Looked like those guys really had been ‘playing’ gangster. Street performance crime? Realy. This was a madhouse of a city, though hopefully throwing the best party would mean sticking to the topside.

The hacker bees sent Toony a link to the ISF Planetary & Culinary Guide page on the planet.

“Can you get that weird canister out of the slime Vanessa? It’s probably messing him up”

One of the bees had already ended up waist deep in the oozes body trying to extract the forum object and was currently bumbling around on the ground pointing at unseen things and giggling at the pretty colours. For The Mind it was like getting pins and needles, as the drug messed with the bees swarm connection and anything that came through was an amusing mess.

The Mind had their metaphorical hands full with trying to stop the hacker bees going on a wiki walk, stop them all from getting high on the slime and preventing them from wandering off into the many dangers of the congested street.

Vanessa gave a nod to The Mind's request and said. "Sure. Just a moment." For a few seconds, Vanessa vanished. She returned later, having stored her rifle on the Quest for Flavor so it wouldn't be left upon the ground. Vanessa had seen some of The Bees acting strangely after interacting with the surface of The Slime and figured it's makeup might have been something less than pleasant to touch.

Even with her gloves already on, Vanessa wanted something a little more practical for this type of thing. Toony would probably be able to provide easily. Walking over to Toony, Vanessa held up her arms and said. "Toony, if you would kindly make me a pair of surgical elbow gloves, I would greatly appreciate it." With that said, Vanessa now had to wait for Toony to respond. Hopefully she didn't take long, as The Slime was probably not very comfortable with the canister stuck inside of it. Vanessa hadn't interacted with many slimes before, as they weren't popular on Dämmerlicht. Not that they weren't welcome, but most slimes didn't want to stay for long on a planet where half the population regularly drank from other people. It was a lot more civilized than that, but the fact that it could happen unnerved the more liquid based species and prompted them to stay clear.

With some of The Bees acting strange after coming into contact with The Slime Vanessa assumed that The Slime was probably not a good idea to touch directly, which is why she had asked Toony for gloves. This was secretly twofold as Vanessa didn't want to get her suit dirty since slime was hard to get out, and she didn't want to be afflicted with whatever The Bees had contracted from The slime. Vanessa could see that The Bees were acting rather dizzy and strange, like they were either drunk or under the affects of a hallucinogen. With her status as a Vampire, Vanessa didn't want to try anything that might make her a risk for the other crewmembers. She didn't need to go around trying to bite people or, even worse, possibly even infect someone with vampirisim. Though there wasn't anyone who was a candidate for transformation into a true vampire, the mutations and possible death from the disease were much more concerning.

This was why Vanessa was taking all the precautions she could, as one slip up could pose a distinct hazard for the others.

Getting some data from the Bees and their access of a local network, Toony was a bit taken aback. "Street performance crime? Thats... strange." she said, glancing at the guy she had in a cage on her back. It was a good thing then that they weren't an actual threat! Sentry mode might've really messed up the place pretty badly. Still if this planet was all about performances, then having taken one of the thugs as a vigilante was also part of the performance. "Either way, I'm still holding onto you til this act finishes." she continued, giving Mr. Snek a wink.

Then came one of Vanessa's first fabrication requests! Gloves! And with a new captive audience for Toony to demonstrate what she could do! "Wow Mr. Snek, your lucky! If you had been an actual threat, this might've been you!" Toony said with a strange gleam in one of her eyes as she rummaged around the ground for a bit, sucking in matter into her arm. After a few gloshing sounds later, she spat out a pair of fancy long sleeved surgical gloves and threw them at Vanessa, going that extra mile and giving it some neat Gothic designs and aesthetics that didn't compromise their usability.

"There ya go missie! Now that the Bees got me a neat network link, I'm going to be having fun browsing the local internet stuffs. Oooh, neat lecture on... nevermind, I know carbon can already do that... Oh, Cute kitty!" Toony said, continuing to ramble to herself as she went through the data on the local network, walking around a bit while doing so. Being held by what was clearly a really strange and maybe insane robot couldn't have been too fun for Mr. Maracun.

