Move 11 (Chapter 1.11)

[yhlee]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), evening
Station Moongray

On the Station, at The Bar on Level Three: Virmad

[lleullawgyffes, it's up to you whether you want to say that Virmad gets caught up with Teo and/or matters on station overnight, or whether he will take care of matters with Teo quickly enough to join the others at the "Bumblebee" below.]

Per this thread, Teo has just greeted Virmad in the bar. To recap for your convenience:

The Bar on Level Three really is on Level Three. There are helpful directories pointing the way, but the fact that a number of people are heading there, and the cheerful clamor of people talking, and music, would have made it easy to find regardless.

The bartender is a trim woman with her hair hanging about her face in fantastic coils; the combs and hairpins look like they're about to escape. She's pouring a drink for a slouching Nirai technician when Virmad arrives. "You're new here," she says. "What can I get you?"

Kel Teo is sitting at a seat where he has a clear view of all exits. (Very Kel.) He's had a chance to change out of his uniform; he's wearing a sleek suit in shades of deep brown, and he's also embellished himself with gold-and-amber jewelry. He waves when he spots Virmad, smiling.

Teo adds that he's happy to pay for Virmad's drink--the first one, anyway, and some of the local grub. "I recommend the fried pork fritters with barbecue sauce," Teo says, "But maybe that's not ascetic enough fare for a Rahal?" (He's teasing.)


On the Station, on the "Bumblebee": Sulen, Sasha, Iawa, Alaric
Also probably: Ashari?, Mikodez?

Recap:
Remi has explained, at Sasha's insistence, that the baby moths were hatched in captivity from eggs stolen from the parents by a heptarchate expedition, and that the parents are likely dead. He claims that this all happened before he himself arrived on the station, and that he's been advocating for humane treatment of the baby moths.

Alaric has just explained that he discovered the Wasp's "moth" is a sentient starfaring being and has been communicating with it using pictures [Move 10].

Moving on:
Remi's response to this is to stare at Alaric in horror. "Do you seriously want me to believe that you were using a living being as your spaceship and didn't even check for sapience? I thought that was basic protocol...unless," and his expression sours, "it was convenient for people to hush it up?" He stares at Alaric. "Well, I can't blame it for wanting to adopt the young of its kind, but that's a high-security enclosure..."

[Remi might well be responsive to helping them kidnap the baby moths, assuming the whole conversation doesn't blow up in a completely different direction, but he's not going to offer unless someone else brings it up. There's plenty of opportunity for people to opine on what should be done about the baby moths, whether Alaric has been behaving appropriately, who Sasha should have notified, etc. If you need help brainstorming on your action, please let me know and I'll get back to you when I can; others players might also have thoughts.]


[GM suggests that Ashari and Mikodez could either have returned to the ship for the meeting with Remi, or else could teleconference in.

smokedetective: Ashari probably wants to be present in some form for the discussion, not least for possible/likely pending confrontation with Sasha per zuhrovet's notes. If teleconferencing, Istradez will be happy to cover for them with any pesky people.

pengwern: If Mikodez prefers not to be involved in this discussion, he could plausibly be investigating the nonresponsiveness of the Kel at the moment after they helped Sulen stow Gerae, or assigned to keep an eye on Gerae, who might be feeling confessional while everyone else is occupied.]

---

Active in Move 10: Sulen, Virmad, Sasha, Iawa, Alaric, Mikodez, Ashari

Inactive: Yehan, Ankat, Kaliyan

Comments

[pengwern]

While waiting for the last of his fishing attempts into Station Moongray's encrypted files to fail, Mikodez starts to idly assign stats to his current position. In his inventory is a Lack of Snacks. On the Wasp, the approval of the crew remains fairly low, with Ashari one of the higher ones (in their own ineffable Andan fashion), while his own impressions of them in return -- well, if only he could figure out what Imsayed was meant to reference.

The Kel are two, the Rahal as well. Two cannons, two towers. There was bound to be some game with this number of pieces - take Sasha and Alaric as the equivalent of Nirai, that left one obvious Andan, himself for the Shuos, and no obvious Vidona. The three left could be keeping their faction affiliations hidden, or they could be regular citizens. Rebels. Regular, run of the mill heretics. But who's playing, and to what end? Was the one crew member who vanished prior to the Wasp's journey through the rift an eaten piece?

