Stories of Lore 9

Exerlus count down negative one week. They’re still scanning things. Long as no one bothers them they seem to just keep scanning things. The issue Hylavi is having is that we don’t know where Arkaric is and now the exerlus are all over our system. So he has a lot of opportunity to start something if he wants to and we’re having a hard time keeping tabs on all of them while they keep splitting into more entities to scan more things. The odd part is their broad scans they did upon arriving revealed almost everything we could ever imagine wanting to know but they insist on scanning everything anyways. Despite Nelta’s recent attack, that hasn’t seemed to dissuade them from sticking around to scan things.

Speaking of which, they found the rift and have been scanning it relentlessly. I don’t think they know what it is or what the data means yet, though their curiosity towards it is quite limitless.

As for Harlus, apparently her current plans are to solidify her position in the office and assemble a staff of useful advisors. Her next plan is to read the fine print of our relations with Moncayo to see what might be of interest there. She was also present for meeting with Nelta when they arrived to reclaim their missing fellow from the Astral Order.

The trial of Sarden took about twenty minutes. We don’t have the longest legal code necessary for proper lawyering to take years. We have multiple witnesses that she killed two people, assaulted another, attempted to kill some others, and resisted arrest. Good enough, throw her in the brig. Not like she can move much anyways after Hylavi ran her over with a shuttle. Though I do warn that given the nature of her organization, this could escalate a whole lot really quickly. We could just ditch her on SR2 or some other profit prison so she’s not on our station when her friends come looking for her at the least. That or use her as bait.

Related to this, Hastam’s body has proven useful in Khymin’s work to further his golem making skills. Since Hastam was a highly advanced combat model, she had a lot of interesting parts I’m told. Khymin has since been seeing what can be integrated into his current projects about the matter. Though I’m not sure about the direction he’s taking it, his latest prototypes are quite large and might scare the citizens.

We have had the basement dwellers prepare for another trip to the rift with Aato, who is a dragon related to Faelyn as it turns out. Due to all the people passing through recently, we had to delay it for a little bit. Also related to Renjala’s Rift, we have informed Nelan of its presence. He didn’t seem to have much reaction to it, though I caution that its not his job to have a reaction to it. We’ll see how the rest of Alnae responds though. Though we know that currently, Kaylen is fighting one of the other warlords.

Also we managed to get another crew for one of the starships to send out searching for interesting things among the stars.

The second lance is still on the job working on expanding the current radar system to go through ‘all da planes’. It would have a unique feature of being able to track down binds if the bind is ever utilized while the radar is paying attention. Apparently Faelyn wants to know literally everything possible from her station about all of space around her, including if we get surprised by some race who has the ability to use pandem magic.

Irae is currently playing greeter to our recent Shetou prince that is visiting back home at Somnus. Though some are concerned about attracting their attention, at least its good diplomacy points…right? Also she said to ask you what to do with the alien since it turned out Nelta wasn’t here to pick him up after all. Though there was no attempt to assault him, also no attempt to contact him. We’re not really sure whats going on since Nelta has made no attempt at communication with any of Sol.

Meanwhile at Jamalia, Daesta has left the colony to return to her warren when we went to visit it. Mostly to take care of the others there. Despite Reika’s impressions on her, she still isn’t willing to give up the war with the arcurans just yet. Largely influenced by the fact that our contact with the arcurans has made it clear they won’t stop hunting the merkas either. That being said, they’re more interested in preparing to meet with Madhammer as we prepare for their arrival in the future. For now, they’re headed to Thenica to join the war with Alnae so we might not see them for a little bit.

This has sort of made it difficult to conduct tree based experiments since technically they aren’t cooperating with the deals we’ve offered.

To further expand upon the merkas situation, we’re currently looking for the rumored warren that contains the elder priest that Daesta mentioned before. I feel that contacting her might result in a more effective ability to persuade any additional warrens one way or another. Though we do have a small sample size at the moment. It’s a big planet and we’re just one colony. Though 40th Day is nearby probing at the boiling seas of that other planet, if we borrow some scanners we might be able to track down these warrens a bit more easily.

Renard’s Rifts has an approximate value of nine and a half billion credits, since they are the main source of pandem engineering for Thenica. Not the largest of companies given they only operate on the one planet, but still fairly sizeable. According to financial reports that we can’t access due to the aethernet having issues, meaning we just asked one of the representatives at Moncayo instead, they see a general income of about two billion credits per year before expenses. Mostly from ticket sales at the rifts.

So the mythical cult of lucidity has rebranded itself and returned to its isolation. I can’t tell if that solution was reasonable or not given Cassir still had to kill seven people to get them to finally give up the trademark to her. In the meantime we have Cassir and her new henchmen on their way back to Moncayo to oversee the construction of the new temple. By that I mean they intend to see whats going on around there in general since they missed the party. Also we need to pick up Vamon eventually.

The incubation project has yielded some new critters, though Vasia ditched them at the vivarium since they were taking up too much space and too similar to one another for her to keep messing with. Though she does have strong evidence right now to suggest their mutations will only deviate from standard course if their environment is too hostile to their normal patterns. That being said, those ones can now no longer survive on Koura as they’re too well adapted to their extreme laboratory conditions. We could try to incubate one around the acid cloud of a world and see what happens though.

As for her shades, they kind of just stay in place. Apparently shades and spirits in general are anchored to whatever material object they were last focused on or passing through. This is part of how anti-spirit wards work for keeping them out of places you don’t want them just walking casually through a wall into.

In the general field of the spooky laboratory, Salied has started to show further improvement though is still not quite ready to leave her room. Though she watches cartoons now, so that’s a step up from staring at a wall for…it’s been months now actually. As for taking her out into space, Vasia said ‘sure’ in that kind of tone that made me double check why she said it that way. The sahad ability to survive in the vacuum of space is a specific spell, a first level one but it is still something that is actively learned and practiced. Given Salied’s current state, she miiight not be ready to try and cast it. Though Vasia has decided to start trying to teach her this beginner spell to see if learning to wield sahad helps her condition any. It just goes kind of slow given her and the other subject’s current state.

40th Day has started collecting contracts on colonizers to sell to other places, we’ll see how that goes once training is complete. We’ve begun building some prefabs to keep ready here at Somnus, or more so just floating outside Somnus so they don’t take up too much space. Close enough.

The Exerlus do seem to like the asteroids at least, and Arkaric didn’t bomb them all as we were concerned about. Nelta did instead. Though the asteroids have been put to use helping them rebuild their lost chunk that was hit by the bomb.

Also speaking of which, those asteroids led to us finding more asteroids basically. We could have 40th Day start mining operations on them in the meantime if nothing else to collect raw resources. I know Joe likes to try and build upon that kind of physical industry too so it keeps the vice governor happy.

As for the ad campaign in Moncayo, technically we could open it up to outside investors to get it moving a bit better. Which wouldn’t be hard to draw in now that Renjala’s Rift is a known entity. So its easy to justify that this could become a major shipyard if nothing else for servicing those passing through and attract their attention. There are some rich and powerful people at Moncayo and Vamon could probably get enough money to overhaul it for battleship level construction by the end of the month. Though shares wise that’d be selling off about 87.5% of its ownership to said investors, which will definitely effect the profits we would see but at least it would be built and we could focus capital on other things.

