Sevash can’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn, but uncharacteristically, Aysén connects a solid blow with his lunar weapon.
Round 4/5 of Combat: Ish and Telsix are up!
Party-wide buffs/debuffs: Dim Light in the room now that column of light has dissipated
Sevash
Aysén
Telsix
Ishkepu
Big Bug
Telsix will once again batter the creature's mind.
Aysén presents a ready target, so the bug claws!
Round 5/6 of Combat: Midnight Squad is up!
Telsix
Sevash
Aysén
Ishkepu
Big Bug
Aysén, who had forgotten that he could hit with these attacks, keeps swinging (Photon attunement 2/3)
"You're not gonna kill me bug!"
Please don't let me die here!
First Attack
Damage
Second Attack
Damage
"Lately it does. Can't imagine why with this charismatic bunch." Sevash answers, giving her gun a few quick hits to set anything loose back in place and firing again
for
"Ha, when in doubt, just jangle the parts a bit"
Aysén pounds on the creature’s shell to no effect, and Ishkepu’s shot goes wide, just barely.
Sevash shows the team how it’s done, and scores a devastating direct hit, which causes parts of the creature to sizzle.
Round 5/6 of Combat: Telsix is up!
Telsix
Sevash
Aysén
Ishkepu
Big Bug
Telsix takes a shot with their pistol.
for
Telsix gets in on the conventional front, showing Ishkepu how to use a ranged weapon effectively.
Battered and burned from many directions, the creature continues to attack the closest at hand, leaving Aysén barely standing.
Round 6/7 of Combat: Midnight Squad is up!
Telsix
Sevash
Aysén
Ishkepu
Big Bug
"Lets finish this" Sevash says confidently from the back of her passage
for
for
Sevash strikes once, but the defender of this shrine is not down. Can you defeat it before it knocks Aysén out?
Aysén will explode with stellar fire (Photon attunement 3/3).
DC 14 Reflex for half, Supernova Revelation
DC 14
It avoids the worst of the blast, but is teetering. One mediocre shot from Ish could bring it down!!
Telsix moves over behind Aysén and heals him a bit.
Ishkepu, while hilarious, misses, giving the creature another chance to lash out at Aysén.
Thanks to Telsix's timely healing, he remains on his feet, but is looking badly hurt.
Round 7/8 of Combat: Midnight Squad is up!
Telsix
Sevash
Aysén
Ishkepu
Big Bug
Aysén will cover his fist in flame (Plasma Sheathe) and swing one last time (Photon attunment 1/3).
Attack vs KAC
Damage
Ishkepu and Aysén seemed to have clouded minds and can't land a hit. Can Sevash or Telsix end this?
"How bout some ass-kick projectiles" Sevash will say unleashing another volley toward the creature, obviously proud of how clever she is.
for
for
And with a final blazing shot the pierces the carapace, Sevash ends the fight.
Telsix rushes up to Aysén after the bug falls.
"Let's get some of that blood back on the inside."
Aysén will fall to the ground and lay there for a bit.
"Thank you, I was using that blood."
|
Ish tops up his clip with fresh bullets, chatting while he does.
"You know, one of the meatheads in my old squad says this thing is not called a 'clip'. 'It's a magazine,' he says, 'a clip is a thing that girls put in their hair.'"
He pauses and looks at the others and adds, "Is that sexist? It feels like it's sexist. He said it with such contempt."
With a final shot, the large bug falls still, leaking various fluids onto the floor.
The golden hologram reappears, and after repeating the same phrase, again disperses into a field of stars. You can see a small console where, after some amount of effort, you hack into the system.
You discover a passphrase the computer was waiting to hear: “The Forever Reliquary” in Shirren. Bypassing that roadblock, you can call up the holographic images that would have
played had you said the correct phrase.
Activating the second half of the hologram shows the dozens of golden motes suddenly blurring, as if they were moving past the viewer at a great speed (or the viewer was moving past them). An image of large rock hurtling through space appears; the shirren representation of Hylax manifests on the rock, though much smaller than previously. A glow begins to form around the rock, eventually turning into a bright corona with a long tail. Ishkepu, if not all of Midnight Squad, recognize the phenomenon as a comet. The comet blazes for a few moments before the hologram fades.
It's not difficult to surmise that the phrase “the Forever Reliquary” and the image of this comet will be of great interest to Xelonan (the monk you rescued from Swarm attack on the mountain in book 1 – it’s been awhile since you’ve seen him so figured I’d jog your memory).
