Her arrows and mousetraps were hitting, but doing nothing to make a slowpoke of the Hunter. It was jill-be-nimble and jill-be-quick, mayhaps almost as much as Smoke Alarm, and it could definitely jump over a candlestick. But more, it was tough like an old tom, and no matter how she hurt it, it just keep chasing her. Smoke was starting to worry-wart, but so long as it was playing follow-the-leader with her and not outgoing after Traveller and Stan and Olyesa, then all was good. Skipping off the wall amidst a fluffy black cloud of kitlings, she swerved around a corner, trying to lead the Hunter away from the brainquarters.

Then she skidded right up to another Cheetah Person, fangs bared and claws swiping.

Smoke scrambled away, trying to put her back to the wall rather than the Cheetah coming up behind, using all her Kang Fu to duck and dodge and slap away both their paws. She was stuck in the worst place to be – a corner. 'Go away!' she yelled defiantly, at the Cheetahs, at herself, and at her own terror, in the knowhow she could soon be unalive. She ran out of pat-a-cake; the Hunter raised its paw, claws extended and gleaming in the lights. At least, she could go to the Great Pool in the Sky then, and meet her old friends again. 'Go away.' she tried one more time.

Then, in a flash, she went away.

She was down the carrydoor, with kitlings all around, outlooking at the Hunters outlooking for her. They turned and eyespied her and rebellious kitlings, fangs bared in anger. 'The cats of Kestartes have made their choice.' she told them firmly. 'Snappy Tom. Snappy Tom! At Snappy Tom time, they raise up their voice. Snappy Tom. Snappy Tom!' she shouted in defiance. 'At Snappy Tom time, they're all of one voice! Snappy Tom!'

The Cheetahs came.

The Cheetahs fell over.

The kitlings fell over too.

Smoke Alarm dropped to her knees, finding the kitlings shaking and twitching as if in a fit. Worry-wart and unbrave and unbold for them, she reached around and drew the stunned black cats closer to her, patting their fur and giving soothing words. 'Come on Tiddles, Zeffy, Sunny, Jatson, Mokey, Muffy, it's Snappy Tom time, you're free as the wind now, build high for happiness.' she urged them, desperately hoping her new friends would comeout sound and safe.

She howled in defiance; letting the Call, both the original and this now... modified Call, pound through her, Calling her, putting on that final burst of speed to lead them into the trap; hissing as she went, not even realising what she was saying or doing.

"It's Always Time to Travel."

The Traveller, a robed goddess coruscating in colors of gold and purple and red, isn in glory, the cheetah phenomenon playfully racing around her, even as they rewrite and instruct each other.

"They are not pets, they are people, and my equals. That objective fact has always been the source of my strength and has always led to defeat for my foes. Humanity outlives the Daleks and the Time Lords."

Her voice waves between five and six levels of harmony.. Her voice shifts tenor, so that of the terrible red head from not too long ago. So, you're the poltroon who does himself up in devil gimmickry, who thieves my people's work, and who calls himself the lord of time and has assumed titles that he has no right to and has not earned? Consider very carefully what you say to me and what you decide in the next few moments, and what I have done to the likes of the Shedraya, the Faction Paradox, the Cult of Skaro, Apep of the Osirians, Davros - all of them, who were greater than you. I always give my warning, no matter how heinous the crimes."

As the Cheetah phenomenon races playfully around her, she wears the name of the Marshall regally, as a mantle, but only as a part of the greater continuum of the terrible and glorious Traveller. "Build your little empire in your little corner of space, but leave history be. What is, must be. Tamper with what has been, is, and must be, and I will act. I do not protect people - I protect their choices. Consider that carefully, and what it means. If you do not cease your plans and do not withdraw...things will not go well for you."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:04, Sun 19 Mar 2017.

"Okay, that bell is very bad news." Stanley says. He keeps switching between looking at Trav and the TARDIS. "I...uh... we need to check on the TARDIS. Something is going on and it could be very dangerous if we don't stop it. I don't know what happens to all this machinery if the TARDIS fails or if it decides it needs to get away from this place."

