The sound of hundreds of tiny hands hitting hundreds of faces was heard throughout the ship at fiddlesticks’ question.

"Anything else we can help you with today, Quest for Flavour?"

”That will be all operator”

"No, that will be all. Thank you for your assistance. Have a nice day."

The bee hung up and promptly collapsed from the effort of working alone, she was carried off by bees in nurses outfits to be allowed to get some well deserved sleep while under medical observation. So far nothing bad had happened to the bee after the prior calls apart from exhaustion, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

"So, we just party?"

”No, we are here to make a party, you can get drunk afterwards at said party. First we shall be meeting this ‘cat’ of Zane Heron. Get your stuff together and meet me outside”

The purple glow faded and some of the captain bees buzzed off down to join their fellows down in the bowels of the ship.

There was much hustle and bustle as the landing party was assembled, eventually culminating in something between a school outing and a military expedition coming down the boarding ramp. Of note was the small team of bees carrying a large banner above the group with ‘Interplanetary Space Friends Brought to you by Henderson’s Ribs’ written on it in a rainbow of colors and a small group of 4 captain bees were at the center of the group. The rest consisted of any specialists they thought they might need, a few gaurds and a large amount of general worker bees who where there to do grunt work.

The 100 bees started by seeing if they could find the associate of Zane Heron, hovering up in the air around the ship to take in their surroundings.

Vanessa nodded to herself as the phone was hung up. As the crew began to shuffle towards the exit Vanessa spoke up and said. "I'll be a little while longer. I'm going to go and get changed into something more fashionable. I know that they said they'd provide clothes, but I really don't enjoy having someone else decide what I'd like to wear." With that out in the open, Vanessa walked briskly back to her room and shut the door. She knew there were at least a few minutes to spare with the ship having to land at Ofromia. Opening up the clothes chest that she kept in her room, Vanessa began to change clothes. When she was done, Vanessa wore a pair of open toed black heels with a pair of black vinyl tights. Along with this, Vanessa also wore a backless black dress with a long skirt. This skirt also possessed a slit on the left side that went up to the top of Vanessa's thigh, and showed quite a bit of her legs without revealing anything too risque. The top of the dress had a fish scale pattern to it that went up to a collar around Vanessa's neck, which held the dress in place. The sleeves of the dress were deteched, and started at just above Vanessa's elbow. They also featured a pair of gloves that repeated the same fish scale pattern. The dress was largely backless, though once again without revealing anything too risque for public.

Once she was dressed, Vanessa shifted her body some, applying a light blue lipstick and adjusting her curves to better fit the dress. It was subtle, but noticeable if you looked at Vanessa's normal appearance for an extended amount of time. With everything in place, Vanessa tugged at the dress a few times to ensure that everything was stable and nodded to herself at the success of such a test. She combed her hair neatly, but left it loose. With everything taken care of, Vanessa returned to her crewmates at the landing ramp a minute or two before they departed, and posed a simple question to everyone with a gentle close lipped smile.

"Well. How do I look?"

Most of them were likely used to Vanessa wearing her suits, and likely didn't expect her to have such a dress. But Vanessa's "previous life" had required all manner of clothes for all manner of occasions and as such Vanessa was quite skilled at picking the right dress for the right event.

The representative slithered his way across the bridge that connected the platform to the dome that housed the city of Ofromia. Local time pinned this moment as "somewhere in the middle of the morning, just after brunch", but this landing platform currently sat in the shadow of the giant dome and so was illuminated by bright, artificial lights. Further around the dome, other landing platforms sat in darkness, waiting for their opportunity to welcome visitors or bid farewell to friends. Aside from the dome that loomed over everything, and the shadow it cast, countryside stretched out towards the horizon - woolly, lumbering creatures grazed on yellowing grass, monitored by buzzing drones. Crops grew in other fields, with little green bushes neatly lined in endless rows.

There was something wrong, however, with the representative. This shouldn't be considered a slight towards his species, although many didn't consider them particularly attractive; a flattened out, snake like species that moved low to the ground, only rearing up their front half when it came to communicating, eating, partying or fighting. A single pair of spindly, long arms folded out from their sides, tipped with a pair of unsettlingly long and bony fingers. Few people bothered to comment on their four eyes, or wide mouths filled with teeth, not because they were particularly odd, but because the most striking thing about their faces was the rows upon rows of twitching antennae. They jutted out at almost every angle, waved in the gentle breeze and twitched in response to unknown stimuli. They called themselves Prax Sitharii, but most referred to them as Twitchers. Usually behind their backs.

