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| The Guests | |
|---|---|
| Type | Sky-Beast |
| Location | The Reach, Albion |
The Guests are recent arrivals to the High Wilderness. They keep to the skies, avoiding ports. Some say they are cunning; others that they are shy. Some say they are drawn to mirrors. Probably best to turn yours to the wall, just in case. The Guests crave the particular warmth associated with places that have been lived-in - they like stoves, and keepsakes, and knicknacks. A wriggling colony of them will fill a locomotive like a snail fills its shell. Be careful. That Windward Company trader that refuses to answer your signal might be hosting a writhing community of Guests, growing ever-more frantic for a new home as theirs grows cold.
Description[]
The Guests are an aggressive Sky-Beast of The Reach and Albion, and you will first notice their presence when an otherwise innocuous locomotive (typically a Tackety Scout or Enduring Dreadnought) bursts open with black tentacles and becomes hostile. They fire up to three burst of black slime at you and can also make a semi-homing attack. Their attack is dangerous, doing more damage than other foes you encounter in these realms. Running away is recommended until you have a well-equipped ship, but even then victory against the Guests can never be assured.
To tell whether a Scout or a Dreadnought is Guest ridden, pay attention to the enemy indicator that appears around your locomotive, a grey arrow will usually appear pointing at the infested locomotive. Infested locomotives also move faster than normal ones.
Infested locomotives are also much more durable, an infested Scout has 150 Hull, which is on par with a Scorn Fluke; while infested Dreadnoughts have 170 Hull, as much as a Tackety Liberator. Destroying an infested Scout grants you 286 [[Experience] while destroying a Dreadnought grants you 343 experience.
The Guests, Evicted[]
| The Guests, Evicted | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Category | Story Event |
| Type | Story |
| Data ID | 273625 |
"Their stolen home bursts open under your gunfire. Thousands of wriggling Guests spill into the night, glistening like the ooze from a blister after it was lanced.Looting(Guests)"
Interactions
| Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trap and collect some of the Guests
If the crew find out you're bringing these on board, they won't be happy. Where one Guest goes, others follow.
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Failed event | Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
Game note: This will get you Captive Guests. Enough can be used to create a weapon. | |
| A rare find!
Your trip is a triumph – you use tongs to place several budding Guests into a jam jar. Your return back to the ship is less of a success. Unfortunately, your crew have been sensible enough to post someone on watch. She spots the jar under your arm, but says nothing.
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| Successful event | |||
| A rare find!
The proliferation of Guests has bulged and contorted the engine's inner walls. Furniture has been crushed to splinters. Any crew – well – best tread carefully.
You find a newly hatched nest of Guests, tiny enough that they might be taken for maggots. With tongs, you transfer the wriggling things to a jam jar. It can be hidden in your cabin. The cook won't notice it's gone.
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| Create the 'Uninvited'
Gather one more handful of Guests and you'll have enough for a weapon. Like mother yeast, the colony will keep reproducing. It will have endless ammunition.
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At the work bench
After one last trip for a fistful of oozing budding Guests, you order the crew to leave you undisturbed. You have a weapon to build.
You won't fire the Guests themselves. That would be mad. Instead, you'll milk their secretions and project gobs of it through a pressurised launcher. Your crew are horrified. But they need not fear: you show them how to placate the Guests with gifts of egg-cups, lockets, cufflinks, and other knick-knacks. Preferably ones that were once gifts or mementos.
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Game note: This will give you a large weapon that you can equip while in dock, or sell to an equipment shop.
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| Continue your bombardment
Excessive, perhaps, but satisfying.
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|
A service to all skyfarers
Your guns thunder, reducing the writhing Guests to a spray of pulp. Your crew cheer. The Guests are a regular actor in skyfarers' nightmares. A daily check for foot-long, eyeless, slug-things is conducted on most engines. It only takes one for an infestation to begin.
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Game note: Lose Terror. |
| Rare event (33%) | |||
| Intercession
Your crew cheer. Your guns blaze. The Guests burst into sprays of mince. As they die, they emit a gloomy whistling noise. It is rhythmic; devotional. Are they praying?
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| Salvage scrap to repair your hull
After you've thoroughly scoured it of any clinging Guests, of course.
