Stories of Lore 36

So speaking of  hoards, remember how Faelyn was the one to convert back into gold coins as currency while the aethernet was all messed up? Well you were correct there’s a lot of gold laying around. Zenaka isn’t as hyped up about gold as Sol is, but House Sharen still loves the stuff. So does Sakhessa but I’m guessing you don’t want me to try and trade with her. So we can sell it to them.

We tried to get in contact with Valencia and after a very long time of attempting to do so we found out something interesting. She had no idea the phantoms were even a thing, let alone have an opinion on them. It does make some sense though. Valencia is younger than the purge, she’s a benefactor of it and is a part of the pre-war era by playing the game of civilization. She has no real grudge against Sol nor does she face any persecution at all. So despite her economic influence, she’s probably never really been terribly eligible for membership in their eyes. Unlike Renjala who has to wear a mask everywhere he goes or be hunted down by House Song.  So she has no opinion on it…yet. I imagine she’s going to go assess some situations about now though.

Renjala has set up the portal to Eden and back so now populations are fluctuating. In large part due to Eden’s refusal to allow infrastructure that burrows, so no support beams. Also no cutting down any trees. So unless they like tents draped over branches they’re eager to not be there. So far the Astral Order are using the ships not only to power the portal, but also to hold the portal upright.

Also congratulations on beating cancer.

Setting up the portal in Zenaka is taking some shipping and handling. Renjala only made a rift between Moncayo and Eden.

I’ll have you know I actually have been here awhile, on multiple battlefields, survived parasitic mutation, and being held by Vasia. My odds of dying are not as bad as you might thi- wait what is my life insurance policy?

Vittles brings good news, fishing is pretty easy on an alien world that hasn’t had time to be overharvested by us yet. Bad news, Abyssal fish are ugly as I am. Good news, that guy who ran the burrito cart in Koura? Now he runs a taco cart with fish tacos. ‘Cart’ is relative, he has been operating out of what once was a military transport truck. We let him keep it because the tacos are really good.

The Radar however is going to take some effort, while destroying its major components was one thing we are now realizing…we’re not actually entirely sure how this thing works. The pandem elements were covered by Robert’s Rifts and Renjala but the arcane and psionic engineering were never touched by them. Khymin is working on it but there is a reason no one else has ever built one of these before besides funding. Regular radar parts are operational again and we can scan multiple planes with it but we can’t quite see with the same range and level of detail that we know it once produced.

Koda and Gunhild have taken over that random building down the street from the taco cart parking lot as  his new office to try and get the fleet back together. Finding crew for the new ships will be a challenge though and we’re working on that.

Laura points out that you killed most of her old criminal contacts, and whichever ones you didn’t kill she killed. Getting the Selona weapon again might be difficult, Solvang and Selona control the major black market. Which we’ve just gone to war with. She’ll look into it but odds aren’t great. Though Aryn did find that dark mysterious website so maybe we can order it anonymously and have it shipped to not-here.

The grieving evening was absent an Aryn who is currently away to retrieve the Closing Statement from its parking spot and bring it on over. That spooky effeminate drow guy is a real slave driver eh?

So the pandem radar issue can be summed up as: The basic parts are easy and we remember how to do that. The multi planar part we also can restore with a bit of effort. The ability to tell exactly how many of what sized ships are moving through space at any point on any plane across the galactic quadrant is uh…not so easy. We’ve had some engineering help from Khymin and VSEC but it’s…beyond them. Given our chats with Voriuk, we are now aware that the phantom engineering department is far beyond the rest of Sol’s. Though we’re not sure how much is the likes of Sakhessa versus Daiheb. If we assumed Daiheb has a hand in such things we should be very concerned given that they somehow appropriated the technology of a billions year old machine race. We’re working on the bigger features but…well I’ll update you on it as we make progress.

