"We're in a Dalek fortress," Trace said wryly, "outside of space and time, trying to find and disable a Dalek superweapon. You don't need to tell me to be on my guard." The boy glanced at the door. "If there is some sort of 'super-dalek' in there, we might be in trouble as I don't have a clue how to disable one short of running in between two of them to get them to 'EXTERMINATE' each other. And that sort of trick only works once." Unconsciously, he began to pat his pockets, hoping that something useful would present itself.

Tarys loses track of how long she stands there, looking out at the afterimage of the little girl.  Who was that?  A vision of the future, of the past?  If it was of the past, was it Tarys' past?  She couldn't really discount that.  She had spent so long, it seemed, trying to reassemble her mind in those early years, even with Marsillanon to guide her.

Then, with a start, she remembers where and when she is and what she is meant to be doing.  The disconcerting thing is not that she believes she has been waiting a long time and giving the Dalek the chance to gain ground on her: it is more that she lost track, as that is something she rarely does.

But she remembers leaving Trace and Farren behind and the presence that was waiting with the generators.  They might be walking straight into the grip of something they had no way of dealing with.  It is time to go.

The pursuing Dalek rounds a corner.  "HALT!  EXTERMINATE!"

Tarys takes to her heels, her mind leaping ahead of her as she imagines the snaking pathway through the fortress passages, back to where she began.

OOC:

21:13, Today: Tarys rolled 13 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 1,6. Trying to break contact with the Dalek: Coordination(4) + Athletics(2).
21:14, Today: Tarys rolled 11 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 2,3. Dodging Dalek fire again: Awareness(4) + Coordination(4) -2 (second action).

This message was last edited by the player at 02:15, Tue 05 May 2015.

Farren sighed, a rather odd human sound coming from an apparent mechanical Dalek, as he said in a resigned tone, "I know where we are and what we're trying to do.  I also realized you know this and are familiar with the fearsome reputation of Daleks.

Thus when I still feel compelled to advise caution despite all that, there is a reason... the reason being that whatever is on the other side of this door is a threat level beyond what we have already been facing.

That said... I regretfully do not have any better ideas for how to "deal" with whatever is on the other side than you do.  I really wish I did.  But in any case, we have to press on regardless of the danger or our mission is for naught."

Allowing himself a deep breath to steady his nerve, Farren added very softly, "Ok... here we go."

Giving Trace a chance to hide or conceal himself before proceeding, Farren carefully opens the doors "the Dalek way" and readies himself for whatever he's about to face on the other side.

As Bluetooth was waiting for a response from his allies, he remember that the others were going to shut down the power plant. If they did that, he wouldn't have the ability to affect the Daleks except on an individual basis.

And what if the others were having trouble getting to the power plant because of Daleks? If he could affect them all, that would make their job easier, wouldn't it?

It seemed like a good idea, so he connected the spin gun to the base power. As soon as it was ready, he pulled the trigger!

Axander, Bluetooth, & Stirix:

Seeing Bluetooth start to plug his contraption into the laboratory wall-socket, Ramst came hurrying over, perhaps faster than he'd seen any scientist run. 'No-no-no-no-no!' he yelped frantically, interrupting the Rakshasa. 'It'll just wipe out the laboratory systems. We'd lose containment, experiments, computer failures. Not Daleks. To affect the whole base, it needs the full output of the generators, and to be connected to the heart of the network.'

Tarys:

As the Dalek screamed, Tarys ran, faster than the Dalek but not faster than its death-ray as it made good on its threat. She heard the weapon's whine, the crackle of burnt air...

As ever, she had a choice to make.


OOC: Tarys's starting lead is 5 Areas. Difficulty is 9 so, at 13, Tarys has a Good result and gains +2 Areas on top of her speed, 4, moving 6. Dalek has a Success result, and moves 2 + 1 Areas. The new lead is 8, so Tarys successfully escapes.
20:32, Today: GM BadCatMan, for the NPC Dalek 1, rolled 10 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 5,3. coordination(2) + athletics(0).

