Lurch the Narrator's page

"Oh, thank goodness. Something went right for once," she said, relieved as she takes a sip of the highly suspect drink. "I'll go tell Vai what's going on. Hopefully I can convince her to vacate the room, at least temporarily."

If the feeling of a bright morning after a solid night's rest and a brisk, invigorating shower had a smell, that would be the one coming off the glowing beverage. A few moments after Nala's first sip, she can feel her fatigue fading and her mind clearing. A couple more sips and by the time she gets to the iso-room, she is feeling good enough, almost, to start humming to herself.

Inside the iso-room, there is a barely audible hum coming from the cocoon. It must have built by the most minuscule steps for Vai to have not noticed it yet.

Nala groaned and rolled out of the cot she'd been laying on. She stumbled out and grabbed the nearest staff member she saw. "I need an energy containment field prepped to go around the room Phaezeriel is in. We have some time, but not all day. Also, get me an energy drink. I don't care what. No rest for the wicked," she added, rubbing her hands over her eyes, trying to manage awake.

The orderly she grabbed nods at Nala, "You got it, lady-boss. Shield for the scary-boss, and energy for the lady-boss."

He returns a few minutes later with something glowing a light blue and bubbling softly, "Here ya go, lady-boss. The tech-bosses say they are warming up the containment. Seems like there is already the circuitry for it, they just have to warm it up since it hasn't been used yet."

Nala was napping in one of the exam rooms. Every time she tried to go off duty, something else went wrong, and without Phaezeriel keeping things calm her presence was needed near constantly. Plus one of the nurses had disappeared without notice. There had been some new medical staff that arrived though, which helped immensely. Until she had to teach them how to work with the new systems. Again. Ugh. Why had she decided to go into Healing as a career again?

Just as the thought crossed her mind, an alert discreetly blipped onto her datapad. Not an emergency, not yet, but the sensors in the iso-room where Phaezeriel was were detecting a marked rise in the energy concentration inside the cocoon. If the delta remains constant the transmutation energy will begin to radiate out from the cocoon and affect nearby objects and creatures at precisely 12:14:37.

He crouches in the cargo hold, his many legs braced between some of the crates and unavoidably gouging into them. His eyes simply watching, his expression blank. The dimness around him flickers as electricity arcs across his body. As requested by the strange man in the strange clothes, he is holding most of the electricity inside, but some always leaks out.

The strange man told him he would be safe, that he should go with the strange man, but he does not trust the strange man; he has been told that he would be safe before. So he waits for the trip to be over, and for the next round of tortures to begin.

"Okay, well, let's get her a room. Ooh, that does not look good,: she said, frowning as she saw the glowing red symbol on Raelle's neck. "I don't think they usually glow that color. Well....maybe it's not really that bad? Come on, I'll help. I volunteer here sometimes, so I know how to speak medical," she said lightly, trying to put a good face on things instead of letting on how worried she actually was.

She led Ardiente over to the nurse's station. "Hey, a little help here please? This girl needs a room. She's got overextended psionic powers, possible psychic trauma."
"Whenever Phaezeriel finishes with Ginni or if Nala comes in, she needs to be evaluated by a mental healer."

The nurse, trying to look calm though she mainly just looks a little uneasy, speaks in a voice that is, if not calming, at least caring and gentle, "Phaezeriel has exhausted himself working with another patient, and Nala is out for the day. Let's see, psychic trauma? Lets get her into room 13 down on the blue ward and I will see if Professor Nix has some time."

She taps a few keys and a light indicates where the blue ward is located. A short ways down the hall, another light indicates room 13. The nurse leads the way tapping on a data pad as she goes, speaking over her shoulder, "Now can you please tell me what happened?"

I have played a little of that. I am really bad at it.

-Posted with Wayfinder

"You do that," he said with a chuckle, squeezing her hand again before walking to the door. "Get some rest," he commanded, and went to look for Phaezeriel.

The arrows point into a different ward in the infirmary, one containing secure isolation rooms.

It likely would. More legit in the nurse's station behind the desk than at the reception desk itself, but that works too.

