Shabad steps forward and addresses the pair, keeping her hands in sight, hoping to make a peaceful impression. She is not good at bluffing and can't think of anything to say other than the truth.
"I am Doctor Shabad Freebairn. These are my associates. We are from the material plane, placed here by unfortunate circumstances. We would like to find our starship, which may have been stolen. Then we have business with a certain 'doctor' who has inflicted pain and suffering on our world."
The kayals eye you warily, deciding how much they can trust you...
"Look, pal. You don't want us here, we don't wanna be here. We don't have any beef with you, so the quicker you let us through the quicker you can forget we ever existed."
The kayals keep their weapons trained on you but they send a runner into the community. After a few minutes, another kayal arrives. She is dressed in unadorned armor, with white hair pulled into a snug bun and long, spindly limbs that move similar to a spider’s legs. Her eyes are yellow pools without irises, and her white skin seems to almost glow with a green luminescence.
"I am Veyla. I am the leader of this enclave. Travelers from your plane sometimes find their way here, and we aid them as best we can… Or we used to, at least. But I can sense the corruption in your souls. You have been touched by shadow, which makes me wary about trusting you. Nevertheless, you are welcome to remain here as long as you trade fairly and without violence."
Shabad nods at the mention of shadow corruption. "We were exposed to corrupting energies without our knowledge by a man thoroughly corrupted by someone in this realm. He was trying to spread the shadow corruption by exposing masses of people to a transmission. We put an end to that threat but our efforts earned us a trip here. I can understand your distrust. We do promise to be peaceful. We are saving our batteries and rounds for she who inspired this mad plan. Your hospitality is much appreciated. We will do whatever we can to be of service in return."
Veyla nods. "Very well. You may rest in one of the many houses nearby. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any nearby planar portals. Our community used to be in contact with a Material Plane corporation named Eclipse Innovations for a little over a year, trading information and occasionally goods, but the influence of those foul vultures turned our own people against us.
"With a starship, you can get off this planet and go pretty much wherever you like. Distances are… different here on the Shadow Plane. What might be a several-day journey on foot on the Material Plane takes only a few hours here. I am told the same is true for trips between planets." Veyla sighs. "However, the majority of starship travel to and from Shadow Verces is regulated by the cultists of Zon-Kuthon who control Skydock."
Shabad smiles and bows a little. "We are very grateful, Veyla. You may be pleased to know that we have raided the site which Eclipse Corporation was using to move between planes. We have destroyed the technology that was threatening our world and killed Keaon Rhyse, the leader and servant of a shadow corrupted woman here. He was trying to transport her to the material plane, so it may be possible to make the equipment that brought us here take us back. But first we need to locate this woman and stop her from corrupting anyone else."
"We can use a rest and will be moving on toward Skydock when we are rested and prepared. In the meantime, I am a doctor and scientist and Recorva here is an excellent engineer. We have tough fighters as well, if you are threatened by enemies you cannot vanquish, I expect they would be willing to assist."
Veyla nods. ”Thank you. There is something you might be able to help with. A group of kayals who used to be our neighbors and cousins were... enticed by promises of wealth and power from Eclipse Innovations, who seemed to be doing something sinister on Darkside. They have declared us to be weak and are threatening to destroy us. They have even recruited a few of the more aggressive Shadow Plane natives to their side. However, Cuvacara is our home, and we know its ways. We have retreated to this section of the city and have suffered losses, but I have resisted calls to leave completely. The journey to another city would be perilous, with no guarantee of safety wherever we might go. But if the attacks continue, I might have no choice.”
Stefani hefts her weapon. "Now that's something I can understand. 'Kick their ass', got it," she says.
"I want to learn about your people and this dimension, but I hope you won't think us rude if we take up your offer to crash in an unused dwelling and talk when we've rested. We've had a very intense day."
"I understand. Please, get some rest. You may visit with Hanmu as well if you wish to do some trading," Veyla says.
You rest in the small home the kayals provide for you. While the usual nightmares from the shadow corruption plague your dreams, you possess the resolve to keep them at bay.
In the early hours of the morning, as you are still beginning to wake up, a bellow cuts through the stillness of the dim city. “Weaklings!” The unknown voice shouts. “Time for a lesson in pain!”
