"Bah! T' problem's gonna be how we get this other group of Izalgun ta let us load their treasures in a ship 'n' fly away. Once we're away, we don't risk the local system at all." He turns to Ulyapses. "Ya got anythin' ta convince yer distant cousins ta cooperate? Cause right now it sounds like we're goin' into hostile territory ta violate their religious beliefs. Ain't gonna go well, that."
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Thge izalguun replies.
"Yes, we've received a number of different artifacts, but only one like your Tear. They're kept in separate areas. The gifts were all delivered in person, but we haven't received any for many decades. We can provide you with proofs for the izalguun custodians.
"As for how? I imagine gods have their ways."
"Mr. Skyjumper has the right idea. It would be -- rude of you to try to manipulate the Tear while you're still in our system.
"Alright...proof that we're coming on your behalf and with your blessing hopefully gets things off on the right foot. I'd recommend putting together some kind of writ with an image of the artifact that we can show them with your signed approval and request for their cooperation. If you think there's any risk from security measures either in orbit of this moon or on the surface and within the compound that we might encounter, please give us some insight into that, just in case."
Jaeric looks back to Luwazi. "Outside of that, I can't think of anything further to ask Ulyapses. Once we have possession of the artifact, where would you like us to bring it? Surely not Absalom Station? I'd hate for us to evaluate this technology only to have it activate and trap all of us here, as well. Could one of our benefactors have a secure location that's a bit more out of harm's way?"
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On this voyage, the Drift demonstrates its vagaries favorably. The passage takes only 14 days. Five days faster than your previous trip to Icefront. And this time there is no lurking alien ship. Already the trip is going well. The Repository moon orbits Izal-4 which is just on the wrong side of the inner border of the star's habitable zone. Both planet and moon have had their atmospheres largely stripped away by solar wind and high temperatures.
It's easy to find the silo Ulyapses identified. It's sheltered by thick nanocarbon walls. The silo is a deep, conical depression in the moon’s surface into which passing spacecraft could dump their payloads. The silo’s retractable roof is closed, sheltering the interior from the heat, but this means you can only access the silo through an airlock door at ground level.
”Shall I dock with the airlock, Captain?” asks Zephyr.
"Scanners are saying it's at ground level. So, probably best to just set the Pegasus down at a cautious distance until we know what we're dealing with..." Jaeric advises, "From there, standard approach on foot. We'll manually deal with the airlock door once we reach it. Just make sure everyone suits up."
Jaeric proceeds to punch up the landing sequence indicators to alert the rest of the team, giving the signal to Never and Lorne to have their gear ready, if they hadn't already done so.
"Are we getting any response to our hails?" he asks Zephyr, "I imagined the izalguun guards would be technologically capable of receiving us. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't reach out on our approach. If you notice any surface-to-air defenses locking onto us, take evasive action and we'll pull back until we can establish diplomatic contact..."
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There is no sign of any activity from the installation. No response to your hails. No active sensors or targeting systems activate.
Zephyr puts the ship down. The party suits up with environmental seals active for the short, but hot, trip in the thin atmosphere.
Although the door into the silo looks like it's airlock quality, it is in fact a simple blast door into the silo area. Light filters through translucent panels in the roof. Thick nanocarbon walls line the silo, a deep, conical depression in the moon’s surface into which passing spacecraft could dump their payloads. From below it's easy to see that the silo’s retractable roof is jammed closed with age and disuse.
Steep stairs curve around the interior of the cone beneath the silo, descending to a small platform that overlooks a smogshrouded region hundreds of feet below. The platform ends with jagged metal and torn struts, obvious clues that it once anchored a bridge to an airlock across the cone, dozens of feet away. Only a single small inches wide ledge remains in front of the airlock. Next to the airlock is an unlit computer terminal.
Zephyr has Level 1 Nascent Flight Skin as his “underarmor” inside the Level 5 Battle Harness powered armor. He has 5 points cold and heat resistance from his Thermal Capacitor and also has Descent Thrusters built into the powered armor. There are some weapon mounts on the powered armor as well.
"Seems silent and abandoned..." Jaeric comments as they set down with no contact from the izalguuns, "Ulyapses said they hadn't heard from them in awhile. Maybe those hostiles we encountered in the alien ship already made their way here and attacked them? Everyone stay alert...we could be walking into a trap."