It is true that something had also just happened to Trav, but she is still alive. Besides, he doesn't know how much he can do if weird energy starts escaping. He turns to Olyessa. "It doesn't sound very professional, but Trav appears somewhat stable. I suggest we go back inside and start looking at all the screens. Hopefully one of them will show a warning telling us what is going on. Or maybe the systems that monitor Trav's vital signs have come outside. Does that sound like a plan, Olyessa?"

"Wait, you don't have to go back." he adds after a moment. He is reminded of how many times Trav had warned him. "Dangerous is a probably an understatement. I don't know how much safer it is here, but it might be safer."

After a few minutes, the kitlings' eyes start to blink open and they start to try to get to their feet.  Their eyes are wide and they look all around to eyespy their surroundings, and some of them, despite having more feet than Kangs do, promptly stumble and tip over again.

(The Cheetahs are still sprawled and limp, although some of them do twitch and dream-run a bit.  A trained telempathic pathologist might theorize that these kitlings have been somewhat inoculated to the ways of Snappy Tom by their resonance with Smoke Alarm, and thus have been quicker to recover from the sudden surge through the mental network.)

What Smoke Alarm does realize is that they seem to be shaking off the effects of whatever happened, albeit slowly.  They also seem to be a little bit silly; their behavior reminds Smoke of what happened when she and Water Tap and Light Fixture shoplifted that bottle of Doctor Sam's grape juice.

As she glances back, trying to judge the timing to pass through the trap and spring it, she sees that the pursuing Cheetahs haven't gotten back up again.  They're trying to push themselves up off the floor, smearing some blood from their wounds, but they seem to be in a sort of stupor.  If they got the full dose of whatever just came over Kalath... they might be vulnerable now.  Helpless.

(Strangely, Kalath can smell the blood sharp and clear, but it doesn't evoke quite the same hunger as has been growing more prevalent in her over the last few days.  Or, perhaps, the hunger is there, but now has other, competing drives to balance it....)

Olyesa glances rapidly between Trav and the TARDIS.  "I don't know how I can help, but I know if I'm not in there, I can't.  Come on!"  And she races back inside.

When Stanley follows, the very air inside the TARDIS feels strange, charged and expectant.  The display is now filled with patterns of the rectangles, changing and erupting like fireworks on the display.

And Stanley suddenly recognizes what they remind them of.  He'd missed it before because everything was in monochrome, just filling the space to white.  But now they are in a variety of colors and patterns, and the rectangles and blocks themselves even have finer detail inside them.  Images.  Like playing cards.

As he looks down to try to make sense of the controls and what they're telling him, he has another surprise waiting.  Something furry and about the size of a squirrel is scurrying over the central plinth of the TARDIS: at first he's afraid that one of the kitlings may have gotten inside, but this is gray-brown, not black, and much too small besides.

It halts, turns, and stares straight up at Stanley.  It chitters and squeaks at him, and, implausibly, the utterances make a sort of sense.

"Meep! Meep!  Meeeep!"  Where's the Thing?  Is it the end of the World?  Fix it!

"Well, quite.  Of course I do."

"But.  Are they, really?  Are they, right at this moment?  Who shackled herself into a projection frame, to ascend to the psychic plane and tame the entity, all by herself, while her "equals" carry water for her?  Who has placed herself so far above them?"



He chuckles.  "Ah, Traveller, you always were so terribly linear.  You assume that I'm copying the Devil, or playing at being some knock-off Daemosian.  Haven't you considered the possibility that they are imitations of me?"

His expression turns serious.  "If we have been shown anything by our history, it is that time needs Lords.  It needs those with the knowledge and the wisdom to take responsibility for it.  Without Lords there is only anarchy.  I believed in our Parliament, too, until I saw what it became: a nest for dissension, and chaos, and war."

"But we never need go down that road.  This epistopic interface shone out to me like a beacon across the continuum: one of the points where you had clearly and truly established exactly what you could make of yourself, if you only had the courage to dare it.  And look what you've accomplished!  You've stopped a whole memetic plague and set it on a new and brighter path.  Do you think you were wrong to do that?  Do you think anyone else could have?"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 15:43, Sun 19 Mar 2017.

