Leila grabs her gear and eagerly hops out on this strange new world as soon as Prospero confirms the structural integrity. After all if it held the power armoured android (and the ship!) it should have no trouble keeping her from falling into the crushing atmosphere far bellow.
"Well, there's so many of them, so they are probably just five steps around us." Leila notes and looks around. From what she could tell, this place wasn't filled to the brim with cultists or undead. A plus. "We saw lifesigns, so the Corpse Fleet can't have been here too long. Or successful. But maybe they shot some of the security bots."
"You know this place is kinda cosy. Better view then home! A bit too open, but I suppose you could get used to it. I mean some people live on *planets* right?"
"But hmm. I don't see anything that *looks* like the Drift took a chunk out of it. Ah well! Let's see what's in the docmaster's building. If we are lucky they have cctv or something that's still working and understandable!"
a
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As the group looks around the strange new alien environment they completely miss the *actual* aliens suddenly appearing from underneath the edges of the landing pad. It seems like the Sunrise Maiden had been noted in its sweep of the island and a welcoming party was waiting for them.
Not only did their visual and other sensors fail to alert them of the ambush but they turn out to be slow in their reaction as well and a hail of arrows flies out from the humanoid aliens.
Leila dodges the arrows flying at her while Prospero's combat cortex, recognzing the arrows as being quite archaic in design allows them to bounce off his powered armor. One gets through Astrianna's defenses though giving her a slight nick on her pistol arm.
Vek attracts the most attention as five arrows thud around him. The sixth one though gets through all the layers of his armor and delivers a very nasty sting on his neck!
In the suddenness of combat all the group can tell is that the enemy aliens are humanoid and armed with bows and arrows.
"Captain? Shall we retaliate? These seem to be some primitive natives. I am not sure if their weapons are dangerous to us."
Prospero-4 feels now quite safe inside his powered armor. Although, he surely saw Astrianna and Vek getting wounded. So, is he... flaunting?
Round 1
Astrianna grimmaces and lifts up her hands when she sees the arrows start to fly. "Whoa whoa who- ow!" The half-elf flinches when an arrow nicks her arm, and her suit fills the area with quick-drying foam to seal out the environment.
Anger wells up inside of her as she clutches her arm, and she briefly considers killing them all for daring to marr her perfect skin. But a cooler part of her prevails; the part that knows if she publishes a video of her team slaughtering a bunch of primative natives, she'll lose significant viewership all across the Pact worlds!
"Damn it to the Nine Hells! Don't return fire, we need to talk to them! They're probably just scared, especially if the corpse fleet was just here!" She says over their private channel as she runs to take cover behind Prospero. Astrianna takes a spell gem out of her pouch, the probably priceless and ancient magical gem taken from the Temple of the Twelve. "I have a spell gem that will let me talk to them, but you have to get me in closer!"
Leila dives for cover as best as she can, going prone to protect against the rain of arrows. She draws her pistol and carefully glances at the aliens. "Natives? I thought they'd have fancier things then bows and arrows on this station! But this would explain their small number. I bet they even raise goats in here - just like my darn upstairs neighbor!"
"I'm going to try distracting them." Since they didn't want to shoot at them Leila reached for her flashlight and flung it towards the aliens. A little code and it would make a pretty impressive strobe. With a bit of luck that would be disorienting enough for Astri to get her talk!
Once you have targeted a creature with this feat, that foe is immune to this ability for 24 hours.
With the arrow's impact lessened by his thick skin, Vek takes cover as best he can. Light seems to radiate from the vesk, and his blue companion mote splits and covers his fists with dozens of short blue spikes that ripple with intense heat. "Holding fire until you say otherwise, captain," he says calmly over the Starfinder's private comm channel.
When you are attuned or fully attuned, your attacks with plasma sheath deal additional fire damage equal to half your level.
"Right. I'll hold back for the moment."
