Trav smiles bashfully. "I just trust your overall judgement, Stan. You've never lead me wrong."

'Okay.' Smoke agreed, and showed Erysk up the staircase to the shower. 'And here is the stare-way upstairs to the cleaners. You can make home-sweet-home here.'

Coming back, she listened as Traveller and Stanley got talky about their scans of Wall Lock. 'Someone put a puzzle-code on his jeans?' She eyespied the results herself curiously. It was all just lines and letters to her. She turned the pad upside-down and sideways, held it very close to her nose and at arm's length, and squinted and closed one eyespy and then the other. She traced a finger around some darker shaded lines. 'Oh! Oh! I got it! It's a lamp!'

In a bit, Amanda comes down the stairway from where she's been showing Erysk where to get cleaned up.  "Your wardrobe," she informs Trav, "is not very kind to a woman with, let's say, austere tastes."

She pores over the data: her whiskers twitch and her ears stand straight up.  "My, my, Phillipe."  The Arden drawl slips back into her voice.  "You do have yourself some awfully frisky base pairs here."

Normally, the Zero Room is meant to isolate its occupants from all contact with the outside universe.  Trav has a secured two-way pickup that somewhat compromises this goal when it's active, and Warlock, cross-legged on the floor of the Zero Room, speaks over it now.

"I don't know these 'Witches' you're talking about, so I'd have to leave that to your judgment," he says.  "As for 'going back to my beginnings'...."

He rests his chin on his fist, looking miserable.  "I don't think I can do that," he says.  "Since I... changed... I've wanted to go back just once and tell my mom and my dad I was alive, even if I wasn't what you'd call 'all right'.  I don't have the faintest idea how to go about that.  You might find something there, Traveller, but I don't think I want any part of it."

He shrugs, dejected.  "If I'd had a better answer I'd have tried it by now.  I think this one has to be up to you and your friends."

Trav is down in the Zero room with him. She wasn't going to treat him like a caged animal. She's sharing dinner with him on the floor. She has with her examination equipment and her sonic.

"Thank you for trusting me more than I deserve. As for the Witches - they're the last survivors of my people... if they survived. I don't even know if they made it past the War. Their world could be all rocks and dust for all I know. But it's a lead to follow up. They are the masters of the genetics of my people, and have arcane sciences." She thinks bitterly - the Warrior told her that he consented to that forced regeneration, but those witches were treacherous. Part of her believes that the brave, kind Doctor of old still could have pulled something out.

"I spent 65 years as a human. Long story. I had a husband, and kids. See, look." She shares with him the photos of her kids.

"I... had to leave them behind." She sniffs. "I went on a hundred year long quest to get them all back - my husband, my kids, and grandkids. See, right after the Time War, I became a human *baby*. So, I was raised by a human family. I met a guy. Sure, it was a crazy world with magic and dinosaurs, but I was a human being. The whole shebang, as it were. Right after I regenerated, they were taken from me. I struggled with a race of time travelling demons, for them. I got them back."

She sighs. "So, another 20 years after that, I saw Josh grow old in front of me. It was some of the happiest years of my life. I offered him regeneration, other technologies to keep him young. But he rightly told me that he would stop being *him* if I altered him that way. So, one morning, I got up from bed to make breakfast... and he didn't."

She closes her eyes. "I stayed for 1 more month. My kids, they were all grown. They all understood. Mom's an alien who doesn't grow old, she regenerates!"

She looks back and forth. "Every now and then, I think that I might just track down the old CVEs and go back to R Space, and be with my babies. God, I miss them so much. Tears are streaming down her eyes. "But I have so many enemies, here, and there. I'd be exposing them to so much danger. So, here I am. It's not an entirely bad life, much better than I deserve, but..." She can't complete the sentence.

"So, I have to do for you what I can, Warlock. You see, you're the closest thing to a relative I have left. You're a human who has somehow become Gallifreyan, after a fashion. I'm a Gallifreyan who became human. We're two of a kind, you and me."