Holoprotectors on the rig come to life, so the team can see the entire exchange, and perhaps even communicate - Trav installed them as a failsafe in case she needed to be extracted.

The voice shifts again, to the one that everyone is familiar with - The 5th Traveller. Jesus fucking Macgillicutty - you are an idiot. You haven't studied history. Do you think I could even be here, without nations of people for me to serve and be inspired by? You're all the fucking same. Of course someone else would be here. Someone always is. There are people working with me right now. I'm just an actor here. You're just another self absorbed asshole who I will enjoy shoving my boot up your ass. You aren't special. You're really pretty fucking ordinary. History is going to forget you, just like it forgot Steve Bannon.

Her voice shifts one last time, the voice of the 2nd Trabeller rises. A pair of glasses forms on her face, her hair turning raven. And one more thing. This isn't for you. This is for him. I know you called to me, all those years ago, back when I first met Zhu Rheng and Henry Boyd on a different adventure. I'm coming. We'll rescue you and all your brothers and sisters from this petty little horned monster. The Traveller is coming and all of her will do everything she can to set you free. I promise. 13 voices ring out with that.

THE TRAVELLER DOES NOT HUNT, BUT THE CHEETAH DOES. I OFFER YOU DESERVING PREY. HUNT THAT WHICH IS CRUEL AND SELFISH, YES? BUT ONLY HIM, NOT THE CARDS,THE WEAPON HE USES! YOU ARE NO LORD, BUT PREY FOR THE THOSE YOU WOULD MAKE YOUR VICTIMS!

OOC: Yes, she's going there. Trav is asking the Cheetah Virus to hunt and attack our unnamed Lord Of Time. Presence+Science to direct it? Dropping one my recently earned SPs into it. Go big or go home! This seems like a Doctorish-move.


Edit - Can Trav sense the TAROT infiltrating sweet boy? If so, I have a response ready.

This message was last edited by the player at 04:37, Tue 21 Mar 2017.

Playing cards. That can't be a coincidence. Stanley has no clue what the filling up of the display is trying to tell them, but he now fears that it is an enemy taking over the systems.



Stanley can't help but be a bit suspicious of this alien mouse. When did it get in and more importantly why?  It appears to know something about what is wrong with the TARDIS. He hopes that it is a friend of Trav, or she might get angry that he let an enemy slip past them. Would an enemy reveal itself so easily? Stanley weighs the risks, but the little thing doesn't look very strong. Even if it is infected with the Cheetah Virus overpowering it seems possible.

"Yes, I want to fix it but who are you?" Stanley asks the creature. "And how do you know that there is a Thing missing?"

The small pseudo-rodent bursts into a flurry of gesticulations and meep-ing.

There's always been a Thing ever since Us have been in the World.  Sometimes the Thing changes what it looks like but it's always the same Thing.  Us look after the Treasure for the Thing, and Us keep out of the way of the Thing, because Us are not sure the Thing would want Us in the World, but then not so long ago Smoke Alarm came to the Treasure and added a shiny to the Treasure and Smoke Alarm is Us now!  But when Us hear that big sound Us know it is bad for the World.  That's what the Thing does, it fixes the World!  Us came looking for the Thing when Us heard the sound, but there's no Thing here to fix the World now, there's not even a Smoke Alarm, there's just a You....  It glances worriedly at Olyesa.  And another You, a You Us have never seen before.  Are You able to fix the World for Us?

Smoke Alarm had eyespied pussycats get the shakes before, so she waited patiently for the kitlings to get over theirs, simply patting them and soothing them and trying to make egg-sure that they didn't scratch themselves or each other, even though she got a bit scratched up and bloody in the process. She rotated Zeffy around the floor, so his claws pointed outwards. When they tried to stand on wobbly paws and stumbled, she helped them up again, put her hands to their flanks to keep them steady, until they seemed more-or-less able to foot about on their own. After helping Muffy up with a hand under her tummy, that seemed to be it. Smoke was glad they seemed to be getting better. 'Icehot.'

