Posted on December 24, 2021

 

Stories of Lore 21

 

The logging and manufacturing company has started to get set up, still getting all the equipment together and setting their base of operations up. As well as hiring people to actually work there.

Khymin has some progress on his robots to the point that they could actually have some sort of fight in the arena though they’re still a bit sluggish and it’s a little dry since they will use the same strikes and defenses in very similar patterns. One notable thing is they can get caught in a counter strike loop where they both keep blocking and retaliating the same move over and over again until either one of their arms breaks or Khymin just turns them off. That being said we’re making a bit more progress thanks to Nah division since Vaeri brought back some of the warforged ideas that she saw on her latest mission which is useful for Khymin’s work. Though it is also proving just how difficult this line of craftsmanship actually is.

Eleazor is on his way to go find Satsujin as they prepare for the upcoming invasion.

As for the old Kar’Soluth station, we’ve begun enhancing its construction to have some more amenities for any who might want to come visit it. Though the Nomads are currently raiding FO-234 and fighting with the Kar’Soluth fleet so they can’t really come by and work on helping set it up with interesting things just yet. As for trying to convince Laura to govern it, she declined on the grounds that its an unpopulated space station inside of an asteroid in the middle of nowhere. It’s just asking to get shot by Shetou if it does become anything interesting and it’s also so far out of the way of anything useful that any businesses opened there would just be fighting the constant costs of shipping and handling. Essentially, she has no interest in some startup she sees no potential in.

To that end, we cannot find anyone to run the place for the same reasons. It’s a small space station built into an asteroid with nothing in it’s own system to use for resources. You will have to assign someone such as Riley to it since she is obligated to do whatever you say. Stop looking at me like that.

The battlecruisers are still in the process of finding some crew before they can go join Koda, who is already at FO-234 and we’ll get to that clusterfuck in a second.

As for finding a carrier, we can procure them from one of Faelyn’s shipyards. As for the Nomads, they’ve been constantly employed by Nah to do things other than steal all the ships and sell them back to us so they haven’t really been doing that as much as of late.

Now back to FO-234. The Nomad’s managed to steal one of the ships and outright crash it into another one before retreating onto the surface of the planet to lay low for a bit since now they have Kar’Soluth’s attention. Did a significant amount of damage though, but they also discovered that Kar’Soluth has a major sway on FO-234 by now since they’ve established a sort of embassy system with the natives upon first contact. Though the people are getting nervous now that ships are being destroyed overhead by pirates and are definitely getting the Kar’Soluth propaganda version of the story. Koda arrived to start harassing them with proper naval warfare, circling the planet to keep their fleet from being able to pin his own forces down and avoiding direct conflict with their entire fleet while the Nomad’s peek in and out forcing the Kar’Soluth fleet to stay together or risk being hijacked by the pirates again. Fortunately, the Kar’Soluth ships are not the fastest or most mobile compared to something like an actually dedicated fleet specialist such as Sharen. Really starting to see how much they were banking on Sharen leaving Shetou to join them.

However, bigger problem. In response to this aggression, the Vloz’Khress are sending Ilivayas Vel’Vloz’Khress to deal with the situation with her own fleet in tow. It’s embarrassingly slow, the Vloz are definitely the worst at ships due to all the pandem, though as we’ve seen before once they reach the surface of a world they can cause a lot of problems due to their summoning talents. Basically you have two months of advantage on FO-234 to work with before a demon army shows up to retaliate.

The people of FO-234, which we’ve learned they refer to as Zenaka, are in a state of mild panic as they’re getting caught up between a war they had no idea even existed and some members of their populace are turning hostile towards all foreign entities. This isn’t like Enohas though, while they can’t match us technologically they still have dangerous weapons and well trained militaries. Not to mention they’re basically alien demons and are abnormally powerful as a species with magic of their own. The Nomad’s are doing fine, they’re good in these kinds of situations, though the Kar’Soluth embassy was bombed by some rogue zenakans. Problem number two, the Kar’Soluth sent members of the Jaal’Darya so promptly after this bombing the Jaal’Darya responded by just dropping a plague on them. Though they’re wearing masks and quarantining effectively so the plague isn’t wiping them out as quickly as it could, but it will keep them somewhat suppressed and weakened until Ilivayas gets there with an army. They’ve switched strategies from ‘contact’ to straight up conquest now, and it turns out demon binding spells work on zenakans. It’s turning into chaos while the Kar’Soluth just start capturing them outright, though the natives can defend themselves and are using guerilla resistance strategies alongside with their government arsenal. They can definitely repel the Kar’Soluth emissaries, though once Ilivayas gets here I predict that won’t last.