Phoenix Colony has finished its construction and is now operational. Though there are very few people there so far. Vasia says it would be a better place than Somnus station for her lab though, since no one is getting in or out of that planet anytime soon. Though to enable that we would need to invest in a rift tunnel to get conveniently in and out and those are expensive to build and maintain so that might be more of a daydream to maximize her unnecessary spookiness since the tunnels can cost about a billion credits to build let alone the maintenance. As evidenced by just building one gate at Somnus.

While the Vivarium is still under construction I have had the monster queen thing we found shipped to it. Enough of its construction is done to at least hold that thing.

As to our other project, the whole ‘lets jump into a boiling ocean planet’ operation has finally commenced. The scans weren’t wrong, video we’ve received back indicates a very colorful world underneath the water. Samples of various growths among the rocks show a good potential for high powered mana filters. Since it requires practically boiling water, there is something to be said for incorporating it into designs somewhere near…well boiling water probably heated by the engine its powering or something.

Our observations on PZ142-3 Alpha have been of interest to the scientific community at least though have little impact on our day to day affairs. So we’re just still probing at small bacteria really.

We have the battlecruiser with Ilex’s shipyards at the moment for the refurbishing process. Speaking of which, the Nomads are back in town. Which I’m sure Lancaster is just ecstatic to hear.

As for reaching out to Sophia, she’s currently not as interested in leaving. Something about being done working with spooky people, evidently after we left Thenica she considered her debt paid for getting her out of jail. That and something about looking after her family back there instead of running off across the galaxy.

As for the cracks in Laura’s organization, there are definitely always those who can be properly motivated with enough incentive. However, she has been careful in selecting her highest ranking individuals. So while we might find something to exploit among the gangsters, the family members appear to be solid. At least as far as we can tell without making it obvious to her that we are planning such a thing.

Speaking of Laura, she brings an update following the Nelta attack. Arkaric has left the system, apparently having taken off soon after having his minions execute Hastam. All things considered he didn’t cause too much trouble around here, though given our past relationship with his sister we’re probably not on his list of people he doesn’t like. Not yet at least.

Also after the results of the election, Laura has been able to solidify her position on Koura as the undisputed top crime lord of the system. She still keeps a healthy distance from us at the moment, but is at least still cooperating in her own little way. Including a unique tip on the black market of a hidden auction going on for a recently captured alien that has been able to demonstrate some level of sahad ability.

The stealth cruiser is on its way back, we would estimate the Kar’Soluth asteroid base to have a “military value” of 250. It’s not exceptionally well defended though stealth seems to be its primary asset.

Also, Vaeri visited the Raven II and they just handed her the engineer we were looking for. Though to be noted, apparently something is going on in that Siwa factory that managed to attract the attention of clients who know about the Raven. Which means it has to be something odd.

The troops are loaded back up onto the freighters and being shipped out to Alnae to help Kaylen. Though currently they’re traveling along still.

Stories of Lore 8

Exerlus countdown clock says they’ll be here within three weeks. So…get ready.

In response to the alliance, and mentioning exactly what Renjala’s Rift is, she sent a battleship to our station with quite a bit of haste. Her general, Aato Jousen, is poking around currently to get a feel for the place. Evidently she considered the rift to be quite significant for such a quick response to be made. Her ideas on the sahad entity on the other side however is to send a dragon to meet with it. She said as far as wild shots at it go, dragons are a superior race to most humanoids so maybe it’ll like one of those more, or throw so many humanoids at it that maybe we can achieve a sort of ant colony effect.

This definitely hasn’t helped us that much with Nelan and Alnae though, not that they said anything in particular over the matter but us entering into a formal alliance with Faelyn while they’re just an embassy here, who doesn’t know what the giant rift tunnel we’re building is actually for, does little to make it look as if we particularly care for them by comparison. In discussing the matter with Nelan it has become apparent that despite Faelyn’s mentions of helping all of Sol with her early detection systems she has definitely put Alnae and Shetou on a backseat compared to the frontier colonists. As neither empire were invited to the party I am currently still at. By the way, the seafood here is pretty good.

We’ve started a company up to really focus on the research of the parasites, though progress is a little sketchy at the moment due to the dramatic side effects that occur as a result of mis-timing the removal of the parasite. Also we still kind of lack an expert on the matter.

Speaking of new companies, Ohalyn has agreed to see about expanding her holdings as we didn’t really specify any downside as far as she’s concerned. She’s starting off with a mix between a casino and a more expanded hotel. Actually she’s been in contact with Raiben to invent a new type of gambling game, one that specifically has better odds than most casino games. She stated that if people win even just a little bit they’re likely to blow their money on everything else the place has to offer and become repeat customers instead of getting mad about losing all their money on games.

Oh also the election results are in, with our change in support to help Laura help Harlus, Harlus won with Joe sitting in her cabinet. So Laura is happy with that, which means Nah is happy with that I…think? I can’t tell what their relationship with her is at this point.

The hydroponics facilities are doing well and has definitely expanded the limits of our population here in Auwana, alongside the Orchard farms. We’ve seen an increase in immigration ever since Vittles got its harvests up and running.

On another note, Moncayo sent us a report of three incoming groups. One of which is a small fleet of destroyer sized vessels. We already knew the exerlus one was coming and it appears the Astral Order have invited Nelta to come pick up their alien friend. Though the third one is a battleship from Shetou and we’re not entirely sure why they just so happen to be on their way all of a sudden. Also we’ve managed to get a full crew together for another of the exploration starships and sent them on their way.

This might be a busy month coming up.

So far things at Jamalia are going well and the first lance keeps wandering around the planet exploring with the down time. Actually three of the knights built a log cabin up the river they call ‘the club house’ where they go fishing. Daesta spends most of her time arguing with Reika about arcurans, and I have to keep reminding her that Reika doesn’t have a translator herself and relies on the squires or slaves for that. Though Reika also does not have a personal squire or slave and has a habit of standing around in open fields while staring into the distance, so not guaranteed to always have someone nearby to translate. She’s still grumbling and trying to find  her overall stance on this whole ‘stop fighting arcurans’ thing.

To that angle, she doesn’t actually know where all the other merkas warrens are. She actually hasn’t even taken us back to her own yet, even if we know where it is anyways. A detail I think she forgot amidst everything else going on. I gather she’s trying her best to feel things out but she has mentioned something they refer to as being an old queen that is rumored to be somewhere ‘nearby’ in another warren who is leading the main push against the arcurans. Apparently Daesta comes from a smaller one that is definitely struggling at the bottom end of the spectrum, but the largest and most aggressive tribe might be a bit more difficult to work with. Though given the ongoing war between the two species, it is likely that a lot of relations between the races are dependent on the city of Helym and this particularly large Warren.

Speaking of which, our visit to Helym went…as expected. Yonam is definitely not disposed to ending the conflict with the merkas. Actually he’s not even disposed to avoiding conflict with us. Though in noting how he refers to certain monsters and the merkas I’m beginning to think its not as personal of a grudge as the merkas have against the arcurans. The arcurans just really like fighting things and have built a warrior culture around it. This might be related to why Lancaster pointed out their civilization hasn’t evolved nearly as much as their biology, too much focus on fighting for the sake of fighting. Really if we strapped some armor on them and gave them modern weapons we could probably just throw them at problems. They don’t even have a concept of money, so easy employees for Madhammer, though I don’t think they’d make good knights. Given that they are composed of arcane energy, the pandem corruption might just outright kill them. The diplomatic relations issue is really more of the merkas problem who have a deeper and more personal grudge. Point the arcurans at a new thing to fight and that’ll be their new priority, something something honor and glory.

