The Potential Profit Is...

Jan 20

Sibylen Exosite, Part I

Finished the episode? Hear the Star Master Log for behind-the-scenes narrative insights here.

A detour to the desert world of Sibylen, where alien artifacts were first uncovered seven years ago, brings the crew face to face with an old friend of Froggy’s—and an offer they can’t refuse.

Meet the Crew:

Jeff as Star Master (Game Master)
Brian as Captain Thorn
Stephanie as the warrior Haley
Doja as the wildcard pilot Robert
Scott as the transhuman hacker Felix

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Dark Star Adventure Cast, where the stars are cold. The void is endless and dangers lurk in every shadow out here. Trust is a gamble, and survival is never guaranteed on tonight's adventure cast,
I've been to Sland before. Honestly, this is turning out to be a far more interesting trip than the last one Already.
Valuable goods, alien artifacts, hidden away. But that sounds attractive to me.
Would you say this discovery might be worth, oh, I don't know, at least 1.2 million.
Yeah. I know we're trying to get outta here quickly, but there's no way we can walk away from this. Now the potential profit is, I just, I can't, I need a minute.
I'm just, I would
walk a couple steps away and just kind of crouch down. So sit back and enjoy. This is the Dark Star adventure cast.[00:01:00]
All hands aboard. The scapegoat are on the bridge, as Robert pulls a ship out of meta dimensional space. Alongside the planet's slan, the last outpost on the fringe of civilized space. Froggy is practically vibrating with excitement as he strains over Robert's shoulder to get a glimpse of the planet on the view screen
a SWAT froggy's hand away.
Get your grubby little mitts off that. These are delicate instruments.
Froggy. Get away from there. Get away from there. I grab Froggy and I like pull him away. Come on Robert. Give him a break. He's just excited. He hasn't seen this woman in what, like 25 years,
not just a random person. My best friend, I still have the letter that I wrote.
Her froggy pulls the letter from his pocket. You recognize it immediately as the letter he wrote back on Wolffia and asked you to deliver to his friend off world. If you ever so happened to run into her though, I guess I can just catch her up on everything in person with my own actual voice. This time
the voice of the waste return.[00:02:00]
Hold. Hold on a second. Froggy, you haven't heard from her in 25 years. How do you even know she's
still there? Oh, well, we were writing over the exo net until the Guardian shut it down, but she's here. All right. And boy, will she be surprised to see me froggy in the flesh. If we didn't need fuel, we wouldn't be stopping at all.
At this, the Bridges speakers click on, as Dr. Voss chimes in, don't forget who's paying for this mission. Robert Bil is where the. First alien artifacts were discovered seven years ago. There is no way in hell I would miss the opportunity to see it for myself. And what's more, b Rocky's friend? Vera is a doctor of Xeno archeology who works for LY a, a research court.
I've always admired. I bet she has all sorts of interesting things for us to check out.
Mm-hmm. I'll bet.
Research. Great. Sounds fun.
Oh my God. Hailey, don't you have any wonder for the universe? I mean, there's proof on. [00:03:00] This planet that aliens exist. Isn't that enough to excite you? Even just a little bit
excitement for Sibil.
I've been here before. It's just another dusty planet on the edge of space,
but this time it's special. Hailey, because Vera is here,
I'm
froggy. I'm sure Vera is a hoot.
Froggy. I'm, uh, I'm with Haley on this one. Don't forget, we have a tail probably still following us ever since we left. While fea, Verdi's risk management won't be forgetting about us.
That. Easy. The sooner we can spike out of this place, I mean, you know it's gonna be better.
That's a good point, Robert. But we've been in meta space for a long time and all of us could use a break. Let's just try to keep this visit short. Prep the ship for docking. Felix Run maintenance and security protocols.
And Haley, grab our gear. Robert, take us in
a eye captain. The scapegoats monitors switch to the starboard bow camera and slan comes into view. A dull gray ball streaked with black naked in. [00:04:00] Exposed with no cloud cover to speak of a line of cargo ships. Circle the planet's gravity well as they patiently wait to land.
Another line of ships burn away from the planet's surface towards the edge of the system, powering their spike drives for wherever their cargo is headed. All speakers across the ship click on with a hip, and Dr. Voss says Sibil population less than half a million, almost entirely researchers and support teams.
The economy and infrastructure is completely focused on the discovery, excavation, and exporting of. Lane artifacts of which there are numerous. The planet is almost entirely bone white deserts crisscrossed by ravines up to a kilometer deep, the most famous of which is known to explorers across the sector as the gloom trenches.
The 15 hour days are subject to scorching heat from Lin's white dwarf, F type star named shepherd. The days reach upwards of 120 Fahrenheit and the night as low as 20 Fahrenheit. The air is breathable for a short time, but is too thin for survival beyond a few. [00:05:00] Hours. Gravity is a pleasant point. Eight G, you won't need environmental suits, but oxygen masks and
tanks
are crucial.
Yeah. And I, uh, I scanned the planet's landing registries and Froggy's friend Vera. Uh, she seems to be stationed pretty far from the main sequence of docking towns. So I guess the good news is we won't have to wait in the queue. Uh, the bad news is fuel in that outback won't be cheap.
