Starfinder: A Cosmic Birthday
The following is a fan story based on the Starfinder Adventure Path: A Cosmic Birthday, published by Paizo Inc. It details events, but not game rules, of the adventure path in a narrative manner. The author is in no way affiliated with Paizo Inc or the original scenario writers.
Written by Dragonblind
Please do not repost this without permission.
Chapter 3: Into The Ghost Levels
Location: Absalom Station - The Ghost Levels - Express Elevator 47:
Vaniboso struck the ceiling hard with their back as the initial lurch into free fall hit a sudden acceleration. His reactions were fast enough to catch the speeding white body of Wist as she raced up towards him a fraction of a second later. He was able to break her speed before she impacted with either him or the ceiling, neither of which represented a soft impact.
Kehdo was less lucky, and Reddek unfortunate. The vlaka had impacted with the dragonkin's stomach after the latter had already hit the ceiling of the elevator very hard. The combined impacts had stunned the vlaka and knocked the breath out of the dragonkin. Reddek was wheezing and clutching at his stomach as he tumbled in the relative zero gravity that followed their acceleration, brought on by their continual fall.
Wist, with her senses intact, already had a plan of action. She climbed across Vaniboso to reach the ceiling and grasped at the emergency hatch's handle. She used it to steady herself as she took one more look towards the elevator's control panel. A gash an inch in diameter ran across the touch panel exposing its wired innards. The solar weapon of the ex Skyfire legionnaire had rendered it useless, and it wouldn't be of any help in getting them to stop. Having confirmed the panel would be of no help, she began tugging at the handle to get outside, but to no avail.
After several moments of struggle she took precious seconds to analyze why she couldn't get it open, using her training to fight against panic and fear of eventual impact. She noted the askew nature of the handle and its latch. Reddek or Vaniboso must have impacted it on his way up, their heavier armor bodies warping the metal upon impact. She pushed herself off the ceiling towards one wall of the elevator, grasping onto the handrail there, then directed the only other person in the elevator with microgravity training. ``Lieutenant! Shoot out the hatch!'' she yelled over the sound of grinding metal and whooshing air outside of the elevator car.
``Aye, captain!'' Vaniboso hit a button on his gauntlet, his feet snapping to the floor a moment later as magnetized boots held him there solidly. Steadied by the solid footing, he pulled an unfolding rotolaser from its own magnetic clamps at his back and fired. Bolt after bolt of energy furiously struck the hatch near the same spot, all made with careful effort not to hit the still floating vlaka and dragonkin.
With a snap and whoosh of air the hatch flew up and snapped free of its hinges, flying off into the shaft above. The resulting gap was too small for the fully armored Vaniboso to fit through.
Wist steeled her courage and pushed off the wall of the elevator, flying up towards the hatch before grasping its edges. She pulled herself up onto the elevator's roof, her legs kicked up into the air as rushing currents of wind from the open shaft now began beating at her. Her eyes darted about the surface of the elevator until she saw the device she'd been looking for. It was prominent panel marked with yellow and black striping at its edges; the emergency brake's manual control.
Giving a thankful prayer to Weydan that they hadn't hit the floor of the shaft yet, she crawled by paw over the surface of the elevator's roof until her paws could grasp the panel and flip it open. Its latches were undamaged and beneath lay a large metal lever. She placed both paws tightly around it and pulled hard, which brought her legs down out of the air. She braced her feet at the sides of the panel and wrapped her tail around a nearby metal ring to give herself extra leverage as she pulled harder until the lever finally began to shift its position! With a shriek, the series of metal emergency breaking arms alongside the elevator clamped down hard onto the sides of the shaft, sending up a wild array of colorful sparks. Wist was thrown violently onto the roof of the elevator, her paws still tightly held around the lever. Inside, barely audible over the screeching sound, she could hear a pair of thuds as Reddek and Kehdo impacted the floor.
After what felt like an eternity, the screeching, and the motion, came to a stop. Wist panted, still clinging to the lever in her paws, and realized she'd closed her eyes tightly shut. She opened them, blinked, and then whispered, ``Thank you Sarenrae, Iomedae, Hylax, Weydan, Abadar, even you Grandmother Rat, for good measure.'' She pulled in another breath after the hasty prayer, and exhaled slowly, ``Next time, Devourer.''
