(In his last post Alex inspected the cabinets and the body bags but there was no comment on what he found. I’m guessing this means not much of interest, but he would continue his original search.)

Moving on from his examination of the bodies Alex started to look over the equipment in the sick bay. He wasn’t a medic, but he’d been around his fair share of tech. He inspected it to see what sort of equipment he could find. Was there any sort of data entry point? A place for entering reports? Could he link into it in any way? Or, if they got power, where would he start? These were all just ways of passing the time until they learned more.

(Does Alex know about the Ping? Assuming so. If not, ignore the following.)

And then they got the notice about the radiation signal. What the heck was that? That was odd. There was a lot of odd in the universe, but there weren’t that many coincidences. Things happened for a reason – basic physics. Something out there was putting out radiation. Briefly.

He moved to meet up with Wyatt. It seemed that it was time to do a search of the ship. An ambush? Out here? Who would have known that anyone was even coming here? Some sort of timed trap seemed more likely. Regardless, he moved after Wyatt, ready for anything. Adrenaline had been a reality ever since they got close to the ship, but it slipped into high gear as the pair of them began looking. A room by room search. Alex thought it a damn fine idea.

Post up.

I made both awareness and persuasion checks on R20.  

"I think Bloodbank wants us to join Casino,” Echo said as she rejoined Fixer outside the tent. Fixer was tempted to glance back at the tent they had just left but didn’t bother. Echo knew her business. At least he had to assume she did. And Bloodbank might have some intel?

“Casino has the kid.   Rya claims she is his Mom. That isn’t our issue, and Casino won’t care. But a Mom will fight like hell. Likely, we need to take both.” He glanced at the other to gauge her reaction. The Mom comment had been a surprise, but not really. Something was odd about this mess. But right now, they just needed to get the package and get the hell out this alley. If they didn’t, that other team would be up their backside before you could say “mother’s day.” And every second that passed dropped Vegas’ chances. And he knew Casino had that mental clock ticking away. He felt bad for the kid in a way, but whatever game he was playing was going to get people killed. It already had. And on this he sided with Casino – he didn’t want Vegas’ name added to that list if possible. And that trumped Jace. Well, it trumped Jace’s sob story. Getting the kid the X#&*! Out of dodge came first.

He listened carefully to his audio – trying to pick up anything from behind them in the tent he had recently vacated. The last thing they needed was for some feisty grandparents to suddenly try coming to the rescue. Hearing nothing of significance (Assumption, tell me if I’m wrong) and getting no negative feedback from Echo he dimply said, “lets go.”

Approaching the other tent he spoke up. “Casino, it’s backup.” And he entered the tent. Seeing Rya almost on top of the kid she claimed to be her kid he glanced at Casino. “Let’s take them both. Easier than one.”

(The following is dependent on Casino – he is the mouth of the group here so Fixer would let him talk if he wants to. If there is a pause when he enters he will add the following.)

“Your kid or not, you have put a lot of lives in danger. We have a pal in danger and that means we move now. Sob stories wait until we are out of here.” The comment about Vegas was as much for Casino as anyone. He wanted the big guy to know that he hadn’t forgotten. That the plan was to get to Vegas as quickly as possible. But if by some small chance their story was true and they really were the ‘good guys’ in this story, then that knowing lives were at risk might push them in the right direction.   He could hear the clock ticking. Damn, they needed to move.

He waited for Casino to organize the move. In the meantime he used his audio feed to listen as carefully as he could to any action outside.

With no comment on events in the medical room - like what was in the cupboards and such - I don't know that I really have anything else to post.  Just kinda waiting unless I missed something.

You will be well remembered Ody.  I'm grateful to not be in last!

I also gave you an awareness roll on roll20.

Fixer took in the domestic scene in front of him and swore silently.  This was not the right tent.  But at least the guy had been smart and kept his hand away from the shotgun.  

He looks towards Echo, "Nobody needs to get hurt here.  Nice little domestic.  See if they know anything.  If this one is cold, I'm popping out to move on."  With that he quickly moved out listening carefully at his earpiece to see if he caught any hint of anything from the other tent.  He moved forward watching the tent from the outside to see if anyone came out and to see if he could get any information - visual or auditory.  He put his back to the tent he had just been in.  He didn't like doing it knowing the sawed off was in there, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't be aimed at him.  If need be he could slice an entry in the other end of the tent and go in that way.  

The Roaring 20s it is! 

I shall endeavor to only roll 20s on a d20.  Sounds like a plan.

Happy New Year all!

