Arkady hasn't had much time on his own to relax.  Immediately after his exaltation he was dragged out of Sanctuary, thrown to the wolves at ONYX SPIRE, and then thrown back to Sanctuary's wolves for more quarantine/detox.  Sanctuary's hardly a place where you get much time to do anything more than think under the watchful eye of the battle-orderlies, but hey, it gives him time to theorize.

So when Arkady makes it out, it's with a certificate calling him clean, a few thousand extra credits to his name, and- apparently- a new transport of his very own, thanks to Spiderweb.  Unfortunately his boss has taken most of what remains of her old fleet out for another scavenging mission, leaving him temporarily stranded on the Last Refuge.

On the bright side, now he has clout.  A new Exodite with a lot of money in their pocket and actual experience dealing with the dead is a rare thing, and a Twilight more so.  He has his options.  Of course, Pandora Bay is always open to people of his caliber, though he may have to spend quite a bit to get access to a good workshop.  But there are smaller, lesser workshops, often left abandoned because of their paucity of tools and space.  Alternatively, the Machina Guild is always looking for new members, and would find it quite a coup to have a new Solar in their midst.  Then there's all sorts of others, like the different engineering schools.

Or, hell, fuck work.  He could always go get smashed!

Getting his workshop established would be smart, and kind of relevant, but his ship also needs a crew and he indeed was thirsty. They indeed didn't have a bar on Sanctuary, or at least one he could access.

Well shit. First things first. Get something to fill his flask with, and then check out Pandora bay. Just for starters. Just to see what's up.

Later he's going to try and get a half decent crew for his ship. Some of his research and craft work could be done in pandora bay, but some of the more "Volatile" work would be tested away from the last refuge. Running with Spiderweb for scav'd parts is also still a thing. That's gonna need some resolve from the crew.

He hadn't spent much time on the refuge, Or at least on the better parts of it. He's a bit disoriented still, so better take it steady and look for directions.

Booze. First Booze.

With no better place to go, Arkady stumbles out of Sacntuary.  Like a dog to his own vomit, her finds a bar.  He doesn't really know where he's going.  He doesn't really know where to even start.  But the Twilight Russian in Arkady takes over, and before he knows it, he finds himself in a crusty-ass dive called The Colorless.

The Colorless turns out to be a good description, mostly of its alcohol, which is of divinely low quality.  The bar itself is populated by what look like wildcat miners, visiting for a few days before heading back out into their death-traps to snap up raw materials for the Last Refuge and sell them for a premium.  They're desperate men, on the edge of death.  Some of them aren't even men, in the racial sense of the term.  There are a few demons and gods and a lot of earth elementals, each finding solace in the eternal constant embrace of alcohol.

He looks around some under his hood an finds a nicely vacant spot at the counter.
His eyes glisten as the scent of alcohol reaches his nostrils.

"Hey barkeep! Gimme some of that liquid inspiration. Leave the bottle!"

He tries to keep his voice low, but clearly can't hide his excitement.

"It's been a shit couple of weeks, and there is shittier times ahead, but not right now blyat."

He keeps an eye on the other patrons. Not necessarily to be cautious, but more out of curiosity. Weighting possible crew prospects in places he visits.

Most of them are quiet as he calls for drink, though there are some bloodshot eyes that glare in his direction.  Ahh, they're under the influence of his old friend, the Deadly Hangover.  One earth elemental, a big pile of rocks with eyes of molten ruby, mutters a quiet 'fuck off' that carries in the bar.  The bartender, a big bald fuck that looks more like a conglomeration of dough than a human, rolls a clay bottle with cork in it to Arkady.

"Five."  He rumbles.  That's probably twice the amount the stuff should cost, and most of that cost is for the price of the actual bottle itself.

*cough* "Shit... 'The fuck was that for?"
He muttered under his breath.

He knew he was being hustled, but he didn't want to start a fight. He just pays for his bottle without too much of a hassle whilst checking out the grumpy elemental with the corner of his eye.

"Nice place. Cozy." Escapes his lips just before he wets his lips with the divine nectar.

Engine oil tastes better.  Hell, Abyssal engine oil tastes better, and Arkady should know.

The elemental is jet black, obsidian if Arkady's any judge, with ruby-red eyes and a streak of ruby encrusting across his chest.  If Arkady was a nerdy shit he'd think the elemental looked like a golem.  The elemental's fists are huge, the left hand's fingers studded with sharp-looking spikes.  "Fuck you looking at."  The elemental grumbles in his direction, "Stink of new person."

"Ease off.  He paid." The barkeep takes the cash, "A bit too quick though."

Arkady swallows the disgusting swill and maintains a straight face as best as he can.

As commotion starts to arise he raises his metal hands up.
"Whooa whooa blyat! Calm the fuck down. I just spent like a month zig zagging between sanctuary and worse shit holes, and I'm thirsty as fuck. I'm in no mood for haggling or fighting..."

He takes another sip and locks his eyes with the ruby eyes of the elemental. The taste made him a bit lost in thought as he tried to figure out a process of how to make this swill more drinkable. But just for a second.

"Fuuuuck me... I've been here for less than five minutes and already someone want's to kick my ass.. An I thought the scav' fleet was on the edge..."

"This is a quiet place,"  The elemental rumbles at him again.  There's a few murmurs of assent, and the warbling of an old MP3 player cuts through the pregnant silence.  "Keep fucking quiet, drink your drink, and let us get drunk in peace."

The barkeep nods, "Best listen to him friend," He whispers, "Mr. Tyrolite can be a nasty sort."

"OK ok.. shit. I get it."
He mutters under his breath, and takes another sip of his engine oil.
Shit. He has to make it more drinkable.

He decides to just bail. He grabs the bottle and makes his way out. At the door he he looks back.

"If any of ya need a job that is less dirty but a lot more dangerous. Find a ship called Bogatyr. I'm looking for bunch of crazy motherfuckers to crew it. Ask for the crazy Russian bastard."

And walks out. Now now. Time to check Pandora Bay.

"There ain't a ship called the Bogatyr," Mr. Tyrolite shoots back at him, "I know every ship in the fleet."  He taps his big head, "You sound like a fucking liar to me, you do."

Arkady is otherwise allowed to leave, but as he does someone hurries out of the bar- a scrawny, scabby looking guy, in his late 50s, wearing worn-out rags and splintered old goggles.  He prods Arkady's arm as he hurries up.

"Russkie, huh?" He says as he pokes Arkady's elbow again, "Just what kind of dangerous job we talking about?"

Arkady turns around to face the scabby man, whilst clearly ignoring the grumpy elemental, and scanning the man from head to toe. He surely wasn't much to look at, but neither was the Paddy Wagons crew, and still they were the best men he knew. He pulls back his hood, revealing his face. There's no need to hide.

"Research, development and reverse engineering." Arkady answers confidently. "I know it doesn't sound dangerous, but we work with dangerous stuff. Sometimes so dangerous we can't test them in the last refuge. Sometimes we even go snatch stuff from the dead fleet to study them. Knowledge is power tavarish. " he didn't notice the curious smile that crept on his own face accompanied with a faint glow, and the faintest glimpse of his caste mark. "Of course I compensate my crew accordingly. everyone gets a cut of the profits."

"Tavarish?  Sorry, I don't speak russkie." He answers, looking up- and seeing the caste mark, lighting his face and a bit of the dark hallway outside of the bar.  He grins wide, "Oh fuck, I like the idea of hearing compensation coming from someone like you.  Let me ask you, what's your name, mister?  They call me Corduroy,"  He hits his chest with his thumb, "Asteroid miner.  Former history teacher.  A bit almond but who ain't these days.  I live on risk.  Thrive on it.  And I got me a broken ship."

"That's Russian for comrade. Archaic stuff, I know." He fills in. "Name's Arkady Dragomirov." He offers his hand for a handshake. "You used to be a history teacher? Not much work for people of knowledge nowadays huh?"

"Well, when history's dead."  He gives a yellowed, cracked grin as he shakes Arkady's hand.  "I worked on Byzantine history.  Had an archaeological dig and everything!  But there's nothing to dig up and none of that's important now, eh?" He says, "Turns out the digging part helps a bit when it comes to prospecting.  Kinda prohibitive to drag whole asteroids back to the Last Refuge, especially when your ship's slow, it's just asking to get jumped.  So I snatch up the important stuff.  Kind of."

"your knowledge in history might actually prove useful, believe me. If not directly, the just to satisfy my curiosity."Arkady laughs. "So how's your ship fucked? I might be able to do something about that. I'm more of the inventive engineering type. I used to be one of Paddy Wagons top engineers... well... when the ship actually existed." He ads a little bit of color pencil to his achievement, not like anyone's left to contend with, and takes a whisk of the motor oil some might call booze. "Let's walk. Tell me more about your specialties while we do. I need people of all kinds of skills to run my different projects. Prospecting is actually something I hadn't even thought about until you showed up. some materials are hard to get with just scrapping."

"Well, maybe, Byzantine history is 'fuck, and then things got worse', kinda like Russian..." He trails off.  "I got jumped by Tripoli fighters just outside the fleet shell.  Limped back in time but it's more or less trashed and the hangar chief won't fix it because 'I should've known better' or something." He waves his hands and rolls his eyes.  "Wait, you were on the Paddy?  Part of Spiderweb's crew?  Heard about that.  Things get fucked quick, huh?"

He walks along next to him.

"So yeah, I work with rare earth metals.  Most of it ain't solid chunks, right, it's actually usually pretty dispersed in soil or the like.  Some asteroids got bigger chunks, but it's not common.  Turns out I had an old sifter from the old days of looking for artifacts and shit.  Some of these rare earth metals are super fucking magnetic-"

- something Arkady knows quite well, given they're present in high quantities in his arms -

"So what I do is run the sifter, but got an electromagnet nearby.  It attracts all the fine particles, then I turn off the magnet.  Run it like a waterfall but with pulses and I can process a shitton of dust quick.  Then I dump the rest in a cloud behind me."

"Yeah, the Paddy was fucked pretty quick..." He still seems troubled by the subject and shifts pretty fast.
"Best way to find a needle in a hay stack is to bring a magnet. That's really smart. If you want the job, we can transfer your equipment to my ship. I can talk to the hangar chief and see if he's a complete cunt about it or not."
They keep walking towards the hangar to check on his ship. "I need to outfit and crew my ship a bit before we can set off on the first run, so consider yourself a sort of specialist. I also need to wrestle a bit with the Pandora Bay geeks for a workshop as well. Let's see what we can do for your ship. If we can do shit about it, we'll find another way to put it to good use. prospectors and metallurgists are a lot more useful than some might think."

Corduroy follows, "Not really a needle in a haystack, more like a thousand needles in a haystack and you need every one, right?  And if you don't finish there's a fucking bear ready to bite your head off."

He listens a bit more.

"Ehhh.  If you have a ship, why use my fucking hunk of crap?  Doesn't even have a name.  Just strip off the specialty tools and scrap the rest.  Cannibalize it even.  It'd take a lot to get that shit off the hangar floor."  He sucks at his teeth, "I can get more crew.  From that bar you were in.  They just don't like outsiders much.  We get a lot of people trying to chum up to us, use us for dangerous shit and lie to us."

Arkady chuckles a bit "By putting it to other use I meant cannibalising it for parts, but usually people around here aren't to keen on others wrecking their shit for a job, but good that's off the table. probably just gonna scav your tub for parts."

He ponders about the crew proposition
"Well... when you put it that way, It kinda explains why they're on the edge about strangers. I can imagine the pressure from folks with higher social status. Not like it's new to me. Spiderweb just made sure no-one got to give us shit. I might have a chat with them again. They might be a bit more open with you there as well. Still gonna show you the ship so you at least know for sure I ain't shitting you." He ends with another chuckle and another sip off the bottle. It still tastes horrible but he just can't stop drinking,and even offers some for his companion.

"Yeah, give 'em a few hours.  They'll be more willing to trust you because, ya, uh uh-" He taps his own forehead, "Personally I always liked you lawgiver types, I mean, fuck, why else are we still alive?  I saw one of you fighting in Istanbul, was pretty great."

He looks at the drink and shakes his head, "Nah, don't got any lemon juice.  It's better if you got that.  Bring your own next time.  Cuts through the grease, ay?"

"Lemon juice? LEMON JUICE??" Arkady looks actually surprised
"Here I was already designing an advanced still with a complex filtering system to make this more drinkable. I didn't even think adding stuff, except maybe some coagulants in the filtering process. Holy Shit, I like you already!"

He shoves the bottle into one of his pouches and gently slaps Corduroy on the shoulder.

"Ha ha. Lemons man."

"Best way to clean shit is with white vinegar, and acetic acid isn't too far removed from that."  Corduroy looks proud as his back's patted, "When life gives you lemons, use it to make grog, cap'n!  Fuck if I know how that fucker gets grease in alcohol, though..."

There are numerous signs and lifts leading to Pandora Bay.  Most of the ones in this area lead down to the shadier parts of the work district, the grungy little warehouses and labs that are in use by the thousands of tinkers aboard the ship.

Corduroy sucks on his teeth.  "Boy, we better watch out down here.  Heard some stories about 'forcible scrap acquisition' by some bigwigs."

((Awareness to spot shady shit: 9, 9, 7, 6, 3, 1 & 1
float 1-1
awareness: 29+10+10= 49))

"That kinda doesn't surprise me. Well if they want to tear my arms off, then they'll get an ass whooping instead. Blyat."
Arkady snorts.

"Im here to get my tool's and some space, and that's pretty much it. Fuck 'em if they start a row."

He keeps his eyes and ears peeled for any suspicious activity. You can't be too prepared for 'inconveniences'...

The hallways get dark, dirty and cramped.  Other tinkerers, weighed down with metal and tools, skulk around furtively. Arkady is offered a 10mm socket from a shifty-looking god in a trench coat, mint!  Corduroy glares at him until they pass.

"You take it from him you'll lose it in a week anyhow," Corduroy grumbles.

Eventually they reach the Free Shops, a section of Pandora Bay open for anyone.  There are thousands of the Free Shops, stretching for miles of hallway.  Some are in use, some broken.  Others look like someone started to work and then abandoned a project.  Some are kept in fairly good order and sealed shut with steel doors and warnings about traps.

"I know man. I know..."
He said with a slight chuckle. If he got a credit for every time he was searching for a 10mm socket.

He glances around the area and looks for promising workspaces. Anything with a decent amount of somewhat useful shit. There might even be a gem hidden somewhere.

"Let's look around. gonna need some space for machining tools and some other equipment... oh and electricity would be cool."

He especially pays attention to shops with abandoned project. Sometimes a half decent project crashes due to lack of funding... Or skills.

"Fucker steals 'em,"  Corduroy grumbles further.

There's a lot of 'promising' workplaces, in that most of them aren't falling apart and fully half of them aren't full of junk.  A few dozen seem at the very least a little clean, probably because someone's built a roomba and let it loose in the room.  All of the rooms have electricity; all of them are about the same size, 10m by 10m.  There are some larger ones but those are almost all taken by the machinists, who've set up bunkbeds there.

((Go ahead and roll Craft if you want to find an abandoned project))

((10, 8, 6, 6, 4, 1 & 1
Clarity in Openness +10 craft
26+10+20= 56
float 1-1))

Arkady let's his intuition take the reigns. It isn't always easy to figure out what someone else was building, especially in Pandora bay with all the nut jobs with a few extra credits trying to create something... new. He still has trust in his abilities. He had seen some fucking weird contraptions... like engines running on ghost flesh and shit like that.

He walks a half kilometer down the hallways, checking each one.  Corduroy points some out occasionally but they're not what Arkady is looking for.  He knows there's something out there he can use.

Eventually he finds it.  It's an abandoned room, a bit bigger than the rest.  This one's different than the rest in one other important regard:  whoever had it last built a fume hood into the place, which already puts it a cut above the rest.

There's tools littering the floor, and a weird-looking contraption sitting on the center of the floor.  A spray of ancient, dried blood surrounds the machine in a perfect circle.  Without touching it Arkady can tell it's some kind of generator...

(( 1 maljoss Walk With A Merchants Eye ))

Arkady Inspects the machine, but avoids touching it just yet.
Takes another look around the workshop and then looks at Corduroy

"This is it. We'll take this shop."

He kneels in front of the machine to inspect it closer and says half in tought

"We are going to need doors installed. Really good doors. Why hasn't anyone paid attention to this?"

His eyes wander around the strange contraption, but he tries not to disturb anything just yet. It is a generator, but what does it run on? It's nothing conventional. Esoteric reactor? He's giggling with curiosity and his hand shake as he resists the urge to start working on it immediately.

"The blood?  You know, I think it's the blood,"  He says, pointing at the blood on the floor, "You know, that looks like it turned the last owner into a fine mist and strawberry jam?  That blood?  Better not touch it, boss..."

The more Arkady looks at it the more he realizes he's seen something similar before.  This is a smaller version of an essence shield, usually the kind found on Mercury-class transports.  It's been miniaturized, if he's any judge, to something roughly the size of a small backpack.  It's not bad work, either.  Whoever was designing this was very talented, albeit not talented enough, and now very dead.

((Craft: 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 2 & 2
Clarity in openness +10 craft
32+20+10=62))

"Ok. Lets not touch the machine yet. no'or the blood. We gotta get this place secure first."

Arkady looks around and sees if he could build some sort of a countermeasure so that the place wouldn't be taken in their absence. A set of doors armored and locked would be nice, but a turret would be awesome... This is his lair now. A place for him to do his tinkering whilst he's away from his ship.
He'd otherwise drag all this stuff to my ship, but I need to save space. Manufacturing prototypes happens here. Testing equipment and research takes place on the ship.
Besides. Getting a foothold here in Pandora bay might yield interesting contacts amongst other researchers.

"Why don't ya find something to paint a big red 'Arkady's Place' on the wall?"

There's nothing beyond a standard pair of swinging steel door, easily blocked but also pretty easily broken down.  He'd have to build whatever the hell he wants.  Most of the places he saw were similarly jury-rigged.

"Yeah, I can get some paint." Corduroy sucks on his teeth a bit, "Gimme around five, right Boss?" He gives Arky a weird little salute and scampers out.

There's a decent amount of junk around the area, though.  Arky's able to cobble together a half-decent sliding barricade, including a lock, complete with spring-loaded spikes if anyone tries to force it open.  Corduroy's not even back yet by the time he finishes- less a problem with Corduroy and more a bonus effect of his new powers.

He decides to wait around for a while for his man Corduroy to arrive. While he waits he inspects the machine a bit closer. He starts by throwing small objects at the device while he waits. Science bitch.

Corduroy takes a few more minutes to arrive.  He's able to figure out the properties of the device pretty quickly.  Anything that so much as comes within a foot of the generator is flattened like a water balloon hitting a wall.  Then- it bursts.  This includes metal and plastic, he doesn't try flesh.

Corduroy comes back with a small pot of paint and a brush.  "Hey, what've you found out?"

"Oh! put the paint by the door there" Arkady looks up to Corduroy and waves.

"Well I found out this is the second best thing ever!!! Or... well... at least the second best thing today." He says jokingly.

"It's an essence shield, Kinda like the ones we put on ships, but a lot smaller. Anything a foot away from that blows up."

He looks at the device and strokes his chin in tought.

"It seems the previous owner turned it on and blew it up instantly... Dumbass... We have to figure out how to turn it off without us blowing up."

"Wait, so, what's the best thing today, ay?" Corduroy asks as he peers at it. "... What the fuck, that sounds fucking great and useless at the same time.  Like, what's the goddamn point." He paces around it, stepping through the dried blood, "Could try just flinging shit at it until it busts the field, ay?  What about using a magnet or something to shut that shit off?"