As she began to gingerly release her hold on the lever and find a way to lower herself back into the elevator, Wist reminisced on the proverb her mother had taught her. ``It doesn't matter what or who saves your life, or if it was her fault for your trouble in the first place, always thank Grandmother Rat.'' Wist had always felt this true. A simple thank you would be enough to get Lao Sh? Po to pick on one of her other descendants for a while.
Down in the elevator, Vaniboso reached up and caught the ysoki by the hips, helping her drop the height from the ceiling's open hatch without a hard landing. Inside, both Kehdo and Reddek were recovering from the ordeal. Reddek had recovered his breath and strength enough to begin an attempt at prying open the doors once more. Kehdo was flicking or his ears, seeming perturbed once again at having to endure another high-pitched screeching noise, but seemed otherwise uninjured.
``We're all alive, so that's a good start.'' Wist said, attempting to bring the group's focus to the bright side of their dilemma. ``Anyone seriously hurt?''
A collection of ``no's'' sounded from each being. Reddek's was made in a grunt of effort before the slightly askew elevator doors began to slide open. He waved to encourage Wist to go through first onto the floor they'd arrived at, their stopped position only slightly above its level. Vaniboso helped Kehdo to his feet, urging him to leave first.
The Lieutenant made his best effort to pass through the narrow gap the open doors provided for his bulky armored frame next. A little wiggling and a few huffs and he managed to make it half way. He let out his air and tucked in his gut, which did little to help as it was his upper torso's bulk that was most of the issue. Reddek had to push at the vesk while also trying to pry the doors open just a little more. The armor squeaked against the door's polycron seals as inch by inch the soldier crossed over the threshold and stumbled out onto the other side.
The corridor they found themselves in was dimly lit. Only a few of the floor and ceiling light tubes remained operational, causing many features of the corridor to be hid in sporadically placed dark segments.
Kehdo's ears, recovering more quickly than the ordeal with the comm units, picked up the sounds of groaning metal, mechanical clicks, the sparking of damaged circuitry, and the intermittent hum of half-operational life support systems. None of the sounds were close enough to make them distinct as individual machines or alien life forms, and nothing gave a hint as to its intentions for the strangers who'd just set foot in these halls.
The vlaka was also focused on the sounds in his immediate environment. They were wrong somehow, as though acoustically distorted, giving him the impression of a corridor of twisting floors and rippling walls, and yet his touch upon these surfaces felt smooth metal. As soon as he took a few more tentative steps into the corridor, this sense faded, and the walls sounded and felt as straight and rigid as any industrially manufactured hallway should be.
``Captain.'' In his element, sensing the urgency of a survival situation, Vaniboso approached Wist and saluted. ``With time I might be able to-.''
The vesk was cut off as with a short screech and the sound of grinding metal, the elevator they'd just left tore free of its emergency brakes and flew down the shaft once more only a minute after Reddek had emerged from it. They could hear it, unaligned from its track, banging the walls on the way down. Lieutenant Vaniboso winced, ``Never mind.''
They would not be going back the way they came.
Wist still heard the faint sounds of the elevator clanging its way down the shaft. A distant final bang signaled to her the end of the poor thing's misery. ``Then we'll have to find another way out of here, once we find out where HERE is.''
``The Ghost Levels.'' Kehdo said firmly. It drew attention to the vlaka, and as he heard their heads turn he explained. ``I have not visited them, but have heard of them in more than a few stories. They are another space within Absalom Station, almost like a demi-plane or grand pocket dimension. They are the station, and yet aren't the station. They are a liminal space where the rules of reality are bent and even broken, but are firmly tied to the real spaces of Absalom Station. So far they've only existed for some of levels on the spike, their entrances difficult to find. We should not have so easily stumbled into the Ghost Levels through a public elevator.''
``What about that...that THING?'' Reddek asked, ``The image I saw. Light and tentacles and...a shape. Something.'' The draconic being shook his head, ``I don't know how to describe it.''
Kehdo signed his uncertainty with almost shaky paws, ``Nor do I. It's the only thing I've ever seen in my life.''
That statement brought even more intense focus upon the vlaka.
``You SAW it?!'' Wist asked with bewilderment, ``As though with eyes?''
