Glitterslime surprise! Rancid meatball bombs! Piñatas stuffed with toxic runoff! Someone’s pulling disgusting pranks around the Lorespire Complex, and you might be next! When Radaszam, leader of the Acquisitives faction, is caught in the (smelly) crossfire, he tasks a team of rookie Starfinders with finding the prankster and putting an end to their foul mischief!
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What appears to be an ugly sweater flies into Radaszam's briefing room, with images that morph from one to another to another, all in a riotous display of colors.
Once over the briefing table, the swirling sweater orb bursts with a festive buzzing sound before settling over one of the chairs. It's then, once the swirling has ceased, that you can see a collective of mini-mantids settling into the chair & onto the table.
"Happy Holidayz, fellow Ztarfinderz. We are Doctor Azziztant-Profezzor, but our truztee callz uz Dr. A-Prof, zo you can do the same."
There's nothing like slurping coffee in the lobby of The Lorespire Complex. The familiar open space is full of conversation nooks that consist of comfortable chairs and couches, a few break out areas for informal mission debriefs, and holos projecting a constant feed of breaking news, Starfinder mission updates and other information. Everywhere, displays showcase relics retrieved from places of note: a pillar from the Scoured Stars, a chunk of Drift rock, an obsidian shard covered in mysterious runes, and so on.
The lobby is full, hosting several teams of Starfinders using the space to chat or work and a tour group following their guide—the tourists crowd around the displays, and the Starfinders occupy the couches and chairs. The lobby is brightly lit and full of a conversational hum.
There’s a commotion near the center of the Lorespire Complex’s lobby. A comically large gift box sits there—a shipping container wrapped in colorful, mismatched paper and stained with oil or some other unidentifiable substance. Looking closer, some of the wrapping papers are progress reports addressed to Venture-Captain Arvin. Cut-out shapes are glued to the package— spaceships, photos of famous Starfinders, and fantastical creatures. A huge, floppy bow tied around it all looks like it’s been stitched together from several pieces of the kind of ribbon used at business grand openings.
The present is addressed to “The Glorious Starfnider Society” from “Your Neighbors” in sloppy, handwritten Common. The gift has attracted a small crowd of people hesitating to open it. Venture-Captain Radaszam is having a loud conversation nearby with several other Starfinders, gesturing at the gift.
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An orange-furred skittermander wearing white religious robes comes darting into the room. "Hello!" he exclaims, running up to everyone around and intently shaking their hands. "I'm Dawnfriend! What's your name? Can I help you with anything? Do you need any healing? Can I tell you about Saranrae? She's a god, and she's like your best friend ever!"
He darts over toward Radaszam. "Hello, Rad-friend! Ooh, what a nice present. Is that for the whole society? What a nice gift from our neighbors!" He begins examining the box intently.
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A morlamaw with a hide of dark blue-grey reminiscent of a deep ocean slides into sight, his giant tusks are beautifully carved with images of archaic sailing paraphernalia - compasses, small boats, oars, and other objects one would have expected to see on ships in the age of sail. He wears a natty old tricorne hat featuring a skull and crossbones, and perched upon his 'shoulder' is fairly decently sized (and rough-looking) marine iguana.
"What in the name of Besmara is that?"
He takes his time looking around for someone who might know something about the object, it didn't just get here by itself, surely someone had to let the delivery people in - who let them in? and who delivered it?
A short lashunta girl, wearing casual clothing wanders in, attracted by the turmoil.
From our neighbours? Castrovel, Akiton perhaps? she asks.
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"Oh god, I hate parties. It means I actually have to talk to people. I'm fine if the conversation is about settling their tax returns, but social encounters are so difficult for me."
A nervous looking dromada stands in a corner of the lobby talking to another Starfinder from the accounting department and drinking from a cup of coffee.
As Radaszam is about to open his mouth to Dawnfriend, a few Starfinder are egging on a male halfling Come on, Senddi, open it! The halfling walks up to the pack and pulls the ribbon.
Radaszam interferes just a moment too late, exclaiming: “Stop! Don’t touch that!” just as the box explodes. Sickly sweet and aggressively cherry-scented glitter fills the space, and the bystanders (including the group) are covered in fragrantly spoiled, bright pink goo and shiny tinsel.
