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"Sennox left a few days ago for a sweep, and he's not back yet, but that's likely because of the storms."
"No, man," the other worker said. "Didn't you hear? Sennox's team was what got killed yesterday. Berchta said no one was going out there again until these guys find whatever's doing the killing and stop it."
"Killed," Gamuzali says with mild alarm, "But the Boss seems to think they're still out there and just haven't reported in. Have you heard something else?"
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Impex is floating around and recording most of the conversations, standing around extremely awkwardly. She occasionally pushes her mic into people’s faces - which makes the situation even more tense.
“Indeed. Why would there be misinformtion on these matter. You need to sort your story out, or are all these just dead...rumours...?” Impex inserts herself awkwardly into the conversation.
Data manages access to almost everywhere in the compound, more because there are no truly restricted areas than any skill on his part. Friye has much better luck, poking around in the complex's internal network. Interestingly, everyone who dies or went missing, including the undead laborers, were all operating outside the established perimeter of the main excavation site. According to internal messaging traffic, everyone firmly believes that they fell prey to some of Eox's roaming feral undead.
As for Gamuzali, his question was met with shrugs of unconcern. "Come on man, these days 'not yet reported in' means 'dead or missing'." Everyone tried to ignore Impex, whose antics made everyone uncomfortable. Was this what happened when an android went insane?
"Well, you know how it is. Everybody wants to see what might be in the next pass over, or down this crevasse. So yeah, pretty common, i'd say. and no one here is a 'miner', all right? We are scientists and researchers. Archaeologists. Some are called Diggers, but no one, NO ONE here is a miner."
Once done with your investigation at the headquarters, Berchta offered to take you to the new dig site, about a half-mile away from the main site. The uneven terrain means that you will have to go on foot, but Berchta insists that it isn't so bad.
"Now, getting the heavy equipment up there was a pain in the tail, I'll give you that. We have to file a mountain of paperwork just to get AG lifters in here. The Eoxians really don't like people moving about out here. It's like half of them want to see this site excavated, and the rest think its taboo to even get near the place. Odd, really."
The journey takes about 20 minutes of hiking from the main facility. Berchta said, "This new site was established to excavate a series of ruins belonging to the lost necropolis of Muthal. There was a big landslide during a storm a few months back, and these ruins were revealed. It took us this long to get the permits to dig here, and then to make sure the ground was stable enough to bring in the big diggers. My Digger and I come up here every few days or so to move the excavators and check progress. We've got a lot of the surface layer stuff done, so we were about to bring in the researchers when all this started."
On the horizon you see a blur of gray. Occasional pulses of color within the blur make it clear this isn't just a dust storm. You've heard of the glass cyclones of Eox, and what you've heard doesn't sound pretty. Violent winds pushing razor-sharp slivers of silicate crystals are the norm. Anything caught in one without adequate protection is torn to ribbons within minutes. Fortunately, they don't tend to last long.
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"Taboo? Now that's something we hadn't heard before. Was there some religious significance to Blackmoon before it fell? Do you think there's some chance that some of the Eoxians are...protesting the dig?"
Hearing about the approaching storm from Data, Gamuzali looks down at his thin armor. "Say, are those diggers sturdy enough to protect against the glass storm?"
"I don't know so much about protesting as simply finding it distasteful. You have to look at it from their point of view. Anyone not undead isn't...right with Eoxians. And the ruins represent a lot of being that didn't turn. So it's like watching someone dig through your garbage when you have a beautiful art display out for people to be impressed by."
Berchta looked at the horizon that Friye was staring at, then shrugged.
"Oh, I see you've spotted one of our storms. Looks to be an hour away or so. You should have plenty of time to investigate a bit. Yeah, the excavators are plenty sturdy enough to withstand most of the storms, or we'd have lost them ages ago. Only the really big ones can move these babies, and those are pretty rare. That's a baby over there."
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“If we are moving north, let’s check each excavator while moving up to the ruins. Hopefully we find what we’re looking for quickly so that storm doesn’t...ruin...our day.” Impex’s jokes are getting so bad at this point that her recorder freaks out and sparks, she’s not sure what happened.
- looking around the first few excavators, and she takes out her sniper rifle weapon on her back.
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Te joins in the search around the excavators, but doesn't come up with anything useful this time. Truth be told, Impex's jokes are quite distracting and Te is focusing on ignoring them so much that it is distracting him from focusing on the search instead. What little concentration he has is saved for the impending storm for which he constantly is looking over his shoulder at. "Do you think the storm will destroy any evidence if we don't find it now?"
Impex sees that there are some unusual marks around the drive systems of the excavators. Some kind of deep cuts made by a blade or similar device.
Y Data Y moved past the excavators and into the ruins, marveling at how complete they seemed to be. But, he did notice some odd scorching on one set of walls. They looked like blast marks from some kind of tool or weapon.
Looking at the scorch marks, Data can definitely tell that they are blast marks. Likely made by a high-power laser sniper weapon or heavy laser weapon of some sort. Given the pitting and clustering, he'd guess a large-bore laser sniper rifle.
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"Hmm...sounds like someone has been after these excavators rather than something," Gamuzali muses. "And if they're using some kind of sniper rifle, we may want to watch our backs. Everyone, try to stick to cover as much as you can. We don't want anyone getting picked off out here."