Prospero-4 takes a protective stance, but keeps his weapon pointed down. Let Astrianna try talking to these creatures first, and if that doesn't help they'll need to re-evaluate the situation.
Leila's technological wizardry seems to terrify all six of their attackers and the rate of arrow fire slows, but does not cease. The fact that the group does not flee from them seems to incense them and they yell unintelligibly yet unmistakably angrily.
Prospero-4 does not recognize any of the creatures attacking them, a rare thing considering his accelerated education, these really are a species completely unknown to the pact worlds.
He does deduce however that, while the aliens clothing and weaponry looks primitive, they are composed of bits of material that are not primitive at all. They are tall, hairless humanoids with three eyes and long, powerful limbs which they are putting to good effect at the moment with their bows and arrows. They all also have crude axes strapped to their back which they are probably quite proficient with. The colour of their skin seems to range from light grey to sky blue.
Prospero-4, under Astrianna's direction, clomps forward in his imposing armor drawing the arrows that would have gone in her direction as she sticks to his back like glue. In fact with everyone else taking some manner of cover he attracts all of them!
Five of them bounce off his armor, but one gets through all of Prospero's defenses just like one got through Vek's and sticks out of the android's neck at a crazy angle. Quantity leads to quality it seems. Either that or one of the archers is just that good!
Prospero-4 grunts in pain as the arrow finds its way through the armor.
"Astrianna, I suggest you will do whatever you were planning to very quickly. I am now very inclined to respond their greeting with plasma beams"
But for the time being, he will stick to the plan and move with Astrianna, defending her and himself as best he can.
"Round 2
Astrianna has growing reservations about her plan as she approaches the aliens from behind Prospero's protective bulk. There were six of them... and she was going to run right into them, cast a spell, and start yelling?
Stupid.. this is so, so stupid. She thinks, tightly clutching the spell gem in her hand and gritting her teeth. "Yeah, yeah I'm just waiting.. for the right moment!" The vlogger buys herself some time and sucks in a breath, all the while realizing her legs suddenly aren't keen on moving.
Come on, come on ! She tries to psyche herself up, and she thinks about how badass this is going to look from not only the first-person view of her lifecorder... but from the nearby Sunrise Maiden that was capturing the whole fight with its high-definition cameras!
Gritting her teeth, she waits for another volley of arrows and then shoots out from behind Prospero and into a sprint directly towards the nearest alien.
She runs with the spell gem outstretched, and just before she collides with it she yells out "Share Langauge!" Just to make sure the spell gem activates. It was how spell gems worked, right?
"Peace! Peace! We just want to talk!" The vlogger yells in GalCom towards the alien she just touched using her suit's external speakers. Just to make sure, she backs of a little and raises up her arms defensively.
"Good luck!" Leila calls out as encouragement to Astri as she charges the enemy lines waving a spell gem around. Now that was a sight she would probably see a lot of times in her life, in slow-motion and from multiple angles. The halfling held her action until she could see the outcome from that stunt. Hopefully the clip wouldn't be "in memoriam".
Vek watched warily as Astrianna and Prospero move forward. Hope that works...
The alien targeted by Astrianna reels back in shock as her spell gem's magic works on them.
Foul Demon! Your evil deceptions will not work on us again! They rasp out in GalCom before realizing they're speaking a xeno-tongue. Dropping the bow they draw the axe on their back and swings it right at Astrianna's throat in a vicious slash that almost penetrates all of her high-tech defenses. Seeing Astrianna's reaction to the pain as her kinetic buffers are unable to suppress the massive hit completely they shout something encouraging to their allies and three more converge on the half-elf, mirroring the successful attack, dropping their bows and drawing their axes as they come.
Their primitive edges bite through Astiranna's Refractor suit over and over and over. By the end of the barrage she is actually bleeding as the warning systems of her armor blare at her that they are completely drained. It won't be able to protect her anymore from the other attacks that are almost definitely coming!
Two of the aliens hang back and plink a pair of arrows off of Prospero's power armor.
