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[IronyOwl]

She would send a message to her friends at the next possible time. She made prodigious use of her's communicators whale-mojis (emoticons that looked like her own face).

~to Aubrey, Khate, Boris

Hello, friends! I hope you're all not busy with larceny. I have something that may interest you.

For, though my social current is weaker than yours, but I did meet an interesting new friend. He's offered a bit of pay if we find any clues relating to what he called a 'killer'- -a hostile ship located in this region, reputed to be attacking ships while they're preparing to flicker jump, and using bio-weapons. And they were targeting people like us-independent types. I had a thought it might indeed be one of our competitors, or perhaps al-loy trading group themselves. 

He did mention the local powers were not eager to allocate resources toward resolving this. What are your thoughts? 

Khate had a message. Khate liked messages!

Nothing yet, but I have a hunch! By ruthlessly perusing and discussing AL-Loy and their inferior yet still fantastic show with its many, many fans, I may be able to gain insight into their sinister workings!

Or I could go ask the station's permanent mercies. Supposedly they're not very nice!

[Dwarmin]

The old fin chortled. "My parents used to call me the Shark. It was a fond title then..." There was wistful expression to him for a moment, like he was on the edge of a sea dream, but he dispelled it with a quick shudder. "It stuck for different reasons, and now has grown too deep in me to be dispelled easily. Keresh the Shark, at your service. You are?"

"Sadish, the Restless. It's fairly fitting, if you know me. And, now you know me better than you did.

I do consider it a better day now that I have met you, Keresh."

Sadish continued her conversation with Keresh.

"A riddle. This thing is often confused, for always being considered the on the same side as truth and justice. Everyone sees this thing in a different way, but the truth is, that only their perception really matters. It's both white and black, and sometimes a bit of both-all depending on what angle you're viewing it from. What is it?"

[lawastooshort]

While Malissa was serving the other customers she checked her discreetly chirping messenger and replied...

That "killer" may be the one we are interested in ourselves, no? Which does not sound good. Perhaps I can ask the local authority what he thinks about it.

P.S. I have refrained from larceny thus far.

”Thank you Malissa. For Fuzzy and for the compliment. I have been practising, but it still doesn’t come out right always. It is not like learning to fly. A ship never made my face feel hot. Circuits and displays don’t usually make me feel stupid.”

A quick thought passed through her mind that perhaps that was why she kept moving, in fact.

You keep on running,
I’ve nothing else to pave your way,
So pave your way with my dreams…
Tread softly...

”But, extra mouths? What has been happening?”

[Draignean]

Sadish

Sadish continued her conversation with Keresh.

"A riddle. This thing is often confused, for always being considered the on the same side as truth and justice. Everyone sees this thing in a different way, but the truth is, that only their perception really matters. It's both white and black, and sometimes a bit of both-all depending on what angle you're viewing it from. What is it?"

Keresh blew a bubble idly, nibbling at his block of sorbet. "An inkblot of a question, with truths revealed regardless of the answer... I would saw Law, but that is perhaps an old Fin's bitterness. I have seen the laws preserve the evil man and strike down the good, and while the word of the law is meant to be inviolate... Well, lawyers could hardly keep their families afloat if there was no perception and interpretation to the riddle of law."

A shadow fell across Sadish as another Fin swam between her and the light. Keresh blew out a long stream of bubbles in a sigh. "I have a second riddle for you in turn. What's eight feet long, far too concerned with business, wears excessive jewelry, is responsible for most of my wrinkles, and looks very worried?"

Boris

Get the EM Flask.

Shop for bombs, mines, and other explosives. Incapacitating and non-lethal variants, too.

Boris approved the transaction on the EM flask, with a contingency in place that the money be transferred once the tech was delivered. Installing it would be a pain, but hopefully worth it to keep everyone else from getting fried. Not that they'd be grateful when he told them the radiation leaking from the engine had been significantly reduced, they'd probably want to complain about how much was still leaking.

Deliria's arms market was as heavily stocked and lightly regulated as ever. Prices were normal enough, and the only restriction was that the crates the objects were shipped in would unlock after the weapons cleared Deliria's space. Which, considering the power of some of the things they sold, was probably a good idea.

Spoiler: Personal Size Weapons (click to show/hide)

You have §7 to spend, but you can look around more if you're looking for something specific, or for higher/lower end items.

Mines
Pop-top AP Mine x4 (§3): Four palm sized military-brown disks, designed to be buried. Activated by a combination of heat and vibration, keyed to activated on infantry in light or medium armor. The explosion ejects the center of the disk upward with great velocity, which explodes at a user determined height of between 5-15 feet and fires a cone of shrapnel  with a max angle of 0 (flat spread) and min angle of 45 (5' radius at a 5' jump).

