Raatchet recognizes that the limbs were torn off by something with nasty claws, though the wounds look different than the ones inflicted by the ghostly thing in the duelling room.
Max checks the manifest and discovers that the last time the force field was lowered was by one 'Blue-Sky-101' who set it to lower for 30 seconds and then to restore automatically. There are no further log entries.
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"BLUE-SKY-101? THE LOG ENTRY INDICATED THAT TELIU SPARRED WITH SOMEONE OF THAT NAME, HOWEVER I ASSUMED THAT WAS THE SPARRING ROBOT. PERHAPS IT IS, AND THE SPARRING ROBOT CONTAINS A MORE ADVANCED AI THAN I ORIGINALLY ASSUMED. WE SHOULD RECOVER THE BODY OF THE SPARRING DRONE PRIOR TO DISEMBARKING. RECOMMEND MOVING BODY NEAR ENTRANCE OF SHIP TO FACILITATE A QUICK EXIT IN THE EVENT OF EMERGENCY."
He thinks for a moment then continues. "ALTERNATIVELY, THE 30 SECOND LOWERING OF THE SHIELDS MAY HAVE INDICATED THAT THIS BLUE-SKY-101 EXITED THE SHIP. PERHAPS TO ATTEMPT TO EFFECT REPAIRS?"
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Stiehle nods dubiously. "Sounds like this Blue-Sky-101 dropped the force field to let something through - maybe whatever alien creature was responsible for this or for the ship to be struck by a mine, anyway. But... why did it destroy the android in here? Was Yotto just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe this android is Blue-Sky-101?" The operative looks for any designation on the remnants of the android to perhaps confirm or deny this theory.
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"WITHOUT MAKING HASTY ASSUMPTIONS, ANDROIDS PREDOMINANTLY HAVE HUMAN-LIKE BODY STRUCTURES. THE FOOTAGE WE WITNESSED OF THE ATTACK BY YOTTO'S GHOST CERTAINLY INDICATES THAT YOTTO WAS IN FACT A KASATHA IN LIFE. IF THAT IS TRUE, IT IS PROBABLE THAT THE LIMBS WE SEE BEFORE US ONCE BELONGED TO THIS 'BLUE-SKY-101.' WHILE ANYONE MAY CHOOSE TO ASSOCIATE WITH A MONIKER OF THEIR CHOOSING, BLUE-SKY-101 DOES FOLLOW NAMING CONVENTIONS MORE OFTEN ASSOCIATED WITH ANDROIDS."
He pauses and shudders for a moment. "PREPARING NEW SPEECH PATTERN... CALIBRATING... TEST PATTERN BEGIN... OH FREDDLED GRUNTBUGGLY, THY MICTURATIONS ARE TO ME AS PLURDLED GABBLEBLOTCHITS ON A LURGID BEE."
He stops, shudders a second time, then repeats the phrase but in a deeper yet more animated voice.
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee."
"Calibration complete."
He scratches his chin as though stroking a goatee that is not actually there, and raises an eyebrow. "It appears my dear friends, that we have a mystery on our hands."
Every movement Max makes appears to be precisely calculated and slightly unnerving, but it gets better as he speaks.
"It seems as though a clawed stalker may roam these decks, and that its presence here must be uncovered and explained. Not only are we here to recover data, but it appears that we are now on the hunt for quite dangerous game... And from the look of things... the game... is afoot!"
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"We must assemble the data that we have accumulated thus far... This ship left the Bulwark with a crew of kasathas. One of them, Yotto, was angry either about leaving or with what happened there. The writer of the log (Teliu) was concerned about her, and mentions sparring with Blue-Sky-101, which may be this dismembered android. Blue-Sky-101 lowered the force field around the ship for 30 seconds, then had it pop back up. Seems likely that allowed this alien to crash into the ship maybe, or at least slip through the walls after bypassing the field? Or maybe just allowed the ship to be struck by one of the mines in the field that was mentioned. But whatever destroyed the android was not the same creature as the ghost. As Kasathas do not attack with claws, it appears unlikely that any of them committed this act either."
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"Argh...ugh...gah!!" Raatchet bends over and gags momentarily... "Nothing personal, Max, but your calibration poetry is the absolute WORST! It was so bad that for the briefest of moments, I wanted to space myself by lowering that containment force field!"
"Okay guys, I'm just spit-balling here but this is what I think. BS-101...which is also a mandatory training course at the corp I work for...get it? BS? One-oh-one? Ha? Ha?....tough crowd, nevermind! BS-101 is probably an android crew member.
"But what if the cargo hold itself WAS holding a clawed alien from the Bulwark? Maybe Yotto was upset about that and spent some time in cargo feeling guilty, frustrated, angry or whatever about transporting a caged alien? That would also explain why Teliu was questioning why Yotto was in the cargo hold when disaster struck. There must have been something significant in the cargo hold.