"When we get you fixed, and we deal with the Gehennans, and this Beast, we'll go back and tell your parents, when you're good and ready. Just because you're a different man now doesn't mean you're not still *you*. You will always be their son. Is that a reasonable deal? I brought you on this trip. I owe you at least that much. After that, maybe I can show you some of the beauty of this crazy universe. You and your partner have a way now of seeing it in a way only a few others can. That may not erase all of the sadness, but think of all the beautiful things you can see, and all the good things you can do - you and your partner, there."

She leans close to him, cross legged, on the floor. "I'm ready to see what you saw - the Beast, the army of Gehenna, what you've been showing the Fists through that device. You can share it with your mind, yes? If you'd be inclined, please, show me. I presume you're telepathic, like me."

In reply to Amanda (msg # 456):

Stanley stands next to Amanda as she looks over the data. "Yeah, very strange...Have you ever seen anything like it before? I haven't, but that doesn't say much. Back home we are barely starting to synthesise things like chromosomes."

"Not with people," Warlock says.  "At least if I am, it's something I haven't figured out yet.  The TAROT is really all that I can make understand me like that -- but you'll see why.  But I can tell you the old-fashioned way, as best I can."

He describes to Trav the prison where he was awakened, a cold room of bare, rough metal.  Sitting before him was the TAROT.  Parts of the walls of the cell could morph into viewscreens where he was posed puzzles and shown pictures of the state of the galaxy beyond the world of New Gehenna.  Parts of the cell could melt open to admit food, or allow waste to leave.  The puzzles were simple at first, but they grew more complex, and when Phillipe could not solve them in the time allotted, the walls would grow instruments of torture: electric shocks, or blades, or stunning waves of painful sound.

When Phillipe would refuse to take the tests, he was punished; and when he had passed enough of them to earn a respite, the walls would still speak hateful things in his ears -- conquest, domination, supremacy -- and would show him images of a brutal, broad and horned face.  He started trying to figure out how to access the TAROT, and it was very slow work.  For one thing, it too was a hard and mechanical thing insofar as it showed any personality or life.  "That hasn't really changed," Warlock tells Trav.  "I don't really understand why.  It wasn't like that for Evers or Fortuna, right?"

Eventually, the tests progressed to the point where they could not be solved in linear time, and then he had to learn to use the TAROT to double back on his own timestream to solve the puzzles before he was punished.  Once that had happened, he began to get interactive contact with a man that he would soon learn was Sezan Crayne, head of a fading noble house in a dying star system.

"He said, he'd had a vision of the future," Warlock says.  "It showed Crayne the face that they'd shown on the walls, telling him that he was responsible for bringing that being to life.  And Crayne believed, at least by the time I met him.  A true believer, you understand?"

In the end, Phillipe decided that playing along with Crayne was the only way he'd ever have the space to maneuver and act.  Eventually, he did get free of the cell.  "I was a mess by then," Warlock tells Trav.  "Crayne showed me the war machine he was building, the army he was training and sending out into the neighboring systems.  The infrastructure of those worlds was already crashing; Crayne's forces grabbed up anything they could lay their hands on to build arms, took whatever they could to keep growing.

"So, when I could find the chances, I worked at finding out what had come before.  The wreck and fall of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Empire."  He waves a hand vaguely at the walls of the Zero Room.  "The one that's out there now, out beyond Arsuran.  And I came across the records of the Fists.  They never came to much, just a scattered transcendence cult, but I could see how to teach them, Trav, and how -- I thought -- I could help them form a force that could stand against the New Gehennans.  Maybe even stand against the fall of the Empire."

His face twists up in pain.  "Crayne and his people found me out, in the end," he says at last.  "And I went back in the box.  When they hurt me that time... that's when Phillipe died," he adds.  "But, you see, I'd learned.  Learned that the TAROT didn't have to be there with me, for me to use it.  That's when I made up my mind.  And that's when I left.  Came here.  Came... now."