Selah, as it turns out, is the high and mighty Celestial Order of the First Temple’s very own Vasia. Well not anywhere near as bad but she’s their equivalently unruly but valuable member. Her obsession with celestial shenanigans led her to turn to Ankathi’s side pretty quickly upon hearing about it, betraying her order for a chance to bind with Ankathi. She studies celestial mechanisms and if she had the time or the talent she might have eventually achieved what Ankathi did on her own. In summary, she casts the big smite.

So apparently Ankathi isn’t the one who is planning to do anything to the Celestial Order, that’s all Selah. Upon convening with prophet Sarnai…yeah Ankathi barely noticed or cared that the order existed. She described them as ‘irrelevant’. So basically with the witnessed miracle of Ankathi’s doing it is Selah’s plan to convince as many as she can to join Ankathi’s little order we have going on as one of the side hustles we have. That’s it. That’s the whole plan. Civil war? Maybe, maybe not. She doesn’t fuckin know. She just knows that there is a god now, and that should have priority over archangels come whatever may.

I think we’ve been dealing with the phantoms and Arkaric for so long we forgot some people don’t have a thirty seven step master plan that corners all sides of the board into a position they want.

Eerihild said to remind you that Haziel is also super cool too even if she’s a bit absent at the moment. She also brought up the Chosen Wolve’s stat sheet in the Moncayo battle, which is pretty good. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the celestial branch’s. To be fair, Eerihild and Bill aren’t exactly the war machines that Reika and Selah are. Also speaking of them, Bill has developed a fascination with Eden upon setting foot upon her. They mesh better than he and Haziel. Even if he’s on team druid, he’s a bit too chill for Haziel’s fang and fury approach to things. Though they are getting some food production going in the forests of Moncayo in one of the other bubbles of atmosphere, as well as Bill’s work in the water. So…killcount aside they might get a higher ‘lives saved’ count just by combating starvation and exposure for the refugees.

In the spirit of Alexander, I say we find yet another ridiculous patron that will complicate our lives to no end and see how many we can juggle all at once before civilization itself implodes. I vote for an elemental. I would say something from necrosi but that might encroach on what you’ve got going on already.

Aku is off to hang out with Kaylen. Travel time. Also Kaylen is still in Sol, petitioning various people to join her. That and you’re mixing the Rising and the Purge histories. Rising is where dragons particularly played a big roll in helping us. Purge is when gunslingers on horseback rode across the open lands hunting down all the remaining monsters. I think Eli is actually from that time period but I can’t really be sure. He dresses the part though.

As for the River of Chaos as we’ve suddenly decided to start calling it, because Ankathi calls it that and Alexander isn’t here to tell her why her old timey names are stupid, yeah we put up warning signs. Though we had to move a few after some of them got turned into other things, one spontaneously exploded, and another is now five times the size it should be. So as you can see…it’s expanding. Irae has that under control, but before we realized it was expanding the signs were the canary in the coal mine so to speak. It’s standard pandem cleanup just much more dangerous than usual and much harder. The big problem being what Selah did is more than open a single rift. Instead of linking to another plane like a piece of string, she just stuck a pipe over there and let every plane through all at once. Irae has so far counted three hundred and seventy two planar intersections from that one rift. A number which has changed six times since she started, and not through her own doing. So instead of a bunch of singular rift clean ups, its a more painstaking operation to get all of them under control and every now and then another dozen or so spill out. We can say this particular rift is…very dangerous. The other knights are helping out though so give it a month and we should be okay. Just don’t cross the signs. One guy got turned into six dimensions and could see the future for a bit there. By the way, he says the colonists will get a massive wave of food poisoning because of the popularity of a particular type of poisonous fish with a very slow acting poison… we’re looking into that. Not the most useful prediction but…better than being unborn or having monsters explode out of your chest.

The Covura Castle is surprisingly still here in decent enough shape. We were never close to the palace due to how late to the party we were in the first place. That and probably to keep us at a safe distance from what was apparently a menagerie of monsters hiding under the floor.

