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Cresent landed her ship, Tirpitz, skillfully at the Albatross and sauntered in. With a quick move, she shot Frodo in the head, and headed off to find Shek. Her curiosity about recent events was driving her insane. When she finally found him, he appeared to be in some sort of trance. Uncertainly, she took a step forward.
OOC: Solel, I don't know if Shek will come out of his trance if Cresent talks to him or not, so I will just leave it at that.
------------------ To err is human. To err and blame it on someone else, is even more human.
(This message has been edited by Cresent (edited 06-25-2003).)
OOC: 'Trance' is just the term I use to describe his level of focus. In his culture, when battling with weapons, he assumes a state of mind where he is almost totally concentrated on what he is doing, but that involves making observations about his environment. So yes, he would come out of it when Cresent showed up, or for anyone else, for that matter, unless someone came at him trying to kill him, in which case he'd stay in the trance to fight the guy off.
Whew, that was a long description. Oh, and in this, your character is called Cresent, right?
IC:
Shek slowly let the energy of his focus-trance slide away when he noticed Cresent.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Shek sheathed the glaive. "I'm waiting for DZ to get back." He looked at his chronometer. "He should be here within the next few hours. I was just practicing some of the combat forms used in battle by an Ell'achi swordmaster like myself."
------------------ All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. J. R. R. Tolkien (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/search.cgi?action=intro&default;=26")The Search Feature(/url)
Quote
Originally posted by Solel: **OOC: Oh, and in this, your character is called Cresent, right?
**
OOC: Yes. /OOC
Cresent nodded thoughtfully. "I was just wondering what happened back there on the Cat's Pyjamas. There wasn't room for my ship to dock so I still have not found out what happened."
The Longbow thunders into the spacedock, vibrating dust off the bottles of synthale that has laid untouched for decades.
"Whooooeeeee, those refits sure did make her fast, with a side dish of loud!" DZ yells as he walks into the bar. Unaware that his hearing is impeded, he continues in the loud tone of voice. "Shek, hey, I'm back! I got a new friend comin', says somebody in your clan saved his life or somethin'."
When Shek doesn't reply, and Crescent looks at him funny, DZ asks, "What? Was it something I said?"
Crescent says something. DZ can't tell what it is. "Speak up, you don't need to mutter!"
Shek points to his ears. "Oh, oh, hang on a sec..." DZ says, pulling a set of noise canceling earbuds out of his ears. "Sorry, forgot I had these in. What did you say?"
OOC: I don't want to make dialogue for other characters... Unless you say to, I guess.
------------------ (url="http://"http://home.earthlink.net/~double_zero/falcon.html")The Falcon Project(/url) "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it." --Henry David Thoreau
The Zidara was parked and Rima sat, her mind going through all the possibilities. That name...perhaps she heard it wrong. She pulled up the device, running it back. "Zolton Hertesear." She stopped it. Cyma looked up at her, sensing her mood had suddenly changed.
Rima got up, sending a message to the Zidagar to check up on the whereabouts and record of this man. At the end of it, she put in a picture of a piece of paper with an odd star symbol on it, and a peculiar gleaming to the star. Then she walked out of the Zidara, closing it just as a sleek white shape jumped, landing on her shoulder.
"Alright Cyma, I suppose you've been cooped up in there long enough. Let's take a break and wait for a return message. And I might as well put another piece of paper in the bar, if anyone coming through sees it, they'll understand. Maybe now we can get the Star Pendant back."
She walked to the bar, going in and quickly mixing her own drink. A strong Zidagar drinks, she cautioned herself to only have one, no matter how confused she was getting. She didn't need to be out cold. Otherwise she'd probably wake up to Cyma chewing on her ear like last time.
"Hi everyone. Looks like we all had a nice little adventure." She put on her normal face, but she drank her drink within the minute, looking for somewhere she could put the paper where no one but those looking for it would notice. She put it on the table, staring at the symbol as she thought about how to track down Zolton if he was the one she was looking for.
------------------ There were once two planets. Then humans destroyed the second. Then there was one.
