You have been summoned by the leader of the Wayfinders, Fitch. A shuttle awaits you on Absalom Station to take you to the Master of Stars. The Starfinder flag ship has been repaired since its foray through the Godshield to rescue the trapped Starfinders of the Scoured Stars incident.
This gives you a little bit of time to introduce yourselves to your assigned teammates and get to know one another.
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A heavily armored Dwarf accompanies the team to the Master of Stars. His long black hair and beard are tied up neatly and he carries a Doshko, as well as a laser rifle, slung over his shoulders.
"Let's get the niceties outta the way. Name's Gunnar. I'm no good at negotiations and I got no fancy book learnin' but I'll try and keep you all amongst the livin' if things go sideways."
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A korasha lashunta comes jogging into the shuttle shortly after Gunnar. He kicks off of one of the seats and does a mid-air kick. As he lands, he sweeps back his antennae and points a camera mounted on his arm toward himself. "And THAT, Jump-heads, is how you make an entrance!" He presses a button on the side of the camera to turn it off, then turns to his assembling teammates.
"What's up, folks?! Name's Faraeon Star-Jumper! Current champ of the Absalom Station Grav-Run League, though I probably don't need to tell you all that!" He flashes a big smile, then takes a seat and looks around.
After a few seconds of searching, he finally starts looking annoyed and hits his comm unit earpiece. "Kip, would you hurry up, man?! We gotta jet soon. This shuttle isn't gonna wait all day."
A moment later, a bedraggled halfling wearing large spectacles and hauling an enormous pack full of dusty old books jogs into the shuttle. "Sorry sir! My textbooks this semester are extra heavy because the professor required us to use the printed editions! Can you believe that?!"
"Ah, it's fine, Kip," Faraeon replies to the halfling, "Come on and grab a seat. This is Gunnar by the way. Says he's gonna help keep us alive! Gotta appreciate that!"
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Chetna wanders in finishing up a bowl of instant noodles. She hooks one of the chairs with her foot to flip it facing backwards and sits down with her arms resting on the back of the chair. After swallowing the last bite of noodles she finally speaks, "Only thing I had left in my quarters that was still edible. I don't, apparently, spend enough time back on station anymore." She lobs the empty noodle cup at a waste can and...
... it lands squarely inside.
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Xenal stomps her way into the room; she's a typically towering Vesk warrior in armor that easily matches Gunnar's for bulk, her matte green scales shot through with ribbons of gold and crimson where they stand revealed.
"A pleasure to meet you all, I am Xenal Doshbinder. I hope that today's mission will be a peaceful one, but if not, I stand ready."
She makes a lot of gestures with her hands as she talks, but despite the warm tone of her voice, she doesn't really smile. Then again, a face-full of fangs might not go with a friendly greeting anyways...
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A young(ish) woman rushes into the shuttle. Her first glance is toward the pilots chair, and seeing it untaken she makes a bee-line for it.
"Hi all, I'm Guunnz.."
Gunnz is dressed, somewhat disconcertingly as a cheerleader. On closer look you decide that perhaps it is not so much a cheerleader, as a stage dancer. She has a "Star Sugar Heartlove" crop-top that shows a well muscled stomach, and a surprisingly large "carry on" luggage bag, together with a more lady-like shoulder bag.
"Guess I'll be our pilot today!"
With a quick check of the shuttle she notes a still empty seat. "Best buckle in while we have time." she suggests in a more businesslike tone of voice. It has the solid ring of a teacher's command, rather than the suggestive recommendation that you might expect from someone of her appearance.
"While we get ready... guess we are swapping stories? " she talks, while her eyes check the shuttle gauges and computer.
"Don't think I've had the pleasure of working with any of you before.."
The short hop from the station to the Master of Stars is, well, short. You make your way from the landing bay to the assigned briefing room. You find Fitch in the room and a plate of bread, jam, and cheese. At the moment you open the door, Fitch is chasing three young ysoki. "I told you those were for the visiting Starfinders!" she shouts with restrained aggravation. The three run past your knees. Fitch throws a donut at the trailing youngster in frustration. He turns, catches the donut, takes a bite out of it, and grins triumphantly before scurrying between Xenal's legs.
She performs an exaggerated scowl, though once the door closes, her face exudes smug pride in her cunning descendants. "Anyhow. Welcome."
Once you are situated, she begins the briefing. “Vabaimus is a planet in Near Space,” Fitch says, gesturing in the air as she paces atop her desk. “Green, lots of water, bright sunlight, beautiful, if you go in for that sort of thing. Plenty of animal and plant life, but the most intelligent species is a marsupial no bigger than my kids. Look kind of like sloths. I like them, but we’re leaving them alone till they advance enough to at least get a language. Could take a while.