Survey Notes: As another large chamber, this space could be used to house more refugees. Alternatively, it could serve as a common area for recreation or dining. In either case, the Hylax symbology carved into the shrine will likely put people at ease. If the rubble is removed from the northern tunnel, it would be easier for people to reach this room, but some form of security gate or door would need to be installed to keep the refugees safe.
Heading south from this room:
A modest chamber carved into the rock, this room contains a small bed, a series of shelves, and a large trunk. The shelves hold several holographic picture frames, an antique sextant and compass, and several fist-sized glass globes. The trunk is made of a shiny metal alloy and is etched with images of stars and insect heads. A standing lamp in one corner is dark, though the soft glow of several patches of bioluminescent moss provide some light.
The metal trunk isn’t locked, but it doesn’t appear to have a lid or any kind of handle to open it easily.
Sevash will take a crack at the box
"This is some sort of lockbox, though we cannot fathom its workings."
"I wonder if any of this is worth some credits?"
There are photos and doodads around the room, but besides the trunk being puzzles over, a long, narrow, metal box of the same material as the chest sits on the bed, and can be opened. It contains a staff of mystic healing.
Aysén presses some buttons before declaring it impossible and beyond him.
You return to Commander Najiri with the unopened chest and your survey findings. Teams of New Grakka’s civil engineers are dispatched to clear rubble and begin preparations for outfitting the area as an emergency shelter in case of attack. You are dismissed and given some R&R time.
Several days later, she relays that codebreakers were able to open the chest, and a datapad of shirren mystic was recovered. Xelonan and others are currently investigating it.
[More time passes] Commander Najiri summons you to a meeting with Xelonan in her office at the New Grakka city hall, citing your past involvement with the shirren priest and the troubleshooting nature of your squad as reasons they might be interested in what he has to say. Xelonan has spent some time since you returned from the Caves of Pilgrimage researching and contemplating what you uncovered there.
Xelonan starts, “Thank you all for coming. The cave’s final guide mentioned something called the Forever Reliquary, a phrase I had read and heard several times in texts and lectures by Hylaxian scholars, but most of them gave the impression that it was a metaphorical place, an ultimate utopia of peace and friendship that all should strive for. Some even believed it was another name for Hylax’s domain. In either case, what you have discovered leads me to think that it is an actual place here on the Material Plane. I did some searching on the infosphere and found an article written by a shirren named Galchak containing theories about the location of the Forever Reliquary. However, there is one big problem.”
Commander Najiri steps in at this point. “The most recent information we have on Galchak is that they were a professor at Zessh University on the planet Ilemchuuva in the Chuuva system... which was the last system hit by the Swarm before they came to Suskillon. We can’t be certain if this is a coincidence or not, but if the Swarm are seeking this Forever Reliquary, it can’t be for a good reason. We need more data, and that’s where you come in. . .”
Chapter Epilogue: With the defeat of Sister Spark and her Reckoners, a modicum of calm settles over New Grakka. The integration of the Suskillon refugees continues in earnest, the positive results of your actions are clear in the tenor of the city. Though the citizens’ general mood is somber—after all, the threat of the Swarm still looms large—there is a small undercurrent of hope.
END OF BOOK 2
Book 3: Huskworld
[u]Prologue[/u]
In the caves beneath New Grakka, Midnight Squad found references to something called “the Forever Reliquary” within a shrine to Hylax. While the shirren priest Xelanon had heard the name before, he believed it to be only a metaphorical state of ultimate peace and friendship. The information you found, however, suggest that there might be something more substantial than mere allegory.
Xelanon informed Commander Najiri and you about an article written by a shirren professor named Galchak that hinted at their theories on the location of the Forever Reliquary. The piece didn’t make much of splash on Suskillon, even among the Hylaxian community—possibly because it contains mostly speculation—but it did allow Commander Najiri to track down the professor. Unfortunately, there’s a serious complication: the Chuuva system—which contains Ilemchuuva, the planet where Galchak’s employer Zessh University is located—was attacked by the Swarm several months before the Suskillon system was hit. Suskillon Defense Force analysts believe that the Swarm subcolony that your own system is currently facing is the same one that devoured Ilemchuuva. The possibility that the Swarm is trying to seek out the Forever Reliquary is too dangerous to ignore.
