Run #3 - The Smoking Gunwale

[GM Nick]

The deck vibrates as something heavy moves underneath. Some mechanism, either pneumatic or operating on a private power reserve springs into action. A grinding sound accompanies the movement of the cargo platform as it lowers three meters, after which the elevator stops. The newly formed gap underneath the support beams is shrouded in darkness, though the rungs of a service ladder can be seen on the fore deck side.

[Molly]

Axel's energy proves infectious, Mouse breaking into a wide and crooked grin, as though conveniently forgetting her recent experiences with spooky elevators. "WAKARIMASHITA. ALWAYS CHECK OUT THE BUTT, CAUSE THE BEST JUNK IS IN THE TRUNK." She folds her arms and nods along, before peeking open a curious eye, scanning her teammates- drones included, with an air of expectance. "NEXT QUESTION BEING, WHICH ONE OF US IS DIVING INTO THAT HOLE FIRST?"

[John]

Mick, still thrumming with hatred for that fraggin bulldrek, grumbles and hops down onto the platform. The ork takes a moment to compose themself, knowing that it would inevitably lead to stupid decisions if they allow their violent irritation to extend any further.

The wind whips around the slightly recessed space in invisible corkscrews. Waves crash against the side of the freighter like the hands of the dead clawing their way from the earth. Rain pelts their shoulders, dispossessed from from a bruised and baleful sky.

Mick takes in one long, large breath, holds it, and lets it out in a steady stream, their hands a set of tensed claws. Finally, the adept slinks toward the few visible service ladder rungs and glides down to a prone position just over it, peering over cautiously.

(( Perception roll, proceed down the ladder if all looks clear. ))

[GM Nick]

Dice

Mick - Perception - 3, 6, 2, 5, 1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 1 (5 hits on 10 dice)

Mick peeks over the edge of the elevator into the crevice. Their pupils dilate, allowing a flood of daylight to fill the cones in their retina. What was an inky chasm resolves into a clear vista with muted colors. The descent is several stories but the ladder looks solid and there are no signs of enemies. From what Mick can tell, there's a hatch at the bottom of the elevator service shaft. It doesn't appear that anyone has traversed this route, at least not recently. Mick reaches forward and picks at the striped hazard paint on the rungs. Maybe not ever.

The rain that has collected on the elevator sloshes forward and rolls over the edge. Mick watches as the droplets plummet downward, suspended in a wobbling form before being dashed far below. Nothing stirs. It would seem the coast is clear.

[John]

<< Looks clear, shitheads. Proceeding down the shaft. How 'bout sending some drones down to cover my hoop? >>

[Molly]

"THE REST OF US WILL FOLLOW YOUR LEAD. THOSE OF US WHO AREN'T NINJAS OR BIRDS WILL LIKELY NEED EXTRA TIME TO CLIMB DOWN ANYWAY." Having taken Mick's assessment as a vote of confidence, Mouse is quick to follow up on their movements and make her own way toward the service ladder. She leans over to peer warily at the darkened descent. "BUT WE DON'T WANT TO FALL TOO FAR BEHIND, IN CASE DREK HITS THE FAN AND YOU GET ATTACKED BY THE BOAT MONSTER. OR A STRAY PLASTIC BAG."

[MattL]

Yung’s mind is adrift, lost in a sea of memories from time he spent long ago on a similar ship. Packed below deck with other refugees, escaping to a better life.

At least I made it.

The recollection takes him down a path seldom traveled; he remembers his parents. Perhaps they’re still alive, slaving away to earn a meager wage.

Just enough to keep them alive, no more, no less.

The sudden vibration of the deck and accompanying noise wakes him from the daze. He wastes no time hopping down to the lowered platform. Arching an eyebrow of suspicion at the pristine service ladder, he can’t help but snort at Mouse’s jest.

<< This is your second ladder in under an hour. That must be some kind of personal record, you’ll be a pro before the end of this, yeah? >>

Yung strides over to the service ladder and crouches down, leaning over to stare into the darkness as Mick begins their descent.

<< That story you told, about you and your friend Tomás, can't help but make me remember an old saying. If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you. Guess we about to see what kinda monster we become, eh? >>

Yung stands back up, futilely trying to shake off the deposits of the hurricane for a moment before following Mick’s lead.

