Is... strange, she continues mumbling to herself. She forwards the emails to the group under Solstarni's account. She goes on to check Doctor Solstarni's calendar.
Dr. Solstarni's calendar is very precise, full of well-documented meetings, lectures, and even personal time assigned to various projects. Lauren notes that the calendar shows Solstarni departing on a research sabbatical in approximately 60 days; it also contains several reminders to secure forms, complete paperwork, and notify others of her travel over the next several weeks.
As Lauren finishes perusing Solstarni's calendar, her comm unit blips with Diedre's audio message.
As Diedre and Dr. Muhali start toward the absent professor's office, he taps his coat pockets with his hands and eventually announces, "I beg your pardon, doctor, but I fear I left my comm unit in your office. Might we head back so I can check? I'd hate to have to replace it."
As Diedre and Dr. Muhali start toward the absent professor's office, he taps his coat pockets with his hands and eventually announces, "I beg your pardon, doctor, but I fear I left my comm unit in your office. Might we head back so I can check? I'd hate to have to replace it."
"Oh! of course." Muhali turns towards her office. "The rest of you, meet us at Olmehya's office. It's just down that way."
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Lauren begins looking at the personal files.
As soon as Muhali and Miraj head back towards the Professor's office, Diedre and the others beat feet to Olmehya's office and Lauren therein.
{"Work fast, Lauren. We want to be outside when Professor Muhali gets here. If they even remotely think we had anything to do with us then there'll be nothing but delays. We'll have to jump through all sorts of investigative hoops. Not fun."}
Miraj follows the Professor Muhali. "Thank you. Sorry for the trouble. I'd leave my head behind if it wasn't attached," he quips.
Lauren begins looking at the personal files.
There are few files stored locally - Solstarni was diligent about storing her research materials on university servers. Lauren finds an incomplete draft of a paper and a few photos of Solstarni with her colleges, but the newest file is a letter from Professor Muhali. The letter, signed two days ago, grants Dr. Solstarni premission to depart eight weeks early to take advantage of "special conditions in the field".
The letter is a forgery.
As Lauren wraps up her investigation of Dr. Solstarni's computer, she hears Diedre's voice pressing at the back of her mind.
Lauren makes note of the forged document and logs out of the computer before heading out of the room. As she hears Deidre's voice, she responds telepathically.
As Diedre arrives at the office and sees that Lauren is out of the potential crime scene, she taps at her comm unit. "Uh, Professor Muhali? You might want to get to Doctor Olmehya's right away. There looks like there's been an ... incident." Using the camera in her unit she takes a quick photo from the doorway and sends it along as well.
{"It's all about perception and presentation,"} she sends to the rest of the group with a mental grin.
Miraj follows the Professor Muhali. "Thank you. Sorry for the trouble. I'd leave my head behind if it wasn't attached," he quips.
"Ha, I understand. Sometimes, there's so much going on that I-" Muhali stops to take Diedre's message. "An incident? What do you mean, an-" Diedre's photographic answer preempts the Professor's question, and the color drains from her face. Without a word, she runs back to Solstarni's office.
Appraising the scene, Muhali takes a deep breath. "This is very wrong. Olmehya is an exceptionally tidy person, and..." at a loss for words, she gestures to the smashed artifacts scattered on the floor. "I'm going to go contact the authorities; I think this has become very serious. In the meantime, see what you can discern from this. Please - Olmehya is my friend."
Without another word, Professor Muhali walks swiftly down the hall.
Left to their own devices, the Starfinders begin searching the ransacked office.
16 or better:
18 or better:
With official approval now, Diedre follows Miraj into the office and begins to look around.
Checking out the file cabinet, she notes the damage and after a moment there's an exclamation from the half-elf. "I don't think the professor went anywhere willingly," she says. Turning away from the cabinet, she looks back over her shoulder at it and moves slowly back up against it. She then turns back and looks at the damage. "Someone was thrown up against this pretty hard."
