Adventurers Amongst the Stars IC

[Dodgeson]

With Pixel's abilities spreading across the whole of the Empyrea with the aid of her new gizmo, one of the most wanted ships in the galaxy began to descend upon the planet. Luckily for the rag tag group of adventures inside most planets had largely scaled back their physical monitoring efforts in favour of a mechanical solution and the few people that would normally still be watching the skies were currently far more preoccupied throwing off the chains of their oppressors.

The jungle was hot and humid as they disembarked from the Empyrea, something that wasn't a problem for the planet's current rock skinned owners but might prove annoying for others who weren't so used to and from there it was a case of simply following the directions that their employer had supplied them with, cutting their path clear with whatever tools they had to hand through a maze of twisting vines, the sounds of the wild never more than a few feet away but vanishing in to nothing if anybody strayed from the path to investigate.

Eventually they would arrive at their destination and it looked like a warzone, all around the clearing the tattered remains of tents fluttering on heavy lattices of thorny vines whilst thousands of credits worth of advanced scientific equipment lay shattered and broken amongst the dirt. Scattered around the place were jagged outcrops of rocks, that would seem almost completely out of place, until one of them started wheezing and coughing up a wisps of flicking energy that crackled as it dissipated.

Spoiler: Perception DC21

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You're not alone, you're being watched from the jungle around the edge of the encampment

[Quellian-dyrae]

Spoiler: OOC

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Routine Perception for 25.

Tager looked around at all the ruined science tech. Not a great sign. Didn't appear to be any bodies though, which was somewhat encouraging. It meant the search team might have escaped, or at least been captured rather than killed.

But while ascertaining the status of the search team was a primary mission objective, at the moment it was a secondary concern.

"We're being watched," Tager said softly. "They're hiding in the jungle. Not sure how many."

Heh. Hiding in the jungle. Tager's orange-and-black hair wasn't just for show.

He started poking about the camp, picking up the odd object and examining it before setting it back down, studying tracks, and so on. He went over to one of the out-of-place rock outcroppings and started circling it, looking at it from all angles. And you know, it was weird. He didn't like dart for cover or anything like that. It was just that at a certain point, the watchers would just...lose track of him.

I'm sure it was nothing. His explorations had likely just taken him behind some object. Someone else probably had eyes on him. Right?

Spoiler

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Routine Stealth for 30 using Hide in Plain Sight, then slip off into the cover of the jungle and start getting a better look at whoever's watching us. Tager has Darkvision.

[Izzarra]

After the ship lands Pixel uploads into her drone and pilots it out into the jungle with the group.

Spoiler: Perception Roll

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(1d20+8)[19]
Edit: So close. Oh well, QD made it.

She begins looking over the broken tech to see if there is anything worth fixing.

[metakirb]

As the group departed the ship Calla was already prepared, cutlass active in hand to cut a path. When they arrived she glanced around, more interested by the out of place rocks than anything else.

Strange rocks lying around on a planet of rock people? I think we’re looking at some locals.

And then one coughed up some energy. She started walking over.

Looks like we have a live one. You need a hand?

[SuperCracker]

On the list of positive things about having an ancient alien armor hard-wired into your nervous system… John never thought that air-conditioning would be on the top of that list. But here we are! Walking through the jungle, John had his full suit up and set on Life Support. Suck it, intergalactic nature walks. As John moved through the jungle, the HUD systems of his helmet did an amazing job of mapping out the jungle, vines and all. John paused at the edge of the excavation site, zooming in with his visor to inspect the things left behind. Then Tager said they were being watched.

“Well, if they’re lookin’ at us, we might as well tell ‘em...”

John quickly punched one hand into the other, producing the force he needed to bring a barrier up around each of his squad-mates. You know, trust but verify and all that.

Hoping his translator microbes worked here too… “My name is John Young of the Planet Earth. We come to you in peace.” First time he’s said that. Usually he gets shot at before he can do the typical first-contact spiel. “We just want to talk.”

[Dodgeson]

The four creatures observing them were strange looking indeed, humanoid in shape they had rubbery green skin with long arms whose long thorn-like claws nearly dragged against the ground, their faces were almost featureless except for a pair of deep black eyes and a purple flower atop their head, if they had noticed Tager they certainly didn't show it.

When John spoke up they seemed to confer wordlessly with one another, gesturing as their flowers began to change colour and a mixture of scents floated through the air, quickly bringing their discussion to a close (and still unaware that they were being observed) they started to retreat, moving back deeper in to the jungle.