Also as for new Knight-Chancellor, what are you looking for? Another nerd or just someone charismatic enough for delegation? I don’t know if the position was defined to just put a title on what Alexander did or if you specifically have a need for the scholarly arts. I mean Selah is here if we need our own mad scientist to keep up with everyone else. Oh you said that too. She does find it interesting but remember what I said about her earlier? There is some cause for concern with how interested she is in the scientific expansion of her pandem knowledge…and that she definitely really likes Ankathi. I still say we should get an elemental, or a demon, or a necro guy to balance things out. At least until Haziel gets back. As apathetic as she is, Haziel is still a heavy counterweight to Ankathi gaining total influence over the order. Just something to consider.

Also you say we’re anti slavery despite most of our workforce being slaves, I take it you mean anti demon magical enslavement. They’re on their way though.

As for new town locations, just walk down the air tunnel to the bubble Bill’s fruit forest is in. Or go the other way. It’s actually really easy, if there’s air there’s a good place for a town. I like the bubble with the waterfalls though. I think its pretty. That and there is the inside out desert planet if you don’t mind sand.

I think down the spine is correct…at least that’s what mine is like. Also, Aryn is retrieving the closing statement so she’s not here right now. Also it appears when the drones leave my range they go on autopilot. So depends what they were made to do. Don’t let Craylin’s drones wander too far from her… Oh and we already went over synapse extensions. That’s what you and Craylin are for. Like an aethernet relay…just fluffy. As things grow beyond my range, I just make more commanders to go stand over there for me. This is also why connecting to Azilath causes an immediate connection for the whole swarm. We’re technically supposed to be her relays…and all of us are Indal’s. Apparently we’re also Haziel’s…somehow. I don’t get that one. Druids are bullshit.

You may want to take your gripes about the Revenants up with Lancaster. Since she’s the one inviting Kaylen and Kaylen has taken a pretty ‘i don’t care’ approach to previous political viewpoints. Though, I’m also pretty sure the Revenants will say the same about us. At least as long as Vasia still works for us. I feel like I should say Sethis but lets be honest, it’s definitely Vasia.

I’ve asked VSEC to bring us some Nelta tech so we can try those out. Though we still don’t know the mechanism Sakhessa is actually exploiting. Do remember though, she has access to Selona tech, which has been repeatedly shown to be especially effective against alien technology and biology. Their ship weapons were even able to hurt Guardian after all. So worth a shot but don’t do anything dumb yeah?

So while you’re trying to figure out how her palace security works, Lancaster is trying to demolish the whole thing. You two might want to work that out. Also Aryn still isn’t here.

I heard that weird redheaded lady might be a spy. Don’t know what was up with all that though.

Also the new ichor is not quite reset but it is kind of refreshed. Vasia says its taken on properties based on recent events that have happened to me. When a queen makes a new puddle it is based on the queen rather than whatever made the queen. Otherwise theoretically all the ichor would still be based on the original silnian…who was an invader interested in eating us all.

The cloning gear is scuffed up. Though almost everything is at the moment. Though good luck with that project. I’d say it isn’t worth it because House Song will be coming for you if they hear about it, But you already have the Heretic parked right over there. So they’re gonna kill us soon anyways. Might want to work faster.

Honestly I have so much street cred with the phantoms that I could kill a few of them and then still get invited for membership. It just proves I’m extra strong and worth the losses. I think that’s how it works anyways.

Also you are correct, Ankathi would have abandoned you all to  the phantoms were not for the pleasure she takes in remaining nearby just to torment me. I’m going to fucking kill her.

I’m already an entity. I’m spooky, mysterious, ignore the rules of matter and energy, and wield unimaginable power. I killed twelve jesai, I don’t know what else I need to do to qualify.

Yeah I’ll leave you a text file on the star thing, though the star spell that Salied uses has a quirk. It uses an equal amount of mana as the star will produce, instantly. At least the version we have so far, I’m working out a safer way to do it but that’s on the backburner. Just don’t aim for a big star without doing the math first. The ‘instantly’ means it can kill you upon casting it if you forgot to carry the one. Good luuuuck.

Oh speaking of Sakhessa. I know a bit about her. She was in the group chat with me and Eliza.

If you die Larazja has bigger problems. Like me.

