A few weeks after that confusing mission to Salvation's End, you received the comm call that indicated that the Starfinder Society had a new mission for you and your team. This time, the briefing was slated, not for one of the Starfinder holdings, but one of the titanic dwarven mining/factory facilities in the Diaspora, the Sledgehammer owned by Ulrikka Clanholdings. The travel time up to the Sledgehammer from Absalom Station gave you plenty of time to catch up with your comrades and prepare yourselves for the mission to come.
Upon reaching the Sledgehammer, you were escorted to Venture-Captain Thromkendal (LN female dwarf envoy), a former businessperson of the Clanholdings and now member of the Starfinder Society who acts as a liaison between the two enterprises. She wears a suit of stylized armor designed to look like interlocking stone plates. The bridge, for that is where you found yourselves, looks out into space and the viewport frames a large, craggy looking asteroid. Several dwarven cranes, scaffolding, and extractors speak to a dwarven mining operation in full swing.
Thromkendal cracks her neck before speaking. "Sorry for keeping you in the dark until now. This venture’s a sensitive subject for most of the crew, and I appreciate your agreeing to pitch in. A few months ago, the dwarven mining consortium of Ulrikka Clanholdings began quarrying from the asteroid AA-126D, an especially metal-rich chunk of rock. They recently broke into a buried complex marked with the symbol of Droskar, the Dark Smith." Thromkendal’s eyes narrow as she makes a harsh gesture as if warding off a hex.
"The duergar, our ancient enemy, apparently constructed a hidden base within the asteroid. It appears abandoned, yet the amount of blasphemous Droskari iconography nearly spurred the mine’s director to blast the rock into nothingness. I reminded her that the Clanholdings has a firm deal with the Starfinder Society that lets us first explore cultural sites they uncover in exchange for a percentage of the exploration’s profits as well as any dwarven artifacts and lore we find. The Sledgehammer’s officers are giving us three days to explore the site, document any technologies we find, retrieve any artifacts, and get out. After this period, the starship’s going to blast the whole thing to pieces." She adds severely, "That’s how offensive Droskar is around here."
She lowers her voice and adds, "Now I’m normally amenable to nuking evil from orbit, but this decision feels a little…rushed. There’s no telling what secrets are down there, and it might not even be something we’re equipped to extract or analyze. It might also be a den of fiends, in which case we’ll be lucky to have the Sledgehammer’s weapons ready. Be prepared to present your findings and recommendations once we’re done. The shuttle’s ready when you are."
"Any questions?"
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Harrac is refreshed after a few weeks off. His hearing has finally come back so he's no longer yelling at everyone. He's impressed by the VC's armor but refrains from saying anything, biding his time before levity is appropriate.
"I haven't encountered these people before, I honestly thought they were just made up to scare kids." Emulating his mother's high pitched screech, "if you get in one more fight, you're movin' with your auntie and uncle, the duergar!" He shudders before continuing in his normal, throaty growl, "what can you tell us about them? Do they really look like talking rocks? Are they blinded by the light? Do they have really tall, spiky, brightly colored hair?" Harrac puts a hand on Talc's shoulder, "maybe you can fly something this time, my friend."
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Rei leans back against the wall, taking in everything the little dwarf says and keying some notes into her datapad.
"Interesting find indeed. I'm with you. This does feel rushed. Do you feel there may be something that the Ulrikka is hiding from us to push us through so quickly, or do you think there is anything we can do to try to negotiate some more time?
Also, please tell me as my searches are turning up empty. What can you tell us about this Droskar, the Dark Smith. This is a name i am not familiar with. Also, what does this symbol look like. Do you have one to share so we can keep an eye out for more like it?"
"No, I don't think they are hiding anything. You have to be a dwarf, I think, to understand truly how deep the hatred between ourselves and the duergar goes, and that of our distaste for Droskar." She started to make a clan sign against the evil one but stopped herself. then she smiled ruefully. "You see? I am not immune to it myself."
“The duergar—known as gray dwarves colloquially—are quite real, sadly, a disgraced branch of dwarvenkind that tied their fate to the fallen god Droskar. There are some exceptions, sure, but most duergar are avid slavers, thieves, and raiders.”
“Droskar is the deity of toil, slavery, and cheating. He was once among the god Torag’s greatest smiths until it was discovered he had stolen others’ masterpieces and passed them off as his own. For this, Torag cursed him to never again create an original work. Whether it’s fate or tradition, duergar tend to share this shortcoming, and they rely on slaves to engineer many of their war machines.”
