[X] Bassoon's a mage, right? You're feeling paranoid, after the Unsealing. Ask him to look over you and Dazarel for foreign magic.
Yearly Check-Up
You glance at Dazarel for a moment, but decide not to smack him off of your shoulder. If that's what it takes for him to quit pissing off your host, you'll take it. Instead you turn your gaze skywards. "Good morning, Bassoon."
The namekian blinks, grumbling as he slides out of bed. "...morning," he replies, rubbing at his neck. "You're cheerful."
"I don't really need to sleep like this," you say.
"Hmph. Lucky you," he says. "Surprised it doesn't get stressful, though."
"I can handle it," you say. And you can, after all; it's nothing new to you. You've gone months without sleep before. It's all about managing your downtime.
"If you say so," he says, standing and stretching. "Are you feeling better?"
You grimace. "...I'll be okay," you say.
He hums. "And you, Dazarel?"
The dragon grumbles, fluttering his wings.
Bassoon sighs. "Whatever. Hang on a second." He walks out of the bedroom and enters a small kitchen. He draws a pitcher of cold water, takes a breath, and then tips it back.
By the time he sets it down, you're honestly impressed. "I didn't think anybody but saiyans could drink two gallons of water in ten seconds," you say.
"When you only need water to survive, you pick it up," says Bassoon, taking a deep breath. "Blockade runs are a real good time to learn how to get it done fast." He sighs, setting down the pitcher. "So, what can I do for you this morning, Kakara?"
You duck your head, a little embarrassed. "Ah...sorry. I don't mean to bother you."
"Hey, I'm kind of just coasting along at this point," he replies, heading back to the bedroom. "I'm sure I'll find the time to be weirded out by our situation later. For now, I'll manage. So, how can I help you?"
"You're a mage, right?" you ask, lifting off and floating idly.
"I am," he answers. "By the way, changing. Eyes down if you don't care to see."
You duck your head, flushing as the sound of rustling fabric echoes down from the sky. "Thanks. Anyway, I was wondering...there was a lot of magic going around, when I was fighting Dandeer. I wanted to see if any of it stuck. I wouldn't think it had, but she had some spells on my...allies, and..."
You hear the rustling noises pause for a moment before picking back up with renewed vigor. "Crap. You're right, you're absolutely right, that's obvious, I should've thought of it myself- do you have any spells on you already, or- no, if there was something bad, she'd obviously have you say, 'No, that one's fine...'"
You swallow. He obviously has some experience with this. "For what it's worth, there's my Masque."
"Your Masque?" he asks.
"Lets me turn into a human," you say, still staring at the grass below. "For blending in."
"Wow, your people take security seriously."
"We call it the Masquerade," you reply.
"Fair enough. Heads up, I'm changed and coming in!"
You glance up just in time to see him rocketing down out of the sky. He comes to a halt in front of you. You wave. "Hi."
"Hi," he answers. "Could I ask you to please turn your back? You're a lot more powerful than me, and I'd like to take some precautions in case there's a problem."
You shudder at the thought of giving a sorcerer your back, much less explicitly so that he has time to get ready to fight you. "...is that necessary?"
He crosses his arms. "Look, I get it. Especially after what just happened to you. But I need to make sure."
You grimace. "Fine." You take a quick breath and turn before you can rethink your decision. Immediately, you feel magic unspooling behind you, and hear Bassoon muttering under his breath. The hair rises on the back of your neck, and you clench and unclench your fingers, desperately focusing on the sensation to keep yourself from whirling around and blasting Bassoon before he can do something to you. He's not going to do anything to me, he's not going to do anything to me...
So intense is your focus that you hardly notice Dazarel darting forward and clinging to the front of your shirt.
You stand there for a few moments, keeping yourself under control, under Bassoon says, "Alright, I'm done." You immediately spin back around. He gives you a sympathetic look. "Are you ready?"
You take a shuddering breath. "Ready as I'm going to be, I guess."
He nods. "I'll keep it quick." He raises his hands -- slowly -- and frames your face in an odd pattern. "Magesight." His eyes film over red and begin to glow.
You fidget under that gaze, for the first time in a while very aware of how unsettling you must look in the throes of a vision. Dazarel climbs back up to your shoulders. "What does it look like?" you ask.
"...I think there's nothing," he says. "I see that Masque, though. It looks like it's anchored on your spirit, after all. And...wow."
You blink. "What? What about it?"
"That's stunning," he breathes, peering at a point on your right collarbone. "It's such elegant workmanship, I don't..." He looks up at you. "I gotta say, when you said, 'saiyan mages,' I was not thinking that you could do anything like this."
You blink. "I...I guess that the spell is good?"
He snorts. "Good? That's breathtaking. This is the most elegant spell design I've ever seen. I had no idea you could do things like this with sealing as a concept. Transformative effects with this kind of magic? I mean sure, you can do it if you apply yourself widely enough, but before I saw this I'd swear that you'd just be better off with transmutation. But this? If you hadn't specifically told me what I was looking for, I would have missed it completely. It's so clean! If this is what you do so far outside the concept's area of specialization, your wards must be terrifying."
Your eyes widen the longer Bassoon talks. "I...I didn't think that we were this good at magic."
"Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed it either," he says, his eyes clearing. "What can your people do with elemental spells? I'm picturing saiyan mages throwing down with ki fighters on equal footing now, not going to lie."
You blink. "Oh. We, uh...we don't."
He frowns. "You don't? What do you mean, you don't?"
"Sorcerers only practice sealing magic," you say, shrugging. "I'm pretty sure that it's because we need to be so good at wards. Dandelor once said-" You stop. You swallow.
Bassoon blinks. "Are...you alright?"
"Fine," you say, turning away. "Did you find anything?"
"...no," he says. "Just the Masque, and I didn't see anything riding on it. Dazarel looks clear, too."
You nod. "Okay."
He tilts his head. "Are you going to be okay?"
You sigh. "I'll be fine. I guess I'm just going to get a lot of reminders."
He nods, pursing his lips. "Alright." he glances up and around. "Well, I guess I should get busy. I'll need to finish up on Arcosa before I can get you back to the Guru."
You straighten, still looking off at the horizon. "What do you still need to do?"
"Polaris is going to send a runner soon; their scouters will have picked up that I'm awake and moving. That runner will take me to High Command, so that I can be debriefed on the state of the galaxy."
You perk up, even as you lean on a rock. "What is going on out there?"
He chuckles, waving you off. "Look, I don't mind explaining, but I'll be telling them all about this in a little bit. Wait a while."
You grimace. "Urgh. Fine."
He snickers, dissolving as he departs his mindscape. "Teenagers..."
You fold your arms, scowling. "Show-off." You sigh, looking up at the sky as Bassoon starts moving again.
'Are you going to do something interesting while we wait?' asks Dazarel.
"Maybe I'll be boring, just to spite you," you reply, still looking skyward.
'I don't think that's going to happen,' he replies in a smug tone of voice.
"How do you figure that?" you ask, glancing back at him.
'Well, you were turned away, so the slug didn't notice, but your eyes have been lid-to-lid white since he mentioned going to see his Guru.'
You blink. "They what?!" You feel yourself out, and sure enough, there is a vision nagging at you. "I...I didn't even feel that. It's usually so much more insistent..."
Dazarel shrugs. 'With that block your teacher placed on you gone, I imagine many things about your sight will be changing in the near future.'
You settle back down onto the rock, feeling at your eyelids. "...huh. I wonder what this one is?"
'One way to find out,' says Dazarel.
A rather odd vision is prodding at you at the moment. It's more persistent than they usually are, but less insistent, if that makes any sense. You don't even really have a feel for what it is, at the moment, but according to Dazarel, it started edging in on your eyes once Bassoon mentioned his Guru.
[ ] Take the vision (No check; next update contains a vision interlude before moving on with the day).
[ ] Deny it (Low-difficulty sight check to suppress; next update proceeds directly to Bassoon's meeting with High Command).
[ ] See if you can't poke it towards another vision (Moderate-high-difficulty sight check to switch; next update contains the result before moving on with the day).
-[ ] Write-in what you try to See.
MANUAL MORATORIUM. APPROVAL VOTING.
This had no business taking this long, but agh have I been busy. Hope you enjoyed, everybody!
[x] Time to stress-test your new sight abilities: see how many visions in a row you can handle, and how long do you need before you can have more, starting with the one regarding Guru
-[X] Take a break when it's time for the debriefing.
True Prophecy
You find yourself nodding in agreement with Dazarel. "One way," you say, taking a seat. "You're still going to be bored, though."
'You could always try to take me with you,' replies the dragon.
You snort. "Yeah, that's not possible."