Eden says hi. Also the ichor making doesn’t really hurt, but it makes me a bit woozy. Also please don’t look at me while I do this, it’s gross. I suppose my blood is ichor rather than ichor being royal blood. I can technically smush a drone and use that if I wanted to.

You know, I haven’t really put much thought into the fact that I’m always naked until you mentioned that. I haven’t been cold or hot in awhile either. Now I’m suddenly very aware of it…so thanks for that. Also give me one of those shirts. Also i don’t have any “useful orifices”. Though I could grow some in the ichor if I wanted, but y’know…size differences.

Voriuk is a bitch. I could kill him myself. On the other hand, Haziel can apparently FUCKING CONTROL MY DRONES. Not to mention her werewolf form is bigger than me, with more teeth and claws. Druids are bullshit.

Sunstones are rocks, they don’t do anything in the ichor. Well…I guess if you charge them they’re kind of batteries at night. Okay maybe they do keep me a little toasty too. I approve.

Also Vasia is pretty sneaky if you didn’t see her bring Illdath all the way over. Though she and Yaellah both possess incarnum strength. The goons from House Song can all pick up cars just to graduate past white belt. That and sahad gravity manipulation probably, I dunno. Her whole schtick is abducting big things, she has to have a way she’s moving them.

As much as I do love being mysterious, you guys do know you can buy a floating disc on your APT right? It’s five credits you cheapskates.

My APT came off when I was turned into this actually. I just use APD instead now.

APD?

All Purpose Drones.

Moving on, hold on a sec. You want to send Craylin out of the synapse…to hunt an elusive necrocarnate we can never find before he finds us…while we’re concerned about the phantoms retaliating? Sure thing boss. Also I named her.

Who is Erik?

40th Day has submersible probes if that counts as a vehicle. The actual vehicles are….still in the boiling ocean. We didn’t really have time to pack those up before we had to just jump right into a rift and get the hell out of there.

Also Kaylen isn’t here yet. She’s still petitioning others for assistance, alliances, and to join the guild.

Aryn is on the way to retrieve the Closing Statement on a shuttle. She should be there soon if you want her to take it to Moncayo or remain in deep space with the Nomad Flotilla. Speaking of the Flotilla, they have taken on refugees from previous events that maybe don’t want to live on Eden where they can’t have plumbing or in the ruins of Moncayo. They were rather opportunistic about that, to the point I’d be concerned but I suppose the Flotilla’s internal economy is getting a boost from it.

Vanjin and Leon are setting up in Moncayo, though people are still arguing over what building is going to be what, whether or not to keep the palace, and the like. Also apparently they were arguing over who gets the mansion that appeared in the River’s aftermath before it disappeared just as mysteriously as it had appeared.

When it comes to sorting out the available recruits to the division, well we still have Allison who is not a terrible public operative. Actually she fits all too well into what was once Sophia’s position. Not to mention the Nomads themselves for underworld crawling. We could pick up another excuse for public violence in a bounty hunter like Vanjin, if not just give her an apprentice in the process as a cover. I’ve also found a peculiar fellow who is more of a business suit professional to move among more higher class scenarios. However many of those left there are. We could try recruiting a jydoq for more alien based affairs given current perception of solians.

So far, rummaging through the ruins of Moncayo hasn’t quite yielded any artifacts that would help keep anyone alive. Sarnai is still the most remarkable in this regard as one of the only people besides incarnites who can heal quickly let alone other people.

Stories of Lore 35

Well you look…different. Stop yelling at me please, it is a fair observation. Apparently the recently named River of Chaos has remarkable properties when used as a pandem rift. Including changing your biological makeup. I’ve processed the lab results, you’re…fine. I guess. I mean you have two types of cancer, you are missing a kidney, and your left optical nerve is the wrong size but Eden can fix all that. Until then I made you some glasses, a little archaic but you don’t need cybernetics if Eden’s going to have to fix the rest of that anyways. Just wear it for a few days and stop fussing.