Kehdo gestured to his face and his pale eyes, ``Until now these have never seen the world.'' the vlaka shook his head, ``Even then I never saw the world, just light, and that thing'' He shuddered. ``You can keep your sighted lives. Let the horrors of life be only heard by my ears.''
``I saw it too.'' Vaniboso said, ``Like a creature or monster.''
Reddek chimed in. ``Mine spoke. My vision of it did anyway. It is awake.''
The vesk grunted remembering a moment he almost lost his hand. ``That's what you said when you destroyed the console. Or, what you thought, in my head.''
The dragonkin winced and retreated a step back from the group in shame at the near disaster for the vesk. ``Are you okay?''
Vaniboso could feel that worry for him, genuine and true, and it diminished the rising feeling of animosity in him. With a thump of a gauntlet upon his chest, hard enough to resound through the metal corridors, Vaniboso answered with confidence, ``Never better!''
Wist tried return focus from speculation and worry to their immediate issue. ``It hasn't shown up again. We're here now, and we have to find whatever boundary we crossed to get back to civilization. We still have a job we were hired to do, people.''
Vaniboso saluted his agreement and Reddek found himself in simultaneous motion with the vesk. Kehdo listened to them both, signing approval. ``With a bonded pair in action, I think our chances are much better.''
Wist turned her back to the larger species behind her, taking lead and waving them all to follow.
As they walked, Vaniboso rubbed at their head, as though they could brush off the bond with the motion, ``How do you turn it off?'' He asked Reddek.
The dragonkin visibly bristled. ``You can't just `turn it off'.'' his face scrunched in perturbation to the bond being talked about as though it were a light switch. ``But, it will end after the day is done.''
``I didn't ask for it.'' the vesk huffed, ``Why did you bond with me?''
Reddek's sharp teeth almost ground together, ``I didn't make it happen to you, I didn't bond TO you. WE bonded!'' This was almost like the elf situation all over again. ``It could have been Kehdo while we were talking about the stories of dragonkin and the mercurial bond.'' He reached up on instinct to move a lose pipe that Vaniboso almost ran their head into. ``I just took a moment to understand your feelings about religion and you did the same to think of my own positive experiences. We were already floating near connection and that crossed the threshold.'' Reddek wondered how often his brother and the Armsmaster argued. He was beginning to realize that he didn't know much about the bond at all in the lived day-to-day experiences. He knew what the stories said, but they were all crafted narratives, not life, ``I'm sorry.''
``No.'' Vaniboso was sharp and quick in his response. ``Don't apologize.'' the soldier was keeping his eyes open for danger, but at the same time, continued his conversation with the dragonkin, ``It is a gift of your kind, and I took it as unwilling conscription. We continue as one.'' He stopped and turned towards the dragonkin who also halted in his steps, and saluted in the style of the Pahtra resistance, ``Agreed?''
Reddek stopped his own motions, then returned the salute in the style of a Skyfire Legion. Former Legionnaire to former soldier, they strengthened the bond.
``And in dark haunted spaces `neath station's more civil places / did dragonkin and vesk find unity in purpose and wholeness in soul.'' Kehdo quoted, his draconic horribly accented and badly paced, making Reddek groan at the modified limerick from the ``Bonding of Dagosarn''.
They continued for more than a half hour without much incident, save for the strange deviations in the structure of the station's corridors, and odd anomalies of energy or warped reality which they gave a wide berth. A difference in perceived light ahead of them caught Wist's eye. For a moment she almost dismissed it as yet another anomaly, until its persistence and shape caused her to recognize it for something far different. She jogged ahead a short distance and crouched down to pick up a flashlight with a yellow frame. Written on its side in stylized spooky lettering were the words ``Ghost Tour''.
As Wist stood with the flashlight in paw, the beam of light it emitted began reflecting off the surface of metal parts strewn across the walls and floor of the corridor ahead. The debris was rusty gray and green in color, and only one portion of it was intact enough to give an idea of its construction.
Reddek lifted this intact piece of debris to examine it. ``Some kind of robot?'' He turned the remains of the mechanism over in his hands to view it from different angles. A series of scorch marks in line like streaks on the chassis became visible in the glow from Wist's flashlight.
Vaniboso recognized the charred markings, ``Shots from an arc weapon or electric spell.'' The vesk reached for his back and Reddek watched him detach a portion of it. The parts of the armor segment began to unfold and extend, forming the body of a rotolaser. It was convenient for carrying, but Reddek doubted its removal diminished the armor of the vesk in any meaningful manner.
