I’m not exactly sure what I expected.
I arrived into the Slyuri system with high hopes and eager anticipation, only to find myself diverted to a nearby planet called Xicopius. Vibrant green from the atmosphere, the uniform appearance of the world was quickly cast aside upon approach. Small ridges became yawning mountain valleys, dots of color gave way to massive untapped mineral deposits, and hints of foliage became massive sprawling forests whose leaves glittered in the sunlight with every color of the rainbow.
I nearly missed my destination as I admired the scenery, coming in to land near the top of a mountain where an elevated trade platform stood. I was being directed toward an entity in the main terminal, but I was too enthralled by the glowing red-orange of the setting sun streaking across the sky to pay it any mind.
With barely any hesitation I leapt from the edge of the platform, using my jetpack to quickly ascend to the very peak.
Words cannot properly describe what awaited me there.
I watched until the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky deepened to a warm cerulean which suffused across the landscape. Reluctantly, I pulled myself away from the vista and returned to the task at hand.
The being awaiting me was another Vy’Keen, this one with pink and green war paint coating its head. My suit’s systems picked up an ID tag in the entity’s possession which labeled it as Captain Ruanxiezh, an absolute mouthful which I didn’t even pretend to try and pronounce properly.
Not that it mattered, as once again I’m certain that the entity in front of me was not the source of the voice I heard.
The being’s voice was nothing like other Vy’Keen I’d encountered, oddly mechanical behind the guttural vocals typical of the race. Its eyes were distant, as though it weren’t aware of what was happening. Oddly, I understood their every word this time, even if I still don’t know what they meant.
The being offered me a blueprint. To my surprise, it seemed to be instructions to create my own antimatter. This would make further interstellar travel easier, though I have to wonder about how casually these plans seem to toy with the very laws of physics. Apparently, digitized products can be combined mathematically in ways which would be impossible otherwise.
I don’t understand why I’m being led down this trail, but I will not stop now. I sense a greater purpose awaiting me. What it is I cannot fathom, but I am eager to continue along this path.
Well… maybe in a day or two. I want to see more of this beautiful world.
A kindly Vy’Keen trader offered me this fighter for a very reasonable price! I call it the Talon Rake. It’s an improvement on the Radiant Pillar, certainly, but I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. The local trade platform has graciously allowed me to park it there until I either change my mind, or can send for it.
So. It’s been a while since my last log entry. There’s a good reason for that.
In short, I did something very stupid.
In the time I spent on Xicopius (three Sol’s, all told, and most of it exploring just the area surrounding the trade platform) I found many more of those odd cylinders from so long ago. Where before I’d been granted a vision of a battle from long ago, I was now only gifted knowledge of certain words in the Vy’Keen tongue. I don’t know who left these stones of knowledge – no, knowledge stones, that sounds better – but I am grateful to whoever it was. I found dozens of the objects before leaving Xicopius, and was beginning to feel quite accomplished in my understanding of Vy’Keen language.
It would seem I was… overconfident.
Sure, I was able to work out the intent of the Vy’Keen on the trade platform easily enough – they were mostly warriors, I discovered, not traders as I’d originally suspected – but my hubris came back to me after I jumped to the next system my exosuit’s guidance system was directing me toward.
(Side note: I’m getting tired of referring to it so mechanically, so I’ve given my guidance system a name. I took inspiration from the words I first heard upon awakening, all those Sols ago – Commencing Atlas Suit Initialization Sequence. Since then I’ve come to think of the automated voice I keep hearing as my Atlas Suit Interface System – ASIS. It doesn’t respond to the name, but it makes me feel better to have a name to shout when I get annoyed.)
Upon reaching Rayvoria, I was directed toward a world which ASIS’ scan returned as an Acrid Planet. I didn’t feel terribly compelled to go directly there, so I went to the local space station instead. Here I met two entities, one of whom gave me more questions which need answering, while the other made me realize just how little I still know.
The first was a Vy’Keen whose name I didn’t catch, but I approached them with confidence after briefly reviewing my suit’s linguistic records. Luckily, ASIS’ translation systems seem to automatically replace the original sounds of the entity’s language with the corresponding words that I understand.
Unfortunately, there was no translation given for the what was spoken. The creature’s body language suggested that it was making some sort of request, and so I (naively) agreed, thinking perhaps I’d get a better understanding when he spoke again.
He didn’t, though. Instead, he transmitted a simple contract into ASIS’s system: a dossier for an ongoing missing-persons case. No name, no details, just the last-known location of the entity in question. I tried to protest this to the Vy’Keen, but it was clear he either couldn’t understand my words, or didn’t care. I was stuck with it.
