Exploring the Graveyard of the Armored Hearts [Part 1/2]

solo TTRPG play report

The New Humans are sublime. Come to the Graveyard and relish with us.

That was the message that I decrypted two weeks ago.

[D50 on CSSS: 39, navigation system]

I don’t know what it means. “New Humans.” “Graveyard.” “Relish.” I don’t like any of it. But it gave me a heading, which I do like. Spending too much time drifting and not enough time working these days. I’ll trace the signal back, and I’ll find a port. There’s got to be a reason that message was broadcast. Even if I’m not interested in their New Humans, I might be able to find work. Or at least fix the nav on this junker so I don’t need to go drifting again.

I’m going back to sleep for a while. Wake me up when we get to the source of that signal.

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What is this?

This is a play report of a solo TTRPG session. Using the 5 Million Worlds Pocketzine (by Chris Air) to create a character and Thousand Empty Light (by Alfred Valley) for the Combined Systems Semiotic Standard oracle (CSSS), I am taking a friendly anarchist named Jace to The Graveyard of the Armored Hearts (by watt and Chris Air). Come along as we find out who the New Humans are, what the Graveyard is, and why anyone would want to relish them there.

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Jace, anarchist

Stats: Strength 37, Speed 31, Intellect 38, Combat 37

Saves: Reality 29, Fear 22, Body 25

Limit: 2

Wounds: 0/2

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I’m up, I’m up! Turn off the alarm already!

The alarm stops. I get myself together and check my surroundings. Ahead of the ship is a superstructure unlike anything I’ve seen before. A polyhedral skeleton, each bone spinning about its long axis, probably generating gravity for somebody. I put my ship into a wide orbit to give myself time to consider this thing.

The longer I look at the skeleton, the more my awe wanes. Many of the bones are not spinning, and some appear to be spinning too slowly to generate any reasonable Gs. A few small ships come and go from some of the joints of the skeleton, but many of those knuckles sit with their bay doors open and no lights on inside. This thing has seen better days.

Entering Area 1: Transfer Knuckle, Spaceside

“I guess that one is as good as any.” I head toward one of the busier knuckles. “Let’s see what we can find,” I say to my ship. It doesn’t reply. I get in the queue behind a small shuttle with...

[D50 on CSSS: 18, no, but/deception]

…some strange cargo attached to the outside. Some sort of scrap, I guess. Haven’t seen anything like it before, maybe a wreck of some alien kind of ship. It heads straight across the large docking bay. I am instructed to move to a quarantine area until my ship can be catalogued.

“What’s your purpose here?” a voice crackles over my short-range comms.

Decisions, decisions. I’d rather not give myself away up front. Let’s go with what I know. “I’m headed to the Graveyard,” I lie. I don’t elaborate.

[D50 on CSSS: 04, no, security]

The voice comes back on the comms, “You carry no B.A.H.U. You bear no company beacon. You have no business in the Graveyard. You have one opportunity to leave The Web before your ship is disabled, and you are arrested.”

Probably should have just told the truth. Ah, well.

I should probably leave now, but I don’t have another heading. I need to find something here, even if it isn’t work. This ship is nearly useless in its current state, so I think it’s time we parted ways.

I don’t reply to the voice. I turn the nose of my ship so that it’s pointing back out into space. A strap myself into the breaching pod with a nervous giggle. I have a love/hate relationship with this thing. Let’s hope today is more love than hate.

I don’t need to slam the button. I don’t even mean to. It’s a touchscreen; I could have just lightly pressed my finger on the ENTER key and the program would have run.

But I know what’s coming, and the voice does not.

Four separate gun ports open around the body of the ship and open fire blindly. The engines fire, scorching the inside of the bay as the ship accelerates out into space. It’s wholly ballistic now, as am I, bolted into the breaching pod as it launches backward toward that ship with the alien wreck attached to it. I did not have much time to aim, but at this range…

[D50 on CSSS: 43, yes, access]

…I did not need it. The breaching pod pierces the hull of the shuttle. Bracers spring out and arrest my momentum. Even with dampeners, it hurts.

Limit Check against 2 Limit.

[D10 on Break Down table: 1, failure; Focus, gain [+] for 5 minutes]

My heart races. I leap from the pod. Two trads are getting to their feet across the hold from where I’ve landed. I don’t wait for them. In the zero-G of the small ship, I leap toward the nearest door as one of the trads draws a weapon.

Speed Test

[+D100 vs 31: 92 or 12, success]

I am just fast enough. The trad opens fire as the door slides closed behind me. I need something to go right. I propel myself down the short hallway toward what must be the bridge of the shuttle.

[D50 on CSSS: 41 yes, broadcast system]

I burst onto the bridge, and I find it empty. The two trads in the hold might be the only crew. I grab the comms and flip open the short-range channel. “What’s going on out there?” I shout. “Why am I reading hull damage? What kind of business are you running here?” I lock the bridge door and start to accelerate. Ahead of me is another bay door, and as I go through that door I see hundreds more alien objects that match the one attached to this shuttle floating in the vast cavern before me. Now I can see them for what they really are: bipedal machines, probably some foolish corp’s attempt to build a mech like they’ve read about in old comic books.

Blaster fire erupts outside the bridge door. “Time to go,” I mumble again, and I look around the small room. I see the lever for the pilot’s ejection pod. I don’t hesitate. “This is gonna hurt,” I wince as the chair I’m sitting in is sucked through the floor and ejected from the shuttle. The shuttle is fully within the open marrow of the phalanx now, so the pod rockets toward the inner shell of this spinning limb of the superstructure.

Entering Area 2: Breaker Depots

The pod smashes through that shell, and I am once again wracked by pain. This wasn’t a breaching pod, so it did not have nearly the dampening capacity as my other pod. By the time I’ve ‘fallen’ to the ground of the spinning phalanx, the pod has spun enough times that it is half-filled with vomit.

+1 Limit

Limit Check against 3 Limit.

[D10 on Break Down table: 7, success]

I pull myself out of the pod and look around, expecting some sort of police force to be swarming toward me. That entrance to wherever I am now was not subtle. Instead, it is quiet. I see cranes standing at attention. I see warehouse with shattered windows. I see empty freight platforms lined up on elevated grav-rails. I don’t see any people.

What to do next?

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End of Part 1

I did not expect this to go like this, but here we are! In Part 2, Jace will be continuing his exploration of The Web, and maybe he’ll actually have an interaction with one of the locals. No promises on that, though.

Until then, thanks for reading!

—MAH