SotB XVII: The Menagerie of Madness

*Balken Oppen gets more than he bargained for after he joins up with an organization of like-minds. The Broker's Agents are called in to help pull him out, while uncovering the mystery of what went wrong.*

## Agents

### Session 1

* Balken Oppen
* Chim Chim
* Erdogan Cael
* Fai Mei
* Hank
* Nogg Nubo
* R0C-K4

### Session 2

*Session 2 Recording*

* Durin Boge
* Jasper Sunflare
* Kat'ik
* Kii'Vera
* Shorbecca
* Zak Bell

## Mission Report

### Session 1

*Summary by Ben*

The agents all, individually, receive an identical call on their comlinks from a Doctor Maronea, claiming that Balken is in trouble and that, rather than going directly to the Broker, he’s decided to go to the agents first. She requests that they all meet her in the Coronet spaceport. Having been going about their business in the safehouse, the crew travels together to meet their contact. Chimchim decides to sneak in while the others approach the doctor and her young wrix openly.

The doctor explains to the group that Balken accepted an invitation to some type of institute, with the goal of traveling there to gather information and report back to Maronea to collaborate on the findings. She supplies the group with a hologram, showing the installation Balken had supposedly traveled to, located on Korvis IV. She suggests that Balken’s reason for not going to the Broker first was because he may have found something he doesn’t want the Broker to have.

The group heads back to the safe house and readies the 2400 for departure. N1M3 gladly lets them aboard. They key in the coordinates easily enough and head to their destination, only to find a Venator-class Star Destroyer in orbit. Unfortunately, they’re also caught right in its sensor range and are hailed. Three heavily cybernetic beings, a twi’lek, human and devaronian, request to know what they’re doing there. Fai mentions Balken’s name and the group is identified as agents of the Broker. They’re informed that Facility 13 is under a quarantine and that they aren’t allowed to pass unless they’re equipped for combat.

The specific reason for the quarantine is unknown, but someone on the station deliberately cut communications. The station passes through a permanent storm in the planet’s atmosphere once per day, during which time the facility is cut off from communications. However, upon emerging three days ago, the communications never resumed. The last transmission was one confirming Balken’s arrival on the station. The station houses labs for Dr. Oppen, Dr. Mekan and Dr. Loraam.

The group flies the YT-2400 quite easily into the station’s hangar. They find two YT-series freighters parked in the bay with a series of droids loading crates onto them. The crew investigates each one, only to find that their logs have been completely wiped. Upon investigating, Nogg finds that something artifical was responsible for the computer’s wipe. The group decides to sabotage the two ships in order to keep them from taking off. One is successfully disabled, while the other is still functional.

The team proceeds north into the cargo area and opens one of the crates, finding assorted valuables inside. It appears that the droids have stopped logging their activity and are now loading about 50 crates into one of the freighters in the hangar bay. Heading north still, the group finds a locked door with a breach warning on its console. It appears to be a lab dedicated to microbiology. Nearby are some damaged hazmat suits, which the group manages to repair crudely. Still, they save it for later and head west into what appears to be a large, empty shanty town. In one of the larger buildings, they find a disabled astromech droid designated R4-BT. The town appears to have been used for housing droids for some project called Ghost. They find a document on a nearby terminal which refers to the droids in the suspicious little village as citizens, as well as a figure by the name of Taskmaster.

As they proceed to the next room, their new astromech companion attempts to open the door, but spontaneously explodes. The door does open, however, and lets the team through. This new room appears to be a small factory floor, with an assembly line for assembling droids. As the group proceeds through the room, Fai spots a camera watching them from one of the corners and shoots it out. They make it into the next room, which appears to be Dr. Mekan’s lab. Inside, they see an older man on the floor in a pool of blood with a large droid standing over him. The droid preaches for a time, referring to a ‘lord’ and chastising the incapacitated man. Chim-chim manages to sneak in, but his attempt to plant a restraining bolt on the droid fails.

The droid turns to engage the group. Everyone advances quickly and the droid calls up a series of sentries from the various piles of junk around the room. The group doesn’t manage to hit him immediately, and the droid turns to immediately incapacitate Chim-chim with a volley from his blaster. Fai lands a hit with her ion blaster and Erdo takes down one of the floating sentries with a well-aimed shot. Nogg notices an oversight with the mounting of the droid’s weapon, and as it goes to shoot again, the barrel falls off. R0C then quickly destroys the droid’s opposite weapon arm with a series of brutal vamblade strikes. Hank then swoops in to deliver the final blow, slashing through the droid’s head with his ignited lightsaber.

Fai rushes over to help the bleeding doctor, who turns out to be Dr. Mekan, and heals him to a stable condition before helping to revive Chim-chim. Upon questioning the doctor, he begins to ramble on about the facility’s droids. Erdo shows him the message they found from the Taskmaster, and he seems to get even angrier. He seems to have tried to give his droids free will and the ability to create their own society, referring to the Ghost program. He appears to be unwilling to reveal much other than the location of Balken’s lab and the control center. Chim-chim stuns him and the group moves east into the next sector. They find a terminal and some spare parts for droids similar to the one they fought earlier. Nogg manages to pull a map of the facility off of one of the consoles, solidifying the group’s route to Balken’s lab.

