Sneaking a glance at all of his unconscious comrades, Lerku slowly lowers his needler rifle.

"You didn't heal us just to kill us." He sounds as if he's trying to convince himself of his own words.

They fire at Becka but not at Lerku.  The needle from their weapon imbeds itself in Becka's arm.

She finds herself sleepy and collapses unconscious on the floor from the tranquilizer.


Everyone wakes up a bit later.  All of your weapons have been taken by the Eorna.

You blink your eyes and look around.  Lerku and Inta tell you that you have been out for about 10 to 15 minutes.


You see before you a truely huge chamber filled with a wide variety of crystal and metal gadgets, as well as numerous paintings and murals of a large number of different creatures. Some of the paintings and murals appear to be of dinosaurs, while others resemble the type of fur-covered creatures you have encountered earlier in this area of the ruins.

The displays include mural paintings, holograms, and voice recordings explaining Eorna history and culture. There are numerous Eorna sculptures, and a particularly interesting display showing how the Eorna evolved from primitive dinosaurs.

There are no eorna currently in this room, but there are two doors, one to the east and one to the west.  Inta and Lerku tell you that you were brought in through the western door, and the eorna left through the eastern door.

Bartja shrugs off the remaining affects of the tranquilizer and begins studying the Eorna history.

"We should learn all we can here before we go on to find the masters of this place.  I think, given a little time, our poly vox' will program to their language using these narrative displays.  Then at least we can communicate with them vocally and without need for mental intrusion."

"I agree," Frisky says.  "Plus, imagine the knowledge of this race we might gain and how it will benefit all our societies, especially with their mental abilities."

Desiraye overcomes the unconsciousness and stands up slowly using the wall to her advantage.  "Yeah, we've got to try and make contact with this race.  Maybe find out more about this planet and see if they can get us off of here!"

Lerku tries to absorb as much information as possible, even hushing his comrades when they speak too loud for him to hear the narration properly.

You have about 30 minutes in which to review what you can about the eorna history in the museum.  You discover the following information:

THE EORNA

The Eorna are a race of intelligent creatures descended from bipedal Volturnian dinosaurs. Most Eorna stand about 3 meters tall. The thick hide of the reptile has been replaced with a coat of fur that serves as insulation in cold temperatures. They have a rather large tail which is used for balance in walking. Their smaller forelimbs have developed hands that are somewhat human in appearance and function. Their vocal sounds are very different from those made by Humans due to the different structure of the Eorna palate.

Eorna are warm-blooded omnivores who evolved to build an advanced technological civilization. The Eorna are natural hypnotists. Their technology stresses mental control, often reinforcing the natural abilities of the Eorna

The Eorna worship beauty. They believe that the purpose of life is to come to know true beauty, which can take many forms; it can be physical, moral, intellectual, historical, etc., but of course, the Eorna idea of beauty is not necessarily the same as that of Humans or other player character races.

The Eorna have no priests or spiritual leaders. As a form of worship, the Eorna create magnificent sculptures of crystals and light, high technology items, great works of music, logical systems of thought, and other objects of beauty. To an Eorna, creative work is in itself a religious experience. Anything which tends to destroy life and beauty should be discouraged, or if necessary, totally eliminated.

The museum seems to have many depictions of what is known as the "Day of Doom," which has something to do with the Sathar.  The Eorna now see the Sathar as the ultimate enemy of all that the Eorna believe in. To meet the Sathar challenge, the Eorna have undertaken what they call the Great Mission. The Eorna long ago realized that their numbers were too few to survive as a race. The Eorna have artificially interfered with evolution on Volturnus to produce the Edestekai, the Kurabanda, and the Ul-Mor. The Eorna hope one of these races will eventually achieve a high level of civilization, dedicated to beauty, but with sufficient technology and military skill to defend against, and eventually destroy, the Sathar.

The efforts of most surviving individual Eorna are given wholeheartedly to the Great Mission. The original survivors of the Sathar attack have undergone cryogenic sleep. Only 10 of the original survivors are awake at any given time. When one of these individuals dies, a sleeper is awakened to replace the dead Eorna. Forty-six individuals remain in cryogenic sleep. Those who are awake are aided in their efforts by the most capable of their decendants (many of whom have inbred genetic defects or, as you saw, mental problems).

The number of Eorna is so small that they no longer need a formal society. There are no social organizations other than the family. Eorna society thus maximizes individual freedom of choice and minimizes social control of the individual. Criminal behavior is handled by a computerized/robotic legal system. This system works for the Eorna because they all share the same basic goals and ideals (the Great Mission).