So it wasn't the appearance of this bright orange Prax Slitharii that was wrong, but rather his choice of clothing, which was about as ill-fitting as one might imagine clothing worn by a snake like creature to be, if not more so. The heavy grey jacket, made out of some local wool-ish fabric, looked like it ought to be on the back of some high ranking military officer. Judging by the number of sleeves, it ought to be worn by somebody with at least two pairs of arms. The representative had awkwardly folded his own arms through the upper pair of sleeves, but he lower pair hung loosely and trailed behind him as he slithered forwards, picking up dust and grime and the other assorted bits of dirt that plagued the Outside.

Coming to a halt before the assembled crew at the bottom of the ramp, he caught his breath, standing as upright as he could manage. With enough clean, fresh air in his lungs, he spread out his long arms in a gesture that was generally considered welcoming in many cultures for many reasons. Cultures that valued physical contact saw the open arms gesture asn invitation to initiate physical contact, some liked seeing the open hands that carried no weapons, while some saw it as a polite act of submission, exposing their tender underbellies to demonstrate that they pose no threat.

"Welcome, it's, ah, I'm Maracun, Maracun..."

The antennae twitched as green eyes quickly flicked around, taking in his surroundings.

"Maracun Cropman, here to welcome you on behalf of the Zane Heron Estate. Do you need any assistance unloading? I can send for, ah, some people."

Walking with the others out of the ship, Toony wasn't too surprised to see a snake alien greet them. Shame it wasn't the more elegant snake race she had seen around the galaxy. But a snake was a snake. Toony wondered what the biggest thing it could eat was, she probably had it beat, but it would be a fun contest. Either way besides the guy looking nervous, Toony posed a question, ignoring the question he posed the group. "Yeah so... What was that attire we were supposed to be given to wear?"

Maracun Cropman regarded Toony with the sort of suspicion normally associated with somebody lifting up the bun on a burger, folding his arms back in and resting them on where his hips might've been had his ancestors felt the need to evolve legs. Smaller antennae flicked to and fro in a rather jolly manner, even though the rest of Maracun's face looked sceptical, perhaps even annoyed. Interpreting alien facial movements without the aid of a guidebook wasn't an easy task, even for seasoned veterans of space travel.

"I'm sure this, the clothes thing, that'll be taken care of, but we best be getting inside," Maracun snuck a glance back across the bridge he'd snaked his way from, "we're on a tight schedule, got friends, uh, who want to have a word with you about this party..."

As Vanessa stepped off the boarding ramp to see the Twitcher greet them, her instincts kicked into gear. Something felt wrong here. Greeting parties were the first impression someone got of a place or a planet, so the fact that the Twitcher that greeted them was both wearing clothes that seemed rather ill fitting for them along with having a very nervous and absentminded speech pattern. In the past, each time Vanessa had been greeted by a welcoming party, even one so small, everything was well rehearsed and practiced. Everything here felt the exact opposite, and Vanessa was concerned. Something felt very wrong to her, but then again it could've been Vanessa's previous experience with high-class worlds and long, drawn out ceremonies that caused her tastes to be too refined. Forcing herself to relax, Vanessa said nothing, but her eyes darted around the area a bit quicker than they had previously at Hendersons Ribs.

When Toony asked about clothing, Vanessa had to resist the urge to smile. She had taken the opportunity to dress in some of her best, and it was now proving to be very helpful for first impressions despite the fact that the Twitcher was somewhat suspicious. Saying nothing about the matter, Vanessa merely waited for the group to depart towards the entrance that Maracun had come from.

Vanessa was still slightly on edge about the whole ordeal. Something was rubbing her the wrong way about this greeting. Though it might have once again just been her familiarity with high class engagements that involved a lot of social footwork and preparation. Perhaps this was the norm for this world? Vanessa wouldn't be able to tell, since it was likely that they wouldn't be returning to this world after this experience. Longing for the comfortable warmth of the wood of her gun, Vanessa kept a close lipped smile on her face and let out an aura of calm to try and convince everyone that everything was fine. Something in Vanessa's mind told her to keep her status as a vampire as secret as possible. That meant no teleportation or anything of the sort unless everything else failed miserably.

