Arc and Solaria keep a careful watch of the room's corners for anyone lying in wait, but it quickly becomes clear that there's nowhere in the simple rectangular room to hide. Solaria inspects the red-lit panels on the walls, but finds them to be built almost seamlessly as part of the steel paneling. If there's something behind them, there's no obvious way to open them.
When Ted's top touches the keypad on the access panel, the lights in the room dim even further, flickering ominously before plunging the room into near darkness - leaving the red-lit panels built into the walls as the only source of illumination. Each of those panels suddenly flashes with a series of arcane runes and a thick red haze materializes inside the room!
Solaria and Sydney - The red haze springs into existence in a flash, suddenly isolating you individually from the rest of your team. But as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes, leaving the room dimly lit once more.
Arc, Ted, Isu and Spectre - The red haze also isolates you individually from your allies, but in your cases, it seems as though it lingers for a long time. You're not sure quite how long, but its long enough that you start seeing... *things* in the mist. Bodies, long and gangly, made of smoke. Vast toothy maws, dripping hungrily. And all throughout it all, a cold force tugging at your minds. The red haze fades slowly, but it leaves your mind foggy and quick to jump at shadows.
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Once the red mist has cleared for all of you, Ted finishes hacking the door's entry code in a daze - his top doing much of the work on autopilot. With a resounding series of clunks, the door's locks are undone. The blast door slides upwards with a clatter. Beyond lies an entry foyer of black steel paneling, dim red lighting, and unrelieved austerity in its decoration.
The open room that lies beyond the entry foyer is incredibly long. So long that you don't see all the way to the end, even with darkvision. 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 emanates the faintest of glows.
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With the thought of someone else killing the cultists, Spectre says "This is likely to be a powerful group or entity capable of gaining the advantage over a moderately-skilled adversary. By my calculations, our chances of successfully completing our mission have dropped substantially."
"Or, at least, obtaining maximum profit."
"That was some weird mist." Sydney looks herself over and finds herself the same as ever.
"Where'd they go?!"
Sydney takes a few steps into the room. "Who? I couldn't see jack in that red fog." Sydney stares forward, expecting to see whoever or whatever Ted referenced.
Still reeling from the haze, you advance westward. After the more lucid Sydney checks for hazards and finds none immediately ahead, Ted advances to the computer terminal and boots it up.
The screens flicker with emergency messages, the most prominent of which is a 'Star Eater's Spine - Base Lockdown - Evacuate Immediately' that flashes in the center of each of the screens. With his computers know-how, Ted easily banishes that message and starts checking through the computer's functionality. He deduces that this terminal acted as a maintenance and central control console. It doesn't have much interesting data on it, but it does have the ability to power and disable various strangely named systems. The two most prominent ones are the "Chamber of Devouring" and the "Mind Melter".
Before tackling either of those systems, he first reroutes enough emergency power that the western end of the room you're currently in is lit (though only with red emergency lighting). Once that's done, he realizes that the other two systems are currently forced *ON* by the Base Lockdown. He'll need to hack each of them if he wants to disable them.
While Ted examines the computer, the rest of you are able to see the western end of the long chamber you're in. The chamber extends almost 100ft beyond the computer console. Half a dozen tiered pillars are interspersed throughout this wide room, 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 faint scent of ozone hangs in the air.
With the strange imagery from the red mist still lingering in his reasoning circuits, Spectre finds himself unable to gain control of either of the two strangely named system modules - instead, his first two hacking attempts end with brief lockouts and a 'Tampering Detected' warning message. There's no obvious long-term consequence to failing to hack the terminal and gain access to the two systems...
With another attempt, this time with aid from Ted, Spectre is able to crack the (surprisingly advanced) firewall blocking unauthorized access to one of the two strangely named systems. This brings up an interface that allows him to depower the system if he wishes.
With the strange imagery from the red mist still lingering in his reasoning circuits, Spectre finds himself unable to gain control of either of the two strangely named system modules - instead, his first two hacking attempts end with brief lockouts and a 'Tampering Detected' warning message. There's no obvious long-term consequence to failing to hack the terminal and gain access to the two systems...
Sydney winces, "uhh, maybe we shouldn't mess with that. If the systems are on, that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? It could be air filtration or temperature control."
"The Chamber of Devouring sounds like a looney church anyway. Probably a large open room filled with pews," she tries to shrug off the ominous name.
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Spectre deactivates the Chamber of Devouring. There's no obvious changes to the area you can see and hear.
This leaves one system still functioning, the 'Mind Melter'.
"Sydney, wouldn't our suits protect us from those issues?" Arcalinte asks innocently.
She shrugs. "They may be cultists, but I still don't enjoy killing people. What about that chick..." Sydney snaps her fingers but is unable to recall her name. "from that jungle planet. All I'm sayin' is that I know people f^@# up, but it doesn't mean they deserve to die."
