The best laid plans

I hatched a brilliant plan. I went to get a Takmahl biodroid controller unit from my collection of Takmahl artifacts obtained from exploring the temple at the center of the space labyrinth in Aphi. I spent some days to get the best one in working condition, while the crew was making some repairs to the Indigatrix - she sustained small damage from the emergency decoupling from the abandoned station.

The plan is this: after stunning or pinning down the biodroid, we can place the controller in one of its cerebral slots. I read a publication in the top journal Archeological Review Letters, and the authors are fairly confident the controller should go in slot #6 and would not fit in any wrong slot. Easy peasy. The controller would render the biodroid harmless, and even possibly place it under our command. At least if my own neural boost implant manages to connect successfully with the controller and place it under my willpower. This has been described as difficult and flaky, like having a wireless network printer be accessible to all the computers on the network.

Anyway, even if the controller doesn't connect, it would put the biodroid in a passive state. Real remote control would just be the cherry on top of the cake.

Everything was ready, and then... the crew said no. They do not want to go back to the abandoned station to try and subdue the Takmahl biodroid. They told me after we held a service for the lost crewman Heggilon Dramse. With an empty coffin, we did not manage to bring any part of him back, and that made a deep impression on the rest. They think it is just too dangerous, and propose to just continue to Anath.

At first, I got angry. Do they think lord-consort Newelle takes a vote amongst crew members where to warp to? Or our own warriors, Prince Seraghis? Gaun Arel? Or Maria Daphiti? After they give the 'jump gate' command, do their crews go up to them and say: no, we won't jump that gate, sorry very much, we go over there in stead? What, am I the only capsuleer in all of New Eden that does not do as he wills, but as his crew wills?

But in the end, I could not get myself to force them. They are nice people, and I also understand their fear to lose their one and only life.

I'll just do it myself then.

Reconnecting

I reconnected with the crew and the Indigatrix. 

It appears we got pinned down, with the Takmahl biodrone standing between us and the exit. According to the crew, I volunteered to offer a diversion, well aware that this might end my current clone. A fate, though unpleasant, much less harsh that the death the crew would face.

Apparently I attempted to converse with the droid in ancient Takmahl, or what we know of it to the best of our understanding. I tried to tell it I was clergy - a religious enforcer should be susceptible to such an argument of authority. It questioned my accent. I told it to look at its timestamp, and consider that accents change in time. It asked me to show blood, or that's what I think it asked, the universal translator appears not to be quite universal. I tried to explain I might be in sort supply of external blood. It said "Amarr" and then cut me in half.

This gave the crew enough time to escape and make it back to the Indigatrix, undock from the Raider's graveyard station, and get back to an Empire station.

We have a fair number of interesting artifacts and relics from this particular haul. Including a cup perhaps stolen from Dam-Torsad cathedral, and more certainly made by Faecilius, a famous artisan two thousand years ago. And a booklet in Bathana-looking handwriting.

Good morning, or not

This is potentially very bad.

I woke up in my back-up clone in Mehatoor.

I read my journal's entries, so it is clear that I went to check out one of Glitter's hints, and bumped into a Takmahl biodroid in an abandoned station. At this point, I know as much as you do. With, of course, the additional information that I died.

I'll take the Interbus to Mishi and see if I can reship there and try to find the signal of the Indigatrix. It might be a bit difficult - she can be cloaked. And there is a war going on with one of the pirate alliances in Aridia.

The artifact

We were attacked by some droid. I recognised it, from the descriptions of dr. Valate. 

A Takmahl religious enforcer biodroid. The Takmahl made a variety of biodroids, mostly to be used in lieu of slaves for agriculture, but also as enforcers. To scare their flock into obedience, and shoot them if necessary. It is huge. The Blood Raiders must have retrieved it, kept it as an interesting artifact, and found a way to reactivate it. 

They must have regretted that soon after.

