The away team of Saia, Ashina, Culhayn, Solsantharis and Soneau finishes getting geared up in the shuttle bay of the Starhawk before exiting and walking the 60 yards to the Gnome's ship.

It definitely looks like a Gnome ship... it has a few hundred extra parts attached to it all over the hull. How many of them are functional is anybody's guess.

It kind of looks like one of the children's amusement that has a magnet that you drop into a small tank of metallic items and the child tries to get what he wants but almost never does. Someone dropped a metallic ship into a huge junkyard of parts just to see what would stick!

The ship is at least as large as the Starhawk... under all the scrap... but looms much larger in the eerie lighting of Drift Space.

Expected yet not expected, the Away Team finds themselves in low tight passages once they climb up the steps into the interior of the ship.

It takes them a minute to realize that the ship was built to normal specifications but that the Gnomes (who else?) have attached a wide array of 'supplemental' equipment to the bulkheads and ceiling... and sometimes even the floor, thus making the corridors smaller than they should be. Of course, this doesn't bother the Gnomes.

Sol found the interior of the ship to be highly amusing, though he could easily see that he'd get quite frustrated with it if he had to spend any time on it.

"I suppose some of us should go to engineering to make sure everything is working," Sol said as he picked his way down the passageway.

"I can take the food to wherever the Gnomes are. Ummm... just where would that be?"

Accustom to being among the shortest on a ship Saia actually bumps her helmet into the ceiling hard enough to be noticeable before she remembers to duck under the things dangling from the ceiling.  Setting down one of the two crates she had been hauling through the planitoid's low gravity she transmits some instructions through her armored suit's com system.  Leaving her personal life support system active to save the gnome's depleted ship any unnecessary work.

”Anyone good with machines head aft and look for an engine room, we will bring the food forward and look for the crew quarters and or bridge, leave everything to big to carry easily here, we can come back for it.”

"Roger that. Though I guess we don't have any machine wiz with us right now." Culhayn had no problem operating lab equipment, but the inner workings of machines were beyond him. Also, he certainly was better with living things. It was quite probable that this was just an average run-off-the-mill rescue mission, but one shouldn't lower one guard. Specially on the Drift. And Culhayn wanted to be with the others when they met the gnomes.

"I guess that leaves you and I, Ashina, to check out engineering," Soneau says to the last member of the away team.

"I doubt if there's anything wrong, just out of fuel as they said. Gnomes are one of the few species that still use thasteron for fuel."

As Soneau gingerly picked her way in the direction she perceived as aft, she couldn't help noticing all the gadgets and stuff.

"One of their problems might be all these additional and extraneous machines. A lot of them look active but don't actually seem to do anything."

Out of the shadows a figure appears. If the dim headlamp didn't give it away, the glow of it's skin would have. "Oh! Hello visitors! I'm so glad you're here." I flick of his wrist sends the light out of his headlamp up to provide better illumination. He's dressed in a simple brown poncho with brown pants and a brown wide brimmed hat, his skin has a light radiant purple cast to it with obvious bleached white hair as the roots show a regrowth of red. A prosthetic arm hangs over one shoulder, the palm resting against his chest, he doesn't seem to be missing any appendages.

"Welcome to mining expedition 7 zeta 1 alpha. The others will be so happy to see you. Where are you from? Lashuntas? Oh you all are so pretty. Do you like gems? I like gems. What's you favorite color?" The gnome's questions are rapid fire and barely give time for a response.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:44, Sat 15 June 2019.

Ashina and Soneau wend their way aft to the engineering center. They spot no one along the way, nor anyone in engineering when they get there.

There's a good reason for that, as well: there is so much extraneous equipment attached to the walls, ceiling and even the floor that there's almost no room for a living person.

However, there are a dozen colored lights through the space, and around two dozen blinking or flashing lights.

After a minute or two of consideration and evaluation, Soneau decides that there's no way either of them can reach the main control panel to get even a reading. So she starts disconnecting equipment that are in the way.

