((Locked. I'll reopen OSV after I'm ready to post the really long in-game conversation we had on Skype, along with the in-between post that covers the time from Brian waking up to their arrival at Brazos Bend. It... should be up Monday at the latest... I hope. - Prince Bear))
EDIT: OSV is reopened. Below is the chat log from our Skyping session, edited to be easier to read. Due to my mass editing, there may be some minor glitches, but bear with me. (pun intended).
Post Merged: March 07, 2011, 01:12:58 AM
Brian revived fully within a few moments, only slightly sore. After only a few brief moments of rest, the band of renegades carried out Tarrade's plan. Sean, Kristen, Chad, Jo, and Tarry took to the skies. Olivia and Brian were able to get to his car without being noticed. Deciding to park a good distance away from the farm had been a good idea, and maybe the only good one of the day. They left quickly, and only by some miracle did they evade detection by the remaining Yeerks in the nearby area. While Olivia drove (she wasn't ready to brace herself for Brian's driving style after the day's events...) Brian dozed in the seat next to her. They weren't on the road long however. A short distance from their destination, they pulled off the road unnoticed behind the treeline beside the road and hide the car as best they could. Soon after, they meet up with the rest of the group, who had flown there ahead of Olivia and Brian, and the six humans (with Tarry in tow) hiked into a quiet, out-of-the-way spot in thick of the woods in Brazos Bend State Park.nThey'd found a clearing of sorts, with a thick covering of trees overhead, but with plenty of room to walk and move underneath. Kristen morphed into a dog, her Husky, to keep an eye (an an ear and a nose) on their surroundings......
Brian: ...now this ain't a bad campin' spot...
Olivia: I think that the Yeerks will be looking for campers
Sean: yes, yes, it's lovely.
Sean: now can we get to business, please?
Chad: Yes, my mom is so going to ground me.
Tarry: <We made contact with a Yeerk who helped us.>
Tarry: <He helped us free Josefina from Sub-Visser .>
Brian: Yeah, that guy who uh.. helped me, I guess.. in the barn.
Brian: he kept me from gettin' infested while I was in there.
Tarry: <What do you know about him?>
Brian: Erm... *describes Kildor* ... he was pretty gruff.
Josefina: Ultor was betrayed by him.
Brian: he kinda hinted at being against the Yeerks, or some of them, or something...
Kristen: <Yeerks.. against Yeerks?>
Tarry: <Josefina, you mentioned that you knew his hosts name. What is it?>
Josefina: Joseph Rightly.
Josefina: His Yeerk's name was Kildor.
Sean: So what did he want from you, Brian?
Olivia: How do you know this?
Josefina: Ultor let me see some of his thoughts.
Kristen: <That must have been really weird....>
Kristen: <having to share your mind with that.. thing.>
Tarry: <Focus.>
Sean: *clears throat*
Josefina: I don't really know how to describe it.
Sean: Brian? You were saying?
Brian: He... gah, it was so long ago now....
Brian: He said he needed us for something... like, he had a deal for us...
Tarry: <Did he say what he wanted?>
Olivia: No deals with Yeerks.
Brian: Oh, he was going to meet me later tonight to 'discuss it'...
Kristen: <that sounds bad....>
Tarry: <Did he arrange a time and place.>
Sean: I don't know about that....
Brian: Yeah, he did. Well, sorta.
Chad: How does he know where to find you...
Brian: He was gonna meet me out in front of my house um... sometime after dark?
Brian: that's all he said. About that, that is.
Chad: or that you were a morphed...
Tarry: <Does he know who everyone is?>
Olivia: Your house?!!!!!
Brian: He just said he knew.
Brian: About me, and Tarry, and a couple of the others too.
Tarry: <Who?>
Brian: I assume he meant Jo and Olivia, but....
Sean: Oh crud....
Brian: Sorry I didn't tell y'all sooner...
Brian: I was kinda.. preoccupied...
Josefina: I don't know if the Yeerks know about us all.
Sean: we'd sure better hope not.... *looks at Chad*
Tarry: <We have to assume that Kildor knows who you are.>
Josefina: Ultor didn't tell the Yeerks who we were.
Sean: I agree with both of you.
Tarry: <Who is Ultor?>
Sean: We must/i assume he knows about all of us.
Josefina: Ultor is the Sub-Visser that infested me.
Kristen: <What's a 'Sub-Visser' ...?>
Kristen: <Is that like a job title?>
Tarry: <So Kildor knows who we are, but the other Yeerks do not.>
Sean: at least we hope.