Back in the clearing the survivor hacked and coughed as Calla approached him with yet more energy leeching out from an enormous gash in what had once been its chest. "THEY GOT TO HIM!" He cried out, what was left of a rocky hand clumsily reaching out to try and pull the pirate closer "THE PLANTS! SHOULD HAVE KILLED THEM WHEN THE GOT THE CHANCE! THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HARMLESS!"

Looking around what was left of the camp, what remained of the equipment didn't seem to be in much better shape than the rebels were but that wasn't as much of a barrier as might have been for someone that had Pixel's way with machines. Most of what could be salvaged was simply boring technical data about the nature of the surrounding area's geology and the like but amongst the damaged files she would be able to find a series of notes along with a small digram of what looked like a structure submerged in the ground along with a crude map leading deeper in to the jungle

Spoiler: From the Desk of Professorman Graff

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7.5/Blawq/07
I miss my office...I miss air conditioning, we better find something out here.

9.9/Yarz/05
We've finally found something, this is going to make my career. The natives have started to poke around the dig site but our escort is doing a good enough of keeping them from doing any real harm.

9.9/Blawq/07
The Malachord's are starting to ask questions and I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I think they're starting to guess what we've found. What have I gotten myself in to?

[Izzarra]

After hearing what the rock person said "Wait, are the plants going to attack us?"

[tonberrian]

"We should aid these people. Do we have any medkits?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Tager quickly weighed his options. While he did have some solid tech skills under his belt, he couldn't do the sort of stuff just that he had seen Pixel do. Likewise, he didn't have any medical training. Wait, the rock formations were people? It was funny, Tager had accepted the notion of rock-like aliens without thinking much about it, but his imagination had still cast them as fundamentally similar to naians, with relatively minor physical differences. Like, just naians who had evolved from rocks, as little sense as that made. It was a weird bias, but given how similarly the various naian races had all turned out despite the vastly different creatures they had evolved from, he had just...not even assumed, but taken for granted that they would look like basically-normal naians with some clear rock-like characteristics. He hadn't yet been exposed to a wide enough assortment of alien life for that bias to have been corrected, at least without consciously thinking about it.

(Seeing the plant people, with their rubbery-green skin and the flowers growing for them, smelling their conversation and recognizing it for what it was while knowing he had no way to actually comprehend it, was helping with that, though.)

Regardless, far as he could figure the rest of the team was more than sufficient to handle the campsite. Keeping some distance, he whispered into his commlink, "Observers are kinda plant-like people. They're withdrawing. I'm going to follow them and see where they come from."

And off he went, slipping through the shadows after the retreating plantfolk, making sure to stay downwind and taking a moment to cover himself rather liberally in some mud and soil from his surroundings, which he would periodically refresh as he went. Tager had found himself in a rough spot once when his stealthy trickery had been countered by the keen nose of a canid opponent, and canids didn't communicate by scent. It was thus only sensible to assume that these florids (as his brain nicknamed them by sheer pattern-matching) had a sense of smell at least as keen as felid hearing, which meant that if he wanted to track them long-term, he had to conceal himself from noses as well as ears and eyes.

[metakirb]

Treating injuries isn't really my strong point.

Calla glanced around again.

Anyone see any bodies besides the Rock people? I'd expect our dig team to be made up of some other species. They might still be alive. Kidnapped by the attackers maybe? Taken them as hostages for ransom? Or as guides to the main dig site?

She leaned back as the rock creature tried to grab her.

Who'd they get to?

[tonberrian]

Kana Te moves toward the nearest of the rock people, using her mystical powers to provide healing to the rock-person.

Spoiler: OOC

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I forgot i had a healing power. Derp. (1d20+10)[21]

[SuperCracker]

Killer plants murdering the dig team and the rock people. John mused, “Hope no one brought a red shirt to change into.” John was not a medic. Sure he had some skill with medicine, but he truly doubted it extended to a mineral’s anatomy. Knowing that he isn’t going to be much help to Obi-Wan, he engaged his thrusters and lifted up into the air, high enough to get a bird’s eye view of the area and where Tager and the things may have gone.

[Dodgeson]

Kana-Te's mystic powers flooded in to Malachord, its rocky carapace slowly knitting back together, unsteadily he started to get to his feet, whilst he was now missing an arm at least he wasn't leaking a stream of crackling energy into the atmosphere any more.

"Hey, you lizards are alright." He said, swinging a rocky hand to slap the psychic on the back "They got to that Slime Weasel Graff! Him and his bookworms! They're in with the weeds!"

