cradleproject | WEEK 12 - INVESTIGATION

[RIP fuel reserve. When they get to the storage room though he pauses, squinting at the shelves and such to try and figure out if anything looks different. He's been down here enough times and taken a bunch of stuff back to his room. But with noticeable gaps...]

...Yuno mentioned another bomb might've gone off upstairs. [He frowns lightly as he considers something.] So you know I've been reading about wars a lot since we got access to the archives, right? Started reading up on war weapons to see if there was anything similar to the kind of stuff we use back home in terms of destruction. Greek Fire's a special recipe, but there is such a thing as a Molotov cocktail. [He's tapping his fingers along Adam's knuckles for a moment as he thinks.]

Yeah...yeah, if you take a glass bottle of a flammable liquid, stick something in the top and light it on fire, you can throw it and it'll explode on impact a lot like Greek Fire. Thing is, you can also add stuff to it so it's not just a bunch of fire but a bunch of smoke...enough smoke to probably set off all of the sprinklers in the ship. It'd be stuff like...I don't know, thick stuff. Soap or baking soda, stuff that clogs.

[Yeah he's just going to check shelves for that kind of stuff and see if there's any indication of what might be missing.]

[ Adam will take to trying to figure out the size of the missing items, if there's any imprint left from dust or something. ]

Right. Usually you'd add gasoline and it'd make for a lot of smoke, but maybe... Chemically, the size of the fire it would make has to be proportional to the amount of liquid inside, so we'd have to see what happened up there exactly to get a sense of it. [ He smiles at Luke. ] That's good thinking. What makes up Greek fire usually?

[It looks like the bleach, ammonia, acetone, and dry ice are all missing, as well as one of the empty containers in the room and a bunch of batteries.

That said, judging from the layer of dust where the bleach, ammonia and batteries had been as opposed to the cleaner spots where the acetone and dry ice were, the first three may have been taken a while ago.]

Edited 2016-08-27 03:22 (UTC)

You're better at chemistry than I am but I know a couple of things about alchemy. [Please ignore that they're pretty much the same thing.] Greek fire's got pitch from old torches, alcohol, nectar...[He waves his hand.] I'll tell you later. Mortals aren't supposed to know anyway. [Instead, he's narrowing his eyes as he examines the shelves, a hand coming up to gently poke a hole in a layer of dust.]

...check it out. We're missing a bunch of stuff that when you mix it together you can easily knock somebody out. [Why does he know that? Don't worry about it.] The batteries are out of place, too, unless somebody thought we could use them to charge our datapads. Can't batteries explode, too?

[He's casting a look up to the vent in the dry storage room before facing Adam again.] When Jason and I were down here we noticed a lot of the ammo was gone from the weapons locker. Can't say if they're related to this or to what happened Sunday. Speaking of Sunday though maybe we should check the robotics lab, too. Jack found one of the plastic cubes when we were investigating. Might be worth making sure nothing else is disturbed. Where else after that?

[ Adam makes a noise of offense because let him know how to make Greek fire? Anyway, he's about to say how harmful all of those things could be but Luke beats him to it. Why does he know this? ]

Not just knock someone out. Most of these mixed in a certain way could be deadly or just really harmful. The question would be what exactly they made since... there are a lot of options here. [ And all of them are bad. ] The acetone and dry ice seem to be most recently taken, but that would just make a really cold acetone bath. Maybe it's all to confuse us.

At least we know that they had access to all of this and ammo. [ He scoffs and goes to check on the art storage to be thorough before pulling Luke off to the biolab. ]

[Nothing seems out of place in the art storage or biolab.]

[Dont worry about it??? Gods Adam it's like you don't trust him. Anyway he follows along as obedient as ever (that is to say still trying to go other directions but ultimately letting Adam lead) while thinking about their list.]

Could all of that be used to make whatever rained from the sprinklers to knock us out? And isn't acetone flammable? [This is a mysterious mystery except for the part where he has some sinking suspicions.] Dorian also said they found Jack's hand with Jessie. Um. The robot one...they'd need tools maybe to disassemble it or something wouldn't they? What kind of stuff is in the engineering lab? You're a mechanic, you've probably been in there more than me.

[ Adam thinks about that for a long moment. ] Acetone is very flammable, yeah. I think if—you mixed bleach and acetone, don't you get chloroform? You have to do something specific... [ He's not entirely sure because look. He's never tried? ]

But yeah, yeah. That might have been chloroform that knocked us out. [ He smiles at Luke, far too happily for this discussion. He elbows him proudly and decides to take his advice, leading them off to the engineering lab. ] It's pretty useless in there, but I know it has oil and an air compressor.

[One of the cannisters of oil in the engineering dock has been opened and is half empty.

They should also watch where they're going, because aside from the usual wetness from the sprinklers, there's also a huge puddle of what seems to be water leaking out from behind the locked door in the back.]

