33: Solar Graveyard Acquisitions

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The 33rd episode of The Magical Monster High School Drama! series. Having reached the Space Graveyard, Yassi finishes introducing herself to the clients, and Kiera, Violet and Boris begin exploring the derelicts within, starting with a large Blimp-like ship.

## Plot

En route to the Graveyard, Yassi attempts to introduce herself to Violet. She knocks, and says she wants to say hello as Violet is the only crew member she hasn’t seen. Violet complains she is feeling sick and doesn’t open the door, sensing a powerful neurotoxin around the person at the door. She opens a little peephole, and sees a transparent, amphibious face. Violet asks what Yassi is and about her planet. Yassi obliges and tells Violet about her homeworld, Yiηya, her people, the Klepi, and their neighbours, the Meeps. Violet utilises her telepathy to confirm Yassi’s intentions. After their conversation, Yassi leaves, and spends the rest of the journey attempting to improve the chances the ship can leave the gravity well of the collapsing star.

Kiera tries to intergrate the captain’s lightsaber into his halberd using the DIY fixall: duct tape. Violet considers how she can help, possibly by attempting to intergrate systems of the Raptor that cannot currently be accessed. Her goal in the ship graveyard is to obtain “electrum” acediarium, an extremely rare metal used in the construction of AIs. She also considers if she could disable Jesebel's behavioural protocols to fuck with the crew, and finds that there is a wormhole generator, though a lot of parts are missing. Finding all of this is quite interesting, Violet sneaks around to look at these parts and rummage around in storage. She asks Jesebel about the generator, and the AI explains it is something that can access subspace, but this in particular is just a box of a lot of parts for lots of these generators. Violet tinkers with this for a bit, but then focuses on intergrating the torpedoes, and then solar cells and air conditioning. The solar cells are in fact a light absorbing mesh that could possibly absorb light to the point where it acts like vantablack, and could also emit light and heat. Meanwhile Yassi engineers an off switch for the safety protocols on the engines for if they need to escape the gravity well of the star quickly.

After this downtime, they arrive at the Ship Graveyard. Clarence calls everyone to an empty gun room where he has set up a laser projection of the ship graveyard area. He explains that they have around 490 hours, just under 3 weeks, to do the job, and they are here for a sapling. Clarence points out their probable target, what looks like a living ship with a literal waterfall through it. The Solar Graveyard has the following points of interest:

* A living ship with a literal waterfall through it, The Juraian Mothership
* A wooden sailing ship, with sails, cannons, and harpoons currently lodged in a dead giant whale, The Pirate Spelljammer
* Escape pods, some flashing, some not, some damaged
* A bloated vessel that looks to have no visible weapons, a very small bridge, similar in shape to a blimp, and large enough to swallow the raiding vessel they encountered before, The Blimp
* A small moon / rocky planetoid
* Several identical looking floating carriages like a road train, The Space Train

Kiera asks if there are any signs of life from any of these objects. Clarence explains that their objective has a large amount of life, though mainly a lot of trees, and also small mammals, birds, insects and the like. Everything else seems pretty dead, including the pirate ship and whale. Violet suggests more scanning, which Yassi agrees with. Violet also says that she doesn’t feel safe going in straight away even though there seem to be no one here. Clarence explains he means to contact the Juraian vessel(the forest ship) as these things are run by sapient, living beings that control their own ships. He explains that the ship has offspring, and if the ship could leave, it probably would. Therefore Clarence means to contact the ship and offer to take the saplings away from the doom that will soon befall the mothership.

Violet and Kiera ask about magical signatures and things and Clarence initiates scans for such beginning at the Juraian ship and the man’o’war. The pirate spelljammer is extremely magical, though Clarence explains this as an “alternate power source” for the benefit of the non-magical crew. There is clearly a bubble around the ship, probably keeping an atmosphere around it. Also something like a whirlpool of magic inside the ship, as well as lots of speckled magical signatures, including several mounted devices pointed at the sails which are magical. The harpoons also seem to be magical, and there is something magical lodged in the front of the whale’s face, resonating very strongly.

Everyone discusses what to do about the pirate spelljammer, and whether to explore it, and of the possibiity of an ambush from behind the small moon. The detailed scans continue, first of the pirate vessel, then the small moon. Eventually with the scans of the latter, a pattern is noticed laced onto the rock’s surface. Kiera notices they appear to be magical runes that may be linked to evocation and transmutation magics. They take the Raptor and circle around the moon to check for ambushes and the like, but it appears to be all clear. The runes do seem to be centered on one location on the moon, which is pointing towards some rubble and wreckage.

While Clarence continues attempting to contact the Juraian ship, Kiera and Violet ask for scans of the weaponless vessel, The Blimp, which appears to have some extremely faint lifesigns. Active electronics and magic are dead, though there is some ambient electronics. The scans takes about an hour, and after this, Clarence has the ship dock so Violet, Kiera and Boris can embark onto the other ship. Dark, derelict, but clean, they emerge out the airlock into a large corridor, with other airlocks of to the walls, as well as large signage. A little sign pops up saying “welcome”. They figure out the map system, discovering a far larger proportion of “R&D” rooms than anything else, and begin heading to “R&D 2”, where the faint lifesigns are located. They get to a door and tap the button to open it, it flashes up with a warning that the next area is irradiated, at a level similar to outside space. They walk through the corridors here, protected by the goop suits, past a desk to some large door, flush to the wall and seemingly featureless. Both of them touch the panel and it flashes red. Violet persuades Kiera to attack the door instead, though he was hesitant.