From high above John now had a clear view of his surroundings, from the jungle that stretched out in all directions until it hit the savage results of the Malachord's strip mining and even to the war stricken arcology beyond that. Another scan of the surroundings would catch something that very nearly escaped his notice, tucked away beneath the trees was a squat structure constructed from a series of enormous stone steps leading to the peak of a pyramid.

---

The plant creatures moved through the jungle like they were part of it (which to be fair, they were), almost threatening to lose Tager amongst the vines and trees a few times before they reached their destination, a small enclave of scattered buildings built from vines and trees and flowers. Once they got there they immediately sought out a diminutive blue humanoid in beige helmet and jungle attire.

"What? People? Where are my cards?" He said as they gestured wildly at him, one of their number starting to sketch crude pictures in the ground.

"Right here Professorman!" A purple skinned girl with tendrils for hair rushed out of one of the buildings holding a series of coloured paper.

"Thank you Calra" The small blue man replied, taking the sheets and beginning to engage in a clumsy game of charades with the creatures, the coloured paper substituting for his lack of a flower.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Tager, crouching in the shadows watching from the outskirts of the camp, started putting things together.

It was funny. He hadn't really noticed when their employer had mentioned the temple was owned by some of the world's flora, or had called what he had taken to be their cities "arcologies". Thinking back on what they had been told, things were starting to make at least some degree of sense.

The geoid - no, wait, the Malachord - had been yelling something about the plants "getting to him". And this blue-skinned fellow had been called Professorman. That suggested the non-florids here were the science team. Presumably, they had switched sides from the Malachord rebels to the florid natives. Whether willingly or due to some sort of coercion or compulsion was yet unknown, but the Professorman didn't look like he was under any duress.

But why had they not simply reported the change to their employers? The Malachords had simply been security, as far as they were concerned. If they had struck a deal with the florids, that shouldn't have been something they needed to hide. Perhaps it was just that their communications equipment had been damaged in the fighting? That was certainly plausible.

"Tracked the flori- uh, the plant people to their camp," he reported over comms, keeping his voice low so it wouldn't carry to the camp and risk giving away his position. "There's some other folks here with them that are more colorful can most piscids, I think they might be the original archaeology team. One of them referred to another as 'Professorman'. The plant people seem to be reporting to him, but I can't understand their form of communication. Pretty sure they informed him of our presence though. Going to hold here, see if I can get the Professorman alone."

[metakirb]

So do we know where they’ve gone? Or should we head to the dig site and see if we can bring something back for our employer?

[SuperCracker]

Over comms, John said: “Huh… that foreboding pyramid looks foreboding.” He relayed a photograph of what he could see to everyone’s commlinks because a picture’s worth a thousand words.

He picked up on Tager’s whispered transmission and tried to look in that direction.

“Do they seem hostile? Who knows what any of these folks are up to. Rock people, plant people, Dr. Belloq over there,” John said, tossing in an Indiana Jones reference no one would get.

Deciding his best use of time would be checking things out, he flew towards the Pyramid structure.

[Izzarra]

Hearing the Malachord speak Pixel checks her Translation Matrix to see if there are any problems. Slime Weasel Graff?
Diagnostics show it is running properly. Must be an obscure speech pattern or something.

She throttles up the engines on her drone and moves into a slightly better position to provide support to John or Tager in case something happens.

[tonberrian]

"What is going on?"

[Dodgeson]

"I'll tell you what's going on." The Malachord rumbled, slowly making his way towards the treeline, before stopping mid-stride and disgorging a crackling stream of energy in to the jungle, more to vent his own anger than anything but it did at least start to cut a path for his hulking form through the trees.

"I'm heading back to the dig site, those bone kickers and the Weeds have got hell to pay."

---

The crude game of charades, doodles in the dirt and the waving of coloured papers that Graff was having with the plant creatures eventually came to an end, and they started to leave (though Tager would note that they weren't going back the way they came) whilst the smaller man headed back in to one of the buildings and threw himself back in to pouring over the sketches, rubbings and otherwordly alien trinkets that lay scattered around the room.

---

Approaching the pyramid it was probably more or less what years of movies had taught John to expect, there were a smattering of tents erected near the base of the structure for the smattering of archaeologists who were working around its entrance. Whilst they were being watched over by strange looking green-skinned creatures dotted with spikes and a single flower atop each of their heads.

Spoiler: OOC

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Okay so if you want to try and go unoticed give me Stealth or otherwise just go nuts

[Quellian-dyrae]

Tager gave the florids a bit of a lead, and then released one of his camera drones to fly after them. It wouldn't give him real-time surveillance, but he'd at least- hmm...