"hey. You need to see the future value in that shit. That's a working prototype, and obviously the device it self isnt affected so it acts like it should be. Imagin' if we could boost the effect to a bigger radius and make it safe for use? Giving this shit to boarding crews? Bullets vaporize and opponents blow up on contact?! WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH THIS!!"

He has almost a manic tone. He sees so much potential in this.

"But yeah. We gotta turn it off first... A magnet you say? like an EMP or some shit? Worth a shot at least."

He goes browsing on the tools and midst his digging, he remarks with a smirk.

"Oh, the best thing? I haven't found it yet, but I'm sure I'm gonna!"

"Yeah, sure, but... if it fucks up, it fucks up good, don't it?"  Corduory asks.  "Well, that, or an electromag, find the off switch and fuck with it?  Betcha it a in't plastic.  But ya know what I say.  Magnets fix eeeeeeeverything."

He shakes his head.

"Fuck, man, then it's the best thing you've seen today, flat, until something better comes around."

((Craft 70 to turn it off))

((9, 8, 8, 6, 6, 6 & 4
Clarity in openness +10 craft
36+20+10=66 vs 70 fails))

He fiddles with a magnet for some time, and even tries some radio frequencies with a hasty radio to see if he'd trigger a response... in vain. He swears in russian under his breath and kicks a screwdriver, laying on the floor in anger.

"Fucking shit."

"You okay, boss?"  Corduroy stands over the man as the radio continues to belt out some particularly awful showtunes, "Uh... could always get underneath it and burrow upwards?  I mean it's sitting on the floor just fine, right?"

This is probably a bad idea.  Arkady's already figured THAT much out; it's getting grounded by steel plate and the moment that's removed it'll become a perfect lozenge of exploding death, likely to pinball around the room and the Last Refuge.

"You need some booze or somethin?"

"Ehh shit. I could use a drink yeah. Lets put a fence or something around the thingy. I'll get back to it with some more inspiration. Whatever you do, don't try to move the plate under it."

He realizes it's dangerous as fuck, but also valuable as fuck. He'll get back to it eventually. The person who made it probably left behind some notes.

"We oughta move your equipment to my ship, But we are prolly gonna need some extra arms for that. We should get some lemons as well..."

"Sure enough," Corduroy says as he starts looking around the area, "Umm.  Need a crew, though, for that... don't know many stevedores nowadays... could go nip back down at the pub and ask.  They know me, right?"

There's a pile of books on the back corner, atop a rusty file cabinet.  One of them's a notebook.  Most of the other books are... disturbing ones, to say the least.  "ENGINEERING FOR DUMMIES", "THE BIG BOOK O ENGINEERING", and "ELECTRONICZ FOR KIDZ" stand out.

"I was thinking about the pub as well, hence the lemons." He winks

He grabs the dummy engineering manuals. They might have something in code or such. Pandora bay, borderline genius invention... and kids engineering books just don't add up to him.

"Let's go and get us some deck hands, huh?"

He'd dabble in the books later with time and drinks.

"Sure enough,"  Corduroy helps him close everything up.

The end up back at the pub.  Most of the same people are still there, so there's considerable surprise that Arkady's showing his face again.  A certain earth elemental rumbles as he enters the room, though their eyes slide over to Corduroy too.

Corduroy gives them all a grin- and Mr. Tyrolite the finger.

"Alright! lets try this again! I need a crew on my ship. I think we got off on the wrong foot here at first. So hear me out before we start a racket ok?"

He pulls a chair from a nearby table and sits down.

"My name is Arkady Dragomirov, I am the captain of the ship Bogatyr..."
He glances towards Mr.Tyrolite
"You might not heard of it because it is a brand new ship in the fleet. Mr. Corduroy here has accepted my offer, so I'm giving you the same offer as well. Shit, let's do it like this. I'm gonna hire you guys to move some shit from Mr. Corduroys wreck to my ship, and pay for that. If you are interested in more work, I'll interview and possibly hire you. Howbowdah?"

He takes a relaxed pose on his char but keeps an eye on the patrons.

"Mr. Corduroy. Would you like to add something?"

"The man's fucking legit."  Corduroy tells all of them, "And you all know my ship's toast.  I trust that this man, even if he's a fucking insano, will at least pay me like one.  Might as well, eh?  And I think now's a time to start talking about the forbidden shit."

"There's a reason it's forbidden."  Mr. Tyrolite growls.

"Yeah, and, fuck them for it.  The Last Refuge makes a lot of shit thanks to the stuff we grab even if Fleet doesn't like it.  How many times they say 'thanks' and then slap us on the wrist?  Fuck that." Mr. Corduroy looks all around, "I say it's time we unionize, boys."

"Oh you heard the man..." Even though Arkady doesn't really know what they're talking about.
"You get on board with me and you gonna get some interesting times ahead... Involving a decent amount of cash, Blyat! It's not gonna be easy tough, And certainly not safe, but with me you guys gonna go places the wrist slappin' motherfuckers ain't wanna let you go..."

He removes his hood and reveals his twilight caste sign, shining bright in the dim lit room.

"We gon' make history gentlemen, together! HA HA! SCIENCE SUKA'S!"

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK me"

Mr. Tyrolite's voice breaks the room, stifling any cheers or nods or roars.  Everyone just looks at him, like a man who'd just found out he'd been hitting on the evil dictator's daughter.

If a rock could sweat...

"Uhhh..."

"You're fucked now buddy,"  One of the miners near him pats his shoulder.

"Question!" A transporter raises his hand, "Science?  I ain't no scientist, all those motherfuckers are always lyin' and makin' me pissed."

"How much we talking?" Another asks, big and burly, the skull of a Teodozjia hanging from his back.

"Fuck man, he's a Twilight!  Fucker can probably make gold!"

"What use is gold?  What about water?"

"FUCK what about wine?"

"UIHHHHHHHHHHHH..."

"Now now Mr. Tyrolite, Apology accepted. I'm a man who likes to forgive mistakes..."
He gives the elemental a smirk with with his eyes locked on those rubies.
"...once." He adds with weight.

He shifts his legs whilst sitting and addresses the rest of the patchwork posse.

"Some of you might have special talents that might prove useful later, some of you have brawn, and all of you can mine. That's a start. We gonna tap on some of the biggest markets around the refuge. Energy and defence. Once we get the research and manufacturing rollin' we gon' hit big. For that we need resorces, and resource aquisition is your strong suit."

He takes the bottle he took from the bartender and takes a sip, now clearly not hiding his opinion on the drink. "Water? Easy, though recycling it is more efficient."

"Make wine? who the fuck drinks wine? Drink vodka. I'm a solar russian, not Jesus for fucks sake. Besides Vodka Is cheaper and less easy to fuck up."

Mr. Tyrolite shrinks in his chair as much as a several-ton rock elemental can shrink.  It sounds like a rockslide farting.

"Yeah, uh, question.  Fucking defense, eh?"  One of the miners asks, "How the hell do we help with that?  Our ships explode sometimes if we don't change the right ball bearing often enough."

"Manufacturing, Mr. Starbuck," Corduroy tells him.  "We get the raw materials, we get a monopoly on building, isn't that right, Boss Arkady?"

"Fuck vodka!"  The wine guy interrupts, "A bottle of Earth wine's worth five nights with a Neomah, no flesh cost!"

There's a few mutters of assent.

"Uh, sir," A skinny miner holds his hand up timidly, "You're talking about making a new scav fleet, right?  What would Spiderweb think about that?"

"Exactly. Thank you Mr. Corduroy. Research, development, manufacturing. The pilots and soldiers will do the proper fighting, we are gonna give them better tech to do their job, and pull some buck outta it."

He stands up and looks in the direction of the apparent Sommelier
"And If I could make wine, It wouldn't be earth wine now would it, fuck wit?"
He spreads his arms in an asking gesture and the sits back down, pondering for the next question.

"Not a new scav fleet, just a research vessel. We're gonna make the more dangerous runs with her fleet. She used to be, and kinda still is my boss. We sure as hell are gonna need her help at some point, but we are trying to avoid combat as well as we can, and we're probably gonna be one of Spiderweb's biggest clients. Still gotta talk out the details with her. She made me captain of the Bogatyr after all.

Main point being, we're goin' for something bigger than scavving and selling the loot. We're gonna create shit that's gonna change history!"
Arkady corrects.

"And it's gonna snowball from there. We gonna aquire resources to create tools for gathering more resources."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:54, Wed 24 Oct 2018.

"But it could be good wine,"  Sommelier says lamely.

"Used to be?  And still is?  Fuck man,"  A transporter shakes his head, "Most of us got ships.  That mean if we sign on we gotta get rid of our old ships?  Or that our ships become yours?  I worked real hard on my baby and I don't wanna get rid of it."

"I got an engineer on my boat.  A Circuit Elemental.  We get bonuses for bringing in useful people?"  Another miner asks, "He's good at jury-rigging shit.  Has kept my drill and asteroid-tractor in good order."

"Wow wow wow... Hold the fuck on. I don't have the intent, or resources to start a new fleet. Yet. I'm hiring individuals with talents and skills that are useful in the field I'm working." Arkady loosens his hoodie. "A union is a good idea to get proper working conditions for ya miners. After that shit is established and I've got my shit runnin' we can start talking about a fleet. for that shit I'd need a ship classed as a cruiser though. as a flagship and mothership, but I really haven't planned that far." Arkady shakes his head. This gives him a headache. "Those who are interested in Working on My ship, give me a form in writing or some shit. if you can't read and write English, you're straight out, Blyat..." He looks at cordory with hopes of him disarming the situation. This is getting out of hand a bit, and not in the way he likes it.

Corduroy steps up.

"Hey, guys, chill out.  This is just for some basic scutwork right now, we're gonna run you through the basic shit and then we'll go from there.  Work hard on the tech and equipment transfers and impress us and maybe you'll get a better berth, hey?  Anyone with their own working ship they don't want to cannibalize up come back another time, we'll remember you for later and give you better deals, we just ain't prepared for that."

"Fine."  Mr. Tyrolite stands up and looks at Arkady, "... Sorry, Mr. Dragomirov.  I'm good at moving shit.  And I can stand under hard vac.  We good?"

"Thank you." Arkady sighs and gives Corduroy a thankful nod.
He looks at the hulking elemental who somehow seemed a lot less threatening now than before.

"Yeah man, We good. Actually If you're not too busy, we could use your help in unloading Mr. Corduroys stuff to my ship. You in?"

He stands up and walks to Mr. Tyrolite, extending his hand in a handshake.

"I really can't blame ya'all for being cautious. I bet a miner's life isn't a piece of cake, neither is a scav's life, That's why I came down 'ere. Diamonds are created in shitty conditions and high pressure, or some shit the better folks say blyat."

He glances at the others and gives a meaningful glare.

"And donchu people think I'm one of them better folks. Shit. I've been a solar for less than a month, Before that I was an engie on Paddy wagon. Lost one arm on earth as a kid, and the other one involved engine solvent and a fucked airlock..." after a second of silence, a grin creeps up on his face, and he concludes "Shit. If nothing I'm now privileged to get an even worse ass kicking now that them ghostly shit's don't need to pull their punches. I can't promise that there will be no danger from the dead... But I can assure that when I'm doing my job, we'll have the bigger guns."

"I'm here for it."  He shakes Arkady's hand, unwilling to put too much pressure on it- even though Arkady's could probably match his grip strength. "Yeah, I'm in.  We good.  I got a heavy tug.  Can load up a lot through there.  I haul whole asteroids in for Pandora Bay."

The other miners murmur.  A few start getting up and checking their equipment, while the others start checking datapads.

((Go ahead and make a retroactive Inspiration roll.  The higher the better.  50+ gets the whole bar plus a little extra bonus.))

((Inspire roll: 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2 & 2
Clarity in openness: +10 inspire
22 + 15 + 10= 47))

Most of the bar gets up and tries to somehow ingratiate themselves to the solar.  A few don't, though; one of them picks up his phone and starts muttering something on it, staring at Arkady the whole time.

Eh, but hey.  He has a crew now, and they're willing to move some things around.  Corduroy starts taking their names and mentioning little asides about them to Arkady- this one's a bit of a troublemaker; that one's got a nose for finding asteroid fields; that one isn't respected by anyone with half a brain, and so on.

Hey.  A crew's a crew, right?  Even if they're as motley a bunch as Arkady's ever seen, and he's seen some seriously motley crews.

"Alright, get to work,"  Mr. Tyrolite rumbles at a bunch, "You, you, and you- time to get moving stuff from Corduroy's ship!  Where's the Bogatyr anyway, boss?"

((Awareness: 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 1 & 1
Flowed 41+10=51 to find out what he's saying.))

"It's at the bay where the scav ships dock for maintenance." Arkady answers briefly and waves his hand in the direction he thinks the ship is in.
His attention however is somewhere else. There is something shady going on with that phone talking fella, starting from the fact he has a phone.

He focuses and tries to filter his speech from the crowd, usin his lip movement as a reference. A method of simultanious lipreading and eavesdropping.

"Exalt recruiting... yeah... no?... could be worth... mmm.  Mmmhmm.  Tell.  Watching."  The man on the phone responds, still keeping his eyes glued on Arkady.  "Mmmhmm.  Mmm. Bye."

The man hangs up and puts away his phone, following the others out as they move to empty Corduroy's ship.  Or perhaps just to leave the bar.

He goes with the rest of the crew.
He nudges Corduroy and points a thumb behind him towards the shady fella.

"Hey. you know that guy? He looked me funny. Talked shit on the phone."

He keeps walking with others towards the bay, listening the chatter of others on the side.

"Him?"  Corduroy drops his voice low, "Short hair, was on a phone?  Yeah... he's Kevin, and he's a Contact." Corduroy shakes his head, "Lotta people trade information around here.  Maybe to Ombra Agency, that's a growing group.  Maybe to a buncha people in the Senate.  Or to the Sidereals, or the Demons, or some people in the Machinae guild.  Even a bunch of them are just plain journalists.  Sounds to me like he thinks you're worth someone's attention."

"Well shit. Seems like I'm gonna get famous... Let's see what kinda famous." Arkady strokes his chin.
"Let's see what we can do with your hulk and slam the good stuff on my ship... And see no-one pockets anything. That kinda shit wasn't unusual on paddy wagon." Arkady smiles faintly.
"Once that's done, we can see the crew to get their stuff on board and settled down. That tub is prolly gonna be the new home for the most of 'em from now on. Better make it comfy."

"Why the hell ain't you already famous?  I feel like all the Exalts are.  Big Tits Infernal, Drop the Bass Infernal, Lucifer, that one Nightmare Quiet Girl, you know?  Nothing about you."  He remarks, "Even the new guys usually get news reports, so yeah, better buckle up boss..."

Corduroy follows alongside him.

"Mercury-class, right?  Those things have almost no armor.  Good thing is I learned something from an old water tanker guy before he bit it.  He called it barnacling.  I mean, the idea is, radiation ain't hard to shield from if you got a good thaumaturgist nowadays, right?  And your armor's shit anyway.  Aerodynamics don't mean much neither.  Why not grow outside the ship?  Bolt on new shit to the side of your transport.  It'll look like a tumor but hey."

"Well, The shit I've done is either classified or just not interesting. I mean, Who up there really gives a fuck about the scav fleet? Most of the folk are either not interested or don't believe that shit." Arkady spits on the floor as they walk.

"Yeah, Mercury class." He fills in. "Bolting shit on the outside is always an option, but we gotta do it right. We used to have a pretty fucking good gunsmith-tinkerer on board PW," He taps his pistol in its pouch "but his little shop wasn't secured on the hull too tight."

"Besides, Bolting shit on the hull in a controlled manner allows growth. Imma turn that tub into a cruiser one day blyat!"

He keeps on walking, checking out his surrounding in the meanwhile. The mention of public interest made him wonder if actually anyone would recognize him from anywhere. The idea amused him somewhat.

"Well, could consider it ablative armor,"  Corduroy chuckles darkly, "Fuck, man.  I never served on the Paddy Wagon but I sold, uh, stuff to a buddy on there.  Was it as bad as they say?" 

If anyone recognizes him, nobody gives it away.  The crowd of men follow Mr. Tyrolite down the hallway, for all the world looking like a big gang.  Which, well, maybe they actually were.

"Could take apart my ship,"  Corduroy offers.  "Bolt on the bulkheads to the outside.  Armor up the Bogatyr a bit more than normal.  In for a penny in for a pound, right?"

"sounds like a plan. Time to get to work then I guess. We can take some tools off the workshop and there should be some basic tools in the ship."

It takes them a few hours to transfer everything from Corduroy's ship to his.  Corduroy even has to take over a tug to bring his ship closer to the Bogatyr so they can potentially scrap it; he leaves Arkady for now to oversee that aspect of the transfer.

Arkady takes a few of the specialty tools from Corduroy's ship and has them transferred to his workshop in Pandora Bay.  He's there for a few hours, tinkering, when his motion sensors go off.  Someone has come down his little stretch of hallway.  That's not exactly abnormal- there are a few per hour- but the sensors are recording a half dozen people, which is a lot odder.

There's an actual no-fuck knock on his makeshift door.  Dainty and short, a rap-rap of someone who wants to be noticed but doesn't want to hurt their hand doing so.

Arkady quits his tinkering and shouts at the door in a firm manner

"Who is it!?! I'm busy so this better be important blyat."

He walks closer to the door and opens it a bit to face whoever is on the other side but stays behind the door mostly. He certainly wasn't expecting company and he thouught Corduroy would have made more noise, hence the caution.

"Quite important, I'd hope,"  The voice says from behind the door- amused, prideful, refined.

Arkady's seen pictures of Shun Xiao before.  Glamorous and terrifying, the hyperintelligent infernal has had a poor reputation in the Last Refuge's science community, but few can doubt that she's a bona-fide genius.  The mercurial Exalt has a polite smile on her face which looks as alien as a blush on a shark.

"I'm here to meet a fellow Exalt, and hopeful fellow researcher."

The others behind her are a half-dozen men and women in labcoats, looking as quiet and serious as possible.

Arkady scans her from head to toe, as he usually does with persons of interest. He opens the door a tad bit more to reveal himself in his scruffy entirety.

"Well you got lucky, you found both. Though I believe because It is you off all people, luck had nothing to do with it. I feel almost honored to earn your attention."

He grabs a rag and wipes his hands on it.

"Soo... Somehow I have the impression this isn't strictly a social visit..." he nods towards the crowd behind her. "Quite an entourage."

"Students."  She says with a slight roll of the eyes, though he doesn't miss the smile of recognition she gave him- happy at the flattery, it seems. "They're always following me around, hoping to glean a little bit of information.  Don't pay them too much mind.

But you're correct.  I'd heard a new Twilight had been Exalted recently but before I could even sound you out you were swept up on some sort of secret mission!  Honestly, it was a bit upsetting, but that's nobody's fault but my own.  Ah.  I'm sure you know who I am, but- I'm Professor Shun Xiao, Chosen of Qaf and Kimbery, head of the Motonics Institute and the School of Infinite Space."

She reaches her hand out to shake his.

Arkady answers the handshake firmly, looking her in the eyes.

"Arkady Dragomirov. Chosen of the unconquered sun and Captain of the research vessel Bogatyr."

Ignoring her modest inquiry regarding the secret mission he looks back at his messy shop, tools and technical drawings all over. He even started browsing some of the books he found laying around.

"I'd offer you a drink, but none of them would be to your taste I think. Blyat, even I can barely stand them and I have like... Like really low standards when it comes to booze." He chuckles slightly.

