Leaving the dead (un-undead?) enemy, Iseph rushes to back up her comrades.
(=5 P +2 untyped)
Normally, Iseph's bullet would have punched through the creature's skull and dropped it to the ground. However, the massive form of Obozaya is in Iseph's way , and the bullet just misses!
The enemy presses the attack, slashing away at Quig and Obozaya in a furious attempt to take down their opposition, and scoring a pair of minor hits!
Obozaya is starting to feel a little winded from all of this combat while inside a sealed can. It's not a very pleasant experience, and she hopes to make this thing over as quickly as possible. To that end, she takes a guarded step to be less in her allies' way, and swings her doshko violently at one of them.
"Owowow!! Stop that!" Darting back next to Iseph, Quig also takes cover from the corner of the wall and fires a shot at the undead that swiped at him.
Obozaya's massive doshko just misses her target, and while Quig is unable to hit his attacker, Scout is able to wing its arm, scattering bits of old cloth and bone down the corridor.
Iseph moves to stab the (red) undead creature with her blade...
Her knife hits home, but the wound isn't very deep.
Iseph strikes home, but Blu's shot is just a little bit off target!
The two remaining enemy crew members slash at Obozaya and Iseph!
...and they score a wicked pair of hits!
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Obozaya's vision goes red as the enemies really start to lay the pummeling upon her. There's a transcendent experience that comes from riding the find line between life and death. Victory and defeat spend too much of their existence as artificial constructs, concepts to be admired and aspired to. It's only in moments like these, when all of the margin for error has evaporated that the Vesk mercenary truly feels alive. Such pure combat can only be diluted by weapons, not enhanced by them. She holds the doshko limply to one side, in favor of a swinging tail slap at both enemies simultaneously.
Still firing and still swearing, Quig steps back, and he and scout both unload on the nearest undead crew member, trying to get Obozaya a chance to breathe.
Iseph's knife moves like lightning, catching her opponent off-guard.
Obozaya's mighty tail SLAMS home into the first skeleton, shattering it against the corner of the wall, then spins and strikes the other for a mighty blow! Quig steps up and draws the things attention away from Obozaya just as Iseph puts a blade through its spine and Scout shatters the things skull with a well place bullet - the enemy drops to the ground, a collapsed bundle of bones that won't be useful for anything soon.
You hear your comms key open from a foreign channel once more, and a raspy voice crackles, "DAMN YOU, STARFINDERS! I hope you all burn on that planet, just like your friends!"
Quig taps his personal computer when a note from the Loreseeker pops up. Your ships sensors indicate that a smaller vessel has detached from the Endless Threnody and is fleeing at top speed into the drift. It appears that Exegara is getting away without worrying about her crew...
"I suppose we should," Quig says, a bit wistfully. "I never did find any bounty on Exegara, so probably best to stick to the mission." He opens a comm to the fleeing Eoxian. "Catch ya next time, E!"
As the group hurries toward the bridge, Quig commands Scout to fly 10' ahead, using the camera to scan around any blind corners, etc. that the group encounters.
The bridge of the Endless Threnody is located behind the enormous crimson eye at the front of the ship, bathed in a blood-red glow. The crew stations are fabricated from bone and steel, apparently grown from the floor and walls of this room. Battle damage is evident throughout the bridge, but it is now empty and utterly silent—truly a ghost ship.
Quig finds the ship's computer, and a quick inspection reveals that it'll need two types of intrusion measures to get access to what you need: one to access the functions of the computer system itself, and one to bypass the computer's security measures.
Obozaya, panting heavily from the close call, gives Quig a much harder-than-intended slap on his tiny shoulders. Kssht "If anyone can get what we need, it's you, little buddy," Kssht she growls over the comms. Then she saunters over to lean against one of those bony protrusions to catch her breath.
Your quick look-through of the rest of this level of the ship reveals no other crew members, and you're fairly certain at this point that there's no one else on board. You find some serviceable chairs on the deck where you can rest for a moment while Quig starts working his magic on the interface of the computer.
Aid Another
The GM might rule that you can help someone succeed at a skill check by performing the same action and attempting a skill check as part of a cooperative effort. To do so, you must attempt your skill check before the creature you want to help, and if you succeed at a DC 10 check, that creature gains a +2 bonus to his check, as long as he attempts the check before the end of his next turn. At the GM’s discretion, only a limited number of creatures might be able to aid another. You cannot take 10 or take 20 on an aid another check, but you can use aid another to help a creature who is taking 10 or 20 on a check.
Quig grins and scampers toward the computer bank. "Alright alright...let's see what we got under the hood!" Hopping into the chair, he attempts to access the computer terminals.
Quig dives into the terminal, clicking and clacking away with Iseph monitering over the Ysoki's shoulder to offer a few helpful pointers. Unfortunately, you aren't able to get basic access to the system for a few minutes...
... and after Obozaya has nodded off for a moment, Quig and Iseph are able to cut through the layers of security and connect to the system.
They dive around a bit more in the records...
