Also, before I get on with it, I have an announcement! Night Horrors: The Tormented (a book I worked on), is now available in print! You can get it at the link in the previous sentence. (Which means also that the Advance PDF stuff from the prior posts no longer applies, this PDF is the final version barring some technical problem, and so forth.)
And with that, let's move on to... SPACE!
So we left off last time with the group taking down the Corpse Fleet captain and finding a data module. They get back to Orphys and N1-C0 tries to dump the corpse of the marrowblight at the Ministry for Waneda to deal with. She's more than a little pissed, because this is not her job. She takes reports, that's all. N1-C0 is just pissed and hating on the planet, leading to this exchange:
Zar: "Why are you venting your frustration on Eox?"
N1-C0: "Because of the hole in my shoulder!"
Zar: "You can get shot on any planet!"
Zar then goes on to point out that N1-C0 doesn't have much right to bitch since Zar's been bitten and implanted with eggs and other stuff more than anyone else. N1-C0 can't argue with that.
Waneda asks if they need that storage room she cleaned out to get some rest, or if they'd rather be at the spaceport fending off some creepy undead prostitutes. Everyone simultaneously goes "ugh" but figures they'd rather rest up on the ship. They still leave her with the corpse, though.
They head back to the spaceport (where it turns out there are no creepy undead prostitutes, that was just Waneda screwing with them), where the AI greets them and complains that the Eoxian AIs it's been playing cards with are all cheaters. They plug the data module into the computer and N1-C0 manages to hack it. He finds the data that had been stolen from the Devourer Cult's computer systems, where they had managed to compare what they took from Castrovel to Nyara's Prophecies and set off for a system called Nejeor. Nejeor isn't known to the Pact Worlds at large, so they can't find anything else about it beyond the coordinates in the stolen files -- which put it out in the Vast, the "way the hell out there" chunk of the universe by Absolom's reckoning. Zar's a little reluctant to go because it's likely to involve a long, boring trip through the Drift but Kech manages to talk him into it.
They pop back to Absalom Station to resupply and upgrade the ship -- in particular, Zar's been eyeing a couple of maser cannons to add to the ship, and throws in some power core upgrades to support them. After that, they take off to the Drift.
Now, previously, they've only made trips in-system, which takes less than a week. Traveling out to the Vast, though, can take much longer. But they wind up in the Drift, a transitive plane where the 'background' is blue and purple, where distances are tough to figure out visually. They see bits of other planes that have been pulled into the Drift -- a single metal gear the size of a city, a basalt throne carved with images of devils, and so forth.
After about a week, as they're observing a bunch of thunderclouds from the Plane of Air flickering with their own internal lightning, their sensors pick up a ship emerging from one of the clouds. It's a sleek green scout ship, not a model they recognize, but N1-C0 recognizes the basic design from holovids he's seen -- this is an Azlanti Star Empire ship.
The Azlanti are an ancient human (and human-supremacist) civilization that ruled over most of Golarion. A bunch of them left the planet via magical portals before a meteor hit the planet and wiped out their society. They established a colony, conquered the rest of their solar system over millennia, and now that Drift travel has been introduced to the universe they've begun expanding into a proper empire consisting of (so far) 12 systems and billions of people. They've only had brief contact with the Pact Worlds, and of the two attempts to diplomatically reach out to them, the first disappeared never to be seen again and the second was destroyed as soon as they left the Drift. So the Pact Worlds and their allies, the Veskarium, have been keeping their distance. They're known for their advanced technology and aeon stone-infused battle armor. But by and large, this is a whole 'TOS Federation and Romulans' situation.
The ship hails them.
Attention, Pact Worlds vessel. This is the Azlanti Star Empire vessel Fearful Symmetry. Surrender immediately, and you will not be harmed. In fact, you will have the immense pleasure of becoming another small part of the empire's vast populace. Refuse and we will be forced to turn you into space dust. This message will not repeat.
Zar: "Lock on and fire all weapons." <beat> "I've always wanted to say that. But seriously, do it."