Oh also the station around the moon Enohas is up and running, a bit understaffed but up and running. We’re sending the educators there first for getting them settled and ready to deal with trying to come to Jamalia.

Meanwhile in Moncayo, the second lance has been picking out a spot for the planned chapter house while meeting and greeting the other people. Most notably among them, besides the obvious presence of the Vloz, is another company known as the Renard’s Rifts. They’re sort of a standard service company who usually is present in Shetou space that help maintain rift tunnels and create new ones. They’re not as combat focused but its interesting to see them expanding their operations out here on the frontier given they usually are only found on Thenica where the major pandem terminals are.

Secondly an Alnae company who provides very similar services though are technically a branch of the government to maintain travel ways is present.

Finally, thanks to Nah division, we know the third entity is actually a former pirate captain who apparently went missing over the last year. Apparently she has been hiding in the Void this whole time. A feat even the order would consider impossible.

Third lance has been distracted by attempting to test a steam powered shuttle, which is not going spectacularly well but it came about as a result of needing to hop between planes to see what is in the neighborhood. Mostly quiet though as the stars on the other planes, or even this one, tend to be a bit barren. As most stars in the galaxy tend to be I suppose.

The alien in a cage has had arrangements made to pick him up and take him back home. Within the month a Nelta ship is coming to get him. Things are about to get a little busy, the exerlus will be here around the same time.

As a side note, since the official alliance was signed with Faelyn, Vamon was able to request a list of other members and their locations. Export time! 40th Day has been wandering around doing some surveying for them and though it hasn’t impacted the shipyards much we’ve turned a lot of our production contracts to these new colonies if nothing else for diplomatic points. However, we have seen a few new visitors coming through now which is good for the shipyards. I’m trying to sell them the rocks still.

Moving on, Cassir has arrived at Thenica. She killed their profitable prophet and has now left Thenica, headed towards SR1 to finish this little tour up. There can only be one after all. Note, she will beat Vasia and Salied there since she’s already in the Sol system. Not sure if you want me to have her put a hold on the murder spree or not…

Also Faelyn has approved the cult temple in Moncayo though has a list of building restrictions that the Astral Order has gone over already.

So the 004C incubations have made some progress, they don’t actually show much adaptation to artificial environments except in extreme cases where their normal Koura based adaptations won’t be able to survive. Though they haven’t actually finished metamorphosis, there is a distinct lack of diversity in their cocoons compared to the ones in said extreme simulations. Though we are still waiting to see the end result.

001D experiments have come to a bit of a hiatus until Vasia can find more sahad sources to continue exposure testing. Though she did render a shade catatonic and since they are incorporeal they just sort of float there and there isn’t that much we can do about it. Upon learning that Exerlus and Nelta would be visiting soon she prepped a lot of equipment to see if any opportunities might be found from some alien visitors.

40th Day’s recruitment efforts are helping to alleviate the crisis in Sol while also separating people out over the frontier colonies. With Somnus Vittles food production starting to get going a little more we can sustain more population than before so we have awhile before hitting the limits of the Auwana system.

With a quick refit they were able to ready a craft that can dive into the boiling ocean of PZ142-1, though that is being shipped out to the Paizarus system so…transit time on that. We’ve sent the probes alongside them to keep an eye on PZ142-3 Alpha as well.

In regards to prefab colony construction, technically  we can do that now. The reason its not always ideal is that it takes just as long but is a bit worse. Basically a bunch of hollow boxes intended to be rapidly deployed and can sometimes have long term issues on new worlds that aren’t perfectly flat and convenient to work with. Though if you want we can try to build some to have rapid deployment ready in case we’ve a need for it.

According to Sarden, after awhile of her being as uncooperative as possible, her best guess is that Selona wasn’t after her head for technological reasons. She thinks it is more likely that it is because Hastam was the one who injured Eliza, who they came to get. It is suspected that the phantoms want Eliza for something in particular and gave her some revenge as a signing bonus.

I found some people who will work for the vivarium, botanist was easiest of the bunch. The rest are either just animal people and a guy with a biology major though we’ll see what becomes of that at the Vivarium. Technically we have a couple of geologists in 40th day though I found another for the vivarium.

In questioning Laura about necrocarnates she pointed out that they have a tendency to either be well hidden or uncontrollable. The taboo nature of the art aside, those who practice it are of a specific personality. There are extremely few who could be qualified as ‘not a psychopath’ as a lack of empathy is kind of the prerequisite to becoming one. So if you’re going to go looking for one, you could try posting it at the Solvang boards to see if anyone responds looking for work though that might be more overt than desired. Another option would be to try and lure one to the station though its unlikely that Lancaster wants to touch that mess. Another option is to peruse the outer frontier, as they tend to live where they are difficult to find. Away from large populations. You could also just buy one from the Raven facility, which we haven’t pissed off quite yet.  Though the raven slaves cost about fifty million credits.

Baltun informed me that Setani is on the way to SR2 to visit the vampires and see if any would be interested in working around here.

Setani is off helping Ilex out with a headhunt. In the meantime, Raiben has been settling in on resuming his business targeting the major empire’s space. So that should help finances a little once he really gets rolling. Aryn protects him a bit so he doesn’t make the same mistakes he did that let her find him.

Vaeri is on her way to the Raven II as herself to speak with Kanika about the matter. Out here on the frontier, it takes forever to get back to Sol so she’ll be a bit as she makes the journey.

Laura’s most consistent contacts include the members we tracked down last time you asked about her network. The most notable of which still include Shani and

As for locating Sophia, she’s still back on Thenica at the moment working out of our old headquarters. Apparently since she knew where it was and knew it was vacant she just moved right on in after the division downsized. Now days she is mostly running a salvage operation via gunpoint, doing quite well at it too. She doesn’t live near the capital areas that have escaped the worst of it, so she’s waist deep in the more chaotic side of the planet that are fighting over food still.

As for probing Sarden, she definitely had a major cybernetic arm that was made for combat. Her other arm was a prosthetic placeholder after she got shot by Arkaric and now she’s a bit of a mangled mess. Though nothing that actually holds data on the revenants themselves.

Our stealth cruiser arrived at the asteroid outpost of Kar’Soluth, it’s definitely a little fuzzy given the pandem magic also affects arcane based scanning and they revel in it to the point that it actually does create interference. Though the asteroid is quite large and orbits the star from a distance that provides very little benefit from the star. So its freezing cold and has no atmosphere though that is likely part of the point, being somewhere that nowhere would look for them. There are a few warships there but not enough to launch a terribly large assault. Then again Shetou are spread a bit thin at the moment anyways so they might not need a particularly large one, though it is anyone’s guess as to why they haven’t attacked yet if that was their plan.

Also, the Nomads are back after an excursion to Sol space with a Kar’Soluth battlecruiser. Did you want to sell it or start collecting them?

