Stories of Lore 5

Well the running timer places the Exerlus arrival at an estimated two months and two weeks remaining. Also we’ve sent the royal battleship back towards House Sharen.

As for getting started on golem production, we already have Khymin eager to help. Depending on what type of golems you have in mind, we could just start a company dedicated towards their construction. We could start with simple things such as street cleaners at the least. War golems are definitely a little difficult to even get started on due to the hardware required. Also Khymin is a hobbyist not a professional, so little steps for now.

We’ve put Somnus Golbotics to work to start cultivating what they can on Orchard though it’s going slowly to be careful not to destroy the planet’s atmosphere. Oddly, this involved running more exhaust than we really need to just to balance out the total effect. Speaking of which the initial colony has completed construction so they have a cozy place to work.

As for the Koura elections, they’re still campaigning. Though we have noticed that the current lead candidate sourced “assistance” from Laura King. The illithid named “Harlus” has seen a surge in popularity. Oddly enough, Laura utilized charity to do so. Not quite as nefarious as Hylavi was expecting but Laura is extremely well connected and feared across Koura. So she knows where to pressure the campaign budget for the maximum effect. Hylavi thinks she also hired a few small time criminals to vandalize competing campaign signs and started several rumors that do not put them in the best light. Rival candidates don’t have as much backing as Harlus since the few companies in the system at the moment are relatively small and have a lot less to do with public opinions towards anything one way or another.

The problem with sending ships into the rift is that the entity is still there and won’t let the starships pass particularly far. Notably it accomplishes this by just sitting in front of them so they can’t go forward annnnd well the pilots don’t want to just crash into it. Apparently the entity can expand its size to the point that its not clear if the ship will win that collision. Though they cannot reason with it since it still won’t talk to anyone who doesn’t know sahad. Vasia has been occupied with her mutating parasite experiments so we haven’t managed to send her to keep trying to establish anything with the entity. She says to consider just shooting it and moving on, it is the creator of the parasites so we can ‘claim reasonable offense’.

Speaking of the parasites, Doctor Si Yeon has been managing to keep it under far more control and remove the parasites more effectively. She came up with an injection that kills the parasite but leaves the host unharmed other than some nausea for a day. Though they keep appearing in people out of nowhere due to the rift. Though cases are declining as the rift moves further away from the planet, we expect that soon it will be in open space and hopefully that will see to a decline of the cases.

And….*sigh* as a matter of interest. Doctor Eliza Pierce is here on Koura now. Vasia wants her for New Age, Alnae wants her for imprisonment, Nah would probably want her for the shapeshifting, Yi Seon wouldn’t mind having another medical expert like her, and I said I’d see if you had any thoughts on the matter. Normally I’d take it to Riley while you’re away but we agreed this was a ‘call the boss’ moment to at least check in.

We’ve delivered the Sharen battleship back to them, along with the information about Kar’soluth’s little secret asteroid base. It was a brief exchange they did seem interested by the gesture. Perhaps being in the middle of a warzone has rendered the discussion a bit less than we might hope for, but we did forward the existence of Somnus to them if they should care to visit.

So far chats with our alien are proving fruitful if nothing else for information about his species. Apparently they’re one of the stronger groups in terms of military within the NELTA alliance, though this has made them kind of talkative and they don’t really understand how intelligence gathering works. Basically they’ve never had to fight a drow. This might explain how they wound up as one of the races that attacked those luminous beings at the bidding of Selona, not the sharpest in the drawer y’know.

Messing with the rift in the system has been more of a mixed result, if nothing else we keep chucking probes in. The entity within it is still being a pain in the ass to deal with or communicate with. As it stands Vasia is preoccupied with her other experiments Ilex has her focusing on and Cerys is lightyears away fighting underground monsters so we’re low on people to actually try communicating with it. Though it still maintains a stance of not wanting us poking around in there. Not our department though, we’re still just messing with the rift. It is almost in open space now though if we wanted to try and anchor it into orbit so it doesn’t pass through Koura every seventy years.

Sarnai’s training is going alright. I wouldn’t say she is a natural but at least she’s not inept, kind of a brawler though. She’s learning the stances and the techniques as well as standard melee operations in combat, but if pressured she still just starts to swing wildly. She seems a bit prone to being overwhelmed if things aren’t going as she planned and has some issues with tunnel vision. I throw plastic cups at her while she spars with Alexander just to keep her on her toes. It’s fun.

So far Jamalia recruitment will be a bit slow since its so far away from here that only the most adventurous will go…especially considering that Koura is already a frontier colony in the first place. We may have to try and recruit the natives over there.

 Also I do advise you retreat from the warzone you’re currently inside of, the first lance is almost entirely broken.

It does turn out that the cultists have found ways to extend their use of food through the use of psionics, allowing them to survive on less for longer by controlling their metabolisms. They do get sluggish though, and notably its a survival mechanic rather than something you’d want someone like Cassir to do.