We have a few basic angles of response. We can try to meet them militarily by sending Madhammer, our own forces, and maybe ask Renjala for some knights though that will be a long and bloody war right as Nelta is getting here. However, one of Ecsanul’s major binds will be there so at least the knights have some motive to get involved. We could also try to at least find some sympathizers and work with the people on evacuation to get as many of them out and over to Somnus as we can before the Kar’Soluth take over the planet by force.Though before you go, figure out what you want to do so Elion can figure out if he needs a small team or ‘everything’ to go wage a war with the incoming Vloz general.

In the meantime Riley is wearing a flight suit almost all the time but at least she seems like she can do paperwork. It’s really not that different from her normal outfit to be honest.

Alexander is helping with the evacuation effort of Thenica through Moncayo, though Thenica is having quite a few members of its population refuse to leave their homes and take up arms to repel the incoming invasion instead. At least this time they’ll be ready. Though there is a growing sentiment that evacuating to the frontier is a worse plan than standing their ground besides the largest military power in the Sol Empire. Since Shetou and Alnae’s main capitals are still on Thenica and they’ve always been pointing a lot of guns at each other, that’s a lot of guns that could be aimed elsewhere in a pinch. It will likely be one hell of an assault to try and get onto that planet, though it does seem that Nelta definitely intends to do this.

So…Enohas. After the death of Nihlav at the hands of Yonam her people have become somewhat despaired. They’re not doing so great in terms of morale but are much more cooperative with us now, just nodding and doing whatever we ask. Since Nihlav was sort of their champion who was doing all the good works, they don’t really know what to do anymore. They just nod and do whatever we ask, they definitely believe Haziel to be something of a cruel god. Yonam is returning to Koura to regroup with Madhammer.

The other more cooperative cities have begun integration processes. The arcuran settlements however are making it somewhat difficult to protect these kind of things as they’re still roaming around attacking merkas wherever they can and as we draw attention to the cities we’re working on, that whole problem crops up.

All the squires are moving around as asked and Ki’Ralcht is heading towards FO-234. Also I have some design templates for you to look over for the expansion of Jamalia for all these incoming recruits. We have steampunky, which seems to fit steamworks so minimal interior decor needed. We also have ‘all the trees’ because Haziel is here, I like this neonpunk look though. Pandem people aren’t used to being surrounded by usable modern tech, so we just spraypaint steamworks’ stuff and add more glowing stuff so it feels like the one place they can live in a super modernized environment. Oh we also have the ol ‘build a castle’ style. Everyone loves a good fortress castle. We could also go with ‘big ass colony’ and keep the theme consistent with the deployed colony outpost we already set up. Lot of plain colored metal and clean glass windows. Also we need to pick what kind of carpet we want, I brought sample palettes from the home improvement store.

So in offering monoplanar pandem corruption removal surgery, there are…a lot of volunteers. Valadeus warns that a lot of pandem casters wind up where they are due to the options that get closed off upon becoming corrupted and that this could hemorrhage recruits once they have more options. He suggests offering it as a reward to those who become particularly noteworthy and reliable knights. A method of indoctrination so those who see the hope of receiving this blessing will be in too deep to really leave by the time they are granted it. Not to mention that across the system this could be such a popular thing that monetizing it might also be a good idea though will keep eden flooded with work. Not entirely sure she it they signed up for just doing surgery all day every day though. As I’m noticing, pretty much everything Valadeus suggests is…smart but morally dubious. I suppose he is a demon lord for a reason. He left you to decide how you want to do that, but he made some really good points overall.

Also Alex texted back about the star thing, you’d have to get close enough to cast spells at the rift to do that. Which is at the center of the star. That or you’d have to find the rift in Kari, which involves going into Kari. Then you’d have to be there as it starts to explode. So basically it’s impossible and certain death to even try it unless you found ways to circumvent all these issues.

As for giving Eden snacks, essentially just throwing things onto the surface of the planet counts as feeding them due to the way it has always been growing. Though they’ve expressed an interest in some of the things they’ve been finding in Ilex’s Vivarium. If nothing else it gives them ideas on how to expand their planet in new ways as they’ve never had independent organisms there except for that tentacle monster hanging around. Eden has never seen a self sustaining ecosystem that relies on other creatures separated from the central mass before.

 

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Well while you’re sitting there awaiting a potentially inevitable death, I can at least update you over the comms as to what is happening. Maybe it’ll keep your mind off of things. Though maybe I shouldn’t disrupt your focus. Either way, Cassir is already on her way so hang in there.

 

Evidently as you can see, Que has gone horribly wrong in every possible way. I don’t know the full details though I’ll look into it if you want after this entity business. It’s funny, I thought capturing the entity would be the highlight of my career and the biggest news of the week. Now it feels so insignificant in comparison. Rhea’s dead, Vamon is dead, you’re two inches from death, Nihlav is dead, the phantoms are acting up, the ambush fleet has been decimated, and Lancaster has awoken the beast that is the Vloz all in one week. I uh…subdued the entity though. It’s in the vivarium under heavy sedatives since it can phase through physical material and magical wards. I’m working on that part still.

