You've Been Gone A While
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Almost completely. Precisely describe yourself and the situation that cast you into exile. Identify Dazarel by name, and in his capacity as a very very sealed dragon we defeated. But withhold the name of your homeworld, and any other information that you think could plausibly result in Bassoon learning or being able to deduce the location of Garenhuld.
- [X] Explain that the location of your homeworld is a very important secret to your people, for very important reasons, and one you cannot risk sharing at this time.
- [X] Explain that the location of your homeworld is a very important secret to your people, for very important reasons, and one you cannot risk sharing at this time.
You've Been Gone A While
You take a breath to steady yourself, meaningless as that might be in your current form. Sharing secrets is something dangerous for you -- it always has been. Your people survive on their secrecy. To break it is death -- if not as a natural consequence of your actions, then because your own people will handle that.
It's surprisingly difficult, to remind yourself that secrecy is how you piss off the mage whose mind you're sharing, and simply come clean.
You swallow, and speak. "My name is Kakara. I'm...I'm a saiyan. Well, saiyan-human. But that's about as saiyan as you get, these days."
Bassoon's eyes widen as he homes in on a house in the middle of a vast and empty plain. "Wait, really?"
"Yes," you say. "I'm currently on the run, though. My home world isn't safe for me right now."
"Well, no kidding!" he says, shaking his head. "I'm just surprised you have a home world, after what happened to the last one. I hadn't even heard that you'd settled a new world. Last we heard, you were still roaming the galaxy. When did you split off?"
You blink. "Split off?"
"From Toru," replies Bassoon. "We sorta figured he was all that was left, after the Enemy found Chamsa. He thought so, too. Did you manage to escape separately? We heard all of the saiyans there had died, other than Toru."
You flounder, trying to find your feet among the tide of information. "Um..."
"Really, what are you even thinking, settling again?" asks Bassoon. "You saw what happened last time, surely you'd..." He stops. "Wait, no, that's not right. You wouldn't settle down a second time, not after what happened to Chamsa. You'd know better. Certainly not for all these years. You'd..." He lands outside the house and steps inside, frowning. He immediately makes his way over to the bed and sits down, closing his eyes.
You flinch back as he appears in his mindscape with you. He peers at you for a moment. "Your name is Kakara?" he says.
"...yes," you say, looking warily at him.
"Obvious female form of Kakarot," he murmurs, still looking you up and down. "And that was never a popular name with the Nomads." He leans back slightly, eyes widening. "You're from the Earth branch."
You swallow, unsure of what to say- but Bassoon plows onward before you even can.
"Where have you all been these years?" he exclaims, starting to pace. "Last we heard you were running as fast as you could for the outer rim before you vanished! We all thought that the Enemy had caught you out and finished you off, especially once we saw what he did to Freeza."
You fidget for a moment. "I..." Your eyes flick to Dazarel; he folds his wings and stares back at you.
Thanks for the help, you think, scowling. Then you sigh. To hell with this. You look back up at Bassoon. "Yes, I'm descended from Earth, although I'd appreciate it if you didn't go spreading that around."
Bassoon blinks, looking embarrassed. "Ah...sorry. I'm hitting you with a lot, aren't I?"
"Little bit," you say, holding out your hand with fingers a bare inch apart. "But yeah. I'm Kakara, and my ancestors were from Earth. We've been hiding all this time. I guess it's good to hear that we hid so well everybody thought we were dead."
"I guess, yeah," he replies. "Wait, if you've been hiding safe, why are you on the run? And how did you end up in my head?"
You grimace. "That's...less good." You sigh, folding your hands at your waist. "I am Scion Kakara of Clan Goku, heir to the Ladyship. Lady Dandeer of Clan Vegeta, a sorcerer, just got done staging a coup, about-" You blink. "...has it really been less than a day?" You lean back against a rock, staring out into the sky. "That...doesn't seem right."
Bassoon stays silent for the moment, letting you grapple with the realization.
Dazarel, however, does not. 'The Ape Princess was thoroughly outmaneuvered by a woman of no exceptional intelligence but quite a lot of magical firepower, and now she's expelled from her body until she finds a way to get stronger and get home,' he says. 'And because that apparently wasn't bad enough, she dragged me with her. And now I get to stay in your head.'
Bassoon rolls his eyes. "Look, little dragon, I don't even know how to cram you into a set of balls, and you've already made it clear that you don't want it."