The Eorna legal system remains the one that was used before the Sathar attack which nearly destroyed their race. All laws have been codified and entered into special computers. Computers run the robot police and serve as ultimate judges in all civil and criminal cases. Eorna law recognizes that there may be extenuating circumstances involved in a criminal act. The system tries to evaluate a person's intentions and motives when considering guilt or innocence.

The usual punishment for serious violations is imprisonment in a mental hospital. In some cases convicted criminals may be required to provide some type of restitution to the victims of their crimes. Finally, Eorna law recognizes a special appeal based upon the criminal's value to society.

The prison and mental hospital systems have largely broken down. Some criminal or insane Eorna do exist and wander free in a few areas of the planet. The robot police frequently malfunction due to neglect.

After thirty minutes pass, the door to the east opens, and three of the eorna walk in.  Behind them is one of those crystal robots, which carries in its arms the weakened form of Lieutenant Colonel Jameson.  It sets Jameson carefully into a chair, and the Eorna leave without a word.  Jameson is weak but conscious...barely.  He seems to be full of drugs which have made him very sleepy.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:03, Thu 09 Aug 2007.

Frisky says to Jameson, "What can you tell us about what's going on?  Have you made friends with the eorna?"

Jameson looks up wearily.  "The Star Devil pirates hijacked the ship, and we crash landed.  I think everyone who didn't get out in escape pods except me must have died.  The eorna saw the wreckage and came.  Their race was nearly destroyed by the Sathar long ago, so now they treasure life.  They saved me and have been trying to heal me over the last few weeks."

He looks up, his eyes intense.  "You have to get to the Sathar Artifact!  It's almost too late.  You can try to stop the Sathar fleet.  They're coming, and who knows what damage they'll do." Either the exertion of this last heated statement has exhausted him or his medicine has kicked in, because he closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

The door to the east opens, and five eorna step into the room, along with one of the crystal robots.  The robot is holding many long needles and begins to approach you as if to pump the contents of the needles into you.

Becka looked up at the group that entered the room.  "Not again," she cried and stumbled back, increasing the distance between herself and the eorna.

Bartja holds up his hand.  "That won't be necessary.  We'll leave peacefully enough but we need to find the artifact of the Sathar.  They're coming again and they're working with the pirates who're already here.  We intend to help you stop them, but we need to know where their artifact is."

"We'll also need our weapons and equipment back too if we're to try and help," Desiraye says as she watches the needles the robot is carrying.

The robot appears to be zeroing in on Bartja with the needles.

The eorna look at each other, perhaps communicating telepathically.

The robot gets closer, needle getting close to Bartja's arm.  It seems completely unaware that Bartja was saying anything to them and very intent on jabbing a needle into Bartja.

One of the eorna says, "These needles will heal you.  We mean you no harm."

"Heal?  Healing is good!"  Bartja says enthusiastically while extending his shoulder so the robot can get a good shot.

"Healing?  If that's all the needles are, I'll take some of that too," Desiraye says as she moves behind Bartja waiting her turn.

The eorna begin to heal you with their needles and skills.  They also share information with you:

The story of Volturnus is a strange one. Once the home of a gentle race of intelligent dinosaurs, it is now a barren, harsh world. The history of its downfall is a sad one.

The story of the fall of Volturnus begins when the Eorna, a race of intelligent dinosaurs, developed star travel. As soon as the Eorna launched their first colonization starships, they were attacked by a Sathar space armada. Like most Sathar attacks, this one came with no warning; the Eorna were not even aware of the presence of the Sathar until the mysterious worms invaded their system.

The Sathar space armada quickly overwhelmed the Eorna, wreaking destruction across the planet. Within a matter of days, the worms had nearly driven the gentle Eorna to extinction. Still, the Eorna fought valiantly, and were able to resist complete annihilation because the Sathar had overextended their supply lines.  They call this the "Day of Death" or the "Day of Doom."

The Sathar retreated, hoping they had destroyed enough of the Eorna civilization to prevent the gentle creatures from ever attempting interstellar travel again. In case they had failed, however, the Sathar left a mysterious artifact behind to alert them of any interstellar travel in the Zebulon system that might occur in the future.

Less than 150 Eorna survived the Day of Death. They soon realized they were doomed as a race, for they knew that their numbers were not large enough to provide a viable gene pool. The survivors chose to dedicate what remained of their lives to the evolution of other intelligent races on Volturnus. The Eorna hoped to prepare these races to meet and defeat the Sathar.

The Eorna are using a subtle process of hypnotic indoctrination and DNA manipulation to accelerate the development of three races toward intelligence. Most of the Eorna survivors have undergone cryogenic sleep, waiting to be awakened until they are needed to continue the project. Despite the fact that most of their young are born physically or mentally deficient because of the limited gene pool, the Eorna continue to breed, relying upon the few normal children to help continue the project.