Vanessa caught the gloves that Toony tossed with ease and gave Toony a smile and a nod. She pulled them on tightly and stepped lightly over to the incapacitated slime. Kneeling down next to it, Vanessa gave a close-lipped smile and said. "Good evening. I'm going to be taking care of you as best I can. You have a container inside of you that appears to be leaking a black fluid, if it is supposed to be inside of you, please give me any sort of notification now."

Vanessa would wait for approximately thirty seconds. If no specific signal was given, she would continue with her medical chattering. "Okay. I'm going to attempt to remove this container. It will probably hurt. If you don't wish for me to attempt to remove the container, please give me a signal now." Vanessa would wait thirty more seconds, before moving her hand into position near the container. Just before she took out the container, Vanessa said. "Okay. I'm going to remove this container now, it will probably hurt."

Moving herself out of the way, Vanessa began to coax the container towards one of the more shallow parts of the slime in order to minimize leaking. With the container as close to an edge as she could get it, Vanessa gently reached into the slime and pulled it free. To be safe, Vanessa angled the container in a way that, should it rupture or spray fluid everywhere, nobody would be hit. Thankfully the gloves Toony gave her were quite durable and resisted damage from the container and the slime quite well. With the container now free of The Slime, Vanessa tossed it to one side and away from everyone while backing away from the slime. Pulling off her gloves with haste, Vanessa tossed them over next to the container as well. Vanessa then waved for everyone to back away from the container, as it may yet have had some kind of detonation in store. Vanessa put a few extra paces away, as her status as a vampire led her to be extra cautious when dealing with anything that might provoke an altered state of mind.

Vanessa hated quarantine bays, and was going to do her best to avoid them as best she could.

The container didn't spray toxic chemicals, nor did it even have the courtesy to making a beeping noise, but instead just slowly dribbled out a puddle of thick, inky liquid on the ground where it lay. It looked like the canister was once a sleek, silvery, high-tech looking thing, but a period of exposure to whatever it was that made up the body of the slime had quickly eaten away at a strip of it. The slime-based creature, Hip, began to move in a way that looked less like it was slowly melting into something you'd scrape off the bottom of your shoe and more like, well, something alive.

Arm like protuberances sprouted from it's sides.

Little holes began to open and close about the surface of it, bringing in what passes for Ofromian 'fresh air' into it's system.

"Can't believe they had the moxy to gank me," bubbled Hip Kallo, his voice like a clogged drain, "where's the love, I ask ya? Aw, shoot, where's my manners got to? Relying on the kindness of strangers and I don't even thank 'em properly, Hip, the colony didn't raise you to be like that, no sir. You've got my thanks, strangers."

---

The right hand pipe twisted and turned through the underground. Dimly lit by the screen of the cleaner-bot and the little GloBrellas, an amateur tunnel enthusiast could probably pick out all sorts of fascinating details; the age of the construction given the freshness of the paint, the unique ecosystem that had come to exist in this unnatural environment and the arcane meaning of the things scratched into the walls at various intervals. It was unfortunate that no 'Tunnelheads' (as tunnel enthusiasts are known to call themselves, which doesn't improve their odds of being invited to parties) were present to enjoy such a sight, but with the water nipping at the heels of Fiddlesticks, perhaps it was really something of a blessing.

Towards the end of the right-hand pipe, it turned sharply upwards. Water dripped down from the tunnel above them, and a set of decoratively rusted metal loops were set into the pipe. They were conveniently placed, letting any visiting Tunnelhead get in and out of this secondary pipe with ease, although there were some trade-offs to be had for such a convenience. The risk of tetanus, for instance. Above them, the main tunnel beckoned - a huge, concrete tube set into the ground that runs left and right. The Team B bees were already waiting, and just behind Fiddlesticks, the two other teams were making a bee-line towards him, ready to take on their next scouting mission.