The other ship begins by launching a quantum torpedo, something you can't normally find on a ship that size, but the shields hold. The crew engages with the ship and the weapon upgrades that Zar has put in peel the other ship's shields like a grape and they manage to disable it soon enough. At one point, N1-C0 wanted to capture their ship to get some of that sweet green armor, possibly even considering defecting, until he's reminded that the Azlanti are slavers who don't see androids as people. So he has no objections to the decision to just blow them out of space once the Azlanti are at their mercy. (Seriously, though, screw those guys.)
They spend a mostly unremarkable week and change in the Drift after that, emerging in the Nejeor system. It's a single-star, nine-planet system. The first two planets are rocky wastelands sharing an orbit on opposite sides of the star. Planets three, six, and eight are gas giants of various colors. The fourth planet is dotted with petrified forests and the fifth basically has all the volcanoes. Seven and nine are cold, lifeless rocks. Moons abound in the system.
The group doesn't know which planet the Devourer Cult was looking for, but it's an easy guess as there's only one planet in the system with any sort of life signs. So they head for Nejeor VI, where the scanners pick up the remains of a floating city made of barely-translucent emerald crystal above the swirling clouds of the gas giant. N1-C0, working the scanners, determines that the city is a full-blown metropolis, but he can barely find any of the sorts of energy signatures (power plants, wireless signals) he would expect to find of a city of that size. The city is crumbling in places and overgrown in others, with varying degrees of decay that look more the product of simple time rather than any sort of outside attack.
As they approach the city, they can only find one good spot to land, a landing pad made of that same crystal. As they disembark, Virxidor bets the group that this is going to be a city of crystal people who are going to burst out of the ground or something... and is shortly proven wrong when a group of humanoid, mandibled, three-eyed, not-at-all-crystal creatures wearing red hide armor with battle axes on their backs climb up from the underside of the landing pad. They draw bows and arrows, shriek in a language the characters don't know, and engage. It's a short fight, during which Zar manages to take down one of the creatures by wreathing himself in plasma, a new move he hasn't had a chance to use before.
The creatures fight to the death, and afterwards Zar takes some time to do a biological examination of one (to N1-C0's distaste) since this is a species none of them have seen before. They notice that one of them is carrying a magical medical scanner -- but it's not magitech, as such, Virxidor concludes. The scanner itself doesn't actually work -- it's ancient but advanced technology that's worn down, but they've basically used magic to get it functioning again, practically turning it into a wand. Also, one of the aliens, which they eventually nickname 'triclops,' is carrying a bunch of lichen that it seems like they'd been eating (which is all over the underside of the landing pad). It's not poisonous, but indigestible to most humanoids.
Their weaponry stands out as well, made of fine materials but with relatively crude construction. It looks like they scavenged bits of metal and stuff from advanced tech and structures and made... well, axes and bows out of it. Not quite 'stone knives and bear skins,' but close enough.
The group also looks at the landing pad, finding scorch marks that are at most a few days old and seem like they came from a ship that's been modded for speed over safety. Which, in case it needs to be said, is a hallmark of Devourer Cult ships. They start working out a plan that might allow them to communicate with these creatures with the help of some of Virxidor's magic, during which he comments:
"Elves are noted for their diplomacy." <beat> "Not me, obviously, but elves in general are known for their diplomacy."
As they talk they move past an archway that has a broken holographic sign that has a single word on it that they can't quite guess at, meaning-wise, because of the lack of context. They move into the dockmaster's building, where there's crude paint and charcoal murals on the wall of the building with images of the sun in different positions with relation to the landing pad, with tally marks next to each. N1-C0 is pretty sure the murals make up some sort of harvest calendar for the best times to collect the lichen from the pad.
