The Call

Incoming Transmission
Source Identifier: X. Worshipful Portent, Mystic Divine # Her Glorious Command
Destination Identifier: TE3-Firebrand#Her Glorious Command#Starlight Ebbing#Muse IX#Endeavour#Unquiet Journey#*
Subject: Rescue Operation
Message Begins

To those who follow the light of the Ship Hearts through the dark,

Her Glorious Command has opened our ears to a call we must answer, a plea for help from deep beneath the ice of Kylal. The Mystics Divine seek those who would delve on our behalf, to follow the call, and uncover the fortuitous discovery Her Glorious Command compels us to uncover.

The respect of the Mystics Divine, nay, of Her Glorious Command itself, will be given to those who take up this call.

I humbly await your responses,

X. Worshipful Portent, Mystic Divine

Though times are hardest than we’ve seen,
Though stars are far with nought between,
Though Decay and darkness fill the night,
Our Hearts shall guide us to the light.
- Unknown Fathoms, Mystic Divine, 134 ALW

Message Ends
End Transmission

Budding Leaf - Alex
Gathering Flow - Phil

Summary

The party arrive on Her Glorious Command where they are met by the blind Qiate high mystic Worshipful Portent who explains that Her Glorious Command and other Ship Hearts have been receiving dreams and hearing a call of a Ship Heart beneath the surface of Kylal, near the settlement of Kyholt, urging the party to investigate and help whatever it is.
Gathering Flow pilots the pair down to Kylal but upon approaching the Keter-Fjenix Kylalian Base Camp on the surface is alarmed to find no Ship Heart present, the nearest one being down below the surface. Decaying creatures grab hold of and crash the dropship, and the pair are plunged into a fierce battle with Decaying creatures and ultimately their own Decaying shuttle.
The elevators below being out, the party descend via an emergency staircase, which is also blocked, and then rappel down the elevator shaft. Beset by rock and ice beetles, the party lose consciousness and plummet to the bottom of the shaft, where they are brought back to consciousness and have their injuries attended to by the Kyholt civilians. Over lunch they explain how the Kyholt Ship Heart has recently plummeted a hundred metres or so down due to a tectonic glacial subsidence, which caused the Decay incursion on the surface. With the Mystics retrieving the Kyholt Ship Heart, the pair focus on the Call.
Kyholt's mystics explain their dreams and visions of the tunnels, the call, and strange inverted pentagonal shapes. This rings bells for both Flow and Leaf who have experienced such shapes in tunnels before. They head into the tunnels, sealed off for safety reasons, and having fought past some Cavern Worms and the creature known as “The Paddler” (a hippo-whale cross living in the meltwater) they find their way into an unmapped area still in Ship Heart range - stone, and with inverted pentagonal symbology.
The party break into what they come later to understand is a tomb and encounter multiple strange machines that are operating - though broken - and communicating in an unknown language. They are made entirely of rock, but Leaf finds upon dismantling one of the Guardian Rollers that there is a missing empty place where their power source should be. They explore further, encountering more such machines, until they eventually find the source of the Call deep within the Tomb.
The Tomb, having been sealed off, also contains large deposits of fungus emitting microscopic spores that cause serious problems for Leaf's lungs. Through coughing and concern as Flow detects that the recovery of the Kyholt Ship Heart is underway and that that's what's giving this Tomb life, they discover and communicate with a stone machine that refers to itself as “Custodian”. They attempt to convey the situation to a confused and broken Custodian, and eventually communicate that the Tomb is doomed.
They grab the Custodian's broken form just as the Tomb starts to shake and collapse as whatever protections were granted it by the presence of the Ship Heart's aura are lost, and the place rapidly falls to Decay (dooming the theory that the stone machines were invulnerable to Decay). The pair struggle to make their way out of the collapsing Tomb as a rarely spotted Decaying Dominator manifests from the rock and mechanisms and deals serious damage to them and the Custodian. Eventually they get out, and the Tomb Collapses behind them.

Gathering Flow maps the location of the Tomb in relation to Kyholt and the Surface, making this information available.
Flow and Leaf both report back to Her Glorious Command with the Custodian in tow and debrief to Endeavour's personnel on the way. Dr. Curious Direction (Leaf's friendly contact) liaises with Vaunted Platinum and works with Leaf and Flow to negotiate collaboration with Her Glorious Command to study the stone Custodian. Worshipful Portent refuses to let the “divine artefact” leave Her Glorious Command once it arrives, but has no issue with Zeitgeist Researchers taking a look, which they do with the Custodian as well as rock fragments brought back by Flow and Leaf.
The Custodian sustained heavy damage during the Tomb Collapse and remains inoperable. ZRD scientists predict it will be some time before they can truly understand it, but do note that the atomic dating on the stone suggests it was last touched millennia before the terraforming surveys in the Keter System.
Leaf discusses with Direction the curious fact that the mushroom fauna found in one area of Kylal was found in a presumably disconnected area. Direction finds this fascinating and the two share a whole discussion about whether convergent evolution would be more or less likely given the rapid terraforming process. The question is still an open topic.
Leaf also analyses the sample of foam that they inhaled in the tomb in the lab. They deduce that the foam was originally intended to be a cleansing agent but time and exposure to the spores had corrupted the spray into a horrible infection spray that would send microbial spores into the air. These are particularly irritating to the lungs of every respiring species Leaf is aware of, but luckily curing mould and spore inhalation is something well documented and Leaf is able to prescribe an anti-fungal course of drugs to cleanse the infection.

The location of what becomes referred to as “The Kyholt Tomb” is public knowledge across the fleet, as is the existence of Pentagonal structures and a potential long dead civilisation.
The Custodian from the Kyholt Tomb is in the care of Her Glorious Command where it is being actively investigated by ZRD scientists.
The Ship Heart of Kyholt is returned to its location and the surface elevator restored to function.