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You open the door, calling out in vesk. An eerie silence bathes this banal waiting room, a reprieve from the cacophonous sounds of gunfire outside and distant shouting beyond the hospital doors. A table and three chairs stand at the center of the room. The floor is constructed of ivory-colored tiles that feel strangely soft underfoot, and spherical light fixtures hang from the ceiling but are shut off and provide no illumination. A door to the east leads further into the structure. This small waiting area is deserted, save for one occupant.
This occupant appears to be of an unknown amphibious species of monstrous humanoids native to Saaruq 5. They resemble a cross between a chameleon and seahorse, with coral-like growths sprouting from their heads. Hundreds of cilia allow them to move on land, skittering and slapping against the floor. Behind it are multiple prehensile tails that they use to manipulate tools. At the sound of your vesk greeting, she bends up from where she was hiding behind the desk. She calls out in vesk. ”Hello! You are not jinsul! I am not jinsul! Jinsul enemy!” She waves a tail at you, in a friendly way. ”I am Dr. Yuuqa! You need to help me! No time to explain! The jinsul are breaking through the back door! I fear they are already inside! We have technology, important medical findings on a server in this hospital! If they find them, they will adapt and heal faster than ever! And my patients! We are over-booked, full of survivors! They are defenseless, against jinsul attackers!” She begins hyperventilating, ”I don’t know what to do! No time! No time! The server is that way, in the operating theater! The surviving ward, the north one, is that way!”
What do you all want to do?
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App-L visibly scowled at the decision laid before them and spoke in common language to the others after translating the doctor for any who didn't speak vesk. "If split, mechanic, soldier to the theater to find and grab the info quickly. Take my summoning tech for a minute's worth of distraction backup. If it gets hairy and you can't find it, explode the room and fall back. Everyone else to the patients so we can stabilize, defend, and get them ready for evac. We are not leaving people here in this and it sounded like the vesk does not mind a larger family on his ship. This may be why our party was assembled as it was."
App-L turned to the doctor and switched to the vesk tongue since panic wasn't useful. "Do not worry. Please breathe calmly. We are here now to help and will do so."
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Shrike frowns at the order, her body already tense, clearly ready to rocket off towards the wounded survivors. "Alright." says with a nod, shifting her direction.
"Klysk, let's go. I hope you've got explosives in case we need to blow the server." The soldier moves towards the operating theater, surprisingly swift for someone in such a heavy suit of armor.
We really are here to help
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App-L can tell this woman is telling the truth, and could probably tell you much more information about the situation and the planet, if she wasn’t in such a dire state. In the haste to make a decision, however, Jack and App-L just worry Dr. Yuuqa even further and she begins to hyperventilate. No time to bother with her anymore, the group splits up!
The group heads into the hallway to the east. Duhm, Jack, and App-L quickly split off, heading into the door to the north - as the doctor indicated.
Shrike and Klysk work their way down the corridor, heading south.
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After entering the northern doorway, you enter another small waiting room. This one appears different, more like an area for families to wait for their recovering patients. From beyond, a brighter light glows. Continuing walking, you see that this short hallway opens to a greenhouse with fungal incubator tanks and plants! Radiant light from the yellow star Saaruq cascades through the domed glass ceiling. Tiers of ceramic shelves filled with gravel and other substrate contain an array of unusual plant life. The room appears to be uncomfortably warm, and water droplets drip like sweat off the glass walls of the room. A light blue force field, to your left, contains the environment within that room from filling the hallway. To your right is a doorway where the doctor indicated the patients would be.
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The pair of you walk down the hallway, with your drone. You pass several access points into the viewing area of the operating theater, a good ten feet above the surgery floor and separated by glass. A quick glance confirms that the operating room is unoccupied, but you don’t actually enter the viewing area for a better look. You’ve seen enough episodes of the hit vidshow, Brown’s Anatomy to know that the real action happens on the surgery floor. You come to another patient receiving desk, empty this time. To the east of it lies some double doors, while the hallway continues to the south towards the operating theater.