"Oh, I don't drink.  Water's fine for me."  She says as she looks around, raising an eyebrow at the junk strewn around the room.  "... I take it you've just taken over this bay?  Some of this looks like it's been here for years.  Portlesby?"

"Ma'am?"  One of her students chimes in.

"Do look up the records for this room?  I doubt they've been properly registered, but one never knows."

"Yes ma'am!"

"Anyhow, Mr. Dragomirov, a research vessel?  I've given it thought in the past but never had the courage to try.  Too vulnerable for my tastes!  But it has some advantages.  What do you intend to study?"

Making a mention of the workshop's legitimacy made Arkady feel slight unease. Of course it would be checked by a board of people under Shun Xiao's thumb. She was making a move after all. Nice...

"I'm working on alternate energy sources and it's applications. Less theory based and more applied science. A research vessel allows to conduct experiments that would be... Too hazardous to conduct aboard the refuge."

He glances over her students and adds.

"If you gonna start pickin' around, don't make a mess. And whatever you do..." He points at the shield generator that is now surrounded with some marking tape "...Don't touch that. Seriously, don't."

"Alternate energy sources done on an experimental rather than a theoretical basis?"  She glances at Arkady's arms as a subtle point, "Yesss, perhaps a research vessel would be best.  And don't worry.  None of them will touch anything without your consent."

One of them was most certainly peering over the shield generator, though he was definitely paying attention to the tape.

"Of course, everything devolves to motonics anyway." She waves an elegant hand, "Essence essence essence, the building block of energy, the thread that ties the spiritual and physical!  I take it you refer to the different type of motonics, and not the long-mistaken thought that a mote could be split?"

He looks at his hands to see if there were something to attract her attention, like a stain or such until he realizes her point "Oh! Neither were lost in a research related accident."

"Actually, more for the latter. I was thinking more of a source that doesn't need replenishment and once initiated it procures enough energy to self sustain with excess. A paradoxal engine. I would explain how but I think it might induce psychosis to your students since... well... It's not supposed to work at all. Also I really can't explain it. It's... Intuitive. The very first step was a makeshift Abyssal/Infernal/Solar Hybrid-essence engine with two types of essence co-feeding one another, and the third acting as a kick start, with an enormous momentary energy output, far exceeding their sum." his un-modestly dismissed enthusiasm is mixed with a bit of mania as he explains.

"The research vessel of course is also present for eventual military testing. I mean, Name a single energy related invention that didn't gain attention as a possible military application? Even nukes were bombs a decade before the tech was used in a power plant. I don't dismiss the importance of theoretical research, but it all boils down to experimentation, the point when a theory stops being just a theory."

His caste sign glowing slightly as a surge of inspiration takes hold of him, after a moment he calms down a bit and regains his focus.

"Speaking of cannons... Now now students. If there is something you'd like to ask from a Solar Twilight, now's the chance. I've got some work to do with a potential to go boom boom for a very important client, so... Davai blyat!"

"You'd be surprised.  They're students, Mr. Dragomirov, by any normal person's standards they're already psychotic!"  She sits and listens, giving him a brittle smile as he explains. "So you're hoping to harness Abyssal essence.  That's a very gutsy maneuver, especially since we don't have easy access to a source.  The easiest way, of course, would be to capture a young Neverborn and bottle him up with a Solar-Infernal magnetosphere, it's possible motonically, but with the risk that eventually the Neverborn WILL grow older and more powerful, until it can no longer be contained.  Have you considered an easier, less powerful, but more abundant form of energy as a kickstarter?  Perhaps you should speak with the Dragon-Blooded, then."

"Nuclear weaposn required decades of research before the first experiment on Los Alamos,"  One of her student points out.  Shun Xiao immediately shoots him a venomous look.

"That was very rude.  Please apologize to Mr. Dragomirov."

"I am sorry, Mr. Dragomirov!"

"Very good.  Anyhow, Mr. Dragomirov- if I may now call you Arkady?- I'd like to invite you to dinner."

"Hmm... Interesting thought. I wasn't planning on using abyssal essence in the future anyways. That'd be way too risky. Like yeah I'm prepared for a reactor meltdown size scenario but not an extinction level accident. I'm smarter than that, tho I probably don't look like it. I know at least one dragon blood so I might ask him for... A donation."

As the student throws his crack-wise remark, Arkady's eyes lock into his instantly. Triggered. He makes an effort to calm himself and spare the poor student an agitatingly detailed lecture on the history of nuclear fission and its applications, he'd read about it in great detail.

He exhales and picks a calmer tone "Apology accepted, though you might want to look up when the first electricity providing reactor was built. A bit of homework for you."

He sweeps his hair back with his hands, regains focus and gives the student a last "Don't you fucking step on my toes, cyka" glare before he sets his eyes back on the infernal lady. "Yeah, Just Arkady is fine."

Invitation to dinner got him a bit baffled for a moment. Nobody had invited him to dinner, or even lunch for a long time... And even then he paid for it. He was running risk scenarios in his head for a split second, and those scenarios were quite a lot more complex than just dumping a bill on him. Well, the only way to find out is...

"A dinner? Sounds good to me! Time and place?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Fri 16 Nov 2018.

"You'll submit that report to myself and to Mr. Arkady Dragomirov.  Sixty pages.  And, on top of that, I expect a three page abstract in proper Cyrillic for the man you've offended."  She chips in with Arkady, keen to pile on the shame on the student. "You're going to need more than one Dragon-Blooded, by the by.  One of each Aspect.  But we can discuss this more later.  There's a place I'm partial to, Taiwanese hot pot, somewhere near the border of the Upper and Lowerdecks.  It's called the Happy Heaven.  Tonight, six hours?  I have a permanent, private booth."

Arkady nods as Shun Xiao gives the poor student his assignment.

"I kind of got the idea I'd need all of the five elemental essences to create a potent enough catalyst." He strokes his chin.

"Happy heaven in six hours. I'll see you there, Miss Shun Xiao."

Being polite was a bit unbecoming of him, but in situations like this there was no harm in it.
The more challenging task was to make himself somewhat representable. Man, he didn't even remember the last time he had to.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:52, Sun 18 Nov 2018.

"Depends on the yin-yang balance, honestly!"  She says cheerily, "I will see you there, Mr. Arkady."


Then she struts out, her students in tow.  For a blissful few moments there's silence, and then there's a message on his PDA signalling that Mr. Corduroy and his scratch work team have finished the first set of transfers.

Arkady closes the door fast. "Is everything still there? Did they take some of my shit?"

Damn it. He didn't pay attention to the students enough. Maybe they took photos.

Well. The photos wouldn't be too conclusive.

He replies the message. "Ok. I'll come by to check."

Six hours is a decent amount of time to him, about a night's sleep, If he felt like sleeping, so he might even have time to clean himself up a bit. Just a bit. Just enough to convey that he gives a fuck about himself really. He couldn't remember if the captain's quarters in his ship had running water yet. Might have to do some plumbing.

He exits his workshop, double checks that the door is locked, and starts walking towards the bay in a leisurely phase.

He doesn't remember a single student actually touching anything, but photos?  Photos are a very real possibility.  Most of the stuff he has sitting around isn't exactly spectacular, but that thing in the center of the floor, well... that might be worth taking a few pictures.

The door is firmly locked and he's on his way to the Bogatyr!  Nothing stops him or otherwise hinders him in any way.

The Bogatyr is (comparatively) old, rickety, and smells like sour milk left out in a forest rain.  The hallways are already cluttered with junk- old machinery, pieces of power tools, scrap.  It looks more like a scrapyard than a ship.  There are a few people clearing out the ship galley, setting up tables and even a few hammocks.  Mr. Corduroy meets him there.

"Sorry it's a bit of a junk pile but I had a lot of junk," He grins awkwardly, "The berth's kinda all fucked so we're gonna have to sleep and eat in the same place for now.  Excepting for you of course, you got your own room!  It even has water!"

"Thank god there's water. I need to freshen up..." He sighs
"We gonna sort this shit out a bit better tomorrow, and get the crew places and berth set up. Make me a list of materials we can't scav or make ourselves and I'll try to figure something out. Also we gotta clean it up properly, from inside and out. Adds to comfort, prevents diseases and keeps the equipment in good order..."

He smiles when he thinks of his tub. It's a piece of shit, yeah, but it's his piece of shit. He's gonna make it fucking epic. he adds with an amused tone:
"Shit man. I gotta look representable this evening. you know, for people to take us seriously. Got invited on a dinner, probably due to a tip by that informant dude. Our workshop got visitors today..."


He turns to Corduroy and his smile widens.
"Pick a wild guess who?"

"Well, it's going to be goin on for days, at least until we can get a smelter working.  Yeah, we need a bunch o things, like a good big-ass crucible.  I figure we're going to be doing scrap collecting, scavving, melting, refining... all sortsa stuff but those big crucibles ain't cheap now."

He nods.

"Shit.  Representable?  Uhhh.  Damn.  Got invited to a dinner, informant dude... shit, Red Queen?"  He hazards, "I don't fucking know."
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:15, Wed 21 Nov 2018.

"Red Queen?. Close but no cigar..."

He exhales and gazes idly at his ship.

"Motherfuckin' Shun Xiao... I'd really wanna skip that dinner ordeal, 'cause it's not really my thing, but I gotta show that we ain't steppin' down in front of her and her fancy academy... She and her entire band of pupils came around earlier to snoop around."

He pulls off his hood and scratches his head... More like shaking his hair nervously.

"Awww.... something doesn't seem like she's up to any good or Healthy co-operation... Still gotta see what kinda hand she plays. Like, the first things she said when she entered was that she'd check if our shop was properly registered or some shit..."

"She's a leader not a follower, but not a good leader."  Corduroy agrees, "Shit man, you stepped into some spikes there.  Well, I mean... here's the thing.  If that shop you found was still registered to someone, big fucking deal.  What's she going to do?  Make you return a bunch of books?  Nah, that can't be why she's looking it up.  Gotta be that machine, man.  She wants to know who built it.

Course.  You could skip it.  I mean, hell.  Who wouldn't?  Not the first time someone like her's been ghosted I bet."

"I know it's that machine. The pupils didn't take anything from the shop, but they might have taken photos. shit. I gotta figure out a way to move it..."

He picks up a bolt from his pocket and feels it whilst in thought, eventually throwing it away in an arc.

"Man fuck it. Gonna go anyways and see what's up. I heard there hasn't been a twilight solar in a while so she might just be genuinely curious too, with a slight malicious intent without a doubt."

He ponders a while and adds:

"The dinner might be a stalling attempt. We need to get that licence figured out before she gets her fingers onto it... I might be a bit paranoid about this shit, but I really have my doubts about her motives. fuck."

He stands up and dusts his clothes.

"If you have any pals or contacts who might know anything useful, a lil help would be appreciated. Imma go freshen up and take a shot of courage... or a bottle. shit."

"Everyone knows you can't trust a demon.  And an Infernal's just a demon with human form, so that's even worse."  Corduroy nods sagely, "Far as contacts go?  I don't run in that great of a circle boss.  You're asking for info that's gonna be one of two things, from one of the students who worships her or one of the heretics that hates her.  I don't think you're gonna get any good idea what until the moment you're sitting across from her."

Mr. Corduroy looks him over, "You want me to see if I can't get you some fancier duds?"

Nods to corduroys insight.

"Thank man, first steps are always the toughest, but we gon' make it."

He looks at his worn out clothes.

"Maybe something, but let's not over do it." He chuckles.

"You shower up boss.  I'm off to check the markets."  Corduroy slaps Arkady's shoulder, "We gonna make you all presentable-like!"

The prospector directs him to his quarters.  The Captain's quarters is near the bridge and is about the size and layout of a very small studio apartment, minus a kitchen. There's a rusted-looking shower in a corner with only a plastic curtain and a small lip that keeps the water in.  This is situated next to the toilet.  There's a single cot and a desk with a decrepit-looking laptop gathering dust.  Above the laptop there's an inscription etched into the wall:

"screw this"

Seems like the previous captain of the Bogatyr had a hard time.

Arkady takes a shower, and actually takes some time washing himself. It's been a while since he actually bothered beyond the bare necessities. A thorough scrub and a soak in cold water later he dries himself.

He sits on the cot and dries his hair, his eyes wandering towards the laptop from time to time.

"Hmm..." Well he had nothing better to do whilst waiting for himself to dry off and waiting for Corduroy to return.

He walks to the computer and picks it up, inspecting it slightly before blowing off the dust.

His eyes wander to the inscription on the wall. It doesn't help quell hiss curiosity.

He opens the lid and and presses the power button. Let's see what the previous owner had in mind.

The laptop whirs angrily, shit, what is this, not even a solid state drive?  It takes a bit to boot up, a weird pre-CORE-OS that Arkady has only dealt with once, LIFEDRIVE.  The computer prompts for a user name and password!

The username is already there:

INGRAM

((9, 9, 6, 4, 2, 1 & 1
clarity in openness +10 learning
HaXX w/ Learning 29+10+25= 64
Float 1-1))

Not a surprise it's password protected.
A bit surprised that the OS is THIS obsolete
Really surprised it seems only password protected.

Usually OS's are made to be at least somewhat intuitive, but this was necessarily not the case, so he tries the most common key combinations to gain access to root and starts shifting through for a bypass.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:54, Tue 27 Nov 2018.

It requires a reboot and a few arcane key combinations but he's in pretty quickly.  It would've taken the old him hours, maybe days.  New him?  There's not much to worry about.  It's like stealing candy from a baby.  He's even able to brute force the password out of the registry:

getup3Zybl0re§getonup@%328anddance!2

Which, well, he might want replacing soon.

Most of the stuff is- wow, ok, that's a LOT of vanilla porn, but nothing particularly uncommon for most personal workstations on transports nowadays.  Damn, INGRAM didn't even bother hiding the folders.  but there's a lot of info on the ship, including detailed logs of ship manufacture, maintenance, etc.

Arkady shuffles through the manufacturing and maintenance logs, mainly spotting unusual stuff and negligence in maintenance or manufacturing. Better check everything noteworthy, not to end up like old Paddy, being broken and shit every single day.

He's gonna polish this piece of shit into a diamond.

He then shifts all worthwhile info onto his PDA for safekeeping. He let's the porn be tho.

He then hits settings and resets the password to:
"N0th1ngT0D0w/Pr3s1d3nt14l%3l3ct10N5-Demon-Horse-Cannon"

While the PDA is loading he checks the time and looks around the cabin.

It looks like INGRAM didn't keep a diary, or at least one Arkady can find on the computer.  But the maintenance logs are very revealing.  Apparently the ship (once called TANTIVE-V) had a brush with the Neverborn forces in the early stages of the conflict a few years back.  It was one of the original run of transports, even.  An Abyssal had shot up the engines and it had never quite been the same.  It's undergone monthly maintenance trying to fix the engine, only to end up with some terrible shit- like explosive leaks, burning oil lines, etc.  In the end the engines of the TANTIVE-V had claimed the lives of a dozen men and women and INGRAM must've just snapped.

Man, it really didn't take him that long to hack that computer.  The logs took up most of his time; he's still got a few hours before the 'date'.  There's not much else in the cabin; which is about fitting.  From what he remembers of the Paddy Wagon the captain had taken great pains to decorate it and furnish it to his liking.  INGRAM took out all of his/her old shit.

Nice decor to his quarters is included in his future plans, but he doesn't have the time or the resources right now.

Besides, It's going to something in the lines of 'Hoarding cool shit and putting it on display" anyways. Intead he puts his mind into figuring out how to repair the engine, on swap it to a better one. That engine damage seemed serious so he'd better inspect it himself.

Tough that might take some time. Better just wait for Corduroy to come back.

After a bit there's a knock on the door.

"Corduroy, sir.  I've got the clothes for you."

The clothes turn out to be a pair of slacks, a button-up long-sleeved white shirt (only slightly stained), a bright red vest, a pair of suspenders, and an almost-matching red tie.  Finding a pair of clothes that match completely is pretty rare nowadays unless you have a lot of cash.  And is that- it is!  A golden star tiepin.

"Sorry sir.  I tried to find you a hammer and sickle and all that, but those are in short order.  I could make you one later if you'd like?  I can also head back out if you don't like this stuff.  1 hour return policy."

"Nah man, you went way over even to get these. I think that this works out."
He takes the clothes off Corduroy's hands and puts them on the bed.
"I'm not really used to these fancy clothes, but sometimes we gotta do things that go over our comfort zone." He chuckles a bit.
A dinner in a restaurant whilst suited up. Tough life.

He starts to change clothes, without really caring that Corduroy is present. It's not like he had too much privacy in his previous occupation either as a crew member. He puts his PDA, Lucky red star, and 1911 on the table next to the computer and resumes dressing up.

"I managed to access INGRAM's, the ships previous owners, computer and found the ship's maintenance and manufacturing log. It's a bit of a bomb, but we can fix most things."

He swipes the screen of his PDA and continues.

"I've sent you a copy of the logs, get some of the tech savvy crew to inspect the things pointed out in the logs and fix whatever small and easy fixes you can. Mostly the necessities such as water, plumbing and power distribution. I want the crew quarters running first. Makes working a lot easier when they can rest well and feel somewhat comfy off hours."

He picks up the PDA, His tie hanging open around his neck and his shirt still open, and shows the screen to Corduroy, pointing at the the logs regarding the engine.

"The one thing I don't want you to touch regarding this log is the engine. I've read the markings on it and It's a fucking bombshell. I'll fix that myself when I get back. I cant risk the crew blowing up the same day I hired them."

He taps Corduroy on the shoulder and resumes dressing up.

"You are a great help Corduroy. We should sit down and drink at some point! You are well on your way to be the first mate on this tub. You are educated and reliable, things i respect in a man. Oh, and just tell me how much these clothes cost. I'll pay you back."

Corduroy takes the PDA and starts reading through them,  "Yeah, most of this is doable.  I mean... yeah we won't touch the engine.  Figured that's more your crap anyway."  He continues to scroll down the display, "Shit, yeah, that's your deal.  And ain't I your First Mate already?  At least chronologically, hah!"  The wizened prospector wheezes, "15 credits for the lot, apparently last guy died in them and they weren't selling."

Arky's fully dressed.  Corduroy looks at him and rubs his chin, "You ain't used to tying a tie... hold on."  He takes the tie off of Arky's neck and starts tying it around himself, then takes it off and hands it to Arky. "There you go.  Perfect full windsor every time."

Arkady attempts to memorize the process. There is a lot going on in his mind, but not one of those things was how to tie a tie. Nobody ever taught him, and later on he didn't see the need in learning it.

"Well technically you are, you got me there, blyat!" Arkady chuckled

"Well lets hope that two people wont die in these clothes. The most likely scenarios are dying out of boredom or embarrassment."

He slips the PDA in his vest pocket and puts the lucky charm in his shirt pocket.
Lastly he picks up his 1911 and brass checks.

"But.. Well... I'd like to be prepared for the last scenario. Not by my charming company necessarily, but this kinda attire attracts the wrong kinda attention. I should be able to make a concealed carry holster rather easily... Just some plastic sheets and some pins..." His thought starts to veer off.

"I don't have that for you, boss." Corduroy laughs back, "I should've known to get it though.  Try picking one up on the way?  There's a lot places who'll sell you the crap and I bet you won't have no trouble making one."  He looks at Arky's arms,  "Hell, any way you can store the gun in them or something?  Like the old-school scifi shit?"

He claps Arky's back.

"You're otherwise all set.  Knock her dead, eh?"

"Well... We'll see who knocks who dead." Arkady replies with a smirk and tucks the 1911 in his trouser pocket somehow. The handle sticks out a bit awkwardly but he has to live with it.

