Adventures in Time & Space IC

[Dodgeson]

Ky

Stupid air conditioner...still it beat actually having to pay for a meal, maybe you could just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and be done with it. Except no you can't because this thing doesn't even have a neutron flow, that was the problem with the technology in this era everything was so primitive! (Though to be fair anything that isn't a hard 4 on the Kardashev Scale is primitive to you).

Still it wouldn't take you long to trace the fault in the machine to a faulty piece of wiring in the system's overcharge and a good thing to as a sudden wave of nausea rolls over you...

Laurel Ambers

Asset 3 & 7 had you cornered, that was all you ever knew them as, your former employer insisted that this was purely a security measure, very 007 but there was always the sense they their Psy-Ops agents a little less than human.

"Look we know that you've had your differences with Torchwood but we just want to talk." Asset 7, an older woman with her black hair tied up in a bun, tried to reassure you, but seeing as how she was an empath by trade, how reassuring this was was up for debate. "Think of it like an exit interview, Torchwood has it's rough edges but they mean well, we're never going to be able improve without people like you."

All the while Asset 3 stood silently behind his partner, as a telekinetic it was his job to make sure that bad things happened if you refused her offer. Her choice of words was a little poorly thought out though, people who went for 'exit interviews' at Torchwood tended to just get shuffled off to other sites or simply not leave at all, rumors of something called 'Asset 0' abounded.

Luckily for Laurel she wouldn't have to make a decision right now as a wave of nausea rolled over her...

Chaiti

Chaiti stood in the ruins of the Ophidia Clutch, thousands of years ago the reptilian race had been known thorough out the galaxy as doctors, scientists and philosophers until one day they simply vanished, taking their knowledge with them, leaving nothing behind but blasted wastes and crumbling monuments that hinted at the greatness of their lost civilization.

The room began to shake around her and as a wave of nausea hit her, you know what was odd? The glyphs, that eye wasn't reptilian at all...

All

Darkness surrounds all of you, 3 shapes just about visible in the blackness creating a series of small uniform rows keeping the three of you apart without blocking your vision (such as it is in the dark).

((Ky, make a roll for Feel the Turn of the Universe at Difficulty 12))

[Anyr]

Ky voiced his initial assessment of this situation.

"Whabudaga!?"

Very helpful. Off to a good start. Focus, Ky! With an effort, he forced his panicked breathing back into a mere anxious gasp. His mouth continued to echo his thoughts.

"C-calm down. Fear won't solve anything. Have to think. What do I know for certain? W-well, I've definitely moved a long way. This isn't the same planet...no, wait. Not even the same universe! Amazing. Who, besides us, has that kind of capability?"

He started feeling around in the darkness. Maybe there was a light switch somewhere.

[Quellian-dyrae]

When the nausea suddenly hit her, Laurel could only assume it was the beginning of some sort of psychic attack. Granted, she didn't know of any psychic attacks that induced nausea, but that hardly meant there couldn't be any. "Wait, you don't have to-" she began to desperately gasp out.

She was elsewhere by the time she had finished, "-do...this...?"

Laurel looked around warily, if a bit pointlessly in the dark. What...happened? Had they somehow teleported her? (Look, once you move something with your mind, you broaden your definition of what is possible. Just how it goes.) She would have gone with the more plausible explanation that she had blacked out from some sort of psionic assault (why some arbitrarily nausea-and-unconsciousness-inducing psychic attack was deemed more plausible than full-body teleportation she couldn't quite verbalize, but there it was), but she was still standing, still holding her hands up non-confrontationally. ...Although she could have been physically immobilized as well as unconscious, she supposed.

The problem with broadening the possibility space to include more-or-less the full gamut of psychic powers prevalent in fiction (and who knows, maybe other supernatural stuff as well, it's a big world) was that it actually didn't make it any easier to come up with a solid conclusion. If anything was possible, guessing what had actually happened was far more difficult.

Another voice caught her attention, with speculations that both blew the most wild she could come up with out of the water and that she prayed were false. Laurel had fairly seamlessly managed to accept the idea of psychic powers, and intelligent alien life hadn't been a big leap (honestly, she'd have bet on that going by sheer statistics, although the idea that enough extra-terrestrial beings made it to Earth to warrant a whole secret organization for dealing with them had been a surprise). But being plucked into another universe entirely?

That was too big. She couldn't wrap her head around that.

Aside from the speaker, she could just barely make out a more-or-less human-sized-and-shaped form in the darkness. "Is everyone alright?" she asked, keeping her voice calm and steady.

[Anyr]

"Augh! I surrender!"

One of the humanoid shapes put its hands up.

"P-please don't hurt me. I mean this universe no harm!"

[SailorGallifrey]

The last time Chaiti felt this sort of nausea was during planetfall from her shuttle. Either that or her rations went bad, which when it comes to food she always took seriously. The sudden darkness immediately brought to mind a short lived panic of a cave in. Chaiti did a self-pat down and found, to her relief, that her limbs and chitin were intact.

"Chai-Not a plate out of place-ti", she sighed to herself. She very rarely slipped into her native coloquial tongue, except in extreme cases and this had fit the mold perfectly. Chaiti had learned to discipline herself from using it since other races seemed impatient with it.

Even her trusty field journal was safely tucked away in a pocket.

"Is everyone alright?"

"P-please don't hurt me. I mean this universe no harm!"

The sudden arrival of two new voices most definitely put Chaiti on high alert. She most certainly knew that she entered these ruins alone, this sector of the Ophidia Clutch hasn't been visited in over 100 decades. Well, I've been in stickier situations. Maybe they can help? What's the worse that could happen?, she thought as she replied, I'm fine but could I bother you for a gastro-intestinal calming agent? Or at the very least a light?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Um...that's...good to know?" she asked more than said, not entirely sure how to respond to either the offer of surrender or the declaration of peaceful intentions towards the universe at large. (Which, to be fair, was a good protocol to have in general.)

"I've got neither, I'm afraid," she answered the calmer-sounding voice. Smart phones weren't exactly the sort of thing you carried around when you were on the run from a government agency. "Um, my name's Laurel. Do either of you have any idea where we are? Or how we got here?"

[SailorGallifrey]

[roll0]
[roll1]

"Hold on, maybe I've got a pen light...somewhere. I'm Chaiti by the way."

Chaiti was relieved that the voices sounded friendly but still a little irritated at the lack of lumination. But then again, there's usually a silver lining.

"Chai-Eureka-ti!"

She did an experimental flourish to get a better grip of her surroundings. Chaiti aimed her beam towards the general direction of the voices.

(Edit was result of rolls)

[Anyr]

Ky relaxed just a fraction. From the sounds of it, the other voices belonged to fellow abductees. That meant they were less likely to hurt him. Always a good thing to know.

"People usually call me 'Ky'. As f-for how we got here, it must be a very advanced technology. Not many are capable of crossing the boundaries between universes. If this were my people's doing, I doubt they'd just stick me in a dark box. So that leaves...No, that would be ridiculous. Though I can't speak for any of you, I certainly don't warrant the attention of a Guardian..."

[Dodgeson]

As Chaiti shone her light around, not only would she see the faces that the pair of voices belonged to but also the contents of the shelving between them. On the dusty metal shelving sat cup and ball games, plastic bows and arrows tipped with suction cups along side overly large tubs of sickly candy floss, loud tacky horns, and all manner of the kind of souvenirs you're going to get bored of 30 minutes after you leave. All the packaging has become faded with time and like the shelving itself everything is covered in a thin layer of dust.

With illumination the torch cast around the small room Ky's search for a light switch would bear fruit in the form of a cord dangling from the ceiling next to a door in the corner of the room. Through a little glass window in the door he'll be able to see a store front filled with yet more cheap souvenirs, the whole place is clearly in need of repair with shattered mirrors hanging from walls with peeling paint along with the obligatory covering of dust.

[Anyr]

Ky blinked in the new beam of light. It gave him his first look at the room's other inhabitants. Not that that told him much. They both looked fairly normal. The same couldn't be said for the room itself. What was this bizarre place? Ky experimentally pulled the newly revealed cord. Maybe better illumination would (somehow) let him make sense of everything.

[Quellian-dyrae]

The surroundings illuminated by the penlight were...not exactly very alternate-universy by her mind. Although, she realized, she couldn't rule out the possibility that she was still in her own universe, but this Ky fellow was from a different universe. That made...sense?

"Um...why exactly do you think we're in another u-" Laurel began asking, and then the light went on.

And she saw Chaiti.

Laurel stumbled back on instinct, nearly knocking over a shelf full of knick-knacks. She knew alien life existed, of course. Because, you know, Torchwood, and all. But this was the first time she had ever encountered one, at least that she knew of. And Chaiti...well, she could not exactly be mistaken for human. Laurel considered herself an open-minded person. She had actually been excited at the idea of meeting aliens, learned about people and cultures from entirely different worlds. She wasn't afraid, but she was definitely surprised.

Fortunately, she had enough personal discipline to keep from blurting out something embarrassing like "OHMYGODYOU'REANALIEN!" or some such. And she only stared a little bit.

"Um, universe?" she finished her question.

[Anyr]

Ky glanced quizzically between Laurel and Chaiti. The former seemed to be startled by the latter. But why? Chaiti looked quite innocuous. With as close to a calming tone as he could manage, Ky answered Laurel's question.

"I can feel it. My species have an innate sense for such things. We can also sense whether another person is one of us. Given that and your appearance, I'm guessing that you're...human? P-please forgive me if that's not the case."

Damn it, the stutter was back. He'd never been able to suppress it for long.

[SailorGallifrey]

It took a moment for Chaiti's eyes to adjust for the sudden flare of light. She quickly returned her pen-light back into her pockets. She tilted her head a bit at her newfound...companions? Fellow inmates? Though her newly discovered surroundings mader her think twice.

She had worked with a few humans on previous research projects so Chaiti was a bit confused at the female human's reaction. Maybe she didn't get out much?

"I take it we're not in the Ophidia Clutch anymore?", she ran a chitinous digit along a nearby dust-covered shelf. The gadgets looked bit primitive, if not childish.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Yeah. Yeah I'm human." And apparently he...wasn't?

Laurel only offered Chaiti a shrug. "No idea. I guess we should probably figure out where we are, huh?" she asked, only half-rhetorically. "This place looks...I mean, I don't recognize the place itself, but it certainly looks like a place you could find in, um, my universe. I mean, on my world. That is, Earth." She tried dusting off a few of the packages, looking at the labels. Or more precisely, at what language they were written in.

[Anyr]

"'Earth'? That sounds familiar. Earth Earth Ea-Ah! Isn't that the original human homeworld?"

Ky spoke as if recalling some obscure fact from a textbook. To him, Laurel's planet was just something to be memorised for an exam. He gave the room another once-over. It looked just as alien as ever.

"It s-sounds like you're the one most suited to understand our surroundings. I'm afraid I know very little about these things. The few h-humans I've met have never even seen Earth. So, w-would you care to take the lead here?"

Ky looked expectantly at Laurel. He clearly hoped for someone besides him to call the shots. He was a follower by nature.

[SailorGallifrey]

"Well normally, I'm more partial to ancient alien ruins. So technically this could be a fledgling ruin?", Chaiti also started investigating the strange packages on the shelf.

"This planet that you're from...Eeearrth was it? It sounds very dirty. Your people are very odd to name their planet after dirt.", Chaiti bluntly stated. Then again, her sole purpose for her research was to investigate alien cultures. Maybe this was another cosmic intervention?

"Ky, what do you mean by universes? As in plural?", Chaiti tinkered with the ball in cup toy, curious about it's inner workings as well. Was this a torture device of some kind?

[Anyr]

"E-exactly as it sounds. We (or I, at least) have moved between universes. I don't know any more than that yet. It might be a parallel reality; A custom pocket dimension; Or a bubble clinging to our universe's metaphorical skin."

[Dodgeson]

To Laurel's eyes all the writing on the kick-knacks surrounding her is in English, the bow and arrows promised her hours of fun taking potshots at those darn cowboys whilst a tag attached to a bag of jacks warned her that they were under no circumstances to be given to a child under the age of three and the candyfloss strangely didn't have an expiry date...

[Quellian-dyrae]

"I think we named the dirt after our planet, maybe?" Laurel asked as much as said. She wasn't entirely clear on that particular etymology.

"The...original human home world? Oh, um, I mean, I guess? In my universe it's just...where we live." Honestly Laurel was starting to wonder if examining the labels had given her useful data after all. She was talking to an alien and to someone from another universe, and they were both speaking what she recognized as perfect English. Was that strange? That seemed strange. She might have assumed something had happened that was auto-translating things for her...but surely Chaiti wouldn't have recognized the relationship between the world's name and the mundane word earth if it were just some automatic translation...?

Well, her mind was blown. Moving on!

"Yeah, I can do that," she agreed to Ky's request. Best she could tell this was Earth, after all. Although that meant... "Um, Chaiti, you might want to see if you can find something to kinda...obscure your features. Most people on Earth don't actually know that other life forms exist, and sad truth is I can't promise that any given person won't overreact if they see you." To say nothing for Torchwood, but Laurel figured that particular concern probably wasn't a top priority right this second. "I'm going to see if I can't get a better sense of where we are."

That said, she tried the door leading into the larger storefront, and if it opened, would make her way to any windows or exits there might be and see about taking a look outside.

[Anyr]

"Why would you think that most humans don't kn-Augh!"

Ky recoiled as if he'd been stung. This woman was from Earth's pre-colonial period! That meant that he'd been giving her spoilers! Such a grievous breach of protocol. He clamped his jaw shut, so as not to let any more information escape. He'd have to be much more careful from now on.

[SailorGallifrey]

ingenuity 5 + knowledge alien cultures + 4 + [roll0][roll1]

Chaiti rummaged through the room to try to find something. If Laurel was shocked by her visage then she wouldn't want to spook the natives. Though part of her was curious if she would be the first alien that they would encounter. Would that really be such a bad thing, to be a first?

[Dodgeson]

The door offered Laurel no resistance as she headed out through the store front and in to the open air. Outside the sky was grey and overcast and wherever they were had clearly seen better days, bar the building she had just come from (a faded sign above the door helpfully identified it as the gift shop) the other buildings that lined the small tarmac street were collapsing collections of masonry held together by weeds, each was tagged by graffiti of an eye that Chaiti would easily be able to recognise...

One way down the street lead to a series of rusted turnstiles beyond which lay an empty car park, it's lines dulling and a few street lights dingily flickering on and off every few seconds. Looking the other way the street split off in to three directions, in the middle a warped sign post helpfully showed the way to 'Amusement Alley', 'Haunted House' and the 'Big Top'.

[Quellian-dyrae]

I swear to God Dodgeson if Grandier shows up... :smalltongue:

Laurel surveyed the area quickly, calling back into the shop, "It looks like just an abandoned carnival or something. I think we're...well, relatively clear, anyway." She cased the area more carefully, looking for anything that could give her some manner of indication where they were. A city skyline, newspaper on the ground, whatever.

My instincts are telling me to roll Awareness + Ingenuity, but my inexperience is telling me to not just throw an arbitrary die roll and instead let the GM tell me if I should roll something. So I'mma do that one.

[SailorGallifrey]

Did Chaiti step outside with Laurel? If so, did she succeed in making a disguise?

[Anyr]

Did Chaiti step outside with Laurel? If so, did she succeed in making a disguise?

That was addressed in the OOC thread a few days ago. Dodgeson has been waiting for your response there.

The top of a very cautious head poked out of the shop door. It was eventually followed by the rest of Ky. He walked like someone in a minefield. Every step into this foreboding place seemed to promise danger.

"T-this isn't at all what I expected. We were brought here by extremely advanced technology. Why would a-anyone go to such lengths just to show us an abandoned recreational facility?"

[SailorGallifrey]

Chaiti didn't have much luck this time in coming up with an impromptu disguise. She nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders and preceded to follow Ky out of the store.

"Every ruin has a story to tell. There has to be some reason why we were brought here,", her eyes were suddenly glued to the familiar runes scattered around the abandoned park

[Anyr]

"Well I wish someone w-would just tell us that reason. There's no point in...in...Are you all right? Did you see something?"

Ky followed the path of Chaiti's gaze. She seemed transfixed by some graffiti. He couldn't really see what was so interesting about it.

"It's just an eye, isn't it? That sort of s-symbol is common across the universe."

[SailorGallifrey]

"Chai-I've seen this eye before-ti,"she slipped into her native colloquialism. "Chai-I was studying this before we met-ti." She gingerly traced the symbol on the wall in front of her with one hand while the other went to retrieve her field journal.

[Dodgeson]

Unfortunately for Laurel there appeared to be no hints as to their location nearby, the only things on the ground were weeds pushing their way up through the tarmac under her feet and the skyline was dominated by the apex of a rusty rollercoaster, a bone dry log flume and a drop ride that creaks and sways in breeze that doesn't actually seem to exist. Even looking back towards the car park yielded no luck, the skyline in that direction was bare as far as the eye could see.

((Chaiti and Ky can both roll Ingenuity+Knowledge to try and identify the Eye))

[Anyr]

Ky made one last nervous sweep of the area. As far as he could tell, there were no more clues to be found here. If he wanted to get off this planet, he needed to move. One foot hesitantly stepped forward; Then the other. Slowly, carefully, Ky walked towards the park's entrance. Maybe there was civilisation outside it?

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel held position for the moment, wanting to give Chaiti the chance to finish checking her journal before getting moving, although if Ky got too far ahead she'd move forward a bit to try to keep them both in sight.

...She was also fiercely debating with herself about whether or not she should bring up the fact that Chaiti was interspersing her sentences between the syllables of her name for some reason. Would that be rude? That seemed like it would be rude...

[SailorGallifrey]

Chaiti quickly flipped through the pages of her field journal, trying to find some connection between this glyph and the one she was studying before finding herself here. As the realization dawned on her, she almost dropped her journal.
"I've seen this marking before but in another ruin", Chaiti cleared her throat. "What if this is a more recent ruin? I've seen my fair share of ruins and they're called that term for a reason. We shouldn't stay here too much longer." Chaiti closed her journal to make a final point.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Did the marking mean anything? Like, was it a symbol of some specific group, or a warning sign, or anything like that? How old was the other ruin?" Laurel asked as she hastened a bit to catch up with Ky. This place seemed old, but not "ancient ruin" old, to her. She'd have figured it would have been active within the past...half century, maybe? Century at the most? It was a rough estimate.

[Dodgeson]

Past the entrance the car park seems to stretch out in all directions as far as the eye can see under the dull grey sky with only the irregular placement of the rusty flickering streetlights to mark any kind of progression across the cracked asphalt, that was until the park itself left their view, then everything just stopped. Not only the asphalt and markings and lights, even the sky above them was gone, only a blank white expanse stretched out in front of them.

But that wasn't even the strangest part.

Sitting in the white expanse was a small cluster of ramshackle buildings, sitting outside on a colourful crate with a crank sticking out of it is a human looking man dressed in a sailors uniform, so focused on whittling the wood in his hand that he doesn't notice the three newcomers.

The man has visible joints on his arms and knees, almost like a doll.

[Anyr]

Ky had had very few expectations about the park's exterior. For all he knew, anything could be out there. But he'd definitely expected more anything than this. A single island sat in the middle of a void sea. Was this really all there was to this universe? An amusement park, some buildings, and a...person? No, wait. Ky looked closer.

"S-see his joints? They're mechanical. I t-think this might be a machine of some kind. Another attraction, perhaps."

The young Time Lord subtly edged back behind his two companions. Being in front really didn't suit him.

"S-so...who wants to go say hello?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Wh- bu- hu-" Laurel started stammering out, maybe hyperventilating just a little as they reached the edge of the parking lot and/or entire freakin' universe!(!!!!)

Because look, she'd be honest, she had...kinda been taking Ky's "we're in a different universe" thing with a grain of salt. Place had sure seemed normal enough to her. She hadn't entirely discounted the possibility of some sort of parallel reality or something. That wasn't entirely too "sci-fi" for her to deem possible, given her life experience thus far. But it was one thing to say "okay, we may or may not be in another universe or something". It was an entirely different thing to be staring at a blank white void where the world around you just stopped. To be shown, without any doubt, beyond any question, that you were no longer in anything even remotely near your home even on an astronomical scale, that reality was playing by entirely new rules, and that you knew nothing!

Fortunately, this was the second time in her life she had been faced with that sort of realization, so she was getting better at dealing with them. With practice.

She focused on the man...doll? The doll-man? The doll-like man who might or might not be a man-like doll? Should she point out that his joints were weird? Would that be rude? Laurel thought that might be rude. Although Ky did point it out so she just quietly nodded at that. Regardless, looking at him allowed her to not look at the creepy white void that she honestly couldn't help but feel was starting to seem symbolic of her own ignorance and that was just aces with her.

Who wants to say hello, Ky asked. Laurel licked her lips, swallowed once, and approached to a conversational range.

"Um...excuse me," she spoke up tentatively to the man who may or may not have been some uber-powerful extra-dimensional alien who had kidnapped them simultaneously from three entirely different locations on Earth and actually oh wait Laurel was just now realizing that Ky and Chaiti very well might not have been on Earth.
"Hello! My name's Laurel. Ah...my friends and I kinda...weren't here and now we are? Do you live here,
maybe? Or know who does? Or how to leave? Ideally in a manner other than walking out into that?" this last asked with a not-looking-not-looking-still-not-looking gesture towards where the sidewalk ends.

[Dodgeson]

At the sound of Laurel's voice the sailor looked up from his whittling and hopped of the crate.

"We've got newcomers!" He called as he strode towards them, an old woman in a bonnet, a cowboy and a man in a crown and fine red robes (all with the same visible joints as the sailor) appearing from the builds behind him to see what the fuss was about.

"Welcome to the Toyroom, or what's left of it anyway. The sailor greeted them "So where did He find you?"

The Toyroom is a pocket universe created by the mysterious Celestial Toymaker (probably the He the sailor is referring to). A cosmic being rivaling the Guardians who has a penchant for kidnapping people to take part in games for his own amusement.

[Anyr]

Recognition dawned. Ky's already scared face gradually shifted into an expression of horror.

"The t-t-t-t-toaugh?! Oh Great and Mighty Rassilon! Why me? Whymewhymewhymewhyme?!"

This babbling continued for some time. Eventually, Ky managed to dial down his hysteria into a mere panic. Clinging to Laurel's arm like a child, he got his mouth back under control.

"Well, the g-g-good news is that I know where we are. The bad news is that we're doomed. This is the domain of the Celestial Toymaker! He's a pandimensional...wait, sorry. I forgot that you were primitives. Erm, he's a...God? Yes, that'll do. The Toymaker is like a God of games. He treats sentient beings like playthings. Victims get p-plucked from their homes, and placed in 'toyboxes' like this one. Then they're made to compete in twisted games of his own design. That is, the lucky ones are.

Forget any thought of defeating the Toymaker. He's far beyond that. The best we can hope for is earning his mercy. Try to be an interesting plaything. The boring ones get...discarded."

He finally turned his attention back to the sailor. Since these 'people' were just toys given the semblance of life, he prioritised them far below Lauren and Chaiti.

"S-so, what game are we here to play? There is a game, right?"

[SailorGallifrey]

Chaiti tilted her head at the strange new beings that they were being introduced to, their foreign joints kind of reminded her of her own plated skin. So now there was a reason for their appearance and also a possible way to leave.
"Don't the winners get a prize? Maybe that can be our way out?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

There was a little part of Laurel that wanted to ask Ky to give her the actual details, but all things considered she figured she'd probably get more usable information from the word "god" than whatever was originally going to follow "pandimensional". Maybe with some time to discuss it more privately she'd ask for more details, but for now, "god" got the necessary connotations across.

(Laurel's brain was submitting requests to take a nice, soothing catastrophic meltdown, but given the situation they were in, they were rejected on grounds of her needing to think.)

"And what are the rules?" she requested of the dollfolk. Calmly.

[Dodgeson]

The sailor laughed sadly and shook his head "If it only it we're that simple, I can't remember the last time we just got to play games."

"Aye, things haven't been the same since They moved in." The old woman tsk'd, gesturing to the blank expanse behind her "I mean have you seen that circus? Ugly thing, but enough about that, you kids look like you could use some tea." With that the woman turned and shuffled back towards small hovel that she'd came from.

Now that he knew where they were, something would occur to Ky (the woman's statement certainly wouldn't have hurt either) but the graffiti back at the theme park was not a symbol that was associated with the Celestial Toymaker at all.

[Quellian-dyrae]

These were the servants, or perhaps the creations, of an individual who fit the general profile of a "mad god". Who had kidnapped them, stolen them from their worlds, whisked them off to a pocket dimension without request or warning, for who-knew-what purpose. Who might very well have planned to force them to go through some nonsensical and very possibly lethal challenge for his own warped amusement, and apparently would have unconcernedly "discarded" them if they didn't prove themselves entertaining.

