Session 01: A Spark of Possibility

A low sun sagged over the windswept farm valley on Kenergi Ekta, staining the distant snow-capped ridge in ruddy light. For months, the labor collective had been all they knew—an endless cycle of forced work, thin gruel, and the hollow gaze of armed guards stationed on the creaking wall. Each of them—Jun Min, Jarek Thorne, Cassian Vrye, Konrad, Camrin Gray, and Daniil—had dreamed, quietly or otherwise, of escape. The day they finally stood together at the gates, assigned to investigate a mysterious signal at an abandoned arcology, none of them quite believed it would lead them anywhere but an early grave. Yet desperation sometimes feels like hope when there is nowhere else to turn.

They traveled deep into the pine forests, skirting the watchful eyes of the party’s security forces. At dusk, they stumbled upon a derelict outpost—its wooden fence rotted, its walls pocked with ancient bullet holes. A frigid wind hissed through the sparse trees while darkness closed in around them, as if the forest itself sought to suffocate their meager sense of freedom. Curiosity, sharpened by the need for shelter, drew them inside. Their flashlights cut narrow beams through dusty corridors and overturned furniture. Here, the walls felt too silent, the air reeking of stale decay. It was Daniil, fiddling with a half-smashed console, who warned them first: not all that was dead here had stayed dead.

The moans came like a chorus of hungry ghosts. Pale, stumbling forms—flesh slack, eyes blank—lunged from the shadows. Jarek broke the stillness, stepping forward with a fierce resolve that betrayed his years of brutal experience. He disposed of the first creature almost faster than anyone could blink, twisting and snapping bone with a precision that spoke of grim survival instincts. It was not a glorious fight. The blood-spattered walls and sudden, guttural snarls gave the skirmish a nightmarish edge. Two more of the transformed reeled forward, mere shells of humanity driven by a sickly, insatiable hunger. Jun Min, face grim, moved with an eerie coordination, just as Cassian used an old shotgun to cover them. Camrin lingered at the edge, adrenaline twisting his stomach, measuring the onslaught before striking in quick, efficient bursts. Within moments, the floor was coated in a fresh sheen of rotted fluids.

Afterward, the group hardly celebrated their victory. They picked through the ruin—trapping breath in their lungs each time the wind shook a door or rattled debris. In an upstairs room, they discovered rust-bitten laser rifles in what had once been an armory. They collected these battered relics. None of them spoke of how the last owners had died. The bloodstains and skeletal remains whispered enough. Then, in the battered garage, they found a half-sunken grav-truck. Daniil, a mechanic by trade, felt sparks of possibility in every twisted wire and dented panel. Together, they rummaged for parts, collecting them piece by piece beneath flickering lanterns. Outside, the pine trees groaned with the promise of a savage night, but they pressed on until dawn. Somehow, as the first rays speared through the rotted slats of the garage, the grav-truck roared into sputtering life.

They drove toward the arcology, the dull hum of the grav-engine vibrating underfoot, forging onward through the overgrown highways. Once, a surveillance drone buzzed overhead, an ominous omen of the party’s iron fist. With careful cunning, Konrad tapped into its signal. A single misstep would trigger pursuit, but the drone had instructions to find six prisoners on horseback—not a weathered grav-truck skirting the roads. With digital sleight of hand, he manipulated its telemetry, sending it circling far out, droning overhead like a vulture. That night, huddled behind scraps of metal in the battered vehicle, they heard a horrendous shuffle of hundreds of the transformed—lured by the drone’s circular route—careening through the wilderness in search of prey. The cacophony clawed at their nerves, but when dawn broke the horizon, the horde had swept by, leaving the road miraculously clear.

When they finally reached the arcology’s towering base, they found it a ruined shell of a once-great metropolis. Vehicles lay rusted in heaps, some upended in shallow ditches. Creeping vines dripped from shattered windows as sunlight danced across shards of glass. Entropy had become the new architecture, and from the arcology’s yawning entrance came the stench of stagnant air and centuries of restless dead. Somewhere inside pulsed that unknown signal. Inside, the corridors bore silent witness to mass exodus—a riot of abandoned luggage, scrawled messages of despair, bloody footprints forever etched into dust. Strange that so many had once lived and thrived here, only to vanish under a wave of horror.

They navigated deeper, guided by Konrad’s scanners and Jun Min’s uncanny instincts. Creatures still lurked in the gloom, but the group moved with a grim determination. An elevator bank offered salvation—a sleek maglev that, if powered, would shoot them upward to the higher levels. Daniil spliced cables with swift competence. Konrad whispered muted curses as he coerced the rusted systems to grant them one final ride. With a hum, the maglev arrived, its doors scraping open to reveal a cramped interior smeared with old blood and filled with half-limp corpses that had once been walkers. Jarek distracted them—hurling debris telekinetically or pushing them with brute force—long enough for the rest to slip inside and send the elevator racing upward.

At the top, sunlight blinded them once more as they emerged onto a half-collapsed landing pad. The signal roared strongest here, emanating from a vessel perched like a marooned beast against the battered arcology roof. The Luminous Run. This merchant frigate still bore scorch marks, evidence of hurried landings or disastrous conflicts. Their hearts hammered at the prospect: a ship capable of escaping Kenergi Ekta altogether. Yet as they circled its hull, wariness replaced their fleeting hope. The hatch stood sealed. For a moment, they feared the final barrier might be unbreakable after all.

Then came the unexpected hiss of hydraulics. The hatch slid aside, revealing a squat, boxlike droid brandishing a drill arm. Its metal joints squealed in the still morning air. Cassian raised his weapon, uncertain, but the droid did not lunge. It spoke in a mechanical monotone—words about lacking certain gaskets and inquiring as to the state of the organic crew. In that moment, the group realized no living soul had occupied this ship for centuries. Guided by silent invitation, they stepped inside, hearts caught between wonder and dread.

Stale air greeted them. Flickering console lights danced along corridors that reeked of dust and solitude. E-20, as the droid identified itself, patiently explained the Luminous Run’s predicament—an abandoned vessel forced to remain here after its crew vanished. While Jarek and Daniil rummaged through compartments, Jun Min stood transfixed by the dormant power of this craft. With Konrad’s help, the droid triggered partial systems. Consoles glowed to life, revealing old star maps and logs of the ship’s final days. Cassian watched them from the shadows. They had stumbled onto something precious: a functioning spike drive, a chance for real freedom.

No more gulag. No more half-lives toiling in the shadow of distant overlords.

Tension thickened the air. This was it—if they could truly lift off, if the Luminous Run hadn’t succumbed to the same rot plaguing the world around them. Soon, the frigate rumbled to awareness, thrusters whispering possibilities of exodus. In the hush, only E-20’s gentle whirr and the hiss of the cabin vents spoke. Their eyes locked in a rare moment of hope. Somewhere down below, the arcology still seethed with untold numbers of the transformed, but up here, a different future beckoned.

The moment they sealed the airlock and prepped the engines, each realized they stood on the verge of forging a new path. Filled with battered hearts, grudges, and quiet yearnings, they soared away from the sullen towers of Kenergi Ekta—into the unknown depths of space, no longer prisoners but fugitives once more. Only now, they had a ship, and with it, a spark of possibility in a bleak, unyielding cosmos.