Trav, Stanley and Amanda head up the curve of the ring.  It takes perhaps thirty minutes to reach the edge of the fields, and by this time they can see the buildings and other structures beyond more clearly.  The largest building has a form that Stanley can recognize as a temple in an Asian style: it's solidly constructed from wood, and has minimal ornamentation.  There are a number of smaller outbuildings that appear to be of similar design and materials, but there are also what look like additional, hastily built shelters made from miscellaneous sheet metal.

Now that Trav has a better look at the ship, it looks like it's a commuter passenger vessel, made for intra-system flights to move people in bulk on trips lasting days at most.

The faces that look up at them from the fields are varied.  Many are human or human-like, but Trav spots a few other well-known species among them: several Silurians and a burly Terileptil, a couple of neko-form individuals who might be Amanda's distant descendants.  They look like they're all doing hand cultivation of various food crops.  About two in three of them are wearing simple rough-spun clothing, some with faded yellow sashes that she recognizes from Zheng Ru's order.  The remainder of those out in the field are wearing clothes of assorted modern fabrics and styles.

As the travellers' approach is noted, the Terileptil turns to one of the other simply dressed workers and says something.  That person hurries off toward the temple while the heavy reptilian ambles toward Trav, Stanley and Amanda.

"Welcome," he rumbles.  "Am I right in thinking that you have come fleeing the Fists as well?  We did not see the coming of your vessel, but we are nevertheless glad to offer what sanctuary we may."

Trav responds with the Shao Lin, palm over fist salute. "Actually, I'm here to help against them. I'n an old friend of brother Zhu Rheng, I've come in response to his request. Please let him know that the Traveller has arrived. These are my companions, Dr Stanley Newston and Miss Amanda Khebares. If you have wounded or sick, Doctor Newton can help to treat them.  I also have food and other emergency supplies back on my ship."

Trav is trying to stay focussed, but she's fidgeting, nervous.

"Thank you for your hospitality." Stanley says, not even attempting to replicate Trav's greeting gesture for fear of getting it wrong. He is also trying not too stare too much at the alien, because even though he is used to how Amanda looks, a giant reptile thing was something different.

"Like Trav said, I'd be happy to help. I can imagine that all the refugees might have taken a toll on your resources."

The Terileptil returns Trav's salute... but he also bows to Stanley, when he repeats the gesture to him.  "Your kindness and your talents are appreciated, and I fear we do have need of them.  We have done the best we could for the injured that were brought here, but a trained doctor will be of great assistance."  He straightens.  "My name is Vosk.  Please, follow me."

Vosk sets off toward the main temple at a surprising pace.  Walking along the circumference of the rim is a deceptive experience: the eye tells Stanley that he's going up but the centrifugal force that anchors him to the ground is nearly (though not quite) perpendicular to his feet.

As they come closer to the buildings, Vosk is indicating one of the out-buildings, saying, "The injured are lodged here.  I am afraid our facilities and supplies are not the most modern that science has to offer...."  He leads Stanley inside, and Amanda follows.  About twenty people of various descriptions are lying here on cots: furred, scaled, insectile or human-like.  Although some of the anatomy is initially bewildering to Stanley, he recognizes splinted limbs, burn dressings, bandages.

(Amanda leans close and whispers, "Don't worry, Stanley, I can help.  I know my bug-eyed monsters, a bit."  She winks.)

While Trav is watching the two of them, she is distracted when she notices a carving over the lintel of the main temple.  The temple was here the last time she visited, back when she was Her, but the carving is new.  It looks like it might have been added with the help of a psi-sculptor, because even beyond the influence of the TARDIS she can tell that the words are trying to make themselves understood in a variety of tongues: Mandarin, English, Old Gallifreyan, even what might be Mechanoid machine code.

Trav looks up.

She smiles, as tears come down her eyes, unbidden.

"Oh, Zu, you didn't forget."

Stanley puts on a pair of medical gloves. "I'll manage, I have worked in hospitals without reliable electricity and even two or three where the roof leaked." he says smiling. "This is more than sufficient for most things. You did a good job."

"Anything in particular I should know about that species?" Stanley asks Amanda whilst looking at the patient in the first bed.

He walks up to the first patient and begins examining the alien. "Hello, I am Doctor Stanley Newton and I am going to do a quick examination.'

Amanda peers at the chitin-sheathed person.  "Um, if that bit happens to come off, it's not an injury; it just means she's molting.  And those'll be... spinnerets, if you were wondering."

If you want, you can roll an Ingenuity + Medicine and add your Empathy.  This is just for a feel of how well you do with the situation overall and how confident you help all the patients feel; the people here aren't in critical condition, although the work the monks have done can probably be improved upon.

"Young lady?"

Trav perks up at a familiar voice.

When she turns, she sees Zheng Ru approaching with the young monk that Vosk sent up ahead to the temple when he spotted her and her friends, before they'd introduced themselves.  Ru moves with more precision than she remembers; Trav guesses that he must have seen fifteen or twenty years since the last time they met, and he wasn't what you'd call young even then.  But he still looks lean and hale.

Ru's gaze sharpens, his eyes searching Trav's.  "Wait.  Surely-- surely you cannot be the Marshall?"  He starts to bow at the waist.

"Oh, Ru, sweety. The Marshall is gone. I mean, I'm still the same woman, but, I'm just the Traveller now. The Marshall's time is done. She lost. We all lost. Everyone lost." As hard as she tries to fight it, her eyes are welling up with tears. The Marshall always called him, for that brief time, Master Zheng. Only The Traveller ever called him sweety.

She clutches that same fedora hat - the hat she was religious about wearing when she was the Traveller that Ru met, the hat that was given to her by the Doctor, the hat that she absolutely refused to wear when she was the Marshall.

She smiles at him, and takes a big SNIFF. She chuckles nervously.

"Ru, it's *so good* to see you again." She wants to run to him, embrace him, beg and plead him for forgiveness. But all she can do is clutch her hat, and look at him nervously. Her eyes, containing centuries of grief, should explain everything.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:44, Wed 04 Dec 2013.

Zheng Ru sighs.  "Oh, Traveller, Traveller."  Despite the words and tone, his expression grows bright, and entirely unnoticed tears well in his eyes.

"It is never easy for you, is it?  More than most of us, you are always tempted to dwell in the past or the future, and to disregard the present moment.  I finally called you -- called who I thought you were -- because I had surrendered to despair and thought, at last, that war was the only open way.  And instead you come with hope that you don't even recognize."

Ru steps to Trav and pulls her into a gentle hug.  "It's all right, Trav.  It's all right.  You are not defined by what you have been or what you have done; you are exactly what you are right now."

Trav practically falls into his arms. and out comes an uncontrollable torrent of crying. "Oh Ru, I tried and I tried and I tried, but I killed them, I killed them all, I gave him the Moment, I begged and pleaded with Rassilon but he was going to kill EVERYTHING and we had to stop him and the war was killing everything.  I HAD TO STOP THEM, I HAD TO." She gently clutches his robes, staring into his eyes. "I had to,"

She steps away from him. "So." She pulls out a hanky. HONK. "A good few centuries of guilt. 'You will make your own punishment,' the Moment told me. A weapon with a conscience. I'm sorry about that, Ru. Heh. I'd be sneering at myself if I were younger and had red hair." She blows her nose again. "Oh, baby, you look great. It is *so good* to see you." As she finishes cleaning her face, she opines, "Yeah, I just broke down on you. But fuck it all, I've earned the right to occasionally be a wreck. Oh, I swear a lot more, Ru, I hope that doesn't bother you. But I will never, ever apologize for my emotions - not anymore. I spent 300 years as a tightass stone cold bitch, and I was miserable. But, BUT, let me show you this!"

She slips her arm into his. Out comes from her bag her billfold. Out comes the polaroids. "I met a guy! And had a family! And had kids!" She smiles like a niece showing off family photos to a family friend. "And I have some goodies for you from Sgt Patel. She's way sweet on you, you know."

She waves Stan and Amanda over, so she can introduce them.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:28, Wed 04 Dec 2013.

"I was indeed wondering."

With Amanda's help, Stanley quickly and methodically examines the patients. He changes a couple of dressings and does some other minor things, whilst being friendly to the patients.

When they have helped the last person, Stanley walks over to Trav, who was waving at them.

17:23, Wed 04 Dec 2013: Stanley Newton rolled 20 using 2d6+10 ((5,5)).
(Ingenuity 4 + Medicine 4 + Empathic 2)

This message was last edited by the player at 16:54, Wed 04 Dec 2013.

Trav is beaming, although her cheeks and eyes are red from all the crying. "Ru, this is Doctor Stanley Newton, from 2013. He's recently joined me. He's an awesome medical doctor and has that good heart I need to see things with. And this is Amanda Khebares, the daughter of the President of the United States in the 35th Century. She's also indescribably awesome, is a terrific biochemist and a hell of a shot. Stan, Mandy, this is Master Ru Zheng. He's a Shao Lin temple priest from 13th century China, he knew me back when I had black hair and a large butt. He put up with me for a number of years before I helped set him up here."

She texts back to the TARDIS - trundling out of the door is a line of scudders, carrying crates filled with food, medical supplies, and various equipment that Stanley or the Farhavians may need.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, mister Zheng." Stanley says. "Amanda and I just had a look at the patients. Your people did, and are doing, a good job helping out the refugees.  If you don't mind me asking, I thought I heard Trav say that you were from the 13th century. Why did you decide to live here, I mean live now? Live in this century?"
This message was last edited by the player at 23:03, Wed 04 Dec 2013.

Stanley is relieved to discover that the sort of first aid and basic trauma care -- and bedside manner -- that are called for turn out to be pretty universal, at least allowing for some minor details.

The patients he works with are grateful, and only the bear-like Urzas lady that he treats is really alarming.  (And that's only because he ended up needing to decline, if he understands correctly, her proposal of marriage.)


Zheng Ru bows to greet Stanley and Amanda.  When Trav names Stanley's profession, Ru gives a sidelong glance and a slight sad smile to Trav, as if sharing a memory with her.


"Your praise is kind, Doctor.  We do what we can.  There are such miracles in this time that we have chosen to live without.  Sometimes, we do have cause to regret that."


Ru's stance shifts a bit; Trav sees that he's still doing that thing he always used to do, hunching up his shoulders a little, when someone asks him to talk about himself.

"When need makes itself known, it isn't always in the place one would choose, Doctor.  I'm sure you have seen the same.  The whole tale is a long one... it involved an insidious being calling itself the Embodiment of Gris, a thing that supplanted the souls of men.  After the Traveller had banished it from this reality it left behind a number of unfortunates who had lost great parts of their pasts and their selves.  I could not say why they asked me to help them learn again what it means to be a person, but posed with that request, it was my great privilege to answer it."

He gestures around at the entirety of the habitat.  "This home was given to us by a good woman who had suffered at the hands of the Embodiment and in the end helped to drive it way."  Nodding to Trav, he adds, "Lady Sara asked me to pass along her regards, should we ever meet again."

Then he smiles hugely at everyone, and gestures up along the curving ring.  "And how could I resist a world where one may spend a full day and night climbing a mountain, only to arrive again at one's beginning?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:26, Thu 05 Dec 2013.

As everyone is speaking with Zheng Ru, Stanley sees Amanda's ears twitch.  She starts to look around, and before anyone can really comment on it, there's a rumbling and crackling in the air, like thunder, which seems like a pretty strange thing on a constructed world.

Then, roaring in from the sun-side "horizon", the thunder takes form as a battered-looking vessel skims through the sky, far too low for comfort.  "WHOA!" Amanda shouts, ducking away from it involuntarily.  Debris patters down over the temple area as it passes: tiny blackened chunks shaking free in its passing and soot that trails in its wake.  The ship's engines strain as it arcs up to follow the curve of the ring and gain some height above it.  Trav can see the glow of its ion drives sputter: they must be practically running on fumes.

But the ship stabilizes and slows as it makes a full loop.  By the time it makes another pass, everyone can see a ragged gap blasted out of the left-hand side of the ship, and the sputtering is more pronounced.  It dips down until it touches ground out beyond the spot where the TARDIS is parked, and everyone feels the impact through their feet when it does.

In the engine compartment of the Lucky Drifter, the comm buzzes.  "Legate Sereth?  You all okay back there?"  A pause, then, "I'm going to go check on the folks in the hold that we lifted out from Prime.  We'll have to see if we can get any help from the people on Farhaven."

He moved over to the intercom and responded.

"I'm fine. We're going to have problems though; as we need to refuel, and I don't think this plan has the resources for it. I'll head outside and check out the situation."

Trav scowls at that - she had almost lost her own 2nd self to the thing. For much of that crisis, Ru and Lady Sara had adventured with the 1st Traveller, as the monster had ate the portion of her life where she had regenerated on Macross Island, making her a walking hole in time.



"Ru, baby, you bring back all sorts of memories. I wonder how she's doing." She blushes when she things of that dark, wise woman. It was one of the first times she was strongly attracted to a woman.



"He fell in love with this place when we first landed here. Where I thought Larry Niven, he saw it as this huge Buddhist-Taoist metaphor."  She then turns to him and says, "But, lots has changed, baby. I need to fill you in on the war, and what has happened. In particular, I need to know about these 'Fists of the Nine Suns', and-"



Trav holds her Fedora to her head as the ship roars overhead.  "SWEET CRAP!"

She stares as the vessel crashes! "Whoever was flying is a hell of a pilot. Come on! We have to get those people off that ship!" Trav starts to run full tilt towards the crashed vessel.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:06, Thu 05 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm checked on the Rezzie — Rivvan — again, checking she was still sound and safe, and readjusting the makeshift pillow. There was nothing more she could do, but see-and-wait. But at least the turbo-lence had stopped, so she would stop being bounced around.

Meanwhile, Sereth talked on the talkiphone, and the Kang had an ear out. 'Outside? Can I be outgoing too?' she asked eagerly. After the horribly bumpy ride of the sky-fly, Smoke Alarm wanted to be off and far away, footing on solid flooring, and never be on a sky-fly ever again.

Sereth frowned; apparently still not a laughing matter? Or maybe he just took everything too seriously.

He nodded however.

"You can come. Just... follow my lead."

So saying, he moved outside the ship; the bearing of a Draconian noble worn heavily around him.

It takes a second for Stanley to fully realize what just happened, but when he does he also starts running towards the crash-site. Whilst he is running he finds himself wondering if the gap in the side of the ship was caused by a technical defect or by the Fists of the Nine Suns.

'Icehot!' Smoke Alarm cheered with an excited jump in the air. She quickly grabbed up her small backpack (left behind as she ventured into the crawlspace), checked that no-one had touched her stuff (with a suspicious glare at the egg-head), and that Puddy had got through the sky-fly ride without being broken or being unbrave (being a scaredy-cat). She also pulled out her arrowgun and strung it, in case outside had dangerous Caretakers, Cleaners, or Dogs.

Then, she ran to catch up to Leg-it Sereth.

As Trav and her friends hurry out toward the downed ship, a number of the monks drop what they're doing and follow.  By the time they reach it, they can see that a set of big cargo doors on the belly of the ship has been opened, and dozens of dazed-looking people of various species are stumbling out.  A white-haired human man in a worn flight suit is helping direct them.

Also standing out from the group are a tall Draconian in a formal uniform, holding himself straight and unruffled, and tagging at his heels, a young human woman wearing a mismatched outfit -- and hairstyle -- all in shades of blue.

Sereth and Smoke Alarm emerge to find that some of those in the hold have been shaken and bruised a bit in the landing.  Noticing them, the white-haired man pulls away from the others and comes to greet them.  "Thanks again," he says.  He gives Smoke Alarm a puzzled look, but shrugs.  "How's Rivvan?  Did she come through that okay?  I did the best I could, but it was going to be a near thing between land and crash."

The pair also see the approaching group from the temple.  Smoke Alarm notes that many of them are wearing similar clothes with a corresponding yellow wrap, even though they don't look much like Kangs to her.

Then away over the curving field, she spots a familiar-looking blue box....

"Well, kiss my ass and call me Sally, a Draconian! I haven't seen one of you guys in centuries."

Trav respectfully bows to the Draconian and his companion who are striding out of the wreckage.

"Hi! Who is injured? We're here to help. Is anyone else on board the vessel?"

"Hello, I'm the Traveller. You've crashed on the Farhaven habitat. This is the leader of the Farhaven settlement, Master Ru Zheng, and these are my companions, Dr Stanley Newton of Earth and Amanda Khebares of Falcon's Rest."

She smiles, grinning out from under her fedora, first politely bowing in the Draconian manner, and then extending her hand. Her body language is slightly silly, because she's heard how touchy Draconian's can be if they feel threatened.

She peers over at Smoke Alarm. "Wow. I love your look! I remember when Boobie dressed kinda like that."  Trav remembers the Doctor fondly -


This message was last edited by the player at 16:43, Thu 05 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm emerged blinking into the light, half-blinded and shading her eyes. It was like when she'd finally broken out of the Towers and into the Gardens beyond, seeing the wild parks and ovals and picnic grounds stretching before her beneath a sunshiny sky. It was good to be out of the sky-fly, at least.

'Is Rivvan the oldster lady in the engine room?' Smoke asked the white-haired oldster man, whom she guessed to be the one on the talkiphone. 'She bumped her head and fell down and went night-night. I put a band-aid on it. I think she will be safe and sound.' she tried to reassure him. 'I pushed the levers and made the valves throw—'

She trailed off as people approached — a lot of funny-looking people, humans and aliens, oldsters and inbetween, people in blankets. One started talking a lot, but it all went over Smoke Alarm's blue-dyed head. She looked beyond them to something else blue, far in the distance. Suddenly she went back through the years and worlds, to a blue box standing brave and bold amidst the rubbish of Fountain of Happiness Square. 'Doctor!' she yelled, unaware of who this "Boobie" was.

Then she ran, slipping nimbly through the crowd and sprinting over the fields at the Doctor's talkiphone box. The Kang was quick. 'Doctor!'


OOC: Run and dodge?
08:03, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 12 using 2d6+9. coord + athletics.
Why do I have to flunk every damn roll?

Smoke's speed is 5, or 6 if someone starts chasing her.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:11, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

"I am Legate Sereth of the .... he then trailed off. "Wait! You can't just go..."

A shake of his head, as he bowed to the Traveller. "I'm so sorry. She's somewhat exciteable." He sighed. "Yes. There's the pilot and his partner; as well as a number of refugees."

Stanley sees the blue-wearing woman dart off, which wasn't a reaction he was expecting. Obviously she hadn't suffered neck- or back-injuries but some of the other passengers might have and he didn't like that they were not keeping still but were stumbling out of the ship.

He walks over to the group of people. "Everyone, I am Doctor Stanley Newton, if you could please try to stay still, try to move as little as possible. Some of you might have hurt your neck or alien equivalent, so please don't move until a medical professional has had a look.
I will begin examining you shortly. Thank you." he says, speaking loudly and clearly.

Stanley addresses the white-haired man, who had been directing the refugees out of the ship earlier. "I assume you are the captain of the ship? In a moment I am going to take a closer look at your passengers, but first I'd like to know where I can find your ship's medical officer? So we can coordinate things. If you have one, that is."

"No, no medic unless you count me.  You think we're running some posh cruise liner here?"  The man is getting a harried, wild look.  "I think these folks can wait -- but my partner is back in the engine room, and, uh, the girl running thataway--" he indicates the blue figure pelting off in the distance "--said she was unconscious.  Head injury.  C'mon; if you follow me, I can show you the way."

Amanda, who's been hovering next to Stanley most of the way, says, "I can give the others a once-over and see if there's anyone that you'll need to give a second look, if you want.  That sounds like it could be serious."
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:28, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

OOC: Trav was thinking to herself (internal monologue to the audience) about the Doctor. Trav will be chasing but I have no problem in assuming you reach the TARDIS first, due to being physically superior to Trav at running and due to your head start.


Trav snaps her head around when she hears Smoke Alarm call out 'Doctor'. She dashes after the girl, but she is easily outraced. "Oh no," she cries out. "Wait!"

The blue box is a little more scuffed than she might remember. At the base of the box are scratched in strange symbols, now faded and inert. And on the right door is an American flag, with a sign that reads, "YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SOVEREIGN US TERRITORY", in addition to the traditional "Police Public Telephone Box" signage on the left hand sign. The door is tightly locked.

Trav is breathing heavily, made to sprint, as she trots up. "Sweety," she says, trying to catch her "That's not the Doctor's TARDIS. It's mine." In all of time and space, to find one of the Doctor's old companions, here.

"Baby," she says, starting to recover, "The Doctor - he's gone. He gave his life for everyone and everything. He died, saving the universe." She extends her hand, smiling, still catching her breath. "I'm called The Traveller. Hi!"
This message was last edited by the player at 05:09, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

'Doctor! Melanie!' the Kang bellowed repeatedly. Smoke ran right up to the Doctor's talkiphone box. It had to be the same one, she'd not seen another one anywhere. And it had to be the Doctor's, because he was the only one who could show her the corners and carrydoors, the floorplans and maps to home. Else she would be lost until time end and never get back to Paradise Towers.

She slammed into the door, grabbed the handles, and frantically shook them back and forth, back and forth, desperately trying to open them. Locked! 'Doctor!' Then she made a fist and banged repeatedly on the door. 'Melanie! Doctor!' Weren't they in? Mayhaps they were outgoing? She tried peering in the wobbly windows, but couldn't see a thing. Finally, she backed off a pace and circled the talkiphone box, twice, as if she might find the Doctor and Mel behind it in a hide-in. They weren't here.

When she came around the box, she noticed the Inbetween lady in the hat. And ignored her. Smoke was far too desperate to stop and listen, far too determined to find the Doctor, and didn't want to believe her. She had an almost animal-like focus, wild-eyed and hunted. As the lady talked, her words like sprinkle gas and full of lies, Smoke circled the talkiphone box again, examining it closer. The Kang moved too quickly and too nimbly to catch.