Anyways, the death toll of the attack on Moncayo can be summed up as about 80%. Even one of the Whately kids is dead, which hopefully they don’t hold a grudge on us for. Satsujin’s dead from unknown causes as she was in the River’s rift alongside you and now her body was turned into quartz of all things. I’m not sure if she died from the rift or from fighting.

Doctor Taz died when the Outsider crash landed into Moncayo. The rot left him deprived of his tabaxi attributes and he died on impact. Laura and Khymin are fine. Though Khymin was hiding in a nearby building the whole time.

Auwana has been taken over by a mummy known as Sakhessa who apparently got into a fight with the Revenants that were going to help us defend the place apparently. Well at least they were going to try and kill Faelyn. So after all that we basically swapped bases with Faelyn. On the upside, Moncayo is very defensible. On the downside, the Phantoms now have control of Renjala’s Rift. Which is also very defensible.

Eleazor has left for Zero North. It will be a long journey.

Finances are in complete disarray no one knows who has what, refugees everywhere, and we just blew up the economy. So…we’ll get back to that.

With Yenneiros dead I kind of just work here now since we were a subset of this whole Somnus thing up until now. So…can I request snacks in the lunch room? I like the little cheesy fish crackers…

Currently we’ve contacted Kaylen though she informed us that she has resigned from her position as the leader of Alnae. Instead claiming the banner of the “Hero’s Guild” to basically restart the purge. Cheesy name but I suppose its a cliche because that’s what they actually called things back in those days. I told her to please hold because her new project actually seems right up your alley. She’s on line one by the way so you might want to pick that up…yes I’m aware that was important but so is your health. Fine I’ll be back later.

You know, its convenient that your phylactery is here after we just evacuated to Eden in the first place. We didn’t leave much to defend Enohas and Valadeus has taken over that alongside Ki’Ralcht who went there instead of Moncayo so I assume we can safely say she was definitely loyal to the Phantoms over us.

The assault on Moncayo succeeded though at great cost. We have learned that Ankathi is growing stronger and fast. Apparently she’d been using Sarnai to send messages out this whole time in secret and had established contact with the celestial order before they came to talk to Reika. That was actually why they came to talk to Reika it seems. Now Reika is oathbound to serve Ankathi in exchange for saving everyone’s lives. However that…doesn’t seem to change much around here. Ankathi doesn’t have anywhere else to send Reika to hang out and she’s just mostly interested in keeping an eye on things. Particularly Vasia, which we’re not supposed to tell her. I guess if we go to war with Ankathi that’s a thing to keep in mind but…I’m not sure we’re dumb enough to do that. Someone keep that fucking cat away from her though. The actual major change due to this shift in our relationship with Ankathi is that Selah is just hanging out with us now.

Oh so that whole “River of Chaos” rift thing that they did. I mean its exactly what it sounds like. They opened a rift to the most chaotic possible thing that is the bottleneck that leads to wherever Ankathi went. Apparently if you get close to it…weird shit happens. It rewrote Lancaster’s entire life, also several people had planar abominations burst out of their eyes. So basically if Selah does that again, we should stand very far away.  You in particular, since you cannot be bound to Ankathi as an undead you also can’t really be protected from its effects. Though if you keep a rift to a higher plane active it can shield you from the effects but…well may the chaos have mercy on those who don’t know pandem and get too close to it.

So that whole ‘let any paladin who wants to speak to sarnai if they help at moncayo’ thing…turns out Ankathi was way ahead of us on that one and already turned several of their members to her side. We might get pulled into a war with archangels…again.

Alexander unfortunately perished while fighting Illdath. As did Irae, though she respawned next to you. Apparently being your conduit lets her borrow your phylactery. We did not know that until now. I guess your soul won’t be lonely at least.

Well that was catastrophic. Cassir’s dead, Peter’s dead, Setal is dead, Salied is dead just as we found out what she can do. The cult is pretty much gone save for a few weaker acolytes. I guess its just you and me now…oh and Craylin. She’s still here. Oh and remember that email you sent Faelyn? Still alive. Not only still alive, but still has most of her fleet and forces. We need to get the turrets back online reaaaal fast before we lose Moncayo to a pissed of Faelyn because someone can’t stop poking the gods damned dragons!