Well things are quiet around here this month. So do you want to take the work back on Thenica or look for frontier contracts or…

Oh also the arms factory has been able to start looking into some exports due to the Moncayo alliance so that’s been good for the startup business. We’re still mapping out who we can sell what to but its definitely helping make the company more profitable.

Stories of Lore 7

It appears Sarden and Hastam’s attack on Eliza agitated her enough to exploit her new benefactor’s particular knack for violence. Hastam was destroyed in the middle of the street and Sarden was arrested by Hylavi. She’s currently in intensive care and we’ll see how long she stays alive. Upon debriefing Hylavi, apparently Shanhai and Dazzle were here to get revenge on Hastam and went through Hylavi for help with finding them. Thanks to the information from Nah division, Hylavi was able to exploit their presence to help with bringing them down. I’m just…trying to ignore the fact that Hylavi technically just aided the Selona Syndicate.

Currently efforts of convincing the Merkas to come along have been an issue of communication as they don’t fully understand the scope of what we’re asking them to even come to. That and Renjala still has them all at Jamalia. Atop of which they are insistent on that they, and specifically the individuals in question, need to keep fighting the arcurans to save their people. I don’t know if that trait is built into all of the merkas or just this band of what we’ve discovered are basically children. We’ve also yet to actually scan their tree to see about planting one elsewhere.

As for Riley’s efforts beyond the rift, there has actually been some success there. It didn’t seem to notice her and she managed to go near the planet in close alignment to Auwana and scan some things. They don’t tell us very much useful other than that there are a lot of strange life forms down there, but it was progress.

The local jydoq trader doesn’t seem to understand the concept of why Laura King is considered dangerous instead of a basic enterprising individual. They see her as having a strong sense of supply and demand in a starved market. Notably…they have been talking to her so that might be affecting their understanding of what a criminal is. As for sahad friendly aliens…what a coincidence…they were blown to extinction by Selona during the invasions. The others they suggested might yield some results but they’re deep into the galaxy, it would be a long voyage just to make contact with them and we have no idea what has become of them amidst all of this galactic collapse.

Construction of the Renjala’s Rift stabilizer has begun.

Well two of the new starships were easy enough to find crew for, three are still pending some interviews.We’ve sent them along their way to pursue the leads that Hylavi knows of.

The Koura elections Should be concluded within two weeks by the way.

The parasite research has found an oddity. Everyone who was infected but then had the infection removed by Doctor Si Yeon after a certain slightly extended period of time was notably cured of several other standing issues. Also, all of these previously infected patients became immune to Koura’s atmosphere. They no longer exhibit any symptoms from being exposed to the low toxicity and seem to do much better digesting local flora. Basically one of its first mutations is to adapt its host to survival on this planet, and apparently cure bacterial infections almost instantly. This is fitting with its previously observed tendencies on Koura wildlife to optimize them. While it doesn’t fully understand humanoid anatomy, if its mutations only get through its first phase then its quite beneficial. Take too long though and it starts doing weird things. Si Yeon is now dealing with an influx of people trying to replicate these effects on purpose, some with better timing than others. We have a patient with a tentacle sticking out of their nose now for example.

Oh also Vittles finished their first hydroponics harvest. So that helps with the food thing around here in Auwana and help with holding an expanding population. Also their own marketing team resulted in an influx of immigration all of a sudden.

The chapter house in Jamalia has finished construction. By construction I mean we put up a sign in front of the door to one of the prefab facilities. There are some reluctant merkas in there acting as “shaya” at the moment. Basically a word in their language for what we have as the order’s slaves. We’ve stuck to using that word since it has less connotations then slave and we don’t want to have to deal with explaining that political mess to a people who are still trying to comprehend why we need them to push the button that opens doors for the knights…or what a button is.

The reinforcements from the fourth lance have made it to Jamalia and joined the first lance, which had a few promoted squires while we have time to process paperwork and ceremony. They survived that battle with Ecsanul after all.

Daesta definitely doesn’t seem interested in peace with the arcurans, something about generations of war, grudges, so on and so forth. Though she does seem to be interested in just how powerful Reika obviously is so is sticking around the colony for now.

Oh and the Merkas call this world Enohas. Which means ‘first planet’ in their language basically.

So far the arcane moon doesn’t seem to affect pandem abilities all that much, though definitely is a link to the abyssal plane. Though its too far away for it to have much impact on our spells down here.

We’ll be meeting with the arcurans soon, lots to do after just getting here and setting up shop.

The second lance is getting started on their work at Moncayo which might take awhile. The abyss is a finnicky plane sometimes. Though one thing we weren’t told about, is that we were not the only ones invited to do this. Apparently Vloz’Khress was also hired to do the same work, and it was explained as a way to make sure all angles were covered including any ‘backdoor’ tricks either side might come up with. The Moncayo supervisor appointed by Faelyn made a note of the fact that an alliance between frontier colonies is bound to have some representatives who don’t entirely like one another, not to mention aliens. Also Faelyn’s Moncayo also operates for the Sol system at large to keep them appraised of any alien approach so she is liable to at times consort with the empires as necessary. At the very least we’ve maintained things to be somewhat professional, since Alexander and Sarnai were not actually at the battle and the Moncayo forces are terrifyingly well armed. Something something fortress. While this was the most interesting, it was not the only alternate group of pandem experts to show up. There were five parties in total with a presence, two of which are from the frontier – ourselves included. Suffice to say, Moncayo will definitely become truly unassailable by the time Faelyn is done with whatever her plans are.

Inquiries into establishing a chapter house as an embassy in Moncayo seem to be going well. The city pointed out that it would take some level of investment into construction to build the chapter house as it doesn’t have too many empty buildings laying around that would be suitable. Though that probably works fine for us since we could build it to not use ethi doors and the like. There are a few building codes to observe but nothing too bizarre or difficult. Mostly having to do with the space from other buildings for its oddly wide roads and a maximum building height…again not really going to affect us. If we wanted to construct the place it would only cost about five million credits to do so, since its not a full blown colony just a nice house. Okay  it could be done for just five hundred thousand but then its not really an Astral chapter house is it? So five million for proper levels of ‘bling’ as the kids say.

We’ve started steamworks up and began some research into the matter. Not much done as of yet though as we just finished setting up the building in the Somnus lower decks.

Joe is still against the alien immigration angle, the main problem with it is he and many of his buddies have a natural distrust of aliens after you know…the invasion. Most people don’t know or would even believe what the phantoms did, so to their perspective aliens decided ‘fuck these guys in particular’ as their first contact protocol. Atop of that was also the Valdir first contact. Oh and the parasite problem. So far the track record isn’t so good, and he lives on Koura so is barely even aware of the fact that Hylavi is chief of security on Somnus. While he states something to the effect of at least allowing for it if they prove themselves trustworthy, there is a notable xenophobia to him and his supporters veiled by logic.

Also everyone is always interested in free healthcare, we don’t have any insurance companies here in Auwana yet. Well a few are trying to get started, but its pretty hard to get ordinary people to oppose the idea.

