'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.