Kotora tries waiting patiently but...fails miserably. Once the announcement is made, she gleefully runs up and down the passages, hugging all she meets...daily. The skitter pauses only long enough to sleep before setting out again.
The summons arrives mid-embrace with a rather confused Vesk. "Awwww sorry. I must go now. G'luck new friend!"
Arriving as instructed, she spots her cousin and squeals a shrill noise. "Soooo pretty! You look AH-MAZING!"
Dribble blushes; her normally yellow fur turns orange. "Thank you! It was well worth the credits! Is everyone ready to go to the eoxian?"
A room door opens as Ack pops his head out at the sound of the ruckus coming from the hallway. The bulbous head bobbles about as he looks around at the people walking about before seeing Kotora and Dribble excitedly conversing. With his ears sitting disheveled, and his eyes angry at the bright lights, he turned back around and closed the door.
Cha'Vishtyr leaves his apartment behind. His eyes bloated and saggy due to worry and lack of sleep as he though he would have an Akata bursting from his neck any day now. And yet nothing happened. he was happy but still worried.
Now was time to go meet back up with the Ambassador.
Jaxy enjoyed the five minutes of fame he got, trying to capitalize on everyone on the street rushing up to him to talk, freely handing out a new business card with every selfie and getting odd looks in return. Due to his constant offering of 'help to end the 'pin'n'safferin' of everyone, his moment in the spotlight comes to an end even faster than normal.
He often drags Ack out of his goblin nest of a room and goes to the various food stalls and eateries that are within walking distance of their lodgings, sometimes even bringing back some food to make sure Daddy Cha'Cha is eating.
Glad to run into the other two skitters in the group, the purple skitter almost barrels the other two over. "Oh, my! Kotora! Dribble! You two are looking amazing! Dribble somethings different about you... did you get your teeth polished? Kotora! Give me a hug!"
He then turns just in time to see Ack's door sliding closed. He rushes the door and sticks a few hands into it before it can close all the way. "OI, Ack. We're on our way to see the dead-but-not-dead man! You can't go back to sleep!" Forcing the door open, he steps into the room and bodily hauls the goblin out into the hallway. "Ya got everything you need?"
looking up from Ack packing his things, Jaxy finds Cha' With a shout of glee, the skitter rockets into the shirren, before spreading all six arms and leaping into a flying full body hug. "DADDY CHA'CHA! I haven't seen you in FOREVER! How you been doing. Dang you feel a little more bulky. Have you been working out? Without me? Ahhh, next time let me know I'd love to workout with you! My you aren't looking so good! Has little Jaxy been stressing you? Let me see him, I'll give him a stern talking too! is he doing okay? I worry about the little guy..."
As soon as the group is together, Jaxy gives everyone a smile and asks quite innocently, "Anyone feel like dying today? ...No? Okay let's go meet the dead-but-but-not-dead man!"
You travel to the Lorespire Complex for your meeting. There, you are greeted by the same receptionist, who seems very eager to see you. She greets you and then pauses for a moment, like she's hoping for something before taking you to your meeting.
"SQUEEEE!" squeals the skitter leaving headlong into the receptions arms, wrapping all six around her tightly. "You lose weight? Yous looks good! Not-dead guy treating yous well? He called us to come meet again!"
Tossing a thumb towards Ack and Jaxy, she adds "Think those two hungry."
Cha'Vishtyr approaches. {"We are here to see Ambassador Nor. He requested a meeting with us. Could you let him know we are here?"} He asks her mentally.
The receptionist collects all the skittermander hugs she can and also gets out a stash of very yummy goblin emergency rations. She nods at Cha and replies "Chiskisk has reserved a conference room for a meeting with you and with the Ambassador. Please come this way."
You find yourselves in the same conference room as before. The atmosphere this time is more comfortable than before. The ambassador listens carefully to your description of what has happened, as does Chiskisk. The ambassador looks closely at all the data and computer code and scan results you have acquired, and points out that the Drift Rock appears to be a small piece of a truly ancient device. He does not recognize the language in the data, but Chiskisk thinks he might be able to find something on the Starfinder databases that might help. Chiskisk encourages you to have a snack and relax while he performs the search, although he certainly welcomes help from any of you who wish to help with the database search (computers, culture, life science, and mysticism can all be used).
Jaxy gives the receptionist-lady a great big hug, glad to see her again. "Kotora's right, you do look good! Did you do something to your hair?"
