Around the console of the TARDIS, three people look at each other uncertainly: the blond voyager in Time and Space calling herself the Traveller, Doctor Stanley Newton of England, and Ms. Amanda Khabares, daughter of President Khabares of the star-spanning USA of the thirty-fourth century.

Trav tosses her hat onto the hat stand, as she steps back, and plops onto the beat up couch that's outside the ring of the control dais. "I was hoping we'd never have this conversation."

"There... was a war. It was between my people, the Time Lords, and a species called the Daleks. It was a war for all creation."

She sits up, and hides her face in her hands, sniffing. "We lost. Everyone - everyone lost."

She looks up at Amanda and Stanley, eyes red,as tears start to stream down. "I don't know if you ever have heard of Daleks, Amanda, but they're certainly in the old UNIT files. Things became so bad..." she pauses. "That the Doctor and I... put an end to it. We tried every other trick, every other idea. The war would have destroyed everything. We tried everything we could. Everything!" Her eyes look desperate and pleading as she looks at her companions.

She sits up. "There's more. You see, the Daleks... caught me. They did horrible things to my friends, and to me." Another long pause. "I... regenerated. I... gave up my old name. I became something as awful and evil as the Daleks. The Doctor had to stop me, several times. I did terrible, awful things."

"But, when the war came, they let me out. In exchange for my freedom, they let me loose on the Daleks. The Daleks were a species driven by hatred. Oh, but I taught them one other feeling. I taught them fear. Only the Doctor did they fear more. Oh, did I give those sons of bitches a taste of what they did to other people." Her face takes on an uncharacteristic, terrifying grimace.

"But, the Doctor and I - we ended it. We ended them. Not just the Daleks, the Time Lords too. Well, I mean, it was the Doctor who actually did the deed physically. But we laid out the plan, and did the deed. It was a choice between my people and the Daleks, and everyone else. Creation itself was at stake." As the tears stream down, she confesses, leaning forward on the couch - "Do you know the worst thing about it? The Doctor sent me away. To another universe I visited when I was younger. He died, and I lived, when I had no right to do so. I changed again - I became a human baby. I got to live an entire human lifetime. I married a great man, I had kids and grandkids, I was happy. How in the hell was that justice? After all I did? I changed there, again, and got this blond hair and skinny ass. I helped some people save that universe. I was mostly their chauffeur and tech support. We fought and yelled at each other. But, God, I miss them. This planet is home, but so was that one. Any my babies. I was even religious, catholic! They're all grown up and are safe, but they're my human children. I don't grow old, I *regenerate*. I already buried my husband! If I stayed, I would have drawn my enemies to them. I had to go. I had to go." Now she's openly sobbing.

"When...When I was bad, I asked Ru Zheng for help. I was desperate. The Master had fled. We were hemmed in on all the chronal fronts. Millions were dying every second. The Skaro Degradations, the Nightmare Child, The horrors of the Deathsmiths of Goth, The Horde of Travesties, the Could Have Been King with his army of meanwhiles and never weres. The war turned into hell. And... he was right! He was right. Oh god, he was right."

She stands up, and walks back to the control panel. "So, for some reason which escapes *my* understanding, I'm here. There is so much blood on both of my hands. I can never clean it off, I can never make it all right. But before I go, I can try to make it so that something like the Time War doesn't happen again. I mean, I can't stop people from being stupid or scared, but if I can show people that they can be smarter than the Daleks or my people were... maybe things can be just a little better. I would have used The Rod on *myself*, but the Doctor told me to protect this beautiful little planet. He loved you all *so much*."

"So. Well." She grabs some Kleenex. HONK. "I suppose that you'll all want to be dropped off. I was hoping this wouldn't come up, for a little while."

Stanley is just standing there, staying quiet. He looks at Amanda to see if she wants to say anything. After a long silence, he finally begins to speak, "I can't say I didn't suspect something like this already. Little hints here and there, people warning me about you. Couple of things you said before. But the... er... scale surprises me. Maybe scale is not the right word.. uhm..the severity. I am sorry you had to be part of that...I don't  really know what to say..."

He pauses to think about how he is going to formulate what he wants to say. "Don't take this the wrong way, but how long have we known each other? Not long enough for me to say that I know you very well. Part of me wants to believe that what you did, you did for a good reason or because you had no other choice. I really want to believe that. That makes it easier to just forget what you said and continue going on adventures with you."

Stanley looks away, "Maybe that's too easy...After all, we only get to hear your side of the story. I can see that you feel guilty and you try to make this universe better so maybe it doesn't matter. Something just doesn't feel right..."

"You said you hoped we'd never have this conversation. That...to me that displays a lack of trust and honesty. I understand this isn't something you tell someone the moment they step into the Tardis. I get that. But time and time again you tell me how dangerous it is going to be. That I am risking my life to help you... You never forced me to and you always gave a way out, I'll give you that. It was my own choice, but I trusted you with my life and there are going to be times when you have to trust me with your life. And you still weren't going to tell us. How did you want us to find out?" Stanley realises that he was actually getting angry.

He takes a moment to cool down a bit and tries to sound friendlier.

"You want to help your friend, right? I don't think it is wise for you to go into a war zone alone. Especially not with the information we now have. So, I am coming with you. Maybe I can help the monks deal with some of the injured and sick refugees."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:08, Sat 30 Nov 2013.

Amanda takes a step back from both the Traveller and Stanley before she answers.  "You know," she says, "it's funny, but after you left the first time, I was working with Marshal Ch'tesh to try to get UNIT rebuilt, and he kept talking about the way you'd done things like you were soft.  We've got kind of a rough-and-ready streak up in the 34th century, some of us.  That was before we started digging into the old UNIT files and found some of their intel on you."

Her ears twitch nervously as she focuses on the Traveller.  "Of course my dad sees things differently, always has.  When he looked at some of those old reports, he was wondering what happened to you, to change you.  I mean... look at when we stopped the Sisterhood.  Ch'tesh might have stopped them, once we knew who and what they were, but he would have done it with guns and casualties, and by locking the survivors up for good.  But you didn't, you tried making them into allies."

She steps a little closer to Stanley and folds her arms, still looking at Trav.  "So whatever you say that you've done, it seems to me like you're trying to be better.  I'm sure not going to walk away from someone who's trying to do that, not as long as you say you need my help."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:25, Sun 01 Dec 2013.

In reply to Stanley Newton (msg # 2):

She runs a hand through her hair. "Stan, when was the right time to talk about all of this? I didn't want to have to explain myself in a life or death situation, when you find out that the twee blond Time Lord you've been having all of these zany adventures with had been involved with all of this horror. I want to protect the two of you, Stan, from me. I suppose it's better that we have this talk now. I'd rather you didn't have to find out at all. Do you think I want to burden you with all of this? Stan, I used to be terrific at master plans and other evil mastermind bullshit. But now? I just make it up as I go along, like I always did. My secrets can hurt you, Stan. If you have any advice for how I can handle this down the road, I'm down." For all her power and granduer, Trav looks terribly vulnerable, right now.

When she sees her companions get apprehensive from her, she visibly cringes. It's plain that this must be hellish for her to go through.





Trav holds up her hand for a moment, like she wants to just touch them, to get some reassurance that she isn't a monster and doesn't deserve to be punished.

But then it drops to back down onto the TARDIS console.  "Allright then. Enough of me being a mopey debby downer. People need help at Farhaven, let's go." She throws down two levers, and the TARDIS begins to wheeze and groan.

An awkward hush fills the console room.  Only the hum of the TARDIS under everyone's feet and the motion of the time rotor breaks it up, until there's a ding! indicating that the ship has landed.

After Trav confirms their arrival at the Farhaven habitat, she and the others step out onto springy grass.  Despite the nervous tension, Stanley and Amanda have to stop for a moment just to take in the view.

Looking ahead from the doorway, it's almost like looking up a gently curving, grassy slope -- except that where a normal hill should crest and give way to the sky beyond, here it just keeps curving, up and over their heads -- distant, but not so very distant that it disappears from sight: partway up the arc, it cuts off into shadow, but even there they can see its shadowed outline, like the shaded part of a crescent Moon on a cold, clear night.

From their right beats the light from a cheery yellow sun, and they can see where the rim where the world ends: the sky there is a brilliant blue, dotted with flecks of cloud.  The left-hand view is dominated by the planet Arsuran that Farhaven orbits: it looks remarkably like photos Stanley has seen of the Earth from taken from space, except that the continental outlines are unfamiliar, and the greens of Earthly vegetation have been replaced by a rust-red color.   The scatter of light in the air on the planet-side paints a blue crescent that follows the arc of the habitat up until it fades into starlit black.

Part way up the curve of the ring, everyone can see what look like tilled fields and people working in them; farther still, there are a clustering of buildings and a larger object shining like metal.  To Trav, that looks like some sort of spaceship.

Trav locks the TARDIS. "Needless to say, be careful. We have no idea who we might be facing." She checks her pistols, making sure she has a full load of quantum charges.

Trav brings out her phone. She pings the number of the superphone that she gave to Zu Rheng all those years ago.

If there's no response, she points at the large structure. "Seems like our best bet, right?"

Stanley first looks up and then at the "edge of the world". The floating rocks on Arden were weird but somehow easier to grasp than this structure.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" he asks Amanda, "It has to be man-made, right?"

"We could also ask one of the people in the fields where we can find your friend." Stanley says whilst looking at the farmland up ahead.

"I've heard about theoretical designs for ring habitats before, Stanley.  I've never seen one, though -- you need really advanced engineering, even more advanced than the Martians'.  Well, advanced by my standards and yours, anyway.  We're a long way in the future."

New thread!  We'll come back to the TARDIS thread in the future.  For now, look at the Farhaven Habitat thread.

In reply to Amanda (msg # 8):

Trav smiles a bit. "Mankind achieves even greater things than this. Indomitable. Boobie was right - absolutely indomnitable."

Trav kicks back on the big overstuffed sofa, as Sweet Boy lazily spins in Temporal orbit, and the merry band plans their next move. It was a staycation for the gypsy band, although Trav has offered to drop off Sereth and Stanley at their respective homes for catching up with loved ones.

She's up in the observatory, eating from a Pringles can, as floating in holo glory are her notes. The two other locations that were recovered from the Mailman float in Gallifreyan time track notation.  They are highlighted in orange, while the time track leading back to 55 Million BC is in green, indicating that the issue is resolved. The orange issues have been forwarded to UNIT, the Time Agency and the Chamber, with a note that if it's too heavy to request aid from Trav.

Floating in the cloud around her as concerns are the two open CVEs that she's been using (one to M-Space, where she's been spending time with her Robotech friends(OOC - Fan fic stuff of mine that has no bearing on ATTT), another CVE that leads to the C-Space of Millenium and Paragon City (OOC - Champions online RP that has no impact on ATTT), and the sealed CVE that leads to R space and P space (OOC - Trav;s old Rifts and Phase World settings) The rest are clouds of space time with different galaxies, variant earths, eras, and timelines, Gallifreyan circles and characters floating as history flows, melts and splits naturally like bubbles in a frothy mix. It pleased Trav that history was naturally healing itself, despite the Time War, and that new history was brewing up. Chibi Trav swims in the pearlescant mix, doing backstrokes. Several gates to the 11 Day Empire are currently marked as inactive, ancient, dead, but Trav watches them out of a perverse habit. The once expansive timeweb of her old nemeses, the Krayloss Empire, stays dead and unused, scoured clean by the Deathsmiths of Goth in the last phases of the Time War.

A few clouds are brightly tagged. One is course the particular Earth that she and the Doctor look after, There are innumerable Earths, the universe being gigantic enough to support thousands of nearly identical ones with nearly identical histories. A particularly tight, tangled knot of space-time wraps around the planet.

Far up time, far past both New Galveston and 195th century Draconia, is the era of New Gehenna.It hangs in a baleful red, with question marks.

Off to the side is the Chamber of Unwrought Time. That particular space, rising up like a piece of museum like flotsam, piques Trav's curiosity fiercely.

Finally, at the bottom of the spinning time-space display are two large gaps - the ruined and dead Skaro - still in time-space, but now a lifeless, haunted ruin, and dead Gallifrey. The planet is now rocks and dust, the once mighty Eye of Harmony ripped out of the core of the world by the activation of the Time Lock, the source of Gallifrey's might now used to power it's prison and doom.

Every now and then Trav thinks to go back to Gallifrey and the Untempered Schism, the only surviving relic, or to look down into the Panopticon, where all those times she stood in passionate defense before the High Council of Earth and the weaker, more defenseless peoples. Now, there'd be a literal hole there, that would lead deep to the core of the planet. Or maybe walk one last time into Exigency tower. Heh, would Destri be there, ready to snap my neck, like all those other necks she snapped, at my orders?

Then, blinking on Earth, there is Montana, 1993.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Wed 18 Mar 2015.

As Trav contemplates the spread of the continuum around her, the last of the locations she has been surveying -- the unprepossessing town of Livingston, Montana, that being the registered address on Phillipe's Montana driver's license -- winks off the display without fuss, fanfare, or any indicator of crisis.

A pringle drops off of Trav's lips as the town drops off of the display. "What?"

"Chibi! That town, there. What happened to it? It was there a moment ago!"

Trav immediately runs down the spiral staircase to the control room. If she wasn't looking at Livingston, Montana, at that moment, no one would have noticed.

Trav is at the control panel. She turns a flatscreen to her, and peers into the Vortex. What the hell is happening?

OOC: 12:16, Today: The Traveller rolled 17 using 2d6+12 with rolls of 2,3. Trav scanners - what happened to Livingston? TARDIS Awareness 4+Science 6+Science Capsule 2+2d6.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:36, Thu 19 Mar 2015.

"Huh? What's the rush?" Stanley is just entering the console room, as Trav hurries down the stairs and to the control panel.

Trav swallows the chip she had in her mouth. "The town where Phillipe was delivered? It disappeared. I was looking at it from the Time Vortex in the Observatory, and it disappeared. Whole towns don't just disappear, Stan. There's shenanigans going on. Get your bag ready, I may be throwing down the lever." She's twisting dials and tapping on two keyboards as she stares into the LCD display.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:44, Thu 19 Mar 2015.

"What town, where?  When?"  The holo-avatar sounds perplexed.  "There's nothing there but a stretch of Big Sky Country nothing.  Never has been!"

While the Observatory instruments are now telling Trav just that, she does remember the coordinates exactly.  There doesn't seem to be any high-energy interference, nor the complex spatio-temporal scarring that Trav would expect to see if the town had been D-Matted or otherwise taken out of time.  She'd say it was instrument failure, if it was any machine but her Sweet Boy telling her that.

OOC: If you decide that you're going to try to go there, you'll need to make a TARDIS piloting roll.

The Draconian frowned.

"With all due respect, could you be wrong?" He had not been paying attention to the display, or known what it showed anyway.

The Draconian, indeed, had been inspecting his blade for signs of wear and tear when it all happened. It was very important it was kept in immaculate condition - for the view of the thing, more than practical reasons.

Trav looks up. "Heya Sereth. Wouldnt be the first time. But I was looking right at the place and it disappeared. There's only one way to find out, hold onto your scales." Trav flips several switches, turns two cranks and works those Valkyrie transformation levers as she brings the TARDIS in for a landing - Livingston, Montana, Earth - Humanian era, 1993.

OOC:20:37, Today: The Traveller rolled 17 using 2d6+12 with rolls of 2,3. TARDIS Landing - Ingenuity+Transport+2D6.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:39, Fri 20 Mar 2015.

Trav notices the time trace veering off target as the TARDIS whirls past Hoboken, New Jersey in the late Fifties, and double-checks the settings, which she seems to have mis-entered.

She hastily corrects the mistake and puts the TARDIS back onto the proper heading in time for it to materialize on target, and it lands with its characteristic WHUMP! and ding!, but she remains unsettled.  Now she's positive that something or someone wants this time and place to be avoided and overlooked.

Since coming back to the talkiphone box, Smoke Alarm had watched Studio Ghibli movies in the rec room; Ponyo had had her screaming 'Ham!' over dinner. After, she'd visited the Us and gifted them the big gold bangle she'd swapped from the Silurian garbage-man. She got talky with them, show-and-telled them all about her adventures with the Silurians, and played with them for a bit. Afterward, she got herself lost-and-found in the carrydoors, following the winding and shifting maze, outlooking in all the funny rooms and eyespying things Traveller had probably forgotten since time start and picking through junk the Sweet Boy had jumbled together for her. Rooms full of lost socks, a museum with graffiti on the walls, a bubbling fountain she had a bath in. After the to-do with the Dalek pool cleaner, after making it unalive, she just wanted to walk away, to get lost and found again, to run and escape her shadow.

She didn't actually have a bedroom on the TARDIS yet, she didn't know she could get one. Instead she just walked until she felt yawny and it was time for lights-out. And then there would be a couch, or pile of cushions, or heap of old frock coats, that the Kang could lay in and make a nest and go sleep-tight. The Sweet Boy always provided.

After she awoke, she footed past a room filled with books – she thought it was a libbrarry. Books were good for starting fires, holding up wobbly tables, or smacking rats, but though the Kang didn't always understand the words on the pages, she knew they were important, that they show-and-telled old knowhow and stories, even if some were yawny. Finding some, she traced her finger along the pages, sounding out the letters and trying to match them to words she'd heard, to pictures on the page. Borrowing a few, from The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where's My Cow? to the very heavy Running With Kangs: The Paradise Towers Expedition of 2587 (which had a picture of her on the cover, and there was a picture of Doctor Sam inside, so it must be good), she tracked back to the control room with the fish in the walls.

Though she wandered for hours, it only took tick-tocks to track back. The Kang could navigate the shifting internal architecture of a TARDIS with ease, especially as it shifted everything around for her. The Sweet Boy liked her, so willing to simply get lost inside and trust to the talkiphone box.

Smoke Alarm returned just as the talkiphone box landed, and she found her friends all busy-bees about something. Putting her books on a table, she outlooked about. 'Where are we?'
This message was last edited by the player at 01:55, Fri 01 May 2015.

