The older woman absorbs this knowledge thoughtfully, but with a quickening sense of excitement.  Contact!

::'Peace be unto you', friend.  Please, what is your name?  Do you need any further assistance?::

Paraton saves a thought to check the boxes in the hold for anything of interest, especially after the Nano has clarified the possible unfathomable age of this vessel. But after what they have seen and heard, they resolve to stop waiting. They go to the room with the crystal, and start... Acting. Yes, let's go with acting. The seeker caresses, pleads, complains, berates, punches, pushes, jumps around, every movement carefully considered to achieve the moulding and extrusion of the crystal from the vessel.

OOC: Paraton rolled 14 to Phase-Mold the crystal and push it out.

Paraton's careful extraction of the phase-crystal lance is fairly straightforward, if taking some time and a bit of muscle.  Eventually they are able to push the lance free, and it falls far, far to the earth below.  As it falls, the hole in the hull slowly begins to close, as if it were flesh that couldn't heal until the foreign object was removed.

Attilisk, you and Delfino believe you have a decent handle on the controls that manage the vessel's power and direction.  The power seems to come and go in escalating cycles, which would mean that going a far (very far) distance quickly would be relatively simple for the vessel, while a more moderately-paced voyage to, say, the city you can see might overshoot to a ludicrous degree.  There is some form of navigation that seems to be related to certain stars, but the patterns don't immediately make sense.  Some are similar to the ones you know, though distorted, so it's likely the navigation is simply working off of very old charts.  There are perhaps a dozen locations of where the vessel last was in its navigational memory.

Eleisai, when you ask the ship's name, you get a strong vision of the starry night sky and the ship itself speeding across it (through it?).  When asking about further assistance, it again shows you the image of the spiky tower from whence the crystal lance came from, and you get a sense of searching and danger.

Once everyone is in the same room, Attilisk will explain what he and Delfino have learned (think they've learned) about the controls.  "So it seems like it's easier to go very far than fairly close.  We might be able to figure out how to do short voyages if we have more time to practice and check things.  Another thought is going very far away, then coming back to the Steadfast at our intended destination.  There are several past stops in the vessel's records, and we might be able to go there."

A bit tired from the mental effort of the examinations, Attilisk sits on one of the comfy chairs and begins to sketch the symbol he's seen a few places in the cabins.  "I'm going to design a tattoo for the ship, if anyone wants one."

So. We have a vessel capable of soaring the skies, with cargo space, a nice, comfy, alien sleeping quarters, weaponry, a communications system and an amazing source of power. I never would have thought this possible, and I'm the one that was transported far away from home by a freak accident. What do we do with it?

Paraton hears the Jack and ponders for a moment. I do want that tattoo. It might help me anchor to *something*.

I'm... I don't know. We were trying to rid that city of those beasts, and suddenly we're far from there. I was home, and then I was suddenly *so* far from there. I was human, and then I was less human because of..., and now I am *much* less human. This ship asked me if I wanted to contact someone. I'm going to at least tell my sister I'm alive.

"That's a wonderful use of that offer, Paraton.  And not-human isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I've know a few Lattimors in my day that were fine folk."  He displays his preliminary tattoo sketches.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:47, Mon 28 Sept 2020.

The vessel hums in a tone that seems almost pleased as the new "crew" talks.  The new tattoo design takes place easily under Attilisk's hands, the smooth sweep of the vessel with its three-pronged design. As the drawing comes to fruition, there is a sudden pulse of light and flash of sudden heat along with a burst of a sour fruit smell.  Light illuminate across the console of the control room, and the viewport suddenly switches from the seemingly live image of the vessel position floating above the countryside to an image of the mountains to the vessel's rear, where rocks are cracking and falling, revealing a glint of something within!  More sour fruit smell invades the ship, more pungent than ever.

The older woman is swept up in the vision, in the wonder of such contact and communication... but even in the midst of her empathic trance, a growing shadow presses upon her mind.

::...searching...  ... danger...::

She has to fight to return to herself, but the shadow presses.

:: Help me now, Sovereign One, I pray... ::

And with a start, she opens her eyes wide, and stirs with alarm as she takes in the scene around her.

"DANGER!  THE SPIKY TOWER!  THE CRYSTAL LANCE!  WE MUST LEAVE, NOW!!!"

Attilisk jumps up and head so for the controls.  "Away from the ... cracking mountain behind us, I presume?"  He jams his hands into the control gel, sketch pad and charcoal skidding across the floor.  "Lacking any better plan, I'm going to try to get us to one of those ... far places.  A star, maybe?  I don't know how to control it for shorter distances.  Heck, I'm not even sure I can make it do anything!  And any help would be appreciated."

"I'll do what I can, if anything.  Stand by..."

She closes her eyes once again with a silent prayer, reaching back through her mental link.

:: We are in danger.  Please take us to a safer place, quickly! ::

She also visualizes her thoughts, attempting to communicate in the same manner that the ship communicated to her...

The ship hums, and the list of places flares, the star charts glowing brightly before fixing at one set point of brilliant lights.  The symbols for the pillar room also flare slightly, as if the ship is indicating that power will be needed to go where it is suggesting.

OOC: Go ahead and do an Understanding Numenera roll, asset from Delfino and Eleisai both!

