The party went to the Rocket Punch Tavern to follow up on rumours, meeting some of the locals. Serendipity left with a decent sized flask of Rocket Punch, which appeared to be mostly raw ethanol with a relatively small amount of fruit juice.
They trekked to the Craruan border, being marginally impinged by crabs, and later very impinged by the Modular Enforcement Network Instances guarding the border from Scourge incursions. Having eventually defeated the Instance (at the cost of a Severe Injury to Faulty Banks) Serendipity hacked into it and left an angry comment in the code for the operators about their failsafes. The party also noted a drone going off to the west.
They then arrived in an unnamed oceanside settlement, little more than a wharf and some warehouses really, where Relaxation talked his way onto the quite posh, quite new, quite well-armed boat of someone who was hunting the Bulk as well, and agreed to make Relaxation the first mate, given Relaxation’s evident experience with this kind of thing.
Setting sail on their newly-acquired ship they continued north out of Craruan territory into the wilds of Siruta, and were assaulted by Squeeple, who proved a tough but eventually winnable fight. Serendipity condensed some of the Squeeple’s blood into a serum allowing two people to interconnect and heal one another.
Reaching a substantial island to the north, they sailed along the cost until they found a wrecked ship. Their host planned to land, so they landed as well, and went their separate ways on their separate hunts. Investigating the ship, they found that it looked like a broadly spherical scoop had been taken out of the hundred-plus-year-old wreck, which was rotten but not Decayed, but weirdly, it looked to have been carved away by people with tools. They also noted odd moving rocks which exploded at the slighted provocation, a trail of which led deeper inland. Serendipity used the remaining Rocket Punch to blow up the sandshark nest, and this triggered the brief appearance of an absolutely enormous sandshark, briefly.
They next came across the Decayed remnants of a mechanoid of some sort, a slow, crawling hulk with two long, tentacled arms tipped with vicious claws. The Decayed entity managed to take down Banks, who found themself feeling a little weird once got back up, but with persistence they were able to defeat the creature and its annoying minion. Continuing to follow the trail of exploding rocks, they were able to knock one out, and identify it as a dog-sized, crab-like creature, but didn’t poke it any further.
Continuing inland they found a large, open area positively filled with weird glowing rocks, some of which turned out to be exploding creatures. There was also a huge, horse-to-elephant-sized glowing crablike creature, with huge glowing pustules on its back. Eventually taking the beast down, Banks was able to Scan it, and discovered as a result that it was a Scourgeling. Relaxation made an exploding sword from its remains at the cost of only most of his hair and a good chunk of his clothing catching fire.
Then a concerned local, an Independent captain named Sunward Sail, hove into view with a small complement of his crew, including someone who the PCs recognised from North Ridge. Sail was definitely just checking up on the PCs having heard the big explosion from the larger Scourgeling dying. Definitely. But suitably persuaded that the PCs were fine, thank you, and that they hadn’t encountered the Bulk yet, they left.
Finally, the PCs tracked down the Bulk and after a long and difficult fight, were able to finally kill it - or just trigger it to explode? Maybe? Serendipity certainly saw a remnant of it, which drone footage suggested looked like its great, heavily-mandibled head, rocketing away on a ballistic trajectory, tens of miles or more to the north. The explosion left behind a huge crater of crystallised Scourge blood (crystal scrum), and attracted a range of local wildife, as well a knocking Banks unconscious whilst embedding crystal scrum into them.
Serendipity and Relaxation gathered what crystal scrum they could carry and watched on whilst Banks was assimilated by the Squeeple, before leaving, passing the pirates who were waiting in ambush by using Warp. Confronted by the horrifying sight leaving the crater behind them, Sunward Sail also sacrificed his crewman to flee.
Both non-squeeplised PCs holed up in separate caves nearby, and each sent their drone back to the crater to harvest more crystal scrum. Relaxation focussed on speed, and arrived back at the ship early, but chased, and his drone got slightly squiddified, whilst Serendipity focussed on stealth and was slower, but safer. Fortunately, she was able to communicate with the ship to prevent Relaxation leaving without her.
Holding off the Squeeple with the ship’s guns, Relaxation waited for Serendipity to return before they both departed, leaving Banks to the Squeeple.