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The Far Portal is an ancient and mysterious structure. Floating at the edge of the sun’s corona, this massive metallic gateway is a vast ring. Contained within this ring is a magical portal, large enough to accommodate whole starships, leading to an inhospitable, uninhabited region of the Plane of Fire. A few Material Plane expeditions have managed to make it through the blazing portal, but few have managed to return. To date, nothing from the Plane of Fire has emerged from the portal. Still, various research institutions have banded together to fund Far Portal Station, a small, utilitarian research facility positioned close enough to the portal to study its strange magical signatures and attempt to understand its
unknown origins.
The station is a spoke-and-wheel design, just large enough to accommodate the resident researchers and maintenance crew. Rooms and corridors are drab and practical, except for elaborate instrument stations and wall-sized view screens showing the portal and the sun through various filters.
John has just dropped off a few new team of researchers, one of many missions his small cargo vessel has undertaken recently, as he has explored what the Pact Worlds have to offer.
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Shouts erupt from a group standing near a massive view screen showing live feeds of the Far Portal in various spectrums. As more people around the station drop what they’re doing and run to join the growing crowd, the portal on the screen shimmers and distends, ejecting an ornate starship that looks constructed from polished brass and black stone. It trails gasses and smoke, obviously damaged.
John has no idea what he is looking at.
Members of the spectating group cheer or gasp in surprise, only to go silent as the images flicker and distort again. A new shape emerges from the portal and keeps emerging—a titanic and fiery whale shot through with technological augmentations of dark metal. A few onlookers scream as flames spray out from the whale’s mouth toward
the fleeing starship.
A lashunta scientist at a console initiates a scan and says, “Oh no! Its shields are down!”
A kasatha woman comes sprinting toward John, waving her four arms, and exclaims:
“You! You just arrived, yes? I’m Stationmaster Jori Kimosan Kofa of Clan... I’m Jori. Please, you have to help! That ship is the first to ever pass through the Far Portal from the Plane of Fire. It’s of immense scientific value, and that beast is about to incinerate it! Your vessel is the only one here that can handle the situation. We need you to save that ship! There is 1,000 credits in it for you if you bring it back so we can study it!”
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John's blast catches the whale completely by surprise, taking out its aft shielding, and scorching it quite badly...
...causing some damage to its circulatory system.
The Space Whale flips around...
...but ends up getting itself rather muddled, and achieves nothing else.
Space Whale (-/-/-/-8; -14; Heart Glitching)
Leaf On The Wind (-/-/-/-; -)
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Once again, John's blast pounds through its shielding...
...causing some damage to its propulsion system...
...and causing its throat-weapon to glitch.
The Space Whale flips around...
...but although it stops haemorrhaging blood, its weapon strike goes wide.
Space Whale (-8/-/-/-8; -32; Propulsion Malfunctioning; Weapon Glitching)
Leaf On The Wind (-/-/-/-; -)
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John's Particle Cannon fires straight down the Space Whale's throat, blowing out its gut.
At that moment, some augmentations on its head disintegrate into a cloud of molecular dust. Seconds later, the fleeing ship’s engines flare
out a final time, leaving it silent and adrift. Stationmaster Jori calls, congratulating John, and pleading that he board the mystery ship and find a way to bring it and any surviving crew back to the station!
Upon examining the Space Whale's remains, John learns that, in addition to other systems, the fire whale was fitted with implants within its neurophysiology. These devices disintegrated when the whale was defeated, inflicting lethal damage to its nervous system. These implants might have allowed communication with and even control over the whale, although determining who might have been doing so is impossible from the remains...
Even battered and blackened by the assault, the ship remains a work of art. Curves and spines of gleaming brass combine with dark plating to give the ship a feel that’s half architectural and half insectile. Oblong domes are set in the top of the ship like eyes, opaque enough to hide their secrets. Along the bow, the name Breath of Embers is written in Ignan.
It is a simple enough matter to dock with one of its aft airlocks; now all that remains to be done, is the exploration of this mysterious vessel!
The ship’s interior is full of breathable atmosphere. Artificial gravity generators are still running, giving the ship normal gravity. The interior is made of alloys that look like polished brass or steel, brass dominating, with accents of dark basalt or white granite. Glowing ceiling panels and sconces holding holographic flames light the ship, but these lights periodically flicker or blink out entirely for a moment as the ship’s damaged systems struggle to continue working. Doors are sturdy as steel but most open at a touch.
Cloth-like materials aboard the ship are actually made of a high-tech fireproof composite, which won’t burn but offers no protection from fire damage to a wearer. Finally, this ship looks made for Medium creatures.
