When the tool-headed lizard clamps into Paraton's shoulder, they feel it pierce the fabric and into the flesh beneath. Quickly, the second one takes the small orb and squeezes it, triggering it to contract to the size of a small bean, and thrust it into the tiny wound!  Quickly, the first pinches the flesh and fabric closed before much of the void matter can boil out, and switches to a small pointed tool that quickly seals both closed.  The lizards then both drop down to Paraton's feet and "look" up at them.  The remaining orb chimes softly and hovers over Paraton's shoulder, making tiny musical sounds.


--

Attilisk, the strange spear? shard? seems to be existing in several states or places at once.  If it could be stabilized, it could be removed, or else removed by something that can exist in more than one phase at the same time.  Once removed, the vessel may be able to do its own repair, or you would likely be able to trigger or encourage it to do so.  The application of appropriate iotum would speed the process.

"Anyone want to help me here a second?  I think if we move this big ... crystal thingie, we might be able to get this ship fixed.  It seems ... transdimensional, maybe?  If we can find a way to stabilize it, that would help.  Maybe?  And it might provide a good lesson for the beastie we still need to deal with, too."

OOC: Asking for help for an Understanding Numenera roll, if anyone will provide this.

The Seeker approaches, muttering in pain as their crystallizing skin finishes mending itself. Wait, phasing? I think I can help you with that. If I can keep my ration in. That column is making me queasy.

[OOC: Paraton is trained in understanding and identifying Numenera, so if Attilisk is not, he receives the asset. Otherwise it's a +1 to the roll.]

Delfino looks at what happened with Paraton, looks at the orb hovering above his own shoulder and says to it, "Don't think about it."  He looks at the lizard-creatures sternly and points a finger at them.  "You either.  I like this Form as it is."

The orb chimes softly, sounding in a tinkling, major key.

Paraton feels an illness in their own body now, as if something internal was wrong, as if they'd eaten bad food or something.  Yet they had felt find up until the orb had been placed in their body.

Putting their heads together, Paraton and Attilisk come up with a couple of possible solutions.  One might be using the "lock" near the egg room (the one that keeps the tentacle-worm inside it) could be used to "lock" this spear in one phase so it could be removed.  That would require extracting the "lock" from its current location.  Another possibility, an elegant and dangerous one, would be to use their transdimensional foes, the tentacle-worms, with their multi-phase existence, to get rid of the spear.  If they could be lured here, or even communicated with, perhaps they could accomplish this with the touch of their strange flesh.

"I see using the beasties as the more elegant solution.  But even if it works, I don't know if they'd think we owe them a favor, if it would be the beginning of a fruitful partnership, or if it would somehow make them angrier.  Personally, moving the equipment from the other room seems like the safer path.  What are your thoughts?"

The older woman observes the abrupt insertion of the orb into Paraton's body with some concern, which continues as she continues observing him.

"Friend Paraton, you don't look well.  Are you all right?"

She attempts to focus her empathic senses upon the orb that was inserted into his body...

Paraton is visibly shaking after the procedure they just went through. I'm... not. I thought these little guys had my back, but I don't feel so good. Please.
His voice is broken.

After gathering strength for a minute or two, they can continue, raggedly:
I'm not in the best position to discuss this, but I don't think it's a very good idea [They pause, their breath shallower by the second] to release those creatures for a very complex and delicate procedure. We'd be using them to free the machine we think could help us against them... I'm not sure this clicks. At that point, why not let me release... They stop abruptly.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:20, Tue 02 June 2020.

Attilsk and Elesai, something occurs to you as you and Paraton are in the cylinder compartment: while Attilisk have made a certain connection with the ship, Paraton seems to have been "registered" with some kind of authority to the ship during their investigation of the "security" module.  The lizard-creatures near the cracked pillar are asking drunk, and now Paraton, in this chamber, is seeming woozy and ill.

What's hurting the ship is hurting them.

Making the connection to his newer exploring partner and the ship, Attilisk rifles through his bag and pulls out a handful of responsive synth.  "Maybe we can make a temporary patch to the cylinder with this?  That could allow enough time to get that machinery down here and remove the transdimensional piece?"

I... Not sure I can helpppp now. I couldeh stumblo. Yu cure la ship, pleeeese.

I coooul stayyy clos by, may be.

Yeah, the Seeker is really, really out of it. They lean on Eleisai, more out of innate self-preservation than out of any rational effort.

Attilisk made a care approach to the broken cylinder and began trying to patch it with the materials on hand.

Attilisk feels a little sick to his stomach, and a tiny bit drunk, as he approaches the cylinder, but with some swift action with the iotum, he manages to seal around the penetrating crack, holding the "splinter" in place for the nonce.  After a few moments, the odd lizards, shake themselves and go back to the hole in the wall they had emerged from.  The sick feeling slowly fades, and Paraton also begins to feel better, certainly far more clearheaded than just a minute before.

