Soon it becomes apparent why they're on alert.  A flight of Navarino interceptors takes off from the Pyongyang, ten of them in total; a nasty little flight, one that would give most pilots in the Living Fleet serious trouble if they're piloted by at least one Abyssal.  The Navarinos head right for where the Odysseus jumped in  and start opening fire on the spot where the Odysseus was, just laying into the area with their ammo.  If she'd left the Odysseus behind, it would've been blown to pieces.

After their sweeping fire, the Navarinos fly back towards the Pyongyang, taking up a sentry position.  The ships sweep back and forth blazing-fast.  Getting past them won't be tricky unless there's something Blue Fox doesn't know about, or they have an Abyssal on board who's specifically equipped to deal with stealthy threats.

Then, a few minutes later, fifty Nanking-class cruisers jump into the area- all of them Escort Variants.  The Nanking cruisers flick open their turrets and start spraying the area with more fire, saturating the battlefield!

((Make a Dodge roll, difficulty 50.  +10 if you want to account for the Odysseus.))

((Dodge roll 9, 9, 8, 8, 5, 5, 4 & 4.
29+20+10+5= 64 vs 60))

"Ugh, come on Benisuzume, lets move this paper plane," Lyla mutters to herself as the guns start singing.

Odysseys not so optimal build does make it difficult to dodge and it causes both ships to sway in unexpected ways, but once Lyla gets the hang of it, she speeds forward, zooming past and hopefully beyond the "bullet hell" that was wanting to snare her in. Despite wanting to leave Odysseys behind, it'd make her following tasks too difficult, not ready to risk it...at least at this point.

The best way to go:  forward!  She zips and ducks and weaves through the massive volley of fire, pushing through their firing cone and finally into freer space.  If it was anyone else trying this, their exhaust would've given them away instantly.

But Blue Fox isn't anyone else.  She's a honed stealth expert, and she gives away no sign of her passage. They're finally safe, except for the last approach to the Pyongyang.  There's only the Navarinos left to worry about.

((awareness roll to spot a good opening 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 6, 3 & 1.
28+20+10 = 58))

Lyla takes a breather after passing through the lasertag, adjusting her hold on the steering system. She runs a few checks to find out any pattern that the Navarino are flying according to, trying to find an opening suitable for Benisuzume and Odysseys to pass. She also takes the moment to see where to get into the Pyongyang, there was no Lucifer beating a hole into the hull this time to solve that for her.

Blue Fox is forced into a holding pattern, watching the ships fly about.  She's patient, more patient than the dead, apparently.  The enemy ships eventually start lining up to fly into a hangar that just appears on the side of the ship.

She can probably try to follow them in, or she can try to dock and quietly cut her way in.  Both are pretty risky but she sees no other alternatives.

Sometimes the straightest route is not the best one, and while in waiting for the enemy ships to fly into the hangar, she spots a perfect little nook to place Benisuzume in waiting with Odysseys, well away from the hangar. Lyla had no intention of following them into the hangar, it'd be troublesome trying to get out of it. It felt a better option to make her own way in. At least that is how both ships would be ready to leave immediately when the time would come.

Benisuzume glides near the massive ship, and takes a spot from which to cut an opening. The good side is that there is no sound in space, the bad side of it is that it could be heard and felt as vibrations on the inside. Despite this Lyla begins to cut an opening, crossing her fingers, while letting her shadows envelop the ships and crawl in the hole to mute the noise.

Finding a nice piece of the hull to lock yourself into is pretty easy.  Arranging it so you can cut through easily? Not so much, especially with the Odysseus holding place.

Cutting in takes a lot of time and effort.  The Pyongyang's armor is thick and heavy.  Eventually, patience wins the day and a ragged hole is cut into the side, revealing heavy soulsteel cabling and electrical wirework.  It looks pretty solid, but it's a start; there's the outgassing of atmosphere, meaning air somewhere.  Now she needs to enter the hole and work her way inside.

Fortunately, she's been given a personal blowtorch, donated by an Elemental of Fire.  It should cut through just about anything pretty rapidly, but it'll run out of essence fast.

Patience is a virtue, Lyla tries to remind herself, while waiting and cutting away. The better the work is done here, the easier it is to get out...if and more likely when things get messy. Being patient wasn't always what suited her best. Benisuzume hums contently as she gives it a comforting pat before slipping out of her flightharness.