Lurch the Narrator wrote:

The man looks down and taps a few keys, then looks up at her again, "Miss Sunwake is recovering well and is due for release after the physician on duty releases her. Did you say temporal energy? Like time travel?"

mel seems a bit afraid to respond to the question, not wanting to bring back memories of the attack, and the time stream effect.

ahhh, yes, well, sort of, well, not quite, but similar,she seems hesitant on her answer, not entirely out of lack of understanding but more about not sure about who she is talking to.

trying to get back to Vai, Thats great, about Vai, can I see her?

He smiles and indicates one of the hallways behind him, "Sure. She has some guests now. Room 103."

The man looks down and taps a few keys, then looks up at her again, "Miss Sunwake is recovering well and is due for release after the physician on duty releases her. Did you say temporal energy? Like time travel?"

Standing just inside the door of the infirmary is a familiar black robed individual, right in front of Melody. As she enters, the Wearer turns his head and gives a tiny nod at her, before returning to look at the man lying in the bed...

as the psychic force explodes out from Iolth, The Wearer disappears in utter silence, standing between Iolth and Nurse Julie, the blast is absorbed into the diaphanous blackness of his robe. A cone of safety extends, saving the Nurse, and Melody from the deadly force.

Looking at the pair, the silver mask becomes Nurse Julie's face for an instant, before he turns and stares at Iolth, fading into invisibility

Wearer finds himself standing outside of the room in which Iolth's Ultrablast has just gone off.

having excused herself from class for a "bathroom break", Mel was following the odd energy fluctuations she was picking up.

She was walking the halls, scanning with her sonic device looking for the source.

seems it is stronger toward the infirmary. odd, I was just here, it can't be Vai again, can it?

Mel enters the infirmary looking for the source of the energy readings she is picking up.

An orderly looks up at Melody, "Can I help you, Miss Waverider?"

Shoshin nods, still worried, but excuses himself from the room and waits outside

When Shoshin steps back outside, he finds that the infirmary has rearranged itself significantly. Planted squarely in the path of the main entry doors is a Nurse's station/reception desk where several orderlies are working. Off to one side there are several chairs arranged in a group; a waiting area. There are several hallways radiating out from this central room that all have private treatment rooms off of them. There is even one locked and obviously high security ward.

An envelope with two words written on it in an elegant hand flits through the upper reaches of the corridors.

Wherever Genosuke may be, the envelope finds himcoming to a hover at chest height with the words facing him. The hand is distinctly feminine, and the words read Honored Uncle.

Inside is a single sheet of high quality paper with a short missive written on it in the same hand:

Jessa Mar'Niell wrote:

Nala Zamarosok wrote:

"I turned off the virus sentience. It was necessary. Three minds to deal with was too many. I do find your insistence that Jessa is the dream interesting. If you're the real one, why is she the one with the real name? All you have is a number," she said in a neutral voice, taking notes. She was currently playing the role of 'scientist' to the hilt since that was what this girl expected to find.

Her voice sounds a little confused, "Turned off their sentience? You killed them?" With a shriek of rage she launches herself off the table at Nala almost too fast for the eye to follow, metallic claws three times the length of her fingers flashing and reaching for Nala.

If you have some way of stopping her from reaching you, make a Reflex save DC 27 to use it before she does reach you.
** spoiler omitted **

You mean like the wards?

Yeah .. like those. Thanks Kryzbyn; I usually do not have to deal with hostility on campus.

Struggling to resolve the conflict between needing to keep the biohazard in a safe location and needing to protect one of its people from harm, parts of the school near the biohazard ward shudder as the floor of the lab flows up with the sound of a landslide. Directly in front of Nala there is a claw-tipped arm extending out of a rock bubble. Jessa's evil twin's voice can be heard clearly swelling rhapsodic on the topic of all the horrible things to which she is going to subject Nala as soon as she is loose.

Nala studies the readings from the close scan, and the activity taking place inside Jessa is fascinating, and more than a little disturbing. The nanites are doing their job well in keeping the virus from being able to survive in an environment other than Jessa's body, and though the coordination indicative of sentience is lacking, the viruses seem to be trying to undo the changes imposed by the nanites. Once the nanites currently in her bloodstream expire, the viruses will eventually be able to undo the changes. A periodic reapplication of the nanites will be necessary unless a more permanent solution can be found.

