Strider

"In the head presumably, but yes, knowing where would be lovely." Harry stared pensively at the slightly cluttered medbay, tapping the side of a small vial that had held the culture he'd gotten from the death wyvern. Creative name, that. "Say, does this organ function in the same way that you get psionics?"

"Right. But what are the origins of this psionic connection? Some voodoo soul magic? Or is it based on physical principle? And uh, it might be worth investigating why in particular parahumans gain these connections but not regular people. Tattletale mentioned there being organs associated with being a parahuman. Can you detect those? Find anything out about them?" Psionics seemed intriguing. Of all the possible powers present on the bus, they seemed most useful. It might just be possible that he could figure out a method of building up psionics through the use of bacterial organisms, in some replication of whatever organs might grant these powers. If they weren't something entirely magical in origin.

"Oh, that's new. And are all parahumans connected to different of these planet size things?" This was new. And very interesting. A psionic connection, unconscious presumably. Something that would be worth future investigation. Perhaps an autopsy on a dead parahuman? Parahuman organizations would have done that presumably, but perhaps Harry could find something better. Who knew, they were at least 400 years behind his world. . . "That fits with what I've seen thus far. It would require a lot of information through her senses, and would probably give out a lot of info if overused. Fits so far with what I've got on Thinker headaches. Any idea of how regular humans can get a psionic connection with this thing? And the reasons for it?"

"Well, I don't know anything about that. Mind if I take a sample though?" Harry asked disinterestedly. "I mean, if you figure out what's going on here, I'd like to know, but you're probably better suited to it." He then turned to Proditor as the Ethereal approached. "Right, come with me?" Once Harry had made his way back to the medbay, he turned. "So, I'd like your help with. . . pretty much everything you know about parahuman powers. Biological things, psychological, whatever you've figured out? If you're willing to share. Since, you somehow managed to use Tattletale's power?" His voice was slightly tinged with disbelief.

"Missile incoming. Find cover." Ena spoke to the two people standing on the ledge with her. The small girl and the man who seemed to control robots. She'd have to find defenses for that. Later. For now, though, she raised the rifle she held, pushing the stock against the plate covering her shoulder joint, and stared down the scope. Her own visual enhancement kicked in too, as she attempted to calculate trajectories such that she would hit this threat on the nose. Ena will take a shot at the incoming missile. Deals 2d6+INT (8) damage, with a 2*INT% chance to do double damage ignoring armor. 16%. +4 to perception checks and ranged damage. If it doesn't take an action, Ena will turn to try to determine what the flying thingy is after firing.

Harry stood up. He'd fallen asleep for only a short time, but was really all he needed. With only a few blinks to banish any drowsiness, he soon found himself fully alert, and looking down the aisle at the strange glitchy thing that had shown up. It was running on the ceiling for some reason. He stared, perplexed, until it dropped to the floor, and suddenly, a pile of raw meat dropped to the floor. Harry idlely got up, not terribly, but thinking he should probably inquire. He stopped, a few feet from the glitching thing, and asked, "What type of meat is that? I'd also suggest getting someone's help to cook it, unless it's something that's not gonna harbor any bacteria?" They could definitely just put it in the fridge, but that would take up a fair amount of space, and who knew whether this was some sort of alien meat, with alien bacteria that might be more dangerous than meat from his world.

". . .Yes. Where else would I go? It's fine though," Shelly murmured following along. She wasn't nearly as energetic as Kai, but she kept up. As they passed, she inspected the walls, looking for any loose bits of crystal that she could maybe take home with her. Or give to the science folks. Yeah, she'd do that first, then maybe take it with her if they didn't want it.

Edmond: An analysis of the battlefield proved sufficient, combined with the increased visual perception that the power armor granted him. "Focus the. . .spider things! Pay attention to Magnum's read!" He didn't really have much else to say. This battle was different from the one before, and he didn't have quite the same idea of his allies' skills. Some knowledge of course, but not in as much detail. Edmond will use Weld on Lahmu B. Deals basic damage (2d6+INT) and adds 1d4+INTx1.25 to the next attack on the same target. ((OOC: PING ME! Thoughts: Mitsu: Deal damage in whatever way best helps ramping up. Magnum: Toss out extra actions? Unless you want to double someone's ranged damage. Atton: Either toss out buffs, or get rid of Soryn's status. Gabriel: Attack Lahmu A, try to take it down. Maybe a conditional, if someone else attacks it first? Magna: Go crazy with Minions. Soryn: Start taking shots at Jeanne, since she's taunted, and you've got a bonus against beings of divinity? Perlita: Heal Soryn, or maybe Gabriel. Spicy HG: Maybe start building Lilly Ranks? Not too familiar with her build.

