? Or internal disagreement..."
"Counter-clockwise sounds as good as any!"
Astrianna grimaces at the undead, which is little more than a pile of chunks. "Looks like the Eoxians didn't get a warm welcome from the cultists after all."
She shrugs at the android's suggestion. "Sure, whatever. I was just going to start opening random doors." Still. she was prepared for danger and hefts her disintegration pistol.
Minimalist sleeping pallets lie on the severe metal floor of these interconnected rooms, and simple shelves and dressers serve as furniture.
Strange iconography is scattered throughout them, from profane altars made of skulls to metal sculptures depicting swirling shapes tinged with some dark, foul substance. Strange garbled phrases are written in a variety of colored paints on several walls.The graffiti on the walls is written in Abyssal.
Although the graffiti is scrawled in different handwriting and is sometimes presented out of order, the writing essentially repeats the phrase “The Entropy of Existence is known.”
The dresser in the northwest corner of area B6b is locked.
As soon as the group sets foot in the room to the east however a pair of security robots activate and train their eyes on Cueta who is, of course, in the lead.
B6
Cueta tugs on the dresser door , and finding it locked, shrugs and mouths locked, yeah?, figuring the others may have a way to open it.
Moving further, the pilot crouches and searches through some of the discarded clothes littering the floor, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she pulls a thin white plastic card from a pant pocket. Turning it over, Cueta examines it - passcard? ID? - before tossing it to the others for their perusal.
Next, Cueta moves onto the sleeping pallets, turning them over and running her hand along the backs of the frames. One pallet turns up a datapad and credstick. Passing it onto Leila, it proves easy enough to hack. Among the mundane data files, electronic messages, gaming applications, and other files on the datapad is a single video file labeled “Do Not Delete,” In the video, a verthani seems to be teaching a gnome initiate the mantras and rituals of the cult of the devourer. They keep on chanting Nyara Knows! Nyara Knows! NYARA KNOWS!
B7
As the robots whirl to life, Cueta steps around the one next to her, placing herself between the two 'bots, her curveblade already in her hand. With a quick twist of her arm, she brings the blade at the robot, trying to pierce its metal casing...
B6
"Why are you mouthing words?" Astrianna chides Cueta when she sees the woman's lips moving. "This is a private comm channel, no one can hear you but us!"
Lifting a hand, she catches the white tag with a raised eyebrow, looking it over. "Besides, I need you to talk so I can isolate your audio later and make a coherent episode out of this little cultist cleansing adventure." She squirrels the ID or whatever into their plasteel bag and watches the weird video.
"Hey I think I've seen this before! It's-" Astrianna excitedly exclaims before changing her mind and dismissively waving her hand. "Wait, nevermind. Different death cult."
B7
The two bots springing to life gives Astrianna some excitement. "Ooh! There must be something good in here! Yeah, scrap those bots Cueta!" The half-elf encourages her companion while moving around to get a view of the action.
"Guard bots! Bleh!" Leila comments as Cueta tries to cleave them up. The halfling takes a moment to try and concentrate to remember what she'd seen on Battle Bots before trying to zap them herself!
"Hmm, where are all the cultists..?"
But Prospero-4 doesn't have much time to wonder about this, as Cueta is already engaging with some guard bots. Almost feeling some pity for his less sentient brethren, he follows Cueta into the room and opens fire.
Astrianna is just able to see the one that Cueta attacked though it does have soft cover from everyone outside the room
Leila moves ahead of her and sees the same. She recognizes them as standard patrol class robots and knows 4 things about them.
She's unable to distract the creature though she does land a hit on it that seems to cause it to spasm a little bit as the electricity arcs through it.
Cueta's blade almost clangs off the armor, but Astrianna's command irritates her just enough to put more force into it to leave a sparking gash.
Prospero-4's fire hits the same robot square on. The three attacks leave it looking quite the worse for wear but don't put it down.