Josefina: It would appear so.
Tarry: <Sub-Visser is a high rank in the Yeerk military.>
Brian: Like a corporal or something?
Tarry: <Sub-Visser was killed. This will hurt the Yerkes operations for awhile. >
Chad: For how long?
Sean: And what does that mean for us?
Tarry: <The Yeerks do not encourage subordinates to take initiative. The Yeerks will not be pressing forward with operations until a new leader is assigned. It will slow the Yeerks down and give us time to prepare.>
Brian: Prepare for what? What's the plan?
Josefina: My family was high ranking. You don't think that one of my family's Yeerks are now in charge?
Tarry: <We will have to prepare to fight. Right now we need to make certain important information has been disseminated to everyone.>
Brian: But.. what about this Kildor guy?
Brian: What about what he had to say?
Josefina: Based on what Ultor thought of him I save we can trust him.
Tarry: <We will have to meet with him at the time and place he gave. I do not trust him, but he knows you and we cannot turn down a potential ally.>
Sean: You won't be going alone, though.
Brian: I was kinda hopin' not.
Tarry: <No, but we will plan that out later.>
Brian: he creeped me out a bit.
Brian: Y'know, other than the fact that it was an alien slug talkin' to me.
Olivia: I don't think any of us should be alone any more.
Tarry: <We need to go over what happened today and how we can improve. We will conduct an after action review.>
Sean: ... sounds good to me...
Sean: so first.. what the heck happened today, guys?
Chad: More time, tick tock.
Sean: I have yet to get a good explanation of all of this.
Sean: Chad! This is kinda important. I know you've got to go, but... I think this is a priority.
Tarry: <First, we will discuss what was supposed to happen. Sean, what was the plan?>
Chad: There might be a better time for this...
Tarry: <No, we will do this now.>
Kristen: <I'll need to go pretty soon too.>
Kristen: <I told my parents I'd be going to get a backpack....>
Kristen: <and... I actually will have to get one before I go home.>
Chad: *crosses arms*
Tarry: <We will stay as long as we need to. Your lives and the lives of your species depend on you.>
Tarry: <We will do this right and conduct ourselves as warriors.>
Sean: I know, guys, I know. This isn't an ideal situation. It's going to require some less-than-ideal actions.
Tarry: <Sean, what was the plan?>
Sean: ...
Sean: What was supposed to happen today?
Tarry: <Yes.>
Sean: Reconnaissance. That was it. Brian, Jo, and Olivia.. and you too, of course... were supposed to figure out what we could learn.
Sean: We knew this was a Yeerk operation. And we wanted to take advantage of our one real source of knowledge about them.
Sean: This 'search' is all we had to go with so far.
Tarry: <And how did you plan to accomplish this?>
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Sean: Well... Brian was supposed to play his part and take part in the search. Jo was... Jo was going to stay close to her family... Try to listen in if she could.
Sean: Olivia was supposed to keep an eye on everyone.
Tarry: <What were you supposed to be doing during this?>
Sean: I uh, I was taking Chad home. I figured that the four of y'all had it covered. It seemed safe. So I took him home.
Sean: *rubs forehead*
Tarry: <Ok, continue telling the plan.>
Sean: That was basically it, really. Afterwards, they were supposed to come back to my place.
Tarry: <Olivia, what actually happened. Start with our movement to the search site.>
Olivia: Jo asked about how close she could get without being spotted.
Kristen: *scratches ear*
Olivia: Then she called over her dog and told me to walk her.
Tarry: <No, start with the movement to the search site. How we moved, what we did once we arrived. How we split up and moved to our various locations. Ignore unimportant details.>
Olivia: We got into Brian's car and he drove us to the a location fairly close to the farm.
Olivia: And Brian, I'm never letting you drive again.
Brian: What?
Tarry: <Focus.>
Brian: I didn't ... yes, uh, sir....
by , Olivia: We got out, and Jo asked her question and called over the dog.
Olivia: She morphed the dog and I stayed back to "walk" the dog.
Olivia: *does air quotes*
Brian: Um... what happened with that dog anyways....?
Tarry: <Brian, let her finish.>
Brian: right, sorry...
by , Olivia: I tied the dog in a loose knot to a tree. She'll pull free soon.
Josefina: Poor Sam.
Olivia: I followed in squirrel morph.
Olivia: I caught up when Kildor was speaking to Brian but I didn't go in to the barn because I was a squirrel.
Olivia: Then Mr. Woodhouse had this cry fest and I noticed that Jo went over to him.