"Can’t believe the ¥12000 suit doesn’t have a goddamn auto dry function, puta madre."

[Drew Buddy]

Axel gives a thumbs-up to Mick before they disappear below the deck. He then turns his attention to the two waiting drones, wags a finger between the pair, and points down into the hole the platform has left.

He catches the tail end of Yung's fashion complaints, and strikes a pose on the rain and wind swept deck of the probably haunted tanker. "That's why you've gotta spring for one of these beauties," he says, running his hands, palm up in front of his jumpsuit. "It's waxed," he says with emphasis.

[GM Nick]

Mick descends into the enveloping dark. Both drones hover a polite distance above and to either side, making minute adjustments as they follow to avoid colliding with the walls of the narrow space. The clanking of Mick's boots on the rungs and the humming of the drones' propulsion echo throughout the cramped confines. It's a strange sensation to be climbing a ladder on a rocking ship, as the back and forth sensation suddenly vanishes.

About halfway down the ladder, Mick pauses at a faint sound from somewhere beneath. A glance downward confirms that they are alone. When several seconds pass with no additional sounds, Mick continues. Rain water from the deck above splashes down, pelting Mick's head and shoulders. At least it's warmer here, below decks.

The bottom is nothing more than a long metal corridor, barely a meter wide but running almost from starboard to port. The far end of each side is covered in pipes, valves and other drek Mick doesn't understand. They turn away from the ladder.

The hatch below them is of a simple service type: a sealed trapdoor with a spinning handle to form a seal. There don't appear to be any locks or security measure, but then again, why would there be? Mick reminds themselves this is a maintenance entrance. The drones separate and move to float several meters away, taking up optimal defensive positions.

[John]

Mick looks about the chamber, feeling distinctly not-alone. << Looks like we're clear, chummers. >> With the go-ahead broadcast, the ork takes a moment to check their own six by looking into the astral plane.

[ReiyaEmm]

As she'd hoped, Reiya loses her motion sickness as soon as she's changed shape. She takes a moment to revel in relief before quickly grooming and checking her feathers. Then she's ready to go.

Of course, they're soon in an elevator and then an elevator shaft, which is not conducive to air travel. The shaman grimaces inwardly, knowing that a dive to the bottom floor without line of sight is a terrible idea. It's a big too narrow for her to circle, too, so she simply hops on Achak's shoulder—reasoning that her fellow mage is least likely to be startled by her catching a ride—and lets him handle the climbing. As soon as Reiya sees the corridor, she takes to wing and follows Mick.

[GM Nick]

Achak nods calmy at Reiya, clearly accustomed to animals-- wild or otherwise. He queues up behind Yung, peering over the edge. "Would it be too on the nose to make an allusion to sardines?" The shaman doesn't smile but his eyebrows raise. It's the first attempt at levity he's expressed that anyone can recall.

Mick, meanwhile, surveys the room with astrally attuned senses. The narrow crevice is a bleak topography of inky contours. Normally, the dull prospect would relieve the adept. However, they immediately notice the distinct lack of the signature that seemed positively slathered above decks. Whatever magic was used on this ship, it wasn't used down here.

The scrutinizing gaze of the team's brawler roams the hatch. It's clean-- in both the magical and literal sense. It seems Voskhod is not very proactive when it comes to maintenance.

[GM Nick]

Mouse is the left member to descend the ladder. The rungs are obviously spaced for large metahumans and so she struggles at times, flailing feet blindly below her until they make contact. After several strenuous minutes, she reaches the bottom.

The maintenance shaft, now crammed full of far more people than intended, quickly warms and begins to dry drenched clothing. Here below the water line, the rocking of the ship is much less pronounced.

Achak watches as Reiya hops off his shoulder before turning to the hatch. He kneels down, placing his hands on the valve wheel. "There's no telling what we may find. Be ready with your weapons."

[Molly]

Clunk. Pause. Clunk. Pause.

Each wavering step serves to underscore one of the chronic predicaments that has plagued Mouse for the duration of this run:

...namely, that she is very small.

