rolled 5, 17, 17, 6, 13, 20, 11, 14, 4, 9, 5, 1, 8, 20, 18, 5, 7, 9, 17, 8 = 214

---

Reiko runs through each automated calculation to pick out a 'least-ish bad' firing option, opting for a strategy that causes considerable extra debris but at slow velocities, seeing as the asteroid field is meant to act as a border wall rather than a detriment to trade.

Reiko takes a few moments to breathe, get used to connecting to the weapons systems, and triple-confirm the targeting solution. She fires at the asteroid in their way.

rolled 14, 20, 7, 6, 2, 13, 6, 16, 6, 18, 10, 14, 9, 13, 1, 18, 18, 4, 19, 3 = 217

---

>>1127124
>She does however manage to drive to where Paprika is the old fashioned way, rig up a crude vacuum-driven fog machine out of a water barrel and a teakettle, leave it in the chamber's airlock, then manipulate airlock controls (from outside) into boiling the water, thereby eventually capturing most of the smoke in water droplets.
Paprika sits and enjoys the sounds and smells of Reiko's improvised humidifier while she waits for the air to clear. "Reiko, thank you so much for coming to my rescue. You're wonderful, you know."

>might even be another chamber beneath that pile of rubble where the strut ooze used to be.
>Keep digging, or depart?

Paprika's eager to keep digging, but...

>>1127125
>After contemplation, Reiko tells Paprika that they should leave for now.
"Ok. I guess we can come back later?"

>>1127344
>>1127336
>"I don't think we can in good conscience leave someone to die in an airless void simply because it would be safer or easier. I say we make the attempt."
"I'm with Nat. We have to try at least."

>"Okay, here's a list of stuff we need done! Pick one and work on it! Tap the list to get instructions!"
Little disoriented by all the commotion and talk of routes and trajectories, but Paprika tries to help out however she can.

>>1127502
>Natalina is laughing and cannot figure out how to stop.
"Nat, what's wrong?" Paprika gently holds Nat and tries to calm her down. "Hey, you're okay. I'm here. I don't understand..."

rolled 10, 1, 16, 13, 1, 9, 8, 9, 6, 8, 3, 20, 20, 1, 18, 6, 8, 15, 11, 11 = 194

---

>>1127502
>Natalina is laughing and cannot figure out how to stop.

>>1127692
>"Nat, what's wrong?" Paprika gently holds Nat and tries to calm her down. "Hey, you're okay. I'm here. I don't understand..."
An ever-repeating chain of broken porcelain promises; her own foolish reflection of that tragedy.

Natalina, currently unable to speak effectively, in an attempt to answer Paprika's question, gestures helplessly at the display with the "disaster relief" results, mimes using a needle, and then indicates herself. ("What's wrong? That horror over there, and how it's similar to the deal I struck in the City of Needles").

...hopefully this episode passes, she doesn't want to have to communicate entirely with charades. She'll answer better later. The hysterical laugher at least gets quieter as she presses into Paprika's embrace.

>>1127793
>gestures helplessly at the display with the "disaster relief" results, mimes using a needle, and then indicates herself.
Paprika's gaze follows Nat's fingers to the display, and her eyes light up with comprehension. "Whoa, freaky!"

>>1127686
>triple-confirm the targeting solution
>specialized in raider tactics
>rolled 5, 17, 17
Two of three match exactly, but that first one was way off. Probably a loose wire somewhere in the starboard sensor tusk, shaken loose by mix of vibration and thermal expansion during aerobraking. Greedy packet-routing algorithm (missing its original higher-level supervision) stochastically amplifies the intermittent contact, resulting pattern of semi-persistent nanosecond delays creates a 180-degree phase rotation in the VLF active scan while millimeter-wave lines up almost normally, then a later filtering step's edge recognition rounds off the wrong way, converting it into sporadic depth-of-field errors.

Paprika volunteers to run down there, find and reconnect the loose wire, which should solve that problem or at least stabilize it for the time being. Even before she's done, two exact matches should be good enough for targeting.

>opting for a strategy that causes considerable extra debris
>rolled 6, 13
Plan is an initial minimal-duration, max-intensity pulse, targeting the side of the asteroid which faces away from Branu's Kiss. Ejecta from that should mostly either end up far above the drift cluster's overall escape velocity, or be flaked-off surface layers which end up landing back on the asteroid itself. That initial "kick" simultaneously puts the asteroid on a vector closer to where you need it, serves as a sonar pulse which lets you confirm its internal density, and serves as a calibration test for the main gun's control surfaces, minimizing EM field turbulence during the second burn - which will require considerably more ongoing precision.

>>1127669
>Obstacle Running
>Fleet Of Foot
>Flex Skill: Firefighting
>Initiative
>Intellect Edge 3, so first level of Effort is effectively free
>rolled 9, 10, 6
When the time for that second shot rolls around, nothing inside the main gun's control systems is still on fire...
>Trained in Understanding Numenera
>rolled 16
...or damaged in any really serious way by sudden immersion in water...
>Trained in Clock Un-Making
>rolled 19
...nor even out of position by enough to disrupt overall calibration.

Was a bit of a near thing, though. Three uses of Obstacle Running with only Speed Edge 1 means Cricket's speed pool is down to 11/17.

Damage control across a more-than-70-meter-long machinery space would be a LOT easier if you had a team of at least five or six available to focus on it, and extinguishers that spray some kind of nonconductive foam. Could probably throw sixty people at the problem before they'd start getting in each others' way, assuming they all knew what they were doing.

>>1127686
>but at slow velocities
>rolled 20
Spectral analysis from that first shot shows interior as iron, nickel, and chromium in a roughly 15:3:2 ratio. Should have a notably lower melting point than chrome-free meteoric iron, which is good news for this next step: just before closest approach to the asteroid, a series of rapid pulses timed for cavitation drilling, transitioning to a continuous beam with wattage carefully managed to keep the reciprocal stream of white-hot metal within a narrow range of temperatures. A small portion of that spray is scooped up by the nightcraft's cargo hold, while the (now slightly more nickel-rich) remainder gets re-collimated by magnetohydrodynamic fringe effects of the tachyon halo, and - thanks to the fact those temperatures correspond to exhaust velocities almost exactly twice that of the asteroid's current orbital velocity relative to Branu's Kiss, but pointed in the opposite direction - should end up in something very close to a stable retrograde orbit. Even if all that scrap iron does eventually impact the membrane, it'll be coming in at a very shallow angle, scattered into pea-sized spherical pellets if it isn't still liquid, and in either case distributed over a wide area, thereby hopefully minimizing puncture risk.

Nightcraft and nameless asteroid spend about twenty minutes side-by-side, locked together by esoteric forces in dynamic tension. From outside, it probably looks like you're abseiling down a rope of braided lightning.

Approaching the destination, beam cuts off exactly on time, asteroid starts to glide away even before the maneuvering coils "kick," but, of course, a million tons (maybe closer to 950,000 once you're done with it) of metal doesn't just cool back down instantly. As the Nightcraft rotates gracefully around its long axis, a three-fingered hand flipping from palm-up to palm-down, leftover liquid steel burbles out behind it, splashing across the more heavily armored side of the hull, like the dregs from a tectonic titan's teakettle, or ink dripping from a torn wineskin to outline handprints on a cavern wall. However, in this case that silhouette is wider than the average frontier homestead, farm-fields and all, while a surrounding ferrous puddle spreads all the way to this tiny droplet-world's horizon - though geometrically speaking, that horizon isn't particularly far away now that you've landed.

At the spot Branu indicated, just inside the mebrane, you find a small group of humanoids - one of them, the apparent leader, nearly four meters tall - being encircled by...
>rolled 5
>rolled 11
...well, Reiko and Cricket aren't exactly sure what, but they look a little bit like giant eels made of smoke, and definitely move like pack-hunting predators. Smallest humanoid seems to have recently shot one of the smoke eels with a harpoon gun, which is in the process of reloading. Both sides are startled by your arrival, putting the fight momentarily on hold.

Main obstacle to a rescue at this point is the fact that there's still about thirty meters of hard vacuum between the hangar bay entrance and the membrane's surface.

Membrane logically has to be macro-scale permeable somehow, for people armed with sharp sticks to be routinely walking out through it, so it might be possible to trigger that same effect in reverse (and at a grander scale) to close the gap by letting the ship sink at least partway in. What if something in the water starts chewing on the hull, though?
Probably other options too. Branu's Kiss doesn't seem to have proper docking facilities, but there are a lot of relevant things you could potentially build just with materials already on hand.


>>1127793
>book of family history
>rolled 10, 1, 16
Natalina huddles on Paprika's lap during chainpod ride to the sensor access hatch, soon finds hunting for loose wires a welcome distraction. Just a bunch of widgets, in a weird little conical warehouse. Just gotta find the one that was damaged in transit. Learned to use an abacus before she could walk, this ought to be easy. Nobody ever heroically doomed themselves by working as a third-shift inventory clerk.

