Adventure Fourteen: You Were On My Mind


 * P0P1 finds a bag of holding. Reckless experimentation ensues.
 * While Vania is talking to Phlox, Phlox goes quiet and then starts speaking as “Maya,” who says that Phlox is schizophrenic. Phlox is the unstable but benign personality. There is another personality that Maya says they don’t talk about that is usually much more dangerous and more often present. The more Phlox is the personality in control, the less dangerous the “other” one is. Phlox is a super mutant who served “The Master” and was associated with the Nightkin.
 * P0P1, looking to be helpful, starts mopping the ship. When Serena plays her cello for the ship, P0P1 mops his way over to join her performance. Later, while helping van Reece in the kitchen P0P1 uses hijinks to amuse the other kitchen workers.
 * Earl and Strahd spend the voyage continuing to research Jack. The remnants of Jack’s nanotech have been incorporated into Earl’s and Alder’s own nanotech abilities. Since it and Alder’s nanotech are present in trace amounts in Earl’s nanohive, it has also spread amongst all members of the team.
 * Sticky Boy gifts Earl with modifications to his walking stick, but he reacts negatively when Earl tries to get him to communicate.
 * Earl researches The Master and Nightkin. The Master is known as the creator of super mutants, who believed that humanity would never stop warring because they had become too different from each other, and that the genetically homogeneous super mutant race was the only way to end war. The Nightkin were a group of physically and mentally enhanced super mutants used as The Master’s strike force.
 * Encouraged by Heike, Ruth experiments with her new powers, which leads to her Jackie personality taking over and inhabitants of the ship becoming fascinated with her and her abilities.
 * Alder introduces the Moreaus to the Sally’s Ride crew, and they become particularly friendly with the Seshayans, though the herbivore-based Moreaus are made nervous by the predatory features and movements of the Seshayans. The Moreaus engage a cultural exchange by performing a dramatization of their creation myth, an adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit in which animal people must become real through the love of human beings.
 * The scorpion of Scorps was killed a few years ago by a man named Kegan who climbed into the head through a hole in the exoskeleton and attacked its brain until it died. The scorpion’s meat is highly nutritious and shows no sign of decay, and seems to have reduced the rate of disease in the town. Anyone who eats more than their fair share is punished by their skin peeling off, which is purportedly controlled by Kegan.
 * Preceded by Stan’s recounting of the events at the Science Center, we enter Scorps in a victory parade. P0P1 creates and displays a giant portrait of Jack. Earl addresses the crowd to extoll the heroism of Jack and Stan.
 * A deathclaw bursts out of a building in the middle of the parade. It has the same “brain in a jar” treatment as Alley Cat, which seems to have given it the ability to cast mind-affecting spells. In the rubble of the building is a container for the deathclaw, indicating that it was caged inside and broke out somehow.