As you rush out to see what is going on, the enclave erupts in chaos and sounds of distress as a large figure comes into view between the buildings. A massive spiked chain slams into a fleeing kayal, knocking her to the ground and tearing strips of flesh from her back. The giant intruder, dressed in slate-gray armor edged with blood-red accents, strides into the park, swinging the chain at anyone in reach.
Shabad tries to give everyone a pep talk before turning in, but her heart isn't in it and she can see everyone just wants to rest and sleep.
She herself does not immediately lay down, however. She forces herself to make a journal entry about events of the day before her memory fades.
As she works, she realizes she understands things better than she did, as if the events had charged her brain and opened up new understanding. She had long ago learned the theory of how mystic spells were similar to but distinct from technomancer spells, but she now finds she can actually cast some simple spells. She concentrates and picks up a nearby ceramic coffee mug fragment with her mind and hurls it across the room. She thinks she can use magic to actually heal wounds similar to how a serum of healing does.
She also thinks she can extend the duration of a number of her spells that normally only last a few hours to last instead for a full day. She decides to experiment. She casts the spell that allows her to implant augmentations using magic. She gives herself another set of biosynthetic nanites capable of healing wounds and then tweaks the casting and thinks she has extended the duration. She would see if the effect was still active in the morning.
She puts off her Lashunta Tempweave. She decides she'll fashion armor from her supply of techno junk that will be better than the tempweave, if a bit bulkier. But she doesn't want to sleep in the junk armor, so she puts back on the AbadarCorp Gold Travel Suit, since it is almost as good and light enough to sleep comfortably in. She will use the junk armor during the day. What were the odds the group would need to fight before she had time to set up her armor? This place seems peaceful enough at the moment.
She tries to sleep but her mind keeps active as she gets ideas on how she may be able to use her mind to control constructs. Working with Raine has given her ideas of how she can put this into practice.
Eventually she sleeps, fitfully, as dream images of needles and knives sparking electricity and magic shoot out from seemingly safe objects and even from her friends.
At first, the bellow seemed part of a dream, but she comes around and realizes it is something outside her hut. She grabs her sheet lightning pistol from the holster slung over a chair and calls her semi-auto pistol to her hand as she emerges cautiously from the shack she was calling home.
She sees a brute tearing up the area like a drunk at a bar. She considers firing at it, but realizes the artificial darkness around it will make it hard to hit. She concentrates her thoughts on the sun and a normal flashlight. In her hand appears a miniature sun torch, the same kind she used to throw back the shadows of the shadow mastiffs.
Hearing the commotion, Damon runs outside to see the cruel giant attacking the community. With a roar of his own, the old vesk activates his solar armor before leaping into the air, allowing the forcepack to carry him high above the ground. "Hey, you stinking coward! If you want some pain, come pick on someone with teeth!"
Stefani fires off her jet pack and follows after Damonkayo, her weapon in her arms.
Recorva will have spent some time repairing and applying some minor upgrades to Rain, before having him power down and retiring to a bed in the house they are in. She sleeps fitfully, wings curled around her as the nightmares return for yet another night.
Running out with the others and seeing the chain-wielding giant, Recorva launches herself into the air just a moment after Damon and Stefani do, although she stays somewhat further behind them. Once in the air, she concentrates for a moment as a shield of energy forms around her.
The shadow giant snarls in anger as the floodlight banishes the darkness around him. He squints up at Damon, growling at the vesk's taunts. The giant smashes a nearby building, then grabs the roof and hurls it at the solarian!
The debris flies past Damon, breaking into rubble on the ground behind him!
"Is that the best you can do? Here, let me help you out, you sad sack of fat!" Damon hovers towards the giant until he's directly over the creature's head. Drawing his disintegrator rifle, he pops a shot off. "What are you, blind? Come on!"
Stefani's eyes widen at the size of the thrown projectile, but she steels herself, takes aim and fires at the giant.
Shabad advances on the giant, wondering what it's weaknesses are.
Shabad gets just close enough that the dark shadows around the giant are illuminated with righteous light, and prepares to fabricate an appropriate ranged weapon.
