Hey there, folks, sorry this is coming in so late but I've been busy with stuff and scheduling-wise the holidays have been rough for getting people together to play. And for most of that time, I didn't think I had enough material to make a full blog post, but upon sitting down to type this up I realize it just beats my standard threshold, so here we go.
With this post, we begins the sixth and final volume of the Dead Suns Adventure Path, Empire of Bones. So let's get to it.
On the controller moon for Gate 1, the computers take in readings from incoming ships and the opening of the demiplane containing the Stellar Degenerator. The Degenerator itself is a conical vessel over a dozen miles long, with a series of ridges running along the circumference in a continuous spiral. It looks like it's been carved from a block of some type of stone, all sorts of antennae, weapons, and control structures jut from the exterior. A dish-like energy collector (*cough*deflector dish*cough*) protrudes from the tip. Everything's powered down, but it still gives off an immense energy signature and hums with destructive potential. (Incidentally, the scanners can find the origin of the chunk that was carved off to become the Drift Rock, as there's an appropriately-sized spot where a piece has been removed from one of the aftward ridges amid a handful of hatches that look like docking bays.)
Among the incoming ships, one in particular stands out. Leading the Corpse Fleet incursion is a flagship that is at least 6 miles long, probably longer than any of them have ever seen in their lives. They're pretty well outgunned, but automated systems on the various moons are popping out and driving them off, and it looks like the group could use that as cover if they leave the moon.
Of course, while they could leave, there isn't an option that doesn't mean leaving the Corpse Fleet with days of potentially-unfettered access to the Degenerator if they don't do something about it now. The readings suggest that the arrival of the flagship gives them another option for destroying the Degenerator: take control of the ship and pilot it into the damn thing, and kill two birds with one stone.
There's some brief discussion of whether it'd be worth destroying the Degenerator or taking control of it and trying to use it themselves (which is a little awkward, because the good-aligned party members haven't actually been able to attend game in some time), but rather than risk having to race the Corpse Fleet to whatever controls it has, they figure they're going to have an easier time getting onto the flagship itself. Besides, they're reasonably sure they have enough data from the Degenerator that they might be able to reverse-engineer it, given time.
The party hikes back towards the landing pad where they parked the ship, and see a Corpse Fleet vessel pass overhead and in that direction apparently planning to land. With a bit of warning, they quickly throw together a plan. So Virxidor disguises himself as a type of undead called a varkulak and Zar just makes sure his armor is as sealed as it can be -- and given that it comes close enough to the Corpse Fleet's aesthetic, they decide to pretend that Virxidor is actually a Corpse Fleet agent who has killed the Starfinders, take their stuff, and enslaved the dragonkin (and presumably the other party members who've been t-posing in the corner without their players present).
And they put some effort into selling this story when they encounter over a half-dozen corpsefolk[0] marines coming through the jungle between the landing pad and the control facility. And it's dodgy as to whether or not they believe it, especially when one of the marines mentions 'Admiral Nashal' which they figure out is a classic 'see if the guy catches the mistake' ploy. I'm blanking on exactly when/how it came up, but they also had to take a moment and figure out the most likely name of the incoming flagship to convince the marines but they sort it out based on what they've heard about the Corpse Fleet -- it's the Empire of Bones, one of the few Blackwind Annihilators (a model of Eoxian capital ship, think something equivalent to a Super Star Destroyer) in existence, built during the Gap and one of the first to go rogue following the Absalom Pact.
But they do indeed manage to convince the marines of their legitimacy and get on their 'stolen' ship (the Void-Crowned Queen) and take off. They emerge from the atmosphere and see the pitched battle going on around them as defensive weapons fire at the Corpse Fleet ships, and it's not looking great for the old Kishaleen turrets in the long run -- they were built by a brilliant civilization that was really good at finding ways to kill people, but they're also countless millennia old and some are falling apart. But Virxidor runs some scans and determines that all of the chaos and debris is definitely clouding the Empire of Bones' sensors, and the ship could probably sneak past and land on the hull and go undetected for at least a while. The simplest way in looks to be parking on the side and climbing in through an open hangar bay, which is protected only by a minor force field to keep out debris.
They head for the Empire of Bones, telling the marines 'accompanying' them they need to take the prisoners to the main ship and do a debrief and such. The tricky part, then, is getting by the cruisers between them and the capital ship. Especially when they get hailed with requests for authorization codes and such. Getting past that requires a combination of Virxidor faking communication systems glitches to provoke a "Y'know, that sounds close enough" response from the Eoxians listening, Zar using drugs to suppress the life signs of the characters (to protect against scans), and Malesinder copying the flight patterns of the other Corpse Fleet ships, but they do manage to pull it off without having to engage in combat.
And then we leave off with the Void-Crowned Queen slipping past the Empire of Bones' defenses and clamping to the hull, with the group ready to sneak in through the hangar bay.
[0]-- I've probably mentioned this before, likely back when the group was on Eox, but 'corpsefolk' is the polite term for what traditional Pathfinder/D&D has referred to as a 'zombie lord,' a fleshy but intelligent and free-willed undead.
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