'Yes, you do strike me as the authority on matter of sight,' he sneers.
You glare at him before closing your eyes. "Go away, Dazarel."
You seize onto the vision fluttering at the edges of your sight and float away. Just before the last of your awareness winks out, you realize that the incoming vision is presentsight.
* * *
Gone.
* * *
The Guru stands atop a spire of rock, frowning out at the bay. Behind him, a massive warrior lands. "Guru! The Alliance just made contact. The Empire's pulling back their offensives on all other fronts, and last people have seen, they're heading north."
The elderly namekian closes his eyes, sighing. "So. They've finally grown tired of us." He takes a deep breath before opening his eyes."Very well." He turns. "Plank, send out the word; all warrior-clan namekians are to start organizing for a fight. I want us prepared."
Plank nods. "Yes, sir! I'll get 'em hopping, you count on me!" He lifts back off and rockets into the distance.
The Guru stays where he is, shoulders slumping. "I'll need to call them back," he murmurs. "We'll need everybody we possibly can get, for this."
* * *
Back.
* * *
You blink as the vision ends. New Namek's coming under attack!? Is any place safe for me?! You think about that for a second. ...for them. I meant for them. You grimace. Okay, fine, no I didn't. I'm allowed to be selfish with everything going on right now. Why is everything-!
You take a deep breath, closing your eyes. You were planning on other visions; this was meant to be a stress test. You glance up to see what Bassoon's doing, and see him talking to an armored frost d- arcosian. You still have time.
You push your Sight, and for the first time in a while dive into a second vision right on the heels of your first. This time, futuresight.
* * *
Gone.
* * *
It's four years from now, and an old saiyan -- so old that his hair has already turned grey -- ascends a hill overlooking a plain of snow. He looks exhausted, and despite that, extremely twitchy. Every small noise has his head snapping over.
The planet he's on is not deserted, exactly -- you can feel ki signatures, and lots of them, clustered in various places off in the distance. However, from where he's standing, you'd be hard-pressed to tell that there was another soul within a thousand miles.
The man halts, suddenly, frozen still. He trembles, eyes wide.
"Hello, little Toru."
Slowly, Toru turns, shaking, and beholds the Enemy.
The cloaked figure stands, arms clasped behind his back. "You've kept away from me for a very long time, haven't you?"
Toru blurs into motion, blasting up into the sky, as his ki begins to flicker and he begins a transformation-
-only for a plane of sickening filth to spring up in his path. It defies description; if pressed, you could be convinced to vaguely call it black, in the same way that you would call a genocide a murder. It is something essentially indescribable, and you can sense the air around it shrieking as it attempts to house something so repugnant. Barely a millimeter thick, it is. A sheet of paper would be thicker.
Yet when Toru impacts it...he is gone. His eyes widen, his mouth opens in an abortive shout, and he strains to arrest his momentum, but still he plows into the sheet, and then he is simply gone.
The Enemy lowers his hand. "And done. Mission...complete."
* * *
Back.
* * *
You gasp as you come to, and barely manage to keep from vomiting. "Four years, I have four years," you mutter to yourself, trying to stave off panic. "He has four years, I can fix this with four years."
You try to catch your breath, but another vision is prodding at your consciousness -- pastsight -- and you grab it, remembering your resolution to take these as fast as you possibly can-
* * *
Gone.
* * *
Goku draws down the Genki Dama into his own body, grunting under the strain just as you did, and releasing it all in a titanic fury that makes the world tremble, just as you did. Planet Earth, for a moment, sings as one, and in a shining instant, Android Thirteen dies.
* * *
Back.
* * *
-you lurch as the vision dumps you back in Bassoon's head and immediately feel a flicker of presentsight clawing you away. You try to resist for a moment, just long enough to check what Bassoon's doing-
* * *
Gone.
* * *
A woman clad in strange armor creeps up behind some kind of alien you couldn't name with a blast to your head, slowly easing a knife out of a sheathe at her side -- a knife, why a knife of all things? -- and it's a cold instant before you realize that you're about to witness a murder-
* * *
Back.
* * *
-you feel your eyes rolling back in your skull-
* * *
Gone.
* * *
One year from now, you watch ships burning over new Namek as a tide of soldiers pours past. Advancing through the floating corpses of those who came before, they descend to the surface. Already, you can see that it's burning. Bassoon watches for a moment, saying nothing.
Then he sighs, seals up his armor, and steps out of his craft. "Kakara, I think that it's time for you to leave."
Your eyes widen. "Wait, no-!"
He cannot possibly hope to beat these odds. He cannot possibly hope to survive these odds. But he goes anyway, and with a lurch, you feel something shove you out of his consciousness and hurtling away to another host. The last thing you see of him is ki as he charges the invaders' flank with a roar of defiance and a burst of light.
* * *
Back.
* * *
-but they're still white all around, so it's not like it makes any difference-
* * *
THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE THIS WILL BE
* * *
-and your spine snaps into utter rigidity.
Your aura unbinds and flares, casting the landscape in blue-then-golden glow as you transform without even meaning to. You blast straight to your max power, eyes gazing blindly up into the sky. Waves of power churn the surf at your back. The ground at your feet craters and cracks under the strain. Your mouth opens. You speak, ki and something more thrumming through your voice and giving it volume and projection you could never otherwise hope to match.
"A YEAR UNTIL THE END; A YEAR BEFORE THE FALL
NEW NAMEK TURNS, STILL UNAWARE
"THAT WHICH HAS LAIN DORMANT MUST AWAKEN
AND THOSE WHO HAVE SCATTERED MUST RETURN
"BEFORE THE BLOW COMES AND THE LAST DRAGON FALLS SILENT."
Your spine loses its rigidity, your eyes roll back down and clear up, and you slump backwards, falling to the grass as you lose your transformation. Your breath comes in short gasps, and sweat rolls down your face as heat rolls off of your skin. Your eyes ache; your voice feels like you've spent an hour screaming.
Dazarel alight on the ground next to your head, staring at you. "Well. I was right. That was interesting indeed.'
You groan, closing your eyes. "What...the hell happened?" you croak, tilting your head back in an effort to let more heat get out of your body.
Before Dazarel can answer, you hear Bassoon's voice, echoing from the sky. "KAKARA, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
You open your eyes, wincing at the light. You see Bassoon heading through the sky, heading for his residence. "W...what happened?"
"I'VE HAD MY MEETING. THE WHOLE TIME YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE HAVING A SEIZURE, AND NOW THIS! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT NEW NAMEK?"
You let your eyes slide closed in frustration and disappointment at having missed your chance to watch the meeting. "I...I'm a seer. And I had...something." You grapple, for a moment, about how much to reveal- but no, you already resolved to tell Bassoon everything. "It's not something that's ever happened to me before. But...it was true. I know it was." You open your eyes again and squint against the light. "It was about Namek. Something is coming to Namek."
Seer sub-ability unlocked: Prophecy.
You have a choice, in how much to reveal to Bassoon about what you saw during your vision quest. How much do you reveal?
[ ] Just tell him what you think the prophecy means. He doesn't need the context.
[ ] Explain your visions relating to New Namek, in case he has information that lets him interpret them differently.
[ ] Explain everything, no matter how trivial. Something of this gravity...unsettles...you. You want him to give you a full second opinion. Anything could be related.
[ ] Write-in. Feel free to fine-tune your level of disclosure. Want to disclose one specific vision and no others? All visions save one? Something in between? Write it in.
MANUAL MORATORIUM. APPROVAL VOTING.
Hm, updates have been fighting me lately. I think I'll pick up the pace fairly soon.
Enjoy, folks!
Also, I don't recall if I've previously mentioned this, but I do welcome proofreaders' comments, folks. I don't write this to my professional standards of quality, after all; I give these updates cursory checks, if I check them at all, and there's going to be plenty that slips past. Feel free to point out typos!
we interrupt this vote for a quick announcementI feel like everyone that participates should understand that there are times where you will more than likely be discontent with the overall results or course of action chosen by the majority. And that's perfectly fine; we don't expect everyone to not express some form of saltiness from time to time.
But when that saltiness turns into frequent attacks against the QM, constant disruptions of the thread, and the cultivation of an overall antagonistic relationship between the QM and multiple other participants, well, that's where I have to put my foot down.
So! With that in mind, @gamer50018 has been removed from the thread until further notice. As for everyone else, please make the attempt to stay cordial with each other and the QM. I get that things will get heated at times, but there's always a better alternative to lashing out at others when you're frustrated.
[X] Explain everything, no matter how trivial. Something of this gravity...unsettles...you. You want him to give you a full second opinion. Anything could be related.