Senndi shouts, “That was awesome!” before throwing up on the floor.
Radaszam is not amused You, you he points at Senddi and friends clean up this mess!
Wiping his face clean and sputtering a bit of the pink mess that drips from his snout, Rasaszam says: “Seems we’ve got some kind of prankster in our midst. This isn’t the first of their ‘jokes’ either. We’ve had several of these surprises recently. One of them injured several members of a tour group. I can appreciate a bit of high-spirited fun every now and then, but this goes too far!”
“I want you to track down whomever is responsible. It’s time for the pranks to stop.”
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A small, hairless, grey-skinned humanoid with over-sized black eyes regards the package with surprise.
"How the heck did they manage to get something the size of a shipping container in here?!"
Just barely managing to avoid throwing up, Loki settles down to explore the area.
Firstly, he looks around for physical clues...
...then taps into local surveillance networks...
...much to his disgust, he then tries to sample the gunk...
...before finally just looking around.
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Fort
The Morlamaw isn't impressed, but neither is he sick.
He then gets to work, seemingly in no rush, making his way through the investigation in a calm and methodical manner.
"So first, what clues do we have..."
Survival
"Maybe people can find me the manifests, shipping documents, security footage - this didn't just magically appear"
Diplomacy
"That smell, where have I come across that before? Smells a bit like..."
Culture
"Wonder what else is laying around"
Perception
When Dawnfriend greets Raia, she gives a slight smile and says I'm Raia - and may I tell you about Desna? She's a god too and also a best friend. I hear her and Sarenrae get on really well
The smile turns into a smirk.
Once the parcel has exploded Raia hacks her way into the security system to get the security footage. She also puts in a call to Celita to let her know what happened and also to say and watch out, Radaszam is on the warpath
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Dawnfriend turns excitedly to the halfling and exclaims enthusiastically, "Yes! That was awesome!" He then begins having violent dry heaves. The discomfort he feels makes him completely unable to investigate anything or ask any questions about the mission until the feeling passes.
In between, he wheezes as he gasps for air, "Bad joke!"
Once he recovers, he runs around trying to help with the various tasks and getting prepared for the mission.
She also scans for magic.
Loki puzzles together the content of the 'gift box': The explosive in the gift box consisted of a repurposed hovercar airbag loaded with starship anti-missile chaff, glitter, tinsel, and a dozen “Big Cherry Goo-Gurt” containers. The Doctor notices there are few traces left by the prankster, but a “big cherry” smudge on one of the interior pieces of the airbag indicates a small hand, suggesting a child or species of smaller stature made the device. Upon close inspection, the whole thing is made with packing materials and other office supplies that were repurposed in the creation of the device, and all have the telltale markings of having originated with the Lorespire Complex’s own resources.
When Scrimshaw and Loki inspect the security footage, they find footage of the lobby which shows a non-descript drone, the kind used by delivery services all over Absalom Station, carrying the gift in and leaving it several hours before the Lorespire Complex opened that morning. Yeah, it was there all along Janitor Urgoth recalls and I'm usually the first in here.
The resolution isn’t great, but a close inspection of the video shows the drone is a standard delivery model with extensive customizations made to it. Ah, coming to think of it Urgoth says, I think I caught a glimpse of the thing leaving he says, then describes its features to lead to the same conclusion.
There's also been numerous complaints over the past few days, as reported by Lorespire security, including reports of vandals breaking into paper recycling, and someone’s been using the office printers for unauthorized jobs and leaving random infosphere pages open on unsecured computer stations.
The duo investigators confirm the pink sludge is “Big Cherry Goo-Gurt,”. Not much of a stretch given the containers nearby! Goo-Gurt is a snack sometimes available in the Lorespire mess hall. In this case, someone clearly left it out too long though, as this batch is spoiled. “Big Cherry” hasn’t been available for several weeks now, though some other flavors of the sweet snack have been on offer. Several people have noticed a sickly-sweet cherry smell in the paper recycling area recently.
Dawnfriend notices something peculiar on the package’s wrapping: the paper looks like a Starfinder progress report, with 'To: Venture-Captain Arvin' appearing quite often. There's no immediate reason to suspect Arvin though, somebody could have just gotten these from paper recycling. All print material used in the Lorespire Complex is
eventually sent to paper recycling, including progress reports. Raia remembers there have been rumors of missing office supplies going around the Lorespire Complex in the last few weeks, particularly in paper recycling.