“But there is a research station on the southern continent. The scientist in charge is Dr. Mora Motressi, a xenobiologist. She and her people have been checking out the local flora and fauna, and they’ve just started a geological survey. Vabaimus is a resource-rich planet; we could do a lot with that, but we need to be careful to do it right. We don’t want to make decisions we later regret, disrupt the ecosystem, and create problems for ourselves and the locals.”
Fitch pulls a datachip from her cheek pouch and waves it around. “I was reading the first report from their geological survey, and apparently they’ve got a weird landmass down there. A plateau hundreds of miles across covered in a slick gray shell, like a giant lobster or something! No water or plant life at all—maybe it got blasted by some kind of curse, I don’t know. Mora and her people, they don’t have the equipment to do a proper survey, so I figured we could give her a hand. I’d like you to take some vehicles and survey equipment to Dr. Motressi and her people on Vabaimus, and help them get to the bottom of this mystery.”
Raising her hands and shaking her head, Fitch goes on. “I know, I know. This doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a bunch of super-stars like you usually go in for. There’s no first contact to figure out, no Swarm army to blast into smithereens. But this is how the hard work of research and science gets done, and besides, if this lifeless plateau is the result of a curse or a magical accident or something, Mora and those scientists will need help, maybe even an evacuation.
“So, what do you say? Can I trust you on this one?”
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Just before departure Xyzic takes a seat.
No time for small talk when you’re late. That’s unacceptable!
Just after sitting for the journey Xyzic listens intently to Fitch.
”Aren’t children great?” as he speaks he taps a cradle-jar hanging from his belt.
”I cannot wait for you to do things like this.” Xyzic looks at his cradle jar at the Shirren larval in it.
”By the grace of Pharasma, if these people need help then I shall give it to them. You can count on me!”
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"Well, on the one hand you're right, sounds like there's not a whole lot of new fans to recruit out there. On the other hand, who doesn't love getting to see a whole world virtually untouched by sentient civilization? Sounds like a great time, Fitch!"
Faraeon leans back in his seat and telekinetically grabs himself a donut. He takes a bite, swallows, then points the broken ring of cake-y goodness at the head of his main faction sponsors, "One question though, what kinda resources is this place supposed to have for us? We lookin' at star metals or something like that?"
"As far as the planet and the station... Oh! You mean natural resources. Nothing so exotic. Iron, copper, aluminum, titanium," he answers Fitch. "But, like I said, we've got to be careful about how we go about making use of these resources."
He looks to Gunnz and says, "There’s maybe twenty people there. Scientists mostly and some assistants. They’ve got half a dozen buildings not far from the plateau. And we don't have any records of anything like it."
Fitch shrugs at Gunnar. "Vabaimus is pretty peaceful, but you never know. It’s a dangerous galaxy, and the planet's fauna has not been fully cataloged."
She scratches behind her ear. "Well, I meant that more figuratively than literally, but anything in the universe is possible. I mean, the copaxi are living coral so... go find out!"
"The report said its made of calcium," Fitch answers.
The halfling flips through its prodigious collection of archaic texts and then shrugs helplessly.
“We’ve packed up some towers, high-intensity scanners, and computers which, once you put them all together, will give you a 3-D map of the plateau’s interior and do a complete chemical analysis of the ground. Oh, and I threw in some enercycles and buggies, to help you get around out there. You’ll have a lot of ground to cover,” Fitch answers Gunnz. "Now, I think that's as much as I've got to tell you. Go see the quartermaster if you need to and then get on your shuttle!"
Once you return to the shuttle, you find that loading drones have filled the shuttle's hold with the aforementioned supplies.
It takes eleven days of uneventful--if colorful--Drift travel to reach the system in which Vabaimus is found. As you approach the planet, a cursory scan confirms that Vabaimus is a temperate planet with considerable surface water and a variety of native life. It looks like a perfect colony world. There is, however, a strange geological formation, a stony plateau which covers approximately 85,000 square miles on the southern continent. This is the feature you have been sent to investigate, and the Wayfinders’ research station is situated nearby.
You receive a communications request from the research station. Pulling it up on the video console, you see a female human with the left half of her mid-length, dark hair shaved. "Greetings Starfinder Shuttle. This is Dr. Mora Motressi," she introduces herself. In the background you see a child playing with a datapad. "Please, join us here on the surface at the research station. Your shuttle is receiving the landing protocol." While she speaks, a sloth-like creature climbs up her back and bats at her ears with its long talons.
"No, thank you," Dr. Motressi answers. "Make your way to the landing zone. I'll brief you in person."
