Thanks for running it!
Search Posts
"I vaguely remember you pulling me into the escape shuttle and the two of us blasting free just as the Degenerator was falling into the nova storm, then good ol' Voxx grabbed us up before we got fried." Maxim sips the martini and returns the smile from Desna, affecting his biggest, 'You know, I'm famous' grin. "It's funny, because of course I don't believe in coincidence, but I started this adventure with you in exactly the same way that we finished it - adrift in a life pod after an attack by the Corpse Fleet. You know, there used to be a term for when you do something that breaks through the way things always have been and rewrites the script; we just hacked this adventure, and it can't imagine a better way to end it." As the music turns up in the Pig & Whistle, Maxim raises his glass and clinks it against the one held by Imagine. "Cheers, baby."
Maxim begins recording the conversation with Ghurd, overlaying live video of the Corpse Fleet, the super weapon itself, and the twelve suns, and beams it back to Absolom Station and also to Eox on an official Starfinder channel.
"Empire of Bones? Sounds gay. I'm the Grand Admiral of go f*~@ yourself. You can take that thing coming out of your stupid mouth and shove it straight up your bony ass. I got bad news for you, Ghurd - you're too late. This massive space turd is already getting flushed down the drain. But you're welcome to come along for the ride. You look constipated. Maybe I'll just power up the weapon one more time and give you the most thorough enema the galaxy has ever seen." Maxim leaves the channel open but begins the refueling process again.
"Here, get one of me in front of the window flipping off the Omenbringer. That's perfect. I wonder if they'd mind a chat." Maxim pokes at the translated console and opens a hailing frequency to the Corpse Fleet flagship. "This is Grand Admiral Maxim Petrovich, commanding the Stellar Degenerator. To whom do I have the displeasure of speaking with?"
"How about a game of Chicken? We wait, and either the Corpse Fleet will lose its nerve and get out of here, which gives us a chance to escape, or they don't, and we either shoot our way out or take them all with us when this entire sector of space falls into the supernova. I'm game either way, because you know who's really afraid of the ultimate death? The undead!"
"Why not? A god can be a lazy ass like the rest of us. Somebody built you a big gun, wouldn't you shoot it? Oh yeah, you just did! Anyway, that can be the final chapter of my book, if I live long enough to write it. Let's get the f**@ out of here!" Maxim re-engages propulsion on the Stellar Degenerator, nudging it in the direction of the inevitable supernova. "Hang on Voxx, we're on the way!"
"Of course they did," Maxim acknowledges while enjoying his fifth helping of hors d'oeuvre. He's unimaginably impressed that Imagine has managed to create from the aether an approximation of foie gras with quail egg and a cranberry chutney on sliced baguette. The paired wine is equally passable, and the hours fly by. He even enjoyed the conversation, and was about to suggest they get horizontal, sans clothing, and see how well their parts interconnect, when Voxx spoils the penultimate moment. "Alright, smarty-pants. Now that we're outside and staring down the boneheads out there, what's your plan for recharging the main weapon and nuking the stars?"
Maxim laughs. "Yeah, what the hell. Let's go blow some shit up."
"You want to refuel it? I thought we were here to destroy it?"
"Huh," Maxim hums at the depleted energy store. "Is it ironic that this thing blows up stars but probably needs a star's worth of energy just to refuel every once in a while? Seems counter-intuitive. I suppose anyone with enough time could trickle charge it. The Eoxians could probably make use of it, but these cultists are wasting a lot of effort. Which reminds me, I wonder what happened to the Corpse Fleet. Hey, I think this must be an Engineering console." Maxim breaks out his kit and begins disassembling the console. He may not speak Kishlean, but he knows the language of wires and circuit boards intimately, and they are the same regardless who built them, only the size of the switches is sometimes different. "Alright, let me see if I can fool the firing mechanism into thinking the targeting control is active. It should be possible to overload the weapon by preventing it from discharging at a target, so it will blow itself to pieces and give us a few minutes to get the hells out of here."
Yeah: I caught that too. For additional perspective, each of the Twin Towers in New York weighed 500,000 tons.
"Haha, I don't know. I kinda want to see what it can really do. Probably a super bad idea. Maybe there's a self-destruct. That's just the sort of useless thing I would expect to find on the craziest weapon in the galaxy." Maxim pokes around the bridge, not really sure what he's looking for, but hoping it's obvious.
"That reminds me, I always intended to buy a whiskey flask. How did that slip my mind? Well, the sooner we do this the sooner we can get out of here. Hey, look at this control - it reminds me of a thing. Like, it doesn't quite look like a human hand, but if I do this..." Maxim places his hand on the control, spreading his fingers to match the alien appendage.
Maxim settles back into the captain's chair on the bridge of the Sledgehammer. He should have sprung for the deluxe seat with the cup holders and the ergonomic lumbar support with the heated massage. He regrets spending all that money on weapons systems now, since they will likely not be going toe to skeletal toe with the Omenbringer afterall. "Well shit," he mutters, avoiding the broken spring jabbing his leg. "These cultists can cram it. Let's punch them in the teeth, wreck the doomsday device, and be home on Absolom before bar close. And if we only accomplish one of those things, I vote for the bar. "Voxx, take us in."
