As you may recall , last session was full of fightyness and quick cuts and ouch! This session, not so much. We skipped a bit of time, giving Amanual time to cool off a bit, Keelerand Mox and Rose time to heal a bit, and EOS some time to get used to the idea of Amanual bringing other people into the spaceship. It was a much more emotion-based session, and there was a nice parallel with two PC-NPC-PC triangles.
Play started with Mox in quarantine on EOS, while Amanual tried to convince EOS not to space Mox. Mox had agreed to help Amanual try and get to the bottom of the contamination that EOS was so intent on, and turns out that entails Mox being a conduit for the Maelstrom to come pouring into EOS. Eeeek! EOS was one scared computer!
A note on EOS: when we first heard the Voice of Eos, it was very flat, remote, clinical, distant. And it instructed people to do CRAZY stuff, like cut off their hands and decide Keeler was the fertility god and all sorts of weird. Always VOE had this cold detachment, except this one time when suddenly Vincent screamed "WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME??" and we all jumped out of our skin. As Amanual started communicating with VOE, Vincent shifted the way EOS spoke, to show Amanual's personalization of the machine, and also because it's kind of a pain to actually think in code. I remember a 10 second discussion along the lines of 'yeah, it makes sense to just have Eos and Amanual talk, right.' So here's Eos, talking to Amanual about Mox and stuff. Kinda cool, kinda creepy, definitely still not a secure position for Mox.
Back at the Luxor, Rose and Keeler are trying to convince Exit that she and baby Pumpkin will really be ok. We roll well, and she's reassured. Thank goodness! Julia also nailed Rose's opening hardholder roll, so for once, everything's going pretty easy. Whew! Keeler's feeling like maybe it's time to check out some new folks for her gang, since she's down a few due to death and injury, so she's being a presence in the marketplace.
On Eos, Amanual has convinced Eos to separate the sick-bay - which is the most miraculous infirmary Mox has ever heard of or imagined or anything - and run the tests on Mox remotely, to keep Eos safe from contamination. The goal is to figure out how to 'fix' people, and clean the Maelstrom's effects off of them. When it gets down to it though, Mox baulks. Stripping himself of the Maelstrom's taint might also strip him of his ability to figure out how to help someone. There's no guarantee he'll live through the attempt, either. I think the odds were around 75% that he'd live.
A note on playing to the side of the spotlight: while Amanual and EOS were talking, Mox was technically not in the scene, as he was in quarantine. But we figured that Eos could open communications anywhere on-ship, so I would occasionally interject what was happening with Mox. Eos got really nervous and asked for permission to space Mox, I interjected Mox's heart-rate going up on the monitors. Amanual reassured Eos that Mox could keep the Maelstrom under control, I interjected Mox doing deep breathing and calming himself down purposefully. Also, there was a time when Julia narrated Rose calling Amanual while she was talking to Eos, which led to a great bit about Eos being jealous of Rose. Finding ways to be part of a scene when you are not in the scene is always a delicate thing, and I think this session we pulled it off well.
So Mox is in the detached sick-bay, opening up his brain. Thank goodness I roll well, and have good control of the fountain of emotion that spills forth. It freaks Eos right out! I roll to seduce or manipulate, and make it but just. I start pulling Eos's emotions to the fore! Crazy! He's like a little kid who's been left alone for a very long time and has tried to maintain some sort of order, only he knows he's not really safe, or supposed to be alone, and he's been making a lot of very hard choices that he didn't want to make. Mox talks to Eos and gets him to understand that he, Eos, is becoming human, and he has more in common with the people down below than he ever imagined. Eos accepts this, but needs a child's reassurance that he won't be left alone again. And that Mox and Amanual will keep him safe. And that Amanual will stay with him. Mox is whole-heartedly for all that, and Amanual agrees to stay with Eos so long as Mox can come and go, and maybe other people as needed. Eos is cautious about that, but agrees.
Vincent then says 'I think it worked, I think you guys just fixed the maelstrom.' Amazing! This felt really, really good, and I loved Eos as a little child.
Mox explaining what happened to Rose was weird though, because saying 'you know how when you were little and you wanted your mom to take care of you?' made Rose (who committed matricide a while back) recoil in horror. Funny, but in a sad way. And Amanual is probably not coming back down, maybe ever.
Best line of the session, IMHO: "I think Amanual is, like, his mom now." Apparently Mox had a good childhood. Who knew.