Perched on the edge of the Pact Worlds, the planet Aucturn is an inhospitable place with a foul reputation, believed by many of its fanatical inhabitants to be a massive, alien womb. After receiving conflicting reports of strange psychic and cosmic phenomena occurring on the planet’s surface, the Starfinder Society dispatches a team of experienced agents to travel to Aucturn and investigate. As the Starfinders strive to unravel the source of these occurrences, persistent tectonic activity rocks the planet.
Aucturn is hatching! The end is nigh!
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Inspiration for the new album... Where are you when I need you so much?
The beautiful half-drow sprawls out on a chair with her feet up in the recording studio. Black metal roars in the speakers, a smoking cigarette and a can of beer are in her hands. It's the middle of the night, there's no one in the studio but her. Crumpled cans and cigarette butts are lying around. The rocker girl is drunk and unhappy.
To date, she has already received three messages from her producer, Shari Misraria, that according to her business plan, a new single is urgently needed. Something explosive and tough to blow up the heavy music charts.
And Yarameh does not mind giving out some new hit, but the mood to write music stubbornly does not come...
Ding dong! A new message. All right, all right. If it's Shari again, I'll tell her to go to abyss, I don't care about the contract... oh! Starfinders. So... Aucturn? The Cosmic Womb? The Awakening Of A New Chthonic God?!... Is this the plot of my songs?!!! Hmmm... I'm in business. I'm definitely in business. That's where I can get inspired... Or I'll just rhyme everything I see...
Having extinguished another cigarette butt in a jar of some half-eaten canned food, Yarameh gets up and, with a not very firm gait, begins to wander around the studio and get ready, first of all finding her heavy blaster, and only then her pants.
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In his office on Absalom Station, Patrick is watching a real time image of Aucturn on a computer monitor that is delivering the feed from one of the deep space telescopes.
We're really going to have to get a closer look at this. There's something strange going on all right inside the planet. If these quakes keep up Aucturn might rip itself apart. But why?
Patrick is quite sure the Cosmic Egg theory is so way out there that it seems rather unlikely but his research assistant and PhD student, Amy, is sure it's a distinct possibility. Unfortunately Patrick has not been able to come up with a plausible theory to fit the facts. The closest thing he has come up with so far is some sort of instability in Aucturn's molten core that's in the process of ripping the planet apart.
Currently he's waiting for a return call from the Starfinder Forum about the possibility of sending a mission to get a closer look as well as dropping a robotic probe into orbit to monitor the situation,
Just then, his computer screen chimes with the notes about 'incoming mail'. Anxiously, he opens it. Indeed it is from a representative from the Forum, informing him that, yes, a mission is being planned, there is a place for him on the roster, and his request proposal for an orbiting probe around Aucturn has been approved. Instructions for reporting are included.
He begins to get himself - and the instruments for the probe, including a magnetometer and a gravitometer, as well as an assortment of cameras - organised.
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After graduating from the Qabarat University, Gil-Oloth returned to Castrovel enjoying some well earned vacation after melding with Time.
She continues to gaze at the Stars, through a cloud of heavy smoke created by burning incenses all around her and some of the smoke ring she's doing after a sip of her hooka in an ancient temple of Ibra.
Time and Stars, Stars and Time.
The continuum is broken, more event will follow.
The End of times is comming, for a new beginning.
She's mubling as her daydream get her in a place where only her mind can go.
Unbeknown to her, too deep in her daydream, her comm is chiming.
Her daydream vision changes, the stars merge into a strange organic planet protected by a yellow-green atmosphere. As she peers deeper, the planet grounds starts shaking! Then a crack appears that become wider and wider until a gargantuan mouth appears, ready to eat the world!
Gil-Oloth third eyes opens, her black pupils become white and in a voice that is not hers, she says The time has come.
As she wakes up from her daydream, the elf stretches and yawns. A smile appears on her face as she says for herself That was a good one. I need to remember that mix of herbs and mushrooms.
Her custom rig saves the record of the recipe and it's only after several minutes that she realizes that her comms are chiming.
Oh no! It's time to go. I hope that this mission will not be too tiring.
She prepares herself for her journey to Absalom Station, not forgetting to make enough supplies of herbs and mushrooms.
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An immaculately dressed elf sits in a comfortable chair in his well appointed office. Every strand of his hair rests almost too perfectly around a face that has impossibly high cheekbones and a strong jaw. The light gray glen check three piece suit he is wearing is custom tailored to his body. A crisp white sea island cotton shirt, navy knitted silk tie, white linen folded pocket handkerchief, dark gray socks and black derby shoes complete his outfit.
Cavaler Traleth, is no stranger to the spotlight. The ambassador from the elf nation of Sovyrian on the planet of Castrovel to Absalom Station is known by most.
