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Starter Adventure — Pressure

AX.GAT.14.03 - Pressure

A Starter Adventure

Overview

Pressure is an introductory scenario for Astraeus Terminal set entirely aboard the station. It introduces:

  • Station geography, moving between the Hangar Ring, Cargo Ring, and the Spire under varying access conditions
  • Faction conflict, a deliberate act of sabotage with a factional motivation the party must uncover
  • Void entity encounter, Void Crawlers that entered through a compromised seal, appropriate for Active-package (9D) parties

Recommended party: 3–5 characters at the Active (9D) generation package. Scaling guidance for Docked (6D) and Deep Range (12D) parties is at the end of this file.

Runtime: Two to three sessions.

Party setup: The adventure assumes the party has been on the Terminal long enough to have basic faction relationships established; this is an Active-package campaign, not a fresh arrival scenario. If the group is using Docked characters, treat the early sessions as the party's first week aboard.

Background

Three days ago, a docking bay in the outer Hangar Ring was placed under maintenance lockdown, a routine designation that the Span files when a bay needs inspection. The bay has not been re-opened. The maintenance team assigned to the inspection did not find a fault; they found evidence that the bay's primary hull seal had been deliberately weakened. They reported this to their guild steward rather than to the Vigilants, because reporting to the Vigilants means the section is closed indefinitely pending investigation, and the Span needs that bay operational within the week.

The guild steward, a Span Crew Operator named Mael (referenced in AX.GAT.07.04), has quietly asked around. Two of the Void Crawlers that were present in the seal area when the maintenance team arrived have disappeared into the station's internal spaces. A third is still in the docking bay, large enough that the maintenance team locked the bay door and left.

Mael does not want a Vigilant response. She wants someone who can handle the Crawlers, document the sabotage evidence without triggering an official investigation, and help her understand who weakened the seal and why, before whoever did it realizes the problem was found.

The seal was weakened by an Oryx Logistics contractor acting on instructions from the Oblis Consortium. The goal was not a hull breach; it was to create a controlled vulnerability that would allow a specific piece of cargo to move through the bay without being scanned, during the window when the Vigilants' monitoring was diverted to the "maintenance" section. The cargo has already moved. The weakened seal is the loose end.

The Party's Entry Point

Mael contacts the party through whatever relationship makes most sense given their faction mix. Options:

  • A Span-affiliated character is contacted directly by Mael as a trusted professional
  • A Freebooter or Station-Born character is approached as someone who handles problems without generating paperwork
  • A Survey Corps character is contacted because the Void Crawlers are technically a xenobiological situation and Mael would prefer the Survey Corps framing over the Vigilant framing
  • A League-affiliated character is contacted through Nelari, who heard about the problem through her network and decided it was worth her attention, and that the party was the appropriate tool

Mael's opening request is simple: come to the bay, assess the situation, handle the Crawlers. She will tell them about the deliberately weakened seal only if they ask directly or find it themselves.

What Mael knows: The seal was manually weakened from the interior side, tool marks, not mechanical failure. She has the maintenance team's initial inspection notes. She does not know who did it or why. She does not know about the Consortium connection.

What Mael is not saying: She has already filed the maintenance hold with the Span's internal records but has not escalated it. If the Vigilants find out she sat on evidence of deliberate sabotage, her guild standing is at risk.

Act One: The Bay

Scene 1. The Locked Door

The party arrives at Docking Bay 7-G in the Hangar Ring's outer section. The bay is under a Span maintenance lock, the door is sealed, the indicator is amber rather than green, and the normal dock traffic around this bay has rerouted. Mael meets them outside.

Mael's briefing: She tells them what she knows (Crawlers inside, sealed bay, maintenance team locked out). If pushed on the seal, she confirms it looks deliberate. She has not touched anything since the maintenance team's report.

The door: The bay's standard entry requires Span maintenance clearance. Mael has this; she lets them in. Alternatively, a character with Station Knowledge or a Speed + Engineering roll (Threshold 2) can access the manual override panel.

