11/24 After-Mission Report

11/24 After-Mission Report

FROM: Crono Arinborn
TO: Blaze of Glory Posting Board

Last evening, on November 24th, an unidentified, though colonized, asteroid drifted within the edge of the Marshalship sensor array in Dimension 42. Little information could be gleaned from afar, unfortunately, and the trajectory of the craft in question was such that it would only continue to skim along the perimeter. As a result of this, the Blaze of Glory was asked to investigate the matter of what appeared to be an abandoned craft. We established a docking party and set off. I'll do my best to recall all details with possible implications, but please feel free to discuss further.

The situation inside, given later facts, was rather strange. Exposed cabling and wiring hung about, wreckage piled and broken combat equipment was scattered around. Signs pointed that the vessel had not been abandoned for very long, if indeed some form of struggle had taken place. After taking a moment to gather details, signs of life appeared on our sensor read outs as we entered a nearby storage room. This room's contents, however, became of interest itself.

They were labeled with CoRe and Verorox insignias, and if shipping date was to be believed, the shipment in question was due just over a month prior, giving us a potential time frame for when the craft became in the state it was in. After checking against missing CoRe shipments, and trying to verify their serial numbers proved that they were an illegal shipment. This was only further proved by quick investigation of a few contents - drugs, and weaponry. Still, if this was meant to be sneaked in with a somewhat legitimate facing, the date itself might not be forfeit.

We pressed on ahead in search of prior mentioned life signatures, and found them only moments later within a wide hallway. They called themselves 'Meanae the Thorn', and 'Cliff 'The Trap Remover''. They ignored any requests for a fuller explanation of the situation, as well as ignored initial offer of assistance, though their own talk revealed the following.
-They are part of "The Dark Scorpion gang", and seemed to imply it was lead by "The Don", based on a few references to him.
-They also revealed at least four other members, when bantering "Don'll have six of our heads as it is."
-They admitted to be smugglers, on the spot.
-The have some prior knowledge on Jedi, in particular. Though they seemed surprised at the timing of our arrival, Meanae admitted that they 'Felt the Jedi coming'. I'll refer to our resident expert as to what that could imply of her.

However, the status of the vessel itself remains in question - whether it was originally their own, disguised as driftwood, or whether an actual struggle had taken place, which could imply the vessel itself was stolen prior - with or without the cargo already aboard. More immediately pressing at the time was the ensuing conflict.

Both made use of -extremely- effective personal shielding, which kept them safe from the bulk of attacks. Cliff was a deceptively agile engineer, carrying with him no less than four utility belts, and used a wide range of devices against us in the encounter. Meanae was quite adept at both melee and combat casting, opening on us with some form of wide-spread interruption to counter-spell, before tackling head on with several of the crew. She had another, later counter-spell effort that caused the energies involved in casting to erupt into flame, as well as casting a cover-effort for herself which erupted the very ground about her into a pillar of fire. Not enough to verify, but, given the constant state of burning glow her weapon seemed to be in, as well as these shown casting efforts, she may be geared towards 'Fire' in particular.

As for Cliff's devices, he used.
-Something that reversed the effects of the ship's artificial gravity, taking only him to the ceiling for the duration of the conflict.
-A small but powerful personal turret-constructor, which deployed when thrown.
-Excessive Plasma Grenades.
-Some form of device which actually seemed to -capture- spells from a magical user, without even being in the process of casting them, and turning them back on us.
-Nail grenades which actively absorbed heat, working in tandem with Meanae's igniting counter spell to give them considerable heat with which to do so. The nails themselves, perhaps by efforts of Meanae, held some special properties, causing a field of healing resistance around the point of embedding. These had to be surgically removed after the conflict was over. What this property is, specifically, remains in question. Cytorix did mention that his spell absorbed by the nails was itself particularly hard to heal. The nail's state in turn may have something to do with that.

The ending result of the conflict, lightly put, was less than preferable. With no less than three wounded by the grenade, and other fatigues stacking, Cliff was able to set off the trap in place for our arrival after they'd 'felt us coming'. The pillars within the hallway exploded, gushing a red mist into the room. It made contact with five - our enemies included along with Shaila, Revia, and myself. The rest were successfully shielded by Genevieve, or within an HEV suit. This mist stuck to skin on exposure, causing harsh delirium and hostility from the subject. Yet our enemies were unaffected. Why? Despite injuries and fatigue, we were slowly overwhelming them with numbers, and Meanae asked her partner whether or not he had 'pilled', which may have been some form of an immunity vaccine if taken just prior to exposure. They used the chaos caused by this drug to escape, setting the ship to self-destruct afterward, forcing immediate escape.