Kestrosphendone Urchin (§5): A single large urchin, roughly the size of a human head. Numerous small holes dot its surface, and the only hint as to which direction is 'up' is a single sticky foot at the creature's base. It can be attached easily to walls and ceilings and will quickly take on the color of its surroundings. It is highly aggressive based on motion, with approximately half of the small holes in its body acting as primitive eyes. The other half contain venomous spines that creature is capable of launching with great velocity. Three spines are capable of paralyzing most Canes, Humans, and Claws. Crows often only require one spine, while Fins can take as many as a dozen before succumbing. Can operate in water, and requires care to maintain efficacy over time. Comes with a spray bottle of Kestrosphendone pheromone to make the creature docile enough to recover.

Placed Explosives
Sabotage Vine: (§1) A genetically engineered version of a metallivoric plant, famous being difficult eradicate and the bane of scientific equipment. This handful of seeds will, when placed and fertilized from the provided packet, rapidly grow and attempt to infiltrate casings/vents/walls in search of edible metals. Once the plant reaches a critical mass (approximately 45 seconds using provided fertilizer packet) it flowers, and then explodes. In an ordinary plant this process could take years and would serve to reveal more tasty nutrient's for the plant's seeds, but this 'safe' version has a 95% chance of being completely sterile and dying completely once detonated. Do not remove seeds from hermetic plastic container before ready to use.

IDX9 x3 sticks: (§3) Three finger long sticks of a silvery, clay-like explosive. Malleable and highly stable, IDX9 is a mainstay of inexpensive but effective demolition. Includes one detonator and three primer rods for the explosives. Can also be detonated by a significant electric shock.

Thrown Explosives
Anti-Armor Discus x2: (§3) Also known as a death frisbee, this is a large, flat, tungsten disc designed to be hurled over the intended target. When the sensor in the bottom of the disc detects that it's over the target, an explosive in the top is shaped and detonated in order to collapse the tungsten disc into a teardrop and fire it into the top of the target at great velocity. Effective at penetrating armor, but will ignore most infantry unless specifically programmed otherwise.

Chaos Swarm Grenades: (§2) This is a single large capsule that, when activated and thrown, lunches approximately fifty smaller grenades at the target. These smaller grenades have a variety of effects; flashbangs, goo grenades, incendiary, EMP, neuro-shock, etc. While the effect isn't typically lethal, it's both highly distracting and nearly impossible to avoid coming away from completely unscathed.

Aubrey

”But, extra mouths? What has been happening?”

Malissa gave Aubrey a slightly incredulous look. "The crowds? The ridiculous fans of that AL-Loy war turned reality show? You really can't have missed them. They're not permanent residents, but they all want to eat, and they all need to use the facilities after they eat. Deliria has the infrastructure to handle it, but it's been putting a lot of stress on some of her systems. Still profitable as all hells, otherwise Fuzzy would never have let the idiots get on board, but it's certainly not making anyone's job easier." Malissa sniffed at the air again, still wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Refugees are grateful, careful folk that try not to make too much of a mess when you give them a home. The Goliath fans have less respect, though they've been cultivating some since Fuzzy stopped giving warnings and started enforcing the Codes a bit more heavily."

"Of course, the crowds themselves aren't nearly as much of a problem as the authority that tries to sneak in along with them."


Khate

Wade back into the crowd to collect information on Goliath Falls and AL-Loy's latest developments. Anything that hints at what AL-Loy's connection or intentions to our target might be, if any.

The crowds were a maelstrom of bodies and voices, but they welcomed Khate eagerly. She was one of them, for the most part. Talking was difficult, typically more full of enthusiastic shouting rather than coherence of meaning. Trying to talk about AL-Loy rather than the show was a bit of a flop with most of the fans. They didn't care about who sponsored the show, and while they could go into exacting detail about AL-Loy's deployed military force, they didn't seem to know much about them behind that. Which, honestly was not unexpected. Trying to get information about Varkonius was even more fruitless, he was just some neo-ape as far as most of the fans were concerned, and they couldn't care less about him or his connection to AL-Loy.

Khate gradually let herself get swept through the vendor stalls, falling in with a small knot of fans consisting of two wolves, a hound, and a small crow who rode on the hound's back and recited various statistics and odds of survival for what Khate supposed were important people on the Goliath falls show. They were good company, and had all seen DNR, though there was some debate which was better. There was general consensus that DNR was better if one wanted completely insane struggles where blood was a guarantee, but that Goliath Falls was a much more well rounded show that did a better job with showing that the people were just soldiers fighting (and subsequently dying) valiantly for their home. Goliath Falls apparently did kind of a cool thing where if a person on the show was popular enough, AL-Loy would swap to non-lethal weapons, disable their fighter instead of destroying it, and then auction off the captured individual to the fans. The group Khate was with owned a thousandth share of a wing commander named Ettica, who'd been shot down in a heroic last stand defending his carrier group.

