Archeotech 2 – Treasure Hunt (RPG IC)

[Trokair]

As you get more familiar and used to your new surrounding of the gunnery deck, and piece together a greater understanding of its layout and content it becomes apparent that everything is heavily automated. The ten marc cannon on this deck, with their support machinery and ammunition feed, take up a little more than one and a half kilometer stretch.

 

The way on either end is blocked by secure bulkhead doors almost 200m wide and a bit taller. Smaller human sized bulkheads are set into them at floor level. Perhaps the giant doors connected to further gunnery decks, opened only when machinery needs to be moved from one compartment to another.  As you explore you do come across accesses hatches to various parts set into the floor and walls. Of the ones you manage to open and take a look into they are much as you would expect, cables and pipes and crawl spaces to access other more hidden parts.

 

Steps leading up into the warren of catwalks that surround various items of machinery also lead you to a central control blister set into the wall. Inside two bank of control terminals in a tiered semicircle overlook the gunnery deck. It is clear from even a cursory inspection that none of them are functional, though not from damage but merely a lack of power.  

 

It is Helene who voices it first, though some of you may have already noticed the same, or rather the lack of it.

 

“Where is the devotion?” Helene asked. In all of what you had seen so far, while clearly of human manufacture, there were none of the sights you would find anywhere in the Imperium to one degree or another.  No Eagles or skulls, no devotional scriptures or incense burners. No little shrines tucked into corners, and for a vessel so heavily mechanized no emblems of the Martian Priesthood at all. The lack of the other could just about be ascribed to a need of functionally and perhaps in other areas of the ships such as the crew quarters you would find them, but the Aeeptus Mechanicum embossed all their machinery, always.

 

As you explored you found several bulkhead doors leading out of the gunnery deck in addition to the ones set into the giant doors either end. While they are closed they do have manual releases and a tentative test turn on a few showed that they had not seized but where stiff and would require some effort to open.   

[Machine God]

Varn:

 

"You ask 'Where is devotion' Helene. No cogs or wings of Big Sky God. Ravia sez not Arkytek" said Varn.

 

"Obvious innit. Dis shipis Old Ancient. Dark Ancient 'erd them Magos say once. Ship is older than Mekanus!"

 

 

Of Sestas.

[A.T.]

Aria

 

With each step this vessel seemed less like home, though perhaps may ships were like this. The Orichalcon had heaved with life as hundreds slaved over each of the ships vast macrocannons pulling the shells into position under the watchful eyes of the overseers, Aria had learnt early to watch for signs that the twistcatchers were seeking to replenish the ships combat losses from the dregs below decks when the fighting was too heavy to withdraw to a safe port.

 

Battle damage frequently caused power to wane and surge especially in the out extremities such as the gun ports, the smell of burning machinery the sound of metal grinding on metal as impacts twisted even the thick adamantine out of alignment. Men could be replaced faster than metal repaired and even if the gun crew were decimated by flame and shrapnel after each shot the command of the captain always boomed clear in her memory that the guns must fire.

 

"Perhaps the vessel was unfinished and untested. A shell?"

[A.T.]

Aria

 

Odd that the doors were not open, had the previous expedition sealed the ship on the way out? "Why are there no tools here, no lights or generators? No remnants of the prior explorators?"

 

Had they found an alternate route and never emerged? Aria passed her flashlight across the other bulkheads seeking an open portal while awaiting Helene and Ravias decision on how to proceed.

[Trokair]

Aria’s rechecking of the bulkheads revealed nothing further, they were closed but not locked. Sufficient effort would allow any of the emergency hand powered systems to open their corresponding door.

 

Out of all of them the one that stood out the most was the one at the back of the control blister. It was the only one on that level that you had found, the rest being at floor level, and as it led to the gunnery deck command perhaps the corridor behind it would connect to other important locations, but that was just a guess.

[Trokair]

 

As the bulkhead door release, several minutes of hard labour at the manual release mechanism had brought you to this point, there is an audible rush air from the corridor beyond into the gunnery deck. For a few seconds you can feel this breeze before it abates. There is a slight tinge of something on the air, but not something any of you can place, and it persists only for a few seconds.