The outpost is a simple affair on the grassy shore of a broad river, with two dormitory buildings to the east, two science labs to the west, and between them a common room for the staff to relax. All the buildings are white half-cylinders obviously assembled from prefabricated parts. A basic chain-link fence surrounds the compound, an improvised exercise track loops around the entire campus, and a pair of researchers in athletic clothes are jogging in the morning sun. The mysterious plateau looms only a few miles away.
As you land at the outpost, some of the scientists and assistants emerge to help unload the vehicles and survey equipment. Mora leads the way, carrying the sloth-like creature. A young and curious girl follows close behind.
"Welcome to Vabaimus," she says with a smile and then gestures at the child following her. "This is 'Little Mina,' my daughter. Follow me into the common room."
After activating a handheld control, Mora gestures to a holographic image of an imposing, gray plateau. “This is Big Mina. You probably saw it as you came down from orbit. The plateau’s covered in a gray calcium compound, somewhat like a shell or a bony crest. There’s nothing like it anywhere else on Vabaimus and, frankly, we’re not sure what to make of it. But that’s where you and the equipment you’ve brought us come in.”
The image of the plateau rotates to a top-down perspective, and three circles of light appear. “The survey equipment will allow us to construct three towers, one at each of the these locations: Forsaken Canyon, the Windy Cliffs, and this dry riverbed. Once the scanners on the towers are calibrated to the computers we keep here at the station, we’ll perform a deep scan of the entire plateau, going down thousands of feet. We’ll have a three-dimensional map of Big Mina’s interior, we’ll know the chemical composition of the soil, and hopefully we’ll figure out whatever caused this formation to appear in the first place. We have an office pool going, and right now the popular choice is some kind of magical accident, but my money is on an anomalous weather pattern. Anyway.
“Those enercycles and explorer buggies you brought will be handy to travel across the plateau, so use any combination of them you want. We’re currently loading them up with the equipment you’ll need to raise the towers, plus some climbing gear just in case. Once you arrive at each scan location, you’ll need to assemble the tower and calibrate the computer. I can help you with that last bit from here. We have twelve hours of daylight left, and while I’d love to knock this out in a day, you don’t need to be reckless. You can bunk on these sofas for the night if you need.
“There’s one other thing. It’s probably not important, but just in case—we found a small, abandoned starship a few months back. It was centuries old and clearly kasathan in origin. It didn’t crash; we think its pilot landed safely. But there’s no sign of what happened to them. Whoever it was must be long dead.
“So, I think that’s everything. Any questions?”
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"Did you manage to trace who the pilot of the ship was? Even a ship that old... there would be records." ask Gunnz, who keeps a quiet but friendly eye on Little Mina.
"The sloth seems to have taken a shine to you. Are they locals?" she asks as she considers what the creature might actually eat.
"Where was the spaceship found? We might want to do a quick swing past that as well if we have time and it is close to one of our locations. Speaking of which... who named them? They are not the most auspicious of monikers...[/b]"
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Faraeon quickly introduces himself to Mora and Little Mina, and asks the young girl, ”So how come you and this big plateau share the same name? Did your mommy name it after you?”
He gives the girl a warm smile, then turns to Dr Motressi again, ”Sounds like that ship could be an interesting lead to follow up on, but we definitely want to prioritize helping with your research. Now, any chance we could get in on this office pool? What’s the over under on it being a massive crab thing?”
“Yes. These are the sapient natives of Vabaimus. This is Bud. He and his mate Beky are visitors from the northern continent. Their species aren’t yet sapient, but they’re on their way. Right now, Bud’s pretty good at using a stick to get insects out of the ground, but eventually he and the rest of his species could be farming, building towns, or doing whatever else expresses their evolving culture. We have avoided interfering with the species overall, but we do want to know more about them and maybe find a way to communicate, so we brought Bud and Beky here for a closer look. They’re easy to get along with, and my daughter likes them.” Mora says to Gunnz.
Mina looks at Faraeon, smiles and says, "I wanted a big sister. Momma said that was the best she could do." The child grabs hold of the lashunta's wrist and starts exploring his wrist camera, touching things and twisting his arm this way and that.
Mora highlights the locations on the projection as she answers Gunnar's question. “The canyon and riverbed are both about 60 miles away and a fair distance from one another. The cliffs are about 75 miles away. Once you get out there, all three of the sites are roughly equidistant from one another.”
Mora gets back to Gunnz's first question. "The ship was non-functional, and we didn't find a data storage device or a computer that wasn't crushed into uselessness. However, we did manage to salvage some things from the ship. If you want, I’ll be happy to show you. Maybe you
can make more of it than we can.”
Mora leads you over to a plastic crate, which she opens.