The next sector they find is the power distribution area. Nogg slices into one of the terminals in an attempt to cut power to the cameras. He gains access to the console, but the containment procedures for all labs begin to lift, releasing anything imprisoned within. Nogg slices the console further to erase the camera footage recorded of them earlier and they quickly proceed into the next room, which appears to be a server farm full of experimental AI’s. Unfortunately, the power surge Nogg induced has fried the servers completely.

As they pass into the control center, they see the open door to Loraam’s microbiology lab from earlier, which is now leaking experimental viruses and bacteria. Nogg attempts to gain access to the main computer, but is shut out after salvaging a file from its main drive. It appears to be Taskmaster’s command log, detailing one incident where a foreign entity managed to get into the facility and another when the facility lost communications.

R0C enters the viral lab to check it out and finds a series of transparisteel pods that have been smashed open. There are many bodies with various wounds on them, and most of the lab’s equipment is in disrepair. The group forms back up and heads further east, finding a makeshift barricade around the door that R0C breaks through with ease. Inside, there is another makeshift building filled with corpses. Heading north now, they find a set of stairs in the next sector, which lead down into a pit of mist. Chim-chim, in his infinite wisdom, tosses a grenade blindly into the mist. Mist billows away from the explosion, exposing some plant and fungal life below. R0C, Nogg, Erdo and Hank proceed through. However, everyone but Erdo appears on the other side. Erdo finds himself stumbling into some mysterious ruins that he actually finds familiar. The ground begins to rumble and Erdo recognizes the roar of a Bull Rancor. The impossibility of the situation helps him snap out of his hallucination and rejoin the group. Chim-chim tries to cross the misty garden on his hoverboard, but falls and begins hallucinating that he is on the bridge of a Star Destroyer. His first mate, the Wrix, begins to mutiny and Chim-chim begins yelling for order. R0C hears this at the top of the stairs and heads down to retrieve him. R0C then heads over to carry Fai across, and she begins to succumb to hallucination as well. Eventually, they’re all across and on the opposite stairs.

In the next room, the team finds a few droids hooked up to some kind of mechanism. Pacing around them is a suspicious command droid, which acknowledges the group. The doors to Balken’s lab seem to have shut as soon as the containment protocols were breached. The droid suggests that some kind of purge was initiated, and the droids on the station began exterminating the organics. The droid asks if the facility has been compromised, and while Chim-chim tries to deceive him, the droid sees straight through it and engages evacuation protocols. The hooked-up droids all release and begin carrying out their commands to leave.

The group finishes cutting through the door to Balken’s lab and head in, finding Balken holed up behind some consoles with a lot of disabled and active droids. A series of commando droids are pinning Balken down as the group engages. Chim-chim hoverboards in and blasts the furthest droid, causing it to instantly explode. The remaining droids turn to engage the group and R0C charges in to strike at the nearest one, knocking the blaster out of its hands. The group trades shots with the bot, and its companion retreats to attempt to take Balken hostage. Chim-chim hoverboards past it and jumps into Balken’s hiding spot to request healing. The second droid is finished off, followed quickly by the third.

Having retrieved Balken, the team makes their way back to the hangar bay through the sectors they traversed earlier, finding no resistance until they reach the cargo bay. The non-sabotaged freighter has left with the evacuated droids unboard. The crew takes a few crates with them and leaves the station, ignoring the Venator-class Star Destroyer on the way out, which is revealed to be a holo-projection over a Marauder-class frigate.

Returning to the safehouse, Balken requests a rundown of the situation and the group fills him in on their data regarding the Taskmaster.

### Session 2

*Summary by Brandon*

Agents message to meet at the Coronet spaceport. Jasper receives a message from Dr. Moronea saying that Balken may be in trouble. The party sees an adolescent wrix next to a cantina in the spaceport. Kii pets it, as it leads the party inside. Jasper recognizes Dr. Moronea at a booth. Balken has been recruited by a institute on Korvis IV. Dr. Moronea suspects that Balken doesn’t want the technology they’re working on to fall into the Broker’s hands. She offers a YT-1300 without a gunnery turret. The party decides to take one of the Broker’s YT-2400s.

The ships jumps to Korvis IV to find a fleet in orbit. The party is hailed by three figures, a Human, a Twilek and a Devaronian. Jasper attempts the medical relief lie, but they don’t believe him. The Institute for the Advancement of Galactic Technology is in charge here and says the facility has been out of contact for three planetary rotations. The figures will let the agents pass to find Balken, so long as they discover what went wrong. The figures provide some information about the research happening at Facility 13: mutated animals, military grade droids, odd acting droids. Dr. Larom produces military grade biological agents, as well as they vaccinations. Dr. Mekan produces more of the odd acting droids.

