Prisoner 2013/12/31(Tue)23:21 No. 554554 ID: 1e6280
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The prisoner awakens; drowsy, feverish and curiously satiated. It's dark here. It smells like blood and scorched metal and ozone. The floor quivers in tune with muffled thumps. Far away, sirens wail with an alien, three-tone ascending modulation. Something important is going on, something dangerous, but she needs to lie here a while and regain her strength.

Her body feels sluggish and sore but her thoughts are racing, bouncing around her skull like they're trying to escape.

She can't remember who she is. She thinks maybe, if she can just try to remember her name...

Butt Jones.

Your name is Butt Jones.

Marie Dietrich

Roselle

Alice
all you can remember about your name is Alice, I mean how often does one use there last name after all.

Haha, well YOU picked a thing to do right as the new year hit!

Darcy Mitburgh, or a vote for Marie Dietrich, though "Butt Jones" would be pretty funny.

Also, do you REMEMBER that you're a prisoner? Do you remember why? I suspect an escape may be going on; you may want to get in on that.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/01(Wed)01:12 No. 554567 ID: 1e6280
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>Your name is Butt Jones.
Her name is... What, no. That's not it at all. Where are these stupid ideas coming from?

>Marie Dietrich
That's familiar but not quite it, the prisoner thinks. Hazy impressions coalesce. Yes, that's her grandmother's name. The old lady was quite an inspiration. She's why she decided to join the Survey Corps.

>Alice
Her heart thumps for a moment. She's Alice. Alice Dietrich.

>All you can remember about your name is Alice, I mean how often does one use their last name after all.
Alice uses it a lot. Survey ships have a small crew but they're usually not on a first name basis.

>Also, do you REMEMBER that you're a prisoner? Do you remember why? I suspect an escape may be going on; you may want to get in on that.
The Survey Corps. That's it. Her ship, the Penguin, had been attacked. The Xotl. Light years out of their territory. In the chaos, the crew hadn't been able to do a clean wipe on the ship's data core. The Xotl'd managed to recover the crew roster. They'd taken the ranking officers for questioning and set the others aside for... other purposes.

Prioritise the following:
Combat: The eggheads need some protection when they're off exploring possibly hostile exoplanets.
Science: Linguistics, archaeology, medicine and xenobiology, oh my.
Engineering: No-one's exploring anything if the ship explodes on the way there.

1) combat - because fuck those sexist stereotypes

2) Engineering - don't fight all the time after all and besides something always seems to brake on those damn ships

3) Science - you know what you were taught but even in space, it wasn't really your job to remember all this stuff, I'd say your more out of practice with it than anything but yeah, not your biggest strength, that's for sure.

1: Combat, things work better when you force it.
2: Engineering, things work better because you make them to work better, and know how to do so.
3: Science, thing work better when you understand it(ha, yeah right)

1) Engineering
2) Combat
3) Science

Science, then Engineering, then Combat:
We're dealing with aliens here, nothing they use is going to be built according to human production standards so science is more important than engineering. Also, combat really sucks as a means of keeping people alive.

>>554569
This has my vote

Fight, fix, learn!

engineering, combat, science.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/01(Wed)06:18 No. 554582 ID: 1e6280
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>1: Combat, things work better when you force it.
>2: Engineering, things work better because you make them to work better, and know how to do so.
Alice is beginning to remember a little about who she is supposed to be. That's progress. The Survey Corps takes a lot of recruits from the military so she signed up there first. She knew what she wanted, wasn't be afraid at being forceful about it, distinguished herself once or twice, and hooRAH, she got in. Helped she was good with her hands - with a normal crew size of eight people, there can't be a strict division of roles.

She's living the dream: to go to space, see strange new places, meet exotic new life forms and sometimes kill them.

Shame it's looking more like a nightmare.

>We're dealing with aliens here, nothing they use is going to be built according to human production standards so science is more important than engineering.
Alice only knows the basics, like assessing exot behaviour and never touch anything in a Precursor ruin but the Xotl do get coverage in the Survey Corps training. No surprises given they're vicious little psuedoreptiles with a profound sense of manifest destiny, no regard for exot life and a penchant for meddling with forces they don't understand. They're aggressive, expansionist, and full fledged interstellar war can't be far away if they keep heading for Terran space.

That still doesn't explain why they have a base here though.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/01(Wed)06:20 No. 554583 ID: 1e6280
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>Combat really sucks as a means of keeping people alive.
Alice disagrees! Threats are very bad at killing people if you kill them first!

The thumps stop and the alarm dies down. There's a sequence of three oddly musical sounds and then a papery whispering. It's still distant. Alice suspects power might have been knocked out completely in this area. Seems awfully strange there's no emergency lighting though. This room's tiny. She can barely lie down.

Alice doesn't speak horrible space lizard very fluently. The announcement is something about they've come under attack and damage to the facility has released a... bad thing? A contaminant?

try all the walls. maybe they meant cells?

>>554583
>damage to the facility has released a... bad thing? A contaminant?
Well, you might need those combat skills after all then.

First things first; feel around the room/cell. What can you find?
Are there any hatches, buttons, lights, vents etc?

Oh hey, are we the alien flower growing on your head?
We've actually been a flower growing on someone's head before, so we need to know this for future reference.

If it's barely large enough for you to lie down, you might be in a maintenance shaft or maybe a morgue? Feel around a bit, see if anything feels like it opens.

...you don't appear terribly clothed. And your hair was cut above your shoulder before. Anyone with a military background or who works with machines or who has worked in zero-g understands the value of keeping hair short. And there appears to be a flower in your hair too.

Which means what? You've been unconscious long enough for your hair to grow out, and plants to grow over you? That the Xotl did something to you? That you've already been affected by whatever containment they're squawking about?

>>554582
Well, best get up. Try to find some clothing. Or an atomic maser rifle. Or a splint.

>>554583
Examine the walls. Perhaps you can break them.

>>Alice disagrees! Threats are very bad at killing people if you kill them first!

Most threats can't be killed, like hypothermia, hyperthermia, starvation, dehydration, asphyxiation, radiation and toxin exposure and so on. Space is a very bad place to be caught with an extra gun when what you need is to make breathable air from a comet using improvised tools.

>Seems awfully strange there's no emergency lighting though. This room's tiny. She can barely lie down.

Engineering a power-failure is a potential strategy for trying to make a breakout in a prison. It seems that the Xotl would prefer to err on the side of unnecessary prisoner casualties instead of risking design features like emergency lighting for cells that can potentially favour a breakout. What *can* you do trapped in a small, dark room? Theoretically we could use morse code to tap on the walls and check for fellow prisoners, but thermo-acoustic insulation is cheap compared to coordinated prisoner action, eh?

feel around for a door or something, I mean if you got in here there's got to be a way out.

How long have you been growing that hair out? It's short enough in that ID it can't be too recent a photo, but you don't seem to have the crazy long nails to suggest you've been out so long as to go all Rip Van Winkle.

Is...something groping your butt there?

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/02(Thu)03:48 No. 554725 ID: 1e6280
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>Most threats can't be killed, like hypothermia, hyperthermia, starvation, dehydration, asphyxiation, radiation and toxin exposure and so on. Space is a very bad place to be caught with an extra gun when what you need is to make breathable air from a comet using improvised tools.
Alice thinks that a presumably well stocked alien base isn't the place to be worrying about that.

>...you don't appear terribly clothed.
The Xotl aren't big on prisoner welfare! They confiscated Alice's uniform. It makes sense, she supposes, given it's modestly bulletproof and an emergency pressure suit, but she's sure she at least had underwear previously.

>How long have you been growing that hair out? It's short enough in that ID it can't be too recent a photo
...Alice's ID photo was taken only a week before shipping out on the Penguin. It shouldn't be this long unless she's missing a lot of time. Her hair feels slightly tacky and doesn't want to separate into strands easily. It's got some sort of gunk in it? Something screwy is going on.

>And there appears to be a flower in your hair too.
>Which means what? You've been unconscious long enough for your hair to grow out, and plants to grow over you? That the Xotl did something to you? That you've already been affected by whatever containment they're squawking about?
Alice gingerly feels for the flower. There's a fleshy texture to it and it is firmly attached. It hurts when she tries to pull it off.

>Is...something groping your butt there?
ALICE WOULD PREFER TO GET ON WITH THE ESCAPING RATHER THAN PONDER THAT THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING GROPING HER BUTT AND THESE OTHER THINGS.

>What *can* you do trapped in a small, dark room? Theoretically we could use morse code to tap on the walls and check for fellow prisoners, but thermo-acoustic insulation is cheap compared to coordinated prisoner action, eh?
Alice taps the wall experimentally anyway. Nothing.

>First things first; feel around the room/cell. What can you find?
>Are there any hatches, buttons, lights, vents etc?
Alice checks the walls, the floor and the ceiling. The cell, if that's what it is, is metal cube about a meter and half on a side. If there's any mechanisms, they're not designed to be opened from the inside. No openings at all. This can't possibly be intended as a long term holding cell.

The sounds from outside are a little louder near one of the walls.

>Examine the walls. Perhaps you can break them.
Alice braces herself and kicks that wall, hard. It gives way a little. A few more kicks and it pops loose.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/02(Thu)03:48 No. 554726 ID: 1e6280
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The hatch drops to the floor with a clang. Alice grabs the top edge and to stop it falling over and making more noise. Heavy.

Alice hears footsteps and then a door sliding open. She can see the shadow of someone in the light cast by the doorway. Casteless xotl, judging by the height. Looks like he's here to check the noise. And has a gun. Shit.

He'll see the panel the moment he rounds the corner. She's a sitting duck here. Have to rush him and hope for the best.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/02(Thu)03:49 No. 554727 ID: 1e6280
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Alice leaps out of cover screaming like a maniac, hoping that'll put off his aim.

The xotl looks like he almost died on the spot from shock but he's on the ball for a little space lizard.

He gets a shot off, squawking like a chicken. Alice feels pain explode in her gut as she gets in arm's reach of him.

Alice has lost two mass. 48 mass remaining.

High on pain and adrenaline, Alice knocks his gun arm aside, wraps her arm around it and heaves, with her other arm pressing against his neck-piece. The squawking rises an octave as she feels bones snap and muscles tear. Tangling him up with her ???'s, she hammers a fist down on his soft little amphibian skull and caves it in. The squawking immediately stops.

What- what the hell. She practically dismembered him. Alice just isn't that strong, even when she's taking full soldier boosts.

...

He smells delicious.

EAT

>>554727
I think YOU were the thing that just escaped.

Anyway, lets save the shock, horror and self-reflection for later.
It's quite likely that the shot was heard, and more guards will be coming. Let's set an ambush for them - hide back in your cell with the body, then come out with the gun when they show up.

We'll deal with the next step once they're dead.

...you're in the light now. Look down at yourself. You don't appear exactly human, anymore.

Pity you don't know their language. Discovering what they did to you is going to require reading alien biological records, medical reports, experiment logs. Hmm. Maybe if you steal the data, you can get someone else to analyze or translate it. Assuming you get out of here, or there's more of your crew somewhere in this base.

>EAT
No time for that. You need to get away from the immediate area of your cell and the gunshot and all that other noise you made. If it wasn't heard, someone will be along to check up on the guard who didn't report back soon. Likely more than one someone, with more guns.

Also: first rule of changing into a horrible monster is to test how much self control you have. If you can't control your instincts when you want to, that means you won't be safe around other humans.

How bad is your injury?

You should test if you can still speak, actually.

Take the gun.

Alice.

Something happened. I want you to look at yourself.

>>554737
we can at least eat his head right? it's unarmored. and what if we are an assimilator, so eating brains gives us their memories? also it was noted we loss mass from the wound. critters are made of mass.

Definitely don't eat him.

Snack on his arm while you check yourself out.

>>554737
>If you can't control your instincts when you want to, that means you won't be safe around other humans.
Shes not around other humans, She is around enemies who want to kill or capture her and she has just been shot. It would be stupid not to restore her mass, she can learn self restraint when her life isn't on the line.

>>554748
Yes, but the immediate test is to see if she can choose not to consume when her biology is screaming at her to do it. If she can't, she needs to know that now, not later. Because that's going to shape our long term plans. It's not about learning restraint- it's about testing if we still have it at all.

...also, despite space monster cliches, we don't actually know how fast she can regenerate biomass, or consume baddies and turn them into herself. If it isn't a fantastically rapid process, then staying here and eating as opposed to getting the fuck away before more people show up to investigate the gunshots is stupid. That wasn't a quiet kill.

>>554727
I think they modded you into a weapon so they would unleash you on other humans. Eating sentients may not be the best course of action, since you don't want to weaken your humanity - what would people think if they found out you munched on things that talk? They won't be guarding the mess hall; go devour their food supply.
Disregard this if humans already eat these guys.

While you want to free your friends, take control of the ship, and head back to human space so you can warn people about what these fucks are doing, you're going to want to attack places they wouldn't anticipate, and do so without a pattern for them to use against you.

Make sure you can still form words - don't want to come across your allies as a flash-ripping monster only to be unable to communicate.

>>554749
>stay and eat
we can just rip a part of it off and eat while moving.

Don't eat it. Humans don't eat sentient creatures. You don't look human anymore but if you eat everyone you run into you really won't be human anymore.

Try to suppress the hunger for now. Take his gun and look out into the room he came from.

Oh, and don't forget to check him for any useful equipment besides the gun. The armor is the wrong shape, but he may have been carrying other tools or supplies that will be useful to you.

>>554727
I recommend you abstain from eating the alien biology, and acquire his gun. Also, look at your hands.

Eating his head at least might not be a great idea. Assuming you've basically become The Thing, and it DID transfer memories, might be better off with just the one identity clattering around your noggin, you know?

It seems that a symbiotic alien plant has merged with your body, turning you into some type of predator.

You have sustained minor damage. Consume some of the Xotl to restore lost mass and salvage its equipment.

Hmm. Well, then.
...
You got any protocol for this kind of situation?

Our advice depends kinda on how you react to this, I think. I don't know whether to expect freaking out or taking it in stride. It also depends on, like, further information about circumstances. I'd agree that it's probably best to avoid eating dead sentient things where possible, but on the other hand, I've always kinda thought that if it's necessary, it's not like it makes them any deader.

