Legion-12 easily makes it down the hill.
In an unusual display of athleticism, the Dokkaran manages the trek with miminal difficulty
Once the entire landing party is at the bottom of the steep valley, Janessa runs a scan on the area. Too small to land a shuttle properly, she has no trouble getting the entire valley in the range of her hand scanner.
Computers
"Near as I can tell, the power center is that direction about 120 yards and about 10 yards below surface level. Hope there's some sort of access, or we're going to need laser diggers."
Lt Clausius draws his laser pistol and starts to move in the direction indicated by Lt Williams.
Phan, take a partner and take up rear guard. The others, stay with Lt Williams and the good Doctor.
"I'll do my best to keep us alerted on any strange critters we encounter." She states, glancing around before pulling up her hand to perform a rudimentary sweep of the area.
There are no life sciences or signs of a biological threat anywhere nearby.
After a brief search of the area, Dr. Yusil notes a circular shaped indentation on the rock wall of one side of the small valley. The circle is about 8 inches in diameter and stands at about 4' above the rocky surface. The shape seems too geometrically perfect to be a natural formation.
"Over here." She called out, before taking a closer look.
Rudo searches for a similar indentation on the opposite side.
There is only the one indentation. It has four teardrop shaped notches inside the circle, three on the top 1/2 of the circle approximately 2 inches apart, and a fourth approximately 4 inches down on the right.
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"Could be some form of number pad, or a key insert." She noted, testing her initial theory by trying to press one of the 'buttons'.
Legion furrows their eyebrows. "A strange formation. I have little skill with devices, unfortunately."
The spot where Dr Yusil touches glows green very slightly. Looking at it, Yusil suspects the device is a variant "hand imprint" scanner for a race with four fingers (longer than humanoid average) and a thumb. It would be impossible for Yusil to touch all four teardrops at once with one hand.
Do we wait and see who comes knocking?
"Could be a very long wait, I've read no bio signs on this side of the wall except us. Orders, Commander?" Janessa asks Legion-12, the ranking officer.
After a few minutes discussion, Janessa tries mimicking bioreadings with her equipment.
Life Science:
Computers:
"I'm missing something. It's not lighting up. Doctor Yusil, can you try touching one of the divots again?"
The woman nods, and places her hand against the divots as much as she could manage within the constraints of physiology. It seems there was some proof here that there existed yet more undiscovered sapient species out there in the wider galaxy.
Legion-12 nods to Yusil, "If something starts feeling off, say the word."
Dr. Yusil feels a sense of psychic shock for a brief instant, but it passes quickly. In front of her, what was a solid rock wall with no visible cracks falls into the ground before her, revealing a long, dark hallway. Yusil realizes that the lock required a psychic touch. Combined with Lt. Williams' trick of mimicking bio-signs, her own inherently psionic nature allowed the lock to deactivate.
Maybe I was wrong and... this is where it starts to get weird.
Cover me.
Rudo starts down the passage.
The walls and floor, really everything, is close to a uniform temperature, making IR vision somewhat tedious but still functional. Behind Rudo follow Phan and another security guard. The science and command personnel (the rest of the PCs) enter next, followed by Crewman Fuller and the other security guard. At the end of the hallway stands what appears to be a large door. From its appearance, most of those present can easily recognize it as a portal that opens via an irising mechanism. The makeup of it, and the walls all around, appear more grown than created, though they register as metal composites.
"Crack one door, be met with another. How tedious." She blankly notes, approaching the door. "I've never seen architecture like this before. My all means, something like this shouldn't even be possible. Hm. Some form of strange plantlife perhaps?"
Taking out her supplies, she attempts to scrape a sample from the nearby surfaces so that she might study it more in depth. Whether she needed to do that now or save that as a project for later she'd determine in a few minutes.
When the doctor approaches the portal to take her scrapings, it irises open and remains so.
She has no problem scraping bits of the metal off the walls; it's less resilient than the alloy the Space Force uses on its instruments.
