“We can take it.”
“But we don’t have to take it.”
Coiling an arm around the vesk’s shoulder, Veerkea gently pulled her friend into a crouch behind the fallen tree they used for cover, directing the vesk to look at her lower eyes. “It’s not about ability, Obo. It’s about need. You,” she observed, tapping Obozaya’s armor, “are a mighty vesk warrior. But that over there is a living creature that’s done nothing to offend you.” All seven of Veerkea’s eyes shimmered with empathy as the 5-foot-tall land squid pleaded with her scaly companion. “Focus on the mission, Obo.”
“I am! Look…” Obozaya stood up and glowered toward the clearing. “We came here looking for a crashed starship, right?” Veerkea extended her legs, raising her upper eyes high enough to peer over the fallen tree. The vesk gestured with her metallic staff as she kept talking, pointing out features. “How many rocks—big rocks—have you seen out here? Not many, right? But suddenly this clearing’s full of big slabs, and I’m figuring that’s no mistake.”
Veerkea alternated between peeking over the massive trunk with her upper eyes and squatting to peer under it with her lowers before glancing to Obozaya with renewed respect. “Good eye! In fact, those might not be rocks at all, but metal plates. And that might mean we’re standing atop the starship and the power core we need.” Peering over the trunk again, she wondered, “But what might have drawn this creature here?”
They both gazed at the beast perched atop the clearing’s highest point. Easily 12 feet long from snout to tail, the creature resembled a ponderous lizard with eight legs, a barrel-like body, a forest of spikes running along its back, and throat scales that occasionally glowed faintly as though the creature had swallowed a flashlight that was desperately signaling for help. Throughout the ijtikri and vesk’s hushed discussion, the beast had lazily watched them with a half-lidded eye, apparently unimpressed by its visitors and more interested in dozing in the errant sunbeam that peeked through the forest canopy here. As if to signal its nonchalant contentment, it issued a sloppy, snoring sigh and shuffled its body slightly to scratch an itch.
With wide eyes and her voice hushed with uncertainty and awe, Veerkea asked, “Maybe we—"
“—No.” The ijtikri flinched at Obozaya’s interjection. “No. You’re going to say ‘maybe we can talk to it,’ and no. It’s a glowy lizard. You got to sing happy songs with those peace-loving slugs earlier. But with big beasts, we do things my way!” Veerkea raised her arms to protest, but Obozaya waved her off. “No arguing with my scalesense, Vee. Let’s go!” Pushing off the ground with her feet and staff, Obozaya vaulted the fallen tree in a single bound.
The flustered ijtikri called after her. “But I think that’s a plasmalisk, so we need to—”
Illustration by Michele Giorgi from Starfinder Tech Revolution
“—Fight fire with fire, got it!” Obozaya barked confidently, as she landed in a controlled somersault. Knocking the butt of her staff against the ground as she rolled to her feet, she activated the weapon, causing a trio of plasma blades to flare to life and transform the shaft into an axe-like doshko. That got the lizard’s attention. Roaring with delight, Obozaya charged forward and drove the doshko’s energy blades deep into the surprised plasmalisk’s flank. The beast staggered under the impact, but it seemed unhurt. On the contrary, the creature’s flesh seemed to drink in the energy, simultaneously shorting out the doshko and causing its body to incandesce with power. The vesk barely voiced her shocked profanity before the beast moved with impossible speed that belied its bulk, twisting and slamming its tail into Obozaya’s chest and sending her flying back toward the fallen tree.
Veerkea squeaked in alarm as the vesk hurled overhead. Acting fast, she whipped her main arms upward, awakening a multitude of symbiotic nanites that spilled from her body in a torrent. The living cloud wrapped around Obozaya, cushioning her impact as she collided with a nearby tree. Yet the plasmalisk had energy to spare. Before the vesk hit the ground, it spat a fist-sized fiery globule toward the intruders. Predicting the blast, Veerkea folded her body against the ground and propelled herself under the fallen tree, surfing atop the leaf litter to the other side before the projectile shattered against a low-hanging branch, enveloping the forest in flames. Even as fiery splinters rained around her, her nanites snagged the debris, rapidly breaking it down and using it to build more tiny machines to replace the ones she’d lost in the explosion. The flames had devastated the nanites around Obozaya, but their improvised shield was enough; though groaning in pain, her friend was clearly alive.
The plasmalisk’s roar drowned out Obozaya’s groans as the beast trampled toward the ijtikri. Nanites whirled to life in a blinding fog, obscuring Veerkea’s form as the beast bit at her in vain. With each attack, the ijtikri sidestepped, her body partly discorporating into nanomachines with each defensive leap that carried her several body lengths out of harm’s way. As she reformed each time, she made a desperate attempt to defuse hostilities. “Excuse me! Please pardon my friend’s aggression, she—! Perhaps we could—oh no!” At last, the plasmalisk cornered her, cutting off her escape with its broad tail. But rather than bite her, it stared, its eyes glowing with radioactive intensity.
