22:06 <banana> The prisoner has been secured within a temporary cell, where he she or it is being prepared for interrogation. After the disorienting period of gate-passing and internal travel within Strangeways, Badawi finds herself lingering outside the door, with Vivi. 22:06 <banana> The mage has his formal robe on, although the hood’s down - it must get hot in there with all his curly hair. 22:06 <banana> He’s giving Agostina... a look of some kind. “You’ve done right by us again. It’s a shame... well.” 22:06 <banana> “Do you want to ask any of the questions, here?” 22:07 <Quaker> “Hm?” 22:08 <banana> Vivi: “Closure will be doing most of the talking. As far as I understand it, your group’s interest is in determining why and how these things attack, how to deal with it, and so on? But if you’d rather put that to the creature yourself, it’s your say-so.” 22:12 <Quaker> “It’s your prison. But I’m just as curious as you are about them. We don’t really know anything about them. I’ll reserve teh right to step in with a question here or there. Closure can ask what she feels is pertinent. I’m sure she has a lot experience sweating people out in small rooms. If I think it’s lying, i’ll raise a finger.” 22:14 <banana> Vivi: “Right. Her main interest here, before we get into the biology and so on, is the implications for the Veil...” 22:14 <banana> He opens the door. The room is padded, although there are no straitjackets in the interior - just a picnic table, several stools, an analogue tape recorder, and several humanoids. 22:15 <banana> The semi-conscious lizardman is bound lightly to its chair, although this is clearly pro forma. Closure, sharp-faced and frail, sits opposite it and barely seems to touch her own. 22:16 <Quaker> Before they go in: “Maybe she’ll get lucky and they really are just aliens.” 22:18 <banana> If Badawi lets the others choose their places first, Vivi will take up a seat beside the scaled creature, rolling up his sleeves to watch it closely. 22:19 <Quaker> She’ll stand against the wall back and to its side, so Closure and Vivi can both keep her in their fields of vision. 22:20 <banana> The reels of tape begin to spin as the cell door closes. Closure: “Let the record show that we have present a Consilium Guardian, a senior officer of Strangeways and a guest.” 22:21 <banana> The groggy creature tied to the stool stirs a little, and starts falling to the side - Vivi catches it. The thing was more injured than Badawi when they got here, although some mage has taken care of the superficial wounds. 22:23 <Quaker> It’s all at least a little theatrical, isn’t it? Surely they could just reach into its mind and take what they need, if they really wanted to. Like they did to her. 22:25 <banana> Closure: “It’s one hundred seconds to midnight. The subject appears to be a reptilian life form, too slim to originate in fantastic literature, with a head too sharp and muzzled for conspiracy theorists’ masks. It was retrieved from the A62, east, of Ancoats, where it fell out of space.” 22:25 <banana> “We’ve verified with Greenwich Observatory that an unusually short and ill-heralded meteor shower took place at 1:50 in the afternoon.” 22:25 <banana> Vivi: “Interior biology is reptilian. There’s a shared DNA heritage with skinks and monitors.” 22:26 <banana> The alien sits up. 22:27 <banana> Closure: “What is your name?” 22:27 <banana> It responds immediately - a series of clicks and trills, head juddering from side to side as it looks around the room. The three humans present are the only things to focus on. 22:28 <banana> The Guardian adjusts a knob on the side of her tape recorder. Coloured light floods the room, an orange shade cast over the white cloth of the walls. Badawi’s nails look reflective. 22:29 <banana> Closure: “What is your name?” 22:29 <banana> Lizard: “Ssang-thrax.” 22:30 <banana> It looks startled to hear the noises coming from its own lipless jaw. 22:31 <banana> Closure: “Santh- Sang-thrax, do you understand where you are and what we are doing?” 22:32 <banana> Lizard: “Questionss. You’re asking questionss... I will give you only my name, rank and sserial number.” 22:32 <banana> Wizard: “That’s a television cliche. You have no options here - or are you asserting human rights?” 22:34 <banana> Lizard: “Sang-thrax. Scalecaster ssecond-class of the Arcane Toad School. I wass third of my hatch.” 