As for the Raven’s proximity to us, I’m guessing because they were having a meeting out here. Renjala and Faelyn both being members makes it prudent to be parked in the frontier I guess. It now occurs to me, Faelyn’s comically oversized throne room might not be a failed project of grandeur…but the new headquarters of the phantoms. That place is a fortress built with wide roads for big things to easily move through. I guess you win five credits for calling that one.

Qhalord was distinctly absent from the meeting so he’s definitely not a member of the phantoms. Renjala’s probing around reveals that he is going to be ‘unearthed’ during the invasion after the aethernet starts collapsing to bait out Song Yi and specifically her during a time when communication is difficult.

We’ve sent out the salvage teams with a bit of a delay after the pandem ambush, partially because the area wasn’t totally secured. So we waited until they left to go scoop all that up. Up to 780 million in profit so far though.

As for blowing up a star, need pandem to do it or some sort of reaction that can use the energy of the star to sustain itself and spread outwards. Technically if you close the kari rift you can unbind the star which isn’t the same as a supernova but if someone is too close they can get eaten by this now unleashed star. Not as great of a range on that one though and not as fast. The entity I’ve drugged and knocked out probably knows how to do it but for obvious reasons I’m not waking that thing back up for awhile.

The 004C specimens have been brought back in as you requested and are being bred for more experiments. Speaking of which, Balhast has improved his vocabulary to being able to form some basic statements. I even taught him how to do basic addition and subtraction.

Peter has found some bait for Seiyomi, the problem is the bait is Renjala or Gunhild. Similar to Nila, Seiyomi also has something of an interest in strange artifacts. So getting his attention onto one of those two could be a bit of a gamble given how elusive and sneaky he is. Odds are unless we vault those weapons with extreme security measures, he might be able to steal it outright without anyone being able to talk to him for five seconds. So…good luck with all of that.

As for the colony ships, technically we could drop a hostile colony onto any inhospitable rock we wanted to and there are several of those. Space has a lot of planets that aren’t really doing much useful. Though planets are quite large so if you want just ‘more colonies’ you could just set up more on the existing planets we are settled onto. Would also make them less expensive to upkeep since they’d be within easy range of current shipping routes. So depends what you’re really looking to accomplish with the colony, do you want another deep space system to call your own instead of living under Lancaster or do you just want to set up more tax income?

Also I’m not sure how to tell  you this, but you’re in the news for shipping desperate colonists to Ash. A world with no aethernet connection possibilities and isolating them. People suspect you’re using slave labor down there for something truly terrible hence you would hide them on such an uncontactable world. So…okay we expanded it and still no one wants to go there. The first thing the first wave did was make enough money to fly to Koura. That being said…I wouldn’t mind the place. Since New Age is the exact kind of company that benefits from the atmosphere that blocks all contact by comparison to regular people who rely on communication a bit too much in the modern day and age.

The merkas project is going slightly awry since now the Arcurans are about to rule over Enohas ever since the events of Haziel happened and Nihlav died. On the other hand, our project is nearing completion to produce the merkas male but the general reward for doing so got a lot less worth my time. The Vivarium is doing it though and handling the yelay space suits, so not my problem. Also they finished the yelay suits thing.

The metal maker has been moved to a further point in the vivarium from its mom. Do we still call it a mom? The makers don’t have genders and reproduce through construction so not sure what to make of the terminology there. Giving them sunstones result in glowing monsters, they look kinda neat at least. They still bite though.

Adryn says he doesn’t really know anyone on Sol he is worried about, though he’s low enough in rank that we don’t tell him about the phantoms so he doesn’t know how bad it’s about to get. That being said, he’s a sivataur vampire and so his entire clan are probably going to pop raging boners once all this happens. If they don’t get wiped out.

We’ve had Bardhe moved to a secure facility on a Solvang station. Given that Solvang’s leader is a member of the phantoms, that is probably the safest place for him to be short of inviting him to Auwana which could be a baad plan. Though as long as he still has work to do he seems fine taking our job offers.

 

We’ve set up the computer and general electronics factory. In the meantime I still don’t really know what you’re waiting for in particular.

However, the odds of the councilor job have gotten worse since the incoming Nelta fleet have caused Alnae to raise security practically everywhere especially around their VIPs. They no longer leave their bunkers at all as they await the arrival of the invasion.

I might also point out that our teams keeping a lookout on them are still on Thenica, which is about to be blown apart. Fortunately, we do still have the old facility we used to use underneath that shopping mall which survived the first invasion so they could just head to operating out of there once again if they need to remain on Thenica.