I've always thought it might be kinda cool to get freakish lab mutant powers, but I might change my mind if it actually happened, I suppose. I'ma go see if Mitzi is around to give advice.

...uh, panic later! For now we get the hell out of here, then we can panic till our heart gives in, then we can figure out what the hell happened.

Grab any useful tech along with the gun and keep moving. Given how pathetic the security detail is in this section we want to move on while we still have the advantage. Keep an eye out for anything that looks like a security camera, we want to keep the lizards in the dark about what's going on.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/02(Thu)20:46 No. 554825 ID: 1e6280
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>EAT
Yeah!

>Don't eat it. Humans don't eat sentient creatures.
Wait...

>...you're in the light now. Look down at yourself. You don't appear exactly human, anymore.
What the hell is going on?! Alice is... different. Her skin's gone rubbery, she's got claws for hands and her hair is an amorphous tentacled mass. Her heart is pounding, which implies she still has a heart at least.

How bad is your injury?
Alice's bullet wound itches. It should be doing more than just itching. Its gone tough and scaly like a scab and is weeping some dark, viscous fluid.

>Anyway, lets save the shock, horror and self-reflection for later.
No. Oh sweet Messenger no. Nonononononoono.

>You got any protocol for this kind of situation?
'So you're trapped in hostile territory and have become a carnivorous alien tentacle beast' is a little outside any situations the protocol planners came up with!!

Alice feels like she's hyperventilating. Is there any hope for her, even if she does escape?

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/02(Thu)20:46 No. 554828 ID: 1e6280
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>Also: first rule of changing into a horrible monster is to test how much self control you have. If you can't control your instincts when you want to, that means you won't be safe around other humans.
Right. She needs to keep herself together. The other members of her crew might still be alive. Its her duty to get them out of here if she can.

>Pity you don't know their language. Discovering what they did to you is going to require reading alien biological records, medical reports, experiment logs. Hmm. Maybe if you steal the data, you can get someone else to analyse or translate it.
Alice does speak a little of the Xotl language, but she's not fluent enough for those sorts of technical documents. Still, if she can grab them, maybe there's a cure.

>You should test if you can still speak, actually.
Alice tries a few words.

"Ssshree sellgglgls ssseashrewlls by pthhhh seashroargggh!" It sounds like she's gargling molasses.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/02(Thu)20:47 No. 554829 ID: 1e6280
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>Take the gun.
Alice Dietrich is armed and dangerous now!

>Oh, and don't forget to check him for any useful equipment besides the gun.
Corpsy here has a few things in a little fanny pack. A datapad which is password locked, a spare clip of ammo and some sort of... smoothie?

>It's quite likely that the shot was heard, and more guards will be coming. Let's set an ambush for them - hide back in your cell with the body, then come out with the gun when they show up.
>Grab any useful tech along with the gun and keep moving. Given how pathetic the security detail is in this section we want to move on while we still have the advantage.
Alice looks around to help make up her mind. Move or lie in wait for any more guards? There's only one exit. Two places she could hide; there's the cell she was in and a big, tough looking metal trolley with two drawers in the side.

She glances at the control panel next to the cell. Power's out, but the label doesn't need power. She can read it.

...

It's an incinerator. She was inside an incinerator.

huh, I wonder if they where simply trying to kill you... or get rid of evidence. I mean whatever happened to you looks like something someone would be a lot happier off knowing nobody else know about it.

As for what to do, Do you hear anyone coming your way? If not I say move now and try and get out of here in the confusion of whatever the hell is happening to this ship/station. If you do hear people coming, rushing out to meat them head on might be a bit reckless so an ambush would be wise.

>>554822
You're really strong now. Grab the incinerator door and the trolly. Bring them with you so you have mobile cover. Also, because then you can carry everything you looted off corpsy here in spite of not having pockets.

Can you identify the smoothy? Is it labeled?

Hmm... I suppose he's too oddly proportioned for you to fit into his armor. It looks like you might be able to use the torso piece.
It'd be a poor fit and would reduce your mobility a bit, but clothes is one of the visual cues people use to tell person from not-person. Also, it's armor.

>>554829
Try taking a sip of the smoothie to see if it's to your liking. If not, then you may have to consider eating Xotl for nourishment, much as you don't want to. Also, make note that you are very strong now.

I say, whether or not you take a bite out of the lizard, we should poke our head out into the corridor. This isn't a good place to stage an ambush against alerted guards, especially since the gun you have is unlikely to be effective against their armor. We need to keep moving.

Oh, and make sure the guard's dead and not just knocked out. I'm sure you can easily twist his neck all the way around.

if they are already on their way they will probably spot you while you are in the hall. and you will have no cover. get behind the metal trolley and get ready for a fight.

then eat the corpses.

>Is there any hope for her, even if she does escape?
There are some exots that Terrans are not at war with, right? If so, it isn't out of the question to establish yourself as non-hostile, and then you will probably be ok unless the Terrans practice mad science or your condition develops in some particularly unpleasant way. Of course, all of that requires making your escape from the SpessLizards to begin with.

Can you move the cart to have it act as cover you can take with you?

Consume smoothie for sustenance.
Carry spare ammo and datapad with hair tentacles. The latter could be used for communication later, the former will be useful if your new claws hinder your ability to aim.
Exit room.

Couple points you might want to verify on the biology front so they don't trip you up down the road:

1- It seems your head flower thing has an eye on it, and your "hair" has been covering your right eye since you woke up. Cover your left and work out if you can see through the weird one. If not, that more or less confirms its just some freaky symbiotic critter. If so be aware of the weird eye position screwing with your equilibrium.

2- Regardless of the eye thing, you should at least try and peel the thing off. Because seriously, the way it's just kinda glommed onto your skull and excretory systems it really does give off a parasitic monster vibe.

3- Less supporting of the just-a-weird-critter glommed on bit, you seem to have a few new orifices on your torso there. And hands. Possibly other places. Those just lesions or redundant mouths or gills or what? You should poke at one a little just so you know for later.

All that being said, you have a perfect spot to stash a body right behind you. I'd do so and make yourself scarce.

can you figure out how to turn on the incinerator? if so it might be possible to hide the body, at least for a little while by reducing it to ash.

Ah. Focus on something else, like, look through the trolley. Anything interesting?

Bringing the trolly seems like it would hinder mobility and stealth. COULD make for good cover, I suppose. Note that anything we store in it would be difficult to recover if we had to flee suddenly.

>>554831
In line with suggestion about clothes, keep an eye out for them. I would expect clothes to go a long way in helping you if you ran into potential allies.

Also, do you know whether Xotl food was compatible with human biology? At least then you know that you'd originally have been able to eat it. I maintain the recommendation that you refrain from eating dead sentient things until/unless it becomes important.

>>554829
Alice. You are NOT a gun. You are who you CHOSE to be. So chose.

Also, if you want to know what a gun is, it's that thing you're holding in your hand. Why not see if you can find some clothing to make you feel more normal? Clearly the Xotl have done something they shouldn't have to yourself and your crewmates. You need to find a ship and get back to Sol to warn them!

>speech problems
Well, maybe you should avoid s-es. But you're not completely unintelligible. It might be possible to get messages across in the right circumstances. It's also possible, with practice (speech therapy?), you could learn to get your altered biology to make more recognizable sounds.

>Is there any hope for her, even if she does escape?
If there's a cure or the transformation is reversible, yes.

And yes even if you're stuck this way, assuming certain conditions are met. First up, assuming your mutation is stable and non-degenerative. The fact that you're alive and functioning at all after radical experimentation is a good sign, but it's no assurance you'll stay that way. And secondly, assuming your mental facilities stay intact.

Humans obviously aren't friendly with the Xotl, but are they friendly with any other alien species? If people are used to working or living with any other weird looking thing, a toothy plant person could be accepted, too. Or at least, it would make it easier to be accepted.

How benevolent is your government, or fleet, or whatever? What's humanity's science-types like? If something like you were to end up in the hands of the boys back home, would they be looking for a cure, whisking you off to a black site for dissection, or seriously considering the military applications of someone stronger than stims who can shrug off bullets naked?

>Oh sweet Messenger no.
Who's the messenger?

>ambush or leave
>it's an incinerator
Get the hell out of here. You incinerate things that are dangerous. They didn't want anything of you left. When they realize they underestimated the threat you pose, they're going to come down on you, hard. Or at least, that's what a smart commander would do. And you can't afford to bet your life on them being dumb.

>important question
If you're an experiment, there are only two reasons they would dispose of you. Either they thought you were a failure, or they thought you were too dangerous. If the former, that doesn't bode well. That means they were either wrong (and their science won't be much help to you) or they were right (and you're not long for this world). If the later... well, you're going to show them just how right they were.

>>554836
...let's not try and peel our eye off, thanks. Although you should check the right side of your face to see if you have three eyes or two, now.

Take as many pieces of the Xotl's clothing/armour as you can fit on you. "Unclothed tentacle monster" may send your fellow crew into a panic, but wearing clothes downgrades that to "somewhat toothy exot".

You are eventually going to need to dig that bullet out. Lets save that for another time though.
You could try to steal the guards clothes, but that might take too long.
The smoothie is probably edible and will help to keep your hunger under control, so start by eating that.

As for what you do next;
The incinerator changes things. It means that the Xotl see you as a serious threat. Ambushing the guards would have been been a good plan if there were only a few of them, but if they crack down hard you would be overwhelmed.

Instead, you should focus on running and hiding.
Hiding here won't work well (it's where they'll look first), so lets run as quickly as possible out of here. Take down any guards you come across, and try to find a good hiding place.

>Is there any hope for her, even if she does escape?
Your odds of living a happy life have been steadily climbing ever since you left the incinerator.
Now lets focus on surviving, okay?

First of all, Alice, try to calm yourself down. Loot the guard of everything, including his clothes, and stuff him into the incinerator. If you can see a way to turn it on, do so. If not, abscond with your new equipment and find a place to hide for a little while. A few quick knots make a shirt into a bag, but you probably don't have time for that. Get out of there.

What to eat or not to eat, what to take or not to take, whether to hole up or flee, the extent of the changes to her body; these are all important questions, but not the most important. If the Xotl have done this to you... what might they be doing to your crew?

Don't you think you should find out?

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/03(Fri)20:10 No. 554965 ID: 1e6280
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>Try taking a sip of the smoothie to see if it's to your liking.
Alice finds it tastes like fishy bacon. It actually tastes really good! She slurps down the rest. It's bit cold for her liking though.

Alice has gained 1 mass. Total mass is 49.

Strange. She was feeling full when she woke up, but now the moment she thinks about eating something, she's hungry again.

>Also, do you know whether Xotl food was compatible with human biology?
Yes it is. There's a surprising degree of biocompatibility between alien species. The leading theory is panspermia due to the Precursors.

>huh, I wonder if they were simply trying to kill you... or get rid of evidence. I mean whatever happened to you looks like something someone would be a lot happier off knowing nobody else know about it.
The Xotl might have thought she was a failed experiment, given she only woke up now. Then again, she doesn't really remember anything after getting captured and everything before that is patchy.

>Well, maybe you should avoid s-es. But you're not completely unintelligible. It might be possible to get messages across in the right circumstances. It's also possible, with practice (speech therapy?), you could learn to get your altered biology to make more recognizable sounds.
"Rrroun ahhhn rrrourrn tthhhckt ragglle rroksss pthh rrraggl rasscalglgls raaarn."

Perhaps she should stop trying tongue twisters.

>You seem to have a few new orifices on your torso there. And hands. Possibly other places. Those just lesions or redundant mouths or gills or what? You should poke at one a little just so you know for later.
Alice probes one experimentally. It's a slit that opens onto some red material underneath. The red flesh is fairly sensitive. It feels like it'll part if she keeps- OH SWEET MESSENGER IT OPENS UP LIKE A FLOWER.

>Who's the messenger?
The Messenger is the soul and emissary of the Sleeper, the prime mover who dreamt the universe out of blind chaos.

>It seems your head flower thing has an eye on it, and your "hair" has been covering your right eye since you woke up. Cover your left and work out if you can see through the weird one.
Alice tries that and... yes, she can see out of it. She has misplaced organs and orifices everywhere... this is getting a bit disturbing.

>Although you should check the right side of your face to see if you have three eyes or two, now.
Alice feels and... There's nothing under there. Just an empty socket.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/03(Fri)20:12 No. 554966 ID: 1e6280
File 138880872230.png - (10.00KB , 600x400 , you_got_the_pantsu.png )

>Ah. Focus on something else, like, look through the trolley. Anything interesting?
A secret has been found.

Alice found her underwear! She also finds her hair clip and dog tags. Guess they were planning to dispose of those too?

>Why not see if you can find some clothing to make you feel more normal?
Alice is less naked now!

There's something in the other drawer...

Some ridiculous smily faced boxers and a pair of dog tags for 'E. Derby'.

He... he was part of her crew, she thinks.

>Oh, and make sure the guard's dead and not just knocked out.
Alice crushed his skull like an eggshell. He's very dead.

>Hmm... I suppose he's too oddly proportioned for you to fit into his armour. It looks like you might be able to use the torso piece.
It's not really the right shape. She could barely put it on, let alone move around in it.

>can you figure out how to turn on the incinerator? if so it might be possible to hide the body, at least for a little while by reducing it to ash.
There's no power and Alice broke the door. She stashes the body there anyway.

>Is there hope?
>And yes even if you're stuck this way, assuming certain conditions are met. First up, assuming your mutation is stable and non-degenerative. The fact that you're alive and functioning at all after radical experimentation is a good sign, but it's no assurance you'll stay that way. And secondly, assuming your mental facilities stay intact.
That's a lot of ifs.

>Humans obviously aren't friendly with the Xotl, but are they friendly with any other alien species? If people are used to working or living with any other weird looking thing, a toothy plant person could be accepted, too.
There's been peaceful contact with a few exoterran species. One of the crew of the Penguin is an exot, she thinks?

>How benevolent is your government, or fleet, or whatever? What's humanity's science-types like? If something like you were to end up in the hands of the boys back home, would they be looking for a cure, whisking you off to a black site for dissection, or seriously considering the military applications of someone stronger than stims who can shrug off bullets naked?
... Alice doesn't think so, but she isn't sure.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/03(Fri)20:12 No. 554969 ID: 1e6280
File 138880877135.png - (20.66KB , 1000x400 , guards_arent_crazy.png )

>What to eat or not to eat, what to take or not to take, whether to hole up or flee, the extent of the changes to her body; these are all important questions, but not the most important. If the Xotl have done this to you... what might they be doing to your crew?
>Don't you think you should find out?
Yeah! There's no telling what's happening to the others right now. She has to get moving. Time to blow this popsicle stand.

