As the ships approach the moon, Ayce reports over text-comm.  "Atmosphere human normal.  No biohazards detected.  Scant vegetation or other simpler life signs.  Still nothing accurate on mammalian life."

The ships land on a wide plateau with good visibility in all directions.  The northern edge of the plateau angles down until it meets a rising terrain providing a natural ramp about a mile long off the table top.

The whole region is dotted with these plateaus, columns, and other formations.  The region is five hundred kilometers wide and looks like some kind of washed out canyon, except that there are no canyon walls marking the edge of the region.  The plateaus just stop.  Open desert dominates the south and east.  To the north there is scattered vegetation, something attempting a sparse forest.  To the west there are some flatlands for a couple of hundred klicks, then the moon's freshwater ocean.

Django disembarks down the boarding ramp on the Falcon, with RX behind him. He takes in the scenery, glad to breath air that isn't recycled, and scans his surroundings and the horizon for any signs of life or dwellings.

As everyone disembarks, they begin to look out over the edge of the plateau for anything resembling life.  There is very little to go on other than many more of the plateaus, thick columns, and the valley floor below.  RX and Ayce spend about ten minutes setting up a small, external camp, a base of sorts while the organics figure out what to do.

{Roll Perception DC 17.  If your equipment list contains some form of sight enhancement equipment, add +5 to the roll.}

Tump follows quickly behind Django, exiting the ship and surveils the area.

22:20, Today: Tump rolled 27 using 1d20+11.  perception check.

Vyctor, Inarra, and Irin spread out around the plateau to see if there is anything to see.  The whole thing is about a square kilometer in area, but irregular.

Tump and Django, though, are the first to see the statue.  At first, the sand cover obscures the shape.  A thousand years or more of accumulation has made it almost indistinguishable from the rest of the surroundings.  However, an unmistakable eye peers back from beneath a stone-carved cowl.

The whole thing is a singular lump of proportions with a thirty-meter tall human statue on its side.  It is also the only such lump in sight from the plateau.

"Hey Irin, check this out," Tump says, pointing towards the head of the lump. "Looks like the eye of a statue."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:20, Mon 26 Feb 2018.

"I don't.. wait, now I see it.  Good thing Ronan loaded those bikes on the Falcon before, well, you know. "

Django frowns as Irin's sentence trails off. "Well get em out then" he says coldly. "We got enough ground to cover without jaw jackin' and wastin' time". He turns his attention back to the two droids setting up camp. "You two good over there?". His tone makes his question sound more like a statement.

Tump raises an eyebrow and slowly walks over to Django. Without raising his voice, and to avoid being overheard, he attempts to console the grief-stricken partner. "Easy there, ranger. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I know we've had a tough go of things so far, but it could be much worse. We still got a long ways to go in this marathon yet, and we need to stick together, else everything is going to fall apart."

He pats him on the shoulder and makes his way back over to the Falcon. "Hold up, Irin, I'll give ya a hand."

Django looks back towards the statue and gives a simple "Yeah..".

Irin looked stunned at Django's tone, but Tump snapped her out of it with his offer of help.  She trots of with him to get the bikes out.

Meanwhile, Ayce indicates that he and RX have things well in hand at the camp.

Once the bikes are out, Inarra makes a case for staying behind and monitoring sensors and keeping an eye on the droids.  Irin, Vyctor, Tump, and Django all mount up on their vehicles.  Vyctor has chosen to test out Ronan's four-legged droid mount.  With great surprise, the thing easily keeps up with the more conventional hoverbikes.

About fifteen minutes after descending the ramp at the back of the plateau, the four humans are standing at the eye of the statue.  Looking around, there are several likely candidates for artificial structures that it might once have guarded.  The largest is a rather squarish plateau that has partly been blasted away on the backside by some strange earth storm centuries ago.  Thankfully, there is an opening of sorts on this side of it.

Irin is impatient and starts to head inside, but Vyctor holds her back with an arm.  "Careful.  If this place was important to someone, there is no telling what kind of ancient traps we might find inside.  Step slowly and lightly."  He gives Irin a wink and steps in first, looking at the floor, walls, and ceiling as he goes.

{22:17, Today: Vyctor Kerr rolled (1d20+9 x 9) 26,20,13,18,18,29,12,25,26}

Irin follows right behind, her own senses keen from years of ruins diving.  She points out various potential trap locations to Vyctor in a friendly back and forth in hushed tones.

