Blades flash as the cultist try to make Voxx cutlets, but only one of their strikes ring true!
Voxx smiles as his armor protects him, and smiles even wider when the shadow pops back through the wall, striking out at the shadowy adversary...
Whirling around, he the attacks the nearby cultists...
Maxim gets on ehit in. Voxx misses the shadow, but cuts into two cultists.
Seeing that they can't really get Voxx, they distribute their attacks.
Again, Takeda steps and fires.
Focus Fire
There is not much left of the cultist, after Takeda is done shooting it. And Gorn reduces two more of them to a bloody pulp.
The shadow no longer wants to play with you and leaves again through the wall.
Maxim takes a swing at the shadow as it retreats again.
And then he gets two whacks in against the last cultist.
This section of the devourer cult runs quickly out of cultists. At least for now.
liquidator disintegrator pistol
with 2 batteries (20 charges each),
incendiary grenades II (2),
sintered longsword
All that 6 times, minus 1 battery and 2 grenades
"I'm taking one of these pistols and a couple of batteries to use while we are here. Anybody else like grenades? We going to gather all this up and dump it for cash at the next available star port? If we ever see one again."
"Let's pile it. We're still fighting though."
Maxim opens the door to engage the Shadow. (C5)
As the shadow retreated, Voxx struck out with his sword...
Ordinarily,he'd be able to step up and keep contact with the shadow, but the wall gets in his way...he follows Maxim in pursuit...
No shadow is interested in fighting any more. All leave.
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Gorn has no taste for seeing about pursuing the shadow. They don't even have the decency to make any sound when you hit them. No fun at all.
"I'll take a few batteries," he rumbles, scooping up a handful. And so speaking of the things he disengages his Haste circuit, and replaces its battery, thusly seeing it full for the next time to be called upon.
"Just dump the lot in a bag and I'll carry it," he volunteers.
Maxim spins his celestial mote around his head, disappointed they could not finish off the pesky shadows. He heads into the next room (C8) and walks to the bottom of the stair to get a look around.
Screens flicker with schematics of the many pieces of technology that control the kishalee megastructure, while others show views of legions of small robots repairing and maintaining massive mechanisms. A circular dais occupies a second raised platform in the eastern end of the room.
The terminals here must be what Osteth talked about.
Maxim fully enters the room, looking for a console to interface and enter the subroutine.
"I'll lay a megabuck that Gorn had it right, and what we're about to do actually makes things much, much worse."
Voxx follows Maxim into the room, eyes sharp for that Shadow.
He looks at all the equipment without too much interest, "Well...keeps things interesting at least!"
The consoles are all the same and might or might not work for the intended purpose. In fact even multiple people could work in parallel.
Maxim picks a console and begins to work on it.
Takeda stores several grenades on his gear clip and then helps Gorn gather up the unused weapons and batteries into a sack(?) for him to lug about. Then he leans back against the wall and takes a breather.(will use a resolve point if there is enough time)
The console is not impressed at Maxim's attempt. Some of the usual "You have no permission", just in Kishaleen, which doesn't help to make it easier.
Maxim takes his time until the terminal gives in. Looking around he finds a routine that looks like the sequestering subroutine, that Osteth described.
Eltreth’s image manifests on the holographic dais as Maxim gains access. "Don't think it will be that easy.
Imagine follows into the room, as she doesn't want to 'guard' the bodies alone. Seeing Maxim struggle with the terminal she chuckles.
As Eltreth appears she becomes serious. "Great. Where do we pull the plug to this a&&!**@ AI."
She'd like to help, but these Kishalee computers are even worse than the normal ones.
"Hmm. The code is changing dynamically. This could be a little tricky. Can anyone help me with this?"
aid
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Gorn sidles next to Maxim and takes a gander at the code.
"I took a night class," he mumbles by way of explanation.
"Yeah, this same thing happens when I try to calibrate the multicarbodine subspace calibrator.
Have you tried running a background script with atavachron autogeneration?" he says plainly.
As maxim prepares the sequence for starting, he suddenly finds out what the dynamically changing code is for, as the Terminal explodes in his face. Electric arcs discharge into everyone around. Eltreth laughs at the group with his maniacal laugh. The terminal goes dark.
Maxim punches the computer terminal and looks sideways at Gorn. "Well, that didn't work. Should we just trash this place?"
Maxim steps away from the terminals. "This isn't going to work. I figured when that holo-dude said 'countermeasures', he meant homicidal holograms would be popping up and we could kinda kill 'em. But this is a different game we are not equipped to play.
"I don't remember him saying we needed to take care of Eltreth in order to track down the raiders; this is just sort of a favor, and honestly, feels like a really big ask considering he's promised us nothing in return. Let's skip it and get back on task and find the Desperate Hunger. No sense in dying for something that doesn't help us anyway."
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Gorn glides behind a cubicle divider so fast it borders on pre-comprehension, almost as if his earlier ordeal of exploding computer monitors conditioned him to expect such a thing.
The electronic shockwave, already deadened by the intervening office furniture, is further broken by his own Electro field. Only the merest trickle of harshness is allowed to impact his statuesque form.
