Game 15 - Flame On! - 28th June 2021

Captain's Log Stardate 57750.01

Mission Directives

Take control of the Iconian gateway
Don’t inflame the political situation any further

It's Feeding Time!

We tentatively moved through the door to the north-west. We came into a corridor that was in a poor state of repair. Atolian had warned us that nothing good awaited us here. We carefully moved through another door into an office. In here we spied another pool of black oil, malingering and evil. Atolian remarked that the oil was afraid of him and he was able to use his nanites to to disperse us. Through another door, we discovered a perversion of a sick bay. Several inmates of the prison were crowded around what appeared to be the body of a guard. They were feasting upon his rotting remains. They appeared to have been corrupted by some outside force and had sharpened teeth and claws for fingernails which they used to pick the remaining flesh from the bones. I was nauseated at this and so Tren took control of the situation, ordering the inmates to be stunned. After stunning them, we bound them as best we could and sealed them in this room.

Shrelia, Empress Of The Andorians

We moved upstairs through a corridor. We came upon another pair of glassy-eyed inmates, corrupted as the others had been. We easily stunned them again and moved them into the secure area. Little could prepare us for the next sight. As we entered a large, cross-shaped antechamber, we discovered a group of slavering inmates wandering aimlessly around some kind of macabre, make-shift idol. The idol was composed entirely of Andorian arms. Again, we simply stunned and secured the inmates.

Atolian led us into the main dormitory area of the prison where we found fourteen or fifteen inmates. We were extremely cautious entering this room. We were approach by a half-starved, corrupted Andorian named Shrelia. Her "attendants" threw rotted flowers in her path. Shrelia seems to believe she was the royal ruler of Andoria. Had the setting not been so sickening, this could almost have been funny. She seemed very accepting of her new "subjects". We asked here about the deaths of the guards. She believed that a "creature" that could assume many forms was responsible for the deaths of the guards. She gave us a royal edict to track down and destroy the creature.

Mortuary

Hoping to gain Shrelia's favour, we moved back downstairs to complete our search of the building.

On the other side of the building we found the bathrooms and a makeshift mortuary. It looked like someone had attempted to carry out an autopsy, however, now another group of inmates were feasting upon the patient. As the inmates seemed reasonably passive, we were easily able to stun them and imprison them with the others.

Outside the mortuary, the corridor came to an abrupt halt. We scanned the end of the hallway and discovered a hidden Neutronium door. Atolian confirmed that it was through this door that the mining had been taking place. We were unable to discover the opening mechanism for the door.

Flamethrower

We returned upstairs and investigate the final door we had not tried. Inside we discovered several prison cells and a screaming Andorian inmate. "Die! It is the creature! Die!" he was shouting as he used a flamethrower (presumably a mining tool) on his poor inmate comrade. Thavliss was at the head of our crew, and he started shooting. The inmate turned and covered Thavliss in fire! Thavliss hit the ground and we dispatched the inmate. Fast-thinking, Ana transformed into her natural state and smothered the flames around Thavliss, thus saving his life. Tren picked up the flamethrower.

The Creature

We had not thoroughly searched the dormitory earlier and so we returned there, having nowhere left to search. On the right, just inside the door was a small bedroom in which an Andorian inmate was creating an ice sculpture. She was creating something in the very image of the creature Ram'laza that we encountered on Romulus! We sprang into action just as she turned to us with dead, black eyes and said, "I saw an angel in the ice and carved until I set it free." I couldn't help but notice how pale Roh went at this. Before our eyes her body seemed to split apart as though she was taking off a foul costume and she transformed into a hideous, tentacled thing.

Thavliss again led the fight, but it was Tren who was mortally wounded by a strike from the creature. It almost tore out his throat, and were it not for the goodly ministrations of Roh, we would no longer have a First Officer! Roh grabbed at the flamethrower and poured its firey purity onto the abomination. It screamed a sounds I shall not forget until the end of my days, and the stench of its burning flesh! But the creature was defeated, and we tended to our wounded.

And the adventure continues...