[SFS 3-04] The Vast Experiment: Falling Into Deliverance (Inactive)

Game Master AFlashInTime

"Well, let's see how good these automated repair programs are..."
She grabs the controls and starts moving them with surprising grace for a large Vesk...

piloting: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (8) + 15 = 23

(I assume you're trying to repair the sensor array first before the space elevator? They each require a separate check, though they can be the same skill)

sound understanding of the mechanisms (Engineering): 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (6) + 17 = 23

Since the skills were an "or", does this count as aid to Yith?

Sefel doesn't feel like he'd have quick hands working the mechanism, but he notices some things about it that he points out to Yith.

Tracking. Conrad's got a steady hand, but Sefel's question will guide his actions.

Yes. I misread that at first, thought it was two separate checks, one engineering only, the other several other options.. :)

Try twisting the controller counterclockwise. You'll get a better angle of approach that way.

Piloting to aid: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (19) + 20 = 39

Azara can't really provide any assistance with any of these tasks, at least from here. He doesn't have magboots so he can't head outside to manhandle any equipment, either.

Instead, he watches out for more of the little creatures that they have already faced. Or any other creatures that might be interested in killing them.

Rani helps with her piloting skills.

piloting: 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (17) + 17 = 34

So we get to blast this station into space? Cool.

The group manages to successfully restore power to the communications array! An almost audible hum, more felt than heard, reverberates through the damaged station as the comms array's power is restored.

Minutes later, the group successfully repairs the station's space elevator as well!

The group's comm units crackle to life, as Fitch's now mostly clear voice beams through.

"Starfinders, this is Fitch. What's your status? Will re-broadcast this message until I receive a response. Good luck down there. The kids say hi."

Fitch. This is Rani. We've fixed the comms but no sign of the scientists so far. Fought off four centipedoid creatures but otherwise we're fine. I ... believe the current plan is to use the thrusters to get this station up to your orbit for a rendezvous

"Well, that's good. Now,for the next part...

Having jumped on the first task Yith is happy to just assist with the second.

"Man are we happy to hear your voice clearly! Rani's got the right of it, but we still have a few things to do. Yith-Naarin is prepping to fix the elevator now."

Lets see if we can get these repair bots to also fix the elevators.

Piloting: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (9) + 20 = 29

Bots! Now those are fun to fix, and then they do the real work for you!

Sefel moves in to assist Deckard.

Engineering: 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (17) + 17 = 34

Yith will also assist int he repairs, possibly doing a little back seat driving to Deckard...
piloting assist: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (3) + 15 = 18

Azara continues to be out of his depth and simply watches as the others go to work.

Fitch listens before responding.

"Sounds good! Keep searching for Dr. Tsi Tsorsk and any other survivors that might still be on the station. And if you manage to find any data related to what they were working on, taking that along or sending it up to the Pegasus would help out a lot, too. Stay safe down there."

Fitch ends the call as the group, led by Deckard, successfully repairs the space elevator as well!

Looks like you've accomplished all you can in this area. Where to?

Sorry everyone, super crushed with work this week. (tl;dr I'm a high school teacher working on the plan to return to school.) I'm tracking, but my post quality will be low until the weekend.

"Well, let's move on, see if we can find survivors."

Have we checked the rest of this level? If not, head that way.

There are several places on this upper level that the party hasn't checked, primarily the top left, top center, and bottom center. There's a giant pile of stuff about 30 feet away from you right now, so that seems like a good place to start.

Having turned on the comms and repaired the space elevator, the party moves to investigate the mess that you ran by on your way to this area. Here an assortment of crates, barrels, and hard-sided personal luggage are all piled in a disorderly jumble. At a glance, cargo consists mostly of typical supplies like food, water, low-capacity batteries, robot maintenance equipment, and starship fuel.

Before the party can really begin digging through the piles for useful gear, the amount light coming in from the main airlock to the west strangely decreases. Glancing up from the pile, instead of the blue-orange of Wehemothal's atmosphere you see a pale-white color that seems somewhat familiar. As your minds put together that it looks like the same color of the centipede-like creatures you encountered earlier, you perceive that what is visible outside of the main airlock is actually a very, very small part of a massive creature, perhaps as big as the whole space station itself!

The scene shifts, and a dark eye appears outside the airlock's outer door. Whether from instinct or some rapid logical process, you all have an immediate urge to hide.