Trav looks up from the console, looking worried, but with a smile for the Blue Kang. "Hey babe. We lost a town, and we have to find it. Someone's tried to hide it from me right when I was looking right at it, like a 3 card monte game. The nerve. And I am really good at 3 card monte." She's working the controls, setting them down for landing.

Trav hmphs. "Some Jackass is trying to tell me where I can and can not go. Me. me. I am the Traveller, not the Stay-at-home or the Couch Potato. Also, I was invited. If Fortuna didn't want me to see the beginning, she would have told me so."

She does brighten up when the Kang puts down onto the table those most precious of things - books. "You brought back treasure. Books are the most amazing thing. You have to show me when you found later. Books are wonderful! I love books - you can travel to places with books without moving. Books are miracles and awesome."

She runs down to the lab, and sees if the special project she was working on for Sereth is ready. "Sereth, since I knew we were heading here, I was working on something for you. But I have to test it. It's a refurbished fashion modulator. It's a holographic field that's normally used by 51st century super models, but I made some modifications. It will extrapoloate your body shape and translate it into what it would appear if you were homo sapiens. I know it's an indignity to bear a soft, pink skinned form, but remember that this is in service to the Draconian throne."

The device looks like a somewhat beat up Apple smart watch. Trav adjusts it, and proffers it to Sereth. Here's hope that it interfaces with his morphic field correctly.

OOC: This is standard Dr Who Kitbashing attempt. I'll spend a TARDIS SP for use of Resourceful pockets, and make an Ingenuity+Technology roll. Feel free to have it malfunction near microwaves and at other times that would be hilarious.
23:47, Today: The Traveller rolled 24 using 2d6+16 with rolls of 2,6. Ingenuity+Technology+Boffin+2d6.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:53, Fri 20 Mar 2015.

'You lost a town? With towers and everything?' Smoke Alarm was impressed, and also dismayed. How do you lose a whole town? 'But they're very big!' She thought about for a moment. 'Mayhaps we should outlook under the rug?'

She outlooked back to the books, the treasure. 'I did?' She hadn't seen many books in the Treasure of the Us, so mayhaps she should bring them. Mayhaps Possum Magic.

OOC: I'm gonna be a pain here; because Traveller isn't actually talking for the Draconian throne, and ask for a convince roll. Just to see where SEreth's head is at.

OOC: Trav thinks she is, because this concerns everything, and if Trav makes her point, Sereth will realize this. I'm throwing in an SP. Yeah, I know, PCs, but this shows that I am *not* applying the PC halo to Sereth. Presence+Convince+VOA+SP, down to 5.

OOC: I hate the PC halo anyway.

OOC: Good! Enjoy eating up my precious in game resources.
01:02, Today: The Traveller rolled 18 using 4d6+7 with rolls of 1,3,5,2. Presence 3+Convince 2+Voice of Authority 3+SP - Convince Sereth to wear disguise device.

Sereth frowned at first; she did not speak for the Draconian crown; no matter what she said. As she spoke though, he started to sigh. What she said made sense but -

"Very well. I will wear this weak, pink disguise. But know this Traveller. I do this because I have determined that the Draconian crown does not need humanity to know of it's existence back in this time. Not because you speak for it. YOu don't."

"No, I don't, I apologize if it came off like I did. This is for all of time and space. I humbly request that you come along and act in the throne's interest. Only you are qualified for that, I'm certainly not. You know what Warlock is capable of and what he might become, this is where he begins. I offer and request that the eyes and blade of the Draconian throne need to be here, with all humility. I'm a Time Lord. It's really really hard for me not to be arrogant sometimes." Trav frowns and looks chastised.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:28, Fri 20 Mar 2015.

"As I said; I will wear this disguise; because you need me, and humanity is not ready yet."

"Yeah, and you'd look really silly in Boobie's cricket outfit." She smiles lopsidedly.

Smoke Alarm outlooked right and left between Traveller and Sereth as they talkied about wearing disguises. 'Just think of it as cosplay! ...Wait. Why does Sereth need to cosplay? Do I need to cosplay?' But fortunately it was the 1990s and the age of grunge fashion; Smoke Alarm's Kang fabshion might be the closest it would ever get to being normal.

"Sereth will have an on and off switch. As for you, sweety, just tell em you came from an 80s retro show. It's all grunge right now, if we put you in some flannel you'll be fine."

Stanley comes back, his doctor's bag in hand. "I am ready to go."

'Eighties retro show, okay. But I think a flannel would be too small...' she mused, thinking of what others would call a wash cloth.

MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE TARDIS

Trav had found the Doctor's cobbled together perceptual filter. She had repaired it, strengthened it, and had hidden it away even further, and had made sure it had installed an malfunction beacon, so that would summon her, or The Doctor, from across time and space if it had been tampered with or if it were to break down. She also clears away the time-space spillage, using the engines of the TARDIS to carefully repair the local space-time, and equipment onboard to seal the wreckage. Her turbpistols are adapted to block-transfter guns, as she identifies cracks and tears in time and space, and hears them, here and there.

Then, she arranges to clear the TARDIS - while Stanley is with his mum, Sereth makes his report to the Draconian Emperor, and Smoke Alarm plays with Mr. Boots, The Traveller is away for all of 5 minutes.

The TARDIS appears at dawn on the beaches of the islands of serenity, in the Arms of Orion she she made love for the very first time, with the Corsair. The Corsair was the very first of her people she ever fell in love with. The shining azure sand sparkle in a glorious rainbow as the twin suns rise. The Corsair often brought people she loved here for amazing, rioutous beach parties.

She pauses for a moment, and then keys in the message -



She finds herself rewriting the e-mail several times.




She imprints the message onto a Time Lord mail cube. This will mean it will be secure, and he will get it instantly, relatively speaking.

She steps out, as the sun rises.  She's crying again.  She flings the cubs into the air, and it flies, wobbling into sky, and then disappears.

Then, she carries a cooler out onto the sands. She sets up some music, a fold out chair, and an umbrella. Even if Boobie doesn't come, she'll have the sands, the sun, and the memories of the Corsair and his big hands, her wonderful smile.

She waits.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:24, Tue 05 May 2015.

OOC: I'm getting a Peabody and Sherman vibe here.  Every cat should have a Kang.  :)

As the sun sets, it's pretty obvious he's not coming.

Trav stands up. "Well, that's all right. He might not even be alive. Or maybe he is. Here I am, getting my hopes up. It looks like I'm still the last one left, more or less."

With melancholy, she folds up the beach umbrella, and takes in the beach chairs. She leaves the cooler out, and the two margaritas with the little umbrellas, untouched, on a fold out stool.

She pokes her head out of Sweet Boy, speaking to empty air."You two relax. I'll keep an eye on the place until it's time. Then, when the time's right, I'll join you. Enjoy your margaritas. Don't worry, I'll have 13 faces you can snicker at. I'll take good care of the place, and leave it in good hands, I promise. Love you both." The door, with american flag decal, closes. After a moment, the familiar rumble starts. VVVOORRRP VORRRRP VVVORRRP.

The blue box goes translucent, and then solidifies again. The american flag decal disappears. A head pokes out - moussed hair. "Hm. Margaritas." As he reaches for one of the drinks, A voice yells, "What is it, space man?" "Oh, nothing, Donna. Note left by an old friend. Best be off." He makes a toast, takes a sip, and the door closes. Again, VVVORRRP, VVVORP, VVVORP, VVVORP.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:45, Wed 06 May 2015.

BACK IN THE TARDIS
BANG BANG BANG WHIRR WHIRR VRRM VRRM

"Oh yeah. Been a long time, old pal! Ohhhh, yes, my sweet source of adventures! This is what makes the Traveller! Hee hee hee hee! I never had a chance to use you in R Space - too much serious business heeheeheehee!" Trav is cackling with delight! The Us, however, are probably battening the hatches in panic. The infamous Wheel of Wonder has returned! The wheel was the source of many of the Second Traveller's adventures, and was a space-time randomizer that got her involved in all manner of zany adventures.

The wheel has entries like Great and Bountiful Human Empire, French Men In Silly Hats, Really Mean Sea Monsters, Revolutionary War COOLNESS, Random US History, 49th Century Discoteques, CATS and Random Hollywoods. The Master once remarked that he couldn't take seriously an opponent who treated time travel like Wheel of Fortune. The Second Traveller, without missing a beat, replied that she felt it was more like Press Your Luck.

Trav is working on the console. Extending out of it at a 90 degree angle and then pointing upward is something that looks like a carnival wheel, with ever shifting holographic entries in each slot, depicting different areas of time and space. Trav's hat is now a blue kerchief, as she hooks the wheel up to the main vortex navigation systems.

Trav is finishing up using a foreman power drill to secure the Wheel in place, if anyone is walking in, holding her sonic in her mouth. The Scutters are nearby with donuts, coffee and tools.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:04, Wed 06 May 2015.

Feeling kinda quiet and yawny and not up for running and jumping after nearly being gobbled by a giant brain, Smoke Alarm sat on the couch, nursing her sore arm and reading the books she'd shoplifted from the liebrary. She was leafing through The Very Hungry Caterpillar; it would be a good start before she got to Doctor Sam's big book. She softly and falteringly read the words aloud to sound out ones she didn't have the knowhow of so well. 'In the light of the moon, a litt-lee egg lay on a lee-aff. On-ee Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and, pop, out of the egg came a tinny, very hungry... cate-arr-pillar...'

Sometimes, she outlooked up over the book to eyespy Traveller as she attached some funny-looking wheel to the console. Smoke Alarm was reminded of old baby toys with many-coloured panels, pictures of animals, and animal noises when they spun around to the right picture, or something. 'What's that?'

"Oh, good morning, baby. I thought you'd be in the TV room, watching Cartoonies." Every saturday morning Trav woke up bright and early to watch american and japanese cartoonies in her jammies, with a big bowl of Capn Crunch or some other horribly unhealthy sugary cereal. Of course,  Unfortunately for Sereth and Stan and happily for Smoke (if she enjoyed such things), sometimes Saturday was several mornings in a row and the cartoonies were from various planets and time periods from across the universe. Robotech was an especial favorite since it echoed events of a paralell universe Trav had travelled to (indeed, one of the ways that helped Trav when she travelled to alternate dimensions via rifts and CVEs was checking her blu-ray pile.) And the it also helped that she owned a room sized TV with an awesome sound system. And one can only imagine what dealing with a Time Lord hopped up on cocoa puffs and binge watching of My Little Pony, Adventure Time, Galaxy Express, Eureka 7 and Scooby Doo must be like.

"There, done. This, my dear, is the Wheel of Wonder. I used to use it a long time ago. It's a wheel that chooses some places random in all of time and space for Sweet Boy to go and shoots us off to cool adventures." Trav leans in close to Smoke, with that crazy, wide eyed leer, similar to when she said SPACE VEGAS. "Gotta warn ya, though, once you spin the wheel, you're outgoing, no backsies! It's only for the brave and the bold! It's only for hardcores.I don't know if I should use it with you guys yet." There's an up-down lever next to the wheel that says ADVENTURE on the up side and BORING on the down side. Currently it's locked down to BORING. "I want Stan and Sereth to have had their morning coffee before I offer them a spin. Folks should face my beautiful, beautiful wheel having had some breakfast and some caffeeine before having had some MAXIMUM ADVENTURE, right?"

She leans over to the side and looks with concern at Smoke's arm. "Or, we could stay home. You did take a rough beating from the Brain Monster. Some days are OK for staying home and playing video games and watching cartoonies."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:45, Sat 09 May 2015.

Although Smoke Alarm was no stranger to the TV room and cartoonies, she had other fun-times. She wiggled the picture-book at Traveller. 'Paper-books are picture-spouts too.' she said. 'Even if they don't have any pictures to outlook at, you can still eyespy them.'

From the couch, she outlooked quizzically at the wheel, a little concerned. 'Random? But would we know where we're outgoing? And how would we track-back?' she wondered, feeling a little unbold today.

She outlooked back at the page, now eyespying the kater-pillar crawling through an apple. 'He started looking – outlooking – for so-me food... On Monday, he ate thro-u-g-hh – thru-gh? thruge – on-ee app-le – oh, apple. But he was still hungry...' It was hard, but Smoke Alarm persisted. She wanted to knowhow all the signs and texts meant and sounded like.

She perked up at Traveller's next option. 'Or for getting lost-and-found in the talkiphone box! There's a whole tower inside. Did you know its much much bigger on the inside than on the outside? Did you know there's a room full of socks? You can crawl through ducks and play with Us. And Sweet Boy is all shape-ship and sound.'

Trav beams, glad that she's shared the magic of books with Smoke. "<blue>Right on! Books are amazing!"



Trav pulls herself out from under the control console. "I'm a Time Lord, Smoke. Sweet Boy and can usually find our way back to wherever we've been. That was actually a problem once, because we were in a place that had some very bad things in it and some people I was travelling with at the time didnt want anyone else finding those bad things. But we don't have to use the Wheel."



Trav scoots up next to Smoke, and assists her with reading, helping her with ABCs, sounding out letters, forming them into words, keeping them in simple terms, yet not treating Smoke like a child. From her very first life, she always enthusiastically taught people to read. In her first life, she first learn how to teach from the Railsplitter himself, as he taught people their ABCs and grammar in town squares before political speeches and in his legal practice. She used this to great joy as the 2nd Traveller when she created her most important work, a set of comics that taught english and reading skills to newly liberated Zentraedi, many of whom were illiterate. She personally taught several dozen Zentraedi to read during the Robotech wars. The Marshall had no time to teach, but did devise a literacy virus to use on populations that were subjugated by the Daleks early in the Time War so as to foment rebellion and tie up resources (indeed, this single act was said to have created a brief flowering of Ogron culture, making them useless to the Daleks.) Louise Simons was a teacher and scholar, and waged war by peace making and literacy against the Coalition States, and had built and run schools with Erin Tarn all her life.



"TARDIS dungeon adventure? Sure, on one condition - if I say we don't go into a room or a place, we don't go in. Sweet Boy and I keep secrets from the Time War, and other places and times we've been, other adventures. There are things and places in Sweet Boy that can hurt and kill you, Smoke. I don't mind us exploring, because there are places and secrets inside of Sweet Boy that even I don't know about. Like, for example, the Armory, where I keep weapons and bombs and other stuff that can hurt and kill that I've taken from bad people or I've had to use myself or I've found and are too dangerous to leave anywhere else except to keep close. Or the Vault, which keeps things frozen in time. But there are good things too, like my hall of friends, where I keep my memories, or the junk pile, or the workshop, or the kitchen! Or the sock room, or the wardrobe. Also, Sweet Boy was old when I we took each other. He's worked with other Time Lords. Who knows what else we might find?"
This message was last edited by the player at 07:46, Sun 10 May 2015.

With Traveller's guidance, Smoke Alarm began to read much more comfortably and she soon got the knowhow of tricky spellings. She'd learned that "thru" could also be spelled "through", even if it didn't sound like "throoge"; she'd gotten most of her English off signs. The repetitive format of the book helped Smoke Alarm practice words she'd already seen, especially on the first five days of the caterpillar.  The long list of foods helped; as Smoke knew what they looked like and were called already. 'Now he was-n-t hungry any more – and he wasn't a little cat-er-pillar any more. He was a big fat caterpillar. He built a small house, called a co-coon? cocoon around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and... He became a be-a-u-ty-full – beautiful butter-fly!' she cheered as she got to the end. She was very happy to have Traveller's help in this reading thing. But wait: 'Are caterpillars like cats? Are butterflies flies that like butter?'

*

Smoke Alarm frowned at the warning; she'd footed all about the talkiphone box but had not lost-and-found any bad weapons yet, and had to worry might be behind the next door. She didn't want to eyespy another brain-thing. 'Sweet Boy's carrydoors have never taken me any place bad yet. But okay.'


OOC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...y_Hungry_Caterpillar
http://www.timelessteacherstuf...ngryCaterpillar.html
This message was last edited by the player at 02:06, Mon 11 May 2015.

Trav hops up and walks to the TARDIS console, and checks the E-Mail.

She sees if anything has popped up in regards to Colonel Rayburn. She asked Kate to forward to her the full file of his incident, so she could make a rescue attempt.

<transmission begins>

UNIT SENSITIVE FILES: PROJECT MAELSTROM


I.  Disappearance of yacht Jenny Dee, 5/14/2013

UNIT maritime incident intercepts of U.S. Coast Guard traffic register unexplained loss of radio contact with civilian recreational vessel Jenny Dee, five crew and passengers.  Incident report forwarded to Logistics & Research division, UNIT Dallas, for assessment.  Satellite imaging confirms loss of vessel from area at 28.59°N 80.25°W; incident correlated with widespread EM interference over approximate 46 mile radius.

Diplomatic exchange with indigenous Homo reptilia aquatilis community inconclusive.


II. Subsurface EM / sonar ranging anomaly, 6/3/2013

Following U.S. Coast Guard closure of Jenny Dee incident (resolution: loss by misadventure) UNIT investigation approved (UNIT Geneva commission to UNIT Dallas commanding officer, Colonel Joshua Rayburn (USA).)  Covert deployment of EM tracking buoys and sonar probes uncover an area of 67% spatial divergence from expected EM and sonar ranging, centered at 28.22°N 81.10°W.  UNIT Dallas scientific advisor Lin Xian (PRC) recommends expedition for close investigation.


III. Rayburn / Lin SPOT deployment, 7/7/2013

Special Liaison Derek Malloy (USN) arranges special support mission for USNS Loyal deploying UNIT Submersible Paraphysical Oceanography Transport (crew of 8 inc. Col. Rayburn, Dr. Lin, Lt. Anna Flynn (USN).  SPOT telemetry indicates spatio-temporal breach at 28.23°N 81.14°W, approximate depth 1250m; characteristics: altered oceanic chemistry, locally lowered temperature, severe pressure gradient, observations of sea life unfamiliar to Dr. Lin.