Speaking of which, one of those dooms that does sometimes happen to a third-shift inventory clerk is getting accidentally Cask of Amontillado'd by somebody coming in first thing in the morning and carelessly piling stuff in front of the only door. Nothing heroic about that!

Loose wire successfully located. It's at the back end of a crevice just slightly too narrow to crawl into, and roughly twice as deep as a human arm is long. Got some specialized tool for that sort of reach, which you forgot to bring along - left it upstairs with the bulk of the expedition supplies. Giggling and sobbing gradually subsides to a level which shouldn't interfere with routine activity, but Nat's still feeling very psychologically brittle - intellect Effort will cost an extra point per level until her confidence in long-term survival and/or meaningful control over her own destiny is somehow restored.

Hatch leading back to the main cargo hold is stuck shut, and feels warm, as if there were a fire raging on the other side. Heh. It's... it's probably fine. Reiko's saying something over the intercom about maneuvers proceeding on schedule, resultant rain of molten metal in the cargo hold. See? All part of the plan. Heh, heheh. It's fine! Everything's gonna be fine. Just gotta... take a few deep breaths, hug Paprika some more, plug this monitor tap into one of the direct feeds and do a bit of idle stargazing, because that's exactly the sort of thing somebody who was trapped in the basement of a burning warehouse definitely wouldn't be able to do.

As the ship performs a barrel roll, direct feed from that section of the sensor array rotates around to face the jungle-ocean of Branu's Kiss. Oddly, with the current display settings, it still resembles stars. Flickering and shifting around a lot more, though. Almost looks like that could be a form of language, or maybe abacus-work.

rolled 15, 9, 8, 12, 12, 7, 14, 10, 13, 20, 2, 11, 17, 6, 8, 8, 9, 14, 4, 12 = 211

---

Theorize test implement escalate - okay in this case, that last one should be done first.

Reiko calls up Branu again, asks for instructions on how to enter the watermoon safely and warns them that they'll start testing things out if they don't get an answer within one minute. After that one minute passes, Reiko tests out how to permeate the artificial atmosphere without ripping it apart by throwing objects into the membrane at increasingly fast speeds until she gets a general idea of what the membrane does and how she should approach the landing, and then implement her best calculation.

Effort 2 on testing, Effort 4 on landing the bloody thing.

>>1128294
>Reiko calls up Branu again, asks for instructions on how to enter the watermoon safely and warns them that they'll start testing things out if they don't get an answer within one minute.
>rolled 15
Branu grumbles about obstructed sunlight for photosynthesis, direct toxicity and/or dangerous algal blooms if all that metal is simply absorbed, potential superstitious interpretation as fulfillment of an apocalyptic prophecy, and various other indirect complications for the garden, but eventually acknowledges that you DID fulfill that priority request on schedule and, technically, within the explicitly defined parameters. Remaining requirements of docking can be handled station-side.

Underneath the ship's belly, water-retaining membrane puckers, twists, and extends out to meet the hangar bay's iris door in a column shaped like a frozen tornado.

rolled 3, 16, 5, 17, 16, 1, 11, 1, 19, 14, 19, 10, 8, 4, 4, 16, 16, 6, 7, 4 = 197

---

>>1128315
Cricket rushes in. Activating her chameleon cloak, along with creating a batch of debilitating poison to apply to her darts, she attempts to close on the action and find a suitable vantage from which to sneak attack potential foes. Trying mostly to hide and get close. She assumes that the group of humans are the one's they're supposed to rescue, but isn't quite sure yet, and furthermore, doesn't want to assume intervening won't make things worse. Lets try to get more information and get in position to make a decisive strike if needed.

>>1128370
>Cricket rushes in.
>trained in understanding numenera
>Vitruvius De Aquatectura (civil engineering manual regarding the matters of distributing water into/out of the ground)
>rolled 3
Hangar bay door controls present several options for dealing with the nonstandard docking interface and lingering errors in ship systems, which Cricket doesn't take the time to fully review before selecting 32 and 37: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-10-17 Bypass the gravity spotlight's damaged control circuit by activating all the emitters at once with no throttle, shut down the vapor field and allow unrestricted gas exchange as soon as there's a contact seal.

Membrane-enclosed column hits the underside of the ship with a thump that audibly echoes off the far side of the world. (It's a small world, and sound carries well in water.) Edges are linked imperfectly, but a crust of ice prevents significant leakage. Water geysers up until the hangar bay is flooded more than eight feet deep, balconies in front of the exits reduced to short piers overlooking an Olympic-sized swimming pool full of kelp and jumbled-together combatants.

>trained in stealth
>chameleon cloak
>rolled 16
Cricket Moon moves among the new arrivals freely, won't be seen by any of them until she attacks or otherwise announces herself.
>trained in perception
>trained in initiative
>rolled 5
Those eel-like creatures aren't literally made of smoke - more like, partway between a jellyfish and an angry christmas tree. Spiraling translucent membranes around a more solid (or at least denser) central spine, shot through with ever-shifting speckles of bioluminescence. Hard to get an exact count, but there's at least three of them already aboard, and more arriving soon. Possibly an indefinite stream of reinforcements so long as the door is left open.
>rolled 17
Giant's tall enough all this water is only waist-deep. Seems to be taking charge, gathering up the five regular-sized humans and getting them moving toward the other pier, opposite of the side Cricket arrived through. Appears far less surprised by this situation than the rest of the new arrivals are.

Humans are four adults, and a child who... doesn't really have shoulders in the conventional sense. Head like a streamlined dog, neck way more flexible than ought to be possible, weirdly flat upper arms. Just finished getting that harpoon gun reloaded.
At the moment the adults are easiest to distinguish by their equipment:
)Full plate armor with swim fins, either hunchbacked or incorporating some well-protected cargo space,
)Coarse-woven net full of red melons and individually-padded glassware,
)Fancy axe which swings freely underwater, plus a stack of pentagonal wicker panels worn as a backpack,
)Gloves with metal studs which stun one of the eel-things on contact, and...
>rolled 16
...the one with the gloves, you recognize her face. Was years younger, didn't have a prosthetic eye or most of those scars yet, and it was just a still image in the blackmail dossier, but that's definitely Baron Tichronus's illegitimate daughter, Malia. The heck is she doing here?

rolled 16, 6, 5, 8, 3, 16, 4, 14, 19, 8, 19, 2, 12, 1, 3, 3, 13, 17, 18, 18 = 205

---

>>1128247
>Natalina huddles on Paprika's lap during chainpod ride to the sensor access hatch
With her girlfriend snuggled up in her lap, Paprika marvels at how light Nat feels in her arms compared to just yesterday. Whatever the ship did to her during that infusion, she's happy about it so far.

>at the back end of a crevice just slightly too narrow to crawl into, and roughly twice as deep as a human arm is long.
Did our conundary friend follow us, and can they reach it? Otherwise, Paprika can try and squeeze. I'll spend one speed effort.

>Hatch leading back to the main cargo hold is stuck shut, and feels warm, as if there were a fire raging on the other side.
>Heh. It's... it's probably fine.
Paprika remains her usual cheery self. "Honey you know I'm the best person in the Ninth World to get stuck in a burning warehouse with. We'll be alright!"

>sensor array rotates around to face the jungle-ocean of Branu's Kiss.
>Almost looks like that could be a form of language, or maybe abacus-work.
Paprika watches Nat stare intently at the monitor, still squeezing her tight. "...do you want to talk about it?"

>>1128394
>Did our conundary friend follow us, and can they reach it?
Conundary's back in the main cargo hold, weaving spatial distortions to keep all that molten metal off the terapede corpse, as well as other salvaged material that seemed appropriate to stash further away from the living quarters, but which isn't completely fireproof.

rolled 2, 15, 12, 18, 8, 3, 15, 3, 5, 9, 7, 14, 4, 15, 15, 6, 16, 13, 15, 19 = 214

---

>"...do you want to talk about it?"
"...this person we're here to rescue. She died, and has been dying, over and over and over, longer than there's been a ninth world. Because she keeps jumping out of Branu's bubble into the void and freezing and breaking into a million pieces and something keeps bringing her back. Paprika, that was almost us when we landed in the castle! And, hehe, I agreed to be paid in statues back in the City of Needles! What deal did she strike for the same destiny?"

>you know I'm the best person in the Ninth World to get stuck in a burning warehouse with. We'll be alright!"
"I just feel the urge to run, but there's no good way out of this Amontillado-cask right now. I could phase through the door, but I'm a lot less fireproof than you. You could force the door to escape yourself, but no-door between myself and molten metal is the same problem again (and could harm our living ship, besides). I could escape through the wall, but, hahaha- we know how that goes!" As Natalina's rapid-paced rambling rubs out of steam, she slows, hugs her girlfriend tighter and buries her face. "...I could just disappear in here." Spending 4xp to unlock the Invisible Phasing verb power.