Amanda looks at Stanley.

"Well, I'll be honest, multicellular structures are more my thing," she says.  "Now, in my time, we have learned a few things, it's true.  But that's like saying that the Romans had worked out the math and the engineering to build some pretty good bridges."  She strikes an impish pose and gestures at herself.  "My mom makes some of the best.  But while I imagine she could take a stab at figuring out some of the work here...."  -- she gestures at the code -- "that's like saying one of those Romans might take be able to guess at what it takes to throw up a space platform, or one of Arsuran's orbitals."

After her lamp show-and-tell went unremarked upon, and Traveller went off to talk with Wall Lock and Stanley with Amanda, Smoke Alarm took herself to the cleaners, to clean the slime off before she got all stucky. She footed it off to the sink-room, going in after Erysk was done. Working like a busy-bee, she scraped the slime off, then cleaned her clothes in the bathtub and sink. She cleaned herself as well, while she was there and nekkid. While she worked, she thought about the day's adventures. They gotten the egghead rezzies on the fire-escape, and really shown the Fists they were brave and bold. Still, Smoke would have liked to have a big slippery-dippery to-do with the Fists, it would have made a great viddy for the interweb. Sliming them and dakking whats-his-name and all that talk with Erysk would have to do. She'd gotten Erysk to eyespy, not just outlook. And she'd gotten to picture-take the big blue ball with her talkiphone, just like Traveller wanted. Smoke was happy to play along with her new friends, to help put Arsuran to rights. They were building high for happiness, just as a Kang should do.

And Traveller had found an old friend in Wall Lock, but Smoke didn't trust him. He might have come over to help, and he might have hair, but he was still a Fist with magic cards. She would have to 'ware him.

Her clothes were all soaking wet now. Smoke wringed them out as much as she could then footed it in search of the lawn-drier. People didn't like her footing about nekkid; mayhaps they liked her in blue Kang duds. She bundled her clothes and towels up in front of her and nipped out through the carry-doors. Fortunately, the talkiphone box put the lawn-drier right next door for her.

The bathroom was left an absolutely dripping mess behind her.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:08, Thu 29 May 2014.

"I don't know. Evers and Fortuna are more of a mystery than you are, to me. They both have your kindness, which the Gehennans didn't kill."



Trav gravely nods. It's plain on her face that she feels guilt at what happened to him, and that she's remembering the indescribable tortures and hatred of the Daleks, whom she had beaten so many times as the first and second Traveller.



The part of her that's the Marshall considers. He could be a plant, a trick, a trap. If they could do that to him, they could do that to me. The 5 sides of her personality confer.

And the Marshall breaks the deadlock, as she is the only side of the Time Lord who so far has conducted long range strategy. She is also the worn, old, grief filled woman who struggled with the War Doctor to save Gallifrey, and then made the plan to destroy it.

She takes his hands. "Every instinct and experience tells me that you are a trap, a spy, a trick. That is why I must trust you." Her voice seems old and weary, like that of another woman.

"You see, you made it out with your humanity intact. Yes, there were deaths and injuries, but you have done your level best to avoid deliberate harm. It's like you were resisting their programming and torture. I, on the other hand, gave in. The Daleks broke me, completely. I became a living exemplar of everything they held dear. The fact that I was a weapon aimed at them doesn't matter. I roared across the stars in a wave of fire and blood. It took The Doctor, the most puissant Time Lord who ever stepped off of Gallifrey, to stop me. 100 years of terror, and another hundred locked in the Citadel on Gallifrey, and 100 more fighting the Last Great Time War. You're stronger than I ever was, Warlock."

She stands. "So. Visions of this Great Beast, this enemy at the end of time, have been sighted by other time aware people - the Chamber of Time Unwrought, the Splintered Sisterhood. It has all sorts of people terrified. I'm also organizing a defense, but one based on mutual defense, respect and support. We're called the Parliament of Time. Well, it's a work in progress, anyway. It's not yet solidified. But your plan is brilliant, except for the coercion. You and the Fists would be massively helpful in this alliance. You're not alone. You see, I'm going to be gone, one day. The peoples across time will have to govern themselves and see to their own safety. As the Last Time Lord, I want to leave a structure in place where people up and down the time stream can defend themselves."

