SotB XXVI: Hunting for Answers, Part III: A Simple Truth

*The Agent Lorky-to-to has broken his radio silence to call in the team for an assist. He returned to the moon of Lowa to find the settlement destroyed and something lurking in the mines...*

## Agents

### Session 1

* Hawk
* Nin'pei
* R0C-K4
* Rogesh Vai
* Saber Scintel

### Session 2

*Session 2 Recording*

* Balken Oppen
* Erdogan Cael
* Kii'Vera
* Nogg Nubo
* Zeevo the Hutt

## Mission Report

*Summary by Ben*

While lounging aboard the Sunflare, Erdogan receives a call from Lorky To-to, requesting assistance on the planet Lowa, which the agents had visited some time ago during a mission from the Broker. After some doubts about a reward and some discussion, the crew decides to head Lorky’s way to answer his call. Upon arrival, Lowa’s old prison and mining facilities seem to have been wiped from view by the Empire. Despite having been scrapped, for the most part, the mines are still there and the group lands nearby. They find a transmitter and a bedroll. Nogg checks the transmitter and finds that it was used about a week ago, around the time Erdo receives his first message. There’s also a second message recorded and set to be transmitted in another week, stating that he’d gone down into the mines to explore. Zeevo spots Lorky’s tracks leading down into the mine, confirming the message. With few other paths to follow, the group decides to descend in pursuit of their friend.

As they proceed downward, Erdogan finds an inscription dating back to the Old Republic which reads: “Einsam.” Lorky’s tracks lead a short distance into the cave system, but stop short before a branch to the right. Kii spots a set of tracks that meet Lorky’s, and from there his tracks disappear, suggesting that he was picked up and carried off by the owner of the second set of tracks. Balken studies the tracks and finds that they aren’t organic, but are designed to appear organic. In fact, they are the tracks of an ancient servant droid, which was used by Hutts during the Old Republic era. Intrigued, the party follows the tracks into the tunnels beyond. They quickly find an addition that was built by the miners, containing several small crates and a larger one with a door on it that seems to be wired into the ceiling. Balken unlocks the door and peeks inside, revealing a small mineral analysis lab inside. Balken accesses the interior computer, and Erdo informs him that this sort of lab is usually brought in when mining companies find something they don’t want to make public. In the other nearby crates, the party finds two blocks of detonite and some beamdrills, which they bring along.

Down one passage, Kii gets a bad feeling. Zeevo checks another and spots a trio of dead stormtroopers, stripped down to skeletons inside their suits. Balken sends his camdroid down the tunnel Kii had a bad feeling about, spotting a corpse and a bag at the far end, but nothing else. The party proceeds down that way, and Nogg accidentally steps onto some sort of nest, causing a tangle of vine-like tentacles to wrap around his legs. More shambling, mound-like creatures start in toward the group, and Zeevo moves to intercept them. Erdo tries to pry the one off of Nogg, but can’t seem to get him detached before it strikes at the helpless sullustan. Balken identifies the creatures as a variant of rock worms, which normally just feast on ore, but for some reason are acting more aggressively than normal. Kii takes a shot at the larger worms entangling Nogg, weakening them greatly and allowing him to claw free. The rest of the worms are rounded up in short order, and Balken takes some time to inspect the corpse at the end of the chamber. On the corpse is an excavation kit, and there’s a container of baradium sitting beside it. Taking the equipment, the group heads back up to the remaining passageway, through which they hear the dripping of water. Erdo finds another inscription that reads, in ancient Huttese: “Home of Darth Einsam.” Erdo and Balken together pool their knowledge and recall that this Darth Einsam was a Hutt Sith from the Old Republic era. He didn’t see eye to eye with many force users of his time and eventually went into hiding. The inscription itself appears to be on the doors of an elevator that leads deeper into the tunnels.

