As a result of their investigations during
Package Management, as well as some Starsighted dreams shortly before setting out, Manifold Ghosts has a list of the exotic components they require to complete the Mytene Various Forge, and some leads on where to source most of them.
Red Nine talks to Aces High's organisation before setting out. Ace has enough problems on her plate right now with the ongoing war, but is aware that the Myteneans had been trying to stick their noses into the war as a means to gain clout with the Galactic Cooperation, and this new Forge is scheme in the same vein. Perhaps if there were a way to leverage this? Red persuades Ace to provide her with a rudimentary remote control device, which could be used for future leverage if included in the Forge somehow.
The party start out by heading to Ace's World, as there are opportunities to obtain the THiNK and MedPod here.
After being savaged by a migrating flock of Goosehawks (Geesehawk?), the party arrive at Whistle Stop Town to find it abandoned and ravaged by the war - a recent development, as the town was fine the last time Ghosts was here.
Micro Management's Battle Arcade is still standing, but guarded by l33tsp33k-uttering robots which appear to have been fending off bandits here to scavenge the aftermath.
Getting past the robot defences, the party find a single hacker in the arcade, hooked into the holodeck and playing a game. Rather than interrogate the hacker and risk having to bargain for the holodeck - which contains the supercomputer they are after to act as the 'THiNK' component - the party knock out the hacker and simply take the holodeck.
Outside, the remaining robotic defences engage some bandits, which the party also engage. When the bandits are dealt with, Ghosts interrogates them, and discovers that a rival group of bandits stole the Ace's Organisation MedPod when it was recently brought through Whistle Stop Town on the way to help with the war effort.
While Ghosts is distracted with the bandits, Red subtly attaches their Ace remote inside the supercomputer.
The party arrange for the supercomputer to be extracted to the spaceport by some Mytenean agents, while they go looking for the bandit group that took the MedPod. Tracks lead out of Whistle Stop Town towards the boundaries of the protection provided by the Ace's World ship heart. This leads the party to worry that the MedPod has been taken into Decay, where it would surely be destroyed.
Bandits run in from the Decay, pursued by the decaying remnants of their land vehicle. Interrogation reveals that the bandits drove into the Decay because they thought they would be safe - their bandit clan has somehow come into possession of a ship heart of their own called 'Sixy' which is strapped to one of the clan's vehicles, and they rove the wasteland under its protection. This is the clan that stole the MedPod.
The party set out into the Decay, following vehicle tracks. They defeat more decaying vehicle remnants, and eventually find the bandit convoy, which is indeed lead by a ship heart strapped to the front of the truck. While some bandits affectionately call it 'Sixy', its name is in fact 'Keter 6a', and it has some serious problems. It has declared itself the 'true' seed ship heart of the moon, and has a one-sided nemesis-ship with the Ace's World ship heart as a result, which it dubs a 'pretender'. While Keter 6a is as powerful as any other ship heart, its intense pride means it will not use its power to help itself, and has instead been building a band of loyal followers to carry out its objectives - namely sowing general chaos against Ace's World.
The party engage the bandits, at which point Keter 6a's chief mystic Reality Swaps the encounter elsewhere to keep 6a safe from the fighting. When the bandits are defeated and the world swaps back, the party take both the ship heart and the MedPod they originally came for. While Keter 6a would be entirely capable of stopping the party on its own, its pride remains too much, and it instead spends the journey back to Ace's World being angry at the party.
There is a brief tension as the party re-enter Ace's World's influence and the ship heart auras overlap. Manifold Ghosts stays with 6a at the border while Red Nine goes to negotiate with Ace's High to be able to take the MedPod away.
After negotiations, Ace's High gives permission for the MedPod to be taken and used in the Mytene Various Forge on the condition that she gets a major stake in the new forge, as well as favourable treatment in any further Mytenean attempts to bring the Ace-Altarian war to an end. Red Nine agrees to make this happen.
The party travel to Mytene, taking the supercomputer and MedPod. They also take Keter 6a, which Red Nine ejects from the ship as they pass the moon Keter 6b. The jealous ship heart crash lands on the uninhabitable moon.
On Mytene, the party rendezvous with Forever Depth and debrief them on what has happened so far. Depth is able to provide directions for how to access Mytene's seed ship heart to collect the Terraforming Residue, as well as suitable containers to hold it. The site has been heavily built over since the founding days of Mytene, but is accessible via the old sewer system.