The other creature I met was like none I’d ever seen before. It wore a purple jumpsuit with armor similar to my own, but that was where the likeness ended. Its skin was a vibrant yellow, its face as wide as its shoulders with large, bulbous eyes, each the size of my closed fist, jutting outward on strangely motile masses from the sides of its skull. Two more protrusions poked vertically from these masses, doubling the height of the head on their own. Whether these were antlers, ears, or some other vestigial feature from ages past, I had no way of knowing.
Oddly, the creature didn’t truly seem real as I approached. There was an unusual shine about it’s person, almost as though it were a hologram of some kind.
But that’s not possible… right?
I hesitantly greeted the being in my own language, and it astonished me by responding not only in familiar words, but with a fluency that suggested an odd kinship of sorts between me and this entity, whom ASIS had tagged as “Tr.avel/er Pepinash”
It was odd, to say the least. Once again, I understood the words but not the meaning behind them. I tried to ask for clarification, but the entity – the Traveller, I suppose – ignored my inquiry, as though it didn’t understand my words. In fact, the being seemed disinterested in anything whatsoever. I was about to leave when it suddenly reacted – something in my pack had attracted its attention!
Curious, I opened my inventory screen by the creature, passing by one item after another until it reacted, to no avail. After a few minutes of this, I sighed and swiped the screen again, meaning to close it and move on, when the Nanite Cluster header flashed erratically, in time with the odd shimmer around Pepinash.
Thinking quickly, I asked the question which had been burning into my mind for the last few minutes: “Where did you come from?”
There was a flicker, and suddenly my balance lost 100 nanites. Pepinash spoke not a word, but ASIS dinged another alert – Coordinates Received
The being went still. I touched it gently on the shoulder, and it seemed solid, but reacted to nothing around it. Still, it had given me some information, which was better than nothing. Only, now I had more questions: What exactly was Pepinash? Why did it behave that way? Where is it from?
And over all that, why did no one else in the station seem to notice the strange being?
Disconcerted and mildly annoyed, I departed the station shortly after that interaction. Checking my navigation system, I learned that the two new destinations I’d been given – the Missing Persons report, and the ostensible origin of Pepinash (marked as Unknown Grave by ASIS, oddly) – were a very short distance from each other on the planetary surface, as well as from the nav marker ASIS had given me upon entering the system. So, I decided to take out two drones with one beam, as it were.
I went first to the Unknown Grave, out of sheer morbid curiosity. There happened to be a landing pad nearby, and so I left it behind and crested the hill leading toward the gravesite.
What I found was perplexing to say the least. It was an oblong diamond, pale ivory in color with golden highlights at each corner. In its core was a sphere of orange and black, which seemed to float independently of the main mass.
Oh. Did I mention that the whole thing floated about two feet off of the ground?
Anyway. I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to reach out and grab the core of the device. As soon as I touched it, the device powered on and began emitting a holographic display of a familiar figure: Traveller Pepinash. It spoke in pained tones, as though dying:
Included with the message was an encoded glyph, which had also been etched onto the pale gravestone. Somehow I knew this would be useful to me in the future, but I didn’t know how just yet.
My mind buzzed. What are the Sentinels? It was such a mind-bogglingly simple question, and yet even I had never thought to ask. These beings are on every planet I come to, guarding the resources strewn across each world, down to the smallest pebble. But, why? Where did they come from? What, if any, is their greater purpose?D
I made a mental note to keep an eye out for more Travellers in the future. Something about them is oddly familiar, and if more of them appear to me I just may learn a bit more about my own origins.
After leaving the grave, I decided to go on-foot to the next destination – the missing person’s last known location. Unfortunately, I forgot to account for a couple of things.
First off, the planet I was on had a toxic environment, and had forgotten to resupply my sodium reserves since leaving Tuzesinto VI. This obviously meant I was woefully unprepared for such a long trek across the planet’s surface, and the decision to walk the distance – which had seemed so insignificantly small from orbit – led me straight into a fight for survival, pitted against the very elements.
The other thing I forgot was that Sentinels are very touchy when it comes to disturbing planetary resources.
The sun had been set for hours before I depleted my sodium reserves. Carelessly, I went directly toward a glowing patch of sodium-rich plants (Oddly, these plants and others seem to be identical on many worlds… hmm…) and started to harvest all that I could carry.
I didn’t notice ASIS’s warning that I was being watched.
The next thing I know, I’m being shot at. I bolt away as fast as possible, throwing myself forward before blasting my jets in an attempt to get a little more speed. It seems to be working for a moment, but then suddenly another one of the little drones just appears out of the ground in front of me and starts firing!
