ten_fwd_ooc | TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

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test drives

TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

Option 001. Alien planet, marketplace: So you're new to this whole space travel thing. The ship is cool and all, but there are hundreds of alien worlds out there. You want to explore. To see what the universe REALLY looks like.

Well, here's your chance! Your first stop is this lovely indoor marketplace, which looks kind of like a mall. There are stalls one after the other as far as the eye can see, and they sell all kinds of things: food, clothes, trinkets, animals, fabrics, jewelry, perfumes, books, etc etc. Some things look human, easy to recognize; other things look very alien. There are two levels, and constant chatter as people hawk their wares and discuss prices.

Do you want to explore? Poke at the weird shops? Buy a gift for a new friend? Flirt with someone at the food court? Maybe you see a pickpocket, and must run to the aid of the victim. Maybe there's some other villainy afoot. After all, a crowded marketplace is a good place for villains to lurk, causing trouble. Whether you're a hero or just an unassuming traveler, there proves to be some adventure for you on this planet.

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Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

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As far as Nerevar is concerned, the threat has already been made, and the time for talking has ended. Dren has sent assassins into his home, and - so he believed - paid a sorcerer to separate him from his home. But this information gives him pause.

"A star-ship." Nerevar frowns, sounding out the syllables individually. "Something very like a Battlespire, then. I didn't think they still existed..."

Not after Mehrunes Dagon destroyed the Imperial Proving Ground, anyway. The kind of expense required to reach magicka by magicka became quite difficult to justify after that. It hadn't stopped whoever built this Enterprise, of course. But this is well beyond Dren's ability, and far more elaborate than would be necessary.

"This cannot be the work of the Camonna Tong."

He lowers his sword and eases his stance, but does not sheath his blade. That this human is not his enemy does not mean the danger is gone.

"My sincerest apologies, Captain. In these times, a mer of my position can trust no one."

Edited 2014-07-11 22:55 (UTC)

"I've never heard the word, but I'd say so."

This guy seems willing to listen to reason.

Good.

Things always go better when people are just willing to talk.

His crew would probably have something to say about that, but Dylan still believes it, after more than a year trying to build a new civilization out of the blackness. You don't make friends or allies by going in attacking.

And sometimes, just talking about what's going on can make things make a lot more sense. Admittedly, it helped that when Dylan found himself here, he met Trance, but the principle stands.

And Dylan's done the first contact with new people thing before. Hell, it's practically his life these days when he's not trying to juggle the requests of his coalition partners.

"It's the work of a being called Q who apparently makes a habit of being a nuisance."

Dylan straightens up and takes one hand off the lance. In slow, deliberate movements so his companion can see he's standing down, he twists the hand still holding the lance so that the weapon turns, parallel to the floor, and retracts it. He lowers the lance, but he doesn't put it away. Not yet.

"No apologies necessary."

"You are due the respect your rank commands," Nerevar says. "Even if I did arrive under duress."

And even if this is not his ship. The Andromeda Ascendant, he called it. Another star-ship, such as this one? A question to be answered later - the nature of this Q is more pressing.

"Do you know if Q is its true name? The Daedra often take false names for themselves."

To toy with mortals, and disguise the neonymic. Like many things the Daedra do, it serves many purposes.

It's been too long since that was something he could expect on a regular basis.

On Tarazed, yes. On Mobius, once the military academy's been running a while. But nowhere else. Not even in the signatory worlds to the Commonwealth Charter. Not even on his own ship's Command Centre.

There was a time when he could walk into a room and his presence made everyone there snap to attention with a Captain on deck! But those days are past.

He never was much of a one for pulling rank. He'd preferred an earnest whisper "In Dylan Hunt we trust" over a dozen "Captain on deck!" cries.

But. It's a good sentiment, so he gives a nod, his stance easing a little further.

"Q's the only name I've heard it given. Q of a race called the Q. With whom I have not had the pleasure of acquaintance."

Though if Q is anything to judge by, it won't be much of a pleasure.

He would not think to do otherwise. He has been a soldier - mercenary or otherwise - for far longer than he has ever been Nerevar Incarnate upon Mundus. He is quite grateful to have at least encountered someone he shares something in common with. It is a rare anchor point of sanity in this mad scenario. The Void. He was on a ship, in the Void of bloody Oblivion.

