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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"Ah! First one here. Excellent." Now, which seat here is the cleanest? A female shirren takes her time inspecting the options before selecting a spot to sit. ... After a few moments, she begins looking around, wondering aloud: "Do people even want jobs, if they don't bother turning up early for them? Goodness."
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A snow white skittermander enters. His face brightens as he sees that someone has arrived before him. "Hello, hello newfriend! It is so very, very good good to meet you. Sneaker is here here to help." He rushes forward and gives Anock an unsolicited hug. "What am I here to help help with today? I hope hope it is an investigation. Why is that you ask? Well you didn't ask but I know you want to so I shall shall answer. It is because I am a detective. For real this time and not just pretend." He nods and smiles.
"Oh Oh. You can call me Sneaker. Or maybe Snowy. Or maybe Snodetsnea. Or maybe newfriend has a new name name for me?"
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Anock stiffens like a board and turns her face away when Sneaker comes in for the hug. "Well, I say! I'm not really a hugger, Sneaker, so please don't. I'll have to sanitize myself. Ugh! And I hope you had the good sense to wash your hands for a full thirty seconds, with soap, before exiting the washroom." She addresses Mizzrym'. Adjusting her posture and straightening her clothes, she announces: "I'm Anock. Medic in training. And cleanliness and respect for personal space significantly reduce the risk of infection. So do be so kind as to keep that in mind."
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Sneaker laughs uproariously at Anock's obvious joke. "Newfriend Anock, you are so so very funny. I like you. Do not worry newfriend, I have never been sick in all my eight years of life." He gives Anock a wink, three okay signs, one thumbs up and two finger guns.
He turns to address Mizzrym'. "And now another newfriend joins joins us. Hello Newfriend Mizzrym'."
Sneaker steps up to the drow and gives him a warm handshake just long enough for it to be slightly awkward. He then repeats the process five more times with different hands.
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"'Eight years of-'" Anock is momentarily flummoxed, before recalling that the lifespan of lifespan of skittermanders is quite different from most of the life forms she's dealt with. "Well, I suppose that's quite an accomplishment." She allows, somewhat grudgingly.
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It is good to meet.
A tinny electronic voice echoes out from near the doorway. You can see its source: a set of speakers embedded in a full bodysuit of a figure walking slowly into the room. Of course 'body' is only partially accurate: though human-sized and shaped the suit is translucent in many places, allowing you to see that within it is not flesh or bone of scale but swirling sets of gases. the arrival positions their form to face towards you and continues.
Apologies if this voice is basic. It is just a basic audio interface; I did not want to speak to you in thought without securing permission. .
I am Collector Rides on Winds. Or just 'Collector' if that is easier for you. They looks around. It is wonderful to see such a variety of Starfinders here. The Society truly has worked to collect the best of all from across the galaxy.
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"Well, of course." Anock preens as she replies telepathically. She completely agrees that she is "the best of all from across the galaxy", and is pleased to see that Collector wears a suit that seems to effectively keep most contaminants away from its body. "I am Anock. It's good to meet you, Collector."
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"I don't know about best, but we're not boring."
The emaciated looking verthani that says this slouches in the doorway. At about 7 feet in height, he almost has to. Black eyes bulge from a face covered with a slowly changing pattern of colors.
He wears tight-fitting armour festooned with small tools hanging like fetishes from loops sewn into the armour. More tools protrude from pockets, and no doubt more are in his large backpack. The impression of an enthusiastic but disorganized mechanic is altered somewhat by the rifle that is also strapped to the pack.
Straggly is a word that comes to mind when people see Little Lendtech for the first time.
He casually waves with his left hand to a faint hiss of pneumatics. "Hey everyone, Little Lendtech. You?"
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 Nheigbors” 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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"Well, that's just unsanitary. How did that even get in here? Surely deliveries have to be verified at the front desk. I'll just have to see to it. Come along, team. Time to do something about this atrocity." She obviously expects everyone to follow her.
Like a natural-born busybody, Anock bustles over to the VC and interrupts his conversation to demand: "Venture-Captain Radaszam, what is the meaning of this? This...thing is absolutely unsanitary and has no place in our lobby. Why hasn't it been removed?" She peers closely at the lettering. "Ugh! They don't even know how to spell! This is clearly a publicity stunt, and should be handled in a back area to prevent them from getting the attention they obviously crave, whoever they are." She is completely oblivious to the audacity of speaking in such a way to someone so very much farther up the chain than herself.
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Collector Rides on Winds drits up towards the package and takes in the note. Very impressive. Absalom 'Common' has some curious spellings, yet they managed to remember the e before the i even if misplacing the silent h.
