Isaac went over to explore the ship. He didn't exactly need to, but standing next to a man who flexes his muscles in his spare time was the less preferable option in this case. Upon entering the ship, Isaac found that it was a mess. There wasn't that much to see, but there was a ladder which led who knew where, which piqued his curiosity. Isaac went back out of the ship and climbed the roof, trying to see where the tracks led. The mysterious footprints led off east into the distance, and he couldn't see the end of them. But being in a desert like this, they would be swept away eventually. Isaac got down from the roof. The group was called on to 'investigate' the crash, meaning that they had 2 jobs right now. Finding out what was in the strange craft and finding out what came out of it. It would be a good idea to split up, using their numbers to their advantage. One team would investigate the crash site and the other would investigate the footprints. There were a lot of unknown factors, however, and splitting up might be a bad idea. The living cactus, for example, was one such unknown variable. How was it alive? How did it live? Might they find more? In that respect, the team going after the tracks might be in more danger, considering that there are more cactuses in the desert, meaning it was possible that there would be more living cactuses. But the fact was, there were no living cactuses until the crash, meaning that the crash might hold some answers. So it actually might be better for all of them to investigate the crash site... "We should look around in this wrecked... thing." Isaac said aloud, not caring who heard it. Everyone knew that, but they weren't doing anything yet. If no one headed down, then he'd go first.

One by one, the party climbed into the wrecked orb, Hans doing most of the lifting. This first room, though filthy, looked innocuous enough, but as they got deeper inside, they could see that the room visible through the ladder seemed to be humming and blinking with multi-colored lights. As Harry climbed down the ladder, he saw that there was a large room with no flat floor. It was rounded, just like the orb, composed the entire bottom of the orb below the floor, and a sizzling, green liquid with some kind of steam rising off was pooled all around the bottom of the ladder. The source of the liquid seemed to be a broken cylindrical tank with a metal dome base on the other side of the circular room. The base had a smoking, sparking panel on the side underneath the tank. Sticking straight out of the liquid at a slight angle were about 10 metal rods distributed evenly in a circle around the room. Each of the rods had unbroken glass terrariums stuck on top of them, and the tiny plants inside seemed to be moving. On the opposite side of the room from the tank, there was a large wooden box with an unlocked lock hanging from its latch. The wood looked extremely out of place in the otherwise totally metallic orb. As Harry was looking around and taking in the utterly foreign surroundings, the rusted rung of the ladder his feet were resting on broke off from underneath him! The broken rung clanged against the one below it loudly and landed into the green liquid with a splash, all of the noises echoing deafeningly around the metal room. To Harry's relief, there was no sizzle as the metal rung hit the liquid, indicating that it was not in fact a cartoonishly acidic substance as would have been the natural assumption in this situation. In spite of this relief, Harry was still hanging there, and the rung he clung to began shifting under his weight.

"Harry, you might want to get off that ladder." Isaac called down nonchalantly. Isaac was at the top of the ladder. He wanted to be the last person down, in case something happened or he needed to do something or other. It should be fine for him not to be down there, because there didn't seem to be that much to see. But if there was something that needed to be done, he could always ask. "See anything interesting down there?" Isaac asked.

Harry noted that the green liquid appeared to be harmless. Harmless enough to walk on anyway. He jumped off the ladder and fell to the floor before anymore of the rungs could be broken. He was aiming to reach the wooden box on the other side of the room, the fact that it seemed so different from everything else in the room made him wonder what could be inside it. "I'm in some kinda room, everything's sort of round. Plus, there's kind of a weird liquid here. " He told Isaac from below him. "Doesn't look deadly, but I'm not leaving any of my feet on the floor long enough to find out." Harry was jumping in place to avoid keeping his feet on the substance for too long. Given his luck, the day could only get worse. "There're some plants here, too. In some sorta plant...container thing. They're inside rods, the plants inside look like they're moving a bit." The exact name of the terrarium didn't occur to him.