But not before...

Second action: Dalek shoots at Tarys, attack 11. Tarys dodges at 11, so that's a marginal Success for her, but still taking 4 damage: -2 to Resolve or Strength, -2 to Coordination (for the paralytic effect).
20:33, Today: GM BadCatMan, for the NPC Dalek 1, rolled 11 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 6,2. coordination(2) + marksman(3) - 2.

On the other hand, you were standing in front of a window onto space, so there may be something in that... Three Story Points to have the beam hit the window instead, and take your chances.

Farren & Trace:

As Trace backed against the wall, Farren opened the doors to the power generator room. In their explorations, they'd become almost accustomed to the incessant double-pulsed heartbeat of the Dalek base, but now, as the doors cracked open, the dreadful sound spilled out with greater intensity, painfully loud and maddeningly insistent.

In the guise of a Dalek, steeling himself, Farren advanced inside. At first, he didn't quite know what he was seeing, as if it was all too much to take in at once.

There was...


A large, darkened cubical chamber, lit by dim blue lighting with no apparent source. The walls were surfaced in some kind of heavy metal shielding, dully reflective and giving a sensation of the room being much, much larger, and himself much, much smaller. Before him was a control console, bearing readouts and displays and Dalek access ports. Two thick conduits ran out of the back, leading to two tall columns in the centre of the room, on either side and behind the console.

They were...


Tall cylindrical vats of a transparent blue liquid, softly glowing and illuminating the room. Bubbles of air ran up the column of liquid, and flecks of tissue spiralled and bobbed about.

Inside was...


Thin, brightly glowing fibrous cables snaked up inside the vat, inserted into...

Into...


Inside each vat was a massive head, six times the size of a human's. It was mostly brain, exposed and throbbing, bloated and overgrown past the confines of a cracked skull. The skin outside was gnarled, twisted, folded in on itself, covered in weeping sores. Tentacles, stubby and atrophied, dangled uselessly below its mass, waving in the bubbling liquid, amongst feeding tubes. The ruins of a face hung low, with one bulbous eye closed, a flap of a mouth drooping open, a few blackened teeth bared in a snarl of pure hatred. It was a Kaled mutant, mutated into something utterly, unspeakably horrific.

And the base power supply was fed from the console, which was connected to the conduits, which were plugged into the vats, which interfaced with the optic fibres, which ended in needles plunged directly into the overgrown Kaled mutants' brains.

And those two brains throbbed in time with the double-heartbeat of the base.


At Farren's approach, on each mutant, the single remaining eyes snapped open, pale, poached-egg things that fixed Farren with baleful glares. The things thrashed violently in their vats; the needles and inserted tubes tearing at their flesh.


But soon they were exhausted, unable to keep up the struggle against the agony of their existence, collapsing back into a terrible sulk.

Tarys feels the discharge of the Dalek's disruptor, more than sensing it in any conventional way.  She hurls herself out of the way of the blast by instinct, before fully apprehending the fact that a miss is likely to blast out the window behind her.

She gulps as much air as she can, before shutting off her respiratory bypass and springing off ahead, hopefully before she can get caught by any sort of decompression -- and in the further hope that she can find an emergency control to seal off the area behind her.

OOC:

Gah.  I'll spend the three story points, just to avoid the ignominy of being kind of terrible at what I was trying to do.  That takes me down to 4.

When no harsh voices yelled out with orders, Trace poked his head around the corner. At first, his attention was focused on their prize, the power generators. Then he spotted the floating heads. "Eww, what the hell are those?"

Trace & Farren:

As soon as Trace's head appeared around the door, both Dalek mutants spun in their vats to glare hatefully at the human adolescent, their mouths forming savage snarls. Their exposed brains began to spark and glow with a sickly blue light...