"I can't hide the gun in my arms, but well... my arms are weapons as themselves really. I just don't want to make it too obvious" He taps the side of his head with a cunning expression.

"I'm off. Don't burn the place down while I'm away."

Witha a leisurely wave he leaves for the restaurant.

"Good luck, boss!"

The restaurant is not what he expected, actually.  There's a strange smell of odd meat, weird vegetables, boiling broth, and not-entirely-totally-cleaned floors.  It's appetizing, but only just.  The tables are wide, broad and dingy white, each set with a recessed hot plate and capable of sitting 4 on crappy plastic folding chairs.  It's a mostly open restaurant, with suspicious frozen meats in a freezer and small paper menus at each table.  There are a series of six rooms set along the back- one must be the kitchen.

Arkady is the only non-Chinese person in the restaurant.  One of the waiters walks up to him, face neutral, "She is ready for you,"  He says in excellent English, "Please follow me."

Shun Xiao's room has a slightly smaller table, scaled down for 2 instead of 4.  That allows a closer seat.  The chairs are fine wood, but that's about the only difference otherwise.  Shun is already waiting, looking through her PDA with a bored expression.  The woman has her fur coat on, but also an absolutely gorgeous black silk qipao with roses embroidered on them.

She smiles at him when he enters.  It's an enigmatic smile.  If she's trying for seductive she's failing miserably.  It looks one part relieved, one part guarded.

"Take a seat.  Have you ever had hot pot?" She asks.

"No. I don't think I have ever. At least I can't remember."
He answers her smile and sits down, leaning back on the chair a bit too leisurely, clearly trying to act over his nervousness.
"Doesn't this work in the lines of... Well sort of cooking whilst eating?"

An awkward followup after another. Shit, he feels more at home in a bar fight or at gun point. At least in those situations he knows what the hell he's doing... sort of.

"They'll provide us with a broth, you can pick one here,"  She points at the menu.  "For someone new I'd suggest Taiwanese spicy, low or medium.  Then the menu there has all the different ingredients, you'll place them into the broth once it's boiling.  Then you remove and eat.  It's all you can eat,"  She says, "They grow their own produce here and the meat is... close enough to real, modified wheat gluten.  Don't worry about cost, that's on me today."

The other broth flavors are a Thai coconut, Seafood, Vegetable, Pork, and Rabbit.  The vegetables include a dozen different kinds of greens, a few mushrooms, starches like potatoes and root vegetables, and noodles.  The meats are mostly seitan flavored like the traditional meats, and starchy dumplings.

It seems she likes hot, spicy Taiwanese.

"Usually they're cut so thin it's pretty fast cooking.  But it's sort of ideal for more social situations," She explains, "And it's a bit of a taste from home."

"I think I'll follow your recommendation with the Taiwanese. Maybe medium?" He ponders at the menu. "I know that them Taiwanese can make their food hot as hell, and I really like tasting food. being fine dinin' and all."

"Does trying out a little bit of everything sound like a stupid idea? I don't think It does. There's so many options, And I've never had like... Like almost any of these! Except Pelmeni. I-I mean Dumplings."

He digs back down to the menu, looking for... drinks and appetizers... Obviously.

"Nope.  It's one cost for everything, just order what you want and they'll bring it over to drop in." 

There's no appetizers.  Just, well, a bit list of things to eat.  She presses a button, and a waiter comes into the room.  She speaks to him in rapid-fire Mandarin, then she looks back at him.  "They'll come over with the broth, it'll get to boiling, so pick whatever you want."  She holds up her menu and points at the dumplings, "Some are fish dumplings, some BBQ pork, some a mixture- that one's chicken gizzard-"

She gives the rundown and helps him pick his food.  Then she signals the waiter back to take their orders.

"This isn't exactly fine dining, by the by.  This is, hmm.  Working class food."

"Well... If it's not in a can or from a mess hall, It's closer to fine-dinin' I've ever been, hah!" He chuckles and lays down the menu. "A little bit of everything then!"

The mandarin sounded almost unreal to him, almost like a made up language. It was funny to think China used to be a neighboring country to his own motherland... back when countries existed. It's not like he got to travel a lot when he was a child.

"You've been running the show in the R'n'D department a while, with your own school and all. Not much potent competition in that area?" he said with a relaxed tone whilst fiddling with chopsticks between his metallic fingers. His nervousness drops as he's saying what he wants to say instead of guessing what she want's to hear. Small talk wasn't really his forté, and he got the impression it's not one of Shun Xiao's favorites either.

He appreciated being straight forward instead of all the plotting and manipulation, but he's not sure if the same mentality applies to his company.

Small talk isn't a thing for people who create. It doesn't satisfy the hunger for knowledge, quite the opposite in fact.

"Not really.  They've all been wrong." She says with a smirk, "Or at least not right enough.  I am a Chosen of Qaf, I'll admit there's more than one way to the top of the endless mountain.  It's just they have to prove it." She opens up her jacket a bit and pulls out a pair of metal chopsticks.  "You see, there's a fundamental problem with motonics-"  She jabs it at Arkady for emphasis, "It changes.  Forever and always.  As long as humans exist.  When it stops changing, it becomes the Essence the Abyssals tap.  Static and unchanging.  That is the School of Infinite Space:  the merging of physics and sociology, mechanics and mythology, forever and ever, to the pain and misery of the combinatorics.

But other schools DO exist, and I've worked with them, and tolerated them.  The concept that I'm hostile to all the other schools is propaganda."

Arkady listens closely, memorizing everything as accurately as possible, nodding every now and then.

"Well it is true that science never stops. Just standing still, desperately defending obsolete ideals and ideas just doesn't work with science. It's all about discovery and application.

The second I'd stop and say "This can't be done differently." I'd just halt all my research and become a full time alcoholic." He chuckles a bit. "So I really gotta go off the charts with my stuff. Stuff like: If abyssal essence is essence in a motionless, unchanging state, Can you nudge it to move? Can you change it back by forcing it to move? And the Idea I'm striving for is: Can you Force it to change infinitely and self feed?"

He lays his chopsticks back on the table

"The other schools? I'd like to learn their theories, not forgetting the theories of the School of Infinite Space. Call it benchmarking. I'm not really schooled in theoretics. I just do what I was chosen to do, Create. It's mostly intuitive really."

"There's science and then there's motonics, and there is a separation."  She watches as he puts his chopsticks down. "Oh, sure.  You can TRY that.  But it's not like exciting an electron from the ground state to the second shell and back again.  It's more like dropping an apple into a black hole and asking for it to get coughed back up hole.  But... I'll grant you. I'll grant you.  We've seen antimatter-like results in 25% of our experiments.  The problem with those is that the 'negative energy' phase seems to vary, so we're never sure if we're interacting with a tiny amount of anti-energy or a huge amount, which... can lead to catastrophic results."

She shakes her head.

"Don't worry so much about those theoretical schools.  They were so flawed as to be indefensible!  I can provide you with the documentation.  One, of course, was the Dark Core Theory, that claimed motonics work differently the farther you get from the galaxy's core.  We've been able to disprove that rather efficiently just by continuing to live- by their argument we should be increasing in speed as we run from the Neverborn clusters and Core has reported no such differences.

There's also the Classics, which hew to the good old days before Quantum Mechanics; the Einsteins, who claim the gods do not play dice- better talk to Plentimon about that, he most certainly does, and literally so; then there's a thousand variations of the early Motonic schools.  Before the School of Infinite Space, the belief was that it was Yozi essence that made up everything and the Neverborn are just dead Yozis, but it may in fact be the opposite.  The Yozis are just living Neverborn."

"In 25%? That's one quarter of the experiments? I like those odds. Sounds like you just need proper measuring equipment. Like..."

He strokes his chin and seems to be spacing out. His fingers moving every now and then.

"Something like a Quantum chronometer that measures pico scale changes whilst adjusting to fluctuation caused by distance to celestial objects and our artificial gravity. The chronometer could be calibrated and tuned with Sidereal essence, as they are closely tied with the fabric of time itself. Maybe some solar essence too to retain stability. Then just measure the reaction time with. Solar motes could be used to force the reaction to stability by defining it."

And then he seems to snap out of it.

"But I dunno... That was like literally the first idea that popped into my head."

"Yes, 25%, give or take a few trailing decimal points.  Easy enough for common conversation."

She's quiet when the waiters show up, presenting them with deep tin pots full of broth.  They set them into the inset hot plates on the desk and switch the temp up to high, then leave them alone again.

"We do have excellent measuring equipment, that's the first step to any science!  The problem is the best way to measure Abyssal essence is via injection of any other kind of essence to provoke the anti-reaction.  First time we had a success with the nullification reaction it broke all the equipment.  We tried to get Juno in the process early but talking to Command can be difficult.  As far as Solars go..."

She looks at him intently.

"You have an excellent intuitive grasp of motonic physics.  It's precisely what we've needed for years.  I thought of it years ago but to be blunt most Solars are unwilling to even sit across from me."

"Because you are an Infernal exalt? To be honest even I had my doubts about this meeting, but that had nothing to do with you being a chosen of Qaf, only your notorious reputation of aggression against competition."

He taps the table with his fingers and listens to the broth boiling, not taking his eyes off her's.

"But that's just my genuine lack of trust in really everything. All trust is earned, whether it be a man, a woman, an angel or a demon. Most of my former crewmates were real assholes and misfits, but they earned my trust and I earned theirs. With demons and gods now walking amongst mortals, making their own lives and decisions, makes it really hard to blame all the bad shit in human nature on the devil. Men make their own demons now, Blyat."

"All and all, I'm sitting here out of pure curiosity, because I just can't believe something to be true just because 'someone said so'. I had heard who you are, but I'm here to see who you really are. You get me?"

He waves his finger in the air in an asking gesture, raising one eyebrow in question.

"Really now."  She says after he finishes, "And if I wasn't an Infernal, can you honestly say the same?  the media does a fantastic job of playing up some things about my kind while downplaying some for the Solars and Lunars.  No.  I am aggressive, Arkady, because we NEED aggression.  We don't need to coddle each other.  Hold hands.  Tell each other it's going to be alright.  That the flaws of their plans are not insurmountable, that it can work if you believe it'll work.  The Dead will take us first.

I understand you entirely.  That's half the reason I invited you here.  You're not the only one that needs to get a feeling of who someone really is.  You're fortunate.  You don't have almost a decade's worth of media dragging you down."

"Well... I mean yeah?" Arkady says with a casually honest tone.

"A Solar can as much of an asshole as any Infernal. The bad kind of asshole I mean. And trust is a relative thing anyways, being always tied to a specific topic or type of task... Like, Would I trust Lucifer to back me up on a dangerous mission? Hell yeah. Would I trust him to be my wing man, picking up chicks in an underdeck bar prowl? Fuck no."

He chuckles amused of the idea.

"I'm not really following the media since my own life got a hella lot more interesting lately. Before that I just didn't care for much. I had more important stuff to do. Like staying alive and making sure our ship wouldn't blow up."

"Well at least you are taken seriously enough to raise an opposition. I bet you don't hear the 'ey boyo and Listen up kiddo bullshit. There's like two people I take that from, and one of them is dead."

"Who's the other?"  She asks with what seems genuine interest, "And you'd be surprised.  There's a lot of talk in the R&D departments that ultimately only Core is educated enough to run the laboratories.  Never mind he's stretching his processing power as-is... he was never exactly a physicist.  Apparently he was a doctor or surgeon first, then switched to logistics."

"That would be Spiderweb. She's got enough merit in my eyes to call me whatever she pleases." Arkady answers and let's his eyes wander around the restaurant.

So many details. Mostly unintentional, but still. All the specs of grease, dust on the corners. Scratches of the plastic chairs. It's hard not to wonder what caused all those little marks.

"Uh huh? I think any outside input is healthy for any research to go forward. Sometimes you people get so stuck on their ideas they can't, and sometimes outright refuse to see other options... That's kind of the opposite of invention actually. Hah! Funny."

If hyper-attention is a small bonus for Arkady, then the cognition that comes with it is an even bigger one.  From the way she sits, shifts-  The room is hers.  Only hers, and anyone she allows in.  The somewhat dirty, drab room is a testament to an untold number of times she's eaten there, or allowed others within.  By all evidence she usually eats here alone.

At around this time the waiters sweep in with a cart carrying dozens of vegetables, plates of frozen sliced meat, mounds of dumplings, and another cart of a mysterious collection of sauces.

"That would be stagnation and you're right.  Core doesn't have time for that." She starts selecting plates, mostly the dumplings first and then the vegetables. "See, this is why I'm so excited."  She says to him, "... Dumplings first, they take the longest, the meat will cook in under a minute... anyway, this is why I'm excited.  Yes.  I'm usually right about anything motonics.  Yes.  I'm acidic to my detractors and will flay an argument alive if presented to me.  But I'm excited that there's a Twilight around."

Arkady puts some dumplings down to the boiling broth, according to her insight, and watches the bubbles rise as the dumplings cook.

"And how does a Twilight being around excite you, exactly? Awaiting the moment you are not right, or an argument you can't flay?"

He adds some vegetables to the broth, non-coincidentally the same ones she does.

"Not so much either.  I kind of dread the former, because if I'm totally wrong, then a whole lot of things are going to break in a year or so..."  She quickly notices he's copying her and avoids some of the weirder looking vegetables. "I'm looking forward to something different.  And to someone I can talk to who'll actually understand a word I say." She shakes her head once, "Ok, maybe more than a word, but I think you get my point.  Ever have a really good idea in the middle of the night, spend the rest of the night dreaming about it, but can't tell it to anyone?  It's maddening."

"I do yeah, tho usually I just start working on the idea immediately. One of the boons of actually living in your workshop I suppose. When I can't, I just take a nightcap or ten and wake up in the morning to it..."

He takes a pause, looks around to see if any kitchen staff is around, and takes a sneaky sip off his flask.

"Talking about the idea would work too I think, but I haven't really thought about it. I just work with what I have, you know. Didn't bother talking about that stuff with anyone, probably for the same reason as you, so I kind of get why you're excited."

He chuckles.

"Oh, no, I live in my office.  If I have an idea I can get it started almost immediately.  And I'm even working on a mental recorder to record my dream-states,"  She says, "But it's a pale thing, working on it yourself.  The mind, even expansive ones like ours, does not work best in a vacuum.  Everything must come under the flensing knife of criticism one way or another.  Running it past a superior mind early saves valuable time."

She looks at her hotpot, "Alright, now the protein..." She slides some of the frozen meat into the broth.

Put's in some meat as well, and while at it he pokes the dumplings a bit.
The meat not being actually meat is mind boggling, even if it looks like meat. He's used to paste.

"Well that's true I suppose. And it doesn't only save time, It also saves fingers. Arms even."
He grins a bit and snaps his metal fingers.

"That privilege is pretty rare for us smart types."

He idles again a second watching the broth boil. The spicy smell is intense.

"Mental recorder? Sounds handy, tough dream state recording pointed an immediate issue. You can't really control what you record, just shifting through data afterwards in hopes of finding something usable."

His smile widens at the thought.

"And you might record dreams that you really didn't intend to record. The types you really don't want anyone to know about. Maybe filtering the data by which parts of the brain are active and monitoring brain chemistry?"

"I do record everything but I've hooked up my machine with a particle detector.  Slight motonic bursts correspond to known peaks of brain waves, so I can use that to isolate the exact moments when something interesting crops up.  It saves a lot of time.  I generally refer to it over my morning tea,"  She answers, "But I have archived all the rest, of course.  If I ever go insane, or if I die and my thoughts need mining, they'll be there for anyone to review."

She looks back at his arms.

"You mentioned they weren't lost due to a research accident.  Do you mind if I ask how?"

"Well it's not all that glorious."

He lifts his right arm and shakes it lightly

"This one I lost in a maintenance accident, more specifically a malfunctioning airlock. Didn't really realize it was gone. I was pretty smashed that entire day to be honest."

He lifts his left arm up and gives that one a shake.

"I was forced to leave this one to Lithuania when I was ten. Got a bit of help in removing it by bomb shrapnel. I guess they could have sewn it back on, but we were in a hurry and I couldn't tell which parts were mine and which ones were my mom's, so we just left both there."

He looks at the broth bubbling for a while and raises her head to look Shun Xiao in the eyes with a smile. Clearly to repress other emotions.

"Well shit happens. At least I lived, and these chunks of metal are actually quite handy."

"Who made them?"  She asks.  Now, he could be charitable- usually talking too much about the past traumas on Earth is a hell of a faux pas.  But it's just as likely she's less interested in his personal trauma and more on the arms themselves.  Her face certainly doesn't give it away.  Her eyes are just, hm.  Curious.

"It's not usual for someone your age to be given these.  They're high quality augmetics.  There are soldiers who're still waiting for them."  She looks them over, "And you couldn't have made them yourself."

Arkady's absent gaze turns to a more puzzled, focused expression. He clearly had not really thought of his arms too much.

He takes a pen out of his pocket. Not a regular writing pen however, but a refillable ink pen meant for drawing technical drawings, and starts making notes on a napkin.

"The first one was a regular prosthesis, meant for basic grabbing. The hook kind. The second big upgrade was refitting an early model autonomous prosthetic that was taken from a.. less fortunate member of our crew. That was made by some Finnish guy, Ilari or whatever... The available resources were less than optimal, so it was crude as fuck, but the principle stayed the same."

He keeps writing notes on the paper in cyrillic, an odd number here and there.

"The second accident came later, so I just basically replicated the earlier model as best as I could, focusing less on durability and more on finesse and articulation. These models still worked on conventional batteries, so there was not much actual strength to be had anyways..."

More notes and a surprised expression. He clearly hadn't thought how much work he had put into his metallic booger hooks. Maintaining them was a daily thing, and upgrading them every now and then didn't feel like a project to him.

"So these latest ones were made after my latest mission where my other arm was severely damaged, so I just overhauled them both, and at the same time used them as a field test for my earlier drunken mood idea that rid me of conventional batteries for a good while, so we're going at.. umm...."

He writes a bit more and underlines a number, with a both surprised and smug expression.

"Dragomirov augmented intuitively articulated prosthetic version 12 or something like that. Basically every version since version 4 was entirely by my design. These are the latest prototype."

"The 'Finnish Guy' is Ilari Lievo, a Chosen of Luna and a bit of an inventor- he made some of the first truly reactive cybernetics on the ship.  You might enjoy picking his brain too.  I tried on my end, but he was focused on his medical research, which doesn't interest me as much." 

She takes a look at the napkin, reaching out to take it with little regard as to whether Arkady wanted her to see it or not.  Again, this might be simple rudeness or it may be an indicator that she's not particularly good at social cues.

"I can see from here they're extraordinarily well designed.  I thought it had to be you after you Exalted, but not before.  You have a very rare gift, Arkady."

He smiles for the compliment, tough still a bit irritated at her behavior. She didn't seem like a person who never really had the need for social intricacies.

Partial to a hot pot place is efficient. No need to cook herself.
Eating alone, no need or intent for company. Most likely not because other would not want to have dinner with her, She is kinda hot, but because she wasn't regularly interested in company. Hence undeveloped or diminished social skills. Adding her notion of a Need to be aggressive further solidifies his behavioral analysis. She isn't particularly assholeish on purpose necessarily. She just does things the way she does things.

Not like he was really any better, tho Arkady had his social skills taught to him by fear of getting into a fight over misplaced words.

"Thank you. It's always nice to be complimented, especially by someone of your stature. "

He glances into the pot, hoping not to overcook his food.