As Harry hopped from foot to foot, he couldn't help but feel like he was stepping on something squishy that lay invisible beneath the opaque green liquid. At the very least, nothing bad was happening now. And he even felt the broken rung of the ladder, which happened to be about the same size as his stick, though hollow. All of the plants in their terrariums were now pressed against their glass, as if trying to get to Harry, but there didn't seem to be any threat of them escaping or anything. "Ah'm comin' down thayer, too! I'll help yeh look fer stuff," Ronnie piped as he climbed down the ladder, careful to grip the sides instead of the rungs. "Whoa!" He sighed as he reached the bottom and walked over to the broken tank. He hadn't noticed the wooden chest on the other side of the room, nor did he seem to notice the little plants pressing against the glass to try to follow him as he walked by. He reached the tank and down stooped to examine the panel. "Whell, it don't look like nuthin' alien...looks like English, actually!" He stood and turned around, craning his neck to try to see up through the ladder hole, trying to see if either of the other adults were there. "Can't say I can read what it says, though... Maybe we should check up above and see what's up thayer! Maht find sum ayunswers thayer, cuz there don't seem to be much down heer but sum creepy plant jars..." He said, finally noticing the terrariums. "Hans is too big fit through the ladder holes. Hans will wait here," Hans stated in third person. Stewart was busy trying to reach for the shiny thing on the hook above the fallen poster. Turns out it was a tiny little old-fashioned key, but he just couldn't reach it. "I say, young Isaac, you're a tall fellow. Taller than me at any rate. Won't you grab this key for me? I would ask Hans, but he seems to be quite occupied at the moment." Hans was again admiring his muscles, though it was his gleuts he was trying to admire this time, and he couldn't quite twist his body or head enough to see over his gargantuan shoulders.

"Alright, let me just..." Isaac said. He stretched his hands upwards and grabbed the key, carefully removing it from the hook. He had to stretch his toes a little. Retracting his arm, Isaac opened his hand to study the key. It was a small brass key, with 2 'teeth' at the end. It was about the length of his thumb and had a 3-leafed clover pattern on the back. Isaac had no idea what it could be for. "Here's the key." Isaac said, bringing his hand around to show Stewart. "Don't ask me what it's for, though."

Harry finally stopped jumping in place, it dawned upon him that he probably looked like a huge idiot. The ground was mushy, but he felt the rung that had gotten thrown down into the floor before. It still didn't seem very dangerous, but he couldn't help but wonder what the substance could be. He'd have to check out what the tank said in a moment, but there were more important matters at hand. "Ronnie, gimme a sec here." Against his better judgement, Harry began walking to the other side of the room. The plants kept pressing up against the glass as he walked, it was very unnerving to say the least. He arrived at the box, feeling very nervous about opening it in such a weird place. It had been a while since he had lost his cool temperament like this, he wasn't sure if this was a good idea. But he pressed on and opened the wooden box!

Stewart pocketed the key hastily, saying, "Quite, quite. I suppose we'll just have to find out later. Thank you!" Meanwhile, when Harry opened the wooden box, he saw it stacked about halfway full of name brand gardening supplies! There were several bags of fertilizer, a gardening trowel and spade, bags of vegetable and flower seeds, a bucket and watering can, and some small clay pots stacked inside. But as the box opened, one of the bags of fertilizer shifted, revealing a small jug of a dark green liquid, darker in color than the liquid on the floor. Emblazoned on the jug was the word "CORROSIVE". There was another label on the back of the jug, but it wasn't visible without moving the jug. At the bottom of the box, there was a yellow 3-ring binder with a sheet of paper slid into the transparent part of the front cover that read "The Next Step". Below the text was a hand drawn image of a tangle of vines and flowers and leaves. Inside the binder were a few pages about how to care for terrarium plants, though some complicated chemical-sounding words were clearly noticeable. One of the pictures depicted a scale drawing of a venus flytrap shown about 3 times the size of a comparative human under a section titled "What to watch out for". Flipping past the last page revealed a Ring hanging from the center binder ring. The Ring was stainless steel and had a painted pewter leaf on top of it (like this, but painted green), and it seemed to be lifting up, leaf-first, pointing at the terrariums in the center of the room. This must have been one of those Green Thumb Rings Harry had heard about in the market. The farmers always wished they could get their hands on one so their crops would grow better, saying that it was supposed to be able to give the wearer some kind of small influence over plants! "What-cha lookin' at over thayer, Harry?" Ronnie came over to Harry, flinching against the terrarium plants as he walked by them, "We should check out some of the other rooms and probably get out of here soon. This place is starting to give me the creeps!"

Harry looked at the Green Thumb Ring, examining it closely. He had heard of it while he was off to the market. Apparently, he would be able to manipulate plants to a small degree with it. Harry took the ring and equipped it. He was still unsure of what to do with all the gardening supplies. He couldn't pick it all up with his pockets alone but still took the binder, seeds, spade, small jug of liquid, and trowel. The drawings seemed very strange to him, but he couldn't leave yet! He wanted to figure this out...Harry started experimenting with the material. "Maybe if I..." He walked slowly to one of the rods. He pulled the lid off the terrarium attached and poured down a bit of the strange liquid onto the plant, waiting to see what effect it would have.

