Boreal! Hang on! We'll get this!
Eric fires again. This time to greater effect.
EH-RK tricks the veolisk and gets in a painful shot.
Boreal swings at the creature.
Imagine creates a distraction and Boreal ends the vesolisk with another hit of her doshko.
With the bitey creature gone it is possible to take a closer look at the room it dwelled in. Looming over the west side of this sterile room are floor-to-ceiling computer consoles 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.
Manteca enters the room and immediately gets fascinated by the other dead creature's body. Oh my - looks like we disturbed a family, or maybe a mated pair... He flicks his antennae and pulls himself away, trying to stay focused on being deep in a cult-y base.
EH-RK, you're better at this computer-y things than I am - You take a crack at this, I'll support you?
EH-RK supports Manteca's attempts by placing the id card he found on the reader, which allows Manteca to pass the first level of security. On the system there are three datamodules found - "Activities", "Intelligence" and "Sacred Lore".
The Activities Data Module can be accessed without passing additional safety meassures. It states the mission of this sect of the Cult of the Devourer in no uncertain terms. The denizens of the Star-Eater’s Spine were devoted to poring through the prophecies in a sacred but cryptic tome called The Entropy of Existence and Glorious Rise of the Void. The data contains the cult’s analysis of some of these divinations, including one prophecy flagged as high-priority. This high-priority prophecy is not stored in this data module, but a link points to its location in another secure data module labeled "Sacred Lore". The cultists focused on this one
prophecy in particular because they thought it the most likely candidate for them to bring to fruition. From the data, it appears the cultists interpreted the prophecy as referring to some sort of weapon—one powerful enough to serve as a "key" to untold destruction—but they have deciphered little else. In addition to the cultists’ obsessive work to understand more of this prophecy’s latent instructions, this module details the terrible, ritualistic tortures the cult enacted to try to pull further clues from those lines.
Oh... OH. Manteca closes out the windows pertaining to the ritual torturing, clearly upset by the imagery. Disgusting choices they made, he emotes quietly. He attempts to access the Intelligence data module next.
Eric attempts to hack the console himself.
But has no luck.
Humanoids: I will go and scout the remaining rooms. It would be wise to gain full access to this console before we leave this place.
EH-RK finds the dresser in the northwest corner of area B6b is locked.
The dresser in area B9 contains the cultists’ collection of armor upgrades and weapon fusion seals: a brown force field, a mk I electrostatic field, a bleeding fusion seal (6th), and a vicious fusion seal (5th). But to EH-RK's dismay it also is trapped with and laser arc that cuts through the whole room.
The welding arc burns into Eric's armor, singeing him a bit.
Three rows of mostly bare shelves stand along the southeastern end of this wide room. Here and there, a dilapidated pistol or longarm sits on a dusty shelf. Three humanoid robots stand near the north wall; each is hunched over and covered in scorch marks, occasionally emitting puffs of sickly gray smoke.
The shelves here hold the following battered weapons: a pulsecaster pistol, a red star plasma rifle, a tactical acid dart rifle, a thunderstrike sonic pistol, and a utility scattergun. All of the weapons are unloaded and broken.
EH-RK also finds a small, strange technological device covered in leathery gore.
Eric doesn't know what the gore covered item is, but he grabs it, the plasma rifle and the thunderstrike sidearm. He can fix these and the pistol is certainly something he's interested in using.
Suddenly Manteca's device, which he uses to hack the main frame, shuts down and denies him access to it.
Manteca taps his device. "Um... EH-RK? We might need some help on the computers," he says into his comm unit after a minute.
Eric moves back to the others and says
Humanoids: This place is empty. The cultists seems to have abandoned it.
That's... good? That means we won't be interrupted while we try to figure out what's going on in this computer. Manteca prods the power button on his datapad fruitlessly another time or two.
While all the others are busy trying to figure out the computer, Boreal swaps out her armor for the armor EH-RK found.
Eric plugs in his datapad and begins typing away at the console, attempting to access its hidden quadrants.
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Manteca sits down, muttering to himself, and does, in fact, try turning it off and on again.
Manteca has no luck with his device. It shuts down and restarts, but after a short moment of showing the startup screen it goes into lockup again.