The scuff marks and damage she could accept; she came from the ramshackle, recycle-bin world of Paradise Towers. The scratched symbols down the bottom too; somebody else's wallscrawl. Though it had been a very long time ago, she still remembered the fabled words on the sign. Free for use of public. Advice & assistance obtainable immediately. The Doctor's sign, the Doctor's rule. But now there was another sign, something about "sovereign us territory". Who are us?

She had to be sure. Avoiding the hat-lady, Smoke Alarm walked away a few feet, then turned and ran at the talkiphone box. She jumped, grabbed the top edge, then pulled herself up, running shoes scrambling for grip on the side and scuffing up the paint. Hauling herself onto the roof, Smoke Alarm perched on top and began anxiously inspecting the roof in minute detail. 'Where is it? Where is it?' she muttered to herself.


OOC:
13:18, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 22 using 2d6+11. coord + athletics + jumping.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:44, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

The human Zheng Ru turns to Sereth with a rueful expression as the Traveller races off.  "Your pardon, sir," he says.  Apparently he knows something of civilized protocol, for he then executes a fair essay of the Fifth Cardinal Obeisance, an appropriate show of respect from the priestly caste to noblemen of the Court.  "Please forgive my friend's impertinence.  I believe she and your own, ah, associate are about to discover they have something very important in common, and it will do the both of them good."

Ru gestures at the refugees.  "We should see the hurts and needs of these people met, first, but I would like, then, to ask if you would speak with us about what brought you here.  Do I guess correctly, that that--"  He indicates the damage to the Lucky Drifter.  "--is the work of the Fists?  These would not be the first group of their victims to arrive on our doorstep; in fact, I invited the Traveller here to discuss what aid she could bring to address their actions."  He smiles.  "Don't be misled by her manner, or her gender for that matter.  Kings and tyrants have made that mistake, to their great sorrow."

OOC: I'm not going to bother rolling an Athletics check for Trav, because we're not in a high pressure situation, and while not as nimble as Smoke Alarm, she's not out of shape.


"Sweetheart," Trav says, "Mel is safe, but the Doctor is gone." She starts to clamber up to the top of her TARDIS - no where near as dexterously as Smoke Alarm. She sits across from Smoke Alarm, cross legged. "I'm one of the Doctor's people. I'm a Time Lord, like him." Trav is gasping, not having had such a work out in quite a while. She places her chin on her fists, as Smoke Alarm scrambles and searches. "This is my box, it's different than his. It's my home." She pauses. "What are you looking for?"

If this girl knew Mel Bush, then this would place her knowing the Doctor in his 6th or 7th incarnations. She was the Marshall then, busily terrorizing the galaxy with things like the Mimetic Army and the Poem Plague. It wasn't until he had gotten his 8th face that he and the Castellan finally busted her. Despite the horrible things she had done, she found herself waxing nostalgic about her clashes with the Doctor and the Castellan. She remembers being clobbered by Ace from behind with a fire extinguisher, and the control room of her Timestar being blown up by the girl's improvised explosives. Good times!

"The Doctor - blond frizzy hair, wore loud colors, or shorter guy, had an umbrella with this red hook? Mel - this girl with red hair and tall?" She smiles as Smoke Alarm searches.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:56, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm gave the other woman a suspicious look as she climbed up too — it was getting awfully cramped up here, and there wasn't a lot of flat space for sitting. But Smoke Alarm had good balance and wasn't going to fall off.



She ran her fingers all around the roof, feeling for depressions. So long ago, she couldn't remember exactly where. But there was nothing. It wasn't here. She finally registered the other woman's words, looking at her with haunted, hunted dark eyes. 'Wallscrawl. "Smoke Alarm Was Here." Long time back, we wallscrawled the Doctor's talkiphone box. He made us wash it off, but I was a clever-clogs: I carved it in the roof.' There was a flash of a cheeky, mischievous grin, but it faded as the woman's words crept in. 'Your talkiphone box.' she mumbled. She took her hand off the paintwork; she wouldn't find her wallscrawl there. But it would be on the Doctor's talkiphone box, all through time and space and everywhere else, forever and ever: Smoke Alarm was here.



There was no recognition of the first description, but the second, and Mel, got Smoke's attention. 'Yes! The Doctor. He is an icehot unold oldster in high fabshion, with coat of old white and red question umbrella, an honorary Kang of all colours. And Mel, red of hair and blue of dress, the Un-Kang.' she described in awe, but was a little puzzled. 'But Mel is short.'
This message was last edited by the player at 07:26, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

"Talkiphone box, huh. I like it. My Talkiphone box copied the outside his. I have no idea who Kangs are, babe, but if the Doctor was down with you, then you're groovy by me. Sweety? *I'm* short. Everyone is tall when you're 5 foot 5! Icehot unold oldster in high fashion? More like unyoung youngster is hipster fashion!" She was finding that she enjoyed Kang talk. "My bestest grandpa-uncle, made me wise and strong, stopped me when I was bad, showed me how to *run*." She sighed, remembering him in his 7th face. He was a sly bastard in those days.  Oh, how she wanted him to join her, to bring *order* and *discipline* to the universe. It was a rather weird kind of flirting.

She takes out her sonic. "Look at this, scanathing. I run around in time, I want to see if you do, too. May I?" Assuming Smoke Alarm assents, she takes a scan. Maybe she can get an idea of what time zone this girl is from. She checks her for artron energy and temporal displacement.

02:31, Today: The Traveller rolled 19 using 2d6+16. Trav scans Smoke Alarm for Artron Energy.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:32, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm didn't get all that this Traveller was saying, but the rhythms and tone seemed so closed to Kang talk. Was she a Kang from some other tower, like This Way Up the Pink Kang from the South Tower? She looked in surprise and awe at her. 'You copy-pasted the Doctor's talkiphone box? You know the Doctor too? I gave the Doctor a Blue Fizzade!' she boasted, her one and only proper meeting with him. She'd told that tale to every other Kang and Rezzie. 'You? You're biggerer than me!' she laughed. Smoke Alarm found herself liking the Traveller. In this strange world, she seemed to be the only link she had back to the Doctor, back to Paradise Towers and home.

But she cringed away from the buzzing scanathing, not knowing what it might do. But she sensed she could trust the Traveller, so at last she relented and let her wave it around her, only occasionally trying to grab it and take a closer look.


OOC: Smoke Alarm apparently rode an osmic projector from the late 25th century to about two months ago. It's probably a miracle she's alive.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:33, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

"I didn't know what to expect, so I was just checking." Stanley answers. "If you could do that Amanda, that would be great."

Stanley follows the white-haired man into the ship.

"Name's Henzler," the man tells Stanley as he leads him up into the open hold and from there toward the engine room.  There are a few active lights on the consoles, but most seem to be shut down.  There Stanley finds a woman of a similar age, carefully secured between a couple of the consoles and with her head immobilized.  She gives a faint groan as the two of them enter, which is likely a good sign on the whole.

Ingenuity + Medicine is called for.  Difficulty is Normal.  If you succeed, just narrate as seems reasonable -- at first glance it looks like she may have a minor concussion, but a bad roll might translate to it being worse than it looks, rather than Stanley making a mistake.

"Osmic projector, huh. Well, young lady, you're a far way from home. Tell ya what - people need help. You help me help them, and I give you a lift back home. Fair, Miss Blue?" Trav hops off the top of her TARDIS.  "The Traveller is The Doctor's successor, but not a copypasta! Helped and helping, I continue! Now, follow, bluegirl, and keep with with The Traveller can you, or are you too slow?" She winks as she trots off to join Stanley and Henzler in going back into the ship.

'Far way? I know that. But where?' Smoke Alarm protested. She stayed on top of the talkiphone box as the Traveller hopped off, not quite ready to leave the safety of the tower. Instead she stood, balanced perfectly on the sloping roof. She could see the whole world from here, how it sloped up so high and all over her head. She didn't know if that was unusual or not, and Arsuran had done the same. It was impressive though. 'You should climb up here more often!' she called after Traveller as she footed away, but she still had so many more questions she couldn't ask them all. Like: Where's the Doctor and Mel? She'd not paid attention to all the Traveller had said at first, but there was a nagging fear she refused to listen to. If she wanted her answers to her questions, if she wanted a way to home, she needed to run with this Traveller.

Smoke Alarm jumped off the TARDIS and hit the ground running. Far from slow, she soon caught up with the Time Lady, even dancing around in front of her. 'Wait. We need to how you do. No to-do with how you do.'

Now I got her chasing me. As Trav trots, "how you do what or how I do what?" She's smiling, clearly enjoying her new friend. "How do you do! You're not a boy named Sue. What's your name?"

"Hello there." Stanley said whilst he crouched down next to the woman. "I am Doctor Stanley Newton and I'd like to examine you. Could you open your eyes for me and follow the movement of my finger. Good. I am now going to examine your neck, does it hurt if I press here? Here? Okay doesn't seem like you hurt your neck. Can you squeeze my hand, I'd like to test your strength."

Satisfied with the results, Stan wants to take a look at the head injury. He notices that someone has ripped off pieces of her jacket to use as a bandage. He carefully removes them to take a look at the wound.

Stanley stands up again, "She's going to be fine, it is just a simple concussion from what I can tell. She has to rest and if she's lucky she'll be feeling normal again in a couple of hours. We can carefully move her from here."

23:37, Fri 06 Dec 2013: Stanley Newton rolled 15 using 2d6+8 ((4,3)).
This message was last updated by the player at 23:17, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

Boy? The Traveller was nice, but she talked funny. 'Smoke Alarm.' she said, but there were no fire safety systems around. To Traveller's puzzlement, she touched her chest, stating 'Traveller.' then her own, 'Smoke Alarm.' It seemed to be her name, or at least some kind of title. 'And I'm not a boy, I'm a girl.' she said as if that was the most obvious thing around.

'I'm a Kang. A Blue Kang. Blue Kangs are best.' she declared proudly, then burst into a loud and raucous chant, pumping a fist in the air. 'Blue Kangs, Blue Kangs, Blue Kangs are best!' She looked around her, as if expecting someone to be singing it with her. It wasn't nearly as icehot without her sisters. Suddenly Smoke Alarm felt very alone again. Then she demanded of the Traveller 'So who's best?' with a dangerous air. It was a tribal ritual of challenges, boasts, and responses, and there might be consequences if they weren't followed.

Then she challenged 'Are you a Kang? What is your colour?' Smoke Alarm tugged curiously at the woman's sleeve, but none of her clothing was in the bright primary colours of the Kangs. But nor was she dressed like a fuddy-duddy Rezzie or in the uniform of a Caretaker.

Trav spins and faces Smoke Alarm, smiling, rolling her fedora into her hand. "I don't know what a Kang is, so I can't say. I'm all colors, so you can play your games and run. I protect the rules, so everyone is safe. I'm behind the stars and as new as a kiss. I'm the runner on roads, walker down paths, there to save the day, and gone again. I'm the Traveller, so everyone can compete and be fair and good and obey the rules. So - Kang and Cat person and everyone else, helping and being helped. My only reward is seeing beautiful things. That's more than enough." As she spins her hat on her hand, it shifts colors from grey to red to blue to yellow to green, transiting the spectrum. "The Doctor, he can't run anymore. He's now at rest. Someone has to run and keep everyone safe, so I do that now, carrying on for him. When my time comes, someone else will run and see and travel, helping and being helped." She flips her fedora onto her head, grey again with the black hatband. "People in that ship need help, Smoke Alarm. I can't run alone. Will you run with me? Help me helping them? That's what The Doctor taught me." She extends her hand, beckoning Smoke Alarm to join her.

'I'm a Kang.' Smoke Alarm tried to say, as if that explained everything, but the Traveller went on. She watched in amazement as the hat changed colours, but she only grew wary at the Traveller's bold words.

She backed off a step as the Traveller held out a hand, suddenly defensive and with a hand on the crossbow hooked on her belt. 'Rules? You sound like a Caretaker.' she spat suspiciously, but softened, giving the other woman a chance to explain herself. Apart from rules, the rest sounded okay, and there were bad rules and good rules. If the Doctor had taught her like he taught the Kangs... And what had happened to the Doctor? 'What rules?' she asked.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:19, Sat 07 Dec 2013.

A couple of the Farhaven monks assist Stanley and Henzler in moving Rivvan out of the ship.  Amanda gives Stanley her report.

"I've got a couple of people with sprains over there," she says, pointing, "but most of them came through that in pretty decent shape.  They're saying the Draconian helped everybody to work together, and that girl with Trav showed them how they could ride out the crash.  Most of them seem like they're just suffering from the stress more than anything."

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 46):

"Well done, Amanda. Seems like the people in the ship were lucky." Stanley looks around at the group of people. "How about we first move the patients that need further treatment to the building?"

"Sweety." She sighs. "Games have rules. I make sure everyone plays fair. I don't know where you come from or what games you play there, but I make sure no one cheats, that everyone is safe, and that everyone can RUN RUN RUN - or sit down, if they need to. Come on, some people need help. What did the Doctor teach you? He was a big man, he had a lot going on inside of him. Maybe he showed you different things than he showed me. That means I can learn from you. I take care of people, like the Doctor did. You make it sound like taking care of people is a bad thing. The world is more than your rules and your games."

"But people need help. Catch up if you can! Icehot, isn't it?" She sprints after Stanley, who is as usual doing the real work.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:44, Sun 08 Dec 2013.

But I want to how you do! How could they be friends if they didn't how you do? Smoke Alarm sighed, frustrated and feeling lost in the carrydoors. Why couldn't she get anyone to understand her? Well, she wouldn't get the Traveller to play now, and there were broken people and youngsters and oldsters and scaredy-cats to help. Mayhaps they could how you do later? It seemed like there would be a few people she'd need to how you do to.

But the Traveller's rules did seem fair. Smoke Alarm took after her, hollering 'No ballgames, no flyposts, no making unalive!' She caught up with the Traveller, declaring 'Those are the Kang rules.'

Then she slapped the Traveller on the shoulder, 'You're it!' and sprinted off back to the ship. 'Catch me if you can!'
This message was last edited by the player at 02:05, Mon 09 Dec 2013.

"Smokie, when we've rescued the people that need help, then we play chase. 1st rule of Trav's game - Help those who need help. But later, I'll play at Smoke Alarm's icehot game!" She smiles. It seems she's gotten that much of Smoke Alarm's patter down!

The Draconian shook his head; life was not a -game-. He then however, proceeded after them.

"If you need help; allow me to be your assistant. I don't know much about medicine I'll admit; but I know how to listen."

'Mayhaps!' Smoke Alarm called back at the Traveller.

Swiftly returning to the base of the ship, she barrelled into the group. 'Leg-it Sereth! Here I am!' she announced, knowing the egg-head would get lost in the carrydoors without her.

She saw the oldster Rivvan, and moved closer to see, noting her band-aid had been removed. 'Is she all sound and safe?' the Kang asked, concerned.

He shook his head, before finding his way back.

"Calm down, little one. Just... call me Sereth."

Her pronunciation of Legate actually cracked a smile, but he was quick to hide it.

With the number of hands that have turned out to help, getting the refugees settled and the injured attended to is brisk work.  While Stanley oversees first aid for those who have been hurt or are suffering from shock, Zheng Ru directs some of his monks and the other people at the temple in making space in the shelters and fixing up cots for people.  "We don't have what you would call truly harsh weather on Farhaven," he explains.  "However, it will be night here before too long, when the temple passes into shadow with the turning of the ring.  It does become a little chill, of an evening."

They prepare hot soup and bread to fortify those who've merely been shaken by the experience.  Sereth and Smoke Alarm are surprised to find a steady stream of food and supplies being brought up by small rolling robots with a single large grasping hand.  (To Smoke Alarm, they're eerily reminiscent of miniature Cleaners.)

Ru seems to be all over the place, trying to greet everyone who's helping at the same time that he's endeavoring to get things done.  (Trav finds his level of energy remarkable, even though she can tell that the years have had their way with him a bit.)

Once Henzler is satisfied that Rivvan is being well looked after, he heads back to the Lucky Drifter, saying he's going to make a detailed inspection of the damage.

Eventually night does fall, although the glow of the planet beneath Farhaven means the darkness is far from absolute.  Looking up into the skies around, those who know what they're looking for -- Trav and Sereth, notably -- can pick out the brilliant shine of a couple of the other orbiting habitats, and the slow movement of the blue and gold pinpricks that are the lights of ion thrusters and antimatter rockets.  Someone is still flying in the skies around Arsuran Regis.

Trav plops down next to Ru. "Hey, Buddy. Aside from a few creases, you're still rocking it. Look at you, taking care of all of these people." She dusts her hands, and leans back against whatever wall they may all be sitting at. Sure, her body language and speech patterns are somewhat different, but she's essentially the eye glass wearing alien girl who Ru knew all of those decades ago. It's just that she's been through hell and back.

She has with her a basket of biscuits. "Sergeant Patel sends her love. Too bad you're a Monk, I can tell she is crushing on you. She's just way to shy to admit it." Matters of romance would make old Trav blush and stammer. "Kept these in a stasis field generator I have down in my vault that I usually use to keep terrible weapons in. Love is just as important to protect." She also has a thermos of hot coffee. She pours for Ru, as well as anyone else who has decided to join them.

In particular, she bows respectfully to Sereth when he and Smoke Alarm join them. "Lord Sereth, I thank you for you and Smoke Alarm's assistance. I'll do everything I can to get you and these refugees transport off of this ring and back to their homes. But you may have landed in a war zone, of sorts. Your species is not normally native to this time zone. With your permission, I'd like to scan you and determine your origin point. After this is settled, I'll be happy to take you and Smoke Alarm back to your homes."

She sits back down and turns to Ru. "Please tell me about this 'Fist of the Nine Suns'.  You called for my help Ru - here I am. You are far from incapable of taking care of yourself. There's also sorts of madness happening, and there's someone behind this madness across time and space who is terrifying a lot of people, and is doing bad things. This may tie into some events that have occured since I.. returned." She sips her coffee, as her mind is made weary with Time Lord troubles - The Chamber of Time Unwrought, their prophecies of the Great Beast, the TAROT, the deadly wreckage of the Last Great Time War.

Trav sips her coffee quietly, waiting for her old comrade and sifu to speak.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:43, Mon 09 Dec 2013.

A nod towards the Traveller; but he raises his brow at other words, and listens carefully to what the old monk has to say. This seemed like it could be of interest.

"You may scan; though I'd be incredibly curious as to how it happened; as I don't recall using a time travel device."

He grunted as he eyed the skies.

No idea about any readings she might get. I know the Draconians were at the height of their power in about the 26th century; but not too sure about when they became extinct.

Smoke Alarm tried to help the others sort out the ref-you-gees, though with more enthusiasm than skill. Her knowledge of first-aid was basic and all self-taught through hard practice experience; one got the impression the girl would chew her arm off to escape a trap. But she could put a bandage (or "band-aid") on a cut or add a splint to a broken bone, and her energy was certainly infectious. She also helped carry people who couldn't leg-it or foot-it to the shelters, enjoying giving the youngsters piggy-back rides. She was more use tidying and setting up the shelters; the Kang could make a bed out of any soft bit of rubbish.

She certainly took being a refugee herself in her stride, but she'd been living like this for as long as she could remember, and didn't know of anything different, not in the shambles of . Falling out of the sky on Arsuran Orbital Prime hadn't changed anything for her, and fleeing the Fists hadn't either. There were some people that the universe just chewed up, spat from one to the other

But the robots disturbed Smoke Alarm greatly — she even drew her crossbow on the first one she saw, accusing it of being a Cleaner, and had to be calmed down. Even then, she snatched her food away from it before it could snatch her, and avoided them like the plague, watching them suspiciously as she ate furtively of her soup and bread.

When she had a chance, she rejoined the Traveller and the others. In fact, she'd never really left the Traveller, having been loitering close by as much as she could since meeting her. On one hand, the Traveller seemed to be the only one who could bring her home, and she didn't want to lose eyespy of her. On the other, Smoke Alarm was curious about the other woman who knew the Doctor, fascinated even, and in need of a fellow sister-Kang.



Finally, she got her chance to how-you-do the Traveller, and she seized on it. 'How you do, Traveller.' Then, with face set hard and stern, her movements slow but strong, she advanced on the Traveller with intent. Stepping forward, making a fist, her right arm came up and across, somewhere between a punch and a block. But her left hand brought it, the fist released with an open palm. Then she stepped forward again and did the same with her left. Next, she brought both hands up and clapped. Then she held both hands up, palms forward to the Traveller, encouraging her to place her hands on them. Finally, she bobbed in a curtsey, bowing her head, before stepping back.

Then she went through the whole procedure again with the Draconian. 'How you do, Sereth.' Both the human monk and the Draconian warrior found it to be a surprisingly war-like display, at home in any martial arts pattern. The Traveller and Stanley Newton found it be based on pat-a-cake. But ultimately, the how-you-do lowered defences and put away aggression, letting there be peace and play between two people.



Smoke Alarm bobbed her head. 'Ta. My home-sweet-home is Paradise Towers. Or I could be outgoing to Doctor Sam at the Universe-City of Mars.' she said, thinking of the one other person who could help her. But then, hadn't she wanted to go out and explore, to eyespy, to have fun adventures? Wasn't this what she was doing? Smoke Alarm hesitated out loud then said 'But it is no to-do, not lickety-split. I want to be outgoing and to eyespy, to other Towers and peoples. Only need to know where here-I-am and the tracks and carrydoors to be outgoing home-sweet-home one day...' she said wistfully, hoping the Traveller could show her such places on the way to home-sweet-home. The Kang certainly could not walk over back 170 centuries and however-many-light-years on her own.



