Starforged Solo: Session 2

Arrival on Demeter, planetside settlement Hearth. Investigate the recent Balefire surge in the northern tundra.

From the Journal of Zaramirra Wolfe

My ship, The Phantom, settles down on the warmer southern side of the Demeterian tundra, the outskirts of the settlement Hearth. The Phantom’s old bones rattle as usual as the gate opens for us. My bot Ria and I descend the platform onto an open field. It’s been weeks since I’ve landed here, but it feels like a lifetime. I can’t remember a place so green, so lush and alive as it is here on Demeter. The smell of the trees and the berry bushes up ahead take me back to someplace that I imagine as good and comforting. But I have no real memory of such a place. I step through the dense grass toward the farm, following a quaint path marked with leaves and brambles.

Murad’s farm is impressive though haphazard. The crude construction of this collection of shacks, all of it fastened together by jagged pieces of salvaged ship metals, brings me out of my terran trance. I can’t let my guard down here. There are other women picking berries and collecting things in baskets. An older man in a straw hat runs by with a jug of what looks like drinking water. They all smile, but their gestures make me uneasy for some reason. I can’t pinpoint the source of my distaste. Murad has a reputation for drawing people under his wing, or self proclaimed tutelage, whatever he labels it for the given occasion. I have vowed that I won’t be the next victim in whatever it is he’s doing here. I’m not quite sure how it is that he’s become the only one I can now trust. 

Another one of the workers on the farm, a woman in a long cloth dress, waves to me cheerily as I get close to the main building — one built up of long steel, much higher than the others that surround it — her smile is off-putting like the others. The shadow of the building does nothing to help ease my mind. Ria takes note of the peoples’ faces and expressions like I told her to do so. She can do it in such a way that nobody is the wiser. There are Keepers hiding in plain sight. I would do better to be on my guard by whatever means possible. 

Meeting with Murad: he greets me at his compound headquarters — Arkadia he is calling it now — and is wearing one of his ridiculously gaudy and long flowing silk robes. His hair is always perfectly combed and glistening, and his skin darkened by the perfect sun over the southern tundra. His crooked, berry stained teeth are the only things that show signs of a flaw. I take note of this as always, not letting myself get too distracted by the illusions Arkadia tends to cast. 

We discuss the recent occurrences of Balefire and the location of the excavation site where Murad and his field team discovered the alien tech. It’s too dangerous with the Keepers afoot to move it out of there. He says it would be worth both our whiles if I was to take my survey bot into the tundra and acquire some data to back it up. It’s too dangerous to risk his farm over it. He knows how I like the Balefire storms, he says it in way that makes my skin crawl. I don’t outwardly wince. I’ll at least give him some credit for knowing my weakness for these kinds of finds. I agree to head into the tundra that day. He agrees to lend me a hoverbike for transport. 

*start a quest for the alien tech and Balefire samples

I leave as soon as I can to begin my expedition in the tundra. (undertake an expedition)