IC - 19 - Surface of Titan - Everyone except Kiara

[Starspawn338]

Jojo watches Moses, waiting for the inevitable.

What will they see when Moses expires? He wonders.

[Mephistophilis]

Nicole grabs the fallen helmet from the ground and tries to jam it back onto Moses's suit. But the unfamiliar movement in the constraining environment of the surface suit and in the very low gravity of Titan proves to be more difficult than she anticipates and as she awkwardly tries to orient the helmet the right way up it slips from her grasp and gently spirals down.

Sam smoothly intercepts the helmet before it touches the surface and casually hands it to Moses who does not react. His hands remain by his sides.

Moses is immobile. His expression stupid, blank, unmoving. His skin looks like it is covered in a rash, or burns, coated with a thin layer of frost that gives him a bluish hue. There are crisp flakes of frozen methane in his eyelashes and eyebrows. It is clear that Moses has flash frozen in the deep cold of Titan.

OOC:   SAN roll to see him freeze - 0/1d4

Moses just stares at Sam as she holds out his helmet, a stupid, blank expression on his face.

From behind her Sam can hear a splashing sound, like someone is in the water.

[Mr. Handy]

"Do I have to do everything myself?" Sam asks Moses, putting the helmet back on his head. "Sounds like our friend is splashing around in the water."

[Mephistophilis]

Sam screws the helmet back onto Moses's suit, but he doesn't react.

As Sam is slipping the helmet over Moses's head the rim strikes his nose which shears off and drifts down to the ground to embed into the methane snow. In the indentation left behind in his face the white of bone is visible.

[Starspawn338]

Sanity 94
1d100

Jojo watches as Moses freezes to death once the seal of his helmet is broken. He continues to watch dispassionately as Nicole and then Sam replace his helmet. It was almost comical how they were reacting to his death. He clicks on his radio.

"There will be time to play in the snow when we are at the waystation. Remember that we need to stop them from destroying us and everyone else on this planet to deal with whatever this is. Get back in the rover and let's go!"

[Mr. Handy]

"Moses?" asks Sam when he doesn't move. "Hey, are you okay?"

[aine]

“He’s dead.” Nicole says dispassionately. “Nothing we can do, let’s go.”
She turns and walks back to the rover. The visor hides her expression.

San roll: 10

[Mr. Handy]

"How can he be dead?" asks Sam, trying to guide Moses back to the rover.

[aine]

Nicole turns back,
“Sam, leave him!” She reaches down to pull Sam away from Moses.
“He was hallucinating. All this grass; it doesn’t exist. It only affects us humans, Jojo and the scanners are immune; they are playing with our minds, don’t you see?”

[Mephistophilis]

Moses continues to have his stupefied expression as Sam pulls him towards the rover. Instead of moving he tumbles face-first into the orange snow.

Inside the other rover a hand scrapes the window clear and Isabella's face appears. Over the radio she says, 'Rover's abandoned, nothing in here.' As she looks out onto Moses's body her voice rises, 'What the hell is going on?'

Sam can still hear the sound of somebody in the water. And now something else, at first a whisper, hoarse and sibilant, like many, struggling voices, then synchronising as the volume grows, a single rasping voice. It's coming from the water, but also, somehow, seems to be inside her head. 'Come. Come to me. In the water. Join us.'

[Mr. Handy]

"Did you hear that?" asks Sam. "They're telling me to join them in the water. Moses, stop that." She tries to get him back on his feet.

[Starspawn338]

Jojo is getting impatient with the others outside. They really are on some pretty serious time constraints.

"Would you please get inside the rover. We need to get to the waystation and we've already investigated the abandoned rover. If you insist on bringing Moses in, you will have to carry him on board as he is no longer able to move on his own." Jojo says over the radio.

"Moses is dead. He removed his helmet and you kicked it around on the ground before you put it back on his head. He's dead! He finishes emphatically.

[aine]

“Jojo, I’m with you but I think Sam is still hallucinating.”
“Sam! His f*cking nose has just fallen off! Moses. Is. Dead!” Nicole screams at Sam, grabs her with both hands, shakes her and tries to propel Sam towards the rover.
“Isabella, can you help me or we’ll lose Sam too.”

[Mr. Handy]

"Dead or alive, we can't just leave him here," says Sam. She tries to bring Moses back to the rover, his weight being less a problem than his bulk in the low gravity.

[aine]

“He’s just going to be a liability once he warms up.” Nicole grumbles but if it will speed things up she’ll help Sam manhandle the body into the rover.

[Mephistophilis]

Nicole helps Sam to drag Moses by his arms towards their rover, while Jojo watches from inside. Isabella scrabbles to exit the rear of the abandoned rover and bounds across to help them. She arrives around about the time that Nicole feels an odd cracking sensation and the forearm she's tugging on seems to disarticulate from the rest of the body, and she finds she's hauling Moses more by the material of his suit.

Isabella, who has just been watching them until now, lets out a gargled shriek over the radio and visibly vomits into the interior of her suit, splattering the visor.

The splashing sound seems more distant now, but she can still hear the voice, grating, penetrating her mind until she struggles to focus on anything else, her own thoughts even. 'Come back to us, the Crystalliser of Dreams, the Swimmer in the Darkness. Look across the fifth-dimensional gulf and see your reflection.'

Sanity 45%: 1d100 61

[Mr. Handy]

"I...think I'm going crazy," says Sam, shaking her head. "The voice won't leave me alone."

[Starspawn338]

"Voice? What voice?" Jojo looks Sam over and moves to his medical bag. "I think you should take a sedative." He says to Sam and takes a pill out and hands it to her.

[Mr. Handy]

"I think you need a complete diagnostic," says Sam. "You just said Moses died because he took his helmet off, and now you want me take off mine so I can swallow that?"

[aine]

“Just get in the rover and let’s get going.” Nicole bundles the Body unceremoniously into the back of the rover.
“Let’s first see if the effects wear off once we’re away from this accursed place.” She says quietly to Jojo.
“Now, who’s going to drive?”