As the first of the aliens attacks Astrianna, Vek springs into action. Charging forward, he places himself in the middle of the pile to keep the captain from being ganged-up on. "Sit down and shut up!" he yells in frustration. "We're after whoever came here before, not you!"
Round 3
"OHHH SHIIITTTT." Is the vlogger's last, high-volume words before she starts to get clobbered by axes, and it hurts. Her suit's protective electrostatic forcefield fills the air with zapping noises as each primitive alien that hits her is given a nasty shock, but she's still batted around like a dough ball in a halfling deep-frier.
The last blow in particular buffets her arm so hard she can feel the warm trickle of blood and the ache of bruised muscle. "It's not listening! F!++ this!" She exclaims over her suit's external speakers considering this wasn't the best time to be switching channels.
Jumping backwards and rolling, she pops up with her other pistol suddenly in hand. Now guns akimbo, the vlogger opens fire on the alien Vek was assaulting. "Disable the one I touched and kill the rest!" She calls out, not wanting to waste the opportunity to talk to the native, or more importantly, the spell gem.
"Affirmative. Engaging the aliens."
And by 'engaging', Prospero-4 means spraying a beam of hot plasma on point-blank range. The android maneuvers so that he is able to catch as many aliens as possible under the beam.
"*Gasp!*" Leila watches in horror as the aliens axe Astri. Oh no! Luckily their glorious leader seemed to be getting way mostly in one piece. And was healthy enough to curse and order people around - that was probably a good sign.
"Roger!" she complied and raised her gun, squeezing off a pair of rounds at the nasty aliens. With a bit of luck she could utilize the hi-tech surroundings as a distraction!
---
Vek intercepts one of the aliens rushing towards Astrianna and lands a brutal hit on the hapless native. It's subsequently blown away by three pistol shots from Astrianna and Leila. The final sonic blast causing its now limp body to fall off the landing pad and disappear over the edge into the red clouds below.
Prospero moves to get two of the remaining aliens in his sight and lets them have it with laser fire.
As the situation changes the aliens shift along with it, two of the aliens who had landed hits on Astiranna follow her to try and repeat the feat, both of the remaining archers drop their bows and draw their axes as they rush in, one to engage the android, the other to engage the Vesk. Vek is only beset by the alien that can speak the language.
Not..wanted... here... Go... AWAY! It rasps out as it swings its axe.
The sight of one of their own dying seems to have spurred something resolute and wrathful in the aliens as ALL five of their swings get through the various forcefields and advanced armor of the group. Vek is especially hurt by one very vicious axe swing from behind! Even Astrianna's electrical defenses don't seem to be dissuading them from drawing blood!
Round 4
"No! We have to save the galaxy! We have to find the Twelve!" She shouts at the frankly ungrateful alien even as two more warriors bare down on her. "Do you not get it we're trying to HELP you?"
There was a little too much shouting and not enough dodging on Astrianna's part= she was hoping her electrostatic system would keep the axe-wielding lunatics away, but instead they smack her a few more times and the warning lights in her HUD go from yellow to red.
"Gods, get away from me!" She takes off from her assiliants in a run, diving beyond Prospero and hoping he will turn them into localized plasma-based goo.
An alien axe whizzes by Astrianna's ear as she retreats missing the retreating social media starlet by a nanometron.
Vek focuses on the closest opponent (that doesn’t speak his language). The time for talking is on hold - the time for action is now!
"Captain, I suggest you stay silent and retreat. We will keep the aliens busy."
Oddly enough, it felt quite good to tell the half-elf to shut up - even if it was in the guise of sound tactical advice.
Prospero-4 uses the time the plasma rifle takes to cool off to get into a new firing position. Once the weapon is ready to fire, the android pulls the trigger.
Leila takes aim at another one of the non-spell-gemed-aliens and shoots. They've had ample chance to not try and axe them!!