 

Swinging the bulkhead door fully open the corridor that greets you is just as dark as the gunnery deck. A few meters in you come to a stairwell and junction. The paths multiplying ahead of you, left, right, straight ahead, up or down. You would think that at such a junction there would be some directional indicators or even just a location marker so that the crew of yore could tell where they where, but there is nothing, the walls blank and featureless.

 

Over the next few hours, as you explore this labyrinth of corridors and stairways, interspaced with larger space, some you cross at floor level, others on raised gangways, you cannot shake the feeling that you are lost. Despite rigorous mapping and tracking of your turns and choices, and even doubling back a few times to check. Given the featurelessness and sameness of the corridors the decision had quickly been reached to mark your way whenever you could.  The little splashes of colour from the markers the only evidence of your passage. The few smaller rooms you had found and entered where universally bare.

 

Taking a meal break in one large chamber, by your reckoning about two kilometers leftwards of the gunnery deck, and perhaps a dozen levels down, you spot the first irregularity as you are about the leave. The far wall is not uniform. Coming closer your torches quickly reveal wreckage. The remains of some form of smaller void craft or flyer, wedged awkwardly into the wall. Deep scratches run along the ground to the remains of the craft. A closer examination of the space leads you to conclude that this had been some sort of hanger bay, the regularity of the pipes and machinery in evidence proportional to what the crashed vehicle could have been. Space for 18 crafts by Ravia calculation, each large enough to be a inter ship shuttle or perhaps large atmospheric.  

[A.T.]

Aria

 

The presence of void craft would suggest that the starship had crashed or landed here rather than having been an incomplete construct, though she had never heard of a star vessel making a controlled landing upon a planetary surface and nothing that they had seen so far suggested an impact.

 

"Such a vessel would have its own cogitators and generatorum systems would it not?" she inquired. A starship was a vast and complex thing requiring many thousands to operate but this small vessel was a different matter. Looking about the hanger she sought to locate access ways to the repair and re-armament bays that would normally attach to such a place as this.

[Trokair]

Your search is not in vain, for taking one of the door that run along the wall opposite from the empty shuttle berths leads you into another similar sized space. Work benches and heavy machinery, clearly intended for repair and maintenance. However as with as much of this ship the shelves where empty, the tool draws bereft. If the empty rooms and corridor had not already birth the idea for you, this emptied workshop shouted it. Someone had spent a fair amount of effort to clear this place out, removing everything that was not too heavy or too integrated into the ship structure itself.  

[Lord_Ikka]

Ravia

 

"This ship was stripped of its components, harvested. We must press on- there will be power stations and computer banks too large to easily remove that may have answers."

 

The lack of machine-cult symbols or alters of the Omnissiah were disturbing. That usually heralded a ship of the heretical or rebellious, unless it was very, very old. As of yet, Ravia couldn't tell which.

[A.T.]

Aria

 

"Harvested but not stripped", Aria notes, "it might have taken months or years to scour the vessel so thoroughly of tools and trinkets yet the macrocannon was untouched".

 

As thorough a search as it was shallow, there had not been a sign of those that came before, no discarded flares or charge packs, no broken glow-globes or empty ration packets. No sign at all.

[Trokair]

 

It had been some time since you had left the damaged craft in the hanger, more corridors and stairwells, further empty chambers and nonfunctional macro machinery. More than once you had opened up service panels in the hope of getting access to basic ship systems or even just power conduits. Alas each attempt was as fruitless as the first.

 

Trudging up another flight to new level Aria paused, turned her torch off.

 

“Lights off.” She whispered to the others, with the soft clicks the other three lights extinguished. In the moment before the last did Helene looked over with a questioning look.

 

All of you readied your weapons, just in case, waiting for Aria to elaborate on what she had seen.

 

A minute, two. You can hear Aria carefully taking a few steps upwards in the dark to reach the inter-level landing.

 

“Look up, there is light.” Indeed as your night vision improved now that your own torches where extinguished, you could make out the faintest of faint outlines of the metal grated stairs going up, doubling back on itself every half level. Somewhere above, several more stories at least, there was a source, and with it working power and terminals perhaps.