>Your odds of living a happy life have been steadily climbing ever since you left the incinerator.
Probably the best way to look at it, Alice tells herself. Where there's life, there's hope.

>Can you move the cart to have it act as cover you can take with you?
Alice thinks she'll push it out into the hallway at least. It'll make a decent obstacle if there's guards running around the hallways.

Footsteps. Someone's coming. Alice ducks back into the cover of the doorway.

Hope they don't see the blood on the floor. Anyways hide and wait for the to pass or check out the room. If the pass bitchin that means we can just sneak by, if not... Well we still have that ambush plan ready to go.

If these guards are smart their tactic is to throw a grenade: Let's hope they're not smart or the grenade they use is something like a flashbang or teargas round.
Any chance you could shove the cart to go wheeling towards them with one hand and plink them with the pistol while they're recovering? It's not a grenade but it is something that can hopefully distract them from pointing guns at you.

Ok, there's trolley right there next to you. Get low behind it and push it into them. You aren't planning on hurting them with it (though maybe you will anyway), you are trying to set them off balance while closing the distance so you can use your superior strength.

If you have the coordination you can add suppressing fire from your cover while you are at it. The idea here isn't to shoot them, they are armored and it's much less likely to be effective when compared to closing and breaking limbs or crushing heads.

The one in front has a helmet, which is probably able to protect against fire from a sidearm. Aim for his hands, to prevent him from firing at you, then aim for the other one's head. Once the first one is alone and disarmed we can close to melee range and use our strength to capture him.

We can then restrain him with something and use the datapad to interrogate him.

>>554969
If they throw a grenade then throw it back.

Otherwise, grab the incinerator's door and use it as a shield to rush them. It has a handle; it should work ok. Since it's designed to resist temperatures hot enough to vaporize bone it should be durable enough to discourage bullets - at least enough so that they only make a half-hearted attempt to shred you.
Further, people with guns generally don't expect to get rushed, which makes it a rather effective tactic. You might be able to knock them down before they can respond, then finish them off while they're down.

In short? INCINERATOR DOOR SHIELD BASH!

>>554979
Oh, and try to keep one alive so you can demand to know where your crew is.

shoot them. hands seem weakpoint for the first guy.

>>554969
Pop back out behind the trolly and give it a mighty shove so that it hits the guards. Then pounce on them. Or shoot them if you have a good shot.

Oh split the difference. If they've seen you, pop a shot off at the idiot who forgot his helmet, while kicking the cart into the fully armored one. That should buy you time to close the distance and I think it's been established that you can mess people up in a hand to hand fight no matter what they're wearing.

>Alice probes one experimentally. It's a slit that opens onto some red material underneath. The red flesh is fairly sensitive. It feels like it'll part if she keeps- OH SWEET MESSENGER IT OPENS UP LIKE A FLOWER.

Time and a place but that still leaves some questions when you get to it. Just a bunch of impractical mouths in those or something grosser?

>Dog tags
Well there's something that might help with your identity, at least. Moreso than say, dental records, anyways.

>... Alice doesn't think so, but she isn't sure.
About what? That's a simple negative to a multi-part question.

>what do?
If we have to fight these guys, a close range ambush might work best, considering you're way stronger then these guys. Break the gun arm of the lead guy as he comes around the corner, shoot the second one in the head, and then turn your attention to finishing off the first.

Trolly push seems like a solid opener. I'd rather keep distance to reduce the chance of getting hurt if possible, even with our obvious advantages in close range. But I have no clue how effective our firearm will be against their armor, rushing them might be more tactically sound than trading shots.

I think it'd be funny to throw the corpse at one of them. I mean- I think that it would be an efficient use of battlefield resources to utilize the deceased enemy combatant as a diversionary projectile.

Unless you want to wait in the room to ambush them, shoving the trolley at them (possibly moving down behind it first) seems like a good idea. I'm too used to conserving ammo, so I dunno whether just shooting them is better or what, but it seems quite feasible to run up quickly (maybe while making them take cover by firing at them?) and take them out by hand. Seems quieter and more efficient, at least. Maybe you could try to shoot the unarmored one while running up? I would expect that the easiest way to kill the armored one would be by snapping their neck. If it seems feasible and profitable to interrogate one, though, you might consider that. Try not to let him use a communicator or anything, though.

Somebody remind me, if I ever make a battle station, to have everybody wear/contain life sign monitors that, if the bearer dies, auto-transmit recordings of the last 10 minutes to the central computer. Or maybe just always auto-transmit, though that's more objectionable.

Okay, Inventory. Take the both dog tags.

The two guards? Well we can throw the corpse into those two then using the incinerator door as a shield, charge them.

First up; just two guards?
Either they don't know that they're fighting you, or they MASSIVELY underestimated you.

Hiding would be the best plan, but I doubt the guards are going to miss that pool of blood. So you should set an ambush.
That trolley should block the blood from the guards sight until they get close to the doorway. Once they do, hurl the incinerator door at them (to stop them from shooting you) then charge them.
Once you're in close quarters with them, you shouldn't have much trouble taking them down - It seems you were a tough opponent as a human, and now you have claws, tentacles and ridiculous strength.

If you can manage it, you should try to capture the guards so you can interrogate them. It's not a disaster if you kill them, but you are going to need information if you want to do more than just survive.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/03(Fri)23:26 No. 555022 ID: 1e6280
File 138882041504.png - (12.97KB , 600x500 , take_a_shot.png )

>About what? That's a simple negative to a multi-part question.
It did kind of stray into a lot of questions about dissection and black projects and mad scientists.

>Well there's something that might help with your identity, at least. Moreso than say, dental records, anyways
Alice isn't entirely sure if she has teeth any more.

>Hope they don't see the blood on the floor. Anyways hide and wait for them to pass or check out the room.
Alice doesn't like the idea of staying in a confined place when they have grenades and the blood's a dead giveaway.

>Otherwise, grab the incinerator's door and use it as a shield to rush them
It's too big, heavy and awkward to use it for that.

>Oh, and try to keep one alive so you can demand to know where your crew is.
Taking them down comes first.

>The one in front has a helmet, which is probably able to protect against fire from a sidearm. Aim for his hands, to prevent him from firing at you, then aim for the other one's head. Once the first one is alone and disarmed we can close to melee range and use our strength to capture him.
That's a really small target!

>pop a shot off at the idiot who forgot his helmet, while kicking the cart into the fully armored one. That should buy you time to close the distance and I think it's been established that you can mess people up in a hand to hand fight no matter what they're wearing.
Sounds like a plan.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/03(Fri)23:27 No. 555026 ID: 1e6280
File 138882045429.png - (19.40KB , 600x450 , stop_dying.png )

Helmet guy's on the ball! Alice would have gotten a pretty little headshot if he hadn't knocked the other guy out of the way. Saving his friend stopped him getting a shot off at least. Probably good. The large bore on shotguns makes it easy to fit specialty rounds. They usually have explosive rounds or flechettes or something else nasty.

His friend squawks in pain at the hit to his ear-frill and the helmet one snaps something in that papery whispering of theirs. Something to the effect of 'stop dying.'

While his finger's off the trigger, Alice leaps out of cover and shoves the trolley, staying low behind it. It's not rolling as easily as she'd hoped. The one with the pistol got a shot off but it went hopelessly wide.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/03(Fri)23:28 No. 555028 ID: 1e6280
File 138882049260.png - (23.64KB , 1000x400 , gunfights_are_fun.png )

Helmet guy's really on the ball! He stopped it. Stupid shitty Xotl trolley! Alice gets in tight behind it. This isn't good. The other one seems pretty rattled at least.

grab it by the under carriage. and FLIP the whole thing over on them!

Well...GOOD FOR HELMET GUY, I GUESS. Ruining our parade....

>>555029
Seems like a good plan B. Did the trolley just have sticky wheels, or was it really heavy? Hopefully the former, for the sake of plan B.

Oh, also, very good news that normal food is still good.

Didn't we just establish you have enhanced strength? Better leverage too it seems. Shove it hard and quick enough and you should have him nicely floored. Take another headshot while he's preoccupied, and from there I suppose you can vault into the cart itself to close without getting shot.

I realize plan B seems a lot like plan A, but it's still a good one.

Oh, and while you're at it, see if you can't do some tentacle flailing and oriface opening. Hiss a bit and stick out your tongue. The one's already panicky, he might really lose it.

Also hey, for future reference, the messed up hair eye is pretty far off from the center of your head. Don't need to lean all the way around corners when lining up a shot. Could come in handy.

Blindfiring and then charging when they move for cover is the best I can come up with that hasn't already been said. But at this range helmet guy has a reasonable chance of blowing our hand off so... plan flipping seems like the best option.

Better act now before no-helmet gets ahold of himself and they flank us.

>>555028
Damnit, gunfights are not your strong point here.
You need to bring those two into arms reach without getting shot, or this will be a very long and painful fight.

I can see two good options here.
Ideally you should follow >>555029's advice, and flip the trolley onto them. Then you can rush them while they're pinned.

Alternatively, if you can't lift the trolley pull it toward you.
Then you can get back into hiding behind doorway, and wait for them as they try to walk around the side of trolley.
Once they they try to clear the room, smack them with the incinerator door.
It's risky, but the door should block any grenades or fire, and the surprise will give you an opportunity.

huh, well shit, flip table if you can and if not try to take out no-helmet so we only have to worry about helmet guy here, he's bad enough.

Hrm... Let's test something.

>Burn 2 Mass to boost Strength

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/04(Sat)04:56 No. 555061 ID: 1e6280
File 138884020845.png - (19.02KB , 600x500 , make_a_plan.png )

>Damnit, gunfights are not your strong point here.
Alice doesn't think fighting two better armed enemies while half naked is anyone's strong suit!

>Did the trolley just have sticky wheels, or was it really heavy?
Both really.

>grab it by the under carriage. and FLIP the whole thing over on them!
Alice paws under the trolley for a good grip and-

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/04(Sat)04:57 No. 555062 ID: 1e6280
File 138884023770.png - (28.69KB , 1000x520 , xotl_is_a_pretty_cool_guy.png )

"Phhhhhuuuurrrrrkkkk!" Agh, it feels like her skull is exploding. She thinks she dropped her pistol.

Alice has lost six mass. 43 mass remaining.

The little bastard climbed on top of the trolley. She was more exposed than she thought. Stupid, shitty Xotl trolley built by midgets!

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/04(Sat)04:57 No. 555063 ID: 1e6280
File 138884027833.png - (21.95KB , 600x400 , flip_the_table.png )

Enough of this! Die trolley die!

Alice grips the frame and surges to her feet. Her loose-jointed body seems to tighten and strengthen at her need. She hauls it up and heaves it over on top of the helmeted Xotl.

To quote ancient sorceror, "FINISH HIM!"
Seriously, rush out of what cover you have (not like it's much) and snatch up the competant one's shotgun before he regains it. Use it to finish him off. This will, unfortunately, give the other one a good shot at you. Take the hit and then turn and give the dumb one a point blank headshot. Then loot and scoot before you're swarmed.

keep flipping until it's all the way around and on top of the helmet guy. the kill the helmet less guy. then run off with his body, rip parts off and eat them while moving.

Charge the helmetless guy and disarm him - you could do without getting shot again. After that, kill the other guy; he's too competent to leave alive. Then grab the helmetless Xotl, smack him around a bit, and interrogate the shit out of him.

And for future reference:
Ambushing opponents and killing them by hand before they can react properly seems too be your best plan.
Cover-shooting just seems to play up the advantages of the Xotl (better guns and more numbers) without bringing your natural skills at close-quarters into play.

Finally, resist the temptation to eat the soldiers.
If you really need to recover body mass, let's raid a food store or something.

Don't kill the helmet less guy. We need someone to interrogate.

Advantages of being a horrible plant monster: if you were still you, you'd be dead several times over. You wouldn't have been strong enough to break out of the incinerator, you wouldn't have been able to take that round to the gut, and you certainly wouldn't be fine after having the back of your head blown off.

>what do
Crush this guy. Slam the trolly down on him. Be careful- if he's dying he may pull the pin on his grenade, meaning you'll have to dive for cover behind the corner or something. No need to test how indestructible you are right now- there must be limits.

Once helmet is down, take out the other, fast.

>Ambushing opponents and killing them by hand before they can react properly seems too be your best plan.
Not that your training with a sidearm is worthless, it's just the natural advantages of your new body at just that great.

...although you should totally take their guns. No reason not to shoot things when ambushing isn't an option. Even if you get shot up, you can seem to take it.

>>555063
Grab gun, shoot Idiot in the face, strip Helmet of his weapons. Remove helmet's helmet.

If Helmet is still alive, demand to know where your crew is under penalty of a horrific death. While eating part of Idiot. If Helmet doesn't comply, then rip off Helmet's limbs and use him as a shield.

I recommend continuing to overturn the trolley onto Captain Helmet: try to finish him off quickly. If you try to interrogate someone, it probably ought to be Private Gibber, there. I think that if we were to try to interrogate Captain Helmet, he'd probably activate suit explosives or call for reinforcements or be all "I'll never talk!" or something.

As a note, interrogation may be difficult, since we can't really speak horrible space lizard, or much of anything at all. We could probably shove the datapad at him and maybe he can furnish the password. (Unless it was a personal or high-clearance password.)

Furthermore, still try not to eat them, yet, though we may have to amend that decision if we lose much more mass.

Ooh, ooh, if there's a really convenient opportunity, give Captain Helmet a thumbs up or something immediately before he dies.

Leave the one with no helmet alive to interrogate.

Fully flip this over, jump onto it as it tips, and just kinda... monster out as best as you can. What comes next depends on whether we're trapping this guy or crushing him, and how no-helm reacts.

>>555063
Get the gun away from the other guy, then ask him simple questions you can understand the res- wait nevermind you can't speak. Just eat them both.

...the immediate priority is to make sure that all enemy combatants are incapacitated while you take as little additional damage as possible.

Worry about taking prisoners or killing them if and when you have the luxury of making that choice. For the moment, this fight isn't over, and you don't have the time to worry about anything but ending it.