She nods at him, "It's safe to go for it,"  She remarks as she pulls out a ladle next to her hot pot and starts pulling out broth and some of the ingredients, "Compliments are a luxury not often afforded to the people who deserve it.  So.  I may need your contact information after this dinner."  She says, picking through her food and picking out a dumpling, "I'm going to put you in contact with a few people.  As an Exalt you could contact them yourself, of course, but there's a difference between being capable of it and knowing they exist.  Some scientists, researchers, the like.  Even if you're working alone, there's a sizable scientific community you'll need to draw on."

"A scientific I can draw on if needed, tough I believe I'm going to receive more calls than I'm going to make."

He ladles some broth, dumplings and veggies in his cup

"I'm going to give my contacts to you anyway. Just don't hand them to complete asshats. I enjoy receiving useful information when sharing mine, and favors which go both ways."

He stirs his broth and picks up a dumpling

"Do they serve alcohol of any kind here?"

"Of course they do.  And I won't be giving out your contact information just yet.  That'll be at your own discretion.  Generally it's... rude... to approach a new scientist first.  Build up your own inner circle first is my suggestion.  Then start entertaining the other scientists.  If you insist I'll forward it to several specific people first."

Which, you know.  Is exactly what she just did today.

"Oh, of course they do.  It depends on how strong you'd like it.  I drink plum wine when I'm feeling nostalgic.  but they do have the standard 'fermented from just about anything' alcohol here, it's called baijiu."

"I could actually try both! I haven't had a proper drink since I got out of sactuary..."
He taps at the flask in his pocket.
"This would be better off as engine solvent..."

"An inner circle is something that I've been building, but outside the scientific community, and among my crew instead. I'm going to spend a lot of time with them, and I need them to trust me as much as I need to trust them. There might even be some hidden talents stowed aboard. Whom did you have in mind?"

He tries the food, starting with the dumplings as they hit closest to home.
It kinda looked like Pelmeni. A Russian dumpling he had as a kid. Momma used to make them.

"Crew, like students, are useful, yes.  But I'm suggesting a more intellectual circle.  After all, why stop at just one?"  She starts picking out her protein and greens.  She knocks on the table twice, calling out "BAIJIU!  Plum wine!"

The dumplings taste like shrimp and fish, though there's a few that he'd swear are pork.  From the menu he knows they're most definitely not.

"I'm not exactly nostalgic today but we'll try some in the spirit of camaraderie.  Anyway.  I wouldn't trust the Gods very much.  There are some very interesting Second Circle demons but they always go to ... strange ... lengths that the Fleet isn't willing to countenance.  You might, however, get along very well with Alveua."

"Alveua?"

He repeats with a curious tone, tapping the table with his fingers in anticipation.

"What makes you believe I'd get along with him? or Is it her? It? Can't really tell by the name."

"She is the Keeper of the Forge of Night.  Second Circle demon.  Queen of insects.  She can hammer people upon the Forge of Night and turn them into useful things- of their own volition, of course.  She's an artisan and experimenter par excellence, though she can be difficult to get along with even at the best of times.  Personally,"  She says as she stirs her food and plucks out a mushroom, "I can't stand the bitch."

"Well that sounds... unorthodox. I've met people who are complete tools but not people being... well... actual tools."

He keeps eating at a stedy phase, adding more to the pot as it empties.

"Now that raises makes me wonder how a demon turning people into tools is more trustworthy than gods?"

"Because she never does it without permission."  She says in response, "The Gods don't think of humanity as anything more than batteries of prayer.  The Demons aren't exactly more beneficent, but there are ancient treaties and bindings they have to follow.  You could argue that new times means new changes, but to tell you the truth the ancient treaties are baked into anything 2nd or 1st circle.  So, in a sense, you can always trust her."

"Have to keep that in mind then. Spasibo."

He looks at the Baiju and the plum wine, trying to smell them and guess what they'll taste like.

"One of the shit sides of being a twilight is the overwhelming, twiching eye for detail. Makes it hard to unwind. That hasn't affected my drinking tho. More with the smoking. I always enjoyed a good drink."

He pours some Baiju for her and fills his own cup, and without much hesitation he raises his glass. He says "Nazdarovie!" and clinks her cup, downing his cupful without hesitation.

The Baijiu smells like engine oil dripped into something starchy.  It kind of reminds him of sake, which he'd been lucky enough to try once... a really, really, really bad sake.  The plum wine, on the other hand, smells like a fruity wine with a bit more of an alcoholic kick and an extra hint of sweetness.  Like honeyed plums slowly baked in bread.

"Kanpai!"  She raises her own glass in salute then drinks, "Next time I'll pour for you, it's bad luck otherwise!" She opens her mouth and fake-gags, "Terrible stuff.  Perhaps you should do better, Arkady.  Maybe make a still-ship.  I think the Last Refuge could use better booze than anything else!"

The baijiu isn't the worst thing he's ever tasted, but she's right, there's room for improvement.  It's at least not as shitty as the engine swill he guzzled earlier.

"A still ship? Pffft. I was planning on making a still for my ship but dedicating an entire ship to make booze sounds kinda... inconvenient. I mean, all the stuff you use to make booze comes from the refuge really."

He looks at his empty glass

"Not sure if it's a good thing, but that Baiju Isn't as shitty as the stuff I'm used to. I should distill the stuff and at some lemon juice... Might actually start up a distillery some day, but I couldn't run it myself... There wouldn't be much to sell afterwards."

"Inconvenient but possibly popular,"  She fights back a slur, "And sure, but there's a lot of water transports... tons of them mining asteroids and other stellar bodies for water.  Plenty of strange organic components that can provide quite the kick!" 

Man, is she that much of a lightweight?

"I guess I'll do it then!"

"Well dont forget to slam a proper bar in it then!" He chuckles, still looking at his empty glass. Longingly.

He doesn't recall having such lightweight drinking company like... ever. Who gets drunk after one shot?!

"Lets get the next round going! Your pour, for good luck!"

But well, lets roll with it. People tend to show their true colors when drunk. Or is this just a bluff?

Shun Xiao remembers her duty and reaches over with the drink, pouring him a measure of the plum wine instead.  This is far sweeter, delicious, a welcome change of pace from the baijiu.  He can tell just from the scent of the booze.

"Next round it is!  Here, this is plum wine." She then puts her glass close to his, passing him the bottle so he can pour for her. "This is- is much more mellow.  Delicious.  Good for quiet long days listening to sad music.  There are plum trees, here, so we can make more.  Maybe I'll make plum wine."

She lets out a long exhalation before grabbing another dumpling from her pot, "You know what one of the biggest tragedies of Earth was?  The seed vault in Norway or whatever.  Abyssals hit it first..."

He pours for her in return and and clinks her glass when full

"Nazdarovie!" rings again as he takes a good, but a bit careful sip of the cup. The taste was strange to him. It actually had a taste. A sweet taste.

"The seed bank was one of those things that no-one really understood the importance of until it's fucking gone... man... I remember so many delicious things I used to have a s kid. Sure, I think, we could just experient and GMO that shit together, but It wouldn't be the same."

He gives a small stare at his halved glass.

"I could replace water in my diet entirely with this."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:50, Wed 13 Feb 2019.

"Kanpai!  You probably could,"  She admits, "If only because somehow your blood must be half ETOH at this point anyway... how in the name of the hells can you drink that much?

I remembered hearing about the seed vault while we were taking off... apparently the whole place was rigged up to blow without anyone knowing.  Someone said an Exalt died trying to get them, too."  She blows on her dumpling, "We could.  But I'm not a geneticist.  Neither are you, I think.  Know what scares me?  Geneticists.  Imagine the first Exalted geneticist to pop up.  Tentacles everywhere, oversized humans with tiny genitalia, pauldrons..."

Arkady cringes at the thought. "Well that's a good point..." and takes another rather big gulp out of his cup.

"You may consider me an athlete, but life long training in drinking alcohol. Some even call me a professional drinker."

He picks some of the less weird greens and continues with his dish, adding more thing to the broth as he goes on.

"So, I've been scratching the surface of my future plans, so how about you? Whatcha doing now, besides besides trying not to trip on aspiring young scientists at your feet." His tone is certainly amused. "That visit to my shop was like a field trip."

"It was a field trip.  It's good for them to understand some things.  Most of them are- ooh-"  She takes another long sip of her drink punctuated with a morsel from her broth- "Most of them are little better than lab techs you see.  Some are quite smart, yes, in an academic sense.  When I heard that an honest-to-Qaf Twilight was in Pandora Bay, well... it felt like a good time to kill a few birds with one stone.  I'm not going to call what goes on in Pandora Bay science.  It's more tinkering, or weird engineering.  But it's a point to make to them.
 Pandora Bay's what they can expect if they decide to get a bit too uppity.  Do you honestly think for a minute that any of the ones I brought into your workshop could hack it there?  Most grad students are hot-house flowers.  They thrive in controlled environments, and must be tended to by skilled gardeners."

"Well you might have a point, some of the coolest shit is not done by scientists. Mainly because scientists usually know what to expect and work towards that end I suppose."

He rolls his eyes and takes another long swig of plum wine

"I personally enjoy happy accidents. Cool shit happens then. And if any of your students could make it there? Maybe. I don't recall know them, but seemed to lack that adventurous spirit and a will to take risks."

An

"A good scientist can base off of first principles or forge alone.  Inductive, deductive- they should be able to handle it from any direction, and most of my students-"  She takes a looooong swig of her drink- "... are not."

"They didn't take risks because I don't want them to take risks.  I saw that machine in your lab.  I saw the blood spatter.  There's a good rule of thumb in one of the labs I own... 'don't touch anything but a mop if you see blood on the floor'.  Happened to one student I had, good kid, his name was Charlie."

She takes another long drink and closes her eyes.

"Poor kid.  He was trying to develop ansible-phones, direct conversations across lightyears through quantum-entangled machinery.  We've got something similar powered by some specific essence but nothing more... technological.  His brains were similar to cooked egg by the time he dropped the phone."

"Well shit. Smart kid that had an idea, but I mean if a microwave oven cant hold that amount of energy without spillage, how the fuck did he think that a phone could contain it? I mean, yeah we tinkerers come up with crazy shit but hey, some fucking common sense man..."

He empties his cup and places it neatly on the table.

"Not supposed to talk shit about the dead tho, or they'll come and haunt us. Besides, his death did prove that the idea was flawed. Just like that blood splatter on my workshop floor proved that idea to be flawed."

He apparently kept his eating up to par with his drinking, realizing how little he had left. He drops the last of his meat, veggies and dumplings to the broth to boil.

"Funny to think that some of your scientists could actually cut in the scav biz. The scavs need tech savvy people, and the scientists apparently could use  a... new perspective. How do you come by you prospects? Do they apply or do you go talent hunting?"

"He had a rather ingenious little insulator.  I mean, it would have worked if he'd paid less attention to the physics, more attention to the chemistry."  She leans over to fill up Arkady's cup again with her plum wine, "A battery leakage, you see, caused a catastrophic reaction with his insulator.  He'd accounted for a bad battery leakage, of course, in which case he had it designed to muffle any explosives or radiation, but the leak caused a focusing effect.  Instant stream of gamma particles right to the cerebellum.

In the end we're still not sure if the whole idea is flawed or not.  We haven't found a suitable insulator."

She shakes her head, "Most of them are applications.  Some are through the school systems on the Upperdecks, their daddies and mommies want them to become big smart scientists, oh no, beware the underdecks!  I do take a bit of pleasure of breaking them from that, I'll admit.  We do have some of the underdecks types, the kind you'd more likely enjoy, and they're almost as bad.  Just like theory is no substitute for experience, street smarts generally won't let you isolate stray Solar motes.  Give me some from the lower-middle, any day!  But I don't have *time* to talent hunt.  I just take what I can get.  It drives me, frankly, insane."

"Well, yeah I kinda get that talent hunting part being a pain in the ass. even I don't do that actively. I just pay mind to interesting individuals wherever I go, and boy do I go places... not college, but places."

He pours to her in turn and raises his glass once again. He can hold his drink, and he assumed that so could she, Infernal and all.

"Thank you for the food, it was very good. Way spicier than what Mama used to make, and unlike the food I usually have it actually tastes like something. The next question is: How long do we continue drinking, and how much? You get to set the limit as the hostess."

"Whereas... whereas I'm in an office,"  She says, swaying a little bit in her seat, "We can stay here long as you want, you can drink as much as you want, it's on me, but I have a business proposal.  Exchange program,"  She says, holding up her drink in a mutual toast. "I send... one of my hopeless nerds your way, you send me... someone that needs a little book learning."
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:06, Sat 04 May 2019.

Arkady is a bit taken back by this proposal

"An exchange program? Sure I think that can be arranged I suppose. Just please don't send me anyone who can't handle themselves at leas to some degree. In exchange I'll go through the extra effort and find you someone who can actually read and isn't a complete fuckwit."

He chuckles a bit and rolls his eyes

"Phew that is gonna be hard, but with some luck I'll find a diamond in the rough. I'll try to keep my intern... hmm... moderately safe but I won't take responsibility if he splatters they splatter themselves on the floor out of their own stupidity, mind you. Keeping that cellphone story in mind."

He glances at his cup and his eyes wander to the metal hand holding it

"Tough with my track record I really don't afford to say shit like that!"

His laugh is whole hearted. He's done plenty of stupid shit himself and those things had brought him where he is now. Sometimes you just gotta do stupid shit.

"It will be strictly voluntary and they'll have to fill out waivers.  Including informing them that they'll be leaving the Last Refuge and stupid mistakes makes dead students."  She tells him, "I'll screen too for you.  You know the point of this, right.  Make the best scientist we can.  We have to take the longest view.  Everything is an iterative process!" 

She laughs politely, glancing back down at his arms.

"Well, you're not the only one who's had things exploding on them!  I was just fortunate enough that my Exaltation happened before I was given cybernetics.  Or died."

"Of course! The best Scientist we can. I'll think of something relevant to tutor them at."

He downs his glass in a single sweep

"So you've blown shit up too? I'm making a bold shift from peer to peer professional talk to personal chit chat. If someone at your college makes a murmur out of that, we'll just lie that this entire lunch was entirely professional. Of course if you don't want to spill such trivia to a still quite new 'colleague' I find it understandable."

He picks up the bottle and looks at her still filled cup, at the ready to pour more as soon as it empties. He himself feels slightly sauced at this point. Luckily he hasn't got the need to stand up. Still the hot food and alcohol makes him loosen his tie a bit.

"Oh yes.  The Last Refuge's engines, while we were fleeing Earth orbit.  And don't feel so bad, I've already delved into your own background, tit for tat."  She takes the point and takes a longer, deeper swig of her drink, enough to noticeably make a dent in her cup. "My calculations weren't correct, but then again, we still haven't quite nailed those down.  The engines are always a step away from an explosion every day, and that's nobody's fault but the Fae siren sitting in the reactor.  Who knows how much she'll output second to second?  Certainly not my coworker, the bitch."

"Who did you call a bitch now? your coworker or the reactor core? can't really tell much of either." Arkady raises an eyebrow and leans back in his chair

"It's kinda weird to think that if you weren't there fixin' those engines, we wouldn't be having this nice chit-chat. it's a bit admirable really."

"My bitchy and tragically very deceased coworker.  White Arcing Lightning, blessed be her name, is responsible for all things good and noble on the Last Refuge."  She says the last part a bit loudly, with a sort of verbal wink at Arkady.  Yeah, it's never a good idea to badmouth the Fae on board, because who the hell knows what'll happen.

"On the contrary, I made them explode in the first place.  I take responsibility for my failures.  I fixed them back up, of course.  And then I had to have a long talk with our reactor."

"Oh. So that kinda quick fix." Arkady whistles and raises his eyebrows. "Well that went better than expected still. mankind got to live another day. now we just gotta keep it that way."

He checks his cup once and sighs.

"One more for the road and then I should be going I guess. got a lotta shit to do tomorrow too. Trying to get a research vessel going is hella lotta work, and I honestly ain't used to that. Luckily I'm good at figuring out how shit works."

"Yes, I imagine you are.  One more for the road."  She reaches over to fill his cup, then fills hers.  She holds it up, "Ganbei!"  She downs her drink with a fluid motion and then leans back in her chair, "I'll be staying here for a spell.  I will send you further correspondence via email.  It was a pleasure eating with you, Arkady."

Arkady raises his cup in turn "Na Zdorovie!" and empties his cup in a single sweep.

"The pleasure was mutual, Shun Xiao. I'll be waiting for that mail."

He walks towards the door and as he's about to step out, looks over his shoulder and waves once. "Until next time. It may be my treat, depending on if I can ever find a suitable place. Do svidaniya!"

He makes his way towards his ship in a steady pace. That amount of liquor actually kicked harder than he previously thought- Then again, you usually only notice it after you stand up.
Once he's a bit further away, he takes off his tie and opens a few shirt buttons, shoving the tie in his vest pocket.

"Blyat. Who would wear this everyday voluntarily?"

He heads out of the restaurant, undoing the horrible neck-snake that was sure to have strangled him if he kept it any longer.  His phone buzzes once- a sign of a new message.

Actually, scratch that.  A dozen messages.  It looks like Corduroy has been busy.

Apparently he's gone on a hiring spree.  The man has hired another bar's worth of people after taking further looks at the ship and running across some weird shit in the ducts.  'Black acidic gunk', or BAG, pops up a few times.  They've having a devil of a time cleaning it out.

Leans his elbow on a corridor and drives his hand across his face. It's cool, it helps, but it doesn't stop his low growling sigh.

"Aww... fuck me..."

He writes a short text back "I'll be right there." and picks up his pace as much as he can, avoiding contact with really anyone he might pass by as best as he could, as his head was already solving problems he would, and might encounter.

He kinda wants to trust Corduroy's judgement with the crew picks, but still keeps himself on his toes.

By the time he gets back to the Bogatyr he finds it a hive of activity.  Men, women, and gods are dressed in hazmat suits, carrying big bundles of machinery in and out of the airlocks.  He's not at all surprised to find Sanctuary orderlies standing by, ceremonial uzis calmly strapped to their belts, observing the goings-on.

"Welcome back boss," Corduroy tells him, "Sorry, but it was all I could do.  Once I found the BAG it became a 'contact Sanctuary and they'll impound the ship' sorta thing unless I could prove we could clean it out ourselves.  Sanctuary's already pretty busy so they thought why not.  You know how long Sanctuary quarantines last..."

Months, at the least.  They don't take chances.

"So basically we had this guy, Squiggles, he went up in the vents to do some basic duct-work, you know, cleaning out the dead rats and stuff... put a hand on some blank gunk.  Half an hour later he's missing his hand,"  Corduroy explains to him.  "Where'd you get this ship anyway?"

"Aww shit. It's that bad? Sanctuary's not gonna take my ship for fucking sure. Got it from Spiderweb, who prolly privateered it from the dead fleet or just was left behind in the wake of one. I don't know, or really care. The important thing is that it's mine now and I intend to fucking keep it."

He observes the people buzzing in and out and takes a quick glance at the sanctuary orderlies.

"I think we can work this shit out. Either coming up with equipment that can safely detect and extract it, or coming up with a some sort of reagent. Like solvent, kind of. Can we get any samples of that shit?

He rolls his sleeves up to get to work, but halts a bit

"Lemme get outta these fancy clothes and put on my grease gear. This is just a minor problem, so we will solve it. I'll make squiggles a new hand if he still wants to work here after that shit show."

He has no Idea what he's up against, but he'll figure it out.

"I think Squiggles would appreciate that,"  Corduroy says with a sage nod. "This way, boss..."  He leads him away from the Sanctuary orderlies, shooting them a dirty glance as he heads out.  "Can't stand the medtechs, know what I mean?  Anyway after Squiggles did his best Tyr impression we decided to leave the shit alone, it ain't eating through metal, only flesh... probably could use glass vials.  We almost did a bit of scrubbing clean up first outta panic, amazing what lemon juice does... at least you look good, boss.  Hope your meeting went well."