Are there any bars
I wouldn't call any of what I'm seeing.
Bars? No. Hailey.
Ugh. Chin up.
We're gonna see Vera.
Vera, ugh.
Robert takes the scapegoat smoothly into port landing softly on the sand swept. Lot of light car research incorporated nearby are three domed buildings of concrete topped with satellites and antenna stacks of steel boxes are piled up along the lot. A loading bot quietly moves about the boxes, stacking them neatly.
The white desert of the planet stretches off to the. [00:06:00] Horizon where it meets the indigo sky. You lower the hatch of the scapegoat, fasten on your oxygen masks, no environmental as suits necessary. Pick up your oxygen tanks and strap them to your back and move out onto the sun baked tarmac of the landing bot birdsong and the sounds of insects surround you immediately.
This is a very lively place. Not at all what you pictured. When you thought about the great desert world, Sibil, you thought it would be a dead world, but it's obvious that this is a planet full of Flo and Fauna just waiting to be discovered. I. The loading bot ignores you as it moves past with a steel box almost stacking the box on Felix's foot right in front of your ship and then moving away.
Watch it. Russ. Bucket ball here. God, it's hot out here.
Felix. I'm pretty sure that was just your doctor buddy from the Space Gas station. Yeah.
Uh, [00:07:00] you gonna try to make a pass at her?
Oh, dare you. Also, that was not a robot on the space station. That was the story I told you last time. That a robot tried to make it with me.
Honestly, that all that you're saying now is that this has happened multiple times.
Yeah, that's what I'm hearing,
the accidental sub-routine and the robot at the gas station
It wasn't a
robot.
Felix, we can't keep all of your lovers straight. You're a romantic. You probably leave a string of women across the world wherever you leave.
Probably across the entire galaxy. Uh okay. Froggy.
I'm not saying that's Felix, but Dr. Voss watch out.
What do you mean watch out?
He has a type.
He
does.
She has a point.
And clearly it doesn't end well. I mean that robot just ran over his foot.
At least it's a robot foot.
Love
hurts.
Ha ha. Very funny Assholes.
Can we just get on with why we're here
as you're going back and forth? The only person that notices is Robert. You [00:08:00] notice that a woman exits out of one of the domed buildings. The woman starts to jog towards you. An oxygen mask clamped over her mouth, but she doesn't have it like strapped on. She's just holding it there with a pan, and her tank is slung casually over her shoulder.
She jogs towards you. She has brown hair and blue eyes. She wears dark clothing in a wide Grimm hat. As she strides up, you can hear something muffled coming out from underneath a mask and actually gets closer and everyone realizes that someone's coming. You hear, Hey. Who do you think you are? You can't just come down here and land on my lot.
I have three more days. Count 'em and she holds up a hand with three.
Whoa, whoa. Hang, hang on. I think there may be some sort of misunderstanding here.
Misunderstanding. I recognize a merchant, a merchant class ship. When I see one, I know who you're from. The auction is in three days. I know you're probably gonna win the auction, but you haven't won it yet.
Get off my property.
As intriguing as this auction is. No, I think you have us mistaken, and I [00:09:00] gesture towards froggy, who I assume is with us. I believe you know this man, Vera.
Is that you? Yeah. And then it dawns on her, you see her face relax and she says, Reggie, and he says, yes, Vera. And they embrace each other and give a big hug, and she says, Reggie, I didn't think I would ever speak to you again when the ExOne net went down on Wafi.
I thought that was it. How did you get off world?
He just gestures vaguely at, at the four of you, I kind of just look around at the rest of the crew like Reggie, and I'm like, Reggie, I just mouth the word Reggie. Who the
hell is Reggie? He gestures vaguely at you and he says, I, I met some people. Well, it's fantastic to see you, Reggie.
Please, all of you, come in. Come in. I'll give you all a drink and we can catch up. Oh, Reggie. And they, they walk away, you know, arms around each other, chatting back and forth a mile a minute. [00:10:00] Oh yeah. Vera,
we're gonna need to learn way more about Reginald over here.
Oh, so now you're interested in staying here, Robert.
I mean, he, he buried the lead, my boy, buried the lead. He's
less
interesting to me
now. Plus I heard something about drinks. And something about an auction. So let's see what we can find out about that.
So you all follow Vera and Reginald up to these concrete domes. There's three of 'em. She leads the way to one of the doorways and then she waits for you all to catch up.
She looks at you, waits, looks at you, waits. You guys are talking amongst each other. Then you guys are walking and then talking. She's talking to Froggy. She's waiting. Then when you guys finally catch up, she says it's very expensive to cool. The insides of these things, so we all have to go in pretty quickly.
She opens the door and you all move in and she snaps it shut behind you. This windowless concrete dome feels subterranean and it feels very, [00:11:00] very cool in here after being outside in like 105, 110 degree heat. Uh, what a relief. It sort of has the feeling of an Arctic research station a little bit. You feel like you just came in from like a very hostile place and now you're like.