In the office, Jaxy gives a very broad and expansive recount of the events, focusing heavily on his pregnancy and how the nausea made it so hard to try eating and then how his kid became Daddy Cha'Cha's as well, even asking him to show the little one off!
As the conversation turns to talks about searching the database, Jaxy tries to muscle in on Ack's tasty rations, before wandering over to the computer, nothing better to do than watch from under the Venture-Captain's elbow.
As soon as they are lead into the conference room, Kotora runs forward and hugs their summoner. "Dead-Not-Dead guy! Glad you not dead still!" Squeezing tightly, she yawns as Jaxy begins to summarize their activities.
"OOOO I help! Ack show me use buttons on computer thingy." she explains gleeful, rushing over to the pad. The skitter frantically pounds away in a seemingly random fashion on the keyboard. "Or was it hug the buttons?"
As she continues to tap away with four hands, the other two embrace the keypad in a gentle snuggle.
Dribble immediately joins in the group hug with the receptionist, but is reluctant to hug the ambassador. She peers over Kotora's shoulder, trying to make sense of the things that the other skitter pulls up on the display "Koto! Easy there please, I am trying to make sense of it all!"
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Cha'Vishtyr nods his head in thanks to the kind receptionist. He quickly swats a few skittermander hands away from the keyboard as they are more distracting that and he finds himself commonly misspelling words as their 'helping' causes him to error out pages, lose typed words, go back several pages and sometime even leave a chocolate goblin print smear across his screen. He groans internally.
This is almost worse that living with a Ysoki family.
At the chance to gleam at the Starfinder database and libraries, the little Goblin offers help where he can in the researching.
With help from Ack and Cha and Dribble (and 'help' from Kotora), Chiskisk is able to turn up some interesting results.
"There is some good news. The Starfinder Society’s linguistic database recognized many of the symbols you found on the Drift Rock, because this is not the first time they’ve appeared post-Gap. The bad news is that the source is… highly unreliable," Chiskisk notes, as segments of their chitinous body scrape together in agitation. "All that we have about these earlier texts comes from Halkueem Zan nearly three centuries ago, and it seems that no published studies of those texts have appeared since. According to these records, Zan’s original findings were donated to the Qabarat University of Xenoarchaeology and Xenoanthropology on Castrovel shortly after his—" The shirren pauses while contemplating how best to phrase the sentence. "—disruptive expeditions. “Fortunately, the Society has numerous alumni from that university, and I can readily secure you a contact there and forward my personal recommendation to a few faculty members. Perhaps they can show you Zan’s notes and even take you to the original site so that you can search for more clues about whatever this Drift Rock once was."
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...and sometime even leave a chocolate goblin print smear across his screen. He groans internally.
After about 3 whole seconds of watching the screens Jaxy gets bored of the whole thing. He starts looking around the room and soon finds a bowl filled with little chocolates in the center of the table. He clambers onto the table and pulls the bowl to him before collecting all of the chocolates in it. He then takes off all the small wrappers, eating a few in the process.
After giving the chocolates a long hard stare, he has a flash of inspiration. Since no one was able to play with him, maybe he could make his own friend! And who better to model it off of then Ack? He starts melting the chocolates in his hands and shaping them into a smaller version of hte goblin. As he finishes he rushes over to Daddy Cha-Cha to show him his wonderful creation. Tapping the slightly melted chocolate against the screen, Jaxy says, "Hey, Hey! Look! I made a chocolate goblin!"
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A little later, having played with the goblin doll action figure to the point it melted into a pile of goo and then was eaten, a much browner looking Jaxy listens to the venture-captain's briefing obviously excited. "Ohhh, do we get to go to Castrovel? That sounds like fun! ...but what's a ze-know-Archie-o-low-G and ze-know-an-throw-pot-O-low-G?"
Dribble groans a bit when she sees Jaxy's chocolate goblin, but when Chiskisk starts to speak again she jumps to attention "Oh, we get to go to Castrovel, that is wonderful! When will we be going? Can we take the Sunrise Maiden pretty please?"
Still doing her best to gently embrace the keyboard, she slowly lets Cha take over the research...stepping a few feet away to pout. 'I was helpin...why they no want help?'
Though the news of traveling brightens her mood considerable, the skittermander hops in place. "OOOOOO I'll drive!"