What they find inside: - A standard Hangar Ring docking bay, currently empty, no ship docked; the scheduled traffic has been redirected. Emergency lighting only; the main lighting circuit is tripped. - The primary hull seal on the bay's exterior wall: a section approximately two meters wide shows tooling marks consistent with manual weakening of the seal's bonding material. This is obvious to anyone who looks directly at it (no roll); understanding what it means requires either prior technical knowledge (Engineering talent) or a Wit + Notice roll at Threshold 2. - One Void Crawler (AX.GAT.13.02) has established itself on the exterior wall surface, directly adjacent to the compromised seal. It is in its environment, the weakened seal has created a micro-pressure differential that the Crawler finds appealing. - Evidence of two additional Crawlers having been here: scuff marks on the floor plating from their magnetic limbs, and a section of the bay's power conduit that shows fresh scoring consistent with Breach Attempt behavior.

Scene 2. First Encounter

The Void Crawler is not aggressive until approached within Close range. When the party enters, it registers them as heat signatures and moves toward them.

Combat notes: - The compromised seal is a variable. If the Crawler uses Breach Attempt on the seal rather than on a character's suit, the seal may fail (GM discretion based on how weakened it is, the maintenance team's notes say 60% integrity remaining). A failed seal initiates the Hull Breach environmental hazard (AX.GAT.13.03), the bay begins venting. The party has Void Suit Patch Kit access through Mael (she carries standard Span field equipment); they may not have it on their persons. - The Crawler's Magnetic Signature ability means Void Attunement practitioners detect it at Near range before it attacks; they get one Turn of warning.

Resolution options: - Standard combat: the Crawler is a single Standard-tier threat for a 9D party, challenging but not overwhelming, especially if the hull breach scenario triggers - Containment: a character familiar with Void Crawler behavior (Survey Corps, prior void operations experience, successful Hazard Read) knows the Crawler can be contained, cutting its access to the weakened seal and driving it toward a portable containment unit will work. Mael does not have a containment unit; Dr. Ashlen does, if the party contacts her

After the first Crawler is dealt with, Mael confirms: two more are loose somewhere in the station. They left through the bay's maintenance access duct, a crawlspace that connects to the Cargo Ring's infrastructure.

Act Two: The Trail

Scene 3. Into the Infrastructure

The maintenance access duct from Bay 7-G runs into the Cargo Ring's power distribution network. Following the Crawlers requires navigating the infrastructure space, tight, poorly lit, not on official maps in full detail.

Navigation: A character with Station Knowledge or a successful Wit + Engineering roll (Threshold 2) can follow the Crawlers' path through the infrastructure. Without this, the party can still follow the physical evidence (magnetic adhesion marks on metal surfaces, occasional scoring from Breach Attempt behavior) at Threshold 3. Getting lost means emerging in the wrong section and having to backtrack.

What they find along the way: The power conduit the Crawlers moved through passes close to a Cargo Ring storage section. On one wall of the conduit, the Crawlers' passage disturbed an access panel, and behind the access panel is a small sealed container, clearly not standard station equipment, attached to the conduit wall with an adhesive mount. It was not here last week; the Span's maintenance logs would confirm this if the party checks. The container holds a data chip.

The data chip: Encrypted. Breaking the encryption requires either a CI Data Pull application (Threshold 3) or an Advanced Engineering Kit and time (one full scene, Threshold 3 Wit + Engineering). The chip contains a partial logistics record, shipping documentation for a container that moved through Bay 7-G during the "maintenance" window. The container's contents are listed as "industrial reagents." The destination is an internal Oryx Logistics storage address. The authorization signature is a corporate front identity that experienced characters (or a Consortium operative's player) may recognize as Vandran's operational style.

This is the first real evidence connecting the seal sabotage to a deliberate cargo movement operation. The party may not know what to do with it yet. Keep it in play.

Scene 4. The Two Crawlers

The maintenance duct opens into the Cargo Ring's power distribution hub, a large, partially open space with high ceilings, multiple levels of equipment racks, and access panels on every surface. The two remaining Crawlers have established themselves here; the ambient electromagnetic activity of the power systems is attractive to them.