Before too long, Khate found it decidedly difficult to remember what her original objective was. She ended up buying a remote control fighter that shot bubbles and a couple of smaller pieces of fan merch, ostensibly so she could try to ask question vendors discreetly. Not that it ever panned out. In the end the group Khate was with convinced her to join them for lunch- using the argument that she'd already interrogated half the dock market and might find more talkative people around a plate of food.  It was a convincing argument, and Khate found herself laying down beside a low table, eating meatloaf and justifying why DNR didn't need big ship to ship battles to be as exciting as Goliath Falls.

[Tiruin]

((GAH, thought I posted this tab ;~;))

Kesari felt comfortable on the ship--as far as how comfortable one could feel on a vessel capable of holding people in the thousands reduced to a mere handful of space for crew and compliment. She was comfortable in her thoughts, having focused her ideas on preparing the main intelligence for the mission ahead; it wouldn't do to just leave the crew to do everything without the benefits of intel, she mused, dragging her thoughts on an inquisitive and empirical path of bumpy concepts and trawling ideals. She had planned for one (not necessarily herself) to act as mission intel coordinator back on ship while the away-team work their...work together, but that required cooperation with the computer on the ship.

There were many choices to start with. Some of which she voiced and thought out loud. In order to understand the astute 'marketing' processing of the sensor and scanner array, and its exceptional firewalls and hacking defenses, there would be previous models to build by--all of which are at least connected to the Empire that built this ship, but surely similarities would exist. There was also the notice of familiarity--all processing had similarities for engineers all over to try and understand: she was a mathematician, ex-professor, and physicist; the foundational concepts were similar enough, perhaps. She also had access to an information hub, there would surely be some kind of lead somewhere.

She had discarded the idea of finding a living tech expert on the matter due to how time consuming the process would be (although she did voice out this notion without noticing), and instead threw her thoughts onto the system itself. For there to be errors, there was a process. For a process to exist, there were logic pathways. For those to exist, there must be a method to understand and follow concepts for a necessity.

The information broker would best have experts in marketing and trade. It would be much easier and more confidential to search through that 'aisle' rather than a tech expert who she would've had to share these depth-of-details for them to understand her concerns. In the least, similarities in marketing systems would have a common understanding. And given the time needed, she merely had to avoid taking too long in obtaining information through these scanners. Best start from the ground up.

Familiarize self with the processing of our ship AI and begin querying the Deliria information services for ways to calibrate marketing sensors and scanners for better ease of use.

[Dwarmin]

Keresh blew a bubble idly, nibbling at his block of sorbet. "An inkblot of a question, with truths revealed regardless of the answer... I would saw Law, but that is perhaps an old Fin's bitterness. I have seen the laws preserve the evil man and strike down the good, and while the word of the law is meant to be inviolate... Well, lawyers could hardly keep their families afloat if there was no perception and interpretation to the riddle of law."

A shadow fell across Sadish as another Fin swam between her and the light. Keresh blew out a long stream of bubbles in a sigh. "I have a second riddle for you in turn. What's eight feet long, far too concerned with business, wears excessive jewelry, is responsible for most of my wrinkles, and looks very worried?"

"The best riddles let you learn things-about how they're asked, and how they're answered.

For example, your answer was correct, and it tells me that you're fairly grounded-you take life seriously. Some part of you is always on the job, isn't it...

...Ah, but it wasn't my own answer to the riddle, which is also correct-from a certain point of the view...many of the truths we cling to greatly depend on our point of view, after all.

That answer being, of course-myself. She's often confused as if she's doing the right thing, seen an entirely different way depending on how you perceive her, and...sometimes white and black...or a bit of both. Depending on what angle you're viewing her from."

She did a playful whirl in the water beside him-Sadish's skin being quite literally a duality of white and black.

"I know, I know, I'm an awful Fin. But it does tell a bit about ourselves, doesn't it?" She toned back, sounding satisfied.

Sadish had been gathering the courage during the riddle, to ask Keresh to share a particularly aquabatic dance with her, when they were interrupted...

A shadow fell across Sadish as another Fin swam between her and the light. Keresh blew out a long stream of bubbles in a sigh. "I have a second riddle for you in turn. What's eight feet long, far too concerned with business, wears excessive jewelry, is responsible for most of my wrinkles, and looks very worried?"

"She's either your wife, partner, or your boss, or some combination of them. Is it fair if I take three guesses...?" She toned flippantly, flipping her body around to espy the newcomer.

[lawastooshort]

”Ah. The crowds,” said Aubrey, trying not to sound surprised herself. She had noticed them, sort of.

”They… they are more things to get away from than… mouths to feed. The authority? You mean regimes trying to interfere with Deliria?”

Deliria had always been a standard bearer for independence, freedom, all that kind of thing, even if at some levels it might have just looked like been a standard bearer for cold hard cash. But it wasn’t, there were ideals behind it all, and Aubrey felt proud and protective of it for that reason. Something noble in the sordid deals that went down. Well, possibly. Something noble about something in this place, at least. No point trying to find poetry where there wasn’t.