She urges Warlock to stand up. Taking his hand, she pleads, emphatically. "If you were to have Lucin withdraw his fists, offer to train those who would willingly join them in their disciplines, act as exemplars of freedom and courage, defend instead of conquer - Baby, they'd be so massive and awesome. Whatever this great beast is, I think something is trying to turn the entire you into the actual enemy. You or I or someone else might be this Beast at the end of time. I don't think that the Fists need to change that much except to turn power back to the governments that they have conquered. Can you convince these people you've helped and trained to do this? Up and down time you have allies. You're not alone. We need you and your people to stand in the Parliament of Time, we need your strength and voices. Do you think you can do this? I don't think they killed Phillipe. I think all Phillipe did was change and became someone new, who is just as wonderful. I showed you the power of cooperation and community. Please, consider this. Please.

OOC: I'd like to make a Convince roll for the pitch, with maybe some bonuses for the entire peaceful insurgent campaign. It'd be the entire group making the convincing, really.

OOC: Provisionally yes.  I'd like to let everyone else weigh in on it with their own IC comments.

You should also be aware that what you're convincing Warlock of is to change his approach and throw himself into the effort in a way you'd approve of.  I don't know if we all want to go through the exercise of trying to woo Lucin -- OOC I will tell you that he and the Fists are pretty much on the level as presented, and he's not secretly a figure with a hidden agenda, so playing that out would likely be a sort of repeat of what you've already done with Warlock.  So we could approach this narratively as Warlock and/or Erysk (and maybe Ru, if you like that idea) going off to reform the Fists, while Trav & company meet up with them later at a point when the work is done.

It's up to all of you whether you want to do it that way or not.

OOC: I'm fine with what Gary is laying out. Trav is concerned however about Farhaven and Arsuran, however - she'd like the conquered worlds to be released.

OOC: Given I'd half wondered whether Lucin and the Army were actually on the same side trying to force Warlock to be what they wanted but from different angles, that is important.

I'd assume that 'reform the fists' would include freeing of captured worlds.

I'm happy to do that. Playing it out just seems like a dice-rolling exercise, and having it go this way gives Warlock back a certain amount of autonomy, which Sereth would support regardless.

<blue>OOC: It would also let us skip ahead. I'll switch this OOC conversation to the OOC thread.</ooc>

With herself and her clothes all warm and lawn-dried and ship-shape and sound, Smoke Alarm dressed and scampered out into the carrydoors again. Where was everyone? She went outlooking, eyespying around corners and following her ears. The Kang had a knack for tracking her way around even the ever-shifting carrydoors of the talkiphone box. And, mayhaps, the talkiphone box liked her.

So, she soon came to the Zero Room. Hearing talky voices, she got down real low on hands and knees, and outlooked around the corner, eyespying.


OOC: Just sneaking about being weird. :)
10:28, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 14 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 1,5. Coordination(5) + Subterfuge(3).
This message was last edited by the player at 02:28, Fri 30 May 2014.

"Traveller," Warlock is saying (as he comes within Smoke Alarm's earshot), "I would certainly try.  I think it will not be easy or quick."  He looks thoughtful.  "Lucin values evidence, and reason, as much as he does vision and inspiration, and any thing you can give me to support the picture you've laid out will be valuable.  Perhaps the stories your friends can tell will help to persuade him and the other high Seekers."  Warlock shrugs.  "Or perhaps this is a task I must attempt myself.  To show you that you can put trust in me."

He looks like he's looking for guidance.

Listening intently to the conversation between Trav and "Wall-Lock", Smoke Alarm hears the scuff of a soft shoe on the floor, and looks back to eye-spy Erysk.  Who looks subtly embarrassed, as though she was trying to sneak up on Smoke and got herself caught at it.

