Collins said:
Mr. Purr, that sounds like an excellent idea...
Jay Purr waits ten minutes for the priests to have an opportunity to return to the temple of the
Church of the Scientific Revelation. His goal is not only to examine the interior of the temple as much as possible, but also to gain the attention of the priests as a possible convert. To prepare himself mentally for the role, he concentrates on his childhood memories of the decompression accident that killed all but himself in his nursery school in the asteroid belt. The sheen of perspiration on his brow and the rapid respiration come rather easily...
Jay does not so much walk into the temple of the
CotSR as tumble through the opening. His first act is to anchor himself to the largest piece of furniture or other fixture as far from any external bulkhead that he can find. He grips it as if he expects any moment for a blast of escaping gases to expel him through a rent in the hull. His eyes dart about nervously. If there are any witnesses to his entry (hopefully) he puts his best effort into a strained whisper, "The hull seems sturdy and sound here. Has it been inspected recently?"
OOC: Turanil, if you would like to conduct this as a conversation, then great. However, that might take us a while, so I'll summarize Jay's goals and tactics. This is essentially one long Bluff check, I suppose.
Jay becomes visibly calmer once someone begins talking to him, but it is obvious he is still nervous and agitated. He requests to speak to a priest (or more than one), but he needs reassurance. He makes clear that he is concerned for the structural integrity of the hull, and says that he can hear the creaks and moans of stressed metals and ceramics. Dropping hints that something strange happened to him when he was young, he requests to be allowed to inspect the sanctuary to make sure that it is safe for him to remain in the area long enough to talk to the priests.
If given a "tour," Jay will surreptitiously make his Knowledge (physical sciences, technology) checks to observe the equipment in use by the
CotSR. He will do his best to see as many areas of the temple as possible without raising undue suspicion. During the process, he will dole out his story slowly enough to keep his guide(s) interested. Factually, he will indicate that he is the pilot of an interplanetary ship, and that he grew up in the asteroid belt. He will weave into his narrative the story of the accident during his childhood that left him the sole survivor of his daycare center. Suitably embelished, of course. The crunching, bone-jarring impact that breached the hull. The whistling moan and swirling chaos of escaping breath gas. The screams of the other children that seemed to recede into the distance as the pressure dropped. The horror of watching his favorite teacher "fly" up to the hole in the wall and then squeeze himself, head first, through a space too small for even the toddler Jay to actually fit through comfortably.
Jay will say that he does not completely trust his memories. But he remembers, yes, he remembers. The feeling that evil beings waited just beyond the once solid walls of his school, dragging his classmates into the vacuum. The fiends dancing in the spray of wet, red matter streaming from the rent in the hull, cavorting and spinning while they decorated their hideous bodies with the mist that spewed from the school like so much red spray paint from a can. As the fiends pulled Jay to join their dance, he heard a swelling, pounding thunder that was synchronised with the pulsing darkness that was closing in from the edges of the universe. But in that thunder Jay sensed a champion coming to fight the demons. As the darkness fell completely, a powerful being of light held Jay away from the doorway to hell that was the breach in the hull, slapping its other hand over that aching emptiness, and blocking out the screaming vacuum of space. Jay knew that the demons fled in fear before this angel. Jay does not, even as an adult, understand completely what happened, but he is certain that he was saved for some special purpose, and he asks the priests to explain.
Jay has read the accident reports and court records later as an adult, of course. What actually happened was that a maintenance shuttle working in space near the asteroid that housed the school suffered an unfortunate thruster failure. Unfortunate particularly that this was one of those rare failures where a thruster failed in the "on" state and caused the shuttle to collide with the school's asteroid. The two suited workers that were outside the shuttle at the time maneuvered to the asteroid and attempted to seal the breach, but they were working against the pressure differential and were unsuccessful. Jay saw them and, being a child, interpreted them as "demons" pulling his classmates into the vacuum. Two unlikely events, plus a rapid response by emergency personnel, saved Jay's life. The first is that he became entangled in the "web gym," a mesh of internally lit cables that served the school as a jungle gym for the childrens exercise and play. The second was the timely arrival at the breach of first a "beanbag chair" filled with silica gel, and then a sturdy table that overlaid it and was held in place by the pressure of the remaining gas inside the chambers of the school. These things were his being of light that restrained him and sealed the hole.
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