”You know,” she started wistfully, forgetting herself for a second, ”Sometimes there is a jealousy of the old raven knights, having a cause to fight for, all that kind of thing. But we always see a simpler better time, a friend of mine used to remind me. This place is worth fighting for, hmm, I mean to say.”


((unless Malissa’s answer leads to more questions or conversation then Aubrey will make her way to the Gallery, to search out Fuzzy.))


”Good afternoon, Fuzzy. Some find it customary to bring gifts after long travels to afar. I have brought only questions. I am sorry for being so mercantile when I would prefer to count you as a friend... Do you have some time? I should have asked Malissa for a drink to bring you as a gift...”

[Draignean]

Sadish

"She's either your wife, partner, or your boss, or some combination of them. Is it fair if I take three guesses...?" She said flippantly, flipping her body around to espy the newcomer.

"You'd be wrong on all three counts," Keresh said, a chuckle in his tone. "Sadish the Restless, meet my daughter and assistant, Sara the Sparkly."

Sadish turned in the water to look at Sara, who, despite having a very human name, was definitely a young female Neo-Dolphin. Judging by the rising flush across her belly, Sara was slightly more embarrassed at her appellation than either Keresh or Sadish had ever been. It was, however, apt. Sara had a good two or three dozen piercings, flat pieces of multi-colored metal done in designs of scales, feathers, and leaves. Each was designed to flip down flat when in motion so as not to create unnecessary drag or burrs, and in each was embedded a pattern of three to five faceted stones. Sara hadn't stopped there though, adding a tracework of fine tattoos that had their own lighting implanted subcutaneously, making her piercings glitter regardless of the ambient light.

Regardless of her embarrassment, Sara spoke in a rush, her sub-tone barely audible to Sadish and likely meant only for her father. "Sir, Massakhar Ashanti has declined to meet with you again. As has Malissa Eizus, Tobias Love, Meicretus Bartholomew Hague, and the entire labor council." 

"That is the reason I'm sitting in a bar, eating sorbet," Keresh replied unconcernedly, ordering another lump of the ice and bouncing it at his daughter. "After the tenth rejection one shouldn't stick around the office pining, it builds stress and tears down confidence."

Sara eyed the sorbet floating her way with consummate greed, but was clearly attempting to make her best effort at being professional. "There's also an individual on Deliria's primary docks, a wolf that our contacts say is linking us to the actions of a known terrorist."

Keresh rolled, giving his daughter a quizzical glance. "And? Depending on who you ask we're the source of all that is good in the world or the wound through which all evil seeps. We've been linked to everything under, above, in front of, and behind every sun spinning, why-"

Sara made an urgent noise and glanced quickly at Sadish, the message obvious: 'Not in public'.

Some sort of comprehension dawned on Keresh, the the Shark cursed in with a resonance that made a couple other patrons at the bar glance up. "Eat your sorbet on the way out, don't waste it," he said to Sara, giving her an approving nod before turning rolling back to Sadish. "Don't forget what I said about information. I have some business to take care of, but I thank your for the diversion. Contact me if you have anything, and perhaps to finish a fish and a game of real riddles when we both have more time."

Sadish's communicator beeped, acknowledging a message containing Keresh's contact information.


Kesari

Familiarize self with the processing of our ship AI and begin querying the Deliria information services for ways to calibrate marketing sensors and scanners for better ease of use.

It turned out that running through marketing experts was a complete bust. Yes, Deliria had them in spades, and had Kesari wanted to engage in deals on everything from hyper-density cannons to pornographic magazines, she could have found someone to advise her. As far as the Reunion's systems went, however, most of what she got was either admiration or contempt, without any real understanding of how it worked that Kari didn't already have. A particular Claw suggested several ways that the marketing and advertisement system could be upgraded to more modern philosophies by using sub-hypnotics, but she had no major insight into how to make it cooperate with non-marketing ideas.

The only helpful advice had come from a wizened human who'd suggested that any command given to the computer for an atypical procedure be phrased from a marketing and finance perspective- as the pre-existence of a justification might prevent the computer from trying to tack on its own justification and take additional, unneeded, and unexpected actions.

Still, what wasn't terribly helpful, and it basically left Kari back at square one. She had a system that had errors of logic engendered by a nervous breakdown of its intelligent system as a result of a poor decision under unexpected and unplanned conditions yielding dire results. She needed to be able to back it up from that point, to make it a little bit more sensible, which would require either a stock system or an original image of this system. Neither of which was available.

Kari let her thoughts run back around, trying to find some exception that would make this work out. The Toriad built it from their own tech, which made it difficult to understand fully now that they were dead. Earlier models of their technology would probably be equally helpful, and probable more plentiful, than exact copies of the Starset's original system, but were likewise unavailable- at least, not without running through every scrap market in a hundred jumps, and potentially not even then. An interface could be done with anything that used GMS3, but...