Veerkea’s body exploded in pain as she began blazing with the same heat raging in those eyes, her very cells boiling from the gaze’s energy. As the plasmalisk watched the ijtikri hungrily, the nanite cloud stirred. Millions of the airborne machines seeped back into their host’s body, diagnosing the ijtikri’s distress and isolating the misbehaving tissues to limit their damage. Aided by her myriad medics, Veerkea averted her eyes and suppressed the inner flames before they consumed her. The plasmalisk seemed far less impressed. Seeing that its prey hadn’t succumbed to its gaze, it closed in to finish her off with fangs alone.
A projectile slammed into the beast’s eye, deflecting its jaws as they narrowly missed the ijtikri. As Veerkea scrambled to safety, she nearly tripped over the deactivated plasma doshko that Obozaya had just thrown like a javelin. “Hey!” shouted the bristling vesk from atop one of the rocky outcroppings. “No plasma? No problem!” As if to punctuate her challenge, Obozaya splayed her claws threateningly and growled. Intrigued by this new prey, the beast obliged, hissing angrily as it lumbered toward and collided with the vesk. The two slashed and bit each other, but with twice the size and twice the claws, the plasmalisk quickly gained the advantage.
“Something cold, please!” Veerkea called out to her nanites as she leapt atop another outcropping. She tossed a battery into the air as she pivoted toward the melee, and her myriad machines complied, neatly enveloping the battery and assembling themselves into an energy rifle that landed in her hands. “Nicely done, friends,” the ijtikri chimed as she felt the rifle chilling the air even before it had been fired. She trained it on the plasmalisk, which had pinned Obozaya’s head in place, forcing the vesk to stare into its burning eyes.
Even as Obozaya roared in pain, Veerkea fired. Bolts of bright energy impacted the giant lizard’s haunches, instantaneously draining the target’s body heat and riming the targets with scale-shattering ice. A reflexive shiver forced the plasmalisk to drop Obozaya, and another two shots from Veerkea dimmed the glowing heat deep within the beast’s body. Panicked, the plasmalisk stumbled away, crashing through the foliage to escape the painful onslaught.
But Obozaya’s wounded roar drowned out the beast’s. Veerkea rushed over the where her friend knelt on the ground, pink mist steaming from her body as Obozaya desperately tore off pieces of armor to escape the heat building internally. The ijtikri tackled the vesk, bracing her head and pinning her flailing claws against the moss while channeling nanites into Obozaya’s body to arrest the ionizing affliction. For agonizing moments, the vesk reflexively fought both the fires and the ijtikri, but gradually her thrashing slowed as her natural fortitude prevailed. Obozaya coughed smoke as she came to her senses, blinking in confusion at the ijtikri pinning her before shrugging and drinking a healing serum. “So, ah… did we win?”
Flustered, Veerkea clambered off the vesk and searched the area. “We did, yes, we won. Ah…” As the adrenaline subsided, she began piecing together the puzzle. “The plasmalisk seemed to be basking, but it was clearly drinking in strong energy sources. If this the starship and power core we’re looking for, maybe the creature was drawing energy not from above, but from below?”
“Like a heated rock?” Obozaya had regained her feet, picked up her dented doshko, and staggered over.
“Exactly,” confirmed Veerkea as she continued her examination. “To a plasmalisk, this probably seemed like an oasis, perfect for warming up or… oh…” Confused by the ijtikri’s sudden silence, Obozaya came over to investigate. The beast hadn’t just been basking atop the buried starship’s hatch; it had been incubating. Several shells littered the concave hatch, atop which hissed a foot-long plasmalisk, puffing its body in a feeble threat display.
Spreading her arms to loom over the infant, Obozaya silenced the creature through her presence alone. She grunted dismissively. “Runt of the litter, last to hatch. Well, hope its instincts are good. C’mon, run off to wherever your siblings scampered.” She nudged it with the butt of her doshko to clear the way to the hatch.
Veerkea pulled the doshko to one side. “That’s not how this works, Obo,” she chided. “You picked this fight. Needlessly. If you’re so ready to take a life, you need to be ready to save a life.” The vesk let her head loll to one side in exasperation, like a toddler suffering a lecture. “And it’s not a runt. They were,” observed the ijtikri, pointing to the other shells.
“Wait.” Obozaya’s attention had snapped back to the nest. "So the clutchmates hatch and fight, with the victor eating its siblings?"
Veerkea bobbed sadly. "I know, nature can be cruel."
But Obozaya shook her head with newfound respect. "No, I'm hearing that this is a born, blooded warrior.” She scooped up the eight-legged lizard that wriggled in protest. “My scalesense doesn’t lie. This is a survivor! A worthy companion! A—ow!" Instinctively wary of large predators and displeased with being handled, the baby plasmalisk latched onto Obozaya's finger with its needle-like teeth.
"Hylax rejoices, Obo," laughed Veerkea as she helped disentangle the creature's teeth and eight legs. "You just made first contact."
About The Author
John Compton is the Starfinder Senior Developer at Paizo, Inc., having joined the team after years of creating organized play adventure content. He has written extensively for Pathfinder and Starfinder, including adventures, setting content, and rulebooks, and before working for Paizo, he was a teacher, practicing archaeologist, and archaeometallurgist. You can find John on Twitter and Paizo-facing Discord servers @Archaeotagh.
About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.
