Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

[Takimaru]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

Odessa took note of Kenneth's reaction, but instead of finding herself offended, looked more amused than she had before, bearing an expression not entirely unlike that of a juvenile sibling who had just gotten away with something. She didn't miss a beat with Ami, either, and Nicolas' reaction was expected, as one of the more naturally diplomatic of the bunch. To him she nodded, taking his invitation with a gracious smile. The blonde's ability to roll with the punches didn't remain completely intact during his joke about getting her back, however, and her features shifted ever so slightly. Still, she managed to recover enough to make a well-timed reply. "Oh, my. All of you, just to haze an empath? I haven't even played my first hand yet! But to be fair, you don't need to be able to read my mind in order to humiliate me." Her comment wasn't targeted towards any of them in particular, but more of a spark put forth to test even the most minute reactions.

Of course, she wouldn't miss Athryn's joke towards Ken, to which she would respond with a slight giggle, if only to push the male marine's buttons. Her blue eyes scanned over the different alcoholic beverages being thrown back so casually. "Besides, who needs an empath when you've got alcohol, hmm? Good plan. Pour me one, too? I could use a table ornament," said the empath with no lack of confidence.

 

[GargantuaBlarg]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

Judith smashed her fist against the laboratory door twice more, pressing the intercomm at the door's button to yell at whoever it was she thought she'd saw head in. "Hey! I'm serious, you hear? Don't turn nothin' on, we're gonna be doing critical maintenance!"

The engineer didn't like the feeling of leaving an uncertainty like that hanging in the air and just 'hoping it worked out', but what could she do? It's not like she had any authority on this station, right? She wasn't an official or officer or overseer or o-anything, and if she tried to cut in and invaded a a top-secret lab like that, High Command might accuse her of espionage or something! Dammit.

She couldn't think of anything to do about it, so instead, she just hurried away to join Sparky, praying nothing went wrong, and if anything did, her skills would be enough to remedy it before things went south for real.

---

"Yikes...", Judith said to herself when she saw the cracked cell they needed to replace. "I guess I can't blame you for wanting to fix this thing ASAP," she said, as she went through the steps to set up the proxy field. Let's see... draw power to the shielding's capacitors, raise and lock emitters, set frequency... "Turnin' it on, yeah?"

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

The commander shrugged as he prepared an answer for Caitlin.

"I prefer to not let myself get too distracted. My job is to protect the crew. So I'm here looking after them. Someone ought to." His eyes strayed to Captain Anders, who was just then taking a penalty shot of vodka before dealing out a new hand of cards.

"They may seem rowdy, but they know enough to do their jobs when called for. And they get more enjoyment out of these things than I would."

----

Meanwhile, at the gaming tables, the mood was considerably lighter and most faces were sporting smiles. Kenneth grinned like a shark at Athryn's jibe. "Careful ladies. I think you're all a bit too quick to protest. It wouldn't be the first time women have tried to angle for a free show." He wagged a finger. "But you'll have to win fair and square to see the rest of me."

This provoked a series of giggles and chortles from the group and they continued on playing their resepective games. At the poker table, Ami frowned at her hand and immediately put it face down in the middle of the table. "It's no fun getting crap hands. Kenneth is just going to raise the stakes anyway. I fold. You go ahead and set the stakes for this hand, captain."

After seeing her hand, Elise could set her own stakes and then pass play on to Odessa.

At the pool table, Sonya scrunched her lips in a sour look as she surveyed the table situation. Then she dared a glance up at Athryn, catching site of her cleavage. A twinkle of mischief shone in her eyes as she set them back on the table.

"You know, we could always wager something on this game too," she said before getting into position to make her bid for the 2 ball. "Loser can owe the winner a favor. Something reasonable. What do you think?"

Before hearing an answer, Sonya struck the cue ball, sailing it across the table. It collided with the 2 ball at an odd angle, sinking nothing, but putting the cue ball itself among a mass of the other balls, giving Athryn options, but all would require her to lean off balance to set herself up to strike in the middle of the table. The way Sonya kept her eyes on her, the marine might even suspect that the pilot had realized this and was liking it.

-------------

Still no answer came from inside the lab, despite Judith's insistence, and so the engineer was forced to move on and join Sparky in the lab.

