While Smoke Alarm gets the impression that this is not exactly in the realm of Fadreen's usual pursuits, the Draconian girl definitely seems to be following along with it well.  Her reflexes are deceptive -- Smoke notices that her muscles have a quicker reaction than a lot of humans'.

Trav composes back a quick mail -



(OOC: Trav is spending a TARDIS story point to use the Large Pockets ability to get the Doctor's old notes for Venusian Karate. What this will mean story wise I leave up to you.)
This message was last edited by the player at 09:17, Thu 30 Jan 2014.

Smoke Alarm took Fadreen through the pat-a-cake a few more times, with a few more darkly twisted verses and more complicated routines, and encouraging her to start changing it herself, throwing in surprise attacks and blocks. Soon, it became almost completely free-style duelling. The concept of the Kang Fu pat-a-cake was similar to the sinawali and other drills of Filipino martial arts, like eskrima. But the style most closely resembled two children wildly slapping their hands at each other, though it was subtly effective at blocking and redirecting strikes and grabs away from the head and body.

'Tag! You're it!' Smoke Alarm crowed, delivering a light slap to Fadreen's body and twisting away from any counterattacks. The Kang turned and ran across the apartment, laughing all the way, only pausing to make sure Fadreen was following as she disappeared up the fire escape again.

Stanley looks around and then sits down next to Nadia. "It's okay." He pauses, searching for the right words. "I honestly don't mind. There have been lots of times when I wished I could have been somewhere else, help someone else. You've obviously been through a lot here on Arsuran, the whole invasion... and... well expressing your emotions can be good for you. I can come by the clinic later, if you want to talk some more."

He carefully puts his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. "Things might look pretty bad now but the Fists are a problem that can be dealt with. I promise you that my friends and I are going to get rid of these Fists. Not with violence, but with ideas. I promise you."

"It might be a smart idea to get away from here or we might attract some unwanted attention. Do you want me to walk you back to the clinic?"

OoC: I am going to spend a Story Point (4d6+Presence+Convince+Empathic).
03:15, Today: Stanley Newton rolled 22 using 4d6+7 with rolls of 3,4,6,2. Presence + Convince+ Empathic.

Nadia twitches a bit when Stanley touches her, but she takes a deep breath and smiles when she looks at him.

"Yes.  Please."  She lets him help her to her feet.  "I, it seems like there hasn't been a moment to stop and feel anything, since, since the bombing.  I had to just keep working.  Because I knew it was what Vitaly would have expected of me.  Even though I felt like just... stopping.

"You, and your friend there..."  There's a moment where she looks at Stanley and looks at Trav, like she's trying to parse out just how they are connected.  She lowers her voice.  "Who are you, that you both talk like people like these Fists are just a problem to be solved?"  But she shakes her head, quickly.  "Never mind that.  You're right, we should go and talk about this somewhere else."

She looks at Trav.  "Is your friend coming along too?"

Fadreen follows Smoke Alarm out onto the fire escape.

Sereth sees Szezak and Penya both give a start when they go, but Szezak clasps Penya's arm.  "No, she needs to forget about skulking indoors for a little bit, at least..."  He glances at Sereth.  "That is, if you're confident that your friend will look out for her?"

Szezak lets Penya loose and starts collecting together a few items in a carry-bag.  "The shop has been closed down the last few days, but I've had a few repairs I've managed to complete in that time.  I think I shall go and deliver them after I head down to the market, and start to pass the word around, Legate.  If there is anything else we can do, please don't hesitate to ask."

Trav takes off her hat. "It's because we can't stay. That's the best way I can put it. But we are here to help. This is part of a bigger problem, and we hope we can work it out so that there's no more... bombing." She clutches her hat, sadly frowning.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:21, Sun 02 Feb 2014.

On the roof again, Smoke Alarm outlooked over the edges once more, worried that the Fists might come footing it down the street and knock-knocking on the door. It was still all sound and safe.

When Fadreen arrived, she tried to get her into a rousing game of chasey. 'You're it, so now you have to tag me.' she explained. Though going easy on Fadreen at first, she started to demonstrate how she could dodge a grabbing hand by bending back, jumping away, ducking, and even rolling. Fadreen was very quick for a youngster girl who was no Kang, and Smoke Alarm found she only needed the know-how.

'If the Fists try to catch-you-if-they-can or if you get in a to-do, you can use Kang Fu to escape and foot it with all speed down the street or carrydoor.'

