"First Mate Raishen,"  The man tells him dully, "He was- I could tell- he Exalted."  He explains, "He was keeping it... keeping it quiet.  Why wouldn't he tell us?"  Gerald begins to shudder, "Had to... something was wrong with him, really wrong, you don't hide moonlight and expect it to be good..."  The man begins rocking back and forth on his seat, "His skin was turning green.  Nobody wanted to talk about it... nobody wanted to do what had to be done... nobody wanted to think about what it meant."

((Roll Wu Wei to calm Gerald down
9, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 & 2.

22 + 10 + 10 = 42 against 30, success!))

The man is either already mad or going mad, anyway the best idea now to get any idea of what he is saying is calming him down so Kendal starts speaking with a more calming manner, "Gerald, slow down, you are letting your dark thoughts to take the better of you. Take your time, nothing is bothering us while I'm here, I just need to hear the whole story."

((Crit success, no less...))

With a sudden start Kendal realizes that the man has the spark of something in him.  This happens, occasionally; blood of the divine, perhaps a god or the descendant of an Exalt.  The man's clouded eyes see things others may not, and what he saw must have broken him.  But it does seem to bring back an element of sanity.  "I..."  He takes a deep breath, "First Mate Raishen.  Senator, he Exalted, by the grace of dead Luna... and when he did he was wrong.  Something changed in him.  Nobody could see he Exalted.  He started twisted.  Nobody, um... knew.  Or cared.  But I did.  He... he needed to get on the ship.  To do... wrong.  He didn't know, or care, that I knew.  So I rigged up the auxiliary engines.  And some explosive charges, to be sure.  And some oxygen tanks... and then I organized a birthday party.  I volunteered to watch the engines.  And then triggered them..."

"So, a massacre to target one person, can't argue the reasoning when targeting exalts to blow up half a ship to do so." A resourceful person to be sure, sadly his genius is really misplaced in his deeds.

"This First Mate Raishen, what more can you tell about him? Was he liked? Does he have friends on the Last Refuge and so on."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:49, Thu 27 June 2019.

"I had to guarantee he'd be there," Gerald says with haunted cloudy eyes, "If I spared anyone else he'd notice it.  I had to take refuge in the audacity of it all, I had to... I had to surprise him that I would be willing to make that kind of sacrifice."

The man shakes his head, "He was first mate to a hard captain, so of course he was loved.  He had.. a whole family here, wife, five children.  Very, um.  Fertile.  Maybe more... serial cheater.  Liked hitting up the brothels whenever he came to port... he was not an inhibited man.  It's, how I knew things started going bad first, how dos a man like him suddenly clam up, hide in his room, hide in his room matching to a lunar cycle when there's no more moon..."

Kendal was not very fond of cheaters, but who is he to judge since he had no long lasting relationships after college.

"Hmmm..." He strokes his chin as he thinks, "Ok, breath deep again, I don't want to lose your trail of thought again, but when did you notice these things started happening? Also you mentioned no one wanted to talk about this, was it just faking ignorance or did you feel any outside influence was involved in this?"

Didn't the command or someone have a way of knowing when an exaltation happened? Or know if there was something off with it without seeing him? This needs proper investigation as a corrupted Lunar is a bad sounding thing.

Gerald takes several deep breaths, almost like gulps of air.  "It first happened with a water coolant break.  Some of the- the machines operate, very caustic substances.  Good for dissolving away some material on the- the frozen things.  Multiple processes to distill the water safely and also mine for other rare stuff for the fleet.  There had been an accident, the ship, he scrambled.  Kept it together.  And he should have died.  He survived, unscathed... should have had the skin burned from him, like a screaming apple, but... he was fine.  We had a small party afterwards, but from there he was wrong."

There are more deep gulps of air.

"For the others.  I... don't know.  Maybe I had the eyes to see and they didn't.  Or maybe it was, it was an abominable thought.  Do not say the words, and it does not exist."

