Dot in here
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A middle-aged man sits at a cluttered workbench making adjustments on a small hover drone, a bead of sweat dripping down from his graying hair.
"I think we have it, my little Victor! Are you ready to try it again?"
A young boy, perhaps no more than 6 standard Absalom years old, pops his head up from behind a stack of old boxes. "Can we blow more balloons up Grandpa? Let's try shooting the balloons again!"
The man beams as his grandson gathers several colorful balloons and begins carefully blowing them up and hanging them from a metal bar. "Let's give the targeting system a work out! Let's hang five of them this time, some high up, and some down near the floor. Put your safety goggles on! Your mom will kill me if she catches us without them!"
Returning to the workbench, the man makes one final adjustment, then grabs a control unit. "Are you ready Victor? Let's fire RAY up!" Lowering his goggles, the man taps the control unit screen and the drone whirs to life, its motors continually issuing soft puffing sounds as it begins to maneuver into position.
The boy stands near his grandfather with excited anticipation. "Here we go! Let's see if RAY can hit them all this time, Grandpa!"
Following one final tap on the control unit, the drones weapon barrel slung under its main chassis comes to life, panning and tilting until it acquires its targets. With a loud crackle, six quick bursts of laser energy pop each balloon, one by one.
"We did it Grandpa! We did it! RAY got them all!"
"It sure did, little Victor! What do you say we land RAY back on the bench and take a little break?"
The drone sets down gently on the workbench and the motors slowly gear down until they are silent. The man puts the control unit down, then sits down on a nearby chair. "Come cuddle up with me for a moment Victor, I want to talk to you. Do you remember what your Mother told you about the trip I'll be taking soon? I'm going to be leaving soon, and it might be a while until you see me again."
"I know Grandpa! You're going to be a Starfinder! You'll bring me a surprise when you come back, right?"
"I sure will, little Victor. I'll find something for you that no other kid around here has! Let's go find your mother and get something to eat! I'm hungry."
As the two walk through the door, they pass an old hologram of the man with his arm around a distinguished looking woman. The hologram recording shows the man kissing the woman on the cheek, followed by amused smiles from both of them. Gustav Haas, a mild-mannered repairman, is going on the adventure his late wife always wanted to go on. . . .
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Checking in!
Pic of Ryan Kai - It's a Remco Troost, so I like showing it off!
Zo the undead entertainer speak to you all.
“Yes. Yes! You’re everything I was hoping for,”exclaims the undead showman while looking over the new arrivals. “Oh, Luwazi, you’ve truly outdone yourself. They’re so exciting, so energized, so—” “—alive?” finishes a ghast woman wearing well-tailored clothing as she steps onto the stage. Zo! frowns at the blunt observation and tries to respond, but Luwazi intervenes. “Starfinders, no doubt this is all happening a little fast, so let me explain. After the Scoured Stars incident, the Society struggled to support new expeditions. I reached out to numerous people and organizations for grant money, and our host was eager to help. He financed more than a dozen missions, including the one to Salvation’s End. There was one big catch.” Zo! visibly bounces in his seat with excitement as Luwazi continues. “If we found anything especially exciting, we’d need to cease exploration long enough for him to get a film crew out there to document whatever we found next. Well, Salvation’s End may look like a moon, but our initial survey of it found there’s something built inside—the whole thing might be artificial. That qualifies as especially exciting, but that was also several months ago.” The skeletal mogul waves his hands. “Oh, but Luwazi, I couldn’t just send a single crew. No, the Starfinder Society’s greatest triumph deserves far more production value.” He hops up from his chair and gazes out at the moon as he paces and gesticulates. “Imagine:
heroes from the Pact World, a mysterious planetoid, untold secrets, limitless adventure—all broadcast before a live audience in our greatest production yet!” He spins to look back at the group, his lipless mouth smiling gleefully. “Live Exploration Extreme!” The ghast claps politely before interjecting. “To translate, you’re scheduled to explore part of Salvation’s End accompanied by a professional camera crew and production team. You will find exciting things and be thoroughly entertaining. Any questions?”
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A short Shirren enters the room and listens intently to the briefing. Looking sharp in a military style dress uniform, he isn't as disgusting as most insects. The gross parts are still there, sure. Weird mandibles, antennae twitching constantly, hard exoskeleton instead of soft skin or fur.
He moves up and reaches out to shake Zo!'s hand with a smile, "Johnny Rico, pleased to meet you! You all run my favorite show, Mercs (tm). I kept hoping to get you in with my crew, but well war is war and there ain't going back after what happened. Anyway, I'm twitching for the opportunity to shine on your show."
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Ryan Kai takes this all in. He streams hacking exploits, tutorials, some gaming and more on Fluttr, the popular Infosphere streaming platform... he's even uploaded short vids of his exploits from his first two Starfinder missions on SphereTube. He has a respectable following, but this might give him the boost he needs!
"Excellent! Will you post our handle, and links to our sites in our profiles on the stream?"
Zo looks at you all puts his microphone down and starts answering questions with a smile, Danger real or not? I can't tell you that, if you believe it is fake, you try less than your best, but if you believe it is real, you might not want to go. There will be plenty of hits and yes I'll do that Ryan. And don't worry about the camera crew or interact with them, they are undead, and viewers are suppose to believe the cameras are in the rooms automatically, not knowing there is someone who films it. Think of it like Big Brother and we are filming like the best season of it, only you are working with each other, not against each other, and more challenges than that show provides. It is a few hours of action with breaks in between.
He then hands you a paper that reads, "Warning this show is extremely graphic and disturbing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised." He then hands you a pen to sign to be on the show.