"Yeah, what The Traveller said. Of course the Fists really are a problem that we are going to solve. That's her name by the way, The Traveller." Stanley says. "She's the brains behind the operation and also the pilot..."

The Draconian nodded.

"She'll look after her. She's almost as good as a Draconian for that, though more at keeping out of trouble than dealing with trouble if it finds her admittedly."

Trav waves. "Pleased to meetcha. Oh, schucks, Stan." Her smile is rather embarassed.

As people start to drift away from the Fists' "orientation", Nadia leads Stanley off toward the sunward side of the habitat.  She seems to have pulled herself together fairly well, and wears a determined look.

They walk for about twenty minutes, until they reach a set of three-story buildings making up about half of a commercial block.  There's a sign reading "Miszere Municipal Emergency Care".  Nadia leads Stanley in through an automatic door with the sign "Admitting" over it.

The room has a fairly sparse number of patients waiting for attention at the moment. As Stanley takes it in, he reflects that form follows function: with the exception of some of the scanners and technological flourishes that he spots as he enters, it could almost be the emergency room for a First World hospital back in the twenty-first century.  He does see that there is a scattering of equipment left unattended here and there, like the workers at the hospital have been too busy to properly stow everything away, or perhaps they're just anticipating needing it again in a hurry.

"Let me show you around a little," Nadia says.  "We don't have a lot in the way of in-patient facilities, so except for the most severe cases we've been working at patching people up, providing them with self-treatment gear where that's appropriate, and sending them back home."  As she shows Stanley around, a lot of the equipment is not immediately familiar to him, though he can work out what it's used for from context -- he's kind of amazed, for example, at a device called a "bone knitter" that a nurse is apparently using to perform a quick mend on a fractured tibia prior to setting it with a brace, but he suspects he could pick up its operation quickly enough.

A pair of men in the uniforms of Fists move past them, moving a gurney.  When they've gone by, Nadia says in a low voice, "They assigned a half a dozen people here to assist with orderly work, they said.  I don't doubt that they're here to keep tabs on us, just as much."

Trav can be at the clinic as well, unless she had a different plan.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:47, Tue 04 Feb 2014.

After some more introductory Kang Fu on the roof of the building, Smoke Alarm and Fadreen rejoin the others inside.  Szezak has departed to make his rounds by this time

Amanda looks at Sereth and Smoke Alarm.  "Where to now?  Should we go and meet up with Trav and Stanley again?  Or did you mean to go and try looking for those friends of yours, Smoke?"

The two breathless young women bounded the stairs, with Fadreen now wearing a strip of blue cloth tied around her arm.

Smoke Alarm thought over their options. 'I want to go eyespy for them. Maybe we can all go to Mrs Maglup's for frapple pies?' she suggested enthusiastically. Mrs Maglup's frapple pies were yummy! But she outlooked dubiously over Amanda and Sereth; they were vips and not often friends of those who made their brainquarters on the streets. 'But Peet and Gaross and the rest will be unbrave to how-you-do to you. Mayhaps I should go alone to seek-and-hide them, then catch-you-if-I-can after?'

The blank expression on his face was clear; he had problems keeping up with Smoke's idiom.

"...."

He then took a moment, playing back carefully what she said.

"Will you be safe on your own?"

Smoke Alarm often got that outlook. 'I'm Smoke Alarm, sound and safe.' she boasted. 'I knowhow to get all around Arsuran.'

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 65):

"I am sure you do the best you can with the resources you have." Stanley says whilst looking around. He waits until the Fists are out of earshot. "You know... just thinking aloud, but we could make up some sort of contagious disease. A quarantine would be a good enough reason for them to not visit a room. Don't know if it's relevant right know but it's an idea."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:55, Thu 06 Feb 2014.

Nadia looks at Stanley.  "That's... a disturbingly appealing idea.  These people try to be so faultlessly earnest about everything they do, I think it would be really easy to sell it to them."

Stan looks like he has this in hand. Trav sends out a text over her phone. <<Hey kids. Status? Everyone OK?>>

'Build high for happiness!' Smoke Alarm farewelled Sereth, Amanda, Fadreen, and the other eggheads. Leaving their apartment and shop, Smoke Alarm skipped out on to the road and footed it away down streets and alleys and over the occasional tower or fence. It was good to be running the city again, loose-foot and fancy-free, without the slowpokes.