22:34 <banana> Closure’s demeanor breaks a little bit. “..Scalecaster?” 22:36 <banana> Lizard: “I am sskilled in the art of herpeturgy. Your trickss are familiar to me.” 22:36 <Quaker> This is pretty elaborate for what’s basically a personalized boogy-man squad. Do they exist just to be sent against reluctant psychics? Or is this some kind of already existing society? 22:36 <Quaker> To the lizard: “What is herpeturgy?” 22:41 <banana> Sang-thrax doesn’t seem as reluctant to answer questions as it implied earlier. “We cool our blood. Attune to the chill between sstars. There on the edge of death.. lies a tail. Old sscales, shed by Cosmos, ours to sseize and cast.” 22:41 <banana> Vivi’s rolling his eyes, but the creature’s turned away and can’t see it. 22:42 <banana> Closure: “Who sent you to attack this city?” 22:42 <banana> Lizard: “I will not answer your questionss.” 22:43 <Quaker> “Why?” 22:44 <banana> To Badawi: “These oness are no children of Cosmos.” 22:44 <banana> Wizard: “Nevertheless.” She reaches out to flip another switch on the recording device. 22:46 <banana> The light changes again, another layer added to the room - this one is dynamic, angled bands of shadow like the light through a slatted window. Where the darkness falls, there’s a blue glow tinging the edge of things. 22:47 <banana> The orange and the UV light wheel slowly and crazily across the room, as if a barred cell window was being moved around in front of some invisible kaleidoscope. 22:47 <banana> Sang-thrax: “What doess it do?” 22:48 <banana> Vivi: “Answer, or you’ll find out.” 22:48 <banana> Closure: “Who sent you to attack the city?” 22:49 <banana> There’s a really fucking weird thing that happens here. The lizard says nothing, or it speaks, the two possibilities seeming spliced-together as the light moves. A band of orange crosses its closed and unmoving jaw; it gives way to a band of shadow, wherein the mouth is moving and the eyes are lively. 22:50 <banana> Its voice is chopped up, present in half the light - not pleasant for Badawi to experience. The wizards don’t seem to have the same difficulty. 22:51 <Quaker> Her stomach turns, but she shoves it deep down. 22:52 <banana> Lizard (speaking part-time): “Nobody ssent my pod into Terran orbit, of course - our patrolss take us through many ssystems.” 22:52 <banana> “We received emergency deployment orderss. From dispatch.” 22:53 <banana> Sang-thrax looks alarmed, now, in the alternating orange stripes - it can hear its shadow-self answering and feel the movement of alternating vocal chords. What must it experience when the blacklight passes over its skull? 22:53 <banana> Closure: “You’re claiming to be some sort of interstellar policing agency.” 22:54 <banana> “Or a military force?” 22:55 <banana> Lizard: “We are Bao Guai.” Sounds Chinese, although if so you’d think it would be translated like the thing’s own language. 22:55 <banana> Wizard: “Under what authority were you ordered to deploy to.. this planet?” 22:57 <banana> The lizard hesitates. “All that I know... perssonally.. iss that the order came from above.” 22:57 <banana> Vivi: “Turn up the lights on that one?” 22:57 <banana> Closure: “No, it doesn’t know anything more. Second-class, remember?” 22:58 <banana> “Here’s something you should know more about. What are you? Your species, your society? Do you claim to exist, out there, as a coherent and noncontingent presence?” 23:00 <banana> It’s silent again... most of the time. This time speaking only in every second or third sweep of the blacklight stripes. Badawi can only make out fragments of the answer- “Seeking new worlds... the farthest spheres... called to serve... an unquestionable light!” 23:01 <Quaker> “What were you going to do if we hadn’t stopped you?” 23:02 <banana> Sang-thrax: “We will make her ssing for her ssupper.” 23:03 <banana> Closure, to both Badawi and Vivi: “Setting aside the calebans, this thing’s circumstances are bound to the target. It’s here in this form and this degree because of the threat level they perceive. Anything you want to tell us about her?” 23:06 <Quaker> Badawi: “Not in front of this thing. Later.” 23:06 <Quaker> “What is Cosmos, Sang-thrax?” 23:08 <banana> Vivi mutters “Which of them, more like.” 23:08 <banana> Closure stares at the creature, which seems to struggle against giving any answer at all. Without looking away, she jabs a finger at some dial on the ‘tape recorder’. The light changes only slightly - added to the rest of it is a smattering of slow-moving and barely-teal polka dots. 23:08 <banana> Sang-thrax: “KKkkkhh!” 