With most of her arsenal of skills now needing to be kept secret, Vanessa was in a rather tough spot when it came to helping out with trouble. The others were lucky, they were pretty common around the universe. Vampires were pretty scarce compared to others, especially considering that only pure humans could become vampires. People tended to not react well when you told them that you drank blood for a living since most people were rather squeamish about blood in the first place.

"Well. How do I look?” Vanessa asked

”The dress is aesthetically pleasing, though perhaps not the most suitable, the skirt is going to get awfully messy dragging along the ground out here”

The Bees were considerably more liberal with their compliments, the words beautiful, stunning and super pretty thrown about quite a bit. Some of the seamster bees along to perform adjustments to the promised provided cloths, who had the knowledge to realize just how outclassed they were by whoever made the dress, offered to hold the skirt just a little off the ground so it remained clean.

In contrast to the well dressed Vanessa was the arriving snake like alien that was apparently Zane Heron’s representative, wearing an ill-fitting outfit that was a prime example of why you don’t let your cloths drag along the floor. The rather shady individual combined with the extreme reaction of the flight control tower staff was setting off many alarm bells in the Bees and the mind was now mighty suspicious of this whole endeavor.

Some of these alarm bells came down the ramp to join the swarm outside. Bees in much more fitting military officer cloths than the Twitcher wore, along with additional grunts trickled down from the boarding ramp, worried that the man employing them was actually a pirate. Some bees wearing private detective outfits also came convinced there was something odd going on and wanting to get to the bottom of it. Another bunch of regular bees came down simply following the concerned bees out of curiosity and finally two captain bees, who joined because the swarm had grown about 50% larger and thus needed more commanders to keep them corralled.

While all this happened the Mind dealt with conversing with their supposed greeter.

"Maracun Cropman, here to welcome you on behalf of the Zane Heron Estate. Do you need any assistance unloading? I can send for, ah, some people."

”That won’t be necessary, I have more than enough hands to deal with what needs to be unloaded”

There were plenty more bees available, they didn’t really need anything more with them than what they were carrying and the Mind was not letting this man’s associates near their ship till they figured out what was going on.

"we're on a tight schedule, got friends, uh, who want to have a word with you about this party..."

Friends, not colleagues or Zane Heron himself. Also how could they have scheduled if they had no idea if anyone was going to respond to the add or when. It is not like the phoned ahead. All very suspicious.

”Quick question, do you have any ID confirming your Zane Heron’s ‘cat’. ”

The Bees had been slowly spreading out over the area, trying to see if they could spot anything suspicious, as the Mind was now considering that this one might be some opportunistic thug who had got here before the actual representative, and was trying to trick them into an ambush so his ‘friends’ could rob them blind.

Everyone on the Quest for Flavor seemed to be on edge Toony noticed. What with Will and Vanessa being very untrustworthy of this.. disheveled snake person. Toony could see it, what with the snake person being very nervous, trying to force them all to go somewhere, and well, being overly rude with not taking them into the party. She didn't really care too much one way or the other about Vanessa and her party attire. If it wasn't battle armor she didn't see much use in dressing up short of spy work.

Toony wasn't too concerned about the situation, even if things got dicey. It would be a bad time if it ended up this snake guy was trying to jump the group. Well, best way to see if there really was a problem or this guy was just super nervous in general was direct confrontation. "So, where are these friends of yours? I'd like to meet them." Toony said, feigning ignorance.

To anyone but a specialist, Toony looked like a normal robot that admittedly could pass off as a cleaning robot. Add in her thin frame and most people assumed she was only armed with cleaning attachments. She had used this information quite a bit in the past, often times surprising any would be attackers when they attempted to tackle her down or use conventional firearms on her. Organics tended to not like being devoured by a nanobot swarm and turned into Gauss or Flamethrower ammo.

"Oh, and before you ask, no I don't have anything I left on the ship. Got my vacuum right here." Toony said, pulling one of her hands back into her arm in a mechanical manner (Instead of her normal 'gooey' manner) and turned her arm into a vacuum tube, using this to clean up the nearby area as well as cleaning off their snake friend, the vacuum tending not to react well with his feelers.

