Dead Suns – Session 31

Watch the game session on YouTube at https://youtu.be/8bC_1kQ_M40.

The crew wasted no time. They leapt into action to save the space puppy (or to eat it, in Drez’s case).

The battle begins at the 2 minutes 50-second mark on the video.

The cultists never really stood a change and were quickly dispatched. The PCs claimed their speeder bikes and searched the area. They found a mk 2 animistic amulet which was given to Cypher (to help with his aim issues). The PCs also claimed the cultists remaining mk 2 incendiary grenades and their broken golem plated armor.

Nuil tended to the space puppy’s wounds and it took a liking to her. With her archive of data on flora and fauna, she identified the creature as a velsasha. She claimed the puppy as her own.

The technomancer employed her x-ray visor to begin scanning the rooms around the ruined entrance. She found what looked like a small and a large set of control rooms. In the small room, numerous computers were tracking millions of signals all across the planet and coordinating their movements. She realized these were the robots which maintained the control planet for the massive gate.

Wesley investigated the area and found a hidden compartment with three round objects and an ancient kishaleen pistol. He identified the weapon as a disruption pistol and the orbs as temporal frag grenades II.

Wesley went the small room and as he walked across the room, a kishaleen hologram appeared in front of him. The hologram was quite rude but Wesley politely apologized. The hologram noted the young man was more polite than “the others.” It finally realized the PCs were not part of the cult and closed the door to the small room with the PCs outside.

After a small bit of debate, Wesley knocked on the door and was told to go away. Wesley tried to impress the hologram with his knowledge of engineering but it did not work. Cypher had been studying the tome on quantum dynamics so he and Nuil struck up a more sophisticated conversation. This time it worked and the hologram opened the door again. The hologram said, “Thank the First Cause. I thought I was going to be trapped here with those lunatics forever.” Nuil explained they had come over from Istamak which had fallen on hard times. The hologram told them his name was Eltreth and someone else called Osteth had been isolated here for quite some time. He told them to go into the larger room and he would join them and explain further.

It’s a trap!

A bulk of the floor in the larger room was rigged as an electrical trap. The trap went off and hit everyone but Wesley and Drez. Fortunately, the trap was an old one and had lost much of its punch. The trap knocked the wind out of them but did very little harm. Eltreth appeared in the room and was frustrated they had not all been incapacitated by the trap. He bellowed he had notified Null-9 and the mistress would be coming soon to deal with them.

Switch caught the name and demanded the hologram tell him everything he knew about Null-9. The hologram started to respond but then cut himself off. He realized he was sharing too much information.

The PCs tried to grab the hologram but could not touch him. Wesley smashed the console of one of the computer terminals. This infuriated Eltreth. Cypher stopped Wesley and accessed the computer himself to see what he could learn. Eltreth demanded “specimen x-23” cease his efforts. Cypher did a quick search for x-23 and found this was the designator for the genetic blueprints for the ysoki race. He also took control of the system’s modules which included minor environmental controls for the room and some kind of “jailing” program for computer programs.

Eltreth had finally had enough and he walked out of the room through the closest wall.

The crew debated what to so next and Switch insisted, “We have to stop Null-8… Null-9… Whatever she calls herself now.”

Ryder asked him what his connection was with Null-9 but before he could respond, Nuil spotted inbound cultists.

The battle begins at 1 hour 17 minutes and 42 seconds on the video.

A cybernetically modified half-orc operative led a small group of cultists against the PCs. The two groups were clogged in the narrows hallways making it difficult for either side to gain the advantage. Meanwhile, Cypher began hacked the jailing program. When he opened it, a second AI emerged and the hologram of Osteth appeared in the room. Osteth immediately thanked Cypher for freeing him.

Midway through, Eltreth realized the battle was not going the cultists’ way and he summoned additional cultists and shades from other areas in the facility. One of the cultists tried to escape but Ryder and Drez stopped him. The group found themselves split into three groups as the new attackers descended upon them.

The fight was a long and grueling one but the PCs prevailed. They did take some heavy hits and earned the information and loot they had acquired.

Next session, perhaps they will learn more about Osteth and Eltreth, the fate of Null-9, and what waits in the still hidden recesses of the kishaleen control facility.