23:09 <banana> Its words are clipped now, but at least it’s talking all in the same dimension. 23:10 <banana> “COSMOS is the holistic interconnectedness of all things. COSMOS is what will and must be. COSMOS has many instruments. And it has a plan.” 23:11 <Quaker> “How do we find it? If we wanted to speak to it? Surrender to it?” 23:11 <banana> Lizard: “You have not been chosen.” 23:11 <banana> Vivi: “Who gives a shit? Answer the question.” 23:12 <banana> “Physically where would we go, and what actions would we take, to achieve this purpose.” 23:12 <banana> Polka-dots focus to illuminate the struggling creature in a sort of clown-halo. 23:22 <banana> Sang-thrax: “For an audiencce... with Cosmos... although you are unchosen... seek intercession. The... agentss. You will know them by their numberss. Thiss little floating rock! An island within an island!” 23:22 <banana> “All that is within your grassp - 22049, the river, at its beginning and its end. 159561, the sserpent, in a trench of unbridgeable death. 150706, heart of the bear. Basingstoke.” 23:23 <Quaker> Her stomach turns even more. She can taste bile rising in her throat suddenly, and has to turn to spit some acidic saliva onto the floor before it overwhelms her. 23:23 <Quaker> She writes down the numbers and descriptions on her notepad. 23:24 <banana> The skink-related creature doesn’t seem to be doing much better. It thrashes against the bonds - kind of perfunctory, but it’s not actually very strong - and starts making weird noises that don’t get translated by the crazy lights. 23:24 <banana> Vivi: “Time out?” 23:24 <banana> Closure: “Enough to go on for me, if you want to take custody.” 23:24 <Quaker> “One more question. How many more of you are there? How many more are being sent to Earth?” 23:27 <banana> Closure waits, turns her gaze back on Sang-thrax for a moment. The ersatz (or otherwise) alien spits out: “My pod iss done. If the ssinger still ignoress the call of duty, she will have the tripodss upon her by new moon.” 23:27 <Quaker> “Alright.” 23:29 <banana> Closure: “That will take some artistic license. Tripods qua tripods are obvious enough that we can stop any such thing from manifesting.” 23:30 <banana> The creature looks at her in what you think is fear, opening and closing its mouth. 23:30 <Quaker> “Can you take what it thinks tripods are from its mind?” 23:30 <banana> Closure, to Sang-thrax: “That wasn’t a question.” She flicks a switch, the reels stop spinning, and the light is suddenly normal - an old and uneven fluorescent strip. 23:31 <banana> “It doesn’t know. Hand-off, I think.” 23:31 <Quaker> “Talk to you outside?” 23:32 <banana> Vivi: “What Closure means is that this is a deliberate ploy by, uh, the star-child god thing. It hands off between its minions to keep them from growing too real, or too powerful.” 23:32 <banana> “I’ll just secure Mr. Thrax for transport and treatment.” 23:32 <banana> Closure nods to Badawi as she gathers herself to leave the room. 23:33 <Quaker> “Keep them alive and conscious if you can. I’m sure we’ll all think of something to ask it in the near future.” 23:33 <banana> You may be deep in the bowels of the facility.. but Badawi’s phone buzzes, again. Maybe it was a mistake to get this thing. 23:34 <Quaker> When they’re outside: “Did you recognize those numbers?” She checks her phone. 23:34 <banana> Closure studies Badawi a little too closely. “Codes for its calebans, I think. The alien societies may not be well-grounded in fact, but their masters are real.” 23:35 <banana> “Whether they use the stars we know as a metaphor or in some fashion are those balls of gas I do not know.” 23:36 <Quaker> “Its what? Calebans?” 23:39 <banana> The phone message: < position statement is attached, and we’ve tentatively set the timeslot for Friday afternoon. (As you may know, the best decisions are made after lunch.)> 23:39 <banana> <You’re free to withdraw from the process at any time, but if we go ahead the Freehold will provide two regent-mediators and a comfortable setting. participation is appropriate, but he’s not in charge of determining facts - we will provide redress as necessary.> 23:39 <banana> <H.S. (rex)> 23:39 <banana> The black bars.. are actual little floating strips of black seemingly pasted in the air over her phone, moving as she turns it about. 