Present:
- Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
- MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
- MARMALADING: Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
- NPC: Zeraphina Althira. Zhodani Diplomat from Querion
- NPC: Finn. Cyborg from Querion
by Jeff
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Riley hadn't finished his two bottles |
The morning dawned clear and sunny, and apart from Riley's headache from last night's drinking, everyone was in good shape. The ground crew had loaded up the truck with everything we would need (turns out that they hadn't loaded 'everything' we would need, but more about that later) for the trip out to the canyons and the newly discovered Ancient site, so we jumped in and headed out. Anton was very excited that they had even equipped the truck with a mounted machine gun and he spent most of the trip standing behind the gun caressing the barrel and aiming at every passing rock and piece of scrub. "Blam, blam" he shouted as he took aim.
Arriving without incident at the cave that led to the Ancient access tunnel, we encountered the new set of guards that Contessa Ende had sent out here to keep those Montrose bastards away from the site. Riley thought the squad of eight were a bit lax and immediately sent two of them up to the lookout ledge at the top of the cliffs "to keep an eye open for anything suspicious".
Offloading the large chest that contained the "Volatile Canker" (we hoped) and our new stock of weapons, we began our trip down the tunnel. Gnostic donned the Crown of the Ancients and led us up to just in front of the ring of blood where one of the previous soldiers had exploded.
"It's red" explained Gnostic, "Active and deadly. So don't go crossing the line just yet"
Only Gnostic, and only while wearing the Crown, was able to see and use the Ancients technology that guarded and protected the Ancients site. Gnostic tried to summon the servitor that had previously assisted us at the site, but that was unsuccessful.
"Just open the way" suggested Penny.
Gnostic issued a mental command through the Crown to open the way.
"It's green" he declared, "Let's go"
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Only Gnostic could see the colours |
We passed the defence ring and proceeded down the tunnel to the Artifact room (where we had found the four Ancient artifacts, including the Crown) and then on towards the main Control room.
Gnostic placed his hand onto the palm plate and opened up the steam door into the Control room. It appeared just as we had left it a few weeks ago. Gnostic then opened up the Servitor room, and he reported that the Servitor was there and had emerged into the Control room with us. A brief discussion between Gnostic and Servitor revealed that we needed to place the required power source item into the 'receptacle' in the Power room.
"We knew that already" grunted Riley, "Let's go look"
Gnostic opened the steam door leading down into the Power room, and we cautiously advanced. The Power room was quite different from the active Power room back on Dollar, this one had no steam drifting around, no water dripping into the tank below the floor grates, and no noise. The main control unit was situated in the middle of the room, and we knew that the power source creature would be located right behind it.
"OK" stated Riley, "You take the margrave thing and that body around to the receptacle"
He was looking at Anton, who shook his head. "No freaking way am I going back there"
A discussion ensued.
Penny volunteered, and she took the margrave and disappeared around behind the control unit.
The horrible visage of the creature gave Penny a start [Jason used two luck points to ensure that Penny made her Psyche roll and didn't run screaming from the room in shock] but she quickly recovered and looked at the slumped form and noticed two gashes in its side. One shaped just like the margrave in her hand, and another quite a lot longer, but looking nothing like the grey creature that was in the crate.
"There's a gash in the creature's body that matches the margrave" Penny called, "I'm sticking it in"
The margrave slid easily into the gash, and the creature gave a jerk.
The gash rapidly sealed itself over the margrave until the area looked exactly like the rest of the body.
"Bring the chest around" Penny called.
Another discussion ensured.
"Not me" stated Riley forcibly.
"I've been shocked by that thing before" noted Spanner, "I'd most likely run again"
In the end, Gnostic assisted Penny to drag the crate around behind the control unit, opened it up, and together they peered back and forth between the body and the remaining gash in the chest of the power creature.
"This isn't going to work" declared Gnostic, "It must be something inside the body we need"
"Try the hand" called Emerse from the other side of the room.
Gnostic lifted the arm of the body and poked the hand into the gash. Nothing happened.