"Who are They? If they're intruding, or troubling you or something, maybe we could help?" she offered, as she followed after the woman, without even a moment's hesitation.

And that right there told you everything you would ever need to know about Laurel Ambers.

[Anyr]

Ky was officially lost. Again. And just when things had finally started making sense. As he followed the (seemingly) old woman, he tried to process this new information.

"You mean that that whole c-circus was taken from somewhere else? And what was that about there not being a game? If there's no game, then why are we here?

[SailorGallifrey]

Chaiti perked up at the mention of tea, she was getting a little tired of nourishing herself and wanted to try something new. Plus this would provide an opportunity for her to scope out more of this strange new world.
"So there used to be more to this place?" she made her way to follow Laurel.
"How long have you all been here?"

[Dodgeson]

"There used to be so much more than this, but as the His power weakened so the Toybox got smaller and smaller." The old woman explained as she bustled around an old iron stove. "Then they showed up. Of course at first they got on like a house on fire, but by the time they brought that circus of theirs over he didn't have the strength to kick them out"

The kettle whistled and she turned back to face her three guests with a warm smile holding a tray with a trio of steaming mugs, a pot for sugar and a small jug of milk.

"But nobody wants to hear an old girl like me wittering on, do tell me where he found you. How does everyone take their tea?"

[SailorGallifrey]

Chaiti eagerly took a cup but almost burned her finger pads. She took a tentative sip and made a slight face, "I was in the middle of an expedition within the ruins of an ancient alien culture".
She placed a few spoonfuls of sugar into her teacup, "Though this place is starting to peak my interest even more".
Chaiti took another sip of tea and decided to try the provided milk. "Do you know who placed those symbols throughout those old building?"
She was pleased with how her tea was now.

[Anyr]

I was fixing something in a restaurant on Selgandric 4. Milk and f-five sugars please."

For the first time, Ky's expression hinted at some genuine hope. Maybe the Toymaker wasn't invincible any more. If he really had weakened so much, it might be possible to escape him.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Milk and one sugar, please," Laurel requested. "I was in Bakewell. Um, which is in England. Europe. Earth. The Milky Way..." Reality.

Laurel did have to think a moment before elaborating. She didn't agree with how Torchwood did things, but she was fully aware that revealing their existence to the world would have been a bad idea. Not only would it have antagonized them further, but dropping the bomb on people that they lived in a world with aliens, psychic powers, and so on was...well, it was not something done on a whim. And Laurel had been trained to keep the organization secret, and that training hadn't just gone away when she had broken with the organization.

End of the day though, these weren't regular people from Earth. There wasn't any particular reason to hide Torchwood from them. And offering up more details might make the woman more inclined to give them more information about this mysterious They and Their carnival. "I was...well, actually in kind of a standoff with some members of the organization I used to be a part of. Torchwood. So it was actually a kinda convenient escape!" she said with a light laugh. "I mean, you know, if I could get back home, anyway."

[Dodgeson]

"Oh, you'll get to meet them soon enough dear." The old woman said with a sigh as the room started spin around our three heroes, what ever was in those mugs clearly wasn't just tea "I'm sorry, you all seem like nice people, but if the Toyroom fades away then so do we..."

That was the last thing they'd hear as the spiked tea took effect and sent them slumping over in to unconsciousness.

((Okay, if I'm reading the rules right I can give you Story Points in exchange for narrative inconvenience so everybody gets 1))

Ky

When the Time Lord awoke again Laurel and Chaiti were nowhere to be seen, he was in a small white room with a single table laid out in front of him with a chair either side, sitting in the opposite seat with the door behind him was a withered looking old man dressed in a mandarin's finery. He was in the presence of the Celestial Toymaker himself (itself?).

"Please, take a seat." The old man said with a predatory grin "I would like to play a game."

Laurel & Chaiti

The first thing the girls would notice as they came to was the blinding glare of a spotlight focused on them in the centre ring of a big top. The seating that surrounded them was completely deserted except for a small family dressed in their Sunday best.

"Look Father!" A little girl exclaimed, pointing excitedly down at the pair "It's starting! It's finally starting!"

"I told you it would, now settle down." The man replied calmly, offering her the popcorn on his lap as a cunning incentive.

"I do hope they're better than the last ones." The woman sitting next to him added.

"So do I Mother, that would be very unfortunate for them wouldn't it?" He smiled, looking down at the ring expectantly.

A quick scan of their surroundings would show them that the exit to the tent was directly in front of them but they weren't alone in the centre ring, the path outside was currently blocked by yet more dolls. These ones didn't even try and put up the pretense of humanity that the otherone's they'd encountered did, they were blank featureless mannequins with the eye where their face would be, glowing a strange and otherworldly blue.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel could admit it, she was getting a little tired of randomly getting shunted off to new locations without any explanation. She felt a flash of...not anger, so much, as disappointment, as the doll-woman's final words came back to her. She had offered to help them, but she had brushed aside the offer and elected to drug them instead.

She came to her feet casting a wary look around the tent. This did not seem to be a...particularly ideal situation. She shifted to position herself between Chaiti and the dolls. She didn't know what Chaiti was capable of if things turned violent, and while normally it might be a safe bet that any given alien could handle itself better than any given human...well, humans were statistically unlikely to be fully-trained former members of Torchwood's Psi-Ops division.

The dolls didn't seem particularly...sapient, so she turned her attention to the "family". Whoever they were, they at least seemed to have a sense of what was going on. She had no particular leverage to demand or coerce information from them...but that didn't mean she didn't have a means to extract it. She focused her will, concentrated on the "father", attempting to peer into his mind.

Using her Psychic power to try to read the "father's" mind, specifically looking for information on who they are, what they want, and what is going to happen next. [roll0] opposed by Resolve+Ingenuity (plus any bonuses against mind reading).

I'm not sure if mind reading is automatically noticeable, automatically subtle, or somewhere in between, but if it's possible to do it subtly she will. Let me know if there's some other check I have to roll for that.

[Anyr]

As Ky fell, he made a mental note to himself: Start bringing a hip flask. Addendum: Augh! He awoke in just the mental state one would expect.

"Pleasedon'thurtmepleasedon'thurtme!"

Seeing his surroundings did nothing to improve his mood. He was in the presence of an incredibly dangerous and sadistic being. Granted, said being had apparently fallen on hard times. But he was probably still more than a match for someone like Ky. Not wanting to seem impolite, Ky made to sit down; Then stopped. Fool me twice, and all that. Also, he vaguely recalled the Toymaker having a fondness for deadly chairs. The young Time Lord elected to stand.

"B-before we go any further, let me remind you of how much more valuable I am alive. If your games k-k-k-k-kill me, then you'll just have to find another victim. And I'm guessing that that's not as trivial for you as it used to be."

It wasn't a very good argument. For one thing, Ky had 13 lives. The Toymaker could afford to burn a few of them. For another, the current incarnation of Ky very much wanted to stick around. So what if another Ky would replace him? This one would still be gone. Whatever it took, he had to survive this ordeal.

"Anyway...what's the game?"

[SailorGallifrey]

Maybe I should just stick to my own sustenance for a while? Chaiti thought to herself as she groggily adjusted to her new surroundings, again. This is why she normally preferred to work alone, no one could stab you in the back. Then again, trouble always managed to find her or maybe it was the other way around.

She noticed that Laurel was getting into a defensive stance. She couldn't blame her though but she knew that it was better to observe. Though the only thing that she thought was entertaining was some Ophidian poetry or were they naughty limericks?

[Dodgeson]

Ky

The Toymaker's eyes narrowed towards Ky, he didn't appreciate being reminded of his current predicament "We both know how much you can live through Time Lord, I can afford to break my new toy if it displeases me. Now the game, Sontaran Battleships? Old Maid? N-Chess? Eighth Man Bound...?"

As he continued to list off the myriad games he was familiar with each one appeared on the table and then vanished to reappear behind him until a vast pile of gaming paraphernalia stood beside the door.

"But what is a game without stakes? What I propose is simple, if you win, you get your freedom." With a wave of his hand a shimmering image of a grafitti covered medical booth appeared on the table, despite it's appearance Ky would instinctively recognise his TARDIS. "And if I win, I get your body."

Of course what he failed to added was that Ky's freedom would be conditional on his ability to survive the realm destroying temper tantrum that the Toy Maker was known to thrown upon his defeat, he did not take losing well.

Laurel & Chaiti

Laurel's mind was bombarded by terrible eldritch imagery, three identical hooded figures carved from black stone, the eye symbol they'd seen in the theme park resting upon their brow above glowing blue eyes. Whatever these things were they were old, old as forever, if there was ever anything good about them it had drained away long ago, only hatred and malice remained now. All they wanted now was for the mortals to entertain them in their Dark Circus from now until the end of Time.

"Oh a psychic duel. Now that would be entertaining." 'Father' gave a thin smirk, he didn't seem at all bothered by Laurel's intrusion in to his mind.

"But what about her Father? She hasn't even done anything yet!" The little girl whined, waving a hand down in Chaiti's direction.

"Do calm dear, I'm sure she knows what happens to performers who don't entertain." The woman chided

"Well she better..." The girl crossed her arms and pouted.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel was...actually slightly shaken by what she saw in the alien's mind. Or perhaps more, what she didn't see - any hint, or even possibility of a hint, of virtue. Laurel had always taken it as a given that all people were good at heart, and some had just lost their way. But that brief touch with the alien's mind...it was as close as she had ever come to having her philosophy disproven.

And yet, Laurel was no crusading paladin out of a storybook. Maybe the aliens could be defined as literally Evil with a capital E and maybe there was no possible way to redeem them. But if you thought that meant that Laurel decided they had to be destroyed, or began seeing Torchwood's point of view a bit better, you did not understand Laurel. That discovery did not feel Laurel with disgust or hatred. She simply pitied them. How horrible must their circumstances have been, to leave them in such a state of unceasing malicious apathy?

...Not that she was going to let any of that show. She was empathetic, not stupid.

In terms of actionable intelligence, well, Laurel had discovered two matters of note. First, that at the end of the day, what motivated these three (well, the Father at least, although she got the sense it applied to all of them equally) was a desire for entertainment. Second...she did not want to entertain them with a psychic duel.

"Oh, but that hardly seems fair to your wife and daughter though," Laurel said gamely, withdrawing from the alien's mind. There was a bit of resonance in her voice. She was standing straighter now, facing the three directly, and her words came with a bit of gesticulating. Laurel was a charismatic young woman to be sure, and she knew how to play it up for an audience. "Just watching the two of us staring at each other until one of our noses starts bleeding or something. Dull, dull, dull."

Laurel was well aware she would have little chance against the alien in any sort of extended psychic contest. It was frankly a fluke she had gotten has far as she had. He may or may not have known as much, but Laurel wasn't going to call actual attention to it. These three would offer no mercy in the face of a compassionate plea and a show of submission may just invite a corresponding display of dominance. No, she kept her game face on and played to her audience.

"A riddle!" she called out with a sudden flourish. "You only notice me when you notice nothing else. I will adapt to any weapon wielded against me too often. To the living I taste of death, but the dead do not know me. What am I?" She didn't expect it would take them long to solve, but when you're making a sales pitch, it never hurt to get the potential buyer to feel involved.

[Anyr]

So, there really would be a game. Goodie. Ky didn't fancy his chances here. Stories of the Toymaker being defeated were few and far between. Ky's eyes flickered between the various games on display. Which would give him the best odds? But first, there was something else to settle. This room was emptier than it should have been.

"What about the two people who arrived with me? Are t-they part of the deal too?"

[Dodgeson]

Ky

The image of Ky's time capsule flickers away only to be replaced by that of the two in the centre ring of the Dark Circus, Laurel playing to the smartly dressed family sitting in the audience in front of them.

"They are Ragnarok's diversions now, their fate is no concern of mine."

Ragnarok refers to the Gods of Ragnarok, a trio of pitiless elder things that survived the death of the previous universe. Like the Toymaker the only thing that interests them is entertainment. Unlike the Toymaker, where he is content steal handfuls of beings at a time from their proper place in time and space, they press entire planets in their service, slowly draining them of life in the process.
The eye symbol you've seen is theirs, they can use it to project their power beyond their current location but it can also be used to ward against them if used correctly

Laurel & Chaiti

"Boredom! It's boredom!" The little girl blurted out excitedly.

"How clever." Mother seemed quietly amused but Father's expression didn't change in the slightest, as one the family reached under their seat and each held out a paddle marked with the number 7.

"I do hope you're going somewhere this." Father stated dryly, leaving the implicit 'or else' hanging in the air as the dolls creaked to attention, their glowing eyes focused intently on the duo in the center ring.

[Anyr]

Ky was aghast. Laurel and Chaiti were in the hands of Gods even worse than the Toymaker! What had they done to deserve that? Ky already knew the answer: Nothing. They didn't deserve any of this. Ky was still extremely scared. But now he was angry too. And that anger let him push back against his captor.

"U-Unacceptable! I can't just abandon those two to their fate! The guilt would haunt me for centuries. My freedom alone isn't enough."

That said, he had very little leverage here. The Toymaker clearly lacked the power to outright defeat these rivals. Would he really go to war for the sake of one random toy? Of course not. Ky needed to set a more realistic goal.

"Look, I'm not asking you to save them yourself. I just want an opportunity for me to do so. If I win back my TARDIS, you h-have to give me enough time to rescue those two before the realm disappears. I-Is that okay, Mr Toymaker? Sir?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Boredom!" Laurel agreed theatrically, more-or-less ignoring the father. End of the day, this would either work or it wouldn't, and being more agitated about it wasn't going to change that. Besides, Laurel may have been nice, but she wasn't submissive. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of responding to his veiled threat.

The movement of the dolls was harder to ignore, but Laurel kept her attention fixated on the "family".

"Boredom is, it seems to me, something the three of you must be intimately familiar with. How many people, I wonder, have stood in this circle before you in the past?" To her credit, Laurel managed to keep any trace of the anger that she absolutely did feel from that question buried. End of the day, Laurel was still a Psi-Ops agent, more-or-less a spy. She was trained to keep her emotions in check when the mission demanded it. "And of those, how many have been able to provide you with any lasting entertainment? Or would it be safer to say that the most entertainment you get from most of them is at the inevitable end of their performances?"

There was a point to all this. Two points, really. Primarily, it was the build up to her pitch. Establishing rapport. Showing the prospect that you knew what their problem was and you had a solution to offer. Secondarily...well, secondarily it was to get across to Chaiti what she had learned from the mental touch. She expected that the aliens could detect her telepathic communication easily enough, and while she didn't necessarily think they would care that she was sharing what she knew, quite, she did think they would take offense if her full attention did not remain fixed on them. At least this way Chaiti would know, if it wasn't already clear from context, that they were dealing with individuals whose primary motivation was entertainment, who captured others and forced them to perform for them, and who had precisely zero qualm ending them if they did not prove sufficiently entertaining, and enjoyed the misery that they could inflict thereby.

But of course, Laurel knew she didn't have anything to offer that the aliens would find sufficiently entertaining to earn an escape, if indeed that was even possible. She suspected gladiatorial combat could possibly do the job in the theoretical sense, but to say it was an idea was invalid - Laurel rejected the very notion before it could ever be elevated to such an august state. She didn't believe there was anything she could do that would satisfy these aliens...but fortunately, Laurel was a human being from modern Earth. And if there was one thing that human beings from modern Earth had, it was a plethora of entertainment options. Including, Laurel hoped, one that might appeal to even these aliens. Or at least for long enough to get them free.

...How to actually provide it to them was a part of the plan that Laurel had not yet come up with. But that was a matter for later. Right now, there was only one thing she had to do. And that was sell it.

And while that last line may have been separated from this one by several paragraphs of background detail, in the present moment, Laurel didn't wait more than a beat to continue speaking. Her questions were rhetorical. "But today you are in luck! Because my people have devised a form of entertainment that you can watch all but indefinitely, and it is different every time! And this is not a matter of a few terrified people putting their simple mortal talents on display out of fear for their lives, no. These are people, people from all walks of life, eager - indeed, desperate - to tell their stories, show off their skills, and undergo all manner of nonsensical, humiliating, and - sometimes - actually impressive competition that can be devised. And make no mistake, they are not all masters of the skills involved. A great many of them have precisely zero realistic reason to be there and are absolutely doomed to failure, which I'm sure you'll agree is all part of the fun! As with every event, another story comes to a depressing end, another person's hopes and dreams are shattered by the unforgiving machine that they so confidently threw themselves into! So tell me, fair patrons, does that not sound like the sort of entertainment you are looking for!?"

...Okay, yes, in case it isn't clear, Laurel's plan is totally to get the three elder evils addicted to reality television. I take back everything I said before. Laurel is, by far, the most evil PC I've ever played. But honestly can you tell me with a straight face that reality tv isn't the distilled essence of what these guys are trying to do? (With slightly less actual death, I guess, but still! Plenty of human misery!)

[Dodgeson]

Ky

"Very well, if you can best me then may face Ragnarok to free the others." Of course this decision had nothing to do with anything like compassion or mercy, if the Toymaker won he would have enough power to banish the interlopers from the Toyroom and if he lost then perhaps the Time Lord in front of him would be able to defeat them (they did have a habit of that after all).

"Now, the game." The image of the girls vanished, replaced by several game boards floating above each other. Many of the pieces seeming to flicker in and out of place, Ky would recognise that they were simple inhabiting a different time phase than the rest of the game, it was all very similar to game that young Time Lords would play back at the Academy.

"The first turn is yours."

Okay, we're going to treat this as a extended encounter using Ingenuity+Knowledge and using Ingenuity to inflict 'damage'. First person's Ingenuity to hit 0 loses.

Laurel & Chaiti

Father tried to maintain his composure but indeed the entire family's eyes lit up at Laurel's tale of desperate contestants having their dreams shattered by an uncaring entertainment machine. Forcing his features back in to a blank uncaring mask Father straightened his tie and gave a little cough.

"And you say that your people devised this entertainment?" He asked curiously "Where did the Toy Maker find you?"

The dolls by the exit now turned their attention to Chaiti as the little girl eyed her expectantly, the Malmooth still had yet to do anything and whilst Laurel's pronouncements might have bought her some time the youngest of the family seemed to be getting inpatient.

[Anyr]

"...V-very well."

Ky finally took a seat at the table. He was surprised that the Toymaker had chosen such a familiar game. Then again, perhaps that was the trap. Ky had always thought of this game as a casual pastime. He'd wiled away many an hour competing against his friends. Nothing had been at stake. Nobody even bothered to keep a tally of wins and losses. This latest match could hardly be more different. If Ky treated this one the same as usual, then he was done. He could already feel his heartsrate increasing. Just the thought of losing filled him with drea-No! Stop thinking like that. Taking things too lightly would be suicidal; But so would the reverse. He needed to be calm, yet determined.

His hand reached out. It was shaking. Not a good start. He picked up a piece from the lowest board. Then he set it down on the highest one. As soon as it came to rest, it vanished. Neither player ever had access to all their pieces at the same time. This was a game of foresight, memory, and patience.

Ky spends a story point to add 2d6 to the roll.

Ingenuity + Knowledge: [roll0]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Yeah, no. Laurel may not have been entirely clear on the next step of her plan, but it definitely wasn't "direct these three to Earth". She had their interest, now she just had to leverage it. Ideally without getting her and Chaiti both messily killed. "That I'm afraid I cannot say. However, I believe I can get you a direct means to view this entertainment. I can't do it myself - I lack the technical skills. However, the man who was with us comes from a much more advanced species than I, and my friend here is an expert in interstellar cultures. With all three of us, creating such a link would be trivial...given sufficient incentive,
of course."

...Okay, yeah, Laurel's mouth might have been writing cheques her friends couldn't cash. The best lies had a grain of truth to them, and she knew that Ky considered her people primitive and that Chaiti had been studying alien ruins. That was, in fact, more-or-less all Laurel knew about them. The idea that they could create some sort of interdimensional broadband connection to the cable television system of modern Earth, and one that couldn't be traced back to the planet later, was not a realistic assumption. Laurel was extremely aware of that fact.

But, she had no idea where Ky was. She could only assume these three were holding him elsewhere. She also did recognize that they were growing impatient with Chaiti. The best way that she had to ensure their safety was to make them appear indispensable. That may have come at the cost of being able to bluff herself to safety - say that she needed to be released to get necessary materials or whatever. That might have worked if it were just her; even if they had doubts, the possible reward was almost certainly worth the risk of losing a single transient entertainer. But if all three were necessary, even if they went with the "have to gather materials" bluff, they could still hold one of them as insurance.

And if it came down to that, Laurel was prepared to make that play. She'd continue to bluff and stall and hold out hope for a better solution. But if a better option didn't present itself, giving Chaiti and Ky a way out would still count as a success in her mind.

[Dodgeson]

Ky

The Toymaker steepled his fingers as a he watched Ky make his move, unlike the other beings that had taken up residence in his realm he didn't seek merely entertainment but a challenge and Ky seemed like he would fit the bill nicely.

"Chronarch to %!-7"

A small figure of a bearded man in an incredibly high collar moved from the middle board to join Ky's piece, several pieces switching phase in its wake, it was an aggressive move but not exactly an optimal one, leaving the valuable piece unprotected.

Laurel & Chaiti

"Your life is the incentive." Father informed Laurel, a warning shot of glowing blue energy lancing out from the eye on one of the dolls underscoring his point. "You will find this man and bring him to us."

"What about the Malmooth Father?" The little girl asked still seemingly drawn to Chaiti's unusual appearance.

"She will stay here and entertain us, consider that additional 'incentive'." Father replied to his daughter, flashing Laurel a thin smile.

In front of them the featureless dolls move aside, giving them a clear path outside the circus tent.

[Anyr]

A voice controlled board? Nice gimmick. Ky nonetheless preferred to move his pieces by hand. It gave his stutter less chances to appear. Out of habit, he reached out to defend against the Toymaker's move. Then he hesitated. Was he being too cautious? He had the most advantageous position here. This was the time for action. Suppressing his innate tendencies, Ky grabbed a new piece from the upper board. He moved it to threaten another of his opponent's flanks. The Toymaker could continue his attack if he wanted: But Ky's own would likely outpace him. Every piece Ky lost would be exchanged for a gain of higher value. If the Toymaker wanted to avoid that, he'd have to defend himself.

Or so Ky hoped. This game had a lot of possible moves. Was he actually the one who'd missed something?

Spending another story point.

Ingenuity + Knowledge: [roll0]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Sorry for the delay guys, had a busy week.

There was a part of Laurel that wanted to push a bit harder. Get a more specific agreement about their safety and release. But she knew better than to press her luck. Frankly, if the Father's word wasn't good, it wasn't good no matter how tight the wording was, and at the end of the day the odds still were that this would come down to deception rather than agreement. So Laurel would make do with what she had. Hopefully telling them Chaiti would be necessary to the task would make them view her as somewhat less expendable.

Of course, there was a somewhat larger problem to deal with. Namely, that evidently these three weren't actually holding Ky. So where was he?

"I'll be back," she told Chaiti in a voice of promise, before nodding curtly to the family and heading for the exit, not looking at the dollbots or whatever they were.

Once she got outside, she took a quick look around to try to get the lay of the land, and then brought Ky's face to mind. She concentrated on the mental image, reaching out with her thoughts, repeating his name over and over in her head, hopefully until she felt the connection take hold. Ky, Ky, Ky, ~Ky...this is Laurel. Where are you?~

Attempting to contact Ky with Telepathy. This evidently requires a Resolve+Ingenuity roll to make contact, though unless Ky opposes with his own there doesn't seem to be any indication of a difficulty. [roll0].

[Anyr]

Ky was startled to suddenly hear Laurel's voice. He knew instinctively that she wasn't actually in the room with him. Telepathy? That was a rare talent for humans to possess. With an effort, he used his own telepathic abilities to strengthen the connection.

[Laurel! I'm so glad that you're all right. I'm in the T-toymaker's room. Please, try to survive for a while longer. If I win this game, then he'll let you escape along with me. Or at least, he'll let us try to escape. The Gods of Ragnarok might have some objections...]

[Quellian-dyrae]

The...Gods of Ragnarok? That was ominous. And the Toymaster had Ky jumping through hoops as well. Laurel hissed out a tense breath. As if one (group of) crazy alien space gods wasn't enough to deal with. Regardless, one step at a time, she supposed. ~Is there anything I can do to help?~ she sent. Hey, you never know until you ask!

[Anyr]

[Sadly not. The game we're p-playing is from my home planet. You definitely don't know it. Just focus on staying safe.]

[Dodgeson]

Ky

Ky's moves weren't flashy but little by little he was putting the Toymaker on the defensive, no mean feat considering he was a cosmic being who lived for little other than playing games with lesser beings. His realm was as much a part of him as the physical form that sat opposite Ky, who knows, maybe as it decayed so did his own abilities?

