Famed demoscene artist and vidgame designer, Lecti, has extended an invitation to a team of prestigious Starfinders to beta test his latest full-immersion virtual reality vidgame at a trendy local arcade. Dive into the vibrant virtual world of Tortoiseshell Cove and play as colorful squox intent on nurturing the perfect farm! But when the vidgame makes a sudden genre switch, the lines between simulation and reality become blurred, and real lives are put on the line.
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A lashunta man walks into the room, looking a little worn out.
Dr. Tavan Zandhi is a male damaya lashunta with dark blond hair and blue eyes. He wears squad hardlight series armor and has several aeon stones orbiting his head. He is still wearing rumpled medical scrubs over his armor. Dr. Zandhi wears an injector pistol on his left hip and an arc pistol on his right. He has a laser pistol in a boot holster on his right foot. Most people's attention is immediately drawn to the high tech medical gauntlet that he wears on his left hand (and goes halfway up to his elbow).
"Hello everyone. I am Dr. Tavan Zandhi, but when I'm off-duty I usually just go by Tavan. If you have any medical issues, either currently, or during the mission, let me know. I would also like to attune everyone to my microlab gauntlet. It will allow me to provide better medical services to the team."
Tavan sits down in a nearby chair, trying to relax after a long day's work.
"So, this is supposed to be some kind of relaxing simulation, right?"
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Neroo is a well known Lashunta, thanks for her participation and second place at the famous holoTV show Absalom Idol a few years back. Since then she joins the Starfinder Society, improving her audience while streaming her new, and heavy edited, adventures and missions until Dash smear campaign against the Society. After the backlash of Dash's campaign, she decided to quit the Society to focus more on her personal and professional life.
But she recently came back into the Society. She's happy and proud to be part of the beta-test of Lecti's vidgame!
Neroo is a smiling joyous Lashunta with purple hair. Her round face is quite charming and her voice like honey to a bee. She's always followed by a camera drone.
Despite her smile and joyed attitude, her eye seems quite dark and around her eyes there is lie some strange purple shadowy veins...
Greeting Friends! My Fans will be in awe with the streaming of this betatest! I'm quite excited to start!
I'm Neroo, by the way! You may know me from my second place at Absalom Idol a few years back or with my new holoVid about my adventures and charity works for Desna's Alone for Children?
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Games. One word uttered by Xin-Da-Rik hangs in the air. Kish, a gray-skinned humanoid with three eyes and mandibles in place of human's mouth, examines you thoughtfully. His heavy armor looks epic, brutal, anarchic and too grotesque: bright red colors, a lot of spikes, some bones and skulls, and powerful magic runes adjacent to some obscene words applied with an common aerosol can. He carries a long sword and starknife. Some recognize him as a well-known gladiator who uses the image of Devourer's cultist in his performance fights. Xin-Da-Rik is not as renowned as Nero, but still quite famous. They probably need a good warrior... for these games. I understand. He speaks slowly and with a strong alien accent. It seems that he tries to avoid technological items and looks doubtfully at some of them. I hope there will be something interesting to kill. My producer Shari tells me to shoot everything. I have several cameras in the armor, she then makes entertaining videos. These drow, you know, they know a lot about how to sell violence. He's smiling and there's something scary about that smile. He probably got into his gladiatorial-cultist image very well... Probably too well...
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Dr. Zandhi looks like he's deep in thought for a second, then snaps his fingers and says to Xin-Da-Rik.
"Pact Worlds Gladiators - right?"
Once everyone has made it to the room, he addresses the team, saying, "If anyone has a healing serum you would like me to load into my injector pistol, let me know."
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A grumpy dwarf wearing a helmet with many dents on it joins the group. The servos on his custom modified powered armor whine and click as he walks. Following him is a hulking combat drone with two arms that end in heavy weapons.
Looking the rest of the Starfinders over he says, "Oh great, there is no way that this mission is going to go well."
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Inbox (3):
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From: AbadarCorpEntertainment
Subject: Please update your personal information
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From: AbadarCorpEntertainment
Subject: How fast are you? How perceptive are you? Join our raffle here!
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From: Tortoiseshell Cove Team
Subject: Invite
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Dr. Zandhi tries to find some information (or recall knowledge) on the arcade, the game, and the company that makes the game.
I'm not sure which skills you need for this, so I'll roll Diplomacy and Culture, as those seem to typically apply.
+4 higher to Culture to recall knowledge with library chip.
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Neroo tries to find some info on the infoSphere about Lecti Gallax and Hidden Escape Arcade. She also spreads the words that she will streaming the Beta-test of Tortoiseshell Cove!
She makes sure to arrive in advance at the rendez-vous point.
While she's doing that, she's thinking I wonder how look these Exclusive skin we will get!