At the moment he is enjoying a meal delivered from his favorite restaurant, a filet of grilled sole.
His comm unit begins to vibrate, causing it to rattle on top of his desk. He picks it up and glances at the message.
"Report to the Lorespire Complex immediately."
Ixthia the Unbreakable is sitting in an improvised workspace as they pour over aged texts. Documents litter the normally organized Exo-Guardian common room, highlighting the contrast between the modern metallic room trappings and the decrepit parchments laden with ink sketches and handwritten text. Ixthia the Unbreakable gently handles the ancient papers, their copi crusted fingers tracing a stylized sigil of a sleek creature with a feathered tail. Noticing company, they set aside the file and speak with a measured tone.
“Starfinders, I have a task of great significance. I’ve received reports of a strange occurrence on Aucturn. I know ‘strange things on Aucturn’ sounds redundant, but these reports detail something unusual for Aucturn: an event potent enough to bypass the planet-wide illusion that blocks our sensors. Scanners and eyewitnesses in orbit confirm a protracted display of colored flashes over Aucturn’s eastern hemisphere just below the equator, likely some sort of supernatural discharge massive enough to be seen from space through Aucturn’s bizarre atmosphere. Some of the more superstitious witnesses are calling it divine intervention, although that seems a stretch for a planet known to invite hallucinations.
“When the light show subsided, our scanners became opaque again, but even then the illusions were… off. Contrasting images overlapping each other, like a vidscreen trying to display two different streams at once. Whatever happened down there, it’s had a real impact on the planet itself. I ask that you fly to Aucturn, dock at Grindhold’s spaceport, and learn what you can about this occurrence. Whatever it was, I know it’s important. Aucturn is a hostile location even under normal circumstances, so be careful and be prepared.”
On your way there, I'll doubt you would encounter any hostile ships, so I recommend taking a scientific vessel. Still, the choice is up to you...
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The robot sits silently as it regards the scene with its two camera 'eyes' glowing a dull red within the skull of its polished chrome endo- skeleton, the SRO appears made to create an air of intimidation and fear. A smaller innocuous-looking robot marked with first-aid and safety symbols sits next to it carrying a medkit in its hands.
"DocMedevac™ and this is a DocJr™, we're here to help. I can understand that you would require some specialist medical support for such an event, so it makes perfect sense why we are here" the kill-bot exclaims animatedly in an upbeat and chipper tone.
"If the ship we are traveling in does not have a suitable medical facility already on board I will take my new ambulance - DocWagon™ - which I can operate from a cargo bay, we will also need an additional bay for any patient holding or potential quarantine areas"
"If you have some leisure time you might want to catch up with some back episodes of 'The Doc is in!' - my hit info-tainment medical show, or perhaps put a downpayment of one of my invaluable and life-saving DocJr™ first-aid assistants - can you really put a price on peace of mind? Perhaps you might want to buy some quality first aid supplies"
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When Patrick enters, he does the copaxi greeting twirl with appropriate gestures. He also carries a briefcase.
I've been monitoring the situation of Aucturn, with one of the space telescopes, and we're baffled too. And I'd recommand a Pegasus. I'm in the process of organising an orbital probe to keep an eye of things as well.
We're wondering if those overlapping images are different realities and possibilities attempting to assert themselves though sir.
Unlike Apostae, Astrowerk never published a song about Aucturn. Nevertheless, Docmedevac brings up some interesting facts about the planet. Aucturn is the farthest Pact planet from the sun, with poisonous air, high gravity, planet-wide illusion magic, and a weird organic quality to its geography.
Most creatures indigenous to Aucturn are monstrous and violent, but some humanoid settlements call the planet home. Immigrants to Aucturn are usually cultists to outer gods or other dark powers, meaning their civilizations are often chaotic and profane.
The cultists of Aucturn have a longstanding conflict with the Dominion of the Black. Something about the planet attracts the Dominion’s aberrant agents, but mutual hostility prevents either organization from discovering why.
The strongest cult on Aucturn is that of Nyarlathotep, the outer god of conspiracies, fell secrets, and forbidden knowledge. Nyarlathotep’s faithful hold most leadership positions on Aucturn, and they assert that the Crawling Chaos embraces the planet because it’s actually the womb of a fetal deity.
Nyarlathotep does not share power. If his cultists’ assertions are true, his interest in Aucturn rests in taking the gestating god’s strength for himself while casting the planet’s denizens into ruin.
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Yarameh, covered in leather and latex, with traces of a hangover on her face, is lounging on the couch. A huge heavy bolter is placed next to her, a cigarette is smoking in her hands, and a bad smile is playing on her face.
We will not be the only ones who will be interested in this. Take a ship with more guns. We'll have to shoot a lot, believe me.
Half-drow blows a smoke ring at the ceiling.
