After taking a good look around the room, you do not find any other serviceable items.
You leave the engine room and head across the hallway to the starboard door. After examining the door, the party is satisfied there are no hazards. Hirix opens the door and steps in to find the ship's washroom. A ten-foot-wide communal shower stands along the aft of this room. A rack of towels rests within reach, while a trio of sinks and toilet stalls covers the rest of this room.
As you step in towards the center of the lavatory to look around, the water in all three sinks and the shower suddenly come on, quickly filling the air with humid steam. And as you move in closer to the sink and shower, the water shuts off... only to be followed by loud, metallic knocking noises within the pipes.
Then, without warning, the sound stops and BLOOD gushes from all three sink taps as well as the shower head! The sinks quickly fill up with the sickly, vaguely iron-smelling stench of old, slightly congealed blood whereas the shower floor and walls get coated with the stuff. For those of you who are standing near the sink or shower , you get splattered with bits of blood.
But before you have a chance to react to this horrific scene, the taps and shower head revert back to normal water, washing away the blood that was there just a second ago. Only the little bits of blood on Hirix and Lucas remain.
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Twik gag's a few times watching the blood from the sink & shower but manages to keep his stomach under control. With the occasional burp, he searches the room for anything interesting.
He considers everything they have found and discovered on their search through the ship.
"You know guys....something has been bothering me....if the power on this ship is so sparse and hard to come by...I believe you said that only "life support, the containment force field in the cargo bay, and most of the ship's internal doors" were connected...How is it that something so trivial as a sparring bot is still running?"
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Hirix involuntarily sends out a mental grunt of disgusted surprise and immediately aims her pistol at the shower head. When the blood is quickly washed away into the drain, she lowers her pistol, but still looks around the room warily.
"What in the hells was that? Someone stuff the ship's water reclamation with rotting stiffs?" Hirix lets a little bit of the outside air into the suit to smell if the blood is for real. And also to try to tell how fresh it is.
She seals back up and joins Twik in searching the lavatory. In particular, she's looking for any loose or discarded id cards/security passes.
As she works she responds to Twik "I'd put my creds on that robot running on its own power. Internal battery-" She pulls herself upright from where she was searching beneath a sink, snapping one of her claws together. "'Course. There's our spare battery."
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The activation of the showers and taps in the washroom seems like a waste of power and water to Lucas, who grew up learning to conserve such precious commodities on Absalom Station. Then the blood comes and he takes an involuntary step backwards as it comes splattering over his new suit of armour.
"Gaarrgh!" he shouts in alarm and horror, but as soon as it arrived the blood is washed away by the water. "There is so much wrong with this place," he says, disturbed by the increasingly creepy goings-on.
A thorough search of the room by Twik and Hirix reveals nothing else in this lavatory.
Back in the hallway, the party approaches the last remaining door that you have not yet attempted to open. First, you examine the door for hazards...
Darkvision 60ft
Finding no hazards, you try opening the door... only to find that it is not powered and will not open. There is no manual means of opening this door and cutting through it will require a good deal of time and proper cutting tools, both of which you do not have.
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Hirix slowly sizes the door up. "Looks like our stroll through the park is about done. The crew trapped that thing on the other side of this door, and we're going to need to get in. Time to release the beast, heh?" Her mental tone is wry, but you feel an undercurrent of enthuasiasm at the prospect.
She heads back over to the sparring room and inspects the robot there for any removable battery packs. If she finds some, she takes them out and brings them over to the engine room to patch in the power needed to open the door to the fore-section of the ship.
As the party leaves the lavatory and steps back into the hallway, you hear a constant, repeating 'CLANK...!! Grind... CLANK...!! Grind... CLANK...!! Grind...' noise emanating from the darkness towards the aft. You cautiously make your way in that direction, weapons drawn as the emergency lights randomly flicker on and off and the clanking and grinding gets louder and louder.
Once you reach the central chamber, the source of the noise becomes clear. The limp turret that Ketch disconnected is no longer limp! Rather, it is trying to swivel around but having been jammed in place by Ketch, it's unable to point towards any direction aside from the aft port corner of the room. Its motors and gears straining to spin around versus being jammed is what's causing the noise.
