Looking up from his gauntlet, Trace blinked away the display. "Thats ... that's a crazy plan. But its probably better than mine."

Farren & Trace:

The Dalek watched ominously...

Axander, Bluetooth, & Stirix:

The scientist tensed, desperately afraid, looking frantically about for Daleks, and on the verge of panic. If he was caught talking to intruders, especially Time Lords, there would be the most terrible reprisals. 'I, I, I don't know. M-maybe I should go—' he stammered, backing away. The risk of living another day in this nightmare was still nothing compared to what the Daleks would do to him...


OOC: Let's make this a social encounter. Roll Presence + Convince plus any applicable traits to calm the scientist and get him to help you. Difficult 12.
19:11, Today: GM BadCatMan, for the NPC Eric Ramst, rolled 12 using 2d6+4 with rolls of 3,5. ingentuity(5) + resolve(1) - 2.

Stirix frowned. Patching people up was his specialty - not actually talking to them! He just shook his head; letting one of the others who could actually talk do the talking.

OOC: No skill in convince; only presence 2 so I'm gonna let someone else do this one...

Tarys looks back as the Dalek glides after her.  She fears she's in danger of leaving it behind too soon -- even her half-success in luring the guards away would be for nothing if she couldn't ultimately take it out of the picture by the time she doubled back.

On the other hand, the Dalek's disruptor weapon was nothing to take lightly.  As she weaves her way deeper into the maze of corridors in the complex, she slows slightly to keep the Dalek in the chase.  But she tries to judge her pace so that she's in reach of cover as much as possible, to be able to just vanish around corners when the Dalek manages to draw a bead on her.

I will swap the way I'm applying my second action penalty if that's OK.

07:28, Today: Tarys rolled 15 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 5,2. Dodging Dalek fire: Awareness(4) + Coordination(4).
07:27, Today: Tarys rolled 9 using 2d6+4 with rolls of 3,2. Running away slightly less ambitiously: Coordination(4) + Athletics(2) -2 (second action).

Tarys:

Finding a nice long stretch of corridor, the Dalek revved its motors and accelerated, gaining on Tarys, unaware she was leading it on. 'Stop!' it yelled. It fired its weapon, but Tarys was already out of sight around the next corner.


OOC: I figure the terrain is Open Ground, base Difficulty 9.

First action: Dalek tries to accelerate, rolls 9, gains on Tarys by 1 Area
20:34, Today: GM BadCatMan, for the NPC Dalek, rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,3. coordination(2) + athletics(0).

Second action, shooting at Tarys, 8, missed
20:34, Today: GM BadCatMan, for the NPC Dalek, rolled 8 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,2. coordination(2) + marksman(3) - 2.

Chase: Tarys and the Dalek are 4 Areas apart. Tarys can add up to 2 Areas to her lead (your difference in Coordination scores).

Muttering to himself as he puttered around, Bluetooth picked up an interesting part here, a useful thingamajig there, and a impressive-looking doohickey from somewhere else, all the while attempting to make them all fit together.

"Transverse oscillator connected to the reciprical matrix maladjustor, routed through the multilinear time capacitor... and powered by this little black box-thingy... that should just about do it. Oh, wait. Aiming device... ah, yes, a parallax inversion module should do the trick. And a horseshoe for good luck!"

Although the roughly suitcase-sized device was mostly held together by duct tape and rubber bands, there were an assortment of wires, tubes, and electronic appartus sticking out of it in a hodgepodge manner.

"Now, just give me a Dalek to test it out on..." He begins looking around for a suitable target.

Not sure how long it takes to cobble together a device with jiggery-pokery, but Bluetooth keeps working on it unless and until everything goes skew-whiff!

OOC: I mentioned this and more in the OOC thread. It will take a couple of minutes. So, by the end of the talk with the scientist.

[21:04, Today: Axander rolled 17 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 4,5. Presence+Convince+Charming.

A solid success! Woohoo!]

