Well the new construction efforts restore more of it and make it a bit more spacious.

I should mention that building a station above Diadem, an uncontrolled and hostile location, requires shipping parts over there. We’re doing so but it will be awhile before they can even start construction there.

Upon moving to contest the pirates at Zenaka, the fleet encountered a threat we didn’t know was there. Andel’s warning proved correct, we can’t detect all of Asmodan’s fleet. It was hiding in the outskirts of the system waiting for our fleet to appear. The tactical intel has been updated, the first fleet was unable to enter the system. The pirates are wrapping around to cut off retreat as well. It appears they were waiting for our fleet so that they wouldn’t have to engage the planetary defenses. Typical siege stuff. The first fleet has sustained heavy losses and cannot retreat nor make it to Zenaka.

We are currently nowhere near figuring out how Nelta created those black holes. So that isn’t really an option. It is apparently related to sahad though New Age isn’t sure how to make a machine that does it. Though they are now concerned that if it can be done, then Decaelys definitely also knows how to do it.

The exploration teams sent after the Deimos have all lost contact. Whatever is out there, it holds to the stories that it is extremely territorial and aggressive. It is believed all three cruisers have been destroyed or worse.

The Pegasus was “found”. It’s was in the hands of some local pirates. It’s crew is believed to be stranded on some planet they may have stopped along on the way to Silnian space. The secondary explorer sent to find them escaped after sustaining heavy damage to both the ship and its crew. It was forced to make an emergency stop at an alien station. We have not heard from it since.

Our attempts to find Arkaric or the Black Library have led us to wrap around up to Zero North, since we know he was there at one point. So they’re still in transit but they’re taking ‘the long way’ around. Passing closer to Nelta space rather than risk going through the Western Reach or near the mysterious empire that keeps attacking anything that gets close to them.

Moncayo, Roha, the Hasao Tei, and the Heroes Guild are all experiencing an outbreak of mummy rot. It’s spreading rapidly through the populace. Local enforcement found evidence that it was deliberately added to a Vittles factory by an unknown agent posing as a refugee from the invasions. They match no known profiles, though security footage reveals the suspect had the disease themselves rather than transporting it. Food shipments have been recalled for inspection and all who handle transportation have been put into quarantine. The cities have been placed on lockdown as an immediate reponse. It would appear the Phantoms are growing more annoyed with us.

As you might have guessed, food just became a major issue again.

 

When it comes to nature rebelling, Eden is at least secure since she has total control over herself. Though she isn’t much of a druid beyond her own world. As a planar surgeon, a job title that never existed until just this moment, she can at least say that its definitely something Haziel is doing.

We’ve found another replacement succubus, turns out its surprisingly easy to get demons on board with wild schemes to gain power. Though we’ve gained some territory we’ve lost some of our forces on the ground. While the funding given to the prospective lords bought a lot of hardware they’re a bit short on manpower. Hina is doing the best on this front since she already had her mercenary team. Hina has acquired the most ground, though Quylla has lost the least forces. So a matter of effect versus efficiency between the two of them. Okazi is sort of in the middle at the moment and the new succubus is still being briefed and set up to enter the chaotic former territories of Valadeus.

In other pandem and demon related news, Kharla has been spotted in the old territories of Jvangard bringing things back in line. Obviously she intends to create a new demon lord herself, though now the territory is on fire because Kharla’s only setting is mass destruction.

Asmodan’s team are perhaps moving a little slower since he is otherwise preoccupied at Zenaka at the moment as far as we can tell.

Renjala still missing, more at eleven.

 

The voidforged do not have any special fabrics that the rest of us don’t already have. Also Kaylen reports they can’t update the prison defenses, Vasia built it and everyone who tries to modify it instead of following her very specific instructions tends to fall victim to the prison itself.

 

I’m starting to think nowhere is safe if I can’t go to Zanin either. There’s an outbreak in Moncayo right now, a crazed lunatic in Roha, and Enohas might just randomly piss off an entity that can delete planets from existence. Maybe I can lock myself in a box so Eden will let me hide in a basement in Garden city.

As for Sharen, they’ve always made their way by ‘investing’ in what they think will come out on top and otherwise staying out of conflicts. Dramatics aside, I don’t think its actually about who is winning or losing – we are losing by the way anyways. I think its about securing their own position, and not in the normal drow political sense. House Sharen has been in power as THE great house of Shetou for a thousand years. There is no way the Phantoms, an infiltration based group, do not have a way to keep tabs on them. If we could demonstrate an effective way to root out the  infiltrators of the Phantoms that would be a decisive enough play to at least get Sharen out of their paralyzed position. If they moved against the Phantoms now, they have good reason to fear their death would come from within.

The drones are acting fine so far. If anything they’re keeping the recent chaotic wild growths in check by eating it. Were not for Alexandria, Roha would be probably the most stable city in the midst of whatever planar shit is going on with the local wild life. Since if some fish gets uppity, the drones just eat it. If a plant grows out of the sidewalk, they eat that too. They are very thorough in finding aberrant growths and eating it since that is all they want to do anyways. It’s actually a byproduct of the way I told them what not to eat instead of “eat only these things”. Sooo my laziness saves the day?