Erysk gives a chagrined smile.  She's changed out of her red Fist clothing and is wearing a one-piece overall with what looks like some Caretaker-y decorations on it.  It's wrinkly and doesn't fit her quite as well as her own stuff.

But it's blue!

"Something interesting, Smoke Alarm?" Erysk murmurs.

OOC:

The Guardian, for the NPC Erysk, rolled 11 using 2d6+7 with rolls of 3,1. Sneaking on Smoke: Coordination(4) + Subterfuge(3).

Smoke Alarm listened for Traveller and Wall Lock being all talky. Well, that didn't sound sus at all. Wall Lock seemed to want to help Traveller, to show-and-tell the other Fists to play nice. But mayhaps he was telling untruths. And would the Fists really want to take their toys and go home? Or would some want to stay and keep their shiny fly-cars and towers?

At the sound, she turned quickly back, tensing in alarm as she saw Erysk. But Erysk wasn't trying to catch her now. And she had new clothes, not high fabshion but they were blue. Smoke smiled for a tick-tock, before she clamped a hand over her mouth then pointed at an eye and cupped her ear in Kang hand-talk.

"Baby, look. You convinced him to listen to you and transform the Fists into an army. Lucin may be the guy in charge, but as the time aware guy, you're really at the center of it. The biggest evidence is our insurgency campaign, and how the Fist efforts to sway the populace snapped and collapsed in the face of parkour and spray paint. I think the testimonials of my people can provide the evidence he needs. I also need to know he's not a jackass - what the hell does an ascetic movement need with conquered worlds? If its cash, resources, whatever he needs, I'll mine hydrogen diamonds from the hearts of stars for him. Further, when I get this Parliament of Time thing rolling, you can bring him and other Fists along. I can also put you in touch with other people who can pass along data and evidence, such as the Splintered Sisterhood. You already know about the Chamber of Time Unwrought, because you've met them as Phillipe. I'll be happy to put together a nice Slideshare for this guy complete with infographics and bullet points. I think the best thing is that you tell him the truth - that we're allies in the fight and we want to work together. But the condition is that Fists control of the 31 Suns must be relinquished. In exchange, I'll work to provide the resources you guys need to get your Brotherhood ready for the oncoming conflict."

She places her hands on his shoulders. "There's one more thing I've been thinking about. You've been through a hell of a lot, and I know someone who can understand both the style and structure of the Fists, and someone who is far wiser and kinder than me. I'd like to introduce you to Ru Zheng. He's an original Shao Lin monk from the 13th century, and he's someone I love very much. I can think of no better person to help you recover and overcome your mistreatment, as well as make the case for a non-coercive approach to the battle which is approaching. I think that you and the Fists have an awful lot to gain from listening to him. He's a wise, kind, strong man, and no one that I know can get you ready for facing the Gehennans and whoever lies beyond them. You see, you're trying to create an army that is going to fight in a Time War," she winces as she says that. "So, I want to give all of you the best chances of winning that I can."

She steps back as she sonics open the door to the Zero room, smiling lopsidedly. "How does that sound?"

"As for this clown who... had you in his custody. I will deal with him. No one abuses anyone I care for without repercussions. He gets *one* chance, one."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:30, Fri 30 May 2014.

Smoke was still dropping-eaves when suddenly the door cracked open. Eeep! She scrambled quickly back, trying to escape with all speed, but Erysk was kind of in the way.

"Very well, Traveller.  I can't ask for anything more fair than that.  And certainly, I'd welcome your friend's assistance."

As the door opens, Trav and Warlock find Smoke Alarm and Erysk outside, Smoke in a bit of an awkward tangle at Erysk's feet.  Warlock looks at the pair of them.

"I'm sure there's an explanation for this," he says, "but it does escape me."   He bends down to Smoke Alarm, offering a hand to help her to her feet.

Trav smiles and laughs, as she also reaches down to help Smoke up.