As soon as she hits more solid ground, she raises her arms in the tiniest of victory poses, as though she had accomplished some great gymnastic feat. It doesn't take long, if course, for Achak to put a damper on that, and to remind them of the more dire situation at hand. "YOU MEAN BESIDES THE SEA OF DEAD PEOPLE." Still, she seems to take his warning to heart as she nods along and draws her smartgun, only to waver as she moves to load it. She fumbles in her bag, withdrawing her zapper rounds from her paltry selection of ammunition, before glancing back up at her team. "…IS THIS A BAD TIME TO MENTION THAT LITERALLY NOTHING I HAVE IS LETHAL?"

[John]

Mick cracks their knuckles and spares Mouse a glance, "You might'a asked before we were about to open the hatch to the basement holding the ghosts inside, ya dingus."

[Drew Buddy]

Axel's eyes light up, and his hand disappears into one of the multitude of pockets on his jumpsuit. When his hand reemerges, a small object sits in his palm.

"It ain't much, but I got it back when I thought we were gonna be sneaking around a bit more." He flashes a grin, "it's definitely you sized," he says as he offers the Raecor Sting to the decker.

"Still think it doesn't work on ghosts, though."

[Molly]

Mouse accepts the little holdout, taking it into both hands with a slightly embarrassed smile. "IN FAIRNESS, I DIDN’T EXPECT A DATA STEAL TO REQUIRE A GHOST GUN. BESIDES, I’D GOTTEN THIS FAR JUST TRYING TO KEEP YOU DREKHEADS ALIVE. "

At this, a flicker of sudden remembrance crossing her expression, before she digs her hand back into her bag once more. This time, she withdraws a pair of tiny patches, each hardly bigger than her fingertips and laced with embedded circuitry, which she gingerly extends toward Achak and Mick. "SPEAKING OF, I SNAGGED A COUPLE OF THESE AFTER OUR LAST JOB. THEY'RE TRODE PATCHES: NON-INVASIVE DNI ACCESS, SO YOU'RE NOT FRAGGING WITH A COMMLINK WHEN DREK HITS THE FAN." She catches the beady gaze of her corvid companion. " …UNFORTUNATELY, I DON’T THINK THEY MAKE THEM FOR BIRDS."

[John]

Mick reaches out and takes the patch, slapping it on eagerly. Turning to Achak, the ork prods, "You gonna pop the fraggin' cork on these bottled up ghosts, or what? I didn't come for the ambience."

[GM Nick]

Achak grunts as he strains against the wheel, It comes loose with a discordant groan, followed by a popping as the factory-new-yet-old seal is broken. After a few rotations the wheel slams into full lock, marked by a clanging sound that reverberates throughout the space. Achak nods at those with weapons and then lifts. The hatch opens to ninety degrees and then locks in place.

The now too-familiar stench of death returns, billowing out of the hatch like pyroclastic smoke from a volcano. Still, the nauseating aroma is diluted somewhat by the vacuum effect caused by turbulent winds over the top of the elevator. Fresh air rushes in from the sides of the maintenance shaft, scattering droplets and working to dissipate the malodor.

A spring-loaded ladder snaps free from the bottom of the hatch and drops three meters to the floor. Through the small, circular opening, the runners can see a service corridor. The bowels of the ship are even more spartan than the interior, composed of naked metal with protruding rivets, corroded fixtures and covered in stains. A thin layer of... something gleams in the dim light provided, casting back an iridescent sheen curdled with dark streaks. Within the immediate grim interior, there's no sign of life.

The death, they can smell.

[John]

Mick shares a look with their compatriots. "The deeper into this slitch we get without something tryin' to kill us, the more sure I am that this place is bad fraggin' news." The dour look on the rest of the team's faces tells the ork they're not alone in the feeling. The adept's focus returns to the open hatch and they scrunch their nose. "Fuck me I wish I had some menthol or eucalyptus or something. Drek's great to smear under your nose to mask this kind of reek." With a heavy sigh, they murmur mostly to themself, "Onward and downward."

[GM Nick]

Mick drops into the lowest level the ship, their boots squelching as they impact the floor. It's akin to descending into hell. Hell probably has better lighting, Mick muses. Even Mick's natural night vision struggles in the absence of so little ambient light; an impediment that renders the corners fuzzier than the adept would like. They can see well enough to search the area, which is what they do.

The corridor seems to run along the outside perimeter of the elevator. All manner of hydraulics and machinery jut from the wall. Some of which ooze oil, which trickles down the wall to join the rancid stew underneath Mick's boots. Noting the coast is clear, Mick makes their way along the corridor towards the starboard side. They hang a right and eventually come to a another door. This one, however, has a window.