As Harry pulled the lid off the terrarium, the plant started reaching upward to try to get out, but as the green liquid fell into the terrarium, the plant seemed to... relax. That's the only description Harry could really put to what he saw the plant doing--it was relaxing. The liquid filled up about a centimeter of the terrarium above the dirt and remained there, not soaking into the dirt. In fact, he noticed that as he poured it, it was much more viscous than he had expected it to be, like a thin sauce or something. As he watched the relaxing plant, he noticed that it seemed to begin absorbing the green liquid, and as the liquid absorbed into the plant, it grew. Its fleshy, green stem thickened, and its little leaves broadened and grew jagged around the edges. It was like watching one of those time lapse movies of a flower growing but a sci-fi version where the plant was getting kind of scary looking and started reaching out at you. The plant kept growing and growing, sprouting a large, sunflower-like bloom on its top and breaking through the bottom of the terrarium with roots that started reaching for the floor like fractal tendrils. It kept on growing until its roots reached the floor and the plant lifted itself off of its pedestal. Its body was now thick enough to be visibly straining against its glass enclosure until the plant burst the enclosure, scattering tiny pieces of tempered glass everywhere but doing no harm. The plant stood before Harry, noiseless (because it had no means of making noise--it's just a plant after all) but menacing, stretching out its new "arms" and slithering along the ground on its tendrils, its "head" looking around for its liberator.

After handing Stewart the key, Isaac gre restless. There wasn't really anything to do. Pacing the room, he contemplated climbing the ladder back up. Isaac grabbed the rung when he noticed a doorway behind the ladder, one he hadn't seen before. After thinking a little, Isaac decided to tell Harry he was going. "Hey Harry, yell if you need me. I'm off to explore." He called down to the Harry. Isaac stepped around the ladder and entered the new room. What might he find here?

As Isaac stepped into the semi-circular room, he saw tons of flashing lights and screens on the wall, test tubes and jars held upright by suspended platforms with unlabeled knobs and a switch with a power icon on each platform's sides, white pipes and multicolored cables tangled all over the floor and ceiling connecting the lights and screens (imagine this, but on the floors and ceilings), and a counter running the entire length of the rounded wall. The counter was littered with broken pottery, dirt, paper either stained by many different colors of liquid or burned, plants in various stages of life seemingly torn out of their shattered pots, and directly across the room from the door, was an open 3-inch red binder next to a vacuum-sealed container. The binder was open to the exact center of its contents, and from the looks of the stacks of paper inside, it was completely full. Apparently it was so heavy that it had not moved at all during the crash. The vacuum-sealed container (like this but bigger and not a light bulb) had a tiny glass pedestal inside, and on top of the pedestal was a seed that looked just like a corn kernel. Beneath the counter were a series of 4 closed lock boxes evenly spaced. Looking directly right after entering the door, Isaac saw a neatly wrapped present on the counter against the wall separating this room from the previous room. By the way, this room, like the rest, was made entirely of plate metal, and it was only lit by the flashing lights and dim screens on the walls.

Harry stood there with his mouth gaping widely, completely unresponsive to Isaac's words. This turn of events only served to bring up more questions, what kind of creatures lived here? What the hell was in the green liquid? Harry took small steps backwards, his eyes glued to the plant as it searched for him. He was starting to think that maybe he should have listened to Ronnie when he had the chance. The plant appeared menacing, but maybe he could do something with the Green Thumb Ring? Harry slowly walked in the plants direction and pointed the Green Thumb Ring at it, hoping that it would calm down.

The leaf on the Green Thumb Ring started to glow with a dim green light, and Harry could feel the ring getting colder. As it glowed, the plant slowly turned to look at him and visibly relaxed. It sat(? It's hard to tell with the tendril-like roots for feet) down with a thump, slightly swaying as if to some unheard music. Behind the plant, Harry could see that Ronnie had struck a one-legged pose, bent over with his arms over his head, unmoving and noiseless except for his occasional trembles and wimpers. From above, Harry heard his grandfather cry down, "I say, are you quite okay, Harry? What's going on down there?" He apparently couldn't see the gigantic plant now swaying on the ground.

After a couple minutes of stunned silence from the humans and swaying from the plant, the plant suddenly shrunk back down to its tiny, mossy shrub of a self that it had been inside of the terrarium just as quickly as it had grown. The little plant lay on the ground unmoving. Ronnie slowly peeked out from behind his arms to see that he was cowering for nothing. Embarrassed, he walked over to Harry, still sure to avoid the previously threatening plant. "What in the world wuz thayut? Did you do sumthin' ter it, or did it jus' grow awl on its own?" Ronnie was still trembling. He looked down and saw the jug of green liquid still in his hand and his other, outstretched hand with the ring on it. "And what's all this? Did you do sumthin' ter that plant? Is that—is that a Green Thumb Ring??" Ronnie's voice raised in pitch with each question.