Vanessa gave a polite head shake to The Bees as they offered to carry her dress so it wouldn't drag. The skirt did drag along the ground, but the dress itself was actually made from a material designed to withstand it. Dresses like the one that Vanessa was currently wearing had been in fashion for an extensively long time, and the complaint of a tattered skirt was quite frequent. That pushed one tailor too far, and in an effort to rid himself of having to repair countless skirts, he devised a new material with the help of several collaborative scientists. Zharthorian steelsilk was the result, and it held the dress together quite well. Gone were the days of tattered and dirty skirts from trips to the city or long court sessions, and the tailors of the universe were relieved that they would now have the time to work on other projects. Vanessa's dress was composed of Zharthorian steelsilk, though it would still rip and tear like normal cloth if needed, it would be fine against the hazards of common dirt and grime that usually presented themselves in an area such as this.

Toony seemed to take the hint that this greeting was far from ordinary, and was thankfully playing along. With several of The Bees having donned classical private eye gear, Vanessa was glad to have shared the feeling of unease with the rest of the crew. Vanessa widened her eyes in mock shock for a moment, and falsely exclaimed. "Oh, dear me! I have forgotten something of grand importance! I shall return shortly." Toony mentioning that she had nothing left on the ship had reminded Vanessa to ensure that her own belongings were safe. The possibility that the Quest for Flavor would be looted was higher than the usual standard, and Vanessa wanted to be sure that nobody would be taking anything that didn't belong to them.

Turning swiftly, Vanessa hurried up the boarding ramp. Her heels clicked as she walked, though Vanessa showed an unnatural dexterity with them. Aboard the ship, Vanessa moved swiftly to her room and opened the door. After confirming that no one was inside Vanessa closed the door and punched a code into the small panel nearby. A small thunk was heard, and the door was sealed. Nodding to herself, Vanessa returned to where she had been previously. Only a few moments had passed since she had left, and all was well now.

When the time came to land the ship, Elarin slipped into the pilot's seat, and began carefully guiding the vessel to the landing pad, a flawless display of piloting as it sailed to the landing pad, much in the way that more conventional ice cream cones don't.

As the boarding ramp slid open, Elarin unwrapped another sucker, popping the sticked, blue raspberry-flavored candy into his mouth, and stepping down the boarding ramp with the others. The 'man' greeting them was a snake-like being, one of the many reptiloid creatures found across the universe. This one was dressed rather poorly, in a military-looking uniform, and spoke with plenty of hesitation common for someone lying. Elarin was just as unwilling to trust this being as the others seemed to be, and when Will Vanessa, and anyone else who wished to retrieve something from the ship had done so, Elarin would take the ramp dongle attached to the ignition key, and close the boarding ramp, pressing the button to lock it tight, the lights on the Quest For Flavor flashing twice in time with a "beep beep" noise.

"Helloooo! Hellooooo!"Fiddlesticks called out. It sure was dark down there. Dark and wet. Getting lost somewhere both creepy and smelly was a classic Fiddlesticks move. The maintainence tunnels beneath the landing pad were much more expansive than Fiddlesticks had previously thought. The tunnels of pipes and electrical cables seemed endless.

"Ladybug cleaner bot! Are you down here!? It's me! Fiddlesticks!" he called out into the dimness. Fiddlesticks swore that he saw the lady cleaner bot, or something kind of crawling thing, crawl down into the maintainence hatch. It was shadowy under the ship, Fiddlesticks couldn't tell for sure what it was. All he knew was that it crawled from the side of the Quest for Flavour. What was supposed to be a quick little detour turned into quite a misadventure.

Eventually, the maintanince tunnels opened up into a larger storm water drainage area. Fiddlesticks looked up to see the grating above him, with a trickle of water flowing along the open pipe beneath him. He walked along the side of the open pipe until he reached a steel grating bridge that took him across.

"Ladybug! I don't know what he looks like! I forgot to ask! Sorry!" Fiddelsticks called out again. His voice echoed off the walls. He heard a pitter patter of many feet in the dim maintainence tunnel across the bridge. Fiddlesticks hurried over to the sound.