Look Radaszam says There have been three other pranks that I know of. The first time, someone painted the statue of First Seeker Ilyastre outside with glowing hypercolor paint, which even I’ll admit had a certain flair to it. Next, we found the Hall of Discovery full of Triaxian fruit flies after a huge basket of frost apples had been left there over the weekend and spoiled. We are still fumigating the Hall. The last time, they set up a makeshift T-shirt autocannon in the Forum that shot out masspro shirts with “Team Sfartinders Go!” on them. The thing had spot on targeting and fired with enough force to send several people to the infirmary. Up until this last prank I might have said the pranksters were well-meaning, just careless. Radaszam pauses to scrape some more pinkish goo off himself, But the smell of that foul pink gunk is going to be with me the rest of the day, and we’ll be cleaning the mess up here in the lobby for I don’t even know how long. Not to mention that bomb could have hurt someone. They’re escalating. My guess is it’s some rookie Starfinder who doesn’t know when to stop. Go out and TELL THEM!
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Loki's immediate response is short and definitive.
"I might be smaller than a human, but it certainly was not me. If I was to do something like that, it would have been far more targeted.
That said... a small-sized creature, with a penchant for spelling mistakes, poorly-thought-out 'gifts', cobbled-together equipment, and 'reused' stuff... it sounds like a space goblin, to me."
The the paper recycling facility is housed in a sub-basement of the Lorespire Complex. After some searching, the group finds a service elevator which goes down several levels. Down there, there's a maze of halls and storage rooms to navigate before getting to the Recycling Center.
The Recycling Center is a cavernous room dominated by towering bins of paper and other waste materials waiting to be processed. Drones constantly crawl or fly through to deposit more and tidy up any spills. The whole place looks automated, but the tidy state that such automation would normally bring is... not in place here.
The whole room is in disarray. Pilfered office supplies and detritus from slipshod arts and crafts projects are strewn all over the otherwise orderly space, accompanied by the strong odor of spoiled Big Cherry Goo-Gurt.
Among the detritus is a stack of after-action reports to Arvin and other VC's, a wealth of cut-up print outs that correspond to the images glued to the side of the package, and various office supplies that were reported stolen, including tape, staplers, and other items.
Loki also finds a loose wall panel behind the stacks of paper to be recycled. Behind the panel opens a narrow maintenance tunnel winds deeper into the Lorespire’s basements.
Do you think it's ysoki now? Raia asked as she follows. My credits are still on goblins
Nothing better than spending festive times crawling through maintenance tunnels! The group goes in, easy for the Gray, but a very tight fit for the morlamaw, who has to truly squeeze through. The tunnel is poorly maintained, with many of the lights broken. The tunnel finally leads to a maintenance area.
Discarded Goo-Gurt containers, food wrappers, and a variety of junk litter this dimly light corridor in front of an access panel that’s been left askew. Past the panel, the vent opens into a filthy maintenance area.
Several faint trails of iridescent mucus crisscross the floor, walls, and ceiling, clustered around the garbage. The ground and walls are slick to the touch. The air is filled with the biting odors of rot and petrol.
Eeeeewwwwwwweeee Raia says. She then moves forward to get a sample of the iridescent mucus as it could be a clue.
She then spots the creatures and points them out to the others.
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Trober looks like his face is turning green as he gags and vomits on the Starfinder next to him.
Thoroughly embarrassed he cleans up his own mess and then joins the team at the recycling facility.
"Look at this! I found the tax documents that had gone unaccounted for!"
As the others warn Trober of the approaching slug threat he quickly begins backing away from them.
"I told you we shouldn't have gone down this tunnel. Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me???"
Loki and Benny manage to distract the slugs with one of the spoiled cans of goo-bert that are ubiquitous in this place. It does a good job of attracting the slugs, clearing the way into the recycling area.
On the ground, the group finds three mk 1 serums of healing and a dermal stapler that only faintly reek of spoiled cherry goo.