The dreadlocked engineer nodded his head vigorously. "Yeee-ep! I've been bugging the director for quite a long time about it. Turn on the proxy field and let's not waste another minute. The transfer should be nigh instantaneous. The crew shouldn't even notice the shift to generator back up power."

Much to Judith's relief, the transfer went off without a hitch. Not so much as a noticeable flicker of lights betrayed that the pair of them were doing major work on the fusion reactor. Despite his grungy appearance, Sparky appeared to really have a deft hand for this sort of work. At this rate, they might be done with everything in the span of six to eight minutes by her estimation.

---------

In the central research chamber, a shadow loomed across the isolation chamber where a lone tentak crawler had stood still for the past 56 standard Earth days. But it had always been watching.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Yeah well, I think you're safe enough for the time being. Unless you're on watch for alchohol poisoning, of course." Caitlin responded with a glance over at the card table.

"I can understand the whole offtime thing," She told him, waving her finger in an encompassing circle. "But I don't get why the Fringe staff is all gung-ho about it. All of our research has been slowed or even stalled completely the past two months, we've all been almost on holiday, the amount of progress we've been able to make. I think it's finally time to get back to work."

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Must be your director wants to appear a thankful host, though you are the only one of your crew here. Maybe everyone else is going right back to their experiments?" Commander Soude offered.

 

[GargantuaBlarg]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

Hmm... she supposed she underestimated the Fringe's engineer. The hairstyle being worn by by trained technicians wasn't anything new to her - it was a fairly common hairdo on her homeworld, really - but that smell... she wasn't sure what it was, but when she'd first met him and that smell washed over her, she'd thought he spent his free time inhaling weird fumes from the science stations' chemical storage...

Oh well. It was true that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, she supposed. Luckily for her, she hadn't said anything as much to him, so she didn't have anything to 'fess up or apologize for, right?

"Extracting cell," she announced as she made her way over to the damaged piece once it was ready to be pulled out. "Can you do a real quick check to make sure that resin hasn't seeped inside before we replace it? Don't want any leftovers on the connectors or anything."

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Yeah, checking into that now," Spencer said, adjusting the light strapped to his rad-suit mask and leaning into the now open reaction chamber. Using some sterilized cleaning tools, he made a thorough scan over the surface, finding a trace amount of resin on the very bottom crease of the containment box and cleaned it away with a hyper condensed airbrush and a fine nano-fiber cloth.

"Not much there anyway, but it's definitely clean now. Okay, hand me the new mirror cell."

The installation took about five minutes of time, but with Spencer working diligently and Judith spotting for him and double checking everything, they got things done efficiently and effectively. They secured the new chamber and then began the transfer of power back into the generator.

"Thanks again for your help and your discretion," Spencer said as the reactor slowly came back online. "Once we're done here, I'll just go around and double-check that all the systems came back on right. Uh, you don't have to come with me for that if you don't want to, but it's been really nice to have another wrench head around. And a real pretty one too, if you don't mind my saying so."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Weren't Egan and Maria handling the cooking in the kitchen?" Caitlin asked in response, standing slightly to peer in that direction. "Nobody else bothered to show up, hmm? Seems everyone takes direction int he opposite way I expect, around here. Slack off when they should be working, and disappear into their labs when told to relax..."

 

[xivvix]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

Spoiler

"Oh, my. All of you, just to haze an empath? I haven't even played my first hand yet! But to be fair, you don't need to be able to read my mind in order to humiliate me."

"Besides, who needs an empath when you've got alcohol, hmm? Good plan. Pour me one, too? I could use a table ornament."

Odessa's wounded reply to the men's joke brought a softer expression to Elise's face, the captain not wanting the empath to feel set upon after just joining the game. Leaning towards the blonde she said conspiratorially, "I wouldn't take it personally, you know how people are afraid of things they don't understand." Elise paused for a moment, letting everyone draw the natural conclusion about the psion, then added, "And when have you ever met a man that understood women?" She drew a quick grin, then winked at Odessa before returning to the game. When the empath asked for a drink, even if only to have it nearby, Elise happily said, "Damn right, the freer the drinks flow, the quicker friends grow."