Kesari's ears pricked. That was a thought. Very few empires bootstrapped all they way up to prime-tech, typically they found a way to access the Deep signal and copied simple designs, or they were uplifted by another empire. Either way, that meant there was a chance that there was a prototypical system that the Toriad had used as a development point for their own branch, which would make it the ultimate ancestor of the Reunion's current software.

Spoiler: The Root Command of All Evil (click to show/hide)

Fixing the Reunion's faulty computer is not a task that can be undertaken easily, and will likely take a considerably amount of time to do. However, you've made enough headway that you can bookmark this and come back to it when you have some extended time, such as when between missions.

This will be a significant upgrade to the Reunion, and thus, if engaged in fully, will likely have its costs. Be ready.

Aubrey

”Ah. The crowds,” said Aubrey, trying not to sound surprised herself. She had noticed them, sort of.

”They… they are more things to get away from than… mouths to feed. The authority? You mean regimes trying to interfere with Deliria?”

Deliria had always been a standard bearer for independence, freedom, all that kind of thing, even if at some levels it might have just looked like been a standard bearer for cold hard cash. But it wasn’t, there were ideals behind it all, and Aubrey felt proud and protective of it for that reason. Something noble in the sordid deals that went down. Well, possibly. Something noble about something in this place, at least. No point trying to find poetry where there wasn’t.

”You know,” she started wistfully, forgetting herself for a second, ”Sometimes there is a jealousy of the old raven knights, having a cause to fight for, all that kind of thing. But we always see a simpler better time, a friend of mine used to remind me. This place is worth fighting for, hmm, I mean to say.”

Malissa refilled Aubrey's drink. We can both stand to drink to that, and yes, AL-Loy has been trying to get their fingers into us. We're hosting their event, and we're in their territory, thus we must belong to them, right?" She scoffed. "If Fuzzy does have a job for you to exchange favors with, it'll probably be of that flavor. It was good to see you again, little raven, and good luck.

[Dwarmin]

Sadish sent back her own contact information, watch the pair go, wondering, watching. Somehow returning to the lab right at the moment seemed depressing...she could finish her own sorbet, though.

Then she could boil some time, finding out whatever she could about this attacker of the independent ships. She didn't really think she would find anything that Keresh hadn't already dug through, but perhaps she could draw connections that he didn't have. If she could determine what sort of bio-weapons had been used, that could be a decent lead.

Action: Time to do some of my own research into the mysterious attacks. What's the equivalent of an internet cafe these days? I need to go there.

[Tiruin]

Making a backflip in joy at the foothold she had theoretically achieved, Kesari proceeded to the comm array and sent a broadcast to her fellow crewfolks which would inevitably end up as a universal synthesized 'text' message on any device they had of receiving and personally displaying it:

Hey everyone, finally managed to get our sensors up to date and usable without the long time needed. Seems like the calibrations worked out well! :D
Anyone have added information on our goal? I could try calibrating our sensors more if we knew specifics about its use and what it does.

She wondered if the signal would be intercepted, and figured her use of 'it' pertaining to the mark or their target would suffice. Everyone knew her well enough to get that, right?

A second of pause later, she noticed a tiny illuminated portion of her HUD coming from her circlet--it wasn't supposed to light up like that. Unless she had a call or message on hold.

"Hey, Kari, I'm trying to scout out a bit of the med bay - you know, the part that's probably more radioactive than the goddamn reactor chamber - and Boris left this clusterfuck of an instruction manual for the airlock. You got a little time to help me figure it out?"

"Scarlet! Hi there! Sorry for the late reply! Sure I'd LOVE to go and help you out! I-...had this on 'call waiting'! I'll be right there! (How long ago was this)..."
There was no option in her communication device to put calls on hold. It recorded the finished message--she had everything on 'quiet' as she was busy thinking.

Go and help Scarlet out!

[Draignean]

Aubrey

Aubrey bid Malissa a quick good-bye and left the Well. Time was an odd thing. In some ways she was a very different Neo than she had been when this place had been a regular haunt, and yet in some ways it felt like she'd never been gone. Malissa was still running bar and complaining about keeping the station running, Aubrey still felt like she was down two flight feathers in a storm at every conversation, and Fuzzy was still the person that she needed to talk to. Nostalgia was not a feeling that Aubrey was used to, but, as she took the lift up the heart of Deliria's central spire, riding with a half dozen others to the station's apex, it was strong in her breast. There were reasons why she hadn't been able to see herself on Deliria permanently, but it was still nice to be back.