Encounter setup: - Two Void Crawlers, acting independently rather than as a coordinated pair - The power distribution hub creates terrain: elevated equipment racks the Crawlers can navigate freely (Hull Navigation), narrow clearances between equipment that favor characters who can control their movement, and power conduits that, if a Crawler uses Breach Attempt on them, could trigger an EM Surge condition for the remainder of the scene - Cargo Ring workers who did not know the Crawlers were here are now aware, two dock workers who entered the hub on a routine check are currently backed against the far wall. They are not hostile; they are panicking. Getting them out safely is a secondary objective.

Complication: Halfway through the encounter, a Vigilant patrol officer arrives at the hub's main entrance. She heard the workers' emergency call. She sees the party fighting something that is not on any station fauna manifest. She does not yet know what is happening.

This is not necessarily a confrontation, the Vigilant officer's response depends on how the party handles the next few minutes. If they clearly have the situation under control and can explain it coherently, she may stand back and file a report rather than escalate. If they cannot explain the Crawlers, she calls it in.

Post-encounter: The two Crawlers are dealt with. The dock workers confirm they saw the Crawlers emerge from the maintenance access approximately two hours ago. One of them noticed that someone was in that access duct earlier in the day, before the Crawlers, and did not report it because people use the maintenance access all the time.

The Vigilant officer has a choice to make: call it in immediately or give the party a window to explain. Her call depends on how the party has treated her. This moment sets up the Act Three decision.

Act Three: The Question

Scene 5. What Now

The Crawlers are handled. The party has: - Evidence of deliberate seal weakening in Bay 7-G - A data chip with encrypted logistics records pointing toward an Oryx corporate front - Mael's guild records showing she sat on the sabotage evidence for three days - The Vigilant officer who may or may not have filed a report

The question is what to do with what they have found. This is not a combat scene; it is a decision scene, and the party's choices will echo through the campaign's early sessions.

Option paths:

Report to the Vigilants (directly): A formal report to Commander Sawyer's office gets the full situation on the record. Mael faces guild consequences for the delayed report; the Consortium's logistics operation comes to the Vigilants' attention earlier than Vandran wants; the Oryx corporate front gets scrutiny. Sawyer will want to know how the party found the data chip. The party gains Vigilant standing; they create an adversarial relationship with the Consortium; Mael's gratitude is complicated.

Report to Oryx (directly): Telling Loriya that a corporate front identity was used to move cargo through a sabotaged bay gives Oryx the information and puts the party in Oryx's debt, but it also tells the Consortium that the party has the data chip and found the trail. Loriya's response will be controlled and professional and will involve her tasking someone to follow up quietly. That someone may be the party.

Give it to Nelari: The Solis League's intelligence network would find this data extremely useful. Nelari would compensate the party in the currency she finds most useful, access, information, a favor. She would not share it with the Vigilants or with Oryx; she would use it to manage her relationship with the Consortium. The party gains League standing and a piece of Nelari's calculation that they are useful.

Keep it: The party investigates independently, using the data chip as a starting point to understand the full operation before deciding who to tell. This is the slowest resolution and the most information-rich, but the Consortium will notice, eventually, that the loose end is still loose.

Tell no one: Destroy the evidence, patch the seal through the Span's official channels, let Mael file a clean maintenance report. This closes the immediate problem and creates a future one: the cargo moved; the Consortium's operation succeeded; the party knows it happened and chose not to act. The Consortium will file this as unknown exposure, the sealed bay re-opened without a Vigilant investigation means either the evidence was missed or it was suppressed. Vandran will eventually try to find out which.

Scene 6. Closing

However the party resolves the information question, the adventure closes with three specific beats:

Mael's reckoning: She owes the party. Her gratitude is real; the complications she is managing because of the delayed report are also real. She will be useful to the party going forward; she knows the Span's maintenance network, she has contacts in the outer rings, and she now has a reason to keep the party informed of problems before they escalate. The relationship is established.

The Crawler question: If the party contained a Crawler rather than destroying it, Dr. Ashlen is very interested in talking to them. If they destroyed all three, the Survey Corps xenobiological record gets an update and Ashlen makes a note that someone on the Terminal handled Void Crawlers in a cargo bay and might have relevant operational knowledge. Either way, a Survey Corps connection opens.

The data chip's destination: Wherever the party sent the information, one thing is true: the container that moved through Bay 7-G was listed as industrial reagents and addressed to an Oryx internal storage location. What it actually contained is not in the data chip's records. The Oryx storage location is on level seven of the Spire. The party now has a reason to find out what is in that storage bay, and that investigation is the thread that carries them into the campaign's next arc.

