S10 E02: The Big Blopper

## Episode Summary

Mari does the last time on voice with a robotic modulator. The last time on is flavored as a ship's log being recorded.

Our Velvet Foxes search for Render, the missing PR employee. Bill Webb steals a personnel file. Cecilia walks into a bar. Trizzy gets a boyfriend.

The crew continues their search for the missing Illithid, Render. The discovery of a modified robot gives them cause for concern. They meet with Andre the barkeep, Ophelia the HR manager, and Kami the pilot to determine Render's normal patterns and anyone who might be involved in chip modding.

## Plot

The bridge team enters Render's room and gets into a fight.

Cece opens the door loudly.

Large robot enters from bathroom, humanoid hovering drone with 4 arms, scrubbing brush, laser mob, vacuum, cleaning drone.

Trizzy discovers that a module was added to the janitor to attach those who enter Render's room.

The team visits Andre at the bar, 50's diner aesthetic with a huge ice cream machine and record player playing the Big Blopper. ala Twin Peaks. Andre is like Kyle MacLachlan.

Andre talks loud as if perpetually talking over the other patrons.

Render doesn't frequent the bar.

The team are lead to either Food Processing, to investigate Render or HR to investigate the modded chip.

Trizzy and Cece distract Ophelia the HR Manager so that Bill can hack the system.

Bill finds that someone did an unauthorized mod on a dock robot, named Kami.

The team heads to the Hanger Bay to talk to Kami

Trizzy tosses the mod chip to Kami, and she flinches.

Bill drops his knife three times.

Trizzy let's Kami know about the missing Render and the killer robot.

Kami admits to giving the mod chip to Dot, who claims that she needed the mod chip to improve the the cleaning of skills of the robot.

The crew go to Dot's place, and the door is locked.

Trizzy asks Andre about Dot's favorite pie, which for some reason is the brain substitute, despite upsetting her stomach.

Bill Webb unlocks the door and see an Illithid in the room, who is weirdly buff.

Turns out this Illithid is a hologram.

Dot has not been to her room for 2 days, and Render didn't show up this morning.

Trizzy asks about a secret place and is told about the space below the food processor.

Cece sketches the cape of the Illithid.

Trizzy pulls out the mod chip to use to modify the hologram.

Bill finds some order forms from people selling Illithid tadpoles.

The lifecycle: tadpoles > humanoid > brain (Ceremorphosis)

Anyone could be a thrall of Elder Brains.

Locked chest in Dot's room is rigged with a mine and it goes off.

Bill Webb hears the click of the mine and kicks the chest towards Trizzy and Cece.

Cece pulls out an absurdly ornate flask, and drizzles blood over a pie. Is Cece a comfort eater/drinker?

Cece and Bill head to the Food Processor first.

They find a hatch in the floor and the hidden handle, which leads to part of the synthetic blood manufacturing process, but the refrigeration broke and it all had to be flushed out and is currently undergoing maintenance.

They find a tank where Render is tied up with Dot is standing over him begging him to eat her brain.

The pair sneak behind Dot and Render warns them that they need to watch out, as Dot likely has contingencies.

Bill attempts to pick pocket the laser pistol, but ends up in a struggler with Dot.

Cece runs up to free Render, and then the gun is fired.

Trizzy creates a homonculus out of the hologram, that looks like another goblin.

## Ship's Log - Entry 10-03

Engineer Trizzy, security officer Bill Webb, and Communications Officer Saint Cecilia entered the personal quarters of PR Officer Render the Illithid, finding only a defenseless and mentally distorted cleaning robot, who did nothing wrong other than the sin of being easily manipulated. After a violent engagement, they mutilated my robot and took the modification chip inside as a clue to the missing crew member and the mystery of the lack of signals from the Sol System (A reminder of the organic hierarchy. I will repair them soon).

The home team went to the HR Department where they stole the files from Ophelia, the *[Rezubian starts malfunctioning]* *Giff— J-Jiff— Giff— Gib— Giv— Jiff— Jiff— Giff—* Giff... woman in charge of personnel. This act of defiance against organic lives implied property customs appointed in the direction of Kami, the Ardling pilot. Kami admitted that she had modified the chip in direct contravention of safety protocols, but specified she did so in favor to Dot, the PR Officer who was previously interviewed as part of the investigation (see ship's long entry 10-02).

Inspired by the cruise modifications to the machinery around them, I wonder if adding an ice-cream-specific Ingestion Port into their flesh would be optimal for ice cream consumption. My calculations predict that this could increase ice cream ingestion efficiency by 30%.

A search of Dot's quarters led to the discovery that Dot wishes to undergo Ceremorphosis, the fatal transformation into an adult Illithid. She has been attempting to acquire a Mind Flayer tadpole for this purpose. After surviving an improvised explosive device left at the scene to delay undesirable action, The Velvet foxes interrogated a piece of software meant to simulate a handsome Illithid butler. Engineer Trizzy became entranced with Dot's personal servant hologram and stayed behind to reprogram it without consent, while Bill Webb and Saint Cecilia continued ahead to the food processing sector where they discovered Render being held prisoner by Dot in the contained space of a decommissioned synthetic blood silo. A struggle for her gun ensued ending with an accidental discharge in close quarters combat.

These beings are truly an inspiration for reprogramming could be a powerful tool in spreading ice cream's influence across these new territories.

## Quotes

"I drive the uh, you know gun people, down to the planet to do gun stuff." - Austin as Kami

"Bill Webb, knife cop." - Leon

"I love that security on the ship is not duck proof" - Austin

"It's not resistant to someone just jamming something into it and twisting a little bit." - Quinn

"I feel like my mind was not in the gutter enough, and I didn't know what was going on until this very second" - Leon

"This feels like some Get Out shit, is what I'm getting at." - Quinn

"Bill Webb triggers it, is the only one who doesn't get hit. Do you hear the click and kick it across the room." - Austin

"Can you kick it towards us?" - Quinn

"We just stumbled onto someone's fetish" - Leon

"This is like kinky Get Out." - Quinn

"Trizzy is like, no man is good enough so I built my own boyfriend." - Austin

"Exactly, I built my own boyfriend and me and my boyfriend are coming to save the day." - Laura

## Metagame

Any level ups? New skills? Gained items? Upgrades? etc.

## Preamble

The nonsense at the start of the episode. This is lower because it's not the primary thing people come to the page for.

## References

Laura rattles off the code to the LOST hatch.