She adjusts her gloves and her belt, before equipping the blowtorch and heading into the hole. Tight unconfortable spaces were to be expected, and all her gear along the helmet had been suited for that. Despite that she couldn't wait to get rid of the exoskeletal helmet that was constantly limiting her movements, even if it was only minimal. The visor on her helmet turns black to shade her eyes from the blowtorches light.

Blue Fox slips into the hole and settles in.  There's a lot to cut through, and she has to be careful not to accidentally cut something that looks too important.  Doing so will certainly set off an alarm!

((Craft roll, difficulty 40.  Critical failure means the baddies know exactly where the hull leak is, which isn't good for you.  Regular failure means the baddies will be alerted that someone's penetrated the Pyongyang.  Critical success means you end up a lot closer to your target.))

((Craft 9, 7, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3 & 2
Flowed 39 + 10(+5 equipment if applicable)= 49/54 vs 40))

Blue Fox carefully picks among the cords and wires, plucking out the ones she can and giving them a look before cutting. Her visor is continuously analyzing the cords, sending information to her field of view, everything ranging from electricity run to the composition of the cords. She didn't really want to get electrocuted as a first encounter.

The bigger ones she gives prods to determine what they might contain. What really helps her cause is the leek of air. She focuses on that to run a diagnostic to see if it contains oxygen. It's a good guidance for her when it comes to direction, because ghosts don't need to breathe, and this hole might eventually lead to the prison section. Or infront of the Abyssals for the matter. Any living thing was a positive encounter, she ponders.

Eventually she works her way to the leak.  It looks like the Pyongyang has breathable air, which tells her a few things.  She knows that there are two prisoners aboard, one of whom is a spirit who doesn't need to breathe.  That means the other prisoner, Takehiko Isakawa, must need it.

The other thing is it tells her there's probably an Abyssal on board.  Abyssals are still alive, so they still need air.  They'd want the whole ship with atmosphere so they could easily patrol.

There, an alarm sensor!  She flicks it off and finally finds what she needs, a maintenance shaft.  Another schematic, gleaned from the Buchenwald, shows her how to activate the atmosphere-saving forcefields to keep it from venting.

She's in.  And they have no idea.

There was not much sightseeing to be done in the maintenance shaft, so she heads forward in search of an opening. There is a small breath of relief, when there is no alarm and she is not swarmed by bloodthirsty ghosts. One last glance to Benisuzume and she is gone indoors. Now she'd need to find a map in the shaft or hatch or a venting grid to a hallway to locate herself in the massive ship.

She finds the maintenance shaft leads into the main hallway of the Pyongyang.  The hallway is brightly lit, clean, white.  It's also featureless.  The air is climate-controlled, a cool 17 degrees C, dry as a bone.

It's almost like a morgue.

Trying to find a map may be more difficult.  She's not seen so much as an ounce of documentation anywhere.  Either the ghosts that run this ship must know it inside and out or it's maintained through much more esoteric means.

The hallway heads along the spine of the Pyongyang.  Five Days Darkness and Juno guessed that jail cells must be in the very center of the ship to minimize the chance of a powerful prisoner cutting their way out.

Lyla shakes her head. The style of the ship was not something that attracted her. Might've also been the side effect that she was quite alive and not so in tune with death like all the other passengers.

Since the only other way is back out, there is really no other choice than to step out in the hallway. Her jet black pilot suit shifts to white to match the antiseptic hallway. Not really her color, but it'd help her blend in faster when need be. Then she briskly, but as silent as death, hopefully, heads what she'd imagine to be towards the center of the ship. There was bound to be other corridors and turns ahead. Incase of encounter Lyla keeps her eyes peeled for other shafts and nooks in which to hide.

As she hurries through the hallways she starts to get a headache.  The fluorescent lights, the antiseptic smell, the blinding white; she starts to understand that this is utterly hostile to human life.  An unprotected mortal walking down these halls would either go insane or drop dead from an aneurysm within an hour.

She heads towards what she thinks is the center of the ship.  The corridors branch out in either direction, with the one main one heading directly down the spine.

She can hear the clanking of armor.  She's dealt with Gunzosha before, and that's definitely Gunzosha armor.  While she's more than a match for one individually, getting caught would certainly put a damper on her rescue operation.  The sound's coming from the corridor to her left.

To ease the feeling that was growing within herself, she turns her visor to grant some shade for her eyes from the light. The headache is annoying one, and for sure doesn't help with her patience.