Whatever the case, even though his expression never shifted from 'enigmatically smug', he knew that he was in danger of falling in to a tail spin. Ky racking up incremental advantage with each move, this called for something something drastic.

"Nightmare Child." He intoned and a piece phased on to the lower board that easily dwarfed the rest of them. Utilising the somewhat free-willed piece so early in the game was a risky but calculated move, Ky would need to change his tactics if he wished to remove it from the board.

Ky - 0 Damage
Toymaker - 4 Damage

Laurel

Leaving the tent Laurel would find herself in the center of the Gods' Dark Circus, a pair of dolls standing guard at the entrance and watching her with their glowing blue eyes to remind her that although she wasn't in their presence she was never far from the Family's power. On the plus side, even a psycho alien space theme park was well signposted.

Nearby a signpost showed helpfully pointed her back towards the entrance to the park as well as 'Amusement Alley' and 'The Thrill Zone!!!'

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel felt just a little offended that Ky told her she couldn't help. Just because she didn't know the game didn't mean she couldn't help him cheat, after all! And yet, without knowing where they were, how she could actually accomplish that didn't spring to mind. She considered for a moment the possibility of trying to telepathically contact the Toymaker pretending to be desperately pleasing for help in hopes of distracting him, but the risk seemed to outweigh the reward.

She also considered reporting to the...Gods of Ragnarok(?) that the Toymaker had Ky. Trigger some kind of conflict between them, escape in the ensuing chaos. But there were too many unknowns. They were in some sort of pocket dimension, they might need the direct assistance of one or another of these beings to actually get out.

End of the day, at the moment, Ky was working on getting to them, and she had a plan that should at least get Ky and Chaiti out. There wasn't any sense in risking those gains trying for some wild new option.

~Alright. Good luck,~ she sent, before closing the mind link. In the meantime...well, she was supposed to be looking for Ky, which gave her an excuse to go looking around the place. Maybe she'd find something that would be useful. She deliberated exploring the circus itself, but decided that might appear suspicious, so she made her way for the exit. She wisely decided that Amusement Alley probably wasn't and conspicuously avoided any route that took her even incrementally closer to The Thrill Zone!!!.

[Anyr]

The telepathic connection was severed. Ky returned his full attention to the game; Now able to concentrate slightly better. Talking with Laurel had helped a bit. And he needed all the help he could get. The Toymaker had just brought out Ky's least favourite piece. He'd lost so many games because of it. The image of a grinning girl entered his head. His friend Ari had always smiled so widely when she used the Nightmare Child. Ah, happy days. Safe days. Losing this match would carry far harsher penalties than being Ari's butler for an afternoon.

Okay, stay calm. He'd been at these crossroads before. This time, he'd take the correct path. Lesson one: Don't try to preserve every piece. The Nightmare Child was going to take some of them. Instead, sacrifice a few to save the many. Ky tapped several pieces in quick succession. Some flickering outlines solidified, as they were brought into a new phase. An equal amount of solid pieces likewise phased out. Ky braced himself for the slaughter. Several soldiers of his imaginary army would fall next turn. But then his Cloister Wraiths would phase back in. And they'd seal the threat once and for all.

Knowledge+Ingenuity (with a story point): [roll0]

[Dodgeson]

Ky

The Toymaker watched with what could almost be called childlike glee if not for his withered form, as the Nightmare Child consumed Ky's sacrificial pieces in an orgy of simulated violence. This glee was only partially dampened when the temporal ripple the piece left in its wake pulled his opponent's Cloister Wraiths back on to the board and left it surrounded.

"You play the game well Time Lord but tell me do you really think you can best the Gods of Ragnarok? They will not give up the others so easily." Of course he didn't actually care about the fates of the other two victims he had brought in to his realm, they were serving their purpose in distracting the Gods whilst he played his game after all, he was merely trying to throw his opponent of his game.

"Witch e to ^*#-3 and declare Obverse" The middle board turned blue and the position of all the pieces connected to it inverted as the Toymaker finally began to try and shore up his defenses in a classic ploy for time.

Ky - 0 Damage
Toymaker - 6 Damage

Laurel

The park was still save for the creaking towering old rides in a non-existent wind and the occasional attraction bursting in to life with tinny music designed to lure in the unwary as Laurel made her way back to the exit. It was as she had left it, all crumbling buildings and graffiti, though now that same graffiti glowed faintly with blue light, the Gods of Ragnarok were clearly keeping their eye on her.

Waiting just outside the gates was the old woman who had drugged them perched on a small folding chair, hearing movement she looked up from her knitting and seemed to be revealed at the sight of Laurel.

"Oh thank goodness! You managed to get away, what happened to your friend?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

There was a little part of Laurel that kinda wanted to punch the doll-woman. You don't drug somebody, turn them over to insane god-like beings, and then express relief that they escaped. You just don't!

(Not that Laurel had "gotten away" by any means, but that was another matter entirely).

But Laurel clamped down on her anger. Punching wouldn't solve anything. "She's still in their hands,
and I didn't 'get away'." She let a bit of fear and despair leech into her face and voice. It was an easy enough emotion to display, because it wasn't actually feigned. Laurel was a trained operative; she could mask and bury her emotions when she needed to. That didn't mean she didn't feel them. "I have to find Ky. The man we were with. Please,
what did you do with him? Where did you take him? Why did you do this to us!?" Laurel's eyes teared up a bit as she said that, and her voice sounded a little choked. That wasn't...actually her intent, there. But it was a lot harder to control one's feelings than to mask them entirely.

Okay, gonna take a risk and make and die roll. Presence+Convince to try to guilt the doll-woman into giving up some info. I'm not certain, but this seems like it might be a situation where the Empathic trait applies, so add an additional +2 if it does.

[roll0].

[Anyr]

Ky didn't rise to the bait.

"One thing at a t-time. I'll worry about the Gods of Ragnarok after you're beaten."

Or, to put it a less heroic way: 'I'm too scared of the monster in front of me, to spare any fear for the one further ahead'.

Ky surveyed the boards. It felt as if he we was winning. But he'd felt that way before plenty of defeats. His eyes flickered from piece to piece: Searching for any trap that might doom him. They found none. Okay, time to return to his usual style. He moved the Great Engineer to reinforce his offensive position. When this game was first invented, that piece had been shaped to resemble Omega. Now it was just a generic figure. No prizes for guessing why.

Just a straight roll this time.

Ingenuity+Knowledge: [roll0]

[Dodgeson]

Ky

"A wise choice." The Toymaker commented on Ky keeping focused on the game in front of him "Of course if you truly cared about the well being of the human and the Malmooth you could simply concede." He had no real illusions that Ky would consider his offer this late in the game but if it made him hesitate for even a second it would be worth it.

"Starbreaker to 3!@-9"He smirked as the small space ship moved to capture Ky's Engineer, the time for risky moves was over, defeating his opponent was the surest path to wresting his realm back from the Gods and whether he liked it or not those moves had not served him well this far, idly he wondered if the Time Lord appreciated the irony of his new strategy.

((In the interest of keeping things rolling and not in anyway to try and influence your SP spending decision but you are literally 1 success away from defeating him))

Ky - 0 Damage
Toymaker - 6 Damage

Laurel

The old woman's knitting suddenly became a lot more interesting to the doll as Laurel scolded her, after a few seconds she sighed regretfully and girded herself to meet the agent's gaze again. "He's with the Toymaker now...locked in a game I'd wager. I'm sorry, really I am, but his power is waning and he needs your Time Lord friend if he's going to be able to reclaim the Toyroom. You and the other girl were just distractions for our...guests, I'm sure you can imagine how they'd react if they found out that he was planning to oust them."

[Anyr]

The Toymaker's words actually did make Ky hesitate. A shameful look briefly crossed his face.

"D-d-die to save someone else? I could n-never do that."

Taking a risk to save Lauren and Chaiti was one thing. Sacrificing his life for them was quite another. The mere thought of it made his stomach churn. Ky's hand shook slightly as he reached for the board. If his calculations were correct, then this game was nearly over. His next move wouldn't be the last; But it would be the last one that mattered. It'd narrow the Toymaker's options to a single, narrow path: At the end of which lay defeat. The moves that came after this one were a mere formality.

Or so Ky hoped. A big part of him still expected everything to crumble. He'd never played this well before. Fighting for his life had improved his strategy so much. Sad as it was to admit, he wouldn't gain nearly this level of focus from fighting for someone else's life. With a steadying breath, Ky's hand grasped the middle board; And turned it 90 degrees. His seemingly scattered pieces coalesced into a new vertical formation. He was only allowed to make this kind of move once per game. Hopefully once would be enough.

Ingenuity+Knowledge: [roll0]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel took a tense, slow breath, using the anger to try to force her fear back down. "I had offered you help, you know," she said pointedly. "Before you drugged us. You could have asked."

"Your...guests are clearly awful. And dangerous," she said. "But to be entirely fair, they aren't the ones who abducted us, and they weren't the ones who drugged us. They may be monsters, but your boss seems to be just as bad, and also seems to have decided to treat us as enemies. So what seems to me to be the most practical response is to go back to them, tell them your boss has Ky and what he's planning, and then see if that assistance earns us a way out of here. It's a long shot, sure, but right now that looks like the only reasonable way out."

She crossed her arms and fixed the doll-woman with a firm stare. "Unless you have any better ideas of course."

While she fished for a way out, though, there was something else that had caught her attention. She had called Ky a...Time Lord?

Ingenuity+Knowledge to see if Laurel might have heard/learned anything about Time Lords in her time with Torchwood: [roll0].

[Dodgeson]

Ky

The Toymaker watched Ky unexpectedly twist the board, it seemed that the game was entering its end phase. Abandoning his attempts to get a rise out of his opponent the god's moves became slower and more considered, though he wore a (predatory) smile all the same, he hadn't been forced to play this well in centuries. Even with his very survival on this is what he lived for.

The game stretched on and more than one the Toymaker came a single move away from defeat but games were his domain and he still had a few tricks up his gilded sleeves.

Ky - 0 Damage
Toymaker - 6 Damage

Laurel

"You can't do that! You mustn't!" The old woman dropped her knitting and leapt to her feet, a look of absolute terror on her face. "If they find out that they're being tricked they'll destroy this world and everyone in it! You've stood in their presence, you've got to understand!"

The woman didn't seem to exactly be a font of information though she had let slip something rather interesting slip...as a former operative of Torchwood, Laurel would know of the Time Lords as a (the?) super advanced alien race. Practical immortal and capable of coming back from the dead but even those abilities pale in comparison to their mastery of time travel. Torchwood theorise that despite the contact Earth has had with them over the years the species as a whole must have some kind of code against interfering with the universe at large (or possibly consider it simply beneath them) because if they wanted to become conquerors very little could stop them.

Of course that doesn't really sound like Ky does it...?

[Anyr]

Ky should really have calmed down by now. This ordeal was so very nearly over. But his hearts just refused to stop racing. He couldn't relax until the game was absolutely, positively decided.

Ingenuity+Knowledge: [roll0]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel's knowledge of Time Lords was far from complete, but she knew they had incredible technology and a facility with time travel. That...actually made her crazy reality TV idea...doable? Well, let's not go crazy here. But she upgraded it from "ludicrous" to "thinkable". She'd need to talk with Ky. And that meant making sure he got free from the Toymaster's clutches. Now, maybe he'd win the game and maybe the Toymaster would actually keep his word, but she couldn't be sure of either and having a telekinetic Torchwood agent as a safety net couldn't hurt.

The old woman wasn't wrong about her threat though. Laurel couldn't do that. She couldn't condemn others to death to save herself. Not even people who had wronged her, who had willingly tried to do the same thing to her, who may or may not have even been alive in the traditional sense. That just wasn't who she was.

There was precisely zero reason the old woman needed to know that.

"As long as they drop me and my friends off somewhere else first, I fail to see how that's my problem," she responded coolly, the previous emotion she had shown packed securely back in its box in the back of her mind, leaving behind only a trace echo of simmering anger. How realistic that possibility was was irrelevant - as long as the doll-woman believed that she believed it was plausible, it was a credible threat. People do stupid stuff that goes against their own self-interest all the time. "That being said, I'm sure wherever they dropped us would be a place they consider 'entertaining', so I'd just as soon call that Plan B. Plan A, however, requires Ky. You said he's with the Toymaker? Where are they?"

Presence+Convince: [roll0].

[Dodgeson]

Ky

The game raged on as Ky staked his very survival on his ability to best the Toymaker at the game in front of them. Several times he had seemed to have the god on the ropes but each time the Toymaker had pulled a new trick or unexpected move to bring himself back, games were his domain after all. But with each of those comebacks? The margin was getting thinner.

Piece after piece fell, both Ky's and the Toymaker's, but by this point even all of his skill was not able to compensate for the slow value that Ky had accrued and with one final move the Time Lord managed to capture his Eye. All at once his remaining pieces fell on to their side and the board crumbled and the table cracked, the chairs they were both sitting on shattered in to splinters and the ground beneath their feet cracked in to a crater. To say that the Toymaker was not taking his defeat well was an understatement, but he had agreed to Ky's terms and his word was his bond.

"Leave, the Gods will not be as merciful as I." He stated with barely contained rage as he stepped aside, he might not have had the power to annihilate his realm any more but the small room he had constructed would do well enough...

((Congratulations! Ky gets 2 SP for his victory))

Laurel

"C-come with me." The old woman bundled up her knitting and hurried off back to the edge of the world, clearly still shaken by the idea that Laurel could divulge what she knows to the Gods. The cracked and deserted parking lot outside of the park once again quickly gave way to the featureless white expanse that had once been the Toymaker's realm.

Standing there in the nothingness, far away from the makeshift shanty town the other toys had created, was a white door adorned with a shining brass handle. "They're in there..."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel was, admittedly, a little hesitant about stepping out into the featureless white void. That just...it was so outside her previous experience that while she couldn't say precisely what her concerns were her brain was nonetheless firmly telling her no. But she steeled herself and took the step, following along and trying to ignore how weird it was, walking along in a void of nothing.

Laurel took a breath as she looked at the door. Okay then. "You should go," she told the old woman. No sense in her risking the Toymaker's wrath if he took offense to Laurel's presence or actions.

She'd wait for the old woman to leave, and assuming she did, then move off a fair bit to the side of the door, trying to get into a position where she'd be able to see inside but anyone within or coming out might not immediately see her. She could open it telekinetically, but that was going a step too far for the moment. Who knew what alarms, traps, or guardians there might be. Instead, she sent another telepathic message to Ky. ~I'm outside. What's your status?~

I imagine stealth is usually Coordination+Subterfuge. In this case, Awareness+Subterfuge is probably more precise. Fortunately, they're both the same. [roll0].

Ingenuity+Resolve to make contact with Ky again: [roll1].

[Anyr]

[I...I won.]

Ky's telepathic voice sounded disbelieving. He was still trying to process what had just happened. But there was no time to stand around. The Toymaker had a veeeerrryyy unwelcoming look on his face. Best to go while the going was good. Ky shouted one last thing as he rushed away.

"R-remember your promise: My TARDIS, and a chance for all three of us to escape in it!"

Then he flung open the door. Hopefully his house/vehicle would be right outside. Because if it wasn't, he'd march right back in here and...and...erm...

...ask nicely?

[Dodgeson]

The old woman nodded and quickly made her exit, being one of his creations she had the tiniest of inklings about what had just happened behind that door and she knew that it wasn't in her best interest to hang around, the Toymaker had a tendency to break his toys when he didn't get his way.

Unfortunately for Ky his timeship was nowhere to be seen, only the vast expanse of nothingness that he had seen earlier (I leave whether he notices Laurel up to you guys), though now that he knew what he was looking for it wouldn't be difficult for him to locate it if he didn't feel like going back and facing an angry godling one more time.

((Okay guys what's your next move?))

[Anyr]

Ky dramatically slammed the door behind him. Then he collapsed. All the fear he'd been suppressing washed over him in one big wave. His breath came out in ragged gasps.

"I made it! I'm a-alive! I fought a Guardian and escaped...sort of..."

He belatedly realised that his TARDIS was nowhere to be seen. So, not quite home and dry yet. But on the plus side, he'd found a Laurel! Ky didn't bother putting on a brave front. He greeted her like the pathetic, panicked person he really was.

"Laurel! Hello! So glad you're safe! Just give me a minute to curl up in a ball; And maybe cry a bit."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Ky's reaction absolutely didn't cause Laurel to reevaluate their chances of getting out of here alive. Absolutely not!

There was a part of her that wanted to tell him to get up and pull himself together because they weren't home free yet, and also because Chaiti was still "entertaining" the Gods of Ragnarok and Laurel did not know how long she could keep that up. But fact was, a fully functional Time Lord was kinda important to the overall plan.

Instead she walked over and knelt down beside him, giving him a sympathetic smile. "I'm glad you're safe too.
I mean, except, we're not really safe yet. I think I have a plan though," she said. If he wanted to take a minute, that was fine, as long as they spent it constructively. "I told the Gods that my world has a more-or-less endless source of entertainment for them, that...should appeal to their particular sensibilities. We call it reality television." As a Time Lord, being from a far more advanced planet, Laurel could only assume he'd never heard of it. "Plan B is you coming up with some crazy super-tech that I can't even imagine that somehow allows us to beam them all the reality TV they want from my world in exchange for their letting the three of us go. However, it would have to do it without anything they could trace back to my world.
If they could follow it back, if there's even a chance they could follow it back, it's a non-starter." Laurel would not put her planet at even the slightest risk just to save herself. "Plan A is any better idea you may have that gets the three of us out of here, because it's just barely possible that mine is actually completely insane. Plan C, if you don't have any better ideas and creating the link or whatever isn't actually possible, is we ignore the fact that it isn't actually possible and just tell them we need certain materials to create it that can't be found here. You and Chaiti go to "collect" them. I stay here as collateral." She tried to say it just as calmly and matter-of-factly as she described Plans A and B, but she couldn't entirely keep a slight hint of a tremor from her voice.

"So, what do you think?"

[Anyr]

Ky pondered Laurel's words while rocking gently back and forth.

"L-let me make sure I've got this right: You want me to build an untraceable link to a world I barely know, that transmits a type of information I've never heard of, using only the c-contents of a dilapidated funfair and half a toybox? Erm, no. No, I can't do that."

The youngster cast a pitiful look at his new acquaintance. He really hated to disappoint her.

"Laurel, you r-really shouldn't expect much from me. The Time Lords as a whole are an a-ancient and advanced race; But this particular Time Lord is just a s-student. I'm still supposed to be studying back home. I'm actually younger than some humans! Erm, no offence. A-anyway, here's the best Plan A I can offer: We find my ship. It looks like an old medical booth, covered in graffiti. If we can l-locate it, we'll stand a much better chance of escaping this place."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Well when you put it like that," Laurel said wryly, because the alternative was despairing. "Okay, your ship. Um...let's see here. Probably the best move is that I search around the park, and you search outside of it. I think the Gods of Ragnarok are able to perceive through all those graffiti eyes we saw, so if they see us together, they'll probably force us to go back to them. But if it looks like I'm still looking for you, it'll probably buy us time. I'll check in telepathically periodically to see if you've found it, or to alert you if I find it. And we'll figure out our next move from there. Sound good?"

If she were honest, she'd have preferred sticking together. This place was eerie at the best of times, and Laurel had long been uncomfortable being alone. But there was being comfortable, and there was being not back under the eye of those three and their army of dollbots, and the winner of that choice was clear.

[Anyr]

"O-okay. Stay safe."

Ky hauled himself back onto his feet. Then he'd begin walking back to the amusement park. Judging by his backward glances at Laurel, he didn't want to be alone either.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"You too," Laurel said, heading back to start searching around for the ship.

[Dodgeson]

Searching the outside of the park would be uneventful for Ky, merely a dilapidated car park marked only by the occasional flickering lamp post or broken down ticket machine spreading out in every direction tapering off in to the blank white void at the edge of the world. If the Time Lord managed to pluck up his courage and venture out in to the nothingness (after all, if the Toymaker's dolls could construct a shanty town out there then maybe his TARDIS could be out there too?) he would find himself very quickly bumping back in to the theme park almost as soon as it left his sight. The Toybox it seemed was not as expansive as it once was.

Inside the theme park Laurel would be having problems of a different variety, even creepy evil theme parks in another universe had multiple first aid stations and as with every other building all of them were covered in graffiti, so trying to locate Ky's ship from his description wasn't going to be easy. Of course that was that one over there, sure it had graffiti but it was of a far more conventional sort than the sign of the Gods of Ragnarok that covered the other buildings, probably wasn't even worth looking at...

((So here's what's up, as an actually fairly up to date TARDIS Ky's ship has not only a fully functioning Chameleon Circuit but also a Perception filter, makes most people walk right on by it. Luckily for Laurel she is both a protagonist and a psychic so all she has to do to see through it is roll Resolve+Convince against its Resolve+Subterfuge [roll0], Laurels Psychic Training will apply here.

The real question is, should she pass, do you want to describe the interior Anyr or should I roll for random desktop settings?))

[Anyr]

Ky did his best to steer clear of the graffiti eyes. Straying into the Gods' vision would complicate things. For all he know, they'd come to 'escort' him to Laurel (or vice versa). Of course, doing this greatly limited his search area. And his TARDIS didn't seem to be in it. He hoped that Laurel was having better luck. Because he really didn't relish the idea of revisiting the Toymaker.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel had not been aware of the perception filter, or even that perception filters were, strictly speaking, a thing. Fortunately, her own psychic powers kept it from fully affecting her, so when she saw the only first aid station in the place that didn't have the creepy eye symbol, she deemed that a clue. ~I think I might have found it, maybe?
Or at least, it's a first aid station that's covered in graffiti that doesn't include the weird eye symbol, and the only one of those I've seen. From the entrance, go {insert directions here}.~

While she sent Ky the message, she approached the station and tried the door. She figured it'd be locked, but who knows?

[Anyr]

[W-wonderful! Good job, Lauren. I'll be there as s-soon as I can.]]

Ky resisted the urge to rush headlong towards his TARDIS. Having a sanctuary would do him no good if he didn't reach it. So instead, he continued to carefully avoid the Gods' gaze. Careful, precise movement was the order of the day: Unless he accidentally got spotted, of course. Then the headlong rushing would commence.

[Dodgeson]

The graffiti was omnipresent in the broken remains of the Dark Circus, they pulsed every so often with a blue light like they were blinking, the Gods were aware of Chaiti and Laurel but Ky was something new and a Time Lord to boot, distracted as they were by the Malmooth's tales from the ruins and relics of ancient civilizations, he still merited some small part of their attention.

Ky'll get back to his TARDIS no problem (he just triumphed over a Guardian, the poor guy deserves a breather) but give me a Subterfuge+Coordination to determine how much attention he draws in the process.

[Anyr]

Ky's heart soared when his TARDIS came into view. He and his vehicle had a complicated relationship. For all he knew, it might be the one responsible for a lot of his problems. But regardless, it was still his home away from home. Seeing it usually managed to put him at ease. And as a bonus, Laurel was standing right next to it. Ky fumbled in his pockets as he rushed towards her. Ah, here it is! As soon as he was close enough, he jammed a shiny key into the medical booth's seemingly dilapidated lock. Then he hustled both himself and Laurel through the door.

"Inside inside inside! Hurry!"

The vast intimidating realm of the control room became almost comforting today. Its towering shelves were a nice change from the decaying circus outside. There was no time to give his very first guest a tour. Ky just rushed towards the information desk that housed the control console.

"W-welcome aboard. We're (maybe probably) safe now. B-but there's still a passenger left to collect. Here's the best plan I've got so far: I land the TARDIS around her, so that she appears in here with us; Then we flee. A-admittedly, I don't exactly know how to flee the Gods of Ragnarok. They might just find and a-abduct us all over again as soon as we step outside. But it's the best I've got. U-unless you have a better idea?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel waited for Ky a bit antsily. She was peering around and the various side-streets, acting like she was trying to figure out which route to take or maybe a bit lost. Really she was mainly keeping an eye out for glowing graffiti. She didn't want the Gods to notice her waiting around.

She hissed out a sigh of relief when Ky came into view. She didn't waste a moment in following his command, hustling into the ship. Hopefully now they would have a-

...Wow.

Laurel had gotten two steps inside before she noticed where she was and stopped cold. This was Ky's ship? This was Ky's ship? The more time Laurel spent with Ky, the less she was able to make sense of him. On the one hand, he seemed to have almost zero courage, confidence, self-esteem. He had said outright he was a mere student. But then just when you think he's nothing more than a scared teenager he does something like beat the Toymaker in a game of his own choosing (and, look, Laurel wasn't entirely clear on the specific strengths and weaknesses of the Toymaker, but what she had gleaned so far suggested that was a significant accomplishment) or own...this.

