This changes everything
04 Jul 2024Armagne
Barrett and I went to see Vladimir on the Eye - it was good to finally meet him. I'm surprised he used to run with the Crimson Fleet because he seems like a genuinely good person, but it was easy to set my dislike for pirates aside for someone like Vlad. He nicknamed me "Rook" which isn't the worst I've been called over the years. Vlad shared the location of two more Artifacts as well as his concern for the wellbeing of Andreja, another Constellation member I haven't met yet. I assured him we'd keep an eye out for Andreja and get her safely back to the Lodge.
While on our way to Andreja and the first Artifact, Barrett confided in me and told me that he'd found an old message from his late husband Ervin, who had died twenty years prior. Maybe it's because he knows I understand his pain having experienced a similar loss, or perhaps he just trusts me because we make a good team, but he's found out that the circumstances of Ervin's death were even more dubious than previously thought and he wants to get to the bottom of this. Another mystery, and I'm more than willing to tackle it with Barrett.
Andreja had apparently been cornered by some Va'Ruun zealots in an old mine but had dispatched them before we even entered. Of course she was a bit on edge, but as soon as I identified myself, she loosened up. The three of us cleared the mine of Spacers and Barrett and Andreja were more than happy to let me be the one to release the Artifact from the rock. I was surprised that none of the Spacers had tried to take it for themselves but they likely didn't see any value in it. Just like the first Artifact I touched, this one sent me on a trip through the universe. While I did zone out according to Andreja, I didn't pass out like the first time. Maybe my body is adjusting to the Artifacts, which makes me think of what Barrett said about the Artifacts "changing our physiology".
As Andreja made her way back to the Lodge, Barrett and I went to look for the second Artifact that Vlad had found, and found it in an unoccupied cave. Apart from yet another voyage through space when touching the Artifact, the expedition was fairly uneventful. We returned to the Lodge to find Andreja safe and sound and after adding both Artifacts, we were treated to a discussion between basically Matteo and everyone else. Matteo insisted that dreams were what brought humanity to the stars in the first place, while Noel countered that without science, humanity would still be dreaming - or dead. I mostly agree with Noel: dreams are what set us on our journey, but science brought the journey forward and without it, the dreams would've never become reality.
Vlad shared a new discovery with us, which only deepened the mystery: he had uncovered a signal similar to the Artifacts, but on a much larger scale. Since the Artifacts we had uncovered so far had been roughly the same size, this could be the breakthrough we were all hoping for. Barrett had some other matters to attend to, so Andreja and I set course to Procyon III hoping to finally find answers instead of more questions.
Vlad couldn't pinpoint the exact source of the signal but he had given us a general search area which we could use as a landing point, then work from there. I used my scanner to detect anomalies and boy did I find something anomalous: my scanner started acting up when I pointed it in a certain direction and as we followed it, the disturbance only got worse. As we went further, a structure emerged - one unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was surrounded by floating pieces of something looking like carved rock, and I sensed a simmilarity in the surrounding energy with the rooms we had found the Artifacts in. There was no doubt they were related.
A Terrormorph roamed outside the structure. Was it guarding it? Was it simply attracted to its energy? Was there perhaps even a link between Terrormorphs and the Artifacts? Yet more questions emerged. The fact that this Terrormorph seemed way tougher than any I had encountered before only made it stranger. This one somehow caused hallucinations: I heard people screaming, calling for help, crying, ... was it somehow "replaying" the final moments of its victims? Andreja and I dispatched the creature and made our way inside the structure.
Once inside we entered a large room with circles in the floor, as soon as we crossed a certain threshold the place somehow reacted to us: the central rings floated upwards, then remained at a certain height, and the entire room was suddenly devoid of gravitational forces - as if the planet the structure was located on had no sway on us any longer. This place played by its own rules, I just hoped we were players in this game, and not pieces. A formation of lights emerged above me, and I felt drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Thankfully, I fared better when touching the lights but it did cause a change in the room: the rings rotated slowly, and another formation appeared. As I floated towards each formation, I noticed that every time I touched one, the rings rotated more quickly, until finally they slowed down and formed a singular circle standing upright, containing the next formation of lights. It felt like some sort of gateway, so I crossed the circle and was thrown across the universe - a similar experience to touching an Artifact, but more... powerful. At the end of the trip, a shape emerged in starlight. It seemed like a circular maze but with missing pieces. The image burned itself into my mind and I drew it afterwards:
When I awoke, I was outside the structure - the word "temple" crossed my mind, and that's what I would call them (Matteo would never let me hear the end of it though) - with no idea how I got there. Apparently Andreja and I were both expulsed from the place after I crossed the circular gate, but there was somthing even stranger going on. I felt... different, somehow. I focused on the shape and raised my left hand, palm forward. Everything in my direct vicinity shook and was suddenly upended in the air - as though I had created some sort of local zero-G field around me. It lasted for a couple of seconds, but these seconds changed my life and everything I knew forever. I had read about "magic" in Old Earth fantasy books, but like everyone I had always dismissed it as... well, fantasy.
