About six months ago, a Starfinder expedition returned with the news that Salvation's End, once thought a mere moon, was in fact an enormous space station, whose interior was littered with massive vault complexes containing strange simulated environments. The initial explorers found a simulation from old Golarian, and were lucky to make it out in one piece. They were followed up with a team of researchers, who have uncovered a vast hallway containing entrances to numerous other simulations.
Many of the false moon’s vaults are currently inactive or in the process of either being reactivated or sterilized following their last simulations. The Society’s best data experts have failed to penetrate the firewalls and security in place on Salvation’s End, and the Society is nowhere close to uncovering whatever ultimate purpose the massive megacomplex and its associated vaults serve. Left with such an obvious mystery, the Society has established a new lodge atop Salvation’s End. The area remains one of the Society’s most important sites beyond the Pact Worlds.
Several months ago, one of the vaults within Salvation’s End came online, its external monitor displaying simply the words “Duskmire Accord.” Although excited, the new venture-captain at Salvation’s End, Kunoris Vex, decided to keep agents outside until he learned all he could via external monitoring. Scans of the chamber revealed a massive energy source, something so powerful that it disrupts long-range communications into and out of the vault. Because of this, remote surveys have failed, and even magical attempts to scry the interior of the vault have returned inconclusive results. To learn more, Vex has contacted the Lorespire Complex, requesting a team be dispatched.
That's you.
Guidance, the AI that currently dispatches agents for the Starfinder Society, has seen fit to send the lot of you to Salvation's End to help out Venture-Captain Kunoris Vex with the latest occurrence on the station. You arrived from the shuttle to find an assistant witing for you, who then showed you to a meeting room.
The hallway outside the meeting room is dimly lit and crowded with crates. A welldressed drow waits in front of the door, greeting the new arrivals. "Starfinders! I’m so glad you’ve arrived. I am Venture- Captain Kunoris Vex," he says, approaching. The drow offers an outstretched hand, but is forced to jump back quickly as a pair of rapidly chattering ysoki dash in front of him, waving their arms excitedly and pointing at readings on their holographic displays as they run down the hall. Vex smiles. "As you can see, there’s a lot going on here, and I want you to get right down to work."
Vex gestures to a nearby doorway, leading into a conference room with insta-plastic tables and chairs arranged haphazardly about. The holographic display unit’s core sits atop the table, ready for a technician to install it. "Sorry for the mess. I’m sure you understand we’re right in the middle of setting everything up." The drow politely pulls out the chairs for others to sit. Once everyone is seated, he pulls out a pocket computer and projects an image onto a nearby wall. The readout shows a series of images of a long, massive hallway lined with gigantic doors spaced far apart.
"As you can see, this moon contains a large number of vaults. We recently gained access to one of them," Vex begins. "The monitor outside of this vault doorway currently displays the words ‘Duskmire Accord.’ We’ve found no records in our research here or from the databases on Absalom Station about the term ‘Duskmire,’ but we assume it is the name of a place. Our scans from the hallway reveal a powerful energy source somewhere within the vault, although its construction or some manner of shielding prevents any meaningful readings. It appears that if we want to learn anything more, we need to send in a team." He cocks his head, raises an eyebrow, and looks meaningfully toward the group.
The drow turns off the projector and smiles broadly as he leans forward. "I’d like you to go into this vault and see what you can find. Identify the source of these energy readings, and learn anything else you can about the interior of the vault. There may be inhabitants, but we don’t know whether they’re likely to be peaceful. As always, be ready for anything!"
|
Talc looks around the room, finding himself once again paired up with his usual crew. Leaning back in his chair he scratches his head and stares at the vault. "Alright, let's say they aren't peaceful. Are we to engage so that we can gain access to the vault? Are we to retrieve anything or just look around? What about the other vaults on the moon?"