Not sure what this big guy can do, Shabad decides to fabricate a small arm that does sonic damage so she can point her sun lamp and aim the sonic pistol at the same time. In her hand appears a pistol with a concave amplifying opening and a bulky chamber. It is an LFD Sonic pistol. Although small, its low frequency sound pulses can do considerable damage, especially using the boost option.
Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 173
Level 11; Price 26,200
Hands 1; Proficiency Small Arms
Damage 2d8 So; Range 40 ft.; Critical deafen
Capacity 40 charges; Usage 4
Bulk L; Special boost 1d6
You can charge up a weapon with this special property as a move action. When you do, you increase the weapon’s damage by the listed amount on the next attack you make with the weapon. Boosting expends charges from the weapon equal to its usage value. This increases the weapon’s damage and is multiplied on a critical hit.
Recorva flaps her wings once she is up in the air to maintain her current position, taking aim and firing at the giant a single time with her rifle. She then sends mental commands to Rain through her Custom Rig.
Rain moves up towards the giant, taking a defensive stance before sprinting to be next to the giant's immense legs.
As Shabad fabricates a weapon, the rest of you blast the giant with lasers and disintegration beams. He ignores Rain as he hurls another chunk of debris at Damon! This one connects, battering the vesk!
"The bigger they come, ..." Shabad mutters as she aims her new pistol and boosts the output. While waiting for the capacitors to charge, a part of her marvels at the image of this bizarre giant, with a giant set of chains, her sunlamp shining like a lighthouse beacon, glinting of bits of metal as the cloak limns the brute in shadows, Damon and Recorva flying at it, firing lasers that glint off the dust filling the air and disintegration beams that eat the debris in their path. When the giant rips up more building material and batters Damon, she recalls a comedian who completed the cliche she started to say with the words, "... the bigger the beating they can give you."
She takes a steadying breath and fires the weapon, feeling it vibrate in her hand and watching the distortion as the beam diverts light as it rolls toward her target.
Shabad is used to firing her semi-automatic, which has a considerable recoil. The sonic weapon has no recoil and Shabad's normal firing habits cause the beam to hit the ground under the giant's feet, kicking up dust and debris but doing no harm.
Damon snarls as he's struck by half of a duplex, but the solarian focuses on the giant, sending out a powerful ripple of gravitons with a wordless roar.
Taking only a short moment to flap slightly to the side, Recorva maintains her current relative distance to the shadowy giant. Taking careful aim with her rifle, she lets excess energy build up in the barrel before firing at the hulking figure in front of her.
She then focuses on giving mental commands to Rain.
Adjacent to the giant, Rain takes a defensive stance as he swings twice at the immense figure. Not wanting to take as much of a chance of being hit by them, he fights in a defensive stance.
Continuing to circle around the giant in the air to avoid giving it a group of targets, Stephani continues to send beams of destructive energy at the hulking beast.
Shabad and Stefani miss with their shots. The giant easily shrugs off Damon's attempt to slow it, as well as Rain's strkes, but Recorva shoots him square in the chest, setting him ablaze!
The giant draws his own void rifle and fires up at Recorva, blasting th strix with cold energy! He smothers the flames on his body.
Shabad boosts her sonic pistol again and this time aims higher.
She gets the burst of sound closer to the rampaging giant. She worries about her friends, who are taking lots of hurt from this guy, while not landing many effective attacks, so far.
Recorva feels frost coating her wings as she tries to dodge out of the way of the weapon blast from the giant's rifle. Not wanting to risk being potentially knocked out of the sky by any further shots, she folds her wings and drops towards the ground, flaring them back out after only a second to parachute herself and avoid any injuries.
Landing with her knees slightly bent, she crouches a little as she aims at the large giant and fires a pair of quick shots.
Rain takes a swing at the giant's legs, going for a single (hopefully) powerful blow.
The soldier continues her flying barrage.
Damon switches tactics, trying to lay down as much fire as possible.
"I love fireworks!" Shabad exclaims as the pyrotechnic attacks accelerate.
You continue to assault the giant. Shabad, Stefani, and Damon each land one hit. Rain bashes the giant with his hammer, while Recorva sets him ablaze once more with a critical shot! Despite his extensive injuries and being on fire, the giant continues to attack, blasting Recorva again!
Recorva grunts as the giant's shot blasts into her, wearing away her summoned energy shield as it does so. She aims at the giant once again, but this time focuses more on sending instructions to Rain for the moment.
