Move 16 (Chapter 1.16)

[yhlee]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~04:00-04:50

Assumptions, just to get everyone more or less on the same time track again:

- Mikodez ignored messages from the other PCs for a couple hours while he collected a DNA sample from unconscious!Istradez, screwed around with his gun, and entertained baby Crowned-with-Eyes the mothling and Fluffy the Vraselian pseudo-dragon. The notebooks that Mikodez abstracted from Remi's lab appear to be a Space Bullet Journal about life on a war-torn technologically backwards planet. [The heptarchate is evil, but as long as you're not a heretic, the standard of living is actually quite high, with good social/medical services &c.]

Also, at some point Mikodez will have noticed that someone (Sasha) has cut off his access from the lokwor into the station grid.

At 4:50, Mikodez runs into Vana looking for Remi at the bubble tea shop. We can pick up from there. As per zuhrovet's suggestion, I advise that Mikodez is looking for Remi in order to get much-needed information on mothling care, although it may occur to him that he can possibly wheedle that info out of Vana as well.

- After the meeting between Sasha, Sulen, Virmad, and Ashari:

I presume that Sulen has either gone off to practice with the airgun in the interim (or lied to Sasha that they were going to, to get her off their back; your choice!). How good is Sulen with firearms? Ankat (running as NPC) will volunteer to show Sulen the basics, largely out of Kel paranoia that someone is going to screw up Gun 101.

Around 4:00, Teo has messaged Virmad saying that a Safety worker has discovered Istradez (running as NPC) in one of the guest rooms. He says that Istradez has been given first aid but do they want to send someone from the Bumblebee to retrieve him, or will they authorize sending Istradez to Station Medical? If Vass wants, they could go to Istradez and perhaps supervise any additional care that the medics give him.

Sasha will have overheard this presumably. In the intervening hours, it appears that the owner of the wriggly virus suspects that it has been detected. It has gone quiescent and/or deleted most traces of itself, presumably in the hopes of lying low until Sasha's suspicions die down.

Kaliyan (running as NPC) shows up in the newly made mothling bay to inform Alaric that she thinks that the modifications to the ship have screwed up something in life support--not critical now while they're docked at a space station, but kind a problem later.

Ashari, investigating Gerae's lockpicks more closely in some spare moment (maybe because they're having trouble sleeping?), discovers that some of them include hidden poison needle units. This isn't just a matter of a hobby of picking pockets, Gerae was prepared for Serious Business.

NOTE: If inactive players wish to return to active status, message me or leave a comment or email me (yoon at yoonhalee dot com), and we'll work something out.

Comments

does Sasha know where Mikodez and Fluffy are?

[zuhrovet]

[Did Sasha's cautious attempts to locate Mikodez through station surveillance bear any fruit? Also, is Fluffy with Istradez, or hanging around the tea shop with Mikodez?]

Iawa's going back to the station

[vass]

In the interim [did I really skip two moves? Fuck, I'm so sorry!] between 2:00 and 4:00, Iawa took another brief, uneasy nap (fifteen minutes. Enough to refresh her without getting groggy from going into REM without completing a cycle) assembled some first aid and field medical checklists and flowcharts and printed them on gridpaper and assembled them into a neat little booklet to take with her, since the tablet is staying in a foil-lined box for the foreseeable future. She spent some time reading the manuals that came with the first two first aid kits, and also inventoried them and replaced the painkillers and stimulants already used. Then she checked on the Kels.

Now (4:00) she heads over to check on the others, and hears from Virmad about Ismayed [Istradez].

"Yes, I'll go," she says. "He should have one of us with him." She doesn't think she knows better than the medics how to treat Imsayed, but without knowing who attacked him, how can they be sure the medics are safe? For that matter... "Has anyone talked to Avrayen yet?"

[Iawa means, if someone's attacked Imsayed when he was minding Avrayen [Mikodez], maybe Avrayen is in danger too. She doesn't know about the hacking. But if maximum confusion sounds like fun, Virmad (or anyone else who wants to be present for this conversation) could misunderstand that, and think Iawa means has anyone reprimanded or apprehended Avrayen yet.]

04:50 - Sasha attempts to delegate Alaric - definitely paging Alaric

[zuhrovet]

Sasha finishes altering Remi and Gerae's files and erasing the signs of her presence, takes a deep breath, and messages Sulen and Virmad to let them know she's done. At least one thing has gone smoothly tonight.

Mishka hasn't answered his messages, but she's got images showing him at a cafe, with a bulging backpack and some sort of carrier. Maybe that's Fluffy, and Mishka has only fucked up 99.3% of the things he could possibly fuck up. Sasha does not understand how any individual human could be this careless. But his files say not to kill him, and he certainly can't be marooned on the station, pleasant as it is to envision him working for a living. So somebody has to retrieve the eightfold-damned teenager. She checks the grid to see who else is awake. Looks like Alaric is talking to Kaliyan; one of them can probably force Mishka into compliance.

Sasha heads to the new mothling habitat. She nods to Kaliyan (best not to test how far the silent treatment extends) and asks Alaric, "Are you willing to return to the station? Sulen wanted something printed-- I'll give you the specs-- but first someone needs to bring Avrayen back. He's in a cafe right now, and he's not answering his messages."

[DNA scanner go?]

[pengwern]

[To GM - Can Mikodez run out to find some kind of scanner, like the gene scanners mentioned in chapter 3 of RS? (and the corollary, would Mikodez have handwave copies from his immediate family to check against the new samples, even if that's...unwise at Shuos Academy.......)

And in Remi's journals, are there codes/encryptions that he might notice, if not break?]

[Mikodez to Vana]

[pengwern]

[From this move]
Mikodez ignores the hatchling squirming inside his pack. It's wrapped in the Andan fabric, which has to be enough. "Of course," he says, tapping a few keys at his wrist. "They might not be awake, though -- most of them like their sleep. Any other spots your colleague frequent? Does he haunt the library much?"

paging Sasha: Kaliyan is concerned

[yhlee]

ca. 4:10

Kaliyan comes to find Sasha, yawning hugely; there are dark smudges under her eyes and she looks like she's nursing the remnants of a headache. "Say, could we have a word?" she says. "It looks like the modifications made to the ship to house the squiggly moth creatures have also fucked up something in life support. I tried telling Alaric about it, but I'm not sure he's taking me seriously. You're the next closest thing to an engineer, do you have any idea how to troubleshoot?"

Troubleshooting the oxygen recycling

[zuhrovet]

Sasha finds the manual for the life support system and starts the diagnostics for the oxygen recycling system. While she's waiting for the report, she checks the maintenance logs against the recommended schedule.