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Bemused that he had accidentally taken charge, the android shrugged and explained his reasoning as they made their way towards the ward. "What we want to do does not need to sync up with where we are needed. Besides just healing, we need the majority defending those who can not defend themselves, so our focus is on that area. And the data team should run away if they run into trouble. If we greet trouble, we do not have the option to run away without leaving others to die." He peered at the nuar and managed a smile that didn't meet his eyes either from determination, his race, or because he really did not want to be where he was going. "If our team manages to find a fight, then it will be one that has a finality to it."
He gave a cursory look over the greenhouse to make sure no jinsuls waited in ambush before resting his hand on the door to the ward and announced in vesk as loud as he dared as he opened it. "Not jinsuls. Here to help."
Jack will look too behind App-L
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Quickly scanning the room for any apparent threats as they go, Klysk speaks telepathically to Shrike. {I think it best if we go to the theatre itself as quickly as possible to retrieve the information off of the server. It would be best for us to rejoin our companions as soon as is possible, so that we are not ambushed while by ourselves.}
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You both open the door at the end of the hall, into a far less welcoming waiting room. A sterile room, it is cold and empty. A door to the south is sending sparks of electricity into the room from the lock on the door, obviously a malfunction from the bombing. Another door to your left seems operational, leading into the southern area of the hospital. But none of that is as interesting as the large swinging doors labelled in some foreign language in a large bold font. You enter them boldly and walk into the operating room.
Tiered seating around the room allows for observation by medical students, while a table at the center of the room provides a space for the patient.
You can identify various equipment stations around the room as medical in nature and specifically intended for complex surgeries but intrinsically different from Pact Worlds technology.
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App-L leading the way, you enter the room. Beyond a barricade of furniture and bulky medical equipment, first aid supplies are strewn throughout a narrow hallway between a dozen single-bed patient rooms. Wounded survivors slump in the doorways, wide-eyed and fearful of intruders. This block of 12 rooms looks like it once comfortably housed a dozen patients. Now it contains over twice that many. The identical rooms each contain a hospital bed and automated medical equipment built into the walls. The two rooms to the west contain tanks filled with water.
You are immediately confronted by a winged, bat-like humanoid who speaks slightly accented vesk. . His head is covered in small pink fungal spores, but you don’t have much time to think about that now! ”Hello! I am Muyari! You are not jinsul! State your intentions!” He levels a large, and rather intimidating, alien weapon at you.
He does not look like he wants to fire the weapon at you, but intimidate you. Also, you’re pretty sure he’s never fired the weapon in anger.
Beyond the bat-man lies many patients on the floor. More wounded patients seem to be in the hospital beds within the rooms. Among them are more of the seahorse-people, the bat-people, and there is a third (much stranger) race. The third race appears to be a sentient ooze, yellow in coloration. Some of the creatures are in space suits, but others are free and moving around without shape.
As interesting as that is, you can see that several of the survivors sustained grievous wounds and are at risk of bleeding to death without life support equipment. You have a chance to save these patients!
You identify three individuals who need help right away. Two of the bat-like race, dressed like soldiers, and a civilian of the amphibious race, all in dire need of care.
Beyond the chaos of the patients, you can see that the southeastern door has been barricaded with some hospital furniture.
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App-L eyed the armed batman over briefly before simply turning his attention on those actually needing his immediate services. "Good to know you speak vesk as well. I am App-L and these are my sidekicks. We are here to stabilize their lives and then get you guys to somewhere safer than a warzone."
He turned his attention to the rest in the room and pointed out the three circling the drain to the other two. "Those three need our immediate attention before evac. If you're going to burn a full heal on someone, prioritize a soldier so they can at least fire a gun." Switching back to vesk, App-L conveyed the same message. "Those three are about to die without any help. Can we please stop wasting time being tough and let us save them?"
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Muyari nods, and follows you to the wounded. He approaches the two bat-like soldiers first. ”Nelentu. Like us.”. He moves his hand to refer to himself, pointing to his head and then his chest. ” The pink fungus on their brains? It is good. We are symbiotic. The spores die without us, and we are... barbaric, without them. “ He looks at you carefully, making sure you understand. ”That helps, yes?” He then moves to the seahorse-like citizen, of the same race as Dr. Yuuqa, whose guts are spilling onto the floor. ”A syngnathrix. They live on land or in water. Prefer water. “. He shrugs and looks over to the room full of tanks and more syngnathrixes. ”We ran out of tanks. Be careful with him. He is with child.”. The syngnathrix nods and points to his upper abdomin, above the wound, which is swollen.
