After a night's rest, the agents go to get a head start with the rest of the faction heads, starting with the Dataphiles.
The Lorespire Complex, home and heart of the Starfinder Society, is a striking campus dedicated to knowledge. Communal labs and historical departments study the Archives’ massive collection of artifacts and texts, gathered by generations of agents from across the galaxy. A quick search of the directory indicates Historia-7 frequents the Archives’ Cortex, a computerized matrix containing digital records of the Starfinder Society’s most prominent discoveries.
The android reclines on a raised chair and is plugged into the local infosphere when the doors open. The neural cables detach themselves from her neck as she swivels in her seat to address the new arrivals. “Greetings, Starfinders,” she says calmly. “I am Historia-7. If you are seeking a mission from me, please be aware that my request requires both discretion and speed. Do not accept it if you feel incapable of working within these parameters.
“I discovered someone recently hacked into Bluerise Tower’s computer systems and stole a large amount of sensitive data from the resident corporations. I wish to be privy to this information. I managed to trace the hacker’s location through many proxies and erased the trail so that station and corporate security should be delayed in their pursuit. This deception will not fool them for long, so you must move quickly to retrieve the data before they can recover it. I will leave you to decide what to do with the hacker afterward, but should it be feasible, I believe that person would be an asset to the Society.”
Historia-7 looks over towards Aldane, "I do have that information. Does this mean you are in?" She hands Aldane a business card with an address on it that leads to apartment complexes at Drifter's End. A area in the station's ring that provides cheap housing.
She looks down at the album, "Thanks, I have been so busy, I have forgotten that thy were releasing this today." She turns around and places the album on a shelf next to a photo. She turns back around to the agents "Good, you all should be going."
The coordinates that Historia-7 gives the PCs point to an apartment that resembles a cement cube, with several tomato plants in plastic barrels sitting on an otherwise barren porch. Boxes of nutrient broth, gardening tools, and various cultural knickknacks clutter the floor of the flat, leaving barely any room for visitors to sit down. The plants tre being hand-pollinated by a young man and he looks up as you approach.
"Good day" he says, not leaving his work. "What can I help you with."
The young man looks up from his gardening, Hacking? Here? You say someone stole from Bluerise Tower, Are you sure you have the right address?
A female voice calls out from the inside,"Jubair. Jubair, what is all that ruckus you are making. You're just....oh, we have visitors" Coming out of the doorway is an elderly female in a blue and white abaya. "Jubair, if we have guest, why didn't you invite them in for tea? It is the appropriate things to do." Facing the agents now, "Do not mind my grandson, his heart is in the right place, but his head follows slowly.I am Ceren. Please come in for some tea, and out of the garden."
She escorts the group inside and clears the some papers and boxes from the seats around the den area and heads to the kitchen. Sounds of glass and metal clanging together comes from the kitchen and a few minutes later, she emerges with a tray with some glasses and a pitcher of what you assume is the tea.
She looks down at her glass and sighs, "I used to be a hacker, as they call it now, back in my day. They just called it information gathering. But my brain is not what it used to. Side effect from the early years of implants. Hold on one moment." She goes into a trance like state for a minute before coming back around. " I am not sure how it occurred, but I have these files. I do not have any use for them, I can give them to you if you like. But would request something from you as well. I would figure that if your sources were able to locate me, I suppose the Bluerise Tower agents to find me as well. I would ask that you protect me from them."
She suddenly stands up, "We could fake my own death. I am close to dying anyway, so it should not be that hard. What do you say, one last "op"? she ends a little too enthusiastically.
Chk believes that she really does not remember how she got them. She was just surprised as you were when she had the files.
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Cocking his head to the side, antennae raised, he sends telepathically to Ceren, "How could someone transfer information to you without you knowing? And why would someone want you to have this information?"
Amused, he asks audibly, "You thought of thish quickly - you make a habit of planninghk your own death?"
Patting Chk on the leg, "dear, when I was younger and working, you always had a plan."