Spoiler

Meanwhile, at the gaming tables, the mood was considerably lighter and most faces were sporting smiles. Kenneth grinned like a shark at Athryn's jibe. "Careful ladies. I think you're all a bit too quick to protest. It wouldn't be the first time women have tried to angle for a free show." He wagged a finger. "But you'll have to win fair and square to see the rest of me."

This provoked a series of giggles and chortles from the group and they continued on playing their resepective games. At the poker table, Ami frowned at her hand and immediately put it face down in the middle of the table. "It's no fun getting crap hands. Kenneth is just going to raise the stakes anyway. I fold. You go ahead and set the stakes for this hand, captain."

Ami's quick fold drew a sharp laugh from Elise, and she chided the woman, "Come on Ami, at least give us a chance to beat you." Picking up her cards, she asked, "You know you can fold after drawing for a better hand, right? Maybe we should make the penalty shot come up after three folds, instead of five?" Her second question was directed to Nicolas, though she winked at Ami immediately afterwards.

Looking over her cards, Elise hummed softly, then shot sly glances around the table. "I know I said to build up to the fun bets, but it seems everyone is ready for them now," she said mischievously. With a smirk at Odessa, she added, "And since we're all ready for shots, let's make that part of the bet." She paused for second, then made her wager, "Lowest hand has to take a body shot from the next lowest." Narrowing her eyes slyly, she looked to Kenneth and said, "Play right and either you get to have some fun, or you can prove Athryn wrong when one of us licks some tequila off you."

Without hesitating, Elise laid one card face down on the table, eager to draw another and get the game going. Hopefully her wager, or whatever raise was made, wouldn't scare everyone else off. She chuckled softly at the thought of Dr. Tully walking in right as one of the players was licking booze off another's chest. With that thought in mind, she quickly glanced around, wonder where the rest of Fringe, and the food, were. It wasn't a pressing matter though, so she quickly brought her attention back to the game.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

----

Meanwhile, at the gaming tables, the mood was considerably lighter and most faces were sporting smiles. Kenneth grinned like a shark at Athryn's jibe. "Careful ladies. I think you're all a bit too quick to protest. It wouldn't be the first time women have tried to angle for a free show." He wagged a finger. "But you'll have to win fair and square to see the rest of me."

This provoked a series of giggles and chortles from the group and they continued on playing their resepective games. At the poker table, Ami frowned at her hand and immediately put it face down in the middle of the table. "It's no fun getting crap hands. Kenneth is just going to raise the stakes anyway. I fold. You go ahead and set the stakes for this hand, captain."

After seeing her hand, Elise could set her own stakes and then pass play on to Odessa.

At the pool table, Sonya scrunched her lips in a sour look as she surveyed the table situation. Then she dared a glance up at Athryn, catching site of her cleavage. A twinkle of mischief shone in her eyes as she set them back on the table.

"You know, we could always wager something on this game too," she said before getting into position to make her bid for the 2 ball. "Loser can owe the winner a favor. Something reasonable. What do you think?"

Before hearing an answer, Sonya struck the cue ball, sailing it across the table. It collided with the 2 ball at an odd angle, sinking nothing, but putting the cue ball itself among a mass of the other balls, giving Athryn options, but all would require her to lean off balance to set herself up to strike in the middle of the table. The way Sonya kept her eyes on her, the marine might even suspect that the pilot had realized this and was liking it.

-------------

Athryn smirked lightly at Sonya and rolled her eyes, acting for all the world as if the outcome of the game didn't matter to the other in the slightest.... Which, in truth, it didn't. She let the pilot make her shot, producing a fairly difficult shot for her in turn. "Sure, seems fair so long as it's reasonable~" she replied lightly as she surveyed the table, "I could always use a favor from a pretty girl~" Finally deciding on the shot, Athryn bent down and took aim. The fact that the ball was in the middle of the table meant that she had to bend a good bit farther than she had before, and where before she had only taken the pose in a slightly sexualized manner, now she had no choice but to bend to the point that her uniform pants stretched taut over her finely sculpted bottom. The curved shape of her ass was readily evident to the point that she might as well not have been wearing anything other than a thong, and it was quite plain to anyone who looked her way that the marine wasn't wearing even that much underneath her pants.