Surrounded now, I flip my multitool over to Blaster mode. I’d installed the mod after the close encounter with the burrowing horrors on Desboniu Major so as not to be caught off-guard like that again, and now I was glad to have done so. The blaster was powerful, and in moments I’d dispatched the Sentinel in front of me. By then the other two had caught up, but it was a fairly simple matter to shoot them down, even with the armor plating they put up after my first few rounds hit home.
Just when I thought I was safe, ASIS chirps into my ear:
Two more drones appear nearby, and I stood there gawping like an idiot until they signaled in a third, unfamiliar drone. This one was a quadruped, which loped along the ground with a measured, steady gait. I was still for too long, and the new drone lined up its sights and fired a massive laser beam directly into my chest.
My shields took most of the hit, but they were badly damaged. Finally regaining my senses, I booked it over the nearest ridge and hit the ground running, sprinting as fast as possible. I took another hit from the laser, a glancing blow which still managed to destroy what remained of my shields. I stumbled, but kept on, once again lurching forward to drive a little more speed behind my jetpack’s thrust, putting as much ground between us as possible.
It didn’t take long to get out of their firing range, but their dogged pursuit kept me moving. After a couple of kilometers with no reprieve, I decided to duck into a cave I found just after putting a hill between their line-of-sight.
According to ASIS, the drones couldn’t detect me now that I was underground. Somehow, though, they seemed all too aware that I was nearby, because they didn’t call off their pursuit. They milled around the entrance to the cave for hours, and I eventually realized I’d have to find another way out.
I ventured deeper into the cave to seek out a rear entrance (or exit, whatever), but I soon discovered that the caves ran far deeper than I’d expected. First hours, and then days passed, and all the while I walked aimlessly through the labyrinthine passages. Thankfully the air down there was clear, so I didn’t need my hazard protection systems, but I put my life support to the very test. I moved slowly and carefully, preserving my oxygen for as long as possible, and all the while the cursed Sentinel drones continued their dogged pursuit along the ground above my position.
I can only assume that their pursuit is based off of something more than vision. Perhaps the same exosuit modules which provide names to me through ASIS also let the Sentinels triangulate my position? It would explain why they kept following me for so long despite being underground – they were still tracking my systems.
After several days of endless wandering through clammy caves, I realized that I was almost directly beneath my destination – only about a kilometer away. Shortly after that, I found what looked to be daylight seeping in from down the passage. I had to make a decision, and there was only one sensible way to go.
I had to surface, and put as much distance between me and the drones as I can before they blast me away.
A quick check of my HUD showed no drones directly between me and my destination, so I bolted out of my hiding spot as fast as I possibly could. After only a few meters I spotted a blue flower just over the top of the hill I was racing toward. I would have paid it no mind but for the tag ASIS had given it:
Quickly, I harvested the plant’s buds. I didn’t know what would happen, but a boost seemed like a good thing at the moment, so caution was cast aside. The buds burst with shocking speed, releasing spores which flew directly toward my jetpack’s intake vents. I had no time to panic before the pack started vibrating and heating up. There was apparently an excess of energy in the system now, no doubt from those spores, and the only way to reduce it was to burn it.
Well, if I had to do it, I was gonna do it right. I sprinted as hard as I could, leapt forward with everything I had, and engaged the jets.
Holy crap.
Before I jumped, the nav marker on my HUD showed my destination as 1,206m away. Within seconds of engaging the thrusters I was only 500m away, and there was no sign I was slowing down. At this rate I’d pass my destination!
No sooner had the thought passed than ASIS chirped an alert:
I fell to the ground from far too high, but there was enough reserve fuel in the pack that I was able to land safely. I was only 250m away. The Sentinels still pursued me, but they were so far away now that I felt certain they’d lost the signal. They had to give up soon.
I was right, too! It took less than a minute for ASIS to announce the all-clear. For the first time in days, I wasn’t being pursued, and not a moment too soon – I had arrived at the last known location of our Missing Person.
I raced inside as quickly as possible, and had just enough time to curse the fact that you can’t slam automatic doors before I noticed the entity standing inside, staring at me with wide eyed and – for a Vy’Keen – bizarre horror.
I had ASIS pull up the missing person’s report, checked a few key features, and heaved an incredibly tired sigh of relief. Pulling up my comms system, I patched into a dedicated frequency, reported his location with barely-masked disgust (seriously, he was right where you’d left him this whole time?!), and promptly fell into a chair, where I’ve been ever since.
I’m going to send for my ship from here. Walking is for fools.