"Well, whatever it is, I suspect it will take its time letting us know why we're here," he says. "The ada enjoy their secrets as much as they do their games."

Nerevar says this with the conviction of experience. It doesn't take many encounters with the divine to become an old hand at it.

"Were you taken from your ship, as I was?"

Edited 2014-07-17 05:55 (UTC)

"It certainly seems to be doing that," Dylan agrees. He's been told that it's some sort of joke on the part of the creature doing it, but he's less than inclined to believe that easily.

He'd have been made a meal of in the world of the Long Night if he let himself accept things that easily. Not that he knows what ada means, but he understands the sentiment well enough, anyway.

"I was. One moment, I was on my way to the bridge. The next, here."

If this Q is not a Daedra, then it is something very much like one, as star-ships to Battlespires. Nerevar wouldn't put it past any Daedra Lord to commit mass kidnapping for its own amusement and nothing more. He also would not be surprised to learn that there was some hidden purpose behind it. The ways of Daedra, good and bad, cannot be known or even grasped at unless they wish to make them known. Again, he knows this from experience.

Until then, he prays that Azura will guide him.

"Bal Isra has just been attacked by assassins," he says. "They came for me without a writ. I had thought my being here was in some way connected."

Dylan shakes his head.

"I don't think there's any link between what was happening before we showed up here and us being here. I just spent the day fighting zombies off my ship."

He can see no link between being here and the Bokor. But if it had been the day of the cut and paste ship, he'd have thought exactly the same thing.

"But that probably explains the warmth of your greeting."

"It does, indeed," Nerevar says. "Disgust is the only appropriate reaction to any member of the Camonna Tong. They are a sworn enemy to me, and to anyone who believes that man, mer, and beastfolk ought not to be slaves."

Because it clearly must have been the Camonna Tong who sent these assassins. He can think of no other explanation.

"Teleportation is not beyond their capabilities. But star-ships are."

"I would count myself as someone who believes that," Dylan says quietly.

It's one of the reasons he has issues with many of the Nietzschean prides and why working with them does not often sit well with him. But it's also why, any opportunity he gets, he tries to remind the leaders of those prides that humans are worth their respect. Humans are worth freedom.

It's why he managed to free two worlds from the Sabras and Jaguars.

It's why he tried, for Harper, to free Earth.

Eventually, he's going to have to have that conversation with the Nietzscheans.

"I've been told the people whose ship this is have nothing to do with us being here, and so far, I'm inclined to believe it."

Unless he's given reason not to.

"You would be a brave man to say that aloud, where I am from," Nerevar says. "There are many who disagree."

More, even, than the Camonna Tong. There are still a few on his own council who still hold slaves. But he has been spending the currency his name affords him to change that fact.

"I wouldn't have expected they would. Two sets of mortals to toy with."

"I've never let that bother me."

His expression hardens, briefly.

He may have Nietzschean allies, it's true. But he's never made any secret of his dislike for their slavers, for their oppression of his own people. The revolution Harper and he had tried to start on Earth may have failed, but it and the rebellions it sparked have given the Drago-Kazov plenty of trouble.

And any world freed from the Nietzscheans is a victory.

And the Nietzschean enslavement of worlds is one of the things that most disgusts him about the post-Fall world.

After a moment, though, his expression softens again, and he gives an unamused half-laugh.

"Yeah. That's pretty much the impression everyone around here's got. The creature doing this is messing with us and the crew."

A grin crosses his face.

"Neither have I."

This isn't quite true. He often worries for those who follow him and those who love him. But Ilmeni had been fighting the good fight years before he had ever set foot in Morrowind. She knows the risks, and bears them gladly.

He sheaths Goldbrand. There seems little point in having it out now. It would do little good against the being who has kept him prisoner.

A change comes over him - very slight, but quite noticeable. His body language is more relaxed, less rigid, though in no way is it informal or undisciplined. Just as he turned from the cornered warrior to the stiff diplomat, so has he now become one military officer exchanging pleasantries with another. Nerevar Redoran has retired for the moment. In his place is the Good Knight Serjo Balvadares. Unless you knew him quite well, you would think he was finally showing the world his true self.