Suggestion 2014/01/05(Sun)07:26 No. 555291 ID: 1e6280
File 138893559090.png - (18.90KB , 600x540 , ventilation.png )

>Advantages of being a horrible plant monster: if you were still you, you'd be dead several times over. You wouldn't have been strong enough to break out of the incinerator, you wouldn't have been able to take that round to the gut, and you certainly wouldn't be fine after having the back of your head blown off.
Alice has a hole in her head that she is fairly sure she could fit her entire fist into and would appreciate not being reminded of how dead she is supposed to be!

>Don't kill the helmet less guy. We need someone to interrogate.
There's still two live enemies, and Alice isn't sure how long she'd have to question someone or even how to question them.

>...the immediate priority is to make sure that all enemy combatants are incapacitated while you take as little additional damage as possible.
This is a mindset Alice can get behind!

>And for future reference:
>Ambushing opponents and killing them by hand before they can react properly seems too be your best plan.
Alice thinks so too. In the future she'll hopefully be able to position herself better.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/05(Sun)07:28 No. 555292 ID: 1e6280
File 138893568778.png - (17.31KB , 750x400 , situation.png )

>I recommend continuing to overturn the trolley onto Captain Helmet: try to finish him off quickly.
Alice pushes it over with great force. She hears a clatter as the helmeted xotl drops his shotgun and then much more clattering and a muffled squawk as the heavy trolley comes down on top of him.

>Snatch up the competent one's shotgun before he regains it.
The lack of clearance between the trolley and the wall doesn't really permit it. Helmet should have just as much trouble getting his gun back though.

>Fully flip this over, jump onto it as it tips, and just kinda... monster out as best as you can.
Alice's instincts are screaming at her to attack. Helmet's pinned and disarmed, and the other xotl is shaking and slowly backing up, but keeping his gun pointed at her. Alice has been shot at enough today. He's going down.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/05(Sun)07:30 No. 555293 ID: 1e6280
File 138893580721.png - (19.60KB , 800x450 , gotta_go_fast.png )

Snarling, she vaults onto the trolley and charges at the xotl on all fours. The muzzle of his gun waves erratically as he squeezes off two shots. One is hopelessly wide and the other takes a chunk out of her arm. She barely notices it.

Alice has lost one mass. 42 mass remaining.

Her tongue lolls, her eyes dilated as she tracks her prey's panicked motions. One more moment and she'll lunge and bite his head clean off.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/05(Sun)07:31 No. 555294 ID: 1e6280
File 138893587371.png - (13.32KB , 600x400 , hes_got_a_thermal_detonator.png )

>Helmet may pull the pin on his grenade
A nudge of tactical awareness at the back of her head prompts Alice to glance down mid-charge to see if helmet is going to try anything else clever. She spots him doing just that.

Reach down and grab the grenade, fast, before he lets go or drops it. Use your superior strength to crush his hand and keep the lever depressed so the grenade can't go off. Then rip it out of his hand or just rip his hand off.

Once we have the grenade safety in hand, you can either waste it blowing up dummy there, or kill him one handed and then find the pin and replace it so you can let go of the grenade lever without it going off.

the grenade does indeed seem to have a two stage priming process. and will not blow unless he lets go. so stop that from happening.

two choices here. A- reverse direction and leap behind the trolley.
B- spring for helmless, and use his body to protect yourself from the blast.

Sir helmet is too damn clever for his own good.

Assuming that grenade is lever operated:
Crush his hand against the grenade to stop him from detonating it, then use your other hand to punch him in the head, stunning him.

You'll get shot again by the other dude while you finish Sir helmet, but at this point that's not much of a threat.

I think we have too much momentum to back up mid-charge, but we can possibly rip his hand off with the grenade in it then toss it to the other side of the cart.

>>555294
Rip the grenade away and throw it behind you or just keep it by holding the lever down. We can find the pin later. Then kill the second one. One punch should do it.

Trying to take it from him is a gamble that puts us at the center of the blast. I'd rather take the gamble of running the heck away, past the standing Xotl, without slowing down to muck with him. At least that should put us further from the blast if we're not entirely successful. Helmet xotl is pinned and shouldn't be able to throw it after us properly, and we presumably have plenty of hallway to run in.

After the detonation we come back and scavenge what we can.

CAPTAIN HELMET, YOUR COMPETENCY IS BOTH IMPRESSIVE AND AGGRAVATING. Ok ok ok, so. If you, with your military training, think you can grab and stop the grenade, do so. Otherwise, I would recommend actually grabbing it and throwing it past bare-head. While running farther down the hall is not a bad idea, I don't think we can count on Captain Helmet not still managing to catch us with the grenade, and/or just standing back up and shooting us more.

We're in mid-charge so our momentum has to be figured into this. If you can, reach down and try to smack the grenade out of his hand. Regardless of whether this works or not, run like your ass was on fire. Grapple the idiot and shove him down onto the grenade. Then, haul ass. After the boom, return to scavenge what you can, stealthfully.

if you can grab the grenade do so if not when you jump off the trolley make sure to land on helmet to try and knock him out so he can't throw the grenade at you and then just keep running toward no helmet.

If helmet-head hasn't released the 'nade's lever yet, dart your hand down and grasp over it, and his hand if need be. Then hold on tight and keep charging forward, ripping things off if need be.

However, if the grenade's lever has been released, then the best option is to smack it back the way you came and pour on the speed to get behind the helmet-less mook. Grab on and use him as a meat-shield to protect against the blast and shrapnel.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/05(Sun)17:40 No. 555388 ID: 1e6280
File 138897241945.png - (22.23KB , 450x720 , shes_got_the_thermal_detonator.png )

>Reach down and grab the grenade, fast, before he lets go or drops it. Use your superior strength to crush his hand and keep the lever depressed so the grenade can't go off.
Oh no you don't! This is going to be awkward with all her forward momentum, but Alice lets herself drop on top of the helmeted xotl and closes her fist on his hand and the grenade.

As she more or less faceplants on top of him, Alice squirms her fingers around to get a solid grip so he can't jerk his hand free.

>Use your other hand to punch him in the head, stunning him.
Alice unhinges her jaw and extends her tongues to grab the xotl's head. He starts struggling more.

>Sir helmet is too damn clever for his own good.
Now he's going to be clever and dead!

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/05(Sun)17:41 No. 555389 ID: 1e6280
File 138897246661.png - (25.57KB , 750x500 , turning_things_around.png )

>You'll get shot again by the other dude while you finish Sir helmet, but at this point that's not much of a threat.
Ow. Alice has another hole in her head. That didn't hurt as much as the first time.

Alice has lost two mass! 40 mass remaining.

It's hard to dodge like this but- Pressing against the upturned trolley for footing, Alice snaps out her free hand and snags the xotl by the forearm. Her tendrils coil around and tighten. Something snaps under her grip and he squawks. She starts reeling him in as her jaws find the weaker, flexible neck lining on the helmeted xotl's armour.

snap helmet's neck. eat it and spit out the armor.

>>555389
Rip off his helmet then feast on the succulent flesh underneath. Drag the other one forward and do the same to him.

>>5553>>555389
Damn it!, Pull the unhelmeted guy in or dash him against the wall, and try to take the grenade away from the pinned one, sever his wrist if you have too!

Do not ingest! Terminate or disable at your leisure, do not integrate.

finish whatever you're doing to helmet and then lets focus on the other guy.

Huh. Well, we can confirm your new biology includes at least limited shapeshifitng. Your hand grew and wrapped around his, your other arm elongated and vine-grappled helmet-less, and nevermind what your head is doing.

At this point the battle is basically won. You have it in your power to kill helmet- do so. He's proven too dangerous, competent, and persistent to leave alive. You might be able to merely immobilize helmet-less by breaking his arm, or slamming him into the wall repeatedly. Although I'm not seeing much advantage to keeping him alive- he seems too low rank and incompetent to know much, and we'd have severe language barriers preventing interrogation.

...I suppose one reason to leave anyone behind alive but badly injured would be to tax their resources? Dead are dead, but living survivors need to be collected by recovery teams, brought to medbay, and time and resources spent treating them. Leaving badly wounded people behind when you can might help a fight of attrition, and maybe contribute to a psychological impact.

Although that might not be worth leaving behind a survivor who can describe accurately what you're capable of. Perhaps it's better to leave them guessing, than give them intel.

>what do
Kill helmet, kill or mail helmet-less, then immediately find the pin for that grenade and secure it.

Then check how quickly your wounds are patching, consider if being a monster means you should eat some of the corpses to replace mass, and search the bodies qucikly for useful equipment (new guns, at least).

Do not give into your instincts and start feeding or enjoying it before they're both disabled, or the grenade has been safely re-pinned. Even if you bite his head off.

Once you've removed Sir helmet's head, give a sharp push to helmetless to knock him over. If possible, pull the gun out of his hand as he falls.
That should give you a moment to disarm the grenade (or chuck it if you can't).

Next you should jump at helmetless, and smack him around a bit until he stops fighting back.
Then try to interrogate him. I'd recommend shoving those dog tags from 'E. Derby' in his face, and gesturing at the pad and the hallways.
I don't think you'll have any issue getting the guy compliant, but you are going to have to work hard to explain what you want.

OK, when I said "monster on out and intimidate them, I meant more like... hissing and wiggling around and stuff, not so much uh... what you're doing here.

While you're at it though, might as see how flexible you are like this. flip your legs around and try to strange no-helmet or something with'em? Or eat his face with mouths you secretly have on your soles or something. Whatever you can manage really.

guys we are down ten mass. smoothies only give us 1. imagine if we had to fight two or three helmet guys at the same time? we NEED to eat these guys so the next group can't take advantage of out wounds to finish us off.

>>555417
It might be necessary to give in and start eating the guards. If the rest of them are competent like mister grenade your mass will get whittled away until you're too weak to physically overpower them.

Geeze, it's not a matter of tactics. If you are human you don't just start eating sapient creatures. Until it becomes a biological imperative and can't be avoided, no eating them.

Not much point in debating the ethics of eating people when in order to survive a tense fight that's still going on, you're already in the process of biting someone's head off.

Consume them. It's not as though they'll be using the biomass once they're dead. Such a waste to just leave it there.

Rip and tear, but be a proper lady about it.

>>555430
>>555426

This is your old/inner drill seargant speaking!, Belay those orders, spaceman! You're a soldier, not a savage!

Since you're clearly fond of cliché American clichés, here's one for you: don't feed the bad wolf! You're a security officer, massacres are not you're speciality! Expeditious slaying?! Yes! Casualties of war?! Yes! Hannibalizing sapient anthropoids?! Not on the menu... I mean agenda! Make the jailbird sing or squawk: just make him talk, You need intel on your shipmates! I swear, spaceman, if you make it out of here alive with another crew-member without excessive force (and or face-eating) I'll give you my personal challenge coin on a titanium-gold-fibre ribbon and I'll drop and give you fifty! OOO-rah!

>>555440
What.

Just kill Captain Helmet before he demonstrates his competency again, and interrogate or kill helmetless.

THEN we can debate diet. Though, personally, I think the choice is largely dependent on your own feelings.

>>555400
I agree with this. Information is the most important thing you can get right now.

>>555444
Don't be a god damned degenerate and stay away from eating living, thinking people with personalities and such.

That's just not right.

>>555482
These are soldiers of an unethical enemy organization of expansionist aliens, who experimented on us and possibly our crew to turn us into a mutant killing machine. I prefer to think of this not as eating people, but as karma running its course.

It's also a tactical decision, because we've lost one fifth of our mass after bringing down only three people. We need to heal ourselves somehow.

Survival triumphs over this kind of qualm. Eat them, but in a more controlled manner, aware of what you're doing and why. If it seems like you'll give in to your impulses, stop.

The true no-no would be eating non-hostiles, including neutrals or those that've surrendered. Above all, remember that if you were in a better situation, you wouldn't be doing this.

>>555440
Yes. Remember your training, Padawan. you may kill Evil Dark Hemlet-head in self-defense, but just remind yourself he's doing the same job you would be if this were your ship; shoot space-monsters attacking crew members. You may eat him after he is medically dead, and may the Schwartz be with you.

>>555482
B polite, she's going thru a lot atm. Don't be surprised her training doesn't include reigning in alien instincts after being abducted by little hitlers and almost burned to death in their ovens only to find she has become The Swamp-thing Zombie Frum Outr Spesch.

>>555291
> difficulty translating in broken Xotl
Get him to activate map app on alien smartfone in the following manner:

Show him your comrade's dog tags then point to him, the hallway and then the pda; that should get the message across. Don't forget to keep the pda active by repetitively moving the 'cursor' equivalent before it goes to sleepmode and locks you out again or just have him show you the password. If he doesn't know have him pull out his own.

BLOOD FOR THE SPESS SOLDIER
FERTLIZER FOR THE SPESS PLANT
CRUSH AND CONSUME ALL OPPOSITION
MURDER THEM THEN CRUNCH THEIR BONES IN YOUR FACE-HOLE

>>555638

Hey, hey, easy now. Easy. Shhh. It's okay.

Look, woman, you're confused and hurt, and hurt on the inside too. You want to live, and right now, to live seems to involve consuming copious amounts of flesh-stuff.

But those things may not come without consequences. Have you thought about what makes you, well, you, right now? You dunno, right? There's already a hunger and aggressiveness in you that's not of the 'you' of before. So what's gonna happen if you eat too much, well, not-you? Is whatever bio-experimental thing that revived you gonna take completely over? You've taken two shots to the head, whatever identity you have ain't in your brainmeats anymore. It's an issue.

That said, if consuming stuff doesn't make you less you, as long as something's dead and you've got the time, you should probably eat it. Survival's a big deal and having more mass seems relevant for survival... and also your self-control? Perhaps retaining your sense of self is about achieving a balance between too little and too much mass?

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/07(Tue)00:29 No. 555675 ID: 1e6280
File 138908337383.png - (22.37KB , 600x450 , xotl_resistance.png )

>Snap helmet's neck. eat it and spit out the armour.
Alice bites through the helmeted xotl's neck with her mandibles and comes to the unfortunate realisation that she's trying to swallow something larger than her own head. She awkwardly tries to manoeuvre it around in her mouth and insert her feeding tendrils through the neck piece.