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The party continues on into the room containing the robot. Hirix takes a look and finds that the running lights that lit up when you were previously in this room are actually pointing to a panel on the back of the robot. Opening the panel doesn't require any specialized knowledge, just a few tools readily available from Hirix's engineering toolkit. Inside, you find a starship grade battery that will fit nicely in the engine room battery racks. Examining the battery, you find that it is mostly drained but should still have enough power to at least operate the doors and emergency lights for whichever room you connect it to.
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Back in the engine room, after a quick trial & error, you determine that the fore door is powered when you hook the robot battery up to the power connectors labeled 'Mess' and not 'Bridge'. With the fore door now powered, the party gathers up and examines it for hazards.
Darkvision 60ft
Finding no hazards, you open the door. 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 mingled with smoldering incense 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 fore.
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"Will someone shut off that bloody turret?!" Lucas snaps testily. It's clear that he's more than a little spooked by the eerie events on the ship and the grinding of the jammed turret is wearing on his frayed nerves.
Lucas stands guard while Hirix fiddles with the battery, moving with her as she carries it to the engine room and installs it. He leads the way down the forward corridor and opens the door once it's been checked over and declared safe.
"Holy s$*+," he mutters. The carnage inside reminds him of a speeder accident he saw once - blood everywhere, the stink of opened guts. "What happened here?" he says, stepping into the room.
Lucas steps into the room and moves to the center, looking around. Despite the grisly scene, no hostile creatures jump out at you. You give the all-clear signal to the rest of the party.
Seeing Lucas give the all-clear, Twik takes a look around the room. On the table, off to one side of the ceremonial setting which includes an unfinished meal, you find the captain's key card!
Twik then takes a look at the storage containers, slowly opening them while taking care to avoid touching the blood and gore as much as possible. However, as you open one of the cabinet-like containers, something overhead gets dislodged and drops onto your shoulder with a soft *squish*. You immediately jerk your head to the side to identify what fell on you - it appears to be an intestine, now oozing blood onto your armor's shoulder padding!!
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Hirix strides into the room with only a little hesitation. She had expected carnage and while this was not quite what she'd imagined, it wasn't entirely unexpected either. "A real sick perp behind this mess. Alien or spirit or whatever it is, it has a taste for blood."
She steps over to the door further to the fore and inspects it to check if it can open (but she doesn't try to open it). She's expecting the creature the crew sealed in their captain's suit to be somewhere nearby. The party would be sitting ducks if it returned while they were searching around the room. She also listens at the door for any sounds coming from what she assumes is the bridge.
Once comfortable that the room won't be assaulted immediately, she heads on over to the two kasatha. With her suit sealed, she's not too afraid of touching them and turning them over to work out how and why they died. She'll also check to see if they have any identifying items on them.
Looking at the fore doors, Hirix determines that it is not powered and like the door you just passed through, these fore doors cannot be opened without power.
Leif takes an initial look at the bodies and judging by how they were torn apart, you determine that their wounds were caused by a four-armed creature.
As Twik looks over the corpses, you notice a single, strange puncture wound in one of the body's neck area. It doesn't match up with any of the other wounds inflicted on the poor, dead crewmembers.
With the strange wound pointed out, Hirix takes a closer look and is surprised to find some kind of burrowing larvae in the corpse! You aren't able to identify them but given your life science background, you determine that the larvae can be killed by crushing the corpse's neck. It will make the gruesome-looking body even more horrific and some cultures may consider such an act to be desecration of the dead, but it will effectively destroy the larvae.
Kali double checks everyone else's observations and concurs with the team's assessment.
Using the force baton while turn off, you crush the corpse's neck, effectively killing the larvae. Leif says a prayer in respect to the dead and after the deed is done, repositions the body as nicely as possible.
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Ketch hangs back, away from all the grotesque blood and ichor in the room. He says a quiet prayer before the dead body is squashed at the neck before the larvae grow any bigger.