Ahead, the maintenance area has been converted into a chaotic workspace. Posters of scenes taken from the Starfinder Chronicles decorate the wall, featuring satellite images of alien ruins, starship specification sheets, and pictures of famous Starfinders. The intermittent panel lighting has been supplemented by strings of fairy lights that hang from nearly every wall and ceiling. Every surface (including the floor) is strewn with glitter, art supplies, food wrappers, tools, partially assembled or dismantled machinery, and half-finished crafts. The area smells like a machine shop, chemical lab, cafeteria, and art studio all rolled into one, with the distinct note of Big Cherry Goo-Gurt dominating the complicated olfactory landscape. The mechanical hum of the station and the gurgle of pipes provide background noise, but otherwise the entire place is quiet.
Ever careful, Trober finds that somebody left a trashed dance club holoprojector here. It looks kind of dangerous, because the sound system is intact and heavily modified.
Down in the hallway, three robots, apparently built out of scrap metal parts are scurrying about, and when they spot the party start emitting sounds that are a mix of greeting and commands Hello. Must. Clean. Mess. Shoot. To. Clean. It looks like the robot's idea of cleaning is using pulsecaster pistols.
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Benny
Loki
Dr A Prof
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Bot
Bot
Bot
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Trober
Raia
Dawnfriend
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Dr A prof works on the holoprojector, preventing what no doubt would have been a very unpleasant effect from a malfunctioning device. Loki zaps a robot, and wreaks havoc on its circuits.
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Benny
Loki
Dr A Prof
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Bot
Bot
Bot - Blue (12)
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Trober
Raia
Dawnfriend
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Do you think it's ysoki now? Raia asked as she follows. My credits are still on goblins
"Defintely not Goblins, I thought we were going to see a common theme of space-goblins several years ago when they popped up on Salvations End and they were heavily featured on all the early Starfinder communiques, howver they were rapidly replaced by the peoples love of Skittermanders and were dropped like hot potatoes, now a very rare sighting having only popped up less than a handful of times since"
"Truly one of my great annoyances that despite all of this communication being made with them the Starfinder leadership never saw fit to admit any of them to the Stafinder Society, yet let in just about any other species imaginable - frankly I think it is a gross oversight"
"Oh what's that? Robots?"
Benny opens up with his laser rifle at the Blue bot
Attack vs EAC
Damage F
Attack vs EAC
Damage F
Careful of that holoprojector. I was helping out on a float for last year's Newspark parade and the float ahead of us had a holoprojector that attacked us with a hardlight hologram while quoting Space Navy directives. Turned out some Data Scourge code had got in.
Raia didn't really like the taste of Big Cherry Goo-Gurt. She was quite sure she was going to like it even less after this.
Benny takes a shot at the damaged robot, and just blows it up right there, allowing him another shot on the next in line.
The two remaining robots try to clean up the mess, by starting with Loki and Benny!
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Trober
Raia
Dawnfriend
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Benny
Loki
Dr A Prof
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Bot
Bot - Red (9)
Bot - Blue (DOWN)
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Raia moves to get a better angle on the bots and uses her Thunderstrike sonic pistol on the Red robot.
Raia blasts a robot into pieces, and the combined hits of Benny and Loki make short work of the last one of them. Clean.. Bzzzt. it speaks as the power fades.
Well, it sure looks like this is somebody's base of operations...
While Trober hangs back, Loki tries to make sense of the chaotic mess. He finds some sort of sleeping niches that would be enough for 8-12 small creatures, and other than that an incredible chaotic mess of stuff that wouldn't make sense to anyone but the persons in charge of it.
In the end, he finds a pinboard with three items in particular that stand out:
- An invitation to an event in the Skyreach Room, where Venture-Captain Naiaj is scheduled to make a presentation to a group of dignitaries in a few hours.
- A manifest from the Lorespire Complex mess hall indicating the arrival of a special order today.
- A brochure from the First Seeker Ilystre Memorial Museum mentioning some of that First Seeker’s more notable deeds.
Loki also finds a set of microgoggles and a banged-up but functional datapad with a folder called 'DORNE SECHMATICS' on it.
Raia helps Loki with the datapad.
She then looks for trace from the entities that are using the sleeping niches in order to get DNA samples to at least identify the species.
It certainly looks like the event in the Skyreach may well be the next target as I suspect the manifest pertains to the already activated parcel
She thumbs her comm unit and sends a progress report to Radaszam.
We also know that these entities are extremely bad spellers