Twilight's Peak - Conclusion
This
note is from the Jul 14, 2013 session and was mostly written by Carl
with input from Kay and I. The photos and rendering are mine.
Location: The Planet Fulacin in the Rhylanor Subsector
Imperial Date: 282-1103
We left off last time
on a cliffhanger - Kipenzi was bitten by a enormous spider as the
octagon was invaded by a team of armored troops, the door to (we
believed) an Ancient facility/ship had opened during the fight with the
spider. We went through on grav harnesses, seeing the 'light bridge'
from the epic slanting upward over a river and dumping onto an entryway
with two doors.
Since the door had shut as we came in, we were at least a little bit optimistic about having a few minutes before the armored team caught up with us, and at least a little bit hopeful that the doorway would not open for them - if it was on a timer, we figured we were in real trouble
As we settled onto the entryway, which was uncomfortably cold, both doors opened when people came near them, and closed when no one was near, so we didn't expect to get locked in or out, and briefly we split the group. Into the left of the two doors went Kipenzi, Medicus and Fig, while Sam and Leon grav-belted down and up the passage, finding a few tunnels emptying out onto the area (at least one had spider webs in it) and that the river both begins and ends going or coming from underground. No direct passage out that way, but the tunnels would be a fallback escape if needed.
Medicus dealt with Kipenzi's bite, which had begun stinging more than expected just from a bite, while Fig kept lookout, and about the time Sam and Leon finished their perambulations Kipenzi was stabilized and as out of danger as possible. As they returned, the bridge glowed red and disappeared. That epic, miserable to read as it was, is looking less and less like the ravings of a space-sick man.
Time to see if there was anything in here that could get us out of the monstrous pickle we had gotten into. Lest anyone think we forget lessons learned, each of us had a small bag of nuts and bolts to throw into rooms, through doorways, and so on. One person with an electrical scar is enough...
Kipenzi kept saying, "Find the holo-globe, we may be able to tell if the Skylark 2 blew up".
The corridor we had entered, lit similarly by very bright ceiling lights, opened onto a large room with a few interesting features: There was a large round dais with many pillows just off center, a barred doorway on the far side, and on the river side was nothing at all... On closer look, and especially since Sam and Leon told us there was NOT an opening as seen from the outside on the river/chasm side of the door, we found that it was a one-way wall looking out into the cavern/river area. We could see that the circular vault door from the other side was still shut.
Kipenzi used the portable x-ray scanner to check out the walls, but no discernible readings came up. Hopefully the armored folks would have the same difficulties if they made it in.
On the far end of the room was a doorway-sized area with vertical bars, similar to the bars we encountered in our exploration of the passages coming down. Beyond it appeared to be a corridor, with gauges and dials on the wall. Plaques with unreadable text accompanied these. At least this room was warmer than the entryway.
Kipenzi made sure her portable camera was on and recording everything we encountered, and we continued onward. On closer inspection, the meters and gauges do not look like the ones from Yorbund, and after the bolt check she tried to get the bars to part for access. Surprisingly, these appear to be some sort of memory-material, bending to allow access and then returning to shape. We considered this a definite plus if someone came in after us.
Down the corridor, filming all the gauges and text, and in a bit there was a room to the right, another likely further on, and what appeared to be one more at the end of the corridor. No one can make any sense of the text on the walls.
The first room down the corridor had several rectangular indentations in each wall, about the size of a queen bed, and examination showed us that each was a null-G area. Handholds in each would have allowed the occupants to maneuver. Ceiling lighting was as the other room. A golden five-leaf cloverish shape was on one of the walls, but nothing we did to it (including trying the Droyne coynes) gave any perceptible results.
Down to the next room, very similar to the previous - more alcoves, closer to twin bed size than to queen, and this wall featured a heart shape next to an inverted heart shape. We got nowhere with this one either.
The corridor ended in a room with a large circular area, lower than the floor, and a vent in the center. Air (lest it be forgotten, the air in here was just what the Fulacin air would be like if the metals were removed from it) was being sucked out of the room (vents on the walls allowed inflow as well as the doorways) - we postulated an air scrubber or at least a recirculator.