The number of people who call him by his true first name can be counted on one hand.

"I don't suppose you even know who I am, do you?"

Insofar as anyone does.

Edited 2014-09-12 07:11 (UTC)

Dylan's smile echoes his, though it's a little less bold, a little less full, because there are compromises he's had to make.

What was the comparison he drew when he signed up the Sabra-Jaguars to the charter? Yeah. Stalin and the Allies. Ancient military history. Trading off ideals for practicalities has never been something that's made him comfortable, but as a man single-handedly trying to pull together an alliance out of nothing, it's had to be done.

(Those slaves will be freed.)

"That's what I like to hear."

Conviction. One of the many things that seems to have died out since the Fall.

The guy finally sheathes the sword, and that's the cue Dylan needs to holster the force lance he's been holding loose but alert at his side. He flicks his fingers, giving it one, two expert twists before he slips it back into the holster at his thigh.

"I'm afraid not. Should I?"

Compromise. Nerevar knows quite well the bittersweet taste of it. The Great Houses are hard enough to manage when one doesn't mean to alter their religion and their way of life. All he does, he is able to get away with because the power of the Nerevarine carries with it a heavy expectation, an unfulfilled promise that hangs over it like a dark cloud - one day he will be expected to drive the Empire from Morrowind forever. He knows the more traditional Houses will not wish to wait for the Empire to die of old age. And though he desperately wishes otherwise, he knows that when the time comes, much innocent blood will be spilled.

He bows slightly and gives his recitation.

"Serjo Redoran Garyn Balvadares of Bal Isra, Archmaster of House Redoran, Knight of the Imperial Dragon, Defender and Hortator of the Five Great Dunmer Houses, Proclaimed Nerevar Incarnate by the Four Ashland Tribes, Supreme Commander of all House and Imperial Forces in the Vvardenfell District, Champion of Azura, Hand of Mephala, Sword of Boethiah, and Protector of Morrowind."

Beat.

"At least I think that's all of them. Most call me Nerevar Redoran. A little more than half a year ago I walked into a god's house and killed him. If you don't remember that, you've been long away from the Mundus indeed."

Edited 2014-09-16 11:37 (UTC)

That is an incredible collection of titles, one of the longest Dylan has ever heard, and when it comes to overblown and pretentious titles, he's heard rather a lot of them over the past year and plenty in his career before that. An overblown title attached to a person who seems incapable of having earned it is sometimes a warning sign, but Dylan shows no hint of amusement, disbelief, or judgment; if he were asked to guess, he'd suggest that it feels to him that Nerevar Redoran could well have earned the right to be called champion, sword, protector, knight, and all the other things in his complete list of titles.

Commonwealth Captain and Commander of the Andromeda Ascendant will do just fine for Dylan.

Dylan dips his head in return for Nerevar Redoran's bow, and his smile is apologetic.

"I would definitely have remembered that. Just how does one kill a god?"

Dylan just has the Spirit of the Abyss to deal with, and that's more than enough. Not that the Abyss has a house to go to.

The titles seemed to come tumbling from the heavens once the ur-Dagoth fell. Killing the devil does a lot to advance your career prospects, if ever you can manage it.

"Carefully, and with a lot of help," Nerevar says. "There was much work that needed to be done to make it possible, but to shorten a long story, I tore his Heart from him."

Well, he liked to think it was his Heart. But it belonged to the world. For one was made to satisfy the other.

"The god was Dagoth Ur, if you've heard the name. The Devil Under Red Mountain."

Edited 2014-10-25 04:27 (UTC)

"That I'll believe," is Dylan's dry response. Careful planning and the aid of as many allies as possible are the only ways that he can see to destroy the Abyss, if that's what it is they need to do. As if trillions of Magog weren't enough of a threat, there was their creepy as hell supposed god to deal with, too, as well as the hints that this is all part of some grander plan on the Abyss' part.

And facing that, Dylan and his crew. One captain, one ship, and the less than fifty worlds they've managed to pull together into an alliance.

"I don't know the name," he admits. "I ... suspect that your world and mine are rather different."

"'Your world and mine...'"

Nerevar frowns.

"Well. It is possible that the old Imperial colony on Masser was more than a rumor. But that's not what you mean, is it?"

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TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

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