OOC: This is handy. "Paradise Towers" on-line, if you've not seen it. Starting at 6:00 is the how-you-do.
http://www.dailymotion.com/vid...ers-part1_shortfilms
This message was last edited by the player at 13:54, Mon 09 Dec 2013.

"Sometimes, I wonder.  It is not like the old days, something new to see every time the TARDIS doors open.  I suppose it has become comfortable to teach and care for people, as they come and they go.  Too comfortable, perhaps."  Ru shrugs.  "It is the way of most of us in this world: we see nothing beyond the life we inhabit; if we are fortunate, we have the strength and opportunity to contribute more to the world than we take from it.  Before our days run short and the universe remakes us again."


The old monk's face colors.  "She was a kind person, and there aren't enough of them in any time and place.  I hope she hasn't spent too much of her life imagining me to be something I am not."  But then he smiles.  "But, please, if you see her again, do tell her that I think well of her."



"Since that message I sent, the Fists are now the Fists of Thirty Suns, which I find quite alarming," Ru says.  "I have met a few of their number in the past, and I do not know where their aggression has come from.  It used to be that they taught a doctrine of personal improvement, striving for perfection in mind, spirit and body.  While they did not pair this with an abandonment of personal ambition or desire, they nevertheless were people who valued peaceful pursuit of those goals.  Something has changed.  Every word that has come to me of late has told of another world that they had seized and begun to enforce their teachings upon."

He frowns.  "I could not see a solution.  For myself, I could resolve to live and resists in peace under whatever strictures they might impose, but I could not accept that for the millions and millions they have forced under their rule."  He meets Trav's eyes.  "And you know that I have not been afraid to counter force with force, when no other doors remained open.  But they were too many, their strength too great.  So... at last I thought of the Marshall."

"Please, young woman, lower your weapon."  It's the shave-headed oldster who seems to be in charge.  "I will not say that I have not seen murderous machines in my time, but these are only harmless Scudders.  See, they are even polite fellows."

He steps in front of Smoke Alarm and bows to the one she's aiming at.  It reaches its arm forward until it starts to tip, and then quickly retracts so it rocks backward on its wheels again.  Then the oldster shakes the robot's hand solemnly.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 58):

Stanley has joined the others after finishing up some things in the medical building and is now listening to Ru talking about "the Fists". He takes another look at "Smoke Alarm" and Sereth. From what the patients had told Amanda and him, they were, at least in part, responsible for the lack of serious injuries. The girl is a bit peculiar, with her unusual way of greeting and talking, but her and Trav seem to get along.

When Ru mentions "The Marshall", Stanley gets a concerned look on his face. That was the name from the message, the "nom de guerre" of Trav... He hopes that Ru knows what he is asking for.

He sighs, not wanting to restart the argument from before. "Do we know why the Fists attacked this ship?"

Trav takes a quick scan, and see that he is native. "My apologies, but I'm familiar with the Draconian Empire of the 26th century. It's terrific that your people are still vibrant and active in this age! And as far as time travel goes, I've seen literally hundreds of different methods, including going to sleep and waking up."

Trav holds her hat in her lap. "Well, when I was the Marshall, I learned only two lessons - you can't win a Time War, and violence is never a long term answer. Things have a weird way of working out. While I have yet to see empirical evidence of karma, it's a good thing I went through my crap before I came back here. Ru, baby, don't lose faith. While I am a second amendment believing American, on the other hand force must be limited to self defense and as restrained as possible. We're going to do things the Trav way. I'm the Nanoha Takamachi of time travel, not the Ikari Gendo anymore. Oh, yeah, no one here watches early 21st century japanese 2D cartoon shows."

She hops up. "It definitely sounds like some clown is behind all of this. Ru, if you can get me everything you know about these Fists of the 30 Suns, including martial arts techniques, technology, everything, I'd be grateful. Legate Sereth, if I presume correctly, you have the bearing of a Draconian noble and military leader. The weak are threatened and peace in this sector of space is being destabilized. I wish to call upon your assistance, and mayhaps that of your government, in dealing with this growing threat. Stan and Amanda - well, you know my deal, and I know how awesome you two are."

To Ru it's strange - there's a bit of the Marshall's straight spine in the small blonde, but the infectious smile and nodding of the head from when he first met her is there as well. The Traveller he travelled with would have been stammering and somewhat terrified, and probably finding a leader type to filter her ideas through - this blonde easily takes center stage, yet has a collaborative air.

Just as she's about to turn to Smoke Alarm, she gets the whole Kang greeting -



Trav initially steps back, her eyes a bit widened, but then, when a punch isn't incoming, she perceives that it's a kind of greeting. When she sees Smoke Alarm repeat the movement set with Sereth, she says to Smoke Alarm, "How do you do, Smoke Alarm." She carefully makes that fist, right arm up and across, bringing it with her left, and then releases her first into an open palm, repeating the movement with her other fist, engaging in the hand touch. Then, she finishes with the curtsey, bowing her head.

She finishes with that hat roll. As she places her fedora back on her head, she says, "Did I do that right? Hello."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:24, Tue 10 Dec 2013.

He frowns at Smoke Alarm's greeting, but nods quietly. It was... strange. A girl having such an almost military bearing.

He then responds to the Traveller.

"Not only that; but I was on a mission to -stop- the Fists of the thirty suns. We don't usually pay much attention to human groups. But this group? Yeah, we've noticed. I've done my research on them myself."

Ru bows his head.  "Indeed.  That you have come and that you are, as you say, dedicated to 'the Trav way' lifts a weight from my soul."


"Well, my recollection is that they teach a style of t'ai chi ch'uan drawing elements from both the Sun style and the Yang style, and minor adaptations from Southern Praying Mantis--"  Ru notes the expressions starting to tune out around him.  "--Yes.  Perhaps a few practical tips would be more to the point.  Technically -- I am no expert there.  Some of the refugees might be able to tell you better; I will ask."


"Attempting to control news of their movements?  As I say, their actions run very much counter to what they have espoused."
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:47, Tue 10 Dec 2013.

Trav pulls out her Ipad. "Hey, Chibitrav! Aten-hut!"

Appearing holographically over the Ipad is a small comical form of a girl with glasses, wearing a vest and long skirt and fedora hat, just like Trav wears. "こんにちは姉さん！お元気ですか？"<Hello, big sister! How are you?>

Trav answers back in Japanese. "私はしろよ。あなたは "9太陽の拳」は誰である私のために見つけることができますか？" <"I'm allright. Can you find out for me who the "fists of the nine suns" are?>

Chibitrav: <"I'm not familiar with the networks in this local time zone, but let me see what I can dig up.">

OOC: Trav is using the TARDIS to listen in on local nets and frequencies, to gather some news so that the team can devise a plan as to what to do next. Perception+Knowledge+Research Capsule?

"Ru, if the Captain doesn't mind, I'd like to get a copy of his databases and nav charts - in exchange, we'll help him get his ship up and running. It sounds like whoever the government is in this area needs to be warned about these jerks."

Trav leans close. "Legate, I'd love to know whatever you do about these so-called Fists, so that we can assist in fighting this threat."

'You did not hand-clap.' Smoke Alarm smiled cheekily back at Traveller. 'But the hat trick is icehot.'

Afterwards, Smoke Alarm sat on the floor by the others. There, she ate her soup and bread, hunching over the bowl so it couldn't be stolen, and nibbling furtively at the bread like a large rat. She listened closely to the others talk, but could not make out half of what they said, especially the Traveller. She talked funny. Then she talked really funny when she made a tiny version of herself appear. Smoke Alarm leaned over, peering into the Traveller's lap and tried poking the little person. 'Is it a picturespout?' she wondered.

She left it alone and said 'These Fist people sound like Caretakers.' pulling a sour face to indicate what she thought of people like that. It seemed they were meanie-heads in the sky-flies who dropped all the fire on Arsuran Orbital Prime and made all the people unalive. Then she asked, dipping bread in her soup, 'Sons of who?'
This message was last edited by the player at 11:09, Tue 10 Dec 2013.

"This," Trav says, "is a little part of me. She's a virtual agent based on a small part of my engrams - erm, thoughts and heart." Chibi Trav laughs like the Pillsbury doughboy when Smoke Alarm pokes her. "I used to look sort of like her, a long time ago. I was the bigger version of her back in a better time. I use her to make sure I don't forget who I was."

The ChibiTrav holo "sits", rests her chin on her fist and adopts her Very Serious Thinking expression.  She sits and thinks and rocks her head back and forth slightly, as if listening to a tune only she can hear.

Then the figure sits upright and her eyes flash wide open.  "Traaaaaav!" it cries.  "Something-- something's wrong.  Something is in here with me and I can't find who it is!  All I can tell is that it's wiping its own footprints up after itself somehow.  It shouldn't be able to do that -- should it?  That's not faaaaair!"

The Guardian, for the NPC Mysterious Individual, rolled 20 using 2d6+13. Ingenuity (6) + Subterfuge(3) + Special (4).

Trav digs into her bag, and pulls out a bluetooth keyboard.  "Oh no, sweety, you sniffed him out. You're a good girl! Now, back inside." The small holo schumps back into the Ipad. "While Chibitrav plays fair, her big sister doesn't." She immediately starts to trot back to the TARDIS.

Once she gets back inside, she reaches under the TARDIS console and pulls out 3 large plugs. The main block transfer data buses are now disconnected from the various information and data systems. No matter what happens, whoever the intruder is will not be able to seize control of the TARDIS flight or power systems - but in exchange, the time machine is grounded until she physically puts the buses, which resemble big fuses, back in. It also has the added effect of cutting off the transmission and reception capabilities of the TARDIS sensors. She also disconnects the scudders from the tertiary wireless network, and orders them back to their bays and to shut down. She finally makes sure that the Chibitrav routines are safely stored in their offline storage.

Now, she sets to work. If the intruder knew what was best for them, they'd have fled. If a mimetic construct was in the TARDIS data systems, she was going to find it. Her first concern was her sweet boy's data security, and after that, to find out whoever was responsible for this. Out come the collection of Laptops, 53rd century data matrices and two Colecovsions, all of which have been heavily modified.

Trav is of course trying to find who or what is responsible, starting with Chibitrav's logs, since she detected the intruder the first place.  Perception+Technology+Research Capsule? Gonna spend an SP - TARDIS security is no laughing manner.

OOC - RPOL dice roller sucks and doesn't break down dice, here is an Invisible Castle link -
<a href="http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4328869/">2d6+3+6+2+2d6=31</a>
This message was last edited by the player at 01:37, Wed 11 Dec 2013.

Smoke wondered how the Traveller could look like someone else and forget who she was. Seeing the Traveller play with her doll, Smoke Alarm pulled out Puddy and mushed the old and worn stuffed cat back into shape. But she didn't know what to do with it next. Puddy didn't talk any more, he didn't eat, and he didn't play with her. He just sat there. And, she had to admit, he was just a stuffed toy. Lots of things she knew when she smaller didn't make sense any more. Getting bigger made things all yawny.

The Traveller ran off, and Smoke Alarm thought she ought to follow and not let her get lost. But the Traveller had left her own friends behind, so she figured she could wait and finish her food.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:58, Wed 11 Dec 2013.

Zheng Ru watches the Traveller careen away, a woman on a mission.  He looks at Stanley.  "Well, at least one thing about her has remained constant, Dr. Newton."  He stands and stretches some stiffness out of his joints.  "I will go and speak to Captain Henzler as she suggested.  Please keep an eye on her and see that she does nothing rash... well, more rash than is usual."  He nods to everyone and strides off in the direction of the downed Lucky Drifter.

Amanda notices Smoke Alarm's furtive look at her Puddy.  She edges closer, though she leaves the Kang plenty of space.  The resemblance between Amanda and Puddy isn't actually all that close, but the ears and the fur and even the whiskers are reminiscent.

"You doing okay, there?"  There's a funny twang in the cat-lady's voice.  She seems a little older than any Kang was, just barely an inbetween.  "My name's Amanda, and I come from a place called Arden in the U S of A.  Where was it that you're from, again?

Trav checks the TARDIS systems thoroughly.  There doesn't seem to be any residual corruption or infection; it's as if whatever followed ChibiTrav home from the datastreams of local space had a good rummage through the lower-security parts of the mainframe and left again rather than risk counter-measures.  It seems, oddly, to have been careful to avoid damaging the TARDIS' own systems.

Checking the results of the TARDIS's own data search, Trav finds that the direct routing logs of the intruder's passage are indeed wiped, but whatever it was, it seems not to have had the opportunity to cover up said erasure, and so Trav is able to trace it to a cluster of nodes on Arsuran Orbital Prime, another habitat like Farhaven, but one that is the main governmental and trade center for the system.

(The routing pattern of the intruder bothers Trav.  There might be a hidden meaning in the four-dimensional shadow left behind by blanked packet headers and zeroed timestamps.  It doesn't seem terribly complex, but it also could be almost anything once decoded, from a quick and nasty hunter-killer virus to a filthy haiku.)

Smoke Alarm looked quizzically between Puddy and the cat-lady. She liked cats, starting with Mister Puddy and later seeing the pussycats that hunted in the Gardens. They were sneaky and good at hunting rats, and even fought off dogs. But they never attacked Kangs or Rezzies or Caretakers, and kept the rats away from their stored and growing food. The cats came to be good friends.

'Yes. Just thinking.' Smoke Alarm answered quickly, putting Puddy away in case the cat-lady grew upset. She returned to slurping up her soup. It's all runny. Do I eat it or drink it? 'I have comeout from Paradise Towers. Mayhaps you are unknowing of it. It is a long long long way away from Ars-u-ran Orbi-tal Prime... Where is the You-ess-of-ay? Is it on Arsuran?' The sounds seemed close.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:33, Tue 14 Jan 2014.

Sitting cross legged on the floor of the console room, Trav harumphs as she reinstalls the block transfer buses back in. The door is open, in case someone like Smoke Alarm or one of her companions wants to wander in.

"Almost like someone was *familiar* with the innards of a Type 50. No sir, I don't like that one bit." Trav slaps in the last bus, and then runs down the spiral staircase. She comes back up on the lift with a car that has a familiar looking shiny metal column with occasional crystals sticking out of it.

Using the same secure environment she used to contain both that old 4th dimensional mimetic weapon and more recently Ever's TAROT, she reconstructs the shadows left behind by the intruder. Seperately, she also brings up the records of the blond bishonen general and his cheomsanged assistants that Evers and Keeper Desryn passed onto her. She suspects that this may be a hello from him - or her. This is in a heavily warded, secure environment, which is kept separate from all TARDIS systems.

A pause. "There is much I could tell you; but what do you know already? They are, now, a military organisation; dedicated it seems to conquering as many worlds as possible; and recruiting further from within conquered worlds. They only fairly recently became any kind of problem."

Stanley stares at the Tardis in the distance. "I'll try, but you know how she is." he replies to Ru. "Let's hope the Fists don't give her a reason to do something rash. I'll go take a look what she's up to."

He walks to the Tardis and knocks, even though the doors are open. "What's up? Something wrong with the Tardis?"

Tap tap tap tap tap. "Hey babe." Trav seems relaxed, even as her typing is furious. "Some tried to *hack the TARDIS* in response to my setting Chibitrav to get the local information. Look here." She takes her sonic and aims it back at the control console, and a holo pops up.  The display pans out from Farhaven, across space, and into a display of Arsuran Orbital Prime. "Whoever it was was good enough to get past my low level security and rummage around in my Yaoi manga collection and give Chibi a really good scare. They also left a ghost image based on their own erased data trail - pretty damned clever - that should form *something*. Since it's block transfer equation code, it might be a message, a virus, spam advertising or maybe even a new life form. Whoever the hell it is, they're formidable, and not to be trifled with. Whoever they were, they were pretty damned familiar with the insides of the data systems of a Type 50 TARDIS - and the people in the universe who have that familiarity I can only count on maybe one hand.

She sends another sonic burst at the control panel, and displays the blond TAROT user and his compatriots. "Evers and Desryn told me about this guy. I suspect that he's a past or future iteration of Phillipe-Fortuna-Evers. In this stuff that was passed to me by Desryn, it seems that he or she - it's hard to tell - is waging some kind of war against someone, but is doing their level best to do it in a manner that causes the least amount of collateral and temporal impact - ethical warfare, for lack of a better term. And he was close to this time zone. Now, this guy may not be whoever rummaged through my TARDIS,but if Phillipe or Fortuna become, for lack of a better term, my apprentice at some point, then they would know. a TAROT might even have records of older model TARDISes in it's database, for all I know. The Time Lords obviously kept that project hidden from me during the Time War, and I can see why - I would have taken control of it. Damn, I love my sweet boy, but those things are sexier than a stupid old Time Ring. Anyway, that's where this clue seems to lead, unless you have other thoughts."

Amanda looks thoughtful, then smiles.  "Actually, no.  According to Trav, it's... a long time ago from here.  I haven't heard of Paradise Towers before, but if it's close to Old Earth, it's not far from Arden either.  Hey -- that makes us practically neighbors!"

Smoke Alarm's eyes widened, and she said excitedly "Earth? I've been to Earth! It's full of Towers, and... yawny oldster schools.' The last part came hesitantly, and with disgust. 'Doctor Sam said Paradise Towers was... an arty-fish planetoid that once was a good-neighbour to Earth. Then it was moved to a good-neighbour system. Then the Kangs and Rezzies and Caretakers came there.'
This message was last edited by the player at 04:31, Thu 12 Dec 2013.

A snort from the Draconian.

"Earth? Earth isn't beautiful. Draconia; now that's beautiful."

The first real sign of any kind of emotion.

The TARDIS chews on the shadow pattern in the computational sandbox Trav has set up, while she explains her hunches to Stanley.  It shows a shifting moiré pattern as it works.  It's possible that it may take some time to resolve anything from it, with countless permutations of data to work through.  It does look to be safely isolated from the other TARDIS systems, however.

Amanda looks at Sereth.  "Now, Draconia I have been to.  Knee-high to a rekklan at the time, I was; my Dad took us on a visit when he was part of a Congressional delegation, and my memory of it isn't that good.  But I do remember the public gardens around the Palace District!  Everything was scarlets and golds and greens, and there were flowers bigger than I was.  They are beautiful."

Smoke laughed. 'I didn't say Earth was, egg-head!' She listened with fascination as Amanda described these gardens. They didn't sound anything like the wild and overgrown jungle she'd explored. 'Gardens? Did they have wild dogs and hunting pussycats?'
This message was last edited by the player at 09:11, Thu 12 Dec 2013.

Trav hops up. "Sorry I ran off, babe, but I didn't want to take any chances with Sweet Boy's health and safety." She smooches the control console.  "This is gonna take a while to cook."

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 86):

Stanley looks at the data on the control panel. "That platform, "Arsuran Orbital Prime", that's where the ship came from. The patients told me that it was attacked recently, by the Fists. I guess it must be under their control by now. Is it possible that the hacker might be working for the Fists? Unless that's technologically impossible of course, but you have to admit that the timing is a bit suspicious."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:25, Thu 12 Dec 2013.

In reply to Stanley Newton (msg # 87):

Trav taps her lip with her sonic. "I think it's safe to say that it's probably the site of whatever battle is occurring. I think that's our next stop.  Let's make sure that Ru is OK, and then speak with Legate Sereth. This seems to be on the verge of becoming an interstellar, perhaps intergalactic war." Trav is reminded of the times when the Daleks tried to trigger war between the Federation and the Draconian Empire. She also remembered that the Draconians played for keeps. It's a huge boon that a friendly Draconian was here.

Trav downloads pertinent data into her Ipad.  She sets up the TARDIS sensors for passive monitoring of the data streams and broadcast networks, and makes sure that her time machine is an invisible presence datasphere, while making sure that all data defenses are on high alert, including any probes that might come through the Time Vortex. She also sets up a profile that would detect the tell tale signs of TAROT operation. "There ya go, Chibi. Let me know when what I have over in the pot over there is done cooking, ok baby? Dump me a precis when the passive scans come in. You're a sweet little program!"

Almost as she's about to walk out with Stanley, she remembers one more thing. "Oh, almost forgot!" She aims her sonic back at the control console, and downloads her latest mail.

Sereth hears someone clear their throat near him.  When he looks up, he sees one of the Draconians who rode out on the Lucky Drifter.  Sereth can still see the bluish tint of young adulthood on the man's scales, and his clothing is serviceable but plain -- likely he's a journeyman technician or tradesman, still paying off an indenture granted by the Throne.

(Smoke Alarm, when her attention is drawn to this, sees that the Draconian is small and slight compared to the Leg-It.)

The young man bows to Sereth.  "My life at your command," he says.  He shows a small comm device.  "Your pardon, but I thought it my duty to inform you of this.  This is a message that seems to be getting broadcast across the system."

He hands the comm over to Sereth, and it projects a small hologram.  It's a head-and-shoulders shot of a dark-skinned Earthman in a high-collared red uniform, the color of the Fists.  The man's scalp is shaved, another affectation of the group.

"Greetings," the man says.  "My name is Zeres Pellande, Second Seeker of the Fists of Thirty-One Suns.  I am speaking to you from the Central Commission Utilplex on Arsuran Orbital Prime.

"I serve notice to all within range of this broadcast that as of 2100 hours, Coordinated Arsuran Time, the Arsuran Regis system is now under the protection and administration of the Fists of Thirty-One Suns.  President Rol Simarsa and the other High Commissioners have tendered their resignations and assigned to myself and my lieutenants their offices, which will be exercised for the benefit of the citizens of this system until such time as the governmental structures of Arsuran Regis may be reviewed and revised.

"Further announcements will be made in upcoming cycles regarding the disposition of property, claims, credits and debts held by the Central Commission.  Until then, existing obligations due to and from permanent residents will remain valid.  Transient individuals will be required to present themselves at administration centers for proper disposition."