There are two main issues to discuss in fallout of this mission.
-First and foremost: Who is this "Dark Scorpion Gang", and what does their presence here imply for the rest of Dimension 42? We know they are smugglers, we know one or more of their members has knowledge of Jedi, we have some idea of the materials we have access to.

Oddly enough, this may hold some relation to a recent displacement incident - of a frog. The frog in question was dosed with a highly illegal hallucinogen, seeping right out from it's pores. While it had adapted to carrying this substance, strangely, it was not synthesized by it's own bodily functions - the hallucinogen in question herbal in nature. Either this frog ate this as part of it's native diet, or it was injected by some means - a purposeful carrier. A means of smuggling? Cliff, to his partner, had mentioned it was 'enough getting here', unable to comm their allies. I think it's very likely they were struggling to dimensional warp - perhaps went on damaged systems after stealing the vessel - and lost some of the cargo in the process, which wound up on our observational deck in turn. Only one of infinitely many scenarios, but one I think deserves some investigation. Finding a harvested area of this herb may create a further lead. On dimension or off, as 'getting here' wouldn't have to imply any d-jump.

Second - the troubles of the encounter itself.

It would be important to note, we entered the area wearing HEV suits that would have prevented the exposure to the red mist (and in one of our crew's case, did). In the end, this only becomes a distracting what-if, as the very bulky, though protective, suit, would have only caused extreme hindrance to the majority of our party. There is, after all, a reason we decided to abandon them. If I took the liberty of speaking in the same what-if, replaying the same scenario, I would not be here now. That is a scenario I'm confident in the result of.

The simple fact of the matter is, we walked into a trap, either laid as a common measure or one as a response to our detection, and we did not enter with the suits with the intention of countering such a thing. If given preparation again, and told I would fall into 'a trap', then this suit would still not be a satisfying solution. We as a team have always adapted and responded to traps with our own strengths and means, and we did there, likewise, while not hindering ourselves in combat, even if not to a desirable extent. Especially when any damage to an environment suit in combat would just as easily leave one exposed, regardless.

Rather than focusing on this what-if, in turn, it would be wise to come up with 'what now?' We've seen the tactics this group will be likely to employ, and we'll need to employ our own response. On the request of the Captain, I'll be putting research into a smaller, specialized, more mobile variation that would prevent any such repetition without causing us unnecessary struggle in the process. Any with thoughts or efforts towards design, your assistance would be most appreciated.

This isn't a stop gap I'm going to be fully satisfied with, though. Simply put, it does not address the issue of injury during combat. With that, I would like to reiterate, a solution for -this drug- has likely already been established, and -used- by the Gang themselves. Working from samples that settled onto my clothing after the combat, I've asked a specialist at CTI to have a look at the compound and see if they could come up with any similar 'pill', presuming that reference was correct. I've left another sample accessible in the lab, for any others who would be able to help with that effort, likewise.

Lastly, my final request is for any with proper expertise to take a look at the nail samples that were surgically removed from the grenade, to try and see if their properties give us any further clues about the Dark Scorpion Gang and hopefully something we could do to combat similar tools used. I'll offer further updates when available.

Thank you for the assistance,
-Crono Arinborn

FROM: Genevieve May Nadia Lilianne
TO: Blaze of Glory Posting Board
SUBJECT: Re: 11/24 After-Mission Report

A new development recently arose regarding the fight from the other night. Mr. Cytorix managed to take one of Cliff the engineer's devices in the confusion of the battle. The device is a nondescript metallic cube with a scorpion insignia. Upon study, it seems to contain traces of nearly countless elements, both of ordinary metals and plastics and other materials, and extraordinary materials.

The cube has the strange ability to transform its entire body into any one of the materials it contains, when one presses the insignia on the cube. It seems to cycle through the full variety of substances it contains with successive presses.

The extraordinary materials found within the cube, that would be difficult if not impossible to replicate artificially, include:

Exdeutrium: The substance from which the nails from the nail grenade were made. It has the peculiar ability to absorb spells aligned properly with it and to retain the properties of those spells.

Carbonium: A somewhat rare substance known for being extremely volatile and explosive in nature.