"Thankfully, no," she answers Xyzic. "Nobody has been injured or fallen ill."
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"Hmm..." notes Gunnz.
"If they did survive and they used Zero, they wouldn't have been very happy about being separated from their supply. I wonder why they kept the pearls?"
She looks around the group. "Well, no time like the present. Let's try these buggies out for size. Maybe sling one of the cycles on the back in case we need it."
She quickly checks the buggies to see how many folk they can hold.
"Are any of Bud and Beky's cousins down here in the south?"
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The spacer in Chetna starts to show a bit, "Sorry, you said the ship didn't crash, but the internals were crushed? Did a boulder or tree fall on it or something?"
"Also, I once met a client in a dry riverbed just as a monsoon season was creeping up. Are we expecting rain or should that riverbed stay dry?"
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As Little Mina grabs his wrist and begins poking around his camera, Faraeon smiles and reaches up with his other hand to turn the device on, putting both himself and Mina in frame. "Hey, there folks! This is Lord of Leaps, Faraeon here with Little Mina on the quiet little planet of Vabaimus! Mina, can you tell me and the fans what your favorite part of living here is?" He continues the "interview" for a few more minutes to play along with the girl as long as she is interested/comfortable, then tousles her head and signs off from the stream.
Turning to Little Mina's mother again, Faraeon agrees with Gunnz. "Sounds like we shouldn't have too much trouble getting out to the sites then. How long do you think it'll take to set up each of the towers? If they assemble quick enough, we might be able to knock this out before nightfall!"
"Probably the same thing that happened to the scanner we tried to set up in the river bed. After a few days it stopped transponding, and when we checked on it, it was knocked over and all smashed up. Honestly, it looked like a meteor had struck it but there was no impact crater or meteorite," Dr. Montessi says in answer to Chetna's question. "Although, the ship had been on the planet for centuries rather than days."
"We’ve seen some native life in the canyon, resembling birds but not any of Bud's species. I don’t know how anything survives on the plateau, where there’s no plant life or water. Maybe you can get a closer look at them when you’re setting up the scanning tower?" she continues, answering Gunnz's question.
"Like I said, I don't want any unnecessary risks taken, but if you can get these set up before nightfall, that would be impressive," she says.
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”I will ride with Fareon. We will talk about this gambling.”Xyzic is enthusiastic at the thought.
”We must be careful. Perhaps what smashed the other sensor is out there waiting on us to return. We have the power of Pharasma on our side today. No harm will come to us, I will see to it.”
Xyzic looks over his gear with a meticulous nature.
”Shall we depart?
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"Yeap, Happy to drive the buggy. The cycle looks sweet as well, so maybe we trade for the trip back?" suggests Gunnz.
She does look concerned at the doctors words though.
"Wait... something out there smashes up random bits of tech? That sounds concerning. Have there been any other odd events we should know about? And what makes you think that the same won't happen to the towers?"
She thinks about the other information the scientist provides. "I dated this ecologist once, who told me about birds living on rocky islands without any natural water. But they survived because of rainfall that collected in pools. I guess these plateau birds do the same. Pretty odd about no plant life though. He said that plants and lichens get everywhere. Is there something poisonous about this shell?"
"That's what you're here for, right?" Dr. Montessi answers Gunnz's question about the towers getting smashed. "And the plateau isn't poisonous as far as we know."
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"Well.. to be honest, I think this is the first we heard about any sabotage." confesses Gunnz - looking around to the others for confirmation.
"Still, no time like the present to get out there and see the sights for ourselves. That terrain looks rough, so I suggest any who need to take a pit stop now, and then buckle up. We're going for a ride."
She turns her gaze on the icon. "So, we sticking together, or racing?"
Gunnz and her crew pile into the buggy which has the trailer full of tower parts loaded onto it. Faraeon and Xyzic power up one of the enercycles.
Your first destination is a lonely canyon.
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Gunnz doesn't look entheused at the idea of driving and navigating.
"Why don't you have a shot at it Chetna?" she asks.
"It's hard to avoid obstacles and read a map at the same time. If you run into difficulty, then I can always take over later. But really with a big open area, we shouldn't really be able to get lost should we?"
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"Sweet! I'd love to make a race of it, but we should probably stick together til the mission's done. Maybe on the way back if there's enough light."
Faraeon turns to Xyzic, "So, you up for being navigator for us? I mean, we could always just follow along after the buggy, but in case we get separated somehow. You never know what's gonna go down on a new planet right?! So cool!"
Faraeon powers up his enercycle, let's Xyzic get strapped in, then gives Dr. Montessi a quick salute as he revs the engines and skids out of the vehicle bay.