Laurel realized she had been staring, mouth agape, and she closed her mouth with an audible click. She shot a somewhat embarrassed look over to Ky. "It...looked smaller from the outside," was the best she could come up with.

"Um. Right, plan. Land it around her. So, like, you can open up a hole in the floor, or something? Would that be...tricky piloting? And wouldn't the tent kinda get in the way? ...Actually, wait, how do you even aim that if it's bigger on the...?"

(It was just barely possible that Laurel had precisely zero idea what a TARDIS was or did. I mean, she wasn't completely unable to imagine some possibilities. She assumed it flew.)

"Um. Assuming the logistics can be dealt with, I don't think we'd quite have to worry about being recaptured. I mean, I don't know how fast this thing goes though I assume it's at least eighty-eight miles an hour or what sort of things they can do to like shoot down a flying ship or whatever. But assuming we can get out of this pocket dimension or whatever, what I've been picking up so far suggests that it was the Toymaker who brought us here, not the Gods of Ragnarok. Granted, that doesn't inherently mean they can't do the same sort of thing, but..."

Laurel trailed off with a huff. She was rambling, and worse, she was speculating. When you're completely out of your element, your best guess isn't worth rubbish. "Look, honestly, I don't have a clue what they're capable of, but we don't have much in the way of options. So I say let's try it and if it doesn't work...well, we'll deal with that if we live long enough to get the chance to! How can I help?"

[Anyr]

Ky didn't really notice Laurel's shock. He was too busy operating the controls. This was just normal technology to him. So it never occurred to him that others might not take it in stride. He did have the presence of mind to answer Laurel's questions, though.

"Hole in the floor? Tent? Erm, no no. You've got the w-wrong idea. This ship doesn't fly. Well, it can; But there's rarely any need. It's easier to just s-skip the space between s-source and destination. Straight from here to there, you see? Assuming I can find out exactly where 'there' is, anyway.

As for help, you could...erm...Oh, I know! Stand by that green switch over there; No, the other one. When I say so, flip it down and then up again three times."

He'd set the scanners to seek out any Malnooth in the area. Barring an unexpected colony of them around here, that should be enough to find Chaiti.

I'm not sure what (if any) roll is needed here.

[Dodgeson]

It took a moment for the scanners to calibrate for the slightly different physical qualities of the Toybox but the view quickly lit up and Chaiti was exactly where they had left her, standing in the center ring of the Dark Circus and regaling her audience with the tale of the Glass Empires, such a story of cruelty pleased the Gods of Ragnarok.

A few more switches flipped and dials turned and the sound of grinding engines and (to those possessing telepathy) beautiful song filled the control room as the TARDIS dematerialised and reappeared around the confused Malmooth. To say the Gods didn't take this well was an understatement...

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" They bellowed as one in a deep resonating voice, no longer a well dressed family but a trio of angry eldritch beings carved from dark obsidian. Inside the time ship the warning tones of the Cloister Bell rang out and the control room began to shake as outside the Gods each thrust a hand forward and began to bombard it with bolts of searing blue energy.

[Anyr]

"FLIP THE SWITCH! NOW IS DEFINITELY THE TIME TO DO THAT!"

Ky frantically danced around the shaking console. Why oh why was he cursed with a conscience? He and Laurel could have just escaped on their own. That'd have been so much less stressful. But he just couldn't bring himself to leave Chaiti behind. And as a result, he was having a very unpleasant time. Using the few seconds to spare, he checked the controls one last time: Vortex trail masked? Check. Evasive protocols active? Check. Weird purple button pulsating? Check; Though as usual, he had no idea why. Maybe one day, he'd work out what that button did. Ky turned the final dial that'd (hopefully) send them on their way.

"Hold on to something! This won't be pleasant!"

With a lurch, the TARDIS started to depart this realm.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel flipped the switch. LAUREL FLIPPED THE SWITCH!!!!!

[Dodgeson]

"WE WILL FIND YOU! WE WILL HUNT YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME!" The trio boomed at the departing timeship, still bombarding it with energy bolts as it slipped in to the Vortex, the last blast striking it hard the split second before it dematerialised entirely.

Even though they had managed to escape our heroes weren't quite out of the woods yet, the console sparked in response to the God's last attack and the Time Rotor shattered, all at once the room began to shake violently and the warning sounds of the Cloister Bell intensified as bright mauve warning lights flashed through the control room.

Then with a final almighty book scattering crash everything went still, they'd landed...

[Anyr]

The crash sent many ancient tomes tumbling to the floor. A surprising number of said tomes landed on Ky. After a brief pause to collect himself (I.E, groan in pain), he dug his way out from beneath the pile. That's when he saw that he wasn't the only one injured. All thought of his own pain was quickly forgotten.

"Oh my g-goodness! Are you all right?!"

The young Time Lord rushed straight towards Laurel and Chaiti; Then straight past them. He skidded to a halt in front of his true first priority: The TARDIS console. With unconcealed panic, he started assessing the damage to his faithful ship.

"Just h-hold on! Everything's going to be okay! Just tell me where it hurts, and I'll f-fix it!"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel cried out as everything went wild, the jarring motion of the ship throwing her to the ground. Once everything was still again, she picked herself up though. "Yeah I think I'm- oh." Well okay then.

"You good, Chaiti?" she asked the alien woman.

And then, after a beat, "And, um, where are we?" she added. Assuming Chaiti was okay...she'd start picking up the books. Telekinetically, as it happened. Partially because that was simply more efficient, but mostly...well, look. Laurel had always been told she had to conceal her powers, that she couldn't let people know about them. Only use them when necessary, and ideally, only when alone. And she had followed that, even after breaking with Torchwood. She could see the logic.

But let it never be said that Laurel was afraid of her own abilities. Oh, sure, she was entirely cognizant of their potential for harm. She respected the power they represented, and the responsibility it entailed. But that didn't make them any less cool, didn't mean she didn't enjoy having them, and the opportunity to use them. And since Chaiti and Ky were already more-or-less aware of them, well, why not?

(She did notice Ky talking to his ship like it was alive and sentient. She did not comment. Laurel had a pretty strong weirdness censor and the past few hours had expanded it significantly. It should be taken as a sign of just how much that she deemed the odds of Ky just being the sort to talk to his machines and the ship actually being alive and/or sentient to be roughly even.)

[Dodgeson]

Ky's outburst was met with the mournful groaning of metal from his wounded timeship but you didn't need to be a telepath to know what was wrong. The crash had badly damaged the central time rotor and the helmic regulator was completely shot, to say that trying to fly it right now would not be smart was something of an understatement, while technically not impossible there was every chance it would simply bleed in to another dimension.

Luckily the damage wasn't irreparable but it would take time and of course parts. Parts that of course may or may not be difficult to find depending upon where our heroes had landed...

((Use of the Scanners (rather than just taking a peek outside) will require an Awareness+Resolve roll and the expenditure of one of the TARDIS's SP))

[Anyr]

Ky sympathetically patted the console. His ship had suffered to deliver him from danger. He'd definitely repay that debt. As he examined each damaged component, he made a mental list of the things required for repairs. Hmm, tricky. Did he have any biphasic amplifiers left in stock? Maybe somewhere. But they were probably deep in...wait, what was that noise? Ky belatedly realised that Laurel was talking to him. Without looking up from the console, he filled her in on the situation.

"Hmm? Where? Oh, erm, I d-don't know. We got knocked w-way off course by the blast. But wherever we are, I hope they've got some decent technology. I don't have all the spare parts I need to make r-repairs; At least, not nearby. S-Searching all the TARDIS storerooms would take years. S-so we either need to scavenge outside, or g-get really used to one another's company. Let's s-see which option it'll be..."

Awareness + Resolve: [roll0]

[Dodgeson]

After a few seconds the scanner reluctantly flickers in to life to show that, quite understandably given their rather abrupt landing, the TARDIS is sitting in a crater, oh and it's pitch black outside! Luckily for our heroes, the soldiers that are standing around the edge of the crater were very kindly providing light via the torches mounted on their helmets and rifles.

Underneath their body armour and dappled camouflage they all appeared to be human though, so that was a plus, right?

Given the relatively primitive nature of their equipment, it's a pretty safe bet that you've landed somewhere in the 40th century, which would make this part of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire. So good news! It might take some doing but they should have the technology for at least a patch job to take you somewhere more advanced.

[Anyr]

"...Option B it is! Don't w-worry. After the first few months of s-searching s-storerooms, I'm sure we'll learn to like it. It'll be like a fun scavenger hunt!"

Ky forced a sickly smile. He could already sense that this plan wasn't popular. But it was still better than plan 'step outside and hope not to get shot'. He silently prayed that Laurel and Chaiti would share his passion for avoiding bullets. It wasn't cowardice: It was pragmatism. At least, that's what Ky told himself.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel gave a little laugh, before she realized Ky was probably serious.

"If we just hide from them, they're just going to get more confused about who and are and why we're here,
and that will make them more scared, and that will make them more likely to react violently. If we show them that we're peaceful they'll have no reason to shoot us. Maybe they can even help us find what you need. Do you have any way to communicate outside of the...TARDIS, you called it?" She could have contacted them telepathically, of course, but if the goal was to not get them confused, and thereby scared, and thereby violent, speaking directly into their heads was probably not the optimal plan.

She'd go out to speak to them in person if need be, but well, making sure they weren't hostile before exposing oneself to possible gunfire was generally a sound strategy.

[Anyr]

"S-some people don't need a reason to shoot. They just like doing it.

...But I suppose we s-should at least try some diplomacy. I'll set up the link."

Ky beckoned Laurel over to an intercom on the TARDIS console. After adjusting a few settings, he stepped aside to let her use it.

"There you go. Just p-press the button and speak. Your voice will be transmitted outside. B-by the way, these humans are from a much l-later time than you. There's no need to e-explain the concept of spaceships or aliens to them. But don't mention Time Lords or TARDISes! Just k-keep it general and spoiler free."

He was doing his best to avoid spoilers too. Laurel wasn't supposed to be witnessing any of these future events. Ky still hoped to get her back home with a minimum of dangerous new information.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel walked over to the intercom, nodding at the instructions. She started reaching for the button, only to pause when the enormity of what Ky had said hit her.

They were in the future.

That was, it, what did...about a dozen questions raced through Laurel's mind and crashed into each other. The notion of being in another dimension, it was like...yeah, that was weird, but it was so blatantly supernatural that was actually not that hard to assimilate. But being in the future...

Laurel shook her head, shooing the thoughts away. Right now it wasn't the priority. She pushed the button.

"Greetings! We come in peace!" ...What? How often do you get that opportunity? "Do you speak English?" Okay, that probably would have made more sense to come first, but whatever.

[Anyr]

Ky clarified something to Laurel, once she took her finger off the intercom.

"It doesn't matter what l-language they speak. The TARDIS automatically translates for us. I'm n-not even speaking 'English' right now. You just didn't realise it, because your p-perceptions are being secretly edited. I-Interesting, hmm?"

He spoke as if dispensing a fun bit of trivia.

[Dodgeson]

The last thing the soldiers peering in to the crater expected was for the meteor, because that's what the Chameleon Circuit had settled on (what else would blend in to a crater?), to start talking and they jumped back.

"It talks!" One of the soldiers shouted

"What's English?" Another asked in confusion.

"Get out of my way!" A woman shouted, forcing herself passed the other soldiers and glaring down at the mysterious talking rock, raising her hand the other soldiers clicked the safety off their guns and pointed them down at the rock. "I am Captain Usha Schneider, representative of the Empire and its territories, you will identify yourself and your connection to the Object."

[Anyr]

Ky left the diplomacy to Laurel. Best to have a spokesperson who didn't stutter. The soldiers had reacted pretty much as expected: With lots of shouting, gun pointing and demands. Typical. Ky really didn't relish the idea of mingling with these people.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"...Okay, that's cool," Laurel said to Ky.

...So, wait, did that mean the ship was telepathic? Was that more or less weird than it being able to time-travel? It was like, time travel was the objectively weirder power, but it was more thematically appropriate to a vehicle, but- ...Not important.

She'll admit though, "What's English?" wasn't the reply she had been expecting. "Why would you ask us if we can speak English when you're clearly able to speak our language" maybe. If they were so far in the future that English was essentially a dead language, then maybe "What? Nobody speaks English anymore. Are you crazy?" But given the ubiquity of English where she was from, and the obvious technological advancement of these people (ruling out some tiny isolated culture) "What's English?" suggested they were both in the future and on another world entirely, or so far in the future that the English language had been entirely forgotten. Possibly in the aftermath of some apocalyptic event.

...Or maybe she should stop speculating and just ask Ky when the opportunity presented itself. He seemed to have a clue where they were, based on being aware of what these people knew about aliens.

She pushed the intercom button. "My name is Laurel. We're travellers from another world. The, um, Object is just our transport. I'm afraid it suffered some damage and crashed here. We apologize for the unintentional intrusion, and we mean no harm."

Removing her finger from the button, she looked to Ky. "These storerooms of yours, do they hold anything you'd be willing to trade for parts? That wouldn't take years to hunt down, preferably?" Commerce was usually a good way to bridge over hostilities, but she didn't want to go making offers she couldn't follow up on.

[Anyr]

"...Maybe. But I'd have to be a-absolutely, 100% sure that the trade wouldn't c-contaminate history. We need more information before making any promises."

Ky was in full 'by the book' mode. The Time Lords had a million protocols for this kind of situation. And to his shame, he'd already been forced to break a few of them. He cast a worried glance at one of said breaches: Laurel. She definitely wasn't supposed to be here. Ky was sure that his teachers would understand why he'd had to bring her along. But until he managed to return her to her rightful time and place, she was an accident waiting to happen. Besides, Ky had a nasty suspicion that she possessed the fatal curiosity so common in humans. While the humans outside formulated their response, Ky tried to impart some more warnings on the one in here.

"P-please please please be mindful of your actions. And if p-possible, try not to learn anything. You've already seen too much. Every s-second we spend here is another spoiler about the future of your s-species."

[Dodgeson]

Captain Schneider didn't even wait for Laurel to finish speaking, she didn't have to, the second the stranger identified her connection to the Object she knew exactly what to say. It was quick, simple and to the point.

"OPEN FIRE!" At her command the soldiers surrounding the crater did just that (despite their misgivings about what an infantry weapon could hope to do against a lump of rock) and rained bullets down in to the crater, which achieved precisely nothing. There were precious few weapons in the Empire that could hope to damage a TARDIS and none of those were to be found in the hands of a random regiment on a backwater planet.

"Cease fire!" She yelled, though she needn't have bother, like herself most of the soldiers had already thrown themselves on to the ground to avoid ricochets. Trying to regain control of the situation she hauled herself up off of the ground and barked orders to her subordinates "Johnson! Pancho! Get the detpacks from transport!"

"Yes Ma'am!" A pair of soldiers responded and hurried off whilst the Captain returned her attention to the crater.

"You will surrender and submit to questioning on the Object and its forces! NOW!"

[Anyr]

Ky knew that the soldiers were no threat to his ship. But he still dove for cover anyway. It was a common reflex among people who didn't like being shot. He yelled at Laurel from behind his totally unnecessary shelter.

"I TOLD YOU SO! No excuse n-needed! Shooting is j-just their default response! Now can we p-please abandon any thought of r-reasoning with these animals?!"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel could scarcely believe they had just attacked on the spot like that, but she wasn't giving up that easy. She didn't know how long the TARDIS could hold out or what weapon systems it might have had, but neither "wait for them to punch through its defenses and capture everyone" nor "slaughter the attackers wholesale" were a valid option to her.

Good news was, they didn't know that.

This time Laurel didn't need the intercom. This time she sent her thoughts directly to the leader.

Resolve+Ingenuity to make contact: [roll0].

If she was able to make contact, her telepathic voice would be much more stern than her spoken one had been. ~That was an error.~

~I am in your head now, Captain, which means you have one chance. Call off your troops immediately. If you refuse, I will snuff the thoughts from your head entirely and then proceed to do the same to every soldier under your command. If you are lucky, it will kill you instantly. However, there have been some occasions where it merely leaves you trapped in a vegetative coma, unable to think or perceive and yet still not quite dead. You have ten seconds to comply.~

Which, to be fair, was a total, bald-faced lie. Laurel could no more snuff the thoughts of another person than she could shoot lasers from her eyes, and would never subject any living being to such a horrific fate even if she could. But, again, she didn't know that.

If contact was successfully made, attempt to talk her down. Presence+Convince+2 for specialty. Spending a Story Point for +2d6. [roll1].

Meanwhile, she looked at Ky.

This was, if she were honest, awfully frustrating. When he had first advised her against speaking to them, it had sounded like mere cynicism. But his "I told you so" sounded more like an understanding of these people specifically. Which, combined with his "try not to learn anything", made it seem pretty clear that he knew who they were dealing with, had at least a general understanding of their likely behaviors, and was trying to keep that information from her to protect...well, history for him, but the uncertain future from her standpoint.

And look, Laurel could put herself in other peoples' shoes pretty well. She'd have been leery of messing with the past herself. Who knew what the consequences of one decision could affect if they altered the course of history? But at the same time, that couldn't be an excuse for inaction. One's consequences could ripple forward to have unintended effects just fine from the present, too. Laurel lived her life by a simple philosophy. Do the best you can to improve the world around you, wherever you may find yourself. If time travel was on the table, adapting that to whenever seemed far more sensible than trying to avoid any possible change. After all, her present would still be Ky's history, and she had precisely zero intention of not doing what she could to influence that.

Which was absolutely a philosophical debate for another time. In the meanwhile, she knelt down beside Ky, and faced him squarely, though she kept the frustration entirely from her face and voice as she spoke to him. "Listen, Ky. I understand what you're trying to protect. But you can't just leave me in the dark here. You might have noticed, I'm not just your average 21st-century girl. We all want to get home, and I can help you. But to do so I need to know what we're dealing with."

"Here's my proposal. You give me what information you have that's tactically relevant to this place and time and these people - things I'll need to know to blend in, or talk with them, or understand them. But I won't ask you or otherwise seek out information regarding where in time and space we are or how history progressed to this point. Okay? Nothing I can use to influence how we got here, only things I can use to keep us safe and get us home now that we're here. Can you do that for me?"

[Dodgeson]

Captain Schneider froze when Laurel made her ultimatum, only the very pressing time limit that the telepath had put her under forcing in to action.

"STAND DOWN!" She barked to her subordinates.

"What about the detpacks Ma'am?" One of the other soldier's queried, understandably confused about his commanding officer's sudden change of heart.

"Are you questioning me soldier? All of you return to transport right now or so help me I'll have you all on Ood duty for the rest of your lives and you tell those two idiots that I do not want a single pack out of place! Do I make myself clear?!"

"Yes Ma'am!" The soldiers responded in unison and began to move back to their transport. With her authority reaffirmed, the Captain stood alone in front of the mysterious psychic rock.

~What do you want?~ She thought.

[Anyr]

The disgruntled look on Ky's face said it all. He really really didn't want to break protocol. He opened his mouth to give an excuse about there not being time to explain; Then promptly closed it again. The soldiers were standing down! That seemed really out of character. A trap, maybe? Either way, Ky couldn't exactly wave Laurel off now. And loathe as he was to admit it, she had a good point. Withholding too much information might get them both killed. With a reluctant sigh, he broke his silence.

"...Fine fine f-fine. J-just the basics. Listening? This is f-far (I won't say how far) in your future. H-humanity has formed a vast galactic empire. They're highly militaristic, and ethically c-compromised. For example, those 'Ood' the Captain m-mentioned are a type of slave. That's not to say that every s-single human of this time is bad, of course. There are good people and institutions all over. B-but the empire as a whole is going rotten. W-want my advice? Assume the w-worst of everyone, until they prove otherwise. Though that m-might just be my natural pessimism speaking."

It was now obvious why he'd been so reluctant to try diplomacy. He had a very low opinion of this particular chapter in humanity's history.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel could hardly believe what she was hearing.

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't like the time she came from was perfect by any means. There were still all kinda of problems in the world. But, you know, it was still taken-as-a-whole largely better than at most previous points in history as best she knew. The potential of nuclear weapons to annihilate civilization notwithstanding. But people were getting better, the world was slowly and painstakingly becoming more of a global community, and problems that had existed for generations were, if not being solved, at least receiving attention, in some cases for the first time. Laurel wasn't quite optimistic enough to believe that her generation would achieve world peace or anything...but she held out hope that her grandchildren would live to see it.

Except that apparently wasn't true. In this future, humanity had expanded out to the stars, and they had brought some of the worst inclinations and behaviors of their ancestors with them. That was just...indescribably sad.

How could everything have gone so wrong?

Laurel shook it off. She told herself firmly that it was only one possible future, rejecting any niggling worry that it might be the only possibility the world could reach. Because the alternative was to break down and cry.

She kept all of it off her face and out of her voice. Spy training had its benefits.

Pushing the intercom button, Laurel responded to the Captain verbally. Partly, this was so Ky would hear what was being discussed. But it was also tactical to some degree. While obviously the telepath and the speaker were the same person, Laurel maintained her calm and friendly demeanor as she spoke verbally, a contrast to the cold threat she had offered telepathically. It might not have quite been playing good-cop bad-cop with herself, but it was probably the next best thing. At the very least, it should keep the captain just a bit off balance. "We need supplies to repair our transport, and then we'll be on our way. If you can advise us as to where we can find such materials and what sort of payment might be accepted for them, and then allow us to conduct our business without threat or harm, we will be out of your hair with no trouble at all. I'll allow my associate to list the sort of supplies we'll need," she said, nodding to Ky.

[Anyr]

Ky remained unaware of Lauren's inner turmoil. From his point of view, she was coping remarkably well. Not many people could just shrug off such depressing news. Ky wished that he had that kind of strength. He was much more suited to the 'cringing sidekick' role. Even taking his turn at the intercom made him anxious. After taking a long moment to try and steady himself, he pressed the button with a trembling finger.

"Listen carefully. We need the following items: One biphasic amplifier; Ten kandrics of sandirium cable; A lattice made of pure..."

He spoke slowly and deliberately. It probably sounded a bit condescending. In reality, he was just working to suppress his stutter. That particular defect would have made such a bad first impression. Why couldn't he have developed one of the cool kinds of speech impediment? He'd once met an alien that spoke with three overlapping voices. So intimidating! Ah well. You played the hand that you were dealt. Frankly, it was a miracle that he'd even got the chance to negotiate at all. Why had the Captain suddenly changed her mind? Weird. Ky had no doubt that this good fortune was temporary. He hoped to be speeding away from here before the next lightning bolt struck.

[Dodgeson]

The Captain just nodded along mutely with Ky's list of requirements, truth be told she didn't understand most of what he was asking for, she was part of the army, not the science division, but she knew people back at base who would. But that wasn't what had driven her to silence, once Ky finished she finally spoke up (she wasn't going to interrupt him, she valued her brain too much for that).

"That's it?" She asked in disbelief, her voice raising as she went on "You just want parts? Why did you wait this long to tell us?! Why did you attack us?!"

As she reached a shrieking crescendo a light streaked through the sky overhead only to be replaced with the sound of an earth-shaking crash as it vanished from sight.

"I said I'd give you what you wanted! Why are you still attacking us?!" Captain Schneider yelled, quickly regaining her stern composure and turning to run in the direction of the crash, exactly the direction she'd sent her men...

[Quellian-dyrae]

"We didn't attack you, we cra-" Laurel began shouting back, but she was interrupted when that blast of light shot by and the captain ran off.

Laurel was, at least, instinctively polite enough to take her finger off the intercom button before saying the next word that came to mind.

This was obviously not something that would be smart to get involved in. These people had threatened them, were by all appearances soldiers of an evil galactic empire. They were basically Stormtroopers. (Side note: ask Ky before leaving what this time period had to offer vis-a-vis laser swords. (Laurel wouldn't ever actually want to use a lightsaber on someone, but she was already telekinetic and would totally not pass up the opportunity to have one.)) Heck, there were solid odds that the people attacking them were a ragtag group of heroic rebels who would very possibly be far more friendly and helpful. And regardless, this was a conflict involving who knew what kind of future technology, where neither side had any reason to care about her well-being at all, and it was ludicrous to risk leaving the safety of the heavily armored spaceship she was in to get involved, especially when she almost certainly could not meaningfully affect the course of the battle in any way. And none of that was wrong, but...

Well, none of it changed the fact that there were people in trouble.

Ky would not perceive even a second of hesitation. The internal debate had happened entirely in the background of an actual thought process that basically consisted of just those last five words. Outwardly, Laurel just turned away from the intercom and strode for the door. "Stay here!" she called to Ky. Okay, that might have been a bit patronizing, but it was abundantly clear to her that Ky wasn't exactly trained for this sort of thing. She wouldn't ask him to risk his life.