The man's expression shifts from that of a man reading off a dry, prepared statement.  "Citizens, you will rightly be apprehensive of the upheavals that have been brought to your lives.  I will not apologize for this.  A challenge is coming for us all and the Fists of Thirty-One Suns will see you all fit to face that challenge.  You will find yourself tested and pressed to learn and grow, for only in growth will we find survival.  In the days ahead we will speak to you more fully of the storm rising ahead of us and what will be asked and expected of you to face it.

"For the Fists of the Thirty-One Suns, I am Zeres Pellande.  Persevere and ascend."

The ongoing search of the backlog hasn't turned up any fresh high-priority messages.  From Trav's most recent associates and acquaintances, there's only this, signed with validated UNIT headers, from Marshal Ch'tesh:

"Lady, you and me need to have a real conversation about objectives.  Explaining to the President the implications of The Cyberiad is coming for dinner was not the easiest briefing I have ever given."

A frown. Oh really.


"Isn't that interesting?" His eyes hard. "Thirty-one firsts now." His hand dropped unsconsciously towards his sword; reminding him of his oath of office.

Smoke Alarm peered at the little man with growing dislike. Yep, definitely Caretakers. They'd taken over all the towers of Arsuran, floor-by-floor, with their guns and rules and un-fun ways. They'd probably be outcoming to Farhaven next. Would there everywhere be meanie-head Caretakers, with their rules and guns? 'Build high for happiness.' she muttered sourly in farewell.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:33, Sat 14 Dec 2013.

This is as Trav walks up (presumably with Stanley.) "Legate Sereth." She bow politely to him, in the Draconian manner. "I apologize for my presumption, but these 'Fists of the Thirty One Suns' are an issue which threatens those I care for. Master Ru Zheng has asked me for assistance, and before I chose war, I want to engage a way that will involve as few people being killed as possible. I'm the Traveller - I'm one of the Doctor's people." She waits a beat.  The Draconians may know of the Time War, if their empires have survived from the 25th all the way to the 195th centuries and beyond.

"I had the great privilege of being one of the Doctor's protege's, and, I continue with his mission. I hope that we can work together in understanding the nature of the threat of the Fists, and ending it, in a way that involves as little bloodshed as possible. It sounds like Arsuran has fallen to them. If you could tell me what the Draconian empire knows of them, their leaders, and their technology, I'd be grateful. Your people have always been noble and kind to me, in the past, and I want to repay those kindnesses that were paid to me, and the Doctor, so long ago."

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 93):

"Changing the name of your organization that often must be quite a hassle." Stanley says in response to the news about Arsuran. "I am wondering if they are working up to a specific number, you know Fists of the Fifty Suns or something."

Amanda is standing up now; her arms are folded across her chest and her ears are laid back flat.

"I don't know, Stanley, but I am really keen to have some serious mathematical discussions with these guys."

In reply to Stanley Newton (msg # 94):

"Mayhaps, Stan, or maybe they just like to keep score. Hm. Ascension through strength, hm?

Smoke Alarm stood up as this became a Serious Inbetween Conversation. 'Mayhaps they started at Fist of the One Sun? And next, Fists of the Eleventy Suns, or even Fists of the Zillion Suns.' she exclaimed in alarm, dreading the thought of these caretakers bossing around all towers everywhere.

She worriedly around the temple and the rest of Farhaven, fearing the sky-flies would appear and drop over all these playing fields and the Orange Kangs. 'Are they outcoming here?'

Trav sits on a crate as she waits for Legate Sereth to answer her query. "Most likely, babe. But I want to find out about these clowns before we engage them. And Smoke Alarm, you bring up a great idea. I'd love to know how these guys started."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:55, Sat 14 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm started hopping anxiously from foot to foot. 'They could be here in no time! We should start running with all speed.'

Trav smiles. "Slow down, baby! We don't know where to go yet!" It was pretty ironic, she telling someone else to slow down. "Let Legate Sereth tell us what he knows, then we can decide what to do next."

Smoke Alarm settled, but did not relax. The full scale of problem was starting to sink in, and she didn't like where the tracks and carrydoors were leading. That blue bubble had dropped her from one nasty Basement into another. 'I heard the little talky man. Dispos-ishun of trans-ient individuals... That's me! I don't want to go down the waste disposal chute like a piece of rubbish!' she cried in dismay, eyes wide.

'Talk, Leg-it!' she encouraged Sereth, heedless of any Draconian manners.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 01:17, Sat 14 Dec 2013.

Somewhat distracted by Smoke Alarm's outburst, the Traveller only notices Zheng Ru's return when he taps her gently on the arm.  He holds out a tiny, iridescent datacard.

"Captain Henzler's navigational data," he explains.  Consulting a tiny scrap of paper, he adds, "He also asked that I tell you that his... collapsed-ion reservoir... is all but depleted.  He did not have a very positive attitude toward the possibility of recharging it on Farhaven, when I explained our lack of spaceport facilities.  However, I assured him that you enjoy absurdly difficult technical hurdles."

These humans. Or whatever she was. Always going for peace. Weakness. Nevertheless...


"Originally they came from Fernidos Alpha. A mnor political group; fairly introverted. They always sent pilgrims out, but respected local laws. This was up till about 2 years ago. They seized power in Fernidos Alpha and started annexing nearby star systems. With the ease that they disable security systems and command structures, I suspect they have sympathisers in a lot of the governments they intend to conquer next. Also.... they go for little collateral damage when they invade. They target governments and military structures, and use archaic fighting techniques as well as stealth. Archaic fighting techniques; but not fought with -honor-. A sigh from the Draconian. <DarkGreen>"They then institute re-education programs, and find volunteers amongst the newly-conquered populus to join them.."

She notes that Sereth doesn't react when she mentions the Doctor. That's just as well, she thinks, if she needs to go deeply into her Time Lord background, she will. "Huh. Space Ninjas, basically. Do we have any access to their scriptures, or holy works?" Stanley can probably guess, that maybe Trav wants to turn these fists around, like she did the Sisterhood. "Ru, how do these guys treat people? Are they cruel? Are they assassins? What's the bad deal with them? Kinda reminds you of the Boxer Rebellion, but hi tech, right?"

She takes the datacard.  "Collapsed ion reserve? Easy schmeezy. I'll need some hands, because we'll need to get the ship repaired enough to take off. But let me take a look. If worse comes to worse, I can use equipment on the TARDIS to refill that reserve, but I may even be able to use equipment onboard that ship if it isn't damaged." She slips the datacard into her I Pad. "SCUDDERS! SHIP REPAIR TOOL KIT, PLEASE, AND A COLLAPSED ION CENTRIFUGE." She smiles as she shouts to her beloved robots.

Ru looks at the Traveller quizzically.  "They have not been cruel, nor assassins.  People do change, sometimes for simple reasons and sometimes for dramatic ones.

"Henzler picked up that same message on his ship, and that last phrase, persevere and ascend, is very much at the core of their beliefs.  Only now it seems that something or someone has moved them to spread that philosophy through measures much more extreme than they have ever practiced -- and they are not sharing who or what that reason is.  Legate Sereth, does any of your information point to that source?"

He spreads his hands.  "If it does not, then I know no better way to uncover it than to find Fists to speak to and see what they have to say.  If you like, I am prepared to surrender myself to them in hopes of learning more."

Sereth, with the additional information that has been passed around here, you could try to make a roll on Ingenuity + Knowledge with your +2 for the Cultures & Politics Expertise to potentially get some additional clues to the situation.

Let's call the difficulty Tricky(15) to get something more useful than what you already know, with the specificity of the clue(s) going up the higher you can reach.

The Draconian thought for a moment.

OOC: 15:00, Today: Sereth rolled 16 using 2d6+8. Ingenuity + Knowledge + 2.

The Kang thought for a moment.

'Build high for happiness.' Smoke Alarm repeated ironically, thinking she understood the Fists' philosophy. To build some great big monolith, grand and imposing, that gave no comfort or happiness for the people inside it. It was all the same, from the Great Architect to the Thirty-One Suns.


OOC: Yeah, didn't think so. :)
13:20, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 7 using 2d6+3. ingenuity.

Remembering how the Traveller's data search had run up against surprisingly sophisticated countermeasures, and her search for its source had turned up little, reminds Sereth of reports from the Throne's intelligence services of an asset placed close to the Fists' First Seeker, referred to only as Warlock.

None of the agents who managed to turn up any information were able to identify whether "Warlock" was a code name for an individual, perhaps a small operations team, or maybe a new technology.  But the Throne's analysts did place a high correlation between times and locations where Warlock was active, and particular successes of the Fists -- covert missions that turned the Fists' way just in the nick of time, or pieces of supposed top-security information that fell into the Fists' grasp.

Just as an aside, if anybody in the future has a preference whether some piece of information be conveyed privately, let me know, if and when.  In general I will assume that you're going to share information with minimal repetition (or concealment) of what I give out as GM.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:50, Sat 14 Dec 2013.

In reply to Zheng Ru (msg # 106):

"That's very noble of you, Ru." Stanley says. "But I don't think it's a good idea. The Fists know you as the leader of Farhaven. What sort of signal does it send, if you surrender to them?  Let's say you are going to pretend to suddenly agree with their belief system. Why wouldn't you surrender the whole of Farhaven to them? Unless of course, you're no longer in a position to do so which could indicate some sort of power struggle. I also doubt that they would trust you enough for you to learn things we couldn't just ask their PR-department."

"Like I said, very noble, but I think it is going to draw the Fist's attention to Farhaven if you try to infiltrate them. Also; your people might need you, you can do more good here. So I think, that if we decide to send someone it shouldn't be you."

Trav is working on what looks like a big radar dish, on the grass, as everyone talks and exchanges. "Ru baby, he's right. I just got you after... my bad things. I will be damned if I lose you again. You have people to take care of. We'll take care of it." She's holding her sonic in her teeth as she is yanking wires and parts out of the base of the weird contraption. "Also, I let someone very close to me indulge... *SNAPP ZRRT* yow! His martyr complex. I will not tolerate such vanity again, Mister Ru." As Second Trav, she often called people Mister and Miss."

"As I see it, our job is to first get these people to where they were originally going, and then visit our friends at Arsuran prime and have a little chat. An unarmed, successful army? That's pretty damned intriguing."

For all her lack of education, Smoke Alarm was listening intently to the conversation going on around her, even it was kind of yawny. She just didn't have much to add, having popped out of a blue bubble on Arsuran Orbital Prime only two months ago and living on the streets since then. The first hearsay she'd had of the Fists had been when their sky-flies dropped fire from the sky. 'You need to stay and help these Orange Kangs and ref-you-gees.' she agreed.

Seeing the Traveller doing something more interesting, Smoke scrambled over to watch, curious as a monkey. She picked up some components and turned them over in her hands, wondering what they did and how she could use them. It was far beyond the smoke alarms and picturespouts she was used to. Deciding to play along, she took out her arrowgun and went through regular fixits, borrowing and repurposing whatever she could to oil this or tighten that.

The crossbow was an odd thing, small and designed for one hand, with a shoulder strap and a quiver of sharp metal bolts. It appeared to be a much modified and rebuilt hunting crossbow, and could be lethal in the wrong hands. But it was also decorated with shiny stickers and doodles of flowers and rainbows, with "Smoke Alarm's Arrowgun — No tuching!" written down the side in a child-like hand.

'Unarmed? They don't have arms?' Smoke wondered in surprise.

Trav shakes her head. "No, dear, they have no weapons. They do punching and kung fu with special tricks. Hand me that?" Whirr goes her sonic-an old and beat up peice, with half the shaft wrapped in black electrical tape.

OOC - Gary, what roll do you want for Trav to gather the collapsed ions needed to help the refugees get their ship running? Ingenuity+Tech+Sonic?

Edit - That should be 2d6+8+6+2(sonic)+2(Smoke Alarm)=2d6+16
This message was last edited by the player at 15:22, Sun 15 Dec 2013.

'But they have sky-flies that drop splosives and fire on people.' Smoke Alarm pointed out. 'They don't need arrowguns if they can do that.' Pex had said he could do punching and kung fu and ninja kicks, but Smoke Alarm had never seen him do it, even when Drinking Fountain pushed him over that time. He also had a zapgun, but didn't use that much either. But Pex was a scaredy-cat, though not at the end. She remembered some things Pex had said and the old picturespout discs at the Towers, themselves dating back to the 21st century. 'I can do kang fu.' Smoke Alarm boasted, and asked 'Can these Orange Kangs do kang fu?' she asked, referring to the Shaolin monks.

She passed Traveller the whatsit, and steadily started helping her out. She could use a screwdriver or prise something apart or put it more-or-less back together, and hold something up with a steady hand.


OOC: Helping Trav: Ingenuity + Technology = 13 (from TL 5)
10:38, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 13 using 2d6+4. ingenuity + technology.

Zheng Ru nods and smiles slightly.  "I am well corrected, Traveller.  Of course, no one here would think lightly of placing themselves at such an unreasonable risk."

Amanda, working nearby, develops a suspiciously timed coughing fit.

Yes, Ingenuity + Technology + Sonic.  Smoke Alarm's assistance gives you a +2.  Just refueling the ship should be a 15.  If you get up in the mid-20s, we'll say that you were able to jury-rig something to make up for the blown-out storage chambers as well.

"'Kung fu', Smoke Alarm.  And in fact, it is a misperception to speak of kung fu as referring only to unarmed self-defense, which we call wushu; it really names any endeavor mastered through practice and discipline."  Ru winks at Smoke Alarm.  "Kang fu may, of course, be something entirely different.  You'll have to let me know if the people here are any good at it."

Trav notices the cough. "Ok, ok. It's a flaw in myself that I don't want to see repeated, OK?"

"And Kang Fu sounds like a pretty bad ass martial art. Run around corridors, tag stuff, shoot objects but not people, heh, I could get into that."

Trav has assembled what appear to be several car batteries attached to a small satellite dish. "OK, everyone, look away or get eye protection. Here, Smoke, look at this. Ever see ions collapse before?" She digs into her bag and hands smoke alarm a pair of one piece shades, that look exactly like what this guy is wearing, while slipping on her own raybans -



She throws a switch! The A circular rainbow shrinks into the collector dish several times, and then there's a BOOM and an explosion of colors! She makes sure there's a good amount of distance, although the effect is harmless, around the collector.


"And that, sweety, is how we collapse ions! That's science stuff! Isn't it awesome? You did your first science!" Trav has this slightly maddened look on her face, as she sonics the batteries. How much charge did they get?


10:23, Today: The Traveller rolled 24 using 2d6+16. Trav and smoke fix the ship.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:21, Mon 16 Dec 2013.

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 117):

Stanley looks away from the satellite dish when Trav pulls the switch.

Trav checks the collector while Captain Henzler goes over the ship's engine diagnostics and compares the readings with her.  "Hoo boy.  You know, miss, you could make a pretty sum with that gadget."

While Trav has been working on her ion collector, Henzler has been directing Amanda and the others toward some of the other ship's other damage.  Between the blown relays and seals that they've fixed and the charge accumulated in Trav's collector, it looks like the ship's capacitors can be charged up to about eighty percent, which would suffice to push the ship through a transtellar jump to the next system.  Assuming, of course, that it's left to do so without further interference from the Fists.

Sereth just watched as they worked; this wasn't his forte.

Now if the fists attacked; -then- he might have something to say.

Smoke Alarm considered whether or not the Orange Kangs could do kang fu. 'Hmm. I will eyespy them and see.' These "Orange Kangs" were strange: they all wore orange, so they were like Kangs, but they were all boys, so they were not. So they were more like the boy Teams from Tower 3. But many of the Orange Kangs were Inbetween, and some were even oldsters. Roo didn't seem so bad though, he didn't look like he'd eaten anyone.

'Irons?' she repeated as Traveller said her device was ready. She put on the eye-shades and watched awestruck as the rainbow colours appeared. 'Icehot!' she exclaimed, jumping up and down.

Then she tried to puzzle out what had happened. 'I did? I didn't feel my eyes collapse. Is that what the eye-shades are for? What's a sy-ence?' Well, at least it would Mister Henzler's sky-fly go again.

Trav hops up and gathers the batteries, carrying them on cords. "The real rules, Smoke Alarm! It's how things work! It's beautiful and wonderful and so awesome! Like when you see the stars at night, or kiss someone you like!" She runs along like a school girl. "Science!" She turns back and hops up and down. That is the old Traveller that Ru remembers. "Science is so awesome!"

Smoke Alarm was only left more confused than before. So Science was the rules of how things worked? And it was good. Okay. But what about the rest of it? The Kang was frustrated. The more she learned, the more she knew, and the more she knew she did not know. Maybe when she knew everything she'd know nothing at all. 'What's a "kiss"?' she asked, hurrying after Traveller.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:31, Tue 17 Dec 2013.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 119):

Stanley walks up to Captain Henzler. "Now that The Traveller has made those collapsed ions, where are you planning to go?"

Henzler looks at Stanley.  "Figured I'd round up everyone here who wanted out and away from the Fists, and try to get them as far as Syrit Alpha."  Looking at the capacitor readouts, he adds, "It's just a couple of parsecs to spinward, and I ought to be able to get some of the rest of this mess fixed up there; shouldn't be a problem.  Well, as long as we don't have any more run-ins on the way out of the system."

He looks at Zheng Ru.  "Brother Ru, you and your people are welcome, too.  I don't imagine this is going to be the most hospitable neighborhood for the next stretch."

The old monk's expression is unreadable.

"I think we can make some adjustments in your ship's hold that will make it safer for people to travel," Ru says, "and I will certainly pass your offer along.  Doctor Newton, what about the injured?  Are there any here that you do not feel are fit to travel?  I would prefer not to leave Farhaven at all, but I will certainly not abandon it while people remain who cannot, for their health, be moved."

Trav smiles slightly.

"Fear not, Captain, we'll get you ready to go soon. I don't suppose that we'll have too much time." She pulls Ru to the side.

"Ru, sweety. You're getting that stubborn look on your face again. I know that Farhaven is *your* particular patch of ground and *you* want to defend it from these 31 Suns jerks or whatever they're called. It's beautiful here," she pauses, looking out over the ring that loops up into the sky. "But your *first* responsibility, as I see it, is to those people, not to this place. Once we get these people off of here, then I and my merry band will go deal with these Suns. This place will keep. But you know that the whole 'people are too ill to move' is a piss poor excuse to stay here. I will get people to Syrit Alpha with the TARDIS if I have to. Stan and I will make sure that the ship has medical facilities on board that are good enough to transport the injured, or, failing that, they'll get to Syrit Alpha via TARDIS. You need to take care of these people, just like we need to take care of the 31 Suns. Once we do, you and your monks can come back here. Now, look at me." She holds his face in her hands. "Ok? OK?" She looks up at him, smiling.

She backs up, and shouts, "OK! We don't have much time! Stan, I need from you what we need for that ship to safely transport injured. Legate Sereth, if you can lend me some of your people, I want to give this ship the once over and get her ready to transport refugees, and install some shielding systems so that she has some defenses if she is attacked. the Suns are on their way, I want us to be gone when they arrive. Smoke Alarm, you're with me! Shimmy, people, hustle!"
This message was last edited by the player at 12:39, Wed 18 Dec 2013.

Ru meets the Traveller's eyes.  She can see how much of himself he has poured into this place and these people: while she has spread her sense of responsibility as a wide net over time and space, he has settled all of his here, building a home and a peace he finds it difficult to give up.

"Ah," he says, "perhaps I have lost sight of some of the lessons I have spent such effort trying to convey to others."  He gives her a rueful smile.  "It's time to travel."

As Trav leads people into the spaceship,carrying a toolbox, "It's always time to travel, baby! But there's nothing wrong with coming home." She thumbs up to Ru, as she leads the team inside.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 125):

"Transporting the patients isn't going to be a problem. We are going to need basic things like bandages, antibiotics and painkillers,  but as long as the patients don't have to sleep on the floor they are going to be fine. And even that won't be a huge problem if we really, really need to evacuate." Stanley says to Trav and Ru. "I'll go gather what I can from the building and then I'll ask a couple of your monks to help me move the patients."

"Stan, have the scudders get for you whatever you need - I have crates and crates of REF relief supplies down by the library." She takes a moment and aims her sonic at the TARDIS. Onboard, strings of Gallifreyan script trail across the flat screen attached to the TARDIS console. Chibitrav is watching the skies and the Time Vortex for arrivals.

OOC:I want to set the TARDIS to have sensors on, keeping watch for anyone coming to Farhaven conventionally, or via transmat or the Time Vortex. The TARDIS will ping Trav on her phone if there's an alert.

Wordless, Smoke Alarm followed Traveller and listened as she got all talky with everyone. They were all getting ready to be outgoing, but Smoke Alarm had wanted to stay and see Farhaven and the little stone tower and the Orange Kangs and their kung fu. But if the Fists were coming to punch them, then they had to move on all the youngsters, oldsters, scaredy-cats, and broken ones. I'm with Traveller. Okay.

She found they were going back into the sky-fly they'd just come in, and she was concerned. 'There's no park-benches for people to sit, no beds for sleep-tight. We were all standing in the big room, and kept getting pushed over by the turbo-lence. I and Sereth made us all hold-hands and not fall over. It was fun, but Leg-it Sereth is a spoil-sport.' she rambled on.

A nod.

"My people; what few there are on this ship; will be willing to lend a hand. I would wager I can encourage everyone to help."

A snort.

"I was not a spoilsport. I was keeping things balanced; and a reminder of the seriousness of our situation."

Smoke Alarm nodded in agreement. 'You were being un-fun.'

As they make their way inside the vessel, Trav remarks, "you two make a great pair, you know. I dig the vibe!"

As everyone sets to work on their tasks, Smoke Alarm discovers that the Orange Kangs are like the Kangs she knows in at least one way: they're very apt at making do with whatever they find at hand -- rope and beams and simple tools -- unlike so many she has run across in the Big Black that depend on having machines and having everything pre-made and pre-packaged for them.  She works with them as they dismantle pieces of their dwellings, haul cots and mats and hammocks, and fix the sky-fly's insides to be able to move everyone in it sound-and-safe.