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"I see, though it appears 'abandoned' do you think that its plausible that there would be active duergar there? Perhaps they are trying to reorganize their clan of followers." Rei think for a moment and then continues. "You also mention Droskar is the deity of toil, slavery, and cheating. Cheating is what triggered concerns in my mind. Its likely possible that there are traps scattered that could cause us harm. Have you seen anything like that in duergar history that we should be prepared for?"
"Traps? Of course there're traps! They may be fallen dwarves, but dwarves they still be. We guard our mining tunnels jealously. Oh, I would indeed expect traps. There aren't any signs of life that we have been able to detect though, so probably no duergar. Well, no living ones anyways."
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Harrac pounds Talc on the back, "you hear that buddy? Undead duergar! Can this day get any better?" He moves toward a chair so he's not towering over VC Thromkendal, "I think we have enough to work with, but what are the chances the captain of The Sledgehammer will have any wiggle room in their schedule? Will they wait for us to return or is this a 'bust your ass or lose it for good' type thing? I'm kind of partial to Je ... err nevermind." He stares straight ahead, actively avoiding looking toward the mercenary.
"So, are you ready? Sounds like you're ready. Let's get this show on the road!"
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Talc staggers forward from the blow by Harrac. "Ooof! Watch it there big guy."
He scratches his head at the knowledge required to know something useful here. "So uh, yeah. Let's go. I'm SUPER excited to be going underground and not in space. Where I can be on a ship. "
Talc shrugs and looks around "What? Just saying..."
Not able to stand Talc's whining, the shuttle pilot slides over and lets the man fly for the short duration of the flight from the Sledgehammer to the asteroid. The flattest spot for landing is about 200 feet from the entrance to the asteroid's interior, and you all suit up for the short trip. Your armor's environmental protections can keep you alive for hours, even in pure vacuum, so it's not that big of a deal. More difficult is the gravity, or lack thereof. With careful movements it was just possible to walk, but a strong jump could send you flying free of the asteroid and into the nothingness of space.
Most armor has built-in boot anchors for walking in low-G, and you use them extensively as you navigate into the interior of the asteroid. The complex is dark, and the shaft you enter leads down at a sharp angle. After about 500 feet, a dim red glow shines from the tunnel exit ahead.
The tunnel ends at a wide pit crossed by a steel gangway. On either side are control rooms connected to mechanical arms. The gangway supports an immense, spherical device encircled by two hovering, instrument-laden rings and flanked by a large pair of clamps. One of these clamps holds a wide crucible tethered to the wall by chains. On the other side, the chains are broken and the corresponding crucible is gone. The gangway extends to a distant door of dark metal. The pit descends for hundreds of feet before reaching a shimmering pool of molten rock crisscrossed by broad stretches of solid stone.
The device looks like something called a Solarian Stone, a dwarven device that uses the same metaphysical forces that a solarian calls upon, only in a much larger capacity. Dwarves would use a device like this to power large installations, as well as funnel arcane energies into their magitech constructions.
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Harrac takes in the massive room. He concentrates for a minute and a soft glow begins to emanate from the solarian blade in his hand. He looks at the doors to the side and across the pit, "which way? Should we clear the control rooms first? I doubt there will be anything important but we want to be thorough."
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Stomping through impeded, she looks around the interior of the asteroid.
"Interesting, according to my databanks, er... research this should be a Solarian Stone. This is used by swarves to power large installations or funnel energy into their constructions." she points at the spherical device. "Who knows what condition this is in though."
From the entryway, there appears to be nothing more that can be learned for now. Perhaps you will learn more as you press on.
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"That's a massive Solarian stone." Harrac looks down at his blade, slightly embarrassed at the size of his own mote. "Right then, let's go left!" He begins to stalk toward the control room, purposefully putting his back to Jena and the others so they cannot see his shame.
As he approaches the door, he looks around again for any signs of trouble.
The door appears to be sealed and locked, through a tinted window in the door allows Harrac to look inside. In the center of the room, a large cylindrical battery glows softly with red light. Scores of thick wires run like arteries from the battery to workstations throughout the area.
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Talc is so overcome with excitement that he barely waits for the pilot to vacate his seat before he straps in and gets settled.
Talc starts right when Harrac speaks only to see everyone else go left. "Erm. You said right!" he barks before spinning and moving left with everyone.
When he observes the unpowered door, he looks to Rei. "Can you redirect the power to get that door open?"