Probably. I don't know how it works but that wouldn't surprise me. [He should be a little weirded out that Adam's proud but he's not because Luke is being a smart Luke and not actually blowing himself up. So there's that.] We should see if somebody else can confirm when we meet up with the others. Jason might know.

[Once they get to the engineering dock though he's stalling just a little bit to stare at the mess on the floor, only half-noticing the oil that's missing. He recalls there was oil on the plastic up in the AI core, but he's not thinking too heavily on it. He's busy eyeing the water.]

...Parrish. Do you see that? [Why does the lockbreaker always encounter locked doors???]

[ Adam catches sight of the oil and nods to himself like this makes a lot of sense. ] I think your Molotov cocktail idea was right. This is exactly what you'd need.

[ He only looks over at the mess when Luke points it out, trailing it back to the source. ] Oh. That door's... [ Right. Luke. He carefully avoids the puddle as he nudges Luke over to it. ] Have you ever tried this one before?

So. We'll have to confirm what's up top. [No he's still staring at the door...and he's going to step around the water to approach.]

Never. I didn't even think about this one. [But there's water and that's...disturbing.] ...get ready for whatever's back here, okay? [He moves, pressing his hand against the door and concentrating on the locks inside the door itself. This is a Mistake, Luke is a Mistake, who let them do this? So...what's behind this door here?]

[A grue jumps out and eats them both!!

Just kidding, they're fine. The room behind the door is just a small area filled with various valves and pipes - it looks like this might be part of the engine. It also seems to house the ship's water supply, judging from the tanks in the back. The smaller one helpfully labled SPRINKLERS looks like it's been punctured.]

[That would have been fine. But in all seriousness with the door open he narrows his eyes and steps into the room, gesturing for Adam to follow but also keep the door propped open.]

If this door was already opened before I broke the lock, too, I'm gonna be pissed. [But that's not the point.] Check this out. Does that look like it was punctured to you? [...please don't let the main water supply be poisoned too.]

[ Adam has his sword out just in case, but... looks like it's really just water. Amazing. ]

I think you're way too considerate for your powers. [ Has anyone ever called Luke considerate? Because Adam would have gone through every locked door if he could. He crouches to look at the smaller tank and nods, and he examines it to see what kind of puncture it is. A hole? Big or small? Jagged or smooth? Any indication of the tool? ]

This would be how they got their mixture into the sprinklers. So the issue is getting in... [ He'll look for any vents in the room. ]

[Actually, it seems there might be two puncture wounds. There's one on top of the tank, but that wouldn't explain the water all over the floor of the room. The duct=taped over hole at the bottom of the tank, however, probably would. Both holes are jagged and not very large; as for the tool, the kitchen knife tossed on the ground looks like it might be a fair match.

It does look like there's a vent on the wall in this room.]

I'm not considerate, Alice just limited me to one a day. I'd rather save it in case we really get fucked over. Think about it. If I'd broken into our room earlier, we would have missed this because we couldn't open it. [But he's immediately dipping forward to swipe up the knife, lining it up with the holes to confirm its a close match.]

If I had to guess, our souvlaki friend drained the water out and put the chloroform mixture in so that when the sprinklers went off we were all knocked out. Clever. [The fact that there's a vent is also foreboding.] Guess that answers how they got in, too.

[...he kinda wants to go in and see where it goes, but.] What're the chances we'd find something else in the vent still?

We've had plenty of days here. [ This is a dumb argument. He's going to tap on the tank to see if it's empty or not.

When Luke asks, Adam rolls his eyes. ] Probably not high. We have the clues to this right here. Might as well, I guess, since it's keeping you from getting accused. [ Is the vent around their height or will they need a boost to get up to it? ]

[The tank sounds like while it may not be fully empty, it's certainly close.

The vent is around their height. Doesn't look like there's any dust in it.]

Shut up. [Leave him alone?? Gods, Adam. But okay so they have all kinds of evidence and a vent that looks like it was probably used recently. He'll bring a hand up to the vent cover and try to jostle it around.] Wish I had one of the tablets on us so we could take a picture of this. Our word's just gonna have to do it. Anything left in the tank? [Since Adam was investigating it.]

Not much. If they just hid out in the vents, they wouldn't have to worry about passing out either.

[ While Luke's playing with that, Adam will check on the other tanks just to be sure they haven't been infected with something. And if Luke needs it, he'll give him a boost to climb into the vent. ]

[All of the other tanks look like they're still sealed and haven't been tampered with. The vent cover comes off easily enough.]

Good point. [When the vent cover comes off, Luke's easily scaling the wall and wiggling his way partially into the vent to see what he can find. This is also a bad idea and part of him is actually a little perturbed, but...well.]

Cover me in case something goes wrong, okay? I'm not gonna go that far. [...and tentatively away he goes?]

I've got you. [ Does he?? He pulls himself up to watch until he can't see Luke anymore. ]

Just keep talking, alright?

[Doesn't look like there's anything immediately visible within the vents nearby. The path splits once he gets deeper.]

WEEK 12 - INVESTIGATION

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