 

With only one torch set to low, casting just enough to ensure that you did not run the danger of missing a step, you proceed upwards. Four flights later you catch sight of an open bulkhead hatchway trough which the light was spilling into the stairwell. It was still faint, the source not in the corridor beyond but from further away.

 

At the end of the corridor there was a junction, the light coming from the right, brighter now, almost enough to see properly. Edging up to the corner one of you takes a careful look before ducking back into cover. Another corridor, wider by at least threefold, perhaps more, than what you had grown familiar with over the last few hours. In the distance there was an half open doorway, bright intense light spilling out from beyond. Too bright for any of you to make out details of what lay beyond from this far away.   

 

This larger corridor also carried on in the other direction, fading into darkens again, but sufficiently illuminated by the light that you could make out some details. This was clearly an important thoroughfare within the ship.

 

Right towards the light, or Left away from it?

 

[Lord_Ikka]

Ravia

 

Ravia moved to the right, lascarbine held ready. Light indicates power,  and power is needed for answers to be found. That, or some sort of habitating persons. Either way, there were important things down this way. She motioned to the others to move towards the light.

[A.T.]

Aria

 

At the signal Aria moved forwards, seemingly lost from sight within her own shadow. She knew from experience that light was no indication of life on a ship like this for it required incredible amounts of power to travel the stars and the slightest remnant within the ships conduits could burn a man to ash or power a spark of mundane technology for lifetimes.

 

But caution was always required and as she moved closer to the light Aria scanned the walls with her gaze seeking any indication of territorial markings or traps set about the threshold.

 

 

Concealment or silent move if required: 43 vs target 46 - basic pass, plus any bonuses for light/distance/etc

[Machine God]

Varn:

 

Yeah Ravia 

 

Varn moved

 

He jumped to the left. And tucked his knees in tight. 

 

Sestas song warning him. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Trokair]

As you get closer you can see that the half open door was a standard sized opening in a larger double door that if drawn open would span the entire width and height of the corridor. In fact, there are bespoke indentations in wall for each half of the gate to be secured while open.

 

Now that you where almost at the door the quality of the light was more apparent, it was bright, warm, in fact you each would have sworn it was daylight. However it could not be, for based on the passage of time while you explored the tunnel and then the ship it would now be at best dusk outside, if not even later into the evening.  

 

As you each get your first proper look through the door the scene you are met with is one of collective puzzlement. Leaves and branches, you are in the canopy of a forest.

 

After only a little hesitation you step through, onto a balcony or look out of sorts, with walkways along the wall heading into the distance. In front of you is a chamber, the other end, or even the sides not in sight, but the wall behind you and a ceiling you can just about spot high above through gaps in the upper canopy.

 

Moving to the edge of the balcony to look over you can see the forest floor below, covered in dense vegetation, vying for the stands of light that reach through the canopy to the ground. Creepers and climbing plants have colonized the wall and mesh of the walkways, threatening to overwhelm and hide the balcony and walkways entirely. There is however a path clear and free, leading to one side where you find a stairwell descending to the forest ground.

 

You stay near the door for several minutes, carefully observing this new environment at the heart of the ship inside the mountain. There is a breeze circulating that rustles the leaves. Varn with his experience picks out the sounds of small animals in the undergrowth below and the canopy, the occasional bird call chirping into to the susurrus of the forest.

 

Moving along the walkway to the downwards stairs you get a few look between some of the trees into the depth of the camber. A light more open space lay ahead, a shimmer of water beyond it. At the stairs you see that the inside handrail of the doubling back descent is free of vegetation, while the outside one is overgrown.

 

At the bottom, as you will probably have suspected by now, there was a clearly visible path, flat stepping stones leading into the forest, the grasses and other plants near them low and unable to hider you progress, while else they have grown wild and as tall as the limited light below the canopy allowed.

 

While Ravia and Helene follow the path with caution, Varn and Aria take to the sides, flanking the others left and right respectively and working through the undergrowth.

 

The size of the chamber must be even larger than you would have guessed initial. After almost an hour of slow and painstaking progress the forest thins out into grass and meadow. The shimmer of water you had seen earlier revealed to be a small lake in the distance.  There is however one mighty tree still ahead and a little to your right. It towers over even the forest and you can see that the top of its canopy brush against the ceiling so far above.