Audio account from Col. Rayburn upon approaching breach follows:

"It seems like there's a tide pulling us toward the rift.  Dr. Lin's readings say it's not a dimensional gradient... just sea current... but Flynn says the SPOT is fighting her, hard.  Wait.  Getting something now.  My God, there's a light in it...."

Transmission lost, 16:03:11 GMT, 7/7/2013


IV. Communication contact, 9/15/2013

Periodic sweep by USN assets arranged through Special Liaison Malloy receives radio transmission from Col. Rayburn, detailing transit to extraterrestrial oceanic environment.  Describes discovery and investigation of permanent sea floor structure, exploration and measures taken for ongoing habitation.  Rayburn, Lin, and two other crew members survive; SPOT sustained damage from local aquatic megafauna.  Dimensional breach impassable from far side.

Subsequent communication relay established over breach coordinates confirms that contact to Rayburn mission is possible only for short transmission windows on a period of ~173 hours.


V. Theoretical investigation for recovery (ongoing)

Analysis of spatiotemporal readings returned from Rayburn mission ongoing, with assistance of scientific assets at UNIT London.  Theory for temporary expansion of rift allowing recovery deemed "mathematically sound" (cf. Osgood & Osgood') but experimental test impractical.  Recovery team training approved by Director Stewart (Captain Mason Carver, Master Sergeant Samantha Harvey, Corporal Olaf Petersson, Specialist Victor Spiezo).  Mission deployment pending feasibility confirmation.

cf. Flight 19
cf. USS Cyclops incident

<transmission ends>
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:35, Tue 12 May 2015.

Trav scowls - She knew Josh Rayburn back from when he was a sergeant back in the 70s. He was now UNIT Dallas's equivalent of the Brig - he took and gave no shit. He started as a Boston fireman, a black man who struggled against that town's racism, and started with the Traveller on a crazy adventure in Macedeonian Greece, staying with UNIT while the 2nd Traveller and her crew moved on. He was also part of the team the the 8th Doctor assembled to haul the Marshall to Gallifrey. There'd be some explaining to do.

But no time to worry about that now.

"Everyone, I want to rescue Colonel Rayburn. No one else has to come. But this is going to be dangerous, and underwater. Very deep underwater. And other dimensions. Colonel Rayburn and his team are trapped. I don't have all the details as of yet. But I can use all of your help. Who is in? I need everyone who is brave and bold. Stan, we'll need to make a stop at UNIT London first. I need to pick up two people."

As the team decides, Trav is tapping away an e-mail


This message was last edited by the player at 17:53, Tue 12 May 2015.

Quietly rereading The Very Hungry Caterpillar all by herself, Smoke Alarm outlooked up at Traveller's PA-announcement. 'Under water? Like in a pool?' she wondered.

Trav smiles, as she pulls down some levers, and turns some dials. Then, she walks to the TARDIS door. "Like this, Smoke."

The TARDIS stands on a beach, before the magnificent Pacfic ocean. Trav chose Lanikai Beach, in Hawaii -


This message was last edited by the player at 19:40, Tue 12 May 2015.

Stanley enters the console room shortly after Trav made the PA announcement.

"Trapped underwater? That doesn't sound too pleasant." Stanley is about to ask if the Colonel hasn't run out of air by now, when he realises that he is standing inside a time machine. "I am in of course. Who do you need to pick up? I think I can guess one, but who is the other?"
This message was last edited by the player at 19:48, Tue 12 May 2015.

Trav gives Stan a snug. "I'm not sure of all the details. I think they're trapped in a pocket dimension, and inside of a vehicle. The time rate may also be passing at a different rate so time may be passing much more slowly for them. I'm sure that we'll receive a full debrief at UNIT London."

Smoke Alarm outlooked up at the picturespout, eyespying the beach. 'I eyespied a beach on Earth.' she said, referring to their adventure with the Silurians. 'So we're outgoing to a great pool? Does that mean we'll get to splash and splish and outgo for a swim?' she asked eagerly. 'We'll need lots of floaties.'

Trav steps outside. "They're stuck at the deep, deep bottom of the pool. We need to get them out. Or, something like that." She crosses her arms as the beautiful sun sets.

Sereth grunts as Traveller made her announcement.

"Does this mean I have to wear this... " words failed him at this point. A rare occasion for the diplomat. "For a bit longer still?"

"Not once we're in UNIT headquarters." Trav closes the door. "In fact, you shouldn't have to wear it at all. Should be about lunch time." Trav grins as she works the controls.

Trav trots back to the control console. Snap snap snap snap twist twist shift THUNK.

The time rotor starts, with the central column moving up and down for about 15 seconds.

When it stops, Trav trots to the door and pokes her head out. The TARDIS should have landed in the UNIT London commissary. Or some commisary, at lunch time, somewhere, sometime.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 04:58, Wed 13 May 2015.

OOC: Trav gathers up the plot threads. What direction we go with it is up to the other players and of course our amazing GM.

2015, HUMANIAN EPOCH, HUMAN PRE-INTERSTELLAR AGE, EARTH, DALLAS, TEXAS

After the party at the Rayburn residence, Trav sets herself to some work. She's in the TARDIS control room. Streams of data float past, as she pets a Scutter, and flops on a couch, sipping coffee. Information is safely contained in the separate secure systems, set up from junk but resembling the old architecture she used at Exigency.

First, she checks the old data from the lair of the mailman:



She forwards the details of their trip to the Evers, to pass along to the Chamber of Time Unwroght. Amongst all her new friends, they were the only real time travellers. They needed the warning about the Daleks. If that one made it, others could have. That also gets forwarded to both UNITS, and to Dorium Moldavar. The Time Agency never liked the Traveller, much less the Marshall, nor she them, she doesn't want to deal with them directly. In exchange for considerations, she'd be happy to let Dor Dor act as a go between.

She remarks to herself that she was never this thorough in her prior regenerations, before the Marshall. A piece of her was still in war management mode. The 1st and 2nd Travellers always had a Gallifrey to go home to (and, indeed, were occasionally forced to return), and always had the Doctor, the Corsair, and some other colleagues who would carry on if she failed. Here, she was alone.

Next, she collates all of the cryptic messages that have been left for her, inputting through the psychic interface her own memories.








She has to put this all together.

She remembers, saying in this very control room, to Sir Richard and Malakai and Morhedgereim and the rest of her old Rifts Earth crew, that perhaps out of all of the hundreds of powerful Shedraya time demons that they had encountered, that perhaps they were just simply dealing with one, all shattered into millions of alternate, non-causal timelines, like the Could Have Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Neverwheres. This might be the case with the TAROT, too -



She thinks, fly, TARDIS angels. She's actually been consoled by real angels, on Rifts Earth. Perhaps this is why she was allowed to return home.

She was also gathering an army, she noted to herself. She rubbed her eyes.Why am I doing this. I don't want to do this. I want to inspire people to fight for themselves, I don't want to lead people again. I lead so many to their deaths. Another part of her answers to herself, Because you want families to be able to gather at holidays and for people to dream, that's why. And maybe go home again.

She gets up and rubs the head of a Scutter. Stop it. Home burned before my eyes. It's gone. Regardless, no one else is here to organize the defense. Before you became me you always did what had to be done. After you changed and stopped being me you still did and now still do what has to be done. This internal monologue is inefficient and pointless.

She tiredly climbs up the spiral staircase to the Orrery. The Sol System is in it's majestic glory. She leans on the rail, looking at the Earth below as the sun rises over the terminator.

She says to herself aloud, "What if the Doctor is actually alive? What the hell am I going to say to him?" "I am so happy to see you!" "Oh, Booobie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" "If you dare do that again, I shall kill you, quite permanently." "You put the other parts of me through hell, chulo."

Trav shakes her head. She's at a loss.

TARDIS angels. She has a realization, but she needs to investigate it.

She starts to trot down the stairs again.

She taps out a quick email to Fortuna:



She also checks on goldlisted e-mail messages.

She needs to talk with her companions, and review. But it was time for a trip to the Chamber of Time Unwrought.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:12, Mon 19 Oct 2015.

OOC: Want to meet with Fortuna before you put your heads together with the other PCs, or after?

OOC: Whatever works best for you, oh mighty time Vortex.

OOC: Do it before. Because Sereth is going to tell you that he was on loan to deal with the Fists; not solve the problems of the universe.

OOC: I'm absolutely fine with this. A new thread maybe?

There's a cheerful ding! from the console.

Trav snorts as the message comes into her Ipad.

"The nerve of that girl. Making me come to her. I ought to take her over my knee. She won't have been the first time traveller I've spanked." Don't be a hypocrite. You've broken that rule often and happily. Shut up, you. She is right. You've always liked your dangerous sex and romance. NO I HAVE NOT.  My being into cowboys and mobsters was downright pedestrian compared to your tastes in comics.It isn't love if it isn't murder.I loved murder, especially bad guys.Yes, I see. Too bad I regenerated. That mudball would be my summer home if I hadn't regenerated. I'd have kicked the Splugorth off, shunted those Rifts closed, brought sanity to the planet, and made it liveable.But my Joshua and me wouldn't have been, because I'd be you, and he would have hated you. He'd have fought against you. Unless your heart changed. Like that last hour of regret with Morhedgreim. And then, silence.

As Trav hums to herself, twisting dials and working in vortex equations, she thinks to herself, Don't ever change, Louise. Very few people can get the Marshall to shut up. And my romantic heart comes from you, 2nd. *I* read those comics and all of Minmay albums are on my phone. Have no fear. When I find a CVE, we *are* going back.

Trav pings the rest of the team on their phones, to let them know what's up and ask them if they want to come with.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:49, Fri 23 Oct 2015.

It is business as usual in the hospital, lots of patients, but luckily nothing too extreme or unusual. The medical equipment is a step back compared to some of the stuff Stanley has been using recently, but on the other hand it is also nice to know exactly what you are dealing with. These are the machines, instruments and diseases he knows from his training. There is less guessing and improvising, but also more patients. Stanley is so busy that he has to wait until his break before he has the time to reply. He wonders why Fortuna wants to speak with Trav?

"Sure, I'll join you. Can't leave right now, so can you pick me up after my shift?"

Of course, the TARDIS is waiting outside for Stan, right after his shift. Trav is in a nice sundress and cowboy boots and her fedora. "Hey, baby." She snugs him and kisses him on the cheek. "Where are you taking me?"

Later...

Amanda Khabares stands looking around the console room, hands on her hips, and gives a sigh.  “I've missed it here,” she says.  She's wearing a snug blue uniform jumpsuit with matching bolero: the telltale UNIT rank and comm tabs are discreet enough that they might be an asymmetric pattern of jeweled pins setting off the bronze wings-and-star-cluster badge.  She gives Stanley a dazzling feline smile.

“Thank you for agreeing to help.  All the time I've spent with Marshal Ch'tesh, working to run down the delegates for the convention of the Parliament... well, it has certainly put my degree on the back burner.  Worth it!  But of course we can't really start until we can be certain, certain that we have brought everyone to the table that we possibly can.  After all, it just takes one bad apple and there go the timelines.  Right?”

She finds a place on the console next to Trav, where there don't seem to be any crucial and easily-tripped switches, and carefully sets down the old, crumbling book.

“I don't know if there's anything else you can tell us about these 'Warpsmiths of Phaidon',” she says.  “With help from the Chamber we've been able to map out a lot of their temporal shadows – places where a tale or a history has something missing.  According to Mr. Evers that is a solid indication of a person or a place being 'unwritten'.  Maybe this would have been in your 'Last Great Time War'.  Maybe not.  The point is, this is a reference that survived – so, if it is real and not just something made-up by its author, then its subject still should be then-and-there.”

Trav gives Amanda a big hug. "Well, look at you! You look great."

Trav very carefully, wearing latex gloves, takes the book and carefully sets it down on a nearby tray. She passes her sonic over the book, so that a 3D model of the item is taken into her secure system so she can read the contents without harming the artifact.

"The problem with this," says Trav, "Is that when timelines associated with artifacts disappear, time travel shenanigans can't bring back disappeared history without the appropriate detective work. An old comrade of mine sneered at archaeologists. But my husband was one, and they're vitally important in recovering the past. Back during the war, I had a whole division of them working for me. But since I no longer have my own personal Gallifreyan army, instead I'll have to make due."

Trav walks back to the TARDIS console and begins to snap switches and flip levers. "There's someone who decided to copy my turbopistol designs. She's being held in the Stormcage - apparent she walks in and out of the place like the Joker does Arkham Asylum - and she's a top rated archaelogist. She's accused of murdering the Doctor, but I know that's not true, because I saw the Doctor die before my very eyes. So, I have no issue with spring an innocent woman from jail." Trav pings out a text to her friends, asking if they want to help bust out an innocent woman from jail.

Trav smirks. "We're going to go pick up one professor River Song for some professional consultation."

She'd normally go grab Bernie Summerfield first, but she and Bernice had some... issues.

OOC: Dropping an SP for Major Friends talent. Also, a cute idea for a one shot guest star. Also, I'm way more familiar with River than I am with Bernice Summerfield.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:34, Mon 16 Nov 2015.

"It is good to see you again, Amanda." Stanley smiles.



Stanley looks at the crumbling book. "It looks old, but apart from that you wouldn't say that there was something special about it. Why did it survive being erased?"

"Sometimes things have a lot of emotional energy associated with them, like a well loved book. Some lives and dreams refused to be erased, for good or ill. The Warpsmiths were no joke - Rassilon took them seriously, which says something. It would take a lot to wipe out their lives and events."

As Trav walks down from the console, the time rotor moving up and down, to the cart that carries the book, she carefully opens the book with tweezers. She  feels like Louise again, handling old artifacts from the Time Before Rifts or the writings of Zor when she wore glasses. Looking at the book through a large magnifying glass.

"Enemies who might be erasing peoples pasts will be expecting technological shenanigans. That's why we're recruiting a real, honest to goodness archaelogist. Nothing beats actual experitise and footwork."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:33, Mon 16 Nov 2015.

Following a sequence involving the TARDIS nearly shaking itself to bits, a plummet through a vortex of crackling green force fields, and a greeting by fifteen pulse-rifle toting Marines....

The Stormcage is more than just a prison: it's a storehouse for criminals who have too much knowledge and potential inside them to be simply locked away for their allotted term.  In return for parsimoniously granted privileges, they're expected to provide their abilities and insights when called upon to assist with problems the authorities deem worthy of their talents.

Or, in this case, when the petitioner for a consultation is owed a large and significant favor.

"Hello, 'sweetie'," says Professor Song dryly.  She's seated cuffed by her ankle to a table extruded from the gleaming floor of the Consultation Chanber, on the other side of a transparisteel partition.  A full array of entirely ephemeral holoscreens surround her like the petals of a flower.  There's a matching table on the side of the room where Trav, Stanley and Amanda are all seated.  This one, Trav notes, has holoreceptor pickups to transmit a fully tactile image of anything placed and manipulated upon it to the prisoner's enclosure.  "And why do you feel the need to come and visit me, may I ask?  It's not like you've remembered to send flowers for three years now."

Trav is dressed smartly in a black mock turtleneck sleeveless vest, a houndstooth skirt and over the knee boots, the height of 60s fashion, her fedora rakishly cock to the side.

The only thing that Trav can think for the first 5 minutes is shit, she's hot. She always had a thing for sexy crooks - Billy The Kid, Al Capone, and the magnificent Corsair herself. "I don't think we've reached that stage in our relationship yet, babe. I'd remember sleeping with someone as hot as you. Have you met Stan and Amanda? You're someone whose met me but I haven't met yet, right?" Trav flips her wrist and out comes the sonic. She aims it nowhere in particular, and the data details of the mysterious book that Amanda recovered appear before Song - a virtual copy she can manipulate like the real thing.

"Have you ever heard of the Warpsmiths of Phaidon? It seems as if someone is trying to erase them, an already dead people, from the record of history. This is not cool. History is choices, Doctor Song, and I'm all about protecting people's choices, if you know anything about who I am."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:43, Wed 18 Nov 2015.

"Dreams are wonderful things to have, dear.  Aren't they?"


"Oh, trust me -- I know more about you than I've been able to successfully forget.  Never mind that now."

River bends over the virtual tome, peering at it through half-moon spectacles.  She looks up suspiciously at Trav.  "Where did you ever acquire one of the diaries of Racallan the Mad?  This is the fifth volume of his Journeys, and in this century there are only three copies of it known to be in existence.  Who, precisely, have you been stealing from?"

Trav leans forward saucily. "You can ask me that on our first date. Point is, someone seems to be trying to steal the events which brought this into being, seems like. We need to track down when this all starts, and if, as a time traveller, start using more obvious shenanigans to figure things out, whoever is working to erase the Warpsmiths from the historical will notice. I need your good old fashioned expertise. If things are as bad as I think they are, the other four volumes might not be in existence any more, except as your memories."

At her words, Trav purses her lips. "Also, if I have hurt you in your past, I'm sorry." So, she does have a future with Doctor Song.

She pulls out her Ipad, obtsensibly to take notes. Instead, she's having Chibi stealthily map out the Stormcage's systems. Obviously, River is someone important that she owes. To Stan and Amanda's phones, Amanda, where did you get this?
This message was last edited by the player at 12:46, Thu 19 Nov 2015.

Amanda gives Trav a questioning look as if to say Is there a reason we're not saying this out loud?

But she surreptitiously sends a reply-all: Evers.  Said the Chamber turned it up.

River shakes her head.  "I don't think Racallan's work has become quite as obscure as all that.  Obviously the man himself was a self-aggrandizing twit and jealous to a fault, but his explorations aren't to be easily dismissed.  As for the Warpsmiths...."

Her gaze sharpens.  "I suspect you could tell me more of what happened them than I can tell you.  That's what happens when one set of legends wipes out their predecessors; it's quite a vexing thing for a scholar, I can tell you.  With two time-travelling empires trying to write each other out of existence, things get lost, and there is very little that those trying to study them can do except work to sweep together the pieces."  She gives Trav an appraising look.  "Have you actually read Racallan's account yourself?"