OOC: That's such poor timing I'm going to give Trace a Story Point for his Insatiable Curiosity. :)

Conflict! The Dalek Power Brains go on Fight.

Tarys:

The Dalek death-ray blasted the window, melting a hole right through. In an instant, a terrific wind rushed through the corridors and out of that hole. The Dalek, already speeding for the junction, couldn't slow itself, and in fact sped up alarmingly. The small hole was bad enough – a massive Dalek crashing through the window was quite another. The wind became an irresistible gale.

Tarys had been sprinting for all she was worth, but the force of decompression was slowing her down, driving her back. She had to grab hold of something!


OOC: Roll Coordination + Strength versus Difficulty 15 to hold on and not get sucked out.

As Tarys feels the blast of escaping air start to catch her, she digs the soles of her boots against the floor and leans into the wind to try to brake herself as she's pulled toward the vacuum outside.  This isn't exactly her first explosive decompression, after all....

She takes the Possible Knife in her hand, and as air pressure flings her into the gap that the Dalek smashed through the window in its passing, she brings it around hard, striking at the discontinuity between the here and now, where she about to be thrown out onto the airless surface, and the possible tracks of time just next door where the window was never shattered, and the integrity of the base was maintained.

The Knife catches in empty space, and slowly drags down, bending reality in its wake....

OOC:
I'm spending one of the Knife's story points on this roll... which may not have helped me all that much, as it turns out.

I'm not sure if the reroll for Unlucky applies when you have used a SP and the "first two" dice come up 6s.  If so, I rerolled those and got a 15, which would engage the Skewed Probability trait of the knife in addition to whatever other nastiness you imagine.

If not, I got a 23.

12:25, Today: Tarys rolled 23 using 4d6+9 with rolls of 6,6,1,1. "Unbreaking" the smashed window: Coordination(4) + Fighting(3) + AoE Knife(2).
12:26, Today: Tarys rolled 4 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,2. Reroll for Unlucky.

Tarys:

The knife slashed through the fabric of time-lines, cutting and re-joining the threads of possibilities, bringing about a desired alternative. At the instant she was to be sucked through the hole and onto the airless moonscape, Tarys suddenly slammed into a perfectly whole transparent-aluminium window. Then she felt a sudden searing pain in her shoulder as she remembered that the neighbouring time-line in which the window was not broken was one in which the Dalek had shot her instead.

But she'd certainly lost that Dalek now.

Recovering, Tarys looked out the window to see what become of it. Daleks could survive vacuum and de-pressurisation. But she was surprised to see shattered and smoking wreckage, strewn across the barren grey moon-dirt. She spied sensor globes, twisted skirting, a dismembered manipulator arm. Something had blown the Dalek up. But what could do that to a Dalek in a heartsbeat?


OOC: As promised, that injury happens anyway.
−2 to Strength (selected at random), −2 to Coordination.
I'll award Tarys a Story Point for the drama and plot discovery.

Oh bloody hell Trace!  Of all the times NOT to be a "kid", this has to be near the bloody top of the list!

Still... those things seem to buy my deception, at least for the moment, perhaps I ought to play it up... a little "Dalek ham-ing"?

Farren-Dalek's eyestalk rose up as if in alarm and Farren-Dalek's head-dome rotated (in the incorrect/opposite direction of where Trace was) as he said in his best menacing Dalek tone, "Who said that... who said that!?  Hu-man In-tru-der in the Po-wer Gen-er-ator Room!

Ex-ter-min-ate the In-tru-der... Ex-ter-min-ate the In-tru-der!

Must Ex-ter-min-ate the In-tru-der before the In-tru-der damages or harms the psychic Kaled mutants.

No harm must come to the psycho-kinetic energy sources!  The In-tru-der must be Ex-ter-min-ated to pre-serve the psychic Kaled mutants!"