(edit) Pointless post. (/edit)
------------------ One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
(This message has been edited by Frodo101 (edited 06-28-2003).)
DZ pounds his way out of the bag, and shoots Frodo in the head. "No offense. That's my job now," DZ apologizes as Frodo grows a new head. "You should have done that outside the bar. Anything inside regenerates. So Shek is going to regenerate and then kick your little keester with all that kung-fu mumbo jumbo he knows. Just FYI, I'd leave if I were you..."
DZ shoots Frodo in the head again, grabs a Dew, and goes back to his corner to watch the rest of the bar patrons extricate themselves from Frodo's trap.
OOC EDIT: I am fully agreed with Solel in that Frodo is royally being a pain in the derriere. I was having fun developing characters and then nasty little hobbitses had to go and throw the Sunrunners in the trash...
(This message has been edited by double_zero (edited 06-26-2003).)
OOC: Frodo:
At this point, I want to make something very clear to you. Do not write anything regarding the history of my character unless you gain explicit permission from me. Shek Sunrunner is my creation, is my material. That trash you wrote about his family massacring an entire planet is thus void. When I'm writing my character out to be an honorable warrior, I don't appreciate it when you, you who have so far not contributed at all to the plotline we've been toying with, suddenly write something that completely wrecks the reputation of him and his family. As DZ reminded me, I wrote in an earlier post that his now-dead brother, of whom I was planning to base an entire story around, was in something called the Sha'achi Truth Order, which although I haven't stated it explicityit was meant to be developed gradually, but now that's been blown, hasn't it?it is the highest degree of education from the planet he hails from.
The Ell'achi swordmasters are not barbarous warriors. They are the guardians of Shek's homeland and the defenders of the peace there. They are not the bloody genocidal maniacs who claim they are.
I will thus request now of all the current writers and contributors to this bar/story that everyone respects, at least regarding my character(s), the golden rule of webstories: Thou shalt not kill other writers' characters unless you gain the permission of the writer of that character to do so. I suppose it's okay inside the bar, where stuff regenerates, but I want some respect here.
And now, since it sounds like such a jolly good idea at this point to me, I'm going to follow the advice DZ put in his last post.
/OOC
Shek did not enjoy the horrible pain that came with having a drill kill him, but then again, he had been trained by the swordmasters of Ell'achi, the brilliant instructors of the Sarpi War Academy, where the peacekeepers of Dur'ach were trained in the arts of combat so that they could honor the gods and defend those in need, helping those who required aid, and always standing for what was honorable and right. They were the instruments of Justice. He fed off the pain, taking it with him into the afterlife, and using it to fuel his anger at the injustice of the attack as the Ell'achi patron god Sorul brought him back to life to ensure justice was done.
Falling easily and instantly into the deepest and strongest Ell'achi battle trances, Shek felt his senses ascend to a higher level. He drew his glaive purposefully, and looked at Frodo coldly. "Halfling, I have put up with your wild antics for long enough now. But when you yell lies about my family, my patience expires easily." Within a fraction of a second he was in reach of the hobbit, and quickly Shek dropped to a knee, sweeping the glaive under the Halfling's legs. Frodo jumped, but Shek was already rising, and his head smashed into Frodo's face, breaking the halfling's nose. As the halfling writhed in pain on the floor, Shek brought his dagger to rest on his foe's neck.
"Know this," he said softly. "Clan Sunrunner has been the most honorable, most respected, most noble of all the clans in Ellif for over five thousand years. They have never partaken in any action that would stain their name, and have never conducted killings on Muhu'ta. The Sarpi War Academy trains honorable warriors, not common criminals. If ever again I hear you spreading lies to the contrary, I shall not be so lenient in the future."
And with that, Shek walked out of the bar, going to meet with DZ and his friend. Perhaps another mission could get his mind off of the conflicting emotions roiling through his mind.
OOC: Booyah, halfling. I'm sorry to say, that thanks to you, the character of Frodo from the LOTR Trilogy (The books, not the sellout movies.) has been ruined. That is my favorite too...