Into the Void
You have already trusted Bassoon with so much. Your name, your abilities, your heritage, your home, and your own story. To be perfectly honest, you've shared enough that you'll face charges for it, when you get home and it all comes out. You'll almost certainly be the effective Lady of Goku at the time, mind, so those charges would be farcical, but they'll exist, and the public backlash is likely to be intense, no matter how necessary your actions have been.
Hell, you're freaking out a fair amount yourself, in the privacy of your own head.
Still, if you've come this far...what's the point of further secrets? You've already shared the biggest, most important secrets you can imagine.
And so, you share this one, too.
Every word of it.
Bassoon falls silent, and comes to a dead halt in midair, in the outside world. His hands tremble, slightly, just for a moment.
Then he powers up and blasts towards his home on a perfectly flat trajectory. 'We're leaving. Whatever skills you have for helping me out in a fight, get them ready. I'm going to shoot my way through the blockade. I need to get back to Namek as soon as possible.'
You blink at his sudden vehemence. "What did I see? Do you know who's coming to Namek?"
'The New Cold Empire,' he replies, rocketing into his home through an open window and blurring from spot to spot as he packs. 'The reason why Arcosa is under siege in the first place.'
* * *
When Earth fell, the galaxy fell into chaos.
The Galactic King had, ever since Freeza's death, maintained his tenuous rule with the -- fictitious, always implied, and never actionably stated -- claim that he had Freeza's killer on a leash, and could deploy him to counter anybody threatening the King's reign. Given time and loose lips, word spread that Son Goku, saiyan from some backwater called Earth, was this legendary hero. As Goku continued to win glory in battle, his legend only grew, and the King grew ever more to rely on the fiction that Goku was a friend of the King.
Then, Goku died. Worse still, so did Vegeta. At the very least, though, Earth still stood, and was an ever-more active member of the galactic community as Briefs technology proliferated to the masses and took the nations of Earth to space. Goku and Vegeta's descendants were never really active in the way the King preferred, but they had their own adventures and made the occasional spectacular display of might to keep their legend bright. It drew the problematic elements to Earth to be disposed of, and the King was content.
And then came the Enemy, and a thousand horror stories spread by the fleeing refugees who would later become the Exiles. In a heartbeat, the polite fiction supporting the King's reign was gone. Things didn't collapse straight away, though. Institutions have a fair amount of inertia, and it had been a while since anybody had bothered to start a fight. If the King was actually powerful enough, he might have been able to hold onto his kingdom.
But he wasn't. That's why he needed Earth in the first place.
The rebellions started in the galactic, "west," as the King measured these things. Planets stopped paying taxes, local law enforcement stopped making reports, and local leaders stopped caring what happened in the rest of the galaxy. As the King struggled to direct the Galactic Patrol to suppress revolts, more planets elsewhere started to take their chance to break away, and the rest of the galaxy began to dissolve into chaos.
Into this chaos, Freeza reemerged. Despite a brief spate of empire-building in the wake of the Tournament of Power, the tyrant had subsequently disappeared without a trace in the wake of Goku and Vegeta's demises, leaving the rest of the galaxy to speculate as to where he had gone. Some thought he was merely toying with the galaxy on a grand scale. Others felt he was shaken by his old enemies' deaths, and retreated from the galaxy with the feeling that time had passed him by. A radical few suggested that perhaps, the old tyrant had actually changed by his exposure to Earth. But whatever the reason, he vanished.
Until Earth died.
Into the chaos of the Kingdom's collapse, Freeza entered, restoring order with a brutal hand. The Empire was back, albeit greatly reduced. Freeza held the galaxy in his grip.
Thus, it was a mystery to everybody when he declined to squeeze.
Freeza solidified his control over the West and stopped, biding his time. For several years, he left the Galactic King to regain control over what he could. An uneasy and strange peace settled over the galaxy as the Kingdom, hanging by a thread and united only in fear of Freeza, eyed the silent West.
Five years passed in this manner, and then the stalemate broke when the Enemy came for Freeza.
Nobody knows what transpired when those two demons spoke. All who witnessed it perished. Seventeen star systems were destroyed in the battle. And when the dust settled and people went to find out what had happened, neither fighter was anywhere to be found.
With its common enemy gone, seemingly having destroyed itself killing the thing that had become Creation's boogeyman, the Kingdom promptly exploded. The King and his Patrol couldn't even begin to control what they once claimed, and they retreated into the galactic core. The West, once more bereft of Freeza, collapsed into a thousand warlord states, even as the rest of the galaxy followed along.
Since then, nations have come and gone. Empires have risen and fractured in turn. In no small part, this was due to the efforts of the Galactic King, who in an act of grand spite made it his business to sabotage anybody getting too large. A century after his fight with Freeza, the Enemy returned, and immediately set to work hunting down the shattered remnants of the saiyan race, but he never paid any attention to the rest of the galaxy. Things continued, unchanged.
Roughly sixty years ago, however, a band of arcosian warlords laying claim to the legacy of Freeza's family arose in the West and began forging an empire. It was nothing special, at first -- many arcosians with a taste for adventure had tried something similar. But these fighters had the power to back it up. System after system fell, and when the King tried to stop it, his forces were wiped out. The warlords, naming themselves Cold's Children, proclaimed this to be an act of war. The New Cold Empire and the remnants of the Galactic Kingdom went to war, and the galaxy was caught between them.
For years, the Empire won countless victories. The West and North fell under their dominion, and they pressed in towards the Core seemingly with impunity. The Kingdom seemed set to finally fall.
However, at the last moment, just as the Empire prepared to launch an offensive to seize the Kingdom once and for all, a new player entered the game. Two humans naming themselves Lapis and Lazuli emerged in the still-disunified South, making their appearance with a devastating blow to the Empire's forces. Moving from system to system, they either coerced or removed leaders opposed to them, forging the Alliance of Independent Stars. The Alliance immediately declared war on the Empire, and the Kingdom received a stay of execution.
This, then, is the shape of the galaxy today: In the West and North, the Empire serves as the most powerful polity in the galaxy. The Kingdom prepares in the Core for its final stand, and the Alliance fights desperately in the South to gain the strength they need to push back the Empire. In the East, nobody has risen to true prominence. As of yet unthreatened by any of the major powers, the East is not united, and has joined no side in particular. They are a chaotic and fractious mess, a mess not helped by the overwhelming tide of refugees fleeing the wars to the west.
These refugees, embittered by the loss of their homes, found themselves directionless and unwelcome. They were strangers in a strange land, and seen as an eternal sign of impending strife and hardship. They found themselves cast adrift in a quadrant of the galaxy that gave not a single damn for their hardships, offered no support to them, and often felt free to blame them for their continuing misfortunes.
And, as the wave of refugees spread further east, they found themselves in the same region of space as the planet of Arcosa -- the seat of Cold's former empire, and a symbolic objective the New Empire had spent years saying they were going to reclaim. With nobody to stop them, the refugees stared at their ultimate tormentors' ancestral home.
It started with pirate raids. Undisciplined, untrained refugees turned to robbing shipments in the space around Arcosa. Many died in the inevitable responses, but what few survived were smart, strong, and clever -- and they were motivated. As time passed and more refugees arrived to an East increasingly angry with the tide of immigrants, these veteran pirate bands served as natural centers for the incoming refugees. Their ranks swelled, and eventually, somebody thought to ask why they should stop at mere pirate raids.
War came to the East even as it raged in the West, as the refugees' anger finally boiled over and they began to attack everything that came from Arcosa. Arcosa had the advantage of wealth and training, but they were one planet facing the exodus of a galaxy. Step by step, they were driven back, and eventually they were forced to retreat all the way to their home world, erecting a grand shield network to serve as their last line of defense. The refugees settled into a siege that eventually stretched for decades. The Blockade Fleet became the natural center for further refugees, and they finally found their place. Where before they had been an unwelcome imposition, they were now customers, facing a target about which nobody really cared, and in dire need of purchased supplies. Thus, the Siege of Arcosa began, and while the refugees have come close to breaching the shields more than once, the lines have held. Meanwhile, all around them the East continued to shift and swirl, alliances and nations rising and falling, all of them now defined by the siege at their center, and the Blockade Fleet's all-consuming hunger for more supplies.
The galaxy, in short, is a dumpster fire.
One which has finally spread, after centuries of isolation, to Namek.
* * *
Polaris trails behind Bassoon as your host rises towards the planetary shield. "I don't understand! You weren't in this much of a hurry before! Why now?"
"I got a message from home," growls Bassoon. "The Empire is shifting its forces north. I guess they decided that Namek being neutral wasn't good enough anymore."
Polaris snickers. "I mean, what with all of the namekian, 'adventurers,' travelling the galaxy and coincidentally tending to intersect and disrupt Imperial operations, you can hardly blame them."