Looking over to Aldane, "First we would have to fake my own death and obtain a death certificate. First we would need a cadaver, I am pretty sure you can find a shady coroner to sell you one, then you just have to make it look like me. Either that or you could hack the system and change my identifiers to match the corpse. Oh, or just claim an unknown body as me, I am pretty sure Jubair could help with that aspect." She sighs, "Or you could just bribe a mortician to file a fake death report. Just hope he doesn't blab. Once this part is complete, we will start setting me up with a new identity."
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Antennae twitching rapidly as he considers the merits and weaknesses of each of the proposed plans, he appears to be enjoying the process; much like a culinary aficionado taking pleasure in slowly consuming an exquisite meal piece by tiny piece.
He eventually nods in agreement with Raial, "Thesse optionsh don't besst suit my skillsset. But I can be usseful." He looks around at the others, antennae lifting in query, "Unlessh one of you has skillss better ussed in a different way."
The pathfinders find a way to the local cororners office. They are given a strange look by the receptionist at the desk, but she entertains the thought and gets coroner on duty.
"So you want to buy a jane doe huh? I sell them to universities for 60 credits each. If you really want one, that would be the price."
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Mortimer will give up his share immediately.
Once he has access to a terminal, Mortimer gets to work on the medical records.
lets see what we can do about these records. Rex see if you can help eliminate some of the firewalls please
affirmative master. Rex responds.
Rex extends a a small antennae from his head connecting to the terminal, he immediately starts to process data to aid Mortimer in his task.
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Vandor doesn't have much in the way of computer skills to offer for this job, so instead of trying to be helpful he flirts with the coroner's receptionist while Mortimer works. It's hard to hear everything but anyone listening overhears the odd bit of conversation here or there, such as:
...yeah, believe me, this isn't how I planned on spending my day either...
or
... you know, I wouldn't say I was our group's leader, they might say that, but really the Society just assigned me to this group as a sort of mentor for them, in a lot of ways, I'm like a big brother to them...
or
... and then just when the battle seemed lost, I leaped off the catwalk and shoved my frag grenade down the feather stalker's throat. And as I walked away as the creature exploded - without looking back, of course - I said: "Looks like that feather duster just got dusted"...
After the receptionist somehow manages to resist his charms and politely brush him off, he comes over to check on the progress.
"How's it going Professor? We good to go yet or what?"
The good doctor manages to force his way into the system and change the identifiers of Ceren to match the body of the Jane Doe perfectly.
Ceren walks in to see how the process is going and pats Mortimer on the back, "You remind me of myself when I was your age." She turns around on everyone else. "Now I need a new alias. Creating somebody is a little bit more tricky than killing one off. A lot more details to it."
The agents take to the streets and are able set up a new alias and plenty of "friends" and "co-workers".
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Mortimer gathers the info that the others have put together, the interesting thing these days, If you ain't in the system, you don't exist. for some that can be a good thing, but not always the best. lets see what we can do, shall we?
Mortimer connects Rex to the computer, Ok Rex same as last time, lets get into those records and give our friend a new life.
affirmative Master Rex responds.
pulling out his little gadget "wand" he connects it to the computer and with a humm it does "its thing"
J.J manage to locate the correct forms, and produces flawless looking set of credentials.
When you return to Caren's apartment, you notice it empty. A note on the tea tray she left on the table explains that the it was no longer safe. It tells you to meet her at the bridge in the local park.
Following the notes instructions, the PC's see Ceren waiting on the bridge. But as they approach. A group of thugs emerge and make a B line to the middle aged hacker.
They corner the old lady on the bridge, one holding a set of binders. While another has a pulse caster pistol trained on her.
One of the gangers notice the agents approach and calls out. "Stay back. This does not include you. Official business"
The gangers look at each other and back to the agents. "Uh, this was not in the job description. " Seeing that they are out numbered, they put the pistol and binders away. And go back the way they came.
Ceren thanks you all once more as you hand over the new credentials. She waves good bye as she heads through the park and back to the city.
The agents head back to the tower and meet with historia-7 once more. You find her again, plugged into a terminal on the wall. " I heard from Ceren and was asked to extend thanks. She is quite comfortable with the alias you provided to her and feels she should be able to come back to public eye once more. As for you payment, it will becoming to you soon. But, I have sent word to the others leaders about what you have done."