"Plant people are leaving. I'm sending a camera drone to follow them. Pixel, are you able to tap its feed do you think, keep track of it? Maybe call it back if it's going to enter a place it's likely to be found or something?" He wasn't sure exactly what Pixel could do, but it was worth asking at least.

He'd await a response, and then make his move. Bending light around him and lightening himself to prevent any sound from movement, he leaped/floated over to the building that the Professorman had entered. There were two main options for approach here. The Tommy Yang option would be to shift his armor to look live civvies, leave his hammer floating outside, knock on the door, and politely explain who he was and why he was here. After all, he didn't know for sure that the team was working at cross purposes with them. Open discourse might be the most effective route to getting information.

On the other hand, there was something to be said, when seeking to extract information from an unknown quantity, to keeping them off-balance.

The Grav-Knight chose the Tager Yung option. The first indication of his presence was the sound of the door locking, at which point, if Graff turned from his work, he would behold a figure in full black-and-white striped armor, white-inside-black-outside cape draped behind it, its head and face fully obscured behind a visored helm. The figure stood just a couple inches off the ground, a massive hammer floating along at its side like a ready squire - or perhaps an attack dog kept carefully at bay.

And in a deep voice with something of a digitally-modulated buzz, the figure spoke with heavy melodrama.

"Greetings, Professorman."

Spoiler

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Intimidation: (1d20+15)[29].

I mean, you know, assuming nothing stops or otherwise inconveniences me at any point. I'm using the Concealment from Gravitic Bending (supplemented by Hide in Plain Sight and my Stealth) to cross the camp undetected.

Oh, and I guess a Stealth roll for the drone. (1d20+10)[15] since it doesn't benefit from my armor, plus whatever modifier it can get for distance without losing the plant people (probably not much in a forest but whatever I'll take what I can get).

[Izzarra]

To Tager: "On it."

Spoiler: OOC

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Using Sensor Network to monitor the camera drone.
Remote Sensing 10 (Audio, Visual), Simultaneous, Subtle 2, Medium (Technological recording equipment)

[metakirb]

Dig site sounds like the best bet on finishing up our job here. Lead the way, Rock.

Calla moves to follow the Malachord.

[SuperCracker]

The second John had eyes on the archaeologists and the creatures watching them, he took a picture of them and bailed, hopefully before he could be spotted. Space warped and he appeared high in the air above his current location. His flight field stabilized again and he hovered for now, looking down at the pyramid he could still make out.

“I think I found what we’re looking for. The Temple of Doom,” John said over comms to the… little over half of the team that had comms. He sent the picture over for them as well.

“Tager, Pixel, feed me your locations.”

The visor zoomed in so that John could take a better look from high above. He already had his eyes set on the top of that pyramid, a good place for his sensors to map out the underlying structure.

Within his mind, Cortana was dressed in a brown leather jacket with a brimmed hat and a whip. A John Williams theme played. “It belongs in a museum! Commander, I know this reference!”

[Dodgeson]

Unaware that they were being followed the planet creatures made their way through the jungle, Pixel's link to the drones giving her a perfect view as a stream of crackling energy lanced passed them and hit one of the creatures in the back, reducing it to a pile of ash. Their flowers immediately turned a bright red and they began to scatter as the source of the beam lumbered in to view with Calla in hot pursuit.

"THAT'S RIGHT! YOU BETTER RUN! TELL THE REST OF THE WEEDS I'M COMING!" The Malachord bellowed, spitting another beam at one of the fleeing creatures.

----

"Oh my..." Graff squeaked as Tager made his presence known and his legs gave out, in an instant his mind began to race and he started to babble "W-well you're too small to be a Malachord and you're not one of my team, so who sent you? The Prime Foundation? Pan-Astra Technologies? Galacticorp? Well I don't care if it was the Peacekeepers! You'll never get anything out of me!"

Whilst he talked a good game the quiver in his voice and the fear in his eyes as he looked up at Tager made it clear that he was severely overestimating his ability to keep quiet.

[Quellian-dyrae]

John requested his position over comms. Tager didn't...really think that fiddling with his phone to send the coordinates would help him make the optimal impression here, so he held off on that for the moment. Hopefully John would recognize that he was in a situation where he couldn't readily reply. He left his own comms on so at least the team could hear what he was saying, which should help serve as something of an explanation for the otherwise non-reply.

Tager stood silent for several moments, the visored helm's impassive gaze boring into the Professorman. It was a convenient way to avoid seeming like he had no clue who any of those people were (well, wait, he was pretty sure he recalled John mentioning the Peacekeepers) and was taking a few moments to figure out how to reply to that. He didn't...actually know who his (and, thus, Graff's) employers were. The fact that he had previously dismissed as annoying but acceptable operational security was starting to seem more and more like an oversight.