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"Sydney, wouldn't our suits protect us from those issues?" Arcalinte asks innocently.She shrugs. "They may be cultists, but I still don't enjoy killing people. What about that chick..." Sydney snaps her fingers but is unable to recall her name. "from that jungle planet. All I'm sayin' is that I know people f^@# up, but it doesn't mean they deserve to die."
"Ralkawi," Arcalinte replies. "But we had a chance to save Ralkawi. These cultists look like they were dead before we even arrived."
For the people affected by the red haze earlier, as Spectre works at hacking the remaining system, you keep thinking you see small red oozes skittering at the edges of your vision. As you turn your head to track them, you think for the briefest of moments that they turn bloody eyes to look at you. But then when you blink, there's nothing there.
Spectre and Ted manage to depower the 'Mind Melter', whatever that might be, leaving you free to proceed.
The western end of this long chamber is interspersed with tiered black pillars, six in total. You noticed the pile of gore next to the easternmost of the pillars earlier. Now that you have a chance to look more closely, you can see that its composed of a finely shredded pile of burned flesh. Looking further westward, you note two more piles of finely diced flesh and the remains of the armor that must have once encased them.
Solaria examines the remains of some creature.
She looks up from the mess, wiping her hands clean, "I gotta clean this up soon, whatever this thing was in life, it certainly seems to have had life after death too. Glad I didn't see it wandering around, some sort of grey leathery skin or something. I don't know why I come away on these trips, the universe is turning out to be an extremely dirty and disgusting place once you leave civilisation. Not at all like the what I saw in the bibliotech. Now its just dust, grime, death, undeath, gore.... really it needs cleaning up."
Angrily she gets up and looks at the rest of you, "OK, bit of grime do you want to show me next?"
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He shivers as he sees another ooze, "You guys seeing the bloody worms? I don't like this place almost as much as that jungle."
"Yes...I'm seeing them too. Why aren't they attacking us, though? Any time we leave ourselves open, they don't take it...they just shift out of view when we try to focus on them...like they're watching us...but why?" Arcalinte replies.
He takes up the curve blade and follows Isu.
The large set of heavy steel doors may not be locked, but the low power means that they have to be manually pulled aside. Isu and Arc do the honors and you all enter the northern hallway. A cloying gloom fills this long, claustrophobic hallway. A red light on the western wall blinks slowly, giving the scene a sinister atmosphere. The two dead cultists lying in a tangled heap at the eastern end of the hall don't help. Four unmarked doors lie to the north.
You take the easternmost door, entering into a set of low-ceilinged living quarters. Minimalist steel beds with sparse bedding sit at the corners of these two rooms, and simple shelves and dressers serve as furniture. Some of the dressers lie empty or ajar, as though they've been ransacked. Scattered across the living quarters are various icons and signs of the cult's foul religion - tiny altars made of hollowed skulls, black metal sculptures covered in some eternally dripping black substance, and more.
In the more western of the two adjoined rooms, one dresser sits intact, its single drawer secured with a mechanical lock.
To the east and west sides, orange curtains lie in the doorways, allowing access but not letting you see further.
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Ted takes a crack at the lock while his top flits around the rooms looking for magic, "Check under the bed for those worms."
DETECT MAGIC M0 T0
School divination
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range 60 ft.
Area cone-shaped emanation
Duration concentration, up to 1 minute/level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You detect all magic spells, effects, items, and objects (including those on or affecting creatures you can see), as well as hybrid items, in the area. You can’t detect magical traps in this way, as they are created with additional magic that wards them from this common spell. Each round you concentrate on the same area, you can determine if one magic source you detect is from a spell, magic item, or other effect, and the caster level (or item level) of the effect. You can’t determine if there are magic sources in areas you can’t see, or if there was a magic source in an area at one time but that has since expired.
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Ted's top hovers beside one of his pockets. He shoos it away with his hand, but it returns like a house fly. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a spell gem. As he reads the archaic writing on the gem's lattices he feels power surging from it.
REMOVE AFFLICTION M3
School conjuration (healing)
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range touch
Targets one creature or object
Duration instantaneous or 10 minutes/level; see text
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless, object); Spell Resistance yes (harmless, object)
You remove impurities from a creature or object, potentially neutralizing the Curses, diseases, infestations, poisons, and other harmful conditions affecting it. If the target is a creature, you must attempt a caster level check (1d20 + your caster level) for each Curse, disease, infestation, and poison affecting it (DC = 4 + the DC of the affliction). Success means that affliction is removed. Additionally, if the target is blind or deaf due to an affliction or damage, remove affliction restores vision and hearing unless the appropriate organ has been entirely removed from the creature’s body.
A creature that is cured with remove affliction takes no additional effects from the Curses, diseases, infestations, or poisons removed, and any temporary effects are ended, but the spell does not reverse instantaneous effects, such as Hit Point damage, temporary ability damage, or effects that don’t go away on their own (such as poison states). This spell cannot remove the Curse from a Cursed item, though a successful caster level check enables the creature afflicted with any such Cursed item to remove the Curse and get rid of it. Since the spell’s duration is instantaneous, it does not prevent the target from suffering from the same Curse, disease, infestation, or poison after a new exposure at a later date.