There... that should tell Trace what, or perhaps "who", to target... I just hope I'm right about the Kaled mutants and I hope Trace has some trick up his sleeve for "pulling their plug"!?

Farren-Dalek made a deliberate "wrong turn", thus buying Trace time to get past him and further into the room.  As Farren-Dalek turned "on his heels" (or perhaps "on his wheels"), Farren "accidentally" hit the control button that closed the doors behind them.  Not that it'll slow the real Daleks by much, but even their gunsticks won't be able to blow this door instantly... I hope!

Tarys reels from the shock of the disintegrator burns.  But she is able to catch herself before she falls, and she breathes deeply, centering herself and warding off the pain to try to prevent any worse effects from taking hold.

Causality was ever the most treacherous of dance partners, she reminds herself.  Teasing and flirting with it was apt to get one slapped, hard.   Still.  Better to be burned, breathing, and safely inside an intact sealed atmosphere than thrown into a barren vacuum, with scarce minutes to reach oxygen again.

She concentrates and studies the landscape beyond the window more carefully, to try to find if there are any more telltales that might explain what destroyed the Dalek before she tries to make her way back to Trace and Farren.

OOC:

21:55, Today: Tarys rolled 17 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 6,3. General observation: Awareness(4) + Ingenuity(4).

At the last second, some professor told him it wasn't going to work that way... just plugging it in to a wall socket... here.

He was only momentarily frustrated, however, before his general optimism kicked in again.

"Hmph. If you can't take the temple to the mountain, take the mountain to the temple. Old Hadonese saying. I think it loses something in the translation," he announced.

"So we can't help the others... from here... at this point, so back to the original plan... save the prisoners."

"Now, how are we going to do that again? Inverting the timeline of the big gun won't free these people, right? It won't even make this base go away. If nothing can get in or out, then all we have to do is become... nothing!"

He was rather proud of his circumlocution! It never even occurred to him that they couldn't somehow make all the prisoners 'appear' to be nothing.

Trace winced has he attracted the attention of the freaky head things. At least Farren had the presence of mind to drop him a hint as to what he should do.

Using the opening given to him, the boy darted into the room and ran to the nearest piece of machinery for cover. Maybe from there he'd be able to work out what he needed to do to carry out Farren's plan.

Farren & Trace:


Darting in behind the Dalek-shape of Farren, Trace ran toward an energy storage stack that looked like a good hiding spot. But he got only a few paces when he collided with a strange repulsive force. He felt an overwhelming sense of hatred, of loathing and disgust, that slowed his movements, pushed him back, pushed him down, made him small and hated and unwanted.

Both Dalek heads glared savagely at Trace, teeth gnashing, black blood drooling from their mouths and eyes. Suddenly, one of the brains flashed, and lightning arced towards Trace!


OOC: Wall of Hate: Trace, please make an Ingenuity + Resolve roll, Difficulty 22, to get past the psychic wall of hate. I know, it's very difficult. You may apply Brave.

Psychic Blast: Trace, please make a Coordination + Awareness roll, Difficulty 15, to dodge the psychic attack. Damage 3/6/9 (spread evenly amongst Strength and Resolve, with the remainder placed where you like).

Farren, I'm not sure telling the Power Brains to exterminate Trace was quite the best idea. :p BTW, I'll award you 2 Story Points for the sheer Dalek-balls of impersonating a Dalek to a Dalek's face.

FWIW, I'm treating the Power Brains as machines (as the sourcebook implies) rather than NPCs, so they're easily fooled or instructed. They've accepted Farren as a Dalek, for example.

Round 1:
Talk: Farren warns
Move: Trace hides
Do: Farren closes door
Fight: Power Brains attack, raise hate-wall as second action

Axander & Bluetooth:

Ramst looked lost at Bluetooth's words, shaking his head. 'Inverting the timeline? I don't know what you mean... But if you can shut down all the Daleks, then maybe we can make a break for your ship... Where is it? How many can it hold?'