Stealth checks, everybody!

Yith quickly tries to hide from this primordial terror...
stealth: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7

Unfortunately she picks a small, bright pink bag to try to hide behind...

Stealth: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (18) + 16 = 34

Deckard manages to quickly slip between two large metal plates, easily disappearing from view.

@GM I will auto-assist others in hiding as well unless there is not enough time.

Get down, you fools!

stealth: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (19) + 20 = 39

It seems like we're finally making progre.... oh. That is one big eye...

Sefel freezes in place, hoping to blend into the cargo.

stealth: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20

Rani uses her Minor Psychic Power to send a message to her companions. 3/day, Telepathic Message

Yeek - Last time I saw something like that, it was a picture in a novel about the Great Old Ones. Could that be one of those?

Conrad bites his tongue at the thought of a creature this big.... and dives behind some cover: Stealth: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (18) + 12 = 30

botting Azara who said they were going out of town for a few days.

Azara attempts to jump behind a barrel and moves a little too fast, knocking it over with a clatter. Azara's Stealth: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10

After several seconds of looking into Indigo Deep, the massive leviathan drops out of sight from the airlock.

All seems fine for several seconds, until the entire station shifts as though a massive object was pushing against it!

One push doesn't turn into two, however, and you're all able to regain your footing.

Given the recent events, wanting to see if you want to keep exploring this area or move on to another one. There's currently no sign of the creature.

refl: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15

Yith somehow manages to use the pretty pink luggage she tried to hide behind to steady herself somewhat and only got a few bruises..

"Well, may as well keep looking here."

She then speaks into her comm, "Fitch! There's a giant beast of some kind outside the station. Can you see it?"

REF: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (19) + 9 = 28 "What.... What was that?" Conrad gets ahold of himself. "Yeah, look, we might as well keep looking until we know we need to bail. Tell me Fitch saw that."

ref: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (1) + 9 = 10

Rani was caught off-balance while taking a step and fell over.

Ooof She then lays there for a bit before picking herself back up.

Reflex: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (4) + 5 = 9

Sefel's feet fly out from under him, causing him to fly up into the air and slam down onto his back. He stands up rubbing his head with a newfound headache.

Ouch...

Hearing the others, he simply requests Sure, but let's not stay here too long. Suddenly rooms with exterior windows seem less appealing...

Reflex: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (1) + 12 = 13 Deckard slips on an oily spot on the floor and falls to the floor, lying on her side and looking like she's really trying to be graceful... Ow...

Thanks for the botting. Looks like the thing was too big to notice a couple clumsy Starfinders.

Refl: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (13) + 4 = 17

After his poor performance at hiding, Azara is pleased to be able to stay on his feet.

"Not dead which eternal fly"
"A beast that's so big"
"Stranger eon, death may die."

The party keeps going through the pile, a bit more quickly now. Still, it takes several minutes to get through everything.

The personal effects are quite sparse, consisting more of tier 1 computers and gear maintenance kits than clothing and toiletries. The party also finds another key card, wedged between two of the crates.

After about five minutes of searching, you think you've gone through this area thoroughly. So far no eyes have come back to look through the airlock again. Yet.

Where to now?

Culture: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (9) + 12 = 21
Perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23

"Hey, check it out! Glad we stuck around." He waves the keycard at the weapon. "Come on, let's pick up the pace before we find out what huge space monsters eat." Mobile, can't see map well ATM

Yith looks at the cannon.
"Nice.. who else can use this?"

Head up, go towards the center?

Back before

Fitch's voice, a mix of worry and awe, crackles over the comm.

"Starfinders, uh, you're not going to... some huge life form just came up from underneath the station. It's the size... it's bigger than this starship! It just nudged the station, then floated back down into the clouds. I'm not tracking it right now and I don't have a visual, but try to go as fast as you can down there! I'll keep sensors up and let you know if I see it again.

Back to the present

Deciding to keep exploring this level but trying to avoid external windows, the party moves south, having already looked in the hallway directly east. Moved everybody on the map.

The rooms along this corridor are individual residences, their doors partly chewed through in places. It appears most of these spaces belonged to SROs or anacites with few personal possessions of interest.

In the southern east-west hallway scattered technological debris covers much of the floor, though the surrounding structure doesn’t show signs of major damage. Small holes to the outside can be seen in some places in the roof.