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Rei follows behind, assuring to scan everything she can along the way. "This is amazing. Just think, we are but a handful of individuals who have ever even seen anything like this.
Ahh - It would appear that these doors seem locked."
"I say appear because right about here should be a control panel, and if I just connect the jumper to override the circuits and.... open?"
Rei managed to convince the door to open, and the interior wasn't really hiding anything you couldn't see through the window panel. Along the wall facing the Solarian Stone were giant see-through panels, slightly tinted for some reason. Like Talc, it wasn't as if the current lighting condition was especially bright.
The room's ceiling was low, and most of you had to crouch slightly to enter. The labels, controls, and software on the computer systems are all in dwarven.
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Talc peers in and shakes his head. "Nope. Some strange writing on there. It reminds me of the time that we flew into the edge of a large body of water, in this case on an inlet in that icy tundra. Strange writing like this all over the ice. Thing was we were outside with a lot more light than this. And we had brilliant night skies with the moon and a full of stars to guide us."
Talc stops talking and looks at Harrac. "What was your question again?"
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Rei walks over to the panels and begins to browse over the controls and the interface.
"I might be able to use my datapad to act as a sort of translator into this system. I am just not sure of what might happen if I cross the wrong wires. "
She looks to Talc as if expecting a nod of approval, but instead sees him moving his hand along the air, as if it were a ship he was flying, weaving left and right, as he makes various 'zoooom' noises.
"Ok, guess I will try. Now if I just hook this here, and few lines of code..."
"And I think i'm in!!! Now lets start searching for something useful"
Rei's skills easily translated the dwarven runes and cracked the outer layer of security on the consoles. She was able to bring up a translated version of the software and called out the menu headings.
According to the file system, the computers contain a wealth of text and image files, though most appear to be corrupted or empty entirely due to being created during the Gap. More recent entries by the duergar immediately after the Gap record confused messages that speculate as to the device’s dwarven origins and what the duergars’ original objective on this asteroid was. These newer files also record hundreds of tests using the Solarian Stone. These tests largely involve experiments of light, gravity, and particle physics, later evolving into practical tests that directed these cosmic forces toward manufacturing weapons. All told, the logs cover about 40 years of activity, ending in several agitated messages reporting damage to numerous parts of the facility following an unauthorized activation of the Solarian Stone.
Rei gently tried to explain to Harrac that the Solarian Stone was very different from the Mote that he possessed, though related.
There were several hazards listed in the files.
The first was the random flares in the molten core area. Apparently every half hour or so, molten rock would spew up from below. The Duergar used fire suppression tanks to temporarily suppress the flares so they could work on the Solarian Stone in relative safety.
The second hazard was the doorway leading out of this initial chamber. Apparently the Duergar sealed this door with a potent negative energy ward. The ward can be disabled in either of the control rooms, assuming you can find the shutoff in the mess of fragmented code and records.
"Aha! " Rei shouts with excitement. " I knew I would be able to translate. Now Harrac, just give me a figure to do a little more research here. ".
While looking for the stuff Harrac had mentioned, Rei found a stray bit of code that led her to a worm embedded in the system. It is inert now, but apparently its purpose was to sabotage key systems in the facility. Rei wasn't sure her translation program was working at 100%, but she would be money on the source of the virus being a dwarven hacker!
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Harrac stands with Talc, admiring Nadesico as she works, "I just upgraded my rig at home, I'm running on the new Ketch by Etchas. I really like the red and the knobs are smokin'! I mean, I can't play the new Star Sugar Heartlove!!! single on it, but I can draw the coolest Squox pictures. I made one where he's dangling from a tree and it says 'Hang in There!'"
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Talc watches Rei work on the data pad and listens to Harrac talk about Sugar meatlove or whatever it is called. He turns to the vesk and says "You're an embarrassment to to all of your kind. Stop talking."
"Rei, talk to me. What's going on? What? A Dwarven Hacker? Can we shoot him and get out of here already? Where is he?"
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"Well if my analysis is correct, it definitely looks like there was a virus here, with the sole intent of sabatoge. The signatures all lead to dwarven descent. I think we should investigate the other control room. "
Rei motions for the team to group up and head over towards the other control room, practically pushing Harrac and Talc in front.
The other control room yields pretty much the same information as the first. You get the feeling from the layout and the instructions that you scavenged that both control rooms work in tandem to run the Solarian Stone and the facility. Given the instructions you found, you know how to power up the Stone and the rest of the facility. That may be the only way to get past those double doors at the other side of the chamber, other than blasting them down.
