Orin locks the observatory channel behind the team without sealing either exit. Caelen and Waldin remain at the kiosk relay, while the young pilot holds the primary corridor with Orin’s support; Maya continues monitoring remotely.
Rodney stays beside Jostan at the observatory contact window. From the narrow fallback conduit, a compact municipal maintenance drone crawls into view instead of following its routine path.
Dust clings to the drone’s articulated legs and gray casing, where obsolete observatory markings flicker beneath scratched paint. A sealed data wafer is clamped under its sensor array, untouched and intact.
The Observatory Maintenance Drone
Recipient confirmed: Jostan Ordomo. Delivery priority is active. Dispatch authority is unavailable.
The drone extends a small transfer arm but does not release the wafer. Its sensor turns toward Jostan, then toward the sealed observatory channel, as if waiting for a condition the machine cannot explain.
Rodney
That is not a routine courier. It came through our fallback, carrying something addressed to you, and it does not know who sent it.
The Observatory Maintenance Drone
Release requires recipient acknowledgment. Contents remain sealed until acknowledgment is received.
✓ Quest Accepted
Obtain the observatory’s sealed message
“I accept the message and take the sealed wafer from the drone scanning everything around me including the drone, I open it.”
SUCCESS (Superb Surveillance, rolled -1)
Jostan sweeps the Eye of Anylasis across the fallback conduit, the drone’s casing, its transfer arm, and the silent observatory channel. No concealed movement or active weapon registers.
Jostan Ordomo
The drone is waiting for acknowledgment, not permission from the observatory.
Jostan places his hand against the drone’s sensor and accepts the delivery. Its clamp releases at once, settling the sealed wafer into his palm while Rodney watches the corridor.
The Observatory Maintenance Drone
Recipient acknowledgment accepted. Seal integrity remains intact until opened by the confirmed recipient.
Jostan turns the wafer beneath the observatory’s dim diagnostic glow. His scan finds no transmitter, charge, or tamper trigger, only a layered authentication seal keyed to his biological and cybernetic signature.
He presses the release seam. The wafer unfolds into a thin projection, revealing a route lattice beneath Leonidas and a short message marked with the damaged woman in the recording’s archived authorization: “Origin relay compromised. Trust no copied successor.”
Determine what compromised the origin relay
Quest Complete
Obtain the observatory’s sealed message
+ New Item Acquired
Observatory Message