(She also discovers that she was slightly mistaken about them all being Boys!  There aren't many who are girls like proper Kangs, but there are some.  The loose clothes and the shaved heads they all share were misleading, from a distance.)

Smoke Alarm is the only PC with Craft.  She can roll Ingenuity + Craft, and take a free Story Point to use for that roll, which considers the help she's getting from Sereth as organizer, from Stanley overseeing the handling of the injured, and the monks.  Your result will stand up as a target number if it becomes important for figuring if people get hurt in the ship.

Everyone works until long after the sun has risen to ready the ship for evacuation, and that's when Trav's phone beeps at her.  ChibiTrav's face looks at her, wide-eyed.  "Trav!  Trav!" she shouts.  "Bad bad news!"  The phone pops up an animation that shows six spaceships, four small and two large -- possibly interceptors escorting a pair of assault shuttles -- on transfer orbits originating from the ring of Arsuran Orbital Prime.  It looks like they'll reach Farhaven in about an hour.

As Trav is taking that in, ChibiTrav pops up again.  "And that other job we were working on is done!" she says.  "I think I unsorted it the right way!  This is what I found!"

Trav sees a flood of calculations running past, describing the trace of the "routing shadow" she looked at earlier.  But they resolve down to this:


This message was last edited by the GM at 04:21, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

"Ladies and gentleman, WE HAVE INCOMING. We have an hour before the first arrive!" She displays her data on her IPad for all to see. "How long before your good for takeoff, Captain? We need to get going, now! Legate Sereth, I haven't been a naval tactician for centuries. Even with a lead, those are military ships and this is a civilian transport. Options?"

'Dig? You don't have a shovel.' Smoke Alarm said, puzzled.

Entering the sky-fly, she got to work with the Orange Kangs, helping them clear space and move in bedding and tools and other supplies. It was like being back on the Exeter, another sky-fly long ago, working with Mister Mop the Graske to move and count boxes, and build box-forts. Those were happy times, her happiest since she'd been taken from the Towers. And being here on Farhaven, surviving the Fists, meeting Traveller and finding another police talkiphone box, packing up the sky-fly... these seemed to be happy times again.

She had fun working with the Orange Kangs, talking with them and learning their ways, and finding out that some of them were girls. With their colour-coded uniformity, simple ways, helping each other, and martial sports, she felt quite at home among them, though she'd probably find their meditation and studies all yawny. Plus they were the wrong colour. But it was a pity they were leaving so soon. 'Is there a pool here?' she asked one of the Orange Kang girls, curious. It had been ages since she'd had a swim in a pool, and the Arsuran caretakers had frowned on her dips in that big fountain.

The Kang might not have known how to science or fix-it a sky-fly, but she knew how to scavenge for recycle-bin parts and make do with them, to shape them into what was needed. being both inventive and practical. And after living on the streets of Paradise Towers and Arsuran Orbital Prime, and stowawaying in all sorts of sky-flies, she knew how to make a bed some place sound-and-safe. Smoke Alarm started supervising the renovation of the sky-fly, as they put in benches and chairs and beds, and made sure they were attached firmly to the walls, via nails, ropes, hooks, even some welding. Remembering the human chain she'd made, she made sure there was some flexing and bending to absorb the movements, but not too much. She also put in handy-holds, ropes strung all around the walls of the cargo bay, from the ceiling, and down the carrydoors and in engine rooms and other important areas, so people could hold on and not fall over. 'Build high for happiness!' She also got all the supplies bundled up tight, and went around putting away or covering things with sharp edges. She wanted everything to be sound-and-safe.

Running into the sky-fly's brainquarters at Traveller's call, Smoke Alarm pulled up a welding mask and announced 'All shape-ship and ready!'


OOC: 2d6 + Ingenuity + Craft + 2d6 = 16
12:20, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 12 using 2d6+5. ingenuity + craft.
12:20, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 4 using 2d6. story point.
Blech, two 1s in that.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:06, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

The scudders prove themselves to be useful in moving the medical supplies to the ship. Whilst carrying a box with antibiotics, Stanley takes a quick look at the improvised sleeping places.

"Good job, Smoke Alarm." Stan says, looking at all the ropes and chains and how the beds were attached.

He walks back to Trav, "We have enough medical supplies on board." he reports.

OOC: Have we transferred the patients to the ship during the night or are they still in the building?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:19, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

Yes; "ready the ship for evacuation" covers getting the people with mobility problems on board.  Others have continued to move supplies aboard, just in case, so right now there are a lot of people scattered between the temple and the ship.  The distance between the two is 10-15 minutes at a walk.

"Mandy, sweety? can I volunteer you to get these people organized onboard the ship? I'm busy making sure this ship can fly. Pretty please?"

A snort.

"We have few options. I'm not a fighter-pilot; I'm more at home with hand-to-hand; but even if I were, I'm not I could outrun it in this. Our best bet might be to get far enough away so they can't know exactly where we've gone by the time they get here. Other than that?" A shrug. "I don't know. The people here are mainly refugees; they're not going to be able to contribute much to a fight; or even evasive manouvres. Maybe I can find a couple who could. We have numerous civilians, including a young -girl-. "

"Then, Legate, once the refugees are away, we can take the fight to them." This is as she's up on the bridge of the vessel, doing final checkouts. "But I need a promise from you. No killing or violence until we've talked with them." The look in her eyes, across the screen, is not one of someone who is not familiar with killing, but of someone who has seen far too much death.

"Will you meet me at my ship? The blue box over on the edge of the field, midway between the temple and the passenger liner."

OOC: Gary, can I assume we've made the ship as space worthy as we can?

A frown from the Draconian. Negotiating would be foolish but...

"Very well. But know this; if they open fire on you despite your attempts at negotiating; I will -not- stand idly by."

Smoke Alarm beamed at Stanley's appraisal of her work, and removed the welding mask and other tools she'd been carrying.

Hearing that people were still in-coming, she said 'I'll go hurry-up the slow-pokes.' and raced off outside.

*

'The baddies are in-coming! In one hour of tick-tock! Hurry-up!' she bellowed, footing-it as fast as a Kang could go down the field, feeling the out-running tick-tocks chasing after her just as the Fists in the sky-flies would be again, like the Cleaners chasing her down the carrydoors. Catch me if you can!

Finding the slowest of the slow-pokes, lumbering along like hefalumps under their big boxes and bags and furniture, she helped with whatever they were carrying, either lending a hand or carrying the load herself and jogging back to the ship. The Kang was quick and energetic and had surprising endurance, but couldn't remember when she'd last slept. But desperation propelled her on, as it always had.

Next to Trav, Henzler looks over the indicators with her.  A few of the telltales are yellow and a few of the gauges say the ship is running a little rough, but it seems remarkably spaceworthy, all things considered.

"Hah!" Henzler says.  "A quarter of the starboard feed system blown to hell and she's still good to fly.  These '37 Skylifters are tough as old boots!"

There's more that could be done, but not in the next hour.  Just roll Ingenuity + Technology + Sonic, to give me a target in case it becomes important.

As Smoke Alarm works to round people up (along with the cat-lady, Amanda) she notices one woman who isn't joining the general flow toward the Lucky Drifter.  She's running here and there between the buildings of the temple.  "Jethy!" the woman shouts.  "Jethy!"

Smoke Alarm ran to the woman. 'What's a Jethy?' she asked urgently.

The woman stares at Smoke Alarm -- she gets that a lot -- but says, "Jethy's my little boy, and I can't find him!  We came here on that, days back--"

The woman points to what looks like another sky-fly, sitting near the temple buildings, which is both much smaller than the Lucky Drifter and looks to be in much worse shape.

"Then the monks told me we'd be leaving on the other ship.  I told him to stick close.  I only took my eyes off him for a second!"

There was perhaps one benefit to having never really grown up, and that was the ability to think like a child. 'Where does he like to play? What does he like to look at? Where did you lose eye-spy of Jethy?' Smoke already started thinking of what she would do if she'd eyespied something interesting and gone walkabout around here. She could go climbing, but Jethy was little, too small to climb. Wallscrawls? Maybe he didn't have paint. She could go look at the statues, the gardens and farms...

"We had just gone to fetch our luggage from the shelter where we'd been sleeping...."  The woman points to one of the lean-tos scattered around, clearly a recent addition.  "But I just looked there.  And he's been all over the temple since we got here.  Trying to get some of the monks to play with him and his RuffGruff...."

The lady's face abruptly looks stricken.  "That has to be it.  He must have lost his RuffGruff and didn't want to leave without it.  It's... it's a stuffed toy."

Just looking for Jethy should be Awareness + Subterfuge (the "stealth" aspect) + Keen Senses, and would be a difficulty 15.  If you have another spin based off different skills, though, feel free to go for it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:45, Fri 20 Dec 2013.

"Puddy!" she cried, but of course he couldn't meow back to her. The corry-dors grew darker and longer and bigger and the little girl felt so small and afraid and alone and lost and she knew was lost herself. "Nanna!" she cried, but her voice just echoed off the blank walls— 'I would go eye-spying for my Puddy.' Smoke Alarm said solemnly, sympathetically. 'And I will eye-spy for Jethy.' she promised.

She started looking around the temple buildings, but realised she need to get up high to really eye-spy everything. Without hesitation, she ran at one of the walls then leaped up high to grab the edge and pull herself up onto the roof, scaling it with ease. From there, she ran around the edges of the buildings, outlooking and eyespying down on to the streets below, looking for any sign of movement, for a youngster boy, a stuffed toy, or any other slowpokes. 'Jethy! Ruffgruff! We need to go to the sky-fly now!'


OOC:
Climbing onto the roof: Coordination + Athletics + AoE: Jumping = 18, beats Hard
Looking for Jethy and Ruffgruff: Awareness + Ingenuity + Keen Senses = 19, beats Hard
Not get lost myself: Awareness + Ingenuity + Sense of Direction = 17, beats Tricky
11:40, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 18 using 2d6+11. coord + athletics + jumping.
11:47, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 19 using 2d6+9. awareness + ingenuity + keen senses.
11:49, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 17 using 2d6+9. awareness + ingenuity + SoD.
Mmm, good rolls. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 03:52, Fri 20 Dec 2013.

For the record, going up on the roof to get an angle was a good idea.  I tend to give +2s for successful actions like that, that you carry out to help your own chances with something.  That gives you a good solid success at spotting Jethy.

Getting lost yourself is no problem; with the curvature of the ring you can see the ship and the TARDIS pretty plainly even from the ground.

Smoke Alarm plainly sees the little one as he stops and looks up at the sound of his name.  He's just outside the big open doorway to the main temple.  "Who're you?" he shouts.  "RuffGruff's lost!  We can't leave him behind when the bad guys come!"

It looks like everyone else has cleared out from the temple area, except for the boy's mother.

It looks to Sereth like the monks are doing a good job of getting everyone secured to fly, and there are just a few stragglers making their way to the ship.  About half of the hour since the Traveller's original alert is up.

He notices, as he looks around and locates the Traveller's box, or "ship", that there's another flying vehicle left up nearer to the temple.  It's a small, intrasystem commuter shuttle, and looks to be the worse for wear although there's no obvious external damage.  It might provide some additional options when it comes to helping the Lucky Drifter get clear....

Stanley is down in the ship's hold finishing up with securing the patients.  For the most part, even the ones that are in some discomfort are putting up with the situation like troopers.

He notices old Zheng Ru crouching down next to one of them, a human with a splinted leg.  (Stanley was able to check the fracture earlier and make sure it was set correctly.)  Ru is applying pressure to a number of points on the man's leg, above the splint on the thigh, and down below around the ankle.

Eyespying Jethy, Smoke Alarm crouched and hopped off the roof, landing on the ground near the boy. 'I'm Smoke Alarm, a Blue Kang.' She knelt to be at his level, saying 'Your mummy is all scaredy for you, but oldsters are like that. So you have to be brave and bold and go help her, okay? Go that way and left-hand.' she encouraged, showing her left hand and pointed the way to go, tracking back to his mummy.

'And I will eyespy for Ruffgruff. I'm good at seek-and-hide; I found you, didn't I?' she said with a grin. 'Now, where did Ruffgruff go? Is he playing in the big-man room? Is he hiding from the baddies?'


OOC: Don't know if this is necessary, but hopping back down again: 9
19:35, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 9 using 2d6. coord + athletics + jumping.

Reassure Jethy, make him go to mum: 10
19:49, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 10 using 2d6+2. presence. (and Convince 0)

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 155):

"You don't have to do that, you know. We have enough painkillers on board." Stanley says, looking sceptically at Ru's pressure point therapy.

"No!  I don't know where he is, and I can't leave him here!  He'll be too scared to sleep by himself at night!"

Jethy tears away from Smoke Alarm and makes a break for it.  However, by this time, his mother has caught up to to the two of them, having seen Smoke's ascent and somewhat awkward slide off the roof.  She intercepts the boy and catches him up in her arms, struggling.

She gives Smoke Alarm a grateful look as she starts to carry Jethy toward the ship, although the little boy has started to bawl.

Ru looks at Stanley.  "I know.  Mr. Shan, here, said his pain was not so bad as that.  I suppose in the back of my mind, I am still amazed by such miracles, and am reluctant to waste them when there may be greater need for them later."  He smiles.  "I must seem an awful barbarian, to a man from the future used to so many marvelous things."

Smoke Alarm was sad that she couldn't make Jethy brave, and he became a cry-baby as his mummy came to drag him away. 'Where did you eyespy Ruffgruff last?' she called, jogging after them. 'Where would he be outgoing?' she asked desperately. She knew how she'd feel if she lost her Puddy, all alone and sad.

Then she hurried back and with all speed began outlooking and eyespying all through the temple towers, starting with the big-man brainquarters and heading to Jethy's sleeping cubby-house, and tearing through all she found. After all, they were all leaving this to the Fists.


OOC: Searching for Ruffgruff: 20, beats Hard.
10:25, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 20 using 2d6+9. awareness + ingenuity + keen senses.
Ah, 5 and 6, a good roll. I'll spend a Story Point to raise that to Difficult if necessary.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:33, Sat 21 Dec 2013.

No story point required.

Smoke Alarm pokes her head inside the Orange Kangs' brainquarters, and is momentarily arrested by the sight of the big-man statue inside of it.  She'd only had a glimpse of it earlier, made out of carved wooden pieces all fitted together and polished till it shone; she wasn't sure it would have even fit inside Happiness Square.

Perched atop the man's huge head is a small floppy object with blue fur and curling horns.  How in the world would Jethy have gotten up there, much less forgotten his RuffGruff?
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:57, Sat 21 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm gazed up in awe at the big statue of the sitting man; even she was stunned by its size and serenity. They'd never get him onto the sky-fly, he would have to sit here for the Fists, but she figured one so great could take care of himself. She clapped her hands together as the Orange Kangs did, then presented her hands palms out in how-you-do.

She looked curiously up at Ruffgruff, wondering how he'd gotten up there. Maybe Ruffgruff had climbed up there, or one of the Orange Kangs had been playing with him? Well, whatever, she had to get him down. 'Excuse me.' she told Mister Buddha, then ran right at him. She jumped onto the altar, bounded off onto his knee, then sprang up as high as she could to grab his head and scoop up Ruffgruff.


OOC:
Climbing the Buddha and grabbing Ruffgruff: Coordination + Athletics + AoE: Jumping = 21, beats Difficult
11:52, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 21 using 2d6+11. coord + athletics + jumping.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 07:56, Sat 21 Dec 2013.

In reply to Zheng Ru (msg # 159):

"I wouldn't call myself a man of the future. I mean, you are the one living on a giant floating ring in space." Stanley says smiling. He takes a step back and asks Ru to do the same. Stan lowers his voice, making sure mister Shan wouldn't be able to hear him, "Besides, if mister Shan's pain wasn't that severe, I probably would have given him a placebo. Well, as long as the patient is helped."

"Of course we shouldn't underestimate the body's own ability to heal, right mister Shan?" he says loud enough for mister Shan to hear.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:35, Sat 21 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm fetches the RuffGruff from atop the big statue with minimal to-do.  She's not sure whether it's supposed to be some sort of real animal or not; it's nothing like she's ever seen in pictures, much less in real life.

The area around the temple seems to be fully cleared out now.  There are just a handful of stragglers that Smoke can still see getting to the ship, and she's pretty sure that she can spot Jethy with him mother among them.

'Gotcha!' Smoke Alarm hopped and skipped back down the Buddha and jumped right off, landing like a gymnast. 'Tada!' There was no one watching. 'Aww.' She looked at the toy, some kind of blue furred animal with horns. She really hoped this was RuffGruff, else she'd have to do this all over again.

She started out, then turned back to the Buddha, sitting so peacefully with no to-do, eyespying right down through her. He was so big, but she didn't feel small. He was smiling, like he approved. 'Sorry, you're too big to carry. But the Orange Kangs will be come-in back. Build high for happiness!' She made the building hand gesture, then turned and scurried out of the temple. Outside, she glanced up at the sign over the temple, finding it written in Kang: Build High for Happiness. The Towers are not All. It is Always Time to Run! She ran.

The last one out, Smoke Alarm raced through the temple area, down the streets and carrydoors and up the walls and over the roofs, making a direct bee-line for the talkiphone box and the sky-fly, whatever obstacles lay in her path. In case anyone was still loitering about, she banged on doors and windows as she passed and shouted ''Ware Fists come in no time! Everybody outgoing! To the sky-fly, all speed! No-exits be taken to the Cleaners! Run!' Because she was Smoke Alarm, the warner of danger, the sound-and-safe. No one would be left unalive.

At one of the outer buildings, she paused and drew her wallscrawl can. Shaking it, she whooshed out paint onto the wall. Not having time to scrawl much, she simply drew a big smiley face. Let the Fists eyespy that and know Smoke Alarm was here!

Now she sprinted back to the sky-fly and the people footing it there. She hurried up behind Jethy, slapped him on the shoulder and waggled RuffGruff in front of his face. 'Tag! You're it!' she said, jogging ahead.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Sun 22 Dec 2013.

"She's a beautiful ship Captain, just like my old girl the Macross - a city ship I helped rebuild a long time ago. Let me tighten some bolts. I'll follow in my ride and do everything I can to make sure you get clear."

Trav climbs up a chute and sonics a few things, replacing a few fuses, doing as much as she can in the limited time.

23:48, Today: The Traveller rolled 23 using 2d6+16. Ingenuity+Technology+Sonic.

After working, and snugging the captain, Trav is heading for the TARDIS. As she waves to Sereth, trotting, she opens the door. But she stops.

"You're not travelling with me yet fully, Legate, but I offer to you the hospitality of my home. I'm the Traveller. I'm the last Time Lord. I always try to talk first and only kill when absolutely necessary. Please respect my rules and authority in my home, and I would be honored to have you as my guest and to benefit from your wisdom."

She stands aside. This, if Sereth enters, is what he sees -


This message was last edited by the player at 05:02, Mon 23 Dec 2013.

Trav immediately makes for the console, snapping switches. She grabs a phone handle and speaks - "Mandy, Stan. - whatever you're doing, get done quick. And grab up Smoke Alarm. We're going. The bad guys are almost here."

She then taps a button. The old phone she gave to Ru Zheng should be ringing. "Ru. Are you travelling with the refugee vessel, or are you taking a ride with me? The Scutters would be glad to see you." Her voice is uncharacteristically soft.

Ominously, a holo display shows the incoming 31 fist forces.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:05, Mon 23 Dec 2013.

Sereth pauses at Traveller's words.

"Listen, I don't intend to spoil negotations. You may hear it odd to hear from a Draconian; but I believe in diplomacy first. What I -am- saying, is that I will not just stand back and let them cut you down without interfering." He then shook his head. "However, that other ship might prove useful. A diversion maybe. I'm not sure of the details yet; and not sure there's enough time to figure out how to use it to it's best utility."

He then frowns as he fully takes in what is beyond the doors.

<DarkGreen>"Timelords? And people call -my- people arrogant." His hand dropped unconsciously to his side; not in a statement of intent, more to reassure himself that his honor was still at his side.

Smoke Alarm sees Jethy's face light up at the sight of RuffGruff.  "YOU FOUND HIM!"  He wriggles loose of his mom and all but tackles Smoke Alarm and the toy.

When his mom finally pries the two apart, she doesn't say anything to Smoke Alarm, but the look she gives Smoke makes her feel ten feet tall.  "Jethy," she says, "we've got to get RuffGruff to the ship now.  Okay?"

Smoke Alarm finds the cat-lady Amanda sprinting up to her.  "I think that's the last of them," Amanda says.  "Trav wants us to get to the TARDIS.  C'mon!"

After a moment, Trav hears Zheng Ru's voice, and she can almost see the gentle almost-smile on his face.  "The Scudders would, eh?" he says.  "I am afraid, I think, that my place is to stay with the people who have looked to me for guidance for so long -- I have come a long way with these men and women, and I believe this is a fear I should face with them.

"I think," he goes on, "that I should have insisted on accompanying the Marshal, but I have nothing but confidence in where your hearts will lead you, Traveller.  If you find a task for me, you know where I am."

She looks as if reflecting, and surprised for a moment. "No. It's good that you stayed behind, Ru. I would have ruined you. The war broke me, it would have broken you." She remembers handing the Doctor The Moment, and escaping in her old, beaten up TARDIS, hidden deep in the Citadel, the Castellan shouting at her to run as the Daleks blew through the last set of time dams.

She shakes her head, banishing nightmares of regret from her mind for the moment. "I'll see you soon, baby. So short. I have a big project, and I need your wise and careful eyes to tell me if I am seeing things clearly. We'll travel together again, at least once more, I promise."