  1:00 PM    Tampa Bay Buccaneers  

1:00 PM    Minnesota Vikings  

1:00 PM  Cleveland Browns    

1:00 PM  Green Bay Packers    

1:00 PM  Indianapolis Colts    

1:00 PM    Kansas City Chiefs  

1:00 PM    New England Patriots  

1:00 PM  New Orleans Saints    

1:00 PM    Buffalo Bills  

1:00 PM    New York Giants  

1:00 PM    Baltimore Ravens  

1:00 PM    Houston Texans  

1:00 PM  Washington Redskins    

4:25 PM    Los Angeles Rams  

4:25 PM    Denver Broncos

  4:25 PM    Seattle Seahawks

Is there a reason not to just hightail that suitcase back to the Destiny?  Plenty of power there.  Why fight it here?  Or are we assuming time is so short that we might get power back  here before someone could get home?

There are Saturday games this week!  Get your picks in!

Thanks for the visual.  I completely forgot that you gave visuals at r20.  That is slick.  I hadn't looked at that since we were int he offices of upstairs/downstairs.  

I rolled an awareness check for Fixer using his optical abilities.  i'm hoping that was the right role. 

As he complained about time Fixer continued his investigation of the end of the alley. Using his extended audio abilities, he listened in on both of the structures to see if anything useful could be hear. In the near shack he heard two older voices discussing . . . food it seemed like. That seemed pretty straight up. Moving on to the larger structure at the back he heard . . . pfshhhhhhhhhhhh . . . what the heck was that?! It sounded like gas being released. Then there was a slight clanking of metal on metal. Like . . . it was hard to place, but maybe a piece of cutlery striking the side of a tin can. Dinner time all over the place it seemed.

That done he used his telescopic amp to allow him to get a close up look at the two structures. He was looking for any sign of technology – wires or antennas were his first thought, but anything that didn’t scream, “down and out in an alley” would work. He even looked for at the rubbish around the tents for anything questionable or even footprints in the muck. Finishing his surveillance, he looked up at the rest of the group and described what he had seen and heard.

“Both are occupied. From what little I can tell the front one seems the most normal. The back one – I wonder about that gas like sound. Was it gas? For what? Cooking something? Knocking someone out? Setting a trap? Or nothing at all? I don’t know, just a sound. So far I haven’t seen anything tech wise out of the ordinary. I’d love to know if Blossom can pinpoint anything wireless down here. We know there is stuff, but what? And coming from where? As for those buildings – I doubt there is a door in that mess anywhere, but we can’t count it out for that last tent.”

With that said, he just shrugged and looked at the others. “Ok, boss, that’s what I got. I can try to keep the audio feed going as we move up – it might let us know if they have been alerted somehow that we are approaching. No guarantees. What’s the plan?”

Just bumping so people get some posts up.  I want to see what is in this crazy ship.  

Sorry I missed a post.  Crazy week, but still not sure how I completely gapped that one.  

Got one up now.  Fixer does have a camera in his inventory.  I don't know much about the tech stuff in this game - if any of his other stuff would help him look for wires or whatever, let me know.  Also, what sort of role do you need me to make?

Finally - what exactly does the alley look like?  I get the idea of a corner and two structures at the end.  But what exactly is behind them?  Are they just up against the sides of buildings?  Do we have any indication of what is in those buildings?  Might they have entrances on this side that we can or cannot see?  Wires can also be run into such buidlings.  Is there anything else in the alley that could be used for cover - visually or in combat?  Anything up agains the structure that might be hiding tech?  maybe I missed it and the description is there, but I don't remember it.  

Listening to the others talk, Fixer couldn't help but agree that something was amiss.  "Casino's right, something is weird.  You hold a kid worth millions here?"  he shook his head.  "Hang on."  He had been hanging back to allow those with a clue about this type of thing to lead but now he moved forward and looked around the corner.  He snapped a quick picture with his small camera to allow him to also look more closely without staring.  Plus, it might allow him to blow up the picture to see things in more detail.  What was he looking for?  In truth, anything.  

As he thought about what he had seen when he peeked around the corner he also closely scanned the picture he had taken.  "If you were hiding a rich kid in one of those shelters, you'd have some sort of communication system, right?  How do you contact the outside world?  I can't believe the entire brains of this outfit are all still squatting down this alley.  So how do they reach 'em?  I'm trying to see if there are any wires or any kind of tech connected to those structures in any way from where we stand.  Do you think Blossom has a way to check for wireless signals?  Anything like that might tell us about an security they might have.  Plus," and here he looked up from his picture to glance at the others, "if one of those is wired and the other isn't I know which one I'd put my money on."

He went back to scanning his picture and he added in a mumble, "But time . . . time . .  we don't have much time."

Alex watched as the others worked on the doors and the group moved into the lift. He’d always kind of liked low G – so losing the magnetics and pulling himself “up” the lift was something he would normally have played around with. But for now he was focused on looking around. As they moved into the upper level he looked around for paint – was it here also? (??)

               The first real discovery was the dead body in the Infirmary. “John Seward?” Did he know that name? Even as Alex considered the question the captain asked the same thing. Unfortunately, the answer was, “no,” and that was what he relayed. “That’s a “no” on the name. When I found the schematic for the ship, I also tried to look up a crew list. No go. But given what this thing was supposed to have been doing that is hardly a surprise. When we get back to Destiny I can dig more on the specific name, but I wouldn’t bet on much. And considering where he ended up, I’d be careful about who I asked.” Alex looked at the poor guy frozen in front of him. “But the basic answer, is “no.””