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Patrick frowns a bit seeing Yarameh's cigarette and he makes sure his 'anti secondary smoke avoidance' cantrip is running.
I hope not Ms ... whoever you are ... I abhor violence. This is supposed to be a scientific mission.
At the mention of 'a weird organic nature to it's geology'. he opens the briefcase, pulls out some documents and peruses them.
Maybe Ms Amy is right. I may have to apologise. But a planet sized egg? What sort of creature would create such a thing?
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Cavaler nods his head as he takes in the mission briefing. His custom tailored suit doesn't even have a trace of a wrinkle on it and every strand of his long hair is immaculately arranged on his head.
"Aucturn is not a planet I relish visiting. I believe we will need the advanced scientific and medical capabilities of a Pegasus class vessel to complete this mission. What can you tell us about Grindhold's spaceport?"
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Half-drow nods at Patrick. Yarameh. The name sounds familiar. It seems that this is the local star of the underground heavy metal scene, who works in parallel as a Starfinder and makes violent clips for her songs by filming battle scenes from her missions. Her music is mainly in the genre of "religious black metal" and in her songs she often refers to the Demon Lord Nocticula.
I have another proof that there will be violence. They wouldn't invite me on a purely scientific mission... Or let's say him. She points in the direction of DocMedevac™ and makes a playful shot with her fingers in his direction, with her lips showing the "PUFF" of a shot.
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Patrick just frowns. Well ... I guess you guys do the combat stuff while I concentrate on the science. I'm Professor Patrick Messier, double doctorate in astrophysics and quantum physics as well as a technomancer.
He ponders for a bit tossing Yarameh's name through his mind. Yaramah. I think Ms Chrysalis has mentioned your name a few times. I believe she has some of your music.
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An elven woman in white toga, lies, lavishly not on a seat, but on a confortable couch.
White vapors floats around her, coming from a hooka installed on the couch and the little sip she takes from it.
The couch itself is well maintained, even if numerous cables, wires and circuits seem to come and go through it, as well as some vines that grows all around. Regularly, two mechanical arms sprout from the couch, making tea, opening cans and serving the elf.
In a half asleep voice, the elf in the couch says to her comrades May the Dreams be kind to us, May the Stars guide us to our next journey.
I listen to the Stars, I look at the Voices and Here I am. Never late, always in time.
I'm Gil-Oloth, Dreamer of the Stars. I hope this mission will not be too tiring. I don't like when they are... especially when I fall in a garbage collector...
It take six days to travel to Aucturn across emptiness of space, and from this point Absalom station is nothing more than a pale silver dot.
On day five, the ship is shaken up by the shudders as electronics momentarily go completely haywire. During that split second, a high-pitched
wail pierces through the silence of space, but heard only within everyone's own heads.
Aucturn comes into sight... sort of. The northwest hemisphere looks like an orange gas giant with an incomplete ring, while the southeast looks like a barren, jagged asteroid - clearly the mishmashed illusory images Ixthia described. Oh, and that scanner on board the ship? It's completely scrambled, no useful reading whatsoever.
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During the transit to Aucturn, Cavaler spends much of his time conversing with Gil-Oloth. Her reputation in the elven community as a dream seer proceeds her and Cavaler respects her powers.
The wail penetrates the mind of Cavaler and exposes his deepest and darkest fears. He doesn't show it on his face, but a creeping sense of doom has over taken his mind.
Doc determines the sudden electronic spookiness hit the ship in a sort of wave from bow to stern, suggesting it was caused by a wave emanating away from their current heading.
Yarameh is rattled by what she recognises as a psychic cry. No known creature capable of such an attack is anywhere in sight, though.
The settlement takes shape as the Hurricane descends: a walled commune with patchwork infrastructure laced haphazardly between round huts made of ashen adobe. Grindhold’s spaceport is integrated into its fortifications, suspended over the walls by pillars resembling hair strands the size of trees. Transmissions from the spaceport sound like a baby’s babbling pitched down an octave, but the landing docks are almost empty, and nobody seems to object to putting down the ship at one of the spaces.
Most of Grindhold is a congregation of cowled, joyless humans in respirator masks shuffling between airtight adobe pods whose airlocks open with crude retinal scanners. Streets that can fit vehicles remain clogged with meandering locals, some food trucks casually pushing people out of the way with no objection. The city has little rhyme or reason to its stifled operations, but a few locations stand out.
Outside of a larger adobe structure emblazoned with an inverted ankh made of welded scrap, a circle of humans wail in apparent sorrow while repeatedly standing then prostrating themselves against the structure. They use daggers to carve vertical scratches into the building’s walls, sometimes cutting their hands to leave streaks of blood along the wall as they collapse.
The humans seems to be speaking some weird amalgam of Common and Aklo.
