Chapter 9 : The Desert part 1

Begin recording.

The trip to Elaaden took us four days and nine hours. On arrival, we found that the temperature is brutally hot, seriously. Because New Tuchanka is surrounded by sinkholes and no feasible landing spot nearby, we chose to land on the Paradise, where a species native to Andromeda, the angara, made a small trading outpost.

As we stepped out of the Tempest, we had to stay in the shadows to keep ourselves from burning up. But even that is not enough, as I could see Cora and Ryder drenched in sweat under their armor. Heck, I could've sworn that my platform was going to melt under the blazing heat. Good thing the ship's air conditioner is working well as I recorded this video.

Speaking of the angara, I am very surprised to see that in a large, resource-rich cluster, there's only one sapient species. That is, if you discount the people who built the Remnant.

These aliens have the ability to utilize their own bioelectricity in place of biotics, akin to the electric eels that used to exist on Earth. They have bluish-pink skin color, no hair or fur, as well as muscle folds around their necks. Their eyes are blue and silted, giving a serious and deep expression. Their hands have three fingers, and their legs are similar to a quarian's. One of those angara I met on Paradise is named Annea, a female angara who owned the outpost like a queen. She established a ceasefire area around the outpost because, as she said, the travelers need her, and she needs whatever the travelers can give. Anyone who causes trouble is to be kicked out immediately.

What do you all think of her?

(Reaper minds : "She seems interesting"... "You're kidding"... "Looks like another quarian to me"... "Are these really the people of Heleus?"... "A little too soft to be traders, I think"...)

Alright, alright, thank you for all the mumblings. At least the aliens were willing to give us a translation program to study. Their main language is called Shelesh. Since we're all still adjusting to the heat of Elaaden, Ryder declared that we execute exploration in T-minus 7 hours.

Doctor Lexi is currently studying the outlaws in discreet manner, due to most, if not all of the outlaws are behaving in a drunken behavior. Suvi and Gil are taking samples of iridium, platinum, and fluorite. Perhaps the minerals can be used to augment the Tempest.

(Adana : More fluorite? I thought this moon is rich with graphite and silicon, from the small samples we've gathered.)

Just ignore her, my child. I don't think fluorite is fatally dangerous for humans.

In the meantime, Ryder took Drack to see Jorgal Strux. The shifty krogan mentioned that the crashed ship we saw before landing on Paradise is a Remnant ship, which instantly picked up Ryder's interest. Strux added that the ship has a powerful drive core that can be reconstructed into a special bomb that Nakmor Morda would use to blow up the Nexus. SAM's landscape scanning also revealed a set of monoliths that might conceal a Remnant vault under the sands, and also the infamous flophouse.

For the trip to the monoliths and the vault, the pathfinder elected Peebee, Vetra, and Liam to go with him. We must tame the moon if we want to create another Initiative outpost here. Drack and I will gather more news from the krogan merchants. Once the Elaaden vault is active, Drack, Vetra and I will be accompanying him to see the krogan ruler. Hopefully we can all get out of this place in one piece.

(Kithara : I must express my amazement during our first sighting of the derelict Remnant ship. If my calculation is right, the ship could be nearly as large as Nazara. I have this suspicion that the Remnant makers are a synthetic lifeform or biomechanical one.)

(Adana : Didn't we already talked about this sometime ago?)

I think so, but we haven't seen one of their starships up close like that one. Now, if Strux is correct, Morda's mercenaries would be swarming all over that place, trying to salvage precious materials from the ship.

Not much life are thriving on the moon's surface, aside from insectoid animals crawling about, some cactus-like plants growing here and there, and those red-leafed trees which produced a kind of medicinal sap.

Hmpf, I wanted to talk some more, but with the burning temperature, I must conserve my platform's energy reserves until three hours later. Children, please learn and translate this Shelesh language for our database, and don't wake me up unless there's something extremely urgent. Very well, end of today's recording.