>the sensor array rotates around to face the jungle-ocean of Branu's Kiss. Oddly, with the current display settings, it still resembles stars. Flickering and shifting around a lot more, though.
>specialized in all tasks involving physical performing arts
In a small voice, Natalina asks "Would you dance with me under this sea of pseudo-stars?"

Planning to spend a few minutes trying to calm. down with her girlfriend while the hold burns. Then, once she calmed down again, she'll turn her arkus-powers on seeing what those starry lights have to say.

>>1128315
Maybe they'll be able to help their host with some of that, if they stick around long enough. And you know, don't all die horribly. Leaving a mess is rude of guests, even if it was to save a life.

>>1128410
>dance
>rolled 2
Many mysteries of prior worlds are lost, but you can say with confidence that this hallway was not originally designed to serve as a dance floor. Won't be winning any awards, but you manage to avoid serious injury, and the various smaller, clearly recoverable, mishaps have a moderate calming effect.
>seeing what those starry lights have to say
>rolled 15
They were counting the stars above, inefficiently. Accompanying chants suggest it's a deliberately pointless https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Book and functionally interminable task, as 'proportionate' penance for some holy mission which ended in unrecoverable failure long ago.
Your ship's arrival - or, more specifically, so much of the visible sky suddenly being blotted out by bright molten metal which soon cools to a mirrored surface - is being interpreted as an omen of impossible, apocalyptic mercy. Vast swaths of yet-uncounted stars vanishing, replaced by gentler lights under local control, imply an opportunity to end the count early, set right what once went wrong.

The central matter to be "set right" is not spelled out (since they all already know), but Natalina is fairly sure it will involve committing violence.

rolled 2, 8, 19, 15, 5, 11, 8, 5, 14, 10, 1, 9, 7, 15, 9, 8, 2, 3, 8, 5 = 164

---

Reiko does a double check on the effects of metal-saturated steam on the ship's hull, then carefully attempts to rig the ship's systems to make a few quality parts out of the material by quarantining the superheated metal and quenching it in partitioned containers of the seawater. Look busy, look productive, and the adventurers might be fooled into thinking this is a mobile engineering base.

She also calls up Branu and tells him that he's not getting the water in the ship or its contents back, but mainly because it's about to become a vector for heavy metal poisoning and should be kept far away from the biosphere.

>>1128411
Reiko gets on the comms. (Intellect, Effort 2)
"Alright, kids, listen up! This ain't a charity, and it ain't an aquarium neither! Now, we're not heartless out here. Really; you need a ride, you don't need to pay up front. It's just that the fee is somewhere between 'sobbing uncontrollably' and 'driven stark raving nuts'. So: I'mma get Branu on the comm, and he's gonna tell me exactly how much he'll pay to deliver y'all to a specific location. Pray that his requested location isn't 'out the airlock' or your fee gets doubled... unless any of ya'd like to speak up, now?"

If they don't respond for ten seconds, she'll call Branu again, ask about the adventuring party that just stepped into the ship like they owned the place and how much their transport is worth, and finally they'll ask to clarify what Reiko and company need to do to save that person or something Branu was talking about, because Reiko's still kind of uncertain who it is they're saving or if they've already been saved.

rolled 13, 6, 18, 19, 7, 6, 19, 14, 8, 6, 10, 17, 17, 5, 3, 20, 12, 1, 6, 18 = 225

---

>being interpreted as an omen of impossible, apocalyptic mercy.
>Natalina is fairly sure it will involve committing violence.
"Oh dear."

Does the ship have any non-gravity spotlights, running lights, a way she could signal back at the blinking dancers (without resorting to weapons fire)? And, importantly, can such lights be controlled from their current berth in the sensor tusk? If the ship isn't fluent in dancing starlight itself, there won't be any automated protocols, and she'll need manual fine control to get a message across. If there's no controls for signal lights from here, she and Paprika might need to jury rig something instead.

Something along the lines of "Hello, can you hear see me? I'm terribly sorry, but your world isn't ending, it's just gained a thin metal shell." Might do for an opening message. Might be worth triggering Demeanor of Command, assuming whoever or whatever is behind the lights has a leader.

>>1128645
Main comm system - through which Branu initially called - seems to be primarily telepathic, and controls are back on the bridge.
Possibly the nightcraft's skin has chromatophores which are currently nonfunctional due to malnutrition.

As for what you can do from here... these polyspectral active scanners aren't meant for communication, but could certainly be used for such. Might even be able to project holograms. But, for tightly focusing visible light on something less than thirty meters away, using just one of the sensor tusks, you'd basically need to do brain surgery on parts of the phased-array control circuitry.
>inability in crafting numenera, salvaging numenera, and understanding numenera
Even with Reiko's help, don't bet on finishing such a refit in less than an hour.

As for more expedient options... could phase through at the contact point. Five glowglobes (two each from your and Paprika's go-bags, plus the fancy permanent one) should include enough different colors to work out an intelligible pidgin semaphore. If locals already think you're a divine messenger bearing extraordinarily good news, hopefully they'll listen to whatever else you have to say, and put up with some inconvenience in the formatting.

If they're implacably hostile, could simply turn around and come back, or maybe outflank some force that's trying to board through the front door.

rolled 6, 6, 16, 4, 16, 7, 15, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 19, 7, 19, 15, 20, 12, 7, 15 = 214

---

>>1128379
>Hard to get an exact count, but there's at least three of them already aboard, and more arriving soon. Possibly an indefinite stream of reinforcements so long as the door is left open.

Door is crusted over with ice, right? Ideally I would like to close the doors and avoid more boarders joining the current mess. Is that something that seems feasible to do by herself and/or with the assistance of the giant and co? Next thought is to try and free paprika and get her to help clear the doors.
If it seems plausible to clear the door, she'd be willing to break cover and signal herself as an ally to the giants group, but ideally she'd maintain as much of the element of stealth as she could.

>>1128824
>I would like to close the doors and avoid more boarders joining the current mess.
>rolled 6, 6, 16
Two more rounds for boarders to swim through, then Cricket can get that hatch sealed on the third - IF you're willing to spend 2xp to lock in training on "Nightcraft Hangar Bay Ops & Maintenance" (or something roughly equivalent).

rolled 16, 17, 8, 11, 19, 20, 4, 3, 7, 1, 4, 17, 9, 9, 12, 9, 19, 18, 11, 12 = 226

---

>>1128410
>Paprika, that was almost us when we landed in the castle!
"You mean after we got tossed up into the sky together? The innkeeper said it was kind of a long shot that we survived..."

>And, hehe, I agreed to be paid in statues back in the City of Needles!
"Ok, you lost me. What's that have to do with anything?"

>...I could just disappear in here.
>Would you dance with me under this sea of pseudo-stars?
Despite being caught more than a little off-guard by the request and everything else that's happening, Paprika manages to come back with a dreamy "Oh Nat...I thought you'd never ask." Dancing in such an awkward space with an invisible partner presents an interesting challenge, but Paprika is a consummate professional. She carefully lifts and guides Nat around any obstacles and ends with a mostly-graceful tumble that leaves the two lying on the floor together. "So uh...have you always been able to go invisible like that?"

>>1128645
>Oh dear.
>>1128649
>could phase through at the contact point.
"Nat, I'm not gonna let you go out there all alone. Is it really that urgent?"

rolled 14, 17, 1, 19, 20, 4, 8, 1, 2, 17, 17, 7, 2, 8, 4, 20, 2, 4, 8, 10 = 185

---

Reiko groans off-comms. "Whyyy..."

So: Either the 'immigrants' can't hear her or they don't speak Trade, their challenge rating is higher than anything the team can take, Branu might get angry if Reiko throws them out into space, or might get angrier if she doesn't...
Cricket has gone missing, while Natalina (who ironically hasn't gone missing because she's invisible) and Paprika are too busy doing the hanky panky and turning their psychological issues around.

And now all her favorite snacks are soggy.
Wonderful.

Reiko (still linked) directs the ship AI to 'jiggle' the iced-up doors with a combination of pseudo-physics designed to crush multi-form polymorphic crystalline structures, especially since the surrounding 'liquid water' is highly oxygenated somehow. If she can get control back to the doors, maybe she could try out a Binary code by having the door open-and-shut at specific intervals to communicate at a distance. Or just lock the doors, blast off, and call this expedition a bust.

