Starforged: Valentin Sikorski (Session 8)

Session 8 of my Ironsworn: Starforged actual play journal. Valentin and Kayla continue exploration of the Lyra Outpost. Are they going to find the attacker?

Details about truths, character and the starting sector.

Character sheet

At the beginning of the session.

Intro

A humanoid figure was crouching behind a crate. A Naked, shaved body covered in crude tattoos. Some of them are fresh. Very similar to the symbols scattered on the walls of all rooms. Long knife in the hands, covered in blood. Deep breaths. And the faint violet glow from the eyes.

Intruders will not be allowed to take everything from him. The intruders are not going to be allowed to interrupt the process. The intruders must leave or pay the price.

Lyra outpost II

I told Kayla that we should get the power back. Carefully. We still haven’t explored the whole station.

We entered one of the bigger rooms we have seen so far. The hexagonal shape and several corridors lead in all directions. The furniture hinted this could have been some kind of meeting or lecture room. A lot of chairs, a big holo-projector. But now it was a morgue. Several dead bodies were carefully arranged in the middle of the room creating a star-like shape. The floor, walls and even the bodies were covered in the same symbols we have been seeing all over the place. There was also a weirdly placed metal I-beam in the middle of the room.

We carefully examined each body to make sure nobody is alive.

Kayla was trying to make sure I have enough light and keep us safe. Not the best conditions. As I was trying to navigate the dark room even when the beam of her light was flowing through the other side of the room I bumped into the I-beam. It fell to the ground with a loud clank, followed by a piece of the ceiling falling on me.

I leapt to the side quickly enough and ended up diving into a pile of furniture by the wall. Several big metal sheets and a piece of a duct fell and landed exactly where I was standing. Laying among chairs, I noticed a heavy-duty communicator tablet under my hands. As I touched the screen, the tablet turned on. The device was perhaps used by someone from engineering and maintenance because the first thing I saw on the display was a detailed, technical plan of the station.

“Bingo, I know where the generator is.”

Now let’s try to figure out if we can make the power work again.

The power core looked almost intact. The cables powering the station were cut through. I spent some time patching them up and repairing them using the equipment around. Kayla was nervously standing around and helping with her light. The tablet itself was able to provide a little bit of glow as well.

Finally, I was ready to enable to power again. I moved the lever of the main switch up and with a couple of flashes the lights turned on. I stood up with a victorious smirk on my face and walked towards the door. “Now, let’s find the control room. We might find the creature on came…”

A strong explosion threw us out of the room. The lights went off again. The power core was beyond repair now.

“Fuck. I guess we should maybe start with the workshop and try to find a flashlight for me.”

The workshop was well equipped and big. I found flashlights pretty easily, they were everywhere.

But what was even more interesting was a cylindrical device on one of the tables.

“Kayla, this is an emergency power cell. It should be able to power emergency lights and crucial computer systems for a couple of hours. We just need to connect it to one of the power hubs. It’s not the same as a functioning power core, but we’ll still see and could use computers and cameras.”

Together we searched through the room, hoping to find more useful stuff.

As we were excited about our findings, our caution eased. One of the several huge locker doors in the corner blasted open and a huge man jumped out, trying to push me down and take my rifle.

I was a bit quicker than the huge mountain of muscles. Instead of bringing me to the ground and disarming me, he just threw me onto the wall.

I turned around, pointing my gun at him, Kayla doing the same.

“Stop, stop… no one needs to get harmed. Calm down. Let’s talk. We didn’t come to harm you.”

He looked at me and Kayla and raised his hands.

“Maybe you should shoot me. Better than closing me to the hole again. Better than treating me as a lab rat. Just end it, if you have the guts.”

“I have no need to close you anywhere. We just arrived and found this place breached.”

I told him all about how we arrived and what we saw. Mentioned Florian. He didn’t seem to recognise the name. I wish I had Jones with me.

“Is there someone else alive on this station?”

“I have seen this naked tattooed guy sneaking around. I tried to ambush him once but he knew exactly where I was. I don’t know why. Maybe he is not real. I don’t know. I see things. All around. The air here is… it makes you see things.”

He starts laughing. “It’s hilarious, those bastards were injecting me with all the shit they found around and now they got a taste of their own medicine. I got used to the hallucinations. They must have been surprised.