>Finish whatever you're doing to helmet and then lets focus on the other guy.
The living xotl shouts - 'Glory to the Xotl Empire!' or something similar. He hauls with his broken gun arm and steps in. Aaaargh! Little bastard punched her right in the eye!

1 mass lost. 39 mass remaining.

>While you're at it though, might as see how flexible you are like this. flip your legs around and try to strange no-helmet or something with 'em?
Alice violently kicks out with her left leg. She grabs him by the throat by the throat with her foot and- oops, looks like she snapped his neck.

>Then try to interrogate him. I'd recommend shoving those dog tags from 'E. Derby' in his face, and gesturing at the pad and the hallways.
Alice didn't like her chances of getting a hostile exot to talk even without the language barrier. He wouldn't have known the password for the other xotl's data pad anyway. She grabbed it so she'd have the option of doing a hardware reset - she'd lose any personal data on the pad but be able to use it for herself.

>Rip and tear, but be a proper lady about it.
Alice isn't very good at being a proper lady!

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/07(Tue)00:30 No. 555677 ID: 1e6280
File 138908343262.png - (24.30KB , 720x500 , sudden_realisation.png )

>Consider if being a monster means you should eat some of the corpses to replace mass
She needs this! She needs it, she needs it, she needs it!

>Don't be a god damned degenerate and stay away from eating living, thinking people with personalities and such.
They're dead! Alice killed them! Dead people aren't alive!

>Consume them. It's not as though they'll be using the biomass once they're dead. Such a waste to just leave it there.
That's right, that's right!

Alice devours everything inside helmet's helmet. Tastes like chicken.

8 biomass consumed. Digestive efficiency is 25%. 2 mass gained. Mass total is now 41

...Alice suddenly doesn't feel so good. There's too much uh... she's got to... uh... the residue... its built up too much... she thinks she's going to...

BLURGH.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/07(Tue)00:31 No. 555678 ID: 1e6280
File 138908347570.png - (19.63KB , 600x400 , you_slimed_him_alice.png )

That was unpleasantly like a full body sneeze.

Um, Alice just vomited up about a dozen litres of thick, dark, slime. It looks and smells identical to the stuff that comes out of her wounds as they heal.

She feels a little clearer headed now.

>This is your old/inner drill sergeant speaking!, Belay those orders, spaceman! You're a soldier, not a savage! [...] OOO-rah!
Or maybe she really is losing her mind.

>OK, when I said "monster on out and intimidate them, I meant more like... hissing and wiggling around and stuff, not so much uh... what you're doing here.
So what, was she meant to just let them kill her? It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

>Survival triumphs over this kind of qualm. Eat them, but in a more controlled manner, aware of what you're doing and why. If it seems like you'll give in to your impulses, stop.
Right. Survival takes priority. And to survive, Alice needs to regain her strength.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/07(Tue)00:31 No. 555679 ID: 1e6280
File 138908351883.png - (19.06KB , 450x650 , inventory_check.png )

>Hey, hey, easy now. Easy. Shhh. It's okay.
>Look, woman, you're confused and hurt, and hurt on the inside too. You want to live, and right now, to live seems to involve consuming copious amounts of flesh-stuff.
Alice tries not to think about how good they taste.

42 biomass consumed. 11 mass gained.
Digestive efficiency has increased to 30%!
30 biomass consumed. 9 mass gained. Total mass is now 61.

It's probably terrible to say it, but Alice feels more like her old self now.

>Well, we can confirm your new biology includes at least limited shapeshifting. Your hand grew and wrapped around his, your other arm elongated and vine-grappled helmet-less, and nevermind what your head is doing.
Alice didn't know she could do that. She thinks she's learning how to operate these tentacles a little.

>Check how quickly your wounds are patching
They've all closed up. Having a meal looks like it gave her a boost.

Alice now has a shotgun with 11 shells. 4 shells are different. She can't read the markings. She has her pistol, with two bullets out of seven fired from the current magazine and two reloads. She doesn't need more data pads, and neither xotl was carrying any of those smoothies. She also has two pairs of dogtags.

Oh, and she found the grenade's pin and stuck it back in.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/07(Tue)00:32 No. 555680 ID: 1e6280
File 138908355152.png - (17.25KB , 600x400 , where_go.png )

>Have you thought about what makes you, well, you, right now? You dunno, right? There's already a hunger and aggressiveness in you that's not of the 'you' of before. So what's gonna happen if you eat too much, well, not-you? Is whatever bio-experimental thing that revived you gonna take completely over? You've taken two shots to the head, whatever identity you have ain't in your brainmeats any more. It's an issue.
Alice has been trying not to think about it. If she can hold it together until she can get the others out, that'll have to be enough.

There's a sign ahead. Right is 'Medical' and left is 'Storage'.

so far it seems being low on mass makes you hungry, desperate, and animalistic.

not sure what we could get from medical that could be useful... unless the lab they did this is in there and you can get the data on it. go medical

That's enough body horror for now. Let's go to storage and see if there's any proper food there. It looks like your body can't digest people efficiently you might get better efficiency by consuming prepared food if that smoothie is anything to go off of.

OK #1- Make sure you aren't suddenly having any weird salamander thoughts after eating these guys' heads. That would suggest you're really just some tentacle monster assuming the identities of people you eat and that would just plain suck.

#2- If it wouldn't take too long, maybe strap one of those arms or legs around your freaky stomach mouth? Not only would it let you eat on the go with your hands free, but... frankly it looks rather indecent and it would be nice to keep it covered up.

#3- Medical should definitely take priority over storage. You did way better in hand to hand than at range, may as well play to that strength. Meanwhile, medical might have some intriguing insights into your general condition, and it'd help to check those out before the place gets swarmed and/or they're destroyed.

#4- Make a mental note. At some point between getting out of here and getting turned back to normal, you REALLY need to look into whether there is such a thing as a professional twister player. I mean, gymnastics would be close, but more likely to arbitrarily ban you from competing, you know?

#5- So... you basically have a tail now which is primarily being used as in-built underwear? Is that what's going on downstairs?

Looks like you've learned the Xotl language since eating some of them. That's interesting. Do you have any other knowledge now that you didn't have before? Think back to what their homeworld is like, or the layout of this facility.

What about the first guy who showed up with the cart? If we're giving up on allowing our enemies proper burials we should probably consume their remains and hide their equipment in the incinerator. Double check that there's nowhere else by that incinerator other members of our crew or equipment might be... stowed.

Head for medical. A noncombatant, educated doctor would be far easier to interrogate than a soldier, at least as far as humans go. Who knows with Xotl. Either way, it seems more likely to have clues you need.

Oh, hey, you've got handy tentacle holsters. That's neat.

>residue / vomit / sneeze
So on the one hand, you can heal what by all rights should be mortal injuries, rapidly, by eating. On the other, it's kind of gross and unpleasant.

>on eating people
Look, obviously, in normal circumstances, you wouldn't want to listen to your body telling you to eat people. Rules are a little different when you've been taken prisoner by hostile aliens who experimented on you and are now trying to kill you. Their lives and dignity are kind of forfeit, in that situation. You do what you have to to survive.

>She also has two pairs of dogtags.
Xotl dogtags, or were they carrying a set from one of the other humans?

Also, you should be wearing your tags, if you aren't already. It's a way to declare your identity and hold onto who you are. Or who you're supposed to be, at least.

>a shotgun with 11 shells. 4 shells are different.
Hmm. If the 11 are regular ammo, the 4 might be scatter-shot, or high explosives? Kind of hard to tell without testing unless there are obvious visual warning labels or something.

>Looks like you've learned the Xotl language since eating some of them.
What? We have no evidence of that. She already knew the crude basics- she understood the incinerator sign and bits of the intercom warning before eating anyone. And she can't read the labels on the shotgun ammo, still. If she recognizes the words 'Medical' and 'Storage', it's likely because they're common labels for parts of a ship or base, and included in the basics she was taught (common labels being useful to know if you might end up fighting on one of their facilities).

>where go
Medical. You want to try and grab any records as to what they've done to you, or to the rest of your crew. And it would be nice to get there now before the place starts filling up with wounded and security guarding them. You might also be able to 'thank' some of the scientists who did this to you before they have a chance to evacuate or get away.

>>555680
Did you eat the one in the first room too? Waste not want not.

Also I'd say head to medical.

>>555680
Eat the first corpse, then go to Storage. Maybe they kept your gear?

>About eating people
The important distinction is between killing people to eat and eating who you kill. It is essentially the difference between killing people to take their stuff and taking stuff from people you have killed for other reasons (for example, their guns).

By the way, there was some kind of poster on the wall you just ran past with a bunch of linked rectangular things. Is that some kind of area map?

Medical is far more likely to provide answers on what happened with the rest of the crew. Maybe unpleasant answers, but we need them if we can get them. Medical is also more likely to be located centrally or near modes of rapid transit which could be risky but means paths of escape.

>>555736
Has the right of it. Eating sentients should be minimized as a motivating force, but it is clearly an important tool at our disposal that can't exactly be ignored.

hm, storage will probably have more gear and other things to help you escape but medical would probably be the best place to go to try and learn about what the hell happened to you and maybe even the rest of your crew...
If you think you need a bigger gun I would say storage, if not medical would be far more helpful here.

Actually you know what, before dealing with ANY of that... did you get the pin back in that grenade, or are you just going to hold the handle down until you see someone else you don't like and/or drop it in surprise at something?

>>555681
That's life. Any HALT condition (Hungry Angry Lonesome Tired) make instincts that are already in a situation to subvert 'higher' functions even stronger, and Alice had to deal with the first three and being shot at to boot.

>>555680
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

Go right, and she won't have to be woefully under-equipped anymore. Go left, and perhaps you can find biomass for later consumption, maybe she can find some blue pills to pop and 'escape', or take red ones and see how far the rabbit hole goes... but go to medical and give her captors more time to plan, capture and kill her along with the rest of Penguin crew.

Go left and she might find some living crew members to save and she would have an extra set of eyes and hands to watch her back and shoot guns, but they'd all still be very vulnerable without the equipment and... maybe they aren't even around anymore; I think it's pretty clear that good ol' Eddie Derby got his ashes spread over the big, black sea.

flip a coin and walk, so long as she gets somewhere, I suppose.

Poke around and try to find the shell casing for the shot helmet-head put into you. Then you can compare its markings to the other shells so you'll know what some of them do.

>>555680
chicken strips come in packages of 3 and you seem to have left one back in the incinerator room. go finish your meal.

>>555736
Seems pretty accurate. You kill them because they're trying to kill you, but while they're dead, it's not like they're using their biomass anymore. Beyond that, I think that whether and when you eat dead people depends on how you think you'll end up feeling about it. If you think it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life, mmmaaybe you should try not to eat people unless you really, really need to. Otherwise, I'd say it's basically fine. Kinda your choice about the remaining guy, in other words.

Also, yeah, go to medical. Information is a potent weapon. Hmm, I wonder if there are any other crew members that now...uh...have interesting abilities. Speaking of which, if you run into anybody/anything that isn't Xotl and doesn't immediately attempt to kill you, you should probably not shoot at it - it could be a teammate.

Go to medical. Storage could mean useful supplies or it could mean 5 years worth of toilet paper. And even in the best case, you probably can't carry much more than you have already scavenged without a proper pack or something similar.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/08(Wed)07:11 No. 555838 ID: 1e6280
File 138919386091.png - (7.21KB , 500x480 , sector_status.png )

>By the way, there was some kind of poster on the wall you just ran past with a bunch of linked rectangular things. Is that some kind of area map?
Its some sort of status board. It lights up dimly when Alice pauses in front of it. Only a simplified map, unfortunately. Alice can't make much of it, but it looks like she's in Lab... something... Call it A and there's also a Lab B. The other two quadrants seem to be living quarters and there's a hangar in the middle. Looks like there's choke-points between each of the quadrants too.

Blue is the Xotl warning colour. Security alerts?

>So on the one hand, you can heal what by all rights should be mortal injuries, rapidly, by eating. On the other, it's kind of gross and unpleasant.
It definitely gets slime everywhere! If too much, ah, residual biomass builds up from feeding or being injured, Alice seems to need to vent it. Quickly. It could make going undetected difficult.

>Poke around and try to find the shell casing for the shot helmet-head put into you. Then you can compare its markings to the other shells so you'll know what some of them do.
The floor's covered in slime. Alice isn't going to try and sift through that.

>Hmm. If the 11 are regular ammo, the 4 might be scatter-shot, or high explosives? Kind of hard to tell without testing unless there are obvious visual warning labels or something.
That's 11 in total. Judging by what's loaded, seven are the same low yield explosive fragmentation round she was shot with, aka cripplers. They're terrible against heavy armour but they should still be decent on the kind of armour these guards were wearing.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/08(Wed)07:12 No. 555840 ID: 1e6280
File 138919396738.png - (12.27KB , 600x400 , not_a_zombie.png )

>It looks like your body can't digest people efficiently you might get better efficiency by consuming prepared food if that smoothie is anything to go off of.
The benefit Alice got from the smoothie was tiny and Alice doesn't think she would have gotten anything if she hadn't already been injured! It's kind of small compared to two whole amphibians.

Which reminds her...

>Did you eat the one in the first room too? Waste not want not.
It looks like corpsy here hasn't rejoined the Being Alive Club while Alice's back was turned. Alice extends an invitation for him to join her club.

20 biomass consumed. 6 mass gained.
Digestive efficiency has increased to 35%.
20 biomass consumed. 7 mass gained. Total mass is now 74.

That was a metaphor for eating him. Ugh, more slime.

>Make sure you aren't suddenly having any weird salamander thoughts after eating these guys' heads. That would suggest you're really just some tentacle monster assuming the identities of people you eat and that would just plain suck.
Alice is not feeling any corpsy-thoughts, and previously didn't feeling any impulses to shout about loyalty to the glorious Xotl conquerors or to punch herself in the eye. Her tentacle monster identity crisis so far is firmly Alice-centric.

>I think that whether and when you eat dead people depends on how you think you'll end up feeling about it. If you think it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life, mmmaaybe you should try not to eat people unless you really, really need to.
Alice is trying not to think about futures she might not have! She's a little worried she's not completely freaking out about the day's events so far.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/08(Wed)07:15 No. 555841 ID: 1e6280
File 138919411996.png - (24.48KB , 600x700 , butt_examination.png )

>Make a mental note. At some point between getting out of here and getting turned back to normal, you REALLY need to look into whether there is such a thing as a professional twister player. I mean, gymnastics would be close, but more likely to arbitrarily ban you from competing, you know?
Hahahaha, Alice supposes she might have a good shot at a career in that.

