In a stretch of corridor with slate-gray paneling, there is no sound but the hum of automated life-support systems, and the period crackling of one of the overhead lights flickering.  Doors line the hallway, each labeled with simple legends giving a number and a function like MEDICAL BAY, or MAINTENANCE STORES, or INFRASTRUCTURE ACCESS.  There is only the slightest hint of dust on the floor.  The only thing that gives a real hint of chaos or trouble is a cafeteria tray lying flat, with a spray of red sauce fanning out from the long-cold pasta that spills over the side of the tray.

VWORP
VWORP

A tall battered-looking blue box with translucent windows and a flashing light on top slowly appears.

KCHUNK!

A rustling, bustling, hustling pile of over-large blue raincoat footed out first, gummy-boots clumping on the floor. The floppy hat tilted back, and Smoke Alarm outlooked out, taking in the carrydoor and the doors it carried. A dingy, messy carrydoor was a Kang's natural habitat, so Smoke Alarm wasn't worrywarted at all by that, but the yawny grey walls could do with some scrawling. 'It's not rainy!' she called to her friends still inside the talkiphone box, sounding almost disappointed, then climbed out of her raincoat.

"At least that is as it should be." Stanley says as he steps into the hallway. Looking around, he notices the dropped pasta and frowns. At the time Dr. Alston had recorded the distress call they had been down to twelve people. What had happened to the others? "Smoke, until we know what exactly is wrong, I don't think it is wise to wander off alone."

Trav pokes her head out. She waves the sonic around tentatively, testing the atmosphere, radiation levels, and so on.

"No. So, umbrellas will have to be fashion statements."

She steps out. "Please, everyone, be careful. We were called here by a distress signal, so that means there's trouble here."

She takes a broad look around, trying to determine more clues or details, as everyone leaves the TARDIS and she locks up.

Trav flicks her mathematics sword, and it becomes an umbrella. High Fabshion!
This message was last edited by the player at 20:19, Tue 02 Oct 2018.

'Yes. So we should wander off together.' Smoke Alarm answered Stanley, already scampering ahead to the dropped food tray. Footing carefully around it, sometimes darting in to touch, smell, taste, and mayhaps even listen, she eyespied how it had fallen and the age, temperature, and dryness of the food. She also outlooked for footprints in the dust or sauce, or left after stepping in the sauce.


OOC: I figure Smoke is good at tracking, but I'm not sure what to roll. Awareness (+ Keen Senses), Ingenuity, Survival?

She just scowled as she left, and took a big, long sniff, her eyes flickering. She ignored the chatter about wandering off alone, or not. The hunt was afoot, and the rest of them were not her. She would go where the hunt led her, whether the hunt was to protect, or to kill.

Trav aims her sonic at the control station before locking up - both to lock down the time machine in space and to continue gathering data on the transversal causeway. The sensors could continue to gather data while they conducted their rescue mission.

Smoke Alarm's eyespying around the dropped tray doesn't fit any pattern that she can readily explain.  The splatter is dry, but not too bad-smelling -- it has been there for a while, but not long enough that it has started to rot, if there's even anything in the air here that would make it rot.  And it seems mostly symmetrical around the tray.  It might have been moving slightly in one direction when it fell, from a direction down the hallway that she arbitrarily tags as "left", to the one known as "right", but not very quickly.  And she doesn't see a break or smudges in the pattern that would indicate that whoever (or whatever) was carrying it would have either been splattered by any of it, or have accidentally tracked in it after it was dropped.

Kalath's nose is struggling mightily to pick up any traces in this hunt.  This place in general doesn't have much in the way of smells, beyond the stale whiff of the dried meat-ish gunk on the tray and the floor.  Nothing like the mix of growth and decay from her home on Kestartes Delta, not even the slight homey aroma that persists inside the Traveller's box.  There's a hint of something, off in the direction that Smoke Alarm, were she asked, would identify as "right".  It's not very strong, but it reminds her of the lightning-wall around the Library building back home.

Trav's scan with the sonic doesn't turn up anything immediately alarming.  Any environmental systems of the base seem to be functioning normally to maintain norms for human survival.  There are a few traces of the atmospheric chemicals that she had noted on the orbital scan, but nothing high enough to suggest a breach of station integrity.

As everyone else does their own investigations, Trav tunes her glasses. She wants to get the distress signal again, and see if she can narrow down where it is transmitting from in terms of terrestrial coordinates.

Upstanding from her tracking, Smoke Alarm was a bit bepuzzled as she said 'The person footed in from thataway,' she pointed left, 'And dropped their food-tray here. Straight down, no splats back. Then, I don't knowhow, went away back again? Bit of a waste of spag-bowl. But cats will comeout to lick up it. Cats love spag-bowl.'
This message was last edited by the player at 06:15, Thu 04 Oct 2018.

She tensed, and gestured in the direction.

"Like library building. Sorcerer's. Like you. To contact without seeing requires sorcery."

At the mention of cats a shiver runs down Stanley's spine. The adventure on Kestartes Delta was still fresh on his mind and it didn't help that the pasta was the only thing they had found so far.



"That means we should go that way, right?" Stanley asks. The person with the pasta had fled the other way, but the library was where they had found survivors.

"Kalath, I really should take you through a CVE and bring you to a world with real magic. Magic is of the soul, of passion, and unexplainable. Science however can be repeated. True wonder working was the one thing which eluded the scrutiny of my people, the Time Lords. We banished our magicians so very long ago, and in my view, that was a supreme mistake."

"Smoke, lead on?"

'That's where they comeout from.' Smoke Alarm answered Stanley, pointing to the left. 'People, I mean, not cats. I didn't track any cats, even though there's spag-bowl.'

At Trav's suggestion, Smoke started footing leftward, whispering back to her companions. 'Now play follow-the-leader... Um, do we go sneaky or noisy?'

As the group moves off, the emptiness of the place grows more and more eerie.  The corridor starts to curve, suggesting that the building is built on a circular or domed structural plan.  Doors around the hallway bear legends like Break Room and Maintenance Stores as well as some on the rimward side of the arc that are set closer together and marked with indivdual names, some prepended with titles.  (These tend toward administrative and academic, like Associate Director or Professor rather than military.)

After a few minutes, the group comes across a hand tablet lying abandoned in the middle of the hallway.

Kalath's nose continues to tell her that the acrid smell is getting stronger as everyone has been moving along.

Trav picks up the tablet and examines it. Is it powered?

The tablet's screen is dark when the Traveller reaches down to pick it up, but as she does so, it obligingly flickers to life.  It currently appears to be displaying a feed from an atmospheric probe -- or, in more mundane terms, a weather satellite, with the exception that it is showing a readout on chemical composition as well as cloud patterns.

'Everyone's dropping stuff round here. Bad case of finger-butter.' Smoke Alarm remarked, eyespying the discarded talkiphone puterbook. That wasn't a complaint: lost-and-found was a Kang's primary means of survival. While Traveller lost-and-founded and eyespied it, Smoke footed past and onward, being outlook.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:58, Mon 08 Oct 2018.