The platform settles into a circular control room overlooking the hidden settlement. Blue consoles awaken around Orin, Caelen, Maya, and the walkways below, where residents gather beneath watchtower lights.
Orin
Power routes, dormant extraction lines, and one active node. It lies beneath a sealed habitation block, which means someone is either hiding supplies or protecting a problem.
Orin leans over the primary console without touching its deeper controls. The display maps blue conduits beneath the settlement, then highlights the active node in warning amber.
Caelen
The ward pattern matches the residue on your cybernetics. It is not merely sealing the block. It is listening for a compatible signal.
Maya
People are gathering below. If they know this place is waking, they may expect us to explain why.
Faces lift toward the control room’s glass rim. The settlement residents cluster along the lit walkways, wary but orderly, while the sealed block remains dark beneath the active node.
Orin
No explanations yet. Jostan, the system has recognized your signal. Decide whether we investigate the block or shut this room down before recognition becomes an invitation.
The consoles hold both options in separate blue prompts. Below, the gathered residents wait, and the active node pulses once beneath the habitation block.
“Now curious I get closer to the signal and reach my hand out as it pings a recored video pops up and its a woman that looks like me, the video is damaged but the woman looks like she is dying”
FAILURE (Good Perception, rolled -3)
Jostan steps closer to the pulsing node and reaches toward its interface. The signal answers with a sharp ping that ripples through the control room glass.
A damaged recording blooms above the console. A young adult woman appears in fractured blue light, with Jostan's dark hair, olive complexion, mismatched eyes, and a face drawn tight by exhaustion.
The Damaged Woman in the Recording
If you are seeing this, the signal found you. Do not trust the block. It remembers what was put inside.
The image tears sideways. Her hand lifts toward the recording lens, then freezes inches from it as the transmission loses several seconds of sound and motion.
Orin
Step back. That message was not waiting for everyone. It keyed itself to your signal, and now the node is trying to complete the connection.
Caelen
The recording is deteriorating because the ward is using it as a bridge. If you keep contact, it may overwrite the message entirely.
The console rejects Jostan's touch with a cold pulse. The recording collapses into static, leaving only one recovered frame of the woman staring directly at him before the node seals its interface.
✓ Quest Accepted
Gain usable access to the active node
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover who the woman in the recording is
“Looking to orin i realized this sitution has esclated, I ask who he thinks the woman is, and start to scan with the eye of anylasis and at the same time noticing the people outside staring at us, they seem to be calling someone over and pointing at us, this sitution is not comfortable for anyone and we have to get out of here”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -1)
Jostan Ordomo
Who do you think she is? I am scanning the node, but we need to get out before this crowd decides we are the problem.
Orin
I think she is Ilyra Ordomo, or someone using her recorded identity. The node recognized you as a continuation of her access, not as a stranger.
Jostan activates the Eye of Anylasis and sweeps the node, housing, and recovered frame. Layered data resolves beneath the static: Ilyra Ordomo, deceased biometric source, archived authorization, and a live compatibility handshake keyed to Jostan.
Orin
Your scan is clean enough to answer the dangerous part. The block is not storing a message. It is waiting for the person who matches her signal.
Below the glass rim, the settlement residents point toward the control room and call someone from a side walkway. Their orderly formation breaks as more faces turn upward, all attention fixed on Jostan.
Maya
They are bringing someone here. We should move before that person reaches the platform.
The Eye marks a maintenance return beneath the console, leading away from the sealed habitation block toward a service lift. Orin sees the route, reaches for its controls, and guides the group toward the exit while the residents converge below.
“As I go a follow orin i feel a hand grab me, it grips and throws me across the room knocking orin out and trying to get to caelen, luckly hes pretty quick and he manages to escape with maya”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled -1)
Jostan follows Orin toward the maintenance return. A hand clamps onto his shoulder from behind, and the broad-shouldered attacker wrenches him sideways with sudden force.
The throw sends Jostan across the control room. His ribs slam the floor, driving the breath from him, but he rolls through the impact and keeps the maintenance exit in view.
Orin tries to turn at the noise. The attacker strikes him hard enough to drop him beside the console, where Orin goes limp and stops responding.
The Broad-Shouldered Attacker
The elf comes with me. You stay down.
The attacker reaches for Caelen, but the young elf twists away before the grip closes. Maya catches Caelen’s arm, and both sprint through the maintenance return as residents scatter below.
Caelen and Maya clear the exit and disappear down the service lift, escaping together. Jostan remains on the control-room floor with bruised ribs, while the attacker turns back toward him.
“Tired of this bullshit, I reload my Jimmy and charge the bullets with some of the eolite I have left, I shoot the ground beside the the attacker who appears to be bulit big, half robot half human he charges me I frontflip over him and shoot his neck while Im in the flip, shooting right his flesh is, the bullet pierces and goes down his spine leaving him paralyzed I grab orin and a alarm goes off, I start to feel dizzy and black out and when i watch up, theres caelen, maya and orin all around me and were back at the trasm”
SUCCESS (Superb Firearms, rolled +0)
Jostan reloads the Jimmy and presses a measured trace of eolite into the ammunition. His ribs tighten as he rises, but he charges the broad-shouldered attacker before the man can reach Caelen.
He fires into the floor beside the attacker. The blast breaks the charge's rhythm, but the larger man keeps coming, forcing Jostan into a hard front flip over his shoulder.
Upside down above him, Jostan fires into the exposed side of the attacker’s neck. The charged round disables the connection down his spine, and the broad-shouldered attacker crashes forward, alive but unable to move.
Jostan grabs Orin beneath the arms and drags him toward the maintenance return. The effort twists his bruised ribs sharply; his vision swims, but he gets Orin clear as an alarm floods the control room.
The alarm becomes a single metallic pulse. Jostan’s knees buckle, dizziness swallowing the room before he blacks out beside Orin and the open return route.
Jostan wakes against the tram wall beneath warm cabin lights. Caelen and Maya crouch nearby, while Orin sits awake across from him, one hand pressed to the side of his head.
Orin
You are awake. Good. The attacker is down, the route is sealed behind us, and your ribs are protesting the rescue. Try not to black out again.