Fuzzy's gallery was as breathtaking as it ever was. The gallery occupied the top of the central spire in its entirety, and thus took the form of a singular circular room. It was designed to appear as though it was outdoors, with planters everywhere overflowing with life and trees spanning floor to ceiling and providing scattered shade from the artificial sun that hovered at the apex of the domed room. The chirp and flutter of birds could be heard in the trees, but the entire room was spotless thanks to the constant tending of cleaning bots; without a clot of dirt out of place or the slightest mark from any of the avian occupants to mar the aesthetics.

Winding paths of silvery stone, wound through 'rooms' parted by hedges or wooden fences or stone walls. The curving nature of the paths provided tantalizing glimpses of the rest of the gallery, showing just enough of the non-immediate pieces of art to evoke curiosity and dare the viewer to continue deeper into the labyrinth- not that the pieces of artwork in each individual room were not fascinating in their own regard. Fuzzy's collection was vast, and the items on display were rotated regularly. Fuzzy's only really requirement for his collection was excellence, a clear mastery of craft. Poems engraved on bronze, holo-sculptures, crystal spindles that played fine music with nothing but the application of breath, drawings of charcoal that still evoked deep feeling despite their humble medium- all were welcome here. Part of the joy of the gallery was the discovery of art in a vast variety of forms, each one speaking to the singular effort of its creator.

In fact, the only kind of art that Fuzzy abhorred was what he referred to as 'effortless art'. He kept a single piece of such art in the center of the gallery at all times, a halfway mark to counterpoint everything else the viewer had seen, and to keep in mind for everything else they would see.

The gallery today seemed exceptionally beautiful, though perhaps that was only in contrast to the Reunion's faded beauty. Fuzzy had redone the grounds work, with an emphasis on waterfalls; one central one cascading down to form three smaller ones at asymmetric points. The air was fresh and clear, without a hint of the slight metallic tang that the recyclers usually added, and butterflies danced across the planters. With the artificially sun shining warmly from above, it was almost possible to forget that this was merely an attraction aboard a space station. Almost.

Aubrey would have liked to browse a little, but there was business. Fuzzy included poetry periodically, and the pieces he selected were always beautiful. Sometimes dark, sometimes poignant enough to tear the heart in two, but always beautiful. Aubrey did her best to set a stately ace around the other viewers noting a number of gawkers. There were more than usual, and their mannerisms a bit less respectful than normal, but that was to be expected with the station packed with Goliath Falls fans. If they made trouble, well, they'd find that the ivory clad gallery attendants were good for a great deal more than simply explaining the odd details of a piece of art. The individuals that Fuzzy trusted to guard and maintain his gallery were among his most talented and dangerous, and he granted this shift as a reward for jobs well done. Not that they seemed terribly in danger of being called to action. The guests of the day were less polite, but still polite and careful around the art. Fuzzy had a reputation, and no sane neo would cross him.

Continuing forward, Aubrey began to grow slightly worried that Fuzzy had been called away. He was fully capable of performing the bulk of his duties from practically anywhere, and while the gallery was his favorite place on the station, he enjoyed wandering throughout his vessel in order to keep a feel for the day to day of the place. Normally, if he was in the gallery, he could be found staring at one of his favorites, simply contemplating it. Fuzzy was a distinct enough individual that Aubrey was certain that she could pick him out of the crowds, but she was nearing the last turns of the gallery and had seen not an inch of his bald hide.

“Aubrey,” a low, soft growl called from above, his lazy accent making it sound like 'Oobrey'. “I have told you many times, appreciation of art is appreciation of truth. There is no truth that does not aid the mind, no matter what that mind's search may be.”

Aubrey looked up, doing a double take at the life size statue of Felid on top of the marble plinth. The statue smiled at her and stretched, yawning to show its very many, very white teeth. Fuzzy slid down from the plinth, landing gracefully beside Aubrey and letting a holoform statue take his place on top of the plinth. It was surprisingly easy to mistake Fuzzy for something unreal, too carved and too artistic to be part of the real world and not a piece of art. He was completely hairless, and both exceptionally large and well muscled. His skin, taught over muscle, was a dark purplish tone, not unlike that of an exotic stone. He had golden eyes, though flickers of color danced in them- the backimage of the retinal screens through which Fuzzy conducted business constantly. Aubrey wasn't really sure if she'd ever seen a time when Fuzzy wasn't doing some kind of work in the background, even when he 'relaxed'.


”Good afternoon, Fuzzy. Some find it customary to bring gifts after long travels to afar. I have brought only questions. I am sorry for being so mercantile when I would prefer to count you as a friend... Do you have some time? I should have asked Malissa for a drink to bring you as a gift...” Aubrey said rapidly, quickly exhausted what little she had prepared that sounded sensible and petering out towards the hand.

Fuzzy smiled and flicked his naked tail forward, ushering her to walk with him. “Good afternoon, of course, where are my manners. Truthfully, there are a number of cultures where the onus of gift giving falls upon the one who is visited. After all, you have traveled far to see me, and yet I have done nothing- but I still receive the pleasure of your company.” Fuzzy turned to favor Aubrey with one the heavy-lidded looks only Claws were capable of, and Aubrey was reasonably certain had some relation to the human wink. “I think I know your questions, but ask as you wish and we will speak of prices and... mercantilism.”

