Grand Tour: Taris

*The Mighty Intellect, BALKEN OPPEN, calls upon those interested in furthering the goals of science to assist in a covert mission to the towering ruins of Taris; where he hopes to uncover secrets thought lost when the planet burned millennia ago...*

## Agents

* Eve
* Gerold
* Hack
* (Makren Duvel)
* Nogg Nubo
* Zeevo the Hutt

## Mission Report

*Summary by Ben*

Nogg, Hack, Zeevo, Eve and Gerold each receive a message from Balken, requesting their presence at a station orbiting the outer rim world of Taris. He requires help evading some Imperial forces and recovering something from the ancient ruins of the planet’s capital. Nogg, keenly interested in the planet’s history with swoop racing, eagerly agrees and the team arrives in short order aboard the Sunflare. Once they meet with Balken, he tells them of someone named Dr. Geron, a cybernetics expert from the days of the Old Republic. Balken believes that he’s located the site of his old laboratory and requests the agents’ help in recovering what technology might remain. He promises a payout of a thousand credits apiece, and possibly more if they recover anything of significant value. Gerold negotiates the reward to 1,500 credits each.

Balken turns over a specialized computer spike that the team will need to slice into one of the relays on the planet’s surface. Without wasting any time, they head down in the Sunflare and are forced to set it down a short distance from the relay facility due to Imperial presence. The team makes the short trek with few issues, and as they size up the facility, Gerold puts forth the plan to have Nogg attract the attention of the guards on his bike while the others approach to pose as survivors of a wreck. Nogg succeeds in drawing off a few of the patrols and leading them on a chase before Gerold and Zeevo move out to confront the guards, suggesting that Nogg was a thief that had robbed them after they survived a ship crash.

The agents are taken to the reception area while Nogg leads the guard squads on a chase through the rusting ruins. He ducks through some tight bends, kicking his bike into high gear while the scouts attempt to keep up. A group of three are immediately cut off by some falling debris, and many more just can’t take the high-speed maneuvers and are forced to drop back or crash. One by one, they drop out of the impromptu race, violently or otherwise, and Nogg is left as the sole rider out on the wastes. Meanwhile, the others try to talk their way to the computer they need to access with the spike by claiming they need to file an insurance claim. The officer in charge doesn’t seem willing to budge on it, but with some harsh convincing from Eve, and after a potential brawl, the guards stand down and allow Hack access to the computer to ‘file the claim.’ He searches the building with Eve and Gerold, trying to find the right place to implant the coded spike. They come to a locked door with a few life signs behind it. Hack begins trying to slice the lock while Gerold hands Eve a knockout grenade. She tosses it to Zeevo and just as Hack tricks the door into opening, he tosses the grenade in, but it bounces harmlessly to the floor, a dud.

With their element of surprise spoiled, Zeevo, Hack and Eve rush in to quickly subdue the workers and their Imperial officer supervisor with a series of very powerful and well-aimed punches. The officer quickly surrenders after receiving a groin shot from Eve, and the workers yield their stations to the agents. Hack inserts the spike into one of the consoles, and a nearby display shows the planet’s satellite network. Immediately, Balken calls Hack’s comlink and begins working out the exact coordinates to Dr. Geron’s supposed laboratory. Hack then begins jamming the facility’s local communication while Zeevo wrecks some of the other consoles. With their job done and the information recovered, they leave the building with some guidance from Nogg via his electrobinoculars watching out for any remaining enemy patrols. Safely away, they head back through the ruins to meet up with Balken at the landed Farseer.

With the location of the lab narrowed down, Balken suggests the team searches one of the tunnels nearby. They head in and brave the stench while they scout deeper in, encountering a few hunched creatures growling, as well as the sign of some sort of flying creatures. None of the fauna seems interested in attacking, though, and the agents eventually find a large pit emanating some radiation from below. After some deliberation, Nogg decides to just set up his climbing gear and descend. The others quickly follow suit, and they soon find themselves at the bottom of the pit, which opens up into a large subterranean lake. The light and radiation they’d seem from above is coming from the center of the lake, and a few large creatures with fleshy sacs on their back are patrolling around its edges.