Safe in this little cocoon on the edge of the world. In here, there is a gas stove, a long sandstone table. There's no art at all and there's hardly any objects or anything else in here, but there are quite a few boxes as though things have been packed up. One of the big steel crates is in here and you can see that she's been like putting smaller boxes inside of it.
She goes over to a water pitcher and she pours everyone some water. I take mine, I go so uh, going somewhere. Oh yeah. It hasn't been a good time here, but I, I mean, I'd rather hear about Reggie. Reggie, what have you been up to? I mean, we'd,
we, we'd love to hear about, uh, uh, Reggie as well. Reginald?
Yeah.
Reggie,
what have you been up to? So, froggy launches into a story. It's. Seems like he's [00:12:00] not gonna catch her up on everything since she left Afia, because up until just a few years ago, they were talking on the exo net apparently. So he basically tells her about how the radio tower broke down. He wasn't able to repair it, and then a couple years later, you four showed up.
And Felix was able to repair it those two years in the middle. He's sort of vague about, he was living in the radio station, he was sometimes going to Black Harbor to like trade or like get food when needed. And he did a lot of scavenging and made a lot of friends with vagrants and other people living on the outskirts of society.
But he seems to kind of like glaze all that over and he seems very resistant to giving any detail and he finishes his story and says, yeah, so. I've been living on the scapegoat. It's great. It's air conditioned. It's warm when it needs to be. It's quiet. I get to be alone and I can just kind of, well, I, I live in the cargo bay.
There's an access panel you can move aside, and there's a space in there. It's roomy. It's roomy. It's like 10 by [00:13:00] 10. Uh, the ceiling's only about four feet high. But I crawl in and I can sit and I can sleep. And I have a little crate with a little lamp and I bring my food in there. And so, yeah, me and Percy.
Oh, Percy's my cat, me and Percy just hang out in there all the time. And what, like, that's pretty much it. That's my life.
You,
you've had a cat on the ship.
Froggy What?
When did you get a cat?
You know, Percy?
No,
I really don't think we know Per uh a cat on our ship.
Yeah. Percy Percy's a great mouser Haven't you noticed there aren't any rats on the ship?
There weren't rats before
We're in space. Froggy.
Froggy. Did you bring rats on our ship?
There were rats. There were rats. Trust me,
they
were rats. You probably picked 'em up on Camiri four.
No, those were, those were, we told you froggy
this. Those were drift rats. That was a gang. They weren't real rats.
Oh, well I, okay.
Well, I got us a cat because of [00:14:00] all the rats.
Oh
my
God.
Where did you even get a cat?
The truck stop.
How is this the first time hearing about this
there
There were
no cats on the truck stop.
Not after I was done with it.
Well, actually I think they had a, I think they had a litter. I think they had a litter of cats and uh, yeah, I chose the cutest one.
So Reginald, how many cats did you bring onto our ship? I brought one cat.
How many kitten?
This was a kitten. This was a kitten, and now it's a cat man. You know, Vera, usually they're pretty quick, but I think I'm gonna have to teach 'em about the birds and the bees and things grow up. Things go from kitten to cat all the time.
I'm gonna have to, oh my God, it's gonna wreak havoc with the ship when the wire, oh my. And you know what,
I'm sorry, but like that, is that true that we had to go on at the fuel station? There was a lot of crazy stuff there. I personally feel very affected still to this day by what we witnessed and we brought back.
A living creature. What if it's been touched by the void?
I was gonna ask, um, have, have we done any like checks on [00:15:00] this to make sure it's not a demon cat?
I have done, I don't understand what you're talking about, but this is just a normal cat. With four legs, six tails, two tongues. No, I'm just kidding.
Vera.
Vera. Vera. Sorry. Sorry, Vera. This, um, we're so sorry to disturb you here, but I've been to Sybil and before, honestly, this is turning out to be a far more interesting trip than the last one already. But, um, do, do you have any alien artifacts? I understand that's a big thing here to help us figure out what is up with the cat that we apparently have.
Uh. You wanna know? Yeah. I mean, we ha I don't, I don't really, she kind of looks at the rest of you in flooring, like Yeah, we have alien artifacts. They, they're, they're not gonna be able to help you with your cat. I, I look over at Felix and I'm like,
you know, Felix, I'm actually kind of relieved because when you told me frog eat, chewed through all those cords.
In the cargo bay. I thought something was really wrong with him, but it's all starting to make sense [00:16:00] now.
Wait, hold on. No, Percy, just chewed through those cables because she was teething. That's it. She hasn't done that in forever.
Brody, we will deal with this when we get back
to the scapegoat.
And you know what, Robert Percy also drank the orange juice.
That's not true. Percy doesn't like orange juice. And I saw you do it.
And that was before we even gotta to the fuel station Haleyy
I tried.
Okay, so listen, listen, listen. Let's not forget why we're here, right? We need fuel.
The
auction
we need, we need fuel.
A wingman
for froggy,
No
we need fuel. And Dr. Voss here would like to analyze the alien artifacts.
So just a reminder, AI is common. Virtual intelligences don't exist. The or itself is an alien artifact that like her consciousness got trapped inside of. I know we haven't revisited that since like episode three or something. [00:17:00] So I just wanna like restate that, that she's a virtual intelligence, she's a straight up consciousness transfer into this alien artifact.