...and locate the coordinates for the lost Starfinder ship! It looks like the Endless Threnody discovered the wreck of the Unbounded Wayfarer over a ship called Ulmarid, an inhospitable planet out in the Vast with crystalline rains and fearsome beasts. The undead grabbed little more than a few valuables from the wreck - it's likely that if they had found corpses, then those would have been incorporated into their own crew, and there's no mention of such on their records.
Of additional importance, there is an account of the combat between the Threnody and another vessel carrying the transponder name Lawblight. The pirate ship pounced, raking the Corpse fleet ship, but not before the Threnody could escape into the Drift. Shortly after the battle, the Drift engine shorted out, thus sending Exegara to Absalom Station for the necessary repair components.
There's little else in the ship's files - it's clear that the Corpse Fleet isn't about to put important information out on their far-ranging freighters.
When you return to the Loreseeker with the coordinates, you find the hologram of Venture-Captain Arvin already active and awaiting your report. "Good - you'ver returned! What news do you have of your colleagues fate?"
"No news of the other Starfinders, I'm afraid!" Quig reports. He sounds oddly chipper. "The Endless Threnody found their ship wrecked on a planet called Ulmarid out in the Vast. But no sign of the bodies either here or there...perhaps they landed on Ulmarid!"
"On the plus-side, there was no recording of their bodies being added to the crew of the Threnody. So they may actually still be alive." She wants to be hopeful, but the odds are not in the other crews' favor.
Arvin smiles. "I'm glad for your optimism, Iseph, and heartened to know where you'll be heading next." He looks down at his desk for a moment, then back up at the rest of you. "It would be best to bring the Loreseeker back to Absalom Station at this time. We'll need to see if there is any information in the databanks here about Ulmarid, and you might need a different ship for your approach."
As an additional reward, Arvin provides a password to open a concealed compartment within the Loreseeker that contains delicacies that are suitable to most palates, such as sticks of candied meats. “I know this mission isn’t yet complete,” he explains, “but you’ve earned the right to celebrate a bit on your return trip. I asked the quartermaster to include a few delicacies so you can enjoy being alive—after an encounter with necromancy.”
Your return trip to Absalom Station is mercifully shorter, and delightfully uneventful. Arvin is happy to see you in person for a moment before he hands you off to a secretary in charge of taking back your ship and getting you on a new vessel. The Drake-class Odyssey is a heavier ship, and with just a quick stop in the station to make any purchases you require, the society sends you back out into the Drift again.
Ulmarid is a desert planet wracked with fierce storms that scour the surface. The planet’s two enormous moons collided long ago, filling the planet’s upper atmosphere with a dangerous cloud of tumbling asteroids that makes approaching the planet with large ships difficult.
Iseph pulls you into a distant orbit around the planet, avoiding the asteroids for now. Shortly after, a pre-recorded message from Arvin pops up as a hologram, his hands clasped behind his back. “Hopefully your journey was uneventful. Based on your previous mission, we’ve obtained information about the planet of Ulmarid. The desert world has breathable atmosphere but is devoid of intelligent civilization. A cloud of asteroids—leftovers from a collision of the planet’s moons long ago—surrounds the planet, so you must carefully navigate the Odyssey to the surface to find the crashed Unbounded Wayfarer.
“Be sure to bring the Starfinder insignias with you; they will be critical in recovering the information the Starfinders left behind. If you can recover any of the lost Starfinders—alive or dead—please do so as well. Good luck.”
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Obozaya, while usually robust in life-threatening situations, grabs the arm rests of her seat like she's trying to strangle the life out of it as the ship maneuvers into the atmosphere. She had rather hoped it didn't come to this, that they would have solved their mission in time to make this unnecessary.
For all her bluster, the turbulence of travel within an atmosphere giver her nasty motion sickness. She grits her teeth and only very slightly hopes that Iseph hits a rock and they have to abort the landing.
Iseph does her best to maneuver around the asteroids. "Sure would be a shame to have an easy approach...just for once." She's trying her best to be sarcastic, but it comes across rather wooden.
A number of smaller rocks ping off the surface of the ship. "Oh I hope those don't leave a mark. Quig, you can buff that out, right?"
Given that there are no immediately life-threatening dangers, Quig has stationed himself up in the bridge with the rest of the crew for now, rather than in engineering. He winces as the asteroid *pings* off the hull. "Uh, yeah, sure...that's how...that works...watch your 2:35 on the axial, I'm seein' a cluster of sharper-than-usual rocks in that direction..."
Iseph gets you perilously close to a few of the slightly larger orbital bodies, but manages to land without any damage that the shields can't quickly regenerate.
As you break atmosphere, you're able to get a clear fix on the Unbounded Wayfarer's distress beacon, but as you circle over the landing site, you see that it crashed amid dunes too soft to safely bear your ship's weight. The closest place you can set down is about a half-hour's walk away, and you can prepare for EVA after you land.
- - - - - - - - - -
The surface of Ulmarid is a wind-scoured desert with jagged protrusions of rock thrusting up through the sand. The air has a harsh tang, like burning metal. Although the sky looks clear...