Darksteel: A substance unique to Mr. Cytorix and Miss Reya Dawnbringer's home plane. This substance is known for being very tough and highly resistant to magical effects. Armor made of such a substance would be very difficult to damage with physical attacks or magic. The substance is noted for being a dark metal, and when its innate resistance properties are fully drawn out, it pulses with a golden light.

Upon speaking with Miss Reya about the substance mentioned above, Darksteel, she noted that it had never been tested against energy-based weapons. She strongly recommended that we use such energy weapons as a primary means of getting past Darksteel armor, if we encounter any.

The full nature of the cube device itself is still uncertain. It may somehow offer a wellspring of rare metals and materials, but it may require other associated devices or setups in order to properly fulfill its role.

In addition, the source of the Darksteel used as a component in this cube is under investigation. Sources seem to point towards a storage site in Dimension 42, our present location, as the only possible source of Darksteel ingots in existence outside of Mr. Cytorix and Miss Reya's home dimension. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

FROM: Cytorix of Tolaria
TO: Blaze of Glory Posting Board
SUBJECT: Re: 11/24 After-Mission Report

Sloths!! Simians!! I shall crush their skulls!! I shall weave tapestry from their flesh!!!

Thieves!! Maggots!! Hooligans!!!

I shall continue to study the spells and techniques emplyed by those festering putrid decendants of goblins and maggots.

- Cytorix

FROM: Crono Arinborn
TO: Blaze of Glory Posting Board
SUBJECT: Re: 11/24 After-Mission Report

Several updates of note.

Current follow-ups:
-Challen is working towards a filter for any future encounters of the Logic Bomb the smugglers used to escape our grasp prior.

-After closer inspection of the 'abandoned ship', while initially foreign, it oddly enough appears as though it may be several pieces of separate ships meshed into one falsehood. Currently Shaila is comparing individual pieces against our database to see if there might be any clues as to what the vessel is specifically built up of, and if that will lead us elsewhere.

-Cytorix has been |description censored|.

-Dr. Gyldenstierne has come upon a major breakthrough in trying to solve the mysteries surrounding the engineer's cube. In fact, through use of his Machinespeak, we can now appropriately label it the 'Philosopher's Cube'.

The Philosopher's Cube utilizes pressure and kinetic energy provided from the scorpion logo to activate microscopic nanomachines that change the substance of the cube to a preset order, on a molecular level. The scale this works on, at such a small magnitude, is far beyond what a standard CoRe replicator could hope to recreate. Oddly enough, the nanomachines even run with a fail safe - if the device is placed within a replicator, it detonates - perhaps the reason it even holds the reason to turn into something as volatile as Carbonium. Yet the fact remains, machinespeak revealed this was -intended- to be replicated, implying Cliff has some technology to do so.

Given the fail safe, we won't be tampering with the cube too much too quickly. If it has one, it likely has other triggers, but any updates on that end will be continued in the future as study continues.

-I've managed to complete designs for most applicable weaponry to the vibro-weapon technology from the sample katana we had from the recent Earth mission. I'll be sending a mix to the armory for use against the smugglers personal shielding, for any that would find it beneficial, including basic combat knives. These should be a lot more effective than traditional melee weaponry in forcing their way through personal shielding.

Too go along with that thought, I'd remind any carrying firearms that we have the option of Challen's Phasic rounds, as well as appropriate use of EMP weaponry. Combat-viable protection suits should be ready shortly.

Given current pacing, we should be ready to move the moment any of our current leads catches a solid trail. All your efforts are appreciated.

-Crono Arinborn

FROM: Shaila Swiftblade
TO: Blaze of Glory Posting Board
SUBJECT: Re: 11/24 After-Mission Report

I've looked at the ship as Crono asked, and have found a few things.

Like Crono said, it's a lot of other ships just kinda meshed together. It's kinda weird, cuz it wasn't even meshed together in a way that'd make it able to fly. There's not even an -engine-. The only signs of energy were for lighting and one thrust capacitor to keep it chuggin' along without drifting.

There are just too many mishmashes to gain a solid lead on anything. This thing could've been made from parts from a freakin' junkyard! What serials I could find were just from mass-produced machines that are sold basically everywhere.

Now...it was drifting. There was -supposed- to be a thrust capacitor there, all signs point to it. ...but it could've just stopped working.

All that wreckage we found in the hangar doesn't seem like it could've been attached to this ship, but was more likely parts that were attached to parts that DID become part of the ship. Leftovers.

Long story short, this ship doesn't seem meant to do anything but float in one direction and be like a storage center or a garage or somethin'.