She turns to Sereth. "Legate, please pardon me for taking my farewells. I think we're on the same page then. You might even be restraining me from time to time." When Sereth mentions the shuttle, she says, "my usual talent for improvisation is escaping me for the moment. What do you suggest? I agree that we should use it if we can. Also... I feel that fighting would be a mistake. I want to talk with the 31 Suns, actually."

She taps on the flat screen. "Stan, Mandy, hustle! Trains leaving! And where the hell is Smoke Alarm? Chibi, find them for me, please?" As she sets Chibi travs to using the sensors to track down her companions, she carefully checks the Time Vortex, while priming the time rotor for dematerialization.

OOC - Any rolls?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:09, Mon 23 Dec 2013.

I don't see any rolls required from the Traveller at this time.  Is there anything anyone wants to add about the plan for the Lucky Drifter to escape at this time?  Or the actions taken by the TARDIS and the people on board, once everybody gets there?

It feels like this might shape up as a chase sequence, but Henzler will run with whatever you all want to try.

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 171):

"I am on my way." Stanley answers Trav as he hurries back to the Tardis.

Nothing to add to the plan.

Trav smiles as Stan comes in. "Hey babe. Great work. I smell that you've done this before." Trav hints at Stanley's work in Africa, working to evacuate patients in warzones.

"I'm considering having a word with these 31 Suns people. Opinions, impressions, pleas as I consider something kind of crazy and dumb?"

Smoke Alarm let Jethy catch her, collapsing to the grass in a fit of giggles as the boy took back his RuffGruff. She gave him a hug and said 'No losing eyespy of RuffGruff again, okay? Now, be sound-and-safe, stay tied-and-true on the sky-fly, and outlook for your mummy. Because you're brave and bold as a Kang should be.' she told him, giving him courage for the flight. She let his mummy take him, then watched them go, feeling surprisingly warm and fuzzy, and a little empty, like she wanted something she didn't know what. Maybe it was all the running around? 'Build high for happiness!' she called after them.

She thought about going to the sky-fly to double check that all the beds and chairs were tied-and-true, but turned around to see the cat-lady. 'The talkiphone box?' she asked, excited to see the inside of this "TARDIS" and the chance of a way home. She chased after Amanda, soon overtaking the cat-lady.

Back at the talkiphone box, Smoke Alarm looked up at the sign above the door: Police Public Call Box. Whatever that meant. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the doors and stepped inside, saying 'It's okay, I'm here.'

She stepped into a vast space, bigger than Fountain of Happiness Square, full of cables and girders and picturespouts and talkiphones and thinkiputers and everywhere she looked there was something to look at. Smoke Alarm looked around in awe. And then she asked the most obvious question. 'Why are there fish in the walls?'
This message was last edited by the player at 05:51, Tue 24 Dec 2013.

"Because if they were on the floor, you might trip over something."

"Because I like fishies! They're just images, don't worry. Good. Now, is that everyone? Good. Welcome aboard the TARDIS, Smoke Alarm. This talkibox runs through time and space, just like the Doctor's Talkibox. Glad to see everyone is here."

Smoke Alarm drifted in and up the stairs, still awestruck by everything. 'Oh.' she said to Amanda, finding that made perfect sense. She felt like she was downstairs of a gigantic pool, so big it contained towers, feeling she was like a little flippery fish herself. She was a little disappointed when Traveller said they were only images, but they were so big. So she couldn't go for a swim after all. 'Those are picturespouts?'

She looked over the pods and eyespied all the controls and levers and buttons, and finally up to the big pillar in the centre. 'These are the brainquarters of your talkiphone box — the TARDIS.' she said, working it all out. 'Time? It runs over tick-tocks?'
This message was last edited by the player at 15:20, Tue 24 Dec 2013.

Trav can't help but giggle at Smoke Alarm's words. "Yes, dear, that sounds about right. It actually flies through the tick tocks. Brainquarters? Well, Sweet Boy here has more brains than me, it seems." She pats the central column.  She snugs Amanda when she comes in.

"Legate Sereth, I can place us on tha shuttle, and you can try to use it to buy the refugfees some time? Or if you want, I can bring us directly onto their command ship, if you want to have words with them. My ship can transmat, for lack of a better term."

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 174):

"Well, if you want my opinion." Stanley thinks for a second. "The most important thing right now is finding out what they want. Obviously they are here for Farhaven right know, but I mean the big picture. All that "persevere and ascend" stuff is a bit vague right know. We don't even know why they need so many planets? Or why they suddenly switched to a more aggressive strategy in achieving."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 00:15, Wed 25 Dec 2013.

Smoke Alarm puzzled over the concept, and looked over the controls, meaningless to her. She'd heard of time machines in Mop's stories and on the picturespouts, but didn't know what to make of it all. She'd learned to accept a lot of strange things in her short life, and could accept that this talkiphone box travelled over ticktocks as well as space and towers. After all, why not? 'It can outgo to yesterday? Or tomorrow? Or before time start? Make the big hand move backwards?' she asked wonderingly.

She drifted away and wandered around the brainquarters, touching the walls and eyespying all the fish. But she was still listening to the others. 'Can we tell the Fists we don't want to play their games anymore? Tell them to take their toys and outgo home?'

"Yes, yes, yes yes and yes, but there are rules. My talkibox and I have been to other universe where dragons and wizards are real, to flowers that sing in your mind that power giant robots and weapons that can destroy worlds, where a girl's song stopped an armada of giants with the promise of love." Trav smiles wonderfully. Smoke Alarm was getting it!

"So, something stupidly dangerous. Awesome! We make sure that the refugee ship gets away, and then we pay these jokers a visit. Now, details - do we drop in on their ship or do we head over to their current capital? If we can resolve this without violence, so much the better."

Trav checks the TARDIS sensors. She was curious if her TAROT using friend (who she thinks triggered Chibi earlier) will show their hand again.

She taps her sonic on her lip again. "That's an awesome idea, Smoke. These guys aren't run of the mill conquerors. Perhaps we should announce that we're escorting the refugee ship out of here, and see how they react, or if they give any chase."

Smoke Alarm listened fascinated as Traveller described her journeys. It all sounded amazing, not at all like the drab towers. Wizards! Flowers! Giants! 'Icehot!' she breathed in wonder and awe. 'I want to eyespy!'

But it had been a very long day for Smoke Alarm, and a very busy one, even for an energetic Kang. From lights-on to lights-off, she had run from the Fists' sky-flies, flown on the Lucky Drifter, and helped all the peoples outgo from it. Then form lights-off to lights-on, she worked on getting the sky-fly tie-and-true and getting the peoples foot it back in. In all that time, she'd not gotten more than a couple of tick-tocks nap-time here and there. The Kang yawned and stretched. It would be nice to go sleep-tight and nighty-night.

She climbed into one of the big chairs and curled up, but peered over the headrest at the other talky Inbetweens. 'The Fists are already outgoing to Farhaven. We can how-you-do them there, with the big Buddy-man. Mayhaps the Fists will comeout to us, not follow the Lucky Drifter sky-fly.' From her backpack, she pulled out Puddy, serving as a pillow, and her towel, serving as a blanket. Smoke Alarm always knew where her towel was.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:53, Thu 26 Dec 2013.

Amanda leans on the console, peering at the display showing the approaching ships.  "I don't know, Trav.  I'm just going by some of the stories my dad and Uncle Ezekiel used to tell about the war, but I don't think they'd have sent that many fighters if they were planning to let people and ships just leave."

She frowns.  "I'm with Stanley -- we need to find out what makes these guys tick before we can really figure out what to do about them.  It sounds like they've got some mission beyond just conquest and domination for their own sake.  The problem, and it is really sort of a chicken-and-egg problem, is that to get them to stop and talk instead of chasing the Drifter, we'd probably have to tempt them with something they'd want even more."

"A very wise woman once told me that when confronted with a chicken or egg problem, was to make an chicken omelette. OK, A kind of crappy metaphor, but hey."

She taps to a point in the hologlobe above the TARDIS right between the incoming Suns forces and the refugee ship. "I'll plant us here, we'll ask for parlay, and see how they respond. Simple, right?"

"Sounds like a plan, Trav." Stanley says. "I don't know if it's the best plan, but it's good enough for me."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:00, Sat 28 Dec 2013.

'Mayhaps we can make them play chasey with the other sky-fly?' Smoke Alarm suggested from behind the couch, going all yawny. She knew she needed to have a nap, but the Fist people were coming and there was still too much to do. Mayhaps she could go night-night for just a few tick-tocks...

"I'd agree with you if I thought there was a way to do so." The Draconian frowned. "But I think there's every chance that they shoot it out of the sky, which means we can't ask someone to pilot it. I could of course do so myself, and if doing so would -guarantee- the survival of the others I would have no hesitation."

"Sorry, Sereth, companions of mine don't get to do heroic sacrifices, especially on the first trip out.  Instead, I could just land the TARDIS in front of the temple, send out a big pulse, and just wait for them. If they take the bait, and realize who I am, then great. If they go after the Lucky Drifter, then we take action."

A light flashes on the TARDIS console, indicating a broadcast transmission blanketing the area.  A male voice comes over the speaker when Trav flips it on.

"Inhabitants of orbital habitat Farhaven, this is Disciplant Aylos Shel of the Third Interdiction Wing," it says.  "Farhaven Habitat is now being placed under the authority of the Fists of Thirty-One Suns.  A constabulary force will land shortly to register all residents and transient persons and conduct your initial orientation.  Do not attempt spacecraft launches.  Do not resist the work of our mission, or we may be unable to save you.  Stand by."

The message is followed moments later by a tight-beamed signal from the Lucky Drifter.  "Traveller, this is Henzler.  Engines are running hot, but our escape vector is getting pretty narrow.  Lifting in sixty seconds...."  There's a palpable tension in Henzler's voice.

Trav opens a com. "Incoming 31 Suns forces. This is The Traveler, present with Legate Sereth of the Draconian Empire.If you don't know who I am, you should. The Lucky Drifter is under my protection. By order of article 54 of The Shadow Proclamation and it's refugee provisions any jurisdiction you may have is lawfully considered null and void. That vessel is full of civilian refugees and religious personnel. From my understanding you consider yourself on the moral high ground - don't make me show the galaxy that you're hypocrites. Any attempt to hinder the Lucky Drifter will be considered to be a coercive, hostile attack in contravention of interstellar laws of war. In exchange for allowing the Drifter to leave Farhaven habitat unmolested, we are prepared to present ourselves for parlay. We expect full diplomatic courtesies. Repeat,any attempt to hinder the lucky drifter will be considered hostile action against civilian refugees fleeing a war zone.If you try to stop, hurt or capture those people, it won't go well for you. However, we wish to talk, not fight. Acknowledge." Trav then closes the channel. Trav had her response on wide band com, so the entire space sector could hear it. She wants all eyes on the Suns, to see how they conduct war.

 "If anyone knows how to run sensors, use that panel over there. We need to learn as much about these people as we can while I get them talking."

OOC: Gary, on my phone. Can you do a Presence+Convince+Voice of Authority for Trav, throw in an SP?

4d6+7 got Trav an underwhelming 16
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:27, Sun 29 Dec 2013.

"I am addressing the individual naming herself 'The Traveller'," Shel replies.  "Your title and authority are unknown to me, nor do I recognize any interstellar agreements or conventions called the 'Shadow Proclamation'.  The Fists of the Thirty-One Suns presently regard the Draconian Empire as a neutral power and its subjects neutral noncombatants.  Is it your assertion that the cargo vessel Lucky Drifter carries the diplomatic protection of the Draconian Throne?  Please prepare to transmit proper authentication if this is the case."

OOC: Disciplant Shel rolled 2d6 + Presence(3) + Resolve(3) for 16

Trav's roll is a +0 against that, which is about as "Yes, But" a result as you can get -- ties go to the PCs.  I'm choosing to interpret that as the reaction to Trav's claimed authority being "Buh?" while Sereth's presence leaves an opening.

The Draconian then moved forward.

"I -am- Legate Sereth of the Draconian Empire. I do indeed claim that. There are Draconian citizens on board that craft. You know anything of the Draconian Empire; you know we protect our citizens. Let her go; it is not worth your effort."

OOC: Eh. I'll also use a story point here; let's hope I roll better than Trav.
08:42, Today: Sereth rolled 25 using 4d6+8 with rolls of 5,2,4,6. Presence + Convince + Voice of Authority (Story point).

Should actually be +10 for 27.

Smoke Alarm yawned and cuddled Puddy, nestling herself into the big seat beneath her towel, fast asleep like a little blue-haired punk angel.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:58, Mon 30 Dec 2013.

There's a lengthy pause.  As it draws out, Sereth begins to suspect that this Disciplant Shel is kicking this problem up his chain of command.

At last the answer comes.  "Acknowledged, Legate Sereth.  Freighter Lucky Drifter has been designated under the Draconian flag for unimpeded transit from the system.  Legate, our occupation force will make landfall in twenty minutes.  I have been instructed to deliver to you certain terms and assurances relevant to the Empire, for conveyance to your government.  Please arrange to meet us at the following habitat ring coordinates."

The TARDIS systems convert the data tagged at the end of the transmission and put up an overlay map of Farhaven with the temple complex outlined in blue.

If one of the PCs wants to tackle that scan as Trav mentioned, you can do so, or if no one else does Amanda has enough of a handle on the TARDIS scanners that she could try it.  In either case give me an idea of what sort of information you're looking for.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 195):

Trav smiles. "Awesome. Not a shot fired. Thank you, Legate. Maybe you can designate us as your entourage and me as your science advisor?"

"Legate, I can land us in a nice, hidden spot inside of the temple, near enough so as to make a hasty exit."

Sereth's smile was grim.

"I think that would be best. I don't like the idea of what they might wish me to pass on to my Government."

He didn't like the 'terms and assurances' one bit. He had a nasty suspicion this was a case of "Stay out of our business; and we'll stay out of yours." Wouldn't be the first time such a thing had been done with humans in Draconian history.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 196):

Stanley had been listening to the negotiations silently.

"At least they agreed to let the refugees go. that's a good sign, isn't it?"

I think Amanda is the best person for the scan.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:43, Mon 30 Dec 2013.

"Best news all day, Stan. But let's keep an eye on the Lucky Drifter and make sure that these clowns are telling the truth."

OOC: I wanted to give a PC an opportunity to take action for the scanning so peeps wouldn't feel left out.

Amanda's furry hands work on the controls opposite the navigation panel where Trav is standing.  Pop-up windows open on the holographic display that shows the orbital tracks of the Fists' ships.

"Right... says here that those ships are showing a positron wake, which means antimatter drives?"  She gives Trav a questioning look.  "Anyway, their power output isn't much past what we were able to manage back in my day; there are a few secondary energy sources that are probably weapon systems, but those are a lot smaller, and it's not showing anything radiological, so I'm hoping that means no WMDs.  Life signs... those fighters are two-seaters, and I see twenty on each shuttle."

Her nose wrinkles.  "Foo, this really isn't my area.  Give me a nice simple synthetic retrovirus to analyze, any day."

OOC: Amanda rolled 12 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 2,4. Ingenuity (4) + Technology (2).

The scanners also show the Lucky Drifter's liftoff, and the ship steering slowly for an empty corridor of space opened up by the approaching vessels.  Henzler's voice comes over the private channel.  "Looks like they're giving us a clear shot, good to their word, Legate Sereth.  I'll make sure to put through a call to the nearest consulate and see your people off safe, once we make Syrit Alpha."

The TARDIS shakes with a roaring sound like a wheezing elephant -- familiar to some of its occupants, new to others -- as Trav throws the big lever and the ship makes a short hop to the temple interior.  The external scanner shows the simple wooden walls of a large chamber, partially obscured by the form of the massive carved Buddha.

Smoke Alarm had only closed her eyes for a moment, or at least it felt like it, when her comfy seat started shaking like crazy and she heard a terrible roaring like the hungry monster in the Basement. She jumped out of her seat and took cover behind it, looking wildly around for Cleaners. 'What's that?' But the strange, wheezing, groaning sound tickled her memories, pulled her back through the tick-tocks to a day of celebration in Fountain of Happiness Square, when the icehot Doctor had left. 'The talkiphone box!' she realised in awe.

Trav smiles. "Sometimes a plan actually works. Good sailing, Captain!" To Amanda - "You're doing great, babe. But also look at that screen to the upper right called the vortex scanner. What do you see? Any changes?"

Trav suspected that the suns had time travellers behind or leading them. She wanted to see if they were showing their hands yet.

"Ready when you are, Legate."

A nod, and making sure his weapon was secured, he made his way to the meeting point, his eyes squarely on Traveller and Smoke Alarm, whilst he waited.

Trav has her pistols on her hip, of course, but no one else is required to be armed. "Anyone who wants to stay on my sweet boy is welcome to."

"Not a blip or a whisper," Amanda says.  "If someone's really messing around with things here, they're playing their cards close to the vest.  So to speak."

She frowns for a moment, glancing momentarily at Smoke Alarm, then goes to the big cabinet opposite the doors and fetches a belt with a holstered stunner.  "I hope they're not trying to pull something.  If they do, this could be an awfully short rodeo."

Smoke Alarm didn't really want to leave the amazing talkiphone box, but she wasn't about to let her new friends confront the Fists of the Thirty-One Suns alone. With a last look around at all the fish in the swimming-pool walls, the Kang joined the others. She drew her arrowgun, and loaded a bolt into the crossbow. 'Load-and-locked.'
This message was last edited by the player at 11:01, Tue 31 Dec 2013.

He frowned at Smoke Alarm.

"Remember, little one, violence is the last answer, not the first."

Having said that, his sword was very clearly at his side. He was ready for battle if it came down to it; it just wasn't his preferred option.

In reply to Amanda (msg # 207):

"Well, yippee kai yay, then. Legate, shall we?" Trav motions towards the door.

Why does the egghead keep calling me "little one"? I'm not that small! But he is pretty tall. Why not call Traveller "little one" too? Smoke Alarm looked quizzically at Sereth. The talk of answers reminded her of tests and that yawny school place. 'But what's the question? Is it multiple choice?' she asked curiously.

As Traveller gestured and said "Yippee", Smoke Alarm jumped off the central dias, skipped off the chair, bounced off the side console, and bounded down to the door. 'Yippee! Last outgoing's a cowardly cutlet!'
This message was last edited by the player at 00:29, Wed 01 Jan 2014.

As the five move out toward the open space outside the main temple, they see several shapes curve in from the open stars, gradually matching the spin of Farhaven's ring.  One of these, a sizable, blocky shape with stubby wings, descends slowly over the Temple's fields.  Landing gear on support struts fold down from beneath it, and pulsing blue-white jets fire from its belly to bring it down.

After a few minutes, there's a hiss and a k-chunk! and a ramp lowers under the big ship to the ground.

Men and women start to come down the ramp in a double file, followed by a final man on his own, carrying a small datapad.  Their heads are shaved like the Shaolin, but they all wear dark red clothing: loose long-sleeved shirts and trousers of a severe military cut.  They move with wary precision -- none of them carries a weapon, but each looks like they could be a weapon.

The ranks let the single man pass to the front, then fan out to form two lines of nine each, stopping about twenty paces away from the group from the TARDIS.  The man studies the group carefully, clearly noting Sereth.  He give a sharp bow with his arms held at his side, and his followers echo it.

"Legate, I am Disciplant Aylos Shel.  I greet you as a representative of your government on behalf of the Fists of Thirty-One Suns."  His expression turns just a bit quizzical for a moment.  "These others comprise your staff?"

This isn't meant to preempt Stanley from taking action, but I'm assuming he will go with the rest: he can add any preparations or comments he wants before this.

Trav has her sonic out, but has not scanned yet. She might be able to evaluate their tech just by eyeballing. She represses a surge of Marshall-like paranoia - a trait that occasionally has cropped up ever since she regenerated from being Louise. She stands, hands at her sides, to the side of Sereth. It was also hard letting someone else be in charge, but this is Sereth's job - someone she reminds herself that she can probably learn from.

OOC: Are these the guys that Trav saw with Evers and Desryn? Trav is also attempting to eyeball their tech-any weapons or devices they may be carrying. Perception+Technology?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:25, Tue 31 Dec 2013.

Stanley isn't carrying a weapon; with Smoke Alarm's crossbow thing, Sereth's sword and Amanda and Trav having firearms, there were already enough weapons. He waits to see how Legate Sereth reacts.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:17, Tue 31 Dec 2013.

OOC: These definitely look like the group from Keeper Desryn's recording.

Don't bother with a roll for trying to deduce anything about their technology.  They're carrying no visible weapons.  Their clothing looks like it's machined, but not exceptional.  The ship, and the datapad that Shel is carrying, don't look anachronistic.

Trav purses her lips. She looks over to Stanley and Amanda, to whom she showed Desryn and Ever's recordings. For now, however, she keeps quiet.

Smoke Alarm was first out the doors, now finding herself and the talkiphone box in the big Buddy-man room. So it could move to different places. She followed the others to stand outside and how-you-do the Fists of the Thirty-One Suns. She stood close to Traveller, left her arrowgun hitched to her belt, kept her mouth closed, and settled for glaring fiercely at the Fists. They might not carry weapons, but one didn't need a weapon to be violent, nor to be violent with a weapon. She remembered their sky-flies swooping over Arsuran Orbital Prime and dropping fire, causing total wipeouts, making people unalive. They'd destroyed her new home. It had been a nice box too.

The Draconian nodded to this, but, unless they insisted on names, he would leave them off.

"Greetings Disciplant Shel. Yes, these are my retinue for my particular journey this time."

Left unstated was that this also placed them under his protection. He didn't bother drawing his sword or even drawing attention to it. There were too many of them to successfully fight most likely anyway, and he -should- be able to leave intact, at the very least to pass on whatever message they wanted his Government to hear.

"Very good," says Shel.