{"It would do good to get off this station for a little while. A University of Castrovel sounds peaceful."} Cha'Vishtyr seems quite pleased. {"What do you mean by disruptive expeditions?"}
"I can understand wanting to take your own ship. Let's get it upgraded a bit to work better for you. That should take a few days, which is also time I can use to make sure your contacts are ready."
"Halkueem Zan traveled throughout the Pact Worlds making a name for himself as an explorer and archaeologist, but his techniques were utter rubbish. He was a looter with a good press agent, and he published lurid gibberish like ‘Pyramid People of Ukulam.’ His articles were popular with the public, but for every diligent explorer they inspired, another two were unscrupulous treasure hunters who just wanted to blow things up and call it archaeology. Zan wanted to explore a site on the restricted continent of Ukulam on Castrovel, but when the authorities denied him passage, he went anyway. I believe they confiscated most of his findings, and the whole incident spurred a decade of restrictions on offworld explorers."
{"So, if it is so restricted the does a University even have the authority to get us to these sites? It is just a school after all. Do schools on Castrovel hold authority over government sanctioned restricted areas?"} Cha'Vishtyr has some additional questions. {"Or are we more hoping to just look over his writings?"}
"I will have no trouble getting you access to the documents. The university can't grant you access to forbidden areas, but they do have a great deal of influence with the government authorities who can."
Jaxy bounds around excitedly as the talk turns to their new ship. "We're going on a space trip, going on a space trip, going on a space trip on our nice little ship! Wait can we paint it purple?"
He then listens to the conversation of the Venture-Captain and Daddy Cha'Cha, but doesn't get most of what's being brandied about, until towards the very end. "Wait we need to go to a forb'dd'n area? Ohhhh, taht sounds fun! What do we need to do to go there? When I was training, we had to sneak around in the early early morning!"
"At the kindergarten I also had to sneak around in the afternoon, we did not want those larvae to wake up during their nap"
"I sneaked aboard a ship once." offers Kotora, helpfully.
With the research done, and the discussing going about, the remaining snacks invited those with a wandering attention. As the others brought reassurance with their stealthiness, both formal and otherwise; a silence could be disturbed with a small noise as what food remained was being shoveled down similar to unwanted table scraps down a garbage disposal; sharp teeth included.
After you discuss with Chiskisk what you want done to your ship, the meeting quickly winds down, and you get a chance to rest and make any last minute preparations before your trip.
Cha'Vishtyr helps load the ship with food, water and goblin snacks as he certainly doesn't want Ack chewing on the wiring.
Am I really okay with going on a trip with a goblin and a crew of helpful skittermanders? He questions his life decisions that led him into not only this predicament but also with a skittermander / akata baby on his neck.
{"To Castrovel!"} He tries to seem eager as he latches himself into the chair. {And may the gods get us there safely. Just not Jaxy's god of Death."}
Dribble makes sure that her seat is fitted with enough safety belts and a cup-holder. "I am ready!"
Jaxy Looks over their remodeled ship, glad he got Ack to spring for painting it purple. With a smile on his face he scurries of to buy a lot of snacks and food and some fruits and some vegetables and some meats and some drinks, stashing the perishables in the refrigerator and everything else in random spots around the ship. He makes sure to acquaint himself with the gunner's seat. and pads it with extra cushions to fit his smaller frame. He even stashes a few snacks in it for safe keeping.
He gazes longingly at the slightly too large turret on top of the ship, giddy over the chance to possibly use the thing.
{"To Castrovel!"} He tries to seem eager as he latches himself into the chair. {And may the gods get us there safely. Just not Jaxy's god of Death."}
Finding out he hadn't taken the seatbelts in his seat into account when putting the cushions in, Jaxy looks up from rearranging them to look at Daddy Cha with a puzzled look on his face. "Bu... but... Pharasma's your god of death too... huh?"
As you prepare to leave, you receive a communication from Chiskisk telling you that a postdoctoral student named Whaloss at the University of Qabarat will greet you when you land. He has worked with the Starfinder Society in the past.
Your journey is smooth and uneventful, taking 3 days of Drift travel. As you reenter normal space, you see the planet of Castrovel. It is a vibrant planet of sparkling blue oceans, continents blanketed in vividly green forests, and swirls of clouds. As the Sunrise Maiden enters the atmosphere near Qabarat, the city-state’s aviation authorities hail you, asking for identification.