Kendal remembers that he had to contact Command first- they didn't contact him.  Of course their phone number appeared on his phone.  He knows very little about the mechanism of Exaltation or how much Command knows.  Scuttlebutt was that they could only predict their own kind.

"Well, I did see something special in you just now, you just may have an eye for these things by birth or blessing, who knows."

He gestures a nearby Ilmorijo to give him a datapad or something so he can look up the survivors list, just to make sure if Gerald succeeded or not.

"So, a premeditated mass murder is absolutely unforgivable by any standard... But..." He pauses as he looks at him, "It's not too rare to see a man forgiven for the killing of many if he managed to save many more, but right now we have only your word for it, but I'm inclined to believe there is weight in your words as you specifically managed to get back and share this story as you turned yourself in." Killing innocents is unforgivable, sometimes unavoidable and at worst times, necessary. But if there was a corrupt lunar or something of the sort would it have still been worth it?

"I'll send a word to postpone your execution as this new information presented might be of major importance and requires further inspection before the only one who knows what happened is laid to rest. So you keep yourself sane for a bit longer. No promises, but I wont let the innocent lives lost count for naught in the fleets records."

The Ilmorijo gives him the pad.  He checks the crew complement.  Sure enough... only one survivor.  Everyone else was in the rec room while he manned the engines; all that are left are a few frozen corpses.  Most were blown out into the void.

"Thank you, Senator," Gerald says with a loud sigh and closed eyes, "May I ask a question for you to consider?  If I did such a thing... why would I come back and not... not take it to the Enemy?" He says, "They offer... much.  For such a thing.  And you should consider what that means."

He clams up and signals to the guard.  The Ilmorijo sneers at him but presses a button, separating the two behind steel walls.

He watches calmly as the walls close down with a heavy clank and murmurs to himself, "The dead offer nothing but suffering and oblivion, but weak men just fool themselves to believe these to be good things..."

He turns around to face the ilmorijo and keeps looking through the info on the pad, "How are the remains of the ship? Do you have information on any recordings or logs surviving? Also one thing, just a suggestion, but you maybe should lay it easier on him. A mans true worth is measured how he treats those he doesn't need to treat well, maybe reflect on that."
He doesn't sound judging or even want them to feel anything positive about what Gerald did and at the same time he doesn't want any soldier to lose their way because of resentment.

"The interior is more or less freeze-dried.  We sweeped it for ghosts almost immediately, Sanctuary deferred to us for a change.  The rest has been drydocked for forensic research later, but this is... very recent.  So it should be all intact."  The guard scowls, "If he admits he is guilty, I see no reason to treat him as innocent."

The other guard nods vigorously, with a quick "Hut hut" affirmative.

"Access to the ship will be restricted by Command and Core, you understand.  What do you intend to do even if his words are true?"

The Ilmorijo clearly missed his point, oh well, it wasn't Kendals job to be the morality police.

"Oh, did you miss the point where he said there could be a corrupted Lunar? It means there could be more, so it's essential to know not if Gerald is innocent or not, but what lead to this whole thing to happen and how can we prevent it in the future. The situation surrounding the exaltation, possible outside influence, corruption, premeditated betrayal or extortion etc."

He lets out a heavy sigh, "So, I guess I have to ring up Command to gain access to the files and the ship? This is not really not my expertise but... oh well..."

"Begging your pardon, Senator, but he murdered an entire ship by his won admission.  Won't be the first time someone's said something outlandish to avoid an execution.
 Say what you want about innocence but I just see a lot of dead people no matter what."

Well, Command is a good choice; he's not likely to get Core anytime soon.  Odd that the Admiralty Board isn't an option, but then again, who the hell knows about the politics in THAT department right about now.

Battles is a good choice, as is Secrets.  He has access to both.

Sending a message to Battles is his best choice and proceeds to send one to ask permission to see any clues surrounding the possible corrupted lunar and ask Battles if he had anything like this happening before.

He just nods to the Ilmorijo and says, "Yes yes, keep up the good work." And decides to wait for a minute for a reply from Battles and call him instead if there is no reply.