Stick. So you say that and you kind of like produce the orb, produce the orb, and Vera goes, oh, this is Dr. Voss, and the orb kind of like lights up a little bit as it talks. She doesn't always do that, but she can control like the lighting. So she does that when you know, in this particular case. Yes, I'm, I'm sorry for the intrusion.
My name is Dr. Voss. Uh, I'm afraid I'm two six to leave the ship. So this is my proxy. It has a camera, a microphone, and speakers, and Felix said he'd be kind enough to carry it around for me so I don't miss out on everything that's happening on Sid. I myself am a Zino linguist and I just couldn't pass up the chance to see what you might have here.
Uh, it's a rare treat for me, and I'm very sad that I can't leave the ship, but wow. This resource station's quite bare. What's happened? Well, I suppose it's my turn to catch Reginald up. [00:18:00] Since we last spoke, the company fell in hard times. First one, then two, then three locations were shut down. We were already a small company.
Eventually we were the only location left. This one Dick site, the whole C-Suite was gone. There was just an owner and he poured all the money he put into this dick site trying to save the company. It just didn't work. Corporations come and go, so he is putting the whole thing up for auction just a few days, which I cannot tell you how frustrating it is that just a few weeks ago, we made our biggest discovery.
Yet there are these buildings essentially a. These buildings from the Alien race, they're buried all over Slan and a bunch of PolyPhen as well. I'm sure you know. They're pretty hard to find and they're very rarely found. Most of them were found in the first year or two, but we found one and we own it.
It's on our dick site, so we laid claim to it, but we can't open the door. [00:19:00] Every trick that worked on PolyPhen and on Slan in years past. It's just not working with this. Door. Explosives have worked on some places that have been a bit more difficult to crack into, but we don't have the resources to uncover the entire building and without doing that, we can't know if our explosives are gonna, are gonna harm something inside of there, and I just cannot take that risk.
I'd rather the company go under and a new team come in and crack the door open properly to make sure none of these artifacts are destroyed. It's incredibly frustrating. I've spent the last few weeks trying to get in there and just, I just can't, and I knew if, if I could open that door and find some new artifacts that we could sell, the corporation could be saved.
I could get you a good deal on
a
laser cutter. It's resistant.
You know, I, I don't, I don't know why you even want save a corpo. I mean, I've never met a good one. She kind of just looks at you, doesn't know what to say, but, uh. What I'm hearing is valuable goods, alien artifacts, hidden away. I mean, that sounds attractive to me.[00:20:00]
That's a whole research station for sale. You can't, can't forget about that or I don't think we have the liquid assets to acquire a research station right now. Not with
that
attitude.
It's more than just a research station. It's gonna be all of LeCar Corporation and all of its holdings. It's probably not gonna go for very much, especially knowing what its actual value probably is.
My guess is that we'll sell for 1.2, maybe 1.3 million,
the thorn, unless you're hiding some, you know, credits that I haven't seen. I think we're better off focused on this alien, uh, building.
All right. Maybe
I'll
scrape something together, but, but
yeah,
maybe we'll check the building in the meantime.
Now, um, real quick, how much do you think, uh, our car is worth?
To the right buyer. That's the thing. First, we'd have to find someone willing to buy it. I don't know if there's many roads on this planet, but there is probably like a wealthy businessman lurking somewhere that would take it off world and enjoy it. That [00:21:00] is if we don't want to enjoy it ourselves anymore.
Unfortunately, the uh. The Loki pond packs we have are not getting us anywhere close.
Well, if there's a Loki Pond draft tournament, like I know you guys have been practicing on the ship.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we could make 1.2 mil.
I do have some basic trade goods that may be valuable this far out, but. Still nothing in, in that realm.
Voss cuts
in and says, you'll have to excuse my friends. I'm a, I'm afraid that I, if I could only leave the ship, I could probably keep them in order. It's like wrangling a bunch of cats sometimes.
One cat,
we don't just have one cat on the ship. We have five. What?
Oh. Is DJ Froggy, sorry, Reginald, less than a cat.
Uh, how, where's he factor in here?
Froggy
says,
I, I'm not a cat at all. I own a cat. Oh, you can't see Vera. You can't say anything to them. They just don't get it. You know, I'm telling you, I'm the smartest person on the ship easily. They really looked to me as like an older brother in a lot of ways.
I think we should leave him [00:22:00] here.
No, I mean, Vera, he's totally right. Uh, did you know he is the voice of the rebellion?
Oh, yes. Reginald, you were telling me that you were getting your radio station into a position where you could start transmitting. Details about certain things. Froggy says, oh well yeah, it didn't work out, so didn't work out.
Felix fit the station that I got shot in the chest and I decided to leave Wolffia.
Yeah, I mean, you didn't really decide to leave froggy. We kind of were forced to take you on board with us 'cause you were dead or dying. But you know. Yeah.
Yeah. So now I'm here. Yeah. Anyway, Voss cuts in again and she goes Anyway, what I wanted to ask you dear Vera, is if I could take a look at this doorway.