"See?! I told ya I knew how to fly. Now I pilot you twice without problems!" announces Kotora with a grin. "Oh...the wants to know who we is...Daddy Cha? You tell them?"
Without waiting a response, she keys up the radio and answers. "We's here to meet with Whaloss at University of Qaba-rat. Ship is 'Sunrise Maiden'."
Cha'Vishtyr looks over to Captain Dribble to hail and make introductions. Over the last three days he has been working with the skittermanders. Ack....Ack is well a different story. Goblins don't like to listen much. Too much space madness. Cha has been working on empowering teh ksittermanders decision making and how to speak with folks, though truthfully it hasn't taken much hold but he is willing to let them try.
Please don't say anything to get us shot out of the sky. He repeats in his head.
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With the three days travel, the engine room became a new home. Monitoring the engine; tinkering with the finer parts; and having the lights flicker only once, while everyone else was asleep. Tables that were at first empty and clean, now cluttered with half projects as well as completed ones, using whatever 'spare parts' he was able to find.
Making his way to his place on the bridge shortly before being hailed, he made sure to place a specially decorative 'spare part' on his console; next to the others.
"What? Oh, sorry, I was lost in thought"
Dribble opens her communication channel "This is captain Dribble, Sunrise Maiden. We are coming from Absalom Station and would like to land at Qabarat Space Port. We are Starfinders on a mission."
"Understood. Please follow the signal we are transmitting to the spaceport and land your craft there. Please stay in your vehicle or next to it until you are met by a customs agent."
Cha'Vishtyr waits patiently as the skittermanders guide the ship into the port. Hearing of a customs agent he looks around and gets an instant headache. Pressing his comm button he signals the Spaceport Official. "You may wish to warn the customs agent that we travel with skittermanders, goblins and weapons." His actual voice sounds grating and rough as it is not used but in cases of emergencies.
"We'll make sure the customs agent we send brings goblin snacks and likes hugs."
"They may need a good delousing." He adds as he watches the skittermanders scratch at their space fleas.
"Understood. Can you forward information on whether the skittermanders prefer bubblegum, strawberry, or apple scented bubble bath? We don't want to treat them like pets."
"Heh! I don't have lice! That is speciest!"
Dribble climbs out of the sunrise maiden and takes care not to scratch at that spot under her second left arm that suddenly starts to itch. "Ready for customs!"
The customs agent who meets you gives Ack a bowl of crunchy chocolate bits, and gladly hugs any skittermanders who offer. She also asks the skittermanders to bathe, but shows you to a set of very comfy bathtubs with many fruity or flowery smelling bubble baths (and even a few toy boats). After you are all clean, you are allowed to leave the spaceport.
After having taking her time in the bath Dribble uses the hairdryers. Finally she is ready...
She walks out of the customs area, looking for someone with a sign.
"Did anyone get what this contact of Chiskisk would look like?"
Gladly hugging the agent, Kotora smiles at the sight of the tubs. Taking a long draft, her eyes light up.
"Smell so good! Wonder...." taking a quick taste of the fluid, she spits it out. "ACK! Don't drink it! No tasty at all!"
Diving in, she cleans herself quickly, ensuring not to get anymore in her mouth and returns to the group outside. "Uh...I tink he was supposed to be a scholar or somethin."
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Following behind the others, Ack stood to the side of the ship as they were greeted and offering their societal sacrifices of pleasing guests with food and services; he accepted the food on its nutritional value over the odd smelling water.
His sights were drawn to a particularly curious floating trinket he was able to make out among the obscuring bubbles atop the water. He wasn't sure what it was, but knew for certainty that he needed it in his possession lest his life forever feel incomplete.
After he finished up his balanced and nutritious meal, he made his way towards the baths, careful to not be seen. Finding the trinket, he reached out for it, extending himself across the overpoweringly smelly water, when he was yelled at. Caught in surprise he slipped and fell into the tub, splashing around like he was dying.
Making his way back to the group he held fast to the trinket that caught his eye as the water dripped from him like a cat caught in a rainstorm.
Cha'Vistyr looks to see if they can spot their contact or pull up a profile to contact him on the infoshpere as they were giving very little else to go on for his appearance. {"No, Let me see if I can find him on Spacebook so we can shoot him a message."}
Glancing towards Cha with alarm, Kotor blurts out. "Thought he was friend. We not shoot friend." Turning her gaze to Jaxy, she adds "Well...less they ask Jaxy to do it."