[SFS_Aerondor] 01-04 Cries from the Drift (Inactive)

Game Master Aerondor

If or when Primrose shares that info Tania gulps a little and looks down at her gun. "I don't suppose anyone other than me has any magic weapons on them? The datapad mentioned force batons too, which maybe we should find and see how they work. I fought incorporeal spirits in the scoured stars system and we almost lost some of our team...it wasn't good."
Then she thinks for a second, adding, "but an incorporeal spirit wouldn't show up on our ship sensors as a life form...would it?"

There was a force training baton on one of the beds in the sleeping chamber.

Shaan glances down at his Doshko, and over his shoulder at the machine gun he recently found. "I don't think either of these will do much against a creature that isn't there if'n ya know what I mean." He'll take the force baton they found (unless someone else wants it) and try to familiarize himself with how it works.

Shaan looks over the items they found on the beds once again. "Anyone make anything of this book? Or the photo crystal?"

Alejandro pulls out a laser pistol and hands it over to the operative, "Here, I have an extra one. You are welcome to it, though hopefully whatever it was is still contained in the suit. Let's check these other rooms to the side here and try to figure out how to get this door to the galley open."

Trailblazer Azimuth Laser Pistol

I can call for my arcane power to destroy uncorporeal creatures.

Says Ysh'yaal looking down at her makeshift weapon.

It's pretty obvious that until power is restored, the door to the mess won't open. There are no exposed power wires here to try and tap into either.

"Let's find a terminal and I'll see about hacking us into that mess," says The Specialist. "Power is the first issue. I'd like to jury rig a power connection between our vessel and this one, just to get doors and basic systems running. Obviously, we're not going to be able to power all the ship's systems."

Engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (3) + 8 = 11

Lets find the reactor, it could still have power.

Proposes Ysh'yaal.

"Agreed, let's turn on the lights." Shaan glances over his shoulder uneasily. "This place gives me the creeps.

"You're the engineering guru so whatever you say sounds good to me," Prim shrugs. "Let's hope we can find a terminal we can use somewhere close by."

Well, as the team is standing next to the engine room, you head into there...

Cracks mar the surface of this room’s western wall. A constant thrum of power is audible within the area, clearly emanating from an immense engine embedded into the northern wall. A standalone module sits opposite the only entrance to the room, but the thick cable that should connect it to the humming engine is irrevocably split. Three rectangular stacks of batteries fill the southern end of the engine room.

You start to hunt around in there.

A control module opposite the door is dark, and a heavy cable connecting it to the engine enclosure is irrevocably blown apart.

The engine enclosure in the forward section of the room is missing its front panel, and a maze of crisscrossing wires connect to various terminals;

South of the control module, several dead, brick-sized starship batteries are stacked on metal shelves. The topmost row is hooked up to an exposed power terminal labeled “Mess” with a black marker. Another power terminal is labeled “Bridge.”

"I don't suppose anyone other than me has any magic weapons

Tania holds up a hand when Alejandro offers. "My weapon will do okay, like I said. The more of us that can deal with that sort of thing, the better."

She'll keep up in the lead of the group and keep checking for dangers and will also offer to help with any engineering work that needs to get done.

Perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (8) + 9 = 17

The capn pulls out one of his extra batteries and quickly swaps it out for one of the dead ones.

Engineering (t): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11

Engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 8 = 25

Ysh'yaal starts looking around to see if they can use something to open the doors of the ship.

If no one else wants/needs it, Shaan will use Alejandro's Trailblazer Azimuth Laser Pistol. Right now his only option for dealing with incorporeal is the force baton we found.

In the flickering emergency lights the team investigates the engineering bay. Ysh'yal is pretty sure the patchwork of cables would take hours or days to trace properly. The approaching storm buffers the spaceship, making it all to obvious that the wreck doesn't have that long.

Alejandro tries connecting one of his own batteries into the system, but with a flash of sparks it is quickly drained - the power demands of a spaceship battery are vastly more than a weapon can provide.

Was that movement in the corner? No... just a shadow from the sparks.

Somehow you are going to have to find a more powerful battery if you are going to get a door open. The room rocks as the Struggling Scholar is hit by another blast from the approaching storm.

We don’t have the time to find what’s working and what’s not here. Lets find something elsewhere!

Says Ysh’yaal

"Let's check the room across the hall and then press on if we don't find anything there," Prim agrees, looking nervous as the ship continues to be rocked by the outer reaches of the oncoming storm. "If we keep going forward then we should hit the bridge; surely to gods there'll be something there we can use!"

Across the hall the door opens easily.

A ten-foot-wide communal shower stands along the south of this room. A rack of towels rests within reach, while a trio of sinks and toilet stalls covers the rest of this room. A single door admits access to this washroom.

Shaan peers into the shadows around them. "This place still gives me the creeps."

"Euh...probably won't find anything we need in the showers but can't hurt to give it a peek," Prim remarks as she cautiously peers around her companions.

Perception: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (5) + 11 = 16

Of course it's not particularly easy to see around butts and legs and tails and knees when you're as short as a halfling.

Prim finds no obvious sign of oddity. Although the tap arrangement is unusual. Presumably set up for the four armed kasathas.

The badly flickering red emergency lighting in the area makes conducting a full search difficult though.

Shaan examines the towels and basins, trying to see if any of them have been used anytime recently. "If there's something alive over here, maybe it takes showers?"

Perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (15) + 0 = 15

None of the basics appear to have been used especially recently from causal inspection. Though in the dark, flickering light, it would be difficult to shave well...

Engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (7) + 8 = 15

The Specialist turns on the taps.

The tap turns easily. Water sprays out with joyful gusto... but in seconds the free flow changes from water to something thicker and crimson...

"Gyeeee!" Prim yelps as the flow changes from clear to crimson. "What IS that? That's not blood, is it? Tell me that's just...red dye, or something, in the water!"

She sniffs the air, really hoping she won't catch that telltale, coppery scent...

Primrose deactivates her environmental seals. The coppery smell of blood from the taps is unmistakable...

And then, in the blink of the flashing emergency lights, the scene changes. The blood, washed away down the sink, is replaced once again with fresh flowing (presumably) clean water.

"D-did you guys see that? I'm not the only one who saw that, right?" Prim asks as she quickly reactivates the seals. "That was blood. I know that smell. But...now it's just gone?"

Shaan grunts uncomfortably. "Ok, now this place really gives me the creeps. Let's find the life source onboard so we can figure out what's happened here and then scram!"

Tania nods, shivering a little bit. "You're not the only one who saw that...and I'm with Shaan...we find the source of life, we find the data Ziggy wanted, and we get the hell out of here ASAP."

She looks back down the hall from where they came in. "I know Prim is right that we probably want to hit the bridge...but I don't like the idea of leaving rooms unchecked between us and our exit. But I also don't want us to split up, so let's just make sure we stay together, okay?"

Paranoid perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

To make life easier, as I had the whole map out to begin with, I';ve coloured in green the areas you have already explored.

The flickering emergency lights, together with the occasional shudder, presumably induced by the approaching storm, make the searching of the bathroom area difficult. But after a couple of minutes, no more apparitions of blood appear, and alas, no diamond necklaces of space-ship quality batteries are located in there.

There are only two obviously candidates for rooms to explore without doing significant ship-surgery.

"Why don't we look in here?" Shaan moves to the door to the Mess and opens it. (Or is that one of the areas that we can't access? If so, he'll attempt the same with the (unexplored) righthand room at the top of the map.)

The mess and the captains room are the two you cannot get into at the moment, I'll black them out to make it easier.

"Oof, dead end until we get some more power to this hunk, huh? Least that narrows down our options a bit more," Prim sighs. "Time to backtrack and head up the bloody hallway..."

Seeing that Shaan also has the same idea Prim dutifully follows along, ready for trouble.

Shaan moves to the door that seems to be the source of the trail of blood. "I guess we should check this out in here..." He opens the door, force baton in hand.

Alejandro gives a whistful look at his drained battery before pocketing it, "dangit, wish we had bigger ones of these. Let's look around as we go, right?"

He follows the group as they begin searching all the other rooms.

A single door opens easily into this open space. Just inside the doorway, the entry floor is caked with blood, and several batons and shuriken are scattered throughout the room. A simple sparring mat covers much of the center floor. An alcove along the eastern edge houses a weapon rack filled several kinds of batons and a dozen fine shuriken. On the opposite wall is a pad of self-healing foam with colorful abstract targets painted on it. A four-armed metal robot stands in the southwestern corner of the chamber.

As you look in a void calls out.

Tania keeps her grip tight on her pistol skin almost turning white, eyes scanning for threats.

Perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24

The flickering red emergency lights make the room difficult to investigate from the door.

Tania does spot a combat mat in the middle of the floor, presumably laying out where sparring happens. She also notices a holoprojector in the ceiling - it appears to have something stuck into it.

At the side of the room is a weapon rack that has a number of weapons stashed in it. Hard to make out exactly what from the door though.

The training robot continues to blink at the team in the doorway, speaking in an unknown language.

The ship shakes as another blast from the approaching storm rocks it.

"So...I guess that's Blue Sky-101, then?" Prim asks warily after there's a long pause. "What're they saying? Bots and tech aren't really my area of expertise. Well, unless we're talking starships."

She's hesitant to move further into the room to investigate, being unsure of what the robot is saying.

Primrose surveys the area, hesitating at the doorway. Why would anyone worry about going into a training room with a robot that you can't understand, while in the middle of the training area is a large bloodstain?

The younger generation of Starfinders... You guess is must be the unusual rocking of the spaceship or the flickering emergency lights that puts her off.

engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (13) + 8 = 21

”Looks like this holoprojector also records. We ought to see what it has captured,” says The Specialist.

He watches the training robot for a bit before realizing, ”You know... this model has a pretty powerful battery. I bet we could use it to power some of the starship systems.”

We should just blast the robot and take its battery, he thinks.

Alejandro nods, coming up with a plan. "Alright, we need the battery from the bot, but I'm guessing it might also be ready to fight us. Someone want to rush in and distract it and the rest of us will try to shut it off? There should be a pretty easy shut off button somewhere, only an idiot would make a training bot without one."

He looks around at his allies, "But if that doesn't work, we'll just have to blast it down." He pulls out a pistol and readies to rally the troops.

Using Get 'Em against the bot if we get a readied action

The Specialist looks around the room, from the doorway, for a shutoff switch.

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21

Engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 16

There is no obvious shutdown switch. However as the team prepares their actions, the robot advances onto the mat. It then says something else..
If you speak Kasatha, I'll let you know what

Then stops. Very much stops. You note some dim red lights running up its back.

Engineering: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22

I see the battery! says Ysh'yaal pointing at the red dot on its back.
She adds Did one of you speak Kasatha?

From the open doorway, Shaan tries speaking to the bot in the languages he knows:

No sound comes from the robot.