From a neighbouring lab there was a whistle, a short little tune such as someone might idly play while working. Yet Ramst grew tense and worried. 'You better hurry this up, the Dalek's returning.'

Tarys:

Tarys didn't see anything more through the reformed window.


OOC: Let's say you can return to the Power Generator room next round.

Farren & Trace:

21:06, Thu 14 May 2015: Trace rolled 17 using 2d6 + Ingenuity 5 + Resolve 3 + Bravery 2 (Fail)
21:08, Thu 14 May 2015: Trace rolled 15 using 2d6 + Coordination 5 + Awareness 3 (Pass on the nose?)

Tarys sets her jaw and moves off down the corridor, favoring her burned arm and side, but making her way back toward Trace and Farren as swiftly as is possible while being as silent as possible.  She worries what she left them to walk into -- the psychic presence at the generator had been formidable, and even though the pair of them were steadfast and capable, they had only their human will to defend them.

Oh hells bells... those bloody mutants are actually "taking orders" from me!?

And poor Trace is suffering the consequences, damn!

There must be something I can do... think Farren, think!

Farren was glad the Dalek shape was so limited in its ability of expression or the Kaled mutants would no doubt have noticed an obvious "cringe" as Trace came under attack.  Having locked the door behind them (and mentally crossing his fingers that it would hold any real Daleks for at least a few minutes), Farren-Dalek turned around and faced the "Intruder".

In an angrily surprised tone, Farren-Dalek said, "Wait... wait... In-tru-der is not one of the Hu-man Pris-on-ers!  Who is this In-tru-der!?

Un-known In-tru-der must be ques-tioned... Un-known In-tur-der must be ques-tioned.  Stand-ing Or-ders, all Strang-ers must be cap-tured and in-ter-ro-gat-ed.

Cease ex-ecution, cease ex-ecution... Un-known Strang-er must be taken alive for in-ter-ro-gat-ion!  Must in-ter-ro-gate the Un-known In-tru-der!"

Farren-Dalek "rolled" closer to Trace as he said in a menacing tone, "Who are you In-tru-der!?  Where have you come from!?  Why are you here!?

You will an-swer!  You will Obey!"

Hopefully those mutants will halt their attack long enough for either Trace or I to have a moment or two to catch our collective breath and perhaps get a spark of an idea... hopefully!

Axander & Bluetooth:

At Ramst's urging, Axander looked around, expecting someone else to be with them. But it was just the pair of them: Axander and Bluetooth and no one else. Farren, Tarys, and Trace had gone together to the Power Generators, while he and Bluetooth had come to speak with the scientists. Only the five of them had come to the base. No one was missing.

Axander realised no one was missing because... someone was missing. His TARDIS had gotten here on six pilots. There'd been another, a sixth person, a loyal friend. And now they were gone. And now they never were.


OOC: Axander realises that Stirix doesn't exist any more (temporarily, at least).
14:34, Today: GM BadCatMan, on behalf of Axander, rolled 16 using 2d6+10 with rolls of 2,4. awareness(3) + ingenuity(5) + FtTotU(2).

Farren & Trace:

Diving for the floor, Trace narrowly avoided the psychic blast, his teeth tingling and hair on end. But he still couldn't struggle past the repulsive psychic barrier that barred him access.

The second brain was charging up for another shot when Farren interrupted. Yet it continued to charge, and charge, and then...

 But nothing happened.

Farren-Dalek rolled over to Trace, making a show of interrogating him, the eyes of both power brains fixated on him and Trace.


Tarys:

Finding another route around the base, Tarys soon found her way back to the Power Generator room. The other Dalek was gone, Trace and Farren were out of the sight. The doors were closed. Then, approaching, she heard a ferocious zap behind the door, and a furious Dalek voice. 'Who are you, in-tru-der!? Where have you come from!? Why are you here!? You will an-swer! You will obey!' The doors were locked!