Seeming a little embarrassed, Smoke Alarm outlooked at the two hands offered to her, warily at Wall Lock's, and took Traveller's. She couldn't tell them why she was really out and lurking behind the door. 'I was outlooking for rats.' she said. It wasn't a shape-ship and sound excuse.

The Console Room:

Trav and Smoke Alarm, Erysk and Warlock have returned to the TARDIS console room, where Sereth awaits them and Stanley and Amanda have been trading ideas about the DNA model built from the scans.

When Trav appears, Amanda calls for her attention.  "The console just gave us an alert," she says.  "Message from home.  Here, I'll put it up for everyone."

The big holodisplay above the time rotor fills with a head shot of a person of Amanda's species, though the fur around his whiskers is turning silver and he's wearing a broad-brimmed blue hat.  Trav and Stanley immediately recognize the Kezekh peace officer Ch'tesh: native of Arden, United States Marshal, and commanding officer of UNIT in his home time zone.  There's a set of floating numbers that Trav recognizes as a set of spatio-temporal coordinates.

"Hrrr; imagine that light means the thing is recording," Ch'tesh says in a slow, rolling tone.  "Traveller, you asked to be contacted when all the parties you'd contacted for the founding negotiations on your 'Parliament of Time' had responded.  So now we have a response from this 'Chamber of Time Unwrought' of yours; your Mister Evers a contact from an uptime group calling itself the Torchwood Conservancy; and of course we've been working close with the Splintered Sisterhood for a few years now.  And now, we've concluded arrangements with the Central Committee of the Cyberiad."  Ch'tesh frowns.  "Took some hardball to get the last to agree to the safeguards we wanted in place.  But the upshot is this: we are placing the conference in an uninhabited system outside the U.S. / Federation border, near the Trans-Draconian Arm; the Cyberiad is sending three unarmed 'units' to represent their three 'Heuristic Strategy Models', which the Science Division tells me amount to factions within the Committee; and the conference is set to begin at this time...."  He looks down off-camera for a moment and another set of navigation coordinates appears in the display.

Ch'tesh looks back at the pickup.  "That's about it.  I've got authority to empower you to bring representatives back from any other groups you think should be part of this, at your discretion."  His manner shifts a bit and he cracks a slight smile.  "Oh, and one other thing.  The President asked me to send his love along to Amanda, as long as I was using your nickel."

Checking the TARDIS readouts, Trav sees that there aren't any other incoming messages that have been sorted with a higher priority, save the pending message from Alden, Ffinch and Snv on Estanve Gastem.

Trav turns back and looks at Warlock and Erysk. "I hope that the Fists of the Infinite Suns can send representatives as well?" That's a strong hint - Trav is making it clear that if the Suns want to be a part of this, that they need to withdraw from their occupied worlds. "We need for you guys to be there. Warlock, I'm sure you have the means to bring over a Fists delegation. That is, if you keep the name 'Fists'. I mean, fists imply violence and beating people up, no?"

Trav throws down a lever, as the Time Rotor lands them back on Arsuran Prime, not less than 5 minutes after they left. "Erysk, I'd like to drop you off. And Warlock, after I drop everyone off for a break, I'd like to bring you to Karn with Ru Zheng, if you're willing to come."

She turns to everyone else. "My beloved family, I am not a Peter Pan. As Stan can tell you, I usually drop off my companions after a big adventure to destress and reconnect with their loved ones, and then give them the option to come along for the next ride. I'm going to drop off everyone at their various home points, unless anyone has any objections. Smoke Alarm, I promised you a ride home. I've never eyespied Paradise, Towers, show me how it's icehot! When I am ready on my side, I'll yell at you all through your phones. Lord Sereth, I hope that your era's Draconian Empire can also send you to represent your culture's interests."

Trav tosses Erysk a thumb drive from the TARDIS panel. "That's a letter of greeting to your leader, along with background materials and my proposal. In uncoerced unity, there is strength. Please have him forward your reply through Warlock."