Mick rubs the grime from the window with a fist and peers through. The small portal provides only a narrow angle, but it's enough to make out the features of a large cargo hold. Even from the limited viewpoint, the adept can see several bodies. A once-over of the door confirms the ork's suspicion-- the maintenance door is electronically controlled. Fortunately, said door is not a bulkhead door. While substantial, it was not built to prevent the elements and as such can probably be broken down.

[John]

Mick can hear the footfalls of their teammates bringing up the rear as they rummage through their pack for their survival kit, finally fishing an old fashioned Zippo lighter from its contents. The ork snaps the lighter open with its telltale flangg! and thumbs its flint wheel. A hardy THWICK! fills the silence for a fleeting moment as the flame blooms to life, inhabiting the dark, dank corridor with a slight and optimistic warmth that dances gaily amidst the oppressive horror. The flame casts bouncing shadows down the utilitarian passageway, ghouls made of perfect darkness seeming to scramble just out of sight behind every corner and jutting pipe and conduit.

The ork takes a second to fish a softpack of Alpaca Wides out of their pack, sticking one in their lips and drawing it into the fat, defiant flame rising from the vented spout of the Zippo. The cigarette produces a faint crackling as the ork draws from it, breathing the fire onto its end, breathing it to life. The sweet smell of the tobacco commingles with the lighter's earthy, petroleum fumes, and the sense memory of a million cigarettes lit just so is almost enough to calm the adept's nerves.

Almost.

Mick pretends they don't see their hands shaking as they fight against the instinctive urge to snap the lighter shut, and instead raise it aloft to cast as much light around the corridor as possible while they wait for their approaching fellow shitheads to arrive at the scene.

[GM Nick]

There's a splorch as Achak lands in the muck. If the shaman is disgusted by the surroundings, it doesn't show. His body language does, however, betray a sense of unease. It seems he can sense the same cloaked malice that the bottom deck harbors as the others. His silhouette flickers and wavers in the dim light cast by Mick's lighter. Achak moves closer, drawn in as if a moth. Most living things take solace in the refuge of light.

Up close, Achak's features are deeply shadowed. Perspiration shines on his dark cheeks. He sizes up the door with a glance and then crouches, similarly awaiting the regrouping of the motley team.

[Drew Buddy]

Axel's approach is heralded by a repetitive squelching and barely suppressed dry heaving. Although his augmentations render all kinds of useful data about the space the team is traversing, he still finds himself grateful for the true-color light of Mick's lighter feebly splashing its glow on the surroundings as if in rhythm to unheard music. The light catches his goggles first, rendering him as a pair of glowing, floating disks before he comes into view.

He takes a look at his boots in the light's glow. "Oh thank fuck, I thought this drek was ectoplasm."

[Molly]

Mouse again brings up the rear, preceded by the sweeping red stain of her low-light beam. In full defiance of her typical coping mechanism of running her (virtualized) mouth, she’s instead been atypically speechless. More than that, she’s been humming, albeit softly, the melody thin and wavering, the pitch quivering audibly, breaking with each shallow breath she draws in through her mouth.

Axel’s comment does prompt her to pause, her brow knitting. "WAIT, ECTOPLASM IS A REAL THING? IS IT LIKE SPIRIT JIZZ?" At least from the way she peers over, wide-eyed, toward the avian Reiya to Yung, she’s genuinely curious, and not just being a little shit for once.

It’s at this point, jarred to a halt, that she takes note of the door and the distinctly unpowered panel beside it. It’s the exact sort of thing that would be a non-obstacle if the team had, for instance, a giant, cybered up friend who was an expert on ships and demolitions. Instead, her lips tighten into a strained smirk. "LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE ANOTHER JOB FOR THE ANTI-OBJECT TASK FORCE. WE GONNA SHOW THAT DOOR WHO’S BOSS?"

[John]

Mick turns to Yung, who– somehow– is still wearing his sunglasses, and the ork can't help but admire the look. There's no arguing that it's pretty fraggin' cool to sport a pair of shades in a place as oppressively dark as this– especially as the light from the Zippo jiggers like playful molten steel across the convex lenses. Mick grins, amused and even slightly calmed by the sight.