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Shrike is a bit overwhelmed by the alien tech, seeing everything but understanding nothing. Klysk, however, is on point. The shirren rifles through a cabinet to the southwest and finds something that looks suspiciously like a white nanite hypopen inside! Turning around, he sees the datapad!
Plugged into a holoprojector to the west, the datapad is thicker than a usual Pact Worlds model, but is undeniable. Picking it up, a holo appears. It appears this datapad stores schematics and notes detailing highly advanced medical equipment and procedures not known to the Pact Worlds.
Looking up in triumph, Klysk’s smile melts away. Behind the holoprojector is a gas line, which has been punctured by a steel rod that fell from the partially collapsed ceiling. If that gas is flammable, it’s only a matter of time before it gets to the sparking door outside and this whole room goes up in flames!
From the checks from yesterday
Today's medicine check, cause healing items cost gold and spells cost a spell slot
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App-L seemed like he was conflicted for some reason before stepping forward to work with the syngnathrix. "Use our mystic cure spell ampoule if you need help and I can't step away to help over there."
He preferred working with the challenge of applied medicine, but wasn't terribly confident that he was going to be able to actually succeed with the alien biology, much less one with a second life to consider, so raised a hand over the civilian and relied on divine assistance to try to stabilize them. He looked over at one of the other conscious syngnathrix to make sure this was a valid strategy as he did so, using vesk again. "Your race doesn't have any natural spell resistance, right?"
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Jack and App-L sit at the sides of the wounded. Perhaps it is the intensity of the situation, or the alien anatomy, but neither of you can figure out how to help these dying creatures. When App-L inquires about healing magic, the other syngnathrix stares back with a blank expression. Thankfully Muyari steps in. ”He does not speak your language. Long story. Yes, your magic will work fine on our people. “ Then, tired of waiting, Duhm steps in. Both soldier nelentus breathe deep in relief as the serum floods through their bodies. Muyari grins. ”Your technology should work well too.” He flashes a look at the growing pool of blood around the syngnathrix, however. His face is full of concern.
If App-L's mystic cure wounds doesn't do the trick, Jack will feed him a MK 1 healing serum if necessary, or if one of them is still in danger of dying he will.
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Lanius makes sure there's at least one wall between her team and the gas-filled room before she stops to open her comm unit. Naturally, her weapons are still at the ready.
"This is Shrike. Data secure. No hostiles sighted. Operating room is a gas-fueled powder keg, make sure to inform the locals. How are things on your end?"
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App-L smiled at seeing that something he was equipped with was able to do the job. Hearing Shrike on the comms, he waited a bit to respond to make sure that everything was good with the patient, but then heard the giant explosion. "We have living people ready to leave. As an added bonus, our room has not exploded."
He eyed the soldiers over, measuring their worth, before offering the loaned longarm to the one he guessed would be able to do more with it. "Alright people. Sorry for a lack of formal introductions, but I promise that we will address that in the near future. More of our team is in the building and that boom was due to an exposure in the operating room. They will be with us shortly and then we will escort you to some place safer and more structurally secure, so start getting ready to head out." He gave a brief head nod to Muyari to translate and then turned back to Jack and Duhm. "At least we are at a good start. Way to save lives."
An explosion, we better investigate that. Unless it was an announced detonation, like the building was suppose to be torn down.
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As Klysk and Shrike pass the inner secretaries desk, he hears a sounds come from behind the eastern door. Like a claw, scratching on tile flooring. Seconds later, the door bursts open! Behind it are three jinsuls! The chitinous, six-legged creatures have a set of robust forelimbs and are covered in rows of eyes. Their mouths, lined with three rows of pincers, have tiny hooks to grasp prey. The rear jinsuls have long cybernetic sabres implanted in their first set of legs, and are holding large bio-rifles in their hands. The jinsul leading the trio appears to have no weapons - except for the golden blades that seem to be emanating from the chitin on it's forearms! With a chitter of their mouths, the three leap to attack!
Klysk, however, had time to warn Shrike and the two are ready! Luckily, the coms were open and the other half the team heard the attack. App-L reacts faster than the other two, even before the Jinsuls.