Trav  winces a little at River's comment and then shrugs. "Can't say I have. You know, when you're running, sometimes it gets hard to get time reading time in, and last I remember the guy didn't collaborate with Kunihiko Ikuhhara. Bears eat people, growl growl." Trav is of course making a Yuri Kuma reference and how if it's not Yuri or Yaoi manga it probably doesn't wind up on her phone. "I can usually read 10 volumes of academic journals or 20 years of tankobon in about an hour, but then that's why we have awesome academics like you, Doctor Song!"

"As for warring, time faring empires - we live in the present, take responsibility, own our sins, and do what we can. There is quite literally nothing else we can do." She looks Song dead in the eyes, with dead certainty.

On the ipad: Time Traveller stuff. Doctor Song is in here for a reason, she's dangerous. We may be taking her along. She's a time traveller, like me. She thinks back to the vortex manipulators she snagged from Dorium Maldovar that she delivevered back to the Time Agency, another bunch of reprobates she didn't like.

OOC: Ingenuity+Knowledge roll for Raccallan the mad? Also, Ingenuity+Tech with a penalty for Chibi to infiltrate the Stormcage's security systems?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:54, Mon 23 Nov 2015.

Stanley can't help but frown when he reads Trav's message. He quickly types a response:  "So she is dangerous and locked up here...is it wise to even consider bringing her along. Not to mention that the people running this place won't be happy."

Trav frowns as she swipes in a message. Because she's being held here, according to the records, because she supposedly killed the Doctor. That's untrue. I was the last person to see the Doctor alive. I don't know what shenanigans landed her in here, but it wasn't killing him. He died at the end of the Time War. She may even think she killed him. But if someone is doing time for a crime, at least let it be for the right one.

It's probably pretty obvious that there's some furious texting going on.

"Doctor Song." Trav says this, as a serious question.

"If this is too personal a question, don't feel obliged to answer it. I'm under the impression that you're here for your own reasons. But," she says, licking her lips, the Traveller asks, "Do you believe the charges against you, in regards to your current imprisonment here, to be true? And do you agree with them?"

A very tricksy Time Lord question. Trav sidesteps the question as to whether or not the Doctor is alive. Instead, she drives right to whether or not Song believes she should be here.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:13, Tue 24 Nov 2015.

Stanley reads Trav's reply, not bothering to hide what he is doing. It is a bit rude, looking at your phone during a conversation, but this is a relatively safe and easy way to communicate without Doctor Song being able to know what is being said. That said, she is probably intelligent enough to know that they are talking about her.

River Song meets the Traveller's eye.  Whatever her demeanor, Trav realizes that this is a person who recognizes exactly what a Time Lord is and declines to be awed by that.

"I'm not looking for a savior, if that's what you are asking."

River reaches out to the virtual volume in front of her and "opens" it, carefully turning the leaves and studying it page by page.  "Usually," she says, her tone lighter, "people come to consult me with relatively concrete questions and problems.  It's considerably rarer for them to simply come calling to bring me reading material.  The wardens here are quite good about that, I find; they do love their celebrities."

Trav sadly shakes her head, and her eyes are soft to River. "You're assuming I feel you need saving, and you're deflecting answering the questions - they're personal ones that may hurt to answer, and I can respect that. For the record, I never doubted your ability to walk out of this joint, at will. Also, Doctor Song, you're assuming you know me. You may have interacted a whole bunch with me, but don't assume. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me."

She motions to the book. "As for the book, you're not an amateur - you're the best. The problem is not concrete and it is not easy. The past of the Warpsmiths is disappearing, Doctor Song. Someone is attacking it. I need to stop it. If I am to make up even slightly for my own sins, I must see to that the choices of those who are gone are preserved and that their acts remain. Agency and choice are existence. Destruction of history is a most vile form of murder and violation and abnegation. The Warpsmiths are being erased. I need to know where this starts, where the assassination of history and acts begins. If you know something of me and what I've done, then you know why I'm obligated to act. Can you help me, Doctor Song?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:30, Wed 25 Nov 2015.

Professor Song bends over the simulated pages.

"The Warpsmiths of Phaidon..." she says absently, "were, at their best, dilettantes and dabblers when it came to manipulating time, as I recall.  They had their time on the universal stage, certainly.  But as a civilization they lost interest in things beyond the reach of their thoughts and their theories.  Developed a sort of low-key mania for abstruse mathematics, esoteric geometries.  Not to any great end, you understand.  As an art, a competition.  A game."

She looks up; Stanley is startled to find that she smiles brightly at him.

"I can think of a few better ones to play..." she says with a saucy lilt to her words.  "In any case.  Even the toys that they built in pursuit of the next, greatest way to twist the shape of the universe were the sorts of technology that any optimistic tyrant would be thrilled to set their hands on.  So that could explain why they're so very difficult to find these days.  On the other hand, if this disappearance, this unhappening that disturbs you so were nothing but their last, bravura performance, I'm not sure that anyone would be able to tell.  The lot of them might have decided to nip off to their own cozy little continuum and pull the doors in after them."

Now she's poring closely over the text, even as she continues.  "Which would not exactly explain why one left traces of himself behind.  Carelessness?  Or a puzzle set for anyone to come along and find?"

"I'd be fine if they wanted their privacy, but this smells like someone else. The Warpsmiths were elegant and kinda narcisstic, they were poets and artists. Hm. Maybe they're still around, Professor, and they want our attention. All great artists want an audience. Do you think this is actually them, waving the equivalent of a red scarf at me? I'll confess I'm not the subtlest Time Lord, sometimes I miss a hint." Trav smiles good naturedly as River works to flirt with Stan - he's a big boy, and she'd step in if the infamous Dr Song represented any threat to her companions.

Trav keeps on that smile when she says optimistic tyrant. The Warpsmith's work probably went into the TAROT, and she can see whoever abused Phillipe being interested in such things. Things were moving too fast during the Time War for her to make use of the work of the Warpsmiths - the Marshall was all about brutal direct military applications, and she had at her fingertips the Vault of Omega itself, as well as The Moment and the Time Lock - the Warpsmiths were formidable, but they were indeed dilletantes compared to the Time Lords. But even the toys of the Warpsmiths could cause terrible havoc in the wrong hands. Too many questions, here, and probably too much paranoia.

"So, Doctor Song. Where should we start?"

OOC - dice rolls from earlier -
02:42, Today: The Traveller rolled 21 using 2d6+14 with rolls of 5,2.  Ingenuity 8+Tech 6 - Chibi infiltrates the Stormcage systems.
02:42, Today: The Traveller rolled 19 using 2d6+14 with rolls of 4,1.  Ingenuity 8+Knowledge 6 - Who is Raccallan The Mad?

This message was last edited by the player at 07:44, Tue 01 Dec 2015.

"I certainly don't know what these Warpsmiths were like, but to me this sounds like a trap or some sort of misdirection." Stanley says, doing his best to ignore Doctor Song. "Leaving an artifact to lead all those tyrants on some wild goose chase or to some ridiculously dangerous place."

"You'd be surprised at what bored, fickle, immortal dilletantes will do for a good laugh or to show off, Stan. I was once hunted down by a mad 79th century TV club. There's a reason I get twitchy when people cosplay as me." Trav fans herself with her hat.

Trav is sure she's heard the name "Racallan the Mad" before, but she can't say that what she knows made a very great or very favorable impression on her.  She seems to recall he was an explorer during the time of the stellar reconquista that led toward the foundation of the Third Great and Bountiful Human Empire: she knows that he rediscovered a great number of worlds that had been lost to Earth during the Silent Interregnum, but as she best recalls, had a reputation for puffing up his legend beyond the reality.  And of course, plain old interstellar trailblazing has to seem at least a bit passé to someone who has been as many places and times as the Traveller.

She checks at how her security-cracking avatar is progressing, and sees that the little program seems to be getting flustered.  It hasn't triggered any alarms yet... that it's aware of... but apparently the Stormcage programmers know their stuff.

River looks up at Trav, cocks her head, and frowns.  She doesn't look particularly pleased with Trav just now.  "Time Lords!" she says, plainly a bit exasperated.  "If you went to Dr. Newton here for a medical opinion, would you disregard it just because it did not fit the notion you first brought to him?"


"I suspect you could do a great deal worse than starting where Racallan left off.  That thread might well have something unexpected attached, but I've got nowhere better for you to start pulling."

Of course, Trav is relaxed. They knew I was coming. She idly draws up an invoice for a security evaluation, since she isn't pushing hard yet, although she's certain she's giving their security team grey hairs. Keep up the good work, Chibi.

Trav smirks, she got under miss superior's skin. "Relax, Professor. Yes, that's kind of what we do. But I came here to you, and I am taking you seriously, I'm just considering all the angles, you're probably more right than me. So, you're suggesting that I go and cause trouble? Well, shit." She stands.

She flips up her sonic, and opens a channel to the Warden's office. "Hello! The Traveller here. I'm not sure what else Doctor Song is being held here for, but you can enter this into the official records - I, the Traveller, the last surviving Time Lord of Gallifrey, hereby do attest that to the best of my knowledge that this woman before me did not kill the Time Lord known as The Doctor, because I saw him die, in self sacrifice, before my very own eyes. I can't speak for whatever other shenanigans she may be responsible for, but she certainly didn't kill him. I know that for a solid, hard fact. I saw him at the end... the end of everything. Please enter that into the record."

As Trav gets her bag and slips her Ipad in and makes ready to go, she says, "Professor, do you need a lift? That is, if you feel you don't deserve to be here?"

"Sometimes it can be useful to get a second opinion. Even with all my experience I could make a wrong diagnosis." Stanley replies. "Nevertheless, you should trust the experts and not some unreliable source...like the internet."

"Indeed, Doctor.  Disintegrating manuscripts are a much more reliable source of knowledge."

Peering down at the facsimile book, River reads:

”After the battle, my good craft the Intrepid could not then manage more than three enns of warp flux.  Even making my way back into the better-traveled trade lanes would have consumed three Terra-prime years, with no stasis module available.  I therefore decided to gamble on investigating the nearby system and the high-energy transmissions I had detected originating near the third world in the system.  This was a methane-sulfur giant which, I later learned, surveyors had dubber 'Charybdis'.  Ionic storms that made its moon system frightfully hazardous to navigate.

“But the signals were anything but random ion interference, and they led me to the third moon – a rocky, airless world.  And there it was that I found the old hermit of unknown species, amid his workshops and domed gardens, 'puttering' as he put it on devices both diverse and wondrous.

“He was loath to help me on my way.  He feared that if any news of him or his identity escaped that place, he would be hunted, and though he said he had lived a very long time, he was not ready to end it yet.  So I had to gradually win his trust, sharing with him one by one the tales of my travels and the many things I had seen.  Over time I realized that he was listening as an indulgence – for my shared captivity with him, perhaps – but also, may be, out of nostalgia for places and things he had seen himself, long ago.

“He never chose to share his name or his kind with me.  But in the time I spent with him, I managed on some few occasions access to his personal archives.  Those spoke of an advanced race out of the deepness of time, and the clues I gleaned from those records led me to think that it, and his, species were one and the same.  And those records also named their long-ago empire.  The Vast of Phaidon.”

"I... acknowledge what you think you were doing by your statement to the administrators.  I suggest that I simply say, it's more complicated than that, and leave it there.  It's important to me that I not only believe in my own right to freedom, but that others acknowledge it as well."

"Sounds like he gave enough information to identify that moon." Stanely remarks.

Trav gives Doctor Song a sidelong squint from her chair. "Thank you for confirming a fact for me that I've suspected for a while and which by your suitably vague answer which you've made more definite. Maragaritas. Anyway, I'm all about consent. If you're good with being here and the Wardens are good with you being here, then that must mean that I must somehow be wrong. Which is fine - loneliness sucks." She says these things not mockingly, but with grave respect. She acknowledges to River that River chooses to be here, because she feels she needs to be here. It's also unclear if Trav refers to River or to herself when she speaks of loneliness. Context.

Trav stands up. "Anything I can do for you, Dr. Song, while you're here? Thank you, you've been of immense help. Care packages I can forward, research you're allowed to participate in?"

She recalls Chibi back to her I Pad as she gets ready to go, along with a thank you note to the Warden, indicating that all debts were clear and she was on hand to help with big problems.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:39, Mon 14 Dec 2015.

"Damn, Stan, I just may give you my hat and my pistols and my sonic. Dreamt up a plan already?" Trav gently teases her bestie.

"We know that the system has at least three planets. The third planet is a gas giant with at least three moons and the third moon does not have an atmosphere." Stanley lists the things they know about the moon. "Using those criteria and some sort of database of star systems we should be able to make a list of candidate moons. The list might be long, but we have more information. I'll leave the calculations to you, but it sounds like you should be able to get a maximum search radius from 'three enns of warp flux' and three Terra Prime years to the nearest trade routes. If we know the location of that battle it is even better."

Trav slips her arms around the shoulders of Amanda and Stan as she waits for River's reply, as they are about to leave. "Glad you two are here for this one. If this guy is around, we can thank him personally for the victory in Egypt. That was really tight, but you two really came through. You are both are all sorts of amazing, and I'd match you both up against any other Time Lord's travel partners. You're part of why this thing is so worth doing."

"If you do find out anything about the Warpsmith, I'd love to hear what you uncover.  Ancient beings out of legend are a particular fascination of mine...."

Trav smiles saucily at that. "Maybe that means I have a chance then. Am I -ancient-? Do I look -ancient-, Mandy? Well, I am the devil figure in some crap religions. Will do, Doctor Song. Be well, I'll forward whatever I learn."

And with that, Trav leads her merry band back to the TARDIS.

Back at Sweet Boy, Trav indeed uses Stan's recommendations to plot the location as described in the text which Dr Song translated. Further, using her own science, she dates the text.

After plotting the coordinates up in the Orrorey (indeed, Trav trots up the the observatory and directly observes the spinning galaxies through the Time Vortex), she composes a quick note to Sereth and Smoke.


This message was last edited by the player at 21:01, Tue 15 Dec 2015.

In a tone of mock sympathy, Amanda replies, "Oh, don't worry yourself about that, Traveller, it's all about how immature you are on the inside!"

Deep in the heart of the TARDIS....

In a central nexus of the ventilation ducts, a circle of Us (all with pilfered blue index ribbons done up as little neckties) is clustered around a pile of the Treasure, sorted and arranged in an elaborate pattern.

This is the way of the Treasure, the biggest of the Us is explaining to the little Us who hang on his every word.  The Treasure comes unlooked-for, the wind carries it to us from the Blades and the Screens, and in the beginning it comes from the Thing.

The littlest of the Us, practically just a baby, squeaks, The Thing?

The Thing runs the world, the world is warm and gives us life because of the Thing, the parent Us explains patiently.  The Thing has had face after face but is always the Thing.

The littlest Us nods quickly.

Now, the biggest Us goes on, the Treasure comes to us to be returned to the Thing, and to the friends of the Thing, like Smoke Alarm--

Smoke Alarm! a few of Us echo excitedly.  One of Us!  One of Us!

The Treasure, repeats the big Us, comes from the Thing and returns to the Thing, but it must always return unlooked-for, as it came.  Today, those of Us who are now ready for this task will each go and return a piece of Treasure.  He looks around the circle, pointing with his paw.  Us, Us... Us, and....

The paw eventually fixes on a little Us with a green-and-red sock that she is wearing as a hat.  ...Us.

Trav, wearing a Ben Grimm Marvel comics T shirt, takes off her Santa Hat and scratches the back of her head for a moment as she trims the ginormous KrampusnachtXmasKwanzaaFestivusChanukahSaturnalia tree in the Fun Room, amidst the huge pile of presents she's collected for her companions from around time and space. But there's no one around talking about her. She shrugs, and goes back to trimming, as santa hatted scutters help her get ready for the best time of year.

Things, like electronics components and socks and money and photos and magic items from Rifts Earth would occasionally get lost, but hell, this was a time machine. Trav can usually find something she really *needs*, although she's gone nuts tearing the place apart to find something she really *wants*. But today, everything just came together, as a few things she thought lost appeared, sitting on her night stand or the TARDIS console or by the RPG bookshelf or with the Gundam models or on her tool bench. Some of them are now gifts, like that set of 12 shades of blue spray paint for Smoke, the treatise on Martian sword schools for Sereth, or that perfectly fitted, bespoke suit from 1892 for Stanley, that makes him look professional *and* dapper. And so on and so forth. She throws out mail cubes that have small gifts, wrapped in bows, including one to Boobie. If he's out there, he'll get it, and if he's not, he still will, since Gallifreyan mail cubes can travel the Vortex.

Her gift? She gets to give gifts.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:54, Sat 02 Jan 2016.

Often, when Trav is alone, her mind drifts, and she remembers:



Trav, still wearing her Santa cap, trots down to the Vault - here, where her deepest secrets are kept, secrets that are even too dangerous for the Doctor - the key to the Time Lock, the 7 names of Grandfather, the history of the Shedraya time demons, the Road of Zor that his Battlefortress traveled, detailing all the worlds that could support the Invid flower of Life, the last words of the God-Emperor of Mankind before entering the Golden Throne, and many more - secrets that The Traveller has sworn to keep safe, are kept.

Entering the Vault, she engages the force fields and Zero Locks behind her, sectioning off time and space. Here, wearing that Santa cap, she carefully opens up the case that contains the sample that the Corsair left her. Of course the Witches couldn't see what it meant - because it wasn't a message that was meant for them. It was something else. It was a duty. It was a message that was meant to be shared between Time Lords.

It could just be nothing. But here, in the safety of her TARDIS, the Traveller opens her psychic and Vortex senses fully, sets her eyes upon the the skin sample that the Corsair left behind, reads the ancient Gallifreyan script, and listens.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:33, Fri 08 Jan 2016.

As Trav reads, she seems to hear all the Corsair's voices, male and female, gravelly and ringing and sweet, all chorus in her mind:

Ι ηαϝε λεφτ τηις βεηινδ σο τηατ σομετηινγ οφ με μιγητ ρεμαιν, ιφ ωηαιν, ιφ ωηατ Ι γο το νοω ις μψ ενδινγ.