The biohazard monitors indicate that though there is still the presence of the airborne virus, the pacification nanites have rendered it unable to infect anyone, and both Nala and Ryuzo read as non-infected. The girl is still reading as a deadly biohazard, but the threat seems to not be escaping her body.

Over the next several minutes, the biohazard threat in the room drops rapidly, but the rate of decrease slows dramatically as it nears 90%. As with most things of this nature, it seems to be approaching 100% on a nearly asymptotic curve.

The sensors flash a warning that signs of consciousness are returning to the patient.

Nala glanced at her as she quickly prepared a vaccine for herself. "Yes, I suppose it would. I did what was necessary to save my patient and make sure no one else becomes infected."

The girl just huddles on the table whimpering and muttering so softly Nala cannot make out more than the occasional ...I burn....

Nala is able to administer the nanites necessary to cleanse both herself and the room of any traces of the deadly plague.

After several minutes, the girl convulses and goes still, though a glance at her monitoring equipment shows that the girl is still alive. In astonishingly good health in fact; aside from the fact that the computer still says she is a very high level biohazard, that is.

The girl on the table groans and slowly curls around her middle as the blades on her right hand shrink back into fingers. The voice that issues from her is at once sensual and insectile, and full of pain and uncertainty, "What.. What have you done to me? I.. Burn.."

"I'm very sorry about this. I can only imagine this is quite traumatic for you, but I have no choice. I need to administer this treatment to you or there will be more deaths than there have been already," she said crisply.

Nala lunged towards the girl, grabbing her raised hand and attempting to plunge the needle into her arm.

Nala easily grabs the girl's arm and sinks the needle into her arm, depressing the plunger to deliver the nanites. The girl's bright blue eyes go very wide for a moment, then she blinks and her dark purple eyes narrow on Nala's face. Before Nala can jerk back from the girl, there is a metallic rustling sound as her other arm whips up from behind her and streaks toward Nala's abdomen; the girls fingers have elongated into long, wickedly sharp blades that stab viciously at Nala.

I am not treating Nala as flat-footed. Given her level of caution, she was obviously expecting some resistance.
Attack: 1d20 + 21 ⇒ (12) + 21 = 33.
Damage: 1d8 + 13 ⇒ (2) + 13 = 15.

As the stasis field dissipates, the biohazard alarms start going crazy. The girl tries to draw in a ragged breath and immediately tries to scream, but only a ragged gurgling sound escapes her. Her wounds are obviously causing her great pain, and just as clearly incapacitating her; she can do little more than writhe on the table in agony. As Nala closes in with the nanite injection, the girl's skin seems to ripple, and her wounds start to heal with astonishing speed. Bloodshot eyes open and focus on Nala. Another gurgling sound comes from her gaping throat wound, and she tries feebly to move away from Nala, one hand raised as if to ward her off.

"Yes, the more of them are in an area the better they can simulate a neural network...even better when they can take over something else's brain...it's not the same thing as higher thought. I think based on how they've integrated with our patient zero here that they might be able to use her higher brain functions to think with when she's conscious. But they can't do that with a dead host and they haven't figured out how to keep a host alive. If we act fast this will not become a problem we have to consider. Ryuzo has been getting scans for me from Kuros so I could study the effects more closely. The violence appears more coordinated when the numbers are greater. Isolation is the key here."

Almost as if her words were a trigger, there is a beeping coming from the stasis monitors. The monitor that is beeping is reporting unusual activity from inside the stasis field, and the numbers representing active cells are climbing steadily. The only possible explanation is that the virus has finally figured a way to modify the girl's bone marrow to produce stasis resistant viruses. With a swift calculation, Nala adjusts the modulation on the stasis field and the numbers suddenly drop nearly to zero.

Is anyone waiting for feedback from me?

"Okay, I have a few ideas of how to deal with this. I think I can save the patient. She'll still be infected, but I think I know how to change the virus to make it safe. Non-sentient and non-infectious. I also have to deal with the virus that's already loose in the room...I have some idea for that as well. I'm going to worry about curing the patient first. Since the infection stems from her that seems the most logical place to start dealing with it," she said as she started the complicated programming sequence required to make the nanite treatment for this particular task.

Due to the complexity of altering cellular production centers that create a virus with an active arcane metabolism, the nanite fabrication will take several hours, at which time the girl will have to be removed from stasis for the treatment to be administered.