Bad kitty!

Also you are correct, I do still get nervous around Vasia. So does Craylin. The soul eating alien super monster is terrified of Vasia. Everyone is terrified of Vasia except Lancaster and that’s because she’s just as dumb as you are. Speaking of which though, she has an update.

Its casual friday. Anyways after bailing your asses out twice, I have some notes. The Heretic is a phenomenally powerful ship but it has a critical weakness I have discovered. Like other necrocarnum soulmelds, it expends the harvested essentia for temporary boosts in power. Meaning though it stood its ground well, its invulnerability to cannon fire is a finite resource. One that can only be replenished with more souls. I mean I have quite a few, but if you expect me to send a ship with no guns to every fleet battle you get into…I’m going to need to kill another planet eventually. So ask 40th Day to keep an eye out for inhabited worlds while they’re out and about in case I need to top up.

You say that as if I’m not already a hero. Sure maybe Nelta disagrees but I just destroyed an entire planet of our enemies who were trying to invade us didn’t I? Is that not good for the war? Technically I destroyed at least two though one by omission. I could have cured the refugees from the jesai plague buuuut…I didn’t. Once they’re evacuated to another planet it will spread, it’s actually remarkably similar to mummy rot. Just more focused on killing than siphoning. Also less durable.

Yes I met Craylin. I also studied her briefly.

About your little flash drive…as much amusement as I’m sure it brings you now because you know my presence protect you…I fucking dare you to fight that teenager. She just turned Lancaster into a whole other species from a whole other plane as a byproduct of cracking a fortress in half. Then again, that worked out for you last time I suppose. Maybe you can be a dog this time, you’re my bitch already anyways.

Also now that you’ve involved me in antagonizing Kanika I thought I’d let you know…I’m taking Salied’s body ‘kay thanks byeeee.

Top…up? I oversee Craylin and even I’m not comfortable with her saying that. How do you work with this woman?!

So the salvage ships brought back some income at least. Not as much as we’d have hoped since most of the fleet is still intact. Though it appears Faelyn is heading to Auwana to meet up with Sakhessa for now. Not sure what they’re up to.

In chatting with Voriuk we’ve learned that Voriuk is an asshole. That was the most frustrating conversation I’ve ever listened into and why does he cackle so much? He agreed…with nebulous wording. Though that being said the Revenants just trashed Kharla’s room in the underdark so she’s probably going to be after them for a little bit. They have another branch who hates Vloz as much as our branch hates us.

Bardhe says we owe him a cruiser. I gave him a cruiser because I’m inclined not to piss him off. He’s not available for long term hire though, I will recall the report on him warns that he likes to play for as many sides as possible. You think I can seduce him? Maybe that’d at least incline him not to take any contracts on me…

I need to go get Craylin. She knew Vasia was still around and is hiding somewhere still. She’s going to dry out if we don’t get her some ichor and I don’t want her to get wrinkles.

Well that was…a battle. I suppose there is a reason we don’t specialize in that. Vaeri and Setani died in all the commotion. The closing statement is still cloaked but Aryn is now cured of the rot so she can retake it once she is able. She’s not doing well though. She was very close to Vaeri and apparently she cannot perform parallel processes on grief.

The Nomads successfully crippled Faelyn’s flagship long enough for The Heretic to break it in half. Afterwards they returned back here to the flotilla. Also when you describe them as ‘competent or recruitable’ I have to ask for more detailed parameters. They’re all highly competent while simultaneously completely unrecruitable. There’s a reason we kept them as a subsidiary. Valuable, trustworthy, and reliable…not quite professional though. By a much larger margin than the other oddities we have worked with.

We’ve got a lot of documents today. Some are kind of optional. Though with the momentum broken it takes me a bit to spin back up so this will be a quirky couple of weeks.

Article on shields and ships. Debating if more of these are needed for other concepts. Tess probably zoned out anyways but mezzy and I were writing weird articles. Well lemme know if you have anything you want covered, don’t say psionics.

