One Of Our Mechs Is Missing

Incoming Transmission
Source Identifier: Farthest Reach, Craruan Defence Force
Destination Identifier: TE3-Firebrand#Her Glorious Command#Starlight Ebbing#Muse IX#Endeavour#Unquiet Journey#*
Subject: Tracking/salvage operation requires explorers, engineers, or similar
Message Begins

For the attention of all able mercenaries, explorers, experienced individuals capable of wilderness survival and salvage:

The Craruan Defence Force requires the assistance of the fleet in locating a missing mech, which went off course whilst on patrol in the Craruan tidelands some days ago.

Due to the potential hazards of the area, sending further mechs, air, or spacecraft is ill-advised. The CDF need experienced hands who are capable of travel through the Sirutan wilderness, finding a missing and potentially downed mech, and understanding and ideally retrieving the mech when they find it.

Compensation will be provided.

• Last Resort - Katie
• Temporary Impulse - Susannah
• Wretched Export - James

• The party met with Farthest Reach, the Various leader of the Craruan Defence Force, in the CDF mech hangar on the beach near the Craruan capital of Armour Bay
• They were briefed about the mech, Thundering Storm, which had gone missing on patrol, and given directions and a map to West Bluff, where the mech’s patrol had begun
• During the briefing a Scourge attack alarm was issued, and the mechs began mobilising around them; a few critters got in, and the mechs occasionally stomped around them, knocking them to the ground, before eventually one managed to stomp accurately and squish the remaining monsters
• The party set out on foot to make the trip to West Bluff, dealing with an assortment of critters on the way, including some cliff eels
• The party were briefed by 41C Dependable Ordnance, the garrison commander at West bluff, in the officers’ mess, where they were given scanners and the transponder codes for the emergency beacons, some information about the missing mecha and its pilots, and shown plans of the mecha
• They walked for a day or so before finally coming into range of the emergency beacons. They were discussing ways to safely fort up in order to do the triangulation scanning, when they were attacked by sandsharks.
• They successfully fought off the sandsharks long enough to gather the triangulation data, and between Impulse and Resort, were able to bodge one of the scanners into a device which could repel sandsharks, though they did break it, and Resort’s IFF module, a little in the process
• They tracked down the black box recorder and one of the pilots, and fought off some Sand Sharks of Unusual Size, as well as some slime creatures which could distort vision and electrical equipment, before rescuing the pilot, Happy Accident,
• Accident corroborated the black box evidence that suggested the mech had been bitten by something, then its scanners and sensors had gone very weird, there were conflicting reports that it might have unexpectedly entered water, and the emergency eject buttons were pushed, however, the other pilot, Dangerous Quest, was still missing. The Thing Repulsor was retuned to work on Glitchy things, Resort was able to make a cryo suspension system into a cryo sword, and Impulse was able to convince the black box recorder to record the rest of their mission
• They were able to follow the mech tracks to the downed mecha, which had fallen head down into shallow water and over the following days, gradually been sinking, eventually leaving only its feet exposed
• They made their way in through the mech’s feet, fighting off acidic, electric, and glitchy slimes, as well as hazardous parts of the broken mecha, before entering the mech’s power core
• In the power core they fought off more small slimes and one particularly large slime which was repeatedly repulsed, before splitting into two smaller slimes, and eventually causing a lasting distortion effect to Resort’s sensory systems. The power core was slightly damaged, but Impulse was able to MEND it to keep it in a functional state
• Export was able to not only fix Resort’s sensors, but temporarily upgrade them to be able to see through walls.
• They made their way through the neck of the mech, past more malfunctioning elements, and a defence turret which could not be convinced that Resort was a person and not an enemy, before entering the head
• In the head they found Dangerous Quest who was delirious from a long confinement and trapped under his console, which had failed to completely eject during the accident.
• Resort was able to see through the walls to identify the oncoming Scourge which was about to begin eating the mecha
• They freed Quest and ran out through the mecha as it was being gradually eaten by a ring of absolutely enormous teeth, pausing only to activate the power core’s self destruct mechanism, before fleeing through the leg, just in time to exit the foot door in a blast of flame and steam before the mech was swallowed, then exploded.
• Collecting Accident, they were able to return to West Bluff without significant incident.

• The Scourge Admiral Wiggles was destroyed or temporarily disabled, and (unless Impulse decides otherwise) the CDF have a sample of the glitchy slime creature which caused the problem, and can use it to armour their mechs against the issue in future, rendering the patrol route… not safe, but at least not any more dangerous than usual, and the patrols can restart.
• The party makes their reports to the CDF, and whilst Ordnance is somewhat dubious about what happened to the scanner given to Resort, the reports and the black box recording don’t obviously show Resort doing anything untoward, so they don’t face any consequences for intentionally breaking the scanner
• Resort is able to assist Impulse in making the temporary Thing Repulsor permanent.
• Export (and the rest of the party if they wish) is able to hang out on Siruta for a couple of weeks until Quest and Accident’s combined retirement/graduation party, and enjoy several rounds of free drinks on the West Bluff garrison’s budget for having taken out (hopefully permanently) a new Scourge.

• Breakdown of consequences for characters - rewards, effects, contacts.
• Also mention any wider consequences for the world

• 3 Clout with CDF or associated ship heart, 2 Clout with any other Sirutan faction or ship heart, or 1 Clout with any faction of your choice
• The slightly dubious honour of having named a Scourge ‘Admiral Wiggles’. The more serious among the CDF absolutely hate the name, but the more chill think it’s pretty good to be honest.
• The much less dubious honour of having fought off and potentially (hopefully) killed Admiral Wiggles, which affords some significant admiration among Craruans in general and CDF members in particular. You might be able to parlay this into slightly better access to Craruan or CDF facilities or people, though it's not worth a whole Clout.

• A Thing Repulsor attachment for her Adaptive Scanner: after scanning a downed enemy using Adaptive Scanner you gain 1 use per encounter of YOU: PUSH against any target matching the attribute you chose - though you will need to SCAN to determine what you can target. You can gain a further use of YOU: PUSH against such a target by spending 10 seconds loading your Thing Repulsor, at the cost of losing your scan data, meaning you will not be able to SCAN for that property for the rest of the encounter, and will have to re-use Adaptive Scanner to re-start the Thing Repulsor.

• Assorted genuine Craruan Mech parts, which were given to ACE’s org, in exchange they offered a number of Chips equal to about a Clout’s worth. (+1 clout with ACE's Organisation, or a solid week of gambling at the casinos if you prefer!)