Wednesday Mar 27, 2024

Equilibria Starfinder – 9

Differently from the previous Actual Plays, from now on I transition from both the Scene Designer and Mythic GM Emulator to the Plot Unfolding Machine. The Location Crafter is staying, as it is wonderful as a base for exploration.

Following the events of Equilibria Starfinder – 8, Xenon, Fluorine and Beste continued their journey throughout planet Sorth-9. Fluorine finds an Ethereal Glass, a Xenoarcheological artefact that is only visible through body auras. They manage to use this to light up the entrance of a cavern, hidden on plain sight otherwise.

Scene 26

Setup

ContextAfter finding a secret entrance through the icy mountains, the squad prepares to enter.
Design🎲 Location Crafter → Cold Wilderness Location, Alien World Encounter, Alloys
🎲 Challenge Designer → Evade, danger, run, escape – Only one attempt
InterpretationLocation: There is an icy tidal marsh inside the cavern, it is liquid, to the surprise of everyone. And it looks like there even are some trade route markings on the floor. There is even some sort of travel boat.
Encounter: Mining Robots. Alloy drilling. There are however noises… mechanical, robotic noises coming from somewhere in the cave.
Objects: The walls seem to contain some sort of mineral. A valuable alloy.

Play

Beste → This… seems not dead at all. Not like outside. It kind of make sense, after the freezing cold and the falling icy spikes. What is that noise?
Xenon → I think… they are some sort of drones.

The caverns are open, with a large lake inside that turns around a corner.
🎲 Is there hard ground to walk by? → No, unless… → You can walk on water, you have to use the boat otherwise.
🎲 Xenon attempts to trace any footsteps or recent activity before the boat (DC13) → Fails (DC10)
They proceed to onboard the boat.
🎲 How does the boat look like? → Commonly Antique (looks like a boat, hehe)
🎲 There are mining bots, are they easy to see? → Yes, but… (they come and go, as they enter the interior walls of the cave)
🎲 How many? → More 3d6: 6
🎲 How do they look like? → Mostly Antique
🎲 Are they flying? → Yes, obviously.

About six, beautiful, perfectly white but seemingly old, flay all around the icy cave, illuminated now by lights of the drones themselves and Beste’s lighters.
🎲 Xenon and Beste try to understand the Drones before it is too late (DC18) → Xenon succeeds 26
🎲 Are they directly dangerous? → Yes, obviously.
🎲 Do they have weapons themselves? → Yes.
🎲 Is there any way to hide from them at all here? → Yes, but… (it is not easy)
🎲 What does it require? → Combat, confront, struggle – Needs knowledge

Xenon → Damn, we are in trouble. Ready your weapons, Beste, we’ll need you at your finest with the sniper, Fluorine, start charging your stellaris…
Fluorine → What is going on?
Beste → These things have aim-enhanced weaponry, their chassis is old, but their inner tech is ridiculously modern. They will also have control over the structure of this cave. We are not supposed to be here.
Fluorine → You think your brother came through this way?
Beste → Too late to think now! Brace yourselves, we’ll be detected very soon…

The drones detect the intruders in the boat, and start dropping their tasks right away. Their sensors and optics become red, and start emitting annoying bip sounds.

Beste → Xenon, can’t find a weak point. Do you know which model it is?
🎲 Does Xenon know? (DC22) → Success (23)
Xenon → Yes, based on the minerals they are scanning AL-6XN-Droids
🎲 Are they vulnerable to weapon fire? → No.
🎲 Can they be remotely scrambled? → No.
Xenon → Our weapons will not do much damage, their chassis is thick, unless we get a very, very good shot.
Fluorine → What about the Ethereal Glass…? Somehow there must be a way to screw up their lenses, right?
🎲 Would that work? (likely!) → Yes.
Fluorine → I’ll recharge my stellar powers into the Glass, cover your eyes!
Beste → How long will that take!?
Xenon → It won’t be fast, covering fire for Fluorine, now!

The drones launch themselves to the PCs, flying all around and opening fire with their Arc Emitters and Electric pulsars. Xenon and Beste focus on giving cover fire to Fluorine for three rounds, as they take some hits and bruises from electrical shocks.

🎲 Which skill is needed by Fluorine to project the Ethereal Glass against the Drones? → Profession, craft, technology – Has another way (Probably Mysticism!).
🎲 Fluorine’s mysticism to control the Ethereal Glass (DC16) → Success 27
🎲 Does it somehow disable the drones? → No.
🎲 Does it make them fall and lose flying controls? → No, possibly. (they do lose flight precision)
🎲 Do their weapon sensors get disabled? → Hard to say (Not easy to tell from distance).
🎲 Is there any other side effect? → Yes, obviously.
🎲 Do their armor suffer vulnerability? → Hard to say (Try shooting at them to figure it out).

Fluorine → Got it! The Ethereal Glass is projecting light against theme, now!!!
Xenon → Now what? Fluorine!!! Now what???
Beste → Crap, I don’t notice any difference! Hold on, did just one of them hit against the wall?
Xenon → I don’t know! Shoot at them! They seem more clumsy

🎲 Fluroine hits them with her Fire Breath, are they in fact more vulnerable now? → No, at first.
🎲 Do the drones continue with the firing? → No, at first.
🎲 The drones stop firing for → 1d4: 2 rounds
🎲 Is there any safe spot to be found? → No, and… (there is just water for a while)
🎲 Can they be controlled through the Ethereal Glass? → Yes, at first.
🎲 Fluorine to try to read the drones through the Glass (Mysticism DC20) → Success (23)

Fluorine → I think I’ve got it! They are moving with me, they are moving with me the bastards
Beste → What do you mean?
Fluorine → They are following the Ethereal Glass projection, for a while, until they drop out of the glass!
Xenon → Then smash them!!

In the background, the fight continues, Xenon and Beste are losing stamina but holding the battle. No significant damage done to the drones.

🎲 Does it work? → Yes, possibly.
🎲 By doing → Notice, intuition, perceive – Needs knowledge
🎲 Fluorine uses her round by perceiving the right angle of the Glass (DC18) → Success (23)

Fluorine manages to smash the drones against each other, against the wall and even drown one of them. For a moment, they keep shooting and giving hell of a fight, by dealing quite some injures to Xenon and Beste, although nothing lethal, they are quite exhausted.

The PCs managed to come across the cavern lakes, although they have now disrupted the mining process of the jobs, and who knows the consequences…

XP Gained: 600 each. Wealth gained: 1000 credits each.

To be continued…

JeansenVaars

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