Bassoon gives Polaris an unamused look. "It's all hands on deck for this one. I'm sorry, I know that your people need the help, but it's my home."
"I'm not mad that you're leaving," replies Polaris. "I mean, no offense, but you're one fighter. We have plenty. Your value is the stuff you bring us, so thanks, we got what we need. I was just wondering what changed."
"Well, now you know," replies Bassoon. "I'll try to make it back for another run soon, but no promises."
"Well, I can't say I like it, but...well, what else are you going to do?" sighs Polaris as the two draw up to the shields. "I mean, it's your home. I get it." He waves at the planet below. "Thanks for the supply run, Bassoon. That stuff is going to do a lot of good."
Bassoon manages a smirk, shaking Polaris's hand. "No problem. I raided only the best technical universities."
Polaris laughs, turning away. "Oh, good! We wouldn't want subpar goods, after all. Stay safe, Bassoon. We'll give you cover on the way out." He turns away and starts ordering a squad of arcosians into position.
Finally, you speak up, frowning. "Technical universities?"
Bassoon nods, rummaging in his pack. 'Yeah. Engineering schools, really.' He pulls out a capsule with a red stripe on it and produces the air mask you remember from his initial blockade run.
"Why technical schools?" you ask.
'Best place to get the latest in public domain technology,' replies Bassoon, pulling on the mask. 'Arcosa's been cut off for a while. They tend to fall behind the curve. Best thing I can do for them with my space budget is catch them up to date.'
You recall the pile of electronics and books he produced upon landing. "...I thought those were entertainment."
Bassoon blinks. '...you thought I ran the largest blockade in the galaxy to deliver entertainment products?' He shakes his head. "I...guess I'm flattered?"
You flush red. "I mean, there was the candy."
He snorts. 'Okay, fair. I mostly get that because they need the morale boost. The kids love those treats. You ever seen an arcosian child? Adorable.' He shakes his head. 'But no. All of that stuff is technology. Blueprints and schematics.'
You nod, telling yourself that it's really irrational to feel disappointed that somebody is being pragmatic about their suicidally self-sacrificing altruism. "I guess that makes sense."
'I certainly hope so,' he remarks. 'Now, get ready. They're going to lower the shield soon, and I'll need to move.'
"What's the plan?" you ask.
'I blast through at top speed. I left my ship back in the outer asteroid cloud. I'll need to shake our pursuit along the way before I can get into it; it's impossible to detect while powered down, but its startup sequence takes a few minutes, and it's not that well-armored. Whatever you can do to help, I'd appreciate. Maybe some of those seer abilities you mentioned. I don't know how well you can leverage them in the moment, though.'
You frown, remembering a few instances of intuition during Bassoon's first run, and your fight with Yammar. "...maybe. I'll see what I can do."
'All I can ask. Now: a moment, please. I need to be centered for this.' He then breaks off and starts chanting under his breath, erecting magical wards around his body.
You take a breath, turning away from the sky. You glance at Dazarel. "I don't suppose you know anything about the Sight?"
The dragon shifts on your shoulder. 'In a sense.'
You scowl. "Be more specific, Dazarel. Our host is going to get shot at."
'Yes, yes, I know,' snarls the dragon, rising to his feet and stretching. 'Honestly, it's a long conversation with a lot of ground to cover, and the irony in it is delicious. I won't be sacrificing my chance to mock you when I unveil it in full.'
You take a slow breath, eyebrow twitching. "You get one more."
'Therefore, I shall be sticking to practicalities,' he continues, unruffled. 'If you focus your gifts on your perception of the present, but do not trigger a full vision, you may receive impressions of incoming danger.'
"I've had those," you reply. "At least I think so. During my fight with Yammar, I sometimes knew where to dodge before I saw him moving, and I sensed danger coming for Bassoon."
'I did see that,' says Dazarel. 'It gave me hope. Only a heartbeat of it, but still.' He takes off and turns to hover before you, looking you in the eye. 'Personally, I'd focus my efforts on that, were I you. A single such warning could save the slug's life.'
You scowl at Dazarel. "Next time, I'm punching you."
He growls back and begins to circle you. 'Alternatively, you could focus on such prosaic affairs as using futuresight to divine our odds of escape or death along our current planned route. Up to you. You are the seer, after all.'
You sigh, holding out an arm and letting him land there. "You are so annoying. We need to have a longer chat about how you know about the Sight, later."
He chuckles, eyeing you. 'I look forward to you realizing how inane a statement that is.'
You spit on him with enough force to knock him off of your arm and embed him in the ground. "Shut up." You settle down to the ground, cross-legged, as he bellows in outrage. You let your eyes film over white, and start skimming the edges of your gift. "Bassoon? Ready."
Your host nods, finishing his chant, and turns to Polaris. "Ready."
Polaris nods, and says, "We're ready," into his earpiece. Then he raises his voice. "Squad, get ready!"
A moment later, a hole large enough for a single individual opens in the shield, and the squad fires blasts through. In between one volley and the next, Bassoon slips through. Then he fires up his aura and charges forward, towards the waiting blockade and away from Arcosa.
Bassoon has caught you up on the galaxy's history and current affairs on the grand scale. He has given you the missing context on the attack on Namek -- namely, they are neutral but tend to have a lot of their people in the galaxy and hostile to the New Cold Empire, and the Empire has tired of this and is preparing to attack them. Furthermore, Dazarel has, under the pressure of time, revealed that he knows something of the use of Sight, and has confirmed and revealed (on your character sheet) Kakara's possession of Combat Precognition [1/5], and its mechanics.
Bassoon also crushed, as collateral damage, a tiny bit of Kakara's wide-eyed idealism about Bassoon's sheer altruism, although that was probably bound to happen at some point.
Kakara is probably best-situated to assist Bassoon in the breakout by using her Sight, given that she lacks the ability to directly affect things. How should she use it?
[ ] Combat Precognition. While she's unpracticed in it, its very nature means that it is literally a matter of life or death, whenever it would come up.
[ ] Regular visions. Kakara is far more practiced in this use of her powers, and for something as linear and straightforward as this, even futuresight should be easier to interpret than usual.
[ ] No Sight, in fact. Kakara has a better idea, one leveraging her more mundane skills.
-[ ] Write in just what this idea is.
MANUAL MORATORIUM. APPROVAL VOTING.
I realized that the only way through my writer's block was to sit down and force myself to break it. I wrote all of this in a single sitting. I should have been asleep four hours ago. I am exhausted, and this is probably a technical mess. Please point out the typos, because I have not looked over this for them even once.
We're back, folks! I hope you enjoy this! We're back into the regular pace of things.
[x] Combat Precognition. While she's unpracticed in it, its very nature means that it is literally a matter of life or death, whenever it would come up.
The Blockade Runner
The instant Bassoon makes it through the hole, you see blasts incoming.
What your people know of ki-based technology suggests pathetic blasters barely able to threaten the champions of Freeza's age, if they were ready for those blasts. Fragile, slow, and far weaker than any Exile, they were something most people discounted. They were irrelevant at best; at worst, a waste of time and energy that would have left your people with fewer resources fit for exploitation.
The guns mounted on the Blockade Fleet's ships are not your ancestors' ki blasters. They are colossal constructions meant for the task of slowly battering down the curtain shield held over Arcosa. According to Bassoon, the only reason the Siege involves fighting at all is because the arcosians need to occasionally sortie and disrupt the constant bombardment, to give their shields time to recharge. These are guns capable of killing worlds, left to their task without interruption.
Those guns now turn on you and your host, and erupt in fire.
You actually blink in honest-to-kais shock at the strength of the blasts flying your way. These things are broadcasting in the millions. They vary significantly, of course -- the Blockade Fleet is supposed to be pretty ramshackle -- but you're getting everything from five to eighteen million.
Which, of course, is a significant issue to your host, currently sitting pretty at twenty million. No one blast can kill him, but goodness are they ever going to add up in a hurry.
'Eyes open?' he asks, voice strained even over telepathy with all of the focus he's putting into dodging.
"Best I can," you reply, setting your hands on your knees. "I will say if I See anything."
'Alright.'
Bassoon hurtles forwards, on a direct course for the fleet. Your eyes widen as he heads for the densest concentrations. "What are you doing?"
'Our histories tell of a human sport named football on Earth. You familiar?'
"Which one?" you ask, flinching with every near miss.
'The one where you win by sprinting directly into and through the largest group of opposing players. Trust me; I've done this before. Watch.' Bassoon hurtles forward, and a salvo of blasts focus in on him. At the last moment, he raises his arms, and magic pulses. "Multiply!"