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Despite being dumbfounded by all of the cameras, lights, and UNDEAD all around him, Gus looks around him, takes a deep breath, and steps forward.
"I guess this is why I signed on to the Starfinders. I'll sign your papers, Mr. Zo!."
After a moment of feeling around in his pockets, he sheepishly speaks up again. "Anybody got a pen I can borrow?"
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Quite excited by the prospect of signing a document in blood with a legit broadcasting company, Johnny moves up to glance at the document. Seeing Gustav use Ryan's pen, he seems a bit dejected but still signs. "Yeah, uh pen and ink. Right that makes more sense. BUT HEY WE GET TO BE ON TV!!!"
He introduces himself to the rest of the pathfinders with a strong gripped insectile claw-shake, "Johnny Rico, hero of the Battle of Kes-Vax. We stick together, remember our training and we'll all make it through."
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Minea picks up a pen. Scanning the document briefly, she signs her name with flourish. "Right... I suppose we should get on with this assignment then." Glancing at Johnny, she sighs loudly and continues, "While I find you utterly repulsive, sir, I must admit I agree with you. We must stick together."
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Johnny merely smiles and replies, "Ah, I see. Well I'm happy you are willing to put your feelings to the side for the mission." He assures the group, "I am not like the hordes of bugs that have swarmed to war with the pact worlds in the past. I prize my individuality much to highly to fall to the trap of colony think."
He looks back to Minea and adds,
Nope, we don't provide unless you were on the First Mandate Mission, sorry. For anyone else, no spoilers, sorry.
Two teams accompany the PCs. The first is the
production team, consisting of two ghouls, two androids, and
a hexapodal robot, that carries refreshments, portable seats,
makeup, the bubble projector (see The Booth below), a pair of
heavy-duty broadcast relays, and other equipment necessary to
keep the operation running.
Live Exploration
A network of service tunnels crisscrosses this outermost subsurface layer, providing avenues for repair drones to service the simulation chambers deeper inside. However, as the PCs explore—and voice their thoughts aloud, as Wazasha prompts—they find broken and incomplete robots and drones of unknown design at irregular intervals along the worn steel hallways. Almost every light fixture is broken or malfunctioning, making the 15-foot-tall tunnels dark but for the occasional, haunting flicker of light from the distance. In the few places where it seems signage once hung, someone has purposefully defaced or removed the analog signs and torn out any digital displays.
or Engineering check, a PC can ascertain that the technological
elements in these tunnels seem to be roughly comparable to Pact
Worlds’ technology but are of a design never before documented.
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Ryan walks through, inspecting the equipment. Then, making sure cameras can see him, "Fascinating! The technology in here is... roughly comparable to our Pact Worlds' tech, but this design... is something different, something that has never been documented, not in anything I've ever seen."
He makes a deal of pulling out his own vid cam from his custom rig, and recording interesting parts, slowly panning it across various items of tech, "I'll record some of this for later study!
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Johnny humphs, "Yeah, that's really interesting. But I think we'd better keep an eye out for the creators and whoever is vandalizing this place. That's what'll kill us if we let it."
He also angles to get as many camera shots on himself, even slowly pulling out his pistol and making a point to obviously rack a round into the chamber. He points it and his flashlight down the dark hall and slowly and quietly works his way along as point-man.
He drops his voice to a calculated tense whisper, "Now, cut the chatter and let's move."
(Blindsense 30 ft)
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Gus gets out an old flashlight from one of the pockets on his vest. After giving it a quick shake and checking the contacts, it finally powers up and provides him with some light. He'll keep it aimed toward the floor so it doesn't attract too much attention.
"Come on RAY, let's let them sneak ahead. If they find anything interesting, we'll take a look. . . ."
RAY dutifully follows Gus down the hallway. Gus takes note of some of the old robot parts, thinking they might be interesting to clean up and incorporate onto his drone.
As Starfinders are navigating the tunnels, they hear an explosion. It shakes the walls and echoes ahead. The Camera crew remain calm
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Johnny pops in, whispering on their secure comms, "They are professional cameramen, they aren't supposed to startle, it messes up the recordings."
He turns to the group and waves them forwards, "Onwards! Someone may be hurt and if not, explosions are usually where we find the action!" While indicating to hurry, he continues forwards at his slow and quiet pace, trying to keep the advantage of stealth. His mind is racing with adrenaline, this is definitely going to turn into something, I doubt I'm going to need to play up to the TV much more. I just hope my allies are ready for combat.
Heroes move up and see a goblins blasted by the explosion, some survived as they were messing with the explosion. Heroes stealth up and see the action. Others are probably on the inside right now. They also have a pet with them.
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"Gobins? Did you say goblins? They can be nasty buggers, but sometimes they can be reasoned with. I've run across them before on Absalom station. Let me see what I can do." Gus, in a rare moment of media savvy even addresses the cameras.
Yelling toward the goblins, Gus seems to be speaking a different language: "Gunda hava gunda nawa gunda sturmkow!"
Johnny waits patiently to see how Gustav's amazing entreaty in what he assumes to be goblin is reacted to. His pistol is out, but not directly pointed at the creatures.
As heroes try talking to the goblins, one shouts to the others, kill them and loot their bodies.
Gustav
Seven
Johnny
Issac
Space goblins and Magical beast, this beast acts 3 init counts later than the goblins.
Goblins go They move into position and fire at Issac +3 to each vs EAC if hit take fire and 2nd shot fire
Gustav and Johnny are up
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The Shirren's adrenaline pumps as the creatures attack his ally and he simply yells, "BATTLE!!!"
Rushing forward, he slips his hammer into his other hand and stops, just outside the range of one of the goblins. The mercenary points his pistol at the little grinning face, squeezing the trigger until "BLAM!"
for