As Astrianna clings to Prospero's back, using him as cover, Prospero isn't really able to shift away in a way to avoid alien#6 while still firing, so he fires a plasma beam that goes through aliens 2 and 3, taking an attack of opportunity that just clangs off his armor.
Liela's shot puts alien #3 down for the count.
Vek turns around in a swift motion using the momentum of his solar weapon to swing right through alien #5, slicing him in two.
Alien #2, with a yell advances on Prospero, flanking him with alien #6, 2's attack doesn't land but one of 6's swings bites deep through Prospero's armor.
Alien #4 gasps Demons, Devils, evil. Never surrender! as they see their friend cut down by the hulking Vesk. axe flashing with vengeance dealing another heavy blow. It's actually pretty impressive that they're able to do any damage at all. The island has some experienced warriors on it despite being technologically backward.
Round 5
Astrianna mutters curses to herself behind Prospero while the battle rages on behind her. Freaking backwater primitives pack a punch, who knew? She complains to herself, putting her corona pistol on the ground and digging through her satchel.
She pulls out a healing serum and quickly slots it into her suit's ampule injection port. Gods, all we have is the weak stuff? Why didn't we buy more of the good shit on Eox?
Vek moves to the next opponent, methodical and efficient.
Prospero-4 considers whether or not he should feel bad about the situation - They are now essentially massacring the natives. Of course the natives started it, and resulting killings are all in self-defense. But still, he feels history is full of similar cases where technologically superior conquerors have slaughtered the helpless natives.
While thinking about this, the android puts his multitasking capabilities into good use, and takes a sidestep to line up a new shot.
Leila gives Prospero a few moments to torch them with his plasma gun before she shoots whomever is left. Pew pew!
6
4
Being meleed Prospero can only sidestep to get aliens 6, and 4 into a line and leaves himself open to an AOO from #6 which hits the android, activating more pain sensors.
The movement leaves Astrianna to attack and alien 2 steps in to swing at the envoy.. but just as they do Leila's sonic attack passes through their torso and they flop over, twitching for a while as the noise blast finishes coursing through their corpse.
Alien 6's other attacks on the android are far less successful and the axe either meets nothing but air or is turned aside by his armor.
Alien 4, unwilling to abandon their last remaining ally to their almost inevitable fate comes in to flank Vek, the attack is not strong though and easily rebuffed by the Vesk Solarian.
"Can't you see that you have screwed up?! Throw down your weapons and *all* of you won't be shot!" Leila calls out and points her gun at the last non-speaking alien.
Vek carefully steps out from between the two remaining aliens, then attempts to neutralize the non-speaking one by grabbing its arms. "We fight in self-defense - as do you. Let us speak so that no more need die from our misunderstanding." His words are oddly calm amidst the chaos of battle.
Round 6
As Prospero moves to the side, Astrianna is ready with her distintegrator pistol. "Clean up this last one with me Prospero! Liela and Vek can handle capturing the one that understands us." She says while carefully aiming at the axe-wielding native and pulling the trigger.
Astrianna's pistol shot sloshes acidic energy on the sixth alien's face causing it to fall to the ground screaming in pain. The fourth hesitates a moment and then lets their axe hang, blade pointing at the ground of the landing pad in disgust.
I have failed my ancestors. Spare Azyal, demon, and I will throw myself at whatever mercy you have.
It hasn't let go of the axe yet, but it seems willing to do so.
"Finally!" Astrianna exclaims in disgust that it took this long to get to this point. "Leila, give acid-face medical attention while I talk to this clown." She says while walking away from the alien she just shot in the forehead with a distintegrating spray of disrupting energy.