"Belle" called Gnostic, "Bring your scalpel and give us a hand here"
Taking a deep bracing breath, Belle grabbed her medical kit and rounded the control unit.
[Steve had to spend four luck to make Belle's Psyche roll, and Belle didn't run screaming]
Belle whipped out her scalpel, made a large incision right across the belly, and drew its odd grey skin apart. Immediately inside the belly was a long thin organ that obviously matched the gash in the power creature.
"That stinks" complained Penny.
"That's got to be it" decided Gnostic, and they lifted the strange organ up and slid it into the gash.
"Sllluuurp" went the wound, and it sealed up over the generative apthera.
Stepping back, Penny, Gnostic, and Belle watched as the horrific creature's head slowly lifted and its eyes opened.
They quickly retreated back abound the control unit and joined the rest of the party, and everyone hurried out of the room and returned to the main Control room.
"Who has woken me?" echoed inside Gnostic's brain.
"You have been woken to perform your task" replied Gnostic mentally.
A vision of a large room full of rubies appeared in Gnostic's mind.
"Can't eat those" Gnostic muttered as he scanned the control panel, noting that the engine room was now green.
"Let's get the hatch open and the detector raised" Gnostic decided.
"What about all the water up in the bowl?" asked Spanner.
"What about all the water up in the bowl" relayed Gnostic to the servitor.
"There is no water above the hatch" replied the servitor to Gnostic.
"There is no water above the hatch" relayed Gnostic.
"Bullshit there isn't" yelled Spanner, "We went kayaking on it not so long ago"
"No" responded Emerse, "There is a shaft straight up to space. We saw the stars in daytime up there"
"There might be a shaft to space, but we were floating on the water when we saw that!"
"There is water above the hatch" relayed Gnostic to the servitor.
"Inconceivable" responded the servitor.
"He says that's inconceivable" relayed Gnostic.
"I do not think it means what he thinks it means" quipped Spanner.
"Better just test it slowly" instructed Anton, and he immediately ran out of the room and away up the tunnel.
Everyone else backed off to the door to the tunnel, and Gnostic opened the roof hatch.
Immediately, a powerful jet of high-pressure water thundered around the hatch opening.
"CLOSE IT" yelled everyone simultaneously, which Gnostic did.
The water flow stopped, and the water that had squirted into the room slowly ran out through the last exit door from the control room, which led off to something called the Room of Shame.
"We need a drain" declared Emerse, "What's in that Room of Shame?"
We took a look into the passage that led to the Room of Shame, but Gnostic stopped us and pointed out the glyphs carved into the walls of the passage.
"Danger, do not enter. Room of Shame. Do not enter" Gnostic translated.
"Right then" declared Penny, "Let's not enter. Let's just assume that it will act as a drain"
"(2/3)πr³" muttered Emerse, "Bernoulli ... flow rate ... hatch about 4m2 ... height 300m"
"Four hours" yelled Emerse, "The bowl will drain in four hours"
"Right" declared Gnostic, "Lets head up to the defence ring, open the hatch, walk out to the lake, and watch it drain"
Closing the steam door between the Control room and the access tunnel, we all trooped back up the tunnel to the defence ring location. Emerse figured that if the steam door failed and the water flooded back up the tunnel, we would feel the draft and have time to exit the cave system to the canyon before any water arrived.
Standing at the defence ring (which was still green) Gnostic issued a mental command through the Crown to open the hatch. Then we all headed out of the tunnels and made our way to the lake to watch it drain.
Anton was already there, and while he reported that some bubbles had popped up some time ago, there had been no draining taking place. There was no vortex swirling in the centre of the lake, and the water level had not dropped at all.
"Bugger" muttered Gnostic.
We all (except for Anton who wouldn't go back into the caves) headed back to the tunnel and proceeded to the defence ring. Gnostic mentally commanded the Control room door open, and we rapidly backed up the tunnel towards the entrance. No draft blew against us from below. No water roared up the tunnel. Nothing.
Gnostic looked at Penny and raised an eyebrow. Penny shrugged her shoulders.
Everyone turned back and went down the access tunnel to the control room door, which was closed and not open.