After Nala sets up the nanite fabrication and oversees the first few stages, she is free to return to studying the active viruses that she removed from the stasis field. During the time that she was programming the nanite factory, the viruses seem to be moving more sluggishly. A closer examination reveals that their internal processes are slowing and, in a few cases, shutting down. Nala can conclude from this that the virus is unable to live for long without a host, but due to their extreme mutation and infection rate and communicability, they would never reach this stage on any planet with animal life.

Max ranks in Heal, Profession(nurse), Craft(alchemy)(specifically focused on crafting medicine not other alchemical stuff), Knowledge(nature and religion) and every healing hex and spell a witch has access to. Basically she's an advanced med student. This is what she really threw herself into after she stopped being a thrallherd.

"Hmm....this is interesting. I think I may have found its weak spot. It appears to be converting arcane energy to maintain the constant changes. It's possible that if I hit it with antimagic it might be able to be treated like any other virus."

Study of the interaction between arcane and biological processes leads Nala to suspect that a total disruption of the arcane metabolism will only slow its mutation and reduce its communicability. You think it is likely that you may also kill the subject if you subject her to an antimagic pulse.

However, the virus's mutations do not seem to target its outer structures, so an attempt to strengthen the viral capsid to make it more difficult for the virus to infect other cells would severely reduce its communicability. On the other hand stripping it of its capsid entirely would make it unable to survive in air.

Another avenue would be to attempt to modify the regions in the girl's bone marrow that produces the virus so that the virus loses its sentience, as well as tuning its arcane metabolism so that it requires the specific magical aura within the girl's body so that it would be unable to survive outside of her body.

Without going too much into the structure and function of viral cells, about which I know almost nothing.... The only way Nala can think of to make the virus be not dangerous without killing the girl is to somehow change the production centers so that it comes out safe.

"Molecular analysis of the virus shows nothing like I've ever seen before. It's difficult to even study. It keeps changing and mutating. It seems to be in a constant state of flux. Isolating any one factor is impossible. It's integrated fully into the patient's organs...I'm not sure that she can be cured at all. It's possible that trying to remove the virus might kill her. I'm going to work on a way to render it inert, or at least non-infectious....I don't know that it's even possible, but I'm not really sure what else I can try."

As Nala continues her analysis of the viral structure, she discovers that the virus is not solely powered by biological processes; it seems to be using arcane energy to accelerate its mutation rate and its high degree of communicability. She also discovers a portion of its DNA structure that is static and is linked to this ability to metabolize arcane energy.

What biology/medecine related skills does Nala have?

"Patient has survived wounds that should have been fatal if she were human. Scanning genetic structure and comparing to known species for confirmation. Also, patient has anomalous cells in her bone marrow. These cells remain active even in stasis. They appear to have some effect on her white blood cells. Perhaps they have something to do with her regenerative abilities. The anomalous cells are acting in unison. Based on what little I've been told about the disease this seems like a likely cause. Uploading scan data now. I'm going to take a biopsy of the anomalous cells for study while I'm waiting for all that data to process."

The girl's genetic structure is human at is most basic level, but the nerve structures that control muscle motion and the muscular structures seem to indicate that this person would move inhumanly fast. In short, she is a human girl of early teen years that has undergone extensive genetic manipulation.

In the process of taking the biopsy, Nala realizes that the source of the anomalous cells is deep in the girl's bone marrow. The active cells, which are very clearly some sort of virus, are attempting to cause these viral production centers to become active inside the stasis field. Her wounds show some signs of very accelerated healing that was halted by the stasis effect.

Nala is able to successfully take a biopsy in very short order, thanks to a gaping wound in the girl's left pelvic region that exposes her shattered bones to the atmosphere. The sensors built into Nala's biohazard suit register the presence of a biohazard in the atmosphere of the room as soon as the biopsied material is brought outside of the stasis area. The sensors are having trouble categorizing how dangerous the contaminant is; none of the systems used to measure its lethality seem to go high enough.

Once they were both suited up she opened the first airlock, and tried not to flinch as it whirred closed behind them. There was more hallway and then another airlock. On the other side of that was the observation area where she left the clone, while she headed into the small chamber where the patient was being held in stasis.