"Listen. We are not here to hurt you, or take your stuff, we just want to talk." The vlogger starts as she stalks up to the alien that can understand them. "There are very bad sentient creatures after a weapon that can destroy stars." She points up at the yellow dwarf just a few hundred million metrons away. "Do you want your star to die because it was a convienent place to test the weapon? Well we don't! WE are trying to stop them, because we don't want them having it. Do you understand? The stakes are way higher than just YOUR home. It's EVERYONE's home we're trying to save here, so start acting like it or you're going to shame EVERYONE'S ancestors here! Given your reaction to US, I'm guessing the bad sentients were here not too long ago. What did they look like, what did they do, and what did you tell them?"
That is not a star, demon. The alien replies stiffly as the axe falls to the ground. That is the sun. Your words are nonsense and I care not for your demon ancestors or the ancestors of the demons that came before you. They looked like you... although the alien pauses Their clothes had far more spikes on them.
"Look, this is going to be hard to comprehend, but all those stars in the night star are suns. They're all made of the same things." She sighs and shakes her head- why is she trying to give this heathen a science lesson?
"AH! THE CULT!" Astrianna exclaims when the alien mentions spikes. "That was the cult of The Devourerer! I don't know what gods you worship, but your so-called "demons" worship The Star-Eater.. The Devourer, the end of all things. They want to destroy everything. Of course, they're the worst possible sentient you could possibly encounter, but you have to understand we're not like them. We're the opposite, actually."
"Other than probably try to kill all of you, what did they do? Where did they go? We're tracking them, and the weapon they're after."
"Are there any others besides you? You don't quite look like someone who could have built this place." Prospero-4 hopes he doesn't sound too rude by saying that, but these creatures' crude weapons are quite a contrast to the highly advanced platform orbiting a gas giant.
"Azyal I think it was?" Leila hurries to put her pistol away and get her first aid kit. The halfling quickly reaches the screaming alien and she kicks its visible weapons away. Just in case. Then kneels down and wonders how this would really work. But most things would probably be better then a melting face? She reached for some strong anesthetics and a pressurized spray bottle to try and wash away as much of the disintegrated goop as possible. "Hold still! This will be even worse if I can't get it off. Bite down with your teeth or uh mandibles or whatever. Wait this one doesn't understand - dammit!"
Hopefully though that'd help more then it harmed at least. At least the alien wasn't actively trying to axe her so she dared shoot a glance or two at the one that actually could understand them. "Hey if something comes in a spiked and non-spiked version wouldn't that be some sort of clue? Or do you just have 'demons' and 'more demons' here? That sounds really really dumb."
Azyal calms down a little as some of the acid burning it is washed away and that seems to calm the other one also.
The sun is the home of the most ancient of our ancestors while the stars are the light of our most recently departed as they make the journey back towards us to grant us their protection and strength! Of COURSE they are made of the same thing demon... they say heatedly to Astrianna though. Looks like they are more than willing to engage in a long protracted astronomical debate. They switch to answering some other questions though.
As for what the other lying demons did. They desecrated the sacred places of our ancestors. It pains me to even speak of it. They seem to engage in a bit of internal debate before saying. As repayment of your mercy I can take you to one willing to tell you more of it.
Astrianna is about to tell the alien that its beliefs are dumb, and its dumb, but then she realizes she's sitting on top of a credit mine. Not only would the xenoanthropologists at the starfinder society lose their minds over an uncontacted and unknown sentient species expounding on their religious beliefs, but her regular viewership would eat this stuff up! Everyone loved listening to ignorant heathens spout nonsense!
"Right. Well, The Devourer wants to eat you ancestors, and the ones that worship it are trying to feed them to the Devourer. We're trying to stop them." She says simply, before her face switches to one of pity at him mentioning their sacred place was defiled. "Yeah, the cult of the Devourerer isn't known for their respect of anything. Last we encountered them they destroyed an ancient temple, too."
Still, the vlogger claps her hands together in delight, which makes her arms hurt and causes her to wince, when the alien mentions taking her to someone that knows more. "YES. Please! Seriously, we're not here to kill anyone or defile anything. We just want to talk, and when we figure out where the Cult went, we're going to leave you all alone."