Considering the condition the ship is in, not much else can go wrong.

The question then is: where to put the disconnected equipment.

"Pleased to meet you," Sol said to the Gnome.

"My name is Solsantharis. We've brought you some supplies."

"We are here to see if any of you need medical assistance, and if there is anything we can do to help your ship."

"You said your supply ship is over due. How long overdue is it?"

Culhayn had, for a long time, had working relationships with people of other races. And he has learned a fair bit about the different social cues and cultural aspects of dealing with some of them. Gnomes were an inventive bunch, and prone to bursts of activity and curiosity. Great guys to have on a lab, terrible people to coordinate with.

Without letting his suspicious drop, the bioengineer tries to not ignore the gnome's question, all the while pointing out to the urgency of the situation. "You can call me Culhayn. I believe there will be a time for all this questions to be addressed, good miner. But right now, we must ensure that you all are safe and sound, and ready for a rescue attempt."

"Most of the crew is out scavenging for anything they can find," the Gnome says. "I am Boddynock, chief miner and engineer 2nd class."

"Well, we don't have much of a schedule as you'd call it. I mean, no specific date. It's hard to keep track of time here in the Drift, if you know what I mean. We were expecting it sometime last month... I think. Might have been the month before. So, it's at least a month overdue."

"I mean, we have supplies left, but we've run out of fuel. We can keep life support going on the Drift differential engine, but it doesn't have enough power to take off."

"We ain't starvin' yet, no, sir, but the captain was getting a bit worried, which is why he activated the distress beacon. It was a long shot anyway. Didn't think any ship would hear it here in the Drift."

"We can go to the mess hall. That's where everyone is staying to conserve life support. The scavengers will return to there."

As he talks, he pulls an object out of his pocket and holds it out for everyone to see. It's an uncut shiny red gemstone about the size of a grape.

"Rubies! We think there might be sapphires, too, but we've only found one small one so far. What we really hoped to find was a vein of gold!"

He leads you down the corridors of the ship to the center. As he opens the door to the mess hall, he says:

"Oh, hey! You are back already! Find anything useful?"

Indeed, there are another 5 Gnomes in what apparently passes for the mess hall. All five of them are dirty and dusty. Three of them are probably female.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:52, Thu 27 June 2019.

As the other gnomes file in what first leaps out is that they are much more muted than Boddynock. These gnomes look defeated and annoyed at the other gnome, but as they finally take notice of the lashuntas they visibly brighten, each of their visages at different magnitudes.

"Who are you?" One asks.

"Are you here to save us?" Another pipes up.

"Don't be silly Zima, we aren't that bad off."

This leads to an argument as they each, talking over the others, voice reasons as why they do or do not need help. It isn't a loud argument, just a muddled one as their voices blend in their chaotic debate.

Saia puts up with the babble and the distraction for a while, but an outright argument is the last straw.  Slamming her armored open palm down on one of the tables hard enough to dent it visibly the echoing boom fills the room.  Into the silence that follows she speaks clearly but in her usual quiet polite tone as if nothing had happened.

”We are here to assess your use of the distress beacon, if we discover that you are indeed in distress we will offer aid however we can, but if you would like us to leave you to your bickering we can just go.

Now one of you tell me what exactly is wrong with this ship, and if a second one of you speaks I will start knocking you unconscious until there is only one left to explain.”

In unison, the entire group turns toward Saia, they're collective colors literally draining away as they stare bug eyed at her.

There's silence for a moment as they look at each other as if they are not sure who should speak up and whether that one is going to draw the ire of the menacing lashunta.

Finally Boddynock speaks up with at first a squeak, "We," he clears his throat and tries again, "We're low on supplies and food. Nothing really grows on this rock other than elemental rock animals and a small bit of lichen and moss."

"All of which are inedible," the gnome identified as Zima pipes in

They all nod and mutter agreement before they look at Saia to see if she is about to turn violent.