She hands Miraj the scrap of paper with the note on it and continues looking through the cabinet, eventually producing the annotated scans of Zan's notebooks. "I think someone's ahead of us here," she says. "Rather than take Zan's work, they decided to take a local expert on Zan." She shakes her head. "Let's just hope they decide that they need to keep her alive."
Diedre looks up at Miraj. "What do you think? With those printouts can we find out where they were going?"
Before Professor Muhali departs, Miraj asks her to notify the security desk that he will want to look over any security camera records available.
"Someone ought to see what zhat Albeans character can give us, after going through all that to get on his good side, or what passes for a good side. Looks like we may have to try to follow a trail pretty quickly."
Miraj starts by taking a video scan of the room, with some still pics where details might be of interest. Then he begins to sort through things.
Miraj agrees with Diedre's suppositions. He picks up the suit of tempweave armor and holds it up to see if it would fit him. He tucks it away and makes a mental note to notify Muhali that he has it.
He recommends making a copy of all the computer files that might contain useful information for study as time allows.
"In computer," Lauren says, "Messages from... Uh cannot say." She frantically types the name Dr Eryub Paqual into her comm unit and sends it to everyone in a group text. She continues, "That persons tries to gets her to leave but she say 'No'. She seem to is not believing the other doctor. Then there is this forged papers for travelings. They is signed by Doctor MooHalley for the trip, but Doctor MooHally is saying she not knows of trips." Lauren's bell bellows as if catching her breath before finishing, "Is likely she is hostaged. Anyone has seen camera nearby? Maybe they is on tapes?"
Before Professor Muhali departs, Miraj asks her to notify the security desk that he will want to look over any security camera records available.
Muhali assures Miraj that she will do so, instructing the detective to stop by the receptionist's desk on the 1st floor in half an hour or so.
He picks up the suit of tempweave armor and holds it up to see if it would fit him. He tucks it away and makes a mental note to notify Muhali that he has it.
It's basic lashunta tempweave, and unless Miraj grows a second pair of arms, it won't fit him without some level of tailoring.
"Is likely she is hostaged. Anyone has seen camera nearby? Maybe they is on tapes?"
A cursory inspection reveals a security camera watching the hallway outside Solstarni's office, but nothing within the room.
Miraj cools his heels until it's time to check with the security desk. Then he heads down, inviting everyone to join. "Zhat hall camera ought to show us who entered und who left, at least. Let's see."
Miraj cools his heels until it's time to check with the security desk. Then he heads down, inviting everyone to join. "Zhat hall camera ought to show us who entered und who left, at least. Let's see."
As the Starfinders enter the lobby, the receptionist smiles at them. "First you swindle a pack of reporters, and now you're professional investigators? Interesting folks." He gestures to the monitor on his desk, which is currently playing recorded camera feeds from multiple areas within the building. "I'm no detective, but you might this interesting. Two days ago, some people entered the building and took the stairs, but never appeared on an upper floor - or were recorded leaving."
The footage in question shows three korasha lashuntas carrying heavy backpacks and wearing matching uniforms entering the building late in the evening. Like the receptionist says, they're seen taking the stairs, but once they turn the corner they seemingly disappear.
The receptionist frowns as he looks at the Starfinders again. "Beg my pardon, but wasn't Dr. Ophir with you? Professor Muhali didn't mention her; I thought she would be enthused to see her again."
Aureum is nowhere to be seen.
"Those are Port Authority uniforms," Diedre points out, but she seems too distracted to notice anything else about the video footage.
Entiren looks at the footage for a few moments, before reaching forward and pointing to a section of the screen. "I'm not that experienced with computers and all that, but it seems that there has been some tampering with this. Look here, the video seems to shutter for a moment before looping back to a few minutes previous."
When the receptionist mentions Aureum not being there, Entiren looks around for a moment. Not seeing her, he thinks that she could have perhaps saw an old associate and decided to catch up with them for a bit.