Neroo checks out Hidden Escape Arcade, which has middling reviews online, with an average 3.75-star rating. Negative reviews complain that it’s hard to find, the fixtures are outdated, and the service is bad. In particular, the man at the front desk ignores guests completely, instead allowing the AI greeter to serve guests while he fiddles with a datapad
Lecti Gallax is the only programmer publicly associated with Tortoiseshell Cove. His online resume lists that he previously worked on demoscene art projects, including a live performance event where he coded a VR world based off audience answers to the questions “What do you really need?” According to this document, he stopped putting out new art a year and a half ago.
Lecti Gallax is a talented programmer and game designer who specializes in “full-immersion VR,” a form of cutting-edge virtual reality that transmits tactile sensation to gamers in addition to audio and visual information. Tortoiseshell Cove is his first game noted to integrate this technology.
Starstone Station Today! has an article in its archives from a decade ago, which states that Hidden Escape Arcade closed that year due to gross mismanagement. There aren’t any notices about it reopening, but an Interstellar Trendsetters post tagged a local celebrity there 8 months ago.
A link at the bottom of the invitation opens a navigation screen that provides directions to the Hidden Escape Arcade. Scrolling through the directions shows that the arcade sits behind a convenience store four blocks away from one of the docks in the Arms, and a 30-minute walk from the Lorespire Complex.
The entrance to Hidden Escape Arcade is in an alley near a Triaxian corner market. The door needs a new coat of paint, though the neon “Open” sign and the illuminated awning look well-kept.
Inside, the front desk is sleek and modern, with white counters and hologram-augmented ads for a variety of vidgames. A floating wall behind the counter holds VR equipment and merchandise for purchase, including Hidden Escape Arcade shirts, hats, bags, and holostickers. Upbeat music is audible deeper in the arcade.
As the door chimes, a screen over the check-in kiosk lights up with a minimalist icon of a smiling face. It begins to say, “Welcome to Hidden Escape Arca...” when Lecti Gallax interrupts the greeter and says:
“Welcome, Starfinders! Thank you for accepting my invitation! I felt you would be perfect testers for Tortoiseshell Cove. It’s meant as a relaxing game, so I wanted to invite testers with particularly stressful jobs to see if the calming properties are effective. Every playtester receives a gift card to Homestation Multimart and a voucher for two additional game sessions here. I’ll get the gear set up now, but feel free to look around.”
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The place for this beta-test seems weird, but Neroo is still ready to leap at the chance to be the first to test the new VR-app!
Once at Hidden Escape Arcade, she looks around, to see if something's amiss and enters.
Hi! I'm Neroo! You know, from Absalom Idol! Glad to meet you too and for the invite! My last leisure cruise was not that restful, hope this game will.
During her short discussion with Lecti she tries to see if she's hiding some dark purpose in her invitation.
The she decides to explore the place as it's her first time for decades in an Arcade shop.
Neroo has a look at the main arcade. Despite the brightly colored carpet and moving LED lights, the arcade is subdued. Enclosed booths that muffle sound line the north wall and central area, while smaller arcade games fill the south half of the gaming floor. Upbeat music blares from a VR dancing vidgame currently being played by a shirren near the entrance. A nuar in a seating area to the south looks like she’s only recently arrived. A mirror runs the length of the east wall, making the gaming floor seem larger than it is.
In each booth, VR hookups descend from the ceiling. Players in a booth are expected move as they play, with the floor shifting beneath them like a full motion treadmill, to prevent players from wandering into other areas and hurting themselves. There are two other patrons currently using VR booths, as well as the shirren dancer.
The small arcade games can be played in standard or VR mode and have VR hookups connected to each console. Patrons at an arcade game can stand or sit, and only move their head and arms while playing in VR mode. There are three other patrons currently playing arcade games in VR mode.
At the far end, there's a bar which has datapad and VR hookups integrated into the countertop, for patrons to play while they drink. Private VR booths line the north wall. The bar looks well stocked, but nobody is serving drinks at the moment. It is possible to use an automated drink dispenser for 5 credits a bottle, serving non-alcoholic drinks only. There's three lashuntas are seated at the bar, all deeply engaged in their VR games.
And they haven't showered in ages. Yeeeugh.
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Katrina hasn't said much to the others besides introducing herself, including being a member of the Forum. She does ask Neroo about how streaming works as she's thinking of doing some of her mermaiding thing but has no idea of where to start. She admits to Neroo that she is hoping to get some ideas here. She also admits that she doesn't follow social media much.
Her last missions had involved some rather political ramifications on the planet Pholskar as well as trying to figure out what was going on in Salvation's moon. Plus she had been thinking of retiring but had no idea what to do if she did. It does seem a bit early in her life for a mid-life crisis though. And all she had for family was her elder sister.
She too does her research.
At the arcade she has a good look around, pondering. She is especially interested in the flight sims.
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Neroo is quite happy to explain to Katrina how everything works! She sends Katrina several links on the InfoSphere to her own channel, NerooFromAbsalomIdol where she explains to her followers simple things, like nuclear physics, quantium calculus, how recycle your old DriftEngine into something useful, how to appears always fresh and rested on a Spaceship and so many other tips. All her posts are written in a scientific popularization way so everyone could understand them.