“You must understand we cannot trust you for now.” I tied his hands while Kayla made sure he didn’t do anything stupid.

The closest power hub was close to the workshop and I inserted the power cell. Three short beeps signalled activation. Only the security lights turned on but better than nothing. Let’s check the security terminal now.

We reached the command centre. Long lists of error messages were scrolling on the displays and many warning lights were flashing. The ones mentioning powers loss and a breach were not surprising. But a screen labelled “Lab-12” was showing a big room overgrown with a carpet of tiny glowing fungi. They were growing everywhere. On the walls, ceiling, and furniture. A red text was blinking on the bottom of the screen: “Area compromised, high toxicity level”

I hope our VAC suits should protect us from such a toxic environment. But what is it going to do with our new friend?

I tried to find the attacker using the station’s security cameras.

Took me some time to explore the station using the security cameras but eventually, I found them. A weird, naked, tattooed figure. Sitting in a corner of a room, holding a long knife. Their veins were strangely visible and their eyes… looked like they were glowing. The person was sitting in a room near laboratory 12. The toxic fungi carpet already managed to start overgrowing this room as well.

Together with Kayla, we put together a plan. We use the fact we have the emergency power and close selected doors so the creature could move only in the direction towards us. Then we’ll quietly approach and attack.

I wanted to patch a wireless connection between my personal communicator and the station’s systems so I could operate the cameras remotely. But I couldn’t find the communicator. Did I lose it somewhere? The last time I used it was when I was reading the data cubes in the laundry room. So we are going in blind. However, closing the doors should still give us an advantage.

I was too optimistic. I managed to close a few doors, but others were unresponsive or got stuck in the middle of closing. And the last door, which was supposed to cut the creature from escaping through lab 12 failed to close as well. The noise scared the being and it ran away and disappeared somewhere where security cameras couldn’t find it.

“Fuck. What now?”

Kayla rolled her eyes: “Ok, smarty pants. Enough of clever plans. Let’s leave our new friend here and do it my way. A proper sweep.”

Azriel was quite unhappy when she tied him to a frame. I wasn’t excited either. I sealed the door and used my plasma cutter to weld a piece of metal over the door. The being shouldn’t be able to get to him. Hopefully, we don’t die. He would die there and it would be our fault.

Kayla checked her gun. “Let’s go. We’ll keep searching quietly and systematically. Eventually, we have to run into it. Good hunting.”

We slowly and quietly went through the station. Corridor after corridor, room after room. It took quite some time but finally, we managed to find it.

We quietly entered the big vehicle bay room with the huge excavator-like machine. Going from cover to cover, watching each other’s back. Kayla raised her hand, signalling to stop. Ten she pointed into a distant corner. There, behind one crate we saw only a small piece of the being’s skin.

I nodded. Let’s go.

We try to sneak into a better position so both of us could open fire.

And fire.

Just a fraction of a second before we pressed the triggers, the being turned its head and looked into my eyes. Its eyeballs were violet and glowing. Then it moved with inhuman speed and climbed on the wall. Our shots hit only the space where it was sitting before.

“Quick, we need to take position behind the crates in the corner. That’ll limit the number of angles it can attack from!”

We run into the corner and pressed our backs against the wall. The being suddenly dropped from the ceiling, a long knife ready to attack.

It hit me with a knife, only a surface wound, but the rush of adrenaline helped and I kicked it so hard it fell on its back.

I aimed for its head…

But it was quicker than me. It jumped back to its feet with its inhuman speed and punched my gun. It flew into the air and fell somewhere behind the creature.

It tried to stab me with the knife again but I managed to catch its hand and pry the knife out. I stabbed it into the middle of its chest and pushed it away from me. It stumbled for a second.

“Now, Kayla!”

Kayla didn’t need my instructions. Burst fire from her gun ended the being.

I looked at her: “Good job!” I noticed she is holding her neck. Blood between fingers.

“What happened, did it hit you?”

“I think it was a reflected bullet. A lot of hard metal around. I should have been more careful with the burst. But it’s only a surface wound.”

We looked at the creature on the ground. Once it was a human, that was sure. Was it still human when we killed it? Was it even responsible for its actions? Hard questions, no answers. But it is certainly not going to hurt anyone else.