I'm feeling stoned and alone like a heretic

(Roleplay entry. Continud from part CXXXIV.)

"Right," Emilly said. She walked along the corridor. "So, here--yikes!"

She turned into the next hub and ran into both of them. Recovering quickly, though, she led them down to past the reaching tentacles towards one of the cores.

"This is bad enough," she said, "but--"

She took off, reversing her steps, carefully edging past the eggs and the tentacles again. "The one that really worries me? The fire in the nuclear core."



She stopped at the entry point, the Countess and the poet trailing after. She pointed at the uneven array of doors, some sealed, some open, that seemed to directly lead to open space, but bits of corridor were on each side.



"Because it's not connected to the rest of the station."

Justine frowned. "The nuclear core is always on fire," she murmured.

Emilly looked over at her. "It is? So I shouldn't worry? With the reactor fire, I mean."



"Is this one also supposed to be on fire?" She pointed at the plasma core, burning the expected blue, and the new flare of flickering fire-yellow.

The poet followed them slowly. "There's some...schmutz...on the floor back there," he murmured.

Justine nodded. "Yeah. Best to avoid those."

"'Infestation', I believe, is the word you're looking for," Emilly answered.



"So, Em," Justine said slowly, while the poet muttered "Okay..." and edged past the eggs again.

"This gap here, you're saying it's wide enough to fall through?"

"This one?" Emilly answered. "Not at all. This is the plasma core." She looked in at the flames licking around the base. "Which I'm not sure should be burning either, but...Here, let me show you."

She led them back. "So. Click to open...what? Because I see three different doors, all differently aligned."

Justine blinked at the offset doors. "Gahhh..."

"And once you figure that out," Emilly added, "there's no corridor beyond this. At all. There are walls, but--no floor."

Justine nodded grimly. "Okay. I'm calling for maintenance droids to sort this out."

Rusty peered through the door with a frown. "Hmm..."

Emilly walked back to the central hub, skipping back out of range of a farther-reaching tentacle.



Rusty followed, crossing his arms. "Safer here?" he asked. Emilly shrugged.

"I'm not sure anything on this level is safe right now, but...safer, probably, yes."

(Continued in part CXXXVI.)