As for exposing the Harlus loophole in voting, the experts think it’ll definitely hurt Harlus’ campaign especially against those who are a bit closer to being on the fence rather than firmly in one camp or another for other reasons. The worst case scenario is Harlus can spin it to somehow be about improving migration to Auwana. They see no reason not to make a huge story of it and would love to run with that dirt. However, Nah division has another perspective. From a security angle, calling out Laura King’s operations on behalf of Harlus directly could attract her attention in ways he hasn’t thus far. So its a gamble if we think nothing terrible will happen as a result.

Sarden was arrested recently and I think this conclusively proves that I am not Sarden’s alter ego. That’s right I hear you when you talk to the other directors. So with Sarden’s arrest by Hylavi and Hastam’s destruction by…we’ll call that one Hylavi too, Cassir has finally deployed out to hunt down the other cultists. Though she’s still traveling. There is a bit of a collective unease among some of the cult though, this is the first truly aggressive act by Cassir and her followers. Prior to this they could argue it as a necessity for survival, but now she’s hunting for other reasons entirely. Though really this is just part of the transitional period from the old version of the cult to the new one I suppose. Had we gone with the mystics we’d have the aware members leaving, if we’d gone with the financial ones we’d have the more yoga inclined people bailing. Its just a time of turmoil over all no matter how you look at it for them. Though the upcoming slaughter will be the first major act of the cult’s new era. I brought popcorn, I’ll put some in your feeding tubes.

On to new Age. Slightly different issue, Setani isn’t willing to just hand out essentia for another batch of experiments similar to 004C for nothing given that she has to collect more to keep it going. Though Vasia took her blank check and ran with it, buying another fifty slaves from Ohalyn to feed to Setani’s soul collecting. Maybe we don’t tell Lancaster about that one. Moving on, they’ve at least started the next batch with replicated environments in the containment cells. Progress ongoing.

As for finding our own necrocarnate, that might be more challenging than you think given how rare and taboo the art is. Its frankly amazing we know of so many let alone have regular contact with two of them. However, if you really wanted to find one, I’m pretty sure Laura King can go looking as all necrocarnates tend to operate in the underworld due to the rampant persecution they would otherwise face with the sole exception of Song Yi. Though we’re not getting her help I’m sure.

I’ve been able to contact Faelyn, though I think we fall under the blanket of Somnus as it is right now and are thus represented by Winter currently. So I used that as an excuse for why I’m not there myself personally. Though there is definitely an interest in the growing alliance for the services of 40th Day and New Horizons. If nothing else we’re on her network as a shipyard that can dock and do necessary maintenance for any ships passing along through the frontier.

As for the sivataur team, I asked Nah to ask Laura for us. There are actually a lot of them with pretty solid reputations despite the general stereotypes if you know where to look apparently. Some of them are particularly obsessed with honor and ‘the hunt’ and so on. She recommended we send representatives to SR2 to perhaps interview a few potential hires. However, SR2 is a dangerous world so don’t send just anyone. The planet is shrouded in a permanent eclipse and is basically the sivataur capital. It was an abandoned wasteland of a world that they started terraforming…by hand. They just picked up trees in the abyss, transported over, and planted. Over time it has become their playground and if you don’t know…most undesirable and violent criminals are sent to this world. For a small fee, Sivataur operates the largest super max prison in the system. A very very small fee. Because whoever is sent there is just thrown onto the planet and told ‘good luck’. The only security systems are the docking ports and ships are not allowed across the rest of the planet to make sure no criminals escape. Whether or not said convicts get eaten by sivataurs is anyone’s guess and kind of the whole point. There are also roaming abyssal monsters they transported to the planet that can survive without the sun. This is SR2, the sivataur playground and where you go if you want to hire some sivataurs. As I said, choose carefully who you send. This world was built to be dangerous on purpose, so its pretty fuckin dangerous.

Actually, if we caught some of those giant monsters on PZ142-2 that are roaming around…we have a kaiju freighter. Could probably sell those on this planet for a nice profit. Sivataurs sure do love giant monsters. To the point of being an unhealthy obsession. Just a thought.

As for Salied, Vasia has been putting her on the backburner while working on the 004C experiments. So far psionic probing causes the device that probes to suddenly experience some faults. Vasia has pointed out that due to the nature of the affliction, any psion who gets too deep into her head will suddenly suffer the same condition. She also lost a researcher to proving this in the first place.

Speaking of Vasia, she hasn’t really looked into shades but thinks she could get several to outright volunteer. Her people are naturally curious and all.

The Dreamwalker still has no interest in working with Cassir and sees her as a general abomination to everything the cult stands for. Keeping in mind he has no idea what the cult actually stood for and his faction has sort of brainwashed itself into believing its own hype. He also considers you to be an abomination talking about enlightened and so on and so forth. They sincerely have no idea about the origins of the cult and being told they’re wrong causes them to just dig themselves deeper into their position. They also believe themselves to be the true new prophet for the whole cult and you to be someone exploiting Cassir’s violence to silence your competition and mutiny against the other financial section of the cult.

Defense turrets have been put at Phoenix Colony, which is nearing the end of its construction. Also sent the mana batteries to Jamalia to help with experimentation on the trees and natives as necessary. Vasia says we should send her some arcurans for sahad viability testing by the way.

Tests with the Koura crystals ability to feed plants proves to be quite viable. The sunlight they release slowly over time does emit all stored radiation patterns of the light they absorb from. We also found this works with fiber optics by the way, someone just decided to try that real quick while playing around in the lab. Due to its inability to retain it for long periods of time this isn’t quite useful in any practical manner but it has promise.

We’ve also had time to figure out how to store more sunlight with the crystals, as it is affected by the crystal purity. Which can actually be refined. The method for doing so hasn’t been settled on yet but doing little tricks like removing impurities or filling air pockets with various types of transparent resin does seem to improve performance overall. Not much yieldable result yet but its an exciting time to be a geologist! Which I am not, I’m going to go get a drink now.

Aside from her actual meeting with Laura, Vaeri has confirmed to some extent that Laura’s contacts are quite vast. Though this is due to a few factors. The first of which being that they change regularly, she has the current status of being the top crime lord in Auwana, which means by default new criminal elements just treat her as being the go-to. Which means they join her network for as little as a day due to the assumed cooperation between them. This is part of criminal culture apparently, its generally assumed that the biggest crime boss in the area doesn’t have as much to gain from backstabbing you over a shipment as someone smaller whose profits are less stable. Also Laura has a reputation of being ‘that kind’ of criminal who take their word a little too seriously. Which is comical to some criminals, but at least seen as reliable.

Another factor is that Laura possesses a Solvang membership, I mean so do we but this does expand the number of options she has available when trying to secure deals and other things of that nature. It also turns out that with Arkaric visiting our system due to an interest in Eliza, she was able to meet with him due to her being the biggest criminal in the area. I suppose that defaults her to being the one who has the right to approach him. Hence the sudden influx of selona brand toys on the black market right now, speaking of which tell Hylavi to be a little more careful of any ongoing criminal activity. They might have new guns and Selona weapons are famously effective against aliens specifically.

While this meeting wasn’t likely anything alarming, we did have his sister working with us for awhile after all, it does indicate that Laura’s influence is spreading. With her being able to contact such major criminals she’s able to network a little more. Essentially, she’s growing rapidly and moving without us being able to fully keep tabs of what she and her family are up to. Importantly, we found out she’s in contact with someone from Moncayo and two other frontier colonies. She’s on track to expand into being a multi-system element if we don’t do anything about it.