Miraj agrees with Entiren's assessment of the footage. "Can we see a log of the terminals which have access to these files for around the time the professor was attacked? These guys might have an accomplice with computer skills here in the building." He also asks for the best screen capture of the three when they are on camera.
Miraj pulls out his comm unit and sends Aureum a message, "The situation is evolving. Where are you? We're at the reception desk. Check in when you get this."
"Wait, what?" Diedre says, her eyes snapping back to the security screen. She'd been looking around, waiting for Aureum to reappear, but her attention turns back to the group. She looks at the screen for a moment.
"We might be able to see the original footage. It depends on where the modified it. If they hacked the camera directly, there's nothing we can do, but if they edited it after the fact, the original footage might be still around."
She moves over, giving the receptionist a friendly smile. "You don't mind if I ...?" she asks, gesturing at the keyboard.
She moves over, giving the receptionist a friendly smile. "You don't mind if I ...?" she asks, gesturing at the keyboard.
The elderly lashunta gives an affable shrug. "Be my guest. It's not like today could get any stranger."
Miraj pulls out his comm unit and sends Aureum a message, "The situation is evolving. Where are you? We're at the reception desk. Check in when you get this."
It's several minutes before Aureum sends a curt message in reply: <Needed some air.>
Diedre searches through the transfer path, looking at all the temporary locations the video would have been stored before pushing the keyboard away in disappointment.
"We won't find the original footage," she says, obviously annoyed. "They disrupted it right at the camera."
She sighs and looks up at the others. "Let's just hope we can determine where they would have taken her based on the writings we have. We should find Aureum and pour over them."
"We also need to get what documents we can from Professor Allbeans. Who knows how long before he changes his mind about helping us?"
Entiren pulls out his comm unit and opens Lauren's message from a few minutes before. "While you do that, I think I'll look into this 'Dr. Eryub Paqual' fellow, see if there is anything I can find that might connect them to this situation. Who knows, something useful might come from it." He then opens up an browser on his comm unit and begins searching through the infosphere for anything he can find related to Dr. Eryub Paqual.
Entiren pulls out his comm unit and opens Lauren's message from a few minutes before. "While you do that, I think I'll look into this 'Dr. Eryub Paqual' fellow, see if there is anything I can find that might connect them to this situation. Who knows, something useful might come from it." He then opens up an browser on his comm unit and begins searching through the infosphere for anything he can find related to Dr. Eryub Paqual.
Entiren's search quickly turns up a host of academic papers, letters, and research materials authored by Dr. Paqual, mostly focused on archaeology of elven ruins.
After several minutes of perusing the infosphere, Entiren looks up at the others. "Whoever this Dr. Paqual is, they don't seem to be a highly known researcher. Everything that I'm finding that they worked on is either poorly vetted, or else he is one of a number of secondary authors that worked on it."
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Diedre spends a couple of minutes looking over the information before giving a snort of laughter.
"He's not highly known because he doesn't exist," she says as she scrolls through more of the bits and pieces about the doctor. "It's a fake profile. Someone created this persona to convince Doctor Olmehya that they were legit." She shrugs. "I see profiles like this all the time on my infosphere site. There are all sorts of tells, though."
She looks at Miraj. "I think we really need to go through Zan's stuff and try to find out where they would have taken her. This says that she's in even more danger than we thought."
As the Starfinders complete their review of the security footage and Paqual's false online persona, a gentle afternoon rain shower rolls over Qabarat.
<Come to Memorial Garden. Please?>
The half-elf doesn't need to look at the signature to know who it's from.
Diedre looks down at her comm unit for a moment before tapping out a reply.
"Uh, guys? I'll ... uh ... I'll be right back, ok?" she says before heading out of the lobby.
The half-elf makes her way quickly to the Memorial Garden, her eyes searching eagerly for a certain blue-haired Lashunta.
Miraj is in favor of looking for clues about who took the professor. Since the people who took her were dressed in the uniform of Qabarat Port Authority, he suggests paying them a visit and showing them the footage to see if they can identify the three.
"Zhen zhere is zhis Five Arches place zhey wanted zhe professor to meet zhem at."