The tips of her breasts pressing lightly against the table, Athyrn took aim and snapped her pool cue against the white ball. She'd opted to leave the shots she'd set up earlier for now, instead cleanly sinking the 12 into the corner pocket and setting up another shot. The ball ended up around the middle again, but (after taking a long swig from her second beer) adopted another fairly sexualized pose before snapping the ball forward, knocking the 14 into the 15 and sinking the latter before leaving the former in a difficult position right against the edge. Her third shot missed, however, and gave Sonya a good chance at sinking either the 2 or the 6. "I guess I'm on a roll today~" she said, straightening and stepping away so that the pilot could have a turn. She was 3 to nothing, but that didn't mean that Sonya couldn't bring it back, and she opted not to display any overconfidence.

 

[GargantuaBlarg]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Here y'go," Judith said as she handed Sparky the new cell, presenting the handle first.

They switched the main generator back online, letting it go through it's power-up sequences. Everything looked to be a-okay, so the immense feeling of dread that had been building up in Judy started to dissipate. She was probably just being paranoid, right? It could have been a problem... but it wasn't, was it? Business as usual.

"No problem," Judith responded when the Fringe's engineer thanked her for her aid - a pleasant, but rather bland tone in her voice. All she'd really done was lugged over a cell and nagged a bunch - what was there to be thanked for? That was her job, after all. "I'll stay until the check's finished - don't much like leavin' a job until I know it's done, y'know?"

To his compliment, she blushed underneath her radsuit's mask. "Oh... um, thank you," was all she could really manage to say, unused to being complimented like that.

 

[Takimaru]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Sounding confident, are we?" Odessa shot back at Kenneth, taking a peek at the cards she was dealt by the corners. Her eyes moved up to meet his, and she stared at him for longer than a second, but instead of going into the more focused gaze characteristic of a mind scan, she simply winked. "That's quite a bluff."

She then looked back to Elise, shaking her head softly with her coy smile still intact at this point. "Oh, don't you worry about me, Captain," she said coolly. "I was just teasing, myself. An empath who takes such things personally won't last long as one, certainly not while under the Federation's employ." She kept herself from elaborating too much on that end, figuring there was little need to do so; even just mentioning the trials involved with being a mind-reader would likely have seemed like a baseless complaint to begin with. Not to mention, she wasn't one to ruin the relatively light mood upon the table. "As for men who understand women... hah. Well, you know what they say, they're either taken or gay. Often enough both. But I prefer to be the one doing the understanding, anyway."

"Body shots? No complaints on this end." Odessa then placed two of the cards from her hand down, smirking. "Before I get those cards, of course, how about a raise to see the lowest lose some extra garments? Shouldn't be too bad of a penalty if your confidence in your hand is that well-placed."

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

Kenneth asked for two more cards, looked at them intently, and then shrugged. "All right, for body shots, I'm in... I just hope Nicolas isn't the guy right beneath me."

Nicolas smirked as he glanced at his hand, discarded one card and got a replacement. "I too am in. And I'll be quite disappointed at those who wimp out with a normal shot on this one."

The table eyed the captain for her response, both to Odessa's upping the ante, and to see if she were going to stay in.


------

At the pool table, Sonya smiled. "So you think I'm pretty, huh?"

She leaned over, and with newfound confidence, sank the two with a smooth motion. She even managed to roll the cueball back a bit after contact so that she could line up the six as well. She sank that as well, before picking up a chalk cube and reapplied some to the tip of her stick.

"Still feeling confident? Maybe I'm a pool shark and I've just roped you in to owing me a favor?" She said, smirking, before making a play on the 4 ball, and sinking it as well for three successful shots in a row. Unfortunately, that was the last easy shot left for her and her next attempt on the 7 missed by a small margin.

"Tied it up at least."

---------

"I suppose we could check on the cooking. If you don't think we'd be bothering them," Commander Soude offered to Caitlin. "I have nothing better to do here and don't particularly want to see my captain doing body shots." He glanced over to Elise with mild disapproval in his eyes. Or maybe it was something else entirely, but he held the dark haired captain in his vision for a few long moments before turning back to Caitlin. "Well?"