I, I'm a Xeno linguist myself. If there's any sort of markings or anything, perhaps I can help though. Of course, none of these alien artifacts have power. If they could be powered, we wouldn't have this problem. But maybe I'll notice something. And you have a group of [00:23:00] people who sort of by trade now are explorers.
They might notice something as well. And I'd be lying if I didn't say. I just wanna see the door. It sounds fantastic. I actually haven't seen one up close yet.
You're like five on the shit.
Yeah. Vos. Um, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you, uh, it sounds like a real cool door. I definitely think we should explore it, but girl, you don't have any hands.
I don't know what you're gonna do with her. I
don't think I'm gonna open the door, Robert. I just want to see it. You wouldn't understand. This is a pursuit of knowledge. This is the inquisitive mind, probing out for secrets Unknown.
And you also don't have eyes. If I'm gonna get technical, I have a camera.
You know, I, I'm a very technical mind if you didn't know, and
I have eyes, I'm on the, I'm remember I'm on the ship sick and I have two eyes, two, two ears. I have all the normal human parts on the ship. Okay.
Yeah. Robert And I like elbow Robert in the stomach. Really?
Right, right. Sorry, sorry, rat. So
I, that's great.
Dr. Voss, I think we should go look at the [00:24:00] door. Can we also get some fuel while we're here? Vera, do you have any fuel we could acquire from you? Reggie assured us that you would get us some fuel.
No, I didn't. No, I didn't. He, he's just shy. Vera says, uh, no. Don't have any fuel here. But you know, there's a support town nearby based sell fuel.
It'd be cheaper to just fly to the other side of the planet, but you're gonna have to wait in the queue. It's a couple days. How do we get to this town? Like
on foot? Do you have some sort of transportation? You fly your ship. Yeah, we'll have to
fly land there and get fueled up.
Yeah. It's just, it's like an hour away if you fly a few hours to the other side of the planet.
To the main, uh, trade hub. You'd have to wait in the queue for like a day or two.
Yeah, it was a bad looking queue when I, when we were up there, thorn. Yeah. I'm not
looking to go through any checkpoints right now.
Yeah. We're probably better off paying the dial back fee, but before we go, I want to check out the door.
Yes,
yes, yes. We know. Doc,
can we go [00:25:00] now? Nods. And then because she doesn't seem like she's sure, if Vos can see her nod, she says, yeah, let's, let's go finish your water and then let's head out. Chug,
chug, chug. Delicious.
We're
all readying to, to head out. I, I point at frog and I go, that fuel coming outta your paycheck.
Mm-hmm.
What? What? Wait. You guys are getting paychecks. Oh, I, I was thinking, um, well, we got out the door. Maybe ve and froggy, you two can, uh, have some time to catch up.
Robert is a good wing man.
Well, no, I'm gonna show you where the door is. You don't get any romantic feelings from the two of them at all.
That's, that makes it even more likely that Robert would try to force him to be together.
Exactly. But Vera's like, no. I'm gonna show you where the door is. They'll be rolling around in Grease together before we know it.
Ow that would be Robert and his future love interest. Well, he's showing him how, you know.
Yeah. He'll be like, let me take you to a, let me take you to a little place called Kami four. [00:26:00]
Guess the good grease.
You mean pho? Yeah. Do I mean pho?
Crimea four, I think is what you meant. Crime,
Fure. So everyone gets their oxygen masks. Uh, everyone has full, basically still full oxygen tanks. 'cause you were, you were only outside for 20 minutes max.
And she leads you out the door. Yeah. Let's go. How far is this? Our property is pretty small here. The dick site's only a few minutes. Walk away. Okay. So you go outside into the blasting sibil and heat this. The blue dwarf is just like blasting this like intense sundown on you. This luminance is very high.
It's like you feel like you're getting sunburned within a few minutes. So it makes sense that she's wearing long sleeves and gloves in a wide hat and she leads you off to the dick site. You approach a essentially one acre by one acre area that's covered in holes. Uh, some of them deep, some of them shallow, all of [00:27:00] them marked with a bevy of different colored flags.
There are steel ladders inside a bunch of the holes. There are crates outside of a bunch of them, these same steel crates that the construction bot was loading up. You can see its tracks in the sand here as well. It's apparently been going back and forth and getting whatever is from this area and, and loading it up for transport off this planet.
Probably in preparation for the auction, she leads you to a relatively untouched area of this acreage. And she says, well, we were working our way methodically through it. You know, we started in the southwest corner and we were gonna end in the northeast corner, and then we were gonna buy another plot, and another plot and another plot.
A lot of the plots around here are pretty much for sale. We're really far away from where the original alien artifacts were found. It's actually on the other side of the planet, so the pickings are pretty slim over here. Usually you're just gonna find like the stray tool or maybe some ancient randomness.
Nothing like an entire building. So that's [00:28:00] really how we've been like carving out our existence is by finding these tiny tools and like these markings. But then we found this and you crest a small rise. To see down a smooth sand ramp, a steel looking door embedded in the dune before you across the middle of it, are sweeping symbols, very tendril like as they work their way across like a horizontal band in the middle of the door.