While they're in there, they hear fighting outside. There's two groups of the 'triclops' outside fighting in the street. One is dressed like the ones they just fought on the pad, while the other is wearing a symbol that Virxidor recognizes as the symbol for Talavet (also known as the Storyteller), a goddess of community, self-reliance, and tradition commonly worshipped in the Pact Worlds (especially by the kasatha, who brought her faith to the Pact Worlds to begin with). N1-C0 is about to get involved in the fighting outside and then realizes that if they worship a deity common to the Pact Worlds, they might know a language or two known to the others. So Virxidor just yells out in Common[0] "Hey, any do any of you speak Common?" as he steps out. Both sides stop and stare at the group, eyes wide.
The ones in the red hide armor, who were starting to get the bad end of the conflict, take advantage of the chance to make a run for it. The remaining three, who don't seem to know Common, just back up -- mostly focused on protecting one of their number who's seriously hurt. But Kech slowly steps forward, producing a serum of healing, and manages to communicate through gestures that they're peaceful and the serum will help. They let him come close enough to try it, and that breaks the ice enough that Virxidor touches one to cast the share language spell with one, granting him the ability to speak Common (as well as Elven and Castrovellian) for the next 24 hours.
When asked, he explains that their worship of the Storyteller is a recent phenomenon, and that the people they were attacking were followers of someone called 'Huntmaster Xavra.' Also, they call themselves the kish. The group explains that they're from another world (obviously) and that they've come here seeking some cultists who want to destroy everything. This guy knows who they are, and suggests that he takes the group to their leader, Herald Tzayl, who can explain the situation in more detail. Eager for the opportunity to say "Yes, take us to your leader," the group accepts the offer.
They're lead on a short walk past assorted ruins to a cluster of buildings around a singular larger one with the symbol of Talavet recently painted over the front door. Dozens of kish are outside the buildings, tending small gardens, making repairs to the buildings and equipment. Younger kish run around, playing some sort of game involving a ball and pairs of vertical hoops on poles on opposite sides of the court. Well, everyone's doing all that until the strangers from another world show up, at which point everyone stops and stares.
They're led into the building, which has been recently converted into some sort of temple, where they meet a kish woman with robes and a colorful headscarf, Herald Tzayl. The kish who's been leading the group around explains to her that he's been granted the ability to speak their language via magic, and as it turns out Tzayl can cast the same spell. She uses it to share the language of her people with them (and, in turn, Virxidor shares Common with her).
She quickly brings up the recent troubles with the recent appearance of the Devourer Cult. They showed up asking questions about something called a Stellar Degenerator, and when they were shown to the great temple to seek knowledge from the Vault of Tales, they desecrated it and attacked the kish, killing a bunch of people, before they left. Afterwards, Huntmaster Xavra, advisor to the local Chieftain, sealed off the temple from everyone for the sake of protecting it from more outsiders. As the Temple Found (as it's called) and the Vault of Tales within are meant to be open to all kish to seek out the wisdom of the ancestors, Tzayl argued against this rejection of one of the kish's most-sacred traditions. The Chieftain sided with the Huntmaster over her and she was exiled, but many of her neighbors joined her as they started establishing their new home here in these buildings (which someone -- I'm blanking on who but might've been Kech -- recognizes as having been once a set of condominiums with an associated community center).
After her exile, she was guided by visions of a wise woman who told her a story about how she would be instrumental in holding her people together and ensuring the traditions of the ancestors would remain strong. She still reveres the ancestors, of course, but Talavet has shown her a way forward and she's taking it. She's no longer dreading her banishment but sees it as an opportunity. She believes that the group may be part of her story.
But in the meantime, there's still the issue of the temple and what the cultists found there and how there's no way to get Xavra to let them in. But Tzayl does know that there are other ways to get into the temple. She doesn't know what they are, but she's heard the voices of the ancestors speak of them. Perhaps the group could go to one of the sacred sites where the ancestors' voices are heard, prove their worth, and then learn a way into the temple. While venturing into these places is a sacred thing for her people, no kish have done so in at least a year -- and perhaps if Xavra or his followers were more pious, things would be in much better shape. She doesn't see any harm in letting outsiders attempt the rites, though, as that may help them understand the community. There are two such sites that may be helpful.