----------

Spencer and Judith ran through a checklist of everything, making sure the reactor chamber was stable and running fine before they eased their way out of the tight confines of the room and closed the door. Spencer zipped himself out of the radsuit first and then would offer to help Judith out of hers if she wanted to allow him.

Afterwards they would head down the hallway and turn towards the central hub of the Fringe 1 station. A reinforced blast door marked "Authorized personnel only!" stood before them. Spencer entered a code into a keypad next to the doorway. A red light turned green and the doorway hissed open, parting in the middle, horizontally, and sliding out of the way.

"We'll just check the locks on the inner resource space. It's pretty important just to make sure that the experiments haven't been heavily disrupted," he said.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

“If you wish to, be my guest.“ Caitlin replied simply. “I was merely pointing them out to draw attention that i am not the only one of the station staff here, is all.“

Her gaze met his evenly for a moment, then she sighed, standing. “And I suppose I can make introductions. Let‘s go and see then, hmm?“

 

[xivvix]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

Elise only gave a quick laugh at Odessa's reply, nodding slowly. The empath's raise garnered another such laugh. Things were certainly escalating faster than she expected, though for those serving in the Federation on a combat ship, Elise figured there wasn't much of a premium on taking things slow. "I'm fine with that raise, I'll call," she said confidently, snatching up her new card while looking around to see how the rest of the players were taking their hands. With a smile to Kenneth and Nicolas, she mischievously replied to the marine's concern, "Funny, that's what I made the bet hoping to see."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

------

At the pool table, Sonya smiled. "So you think I'm pretty, huh?"

She leaned over, and with newfound confidence, sank the two with a smooth motion. She even managed to roll the cueball back a bit after contact so that she could line up the six as well. She sank that as well, before picking up a chalk cube and reapplied some to the tip of her stick.

"Still feeling confident? Maybe I'm a pool shark and I've just roped you in to owing me a favor?" She said, smirking, before making a play on the 4 ball, and sinking it as well for three successful shots in a row. Unfortunately, that was the last easy shot left for her and her next attempt on the 7 missed by a small margin.

"Tied it up at least."

---------

"Of course~" Athryn replied to Sonya, acting as if such was obvious, "Love the pants!" Athryn watched with a wry grin as the pilot sunk three balls in a row, and though all of them were fairly easy shots, it still tied the game up just as she said. "Quite confident~ But even if I lose, I can't say that I mind the price! Owing a favor to a pretty girl is almost as good as the other way around~" She glanced at the card table momentarily as Sonya, smirking, and added; "At least we aren't already taking off our clothes~" A glance at their jackets folded on the bar caused Athryn to amend; "Or, you know... Any more of them!"

She grinned wryly before settling back to examine the table while swigging from her beer, and after a moment she set the bottle down and bent down over the table to take aim. The eleven went in, and the white ball bounced a few balls around before coming to a halt in prime position to sink the ten, which she did. That left only the thirteen and the fourteen, the latter of which was still stuck along the edge. The thirteen wasn't much better, and so Athryn took a shot that knocked the fourteen out of its difficult position and left the white in a difficult position to sink anything. "Your turn again~" she said, and as she strode around the table towards the bar she allowed her hip to brush lightly against Sonya's.

Spoiler

Just keeping track so I don't have to keep looking back at things.
Athryn (Stripes) : 9, 10, 11, 12, 15
Sonya (Solids) : 2, 4, 6

 

[GargantuaBlarg]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Uhm, n-no thanks!" Judith replied to Spencer's offer, a little awkwardly. "I can get this thing off fine by myself!"

After they headed out, Sparky took her back out into the main hallway and out a ways, to what was apparently called the 'inner resource space'. Sealed with a big blast door like that, whatever was inside was almost certainly important... and, when he mentioned 'experiments', she found her interest piqued. She was kinda curious as to what sort of strange secret experiments went on in this place...

She peeked at the keypad when he went to punch in the code - trying to figure out his password, though mostly out of nosiness. "Alrighty," she said, to his explanation.