Ψου κνοω ηοω λιττλε Ι'ϝε τακεν αλλ τηε γρεατ ανδ γρανδ δεσιγνς οφ ουρ πεοπλε το ηεαρτ, βυτ τηατ ωας βεφορε τηε ωαρ.  Βεφορε σο μυξη δεατη ξαμε το τηεμ.

Τηερε αρε σο φεω οφ υς λεφτ.

Βυτ Ι ηαϝε βεεν γιϝεν α ξλυε οφ μψ οων, ονε τηατ μαψ βε α κεψ.  Α ωαψ ιντο α φαρ ρεαλμ, βεψονδ τηε υνιϝερσε ιτσελφ.  "Σεαρξη βεψονδ τηε ενδ οφ αλλ τηινγς, το φινδ αγαιν τηε βεγιννινγ.  Σεαρξη βεψονδ τηε Ω, το φινδ τηε Α."

Ανδ ιφ τηις ξομες δοων το ψου ανδ ψου αρε αλλ τηατ ις λεφτ, Ι τηουγη ψου σηουλδ κνοω.  Ι'ϝε αλωαψς τηουγητ ι ηαδ νο στακε ιν ηολδινγ υπ τηε πιλλαρς οφ τηε υνιϝερσε, βυτ ιτ ις, αφτερ αλλ, ωηερε Ι κεεπ μψ στυφφ.

Ιφ ψου αρε τηε λεστ, δο νοτ λετ ιτ ενδ ωιτη ψου.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I HAVE LEFT THIS BEHIND SO THAT SOMETHING OF ME MIGHT REMAIN, IF WHAT I GO TO DO NOW IS MY ENDING.

YOU KNOW HOW LITTLE I'VE TAKEN ALL THE GREAT AND GRAND DESIGNS OF OUR PEOPLE TO HEART, BUT THAT WAS BEFORE THE WAR.  BEFORE SO MUCH DEATH CAME TO THEM.

THERE ARE SO FEW OF US LEFT.

BUT I HAVE BEEN LEFT A CLUE OF MY OWN, ONE THAT MAY BE A KEY.  A WAY INTO A FAR REALM, BEYOND THE UNIVERSE ITSELF.  "SEARCH BEYOND THE END OF ALL THINGS, TO FIND AGAIN THE BEGINNING.  SEARCH BEYOND THE OMEGA, TO FIND THE ALPHA."

AND IF THIS COMES DOWN TO YOU AND YOU ARE ALL THAT IS LEFT, I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.  I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT I HAD NO STAKE IN HOLDING UP THE PILLARS OF THE UNIVERSE, BUT IT IS, AFTER ALL, WHERE I KEEP MY STUFF.

IF YOU ARE THE LAST, DO NOT LET IT END WITH YOU.

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 23:19, Sat 09 Jan 2016.

Stanley is in his room in in the TARDIS, where he's been cleaning up and getting a change of clothes after the detour to the Stormcage, when something catches his attention.

Lying on his nightstand, where he's sure there was nothing the last time he was in the room, he finds a key.  There's no keychain; instead, there's a blue ribbon with a big bow tied into it.

The back part of the key is large and leatherbound with a couple of control buttons; the part that would normally be lined with teeth has, instead, an elaborately edged circuit pattern.  There's an embossed logo on the key as well, and for a moment he mistakes it for the winged UNIT logo until he sees the words ASTON MARTIN within it.

While he's puzzling over that, there's a knock at the door.

"Stanley?  Are you decent?"  It's Amanda.

Alpha.

That was Paltree's designation for Phillipe when Trav got a look at his genetic signature.

Could Corsi have been involved with all of this?

She carefully seals away the sample again. "Dammit, Corsi, this is like waving a red flag in front of a bull."

After she seals the Vault up, it's back up into the control room.

She flips a switch on the control panel.

"Hey kids. Meet me in the control room. I'm about to do something really dumb and I need to know if you want to join me."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:30, Sun 10 Jan 2016.

"Yeah, come in." Stanley replies, still trying to figure out where the key came from. He is certain it isn't his, but a key is a weird thing to lose in someone else's room. Is it an artifact from the Tardis room creation process.

"Amanda, did you leave this on my nightstand?" he asks, whilst holding up the key.

When Amanda comes into the room, she's got a bit of a frown, but this changes to a look of puzzlement.  "Ah... no," she says.  "I've never seen it before.  I was just about to ask if you knew anything about this."

She holds up a ball of gray-and-white yarn.  It has a similar blue ribbon tied around it.

"I was going to say, that sort of joke is considered to be really culturally insensitive to a Kezhek.  But I should have guessed that you wouldn't have been the one making it, Stanley."


Amanda's whiskers twitch.  "Hrr.  I think the list of suspects is down to one."

Trav is of course still wearing the Santa cap. "Presents, presents!"

She trots on down the steps from the platform. "Mandy! Merry Christmas." She has tucked under her arm a big book, gift wrapped - <a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_Sanford>The collectected research and media works of Kiki Sandford.</a> She gives Mandy a big snug and snugs Stan as well. His suit is on a rack with a big bow.

"Mandy, you look kind of annoyed. What's with the yarn?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:27, Wed 03 Feb 2016.

"We were hoping you would know." Stanley shows Trav the key. "I found this key on my nightstand and it is not mine."

"Huh." Out comes the sonic. Trav checks both for items for residuals of hair, skin, psychic energy or anything else that would indicate who placed them.

"Unless it's an emergency, I never come into one of my companion's rooms unless asked, and I always give gifts personally. Sometimes, Sweet Boy himself will just drop stuff into your pockets. I've had hundreds of companions march through Sweet Boy, and I'm not the only Time Lord to have been a partner with this craft. The Corsair was found of wrapping stuff up in bows - she used to do it to my hair when I was asleep." Is there anything at the center of Amanda's ball of yarn?

If the items seem safe, Trav opines, "This might be Sweet Boy's way of wishing you both Merry Christmas!"

OOC: What are the gifts?

The sonic registers only a slight artron flux, possibly a lingering psychic resonance.  It's not an unusual reading for objects which have been in the bowels of the TARDIS for a very long time.

The yarn is not familiar to Trav, but she recognizes the key instantly -- it's the spare that went with her 2271 Aston Martin Vantage, a sweet little black VTOL model that met its tragic end in a mid-air collision with a kaiju on Abranis VII.

"Trav?" Amanda asks.  "What about that?"

Looking behind her, Trav notices that propped on the console with a similar blue ribbon around it is an old black-and-white daguerreotype of herself, in her second incarnation, posing with President Lincoln after his first inaugural.  She hasn't seen that photo in over a hundred years.  The bottom right corner of it looks a trifle nibbled but it is otherwise intact.

Trav smiles. "See? Like I said, Sweet Boy has a way of making things turn up. And Happy Holidays to you too, Sweet Boy." She kisses the console with a big MWAH. She carefully tapes the photo up to the time rotor. Good memories, good times.

As for the yarn, Trav opines, "Sweet boy never gives a gift and it not make sense. Lets unravel it and see what happens. If nothing else, we can maybe knit something out of it!" She smiles cheerfully.

"Hm. Bits and pieces of memories. That Aston Martin wound up in the gullet of a radioactive monster, but we saved a bunch of lives that day. I wonder what story that yarn has to tell. Stuff is just stuff, but memories, those are precious."

Trav hops up to the console. "I need to take a dangerous trip. Super dangerous. You see, I went down to examine what the Corsair, a fellow Time Lord, left me as her inheritance." Trav briefly explains to Amanda their adventure on Estanve Gastem. "The Corsair may have been involved with Phillipe. Anyway, I want to badly go beyond the end of time. You're welcome to come with, but this is very dangerous. I know I always say that, but you have to know that this is like playing time travel russian roullette. I have no idea what I will find there. Only I should take this danger. But, I also feel that have you at my side is the safest, sanest thing I can do. You've been with me here at this Great Beast thing since the beginning - especially you, Stan."

Trav is snapping switches and spinning dials. "Next stop - Draconia, 195th Century. I have Holiday presents for Sereth and Smoke Alarm."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:14, Mon 11 Jan 2016.

The Bowie famiy finds a strange flower on the casket of David Bowie - a Gallifreyan flower of remembrance. The 2nd Traveller had a few music stars walk through Sweet Boy - Jimi Hendrix, Freddy Mercury, and David Bowie, all who played various places and times, teaching Minmay how to be a star and how to sing in her native Japanese. Bowie composed part of some of his best albums on the deck of the Orrorey, during dark times. To the awkward 2nd Traveller, he was just songwriter from Britain, who was brave and helped her face the Krayloss and the the Ruutans, but also sang about strangeness and alienation and hearts and human feelings. After Freddy's death, she let him be. Iman might know who the strange girl in the fedora hat is in some of his old photos, if she goes into his hold letters, or finds his old diary, or if Kate Stewart brings her in for a debriefing, and shares with her how David Bowie was a real space man, and heroically, secretly, defended the Earth.

Upon her return to Earth, there had been a few visits. Of course, because of history, she couldn't intervene with his cancer. But the that one trip back to Mars to the ruins of Spathra had been glorious. They had a drink, for Freddy.

The most important lesson that the Corsair taught her, she thinks, was "the art of letting go gracefully."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:56, Mon 11 Jan 2016.

"So, the car is gone." Stanley looks at the key. "Well...I have no use for it. You can have it back."



"If you feel that you need to go beyond the end of time, then I'll come along." Stanley replies without hesitating. "Russian roulette implies that there is a chance we'll survive, so that is sort of good. Even better: it is a game you can win. But are you sure you need to go beyond the end? It sounds like that should be impossible."

"Beyond the end of time?  How does that even work?"  Amanda asks.  "Doesn't it all, hr, fall in on itself, after all the energy in the universe burns itself out?  The 'Big Crunch' ?"

She shakes her head.  "Sorry, cosmology is definitely not my specialty."

"I've done it before, but it was from another universe. In the wake of the Time War, things may be working differently. Like I said, mad dangerous. This is exactly the kind of place where the Corsair would hide something. Also, I've traveled to other universes - I'm one of the few Time Lords to have done so. Kinda why I have my name. But I usually do it in a sideways manner instead of an up and down kind of way."

Trav talks as the time rotor moves up and down, the TARDIS making it's way through the vortex to Dryn Savato, Draconia, a few weeks after they dropped off Smoke and Sereth. "I also want to visit that warpsmith. I'll leave it up to you guys. Maybe Mr Warpsmith can give me a little extra help on heading outside of conventional time and space. I don't have an Atlantean Time Wizard with me now who can simply Rift us home if things get bad."

With a DING!, the TARDIS materializes on the grounds of the tourist area of the Imperial palace gardens, not too far away from where Trav far away from where Trav dropped Sereth and Smoke off. She sends a text to Smoke and Sereth: We're here. Happy Holidays!
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 00:43, Wed 13 Jan 2016.

VWORP

VWORP

As the TARDIS departs Draconia and goes barreling off into the Vortex, there's a strange emptiness in the console room.  The Legate was never the most extroverted of people, but what he lacked in general exuberance, he made up for in quiet presence.

Amanda sits on the sofa, quietly studying her phone.

"So I've been thinking... I should probably just get back," she says.  "We've got a couple of leads on the Warpsmith now, and my time might be best spent in trying to find out if I can put any additional pieces together from my other sources.  It may not be anything more than a false lead, and there are other groups that I do need to reach out to."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 04:20, Fri 20 May 2016.

Smoke Alarm had been the last to enter the talkiphone box, footing in at speed after playing chasey with Sereth. But she slowed, and stopped, and loitered, sad again that Sereth had not followed her back in after all. Another friend she would not meet-and-greet again, not eyespy again, for many ticktocks.

Subdued, she dragged her sneakered feet across the console room, and dropped exhaustedly onto a couch, outlooking at the floor, not eyespying anything. Now what could she do? She wished she'd hung around Sereth more when he'd been here, but she'd gone footing off to explore the carrydoors. She had lots of shouldas. She had so many hurts too.

At last, she remembered another friend, and rummaged around in her bag for Puddy. Whereabouts are you, silly cat? At last, she laid hands on Puddy, and pulled him out – in two separate pieces. In all the running and to-dos, his head had fallen off again. 'Poor Puddy.' Smoke sighed, gazing into his forlorn, threadbare face. She poked her special fire-escape tools inside his body again, then tried mounting his head on, but it wasn't going to stay. The cloth around the neck had torn and needed some serious sewing with nail-and-thread, and more. 'Trav! D'you have a stapler?'
This message was last edited by the player at 06:41, Fri 20 May 2016.

Trav was at the controls. Mandy has stayed safe inside the TARDIS during the whole Draconia affair, bearing witness, and she allowed time for her to say any goodbyes she wanted to the Draconian Legate as well as for their to be cross time contacts between the 195th century Draconian government and the Khebares administration and the UNIT of that era. But now, the Time rotor moves up and down lazily, as the time ship materializes on the plains of Falcon's Rest. Trav feels Sereth's absence strongly. It feels right, but it still hurts.

Trav takes a seat next to Smoke Alarm, and nods gravely. She has her sewing kit with her. "If you like, I can help you make Puddy all ship shape." If Smoke will let her, Trav will help Smoke sew and staple up Puddy properly.



"Amanda, thank you for being such a doll. Between your work and the recent visit to that a certain archaelogist jailbird in the Stormcage, I have enough to follow up with at least one lead. As much as I would like to hit the end of time, this is more important, I think. As painful as the past is, it's who we are." She carefully helps Smoke staple and sew Puddy up, curled up next to her. "Our tears and rents give us as much beauty as our colors and prettyness do. Isn't that right, Smoke?"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:50, Fri 20 May 2016.

'Like my dog-bite?' Smoke wondered as Traveller sat next to her, referring to the scars on her leg, whose fangs she wore as a pretty necklace. 'I spose. All my bruises make me blue-and-black like Kang colours. Hurts a lot though.' she said, patting the aching shoulder she'd popped out like a dolly's to get down the air-vent.

She was pulling bits of Puddy stuffing out of her bag when Traveller picked up Puddy himself, and Smoke rememorised what the Traveller did when fixited things. 'No! Puddy!' Smoke wailed in a panic, reaching for it with two hands, rather like a child after a favourite toy. Just like a child after a favourite toy, in fact. She grabbed the pieces back and hugged them tight. 'Don't change him!'
This message was last edited by the player at 07:34, Fri 20 May 2016.

Having been a mom, Trav shssh's, making sure that Smokes hands are with hers in fixing Puddy. "never," she intones. Just like she did with Dev's flybike, she works with Smoke Alarm to make sure that Puddy is fixed but not at all changed. He may have a new eye to replace the lost one, and some new stuffing, but she makes sure that the stuffed toy cat meets to Smoke Alarm specifications. "Those bite marks show that your brave and bold as a Kang can be. Just like when I change, when my eyes go from brown to hazel to green to brown to blue, they'll no doubt be brown again someday. The world changes things, dearest heart. Things always change, most especially you. The thing is that we need to stay true." She guides Smoke Alarm's hand as they both stitch the cat closed. "The tears and rents here on Puddy are a wall scrawl of all the adventures he's been through. Sometimes, we need to do a bit of a reset, some fixit, but it's still all there, you just can't see it. We rememorize it. See? All ship shape and sound." Trav makes sure that Smoke has done half of the work. "Check him out. Make sure Puddy is fine."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:44, Fri 20 May 2016.

'But you took Dev's sky-bike away and made it all different,' Smoke had complained, 'And my old talkiphone – though that was icehot.' she'd had to concede. 'Sereth said mayhaps you shouldn't do that all the time.' Sereth was gone now, but he'd asked her to outlook for the Traveller, and so she would, all-ways.

With that said, she was mollified as Traveller shared the fixiting and didn't take over and didn't outlook like she was going to turn Puddy into a robotic cat with picture-takers for eyes or something, which was what she'd been afraid of. Nevertheless, she outlooked on like a nervous mother. Working together, they fixited the stuffed all good and proper, with nail-and-thread, not just safety pins and staples, until he was, if not new-as-good, then at least shape-ship-and-sound. Tentatively, carefully, she squashed the doll, feeling he was soft and fat, then outlooked into his face, eyespying the same Puddy still. She hugged the doll tightly to her chest. 'All fine.' she agreed. That would do, until the next time, anyhow.

'Everything changes, I knowhow. Sereth's gone, and I'm biggerer. It's just you change like... like a caterpillar into a big beautiful butter-fly, all over night.' she described, still thinking of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and wondering if a cocoon was involved. 'And mayhaps you're used to that. But people and puddies and sky-bikes and empires all don't change so fast. We just grow bigger, and older, and up. If it happens all-speed, then sometimes there's to-dos.' She'd been thinking of a Draconia too.

She outlooked at Puddy again, realising one change she could make, one that would hide the scars, or the stitching. 'Can we get a cat-collar for Puddy?' she asked. 'Blue, and no bell, in case we need to be sneaky.'

"Well, remember what happened when I did that. I asked Dev to listen to the heart of his girl. That's why *you* are fixing Puddy, and I'm just helping along. And didn't I give you your old talkiphone back? No different, see. Here, like yes, like that."

She smiles as the finish up fixing Puddy. "Remember what I said. I'm really big here, me and the Doctor, sometimes, like big Daddy and Baby, we need smaller people to help us see. Smaller doesn't mean weaker or dumber, just different. Different people change at different speeds in different ways. I need you guys to help me see with good hearts. That's what helps me be good." She taps her temple.  "Also, big cocoon? No, it doesnt happen like that. If you're around when it happens, you'll see."

So, this is what growing old good and well felt like.



Trav digs into her bag. She digs out an old cat collar. "This used to belong to my cat Maxie, on Rifts Earth, you know, that funny planet I showed you pictures of with the dinosaures and robots and mean guys in the skull outfits and the walls of blue light? Maxie is gone now, on the scrap heap. She used to follow me into the ruins. I'd be honored if Puddy would wear Maxie's collar. I miss her and loved her lots. That was when I was Louise and didn't remember Talkiphone boxes or time wars."