DZ warms up his ship, and emails the quadrants of the meeting system to Shek and Blade. Turning to the hobbit, he begins to speak, then, thinking better of it, turns away and stalks to his ship.
Shek climbed angrily into the pilot seat of the Teiresias , calming down only slightly as he released the tow cable attached to the Cat's Pyjamas and quickly ran through the familiar preflight procedures and got the engines running. He retracted the landing claws as he fired the hoverjets along the keel, and then headed out of the docking bay around the Albatross, heading towards the edge of the Liat system. The datascreen to his left was currently displaying the message from the Longbow.
The Chak system eh? Well, this ship can make that. He leaned over his controls and checked the fuel reading. Well, maybe if I pull into ports maybe five times... That thought elicited a good chuckle, and that made Shek smile. He hadn't had a good laugh in too long.
After setting his instruments to the proper calibrations and entering the jump coordinates back to Azdgari space, Shek slowly turned the dial that marked the speed of the Teiresias. A few moments passed, during which the Voinian craft began rapidly accelerating, and then the stars elongated and the Teiresias was suddenly traveling down the lighted tunnel of a hyperspace rift.
Shek dozed while he traveled. After all, it was a long journey.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Slowly," cautioned the man in dark green robes. "Don't use all your energy in a single attack, for your opponent will likely be able to turn it aside. You must conserve your energy. Probe your opponent's defenses, test his strengths. Only when you know him as well as you know yourself shall you be assured of victory, yes?"
"Yes Swordmaster," said Shek softly.
"That goes for you too, Jal." Shek's brother nodded in acknowledgment.
For two months now they'd been here at Sarpi, which meant it had been two months since either of them had seen either their family or their friends. Both Jal and Shek still remembered the final words they'd heard from their father, Swordmaster Onner Sunrunner, before they went off to the War Academy.
"What you are about to do, and where you are about to go, will change your lives, forever. Being an Ell'achi swordmaster is the most honorable profession a Dur'achi could hope to have, and I know both of you have it in you to be two of the best. I want both of you to know, now, before you go, how proud I am of you, and how much your mother and I love you. Be strong, but remember to be kind as well, and never let anything or anyone stop you from doing what is right and defending justice."
That had been the last they'd heard of anyone they'd known since then, really. The first instructor they'd known, a Dur'achi by the name of Dess, had been the one sent by Sarpi to come and pick them up and take them the long road to the Academy. It had been a dangerous journey, made even more difficult by Dess insisting on starting their training before they even arrived.
"It'll give you an advantage over the others there," he promised. "Just because Sarpi is in Ellif doesn't mean that all the Dur'achi there are Ell'achi. There are plenty of aspiring swordmasters from the other provinces, even from Shannok, if you can believe it."
Dess trained them physically and mentally, having them exercise for hours on end until sometimes Shek thought he would die of exhaustion. He taught them the basic tenets of the Steel River, one of the philosophies learned at the Academy. Some days he even pulled out small practice swords and conducted mock duels, showing the two brothers some basic forms and nipping in the bud any bad habits they had. He also provided something that they hadn't realized they needed: friendship. He talked with them, telling them stories of the time when he was there as a trainee, making the Academy seem like a much less threatening place in their minds.
By the time they arrived at the looming fortress that was the Sarpi War Academy, Shek and Jal Sunrunner had been through the equivalent of one year of trainee instruction. But that meant little. There was so much to learn! The other instructors were much like Dess, except few of them were as friendly. In fact, some of them were cruel, like Mos. But he knew how to teach the Trances better than anyone in the history of the school, and he'd been instructing for over seventy years by the time Shek and Jal got there.
They made friends more easily with other trainees. Lelos of Clan Somm, a Ravinothi, was the first to befriend the two brothers, and Shek and Jal both liked him, and the Ravinothi returned the feeling. He was brilliant and strong, which he explained came from his province. The people of Nasdoth were a hardy breed, but he wasn't arrogant about it. Far from it, he was the humblest trainee there, for he had spent nine years in the Temple of Nasdoth before the priests realized he could serve the god better as a swordmaster. So they had sent him to Sarpi, where he was the sole Ravinothi amid about forty other Dur'achisome from Shannok, some from Sidam, some even from Xel, but most from Ellifand so far he was happy there, mostly because of his friendship with Shek and Jal. Lelos was the replacement for Dess, who had gone back out wandering again, searching for other potential warriors.