If we wanted to replace her, we’d have to make sure Joe wins the election to decrease her power and then take the opportunity to raise a replacement and cut her off. Ohalyn might be an okay replacement, she’s a respected member of the underworld unlike Raiben and she has the demeanor it takes to not be as problematic for us. That being said, she’s far less talented. I suppose you have to consider if trying to work with a difficult mastermind is better or worse than an untalented puppet when thinking about how to move forward with the Laura situation.

As for the Raven II that the engineer was hauled off to, its a bit hard to find much information on it. As might be expected of Kanika, she’s good at keeping secrets. Apparently, it was constructed by a labor force that cannot remember ever working on it. At least they won’t admit to knowing about it. That’s at least a few hundred mechanics and engineers with a blank spot in their memory or a very adamant desire not to reveal that they do know anything. Which is highly unusual, but its worth remembering this ship is the successor to a facility that brainwashed serial killers into loyal bodyguards. So its not out of the realm of what this place can do. However, we were able to learn that its not as well protected as you might expect for a super carrier. Because it was refitted as basically a space station that can go places, most of its firepower has been stripped off in favor of its facilities. It relies primarily on stealth and coasting out in space where no one would go looking for it unless they were invited as prospective clients.

At this point we could try to send Vaeri posing as a client….not like we haven’t done this one before. We could also just send the stealth cruiser with the full team to try and infiltrate it through brute force. Also we could just tell House Song where it is again and let them cause a ruckus given what happened last time and try slip our way in amidst the chaos.

As for the drug market on the newer colonies, we still can’t even corner some drug markets here on Koura. We don’t really have a drug lord on staff given our ongoing back and forth with Laura. So we don’t have anywhere that we’re growing them at the moment in order to take elsewhere to sell. We could look into that but I’m not sure how Lancaster would feel about using the land on Orchard or the hydroponics labs to grow drugs for selling in other colonies given the current value of food.

As for exploiting tax fraud, doesn’t that make us still a financial burden just with more steps? Taxes go to Lancaster, so we’d be pocketing money that would have already gone to her and then just saving her some money on keeping us afloat.

The men are back at base on Koura now after a lengthy trip, taking a brief break to recover from the campaign. More accurately, getting drunk at local bars.

Also winter sort of covered it, but basically my parasite research indicates they can actually be kind of miracle cures if you do it juuust right. If you do it wrong you grow a new tail.

When it comes to looking for our next job, I have noticed there is a posting on the Solvang boards, that Nah has let me see, to assist a warlord in repelling Kaylen’s upcoming invasion of his territory on Thenica. I also checked with Nelan, we could make 750 million for siding with Alnae proper, which is a bit less but I think our host like her more than the warlords.

Some notes about these jobs. They’re much shorter campaigns since its just two specific forces fighting, we won’t have to spend months hunting down every mole rat burrowed in the dirt while trying to secure a whole planet. So its actually a pretty decent payout for a little bit of work. Also this is not going to be hunting a bunch of bitey bugs or warding off underequipped and underinformed aliens. This will be real, full arsenal, Sol on Sol warfare. Alnae versus Alnae is a playground of tanks and bombs. Losses would be heavy. Also if we took this job we’d have to load up and ship out soon, so we’ll probably not be here for contact with the Exerlus. Not sure if we’ll be needed for that or not but its something to consider as there is no way in hell we’re walking into a Thenica warzone with anything less than every gun we’ve got.

This could work towards strengthening our relationship with or against Alnae, whether or not the directors are still interested in that stuff. Though not sure how it’ll look to Faelyn and any other new alliances we’re working on. Not to mention it will take us awhile to recover from the losses and we won’t be deploying for awhile after a conflict like this one.

Alternatively, we could ask Winter to mention us to Faelyn to see if there are any more small time colony jobs we could take on the frontier to clean up some more bugs here and there. Safer easier work, pays less and takes longer but at least half the men don’t turned into red paste overnight for it.

Also since you didn’t, I went ahead and named your new arms manufacturing company for you. I call it Pretty Pink Unicorns.

Nah I’m just kidding, I named it Whitetalon Armaments while filling out the paperwork. Factory is just down the road from our current base for easy shipping…also land is still cheapest out here in the outskirts.

Stories of Lore 6

This is Exme Faythe, reporting from the field deep into the frontier at a new colony whose construction was recently concluded and announced. Welcome to Cayetano, or CA-250. A colony in the Abyss of all places! As you can see behind me…its a fascinating place. I’m currently in an air pocket located underneath a vast body of fresh water with its own ecosystem unique to the air pocket. Here you will find Moncayo City, founded by Lady Faelyn Lekou, a blue dragon from SV3!

Lady Faelyn, I can see many obvious advantages to the position of your new colony but I’m curious, how did you even find this place? Exploring the Abyss is known to be incredibly difficult on a galactic scale due to its inconsistencies.

In truth, I knew what I wanted to accomplish with this colonization effort and I came out to this location on the middle planes before sending survey ships into the Abyss and poking around. I also looked through several other planes as I was only interested in the galactic position and was just trying to find the best possible use of this area. When I found this place I knew I had to take advantage of the opportunity.

What makes this position so important that you would go through such efforts?

Well it is the deep edge of the frontier. Sol is close to the galactic outer rim. My scientists were able to discover that most of the alien invaders we faced had to come from a very similar direction. From here I am able to establish a fortified position. Given their difficulties in traversing between planes, it is highly unlikely they could even find Moncayo City in the Abyss at all. Let alone actually reaching it. However, I am able to deploy advanced scanning stations in this area on multiple planes in order to detect any incoming force towards Sol while they cannot reach me.

With an establishment this large, isn’t it possible that they will simply learn of its presence over time?

Yes, though what can they do about it? FTL travel is not possible on the abyssal plane due to its inconsistent concept of physics. They would need to access this location on another plane and then enter into the Abyss. My city is thoroughly warded against rift tunnels I do not want to appear within its borders. So any assaulting force would need to be able to get through space, than through the planes, and then through the water surrounding me, and then finally they could take a shot at my city’s shielding. I do intend to invest even further in the armaments of this system as well.

So do you intend to defend all of Sol from all of the galaxy that might wish to invade us?

Well, I intend to at least help. I can’t field a fleet large enough to stop all invaders, but I can at least give Sol warning that they’re coming. I am also seeking to alleviate the current issues of Sol by seeking out resources that it desperately needs right now and establish an alliance of the frontier nations. I don’t know where all our frontier colonists are though, as finding a single colony on a single landmass on a single planet in a single system among all this is difficult. Something many frontier pirates are quick to exploit. Part of this interview is me putting out an open call to any other frontier colonists who might be interested in joining my growing alliance and network. I am not associated with any standing empire or faction, I am just interested in strengthening our position in response to potential future invasions and building a network of contact so that we can find and communicate with one another more easily. It’s a complicated topic, but any are free to visit Moncayo City and discuss the matter at length with me or my representatives. Depending how busy I am that day.

For any interested parties watching, you can visit the Sol Media site from your APT to find contact information. As Faelyn pointed out, it is impossible to enter her city through a pandem rift without her invitation. So put in a message now to get your invitation!

We’re up to one month and three weeks remaining. Fortunately the cruiser is with you, otherwise you’d be a month away from the station as of now.