Each of the blasts dissolves into a cloud of smaller attacks, which immediately rebound off of each other. Bassoon flies through the expanding cloud of ki, bouncing the much-reduced blasts off of his skin with ease.
He chuckles. 'See?'
You sit, eyes wide. "Wow. Okay. Right, magic. Sure." Shaking your head, you return your focus to your Sight.
Dazarel pries his head out of the ground, hissing at you. Glaring, he circles you. 'Skim the surface. If you trigger a full vision, I'm biting you.'
You sneer. "Hmph." That said, you do as he says; he is, marginally, the greater expert here than you. You reach out for the currents of time, feeling for what will be, very soon, as Sensei Carrick taught you. You feel your consciousness start to slip away, and hold back just short of that line, just barely skipping along the tide of grossness that seems to comprise time, to your senses. It's a hard line to walk; you keep dropping out of it, and you can't really afford to be doing that, considering what you're trying to achieve. But you persevere, forcing yourself back in time and again.
On the outside, Bassoon continues to charge. It seems insane to you for him to attack the blockade's strongest point, but then again, this whole business of blockade running has a certain element of insanity to it. Maybe the crazier it gets, the more effective he becomes. Regardless, he's getting close to the ships now, and the blasts are coming faster. He's having trouble keeping up with the flow-
Intuition strikes.
"Up then down then fast!" you shout, letting your Sight guide words.
Bassoon obeys without hesitation, swerving up over a massive cannon shot coming in from his left. He then immediately reverses course and dives as the smaller guns track him and aim to cut him off. Finally, he levels out, pouring on the speed to get out of that cube of space as it comes alive with ki and explosions. Light blooms all around you; the edges of the fireball engulfing that area actually singe Bassoon's legs as he gets clear.
Then, abruptly, as Bassoon finally gets in among the ships, the level of fire coming in towards you slackens noticeably. You blink, looking around. "Why aren't they shooting?"
'I'm moving faster than their turrets can turn!' calls Bassoon, focusing on just flying as fast as possible. 'We're too close; we move too fast, relative to them. And with so many ships around, the more distant ones can't shoot at us without hitting their own people!' He grins. 'This is why I go for the center.'
You smile, feeling a twinge of hope. "That's great! We're almost through, then!"
'Not quite,' grunts Bassoon, straining for every ounce of speed. 'They can't hit us with their ships, so they send fighters instead. This is where we're most likely to see a champion.'
"They have time for that?" you ask, surprised. "I know it happened on the way in, but this time we're moving so-"
Suddenly, you feel a power level easily in Bassoon's weight class flaring, just behind your host. Bassoon twists, hurls ki-
WHAM
Bassoon goes tumbling as a hulking armored form smashed into him, wrecking his trajectory and putting him into a tailspin. Bassoon quickly stabilizes, hissing in pain, and fires up his aura. He looks up, and you behold your opponent.
The figure is at least twelve feet tall, and is at least roughly humanoid. The armor conceals a lot, but there are two arms and two legs, and a single head. Whatever this person is, they're massive; they're built thickly enough to make a mockery of even the most heavily-muscled of saiyan warriors. The alien, now that you have a second to analyze it, has a power level of a little over twenty-five million. They raise their arms over their head, and Bassoon's face mask lets out a crackling noise as a radio activates. "BASSOON!" howls the alien, in a voice that sounds deep enough that you're going to provisionally label this alien as male. "YOU'VE BEEN MAKING TROUBLE FOR US FOR A LONG TIME, BASSOON! AND NOW YOU'RE HERE AGAIN, BRINGING THE DEMONS SUPPLIES. I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!"
Despite his labored breathing, Bassoon replies civilly enough. "Tariq. Good to see you. Look, I don't mean to be a bother, but I'm in a slight hurry, so if you could see your way clear to letting me go, I'd appreciate-"
"NO CAN DO, MY JOLLY GREEN FRIEND!" hollers Tariq. "BOSS WANTS A WORD! HE'S A LITTLE SICK OF YOU MAKING THESE TRIPS! MAKE IT EASIER ON YOURSELF AND JUST COME WITH ME!"
You stare at the alien, aghast. "Kais on high, does he ever stop shouting?"
'Not in all the time I've known him,' chuckles Bassoon, straightening. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Tariq. I need to get home as fast as I can. I'll be out of your hair for a year at least, if you let me go."
"I'D LOVE NOTHING MORE," shouts Tariq. "STILL, NOT MY CHOICE."
Bassoon nods grimly, taking a stance. "I understand."
You feel a spark of panic. "Bassoon, this guy's really strong, compared to you. He has at least five million units on you!"
'I know. But don't worry, I have advantages of my own.' His fingers curl and form hands seals. "Misdirect-!"
Tariq flashes in almost before the word leaves Bassoon's mouth, but the spell goes. As Tariq's fist swings in towards Bassoon's mask, a white light flashes, and the strike goes awry as though knocked off to the side. Bassoon flashes back, and draws his fingers to his forehead. "Makankosappo!"
The beam, hastily-formed though it is, snaps out on-target and bores into Tariq's suit at the abdomen with the puff of escaping air. You pump your fist in the air. "Yes! Great shot!"
Your elation dies, however, as Tariq merely turns back to Bassoon and sets himself. "I HAVE IMPROVED MY SUIT SINCE OUR LAST MATCH, BASSOON! MY SUIT IS NOW COMPARTMENTALIZED. DESTROY ALL YOU WANT -- UNLESS YOU PUNCTURE MY MASK, YOU WILL NOT STOP ME THAT WAY!" He tilts his head forward. "AND YOU WILL NOT DO THAT."
To your surprise, Dazarel sniffs at this, speaking up. 'Foolish little creature. Slug! Punch holes in his suit. He might have it sectioned off, but he'll only have so much air. Every bit you blast open reduces his staying power. How much breathing time do you think he'll have if his helmet is his entire air tank?'
You stare at Dazarel for a moment in shock. "What, you're helping now?"
'I want to be in this situation no more than you,' growls the little beat.
Bassoon narrows his eyes, staring at Tariq. 'You know that? That's better than what I was thinking.' He draws his hands back, palming ki blasts. "Tariq! You underestimate what I'm willing to do!"
Tariq stiffens in shock, and throws his arms up to protect his face.
Bassoon lets out a snarl of a grin, and opens up. Ki blasts slam into Tariq's arms, legs, and chest, and more puffs of air escape. The giant weathers the storm, and comes through it unharmed, but you notice that the small puffs of escaping gas get smaller and smaller, until they stop coming completely. Finally, Bassoon lets up, and Tariq lowers his arms.
"THAT WAS VERY DISAPPOINTING, BASSOON. YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO..." Tariq pauses, tilting his head as a red light flashes across his visor. "...OH."
Bassoon gives him a little wave. "Sure aren't! Accelerate." Bassoon's aura lights up brilliant white, and magic kicks in to give him an extra speed boost away from the area. "You can chase me, if you want! How much air do you have left?"
"THIS ISN'T OVER, BASSOON!" calls Tariq. "THE BOSS ISN'T JUST GOING TO LET YOU WALK AWAY THIS TIME! HE'LL SEND ME AFTER YOU! WE'LL HAVE THIS OUT AGAIN, AND YOU'LL NEED TO FINISH THE FIGHT PROPERLY!"
Bassoon grimaces and cuts the link, weaving as the warships start opening up again with some desultory parting shots. "I know, my friend," he murmurs.
With the danger mostly passed, you release your Sight with a sigh, massaging at your temples against an encroaching headache. "You know him?"
'The Fleet patronizes bars and other entertainment places at many of the nearby planets,' explains Bassoon. 'I ran into him in one of them while I was restocking my supplies. Friendly enough guy. Very focused on his job, but he doesn't go out of his way to be a jerk about it. He's a good fighter, too. I've never actually let him pin me down into a proper duel.' He starts slowing. 'We're distant enough now that they'll have lost sight of us. Time to start suppressing, and make out way to my ship.'
You nod. "How long is it going to take?"
'A few hours,' answers Bassoon, dragging his power level down and dousing his aura. 'Don't worry, my suit has the air for it. This model is meant for long periods in space.'
"Right," you sigh. "Well, I guess that there's nothing for it."
'Not particularly," says Bassoon. 'Waiting is the name of the game, in blockade running. That, and brief periods of panic.'
You snicker, and fall back into the grass, staring up into the sky.
'Dazarel, I'm surprised you helped out,' remarks Bassoon. 'I thought you didn't care what happened to us.'
'I don't, and you shouldn't be surprised that I spoke up,' replies Dazarel. 'It offends me to see the being in whom I'm riding overlooking so obvious a weakness.'