"I thought 'be ready for anything' would answer that question. Note that you do NOT have permission to go in shooting, but I have no problem with a 'come in peace or go in pieces' mentality. As for purpose: stay alive, report back, and learn new things. In that order. If there is anything you think worth retrieving, do it, but not at the cost of your life or the lives of your companions. Also, don't piss off whatever intelligence is running this place. We think there is a lot to learn here, and I don't want you lot making a hash of it. Don't worry about the other vaults, they aren't your concern at this point...though they may be in the future, depending on how this mission goes."
"Any more questions?"
"You're not flying anything. There's a tram system we activated that will take you to the Duskmire vault. Whole trip is about 15 minutes. Apparently this moon is riddled with the things."
Smirking, the shirren chips in, "yeah... but can he pilot the tram? Or at least read the map and determine our directions? How about if he just sits in a big chair and narrates whats happening in a really loud and authoritative voice like he's controlling it?"
Poking the uninstalled display core he looks over at Rei. "Can you like... plug into this? Or plug it in?" He lounges back in one of the chairs as the presentation unfolds.
“At least some of them are occupied. The first vault we opened was occupied by a group of dwarves who believed they were deep underground on Golarion, of all places, and that they were undergoing some kind of task for the vanished god Torag. They seemed to have had their memories altered somehow. Whether that was a fluke or a pattern remains to be seen. But, they were friendly enough. All i can tell you is be prepared.”
"I really don’t have much more advice for you than to travel down and see where it leads. It’s sure to be an intriguing experience, and I have to say I’m rather jealous. ‘Don’t get promoted,’ is what my friends always said. Now I see why!”
|
"This sounds like an easy in and out mission." comments Jena. "I've spent some time adjusting the sights, I believe my rifle should perform 23.4% better now." she shifts a look at her teammates. "Shall we be going? These vaults aren't going to find themselves."
---------------------------------------------
SP 9/9
HP 11/11
RP 4/4
Rifle Ammo: 19/25
Pistol Ammo: 25/30
|
|
Harrac smiles as the team settles into their rhythm. He raises his hand as Jena fiddles with her rifle, "have you encountered anyone above ground? Do we have any sense of who or what is controlling this moon? And do you happen to have a fangblade I could borrow? I had to give mine back after the party."
"No, no, and definitely no."
|
Rei turns to Jena. "If you can inform me of the modifications you made and the calculations you performed to come up with a 23.4% improvement on your accuracy, I think there might be a position in government somewhere for you... Ha! An android making a joke at another android's expense. What a time to be a... live.. That's it guys. I only have 2 in me today. Lets go. "
The tram is a short walk away and is basically an open-air car that seats about a dozen medium-sized humanoids. It runs on a single track that seems to provide both power and steering down a long hallway. Interspersed along the hallway's walls are doors, hundreds of them. Each has a monitor beside it, those the vast majority of these are dark.
Finally, the tram slowed to a halt outside a door whose monitor says only Duskmire Accord (Iteration 9). Through the vault door is a short passageway leading to an airlock. While the technology behind the airlock is beyond you, it functions as you'd expect. Once inside with the outer door shut, you get a brief blast from a decontamination laser grid, followed by the inner door opening onto a stone cavern.
Ahead of you in the cavern, you can see a 2 foot wide metal disk embedded in the floor.
|
|
Harrac stands in the airlock, looking out at the room before them. He taps his wrist and whispers, "check, check, can everyone hear me?" He turns to the others before continuing, "I'm not sure if we'll have service down here, but now that Rei actually has a way to hear us, maybe we can be proactive."
As soon as Harrac entered the room, the disk was revealed to be a holoprojector. It began transmitting a message as Harrac moved.
A holographic projection of a horizontal blue line appears in the air above a circular disk in the ground. The line begins moving in a waveform pattern like that of an oscilloscope.
“Greetings, ERROR: NULL RECORD,” a polite, cool voice speaks, in Common. “Welcome to Duskmire! You are understandably confused by your sudden arrival, but rest assured that there is all you need here to survive should you choose to do so. You can enter the temple and be released when you have achieved dominance over the other two resident powers within the Duskmire area. Please accept this simple map as a gift to guide your way. Happy conquest!”
