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!