Both robots, acting in sync raise one of their limbs and an arc of electricity shoot out from both. They both leap from Prospero to Cueta to Leila to Astrianna. All four of the group are able to dodge to avoid the worst of it though
Cueta had to hand it to their Captain - like most good bosses, she knew how to be irritatingly motivational. Or motivationally irritating? Pulling the curveblade back, Cueta gives the robot two more quick stabs. The first shunts off the 'bot's plating with a ringing clang, but with the second thrust, Cueta finds a wedge...
"Owie!" Leila yelped and leaped in the air. Though it turned out to be more from shock then actual damage. Still - very unpleasant. So it would only be fair that she went to zap them right back!
Cueta's sword thrust seems to do good damage but Leila's blast causes something to spark the wrong way. There's a mini internal explosion in the robot's torso that sends it flying back as all of its lights dim.
Prospero-4 releases his right hand from his rifle, takes a couple of running steps towards the standing robot, and punches it with the fist of his powered armor.
The force of the punch rocks the robot backwards. It's targeting sensors refocus on Prospero-4.
Though no one could see it, Astrianna sticks out her tongue at an angle while aiming her highly dangerous disintegration pistol between the tiny gap presented by Prospero's hulking frame and the door.
Frustrated at not being able to get a clear shot, she decides to solve the problem with a well-placed command from the team captain!
"Prospero, duck!" Is yelled over their comms right before she pulls the trigger.
Astrianna moves to the doorway to see what else is happening inside the room just in time to see a second robot get knocked by a punch from the power armored Android of the group. She shouts a command and aims her pistol but before she can get a shot off the robot retaliates with a punch of his own... which rebounds with a metallic thud off of Prospero's armor. The stream of destructive energies she unleashes almost hits Prospero in the helmet but instead splashes over the robot. Quite a lot of its carapace starts to melt and fuse as the acid eats into it.
Cueta's head jerks around as Prospero charges past her, power armor landing a solid blow. "Oy, that's it, yeah!" Stepping up to the 'bot, Cueta slashes at it with the curveblade...
Leila dashes into the room, trying to get a clear shot with her zapper.
Cueta takes another good chunk out of the robot while Leila, even though she is able to confuse its twitching visual sensor, sends her arc of electricity flying very wide.
”Let’s finish this! “ Prospero-4 grunts, and continues the fight a combination of right-handed punch and a heavy kick.
Prospero-4's kick slams into the robot sending it flying backwards and crumpling against a wall. Cueta and Prospero note that one of the panels of the wall shifts unexpectedly, as if it was attached to the wall rather than a part of it. There's something fishy there. Liela and Prospero are able to find the activation sequence and the damaged panel jerkily slides back to reveal a brand new set of golemforged III plating with jump jets installed!
The rest of the shevles in the room holds two d-suits I, two estex suits II, two sets of kasatha microcord II, and a ysoki refractor suit. All of which are broken along with being distastefully decorated with skulls, fangs, and other symbols of the Devourer. THe golemforged III apparently is too new to have gotten either the destruction or graffiti treatment. The armor could be repaired if you had the proper equipment, such as a tech workshop but of course the Starship Maiden has no such module.
Going back through the sleeping area Prosper and Liela are also able to open the locked drawer which reveals an injection glove weapon with 2 doses of a purplish liquid which Leila identifies as being insanity mist. The glove was meant to be the delivery system of the biological weapon.
From there the group passes to the nortwest room which turns out to be a mess with several patnry shelves, four flat utilitarian stove units and cheap looking round metal tables and chairs. The shelves hold mostly dry and preserved foods. You could prepare a pretty decent meal here or assemble the goods into some ready to go R2E meal packets.
South of here is a sterile room. Looming over the west side is a floor to ceiling computer console that swallow the entire wall with dizzying displays of darkened screens, inset buttons, levers, and switches. A squat, bony, reptilian creature is slumped over in a congealed puddle of blood in front of the consoles as is another in the opposite corner.