A map printed on a simple plastic sheet materialized on top of the projector disk.
|
|
Talc listens to the recordings and then looks to his companions, confused. "Huh. I wonder who Mr. Null was?"
He scratches his head and adds "Uhh, ok. So, this is some sort of religious retreat where you go to learn dominance powers?" He looks around again and asks "We should probably be concerned about that, but we're here so let's get rolling!"
Looking to Rei he asks "Can you make sense of this map?"
|
|
Harrac rolls his eyes at Talc, "Mr Null, really? Is that what you learned in pilot school?" He nudges Jena and adopts a stilted, 'teacher' voice "welcome class, this morning you'll learn how to turn your body sideways in doorways to properly fit your ego. And this afternoon, we start our Intro to Famous 3 Named Persons of Golarion." He sidles up to Talc and puts his arm around his shoulder, "it's ok buddy, everyone knows it's Mr Record."
Once Talc is properly educated, Harrac strides into the room and bows, "Thank you, oh great Error Null Record, can you tell us more about the other two resident powers?"
The hologram does not respond to Harrac's words, but from his new vantage point he can see faint light coming around a corner on the far side of the room. Investigating this, he looks out of see an enormous cavern, miles across, with a large building near the center. Comparing what he sees to the map, he can tell that he is in the upper right corner of the map, marked northeast according to the map's compass rose.
|
|
Shaking his head at Harrac he responds "You do realize you are talking to a record there Mr. VESK. Right? Just letting you know you probably will get a better response if you talk to Jena's left breast."
Talc looks to make sure Jena does indeed have breasts. "Ok. Yeah."
"Go ahead, take the lead big guy. Let's go."
|
|
Rei pulls out her datapad and scans the map, such that to keep a local record of it with her at all times, and to lookup this map for any key knowledge that might be floating in cybercloud.
"Hrm, oh computer?" Rei attempts to speak to the 'hologram' - "Can you give us more information about these pipe looking features to the east of the temple? "
She fumbles around with the hologram in an attempt to figure out how to get more info from it, or to get it to answer our questions
The hologram does not respond to any further queries. Apparently its only purpose was to relay the initial message. The technology there is far advanced beyond what Rei is used to, and she can't even figure out how to interface with it, much less gather more info.
Staring out into the dimly lit cavern, you can see the features on the map. You can also make out figures moving in the closest area, to the southeast of where you are, even though the air there is filled with a light lavender haze. You can see that the cavern appears to be divided into three regions: the grassy, semi-swamp area to the southeast, the hills to the northwest, and swampland to the south.
"So who's picking where we go? I hope we make the right choice, but any of them will surely be a fine selection." Skrivix looks around eagerly awaiting someone to speak up.
After a brief pause, he chimes back in. "What do you suspect it meant by 'dominance' over the other powers anyways?"
The rise in the land gives way to a broad plateau. A small village is built atop a low hill in the distance. A swift river borders the village to the west, its waters flowing from north to south. Fields of rice and substantial clusters of mushrooms grow from the hillsides around the town, and several figures are at work tending to the crops, their backs bent and hunched. The village itself has a short wall of piled dirt around its perimeter, and scraggly growth on top shows the beginnings of a protective hedge.
There are figures in the fields, humanoid in shape, with hyena-like heads and fur-covered bodies.
Gnolls. Shocker, right?
But farming is unusual behavior for gnolls, who are carnivores by nature. They are also typically slavers who view manual labor as a sign of weakness and subservience. Agrarian gnolls are unheard of.
As you approach, the field workers eye you nervously and begin making their way back to town. In one case, you can see a much smaller form being dragged along by an arm. A child?
|
|
"What? Gnolls here? This is very peculiar, as this is not typical manner for a gnoll to act. Do you think this is one of the resident powers. Hrm, by the way they are tending to the crops, it is almost as if they are being dominated, or enslaved by some other, more powerful beings. Be on the lookout everyone"
The crowd of gnolls continues to flow away from you, entering the village. You follow and see a rough sort of "town square", set in the middle of a small umber of low, squat buildings formed from stacks of peat bricks. Most of the roofs have vegetation growing on the,, creating a "fuzzy" look enhanced by the mist kicked up by the nearby river.