---

Sadish

Action: Time to do some of my own research into the mysterious attacks. What's the equivalent of an internet cafe these days? I need to go there.

The Think Tank had an uplink service to the Deep, with slight costs for some rather breathtaking speeds. One of the side benefits of Deliria being an information hub was that she had priority access to nearly everything, and that trickled down to the citizenry. Still nursing her bulb of SeaLite, Sadish set herself up a slight distance off from the bar area, near a cluster of bio-sculptures and within a quick flick of an air-bubble for when she needed to breathe. Trawling the Deeps was long work, and while Sadish much preferred to do it someplace where she could be comfortable in her own skin, she didn't want to have to take a break to breathe every ten minutes.

Some time later, Sadish was firmly wishing that she'd spent more time studying the intricacies of how to actually find something specific in the Deep. She was an excellent doctor, archaeologist, and bio-engineer, but sorting through the endless of sea of information that was similar looking to what she wanted, but still utterly irrelevant, was a difficult, time consuming, and exhausting chore. The only thing she had to show for her labors was a snippet of video that had allegedly been hacked out of the recording feed of an AL-Loy recon team that had been investigating a ghost ship. It was relevant because she recognized the ship as Grenac's, a polite and decorous Cane who specialized in stealing stolen goods with a team of a half dozen bore jumpers. If the Tiamen had been looking for people to steal back the Exile's Star, his name should have been pretty high on the list.  He was a good Cane, and one who preferred to split bounties rather than risk a shootout with other mercies. It also seemed that he was very dead.

The video feed was of terrible quality, probably as a result of it being piggy-backed nine ways til Sunday,  but the outline of Grenac's ship was clear when the AL-Loy docked with it. There was no noticeable hull damage and the running lights were still going. The audio was non-existent on the feed, but judging by the fuss the AL-Loy reclaimers were making over the docking seal, there was something wrong with the port on Grenac's ship. It didn't seem to prevent them from getting a hard seal, and when they opened the door (with no apparent need to enter a code) there was no rush of the airlock equalizing pressure. The ship hadn't been vented. The inside of the ship looked normal, borderline untouched. She was a Mercy ship, so not everything was military precision, but the only sign of a struggle was when the recovery team reached the ship's mess. That... that was difficult for Sadish to describe.

The easy part to see and understand was what appeared to be a brief scuffle, shattered plastic cups, a laser burn across a table, a section of ceiling lighting perforated by automatic weapon fire. It was much more difficult to explain the bodies, though it was difficult to call them bodies anymore. There were eight... stains in various places in the room. The skeletons, hideously warped, were still in the middle of the stains, but only a few tatters hunks of meat and cloth clung there anymore. Everything else was lost in the puddle of what seemed to be putrefaction that surrounded the skeletons. It didn't look natural, not like their bodies had just fallen and rotted. In fact, judging by the stains the ran up the walls and spattered the ceiling, this had been... explosive.

Sadish was not easily sickened, but this seemed a rather excessive way to kill someone. Also fascinating, and not something Sadish had seen before on quite that scale, but potentially excessive.


---

Scarlet and Kesari

"Hey, Kari, I'm trying to scout out a bit of the med bay - you know, the part that's probably more radioactive than the goddamn reactor chamber - and Boris left this clusterfuck of an instruction manual for the airlock. You got a little time to help me figure it out?"

"Scarlet! Hi there! Sorry for the late reply! Sure I'd LOVE to go and help you out! I-...had this on 'call waiting'! I'll be right there! (How long ago was this)..."
There was no option in her communication device to put calls on hold. It recorded the finished message--she had everything on 'quiet' as she was busy thinking.

Go and help Scarlet out!

Kesari arrived bouncily, her buoyant happiness clashing more than slightly with Scarlet's expression of near total frustration. The fact that Sadish's brilliantly pink survey drone was also there, as well as its oversized control module, brought more than a few question's to Kari's mind, but they were at least momentarily forestalled by a withering look from Scarlet. Scarlet immediately directed Kari's attention to the sticky note attached to the vent control, the one that looked like it was sneezed out by a man locked in an asylum for the criminally obsessed with sports.

Kari seemed much more fascinated by the note than Scarlet ever was, muttering about Finite State Machines and transition diagrams while using her tech-harness arms to sketch something on her personal device. After a couple of minutes, and no small number of rapid erasures and re-writes, Kari showed her new version of the diagram to Scarlet and explained how, in theory, it should be solved. If Boris was using anything remotely close to standard notation.