"Our supply ship should have been here a week ago, and while we have some stockpiles of food, we're completely out of fuel and only have battery power left. To conserve, we've turned almost everything off."

"But you can understand how excruciatingly boring that is?" A gnome covered in way more dirt that the others adds before clamping his jaw shut nervously. This is then followed by several nods and mutters of agreement.

Saia does glare at the gnomes as they trade off talking, but as technically no more than one of them speaks at a time she lets it pass, but it is clear the margin of error is quite narrow.

”We brought along some basic survival supplies, including food, but nothing like what your ship will need to bring it up to a satisfactory living condition, let alone return home.
 Finding that supply ship will be important, anything you know about the supply ship, or its crew would go a long way to seeing that happen.”

"We don't really intend to go home," Boddynock says nervously. "We all signed up for a two year shift and just need the fuel to run our drilling equipment."

"And our experiments," another gnome adds with a sheepish grin at Saia.

The color of each gnome fades or brightens with not much of a discernible cause. Zima brightens when the food is mentioned, while another, possibly a miner, when the equipment is mentioned.

Culhayn was attentive, but then he was suspicious. There could be any number of reasons why these gnomes (and he knew gnomes could be quite eccentric) didn't want to go home, but he still thought the gravity of their situation should be obvious. There was the matter of food as well, besides the fuel - and the fact that the supply hadn't arrived should have tipped them off of something still worse having happened to their entire operation.

Something was afoot.

^{"Guys, I think something is not right"} he communicated to the other guys in the away team, telepathically. At the same time, he let his suspicion become action, and focused his mind on the thoughts of the gnomes form now on.

OOC: Culhayn casts Detect Thoughts, and he will maintain it for as long as he feels suspicious or his concentration is broken.

Culhayn doesn't detect any suspicious thoughts from the Gnomes, though there's a faint background of greed present. It's not unheard of for a Gnome (or any other species, for that matter) to get "gold fever" to the point of foolishly risking his life for perceived chance of gaining great wealth.

The theory is that if you threw a sack of gold into a volcano, someone with "gold fever" would dive in after it because the gold was more important than life.

That may be something that's come into play here. Common sense says to leave so that you can search another day. On the other hand, if they abandon this rock/planetoid, they may never find it again.

Common sense just may not be in play here.

"Really?" Sol replies to Culhayn.

"Any idea what that might be?"

"I'm not getting that. Of course, here in The Drift, pretty much everything is strange."

"Nothing else we can do here. We've given them some supplies. We can't provide fuel cause our power system doesn't use fuel."

"They don't need any repairs."

"Anything else?"

Soneau was hardly an expert in Gnomish engineering... hell, she wasn't sure any Gnome really was!

She and Ashina had removed over a dozen devices that didn't seem to be doing anything, disassembled another couple before she could even get to the main engineering console.

As near as she could tell, the Gnomes had attached one device to get a bigger reading, and then put another device on that one to bypass it, and another one on that... etc. Presumably each device had been installed by a different Gnome engineer.

"As near as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with the ship," she informed Ashina, "other than it's out of fuel."

"Which means they are stranded here."

She decided to contact Captain Zenith telepathically and inform him of the Gnome ship's status.

~~There is nothing mechanically or electronically wrong with the ship, Captain. It's just out of fuel.~~

"I'm suspicious by nature and trade, and gnomes aren't the most stable and easy to understand of creatures. But both the prospect of death by hunger and lack of supplies as the notion of having boring last days should have been terrifying for them, I guess. And that does not seem to be the case.

They may just be all that into the prospect of mining, but paint me suspicious of that."

Culhayn answers, telephatically.

The gnomes are thankful for the help and start dividing up the food equally. Well at least in portions, but one gets more of one thing than the others causing the group to fall into a steadily growing haggle session.

