hexarchate_rpg | Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

yhlee posting in

[GM note: This is largely a maintenance move so that folks can continue threads from Move 21 without having to dig through a lot of comments.]

For easy reference:
- Move 21 recap (thanks to

zuhrovet) [wiki]
- the escape plan [wiki]
- Station Moongray Timeline [wiki]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~07:90

Confrontation with the baby fox
From this thread:

Sulen moves towards Mikodez, eyes gleaming the brassy color of clock gears. "I think it's time for some truth, Mikodez."

On the Wasp, Ashari (NPC) welcomes the arrival of Sulen, who threatens Mikodez with scrying after Mikodez is recalcitrant about answering Sasha's questions about why he didn't call for help for Istradez (NPC). Iawa is on standby in case Mikodez needs to be sedated again.

The disposition of a magistrate-thief
From this thread:

“‘Belong’ would be an overstatement,” Virmad says, concealing his amusement. “But yes, we did — I was just about to check on him [Gerae].”

He inclines his head to Sulen. “I’ll see you later; good luck with the foxling.”

Then, to Alaric: “Has Gerae had any food? I did tell him before I left that I’d make sure he got something to eat.”

"It looked like someone fed him, yes," Alaric replies, "although I don't know about Fluffy. Dragon snacks might make the conversation go smoother."

Alaric has just informed Virmad as to Gerae's status, and is about to hand Gerae over to Virmad's care. Meanwhile, Yehan (NPC) comes to talk to Alaric about mothling care: she reports that the station is having the remaining mothlings delivered to the Bumblebee and they are due any moment.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

slybrarian

"Right. Of course they did. It's not like they'll apparently just fly along behind anyone who can keep a decent tune, or stay inside a duffel bag." Alaric rubs his forehead. "Seal all the doors between the lock and the mothling habitat, just in case one gets loose anyway. I'll go get a float pallet and meet you at the lock. We'll make it clear we can't let their longshoremen or whatever aboard the ship because blah blah Rahal security orders blah blah heretical science."

From:

yhlee

Yehan grimaces in agreement and hurries off to do as instructed. She reports to the lock, where Alaric can find her. Alaric has no difficulty finding another float pallet for the purpose.

At the airlock, the two of them don't have long to wait before two Nirai show up with a pallet of their own, all loaded up with mothling canisters--which look distressingly like infant coffins. One of the Nirai has pastry crumbs on their shirt. The other looks more reputable and is holding a slate. "Say there," she says, addressing a point midway between Alaric and Yehan, "which one of you is authorized to sign for the critters?"

The Wasp makes a low, rather distressed humming sound. The pastry-crumb Nirai jumps. "What was that?" they ask.

From:

vass

["The plot."]

From:

yhlee

[LOL!]

From:

slybrarian

"Oh, that's just an audio-visual art installation our Andan's working on," Alaric says blithely, snagging the slate and scribbling down a horribly illegible signature that might vaguely resemble his fake name if held at the right angle. "Some sort of representation of calendrical harmony. Between you and me, it still needs a lot of work."

From:

yhlee

The pastry-crumb Nirai looks pained. "Well, I'm sorry to miss the installation," they say, sounding genuinely regretful. (There must be fairly limited entertainment options on a Nirai station.) "Maybe the next time you all stop by."

The other Nirai doesn't even glance at the signature. "Good, good," she says. "Won't trouble you further." With that, she and her companion head off.

The Wasp thrums again.

From:

slybrarian

"Oh, and if you could just send us the formula for whatever you used to sedate these critters, that'd wonderful!" Alaric quickly shouts at their backs. "I wouldn't want some random chemicals you injected into the horrors from beyond space-time to screw up the investigation or anything!"

With a little help from Yehan he gets the canisters onto the pallet and floating a quickly and carefully as he can to the bay fitted out as a mothling habitat. Hopefully the sedation is something that's been tested before. Actually...

"Grid, send a message to Remi: would you kindly join me at the mothling bay? We may have a small problem that could use your input. Bring Crowned-with-Eyes. Ah... end transmission? Send?"

From:

yhlee

The Nirai with the slate half-turns, waves in aggravated acknowledgment, and does as requested; Yehan confirms that they've been sent a chemical formula that can be used with their matter printer to brew up more sedative if that's what they wanted to do.

Remi shows up shortly after Alaric and Yehan have wrangled the canisters to the bay. Crowned-with-Eyes floats after him, humming and burbling. "What's the--" Remi's eyes narrow when he sees the canisters. It doesn't take any great perception to realize that he is furious. "The mothlings. Are they alive?"

From:

slybrarian

"Well, there has not been an explosion of fury and murderous rage from our engine room, so I'm guessing yes, for now," Alaric says. He has the grid display the chemical they were dosed with. "They were sedated with this. I'm hoping it's something you're familiar with and know a counter-agent for."

From:

yhlee

Remi stares at the formula. "They must have gotten that from Vana," he says, cold and clipped and furious. "Yes, if you give them"--he brought a slate and he enters another long chemical formula on it. "This should help ease the mothlings out of their sleep, if you administer it topically."

From:

slybrarian

"Excellent. I'll have the pharmacopeia unit in the medbay start synthesizing a batch immediately." Alaric pulls a pair of gloves from somewhere, suitably impermeable for the application of strange medicinal substances. "And while it's spitting that out, I shall try to explain to the adult that this is temporary and we're fixing it."

From:

yhlee

"Your facilities do you credit," Remi says, peering with interest at the gloves. "May I observe your communications with the adult moth? I promise I can stay out of the way."

[Alaric senses that his prompt attention to the mothlings' needs has made Remi think well of him.]

From:

slybrarian

"Of course! The system's still largely improvised and ad hoc, but functional enough, and Sasha's made some improvements based on the moth's natural mode of communication through audio signals. Well, 'audio' is just a facet, but I don't need to tell you that." Alaric takes a minute to show Remi the interface, and what he and Sasha had managed to put together.

"I should warn you, we're basically stuck with a pictographic pidgin for most concepts outside of mathematics and physics, which it understands quite well. Looks like Sasha's been running through some of the ship's educational programs for that and some information theory..."

He constructs a cartoon of sorts, showing the mothlings being brought aboard the ship. He also adds in an audio clip of the noises Crowned by Eyes makes, starting at a very low amplitude but then growing back to normal when Remi's counteragent is added to the set of mothlings.

From:

yhlee

Remi makes appreciative noises concerning the communication protocol that Alaric and Sasha have worked out. "If only the Nirai researchers who made first contact with the voidmoths had been this systematic," Remi muses sadly. "I wonder, are all moths educated in math and physics, or do they specialize the way we do?"

Meanwhile, after the second time Alaric runs through the cartoon for it, the Wasp quiets to a muttering. It sends back a hopeful cartoon of a big moth playing tag with little mothlings and meatsacks (humans).

From:

slybrarian

"I think that they have a great deal of natural math talent, given the nature of their language and the need to navigate both real- and gate-space," Alaric replies while composing a response to the moth, indicating that play may be possible once they are safely back through the rift. "Still, that doesn't necessarily translate into conceptual knowledge. A human can throw a rock without understanding calculus. To me, the fact that it has knowledge of chemistry is more indicative of some sort of education that the math. Deriving math principles based on problems can be done intellectually, given sufficient talent and a good memory, but knowing chemical structures requires either prior experimentation or an outside source of knowledge."