Sensing now was the time to be armed, or influenced by his partner, the dragonkin drew his own weapon. Orange solar fire erupted from the hilt of the famous BSB-1750, otherwise known as the skyfire sword. It illuminated an area about five feet around the dragonkin, helpful perhaps in only the darkest of places, but not a useful light source. He held the blade in one hand, drawing a portion of the solar energy away away, like a coronal ejection from a sun. The stellar mote then hung above his free hand, another weapon ready to be flung at a foe.
Wist nodded approvingly to their actions as her own laser pistol found its place in her paw, ``Reddek, Vaniboso. To the front. Kehdo, with me taking up rear. Don't fire recklessly, there may be others down here who aren't hostile.''
Together the quartet started moving once more. At first their pace was slow, but as no additional dangers appeared, beyond debris that could trip up their feet, they increased their pace. The eerie corridors remained vacant of all life for another fifteen minutes.
It was Kehdo who first to call out what his sharp hearing caught. ``Stop!'' His voice was a raised whisper as he informed them, ``I hear the words again. It is awake.'' His ears flicked, ``Synthetic this time, mechanical, around the corner there.'' He gestured ahead towards a section of the corridor that began to branch into intersecting paths. It had a high ceiling reaching more than forty feet, with out of reach catwalks criss-crossing between rooms, or simply into solid walls up above.
Wist tapped the hips of both front-line members of the party to have them halt before she moved to the intersection's corner. She clicked off the flashlight and peered cautiously around the corner. Darkness, only barely illuminated by flickering lights, obscured her vision. She thought she could see objects in the flashes of those flickering lights, but the strobing pulses were too infrequent, and brief, to solidly make out anything. Frustrated, she pulled her head back. ``I can't see them.'' Reddek probably could, as he was possessed of a dragon's darkvision, but his big frame could be more easily spotted by whatever may be around the corner. ``Kehdo, come here.''
Kehdo approached and swapped his place against the wall with Wist's. He knelt down to the ground and seemed in a moment of focus while shedding his comfortable longcoat to the ground. Dressed now in a the loose clothes beneath that coat, and a form fitting second-skin armor beneath that, Kehdo jumped from his position quickly and sprinted across the hallway with inaudible steps, placing himself behind a few pipes that ran the length from ceiling to floor about fifteen feet further past the intersection. He stopped there, a paw on the pipes as he listened intently. He then looked towards Wist and began signing.
Wist watched the hand gestures and translated for the others in a whisper, ``Four maintenance robots. They're tearing apart some kind of conduit to get to its energy. They're saying, `It is awake', repeatedly.''
Vaniboso readied his weapon, ``Say the word, captain. If the robots have been glitched by whatever we experienced, they could be dangerous. Someone has already had to open fire on one.''
Wist did not like immediately engaging in violence. Her training as a diplomat told her to seek out a peaceful option first. But this situation did seem to put the vesk in the right. She adjusted her fine coat, opening its lapels and preparing for the possibility of getting hit by a weapon. She might be soon depending on the tech plate she was wearing beneath the finery to defend her. ``Gentlemen.'' She raised her laser pistol and signaled, ``We charge on three.''
* * *
The robots continued their work as they always had, and yet something was new. Their programming had always been simple, but now it had additions. These additions just didn't fit right, and the mathematical results were confusing inside their processors. But there was one overriding imperative: It is awake. And since it is awake, the directive was clear: It needed energy.
MA-22-28-B's energy cells were at 155% capacity, and it would now have to deliver the energy it had stored, for it is awake. It would risk overloading its battery if it tried to contain more, but it is awake. Unknown auditory inputs directed its camera lenses to focus on something coming down the corridors. Hostile biologicals. MA-19-28-A was just blasted by a ball of orange light. It is awake, and these aliens had to be stopped.
MA-22-28-B turned away form the open panel to move swiftly towards the foes. It was accelerated by using some of the stored energy reserves. An activation of its welder, modified to emit bursts of plasma at range, brought several impacts against one armored being. The results were inadequate. It is awake, and more had to be done. The drone shifted its targeting to the second alien with the glowing orange blade. This one seemed distracted with it's efforts to bring its weapon down onto MA-22-18-C. It is awake, and this provided the opportunity for it to strike with an effective bolt of energized plasma. A perfect hit. Auditory receptors registered a cry from the being, like the cry of it who is awake.