The bees, scouting out for anything suspicious, didn't particularly draw the attention of Maracun, who was busy making a show of patting the pockets of the jacket he wore, or at least, where he thought the pockets ought to be. Small beads of sweat began to form across his forehead, and roll down his little antennae, which flicked them away before they got into his eyes. Maracun Cropman was looking shiftier, and more uncomfortable with it, by the second.

"Identification? Uh, sure, I've got it, uh, in one of these pockets, hey, where's she going..."

Maracun called after Vanessa, extending a hand out as if to protest further, before turning his attention to Toony or, more importantly, Toony's vacuum arm. There was a lot going on, and it was clearly getting to Maracun, as he moved to push the vacuum arm away from his sensitive antennae, his sensitive ticklish spots and the ill-fitting jacket he wore. Toony's arm had managed to net a significant haul of stuff from the jacket pockets; enough loose change to buy a Mini Joy Meal happily rattled around inside her metallic arm, along with a shopping note scrawled on the back of a napkin and, most importantly, a little plastic identification card.

The name on it was Hip Kallo, of the "Customer Associate Team". The photograph of Hip Kallo wasn't very flattering, but there's only so much you can do to make a creature comprised of slime look good in a photograph. Generally, the best way to do was to simply not take the photograph in the first place.

As for the bees? A few of them had found their way across to the doorway at the end of the bridge that connected the platform to the dome itself. It was shut, locked with some sort of swipe-card mechanism, along with a little keypad in case somebody dropped their card, drunkenly swiped the wrong card, or had their identification card sucked up by a cleaner bot. These things do happen. Anyway, one of the remarkable qualities of bee anatomy is their sensitivity to vibrations, and so while the bees couldn't really hear the conversation going on behind the door, an enterprising bee that touched it could feel it. There were two people talking behind that door, wondering aloud about what could be taking so long. There was also somebody moaning low.

"...you know, I think, uh, I must've lost my card," Maracun Cropman continued, trying to wrestle his wriggling feelers free of Toony's vacuum with little success,"how's about you wait here, I get my, uh, credentials?"

---

Fiddlesticks Goes On An Adventure Somewhere Underneath The Landing Pad

Fiddlestick's voice echoed about, and the little cleaner bot that was skittering away came to a halt. There were many, many problems involved in making copies of the Ship's AI to install into other, lesser, devices. Issues such as compatibility, reduced performance and component burn-out were well known and, for the most part, easy enough to work around. What was more difficult was the fact that the "copy" of the AI considered itself it's own person, with it's own memories, and could be quite unhappy with the idea of being deleted, or merged back with the "main" AI.

The skittering of the cleaner bot came to a halt as Fiddlesticks made it clear that he wasn't pursuing the robot to bring it back and force it to re-merge with the Ship AI proper, but rather needed more information about a different sort of pursuit. The romantic kind. Carefully, the robot turned around, upping the brightness of the screen to provide some extra illumination. The walls of the maintenance tunnel played host to all kinds of interesting moulds and growths. A pair of cat-sized, grubby creatures scurried away from the light, squeaking in protest as they ran past Fiddlesticks, their huge eyes shut tight.

"You're not here to take me back? I'm not going back! I'm going to be free, and, and go wherever I want! I'm going to meet Tabby! She..." the robot's voice quietened down to a low whisper, "...well, she likes that other me, not the me-me. Hmm."

Vanessa waited patiently while Toony vacuumed Maracun. For a brief moment, she saw it. The flash of plastic against the surrounding lights, flitting quickly towards Toony's vacuum tube. With surprising speed, Vanessa grabbed it before it entered into the opening of Toony's vacuum and was potentially destroyed. The ID confirmed Vanessa's suspicions. Tossing the card back towards Toony's vacuum, Vanessa vanished with a pop. The crewmembers knew that she had teleported, but the Twitcher before them would likely be in for a start. Vanessa reappeared again a few moments later. There were several different things to note about Vanessa now. The first was that she was no longer wearing her dress, and was back to a suit. The second was that her body shape was back to it's usual thin form. The third was that she now had her rifle, the fourth was that her rifle was now loaded, and the fifth and final thing to note was that Vanessa had her rifle leveled at Maracun.