Dazarel sneers. 'And you expect me to believe that Porunga did?'
You let out a sharp sigh and use telekinesis to suck Dazarel into your hand. You dump him on your shoulders. "If the first thing you do when you get out of arm's reach is picking a fight with somebody who can squash you, I'm going to find a way to put a leash on you."
'Watch me tremble,' growls the dragon.
You cast your eyes skyward. "Kais on high, you really want to see Yemma's amazing desk again, don't you?" You look back at Bassoon, jerking a thumb over your shoulder at your passenger. "The ungrateful little lizard is named Dazarel. You might have heard of him."
Bassoon's eyes narrow into slits, and he points at Dazarel, a flicker of ki lighting up there. "Yes," he replies. "I have. Give me a clear shot."
Your lips thin. "No. He's sealed, and he's my responsibility."
Bassoon doesn't move. "He's sealed?"
You shift slightly, moving your head in line with Bassoon's finger. You sample his power level to reassure yourself, and immediately feel better when you feel only twenty million.
That raises more questions, mind, such as what the Hell the galaxy's been up to while your people have been hiding, but it means that you can tank any shot he fires.
At your imposition, Bassoon doesn't lower his hand, but he does twitch the finger out of alignment with your face. When he does, you continue, "Dazarel came to my world. I and several other super saiyans attacked him, and I beat him. Then I had mages seal him into this form. He's harmless. And I plan on using him, as long as I have him."
Bassoon glares at you for a moment longer before dropping his arm. "For what?"
You sigh. "I don't even know, but my grandpa was pretty sure Dazarel could help me. If Grandpa was that sure, I'm going to trust him."
'You call that man, "Grandpa,"' mutters Dazarel, shifting on your shoulders.
"And the dragon is safe?" demands Bassoon. "You're sure? I'm not asking for your sake, or even for mine. That thing has killed hundreds of billions of people! If he gets loose..."
"He won't," you say. "His powers and his ki are both sealed too, and the ward is powered by my energy."
Bassoon gives you a skeptical look. "Kakara, I'm not trying to be insulting, but your power level-"
'She is quite a bit weaker now than she was when she beat me!' snaps Dazarel, poking his head over yours. 'I didn't lose to this! She's just a shade of her true self!'
You look away from Bassoon for a moment. "He's a jerk, but he's right," you admit. "I was running on a lot of donated ki at the time, too. The ward keeping him in has about five hundred billion units of power level stacked into it, going by the old Planet Trade Organization scale from Freeza's first life."
Bassoon's eyes widen. "Five hundred-" Then he grimaces. "Cheating bottle-blondes. Yeah, I'll buy that that's enough to keep him locked up." He relaxes. "Gotta say, you're more forgiving than I'd have been."
Your hand drifts to your chest, unconsciously, as you remember the feeling of the Epsis system singing through your body. "Nobody deserves to die. Not even him." You cough at Bassoon's faintly incredulous look. "Anyway. Dazarel is right about how we got here. Dandeer won, although I made her work for it. Now she controls my whole planet. And I mean that she controls it." You grimace. "She likes mind magics."
Bassoon looks faintly ill. "This woman mind controls a planet full of saiyans?!"
You nod. "I'm out here looking for a way to get stronger and better, so that I can go home some day and free everybody."
"Worthy cause," he grumbles, grimacing. "I'll need to speak with the Guru about this. It's not that I don't believe you, but..."
"Strange girl showing up in your head with Dazarel on her shoulder and talking about a whole civilization you thought was dead," you finish. "I get it. We're going to New Namek?"
He chuckles. "Don't look so excited. I need to finish up here, first, and it's a long way across the galaxy from here to New Namek. But yes, we're going to New Namek. I need to touch base, for something this big. Can't just go charging in. Can't handle everything myself." He grins. "Especially not something this big! I'll bet you have so many stories to share!"
You laugh. "Yeah, so do you! What was that about somebody named Toru? Tarble's descendants are still alive? We weren't even sure if the Enemy would be interested in them..." You trail off at the sudden sobering on Bassoon's face. "...what?"