The development of the star route by Truane's Star has completely upset Eorna plans. Though three races are intelligent, they have advanced only to a primitive state of technology.

Already, the Eorna fear, the artifact may have alerted the Sathar. There is a chance, however, that the device has not yet sent for the battle fleet. The Eorna will gladly show you where the artifact is located if you will attempt to prevent it from calling the Sathar fleet. The Eorna will not attack the artifact themselves because it is almost certain to have both internal and external defenses. Excessive Eorna casualties would jeopardize the Great Mission should the attack on the artifact fail.

Although your races may have triggered the Sathar artifact with their interstellar travel, the Eorna do not blame you.  They blame the Sathar.  But your arrival before the other races are advanced enough for star travel has seriously disrupted the eorna plans.  Now there is no time for the other races to develop enough to defend the planet.

You also realize that a Sathar attack on the planet would almost certainly mean death to any living being on Volturnus, including yourselves!

(You are all healed and back to good health.  Jameson, however, is still too wounded to travel with you.)

Desiraye just shakes her her, "Shit."

She turns to the rest of the Eorna, "Do you have any other weapons or equipment that might help us?"
This message was last edited by the player at 23:32, Fri 10 Aug 2007.

Bartja had listened to the gentle Eorna tales of woe in silence.  After Desi asks her question, he waits for the answer then makes some observations and asks a few questions of his own.

"Based on what we found at the Pirate bases, I believe the Sathar fleet is already enroute.  They probably organized an attack as soon as the first Pirate ships started jumping into this system.  We may be too late to stop their arrival, but we're not too late to fight back.

Let's find this artifact and see if we can head off the Sathar fleet.  Even if we manage to call off their attack, it's likely they'll send a contingency vessel to ensure their artifact hasn't been tampered with."

Turning to the Eorna, he continues: "Can you ready as many warriors in the region as possible?  We may need all the fighters we can get - Ul-mor, Kurabanda, Edestekai - everyone.  Are the primative Yazirian-like guardians of the ruins able to help?  If there's a Sathar ship coming, the entire planet will be drawn into the war whether they want it or not.  From what we've seen, the Pirates may be in league with the Sathar although I suspect their motivations are purely selfish and not bent on destruction of all life.  Still, their leaders may be under Sathar control."

Feeling much better now and still happy to have his little robot companion if not the combat robot, Bartja asks his friends.  "Shall we go find this Sathar artifact and see if we can stop this invasion?  What resources do we have left?"  [IE, the real question:  How many vehicles remain at our disposal in addition to the equipment list?  I think we have a jetcopter but did we keep or lose the explorer?]

"I say we go after the artifact to see if we can try to stop any kind of Sathar force from coming here. If it's just us and a few from the locals we've met since we've been on this palnet, I don't like our chances!  We should try and send word to the PGC to let them know what's going on or whoever is the cloesest to send us help.  I don't think we can hold out for long with what we've got," Desiraye says to Bartja and the others.

The Eorna tell you that you that you may have all your equipment, and they noticed a jetcopter up top.

They don't really have any other equipment you can use, given your limited mental faculties in using mentally driven equipment.  THey also have engendered peace and have no weapons really themselves.  They will give you a crystal robot if you want, but it would have to be programmed by them, and it could be difficult to control at times.

Your explorer was stolen by pirates and then blown up, so all you have is the jetcopter.

At the moment, you have no way to contact the PGC, although you would think that a rescue party would arrive at some point...

The Eorna also have only ten total.  They are considered as mystical figures by the races and do not appear to them directly.  They also cannot risk their own numbers by appearing to the races.  Therefore, you are on the most friendly terms and have the most influence.  They can do little to help you with that, but urge you to first find the artifact and deal with it while you can.  It should be an easy trip by jetcopter, only a few hours drive away.

Stretching his gliding flaps to ensure their elasticity, Bartja smiles.

"Let's go find this artifact and kick it's butt!"

"I'm with you!  No sense in sitting around and waiting for something to happen," Desiraye says as she picks up her laser rifle and stands next to Bartja.

Becka moves forward to reclaim her equipment, muttering something about moving quickly and leaving a pretty corpse.

Lerku makes sure his bioscanner is secure, then warily picks up the needler rifle and ammo again.

"Let's try to remember one thing here.  If this is a Sathar base, we can expect no quarter from them so we should give them no quarter!  What I'm saying is, don't be afraid to pour it on with the ammo, grenades or, explosives.  They're bound to have plenty defenses protecting them!"