"Course we could be walkin' inta trap. Could be walkin' inta trap when ya go to t'e bar! Collapsed. Maybe crushed, right? From OUTSIDE. Didn't see no big holes, so there's not been much pilferin'. Maybe t'e last delivery went bad and there won't be nobody ta challenge us. 'R help us."
"If there's no one to challenge us, then that means something happened to the izalguuns Ulyapses said would be here," Jaeric responds to Lorne across the team's comm channel. "And if they're not here, the writ Ulyapses provided for the artifact can't be delivered in a way that legitimizes us taking possession of it. Even worse, if they're missing, someone or something caused them to go missing, and the same thing could happen to us if we're not careful."
Jaeric nods at the unlit computer terminal. "Think you can take a look at that...see why the power's down? Or, if you can bring it back up, see if you can get a sense of what transpired here? He then proceeds to call upon Desna's insight as he peers into the smog-shrouded region below.
"Pessimist! If these 'r all gone, then Ulyapsus and kin own all this, 'n' his letter gives it to us clear, right?" He turns to look at the dead terminal in a dark room. "Yeah, yeah. Bettin' there's no power 'cept the batteries we brought wit' us.
Lorne will root around trying to find power.
If he finds any, he'll try to get the system up and running.
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Walking down the stairs to the platform opposite the airlock door, Zephyr and Jaeric begin to feel a bit queasy. Indeed, all of you feel a loss of vitality.
This is just FYI. I will adjust your rolls and let you know if there's any change in status.
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Never spends the trip in the drift pacing around and doing pushups and fiddling with gadgetry and marveling at the abundance of food on a spaceship as per usual. The moon is unremarkable in every way, and the cargo storage silo is equally unimpressive. It is not at all shocking that the thing is derelict and in disrepair. Luwazi wouldn't send Starfinders if this were going to be easy.
Jaeric gives his super-smart analysis of the situation, and Never feels in her gut that without him this whole enterprise would just get flushed down the toilet. She doesn't completely follow his reasoning, but only because she wasn't completely paying attention at Luwazi's briefing. But she trusts his instincts.
And now, the first challenge. "Bless that pig-headed dragonkin for showing me the error of my ways," she mutters and engages her jetpack, casually cruising over the gap where the stairs fall away to the control platform.
”My systems seem to be impaired somehow,” says Zephyr, feeling unusually weak and somewhat injured. Seeing nothing visible, he asks, ”Can anyone scan for the source of this issue, or should I go back on the ship and use its sensors to diagnose my deficiency?”
"Right. 'N' how'm I s'ppos'd to do THAT? Wiggle my toes 'cross that strip o' nuthin'?"
"'Course not. Might pull 'nough cable ta fake it, if it's in the walls . . .."
"What's the weight limit on your jetpack, Never? Jaeric offers aloud, "Think you could carry Lorne across to look at it? Truth be told, I'm not feeling too well myself. I'll stay here with Zephyr while you guys work on it."
Zephyr heads back to the ship saying, "I'll see if I can figure out what is causing this...strange sickness."
Zephyr heads back into the ship and takes a shot at engaging the sensors to figure out what might be damaging them.
plus any ship bonus
"Sounds like a plan." Jaeric nods and then relays to Zephyr that they'll need some cabling from the Pegasus upon his return. Then, still feeling nauseous, he finds a place to sit and catch his breath.
"So, we wait? 'K. I spy with my li'le eye, sumthin' that starts with . . . "L""
On the comms, Zephyr's voice says, "I can't get the sensors to isolate what is causing us to become sick, but I can bring some cable if you like. If we need to cut through the door, my Artillery Laser should do the trick, but it will probably be slow. Anyone want to try their hand at the sensors?"
Right?
Zephyr tests the cable out and climbs on top of it, walking on it like a tightrope. If he falls, he will use his descent thrusters to eliminate the sudden stop down below.
Far less concerned about falling than his companions, because he's really not used to gravity being more important than inertia, the dwarf wraps himself about the cable and start shimmying over.
Jaeric takes a deep, steadying breath and then relies on his elven agility to see him across.