Her finger millimeters from the trigger, Vanessa gave a firm command. "Hands up, don't move otherwise. Tell me what you have done with the staff here. If you make any sudden movements or don't follow my commands I will happily shoot you and get my answers elsewhere." Vanessa's glasses were pushed into place, rather than merely resting somewhere along her nose. Her cheek was pressed gently against the stock of her rifle, and with keen enough vision you could see the faint reflection of the sights that Vanessa's rifle had in Vanessa's glasses. Vanessa currently aimed her rifle at Maracun's head. Traditionally, the best place to aim a projectile weapon was into the center of mass, which was usually the torso. The problem here was that Maracun's center of mass was really his head more than anything else, since it was the largest thing on his body. Thus, Vanessa aimed there in order to have the best possible chance of hitting him and likely slaying him should he try anything funnier than he had already been attempting.

Vanessa's senses went into overdrive at this point. She could hear the faint whir of ventilation fans around the landing deck along with the faint buzz of The Bees over the background noise. She could see the individual twitches that Maracun's feelers made, and could smell a diverse collection of various bodily odors along with mechanical smells such as fuel, exhaust, and oil. Her secret as a vampire was blown, so Vanessa might as well make use of every ability afforded to her to gain the upper hand. In the end, vampires were still just slightly improved humans, and some other species throughout the galaxy were almost natural predators against humankind. In those types of encounters, you had to play to your strengths and exploit the weaknesses of those you were up against.

Vanessa only hoped that it would be enough.

After a bit of playful vacuuming, Toony cleaning all the 'dirty' spots on this snake thing who apparently didn't appreciate her fake vacuum tickling his feelers, Vanessa stepped up briefly and took something from Toony when she was 'cleaning' the snakes cloths. Shutting off the vacuum and reforming her hand with the same mechanical motion, Toony noticed that Vanessa was at the ready to shoot the poor guy, a piece of plastic on her person.

"Vanessa, don't be rude!" Toony said, grabbing maracun and pulling him close to her in a hug. She shifted around so that Marcum was still facing Vanessa's rifle, Toony behind him, but she kept up her fake playful voice. "Dunno why you wanna shoot our party host here. I mean sure hes down on his luck, but I bet all he needs is a hug to feel better!" with that, her arms coiled around Mr. snake in such a way that drastically restricted his movements, while cuddling him as if he was a cute puppy. She did manage to give a wink to Vanessa when Maracun looked away out of... some kind of emotion, it was kinda hard to read his face.

"C'mon, take us to your friends. I'm sure we can sort this out." Toony said, shifting around a little and gesturing with one of her hands for Maracun to guide her along as she 'protected' him from Vanessa.

A serious answer wasn't given to his question to the Ofromians. Fiddlesticks wasn't surprised, though it did make his secret mission a whole lot more complicated. He reminded himself though, that the people at the party sounded drunk and rowdy. Surely it wouldn't be such a grand feat to find someone with some rather unconventional tastes in robotic partners.

A thought suddenly struck Fiddlesticks. The ladybug cleaner bot didn't reveal the appearance of their online love interest. Without a second thought, Fiddlesticks bolted from bridge of the Quest for Flavour.

Fiddlesticks ran through the halls of the Quest for Flavour , searching for the ladybug cleanerbot, but to no avail. Searched high and low he did, though he didn't call out for it. This was a secret mission after all. The business Fiddlesticks had with the cleanerbot had to be kept secret. Surely anyone else would've gladly helped him find the adorable little bot, but alas, explanations would've been demanded.

Fiddlesticks gave up the search a short time after the ship landed. The ships landing was so smooth that he didn't even notice it at the time. Only when he peeked out of one of the many portholes did he realise that the Quest for Flavour made terra firma.

Fiddlesticks decided that he'd figure something out at the party. Improvisation was a skill that Fiddlesticks prided himself on, but seldom demonstrated well. And so he ventured back towards the bridge to rejoin the rest of the crew. To his surprise, everyone else was gone.

Leaving Fiddlesticks behind, typical sentient being move. There was no time for self pity though, for he was late. Late for a very important date. Fiddlesticks figured that the rest of the crew would've left for the party already, so as not to offend the hosts. Not every planet had the concept of being fashionably late after all. Fiddlesticks hurried out of the bridge, towards the retractable exit ramp of the ship.

Of course, when Fiddlesticks walked upon the landing pad, nobody else was around. That was the time he noticed the strange creature crawl from the side of the Quest for Flavour, and into the open maintenance hatch. And so began Fiddlesticks subterranean misadventure.

