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Vaidra's nanites swirl out to return Chance's embrace and she smiles at the worlanesi. "Your words were just beautiful, Chance. I'm so pleased you could use them to calm the spirit."
To everyone else, Vaidra is less effusive, but thankful to have completed a successful mission.
The strawberry machine cake fanclub offers free promotional photocards of AbadarCorp Entertainment artists. You got a photocard of Momo Strawberry, the trainee that scores best on dancing abilities (most are more familiar with her younger sister Zoey).
If you want, you can always sell the photocard on the infosphere (link)
We meet our adventurers in Songbird Station, a performance venue, school, and temple dedicated to Shelyn, the goddess of art, beauty, music, and love.
Songbird Station is situated on an asteroid in the Diaspora, and resembles a jewel-studded stone set against a field of black. The gleaming opalescent structure is further adorned with rainbow streamers of energy that radiate outward from the station’s perimeter like banners flying in the wind.
The group is greeted by Nairon Shalorrh, the main organizer of Songbird Station, who escorts them to a small auditorium, where a highly detailed hologram of the gas giant Bretheda and its countless moons is on display. Nairon is a kasatha with a pleasant, melodic voice, dressed in stylish
robes created from a colorful mishmash of fabrics.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the kasatha asks, gesturing at the hologram of Bretheda, a blue-and-purple gas giant orbited by dozens of moons. “Of course, Shelyn’s influence is everywhere if you’re open to seeing it, but the dance of Bretheda and its moons has always taken my breath away.” After a minute of watching the orbits, he turns away from the hologram. “My name is Nairon Shalorrh, and I’m one of the lead organizers here at Songbird Station. I’d welcome you to explore our grounds, but I’m in dire need of your aid.
“One of our resident artists and a dear friend of mine, Kivi, went on a short trip to Yashu-Indiri and never returned.” Nairon gestures, causing the hologram to zoom in on one of Bretheda’s small, cratered moons. “This is Yashu-Indiri. It’s an airless moon, covered in small shrines built and tended by an order of mystics. Kivi visits every other month to tend to Shelyn’s shrine. Her last transmission indicated she was approaching Yashu-Indiri. We didn’t receive confirmation of landing. It’s my belief she’s in danger. I implore you to find her and bring her back home.”
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Jortek looks around as the kasatha gestures at the hologram of the planet, and have the leisure time of a minute to gaze at its beauty. But none of it impresses the vesk. He rolls his eyes before he introduces himself. "Jortek. Yes, beautiful." he says mockingly. "Anyway, onto the business you have for us. So Kivi is a what? And what can you tell us about that airless moon?' he asks the kasatha as he points to the moon on the hologram.
The moon is airless, but any suit of armor’s environmental protections will help with that. Beyond that, not much. The moon was lifeless until an order of mystics settled there after the Gap and began building shrines to forgotten and dead gods. They’ve covered nearly the entire moon’s surface. The mystics are very private, but not averse to visitors. Kivi was on friendly terms with them and had permission to visit.”
Kivi is a female kobold. Retrace her path to Yashu-Indiri and scan for her starship’s signal. She’s on a shuttle called Muse. When you’re close, you should be able to pinpoint her starship’s location. If you have no luck, see if she made it to Shelyn’s shrine. Otherwise, try speaking with the mystics on Yashu-Indiri. They might know what happened to her.”
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A red-scaled ikeshti, who has been remaining relatively quiet, follows the group to the auditorium. As the others look out the hologram, he bobs his head as if in search of something else.
“This is Yashu-Indiri. It’s an airless moon, covered in small shrines built and tended by an order of mystics. Kivi visits every other month to tend to Shelyn’s shrine. Her last transmission indicated she was approaching Yashu-Indiri. We didn’t receive confirmation of landing. It’s my belief she’s in danger. I implore you to find her and bring her back home.”
"So, this [smaller]isn't[smaller] the buffet line"" The ikeshti hisses quietly to himself.
If you have no luck, see if she made it to Shelyn’s shrine. Otherwise, try speaking with the mystics on Yashu-Indiri. They might know what happened to her.”
"Maybe it was something she ate? Or, perhaps, the other way around?" suggests the small reptilian Starfinder. "The name's T'Krunch, by the way. Hailed from Akiton before striking out on my own. I thought joining the Starfinder Society might give me a taste of what the Pact Worlds have to offer."
"Which reminds me, would you all mind if I took a few samples from each of you?" T'Krunch inquires of the party, pulling out a small, handheld device, which includes an extendable wand tipped with a sampling nozzle. Attached to the device is a series of small, empty vials. "Just a pinch ought to do."