>So... you basically have a tail now which is primarily being used as in-built underwear? Is that what's going on downstairs?
Pretty much! Probably a good thing, her clothes are getting a bit tight.

>you should be wearing your tags, if you aren't already. It's a way to declare your identity and hold onto who you are. Or who you're supposed to be, at least.
Alice will put them on.

>Also, yeah, go to medical. Information is a potent weapon. Hmm, I wonder if there are any other crew members that now...uh...have interesting abilities.
Alice didn't really think of that possibility. Only one way to find out, she supposes.

>Medical is far more likely to provide answers on what happened with the rest of the crew. Maybe unpleasant answers, but we need them if we can get them. Medical is also more likely to be located centrally or near modes of rapid transit which could be risky but means paths of escape.
Medical it is. Storage seems like it has just as much chance of being a broom closet as prison cells.

Actually, she should settle one more thing - does she want to go in guns blazing, or try a more subtle approach?

Try the subtle approach. If you get in unnoticed, you'll have more time to dig around and try and find information before reinforcements arrive to try and kill you, or they figure out what you're doing and cut power to that section. If you go in guns blazing, we may not have much of a window to look around at all before you're forced to retreat or start fighting again.

>a little worried she's not completely freaking out about the day's events so far
Survival instincts, or military training, maybe. If you let yourself freak out now, that puts a big disadvantage on your survival. Assuming you get out of here, you'll have plenty of time to work through that later.

>>555841
...wait, what's with the extra tendrils coming from your head. Are you... blooming?

Hrrm.
If this was a horror movie, this is still the part where the monster keeps to the shadows and is mostly an unknown terror that kills what it encounters, I think.
At the same time...We don't do stealth with any real skill, and assuming Helmet boy is the norm, I think now might not be a bad time to try and brute force it.

well we may be strong be shot still kinda sucks ass so I say try stealth for now and if that fails then we can go in guns blazing.

>>555841
Stealth can be turned into brute force. Force can't be turned into stealth.

Start with stealth.

Hey, wait! Kind of a crazy idea. How much fine control do you have over those prehensile, semi-shapeshity tendrils? One communication option might be to actually spell words out with vine-cursive.

Largely, how stealthy you should be depends on how much you can hear. That was a loud, loud fight just now. If anyone else is coming, you're going to hear'em running down the hall when they're halfway close... and they're going to have itchy trigger fingers. So if you hear anyone, get a move on.

If you don't, that means you just dealt with the only group patrolling the area so... really you should get a move on before anyone notices they're missing, and you don't have to worry about being caught.

Once you're actually closing in on your destination though, yeah, try to creep in all quiet-like.

Also seriously, are you still holding a live grenade? Because if you are, you're kinda going to be forced to toss it next time a fight breaks out, and I thus have to change my answer to going in loud.

Stealthy approach seems best. Try and see if that plant will let you shapeshift into a quieter more stealthy form of sorts.

You know what really bothered me about your whole uncontrollable hunger attacks when you are hurt? Now i'm gonna be honest about the situation, you're behind enemy lines, out gunned, outmanned and probably outsmarted if it's a science/military vessel, so of course survival is on of top priority. well you'd think you would at least have an little "Oh my god" moment about chomping down on someones people meat. If i gotta be honest your actual lack for any attention other than crack a few jokes really sounds a bit insane.
Now i'm not shaming you with all this because it get's me hot and bothered, it's because i'm kinda wondering what happens when we meet the rest of the crew, get them out and get on a little escape plan. Say they are still the so mushy mushy as normal people are and that you find the the space vessel escape thingamabob. What if one of these fishy fellows jump out and blasts a good amount of meat out of you? What if your uncontrollable little hunger comes back and you just so happen to not have any alien people around to munch on? Not only would you probably gobble one of the crewmen up out of desperation but they would be livid, turn on you if you haven't actually eaten them all already. Are you really the hero here alice, can you, and this isn't a question about skill this is about you right now, can you save the day and savor it with someone who isn't generally considered criminally insane?

Now i'm gonna give a final slightly scary thought here: What if you're not actually human? You woke up alone in an incinerator, you generally lack anything related to your old self other than your mind and when you eat someone... you gain their memories. I mean it would explain the lack of empathy while you still know that it's a thing. It explains how you can actually be another creature that can shapeshift.While we both probably want to stick to the prettier side of the story, and rightfully we should since sociopathy and general lack of humanity for a human is... well bad.

Well anyway, for better understanding on what is actually true and maybe actually prove most of this wrong, let us head to the lab. I'm sure our fancy new language skills will help us out finding out what really is going on. I mean hope is always something to strive for, so you wag that... xtotl like tail you got from eating one, yeah.

>>555884
Alice is a trained soldier with combat experience who has repeatedly stated she's actively trying not to dwell on issues that might compromise her performance. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt for now, even with her massively augmented biochemistry. She also said she wasn't gaining intel or memories from her meals, you might want to re-read.

Anyway, stealth for now. If our crewmates are alive, I'd rather not give the Xotl time to harm them or try using them as hostages against us.

Hey you know what would be cool? If we could extend our flower-eye on a stalk to more subtly peek around corners.

>>555884
we will think about this LATER.

for now we just fight an try to survive. if something happens, it happens.

>>555884
She didn't gain any memories from eating the Xotl guards. This strongly implies she is still Alice, but heavily mutated by something.

>Blue is the Xotl warning colour. Security alerts?
The blue rooms are on the other side of the map. It looks like someone or something broke out in the other lab first and has already made gotten into the right crew quarters. This suggests a stealthy approach would be best for now as their forces will be concentrated on the other side and we would like it to stay that way as long as possible.

>>555884
From what we have seen, our hunger isn't uncontrollable. We deliberately did not eat that first corpse the first chance we got, and we came back for it after a conscious resource-management decision.

>>555884
She did not get any memories from the Xotl, nor did she gain any linguistic ability, as she just stated directly. She had a basic knowledge of their language as part of her training, for reading maps and better understanding the enemy during combat. She did not gain a tail from eating the Xotl, if you look back the tail was there since the fourth panel, it just looked like an extension of her hair tentacles back then due to perspective.

We are being way to flippant with the whole alien killing machine thing. This is serious, you wanted to eat those corpses, and you were monstering the fuck out when you were fighting. You've got to keep that shit in check so your higher functions are in control. Survival doesn't mean much if you become some instinctual alien killer.

Well it could very well be worse. Alice could become a Xenomorph or John Carpenter's The Thing

>>555940
believe it or not that was a fairly human reaction, at least on an emotional level. Its normal for humans in a survival situation to focus exclusively on survival.

despite the physical change the mental changes seem to mostly be in response to the new biology, ie acting like she's starving when low on biomass. Its possible there are issues we are not seeing right now, but so far it seems whatever happened did't really change her personality that much.

First of all, you seem to be holding together fairly well. The whole not-flipping-out thing is probably just adrenaline, and you've done a good job of keeping in control even when you were hurt and in danger.

I am a bit surprised that it's the OTHER side of the ship that's under alert is interesting, but for now that's a bonus - there will be less soldiers around where you are. Maybe that has something to do with the announcement you heard before you escaped?

That said, going into the medical area guns blazing sounds like a massive mistake.
You have no armour, only a handful of bullets, and are outnumbered. You'd probably survive - it seems like you can soak up a disturbing amount of fire before you get badly hurt - but you would be a mess by the end of it.

Considering you seem to do best ambushing people anyway, you should definitely try to sneak in instead. Keep quiet, and rip open anyone who spots you before they can start shooting.

Finally, I know it's impolite, but whats going on with your weight?
As far as I can tell, you now weigh much more than you did initially. Are you getting bigger? Denser? Is there some upper bound?

What I find funny is that no one seems to have considered that the new flower-eye might be covering where there was once a head wound. The darkened coloring underneath it implies that it's covering something. Probably was dead and was set to dispose of the body. Only something came up that not only delayed that but resulted in what is probably an unknown symbiotic creature...Reanimate the corpse? It'd certainly explain the memory issues earlier.

>>556103

That came up. She checked. That's her original right eye, it just migrated on up there.

>>556108

No, We just know that her original eye is missing, and the eye socket is all that's left. If her entire eye moved up there I'd like to think the eye socket would have gone with it.

>>555841
Since you seem to be a growing girl, have you considered trying to shape your mass into physiological features like batman-style arm spike/thorns, movie-spiderman with hand-barbs for climbing, long bulbasaur whips or a hardened carapace armor? Think Tyranid or Zerg upgrades. Utility items can now be grown from you and that's pretty darn handy. Have you tried altering your pigment or your general form? If you redistributed your mass and general shape into one like a xotl you could gain the benefit of armor and go undetected until asked a question, then do a sky walker and pretend your helmet is not working and is stuck, say this as you close in. The only problem with this plan is what to do with the rest of you. You if ou can compact biomass into bone segments that would be helpful for space efficiency... I know this might be a kinda personal thing but seeing as how your in survivor mode and don't want to be voted off the island... Can you bud? Not flowers but other, similar organisms as your self with enough intelligence to obey you? Asexual reproduction. If you could clone yourself to look like two midgets that would be interesting.

-- here ends the practical suggesting section of post--

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing Theory: Alice was killed, or was experimented on live with symbiote/parasite that consumed her body and now assumes to be her. Since it was its first people level intelligent meal it ate (or because she was alive during) it bonded strongly with her psyche and self identification and now believes to be her.

Kurgan Horsewoman Theory:
Alice IS Alice, her biology has just been wildly mutated my a contaminate so powerful and dangerous it's tempting to think the Xotl just discovered it rather than invented it and have no idea what they are playing with.

Likelihood for either theory: Undefined, insufficient data - there's no way to know except try to meta game and guess what QM was thinking, which is inadvisable.

Food For Thought Hypothesis:
All meals provide subconscious information, but not subconscious impulses.

Likelihood: ~35% and holding
I'd expect if Alicething could actually gain memories she would have made more comment about it, but she is a practical type so maybe not. She does seem to have the same if not better grasp at the language, so we'll wait to see if that improves or plateaus.

You Are What You Eat Hypothesis:
Instead of memory food grants you access to physiological features of your victims.

Likelihood: ~40% and rising
Her pigment has not changed, neither has any of her features altered... Except she had what might be compared to Xotl ear-frills. That bodes not well if she wants to stay a human simulacrum. Since this is first visual evidence this had more clout, but still low probability since the change may be unrelated to the type of food rather than her just developing due to eating any kind of food. This has yet to be determined and cannot reliably be until we are in a laboratory environment with our bones' trying to help us out.

One species' vomit is another species' excrement

Likelihood ~80%
Mechanic statements indicate that her body is not completely efficient at mass consumption. What ever is left over is hurled out.

How that eye get up there?!
No idea.

Xotl:
Might have a two stage caste system or development process. Some species never grow out of their adolescent stages and continue to grow and mature (but not develop) without the distinguishing attributes than a proper 'adult' of the species would, giving the impression of two different species rather than one. Or maybe they're just called Xotl cause they look like those aquatic salamanders.

If Not... Beware the big ones.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/09(Thu)22:06 No. 556313 ID: 256d52
File 138933400156.png - (20.98KB , 500x620 , grope_that_tendril.png )

>...wait, what's with the extra tendrils coming from your head. Are you... blooming?
What?! Alice feels around. Uh, there's three stems on each side, they're attached near her temples and they're are stiff and springy, like whiskers. There's a little bud at the tip that's softer.

They don't seem to be doing anything.

>I know it's impolite, but whats going on with your weight?
>As far as I can tell, you now weigh much more than you did initially. Are you getting bigger? Denser? Is there some upper bound?
Alice thinks she got a little taller after she ate that last xotl and she's definitely put on some weight all over. Her clothes are a lot tighter. She was quite a bit thinner than she remembered being when she first woke up too.

>Kind of a crazy idea. How much fine control do you have over those prehensile, semi-shapeshifty tendrils? One communication option might be to actually spell words out with vine-cursive.
Nowhere near that much.

>Since you seem to be a growing girl, have you considered trying to shape your mass into physiological features like arm spike/thorns, hand-barbs for climbing, long whips or a hardened carapace armour?
That would be very useful if Alice had any idea of how to do that!

>We are being way to flippant with the whole alien killing machine thing. This is serious, you wanted to eat those corpses, and you were monstering the fuck out when you were fighting. You've got to keep that shit in check so your higher functions are in control. Survival doesn't mean much if you become some instinctual alien killer.
So what, is Alice supposed to curl up in a little ball and sob her mutant lungs out? Of course she wanted to eat them, her body was practically screaming at her that she was starving and that there was a meal - a delicious meal - right in front of her! And she knows a human shouldn't be thinking like that.

But... they were dead, they're the ones who did this to her, and they had it coming.

>If I gotta be honest your actual lack for any attention other than crack a few jokes really sounds a bit insane.
Fine! Alice admits she's bonkers. She'll fashion herself a straitjacket at the earliest opportunity. Now shut up.

>when you eat someone... you gain their memories.
For the last time, as far as Alice can tell, that doesn't happen!

>a little worried she's not completely freaking out about the day's events so far
>Survival instincts, or military training, maybe. If you let yourself freak out now, that puts a big disadvantage on your survival. Assuming you get out of here, you'll have plenty of time to work through that later.
Urrrr, Alice thinks she's going to need an army of psychologists at this rate.

Now, back to business.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/09(Thu)22:08 No. 556314 ID: 256d52
File 138933408640.png - (18.47KB , 750x400 , science_xotl.png )

>I am a bit surprised that it's the OTHER side of the ship that's under alert is interesting, but for now that's a bonus - there will be less soldiers around where you are. Maybe that has something to do with the announcement you heard before you escaped?
There must have been more than one break-out, or leakage of something dangerous in the other lab, Alice guesses. Hopefully it'll keep the Xotl distracted.

>Try the subtle approach. If you get in unnoticed, you'll have more time to dig around and try and find information before reinforcements arrive to try and kill you, or they figure out what you're doing and cut power to that section. If you go in guns blazing, we may not have much of a window to look around at all before you're forced to retreat or start fighting again.
Stealth definitely sounds like the way to go then. Alice can't hear anyone coming, it must be pretty deserted in this section at the moment.