The collar is cloth and indeed blue. It has on it a small brass tag, and stamped "MAXIE". On the other side "RETURN TO LOUISE SIMONS NEW KENTSHIRE FREE STATE 2,000 CR REWARD". Trav uses her sonic to change MAXIE to PUDDY and LOUISE SIMONS NEW KENTSHIRE FREE STATE to SMOKE ALARM PARADISE TOWERS. "Hm. What rewards are we gonna offer for Puddy's safe return?"
This message was last edited by the player at 00:33, Sat 21 May 2016.

Smoke Alarm outlooked at the collar; it was old and blue and scuffed up and fluffy where the cat had scratched it. 'Purrfect.' she decided with a grin. She listened for a moment, interpreting 'Puddy says he would be honnered to wear Maxie's collar.'

'I dunno what rewards. I don't have much to give. A hug, at least.' Smoke Alarm figured.

She wondered about cats and collars, and called out 'Hey, Amanda. Do you wear a collar?'

Amanda's whiskers twitch and her face scrunches up in a strange way.  Finally, she says, "No, I don't, Smoke Alarm.  There are some Khezheks back home who, hrr, practice what they call the 'feline lifestyle' but it's really not the thing for me.  And, well.  I know you didn't mean anything by it, but you should probably know, it's not the most polite question to ask."

She shakes her head and sighs.  "Wicker baskets, indeed...."

'Hmm, okay.' Smoke Alarm accepted, not quite understanding why, and not even knowing what khezhek was. 'I wear a collar, eyespy!' she added, fingering the aluminium Kang neckband she wore, which the Draconians had polished until it was all shiny.

"It's shiny," Amanda admits.  "Just not for me, I suppose."

The TARDIS whumps to a halt as it arrives back at the Arden orbital station where the main headquarters of UNIT has been relocated, as of the year 3478 CE.

Amanda hugs Trav and Stanley good-bye.  "I loaded a full holoscan of Racallan's journal into the TARDIS memory core," she says, "so I mean to take the hard copy back for Mr. Evers to take a closer look at."

As she's picking up the heavy book, a slip of thin plastic flutters out from between its pages   She picks it up and shows it to Trav:

Archives known to hold copies of Racallan's Apocrypha:

The Library (cross-temporal risk and Vashta Nerada infestation; avoid)
Texillian Seven Archives of Knowledge (interdiction zone, Thirty-First Sontaran-Rutan War, dystronic radiation hazard)
Central Repository, Municipal Library of Kestartes City, Kestartes Delta

-- RS

Trav snugs Amanda. "Give my love to your folks. We'll be in touch."



"Well, well. Someone isn't entirely mean and doesn't entirely hate Time Lords. Kestartes Delta it is."

'Bye-bye!' Smoke Alarm waved Amanda goodbye. Since the cat-lady was all-ways outcoming and ingoing, this was not sad a leaving, and Smoke didn't knowhow her that well anyhow.

After some last fussing over Puddy and once again reading the words on his badge (just like the one she'd gotten from the Emperor!), she put the cat safely back in her pack-back, hoping she wouldn't have to take his head off again any time soon. That was one break fixited, now for another. 'Stanley! I had to pop my arm out again to get through the ducks in the Palace... Um, I didn't want Sereth to know I had to break me and Puddy to save him. Do you wanna outlook?' She shrugged off her shirt and jacket down her arms to show-and-tell him: her whole left shoulder and much of her scrawny whippet-like torso were covered in bruises – blue and black, naturally, bright against her pale, raised-indoors skin.

"Again?" Stanley looks concerned and his look only gets worse when he sees the bruises. "It shouldn't become a habit, Smoke Alarm. No really, repeated dislocations are something you should avoid. You might find that your shoulder starts to pop out more often in the future."

"You said you dislocated it yourself?" Stanley asks as he examines Smoke's shoulder. "I suggest we make a scan to see if there is any damage to the joint capsule. I'll also give you some painkillers. "
This message was last edited by the player at 15:40, Sun 22 May 2016.

Smoke looked hopeful. 'You mean it'll be easier?' But Stanley didn't seem to think it was a good idea, and he was a first-aider, so he should knowhow. After all, she wasn't dolly, she didn't pop back together so easily. She sighed. 'Alright, I'll try-hard to be more sound-and-safe.' Which wasn't exactly a promise she could keep.

'Yep, I did it.' She left out ordering Taliro to help. He hadn't thought it was a good idea either. 'I've fallen down, gotten stuck, twisted around, and been eaten so many times I've figured out all sorts of things. Wanna eyespy what I can do to my leg?' she offered eagerly, then reconsidered after eyespying his face. 'Okay, mayhaps not. I just get used to hurts. Like being hungry and cold.'

Stanley takes Smoke Alarm down to the TARDIS med bay to run the scan.  The first time he explored it after coming on the TARDIS, he found that it was in a horrific state of disarray.   It was larger than he expected it needed to be for just Trav flying around in the universe, with a dizzying array of high-tech equipment and an assortment of boxed drugs and other supplies that, from the markings on the crates and containers, looked like they were originally military issue of some sort.

With some patience and the assistance of the Scudders, Stanley has managed to identify and figure out how to use the more basic functions of some of the high-tech gear.  When he checks over Smoke Alarm with an advanced imager, he finds about what he expected: quite a bit of internal scarring, cartilage damage, and the like.

Fortunately, among the medicines that he has found in the med bay is a sort of programmable regenerative vitamin.  It comes in an inert state that has to be "tuned" with one of the bulky devices in the med bay for particular sorts of repair and recovery: to counteract infections, or tissue damage, or provide general immune system support.  It can't exactly make Smoke's shoulder as good as new, but it can accelerate healing for the current injuries and mitigate some of the long-term structural damage.

It also comes in chocolate and strawberry.

As the TARDIS transits the Vortex on the journey to Kestartes Delta, one of the scanners on the console starts flashing a mauve light, indicating a spatial stability alert.  When she takes a closer look, Trav sees that the skin of local four-space around the surface of the planet is riddled with thousands, maybe tens of thousands of perforations, like the planet has been getting shotgunned with dimensional shrapnel over the course of centuries.

This situation is not particularly dangerous for people or objects just moving around normally in three-space, as long as they're not mucking about with transmats or other dimensional technology.  Trav does expect that it's going to make for an exceptionally bumpy materialization.

She also sees that in the target time zone, there is little in the way of energy production or technological communication traffic, although the planet seems to sustain a healthy biosphere.

As a dimensional traveller, actually, Trav is hugely interested in this phenomenon. Further, because she's radically familiar with all sorts of gates and dimensional tears from RIFTS Earth, because the place was rife with demon summoning and such. She runs around the console, using controls she hasn't since Rifts Earth.

"Wow, look at this. It's like people are using transmats all over the place. Reminds me of when I'd visit Center in Phase World."

Once the TARDIS fully materializes, Trav says, "Hey Chibi, pull me a precis on Kestartes Delta?"

OOC - Check the TARDIS databanks for info on Khestartes Delta?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:26, Sun 22 May 2016.

The console quickly ding!s and the databank display shows the text:

Mostly Harmless.

After a moment and a stern look from the Traveller, the display shifts:

Level 5 humanoid civilization.  Markedly low levels of inter-tribal organized conflict (3.7 on the Lazartis scale).  Temperate climate, minimal environmental hazard, but uninspiring nightlife.  General civilization collapse during the mid-Humanian Era, queued for field research authorization by Prydon Academy.

"Heh. Sweet boy, I told you, you have a lousy sense of humour. That means I'll carry my pieces."



"Well, that funding isn't going to come through." snort. There's probably a reason there are no good clubs or bands are here, tied to that collapse. "Ready to go, kids?"

Trav is heading out to the door, grabbing her bag and her guns. She hasn't checked the scanner, and is just poking her head out.

OOC: Let me know when I qualify for Impulsive
This message was last edited by the player at 18:21, Sun 22 May 2016.

When Stanley invited her to visit the talkiphone box's first-aid room with him, Smoke Alarm waved bye-bye to Traveller. 'We'll chase after you later!' After all, it sounded like she was only outgoing to a bookery to shoplift a book – yawny! Besides, that had not gone so well for her on Draconia.

Down in the first-aid room, while Stanley scanned her with a thingamajig, she sat on the bed and played with the scudders, which were not so bad as cleaners after all.

Trav figures that the kids will catch up with her later. Mostly harmless. Certainly taking a walk from Sweet Boy wouldn't be dangerous. What could possibly go wrong?

OOC: Yeah, Impulse and Curious.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:54, Wed 25 May 2016.

Smoke Alarm sniffed the pill Stanley gave her – chockalate! – but outlooked dubiously at it, and then at him. Dealing with tricksy Rezzies, Kangs had learned not to trust meds or lollies they were given, not unless they'd lost-and-found them themselves. 'Is it sprinkles?' she asked. It wasn't that she untrusted Stanley, she just had to make sure as eggs that it was sound-and-safe. 'What'll it do? Will you have one too?'

"Sprinkles? No, I don't think so." Stanley isn't sure what Smoke means. He tries to explain. "It is medicine, it is good for you. I strongly advice you to take it, because the scan showed that your arm popping out has caused some damage inside your shoulder. This little thing has stuff in it that will help your shoulder get better."

"I won't take one." Stanley smiles. "That is because I didn't dislocate my shoulder and didn't get hurt, so I don't need to. This is just for people who are injured or sick."



"Yeah, we'll be right there." Stanley nods. He is not that worried about the dangerous fauna. He turns to Smoke. "That was Trav, she has found someone who might know where the library is. Let's go there now. Oh... and don't forget your crossbow, Smoke. Apparently, there are dangerous animals out there."

Smoke Alarm remained unsure, but she trusted Stanley not to give her sprinkles. 'Well, I don't spose you're outgoing to eat me.' she decided with a grin, then popped the pill in her mouth. There was a brief taste of chocolate before she swallowed it and took a sip of water. She didn't feel much different right off though.

She hopped off the high bed at Traveller's call and Stanley's words. 'I never forget my cross— my arrowgun.' she retorted, annoyed that he might think she would. Well, okay, she'd left it behind at the Blue Pavilion on Draconia, but only because of Sereth's say-so. And outlook how much of to-do she'd gotten in without it.

She started footing out with Stan, back toward the talkiphone box brainquarters at the exits. 'Don't be a worry-wart, I'll protect you from the dangerous animals, but we'll try to keep-away from them. But if we can't, well, we can have a picknick...'

Since the days of the 1st Traveller, The Library also shared a feature that was inherited from whatever unnamed Time Lord had held stewardship over the ancient Type 50 from before the Celestiographer, 2nd class first stole it those centuries ago - it was also the time ship's Zero Room. The 1st Traveller would retire here to read, work in her garden, knit or crochet or take a nap. A hand knitted American flag with 13 stars hangs on one wall. The small reading room was transcendentally connected to the much larger Library, so it could be thought of as something of an extension. The 2nd Traveller also spent time here, although much less frequently - she was far too fidgety to be comfortable here, using the place only to either do research or sack out. The 5th Traveller more or less left the place alone, relaxing instead in the messy Lounge (playing video games, reading books or comics or playing games or sleeping on the big wreck of a couch) or working in the workshop (where she spent time all the way from when she was in R-Space all the way till now, tinkering) or the Lab. No matter what someone is looking for, they can always find the book they need - but not necessarily the book they want. Sometimes, there are scrolls, cuneiform tablets, wampum belts or other media. A small gramophone with cylinders is in the corner.

In addition to the books (which includes the 1st Traveller's extensive art book and graphic novel library, and the 5 shelves devoted to role playing game books), there are also discretely placed laptops, desktop workstations and tablets which are linked to the TARDIS's network, sweetboy.net, with a small kitchen to the side which is always stocked.

The scutters of course have kept the place spotless. No doubt Smoke Alarm has been here. Theres a small sunny garden outside, with a swing and changing weather. The air smells slightly of roses, and the seasons shift. It smells and feels of home.


This message was last edited by the player at 16:28, Fri 31 Mar 2017.

Having already eyespied the bookery, Smoke Alarm didn't need to outlook around now. She had eyespies only for the Traveller, or the woman she had become, as she helped Stan take her to the couch and lay her down. 'Sleep-tight.' she said unboldly. 'Don't let the bed-bugs bite.' She outlooked down at this new Traveller, trying to eyespy something she rememorized in her. Was she just unyoung or stretched out a bit? There didn't seem to be anything. She wouldn't knowhow different or alike she was until she woke up and did Travellery things.

She outlooked at Stan. 'Now what do we do?'

Kalath's first minutes in the TARDIS have been eventful if confusing ones.  Strangely, the explosive transformation of the blond woman into this older-seeming, dark-haired version may have been the least odd part of it all.  For Kalath, after all, radical physical changes of a person's form are just a fact of life, even if they usually involve more fur and fangs.

The sheer space inside the blue box might be harder to come to grips with.  The size of the control room was one thing, but with all the talk of "sorcerers" it didn't seem so incredibly far beyond the pale.  A certain reevaluation was called for when Stanley and Smoke Alarm hauled the Traveller out through one of the side doors, because the place just kept going through corridors and wide halls and chambers and up and down stairwells.  Kalath, at least at first, had kept up, but it was surprisingly hard to keep her focus with all the strangeness of the TARDIS and the echo of the changed Call still ringing in her head.

OOC: Not sure if you'd like to be in that scene with them, or if you still are taking time out.  You can be there, or lost in the TARDIS, or circled back around to the control room as you wish.

As Smoke Alarm's question hangs in the air, the two of them are surprised to see a kitling -- Zeffy -- bound up to the arm of the sofa at the Traveller's head and perch there, brooding over the unconscious Time Lord.  He looks quizzically at the humans, then bends down over Trav and starts to lick her forehead clean.

'Mayhaps we should just let her sleep-tight. Mayhap she'll be better when she rises-and-shines.' Absently, Smoke Alarm reached out and stroked Zeffy's fur, letting him keep licking this new Traveller. Mayhaps he would lick her better. She outlooked again at Stan; he might not know what to do now, but she knew what she had to do. She reached out and gently took Traveller's hat, still grasped in his hand after she'd given it to him. 'I need this.' she said sadly.

Smoke Alarm outlooked at Traveller one last time, then footed out of the bookery and back to the brainquarters. She needed to put the Traveller on the scrapheap.

Smoke Alarm had footed fastly back to the brainquarters, but it took her lots of ticktocks to actually get there. She got the knowhow why. She didn't really want to get there, so Sweet Boy kept turning her roundabout and putting her in dead ends. He felt the same way. Lost in the carrydoors, Smoke Alarm cried out her sadness for the Traveller, for the one who was no more. It still felt much too much like she was unalive. She'd been recycled, from one whole person to another. Smoke had gotten used to that in Paradise Towers, people put in bins and taken to the Basement, coming back as food, so she couldn't help but think of the Traveller she'd known as unalive.

At last, lost and found, Smoke Alarm tracked back to the console room. On the way, she passed Kalath, surprised to eyespy her still here. Of course, the talkiphone box had flown off with her still inside. Smoke guessed she was not just a visitor now, but was staying. She wasn't yet sure whether trust her. She'd gotten too close to being like a Rezzie, a purple people eater, for them to ever feel sound-and-safe. And yet... she was part of the talkiphone box gang now. 'You can help me, if you want?' Smoke offered moodily.

In the control room, the Blue Kang began finding scrap and piling it over the six-sided console. Bits and bobs of rubbish and junk lost-and-found in the carrydoors and rooms, things Traveller had used or worn or played with. Some of her books, comics, movies, and games, as well as her old clothes. Her two pistols, placed carefully. Whole sideboards and panels prised off the walls and out of the console, wrecking the console room in the process. Parts of the frame Traveller had strapped herself into, the scrapheap she'd made for herself. The cables that had powered it, looped around to tie it all together. Finally, the Traveller's tricksy fedora, perched on the very top.

Smoke Alarm stepped back. The scrapheap was complete. All the work and footing back and forth had helped burn up her energy, burn out her grief and clear out her brain. This ritual helped her move on. 'Hail the Traveller. Hail the unalive who put Kestartes to rights. Blonde of colour, but brave and bold as a Kang should be.' she called out around the brainquarters, her voice breaking even as she said the words. She drew her hand from left hip to right shoulder, then held her hand up, palm out, a gesture drawn from some forgotten spaceship safety procedure, one of the farewell to the departed.

Then she commenced a slow walk around the scrapheap, chanting 'Hail the Traveller. Hail the unalive who made the cats play nice. Blonde of colour, but brave and bold as a Kang should be.' She went around the console. 'Hail the Traveller. Hail the unalive who made all of space sound and safe. Blonde of colour, but brave and bold as a Kang should be.' Another lap, her feet growing sore in their runners. 'Hail the Traveller. Hail the unalive who show-and-telled us amazing things. Blonde of colour, but brave and bold as a Kang should be...'
This message was last edited by the player at 23:51, Mon 10 Apr 2017.

"Sure..." Stanley replies softly. "I..uh I'll see if I can find a blanket or something for Trav."

And the Traveller sleeps, for several hours, occasionally exhaling that golden mist, in the soothing peace of the Zero Room study. The scutters show up, with a set of jammies and a robe, loose enough so that it should fit this new Traveller - comfortable dark silks.  Presumably, you change her out of the burnt, torn clothes of the 5th Traveller.

But, with a sudden start, the dark haired woman sits up straight,another whisp of golden mist exhaling from her lungs. Cough, cough, hack!

She stares up at Stanley, and Kalath, and Smoke Alarm.

"Mrrrwwrr. Why are the three of you staring at me like you don't know who I am?"

She hops up on the couch in a curling kneel, which is rather cat-like. She lets out this low kind of growl, which in cat, means, <<My bag. Can I have my bag, please.>>

Presuming someone carried her bag, she digs in it frantically, occasionally tossing a random item, until she finds a mirror.