The practice session ended after another hour. "Get some rest," called the instructor. "You'll be seeing Mos tomorrow."
Shek woke up. He was out of fuel, so he landed on the planet below and filled his tanks back up, and then reinitiated the jump, heading to Chak.
Sorul! What is going on in my head?
As the Longbow flew through space, DZ pondered his idea. Would it work? How would it affect the balance of power in the Crescent? Could two vigilante humans really survive there, much less shape world events?
What difference did it make, anyway? Would it help Wraith or Grace?
Grace. That was a name DZ had not let dwell in his mind for a long time. She was his friend, his only true one, when he was running around the galaxy playing with his adopted father's money. She was the only person who said what she thought, instead of glossing over his faults to make him like her. And yet, there was something between them. Something more than he had with the rest of his friends, even the girls he dated. It was as if she didn't care about his status, his money. Then, he couldn't stand it, and had run off when his father died, avoiding her knowing hazel eyes. Why was he running? Maybe I should just force myself... he thought. He was too tired make decisions like this right now, so he filled his head with images of her, the sound of her voice.
//////////
When DZ awoke, it was to the sounds of pitched battle. Two Izdgari Aradas were going at it with an Azdgari Warship. Not wishing to be targeted, he powered down his weapons and stopped well clear of the raging battle.
OOC: Sorry for being such a jerk to everyone. Forget all that I said about the Sunrunners and forget everything I said in that last post. I just got kind of pissed off there. Sorry.
(This message has been edited by Frodo101 (edited 06-26-2003).)
From the loud noise of a Voinian Cruiser's engine, Ory'hara's Voinian Cruiser, The Cruiser of Doom, docks at docking bay 25. The Cruiser's rusty doors creaks open, and several Voinian crew come out. "Hands up, all UE folks!" thunders a Voinian. The Albatross is thrown into chaos as a fight breaks out. Tables, chairs and computers fly everywhere. Ory'hara manages to scramble inside his cruiser and throws the switch for emergency disengagement from docking bay 25. With a whooshing noise, Ory'hara's Voinian Cruiser blasts off into space, leaving the Voinian crew to fight.
------------------ ---- I am Ory'hara! Learn your lesson from UFS Razorback.
DZ opens a vidlink to the Albatross, and sees the Voinian ship docked. He zooms the small satellite in closer, and wonders how the heck a Cruiser with its full Voinian crew got so deep into UE space. He hails the Cruiser, and asks its new captain what's going on.
"Heh" sounds Ory'hara's voice over the hailing channel, "I bribed a UE navy soldier with 1M credits for him to install a IFF signal masker to trick UE ships to think that I was just someone's escort".
Cresent took full advantage of the fight and kicked Frodo across the room. Thanks to the hobbit, she still didn't know fully what was going on. Completely ignoring the fight, she wandered over to a corner table, and took out a deck of cards. Dealing them into an intricate formation, she began playing an odd form of solitaire.
OOC:
Originally posted by Frodo101: OOC: Sorry for being such a jerk to everyone. Forget all that I said about the Sunrunners and forget everything I said in that last post. I just got kind of pissed off there. Sorry.
Alright, you're forgiven. Just don't do it again. /OOC
Once again Shek Sunrunner fell into the strange world of dreams as he finished turning the veloci-dial to read HYPERSPACE. Once again he fell back into his past.
Instructor Mos, eldest swordmaster at the Sarpi War Academy, grinned maliciously as the ten trainees walked into his morning class. There were seven Ell'achi, one Ravinothi, a Sha'achi, and a Xe'achi. This could be an interesting session, he thought to himself.
Mos was the Trance teacher. He always had been, and he'd been around so long that some people joked that he always would be. But no one ever joked in his class. He was excellent at his job, but he was cruel to anyone who didn't catch on, believing they hadn't been paying proper attention. Often he was right, but sometimes he wasn't, and in those latter cases people hated him. But it didn't matter, because everyone knew they could find no one who could instruct the Dur'achi battle trances better than Mos.