>You have no armour, only a handful of bullets, and are outnumbered. You'd probably survive - it seems like you can soak up a disturbing amount of fire before you get badly hurt - but you would be a mess by the end of it.
Alice would definitely like to avoid getting shot some more!

There's an intersection ahead, but it's blocked off by an airtight bulkhead. She guesses the place is still all battened up due to the attack the announcement mentioned in case of damage. Whatever is outside mustn't be breathable. The bulkhead's environmental tell-tales say the other side is fine and the door mechanism is simple, so her weak understanding of Xotl isn't a problem.

She closes it behind her with a dull whomph. It blocks sound quite effectively.

Moving further along there's a window into a lab space. The room seems to be occupied.

>>556314
If your clothes are getting tighter you're probably gonna have to remove them before your next meal. Better to go naked than painfully constricted.

Do you see a quiet way into the lab that won't immediately result in you being spotted? There's what looks like a human in that tube, getting them out seems like a good idea.

You can very likely crawl along the ground to stay out of sight to reach an entrance like that.

Well, if you know how the doors work, and you don't speak the local language well enough to ask questions with complex answers, it seems the thing to do here is casually walk up behind doctor eyepatch there, dispatch him in silent efficient fashion, and check out just what he's doing with... someone familiar I'd assume?

try to get in and sneak up on them. go below the window if you have to. then point the gun at him and try a combination of demands, pointing, and miming to make him release the other guy or point you to humans.

>>556314
Silent takedown.
Try to keep him alive so you can extract information you need - like what they did to you, and how to revive your allies.

>They don't seem to be doing anything.
Maybe they'll keep developing as you eat, or over time? Buds tend to turn into things.

>Whatever is outside mustn't be breathable.
Although for all you know, what's breathable isn't the same for you as it was. If you're a plant, does that mean you swapped CO2 and oxygen? It's also possible you're more vacuum hardy than you once were, but no reason to put that to the test.

>lab
Can we get inside without being noticed? Ideally you'd like to prevent that science-xotl from doing anything further to that human in there, or hitting a kill switch, which means knocking them out or killing the xotl. Preferably without making a lot of noise, of setting off an alarm.

No way of telling from here if the human is alive, unaltered, or in any condition to be let out of a tube. At the very least though, any lab where they're examining a human may have something relevant to you.

we can't talk, we can make noise but we can't talk and we don't know the langue enough to try and spell things out. If you can get in there without being seen just bash him in the back of the head with your gun. Failing that, just smash the window and shoot him or just bum rush him if you don't want to wast ammo.

Either way we're going to have to figure out how to free the guy in the tube, then figure out how to make it so he doesn't freak the fuck out when he sees us but one problem at a time.

Let's hope the door is unlocked so we can go through it and take the Xotl scientist by surprise.
>>556328
Before trying to free him, I think we should look for a datapad or paper and something to write with so, if he is awake in there, we can communicate with him so he doesn't panic too much.

>>556314
Hm, if you can isolate him from anything this should work fine, try to pin his arms against his chest and keep him from getting a good grip on the ground. Then I guess you can question him as much as you are capable of, given speech barrier. Even if you can't we could always stash him or knock him out.
And let's not drain the tube, until we can determine what condition the occupants are in. It would be bad if we have to take care of someone unconscious or injured right now, as much as it would be nice to help them.

There is a valid reason for capturing and not killing the Xotl, and it's making use of their familiarity with the equipment if the humanoid figure in the tube is in a state that breaking them out carelessly would compromise their safety. Not hard to communicate "open the fucking tube" to them. Depends on the equipment setup and status of the occupant though.

Actual questioning of the Xotl is, as always, silly due to language and speech barriers.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/10(Fri)03:56 No. 556365 ID: 256d52
File 138935498390.png - (19.42KB , 600x400 , surprise_its_alice.png )

>Do you see a quiet way into the lab that won't immediately result in you being spotted? There's what looks like a human in that tube, getting them out seems like a good idea.
A human? Alice can't leave them here then. The door has a pass code lock and the doors aren't completely silent when the open in any case.

>Can we get inside without being noticed? Ideally you'd like to prevent that science-xotl from doing anything further to that human in there, or hitting a kill switch, which means knocking them out or killing the xotl. Preferably without making a lot of noise, of setting off an alarm.
Need to get him away from the control panel then. Hmm....

Alice knocks on the door. Footsteps on the other side and then -

"Hhhhiiiiiiiii." Alice breathes as it slides open. She grabs the scientist before he can make a sound and then throttles the xotl until he passes out.

She moves into the room and shuts the door behind her.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/10(Fri)03:58 No. 556366 ID: 256d52
File 138935508628.png - (18.38KB , 600x400 , science_tube.png )

>If your clothes are getting tighter you're probably gonna have to remove them before your next meal. Better to go naked than painfully constricted.
They're fairly elastic. It's more they were fairly loose when Alice first put them on and now they're... not so loose.

>Before trying to free him, I think we should look for a datapad or paper and something to write with so, if he is awake in there, we can communicate with him so he doesn't panic too much.
Alice has the datapad she took off the first xotl still. She could reset that now to use it as a stylus.

>No way of telling from here if the human is alive, unaltered, or in any condition to be let out of a tube. At the very least though, any lab where they're examining a human may have something relevant to you.
Hmm, it's definitely some kind of science-tube. She can't make out much more than basic shapes in there though.

Alice doesn't think the Xotl have done anything to the human yet - there's no apparatus connected to him and a quick glance at the display shows it looks like its just monitoring his vital signs. The tube almost certainly has a suppression field on it - it inhibits electrical activity in the brain to put the subject into a coma. The Penguin had a few specimen tanks that remind her of this tube.

Running over the options in her head, Alice thinks she can try to decipher the interface herself, shut it down manually, wake up the xotl and see if he can be coerced into letting the human out, or she can just break the science-tube.

These xotle seem fairly fanatic. Dont let him anywhere near something that would let him hurt you or your crew-mate. for now, it seems like the best idea is to keep him unconscious and try to figure this out yourself; there's no harm in study, and the more well informed you are, the better of you are.

Well, I might look at the interface before trying the other things, though shut it down manually would be my second choice. However, do you see anything else around worth investigating first? Once you open the tube, there may be a lot of diplomacy and explaining to attempt.

Speaking of which, waving hello seems to me like a very human looking gesture. Like, it seems really hard for me to imagine a creature waving hi and simultaneously think of it as hostile or non-sentient. I might recommend waving hi when the occupant of the tube sees you, followed at some point by showing them your dog tags.

try to understand what the screen is saying first. when science guy wakes up on his own you can ask him questions/demands.

Hrrrm. As much as screwing around with the interface might be appealing as well as manual shutdown (Are those exclusive to each other?), part of me wonders if that Suppression field the tube has would be disrupted if we just broke it.

>Knock
Pff. That worked.

>what do
I don't really trust the xtol to operate controls the way we want. He could very easily set the tube to 'horrible monster mutation' instead of 'release', or just activate a silent alarm. Also, fear is only a reliable motivator so long as we know it values it's life more than it's mission or duty, and it stays more afraid of us than any other consequence.

Breaking the equipment might get whoever's in there out in a hurry, but there's the risk of complications or injury. I don't think that should be our first choice.

Let's put your engineering skills to work, here. Try and shut it down. Either the via the interface, or manually.

(Guessing here: interface is linguistics / engineering, manual shut down is engineering, smash it is soldier?).

Get your writing tool prepped and ready (with things like "Hello." and "I'm not going to hurt you, really.") in advance, and keep an eye on your unconscious prisoner, in case it wakes up.

You're an engineer, right? See if there's a maintenance panel where you can cut a few wires and disable the suppression field - as well as any defenses or alarms.

After that, you can smash it and get the guy out of there.

>>556366
Oh, I see, that door was the door to the lab. Definitely reset the datapad so you can use it as a stylus. Then pre-write a message on it. Something like "I've been turned into a monster, but I am still human. Do not be afraid when you see me. My name is Alice, and I am going to get everyone out of here. I'm behind the console right now with the Xotl, so when you're ready please come give me this datapad." Then leave it within view so he'll pick it up when he gets out of the tube.

Try to figure out the interface a bit first. We can't trust the Xotl to follow orders. Consider that the last one tried to punch you rather than run away- they seem to undervalue their own lives. If you can figure out the basic functions but are prevented from further using the console due to security stuff, wake the Xotl up and only allow it to touch the console to bypass security checks. If we're not careful it will set off an alarm.

Hmm, what would shutting it down manually entail?

try to decipher the interface first because if that fails we can still just shut it down.

Also if you got closer to the tube would that give you a clear image of who's inside or no not really? Cause if so it might give us a better idea to what kind of condition the guy is in.

Oh and get the datapad ready to use, if the guy is still awake when we let him up push the pad in front of his face so all he can see is whatever message you write on there. Something like "are you from the penguin?"

Eyepatch isn't going to help, so don't bother waking him to ask. Try and get things open the sciencey way first, but if it's too hard to figure out or gives another fight time to get here, smash and grab is the way to go.

When you do get him out of there, make sure to close your right eye, don't let any of those extra orifices show, do make sure to hand him a gun and present your dog tags. At that point, he'll be in a "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" situation and you can explain the rest of this as you continue sneaking around getting what you can done before the next wave of angry guards says hello.

And if you can manage a joke or two, poor pronunciation or not, that should help set him at ease too.

This is all assuming he's conscious. Otherwise I guess you just kinda have to tuck him under an arm and have a more awkward intro later.

>>556366
DO NOT break anything! He's in an induced coma; if he's not woken up properly then he's probably not going to wake up.
At least, not in a reasonable amount of time.

Try to figure out how to wake the guy PROPERLY. If you can't then do the following:

Reset the data pad. Write on it "Wake him and you live", then strip the Xotl and wake him up.
Keep your tendrils tight around his neck while he works so remains fully aware that shenanigans mean instant death.
If he complies then knock him out and lock him in a closet or cabinet or something - nothing airtight. If he is found then he will tell the others what happened. It's letting a little intel leak, but once word gets around their morale will tank; it's easy to stand and fight when the only way you'll survive is killing your enemy, but it's a lot harder when your best chance for survival is avoidance.

Do you know roughly how long Xotl stay unconscious for after hear trauma? If not, it's probably a good idea to bind Science Dude before doing anything else.

Do not attempt to break the tube or suppression field. I suspect that if you can't break it in one hit then a half-broken field generator will fuck up whoever is in the tube. Also, there's a decent chance there are sensors on the tube that'll trigger an alarm if the occupant breaks the tube open or tries to.

Don't try to force the xotl to unlock the tube either. It knows the control console far better than you and might trip a silent alarm, or even a loud one if it thinks it's going to die anyway.

Attempt to figure out the controls yourself. The control to release the occupant will likely be designed to not be triggered accidentally; Second hardest would be "terminate specimen," and the third would be "trigger alarm." It'll probably require a key or use a covered button or something. Unfortunately it might require a password, which means you'll have to wake the xotl up.

Rummage through the xotl's pockets and pat it down for anything else it might have. Then strip it to its underwear and tie it up and gag it with its clothes.

Tie up the Xotl and write on the datapad. We don't need things going horribly wrong here.
You should probably check the Xotl's pockets too.

Next up you should inspect the console. If you've worked with suppression kit before, then you should know what shutting it down involves - even if the specific controls here are alien to you.

If you can't shut it down yourself, then maybe see if you can get the xotl to do it.
It's a big risk to let him near the controls, but I don't think we should smash the thing.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/11(Sat)05:40 No. 556550 ID: 256d52
File 138944760412.png - (30.24KB , 600x560 , user_friendly_computer.png )

>I don't really trust the xotl to operate controls the way we want. He could very easily set the tube to 'horrible monster mutation' instead of 'release', or just activate a silent alarm.
Hmmm, Alice doesn't like the idea of putting him in front of a set of controls that she doesn't know know what it does and letting him press buttons. They've been too clever by half so far, and unexpectedly gutsy.

Heh, guts.

>Tie up the Xotl and write on the datapad. We don't need things going horribly wrong here. You should probably check the Xotl's pockets too.
Alice does so. Gags him too. He's not carrying much aside from... uh... she thinks it might be tranquilliser gun?

>Try to understand what the screen is saying first
...

What is this crap? The xotl clearly don't put user friendliness as a priority.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/11(Sat)05:40 No. 556551 ID: 256d52
File 138944764881.png - (30.29KB , 600x598 , its_all_greek_to_me.png )

>Let's put your engineering skills to work, here. Try and shut it down.
Alice is... Alice is going to try a manual override.

>Do not attempt to break the tube or suppression field. I suspect that if you can't break it in one hit then a half-broken field generator will fuck up whoever is in the tube. Also, there's a decent chance there are sensors on the tube that'll trigger an alarm if the occupant breaks the tube open or tries to.
And definitely not that sort of manual override.

>Hmm, what would shutting it down manually entail?
Venting the fluid, switching off the suppression field and opening the tube.

>He's in an induced coma; if he's not woken up properly then he's probably not going to wake up.
Alice knows 'induced coma' is inaccurate, but she wanted to emphasise it was deeper than normal sleep. It should be possible to get him up a minute or two after the suppression field is disabled, though he might be woozy for a bit.

>Also if you got closer to the tube would that give you a clear image of who's inside or no not really? Cause if so it might give us a better idea to what kind of condition the guy is in.
Alice presses up against the tube and squints. She... she thinks that's Rob Blake in there. She remembers a little about him. One of the junior research weenies. He seemed pretty bright. Kind of artistic. Lacking in common sense. That last thought stirs up a murky memory. Something about a giant exot antlion?

>You're an engineer, right? See if there's a maintenance panel where you can cut a few wires and disable the suppression field - as well as any defenses or alarms.
It goes one better. The maintenance panel is close enough to what she's familiar with and simply labelled enough - there's even pictograms! - that Alice is able to figure it out without too much trouble.

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/11(Sat)05:41 No. 556552 ID: 256d52
File 138944768264.png - (29.17KB , 700x560 , hai_thar.png )

>Oh and get the datapad ready to use, if the guy is still awake when we let him up push the pad in front of his face so all he can see is whatever message you write on there.
Alice resets the datapad and finds a stylus mode that lets her draw on it.