Far simpler to assume he's the player of this simulation, with an occasional surveillant here and there. Improbable, glitchy cousin Imsayed for one, and that straightforward announcement of Instructor Zehun's appearance as 'Andan' Bokali for another. Sometimes Mikodez had his doubts about whether Crowned with Eyes existed as a signifier, or if it was just easier to use it as an excuse to purge inconvenient Shuos. He couldn't think of anything he or the Vauhans had done to warrant this, but it's probably too much to expect fairness from the Hexarchate.

As he reviews what little he could glean, Mikodez pauses at the amount of supplies coming in. Animal research that needed to be carried out on a station, rather than more efficiently on a planet. What was Remi's research on, again? He pulls up a schematic map of the station, matches it with scan that the Wasp had taken earlier, and tries to locate the regions he hadn't seen on tour with where the directory says Remi's lab is, and the distance from that to the dance studio where Ashari and Bokali presumably wait.

[HI yay a Remi glad to see the interstellar tea party continues with 0 poisonings Mikodez has to go get mauled by moth babies or fake Andan now bye]

[vass]

[On the Wasp any minute now...
"Wait a minute, where's the kid?"
"What do you mean? I thought he was with you!"
"Oh shit, we left him on the station!"]

[zuhrovet]

[Also, how is Ankat going to react when we point out that the range is the only room where the ventilation meets code for radioactive occupants, and will he still bring us the special bubble tea?]

[yhlee]

[I have received no response from Ankat's player so he's continuing inactive, but as a GM call I don't think he's going to take it well. :p ]

[yhlee]

[I expect this to dissolve into hilarity soon. *g* ]

[pengwern]

[,,,,the Home Alone kid got into Shuos Academy on early decision. (Anyone on the Wasp want to strand Mikodez on Station Moongray yet)
Remi won't be happy if the crew goes William Tell with the mothlings, but maybe they could be taught to do Kel appropriate tricks.]

[zuhrovet]

[...Oh, right, I spent the '80s hiding under a rock reading Tamora Pierce. This thread makes more sense now.

Is Fluffy radiation-resistant? Can she play tag with the mothlings? Will we successfully retrieve her?]

[yhlee]

[Fluffy is pretty radiation-hardy. She needs air, though. On the other hand, while the mothlings can survive in vacuum, they don't require it and are happy to bop along in atmosphere. I doubt you'll have any trouble retrieving Fluffy. Someone might even be able to sweet-talk Teo into handing her over as part of the investigation.]

[venndaai]

[That sounds like a job for Virmad. Do it for your other bf, Virmad!]

[yhlee]

There are indeed sections of Remi's lab that don't match up with what the public directory claims. The dance studio is, interestingly, just below it on another level. You could plausibly eavesdrop on the lab from the dance studio if you ran a bug up there.

[pengwern]

Mikodez mimics the hunch of a fifth year cadet at the end of the year (minus the faction-red sclera from the occasional smoke bomb) as he takes a scenic route to the dance studio, face bent over his tablet while he keeps searching for accessible local systems. The handful of Space USBs he'd filched off printers and desks during the tour, which he planned to dump on Sasha when he got back to the Wasp, had been filled on first glance with nothing more than presentation and poster files.

There was one clandestine betting file on "races" for something that required breeding records and list of occupied names. He decides to stay on that line of investigation - there was no indication of what type of organism in question was being raised, and while the order forms for biologicals looked official enough, who knew what the Nirai, even simulation Nirai, did in their spare time.

His attempts are mostly directed towards finding shared data folders that could be disrupted, equiptment inventories for anything that resembled weaponry, and holding cells, and he tries one last time to inveigle his way into surviellance records from the docking bays.

The mention of a Pentarchate had to be a reminder of what the stakes were, as well as a gauge of his attachment to the Shuos, but Mikodez did want to see if the simulation was detailed enough to come up with a logo for Vidona-Kel. Floofy stingrays? Ashhawks with bodies that morph into flappy mint semi-circles?

As an afterthought, he looks up Andan Bokali’s record.

[To GM, it’s probably reasonable to have all of this be over his skill level, but I think Bokali, like Remi would have some publically available stuff? I can’t recall what Mikodez knew from Ashari/Sasha about Remi, so. I’m fishing for merchickens.]