"Calm yourself, Ronnie! We've managed to escape that complication unscathed!" Harry paused for a moment, fully registering what he had just said. "Er, I mean...calm down!" That damn old man was rubbing off on him! He coughed loudly to clear his throat and started speaking again. "By the looks of things, I guess this green stuff is supposed to help plants turn into...whatever that was. But I never thought I'd find Green Thumb Ring here of all places." Harry was visibly starting to calm down, he had been embarrassingly panicky for a bit. Harry pocketed the green jug of liquid, he was still curious to find out what it was. It'd be best to leave before he gave Ronnie a heart attack. But there was one thing that he wanted to try. While he generally didn't use his skills in front of others, it was possible that he wouldn't get another chance like this. He slowly walked to another terrarium containing a plant. He used his telepathy to try and communicate with the plant. Judging by how the other plant reacted, these things seemed to have minds of their own!

As he used his telepathy, he felt a small surge of excitement, like a refreshing rush of cold through his mind...

• Sophistication +1 → 1
• Wits +1 → 4

^{Be sure to update your stats on your character page.} Harry heard a high-pitched, crystalline voice dance through his mind: "What's that? Hello! You can hear me? Hello!" The voice sounded sweet and innocent, happy and curious, but it didn't seem to have much else to say. Just as you might expect from a plant that size, it was young, babyish, and not really aware of its situation. "Well if you say so..." Ronnie tried to calm down, but Harry could still feel that he was a bit tense. "Come on, let's get out of here and explore the rest of this ship so we can get the heck outta this place!" He was already halfway up the ladder as he finished saying this. Ronnie got the rest of the way up and Harry could hear his grandfather admonishing him with phrases like, "Hop to, old bean!" and "Tut tut, it's not so bad!" and then calling down to Harry, "Let's get going then, I say! The young Isaac has gone ahead!"

Isaac looked around the room, having no clue what to do. Wires hung from the ceiling and there were glowing lights everywhere. Hmmm… Isaac thought. He didn’t know what to really do. He walked over to the control panel. There was a switch, a red binder and a curious object. The object appeared to be a vacuum sealed container, which sat next to the red binder. What was even more curious was the fact that the binder had apparently stayed right where it was. Isaac paced warily around the room, stepping over the wires. At last, he arrived at the cluttered desk. He was cautious of the switch, as he didn’t know what it would do if he activated it. Probably for the best, he decided not to press it. For now. Instead, Isaac studied the page that the red binder was currently on, hoping to see something that would reveal some answers.

The open page in the red binder read:

^{NextStep Program Manual}

Audio Reaction

Once prepared, you will need to apply the auditory Awakening Signature in order to encourage state permanence. Note the Awakening Signature below: ^{Figure 524 – Awakening Signature} Make absolutely certain that you have performed the preparation steps properly or else the Awakening Signature will not apply the proper state permanence in the test subject. Also be absolutely certain that the Awakening Signature is played exactly as written above. At least 3 years of musical training and music technology experience is required to initialize the Audio Reaction sequence. Seriously, don't get this tune wrong or else something bad will probably happen. Probably. _{We haven't tested doing it wrong before, but we don't want to mess with nature, OK? Well, I mean, not that much... Alright?} It is of utmost importance that you keep a safe distance, as the new sentience will likely be confused. If you fear that your test subject is acting unusually violent, then it may be necessary to perform the Reversal Reaction (see page 994) in order to reverse your experiment's effects. The Reversal Reaction is known to not be 100% effective, but it is always best to try to reverse your failure before you destroy thousands of dollars in resources. The way Kevin did. Geez, Kevin. For notes about Kevin's infamous billion-dollar screw-up, see Appendix G on page 2134. — Page 699

© Nu-Evo Inc.

Isaac had no idea what the page meant. There was no context for him to understand from. What he did understand was that it was some kind of musical score, and the score did... something. And if he didn't do it right, it'd be reeeaally bad. Wondering what he should do, he turned around and saw a neatly wrapped present by the door, where he hadn't seen one before. Isaac pocketed the vacuum sealed container and decided to go for the present and analyse the book later. Treading carefully over the wires again, he arrived back near the doorway. Isaac looked back and saw that there were 4 boxes under the counter. Might want to check those later. Isaac noted. Isaac opened the box, curious as to what was inside.