I feel like every natural 20 needs to be celebrated... so, yay! 25 on the reflex save!

LeAuil was neither strapped in nor appreciably tossed as the ship jarred and shuddered around him. Instead he seemed to shift and sway in awkward counterpoint. He snatched a collection of objects from the air as he moved around, replacing them or securing them as the ship settled. "Well, that was scary! Does anyone require assistance?"

"Captain i detect a debris field of an ancient space battle. It might be an opportunity to acquire alien technology and learn more about  the two factions that clashed here. Damage reports seem to report minimal damage but i suggest an external visual inspection once we find a safe and stable orbit."

If needed he will direct the ship to a place where it can 'park' in the debris field.

While it would be possible to put the Starhawk into orbit around  the debris field, the ships  have all drifted far enough apart that negotiating the scene isn't going to be a problem. Even parking somewhere in the middle of it is an option, though it's hard to really get a good grasp of what would be the 'middle'--center of mass?


As part of the 'away team', it wasn't really Revonoss's responsibility to pilot the ship (that was the actual crew's job), but when there wasn't an away mission, everyone kind of did double duty when required.

Revonoss just happened to be on helm duty at the moment.

Sensors were able to isolate and identify probable ships to investigate, one of which was the largest ship near the center of mass. Even up close, it looked more biotech than anything else. Built like a centipede, it was a good 4 times larger than the Vesk ship. It bristled with nearly a thousand guns, and it was easy to see that it had almost as many holes in it, many of which were still stuffed with the suicide smaller enemy ships.

Of particular note, there's a major breech (possibly caused by another exploding enemy ship) at the front of the ship near where the bridge might reasonably be.

One of the nearby enemy ships has actually been sheared in half, both halves only still connected by a tangle of wires and cables.

There are no energy emissions coming from anywhere in the debris field.

"While we aren't in any hurry, we have two different species," Dranthalas points out. "Shall we send out two different Away Teams? We have sufficient overlap of skills to do that."

The computers were already analyzing and cross-referencing the sensor data... comparing the two different species much like the dimorphic Lashunta.

When the Starhawk did its 'rock-and-roll' movement upon being bashed and battered by the debris field, you might have noticed that Phelar was unaffected by the motion. She stood firmly on the deck  the whole time, matching the deck's upheaval effortlessly without appearing to even be trying.

At the same time, a look of horror, terror, and anger flashed across her face in quick succession as she stared at the vast graveyard of a long ago battle.

She pointed at the large ship.

"Defilers! Stealers! Thieves!" she said emphatically enough that the last word was nearly a scream.

"They stole Golarion for the starstone! It was not the first time. They destroyed this  civilization to get their equivalent."

Wow! That was some bombshell Phelar just dropped on them!

Sol stood there stunned for several minutes while his brain processed that information.

"I don't think that changes anything really," he finally spoke up. "We still need to collect data from both species. We just have a hook to hang things on now."

"Concentrate on one ship/species at a time. Gather, analyze, rinse and repeat."

"We still don't know who they are, where they come from, how they stole a planet, how powerful they are, or how to steal Golarion back! Those answers may be  over there on that ship. That's what we need to concentrate on."

Revonoss nods in agreement with Solsantharis and leaves his sensor desk position to get the shuttle ready for departure.

"We might not find energy signals or any life signals i do not think its wise to go with two small teams in case of an emergency."

As he passes Phelar who clearly is having another vision or revelation of sorts a stops and puts a hand on her shoulder.

"You okay darling? Your past haunting you again? The visions reveal more interesting information we can work with?"

It took Sabin a good minute to get her head back in the game; did she really see what Phelar did? She must have imagined it. "Who stole the... Golarion for the Starstone...?" Sabin was trying to figure out what about her outburst tickled  the back of her mind.


09:35, Today: Sabin Shess rolled 21 using 1d20+8 ((13)).

Alyn scratched his head.

"The Starstone? Thats..." he said, as he suddenly looked very distracted. Like he was listening to voices that no one else could hear.

After a few awkwardly long moments, he snapped to attention.

"Isn't that some large stone thing that people thought could make you into a god or some silliness? Well then again, maybe not so silly given I got spat out of a wormhole and am on a galactic quest with aliens from another reality to find a missing planet. Except I'm probably the alien from another reality instead!" he exclaimed.

"And I think this reality has actual functioning gods, at least that's what people believe in anyway. I can't tell what's a god and what isn't if you get real philosophical about it. but that Triune thing you guys mentioned before seems pretty up there. And someone named Desna keeps popping in and out of my head too. I think she might even be beefier than Triune, like some sort of Super-goddess. So I suppose maybe there is a stone that gives people powers." he added with a helpless shrug.