"You know, it's really surprising how few of us there are, isn't it?" Judy piped up suddenly, asking her Fringe counterpart the question. "The number of engineers the Fed has, I mean. My ship's only got two to tend to the whole thing - but, this station's supposed to be a big secret, right? And yet there's only you?"

 

[Takimaru]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

"Can't say I'm terribly surprised..." Odessa mused aloud, her eyes meeting the back of each of her opponent's cards for a moment. "All three of you are that confident against an empath? My... I have to say, I'm a little impressed. I just hope it's all well-placed. I'll raise again, then. Whoever isn't the winner of this, off with the uniform, down to their boxers or briefs--depending on if it's Nicolas or Kenneth. As for the Captain and I, same thing; tops off!"

A devious look formed on her face. Surely there was too much at stake, particularly for the Captain at this point. Someone was liable to back out. "And as with before, lowest hand takes off an extra garment--so, the last one they have. Winner gets to be the only fully clothed person at the table until the shots are finished. How's that? Don't act as if I haven't caught you two staring. You might not have another chance at this... after all, it IS the Captain we're talking about. Unless she backs down now, of course..."

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

At the pool table, Sonya froze a moment as Athryn's hip brushed against hers and her face seemed to have just a trace of red as she shook her head in a light smile, before setting herself up for the next shot.

"You're really not giving me a lot to work with here," she said, trying to get her mind back to the game. She took some extra time to set up, apparently aiming for the 1 ball across the length of the table, which was arguably her best angle, but still a difficult shot.

It was at this point that Odessa made her daring raise of stakes at the poker table, and maybe the sheer audacity of it made the pilot lose her concentration at the last moment. Her cue shot forward, hitting awkwardly and off center, sending the white ball careening off target and connecting with the black eight ball in the exact wrong manner, tipping it into a side pocket and losing the game immediately.

Sonya's eyes widened and she stood upright, now really blushing and looking a bit frustrated, given her competitive nature. "Oh shit!"

But she gave a sidelong glance at Odessa and then laughed. "I guess I lose. She turned to Athryn. That's one favor to you I guess. Do I get to know what I owe you now?"

---

Back at the card table. Ken grumbled and started shaking his head. "How can ya do that to me! I don't wanna see Nico's junk! Grrr... already using psychic powers on us, eh? Well... you'll have to work harder than that. I'm out."

Ken threw his cards face down and crossed his arms.

"I'm still in. What's the harm?" Nico said. "And even if we have been staring, Miss Odessa, at least we couldn't be accused of undressing our fellow crew members with our minds. Go on then. Captain, you still in?"

----

Caitlin and Commander Soude made their way out of the recreation lounge and back into the kitchen. Only instead of finding anyone there, the room was empty, the only alarming thing being the smell of burned meat emanating from the oven. Soude went to the oven, turned the heat off and opened it to reveal a burned chicken dinner.

"Not looking good for our celebration of delivery dinner," the commander said. "I wonder where our cooks got off to?"

Looking around, Caitlin notices a few drops of blood on the cutting board, next to some half-chopped vegetables.

----

Judith couldn't quite make out the entire password that Sparky entered. There were five beeps, and she was fairly certain there was a 6 and a 3 involved, but she couldn't be sure on the others.

"Does it really seem so strange?" Sparky said, responding to Judith's question. "If you've got a big secret, and it only takes one engineer to care for a station, why would they bother having more engineers on the station? Isn't that just more mouths sworn to secrecy? Heh, by the way, you should probably just check the hall monitors. I'll be the one to check inside the inner labs."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Dark Frontier (Game Thread)

The scientist sighed as they found the empty room, looking around as the commander went and shut off the burning stove. "Looks like one of them cut themselves, they must be off to the medbay. Would have been nice if they had warned someone on the way out, but no helping that now." She told him, collecting a cloth and cleaning off the blood, separating any of the vegetables that looked to have caught some and trashing them.

"See if you can't shave the burnt off of that, we can still use the rest for stock, and turn these vegetables into a stew. Largest pot in that drawer over there, fill it two-thirds with water and get it heating on the stove." She said, sanitizing the knife from the cutting board and starting on the vegetables herself, digging a mail glove out of a drawer so as not to repeat the mistake that lost them a chicken dinner in the first place.