Lelos Somm had already learned the cruelty of Mos. The teacher believed the Ravinothi hadn't been paying attention, so he took him out to the practice floor and ordered the other trainees to watch. To Somm's horror, Mos brought out two of the real combat glaives used by the elite swordmasters to destroy practice targets. So the instructor had given Somm one of the real blades and took the other for himself.
"Now, Somm, assume the Armada over the Waters trance," Mos had said. It was the trance they were supposed to have learned that day. Somm had been paying attention, and fell into the hyper-alert state of the trance, but he'd been no match for the instructor, who had decades of experience over his student. By the time they'd returned to the lecture, Somm had seven gashes. Mos only had a small scratch on his hand.
The lesson had been clear to all of them: never challenge the teachers unless you know you can win. But Somm had taken an additional lesson that no one else there thought of: become so well-trained and so good that one day, one day, I'll defeat Mos and have my revenge for this injustice.
The first few years at the Academy were much like that. Training for actual battles came in the third year with Instructor Jed, a battle-scarred man with only one eye and eight fingers. He pushed Shek and Jal harder than Dess had ever pushed them, and even Lelos Somm, from the brutal jungles of Ravinoth, was exhausted at the end of a training session with Swordmaster Jed. They learned strategy and tactics from the Swordmasters Wehekk and Regel, the two generals of Sarpi who had defended Ellif from a naval invasion twenty two years ago, wiping out the pirate force of thousands and taking only two losses on their side. Shek and Jal caught on quickly, but Somm seemed to see everything instantly, even faster than they. But there was no real resentment there, for Somm would show them what he'd figured out about the strategy, and sometimes the three of them would even find errors in the battles that the Swordmasters had never seen. Regel and Wehekk were extremely impressed when they came forward one day and showed the two generals.
"Someday, the three of you will be legendary warriors of Dur'ach, such as the bards sing of," Regel had said. Wehekk had just nodded, but the gleam in his eyes showed his own pride in having such students.
Eventually, though, the fourth year came, and that meant the Long Wandering with Instructor Dess. He hardly recognized Shek and Jal, and he'd never seen Somm. Only three warriors were sent out for the Wandering, and since they were the three best, they had been sent by Mos to go train out in the open with Dess.
He took them to the coast of Ellif. There they trained against him, fighting with real steel against him, and though they never defeated himhe was a trained swordmaster, just like the other instructorsthey steadily got better. Sometimes Shek wondered why they were waiting there. It didn't make much sense, just waiting on the sand. He said as much one time.
"We await a coming of the Darweshi Pirates."
That shocked the three. They couldn't believe they could turn back a host of them, let alone a single ship full of the corsairs, but Dess told them with absolute certainty that they could if they kept up their training. So they kept dueling with him for months on end, until finally the tell-tale red sails of a Darweshi vessel could be seen.
The Darweshi had always plagued the coasts of Dur'ach, at least, all the history said so, and the truly ancient scrolls in the Archives in Shannok spoke of Darweshi assaults from as many as five thousand years ago, when the pirates used reed canoes and triremes. They Darweshi came to take slaves and whatever other resources they could, and eventually the Dur'achi had decided to fight back. Thus the Sarpi War Academy had been founded by the few surviving warriors who had been the first to have turned back a Darweshi attack. Slowly they discovered the arts of the Trances, and steadily the armies of Dur'ach, mostly based in Ellif, had become something the Darweshi were reluctant to face.
The battle lasted well into the night. There must have been fifty of the raiders, each wielding the heavy curved swords that marked a Darweshi Pirate, and sometimes even Dess was hard pressed to hold them back. Somm had learned the Trances with a fervor unseen of before in Sarpi, though, and he moved with such deadly grace that by the time the battle ended, twelve corpses rested around him, and Shek was reasonably certain that the blood staining the Ravinothi's tunic was Darweshi. He himself had suffered a few cuts, but they soon healed. Jal also had been injured, but he soon recovered as well. Dess didn't have a mark on him.