They leave that, and go another way and come to a staff only door. This is more of a traditional lock, however, so Violet attempts lockpicking. It appears to be something like a janitorial cabinet, with a little calendar, place for making tea and coffee and things, and then another corridor. It leads to a more mechanical looking area, with more exposed pipes and meters. Towards the end is a table turned over, and behind it, a humanoid skeleton that appears to have been here a while.

Around it are some buttons, the buckle of a belt, and a small laminated ID card for a “José” with keys, saying he was a residential janitor. One of the keys is a locker key. He also has with him a conventional firearm. Violet notes, after a cursory inspection, that José was a younger man in his thirties when he died, quite active, with lots of wear and tear on the joints of his bones, and could have had a limp as there are some fractures never healed. It also seems like he was stabbed in the leg, and there are bullets in the walls as if the table was a barricade and he was shooting out. There is a peculiar scorch mark passing all the way through Josẽ’s ribcage, that hasn’t damaged the skeleton, but has discoloured all the way around every bone in the plane of the slash like area. No evidence of ballistic weapons or blunt force trauma applied to the skeleton or in José’s direction.

Violet relays this information to Kiera, precipitating a discussion about the ramifications of the shootout and whether what killed the unfortunate sap may still be about. Going to the lockers they found earlier to try José’s locker with his key. They find mundane janitor equipment, as well as a little shoebox with a few pistol magazines, and several bunches of keys, all with José’s picture on, in several different attires: R&D janitorial services, engineering janitorial services… this guy got around the entire ship it seems. There is also a dirty pink gemstone, like a rose quartz chrystal, which Keira also picks up along with the keys. With these keys, they can now open the door to R&D.

A White paneled, Very sterile little 5m long corridor greets them as they enter R&D. They go in and close the door behind them. As the door closes, gas spurts out to cover them, probably simply some form of decontaminent as it’s breathable, though Kiera doesn’t realise this and freaks out a little. Once the gas stops, the next door along goes red, and he swipes card. This allows them to advance. Here is R&D, with banners in front of them saying:

* R&D 1: Experimental AI
* R&D 2: Psybernetics
* R&D 3: Optical laser acuity
* R&D 4: Fusion

There are "swooshy" lifts to each floor, and a fairly well disguised staff only service door, and that’s about it for this reception area. Violet says “Computer” to see if a voice recognition AI is present (it isn’t). On this floor, they see some camera feeds, one of which is of them. On the other screens is very little movement or light on any of the other floors. On one looks like a sort of helicopter. Kiera, Violet, and Boris head into the lift. In here is a panel which does not accept José’s keycard. Violet suggests Kiera cut a hole in the top of the elevator. He lights his lightsaber and cuts a circle in the ceiling, with the panelling falling down. Kiera gives Violet a lift up and she finds a ladder and a service door, which she gets Kiera to cut through. They walk through, into the psybernetics division.

In a room filled with sprawling work surfaces and several doors sealing off other areas, they begin searching for potential loot and swag. Kiereniel finds a very hard and sharp nail file… probably a little makeshift self defence item. Violet, rooting through the draws, finds a director’s pass. They compare items, and Violet says they are both winners.

Moving on, there are two doors heading into the actual R&D department, and some more to washrooms and breakrooms. With the pass, they begin heading towards the signs of life they had found. Ahead looks like work areas, little cubicles with computers, and further over more like metalworking and fabrication stations. A few humanoid forms can be seen, standing completely stationary, there are about six of them, and a few are missing parts. They do not react to the party or all the lights coming on. Violet can see that they either are, or are wearing suits of armour.

They take a look at these and find that they seem more like prosthetics than actual armour, full mechanical bodies. In the surrounding area they find a lot of peculiar tools. The materials the suits are made from is foriegn, though they look like solid plates, when moved they seem very fluid, as if in more pieces or more flexible than they appear. Kiera finds a box that looks like a rubiks cube composed of a sphere inside a cube, with different coloured faces. Kiereniel grows absorbed with playing with this puzzle device and mooches off to a corner to play with it.

Violet finds a tiara-like circlet, pretty rough and ready, with a green strip around it, and a dot on either side, open at the forehead. Violet ascertains that this item is not exactly magical, but psionic in nature. She puts it on. The circlet grows warmer, and Violet becomes aware of five different places in the room, that she can now see without looking. Five identical objects come into focus, all singular solid triangular planes of material, sharp and serrated, and about a foot and a half long, in a kind of sword blade shape. Violet feels as if she can touch them, and when she tries, she sees the real objects moving as she directs them. While Kiereniel plays with the puzzle cube, Violet learns how to control the projectiles. Boris watches his товарищи, play with their new toys.

## Cast and Crew

* Game Master - Terry
* Akio - Marco
* Eric Withakay - Ben
* Ishkandar - Salem
* Kiereniel - Josh (TheRealWiredUP)
* Lysandryl - Damien
* Mótsognir - Rory
* Violet - Kitto
* Yassi - George (Drake1000)

* Script Supervisor - George (Drake1000)
* Publication Editior - Josh (TheRealWiredUP)

### Production Notes

Neither Ben, Salem, Damien or Rory were present for this session. Damien never returns to reprise Lysandryl.

## References

1. ↑ No the the One-eyed Sheep kind found on Oddworld
2. ↑ The Trascripts say an AI Sapling, but i don't think the Juraians were AIs, they were sapient trees
3. ↑ BECAUSE SPACE WIZARDS!
4. ↑ Tovarishi, Russian for Comrade