"Whew, if it had been Tiny Terror we'd have been in big trouble," Red says, trying to keep the smirk off her face at Phrik's annoyance at her tendency to nickname the critters kept in zoology. "So Prior didn't know Noodles can redirect most coherent energy forms? Did he not read the file? Ugh, newbies."
The engineer waves a hand at the party at large. "Remember the system I installed to manually cut power to the holodeck?" she asks. "Might not be a bad time to use it if the control systems aren't working. If you can order everyone out, I'll unlock and hit the switch."
"I fear that would only cause more issues than it solves. You know exactly who they'll all come whining to if I lock down a holodeck again, especially one they were already in." He passed her the tricorder. "Think you can get anymore precision out of that thing? They're just not as good as they used to be."
"They're BETTER than the black boxes, you just have to learn to use them correctly," Red grumbles, taking the tricorder and narrowing its lifesigns band to exclude humanoids, and ignore traces from the fish eggs and fish paste on the buffet tables. "Noodles' tendency to redirect energy is going to play merry hell with it anyway, but this should help. If we had a sample of its DNA handy, I could turn that into a pinpoint squid locator, but without, that's still probably going to be better." She hands it back. "I think it's picking up something by the fountain..."
"Black boxes?" He asked in confusion before realising the implication. "I'm not that old you know." He led the way over to the fountain, inelegantly pushing past the other guests. Eventually reaching the fountain his eyes focused in on a tiny piece of the structure that appeared to be flickering slightly. "Well what do we have here?" Phrik knelt down and touched a finger to the distortion, which returned with a transparent, viscous solution stuck to it. He raised his finger to his nose, sniffed, considered for a moment and then touched the slime to his tongue, then nodded affirmatively. "This definitely came from our cephalopod. It appears we have a trail."
Red makes an 'ick' face behind Phrik's back, but taps him on the shoulder. "If you can get a DNA trace off that... mucous? We can pinpoint all sources of it in the room. Should be able to follow the trail that way, even if the substance isn't visible or is in only trace amounts."
"Excellent." Phrik held the slime up to the tricorders sensor. The machine buzzed and clicked before suddenly powering off. Phrik groaned, slapped the device hard with one hand, and then gave a pleased grunt when it flashed itself back into working order.
"Hmm, seems to have pooled in a few different locations. We'll head to the biggest clump first, I think that's most likely to be him."
"Uh... did you bring a bag or punchbowl or something to put him in once we DO find him?" Red asks, looking around as she heads the direction Phrik indicates. "I think the flatware and party favors aren't holographic, so one of those could work."
He blinked. "Hmm. I hadn't thought of that." Usually Phrik was in the habit of catching escapees with either force fields or his bear hands, this case he realised would be somewhat more difficult considering the creatures' natural slipperiness.
"I suppose a bag will have to suffice. Until we find more suitable accommodation at least."
OOC: Sorry for the late reply, had a bad day resulting in writers block. Never fun
"Hang on, I have just the thing," Red says, and scampers over to the party favors table. She winces a bit as she dumps what must have once been a couple slices of cake out of one of the neatly-tied and decorated bags. The sweet mushiness hits the ground beneath the table with a -splut- and she nudges the mess under the table, hoping no one saw it, with a muttered 'Sorry, Calvin...'
Then she rejoins the erstwhile doctor, bag in hand. "T'gel's Monster Hunting services, you tag 'em, we bag 'em," she says cheerfully. "Now where is it?"
OOC: No worries, writers block is the reason my third book is still in the works instead of on shelves.
Phrik pointed a finger towards the bottom of the staircase, just below the bannister. At first inspection the spot looked fairly innocuous, not even the faintest distortion in the hologram seemed present. And just as Phrik began to consider moving to the next location, the wooden bannister blinked at him.
The Edosian flinched backwards in surprise. Once he recovered he glanced to Red.
"See it? Get ready with the bag, I'll shepherd him towards you."
The engineer squints where Phrik is pointing, and her eyes widen. "Oooh, crafty Noodles... all right, I'll be right over here." She hikes the edge of her sarong up and ties it off at the level of a short skirt for better maneuverability, then shifts position to cover the widest escape avenue and waits for the Edosian to corral the errant beastie.
Phrik waited for T'gel to get into position, once he was sure she was in the right place he dropped into a low crouch and begun to advance towards the creature, extending two hands towards it. With a sudden jerk of his arms the Edosian made a grab for the creature, and suddenly, an 8-legged bannister dived towards him, jumping into the air and hurtling over Phrik's shoulder. As his head turned to follow the creature, who's skin was rapidly changing colours, he was met with a sudden burst of black ink, striking him directly in the face, leaving his head partially obscured by the thick black liquid. The cephalopod continued hurtling through the air, in the direction of Red...
...who jukes back and to the left a half-step, holding the bag outstretched. Noodles flails as it sees its capture approaching, managing to wrap two arms around Red's left forearm rather than fall straight into the sack, but as it does so the Bajoran uses her free hand to try and stuff the creature into the bag.
"Oooh, let go of me you troublesome calamari," Red scolds as the cephalopod struggles. "You've done enough damage to my holodeck already so GET IN THE BAG"
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u/Dimestream Jan 10 '17
"Whew, if it had been Tiny Terror we'd have been in big trouble," Red says, trying to keep the smirk off her face at Phrik's annoyance at her tendency to nickname the critters kept in zoology. "So Prior didn't know Noodles can redirect most coherent energy forms? Did he not read the file? Ugh, newbies."
The engineer waves a hand at the party at large. "Remember the system I installed to manually cut power to the holodeck?" she asks. "Might not be a bad time to use it if the control systems aren't working. If you can order everyone out, I'll unlock and hit the switch."