The party arrives at Facility 13 to find a series of droids loading items into a cargo ship. Jasper and Kii hack into the ship to find that it should have left three days ago. The encryption on the ship reeks of droid. Kii and Jasper hack into a labor droid and its orders were to load cargo from storage to the ship. They reverse his protocols to unload the ship. Shorbecca breaks into one of the crates after some assistance from Kattik’s Force pike and Jasper’s stims. They find valuables and a datapad of Janice, who complained about having to store their personal items in a storage area.

The party finds a shanty town of prefab buildings in the first room. The party searches around, but they don’t find any signs of life. They see a larger building with an office, a holotank, and an astromech droid. The party activate the droid, who plugs into the holotank, reducing the difficulty of accessing it, which had been opposed by someone’s Computers. Jasper and Kii break into the holotank and see a list of commands from the “Taskmaster”. It looks like a droid revolt occurred.

They proceed to a room in the left which has droid parts sitting around. Kii and Jasper attempt to upgrade the astromech, but discover a bomb in it which explodes. They take a moment to recover, and continue to the left, discovering a droid factory. They spy two cameras watching them, which Jak and Jasper take down. They find the door to the north shut. Kii and Jasper try to open with Computers, but fail. They try again with Mechanics, but before they can, the door opens and they see a battle droid with his foot on a human on a floor and a pool of blood around him. The team battles the bot, as it summons drones to protect it. Despite the drones, Shorbecca activates rain of death and takes down the main bot with three skilled shots. The party takes down the droids, but doesn’t succeed in stopping Dr. Mekan’s bleeding. They were able to ask too questions and discover where Balken’s lab is and that the Taskmaster is not a combat droid.

The party proceeds north and the room is filled with servers and the terminal has a key card slot. The party uses Mekan’s key card and the terminal fills with information. Kii can tell that the data is corrupted, but he can tell the serves were used to create an AI. The junk data leftover is due to the destruction of an AI. Kii delves further to find that the AIs were crushed by another intelligence. The terminal shuts off and flashes “I SEE YOU”. The team proceeds north and find what appears to be a cryogenic chamber filled with sentients. Kii doesn’t break into the terminal controlling them, but pulls a file from the computer before he’s shut out. Zak notices that a group of the frozen sentients includes CorSec agents who had invesitgated him during his pirate days. They release them and as they are temporarily blinded, but join the group as cohorts. They go to the room to the east and discover a vivisection chamber where the sentients were operated on. The terminals reveal that there was genetic experimentation. Jasper faints and the party finds a special variety of stimpacks.

The party goes north and discovers Dr. Loraam’s lab filled with pods and tanks. Kii breaks into the Computer to find transfer in progress. In one pod, they see an eldery Twilek and another with a genetically created body. It appears that Loraam is trying to transfer herself into a new body. Enraged, Jasper uses force harm on Dr. Loraam. The other pod burst forth and a blue Force-sensitive emerges forth. Shorbecca attempts a tackle, but is Force Harmed. The party attacks as she attempts to use Force move but hurts herself. The party beats her down but she absorbs energy from a tank of flesh and regains strength. Jasper continues to Force Harm while Shorbecca launches a missile to destory the tank. Jasper finally takes her down but as an final attack she launches a Force ghost her, fortunately missing him. Boge orders the CorSec agents to take Dr. Loraam’s body. The party goes to the west and find a giant skull in the next room. They find that Dr. Loraam was experimenting with creating giant creature. A fetal form is suspended in a biotank and Jasper Force harms it to death.

The party heads east finding a storage room and they head east again to find a room full of mist.. As Kii enters the mist clears around he finds himself in a medieval village. He attempts to steal and isn’t caught, but all the people turn around and start chanting “THIEF.” Jasper follows and he is shown his past when he let people die under rubble. He feels them die and rise up as zombie, becoming Force wraiths. As Jasper cries out, Shorbecca swoops in with his jetpack and takes him out. Jasper initially thinks Shorbecca is Shorin, and attempts a Force harm, but as he comes out of the mists, he realizes what happened. Katikk attempts to go through and finds the party dead at the safehouse due to Cpt. COMPNOR. He succeeds the fear check and proceeds. Shorbecca attempts to take Zak and Boge, but drops Boge who overcomes his fear of having Darth Vader on his talk show. Shorbecca rescues Kii as well as he believes he’s being chased by a flying krayt dragon.

In the next room, they find Balken pinned down by three Commando droid extreme range from them. Shorbecca flies over with his jetpack, but cannot make it all the way back, landing long range. The party takes the droids down and go back the way they came, leaving the rest of the facility unexplored. The freighter in the hanger is gone, but the party still has the crate opened earlier and the droid they hacked. The party reports to the Institute, gained 1,000 credits and the crate has 12,000. Returning the CorSec agents reduces Zak’s Obligation by 3.