The bearded man was obviously terrified, and with good reason. Axander knew what was happening here, how important it was to the Dalek cause, and just how much tolerance they had for setbacks. Zero. He kept his voice quiet and low, trying to keep his tone sedate and relaxed. Hopefully it would help keep the man calm as well.

"We're friends. We're going to get you and the others to safety. The daleks are dangerous, but look. We got inside alright, didn't we? But to get everyone out, I'm going to need your help. Can you tell us your name?"

Axander, Bluetooth, & Stirix:

Wide-eyed, trembling, the man stared anxiously at Axander, and at Bluetooth's fiddling about with the technology as if it might explode, before finally relenting. He looked out down the corridor, then hurried back in, shutting the door behind him. He spoked in a hushed voice. 'P-P-Professor Eric Ramst. I designed weapons for Earth's war against the Daleks. Um, 2566. But they captured our base, took me to this place, forced me to work for them. On this Temporal Exterminator.' He choked up. The travellers realised Ramst had come from a historical war against the Daleks, brought forward to be used in the Time War. The Daleks really had harvested the best minds for this cruel think-tank.

'But, but no one can get in or out. Not even the Daleks. They have some sort of shielding. No transmats, no teleportation. Not even time travel, they say.' Axander's TARDIS had somehow acquired a modified form of temporal shielding, perhaps a last gift of the Doctor's TARDIS. With it, they had been able to slip under the Eternity Citadel's transduction barrier, as if they always been there. 'Not even the Daleks can leave. They're under siege. There's some thing outside... Only Doctor Kaam was able to escape, some form of astral projection—'

'Look, no, this stuff's very dangerous— be careful with that!' he hissed at Bluetooth in alarm, wincing. But nothing exploded in their faces, yet. 'What are you trying to do?'

Axander smiled and made sure to shake the terrified scientist's hand with both of his. It was partially politeness, and partially distraction from the horrors around them. A little peace in a mad world, so to speak. Then he listened, attentively and gravely.

"The goal is simple. We turn the Temporal Exterminator on itself, removing it from time. It is never created, you are never brought here, and none of this ever happened in the first place. The complicated part is the plan. We need you, the experts on this device, to sabotage it. We can find a way to put people in position, but we can't cause the trouble ourselves without much more time to study the device."

With a silent nod of his head to Trace, Farren took a deep breath and then turned his back to Trace as he "fiddled" with some controls on his "smartwatch" on his wrist.  As he did that, Farren's appearance changed and soon the human SSS Agent was gone and in his place stood a reasonable facsimile of a dreaded Dalek.

Farren-Dalek rolled out and approached the remaining guard Dalek.  In the stereotypical tone of a Dalek, Farren addressed his "fellow" Dalek, "A-tten-tion... A-tten-tion... D31/HDΦ/56... you are to go and assist D31/HDΦ/55... you are to track down and Ex-ter-minate the In-truder... Ex-ter-minate the In-truder.

I will remain here... I will guard this area.  You have seen the In-truder... I have not... you are in a better position to Ex-ter-minate the In-truder... Ex-ter-minate the In-truder.

These are my Or-ders from A06/DCӨ/β3... and I O-bey.

Au-then-ti-ca-tion Ver-ifi-ca-tion Pass Code is... "Kill All The Hu-mans!"

D31/HDΦ/56 you will Com-ply."

Axander, Bluetooth, & Stirix:

After staring at Bluetooth for a moment, Ramst shook his head. 'We're hardly experts. It's the Daleks' design. They only made us work on small, separated subcomponents, so none of us has a complete understanding of its function. Less risk to them. I myself worked on the power flow systems, and I don't even know where the energy was coming from. It's independent of the base power supply. I haven't even seen the final Temporal Exterminator itself, no one has.'

'And now they're operating the device, they won't suddenly let us out to work on it, not with them so alerted to intruders or escapees. Unless maybe some emergency repairs are needed...' Ramst mused.

