I am Tohmas, a Talkative Nano who Tells Tales, and this is a Postcard from the Ninth World.
The shuttle arrives and the party finds themselves floating in an open shaft. Three openings can be seen around the shuttle, with a now-familiar gap separating them from the shuttle. The group steps off the edge of the shuttle and instantly are teleported to the opening beyond.
They follow a sloping, curving corridor downward until they reach a door. They can open it by using the tubes behind a nearby panel, as they did earlier. This leads to a room and another corridor that leads them to a room that is somehow “below” the shuttle.
The walls of this room are covered with what appears to be red velour, as is a cylinder rising from floor to ceiling in the center. The cylinder is covered with indentations, each of which in turn contains a small white disc.
The discs are each embossed with a stylized symbol. The symbols are a star, a moon, a sun, a claw, a flame, a winged lizard, and a human.
The characters start collecting the discs. They determine that the cylinder will rotate and that empty indentations will refill with a disc when it is out of sight.
They also find out that every time they collect three matching discs, a drawer opens holding a ring. The ring holds three slots, each properly sized to hold a disc. They try inserting discs and find that they can only insert three matching discs into the rings.
They then determine that if they wear one of the rings with the discs inserted they can think more clearly. ((Wearing an active “halo” increases Intellect Edge by one.))
The first side effect they discover is that if two characters wear a halo with the same set of discs then both characters start experiencing what each other is experiencing. This proves to be extremely disorienting as neither character can distinguish between their senses and body and those of the other persons. They quickly sort out discs so that every character has a unique set.
Then, one of the characters wearing a halo sees a lizard-like creature standing near the doorway, watching them. As soon as the lizard realizes that it has been spotted it rushes away. Comparing who saw the lizard and who didn’t the characters realize they cannot see the lizard unless they are wearing the halo.
Talking with Ada they learn that these lizards are the carnivores her people feared. They also learn that the lizards cannot be seen unless you have heightened mental activity (as created by the halos). However, wearing the halos too long has a negative side effect; the mind becomes “dependent” on the halo and starts suffering.
((For every hour a character wears the Halo they must make an Intellect check or lose one Intellect Edge. This value can go negative. The first time they roll is a difficulty 1 check. It increases by one each time. If the character removes the halo they will slowly recover; they continue to make a check every hour and if they succeed they recover one Edge. The difficulty reduces each hour in this case. If they put the halo back on they have to make a check again at the current difficulty and it starts increasing again from that point.))
When the characters had taken enough discs to fill seven halos the cylinder splits open, revealing two of the navigation crystals. One statue is holding a sun while the other holds a claw. The characters take these then return to the shuttle.
The lizard they had seen earlier is nowhere to be seen. They activate the shuttle and it takes them “down” another level.
Again they find the curving corridors that eventually lead to a room “under” the shuttle. This room is filled with junk; bits of machinery, broken tools and the like. Searching through it they find a few Cyphers, but nothing better than what they are already carrying. They return them to the shuttle, drop them in the carriage, and drop down another level.
They find the usual room but this one is much more disturbing. Hanging from hooks, as if they were in a butcher’s shop, are the bodies of numerous humans and abhumans. Several of them have been mostly cut away but a few are still alive.
The characters free the still-living prisoners and talk to them. They tell them how the strange lizards simply appeared among them, grabbed some of them, and flew away. They discuss being tortured by the lizards who described in detail to them how they would be eaten, before taking some of them away.
The characters promise to help the villagers who were taken away. They leave the rescued prisoners where they are and go down to the next level.
They almost immediately encounter the winged lizards. These fight furiously using long tridents that do a surprising amount of damage. After the battle, several characters collect the tridents and find them surprisingly light but hard to balance, needing two hands to use. ((Heavy weapon.))
Proceeding down the spiraling corridor they continue to find the lizards. They continue fighting along the way, always successfully but slowly taking damage.
The room “below” the shuttle this time turns out to be a set of living quarters for the lizards. They kill a few more lizards here, then find two dead and one barely alive human lying on a table. The human has been partially eaten and some of their organs have been removed; they cannot tell how he is even still alive. Unable to save him, they kill him to put him out of his misery.
The characters by this point have taken substantial injuries and are not sure how much further they can proceed, but do not want to abandon the facility. Using the shuttle, they find that there are two more levels below them but they choose to not investigate either.
Using the shuttle again returns it to the top level. The characters can figure out that if they lock the shuttle here, then any lizards on the lower levels will be trapped there. But, doing so will also alert any lizards below them to their presence. Plus, they cannot return to the nightship without unlocking the shuttle. They decide to make camp at the top level and continue their explorations after they have somewhat recovered.