Finally, after several seconds of increasingly ominous silence, he answered, "Your most recent expected progress report has not been received." The modulated voice, though still imposing coming from the high-tech suit of armor, was largely neutral, neither explicitly threatening nor calming. That statement should be sufficient for Graff to identify who had sent him. The most useful information he could probably get at the moment was seeing what Graff's unbiased reaction would be to knowing that the intimidating, heavily armored figure before him had been sent by his own employers.

[Dodgeson]

Just about managing to avoid the Malachord's parting shot the plant creatures melted back in to the jungle, looping back around to their village and beginning to cause as much fuss as they could, dragging their claws on doors whilst their flowers shifter between brilliant red and a dark black, quickly amassing a small crowd, the whole scene being observed still being monitored by Tager's drones and keeping Pixel in the loop.

While he was aware of something going on outside Graff obviously had more important things to occupy himself with right now, Tager had very kindly answered his first question, he was working for the same people who had hired him, unfortunately he was as in the dark as Tager was as to their identity and 'sends heavily armed thugs after their problems' didn't really narrow things down.

"And there isn't going to be one." He said, slowly getting to his feet and trying (and failing) to control his breathing "My team has hit a wall, and we can't progress any further, you can tell our employer that there's nothing of value here."

Which might have been a satisfactory answer if not for one simple fact, Graff was an academic, not a liar.

----

From his position above the dig site John had a perfect view as the bulky figure of a Malachord burst out from the jungle still ranting and raving, his very appearance sending them running for the pyramid.

"THAT'S RIGHT! NEXT TIME YOU TRY AND KILL SOMEONE YOU BETTER MAKE SURE IT STICKS!" He roared, another energy blast lancing from his mouth, missing the fleeing archaeologists and scorching the outer wall of the pyramid. Growling in frustration he lumbered over to one of plant creatures that been just a little too slow and hauled it up by the neck.

"AND AS FOR YOU STINKIN' WEEDS!"

[metakirb]

Calla followed the Malachord out to the dig site, seemingly unphased by the chaos going on around her.

So, here’s our dig site. Now we just need to get inside.

She glanced over at the Malachord and the plant person it was holding.

Plant people, huh?

She sighed. It had to be plants, didn’t it?

Making her way up to the Malachord she glanced over the plant creature, trying to make sense of the colours of it’s flower.

Spoiler: Nobody knew Calla had a soft spot for plants.

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Rolling Expertise: Botany to try and understand the plants methods of communication (1d20+10)[26]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Tager heard the commotion outside. He did not react to it.

To be fair Tager wasn't exactly proficient in reading people or anything, but it was like come on. Even just based on what he had seen, that wasn't exactly credible. "Professorman..." Tager said with heavy melodrama. The modulated voice almost sounded...sad. "I arrived here to find your camp ransacked, the Malachords that had been hired as your guards lying injured or dead, and you here in the village of the natives controlling the target site, free and unguarded. I was watching your conversation with them earlier. You are clearly working with them. Now, if you had merely managed to ingratiate yourself to them to advance the mission, that would be one thing. But lying to me...that is another."

In a sudden shift, the faint note of sadness in the modulated voice changed to sharp anger. The room seemed to subtly darken, the armored figure standing out like he was in some invisible spotlight, as if some proportion of the ambient light in the room had been redirected to bounce off of him rather than anything else. The very air around him started to feel heavy, oppressive. When he spoke again, he wasn't yelling, but it was definitely louder. "There will be a Progress Report. You may deliver it to me now, or I can begin exploring alternative avenues of compliance." Tager, of course, had no intention to harm the guy. It was just, well, he didn't need to know that.

Spoiler

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Intimidation: (1d20+15)[34].

[SuperCracker]

John hadn’t quite known what to make of all this. He was fully intending to sit tight, listen to Tager’s Batman routine, and then weigh the options. But then the Malachord went berserk and started pretty much attacking everything that moves. And while there were scenarios where that was certainly justifiable, it was striking that none of the archaeologists or, more importantly, none of the plant-people fought back at all.

Commander, I caution neutrality until--

“Nope.”

He teleported down to the surface, right beside the Malachord. John’s arm was curled back for a punch, violet warp energy rippling over his arm.

“Easy there, Rock Biter. Put the azaleas down or I’m gonna turn you into gravel.”

Spoiler

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Readied action to attack if he makes any hostile move.

[Izzarra]

Move to John's position to provide backup if required.