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I'm also thinking of visiting Vesk-2 and see if it's anything like the waters of Castrovel so, it seems a good place to start, livestreaming while freediving. I'm hoping to take Selene and we'll be going with Big Jim who does the Jim Jams home improvement show.
She pauses for a bit.
There's all my Castrovel footage I suppose I could do something with as well as some of my old mermaid shows.
Lecti was standing behind the desk (in person), and was using a heavily modified comm unit, with an 'FA' sticker on it, which doesn't stand for 'Friend AbadarCorp'
As the group looks around and takes note of the Lashunta Funk, the Nuar greets them Heya there! Are you here for distraction?
Immediately, she continues on I mostly play rom-sims... I've just finished Heart Blast 4. I think I'll start on Romance-U-Quest now pointing to a console that looks very... sweet.
Katrina winces at the thought of rom-sims but then she asks. Ummm ... I presume you can select the gender etc of the person you're interested in? Although Sis would say 'Go get yourself a REAL partner'. She emphasises the real.
Hngg. the nuar says in response, clearly a bit upset by that last remark The people here are pretty obsessive, and they never want to talk to me. My name is Xiffany, by the way she says with a certain sparkle in her eye, Yes, you can completely customize your avatar: race, gender, eyes, horn style...
She's clearly trying to make new friends here...
Dr. Zandhi turns to the nuar and says, "I'm kind of new at this whole video game thing, but we're here to try a new game to relax. Maybe you can tell us about some of these other games? How long has this arcade been open for? Are there any games you would recommend to relieve some stress?"
Oh, it's fun here, I've only stumbled across this place the last two weeks or so. Ever since my boyfriend dumped me. Most people come here after work. The dancing shirren and the Lashunta are almost always here, and there's humans and a kasatha. Lecti is the only employee I've ever seen here. He can be quite rude, but I think that's just because he is overworked.
[b]I don't know, what kind of game do you like? I'm not sure if I've seen the latest Bounty Hunter yet, but I did see ads for 'Dance Dance Devastation', if that's your thing'
As group investigates, Dr. Tavan does notice that the mirror in the main arcade is in fact a one-way window, and that it’s likely there’s a security or staff room on the other side.
As for Lecti, he is still typing away on his datapad, waiting for the group to signal that they're ready to enter the game.
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Katrina thinks about it a bit.
I think I'll stick to flight sims thanks - especially the realistic ones such as the training sims for the Pegasus class starship. They're fun to fly.
She then realises what's going on. Oh .... I'm SO sorry. I hope he was good for you while it lasted. As for me, I haven't had a date in .... oh my .... the last couple of years, although I'm a bit picky about partners to be honest. My name's Katrina, Katrina Scintilla. Nice to meet you. My sister keeps telling me I need to get out and meet new people on the social level.
Alright Lecti says, putting down his datapad for a moment Let's get you hooked up.
He proceeds to allocate the aventurers to a game booth, and starts handing out VR headset, each of which has been carefully selected to be a good fit.
These headset have all been modified with a lock to prevent removal while the game is running.
Ready player 1? Let me know when you've got everything fittig snugly, and I'll boot up Tortoiseshell cove... enjoy the ride!
The lock is there for safety reasons Lecti explains, [b]If you were to suddenly remove the headset while in the VR environment, the experience can be very harmful. Overload of the senses may occur, causing confusion and disorientation. You can still go into the in-game menu, halt the game and unlock the headset. Trust me, it's much better that way.
Neither Neroo nor Tavan sense anything untoward in that reply.
Alright, hold on tight as I turn this thing on
The headsets light up then fade to black, only to turn on in a meadow where three squoxes are eating leaves in front of the life-size letters
The letters are large enough to walk through, leading to an elaborate 'create character' mini-game.
Every player plays a colored (and quite adorable) squox. There are pre-selected colors of bluebell, lavender, melon, mint, peach, strawberry, and sunflower, as well as a custom color-picker. Every avatar has a leaf-shaped canvas bag, and opening the bag leads to an animation of a journal and an inventory screen. As it turns out, every one of you has virtual inventory that matches your current equipment.
So yeah, hardlight armor squox, thunderstrike pistol squox, meteor glaive squox...
There's even a helpful question mark hovering in the edge of view, which leads to a user manual.
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Once the group has finished picking colors, the background shifts, and large colorful letters descend that read “Welcome to the Tutorial!”
Welcome players! a pleasant voice speaks you can now open your journal to find your first quest!
The journal, when opened, gives a friendly 'ding' and shows a single entry:
Objective: complete the following actions:
[X] Open journal
[O] Dash
[O] Dig
[O] Water
[O] Save
Reward: Access Tortoiseshell Beach
Below the single entry is another piece of text: Further quest will appear when unlocked
The beach shakes as a chasm opens up right in front of the group. The
chasm spans endlessly to the sides, leaving a 15-foot gap that needs to be crossed. A helpful translucent arrow appears that points horizontally across this gap as the voiceover says Use dash to dash across!