LeAuil nodded, "There are a few stones that grant people power. I have some voidstone on me. It increases the reach of my mental gifts. It is not really comparable to the Starstone... But there is not room for arguing against enhancing powers or gods and demons." he pat Alyn on the shoulder appreciatively with telekinesis.

"Are these things even ships? Might they be war beasts with mounted weapons?"

With the shuttle prepped and ready to go, the Away Team boards the ship and has time to ponder Le'Auil's question on the way to the big ship. Observations and sensors provided no better answer than 'maybe' or 'both'. It could definitely be a nebulous line between organic and machine at times.

So large is the 'enemy' ship that the hull breach near the possible bridge is big enough for the shuttle to actually negotiate so that the shuttle can land within the other ship.

If Revonoss is piloting, he needs to make a TN 16 Piloting check to pull that off.

Revonoss guides the shuttle to a proper place to land but its clearly harder then anticipated as he is using all his focus to put it down gently and thus ignores Le'Auils question.

"Well we made it. Car to find out if its an animated mass of biomatter or a self sustained one?"

LeAuil trusted his trained mind would pick up on any errant thoughts from new creatures. It had saved him from ambushes in the past and this he might know the answer to their questions. He would inform the others, "If I hold up every other finger on even one of my hands, it means I've sensed up new minds nearby. At which time I'll take a few seconds to get more information but they may already have the drop on us." Having the least to prepare to venture into the void he stepped through the airlock and would investigate their impromptu landing bay if/while the others finished any preparation. He sent thoughts through the doors, 'I will stay nearby. It is bad practice to leave mental comms range from team mates. Last one out locks the doors, eh?'

Suited up, Orlando stepped onto what might conceivably be the bridge of the monstrous alien ship. If it was, it was HUGE! Even with a third of it gone, there were still over a hundred bridge stations a-fixed to the remaining floor and walls. He did find it odd that there were no stations on the ceiling, but that just confirmed that the species was gravity-oriented, too--'down' was still down.

And there were bodies everywhere... hundreds of them!

"Are we going to take one of these bodies back to the ship?" Orlando asked over their comms. "Do we dare? The cold and vacuum of space has perfectly preserved their physical forms, but it's the microscopic stuff that worries me."

"Could their minds have been preserved as well? The layout of the bridge here suggests some sort of hive intelligence might be in effect. Could be artificial, though."

"I'll start analyzing the bodies. Anyone else care to assist?"

01:20, Today: Orlando Freedom rolled 26 using 1d20+9 ((17)). Life Sciences with Physical Sciences synergy.

REvonoss suits up and as he sends his drone out to do a preliminary scan for dangers in their direct vicinity he aids Orlando.

"I am really interested in learning just how this all worked. Phelar can you sense anything computery you can interface with?"

In reply to Sabin Shess (msg # 555):

Le'Auil does not detect any minds within range. While he concedes that these alien minds might be in some sort of dormant, stand-by, or hibernating state, that's beyond his powers to detect or evaluate or... awaken? Dead has always been dead. Even the Undead fall short of True Death.

He does get an odd impression... no, not quite an impression... not even quite 'odd'... because it's familiar, just different. It isn't until he's some 60 feet from the others that he realizes his Lashunta telepathy seems to have increased--its range is now 60 feet.

---

Phelar isn't able to do her 'machine telepathy' on this alien ship because it's 'dead', though she can't be sure if that condition is just because it has no power. She is able to get an impression that it is both machine and organic.

---

Sabin finds herself in a peculiar situation--alien life forms galore but no way to interact with them. She deals with LIVING aliens--it really is hard to negotiate with a dead person.

Still, she can study them to try and glean some insight into their culture and possibly mindset and personality.

---

Orlando and Revonoss start examining and analyzing the bodies. The majority of them are the 'aliens'--the ones Phelar identified as the Stealers of Golarion. They are some type of semi-humanoid... bug? Standing about six-feet tall, they have no legs but their lower torso is more like that of a slug so that their mode of locomotion is slithering.

They all appear purplish-green in coloration, but there are clearly variations in shade one from the other. They are hairless, have six arms (three opposed pairs of 2), three fingers with opposed thumb on each hand, and six beady black eyes arranged vertically on their face/head in two columns of three. It appears as if the eyes can look in different directions at the same time.

A few of them wear pieces of clothing, but all the rest wear either a belt around the waist or one or two bandoliers across their chest. An assortment of small tools hang from belt and bandolier, some of which might be weapons.

The other species appear to be equine-evolved in that they are zebra-striped horse-like humanoids that only stand around 5-feet tall. They have manes that range in color from black to smoky gray to white to silver.

"Care to team up on assessing these creature's culture?" Culi offered to Sabin. "How would you prefer to do it? You lead? I lead? We each do our own thing and compare notes afterward?"

"Remember, we're recording everything we see and touch. No sound, no smell."