EH-RK finds a way aroung the safety measures of the Intelligence data module. The module contains records of all of the communications between the Star-Eater’s Spine and the Devourer cult on Castrovel. Although it appears that the cultists tried to erase this data before they deserted the base, by successfully hacking this module, EH-RK also recovers most of the communication logs for the base’s comm unit. These captioned recordings document the Castrovelian cult leader Tahomen’s boastful crowing about his cult’s activities at the Temple of the Twelve, including a premature (and ultimately untrue) claim of the cult’s humiliating defeat of the adventurer group that was after them. The last communication log, however, takes on a triumphantly gleeful tone. In it, Tahomen reports that information in the temple’s inner sanctum has revealed the location of the “key” emphasized in Nyara’s prophecy. In the final line of the recording, Tahomen jubilantly states, “Our future awaits, far beyond the confines of the Star-Eater’s Spine! You must fly, my sisters and brothers! Fly to (garbled static), where the Key awaits…” The recording then ends.
The name of the location the cultists fled to was deliberately deleted and then meticulously scrubbed from the system. The electronic signature of the hacker who performed these tasks is unlike any of the digital footprints left in either this datacore. However, there are clear signs that this data was deleted just a few days ago - sometime after the cultists abandoned the Star-Eater’s Spine, given physical clues left behind at the base, such as the state of the mess hall.
Humanoids: This is most curious. The creature Tahomen, who we slew on Castrovel, gave a set of coordinates to the Cultists here. Ostensibly these cultists have left for that location. The location however has been scrubbed from these memory banks by...someone else? at a later time, only days ago. After the departure of the Cult. Eric says
He continues typing at the console, attempting to access the "Sacred Lore Data Module"
he frowns and tries again
he frowns and tries once more
The last module resists EH-RK's attempts to intrude.
Manteca peers over his shoulder. Well, wait, did you try...
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As unlikely and embarrassing it is, EH-RK had not and Manteca's intervention opens the last data module. But embarrassment is a foreign concept to EH-RK with his limited understanding of humanoids emotions, so for him it's simply a problem solved.
Sacred Lore Data Module: This module contains reams of information about
the cult’s profane belief in the Devourer, the assured entropy of the universe, and the cultists’ unholy roles in bringing about the end of existence for the glory of their dark religion. In addition to general religious dogma and near-mad ramblings, the data module also details the Star-Eater’s Spine cult’s fascination with an ancient elven soothsayer named Nyara.
Centuries ago, an evil and malicious elven mystic named Nyara lived a depraved existence on Castrovel. At the time, the Cult of the Devourer was merely a shadow of a threat to the civilized species of the galaxy, but Nyara discovered in the dogma of the Star-Eater the nihilistic ambition for which she later became known. Nyara fed off the pain and suffering of those weaker than her, and she slaughtered hundreds and quickly rose through the ranks of Castrovel’s Star-Eater cult. As the number of atrocities she committed in the Devourer’s name mounted, Nyara came to believe that her uncaring patron would visit a terrible fate on her soul should she not work to further the total destruction of existence that the Devourer so coveted.
Committing herself fully to the Devourer’s entropic cause, Nyara began a career in dark soothsaying. Her killings became ritualistic rather than indiscriminate, and she drew prophecies from the very blood of her victims. Nyara spent her long elven life span extracting the terrible secrets underlying creation and extrapolating innumerable doomsday futures. Before her death, Nyara recorded her most profane divinations in her magnum opus, a tome called The Entropy of Existence and Glorious Rise of the Void. This work, though obscure to the galaxy at large, is considered a key unholy text to many Devourer cults. Its dark prophecies span countless realities, including dozens of ways that the multiverse and all its planes of existence might someday come to an end. But Nyara transcribed her predictions in imprecise and enigmatic language, as prophets are wont to do, and the scattered Devourer cults have had little success in parsing the elven mystic’s words and bringing her prophecies to fruition.
The data even includes a computer-generated hologram of Nyara recounting some of her most enigmatic prognostications, as recorded in her most infamous book, The Entropy of Existence and Glorious Rise of the Void, which the cultists of the Star-Eater’s Spine treat as gospel. One of these predictions is flagged as high-priority; as that prediction is accessed, the hologram of Nyara recites, "In the maw of the Twelve lies the Key. Forsooth, shall all be undone. When the knee meets the gorge, so far. The widening gyre implodes—magnificently."