"So perhaps the mine explosion breached the cargo hold and Yotto died from the explosion. The containment field came on to seal the breach but the clawed alien survived and posed a threat to the rest of the crew. BS-101 volunteered to enter the cargo hold and lower the containment field to space the alien since the android is the only crew member with any chance of surviving the vacuum of space. And in case the android didn't survive, the containment field would automatically come back on after 30 seconds. Judging by the limbs, I'm guessing BS-101 did not survive and the rest its body got spaced together with the clawed alien, then the containment field came back up 30 seconds later.
"Anyways, this is all just a guess. Hopefully the bodies presumably in the mess and the logs on the bridge will fill in more of the blanks. But as we move in, we should keep an eye out for ghost Yotto (Ghotto?), a clawed alien that can dismember androids, or both.
"Stiehle, Grinds, any other ideas or shall we proceed to the mess?"
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Stiehle nods. "That pretty much squares with what I was thinking too. Though I hadn't considered the fact that maybe the android and the alien both got launched into space during their battle - if that's what happened." The operative shakes his head as though trying to clear it.
"Too much speculation, not enough answers. You're right though, Raatchet. We need to be wary of both the ghost and some clawed alien that might still be roaming the ship. Come on, there's one more room we can check out before heading into the mess. How about that door right across from the engineering room? If we can get a better idea of what happened here before we are forced to use what little battery life exists to open the mess and the bridge, I think we should do it sooner rather than later - when we might be in a real big hurry or have other problems to deal with."
As Grinds approaches the room, it opens with a hiss. A ten-foot-wide communal shower stands along the south of this room. A rack of towels rests within reach, while a trio of sinks and toilet stalls covers the rest of this room. A single door admits access to this washroom.
As Grinds enters, a motion detector turns on the water. It runs clear for a moment, then blood red!
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Upon seeing the blood running out of the sinks and showers, Raatchet says, "NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!" while backpedaling out back into the hallway.
Once in the hallway, the shower room doors close. He looks left, sees nothing. He looks right, sees nothing. Then realizing he does NOT want to be alone in a deserted hallway on a haunted ghost ship where clawed aliens may be lurking, he quickly moves back to the shower room door and bangs on it before the auto-doors have a chance to open, yelling "Wait, let me back in!!!"
Once the door reopens Raatchet half jumps, half stumbles back into the room. With a sheepishly embarrassed look on his face, he says, "Errrr....let's examine this blood..."
'The pipes may be running with blood in here but at least I'm not standing around alone about to get jumped by a ghost' he thinks to himself as he approaches one of the sinks to examine the flowing blood.
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Max pays Raatchet little heed as he slowly walks forward. "Curious... or perhaps curiouser and curiouser? A sanguine stream of frightening fluids. For such a horrific display the water source must be tainted. Perhaps fluid reclamation has become filled with blood and the recycling systems no longer function?"
He carefully searches through each stall, looking for signs of a struggle.
"It would seem prudent to find a plumbing schematic. Did you know that plumbing comes from the Ancient Azlanti word, plumbum, or lead, as plumbing of pre-gap time used lead in construction of their pipes. Not a very healthy idea..."
Raatchet gets about a foot from the blood when he stops, his nose twitching. It's not blood - it's hydraulic fluid! There must be a leak into the water tanks.
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"Ah... well not so horrific then it seems. Simply unsanitary. Well, as we have not yet located the keycard for the captain's quarters it appears as though all that remains is to assess the bridge for clues."
He looks back and forth across the room and the party, then adds. "That is unless any of you require a moment of privacy in here before continuing. While the washing stations may not prove sanitary, the waste removal systems should function with most fluids."
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Grinds looks at Raatchet with - well its hard to say what emotion was on that face because it didn't really feature any real facial features.
Raatchet. Calm yourself. This is just a derelict ship. it is not really haunted. Except maybe by a single Kasathan. But regardless. I am going to eat your strawberry machine cake album if you do not get it together. I might do it anyway
Grinds then turns to look to see if the cause of the leaks is, say, a dead body.
But if it isn't then he is going to turn around head into the mess.
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Stiehle grimaces as the water turns to blood, and he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Haunted ship indeed! Still, he can't help but chuckle nervously as the ysoki's antics, and when Raatchet proclaims the sanguine liquid is actually hydraulic fluid and Max cracks wise with that strange tone he has suddenly acquired, Stiehle laughs with pent-up relief. "I might need to use the washroom myself after that scare! I actually thought you were right for a moment there and that stuff really was blood..." When Grinds speaks, the operative shakes his head slightly. "Haunted or not, there is still a very dangerous creature somewhere on board, maybe two of them. And if our theory is right and that alien that tore apart the android lays its claws on us like it did on the doomed kasathas, we might become permanent residents on this ship too - either dead or near enough to wish we were dead."
He too moves to follow Raatchet, offering whatever help the ysoki might need in powering up the doors to the mess room and the cabin.
The work of patching in the makeshift battery and the nearly-depleted robot battery is simple enough for Raatchet. With a hiss, the mess doors open!