They take in the box and try to listen to see if there is any ticking coming from within...
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Sneaker takes a deep breath in preparation for his greeting to another newfriend. Before he can speak however he finally notices the large colorful present. His verthani nonfriend momentarily forgotten, the skittermander rushes over to investigate the package.
"Oooooh! It's a present. It looks like the Nheigbors sent it here here for the Glorious Starfnider Society. Do you think it got delivered here by mistake? Starfnider and Starfinder are almost almost the same. It must have been misdelivered."
As Radaszam is about to open his mouth to Anock, a few Starfinders 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, 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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Little's position near the corner of the package spares him the worst of the goo, but not entirely all. At least it didn't go in his mouth. He picks himself up and looks down his long body. "Verthi, I just cleaned this armor."
Radaszam's assertion that they must find the culprit seems radically unfair. Mere proximity isn't a qualification to be an investigator. Still a rookie, he's been in the Starfinders long enough to see the handwriting. He replies to Radaszam, "Sure, general. You got any information about these other attacks?"
He waits for the VC's reply, then he gets to work, looking over the scene .
With some more time, he pulls out his comm unit for an infosphere search.
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I understand Collector says to Radaszam…after they have taken many moments to recover from the stench. Though that liquid does look perhaps familiar…
This prank is not the first though? One of a set? Where did the others occur? And was there security footage of the incidents?
While waiting for a response - and hopefully some data to parse through - the ooze takes in the present scene and the ‘gag’s delivery method.
Sneaker immediately recognises the pink sludge as Big Cherry Goo Gurt. He left one in the fridge for way too long as some point, and it smelled exactly the same way. He also knows that this flavor - Big Cherry hasn’t been available for several weeks now, though some other flavors of the sweet snack have been on offer.
Collector can confirm this, and can point out that several people have noticed a sickly sweet cherry smell in the paper recycling area recently.
Mizzrym spots that most of the package’s wrapping was made up of progress reports sent to Venture-Captain Arvin. It's not too hard to get a hold of those: all print material used in the Lorespire Complex is eventually sent to paper recycling, including progress reports. Whomever created this prank must have obtained their wrapping materials there. There have been rumors of missing office supplies going around the Lorespire Complex in the last few weeks, particularly in paper recycling.
Little gets access to the security footage. Surveillance footage of the lobby 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. Witnesses recall the box being there when they first arrived on the scene.
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.
Over the past few days, numerous complaints have been filed with 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.
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Anock is so thoroughly stunned by the gooey explosion that she can do nothing but imitate a statue for several minutes. When she finally regains her senses, she freaks the heck out. Venture-Captain Radaszam: *next time*, *immediately* remove this garbage to a secure location! This could be a bioweapon for all we know!" She stomps off to the restroom to sanitize herself as well as possible, then returns, fuming and muttering to herself, to learn what she can about the scene of the crime. "If I get sick because of this, someone's going to have hell to pay!"
Since everyone else started working right away, she makes sure that they report their findings to her. There's no sense in the team leader being out of the loop. "Well, it shouldn't be too hard to track down that tricked out droid. There are security cameras everywhere. Who's good with computers? And why VC Arvin, specifically? I think we need to talk to him. *And* the folks down in paper recycling. Alright, team, which one first?" A good leader allows her team to feel like their input is important, and Anock doesn't see any reason to do these things in a particular order. It's a fine opportunity to let them show some initiative.
Anock taking the lead doesn't phase Radaszam at all, who still stand still in the middle of the chaos, like a besmeared statue.
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. You have enough leads to go on? Good! Go out and TELL THEM TO STOP!
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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.
Little checks the drones, and they seem to be in normal working order.
Under the, uuh, overbearing leadership of Anock, the group find a stack of after-action reports among the detritus, which have been addressed to Arvin and other VC's, along with 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.
Little 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.
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Largely unnoticed in all the fuss with the exploding package, an attractive female Lashunta arrives for the scheduled meeting. She wears Zeizerer Diffractor armored jumpsuit with an EMT patch and "Dr. Luanna Farella" embroidered on the fabric near her left shoulder. She carries a pack with an emblem indicating it contains a medkit. She has a dueling sword attached to her belt and a semi-auto pistol in a holster. A video camera on a strap is slung over one shoulder and rests on her hip.
She has thick black hair down past her shoulders, with faint glints of light sparkling like starlight. Her eyes are ice blue and her antennae are powder blue. She is of modest height and build.
Standing toward the back of the crowd, others shielded her from the worst of the goo.