He holds the datapad forward.  "This holds a communique that Second Seeker Pellande would like you to convey to your government.  It includes the protocols that we expect will be followed by Draconian vessels traversing the systems of the Thirty-One Suns.

"You will find that terms of trade have been revised.  There is a full list included of nonessential goods that are now prohibited from import to systems under the Fists' administration, such as literature and 'entertainment' products, narcotic and mind-altering substances, and luxury foodstuffs.  Tariff schedules for essential goods have also been revised.  Also included in the documentation is a revised uniform criminal code, and details on the restrictions that will be applied to nonresident persons traveling through the Thirty-One Suns.

"The Second Seeker has also included a personal request for the Throne to open high-level negotiations, regarding the possibility of working together with Draconia to prepare for the threat revealed in the Great Vision."

Most of the Fist's desires were harmless enough. THe Empire wasn't in the habit of transporting narcotics or entertainment to human worlds anyway. THe personal message gave Sereth pause, though he didn't express it. He could give his thoughts to the Crown when it came down to it; his job was merely to see it done.

"As you wish. I make no guarantees on the Throne's agreement to such a matter; but they will get the request.

He'd been sent to find out about the Suns; and this is what he had done. He glanced at his companions; now was not the time to push. But if they had questions... well, maybe they should have discussed what they wanted out of this meeting beforehand; but for now, this probably had to do; unless they had questions desperate enough they wished to speak.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 219):

Trav waves her hand, after making sure that Sereth and everyone else have had their chance to speak. "Hi. Sorry for being a bit strident back there. I'm a historian and I study cultures - I'd like to know about who you are, your movement, and what this Great Vision is. You're willing to talk and you let those refugees go with no trouble. Do you have any holy books, texts, statements of position?"

Shel studies the Traveller.  She knows that look -- this is a believer.

"If you would know us," he says, "you would do that best by studying Three Journeys and putting its teachings into practice.  It is not an easy thing to do.  Harmony builds upon harmony.  Reaching to the Journey of Spirit before one apprehends the Journey of Mind will be fruitless.  Studying the Journey of Mind without training in the disciplines imparted by the Journey of Flesh will leave you without the clarity to comprehend it -- something we all learned to our sorrow.

"But those works we have had for centuries, and they only defined the road to the Vision.  First Seeker Lucin did not know what the Vision would tell him; he was the first among us to reach it, and when he saw what it had to say about the shape of the future, that was when he knew he had to rouse the order to action.  The Vision... describing it, trying to write it down, is fated to fail.  You say you are a historian?  You should come and follow the Journeys, or you are wasting your life.  The future holds terrors, and all we have is the hope that we can prepare enough people to meet and oppose them."

Trav is about to reply and lecture that kid something fierce, but she reminds herself, he's a cultist. "Sounds good," she replies, smiling sunnily. "Anywhere I can get these works in a downloadable format?"

"Certainly."

Shel motions to one of the other Fists and murmurs to the woman when she approaches.  She stride briskly back up into the ship.  After a minute or so, a yellow light flashes briefly on the datapad that Shel handed over.  "There.  Legate, your associate should be able to transfer that to her own equipment for review."

He meets Trav's eyes again.  "All too few have proven capable to making themselves ready for the Vision without instruction; this is the reason for the regrettable measures we have taken throughout the Thirty-One Suns.  But the cost of ignorance will bring the end of us all.

"Legate, you should impress this upon your government.  I know the Seekers would prefer to come to a peaceful accommodation on this matter.  If we cannot, in time--"  He holds out an open hand.  "There is only one destiny that leads toward survival, and we are resolved to reach it."

Trav has a look on her face that's somewhat akin to a sour frown, but she takes the data and transfers it to her Ipad. Amanda and Stan can tell Trav is trying very hard to keep quiet. She reviews the data that Shel has handed over. She also had a name - First Seeker Lucin. "I see. Is the First Seeker the leader of your order? I'd like very much to meet him."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:39, Thu 02 Jan 2014.

That.... that was a threat. The Draconian's smile never left his face, but unless there were any further questions, he gave an elegant bow, and then turned on his heel. His smile did not leave his face until they were well away from prying eyes.

Trav turns to follow. "But I must attend the Legate. Ciao, boys!" They walk around a large pillar, as Trav leads everyone back to the TARDIS.

Once the door is closed, she tosses her hat onto the hat stand. "I really, really hate it when I have bad news confirmed." Once everyone is aboard, she throws down the big lever, and pulls the TARDIS up into temporal orbit.

"Ugh. How the hell do I begin to explain what's going on here, Legate? This is bigger than just this time zone. Would you like a lift back home, to Draconia? I can have us there literally in seconds."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:53, Thu 02 Jan 2014.

Smoke Alarm listened to all the talk going around, and took an instant dislike to the Fists. They were just like caretakers, making rules, telling people what to do, banning fun stuff, making everyone yawny, just because they thought they knew better. No ball games. No flyposts. No fun.

The Kang had hundreds-and-thousands of things to say, questions to ask, taunts to make fun of the meanyhead Fists. She opened her mouth — but everyone was outgoing back to the talkiphone box. Smoke Alarm lingered, just to ask 'Why don't you eggheads have hair?'

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 227):

Stanley looks concerned. "Uhm, yeah they are the monks Keeper Desryn warned us about...well, at least you got a couple of reading recommendations out of that meeting. What are we going to do about Farhaven?"

"Not much we can do, Stan. We got Ru and the refugees out safely, which is as much as we can do right now. As for these 31 Fists clowns - if their leader is who I think it is... well, that might explain why Evers regenerated without any memories."

Trav rubs her eyes. "It seems like Fortuna, or her later selves, made the same mistake I did. Order and discipline,"

She grabs the phone handle on the control console. She dials up Ru's superphone.

Disciplant Shel looks at Smoke Alarm curiously.

"The goal of the Journey of Flesh is to achieve the uniform physical ideal.  Variation and expression signify diverging purposes.  Although many different expressions of heredity exist among us, and none is held superior to another, we shave the scalp as one symbol of unity that we can control."

As the group heads back to the TARDIS, Shel adds, "Persevere and ascend."

"Traveller," replies Zheng Ru.  "I believe we are being allowed to pass unimpeded.  I'm glad you were able to arrange that."  His voice holds a grave undercurrent.  "How can I help you?"

'Sounds yawny.' Smoke Alarm muttered sourly at the explanation. Then again, she and all her friends had coloured their hair blue, dressed in blue, and acted more-or-less the same. So she understood the team spirit, the need to look and be united against their rivals and enemies. But within that, the Kangs varied in style and personality, as much as they could. These Fists had it all topsy-turvy.

'Build high for happiness.' she returned without much feeling, walking back to the talkiphone box.

In reply to Zheng Ru (msg # 232):

"Just making sure you were OK, baby. Please text me when you and the refugees safely disembark. I'll ask Legate Sereth to see what the Draconian Empire can do for your people. Just do me a favor and forward to me your commentary about these people, their martial arts, and so forth. I'm forwarding to you some text files under my personal cypher, your phone should be able to read it. I want to know what you think. As always I value your wise counsel."

Trav gets a soft look on her face. "Don't be a stranger. I'll be back in touch. I'm building something of a movement across time, and I'd love for you to be involved. This time, I think you'll feel better about working with me on this one. Call it the Time Peace." She pauses. "If things work out, you and your fellow monks will be able to practice the Dharma peacefully at Farhaven again."

Time Peace. Trav likes the sounds of that.



"You know that, sweety. But I have some place -really fun- planned next, once Legate Sereth and I have a talk."

Trav gets a crazed grin as she looks at Amanda and Stanley. "...SPACE VEGAS, guys. Space Vegas!" She had a date there, anyway.

A pause from the Draconian, before he spoke, his voice grim.

"Indeed. I must warn my Emperor; and do what I can to make sure they do -not- agree to any terms. But that was a threat; and the Crown won't like that at all. There's only so much I can do to speak for peace when others seem determined to cause war."

He looked, well for how a reptilian can look anway; somewhat sad about the prospect of a war involving Draconia.

"War helps no-one; but I do not believe my people will just accept whatever these Thirty-One fists one purely as a way to avoid war. And peace bought with slavery is no peace."

"We're in agreement, Legate. So, first stop, Draconia, and then after that, SPACE VEGAS. I have to go to a reading of a will of someone I loved very much - Smoke, that's like a last request after someone's, er, unmoving you call it? and then I suppose there's trouble we can all get into. SPACE VEGAS! I've never been to Space Vegas. I WANT TO SAY IT ALL IN CAPS. SPPPACCCE VEGASS." Trav is rather giddy. "If it's halfway as cool as Barcelona, then it's absolutely worth it. I'm sure there'll be space casinos. Space dancing girls, space slot machines! I wonder if there will be Space Elvises or Space Lounge Singers or Space Pawn Shops or Space Bordellos! A Space Chicken Ranch! Wow, Corsi dragged me through 7 space bordellos one time. I think she's leaving me a pretty damned smutty good bye. I mean, heh, space vegas. SPACE VEGAS. Oh god, I love how that SOUNDS. And yes, Space Vegas is very, VERY Corsair. A SPACE RAT PACK. Oh, I should go and get Marilyn and Dean and Sammy and Frankie! No, Trav, resist, fight it! WE will be the space rat pack!"

Trav throw downs several levers and holds on, as the time machine rumbles. Thank goodness you're making a stop over at Draconia!
This message was last edited by the player at 22:36, Thu 02 Jan 2014.

"Space Vegas..." Stanley looks concerned, not sharing Trav's enthusiasm at all.

"What about Farhaven? Didn't you promise Ru that we would deal with the Fists? I assumed that we would try and keep Farhaven out of their hands and I am fairly certain that Ru thought the same. Did we just give them Farhaven in exchange for the refugees safety and a couple of books? And that only worked because Legate Sereth was here and his people were on the Lucky Drifter."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:48, Thu 02 Jan 2014.

A frown.

"I don't think the Fists care about the land. They care about the people. Even if they -did-; it might be something that needs to be retaken that fought for now with only us."

'Space Vay-gas.' Smoke Alarm repeated, since it seemed the appropriate thing to do. 'It's "unalive". And you talk funny, Traveller.' the Kang complained. Smoke Alarm was confused as Traveller babbled on, about space and all kinds of odd things and people she didn't know. She was fascinated in spite of herself, but confused as to why Traveller had gone all crazy-loopy. Who was this mad-woman she'd started running with? Had she forgotten everything that had just happened? Something felt wrong to the Kang. She wanted to do something.

She found herself standing beside Stanley, adding her voice to his. 'But what about the Orange Kangs, the refoojees, the big Buddy-man, and the Arsuran people? Why are we outgoing to Space Vegas when they're outgoing nowhere? Aren't we going to tell the Fists to leave Farhaven and be outgoing home?' she asked pleadingly.

Trav takes Smoke's hands. "Baby, I've been talking funny for around 800 years. Now, look here." She shows her the sector map, showing the progress of the Lucky Drifter. "That's where Ru Zheng is. He's heading here," point to where on the map where Arsuran Orbital Prime is. "This is where there going. You're right, let's stop by there and make sure they're safe. The Orange Kangs and the refoojees will be safe there, for at least a while. We need to talk with Sereth's people, who are good guy caretakers. See, this is called war - war is a horrible thing I didn't want to drag you into. Ru Zheng already told them to go away and go home, but these 31 Suns want everyone to join their gang, against their will. They're scared of something, and we don't know what. I have an idea, but I have to find out. Hopefully, Sereth's people can protect the refoojees and Orange Kangs."

"The 31 Suns want to fight, but we're not ready yet. It's bad serious, and I don't want to drag you into something where you can get hurt, Smoke. I don't want to have anyone get hurt. But it's crazy complexy and makes my head hurt, and it takes a lot to make my head hurt. Is what I'm saying making sense?"

She exhales. "The Suns are only interested in moving people, so I think Big Buddy man will be OK. I need to figure these Suns guys out. Then, we'll go talk to them. If they won't listen - well, I'll have to be like a caretaker on em." She grimaces. "Don't worry, Smoke, we'll come back to Farhaven, I promise."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:54, Fri 03 Jan 2014.

Smoke Alarm frowned darkly, troubled by feelings and thoughts she couldn't describe, that ran and hid like rats. She felt awkward and stupid and small, not a clevergirl in this talkiphone box. 'I know what war is. Just because I talk unstraight doesn't meant I don't know things.' she snapped with unexpected anger, then immediately felt bad for it. She turned around, crossing her arms and showing her back to the others, trying to ignore and hide from all the bad thoughts crowding in. She was silent for a time, but not for long. The rest came with a bitterness unexpected of the normally high-spirited young woman, showing how much this personally affected her. 'Doctor Sam told me. The Inbetweens bundled us all up in the Ship and sent us to Paradise Towers, and they went off to War. They didn't come back and we spent years and years alone, no exits. Blank walls and Cleaners, and... wipeouts. Only fire-escaping does not mean sound-and-safe.' Smoke Alarm turned back around. 'Yes, I want to eyespy Roo and the Orange Kangs and Jethy and Rivvan again, know they are sound-and-safe.' she declared, determined to see it done.

'More, I liked Arsuran Orbital Prime. It was a good place to fall down out of a bubble. I had a box. It was a good box, not big but dry and sound-and-safe, and I wallscrawled it and fed the rats. And the Fist sky-flies sploded it and burned it... I had friends. Mrs Maglup gave me frapple-pies. Now they're with the Fists. No ball games, no flyposts, no frapple-pies, no comic books, no more fun.' she counted off, growing ever more afraid that the Fists were staying and making life unfun for the people she'd known. Her mood grew more excited, more passionate and determined. She knew what she wanted. 'I want to tell the Fists they are scaredy-cats and meanie-heads and cowardly cutlets and wallscrawl their sky-flies and chase them down carrydoors and steal their stuff and invade their brainquarters! I'm not afraid! I'm Smoke Alarm, a Blue Kang, I've fought Cleaners and dogs and machine-men, and I'm brave and bold as a Kang should be!'
This message was last edited by the player at 02:08, Sun 05 Jan 2014.

There's a thump and a chime as the TARDIS lands, leaving an awkward silence behind.

Amanda is leaning back against one of the handrails ringing the console, gazing at the Traveller.  "I'm not a scaredy-cat either, Trav," she says mildly.  "I know five people might not be enough to kick a whole occupation force out of the Arsuran system.  But are you maybe too locked into the notion that that's all the good we could possibly do there, and anything short of totally crushing the Fists is not worth doing?

"I'm a scientist: there's a time to act, and there's a time to work the problem.  When you find a brand new epidemic breaking out, you don't jump right to sending out thousands of medics with the biggest, baddest vaccines you can think of.  Neither do you just throw up your hands and go home for the weekend because the thing looks so big.  You go out into the field to learn about what you're up against."

"So, you folks want to stay and *fight*?" She turns and leans on the control panel. She purses her lips. "Speaking metaphorically. Or maybe literally. So, then. We're sitting here in temporal orbit. Let's brainstorm. We want the Fists off of Farhaven, right?" She brings up the images of their holy works which she was just given. "They've just handed us the keys to their house. Let's go through the place and see what we can nick, as they say in England, eh? Here's the problem, Mandy, let's work it."

She holds her chin. "My real aim is to draw out whoever is running that horse and pony show. After the Legate checks in, we're heading back, but I also want a plan.  We need to figure out what makes these clowns tick. And Smoke Alarm - I want you to deliver your words to their leader personally, tell him what a big awful doody head he or she is in the best Kangspeak! Are you down for that?"

"Everyone, I'm forwarding to you all the Suns scripture files. Let's figure out how these dudes think, come up with a plan, and then head back to Farhaven and take them apart, preferably without fighting. Does that sound like a plan?"
This message was last edited by the player at 05:58, Sun 05 Jan 2014.

OOC: I can think of a few different approaches for trying to tease clues out of Three Journeys.  It would be helpful to get an idea of what you're actually trying to find from it.  I don't have a specific Achilles' Heel in mind that you could find, so it might be best to make Normal (12) difficulty rolls describing what sort of skills & disciplines you're trying to use in studying it, and what sorts of exploitable information each such approach is looking for.

A good enough success would turn up something that should be grounds for further hands-on investigation at least.  I might need help in coming up with something appropriate, so this is a case where a good enough skill roll may well mean the PC's spitball theory turns out to be correct....

'Yeah!' Smoke Alarm cheered at Traveller's request, throwing a fist in the air and jumping up with it. 'All the Fists do is win the game and always come first. We need to make them come second. Let's make them be outgoing from Farhaven. No ball games, no flyposts, no visitors!'

She thought very carefully over what Traveller described. 'I didn't eyespy any horseys. And they didn't look like clowns or tick-tocks.' she reported. She started looking over one of the picturespouts Traveller showed her, seeing lots of words and no pictures. And it was so long! 'The Jur-nee of Flesh. Pubble-lished in...' she read out slowly, aloud, and stumbling over the unfamiliar words. This was going to take a while...
This message was last edited by the player at 07:37, Sun 05 Jan 2014.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 244):

OOC: If you could post summaries of what's in each volume of Suns work, that would really help. Trav wants the whole kaboodle, and their agenda. She suspects that they're a reaction to this whole time-forward Great Beast thing, and she wants to discredit their entire approach of one, unified army. Essentially, she's considering creating a heresy, in which the only way to defeat this great beast is not by the destruction of freedom, but by a unity that is composed of diversity - the principles behind her Parliament of Time. Further, she wants to outline that the Suns movement, as it stands now, is one based on fear that will be exploited and broken by The Beast.  She wants to make the case to the Suns that she made to the Splintered Sisterhood - that their fear based approached actually serves the Beast, and that conquest is division, not true unity. Of course, Trav is open to any input the rest of Team TARDIS has.

As the Traveller quickly skims bits of the Three Journeys, she quickly comes to realize what sort of works they are.  They don't seem to fall along the lines of narratives illustrating moral principles, or didactic expressions of the principles themselves; they are more like self-help or training manuals with the moral principles embedded within.  Thus, the Journey of Flesh is a guide to learning and practicing the Fists' martial art, Rou Zhi Lu.  The Journey of Mind is a similar work concerning mental discipline and transcendental thinking, and the Journey of Spirit, the most abstract, concerns integrating the two toward achieving a higher and unified consciousness.

The writings don't cover any direct references to the "Beast" or the "Great Vision".

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 243):

"Thanks for reconsidering, Trav." Stanley says, agreeing with Smoke Alarm. "Let's make sure the people of Farhaven finish first and the Fists last."

He looks at the books and decides to take a closer look at the Journey of Mind text.

OOC: Stanley is going to study the Journey of Mind book to look for clues that the mantras or the thought exercises might leave you more open to (hypnotic) suggestions and/or what sort of thought patterns they promote.

Ingenuity 4 + Knowledge 3 + 2d6

22:35, Sun 05 Jan 2014: Stanley Newton rolled 14 using 2d6+7 ((6,1)).
 

Trav forwards the files to Ru's superphone. She texts, "What do you think, babe?" She knows that whatever insight Ru has will be essential.

She finds herself scowling. Lynn Kyle was the best unarmed fighter she ever knew, and he was even teaching Minmei. Minmei kept her Kung Fu hidden because she was scared that Rick wouldn't find it "ladylike." She finds herself missing her old Robotech defender family.

As Stanley examines the techniques in The Journey of Mind, he recognizes some of the applications as building on or corresponding to work in autogenic therapy that saw some valid clinical results even back in the days of his own medical training.

The Fists' disciplines appears to involve placing themselves into a mild auto-suggestive state, enhancing their reactions and stress response.  Under most circumstances, this would actually make them slightly more resistant to external influence.  However, it looks to Stanley like many of the techniques involve closely matching a specific meditative pattern, something the book describes as the still song.  It's possible that precisely duplicating that pattern could produce a harmonic effect, serving as a sort of "back door" to more extreme influences.

Being the most physically minded of the group, Smoke Alarm concentrated on the Journey of Flesh. She took a handhold picturespout and lay on the floor with it, flat on her belly with legs in the air, poring over the pages. Despite the lack of sleep, the brief nap and early excitement would keep her going for a little while yet.

The Journey of Flesh turned out not to be a cook-book as she'd thought, but at least the words eventually gave way to pictures — wallscrawls of people performing motions like the how-you-do by themselves, and fighting and wrestling with each-other. Smoke Alarm grimaced in distaste, but kept looking through, following the diagrams more than the words. Fortunately, as the book was about martial arts, the pictures were the most important, and easier for the semi-literate Kang to follow.

Eventually, she hopped up and started performing the patterns and moves herself, but sought ways to dodge and defend against them. Smoke Alarm jumped high into the air, threw herself to the ground, ducked and rolled, and even ran up the console room girders. The Kangs knew how to dodge and twist and slip away from slow-poke oldster Caretakers trying to catch and collar them, but that was unfortunately the limit of it. This was something much more, and the Fists were quick, strong, unold, trained fighting machines like Pex. Worse still, they weren't afraid to hit people. Smoke Alarm couldn't find a dodge she was confident with. It was best just to run away, and let them chase her down the carrydoors.

But still, she felt confident of their fight against the Fists. 'This is like when the Kangs and the Rezzies and the Caretakers joined together at the Great Pool in the Sky to fight the Great Architect and the Cleaners and put Paradise Towers to rights. The Doctor showed us how to work together.' She felt confident that they could succeed again.


OOC: Studying the Rou Zhi Lu style, looking for defences and dodges against it.
13:14, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 8 using 2d6+5 with rolls of 1,2. awareness + fighting.
I might add AoE: Jumping for +2, but that still doesn't succeed.

"Holy crap. We're seeing the birth of Kang Fu. Chibi, record every single bit! A new and awesome martial arts form has been born! Build high for happiness!"

OOC: Trav will donate a story point to help Smoke birth the Kang Fu style. She now has 4 left.

A frown.

