[X] Construct Building
-[X] Entertainment Complex
[X] Patrol rail lines
[X] Patrol forest
[X] Intrigue sweep
[X] Nomad diplomacy
[X] Study war
[X] Seek allies
[X] Hunting
Synergy!
96
Ella had decided to set aside holding a party for at least a year out of respect for the economic sensibilities of the nomads, who she had managed to find out didn't really have an name for their group other than to take some guidance from their leaders, the top two who were generally referred to as the Matriarch and the Patriarch, being the top female and male members of the group, respectively. The reavers had of course killed both of those in their attack and the group had spent the past year sorting out who exactly was to be their new leaders among them. Argo was not promoted to the position of Patriarch, but he during the process he had been declared Saviour and Ambassador, so he remained the primary contact point in any case.
Ella also figured that a spot of big game hunting to mix in with the diplomacy to sort out the issues with the group's extended camp out on her doorstep and the now growing fairly standard patrols would make a naturally extension of her activities. Might also serve as a good spot of advertising depending on what she managed to bag out in the woods. She had decided to begin expanding out the number of casinos, theatres, arcades and the like to improve the attractiveness of Razorleaf Meadows to tourists and immigration, and the biggest issue there wasn't the building construction, but in attracting the talent that would make all of these buildings actually worthwhile for people to come to. As such she was going on a bit of an advertising blitz and using past examples of high points of culture and entertainment in the settlement to lure people in.
What Ella did not anticipate was that all of this would combine together into a very strange situation.
It all started when they received a request for clearance to land from a contracted personnel transport plane. Seeing as they weren't a particularly big settlement, that caused the people ostensibly in charge of such things to simply tell the plane to find an undeveloped spot to set down with its VTOL and to immediately contact Ella as to the oddity. Scrambling to set aside the paperwork she had been working on and to assemble an honour guard - anyone with access to a plane was Important - she found herself scrambling out into an area within the curtain walls that had once held solar panels before cheap fusion power had had them reclaimed for rare metals, the now dying down wind from the plane's fans having kicked up the leaf detritus that had not yet been cleaned up and a man unfolding himself from the rear passenger seat of the fighter-bomber design modified to carry VIPs quickly across the planet. And "unfolding" was certainly the operative word for the man considering that not only was he a citizen of Indigo Hammer, but he was a particularly gigantic specimen and quite possibly the most augmented human being Ella had ever laid eyes on. Why he had stuffed himself in a cockpit that was clearly too small for him both confused and intrigued Ella.
As he levered himself out of the plane more, things just got weirder. For one, where most of the people of Indigo Hammer were very tall and thin in profile, this man had a roughly triangular torso profile, which on a 3+ metre tall man was a sight to see. Ella roughly estimated that his arms were thicker around than her torso. Or at least it seemed that way because he was built like a man who strangled Dandriss wildlife as a recreational hobby. Which it quite possibly was considering the fact that he was augmented enough that his skin had grown so metallized that it was more black than silver-blue and he walked around outside sans shirt, which was eye-poppingly and mind-mindbogglingly insane. Grinning with teeth that shone like steel as he walked forward, he announced in a booming voice, "Messermass Zinde, at your service!"
Getting her hand taken in a comically oversized grip that left her unable to really reciprocate - really, she was just carried along in the moment - she replied awkwardly, "Ella Stone. I had not really heard-"
"President of Xychro Enterprises, ma'am! Fine purveyors of quality goods since Starfall, and top procurement expert for the University of Indigo Leaf!" The man explained enthusiastically, as if that would fill her in without issue. Barrelling on as he released her hand and started to walk towards the nearest entrance as if he owned the place, Ella and her soldiers just swept along in trying to figure out what was happening, he said, "Now, I've come here for two things! The first is to see if you have been treating my dear old aunt as well as the rumours say you have! The second is to see if the beasts of the forest are anywhere near as much fun to hunt as they are back home!"
While wondering if the man was capable of ending a sentence without an exclamation mark and suspecting not, Ella had her muse run through the national databases to see if they could come up with information on this maniac. While somewhat less detailed than a local celebrity, Ella fairly quickly realized that Xychro Enterprises was a manufacturing conglomerate within Indigo Hammer with economic clout roughly equivalent to the South Woods Company, and their president had decided to randomly show up in her settlement because he was apparently related to someone in the nomad group and had heard that there might be hunting in the area - not that there wasn't hunting everywhere on Dandriss. Jogging to keep up with him, Ella asked, "Ah, did you just receive word of the situation?"
"Just got a call from one of my cousins that she had been made her clan's Matriarch! Hah! Asks me if I could send her any support half a year ago - Xychro makes products out of animals, so nothing I could do there! - and then doesn't tell me about her promotion this season! Can you believe some people's relatives!?" Messermass explained at full volume, causing Ella's brain to do flips at the man's apparent insanity.
After a moment of realizing that she was following him despite the fact that he couldn't have a clue where he was going in her settlement, Ella asked, "Would you like me to lead you to where we have the group staying right now?"
"No need! Eventually I'll find my way out into the woods, and then eventually either I'll find them or they'll find me!" Messermass proclaimed.
Pausing and just sort of letting the man go, Ella told her soldiers to keep an eye on the maniac before she went dashing to the opposite side of the settlement to where the nomads were camped out.
The look on Matriarch Auga Zinde's face indicated that her relative's behaviour was known to her. Sighing, she said, "Messer has always been a bit odd, but last I had heard he was starting to abuse the Iron Fruit in ways no one had expected were survivable, but the side effects were... well, when I tried to contact him for charity I had discovered just what his habits had done to him. I was quietly told by his secretary that he has mostly become a figurehead within the company, mostly because at this point no one is entirely sure what the death toll of attempting to kick him out would be. So they and the government humour him and point him in the vague direction of wildlife populations they wouldn't mind culled. Xychro did offer some charity last year, my nephew's ranting about the impossibility of the company to provide living animals aside."
"This... happens?" Ella asked, comparing to the much more rare instances of cyber-psychosis that had been documented in the past.
The older woman hummed and said, "This is a consequence of excessive access to resources and little oversight. While not such an example when we left, Messer is certainly the sort of disharmonious abuse of the natural world that we chose to leave Indigo Hammer over decades ago." There was a pause, Auga coughed lightly, and then she said, "Honestly, your grandmother is..."
"I know well enough her reputation," Ella replied while holding up a placating hand, smirking under her environmental helmet. "I suppose I can see certain similarities. Although..."
Auga nodded and said, "If my discussion last year is any indication, even your grandmother would be considered an example of positive sobriety and humility by comparison."
Sighing, Ella asked, "So what do I do about this maniac?"
"We'll try to guide him when he eventually gets to us, but... well, he is still company president and commands considerable power just by his ability to go certain places and demand that people follow him. If you make friends with him, there are likely to be considerable benefits - so long as you can stand him for extended periods. If you just sort of ignore him though he will probably get bored eventually and wander off back to Indigo Hammer territory once more," Auga explained. After a moment, she said, "The best way to get on his good side is incidentally to kill some large, dangerous animal, so long as he isn't personally targeting it. He gets irritated if anyone 'kill-steals' around him."
Ella considered this. She had been planning on going hunting anyway, and the president of a major corporation from another nation was the sort of networking many of her peers would sacrifice important body parts for, but this... this...
Ella went hunting with...
[] Her mech
[] With a military grade anti-materiel rifle
[] With standard hunting weapons
[] With the rifle Argo had gifted her last year
[] Later, after this maniac had wandered off