'But I can tell you how to reach the Temporal Exterminator control chamber...' Ramst gave a series of directions across the base to reach a large hangar-like building adjoining the facility, reached by a corridor lying between these labs and the monitoring chamber they'd already passed.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:16, Thu 30 Apr 2015.

Farren & Trace:

The Dalek's gunstick snapped up at the approach, its first instinct to be suspicious and to kill. The gunstick only slowly fell back down as the new arrival registered as a Dalek and Farren spoke in familiar, grating tones. The Dalek looked at the facsimile Dalek for a long, long moment, then uttered 'Your sig-nal bea-con is mal-func-tioning.' The eyestalk dipped meaningfully towards Farren's "sense globes". It raised, looking Farren eyestalk to eyestalk. The moment was painfully intense, and Farren realised he was standing right in front of the Dalek's gunstick. Then, at last, 'I obey.' The Dalek turned and glided off in the direction Tarys and the first Dalek had gone.

The way was now clear to the power generator room, and whatever lay beyond, but time was now getting desperately short.

It took all of Farren's self control, training, and mental discipline not to flinch or run when the Dalek approached to examine him up close.  Similarly, it was all Farren could do to prevent himself from allowing a sigh of relief from escaping his lips as the Dalek "obeyed" and moved on (after all, Dalek's don't "sigh" and Farren did not want to risk raising the Dalek's suspicion as it rolled away).

Bloody hell that was a close one!  Damn near gave me a heart attack... serve me right for being so bloody reckless as to impersonate a Dalek!

Then again... "Desperate times call for desperate measures"... and besides, it Worked!

Farren-Dalek watched D31/HDΦ/56 move away and he hoped that he had not just made Tarys life that much more difficult, but if they did not get to those power generators and shut down the machinery to save the Doctor, none of them would survive the aftermath.

Once D31/HDΦ/56 was well away (and out of "ear shot"), Farren-Dalek motioned with his "eyestalk" for Trace to approach as he said softly, "Come on, coast is clear, daylight's burning."

For the moment, Farren was going maintain his Dalek disguise as there was no telling if it might be needed once the pair of them were through those doors leading to the power generator.

With a racing heart, Trace breathed a sigh of relief; although probably not as much as Farren's. Brazenly walking up to a Dalek with a holographic disguise, that took some serious guts. When the coast appeared clear, the boy padded over the Farren. He suppressed a shiver of unease at he looked into the "Dalek's" eye stalk. "You're insane," Trace said with a nervous grin, "but I guess a little insane every now and then works."

He moved over to the door. "You wanna do the honours in case there's any more in there?" Trace said, motioning to the door to the power plant.

Staying "in character", Farren-Dalek moved over to the door and attempted to unlock & open it using his Espionage Facilitator (better known by the SSS in the field as an "Agent's Abettor").  As he did so, Farren hoped that things would get easier on the other side of the door (but somehow he suspected that the worse was not yet over).

Axander listened to the directions with great intent. Things seemed to be coming together nicely.

"We'll cause some trouble. Let the others know they're going to get a chance to sabotage the device soon. Even if you each only know a single component, together you can figure something out. We're going to unmake this monstrosity, Professor Ramst. Don't worry. You've got help now." With one more reassuring smile (both for the human and himself), Axander turned to his friends.

"Come on, we're heading to the control chamber. ...Bluetooth, what is that you've got there?" Not being a proper gadgeteer, the young Time Lord really couldn't make heads or tails of the...device? It was probably a device.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:20, Sat 02 May 2015.

Farren & Trace:

Accessing the locking mechanism (a plunger-sized interface with rotating internal cylinders, such that the Dalek plunger was itself a key) with his facilitator, Farren had no trouble unlocking and opening the doors. Because they weren't locked. The upshot was that, by using the facilitator, he could now control the doors, making them open, close, or lock as he liked, and even control the speed. The twin doors clunked, ready to part and slide into the walls.



OOC: Since it wasn't locked, that's quite a fantastic result. :) I'm picturing two sliding doors that meet in the middle.