"Someone here must have been the Fearless Leader. A ship can only have one Captain, though based on that multiplexitive 'bridge' layout, I wouldn't rule out some sort of hive or cooperative mind. I was thinking we could look around at first and try to get a general overview of... well, the whole thing."

Culi is using his wrist-comm to record the scene, zooming in now and then on anything that looks significant, important, unusual, out of place, or otherwise just interesting. In particular, that includes anything that he might be able to snag as a 'souvenir'.

"This is all absolutely surreal." Alyn said as their group made their way to and entered this weird-ass ship. It was like some pseudo-living ship a la Farscape or something. And with weird bug alien things.

While the others were looking at this scientifically, ort culturally, or psychically Alyn decided to see if he could take a maytical approach, or at least an esoteric one. His eyes flickered a moment as he assessed his surroundings.

OOC: Casting Detect Magic, and scoping things out. Just in case, on the off-chance he finds either something mystic, traces of something, or perhaps traces of somethign magical around the hull-breach or some such.

Sabin was lost in thought, though she turned to face Culi when he suggested they compared notes. "Well," she eventually started, "most of us know about the Starstone and how Golarion caged a dark god of destruction called Rovagug in its core. The existence of Absalom Station in Golarion’s former orbit raises even more questions. Was it built as a lifeboat? Was it simply a Golarion-made space platform left behind after its disappearance? Or was the station itself somehow responsible? Regardless, the mystery of Golarion leads many both within and without the Pact Worlds to still refer to the solar system as “the Golarion System.”

She pointed at one of the enemy creatures that Phelar's host had accused of 'Stealing Golarion' for the Starstone. "If these creatures, stole an entire planet in order to obtain the Starstone (for what purpose!)... and did so to other civilizations for other stones, then (they might have been unstoppable!)... we might have our first clue of what happened so long ago, but clearly Phelar tapped into one of the races that knew what happened and could do something about it. Perhaps if we concentrated our efforts on those two particular species, we could finally puzzle out what happened."

LeAuil half smiles as he feels his mental hearing expand. He lifts silently to the ceiling trying to use his lack of necessary environmental suit to help others investigate. He would add with some amusement, "I'm not keen on licking anything out here..." he communicates telepathically as he walks that surface slowly and lets the others know about the feel of the environment with the caveat.

Perhaps looking at things from a different angle will suggest other clues about these races as well.

"I never suggested you lick anything," Sabin said as she raised an eyebrow at the notion.

"I'm only seeing and detecting two species, so I think it's pretty obvious what happened," Sol answers Sabin. "These slug creatures stole some sort of starstone from the other species and this was the battle to see who would win."

"Unfortunately, after all this time, there's no way to tell where either of them came from. All we can do now is gather as much info on them as possible."

When it was his turn to exit the shuttle, Solsantharis stepped aside out there and just took in the site. He was interested in the overall impression... perhaps a bit more insight into the events that transpired here.


"Clearly both of these species knew what was happening," Sol comments further. "It was a battle to the death. What worries me is that there are probably more of these monstrous ships... not just this one."

"So, is this one of a vast fleet? I mean, just how many worlds have Starstones at their core? Of course, it could take on some other form... perhaps a ring around the planet or maybe the liquid oceans? Which then begs the question: is each ship specifically designed and built for one world only?"

"Next question: was this ship successful? Did it steal a Starstone? Anyone spot another ship that looks like this one, only smaller? This ship may have had a shuttle that escaped with the Starstone."

"Yeah, Absalom Station was searched by over a hundred groups across a thousand years. Nothing's ever been found to indicate it was anything other than a space station. Doesn't mean it still doesn't have secrets yet to be fathomed."

"What really bothered everyone was that the event was so massive that it affected even the gods and demons and devils. Do they know and won't talk? Do they know and CAN'T talk? Or do they simply not know and are keeping this from followers behind a wall of stony silence?"

"I'd normally be warning about Divine Interference but that's what Phelar appears to be already. Don't think we would have gotten this far without her. Does make me wonder why, though."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:20, Fri 16 June 2023.

Revonoss is most interested in the tools and their potential uses and collects a few samples of each to dissasemble and research at a later time stuffing them into his pack. Then he will start searching for any form of devices that might be used to operate this massive thing while he sends out his drone to look for more clues or less shot up locales to go and investigate.

Weapons defense systems and just general things that could give insight in the nature of these creatures was of interest.

LeAuil sent a mental chuckle, "I am just warning ahead of time, I can give you all a bit of sensory data you may have difficulty gathering through an environmental seal. I do have standards though."

After a few moments of ensuring a lack of unfamiliar minds within his newfound range. His unassisted range exceeded his former amplified range. It was enough to make him wonder just when it happened... and if that was all that changed.

28 perception roll