Chapter 2.1 - Into the Strange

You gather your things and head back to the transport trolley, strapping yourselves in, and the car proceeds back to the center of the station, moves 'sideways' down a ring, aligns with middle (Arclight) ring's spin, and then drops back out to the ring. The sensation of gravity picks up, and you find yourselves in the Arclight ring.

Again, helpful system terminals continue to display directions for you as you near them, somehow alerted to your presence. You follow the directions and arrive at a pressure door marked E4. The system terminal by the door indicates that the ambient pressure is equalized and you can enter as you will. The door opens at your touch, and you see a strange contraption.


Awuim is off to the side. He shares a long glance with you at the vehicle, and then waves you over to where he is standing. You see a number of thin suits, some with armored plating, some without, within a storage rack.

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You can each take an environment suit. If you are trained with armor, you can pick a suit that will function with the appropriate armor rating for you.

Looking from Awium to the suits Floats on Thunder blinks several times and suits up in an environment suit without plating.

"Could use a little something with a little more flash" Diego says as he looks over the environment suits, picking out one of the unarmored ones. "This will have to do..."

After climbing into your suits, Awium leads you into the craft through a small hatchway. You climb a small ladder and then find yourselves in the middle of a cramped seating area. Three chairs are to your left (the front), and a table to your right (the rear). Awium takes the chair that is placed centrally in front of an array of dials and switches and a window through which you can see the hangar. There are two seats immediately behind his, also with a number of dials and toggles and gauges. Lastly, there are two long benches on either side of the table that fill up the back of the cabin. Another ladder across from you leads to the lower level.

Strapping into your seats, Awium turns a small wheel on his console and you hear the pressure door hatchway seal behind you. The craft hums to life, and lifts off the hangar floor. Through the window in front, you can see the hangar doors open, and the craft hums its way into space. That's when things get weird.

Once in space, you can see stars everywhere in front of you, brighter and crisper then even the clearest desert night. But it only lasts a few seconds before the window turns foggy, and then a wave of swirling purple miasma crashes onto the window, breaking into smaller copies of the wave that break into smaller identical waves and so on until it has faded into nothing.

Awium says, his voice echoing in your helmets through by some sort of communication technology, "We have entered The Strange. Tombstone Station doesn't exist within the depths of outer space, as much as it seems to when you're inside. Once we leave the confines of the station, some few hundred meters from the outer walls, we pass into The Strange. From here," he continues, the dark purple fractal mist of the dark energy sliding sideways as he spins his craft in place, revealing a small filmy bubble maybe a dozen yards across, "we can see the recursion as it appears from outside.". The vague shape of the space station with its rings and storage tanks can be seen within.

Behind the station, the twin stars, one cannibalizing the other, can be seen within the purple waves of dark energy. Awium turns in his chair and looks at each of you. "Usually things like planets and stars don't show up in The Strange. Sometimes they appear and disappear for a few moments, but this pair is an exception. The researchers on Tombstone Station are trying to determine why, but that isn't my concern. I'm an explorer of The Strange, I sail the fractal tides, navigating by sign posts only the trained can see. This ship is called Isildur. I'll take you to what I found nearby, which may be the source of the planetovores agents."

The craft spins in place again, and then smoothly accelerates into the depths.

After about a half hour, a small rocky asteroid appears within the pulsating mists. The craft slows and hovers near the rock, before Awium causes the ship to move sideways, orbiting the rock while keeping the front window facing the asteroid. Soon, a small hut appears, made of long pipes of dark, pitted rock fitted poorly together. A doorway can be clearly seen.

The Isildur lowers down and lands on the asteroid. "If you would care to explore the interior of the asteroid, you'll probably catch them by surprise. I'll hang back but if you need backup, our communications should work unless you get near a nuclear reactor."

Words like "nuclear reactor" and "asteroid" caught my attention, but again I'm surprised that I actually know what he's is talking about. Still testing out my suit, I ready myself for our expidition.

Floats on Thunder nods to the man grabbing him by the forearm with his hand. "We shall see what lies ahead in the unknown then." he states with a nod.

"Uh, don't anybody go jumping too high. Might not land... So, how long can we be out here in these things?"

Diego carefully maneuvers himself over to the handle, more to have something to hold onto than for any other reason. Tightening his grip he looks to the others, "Wanna see what's inside?"