Surprised you heard about the ship but very disturbed
Hadnt heard anything about a lunar
def nothing corrupted
v concerning
could ask one of our assets
who told you this?

The texts come fast and furious.  Kendal can sense the frustration.

r u ok

He texts back.

The only survivor/the one who did it asked for me and told me this.
Just wanted to make sure if there was merit to his words or not.

Current condition OK.

He sits down somewhere and keeps looking at any information he has available on the ship itself on the tablet.

fuck
ship is clean
u have permission
pw to enter is syrup983!╨
u will need enviro suit
u need req anything?

Well, Battles is certainly being useful.

I need 2 things:
That enviro suit
& someone/something to dig the files I need because I'm not a techy.

He types as it's his second nature as he looks at the guards when he types and says to them, "I'll be heading off for now, if the prisoner has anything more to say i'll be expecting to hear from it."

"We'll add a recorder just in case,"  The guard says.  The other one gives the senator a thin, stretched smile.  Kendal knows rage when he sees it, but the Ilmorijo are well-famed for their discipline.

can get u both
got some1 in mind
u have prob with DB
any issues w/voyagers

Battles no doubt is asking about one of the few Dragon-Blooded that operate as a member of the Voyagers, the weird motorcycle-cult that lives on the skin of the Last Refuge.  Though most of them are individualistic a few have gotten into politics and are often very difficult to get along with.  He's sure at some point he might've passed something that would make the Voyagers frown but it's just as likely he's somehow gotten on their good side.  To be frank they're a political wildcard.

((Up to you about your status with the Voyagers; if they like you, dislike you, etc.

http://chronovertex.pbworks.co...61301/The%20Voyagers

If you have no prference, Good Relations / Neutral / Bad Relations will be determined via a 1d3 dice roll))

He gives a well mannered nod to the Ilmorijo before he leaves.

He personally had nothing against the Voyagers, but he didn't believe himself being someone they voted for. So relations between them weren't bad by any means, there just were no real previous relations, making their current standing more or less neutral.

No probs.
Just tell me where to go.

quarterdock2
will send techie 4 u w/suit
her name is Heather Wu
csn "Fletch"
wood aspect
compsci major
archery minor
married 2 her suit srsly
dont ask to ride bike
likes beer

Hmm, a primer to understanding a DB.  That must mean she's a particularly tough customer to deal with, or at least not willing to suffer through small talk.

Going there now.
btw about callsigns,
how does Archon sound to you?
good/bad?

He proceeds to move to the designed location, thinking to himself that liking beer is just as vague as saying 'i like wine' like what kind? Whatever, if she doesn't care about small talk it might not make any difference.

Get in a fight first
bad luck to decide b4
gotta be blooded
at least its not satan

It takes a quick train to get to the Quarterdocks - a docking section that can be detached from the Last Refuge in case of a major accident.  It also helps cut down on the time spent doing tricky navigation to dock inside the ship.  As a result it's a 50/50 chance the damn thing is directly attached to the ship or if he'd need a ferry.

Today is a ferry day.  He takes the ferry to the Quarterdeck Station, a bustling terminal where it's hard even moving without bumping shoulders with someone.  By Last Refuge standards it's cramped beyond belief.

Quarterdock 2 is guarded by four bored-looking security guards and, wonder of wonders, a guard dog.  The dog, some kinda mutt, looks alertly at him as he approaches.

He walks up to the guards, paying the doggo no mind as of yet. Assuming they are actually guarding the gate as to not let anyone through without checking them he greets them,

"Hello, I'm looking for passage to the Quarterdocks, you need to check permissions? One other thing, I'm also looking for Heather Wu, seen her around?"

"Yeah, give the password," The dog growls at him, "Password first then information."

"That would be our "superior", God King of the Guarded Portal Gibbles.  And he is a very very good boy."

"Piss off, Frank!"  The dog barks back at him.

"Ah, bite me, GKGPG Gibbles."  Frank replies, "Sorry, mister, we gotta check your credentials.  Passcode, please."