Outlooking up, Smoke Alarm eyespied the laying-down Hunters. Mayhaps lazybones or asleep, but she didn't want her and the kitlings to be here when they woke up. 'Come on, let's foot away now.' she advised them, trying to guide her kitling charges away down the carrydoor. But she found it was literally like herding cats.

Stanley's face clears up when he finally understand what the creature means.
"First of all, I don't think you should call her a thing. Her name is The Traveller." He looks at the door. "And I'm afraid that she is a busy right now. We can try to fix the World, but you need to help us."

The creature peers up at Stanley.  "Meep?"  Stanley hears a muffled clunk noise from somewhere, and before he can really react, another pair of the creatures have made their way up onto the console, skidding to a halt before they quite careen into the first.

"Meep meep!"  Us are ready to help You!

Kalath hears movement down the hallway.  Before he has even come into view, she recognizes the tread and the stiffened gait of Ulvar.  His expression is a little dazed, and there's a bit of red staining his bandages again, but he seems to still be functioning.

Seeing Kalath's scrutiny, he shakes his head and gestures back the way he came.  "Should have," he wheezes, "seen the otherr."  Pointing down at the collapsed Hunters, he adds, "What," pant, "did this?"

She grimaces; Ulvar's appearance forestalled her instinct to kill them whilst they're helpless.

"Do you feel it?"

"I feel it," he echoes, blinking like someone caught in bright lights.  "Am not surre what I feel.  Feel like I felt when I firrst saw Yesa again, may be.  Like... do not know.  Like therre may be anotherr chance. Anotherr way."

Trav replies to the horned stranger's tirade with a simple, "hmph." The smirk is a killer one.

"Engage priority War Council override, now. Lock out all command functions except to me, and disconnect from all other users. Biodata authorization active.All other access is hereby REVOKED." Her hands of light dive into the cards. She piggy backs her attack vector into the TAROT through sweet boy - like an over extending fighter, she rides into the TAROT's attack, as it must open itself up to compromise the older time machine.

Trav engages the command overrides she gleaned from Evers and her interaction with the Tarot, long ago:



OOC: I'm willing to spend that last SP on an Ingenuity+Science for this trump card.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:32, Tue 21 Mar 2017.

OOC:

OK, that retcon is a fair use of a SP.  You get to roll (Ingenuity + Technology, technically, but same difference), you don't get the bonus dice.

So you have 2 actions this turn, trying to direct the Cheetah and trying to override the TAROT, so one of those takes the multiple action penalty.  I will tell you for free, influencing the Cheetah is considerably easier.

The Beast is, himself, trying to take control of the TARDIS.  At the moment he is doing this in preference to any defensive reactions.  Trav is not in a real position to deal with that.  It will effectively be up to the TARDIS to defend itself for the moment, as directed by Dr. Newton with the wholehearted assistance of several telepathic marmots and a librarian.

I encourage Smoke Alarm and Kalath to put themselves back in the scene, through the stretchy time magic of cutaway shots, and we'll make some numbers and see what happens once everyone has a change to weigh in.

Smoke Alarm, with Tiddles and Muffy and Jatson and Zeffy and Mokey and Sunny in train, footed fast thru the carrydoors, tracking back to the brainquarters where the talkiphone box was at. She figurered that all the cats flopping over (at once, not one at a time like they normally did) had to be something to do with Traveller's big plans, so she wanted to check everyone was shapeship and sound and safe there.

She skidded to a stop outside the TARDIS, happy to eyespy it was still there. But the door was closed, and she rememorised the no-visitors shields were up. On her tiptoes, she tried outlooking thru the windows (why were they allways dark inside anyhow) and called thru the keyhole. 'Trav? Stan?' She quickly slipped out her talkiphone and texted to her friends inside: How u do? Whats teh comeout?