Shek woke up. Why do I keep thinking about Sarpi and Jal and Lelos? What is going on Sorul?
After refueling once again, he set the ship back to hurtling through the void of hyperspace towards Chak. He then got up to eat a large meal, for a Dur'achi traditionally has a huge appetite, and then he returned to his seat. Slowly, he dozed off again.
As the pratrons of The Albatross watches through the windows, a space fight is taking place and UE Destroyers are chasing Ory'hara's cruiser. The blasts of Neutron Cannons and Blaze Cannons are seen, and the barman goes over to a control panel to control a vidlink satelite. The scene of Ory'hara's cruiser flickers on the news panel.
"Crew, I have an idea. Lets overheat the engines and make a run for it", says the voice of Ory'hara. As the pratrons inch closer to the news panel, the engineer pulls a lever, pulling it towards a label labeled "FULL SPEED". Everyone dash for the escape pods, and the speedometer reads 89 L.Y. per hour. 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100... Suddenly, red lights flash all over the intreior of the Cruiser, and an UE says "All right, all soldiers, check the engine rooms". They did not have to check. A computer booms "warning, engine overheat, engine overheat". The UE soldiers try desperately to reach the remaining escape pods but it was too late. Flanes ripped through the cruiser, toasting soldiers, comuters, anything that got in its way. Screams of men are heard, and, finally, the Cruiser explodes into millions of pieces of space dust.
OOC: We all have our moments. You are henceforth forgiven, Frodo. Perhaps you should come up eith your own character to add to the story...
The two Aradas made fairly short work of the Warship, but instead of destroying it, they settled for disabling it, and then jumped out of the system. Strange, thought DZ, that's not like the Igadzra, to leave an enemy injured... Deciding to investigate, and perhaps help any survivors, DZ flew the Longbow closer. The Pilgrim's Progress , as DZ read on the bow, had taken quite a beating. DZ doubted that there would be any survivors. Still, he docked, to see if there was anything salvageable. As he entered the darkened ship, he considered the name of the vessel. Pilgrim's Progress, unusual name for a military ship... Maybe it's a privateer? A highly trusted one, perhaps...
He cautiously walked down the corridor to the bridge, following the signs that pointed the way. In galactic basic?!? Must be a privateer, perhaps even human... As he reached the red-lit bridge, he heard a sound. His hand went to the pistol on his left thigh, undoing the catch.
Movement in the corner. A hand was unsteadily holding a blast pistol in his general direction. A decidedly human hand.
"Come to gloat, Igadzra scum?" A woman's voice said. DZ thought it sounded familiar.
"Not Igadzra, Miss, sorry to dissapoint you. I'm human, in case you're interested. And there's no need to point that prodigious pistol at me, I'm here purely by curiousity. Let's not do anything rash."
"Good enough. If you'll excuse me, I would like to use whatever medical facilities are available, I seem to have sustained a few minor injuries." The woman tucked the pistol away, and tried to rise. She got about halfway up before collapsing in her pool of blood.
DZ silently stepped over and offered his hand. She took it, standing fully but slightly hunched. She was tall, nearly DZ's height. Her long, curly brown hair was matted with blood, and hung down to hide her face. She wore a black jumpsuit, form-fitting but not revealingly tight. She limped down the hallway supported by DZ.
"I suggest my advanced and undamaged sickbay. Shall we?" DZ didn't wait for an answer, since she seemed about to collapse from blood loss, instead leading her through the open airlocks into his ship. He deposited her in the care of the medical bot and returned to her ship to search for any surviving crew.
He checked nearly all the chambers, electing to stay clear of her quarters until he had asked her permission. Finding no crew, dead or alive, he assumed her ship must be automated, like the Longbow. He wondered where the resources for that expenxive procedure had come from. A trusted mercenary...
He returned to his ship and sat to await the arrival of Solel and Blade.
EDIT: Shup, what's a shup?
(This message has been edited by double_zero (edited 06-28-2003).)
Am i just stupid or are solel, dz and rima making each one a different storyline?
------------------ Cooldude