Olivia: After that Brian went in a van to the search site. I crawled underneath the van to travel there myself.
Olivia: And then when we got out to the site Brian was approached by a Controller that handed him a yeerk to infest that kid... What was his name?
Tarry: <What happened next?>
by , Brian: Oh, that was Shawn. He's some kid from school I sort of knew.
Olivia: I began to wonder if Brian was infested, but I saw him throw away the Yeerk and tell Shawn to run away.
Olivia: Brian morphed wolf. And then.. that's when Jo came around, I think.
Olivia: Only.. it wasn't really Jo. She'd been infested.
Olivia: the fact that she was infested explains some her behavior,
Olivia: she was rather fascinated seeing me demorph...
Olivia: and after she demorphed, she acquired a centipede.
Tarry: <Don't worry about details. Just tell us what happened.>
Olivia: I then told you, Tarry, about my suspicions.
Olivia: That's when the Yeerks showed up.
Olivia: There were three of them.
Sean: So wait a minute. There were... Jo came out to meet you in the woods? Er, the Yeerk did?
Olivia: Yes.
Olivia: Jo wandered off, and Kildor started to take out the other Yeerks.
Sean: He fought them?
Olivia: Yes he did.
Olivia: I grabbed one of their laser gun things and I let Kildor kill the other Controllers.
Kristen: *looks away*
Olivia: I knew one of them was a member of Jo's family... so I tried to save the host.....
Olivia: but the host was voluntary and loyal to the sub-visser.
Josefina: You did what?!?
Olivia: It wasn't me, it was Kildor.
Tarry: <Olivia is the only person with permission to speak!>
Olivia: The sub-visser had announced that he was in need of assistance, and Kildor went after Jo.
Olivia: There was one person left with me in the woods. Because Brian and you had gone off after Jo as well.
Olivia: ...He said he wasn't infested, and offered several deals, but I never trusted him.
Olivia: It wasn't until some time later when Brian returned and explained to me how to use the laser gun that I stunned him and Brian with.
Olivia: I then morphed elephant and put that man I was left with, Edward... I put him up in a tree.
Olivia: I then started to carry Brian in my trunk.
Olivia: And then y'all found me.
Tarry: <Continue.>
Olivia: *looks at Chad and Kristen*
Olivia: I was very suspicious that all of you might be Yeerks.
Olivia: Tarry assured me that none of you were infested, including Jo.
Olivia: We made our way away from the barn while waiting for Brian to wake up.
Olivia: When he did, the two of us split off and went to his car, then I/i drove us to a spot near the state park.
Tarry: <Brian, what did you see? Start with when you and Olivia Split up.>
Brian: Um....
Brian: from when we left the barn?
Brian: or.. when I was chasin' Jo?
Tarry: <Whenever you first split away from Olivia.>
Brian: Oh, okay. Starting then... erm...
Brian: I got into the van and we headed off to the woods. Once we got there, we got split up into little groups, and that Shawn kid was with me.
Brian: We started out with your basic search grid pattern, and we came across this old shed that... well, never mind that.
Brian: I got asked by someone in our group to infest Shawn. Apparently, they thought that Kildor had taken me to get Yeerked back at the barn.
Brian: I uh.. well, I told Shawn he was in danger, and I was trying to save him. They gave me a little baggie with a Yeerk in it... it was only about this big *hold up two fingers*... and I chucked it in the bushes.
Sean: You told him WHAT?
Brian: Don't worry, I didn't tell him anything important...
Brian: like who I was with or anything. What was I supposed to do?
Olivia: Define unimportant.
Tarry: <Just tell us what you told him.>
Brian: Um... I didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. Nothin' about any of the rest of y'all.
Brian: I told him that he needed to trust me, and that I didn't have time to explain it all to 'im. Then I told him to run, and to act like this never happened.
Brian: I .. told him he might be safe....
Tarry: <What happened next?>
Brian: Well, he ran. He's pretty fast, really. As soon as he was out of sight, I morphed into wolf and followed him a good distance, then I turned back to meet up with you and Olivia.
Brian: Jo was there when I got back, and I could hear people coming towards us.
Brian: everyone started morphin', and then some guy shot at me with a laser gun. That was ... yeah. That was really freaky. I guess it makes sense for the snail-eins to have laser blasters, but still...
Tarry: <Focus on what happened.>
Josefina: *laughs*
Brian: right, right.
Chad: *chuckle*
Brian: Well, then.. I tackled ... uh, the one guy and bit his hand so he'd stop shootin' at us. Then I took off chasin' after Jo. She was a moose now, by the way, but I kept up with her all the way back to the barn.
