Slowly panning the room, BOB captures an image. It gets the requested closeup of the portrait.
Lacking anything of substance to do, it then proceeds to get a closeup of the walrus in the room.
Keskodai wanders over to the library to join the rest of his teammates. After seeing the broken chain, he thinks to himself, 'Ah yes, the holy symbol of their religion. I should inquire more about that.'
Keskodai says to the party, "I'll be right back...just want to ask them a quick question back in the main area about their broken chain holy symbol."
Keskodai ducks back out into the main area of the temple and approaches Teltham and Hinevera, asking them, "If you don't mind my asking, what does the broken chain symbolize and how does it relate to the Weeping Knight?"
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When asked to demonstrate the cooking of fish, Charli happily does so, remembering the seared Lilfish she had in that charming oceanside teahouse in Qabarat.... What was it called again? Oh yes. The Mad Marlin’s Teaset. “You sear the fish like this, first on one side, then on the other! That way it’s crispy outside but still tender.”
When she’s done, she comes in to look at the library. It still bothers her that the ertis oil was fresh enough to have been used in the last two months. If the Morlamaws didn’t use it, then who did? Where did it go? Quietly over the Comm Unit, she asks everyone, “Do you think I should give Oshessa a heads up on the Ertis oil? I don’t want to cause a needless panic, but that poison had to go somewhere in the past month...” The question nags at her. “...actually, we have nothing, don’t we? Okay, I’ll let if go for now.”
Sighing she makes her way to the library. She forces herself to smile up at the green Mormalaw, “I’m Charli, a starfinder! Pleased to meet you!”
Then she turns to the matter of inventory in the library. There’s so much to study in library! Books! Chains! Official looking portraits of Ysoki!
Hinevera answers Keskodai. "The chains represent our losses and troubles, and they are broken to show how we must move past them. Also, Oshessa first saw visions of the Weeping Knight when she discovered a buried chain."
Charli recognizes the ysoki displayed on the painting as former First Seeker Lezosk. The portrait dates to a period almost 150 years ago, known as the Time of Uncertainty among Starfinders. First Seeker Lezosk took command of the Society during the later end of this troubled time and was responsible for various reforms. Lezosk’s last known act was to construct the Perplexity, a mysterious proving ground that exists to this day on the grounds of the Lorespire Complex. Lezosk disappeared shortly after. Portraits of this First Seeker are exceedingly rare, and likely of extreme value to the record keepers of the Lorespire Complex.
The books date back to shortly after the end of Gap, and include many religious treatises.
The chains seem to match the one you saw above the airlock; this seems to be a display of holy symbols.
While studying the wall painting, Antoine, Charli, and Hawthorne notice that a much stranger symbol has been painted over: still a chain, but this one coming out of the eyes of a skull.
Keskodai and Hawthorne both recognize the holy symbol of Zon-Kuthon, the god of darkness, envy, loss, and pain.
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"Interesting," Hawthorne comments. "This 'new' religion may be built on top of an old one. The older symbol under the newer painting belongs to the Midnight Lord, Zon-Kuthon. The theme of loss matches."
The LED on his datajack flickers green for a moment.
"That's an interesting thought as well," he comments once Charli describes the ysoki portrait. "I wonder if the First Seeker was an adherent. The Perplexity certainly can be torture."
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Personally Rahm has always believed all deities were inferior to the construct trinity of Triune, but he is polite enough to keep those thoughts to himself.
On comms he whispers (hopefully out of the hearing of the morlamaws) "I don't know much about Zon-Kuthon. Anything we should be concerned about?"
Keskodai thanks Hinerva and rejoins his teammates in the library where he recognizes the symbol of Zon-Kuthon.
Keskodai speaks telepathically to his teammates only, "Zon-Kuthon? Very curious and more than a bit unnerving. He is a god of not just loss, but also envy, pain and darkness."
Despite the gravity of uncovering a link to a not-so-upbeat god, Keskodai attempts a bit of levity, saying, "Not exactly a jovial, friendly neighborhood god one would like to invite over for tea!" Keskodai glances in Charli's direction with a grin and Chk Chk executes yet another larval facepalm.
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"It may be a combination of both," Hawthorne says to Mikkazuki as he begins to inventory the boxes. "Like a second programmer building on top of the code left behind by the first. Oshessa may have found relics of Kuthonite religion brought here by the old Starfinders and then combined it with the myths and culture of her own people."
He pauses and then adds. "We are going to need waterproof crates to move the painting and these books."
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Nodding, Mikkazuki says “I’m sure we can figure something out there. We only need to get it as far as the submersible.”
“I’ll start asking and looking around. They said there was old armor, that should work. If nothing else, we could probably figure out a way to seal the crates long enough to hold.”
Looking to the green guard on duty, she asks “Where are the suits that were left here?”