MA-22-28-B fired a follow up assault on the now retreating and injured figure, striking armor. It was nearing a range where statistical probability said a close range attack could hit a vital organ's location when it found its camera covered by frost. It lost its target. Temperature sensors recorded abnormally low readings beyond its ability to be measured. Systems were shutting down. Processors were reaching a critical point of operable temperatures. Connections were frozen, and shattered. It was awake, but for now it was time for MA-22-28-B to sleep.
* * *
As Kehdo leapt away from the maintenance robot he'd perched upon to get a perfect hit with his zero pistol, Vaniboso rushed towards it and followed through on the vlaka's assault with a yell and a strike from the butt of his rotolaser. The frozen robot shattered into a handful of pieces as its metal frame, brittle from the rapid shift in temperatures, could not stand up to the blow.
The vesk made a quick examination of their surroundings for other targets or dangers, before turning his attention to his allies. Kehdo had remained unseen by the swarm of bots. They had passed his hiding spot and never seemed to detect him. Wist looked equally uninjured, but had burn marks in her coat. She was tending to the only one of their party who had been struck with a more serious blow.
The lucky hit from the welding torch had cut a neat hole through the webbed membrane of flesh that was the dragonkin's left wing, creating a two inch irregular hole. He was kneeling and fighting every urge to cradle the injury as Wist reached under her coat to take out her compact medkit. Reddek hissed and grunted other noises of heightened discomfort, along with a draconic curse or two as she began to treat the injury.
``Easy now. Does it really hurt that bad?'' Wist asked.
Reddek huffed through gritted teeth. ``Wing injuries always do. This is my first. When my brother broke his, you could hear his yell all the way in the Drakelands.''
Vaniboso reached for his shoulder repeatedly. ``I don't hurt, but I do. Is this a bond thing?''
Reddek drew in a sharp hiss as Wist applied a medpatch to the hole in his wing on both sides of the hole, ``Yes, but, you wont actually hurt. You're not in pain, you just know I am. Think of it like your own breathing, and you can let the feeling slip away.'' Words unheard by Wist and Kehdo made Reddek cringe and look away from Vaniboso, ``I'll suck it up.''
Vaniboso turned his head in realization that the thought of his command to the dragonkin had carried through the bond into Reddek's mind. If any other words were shared, neither being was forthcoming about them, and Vaniboso strode from the group to stand guard as the dragonkin was treated.
Wist felt it was time to pull the group together. Bond or no bond, any close group in a situation of survival could find as much animosity as it could connection. ``We shall all have to eventually, Reddek. Adventures like this in the unknown test us, find our weaknesses, and exploit them. You look like someone who can endure, if not pleasantly.''
The words came as insult, and encouragement all at once, and Reddek felt some confusion, but it also drew him to consider how he was acting and had been acting. He rose to his feet and defended himself, ``I do smile sometimes.''
``Maybe I'll see that someday.'' Wist, barely up to the dragonkin's knee in height, gave her own rodentine smile up towards him, ``For now, no more getting hurt, we need you at the front with Vaniboso.''
``Right. I mean...aye captain.''
Wist's incisors bit slightly at her lower lip as she felt a pang of nostalgia for her Starfinder days. She had to admit to herself that she liked the feeling of having a crew once again. She remembered telling herself that she'd go through the worst of missions just to get one once more, and no doubt one of the gods had said ``Okay!''.
Once Reddek had taken position at the fore once more, and his wing was neatly tucked against his back, she ordered the group ahead. ``Onward. Same formation.''
Location: Ghost Levels - DrivenTech Part Storage:
Geekona distributed the snack bars to each member of the tour group with a sullen look on his face. Most who accepted each of the bars had an angry expression in return. He was running out of the snacks and drinks he'd packed away in the null space chamber he'd borrowed, and had long ago run out of time. He was going to have to come clean for this group. He never thought that his little scheme would end up in a situation like this; stuck in the actual Ghost Levels, hunted down by glitching robots, pestered by a station gremlin, and assaulted by an infinitely multiplying hardlight scamp projector.