"Neg. We are in for a penny, so logic would dictate we are in for a pound. However, I see little point in approaching this gently. From now on let me lead with laser fire, poring shots into anything I see fit to fire upon.
O, and that is a low threshold.
We can still murder cultists, always a worthy pursuit. And if there is aught of worth at the end, then that too is good."
Somehow an arc of electricity surged across the room and hit Voxx square in the chest...he'd been keeping an eye out for wayward Shadows.
"Ouch!! You guys press the wrong button or sumthin' ?"
"That's not what I call a safe work environment." Imagine complains. "I can aid on a computer if that's needed."
Maxim grumbles and steps up to another terminal, knowing that this effort crosses the line of insanity.
]The eternal battle for world domination begins.
As the game is clear Maxim starts the battle with Eldreth. In a nerve wrecking race the AI tries to establish counternmeassures to hinder Maxim to work, and Maxim counters that while in parallel trying to execute the sequestering sequence. It's felt in the keayboard as the electricity is charging and the crackle of the build up is heard in the room. But with a final zap the hologram of the Kishalee disappears.
A moment later the hologram comes back to life, but with a different kishalee face.
"Thank you, travelers. With Eltreth returned to his containment, the Gate of Twelve Suns is one step closer to being safe from the predations of those marauders. Now that I have access to the gate’s full sensor suite, I can detect that some of them are still within the system. They are within the core facility of Gate 2’s controller moon, an underground facility where my colleagues could adjust the gravitational pulses emanating from the planetoid’s center when necessary. Since my inception as an artificial intelligence, physical presences have been unnecessary in those facilities, with the exception of standard maintenance bots, of course."
Osteth’s form flickers for a moment. "It seems as though the marauders have briefly commandeered some of those robots to help them in their quest. I am completely locked out of those bots’ programming, and it is only a matter of time before our enemies retrieve an intact control board required to repair the controls that open the Stellar Degenerator’s demiplane. You must stop them!"
Maxim stands triumphantly over the inanimate object he just defeated. But then the AI mentions that they now need to go fix some maintenance bots.
We're being sent on errands, he sighs.
"Osteth, where are the primary controls that open the Stellar Degenerator’s demiplane?"
"Here in this room" Osteth replies.
"Why wouldn't we just wait for the cultists to return here and then ambush them, destroy their control board, and save the galaxy?"
"Why not simply destroying all controls beyond repair? Then no one can open the gate." Imagine suggests.
"My new friends, with much time over the past few days in my confinement to think, I have come to a difficult conclusion. The Stellar Degenerator must be destroyed. Even if this Cult of the Devourer were defeated this day, there is no guarantee the location of the Gate of Twelve Suns will stay hidden. The sivv superweapon cannot be trusted with any people, no matter how peaceful and well intentioned they might be." She grows somber for a moment.
"Though the events happened before I was born, I heard tales of when the kishalee used the Degenerator to ‘pacify’ a terrible enemy that threatened us with obliteration, and the results convinced my people to hide the weapon away."
Osteth’s image disappears, and the entire room is filled with a holographic display of an unknown solar system. Her voice continues. "Some were killed instantly, caught in the energy transference beam when the Stellar Degenerator turned their sun into a black dwarf." The hologram shows a ray of light streaking in from outside of the system and hitting the sun. This tether pulses with energy, tearing apart starships and even moons in its general vicinity. "Those were the lucky ones. Within a week, temperatures across the system dropped to below freezing, and with no sun to sustain it, plant life began to die shortly thereafter." The sun at the center of system shrinks and grows dark. Digital displays appear near each of the system’s ten planets, showing the decrease in temperature and light levels.
"Hundreds of millions eventually starved to death or were killed in skirmishes over food." Another numerical display shows a rising death count. "The mass of the black dwarf wasn’t enough to keep its planets in orbit, and eventually, they started to drift outward, spinning erratically into the inky depths." In the hologram, the orbits of the system’s frozen planets wobble, and the farthest world disappears off the map. "A terrible way for a people to go extinct." The lights in the chamber return to normal as Osteth reappears on her dais. "So you can see why the Stellar Degenerator must be destroyed. But to do so, we must first open the gate."
"But it is too dangerous to wait here. If they come back in full force, they may overwhelm you and that would mean the end of the universe as we know it."
"Alright, I'm sold. I might have suggested just nuking the facility from orbit or reducing them to ash in their own ships by the twin laser cannons on the Sledge, but this is probably the most fun because it's the most dangerous. I'm ready when everyone else is."
Voxx scratches his head as he watches the other engage in computery warfare against the rogue AI. When it's dispatched and the friendly AI outlines what may happen if they fail to secure the Stellar Degeneration thingy, he adds, "Yeah, I'm good to go ! "
So the party is off to the other place. Which means walking back to the ship, getting it out of orbit and then through the strange gravitational turbulences to the next one planet solar system.
This sun's planet is nothing more than a big rock. No plants, no life, no atmosphere. Only the same structure of controlling buildings. After you found out which side of the planet they are on the Sledgehammer decends in search for a place to land.
A thorough scan of the area reveals a tunnel leading to an hangar. Sadly, the Sledgehammer is to big to go in.