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Fallen Empires -- An Old Republic Era adventure (Star Wars)

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Adhoc vote count started by Gazetteer on Dec 2, 2019 at 6:56 PM, finished with 80 posts and 45 votes.
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003: Heroics
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    • A lightsaber is a tool, you made your crystal: 21

    A lightsaber is a weapon, you made your crystal: 18

    A lightsaber is a weapon, you found your crystal: 13

    A lightsaber is a tool, you found your crystal: 4

    You hack open the last log, using a bit of telekinesis to ease the two pieces to the ground... then you all but collapse against Roeza's outer hull. It's grown dark enough while you worked that the makeshift clearing you've carved out is illuminated chiefly by the moon overhead, and the warm orange glow of your saber.

    You look down at it in your hand, eyes following the solid contours of a hilt designed for powerful, two-handed strokes, without being so unwieldy that you can't use it with one. Good for Djem So, and clearing brush. If you'd needed more of a confirmation of your choice back then, you couldn't have asked for a situation that aligned better with your mother's lessons on the subject. You kill the orange blade, letting yourself fully slump to the ground. Although it radiates no actual heat, you find that you miss the cheerful glow, as the nighttime chill sets in. It's your crystal, that you were sternly but patiently taught to coax out of base elements in a makeshift forge. Its resonance in your hand is a comfort, when you have little else to draw on.

    It takes a little bit of buildup, but you eventually pull yourself to your feet, stagger back into the ship, and collapse into your narrow cot.

    ==========

    The next morning, you wake up, wash as best you can, consider how inadequate the sum of money you have on hand feels compared to the damages to Roeza, and decide that, even so, you're going to have to try and find parts to repair her with. Unless you plan on taking up permanent residence in the forests of Tyrost.

    Or calling home for help so soon after leaving. Which sounds worse, in some ways.

    Regardless, though, this means civilisation. You gather up enough of your dwindling food supplies — one of the reasons you're on Tyrost to begin with is to stock up — pull on your jacket, and tuck your lightsaber inside of it.

    Then you present X2 with a small stun baton that can fit his manipulator claw. Watching the astromech brandish it with more enthusiasm than skill, you wonder why you even have something like that lying around. "Protect the ship, Ex-Two," you tell him, trying not to sound too dubious. He salutes with his stun baton and whistles out an affirmative. This is the friendliest you've ever seen him: Apparently, all it took was arming him.

    On that note, you undertake the hike into town. The Force is strong here, but, given that the Sith ruled this world for as long as they did, it's no surprise that you feel, more than anything, a strange sort of pull on your negative emotions. Your frustration at what went wrong, your worry at what might happen next, almost like the very ground you walk on wants you to turn that to anger. It's kind of a downer! At least the weather's nice, sky clear and blue overhead.

    Eventually, you find a road, and follow it into town, buildings springing up sporadically at first, until you're suddenly on the outskirts of a real city. Myresend isn't large — only a couple of million, practically a town by your standards. Sith Imperial architecture seems to seek to make it seem larger than it is, however, soaring towers in grey, black and red looming over you, dredging the aesthetic preferences of a nearly-extinct species out into modern day. Geometric and angular, everything calculated to inspire awe mixed with an awareness of your own tiny insignificance next to the former masters of this planet. Unfortunately for them, you've seen taller.

    The Sith statues have been toppled, the Imperial banners torn down, but the peace monuments and murals praising freedom left in their place feel so out of place as to be a little half-hearted. The Republic liberated the people of Tyrost from a brutal, facist regime that kept slaves, treated most alien species as lesser beings, and broke all dissent against the supremacy of the Sith with cruel indiscretion. Nonetheless, they had invaded the planet, killed its garrisoned troops in battle, occupied its cities, and replaced its entire ruling structure with something foreign imposed from without. Their choice had been between that, or simply leaving the planet to descend into chaos. Or, this was the impression you'd been left with when you decided on Tyrost as your next supply stop — there had been some problems with local Imperial partisan groups, even a decade and a half later, but the Republic occupation force had pulled out a few years ago.

    So, surely, everything is fine now. You're certain that the Republic Armed Forces wouldn't simply abandon the new planetary government to its own devices, if things weren't perfectly in hand. Or, you hope they wouldn't. Maybe next time you're home, you should have a look at where your Senator has actually been voting on issues like this. You can't just keep voting for the same candidate as your mother forever.

    On the ground-level streets of the city's fringes, locals pass by with their heads down, while the familiar drone and whirr of speeders overhead provides a constant background noise. Everything around you looks a little dingey, a little rundown. On street corners, you catch sight of men and women in a strange uniform, openly wearing blasters. Peacekeepers from the planetary government? You're getting the impression that this isn't the nice part of Myresend. If there even is a nice part of Myresend. You try to blame your unease on the ambient Dark Side energy, but you don't entirely succeed, as you try to find anything resembling spaceship parts in various rundown storefronts.

    This lasts until you take a strange turn, finding yourself abruptly not on an open street, but in a narrow alleyway, buildings overhead high enough to block light and sound both. To your shock, you catch sight of two beings menacing a third. Not quite pointing their blaster rifles at him, but clearly poised to.

    "In an awful hurry, eh?" The first of them says. You recognise with a sinking feeling that he's wearing the same uniform as the officers out on the street.

    "Look, let's cut to the chase, here," their would-be victim says, hands raised placatingly. "I don't have any money. none. I'd be happy to bribe you, if you hadn't caught me at such a bad time."