{22:22, Today: Irin Adson rolled 11,12,25,26,17,24,19,16,27}

Tump mostly bumbles his way through the initial opening. Most uncharacteristic for him, it's almost as his something is purposely foiling his attempts.

{22:17, Today: Tump rolled (1d20+11 x 9) 19,23,29,12,12,20,24,12,12}

Django walks ahead of everyone, taking in every last and fine detail.

{14:15, Today: Django Blint rolled 34,35,33,19,32,20,22,18,20 using 1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16,1d20+16.  Perception check pool}

He glances back.
"Irin, come'er a minute".

Irin trots ahead to catch up with Django.  "Captain? Did you find something?"

Django sighs, and pauses for a moment. "Look, about earlier. Sorry for snappin' at ya. Guess the stress a all this is gettin' to me, coupled with feelin' guilty for layin' Ronan low for the time bein'. It don't do me or y'all no good though if I'm treatin' the folks that have my back like dirt".

Irin looks down at the ground, a bit embarrassed.  "I...I didn't even realize that you had taken it so hard."  She places a gentle hand on his shoulder.  "Django, you have to stop blaming yourself.  We did the best we could down there.  I'm sure that Ronan will not blame you and no one else does.  That means only you are blaming you.  If you hold on to that, it's going to take you down a dark and gloomy path."  She giggles a bit.  "And give you gas."

She takes Django's hand for a moment and squeezes it.  "Cheer up!  We're on a wholly different world, having traveled through space, exploring ancient ruins...which everyone here is really good at, and learning things about our past that will help us beat these Star Demons.  Could you have ever imagined such an adventure?"

"Nah. Hell, few weeks ago, the only thing I could imagine was hauling Vyc in for a big payout and living off the grid for the rest of the cycle. But when you're right you're right. I wouldn't be beatin' myself up if I didn't care about the folks around me, but that ain't healthy either. Movin' on... what do you make a this here?" he says, pointing at strange writings and what appears to be some sort of pictographs on the wall.

Irin looks at the symbols for a moment, then her eyes go wide.  "I've...I think I've seen these before!"  She draws out her datapad and starts typing.  "Yep.  Look here."  She shows a similar set of figures, more refined and detailed, but clearly the same symbols.  "These were down in the Ant Hill Ease ruins computers.  Marked for some top secret files I never cracked."

She looks saddened for a moment, but it clears.  "I didn't bring them with me.  Those files are...lost.  But!  This means we are on the right track, right?  Tump, Vyctor, you see any of these down in the ruins on Core?"

Vyctor comes over to inspect the writings.  "To be honest, I wasn't down in the ruins for the same reasons you and Tump were."  He gives them a once over, then tilts his head and looks closer.  He pulls out his pack and draws out a projector, which he activates.  The same message from Guri repeats.  "Look behind her on the wall.  What do you see?"

Behind Guri on the wall are symbols that are in the same style as the ones Irin described from Core.  They look similar to the ones on this wall but more modern, detailed.

"I see that either our Guri is in a nicer place than this, or this holovid is as ancient as these walls. I 'spect the interior to be a bit better than whats out here though. Similar to them tombs they dug up outside of Vostak a few years back. Government shut that down right quick. I had a buddy that worked external security setting up a perimeter. Whatever they brought up, they kept hidden. Real hush hush stuff. I imagine it could have been something like this. Vex would'a never wanted anyone to be able to snoop around anythang pertainin' to how things apparently once were".

Tump squints a bit as he leans in as he analyzes the symbols. "Yep, I've seen something like that before. Pretty deep down in the ruins on Core. Looked like I was in some sort of worship center. I couldn't translate anything, but it looked like it was all tied to some sort of religion or belief system."

True to the thoughts presented, as the group explores further, they do indeed come across a floor plan that reminds of some kind of ascetic temple with meditation rooms, a main auditorium for meetings, and even open flat-floored rooms for possible melee-style training.

The place has long been abandoned and anything not stone has crumbled to dust or been scavenged long ago.  The two traps found by the group on the way in were so badly ravaged by time they would not have worked even if sprung.

However, one room provides something valuable to the crew. In the room are maps of what appear to be the star system, the moon, and the main planet.  However, the motif of the entire room is about crystals and these odd swords in the stylized pictographs all over the walls.

There are no actual crystals here, but they are obviously important.

Tump examines all the pictographs carefully before finally saying something. "Well, I think I solved it. Why they're all gone..." he says with a long pause before adding, "not much you can do when you bring some weird crystal sword to a gun fight."

His tone certainly suggests an attempt at humor.