They had retreated to a storage room where mostly empty crates sat in haphazard piles scattered about the room. Two doors bracketed the thirty foot wide roughly square shaped chamber, with an unreachable upper catwalk above them almost entirely shrouded in darkness. Geekona had dropped his flashlight requiring him to use a Light spell to check the darkness above. So far nothing had crawled from the upper regions, and he dismissed the spell, feeling the room was safe, and that magic might actually attract something nasty.
Everyone knew things weren't going according to plan. They had been here for six hours, which was five hours longer than the experience was meant to last, and Geekona had run out of ways to convince the group that everything was all part of the tour.
Now the skittermander knew what dangers the actual Ghost Levels had and he personally found it exciting. He had kicked himself mentally for not remembering to record any of it, thought in hindsight it was probably for the best. He couldn't take time to selfie his personal danger when so many others he'd brought in here with him were also at risk.
It was thanks to Plexus, Riia and the ikeshti, not to mention SC-4V, the ikeshti's pet robot, that they'd made it this far through the dangers unscathed. Both the colorful shirren and pahtra were capable of their own magic, and the technical know-how and ferocious flak weapon of the ikeshti had done in more than a few glitched robots and hardlight horrors. After their third battle the tourists were beginning to feel that everything wasn't just for show.
Geekona blinked, realizing how stuck he'd been inside his own head, and that he was still holding onto a flavored protein bar that he was offering the ikeshti. They hadn't taken the offering, looking over another piece of scrap tech they'd picked up in the halls. ``It's free.'' Geekona tried to smile to encourage the alien to eat. The red scaled reptile pushed the offered treat away. ``I won't be hungry for another three weeks. Please, eat it or share it.''
Geekona might have wanted to share in other circumstances, but the stress had made him ravenous. He opened the wrapping on the bar, as well as a second one he had saved for himself, and ate both in large bites one after another held in two hands. Another pair of hands were at work on his comm unit, trying to get a signal once more, hoping against hope he could call for rescue. He felt a pair of eyes on him while he worked on the device and glanced upwards. The ikeshti was looking at his comm unit screen, then at him for reasons he wasn't sure of. Maybe it was because Geekona hadn't been polite.
``Oh, yeah, thanks nufriend. I was hungry.'' The skittermander said sheepishly
``It is what I would do back home. It is good for the brood.'' he pointed to Geekona's comm unit, ``I could try to boost the signal.''
The skittermander shook their head in a negative, ``It's already as modded and jailbroken as it can get. If it's not working, there's no Infosphere here.'' and he wasn't ready to hand over his comm unit to anyone until he'd scrubbed all his search history. Geekona put the comm unit away in a pocket and ate another bite of one of the bars, almost finishing it off. ``You wanted to talk to the Ghost Couriers? Why? Oh, what's your name anyway? Can't keep calling you nufriend.'' Geekona bombarded the Ikeshti with questions, but they didn't seem to be bothered by it.
``Koss. Gresthak Brood, fourth generation.'' The Ikeshti spoke an akitonian word to Scav and the robot moved to their side, crouching down in a compact mode so that their back was completely flat. Koss pulled a latched portion of the back upwards, and it opened up into what seemed to be a miniaturized workbench. The ikeshti set their weapon down on its surface, starting to fiddle with an interior component. ``I'm seeking a component. My boss needs it for a rich client. My brood could use the money.'' the ikeshti gripped their tool tightly, ``I need this job, and Gresthak needs...I can't mess this up.''
Geekona could see that anxiety was spiking in Koss. Ikeshti emotions could run wild if situations became overwhelming for them, and he didn't want that happening when the ikeshti seemed to be modifying a reaction breacher. ``Hey, nufriend. We'll find a way. Who's your boss?''
Koss steadied himself and then continued tinkering with his weapon, ``Manee Moonpuncher.''
Geekona cheered, loud enough that it startled many of the tourists. He coughed afterwards and then spoke more quietly with Koss, ``I know Manee! Look, if you went all the way to the ghost levels to finish a job, she's going to be impressed, not fire you. Besides, you're working in Little Akiton now. We look out for each other. You still got that four-way whatchamacallit, right?''
``GK-33X four-way lock cycler.'' Koss corrected
Geekona waved off the technical correction, ``Yeah that. Well if the ghost couriers want it, its worth something, if we can't trade it for what you want, Manee can still sell the thing for a good sum. Either way your brood's getting some credits...if we can get out of here.''