She waves the team over. "You heard.. uh.." Emerald orbs look back to the alien. "What was your name? I'm Astrianna. So, you know, you can stop calling me demon." Her head swings back to her team. "Let's move out, we're on the trail of the cult!"
On the way, she digs around in her bag, pulls out an spell amp of Comprehend Langauges, and places it in a convenient Glammerware(TM) belt pouch (available in all colors from UV to infrared for only 10 credits!). She wasn't going to let these aliens pull a fast one on her, and only let Mr. Twitchy Axe here do all the translating.
"Sooo... tell me about this ancestor thing. When one of your people die ..." She tries VERY hard not to look at the smoldering corpses surrounding them at the moment. And suceeds! "...their soul becomes a star, then come back and fuse with your sun?" Oh yeah, her viewers were going to love this.
Leila perks up when they mention someone that would be more happy to talk to them. Would be nice to start a conversation without the use of axes! She finishes bandaging up her patient and gives it some board spectrum antibiotics just in case. "There! Uhm... You might have to help 'Azyal' around."
All this sun-talk was pretty interesting. Hmm. Maybe they could write a pyramid people style book about all this if their adventurer career didn't pan out? She glanced at Vek - he certainly had some experience with shiny things - then back at the aliens. "Hmh... Sun-spirits huh?"
I am Yazt. Our ancestors were mighty and powerful and created the sun so they might watch over us for all time. In these degraded times our own power is nothing compared to theirs and so when we die, our spirits are pinpricks of light as compared to the blinding illumination of the sun. In time we will be judged worthy of joining our ancestors in their most glorious creation... that is what shooting stars are..
Yazt seems more than happy to expound as he picks up Azyal and carefully hoists his friend up on his shoulder.
Come then, I will honor my word, though it pains me to do so de... stranger. he says and starts to walk towards a building connecting the landing pad to the rest of the island. From the outside it looks like a dockmaster's building.
On the inside it looks, gutted, it is an empty shell of what it must have been and only the depressions molded into the walls themselves speak of the screens and displays that must have once displayed arrival and departure information. Now the walls are adorned with charcoal marks and murals.
Yazt leads the group through the building and then turns left to walk west on a multi-lane road worn down almost into the dirt with age. The entirety of the 30 minute trek is only a few metrons away from the southern edge of the island and beyond lies the endless churning view of the crimson-coloured clouds of the gas giant below. A breeze, smelling slightly of ammonia but pleasantly cool under the heat of the sun nonetheless, blows from the south.
No attacks from beasts. Yazt notes. I would take it as a sign of favour from the ancestors, but I think it more they are scared of your demo... strange magicks.
Finally after a 5 minute trudge though a portion of the island where the road breaks down entirely the group is led to a collection of what look like dilapidated residential condos surrounding a sturdy looking community center type building on the south western corner of the floating isle.
As they approach a group of other aliens, the same species as their guide, approach them guardedly with their weapons up. They are armed and dressed similarly but they all have a shield like symbol with an upside down tear drop breaking through the top and a circle in the middle.
Yazt and the group have a tense conversation in their own raspy speech. The tension only breaks when Yazt makes a show of baring his hands and bowing his head. At this gesture the group gestures all of you to approach and enter the community center. There are a few dozen other aliens in the area, tending gardens, or watching over younger ones but they all leave their tasks to come gape at the four of you as you are escorted into the building that has a freshly painted symbol the same as that on the armor of their escorts.
There, I have led the demons to the demon lovers. Yazt says sourly. May the ancestors forgive me.
The guards keep their weapons at the ready and not so subtly aimed at, not only the group, but also at Yazt and the resting Azyal.
Pretty much right away another of the aliens comes down a set of stairs. This one is dressed more elaborately than the others. The simple robe of most of the other aliens on this one is overlaid with an elaborate purple and pink headscarf that flows into a purple overrobe while a somewhat crudely made pendant displaying the same symbol as on their building and armor.