Diedre walks briskly out of the lobby and into a light rain, the heat and humidity a sticky reminder of the tropical latitude.
"Oh." Auruem stops short when she sees Diedre, clearly trying to figure out what to say. "I, uh..." she points back to the bushes, "I haven't done that since my undergrad days, ha. Bit of a... bit of a different circumstance." The lashunta wraps her arms around herself and shivers as if she weren't in a sub-tropic garden, her face pale and her breathing shallow and quick.
"I... I'm sorry for bailing on you guys. I know we have a job to do, but..." Aureum trails off, looking for the right words, "I thought I would be okay. I thought that I had been away for long enough, but Ikimsi recognized me the second I walked in the door, and everything started feeling wrong again. I hid behind Lauren so Muhali wouldn't see me, and I didn't even cross the threshold into Ailabiens' office. I though I could just get through it, hold on until we bugged out of here, but..."
Aureum sits down on the wet grass, landing hard, and Diedre's surprised to notice that the lashunta is hyperventilating, but she doesn't give the half-elf an opportunity to get a word in edgewise. "Olmehya's missing. Missing! It's happened again, and nobody cares, and it's happening again, and I can't... just... I can't..." Aureum scrubs her hands through her hair as if trying to exorcise her thoughts, the rain running down her face in rivulets.
She relaxes her hold on the woman enough to lean back and look her in the eyes.
"Listen to me. It will be ok. We can do this. You can do this. I have faith in you. We'll find Olmehya and then we'll figure out what these people really want. Ok?"
"I's agrees. Port Authority and Fives Arches are goods places to try next." Lauren says to Miraj.
Entiren nods at Miraj and Lauren. "I agree that going to the Port Authority next would probably be the best place to go next, as they should probably be informed that either their people are being impersonated, or are kidnappers. After that, the Five Arches is probably a good place to find out anything new about this whole thing. It would probably be best for us to wait a little while though."
Taking Diedre by the hand, Aurem cautiously moves deeper into the garden, peeking around corners as if a pack of akatas were lurking between the trees. Finally, her breath catches and Diedre can feel her hand stiffen. Roughly 30 feet ahead, a pair of holographic statues watch over the flowers - a male damaya lashunta with a quiet smile and a female damaya lashunta with a stern gaze and gray-blue hair.
As Diedre and Aureum approach the statues, the half-elf feels a collection of emotions and half-memories pressing at the boundary of her mind. Looking over, she sees Aureum shaking her head, apparently resisting the intruding thoughts.
Failing the Will Save:
"Diedre?" Auruem's voice wavers. "Meet my parents."
The Starfinders head out into the rain, quickly flagging down a robotaxi that ferries them to the Port Authority headquarters, not terribly far from the landing pad of the Moriko's Legacy.
Easily flagging down a port worker, the Starfinders find themselves in a nondescript lobby, watching people flow in and out on official business. After half an hour of cooling their heels, they're ushered into the office of Gate Controller Raiyri, a female damaya lashunta in a crisp uniform.
"Good afternoon! Thank you for taking the time to stop by the Port Authority. What can I do for you?"
Diedre blinks her eyes and shakes her head as the memory fragments assail her. When Aureum indicates that the holographic images are of her parents, the half-elf reaches down to take the woman's hand in hers. Leaning her head against Aureum's shoulder, Diedre takes a deep breath. She lets the emotions she's feeling from her companion wash over her.
{"Tell me what I can do to help."}
{"Tell me what I can do to help."}
Aureum stares through the holograms, jaw set. {"None of these memories are mine. I wasn't here when they did the memorial service. I was still looking for them."}
Auruem's thoughts begin to tumble like a waterfall. A mixture of telepathic words, snippets of memory, and raw emotion, she tells Diedre of a childhood destined for academic pursuits. Of joining her parents on field expeditions to distant planets. Of growing up, gaining independence, and starting her own career. Of the first joint family expedition as professional equals.
Of the cave-in that took them away forever.
