The captain answered Osram on Skip's behalf: "Nah, you head to the cargo bay and keep an eye on that creature. Ed, Val, and the kids are headed there anyway. The kids want to play with their pet I suppose."


He looks to Andre: "Best to put out the idea of going back for survivors out of your mind and focus on the task at hand. Repairing this ship. I'll be on monitor duty on the bridge while you do that."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:34, Mon 15 Apr.

"Sure thing then."  Osram replied to Jehnko as he moved off to head to the cargo bay.

The engineer grunted as he got up from a seat in the mess hall, "Let me know if, especially if, any alerts only flicker on for a minute. I don't want us to lose backup systems because Gryftrr decided to gamble on not needing them.

Tomorrow I may just start by shoring up some of those other drones. Having more hands might just go a long way to whatever endeavors we are up to next. Babysitting seems to be in the cards..."

Once they returned to the Mess Hall, Gill pulled a chair out for Lilly. Then he went around and sat across from her. "Thank you for agreeing to come with us, Lilly. We have some questions and we wanted the comfort of all of us in this environment. We want you to understand that we are not going to harm you or the children. We are not pirates or monsters. We genuinely want to help all of you. We cannot do that properly without the correct information." He is entirely professional in this, adopting his lawyer persona easily.

Skip had waited while Gill had gone to get Lilly.  When the two walk in, He is over by the mud coffee maker, pouring them each a cup.  When he comes over to the table, he is carrying a tray with the three mugs of coffee (each of the crew had their own mug, plus a number of mugs usable by passengers and guests) and a ramican with powdered creamer and sweetener of various sorts.  And a a dispenser of stir-sticks.
Coffee?  He holds up the guest mug for Lilly to take, if she wants it.  Don't know how you like it, but we have a variety of sweeteners and almost-creamer.

Lilly gladly takes the coffee and sniffs it cautiously sipping it.

"Oh this is very hot and bitter."

She smacks her lip.

"This is a stimulant."

She says in a matter-of-fact manner, staring at the mug.

Gill gave a greatful nod to Skip for the coffee. It was the exact right amout which brought a hint of smile to hip lips, which he doused instantly. He poured in the powdered vanilla creamer, stirred, poured more in, stirred again, and then added a lot of sugar and stirred one last time.

He tried to keep things from going off track, "Lilly where are you from, exactly. What is the name of the planetary body and city, county, and state?"

Skip find her response to the coffee odd.  Like she had never heard of it before.  It's called coffee.  Just not a very good version of it.  It is a stimulant, but many people find drinking it to be relaxing, he says to her with a smile.
He opens himself, focussing his empathy upon her, to the exclusion of everyone else outside of the room.  The metal walls and closed door help, muting the presence of the rest of the crew and passengers.

09:34, Today: Skip Tracer rolled 25 using 1d20+6.  Insight-Empathy.

This message was last edited by the player at 13:35, Fri 19 Apr.

Lilly responded in exactly the same rather-scripted manner she had the first time she was questioned.

"Oh, as I said before. I'm a sociologist from a nearby asteroid colony. My family joined a mission with a handful of other academics to learn more about the different colonies. Our ship hit an unexplained astral anomaly leaving us stranded. When a ship responded to our SOS, it turned out to be pirates. You saved us from their experiments."

She looks to Skip.

"Oh, coffee. It is nice."

She does not sip anymore and leaves the mug on the nearest table. Clearly, she's lying, even Gill can tell. She does not like coffee. What was weird is that she didn't seem to know what coffee was just a moment ago.

Gill looked at her sadly, "If you aren't going to be truthful with us, there is nothing we can do to help you."

Skip looks at the woman appraisingly.  Perhaps tea is more your style, he suggests.  He turns back to the galley, leaving her with the cup of coffee for now.  He begins to prepare a cup of tea, using the microwave to heat the water.

Lilly looks at Gill a bit confused.

"I understand. You have already helped very much. I will not deceive you."

She seems a bit ditzy, oblivious, possibly even on the spectrum...no, definitely on the spectrum. She answers your questions but gets absolutely no subtext or implication from you that you want more information than the exact question you asked.

Gill looked at Skip in a way that conveyed he was about to stop being subtle. He adjusted his posture and began as nonthreateningly as he possibly could. "Lets start with your story about being from an asteroid does not make sense. The technology we have seen is way beyond what we are capable of, like people and giant mutant dogs held in tiny cubes. We can't do that here. Another is your general behavior is more akin to someone who has only passing knowledge of humanity pretending to be human. So I ask you again, where are you from. Understand that we have a trans-dimensional goblin merged with our ships AI, so nothing you say will be surprising or cause us to try and end your existence. We are just salt of the earth type space truckers." He blinked and grinned.

He brings over the tea, a mix of orange and black pekoe cut teas, setting the mug down next to the variety of sweeteners and creamer packets.  Try this, he says as he reaches to take the coffee.  You may want to try to sweeten it, or add powdered creamer, to improve the flavor.
He indicates where they and the stir sticks are.

Lilly takes the tea and sips it.

"Oh, I like this warm nutrient drink. It's not very dense. Much better for hydration. This is a relaxant. Thank you Skip Tracer."