"Ah" declared Gnostic, "We were too far from the doors to be able to activate them mentally"
The lake hadn't drained because the hatch hadn't opened.
"I'll need to be much closer to the hatch" decided Gnostic, "In the Control room I suspect"
"Wear the vac suit" suggested Emerse.
"We didn't bring them" noted Spanner.
"Bugger" grumbled Gnostic.
We concluded that Gnostic would need to be in the Control room, or perhaps in the Servitor room, which was immediately adjacent to the control panel, to be able to open the hatch. We also concluded that at least one other person would need to be there to assist Gnostic in case of problems (like a flood of high-pressure water), and that the vac suits would definitely be required, in case of submersion and drowning!
We retreated out of the cave, into the truck, and back to Bitter End to collect two vac suits.
A day later we were back. Anton had recovered from his temporary lack of courage and volunteered to assist Gnostic down in the control room while the rest of the party observed from the lakeside.
Anton and Gnostic sealed themselves into the Servitor room, donned their vac suits, and Gnostic issued the mental instruction to open the hatch. A load rumble immediately began beyond the closed door and the thunder of high-pressure water roaring through a relatively small aperture began.
Wiping his nervous sweat from his brow, Anton asked Gnostic how long it would be.
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The lake was draining down |
"Four hours" Gnostic replied, "Assuming Emerse got his calculations correct"
"Gulp"
Up above at the lake, the rest of the party watched as a burp of bubbles trickled up the surface of the lake and a swirling vortex formed in the centre of the bowl. The lake was dropping.
"Maybe a little more than four hours" clarified Emerse as he eyed the vortex.
After four hours the thundering vibrations hadn't subsided, but shortly thereafter they did. Gnostic opened the door from the Servitor room to the Control room. Water flooded into the room, sweeping Anton and Gnostic off their feet and swirling them towards the Control room door. Anton managed to anchor himself to something solid and grabbed Gnostic by the arm as he was swept past him towards the door.
After a few minutes the water flow stabilized, and the level slowly dropped from the ceiling down to the floor level.
"So" muttered Anton, "More than four hours"
After another fifteen minutes, the floor was clear of water and Anton released Gnostic.
They made their way into the Control room and watched the water drain away down the tunnel to the Room of Shame. Looking up through the hatch they saw the twinkling of millions of stars.
Projecting his command mentally through the Crown, Gnostic issued the final instruction to the servitor.
"Raise the detector" he instructed.
The detector platform smoothly lifted from the floor and into the hatch above, dripping water. As soon as it socketed itself into the hatch, the 3D holographic projection of the local solar system appeared within the Control room. Gnostic mentally zoomed the projection into the zone near the wreck of the Zhodani freighter around Formaline. He made out three additional ships in orbit immediately adjacent. The detectors instrumentation had tagged them as Sword World Destroyer Class ships.
"Getting busy there" mused Gnostic, "And look, there is the Montrose scout ship"
He pointed at a glowing spec in orbit around Winston.
"This is such a strategically significant site!" he decided.
Making sure the detector stayed deployed, Gnostic and Anton closed the steam doors, returned up the tunnels to the others, activated the defence ring to red, and led everyone back to the truck.
"Keep a sharp watch" Riley instructed the guards, "It's even more important than ever now!"
Everyone loaded into the truck, and we raced back to Bitter End.
"We wasted twenty hours fetching those vac suits" noted Emerse.
"Only two and a half days left to the conjunction" he added.
"Plenty of time" declared Riley, putting his down on the accelerator.
We reported to Contessa on the trip back to the compound and asked the ground crew to get the Faerie Queene ready for an immediate departure.
Stopping briefly to load up some extra cases of whiskey, Riley soon had everyone strapped in for the launch up to orbit, and then straight through to Formaline.
The trip there was uneventful, although there were musings.
"Are we sure activating this conjunction is a good idea"
"Absolutely, just think what three of those detector things could see when combined"
"What happened last time? Wasn't it nineteen and a half years ago?"
"Yeah, my freighter was hit by three explosions, and we ejected down onto Formaline"
"And old Winston Peters died in that skyhook accident about then too"
"Was there a time before that?"