The alien approaches, carrying out the same bared hands and neck bowing gesture that Yazt performed outside. They approach the group and, holding the symbol, gestures expectantly as they cast some sort of spell. They reach out their hand, hoping to touch one of the group it seems like.
"Their ancestors may have left them little, but they still have their faith in Talavet. Appropriate for a people who have had to survive on their own for what looks to have been generations." Vek's voice is low, trying to not startle any of their hosts.
"Ooh. Cool!" Leila does her best to gape back a little at the strange alien world around them. They lived on a station like sensible people, but yet they did it so oddly. How could they ever forget? Or did they choose to be this way? She'd have to ask them some time - but now they had business to take care of! "Hmm Astri I think they have a translation spell as well. Oh or they're really sneaky and it is Harm. Heh. Do you wanna go for it?"
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"If they meant harm, would they not have attacked us already? Perhaps the alien is using similar magic as Astrianna was?"
Despite the words, Prospero-4 is quite uncertain what is going on. It would be logical, that the aliens are trying to communicate with similar means as the half-elf did earlier. In which case it would be best to have the alien touch Astrianna, the group's best spokeswoman.
Or it could be some sort of foul play, trying to kill or disable one of the team. In which case, the logical choice to offer would also be the half-elf, as her loss would affect the group's combat effectiveness the least.
"I think you should let him touch you, Astrianna."
Astrianna slowly pans her head in smooth arcs as they walk through the station, capturing panoraomic footage of the delapidated space station during their walk. "Yeah, we have that effect." Astrianna mentions off-handedly when Yazt points out nothing else was attacking them. I bet I could sell the rights to this footage to some travel agencies. Come see the primatives of Nejeor VI! Living in squalor on a long-abdanonded floating city in the clouds! Oh yeah, great for a stop on a drift cruise.
THe vlogger taps her foot as negociations proceed, body langauge clearly indicated she could do better than Yazt. She rolls her eyes dramtically in response to his melodrama. "If we were demons, would we have spared you? Or tried to talk to you first while you beat the shit out of me?" She knew it wasn't going to change the alien's mind, but she still had to complain. PLus, it made her look tough!
Not that she was feeling tough. The emergency foam filling the axe-holes in her armor was starting to itch, and her neck felt like she had been sleeping on it wrong for over a century. Thus, she hesitates briefly when the alien-priest-shaman-whatever holds out a hand. "Uh, right, yeah. Of course, who else would talk to him?"
She represses a sigh and starts to reach out a hand. "Mark. Good location for a commercial break." The vlogger notes to her recording suite's software before her gloved hands touch the alien's fingers.
Astrianna feels a tingle as the alien's magic settles on her being and suddenly she knows how to speak their raspy tongue.
The Hybrid universal translator module of her personal communicator recognizes a brand new language unknown to it suddenly becoming accessible and starts to process the magical information into the translation software and pretty quickly there's a ping that means a new language pack is ready and available for upload to all compatible translators. It's a standard piece of software, so everyone has it.
Now everyone can speak the alien language through the translator!
The alien repeats the bowing and hand baring gesture before saying.
It is as the story teller foretold! Other strangers come, to fix what the first ones wrought! And see their mercy upon the breakers of tradition, the closers of the doors, they did not kill those who were trying so hard to kill them!
Yazt huffs at this but, unarmed and with a friend in need of rest carefully lowers Azyal to the ground and turns their head. Your stranger god will destroy us all is all he says.
Ignoring this, other than waving some followers over to take care of the injured, the leader of the new group says.
I am Tzayl, and we are kish, we welcome you to our ancestral land of Istamak. Though I thought there would be five of you, not four...
"Oh, one is napping!" Leila blurted out before she realized that yeah the translation software did work. Oops. With a small cough she took a step back and suddenly became very busy with poking her wrist computer. Hmm. She might as well see how Cueta was doing!