First is the House of Renewal, a "place of healing or silence" where kish make a pilgrimage when they are suffering from some illness. They step into the chamber at the heart of the building and based on the judgements of the ancestors they are either healed (sometimes even better than they otherwise should be) or never seen again. Tzayl, however, has heard rumors of corruption of the site.
Second is the Maze of Ghosts. She's quick to point out it's not as scary as it sounds, though. It's where the ancestors' visions are the strongest, and kish go there to meditate to commune with the history of the city. If the visitors' motives aren't pure, the ghosts don't appear.
After some debate back and forth, the group decides to seek out the House of Renewal first.
They follow Tzayl's directions to what appears from the outside to be a clinic of some sort, though massive chunks of the building have clearly collapsed. They go in the front door to find what's universally recognizable as a waiting room (the moldy furniture and the little sliding window where you're supposed to go and sign in give it away). It's decorated with murals depicting kish with obviously physical injury, and others with dark halos (which represent spiritual maladies, according to N1-C0). There's also a pair of kish warriors in the unadorned red hide armor. They get ready to assault the group on-sight, and Kech immediately tries to de-escalate. She manages to get them talking, and they reveal that the past outsiders severely wounded their friends who've come here for healing. But Kech can tell they have their doubts about whether their friends are pure enough to be healed. Despite their paranoia, Kech convinces them to let them pass.
Virxidor, looking for trouble, starts scanning for thoughts in the area and scans the kish's minds -- at which point he senses they're thinking about a trap they laid. He goes back to ask them about it, and while they won't talk he reads their minds some more and gets a vision of a horrifying monster that the trap is supposed to stop if it gets out. He warns the group and get a mental image of the door the kish trapped, and the kish realize he's reading their minds. They try not to think about something perverted, which means they think about something perverted, and they panic and run.
The party ventures a little deeper, checking out a mostly-empty supply room and a reception desk area (the main hallway leading deeper is blocked by rubble so they have to take the longer way around). The reception desk area has a computer that's long been stripped for parts and murals of eyes watching them (which N1-C0 interprets as they eyes of the ancestors, judging the pilgrims who come here).
They move on and find a locker room. The lockers have all been picked clean long ago, and the walls are again covered with murals depicting sick and injured kish being bathed in a greenish light and stepping away completely healed. Above them, more beatific-looking kish look down from the top parts of the walls and the ceiling. Some of the walls are now part of piles of impassible rubble, but among all of that is a door with some recent crude charcoal drawings of a humanoid figure that vaguely resembles a kish with its face covered in a mass of black lines. N1-C0 figures out that this isn't merely a warning of danger, but a warning of a specific type of danger. Virxidor also recognizes it as the door that's been trapped, and upon examination they find a tripwire in front of the door. N1-C0 tries to disable it, but fucks it up and a needle-launcher pelts him so much he has to stop and recover before they go any further.
But regardless, the trap is dealt with, so they go into the next room. The room is empty of furniture aside from a small mat in the center of the floor. Everything else has been painted black and oh by the way there's a pair of monsters in here. They look vaguely like kish but horribly mutated -- think the first test with the monkey in the telepod from the Cronenberg version of The Fly. But these things, staggering around mindlessly, see the group and just lunge at them, shrieking in pain and madness. A melee ensues, one which Kech comes pretty close to being bludgeoned into incapacitation, but the party rallies and manages to bring the creatures down.
And we left off there, with them standing over the bodies of the last pilgrims to come to the Chamber of Renewal.
[0]-- Most folks are aware of the fantasy RPG concept of a 'common' language spoken by large populations of a setting (in other words, in fantasy and sci-fi movies, the language often interpreted as English for the sake of the audience). Pathfinder and Starfinder have the same, a language that in-setting has its origins in the nation of Taldor called, appropriately enough, Taldan. Taldor used to have a massive empire, but over the centuries leading up to the 'present' of Pathfinder (particularly the previous century and change), a lot of its empire seceded into smaller nations and empires of their own. <Paul Harvey>And now you know the rest of the story. Good day.</Paul Harvey>
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