I presume there are fellow Xenodruids there?
You will likely find the followers of Shelyn there. Oh friend, what is life without Shelyn? She’s an idyllic melody, a breathtaking painting, the glint of a rainbow cast across the sky, the dance of the planets, the patterns in the stars, a parent’s loving gaze, a child’s wonder. Shelyn is the goddess of art, music, beauty, and love. It’s my belief that if the art and beauty we create and nurture spreads to envelop all the known worlds, Shelyn’s voice will ring out, loud and clear, for all the galaxy’s people to hear. She is love and peace. Would that we all held her teachings dear.
Once the group is ready, Nairon escorts them to Songbird Station’s starship hangar and lends them a shuttle called 'Vivacity' for their mission. Vivacityhas long-range sensors and a sparkling, rainbow-hued
paint job.
Following the trail to Yashu-Indiri takes four days, none of which show any sign of Kivi or the Muse.
It's only when Vivacity approaches Yashu-Indiri, a dynamic melody of chimes echoes through the starship, signaling that the Muse has been found on Yashu-Indiri’s surface, three miles east of the shrine of Shelyn.
As the craft makes it approach, the tone of the chimes becomes alarming, interior lights flash, and the starship begins to shake.
There is something strange happening with the ship, as if it is accepting random navigation input. It isn't long before it completely spirals out of control.
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There is something strange happening with the ship, as if it is accepting random navigation input. It isn't long before it completely spirals out of control.
"There is something strange happening with the ship, as if it's accepting random navigation input. It won't be long before we spiral out of control." notes T'Krunch from the engineering station. He tries to strategically boost the thrusters to help the pilot keep the ship from spinning too much.
Jortek barely maintains a semblance of flight control, and phelps and T'krunch manage to straighten out the thrusters, making the shuttle slightly more controllable.
Just when the flight path seemed to stabilize, the navigation system black out with a message 'unknown system error, please reboot'. Turn out the forward windows are viewscreens, which are now a very uninformative black. Volitare does manage to find a porthole to peek through.
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Volitare confirms the starship is still headed in the correct direction, insofar as 'down' is the direction you want to head to.
T'krunch works on the reboot, clicking away at the 'got it' buttons that pop up to cheerfully highlight new navigational features ('share your descent rate on the infosphere!'). 98 percent complete...
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Phelps manages to get power back to the system, and the screens come back online, just in time to spot the ground, which is closing in fast.
All decks brace for impact!
Jortek manages to avoid complete disaster with clever piloting, while Volitare somehow magically cushions the ground. The resulting landing makes 'don't be gentle with the rental' a bit of an understatement, but every can crawl out alive, and the ship seems to be reasonably intact - and perhaps even functional if it would just stop glitching.
After the landing, the on-board computer gives a helpful 'warning, ground proximity alert'. This ship is still rife with malfunction.
Yashu-Indiri is airless, with low gravity and normal light.
T'Krunch checks the computer logs, and it looks like the ship simply has been filled with false input coming from outside'); DROP TABLE NAVIGATION; RUN; --
Volitare pieces together the false input with the strange signal that they detected earlier. It seems like somebody is broadcasting some kind of interference signal that causes ships to crash. Looks like you were really fortunate to keep your ship in one piece.
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Lacking technical skills, Jortek begins walking back and forth in the area while the others do the work. As he does so, he checks the area if he can find something interesting.
He seems to see nothing but oblivion from beyond. He just swings his weapon here and there. "So somebody is trying to get our target loss and probably succeed," after hearing what they found so far.
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"I supposed we're going to have to shut that signal down if we hope to fly anything off this rock," notes T'Krunch. "That is, if we can conjure something workable to fly off this rock in."
"I believe we were headed to the Muse 'landing site' before we crashed. Assuming, the shuttle 'landed' the same way we did, we might not find our friend in one piece," notes the ikesthi. "Still, there may be something of a meal there."
"If we come across something more interesting on route to the shuttle, such as the shrine or something likely to be broadcasting that interference, we could check it out," he suggests.
Jortek peers into the distance, and just sees a lot of sand.
After about a mile's walk, the group finds the muse, at least the brightly colored part rear-end that sticks up from the surface. Brightly colored songbirds are painted on the hull and the pieces of debris scattered about. The ship is half-buried into the ground.
There's an android woman with red eyes and dark clothing walking around the site. When she spots the group, she hail them over comms and says You don't look to be from here. Why are you here, and how did you get here?