"We can of course fight the Fists; but my Emperor -must- be told of this... ultimatum. Rushing headlong into battle; a band of 5 against who knows how many? There is no honor in a suicide mission."

Amanda cocks her head at Sereth.  "Well, exactly, that would be crazy.  I figured what we needed to do was go in and check things out on the ground.  It can't hurt to try to get a read on these people before we do that...."  She looks, a bit doubtfully, at the screen in front of her.  "But there's only so much that their own propaganda is going to tell us.  Fortunately, Trav's ship is really well suited to carrying out, um, reconnaissance.

"Do you need to brief your Emperor on your own?  Or do you want some of us to go with you?"

OOC: I liked Smoke's idea and just the generally funny name even if the dice punked her.  With Trav's story point, Smoke should add Kang Fu as a Good Trait.  It's usable as a +2 to defensive fighting rolls or acrobatic athletic rolls.

'Ha ha!' Smoke Alarm laughed as Traveller declared the invention of Kang Fu. 'Kang fu!' With a hop, skip, and a jump, she crossed from couch to console and on to the girders, scaling them like a monkey. 'It's rat style!' Then she leaped off to catch one of the hanging cables, swinging over it and climbing up until she was right on top of the towering central column of the time rotor. 'It's brave and bold as a Kang could be!'

She felt like she was on top of the Towers, excited by the exertion and happy for the sense of freedom. From here she could look down on the whole console room and all the people, and see all the fishies in the walls and through the pool beyond. And she was right up into the brainquarters of the talkiphone box now, at the centre of a web of cables and puters and ducks that seemed to go on up forever and ever. 'Wow.'



OOC: Just messing around. :D
09:54, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 18 using 2d6+11 with rolls of 6,1. coord + athletics + Kang Fu.

In reply to Sereth (msg # 254):

Stanley looks up from reading the "Journey of Mind", "Normally I'd agree with you, Legate, about the odds not being in our favour. I'll even admit they are pretty stacked against us at the moment, but that will change. Like Amanda said, we just need to gather more information. Look at Smoke Alarm, with her "Kang fu" and this text contain a certain recurring meditative pattern that might prove useful." he paused. "Five people might not be able to defeat the Fists, but I think that we might be able to find a way to save Farhaven."

A shrug.

"I am perfectly capable of briefing the Emperor on my own. If you feel you have something to add to my briefing you are welcome."

He kept his thoughts about 'kang fu' to himself.

"But which would you prefer? A Draconian empire prepared for a potential battle with the Fists; or one that will be taken down by the surprise that has afflicted so many of these human worlds?" HIs eyes grim. "I know which -I- would prefer."

Trav nods to Stanley. "You're 100% right. You see, the Fists are making a point here - that individual will must be suborned to a greater authority in order to protect oneself and everyone else from danger. We must answer with the more correct point - that a better and greater unity is one based on cooperation, not coercion. Ultimately, the Fists philosophy seems to be based on fear. What showed me the answer to this was Smoke Alarm - whatever the Doctor did at this Paradise Towers place is that he united disparate individuals with many difference, resolved them, but got them to freely cooperate. A Kang is brave and strong and true. The only way that this Great Beast can be defeated is not through coercion, but freedom. How does that sound? And whose this Pex guy? I really need to visit this Paradise Towers."

She nods in agreement to Sereth. "Legate, I'll be happy to throw all of this together in a document for you, so that you can report to your Emperor in the way you feel best."

Trav smiles. Again, like Minmei did and Lincoln and Sir Nathan, her Companions show her the way. They don't travel with her, she travels with them. Also, the Doctor just did another long hail mary hand off to her. She has to run with this.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 05:59, Thu 18 Sept 2014.

Trav looks up. "Watch it up there, baby. You're not the first person to crawl around up there, and you're not the first person to get lost, so please be careful? Do you have a talkiphone? My sweet boy is very big. You go ahead and explore, and let me know what you find! Chibi, please keep an eye on Smoke, please?" She claps her hands with delight.

"Also, catch!" She tosses a key up to Smoke Alarm, that looks like the one she gave to Stanley and Amanda. After making sure that Smoke has caught the key, she approaches Sereth. "As more than a guest, Lord Sereth - someone who I have the privilege of walking with me, for a time." With gravity, she presses the key into his palm.

OOC: Figure that some time has passed while Stanley and Smoke worked.

• There has been time for Sereth and Trav to do their own research in the meantime if they want.
• If Sereth is going to brief the Emperor, do you want to play that out?  We can go either way on that, depending on whether you want to do that or just take it as read.
• It will take a couple of days, their time, for the Lucky Drifter to leave the system and get to their destination so you can check on them if you want.

OOC: Eh. Sereth will do some research; not sure what though so yeah.

I'm happy just to take it as read.

Smoke Alarm laid down on her tummy, heedless of the dust up here, and peered over the edge of the time rotor at the people far below, listening to them talk. 'Yes! That's the comeout. Lots of teams, one game. We work with each-other, no to-do. We build high for happiness together.'

She grew excited at the talk of meeting the Draconian Emperor. She sounded important. 'Ooh! Can I meet the Umperor too?'

She listened to Traveller's warning, not at all worried. She was brave and bold, after all. 'I'll be sound and safe. I like getting lost, so I can get unlost.' she replied. As Traveller asked for a talkiphone, she dropped hers down, clattering over the floor. Well, it was a phone alright: the handset of a vandalised public telephone, with a cut-off cable with splayed wires. It was completely useless, and quite why the Kang had it would remain a mystery.

She made a few grabs at the key Traveller tossed up at her until she caught it. 'Got it!' Tying it to a piece of string, she looped it around her neck, then continued climbing up, scaling the cables and finally getting into a duck. She was fascinated to see all she could. Maybe if she got all the way to the top floor, she could come out through the roof of the talkiphone box. Maybe she'd even find the true Great Pool in the Sky.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:34, Wed 08 Jan 2014.

Trav has had mischievious climbers in her TARDIS before - she makes double sure that certain sections are locked off, such as her hall of crimes (which only the Marshall can enter, warded to be even sonic-proof) and the Fun Room (in which she and the Corsair have spent much time, equipped with devices for all manner of enjoyable adult activities). Smoke Alarm was an adult as far as she could tell, but she didn't want to have to endure the embarassment of explaining to smoke, and everyone else, what all the stuff in the fun room did.

Trav catches the handle of the phone which she drops. "Huh," she says. She then gets a crazy grin and pulls up with her tool box. While Smoke Alarm explores the upper reaches of the control room, Trav sits down on the beaten up old couch. For about a half hour she's working with that phone handle. Using some 24th century tech, the handle now functions as a smartphone and communications device, as well as a superphone, with small holoprojectors in it so that Smoke can play games. "Smoke, catch!" She tosses the new toy back up to Smoke. She'd also be able to track the girl - even she didn't know every single space in her Sweet Boy.

OOC: Gary, I just gave Smoke a superphone. Do I need to spend SPs or make a roll?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:21, Wed 08 Jan 2014.

OOC: I knew you were going to do that. :)  I'm picturing the handset of a rotary phone straight out of the Fifties, upgraded into a multifunctional communicator.  Spend a SP and you're good..
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:11, Thu 09 Jan 2014.

OOC: If you're stumped for inspiration, you might consider making an Ingenuity + Knowledge + Cultures Expertise roll to assemble your briefing from the information you've collected so far.  A successful roll on that may cough up some fresh information from Draconian Intelligence.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:11, Thu 09 Jan 2014.

12:15, Today: Sereth rolled 17 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 3,6. Ingenuity + Knowledge + culture.

Smoke Alarm finds it remarkably dim inside the duck.  She's able to shimmy through it fairly easily, and there are internal seams that ring it cross-ways and help her get along.

Then she hears a humming and a scouring noise reverberating through the metal.  Worse, there's suddenly a blue light that starts making weird moving patterns along the duck's shiny interior.

The scouring is getting closer!

While Trav tinkers amiably away on making Smoke's phone, the back of her mind starts turning something over.  Something someone just turned up in their digging through the books of Three Journeys....

Give me an Ingenuity + Technology roll, Trav.

Ever curious and wondering where she was going, Smoke crawled through the duck. Fortunately, she was small and scrawny, even for a Kang, so she could go through ducks and shoots with ease. That and her agility had made her useful to the Blue Kangs, breaking into locked-up apartments or breaking out of Caretaker cages with ease. This little exercise now wasn't just for fun or curiosity, but also practice and getting to know her environment. This big talkiphone box would be her new tower now.

Then she heard the noise, and paused, listening for it, hearing something like machines and scrubbing. When the blue light came, she started backing up down the duck as fast she could. Cleaners!


OOC: Uh oh. :( So, retreating. :) Speed 5 plus Run for Your Life for Speed 6, at a crawl.

Sereth gets back to the TARDIS after delivering one of the most draining reports of his career.  He can only admire the way the Nineteenth Green Emperor questioned him, pulling out details of the Fists' philosophy, the events on Arsuran Prime and Farhaven, and the engimatic Traveller like a sazou master setting up the perfect checkmate.

At last the Emperor addressed him thus:

"You have done well, Sereth, and you have earned the greatest reward for those who serve the Throne in honor: the opportunity to do so again.  Hear Our command.

"This Traveller you have spoken of is known in the annals of the Empire.  Her reputation is that of a dangerous and exceedingly clever warrior, not to be underestimated simply because she is a female.  She is one to be cultivated as an ally -- perhaps even a friend.

"Our ministers will ready the Empire to meet and counter the threat of the Fists.  We will treat with their emissaries to learn more of them and this great threat they preach of.  While this is done, you will engage the aid of the Traveller, and you will seek out what substance there may be in the 'Great Vision' to which they have alluded.

"Before leaving the palace, you will consult with the Minister of Strategems.  He has collected information from other agents of the Empire that may offer some guidance in your mission."

The data that the Minister conveyed to Sereth took the form of a holo-recording extracted from one of the Fists' "Centers of Enlightenment".  It started off by showing the daily regimen of the internees -- physical training that Sereth recognized from some of his scan of the Fists' martial training book, lectures from the second and third books.  Most of the internees were, at best, indifferent to the training; a lot of them participated because it was an organized activity that was preferable to just sitting idle, but without great drive or enthusiasm.  They were only human, after all.

The more interesting part of the recording covered what happened to a select few of the group.  These tended to be the ones who applied themselves more directly to the teaching.  The footage shows a group of these being segregated off to a smaller, adjacent camp.  This area had high, mirrored blue barriers set up around it.  The holo gets shakier as the agent moved inside the barriers.  The selected internees were gathered around an object or perhaps device like a mirrored blue ball on a pedestal of girders, and then were led into the mental exercises out of the second book.

For a few moments the recording broke up entirely.  When the display cleared, there was an entirely new set of expressions on the face of the trainees or subjects.  Anger?  Fear?  Determination?  But this was only fleeting, and eventually their features settled into the same set resolve that Sereth recognized on the face of Disciplant Shel and the other Fists.

Despite being pretty severely confined in her present surroundings, Smoke is able to inchworm herself backwards through the duck at a fairly good pace.  She might be outdistancing the Cleaner, past the turnings and the side-passages.  It's hard to be sure; the duck is awfully echo-y inside.

But getting back to the place she started from may be a different question....

Smoke: Awareness + Athletics; difficulty is Tricky (15).

If you fail you may end up somewhere Very Interesting Indeed.

Smoke Alarm creepy-crawlied backwards down the duck as fast as a Kang could go, often pressing her hands to the sides and shoving herself back with speed. She thought she was going faster the Cleaner, but it did seem to be getting louder, and all around her.

Sadly, she could not see where her legs were going, nor any features she'd used to mark her route. Had she gone the right way or the left way? Should be outgoing through the exit now? Mayhaps she really was lost and unfound. Smoke Alarm felt like a very small mouse in a very big tower. 'Traveller!' she called down the echoey duck.


OOC:
11:39, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 12 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 2,2. awareness + athletics.
Is this to find my way / not get lost? If so, I can add Sense of Direction, +2, to make that a 14, but that won't change my "No, but" result.

OOC: Yes, it should have been in there.  Keep me honest. :)

There's a bang! as Smoke hits something solid behind her.

Squirming around to see what it is, she can see that she must have taken a wrong turning somewhere, because the way behind her is blocked off by a light metal grating.  There's enough light reflecting down around her that she can see that there's a bigger open space beyond it, and something slowly spinning within it, which just adds to the funny reflections.

Feeling around, Smoke is able to find the latches holding the grate shut.

The humming noise is definitely coming closer.

Heart beating, Smoke Alarm bumped up against the grate, twisting around to see. There was a big open space behind the grate, but she heard the whirring sound and recognised the flashing shadows. A big spinny choppy fan! She was at the air-con or waste disposal system! With no exits! And the Cleaner was coming closer! 'Traveller!' But she was far too far, out of earspy. Why did I comeout up here?

The Kang backed down as far as she could and try to work the latches with the toes of her worn shoes. 'Feets don't fail me now.' she muttered desperately. Meanwhile, she drew her arrowgun, ready to fire at any coming-on Cleaners.


OOC: Working the latches with my feet, yes.
13:37, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 19 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 6,5. coordination + ingenuity.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:43, Thu 09 Jan 2014.

When he returned to the TARDIS, he was -not- happy. At all. He wanted to be sure that the Empire did not trust the Fists; he did not want them to fall under their sway, but what could he say? Tell the empire not to trust humans? Well that might just backfire. And when he saw the recording, he shook his head further. Brainwashing or some such. Very effective brainwashing though, as it appeared to make them more dangerous than before. Brainwashed people were usually easy to deal with if it came to a fight; but not this lot.

His eyes immediately looked around for anyone else, it appeared he had to trust Traveller more than he'd expected to. Despite being female, the -empire- trusted her? THat was unheard of.

Smoke Alarm gets the latches open and lowers the grate down, making an clink that's barely audible over the humming.

However, from behind her, she then hears a flurry of scurrying noises, like lots of tiny feet.

Then a warm yellow light brightens up the area she has opened up from behind her.  It's waving around erratically, making reflections that push back the blue ahead of her.

The strange new noises and coloured lights disturbed Smoke Alarm all over again. Blue lights, a humming, scrubbing, Cleaner ahead; a yellow light and what sounded like hundreds and thousands of rats behind her. She tried to decide which she should run toward and fight past, and which would be better to have eat her. For now, she huddled up and lay where she was, frantically loading a bolt and winding back her arrowgun. Brave and bold as a Kang should be. Brave and bold as a Kang should be.


OOC: Just checking courage.
22:12, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 11 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 4,1. awareness + resolve + Brave.

Waiting to see if the lights do anything.

In reply to Sereth (msg # 278):

"How did it go? " Stanley asks, when Sereth returns to the Tardis. "How did the Emperor react?"

Ahead of her, Smoke Alarm finally sees the Cleaner come into view.  She recognizes one of the little mini-Cleaners that she saw on Farhaven, where they were all passing out food to the refoojees.  In its hand it has a pad of steel wool, and she sees it trundle forward a bit, stop and turn to one side of the shaft, and briskly scrub away for a few seconds.

From the chamber behind her Smoke hears a high-pitched "Meep?"

Trav looks up from her finishing of Smoke's new phone. While she would still work to deal with the Suns and get them off of Farhaven, having a cooperative Draconian empire would make things much easier.

He spoke quietly.

"About as well as can be expected. Apparently, you're heard of Traveller."

He frowned, and dug out the recording.

"There's something they're scared of, but there's also a subtle form of brainwashing it appears."

His eyes glanced around.

Smoke Alarm hardly relaxed as she saw the, what was it, scudder, scutter? Though they worked for Traveller and Mister Roo had said they were sound and safe and made one do a how-you-do, but she still trust them. The Caretakers had said the Cleaners never hurt anybody, but that an untruth and the Kangs knew better. 'Be away-going!' she shouted as it came scrubbing closer, gesturing fiercely with her arrowgun. Would it try to scrub her?

Behind, she heard a "meep" sound. Meep? What goes meep? Not Beep the Meep! Retreating from the Cleaner, she backed up out of the duck, trying to turn around and see.


OOC: Turning around and looking out the duct, without falling out?
10:32, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 20 using 2d6+11 with rolls of 3,6. coord + athletics + Kang Fu.

Smoke wriggles around, braces herself securely in the opening and peers out.  The space beyond is a bigger cylinder that extends about five feet both up and down from the level of the grate, and she can see several other grates at the same height.  At the top and bottom of the space, as she surmised, there are big rotary fans spinning gently, with a comfortably walkable housing surrounding them.  There is also a narrow X-shaped cross brace through the area, just below the grates.

It's tough to see with the glare from the light, but down on the lower housing, Smoke can see five furry figures ranging from a foot down to half that in height.  One of these seems to be holding the source of the light, because it moves when the light moves.  She can also see that there are a number of objects hanging suspended by strings from the cross-beam, some small piles scattered on the housing, and one area on the chamber wall with a lot of little rectangles adhering to it.  Pictures?

All the creatures down there start making excited meeping noises.  Smoke isn't sure how, but all the sounds start making a weird kind of sense to her.

"Meep?"  What is it?  Is it the Scrub?

"Meep...."  It's too big to be the Scrub....

"MEEP!  MEEP!"  I think it's the THING!

"M-m-meep?"  Why has the Thing come for us?  We've been good and honored the Thing!

"Meep!"  We've kept all the gifts the Thing entrusted to us!

"Meep... meep."  Look, you...  stay away from my family.  (This seems to be the one holding the light.)

Meanwhile, the Scudder has advanced to within about five feet of Smoke.  It lifts up its hand in her direction, seeming to notice her presence, then swivels on its base and heads back the way it came.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:15, Fri 10 Jan 2014.

Smoke Alarm poked her head out of the exit of the duck, eyespying down into the aircon room and the furry meeping creatures. Wait, those were talky meeps! These were little furry people! Smaller even than Mister Mop the Graske. They were like rats, but she'd never knowed rats to be talky. Where had she lost herself now? She was glad to see the scudder had moved away, but hoped it wasn't going to come back with more Cleaners.

Crawling along, she pushed her head further out the hole to get a better eyespy and show herself to the furry creatures. 'I'm not a Thing, I'm a Smoke Alarm. I was getting away from the Scrub.' she explained patiently. 'Where am I?' she asked curiously.

Trav scratches the back of her neck. "Yeah, my rep tends to get around. Thank you for intervening on behalf of us with the Emperor. What's the word? Ooh, can I see?"

If Sereth shares the recording, Trav wrinkles her nose as she sees the blue sphere. "So, a goofy mind control scam. Heh, most bad guys don't bother with using martial arts as a back door. But at least they're training their troops. They could do that with good old fashioned brain washing  and a drill sergeant."

"Mind control? Not the first time we've encountered that, right Trav?" Stanley says sounding somewhat amused. "First Rosco and the Sisterhood, then the soldiers in Egypt and now the Fists."

The apparent leader of the talky-meeps takes a hesitant step toward Smoke Alarm.  It starts to get to where she barely notices the meeping, as if her ears are focusing in on what they all are saying.  Even though they do, most assuredly, continue to meep.

This is the Treasure, it says.  What's a Smoke Alarm?  We've never seen a Smoke Alarm here before.  Only the gifts that the Blades bring us to add to the Treasure.  The Treasure we keep for the Thing.

Some of the smaller figures huddled behind that one start repeating Smoke's name, like they're trying it out.  Smoke Alarm?  Smoke... Alarm....  Smoke Alarm!

The big one glances back at them.  Shush!

"Yeah, seems to be a theme. Of course we won't be able to examine the mechanism until we get close to either that blue sphere or one of these clowns. The sisterhood's method was more like a kind of possession, anyway. This seems to be more some kind of programming."

"So why would they go through all the pseudo-religious rigmarole?  I know what you found, Stanley, but it still seems strange.  Are they trying to fake the idea that their mysticism actually works?  What does that get them?"

A pause.

"Is it at all possible that as a group, they -believe-? That maybe only one or two, if any, know that it's brainwashing? And for those couple, it might be easier to do through a backdrop of pseudo-mysticism."

Amanda clasps her hands behind her back and paces, her whiskers twitching irritably.

"Fffft!  Data; we need data."

'I'm Smoke Alarm. I'm a Blue Kang. Blue Kangs are best.' Smoke Alarm said. She decided not to chant it, as it could get loud and this was a small place, and the meepies were scaredy-rats. 'Who are you? What is the Thing?'

Deciding she liked the meepies, and looking back in case the Scrub returned, she unwound her crossbow and returned it to her belt, before showing the meepies her empty palms. 'Meep.' she said. 'May I be a visitor?' she asked, sliding a little further out of the exit to show she meant to come-in.

Smoke Alarm's motion forward prompts some startlement and scurrying, but they settle down again after a moment at the leader's gestures.

We're the Us, is the response.  There are people like Us all over the world, but we're the Us who watch the Treasure.  This is "said" with no small amount of pride.  How can you be in the world and not know about the Thing?  But I can show you.

The big Us shines the light around the area.  Smoke Alarm gets a better look at the bric-a-brac scattered around.  She can see a patterned red and black bandanna, a tiny bit of machinery with brass cogs and rubber pulleys, several pencils tied into a little tripod, a glimmery blue crystal, a black die with orange spots on it, a small badge with a shimmering multi-colored design on it, many random electronic bits, a little silver disc with a pair of connected spirals, and many more things besides.  Some of these objects are suspended from the crossbrace with string, some are free-standing.

The light tracks across to the wall where Smoke Alarm can get a better look at the items there.  Some are just scraps of paper with scribbles of writing, but some are actually shotsnaps.  The Us focuses the light on one of these, with two faces on it -- and Smoke Alarm realizes she recognizes one of them: it's the face of "Cheebee", although it looks like a real person and not something off a picturespout.  The other person in the picture is a long-faced man wearing a tall black hat.

The one who looks more like you!  That's the Thing.