En-route to your next mission, you are met by a robot carrying a storage box. It greets you as the recipients and opens the slide to reveal multiple items. A standard datajack, a cred stick with 200 credits on it. It also contains a frostbite class zero rifle. A note left in the box advises that the rifle and datajack are just on loan until the end of the mission.
The Acquisitives’ leader, Radaszam “The Dealmaker”, manages the deployment of the Acquisitives and his personal mercenary outfit, the Obsidian Spiders. He keeps a public-facing office for this purpose in the Nyori Palisades, a luxurious neighborhood located in Absalom Station’s transparent central dome.
The plain white doors of the office slide open to reveal a stark, dimly lit room. The chamber is bleak and expressionless in its emptiness—no vanities line its smooth black walls, and no signs of use mar its smooth black furniture. The only occupants of the suite are a bug-eyed tadpole wriggling in a glowing blue aquarium and a reptilian vesk seated behind an onyx desk. The vesk gestures to a number of chairs in front of him, his features sharply illuminated by the light of his desk’s green holoscreen. “The new graduates,” he greets, in a low and pleasant voice. “Good day. I am Radaszam, though since you are here, I should hope you already knew.
I trust you are aware of our Society’s traditions, so I will cut to the point. I have a minor situation that needs resolution. One of our members, a human named Laboni, had a rather public altercation with a junk scavenger from the Spike. You might be more familiar with the scavenger than I, actually; he is a ysoki who fancifully calls himself Ratrod. I am told he runs a popular racing competition that has, hmm, several hundreds of thousands of viewers on the station’s infosphere. For some reason, Laboni felt the need to tell him that any ‘real’ mechanic could easily beat the garbage that Ratrod and his associates slap together. Now that Ratrod has issued an infosphere-wide demand that she race him and prove it, Laboni doubts she can back that claim up.
“Embarrassing, isn’t it? Not really the sort of troublemaker that suits our Society. Perhaps she would be better suited to the bottom of a trash compactor... Well, we cannot afford to throw her out, not after so many Starfinders were lost in the Scoured Stars. Besides, we can’t let people think we are so weak that we can’t control our own members, or that we cannot stand up to a scrapyard junker. No, I would like you to assist Laboni in winning this race. Show our detractors that even the least of our Society is not someone to be trifled with.”
Radaszam gives the PCs directions to the race’s location in Botscrap and hands them badges marking the PCs as Laboni’s official pit crew. He suggests the PCs do not delay, as they need as much time as they can to help with the race.
Ratrod’s racing circuit is a hollowed-out section of a mountain of spare parts in Botscrap, the track specifically sanctioned by the ysoki-dominated Salvage Union that controls most of the yards. When the PCs arrive at the competitors’ entrance, a small robot informs them of the basic rules of the race: racers and their pit crews are to build and improve their vehicles from the available scrap around the racetrack. Vehicles built at previous junkraces can return. Racers can fire upon other competitors during the race, but firing into the audience is grounds for immediate disqualification; racer weapons must be nonlethal and may affect only opponents' vehicles
Laboni is easy to spot in the crowd due to her paisley clothes and bright white lab coat. As the agents approach, she waves them down "Thank goodness you are here. I kind of got myself into to trouble with running my mouth. I'd rather not dwell on it now. We need to focus on getting my racer up to snuff."
She leads you around to the garage where her racer is kept. Even though she is not a pilot, she has put together a decent racer.
• The vehicle’s base speed increases by 5 feet.
• The vehicle gains a +1 Piloting modifier.
• The vehicle gains a +1 attack modifier.
• The vehicle gains a +2 bonus to its EAC.
• The vehicle gains a +2 bonus to its KAC.
• The PCs install a basic energy weapon on the vehicle (imposes a
–4 base Piloting penalty on a hit).
• The PCs install a basic kinetic weapon on the vehicle (imposes a
–4 base Piloting penalty on a hit).
• The PCs upgrade a weapon to impose an additional –2 penalty to
enemy Piloting checks on a successful hit