Moving on, I’ve sorted out the company paperwork regarding the name trademarks. Fortunately we own the trademark office here in Auwana so I just changed two text fields and now no one has to know. Two ships have been sent out to search for alien life in ‘nearby’ systems. However, it is worth noting, Hylavi actually knows exactly where to find several civilizations. They’re just a lot more likely to be problems than those of uncontacted worlds.

In the meantime, Golbotics labs is getting started up, taking up residence in the lower decks of the station where Khymin can set up a proper workspace instead of that… warehouse of his own that he made. Currently he’s trying to improve the designs of his own personal golems he uses around his abode for handling various issues. We’ve told him that ‘compactness’ is an important feature. His own home is more golem than walking space as it is.

The ongoing elections on Koura are becoming somewhat peculiar. Investigation into Harlus reveals they aren’t necessarily doing anything illegal but they’ve been exploiting an existing loophole in our legal system, or lack thereof, that registers any resident as a voting citizen. There are over a thousand, that we found so far, nomadic individuals registered to an apartment building as ‘roommates’ with other people even if they never really show up. Given Harlus’ background, I don’t think they came up with that. Laura King seems to be behind this one and is turning the seedier folk who pass through the system into voting citizens. Though its not technically illegal just…bad sportsmanship? Though she is the crime lord of the system I suppose. Though this also helped us find the actual motive for the King family’s interest in helping Harlus. Beyond money, Harlus may have agreed to make sure that certain aspects of trade on Koura don’t change. As it is right now, short of hit contracts, Koura’s economy is a bit of an ‘anything goes’ scenario. If the taxes get paid, the taxmen don’t require anyone to fill in a field as to what the transaction was specifically for or who was involved beyond whoever paid the tax itself. They don’t even check that information either. Working Joe, which is his new campaign name suggested by Renjala, doesn’t really have any plans in this regard but his focus on labor conditions opens up one tiny little problem. It would force certain businesses to have their work places investigated, primarily  for safety reasons. Which is something shadier organizations might prefer to be left alone on. Not due to workplace hazards, but due to whats going on in that workplace at all.

However, as the election takes shape, Harlus is still the most popular candidate. Not just because of some shady voting registrations, but because they have a much more ‘hands off’ approach. Which outright appeals to frontier colonists who came to escape the empires in the first place. It’s a hard platform to beat especially when the wealthier members of Koura also support this mindset. Harlus is also more focused on trade with outside bodies, specifically advocating for the investment and establishment of more ports and routes that would help trade with other frontier colonies as well as a steep investment into education programs. Prophesizing a new alliance to rival Sol especially given Sol’s current economic state compared to the frontier worlds. Citing that an early push into an educated and wealthy populace will help establish Koura as the city of gold among the frontier alliance in the years to come. Again, frontier people like that. Also, so do pirates.

Joe in the meantime is still focused on more local and internal affairs. Workplace safety, fair wages, and ever since Renjala joined on, the fair treatment of labor slaves. The latter of which helps him stand out to our more reputable citizens if nothing else based on empathy and Joe being less of a capitalist and more of a regular person. He is also a little more independent of a candidate in terms of future vision. With a greater interest in manufacturing and construction, particularly like companies such as New Horizons, Golbotics, and Vittles. He dreams of a more hardworking economy based on production rather than trade and education, arguing the importance of self sufficiency especially in times like these over potential future positioning in whatever future might await us.

I have noticed by watching the news coverage that their positions on a lot of these issues were once not even mentioned but have started to take a more adamant stance the longer the campaigns go on. I suspect this is due to their backers adding new issues they care about to the campaign as well as just a desire to be contradictory to their opponent. When Hylavi asked about alien migration, a topic neither of which had ever considered, they both got stuck for a solid five seconds while trying to figure out what that might even entail…since they were both staring at an alien while trying to answer. This is where we saw Joe kind of fall apart juuust a little bit. He was slower on it, more of muscle worker than a number cruncher. Harlus was quick to support it. Within minutes of rambling to stall for time, they managed to form a plan of seeking out new civilizations to establish even more trade and ‘cultural exchange’ with. Joe fell back and said he would need to confer with some experts on the matter before making grandiose promises and wild ideas. Renjala was notably whispering to him at that time.

In the meantime, Hylavi managed to convince a few jydoq to come to Somnus. While a small number its a start, and impressive for the outstandingly uncharismatic security chief. Two of them are just refugees seeking food and a place not falling apart. One is relevant though, a trader with a bit more wealth who is poking around for opportunities to ‘invest’ in. Here’s the oddity, Jydoq have not done that in their entire history as a species. They don’t really use money the same way we do, nor do they manipulate it so heavily. I have a feeling this particular trader is just now getting their metaphorical feet into the pool of Sol capitalism and seeing if they can make it work for themselves in a place with a fresh start full of opportunity. So of course, the first person that they just happened to bump into on the streets was Laura King. Not sure what’s going on there and it doesn’t seem terribly nefarious. It’s just a bit interesting to see their one of their species trying to immigrate into our culture and economics. I still can barely get Hylavi to understand what a retirement savings or interest rate is, let alone entrepreneurship.

As for the Vittles, the hydroponics are coming along faster due to more aggressive growing practices. Though they have been careful of implementing such treatments on orchard until they’re positive about the stability of growing things there. They expect first harvest of the hydroponics labs in two weeks time.

In other news…well there’s that whole thing going on in the news. I suppose we qualify as a frontier colony that Faelyn would be interested in establishing contact with. It might be worth sending someone just to figure out whats going on over there.

Have fun at Jamalia. I hear its a fun place, Lancaster is just stomping all over aliens who have yet to invent the concept of barriers. Time to subjugate some savages eh? I’ve sent the fourth lance to join you though they’ll take a bit to get there without the cruiser.

Anyways, Jamalia was dropped near a river so at least water is easy to find. One of the knights has been appointed local governor. Technically Alexander would be the most qualified but he’s here on Somnus and we probably want him to stay in the library rather than leading a provincial government several light years away. Also the recruitment posters are found to have low impact due to the fact that everyone on Somnus and Koura are already frontiersmen. We could try to recruit at Sol though we’d have to send some people there to establish a bit of a presence to draw their interest I imagine.

The colony is at least established with its major guns and walls now set up, it’s basically invulnerable to the wildlife and probably even the natives given their current level of technology. However, it is a bit sparse on staff now that the construction team has left so if anything gets inside where the turrets can’t hit then there might be a problem. With you and Reika there it shouldn’t be an issue for the time being. Just something to keep in mind though given its slow recruiting efforts.

Speaking of which, Sarnai’s time as a squire is going well. She’s still rough around the edges but I suppose that’s what you get when you adopt street rats.

The third lance is done with the Madhammer operation. Doctor Si-Yeon has the information on that. Yoshai and Irae are on the ride back to Auwana after having been through some fun times. The memorial for all the fallen knights as been erected in the manor we call home.

Also we’ve received a specific commission from the newly announced Moncayo City. They’re asking for us to come and help with the pandem protections around the place. It would appear the news article is not fully forthcoming in how strong those defenses are just yet. It pays two hundred and fifty million though and might be a good chance for us to scout the place out and see whats going on while doing some penetration testing. Apparently they found out about us after we made an appearance at the battle with Kar’Soluth and took an interest.

