Galaxy 1: Mist Nebula

Veris was the first jungle planet charted by the scouts of the Nebula. Its trees rise so high that their crowns brush the clouds of green mist. For centuries, it served as a stopover for merchants crossing the cluster. A Guild beacon was planted there, the promise of a safe port for travellers. Then the freighters began to disappear, one by one, without a distress call. The few survivors spoke of small green figures bursting from the roots. The goblins of Veris build nothing: they gnaw, they loot, they multiply. The beacon went silent three moons ago, and the mist has swallowed the landing strip. Command is sending you to relight the lamp at the edge of the Nebula.

Your ship sets down in a clearing. The roots are already moving.

Sylva-2 is the twin of Veris, born from the same disc of dust. But where Veris breathes, Sylva-2 suffocates under vines as thick as cables. The settlers had built a relay station there, perched on a granite plateau. The relay transmitted the maps of the Nebula to every fleet. One morning, its antennas turned towards the ground, like wilted flowers. The goblins had learned to climb, then to cut, then to command. An organised gang now holds the plateau and holds the last survivors to ransom. Without the relay, the maps go out of date and ships get lost in the mist. The plateau must be retaken before the whole galaxy goes blind.

Your boots sink into the moss. A shrill laugh echoes through the vines.

Kelo is a world of gorges and torrents where the water sings night and day. A single stone bridge links its two continents, carved by a forgotten civilisation. The carvings on the bridge tell of giants who carried mountains on their backs. The orcs of the Nebula have made it their legend and their title deed. An orc chief planted his axe in the middle of the bridge and declared Kelo his. Since then, no convoy has crossed the gorge without leaving half its cargo behind. The goblins obey him out of fear, and out of a taste for what he leaves them. On the other side of the bridge lies the only spaceport still intact in the region. Without it, there is no way to reach the deeper worlds of the Nebula.

The torrent roars beneath your feet. A massive figure waits halfway across.

Gobb-7 was just a nameless moon, a grey rock circling a gas giant. The goblins chose it precisely because nobody was looking at it. They dug tunnels, piled up ship carcasses, raised palisades. In ten years, the moon became the largest goblin camp in the Nebula. Everything stolen on the trade routes ends up here: engines, food, weapons. Archers stand guard in towers made of sheet metal and bone. Every cargo looted on Veris or Sylva ends up here, stripped down and resold. Striking Gobb-7 means cutting out the heart that feeds every raid in the region. The scouts warn you: the moon is swarming, and its inhabitants know you're coming.

Your ship slips between two wrecks. The drums begin to beat.

Arbor is a planet where the forest has never known an end. Its giant trees form an unbroken canopy three hundred metres above the ground. The first explorers walked there on branches as wide as avenues. Then they stopped coming back, and their logs spoke of arrows falling from the sky. The archers of the Nebula have made Arbor their nest and their shooting range. From the treetops, they see everything that moves below, and nothing escapes them. Every expedition sent to drive them out came back smaller than it set out. They say they are protecting something, or someone, at the heart of the forest. Command wants to know what, and above all wants to reopen the road to Nyx Verte.

You look up: the canopy is silent. Too silent.

Nyx Verte is the beating heart of the Mist Nebula. Its biosphere is so rich that it alone produces the mist that bathes the galaxy. The ancients saw a sleeping goddess in it, and offered her their first harvests. A goblin shaman has found a way to speak to this forest, and to make it sick. The trees weep a black sap, and the green mist is turning grey. If Nyx Verte dies, the whole Nebula will suffocate with it. The shaman has gathered the fiercest warriors of the region around him. He knows that whoever holds Nyx Verte holds the entire galaxy. Command is out of time: he must be defeated before the next moon.

A smell of rot rises from the ground. The roots are bleeding.

Ogria is a heavy planet, with crushing gravity and rounded mountains. Only immense beings can live there without being crushed by their own weight. The Ogre of the Nebula was born there, and has never met anyone stronger. He has made Veris, Sylva and Kelo his hunting grounds, and the goblins his dogs. Every raid, every vanished ship, every beacon gone dark leads back to him. His lair is a cave piled with the treasures of ten years of terror. The orcs who serve him fear him more than they fear death. No fleet has ever dared to land on Ogria. You will be the first. Defeating the Ogre means freeing the whole Mist Nebula in one blow.

The gravity pins you to the ground. At the back of the cave, something rises.