...Iseph, Quig, and Obozaya recognize that the smell in the air indicates that a sudden storm of poisonous crystals, congealed from the air, is about to hit! Quig helps to get Blu prepared for the onslaught, and you all remember to down one of the pods you got from the Vat Garden proprietors in case you get hit.
About 15 minutes into your walk towards the crash site, a rainstorm of poisonous crystals coalesces out of the clear air!
The poisonous crystals create what feels like a hail of daggers falling upon you, and though you're mostly able to avoid the worst of it, Quig is slashed across the shoulder by one he didn't see coming.
The tough ysoki is able to push through the pain and keep the poison in the crystal from sapping his strength.
Almost as suddenly as it started, the storm passes, the harsh metallic smell in the air abates, and you're able to continue walking towards the crash site after a moment to check in with each other.
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Obozaya laughs out loud as one of the falling crystals slashes her companion up a bit. "I like this place," she asserts. "Even the sky has teeth! Let's be quick, though. That looks like it hurts."
"Nnnngh!" Quig clutches at his shoulder where the crystal hit him. "Not funny, 'Zaya," he complains. He's breathing hard. "Gimme a minute...the wreck isn't gonna go anywhere any time soon..."
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Blu eyes 'zaya at her remark before looking back at quig. "That looks bad, we should rest a second to take care of it."
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Iseph breaks out the duct tape to help Quig patch his suit.
It seems like the weather will hold for the foreseeable future, and you take ten minutes for Quig to recuperate and patch his suit.
Continuing towards the crash site, you crest a hill and look down on the wreckage from above. It's obvious that it is far beyond repair at this point, though you hold hope that you can route enough power into their data logs to find what you need.
As you begin your descent down the hill, your suit sensors pick up a low rumbling to the south - a large creature appears to be in subterranean pursuit of your group! For a moment, it bursts forth from the ground and rears up to screech at you, before preparing to dive under again and burrow towards your position!
Obozaya
Iseph
Blu
Quig
Skreebara (Opponent)
To the east and south, down the hill, you see a large piece of wreckage from the ship. Mounted on a large chunk of the hull appears to be a tactical x-gen gun. It looks well attached to the hull piece, but pivotable to aim against your foe - if you can make it to the gun!
"I have to disagree, 'zaya. I find this planet most inhospitable." She checks her pistol, unsure if it will even penetrate that beast's hide. "What do you think? Does that gun look functional to you?"
Round 1
"I really hope it is," Obozaya says as she draws the light reaction cannon from her back. "One of you should go see if you can use it to make a difference in that thing. I'll try to keep it occupied long enough to make a difference."
Suggestion made, she shoots the beast with the gun then moves closer to present herself as the most likely target for the enemy's wrath.
Iseph calls out to the group, "You brought grenades, right?" as she tears off toward the cannon.
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Seeing the creature was too far to orginize a group effort against it, Blu took a few steps back while taking a shot at the thing.
F
burn
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"Did I bring grenades?!" Quig exclaims, sounding indignant. "What do you take me for?! Of course I brought grenades! Problem is, that sucker's too far away for me to have any chance of reaching it right now...Scout'll keep it off." His tongue pokes out slightly as he maneuvers the drone, then snaps off a single shot on his own in an attempt to distract the creature.
Obozaya launches off a massive reaction cannon round, grazing the beast and drawing it's attention before Blu sears it with a fiery laser blast! Quig and Scout fire rounds as well, but they simply bounce off the thing's armored hide.
It screeches again, then dives under ground to burrow towards Obozaya's position!
Quig pulls a grenade out of his pack and eyes the sand. "C'moooooon, sucker...Scout! Shoot it!"
Running up to the cannon, Iseph does her best to ready it to fire. "Come on and work!"
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Unsure what to make of the creature, Blu walks forward a bit and waits for the xreature to resurface.
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Presuming the beast is coming for her as anticipated, Obozaya tosses aside the light reaction cannon in favor of her native doshko. She winds up like a left-handed batter and slowly spins in place, waiting for the enemy to show itself so she can unload in the general direction of its facial region.
Iseph finds the weapon is still operational, but doesn't have much ammunition left: only 10 rounds remain, and it appears to be too damaged to be reloaded.
The creature bursts from the ground like a demon to attack Obozaya, and you unleash all manner of hell and fury in it's direction. Blu draws all appropriate attention to the creature, and Scout scores a light hit against the toughened hide. Quig's grenade...
...misses Obozaya, but nearly hits the flying Scout (I'm assuming that scout is about 15' off the ground at current location). The creature rolls with the blast a bit, taking only partial damage.
Iseph pivots the X-Gen gun towards the creature and squeezes the trigger, though the Operative isn't well versed in how to use such heavy weapons...
...and the shot goes wide.
Obozaya's not quite prepared when the creature appears and is still ten feet away, much less so when it snaps forward with massive mandibles to try and consume you...
...but appears to be thrown off by the grenade blast and the harrying fire from the heavy gun nearby, and can't get past the Vesk's armor.
"C'mon, c'mon." Iseph tries to correct for the tilt of the gun pod.