[Anyr]

Ky was beginning to think that there'd been a misunderstanding. From the sounds of it, he and Laurel were the least of this place's problems. Apparently two hostile forces were clashing violently out there. He was more resolved than ever to cower in the safety of his ship: Which is why he practically screamed when Laurel headed for the door.

"Y-You can't be serious!"

He dashed manically after the departing human. Being a scholar rather than a wrestler, though, he couldn't exactly stop her. All he could do was plead for sanity.

"Have you gone mad? Have you somehow f-forgotten that explody death is outside? That the very first group we met tried to kill us?! Please, j-just think! Let's wait for the battle to end! Then we can negotiate with whichever side wins! This isn't o-our fight!

I guarantee that n-nothing out there can damage this ship: But it can d-definitely damage us, if we step outside!"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel probably could have come up with a more-or-less practical argument. Something about how they had already gotten an agreement for assistance from the first group and they couldn't be sure that if the second group won they would be willing to negotiate. But really, it was a moot point. No argument would ever be sufficiently practical to outweigh the very real risk of going out there.

So she made the argument that did.

"If we do that, people are going to die. And I...I can't let that happen. Not without doing everything in my power to stop it."

Although...if nothing out there could damage the ship...

The riskiest option wasn't necessarily the best option. An alternative sprang to mind. But it was an alternative that was contingent on Ky being willing to accept a certain amount of personal risk.

"So either I'm going to go out there and do everything I can to save these people...or you can let them come in here to take shelter until their attackers have departed. It's up to you, but I can't just sit by and do nothing."

[Anyr]

"...Pleading is p-pointless, isn't it? Your mind is made up."

Ky wasn't blind to Laurel's perspective. Empathy sometimes overwhelmed him too. Just a short while ago, he'd stuck out his neck to rescue Chaiti. And as a result, his precious TARDIS had crashed on a hostile world. Rescuing one person had caused so much trouble. The thought of making an even more ambitious attempt gave him shivers. But if Laurel was set on leaving, he couldn't let her go alone: And not just because of empathy.

"Look, I can't allow anyone else in here. Even picking up you two was a s-serious violation. And m-much as I'd love to stay behind, I c-can't do that either. A time t-travelling human wandering unsupervised? The C-Council would have me cleaning floors for a century. So I suppose I'm...I'm...c-coming with you."

Oh merciful Rassilon. Ky was already getting a stomach ache.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel's lips twitched in a flicker of a smile when Ky rhetorically asked if her mind was made up. As if he needed any further confirmation.

But her expression grew more serious when he said he'd come out with her. She...she'd be honest, she hadn't expected that from him.

She gave the Time Lord a grateful, and somewhat sympathetic, smile. There wasn't time to argue and frankly they'd have a better chance working together in any case. She had told him to stay more because she hadn't expected him to join her, not because she hadn't wanted him to. "Alright. Let's go then!" she said with all the confidence she could muster, heading for the exit.

[Dodgeson]

It would be easy enough for our two heroes to follow the path of whatever had fallen out of the sky and it wasn't pretty, where the troop transport was previously idling there was now only a crater and the vehicle's twisted metal remains. A tattooed soldier lay a few feet away from the crater clutching his gut, the front of his uniform was covered in a growing patch of dark blood, it didn't take a medical professional to know that it wasn't looking good for him.

Meanwhile Captain Schneider was hauling another solider out of the remains of the transport, his legs mangled almost beyond recognition "We'll get you what you want! Anything you want! Just call them off!" She shrieked in panic.

Ky and Laurel wouldn't have to wait long to find out what the Captain was so keen for them to call off as four...things pulled themselves clumsily out of the crater. The humanoids were pale, their skin a rubbery off-white, and entirely featureless save for the enormous maw that dominated their heads and they groaned as they advanced on Captain Schneider and her fallen soldiers.

[Anyr]

None of Ky's studies had prepared him for the scene ahead. Reading about battles in dry textbooks was no substitute for being thrown into one. The soldiers who'd just been terrorising him had become victims themselves. Their bloody wreckage was a grim reminder about the fragility of life: Especially his own! This was insane. He was practically begging to be killed by the horrifying creatures ahead. His desperate brain went into overdrive. Were there any clues that could keep him alive? His mouth echoed his thoughts without him really noticing.

"Think t-think think think! Find clues. No eyes. Sensing by s-sound? Echolocation? Vibrations in the g-ground? Augh! Not enough time! Must be something useful. Erm, movements? Clumsy movements. Not n-naturally bipedal? Or maybe they're drones. Low level; No r-real intellect? That could be useful. Useful for...for...not being t-torn apart!"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"They're not ours, I told you we just crashed!" Laurel shouted back.

Her shout was a bit strangled. Laurel had been excited to meet alien life, but she had imagined, well, people like Ky and Chaiti. And, like, look, she wasn't so egocentric that she assumed they'd all be humanoid but, you know. Intelligent. Reasonably friendly, or at least reasonable. But these things, these zombie-like alien horrors with gaping maws...yeah, they freaked her out. Even with her telekinetic power, she doubted she could take all five of them in combat.

She also doubted they could be talked down or reasoned with. Maybe that was just the fear talking. How much of conflict in human history had occurred because a person saw someone different from them and just assumed talking was pointless? A tiny part of Laurel's brain was kinda kicking herself for falling into that same mode of thought. But you know what, however enlightened and non-violent Laurel may have been, however pointless and indeed dangerous those instincts may have been in the modern world, they had developed for a reason. And that reason was that back in the day, any human who tried reasoning with a tiger it met in the tall grass had gotten eaten.

And given the mouth-to-everything-else ratio on these things, treating them more like tigers than people just made sense!

That internal decision-making process was happening behind the scenes though. Consciously, Laurel was paying attention to Ky's panicked ramblings. Non-intelligent, echolocation or vibration sense, but how did they use that to-

Got it.

Laurel reached out with her mind, not for the minds of others, but for the matter around her. Specifically, for the boots of several of the fallen soldiers. Was it a little morbid? Yeah, but it beat everyone getting eaten. She yanked the footwear free, not sparing the time for delicacy, and started thudding them on the ground rapidly, with enough force to hopefully more-or-less approximate a human body. And she ran them off around the monsters. Hopefully they'd be attracted to the noise and movement and follow it.

She brought a finger up to her lips, staring intently at the captain. Hopefully humanity hadn't forgotten the classic signal for BE QUIET.

Lemme know what I need to roll! (Assuming that actually has a possibility of working).

[Dodgeson]

They were nothing to do with the monsters? But that voice had said that the Object was their transport...and speaking of the voice didn't that voice threaten to turn her brain to mush a minute ago? And now they were trying to save them? Captain Schneider's day was starting to making less and less sense but regardless she wasn't stupid enough to interfere when someone was trying to help them, especially when that someone could melt their brain. Clamping her hand over the mouth of the soldier she was attempting to pull clear of the wreckage they both froze in place and watched as the eyeless creatures stopped in place and tilted their heads, zeroing in on the suddenly appearing (to them) sounds of stomping boots before lurching after them.

It was a few seconds after the quartet of strange creatures had vanished from sight before the Captain allowed herself the luxury of breathing again an took her hand away from the soldier's mouth.

"Thank you..." Even though her voice was barely above a whisper it was still obvious those were words she wasn't at all used to uttering "We need to get moving, those things are cleverer than they look and I don't know how long these two are going to last without medical attention. Our compound is 8 klicks south of here, we can make it on foot if we get moving."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel concentrated as long as she could, pushing the boots as far as she could get them. Sweat was running down her face as she pushed the limits of her range, and when she didn't think she could move them any further...she let loose one last exertion of will to send the boots flying away. Hopefully that would confuse them long enough to make good their escape.

"Let's go then," she agreed, though just a bit tentatively, with a sidelong look at Ky. She didn't really see a better option, but the tone of her voice and the look on her face made it pretty clear she was open to one. She moved to help support one of the soldiers, although she only took the barest amount of the soldier's weight physically. Laurel was a small, slight young woman, and she was precisely as strong as she looked. But when you have telekinesis, the amount of force your muscles can exert doesn't really matter all that much.

[Anyr]

Seeing the monsters get lured away gave Ky only the slightest relief. This was no doubt the first of many encounters. His hearts were still beating like jackhammers. Even when the group started making for the compound, Ky only grew more anxious: Because they were also moving away from his TARDIS. Like Laurel, he lent some support to the injured soldiers. And also like her, his pipe cleaner arms struggled to cope.

"We'd b-better start thinking of a more permanent way to deal with those things. I doubt that that b-boot trick will work forever."

[Dodgeson]

Captain Schneider nodded silently and began to make her way back to the safety of the compound as fast as the state of her troops would allow, carrying the soldier with the injured legs on her back. Quietly making their way through the dark Laurel and Ky would be lead on to a large abandoned empty road, lined on either side with enormous fields that stretched out in to the distance as far as the eye could see, filled with dying and wilting crops.

Once she was sure that they were far enough away from the site of the crash and that they were in no immediate danger the Captain finally broke the silence "You two don't make any sense, first you say you're from the Object, then you're nothing to do with the creatures, then you help us. Who are you?"

[Anyr]

"I think there m-might have been a m-misunderstanding. May I make a suggestion? Next time you want to n-name something, don't call it 'the Object'. You'll cause much less confusion. To clarify, the t-two of us are from an object. If you m-make a habit of shooting anyone who f-fits that description, it's no wonder that you're short on allies."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Yeah we were assuming the object you were referring to was the object we were riding." Laurel wasn't sure that "absent evidence to the contrary, assume the topic of any given conversation is whatever the other participants are pointing their weapons at" was actually in the Torchwood handbook, but it seemed like it ought to be. "Like I said before, my name is Laurel, and we're just travellers from another world. Our transport sustained damage and crashed here. We don't have anything to do with those creatures. I've...never seen anything like them before, honestly. And I do apologize for threatening you earlier, we have no desire to harm you or anyone here, but well you were pointing guns at us and we greatly prefer people not to do that. When we saw your people come under attack...well, it looked like you could use some help. So we did."

That may not have been a particularly believable claim, especially considering what Ky had said about this time period. But it did at least have the advantage of being true.

"Um, what about you? Who are you, and what were those things, and why were they attacking you? ...Um,
and, where are we, exactly? I mean, like, what world is this?"

[Dodgeson]

"Well what else would you call that?" The Captain pointed skywards and one thing would immediately become obvious, it wasn't nighttime at all, up in the sky a planet hung in front of the sun. "That's where those things come from, we don't what they are or what they want."

Wait, Laurel's next statement made her pause again, they didn't know what planet they were on? How could they...they made no sense, but they had saved their lives, moving on.

"This is Romero-7, a designated Agri-Planet, or at least we were until that thing showed up."

More trudging through the darkness, they would eventually be led off of the main road and towards a small cluster of buildings surrounded by a chain link fence, the air around it shimmering ever so slightly. Two more soldiers were waiting on the other side of the fence and with a quick bellowing of her credentials the shimmering vanished just long enough to bring everybody inside.

"These men need medical attention!" The Captain shouted sending men, sending the men scurrying for a walkie-talkie, quickly four strange creatures emerged from one of the buildings carrying stretchers. Each one was identical to the other, pale skinned with thin red tentacles in place of a mouth, a white wire running from somewhere inside the tentacles to an orb resting inside of the front pocket of their jumpsuits.

"Take them underground!" The Captain ordered, laying the man on her back on to one of the stretchers.

"As you wish." One of the creatures replied passively, it's orb lighting up with each word, before carrying them inside.

[Anyr]

Ky should have known that things were even worse than they'd seemed. Those slavering beasts had an entire planet of their own? Fantastic. So much for just bolstering the camp's defences. It was a minor miracle that the humans hadn't already been overrun. For once, their Empire were the underdogs. He felt a bit more sympathetic towards them.

That feeling lasted until he reached the camp; Until he saw the Ood. Then all sympathy evaporated like morning dew. He glanced over at Laurel. She was no doubt taken aback by the sight of these tentacled creatures. Little did she know that, in this case, ignorance was bliss. The explanation he was about to give would grant her no comfort. Nonetheless, he reached out to her telepathically. Laurel wanted spoilers? Well, now she'd get them. And he doubted she'd thank him for that.

[Don't panic. Those creatures mean you no h-harm. They're a telepathic race called the 'Ood'. Their existence is one of p-peace, harmony, and beautiful song...Or at least, it was. Until humanity found them.]

Normally, Ky's telepathic 'voice' carried a tinge of fear. This time, it dripped with disgust.

[Your people were quick to s-see potential in the Ood. Peaceful c-creatures like them are easy to subjugate. Oh, t-they certainly had some c-capacity to resist. B-but that was nothing that a few lobotomies couldn't fix. Just r-remove the pesky hindbrain, with its independent thoughts; And just like that, you have an assembly line of willing slaves. No more singing; No more blending of thought and emotion. Just a desire to serve the Great and B-Bountiful human Empire.

So fear not. Unless some other f-force grabs their leash, they won't harm you. Humanity has m-made sure of that.]

Maybe now she'd understand his perspective. Maybe now she wouldn't be so eager to learn about the future.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Ohhhh..." Laurel said as she peered up at the planet blocking the sun. Okay. That was...that was a problem of a certain magnitude. "Yeah. No. That's not our Object," she said, helpfully.

As the Ood approached, Laurel actually hadn't been going to panic. The Ood were...strange, sure, and okay, there was pretty much always going to be a certain ickyness factor where tentacles were involved. But they appeared completely non-threatening, so she was fine.

Also, she hadn't realized that Ky was telepathic too! Fun! They could totally get up to Shenanigans with-

That cheery thought was crushed into the dirt by the content of Ky's message.

Horror flooded her features and tears welled in her eyes as she fought back a sob with a shuddering breath. Her head swayed gently back and forth in an instinctive expression of denial. The first, gut reaction that Laurel wanted to give voice (figuratively) to? They are not my people. She had plenty of justifications to choose from, plenty of rational arguments to create a moral distance between herself and the evils perpetrated by these space-faring future slave-holding galactic conquerors.

And she choked them down. This was the path, or a path, that humanity was on. Her humanity. Her people, from her world. She didn't, couldn't, understand how it had happened, how the people of Earth could have regressed so far. She honestly wanted to ask Ky if the modern humans had annihilated themselves in nuclear war and the survivors who had repopulated the world had gotten a head start technologically while being sent back to square one in terms of historical knowledge and philosophical thought. It honestly seemed like the only reasonable explanation. ...If one could trust humankind to be reasonable.

(Although to be fair, this is a definition of reasonable that involves people deciding it was a valid choice to annihilate the civilization in nuclear fire, so it's not like we aren't grading on a curve or anything.)

But she knew Ky wouldn't answer her that. No hows and whys. No context. Just an immediate snapshot of tactical data. That was their deal. She didn't know what she could possibly do, what actions she could possibly take, and prevent her people from falling to this point.

But the first step had to be owning it.

As for the present moment, well. Laurel was a single person. Sure, she was a psychic super-spy, so as the raw personal power of single people went she was on the higher end of the curve. But there were limits to what she could accomplish. She couldn't single-handedly change the point of view of the entire empire, or free the Ood. She wouldn't foment a bloody rebellion, or simply abandon the people of this little farming world - who despite the barbarity of their culture, were all still people with their own loves and dreams and strength and foibles - to destruction in punishment for the evils of their society, although her ability to prevent that might well have been as limited as her ability to free the Ood.

But when you're surrounded by horrors too vast to overcome and evils too strong to fight, when all the world or indeed the universe seems hateful and cold, you don't despair or give up. You take what little part of it you can reach, and you make it just the tiniest bit better.

"Here, let me help," she offered in a quiet voice, exerting her will to telekinetically take some of the weight of the stretchers, and unless someone stopped her, following the Ood.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't anywhere near enough. It wasn't the barest fraction of the slightest decimal of the first percent of what was necessary, of what should happen, of what she wished she could do.

But it was something she could do right now to make the tiny part of this cold universe she could reach just the most incremental bit less hateful.

So why in the world wouldn't she?

In other news, I can't help but notice:

Monsters' description: Humanoid, pale skin, all mouth all the time.

Ood: Humanoid, pale skin, tentacle mouths.

Given that there's a non-trivial amount of overlap in those descriptions, I feel I have to ask, would it be a reasonable assessment to say that the monsters that had attacked looked like some sort of "Dire Ood"? Or am I reading too much into the "pale, humanoid, interesting mouth" paradigm?

[Anyr]

Ky's immediately regretted his forthrightness. Thanks to the psychic link, he got hit with the full force of Lauren's grief. His body staggered under the mental weight. Worse still, he felt terrible for inflicting such pain upon her. Whatever his problems with humanity in general, this particular human was a good person. She didn't deserve to suffer. But he had no way of reversing that now. Even a memory wipe probably wouldn't work on so potent a psychic. All Ky could offer was a feeble apology.

[I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I j-just wanted you to understand. M-Maybe my first instinct was right after all. Maybe you should l-learn as little as possible...]

[Dodgeson]

"Thank you Miss. Your kindness is appreciated." One of the Ood responded to Laurel, in the exact same tone as the last.

Following the Ood would lead Laurel through the door the Ood had emerged from and in to a mess hall where men and women with greying hair and withered skin sat and ate strange coloured slop alongside people shadowed by IV stands or leaning on crutches as well as a small handful of soldiers, in to a corridor where more Ood swept the floor and moved crates or simply stood aside and waited for new orders, before ending up in a lift which moved down for several floors.

When the doors opened up again Laurel would be met with a wide open room filled with beds, most of them already filled, as the doors opened a man wearing a military uniform emblazoned with a green crescent moon rushed towards them.

"Who are you?!" The man demanded from her "No, not important right now, Ood get them to beds I'll be over in a minute. What happened to these men?"

Back up on the surface, being completely unaware of Ky and Laurels telepathic conversation, Captain Schneider just leaned over towards the Time Lord "Is she okay?" she asked, genuinely confused.

[Quellian-dyrae]

~No,~ Laurel sent back, perhaps a bit shakily, but with resolve behind it. ~It's...listen. You don't need to apologize. You gave me the necessary information, as we agreed. I will always prefer to know something than not to. Even if it hurts. Even if it's bad. If I don't know about it I can't do anything to make it better.~

Laurel looked over the people in the mess hall with concern. What had...happened to them?

"Their team was hit by some sort of...explosive or energy weapon, or something. I didn't see precisely.
Captain Schneider may be able to provide you with more useful information," she answered as directly as she could, and got out of the way. You don't interfere with medics.

She considered going back, but she had been paying more attention to telekinetically supporting the soldiers than to exactly which floor they had been on. And it occurred to her that she probably shouldn't be wandering around a military base unescorted. So she just held back, watching quietly for the moment.

[Anyr]

"I t-think so. She's just experiencing some...culture shock."

Ky sensed Laurel's psyche start to stabilise. Combined with her comforting words, it eased his worries a bit. At least she'd avoided a total breakdown; For now. Laurel was strong. But how much more could she endure? There were so many more horrors left to find. Ky would have to shield her from the worst of it. And speaking of worst, Ky was ready to assume the worst of Captain Schneider. Whenever human soldiers talked of 'unprovoked attacks', it usually rang hollow. Had these aliens really come out of nowhere?

"Anyway, b-back to the threat at hand. Please don't be offended by my next question. I r-really have to ask it. Did you start this conflict? Think c-carefully. Is there any action you took that might have p-provoked these aliens? Did you take something? Fire at something? Plant a flag in someone else's land? Knowing their m-motive might be a vital clue."

[Dodgeson]

"What? No!" The Captain snapped indignantly, Ky might have asked her not to be offended but come on, what did he really think was going to happen? "This is an Agri-Planet, what do you think we do here? That planet appeared in the sky, no attempt to communicate, no signs of life and then it started bombarding us with those things! We lost three cities in 12 hours and you think we caused this?!"

Captain Schneider's outburst had not gone unnoticed and several of the soldiers on watch had started to stare "GET BACK TO YOUR POSTS!" she bellowed, sending them scurrying back to their posts as she tried to grab Ky by the arm and haul him inside.

The medic gave Laurel a small nod of thanks before rushing after the Ood and his pair of new patients, unholstering a small white medical tool from his belt as he did. After that she was left to her own devices, even with a compliment of Ood to take over the grunt work the medic didn't exactly have time to small talk, after a few minutes one of the creatures approached her.

"Can I get you anything Miss?" The creature asked placidly.

[Anyr]

Ky found himself in a very familiar position: Being dragged around by an angry person with a problem. In this case, though, he considered it an upgrade. At least she wasn't shooting at him any more. Making a fuss about his increasingly bruised arm would probably make things worse. So for the sake of diplomacy, he put up with it.

"Okay, okay! I believe you. But I have to (*ow*) consider all the possibilities. L-let's just move on. Does the e-enemy seem to have any particular goal (besides s-slaughtering everyone)? Do they f-favour some targets more than others? Is there anything t-they (*augh*) take care to avoid?"

Such was the indignity of exile. Back on Gallifrey, Ky had been respected; Sort of; Maybe. Well, some of the teachers had liked him. And he'd had a few friends. That was something, right?

[Quellian-dyrae]

"No!" Laurel responded, actually kinda sharply and definitely defensively, not to mention a bit startled. The Ood might as well have asked if she would like to visit the sewer for a quick bath, or eat a plate of writhing earthworms and maggots. The idea of asking one of the Ood to do anything for her was about equally abhorrent, in Laurel's mind.

She collected herself quickly though, and said more gently, "Um, sorry. No, I'm fine, thank you."

She probably should keep in contact with Ky though. She reached out to him with her mind. ~Hey I'm down in the infirmary. You good up there? And, uh, what's the plan, exactly?~

[Anyr]

[I'm all right. As for p-plans, I'm still trying to learn enough to make one. It's still unclear w-why the creatures attacked. What makes this p-place a target?]

[Dodgeson]

"Then I am sorry to have bothered you Miss, have a nice day." The Ood replied to Laurel, not seeming to mind her small outburst at all, before wandering to continue its duties.

Like Laurel before him Ky was dragged through the mess hall, causing quite a stir amongst the assembled elderly and invalid, the Captain marching through passed with a stranger would do that. "Population centers." She replied to the Time Lord as she marched him through a corridor bustling with hard working dutiful Ood.

"We weren't sure why at first, we just thought they were freak meteors back then, meteors filled some kind of parasite or something, there's plenty of weird stuff in the universe right? Then an hour later everyone that had been attacked by those things...changed and more rocks started to fall from the sky, it was a massacre." She continued, her grip on Ky's arm maybe a tad too tight as she jerked him in to the lift.

Soon enough, the door slid open and the Captain finally released her grip on Ky's arm and pointed down the empty corridor. "Straight down there, take a right, it's the door with the T on it, someone in there should be able to help you with the parts you need."

[Anyr]

The new information got filed in Ky's growing mental file. So the enemy soldiers were actually converted humans? That fit his earlier observations. The creatures he'd seen had been unusually clumsy: As if they weren't used to their own forms. This was beginning to sound like a classic Type 72B genocide. They'd been a popular topic during his 'Apocalyptic studies' classes. Sadly, the subject lost much of its charm when you were forced to live in it.

His eyes lingered on the poor souls that he passed. They looked like they were already halfway into the grave. He could certainly understand Laurel's desire to help them. But what could two random travellers really accomplish? This world seemed pretty definitively doomed. So it was quite a shock when the Captain helpfully pointed him towards the supply room. That was surprisingly decent of her. He had no idea why her attitude had changed so drastically. One minute she'd been shooting at him; And the next, she'd offered to help with his shopping list. Weird.

"T-thanks. I'll let you know if we f-find anything of use in your fight."

Then he walked down the corridor. His fingers flexed, in an effort to restore get the blood flowing again. That woman had a strong grip.

[In more positive news, the Captain has d-directed me towards the spare parts we need. With l-luck, we should be able to leave before d-disaster reaches us...Not t-that I doubt our ability to stop a s-seemingly endless horde of ravenous parasites. I'm sure we'll t-think of something.

Oh yes, the creatures are apparently c-converted humans. Not sure what use t-that knowledge is yet.]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Those...things had been humans!?

Laurel...she honestly wasn't sure what to do with that. Wasn't sure what to do with any of it. Ky said they could get away before the disaster reached them, but how did that help anyone else? They would leave and these people would just be killed or...worse... And yet, what could they do? They weren't an army, if an army would even help much here.

They had Ky's skills as a novice Time Lord, her psychic powers, and a nigh-invulnerable teleporting supertech spaceship. That wasn't...

It wasn't...

...

...Honestly, it wasn't bad.

~They're being transformed? So, that means there has to be something doing the transforming, right?
Some sort of, of, machine, or power, or radiation, or something, right? What if...once the TARDIS is repaired, we can get to that planet, can't we? Just poof there like we poofed here? And then...what about scanners? Does the TARDIS have cool sci-fi scanners that can pick up...things and...stuff?~ Laurel had kinda been thrown into the deep end of the pool here but she was trying!