There's plenty of hazmat suits around, though Arky has his own.  Once suited up Arky brings him to the offending duct, which has been completely cordoned off by his men.

"It's up there."

The ducts are pretty large, designed for a full-grown man to be able to get in there and work on the guts of the transport.  Space, after all, gives plenty of opportunities for... space.  Sure enough he sees it, a big puddle of black ooze, stretching off into the black gloom of the duct.

"Yeah honestly the meeting went better than expected. She wasn't immediately hostile, but I gotta send one of our to her academy for an exchange program. She's gonna send one of her's here for the same reason, poor fella."

He kneels in front of the goo, a bit of distance from it and takes a closer look.

"I it only melts flesh, It might either be some necrotic bullshit, or a biological agent. Like flesh eating bacteria or fungus or some shit."

Arky really wishes he smoked a cigarette before putting on his hazmat.

"Is this stuff seen anywhere else than here? Gotta takes some of it to the lab to see what it is under a microscope. I need a vial or a petri dish."

"So we're sending spies to each other," Corduroy says from just outside the duct, "Very polite spies."

He pauses and sucks his teeth.

"I ain't seen it anywhere but the ducts.  Two ducts, this is the worst of it, rest was little drips.  Here you go, boss." He digs into his jacket to produce a small vial with a rubber stopper, a little scuffed and dirty-looking but probably clean.  He hands it up to Arky.

"You own a microscope?  Surprised you ain't made microscope glasses or some kinda shit like that."

Arky has no shortage of tools he can use to scrape this shit up, least of all his fingers; if it's not hurting the ducts it's not hurting his cybernetic arms.  He's easily able to transfer it to a vial and bring it to his 'lab', such as it is; it's still being put together.

((Learning roll, difficulty 40.  Higher results give more insights.  Very high results may give... special insights.))

(( 10, 9, 7, 6, 4, 3 & 1
4 chi yelding to adversity = 8, 8, 6, 3 & 1
3 chi to Clarity in Openness +10 learning
28 + Learning 25 + AB 10 = 63 ))

"I thought the same, though I really don't wanna judge her by her reputation. Still we gonna have an escort for the intern for Their own safety... and not to lef them wander into places I don't want them to."

"I really haven't got much time to make microscope goggles as before this I really have had no use for those. Adding to the list."

Arky Takes the vial and whilst still keeping his Hazzy on he carefully puts some of it on a petri dish. He also puts some of it in smaller vials and mixes them with different kinds of acids and such to determine more about it's composition, like a proper bush chemist. He then scrounges around for something even moderately resembling a microscope, wires a small camera on the eyepiece and connects that to his PDA monitor for easier viewing. With all the knowledge he gained from this he frantically scrounges around the books from pandora bay for any sort of cross reference. His twilight caste sign now glowing bright as he researches in almost a trance like state.

This is a challenge that might help with his endless curiosity, as this was a perfect opportunity to learn something he had little to none prior knowledge before.

Corduroy mercifully shuts the fuck up as Arky gets to work, staying at the door to the room.

It's neutral, edging towards basic, pH 7.0-7.5.  It's also buffered- adding acid won't change the pH much unless he adds a fuckton of it.  That's exactly equivalent to human blood.  The more he looks the more he's certain this is a blood-derivative.  And, once he gets a view of the stuff with a microscope...

He's absolutely certain that blood cells shouldn't have mouths in the center.  Or fine black hairs.  And they certainly shouldn't be alive and swimming in the acid he's just poured in.

Arky snaps out of his concentration for for a moment and looks at his findings, then looks at corduroy.

"Ok, I got good-ish news, bad news and more bad news."

"Good-ish news, It's not acid so it shouldnt hurt the ship. Bad news, It's a biological agent that EATS flesh. Some sort of fucked up blood cells. And the other bad news, Squigles takes a trip to sanctuary, as he's the only one who's touched it."

He ponders for a while for his options.

"We got two options that we're gonna try. First we try to burn it with fire, then essence. Gotta find a dragon blood or a fire elemental for the latter... Actually let's put the first one to the test right now."

He does some more small tinkering, and with some scraps and a blowtorch he tries to make a simple closed circulation incinerator, and throws the sample in.

"Since it's biological, It shouldn't be able to spread without food as things usually don't appear out of nowhere. We gotta nip it in the bud before it becomes an epidemic. Also I wanna know it if can regenerate from a burnt stage, as im pretty fucking sure inhaling this shit as smoke ain't gonna be good for your lungs and might spread it further. Lets cook this bitch."

He then picks up his PDA and starts frantically texting Spiderweb:

"Yoo... Spiderweb. Just one quick question: Where did you actually get this ship from? No biggies really. Just some man eating black goo in the ducks. #CleaningDay"

The incinerator works a treat.  Once he's thrown the sample in it's well and proper cooked to shit.  There's nothing left but ash.  Dead, Living, fire tends to work a treat against every kind of flesh except elementals.

As he frantically texts Spiderweb, Corduroy listens and seems to puzzle it out.  Eventually he clears his throat once Arkady's finished.

"Boss-man, if you're saying this is fucked up blood, what's doing the bleeding?"

He receives a text via inter-fleet ansible a few minutes later.  "Fuck - was originally the Flowerpot, garden/agri vessel - invaded by ghosts / killed crew - we counterboarded - sanitized by Sanctuary - has sat in void hold for a few months - should be clean so secondary infection - wouldnt give you dirty stuff - never heard of MEBG"

"Well the guys call it BAG as in Black Acidic Goo, but it's not actually acidic so I corrected that. Thanks for the Intel. Let's grab some drinks some day, my treat." He sends a reply and puts his PDA on a table.

He lifts his head and looks at Corduroy and lifts an eyebrow.

"What bleeds it? That's a really fucking good point. Gotta check the ship for signs of intrusion. Either something has snuck on board, or Sanctuary fucked up cleaning this ship. Imma throw some shit at them later if that's the case."

He waves Corduroy to exit the room with him and when outside he takes off his Haz helmet and lights a Cigarette-ish thing.

"Tell the guys to gear up with Flamers and hazzies. Fire does the trick. Burn the Goo and do a control check on the contaminated are hourly for six hours." he takes a long drag off his cig.

"Gonna change to my normal work wear and take a quick swig. then we're gonna check the area. If something bled it, we gonna hunt it down."

"Yah, boss, I'm on it."  Corduroy salutes him, "Sanctuary don't fuck up so I say something snuck on.  No reason to pick fights with them, cuz if they fuck up once, nobody ever trusts them again right?  Do you want more than one party?  Cleanup vs hunters?  We got some guys who saw action out there before, but then we got some guys who're no better than kids when they gotta fight."

"Let's split the people into groups. More combat ready go to hunting parties, Less combat ready go to cleanup parties. Ones who are somewhere in between take some guard positions so our quarry doesn't get to sneak off. This would be extra shitty if it got to the refuge. guards near vents and exits."

He starts walking towards his quarters

"Oh. Seal the ship. This li'l shit ain't gonna get away in any other way than in a dust pan. Every squad gets a torch. We also don't know exactly what we're up against, so we gonna do the good ol' sweep and salt like we do with ghosts. We gonna start at the bow and systematically clear towards the stern. The engineering deck has least exit points, so that's where we gonna drive it."

He puts on his regular gear, secures his red star on his hoodie, and brass checks his trusty 1911. His caste sign still glowing, and his eyes have a look Corduroy has not seen before. It's not fury or anger, It's cold, calculated vengeance.

"I've cleared a bataan class practically alone, so this lil fuck chose the WORST fucking ship to fuck around. No one fucks with the Red Star. Get the crew together. Let's do this."

"On it boss."  Corduroy gives him another salute and completely ducks out, shouting out orders.

Within ten minutes the ship is totally locked down.  The Sanctuary troops are shuffled off on the outside so they can work on 'drills'; the last thing he needs, after all, is Sanctuary involvement.  The bags of salt are brought out, flamers dispersed.  There aren't enough flamers but there are a lot of guns and knives and bags of salt.  One enterprising man nicknamed Cubic volunteers up a gel he whips up out of oil and suspended salt crystals, coating anyone's knives who asks.

He ends up with ten combat teams and ten hazard teams.  Combat up front, hazard behind.  Five-man teams.  Most of them look nervous, but he shouldn't feel bad:  part of his combat team includes Corduroy, decked out in heavy leather and wearing the flamer, and Mr. Tyrolite, who doesn't look like that blood is ever going to bother him.

The ducts are the biggest danger.  So that's where Arkady's going to go.

"Ready when you are, boss."

"Itchin to get my hands on some nasty-ass ghosts," Mr. Tyrolite rumbles.

"Alrighty blyat. Brass check, we goin' in."

He draws his pistol and waves the others to follow suite. He's the kinda guy who likes to lead from the front. Makes him look cool.

Also as a Solar exalt he's the least likely to die in an ambush, so that's kinda win-win.

"Adding to the list I need to build: movement detector. I saw one of those in an old movie once. Seems like a good idea in this kinda situations..."

He carefully inches the ducts taking his time with corners by leaning close to the wall opposite to the direction of the turn, so nothing could lash out at him by surprise when making the turn. If you have a gun, keep distance. A good principle.

He's especially careful when passing secondary vents on the floor, walls and up top. If he were a predatory monstrous fuck bucket, That's what he'd use.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what movie you mean,"  Corduroy says with a double nod of his head.

Tyrolite keeps up the rear of the group- a wise place to be in case they somehow get doubled around.  The ductwork, fortunately, is fairly linear.  God bless whoever built these fucking death traps, because they at least decided that if people were gonna die in the damn things it's because they'd have no armor, not because they'd be ambushed by skittering nasties in the ducts.

Sure enough, at the first intersection they see a patch of goo.  Weirdly there's something in it... a circular growth.  Corduroy brings the pilot light up to it and gives it some better illumination.

It's a fist, sticking up out of the goo, clenched.  A big, meaty fist, the size of a ham, fingers the size of sausages, each ending with a long claw-like fingernail.  They'd all seen hands like that before, but never jet-black and covered with writhing black veins.

"Looks like a blood-ape fist," One of his men declares.

And it is.  But it's not dissolving.  No... it looks like it's growing.

Arkady kneels in front of the puddle to take a quick glance.

"What the fuck is this then, hmmh?!"

He looks back at the others, slightly surprised but curious.

"Hoooly shit, blyat. You seen anything like this before? have you ever heard any reports of the dead corrupting demons? Coz if you haven't this is an entirely new scientific phenomena, and also a literal fuck-ton of problems for us."

He scratches the back of his head in frustration.

"I kinda wanna put that in a can and study it further, but *I also wanna burn that shit and forget it ever existed..."

"..."

"..."

"Fuck it. Let's put it in a can. Burn the rest. Sanctuary are gonna go nuts about this. Maybe even flip us a few coins to support our future scientific discoveries, huh?"

"I ain't never seen this, no,"  Corduroy mutters as he looks at it, "But yeah, boss, fuck-ton of problems sounds about right.  Ya sure you wanna tell Sanctuary?  Because far as I concerned, they see this shit, they hit the hammer down hard and we never get the Bogatyr back."

Mr. Tyrolite has a mason jar.  Wait, why the fuck does the giant rock elemental have a mason jar?!  But he has one and he offers it- slightly dirty- to Arkady.  "Ere you are.  I ain't touchin dat."

One of his other men flinches back, "I think I saw it move!"  It did indeed; two fingers twitched.  One of the veins bulges with what must be a clot of ichor, the clot eventually disappearing up the arm.

"Oh for fucks sake, gimme that." he grabs the jar and tries to catch the hand in the jar, making sure not to expose any of his fleshy parts to the gunk.

"And yeah Mr. Corduroy, better keep this hush hush from the Sanc's. I'm gonna study this a bit to get to the bottom of this. If, or actually when we gotta tell sanc's, we found it in the exterior hull, near the vacuum dock..."

He sighs and tries to slap the hand in.

He pulls the hand into the jar with a loud and viscous *SCHLORP!* that makes just about everyone cringe.  The hand twitches and spasms against the glass, but he's quick to close it up.  It taps one or two more times and then goes silent.

"Boss,"  One killteam calls him over the com, "We found drippings just down the hall from you.  We think there's a big pool.  Brigand Billie almost got a splash in the face, she arright though."

"There's a cistern there for collectin AC water,"  Another voice chips in from the com, "Big circular pan, almost.  Shouldn't be leakin though.  Half the point is to collect accidental water..."

Arkady pushes his com-link against his ear to focus a bit while still eyeing the contents of his jar.

"Horosho, I copy. Burn the smaller pools and keep an eye on the entrances to the cistern. Something in my gut tells me that would be a perfect spawning ground."

He puts down his hand, but hastily pushes the PTT again "Oh and by the way, the black gunk spawns shit, and I'm not sure if our prey is alone anymore so watch your six, Blyat. Burn on sight still applies. I'm heading to the cistern." He cheekily hands the jar back to Mr. Tyrolite and waves the group to follow him. "Technically ya ain't touching that. you're touching the glass... as long as you don't break it, so umm... please don't" .

"Fuck, cistern?  Copy,"  They respond.  He can hear the WHOOSH of flame on the other end of the line.

"Tanks boss,"  Mr. Tyrolite takes the jar back, very careful not to break it.  The giant rock elemental holds it like a gorilla might try to hold an egg.  This is the second time he's seen raw panic on the elemental's face and it probably hasn't gotten too old.

Once they all step away there's a WHOOSH as Corduroy burns out the spot.  By the time he's done there's nothing left but soot and a little bit of glowing metal.  Fire is the great purifier and it purified the shit out of that.  One of his men takes point, holding up a six-shooter like a cowboy.  They reach the edge of the vent and look down.

"No ladder here, Captain.  Not really accessible... I got some rope, we could lower each other down."

"Hol' up just a second, blyat!"

He leans over the edge of the cistern and looks down the vent.

"We got any chem lights or flares? we godda pop some light there before anyone fucking goes down. lets get the rope ready though."

He then turns his arrention to Mr. Tyrolite, slightly amused to see the hulking elemental shivering like a cat in the cold. Sill, he couldnt abuste his crew like this... for much... mainly only to make the point that he's in charge of this sorry bunch.

"Pass the jar down the line Mr. Tyrolite. We don't need the jar here. Pass it to one of the new guys and tell em to haul it to the lab deck. Oh, and cover it up so they don't freak out. OH! and tell them not to fucking break it."

Mr. Tyrolite duly does so, QUITE happily.  The person who takes it shoots him a glare, implying that Mr. Tyrolite is going to have to owe him some shit later for this.

The vent is dark, so it's a good call to drop a chem flare.  Six-Shooter starts pulling out his rope but nods twice, "Good thinking, that's why you're the captain... here." He hands Arkady a pair of flares, "Never enter the mines without one."

Once the flare is dropped he might notice a squirming lake of sludge, with a few little hands sticking up.  Not all of them are Blood-Ape.  Some of them look like organic weapons, others like a elegant slender hands with sharp nails, some spiky things with spines.  All of them writhe and grasp at the flare, trying mindlessly to pick it up.

"God-fucking-damn it. Now our cistern is a cesspool. I fucking knew it."

Arkady's fuming. This is a bigger clusterfuck than he'd anticipated.

"And the worst part is, It's in the air vents. If we light that shit up now, the entire ship is gonna be full of smoke that might be hazardous... We could do a closed burn if we seal the cistern, throw in some incendiaries and then pump in oxygen to stoke the fire and vent the smoke through some filters at a single point. MotherfuckBlyat this is a hassle."

He scratches the back of his head, shuffles his pocket for a "Cigarette" and lights, thinking furiously on how to pull this out.

"Let's isolate this area and clean the other vents. Once they're checked we can turn our mind to this shithole. However, keep your eyes and ears peeled even in the cleared vents since we still haven't found the... whatever the fuck it is that caused this mess.."

"Could evacuate almost everyone off the ship, get into low-atmo gear, light a fire, then vent it,"  Corduroy says, sucking on his teeth.  "Would cost a pretty penny for the oxy but..."  He nods twice, "You're the boss boss."

"Cap'n, you're saying this is new?"  Mr. Tyrolite asks, "Says to me we call in the speshulists.  Cuz if somethings' in here, my experience is, the dead ain't all mindless.  They got a plan or sumfin."

"Nah some ghosts run on autopilot,"  Revolver shoots back at him, "Animal cunnin, sure, but otherwise just sneak-sneak-sneak murder-murder-murder."

"Point is,"  Mr. Tyrolite wonders aloud, "We fix this without figgurin much out.  Then could happen again."

"Now actually Mr Tyrolite here has a fairly good point." He looks at Tyrolite genuinely impressed.

"We still have no fucking idea how or why it got on board in the first place, or what it is, so we gonna change things up a bit."

He pulls a long whiff off his ciggie whilst he thinks.

"Lets go with the containment plan first. Contain the cistern and clear the corridors so we can survey the phenomenon. Evacuate non essentials off the ship, but screen everyone who leaves so we won't spread the contamination. Then we gonna hunt down this little shit, dissect the ever un-living fuck out of it until we know what makes it tick, and why it would be here... Imma start with the hand in the jar while I'm at it."

He turns back to Tyrolite "What speshulists did you have in mind? And If you gonna say Sanctuary, that's going to be an extremely firm Fuck no. They'd impound my ship and box us all for months, so that's my reasoning for the fuck no."

...

"How the actual fuck did it slip Last refuges radar or screening? It should have shown up in the... oh hoh ho Blyat... When it arrived, It was too small to be picked up by the equipment... We are dealing with an infiltrator. The dead learned from the absolute fucking they took during my our last Op."

"Think we're all essenshuls at this point, boss.  This our ship."  Mr. Tyrolite remarks,  "I don't mean the Sanctuary types.  I mean the rarer ones. The Combat Epidemiologists.  There ain't many of them, amirite?  Like six, including one Exalt?  But they won't shut down an entire ship.  They gotta understand stuff."   Mr. Tyrolite taps his forehead, "Just like you, boss.  You got friends in dem I think."

"That's actually pretty smart. Got anyone specific in mind? Like the exalt? Who are they? I wonder If i could just give them a call. Don't really feel all to comfortable leaving this ship to prance around finding people. Shit, phones were invented for this exact reason."

He drags one last puff off his ciggie an proceeds to dump it down the cistern, but he doesn't. He instead puts it out and puts the stump in his pocket.

"Corduroy, see that the plan so far gets executed while I call in the expert. Meanwhile, don't throw anything organic in there. Those were a lotta weird armr sticking outta there, so I at least have doubt that I might be able to replicate DNA. I don't need no murderous clones runnin' around."

He turns back towards Tyrolite

"So how do I get in touch with these experts?"

"Nope.  I know they exist.  I don't know who they are,"  Mr. Tyrolite admits.

"You got it boss," Corduroy tells him, "We'll set up flamers with motion detection too around the cistern.  Anything climbs up it gets roasty-tasty!"  His dependable right-hand man starts to work!

"Uhm.  Well." Mr. Tyrolite mutters, "There be an, um.  Ex of mine..."  The rock elemental has the good grace to look embarrassed, "Here, this is her CORE number...  she gonna find out I still got it and I'm gonna get thumped..."

With that Mr. Tyrolite gives Arkady his ex Amythyst's number.

"Ex's number? Really? You dog!" He bumps the elemental's rocky arm.

"Gonna start with her then. We gonna solve this clusterfuck, blyat. Don't die on your first day. Take this as a test. Stay frosty gents."