Off this room was a smaller square room with a deep area in the floor. At the bottom (about 200 meters) was a very bright light source, putting out high UV as well as visible light, but no noticeable radiation.
Down around a corner, and lo and behold, our first real objective. The text of the epic had spoken of a big Fulacin globe, and here it was. We had hopes of determining if the Skylark and the air/raft were still outside, and perhaps get a clue as to what might be in space.
Between an obvious control panel and the globe were 4 chairs. When someone sat down a control panel came up in front, much like a student desk.
Medicus sat first, getting a control panel in front of him, and some data on the globe. A white dot shone at our location, and a similar one at both the north and south poles (hmmmm, some nontrivial drooling at the thought of two more of these installations. The display and the panel went blank when he got out of the chair.
While Fig tried to understand something about the large panel on the wall behind the chairs, the others sat in all four chairs. With each person sitting more information appeared on the globe, till it was teeming with data. After some experimentation Sam found out that he could zoom in and out, and we learned a fair bit about our situation.
The Skylark is still where we left her, but the air raft would have to be replaced if we survived.
In space there were two large ships, with orbital path shown and predicted. Both seemed to be coming toward us. These were identifiable as Zhodani Shiva class, 600 ton warships, and each was accompanied by two fighters.
Experimenting more, Sam found how to make a gray sphere appear on the globe, and maneuver it. When placed over one of the larger ships, the ship vanished from the display. Almost immediately the other ships started evasive maneuvering, but Sam got two of the fighters. About that time Fig suggested trying to fine-tune the sphere and just get the engine, because a Zhodani ship stuck in orbit would be a pretty good support for our reporting this if we got out. Sam was able to do this, but the ship was already committed to re-entry by that point and would crash. He at least got one of two remaining fighters.
Kipenzi was able to focus the globe down to our area, and could estimate that there were four people setting up some apparatus just outside the circular door.
About that time, Fig heard a different sound from the left of the instrument panel, and almost immediately he was on the floor, slumped against the panel. Enter on the scene a group of DroyneZillas, huge for Droyne, about 7 ft tall & muscular and they were clearly warriors. Exit from the scene Fig's backpack, upper body clothing, body pistol, and mechanical arm. Without the mount for his arm, he started to bleed profusely and began to go into shock.
The rest of the crew set down some of their weapons, with the rest disappearing like Fig's did (although none of them were stripped semi-bare) and were 'detained' briefly, by a total of 24 Uber-Droyne.
Medicus took good care of Fig, and he was at least able to stand alone and maneuver about, but still missing that arm. Recollections of his last Merchant Marine trip flitted through his mind (Fig lost that arm to a bomb on his last Merchant ship), and thoughts of...
A GREAT BIG STEAMING DUMP ON THE ALTAR OF FORTUNE
...went through his mind.
The Warrior Droyne took over the chairs, and quickly determined what was going on. Fortunately they classed us as non-combatants, but not the troops outside. They brought up a display that highlighted all ships on the world, including the wreck of the Gyro Cadiz some 450 Km away.
It took them about half an hour to learn enough to communicate with us (warriors did that. Good gadfrey what must their scientists have been like?)
Four of them headed to the front door, to deal with things as needful. i.e. the pesky Zhodani commandos trying to get in – short version: disintegration and our conversation progressed.
The atmospheric taint on Fulacin was part of the defensive setup the Ancients had established, and these warriors are NOT pleased that it was being mined for its metal content. They further bored down into the hangars at the spaceport, showing that there is one more 600 ton Zhodani Shiva Class ship there as well as some freighters. We explain they are not our friends and that their being here is an act of war against our Imperium. The Dryone don’t care about the imperium but we discover that the Droyne med-scans of our DNA show them that we are “from projects” of theirs.
They fully scanned us too, and expressed some real interest in Medicus's biology (not particularly interested in the rest of us, but isn't it always the tall folks who get the attention?)