Behind them, the agents hear a voice, and an out-of-place gotal quickly greets them. He introduces himself as Alani Bak’kir, and explains that he’s been adopted, in a way, by the nearby creatures, and that he’s an expert on the Rakghoul virus and the creatures spawned from it. He seems convinced that the ghouls produced by the virus have evolved over the time and have begun reproducing. The large creatures nearby are actually carrying eggs, and when one of them is close to death, they descend into the lake and dissolve. During the conversation, Zeevo makes sure to secretly record the gotal's words, just in case. Alani suggests that the crystal may be the source of the ghouls’ wild evolution. Nogg brings up the lab they’re searching for and Alani is interested, but has no specific knowledge about it. He tells them that if it lies below, there would be a horde of insects blocking the way that even the ghouls don’t want to mess with. Thanking him for the tip, the agents head down via a nearby elevator to check the lower levels.

One floor down, they find a series of scorch marks in the shapes of bodies, very old ones according to Nogg. In one of the larger rooms, they find a huge blast door and an equally large skeleton nearby with metal jutting from its skull. It appears to be a rancor that was once cybernetically enhanced. Nogg checks the door itself and finds that it has been fused shut, as if welded by something large, perhaps the cybernetically enhanced rancor. A nearby datapad is recovered and powered with Gerold’s fusion lantern, and Hack and Nogg crack into it to find a holographic recording of many people being driven back by said rancor, blasted by the cybernetic contraption on its head before it’s commanded to weld the door as Nogg had assumed.

Further down, they find the aforementioned bug swarm, as well as a smaller door in the distance. Zeevo has a little too much bulk to cross before the horde of insects can descend upon them, but Nogg accesses some of the nearby pipes and causes the antiquated sewage system to pump enough water through to launch Zeevo across on a wave. Eve breaks the lock on the door, letting the group in, and Nogg welds it back shut behind them. Once in and settled, they find that there are lights on in this new chamber, and there are lights lining the halls that seem to be active cameras. Within moments, a voice tells them to go away, assuming they’re solicitors, but Gerold maintains that the agents are just travelers. Seemingly interested in new visitors, they are let through after mentioning Dr. Geron’s name. Inside, they find several heavily-cybernetic people, including a man and a woman. The man does confirm that he is Dr. Geron, but he hasn’t used the name in a long time. Most of the people he knows refer to him as “Father’, including the nearby woman, whom he identifies as one of his daughters. He seems set on preserving himself and his family, including his many sons and daughters, but he also seems mentally unstable. He’s excited at the idea of someone like Balken taking interest in him and is motivated by the desire for more parts to use to maintain and repair his family members. With a sort of deal struck, the agents ask for alternate routes to the surface, and Geron tells them of an alternate turbolift that will bring them close to the highest level if it is powered correctly. Nogg uses some spare parts from around the lab and combines them with Gerold’s fusion lantern to create a portable power source that should be enough. Geron and his daughter, Sophilia, however, also warn that the creatures in the tunnels may be too dangerous for the ascent, but they do admit that most of the smaller creatures are scared off by the sound of the larger ones (being the ghouls), and that if the sound is produced at just the right level, it won’t attract the large ones either. Nogg uses Zeevo’s recording and rigs it to play the sounds of the mother ghouls at a volume that should be appropriate, and they get ready to head to the surface with Sophilia in tow at Geron’s request. The trip to the lift is quiet and they power it up and board before being whisked up several levels. The lift unexpectedly stops in ghoul territory and the group is greeted by Alani, who claims that the ghouls want Sophilia to stay, but the agents quickly shut the door again and keep ascending. When their trip ends, they find Balken and some of his droids outside the lift door and quickly regale him with the tale of their exploration. They show him the recording, as well as Geron’s daughter, and Balken is extremely excited by all of the strange finds. He agrees to ship some parts to Geron, and given the nature of the lucky finds, he is persuaded by Zeevo to up the pay to 2,500 credits each. Nogg also questions Sophilia about whether her father or any of the others in his lab knew about the Black Vulkars or Hidden Beks, and she informs him that some of the people Geron wants to restore used to be members of the legendary swoop gangs. Nogg asks to be put into contact with them as soon as possible, and with their business concluded, the agents return to the Sunflare and depart Taris, leaving Balken to his new secret operation.