Ketch listens to the options before them. He than takes a long look at the heavy duty door to the mess hall. His nose, flickers back and forth, and he takes out his engineering kit. He tries to jam the door as best he can, in hopes the party can stay together inside this ship of hell.
Hirix, wanna give it a once over. I’d hate to be wrong
Ketch and Hirix both put up a good effort but are unable to find a satisfactory method of jamming the mess door open.
Your party exits back into the fore aft hallway and as you approach the central chamber, you can still hear that turret clanking and grinding as it struggles to swivel. Once you enter the room the turret begins shaking and vibrating until *Boom!* It explodes, causing it to detach from the ceiling and go crashing down onto the ground a lifeless heap of metal. Looks like Ketch got his wish in the end...
The party heads over to the captain's quarters opens up the door and you see signs of struggle visible throughout this room. A single bed in the fore port corner of the chamber is torn, with its comforter halfway on the floor. A nearby bed table and desk are in similar disarray, covered with shattered glass and hunks of broken ceramics. A pool of blood covers the aft floor, adjacent to the door before you.
A lifeless kasatha in a suit of battle harness powered armor lies on the floor. The armor glows with a barely visible force field that projects around the armor at a range of about one foot, and a cable on the floor leads from a starship battery pack to the base of the suit.
Leif walks up to the body and looks at it.
You're not able to examine the body closely as it is encased in a suit of powered armor, which itself is also surrounded by a force field. You can tell that the kasatha is long dead and her body is very battered with open wounds, gashes and blood wherever the powered armor doesn't cover her body.
The powered armor itself is obviously out of power and the starship battery appears to be powering only the force field.
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”That is very strange. Why would the force field be on? And using some of the last remaining power on the ship! Is it trying to keep something contained within? Perhaps those larvae we found are much more dangerous that we thought?”
Twik shakes his head as he speak trying to fit the pieces together in his head...
He searches the rest of the room as the others consider their situation.
Twik searches around the room and finds a hidden storage chamber along the sides of the bed. Within it are the captain's personal effects and a credstick containing 500 creds.
Twik has a think about the situation when he recalls Teliu's logs.
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Twik clicks his fingers as he remembers the logs they recovered.
”It seems we have a choice here team...we can turn off the force field and face whatever lies within. That scores us another battery and then let’s us all progress to the final room. Or.....we leave everything as it is here and only 5 of us can enter the bridge.
I think I would rather let this sleeping beast lie. If the previous crew couldn’t handle it, perhaps it’s best to leave it where it is and enter the bridge a man down.”
Detect magic reveals no magic in the room.
Kali walks up to the body encased in powered armor and moves the body, trying to get a better look at the wounds. Upon shifting the body slightly, the forcefield shuts down and the incorporeal ghost of a badly burnt kasatha rises up out of the dead body!
It emits a primal scream "YYYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHRRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" You immediately recognize this as the same horrifying screech you heard when you first entered this accursed ship! You also realize this monster is the same as the one you witnessed in the holoprojector video!
As these realizations dawn on you, it simultaneously moves to attack you!
Combat Initiated!!
Some notes for this encounter:
- Image of the monster revealed on slide #2!
- Remember that you're in dim light so unless you have low light vision, darkvision, or a light shining on the target, you will have a 20% miss chance. If there is a light shining on the target, then the miss chance is eliminated for everyone.
- I assume everyone already has their weapon drawn because you've been wandering around in a ghost ship splattered with blood, guts, and haunted gun turrets that won't die. Any sane being would have their weapons drawn at all times. So no need to spend actions to draw your weapons
- If anyone wants to identify this creature, give me a Mysticism check on your turn
The screech was not only horrific but also disorienting! Hirix and Kali are both confused for 2 rounds! If you need a refresher, a description of the confused condition is on page 273 of the CRB.
Round 1
The following characters in bold my take their action:
Lucas
Leif
Yotto
Kali (confused 2 rounds)
Hirix (confused 2 rounds)
Ketch
Twik