Brian: He was screamin' for help. Kildor had taken a car or something and ended up crashing into the barn. The car blew up I guess, and that started the fire.
Brian: See? It wasn't our fault....
Sean: *raises an eyebrow*
Josefina: I hope that farm's okay. Its the only thing dad knows how to do.
Tarry: <Brain, just tell us what happened.>
Tarry: <Brian's the only person who should be speaking right now.>
Brian: *sheepish look* I ended up getting hold of a gun that Kildor dropped. I took it, demorphed, and... stunned Jo with it. Er, I'd meant to just stun her.... He'd changed into an elephant morph, but demorphed after I uh, blasted your legs. *gets quiet*
Sean: Go on...
Josefina: Its fine. Really...
Brian: *looks at Jo* The Yeerk came out, and Jo was safe then. I realized we'd left Olivia in the woods by herself... with a ton of Yeerks for all we knew...
by , Brian: I'd morphed wolf again. Thankfully the wolf wasn't as tired as I was. I made it back and saw Olivia standing over that Edward dude with a blaster. She.. well, I told her I wasn't sure if she was a Yeerk or not, and she said the same about me. And then she shot the both of us. Me and Edward that is.
Brian: And, well, that's all I know.
Tarry: <Does anyone else have anything to add?>
Josefina: You aren't going to ask about what happened in the barn?
Josefina: I thought you would... seeing as how that was the biggest mess-up yet.
Sean: Tell us about it.
Tarry: <What happened?>
Josefina: I heard Ultor - at the time using Edward as a host - threaten my entire family, because Jazar - my step-brother's Yeerk - had yet to find me or any of the rest of us.
Josefina: I.. didn't want to see my whole family die.... So I went out of the barn, and tried to talk him out of it using thought-speak.
Josefina: All that made him do was start shooting my father's limbs, one by one... *voice wavers*
Josefina: So I morphed moose, so I could do some damage. I ... I couldn't let them get my father!
Josefina: But unluckily for me, Jazar had a Dracon Beam.
Josefina: that's what those laser gun things are called.
Josefina: when I woke up...
Josefina: I was infested.
Tarry: <Okay, anyone else?>
Kristen: *goes to sit by Jo and puts her head in her lap*
Tarry: <Okay, we need to go over how we can do better in the future. Sean, give me an improve.>
Sean: ...an improvement? Okay, well we could have not ever left anyone alone.
Tarry: <Good, give me another.>
Sean: and, we need to have a better back-up plan in case something like this happens.
Sean: like an escape plan.
Sean: what we're supposed to do if it goes wrong.
Tarry: <Good, Jo, give me another improve.>
Josefina: *is silent, and wipes a tear away*
Kristen: *whimpers*
Tarry: <...Brian, give me an improve.>
Brian: She....
Olivia: *looks reproachfully at Tarry*
Brian: *thinks hard*
Brian: ... no one should have to get that close to a situation so personal.
Brian: sometimes, we won't be able to help it. But that wasn't fair.
Josefina: *looks away from Brian*
Tarry: <We are fighting a war. Everyone's lives are on the line. Mistakes happen. We must learn from them or we all die.>
Sean: And we aren't going to let that happen. *shoots a look at Tarry*
Sean: These are good ideas. Never morph alone. Always have a back-up plan.
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Sean: And we make better use of our members.
Tarry: <Does anyone else have any improves?>
Kristen: We should practice our morphs before we use them.
Kristen: Mr. Sean was looking like he was hungry when he first morphed the lion.
Sean: I wasn't going to...
Kristen: You might have.
Kristen: We need to practice.
Tarry: <Anyone else?>
Olivia: We need to have a way to know that we can trust each other and not Yeerks.
Brian: ...but.. how can we do that?
Josefina: We can't.
Chad: You mean have a password or something.
Tarry: <There is no way to ensure that one of us is not infested. We can help by never letting anyone do anything alone.>
Chad: *looks at his dad*
Tarry: <Any other improves?>
Sean: *is confused*
Sean: I don't have anything else.
Sean: Just ...no more burning down any buildings.
Sean: not even any little ones.
Chad: Really
Sean: It was a joke...
Sean: ... mostly...
Chad: Its hard to tell with you these days.
Tarry: <I have several. Planning we did not have clear intelligence requirements, or a way to know when we were finished. We did not have a clearly established chain-of-command. We did not have a withdrawal plan. The plan was not properly briefed and we did not ensure people knew the plan.>
Sean: You're right.
