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?"