This will be kind of a short write-up, as this session takes us through the rest of Dead Suns' third module, Splintered Worlds. There's a little bit of epilogue left, but to be frank I'd rather go ahead and get this up than let it sit, run the next session, and tack on the epilogue later. (also, it feels like it would be awkward to have a post that starts with some combat and then begins the next leg of the adventure)
So here we go!
So where we left off, the group had followed up on leads regarding the Corpse Fleet in the Splice, and their information combined with Waneda's intel has led them to seek out a Marrowblight named Xerantha. Xerantha lives about six miles out of town, and on the way they pass through a lovely place called Skullcap Gorge, a canyon with walls of bone and pools of acid here and there. Nothing immediately dangerous, environment-wise, but fact of the matter is Eox is a lifeless wasteland -- they built a superweapon to use to destroy another planet, and the backlash from the weapon punched a massive hole in Eox and burned and irradiated the atmosphere, and that's why the surviving populace turned to necromancy rather than let their civilization cease to exist.
So the group approaches this large hut with walls of cured skin, surrounded by a 'garden' of thin, pliable bones bent and twisted into something like bushes and pale 'flowers' made of skin and cartilage. And then there's the giant monster, an ellicoth. It's 50 feet tall, walking on its stilt-legs, with a pair of trunks hanging down -- and it hungers both for the life-force of the living and the magics that animate the undead. And it takes issue with the characters once they approach the hut.
They fight the beast and discover it's giving off radiation, which is a struggle for Zar as he has to get in close to hit it. Kech gets in close as well, though she keeps a decent distance and holds up well enough against the radiation. But they concentrate fire on it, and despite the fact that it drains some of Zar's life force to restore it's health, the group manages to bring it down. So then they turn their attention to the hut.
Virxidor calls upon his more magical abilities to become living starlight and the group kicks in the half-open door to find the hut is filled with simple furniture and piles of junk. Xerantha comes out with a rifle in hands, but starts with diving into the middle of the group. Being a marrowblight, she has these bony arm-things growing out of her back and shoulders, and lashes out at the group. But they put the boots to her, medium-style (to borrow a phrase), and she quickly gives up.
They start asking her about what she knows, and she tells them that a Corpse Fleet Captain named Zeera Vesh wanted her to kill them -- and planted clues to do so. Xerantha doesn't know what else Vesh is up to, just that she wants the group dead. She produces a datapad that has records and notes of their meetings as proof. She offers to give them a bunch of credsticks she's 'scavenged' (likely taken from the bodies of dead adventurers) to convince them to let her go, and they take the cash but also insist on taking her back to the city and turning her over to the authorities (if there's a bounty out for her, all the better).
So as the group returns to the city, passing through Skullcap Gorge again, on a natural rock staircase running alongside an acid pool, they find Captain Zeera Vesh (she's the woman with the big head on the cover of the module) waiting for them, and they recognize her as a type of vampire -- a jiang-she, often referred to in pop-culture as a 'hopping vampire.' And she's got a bit of a monologue for them as a bunch of bone troopers emerge from the walls to attack.
Petty, foolish, irritating Starfinders! All of the effort I spent to weave this deadly trap, and for what? To have you bumble through, unharmed and yet still so ignorant? Allow me to enlighten you. I am Captain Zeera Vesh, esteemed officer of the mighty Corpse Fleet -- valiant navy of the true Eox -- and you will go no farther. You've meddled enough in our plans. Now, I shall succeed where my lackeys have failed. I shall destroy you and bring glory to the Corpse Fleet once and for all!
And a massive melee breaks out, starting with N1C0 finishing off Xerantha because he knows damn well she's going to be a problem (he's right). But after fighting the ellicoth and Xerantha so recently, the group is a little concerned about the fact that they're officially outnumbered. They start in on the nearby bone troopers, but Zeera's got a sniper rifle and enough skill with it to be a major problem, so Zar activates his solarion powers to literally launch himself over to her to engage in melee. Meanwhile, N1-C0's putting his precision-shooting skills to work while Virxidor chucks grenades at them and Kech distributes her efforts to support the rest of the group.
At one point, while Zar is trading blows with the jiang-she, she manages to grab him to try and drain his life-force, at which point we have this little exchange:
Virxidor (elbowing N1-C0): "Look, look, she's grabbed him!"
N1-C0: "That's gonna be good."
And on cue, Zar unleashes a massive burst of energy before she can drain him, and that gives him enough of an edge over her that she just brings her down before she can get enough of a grip to seriously mess him up. The rest of the group (there's three of them, because we didn't have John tonight), bust their asses to take out the bone troopers, and towards the end of the fight the skeletons concentrate fire with magic missiles to try and bring N1-C0 down with them, but with no success.
And we left off there, with the group going through the Corpse Fleet solders' stuff on the way back to town, finding a computer data module that may have something useful...
Like I said, there's a little bit of epilogue and resupplying before they're on their way, but the group has effectively cleared the third module at this point and I'd rather leave off there than cover these fights at the beginning of the fourth module.
But I'll see you again in a couple of weeks, as the Starfinders move on to investigate... The Ruined Clouds!
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