You can instead cast this spell to neutralize the poison in a poisonous creature or object for 10 minutes per level. If you cast it on a creature, the creature can attempt a Will saving throw to negate the effect.
Remove affliction counters bestow Curse.
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Spectre watches in admiration as Ted works on the lock.
"I have previously offered that we might be partners in crimin--rather, lucrative endeavors. You have considerable skill that would be incredibly helpful in several ideas I have. Perhaps you might reconsider."
Though the curtains look like something that should be opened, Spectre waits for someone braver to do the task.
Some of the dressers lie empty or ajar, as though they've been ransacked.
"It looks the they tried to leave in a hurry. I doubt someone would loot this place with the Skreesire above."
The ace pilot operative nods in appreciation at Ted's dexterity with the lock. If/when Ted is successful, Sydney slinks over to the far Northeast and nimbly peeks into the unexplored area. She uses the end of her gun to silently peel back the curtain *just* enough that she can get a look inside.
Ted works at the lock on the dresser for about a minute before it pops open. Inside are a few colorful articles of clothing, as well as a pair of injection gloves: soft black velvet gloves with a silver bracket and needle for delivering injectable fluids at a touch. In addition to the gloves, you find a pair of small black vials filled with a fluid-state insanity mist (this special insanity mist poison is INJURY rather than INHALED).
When Ted sweeps his magic detecting sense through the two rooms, he notes a few faint magical auras from the various personal statues and altars - basic magic to sustain their unusual properties.
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While Ted is hard at work, Sydney stealthily pulls the curtain to the east aside just enough to peek into the adjacent room. This oblong room sports three largely empty rows of shelves that line the northeastern side. Here and there, a drooping suit of armor hangs from its rack, but the large majority of hangers are empty, suggesting that most of the people who would have kept their armor here are now missing.
Two humanoid security robots stand at attention on the southern end of this room. While clearly functional, they don't notice the stealthy operative watching them!
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"Your programmer gave you some awful ideas," Ted chides. "When we get back home, let's clear your circuits and get you a personality more lucrative to the good of all society."
Hoding up the gloves and vials, he tells the rest of the group, "I think we're all under the effect of hallucigens," and casts Life Bubble on the party to prevent further intoxication.
LIFE BUBBLE M1 T1
School abjuration
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets up to one creature/level, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart
Duration 1 day/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)
You surround the target creatures with a constant and movable 1-inch shell of tolerable living conditions customized for each creature. This shell enables the targets to breathe freely in a variety of atmospheric conditions (including in corrosive, thick, thin, and toxic atmospheres), as well as underwater or in a vacuum. It also makes the targets immune to harmful gases and vapors, including inhaled diseases and poisons as well as spells with a harmful gaseous effect. In addition, the shell protects targets (and their equipment) from extreme temperatures (between –50° and 140° F) without having to attempt Fortitude saving throws, as well as extreme pressures.
Life bubble doesn’t provide protection from energy damage, negative or positive energy (such as found on the Negative and Positive Energy Planes), or radiation; it also doesn’t provide the ability to see in conditions of poor visibility (such as in smoke or fog) or the ability to move or act normally in conditions that impede movement (such as underwater).
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"This one is seeing things? That is concerning to this one, Ted Under, and this one is grateful for your clear head."
Isu takes the gem from Ted and activates it, which clears his head.
"Bah! This place... Though, the question this one has, is that if the fake monsters did not kill the cultists, then who did?"
After his head is cleared, Isu helps search the rooms. He notices the beds are ransacked, but maybe something was hidden there? He goes from bed to bed and pulls back the blankets and covers.
Feeling a bit cocky from her success, Sydney steps back from the curtain to look at her companions. "I'll be right back. Couple of droids and armor," she whispers, then squeezes between the doorframe and curtain into the armory(?) room.
She attempts to silently loot the room and bring whatever she finds back to her companions, nimbly avoiding the detection of the two humanoid security robots as best she can.
After a few minutes of slow and careful retrieval, you find yourselves with quite the pile of armor! In total, there are two d-suits I, two estex suits II, two suits of kasatha microcord II, and a ysoki refractor suit. Furthermore, while Sydney was moving in an out of the room, she noticed a large metal locker set into the northern wall. A mechanical lock on its front keeps it bolted shut. The locker is labeled "Maw Serverek", and from the looks of things probably belongs to some kind of leader. The locker isn't in full view of the two security robots to the southern end of the room, but anyone working to get it open would still have to be very stealthy.
While Sydney works, Isu holds up the spell gem and activates it, casting a spell far more advanced than his usual powers. The gem dissolves and the magical malaise that was keeping him mentally foggy lifts. He searches the beds and blankets and finds a few small discarded items - snack wrappers, simple vidgames, and other junk. He also finds a thin key card left behind under one of the beds. On one side of the card, someone has scrawled 'Password is 'Nyara Lives'. DO NOT FORGET!'
It does indeed look a little like a student dorm at second glance... if not for all the Devourer paraphernalia.