Koss looked puzzled, ``Are you not familiar with where we are?''
Geekona tensed, their mouth becoming almost invisible thin line beneath their fur as their lips tightened. ``I uh...no, not here.''
This time, unfortunately for the skittermander, he was overheard by others. The lashunta husband to the dwarf had been standing nearby and overheard him. He balked at the admission. ``Never been here!? But you're our tour guide! Have you got us lost down here?!''
Having heard this, the vesk students were equally incensed. One approached the short skittermander with swaying shoulders, backing him into a corner as she loomed over him, ``You put all of our lives in danger!''
More of the tour patrons were crowding in, and a form swiftly danced between Geekona and them. The pahtra raised their hands and in a voice amplified by magic commanded, ``Back off!'' It was enough to make the vesk retreat but only by a step.
Geekona felt like the storage room was growing more and more cramped. He eyed the exits, knowing that Koss had sabotaged the one they had come through to help keep them safe, leaving the other one unlocked as a quick escape route. The crowd of upset tourists were between him and that door.
``He never intended to bring you to these Ghost Levels.'' Riia insisted, ``They are truly dangerous, and it would be irresponsible to bring you to them on purpose.'' They gestured to Geekona, ``He does what all good tour guides do, bring you to a place safely where you can observe the wonders you want to seek without them being a danger to you. Like with a guide through a zoo, you are always on the other side of the glass from the predators.''
The vesk snorted, scowling at the pahtra, ``We're not on the right side of that glass now, are we?!'' At the same time, she had less of an urge to lash out as Koss and Plexus now also stood near to Geekona as well, dividing the tour group between the skittermander's supporters and opponents.
The gray scaled vesk with mottled blue splotches on their scales pointed with a demand towards the skittermander, ``I want my money back!''
The barathu, dwarf and others agreed with that sentiment in grumbling voices, and Geekona winced visibly before taking out his credstick. He touched it to to each stick belonging to the other tour goers, returning their money one by one.
Plexus apologized with a wince as he accepted the refund, ``Sorry I...it's um...all I've got right now.''
When he went to Riia, they put up a paw to refuse.
He was about to approach Koss to offer the ikeshti the refund as well when a thudding was heard at the sabotaged door to the utility room.
The tourists quickly moved away from the door towards the corners of the room farthest from it. They picked up discarded metal pipes or fist-sized technical detritus as weapons against whatever was beyond the door.
``Go away!'' The lashunta shouted, his hands covering up his head while his husband stood with a metal pipe in his hands, stony faced and ready for a fight.
Following the outburst, the banging ceased. All that could be heard afterwards were muffled sounds beyond. Riia found the courage first to approach the door and placed a pointed lynx tipped ear against it. ``I hear voices. HELLO!?''
A tapping sound now sounded on the door quickly. There were spaced between each tap and one of the barathu recognized it immediately, ``The first four prime numbers! It's the machines! They're coming to kill us!''
Geekona and Riia both hissed a shushing sound to the barathu.
``They'd just start cutting through the door.'' Koss stated factually. He approached the door he had sabotaged to prevent it from easily opening and worked to rewire its activation mechanism. ``They want to show they are not monsters.''
``Yeah! So, we've got some help! It could be a rescue party!'' Geekona stood in front of the door, and drew his firearm from the inside of his jacket. He was scared, but wanted to show his tour group, likely his last tour group, that things were okay, but that he'd be first to stand against the danger if they weren't. He was driven by thoughts of the heroes of his favorite vidgames less than practicality.
When power was restored to the door and it slid open, Geekona met the dark eyes of a white furred ysoki in somewhat tattered and scorched finery. She was flanked behind by the form of a vlaka and vesk, and towering over both of them was a dragonkin taking up the rear.
Initially the group was intimidating enough that Geekona feared it was NOT a rescue party, and that he'd just opened the door to a greater danger. But then the ysoki spoke in a concerned tone.
``Everyone okay in here?'' The ysoki suddenly cried out in surprise. Her companions seemed ready to defend her, reaching for weapons, as Geekona latched onto her in an allsix hug!
``Thank the Sphere! Lambatuin wasn't trolling! You're here to rescue us!''