Delfino watches the procedure while holding Paraton up, otherwise ready to whisk them away if the repair hadn't worked, and breathes a sigh of relief.  There's a faint thud from down the corridor, and Cube appears behind Eleisai.

"Saw tentacle swipes through the wall above.  Left so it wouldn't detect where we had gone.  Right now the creature is in the upper corridors.  Don't know how long that will last," it announces.

"Well, that's going to make it harder to get the controls from up there, won't it?"  Attilisk is grateful the temporary repair worked, but absent a more permanent solution it doesn't get them very far.

"Can you tell if it's the Brethren beastie or the orginal?"

A full-body shimmer that seems to be Cube's approximation of a shrug follows Attilisk's question.  "Saw no wounds from where I damaged the first one, but only part of its body was visible.  Are we staying here or leaving?"

"I think we're trying to get this vehicle we're in functional again.  If we can shift the phase of this crystal in such a way that we can remove it from the vessel, the ship may self-repair and we can exit.  Also, dealing with that phasing complication may give a clue as to how to deal with the beastie."

Cube ripples again.  "I will see about the origin point of the weapon."

With that, they ooze away, presumably to go outside the vessel and see where the other end of the spike through it is and if there is anything there of note.

Delfino climbs out to watch what Cube does, and comes back into the column chamber a bit later to report, "It goes through the wall, and Cube says it can't get a grip on it, but it's still sharp, as that makes reasonable sense considering how being solid seems a bit iffy about this place."

Attilisk tries to recall the layout of the "room" they are in.  "There was a door at the bottom, right?  Maybe we could get to the other end of the crystal on the other side of the wall and pull it out from there.  It's at least worth trying to figure out how large it is, right?"

Paraton stumbles up, feeling a little bit better, and murmurs

It may not be a coincidence that I'm turning into crystal and this is also here.

while they start checking the crystal closely, examining themselves, humming, dancing, smelling the big crystal, and generally looking like a complete joke.

[OOC: Paraton is checking the crystal for similarities between themselves/the cypher they last used, and the phasing crystal.
Paraton rolled 11 using 1d20 towards understanding the phasing crystal. 1 Level Int Effort, Edge 1, Trained in the Numenera.. .1 Level of effort applied. Int: 10/15]

As Paraton's hands touch the there/not-there crystal, there is a soft chiming sound, almost musical.  Their hands can grip it, feel it there and not-there at the same time.  They find they can both grip it and shape it, molding it as if it were bundles of weak reeds instead of rock.  They can draw the point out of the cylinder, inducing a wave of nausea, but between Attilisk's partial seal and the sudden release of the tool-headed lizards again, they are able to effect a patch.  Paraton can bend and fold the point away until it's a crinkled blob instead of a lance through the cylinder!

The vessel hums, and a flash of sound and power run through the ship.  It sounds far happier, and certainly more alive.  The light levels raise in the ship to nearly that of a clear mid-morning day.

Attilisk's eyebrows raise as Paraton is able to effect the change with the crystal.  "Coincidence or not, you certainly seem to have some power over it.  If only we could alter the situation with the beastie so easily."  He sighs.  "Regardless, the crystal in that tube is only one problem.  It still pieces the whole structure and I don't know if your shaping skills will be enough to push all of it out so easily."

The tattooist takes in the creatures working to repair the cylinder and appreciates the brighter light around him.  "Is the whole craft conscious, do you think?  Can we do more to figure out how to operate it?"

Defino nods slowly.  "We've only opened up two doors.  The one that showed this room as having some kind of alert, and this room.  There's still the room at the front of the vessel, and a few more along here.  The room that liked Paraton seemed to be watching the other rooms, but we didn't find a way to make things move or anything like that, or anything that might have showed how it ended up like this.  We've barely scratched the surface of this place!"

Attilisk nodded.  "The more we find, the more there is to find.  Let's check out the other room, at the front, I think, of this vessel.  We'll learn what we can about this beautiful contraption and then see if we can rescue it from this odd grave."  Attilisk ran his hands gently along the walls and he moved toward the front of the ship.  "You may be just what I was looking for, if we can get you working," he whispers to the ship.

Carefully moving down to the front of the vessel, it takes Attilisk (with his special relationship to the machine) and Paraton (who seems to have been accepted with some special level of access to the ship) just a few minutes to get the door open.  Its reluctance to open seems to be more a matter of the age of the vessel, the recent return of power, and likely whatever landed it here, rather than a reluctance of the vessel to let them in.

When the door finally irises open, it reveals an arced room with a clear stretch of outer hull that is currently showing an intimate view of the wall.  The room is illuminated by floating teal orbs of light that hover near the ceiling.  There is a sweeping stretch of console that shimmers lightly, as if it were liquid.  Several four-foot-long oblong pods of opaque dark blue, similar to what makes up the vessel, are scattered about the room, mostly canted to the front of the room, as if hurled there by the force of the vessel's landing.

Attilisk cautiously moves forward to investigate the pods.  He is trying to keep an eye out for any reactions from the orbs or the ship (if the two are even different somehow).