>>1128856
Definitely accepting this proposal, hopefully with reikos help they can get the doors closed off.

rolled 14, 3, 5, 9, 5, 20, 8, 2, 1, 8, 10, 20, 3, 1, 11, 7, 7, 7, 13, 19 = 173

---

>"Ok, you lost me. What's that have to do with anything?"
(Before calming down via dance) "I thought I was being clever, but I made a deal with something ancient that doesn't think like we do. What if frozen copies are easier, hehe, or faster than working stone? I'm sure she didn't ask to be killed a thousand-countless times over and over," Natalina waves a hand at the outside, "but that's what ha-ha-happened! "

>"So uh...have you always been able to go invisible like that?"
The arkus gives her girlfriend a funny look. "That was metaphor. I know numenera can make things ambiguous at times, but you're looking right at me."

>"Nat, I'm not gonna let you go out there all alone. Is it really that urgent?"
"I think we may have accidentally triggered a crusade. We're a lot more likely to change minds if we step in before the violence starts."

The arkus checks her cyphers. If the problem is her heading off [i]alone[i/]... She can't normally take anyone else with her when she shreds the walls of world, but the things she carries or wears make it across just fine. Maybe she could carry a shrunken Paprika with her? Or... perhaps if they attached the hiding alarm nodule to the sensor tusk, Paprika could attack to force it insubstantial and they could both fall out? Although that might be a problem if the tusk is currently being used as a weight-bearing landing strut. Or Natalina could exit through the wall, and Paprika could go the long way, through the molten metal? (Though opening the door might damage the sensor tusk, and even if Paprika's heat-proof, shoving through all that metal might not be trivial). Rolling to evaluates plans for bring Paprika along with what they've got on-hand. (The inability in understanding numenera and training in transdimensional navigation likely cancel out). Willing to throw a level of Intellect Effort at it.

rolled 4, 2, 3 = 9

---

Rolling for how many hostile boarders made it aboard before Cricket got the door closed.

>>1128897
Zalkezia, Last Princess of the Cloud Giants - four meters tall, starry-eyed, ebon-skinned, clad in what looks like a metallic silver figure-skating outfit with a bandolier of colorful glass bottles - bursts into the neural-interface throne room. Stops short upon seeing Reiko.
>rolled 14
The princess doesn't actually squeal, or outright say "you're adorable!" but Reiko can tell she's thinking it. Instead, after a quick half-bow, in stilted and archaic but intelligible Truth:

>"Honored Navigator, set a course to the Grinder of Infinities, for therein lies the key to reclaiming my father's castle. The sooner we put these vile Dramath behind us, the better."

>rolled 17
How much intellect effort are you willing to put into seeing whether Reiko has ever even heard of 'the Grinder of Infinities' before this moment?

rolled 3, 18, 7, 12, 2, 20, 12, 5, 10, 16, 11, 2, 9, 10, 7, 16, 13, 3, 9, 4 = 189

---

Reiko keeps physical eye contact, trying to dilate her eyes to maintain the princess' susceptibility to cuteness proximity.

She's still trying to call Branu to demand to know what the fudge is going on.

Without missing a beat, the interface prints out a form.

[Intelligence Effort 4 Bluff]
"My allegiance is to House Youngmason. Please read and sign their terms of contract, and we'll be off. Ma'am." She even does a cute little pose while handing out the form.

See, the Youngmasons always have pre-planned drafts of statutory contracts lying around for every business deal they could possibly make. Reiko learned quickly that she could make money and prestige by copying the core drafts to her implant, and tailoring them to a client whenever all the official negotiators and diplomats were getting shitfaced or too busy being dead. She'd been working on this one in her spare time while flying, a sort of taxi-service agreement that she was going to give to anyone who used their reputation and status to commandeer the flying saucer without payment. Such as this brat.

This particular MOU has no outwardly predatory clauses nor immediate tributes... but it does bind the client to certain acts of honor in the future. Acts that give House Youngmason a subtle advantage in certain industries. Nothing outrageous. A lunch meeting with the Eastern Branch Board here, an agreement to conduct acts of charity in a specific set of countries there, and other simple acts of politeness and decorum, and the earliest scheduled meeting is years away. If she isn't really a princess, she could just ignore it. It would just mean that she and the government she represents are untrustworthy to the rest of the solar sphere's aristocracy. Nothing to sweat about, certainly.

Reiko also racks her head [Intelligence effort 3] to figure out what this "Grinder of Infinities" is. She knows she's heard the lyrics from a bard, but what was the song about?

If Branu doesn't respond, accepting the giant who could squish the interface and doom them all is the pragmatic choice.

rolled 9, 16, 7, 19, 2, 2, 20, 15, 5, 16, 11, 2, 19, 18, 3, 3, 14, 3, 11, 5 = 200

---

>>1128379
>>1129506
We have several potentially hostile forces who seem to be at odds. Seeing an old... relative is putting Cricket Moon back in the mindset of those bloody early days. Never strike without leverage. Never give away your hand. Part of her tugs at those mannerisms- is this how a hero acts?
But Cricket Moon does not know herself as a hero. And so she waits and observes. Are the two sides immediately drawing steel? Do the humans run? Are the boarders looking to destroy their surroundings, talk to each other? In the wake of being flooded into a cargo hold, with their (presumed) target/princess breaking away, what's everyone doing?

>>1129668
>rolled 9. 16
Smoke eels don't have any visible equipment apart from their own bodies. Not moving like pack-hunting predators; almost, but not quite. Closer to... well-drilled soldiers, in an unfamiliar hostile environment. Definitely capable of swallowing a human whole, but they're passing up opportunities to do so in favor of attempting to inflict disabling wounds. By the time Zalkezia's retinue makes it up the stairs, where the eels can't easily follow, guy with the cargo net is missing a big chunk of his right calf muscle. Several other less severe injuries; armored hunchback took at least three plate-crumpling hits in the course of defending that kid with the harpoon gun, but is still mobile and lucid.

Only two eels are hurt - one by said harpoon, another by some sort of energy beam Malia fired from her metal eye. None of the humans manage to land even a glancing hit hand-to-hand while still in the water. Injured eels move away, and are providing each other with some sort of medical care; a third is scouting out the side of the hangar bay which leads to the main gun, acting as rearguard, leaving six to pursue and encircle.

rolled 10, 14, 13, 3, 13, 2, 16, 13, 2, 2, 2, 7, 11, 20, 11, 20, 14, 7, 6, 10 = 196

---

>>1129673
>Injured eels move away, and are providing each other with some sort of medical care; a third is scouting out the side of the hangar bay which leads to the main gun, acting as rearguard

Cricket Moon is going to attempt to assassinate the lone scout. Applying deadly poison to her dart thrower, waiting for it to get out of sight of the others, then maximum effort on a quick and quiet kill. Presumably Dex based? I don't know if I can apply effort to make the attack hit harder, or just be more accurate, but if I can, then one level on damage, one on accuracy, one on
>In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the level of the poison; each level of Effort used in this way increases the poison level by 1.

Hopefully maintaining stealth and using a light weapon will mean is is basically guaranteed to hit, but, the dice paranoia in my/Crickets head is telling her to aim carefully. Not sure if there's an effect from being over-accurate? Or if that's just ëffort on damage".

>>1129739
Per advisement,
>Creating poison and attacking are separate actions. If you buy Extra Effort right now, thus advancing to Tier 4, you could put four levels of intellect effort into making a Level 6 poison - which is particularly significant since the dramath are level 6 npcs, so that would *actually work* - and then, next round, four *more* levels of Speed or Might effort toward some combination of enhancing the attack roll and damage.

Let's spend 4xp to lock in "extra effort", advance to tier four, and then attempt to poison an eel.

>>1128953
>Rolling to evaluates plans for bring Paprika along with what they've got on-hand. (The inability in understanding numenera and training in transdimensional navigation likely cancel out). Willing to throw a level of Intellect Effort at it.
>Understanding (1 Intellect point): You observe or study a creature or object. Your next interaction with that creature or object gains one asset. Action.
>rolled 14
>>1128873
>Nat, I'm not gonna let you go out there all alone.
>rolled 16

Paprika suggests bypassing the water's surface with whatever technique Nat used while fighting the lorubs,
>>1115521
>There's no actual moment of impact with the water's surface. Phase sprinting plus reflexive efforts to protect her own head result in skipping straight from fully dry to fully submerged, floating upside-down,
>[...]
>Even with multiple walls in the way, her relative proximity remains reassuringly clear. There's a sudden cold breeze from overhead, and she's ba... wait, no. Nat's up in the attic now.
...but holding hands at the same time, the way they did when first traveling to the top of the beanstalk.

Natalina, pacing in anxious circles https://www.cassiopeiaquinn.com/comic/unusual-suspects-page-2/ and currently on the ceiling relative to Paprika, protests that she has no idea how either of those worked.
>rolled 17
Paprika points out that a technique doesn't need to make sense, so long as it actually does work - and this isn't just diving off a cliff into the unknown, both of those definitely have worked before, under much worse conditions. Formal refinement can wait until you're trying to teach it to the next generation.