We learned that they were cloned, and a little about them and their society and times. Their leader was named Yaskoydray, and their time was about 300,000 years ago. The transparent wall and the bridge were put in an estimated 40,000 years back, as was the raised dais with the pillows. They had no clue who or why. They were in stasis from 300,000 years ago and didn’t wake up for the 40k year old additions.
Medicus got a full scan of their biology, and Kipenzi continued videoing everything possible. They told us "You are descended from other projects - mixed genetic material" and that Medicus's ring (the one that glowed and vibrated during the spider attack) is a key, but not one of theirs. Gack! Just as one mystery resolves another leaps out at us.
The ring did NOT open the door, which was tied to some specific telepathic message or frequency (translation was ambiguous at that point) but they were really surprised we got in. None of us are telepathic (I think we knew that, but it was good to be sure).
All the Zhodani were dead by the time our talk finished, and we learned that this is a base, not a ship. They have no idea what happened to their bosses (the room with the larger beds was for the boss level) or the rest of the facility staff (smaller beds), but the facility was active when they went into stasis (300,000 years ago).
The war of the Ancients was multi-sided, not ancients versus some enemy, and all sides were Droyne of various factions. We found out that the Yorbund facility may have been from a different faction, it wasn't on their map - hmm, go back and look for more tech?
We spent about a day there in all, and they told us we should be gone soon, away from here. At some point they gave us two disks, grav-lifters of some kind. Fortunately they are small enough to go up the stairs, and we learned the basics of how to use them, with the advisory that they do more than just lift things.
They said their time was done, and told us again we should be gone. We asked for 6 hours grace time and that they cover our backs, and they agreed. With 4 hours out to jump distance that seemed reasonable at the time.
As expected, the air raft had been reduced to a pile of wreckage.
Returning to the Skylark, we got our first indication that not all was going to go smoothly on our egress from the system. One of the outer doors was open...
We approached carefully, and decided to enter in pairs via the rear access doors and move forward carefully, clearing as we went, with Sam on the wing outside the opened door. It was likely that the SuperDroyne took care of all the (presumably) Zhodani ground troops, but this was a bad enough field trip and as careful as we could be was what we wanted. The maintenance droid was shot up, and the keypad hatch controls by the opened doors were all broken. The ship was a mess, with personal gear scattered about, all of the lockers open and even the food canisters opened. We found no serious damage, it just looked like the ship had been roughly searched by someone in a hurry.
After about 4 of our requested 6 hours, we felt confident enough to get airborne, but not sufficiently good to go into space, so we took the ship for a short jaunt of 160 Km or so, during which Medicus reported some disturbances in flight dynamics due to the damaged door, and the rear-facing cameras showed us a large grey sphere, briefly as well as a sudden atmospheric disturbance. Kaboom!
We landed about 160 Km from the former Octagon, and started a double (and if needed a triple) check of everything. We had, at that point, over 6 weeks of life support that we could use and still jump safely to Rhylanor, and felt no pressing need to leap off into the void with undue haste. Suiting up into VACC suits, with no plans to remove them till we were on the ground at Rhylanor, up we went after a couple more hours.
With no reason to not continually look at everything, we all kept our eyes open and kept on checking things that we, or other folks, had already done, with Sam confirming the jump calculations, and about an hour from jump distance Leon found a small surprise that was left for us. There was some sort of a device wired into the jump drive. Getting out to the jump distance, we parked, indefinitely. Everyone who had any degree of knowledge about the engines was back looking at the package, a small satchel charge, and the conclusion was that the device was set up to activate AFTER we went into jump, and would interfere with the jump drive system in a way that would make it impossible to come OUT of jump space.
In a weird, sort of depressing way, this was flattering. The only reason they could have had for a trap like this would have been that they considered it possible that we would get away.
With Sam keeping an eye on the sensors, and knowing we could sit here for two months if need be, Leon, Kipenzi and Fig checked, looked, looked again and scratched their collective heads. We were as sure as we could be that there was no secondary device, and after much consultation Kipenzi, using Fig for a third hand, disabled the device successfully and dumped it out the airlock.
A few hours later we jumped for Rhylanor, scheduled to arrive on 294-1103.
Continued in Interlude at Rhylanor
See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma
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