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RP [Nepleslia] Job 1 - River Raising

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BionicSamurai

Harbinger of Naproxen Addiction
Inactive Member
OOC: Please see the bolded in this thread before starting here. Don't worry, I don't bite unless invited.


Nepleslia Prime - Prospector's Pub, Prime City

A slim, auburn-haired woman sat back in her chair, left hand on her pint of porter, right playing with the snap on her holster. She had on a pair of hiking boots, denim pants, an off-white shirt under a leather vest, and an oilskin hat and jacket. A tall man of medium build and dark complexion stood before her, arms crossed over his chest as he sighed again.

"Are you sure you will not reconsider?" came the man's proper sounding, Delsaurian accent, "I know we would be a great team; you know it, Sergei knew it."

The woman's sky blue eyes looked at the man for a second, then looked away as her pale, freckled brow creased. "Mathias," her dark satin voice replied with a sigh, "we have off and on been doing things together since pre-school. I wanna to go out and do something truly on my own for a change."

"Helen-"

"I'm a big girl, and have people coming in ten. Please..."

Mathias sighed one more time and shook his head, but smiled. "Alright," he relented, pulling out a nice clean business card, "Give me call if you change your mind." The man set the card down next to Helen's beer and tapped it twice, "Happy hunting, Hot Foot."

The frustrated scientist took a pull over drink as the man walked away with a wave, then palmed the card and put it away. She then pulled her hat off and tossed it into the middle of the table before setting her feet up. "I do hope they all show up," Helen sighed.
 
It had been a long minute, the Nepleslian man thought, since he had set foot on Prime for any real reason. Giani Venanzio regarded the pub with a casual glance as he took one last drag on the cigarette burning down now. Maybe it had been too long, he thought. The last outfit he had been part of hadn't worked out so well and the funny thing about bartenders was they wanted money from time to time. Watching the cherry burn down closer to the filter, Marco discarded it with a carefree flick of the fingers to send it away. He stuffed his hands in his pockets with a tired sigh and made his way to the door. He reached it just in time to step aside for a man coming outside. Typical anonymous pleasantries, a "Hello." and "Pardon me.", were all the two of them exchanged, and Giani had caught the door with an outstretched hand before it had much of a chance to start swinging shut.

A familiar scent of nicotine and alcohol hit his senses as soon as the olive-skinned Marine stepped through the door. A glance around and sharp hazel eyes took in the patrons. For a place called the "Prospector's Pub", he certainly didn't stand out from the usual crowd, but at the same time it was of note that "usual" was very broad term to use in this place.

Standing close to six feet even, the ID-SOL he glimpsed through the tobacco smoke were certainly tall enough to make him feel short. While he was still undeniably in shape from exercise in his service days, there were certainly body-builders among the patrons who easily put his mass to shame. His attire certainly fit. Blue jeans that had slowly faded under the suns of foreign worlds and stained with the dirt and sand so deeply that there was little hope of removing them short of fire. He had a white undershirt beneath a black button-up shirt which had it's sleeves rolled up to reveal the myriad of colorful tattoos on his right arm and the glinting metal of his cybernetic left.

On top of that he had a shoulder-holster made of fading brown leather on which was carried a pair of Styrling Silver two-tone .45 semiautos, and to top it all off he had a Marine-green ball-cap over his messy tangle of black hair with the logo of the 2nd Fleet and "Lightning Strikes Once" emblazoned upon it. To top it all off there was a pack of cigarettes poking out of the shirt's pocket and a pair of aviator sunglasses hanging from the neck of his undershirt.

A Nepleslian dressed like a cheap action movie hero, armed, and smoking. Not too uncommon a sight these days, it seemed. His eyes settled on a young woman, an increasingly familiar face, sitting at a table by herself. The two had talked in the past and it was that talk which had brought him here. He made his way over to the table and offered a simple handshake, with a polite smile.

" 'ey, good to see you again, ma'am." He pulled out a nearby seat and quickly made himself comfortable, "Sorry if I ran late. Been a while since I was on Prime."

He retrieved the pack of cigarettes from his shirt and at the moment when one would have expected him to reach for a lighter, the top of his faux-thumb popped open to reveal a quickly started lighter inside. With a puff of nicotine-laced smoke he proffered the pack to her. Yet he didn't speak after that. Nothing but a smile on his face as he enjoyed his smoke and waited for her to speak or others to show up.
 
Helen's freckled face gave a friendly smile seeing the first arrival, but put up her hand to refuse the smokes. "You're pretty well on time," she remarked before looking back at the doors for a moment, "So long as we're ready to roll out tomorrow morning, everything should work out fine. Giani, right?" The woman stood and offered her hand, "Helen Wainwright, geologist and team manager.
 
Nepleslia Prime - Prospector's Pub, Prime City

Thirty minutes, two wrong turns and a couple of questions later, Amelia Stroud found her way into the meeting place. The lithe, raven-haired woman dusted her jacket off as soon as she stepped into the pub, scanning the place for her would-be contractor with her dark brown eyes.

For anyone that would bother to look at the new arrival, they would see that she stood a little under the average height, wearing a black sweater under the rolled sleeves of the jacket and a pair of boots under the green cargo pants also didn't do any good to her form.