[Anyr]

[I s-suppose. Once r-repairs are complete, travelling to t-the planet should be easy. And yes, the ship does indeed have s-scanners. I'll let you be the judge of whether or not they're 'cool'.]

Ky continued his journey down the corridor. Successfully healing his poor TARDIS would set his mind at ease. And he'd need that relief, to let him cope with whatever danger Laurel dragged him to next.

[Dodgeson]

The Captain's directions would lead Ky to a mechanical door with a faded T made from hexagons emblazoned on it, a quick knock on the door was all it would take to spur movement on the other side.

"I'm coming, I'm coming..." A male voice came from the other side before the door slid open to reveal an elderly grey haired man leaning on a cane, the room behind him was filled with boxes overflowing with stacks of mismatched papers or piles of unused mechanical parts.

"Can I help you young man?" He asked Ky, eying the Time Lord curiously, it was an unusual day when new people came to the compound after all.

[Anyr]

"H-hopefully. Captain Schneider sent me for s-some spare parts. M-may I please retrieve them?"

Now here was some familiar territory. Ky had no trouble playing the part of an errand boy. He'd practically been born to play it. His whole appearance just screamed 'pushover'. So many of his days had been spent doing other people's chores. How nice to know that even the most pathetic qualities could come in handy sometimes.

[Dodgeson]

The man regarded Ky for a few moments longer, what could Captain Schneider want spare parts for? But he knew that actually asking that question would do nothing but invite a 30 minute shouting match with the her and so he quickly relented, stepping aside to let the Time Lord passed. The room was exactly as it appeared from the outside, packed with rows of metal shelving stacked with boxes alternately filled with old paperwork or parts scavenged from outside of the compound, off one corner was a bank of computers dotted with empty metal cups.

"What is it that she's after, maybe I can help? Don't bother asking the Ood, it keeps the place tidy but it wouldn't know a 47-Filament from Exowire." He chuckled to himself as if he'd just made some fantastic joke "And when kept back to Schneider if you could bring up the coffee situation?"

The young Time Lord would be able to find almost all the parts he would need for a patch job on his beloved time ship, unfortunately for him however there was still one vital part missing, a beryllium chip to reset his damaged Time Rotor.

[Anyr]

Ky had been in plenty of rooms like this: The practical, unremarkable areas that kept everything running. Even the most glamorous tourist hubs had them, concealed behind doors marked 'staff only'. Many children wondered what amazing worlds lay beyond those portals. But the truth never lived up to the hype. It was all quite boring. Ky missed that boredom. He regarded the elderly storekeeper's life with a bit of envy; Well, except for the 'might soon be devoured by monsters' part.

"Erm, yes. S-Some help would be nice. Here's what I n-need: One biphasic amplifier; Ten kandrics of..."

One by one, he retrieved the needed items. His weak arms struggled more with every new burden. By the end, he was literally staggering. But one tiny (yet essential) weight was missing. Hopefully the old man could at least point Ky in the right direction.

"I d-don't suppose you know anyone who has a beryllium chip? It's r-rather important."

[Dodgeson]

"A beryllium chip?" The old man paused for a moment, it had been a long while since he'd been asked about such a piece of technology. "I'm afraid that's a little bit out of the reach of a half deserted military base. Though the girls at bingo tell me that Captain Schneider was planning to mount an expedition to one of the surviving air ports, I tell you I'd put my money on them over any spy network in the world, perhaps you'd have better luck there?"

Having answered Ky's question he decided to strike whilst the iron was hot and launch in to one of his own, there was something about the young man ((who was probably older than he was :smalltongue:)) that didn't quite sit right with him...

"Tell me what's an obviously bright young man like yourself still doing here? Surely someone with talents should have been on the first evacuation shuttles?"

[Anyr]

Ky suppressed a groan. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. All these spare parts would be useless without the chip. If this base didn't have one, he'd be forced to look elsewhere. And possibly with Captain Schneider too! The old man's questions rubbed salt in the wound.

"Believe me, my p-presence here wasn't planned. I'm s-supposed to be far away. But lately, nothing in my life has gone the way it should. Now I'm j-just trying to stay afloat.

I'd better get going. Thanks f-for all your help."

[I've found nearly all of the p-parts we need: Emphasis on 'nearly'. This base d-doesn't have any beryllium chips. Apparently our b-best bet of getting one is to v-venture outside. Captain Schneider is r-rumoured to be planning an expedition to some kind of air port. We might have to j-join her. Unless you've got a better idea?]

Please have a better idea. Please have a better idea...

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel didn't even know what a beryllium chip was, let alone where one might be found or how to improvise a replacement out of common household items. ~Can't say I do. Where are you at like a supply room?~ she asked.

Tentatively, hesitantly, she approached the Ood that had spoken to her before. It actually required concerted effort to force herself to ask the Ood for anything, even just some directions that took virtually no effort to give and were just common courtesy. It was like, what kind of person would refuse a request for directions?

She didn't really know, but other people would have the opportunity to choose to do so, and that changed everything.

But the alternative was trying to ask a medic while they worked to save someone's life, which seemed like the strictly worse option. So Laurel asked, "Um, excuse me. My friend is {wherever Ky tells her he's at, or just "getting supplies" if he doesn't give her anything more specific}. How do I get there from here? Um, but, you don't have to answer if you don't want to!" ...Okay yeah she felt silly now.

[Dodgeson]

"I know the feeling." The old man looked at him with sympathy, before the Object came he'd moved to Romero-7 to be closer to his grandchildren, but they'd all gone now "Still I hope Captain Schneider is happy with the all the equipment, if she starts complaining about the chip you can send her down here. It'll give me a chance to raise the coffee issue to her face."

There were few people in the compound who would willingly enter an argument with the Captain but the old man had somewhat taken a shine to Ky and if he could save him a shouting match then he was happy to do so.

Back in the medical bay the Ood tilted its head curiously as it turned to answer Laurel's question, why wouldn't answer her? It couldn't even conceive of such a thing, once again the orb in its hand lit up as it began to talk in its calm placid voice "Take the elevator to sub-level 5, Torchwood Archive storage 8 Miss. Have a nice day."

Assuming she followed the Ood's directions Laurel would soon find herself in front of a door in the lower levels of the compound, a faded T made from hexagon's emblazoned on the door, the symbol of her former employer.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Thank you so much!" Laurel told the Ood, following its instructions until she reached the T-marked door.

...Yeah, Laurel'd be honest, that was definitely not something she had been expecting to see here.

She hesitated outside the door for a few moments, just kinda processing that. This was a military installation on another planet. It was simply infeasible that they for some reason used an old Torchwood door for some arbitrary reason. And even if they did, they'd have painted over the logo. So...were these guys Torchwood? Or was Torchwood responsible for them...?

Laurel didn't get angry often. She generally did her best to keep her cool, and try to see both sides of a dispute. She bore no ill-will towards Torchwood; she understood that they were doing what they felt was best, even if she could not be a part of it. She disagreed with them, but she didn't hate them.

But seeing that logo here...Laurel felt fury rising in her heart.

Was Torchwood responsible for the rise of this empire? For the enslavement of the Ood? All the things that Ky had told her about this time period, and doubtless many other horrors that he hadn't, were they all Torchwood's fault?

If that was true...if Torchwood was the reason for humanity's return to barbarity...

There was no way around it. They would have to be stopped.

Laurel couldn't fight a galactic empire. They had no weaknesses and she had no leverage. And of course, Torchwood itself was a more powerful organization than she could combat directly. But Laurel was not the sort of person who solved her problems with force of arms.

Against an organization like Torchwood, secrets were a deadlier weapon than any gun or blade.

Laurel took a long breath, wiped her anger from her face, and walked through the door.

[Anyr]

"Don't worry. I'm s-sure there will be plenty of other problems to distract her."

Ky departed the storeroom in slightly higher spirits. It was nice to know that this place contained at least one decent person. Laurel's efforts to save everyone would've been pointless otherwise. Speaking of which, it took only a little walking to reunite with her. As usual, he failed to notice Laurel's inner turmoil. He just gestured to the heavy container that he was struggling to lift.

"H-hello again. As I said, I've got the parts here. If we can just f-find a beryllium chip, we'll be good to go. Or at least, go from one deadly planet to another."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Here, let me help with that!" Laurel said, taking telekinetic hold of the container.

"Okay cool. Sounds...well, I guess 'sounds good' isn't quite apt given the situation, but whatever, close enough!" Laurel replied cheerily, because it covered how completely terrifying the whole premise was. "So...I guess let's find Captain Schneider, then?"

[Anyr]

"...If we must."

Ky reluctantly started searching for Captain Schneider. A big part of him really wanted that search to fail. Ah well. He could still take solace in Laurel's good cheer. She seemed to be doing much better now. There was probably still a lot of pain beneath her smile. But at least she'd learnt to live with it. Hopefully he'd be able to avoid any other horrible revelations.

[Dodgeson]

The search for Captain Schneider wouldn't take are heroes long at all, whether they asked the Ood or some of the civilians that filled the compound, they would be given directions to her living quarters on the second basement level of the building. Inside was sparse and immaculately well kept and orderly, almost looking like it hadn't been lived in at all if not for the desk in one corner of the room that was covered in empty pill bottles and a single picture frame.

"I have more important things to worry about now than the damn coff..." She snapped as the door opened, only to cut herself off as she spotted Laurel, the threat of a brain melting wasn't something you forgot easily. "...oh it's you." She straightened up, looking away from the map that she had spread out across the floor, whole sections of it had been black out whilst other areas were circled in red.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Sorry to disturb you, Captain. We heard you're planning an expedition to an airport? We were hoping we could come with you. We got most of what we need, except for a, err, chip that we think we might be able to find there. Would that be okay?" For now, Laurel didn't mention their half-baked plan to use the repaired TARDIS to try to find some sort of solution to their whole "literally hostile planet" problem. She didn't want to get her hopes up when she wasn't really sure if they could actually do anything.

[Anyr]

Ky let Laurel do the talking. He just lurked awkwardly behind her. His eyes strayed to the map on the floor. Judging by all those ominous circles, the conflict was hurtling towards its seemingly inevitable conclusion. Saving even a portion of the humans would be quite a feat. For now, Ky would just focus on securing an escape route. Miracles could come later.

[Dodgeson]

"If that's the case." Captain Schneider began a moment after Laurel had finished speaking "By the power granted to me as a representative of the Empire and her territories and as children of the Empire, you may consider yourself conscripted in to her service, follow me. The briefing begins in an hour." She finished sternly, Laurel and Ky wouldn't have been her first choice for soldiers but after the last meteorite incident the number of soldiers she had at her disposal was...not great.

Without even stopping to see if they followed her (it didn't even occur to her that they wouldn't) she marched out in to the corridor, assuming that the two followed her they would quickly find themselves in what was left of the compound's armoury. The room was mostly bare, the fight against the creatures had long since started to whittle away their resources, but a few rifles still hung from the walls along with a couple of armoured vests.

"I'm sure you're familiar with these from your Planetary Service?" The Captain asked, gesturing to the weapons.

[Anyr]

So now Ky was a soldier. This day just got better and better. But if playing along got him out of here, he'd grit his teeth. So he allowed himself to be led around by the overbearing authority figure; As usual. And he resisted the urge to correct her many misconceptions about Laurel and himself. 'Children of the Empire'? Ha! Laurel was born before the Empire ever existed. And Ky was born long after it died. Naturally, he didn't say any of that aloud.

Soon, though, Captain Schneider pushed her luck too far. There were some lines that Ky wouldn't cross. He backed away from the rifle she offered as if it were a poisonous snake.

"Oh no. No no no no no. Absolutely n-not. Look, my t-talents lie in different areas. I fix things; I k-know things; I figure out things. But I don't shoot things. That's not just a m-moral principle. I'm a terrible shot. Believe me, you don't w-want to put a gun in my hands. I'd be a danger to e-everyone around."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel did a good job keeping the bemused look off her face as they were "conscripted". Sure, why not? She followed along without argument, but when they came to the armory...well, inwardly, he reaction was more-or-less like Ky's. She was combat-capable, if it came down to it, but she didn't do killing, and that meant she didn't do guns.

That being said, she also didn't think it was quite ideal for them to appear too soft. And this was not the first time a militant organization had tried to put such weapons into her hands. She might have liked to go on a spiel about finding other ways around your problems, about how guns provided you with precisely one option and were so blasted efficient about it that it could downright distract you from better, if perhaps harder, alternatives. She didn't think such a speech would be well-regarded by the present audience, though.

Fortunately, Captain Schneider had been given a taste of some of the alternatives that Laurel had available. So instead, she just put a slender smirk on her face, met Captain Schneider's gaze for a moment or two, and then said with complete self-assurance, "I'm good."

[Dodgeson]

Oh great, pacifist conscripts were the last thing Captain Schneider needed right now, Laurel got a pass for the moment because she was still operating under the assumption that she could melt brains on command (which was admittedly a stronger draw card to have in a fight than a service issue rifle. Ky however had no such excuse and the Captain continued to try insistently force a weapon in to his hands.

"Look, it's simple, just brace the stock against your shoulder, point the other end at the monsters and hold down the trigger until they stop moving. If you're that concerned about hitting somebody we can just put you in front."

((The Captain's kind of drawing a line on this one, somebody give me a Presence+Convince roll against [roll0]))

[Quellian-dyrae]

It was a very, very good thing that Laurel had spy training. Look, Ky was a good guy, obviously brilliant, and frankly, going into dangerous situations when you are obviously terrified of them is more impressive than going into them without fear. That all being said, it took all of Laurel's training and willpower to avoid bursting out laughing when Schneider's idea for avoiding him hurting people was putting him in front.

But since that was not going to help matters... "Captain, I understand the point you're trying to make,
but Ky isn't talking about the physical act of firing a weapon. Yes, of course, that's dead simple. But as a military officer you know as well as I do how important proper training is when handling lethal weaponry in a live-fire combat situation. Ky brings a lot to the table, but combat training and experience is not one of those things. He's not a conscripted prisoner trying to get out of doing his duty by saying he'd forget which end of the weapon to point at the enemy. He's a civilian who is smart enough to know that he will not be able to act and react with discipline in a combat situation, and that means that exposing him to danger and putting a deadly weapon in his hands will make him a liability. And I know you don't want to expose your soldiers to that."

"However, I've also been working with him long enough to know that his capabilities go far beyond being another warm body holding a rifle. He knows things, understands things, has a perspective on things far beyond my own, or frankly that of anyone I've ever met. Now, I need him on this mission because he's the one who knows what this chip we're looking for looks like. But you are going to want him along too, and you are going to want him exposed to as little danger as possible, because if there is anything we can learn on this outing that will give us a tool to use to keep the people on this planet safe from these attackers, I can guarantee you that he is going to be the one to find it and come up with a way to use it."

She was speaking to the Captain, but when she got to that second part, she was looking at Ky. Yeah, he had been kinda scattered and panicky pretty much from the moment she met him. But that didn't change the fact that in every situation they'd been in, he had known what was going on. She had seen him match wits and match tech with gods and come out of it. So yeah, she was trying to talk Schneider out of forcing him into a situation he had no business being in. But that didn't make any of what she was saying any less true.

Presence+Convince: [roll0]. She is trying to come at things from Schneider's viewpoint, so add an additional +2 if that's sufficient to qualify for her Empathic trait.

[Anyr]

Ky had trouble meeting Laurel's eye. From an outside perspective, he remained silent. Only she heard his next words.

[...Thank you. I w-will do my very best to justify your faith in me.]

However misplaced that faith may be. Ky was just an ordinary person; Albeit from a race with a different standard of 'ordinary'. He very much doubted that he could be the saviour that Laurel described. But then, he'd been just as pessimistic about defeating the Toymaker. Sometimes flukes happened. Sometimes the stars aligned just right. So for Laurel's sake, he had to at least try. He owed her that much.

[Dodgeson]

((And that's a Good result for Laurel!))

"Fine, but on your own head be it." The Captain relented as she listened to Laurel, Ky didn't look all that special to her but that girl was certainly persuasive. "If he's so valuable then you can keep him alive."

Soon enough it would be time for the briefing where our heroes would find themselves in a hastily assembled briefing room where the map they had seen in Captain Schneider's quarters pinned to the wall. There with them were the only other two soldiers she had been able to locate who weren't otherwise needed or too injured to be of any use, Privates Jalco and Smith. Jalco was a tall farm boy type,before the Object he had worked on one of the planets Megafarms (which means he bossed Ood around) whilst Smith was a career soldier fresh out of basic training, eager to leave his home planet and see the universe, the fact that he'd ended up on an Agri-Planet had not dulled this in the slightest.

"There isn't much time so I'll keep this brief." The Captain said as she marched in to the room "This is Airport 7." She continued pointing to one of the areas on the map circled in red, nestled between two blacked out areas. "As far as you are concerned this is the most important building on the entire planet, 48 hours ago the survivors holed up here went dark. The survival of everyone on this base depends on us ascertaining their situation and the progress of Project Boilerplate. Gear up, we leave immediately."

[Anyr]

Ky surveyed the sorry excuse for a team. It didn't take long. This planet really was stretched to its limits. No wonder Captain Schneider had been so quick to let Laurel and Ky come along. The briefing was pretty standard, except for one strange name. Ky hesitantly raised a hand, as if he were in class.

"W-What's 'Project Boilerplate'?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel accepted those terms with a nod, following along. When the two privates arrived, she introduced herself with a friendly smile and a handshake. She listened to the briefing, and after Ky asked his question, she followed up with, "And what's the overall mission objective? Like, are we just checking on them? Extracting them? Reestablishing communication? If it turns out they're not okay, what's our next step? Um, we can discuss this stuff on the move, of course. But basically, what's our victory condition?" Just because she and Ky had their own objective here didn't mean she was going to just ignore Schneider's, and the more she knew the more helpful she could be.

[Dodgeson]

"This does not leave the room, is that clear?" Jalco and Smith both nodded immediately, truth be told Captain Schneider scared the pair of them more than a little bit. "Project Boilerplate is a concentrated explosive device under construction by the survivors at Airport 7. Upon its completion an expedition was to mounted to the Object with a view to pacification. With this in mind, if something has happened to the survivors, the project becomes our responsibility and seeing it to completion will become our top priority. Are there any more questions?"

Assuming their wasn't, Captain Schneider would lead them out of the compound and begin their march down the dusty roads and through the acres upon acres of ruined wilted fields towards Airport 7...

((Okay, everybody give me me Coordination+Subterfuge vs [roll0]))

[Dodgeson]

((That's a Success from Ky & Good from Laurel! Whoosh!))

The progress was slow and cautious as our heroes made their way across the ruined and a crater ruined fields that made up the majority of the planet towards Airport 7, stopping frequently and taking cover to allow shambling packs of the creatures to pass them by. Whilst Captain Schneider managed to maintain her composure at the sight of them (she had faced them before after all) her subordinates were visibly shaken by them, Private Jalco very nearly giving their location away before Schneider clamped her hand tightly over his mouth.

Eventually on the edge of a small abandoned town their target came in to sight an enormous T-shaped building with a large dish atop it, the whole thing encircled by a makeshift fence, for an airport Laurel wouldn't spot anything she might normally associate with one, not a air tower or landing strip in sight. Holding up a single arm to bring the group to a halt, the Captain reached for the walkie-talkie on her belt.

"Airport 7, this is Captain Schneider, acting leader of the Planetary Armed Forces, please respond."

She waited for a moment but no response came.

"Airport 7, please respond." When the walkie-talkie stayed silent she stowed it with a sigh and flicked the safety off of her rifle "Expect the worst, controlled three round bursts at the head." She ordered the privates who followed suit with their own weapons. "You two, try not to die."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel could admit it, she was...leery of the stated mission objective. A giant bomb? There had to be a better solution to this problem than a giant bomb!

That being said, while she may have refused to kill, she could not in good conscience try to prevent these people from defending themselves against an enemy that clearly had no such compunctions. Trying to oppose the mission on moral grounds would at best accomplish nothing and at worst get them boxed out (or perhaps jailed, or killed). The best thing they could do, for everyone involved, was try to come up with a better alternative.

The trek was tense, but they managed to reach the airport without incident. Laurel was thankful for Torchwood stealth training (although whether it was their training when she was with them, or the time spent dodging their pursuit after she had left that she should really be thanking was debatable). When Schneider's hail failed, though, and she gave the order to advance, Laurel said, "Wait."

"Do you know the names of any of the people in the team?"

If Schneider does and gives them Laurel, she'll try to make contact telepathically. I assume doing so off of just a name will be somewhat harder than with someone she's met personally, so Resolve + Ingenuity: [roll0].

[Anyr]

The group managed to reach their destination without anything trying to eat their faces. That was a better result than Ky had expected. So far so good. With luck, they'd be able to safely reach the...bomb factory. Ah, so that's why the creatures hadn't eaten Ky. The universe was just keeping things fresh. It'd scheduled an exciting new method of execution!

Now came the really depressing part of this mission: Searching for survivors. Ky hoped that Laurel's telepathic call would be answered. He hoped that the civilians were safely huddled in some hidden bolt hole. But he wouldn't be placing any bets on that possibility. At the very least, though, he pledged to make good use of the supplies they'd left behind. Maybe this airport contained the tools for crafting a real solution: Preferably one that didn't involve bombs.

[Dodgeson]

"Doctor Lynwood." The Captain offered the name of the Airport 7 survivors' defacto leader and stepped back a little, waiting expectantly, she didn't know whether Laurel's powers required space or not but she figured it was better to er on the safe side.

Laurel reached out with her mind towards the structure seeking to make contact with whatever survivors might still be inside, and something answered. Part Human, part Ood and part something else, whatever it was roared back against the psychic, flooding her mind with a blindingly pain cacophony.

((Laurel give me Resolve+Ingenuity vs [roll0] with damage values of 1/2/3))

[Quellian-dyrae]

To be fair here, Laurel had peered into the mind of one of the Gods of Ragnarok and come out sane. She might have been surprised enough by that psychic roar for it to get past her active psionic defense, but it would take more than that to fracture her will. She quickly withdrew from the contact, though.

While the psionic attack may have failed to find purchase, though, its meaning did not. She looked at Schneider with fallen features, and shook her head. "I made contact but...it wasn't human. Or...not entirely, at any rate. It felt...a little like a human, and a little like an Ood, but...there was more to it. Not a type of mind I've ever really felt before." She looked to Ky, wondering if he might have any insights. She knew it was a long shot.

[Anyr]

Oh goody. There was evidently a warm welcome waiting inside. Mindful of morale, Ky did his best to put a positive spin on that.

"Ood are s-susceptible to psychic s-subversion. Perhaps they and s-some humans are being controlled by the same entity. T-The creatures we've m-met so far seemed to be mindless. The fact that you s-sensed a mind at all is...encouraging? It's different, at any rate. This m-might be something new."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Uh, no no. I didn't contact a human mind, an Ood mind, and another mind. I contacted a
mind that felt partially human, partially Ood, and partially something else. And it did not like being touched."

[Anyr]

Ky switched to telepathy for the next answer.

[I k-know. I was trying to be diplomatic. Saying 'maybe all the helpless civilians got their m-minds smushed together' seemed a bit harsh.]

[Quellian-dyrae]

~Ah,~ Laurel sent back, a bit deadpan. Oops. Well, to be fair, her and Ky's differing viewpoints regarding information sharing have been well-established.

[Dodgeson]

"You heard her." Captain Schneider spoke as Ky and Laurel switched to telepathic conversation "The airport has been overtaken by a hostile intelligence, standard protocols are in affect from here on out."

Still labouring under the assumption that Ky and Laurel were both human and natives to this time period she didn't feel the need to explain what the standard protocols were exactly but Ky would know (and Laurel could certainly hazard a guess given what she'd learned) that they were far more in the line of 'shoot first' than 'open a constructive dialogue'.

"Our first priority is now to locate Project Boilerplate, then aid the civilians in the location of the parts they need. At which point..." She continued, turning straight to Ky "...your vehicle will be commandeered in service of the Empire to take us to the Object."

Without even waiting for anyone to raise any objections she started to move towards the building using what little cover she and her subordinates could find before they stopped at the fence that surrounded the building and crouching low, producing a pair of wire cutters from her gear and cutting a hole whilst Jalco and Smith watched the surroundings carefully for any sign of the shambling creatures.

[Anyr]

Ky didn't even bother to explain 'standard protocols' to Laurel. Their nature was painfully obvious. But as with so many barbarities of this time period, Ky forced himself to bear it. Then Captain Schneider crossed the line. Then she pushed her luck too far. On the outside, Ky met her demand with simple reluctance. He made a show of considering it; Before grudgingly nodding.

"...Fine. S-So long as you wipe your feet first."