I recall an old nightmarish image that sort of looks like the biodroid, except that the droid we saw also has Sabik religious vestments:

We tried to shoot it, to no avail. I think Idesbald managed to shoot an arm or appendage off it, but it just kept coming. We ran and hid in an airduct, too small for the biodroid to enter. It is attempting to dismantle the airduct from the entrance, but we could crawl away. We found shelter in a maintenance chamber for the station's ventilation system.

From afar, we hear the droid chanting or reciting some Takmahl text, I try to record it as it may be valuable historical information. Also, cross-checking with ancient language databases.

Second raid

We definitely did not split up in small teams to look for whatever killed Heggilon. No, we huddled together, my crew being very scared. We took the boxes with items from the Blood Raider vault - and I kept dr. Bathana's notebook close to me - we made it back to the Indigatrix.

We are going in for the final haul of items from the treasury, this time with better weaponry. My cloak technician Idesbald is also an enthusiastic weapons collector and he has brought some sort of laser Gatling gun mounted on a wearable suit of armor. This thing can take out a corvette. So, it gave us confidence. Nevertheless, we are moving forward in some sort of tortoise formation, with shields up and guns out.

Several times we saw something swoosh past in the hallways close to the treasury. I think it was checking us out. It for sure freaked us out. Shots were fired, but just made holes in the walls. We think it looks human. Or at least it is  built out of human parts, but it is much, much larger. And definitely has metallic parts too, at least we think. Forgot to bring bodycams.

We are back in the treasury, loading up more boxes. There's noise like shuffling metal boots in the background. Our guns are primed.

The doors exiting to the hallway just closed.

The treasury

We renewed our attempt to explore the abandoned Blood Raider station in the graveyard site in Aridia.

The new diamond-coated drill had no problems cutting through the reinforced steel door leading to the inner level in the abandoned station, where the treasury is. Very quickly after breaching the door, we found the treasury. 

It is a some sort of storage room, with cabinets and shelves. It is a strange place, abandoned just like the rest of the station. It has cabinets that look old, like antique wooden furniture. I have no idea why the Raiders chose these kind of cabinets. Some of them are empty, but most store a variety of artifacts or items that the Blood Raiders found valuable enough to keep. Probably from their raids or from ships they captured.

There are many corridors of these old closets. We go through them as fast as we can to pull out artifacts that seem valuable. These are put into boxes so we can bring them to the Indigatrix and stack them in her cargo bay. There's way too many things in here, we will need a lot of hauling. 

In one of the book closets, one with a solid brass lock but a broken glass pane so you could just grab what was in there, there was a notebook that caught my attention. It was the handwriting on it that struck me - it is familiar to me. I could be mistaken, perhaps, but at least to me it looks like the handwriting of the renowned archaeologist Tertius Bathana. Our Directrix's father. 

Before I could look into it in more detail, my crew raised the alarm. One of the crew members, cargo loading expert Heggilon Dramse, had lost contact. They found him.

Disemboweled and nailed against a wall. His automatic rifle had shot all its bullets, it was laying next to him.

It seems we're not alone.

After the storms

Metaliminal storms have weakened, as so has the pirate presence in middle and southern Aridia. We've recovered and upgraded our drill. New diamond coatings reinforce it and we will be able to cut through the door leading to the treasury in the abandoned Blood Raider station.

During the pause, I jump cloned back to Mehatoor. It is nice to talk to ms. Callamity Kell as well as to Aria about our faith. I also met a couple of new members, at least new to me. And I could catch up with our Directrix - apparently I was up for a promotion of sorts after three years of service to the Societas. I am happy to be appreciated, even if I can contribute little to any kind of war effort.

Now, back to the expedition. In the next few hours we'll probably have a good window to go back to the Blood Raider graveyard station.

A pauze

We had to rush out of the station, leaving equipment behind and running to make it for the Indigatrix.

Metaliminal winter storms have arisen in Aridia, and although the space weather phenomenon itself is not a problem for us, it leads to a marked rise in capsuleers from the Nulsechnaya Scholupen and friends (or enemies) scanning down the system for anomalies and ships to attack. 