This room resembles a charnel house. The remains of two dead kasathas are piled in the northwest corner, surrounded by knocked-over chairs. A ceremonial table setting in the center of the chamber is spattered with blood. The stench of decay is palpable in this room, and even the sink along the southern wall is coated in a dark-red shade. Storage containers fill the eastern side of the room, each similarly spattered by gore. An impressive set of double doors bars passage to the north, while a single steel access door continues out to the south.
Raatchet approaches the bodies, which almost seem to move...
All three of the poor unfortunates in the 'blast zone' see the corpse begin to shudder before the weird larva burst from the dead Kasathans and explode all over Grinds, Raatchet and Stiehle. They each take damage! Unfortunately the larva are unable to find adequate purchase in the flesh of the heroes and soon fall to the ground, seeming to deflate as they die without benefit of food!
However, on the table, you can see a keycard and a pair of serums of healing mk1.
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"What in the hell was that?" The operative jumps back, whipping his arm around to get the squirming larvae off him in a hurry. He moves to the table and grabs the keycard and the serums, giving the deflating worms a wide berth as he heads back to the others. "Forward into the bridge? Or check out the captain's quarters first?" He asks, holding up the keycard that will likely provide them entry. "And uh... anyone have any healing? Or should we use these?" The operative waggles the serums he is holding in the same hand as the keycard - the other hand firmly holds his laser pistol, keeping it trained on the door leading into the bridge.
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"Blech...that is N-A-S-T-Y! I call first dibs on the showers once we get back to the Butterball...assuming some other larvae don't eat us first, or an alien claws our limbs off, or a ghost ninja slices us into pieces. Right...and on that note, I suggest we first move forward to the bridge. Not a lot of power left in that robot battery, so let's clear the bridge ASAP, then we can check out the quarters on our way out back to the Butterball."
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"It appears as though this unfortunate lifeform may have been starved and seeking a new host. As undesirable as it would be to have one of us serve as the new host, I would be remiss not to express disappointment in their sudden demise."
Having little expertise on the subject of these creatures, Max leaves Delea to the examination and regroups with Raatchet to discuss tactics.
"I do agree that immediate progress towards the bridge would be best. However, I do suspect that the battery stored within the captains quarters may be required to power the remaining systems on the bridge. Nevertheless, we should investigate before jumping to that conclusion."
The door to the bridge opens if anyone approaches.
The ship’s bridge is alight in red warning screens. The nearing ethereal storm looms beyond the forward viewing platform, while the ship’s failing power causes each station’s panels to flicker intermittently. A battered captain’s chair oversees two tiers of descending operations panels.
Something or someone is sitting in the north-eastern chair. (Marked on map with an arrow.)
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Raatchet nods in thanks towards Delea after she shares her knowledge of the Xill.
Turning towards the now-open bridge doors, Raatchet says, "Hello? Is that you, Mr. Xill? Custodial services here! Sorry for the delay but as you can see, the bad weather outside made it a bit difficult to get here on time. By the way, your larvae made quite a mess in the...uh...mess. The deep steam clean is gonna cost a bit extra but it's worth it! On the bright side, we're having a two-for-one special this week on Kasatha corpse removal so with the two dead bodies in here, you'll get a reasonable overall deal! Now if you'll just come up here to sign this service contract....?"
"I sure hope Grinds isn't TOO peeved at me..." Raatchet thinks to himself, "...because within the next 10 minutes, my tail is gonna need saving."
Raatchet grips his rifle tightly, peering intently beyond the doors into the bridge, feeling pretty certain that whatever monster is lurking in there, it will first go straight at Raatchet.
Stiehle slips inside to the side, but spots only the same shape, sitting in the seat. Grinds moves inside and pokes... what appears to be the corpse of a kasathan, wearing a flight suit. The body is pretty torn up, only barely holding together in humanoid form. It's also clearly dead.
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"Dead? Well, guess he ain't signing our service contract, amirite? What? Too soon? Sorry..."
Raatchet moves into the bridge and takes a look around. "The distress message said there's a hard drive somewhere here on the bridge..."
Raatchet will look around to see if there's a physical hard drive anywhere, perhaps locked away in a safe or strongbox.
Also, Raatchet will try to access the ship's computers/logs for any additional information with an engineering (+12) or computers (+10) check.
The command console holds a hard drive, whose casing looks damaged, but the hard drive itself seems intact. You could either remove the drive or copy its contents.
Except...
That's when the corpse explodes open and a four-armed red creature with wicked claws and mandibles and the half-grown look of the adolescent explodes from it!
for damage! Grinds feels the pain of the bite and a crippling paralysis comes over him!
Round 1:
Buff-Bot, Stiehle
Bad Guy
Delea, Raatchet, Grinds
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With the sudden appearance of the Xill, Max slips into his old mannerisms as he rushes in to defend his compatriots. "TARGET ACQUIRED. ENGAGE! STRIKE IT IN A WEAK SPOT FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE!"
Move to run into the room, another move action to activate Get 'em, giving everyone +1 to attack against the Xill.