As Andreja and I made our way back to the Frontier, I tested the practical aspect of this newfound power in combat, and was not disappointed. At some point I was surrounded by four large insectoid predators (I think they are dubbed Shieldshells by LIST) and I just launched them in the air after which I could take them all down with little to no risk. However, I found that it drained me, though not physically or mentally but a third kind of energy. This seemed proof of Barrett's theory about a change in physiology after touching the Artifacts - though it only emerged after discovering the 'power' on Procyon III.
Magical powers, strange structures, ... I was hoping for answers but I came back with even more questions - though I did have something to show for it. We'd need to be careful, though, if people found out Constellation was hoarding magical powers, the mystery surrounding our organization could quickly turn into envy, fear, or hate.
We'd need to keep this on the down low.Vlad couldn't pinpoint the exact source of the signal but he had given us a general search area which we could use as a landing point, then work from there. I used my scanner to detect anomalies and boy did I find something anomalous: my scanner started acting up when I pointed it in a certain direction and as we followed it, the disturbance only got worse. As we went further, a structure emerged - one unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was surrounded by floating pieces of something looking like carved rock, and I sensed a simmilarity in the surrounding energy with the rooms we had found the Artifacts in. There was no doubt they were related.
A Terrormorph roamed outside the structure. Was it guarding it? Was it simply attracted to its energy? Was there perhaps even a link between Terrormorphs and the Artifacts? Yet more questions emerged. The fact that this Terrormorph seemed way tougher than any I had encountered before only made it stranger. This one somehow caused hallucinations: I heard people screaming, calling for help, crying, ... was it somehow "replaying" the final moments of its victims? Andreja and I dispatched the creature and made our way inside the structure.
Once inside we entered a large room with circles in the floor, as soon as we crossed a certain threshold the place somehow reacted to us: the central rings floated upwards, then remained at a certain height, and the entire room was suddenly devoid of gravitational forces - as if the planet the structure was located on had no sway on us any longer. This place played by its own rules, I just hoped we were players in this game, and not pieces. A formation of lights emerged above me, and I felt drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Thankfully, I fared better when touching the lights but it did cause a change in the room: the rings rotated slowly, and another formation appeared. As I floated towards each formation, I noticed that every time I touched one, the rings rotated more quickly, until finally they slowed down and formed a singular circle standing upright, containing the next formation of lights. It felt like some sort of gateway, so I crossed the circle and was thrown across the universe - a similar experience to touching an Artifact, but more... powerful. At the end of the trip, a shape emerged in starlight. It seemed like a circular maze but with missing pieces. The image burned itself into my mind and I drew it afterwards:
When I awoke, I was outside the structure - the word "temple" crossed my mind, and that's what I would call them (Matteo would never let me hear the end of it though) - with no idea how I got there. Apparently Andreja and I were both expulsed from the place after I crossed the circular gate, but there was somthing even stranger going on. I felt... different, somehow. I focused on the shape and raised my left hand, palm forward. Everything in my direct vicinity shook and was suddenly upended in the air - as though I had created some sort of local zero-G field around me. It lasted for a couple of seconds, but these seconds changed my life and everything I knew forever. I had read about "magic" in Old Earth fantasy books, but like everyone I had always dismissed it as... well, fantasy.
As Andreja and I made our way back to the Frontier, I tested the practical aspect of this newfound power in combat, and was not disappointed. At some point I was surrounded by four large insectoid predators (I think they are dubbed Shieldshells by LIST) and I just launched them in the air after which I could take them all down with little to no risk. However, I found that it drained me, though not physically or mentally but a third kind of energy. This seemed proof of Barrett's theory about a change in physiology after touching the Artifacts - though it only emerged after discovering the 'power' on Procyon III.
Magical powers, strange structures, ... I was hoping for answers but I came back with even more questions - though I did have something to show for it. We'd need to be careful, though, if people found out Constellation was hoarding magical powers, the mystery surrounding our organization could quickly turn into envy, fear, or hate.
(Image credit: starfield.wiki.fextralife.com)