Spoiler: Boris' Diagram, revised by Kesari, with included rules (click to show/hide)

• Commands issued consist of some sequence of letters A,B,and C. BCCBABAA is an example of a command, but BCCASCCB is not.  The entire command must be issued at once.
• The command is evaluated left to right.
• The machine starts with the leftmost node 'Active'.
• The Active node is moved based on the next character of the sequence. A moves it along blue, B moves it along green, C moves along yellow.
• Unless a explicitly stated by the machine, active nodes become inactive at each new character. (Lines that loop back mean the node remains active on that character)
• Nodes that have two lines away on the same color will activate BOTH of the nodes they link to. Those nodes will then spread their activity as normal.
• The goal is to get each of the goal nodes, the nodes with double circles, to be active.
• Don't activate the node with the giant red X.

[TheBiggerFish]

((Gleep.))

[Dwarmin]

Sadish hadn't known Grenac very well, as their professions ran in very much different directions, but she had spoken with him years ago at an illegal auction, one where she hadn't intended to buy anything, merely to take some scans of a rare petrified tree if they weren't too picky about it-and, that he eventually ended up crashing. She recalled their pleasant conversation, and how he had lifted the Petrified Yornak Tree that had been for sale right out of the gallery, through the skylight, and up into his waiting vessel. He had given her a nod as he ascended with them, seeming so young and fearless, like he didn't even notice the lasers and bullets flying around him...later, she had been pleasantly surprised to find that full scan data of the tree had been uploaded onto her personal tablet.

Well, she guessed you met almost everyone in this business, even if you didn't try to. She had been marked by his nature, so calm and polite compared to how...jumpy...canes usually were. A shame he was dead, and they never had a chance to meet again. She had always wished to repay him somehow...

...

Still, she wished she could get a closer look at the bodies...the nature of death seemed random to her, messy-organic. Perhaps something had pierced the ships defenses, boarded, and slaughtered the crew in spectacular fashion. It could have been something as simple as a microscopic bio-organism, nano-machines, or an engineered killer...or even a living creature of some sort. What sort of organism blew it's prey to pieces, though?

She reversed the video. That they had all died in one place indicated either a desperate last hold out, or they had taken completely unawares. Sadish tried to make out the sort of things you might expect of a crew not expecting trouble. Plates, cups, cigars still in trays...signs of a ghost ship?

Action: Sadish tries to think of the sort of bio-weapon that might do something like that, if possible.

Also, take a closer look at the video-does it look like they taken completely by surprise, or that they had tried to fortify the room, judging by the clues in the room?

[Draignean]

Sadish

Action: Sadish tries to think of the sort of bio-weapon that might do something like that, if possible.

Also, take a closer look at the video-does it look like they taken completely by surprise, or that they had tried to fortify the room, judging by the clues in the room?

Sadish wasn't an expert, but she'd seen enough firefights to know that the mess hadn't been reinforced and barricaded against an intruder, but something still struck her as off. It didn't look like Grenac's crew had been sitting down to eat, and there wasn't food left on the table. The cups that had been out didn't seem to have spattered anything, just empty cups and bowls left behind that nobody had bothered to take back.

It looked like Grenac had been settling in for a meeting, of sorts. The presence of most of his crew behind the tables suggested that it had been the kind of meeting where one wanted a show of force. The lack of any kind of bloodstain on the side where Sadish assumed the aggressor to be suggested that show of force hadn't been very effective.

As far as bio-weapons that could do that... There were a couple things that could do it over long periods of time, turning bodies essentially into toxic bombs. A rather deadly tactic to employ when one wanted to discourage recovery teams. These, however, looked like they'd burst almost immediately, and there didn't seem to be much in the way of toxic residue impeding the AL-Loy team. Nothing natural worked like this, small incubation period and complete mortality meant that the disease, if it was a disease, would die out after infecting a single population.

[lawastooshort]

”Well. Let me start with the little bargaining power I have, if you will. Um. Malissa hinted there are some local problems that perhaps you do not have resources for. Now then. I’m sure you can guess, yes. I have been instructed to track down this Varkonius, who has been causing such disturbance. And now it occurs to me that perhaps he is responsible for these local problems. Perhaps. It also occurs to me that Al-Loy are reputed to be behind Varkonius’s disturbing, and I believe you may not be entirely happy with Al-Loy yourself, so perhaps I have a little extra for bargaining… Yes. Don’t worry! I have heard of Varkonius, and have not an intention of… confronting him, not myself. Or at all, if I can help it. But I need to find him. And if I can find him and stay alive, I would prefer that, I think… Hmm. Now, hmm.”

Aubrey had wanted to be a little more careful, and perhaps slowly introduce her requests, but there it was, all out before she could stop herself, but not exactly clear nevertheless. It was disorientating, just talking, sometimes, and even more so when pulled from the magical world of the gallery back to person-to-person interaction. She looked up at Fuzzy.

”Well. Um. There you go. Can you help me, Fuzzy?”