{"I returned to Castrovel because I had to. I wanted to keep looking for them, but the rest of the expedition was leaving, and I couldn't keep going without food and water."}
Slowly, Auruem's grief is subsumed by frustration and then anger. {"I pulled every favor I could, building another expedition to return. Six weeks in radiation-blasted caves on an uninhabited planet in the Vast. I never found them. In the meantime, they did... this."} She points derisively at the memorial. {"When I came home, my parent's house was empty. All their accounts were closed, all their research missing. No one took me seriously. No one believed that it wasn't an accident. So I gave up. I left. I never found out what happened."}
Auruem pressed her head into Diedre's shoulder. "And now it's happening again. I should have tried harder. I should have prevented it from happening again."
"Good afternoon," Miraj returns politely. "My name is Miraj Pavana. We all recently arrived in your lovely city on official business for the Starfinders Society." Miraj flashes his membership badge.
"We came to speak to a professor at the Qabarat University. When we went to zhe office of one of zhe experts in the subject about which we have questions, we discovered the office broken into and signs of a struggle. We checked zhe security cameras and discovered three suspicious looking people in the uniforms of the port authority entering surreptitiously.
"Zhe video feed turned out to be hacked in a manner zhat obscured the view of the professor's office. We want to share the information we gathered in hopes you can shed light on who the three might have been. We realize the three may just be using a port authority uniform as a disguise, but perhaps you can detect any evidence that could indicate this if zhey are not members of your organization."
Miraj shares the video capture of the three entering, and can show the Gate Controller any of the other evidence gathered, such as the e-mail exchange, the state the office was in when they arrived, and the corrupted video feed. He also gives her the contact information for the front desk and Professor Muhali, if she wants to confirm what he is reporting.
"Good afternoon," Miraj returns politely. "My name is Miraj Pavana. We all recently arrived in your lovely city on official business for the Starfinders Society." Miraj flashes his membership badge...
"This is... extremely troubling. The Port Authority is a very respectable organization..." Raiyiri frowns as she watches the security clip several times. Turning to her computer, she scans several pages of data before shaking her head. "Well, our assignment logs don't show anyone dispatched to the university within the last week, so I'm disposed to believe that your miscreants are simply impostors. Why the Port Authority, though? I'm afraid that they may have used those uniforms to infiltrate one of our transit sites. Would they have reason to bypass customs in or out of the city?"
"I know that you and Miraj and Entiren and Lauren can save Olmehya. You're brave, you're resourceful, and you aren't afraid to take action. But..." Aureum's face turns towards the sky as afternoon rays of light begin to break through the clouds. "I need to find out what happened to my parents. I owe it to them. I owe it to myself. I owe it to anyone else who might get hurt."
When she turns back to Diedre, Auruem opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Finally, she takes a deep breath and squeezes her eyes shut as if she's bracing for impact.
Very quietly, Aureum's voice slips into Diedre's mind. {"Will you hate me? If I leave?"}
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"I could never hate you," she finally manages to say, her voice breaking. She pauses again as she tries to collect herself together.
"My mother has always been fond of telling me that the gods put people in our lives for a reason. Sometimes they're with us for the rest of our lives and sometimes only for a single moment. All we can do is enjoy them while t-they're there - to ... to love them while we can."
She brushes again at her eyes and her lips quirk in a silly smile. "I realize that we haven't known each other long enough for something like that, but I really think that there could be something between us."
She steps close and takes the woman's hands in hers again.
"But we each have our own path and we have to follow it. I could never hate you for following the path that's meant for you. I'll just be sad that I can't be with you on it." Her voice breaks again. She looks into Aureum's eyes. "This isn't because I can't keep the cabin clean, is it?" she asks with an emotional giggle. "I know. I'm sorry, I'm being silly."