Cueta's mouth drops open as the medpod's resuscitation protocol begins, a long line of drool dropping from the pilot's lips. Slumping forward, Cueta - mostly subconsciously - pops the clasp on her safety harness and falls against the pod door, which gives way easily under the pilot's weight, and Cueta hits the floor with a jarring thump.
Groaning, she rolls onto her back and blinks, staring up at the ceiling. Mind still foggy, Cueta reaches into her flightsuit and undoes the attached catheter, leaving it laying on the floor, long plastic tub snaking back into the pod.
Sitting up, Cueta's tummy rumbles. She clacks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, noting how fuzzy her teeth feel. Still, despite the fogginess, Cueta realizes she feels good - as good as she's felt since she woke up the first time, after her initial 75 years on ice.
Damn, she was hungry though. Wobbling to her feet, Cueta makes her way to the galley and nukethaws seven Station-style potato tamales. Standing at the galley counter, Cueta barks questions and commands to the ship's AI between mouthfuls.
"Pumpkin, play some music, chinney?" (a strange tune starts up, one Cueta has strangely knows the words to, despite being pretty sure she'd never willingly listen to Castrovelian anime-synth)
"Pumpkin, what's the year? Day? Month? Pumpkin, where are we?"
Fook me, that's... disconcerting.
"Pumpkin, where's the crew?"
Sighing, Cueta puts her unfinished plate of tamales down and heads to her locker, looking for weapons. Leila, Prospero, Astri, and... Vek? were out there somewhere, on this strange planet in this unknown system, no doubt getting themselves into it, whatever it was. Lunch would have to wait.
---------------
Sighing, Cueta surveys the carnage around the landing pad, before patching herself into the ship's channel. "Pumpkin echolocate the crew's comm systems, yeah?"
Setting off, Cueta winds through the dilapidated dockmaster's building and into the town, more ramshackle than the most flyspeck hamlet on the Nine. Sighing Cueta grips her rifle and heads towards the crew's com signal. She'd have to remain quiet for now - no telling just how much danger the Starfinders were in, and she didn't want to draw any attention to them if any com units were set to audible broadcast.
Eventually, perhaps 30 minutes or so later, Cueta finds herself at the doorway to a dilapidated residential condo, the crew's comms pinging that they may be - natch, probably are - in the building. Readying her rifle in one hand, Cueta grabs the doorknob and starts twisting it, quietly, when suddenly her own unit pings - Leila is checking in!
Could be in trouble!
Dropping her rifle, Cueta flings the door open as she pulls her doshko, fully expecting to step into a melee...
...and instead finds the crew and a Vesk (Vek?) standing around talking with a bunch blokes look just like the dead ones on the landing pad.
Sighing again, Cueta flips the doshko back into her backclasp and picks up her gun.
Shoulda finished lunch.
"Oh hi Cueta! Look it's number five!" Leila smiles and points and waves and smiles. She hurries over to fetch their second pilot, hopefully without getting axed, and drags her towards the aliens (or makes an attempt at least). In quick and hushed whispers she tries to explain the situation as best as she could. "The first aliens thought we were demons, since some other spiky people, had just visited and desecrated their sacred temple; anyhow so they tried to axe us and we tried to shake some sense in them and we did kinda I think and they led us here to someone more talkative!"
"*Ehm.*" the halfling realized that they quite hadn't introduced themselves. She bowed slightly and smiled, sharing her name then gestured for her companions to do the same. "I'm Leila. Thank you for welcoming us to your ancestral land. We are from the Starfinders! We're chasing an evil cult of the rough beast and or possibly some undead menace calling themselves the Corpse Fleet. They both in turn are looking for some ancient doomsday weapon to turn upon creation; we really don't want to that to happen!"
With the pleasantries taken care of she tries for the first question. "Ah hmm. Yazt mentioned some 'spiky demons' desecrated your temple - do you know if they looked just like us but crazed and with spikes, the cultists, or more dead and with spikes, the corpse fleet?"