'You detestable little-'
You sigh, and tune them out as they begin bickering.
* * *
As advertised, the flight takes hours, and the boys snipe at each other for every. Single. Second.
'And furthermore, your skin's shade of green is unsightly even for your race! At least most of you have a darker shade. You look like some unfortunate kind of apple!'
'And you look like the result of a torrid affair between a lizard and an arthritic bat! Destroyer of worlds, reduced to a teenager's shoulder pet!'
Dazarel rears up in affront, wings spread. 'I lost to a warrior, a Princess, wielding the aggregate might of an entire solar system! I have stared in the face of enough power to make weaker gods bend their knee, and survived its touch! I took a punch backed by a civilization and lived! When you stop running from refugees in jury-rigged spacesuits, then you can mock me about how far I've fallen.'
Bassoon snorts. 'The only reason you're alive is because Kakara decided that you didn't deserve to die.'
Dazarel sneers, sitting down and tucking his tail around his legs. 'And even so, it took that for her to beat me.'
You stare up at the sky with dead eyes, head propped in your hands and an expression of utter boredom on your face. You gaze blankly out through Bassoon's eyes, peering off into the vacuum for the slightest hint of-
You straighten. "What was that glint?"
Bassoon blinks in the middle of a retort. 'Huh?'
"I saw something glinting out there," you say, pointing to the patch of void in question. The view turns as Bassoon peers. "Hm..." You spy the glint again. "There! See that?"
'I did,' he answers, putting on a touch of speed. 'There's my ship.'
"Thank the kais, it's over," you sigh. Dazarel lifts off from the ground and flaps away, with the argument abandoned. You continue, "Now we can head to Namek, right?"
Bassoon chuckles a bit at that, drawing up to the spacecraft. 'Kind of? I mean, we're a while away from New Namek. It's halfway across the galaxy from here, and my ship's not the fastest. We have a long journey ahead of us.'
"How long?" you ask, a sinking feeling in your stomach.
Bassoon shrugs, opening up his ship and stepping inside. 'Depends on the route we take. Direct route? A month.' The hatch seals behind him, and air rushes in. He removes his mask.
You grimace. "Great. And I'm guessing that there are a few reasons we can't just go straight there."
'You would be right.' Bassoon enters the ship proper, and you peer around through his eyes. The ship is composed of a single room, for the most part. The airlock through which you just entered is its own room, and there's another off to the side which is closed off, but everything else is all in this one space. There's a small cot, a cabinet in the corner, and a dispenser on the wall. It's pretty bare, all things considered. Bassoon heads for the dispenser. Tapping it, he starts up a display showing some alphabet you don't know. There is a gauge, though, which you can read well enough. He points to it; it's nearly empty. 'That would be our water tank. I need that.'
You groan. "Right. So, we'll need to stop somewhere."
'Not just for that,' replies Bassoon, stepping over to the pilot's chair. 'I have enough fuel that it's not an immediate concern, but not enough for the whole trip.'
"Two stops, then," you amend.
'Or one big stop,' replies Bassoon. He sits down in the chair and starts pressing buttons; the ship starts coming alive around you. 'There...we...go. We'll be waiting a few minutes, and then we'll be off. The only question is where to go.' He activates a screen, which displays a map of the galaxy. He zooms in and in until the screen encompasses you and the stars surrounding you. 'We have a few options, but we're a bit limited by the water supplies. I didn't expect having to make this hot of an exit. We got some water from Arcosa, thanks to the capsules, but we'll still need to stop somewhere to stock up properly, and it'll need to be fairly close by. Ordinarily, I'd just swing by one of the nearest systems for a big stopover, but Tariq said that the refugees are going to be coming after us. We might want to head elsewhere.'
"What are our choices?" you ask, leaning forward.
'For our first stop -- the one we need to make, if we want me not to run out of water -- we have three that'll suit my purposes.' He manipulates the map, zooming in on one of the nearby star systems. It displays a planet completely ringed by massive orbital stations. 'This is Zebul. Largest port in the region. I'll be able to buy all the water I need, easy, and it's got enough fuel to supply a fleet. We stop there, we can get everything we need and head directly on to New Namek. Problem: it has enough fuel to supply a fleet because it does. This is the Blockade Fleet's favorite docking station. They always have ships in for repairs or refits, and their soldiers go here for leave. The ports will be swarming with them, and if Tariq's boss really has lost patience with me, they'll all have my description. It's risky, which means we have to consider other options.'
"I mean, can we sneak in?" you ask. "If they never realize that you're there..."
'I'm pretty distinctive,' answers Bassoon. 'I'd love to flatter myself to think that I'm sneaky enough to get in anyway, but it's a risk. Which brings me to option two.' He pans over and zooms in on a planet that looks like a solid mass of blue. 'Planet 42-G. Uninhabited, so we couldn't get fuel there, but it's nearly all fresh-water oceans. We could fill right up on water, free of charge. And, since it's uninhabited, the refugees won't think to look there. The downside is that smugglers tend to use the planet for a stopover; I've seen lots of ships around there. Never had any run-ins, but there are always a lot of shady characters there. This could always be the time that one of them starts something.' He glances up as the lights brighten. 'The other downside is the time it loses us. While we're there taking on water, Tariq has time to get out there and start looking for us. He'll have time to move ahead, and he'll have scouts to help him. On top of that, we'd have to risk a second stop later on to get fuel. Still, it lets us lie low for a bit.'
"We could always wait for him to lose patience and then leave once he passes us," you point out. "I mean, we have a year before the invasion starts. He's got a war to fight. He'll give up before we need to leave."
'True, but I'm kind of expecting the Guru to have things for me to do in advance of the invasion,' says Bassoon. 'Some errands out into the galaxy, to help us get ready for the invasion. I'd like to get there as soon as possible. It's why I'm not taking us around the long way, even though the direct path to New Namek is what Tariq will search first. It'd be safer, but we'd lose lots of time. Plus, every minute we spend on 42-G is another minute for one of the smugglers to try to pick a fight. I'd rather move onto more civilized places as fast as we can.'
"Hmm." You prop your head on your hands. "I guess that's fair. We can always try it if we get stuck, though. You said there was a third option?"
'Last one we can get to before water stores run out.' He brings up one last planet, far away from Arcosa, this one showing extensive city lighting across the surface. 'Say hello to Planet Pura. It's not really remarkable, as planets go. We'll find water there, and there'll be fuel. Tariq will definitely check there, but he'll start with closer systems, so we'll have some time before he catches up. Not as safe a spot as 42-G, though. The downside is that it's a civilized world not overrun by twitchy soldiers; it has its shady characters, and they get bold. Last time I passed through, the leading criminal cartel had recently exploded, and things are still fairly exciting. Not as risky as 42-G will be -- they have laws, after all, and people to enforce them -- but I wouldn't completely rule out trouble happening."
"Sounds like the middle-of-the-road option," you muse. "Kind of hedging our bets with that one, huh?"
'Basically,' snickers Bassoon, before sobering. 'Of course, if something going wrong, it could go very wrong. If we get caught up in local trouble, that burns time which Tariq will use eliminating the closer spots and coming to us. We'll need to try and get things done quickly and efficiently.'
"So, you want my opinion on where to go?" you ask.
'Kind of,' replies Bassoon. As he says this, the ship finally comes fully alive with a high-pitched whine. 'Oh! Alright, there we go. Stealth systems...operational. Drive's ready. Life support is good. We're ready to go.' He takes the controls and starts piloting the ship forward, heading further out from the center of the system. 'Anyway, I did want your opinion, but what I really wanted was for you to use your Sight to sneak a look at the cards, so to speak. Usually, when I'm running a gauntlet like this, I need to guess. With you, I can cheat. I don't know how your abilities work, though. Do they get tired? Do you still have some juice left in you, after helping me out escaping?'
You grimace, rubbing at your temples. "I have some left over. I'm still new to premonitions, and they drain me a lot, but I also just got a lot more in my reserves than I'm used to. I think I could scope out one of those planets. Which do you need?"
'I'll leave that up to you,' replies Bassoon. 'That's your specialty.'
"Thanks," you reply, taking a seat on the grass. "No I just need to choose, I guess." You chew on your cheek, pondering.
Quick vote this time, followed swiftly by a short update and another vote to decide on your destination. Which of the three destinations do you choose to See?
[ ] Planet Zebul. It has absolutely everything you need, if you can just dodge the soldiers. See if you can see your way clear to a means of evading them -- or, at least, see if you can't eliminate it as a feasible possibility.
[ ] Planet 42-G. What with the strange characters and the need to time your exit right, this prospect is all about chance. Maybe you can put your thumb on chance's scales.