She halted when her talkiphone started ringing, then got the message, reading slowly through all the big words. She paused to send her response, both to the last message and the previous ones from Traveller. She tried to make the Kang txt easy-peasy for the slowpokes to understand.



She sended it and put the icehot talkiphone away, then carried on toward and down to the big TM wheel-door she'd lost-and-found with Peet that fun day. Mayhaps they were all there, Peet and Gaross and Stinky and the rest. Mayhaps they'd made a brainquarters there? They've need a Kang to teach them to play catch-me-if-you-can with the Fists.

Smoke Alarm has little trouble finding the entranceway to the ground-under carrydoors that she explored with Peet some time ago.  While there isn't a lot of trash or dirt down here, the place isn't as well-kept as the up-world.  Things are a little cool and dank here; the steel that clads the carrydoors is rough and dingy, and sounds echo a long way.  It's more obvious how the halls follow the curve of the world by how they trail up around the bend of the ceiling on long stretches.  Long curving tubes run along the ceiling, and very so often there are little hatches on the sides, not unlike the cabbynet where she found Peet's sign.

As she's making her way along them looking for the wheel-door, she ear-spies footsteps and there's a light playing back and forth from the direction where she hears them.

Smoke Alarm liked going hide-and-seek in these ground-under carrydoors. Not many people in-came here, and very rarely, so she felt like she was eyespying some secret and hidden ways. A Kang could have a hide-in down here, could feel sound-and-safe here, faraway from Cleaners and Caretakers and other dangers. A Kang had, a few times, when the rain was heavy or bad boys hunted the streets for girls to eat. And she'd had fun going hide-and-seek here with Peet.

But when she earspied someone footing it down the carrydoor, she quickly tracked back and made a hide-in out of the larger cabbynets, stuffing herself in as much as she could. She left just enough of a gap for her to eye- and earspy out of. A moving light meant a torch, and that meant caretakers.


OOC: Hiding: 14
11:46, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 14 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 3,3. coordination + subterfuge.

Earspying: 15
11:47, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 15 using 2d6+9 with rolls of 5,1. awareness + ingenuity + keen senses.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:37, Mon 10 Feb 2014.

Trav looks at the message and her eyes boggled. She's been to a lot of places, and most of the time she could make out the slang. But Kangtext, at the moment, was defeating her.

"Um, hey, Stan. I think she's saying that she's been teaching Kang Fu to someone named Fadreen, who's a Draconian. She thinks this Fadreen is Kang material, high priaise!"

"Uh, she says here I have to go spy for Peet and friends? Who's Peet? She says here maybe it's not safe. She's heading out to 'big TM wheel door in city basement corridors. Um, I have no idea what LnF means. Ware F31s? I guess that's a hat size? BHFH SA means Build High for Happiness Smoke Alarm."

Trav sends back a code snippet that will guide Smoke to the video recording feature. "Try icehot talkiphone face eyespout taker!" Kangspeak was a bit easier than Kangtext.

"Crap. This is harder than when I was trying to make out James Brown when he was zooming on heroin." She fans herself with her hat.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:04, Mon 10 Feb 2014.

As the light passes, Smoke Alarm can clearly hear the conversation and make out the characteristic outfits of the Fists, a man and a woman.  They seem like they're being pretty complacent since they're just walking along and not checking the cabbynets.

"This seems a waste of time," the man is saying.  "There is no one down here."

"According to the records of the habitat administrators, there was a good-sized indigent population that isn't accounted for," the woman says.  "Some could have made it offworld, true, but....  People without proper direction in their lives are among the best candidates to find it in the Order.  We need to find them."

The pair pass by Smoke Alarm's hiding place until things are silent again.

The Guardian, for the NPC Fists, rolled 9 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 1,2. Awareness(4) + Subterfuge(2).

Fists! Smoke Alarm scowled out of the darkness at the Fist caretakers as they footed past, like they owned the carrydoors and owned the peoples in them. She wanted to jump out, steal something of theirs, run off, and throw it in the bin. That would show them! But later, mayhaps. She needed to lost-and-found Peet and Gaross and the others first, tell them to 'ware the Fists, and give them the knowhow of Kang Fu.

When the two had left, Smoke Alarm waited a little longer, just to be sure, then carefully opened the cabbynet and slipped out. After outlooking around for the Fists, in case they were sneaky, she continued carefully on her path, tracking back to where she remembered the mysterious TM wheel-door was.