>Speaking of which, waving hello seems to me like a very human looking gesture. Like, it seems really hard for me to imagine a creature waving hi and simultaneously think of it as hostile or non-sentient
Blake's getting up. Alice waves and holds up her datapad hopefully. It's good to see another human being.

"Alikzz hietriich... amh Alizzssss."

>>556553
That was clearly spoken enough. Still, might need some way to compress the more complicated words in a understandable way. This fella is youngish and spends much time on the computer? speak to him in electronic medium contractions and abbreviation. internet creole.

"Hyu hhaw oh kee?"

No sudden moves, but back a bit away, point to the pad and get ready to write things.

Show him your tags. Point at your tags then point at you, then let him see.

Maybe you should just wait a moment for him to gather his wits. The man must be suffering from the after effects of the suppression field and might not even be able to read your text yet.

...You may want to cover his mouth before he alerts the enemy. Just don't get to tentacle-y in his personal space.

Note to self, smiling is a bad idea when meeting new people.
Interpose yourself between him and the door we can't have him fleeing into hostile territory while he is in a panic.
Dog tags are a very human thing show yours to him see if you can get him to calm down.
Make him feel like he has some control of the situation. Answer any of his questions as best a you can and when you feel he is no longer going to do anything stupid in a panic give him a weapon. Also try and find him some clothes.

It turns out that "reassuring smiles" don't work so great when you have the mouth of a saltwater croc.

Place the pad down in front of you, and take a slow step backwards. Try to keep your eyes focused on the datapad. We need Blake to read your note before flipping out.

Also, try talking again.
Even if Blake doesn't understand a word you say, talking is a fairly non-threatening behaviour.

>>556579
This. Make sure you're in a position to grab him if he panics and runs for the door, though.

hold the datapad forward more like you are offering to to him.

Shush him. That body language is easy to understand.
Offer him the data pad as soon as possible.

>>556553
Just shove the datapad in his face. He will understand.

>>556550
Part on the right might be... brain waves, heart monitor, and status on some chemical? DNA, maybe. Not enough detail to be sure.

Interestingly, their language kind of looks like some kind of cuneiform. Where's an expert on ancient Babylon when you need one?

>Something about a giant exot antlion?
...the first human you find is the one willing to get dangerously close to space monsters? That's... convenient, I suppose.

Still, research weenie is useful. He might be able to make sense of more of this alien biology experiment stuff that you can. Assuming you get him calmed down.

>>556552
Uh, close your big mouth full of teeth. Lip-smile only, please. He looks like he's about to panic, hold up your hands in the universal "woah, woah, calm down" gesture. If he starts to shout or scream, put a finger to your lips and shush him. (We know she can do long s-es, that's easy).

Don't move closer or try to touch him unprompted.

Once he starts to calm down point to your tags, point to the datapad. Answer / ask questions via datapad (even though most of our answers will be "I don't know" and "I woke up in an incinerator like this, okay"), try and resist the impulse to speak and freak him out further.

Close your mouths and just hold up the datapad along with your dogtags.

oh for fuck sakes...

grab your dog tags and show him them, then point at yourself and see how long it takes before it clicks, also don't point at your mouth or anything on you that could be mistaken as a mouth as we don't want him to freak the fuck out more then he already is.

...also can that data pad take pictures? if so take one of his face right now so we can forever give him crap about it later.

This is where the "close your right eye and cover the extra orifices" part of the plan was supposed to come in. Bit late on the eye, but closing your mouth at least would be a good idea.

You should also at least try to acknowledge how messed up you must look. Something like "I know, right? I haven't seen a mirror, but I can imagine."

Yeah, I, too, recommend smiling without showing teeth, and refraining from attempts at talking until he's over his initial freak-out phase. Maybe lightly shake the science-xotl to indicate "hey, I took out this guy, I'm on your side."

>>556553
Hahaha, it would be hilarious if it turned out that that face was not an "Oh dear geeze I'm toast" face, but rather an "Oh my word, what is this marvelous work of science I see before me" face.

>>556553
Hand him the datapad whilst doing a top-hatted song and dance routine. The resulting nonsequitor should force their terror-processors to reboot, allowing them to think rationally for a second.

Well, either that or show them your dogtags.

>>556366
what's that change in color in the room you're in? That looks potentially important. A heavier than air gas? Also, is Xotl atmosphere compatible with human physiology? I mean... do both species originate from class M planets?

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/15(Wed)02:33 No. 557558 ID: 256d52
File 138978199162.png - (23.66KB , 800x600 , dont_look_at_me.png )

>It turns out that "reassuring smiles" don't work so great when you have the mouth of a saltwater croc.
Alice kicks herself for her stupidity. She should have remembered her mouth doesn't work normally any more. A moment's relief at seeing one of her crew and she lost all caution.

Has she changed that much? She hasn't seen a good reflection, but she still seemed Alice-shaped as far as she could tell. Maybe she should have hidden and left the data pad out somewhere obvious for Blake. Should she stand? No! He might feel threatened.

This is where the "close your right eye and cover the extra orifices" part of the plan was supposed to come in.
They are covered! Alice didn't think the eye was too obvious!

>hold the datapad forward more like you are offering to to him
>grab your dog tags and show him them
Alice shields her face and snaps her dog tags off from around her neck, holding both items out. J-just don't look at me! Look at the pad! Look at the dog tags. Ignore the monster behind the curtain!

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/15(Wed)02:33 No. 557559 ID: 256d52
File 138978202328.png - (17.99KB , 600x450 , dont_do_that.png )

>If he starts to shout or scream, put a finger to your lips and shush him. (We know she can do long s-es, that's easy).
Blake starts spluttering. He probably still has fluid in his lungs and he's agitated. He's not paying any attention to her outstretched hand. Alice thinks he's going to scream. She turns her head back to him put a claw to her lips and hisses urgently.

"Sssssshh!"

Agh shit! He's going nuts. He's going to bring the xotl down on both their heads!

>...You may want to cover his mouth before he alerts the enemy. Just don't get to tentacle-y in his personal space.
Alice drops the datapad and springs forward. She clamps a hand over his mouth. She's trying to hold him but he won't keep still which is making her feel... strange and- oh Messenger no. Oh no oh no. Now she's close and the cloying smell of the oxygenated fluid is wearing thin, he smells amazing. Better than the xotl even!

Alice wants to say something to Blake but her mouth wants to gape wider, feeding tendrils squirming inside so she clamps down instead. She's going to hurt him if he keeps squirming, but she doesn't want the xotl coming.

He just won't be quiet! He's thrashing and choking and Alice can hear his heart hammering louder and louder and louder. This is all his fault! He's screwing everything up!

Alice Dietrich 2014/01/15(Wed)02:34 No. 557560 ID: 256d52
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Wouldn't it be better if he just disappeared?

No, bad Alice.

You are not eating the first human you've found in this nonsense.

Firstly, rip off a strip of clothing from the scientist and gag the dude with it. Use a foot or something so you don't have to let go of the guy. And be goddamn careful when you're doing it, dismembering or mutilating a body in front of this dude aint gonna help anything.

Once you have that sorted out, hold him down and keep prodding him with the datapad until he calms down and takes the hint. He'll get it eventually.

Or piss himself and pass out, but whatever.

>>557560
No it wouldn't, it would simplify things, but let's not dig a grave when we need a ladder.
He's choking because you are pressing down on his nose, so he can't breathe, change your grip so you are holding and gently pressing his mouth closed. This way you probably won't be frenching him with your radula or feeding tentacles or whatever.
Secondly, he's not screwing anything up, you're choking him while going into the same rhythm of killing and eating the mess left behind. You know what the one thing that separates people from monsters? They don't attack people that aren't harming them. What are you thinking of doing right now? Do you want to only be able to interact comfortably with the small fraction of the population that has whirring bits of ceramic and metal in their chests? To have to deal with this every single time you are even nearby anyone capable of helping you? Do you?
If you can't deal with it, just leave the tags and datapad near him and get out of the room, if anything, you being out of sight will get him to look at those, since he's already caught up in his stupid set of instincts that dictate he lock his eyes on you, and scream and scream.

Seriously. Roll your eyes, call him a crybaby wimp, give him the pad, a spare gun, and head out towards the next obvious destination. Best case scenario he pulls himself together and follows along shortly. Worst case scenario, he screams, takes a shot at you, and starts running around. Even that works to your advantage though because anyone hearing about some human escaping from a horror tube will just think it's him and leave you to your thing.

It's like Omnipotus said in that one Tick episode. Not eating people is the first step to making friends.

Ok, yeah, you're definitely going to regret it if you eat him. So...don't do that.

Gag him and/or just leave the room with the datapad near him and hopefully he'll calm down. If worst comes to worst, knock him out, but reeeeally don't eat him. And yeah, probably best not to eat the xotl in front of him.

Geeze, this guy is a bit of a pansy.

open his hand. place the pad in it. and close his hand on it. do NOT break his hand.

Alice, you cross that line, there's no going back. You WILL be a monster then, by your own choice.

Infest him. That should buff his courage.

>>557560

WTF Alice, who are you? No, Alice, it isn't the best solution; it's called the final solution, and never solved anything. Just cuz people seem incompetent because they were knock unconscious in what looked like a nightmare, probably slept through several nightmares to wake up to another nightmare doesn't mean you can euthanize him.

You're supposed to protect your comrades and this is /your/ comrade that didn't do anything but be bright eyed, naive and ignorant enough to wear old spice around space women. If you can't resist him that's not his fault, its yours. And if he doesn't like your new look think of it this way--most people have two very instinctual reactions to something they don't understand and often experience both; fear and infatuation. Don't become a man-eater just because he's intimidated by your confidence, and your new exotic, unconventional beauty.

Heh. He heheh. "Exot-ic."

Quick, episode 23 of Star Trek TNG: which are you, Tasha Yarr who sacrificed her life and acting career to save a crew-mate in the the most inane and uninteresting plot since The 'Original' Series, or are you the Tar monster that ate her? See the thing here is you get to choose. We don't choose for you, your instincts for choose for you, heck not even the powers that tell your story chooses for you. In moments like these, in the space between the author and the audience you are alive, in these moments you are truly free. The caveat is that after the moment is over, the consequences are set, and you can't choose which consequence you get. If you don't understand the extended metaphor just accept its your crazy talking, but the message is real: your actions don't effect just yourself or space hitlers anymore, they effect a living, breathing (arguably innocent) soul that you are now responsible for. How does that make you feel? *crosses fingers* (oh please, maternal instincts, if there was ever a time to interrupt someone's plans now's the time so freaking butt in already!)

TL;DR
Don't be a monster and while you may wear the pants in this relationship but no means no when guys say it too, /especially/ when it comes to vore.

Alice, this is very important.
How much do you remember of you time on the Penguin?
Do you remember what Rob Blake was like?
What happened with the giant antlion?


Now, if you keep pinning Blake down, either he's going to suffocate or you're going to lose control.
He's not going to calm down and co-operate no matter what you do. So you need to hold yourself together, tie him up and gag him. Once the panic is over your head should start to clear.

However:
If you start to lose control, just run away.
Nothing good can come from you both losing it in a small room with a hostile force outside.

>>557560
No, bad Alice. Your new crazy instincts are trying to piggyback on your panic. Just because you have a problem, doesn't mean the answer is to kill it. Killing your crewmate because he's panicking is a bad idea.

Just let him go and back away. Show him you're not going to hurt him by action.

...could we get the datapad to say "Don't Panic" is big red friendly letters?

put the data pad in his face, remove your hand from his nose so he can at least breath, wait for him to calm down, then see if we can't talk to him

You're better then that.

Back away from him, make a "sh" gesture, and then begin writing something like "Don't panic" on your pad. If you act calm, collected, and non-hostile, he'll get it eventually. If he doesn't hurry up about it though, well, write him a message, close the door, and go to deal with whatever local Xotl he's alerted to your presence.

The situation is extraordinarily bad, and you NEED allies right now... the flower in your hair and the voices in your head don't cut it.

Oh, and don't kill the scientist xtol just yet. There's no pressing need to do so, and he may still prove useful if fearful human here ever calms down and knows more of their language than you do.

>>557560
No, it wouldn't. Back up. Obviously, he cannot think clearly with you right in front of him and you can't think clearly either! Leave the pad there and move out of the room. No matter how scary, people are far less likely to scream if something runs away from them and is clearly visible. He fears you, let's play the "I'm totally not powerful enough to kill you with a flick of my hand" game. Pretend to be the weaker of the two by backing up and 'hiding'.

>>557620
Pretending to be afraid of him is NOT going to work right now, you've already gotten all up in his face and groped his mouthparts. That's not "afraid" behavior. Backing up is fine, hiding would just come off as fake and make him MORE nervous.

>>557560
Fluid in his lungs! He's not trying to scream, he's trying to breathe! Help him with that. Bend him over and compress his torso a little.

>>557560

Nope.

Let's count the pros:

-He might know/remember what happened to y'all. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
-He's probably an ally as long as you can manage to convince him to work together with him. At the very worst, he'd distract the xotl.

-His skills complement yours, and you need those skills. You're not an egghead. That guy is. If you're going to stand a chance of understanding sciency stuff on this station, you gotta have him alive and well.

-You are presently in an enclosed space. Him freaking the fuck out and yelling isn't going to attract the whole station down on your head. A few guards coming to check on how the human got free, maybe.

Anyway, no. Just no.

So how do we fix this mess?

Well, he's a bit too focused on you right now, and you're -much- too close to him. Y'need something to indicate to him something other than OH GOD MONSTER is going on. Try holding up the unconscious scientist and point to the machinery all around him. Hell, retreat out of the room and take the pad with you. There's no other exits out of that area so he won't be able to slip away, and you can communicate with him through the pad through the window. He'd probably feel a lot better about that!

Sheesh, if him yelling is enough to draw in the Xotl through a closed door (you did close the door right? Maybe you should turn around and check on that) in a laboratory in which they're medically experimenting on people, then they're really close already. Maybe you should scout a bit to see whether there are any patrols around, while Blake there gets conscious?

Leave the datapad, dude's more likely to read it when there isn't plant-gater in his face.

>>557560
Damnit, no. You are not eating him.
Pick him up and lay him on the floor on his stomach to ease the fluid purging process.
You can't seem to keep his mouth shut without hurting him, so let him go and deal with the consequences.