You say to stop you from trying to do the same tech speedrun that the fallen civilization tried to do…you are speaking to the product of you trying to do that. We are in waaaay too deep to turn back now.

Speaking of which the scouts report that Kaisa’s target planet is…not as nefarious as we thought? It’s not another synapse or a planet full of puppies at least. It is instead a planet occupied by a militarized empire who took over several systems near themselves. In hindsight, we kind of forgot that Kaisa serves the last adventurer and he has final say in anything she comes up with. There’s an evil overlord, its our job to take them down and rescue the people I guess. Though despite the quest itself being pretty…questy…it of course wouldn’t be a Kaisa assignment if it was easy. The empire is a theocratic blah blah plots blah blah schemes – its fuckin Agallias. This is where he was building his own empire to serve the Phantoms and is worshipped as some otherworldly god. We’re…we’re gonna need more biomass.

VSEC cannot max warp us, its unique to the design of their ships. Also we went along to be the second wave just in case. Turns out that might be really important really soon given that they’re struggling with the pirates.

40th day reports that we technically have farms on all our colonies anyways. No maniac would have a remote colony sustained only by shipments from vittles during a galactic famine. Except Zanin, that’s a research facility with very few people on it. Though they need those farms to keep themselves afloat.

They also report we found something in NV147-3 Alpha, the water moon of Que. Sure you could totally eat some of this stuff, but more importantly they found evidence that something is or was down there among the ruins of the fallen civilization. We found something too newly constructed to be from the old ruins yet old enough to predate our own galactic awareness. It was a spear with a not-too-old spearhead. 40th Day thinks there is something or someone here. Though we can eat the fish, that too. At least I can, and so can humans dwarves orcs and demons. Elves maybe not so much.

The next step to confirming Setal as a demon lord is to meet with the council of lords and the Demon King and announce her candidacy. You aren’t a lord unless the king recognizes you as it were. Though once you pull the pin on that grenade, who knows what comes next. For now she’s just cementing herself as the leader of Zenaka.

Well we know how Decaelys does it, she just stops time in a specific pocket of space. Anything passing through it, if not sufficiently warded, will be caught in the spells effect. That is probably why she does it to stop incoming fire rather than just freeze the whole fleet, since ships have pretty powerful wards on them.

The Anti-FTL missile was actually fairly easy to prototype for Khymin. They just cost a few million credits per shot and they need to be launched from a carrier. They’re basically just small disposable starships. They also need to make it to the target and remain active. The latter part is the biggest complication, since they can be shot.

Si Yeon assures us that she didn’t infect herself to test the new weapon. Though she also just gave a quick excuse and left. I’m not a doctor but whenever someone keeps brushing off their illness and trying to ignore it, something is really wrong. Is she dying? Have I watched too many dramas?

We started making a test batch of that poison.

 

 

 

 

 

The observation program is proving fruitful. Just the caches alone are giving us a look into how the ring moves. It’s like there is a missing tile or two within its structure and everything kind of slots around one piece at a time to get any larger piece to where it needs to go. Also all the pieces tend to be double sided by using the same gravity generation method ships use…but in both directions. Up and down loses meaning within the ring.

After some autopsy’s we can say that their construction is quite advanced albeit not technologically superior to what we have available. It’s as if they are assembled with extremely deft hands that can keep everything together perfectly on a molecular scale so that once the finished robot is set loose it is actually quite robust and complex even if the battery isn’t exactly some strange alien technology that we’ve never heard of. Just really intricate construction.

The corpses left in the field don’t seem to go anywhere, though I have a hunch on that. I think there is some sort of salvaging system, but that it never comes up to the surface. As there are never any destroyed machines on any of the tiles that come up to get some sunlight. The theoretical scavengers may only live within the ring’s internal structure. Which coincides with Eleazor’s report that down there is very different. I would suggest there are multiple ecosystems throughout the ring, and the internal sections are a major part of that.

The mapping project combined with the caches have given us some notable data. It is currently theorized that while it is impossible to truly map due to its constantly moving nature, we are noticing certain sections are like boundaries. They never go past a certain point, and theoretically this is the limit of each exerlus’ control. Beyond those boundaries is the shifting domain of another part of the system.

So far we’re not doing great with non hostile contact. It seems everything is out to kill us. Though I theorize that has less to do with the machines and more to do with the fact that Eleazor made the exerlus pretty certain that it doesn’t like us. It could also just be a case of ‘if its not one of us, then its one of the others and we should kill it’.

So finding the other exerlus for diplomatic purposes will prove to be a bit difficult. We’re not even sure if we can find the one we already know about again. The scale of the labyrinth inside the ring is unfathomable. You could fit Thenica into the ring, and we just lived on the crust of that place. Imagine that, but several times larger and always shifting. Finding the exerlus inside of these areas will be a significant undertaking. We’re trying to basically invade a star system’s worth of shit for each section of this ring just to find the exerlus at the center of this mess. The main catch being that we can’t use ships inside the rings. The pattern in which the modules shift is also controlled by a sentient machine that can move them in the least convenient way possible for us.