Starting the Guardian search
10 Apr 2021Netsteel
Captains log - Entry #2Star date 3307.04.10
It turns out I must have been seeing things on the star map. I have not been able to find any signs of the Guardians in the Coalsack region. But I did find a thargoid beacon at a local nonhuman signal. I decided to take it onboard and immediately regretted it. Systems began to corrode all over the ship. Great...
It seems valuable, so I hunt around for a place to unload it. But finding a black market out here wasn’t easy. I finally located a station out here that would take it, and boy was I glad to be rid of it. It did pay nicely, though.
Anyway, back to the Coalsack. I figured since I was here I’d take a look inside. So I plotted course to a star within and jumped in. The darkness was quite impressive. It’s as if a curtain had been drawn around the entire system. Some stars still show, but just barely.
I scan the system to see if it’s worth my time to examine further. I’m suddenly filled with dread. The entire sector is filled with Thargoids! I did not feel safe. But I was still curious so I targeted one of the lower threats and headed over. I had to see for myself. My last encounter had just been a beacon, so I took my chances. Immediately as I drop out of supercruise I’m set upon by a swarm of small Thargoid ships! I throw power to shield and begin evasive maneuvers. They were everywhere. I fire up the frameshift drive, but there’s a large mass pulling me down. The drive slowly begins to charge, so I keep dodging. Seconds feel like minutes as I wait for the jump. Finally it comes and I speed away. Shields were gone and Hull was down to 50%. That was close...
Grateful to be alive, I decide this trip outside the bubble has come to an end. I prep for the long haul back home. As I make my way along, I pick up the news feed. A ghost ship has been found, and it’s broadcasting. The Adamastor. Well this I have to see. So I head over to The Chukchan sector to investigate. As soon as I drop into the wreckage, I receive an anonymous message. They want me to follow the signals. So I take the encryption key they provided and start scanning the ship. I get a few ship logs, but they quickly break down into gibberish. I jump on the net to see if any other pilots had gotten anywhere. It seems that those better than me had already followed the signal 370 light years away and were still hunting. This seemed a bit more than I wanted to commit to for now, so I abandoned that pursuit.
At this point I had amassed several million credits worth of exploration data that I desperately needed to turn in, so I set my sites on home for real this time. As I dock at Leonard Nimoy Station, I realize I’m still carrying around a hold full of guardian relics. I still had a mission, a puzzle, a hunt to complete. I had almost forgotten. Fortunately I overhear a conversation at the bar while my ship is being prepped that another pilot spotted a Guardian beacon floating around a planet in sector Synuefe KU-F B44-4. It was perfect timing.
Once I get back to my ship I pull up my star map and plot a course. Over 700 light years. Almost double the distance of my just recently completed trip out of the bubble. But I’m already hooked. At this point I’m obsessing over the Guardians. So I grab a few extra limpets (just in case) and head out.
I’ll pause at this point just to say how much I love my 6A fuel scoop. By the time I line up the next jump the tank is full. Nice!
After the longest chain of jumps I have yet experienced, I finally arrive at the beacon. The Guardians definitely weren’t kidding around. I scan it and the pylon arms activate. But what now? I had heard I might need to shoot them, but don’t you know I forgot to outfit any weapons. I was stripped light for extra distance.
So I pull up the sector scan and look for a carrier, something, anything nearby that might have some outfitting available. There were a few carriers in the sector so I jump over to them. Nobody has outfitting. I pull up the net and look there. I find an inhabited system 45 light years away that may have what I need.
I drop into the system and make my way to port. As I approach my scanner indicates that there’s a Guardian site on the planet the station is orbiting. What are the odds? Two Guardian systems this close to each other? As I wait for my new guns to be fitted, I start poking around the star map. What do I see? At least 2 dozen Guardian civilization systems. I get through at least a dozen bookmarks before giving up. I figure I’ll work through the rest in due time.
Once my ship is ready, I descend to the planet. I figure I’m already here, and the beacon isn’t going anywhere.
On approach I can quickly see that this site is much bigger and more complex than the initial ruins. I circle a few times to get my bearings, then set down. I find a few active obelisks, but I don’t get any new information. So I set out to explore the site. Everything was very similar to the first site, up until I get attacked by sentinel drones. Seriously? The site has been dead for thousands of years, but they are still trying to protect it? I made short work of them, thanks in part to the point defense systems on my ship. I pick up any salvaged parts I can find and continue searching.
I see a lot of the same things here, a few relics, towers, etc. but what’s this? There’s a new pylon that doesn’t register on my scanner but reacts when I approach. I find several scattered around the site. At one corner, there appears to be a raised platform with two of the pylons on either side. This appears to be important. Remembering that I heard shooting them gets them to activate, I take a few shots. The pylons activate and begin a countdown. I have to activate them all before the clock runs out. 5 minutes. So I do my best to zoom around and get them all. No good. I must be missing one, or a few. I have no idea how many there are.
The sun has just set on the planet and the darkness is making it difficult to keep my bearings. Maybe some good old gravity-fueled sleep will refresh me for another try tomorrow. I will solve this puzzle. I am determined.
Supplemental:
Unable to sleep, I decide to take another crack at this thing in the dark. I slowly make my way around the site, this time carefully mapping out all the pylons. I find 6 in total. So I begin again. I charge the first one up, but this time keep shooting until it blasts a beam of light into the sky. That was new, so I must be on to something. I quickly move onto the next, and the next, charging them up to maximum. I’m left with the 2 just outside what appears to be an altar. I charge them up, and I’m immediately set upon by 3 more sentinels. It takes a bit of work to dispatch them, but finally I’m alone again. So now what? There is an “X marks the spot” glowing just below the altar, with a beam of light projecting into the sky. It must want something. So one by one I jettison any artifacts I can find, hoping one of them will be the one it wants. But nothing works. I must still be missing something.
Exasperated, I hop on the net to confer with other pilots. It seems I need a key, which can be obtained at a beacon like the one I had seen earlier. At this point sleep was a distant memory, so I fired up the FSD and headed back to the beacon. Freshly armed with my new beam lasers, I activate the beacon. After quite a light show, it spits out a glowing orb. I also receive a message from Ram Tah that the signal matches one in a nearby system, Synuefe EU-Q C21-15. That’s not where I was before...
With my choices being heading back or heading forward, I decide to plot a course for Ram Tah’s suggestion. Maybe the key will only work there. It might work at any site, but why risk it for now? As I descend to yet another planet, the ruins take shape. This one is much smaller than the last.
But sleep is beginning to call again. Perhaps this site can wait until morning. I set down just outside the site. I put the ship’s systems on standby, make sure the shields are powered up, and settle in again.