A moment later, the two of them have escaped the starboard sensor tusk maintenance space, and are inside Branu's Kiss, surrounded with a bubble of steam. Paprika is modulating her halo of fire to provide light-show components of the Dramath language, while Natalina dances for the other half. Opening pleasantries ("Be Not Afraid, Send Forth Your Leader," etc.) have barely begun when Cricket de-ices and closes the hangar bay door.

rolled 8, 16, 11, 17, 4, 4, 20, 12, 19, 19, 12, 11, 12, 20, 8, 14, 19, 6, 4, 19 = 255

---

>>1128953
>"I'm sure she didn't ask to be killed a thousand-countless times over and over," Natalina waves a hand at the outside, "but that's what ha-ha-happened!"
Holding her girlfriend safe and snug, Paprika waits for Nat to calm down a little. Then she says, "Nat, I can't tell you everything will be alright. You make all the safe choices and horror still comes and meets you in your bedroom." Nat can see literal flames reflected in Paprika's eyes. "But I know the four of us are a force to be reckoned with. If some fucked up AI's got some horrible fate in store for us, we'll just treat that like every other obstacle we've come across."

>The arkus gives her girlfriend a funny look. "That was metaphor. I know numenera can make things ambiguous at times, but you're looking right at me."
>looking right at me
Paprika takes out her pocket mirror and turns it to face Nat. "Nat I'm gonna say something really cheesy. But even if the whole universe went dark, I'd still have no trouble finding you."

>"I think we may have accidentally triggered a crusade. We're a lot more likely to change minds if we step in before the violence starts."
"That's my girl! Always fifteen steps ahead. So..."

>>1129936
A moment later, the two of them have escaped the starboard sensor tusk maintenance space, and are inside Branu's Kiss, surrounded with a bubble of steam. Paprika is modulating her halo of fire to provide light-show components of the Dramath language, while Natalina dances for the other half.
Rolling to coordinate with Nat on this. Specialized in physical performance arts, and I'll throw in a level of intellect effort.

rolled 20, 17, 13, 13, 1, 17, 2, 3, 13, 11, 1, 17, 20, 6, 7, 20, 10, 14, 11, 12 = 228

---

Reiko kind of shuts down for a few minutes due to all the simultaneous alerts flooding her AR indicating that the situation has gone tits-up and ass-open. The princess snaps her fingers a few times out of frustration, pulling Reiko into a state of anxiety.

Branu has been silent for minutes, so Reiko has decided the potential client in front of her takes priority. Well, priority-ish.

"Nononononono - Uh, your majesty? I think the Dramath just kidnapped half the crew. Fuck!" Reiko pulls up cameras on the screens, showcasing the flooded rooms and the area just outside the telekinetic ice elevator. "Damnit Nat, where did you go?! Sorry, but we can't leave without my missing crewmembers, they're the ones who can open up the asteroid layer!" Reiko's bluffing a little but this trip will get dangerous without those two so it's not much of a fib.

Reiko walks in place trying to organize herself. "We don't know who is in your retinue. Did you get any Dramath on your side?! Look, use your finger and point out who needs to die and who needs to stay alive!"

Then Reiko remembers her cypher. "Oh right! If you regroup your forces to this room, I have a mass performance boost cypher ready! Consider it a complimentary gift for delayed services. What is your command, princess?"

rolled 3, 8, 16, 12, 9, 8, 12, 16, 4, 16, 13, 18, 6, 16, 17, 4, 3, 7, 14, 7 = 209

---

Natalina's recent bout of existential dread is momentarily overcome by breathless excitement. She carried her wonderful, brilliant girlfriend along between the walls of the world. She didn't know she could do that. She doesn't know how she did that. But they just did it anyways! Not knowing is almost certainly going to frustrate the arkus later, but for she's caught up in the exuberance of action, of going with with the flow, and having Paprika's faith in their success rewarded. Her brilliance cloth begins shifting as she dances from raincoat into swimwear, something with shimmering scales to catch and reflect the Halo of Fire.

Oh, um, breathless. They can breathe the water as claimed, yes? If not, a hasty retreat and repeating that trick may quickly be necessary.

>Opening pleasantries ("Be Not Afraid, Send Forth Your Leader," etc.) have barely begun when Cricket de-ices and closes the hangar bay door.
There’s still luminaries to communicate with on this side of the doorway, hopefully?

Still attempting to open diplomacy with Demeanor of Command, in cooperation with Paprika. Perhaps the locals will offer angry accusations in response to the door closing, but as Natalina and Paprika were out of the loop on who shut the hatch, or managed to get on board, offering excuses or explanations seems premature. (Shutting a hatch after exiting a ship is perfectly normal! So maybe they didn't exit the ship normally, but why should that have anything to do with it).

>>1130048
>a mass performance boost cypher
>rolled 20
Zalkezia isn't confident the rage thrower will be sufficient to turn the tide, but she does happen to have some other parts which Reiko can use, modifying that cypher further to produce a spray which sets the dramath to frantically attacking each other.
>>1129741
Cricket Moon's latest batch of poison, derived from vacuum/freeze-distilled jungle-grime around the edge of the hangar bay door, finishes off the winner of that berserk cannibalistic melee. Combination of stealth, hydrokinesis, and flight allows her to disengage safely.

>Did you get any Dramath on your side?!
Princess is shocked and vaguely disgusted at the very suggestion. "Might as well try to befriend a wild flame!"

There's a moment of awkward silence as Reiko ponders how to explain - or cover up - the deal they brokered between Hallux and the King Under The Mountain. Then Nat and Paprika walk in.

>>1130072
Nothing's completely finalized yet, but Natalina thinks initial negotiations went pretty well.
>rolled 3
At least... until she tries to explain the results to the rest of the team.

First thing was going over the exact wording of the original commandment. There's actually (at least) two completely separate words in their native language which could both reasonably be translated as "kill," but the etymologies and nuances of meaning are very different. The colloquial term can be unpacked as "encircle, swallow, solve et coagula, do severe-and-potentially-irreparable violence to," but the more formal term, which the scripture in question actually used, seems to be derived from a software-specific loanword from Light: "terminate, thwart, cease, reallocate-assigned-memory-space."
So there's a plausible theological argument to be made they don't actually need to violently murder Princess Zalkezia at all! Just stop her, or some process she's the logical metonymy of.
Obvious candidate for such a process is whatever keeps printing copies of her. Problem is, the dramath don't really know jack about the Datasphere, so the only coherent plan they've ever managed to come up with for how to do that is physically smashing the relevant hardware. Which is also the core that Branu guards. If all the Dramath around the entire circumference of this tiny world got together, and really put in their best effort, there's a genuine chance they could fight Branu and win. But...
A) If they try such a thing and fail, Branu will not be merciful. Self-defense doesn't get much more clear-cut than that.
B) If they succeed, Branu's absence means the Crux eventually breaks down for lack of maintenance, which also kills them all, plus the entire ecosystem.
Particularly fanatical hardliners among the Dramath are willing to do it anyway, and might be able to convince the rest - it's the most hope they've had in, at minimum, hundreds of years, and the rain of molten iron makes a good signal allowing otherwise scattered groups to realize this isn't just talk.

A 'dove' faction, on the other hand, has somehow heard rumors of someone who fits your description winning an Accelerator's trust (from the start of this thread), and is willing to entertain the possibility of more esoteric solutions with less collateral damage. Main short-term thing that side wants, and probably the best way for outsiders to support their credibility / political leverage, is safe return of those nine dramath who pursued Zalkezia onto the ship.

(Roleplaying post, no actions yet)
>>1130406
>but she does happen to have some other parts which Reiko can use, modifying that cypher further to produce a spray which sets the dramath to frantically attacking each other.
"Oh, I like the way you think! Hang tight your majesty, this won't take long."
Reiko altered the chemical composition of the gas by using a jury-rigged chemical pressurizer to remove the strange fluctuating depressant that dampened the aggression to acceptable levels. This souped up the intelligence-dampening steroids to their maximum, and Reiko flooded the compromised room with the gas after instructing Cricket via comms towards the nearest oxygen mask. She was planning to capture the last Dramath, but with the way the Dramath was looking at those walls like they were toilet paper, Cricket probably made the right call.

>Might as well try to befriend a wild flame!
"... Funny you should say that. Our diplomatic envoy is a... special kind of character."

>Then Nat and Paprika walk in.
Reiko visibly heaves in relief. "I take it you kids danced atop a mountain of Dramath corpses?"

>So there's a plausible theological argument to be made they don't actually need to violently murder Princess Zalkezia at all!
Reiko's eyes shift from the princess to Nat. "Uh... this is what I meant, your majesty. Nat, well, she somehow managed to commune with this army of dead clones that all asphyxiated and cracked apart when their space fortress, erm, ceased to have any strategic value. And I dunno what she saw, but she's been mentally compromised ever since. Apologies."