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From the safety of the platform, Never watches the others shimmy across the ledge. Lorne misses a step and the vanguard springs to action, jetting after him. Her taclash in hand, she whips at Lorne's arms to give him something to grab onto and control his fall.
Never tries to control their descent to keep him from falling to great harm.
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Zephyr steps lightly across the cable relying on his balance, but Lorne's strength fails. Half way across his hand slips. The dwarf makes a desperate attempt to grab the cable again which makes the cable swing. A leg slides off the cable. He's suspended there for a heartbeat before his other leg also slides off. His hand is overmatched by the weight of his gear, and after another breath he plunges toward the mist-shrouded floor!
Seeing his difficulties and anticipating the final plunge, Never jets over and lassoes his arm before he drops. She strains to keep him up but all her jets can do are slow the descent.
The two of them disappear into the mist below. The sound of a heavy impact rises back up to Zephyr and Jaeric who look at each other across the gulf.
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Lorne lands in a pile of junk that gives slightly under him, although the impact still jars. A few feet away a jagged shard as long as the dwarf's forearm of metal points upward. The landing could have been far worse.
Never touches down beside him.
Several hills of trash crest above the refuse floor and emit the stench of grease, rust, and old medicine. Miasmic vapors swirl in clouds around the garbage piles.
This junkyard is stacked with trash dozens of feet deep. Although most of the trash is sufficiently compacted to form a “floor” of garbage it is heaped in uneven hills, some as much as 20 feet tall. The bridge that once spanned the entry high above lies here in three twisted pieces.
Engineering DC 18 :
Perception DC 24 :
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"We're not dead!" Never shouts upward to Jaeric and Z.
Being literally surrounded by trash is a familiar experience for Never. She was raised in the deepest bowels of Absalom Station, where all the garbage and b$*#%%*& from all the jerks above would settle. The smell bothers her not at all.
Her keen eye for mountains of crap and her own background as a tinkerer and sifter of junk helps her spot the irregular heap to the southwest. She also spots the way out but her attention is drawn to what may be hidden down here.
"Y'alright Lorne? I think something is buried down here. I'm gonna go have a look." She activates her jetpack to hover to the anomaly.
"Ohhhh . . .. That's gonna bruise sumthin' horrible. Thanks fer holdin' me foot 'n' slowin' the fall. Keep forgettin' this whole gravity well t'ing."
He looks up and bellows along. ""
Then he takes a better look around. "Don't know whach yer lookin' at, but t'e pile t'ere is bigger 'n' more stable fer some reason . . .." He heads that direction to take a look.
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From above, Jaeric and Zephyr look down on a dark, clouded view. They can make out some motion and outlines of larger objects in the murk. A kind of landslide sound filters upward to their ears
Never flits along while Lorne struggles through the shifting trash. It slides away underfoot and occasionally his foot breaks through into a cavity below the surface, making scrambling forward difficult.
The pile of denser debris looks as if it's been compacted by simple, but powerful squeezing.
Behind you another trash pile collapses in a minor landslide. Glancing over your shoulder, some of the trash, a hemisphere roughly 4' in radius, seems to lunge toward you in a manner inconsistent with gravity. It lurches upward, then starts a slow glide downslope toward you, seemingly carried on a tide of red goo.
Life Science DC 23:
Lorne pulls his weapon as the exocortex opens a comm channel to the group. "Scavenger Slime down here! I'm main' too much racket fer it ta have missed me!"
"Need us to lower the cable?" asks Zephyr on the comms, trying to see through the mist below, "Or just come down and help blast it?"
Jaeric makes doubly-certain the other end of the cable is firmly attached above in anticipation of it having to take the weight of an admittedly heavy Lorne from below. "I've never heard of a scavenger slime before. Are we sure it won't just follow him up? Can it climb?"
"Was purty much t'e plan . . .."
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Never zooms upward, leaving Lorne alone in the refuse. She just reaches the cable when from below comes a whine of a charging weapon and a flash lights up the murk.
The tech and trash encrusted slime oozes toward the dwarf. A rifle muzzle emerges from behind some plating and swivels toward Lorne. It fires a laser!
You're up next. Slide 8 until everyone joins in.
Oh and from your knowledge check, it'll have some DR and with a laser weapon, be resistent to fire damage.
... F)