Amongst the debris, you find one clip of heavy weapon rounds, one longarm clip with four explosive rounds remaining, and three loose silver-pellet scattergun shells. The weapons for this ammunition are nowhere to be found.

Engineering: 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (8) + 17 = 25

This debris isn't the station, but looks the remains of anacites and SROs.

Perception: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (9) + 14 = 23
Some blue blood here in the hallway, along with a few bullet holes. Those slug things have blue blood?
Perception: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (3) + 14 = 17

Copy that Fitch Rani replies. Uhhh ... could you please use the ship's sensors to see if those things are native life forms to the planet? Maybe they're floaters .... that look like centipedes. Might explain how they can get so big.

Anyway ... if we can find and access the datacore, we better upload everything up to the ship. That'll make Celita happy.

culture: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (1) + 11 = 12
perception: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (14) + 13 = 27
perception: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (10) + 13 = 23
engineering: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (3) + 10 = 13
perception: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (16) + 13 = 29
perception: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (10) + 13 = 23

Rani also spotted the red star plasma cannon but, since it looked nearly as large as her, she wasn't interested. She was more interested in the second key card. She does wonder what caused the anacites and SROs to explode, couldn't care less about the ammunition apart from recording the area but leaps with glee on the third key card.

Perc: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (10) + 7 = 17

Excellent. Any idea where those key cards work? By the way, in a pinch I can seal doors if there are more of those critters about.

Sefel continues to the East to check out the rooms along the Southern hallway.

Assuming somewhere along the line one of these rooms is going to be locked.

Yith will shoulder the cannon, a wry smile on her face as she does so, and follow the group.

"All yours, Yith," Azara says as the Vesk shoulders the cannon. It's far too big for him to know what to do with.

"Anyone think that big thing sort of looked like the only small in comparison little things? Is it possible it used this place as a nest and now it's checking in on it's young?"

"And why are there so many artificial beings on the station? Wasn't it supposed to be crewed by organics?"

Upon seeing the blood, Deckard recalls the centipede-like things do have blue blood as well.

Fitch replies, speaking rapidly to the party, "The initial scans of the creature aren't... not now children!, sorry, aren't coming up as a match with anything known to the Pact Worlds. They're either native to this planet or native to another planet we haven't discovered yet, which at this point isn't really a difference."

She takes a breath.

"And yes, your description matches what I could observe of the creature using the Pegasus's optical sensors. While I can't confirm anything, that sounds as good of an explanation as any."

As to the number of artifical briefings, Rani, Conrad, Deckard, and Sefel recall from right after the mission briefing that, much as with many Aballonian operations, Resurgent Technologies primarily employs technological beings. These range from the wholly robotic anacites native to the planet and SROs (sentient robotic organisms) to a large population of androids. The only organic being that you're aware of on this particular outpost is Dr. Tsorsk, although given the dead lashunta from the first room there was at least one other organic individual before the disaster.

Anything else here or onto the next location? The nearest unexplored location is ahead and to the left (north).

It's the best theory I got to be honest ... and I'm no expert in these things, I just know what I've read. Most gas giant life forms have to be floaters cause .... well ..... there's no land .. it's all atmosphere which just get thicker and thicker as one gets deeper. Still ..... if those are caterpillars, I'd be very curious to see what the butterflies would look like.

She giggles into the comms. Also, it might be an idea to get my water tank ready to fit the natural environment of Dr Tsorsk's species. Dunno what sorta state it's gonna be when we find it

"For all we know they look like the big thing outside..."

Conrad looks around the room one more time, albeit briefly T10 = 19. before nodding to Rani, "Well, let's find it."

"Well, let's move on then. I hope this specimen of hers is friendly at least."

You all move on through the hallway, taking a left and entering the next room. You find a cramped engineering bay that includes four small rooms with broad glass windows and external robotic arms setup to manipulate a large, roughly spherical probe at the area’s center point. The probe appears to be only partly built. A powered-down computer also sits in the room.

One of the rooms to the southwest has no windows and is a heavily reinforced storage area. In addition to an engineering specialty tool kit and a fully charged black force field armor upgrade, this room also has five armored crates built to contain explosive charges. The crates are open, and all but one of the crates is ransacked and empty, leaving only one crate with three surviving explosive charges. These function as two mk 1 screamer grenades and one mk 2 screamer grenade, though they can be set to inflict considerable structrual damage in tight spaces.

Should we power that up again?