He leaves the group and starts making his way towards his quarters, still with his trusty pistol in hand, his other hand ticking the number on his PDA, and calls her. "I hope she picks up."

He leaves his subordinates to do dirty work, but they seem competent enough that he doesn't have to babysit.

Ring, ring, ring.

"Amythyst Artisans, this is Amythyst speaking.  Pure crystals, healing quartzes, and love charms.  How can I help you?"

She sounds bored, like she's reading off of a script.  Her voice sounds like someone speaking into a ringing glass goblet, a beautiful tone underlying her voice.

"Ah shit..." he mutters under his breath, away from the phone. He really isn't into that crystal healing stuff since 99.9% of them are hoaxes, the rest are expensive as hell, and usually you get the same effect with water and Ibuprofen...

"This is Arkady Dragomirov. Captain of The Bogatyr. I head that you were well connected and was advised to contact you. I have a problem that requires and expert and I heard you might know someone who could help me?"

"An expert in what, Mr. Dragomirov?"  She asks, her voice sounding a bit more interested, "If you list me some symptoms I can give you the right referral if my stuff isn't good enough..."

Then after a beat,

"Why does your name sound familiar?  I feel like I've heard of you before."
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:08, Mon 15 July 2019.

"Oh, you hearing my name might be of several reasons, varying from owing money to someone you know, to me being a scientist and an engineer gaining momentum in the Pandora bay. I've done a lot of stuff..."

Oh boy. Someone who He hasn't met knows about him. It kinda felt good, but also worrying since he doesn't know the context in which he has been heard of.

"But back to the subject... Basically it's the kind of stuff that could use and expert on... Hmm... potentially extra-terrestrial epidemics. I can't really tell what's up because I really don't know for sure, and I don't want to spread false information. This even be a job for an exalt. I heard that there might be one who's versed in this area of medical research? Heard of them?"

"... Not many people know about that," She says with some trepidation in her ringing voice, "Less the number of people who also know my number.  I'm a Combat Epidemiologist, which is what your contact was alluding to.  He probably means Ilari but Ilari's pretty busy with a Blackscale infection in the Pits."

Arkady has absolutely no idea where or what the Pits are, or what the hell Blackscale is.

"Has Sanctuary been involved?  If they have you might as well give up now.  If they haven't give me your berthing dock and I'll assess myself."

He pauses for a second. Shit. She's actually smart. He did not see this coming. Also his drunkenness starts to creep towards hangover. What a mess...

"Sanctuary's not involved... Yet... And hopefully they don't have to get involved.

Bogatyr has established a quarantine and the phenomena has been isolated. Initial research on the phenomena indicates a predatory cell growth that replicates and improves previously consumed biological matter. I'll let you read my research report and give you access to an acquired sample of the matter.

 This is a bit time sensitive too, so if you aren't too busy it would be wonderful to have you here as soon as possible. Sending dock address now..."

He sends Bogatyr's coordinates. As soon as this call ends he'll have to give Mr.Tyrolite a warning. That boulder will not be able to hide, so Arky really hopes he can run.

"Alright, I'm listening."  She takes down the coordinates, "I'll be there in... hmm that's close.  Twenty minutes.  Keep it quarantined.  If it starts escaping do NOT contact me or anyone else.  Blow the anchors off the ship and let it float and they'll understand why!  There's an emergency button right by the main airlock, big and red, you can't miss it.  You have my number, keep me posted."

Amythyst hangs up.  She sounds very, scarily driven.  Much more so than when she was talking about healing crystals.  This is her main hustle.

Poor Mr. Tyrolite.  He's gravel.

Arkady stars making his way back to the vents in a steady pace, hurrying a bit to check if the situation had changed. The crew would have called if shit went sideways, but them not calling might also mean that they're all dead.

As he gets back to the vents and the rest of the crew, he takes another cigarette, lights it, ant takes a swig off his canteen. A small fixer upper.

"Alright gents, I have good news and bad news. Good news are that an expert is on her way, and will be here in 15 to 10 minutes. Bad news are that Mr.Tyrolite has about 15 to 10 minutes to evacuate the premises or be pulverized. Sorry mate. I did my best."

Looooong drag off his cigarette.

"Any changes here?"

"They're getting bigger down there," Revolver tells him, "Saw an elbow a few minutes ago.  I think whatever is happenin they're accellr-... accel... gettin faster."

"Eh, at the current rate 15 minutes is no problem,"  Corduroy tells him, squinting down at the opening to the cistern.  "Everyone else is reporting A-OK, boss."

"Oh... boss..."  Mr. Tyrolite looks crestfallen.  "I'm...  I'm hidin in the escape pods!"  He takes off as fast as he can.

"That bad, huh." Corduroy takes a swig of his foul stuff.

Fifteen minutes later, there are biceps in the sea of black and swaying arms.  Some flail, and they see one grip another and tear it to pieces.  Revolver grins at it, and is about to say something stupid like 'One less' until they see the fragments start to bud off.

But it's his cue to meet Amythyst at the door.  Soon enough there's an insistent buzz.

"Keep updated if the squirming gets outta control."

He makes his way in a steady pace towards the door into the vessel, checking how everyone's doing at the checkpoints as he goes.

"Cavalry's here bois."

He closes the airlocks inner door behind him and does a quick check up before opening the outer door. Stating a welcome as the airlock opens to the docks.

"Privet miss Amethyst. Welcome aboard the Research vessel Bogatyr."
He lights up his twilight caste mark to a non-blinding glow, but so that it still showed under his hood.
"I Am Arkady Dragomirov. The Kapitan of this ship."

The gem elemental meets him at the door, equipped with armor, an archaic-looking sword, and a backpack of instruments and equipment.  She's gorgeous in an inhuman way- a tall statue of crystal and deadly power.  Amythyst, however, does look somewhat aback when Arkady flashes his caste symbol.

"A pleasure to meet you, Exalt Dragomirov.  Please call me Amy,"  She extends her free hand to him to, "I'm honored you came to us before Sanctuary, though not surprised.  What's the update on the situation?"  She glances at his cybernetic arms.

Arkady gives her a firm handshake and waves her to enter the ship. He was used to getting glances for the condition of his arms, so he doesn't pay much mind. She will ask if they really boggle her.

"Well... To be honest, sanctuary was always the big red button if we couldn't solve this shit show by ourselves. I walked over a lot of corpses to get this tub ya know. The contagion does succumb to fire, but we still need to know what it is, how it works, and how it got here. I'll brief you on our way to the site."

As they walk the corridors of Bogatyr, Arkady leads Amy directly towards the cistern.

"The contagion's multiplication has accelerated greatly. The situation is still under control, and we have a failsafe to isolate the vents smack the contagion area with fuel-air mix to do an emergency cleanse... I'll take you to the site first. I also have an isolated sample in my lab if you wanna poke it."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:15, Wed 17 July 2019.

"Site first, then the lab.  Labwork is secondary to fieldwork," She says, tapping her sword against crystal legs, which let out a pleasing tone, "Preliminary emergency cleanse, I think you mean.  After the first you do a second or third to get any of the few survivors.  There are always survivors,"  She says grimly.

They reach the duct.  Corduory and Revolver part to let her through.  To Arkady's pride and relief, they've got a pretty nasty system set up- including long wire hooked to their vests and flame thrower triggers.  Deadman switches, if anything takes them, the fire starts up.

She holds up a pair of night-vision goggles and stares down at the black pit.  "Arms... legs... good news and bad news, Captain.  The good news is I have a general idea what's down there.  The bad news is the same thing." She taps her sword against her leg again for emphasis, "These are void demons.  Not very common- corrupted demons.  After the first Void Demon Rebellion a few of them managed to migrate to the outer skin of the Last Refuge.  Then they went into hibernation.  They're the major thing the Voyagers deal with, and the main vector for Neverborn diseases.  You've got a spawning pool down there.  Which means either Sanctuary just plain shoves the ship out into space and then nukes it, or we clean it up the good old fashioned way."

"You gentlemen make me proud."
He remarks to the crew in place.

"Oh we ain't calling sanctuary unless this gets irreversibly out of hand. we gonna do this ourselves. what's the protocol? Smack em?"

"More or less."  Amy taps her sword against her leg in a sort of nervous tic, "First the fire.  But down there- you kinda missed a window of opportunity.  The void demon down there,"  She gestures, "By now it's formed a sort of cyst.  A protective layer.  You could drop a few grenades down there and they'll only tickle it." She looks over at him,

"If you'd jumped in when you first noticed it, you'd have been able to kill it a lot easier.  Not blaming you.  But some food for thought next time.  So we're going to toast it, jump down into the ashes, cut open the cyst, and get at the broodparent within.  If we're lucky there's two or more of them in that cyst making more.  If we're unlucky it's the one who's lived through the mating process.

After that's done we can assess.  Keep a few pieces of the demon intact so we can sympathy-dowse for any other traces on the ship and then we'll probably be OK.  The fact you haven't run into any more makes me hopeful it's localized."

"Yeeeah, we have a pretty well set up perimeter and we've cleansed the other contaminated areas we've located. I'm used to cleanup duty when Spiderweb gets one of his fits, and that part wasnt a lot different. Just different tools..."


He sighs and scratches the back of his head, Dragging a long whiff off his almost done cigarette.

"Well, now it's apparent what it is and how it should have been exterminated in the first place... Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. Endless curiosity and all that. Makes things sometimes more complex than they need to be."

He looks at Corduroy and the other crew with flamers, Dumps his cigarette in the cistern and motions his crew to roll out.

"Let's roll with the lady's plan. Gentlemen. Light it the fuck up."

"No harm, no foul.  You didn't know and you acted decently in all respects."  Amythyst tells him, "Your men look competent and you set up the proper countermeasures.  You probably could've done it at any moment and cleansed it decently."  She puts a hard hand on his cybernetic shoulder and gives it a squeeze, "You should get a job with us, honestly."

"With pleasure, boss!" Corduroy whistles.  Soon there's nothing that can be heard but the roar of fire from seemingly every direction.  The temperature spikes and they hear loud squeals of anger and pain from the pit and the other ducts.  One hand even manages to start dragging itself up into their duct but Revolver directs the fire directly at the half-formed demon, burning it to cinders.

Eventually they're almost all coughing, greasy smoke is everywhere, and the ducts crackle with extra heat.

"I never get tired of that,"  Amythyst observes.

"Aww *cough* Blyat. Filter the ducts! *cough* Let that shit cool down a tad. *cough*"

He wipes his eyes and puts some cloth to cover his mouth.
He checks how everyone else is doing as he pulls out his trusty 1911. It wasn't made for void demons, but it still was a gun, and at a pretty big cartridge at that.

"Yeeeeah. *Cough* I'll put that behind my ear in case my current enterprise goes to shit. *Cough* We should properly exchange business cards once I get mine printed. *cough*"

You can tell from what's visible of his slightly smoke teared face that he's smirking.

"Cyka blyat, I'll add those omni-goggles to my list of shit to build. Ready when you are Amy. Time to smack a bitch up."

Corduroy, Revolver, and several others are doing fine.  Most people are coughing but Corduroy, magnificent bastard he is, has a small mask filter already in place.  He can see the older man grinning behind it.

"Business cards it is,"  Amythyst squeezes his shoulder again, "Just us two, your men should burn anything else that comes out!"  She lifts up her fuck-ass big sword and then jumps down.

"If we die, Burn everything. If that fails, blow the airlock. This shit ain't getting to the refuge."
he tells Corduroy in a serious manner, then takes a beep breath and brass checks his gun.

"Time to fuck shit up, blyat." And slides into the cistern.

Arkady and Amythyst reach the bottom of the scorched cistern.  It's about 3 meters deep, 5 meters wide, a perfect cylinder with eight ducts leading in.  Each one is covered by his men.  There are bones and carbonized flesh crunching under their feet.  In the center of the cistern is a half-dome of some blackened spiralling flesh, looking quite a bit like a leathery wart.

"That'd be it," Amythyst tells him, "Pray their sword-dance isn't done-"

A crack appears on the outside of the cyst.  A noxious smell fills the cistern.  Amy's eyes narrow.  "... We didn't pray hard enough, I think."

A clawed hand punches through, and a moment later the cistern shatters.  The thing looks like a mermaid- if a mermaid was covered in black and oozing sores, had a muscular snake-like tail, and was surrounded by a hundred small fleshy scuttling metal crabs.  And if a mermaid had shark teeth.

"Void demjen!  It's already mated!  It'll keep on spawning!"

((Demjen init:
10, 10, 10, 8, 7, 3 & 2
*Float 0-0-0
*Init 18 + Speed 10 + AB 10 = 33
*Unarmed + Sword

Amythyst init:
9, 8, 7, 7, 1, 1 & 1
*Float 7-7
*Analyze Demjen Conditions with 31
*Sword

Minions Go Last.

Minions will heal 1 Ripple/Round as the Demjen births them.  The Demjen Action Bonus persists while her chalcothetes are active.))

((initR1: 9, 8, 4, 4, 3, 2 & 1
Float 4-4
Init 19+SPD10+AB10= 39 first
Subtle force w/ Unarmed+ranged

AttackR1: 9, 9, 8, 8, 6, 6 & 1
Disrupt dodge w/ awareness 26+10+10=46
Strike 29+15+10=54 better dodged
Force of lightness - 3chi
Secondary strike 28+15+10=53 better dodged))

Arkady puts his weapon back in it's holster. It probably won't be too much use here... He then slams the open palms of his metal arms together, sounding a loud clap and lighting up his arms to a red glow as he takes a relaxed stance.

"Ok Edgelord Ariel, get the fuck off my ship."

He takes a steady step forward and, with open palms, launches two forceful strikes at the creature with his eyes locked to it from under his red hood. The distance is close, reptilian movement patterns are easily predictable, and his strikes true. He always finds an opportune moment.

((Arkady -> Void Demjen -> Amythyst -> Minions

Demjen Defense R1:
9, 8, 6, 5, 5, 3 & 1
*4 Chi:  +10 all stats, takes a Ripple
*Floods 0:  Block, Toughness +5
*Defend vs Strike 25 + Block 20 + AB 10 + IKF 10 - Better Dodged 5 = 60 vs 54, blocks
*Defend vs Secondary Strike 19 + Block 20 + AB 10 + IKF 10 - Better Dodged 5 = 54 vs 53, blocks
*Defend vs Disrupt 18 + Hardiness 15 + AB 10 = 43 vs 46, takes Dodge Disrupt

Void Demjen Attack R1:
9, 8, 6, 6, 5, 3 & 2
*5 Chi:  Poison Attack
*3 Chi:  Area Attack!
*Attack Everyone 26 + Poison 25 + AB 10 = 61, energy attack- automatically Better Dodged
*Special:  Chalcothetes immune! Hmmm

Amythyst Defense vs Poison:
9, 8, 6, 3, 2, 2 & 2
*Defense 32 + Block 15 + AB 5 + IKF 15 - Better Dodged 5 = 62 vs 61, Blocks

Amythyst Attack:
10, 9, 8, 6, 6, 6 & 5
*Strike Chalcothetes 36 + Strike 20 + AB 5 = 61

Chalcothete Defense:
*26 + Block 10 = 36 vs 61, 3 ripples (4 remaining)

Chalcothete Attack:
*24 + Strike 10 = 34 ; regenerates 1 ripple (5 remaining)

Amythyst Defends

Arkady has first init))

The Void Demjen sneers as two chalcothetes jump in the way of Arkady's cybernetic strikes, bouncing off of their slick black carapace and spanging against the side of the cistern.  In exchange it rears back like a cobra and vomits pitch-black acid in a wide swathe.  Amythyst is unphased, spinning her sword to deflect the acid away from her while cutting through the scuttling horrors surrounding them.

((Defence R1: 9, 7, 6, 6, 3, 3 & 3
Defence 33 + 10 + FW15= 58 vs 61, takes ripple

Init R2: 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 2 & 1.
Fob 11+10= 28, +1 chi
Init: 18+10+10= 38
SF w/ unarmed+ranged))

Arkady coughs violently as the poison hits him, even if he thought he could've dodged it. Clearly he's underestimated his opponent a bit. Nevertheless he resumes his realxed stance, trying to recover from the poison.

((Amythyst Init R2:
9, 8, 3, 3, 3, 1 & 1
*Analyze Demjen Style with 33
*Analyze Demjen Style with 21
*Init 19 + Speed 5 + AB 5 = 29

Demjen Init R2:
10, 10, 10, 9, 5, 3 & 2
*Float 0, River stands at 0-0-0
*2 Chi:  Continue IKF technique, takes a Ripple
*Init 19 + Speed 10 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 49
*Unarmed/Sword
*Shaping Wave:  Empower Chalcothetes with 20

Demjen Attack R2:
10, 9, 9, 8, 8, 5 & 1
*Flowed Strike at Arkady 30 + Strike 15 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 65, Better Dodged than Blocked
*Disrupt Arkady Strike 29 + Might 10 + AB 10 = 49
*Disrupt Arkady Dodge 28 + Might 10 + AB 10 = 48

Chalcothetes Go Last))

"We have to focus it down," Amythyst tells Arkady, "It can't handle with getting attacked on two directions!  And try to keep it in place, it needs to move around to be effective!"

((Treat as per Flowing Universe))

The Demjen rears back and hisses, sprouting other chalcothetes from its body as it slithers rapidly towards Arkady.  It slithers around behind him, trying to coil around him and begin the process of crushing him while tearing at him with its talons!

((Defence R2: 10, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2 & 1
Defence against strike: 42 + FW 15 + 10 = 67, Dodged!
Against disrupt dodge: Flowed 34 + awareness 10 + 10 = 54, dodged!
Takes disrupt strike

Attack R2: 9, 8, 7, 6, 6, 4 & 1
Float 6-6
strike demjen: 19+15+10-5= 39))

Arkady's quick wit and powers of observation didn't let him down... much.
He manages to dodge under the coiling Demjen and one of it's claws, still getting his metal arm nicked pretty bed. That's going to need fixing...

"Aww fuck, she's somethin' innit? I'll try to come up with something to nail it down, blyat! Any ideas are welcome tough!"

((Demjen Defense R2:
9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7 & 1
*Defense vs Strike 38 + Block 15 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 73 vs 39, Replies

Amythyst Attack R2:
10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7 & 1
*Quick Work with Flowed 37 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 = 57
*Disorient Hardiness 28 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 = 48
*Disrupt Strike 20 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 = 40

Demjen Defense vs Amythyst:
9, 9, 7, 7, 6, 4 & 2
*Defense vs QW 29 + Hardiness 10 + AB 10 = 49 vs 57, Ripple
*Defense vs Disrupt Strike 27 + Hardiness 10 + AB 10 = 47 vs 40
*Defense vs Disorient Hardiness 16 + Hardiness 10 + AB 10 = 36 vs 48

Chalcothetes Attack EVERYONE:
29 + Strike 10 = 39

Amythyst Defense:
*29 + Block 15 + AB 5 = 49, blocks

Amythyst Init:
10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 1 & 1
*Float 1-1
*Init 18 + Speed 5 + AB 5 = 28

Demjen Init:
10, 10, 9, 8, 5, 4 & 1
*2 Chi:  Continue Technique, now at 4 ripples
*Init 20 + Speed 10 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 50

Chalcothetes Go Last))

Amythyst reaches into a satchel at her belt, flinging a syringe at the void demon as it's busily savaging Arkady.  The demjen's scales turn some of the syringe, but a little bit of whatever's in there has gotten into the demon and it screams shrilly.

"Wait for the right moment and nail it to the wall or let it grab you!"  She calls to Arkady, "Other than that, I have no idea!"

