Down there in the dark. [Deep Maints Update]

[Kazkin]

Down there in the Darkness

For quite some time the colony has been plagued by the mysterious place known as deep maintenance, a largely unknown and not understood anomaly where large swathes of scientific like facilities stretch a labyrinthine length through a space that does not quite fit into our understood reality. The various portals and gates between deep maints are often found at random, with only one known specific location. These bizarre and often dangerous gateways are usually plundered by daring colonists, skilled prospectors, or even curious members of the artificer guild in search of materials.

For the longest time, this area was largely inhabited by the dangerous and oft numerous xenomorphs, a lethal and rapid moving parasite not native to the planet. Over a period of several months, however, it has been noted a severe reduction in there numbers, to the point that some trips into deep maints would not encounter any of the chittering horde. The reason why has not been discovered.

A new and disturbing class of creature has begun to stalk the halls of deep maintenance, partially ethereal creatures that seem to phase in to our reality to hunt. These creatures display psionic abilities, from pyrokinesis to telekinesis, evidence collected suggest a wide array of potential and highly dangerous creatures which actively seek out and specialize in killing psions. More disturbingly, the creatures are lead by a massive hulking monster dubbed by the prospectors as the 'Dreaming King', along with an equally dangerous pet called the Hound of the Crown. These beasts seem to avoid leaving deep maintenance and return there when wounded of vanquished.

While this is quite dire news, that the anomalous nature of this planet seems to now be twisting its creatures with psionic effects, there is a silver lining. Psions who have killed these creatures note that they decay into ashes, among said ashes they have discovered small strange runic items which grant psionic users new additional powers. If these are useful or not is subject to debate, but at least there is more than the simple treasure trove of loot behind these slavering gibbering monsters.

Soteria and the Church has already begun to speculate heavily as to the cause of this new affects on the realm, found documents and pages seem to suggest that this realm was once a research station, but the papers offered nothing concrete other than there was a highly advanced facility testing on condemned criminals. If this facility was where the colony resides isn't clear, though this is highly disputed by the Artificer Guild, who over saw the original digging of the colonies bunker. The going theory is that the facility was merely nearby or on the planet, a speculation that has merit given the ruins of the zoo and the prepper's bunker. Some have even proposed this was a failed experiment of the Soteria, given what was revealed about the hivemind, but no evidence truly supports this.

For now, and for once, the Soteria and the Church are in agreement, deep maintenance is now more dangerous than ever, but the curious and daring psion, prospector, or scavenger might just find something of true value down there in the dark.