The software is scrambled to the point where Leif is unable to make heads nor tails of it. However, Ketch manages to rig together a quick fix - enough to replay pieces of its last recording.
The holovid is grainy, full of static, and cuts in and out, showing only clips rather than a single, continuous feed. The audio portion is lost, leaving the video eerily silent. At first, you see the back of a kasatha wielding a baton and shuriken, engaged in a fight. The kasatha's body blocks pretty much everything else in the vid and you're unable to see her opponent.
That video cuts off, then comes back on again still mostly obscured by the kasatha's back although she is now noticeably injured. But with her now fighting from a slightly different position compared to the first clip, you can see what appears to be her opponent's two right arms and leg. It's another kasatha! However, its skin is darkened with lesions and it seems slightly transparent, ghostly even, but that might be due to the graininess and general degradation of the video's quality. Suddenly, the ghostly kasatha swings an arm in attack and the solid kasatha with her back to you ducks! In doing so you catch a split second glimpse of the ghostly kasatha's face. You couldn't catch any details except that its eyes seemed to be....glowing? The video fills with static and cuts out again.
When the static clears up enough for you to see again, the solid kasatha is now standing by the entry door, facing in the camera's direction, bleeding from multiple wounds. The ghostly kasatha's back is to the camera, advancing towards the solid kasatha who throws a shuriken! The shuriken passes right through the ghostly kasatha coming straight at you/the camera, at which point the video ends.
A soft pop sounds from the projector and a puff of smoke rises from it. It's now damaged beyond repair and unable to replay the videos you just witnessed.
Looking around the room, Kali finds some serviceable items on the weapons rack: an Idaran force training baton, 10 carbonedge shuriken, 8 tactical batons, 4 cestus battlegloves, and 2 serums of enhancement (commando).
Aside from these items and the robot, you see no other items of note in the room.
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Hirix itches to get a smoke going as she watches the recorded footage. "Seems we're dealing with a ghoul or something. Or worse, an infection. Or double worse, some kind of alien spirit. Whatever it is, it's going to make recovering the bodies and personal effects a real honest pain in the ass." She eyes the equipment Kali has managed to scavenge and continues by sending "Someone with a bit of muscle should take that force baton. We might need it against a spirit or two out here."
Hirix herself picks up a commando serum, though when she realizes she'll need to lower the environmental seals to drink it, she merely stows it for now.
With another suspicious glance for the robot with its lights, she turns to leave the room. "Unless you got a beef with it, I'd leave that hunk of metal alone. Let's take a gander at the other end of this trail of blood."
Along the was south Hirix will keep her antennae roving for any more traps or unexpected dangers.
Hirix herself picks up a commando serum, though when she realizes she'll need to lower the environmental seals to drink it, she merely stows it for now.
As Hirix leads the way starboard, passing through the main hallway, the port turret that is out of ammunition springs to life! It tracks Hirix's movement down the hall with a pulsing red light emanating from in between its two barrels. Aside from tracking movement, it does nothing else.
Hirix's sharp senses detects nothing else of note and no dangers as she moves through the hallway, following the trail of blood...
Examining the door, Hirix and Leif do not see any traps. However, Hirix finds that she is unable to open the door. Examining the door, Hirix realizes that a key card is needed to access this room.
Unfortunately, all attempts to bypass this locked door fails as the system's level of advancement is beyond the skills of anyone in this party. Discovering what lies at the end of the blood trail will have to wait until after the proper key card is found.
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As Hirix leads the way starboard, passing through the main hallway, the port turret that is out of ammunition springs to life! It tracks Hirix's movement down the hall with a pulsing red light emanating from in between its two barrels. Aside from tracking movement, it does nothing else.
Hirix's sharp senses detects nothing else of note and no dangers as she moves through the hallway, following the trail of blood...
As they pass by the turret again, Twik eyes it suspiciously before looking around the room nervously.
"Can anyone do something about that? I don't think I like active weapons looking at me....."
At the next door...
"Next door I guess. Perhaps we can find a way in here from somewhere else."
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Seeing the fore-side door is well sealed, Hirix turns her attention to the aft-side. Her antennae twitch as she considers the evidence laid out before her. "Trumps are falling into place boys. Falling into place..." She grips her pistol "I figure our kasatha friend in that video might've dragged himself in that room and sealed the door up tight. Making sure he didn't get followed by whatever that thing was. Let's find ourselves a way to bust in."
She checks the aft-side door for any traps and then opens it up.
The turret tracks and follows Ketch as Ketch walks up to it. Looking it over, Ketch easily disconnects the power at which point the turret goes limp.
Hirix finds no traps on the aft door and opening the door reveals tidy crew quarters mostly filled by four beds. Each bed is neatly made with a prominent item placed atop its center. Above the beds are tightly sealed storage compartments. A single-track metal shelf curves around the southwestern wall, its surface pristine but entirely empty.