The door appears to be about eight feet tall, and this takes up probably 18 inches. There are no like dots. Or like individual like markings that you'd see like on an I or like a lowercase j instead, it's more of like an uninterrupted cursive with extra like tendrils seeping off in like odd swirls and some underlines under like individual characters.
None of it seems to make any sense to any of you. And you move forward towards that door
just for my mental image, [00:29:00] um, as in like almost like an Arabic script.
I'd say that's accurate. I'd say it's very Arabic looking. Cool, cool. Well, what you have instead is you have Arabic letters stacked on top of other Arabic letters to make an individual letter.
So they're really tall, intricate letters that are, they're all 18 inches tall, and they look like they need all of that space just to make all of the markings that are required for like one section. If it could even be called a letter. Each marking might be one word, or maybe the aliens that created this place had no concept of letters and words, and this is something entirely different.
No one's ever really cracked that code. Very little is known about the aliens, almost essentially nothing. Seven years have gone by and there's just a lot of theories, but there's actually a lot of variance between different alien artifacts. It's almost like they're from completely different eras or even different species.
Except for that, there is one through line, through every place that's been found and that's been this writing. So it's been very confusing for the Xeno archeologists to sort of pinpoint exactly what [00:30:00] this species is, if they're even a species, where they came from, where they went, why they're not here anymore.
All of that is still a great mystery. I move up close to it, make sure Dr.
Voss has good views of it.
I was gonna say, luckily we have one of the finest z no linguists that ever did exist. Dr. Val, um, I, I mean, Felix Thorn. Y'all seen anything like
this? I've picked up quite a few languages in my day, but this is not like anything I've ever seen.
Yeah, no. I mean, I know lots of different computer languages. This doesn't look like anything I've ever seen you even digitally. Hey, what about you and your travels?
Honestly, I haven't met a closed door that couldn't be fixed with. Explosions of some kind. Um, so no. Yeah, I've not seen anything like this or run into this particular problem recently.
And,
and that language doesn't feel like it's from the void. And I look at Hailey and make like wiggly eyebrows. [00:31:00]
Vera says that's the second time you've said something like that to her. What is going on? What is the void? Don't worry about it, Farrah, I'll tell you when you're old. Let's avoid talking about that right now.
Okay. Invos. Felix, can you hold me up? I'd like to see the door a bit closer. Yep, yep, yep.
And I kind of hold her up and like slowly move her around, like where the writing is.
Oh, stop. I'm getting nauseous. Just keep me stationary a few feet away from the door.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Be more specific next time, please.
Oh, okay. This writing? Yeah. It's the same writing we've seen on other planets. PolyPhen. Wafi, uh. It's standard. We've never quite cracked it. I see many letters here that, or, you know, letters, sentences, words, thoughts, feelings, expressions, whatever they may be. I'm noticing the same patterns I've seen before.
So when I think back to some of these patterns in the places I've seen them on. Waa and PolyPhen. Well, it's [00:32:00] likely this is a place of healing. Some of these markings are exclusive to places. We found that on the inside appeared to have something to do with medical needs, emergency attention, hospice care, uh, at least to our interpretation once we got inside.
Oh, does anyone else hear that? Or is that just interference with my speakers?
Hear. Hear? What? What?
Oh, Felix, I don't feel right.
We come back to the ship. Dr. Voss.
Well, well wait, I, I, I by, I don't feel right. I mean, I don't feel normal. Or I do feel normal. I do feel, I feel right. I feel more right than I did before.
This body feels normal for the first time. I could feel something in there connecting with me, and suddenly the door slides open wearing a black corridor that slowly lights up with a blue [00:33:00] luminance. That seems to come from everywhere yet nowhere.
Amara, what did you do? I don't,
I dunno.
Vera steps forward and says, oh my God, this is incredible.
This might be the first example of alien technology actually activating. You have no idea what this means?
Well, I think it means it's time for us to check out what's in here. I hope it means some kind of additional compensation.
Yes, yes, of course. This is all gonna make us rich
here, here,
extremely rich.
But more than that, the research potential is unfathomable. This might be the greatest discovery of our lifetimes. And she reaches over and she grabs Robert Ross and starts swinging him around in her exuberance.
My God, I Absolute Vera. Yeah. Um, now, because currently your corporation is not worth a damn penny, um, and, but y'all need a little bit of technology, would you say this [00:34:00] discovery might be worth, oh, I don't know, at least 1.2 million.
I think this is gonna save the company. Uh, well wait. The discovery of the door doesn't mean anything. Mm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We can't sell that. It's just gonna make raddy rich. They're probably gonna win the auction. I don't have time to study the door. I don't have time to figure out anything about this. What we need to do, what I need to do is get in there and find something to sell very quickly.
And if it's a powered on item, it would be, it'd be worth billions. Oh my. It'd be worth more than we could imagine.
I can imagine.
Quite a bit.
Do you think it would be rat that that radon would, would get that compensation? Or would someone as Bri. As yourself, uh, might, might potentially be the person who would deserve this discovery.