The overhead light panels in this wedge-shaped airlock flicker, but the indicators on the control panel glow a steady red. Airlock controls are written in Ignan but are simple and functional. Cycling the airlock and opening the inner door is, consequently, easy for John...
...who manages to spot a few fragments of dark red onyx (worth a total of 5 credits).
This bay has thick eye-rings and ratchet straps designed to secure cargo to the walls.
John hears a banging noise coming from deeper within the ship.
John also discovers a suit of Cargo Lifter Powered Armour locked in a charging station.
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This symmetrical room feels out of place, with walls of worked basalt lit by flames hovering over ornate brass sconces. The floor is an elaborate mosaic of a red sunburst against yellow tile, and the ceiling overhead rises in a stone cupola bearing the same pattern. In the center, brass vines with leaves of flame climb an empty basalt plinth.
Three-eyed, four-armed serpent floats above the empty plinth.
When it sees John, it waves in greeting.
“Welcome to my temple. Speak your wish, and it shall be granted.”
John identifies this creature as a Rifti Protean, a minor pest that definitely does not have the ability to grant wishes. Furthermore, he deduces that when Breath of Embers passed through the Far Portal, its Drift engine must have already been damaged. As a result, it had none of the usual magical shielding protecting it during interplanar travel. This protean likely formed from the entropic energy of the unusual planar transit.
John has no idea what the purpose of this room was.
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Once again, John's reaction cannon strikes true, pinning the little vermin to the ground.
It writhes for a moment, before discorporating.
This chamber is full of tools and diagnostic gear for servicing the ship’s twin thrust engines, each housed in its own circular bay. Tie-downs and stick-strips designed to secure equipment during zero-g maneuvers line the walls and worktables, but much of the gear is scattered across the floor. The port engine is blackened and silent, but the starboard one sparks and crackles. Alcoves at the far end of the room hold a Drift engine to port and the ship’s power core to starboard.
John notices that most of the tools are scattered randomly, but those near the starboard alcove are arranged in strange patterns around the power core.
At about this point in time, a lithe, but well-muscled creature with green skin that glows with pale light, steps out of the reactor.
John has no idea what this creature is, but it seems angry.
"You broke my beautiful engines!"
John (-)
H (-)
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Ornate carpets cover the floor of this chamber. Where metal doors don’t take the wall space, curtains of red material frame murals of brass starships flying in formation through fiery skies. Low, plush divans surround hologram projectors and lavish brass tables holding hookahs and VR headsets. Damage from fire and impact mars one of two double doors on the forward side of the room.
John realises that the room appears to be unused.
Of more immediate concern, however, is the small creature, apparently made from magma, which is slowly destroying the contents of the room!
John has no idea what it is.
John (-)
SME (-)
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This room is decorated in basalt, brass, and steel, including metal lounge chairs around low metal tables. The walls and ceiling gleam with polished metal, except for tiny red and white tiles forming inset mosaics of elegant trees, their leaves countless tiny flames that light the room. Three recessed ceramic tubs with openings for massage jets sit empty in the floor, one big enough for several smaller humanoids.
John realises that the equipment here is malfunctioning, and is ready to explode!
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This room is a blend of engineering bay and science lab, filled with workbenches and a variety of large tools and view screens. Cabinets and lockers line the walls. Overhead, two clear, almond-shaped domes offer a view of the stars. At the room’s forward end stands a long, clear-sided structure with two linked, square chambers—one full of silvery liquid, the other empty. A falling workbench smashed the container on the empty side.
As John starts to explore the room, the silvery liquid lurches from its container, ready to attack!
Flowing over to John, it lashes out with a pseudopod...
...bludgeoning him.
AO (-)
John (-16)
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John *finally* manages to render the ooze into an inert pile of protoplasm.
Although the computer here has been purged of data, John deduces from the tanks and consoles that the engineers used specialized software to control the ooze’s construction ability, then activated a tuned force field to push the ooze into one of the chamber’s compartments while the item was retrieved from the other.
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This long room is a combination galley and dining room. A wrap-around grill occupies the center of the room, designed for the cooks to stand behind while diners sit at the surrounding brass bar and watch their food being prepared. Brass cabinets line the walls, along with two culinary synthesizers and doors to port and forward. Several of the cabinets have been broken open, and cooking utensils are scattered across the floor. Above, twin almond-shaped domes show the stars outside.
As John moves forward, three tiny lizard-like creatures with over-sized, onion-like heads, burst out of the grill, screaming in Ignan:
"Cook! Cook!"
John recognises these as tiny fire elementals.
John (-)
Tiny Fire Elementals (-, -, -)