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Rei gathers all the intel she can from the other control room before noticing that Talc seems visibly bored.
"Don't look so unengaged Talc. This may be your time to fly. I think our only option is to power up the stone, and I am not entirely sure what will happen - though I am hoping it will let us through the main doors. So be prepared for anything!"
Rei proceeds with entering the commands necessary to power up the stone and then directs the team to the main hall double doors.
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Harrac joins Talc at the front of the group as they move toward the main doors, singing softly to himself.
Fly like an eagle ... Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle ... 'Till I'm free
Oh, Lord, through the revolution"
He holds his blade up high to see a little further. "you ready buddy? Let's go find some undead hacker dwarves!"
Rei finds the startup sequence for the Solarian Stone in the computers, and sends it to a nearby holotable. The holographic animation demonstrates the forge’s ignition sequence. This begins with the crucibles being lowered into the pit, ascending filled with molten rock, and being clamped into place to either side of the Solarian Stone by the mechanical arms. Next, a dwarven figure enters the area, picks up a hammer there, and performs a repetitive, ritualized prayer over the internal machinery before the Solarian Stone activates.
Looking out, you can see that one of the crucibles is already attached to the manipulation arms. The other isn't. Looking around, you cannot see the other crucible on your level, but Talc spotted it nestled among some rocks below, near one of the lava flows.
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Talc nods as Rei tries to comfort him. "Sorry. I'm just a bit out of my element here. I'm ready for anything!"
When Harrac gets his blade ready, Talc has his weapon in his ready to go as well.
He spots the the crucible in the rocks below and notes "Looks like we're going to need to get that thing and put it in that other thing. Let's get to it then!"
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Harrac watches the holograph with interest, "I wonder what would happen if we start this up with only one crucible." He looks again at the crucible when Talc mentions getting it, "I know we're strong, buddy, but those things are massive! How do you propose lifting a crucible big enough for all of us AND your ego to fit in? Is there some claw machine game you can pilot to pick it up? Maybe we can get lucky and each crucible operates one door." He looks closely at the arm, trying to determine if it moves vertically and might be able to grab the lower section of the broken chain. Eventually he shrugs, unsure how to proceed.
There are a number of ways down into the molten core of the asteroid. Given the low gravity, you could climb down the pock-marked walls easily enough, or maybe jump. You could also use the computer controls to lower the broken chain into the area below, with one or more of you riding it.
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Rei looks at talc with a look of shock and disappointment. "Do you even have to ask? Of course I could lower you down. The question is do you and Harrac have the constitution to hold on and do what needs to be done once you get down there?"
Jena chimes in after Rei "I think she is saying you two are all talk and ho show."
Rei motions for the two to grab onto the chain, as she works the controls to start lowering them down.
Harrac and Talc leaped onto the chain and held on as Rei lowered them down into the pit below. As you descend, you can see that the area below is crisscrossed by dozens of arches formed by cooled magma, each about 5-10 feet in diameter and looking sturdy enough to walk on. The missing crucible lies stuck between two of the bridge arches, and appears to have been fused to them over the years with cooled magma. To free it, you'll have to connect the chains where they have snapped off, then break it free from where it is lodged.
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Talc pops on his comms when he and Harrac have surveyed the area below. "Looks like its stuck between two of the bridge arches. I'm confident we'll be able to break it free, but I'm not sure we know how to reattach it."
Looking back up he adds "Rei. I think we're going to need you to climb down here and reattach it once we separate it."
Rei
vermin
jena
harrac
rei
talc
Rei sighed and decided to join the others at the bottom of the pit. "Can't even hook a chain up properly. she muttered to herself as she climbed down the giant links to the stuck crucible below. Between her understanding of physical linkages, and Harrac and Talc from the grunt work, you manage to get the broken chain end removed from the crucible and a new connection made. With a few strong kicks and a blast from Jena's laser rifle to loosen the hardened magma, you manage to get the crucible unstuck and swinging freely.
You were just about to climb back up the chain when a giant bug crawled out from the underside of the span you are standing on. It's mandibles and armor plating make it look like a formidable opponent. It's two friends reinforce that opinion.
R1: talc, harrac, jenna, vermin, rei
current status:
jena 18/18 SP, 18/18 HP
harrac 16/16 SP, 20/20 HP
rei 6/6 SP, 9/9 HP
talc 16/16 SP, 18/18 HP