With combat probes homing down on our location, we had to rush to the ship and warp off, leaving the bulkhead drill and some collected items behind.

We wait now, cloaked in a deepspace safe, until the initial winter nexus rush subsides.

Pathology lab

We managed to make a hole through the doors to the next section. We found it abandoned as well. 

This section appears to be a science level: we went past an electronics workshop, a biochemistry lab, and some sort of medical experimentation facility. 

At first we thought this facility was a depleterium, a bloodletting hall where they harvest the blood of the innocents. However, upon closer inspection this is more like an examination room, perhaps the lab of an anatomic pathologist. Its examination tables are adapted for huge creatures. And there is a large amount of equipment more suited for soldering or taking apart electronic devices. 

And, unsurprisingly, more blood stains on the walls and the occasional corpse or two, in perforated lab coats this time. There are mechanical and electronic parts strewn about, that at least to me seem to be of Takmahl origin.

We are no doubt getting closer to the hidden loot storage, as we hit another door welded shut, separating us from the next section of the station. It has writing on it, in a Delvish blood raider dialect, warning to leave the door sealed, or die. This is typical for a treasury room, a futile attempt to dissuade explorers by invoking some sort of curse.

Blood station

We started the exploration of the part of the station that still has a bit of power and life support. 

It looks horrible. 

Coagulated blood stains on the wall and floors. Not sure whether that is standard Blood Raider station decoration or something happened. 

The hallways are dark, with only emergency lighting working. We've encountered a few corpses, reduced to skeletons still in their non-biodegradable uniforms. Some appear to have weapons fired at them. There's a weird smell, I can't quite place it. 

We found a dormitory. There were no corpses there, but the place also had not been evacuated, personal belongings were still around. There were cryopods, some had corpses in them.

The area next down into the station is sealed off, the doors are welded shut from our side. Luckily, we have some drilling equipment among our exploration tools on the Indigatrix. It will take some time to open up a passage, but we will get through.

((ooc attribution: image from playing around with "craiyon" drawing tool))

The graveyard

I continued my exploration of Aridia, along the Blood Raider trail.

In Nalnifan, the coordinates that I got from Glitter Edifice led me to a graveyard. Hundreds of corpses are strewn around space, floating among wrecked ships, near a seemingly abandoned station. Some of the corpses have capsuleer implants, most have not, but all were drained of blood.

I was not able to identify any of the corpses, they have probably been there for a very long time. Perhaps their concord identification was cut out or disabled before the body was thrown out of an airlock. 

The wreckage is very diverse; both in origin and age of the ships. They have been dismantled and scavenged for spare parts. It does not appear to be the aftermath of a single battle. It looks more like these ships and corpses have just been captured, collected here, and discarded after the "useful" parts were taken out.

There is some vestigial power source still active in the station. It looks like one of the backup reactors that has been active for centuries longer than it was intended to work. In a small part of the station, near the main spire, where the active power source is, life support seems to be active as well. I've hailed the station, but received no response. The docking bays and hangars are not powered up, but there is an entrance hatch close to the powered up area. 

We split the crew into two teams. One team stays on board, and keeps scanning for enemy capsuleers approaching on our location - the Indigatrix can't cloak when next to a structure - and the other team (including myself) will board the station. In case of incoming enemy ships, the Indigatrix will disconnect from the hatch and move away from the structure and cloak up. It is somewhat risky but perhaps it will be a high gain gamble.

Impetus

I am back in Aridia. After Gens and Kamih, I extended my search to Hier, Nema and Shenda. I did find one of the indicated caches in Nema, but unfortunately it had already been looted. Relatively recently, probably sometime in the last four decades.

I docked up at an Impetus Development Studio station. They are present all over the Empire. Impetus is a Gallente holoreel and card game producer. They provide entertainment for all over the cluster, and way back when, they were the first developers of the holoprojector! 

There is a "museum of the holofilm" on the station. I found it very entertaining, and it has a beautiful media library of ancient reels. I bought some reels of live speeches of Heideran VII for our own library.