>Dramath Objective: "[terminate, thwart, cease, reallocate-assigned-memory-space] Princess Zalkezia."
Reiko ponders this for a few minutes, using her understanding of computer logic to try and walk through the technicalities. Finally, she comes up with a theory.
"I'm going to need to explain a few basics of how machine spirits like Branu work, so bear with me. Centralized Machine Spirits, or CMS, are a combination of a logical catalyst and a mental library with enough information to fry the brains of every organic being here. Some of the data consists of memorized facts and book texts, but the real bread-and-butter are the instructions. When a machine spirit is awakened, the catalyst demands the first few sets of instructions from the machine spirit's memory library. The logic catalyst does basic equations to determine the base acts it should perform, which almost always consists of retrieving even more instructions to obey and process and repeat. I guess in layman's terms, it's like doing a really long book report while all the information you need is scattered across every section of the library. You'd have to read through the book in your hands, writing about whatever it says, until you found a reference to a completely different book, and then search the library looking for it so you can read that book. But there's a trick most machines use to make the process more efficient; they copy some of the data they expect to need to a localized device called a RAM. Think of it as the space you put your stack of books that you estimate that you're going to be studying for the next four hours, instead of walking back and forth across the library every time you find another reference. Now, here's my theory: there's a book in the RAM, a book that gives an explicit instruction to create a new clone of Princess Zalkezia for her spirit to resurrect into. The problem is that Branu has never removed the books in his RAM. He is constantly awake to protect the ecosystem because every other gardener is dead! It's a critical flaw that Branu's parents never considered. So Branu is forced to reincarnate too many bodies for Princess Zalkezia because his masters are too dead to clear his RAM cache and then order him to go to sleep and wake up! No wonder he seemed nuts! If we can 'reset' Branu, it will clear the books off his RAM and restore his sanity for a time!"

>Dove faction
>We killed their allies
"...Okay, Cricket's on point for this one. I guess. Look, find a way to tell the delegates that the portion of the ship they barged into was flooded, and flooded with rage-inducing gas, and they started killing each other (that's the important part) and had to be put down before they blew up our ship and everyone on it."

rolled 10, 6, 11, 1, 19, 2, 20, 3, 5, 13, 16, 6, 8, 20, 7, 9, 2, 10, 15, 18 = 201

---

>A 'dove' faction, on the other hand, has somehow heard rumors of someone who fits your description winning an Accelerator's trust
Paprika tries her best to keep her fire from flaring up at the mention of that damn squidbot.

>>1130406
>"I take it you kids danced atop a mountain of Dramath corpses?"
"Actually, we made some friends!"

>Zalkezia, Last Princess of the Cloud Giants - four meters tall, starry-eyed, ebon-skinned, clad in what looks like a metallic silver figure-skating outfit with a bandolier of colorful glass bottles
Paprika's a little starry-eyed at first site of the tall lady, but her demeanor quickly shifts.

>but she's been mentally compromised ever since. Apologies.
"What the fuck, Reiko? Natalina's fine. Why'd you let this bitch into the control room?" Paprika gestures at Zalkezia.

>lots of computer stuff
"Reset Branu? I don't know how they'll feel about that. Has anybody just tried talking to Branu about all this? And anyway, can we have this discussion without the giant in the room?

>Dramath are all dead
"I'm glad you and Cricket are safe, Reiko, but that's gonna make it harder to win over our friends outside."

>"...Okay, Cricket's on point for this one. I guess. Look, find a way to tell the delegates that the portion of the ship they barged into was flooded, and flooded with rage-inducing gas, and they started killing each other (that's the important part) and had to be put down before they blew up our ship and everyone on it."
"I really don't think they'll buy that."

rolled 15, 8, 15, 9, 16, 17, 10, 18, 2, 7, 20, 5, 10, 18, 11, 13, 13, 13, 6, 16 = 242

---

>Then Nat and Paprika walk in.
Natalina's now dressed in something halfway between a swimsuit and formal dress, decorated with reflective sequin-scales (and the discreet jewelry of her otherspace armor).

>derived from a software-specific loanword from Light
It's strange, remembering knowing a language while currently not, much less having that bleed through and provide context in another. The whole experience was exhilarating and wonderful, though, despite the stakes. Floating in (and un-drowning in!) unearthly water, speaking through dance and Paprika's accompanying Halo, untangling history and language to (hopefully) save a world. Simply brilliant for getting out of her own head.

>danced atop a mountain of [...] corpses?"
>Zalkezia, Last Princess of the Cloud Giants
>>1127502
...until that trauma comes crashing back in. Without making a conscious decision, or seeming to cross the intervening space, Natalina finds herself in front of the princess rescuee representation of cursed prophecy, hand raised and screaming in Truth.

"I will not become you!"

She seems to run out of steam after that, the diminutive figure panting in front of the much taller. Assuming the arkus doesn't provoke violence (Demeanor of Command can probably prevent that), she'll quietly allow Paprika to lead her back out of the princess' space, and to be coaxed into reporting on the negotiations.

>what do
>[The dramath advance party being dead is] gonna make it harder to win over our friends outside."
"Could someone please move the remains to the cold storage, without attempting to salvage anything? Even if we can't manage resurrection (which we might be able to incorporate favorably into apocalyptic prophecy), perhaps there's still something to be reclaimed by treating their dead with respect."

>can we have this discussion without the giant in the room?
"No, even if we have discharged Branu's request to prevent her death-by-decompression, she's a part of this. If nothing else, she has some say on this core machine she is linked to, even if that must be weighed against the survival of an entire world."

The arkus addresses their gargantuan guest directly.

"Why has this device been regularly recreating you for millenia? Why have you been leaping into the void and you death?" she continues, while pulling up the grim sensor display from earlier. "Do you even remember those lives?"

Assuming any rolls are required, training in Persuasion and Negotiation probably apply. The inability from Cultured might not matter against an actual royal!

rolled 18, 6, 20, 4, 1, 1, 12, 13, 20, 20, 11, 19, 19, 5, 19, 1, 6, 13, 20, 3 = 231

---

>Paprika: "What the fuck, Reiko? Natalina's fine."
>Natalina: "I will not become you!"
"...You know what? Fine."

>"Why has this device been regularly recreating you for millennia? Why have you been leaping into the void and to your death?" she continues, while pulling up the grim sensor display from earlier. "Do you even remember those lives?"
"Oh, is that what we're doing?" Reiko butts in between Natalina and Princess Zalkezia. "Apologies, your majesty, but it appears you have obtained a distinct and effective form of immortality. Rest assured that your soul is eligible to fulfill the terms of the contract no matter which cloned body it is currently residing in, nor will the terms of the contract be rendered null and void if you develop any form of amnesia related to the contract." Reiko does another little bow and paces around the terminal.

>"terminate, thwart, cease, reallocate-assigned-memory-space."
Reiko tries to get Branu to explain the situation, but he's still silent. Reiko ruminates aloud.
"This doesn't make sense. If Branu wanted the Princess dead, why didn't he just delete her biodata himself? He might not have access, but if he's restricted from murdering his patients I doubt he'd lack the protocols shackling him from ordering someone else to kill them. And why won't he pick up?! If this was so fucking important to him, he'd deal with this deviation from his command queue as soon as- OH!"
Reiko jumps up.
"OF COURSE! His RAM must be jammed with enough memory leaks to - well, to fill the watermoon with sludge! He's an insomniac! Resurrecting Princess Zalkezia must take up a large chunk of his RAM, and taking care of the essential ecosystem requirements takes up almost all of his frontal cortex, and then he barely has enough brain left to say hello! Every system administrator is too busy being permanently dead to order him to stop overworking himself and go to sleep! We just need to find a way to reboot his systems and he'll be restored to peak intelligence, enough to fix his own problems!"

(And then Reiko explains RAM to the group, as shown in >>1130407)

Reiko decides to take up Branu's offer of scanning the watermoon minus the core, but with the intention of finding a gateway into the core's datasphere. If she can infiltrate Branu's systems from the outside, and force him to perform a soft reset, it might remove the current orders haunting Branu's mind. [Intellect, 2 Effort]

"And as for the Dramath diplomats, get them to try to put Branu to sleep. Not kill, just sleep. They need to understand that Branu hasn't slept in over a thousand years or something, he needs his beauty rest."

JamesLeng 2026/08/08(Sat)04:11 No. 1130722 ID: c8e1d1
File 178616227281.png - (1.44MB , 1024x1281 , entourage.png )

>>1129579
Zalkezia glances over the contract, squints, rotates it sideways and tries again. Sets it down in midair, where it obediently hovers as she draws a knife. "Well, we're in a hurr..."
Blinks. Tiny red pearl floats, spinning, between pierced fingertip and parchment as she hesitates.