Mick takes a final drag from the cigarette before almost discarding it, catching themself at the last moment. Dropping a cigarette into a slurry of oil and who-the-frag-knows-what-else would be a pretty rube-ass move. Instead, the ork spits into their palm and snuffs the cigarette in the shallow pool of saliva, producing a tiny pssk! that sounds like a little kid with a secret to tell; 'hey, you ever hear about the dumbshit mercenaries that boarded a ghost ship and got torn apart in a room decorated with putrified corpses ? rumor is, they still haunt it to this day.' The thought drags the grin from Mick's face.

"Alright," they begin miserably. "Shoulder still aches from before." Their gaze returns again to Yung's eternal shades. "You ready to double team this thing?"

Mick snaps the lighter shut decisively.

[MattL]

Yung can't help but put on a smile, a feeble attempt to disguise the unease of the groups current surroundings. "Never pass up an invitation to a tag team." He quips, clicking his tongue.

[GM Nick]

Dice

Yung - Strength Check - 3, 5, 5, 3, 1, 6 (3 hits on 6 dice)
Mick - Strength Check - 6, 1, 6, 5, 5, 1, 1 (4 hits on 7 dice)

Mick and Yung exchange a quick nod before both turning sideways. They move in unison: bracing themselves, squaring their shoulders, and plowi forward-- squelch, squelch, squelch, SLAM! Despite the door being solid metal and possessing reinforced hinges, it fails to hold against the physicality of the two adepts. Bolts pop free from the door frame, careening into the cargo hold like oddly-shaped bullets. The sheer force employed causes the door to fly nearly a meter upright, creating a contrail of dust and debris. Gravity reminds inertia who is boss and the door touches down, teeters, and then topples like a headstone. The resulting crash is molar-rattling and echoes several times in the cavernous acoustics of the cargo hold.

For the third time, the cadaverine odor buffets the team. While there are tenfold more bodies here, the space is also much larger and the gasses released from decomposition aren't as concentrated. It's no less horrifying, though and the runners on point can't help but grimace.

With the door frame empty, much more of the cargo hold is visible. It's a wide open area past the elevator, interspersed with load bearing columns and the ribs of the freighter's chassis. The floor is strewn with bodies. It's difficult to differentiate their individual forms, stacked and entangled as they are which makes counting a difficult endeavor. But at a glance, it's plain that there were far more than Boo was able to record. Aside from the horrific spectacle that is the mass casualty evidence, there is a distinct lack of cargo. At the far end of the cargo hold (and the limit of even Mick's vision) is some kind of portable structure.

[John]

Mick's face twists into a rictus of disgust as the stink opens to welcome them into its warm, humid embrace. Their footfalls squelch and slurch as they press gingerly forward, eyes moving constantly all around the chamber, eager not to be crept up on by one of H.R. Giger's dick-shaped nightmares.

Suddenly, the ork stops and turns to look over their shoulder at Yung, their humor broadcast by the smile stretched over the gallows of their face. "Hey, here's to hoping that whatever killed these folks wasn't some kind of airborne toxin, ne?" They offer a wan shrug. "Not like I got a rebreather, anyway."

Their procession continues, slow and cautious, as they scan the chamber with their newfound astral eyes, moving for the odd structure at the far end of the cargo hold.

[Drew Buddy]

Axel finds himself unconsciously holding his breath after the assault on his senses, and Mick's warning. He lets it out. In for a penny...

He waves Wind and Whirlwind forward to take another look at the room that the team will inevitably have to cross.

"Maybe I could have been an accountant? Do they deal with a lot of dead bodies?"

[GM Nick]

The twin drones hover to opposite sides of the cargo hold and slowly patrol its perimeter. Meanwhile, the runners pick way through the killing ground. Each footfall must be carefully planned, else an errant step sink into a decaying torso or swollen belly. There's a curious lack of flies, a fact which is concerning in one right but a relief in another. The bodies here are the same as those from the Navigation room: totally devoid of any obvious wounds. The state of decomposition prevents any further scrutiny into the cause of death. The silver lining is that, in such a state, they barely resemble people. It makes the scale of the horror a bit easier to process.

About halfway across the cargo hold, Mouse's agent begins reporting icons. Two at first, then three. The number climbs to five at the two-thirds mark.