The party make their way through the sewers, fighting past amphibious Ikthyds which have made their home here, before eventually finding a cave system that leads to a medium-sized chamber. The rock walls of the chamber are laced with a dark, sticky substance: Terraforming Residue, left over from the terraforming process that was centred here long ago. The party gather as much residue as they can while fending off waves of Ikthyds, then make their escape back to the surface.
The party then set off in search of some Extract, heading to the coordinates that Manifold Ghosts
previously obtained from the
Unquiet Journey. This brings them to a small warehouse near the edge of ship heart range in Mytenea - perhaps not the manufacturing facility one might have expected.
The warehouse is staffed by a single individual, who is being harassed by some Aspexx representatives who are keen to buy the operation, despite it not being for sale. The party evict the Aspexx intruders, and talk to the staffer who goes by the name Copper Tea. Tea explains that:
The Extract is produced at a 'shelter' outside of ship heart range, then delivered here for distribution to the Unquiet Journey (their only customer at present, who consume everything they produce and demand more)
The Extract is produced by 'magic' that Tea does not fully understand - the party would need to ask 'The Yonderer' who operates the shelter, who is apparently a member of 'some kind of ancient cult' (Tea is not a member, just a paid sales and admin assistant)
Aspexx have been harassing this cult to give up their secrets since forever, since Aspexx are unable to reproduce the Extract in their laboratories
It is not trivial to increase production of The Extract - the Unquiet Journey has been asking for ages and the short answer is 'no'; the long answer is 'when the Yonderer says so'
Copper Tea is persuaded to provide the party with the location of the shelter, which the party set out to find in the hopes of being able to source more Extract. After battling through some decay monsters, the party are able to locate this shelter.
Here the party meet Yondering Mountain (and their pet guard Raktors), who had apparently foreseen the party's arrival. They are able to explain more about how The Extract is produced:
Here on Mytene, The Extract is extracted from special cave slugs - physically indistinguishable from regular cave slugs, but Yondering Mountain receives 'Yondering visions' which direct them towards which slugs are the correct ones to pick
In other systems, the creatures are different but the process is the same - 'Yonderers' spread out across the galaxy, following their visions to the appropriate creatures
Trading the produced Extract to the Various Forges funds the mission of the Yonderers to protect these blessed creatures
Breeding the 'special' slugs will (generally) not produce a 'special' child slug - it is up to the universe to bestow its gifts upon the creatures it chooses
This is why it is not trivial to increase output of The Extract - the only way is for 'the Yondering Star to will it so'
Therefore, if the party want more Extract they will need to wait for the stars to align - or learn to share the limited supply with each other, or find some other means to stretch the limited supply
This is not the answer the party were looking for, as it effectively confirms there is no way to increase Extract production. However, Red Nine is struck by an idea, and uses an Intervention to try to bestow upon the mind of some individual on Ace's World with a vision of where they might find a blessed creature. Only time will tell what effect this had!
Before leaving, the party are at least able to obtain a small quantity of Extract from Yondering Mountain.
The party return to Mytenea, and reconvene with Forever Depth at the Forge construction site. They have now obtained a suitable supercomputer, a MedPod, and sufficient Terraforming Residue to construct the Forge. They also have a small amount of Extract to fuel a few augmentations. The final component, 'the Sacrifice', still eludes understanding, but Forever Depth suggests that maybe this will become clearer once the other components have been installed.
It is unclear exactly how construction should proceed, but Manifold Ghosts works with the Mytenean Industrial Core scientists to puzzle it out.
First the supercomputer and MedPod are hooked up to the existing facility.
It is then suggested that the supercomputer could be used to analyse the Terraforming Residue to determine its purpose - analysis equipment is hooked up for this purpose, and after a while it is determined that the Residue provides a rich tapestry of biological analysis at the molecular scale which the supercomputer could cross-reference with any biological questions it sought to answer.
As next steps are discussed, one of the scientists poses the question of whether a Various Forge is, in itself, Various. This eventually leads to the suggestion that maybe a component of organic flesh is required. Perhaps this is 'The Sacrifice'? Manifold Ghosts gouges out a portion of their flesh, severely injuring themselves in the process, and places this within the MedPod to sustain it.
In furtherance of this, and in order to get them out of her head before they cause real problems, Red Nine uses an Intervention to transfer the large number of 'souls' hosted in her mind from previous exploits into the Forge Core.
The pieces are now all in place. To finish the Forge Core and seal it from the outside world, Manifold Ghosts tinkers. This goes less well than hoped: the end result is a success, but there are many consequences.