Klysk
App-L
Shrike
Jack
Duhm
Yellow Solarian Jinsul
Blue Jinsul
Purple Jinsul
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App-L gestured in the general direction of the operating theater pointedly. "See? Those are concerning noises."
He shook his skittermander away and looked toward Muyari. "Stay here and safe for now." His body started glowing brightly and almost blindingly. "All will be well." He started squeezing through and out of the room, being mindful to avoid injuring the patients more.
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Shrike doesn't hesitate, swooping in. Her blade crashes into the jinsul's armor, leaving a sizable dent. The creature almost chuckles in response, releasing more of it's chittering language. Klysk is also ready, working in tandem with his drone to send an enormous fireball at one of the jinsul! It shrieks in pain, the chitin catching on fire!
The head jinsul's many rows of eyes all focus on Shrike. It's chest billows out and suddenly the glowing weapons floating millimeters from it's forearms burst into flame!
The weapon scrapes along Shrike's thick armor - not managing to penetrate! The purple jinsul lifts it's integrated bio-cannon, spitting a hail of small chitin balls at the drone! They splatter against it, several finding their way through important systems.
The other jinsul grabs a small metal ball from it's hip and tosses it in front of the desk. It explodes in a shrieking blast, damaging your eardrums!
The rear jinsul's fire goes out, but not before burning his skin.
Klysk
Drone 47/60 HP
App-L
Shrike
Jack
Duhm
Yellow Solarian Jinsul 24 dmg (Solar 1)
Blue Jinsul
Purple Jinsul 51 dmg
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Duhm Kaoh heads down to the barricade, and decides that rather than try to smash it down with his strength, he would rip it apart with his inubrix sintered greataxe!
Nicknamed “ghost iron”, inubrix is the softest of the starmetals. Due to the metal’s unique structure, inubrix molecules can realign to pass through submolecular spaces in denser materials.
Inubrix sees use in complex machinery, especially in collapsible or miniaturized technologies. In its pure form, inubrix is too soft to function as a building material. Items using inubrix are made of an alloy of inubrix and another metal, often platinum, the dense molecular structure of the latter serving to anchor the former in place.
Inubrix alloy weapons and ammunition ignore hardness of 10 or less. If a critical hit effect from an inubrix weapon requires a saving throw, the save DC increases by 2. This increase also applies to the injection DC +2 critical hit effect, provided the weapon doing the injecting, such as the dart of a needler pistol, is made of inubrix. A melee weapon made of inubrix alloy can also pass slightly into other solid objects, giving the wielder extra leverage for disarm attempts; this advantage grants a melee weapon made of inubrix alloy the disarm special property.
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Klysk aims his rifle at the Jinsul with glowing blades emerging from its wrists. Overriding the safety margins on the gun, he pours exsessive amounts of power through the barrel before firing.
He then sends commands to his Drone, telling it to move out from the path of any incoming allies.
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The Drone will skitter around behind the reception desk, before emerging from the other side and moving up onto the wall. It then turns towards the Jinsul, firing once again at the same Jinsul it targeted before.
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Glowing way too brightly at this point, App-L made his way in the direction of the sounds of fighting, his favored distance weapon already ready to fire. He stopped near Klysk and didn't bother taking cover. His mounted weapon fired a line of electricity through the closest towards him with the intent of then arcing back towards the other standard jinsul and the solarian, but it didn't look like it hit well enough to even get through the first one.
"On the plus side, we're already in a hospital."
Jack doublemoves opening door, cause he has to get to the jinsuls in the first place.
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Duhm smashes into the barricade, his axe breaking the desks into smithereens! Now only the door stands in front of him!
Shrike's ears feel fine after the explosion, thankfully. Her first cut slices deep into the jinsuls flesh. Klysk, already deaf, manages to avoid the brunt of the damage. His sonic blast seems to cut right through the thick armor of the head jinsul! His drone sends another enormous ball of flame into the chest of a supporting jinsul and the beast falls to the ground. DEAD!
The two strike back with a vengeance!!! The solarian cuts deep into Shrike's armor and the secondary jinsul hits the drone in the center mass.
Klysk 46/49
Drone 33/60 HP
App-L
Shrike 30/58 SP
Jack
Duhm
Yellow Solarian Jinsul 60 dmg (Solar 1)
Blue Jinsul
Purple Jinsul 78 dmg