Robert, I don't know, but I could tell you what I do know. I have three [00:35:00] days, oh, I'm gonna go back to the research station. I'm gonna grab some equipment, and I'm going in Right now, three days is hardly enough for the discovery of a lifetime, even if I lose everything. At least I've had the experience of seeing all of this first.
I know we're trying to get outta here quickly, but there's no way we can walk away from this. Now the potential profit is, I just, I can't, I need a minute.
I'm, I'm walk a couple steps away and just kind of crouch down, puts yeah, between his knees and does some deep breaths.
Billy with a BI
also need a minute, go over to Thorn and, uh, look him in the eyes and say We can't let her separate.
We can't let her go back. And, uh, quote unquote get some equipment and potentially phone radon or anybody else. This has to be us. If we wanna make any money on this,
maybe we should have someone go with her just to make sure, [00:36:00] uh, Vera, uh, before you go get your equipment, uh, Robert wants to, uh, just make sure that.
You don't run into any trouble on the way. So he is gonna go with you, right, Robert?
Uh, well am definitely not too dumb
for this task. Oh yeah. I don't care. Come on, let's go. You can lift some of the stuff I need. Exactly. And she sprints off across the, the sand. Don't let her outta your sight. Go have a damn chance.
Y'all, y'all, y'all get to explore him. Well, frog is there with you and he's like, man, this is gonna be so much fun. I can't wait to see what's in there. Wow. Vera was really happy. Did you see how happy she was? We're
all happy. Froggy. This is great. Yeah. Make a fortune
here. Oh, that's not what I heard. I didn't, I thought we were gonna go.
I thought we were gonna go in there. It looks, looks fun. It looks like there's like cool stuff. Probably alien stuff. Right? That's what I'm hearing. Cool. Robert. Vera leads you back to the research station. She picks up a really heavy, like explorer's [00:37:00] bandelier and hands it off to you. It has like a flashlight, multi-tool, a bunch of like, uh, like flares, random other stuff that she needs, a bunch of ropes, stuff like that.
And she says, Hey, put this on, uh, would be.
Uh, uh, I, yes, I do. Before I do, I check it for any potential booby traps and then slap it on.
Okay. Yeah, you give it a quick look. It's just a normal bandelier. I am so uncomfortably close to this woman. Where is all this suspicion coming from? I wanna know what's going, wait, what was that supposed to mean?
Yeah. What's going through Robert's head with Vera? He thinks she's gonna call Raddy. Yeah, I think And she's gonna be trapped her own equipment. Damn right. Well, yeah. Her name's right in it. VE ine
fell
differently and hold this black round sphere with a string coming out of it. Don't worry about the hissing sound, just hold it for a second.
She
wants to save this business. She doesn't want Verad dine to have it. [00:38:00] Uh, she picks up some, like another, like a work tool belt, and she replaces her wide brimmed hat for a hard hat with a, a light on the front. And she says, okay, I think that's all we need. And she sprints out the door.
Amazing. Vera, you are a wonder.
Uh, let's square dance on back to that door.
She's like a mile ahead of you. She sprints out the door and you're just in an empty room being like, Vera, you son of a gun. Are you talking to yourself?
I, I'm just sitting there doing a little jig. Ding,
ding, ding, ding, ding d So you, you follow her And, uh, in front of the door once again, she hands.
Walkie talkies to everyone and she says, okay, I'm going, you're all welcome to come with me. It's gonna be a hell of a time. I don't have my crew. We already laid all of them off. I'm actually the only employee left in the company besides that construction bot. And [00:39:00] the owner of course who isn't here. So I could certainly use your help and I could certainly, once we've made some money, the owner would be happy to pay you, I'm sure.
Until we figure out what secrets this place holds. Consider us your interim crew. In fact, while you were gone, I already took the liberty over writing something up. And then I hand her a contract and a pen.
She takes the contract from you looking puzzled and says, what's this?
Oh, it's just a little something that says our little group scapegoat, LLC is working under your supervision and that we're entitled to a small percentage of the sale of any discoveries at that auction.
And I can make a trade roll for that if you want.
Oh, very clever. Yeah. I think, uh, let's have you do a trade int Okay. Uh, that's. 11. Wow. Nice. Okay, so you absolutely crushed that. So she quickly skims the document, doesn't really see anything suspicious, so she signs it quickly and [00:40:00] gives you back the contract and the pen.
Yeah, nothing underhanded. I just figure this is even better than discussing the payment later. And so I take the contract, I sign it, I rip off the carbon copy and give it back to her with both our signatures on it. All right. Tell us what you need.
Ah, wonderful. Wonderful. Um, well, that's, that's great. She takes the rope off of Robert and she says, this is too much weight for one person, and she hands it to Hailey.
She goes, strap that across your chest. And then she goes on her own like. Work belt and she takes a bundle of flares and hands. A few to Felix and a few to thorn. Thanks. Sounds good Boss. Wouldn't it be funny if she was like, and my laser rifle froggy, you can have this
and Robert, you hold this large cartoon bomb.
I honestly believe she'd. I,
yeah, she
doesn't have a laser
rifle, so Well, but before we move in, I'm gonna kind of look down at AT or, and like ask her, are you okay? Huh? [00:41:00]
Yeah. Thanks for asking, Felix. I don't know. I only have one thing that I know and that. Is that I need to go in there. It's like, it's like having never breathed before, and now I'm finally breathing.