[Archer & Kevin] "Course I'm ready. You saying I might not be?!" He chuckled though, obviously not annoyed at all. He stood up, the small hovering drone swarm rising up around him, a new one starting to take form. "Which way're we going, generally? Might do to think about some strategies while we drive over, if we know what part of the city they'll be in." [Alexander/Ciri] "Oh? Excellent." Alexander stretched, and turned to leave out through the main door, making certain to deactivate the illusion. It was all done with an easy wave of the hand. He turned to the Servant before passing over the threshold. "Do you have more? Of the seeds? And can they be planted on ceilings? Humans have a tendency to not look upwards as much; even if someone did notice them, I may be able to hide them from sight."

Shelly had been a little upset by the fact that Kai's plan had resulted in such damage to Axew, but it had disappeared quickly enough once they had gotten their pokemon healed. When they arrived at the hole, Shelly hung back a bit to see whether Kai made it safely down, before following up after Uno. When she landed, she stood up, glancing around the cavern, and the crystals all around. "I wonder. . ." Shelly murmured, glancing around the area, searching for tunnels that might lead to the Tree of llife. Or anything interesting, really. "So which way are we going?"

Harry opened his eyes from the seat he was on. Another one? And this one was almost migraine inducing. In any case, he'd come to the realization that he could probably get something started with the death wyvern cells, then rest. Back to his little lab, he supposed. He'd definitely need a place of his own at some point. For now, he mixed the few death wyvern scale producing cells he'd obtained into a micronutrient mix, and from there, went about testing to determine the proper chemical trigger that caused the cells to devote themselves to producing scales. Hopefully, a larger dose than normal would increase the scale material creation speed. If things went well, he'd lay them out in a thin paste over one of the steel plates, adding nutrients every so often, with the eventual goal of creating something a quarter of an inch thick. Following this, he sat down, to get some actual rest, to hopefully not be bothered by his own impinging ideas. He would be there for a while, but when he was finished, he was well satisfied with the hard, yet slightly flexible plates he had made of the stuff. They would fit nicely into an added pouch on his existing armor.

"Huh. Interesting! Glad it made something useful. Hopefully it'll work better than your tinfoil, and maybe it's something you'll be able to make more of. It does seem useful." Harry made his way to the rear of the bus, and sat down to rest a bit. He wasn't terribly tired, but it was obvious that they were waiting here in the void for something, and there were no guarantees on whether he'd be able to get rest for a long time if something happened. If Earth Bet was anything to judge by.

"What." Harry just sort of stared. "You can do that?! Okay. . . that's new." This was quite the surprise, and useful. for one, it meant that either Proditor shared similar mental physiology to Tattletale, or that the powers caused headaches in a different manner. Good to know. Additionally, it meant that perhaps Proditor could give insight into whatever organ grants parahuman powers. Whether that be through some sort of advanced telepathy, or by getting information provided by Harry, and then following that information to a conclusion. "Uh, mind telling me when you're feeling better? Could use your expertise." On pretty much everything. After waiting for whatever brief response Proditor might give, Harry made his way back into the bus, feeling the wyvern scale he'd picked up earlier. He addressed Soma as he passed, after a moments contemplation. "Soma, do you have a moment? For a sort of experiment? You mentioned that working with organic materials can be unpredictable, but I'm curious whether you could extrapolate this?" Harry held up the scale. "It's pretty tough, most likely a psuedo keratin. If things go well, it'd probably result in something pretty strong, or enough DNA for me to create more of it. If it goes poorly," Harry stopped, and turned to Calvera (presumably still standing near the door from throwing molten metal out), "Well, we should have an almost fool proof way of disposing of mishaps. Calvera, you willing to incinerate stuff if things turn out poorly?"

"Still got a headache? Where'd you get that from? Eh, doesn't matter. I'll leave you in peace, unless you need anything?" There were a few reasons why Harry was hesitant to offer any medical assistance. The first was that the noise in the bus would probably exacerbate the headache, secondly, the combination of Tattletale's hesitance, and some realizations he had stumbled upon while dissecting the chaos serpent had made him a bit wary about attempting to practice medicine on unknown physiologies without good reason. Tattletale didn't quite fit that, both because she was mostly human, and because the thinker headaches could certainly constitute a long term problem.