Paraton looks at the sheer certainty displayed by Attilisk, his dominion of the controls, and decides prudence is the better part of valor: they head for the weapon room, where they too start analyzing the controls with the utmost care. Maybe it's the pungent perfume, maybe it's the adrenaline, but with a mental click, suddenly things start to make sense. The controls reveal themselves fully.

OOC: Paraton rolled 19: Understanding the usage of the weaponry. Trained.

Attilisk feels at one with the controls, examines the destinations available, and chooses the one near Earth, but not on Earth.  He's hoping it's out of range of the crystal lance.  He's certainly never seen a weapon fly that far into the sky, nor heard of one that can.

He stares at the view screens as he directs the craft.  "Let's go."  He activates whatever propels the ship.

This message was deleted by the player at 20:26, Mon 05 Oct 2020.

Paraton manipulates the controls, a series of glowing circles and lances illuminating across the transparent walls as they circle, pointing towards the crumbling mountain.  The lances brighten as they focus towards the cracks, and Paraton brings their hands together sharply.  A burst of energy flies from the underside of the vessel, crashing into whatever the mountain is hiding.  Something crystalline glints within, shards flying in the violence of the attack.

Before it can regroup, Attilisk circles the controls, selects the target from the list, and twists his hands, Delfino acting in concert, to power the vessel's energy up.  With a bone-jarring hum, the vessel goes dark for a moment, then feels like it is suspended as if from the apex of a leap, right before you start to fall.

Then you fall, the landing soft as moss, with a powerful shudder like a distant explosion thudding through your chests.  The light returns, silver and green as those in the control chamber see a silvery landscape before them, scattered with unusual buildings, all set beneath arcing domes of green crystal.  The vessel hovers directly above one of them, separated by no more than a meter, perfectly still and silent.

Attilisk just takes in the scene with an appreciative whistle.  "Well, we made it somewhere."

With a slight hum, a light illuminates on the vessel's control board, showing a spot of light on the lower middle.  Out in the corridor, Cube calls, "There is a door in the floor that is now outlined with light!"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 09:21, Wed 14 Oct 2020.

"I want to make sure that we have a good connection to the ship, even if we leave it.  I don't ..."  He smiles in wonderment.  "I don't want to lose her.  Him?  Them?"  He turns to Eleisai, although glances at the others as he asks, "Does it understand us when we speak?  Can we ... can we help it understand us better?"

The older woman blinks in wonder as they rematerialize at their new location, and considers.

"I'm... not certain.  I have some type of mental link with it, but I do not know if it understands my words, or merely my emotions and visualized thoughts.  Give me a few moments..."

She closes her eyes, and reaches back through the mental link to the ship.

:: Can you understand me?  Do you need any more assistance?  Are we safe now?  Is it safe to leave the ship?  If we do, will you wait for us? ::
This message was last edited by the player at 02:40, Tue 13 Oct 2020.

Eleisai listens and hears another hum, and then her floating orb that marks her as one of the vessels crew makes a circuit of her body, all around her in a circle, then from top to bottom.  In her minds eye, she sees a glowing circle described around her by the orb, a slight shimmering haze within, the same haze that she sees fills the vessel.  She sees a vague figure leave the vessel, still surrounded by that haze, it traveling with them as the figure moves around outside.  The representative figure, Eleisai notes, seems taller than most humans she's seen, walks with a hunch, and seems to have at least three limbs on the upper portion of the body, with extra-long arms. The "legs" seem more boneless than humans, writhing along the corridor surfaces with little regard for gravitational pull.

The older woman stirs, and opens her eyes.

"I think that it understands me, and that we will remain linked to the ship via these floating orbs even if we move around outside.  I believe that it regards us as crew members."

"I am going to try to find out more information about this place.  Please stand by..."

She closes her eyes again, and reaches through the mental link.

:: What do you know of this place?  What can you sense?  Is it safe for us to explore?  Is there anything here that would be useful to you or to us? ::
This message was last edited by the player at 18:58, Wed 14 Oct 2020.

Attilisk allows Eleisai the space she needs to communicate with the ship via her own means.  Attilisk takes the time to further study the controls and anything that looks like a readout, map, or other presented information about either the ship or their current whereabouts.

Paraton has been utterly silent, enraptured by the view from the vessel's screens.

It's... It's...

It's so full of stars...

OOC: Paraton rolled 9 towards understanding what they see.

Eleisai sees the black void beyond the silvery landscape below turn, and as she turns her head to look out of one portion of the clear material of the vessel's control room, all of the vessel's crew can see an impossibly enormous orb "below" them, an orb with a neat, four-pointed star-shaped portion in browns and tans and greens, with streaks of black in broad swathes, and a large circle on one portion.  Surrounding it is a stretch of blue that extends around the edges of the curved globe, and over all is a haze of thin white that brushes across the surface here and there.

It is the large hollow circle that twigs everyone's memory - a circle so perfect and clean and huge that it could only be one thing: The Clock of Kala.  But now sees so small, so far away and below you... you are seeing the world, the whole world, at an impossibly far distance!

The silvery landscape the drifts below the vessel, the green buildings... this must be the moon in the sky, the one that ofttimes wears a streak of green across its face!  Somehow the vessel has taken you to the moon itself!

"I always wanted to see the world," mutters Attilisk, half in jest, half to himself.  He studies the image, trying to align what little geography he knows with the world as it appears before him.

"So much has changed ..."