Tarry: <Sean, give me a sustain.>
Sean: ... I'm sorry, what was that?
Tarry: <Tell me something we did right. Something that we should continue to do.>
Sean: ...We didn't die.
Sean: that was good.
Sean: Let's keep that up.
Olivia: Nothing.
Sean: and then... well, gimme a sec....
Sean: No one ran.
Chad: We did find each other.
Chad: at some point.
Kristen: <And we're having this discussion now...>
Tarry: < i Sean. give me a sustain.>
Sean: We hurt the Yeerks. Even if it was just a little bit, we've let them know that we're here, and we're fighting them.
Josefina: I have some Yeerk Intel now.
Tarry: <No, tell me something we can continue to do procedurally. Something that we can apply to future missions.>
Olivia: We're not getting Yeerk Intel that way again.
Brian: yeah.. um, let's not/i do that again...
Sean: ... gah, I'm drawing a blank here.
Tarry: <Anyone give me a sustain.>
Kristen: <We got their guns...>
Kristen: <We made use of what we had available.>
Brian: Like our morphs. Well, we didn't use as many as we should have maybe..
Brian: not until you gave us directions, Tarry.
Brian: and then we were strategizing better.
Tarry: <What is the sustain?>
Josefina: *pets Kristen on head*
Brian: ...we followed orders. You came up with a plan, and we listened.
Brian: you took charge.
Tarry: <Does anyone else have a sustain?>
Sean: No.
Tarry: <Before we go, we need to establish an alert plan so that we have a plan to get information to everyone as quickly as possible. We also need to have a plan for what we will do if we are discovered, and we need to set a time for our next meeting.>
Chad: I'll be grounded till I'm .
Sean: Well, we already have each others phone numbers.. we can't really speak freely over the phone though. You never know who might be listening in.
Josefina: And we don't all have phones.
Tarry: <Who contacts whom? What is the back up system?>
Sean: Um... For now, Jo and Olivia ... and Brian.. Will be staying with me. We'll be together. Chad and Kristen... are y'all even going to school tomorrow?
Sean: that seems so .... You kind of have to, don't you? To keep up your cover.
Kristen: <I know. I thought missing school would be the one good thing about all of this....>
Chad: Dad you can write a note to get me out.
Sean: On the first day? Whatever, whatever, let's move on. Remind me in a minute, alright buddy?
Tarry: <Sean, what is the alert plan. Are you going to contact each person yourself? What is your back up plan if you cannot use the phone system?>
Sean: Anyways.. um, for now, Chad and Kristen need to stay as close as possible, and try to keep in touch as much as they can. If there's ever a problem, you kids need to come find me or Olivia, whoever is closer.
We'll just have to do our best to make sure you always know where we are.
Tarry: <Sean, if you want to arrange a meeting, how do you let everyone know?>
Brian: We'll use the buddy system....
Sean: Basically, yes.
Sean: if we have an issue, or need to have an emergency meeting or something, then we'll send someone to come get you two.
Sean: most likely Olivia and Jo most of the time.
Tarry: <We need a plan for what we are going to do if we are discovered. We need rally points where we can meet up and a plan in case someone does not show up.>
Sean: Um.. until further notice... I say here in the woods. Do you all think you can remember this spot?
Brian: Yeah, I could.
Tarry: <We need more rally points.>
Sean: Hermann Park... uh, on top of Williams Tower... and... ((insert a couple other places here))....
Sean: We go to one of those places in case of an emergency. Go there to hide.
Tarry: <We need a time and location for the next meeting.>
Brian: I've got that meeting tonight...
Kristen: <and school is till >
Olivia: We've got the meeting tonight.
Sean: Could we wait till Tuesday?
Tarry: <You tell me.>
Sean: I don't know. If we have Chad and Kristen out here or wherever tomorrow, they may as well skip school.
Chad: I'm fine with skipping.
Sean: Thing is, I can't know that it's safe to wait that long, and I can't know that it'll be safe for anyone to go home at all.
Sean: We're taking a risk with this.
Sean: Unless there's an emergency, we're meeting here. On Tuesday, at 4:00.
Josefina: I think its safe for Chad and Kristen to go home.
Kristen: *begins to demorph* <let's go ahead and go, Chad. I still have to go shopping....>
Tarry: <Good.> <<Sean, unless you have anything else to add we should dismiss them.>>
Tarry: <<((To Sean)) Josefina should not be left alone. Someone needs to be watching her at all times.>>
Sean: *nods* I think we're done here. Y'all head home.