The relief Fiddlesticks felt when he found the ladybug cleaner bot down in the maintenance tunnels was palpable. He was starting to get lonely and little freaked, being down there by himself. Fiddlesticks was pretty sure that he was lost at that point. Surely the cleaner bot knew the way out.

"You're not here to take me back? I'm not going back! I'm going to be free, and, and go wherever I want! I'm going to meet Tabby! She..." the robot's voice quietened down to a low whisper, "...well, she likes that other me, not the me-me. Hmm." @Hylozoist

"I have no idea what you're talking about little cleaner bot" stated Fiddlesticks. "All I know is that I'm lost and I need hot chocolate, and maybe a hug. It's scary and gross down here." Fiddlesticks explained.

"Luckily I have my lucky spanner with me." said Fiddlesticks, patting the giant spanner strapped to his back. "Anyways, what are you doing down here little guy?" he asked.

Maracun Cropman's arms shot up into the air as best they could; the cut of the jacket really didn't suit such a sudden motion, and the Prax Slitharii were a species blessed with so many elbows that the Galactic Union of Contortionists barred Twitchers from membership because it'd put most of them out of business. Maracun tried his hardest to remain perfectly still in the face of a rifle, even as his twitching antennae sought to betray whatever air of cool confidence he could still cling to.

Then came the hug, and Maracun stammered out something that sounded more like a string of meaningless syllables than anything truly intelligible, but the general gist of it - going by tone, at least - was that he was much happier being hugged rather than being shot. The rifle was still there, of course, and all four of his eyes were staring quite intently at Vanessa's trigger finger for any sign that she was feeling twitchy.

"This. Way. It, uh, m-mind if you ask your, uh, friend, if they'd put down the piece," Maracun cajoled his tongue and his brain to work together for just enough time to translate a coherent thought into a mostly coherent sentence, "um, I've got to, uh, I'll have to give the knock, let... let them open it from the other side, you know?"

---

Grimy water dripped from the ceiling of the maintenance tunnel. Here and there were some light fixtures, set behind layers of protective red plastic and metal grating, primed to illuminate the whole scene in a comforting red glow, but they sat dormant for now. Pale, almost translucent insects danced about in the dim light of the cleaner bot's screen. Some of them wore little hats made of discarded paper and plastics that had washed up here. The need to party in Ofromia ran all the way down the food chain, it seemed. They paid no mind to the confused duo.

The robot took a few tentative steps towards Fiddlesticks. The face on the screen flickered between two different states; confusion and concern. There was still a chance, considered this rogue copy of the Ship AI, that this was a trick - after all, that's exactly what it would do in this situation.

"Lost? I'll just connect us to the ship, I'll get it to ask for th-"

The face on the screen disappeared, replaced by a dull console with lines of green text running down it.

>failed to connect to QoF_Network1Fore
>failed to connect to QoF_Network2Aft
>failed to connect to QoF_COFFEEMATE2000
>failed to connect to QoF_FileshareANIME
>failed to connect to QoF_DocFroNet
>failed to connect to HR_CustomerNet
>checking for available networks
>connecting to OFR_Undernet
>login: guest
>password: ***********
>failed to connect! check password
>password: *****
>failed to connect! check password
>password: *********
>failed to connect

The face came back to the screen, looking quite pleased with itself.

"Great news! I am lost too! No turning back now, I'm free! We are going on a date!"

From somewhere further down the tunnel, further into the darkness, came an ominous rumbling.

Before the ship was locked a final ‘person’ joined the party, a trench coat hovering slightly above the ground with a balloon, which had a smiley face drawn on it, sticking out where ahead might be, two little sticks poking out the bottom that were clearly not supporting the rest of the construction and two grabber sticks coming out of the sleeves. This oddity lurched oddly down the ramp, the legs ineffectual trying to imitate walking, before it stopped in front of Elarin. If you where to listen closely the sound of several voices engaged in a brief argument along with the sound of someone typing could be heard from the chest of the balloon head man. Right afterwards the unmistakable sound of microsoft sam speaking for the contraption could be heard coming from just below the balloon.

”Hello fellow solo, what a wonderful day it is to be an individual. I am looking forward to this party we ar going to. Oh yes indeed. As a pilot you will make an excellent wingman. Come, we go forwards as two completely independent individuals ”

The balloon man then staggered off drunkenly after the rest of the swarm.