The ysoki tried to pat the distraught skittermander in hopes to console him, and to get free, but the grip of six hugging arms was pinning both of hers. All she could manage was a weak pat upon his side. ``Social distance. Social distance please.'' She repeated quickly.
Geekona released her, and hopped a step backwards, rubbing several hands together apologetically. ``Sorry. We just haven't seen anything that's not corrupted or dangerous or trying to hurt us in...in hours!''
The rest of the ysoki's group entered the room. Vaniboso was first to ask about the time, ``Has it been that long since we saw the vision and fell in the elevator?''
``Uh...um.'' The colorful shirren stepped away from his corner to speak up with a cautiously raised hand, as though he were asking a teacher permission to address the class, ``Time doesn't exactly work right in the Ghost Levels. Our...experiences m-might be um...separated by effects that cause non-gravitational dilation.'' The shirren rubbed their hands together in an apologetic manner, ``It works both ways. We may emerge but find ourselves displaced from the material plane by...hours or...days or...or years.''
``Years!?'' The vocal vesk female tourist clawed at her face, ``I'll miss mid-terms!''
``We'll be fired!'' The pair of barathu complained.
Wist quickly hopped up onto an old crate to get some height and raised her paws. ``It's more important that we find our way out right now! I know many of us are scared and I...Well I'm not thrilled about being down here either. What I need are volunteers ready to search for a way out. We'll use this location as our base, our sanctuary. With our numbers we can cover more ground. We can find some stairs, an elevator, or a doorway that may lead to the real Absalom Station.''
Wist looked for the willing among the crowd apart from her own crew. None seemed forthcoming except an ikeshti, who approached her while holding a nasty looking two handed flak launcher.
``I will. My brood cannot wait for years to pass without my help.'' Koss looked towards the other tourists apologetically, ``It is selfish.''
Wist knelt at the crate's edge and shook her head, ``If you can think that aloud, you're more selfless than you might believe. You can help brood and them both.''
Koss seemed eased by that and then commanded his drone, ``Scav, mobility mode.''
Wist noticed a small workbench set in the middle of the floor changing shape until it resembled the vague form of an akitonian predator. It moved to Koss' side, revealing a figure that had been hiding behind it. The ysoki's black eyes widened in recognition, ``Riia!?''
``Crap.'' The pahtra stood up from their crouched position and put their paws behind their back, noticeably more still than they had been before, ``Hi Wist. You look well.''
``I look well?!'' Wist hopped down from the crate and pointed an accusative finger at the pahtra, ``I look like the hells! My coat is singed, my fur too, I've been shot at by robots and scamps and gremlins and, oh yes, I'm in the Ghost Levels!''
Riia pranced a moment from foot to foot and then waved a hand with an incantation, placing it on one of Wist's shoulders, ``Singed? Oh! Easy, let me just cast a mending-''
Wist slapped the pahtra's paw away, ``Don't you go `mending' me! What First One's tech did you open this time? That's what's caused this, isn't it? You always open something without thinking of the consequences.''
The pahtra balked at Wist's accusation and bared fangs with their retort, ``You can't just go blame this on me because something bad happened, and I'm here. I thought you were a GOOD Starfinder, Wist, the kind that knows correlation does not equal causation!''
Uncomfortably, Vaniboso and Reddek looked to one another, the disquiet of the argument compounding in the bond.
``Why do I feel fear?'' Reddek asked telepathically through the bond
``Because I'm afraid to interrupt the captain right now.'' Vaniboso answered in the dragonkin's mind
``Do you know who that is? Their history?''
Vaniboso slowly shook his head, ``The Captain spoke of someone once that irked her, a loose cannon in the Starfinders that relied on luck too much. I think it's them.''
While the argument continued, Reddek went to his old habit of panning his eyes around everywhere the conflict was not occurring. It informed him of two things. The first was that he couldn't spot Kehdo, and the second was that the shirren had just been taken hostage.
Reddek impulsively ignited his solar weapon, and Vaniboso raised his lowered rotolaser, instinctually moving with the dragonkin to be ready for combat.
The entire crowd gasped, confused, while the dragonkin's eyes narrowed at a figure in a dark, loose-fitting jacket hoodie which hid their features. Their grasp around the shirren was solid while they held a sharp point of a starknife to Plexus' throat.
``Drop your weapons.'' The figure hissed.