As a special assignment, Commander Najiri orders Midnight Squad to travel to the Chuuva system and find Professor Galchak’s research or any clues that will lead to the Forever Reliquary. Time is of the essence in this investigation, as if there is information to be found, the Swarm has had a several-months’ head start in finding it. She also grants the squad use of a starship, a Suskillon Whip, named Flash Viper. The Flash Viper’s advanced Drift engines will buy you a few extra days as they race to make up for lost time.
[u]Chapter 1[/u]
The journey through the Drift is relatively uneventful—likely a welcome reprieve after the last
few weeks of incessant combat. The ship exits the Drift some distance from the Chuuva system’s third planet, Ilemchuuva, but long-distance scans can make out the distinctive features of Swarm starships in orbit around the planet. Fortunately, the Swarm vessels don’t notice them right away, but they will still need to plan their approach carefully.
The fact that the Swarm has maintained a presence here in the Chuuva system is alarming, since as far as you know, the Swarm typically abandons planets within a few days, or weeks at most. Given the reports that the Swarm had targeted the Chuuva system several months before Suskillon, this continued presence suggests that the Swarm has a particular interest in this system—in Ilemchuuva in particular—beyond its primary drive to consume.
As you draw near the planet, your scans identify an assortment of insectile ships occupying the space around Ilemchuuva. A massive Swarm battleship anchors the flotilla, while smaller picket ships dart back and forth along regular patrol paths. Beneath this flurry of activity, the surface of the planet bears scars of devastation obvious even from orbit. Visible lava flows and fissures
glow on the planet’s nighttime side, while the sun’s gentle light reveals fast-moving storm fronts roiling across vast expanses of desolate land colored a single, unbroken shade of dusty gray.
By observing the paths of the Swarm vessels and powering down the starship at just the right moment, Midnight Squad is able to slip past the blockade and land. As you approach the ground, it’s clear the rolling terrain below has been stripped of virtually all vegetation, leaving only dry, powdery soil drained of nutrients and moisture. Cracks and crevasses slice across the landscape, some bubbling with fuming lava and others reaching deep within the earth, the land between these ravines is pitted and scarred from acidic rain and erosion. Standing in sharp contrast are tall, lumpy spires of hardened clay that poke up from the desolated ground like gnarled fingers, as well as the bloated abdomens of colossal Swarm creatures half-buried in the earth and belching clouds of dark, greasy smoke into the stormy atmosphere.
Given the tectonic instability, you need to land outside of the target city of Udz, where the university is located. You have a long hike ahead of you.
"Excellent, nothing I'm more excited about in this situation than leaving our ship behind."
Aysén mentally prepares himself for the beatings to come.
"I deserve at least a small villa for the sacrifices I'm about to make."
[u]Chapter 2[/u]
Not long after landing, you see a dust cloud to the west. Before long you see it is a Swarm patrol – before long you are engaged in combat. Things look dire until some unexpected aid arrives in the form of a squad of resistance fights, Clade Company. After vanquishing the patrol, you learn that there are remnants of resistance on this decimated world.
Clade Company can help you get into the city and search the university for information, but they first need your help. You end up helping them destroying an imago, a giant Swarm creature that is like a tick on the side of the planet, sucking resources out.
You assist with destroying the imago, and in turn the resistance gets you into the city. Surprising no one, it turns out you have to fight lots of creatures, but after fighting and searching, you find what you think you were looking for, Professor Galchak’s research.
Upon examining the retrieved data, you find an extensive, detailed reconstruction of the route of the shirrens’ exodus from the Swarm at the end of the Gap, pieced together from archaeological evidence, primary and secondary source documents, and conjecture based on the existing evidence. Much of this portion of the research has already been published—and given your canny deductions you realize that the Swarm’s recent attacks have been following this path backward, almost as if the Swarm were retracing the shirren exodus.
The more recent additions to the data, collected over the course of about a year before the Swarm invaded Ilemchuuva, focus on the portion of the route prior to the shirren’s arrival in the Suskillon system. Fragmentary records indicate that by the time they reached Suskillon, the fleeing shirrens had recently experienced a tremendous transformative event. The goddess Hylax is mentioned frequently and with marked reverence, despite an absence of any religious references in earlier sources, and the professor highlights a marked change in the tone of mentions of the Swarm: while records prior to 4 AG referred to the Swarm in terms and tone bordering on terror and fatalism, records after that time carry less desperation and convey persistent optimism about the shirrens’ future as free entities.