Once assigned the task of stopping future pranks, she begins to look for clues with the others. She uses her video camera to record the aftermath of the explosion. Once down in the recycling center, she also videos the mess to preserve clues that might go overlooked in the first blush of the investigation.
She also does a few tests of the goo to be sure it has no toxic components.
If anyone notices her and introduces themselves, she says, "I am Dr. Luanna Farella. In addition to medical training, I am a mystic with some useful spells. Let me know how I can help."
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Anock is annoyed that another medic has been assigned to her team. That's *her* specialty. It takes her a moment to find a justification for this error, but eventually she arrives at an explanation that aligns with her delusions of grandeur. Ah. An intern. Excellent. "Hello, Dr. Luanna. First, demonstrate to the team how you would go about determining if this pink goo is a biohazard, and if so, what types of exposure are hazardous. Then, our crew will be examining that hidden maintenance tunnel."
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Ah. An intern. Excellent. "Hello, Dr. Luanna. First, demonstrate to the team how you would go about determining if this pink goo is a biohazard, and if so, what types of exposure are hazardous. Then, our crew will be examining that hidden maintenance tunnel."
Luanna points to a device sitting in her medkit and says, "Already on it. I'm just doing the basic Havaeu screen. So far it doesn't look like there's anything nasty, unless you count the sugar rich nutrient poor Goo Gurt itself. I've looked at a few people whose skin came in contact with the stuff and so far, no signs of rash or damage. If anything untoward turns up, I'll consult the universal AI for a preliminary idea and follow up by looking for the latest papers on the subject, if there's time."
She adds, via telepathy to Anock, <I prefer Doctor Farella if you want to be formal, but Luanna is fine since we're all Starfinders.>
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If anyone notices her and introduces themselves, she says...
Sneaker eventually tires of searching for a Sfartinders tee shirt and finally notices the Lashunta. "Another newfriend. I knew this would be a good good day! I am Sneaker." He gives the doctor a big hug and an even bigger smile!
"I am Dr. Luanna Farella. In addition to medical training, I am a mystic with some useful spells. Let me know how I can help."
"Oooh Newfriend Luanna is a doctor! That will be useful useful. If anyone gets injured or sick it would be good good to have a medical professional on the team."
"These little maintenance tunnels can house Absalom apps. Very dangerous. You go first."
"I heard that the tunnels are infested infested with armadillos. I don't think they are dangerous though." Sneaker is clearly convinced of this rumor.
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Sneaker eventually tires of searching for a Sfartinders tee shirt and finally notices the Lashunta. "Another newfriend. I knew this would be a good good day! I am Sneaker." He gives the doctor a big hug and an even bigger smile!
"Oooh Newfriend Luanna is a doctor! That will be useful useful. If anyone gets injured or sick it would be good good to have a medical professional on the team."
"Pleased to meet you, Sneaker. If one medical professional is good then two are good good, no? Anock here is also trained in medical science."
Turning to Anock, Luanna asks, "Where did you go to med school? I got my training at Preita Space Science academy and did my intern work at Skydock on Verces."
Little has a peek into the tunnel. Lighting is dim, provided by glowing
wall panels every few feet, but without regular maintenance many of the lights have burned out. It continues for a quite a bit. There's the occasional smear of yoghurt, and pinkish footprints of a smallish creature.
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Luanna points to a device sitting in her medkit and says, "Already on it. I'm just doing the basic Havaeu screen. So far it doesn't look like there's anything nasty, unless you count the sugar rich nutrient poor Goo Gurt itself. I've looked at a few people whose skin came in contact with the stuff and so far, no signs of rash or damage. If anything untoward turns up, I'll consult the universal AI for a preliminary idea and follow up by looking for the latest papers on the subject, if there's time."
Anock nods briskly. "Very good. You have good instincts."
Turning to Anock, Luanna asks, "Where did you go to med school? I got my training at Preita Space Science academy and did my intern work at Skydock on Verces."
"No time for pleasantries. Into the tunnel, everyone. Since it's poorly lit and I have no trouble sensing things in the dark, I'll go first. Sneaker, you're with me." Anock hops into the tunnel, expecting Sneaker to be joyous at being invited. He'll make an excellent buffer between her and Luanna's nosy questions. Definitely not 'Dr. Farella'. What, does she think she's better than me? I think not!
As she moves forward, she keeps a keen eye out for traps. There's no way she wants to be covered in that nasty goo again.
Anock moves into the corridor, with Sneaker and Luanna in tow. 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 f illed with the biting odors of rot and petrol.
There's not a whole lot to see, but Anock can just make out a few slug-like vermin feeding on garbage. They're about the size of a squox, but far less cute.