Upon hearing the clanking, Lylas eyes dart around for a place to hide. She turns to a different corner to let them pass, and lets her shadows envelop her, the air rippling a tad around her when she blends into the wall and a nearby pipeline.

((Stealth 10, 6, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3 & 2
Float 4-4
Gliding Shadow:ignore 10 points of environmental Stealth penalties
26+20+10 =56))

((Awareness:
10, 9, 8, 8, 5, 4 & 3
*28 + 15 + 10 = 53 vs 56, doesn't notice))

Fortunately one of the corners is just good enough to hide her from the line of sight.  Sure enough she sees someone walk by:  an Abyssal in stylized black armor, a helmet covering his face.  The bulky abyssal carries a guan-do, a bladed weapon that looks oddly quaint in this day and age.

Of course, it could probably still cut through flesh and bone like butter.

Flanking him are two dozen ghosts in the low-cost Gunzosha variant armor that elite Ghosts sometimes use.  He's well protected, though she's more than a match for them.

The warden keeps moving past and eventually she's... safe.

After the threat passes, Lyla is relieved. She would not have wanted to alarm the abyssal of her presence. She gives them a good Headstart, before heading onwards. Standing at the crossroad, she takes a moment to ponder before heading to the corridor on her left where the abyssal came.

The hallway slopes downwards until it becomes a staircase.  There's a lot of blind angles down the staircase- a good thing for her in case she needs to run- but there's no sign of any other ghosts.

At the bottom of the staircase, a good 5 or so floors, she finds a long white hallway.  To her left she sees five dark black rectangles, windows to a yawning black void-cell.  To her right, far up in the air, she sees windows.  That path down the main spine must overlook both sides of the prison, a comfortable observation deck.

That means when sneaking around in the cell hallway she'd have to hug the wall nearest to the observation deck.

Lyla sneaks down the staircase, her body ready to turn around and hide at every turn. Luckily nobody comes towards her. There is a wave of joy when she finds herself at the cellblock, at least she had been going the right way. Now it was more of a matter of finding out if she even was at the right cell compartment. She turns to hug the wall to her left while sliding forward in the hallway while peering towards the cells trying to see who they contained.

Lyla skulks down the hallway.  The first few cells are empty.  Jet-black cells loomed in front of her, like they somehow floated outside in the vacuum.  Only the barest glint of light bouncing off of the odd corner let Lyla know they weren't entrances to pocket-sized black holes.

The third cell contains someone- a man, tied down with black chains and a white straight jacket.  Fire licks at the jacket but doesn't burn, instead tailing off into the nothingness of the black cell.  He looks like he was once handsome, but is now old and starved, red-hair now white as snow, withering away-

Except for a pair of red eyes, reminiscent of Sayeed.  He looks at Lyla and winks at her.

Letting out a sigh might give her off, and could be considered rude, so Lyla holds it in, mentally marking a sigh at the sight and especially the wink. Well one part down, many to come. She gives a nod to him in return, before looking upwards towards the observation deck and then back to the cell, pondering on the mechanism that kept him locked up.

She could try cutting things open but that would cause noise and a sight hazard. She could also venture up to the observation deck, but she might be seen in the process. Or someone might see her take someone out, but at least then the sound and sight hazard wouldn't be a probably incase she couldn't use to control system for the cells.

At first it looks like he's just behind bars.  Then he giggles and starts rocking back and forth in his cage, building up momentum- long enough to expel burning spit in the direction of the observation deck.  The cell turns flat black, just like the Buchenwald's Void Prana Shield, blocking Lyla's view of Swan Dragon for a few seconds.  His whole cell is shielded, designed to contain his fire.

There are no alarms.  This must be a regular occurrence.

She can't see any controls nearby.  That means the controls must either be up on the observation deck, or more likely, the bridge.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:56, Sat 19 Nov 2016.

She heads for the observation deck with a sigh.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:18, Sat 19 Nov 2016.

As she heads back up the stairs she hears the clanking of Gunzosha boots making for the nearest stairwell.  By now she's halfway in the center of the hall so it's simplest just to head to the opposite hall, which has an identical stairwell.  She manages to duck into it just as the Abyssal forces make it into the hallway- and she catches the first exchange.

"Really, Swan Dragon.  We're doing this again," The Abyssal's voice comes out from the helmet hollow and tired, "You know what happens every time we do this, yes?"

"Oh, the pain and misfortune, Warden," Swan Dragon calls out in a sing-song voice, "Playing the game of listening and knowledge!"