Wipes and re-sheathes the knife, catches the droplet of blood with her other hand, turns away.
"Yes. Far too much of a hurry. Maa~~lia!"
"Kinda busy here!" replies the woman with the metal eye, apparent second-in-command.
"Contingency [untranslatable]!" A chirruping warble, almost like birdsong. "Ooh, that sounds weird out of water," mumbles the princess, while Malia briefly struggles to remember the list of codewords and corresponding you-fool-you've-doomed-us-all contingencies they compiled just a few days ago.

"Keep firm pressure on that, unless you want him bleeding out," Malia says to the shoulderless kid, who seems to be struggling with his own breathing even as he's dutifully assisting with first aid on his dad's injuries. "I've gotta go rescue our boss from signing something she can't read."


Over the course of further discussion, it comes out that Branu's Kiss has about a hundred human residents at any given time, approximately all of whom want to leave. These five were just the few desperate enough to take a chance on Zalkezia's heroic enthusiasm. With hard proof of a working nightcraft, and plausible assurance it's not headed somewhere even worse? Most likely the whole town will gladly come along, soon as they grab what they can carry.

See, there's also a portal attached to the Crux at the center of Branu's Kiss, which isn't... strictly one-way, but has a definite directional bias. Less like a door, more like being dropped down a deep pit with frictionless walls. The 'upper' end is a city in the southern Beyond, which uses it to dispose of inconvenient people without technically killing them. Newcomers customarily introduce themselves by personal name and legal pretext.

Malia describes her official cause of exile as "consorting with devils and attempted patricide," but doesn't otherwise volunteer anything about her family.
Apparent hunchback, "Tacito - blasphemy and inciting a riot," actually had a medkit and a book of philosophy, which are revealed when the armor unfolds like flower petals.
Illaquita - "piracy" - with an axe and a stack of door-sized pentagonal wicker panels, is mostly keeping quiet, but clearly protective of her husband and son.
Enkelados - "fusel oil" - had the net full of red melons, and seems deliriously surprised by how heavy they are out of the water. Thinks his injuries must be even worse than he thought, if he's been weakened so much that he can't even casually swing around a cubic meter or so of sturdy smooth-sided items.
finally, Devyn, with the harpoon gun, Enkelados and Illaquita's kid. This is his first time in air, and he's not enjoying it.


>>1130713
>He's an insomniac!
>We just need to find a way to reboot his systems and he'll be restored to peak intelligence,
>rolled 18, 6, 20

Further communication with Branu - innocuous small talk salted with the machine equivalent of minor hypnotic suggestions - soon invalidates this hypothesis. Branu's mind and the Crux's direct control systems are at least as separate as, say, your own self and the ship, or Alaiya and the cannery, or Elanyah and her employer. There are even some access traces suggesting that Branu's own credentials have been used, on several separate occasions, in attempts to reprogram the Crux with the explicit primary goal of getting it to stop producing copies of the princess. Obviously, without success.
Solving the problem will almost certainly require either direct hardware access (in turn requiring Branu's cooperation, severe distraction, or violent defeat), or coming at it from the other side through a full-dive vertex. Possibly even both at once. Persisting for so long AND resisting the site manager's shutdown attempt means that process has to either be fractally distributed through way too many separate repositories (like an invasive thornbush, with fresh instances of Zalkezia as the berries), or else backed by some higher administrative authority. Or... maybe a near-peer authority whose relative rank can't be definitively established, because primary records don't exist, even though the auth-sig somehow passes checksum?

>>1130410
>Why'd you let this bitch into the control room?
>>1130693
>"I will not become you!"

>various horrifying revelations / allegations

With a stiff smile, the princess crouches down, leans over toward Reiko, and murmurs
"Once your villainous teammates are appropriately punished, Droptable, I will not hold this attempt at psychological warfare against you, in the course of contract negotiations."
Malia, still reading through and annotating the proposed contract, nods just enough to make it clear she overheard. "How generous, my liege."

rolled 17, 7, 14, 3, 5, 2, 5, 13, 17, 15, 8, 9, 19, 12, 1, 13, 12, 10, 13, 18 = 213

---

>>1130406
Where's the princess's retinue in all this? Cricket is keen to stay out of sight from anyone she previously knew.
...also, not to nitpick, but, technically wasn't she staying hidden? Not sure Reiko knows she killed anyone, unless she had to break stealth in front of her allies to finish the job, which wouldn't be implausible.

rolled 3, 13, 5, 10, 1, 19, 14, 18, 12, 7, 4, 11, 19, 13, 10, 3, 12, 9, 14, 1 = 198

---

>>1130722
A note, tied to a bolt, appears conspicuously near Malia. It reads as follows:

"I know who Baron Tichronus is. That alone should be enough to grant you the kind of certainty which comes when you know someone cannot be trusted. I will be hidden in a spot I know you will be able to find. If you come alone, I will acquiesce to any reasonable demands you place on me to ensure your own safety. I wish to parley directly, just the two of us. I will not guarantee your safety, and if I feel you are not alone I will melt into the shadows and you will not find me. The only word I can offer which may make you consider this is as follows: please."

Cricket Moon is banking on her time spent in the blood-soaked spiral to give her insight into how Malia may act- reminding her of their shared roots to refresh those feelings of mistrust and paranoia. If she actually gets her alone in a room, her goal is to explain, genuinely, the quest they're on, why they came to the kiss, and how they genuinely don't want to hurt them, but they have their own goals they don't want sidetracked. She's hoping Malia, as someone who has the princess's ear, may be more pragmatic and reasonable, and easier to work with when face to face with someone who may think the same way as her. A bit of "real talk" away from the boss to try and get on the same page as allies. Putting 3 levels of intellect effort.

>>1130723
>wasn't she staying hidden?
>rolled 17
Yes.
>>1130725
Malia palms the note before Zalkezia notices, and reads it while pretending to scratch the side of her own head along a seam where flesh meets metal.
>rolled 3
Cricket learns that Malia's eyes can focus independently, and even process two separate streams of text without apparent slowdown. She responds to the clandestine note's content with a slight sigh, mingling nostalgia and disappointment, but no readily apparent gesture of either acceptance or refusal.

rolled 10, 17, 11, 9, 14, 3, 1, 7, 5, 9, 12, 5, 15, 15, 18, 7, 10, 3, 20, 10 = 201

---

Paprika's standing with a relaxed posture. Most of her weight shifted to one leg, her spear held in both hands across the back of her shoulders.

>>1130722
>With a stiff smile, the princess crouches down, leans over toward Reiko, and murmurs
Without moving a muscle, Paprika bursts into flames. Glowing facial features turn up into a wicked grin. "What you mumbling about? Speak up so I can hear you."

"I think you're a little confused, so let me be clear. While you're on my ship, you do as I say. And you stay the fuck away from the controls."

rolled 15, 6, 17, 13, 11, 20, 17, 9, 7, 15, 20, 2, 9, 1, 2, 18, 19, 19, 7, 17 = 244

---

>Branu's Kiss has about a hundred human residents at any given time, approximately all of whom want to leave.
It's... regrettably fortunate they have previous experience in refugee relocation. Putting aside the issue of trying to stage an evacuation before the dramath crusade has been more firmly averted, how many could the nightcraft carry at once? Would maximum occupancy be safe before conducting the planned toxic-pool repairs in Hallux?

>"Keep firm pressure on that, unless you want him bleeding out,"
The arkus isn't going to wait for negotiations with the cloud giant to be resolved before seeing to the wounded. She'll break out her own first aide kit and offer assistance. (Asset from the kit, and from Understanding, training in perception / noticing flaws may be relevant. Possibly a modifier / help from working with the NPCs).

>>1130722
>lack of reaction to >various horrifying revelations / allegations
"Ah. She doesn't remember then. More victim than perpetrator then." Natalina says quietly. Zalkezia's non-answer would seem to rule out continuity of consciousness across incarnations (and either her backup doesn't update, or has an period longer than she's previously survived). It also doesn't sound as if there's a another her alive and conscious in the datasphere, regularly materializing daughter-copies. (Which would mean disabling the backup is at least theoretically possible without further death). Part of Natalina wonders if the loss of a thousand distinct clones constitutes as-many cases of amnesia, or if they're better thought of as a set of sisters with a single survivor. Hardly the time for philosophy, despite the arrival of a book of such.

Natalina pauses to try and calm herself, and to study the princess with Understanding. "I apologize for my outburst, but you've heard what the dramath claim. We would very much like to hear your side of the story, preferably before any contract agreements. Even if you don't care about the welfare of Branu or the eels, surely your companions would prefer to avoid a crusade starting before their community can be evacuated?" (Understanding, trained in negotiation and persuasion, cultured inability).