((Def against calcothetes: 6, 6, 6, 2, 2, 2 & 1
36 + fw15 + 10 = 61 vs 39, dodged

Init R3: 9, 9, 7, 5, 5, 4 & 4.
channel 1 chi for +5 craft
Recover disrupt strike: 25 + craft 15 + 10 = 50, Recovers.
init 29 + 10 + 10 = 49
FoB: 24 + 15 + 10 = 49, +2 chi

Init order: Demjen, Arky, Amy, Calchothetes.))

Arkady darts around the scurrying calcothetes, keeping light on his feet and utilizing the walls of the cistern to do quick leaps out of their reach, landing in a relaxed stance to face the Demjen. He slides a small wrench off his toolbelt and gives his nicked arm couple of good bangs and bolt tightening to get the articulated plates to set in place properly.

"Aah shit, I ain't real keen on giving that fuck a big hug.."

He raises his eyes towards the top of the cistern and shouts: "Corduroy! Get me a plasma cutter and a welding pistol! Imma need them!"

((You beautiful bastard, recovering from a disrupt you

Demjen Attack:
10, 8, 6, 4, 4, 3 & 2
*5 Chi:  Poison
*Demjen attack with flowed 30 + Poison 25 + AB 10 = 65, Block is automatically -5
*Disrupt Strike 24 + Might 10 + AB 10 = 44))

"On it boss!"  Corduroy shouts down, "Just a sec, just a sec, lemme get it!"

Arkady may not actually have a second.  The void-demjen's reserves must have regenerated because it rears back again like a cobra, spraying concentrated poison right at Arkady's eyes.  A half-second later it tries to coil around him again to pin his arms!

((Def against Demjen: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 & 1

against strike: flowed 36+15+10= 61 vs 65 / takes ripple.

Against disrupt strike: 21 + learning 15 + 10 = 46 vs 44 / avoided

Attack R3: 10, 7, 7, 6, 3, 2 & 1
Float 7-7
strike Demjen: 16 + 15 + 10 = 41))

Arkady looks at his opponent after getting a reply from Corduroy, but a moment too late. He makes an attempt at dodging the splash of venom but still gets some of it on his eyes. That's however isn't enough to distract him from escaping the coiling Demjen that tries to wrap itself around him, as he predicted it would try, Again, and falls to the ground away from it's coils, prepped for a vertical entanglement. Never use the same trick on The Red Star twice.

"OO SUKA! FUCK! NO! SHIT! MOTHERF-!!!"

As he turns on his back, the continuation of his rant is drowned as he draws his 1911 from his belt and proceeds to unload on the snakey demonic fuckery above him at point blank. Bondage was clearly not one of his kinks.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Sun 25 Aug 2019.

((Demjen Defense:
10, 9, 8, 6, 6, 3 & 3
*Flood 0:  +5 Block/Toughness
*Defense vs Strike 26 + Block 20 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 66 vs 41, Replies:  inflicts a ripple on Arkady

Amythyst Attack:
10, 10, 9, 7, 6, 5 & 1
*Flowed Quick Work with 31 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 = 51
*Disrupt Strike 20 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 = 40

Demjen Defense:
10, 10, 8, 6, 4, 3 & 1
*Defense vs Disrupt 18 + hardiness 10 + AB 10 = 38, it hits!
*Defense vs Quick Work 20 + Hardiness 10 + AB 10 - Disorient 5 = 35 vs 51, a Ripple + Roll

RR:
*19 - 10 = 9, a Trivial:  Clotting Blood!

Chalcothete Attacks Amythyst + Arkady:
*24 + 10 = 34; Amythyst defends with 57

Arkady has first init roll.))


The Demjen twists and presses its attack.  Though it can't manage to pin Arkady, it can swat his gun aside and rake claws against his skin.  If he was a human he'd be in serious pain, but as an Exalt it means very little to him.

This buys Amythyst a bit of breathing room.  She throws a vial at the demon, hitting it between the eyes.  It hisses and chokes, the blood streaming from several minor wounds instantly starting to coagulate once it hits the air.  This isn't a good thing for it- it's obvious the void demon is in serious pain!

The chalcothetes swarm around them ineffectively, Amythyst managing to hold them off with her sword.  And, it's at this moment that Arkady hears 'CATCH' from above him.  It's not Corduroy, no, it's another crewmember from another vent; his right-hand man must've gotten someone else to do it because he couldn't complete the job fast enough.  The plasma cutter and welding pistol are thrown out into his waiting arms!

((Defence against Chalcothetes: 8, 7, 6, 4, 4, 2 & 1
24+FW15+10=49 vs 34 - dodged

Init R4: 8, 6, 5, 5, 4, 2 & 2
*Clarity in openness +10 craft / -2chi, -1 solar chi
*Crafing Wave w/ Lever shifts the world -5 chi. Pin the Demjem to the wall:
*Flood 27 + craft 20 + AB10 = 57 / Only breakable w/ craft.
*FoB: 18 + craft20 + 10 = 48 / +2 chi & sense Chi @ Demjem (Twilight caste aura)
*Init: 25 + 10 + 10 = 45
*analyse styles, fears w/ learning: 22+15+10=47))

"Spasibo brat!!" Arkady shouts as he boosts up the wall to avoid the calcothetes and catches the tools mid air.

"Time to tin this tuna BLYAT!"

As he decends, His caste mark starts to shine brightly and his Twilight aura bursts into flames in all the colors of the spectrum, endless as imagination. His arms reactors emit that ominous red glow as he charges the plasma cutter and makes his strike, but not at the Demjem. At an inhumanely fast, precise and efficient motion he makes several horizontal cuts at the sides of the cistern, that start to glow hot red from the excess heat and absence of cooling.

He then makes precise vertical cuts at the end of each of the latter to peel several steel strips from the wall and as they are still glowing hot, he bends the still hot malleable bars with his metal arms around the Demjem's arms, torso and tail, each end connecting to the wall they were cut from, And with that same sweep he welds the impromptu shackles in place with the welding pistol. Permanently. No craftsman ever has seen welds as pitch perfect as these. even the oxidation colors on the seams are a perfect spectrum.

As his "Burning prison" is completed he leaps away from the Demjem to Amythysts side and blows smoke from his hot tools like a cowboy would from his guns, with a shit eating grin.

"TA-DAH!"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:53, Thu 29 Aug 2019.

((Demjen Init:
9, 8, 6, 6, 4, 4 & 3
*2 Chi: Continue technique, take 1 Ripple (6 ripples)
*Wash River Clean if there's anything in it
*Float 6-6-4
*Init 19 + Speed 10 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 49
*Unarmed/Sword

Amythyst Init:
7, 5, 5, 3, 2, 2 & 1
*Float 5-5
*Analyze Medical Condition 22 + Medicine 10 + AB 5 = 37
*Init 22 + Speed 5 + AB 5 = 32

Chalcothetes Go Last

Arkady, treat the Demjen as operating with Flowing Universe.  Also FYI Lever Shifts the World is an Extraordinary Art that does not cost Chi.  In addition to this the Demjen can't consistently use its poison attack, and must spend a round to recover.

Init order:  Demjen, Arkady, Amythyst

Demjen Attack:
9, 8, 8, 7, 5, 3 & 1
*Can't Break Wave
*Attack Arkady 28 + Strike 15 + AB 10 + IKF 10 - Disrupt 5 = 58, Better Blocked))

The demjen hisses as Arkady begins his diabolical plan.  It realizes it has no idea what he's doing and can't figure out how to stop it... so it does the next best thing.  It swats ferociously at him, driving him back and tries to rip his head from his shoulders!

((defence: 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 2 & 1
Keep 5-5 re roll rest w/ yielding to adversity -4chi
New roll 9, 9, 8, 6 & 1
Float 5-5
Def: w/FW 29+10+15-5 =49 vs 58/ takes ripple

Attack: 9, 7, 4, 2, 2, 1 & 1.
Strike demjen: 22+15+10= 47/ better dodged
Force of lightness 3chi
Secondary strike: 21+15+10= 46/ better dodged))

Arkady celebrated too early and barely manages to avoid the blow taking off his head, but still gets pounded pretty hard by the demjens blow. He replies by sweeping out his pistol and letting off a ferocious triple-tap mosambique drill style. Twice to the chest, once to the head.

((Demjen Defense R4:
10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 4 & 3
*Flood 4:  Block/Toughness +5
*Defense vs Strike 1 19 + Block 20 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 59 vs 52, blocks
*Defense vs Strike 2 20 + Block 20 + AB 10 + IKF 10 = 60 vs 51, blocks

Amythyst Attack R4:
10, 10, 8, 8, 7, 4 & 1
*Argh
*Disrupt Demjen Block 28 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 + Fears 5 = 53
*Disrupt Demjen Speed 20 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 + Fears 5 = 45
*Quick Work with flowed 25 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 + Fears 5 = 50

Demjen Defense R4:
10, 8, 5, 3, 2, 2 & 1
*Defense vs Quick Work 22 + Hardiness 10 + AB 10 - Disorient 5 = 37 vs 50, Ripple + Roll
*Takes Disrupt:  Block (53)
*Takes Disrupt:  Speed (45)

RR7:
*27 - 17 = 10, inflame Trivial to Minor:  Clotting Blood; Action Bonus -5 while using Transformation of Dark Jade!

Chalcothetes don't attack...))


The Demjen deftly swats aside Arkady's pistol before it can shoot him, but it's not paying attention.  A moment later he's got the void demon pinned, and it twists and turns with rage, trying to coil out of the burning bonds.

This leaves it vulnerable.  Amythyst charges in past Arkady and, with a hand thrust into a pouch, slams a palmful of powder into the creature's face.  It sneezes and roars with pain, black blood spurting out of some of its earlier wounds in vast clumps!

The chalcothetes turn from trying to attack the two and instead swarm on the Demjen to try and free it from its bonds, most of which are not having much luck.

((Init R5:
Demjen:
10, 9, 8, 7, 4, 3 & 2
*Ouch, bad luck
*2 Chi:  Continue Transformation of Dark Jade, takes a Ripple, at 8
*Init 19 + Speed 10 + AB 10 + IKF 10 - AP 5 - Disrupt 5 = 39

Amythyst:
10, 9, 9, 9, 6, 4 & 2
*Medicine Shaping Wave 39 + Medicine 10 + AB 5 = 54, gives her a Laughs bonus and a +5 RR bonus if she pulls it off.  I suggest making a Tactics Shaping Wave to protect her from any sabotage attempts.
*Init 16 + Speed 5 + AB 5 = 26

Chalcothetes:
10, 8, 8, 6, 2, 2 & 1
*Attempt to break Shaping Wave:  28 + Tactics 10 = 38, a megafailure, dawg))

"Buy me a few moments,"  Amythyst shouts to Arkady, "I think I've got something to really fuck it up!"
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:32, Mon 16 Sept 2019.

((Init: 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5 & 3
init: 19+10+10=39 Tie with Demjen
FoB: 18+10+10 = 38 / 1 chi
Clarity in openness: +10 tactics -3chi
Tactics shaping wave to protect Amythyst: flowed 45 + 10 + 10 = 65

Attack R5: 8, 7, 7, 4, 1, 1 & 1
Float 7-7
Strike Demjen: 31 + 15 + 10 = 56 / better dodged))

Arkady Positions himself between the calcothetes and Amy, looking actually quite smol in comparison to the crystalline elemental, but makes his best attempt at covering her from the scurrying critters, making sweeping motions with his legs to cover as much ground area as possible.

"Could you specify 'A few moments'?! Like, 10 seconds or 10 minutes?!"
He politely inquires whilst kicking away Calcothetes and without looking blasts another near point blank round at the struggling Demjen.

((Demjen Defense:
9, 9, 9, 9, 5, 3 & 2
*Defense vs Arkady Attack 49 + Block 15 + AB 10 + IKF 10 - Action Penalty 5 - Disrupt 5 = 74 vs 61, Blocks, Replies:  Arkady takes a Ripple

Demjen Attack R5:
9, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3 & 3
*Flowed Poison Strike 36 + Poison 25 + AB 10 = 71, Block is -5
*Disrupt Arkady Strike 29 + Wu Wei 5 + AB 10 = 44
*Disrupt Arkady Speed 23 + Wu Wei 5 + AB 10 = 38

Amythyst Attack R5:
10, 10, 8, 6, 5, 5 & 1
*Quick Work 25 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 + Laughs 5 + Fears 5 = 55
*Disorient Might 20 + Medicine 15 + AB 5 + Laughs 5 + Fears 5 = 50

Demjen Defense:
10, 10, 9, 7, 6, 4 & 2
*Defense vs QW with 20 + Hardiness 10 + AB 10 - Disorient 5 = 35 vs 55, 2 Ripples + RR
*Takes Might Disorient

RR on Demjen:
*36 + RR 5 = 41 - 18 = 23, Minor is inflamed to Major:  AB -10

Arkady has first init))

"Five seconds!"

The Demjen is denied the chance at striking out at Amythyst as the elemental starts mixing some sort of concoction.  The point-blank round is countered by a lashing tail, somehow more prehensile than Arkady would think; and in response it hisses and spits another ball of poison directly back into his face.

But that gives Amythyst the chance she needs to finish her concoction and throw it into its mouth.  It gulps it down reflexively and begins to scream in horrible pain.

"Put it down!"  She calls to him, "Gun in the mouth!"

((Defence R5: 10, 6, 6, 4, 3, 1 & 1.
*Against strike  26+fw15+10= 51 vs 71, Absolutely fucked
*Against disrupt strike: 21 + learning 15 + 10 = 46 vs. 44, Avoid
*Against Disrupt speed: 14 + Learning 15 + 10 = 39 vs 38, Avoid

Waiting for RR, Arky's at 5 ripples I think?
use 2 chi for chi aura, toughness 10))

Arkady doesn't have much time to prepare for the backlash, just barely managing to cover his some of his face, but still getting a good splash on it.

((RR on Arky:
9, 8, 7, 7, 7, 6 & 4
*37 + 15 = 52 - Chi Aura 12 = 40, Arkady takes a Major Poison Wound:  Poisoned Lungs.  Arky suffers a -3 Breath penalty whenever he overexerts his lungs by breathing heavily (such as Focus on Breath).  At the end of every scene where you physically exert yourself or have a quickened heartbeat- including this one- 3 dice are rolled and compared against your Chi Threshold.  If the roll result is equal to or higher, then the difficulty to remove the condition increases by 5 points.  This is cumulative up to 80.))

((Init: 10, 10, 8, 7, 7, 6 & 4
init: 27 + 10 + 10 = 47))

Arkady Drops down to one knee, then on his ass, coughing violently and with poison dripping from his mouth as his body attempts to dispose of this hazardous agent.
In his cough he crawls to the opposite side of the cistern to lean against the wall and rests his pistol on his knee, taking at the Demjems noggin'

"You *Cough* got your *Cough cough* Five Fuckin' Seconds *cough*. Let's hope It was worth it. *Cough*"

((Demjen Init R6:
10, 6, 6, 4, 3, 3 & 1
*Wash any available dice
*Drops chi technique, no point in using it now...
*Float 6-6-3
*Init 14 + Speed 10 + AB 10 = 34

Amythyst Init R6:
8, 7, 7, 5, 5, 3 & 2
*Wash any dice
*Float 7-7
*Shaping Wave:  First Aid 25 + Medicine 10 + AB 5 = 40, if goes through will reduce EoB RR result on Arkady by 5
*Init 18 + Speed 5 + AB 5 = 28

Let's face it, Chalcothetes don't matter at this point))

"It was worth it!" She shouts grimly, looking at the creature spitting up blood, "Let's end it!"

She hefts her sword up in one hand again, the other furiously digging through her pockets to produce a syringe.

((Arkady > Demjen > Amythyst))

((Attack r6: 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3 & 2
*Strike Demjen: flowed 37+15+10 = 62))

Arkady Coughs and holding his breath he aims his pistol right at the mouth of the Demjen.

"Get the fuck off my ship..."

Another shot from his trusty pistol echoes throughout the cistern.

((Demjen Defense:
7, 7, 5, 5, 1, 1 & 1
*31 + Block 15 + AB 10 - Disrupt 5 - Fears 5 - Better Dodged 5 + EKF 5 = 46 vs 62, RR

RR:
45, that's enough))

The Demjen's black eyes go wide as the pistol is jammed between its teeth.  If it could beg it would.  It can't.  The Demjen's head explodes in a fountain of black gore.  The remaining chalcothetes begin to quiver and die, helped along by Amythyst liberally slashing the few moving ones with her sword.

Soon they're the only two living things in the cistern.

"Good job,"  Amythyst tells him, finally fishing out that syringe and flicking it, "You know, normally this'd go into your arm, but... I'm afraid it's going to have to go somewhere more intimate."

Arkady shakes the black much off his pistol and tries to wipe some of it off himself, managing to just smudge it in even more.

"*Cough* Fuck you ariel..."

He kicks the corpse for a good measure, then turns his attention to Amytyhst

"More intimate what? I'm telling you right now you ain't gonna stick a needle on my dick, I swear on my mom."

With his face twisting for the idea of needles and dicks, he waves to the crew above.

"Thror us a rope or a ladder or some shit *Cough* and torch the remains of that piece of shit. Then we gotta start fixing my ship."

"Yes sir!"  One of his men shouts down.

"No, try your butt."  She flicks the needle again, "Drop trou, don't worry, it's nothing I haven't seen before.  This should counteract some of the venom.  It's of my own design.  Good news about this is that it's only infectious if you die or if you're a demon, so I don't think you'll need to be quarantined."

"Just stick me with it doc, You're the expert, and at the end of day no one needs to go for the sanc's. *Cough*"

He still tries to wipe off the muck, but finally realizes that it ain't working, and starts digging his pouches for a cigarette that hopefully isn't covered in dead void demon slime.

"After I'm done with headcount and briefed the crew for the cleanup and repairs, I'm going to need a lot of stiff drink and a good night's sleep Blyat. This day has been hella long..."

She jabs it into his left buttcheek and presses down the plunger.  It's like getting stung by an angry hornet with an acidic stinger.

At least his cigs are clean.

"There, all set,"  She says as she pulls back from him, "I'm sure it has been a very long day.  Why don't you get some rest?  I'll oversee cleanup and your man Corduroy can take care of the headcount."

He tenses up for a second when being stung, but doesn't give any other reaction to being stung with a tiny needle. He'd felt worse pains in his life, some only couple of minutes ago.

"Mm-hmm..." Arkady mumbles as confirmation, lights his cigarette, and drags a long whiff off it... And immediately throws a massive coughing fit, almost throwing up as a result. Who would have thought having a cigarette after inhaling poison wouldn't be the best move.

"*COUGH COUGH* Aww... *Cough* Fuck I should *Cough* quit smoking. *Cough*... *Wheeze* these things are gonna kill me one day... *Cough* If I'm lucky..."

He wipes a few drops of black-ish drool off his chin after his fit and throws the cigarette on the void demons corpse.

"Yeah you take care of the cleanup and Corduroy gets to do the headcount. I'm gonna fuck off to my quarters and pass out... *Cough* Or knock my self out, blyat."

"Rest well.  I'll leave a report."  She puts a companionable hand on his metal shoulder, "We'll keep in touch.  I have the feeling you'll need my group sooner rather than later.  And hey, if you ever want to meet up for something let me know, ok?"

The rope is dangled over the side.  She helps him grab on to the rope.

"LOVE the arms."

((And unless Arkady has anything more he wants to do, this will be Thread End!))

"Oh I'm sure I'll give you a heads up if I get mixed in something that's way out of my area of expertise."

He grabs the rope and starts hauling himself up. As his arms are mentioned, he looks at them, sightly awkwardly.

"Umm... Thanks."

((End of thread for me!))