Accompanying this timeline is a compilation of several dozens of primary and secondary sources mentioning the Forever Reliquary, with dates corresponding to the shift in the discussions of Hylax and the Swarm. Galchak’s notes theorize that the Forever Reliquary might hold some kind of relic that sparked a significant change in the shirren race.
A separate file contains complex astrogational calculations relative to the Suskillon system, extrapolating a set of coordinates which the professor has marked “comet known as the Prodigal Stone, site of the Forever Reliquary [conjecture].” In a separate directory accompanying the research itself is a copious collection of grant applications, as Galchak sought funding to travel to the extrapolated coordinates, verify the existence of the Forever Reliquary, and better understand the nature and significance of the site to the shirren exodus.
[u]Chapter 3[/u]
When you prepare to depart from Ilemchuuva, Clade Company as a whole bids them an enthusiastic and heartfelt farewell, thanking them for their assistance in the fight against the Swarm here on their home world and wishing them luck in their search for the Forever Reliquary. Clade Company declines any offers to evacuate them, restating their intent to remain on the planet and continue their fight to reclaim the world. They assure the you that should their situation ever become untenable, they’ll reach out to the Suskillon Defense Force to arrange an evacuation, but with the tactics they’ve learned and the resources they’ve gained with the Midnight Squad’s assistance, the company is in a much stronger position.
You now have the option to return to the Suskillon system to meet with Commander Najiri and Xelanon before embarking on your quest to find the Forever Reliquary. A return to the Suskillon system also provides you with a chance to assess the Swarm’s position there. The Swarm hasn’t continued its onslaught to Utraneus, which is itself strange, but the occupation of Suskillon continues. Commander Najiri remarks on the unusual behavior and says in no uncertain terms that the deviation is making everyone increasingly nervous about the Swarm’s plans. On the other hand, she notes, it does give the Suskillon Defense Force an opportunity to come up with a plan for a counterattack.
Your next mission is clear: seek out the comet known as the Prodigal Stone and discover why the Swarm is so desperately interested in it.
"Sounds like we best get going before the Swarm as a chance to act on whatever they are planning"
After preparing and resupplying on Utraneus, Sevash plots a course to the coordinates obtained from Professor Galchak’s notes. It takes 15 days of Drift travel before you reach your destination, a place just outside an unnamed and uninhabited solar system.
As the pink-purple haze of the Drift slides away in transition to the Material Plane, the vast emptiness of space stretches out in all directions. No stars or planets seem to be in close proximity, and a cursory scan of the surrounding area shows no sign of the comet—or much of anything else.
After a squad consultation, you realize Professor Galchak had to extrapolate the present-day coordinates of the Prodigal Stone from decades-old data, and chances are high that they might have made some small error in the math that was impossible to spot or confirm. However, the group isn’t without hope.
"I believe we can track this comet by looking for its unique magical signature..."
Sevash will say as she begins making adjustments to the ships sensor settings
"Yup, theres something that came through here last week"
"Lets get after it then, time is money."
You can begin following this trail using conventional thrusters. After 5 days of successfully tracking the comet, you arrive at an ionized nebula. Interference from this phenomenon obscures the trail, making it impossible to follow any further. However, a quick scan of the area reveals a small, shirren-style starship floating at an odd angle just inside the nebula, occasionally being struck with bolts of electricity.
Scanning the vessel from afar reveals that it has no power (though occasionally systems will randomly flare to life thanks to the ambient energy) and no life signs. All attempts to hail the vessel are met with a strange hissing sound. Accessing the ship’s transponder, however, provides some of information, albeit badly scrambled by the nebula. The ship is named The Eternal Melody and was part of a Hylaxian pilgrimage, along with two other vessels. Given this vessel’s proximity to the Prodigal Stone, it seems possible it might contain more information to help you on your journey.
After carefully navigating the electrical storm hazards of the nebula, you get close enough for a visual inspection. The exterior is highly marred and corroded.
With a brief spacewalk, Midnight Squad can easily board the incapacitated ship, entering through any of the holes in the hull.
"I'm not sure what's going on, but usually lightning is bad for a ship"
Sevash will go a routine fire extinguisher check and be ready to board
|
|
"Before we suit up, let's join together and commune with the deeper currents of the universe. Everyone hum at the same frequency as me."
Ishkepu slaps a rhythm against his chest and gyrates as he hums a strange tune. After a few seconds, he prances around, shaking his hands at everyone participating in his strange rite.
"In case of suit rips y'all can fall back on them old mysteries," he adds with a wink.