Ooooh, a pet of course!!

The Duke frowns at the difficult words that the machine is blurting out and he doesn't fully understand and the Lady can see he clenches his fist in an urge to let it use proper words but remembers the Ladies words.

"Speak normal. I do not have your diaglostic and i why would a user guide remove water? You speak no sense!!

The Oni and the other tribes seem to be stealing water from the basin. Can you see in the sewers where most is wasted? They have a cleansing room here where they waste a lot of water but they only listen to a screen it seems."

"...I'm sorry that there's difficulty in communicating. I'll try to speak more carefully."

When the computer speaks again, a few seconds later, the female voice's tone is different, as if she's speaking to a child.

"...I am trying to look at the problem... if you mean the operating theater, I see that a lot of water is going in the drain there, but I think that's only part of the problem you're talking about. I think the problem is more at the source... I think that the staff on this level need to reduce their water consumption-- you're very smart to report the problem to me. I'll do what I can to help. The operating theater, which is nearby, is able to recycle some water, but it's getting too much, and there's not much I can do about that. Have you already talked to the people bringing water into that room about how they're using more water than the room was designed to recycle?"

---

Ajakstu Gul makes an interesting find... behind a pile of papers, he finds an interesting-looking beetle. It's very large-- a good 8 inches-- and colorful.

(I'm picturing a weird alien Hercules, Stag, or Goliath-type beetle, but describe it, please.
--How many horns does it have?
--What colors?)

It's eating some other, smaller bug.

When Ajakstu Gul moves the papers and finds the beetle, it seems as interested in him as it is in him. Wings pop out from under its carapace, and it flies (wow, it can fly? Amazing! Its wings must be very strong!) up onto Ajakstu Gul's arm... where it sort of rubs up against him and makes a purring noise. It likes Ajakstu Gul! And it seems smart, too!

(What will you name your new pet?)

The Duke smiles when the woman in the machine talks normally to him and nods ahead when she goes though her points. Then he has a brillinat idea.

"The Oni seem unwilling to listen to me and Foers does not let me crush them. But there is a big screen with a holy symbol on it. Can you use that to tell the Oni they are no longer allowed to pour water in the drain? That all water used for the ritual needs to be returned to the fountain?"

The Lady smiled.  The Duke was not nearly as stupid as people thought: when given the chance to think instead of act, he was quite a capable fellow.

Ajakstu stifles an urge to jump. The bug seemed friendly. Valuable even!

"Well, hello, new friend!" he cackled. He raised his arm to get a better look at the beetle. More or less typical for its kind, except that it really wasn't. Size aside, there were the horns. One large one, centrally located on what could be called it's forehead. To Ajakstu, it almost looked like a turret. One very much smaller one was perched above each eye.

It was mostly red and gold, at least from what Ajakstu could see. However, it appeared as if someone had peppered it with purple and black. When he shifted his arm, its eyes seemed to glow with a piercing blue.


"I shall call you Rake!" he exclaimed. Much more cultured than Rogue, or Rascal, he thought.

Humming smugly to himself, Ajakstu headed after the others, attemting to transfer Rake onto his shoulder as he walked.

(The Duke, that's a big idea. You'll need to roll Charming to try to help the computer understand what you want it to do.)

---

Rake seems perfectly content to move to Ajakstu's shoulder, and rest there, as Ajakstu heads for the room with the cages...

(The Duke gets a new XP!)

"I'm very sorry, but I don't quite understand what you're asking me to do. Perhaps this request would best be communicated by using the terminal on the desk? Or maybe you can find someone in the Programming department to help you? If those ideas don't work, perhaps ask your supervisor?"

(It turns out that this concept is a little too complicated for the nice computer voice lady to understand... you'll have to try something else, which right now suggests either trying to use the computer terminal, or exploring elsewhere in the laboratory complex for an answer...)

The Duke groans and starts to press on the touch screen to see if this stupid device had pictures that would help conveying his quite simple message.

(Time for a new Insightful roll, fella)

Ajakstu looks at the cages and then at Rake. Chuckling, he shakes his head.

He spends five or tenminutes poking about. "Let me know if you see something you like to eat," he tells his pet.

Rake seems uninterested, as if he's hunted in this room already/recently.

(If you want to search the room, you could always try a new Insightful roll.)

---

The Duke doesn't find anything that solves his problem immediately... but he does find:

1. A command that, if he uses it, will open the big metal door in the wall, and

2. A reference to the "Programming Department." It's through the big metal door, and apparently off to the left... somewhere.

Ajakstu shrugs, sharing the lack of interest. He continues on, wondering where the other two have got to, listening for screams.

Ajakstu (and Rake) enter a room where a robot has been destroyed. He finds the slightly dissonant sight of The Duke and The Lady studying a computer terminal screen...

Ajakstu blinks, rubs his eyes, blinks again. He slowly backs out and then re-enters. Seeing the same scene he has no choice but to believe it is real.

"Ah, there you are!" he exclaims. "It appears you have things well in hand. Perhaps there is something salvageable in this wreckage," he muses as he gently kicks the robot.

Will make an Insight roll to check.

14:55, Today: Ajakstu Gul rolled 7 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 5,1.  Insightful check.

The Duke having learned that this place has doors he cant open thinks its interesting to open the door and pushes the command.

"There is a programming department. Maybe they make the programs there that are on the vid screen in the ziggurath."

The Lady leaned over, also, and asked the computer,  "Can you please provide us with a map or layout of this ... complex".

Charm?
- rolled 7 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 1,5.

Say, there's a little exposed wiring... and the leads on either end of the wiring are gold... that might be valuable for trading one of these days...

(Ajakstu gains Gold Wiring Leads, weight 0, might be handy for trading one day)


The heavy metal door opens, revealing a hallway that runs left and right.


The computer makes a quiet humming noise, and a piece of paper slides out of a seam built into the desk.

However, it's blank.

...Nnnnno, wait, it's not... it's just printed so lightly, it's extremely hard to read.

The Lady can see the entry hall, and Shuak's room, and the "operating theater" where the singing is now, and the lab, and the cage room, and the room where she is currently, and the hallway behind the heavy metal door...

The Lady can also make out one more detail on the map... (In three words or less, name the extra detail, The Lady...)

The Lady let her gaze wander over the faintly printed map.
She strained to make out detail, but found that beyond this next big steel door was a corridor to places that included ...
    a 'Gr e  H us' ??

She couldn't make the rest out.
"Great Hustle?" she wondered to herself, slightly aloud.

The Duke shrughs sharing the wonder of what that might be and advances though the door and heads left into the corridor.

"Well i want to know if they make the programs here. I was really sad when they stopped with the angry mice show and will give those programmers my piece on that."

The Duke might be forgetting the whole water issue now the more important issue of his missing vid screen program might be solved.

The Duke heads off to the left... There is an intersection, though, where the hallway splits.

The Duke thinks that staying to the left might lead to the Programming offices faster... but there are a lot of cobwebs in the way that way.

The right hallway should avoid the cobwebs, but there's no guarantee of how quickly that might or might not lead to the Programming offices...

Which way will you try?

Ajakstu wanders over to The Lady. "Is there anything I can do to spped our departure from this place?" he asks.

The Duke mutters something about the lack of cleanlyness and swipes a hand though the cobwebs and makes his way through. Everyone knows those things appear where the cleaning robots no longer work but nobody knows what makes them.

"No," replied The Lady, to Ajakstu, "I cannot think of anything ... but you, knowing you better than I ... might know of something".
But as she spoke, she was already drifting after the trail-blazing Duke.