Well the dreamwalker essentially believes that through group meditation they will achieve ‘lucidity’ and transcend to higher state of psionic understanding as a group working together. Something in there about selflessness as well. Also they denounced Cassir almost immediately upon her coming to power over the last year. They absolutely hate her since she is the embodiment of a selfish use of the cult…and you know…a mass murderer. The mystics also hate the economically interested sect as well, though Cassir and the money people have less of a rivalry. Though obviously their interest in joining the dangerous world of warfare through Cassir for little to no profit is not something they’re so keen to do.

You could argue there are a dozen subsects though they don’t have as much traction as the main three. They also don’t have notable direction as there is a chaotic mix of those who are aware of the cult’s true intent and those who don’t. They don’t even know if the secret needs to be kept or not. I would say they lack solid leadership ever since squidface disappeared.

Meanwhile back to New Age. 004C has been developing its vocabulary of commands it understands. Though we have noticed it doesn’t necessarily listen to them all unless Vasia is the one who says it. We’re still not sure why it is so fond of her. Salied doesn’t react to 004C any differently than towards anything else, she also reacts occasionally to the researchers but not during her little episodes…that span more than half of her time.

As for reproducing the hydroponic towers, fairly easily. Its just a hydroponic farm that we put in a building. If we set up all the lamps and keep temperatures controlled it’ll work pretty much anywhere except maybe Jamalia due to the arcane moon’s radiation though I doubt that would impact it too negatively.

Research into the disintegration ward has made some progress…kind of. The way to save mana seems to be to hurl something at the atmosphere so that it goes faster through the cloud and has to spend less time on the upkeep. Though then it loses just as much mana protecting itself from entering the atmosphere while trying not to burn up on the way down. So the savings are minimal and dangerous since you can’t see or scan through the cloud on the way through. A specialist experimental shuttle with a glass exterior has been developed though we’re having issues sealing it completely but this does cost less mana to just protect the gaps instead of the whole shuttle.

We’re not totally sure where the mana to maintain the atmospheric effect is coming from, we can’t scan anything nor get through that easily. I imagine it’ll take some concerted probing efforts. Though current theories indicate it to be a rift or some other type of natural phenomenon that perpetuates itself somehow without costing the amount of mana it would to maintain a spell like that on purpose. More of a ‘it had a lot of mana to get started during the planet’s formation then just stabilized’ type of situation. If it was producing the mana of casting a planetary disintegration cloud and maintaining it as a channeled spell, I don’t think even the cloud could hide that from the scanners.

As for charging weapons with disintegrate and disintegrate clouds, yes. Madhammer has those. It’s a fairly popular wand to load into shotguns actually.

Flavor factory would be a little tricky. Need sugar. Which needs to be grown. Could have the hydroponics work on it but then they’re not growing food.

So we’ve had a few people, including Khymin look over the mysterious corvette design. No one has any idea what it’s for and that seems to be the purpose of its design. Khymin describes it as being ready for an easy retrofit. The missing parts are structural, which if taken out create a large modifiable empty space within the corvette. As if someone has one final piece to add to it after its construction, perhaps to prevent a paper trail from figuring out what its purpose is. Though that means its basically a corvette with a modification slot on it, actually this might be a marketable design concept. Though in this case its clearly intending to hide its purpose as a future refit.

The Kaiju freighter is fully equipped now with a modifiable cage. We made something neat out of it actually. The large square room has been sectioned into a grid by moving wards and slot-in metal sheets that are normally used on its rather thick interior hull. Basically, pull some squares off the hull and lay them down where desired to cut the hold up into compartments in case you need a lot of medium sized cages or one really big one.

For the Sivataur team, I suppose technically they only need two each. Three is preferrable due to their aggressive appetites. However, you might want to establish contact with them before acquiring the slaves. Vampires are known to view feeding as a sort of vice with all of its own fetishes. So they might have a preference as to exactly what kind of slaves they would find the most enticing. If they say elves its going to be hard given the going rate for those at the moment. Also this is another of those things we should really be sure not to tell Alnae’s embassy about. Feeder slaves are on their ‘no fun allowed’ list.

We sent the Kaiju freighter to Vamon, it’ll be a bit to get there.

It would appear Lura gets most of her information on Sarden from Sarden. She was the point of contact Sarden used to set up her false identity. It actually turns out Laura King had hired Raiben Hayl to create the fake papers in the first place. I don’t think Sarden knows we have since approached Laura.

Speaking of Raiben, we set him up in the office and had him forge his own paperwork to create a ‘lack of evidence’ situation regarding his release from Somnus security so that he could re-establish some of his contacts with bragging rights. Though it doesn’t make Hylavi look particularly good at her job. Though I suppose she’s never been much of a PR person.

In looking for a vulnerable market, I would say ‘exploiting Somnus’ is the answer for Raiben at least. Given that he was made rich off of it. Somnus is an independent colony still in its infancy run mostly by scientists. It’s not the most solid on the paperwork front, though that is part of the station’s success in attracting the attention of certain figures. Without a solid civilian database to tie itself to, such as Alnae or Shetou’s established networks, there’s a lot of ways people slip through the cracks which is something Raiben has proven good at.

As for Vaeri, she’s still in transit on her way back to Somnus from her little adventure in the warzones with the Astral Order. She can start working on probing Laura even further once she gets back.

Vanjin has been probing around Solvang to look into the matter of pirate activity in Auwana. As suspected, Somnus and Koura are being used as a staging ground for traders of just about anything. Solvang notably knows of more colonization efforts near us that the traders are using to go between locations. It’s a lot less exciting or nefarious then expected, its just unscrupulous characters looking to make a living and taking advantage of our lax contraband laws. Apparently, Laura King is part of the reason Solvang traders know about this and she owns the warehouses they use to ferry goods around the frontier.

Not too interesting, but I suppose privateers just want to make a living and trading is easier than violent piracy as an everyday affair. Vanjin has found no information on the Revenants operating within Solvang, at least not that she can easily discern given how heavily such information is protected by Solvang’s quality guarantees.

The stealth cruiser is out on deployment, it’ll take awhile to reach the Kar’Soluth colony. Though I should point out our cruiser does not specialize in scanning like 40th day ships do. It is mostly an operations center, great aethernet connection in the middle of deep space though.

Well the war is over and the paycheck has been collected after one final sweep and two more builders captured for science. There was a distinct lack of climatic final battle since we are basically picking on monsters in a post-purge era. Had to dust off some old toys for that one. There are still some stragglers burrowed here and there but I’d say its been knocked out sufficiently enough that its as safe as its going to get without bombarding the whole planet, which they seem to have decided against.

So now the current issue is replacing the lost armor support, given that out here we lack a market to acquire them from. Civilians can’t quite just buy tanks and mechs and in moving to Koura we find ourselves currently without a supplier for such hardware. This is in large part due to the currently available manufacturers having more than enough customers back in Sol. So we’d be in the back of the queue to receive any assets, which could take years. Basically we don’t have enough friends in such places anymore during this shortage to jump to the front of the line.

Currently we are transporting the forces back to Koura for some tune ups with what is left, we may need to also look into recruiting more people to replace the ones who got eaten by underground flesh golems.