NPC Reference

Mael (The Span, Guild Steward), Full profile in AX.GAT.07.04. In this adventure: pragmatic, protective of her guild standing, genuinely grateful for competent assistance. Does not volunteer more than she knows. Will answer direct questions honestly.

The Vigilant Patrol Officer, A Minion-tier patrol officer (AX.GAT.13.04) named Tevris, human, three years on the Terminal. Professional, not hostile. Her response to the party in Scene 4 should be read from the Patrol Officer social profile, she will cooperate with people who give her a coherent, professional account of what is happening.

Dr. Ashlen (Survey Corps, xenobiologist), Full profile in AX.GAT.07.05. In this adventure: a hook into the Survey Corps relationship and the alien fauna situation. She is not involved in the main plot; she is a person who is interested in what happened and has resources the party might find useful.

Agent Zane Vandran (Oblis Consortium), Does not appear in the adventure directly. He is the answer to the question the data chip poses. When the party becomes a factor in the Consortium's operational environment, because they found the chip, or because they reported it; he will become aware of them. He will not act immediately. He will assess. That assessment is the beginning of the Consortium arc.

Scaling Guidance

Docked (6D). Reduced Difficulty

  • Replace the single Void Crawler in Act One with two Nebula Drifter clusters (Minion tier) that entered through the seal gap, more numerous but individually less dangerous
  • The two Crawlers in Act Two become one Crawler; the dock workers are not present (the hub is during an off-shift period)
  • The data chip's encryption Threshold drops to 2
  • Mael is more forthcoming earlier; she tells the party about the deliberately weakened seal in the initial briefing rather than waiting for them to find it

Deep Range (12D), Increased Difficulty

  • The single Void Crawler in Act One is Elite-tier (treat as a Void Crawler with +2D across its attributes and an additional ability: when it uses Breach Attempt on the weakened seal, the seal fails on a hit, not just Critical Success)
  • The two Crawlers in Act Two are accompanied by a third that was not in the maintenance team's count; it has been in the power hub longer and has partially disabled the lighting circuit (full darkness unless the party has light sources; scanners at Disadvantage from the EM interference)
  • The data chip's encryption is protected by a secondary layer, even after breaking the first encryption (Threshold 3), a Wit Save (Threshold 3) indicates the secondary layer before the party access it; the secondary layer requires either a second CI Data Pull or a second Engineering roll
  • The Vigilant patrol officer in Scene 4 has already called in before she arrives, backup is coming in 1D+1 Turns regardless of how the party handles her; the party must complete the second Crawler encounter before backup arrives or manage two simultaneous situations

GM Notes

The data chip is the campaign's first thread. Whatever the party does with it establishes their operational style, who they trust, what relationships they prioritize, how they think about information as a resource. Pay attention to the choice. Reward it with consequences that fit: the party that gives it to Nelari will find Nelari noticeably warmer in subsequent sessions; the party that keeps it will find the Consortium noticeably more careful around them.

Mael is a long-term relationship. Treat her as the party's first real Span contact rather than a one-session NPC. She has resources and she has a reason to keep the party informed of the kind of problems the Span prefers to handle quietly. The maintenance backlog crisis (referenced in AX.GAT.14.02) is something she will bring to the party when it becomes acute, if the party has handled her well here.

The Void Crawlers are ecological, not tactical. They did not plan to be in the station. They are following biological drives in an environment that happens to have a compromised seal at the right pressure differential. Running them as confused, opportunistic predators rather than enemies makes the encounter feel right for the setting and models what subsequent void entity encounters should feel like.

The Oryx storage bay is not resolved in this adventure. It should be. The party leaves with a destination and a question. What is in the storage bay is GM-determined based on what the Consortium needed to move without scanning, something that connects to whatever campaign arc is developing. A reasonable default: the container holds Survey Corps survey equipment that was diverted from a Corps shipment, marked as industrial reagents for transit, and is now in Oryx storage under a front identity's authorization. The Survey Corps has reported the equipment missing. The party now has the evidence to tell them where it went.