He sighs. "You had cousins by Prince Tarble. But the Enemy found them, too." He scratches at his scalp. "I don't know how you've managed to stay hidden, but Tarble's descendants have survived by running. For a while, we called them the Nomads. They just never stopped moving. Moving from place to place just ahead of the Enemy. After a while, it dropped off. This was after the Enemy and Freeza had their fight." He blinks. "And, you wouldn't know about that, either. Long story short, the Enemy and Freeza fought, a while after the Death of Earth. Nobody else who was there survived to talk about it. Freeza hasn't been seen since, and the Enemy dropped off the radar for over a century. The Nomads kept running, and eventually, of course, the Enemy came back. They kept on being picked off at the edges, and eventually they decided that it just couldn't continue. A large party of them sacrificed themselves to hold back the Enemy while the others broke contact, and those that escaped settled down on a planet they called Chamsa. And...that's when the Enemy showed back up." He gives you an unhappy look. "A single woman named Chama escaped with her son Toru, although she wound up dying later. Toru has been wandering ever since. He dropped by New Namek once, although he left almost as quickly as he came."
You slump, a pit in your stomach. "Is...is he still alive?"
Bassoon shrugs. "I don't know. It's been years. He's got to be getting older. And that's if..." He shrugs again.
You take a deep breath, trying to fight off a surge of sympathetic dread and grief for your distant cousin's plight. Then, a memory strikes. You yank Dazarel off of your shoulders by the neck. "YOU! You knew about this!"
'I knew that they were rootless nomads getting picked off at the fringes like a pack of sheep!' replies Dazarel, actually sounding somewhat frantic. 'I've been asleep for a century, give me a break! I am not a current news source!'
"That lines up with the timeline, barely," says Bassoon, folding his arms.
You snarl at the dragon before hurling him into the sky. "You can just stay up there for a while," you growl. Then you turn away, pacing back and forth.
Bassoon sighs. "Alright, look. You seem like you could use some time to absorb this, and I've been awake for thirty hours. What do you say we part ways for now and chat more once we've each had time to rest up?"
"I think I could use that," you say, still pacing. "I'm guessing you don't want me to rip up the scenery?"
"Feel free to do whatever you like to the oceans," says Bassoon. "I don't keep much there."
You nod, lifting off. "Thanks, Bassoon."
He nods, sighing as you fly away. "No problem. Sorry for the bad news."
He fades away, and the scenery's color washes out in the glow as you start blasting craters into the ocean's surface.
Heavy news, today. The good part is that Bassoon didn't even ask after Garenhuld. He has resolved to finish up here and take you back to New Namek, so that the Guru can make a decision on what to do here. You've learned a little about the outside galaxy -- and in particular, the dire situation in which your distant cousin has landed. Bassoon seems fairly well-informed, so you'll probably learn more if you ask. He'll probably expect a trade, though. Happily, the Exiles are at least a little assimilated into Garenhulder society -- you love your stories.
In this form, sleep isn't really a thing that happens, so you have a few hours to kill. How do you want to spend them?
[ ] Catch Dazarel, wherever he's flown to, and grill the little fucker. What does he know about the galaxy? Why does Grandpa think Dazarel in particular is going to be helpful?
[ ] Spend time testing the limits of your new form. You've spent time in this before, but this is a new situation. See if anything has changed.
[ ] Poke around. This is pretty rude and a massive violation of Bassoon's privacy, and if he has mental defenses, it's also potentially deeply unwise. That being said, you could learn a lot about your host.
[ ] Test out your Sight. Whatever Sensei put on your Sight, you noticing and circumventing it has opened up a vast array of new potential. Map out what has changed, and get a feel for your new limits.
-[ ] Write-in on what you want to test this.
[ ] Just relax. Kais on high, it's been less than twenty-four hours since you were kneeling in the mud at Dandeer's feet! Bassoon has been awake for longer than you've been banished! Just take some time and let it all out.
[ ] Write-in.
MANUAL MORATORIUM. APPROVAL VOTING.
It has been over three hundred years since the Exile began. As such, there's a massive amount of information to dump. I'll be spreading it out, where feasible. Moments like this, where it's just you and the host talking at each other, will also be fairly dispersed. Your hosts have their own lives, after all.
I hope you've enjoyed this first look at things, folks. I'm having fun writing these updates; I'm glad to see that you all are following so avidly. Enjoy, and I'll see you around the thread!
Does Kakara stay cool with a blast in her face? [willpower dc 75]: 113, she is ice cold
is Kakara convincing about how managed Dazarel is? [communication, kakara vs bassoon]: 74 v 23, yup
is dazarel a little shit? [no roll]: always yes
is Kakara convincing about how managed Dazarel is? [communication, kakara vs bassoon]: 74 v 23, yup
is dazarel a little shit? [no roll]: always yes
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