Rain brings his hammer around in two quick strikes against the giant, aiming for the sides of each knee with the attacks, first targeting the left one before swinging around to impact on the left knee.
Damon continues to blast the aggressor, throwing clever tactics to the wind.
Shabad keeps hitting the boost switch on her sonic pistol, waits while it charges up, and directs another ball of concentrated low frequency sound at the giant. "Go down!" she snarls and hits the boost switch again.
"Fireworks?!" Stefani shouts out in response with a laugh. "This is a rain of fire, baby!"
Rain smashes the giant with his hammer while Damon and Stefani light it up with disintegration rays. At last, the mighty giant falls, large swaths of its body reduced to ash and dust.
Once the giant is defeated, the kayals calm down and begin to salvage their community, aid the injured, and dispose of their dead. Veyla, bloodied and bandaged, takes you aside to thank you for your help.
“This giant has been hounding my people for months,” Veyla says. “Thanks to you, he will bother us no more. I am sorry we can’t help you any further, though you are still welcome to rest here and recover from your wounds or trade with our merchants, if you wish. But I think we can’t stay here much long after. I think we will have to find another place to live, perhaps within Fullbright. As desolate as it is, the other kayals will likely not harass us there. Perhaps, in time, after realizing their patrons at Eclipse are gone, they will be willing to treat peacefully with us and our lives can return to normal.”
After hesitating for a second, Veyla draws a weapon from within her cloak, weighing it heavily in her hand before passing it over. “I do not have much to offer, but this is a weapon my mother and her mother before her used to keep our clan safe from the monsters that prowl the shadows. I prefer my pistols these days and have no more use for this. Perhaps it will serve you better than it has me.”
After Veyla hands over the weapon—an evil outsider–bane ultrathin dagger—she departs to begin the process of leading her community’s efforts to salvage any portable equipment, pack up their wounded, and depart for a new location.
Shabad accepts the gift of the dagger and promises to use it to defeat the common enemy of both her people and those of the Pact worlds of the material plane.
Once Veyla attends to her people's needs, Shabad asks, "Anybody have any wounds that a bit of rest won't take care of? I've got some ability to heal wounds with magic not just with medicine, so tell me where it hurts."
She offers Recorva the dagger. If she doesn't want it, Shabad will offer her the ultrathin switchblade she got from the assassin posing as a celebrity.
Both Damon's and Recorva's injuries aren't too severe, and after a few minutes of rest, they are resolved to start the journey. Shadow Skydock is only 2 days’ journey from Shadow Cuvacara, which is far less time than it would take to walk between those two locations on the Material Plane. An almost overbearing pall of darkness hangs over the countryside, becoming pitch black in the direction of the planet’s Darkside. Even Fullbright seems dim and overcast from your vantage point.
After a few hours of walking in a generally northern direction, you begin to see Skydock on the horizon, an ominous tower vanishing into the dark sky, radiating waves of shadow like the shimmer of heat.
Recorva will have accepted the ultrathin dagger, looking it over with an appreciative eye as she did. She would then attach it to the bayonet bracket on the underside of her rifle.
Looking towards the ominous looking tower on the horizon, Recorva pauses for a moment as she looks carefully at it. "I don't know how well any of you can see, but there is a distinctive lack of traffic either approaching or leaving Skydock. From what Veyla said, this seems highly unusual."
Once the bruhaha settles down after defeating the shadow giant, Shabad sets about preparing for the next stage of the ordeal
First, she scrounges up some junk technology and uses it to create Junk Armor.
Next she will use her newfound technomancer magic hack to extend the duration of several spells cast on herself to 24 hours.
She casts Instant Upgrade, giving herself biosynthetic nanites Mk 2.
The she casts Lesser Resistant Armor on her junk armor to give her enhanced defense against kinetic damage.
Finally, she casts Comprehend Languages on herself.
Then she visits the merchants of the area and tries to sell some of her gear she doesn't need, trying to scrape together a few thousand UPBs.
When ready, she is alert and on edge, trying to suck some light out of the shadows to spot threats and opportunities.
She confirms what Recorva notices. "It's quiet. ... Very quiet!"
Damon squints. "I can't see a damn thing."