Axander, Bluetooth, & Stirix:

Ramst swallowed nervously; even on the verge of freedom, he couldn't help but be terrified at the risks. 'I'll pass the word around, to those I can trust... We've made escape attempts before – they haven't ended well...' he trailed off, haunted by the horrific memories of Dalek reprisals.

As Axander asked Bluetooth about the product of his labours, Ramst approached to peer curiously at the device, slightly less alarmed than he had been before as he followed the circuitry and components. 'Many of the weapons components were delivered by the Yag Haz – a nasty species, they actually allied with the Daleks. They came here in a ship. Then the Daleks rounded up some of us and followed them back to their homeworld. Only the Daleks returned...' Ramst told before he spotted something familiar.

'But that's my prototype power feedback device... You've built an inverse electron pulse-spin generator!' he declared, amazed at the achievement. 'This will neutralise electronic currents, incapacitating machinery, electronics... and drain Dalek energy cells!' he exclaimed, a first glimmer of real hope in the scientist.

But he frowned, inspecting the gadget again, seeking further improvements. 'But the range of this parallax inversion module is dependent on the power input... If you were to connect it to the base's power generators instead, the spin inversion will feedback through the power conduits, and they run across the whole base... Every Dalek would be incapacitated!'

A sense of scientific restraint returned to Ramst, as he found the flaws in the design. 'Of course, it will only last a few minutes, before the natural electron spin reasserts itself. And the full generator output will burn out all these components... I'm sorry I got your hopes up.'


OOC: Bluetooth builds the Inverse Electron Pulse-Spin Generator, a minor gadget, for the cost of 1 Story Point. If you don't have a particular choice of traits, I'll make something up. If you do as Ramst describes, it becomes a Special Gadget, with a special base-wide effect.

OOC:

I'd like to just maintain the lead of 5 Areas that I had for this action, since at this point I'm just trying to avoid losing it.

At this point, is it now OK to make my escape and circle back as planned?

"What he said," Bluetooth replies to Axander. "I was just going to call it a dillymabobber, but an inverse electron pulse-spin generator works, too... though if it doesn't make a very good acronym, it'll never catch on."

"So, do we want to use it to target individual Daleks as needed, or do we zap 'em all at once... even if only for two or three minutes? In the latter case, it might be a case of timing. Do you think the others can get to the time-wiper in that amount of time?"

OOC: Tarys, let's try to get to a lead of 8 areas, an escape, to call the Daleks lost, as I mentioned back in post #49. But yes, it seems to have been long enough that you can attempt an escape. Dalek 2 is already about 8 areas back, and will get lost following Dalek 1, so I won't track it.

Tarys:

Running desperately through the base, passing storerooms and unmanned Dalek repair workshops, it was only a matter of time before Tarys came to somewhere. Running down corridors, coming to junctions, choosing whether to go left or right or up or down – it was, architecturally, a lot like navigating through branching alternities.

She passed a window, a thick pane of transparent aluminium that looked out onto the barren lunar landscape, all sharp-edged mountains, blasted craters, and plains of still dust, dark-grey against the black of space.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:37, Thu 07 May 2015.

Axander, Bluetooth, & Stirix:

'Well, I suppose you could call it... an inverse-spin electron pulse generator.' Ramst suggested.


OOC: Remember that Farren, Tarys, and Trace have gone to shut down the power generators, so the question may be moot...

Before Farren opened the doors, he glanced at his "smartwatch" and then looked over at Trace (or rather his "eyestalk" did) as he said in a soft, concerned tone, "We need to be extra careful past this door Trace.  I don't know exactly what is on the other side of this door, but my "readings" indicate that there is something particularly nasty or at least damned unpleasant on the other side.  We may be dealing with some sort of superior or advanced form of Dalek, maybe even one of their leaders.

In any case, we really need to be on our guard.  I'll take point but... if whatever is on the other side of this door is a high ranking Dalek, the odds are my disguise won't fool it for very long."