[ ] Planet Pura. The middle-of-the-road option, but prone to cascade failures if you manage the risks poorly. Still, what else is Sight for, if not mitigating the odds of something going wrong?
NO MORATORIUM. APPROVAL VOTING.
Once more, there shall be no moratorium.
Welcome back, folks! Hope you all enjoyed the escape! I look forward to the trip to New Namek, and I hope you do as well.
On this update in particular, your proofreading comments are more than welcomed.
And now, for the
long-range artillery [magic v targeting]: 42 v 12. Unscathed, look badass af.
short-range artillery [flight v targeting]: 37 v 63. Combat precog trigger?
combat precog [dc 100]: 101. Lucky man...
short-range artillery reroll [flight v targeting] 82 v 63. Unscathed
sneaking up: does not happen [upgraded suit disallows ki sense check]
attack! [opposed dueling]: 54 v 98. Combat precog trigger?
combat precog [dc 100]: 12. No. Ouch. Combat begins as a hefty disadvantage
recover [magic v dueling]: 72 v 53. Success get space
pop suit [makankosappo v flight]: 92 v 73. Success, soaked by upgraded suit
distract opponent [opposed deceit]: 52 v -21. Success
saturation fire [opposed ki projection]: 89 v 34. Success
leave: yes
[X] Planet Pura. The middle-of-the-road option, but prone to cascade failures if you manage the risks poorly. Still, what else is Sight for, if not mitigating the odds of something going wrong?
Fine Line
After a moment's reflection, you decide to scry for Pura. That one seems like the best option, if you can manage the risks, and you're a seer; you're all about knowing the risks. You close your eyes and reach.
They open white.
* * *
Gone.
* * *
Bassoon walks along a crowded back street, keeping to the edges and avoiding shoving through the crowd.
"I really wish they would just let you fly," you grouse. "We'd get things done so much faster."
'It's understandable,' replies Bassoon, shrugging. 'Traffic control is a nightmare to coordinate when you let anybody fly, and Pura's not wealthy enough to maintain the kind of computer network that would make it practical. Just be patient, Kakara. We'll get done here shortly.'
You grumble, scrubbing at your arms. "I'm not used to this, Bassoon, I'm from Garenhuld. I'm a Scion. And we went public with ki before I had to run. If I wanted to fly, I got to fly. I didn't need to file flight plans." You shudder at the thought. "It feels wrong. If my father ruled that that was the new norm, I'm fairly sure our society would explode. Flying isn't a product to us, it's a bodily function. The idea that somebody could just ban it..." You shudder again, harder this time.
'I get it,' soothes Bassoon. 'It's the same way on Namek. But this is the wider galaxy, and most planets -- and I know this is weird to contemplate -- are vastly majority non-ki-users. They can't fly. So they don't really get it, and we're guests here. We need to play by their rules.'
"I understand that," you reply. "I wouldn't say it to any of them. But literally only you can hear me. And Dazarel, but he doesn't count."
'Well, fair.' Bassoon chuckles. He then brushes against somebody. He turns to offer an apology, and stiffens slightly. He turns back around and continues walking. 'Did you-?'
"I saw," you reply, the chilling feeling of focus filling you. "Three of them. One of them had a ki blaster."
'Locals,' murmurs Bassoon, grimacing. 'I was hoping to avoid this kind of trouble.' He looks around for a moment. 'I'm going to try to get off of the streets. Hopefully we can lose them, but if it comes to a fight...' He leaves the rest of that unsaid.
You nod, and he sets to. Bassoon weaves through the crowd, keeping ahead of your trio of pursuers. After a few moments, he abruptly turns right, stepping into an alleyway with another sharp turn within. As soon as he's clear of the crowd, he breaks into a run, rounds the corner-
-and stops dead at the sight of another four locals waiting for you. His sensitive ears pick up the sounds of your first pursuers following you in.
The man at the head of the quartet -- one of the orange-skinned locals of this world -- steps forward, all casual, looking over his shoulder to the woman in back. "Gera?"
She nods silently, eyes fixed on you.
The leader looks back to you, eyes glittering. "Hello there, mister namekian. I'm told you're new in town. Think of us as the welcoming committee." He gives Bassoon a cold smile. "You've got a mighty interesting passenger up in that head of yours."
Your blood runs cold, and Bassoon mentally spits something in his native language. 'They have a psychic. That woman in back, it must be. They know you're here.'
The local continues, "Y'know that there's a price on people like that. That's not even mentioning what happens to folks to let one slip by without dropping a line to the...big guy...so to speak." He tilts his head. "A lot of folks might call that unkind, you know. Trying to slip one of them by us like that." The other locals advance a step, producing ki blasters. "We're gonna need you to come with us, pal. It's self-preservation, you get? We don't really have a choice, here."
Bassoon tenses, getting ready to launch himself up into the sky.
* * *
Back.
* * *
You come to, shuddering violently. Dazarel swoops in for a landing in front of you, peering at you.
'Whoa,' remarks Bassoon. 'That didn't look like good news. So where's the place we're never going?'
You swallow. "It was a vision of Pura," you reply. "It looks like at least one of the gangs there has gotten itself put together. They had a psychic."
Bassoon says that word from your vision, and it sounds no happier in reality.
You nod. "She could tell that I was there, and who and what I was." You blink and then scowl up at the sky. "You didn't tell me the Enemy had a price out on saiyans!"
Dazarel flinches. 'There's a what?!'
Bassoon pauses for a moment. 'I didn't even think of it,' he replies, wincing. 'Sorry. It's just something that...is...for me.' He adjust his steering a bit. 'It's not actually the Enemy; he doesn't talk to people unless he's fighting them or threatening them to learn where Taro went. There's a bit of a cottage industry made up of people throughout the galaxy; they're the ones that post the bounties on saiyans' locations, and they keep track of the Enemy's location. If they get a tip, they pay for it and send it off to him.'
"They what?!" you demand, feeling your power level spike.
'I know, it's disgusting,' replies Bassoon, contempt in his tone. 'Some people will do anything for a payday. I should have remembered. I guess it just got lost in the shuffle. I didn't think it'd be an issue; after all, who'd be able to notice you, the way things are now?' He sighs. 'And so I forgot to mention it, and then other things happened, and I always forgot. I'm sorry.'
'I vote that we never go to Pura. Ever,' says Dazarel, sounding shaken.
'Well, not necessarily,' replies Bassoon. 'Now that I know one of the local gangs has a psychic, and that she'll happen across us, I can get some mental shields up before we land, avoid that particular hazard. That said, it's a really big mark against it, definitely. I don't suppose you got anything about the others, Kakara?'
"No," you sigh, standing and stretching. "And I'm out of juice. No more visions for today."
Bassoon grimaces. 'And the Fleet's going to have search parties combing the system for me, or else I'd stick around and let you recharge. Unfortunately, they'd find us within the hour. My ship's stealthy, but not that stealthy. No, we need to get out of here -- and if Tariq was right that he'll be coming after me, we can't afford to delay. We need to make our choice now. I'm leaning towards 42-G. It'll take some careful timing, and we could run into some rough characters, but there won't be a huge number of them, and we'll at least have the isolation to plan our next move. What do you think, Kakara? And you, I guess, Dazarel.'
'You thought of me?' snarks the dragon. 'I'm flattered. I vote Zebul. You are practiced at slipping these refugees' net, and that's when they have warships. They have no experience in a subtler hunt, and the close confines of their spaceports will be a better place for me to train the Ape Princess.'
You blink. "Wait, what? Train me?"
'I did not forget what your ancestor made me promise,' grumbles Dazarel. 'I'm of no use as a fighter. I will simply have to pass down knowledge instead.'
'Ignoring that part, given that I have no idea what you two are talking about, that's actually a better argument than I was expecting,' says Bassoon. 'That said, I'm still more comfortable with 42-G. Kakara? What do you think? Dazarel's argument rests partly on you. How do you feel about it?'
You lean against a tree, musing.
Seems there's a tie to be broken; thus, decision power is largely falling on you for this one. Where do you think you should head?
[ ] Planet Zebul. It has absolutely everything you need, if you can just dodge the soldiers. Dazarel has a point; Bassoon's used to doing just that, and the Refugees will be out of their element. And a part of you really wants to find out what the dragon has to teach you...
[ ] Planet 42-G. What with the strange characters and the need to time your exit right, this prospect is all about chance, but unlike the other options, it'll at least give you all some downtime, and let you plan your next step with less pressure.
[ ] Planet Pura. The middle-of-the-road option, but prone to cascade failures if you manage the risks poorly. Furthermore, you now know that here you're going to run into a psychic motivated to capture you to turn over to the Enemy. That said, Bassoon has a mind shielding ability; that should hopefully allow you to avoid this specific danger.