His words to Laurel painted a very different picture.

[Never. Under n-no circumstances whatsoever. After all you've s-seen, you know the truth as well as I do: The Empire absolutely must not g-gain access to a TARDIS. Protocol and m-morality both demand that I do whatever it takes. Even...

...Well, l-let's hope it doesn't come to that.]

The emotions pouring through the telepathic link left no room for doubt. Ky wouldn't bend on this. This was a fundamental principle of the Time Lords. It had been drilled into him throughout his entire life. He would do everything he could to get himself and Laurel through this ordeal alive. But if forced to choose between their lives and the sanctity of his TARDIS, there was no choice.

That said, his mind was already poring through possible ways to switch tracks, before reaching that particular junction. He already had a few promising ideas. There was nothing like the threat of impending death (on at least three fronts, no less) to spur creativity.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel's viewpoint on that subject had already been what could best be summed up as a sarcastic "Yeah, that'll happen." And she absolutely had seen enough to understand Ky's concerns. But even so, the sheer fervor of the normally non-confrontational young(ish?) man surprised her. She adjusted her estimates of the overall power level of a TARDIS up accordingly.

~If we can talk them down when it comes to it that's ideal, but rest assured I will not hesitate to hurl away anyone who tries to step foot on board without your express consent.~ Those plans may not have had the oomph of the worst-case options Ky was considering, but there was a quiet confidence behind them. Laurel had no intention of it ever getting to the point where they needed that kind of "oomph".

[Dodgeson]

The fence was quickly dealt with and the soldiers quickly crawled through, moving between the abandoned vehicles that lead up to the front of the airport until they reached the front entrance. The automatic doors of the building stubbornly refused to open as they approached but they were no match for a concerted physical effort from the soldiers.

Slowly the doors were forced open leading in to the large open check in area of the former airport and the three soldiers just stood and stared, every single surface from the floors and ceilings to the check in desks and kiosks that were dotted around the space was completely covered by a pale off-white substance as far as the eye could see.

Laurel had sold the idea to Captain Schneider that Ky knew things, that in terms of information he was incredibly valuable, and so her gaze flicked from the bizarre scene in front of her to the young Time Lord and back again.

"Something's clearly killed the power, some of us should try to find the generators. Unless you've got a better idea?"

[Anyr]

Ky did indeed know things. For instance, he knew that airports usually weren't covered in goop. Such a discrepancy was worth investigating.

"W-Wait a minute. Let me take a look at this s-substance first."

Moving to the front of the group, he knelt down close to the goo's border. He also made sure to avoid doing two things: Actually touching the mysterious goo; And allowing the soldiers to see what he was really doing. While pretending to simply peer at (and sniff) the goo, he surreptitiously pulled back his left sleeve. On his arm was a seamless metallic wristband. As he uncovered it, a few Gallifreyan symbols appeared briefly on its surface. With a subtle motion of the wrist, Ky initiated a scan of the goo.

Ky uses his dimensional extrapolator {yes, he has one of those} to scan the goo. I'm guessing that that's Awareness+Medicine+2?

[Quellian-dyrae]

While Ky examined the goop, Laurel considered Schneider's suggestion.

On the one hand, this whole adventure was almost certain to turn into a pitched shootout pretty much the moment the soldiers encountered the...whatever they were. Aliens? Lets go with aliens. Even in the best case scenario, that meant a lot of dead aliens, which despite their seemingly animalistic intelligence, Laurel still wanted to avoid if she could help it. They weren't completely non-sapient; her telepathic contact had made that much clear.

And that was the best case. They had no idea how many of them might be here. Gunfire would bring more running, and if they were indeed part Ood, they might well have had some sort of mental link themselves, so an attack on one could very well alert everyone in the vicinity. That might even have been probable, given the force of the telepathic attack she had received. She didn't know for sure, but it seemed strange that a being with limited cognitive abilities could generate that much mental force. A hive mind, on the other hand, would be likely to display such mental strength. At the end of the day, they had four combatants. Laurel would rank her telekinesis up there with any gun, but it wasn't a superweapon. They could easily be overwhelmed.

So the optimal move was cautious, stealthy progress towards their goal. Slip in, slip past, and slip out. To that end, Laurel was a choice scout. She was probably the stealthiest and, with her telekinesis, the most mobile of the group. Her telepathy allowed her to relay information subtly and rapidly. And telepathic hive-minds aside, she at least had a reasonable shot of neutralizing a sentry quietly and without permanent harm, if she could get the drop on it.

Splitting up in earnest didn't sound smart to her. That just gave them more chances to alert the aliens and get picked off. Laurel had watched horror movies before, thanks. But scouting ahead and guiding the group's progress did sound practical.

It did expose her to somewhat additional risk, compared to the others...but to Laurel that wasn't a deal-breaker. Or even necessarily that bad a thing. She wasn't super-thrilled with the possibility that hostiles could come up behind them and she wouldn't be on hand to protect Ky, but overall she was pretty sure the total risk would be mitigated.

"Splitting up would be dangerous. We don't have a specific time limit; speed is only to our advantage insofar as it reduces the total risk we're exposed to. But while splitting up doubles our speed, it also both doubles the possibility of encountering hostiles and halves our ability to respond to them. I'd advise we stick together. That said...it might be best if I move ahead of the rest of the group. I have infiltration training, I might be able to find routes around the hostiles."

With the power out, what's the lighting situation in here? Merely poor or pretty much pitch black once we get further in? I know the soldiers stocked up on guns but did they bring along any like night vision gear or such?

[Anyr]

"F-Fungus? Interesting..."

Ky's brow creased. He didn't know what to make of this new information. Knowing that a fungus was the thing trying to eat his face wouldn't necessarily stop said face from being eaten. For now, he just filed away the morsel. Maybe it'd come in handy later. Rolling his sleeve back down, he straightened up.

"All right, I'm r-ready."

[Dodgeson]

Ky stopping to examine the goop gave Captain Schneider time to consider Laurel's proposal, whilst Privates Smith and Jalco were proud soldiers of the Empire and she'd never say it out loud, under any other circumstances they wouldn't exactly have been her first choice for a mission like this. So she wasn't exactly as reluctant as she might have otherwise to let her scout ahead.

"Okay, we will maintain a safe zone here, find us a route to the generators and then report back here." She gave the nod to Laurel before turning her attentions to Ky "So you're supposed to be the brains here, what can you tell us about this stuff?" She asked, nudging the strange substance beneath their feet.

If she was to head off from the group Laurel wouldn't have much trouble locating the generators, it might have seen better days but Airport 7 was still an airport after all and everything was quite clearly signposted (even if the signs were covered in the pale fungal growths). After a short amount of scouting Laurel would find a door marked 'Maintenance/Generator:Employees Only'.

[Anyr]

Ky gave the departing Laurel a nervous wave. Her decision to scout ahead made tactical sense. And he certainly didn't want to put her in danger by bumbling alongside her. But he equally didn't want to be left alone with Captain Schneider. His eyes followed Laurel until she'd completely disappeared. This place felt even more hostile without her. Despite her penchant for interference, her presence was...comforting. He had to admit that he was going to miss her, once she'd been dropped off back on Earth.

His musings were interrupted by a demand from Captain Schneider: But a reasonable one, for once. He satisfied her curiosity as best he could. Though he took care to make his findings sound like speculation; Rather than the results of a technological scan.

"It appears t-to be a type of fungus. Judging by the consistency and various other f-factors, I think it incorporates s-several types of foreign organic matter. Laurel said that she could sense a m-mixture of human, Ood, and something else. Maybe she was in contact with this substance? Some kind of t-telepathic fungus, that can l-learn from lifeforms it encounters?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel slipped quietly through the airport, following the signs. When she came to the maintenance room, she moved back a fair bit, crouching down and holding her breath, staying very still. If any of the aliens were inside, they would be more likely to detect her by hearing than sight. Once she was positioned, she opened the door slowly with her telekinesis and peered inside.

[Dodgeson]

As Laurel left to scout ahead Captain Schneider and her subordinates formed a triangle around Ky, mostly this was just to keep as many lines of sight open as they possibly could whilst waiting for her to come back, but protecting one of the only people who seemed to know what was going on was a nice side benefit.

"Killer mushrooms? Great that's just what we need." The Captain groused, fungus after all probably wasn't going to be particularly susceptible to the standard 'controlled three round bursts' doctrine, but still she lived in hope. Despite the seriousness of the situation Private Jalco couldn't help but snicker, a quick glare from the Captain quickly shut him up and he resumed staring out in to the darkness, eyes peeled for any lumbering shapes.

The door slowly opened in front of Laurel, its near soundlessness a testament to the hard work of the airport's late (?) maintenance staff, leading to a set of metal steps that lead down in to the dark. Drawn by what little noise their was heavy thudding steps made their way ponderously up the stairs towards the door until one of the creatures stood in the door way, slime dripping from its enormous maw.

((Laurel give me Coordination+Subterfuge vs [roll0]))

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel stayed very still and very quiet, not even daring to breathe. Go away. Just go away... she thought insistently.

[Dodgeson]

Laurel got her wish and after a few long seconds the creature left her be and shambled away passed her in the direction she just came from...

"Captain...um...Captain...?" Back with Ky and the troops Private Smith quietly attempted to get the attention of his direction superior.

"Spit it out Private!" She snapped back at him without even bothering to move her head away from her rifle sight, perhaps just a little bit too loud, but in her defense she's been having quite a week.

"5 hostiles coming this way..." He replied, and whether they scared him more than the Captain was a very good question...

In an instant Captain Schneider spun round and saw the 5 figures shuffling out of the darkness passed a fungus covered coffee kiosk towards them.

((Okay gang it's time to try the Extended Action rules! Everybody state your intent. I don't think I need to tell you Captain Schneider's))

[Anyr]

Ky turned with trepidation, to behold the sight he'd been dreading all along. Five familiar figures were shambling towards him. He'd already been given a very graphic demonstration of their intentions. All right, all right, stay calm. Focus on solutions. Don't think about your flesh being viciously torn apa-Don't think about that! He was honestly tempted to simply cower, while Captain Schneider fired away. The creatures weren't even sentient, after all. There was just one problem with the 'shoot them all' strategy: It clearly didn't work. The planet's defence forces were hopelessly outnumbered. Being loud and violent would just attract more enemies. Trickery seemed to work much better. Ky thought back to the ruse Laurel had used earlier. Without telekinesis, he couldn't follow her example precisely; But he could at least try throwing something. He scanned the immediate area for something suitably solid.

Is there anything around here that could be thrown? Ky is looking for something that'll travel a fair distance, and make an audible impact.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Well, the good news is, it was going away.

The bad news was, it was going past her towards the others. It might not actually go all the way to them, so it wasn't worth alerting it (and, quite possibly, more of them) to her presence, but she needed to at least alert the others. ~I found the maintenance room. Going to see about turning the power on, but one of the aliens is heading in your direction. It might not actually be heading to you, but it may be smart to fall back some just in case.~

Talking as a standard action! :smalltongue: If I can send that to all of them I will, if not I guess just to Ky.

[Anyr]

Aha! Ky's roaming eyes found their prize. Nestled in a cubbyhole untouched by fungus, lay a multicoloured ball. He recognised it from his visits to other human colonies. It was one of those annoying, powered toys that bounced off every surface in the vicinity: Including Ky's face. He always got hit by these things while sitting near kids in waiting rooms. Saving his life was the least it could do to repay him.

He urgently scooped up the abandoned object. Its original owner probably had no more use for it. With that depressing thought stuck in his own head, Ky threw the ball over the heads of his pursuers. Hopefully it'd be good at bouncing off fungus too.

1 Story Point spent. Deepest apologies for being so slow to post. I've been stretched a bit thin lately.

[Dodgeson]

Brightly coloured balls continue to utterly fail to increase the quality of Ky's life, one of the monsters brief paused its slow shambling march and cocked its head to 'watch' the ball ricochet away but the hammering heart beats of Captain Schneider's men were a greater draw still and the creatures continued to draw ever closer.

"Controlled three round bursts!" the Captain barked and the sound of gunfire filled the air, bullets tore through the zombies and sent them tumbling to the floor, though they began to twitchily pull themselves to their feet almost as soon as they hit the ground.

"Everyone of those things is going to know where we are now! We have to move!"

((Unless you have a better idea it's time for a chase! Ky roll me straight Coordination against [roll0]))

[Quellian-dyrae]

Her warning sent, Laurel advanced into the control room. Ky had said the weird stuff on the walls was some sort of fungus, and her understanding was fungus didn't like bright light. Maybe turning the power back on would do...something. It was worth a try, anyway. She started looking over the machinery to try to see if she could find, like, an on switch or something.

Mover: Into the control room.

[Dodgeson]

Putting distance between them and the creatures wasn't too difficult, although what they lacked in speed they more than made up for in persistence and the sound of shuffling feet was never quite out of earshot.

"In here." Captain Schneider hissed as she spotted a door labelled 'Maintenance/Generator:Employees Only' "If we stay quite they should pass us by."

Assuming Ky had no objections (Smith and Jalco certainly knew better to raise any) the Captain would turn the lock behind them and place a finger on her lips as the sound of the creatures outside drew closer.

Down the stairs and further down the corridor Laurel would find the maintenance area opens up in to a much larger room with two doors to her right and a single door to her left as well as the generator equipment in question against the back wall, all of it covered in the fungal moss. In the centre of the room stood a huge mound of the substance, dotted with Ood translator balls, each one slowly blinking on and off.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Oooookay...

Laurel had a weird impulse to just start blasting the big ol' moss mound telekinetically, but since she was good at nonviolence and bad at video games, she was able to squelch the urge. Barely.

Instead, staying as far from the mound as she possibly could, she examined the generator. She did not touch it, but would use her telekinesis as necessary to clear moss if she needed to to get a better look - always keeping a close eye on the main mound when she did. She would also regularly be scanning the walls, floors, and ceiling for any tendrils that looked in any way like they were moving, creeping, or slithering towards her.

I don't actually know enough about the setting to say for sure, but until I get evidence to the contrary I am going to assume that a key part of initial Torchwood training is binging on horror movies and part of the final exam includes writing a detailed essay for how you would have survived them. And that this procedure has probably saved the lives of countless agents.

Also, I assume it would be Ingenuity+Technology to try to figure out how to turn the thing on. Not gonna SP boost it because meh I'm sure Ky can handle it easily but hey maybe the difficulty's low and I do actually have a Technology rank so: [roll0]. Rock on Laurel! You show 'em the value of cross-class skills!

[Anyr]

Ky obediently cowered along with the others. Cowering was one of his specialities. Though his body remained still (aside from some fearful tremors), his eyes were very active. This particular hiding place had been well selected. Maintenance sections could contain all manner of useful items. Ky examined the room as thoroughly as he could without actually touching anything. Maybe there'd be a clue in here; Or a lurking monster. Either way, Ky wanted to know about it.

[Dodgeson]

Luckily for Laurel, despite being a star-spanning interstellar empire in the (to her) far future, the humble generator didn't seem to have undergone many advances under the reign of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire. With a little bit of effort the generator rumbled back in to life and the lights began to flicker back in to life, not just on the ceiling above her but through the entire port.

Meanwhile with the lights back on Ky would be able to see that he was currently cowering at the top of a flight of metal stairs that lead down in to a corridor which almost immediately took a turn to the right. As the lights turned back on, Captain Schnieder looked around and allowed herself the to smile just a little bit.

"Looks like your friend got the generator working." She said whispered, still very much aware of the creatures on the other side of the door. "There should be a terminal somewhere around here, I'll take point, Jalco you watch our rear and Smith...don't touch anything."

With that she began to make her way down the stairs, the metal creaking under her footsteps despite her efforts to do otherwise.

Incidentally Laurel starts to hear sounds of movement back the way she came....

[Quellian-dyrae]

Yeah Laurel could admit it. There was a part of her that had been hoping turning the lights on might do...something to the fungus. Well, it was a hope.

Hearing movement approaching, Laurel positioned herself in a corner on the same side of the room as the door (behind the door itself if it opened inward), making herself very small and still. Hopefully they'd just go away, but if they tried to turn off the generator again...well, Laurel would have to stop them, and if she could catch them by surprise, that was optimal.

Laurel may have played nice, but she felt precisely zero compunction to play fair.

~I'm in the generator room but I'm hearing something coming. Once it's clear though Ky you should check this place out. There's, um, a lot of this fungus stuff in here. It's weird. Where are you guys at?~

Coordination+Subterfuge: [roll0].

[Anyr]

Ky blinked as his eyes adjusted to the new light. Good going, Laurel! This was a definite boon for the human/Time Lord team. Since the creatures were all blind, they wouldn't benefit at all. Now a bit bolder, Ky followed Captain Schneider down the stairs. It seemed as if things were going smoothly again. Still, Ky got the feeling he was missing an important part of the picture. This whole situation had too many unanswered questions.

[There's a lot of f-fungus everywhere. What makes that batch so weird? Anyway, I'm in an employee m-maintenance area. It l-looks like it's near the generator. We're trying to find a computer terminal, to access the port's s-systems.]

[Dodgeson]

Heading down the stairs the maintenance area opened up in to a much bigger space with a generator chugging away at the far end. To the right two there were another pair of doors painted red as well as another one on the left wall, it goes without saying that everything was covered in the strange fungus. More importantly in the centre of the room a mound of the stuff sat tall enough to reach the ceiling dotted with Ood translator balls that were wildly flashing on and off.

"What the bloody hell is that?!" Captain Schneider yelled, quickly pointing her weapon at the heap, her two subordinates quickly following suit "Find what we came for now!"

Hey Laurel, guess who just showed up? :smallwink:

There's a computer terminal embedded in the left wall, it's covered in the fungus of course but with the power back up you can just about see the light from its screen underneath.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Well, since they had arrived, Laurel was spared having to explain what was so weird about the mound and simply sent, ~...That.~

She stepped out from her hiding place, moving into their fields of vision before making any noise. No sense getting herself shot by startling them.

[Anyr]

Ky entered the room with a fair amount of confidence. Laurel had already scouted the path ahead. The telepathic link between them really helped to assuage his fear of the unknown. When he entered, the pillar immediately drew his gaze. Yep, Laurel was right. The weirdness level had definitely increased; By about 1.5 DecaLoons, at a rough guess. While the soldiers panicked, Ky wandered over to the pillar. Being forewarned let him act with some composure for once. While walking, he pointed Captain Schneider in the direction of her goal.

"There's a t-terminal on the left wall. There, beneath the fungus."

Then, while she and her subordinates were distracted, he took the opportunity to scan this new oddity. Its morbid christmas tree ornaments particularly caught his attention.

[The translation devices are flashing. Does that mean that s-something is still 'speaking' through them?]

Scan: Awareness+Medicine+2

Edit: Whoops. I'll roll in the OOC thread.

[Dodgeson]

"Finally some good news, if there are any survivors here we should know in a minute." Captain Schneider said, approaching the wall where Ky had indicated and starting to scrape away the fungus with a knife whilst Smith and Jalco continued to keep their weapons trained on the mound of fungus in the centre of the room.

Meanwhile Ky's scan of the pillar would confirm his suspicions, like the scan he had taken when they entered the airport it was made of a mix of Human, Ood and fungus and just like the flashing translator orbs indicated it was in possession of its own telepathic field (wildly veering between Basic 50-75) and trying to communicate, though it lacked any obvious kind of mouth as far as he could tell.

Back at the computer terminal the machine had finally accepted Captain Schneider's credentials and run a scan of the airport for recognised life signs (the computer didn't count non-humans as 'proper' lifeforms) it quickly came up with a map of the airport and four blinking red dots. "There are five people in this room. Anybody want to tell me why the scan only shows four?" She said and whilst the question was obviously directed to the room at large she very pointedly looked to Laurel, it hadn't even occurred to her that it could be Ky.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel assumed Ky's telepathic question had been either rhetorical or an expression of curiosity, because that was definitely not her bailiwick.

Dealing with Captain Schneider's suspicions? Much more her speed.

There was a part of her that wanted to try an affronted, "What, aliens don't count as people!?" possibly leading into a full shaming rant or possibly a The Reason You Suck Speech. However, given what she knew of the Empire, she had a suspicion the response would involve less stammering apologies and awkwardly trying to change the subject, and more a flat "No" and a hail of bullets.

So she went with what had worked on Captain Schneider in the past: talking herself up to be way bigger than she actually was.

She gave the captain a flat look that was less annoyance and more disbelief that she even felt it necessary to ask the question. The answer she gave was spoken with such chill authority, such a complete shift from her normal friendly, cheerful, kind-hearted demeanor, that there could be no question that the latter was nothing more than a mask. "Captain...I am telekinetic, telepathic, and you just watched me sneak my way through a monster-infested airport with neither a weapon nor a problem. Knowing all that, which do you think is less likely? That the Empire would want someone like me to show up to life detection scans, or that it would want someone like you to inquire further on this matter?" And yet...there was a hint, just the barest hint, of a wince in her eyes when she said the words "someone like me". It was a very telling wince, coming from someone with the personal discipline and emotional control she had displayed. A wince that suggested something truly horrific had happened to make a "person like her".

That seemed like it would be about the Empire's style.

Spending a Story Point for +2d6, because convincing her to drop the matter would be good, but convincing her that Laurel is in fact some super-secret elite agent of the Empire who she doesn't have the clearance to ask the time of day would be better :smallbiggrin:.

Presence+Convince: [roll0].

[Anyr]

Laurel made a much better alien than Ky. That fact actually depressed him a bit. He had no desire to draw Captain Schneider's xenophobic gaze. But at the same time, it was humiliating to not even be a suspect. Nobody ever considered that the nervous, stuttering kid might be someone special. Obviously (they thought), the real alien had to be that cool, mysterious psychic woman! Ah well. He'd just have to content himself with the hand that life had dealt him.

While Ky's 'boss' kept the soldiers occupied, he'd continue his unremarkable, nerdy background work. He was fairly sure that the fungus was trying to tell him something. Unfortunately, its main method of greeting consisted of summoning ravenous monsters. Maybe he could suggest a better way. But what? At least a few of the humans must have attempted verbal communication. And Laurel's telepathic contact had ended badl-Wait. Why had it ended badly? This fungus was clearly telepathic too. Could the problem be a signal overload? Too much information being beamed into one head all at once. What if there could be an intermediary between the two participants? Like a kind of signal buffer/surge protector. Well, it was worth a try. Ky reached out for one of the translation orbs. He'd tentatively open it, to reveal its inner workings. These things were designed to interface with a telepathic brain. Maybe he could connect it with two telepathic brains at once...

Ky is basically trying to use the sphere as a psychic telephone, between him and the fungus. I'm not sure what roll that'd require (assuming it's possible at all, of course).

[Dodgeson]

Not for the first time since they'd met, Captain Schneider just sort of looked at Laurel, but this time she understood (or at least she thought she did), everything made sense now. How she appeared out of nowhere, her powers, her assistant, she was an advance agent of the Empire sent to assess the situation! As part of a hierarchy that she now believed Laurel sat at the apex of there was only really reply the Captain could give.

"No Ma'am!" She said as she gave Laurel a crisp salute, her (Laurel's?) subordinates quickly following suit.

As Ky tried to reach out through the translator orbs, the first one shattered and the next one and the one after that but as the next one held he would see why Laurel had had trouble, the mind he was reaching out to was immense in size with thoughts to match that ground along like mountain ranges, without some kind of buffer like the orb was providing it would be like trying to catch Niagara Falls in a china cup.

Being contacted like this however wasn't something that the entity had experienced before and it quickly zeroed in on the young Time Lord, eying him like he'd just fallen in to the predators den.

[Anyr]

Success! Ky had the fungus' full attention. The bad news, though, was that he had the fungus' full attention. Such a vast, overwhelming mind! Ky felt as if he were in the shadow of a colossus. He almost severed the telepathic connection out of fear. But that wouldn't have made him safer. He was already in this entity's lair. Its avatars were already trying to kill him. By standing his ground here, maybe he could at least find out why it was trying to kill him. His telepathic voice tentatively called out to whatever was now listening.

[H-Hello. My name is Ky. Do n-names mean anything to you? Never mind; Not important. Erm, w-what...what do you want? Why have you c-come here?]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel managed to resist the urge to blink, but only just. She had been expecting to make Schneider just uncertain enough to defer suspicion. But this worked too! She momentarily debated returning the salutes, but decided that did not seem like the Empire's style. Granted, her experience with evil intergalactic empires was limited, but it was like...look, did Darth Vader ever return the salutes of the stormtroopers? I think not. "Alright then. Now, what about the rest of the facility?"

She kept an uncertain eye on Ky. Clearly he was doing...something. But she sure couldn't tell what.