"Ah, yup, some three hundred and fifty-two years ago"
"What happened then?"
"Nothing much"
"The terraforming of Winston started about then!"
"Hmmmm"
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Three Sword World Destroyers moved to intercept |
As we entered the Formaline zone, we were hailed by the Sword World Destroyers.
We had spotted them from the further out, and they had obviously just destroyed both the freighter and the Zhodani scout ship. Taking no chances!
Fiery debris still burnt behind them as they moved in our direction.
"WARNING. YOU ARE ENTERING ZHODANI RESTRICED SPACE. TURN BACK NOW"
"We're just passing through" responded Riley.
"WARNING. YOU ARE ENTERING ZHODANI RESTRICED SPACE. TURN BACK NOW""This is Zhodani Ambassador Zeraphina Althira. Put on your captain"
"WARNING. YOU ARE .... Oh, Ambassador. What can we help you with?"
"Certainly, you are cleared to land on the surface, near your survivor's camp"
Riley pulled the Faerie Queene into a low orbit above the Ancient site on the surface. Well, not directly above obviously, but some kilometres off the side of the overhead beam line. Then most of the crew suited up and boarded the air-raft. Belle and Emerse stayed up on the ship to watch over Hoff and Itzy, and to give us some cover from above if necessary. Emerse figured that since the guns were no problem, how hard could it be to manoeuvre the Faerie Queene?
"Don't you bloody touch my controls" yelled Riley from the air-raft pilot's seat.
Riley took the air-raft for a few spiral loops around the Ancient site on the way down to the moon's surface. It was just like the others, a huge hemispherical bowl cut down below the surface of the moon. No water, although the base glistened white with the snow that covered most of the landscape. Low scrub covered the surrounding plains and Stasi pointed out the location of their old camp site. Everything was covered with patchy white snow, but Riley spotted a small clearing relatively close to where the tunnel entrance to the Ancient site began.
"What about using the exhaust wash to burn back all the scrub around the clearing?" suggested Spanner.
"Good idea" responded Riley, "I can give it a crack"
[Riley's piloting skill for Air-raft is not that good, although Richard has been building it up since we obtained this one from the Zhodani survivors. At the last minute (after failing his Air-raft skill roll) Riley realised that the 360-degree jet wash burn idea would require two successful skill rolls. Fortunately making his Luck roll, Riley managed to thump down somewhat near the centre of the clearing, but without burning back much of the snow-covered scrub]
"CRUNCH"
Below Formaline
It was the vibration that alerted them to the activity. They had shut down most of their external sensor input due to the low temperatures, but feeling the vibrations from the surface they extended their sensor grid and activated those in the vicinity.
It was a Floater! The two-legs had returned! Perhaps it was breeding time again, despite the cold.
A few two-legs emerged from the floater and staggered through the surface covering towards the hive. They wondered again how the two-legs managed to move, always falling as they travelled forward. Perhaps after the breeding they could study another two-legs and see how they worked.
Viewing the two-legs from multiple units in the scrub around their path, they watched as the two-legs entered the hive-mouth. Atrocity! The two-legs were burning out the sensor grid inside the hive-mouth! A brief doubt flooded their consciousness. But, they thought, at least the vaporiser will kill one of them. They sent three units from the surrounding scrub to follow the two-legs into the hive.
Aberration! The two-legs stumbled right past the vaporiser, and it didn't activate! With a brief thought, they sent one of the units charging ahead down the hive-mouth towards the two-legs. It was time to end this.
Aberration! The vaporiser has activated and unit's input ceased. At least the other units would be safe for two rotations they knew and sent another unit to attack.
Aberration! The vaporiser has activated and unit's input ceased. This was unknown. Why had the vaporiser activated in such quick succession. Aberration. Send the final they instructed, and the last unit raced down the hive-mouth.
Aberration! The vaporiser has activated and unit's input ceased. Their input from the hive-mouth faded with the destruction of the last unit, and the two-legs disappeared from their senses. Imperative, they thought, activate more units, we must breed the two-legs!
...