"Alright, start recording now. Patient is a young female. At first glance appears to be a human teenager, but appearances can be deceiving. Patient remains in stasis. I'm going to attempt to get a scan of the patient first," she said, grabbing a portable scanner from the workstation where the medical equipment was stored.

Even as Nala picks up the portable scanner, she notices that there is a small alert indicator flashing on it. The scanner is apparently already slaved to the stasis chamber and the alert is indicating that there is very minor activity in the stasis field. Acknowledging the alert, the scanner informs Nala that the activity is originating from deep in the girl's bone marrow where the body's white blood cells should be produced. While the activity is confined to only a very few locations, and does not involve more than a few hundred cells in total, that there is any activity in the stasis field is highly irregular and cause for some concern.

Performing a more focused scan on the activity areas, Nala discovers that the active cells are ones that are entirely new to her and that seem to be acting in unison to effect some change in the cells that produce white blood cells.

Aside from those few hundred active cells, it seems incredible that the girl is alive, as the stasis chamber reports that she is; she still exhibits several wounds that seem to have been caused by large caliber, high velocity shells, any one of which would have killed a normal human outright.

Raises an eyebrow, but takes the letter.

"Domo." he says, with a very slight bow.

He perform a cursory sweep of the letter for hostile magics, finding none he open the letter and reads it.

** spoiler omitted **

He smiles as he reads the letter, remembering fond things about Alys-chan. Then his face seems as if a cloud passes over it, worry clear in his features. He almost lost his grandson, now his niece will be in danger here. He respectfully folds the letter and returns it to the envelope. He then seeks out his grandson.

The young messenger, surprised by the bow, awkwardly tries to mimic it. Then suddenly remembers something about depth of bows being important and almost falls on himself in confusion. He straightens up with a bright red face and runs off without another word.

A younger student runs up to Genosuke and bows, delivering a sealed envelope, "Professor Genosuke? This letter just arrived and is addressed to you."

The envelope is addressed: Professor Genosuke, Honored Uncle

Content of enclosed letter is in PM

Unless Ghalen was routinely involved in the latest and greatest in biological research and its weaponization, he would not know anything about the virus. Arthur might know that part of the Empire's weapons development was directed towards biological agents; if his father let it slip.

But likely nothing specific for either of them.

"I have already contacted Sir. I suspect that he will relay to Ms.Waverider."

Just to be clear,
Virus hits ship.
Nothing on ship is compatible, but the punch card machine.
The virus code is run through the machine and is translated to the (now metal) punch cards.
Hermes can read the info off the punch cards because he knows C++ and Binary.
If he was to put the cards through the machine, the virus would start.

It is not exactly a virus. In any event, this is more a case of trying to take something written in whatever is the newest/best code and getting it to run on a "computer" from 1964. Even if you load the punch cards, there is very little chance the code could interface with Carl's systems, and the program does not have the needed autonomy to modify itself to the Hammershaft's systems.

Hermes I think as your on the ship you would spot it to has a Virus, Carl is not there, so its Your call on what you do with it or if you tell any one. Carls ships so basic its probably on 3 punch cards, you can just cut em up or hand em over

Carl sits eating with hes new pal's starting to worry where Arthur is.

And the fact that your ship is so primitive in certain ways works to your advantage. ;)

Aananda had been frantically hitting buttons on her wristband as she worked to quarantine, study, and eradicate the program trying to access the commnet. As she finished she looked up.

The intrusive program is clearly imperial in origin, and very single-minded in its purpose. Embedded in the code is a distress signal and a location tag that would correctly identify the location of Agartha if it had been able to activate the communication array.

The destination of the program, where it was trying to call, is heavily encrypted.

harrumph might as well run a system check... Oh what's this, huh seems there is some forign software in my suit, can't have that, hmm isolating program... Moving to removable storage medium... Disabling input codes recording previous output codes... Moving data to removable storage device... Fragmenting and compressing code shutting down power to removable data device ... Ok that should do it till i have time to look at it

As Arthur isolates the foreign program, he notices that it seemed to be trying to access his communication protocols.

Please remind me who all was involved in collecting the bits of wreckage from the life pod, as well as who may have touched the stasis pod directly.

Carl, was the wreckage put in stasis of some kind or was it simply frozen? How long would it have been on your ship before being put in stasis/ frozen, or was it canned and frozen/put in stasis before being placed in your hold?