>>1130767
>how many could the nightcraft carry at once?
Standing room only, for the few hours it might take to re-enter the atmosphere and find a decent place to land? Thousands, easily. Maybe tens of thousands if the main cargo bay were rigged up with scaffolding and hammocks. In terms of long-term occupancy for a mere hundred refugees, it might very well be a palatial upgrade over their existing homes...
>Would maximum occupancy be safe before conducting the planned toxic-pool repairs in Hallux?
...assuming the systems providing fresh air, potable water, and hygiene are up to the task, which you're...
>inability at understanding numenera
...a little less sure about. Between the expedition supplies you already had, and people bringing some fresh food along with them, keeping everybody fed for a week or two should be possible even if the hockey-puck dispenser is useless and they're fighting in a siege at the same time.
>rolled 15
Most immediate threat, if docking with Branu's Kiss resolved the excess-heat situation, and the ship's inner workings don't crap out in some completely unexpected way, is all that ferrous metal starting to rust. In two or three days, assuming a closed system, you'll probably be facing the same sort of shortness of breath people get while climbing tall mountains, and it'll keep getting worse from there. That's true regardless how many people are aboard, though.
Traditional fix would be coating exposed iron surfaces with some sort of weatherproof paint? Or, if Reiko was right about the anomalous chromium content, maybe the problem will solve itself, naturally forming a corrosion-resistant layer as soon as it cools off.

>>1130735
>And you stay the fuck away from the controls.
"These controls?"
Princess Zalkezia gestures expansively around the room and makes a subtler motion with the toes of her left foot against the deck.
"The ones you're not even tall enough to reach unassisted, because they were built by - and for - people MY size?"
>rolled 10
Paprika floats upward, suddenly nauseous in the lapsed artificial gravity. Zalkezia grabs her arm, thumb on that same spot the blood transfusion was hooked up to, forefinger hooked around the back of the elbow, and pulls Paprika close, almost nose-to-nose.
"Those are the controls to which you're referring? Just... to be perfectly clear with each other."
She bares her teeth and crinkles the corners of the eyes, but somehow the expression can't really be called a smile.
>While you're on my ship
>rolled 17
"I formally accept your hospitality. By your leave, may I attend to my peoples' medical needs, set up their sleeping arrangements, and make use of the ceiling entertainment console?"
She maintains her grip, unflinching, while awaiting Paprika's reply. There's a smell of burning bacon.

rolled 17, 12, 4, 5, 12, 12, 19, 9, 16, 12, 15, 13, 7, 15, 7, 9, 19, 13, 16, 5 = 237

---

>>1130722
Reiko puts her ship's comms on mute again, and even locks the setting for the next five minutes to prevent someone from blabbing about the potential coup d'etat.
"Okay, looks like my theory was wrong. There's still a bug or fifty in the system, but Branu's the sysadmin and even he can't fix it. So, what's our plan? Can we convince Branu to work with us on fixing the system, or should we usurp control of the watermoon and jury-rig the hardware from the ground up? Do we ally with the Dramath and give them the watermoon in exchange for safe passage of everyone else, or do we wage total war and risk casualties? I want a full discussion from everyone here.
...We only have three days to try to solve this. Ship's holding against the environment, but she might get sick if we stay any longer."

>>1130784
"Your majesty, I do believe that is enough punishment, thank you."

Reiko angrily taps the contract. She was going to roll over for those sweet commissions, but now this bitch is poking her ship.

"We are ready to comply and serve within the duration of the contract, not before, not after. You are not in ownership of this vessel, you are a guest, and you will remain a guest until you have entered a contract with the party of House Youngmason. You wish to enforce your will? Then read and sign."

rolled 14, 18, 18, 2, 8, 8, 1, 10, 5, 14, 7, 9, 2, 19, 2, 18, 19, 18, 6, 4 = 202

---

>>1130784
Paprika heaves a sigh into Zalkezia's face. Her breath is almost hot enough to singe the cloud giant's eyelashes.

>"I formally accept your hospitality. By your leave, may I attend to my peoples' medical needs, set up their sleeping arrangements, and make use of the ceiling entertainment console?"
She lets her flames linger for another moment before she drops her shroud. Snarling with her eyes turned down, Paprika speaks in a low voice. "Go on, Princess."

>>1130785
>Reiko angrily taps the contract.
"Drop it, Reiko. She can read the fucking contract after she's settled in, if it's really that important to you."

>"Your majesty, I do believe that is enough punishment, thank you."
"It's a good start, at least. Fuck."

After relocating from the CIC, across the short landing in the the still-flooded hangar bay, to the living quarters, Zalkezia rapidly taps codes into the edible-hockey-puck dispenser, persuading it to instead produce, first, a pale orange sponge which exudes acrid-smelling bright purple goo when squeezed,
then a roll of what initially looks like black electrical tape on a thin ivory-synth spool, but which, as soon as it gets wet, swells up into a lacy green ribbon embedded in clear gel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0sjRG34DlA with the consistency of chewing gum.
That sponge is packed into Enkelados's wound, and wrapped tightly in place with several layers of seaweed-tape all the way around his shin.
Remaining tape is wrapped onto the princess's own burnt forefinger and palm, then distributed across everybody else's less critical injuries. Last third or so of the spool is stashed in Tacito's medkit, seemingly filling a slot where some already-exhausted stock of bandages were previously stored.

>>1130767
>isn't going to wait for negotiations with the cloud giant to be resolved before seeing to the wounded
>rolled 15, 6, 17, 13, 11
First aid successfully applied. Notably, the thumb on Zalkezia's burnt hand was completely unscathed.
>break out her own first aide kit
Devyn has been provided with a 'pocket sauna' - simple breath mask with the intake tube threaded through a small self-heating water bottle, originally intended as a portable source of warm moist air for mountain climbers. Seems to be helping with his cough. Hopefully he'll adapt.
>rolled 20
In the course of fishing out some medically-relevant expedition supplies which were carelessly left in the hangar bay (fortunately in a watertight crate), Dramath corpses have incidentally been gathered up and covertly transferred to a stasis tube.
>We would very much like to hear your side of the story,
Zalkezia acknowledges this as legitimate, but deflects and delegates - claims she doesn't know your language very well yet. Proposes having her retainers explain the story first, then she can provide corrections or fill gaps as needed.
>rolled 17
Doesn't take much reading between the lines to realize she also doesn't trust you much, and is trying to avoid needlessly spilling exploitable secrets to folks who might be evil, or just crazy.

Malia takes the lead on storytelling, though it seems like you'll be getting the very long version. During tedious genealogical intro, she also sneakily starts up a completely separate conversation in Uxphonese hand-sign: passes Nat the note in Cricket's handwriting, >>1130726 gesturally asking "should I?"

Zalkezia, meanwhile, is looking the other way, though proves she's still listening by occasional interjections to correct pronunciation of one of her ancestors' names. Uncorks one of those colorful bottles, pours out some smart fluid which arranges itself into a flat sheet with a pattern of raised bumps resembling a QR code, which she then sets about hesitantly attempting to transcribe into that "entertainment console" across the ceiling.

rolled 20, 11, 16, 4, 5, 5, 4, 19, 19, 11, 3, 8, 19, 11, 4, 1, 15, 14, 13, 12 = 214

---

Reiko does a triple check on the systems and ensures Princess Zalkezia can't override her authority.

Then she puts on that frilly maid outfit she was planning to show off to Azure.

And puts on a comically-serious attempt at negotiations to get Zalkezia to start rambling over the cutie.
If she's lucky, Reiko might chance upon some important personal information that someone like Zalkezia (such as one of her past iterations) would totally use as a simplistic password for something important, like her bank account.

rolled 18, 12, 19, 17, 14, 13, 3, 20, 17, 14, 2, 19, 11, 17, 6, 2, 11, 10, 20, 16 = 261

---

>Notably, the thumb on Zalkezia's burnt hand was completely unscathed.
Possibly she has some kind of implant- the thumb might be a logical place for identification-tech. That, or Paprika's treatment is transferable. Probably best to keep quiet about it for now.

>Doesn't take much reading between the lines to realize she also doesn't trust you much, and is trying to avoid needlessly spilling exploitable secrets to folks who might be evil, or just crazy.
A regrettably understandable reaction when your first interaction with someone is snapping and yelling trauma in their face.

>she also sneakily starts up a completely separate conversation in Uxphonese hand-sign: passes Nat the note in Cricket's handwriting, >>1130726 gesturally asking "should I?"
Is this the manner of politics Cricket is used to? She makes it sound so dire.

Natalina can't imagine that Cricket intends to harm Malia, and a common background seems a solid basis for establishing a new diplomatic channel after the arkus herself made a mess of directly approaching the princess. (Even the idea of attempted 'cide of one's own family feels foreign to Natalina, but well, she knows very well that not everyone's situation is the same). She signs her assent.

Apparently assisting in first aid improved on her poor first impression for Malia to have asked her in the first place. Although the arkus isn't sure how the exile knew they shared that language- an assumption based on her communication with the dramath? Something Reiko said earlier? Reputation?

>>1130970
Reiko may certainly be providing enough of a distraction for the retainer to have a clandestine meeting without her liege noticing.