The Mind and the Bees both watched as Vanessa very sensibly got Toony to make her some gloves and then pulled out the canister. The slime guy seemed mostly unharmed once the obstruction was removed as he flailed back to life.

”take us to you leader!“

… there was a sound of a being without a neck clearing it’s throat

“You're most welcome mr Kallo. Are you an associate of one Zane Heron? We are the interplanetary space friends”

There was much pointing to the floating banner by the bees.

“and I believe you were sent to bring us to him so we could help him organize a party?”

Hopefully they could now find out what exactly this party involved, hopefully they were not expected to perform any street crime and were just helping with decorations, but The Mind had a sinking suspicion they were going to be playing the heroic rescuers in some complicated and dangerous performance.

Vanessa watched as Hip pulled himself back together and returned to being a fully functioning sentient creature rather than just a puddle of goo. It was nice to see that everything had gone well, if not according to plan. Vanessa opened a global crew line for a moment to say. "I'll be back in a moment, I'm going to get dressed again." before she vanished back onto the ship. Vanessa switched to her party dress once again and, after making sure everything was back in place and that she had the proper curves to make the cress flow properly, Vanessa reappeared where she had been once more dressed for the party.

Vanessa looked about at the enduring lack of Fiddlesticks and gave a sigh. Hopefully he would turn up sooner rather than later, since losing crew members wasn't a pleasant pastime. Vanessa would hate to have a newly formed crew losing members already since they had just barely gotten to know one another. But she also figured that it would somehow turn out alright, as it usually did.

At least, she hoped it did.

With nothing more to do, Vanessa merely stood around waiting for things to move forward.

Toony wasn't paying all that much attention to what the others were doing. Besides Vanessa doing another wardrobe change and Will being the voice of diplomacy, Toony wasn't too aware of what was going on. Instead she was having a good time watching a cartoon about a drunk robot and his human companions going on wacky smart adventures. This lack of attention coupled with her walking randomly lead to her tripping over the container that Vanessa had pulled out of the slime guy. Splashing when landing in the puddle of goop that had leaked out of the container.

This got her attention, and Toony began to analyze it, putting her show on pause. After finding it was made out of rarer elements than she was used to, including whatever was in the leaking goop, Toony decided to eat the container, sucking up the goop as if she was slurping a slushie. Since she wasn't organic, the compound didn't do anything to her. But having a bit of Zirconium and other rare elements was kinda nice.

"Alrighty then. You know the drill!" chirped Fiddlesticks.

The bees looked at each other in a perplexed manner. Exchanging glances and shrugging shoulders. A few of them decided to draw straws. The one with the shortest straw let out an exasperated sigh.

"Excuse me oh strange and pointy eared one." one of the bees asked.

"What's the problem little bee buddy? Little buzz buzz? That's what I'm gonna call you now, little buzz buzz." stated Fiddlesticks.

"Yeah ok uh." said the bee. A brief but awkward silence passed before he spoke further.

"There are only two paths. Which teams do you want to send out on scouting missions this time around?" the bee asked.

Fiddelsticks noticed that the water level had risen even higher than before, and at a much faster rate than expected.

"Ya know what little buzz buzz?" asked Fiddlesticks.

"Uhh no?" answered the perplexed bee.

"I reckon we don't have much time to wait around. Let's just go left." he stated.

"Is that fine with you little buzz buzz?" Fiddlesticks asked.

"Yeah, sure." said the little bee dispiritedly.

His confidence in the strange pointy eared one was even lower now than it was before. He flew back to the rest of his team and called a huddle. They whispered quickly and hurriedly about ditching Fiddlesticks and the cleaner bot. Ultimately though, they decided to stick around, for now. All this was done out of earshot of Fiddlesticks though. For he would've cried and sulked about it if he were to overhear their disheartening conversation.

"Is that alright with you little cleaner bot?" Fiddlesticks asked the talking vacuum cleaner.