The items on the four beds are:
- an electronic scale model of the Idari (the roughly cylindrical kasathan world-ship that currently orbits the Pact Worlds’ sun) rotating slowly in the air above a smooth stand
- a personal datapad, flashing with a low-battery warning
- a ceremonial Idaran force training baton engraved with the lengthy lineage and titles of its owner
- an elegantly bound copy of the book Customs of Kasath, a gift traditionally given to a kasatha who has just completed the Tempering, a coming-of-age ritual. The nameplate inside identifies the copy as belonging to 'Yotto.' Nestled inside the cover is a least photon crystal
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"I'll take your word for it Kali. If that's the case, the crew who were living here knew they were doomed. So it wasn't something that hit them while they were in the dark..."
Hirix mulls over the facts as she uses bedding to create pouches that contain each of the items left behind. She stows the set of bundles in her pack. Once done, she searches around the room for any other evidence. When the lockers prove to be difficult to open she points them out to the others and focuses her attention of searching nooks and crannies for any spare key-cards.
Ketch, Leif, and Twik each try accessing the storage compartments.
Hirix's search for around the room for other items reveals that there is nothing to be found.
However, as Hirix picks up and packs away each item from the beds, you notice that the datapad can be powered by popping in a battery from someone's comm unit. Doing so reveals the most recent personal log entries from the owner.
The storage compartment locks seem to be world-class, designed to thwart all common thieves and even some highly skilled thieves. Everyone's attempt to either finesse it or force it open fails until Ketch steps up and is finally able to pick the lock. Inside, you find three basic medkits.
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When Hirix picks up the datapad, she notices there are open message logs, and ends up putting in a battery from her comm unit to keep it powered. She beckons the others over to read the records left by Teliu with her.
Once read, she passes the datapad on to anyone who wants to take a closer look. She stands in place in the center of the room and thinks to herself about this new information.
"Grim piece of work, this is. But at least the fog's clearing up for me." As she takes a last look around the room she continues "So here's the flat, as far as I've got it: Unlucky saps picked something up in the drift, some mad ghost or spirit, and got the ship mighty banged up too. Spirit must've clamped onto one of their crew, this Yotto, and ended up trying to kill the other members." She shakes her head in disagreement with her own conclusions. "No, Yotto probably died when the ship got smashed in the Drift. Either way, the spirit went after everyone else, and they trapped it in the captain's quarters. From that sound we heard coming in, the damn monster is still there."
"Other than the trinkets here, we'd be right to pick up something from the captain and the pilot too. As for Blue Sky, I figure that's that bot over port-side."
"No matter how you roll it, we'll be near where they managed to pin that spirit. Hope you louts are ready for that." Hirix's mental tone betrays that she's not as ready for it as she'd like to be.
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Lucas listens to (is that the right verb for telepathy? he thinks to himself, then worries that Hirix might have heard him think that) the explanation of the logs. "Sounds like some really bad stuff is going on here," he says. "Maybe we should take that force baton with us - the more the merrier when we confront this spirit I suspect. We can always return it to the kasathans afterwards."
He nods at Hirix's suggestion. "Seems to have all started in the cargo bay. There might be some clues there as to what's going on and what we can do to get rid of this spirit."
Agreeing to move over to what you all believe is the cargo bay, you make your way through the hallways, still only dimly lit with emergency lights that flicker in and out. In those moments where they flicker out, you're bathed in darkness and it occurs to you that if some ghostly monstrosity were to approach you as you transit from room to room, it would probably manage to do so without you noticing...
As you cross through the center entryway with the two disarmed gun turrets, the limp turret that Ketch recently de-powered comes to life!! It points towards Hirix and Lucas as the two of you are at the front of the party, it's red tracking light pointed directly at you. Suddenly, it lets loose a high intensity whining sound of spooling gunfire!! But of course, as you know, it's out of ammunition, so nothing actually discharges from the turret...
Moving on to the port door, the party examines it...
Darkvision 60ft
Finding no traps or other hazards on the door, Hirix opens it. The northern wall of this chamber is so forcibly compacted to
the south that the chamber extends only about ten feet from the door. Several person-sized crates are fused into the distorted hull, obviously melted by extreme heat. Space is visible from between several gaps in the northern wall, accented by the occasional shimmer of a force field.
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Ketch watches the video log, and his mind starts theorizing.
Hmm, it seems who or whatever this Yotto creature is, more than likely caused the shipscurrent predicament. I wonder where it is
Ketch watches and jumps in startlement as the turret gun he just de-powered comes back to life. Frustrated and very creeped out, he tries to disassemble the turret from the ceiling itself out of both fear and some anger.
He looks around as the door to the next room is opened.
Look near one of the holes, leading into space, as he points in the direction. It looks as there is strange mixture of android fluids and alien blood along the edges. Luckily the force field held up, but it still begs the question of where is the cause of it
Satisfied that nothing is trying to rip them apart, Ketch stealthily moves over to the computer terminal, trying to access its most recent logs.
After bypassing the firewall, and find a backdoor, Ketch finds the last login.
A user named Blue Sky 101, was the last user to lower the field. Blue Sky was the last one to see Telia though?
Ketch thinks for a moment, than comes to a unfortunate thought...GHOST?!