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Patching her up
Soon, the sound of hammering resounds through the hull, as engineers apply steel bandages to her scars.
|
Advanced query needs investigation Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
| |
| Salvage scrap to repair your hull
After you've thoroughly scoured it of any clinging Guests, of course.
|
Patching her up
Soon, the sound of hammering resounds through the hull, as engineers apply steel bandages to her scars.
|
Advanced query needs investigation
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
| |
| Collect a sample of the Guests' ligaments
The Phlegmatic Researcher in the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve does not know what he has requested of you. But you'll see it done.
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In the ruins of the locomotive, crippled by the shrapnel that was once the hull, you find two of the Guests in a weakened state. With a well whetted saw, you slice them apart, before returning to your locomotive with your bounty.
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Alternative requirement
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| Search the wreckage for valuables
Be wary. Watch for anything that wriggles.
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Failed event | Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
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| Knick-knacks
The Guests were stuffed into the locomotive like the meat in a sausage. Most of its contents have been ground to powder or paste. Only the crew's keepsakes – no matter how fragile – have been spared. Did the Guests take care of them?
You manage to recover lockets and wedding-rings, a set of ugly Toby jugs, and silver picture-frames before a shriek interrupts your search. One of your crew capers like a Morris-dancer. Her life-tether snaps. A lurking Guest has found its way into her sky-suit. It drinks her warmth as she falls into the sky.
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| Successful event | |||
| A discovery
The Guests occupied the wreck as comprehensively as a snail does its shell. The crew have long since been ground to paste. But what is this, preserved beneath the floor of the captain's cabin? A safe!
You drag it free, scrub of the worst of the Guest-ooze and carry it back to your engine. Something thumps enticingly inside?
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| A Guest-Raddled Dreadnought, Defeated | |
|---|---|
| |
| Category | Story Event |
| Type | Story |
| Data ID | 300303 |
Story description[]
The Dreadnought rocks like an empty cradle. It had been colonised by the Guests: a wormy, lonely species that craves the warmth of inhabited places.
But one Guest calls others. Soon every inch of the engine was filled with slug-like worms, and the crew were crushed.
Interactions
| Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Continue your bombardment
Suffer not the Guests to live.
Game note: Lose Terror. |
|
A service to all skyfarers
Your guns thunder, reducing the writhing Guests to a spray of pulp. Your crew cheer. The Guests are a regular actor in skyfarers' nightmares. A daily check for foot-long, eyeless, slug-things is conducted on most engines. It only takes one for an infestation to begin.
|
|
| Rare event (33%) | |||
| Intercession
Your crew cheer. Your guns blaze. The Guests burst into sprays of mince. As they die, they emit a gloomy whistling noise. It is rhythmic; devotional. Are they praying?
| |||
| Salvage scrap to repair your hull
After you've thoroughly scoured it of any clinging Guests, of course.
Game note: Repair your hull. |
Patching her up
Soon, the sound of hammering resounds through your locomotive, as engineers apply steel bandages to her scars.
|
Advanced query needs investigation Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
| |
| Salvage scrap to repair your hull
After you've thoroughly scoured it of any clinging Guests, of course.
Game note: Repair your hull. |
Patching her up
Soon, the sound of hammering resounds through your locomotive, as engineers apply steel bandages to her scars.
|
Advanced query needs investigation
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
| |
| Collect a sample of the Guests' ligaments
The Phlegmatic Researcher in the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve does not know what he has requested of you. But you'll see it done.
|
|
In the ruins of the locomotive, you find two Guests in a weakened state. You slice them apart and extract what you need before returning to your locomotive with your grisly bounty.
|
Alternative requirement
|
| Search the wreckage for valuables
Be wary. Watch for anything that wriggles.
|
|
Failed event | Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.
|
| Knick-knacks
The Guests were stuffed into the locomotive like the meat in a sausage. Most of its contents have been ground to powder or paste. Only the crew's keepsakes – no matter how fragile – have been spared. Did the Guests take care of them?
You manage to recover lockets and wedding-rings, a set of ugly Toby jugs, and silver picture-frames before a shriek interrupts your search. One of your crew capers like a Morris-dancer. Her life-tether snaps. A lurking Guest has found its way into her sky-suit. It drinks her warmth as she falls into the sky.
| |||
| Successful event | |||
| A discovery
The Guests occupied the wreck as comprehensively as a snail does its shell. The crew have long since been ground to paste. But what is this, preserved beneath the floor of the captain's cabin? A safe!
You drag it free, scrub of the worst of the Guest-ooze and carry it back to your engine. Something thumps enticingly inside.
|