 

Sudden movement at the base of the tree causes you all to freeze. A figure that must have been sitting, back against the trunk, was standing up. The shade of the might tree and the distance from yourself made it hard to make out many details. Slightly on the slender side, if you can apply human proportions, the figure walks a little towards you all, to the edge of the shade cast by the tree. You can clearly see the head turn, stopping to look at each of you in turn, despite your caution and efforts at concealment. Stopping finally on Varn, you hear the figure speak, loudly enough for the voice to carry to you, but not in a way that sugest the figure was shouting.

 

Alas you do not understand what was said, perhaps the words garbled by distance.

 

You may each make a Difficult (-10) Perception (sight or hearing, your choice) test to try and discern additional detail of the figure or what it said.    

[Lord_Ikka]

Ravia

 

Ravia raised her lascarbine slighlty, tracking the odd figure but not actively aiming at it yet.  This...foliage was confusing. There should not be such a thing within a starship. Hydroponic bays, yes, but those were usually algae-based pods that provided oxygen and supplemental nutrients, not a forest. 

 

She focused on the figure, trying to make out more.

Spoiler

Perception test

Target - 33

Roll - 15

Result = Pass, 1 DoS

 

[Machine God]

Varn:

 

Varn moved forwards slowly, intrigued by the figure before him.

 

He tried to understand what had been spoken.

 

 

 

PER33 - 10 (Difficult) = 23. Result: 08, Pass 1DoS

 

 

 

"Greetings friend, I is Varn. I mean you no harm" 

 

Varn spoke first in Low Gothic and then in his Tribal Language.

 

 

 

 

[Trokair]

Ravia

 

As the figure took a few more steps, into the light, your attention is drawn to one side. What had been just another indistinct shape, camouflaged by the shade of the tree, stood up. A Ursarchus, fur a deep warm brown, with lighter yellowish stripes along its back and limbs revealed as it caught up with the figure. Who gently stroked the Ursarchus head, leaned in and spoke gently to it.

 

Your briefing weeks earlier would have included a section on dangerous wildlife, and this particular bear form was noted as rare but dangerous. As such the gentle behaviour was much at odds, especially when it trotted back into the shade to resume its dozing.

 

It takes you a moment, but knowing that adult Ursarchus can reach a little over 2 meters in height while on all fours, leads you to but one conclusion, the figure was tall, three and a half, perhaps four meters.

 

Varn

 

Having dismissed the Ursarchus the figure continued its approach.

 

Varn Only

Spoiler

 “It saddens me that you have lost, so much. To think that even your tongue is mangled and twisted almost beyond recognition by the babble of the thanatocracy.”

 

Drawing to a halt about half way from where he had risen under the tree and the group.

 

“Why did you lead them here?” He asks in Low Gothic.

[A.T.]

Aria

 

They had traveled to far to find such a distant horizon, an illusion perhaps that kept them wandering in circles not venturing close enough to the walls of this place, a tenebro-maze or technological hunting ground for long dead nobility.

 

Or perhaps some aberration of realspace and the immaterium, though the figure before them seemed solid enough and markedly inhuman.

 

Awareness (hearing) test -10(difficult), +10(heightened senses), roll 37 vs target 34 (fail)

 

 

[Trokair]

Aria

While you could not make out what the figure said until its last question to Varn, when it soundly spoke in accented but clear low gothic, it took you a moment to realize that while you had been focusing ahead that the sounds of the forest to your back had all but ceased.

 

All

The seconds passed since the question, perhaps Varn was debating the merits of possible replies; perhaps the figure was simply impatient, for it started to walk forward again at the same leisurely stride as before.

 

Now that it was much closer the figure was revealed not to be clothed in the normal sense, for a side from a bandolier of pouches, and a wide brimmed hat, the figure appeared to be entirely clad in armour. Form fitting panels fitting together almost seamlessly. This was clearly high artifice, for it carried none of the bulk that was so typical of imperial designs. The armour was almost like a second skin, layered onto the wearer the way finally tailored suit would be.  