Behind the doorway is a wide-open room with several doorways, behind which are larger and smaller chambers with protrusions from the floors and walls. The design is much more open and organic than the OSF's own buildings and vessels, or really those of any Concord race any of those present have been aboard. Obviously the race that built this compound have little concern for privacy.
Rudo, feeling out of his element... directs his team to have their heads on a swivel and awaits either command or science officer direction.
"So dar, everything we're finding is a xeno-archelogist's dream. But nothing regarding our not so inousous friend. Rudo, I believe we should be careful as we enter and fan out." She said, stowing the sample before approaching the doorway.
Fanning out, Rudo and Dr Yusil move to look at one of the larger chambers. It appears to be some sort of control room, though for what they are uncertain. Legion-12 and Phan are in the room adjacent.
As they enter, Dr. Yusil gets a sudden feeling in the pit of her psychic core that they are not alone.
Rudo wracks his brain thinking on anything he'd come across regarding civilizations or races that could match what he was seeing.
She frowns, her hand slowly going to her sidearm. "There's something else in here."
Rudo cannot think of any known cultures or life-forms that design starships this way, within his albeit limited range of information.
As soon as Dr. Yusil notes the presence of something, a creature suddenly appears and lashes out at Rudo with a psychic attack.
Will Save DC 15 for half:
Rudo and Dr. Yusil may now act in Round 1. The creature is approximately 30' from each of you.
"Now that's unusual!" She exclaims, running a scan with one hand while shooting her Aphelion with the other. With most her focus on the scientific aspect of her actions, her aim is entirely off. When she get's her results, she takes a moment to let everyone know the most pertinent information if she gets any.
Rudo reaches for his head... Arghh!
Security Team, fire at will!
Rudo fires twice with his laser pistol...
Both Rudo and Yusil's shots miss, though Rudo's first shot comes very close to the mark.
Try as she might, cannot think of any creature in biological textbooks similar to this, and in ancient lore only the vaguest of memories of a story of an ancient, horrible god with cephalopod-like features.
But though Yusil could since this being was a powerful psion on par with the serial killer you recently fought, it was also clearly mortal, according to the scans.
"Coming sir!" Phan shouts out from the other room, and begins running toward Rudo's voice. Phan and Legion won't get a line of sight on the opponent until next round's actions, assuming they both move to do so.
Top of Round 2
The creature sends forth a cone of concussive psychic force.
Reflex Save, DC 15 for 1/2.
damage:
Once Rudo and Yusil have made their saves, All PCs (and Phan) may act.
[oo]Sorry , was busy with some things. Apologize for the hold up, it's all fine as is[/ooc]
Rudo is nearly rocked off his feet by the wave of force... a concerned look across his face as he sees the good doctor similarity affected.
Fire at will, make them feel it...
As Phan and Legion run up, both Yusil and Rudo are hit with concussive telekinetic force.
Legion advances forward, a nanite cloud enshrouding their body as they try to lay into the illithid with a precision blast of nanites.
The creature screams Legion's attack a horrible screech as Legion's nanites slam into it. The scream is heard both by your ears and in your mind.
Phan raises his laser rifle and fires. The blast causes the creature to stumble back into the console as it hits center mass.
Yet the creature still lives.
Dr. Yusil and Rudo can act in round 2.
Mind your positions, give others a clear shot... extreme prejudice!
Rudo again fires twice with his laser pistol...
The woman swears aloud as her laser shoots out only sparks, suffering a misfire.
Rudo's shot slams into the psychic creature just after Phan's. Dr. Yusil judges the creature is in a bad way, but is obviously still functional.
Top of Round 3
The creature reaches out psychically, touching Rudo's mind and intending to activate his pain centers.
Need a Will Save from Rudo
At that point, a scream registers from another part of the complex, followed by a comm message.
"Crewman Jordan's down. Pretty sure he's dead! Fuller, Klein and I need backup!" followed by the sound of laser blasts.
All PCs may act in Round 3.
Test
Rudo feels pain course through his system, 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.