She gasps.

"Oh. I look like that? I look like Minmay! High cheekbones. Brown eyes. No, not just my sweet Lynn who I left back on Macrsoss Island. Oh. Like some other people I fell in love with." She clack clack clacks her teeth. "And blue." She notes the wide streak of blue in her hair.



"And speaking of blue, how do you do."  She hops to face Smoke Alarm, fist raised up, ready to start the how-do-you-do. Her eyes blink expectantly
This message was last edited by the player at 23:41, Mon 10 Apr 2017.

Once the Fifth Traveller had been thrown on the scrapheap (figuratively, and with much solemn mourning), Smoke Alarm had tracked back to the bookery to check-out the new Traveller. Now she'd had a chance to properly grieve and farewell her old friend, she felt rather better about meeting the new.

But she was sad and unbrave to eyespy this Traveller acting like a pussycat, meowing and crouching and even coughing up a furball of that weird goldy mist stuff. Had the Cheetah thing gotten to her at last? Smoke Alarm couldn't think that they'd done all this to stop the Cheetahring, only for Traveller to change into a Hunter herself.

But there were other things, the Traveller's talk of her old friends and lives, the blue in her hair, that made her hold out hope that Traveller was still in there. 'Trav?' Smoke queried softly and wonderingly, outlooking for her old friend in the new.

Then this Traveller wanted to do the how-you-do, and Smoke Alarm had to accept. Setting her face hard, Smoke confronted the Traveller. She stepped forward, making a fist as her right arm came up and across, somewhere between a punch and a block. Then her left hand brought it down, the fist released with an open palm. She stepped forward again, mirroring the last movement, as her left arm rose up and across her body, before her right hand brought it down, her fist opening.

Next, she raised both hands and clapped, the smack echoing through the library. She kept both hands up, palms to the Traveller's, in a martial echo of pat-a-cake. At last, Smoke Alarm bobbed a curtsey and bowed her head to the Traveller.

A one-Kang scrapheap is a sad and lonely thing.  But it doesn't stay that way for long.

As Smoke Alarm dislodges access panels from the console room walls, this naturally attracts the attention of some of Us who make their way out of the wainscoting. And while they join in step with Smoke's clockways procession around the scrapheap, some of the kitlings also poke their noses into the room.  They form a wider circle, slinking widdershins around the path of Smoke and the (somewhat more apprehensive) Us.

A pair of whirlybots complete the ceremony, going whop whop whop and making their own grand orbit around it all.

After Smoke Alarm has footed away and the Us and kitlings retreat to their respective old and new haunts, the aerial scutters poke in the amazing assemblage, from which a muted ding! can now be heard.

On an indicator panel uncovered by their experimental attempts to make some fresh order out of things, there's a display with the words:

The Flying Gardens
Hathtotep Recreation and Self-Actualization HabiSphere
Humanian Era, CE 57,818

The Traveller matches the sequence, move for move, fist for fist, with a kind of grace that the hyper phrenetic 5th Traveller never had. As this new Traveller bobs her head back and curtseys, she says, "Hello. You must be Smoke Alarm. I'm the Traveller. I'm pleased to meet you. Build high for happiness." A measured pause and smile. "Did I get it right, this time?"

There was a warmth in the eyes that was still there.

As the ceremony proceeds,the audience hears the voiceover of old companions of the 5th Traveller, the traitorous Shifter known as Driftwood from the old HBO Rifts series as well as the Atlantean Time Wizard Malakai:

As Trav performed the how-you-do, Smoke Alarm outlooked on expectantly and anxiously. This Trav did the how-you-do better than before, as well as even Sereth could. Yet Smoke was concerned that she seemed to be just how-you-doing her for the first time, seemingly not rememorising her and Stan.

But as their hands touched for the second time, Smoke Alarm got the knowhow, realising she was how-you-doing an old friend for the first time again too. 'Yes!' Smoke Alarm burst out, happy and sad at the same time, hugging Traveller tight. 'But Build High For Happiness is for goodbyes and good lucks.' she sobbed laughing into her shoulder.

She was also unconscious; but more had been made of the Traveller. She was still the same, but the calling of the blood ran through her stronger than ever - but just different, subtle. Her eyes flickered open, taking in the TARDIS again - and not yet seeing Stanley, Smoke or the Traveller.

"Well, I'm not a Kang, so what do I know. I always get Kang things wrong, I'm a Traveller." Her words are slower, which means at normal pace for most people. "So, for good luck." She hugs back, joyfully.

She smacks her lips. "Hungry. Hungry. Food. Yes, food." After hugging Smoke, and swings her legs onto the floor, and drops down into a crouch. She then starts running into the corridor on all fours, like a cat.  "SNAPPY TOM TIME," she kind of yowls, shooting off!

After eyespying the Traveller run off on all paws, Smoke Alarm outlooked worriedly to Stan. 'Is this a game or...?'

"Maybe some residual effect from the Cheetah Virus?" Stanley suggests. As long as it is just temporary, they shouldn't be too worried.  "But if it is a game, then I think you can play it better than me. I don't want to pretend being a cat."

If the team follows, she's in the kitchen. Items are being tossed out of the fridge. "Tuna? No. Peanut Butter? No. Sour Cream? No. Jalapenos? AH. Milk. GLUG GLUG GLUG."

She's been sampling stuff, her face is a mess. She startles a bit. "Snappy Tom Time." In her arms are lunch meats, bread, jam, weird sauces, catsup, and a big jar of pickles. "Pickles. When I was pregnant, I never wanted pickles. I have no idea that I want them now. Oh, one more thing."

She reaches back into the fridge, and grabs both a jug of milk, and an economy size bottle of Fizz-Ade - multi hue flavor.

On the large wooden table that you've shared a bunch meals with the Blonde Traveller, this new one is slapping together this monstrous weird Dagwood sandwich, made with all sorts of meats, mayo, mustard, chili sauce, jelly, fluffer nutter, BBQ sauce, and heavens knows what else.

With a side of sushi.

She finally assembles the monstrosity, and says, "build high for happiness." She chomps into the bread and meat jenga tower, and reaches over, GULP GULP GULPING down some milk. "Hm. No. Needs something." She then proceeds to pour the Fizz-Ade into a large glass, and then milk, making a seething mess. GLUG GLUG GLUG.

She blinks her eyes, as she swallows, grabs a paper towel, wipes off her mouth. "Mrowr. Hello." She then bites into a pickle, and then offers Stan and Smoke some. A pause. "Pickle? It's sweet."

Chomp, chomp, chomp. "Hm, almost. Do you know what would be perfect?"

"A frapple pie. They taste like love."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:20, Wed 12 Apr 2017.

'Alright.' Smoke Alarm decided, then got down on her hands and feet and chased after Traveller, yowling 'Snappy Tom Time!' Pretty soon, she had Tiddles and Zeffy running along beside them thru the talkiphone box carrydoors.

*

Handing and footing into the kitchen, Smoke Alarm stood up and stretched, eyespying the mess Traveller was making. It was worse than Kangs in a kitchen really, and she wasn't sure it all went together so well. She took a pickle and bit into it, wrinkling her nose at the pickly taste. 'You outlook like a hungry hungry hippo.' she remarked, more impressed than worried. 'Mrs Maglup's frapple pies are the best! But mayhaps try this first...'

The Blue Kang dipped into the heaps of food, picking out the polony and a bottle of tomato sauce. Cutting up round slices of the pink sausage meat, she laid them flat and squirted tomato sauce on them to make smiley faces. 'Have a polony face!' she offered Traveller and Stan a slice each.

The New Traveller is indeed smiling and is indeed eating ravenously. "Oh, ooom. Yes, the body needs that. Fizz-Ade to restore electrolyte balance. Meats for protein. Bread for carbs." But she has enough presence of mind not to take any of Smoke's food except what she offers and freely gives her own. "Almost done settling in. BRRAAAAAP." She hands down meats and nibblies to the assembled Kitlings. "So, we have new friends on board. She rrrwwrs again. <hello>"

"Speaking of new friends. Where's Kalath?"

She stands up, and wobbles, but takes steps. "Oh, now, I am getting it, the new legs."

She ate her polony tomato-sauce face, taking care not to get said snack on her face. 'Oh, Kalath's still sleep-tight like a pussycat. She didn't even wakey-wakey when I— well, did things.' she broke off shyly, unsure how to explain it. She never put someone on the scrapheap who wasn't unalive before. Un-unalive?

'Yes! Legs, you foot on them.' Smoke offered helpfully. 'But not on hands, they don't really foot so good as legs do.'

Trav holds out her hands. "But it is easier. Hrrm. Well, then. Left foot, then right." She takes a hold of Smoke Alarm's hands, and forces her body to learn how to move bidpedally in this new body. "The Cheetah taught me how to move first. This new body, the balance, it's all different."

Stanley politely declines any of the offered food.

The Traveller hms. "It looks kind of disgusting to me too, doctor. I'm craving it - my body is  need certain things to rebalance. It tastes amazing right now. But we'll experience proper cuisine, later."

She got up now, and took in her surroundings. No-one here. She eyed the tower. And all those sparkling buttons. She leapt to her feet, not seeing any Hunters or even Kitlings about, and went over closer. She wondered what...

'S'good, footing's just like falling over, only you catch yourself on your foot and keep going.' Smoke show-and-telled as she gave Traveller a helping hand to foot about the kitchen. 'Later I'll show-and-tell you how to jump down a staircase and flip over a wall, that's important too.'

"I'm excited to learn how! This body is like a dancers. I hope I can make it move right." She stumbles a bit, smiling as she learns to walk.

'Well, you already did the how-you-do fine. And that needed footing.'

Kalath puzzles over the complicated-looking device, still half heaped with a collection of bric-a-brac that she hadn't remembered being there before.  She shifts some of it around to get a better look.

Old pictures and the stories still held in the Stronghold's meager collection of books had taught her that the rusted-out, overgrown hulks still littering Kestartes City were supposed to be vehicles that could take you running faster than the fastest Hunter, and she had some notion of how those were supposed to work, but this was something altogether different and strange.  But it was how the Traveller had come to Kestartes, how she and her friends went farther almost than Kalath could imagine.

She studies the console, almost baffled by the complexity of the lights and switches, but nonetheless somehow able to feel a wellspring of power and potential in it, ready to be unlocked with the right keys....

She then moved over to the console, it calling to her. Her nose twitched, and she pressed one of the buttons, trying to access this thing that was calling to her....

The results are immediate and dramatic.

The floor dips and twists away from Kalath, as the TARDIS lurches drunkenly, the console making a vwrrrrm noise.  A lesser being would have been pitched away from the controls and into one of the encircling guard rails, but Kalath catches herself by a vertical three-position lever, flipping it from the neutral setting.  This makes the holo-display pop on, displaying the swirling patterns of what the Traveller would recognize as the Vortex, as the TARDIS veers and spins toward its destination.

In the kitchen, moments before this happens, there is a large silver blip! that leaves behind the form of Mokey as it dissipates.  The new Traveller finds the task of mastering her new legs suddenly more complicated than she'd expected due to the vessel's sudden change in orientation, and it is sharp enough to send Trav's sandwich sliding across and off the table, directly into the face of the surprised (yet undoubtedly pleased by this turn of events) Mokey.

OOC: Story point for Curious, then.  From the outside they usually look much the same anyway.

Smoke Alarm, who was very used to sudden changes in orientation (though usually her own), surefooted as a Kang, nimbly kept her balance as the kitchen tipped sideways. She tried to catch Traveller and stopsign her falling. 'Floorquake! We're not shape-ship and sound! What's ongoing?'

She blinks furiously at the holo-display, and peers at it, her eyes blinking. If only there was one of those thingamies where you could communicate with people far away.

Did one of the other buttons do that then? She's not sure even she's game to try for another button right now.

"What's happening?" She wails.

"Maybe the Tardis is still being attacked." Stanley says while trying to hold on to something.

As the floor lurches, the new Traveller staggers and grabs onto Smoke Alarm. "I don't know. Something is interfacing with the Briode Denebulizer. Cheetah. Cheetah? My lad. My Sweet Boy. I'll be right there. To the control room. Hurry!" Still not able to quite walk, she drops to all fours again, and starts to run like a cat, through the corridors.  "We're in vortex transit. I don't know where!" As the Time Rotor lurches, her hands and feet gait is strangely much more balanced, as she almost flits from wall to wall, somewhat in the same way that Smoke Alarm does parkour.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:21, Sat 15 Apr 2017.

All speed, Smoke Alarm footed after Traveller, on two feet rather than four, which was a fair bit fasterer down the carrydoors. She also skipped up off the walls, taking the corners at speed without losing a ticktock. 'No, this way!' she show-and-telled the Traveller, sure she knew a cut-short. 'Mayhaps Kalath poked a puter?' she suggested, neglecting the fact that she'd covered the console in junk herself.

Even as she races through the crazily tilting corridors, Trav wonders why the TARDIS is behaving this way.  Even if it were nominally out of control, surely the negative lateral reticulator would stabilize the internal gravitational fields?

Then again, Sweet Boy has been through a lot since Trav was actually at the controls.  Perhaps someone accidentally disengaged the reticulator.

OOC: Oh, what the heck.  You lot who are racing for the control room can make Tricky Coordination + Athletics checks.  If you succeed, you'll make it there before the TARDIS... "lands." :)

OOC: Easy peasy!
11:25, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 21 using 2d6+11 with rolls of 5,5. coordination(5) + athletics(4) + Kang Fu(2).

Seeing Smoke Alarm and Trav run off towards the control, Stanley feels he can't stay behind. He tries to follow the others, but getting out of the library in this turbulence is more difficult than they had made it look.



OOC: Almost. Closer than I had expected :)
23:51, Today: Stanley Newton rolled 13 using 2d6+4 ((3,6)).

Smoke Alarm footed all-speed into the talkiphone box brainquarters, and eyespied Kalath at the puters, obviously tuching things. Nevermind that it was just what she'd be doing in her place, she yelled 'What are you doing? Don't tuch the scrapheap!' Coz it was the Traveller's scrapheap.

This new Traveller is staggering towards the control console. "Lad, lad, calm down! Here now, I'm here.That's a good lad." As she soothes her TARDIS, her hands fumble over the controls. "New hands! How am I supposed to pilot with new hands?" And since when has Trav called Sweet Boy lad?

OOC: Reflexes+Transport? Trying to stabilize the TARDIS in flight and right the floor.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:19, Wed 19 Apr 2017.

Somehow the Traveller's new relationship to concepts of bipedal locomotion prove synergistic with the wildly changing orientation of the TARDIS: she arrives at the console room on Smoke Alarm's heels.  She notes the clutter and debris all over the console, but disregards it.  (Plainly this is some sort of quaint Kestartes housewarming ritual.)

And despite the TARDIS having been sent on a Gallifreyan Sleighride through the vortex, she finds the pulse of the console under her hands warm and reassuring.  That's a good thing, because the shimmy of the time rotor indicator is telling her that materialization is imminent, and the mean free path track is suggesting that they'll be entering classical four-space at a considerable spatial velocity.

Fortunate that she made good time from the kitchen!  She's got, oh, seconds to intervene and effect a non-catastrophic reentry.

OOC: Yep, Coordination + Transport.  Call it a Hard.

'No ball-games, no fly-posts, no tuching!' Smoke Alarm wailed on a whole other issue, footing up to the console-slash-scrapheap. It hadn't been enough ticktocks yet! Not enough to take an alleviator to the Great Pool in the Sky. Huffing, she outlooked over the clutter and junk and, with great care and deliberation, pulled out something vital so it all collapsed into pile on the floor, driven there by natural (if manually accelerated) entropy and decay. Footing her way 'round the console and through the junk, Smoke Alarm swept off the remainder to clear the picturespouts for Traveller. And Traveller's hat, the Doctor's old hat – she placed it carefully on top of the pile.

'Mayhaps use your feet! It worked for me to make the Lucky Drifter shapeship and sound.'

And this new Trav does two, very weird things -

First, she *flips onto her hands*. Performing a handstand she starts manipulating the controls with her feet similar to what someone might see in a Wu Xia action movie.

Second, she spots her hat. Standing on one hand, she reaches over to it. "I'm the Traveller, and that's my hat. All hail Blondie the unalive, but the new woman is now in charge." As she grabs the hat, she snaps it, and it becomes a rich, cobalt blue scarf. She whips it around her neck and shoulders!

Smoke Alarm created a scrap heap for me? She remembers when Smoke Alarm did her walk around of the UNIT memorial right before their extradimensional adventure to rescue Colonel Rayburn, and explained what a scrap heap was.

"I've never driven The Lad here with just my feet before. Hold on!"

OOC: I hereby claim a story point for Eccentric.
EDIT - Trav shouldn't drive with her feet.
09:40, Today: The Traveller rolled 11 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 1,2.  2d6+Coordination 4+Transport 4 - Trav drives the Tardis with her feet.

This message was last edited by the player at 13:44, Wed 19 Apr 2017.

Finally making his (marginally more cautious) way to the console room, Stanley arrives just in time to see the new Traveller in an inverted posture, manipulating the controls with her feet.

Stanley hasn't exactly finished processing that when he hears the roaring noise and feels the vibration in the deck that means the TARDIS is materializing.  The holo-dome flickers and flashes and then it is no longer showing the swirling colors of the vortex as the TARDIS topples through it.  It shows sky and a streak of sunlight whirling around.  Then there is an impression of a vast barrier of greenery that the TARDIS smashes through with minimal resistance.  Stone walls the TARDIS is tumbling past.  A few tantalizing glimpses of winged forms passing in a flash.  And then there is ground, dark stone hurtling straight at the TARDIS and its occupants.

There's a massive jolt that knocks everyone who hasn't grasped for a handhold from their feet, a bump, skip and a skid, while the TARDIS collision safety measures deploy.  Stanley is sandwiched between a pair of explosive air-bags from either side of the console room door he's just come through.