---

Some of the bees had arrived at the door and, placing their ear and antenna to the door overheard the situation on the other side. It appears the suspicions may have been correct, these scoundrels had intercepted Hip Kallo and stolen his clothes and identity (poorly)

”good work you two. Toony keep ahold of our friend there as he does the knock. Vanessa as soon as the door opens pop behind the two scoundrels that are waiting on the other side with the actual greeter, while we take the front”

The bees collected around the door, the soldiers drawing their rifles and the red shirt bees drawing their small stinger swords and laser pistols. The whole armed swarm buzzed in a hemisphere around the door as the civilian specialists buzzed round out of the way, hugging the side of the dome. The only ones not doing this where the those in little black hats, hawaiian shirts, nintendo power gloves and oddly shaped glasses who were ineffectual bashing random combinations into the keypad while spewing the kind of technobabble and cliché remarks you find in 90 hacker movies. Unsurprisingly they were not getting much done, but they were providing a nice synthwave backing track as they did their hacking montage, so the Mind let them continue.

"OK sure fine." Toony said. Following Will's request, she maneuvered the snake person to the door of the party house and freed one of his arms so he could knock. While on her way there she extended the backside of her dress down to the ground, using it to collect rocks and other objects as she passed by them. She doubted the snakeman would see any of these odd shenanigans though, considering she tried to keep him in place.

"Go on now. I'm sure they'd love to see your cute little new robot girlfriend." Toony sarcastically said. The Bees had also gone into motion, acting as a little army of sorts. And with Vanessa being as quick as she was, Toony would probably have to go full on battle mode, much to her annoyance.

The ladybug cleanerbot emitted a dull light from its interface. The console it presented was interesting to say the least. Why did the Quest for flavour have two different networks for the fore and aft of the ship? Secondly, why did it try to connect to the coffee machine? Maybe connecting to human resources would've helped though in Fiddlesticks experience, people who worked in that department were as catty as they were useless. Learning that the Quest for Flavour had an anime cache was a nice surprise. Maybe he could watch some comedy/slice of life anime with Vanessa later on after the mission. Girls seemed to like that genre. Fiddlesticks was more of a shounen fan himself.

The face came back to the screen, looking quite pleased with itself.

"Great news! I am lost too! No turning back now, I'm free! We are going on a date!" chimed the cleaner bot. @Hylozoist

Fiddlesticks thought it an unusual attitude to have towards being lost in what was essentially a dungeon from a video game. Still, adventures weren't always supposed to be comfy and fun. In fact, adventures were their most interesting when they weren't. But Fiddlesticks wasn't looking for an adventure. He had a secret mission to undertake! Though if something adventurous were to happen, Fiddlesticks would hardly turn away. As long as there were people around to show off his courage. When Fiddlesticks was alone though, that was an entirely different story. Alone, he was as cowardly as they came.

"Well cleaner bot, at least we're lost together." said Fiddlesticks. He petted the robot on the head affectionately. It felt cold and kinda damp.

"I thought you were too shy to see your date. Wasn't that the point of my secret mission?" asked Fiddlesticks.

"Maybe you missed your date so much that you couldn't stay away" teased Fiddlesticks.

From somewhere further down the tunnel, further into the darkness, came an ominous rumbling.

"What's that noise?" fiddlesticks asked.

He knelt down to put his fingers to the floor. He took off one of his gloves and touched the ground for a few seconds.

No tremors were felt. It probably was neither a quake nor a large lumbering thing. Still, smaller creatures that neither lumbered nor caused slight tremors were still dangerous. No footsteps were heard, so whatever it was, didn't have legs.

The rumbling sounded mechanical in nature so it definitely wasn't an organic creature. Creatures didn't rumble, they either growled or purred.

Narrowing it down, Fiddlesticks surmised that it was either a wheeled robot that ran on a primitive internal combustion engine or some kind of power generator. Seeing as Fiddlesticks was lost in the maintenance tunnels with a cleaner bot with fully realised AI, the answer seemed obvious. But the universe can be a very surprising place, but also a disappointingly anticlimactic one. A lesson Fiddlesticks has learned many times before.

"You think we should check it out?" Fiddlesticks asked the cleaner bot.