During this, an older almost completely greyed out gnome makes his way stiffly over to the away team. As he does he scowls at the haggling gnomes and moves up. "Good day, I am Gerbo, the head miner here. Thank you for your help. I was just talking to your ship and they seem to be willing to go looking for our lost supply ship. I think it would be prudent if one of us went with you so that they know you're not just some random brigands. I would offer up Boddynock as he's my second."

Watching the gnomes squabble among themselves very nearly sets Saia off again, until the only reasonable one finally steps forward to take charge.  When he makes his suggestion she answers him directly, then heads back to the shuttle to avoid witnessing any further chaos.

”Good.  Send him to the shuttle and we will take him with us.”

"Very good," Gerbo says before turning and yelling for Boddynock to get his things. The others look up and see the fuming Saia and collectively gulp and haggle much quieter.

Boddynock, the vibrant gnome from before, jumps up and nods, hands his share to Gerbo, and quickly leaves to apparently grab his gear.

It takes him a couple of minutes, but he comes skipping up to the away team with a huge smile on his face and the prosthetic arm still over his shoulder. He's wearing a serviceable suit of protection as well as a modified static pistol on his hip.

"So, I guess that's all settled then," Sol says.

"Back to the ship."

He mentally contacts Soneau and Ashina and tells them what's happening.

"We didn't use the shuttle, Saia," he corrects her. "We landed the ship nearby and walked over. We didn't need the shuttle."

"You shouldn't let the Gnomes' squabbling upset you. It distracts you, makes you... well, forgetful."

Soneau and Ashina make their way back through the Gnome ship to the exit and join up with the others, and then everyone, including Boddynock, exits the ship and heads back to the Starhawk.

Returning to the Lashunta ship is as uneventful as it was crossing the distance to the Gnome ship.

Perhaps the trip back wouldn't be completely uneventful. Before the party can reach the Starhawk a humanoid in patch work armor with a laser rifle resting on his shoulder walks up from behind. "Permission to approach?" Oraeus calls out adjusting his helmet and letting his rifle connect to the hard point on his back near the longsword also sheathed there. He raises both hands as a gesture of peace as he looks to Boddynock and the Lashunta around the gnome.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:49, Fri 09 Aug 2019.

”Permission denied, you can talk just fine from right there.  Feel free to take your time making it a good explanation you won't get a second chance.”

Turning to face what could be either the worst ambush in history, or some sort of cleverly concealed plot Saia seems to be in no mood to further risk this little expedition.

"Your aggression has been noted and is unnecessary. Boddynock will vouch for me." He says with a shrug.  the man bows his head "I am Oraeus Phetumn. The gnomes allowed me to come with them so I could study the area they are mining. I was supposed to leave with the supply ship as my time here is done." He walks forward crossing his hands behind his back. "I was hoping to gain passage with your ship so I can continue my studies."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:11, Fri 02 Aug 2019.

Boddynock nods his assent to what the scholar had said, "Yes, everything he said it's true." Then he whispers with his hand up to his face, "Please take him. He's soooo boring. Doesn't talk much, always working and refuses to play Kat'ka."

Saia doesn't look happy about it, and her ire is mostly focused on the gnome.
”Very well I won't leave you stranded here, but I will be informing the Captain that you are a likely security risk, expect to be confined to your quarters for much of the trip unless you can prove yourself useful in some spectacular way.”

Turning back in the direction of the ship she doesn't so much lead them there as not bother stopping them from following her.

((OOC: Pfui. Wasn't thinking straight. Should have continued the search for the supply ship in this thread. Oh, well. Maybe we'll get back to this one...))


Under the ever-watchful eye of Saia, Oraeus accompanies the team back to the Starhawk. He's assigned quarters with Solsantharis.

The captain is thoroughly annoyed for a moment when he's informed of this other 'hitchhiker'... but then he just laughs.

"Since we seem to be finding everything else out here," Zenith says, "I'm going to interpret that as a good sign that we'll be successful in finding Golarion!"