I have to understand what that means.
All right, well, if anything gets too much for you, you feel weird in a bad way, let me know. I will, Felix, thank you.
And the 4, 5, 6, 7 of you. The seven of you move off down the dark hallway.
And who's in front? No. Goes. Oh, it's froggy
Vera is like power walking. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She's so excited. She's like a kid in a candy shop. We gotta get
in front of her 'cause it,
yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick as close to Vera as possible, um, as. Fucking 'cause these two, I do not trust them, but I appreciate you and
Robert.
But I appreciate their excitement.
I feel like if she gets too far ahead, Robert tackles her and he is like, she's gonna call fear Orine, or she like reaches into a pocket and Hailey [00:42:00] like punches around, like she's got a gun, she's got a cartoon bomb was
gonna twist.
Ever since the cultist on the station, we've all been a little high strung that day.
So it sounds like you guys are fully prepared and moving into the Exo site, potentially the first powered Exo site. In the history of the sector. Unfortunately, that's all our time for tonight, so we will have to save that exploration for another time.
When I first heard that Froggy, uh, sorry, Reggie's friend was into Zeno stuff, I thought, eh, it couldn't hurt to meet her while we resupply. But damn it, if this didn't turn into quite the little opportunity, I'll admit it. I'm excited. A big auction to sell off, a newly discovered alien exo site. This is the kind of business young Thorn always dreamed about.
We gotta be careful about this though. Vera seems nice enough. It was lucky that she was so willing to strike a deal. Now, whatever treasure is waiting inside [00:43:00] is officially partially ours. Plus this contract might help us out in the long run. You'd be so. Surprised what a little red tape can do in the right hands.
If we manage to find anything good in there, that is the site's value is gonna skyrocket. If we do still, I'm worried despite our serendipity, there's still something gnawing at me. Haley's been distanced since scrap Jacks. Robert's been avoiding the subject. Voss is acting weird now. I don't like it.
There's more than alien ruins hiding under the surface of all of this. I just hope we can keep the upper hand. It's. Way too early to start counting our money. We don't even know if there's anything to find in there. All that's left is for scapegoat, LLC, to get to work.
I'd say this is a new repeat of the last time I was on Subin.
Help Corpio find something of value guard some suits. But here on the scapegoat we got a new normal and it's alien technology after that experience with the void. [00:44:00] Super excited to be back at it. Um, no, no disrespect to Vera or Voss. It's just. Dealing with the whole hand and tendrils situation. I would rather not run into that again.
But, you know, we signed up for this mission and we're gonna see it through thorn's, right? We could use the money that we're gonna get from this. Maybe we'll get some ship upgrades, like better Crew Quarters, maybe some updates to the surveillance system because honestly, how did we miss a cat? And what else is froggy hiding?
I was really hoping for a normal stop. I mean, after the void, I figured we'd maxed out our weird stuff happening. Guess not. Now. We're poking around an alien side, an active one, apparently. I like that. Not at all. And Vera, she knows more than she's telling us. I mean, I get it. She's excited. New data, new discoveries.
Maybe even saving her company. [00:45:00] Desperation makes people do ugly things. I've seen men stab their own sword. Brothers in the back. Betray people. They swore they'd never turn on. Froggy and I, we've had our moments show him, but he doesn't deserve that. He's still got some lot left in him, and I'm not letting anybody snuff that out.
I've got his back. I can rag on him. That's a lot like a little brother, but if someone else tries it, they just watch themselves. Oh, hell no. And then Voss plugs right into the door. Pops open. Yeah, it's going to be another one. Buckle up buttercup.
You know, I can't say I was expecting to be one of the first people to ever enter a powered alien facility, but damn, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited.
I mean, since nobody's ever encountered powered artifacts before, we just have no idea what kind of computer systems or electronic engineering these beans had dreamed up. We already know they were [00:46:00] capable of just amazing things thanks to, well, Dr. VA's sheer existence. So who. Knows what else we might find here.
I mean, there could be new methods of physical augmentation, ais or or VI, that hold the answers to what happened to this civilization. Maybe even a way to restore PD to get him out of that virtual hell he's trapped in. I know I can't count on it, but it is hard not to get my hopes up. But right now I just need to keep an eye on Elara.
Since she opened that door, she's been sounding different. I have to make sure she stays safe no matter what. Especially considering she might be our only way out of this place.
Every day a dark star adventure cast employee is forced to clean out the scapegoat septic tank. [00:47:00] The worst job imaginable. Pu this stinks. But thanks to generous patrons like Brad and Holly, our septic has never looked cleaner for just pennies a day, you can help keep the ship as clean as a drift rat's bee hole, and relieve the suffering of a hapless crewmate who's just trying to record a podcast.
But is being forced to clean the septic for totally plot related reasons. So don't be a dirty drift rat. Be like Brad and Holly. Keep the scapegoat clean at patreon.com/darkstar Adventure cast.
Wow, much better. Thanks, kind stranger.