Online only

Drop-off is only via an online appointment (conveniently made through their app), and the earliest free dates are about two months from now !!

That's what you hear when you call in saint Gennareus' lost arm to the Theology Council in Amarr. 

I remember a time when a cleric could walk into the Theology Council with a found relic at any time,  and present it at the intake desks. You would be greeted by the Director of the Reliquary or the Manager of Bones and Bodily Fluids. Then you would work together with an investigator appointed to the case to get your relic certified. It would take an entire day, working closely with the person looking at your case. But it would be done after a day, and if it was a good relic you could earn a lesser relic for your own chapel or church. 

I had my eyes on St. Lucio's eyeballs for my cheese chapel.

In stead, now I get a ticket "Request Id: 727c9706-2aa8-3a4a-afdb-a2590405ffd3". Presumptuous, as if they'd ever need that many letters and numbers! And I get an appointment the second week of February YC126. Meanwhile, please send some holos of the relic in question.

I called a friend that I still know at the Theology Council's department of relics, and he says these long waits are due to the department being understaffed and overburdened. At this moment, there are just too many requests to certify Tetrimon fingers and too few people to handle the fingery influx. They're drowning in fingers. 

Still according to my friend, Empress Catiz favors efficient management techniques from the Caldari. That comes with smaller and more digital government, which led to cutbacks in staffing for the relic department.

Hah! What happens when I find the Ametat or Avetat? Do I have to wait two months while the rest of the cluster is hunting me down?

My anger helped somewhat, I could get the lost arm to the relic department in a mere five days...

Saint Gennareus' arm

The unraveler worked perfectly. In addition to mary useless items, the magnetic bottle contained one well-known lost relic: the arm of saint Gennareus. 

He was a bishop abducted by the Sani Sabik, and kept alive for his blood to be harvested and used in demonic rites. While in captivity, he prayed fervently to God to make his blood unusable for these rites, and in response the Lord petrified his blood, which of course killed him, allowing him a martyr's death. Other accounts say that he drank a poison that coagulated his blood in his veins.

His corpse was thrown away by the Sabik as there was no useful liquid blood any more in it. Beetles ate his flesh, and bone worms consumed his skeleton. The only part not touched by the scavenger insects was the petrified blood. His body turned into a strange red network, a latticework of arteries and veins all the way down to the smallest capillaries, a three dimensional system of threads in the shape of a human. All other parts were gone, except for a large heart-shaped clump in the midst of the latticework. 

His body was divided in several relics for different important planets and Houses, but his right arm has been missing for two thousand years.

I am happy to bring it back to the Theology Council in Amarr!

((image credit: Koerperwelten/Gunther Von Hagens exhibition))

Station blessing

I have been kept busy, first by a Sansha incursion, and then by the delightful blessing of the Zaraevahr Initiative's new station in Haimeh, along with some ship blessings.

The previous station blessing for Prince Seraghis proved very fruitful, as the station in question survived onslaught from the Tribal liberation force and other barbarians. I do hope Prince Seraghis' new venture in Aridia will please God and this new station will be equally successful in pushing back the barbarian attacks!

Several ships were presented for the traditional blessing, and even though I forgot to keep track for my statistics I am confident these will prove to be much more resilient against attacks from any groups outside of the faith.

On another positive note: I've brought the Wilson line unraveler with me, and will use it tomorrow to crack open the secured magnetic shielding in the first site on the Neopians' list. Also, today I met another barbarian tribe, called "In Extremis". I think some of them warped in to get their ship blessed, but warped off before it could be done because Edencom gunstars started shooting at them. I advised them to get their standings up.

Reaching out

I started investigating Gens and Kamih. One of the locations listed by Glitter was very interesting! There were some abandoned data stations with the usual loot, but it also contained a sort of vault, a shielded magnetic bottle:

I believe this to be one of the artefact caches by the blood raiders. It was casually placed away from the usual loot containers, but it is much harder to crack than the containers around it. I will need some specialized equipment for this one: a Wilson line unraveler. This piece of equipment can't be found in far-flung Aridia: I'll need to hop back to Amarr for it.