Zenaka battle report – results didn’t change but here is the full explanation of why VSEC is struggling to deal with the Vloz. Debating if I should do battle reports more often like this for big fights.

Stories of Lore 34

Vasia’s Odyssey for documentation even though you already read it.

And now for patch notes!

-New sheets, note the dropdown menus to select various options.
–Of particular importance are the location ones so I can just scan those to figure out who is where. Due to the way the sheets work it creates a dropdown with more options than you might really need. The top few are the major locations as what system they’re in is important. It also keeps scrolling to encompass all the colonies you have if you care to be specific, but I really just need to know who is in the system most of the time.
–Development plans change the resource income/expenses to change the xp rate. It goes in 50% increments from neutral being 100%. So “full development” is “i reinvest everything right back into this to get it more xp”.
–Colony builder, for consistency.

-Bunch of unnecessary characters added to round out some of the undefined things that were just lurking around even if the players should know about them. Particularly Kharla’s 7 binds and more members of the Phantoms as a sampler.

-Balance might be all over the place right now. Oh well I’m sure you’ll find a way to deal with it.

-Vasia updated

-Reika updated

I’ve been working on this update too much to write more SoL’s for all the major events so the advisors will summarize everything.

I am filling in since there is a vacancy. I hope to not be here long given this position’s record thus far. So to summarize the state of affairs, The Heretic threw The Raven out of the warrens through that universal boundary our probes never returned from. The Outsider is lightly damaged though shouldn’t be too hard to repair.

Faelyn is on her way to Auwana with her own fleet, from the intel that Aryn gathered while connected to the systems of Moncayo we also gather more fleets are on the way. Somnus’ radars detect a lot of stuff coming from a lot of directions. If they were all after us I’d be willing to say we should evacuate immediately, though we have reasons to believe they’re not and we’re just the battleground for multiple interests.

Obviously one of the fleets must be Faelyn’s as we learned from your expedition to Moncayo. We can also confirm that another of the fleets is a small detachment from the Celestial Order, apparently they’re coming with Reika. We’re not sure who the others belong to. It would seem that the sudden move by the phantoms to eliminate us comes with several other forces moving that are either after them or after the Rift itself that we’re sitting on top of. One of those fleets has to be Sharen just by the rather unique signature our radar gives us. The Nomad Flotilla is also on its way back, since the retreat plan is to go through the rift anyways. With this we can assume The Nomad starship itself is also on its way.

Also your trip to Moncayo resulted in the death’s of Nevada and Satsujin. Somewhat inconvenient that all of our soldiers with guns went to fight the person who is really good against soldiers with guns, and your two heavy melee specialists went to fight the place that is weak to guns but effective against melee. Dr. Taz and I have been trying to figure out what has been giving us the sniffles. After some research we’ve discovered the figure you encountered at Moncayo is Ei Khal, one of the phantom’s three big mummies. That is why you are now quarantined, as am I, Dr. Taz, Aryn, and Allison…on Ash. Mummy rot resurfacing is considered a ‘we don’t have a color code for this’ emergency. So we had to voluntarily let Vasia put us in containment units as she might be the only one who can contain it. So I’ll be your neighbor for a little while.

Mummy Rot is a special kind of plague that is no small part of why the era of rising was probably a good idea. It has three layers of infection, a curse, a parasite, and it modifies the DNA of its host. All three infections recreate one another, if you can cure one it’ll be back within an hour or less from one of the other two and immune to however you cured it last time. Normally, we’d have just fixed it up and called it a day using tried and true techniques. Turns out the phantom mummies have had time to cultivate it and with one of their newfound members being the matriarch of Jaal’darya it’s been purposefully put through all the usual manners you might use to cure any one element of it to give it even more immunities. Basically we have no idea how to fix this without killing the mummy that created it, at least not at the moment. As I said, we’re working on it. However, it’s so contagious that it can infect anything with mana production. That means all plants, animals, and ship reactors are vulnerable. We threw your ride into the void because of that last one. Khymin, Kanemur, and Renjala are trying to cut out the bays you’ve been in since arriving and throw them into the lower planes to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the station, just in case.

