EVENTS:


Sally grits her metal-clad teeth, and more scrap metal attaches to her body, forming a second peg leg.

Sally: "Hmph. Another spineless wretch. I'm offering ye an unlife of adventure and plunder, and ye prefer... That, whatever that might be that ye'll find up there. Brainless monotony, wasting away for decades on end, thinkin' only of numbers an' spreadsheets an' productivity.

I thought, you'd be different. Having lasted so many years, that you'd still have a bit of spark in you.

This world's truly a corpse."

Limping, the steel pirate turns away, walking back to her fortress. The rest of the party instinctively lets out a sigh of relief, even more so when they notice the large, armed team of engineer zombies, beckoning them to come closer.


___________________________________________


Meanwhile, Kelly sits down, looking at the ceiling.

Kelly: "No. Long ago, before finding the Rig, I felt... Alone. Defenseless. I experimented with, branching, and Pattern division. I thought I could control it. Have companions. Friends. Sisters.

I was stupid. None of us three came out as we should have. Equals, are not the cure for loneliness. What I truly looked for were underlings. If only I had known it back then."

EVENTS:

Malia, Klimt and their hangers-on leave the pirate fortress for good. Looking back towards the fog-covered arena, they catch a glimpse of an egg-shaped figure slowly getting back on its feet.



___________________

Meanwhile, Kelly stays silent for a long while. When she speaks, her voice sounds mechanical and flat once again.

Kelly: "Hm. Yes. Troublesome, vestigial parts.

Oh, they're back."

Looking at the entrance to the room, the party realises they're all together once again. Nice!


There is much to see and do in the Rig, until the week ends and your dreaded pursuer arrives. Molly might want more test subjects. Sally probably wants a fight. Kelly - Mostly just wants to be left alone, but there might be something else. The actual, proper brig also sounds like not too bad a place to spend the nights.

What will you do?

EVENTS:


Half an hour later, most of the party stands in Molly's lab, with varying degrees of uneasiness. The skinned corpse's eyes shoot from one person to the other, while the torsogirl calmly takes a skin scraping from Klimt's arm.


Molly: "Now, let's see... How interesting, it seems like your cells physically stretch as you turn into tendrils. Though, compared to what I took from your chest, your arms' material elongates much more easily. Peculiar!

Oh! The sequencer's done. I wonder what took it so long. Oh. Hmmm.
You do have, an awful lot of Pattern in you! I wasn't expecting that. Though, this is some rather crude grafting. Hmm. Curie, what do you make of this?"

Curie: "Hard to say. These areas, and that one, follow the standards for repurposed infantry units from the Euro wars. However, THOSE parts seem to have grown much more organically, and there's also a high degree of duplication in order processing structures. Unit would guess OPERATOR Klimt's core Pattern was modified... Three, perhaps four times in total, using disparate interfaces on each."

Molly: "Wait, you can identify the control structures? Oh goodness, do tell - Me and Kelly, we had to replicate a radiohead Doll's call by trial and error, then graft RF receivers in each of the..."


The conversation devolves into rather hard to follow technical terms, with Molly growing more excited and curious by the minute. Curie seems unusually satisfied, as well - At last she's able to show someone her encyclopedia-like knowledge without overwhelming them.


Rosa, meanwhile, takes the time to wash the mud from her body at a decontamination station. The hoses and sponges are rather undersized, but get the job done well enough.

Her larger half is now considerably less human than before - Its mouth has taken the circular, multi-fanged aspect of a mud king's crown, and its head partially sunken into its neck. Her feet are elephant-like and spongy, and most of her Flesh is covered in a perpetually-moving layer of feelers, like the underside of a sea urchin. As she walks, she has to take care not to smash into things with her massive shark tail. Overall, it vaguely reminds her of a Kaiju from old science fiction movies.



Malia feels... Watched. The rest of the Rig was one thing - Guards and sentry guns abounded, but the lab... It feels as if there's something, more, there. Unknown intelligences and deformed eyes peeking from every dark corner, with inscrutable intents. There's, far too many shadowy forms in stasis pods and test tubes, and the abundance of scientific equipment reminds her of - She's not sure, exactly, but - somewhere unpleasant.