An annotation on the file points to the cult’s study of this prophecy stored in the datacore's Activities data module
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"Yes but does it gyre and gimble in the wabe?" Imagine asymmetrically asks.
"Hey, EH-RK, since you're so good, do you think YOU might want to look at this," she says, reaching to her bodice...and giving EH-RK the encrypted data pad from B6d.
Eric attempts to access the datapad
but he cannot gain access.
Humanoids: Do we have any clue as to who or what might have visited this location after the Cultists of the Devourer vacated this place?
Well, we did find the sliced-up undead... Imagine, is use of the undead a thing that the Cult of the Devourer typically does?
"Sure. Want a grog to wash down the information?" the captain asks. She fires up the video on teh main screen. "Here they are."
On the screen you can see how the Rusty Rivet watches from safe distance, hidden between the asteroids, like starships crafted from bone enter the area. Slowly they move through the rubble field that is the diaspora. Dozens of tiny bone ships emerge from the large ones and search the area for quite a while. Skipping some of the show, the captain moves the video to the point where some of the ships land on an asteroid. "They stayed for half a day and then left." she tells. "Gimme the stick and I'll lead you there."
Humanoids: I believe that might be the Corpse Fleet.
Pirate Captain Human Isabella Locke: We thank you for this information.
Eric suggests the party return to the Sunrise Maiden. Humanoids: I suggest we return to the Sunrise Maiden and confer with Isabella Locke, or the Starfinder Society.
Manteca nods in agreement. I, too, remember this thing that EH-RK has reminded us of! Let's return to the ship and regroup!
Seeing Imagine's mood darken, he puts an arm around her shoulder. It's fine, Imagine. You've escaped, more or less intact. You knew them, but you are not them.
Back in orbit aboard the Sunrise Maiden, Eric sends a message to Chiskisk
Starfinder Shirren Chiskisk: We have scoured the asteroid K9204 and have found evidence of former Cult activity. However, we have reason to believe that Eoxian ships, perhaps Corpse Fleet, stole valuable data from the base and deleted the records of the Cult's next move. Advise on our next course. Do we have contacts on Eox?
While EH-RK sets up a communication with the Starfinder Society on Absalom Station, the Sunrise Maiden is shaken by a solid hit from an enemy starship. Checking the screens you find that to tiny fighters have ambushed you here in the asteroids.
Humanoids: It would be wise for you to proceed to battlestations Eric calls out, his words at odds with the life and death struglle about to commence.
Humanoids: The Corpse Fleet is upon us. Focus attacks on port and starboard shields.
Eric then begins evasive maneuvers and prepares for combat.
Manteca moves to the science console and begins trying to scan the enemy ships.
Manteca finds out that the ships have weak shields (3,2,2,3), a gyrolaser shooting in the front arc and an EMP cannon. These ships are faster than the Sunrise Maiden, but they have no drift engine. They are manned by a single pilot.
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Imagine nods slowly to Imani's soothing words, but otherwise doesn't react much, lost in her own thoughts. "Am I? But then what have I become?"
"WooHoo!" she shouts brightly as something exciting comes and breaks her melancholic reverie. She SPRINTS into the turret and warms up the particle beam canon.
Pivoting the gun around the the nearest enemy ship she gleefully peppers it with pewpew. "Ooo I like this!" she says, as if it was the only good line in an otherwise awful and really un-watchable movie that, perhaps, sunk a noble and long-lived franchise.
EH-RK outmaneuvers the two bone ships easily. But as they come from two different direction, the Sunrise Maiden is still in front of one of the ships and within firing range.
But the shots go wide and don't even scratch the shields.
Imagine annihilates the enemy ship's front shields and pulverizes the sensor array.
Manteca drops off the science station and piggybacks into EH-RK's station's comms. "EH-RK, they're coming up fast - shake them or we're in some deep trouble. You hear me?"
Eric continues attempting to keep the Sunrise Maiden out of the field of fire of both ships.
Manteca fails to urge the crew to more dedication and it shows, EH-RK falls behind on the agile fighter's maneuvers, and Imagine misses with the turret.
One of the pilots manages to use his superior position to fire at the aft of the Maiden, but the shields can take it.