To be clear, there are jaal’darya plagues, silnian assimilations, Nevun’s infection, and all manner of terrible biological weapons in the galaxy. This is the worst one. Though I imagine if we dropped this stuff on a jesai world the war between them and Nelta might suddenly shift directions.

In other news, Zenaka is on fire. More than usual but not as much as we expected. Approximately one territory is a pandem clusterfuck of anomalous phenomena but Kharla wasn’t there long and already left again. One of the assault carriers was destroyed and another crippled though her flagship still got onto the ground and after that we couldn’t stop her.

We have a week before the arrival of Faelyn’s fleet. Those who are infected will be left for dead if the system is evacuated. So that includes you, me, and Dr. Taz in particular. Allison and Aryn might be fine but until we know for sure they’ll be kept under observation.

I have the feeling we’re about to have a rough couple of months. Good news is, Haziel is already nearby and hasn’t left for Eden yet so hopefully she can help us out. We’re inconveniently very close to this so we’re stuck dealing with it.

The Celestial Order, where all the paladins come from, is currently having some issues ever since they discovered Sarnai’s existence. Since she is now the only person with ties to an actual deity, but that deity has not really bothered to visit the celestial realms in any way. I expect this to be great for us and not so much for them. Though expect more politics. Speaking of which, they want to meet Sarnai and Reika has deferred that one to you. One of the paladins and their retinue is coming to Auwana to see about this phantoms business on behalf of Reika. Apparently she did actually have a friend at one point in her life, which is bizarre. Though the rest are leaving them to it since Reika officially resigned her position with the Celestial Order now that Barachiel’s death has allowed her to do so. Though I’ve yet to find anyone who feels that makes her no longer one of the last paladins since she’s even more of a divine warrior that she was before. I dunno, you sort that mess out whenever we have time. Just giving you a heads up.

In other news, Ki’Ralcht is also on her way to Auwana. Which we’re pretty sure is not good. She’s been comfy sitting around on Zenaka even if unresponsive but now that the phantoms are closing in on us she’s suddenly mobile with all of her forces. Including the zenakans she recruited. Which is bad but at least not as bad as your original predictions for the number of members in the order that were compromised.

So basically we just need to figure out who is going to make one last stand at Auwana to see if we need to retreat from the system or not.

Well Vasia is back and she has a big ship. I am somewhat concerned about Craylin salivating whenever she’s near it. By the way, this is Craylin. The result of those experiments of putting essentia into the ichor. She is the ichor’s attempt at creating a specialized essentia harvester, she also has a bunch of drones with her suited to similar purposes. Craylin did try to munch on the Heretic at one point and then never tried again. Apparently it tastes “too spicy”. As if there was some sort of horrifying demonic hellfire spitting dragon living in the soul of the ship, guarded by the unfathomable horrors of Vasia’s mind.

She went to get Balhast out of the labs and then took half the labs aboard her new ship. So now Vasia and her lab is mobile. Which is uh…terrifying.

Meanwhile…so an army is coming and they’re probably after Cassir since you put all the blame on her for doing the one thing the phantoms had made it pretty clear we weren’t supposed to do. I’m noticing that since Arkaric disappeared they’ve been much crankier. Without the calculator to just reconfigure plans on the fly they’re a bit more adamant that things need to go according to plan A. Which might have been Arkaric’s plan A for all we know. We do know he has never had particular faith that the phantoms would last for particularly long, but who knows what he’s up to now.

So Aryn being potentially infected by the mummy rot curse has left her quarantined. I’m informed this is one of the highest priorities to quarantine because something about the virulence of the rot in combination with Aryn’s artifact is considered to be a potential catastrophe. So the problem here is our ship is not particularly built to function without her. We even gutted several components of the ship that would be needed by a regular crew under the understanding that Aryn could do without them. We can get it to move forward and other basic functions but we should definitely be careful about getting it into any trouble. Even if trouble is coming for us.