Chapter 3: Ascending the Needle

Upon meeting Lauralei, the party agreed to join forces with a Truthspeaker, and leverage her powers to help them escape. She had been captured by the “Space Devil” - A being named Ortmamonybras. He had held her as his captive for rendering him to a less than intimidating appearance. Her truth had the power of looks-like, and could alter how the world was perceived by all beings. She demonstrated this happily.

“Looks like the map of the needle is on the wall” - With this simple exclamation, a map was drawn before the party, pulled out of nothingness.

The space station, The Devil’s Needle, was relatively simple. While the party was in the lower zones (labeled the Underzone), they had a relatively clear cut path to follow to escape. They traveled through the Underzone, then through the Flop Zone where the station workers lived, and then a series of Casinos before their path diverted into options.

The party reveled in how incredibly useful their new friend would be on this venture, and immediately had her disguise them as warden bots to begin their slow ascension.

One thing that gave away that their escape had begun was the ripple in the air every time Lauralei crossed an airlock. That said, their trek through the flop zone was completely smooth. None of the station workers wanted to interact with the party in their mecha disguises.

To better mix in with the wealthy casino crowd, the party shed their robot disguises and slunk through the casinos, carefully avoiding the roving sentry bots who had grown aware of the jail break situation. The party was spotted and many wardens were summoned, but the party was able to subdue the ones in immediate combat and then press on in the confusion of combat in a lively casino.

The path then diverted: they could travel through the hydroponics area where the water and waste of the station were recycled and used to grow crops to feed pleasure seekers, or go through the Virtual Victoria. The party worked with Lauralei’s power to get views of the paths ahead and determined that the Virtual Victoria was the easier route to walk through unnoticed by station workers or guards.

Upon entering the Virtual Victoria, the party realized that the denizens within were experiencing extreme pleasures that could only be attained with futuristic virtual realities, where they were reduced to a catatonic state and experienced hedonistic ventures that could not rationally happen on our plane of existence. Holograms danced about in a swirl of purple and blue light as the party slowly crept through a mixture of unconscious / groggy patrons who were eating between…”experiences.”

“I see you…rats.”

Just as the party neared the exit of this level, the entire room ceased to move. ALL the holograms slowly turned to face the party, and the plugged in patrons rose from their seats— their bodies controlled by the system. They charged the party, some to get mowed down by weapon fire, some to get snagged by short VR leashes, and others to reach the party and attack. This rapid and overwhelming onslaught of attackers forced the party to rush ahead blindly, and run through several service hallways.

It was then that the party reached “The Choke,” a tight area of housing for the patrons of the Devil’s Spire, which culminated in a singular rising series of stairs and elevators that would take the party topside. From there, they had access to the Spire’s spacedock and their Schneiders.

The party used this opportunity to look again at the complex map of the spire on a wall via Lauralei, whose stamina was beginning to fail - she had long been a malnourished prisoner and was now relying on Skippy and Hooke to provide her assistance during the escape.

There was a huge problem in their escape route: the controls to open the space dock bays and free their Schneiders were in a control tower, and their Schneiders would be a 20 minute run to get to from there. If the party freed the Schneiders, they’d have to run to the bay before someone came across and locked them back down.

“They know we are escaping, and will be guarding both locales. There is no way we can hit one, get to the other, and still make our escape with the doors open. There’s no other way, I will go for the control tower alone.” Maskin declared.

The party protested, but in the end it was the solution decided upon.

Maskin took a belt of grenades, a plasma rifle, and the last of Lauralei’s power as she granted him near invisibility by declaring he looked like nothing at all.

Little did the party know that it would be the last time they ever saw Maskin again.

The party pressed on, up through the lifts and through conflicts with more robot wardens, but were able to successfully reach the top of the elevator shaft, before throwing grenades down it and blowing the entire lift system of the space station to hell.

They reached their Schneiders, and Maskin reached the control room. He dismantled the nearby guards inside the control tower, blew the doorway, and threw switches to free the Schneiders. By the time the tower was surrounded, he had set his Ironclads up for their escape. Now he just had to hold the line til they got away.