Nearby, Kii finds a hole and peeks down, spotting a lizard-like creature clawing its way up. He then promptly drops a grenade down after it, causing it to fall but also riling up another crowd of the creatures further below. Balken then readies two of the detonite charges from earlier to blast the hole shut and prevent them from crawling up. This shakes some rocks loose from the ceiling, but the party isn’t any worse for wear. With that taken care of, they board the elevator and head down into what looks like a temple. Upon further inspection, they find a messenger droid which appears unresponsive, and while trying to activate it, a large mechanized spider lowers down from a huge shaft on the ceiling. Erdo finds a spear on the floor nearby, which appears to have a powered component. With Balken’s help, he powers it on and tosses it to Nogg, who catches it with his repulsor rifle and turns to launch the spear up into the shaft above. In a stroke of incredible luck, the spear flies straight through the arachnid droid’s carapace and cuts the metal cable it had been descending on, causing it to fall down into the chamber, straight onto a set of traps on the other side of the room which immediately activate and light the crippled droid on fire.

With that problem solved, Balken activates the nearby messenger droid, and it begins floating away, so Nogg pulls it back with his repulsor rifle. Using the droid, they are able to pass through the next set of doors. Zeevo can hear a voice speak in Huttese: “Begone from my home or die.” Ahead, Kii spots a pressure plate attached to a pair of sawblades that extend from the walls. He manages to sneak across without triggering the trap and deactivates it from the other side, allowing the team through. They find a blood trail through one of the passages, and the droid they’d claimed earlier starts floating off down that way. Kii takes a shot at the little droid as it sits there, waiting, causing it to explode. Immediately, a larger droid starts forcing its way through the smaller hallway, clawing its way toward the group. Balken and Nogg open fire, trying to disable it by knocking it down and targeting its power systems. Zeevo, on the other hand, charges forward to engage it. Erdo identifies it as a torture droid, and tells Kii to target its hands. Kii cripples its hands as commanded, but doing so causes it to self-destruct and collapse the corridor around it, injuring Zeevo in the process. After taking some time to recover, the group finds another hallway to proceed down. They soon find a skeleton lying on the floor in front of a set of bent and broken bars. The skeleton seems to belong to a Weequay. Further into the room, there is a pile of rubble with some large claw marks on the floor nearby. The rubble appears to be too much to move out of the way, so the group heads elsewhere.

Heading down the nearest open passage, the group stumbled upon a maid droid with feet matching the set of tracks that had apparently carried Lorky away earlier. Balken asks the droid for an activity log, but it refuses, and he asks it to submit to him before trying to slice in. He does find that it had carried off Lorky in order to use him as a “force power source,” but the droid is made useless immediately afterward. Erdo hears deceitful whispers in his mind around the same time, speaking of failure and betrayal. With the only unblocked path remaining being the stairs downward, the team heads down to find the body of a Clone Wars-era droid lying ahead of a field of traps that had been deactivated when Kii deactivated the sawblades above.

At the end of the hallway, Kii and Erdo find an opening that they force ajar, revealing a large room containing a massive droid, which immediately begins charging some large red weapon on its chest. There is also a dais on the other side with a suit of Hutt armor on it. A Hutt’s voice starts echoing through the chamber as well, berating the agents. Kii quickly takes a shot at the glowing spot, delaying whatever may have been charging there. Due to its age, however, it fails with the help of Kii’s shot. Zeevo and Erdo then move in on the “droid”, which turns out to be a suit of armor containing a wired-up human. Some liquid spills out of its opening hatches as the suit is disabled. Still, two groups of smaller droids begin bearing down on the group. At the same time, Zeevo feels a presence urging him to get into the armored suit on the dais above, but he can tell that it is attempting to deceive him. Balken tries to disable the crystal powering the armor, but can’t quite hit it, and Zeevo does his best to resist whatever will is pulling him in, eventually breaking free of its grasp and pulling the armor from the dais. The others clean up the remaining droids and wake Lorky up after pulling him from the large droid battlesuit. With the contact recovered, they flee the temple and utilize a baradium charge to seal it off forever.