MANUAL MORATORIUM; APPROVAL VOTING.
It's never that easy.
Hope you enjoy this one, folks! See you around the thread.
Hey, have an Omake. I've had this idea for... quite a while now, but only just been reminded of it.
Talk Fast, Die Old
Yammar hasn't given you a moment's peace since you reached Dandeer. Not to shoot, not to run, not even to put fingers to your forehead. You just don't have enough limbs to wield your hostage and fight effectively. (You think of the Four Witches technique, and decide that trying to spontaneously reinvent it is a desperation move. You have one gambit left before you'll start trying those.)
So, between dodging a punch that turns into a blast aimed for your eye and blocking two kicks, you scream at him. "Stop this! I'm trying to save Dandeer!"
Yammar barely reacts to this declaration, still focused on overwhelming you with his frankly incredible skill. (Pinpoint kaiai there spinning you into his knee strike, remember to spend extra ki on retaliatory gutpunch so he can't just shoot the pinky with another weak-but-can-launch-from-anywhere beam, wide-angle blast through left shoulder to prevent a grapple attempt, then rocket away as fast as you can possibly go-)
"There's an alien! It's using a hacked fusion technique! If it wakes up before we can get her to a mage, her head explodes!"
"Give her to me, then." Yammar finally growls out. He's still close enough to disrupt you if you try to Transmit, but he's not actively attacking you.
You stop too, but don't relinquish Dandeer just yet. "We need a master sorcerer. Anything else triggers its wards and kills her. I've Seen it."
He opens his mouth, then bights off with a curse. "Do you trust him?" He's pointing at Dandelor.
That was not how you expected him to react. "Um. Yes. We've been working on this for over a year."
"Wake him up, then. Leave her with me; I can keep her from waking. Be fast." His tone is curt, and brooks no argument.
Well, that went better than expected. Do you hand her over?
[ ] Yes. You were losing solidly before, and this gives you a chance to change tactics.
-[ ] Write-in what. Yammar will react poorly to Dandelor trying to cast anything on him.
[ ] No. It's too risky to let her go, even if it would give you some breathing room.
-[ ] Write-in tactics.
There's a lot of room between "massive psychic surveillance network" and "they literally only have the one," you realize. Also, we don't actually know when they first detected Kakara. They could have set up that encounter significantly in advance. Bassoon's wards, on the other hand, are a much more reassuring factor. I'm just skeptical of the notion that the "don't go where we detect these specific people" plan would solve all our problems on its own.
Point. The mentions of how they were suspicious of him because he is a Namekian implies that they noted that first but that definitely decrease my confidence in my conclusion.
Kakara sat and meditated, her sense stretching out into the two worlds around her, letting the distinction between her and the rest of the world fade away as she felt the breeze, the intricate connections between everything around her, though it was almost invisible to her senses, considering the utter emptiness of one of the worlds around her.
But there was one more world around her.
She could feel Bassoon's ki, the energy of his life flowing through the meadow around her, and she could feel his ki flowing through his body and pulsing with his heartbeat.
Everything is part of the great system of ki that connects everything together, but some things are more connected to others.
She knew that the landscape around her and the energy in the material world were both imperfect reflections of each other, each deeply connected together forming one unified will, one person, one life.
She huffed in frustration. Everything was connected, but there were some things that she could not see yet, some limits that she could not yet surpass. Maybe someday she would figure out a way to use the Sight to See every layer of this beautiful working, but for now, it was beyond her reach.
She let herself drop back into the meditation on the world around her, and pondered.
The spirit bomb was all about an impossibly large symphony of voices singing as one, and the life here was almost like that. Each blade of grass felt like it should, but it still sang the tune of Bassoon's ki. This world was all him, millions of distinct signatures playing together to reach a power that they would never be able to accomplish alone.
Maybe the Genki Dama was just an extension of the miracle of life that happened around her everyday.
Or maybe not. She sighed, and returned her awareness to Bassoon's sensory feed.
Perfect little Princess Kakara, sleeping like a fucking angel amidst a web of magic. Half of those wards had to be improvized specially for that ridiculous girl (of course everything must be specially for her!), since your library offered no standard defense against actual fucking ghosts. You had to rely on Carrick's advice, which is somehow even more useless now that the "you didn't ask" bug has been replaced with the "it depends" bug. But then it's no wonder that he's insufferable! He willingly dealt with her!
Kakara.
You've never done anything to her. One day she just decided to make it her own personal project to ruin your life out of some spiteful whim. Even that you could live with, you really could. But then she looked at her arbitrary feud and decided that the best way to hurt you was through your family.
You honestly considered just vaporizing the bitch. You're still considering just vaporizing the bitch. But no, of course not! It would be too much to hope for that killing her would actually kill her! Her shriveled soul is off gods-know-where doing gods-know-what, and this is the one place in the entire universe that you know she'll crawl back to eventually. And when she finally returns, you can march her out and show everyone the real Kakara, the Kakara she hides oh-so-carefully and shows only to you. You'll show the whole world the capricious, hateful little creature she truly is, undoing her vile machinations, and then you can begin to set things right, just like you wanted to do in the first place. But no, can't have that! Every single thing in the whole damn world always has to revolve around Princess Kakara fucking Goku!
You work to steady your breathing. You need to focus. Really, this never should have surprised you. Berra has built his entire career on fucking things up. Of course he fucked up his daughter too. It's fine. It's just another mistake that you have to clean up.
So you work. Sealing. Snaring. Wards and warnings and triplines. Every avenue covered, nothing left to chance, no clever scheme left open to exploit. "You lose"? You lose?! No, you lose, little girl! For all her tantrums, this unruly child is exactly where she belongs: in your power, helpless, alone, and absolutely-
You scream. Kakara is on top of you. Her eyes are still closed, her mouth is still dumbly slack, all your alarms are silent, but she's suddenly there but she can't be, she can't be awake, she can't power up enough to phase, she can't move but she's doing it anyway and she has you and-
tsew
Jaron - beautiful, clever, dutiful Jaron, however marred he is by that golden poison! - pulls Kakara away between heartbeats. She's limp in his arms, whatever trick she used fully spent and useless. Useless! How hard had she worked to set up that one sucker punch to cut through your enchantments? And all of it for nothing! Your last line of defense held! Jaron even favors you with a smile and your heart swells with pride.
He's still smiling as he gently lays the catatonic Kakara back down-
"Eh... I sorta felt it work that time? But it didn't do anything. Ugh! Being a shade sucks! I'm never gonna get the chance to perfect the multiform!"
I come with an Omake! It doesn't have any RP spoilers, but it only really makes logical sense if you know RP spoilers, so Poptart has had me put it in spoilers anyway.
Bassoon touched down near the Grand Elder's house, and hurried to Flute who was on guard duty.
"I need to see the Grand Elder immediately."
Flute nods, "Sure, as soon as he's done talking to the human."
Bassoon quirks an eyebrow but says nothing.
"Some girl wants to make a wish or two on the dragon balls. Seemed willing to take no for an answer, so Moori will probably let her try her hand at the challenge gauntlet."
<I wonder what she's going to wish for.> Kakara thought at him.
<Probably something stupid.> The evil dragon opined.
Then the door opened, and Bassoon was face to face with a redhead with glasses.
There is a pause.
"Bassoon!?" <Cynthia!?>
Odd. "Have… we met?"
<What? How?>
<Do you know her?> Bassoon asked his hitchhiker.
<Maybe?>
The redhead shook her head, "Oh, no. That makes sense. Sorry. I don't think we have. It's a long story. I'm Cynthia Balor." She extends her hand.
<WHAT THE HELL!?!>
Bassoon couldn't help but wince.
"Are you okay?" Cynthia looked worried.
<Ask her how the hell she's here. She should be stuck on Garenhuld. She should be stuck under Dandeer's sealing. How!>
"This is going to sound weird, but are you a saiyan?"
Cynthia suddenly got very shifty looking. "What? No! I mean." She glances at Flute, "That's ridiculous, why would I be a Saiyan? See, no tail! Heheh."
She's lying, and it's really obvious.
<Who is this monkey?> Dazarel asks.
<Bassoon, this is really weird. Tell her about me.>
"I have a ghost saiyan princess in my head that thinks you are one. And she wants to know how you escaped dandeer."
Cynthia's expression runs a gamut from exhasperation to alarm, before she puts her fingers to her head.
"Look at the time, gotta go. Talk to you later."
vip
<Kakara, what was that?> You ask your passenger.
<I have no idea. She's still on the planet tho.>
Bassoon shakes his head.
<We can deal with Cynthia after I talk to Grand Elder Moori.>
