LogOnyx Reach-Jason-6

Game log for the 2026/09/27 session of Starforged - The Onyx Reach, as taken by Jason

Johannes brings the Terminus Clipper into the valley as Geneva, JP, PJ, and Dex gather near the airlock. JP makes hovering next to a cliff face look easy. Dex makes the jump without a problem. JP and Geneva jump after him, but the cave mouth where they land begins to crumble. Geneva begins to slide down, and JP grabs for her. He grabs one of the straps on her survival gear and hauls her up. No harm done, but picking up them up from the ship at the cave mouth is going to be tricky.

JP sends PJ into the cave to see what can be seen. The sprite begins mapping out the cave with LIDAR (or whatever) and sending it to his template. It finds something close enough to human-shaped that it sends a video feed. This individual is sitting in the dark, with smoldering embers nearby, aiming a rifle down the corridor. He's far enough down the cave that it's all completely dark.

Dex calls out, "Hey dude, are you OK? We can help you." Big Jim Slade, if that's him, does not respond. Dex low crawls closer, hugging one of the walls, hoping to get close enough for conversation. They eventually exchange a few words, in which the quarry admits to being BJS. Dex name-drops Diana Cantwell, but Slade denies knowing the name, and insists that nobody can come any closer. Dex tries to talk him around but Slade just assumes he's a bounty hunter sent to grab him. Dex starts backing up so he can whisper with JP and Geneva.

JP uses PJ to distract Slade while they rush in on him. Dex is in the lead, and slams a shoulder into him. Slade has his gun but gets knocked onto his ass. JP tries to get to Slade's gun, but Slade shoots him instead, though it only grazes him, and also shoots at Dex, who catches some frag. JP responds by drawing his gun and delivering suppressive fire. Dex leaps on him, puts him into a choke hold, and calls for JP to stop shooting and help bind Slade.

Geneva is able to treat JP's wounds. Dex turns a light on and searches the area. Big Jim had a camp stove, some dried mycellium, and Dex can also see some fresh fungus. Slade also has a bedroll and other camp supplies, and seems to have made himself at home over the past few weeks. When Dex asks, Jim admits that he's on this world for the mushrooms. He thinks they help his Seer abilities. He looks emphatically at his notebook to prove the point, and it certainly contains a lot of ... content. He thinks he's figured something out that the science station wasn't able to calculate, thanks to the fungus he ate. They call Johannes for pickup, and the pilot asks if Slade knows any other way out of these caves. Slade is disinclined to answer questions.

Johannes sends Bernie to the roof, and tries to bring the Clipper in close to the cliff so that they could jump onto the roof. Baxton scans to see if there might be a cave exit up top, such that the shore party could climb up and board the ship more easily. There is not. THe top of the cliff is so rough that boarding there is hardly easier, and they'd have to climb up first. Slade has rope, which will at least let them lower themselves down the cliff to the ship. Dex starts lowering JP down, and then lowers Big Jim Slade. Slade, still bound, starts to roll across the top of the ship, and JP has to go running after him, almost forgetting to clip in in the process.

Braxton charts a safe course back to New Hades, and Geneva analyzes the fungus on the way. The crew also determines that whatever BJS was doing, his math seems accurate. Interesting. When the Clipper syncs up with system comms, it gets priority landing clearance. Someone is happy to see us! We set up to take poor ol' Big Jim to the Crimson Seers. Dex starts the process by seeking out Talmadge to deliver the good news.

When he sees Dex, Talmadge sends his intern away, and greets him cordially. The Seer wants to transfer the prisoner without any fuss over station law, so Geneva sedates him and the Seers come to get him. They seem entirely satisfied with the deal, and do not seem concerned about the possibility that Dex and his friends might be guilty of bounty hunting without a license. Dex's book turns out to be a nav log from a Crimson Seer who was navigator on an exploration vessel that went out into the Expanse and found... something. Something Precursor? Something untranslateable, anyway, because the descriptions don't make any sense. They talk about the interrelation of gravity and time in a way that contradicts our known laws of physics. Geneva decodes Slade's notebook, and discovers it's about a nebula in Cygnus Deep. He found anomalies in the movement of stellar bodies and gasses within the nebula, with odd Doppler shifts and unexpected occlusions. Slade thought there was a mass in the nebula that emmitted no light but had enough gravity to influence all the other bodies in the area.

Braxton's leg should be ready back on Quartos, so that's worth doing, but first, Johannes wants to resupply. Dex repairs Bernie. Johannes starts to connect with the community at New Hades. As part of this bonding experience, he discovers that the pirates are sniffing around again, and the station doesn't have much in the way of defenses. The crew of the Clipper swear to boost the station defenses, so we can go off on exploration voyages with a clear conscience. He's thinking about that one planet (Tinian's Run) with the creepy crawly bug and the abandoned outpost. There might be defenses there. We head for Tinian's Run.

At our first waypoint, we come out into a wreckage field. It's pulverized, not obviously valuable salvage, but this is evidence of some sort of calamity in the deep past. This makes a great place to lie low and wait for the drive to recharge. As the ship prepares to jump again, the drive goes haywire. It doesn't jump on command, and it keeps charging. Johannes tries to head out of the debris field to buy time for repairs, but in his haste, he bounces the Terminus Clipper off some debris. One large piece of debris cracks the cockpit viewport. Eventually, though, McInnes finds a flow state and begins flying smoothly, while Dex repairs the drive and gets it online before it pops. It seems like some sort of organism crawled into a condenser and got fried there. When they do jump, though, they find themselves someplace new. They're above the ecliptic in a dead system where the main star has burnt out, but a gas giant is just beginning its descent into ignition. It's sending out brief bursts of superheated gases, huge surges arcing as the planet contracts. In his private notes, Leehau labels this waypoint as Katy, which was his daughter's name.

Arriving at Tinian's Run, we find Cerberus has a ship docked.