Mick, leading the pack and hopping between clear patches of floor, stops suddenly as something catches their. It's another corpse, but much smaller than the dozens they've passed. Even mostly decomposed the adept recognizes it in an instant. It's a rat. Visions of Stalin-esque housing projects with broken windows flash uninvited in their consciousness. The thing that swims in their mind stirs. The dead rodent summons a bevy of memories, not all of which are good.

[Molly]

"Tck-tck-tck-tck." Now tiptoeing around the dead in the hold, Mouse has taken to clicking rhythmically with her tongue, extending her arm toward the wall as though calling over a real critter and not just her brave little drone. Axel’s commentary draws a quirk of an eyebrow, as she struggles to imagine such a horrific alternate universe. "I DON’T THINK YOUR SPIRIT’S BEEN CRUSHED ENOUGH FOR THAT". She pauses to squint at the rigger, her attention bouncing between him and Yung's tailored appearance. "…CHIP TRUTH, I CAN’T EVEN PICTURE YOU IN A SUIT."

Mick’s hypotheticals, however, force her attention back to the problem at hand- the unknown source of the massacre. Devoid of plausible explanations, her paranoid imagination seizes on explanations from old sci-fi games and horror anime: empty shell bodies mutated into alien necromorphs, her own team succumbing to some unspeakable parasite that would inevitably cause them to murder each other in a fit of paranoid rage. (On second thought, that last one might have been a dating sim.)

She peers over at the little crow among them, its expression somehow even more inscrutable than her usual self. "REIYA, DOES ANY OF THIS LOOK FAMILIAR TO YOU? I MEAN, COULD THIS HAVE BEEN JUST ONE BIG MURDER SPELL? OR, YOU KNOW-"She swallows, lowering her volume in a feeble attempt to maintain some privacy. "...A DISEASE?"

The notification of the icons is enough to startle her from her nervous babbling. She raises a hand as though to physically stop her companions. "HOLD UP- I’M PICKING UP SOMETHING." Rather than risk tripping over even more bodies, she stops where she’s standing, dedicating her full attention to the task of IDing the devices- digital beacons in the powerless dark.

(( Matrix perception to ID? (Assuming they're silent/otherwise modified, I guess?) If they're all effectively the same, can swap the Overclocker Data Processing for Sleaze, to HotF two of them. ))

Loadout

(( Mode: AR

Overclocker: Data Processing
Attack: 4
Data Processing: 6/4
Sleaze: 5/4
Firewall: 3/2
Programs: Agent, Baby Monitor, Encryption, Exploit, Fork, Signal Scrub, Sneak, Stealth, Toolbox ))

[Drew Buddy]

Axel briefly takes his hands off of his nose and mouth, looping his hands through the utility straps of unknown utility like a pair of suspenders, and feigns indignation. "I could be a work from home accountant."

He immediately regrets the decision as his nose and mouth are flooded with corpsified air, and he descends into another fit of hacking coughs.

"And if it's a disease, and we've been exposed," he says haltingly, "I'm nailing that fucking preacher to his own crucifix."

[GM Nick]

Dice

Mouse - Matrix Perception - 5, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 2, 1, 6, 1 (GLITCH 2 hits on 11 dice)

Achak lifts his leg and shakes off a random, desiccated limb. "If it's a disease, we'll all probably be dead before we get back to Seattle."

Mouse's agent returns the results of its investigation: the icons aren't silent, though there's something strange about them. She checks the broadcast statistics of the wireless signals and confirms her suspicion. Whatever belongs to these icons is probably either malfunctioning or running on some kind of reduced power state.

Maybe it's due to the fact that the icons keep flooding her console with errors, or the fact that she's knee deep in dead people, but the decker struggles with the task of analyzing the phantom signals. From the limited information she gains, she determines that they're devices of some kind-- likely running on a private network here on the ship.

Mick finally reaches the end of the corpse marathon. The cargo hold ends abruptly in a vertical wall that looks distinctly retro-fitted. Strangely enough, there are no obvious doors. There are many extrusions and strange bulges scattered along the expanse of the barrier.

[John]

The ork reaches out and drags their fingers along the structure gently, trying to get a sense of its texture, giving it a push to gauge its integrity. They lean forward, pressing their ear to it.

(( Perception check, pls. Also, I noted in a previous post that my vision was still in astral, in case there's any of that to be seen in here. ))