At the same time, I tried to forge diplomatic ties with the locals. However, they jumped out of system before I could connect:

[ 2023.11.17 22:00:57 ] Theodosius Savnar > Ave Aleksey! How are you doing tonight?
[ 2023.11.17 22:01:13 ] Aleksey Spaks > hey
[ 2023.11.17 22:01:18 ] Aleksey Spaks > all right=0
[ 2023.11.17 22:02:20 ] Theodosius Savnar > Good! I'm an explorer, from the Amarr core worlds. Have you seen any blood raider activity here recently?
[ 2023.11.17 22:03:03 ] Theodosius Savnar > In particular, I will be searching along the path from Kador to Delve, which runs through Aridia.
[ 2023.11.17 22:03:47 ] Theodosius Savnar > I believe this path is controlled by LowSechnaya Sholupen, your
[ 2023.11.17 22:03:59 ] Theodosius Savnar > ...ah and he is gone.

The error here is that I should not disclose that I am from the core worlds of the Empire. This may be too impressive and scary for the simple souls in the fringe worlds, who probably never journeyed beyond their constellation.

The Anath connection

Glitter's data includes the system of Anath. It sounded familiar to me and I have been mulling over that for the last few days, trying to remember where I heard about it before. 

Then it struck me, as I was talking to Franco and the Directrix. This system was raided years ago by the Blood Raiders in a rather focused attack where the father of our Directrix, professor Tertius Bathana, was killed!

He was an archaeologist, pursuing the trail of the most precious Amarrian relics stolen by the Sani Sabik who became the Takmahl. When I started my investigations, it seemed odd to me that he retired to this remote place, rather than to Gamis or the Araz constellation. But now, the pieces of the puzzle start to fit: after the fall of the Takmahl empire, our relics were part of the loot that the ancestors of the Blood Raiders tried to haul from Araz to their Delve strongholds. Prof. Bathana had not retired, but was pursuing a lead! And I'll wager that his death was more than just an unlucky accident.

The blood trail

In the map below, the arrows indicate the most probable route that the Blood Raiders would take to ferry artifacts and relics from the Takmahl systems to their remote stronghold in Delve. The double red lines delineate the systems where the Zaraevahr Initiative is most active. This includes Mishi, the world where our Directrix's family (on her mother's side) is from.

The records that Glitter Edifice gave me provide coordinates of five abandoned locations where artefacts could have been left by the Blood Raiders looting the remains of the Takmahl empire. Four are in systems on the trail: Gens, Kamih, Sazilid, Nainifan, and Defsunun. One is just off the trail: Anath. I will start with the closest ones: Gens and Kamih.

Base camp

As this may be a rather long expedition, I have been shifting resources to Aridia, basing myself in the Ministry of Internal Order's station in Mishi. This system, in the Mayonhen constellation, is a rare highsec pocket in the region. 

It is somewhat out of the travel route to Delve that the Sani Sabik would have taken, but it is an excellent base to explore the region and the systens on this route. Moreover, I have received very gracious help from Prince Seraghis and his new "Zaraevahr Initiative", who shared useful bookmarks to help me navigate these lands.

I will be happy to perform a blessing of their new headquarters in Haimeh next week Monday. These faithful capsuleers will be a blessing for this region which has perhaps faced some neglect from the Imperial central administration.

Allies in Aridia

It appears that the infamous prince Seraghis - leader of the famed Task Force 641 in the warzone - has established new headquarters in Aridia. He is launching the Zaraevahr initiative, to boost imperial control in Aridia and drive out piracy there.

This is a blessing, as the initiative is part of LUMEN, and as such it will allow me to perform my research in Aridia under at least some protection of these valiant paladins of the faith. I will contact prince Seraghis to inform him of my exploration intentions and gain his advice.