On to New Age matters. Vasia’s pet project is now her…pet dog I guess? I’m told it has potential to be more but it is basically a child right now and they’re working on seeing if it can talk, though psionic scans are proving strong potential. Though the idea to perform experiments on the process in new environments will have to wait until Setani returns from her adventures with the Astral Order.

The patients they are experimenting on with the whole awakening concept are still showing a lot of difficulty. Even the minor signs of recovery are proving questionable though Salied specifically is doing the best. We’ve gotten to the point where she at least knows to feed herself though she still just keeps staring off into space all day and mumbling to herself.

The construction of a holding Freighter has been completed by the shipyard. It’s basically a big empty box with a two meter thick hull lined with all the wards imaginable. Only transports one thing at a time unless you stack some cages in it, though this should help for bringing in large samples.

We haven’t found any real signs of sabotage on the ships New Horizons has been producing. It seems that Sarden just uses the company for her cover identity rather then doing anything useful, though in double checking the books we have noticed we are constructing a corvette that is reserved for a sale that doesn’t exist. That one’s a little bit suspicious. We could just sell it once its done being built as usual, though it has a custom design that leaves it a few tons lighter than it should normally be. Not entirely sure if that one is Sarden’s doing and if so, whatever that could even be for.

It would seen the colony owners don’t want orbital bombardments to take place, since the creatures live underground anyways though we’ve mentioned just targeting larger collections of biomass. Its currently going through officials who are debating the merits versus the repercussions that might come down the line.

We’ve started building the holding station in orbit around Koura in the opposite hemisphere to keep the station safe but accessible.

As for hiring a Sivataur team, actually pretty easy. If we pay for travel expenses and stock food sources for them, namely luxury slaves, we can go get a team of them quite easily. They do sort of enjoy this line of work and there are a lot of them not really officially employed at the moment. The only issue is keeping them from acting erratically, they do tend to scoff in the face of authority quite a lot so be wary of that just a little bit. Next thing you know they find some intelligent species to be a more interesting hunt and first contact goes bad.

As for Vasia’s concerns on alien tech, she just shrugged and went back to her usual affairs. Without any contact or objects to study she says its impossible to really ponder too much. To a similar note, contacting Giza results in little that could help Salied unless she were to be sent to the Valdir directly and their method of fixing her might not have that much to do with Sahad. They have noted that similar cases to what Vasia is studying have been found by those in proximity to the apprentices of sahad. Which is extending the theory that witnessing novice uses of it has some more traumatic effects than that of experts such as the Valdir Mothership’s use of it.

Sarden seems largely to use Laura as a point of contact and then her information network becomes at her disposal. I suspect this is a frequent method of operation for the Revenants, since following us around from planet to planet can make it difficult to establish a new information network every time. It would not surprise me if they just exploit local resources, that or they have a much larger following than we’ve initially suspected. However, in keeping tabs on her, we suspect she’s not actually here to assassinate Cassir. She hasn’t made any further moves in that regard despite how long its been since her first attempt. She seems to be visiting a lot of strange places and people. Specifically, refugees from the destruction of the more populated systems. Also specifically, the refugees with combat experience. I think she’s actually here recruiting and just saw an opportunity to take a shot at.

As for her hotel, we haven’t found much nefarious there but I did notice it extends into the lower decks as a basement level where staff related facilities are located. Which might be part of how Sarden is moving around so mysteriously.

Vanjin has managed to track down the engineer we’ve been looking for. However there is a slight complication. She was not sold on Solvang’s official channels but with some bar scouting she was able to figure out that the pirates involved in this are one of Solvang’s personal teams that report to Asmoday directly. It is likely that this was a mission rather than a random act of piracy and that this engineer has been taken very deliberately. Whether or not they made it look like random piracy on purpose is up for debate. Upon pressuring around, Vanjin has uncovered that the engineer was likely taken to the middle of nowhere. There exists a repurposed super carrier that flies around in deep space, it is not fitted to deploy ships like a typical carrier but is really just a space station with thrusters at this point. Apparently, after the events of the invasion in which Song Yi and Indal invaded the Raven, another more mobile version was built. If Vanjin is to retrieve the engineer, she will need to assault The Raven II. Backup and a better plan might be required for that one.

I’ve taken some time to look the report over though, it is strange for Asmoday to specifically target this engineer and immediately ship her off to the Raven facility which specializes in high powered maniacs. I suspect whatever this engineer works on is of specific interest to the phantoms. Which does bring into question what that factory is producing that could attract their attention. Though it’s up to you if we want to get tangled up with those people all over again.

As for Laura’s prominent underlings, I suppose that would be these dastardly folk. To be noted, they’re not all actually related. Laura just forces members of her inner circle to take her surname to promote the family mafia image. Usually by the time you reach that rank, a name change isn’t too bad of an idea I suppose.

We’re awaiting transport freighters from Auwana to help ship the bug queen thing to Sol for research, its a bit too big and unruly to be effectively and safely transported aboard military freighters. The war in general is going in our favor though now that we’ve come to the understanding of how the species operates and are now hunting down the queens specifically. We’ve lost some more forces but we’re making good progress on the eradication of those creatures that build more of everything else.