About two dozen gnolls have gathered to see what the fuzz is about, most holding farming implements or another tool. The tools appear to be made of wood with only a few of them showing the gleam of metal.
The gnolls look underfed.
"Sadly, Gnoll is not among the tongues with which I am familiar. Perhaps they share a language with us though."
Looking around, Skrivix noted the malnourished appearance of the local gnolls. With a puzzled look he turned to Rei, "You might be onto something with your suggestion that these gnolls have been subjugated by another power. They appear to be underfed which would be silly considering they are working the land." He continued to ponder this for a moment before realizing that he might be able to dig for information directly.
Turning aside from the party the shirren walked over to some of the nearby gnolls, looking from face to face as he tried different phrases between Common, Goblin, and Shirren while looking for the light of recognition in his audience.
"Hi there! How are you doing today?"
"Lovely village you have here, what kinds of food are you growing?"
"Fancy tools you have, did you craft those yourselves?"
|
|
Following in Skrivix's footsteps, rei follows up "Gnoll language is not in my data banks, but we can keep trying others. Perhaps we will find a common ground."
She tries in several tongues to get their attention.
She tries the same phrase in Common, Goblin, Terran, Vesk, and First Speech.
"Hello there. Can you explain to us what this place is? How did you get here? "
One grizzled female moved to the front of the crowd, cocking her head sideways at Harrac's words. She spoke in accented, but perfectly understandable common.
"Who are you, and what do you really want here? Did the yetis send you? Or are you what my people call the marsh ghosts? The yetis may have our old village, but they will not take this one as well. We will fight this time."
|
|
Talc nods along with Harrac's assertion that yeti's are clearly blue.
When the mention of the blue yeti's taking their village comes up, Talc frowns. "That's a jackass thing to do. I think you should fight too. Always stand up for yourselves! Why if it was my village, I would definitely fight to get it back."
"This is now our home. And you still haven't answered my questions. Who are you, and why are you here?"
|
|
"Yes. yes! You must always fight for your home. And your right to party. It's a law I think, right Talc?" he throws an arm around the soldier's shoulder, "this lumbering hunk is Talc. My mother called me Harrac enough times that it stuck. That little guy is Skrillex, he's a DJ on the weekends. And the two ladies are Rei and Jena, I think you can tell which is which." He grins at the others, inviting any of them to jump in, "so is this Duskmire?"
|
|
Talc nods along with Harrac. Pointing to the gnolls he looks at the Vesk and says "You guys know what they need? Brass Monkey, that Funky Junkie! When's the last time you heard from him? He could take care of their problems. Man."
Clearing his throat and looking at the gnoll, he turns and punches Skrivixx in his shoulder. "Tell the man, er, gnoll, what we're doing here Skillex."
Skrivix looks around uncertainly. "Ahh.. yes. Thank you. As you've quite clearly heard from my compatriots we are on a uhm.. musical mission to uhh.. help the others listen as we groove from land to land singing electronic chants. My Vesk friend here is well versed in the physical representations of our charter and is more than willing to demonstrate his capacity for performance as both a musical missionary as well as an established dance-fighter."
After pausing to make certain the gnoll was thoroughly lost in his explanation, he nodded contentedly to himself and continued, "Speaking of fighting, could you perhaps share more information on your conflict with these yetis or marsh ghosts? What about your old home? I'm sure Harrac Twinkletoes simply cannot wait to demonstrate his physical prowess to such new audiences."
|
|
"Hi, Yes, I am Rei. These folk sure take a long time to ask simple questions. To the point. Our long range sensors found your AI system come online here in this vault on this moon. We were sent to investigate. Can you explain how you got here, and what exactly is inside that temple? Additionally, what would you are are the 'Dominant Powers' here? everything you say will be logged to my databanks."
She waits, looking impatient, and annoyed.
Skrivix looks at Rei with a puzzled expression. He whispers, "at least say it with a beat or something... geez."