I realize I could simply go back through the posts, but I am hoping I can get the answers without doing that.

Ahh .. you are right .. it was not nice.

Yeah thanks buddy...

You didn't hear what it said...

Sometimes she was nice...

I am not bein pushy, just keeping track of her medical condition. ;) Leave her alone too long and it is resurrection you will need .. or speak with dead.

Just curious, but will anyone be investigating the almost corpse that has been just chilling. (#seewhatididthere)

[evil grin]I guess it is a good thing she is so badly hurt. Otherwise some shenanigans might occur... [/evil grin]

Perhaps disrupt was the wrong word. I plead tiredness. Whatever is in the life pod is not messing with Anahita's ability to sense other life forms, but when Anahita tries to focus on the strange sensations she is getting from inside the pod, it is like trying to tune in a radio while driving that is too far away; its all static-y keeps fading out entirely. When Anahita does not focus on it, it keeps appearing and disappearing like a radar ghost.

Trying to focus her newfound senses on the strange stasis capsule, Anahita is left with the impression that it is almost alive; less alive than a person who is in a persistent vegetative state, but far more alive than any metal should be.

In your argument that data would still be retrievable, you are assuming that the arbitrarily advanced data storage unit was not one of the pieces that were 1) Sucked into a localized singularity, or B) blown into little pieces of shrapnel, and that there was no self destruct in the data storage. You will note that I did not say you were unable to find anything, just that it would be very hard. Your previous check was sufficient to find what there was to find on board the wreck of the ship of the main computer's remaining pieces.

Arthur identifies the main computer, less than half of which still remains. The rest of it must have been in portions that were knocked off in flight or broken off in the crash.

Given that I know how large Carl's ship is supposed to be, now, and how much cargo space it has, it is not too difficult to get the life pod frozen and secured. ;)

The only interesting thing that happens when freezing the life pod for transport is that as the freeze command is given, the stasis capsule closes. Of its own accord. While it does so, it detects strongly as alive to Anahita's senses.

GM Fireclaw wrote:

The shuttle definitely won't take aggressive action. Jiminy would flay his pilot alive if he attacked a 12 year old. xP

Well...MOST of the time...

12-year-olds are safe. 14, however, is fair game! ;)

We are definitely out of combat.

Arthur finds the onboard computer. Or what is left of it. If anyone can get any information from the shattered piece of junk, it would be called a miracle.

Anahita's life senses are acting peculiarly. As she becomes more attuned to the different forms of life around the impact site, she is getting, for lack of a better way of describing it, radar static and a periodic radar ghost. As she completes her restoration task, about the time that Arthur has extracted as much of the computer as he can find, she is fairly certain that something about the life pod is disrupting her ability to sense life forms.

Vare, to which site are you going to go? Where the pod is, or where the body is?

Arthur, once you begin examining the wreckage of the life pod and its attendant stasis chamber, you discover a few things about it. The life pod, though totally wrecked, can yield some of the secrets of its stealth systems which are quite advanced. Aananda and Jiminy, and the ship that you encountered on your way in would likely be very interested to know more about the Empire's stealth capabilities. In addition, the stasis pod is made of a metal you have never encountered before. If you were not sure that it was, in fact, metal, you would swear it was a living organism. It seems to have some way of keeping a subject in stasis, yet conscious.

Anahita detects no additional viruses coming from the girl.

It is not so much getting a better look at the girl, as getting a better look at all of the pieces of the girl. An arm and a leg have been entirely severed by the massive shells, and the other leg is missing from the knee down; as well as three very large wounds in her torso and a large portion of her hip/pelvic area is missing.

Krays' status spell reveals that, somehow, she is still alive, and is in critical, but stable condition. On close examination, it appears that some form of accelerated healing started to work on her wounds, but has since ceased; her severed limbs do not have the raw meat look on the ends of the stumps, and the grave injuries in her torso also look somewhat sealed. But the healing is not still progressing.

So, in re using machine guns of that size against a person. Having been an M-249 and M-2 gunner myself, and having seen the weapon cam video and the end result of a 30mm gun being used on a person, not all of those 40 rounds per sec will hit the target. So it will be enough to put her down but not to make a thin red mist of her.