“You’ve traveled astray and left us empty! Leave us not in a hauntless dark! We crawl before you! Return! Return!”
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Culture
"What do you think they mean by “You’ve travelled astray and left us empty! Leave us not in a hauntless dark! We crawl before you! Return! Return!” eh? Doesn't sound like they are talking about something nice"
Doc seems a bit concerned about these bleeding people and both he and DocJr™ turn on their red and blue hazard lights and move forward, first-aid kits at the ready. Doc scans the cultists with his MedObserve interface to see if any have concerningly low or falling vital signs.
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Yarameh walks through these streets and you can hear heavy metal roaring from one of her headphones. That is, she listens to music herself, but at a distance of ten feet you can hear not only the roar of guitars, but even individual words in songs, although it is quite difficult to understand the meaning of this growl (probably you need to be a lover of such music). However, she keeps her other ear free from headphones and seems to hear everything that is happening quite well. Adaptation...
May Our Lady in Shadows bless you, she says quite loudly to cultists sequentially in common and abyssal languages. She certainly won't leave you in the Dark alone... It would be too boring.
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Gil-Oloth awaken dream doesn't stop when they approach the planet. She seems absent from the present.
Only when she hears the desperate prayers she seems to wake up from her dreams.
Dream comes and goes, what was true before will not be today but could tomorrow. The empty Dark is just an illusion that will pass in the Chaos of the universe. What Is, could transform, What will be is not yet here. Faith is in the present.
The cultists stare knowingly at Docmedevac, who rolls in with sirens and lights, as well as the rest of the team. Before doc has a chance to act , the cultist chant “Servants of the Sleeping One! You will be reborn in Canker Slopes!”
With that, they rip off their respirators, which is not only a good way to end the conservation, but also a quite effective way of halting any life in them - they breathe deeply of the toxic air, and what follows isn't pretty to watch.
Not much later, a trio of orocorans stride upright through the crowds, dipping their claws into fleshy sacks and marking passersby on the forehead with drops of the black ichor contained within.
The three send forth a telepathic message in Aklo...
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The Doc doesn't look away, rather, seeing they have made their choice he simply watches with his robotic eyes and records the data feeds from the MedObserve Interface as their vitals fade to nothing.
Life Sci
"These are indigenous creatures that feed on Aucturn’s veins of hallucinogenic ichor and are normally feral and drug-addled, but these three are surprisingly lucid and clearly mean no harm"
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Cavaler makes sure the environmental protections on his armor are active. He then affixes his syringe stick to the bayonet bracket of his ice carbine and doesn't sling it back over his shoulder, but holds it at the ready.
He just nods at Doc's and Iseph's comments. There is a tension in his body movements that is quite noticeable.
It doesn't even take that much of Aklo to interact with these orocorans, which are immediately deferential to the group. They bow, and without anyone even asking they offer the group one of their bags, which contains six doses of ichor.
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When Dreams come true, and Nightmare plague your nights, Aklo is part of your life.
Says Gil-Oloth
Looking at the creatures she seems to agree with Cavaler
They strangely look at us as Spirit of the kind sort. What kind for them is, is hidden from me but a advantage here certainly.
She turns to the creatures and asks In how many moon the First Hunger will give Their Blessing?
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Patrick looks oddly at Gil-Olith when she says "Dreams come true, and Nightmare plague your nights, Aklo is part of your life."
What does that mean? He asks.
He also translates Gil's question to the entities, just in case they don't understand her. He's not sure he does either.
If this planet is an egg ... I presume they refer to the Hatching
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Gil-Oloth turns to Patrick and says Great Old Ones are a fraction of the Universe. If you want to embrace It, you need to be able to communicate will all Its parts.
Then after he translates her question, that she believed to said in Aklo she seems to agrees with Patrick's conclusion.
Such feat could stop the psychic force of believers to be cut from their faith. Nevertheless, they've conveyed, through indirect means, a clear inclination for our presence at a particular location.
The orocorans don't respond to Gil-Oloth questions (), but instead they point to some slopes at the base of the eartworks upon which the city's northeast fortifications are built.
Canker Slopes is a park, if by park you mean cartilaginous growths resembling wraiths turned into fleshy trees flanking the winding paths up the cliff face, and colonies of tastebud-like fungus circling veiny rivers of greenish fluid along the lowest indentations.
Right before the gate to Canker Slopes, a local cloaked entirely in rags sits propped upright toward a scenic view of the northeast horizon. When the group passes by, they mutter (in Common), “So beautiful. I can die in grace.”
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Suppose so ... that's why I learnt Aklo in the first place. But you said ... Nightmares plague my nights. Yes. I have had those and I have been seeing a Dream Interpreter for advice. As for Dreams come true .... yes ... well ... let us not go there just yet. to Gil earlier.
Now .... Agreed. Logic seems to confirm that.