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Xeyr and co in Cloudbank
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Sometimes, when someone locks you in a part of the mine abandoned for good reason, having figured out you were the one who reported them after all, someone else catches on in time. Sometimes she can contact Mia, or Jewel, or an emergency number. Sometimes they come and get you out again.

And sometimes you die.

Today she dies. 

And then she is somewhere else.

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She's in a hallway on a - ship? Wooden deck under her feet, wooden walls, cheap plastic pipe and cheap electric lights running along the ceiling. The hum of some giant combustion engine and other machinery sounds form a background noise together with the sound of wind or waves on the outside of the hull. There's metal doors visible every so often along the hall, but it curves slightly and she can't see the ends of it.

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She's been on ships before. She takes a moment, then starts to look around. Any writing on the doors? Portholes or other windows?

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No windows here. The door nearest her says "Ballast 3", in English.

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And the other doors, if she looks?

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To the left: Main Deck Access, a junction in the hallway, Ballast 2, Ballast 1, Signal Room, Forward Catwalk Access.

To the right: Ballast 4, Fuel Storage, Aft Catwalk Access.

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Could she see anyone or anything around the junction?

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The junction is a straight hallway maybe eighty feet long with a couple of doors in it. It looks like there's a little side room halfway through - there might be sunlight coming in.

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Are the doors also labeled? Can she hear anything from the room?

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The doors all say 'Cargo Bay'.

She can hear occasional rustling and tapping as if from a bored watchman shifting slightly in that room.

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It does not seem possible to look around more without likely running into someone.

She sits against a wall and waits for someone to find her.

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At length, someone comes around the corner. A woman dressed in rough cotton and leather. Low-tech work clothes.

She spots Xeyr's outfit, her hair, and stops dead in her tracks. "...Uh-oh."

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(Her hair is dark green, tied in two long knots on either side of the top of her head. Her clothes are the utility suit from the planetoid mining colony.)

She holds out her hands to show weaponlessness, without pointing them at the woman in case they have magic like that. 

"I'm sorry, I'm here by accident. I'm not going to hurt anyone."

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"Suuuure. Weird, techy person, stowing away? Really? What the hell are you even wearing." She takes a step backward and glances at the hall behind her.

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"Work uniform," she says, because sometimes people have lie detection.

She doesn't know what she's been taken for, in this case. Does not much expect to convince anyone otherwise, if she did.

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"You - you - is anyone gonna be after you? Steal something? You bring tech on board, you gonna blow us up by accident?"

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"My friends might come - there are two of them. They also won't be coming to hurt anyone. They won't steal. I won't blow anything up."

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"Look, I don't know what you're actually up to, but I know a tech-hunter when I see one. You've stolen something and have pirates after you, or you're gonna steal something, or you have something dangerous onboard that'll kill someone, or something. Deeps. And here I was hopin' to buck off next time we hit port but there's a tech hunter and everything's gonna go to the deeps now, isn't it? For the love of everything that floats."

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"I'm sorry. I'm not a tech hunter." (She does not expect to be believed.) "I don't want anyone to be hurt. I'll leave as soon as I can, if you want."

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"-Yeah. Yeah, get you off the ship. I should tell the captain. Can't leave you alone. Come with me- Wait. Oh! HEY, CARL!"

There's a clatter from the alcove room. "Sir, yes - er - what?"

"Carl, you lump. Fell asleep on watch again? We could've hit something. Jesus. Make yourself useful and tell the captain we've got a stowaway!"

"Y-Yes ma'am!"

Carl goes back into the alcove room and does this.

 

"C-Captain says to wait here he's sending an escort."

The woman nods, tense.

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She stays perfectly still with her hands up.

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And at length there is a guy with a weird low-tech gun and an older man with a Fancy Outfit. They talk with the tense woman briefly.

"Ma'am. I'm Captain Faren. You'll bring trouble. I want trouble off my ship as soon as possible. It's not personal. I just have forty-seven lives to account for, and it is a grave responsibility that brooks no compromise of safety. So, Galen here is going to watch you while we find somewhere to drop you off. We'll give you some food and water and a flag to wave in case some other captain is fool enough to pick you up again. Is that clear?"

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"Yes. Thank you. I would not want to endanger your people. That is very kind of you."

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"Thank you. Please accompany us to the lounge for now."

And to the lounge they go. They're still tense, but the Captain's easy confidence seems to calm the other two down.

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She accompanies them. Lounge?

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Utilitarian stairwell and hallway and then a lounge. There's a few lightweight chairs and couches and tables affixed to the floor. There's a bookshelf with paper books.

There are windows to a wide cloudscape, miles and miles out, sky above and below so that she can't see the surface. There is some floaty wildlife visible, an alien three-lobed tentacled and beaked thing, a tangle of green and brown that might be some sort of floating plant.

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