There she goes using full names again. It's unsettling. She stared at Gill as he gave her the run down and blinked quietly for a moment.

"You can't? What a shame. The pirates who kidnapped us could. I'm not pretending. I am huma--Gremlin? You have a gremlin aboard?"

Lilly's blasé attitude shifted to concern and she began looking around frantically. She revealed that under her new clothing she had a comm bracer (where had she gotten it?) and began hailing the kids.

"Adamus. Evelyn. Gill Rurry has informed me that there is a gremlin aboard!"

"My ears are burning. All 912 of them aboard this ship."

Gryftrr's hologram suddenly appeared from around the corner. Lilly stood up. It was clear she was afraid of him.

"Hiya, Longneck. What brings you to this backwoods realm? Experiment on any juicy mortals lately?"

He looks at Gill and Skip.

"That's what they do you know. Experiment. It's their whole schtick these ones."

It seems Gryftrr has been incorporating more and more human dialect and vocabulary into his systems.

And that's when Skip draws his plasma pistol.  With it being of little good against a hologram, he points it at Lilly.  Well, it seems that, finally, you were about to outright lie to us when you found out about the gremlin.  You've been a difficult one to get a good read on.
He waves the pistol at the chair.  Sit down, please, and start giving us some straight answers.  I do not want to have to become impolite.

Gill was confused at first, but caught on just before Gryfter showed up and confirmed it. He thought about how his luck was going south and then things went from annoying to Def Con 1 million in the split second it took Skip to draw his weapon. Thinking quickly he realized he had only a couple decent choices: play dumb and hope for the best or back Skip's play. He decided on the second and began to lay it on, "Oh now you've done it, you pissed him off. He gets like this when people lie to us. I've seen him shoot someone's eye out at 80 meters so you better start cooperating fast unless you want him to start blasting. I for one am not going to antagonize him."

03:12, Today: Gill Rurry rolled 20 using 1d20+6.  Deception + reliable talent min total = 12.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:14, Sat 27 Apr.

Lilly put her hands up and slowly returned to her seat.

"I am cooperating. You--you don't understand gremlins. You can't reason with them. They're dangerous. You have to purge it from your ship immediately or it'll--"

Once again Lilly was showing sincere fear and concern. Her communicator was buzzing with Adamus' voice asking her to confirm what she just said, but she didn't reach for it while the weapon was pointed at her. She looks at Gill defeated.

"We are all in great danger. I will tell you what you want to know, but we must address the gremlin."

Skip sensed no lies from Lilly now just fear. But he also didn't detect lies from Gryftrr. It's always possible the AI was impossible to read. But it's also possible they both believe what they're saying. False information is not lies if the person spreading it believes it.

Gryftrr scoffed.

"Or I'll what? Kidnap someone and perform strange experiments on them? Phase through someone else's realm and cause all types of havoc with my weird flying machines?"

He circled Lilly and the group's table in a predatory manner.

Lilly: "The ships don't harm environments. Destroying a ship in transit is often lethal to those onboard! We don't hurt them! We just gather knowledge!"

"Pssh. You think my kind breaking your kind's flying machines is worse than what you do to their kind? You Longnecks sure do have strange priorities."

He points at Gill and Skip.

"I wonder what they would think. Go on Longneck. Tell them who you really are. Tell them WHAT you are. If you don't I will. And I'll be happy to weigh my opinion on the matter."

Lilly bowed her head in shame. It seemed like Lilly was finally ready to crack.

Gill sipped his coffee, making loud slurping sounds. When he put the mug down he looked Lilly in the eyes. Now he has dropped the initial cordial lawyer and gone into shark-lawyer mode, and he smells blood in the water. "Gryfter has not lie to us, kept up his end of the bargains he's made, and honestly hasn't even done anything to directly threaten our lives. You on the other hand have lied repeatedly and have put my crew in serious jeopardy with that thing in the cargo hold. Now I'm going to tell my shipmates to purge your guard dog as it has already eaten my favorite hat. You need to give me a really good reason not to space you as well. Since I'm at it, tell me everything and you got thirty seconds to give me those really good reasons, starting now. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi..."

Still holding the plasma pistol on Lilly, Yeah, he really has this thing fpr spacing people.  Well, not just people.
He gives a wicked grin.  I, on the other hand, I hate to space the living.  He points his weapon at Gryftrr, and waves it dismisssively, indicating to the holographic that he should vanish.

Lilly sighs deeply.

"Very well. I AM from a nearby asteroid and I am here on a science expedition. That was not a deception. However, what my people consider "nearby" is probably different than what you would consider "nearby". I was raised in an asteroid colony and that's where I first received my assignment to come to this solar system to learn more about its sapient inhabitants. I am not your enemy, Skip Tracer and Gill Rurry. I am just here to observe and learn what you and your kind are like."

She crosses her arms and looks at the gremlin.

"We know what his kind are like. And we know they are dangerous."

Gryftrr scoffs and walks away.

Gill continued counting. He still had not heard a good reason not to space Lilly.

Hmmmmm, Skip muses.  You don't seem to be trying to deceive us this time.  But, the gremlin seems to think you need to take the stick out of your ass.
He laans donw, resting his hands on the table to prop himself there.You're not entirely human, are you.  It is more of a statement than a question.