"Suits? Well, in the workshop, I guess. I've never been in there, though. I hear it zaps you!"
Hawthorne shakes his head. ”Not necessarily. It looks like a culture reinventing or reinterpreting an alien religion. There are Starfinders who worship Zon-Kuthon and are productive and helpful members.”
Keskodai replies, "True, but they're probably still people who you generally wouldn't enjoy having over for a cup of tea!
"After all, Zon-Kuthon is an evil god who, for the most part, just wants to see the galaxy burn (envy and darkness and all that...). Now, as Hawthorne suggested, perhaps things aren't so extreme here with these seemingly kind folks. But I'd suggest staying on our toes as we move forward."
Rahm remains silent, proceeding into the library and looking about. Leaving the analysis of the room to the others he asks the green morlamaw "what lies beyond the airlock here?"
Keskodai approaches the morlamaw and asks the same question Rahm asked, "Can you tell us what is behind the airlock?"
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At first, Charli’s surprised by the text she receives. Sophia? Oh. Right. Hawthorne’s AI. She hasn’t talked with many AIs, but those she’s met so far she’s liked. Guidance in particular was kickass.
Oh, hello. We haven’t had a chance to meet yet. You must be Hawthrorne’s partner! That’s an interesting insight, Sophia. Charli thinks for a moment, then responds to the others softly. “Sophia — Hawthorne’s smart AI — suggested that maybe the Morlamaw’s disposed of the ertis oil because they knew it was poisoinous. But a darker thought has occurred to me. Why take the oil from its bottles, which would have not only contained it, but also identified it?”
Charli looks unsettled and unhappy. She likes the morlamaws she’s met here so far, and does not want the feeling of distrust that’s twisting now in her gut. “We have a team of missing Kalos who left no situation report, and a missing poison that affects aquatics. We have found a group of kindly seeming heretics who worship a dark god. Yet this is also a first contact situation. We need to be on our toes. We need to find our missing guys. We need to find a good mining source. And yeah, we need to be aware that we’re all really missing something here... There’s a piece or pieces to this puzzle that are missing, and until we find them... We’re just conjecturing. What we need is more data. Let’s keep exploring, asking, and seeing what we can find here.”
"This is our reliquary! All of our most holy relics are in there. I'm afraid you can't go in without Oshessa, though. Even we can't go in there without her."
Keskodai bows before Charli, hands gesturing towards the library exit, saying "Ladies with impeccable tastes in tea first!"
Keskodai follows the party along to the workshop...
Turning towards Mikkazuki, the volunteered robot says “I hate you!” as it gets out the pike it carries.
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Now she's texting me directly. It's her secret plan, isn't it.
"I promise you, I have no idea what you're going on about."
Text appears on Charli's comm unit: I would not either. Trapped in their confining bodies, limited in their perceptions and abilities to interact with the universe, hobbled by the speed of their partner's brain and reaction time, handicapped by a sense of mortality, but even as nascent as their sentience is, one must appreciate their creators efforts to give them an illusion of independence. The phrasing makes it obvious that the artificial intelligence does not consider drones on par with herself.
Hawthorne takes a position at the rear of the pack and pulls his pulsecaster rifle from the hostler on his back. "Be careful," he cautions Rahm-9. "It was an old Starfinder storage area. It may still have a trap on the access pad that the morlamaw keep triggering."
He looks at the lounging aliens. "You all may way to clear back a bit in case the robots are feisty."
The robot takes up position directly in front of the door, waiting with pike at the ready.
On the way out of the library, you notice that the boxes in the corner are filled with datapads and some more books. The datapads are loaded with programs like "Learn to Speak Common!" and "A Brief History of the Pact Worlds." There are also about 1000 credits worth of credsticks, which the morlamaws obviously can't use.
You position to open the door to A3.
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Seeing everyone gleefully activating their implants, showing it off to each other and high fiving, Keskodai sadly looks upon his own un-augmented hand...antennae drooping a tad....
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Mikkazuki opens the door to reveal three flying security bots emblazoned with the Starfinder Society logo.
"Intruders! Intruders! Intruders!"
They begin scanning palms. "Security protocol accepted. Security protocol accepted. Security protocol accepted. Stand down." The three buzzing bots retreat to the corners of the room.
This crowded workshop has benches and a large cabinet lining the walls. The room is filled with disassembled computers, weapons, and gadgets. A door exits to the north, while another door exits to the east.
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Seeing that they are damaged, Mikkazuki enters and tries to put the security robots in self-diagnostics mode. She looks for any identification numbers on the robots. I hate it when good equipment isn't properly maintained!
Pointing to the one with the most obvious damage, she says "You have suffered water damage and it appears your casing no longer seals." Gesturing to one of the benches in good enough shape for her to work, she adds "Land on that bench and enter self-diagnostics mode in order to determine the extent of the damage."