[Dodgeson]

The entity that Ky's mind now stood in the shadow didn't respond with words, why would it? In their place, thoughts and images and ideas crashed against the young Time Lord in waves but he did have an ace in his pocket, his link to his TARDIS. Still sitting in a crater somewhere else on the planet its Telepathic Circuit did its best to translate it all in to something that he could understand, even if it still left a few gaps.

~[I/My children] will [consume/become] this world~

"Ours are the only life signs on the base Ma'am." Captain Schneider reported, busily tapping away at the video screen "But according to these logs Project Boiler plate was being completed in an engineering hangar out by Launch Silo 3."

[Anyr]

Another of Ky's slim hopes vanished. Until now, he'd held out for the possibility that, somehow, this invasion was a misunderstanding. Maybe the humans had done something to offend the fungus; Or maybe it had gotten lost on its way somewhere else. But these latest words removed all doubt. The enemy really was as hostile as it seemed. Ky made one last attempt at diplomacy; Futile as it almost certainly would be.

[What about t-the millions of lifeforms on this planet? They think, f-feel and strive. Do their lives mean nothing to you?]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel nodded. Launch Silo 3. Sounded like their next move. For the moment, while she waited for Ky to finish...whatever he was doing, she checked out the map, trying to find Launch Silo 3 on it and figure out some routes to it. Including secondary paths in case the easiest ones were guarded or otherwise blocked.

[Dodgeson]

According to the map the simplest way to get to Launch Silo 3 would be to just head back the way they came, once they were back in the airport proper there were any number of ways to make their way outside and towards the shelter. They could leave the way they came in and then walk around the outside of the building until they reached the Silo or they could head towards the departure lounge and exit that way. If neither of those seemed reasonable the map also showed a series of tunnels underneath the airport itself connecting the main building to the launch silos to allow for the movement of cargo on to the rockets.

~They will become one [in/with] Me~

"Um...Ma'am?" Private Smith asked Laurel, gesturing towards Ky with the tip of his rifle.

"Trigger discipline Private!" Captain Schneider barked, if her subordinates looked bad in front of Laurel then it made her look bad.

"Sorry!" He quickly moved his rifle, holding it at attention. "But what is he doing...um...Ma'am?"

[Anyr]

Well, there seemed little point in continuing the conversation. Speaking with a vast organism like this had been an interesting experience; But not a productive one. Ky left the entity with a few parting words.

[For the record, I and m-my associate do not wish to be part of you. It's n-nothing personal. We're j-just content with our current state.]

Then he severed the link. Ky winced as the room around him momentarily blurred. His senses protested the strain to which he'd subjected them. Somewhat unsteadily, he pulled himself back upright. When he spoke, it was with the inflection of a maintenance technician who'd just finished some routine task.

"All right, I'm d-done. Apologies for the delay."

Laurel alone received an actual explanation of his actions.

[I've just had a ch-chat with our oozing invader. I'm afraid a d-diplomatic solution seems very unlikely. Though sentient, it sees no moral issue with absorbing this whole p-planet. If we want to s-save these people's lives, we may be forced to end the life of this creature.]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Although Laurel herself didn't use guns, she had still gone through Torchwood's basic safety training. She restrained herself from Gibbs-slipping the back of Smith's head, but it took a non-trivial exertion of willpower.

"He's examining it," Laurel answered, in a tone that said this much should be obvious and as such no further information would be forthcoming.

~I see...~ Laurel sent back to Ky, a grim note in her telepathic voice. This creature was some sort of evil telepathic moss. It sought to spread and consume this entire world, and everyone on it. It somehow was creating those horrible zombie creatures, likely by transforming those it affected into them in some sort of horrific process she did not want to understand. Given how it had arrived here, it was probable that other worlds would be next. It was probable that this one was not the first. It was an existential threat to entire species.

...And it was still a sapient being. And that meant killing it was an absolute last resort.

~...But it still values its own existence, right? If we can come up with a demonstrable means to kill it, perhaps then we can convince it to abandon its goal without having to actually use it?~ Laurel's moral code did allow, in the final extremity, the ending of one life to save others. But not unless all other avenues had been either exhausted, or had become impossible to attempt due to constraints of immediacy.

"Alright. I think we're done in here. Launch Silo 3?"

[Dodgeson]

"Yes Ma'am!" The three soldiers chorused.

"I'll take point, you two cover our flanks." Captain Schneider instructed her subordinates before she turned to Laurel, ever eager to try and ingratiate herself with her superior "Standard triangle formation Ma'am?" she asked the former Torchwood agent, gesturing for the girl and her companion to take up a position in the center of their formation.

Assuming that Laurel and Ky followed suit, they certainly wouldn't argue if Laurel gave them alternate marching orders, the soldiers would take up their position and head up the stairs. Whilst in hostile territory it was standard procedure to check a door before opening it but this time that wasn't really necessary, at the top of the stairs they'd came down the door was obviously shaking with the sheer weight of bodies behind it, a consent scraping noise coming from behind at as the fungal zombies clawed at it from the other side with near mindless determination.
And you thought only one of them was a deathtrap >=D
"Orders Ma'am?" Captain Schneider asked Laurel, flicking the safety off of her gun and pointing it towards the door, her two subordinates following suite.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Take aim but hold fire. There might be a safer way out of this than through an unknown horde of those things."

On the one hand, this was a pretty ideal situation to fight from. The enemy was coming from one direction through a narrow approach, and they had three weapons with automatic fire. They could wait at the bottom of the stairs, and she could open the door telekinetically. The monsters would only be able to come through a couple at a time, and crowding and the uneven terrain presented by the stairs would slow them. She could impede them telekinetically, maybe even use the fallen bodies to further obstruct the rest. With a setup like that...anything could happen in a combat situation, but all things considered, it would give them as good odds as one could reasonably expect of being able to clear out as many of the things as they had bullets to put down. It was not a bad option.

Except it meant slaughtering them. They had been basically subsumed into a hive mind...even if the hive itself was sapient, these things...weren't, individually. Probably. If the only way to keep everyone alive was over these things' dead bodies...Laurel could accept the necessity of that choice.

But she would not default to it.

Option two was head for the tunnels. The tunnels...did not seem like a place they wanted to be. Their danger was unknown, but very probable. Worse, if these things got through the door, they'd be behind them. That could very easily be a death trap.

~If we make our stand here, the danger's certain, but we're in about as good a position to deal with it as we're likely to get. If we head to the tunnels...I don't know, it might be clear enough, but it seems like a huge risk. I'm...I'm thinking we might have to try and fight through,~ there was honestly more pain in her telepathic voice than fear as she said that. ~But...there might be one other option. You were able to connect with it through those orb things. They're technological...would it maybe...somehow be possible to like connect those to the life form scanner, and then spoof that to make it seem like there's a big force approaching from the other side of the airport? If they're all connected in a hive mind...maybe that would trick them into committing their forces that way, and then we could use the distraction to slip around?~

When in doubt, ask the Time Lord to do something crazy! That's...that's how Doctor Who works, right? :smallbiggrin:

[Anyr]

Ky's reply carried a lot of hesitation. Laurel had thought up an interesting idea: Albeit a necessarily vague one, given her primitive technical background. At her prompting, his mind started filling in the specifics needed to translate dream into reality. He warily eyed the door from which horrors threatened to pour. This would have to be done quickly. And that wasn't the only potential pitfall.

[...I...s-suppose that could work. But I can't just connect the scanner t-to the orb directly. I'd need to telepathically b-bridge them with my own mind. And if the entity sees through my trick, it could take m-malicious advantage of the connection. When I s-spoke to it just now, it was surprised and curious. It'll be much more prepared n-next time.]

Ky paused to let the implications of that sink in. He suppressed the fear building within him. To get out of this alive, the two of them would both need to take risks. Laurel's plan had potential. He just wanted her to understand what she was asking him to do.

kill me outright. B-But it can probably do some real damage.

...So, s-should I go ahead?]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel wasn't a leader. She'd...never really borne responsibility for anyone but herself. Even in her short time doing fieldwork in Torchwood, she mainly carried out individual missions, or if there were others involved, they were more experienced agents and calling the shots.

And here, she had somehow put herself in a position where people were looking to her for direction. It was one thing when she was able to just offer ideas, make sound strategic suggestions.

It was...honestly kind of another to tell Ky - who, as smart as he was, was still a noncombatant - to take a personal risk for an uncertain gain. And while the alternative certainly carried risks of its own, she did nonetheless feel fairly confident in their ability to handle them. Her primary motivation for avoiding the fight was still more the preservation of the aliens lives than fear for their own.

Did these hive-minded creatures who in all likelihood lacked wills and personalities of their own really so deserve her mercy that it was worth asking Ky to take a personal risk for it?

...She didn't know. But if this time period had taught her anything, it was that it was far too easy for humanity to write off other forms of life as mere monsters. Someone had to be better than that.

~Do it,~ she said, not letting her doubt into her voice. Letting him know she was anything less than certain would help him none. ~If there's anything I can do to assist, tell me. Otherwise, I'll hold here to make sure they don't interrupt you.~

~You've got this.~

[Dodgeson]

It shouldn't have really been possible, the translator orbs and the scanners might have been advanced from Laurel's 21st Century perspective but as far as Ky was concerned he might as well have been trying to distract the fungus creatures with a toaster and some string. Still, despite how hard he was on himself, he was still a Time Lord and when had they let a little thing like impossibility ever stop them?

Ky worked to breach the gap between the two devices even as the creatures continued to hammer away at the door, Captain Schneider and her cohorts standing at the base of the stairs with their guns pointing upwards, fingers hovering over the triggers.

Reaching out with his mind to bridge the gap between the machines the translator orbs lit up and the scanners screen became covered in glowing red dots, each one a fake life sign being fed in to the enormous intelligence hanging menacingly above the planet and slowly the hammering on the door began to taper off as the hive mind perceived richer feeding grounds elsewhere in the airport.

"Orders Ma'am?" Schneider asked, lowering her weapon and turning away from the door.

[Anyr]

For Ky, the scanner was just a starting point. Its dots and maps alone could never fool anyone. They only provided context to the device actually performing the deception: His mind. Ky was the one who took that raw data, and gave it flesh. He painstakingly detailed each aspect of the false crowd: From the sound of their footfalls, to the smell of their sweat. Each of those dots became a living, breathing person.

Apparently his theatrical efforts were up to scratch. The ravenous horde outside the door gradually left, to chase the phantoms he'd made. Ky felt a little guilty about that. The entity wasn't used to being fed false telepathic information. That's why this trick had even a chance of working. Taking advantage of its naïvety would make diplomacy even less likely in future.

[That won't w-work a second time. We need to make the most of this.]

[Quellian-dyrae]

I'm envisioning that the stairs are kinda down the hall or something from the control room, and Ky went back into the control room to do this. Correct me if I'm wrong and I'll retcon as needed.

"Hold here a moment, keep an eye on the door. Let's make sure they're far enough away that they won't hear us when we move. I'm going to check on our specialist, make sure we're good to go," Laurel said.

She slipped back into the control room, took a quick check to make sure she wasn't in sight of the soldiers...and then dropped for a moment the mantle of the badass super-spy and threw a big hug around Ky's shoulders. ~You are awesome!~ she told him, her relief and sincere amazement more than clear in her telepathic voice.

But they didn't have time to dawdle, so she released him after just a second or two, gave him a bright smile and a clap on the arm, and went back to the soldiers. Once they were all regrouped, she took a silent breath and said, "Alright, let's move. Same as before, I'll scout ahead."

She didn't take the lead immediately though, opening the door telekinetically from the bottom of the stairs and waiting a few seconds. As long as no monsters came at them, she'd advance, quick and quiet, leading the way towards Launch Silo 3, with the aim to go around the building by the opposite route that Ky had sent the creatures off in.

[Dodgeson]

With the horde of fungal zombies currently shambling in the opposite direction in pursuit of the phantasmal horde that Ky had generated the group wouldn't have much trouble making their way outside of the main building and towards Launch Silo 3. It didn't look too impressive from the outside, a small squat building next to a large metal cap, though Ky would know that it stretched much further underground to the bottom of the silo.

Whilst the building was in lock down, as the highest ranking representative of the Empire still on the plant (except for Laurel of course :smallwink:) the door quickly slid open after Captain Schneider punched a series of digits in to the keypad next to it. Inside they were greeted by a small reception area, there were a few chairs, a desk with a computer monitor on top of it and a strange looking potted plant that was obviously artificial. All in all it would have been almost completely unremarkable if not for the window at the back of the room that allowed passengers to see the adjacent launch silo.

The whole of the silo had been over come by the same fungal growths as the rest of the airport and even more of the eyeless zombie creatures shambled along the walkways and gantries that surrounded the waiting rocket.

[Quellian-dyrae]

That...that was less than ideal.

Rather a lot less, actually...

~It had sounded like your plan was to transport the weapon directly. Is there simply a warhead that needs to be retrieved, or did you plan on transporting the entire rocket somehow? Or is the intention to launch it from here?~ Laurel sent to...well, the whole group, really, but mainly Schneider, communicating telepathically so as not to make noise. It...might have seemed like a bit of a strange question, considering it was about the logistics of transporting the giant rocket which seemed like a strictly secondary concern to the giant horde of alien monsters standing between them and the aforementioned giant rocket. But then again this was Laurel and well as far as Schneider and her team knew Laurel had never showed much more than perfunctory concern over the aliens.

Then, just to Ky, she sent, ~That...chip we're looking for. Might it hypothetically speaking be found in a place like this? And if so where might it be and how would one identify it?~ Ky by this point may have recognized this particular tone in Laurel's voice. It was a tone that, historically speaking anyway, seemed to roughly translate to "I am working on a plan, I need more information to actually do so, but you may rest assured that whatever it is you will probably hate it most thoroughly."

[Anyr]

Ky's efforts were rewarded by a surprisingly cheery Laurel. He suddenly found himself wrapped in her arms, being showered with praise. The experience was like a warming ray on sunlight, finding its way to you on a cloudy day. Ky liked hugs. But since the Time Lords were, on the whole, a very unhuggy race, he hadn't received many. Besides, it was nice to know that someone appreciated him. His depressed expression was briefly displaced by a sincere smile.

Then the clouds rolled in again. No hug could dispel reality for long. The group was still deep in enemy territory. Ky followed them along their newly cleared route. No doubt the next obstacle would present itself soon. Ky only had to wait a little while before...yep. Silo full of fungus. While he surveyed the horde with mounting gloom, Laurel was doing her thing: Finding a way out of this mess. As usual, he answered her questions as best he could.

[I'm afraid it'd be inside t-the rocket. Probably on the f-flight deck.]

[Dodgeson]

It took Schneider a few moments to formulate her reply mainly because she was unfamiliar with telepathy, she'd heard of it for sure but to experience it first hand was something else or together.

<The Redoubt's a class 3 transporter> She thought to the group at large, gesturing through the window to the rocket surrounded by on all sides by the pale shambling creatures <The plan was to pilot it on to the Object along with Project Boilerplate and detonate it at some kind of fault line or sensitive point. If they'd managed to locate one before the creatures got them, it wasn't on the file>

[Quellian-dyrae]

~Is Project Boilerplate itself small enough that we might be able to carry it, it we were to remove it from the rocket? If we can find the chip we're looking for to repair our ship, we can use it for transport.~ Of course, Schneider and her soldiers wouldn't be able to be a part of that mission, but they didn't have to know that right now. She deliberated on adding that their ship had scanners which might enable them to find such a fault, but elected not to. Ky had stressed the importance of these people not getting access to his ship enough that Laurel was quite certain that the less they knew about the TARDIS the better.

~My thought is, if possible, it would be a lot easier for me to sneak to the rocket, retrieve Project Boilerplate and search for the chip we need, and then we get out, than for all of us to try to sneak aboard - or fight our way through that much opposition - and fly it out.~

Not that I probably won't need them if I actually go through with that plan, but for the record, I am willing to spend a Story Point to make the answer to that question yes, if plausible.

[Dodgeson]

<It was designed to be man-portable> Schneider confirmed over the telepathic link. It made sense after all, nobody really knew what the surface of the Object was going to be like or how far the landing team might have to travel to find a suitable detonation spot. <We can keep this area secure until you get back.>

Both Private Jalco and Smith suddenly looked very relieved, looking through the observation window and in to the silo itself they were more than happy to play glorified security whilst Laurel braved the zombie infested walkways.

[Quellian-dyrae]

~Alright then,~ Laurel said, taking a steadying breath. And then a couple more. Her heart was beating hard and that would get her killed.

Come on. This'll be easy! They don't even have eyes! she told herself.

Laurel wasn't entirely sure she was convinced, but at least her heart quieted down.

~Wish me luck!~ she sent cheerily, and then narrowed her eyes in concentration.

And began floating.

Only an inch or two off the ground, granted. Laurel's body weight was well within the limits of her telekinesis, but there were plenty of people who were physically strong enough to carry their own body weight, some even comfortably. That didn't mean they could actually lift themselves off the ground. While telekinesis did let you cheat some, you still had to be able to...not just visualize, but conceptualize what you were doing with it, and lifting yourself into the air, however strong you were, was simply foreign to human experience. So while floating her own weight just a couple inches off the ground was not a particularly significant exertion of telekinetic power for Laurel, it was an impressive feat of telekinetic control.

To be fair, it also looked pretty darn cool. Laurel swept towards the door without taking a step, simply willing herself forward. And then, breathing as shallowly and quietly as she could through her nose, she made her way towards the rocket, casing warily about to catch any indication that the aliens might have noticed something.

Alright, Extra Effort to Power Stunt Story Point to telekinetically float. And a second one to boost my check because I'm pretty sure I don't want to fail here :smalltongue:.

Resolve+Subterfuge: [roll0]. ...Three ones and a two? Three ones and a TWO!? Are you SERIOUS, dice!?

[Anyr]

[G-Good luck!]

Once again, Ky had been left behind. Not that he wanted to sneak past a horde of monsters, of course. But watching Laurel leave alone was taxing too. She was the operative here. Ky was just mission control. Once she'd daringly infiltrated the ship, he'd guide her to the right technical widget. It hardly seemed fair.

Intellectually, he knew that his guilt was irrational. He and Laurel were a team. Each of them handled things that the other couldn't. As his teachers used to say, everyone has their own place in the grand scheme of things. Though Ky doubted that they'd meant to prepare him for this particular situation...

[Dodgeson]

As Laurel rose off the ground Smith and Jalco couldn't help but stare and who could blame them? Levitation required immense control and force of will on behalf of the psychic, even for powerful psychic races like the Time Lords it was no mean feat. Hovering inches above the metal walkways rather than noisily walking across them Laurel was able to reach the Redoubt's boarding hatch without alerting any of the shambling fungal creatures.

Until the hatch hissed open when the ship detected her presence and every single one of zombies turns its head in her direction. Watching Laurel's progress from the viewing window Captain Schneider instinctively looked to Ky for some kind of reaction. With the Empire's secret weapon in danger surely command shifted to her companion right?

((On the plus side you do get that last story point back))

[Anyr]

Laurel had been doing so well. Ky watched her glide silently across the room. She cut quite an impressive figure. Unfortunately, the entrance hatch was much more blatant. Its inelegant movements showed no appreciation for Laurel's efforts. Typical.

The watching Time Lord turned frantically, to ask about the next move. Only to realise that everyone was looking at him. Oh, right. He was the next in line now. He was the one who had to act. Okay, okay; No problem. He could do this. Noisy technology had gotten Laurel into this mess. Noisy technology could get her out of it. Ky rushed over to one of the computer terminals. He hastily searched the system for distracting devices to activate: Vents, alarms, cleaning robots, etc. He'd then attempt to turn the hangar into a cacophony of confusion for the creatures. The sudden barrage of sound and movement from other directions might be enough to divert them from the one that actually mattered.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel clenched her teeth in frustration as the hatch noisily opened, but she kept her cool. The natural response was to flee immediately, try and escape before the monsters could swarm her. It was also the response that would get her killed. She had was too much distance to cross to get to safety going backward, and way too many hostiles in the way. So Laurel kept moving forward, not even slowing down, floating straight through the opened hatch. Worst case, that at least gave her a choke point to defend. A choke point that could only be reached by crossing a narrow walkway was a solid defensive position for anyone, but it offered a whole new level of tactical advantage when you were telekinetic.

~Okay, what am I looking for?~ she sent to Ky and Schneider. Her mental voice had the sort of firm, decisive calm of a surgeon in an operating room. She had Torchwood training to thank for that; right now her body's natural panic response would get her killed, so she used the techniques Psi-Ops had taught her. Don't think about the threat to yourself. Focus on the mission. See everything as just a complication to overcome. Don't react off the top of your head; distance yourself from the situation, assess it like it were happening to someone else, find the most efficient means of making progress, execute.

It didn't come naturally, but once you had practiced it, it was a very effective procedure for keeping a cool head under pressure.

...Although thinking about it in retrospect, Laurel wasn't entirely sure that had actually been the primary purpose of the training.

[Dodgeson]

For someone of Ky's brains it was easy enough to use the access to the facility the terminal granted him to send everything around the rocket absolutely gonzo. Warning sirens blared and automatic doors slammed open and shut at random whilst the silos various cooling systems all vented themselves at the same time(there were no cleaning robots of course, that's what Ood are for), causing enough of a racket that a single door sliding open paled in comparison.

Clamping their maws around flashing lights and striking at doors the creatures would be kept busy long enough for Laurel to slip inside the Redoubt where she would be confronted with a convenient map of the ship showing her that she was currently in the boarding area of the ship with the bridge several floors above her and the hold down below.

<Project Boilerplate should be secured somewhere in the hold> Captain Schneider thought back at Laurel.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel gave a little grin as the cacophony started up. She just hoped Ky hadn't taken any risks to do it (she knew it was Ky because the cacophony was a bunch of random machines and not a hail of bullets). ~Thanks,~ she sent to him as she made her way up to the flight deck. ~What does this chip look like? And any suggestions as to what sort of machine or whatever it might be in?~

When she reached the flight deck (assuming she didn't have any problems getting there), she'd send him some descriptions of what she was seeing in hopes that would help him provide her more guidance.

[Anyr]

Success! Now Laurel could hopefully complete her task in peace. Of course, Ky still had a role to play as well. He now had to guide his teammate to the chip she sought.

[Look for a machine p-plated with kendrium or vaskrium...No, wait. You don't know what those are. Erm, its level on the Gareline universal technology scale should be 4? No no, that's no good either. J-Just give me a second to think of an appropriate w-way to describe it...]

Ky struggled to translate his advanced knowledge into terms that Laurel could understand. The issue here wasn't one of intelligence. Laurel had plenty of brainpower. She was just...primitive. The era of her birth lagged far behind this one. After some brief hesitation, Ky started guiding her again: This time using terms like 'big', 'round', and 'in front'. He hoped that Laurel wouldn't be offended. He actually had a lot of respect for her mind.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Okay checked with Dodgeson and he said a check won't be needed so:

"Big" and "round" and "in front" were aces for Laurel, especially given the alternative (she was happy she was inside the rocket communicating telepathically so he didn't see how big the jargon he had been using at first made her eyes bug out). With a bit of hunting around and a couple clarifying questions, Laurel soon had her hands on a beryllium chip. ~Okay!
Got it!~ Laurel said, a bit excitedly. For pretty much the first time since they had crashed, things were starting to look up.

She carefully pocketed the chip, and headed back down, this time into the hold. Assuming nothing prevented her from getting there or, like, demanded her attention when she arrived, she'd first case around briefly, kinda expecting that Project Boilerplate would probably be fairly obvious. She could get details from Schneider if not.

[Dodgeson]

The Redoubt was surprisingly free of hostile zombies (the doors wouldn't open for them, it didn't consider them 'people' after all) which meant that Laurel would be able to make her way down to the hold easily where she would find an orange crate about the size of a large suitcase which Captain Schneider would be able to tell her was in fact Project Boilerplate.

~Be careful~ She thought to Laurel whilst her subordinates kept watch at the entrance to the silo ~It might not look like much but it's supposed to have enough firepower to kill the Object~

Of course now that Laurel had the device the tricky part was going to be getting out with it...

[Quellian-dyrae]

Laurel gingerly picked up the case, keeping a tight hold on it as she went back up.

The hatch was closed.

Lovely.

~The hatch closed back up. I'm going to need another distraction so they don't swarm me as soon as I open it,~ she sent. ~Tell me when it's safe to move.~

The closed door. Bane of stealthy characters everywhere. It does not matter what game you're playing.

[Anyr]

Ky checked the hangar bay again. Despite his best efforts, a few stubborn creatures continued to loiter. He'd need a more personal touch to distract them: Guided precision, instead of random mayhem. Perhaps...there! Those cranes would do nicely. With a few rapid inputs, he began manoeuvring the tall arms into position.

[W-Working on it. Just give me a minute...]

I'll spend a story point to use the cranes.

Ingenuity + Technology: [roll0]

Edit: If this is a failure, I'll spend another Story Point to boost it.