 

Now, some 10 meters awy, perhaps a little more, it paused once more, attention focused on Varn.

 

 

While the figures earlier question was addressed to Varn, since it was in low gothic you are all obviously included in the conversation now and can respond and such if you want.   

[Machine God]

Varn:

 

Varn walked forwards as the large figure moved forwards.

 

"I'm sorry. I am their tracker they are hunting for Arkytek, This is our second search site the first site was by a large lake to the west, an old settlement of ruins." Varn answered sheepishly to the giant.

 

"Even though they Others, they good. I am the last of my tribe"

 

Varn began speaking in his Tribal Language.

 

"I member the Lej, I read the signs and look for the 'Sestas. This my hunt, Elder!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 9 by Machine God
typo

[Trokair]

“So another line of Kin is all but spent, I cannot fault you then. You are free to leave Kinsman, to make a life and carry the hope of your forbears a little further. Your hunt however I must deny you.”

 

“You say they are good people, and I will take your word that they have treated you fair, but they have lied to you. The zealots of red would burn the house and shift through the ashes to scavenge a nail and call it treasure. That is the treasure they seek, trinkets, ignorant to the very thing they claim to admire and strive to understand.”

 

Here it turns to look at Ravia, an intense burst of binary assails you, bypassing your defenses and safeguard.

 

 

“Tell m are thou still hypocrites? Does your creed still claim to hold most holly machine brought forth into this universe by mankind and mankind alone, and yet in your besotted greed your kin raid Xenos tombs and if any of your kind ever encounter that which you claim to venerate you seek to destroy it out of spite.”

 

For the rest of you the seconds of silence as it stares at Ravia drag on.

 

Raising the left arm to point at Aria it continued to address you all.

 

“Your lie at least is benevolent Pariah, if what he said is true and you visited the old trading points. The slumbering guardians do not tolerate the presences of anyone these days, not since the treaty expired. I thank you for keeping the Kinsman safe.”

 

Turning about itself, arms spread to gesture to the entirety of their surroundings.  

 

“There is no treasure here for any of you. As the Kinsman vouched for you three I will give you a choice, for unlike him you cannot leave here, ever, but you may live out your natural lives in my garden and the halls of my kin instead of ending here and now.”

 

 

At this point I would like to invite the active players to PM me with their OOC thoughts as to what exactly the party is dealing with here. I am trying to work out if I have dropped sufficient hints, or if I need to be a more overt.

 

 

 

 

[Lord_Ikka]

Ravia

 

Responding to the strange creature in binaric. Ravia phrases her words carefully.

 

"I am not a philosopher of the Omnissiah, nor one that makes any sort of decision regarding the validity of sacred technology. I am of the Ordos Reductor, a guardian and destroyer; a guard to the places and persons of the Cult Mechanicus and a destroyer of its enemies. I cannot speak for the leaders of the Adeptus, only myself. We are searching for lost archeotechnology that was supposed to be on this planet, of what type I do not know. Whether it is ancient Human made or Xenos manufacture is only known to my master the Arch-Magos."

[A.T.]

Aria

 

Curious that an adept of the mechanicus would announce themselves in such a way, and Aria wondered if situation was one of formal introduction as she looked towards Helene wondering if the latter waited to speak last in her position as senior.

 

The words of Varn suggested a prohibited alliance, or perhaps an enslavement that had seen his forbearers scattered and driven into the mud. Or perhaps they had dragged this thing with them from the depths of the ether as they travelled between the stars.

 

"Why is your garden in the middle of a buried starship?" There was something false about this place, sights and sounds that did not match what should be.

[Lord_Ikka]

Ravia

 

After she spoke, Ravia's mind went into overdrive- collating information, mapping out plausibility.

 

---OVERRIDE---

 

The alarm blared in her brain, spikes of pain and shock freezing her body. 

 

--- Sub-Routine Alpha/III/P3 Initiated ---

--- Objectives Implanted ---

- Objective 1: Inform Arch-Magos of {ERROR/ERASED} subject without fail -

- Objective 2: Evade capture/destruction - 

- Objective 3: Ensue no outsider learns identity of subject - 

 

Her gaze focused on the unknown entity, thoughts ringing with the implanted directives.