               He couldn’t help looking at the suitcase even as it was Doc whose task this was. Was something alive in there? How long could something survive? And what exactly would fit inside a suitcase? A pet? Maybe a child? Certainly nobody would put a child . . .but under the circumstances maybe a desperate parent would. But what in the blackest of the Black had happened here?

Burned out communication systems.

A ransacked cargo bay.

Floating paint

People dead. But they had time to try and save things.

Had those who had attacked the ship come inside? Almost certainly, since the cargo bay had been looted. Assuming, of course, it had ever held something in the first place. But it seemed likely that something had been there, even if it wasn’t filled with valuable metal. But then they had left people alive in the rest of the ship? Just left them there to die? How long had they had until they ran out of power?

               He couldn’t help wonder what the other group was finding out about the power supply. Did they have an answer about the timing of this mess? Why hadn’t the attackers killed those inside? Looking at the body bags he amended that to ‘everyone inside.’ But had they seen signs of conflict? Had there been any indication that the cargo bay doors had been blocked in some way?

               “Boss. Why would whoever took this ship – and emptied the Bays – have left Seward here to do this? Have we seen any sign of force or the crew being locked in?” He couldn’t figure it out himself yet. He moved to the storage locker and opened it, glancing inside. “What about these body bags, captain?” He moved over and read the tags on them. “An interesting use of time to bag ‘em up and tape ‘em down.” He felt around the outside of the bags a bit to see if he could get a sense of what was on the inside – bodies or otherwise. His own suit and the bags themselves would make that easy, right? “Open ‘em now in the void or not? When we get power it will be interesting to see if anything is on that computer, but given the speed tape job I doubt they took the time to log everything.”

               He couldn’t help but watch the doc and the suitcase. Was something alive in that?

Galydan was surprised to see the bird like creatures fly at him and staggered back, allowing Ghiberti to fill much of the door.  He looked up and saw a couple more of the creatures coming at him from the top of the tower - but these were approaching from the outside.  

Lora let lose an arrow and even in the dim light was able to see it skewer one of the creatures causing it to plummet to the floor.  Two of them reached as far as Ghiberti and attempted to latch onto the Tortle, but his shell didn't seem to be a good place for a probiscis to dig in.  Neither attach hit.  Unfortunately neither did Ghib's swing with his staff.  

As the group prepares to continue the fight there are three of the creatures on the inside of the tower and 2 on the outside.  All of them should be within range to attack by next turn.  Ghibs is blocking mostof the doorway, although there is some room to get around him.  

(Galydan didn't do anything this turn since he did not post.  I guess he was just shocked and stunned that such an even could occur.)

Fixer  continued to listen more than offer advice.  On an operation like this he was not going to be the lead dog.  But when a vote was called for it was time to speak up.  "Assessment seems best in almost all cases.  And blood causes problems we'd rather not deal with if it isn't needed.  We don't know he's here.  If not we need more info.  Shooting first can make that hard.  Lets get going, but  . . .take it easy until we know something."

But that wasn't the only issue - it seemed that they weren't sure where in the Alley to look.  "Didn't the address we got say the back end of the alley?  I think we start there.  We should have eyes on this end anyway if someone tries to leave.  Or come at our backs.  I'd say start at the far end.  Unless one of you charming types wants to ask in the first tent about her location."  

Beyond that he just waited.  So much of this was not his paygrade.  He kept his eyes and ears open.  What looked suspicious?  He was torn between wanting to stay tightly together as a group and wanting to separate a bit to cover more ground visually and to perhaps not let everyone know they were together, although that was probably obvious.  Still, he stayed near the back of the group and kept his eyes on the rear.  He tried to leave just enough room that he might not be with the others, but wanted to make darn sure they knew where he was.  An alley like this was filled with desperate people and they didn't know him as just another desperate person.  Anyone of them could be a target for one of the kidnappers or just some poor sap with wasn't just down on his luck, but had never had any to begin with, up, down or otherwise.  

What the heck, those picks actually posted???  It only took 30 minutes for them to show up.  I swear I don't have these problems elsewhere - my interent connection seems fine.  What the heck.  

But at least the flawless picks got in for the round.  

New Orleans

Buffalo

Detroit

Cleveland

Chicago

Oakland

Pittsburgh

Atlanta

Tennessee

New England

San Francisco

Seattle

Baltimore

**Is anyone else having trouble with the site?  For the last several weeks about 75% of the time when I try to make a post the page pops up with a place to put in a subject line, but there is nothing under the "Body:" heading.  Where there should be a white bix to type in there is just the blank background gray.  I frequently have to try 3 or 4 times before it lets me put anything in.  Ideas?