It was obvious to Harry that the girl wasn't terribly impressed. The initial phrasing was condescending, the awkward silence was telling, and the final words bore a striking similarity to the way a parent might flatter a child's ideas. It should have been almost infuriating, but Harry didn't really care that much. It wasn't unexpected, given her personality. A perfectionist, proud of herself and her world--proud might not be the best word, but certainly a bit dismissive of other worlds--, and in the words of the PRT, possibly a megalomaniac. Hopefully not, of course, but that was one way in which Harry excused her response. And of course, it was likely that she was selling it short too. It was something that could help almost anyone, it would be constantly active, and it had been made in about an hour. Of course, perhaps Lucille could do better with her magic, he had no way of knowing, but she hadn't. So, Harry found it quite easy to set aside the girl's apathy as unimportant. Harry stood up, stretched, and looked out the window, in idle curiosity, and noticed the Ethereal floating aimlessly in the void. He made his way down the length to the door, at around the same time that Calvera tossed a glob of molten metal out of the bus. "What the hell--Ah, nevermind. Proditor? Mind if I ask what you're doing?" He spoke at a normal tone out the open door of the bus.

"Oh boy, we're back in business, eh? As you say, Lexiel!" Liliya immediately, almost in anticipation of the first motion towards conflict, broke into a dash towards one of the officers. Liliya uses a basic attack on Officer A 3d6+DEX damage, with a DEX% chance to crit for 2x damage. Damage is unholy.

It took some time, yes. It took a few of the supplies, yes, and those would need replenishing. But, after a few final tests, Harry concluded that he had succeeded. He'd keyed in the retrovirus to insert the DNA fragment that unlocked the Galdur tree's healing abilities. "Hey, look." Harry held up to show Tattletale, and swished, a slightly green tinged translucent fluid in a vial. The retrovirus in matrix. "Nothing for now, obviously, but step one is done! This is coded to insert a DNA fragment into specific cells, and so far as I can tell, it performs that task admirably. We'll see how things go with learning about your powers and stuff, but it's a start. Hell, if it's safe to parahumans, and I can get it produced cheaply, we could market it too all of Earth Bet, not just the thinkers." His tone didn't seem terribly excited for all he was saying, but it might be obvious to the more perceptive that he was elated. He'd hoped this had worked, and told himself that it was safe, but having it actually work had been necessary to assuage all doubt. He then spoke down the bus in Lucille's direction. "Lucille. I made something with the Galdur Salve, if you're interested. Retrovirus TGIWR-001, causes human blood cells themselves to exhibit the healing effect. I don't have a ton right now, but with more supplies, or a culture in which to grow it, I could make up a fair amount."

"Yes, yes. You said something similar before. Question is, how I figure any of that out. Doubt your power is much use in that sense, and I'm guessing since you said they've eluded medical understanding that this probably isn't something you learned and could pass on. And even if you agreed and I was confident in certain knowledge, I wouldn't want to simply cut open your head for the sole purpose of taking a look at whatever thing lets you work with weird physics breaking shit." Harry sighed, resuming his work. He'd still try to finish what he was working on of course, but simply as a step on the road. It could be set aside for later if necessary. "Hey, Calvera, mind helping me with something simple? I'm working on something here, and it should be well contained. In the event that something goes wrong, it will remain contained, but I'll need your help disposing of it. Basically, if I ask, could you take what I say outside the ship, and just incinerate it?"

"Wrong words. You said that if I had a procedure that I was certain would work, you would be willing, correct? If, even if I do have something I'm certain would work, you would prefer not to have anything done, I need to know whether to refocus my efforts on something else for the time being."

"20,000 views in the first hour. Not sure how that stacks up in general, since I've not made a habit of studying old earth population figures in the early two thousands, nor how quickly youtube grew, but that's good to hear. Or bad, depending on how everyone reacts to popularity." Harry cogitated. "Yeah. . . almost certainly bad in that regard. Made a deal though, so at least it'll keep Uber and Leet ingratiated to us." Harry poured out a tiny quantity of liquid over a sample of the Galdur Salve. Using a combination of targeted chemicals, he would aim to identify, then isolate the fragment of DNA that gave the salve its powers. From there, it would react with a specialized reagent that could transfer it to the blank retrovirus. A few more steps, for targeting, safety, and detection, and then it would be ready. "So. If you're still willing to do this, I have a plan worked out. First, I'll be isolating the genetic material that gives the Galdur tree stuff its healing properties, and building that into a retrovirus. Lots of safety precautions, so don't worry about that too much, and I've got ideas on multiple tests that could be used ahead of time." These could be testing it on an extracted bit of bone marrow, and then determining if the output could heal an injured creature--though he'd need to get his hands on something like that--, or he could determine whether the retrovirus itself exhibited the healing propoerties, or a few other options. "From there, assuming it passes the necessary tests, and with your consent, I would put you under, make a few incisions, and inject the retrovirus into your bone marrow. It should basically spread from there, reprogramming the creation of red blood cells to include the healing factor. After the catalyst makes it through your system, the viruses will shut down--they'll do so anyway in three hours even if for some strange reason the catalyst remains--and you should be left with the healing factor in your blood. Should lessen or entirely prevent the Thinker headaches, and might give you a general edge in recovery if you get in any fights."