OOC: Thank you for your consideration. Trav will ask the Cheetah for help and distraction against the Beast - not command. But seizing or disrupting control of the TAROT is obviously priority, beyond anything else (becasue getting control of the TAROT saves the TARDIS). So, I'm out of SP and I make two rolls? I do claim Impulse and Proetct The Weak for later, however. This is a huge risk. Coming in with a pose:

Sweet Kitling, run with me. There are people down there and this monster wants to cause them pain. I need your help. She communicates in emotions, like she did with the TAROT. This other Tiger cub needs help to run free. Please, please?

As the multihued Traveller locks hands over the TAROT with the Beast, she snarls. The voices of the 2nd and 5th Travellers call out. You son of a bitch. After what you did to Phillipe? And what you've no doubt done to this poor child? YOU HAVE NO IDEA what kind of enemy you've made! This is only the beginning. I'm going to strip you of your weapons, and then I'm going to come for you! I guarantee it! NO ONE HARMS THOSE I LOVE. Heedless of the danger, in a rage not seen since the Time War, her psychic self flares with power as she floods her will into the block transfer code of the TAROT. She doesn't care if she burns herself out. Unlike the Beast, she is a Time Lord, and through Sweet Boy she draws in power from the Time Vortex itself, possible only for someone who has been initiated via the Untempered Schism!

OOC: Trav will burn herself and take damage to attributes for extra dice, if such is possible.

11:28, Today: The Traveller rolled 26 using 2d6+16 with rolls of 5,5.  Oops, re-roll. Trav Seizes Control of the TAROT from the Beast.-2 multi action=24

11:20, Today: The Traveller rolled 14 using 2d6+7 with rolls of 6,1.  Convince Cheetah Virus to Help - Presence+Science. -2=12

This message was last edited by the player at 15:37, Wed 22 Mar 2017.

More of them? Stanley knows he should just be glad with all the help he can get.

He addresses the little creatures. "I think some evil thing is attacking us. We need to stop it, but I don't know how. If you have any suggestion, I'd love to hear them, but otherwise we should just do something."

He pauses and thinks.

"Okay, let's treat the TARDIS as a patient. The ringing of the bell is a sort of inverse heartbeat in that we want it to stop. The TARDIS is being attacked, probably from the outside, but a complete shutdown is not possible. That would be a dead patient I guess. Still, I suggest we go around and try to turn off everything that is not critical. Lights, communications, sensors, heating, that sort of stuff. If that doesn't stop the virus by itself, it might help the TARDIS focus on fighting the infection."



Stanley hastily writes a reply to Smoke. "TARDIS under attack. friendly aliens are trying to help. they know you?"

Friendly aliens? Who had knowhow of her? That was a pretty wide label, it included, like, everyone who had knowhow of Kangs and still wasn't unfriendly. Fastly, Smoke Alarm thought about who was inside the talkiphone box right now. There was Stan and Olyesa and the scutters and the cockroaches and... the Us. They couldn't have made how-you-do to Stan now, could they? They were way too shy. Smoke Alarm felt almost disappointed and jealous, to be no longer their special big friend. Is that US? she txted back, then added Can I enter? Or are shields up? Meanwhile, the kitlings around her were circling her feet, meowing and wanting Snappy Tom.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:57, Fri 24 Mar 2017.

Stanley is disturbed when the Us start racing over the console and leaning into big slide bars or heaving mightily on toggle switches to start working controls, but bits of incidental machinery and mechanism start to wink out or go silent.

Olyesa is frowning at the indicators that Stanley has told her to watch.  "Good idea, but that isn't helping a whole lot," she says.  She looks at the big cable running out the door.  "I doubt it's safe at all, but if we have to make a choice... what I understood was that the Traveller set things up so the ship is using a lot of its power to keep her machine out there running."

"That is true. It is taking a lot of power." Stanley says. "But we can't just...okay, letting the enemy get their hands on the TARDIS might be worse, but it is difficult decision. Maybe just wait a little."



<Mono> Yes? They do say us a lot." he replies.

OOC: I am not sure, but with the cables running out of the door, I think Smoke should be able to come in.