Guys, remember back to the log we found in the bunks. Telia mentioned that Yotto “ripped through her like paper”, and it wasn’t until force batons were used to “lure” her into the captains quarters. I’m not strong enough to make a difference, but those of you strong enough should grab one just in case my theory is unfortunately correct.
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At Kali's obvious statement, Hirix continues with "A damned serious hole if I ever saw one."
"This Blue Sky is looking like a shady character all of a sudden. I thought it was the sparring robot, but no sparring robot would be out lowering the ship's shields. Maybe Blue Sky is an android, maybe not." She eyes the spilled android fluids around the breach in the ship. "Or maybe the android went out with the tide."
"Let's see the rest of this crime scene." Hirix turns away from the breached cargo bay and starts towards the central hallway. Once she gets there she inspects the hallway as well as each of the two side doors for any dangers or traps.
While tracking and firing non-existent ammo at Ketch, Ketch walks up to it - determined to rip it out of its ceiling mounts. Unfortunately, removing it from its mount would take more time than you have, especially with some kind of destructive space storm on its way to engulf the ship. But Ketch was able to locate the culprit - a backup power connection. Ketch cuts it off with prejudice, then proceeds to swing the turret around so that it faces the aft port corner of the room and with as much force as a ysoki can muster, jams it in place so that it can no longer swivel around to track anyone.
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As Hirix looks around the room, you also find within one of the fused cargo containers a macabre set of limbs - the right arm and right leg of an android!!!
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When Hirix's sweep of the room leads to her finding the android limbs she lets out an audible click of her mandibles "You see this?" She jabs a claw in the direction of the limbs "The perp behind this sure isn't just a ghost. And they had enough reasoning to hide the limbs in this crate here. That's a sign of something thinking, not a mindless undead."
She also inspects the damaged room as a whole and sends "Looks to me like they hit something big and dense while Drifting. A bit of some other plane floating in there. These saps were damned unlucky."
After a final look around the room, Hirix leads the way to the center of the craft.
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"Hold on, Blue-Sky 101 part of the crew weren't they? It looks to me from the wounds on the arms that Blue-Sky was attacked by whatever the crew was talking about. Do they have any personal affects we should be concerned about if they were part of the crew?"
GM Bigboom - Clarification, Blue-sky and training robot; is that the same thing or two different constructs?
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Looking around the cargo bay, Kali finds a heavy duty, leak-proof bag and stores the android limbs in there. On the way to the next room, Kali leaves it by the airlock, posing a minor tripping hazard but easily picked up on the way out the airlock - and serving as a grim reminder of something lurking in the dark, shadowy corners of this dying ship.
Also, the limp turret that Ketch has been doing battle with every time you walk past.... remains quiet and doesn't move.
With the party gathered around the port door, Lucas opens it up. Inside, you see cracks marring the surface of this room’s port wall. A constant thrum of power is audible within the area, clearly emanating from an immense engine embedded into the fore wall. A standalone module sits opposite the only entrance to the room, but the thick cable that should connect it to the humming engine is irrevocably split. Three rectangular stacks of batteries fill the aft end of the engine room. The topmost row contains an exposed power terminal labeled “Mess” with a black marker. Another power terminal is labeled “Bridge.”
The engine enclosure on the fore wall is missing its front panel and looking in, you see a maze of criss-crisscrossing wires connected to various terminals. As far as you can tell, the minimal amounts of power left has been directly routed towards life support, the containment force field in the cargo bay, and most of the ship's internal doors.
The starship batteries stacked on the aft racks are dead and do not have any power to provide the exposed "Mess" or "Bridge" power terminals.
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Hirix heads on into the engine room, her antennae surveying every surface for important clues for solving what may have happened here. She inspects the cable first, trying to evaluate if it has been broken as part of the damage done to the ship, or if it was intentionally severed. Next, she looks at the stacks of batteries to check them for damage or sabotage. Finally, she looks at the control module and quickly checks it for backup power sources.
After completing her inspection, Hirix spins her laser pistol and thinks about the setup here. She's hardly an expert on ship power systems, but this one seems laid out clearly enough. After a minute, she sends to the others "Engine's still grinding, but not a lot of power up for grabs. Seems like it's just able to keep the life support, that force field on the cargo bay, and the ship's doors running. Not a drop more juice left over." She crosses her arms "Backup batteries for the Mess and Bridge, we haven't seen either one mind you, are straight busted. I reckon we could do some fancy wiring to drop power from that force field and send it to those two instead. If we needed to, that is."
After re-examining the wiring for the possibility of re-routing power, Hirix determines that it would take even a specialized starship engineer more time than you have to reverse engineer the wiring and reroute power. There just isn't enough time for you to safely reroute power from the force field (or any of the currently powered systems) to the Mess or Bridge power connectors. Your only option is to find another power source.
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"On second thought, with that storm coming in, we'd as soon get torn apart by the storm as reroute anything. If we find ourselves a battery or some other power source, we could hook that in instead." Hirix pulls away from the bank of busted batteries and does a sweep of the room, searching for spare power sources or anything else hidden among the damaged equipment.