"Oh, good to hear. That's the sword that decided it'd rather be here traveling at high velocity than whatever Legend of Zelda is? A video game?" That was certainly interesting. That left the unanswerable question of why it had decided to be here, rather than there, but that would probably be an unproductive line of inquiry. "Did they say how well the first show went? Assuming they filmed us, of course." Harry was genuinely curious how this whole thing on Earth Bet would turn out. Would the videos be regarded as skilled editing? Maybe a Cape with illusions? It was almost certain that they would have a lot more attention on them next time they returned. "You still interested in me trying to figure something out to prevent tinker headaches?"

Harry watched carefully as they did their work, not interfering, but paying close attention to how Lucille worked. She seemed capable of seeing somehow, but there might come a time when she missed something due to the quirks of light based vision, and with her magic, things could go pretty badly wrong. When it was complete, he looked it over, stuck his hand in, and was satisfied. "Nice job. Should be useful for the samples, and any food." Following his own advice, he carefully placed the proffered poison sacs into the fridge, off to one side, along with the blood and tissue samples from the serpent and the wyvern. Once he had done that, he made his way over to the back of the bus, sitting down at the medbay with his own gear, the assorted tools, and the salve that Lucille had given too him. He turned to Tattletale on one of the seats. "How are you feeling? Any better?"

When Harry arrived back, he immediately noticed the presence of an enormous gun. Thinking for a moment about the unpredictable elements in their group, He picked it up, carried it down the aisle, and set it under one of the seats. At the very least it would take someone longer to grab it and go "Ooo what's this?" before blasting their head off. And maybe someone would be able to stop them. Once he had done that, he listened to what Proditor was saying. "Oh? Ethereals can get a thinker headache too? Very interesting." The question was, whether it worked the same way? Something to be answered at a later date. He then addressed Frigus. "Hey Frigus, you've got ice magic, righ--. . . Were you born with that name? Sorry. ANyway, I was just wondering if you might be able to put like some sort of permanent freeze magic on something, to make a fridge. To preserve stuff." "Maybe Lucille could help too?"

((Assuming that we might have gotten to talk at least a bit on the journey over)) Edmond: They'd found Jeanne, and she certainly did seem obsessed with fire. There were some frankly horrific creatures assisting her, and two dragon things. Of course there were also some o the Dragon tooth warriors. Huh. . . Apparently they hadn't all collapsed when Medea got defeated. In any case, the battle had already begun. Edmond knew that there were a few people on this new team who had some sort of resistance to fire, which would be useful, and that meant that they might be able to afford to shift their focus to the monsters at the beginning. They also had Magnum on the team, so Edmond, remembering the beginning of the Cu battle, called out, "What's the read, Magnum?" They also had Snow, who seemed to be resilient, a goddess that Edmond had seen once in passing, a military man, and Magna. Edmond will use Analyze, adding (1.5xLevel)+5 stat points in any way to INT and SYN. Putting them all in INT. ((OOC: Small plan ideas, PING ME Mitsu: Nothing in particular, probably just start building up damage for ramping. Magnum: Telestrate is our best friend. Atton: No support on the first turn, right? Res bypass attack, I guess? Snow: She has a full party RES buff, right? That sounds like a good way to start. Gabriel: Might want to go with that RES reducing action you have on the Lahmu A, since otherwise I doubt Spicy HG's multihit attack will do much. Magna: Maybe work to kill the Lahmu, to try to get minions sooner. Not as familiar with your character, but we should definitely start finding her minions soon. Soryn: Is it night time? Does Jeanne D'Arc count as a being of divinity? Probably start to get some DPS down. Focusing the Lahmu so that we can take it as a minion eventually seems reasonable. Perlita: Since it's the first turn, there's no easy way to know who to heal, but maybe Mitsu? Since we need that strong DPS up and running, and it's reasonably likely that she might get hit first turn based on the number of enemies.))

"Part of my job, but. . . yeah, I've got to agree." Harry muttered. He'd made a point of taking only small samples, had made only small precise incisions on the chaos snake. And then there were the people who'd chopped up a dragon with a sword, and then flayed it. "I. . . seems social pressure or greed or something's stronger than you'd think. Probably best we go before someone decides that carving a chaos serpent open with a plasma sword is a good idea, and gets acid vapor everywhere.