For those adjacent to the console, safety tethers snap out to catch convenient extremities and, bungee-like, restrain the owners of the limbs from flying off toward the inevitably gruesome impact with the walls.  (Although that does not prevent Kalath from achieving several impromptu somersaults at the end of her tethers.)

Smoke Alarm is too far too be caught by the tether.  Instead, nozzles pop out of the ceiling and discharge at her huge globs of some white goop that instantly solidifies into a quick-drying, impact-resistant, flame-retardant foam that smells and in fact tastes of peppermint.

As the dust settles, the console gives a cheery ding! to announce their landing.

OOC: Have that point, Trav.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:17, Thu 20 Apr 2017.

Trav is hanging in the safety restraints, upside down.

"Ah. Ah. The... crash webbing."

She gets dumped down onto the deck in an undignified heap.

She staggers up again, pulling herself up to the console. "Another perfect landing."

She looks around. "Is everyone all right?"

Bits of blue and Kang protruded at odd angles from the mass of white foam. 'No!' a muffled and pained voice answered from within. 'It's, it's peppermint! Eww!'

Still stumbling, Trav is flipping switches around the console. The time capsule rights itself with a massive LURCH, and one up and down cycle. "You smell minty fresh," says The Traveller.

"Now, Lad, show us where we are." She pauses for a moment. "My sweet, precious boy." She strokes the column of the time rotor, affectionately. "Thank you for standing with me. Yes, I am sure that Phillipe and his partner will be OK. There are pieces of you and me inside him, now. I hope... he listens. That is, if it is Phillipe."

She swings a monitor over, and turns on the scanner. What's outside? Where have they landed?

"I am still alive, but did you just call this a perfect landing?" Stanley replies as he tries to get out from between the airbags. "I definitely don't want to experience your idea of a bad landing then."

"Why, dear Stanley, it was perfect. I didn't say who it was perfect for. Have I gotten you killed in a TARDIS crash yet? And I am a better driver than I was when I was blonde."

'It tastes like teethpaste! Yuck!' Smoke Alarm complained, trying to climb out and wade through the heap of goop. Her head emerged, and quickly and noisily spat out a mouthful of foam. This was not nearly as icehot as the fire-retardant foam in the palace on Draconia. 'I've made better landings onto concrete... Where are we?'

The panoramic scanner looks out onto a wide, sunlit plaza paved in red brick, with a gushing ornamental fountain at its center.  In the background is old but well-tended stonework, artfully draped in vines and creepers.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of people are in view -- many are human, but there is a scattering of other species in evidence, and neither the humans or nonhumans are notably disturbed by the mix.  (In fact, the focal point of disturbance seems to be the TARDIS itself: there are a few people in the foreground who appear to have been involuntarily deposited on their backsides.  Several toppled litter receptacles and what look like board-game tables are also in evidence nearby.)  Clearly the climate outside is more than temperate, as the clothing styles run to a sort of neo-Grecian or space-age Egyptian look in light colors, cut to soak up sun on the skin.

The crowd is parting at the advance of a trio in gold-trimmed navy blue togas, moving purposefully in the direction of the TARDIS.  The central figure, a tall redheaded woman, is carrying a bound bundle of long rods at "shoulder arms" position.

Trav smiles. "They've called out the honor guard to greet us. Come on." Still in black silk PJS and a dark comfy robe, this new Traveller looks like a darker clothed, female Arthur Dent. She grabs her old bag. "Where is it, where is it, where is it, ah, yes." She digs out two objects - her old beat up sonic, and her glasses. She looks kind of ardorkable.

"They remind me... of..."

She remembers the victorian-like Krayloss. Her face grows unbearably sad, for a moment. "Oh, Minister. Oh, Volstern." She grew mighty and heroic facing them.

"Maybe these people are your children. Let's see."



She's about to trot out, but then looks around. "Where's Kalath?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:39, Fri 21 Apr 2017.

She grimaces, before finally releasing herself from the tethers, before flipping down and landing well.. on her feet. Would you expect anything else from someone infected with the Cheetah Virus?

"I don't know what the heck is going on here, but wouldn't mind an explanation!"

Trav smiles slightly, as someone meeting with another of shared experience might. "How... do you feel?" She asks this with grave seriousness.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Let me... explain first. It's still all something of a blur."

"The blonde woman I was gave her life to deal with an old, old enemy and perhaps loved one of ours. She's gone, I am now here. I am the Traveller. When faced with certain death, my people... change. We're not immortal and we can only do this a certain number of times. Its part of how we age. We keep the memories but our bodies and personalities become different."

She looks around. "It seems as if the Lad here has taken us somewhere else. We've travelled across time and space, and here we are. A new unknown place in the universe. Isn't it exciting?"

"But, I have a question for you. The Cheetah spirit, the Hunters, the Kitlings. How are they? I'm deeply grateful for the help you gave me, back there - the entire Cheetah tribe. I am not a Hunter - at least, I don't think I am - but I'm concerned. Did... my attempt to dialogue, to converse, work? How do you feel? I... I don't want to have hurt them. I wanted peace between the Cheetahs and the people of Khestartes."

Crawling out of the goop now, Smoke Alarm outlooked up at the picturespouts. Eyespying a fountain surrounded by rubbish and creepers, her first thought was a stunned 'Is it Fountain of Happiness Square?' But the fountain was much smallerer than she rememorised, and the red bricks she did not. 'No, some other Tower.'

Shaking off the foam, with much splattering, she answered Kalath 'The talkiphone box has comeout some place new.'

Kalath frowned.

"It's.. different. I don't feel the need purely to hunt; my sense of curiosity has been amplified. A need to travel, to explore. But, Traveller? We're cats. I can control myself better now, bu t ultimately I'm not going to go for salad and cheese."

She frowned at Smoke.

"Talkiphone box?"

'A box with a talkiphone in.'

....

"Talkiphone?"

Smoke didn't knowhow much more simple she could make it. 'A talky phone?'

"My ship. This place. My home. The outside looks like an old police box, or telephone booth. It's not important."

She just looks confused.

"Police? Telephone? This..." She frowned. "Ship. Like from the archives? You -are- a sorceror!"

'Yup! You should eyespy what she did with the red sauce!'

"My darling, I can't cast a single spell, and I've seen quite a few of those being cast. I'm a scientist. A little different."

"Now then. Let's apologize for whoever's public square we've crashed into. Maybe we interrupted a Yu Gi Oh tournament."

Trav trots over to the door, opens it, and pokes her head out. "Hello!"

(In the TARDIS cafeteria, three of Us who have worked out how to operate the food dispenser look up briefly from their tug-of-war over a blueberry pastry.  They sniff the air, shrug, and then resume their playful tussle.)

At the console of the TARDIS, the Traveller stands bent over the controls.  At her left hand is the open volume of the Apocrypha of Racallan the Mad, opened to the extraordinary navigational diagram she'd noticed on her original study of the tome.  The holodome above her presents a rendering of the warp route that Racallan recorded, transferred into the TARDIS navigational system.

A smaller display on the console shows astrographical data on the 55 Cancri system, focusing on the third world in the system.  The planet is a massive gas giant larger than Jupiter, captured into an erratic orbit around the star, and the "Moon of Storms" seems to be a dwarf planet skimming the gas giant's troposphere.  A legend displayed next to the moon reads:

Environmental Hazards:

Fluctuating Tidal Forces
Periodic Tectonic Stress
Magnetospheric Radiation Belt of Primary
High Electrostatic Flux and Periodic Discharge

Looking over cross-references to Earth historical data, the Traveller is hardly surprised to find that humankind has made multiple missions to the moon to study the conditions on the moon, including three tries at a permanent outpost.  In astrophysical terms it's a gold mine of data, and one with a limited lifespan as cosmic bodies go.

It seems, as well, that the peculiar combination of conditions has made it an anchor point for the transversal causeway that Racallan apparently was able to travel over and back.  However, Trav can't work out precisely how he managed it from the data available to her, even granting that a human capable of navigating the warp route must have been a genius, or unhinged, or most likely both.  Trying to achieve a standard insertion from the Vortex would be like trying to bull's-eye a target with a shotgun from a distance of several miles.  Even once she has the TARDIS' transversal drive re-engaged, it seems that it will be necessary to take extensive readings on local space-time from the vicinity of the Moon itself.

As she was settling into her new personality and form, this Traveller had a lot more concentration and ability to sit still. Blondie would have solved this in bursts, but Blue resolved this in one very long sitting. Yes, humans were indomitable and never to be underestimated. All that she did with Zor's Master Matrix was simply translate Tyrolian into English and helped Emil Lang create the counter cypher - it was him who back-engineered the entirety of protoculture energy systems, space fold technology (somewhat imperfectly) and even create things like the transforming Valkyrie fighter.

"This is certainly a moon of storms. Stanley, don't forget, you have an appointment with Fortuna here. Someone is trying to hide and erase the Warpsmiths and what they discovered. Aside from the fact that I regard erasing history, metaphorically or literally, to be a high crime, that sets my nose to twitching for bad people. I'm afraid that this may not be one of this pleasant sightseeing trips. I also want to know why the Mailman was transmitting here."

"Its not a coincidence that a Dalek factory that had an interest in Time Lords and a human poet-mathemetician-genius both had an interest in this thing."

And the Traveller keeps her promises - a heavily encrypted package is being transmitted to the Stormcage, containing a complete scan of the documents that were recovered form Khestartes Delta, for professor River Song. The encryption key is the separate complete discography of Lynn Minmay from 2012 to 2063, spanning over 4 Robotech Wars. If River Song wants to read the rest of Raccallan's work, she will have to listen to Minmay's musical work. Merry Xmas, baby.

"Smoke, was there ever rain or thunderstorms outside Paradise Towers? Kalath, I bet there were plenty of thunderstorms back on Kkestartes. Did the ground every shake?"

She sets the TARDIS still as they orbit Canceri 55 from a safe distance. She trots up to the Orerry, to start to take readings. Especially important was that this was a transversal causeway. Back in R-Space the locals might call this a Rift - a gateway to another universe. She had to check whether or not this had the same characteristics as a CVE.

She feels like Pinstripes today, along with her blue scarf-hat:


This message was last edited by the player at 17:45, Sun 23 Sept 2018.

'Yep! When the plumbing got leaky or taps got left on, it rained thru the ceilings. Sometimes we even needed umberellas like the Doctor! A few times, there was so much rain the floors flooded, and we could slide down the carrydoors and stairs on bin lids. It was icehot! And when the aircon got turned up strong, it blew whoosh down the carrydoors, to make us go fasterer!' Smoke Alarm rememorised fondly. But the fun times hadn't been without hazards. 'But when the water touched the power points, we got lightening storms... But outside was just yawny space, coz Paradise Towers is a, is an orbital arcologgy.' She rememorised those fancy-pants words too. Smoke Alarm had been working on her reading and writing, almost with success.

Now, she was sitting on the couch and playing a game of sazu with a scutter. Smoke Alarm had been learning the Draconian game of paper kings that Taliro had gifted her after their adventures in the palace, and now she almost beat a scutter. Her tactic of running away from danger tended to lead her opponent into makeshift traps and generated chaos across the board, and dragged games out into protracted matches and stalemates. Eventually the scutters got bored and went away and she won, square-and-fair.

'Mayhaps the Warpsmiths are hiding themselves? Kangs all-ways go into hide-ins to be sound-and-safe, so mayhaps the Warpsmiths want to hide and be sound-and-safe too?'

Wearing a pair of special interactive goggles that look for all the world like steampunk eyewear, the Traveller is working wheels and adjusting the viewing seat in the Orrery, looking for all the world like a crazy telescope... without the telescope. "A lot of people hid from the Time War, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Lots of the more ethereal cultures simply left for other universes and the like." She starts taking readings of the space-time around Canceri 55.

OOC: Ingenuity+Science+Research TARDIS?

"People erasing history doesn't sit right with me either." Stanley couldn't help but remember what happened with Phillipe. That had been... unnerving. The fact that someone could disappear and that he would just forget about them. Stanley glanced at the holodome. It was still displaying the warp route. He had long given up trying to understand what it really meant. The moon on the small display was more tangible. Not a very hospitable place, though.

"If we are going to visit the surface, we'll have to make sure we don't forget our umbrellas." Stanley says. "It does makes me wonder if there is an eye of the storm there."

Trav's scans indicate shifting patterns of high quantum flux, likely produced by the interaction of the gravitational fields of the moon with the planet's magnetosphere.  Conditions are more favorable here for the opening of a transversal bridge, but it may be necessary to gather a larger amount of data over time and let the TARDIS computers calculate and identify any recurring cycles to be able to identify the optimal time to attempt to open one, or to take advantage of a naturally occurring breach.

A flashing indicator catches Trav's attention, superimposed on the image of the moon.

Transluminal Communications Beacon Active.
Automated Distress Signal Indicated

"Umbrellas are always appropriate, Stanley. Help yourself to the rack."

<as the distress signal sounds>

"Of course. Perfect timing. But data can wait."

She swivels the Orrery sensors to the source of the distress signal. After locking them in place, she scoots out of the chair and runs down the spiral stairs, back into the control room. "Someone is in trouble."

Her hands fly across the TARDIS console as she brings the sensor feed down to the piloting console. She grabs the nearby monitor and swings it over to her, playing the signal while triangulating the source.

Smoke Alarm shifted one of her paper sazu pieces but knocked over one of the scutter's in the process. That was how the game worked, wasn't it? 'Ha ha! Check, mate!' she crowed to the cleaner, bounding out of her seat.

She footed over to the umbrella bucket and coat-rack. 'And raincoats?' she suggested to Traveller and Stanley. Naturally, Smoke Alarm picked blue, with a spotty blue-and-white umbrella and a somewhat shabby blue raincoat. Automatically, she checked the pockets for lost-and-found, and found a lost Us!

She hid a gasp of surprise, and cradled the small fuzzy creature in her hands. The young Us held a toe across his snout for quietness. Outlooking for a hide-in, Smoke Alarm footed across the control room. 'Um, what kind of trouble?'

"Raincoats? If it's wet." Trav is fiddling with knobs and tapping multiple keyboards. "Let's see."

OOC: Tardis Perception+Tech+Research TARDIS for sensors?

"Well, then it is a good thing we are in the neighbourhood." Stanley quickly picks a black umbrella and a raincoat that looks like it will keep him dry in a heavy storm. At least for a while, in his experience, the rain will always find a way to get in.

The holographic display wheels around the surface of the moon.  It becomes apparent that the "storms" might not be quite what everyone is assuming -- the moon has an atmosphere, of sorts, and it might be breathable for a short while, but its makeup has a mix of fairly unhealthy stuff in it as well, and the stuff that precipitates out of its violent weather systems can only be called water if you're not planning to drink it - or if your taste runs to a dash of ammonia and assorted hydrocarbons.  Multiple storm systems crawl around the upper atmosphere, all flickering with flashes of lightning that probably make for an impressive display at ground level.

In short order, Trav is able to use the TARDIS systems to narrow in on the source of the distress beacon.  She finds a strong power source in the midst of a lake network on the moon's northern continent.  Judging by the readings, it's likely a permanent habitation, the size of a small town.

She tensed up. It wasn't about the possibility of rain, or even thunderstorms. As one of the hunters, she'd always had to deal with the weather as it was; no cowering in the stronghold for her. But someone being in trouble was always problematic, as usually it indicated a potential for violence.

Sidling sneakily around the talkiphone box brainquarters, Smoke Alarm smuggled the Us underneath a fold-up paper king on the sazu board. There! As she footed away, the little Us lifted the piece with its paws, outlooked around curiously, twitched a whiskery nose, then ducked back into its hide-in, leaving the fold-up king wobbling.

Meanwhile, Smoke Alarm outlooked up at the over-ceiling picturespout and the blinky start-point of the signal. It was easy-peasy for a Kang to eyespy towers. 'People live here?' she exclaimed. 'But how do they stay sound-and-safe?'

"People doesn't have to mean human. It wouldn't surprise me if some aliens love it here." Stanley has put down the umbrella. "Or maybe they just stay inside all the time?"

"People live in London and Seattle, where it rains all the time, and they get along. I'm sure that the folks here have their own version of raincoats." She tunes the sensor feed from the Orrery and attempts to bring in the distress signal.

OOC: 04:52, Today: The Traveller rolled 16 using 2d6+11 with rolls of 2,3.  2d6+Perception 3+Science 6+Research TARDIS 2.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:53, Sat 29 Sept 2018.

'What about gummy-boots?' Smoke wondered as she sat down on the floor to tug hers on. She kept her worn sneakers tied together and hanging around her neck in case she needed them later. She could hardly run in gummy-boots.

Trav interrogates the signal.  It has been transmitted in a multi-layer coding common during the early days of Earth's colonial expansion, such that the basic message of simple distress -- the equivalent of an SOS -- can be picked up and recognized even at short interstellar distances, with more complex information embedded within it that can be picked out at closer ranges where the signal is strong. Trav finds that there is a short audiovisual message encapsulated within, which is easy for her to extract with the TARDIS' sophisticated systems.

The video is of a middle-aged man in a jumpsuit-style uniform, seated at a bank of instruments and looking into the camera.  His hair is unkempt, he's unshaven and he doesn't look like he has slept lately.

"This is Dr. Nathaniel Alston, director of Research Station Hecate," he says.  "I'm addressing any ships in range of this signal that may be capable of an extraction mission to the first moon of 55 Cancri 3.  We have been... losing... our staff to an unexplained phenomenon.  Regular staff rotation and supply are not due for six cycles.  We're down to just sixteen people, out of over two hundred.  Please, if you're hearing this -- send help."

Outlooking up at the picturespout, Smoke Alarm grew a worry-wart for the people in the little towers under the weather. She had knowhow of this. People had gotten lost all the time back in the windy carrydoors of Paradise Towers, and were never eyespied again. 'Mayhaps we can lost-and-found them?' she asked, beaver-eager to give a helpy-hand.

"Of course. We're going in." The SOS should contain coordinates. After a quick check to see if she can land the TARDIS, she brings the time machine in towards the source of the signal.