    The second officer threatening him — a uniformed human, like her partner — looks a little taken aback at his bluntness. This quickly changes into annoyance. "Mouthy," she says. She glances at her partner. "I hate that in an alien, don't you? He seems awfully suspicious huh?"

    "Extremely," the first officer agrees. He's smiling, but it's not a nice smile.

    This is a shakedown! Robbery! Extortion in broad daylight, with no more justification than that this man is a lovely shade of blue! As soon as you fully understand what's going on, you step in. Because you're a hero, and heroes don't need any other reason!

    "What's going on here?" you demand.

    The two officers whip around, sending you identical thuggish glares. "None of your business is what's going on!" the first officer snaps. "Unless you'd like to be taken in too."

    Their victim is very marginally shaking his head 'no' at you. Which is very sweet of him, but you have this under control. "You want to leave him alone, then go report yourselves for your crimes," you tell them, waving a hand in a slow arc.

    It works! The second officer's eyes go briefly distant. "I... think we should leave the alien alone," she says, vacantly, "and then... maybe go report our crimes." True to her word, she turns on her heel, and begins to leave the alley. At this point, the first officer grabs her by the arm, pulling her to a stop, evidently entirely unaffected by your attempted mind trick.

    Well, it had still half worked.

    "What's going on?" the first office demands, hauling his companion backward as she tries to keep going, looking between you and her. His eyes narrow in suspicion... then widen in recognition. "... oh," he says.

    The second officer picks this time to come around. She's bleary, confused for a second or two, then abruptly seems to become aware of what just happened. The look she sends you is a mixture of shocked confusion and livid anger. She's bringing her weapon up at you and taking aim before her partner has time to practically scream "DON'T" at her. He's older than she is, somewhere in his mid thirties. He remembers the Sith.

    Even as she fires a burst of Republic-surplus blaster bolts, your lightsaber has sprung to life, batting them back to harmlessly scorch into the walls around your attacker. This continues for fractions of a second, before you make your move — darting to the side, leaping up to propel yourself off the alley wall, coming down with a Falling Avalanche strike poised to cut her in half from shoulder to hip. The second officer screams, fully expecting to die.

    Instead, half of her rifle falls to the filthy thermocrete underfoot. She stares at you, open-mouthed, and at the lightsaber poised to cut more than just a blaster next, before her partner wraps an arm around her chest, and starts bodily dragging her backward. "Come on!" he shouts, and the two of them make their escape.

    You wish you'd had the presence of mind to give a cool one-liner, strike an impressive pose, something other than staring after them dumbly. "Well," you say, looking around at their intended victim who, you remind yourself, you just heroically saved, "that worked out, I guess?"

    "... for me, it sure did," he says, sensual lips forming a tentative smile. "Thanks, whoever you—" he looks slightly doubtful, looking you over as if for hints. "... you're not a Sith," he decides, without any further information. "Are you?"

    You want to answer the question, but you're suddenly a little tongue-tied. You remember before? How you stepped in to save him just because you're a hero, and heroes don't need any other reason?

    That was a lie.

    That was a lie you told yourself.

    To be entirely honest? He's hot. REALLY hot, and he's looking at you with those soulful, yellow eyes, and all you can think about is how you want to reach up and tuck that stray strand of lavender hair behind one of his ears, where it's come out of his ponytail. It looks like it would be soft, and—

    Sithspit, now you're GAWKING. Answer him, Lavaeolus!

    ==========

    [ ] Lie, and say you are a Sith!

    [ ] Lie, and say that no, you're a Jedi Knight

    [ ] Tell the truth

    At the same time, counted separately from the above:

    [ ] You flirt with him a lot

    [ ] You flirt with him a little

    [ ] You try not to flirt with him?
     
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    • Ugolino said:
    [x]Just passing by?
    [x] You flirt with him a little
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    To be clear, these options are deliberately presented because they either make herself look cool in front of this guy, or constitute kind of just trusting him. Skylah's not precisely the master of the inconspicuous to begin with, and talking to this dude is making her flustered. So there's not "just passing through don't tell him anything" option.
     
    [X] Lie, and say that no, you're a Jedi Knight
    [X] You flirt with him a little

    You know what? We may as well get brownie points to add to the flirtation we're doing.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    It's kind of a downer!
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    The Sith are generally assholes like that. It's like no one ever told them about environmentalism.

    Gazetteer said:
    You can't just keep voting for the same candidate as your mother forever.
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    So fucking relatable.

    And, because I'm kinda interested in what the truth is,
    [X] Tell the truth
    Oh god that's like the first heterosexual MC relationship I've seen on this forum since Advice&Trust. Wait, hold your horses, Raiseth. This isn't anything serious yet. Don't make it weird. Be cool, be cool

    [X] You flirt with him a lot

    ... Goddamit
     
    What exactly is the truth? Not Jedi as far as I can tell, and not Sith either.

    [X] Tell the truth
    [X] You try not to flirt with him?

    Instant attraction like that? Is he Falleen or sth?

    Orange is an interesting colour. I'd wager a lot we'd have red if we went weapon + made, and blue/green for tool + found.
     
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    [X ] Lie, and say that no, you're a Jedi Knight
    [X] You try not to flirt with him?


    I just love the way this option is presented. It amuses me. :p
     
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    idk
    pretending to be Jedi Knight would mean he thinks we are celibate
    and we don't want to give that impression, do we?

    [X] Tell the truth
    [X] You flirt with him a little
     
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