Maxim takes a break after all the shooting stops. "Alright, let's get what we came here for and put an end to this."
Maxim dashes back to the building in pursuit of the android.
When the Android returns to earth Maxim rushes in for a swing. (Haste Circuit for move + full attack)
With the bots blown to bits, Maxim focuses on kicking Android butts.
But biffs badly. "Balls!
I assumed you attacked with your solar thingy, which is melee. And as you have to walk over, you only get one attack. And the first one wasn't a hit. I have a Haste Circuit that I said earlier I wasn't turning off, and since we have moved from one encounter to another, it makes sense that I would leave it on. So I can move and get 2 attacks.
I missed it with a crit?
"It's hard to get good help these days." With Gorn smashing one bot, Maxim goes after the other, landing a solid hit.
Fully Photon Attuned.
Encouraged to see Imagine join the fight, Maxim lunges for the next bot and takes a couple whacks at it.
Maxim swings The Morning Star at the flying robot, lamenting that these little bastards wouldn't just come out and play when he asked.
Photon Attunes X1.
Onward to room D11.
"Alright!" shouts Maxim, stalking around the corpse of the dwarf and turning his attention toward the rest of the complex. "Who's next? Who wants a little? Come on out and get some while it's hot! Let's finish this right now, so you can all get killed and we don't have to come lookin' for ya! Ha? Anyone?"
Maxim moves to flank the dwarf and takes a two-handed swing. "Your mother was a hamster!" Graviton Attuned X3.
"Well that's new, scowls maxim as he takes a shot against his armor. "Reminds me of the old days when these jerks used to know how to fight. Or maybe we didn't know how to fight." Graviton Attuned X2
"Gal-f+~+itall! I can't hit shit!
Hey Voxx, we walked right into another fight.
Maxim sighs, knowing Gorn is right, and this little fellow is going to have his head turned inside out in the next minute. What a shame. Haste circuit to move into melee and full attack. Graviton attuned x1.
Maxim keeps his weapon and haste circuit activated and goes to kick in the double doors to the room at the south end of the complex (D11).
Thought there'd be more to it.
Is there an introduction to this next space, or should we just start exploring?
With another mighty swing, Maxim again connects solidly with the cultist he hit the first time. "We should be getting this on video," says Maxim as his cultist is turned into mush. "Then we can just show the next group what we do to crazy types and save everyone the trouble of getting killed."
Maxim energizes The Morning Star and takes a couple swings at the nearest cultist.
The rewarding feeling of making a truly devastating strike never gets old.
"Right, an airlock. Ok, no problem."
Maxim finds himself confounded by the simple device. He's completely off his game. "Gorn, have a crack at this."
"I forget, what is this place again? No, nevermind. Let's find those robots and blow this place." Maxim makes tracks for the far side of the hangar and the smaller doors.
"If only we had a smaller ship," Maxim grumbles. He makes the short jog over to one of the green lit doors and searches for any other way to get through.
Failing that, Maxim stands within arm's reach of the door and detonates his Supernova ability.
Maxim is not having a good day with his eyes. Must have got misty with all the death of ancient civilizations. As if. For lack of a better idea, he steps up to the red door and knocks.
"I guess we can't annihilate the bad guys from the ship this time. Too bad. Any sign of any other ships or recent activity?" Maxim asks to no one in particular. Then he realizes he is the science office, and lazily melts out of the captain's chair and slides behind the scanning console.
"I got nothing. Let's set down close and you guys can do your thing."
"Alright, I'm sold. I might have suggested just nuking the facility from orbit or reducing them to ash in their own ships by the twin laser cannons on the Sledge, but this is probably the most fun because it's the most dangerous. I'm ready when everyone else is."
"Why wouldn't we just wait for the cultists to return here and then ambush them, destroy their control board, and save the galaxy?"
Maxim stands triumphantly over the inanimate object he just defeated. But then the AI mentions that they now need to go fix some maintenance bots. We're being sent on errands, he sighs. "Osteth, where are the primary controls that open the Stellar Degenerator’s demiplane?"
Maxim grumbles and steps up to another terminal, knowing that this effort crosses the line of insanity.
Maxim steps away from the terminals. "This isn't going to work. I figured when that holo-dude said 'countermeasures', he meant homicidal holograms would be popping up and we could kinda kill 'em. But this is a different game we are not equipped to play. "I don't remember him saying we needed to take care of Eltreth in order to track down the raiders; this is just sort of a favor, and honestly, feels like a really big ask considering he's promised us nothing in return. Let's skip it and get back on task and find the Desperate Hunger. No sense in dying for something that doesn't help us anyway."
Maxim punches the computer terminal and looks sideways at Gorn. "Well, that didn't work. Should we just trash this place?" |