Diedre is silent for a bit, taking in the woman that's begun to mean something to her. "I guess that means that you're leaving now aren't you?" Seeing the confirmation in Aureum's eyes, Diedre nods and looks away again. "So then ... I ... uh ... I guess this is goodbye." She frowns just a little. "I hope that ... Could I ...?" She trails off, but after a moment of hesitation, she lifts herself up on her tiptoes and gently touches her lips to Aureum's for the duration of a half-dozen heartbeats. "I've been wanting to do that from the moment that I met you," she says when she finally pulls away. "I've just always hoped that ..." She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter."
The half-elf takes a deep breath and steps back away from Aureum. She holds up her wrist with her comm unit on it. "Anyway, you know where you can reach me if you want to talk or ... or anything." She shrugs her shoulders and before her tears can begin again, she slips past one of the hedges and away.
~~~~~
When Diedre returns to the others before catching the ride to the Port Authority, her eyes are red and puffy and she doesn't say anything else other than, "Aureum has her own path to follow. She's not coming with us." She spends the ride in silence, looking out the vehicle's window.
"This is... extremely troubling. The Port Authority is a very respectable organization..." Raiyiri frowns as she watches the security clip several times. Turning to her computer, she scans several pages of data before shaking her head. "Well, our assignment logs don't show anyone dispatched to the university within the last week, so I'm disposed to believe that your miscreants are simply impostors. Why the Port Authority, though? I'm afraid that they may have used those uniforms to infiltrate one of our transit sites. Would they have reason to bypass customs in or out of the city?"
"Zhey may have planned to take zhe professor to an old archaeological site in ..." Miraj pauses to check his notes, "Ukalam. Does zhat help?"
Aureum disappears into the garden, leaving Diedre alone as the sun finally conquers the rain.
"Zhey may have planned to take zhe professor to an old archaeological site in ..." Miraj pauses to check his notes, "Ukalam. Does zhat help?"
Raiyiri's eyebrow arches in surpise. "Ukulam? Not a lot of traffic through those aiudara." The lashunta turns to her computer and begins sifting through digital records.
Seeing blank looks among the Starfinders, the gate controller elaborates, "Ukulam has been traditionally considered off-limits for colonization efforts by lashuntas, elves, or formians. Been that way for generations, and every asanan city-state has strict regulations on travel. No starships, no land or air vehicles, and no access without a permit. Ah, here we go."
Raiyiri prints out a document and hands it to Miraj. "Two days ago, a research team departed for Turhalu Point, on the west coast of Ukulam. They carried authorization from the University to transport lab equipment, cryogenically frozen organics, and specialty foodstuffs, as well as 15 people - 11 lashuntas, two humans, one shirren, and one kasathan. Does that sounds like it could be your group?"
"It sounds exactly like our group. Whatever authorization zhey presented from zhee university was likely forged." Miraj shows the controller the other forged document they uncovered.
"Given all zhis information," Miraj gestures to the video and still pictures he showed the controller, "it is likely a university professor has been kidnapped. To whom do we apply for a permit to pursue the miscreants? I'm sure if you contact Professor Muhali, she will confirm zhat we have been helping her in zhis matter."
"Is thinks maybe we checks out the Five Arches place and collects supplies firsts. This Ooh koo lamb sounds like is wildernesses." Lauren turns to the controller. "Do yous have a videos of peoples leaving through gates. We coulds confirm if kasatha is our missing professor with university."
"To whom do we apply for a permit to pursue the miscreants? I'm sure if you contact Professor Muhali, she will confirm zhat we have been helping her in zhis matter."
"If you're in someone's good graces at the university, I would start there - they make up the bulk of our Ukulam traffic; they know how to navigate the process. If you have any other friends with clout, I would give them a call as well - the Port Authority (or Qabarat, for that matter) doesn't make the rules, we just enforce 'em. It's the Xenowardens you need to appease, and the more important you seem, the more your claim will get expedited."
"Do yous have a videos of peoples leaving through gates. We coulds confirm if kasatha is our missing professor with university."
"Yes, we should." The gate controller turns to her computer again, but after a few moments, she frowns. "But we do not. Seems like the video system was down for maintenance. Odd."