Following his own advice, Gamuzali quickly moves across the open space between the excavator he and Impex had been searching and the large red pillar at the center of the site. "This thing is pretty odd, don't you think," he calls over the comms channel. "Giant red pillar in the middle of a drab grey site? Must be something interesting."
Looking over the ruins and taking a closer look at all of the excavators took a little more time than you had thought, and the storm moved in faster than anyone expected. Your first clue was the howling wind that began to blow harder and harder, the air filling with particulates. In minutes, the air was so thick with the razor-edged silicate particles that all you could hear was the rasping of the grit on your armor. Fortunately, you were all aware of the approaching storm, and had discussed your best response ahead of time, so there was plenty of time to get to the excavators.
Each of the big diggers held approximately four people comfortably, and you all managed to get inside one before the worst of the storm hit. A sound like a depressurizing airlock roars through the area as driving winds rock the excavators with metallic creaks and groans. As dirt and dust fly up in a curtain of particulate fog, the wind’s sound begins to chatter like the sound of thousands of minuscule mandibles clacking together in search of things to shear and tear.
The storm raged outside for less than a minute, and then it was gone. The winds suddenly died away, leaving thin drifts of sand and other material lying about the dig site. Over the communicators, Berchta said, "The storms are dangerous if you are caught in the open, but blow over quickly. We should be fine now, though I will keep an eye to the sky. Is there anything else you wish to see here? Or should we head back to the main camp?"
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Gamuzali spent his time in the excavators talking about the scrape marks he saw on the redstone outcropping, probably from the excavators. There really wasn't anything that stood out about the pillar, other than that it was apparently much tougher than the surrounding grey stone.
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"That pillar is made of impressive material," Gamuzali says with admiration as he climbs out of the excavator cabin. "I wouldn't mind having a weapon made from that ore if such a thing were possible."
He tucks the thought away for the moment, though, as he joins Impex and Friye as they move toward the entrance to the ruins. "Yes, I imagine there is much to be learned there as well. Berchta, do you know where in the ruins some of the victims have been found? Perhaps we can search the same locations."
"The bodies weren't found in the ruins. There were found over there." Berchta pointed to the eastern exit from the dig.
The area that Berchta pointed to was a wide open ramp leading out of the dig site. The entire area had been scoured by the glass cyclone that had just passed through. You investigated anyways, but any traces of what had occurred here had been wiped away by the storm.
"I think we need to get back to Taylehm and tell her about the damage you found on the crawlers, and the blast marks in the ruins. Sounds like something she might want to hear."
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"Hmm...how disappointing that the storm destroyed any evidence that might have been there." Gamuzali is obviously disheartened by their failure to reach the site before the storm wrecked part of the evidence, but he recovers quickly. "Yes, let's get back to Taylehm as Berchta suggests. Perhaps this new intelligence will provide some insight into what has occurred here."
"Tell you what, let's get back to Taylehn, and you can tell her all about it. She'll decide where to go from there. I'm not comfortable just wandering about out here. Bad enough that the security team hasn't checked in yet. I don't want 'losing our Starfinders' to be added to my list of crap things that happened on this dig."
Berchta took you back to the main complex, where Taylehn was waiting for you. After listening to your report, she says thoughtfully, "So, you're saying this is sabotage? Not just wildlife? Someone from inside my camp is doing this to me? Why? Just to draw out the work for more pay? This makes little sense!"
"I suppose that is possible. Either way, it seems that we are dealing with an intelligent agent here, and not feral undead like we originally thought. I think you should go and find our security force. They were tracking what we thought were feral undead from the dig site out towards Redspire canyon. Tell them we need them back here to help deal with this situation. I can't raise them on the comms. It is likely that the glass cyclones have knocked out their repeater. It happens all the time around here, unfortunately. Will you please do this? And then we can go through th esite person by person to find out who would be doing this to us, and for what purpose."
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"This sounds like a horrible trap if you ask me. But no one ever does." she shrugs as she once again takes our her recording device.
Easing it up next to Taylehm, she asks in her best reporter voice, "We will do this for you, but when we find your security force, what shall we, Tayy...'them." - obviously a fugal attempt at mimicing her name.
Put off by the android's actions, Taylehm pushes the microphone out of her face and moves over to Berchta. She speaks with the vesk at a volume too low for you to hear, then leaves the room.
Berchta said, "You might want to be careful there, Impex. She's not herself since the change. She might decide to feed you that microphone. Anyways, here's a map of how to get to that canyon. I need to deal with some internal matters for the boss. It's not that far, maybe a 20-30 minute walk past the new dig site. Just keep your eye open for any more of those glass cyclones."
The walk back to the dig site was uneventful, and you fanned out, searching for any clues to the missing or dead, as well as the security force. About 20 minutes after passing the new dig site, you arrive at the coordinates Berchta gave you. At the bottom of the gradually canting hillside lies a clearing, where the high, stony rocks of Blackmoon form a canyon of sorts. Along its bed a series of red pillars jut up toward the sky like stalagmites, as if the skeletal digits of a gigantic hand were rising from the cursed earth of the canyon. Near the base of one of the rocky protrusions is a strange mass, discernible even from a distance, its coloring different than the reddish stone and sallow dust of the canyon.
The smooth canyon walls look to top out at around 150 feet, and they look very difficult to climb. The canyon itself is more than 500 feet long. You enter the canyon from the east, and just before you lies a set of ruins. They appear to span the width of the canyon, and about that in depth as well. The slate and obsidian half-walls and L-junctions were unearthed by whatever event caused this canyon.