"I suspect you are right, jumping to the stars man not let one land as freely... we have a small amount of time but we would not want to 'sleep out' here most likely. If everyone is ready." Floats on Thunder states in a hushed tone pulling the light blaster from his outer belt and nodding.

With a small blaster out the shaman nods.

"Let's do this!"

Blaster ready, I enter the door.

I aim my blaster at the first creature I see [T2].

Reaching into one of his many pockets, Diego grabs a grenade, pulls the pin, and starts to count. Aiming for the center of the group he tosses the projectile quick and straight, hoping to have it explode in air, about alien chest high.

"Son of a biiiii....." is all that is heard as Diego flies through the air desperately trying to find something to grab ahold to.

Trying to dodge the alien's attack, I remember a shard of crystal I still have that I hope will act as a weapon. I thrust the shard at the alien. [radiation spike, lvl 9 cypher]

With his light blaster out the shaman looks at all the targets and aims at one of the closest. He's concerned about the orb but for now dealing with multiple attackers is more important.

Diego, white knuckling the door, manages to pull himself forward into the room and towards the alien that is engaged with Eli. Drawing both of his daggers as he's floating through the air he'll slash with both at T3 as he glides by.

Diego attempts to twist and roll to avoid the incoming fire.

Not really knowing the full extent of who was inside the multiple energy beams took Floats on Thunder out of his thoughts and focused on getting out of the way, "Should we call our friend?"

Launching myself behind the closest cover I can see, I look around for a better vantage point to fire from.

Half blinded by the debris frm below, I take careful aim on the closest alien I can see.

"The one that uses the iron box that is guarded! We should stop him." Floats on Thunder says through his suit realizing his voice is muffled. He starts stomping his booted foot the suit hitting the floor with an odd patterned metal clinking sound. The reverberations seem to skittle down and bound towards the ones guarding the iron box worker.

(Exception Applying Effort to damage 1+3 Int Cost -1 Int Edge)

"I'm on it." Diego says in response to FoT's remark. Having nearly killed his party more than once in their time together, he nonetheless feels confident in his ability to hit a far away target while floating through the air. Quickly taking in his surroundings he levels his machine pistol towards the iron box using baddie (T8) hoping that he'll finish off what Eli has started and that the recoil of his gun will push him behind some decent cover.

With the aliens readily figuring what the party is trying to do Floats on Thunder attempts to move out of the way of danger while seeing a new operator at the box. It makes him wonder that is going on.

Diego lets out a scream!!

It feels like all I'm doing is running around, jumping out of the way of this or that, whatever seems to be flying my way, trying to kill me!

Floats on Thunder points at the new alien on the terminal, "This one works to make a door between the dream worlds, more may come through or something worse! We finish him and the machine or we may be in great peril" he states over blaster fire before he dances again trying to channel his sound of his steps into bend reality again.

I join Floats on Thunder in pressing the attack on the alien at the terminal.

Diego will target the that is running away from the terminal.

"Not so fast, Amigo!" he yells, cringing a bit when he does. "Just doesn't sound right without the accent"

He fires off a short burst from the machine pistol.

"They do not like us doing what we're doing to their Iron Box" Floats on Thunder states diving out of the way of incoming blaster shots

I dive out of their line of fire, looking around for a defensible position to attack from.

Floats on Thunder having moved out of the blaster shot to the face starts to chant and moving oddly in the low gravity staring at the aliens that were moving to the terminal.

"Your twisted ways ends now." he states his voice taking on an odd reverberation.

Spirit of Mother Earth, Bringer of Lights the Child Star bind these transgressors that twist and warp the ways of the Spirits.

Seeing one of the terminal runners down and the other stopped Floats on Thunder surveys the scene of the attackers coming at them and the busted terminal below...

"The Alien's Iron Box grows in power, if left uncheck it may swallow us, this rock, the Ilsidur, and part of this world... We will have to deal with it quickly." the Shaman lets the rest of the party know as he searches his mind and his teachings on what they should be doing. Flight or Fix?

Diego will take aim at one of the attacking aliens (T6) and pull the trigger. "The more I shoot, the more likely I am to hit something..."

Awium uses the manoeuvring thrusters on his environment suit to fly into the asteroid and land near the system terminal. Sparks continue to shoot out of the side, but he must see something that looks promising, because he starts to interact with what must be some kind of touch display.

Beside him, the orb begins breaking apart. Waves of palpable energy have begun reducing the nearby scaffolding to smaller and smaller parts.

"I need more time, it's in another language... wait, this!" and he slams a button. The orb explodes.