23:40 <banana> Some property of this place, perhaps, is censoring the message. 23:40 <banana> Closure: “Whipping stars. It believes that the orders of ‘Cosmos’ are mediated through stellar entities.” 23:41 <banana> “Who hasn’t had a bloviating foreman?” The Guardian of the Veil seems on the edge of ‘so did you need anything else’. 23:44 <Quaker> “Okay. Their target is a local artist and psychic. She’s rejected the terms of her service and wants to break completely from her association with it, practically and metaphysically. Her former patron wanted her to be some kind of prophet in its service. Epsilon Eridani, if the name means anything to you. Our team is focused on destroying it or its representative.” 23:45 <Quaker> “This seems like a pretty serious threat to your policy of secrecy, doesnt it?” 23:45 <banana> A door on the far side of the cell opens and closes as the creature called ‘Sang-Thrax’ is taken away. Vivi comes out into the corridor dusting off his hands theatrically, a little surprised to see Closure still here. 23:45 <banana> Closure: “Yeah, it’s not good. I’d offer to remove your client, but that doesn’t seem like how you get paid.” 23:46 <Quaker> “If it’s willing to throw meteors at the freeway in the middle of the day. Pretty reckless. Suicidal, even. We weren’t expecting it to be so desperate.” 23:46 <Quaker> “Why don’t you help us, then? Can you second some tactical support, in the name of our mutual goal of seeing this thing destroyed?” 23:47 <banana> “I wouldn’t call the destruction of a faraway star a goal of Consilium. Someone might be using it.” 23:47 <Quaker> She types back. 23:47 <banana> Vivi: “Perrrhaps we should start making our way out?” 23:47 <banana> Closure: “Hang on, Vice-Curator.” 23:48 <Quaker> AB: <Friday is fine. Thank you> 23:49 <Quaker> “I meant Consilium’s interest in seeing a violator of the secrecy surrounding magic and supernatural reality brought to heel.” 23:49 <Quaker> “I don’t think it will involve literally destroying an actual star.” 23:49 <banana> Closure: “Ms. Badawi, you’re not wrong about the dangers. If you need a bailout I can provide one. The situation to be contained, as I define it, is that this artist is drawing the attention of... powers... which are beyond what we can simply destroy. For now.” 23:49 <banana> “But if you like, I can do something about the irritant. For example, we could persuade her to take some time off or take her under our protection.” 23:52 <banana> Vivi: “Ahh, look. Let’s not engage in any corridor diplomacy here. Closure, Badawi’s team aren’t responsible for preventing a breach of the Veil - that’s not what they’ve signed up for, whether or not your people provide any... help.” 23:56 <Quaker> “Sorry. The client’s contracted us to do a specific job, even if it’s a bit impractical. We’ll track down the numbers the lizard gave us.” 23:57 <Quaker> “Thanks for your help, Closure. Be seeing you. Vivi?” 23:57 <Quaker> She walks with the Vice-Curator. 23:57 <banana> Closure packs the tape recorder under her arm and float-walks down the corridor, giving you both a little salute with her free hand. 23:58 <banana> Vivi: “Yeah, I can walk you out. I think if we take the main way here it should be a little less confusing than the route from the garage.” 23:58 <Quaker> “And what is the Mysterium willing to do to help out, Vivi? It’s your city, too.” 23:58 <Quaker> “I’m sure you don’t want asteroids hitting your mummies.” 23:58 <banana> “Well, for one thing I can tell you about a ‘trench of unbridgeable death’. These creatures or whatever programs them has a sense of humour.” 23:59 <banana> “That’s got to be Boris’s bridge to Ireland, and that means the trench in question is Beaufort's Dyke. A good place to hide if you don’t mind explosions.” 00:02 <Quaker> “Hm.” 00:02 <Quaker> She looks back down the corridor. “Don’t forget my store credit. I want you to enchant my gun or something. I need to be able to shoot a star down, after all.” 00:03 <banana> Vivi: “It’s kind of fascinating, the idea of a stellar avatar hiding out among a million tonnes of high explosives and nuclear waste. Given time, I reckon we could put together a team willing to risk everything to explore it... I mean a long time, though.” 00:03 <banana> “Ha!” 00:03 <banana> “Enchanted gun, um.. that’s a bit harder than it sounds but how about some magic bullets?”