What was unseen was, that like every other Nepleslian, she was armed; Her pistol was concealed in a shoulder holster inside the jacket.

After bumping into a table along the way, Amelia stood in front of the table where Helen and Giani were sitting. She proffered a hand towards the other woman and then towards the other man. "Hi. Amelia Stroud, xenotech." She said before looking around for a chair to pull.
 
What a filthy place full of filthy and rude people. That was what the woman walking through the streets of Nepleslia Prime thought as she walked to reach her destination. Prospector's Pub. Alcohol will be nice, was her seconds thought. At least it would help her cope with this dreadful place. She first got to this planet to look over its forests and sea's finding absolutely nothing exciting.

Thought truth to be said, it was hard to experience something exciting after Francia. Apart from her home, Francia was first dangerous place she visited. Lor was pretty good, some dangerous animals there, but on Francia, she was actually worried for her life. That was firs time since she hunted Tyrani back home. Tyrani were dangerous enough, but Francia did had giant raging mammoth monsters and those were fun to deal with it.

Then she arrived on Nep-Prime and all went downhill. Some sneak-thief stole her luggage while she was out in the forest. Leaving her only with her guns, what she packed for the hunt and few hundred DAs. That was not enough to go back home. She was too prideful to call her family to help and local police was useless. She would track him herself and then shoot the bastard, but it is hard to look for tracks on concrete.

With a grumpy expression on her face Griselda Weiss entered the bar. She looked around looking for the face of her soon-to-be employer. Her money problems called for actually getting a job. Luckily enough this expedition thing called for people like her.

"Gutten tag," said the tallish abwehran woman as she walked to the table. She stood at good 6 feet tall, her skin was whiteish and pale. Her head was crowned by long platinum blond hair pulled back and braided. On the hat sat a cowboy hat, she promptly took off. She wore a gray duster and on her back was a large backpack. To the side of backpack there was a rifle cloth pack tied.

As she took off the hat and opened her cloak, one could see a fit body under a blue shirt and fairly well endowed chest. A pair of dark cargo pants were held by a brown real leather belt. On the belt was a holster with some kind of revolver.

The woman kicked of a chair from the table with her boots, took of the backpack, setting it down and sitting. "Ach enshuldigen, I am Griselda Weiss. I am here about zee job as it waz decided. I am zee hunter and tracked. A jaeger for you group. I can also drive and carry zee scheisse if needed. But I would razzer stick to shooting animals that endanger your liebe group." Filthy nepleslians she thought as she explained, masking her thoughts with a polite smile.
 
The geologist smiled as the next team member arrived, the fine lines at the edges of her wizened eyes and thin mouth deepened. "Good," she began, "with some of what this job may entail, it's possible you will be doing a fair amount of work."

The arrival of the Abwehran only made her feel better, until she began speaking what seemed to be at least half Trade. It had to be Trade from some of the words, but she turned back to Giani with a confused look. "Seems you will be starting your work right away, Mr. Venanzio," she commented quietly before making her way to the hunter.

"Ms. Weiss; a pleasure. You look sturdy enough to take on anything I recall hiding in the area we'll be heading to."
 
Seegar Fighlan walked quickly through the streets of Prime City. He wasn't fond with this side of town and he had little love for the looks he kept getting from the ruffians he seemed to be passing. He was running a bit late, but he didn't pay it any mind; people like him were always in demand and this was just another job.

His knee high black boots clacked loudly as he walked over a manhole, drawing even more stares from the rough neck crowd, and further proving to himself that he didn't belong here. He was a skinny man, having long ago lost his marine muscles, with a crew cut in black. A pair of durable glasses were propped on his nose, and a trim and clean goatee covered his jaw. It wasn't long before he saw the sign that marked the pub he was to report to, he quickly ducked in and searched for his contact.

Spotting an out of place group of individuals, he rubbed his dirty hands on his light tan cargo pants and adjusted his grey vest. While walking, he rolled his long white sleeves up, as the room seemed quite stuffy to him. He spotted the abwehran and sauntered over, flashing her his best "How you doing?" smile. He attempted to present himself as dignified to his contact, but his glasses had developed a nasty habit of falling off or moving around at the most inopportune times. He fumbled with his glasses for a few seconds before straightening up and, in a cocky tone, said, "Dr. Fighlan, for your pleasure ladies and gents. Are you the crew for the expedition?"
 
"Ja," Gris simply responded to Helen. "That I am only. I think actually I am zee only one in dis entire bierhall who iz zturdy. Unless dere iz eine Ideale Soldat." Griselda simply stated the facts. Nepleslians were squishy, expect for the so-call ideal soldiers. Those were squishy too, but could endude the pain much better and actually healed. Too bad they were artifical beings, unlike abwehrans.

"Ah gutten tag herr Doktor," The hunter greeted the newcomer. It was likely she won't need his services due to natural regenerative power that abwehran possessed. If he even knew anything about abwehran physiology.
 
"Of course," Helen smiled, hoping she understood correctly some of what the Abwehran was saying. She then turned to the next new arrival and her smile became more of an approving one.

"Good to see that you came," She began, "I'd be worried taking us all out there without you. Do you have your own supplies, or will we need to pack up anything additional before we leave extant civilization?"
 
Giani couldn't help but shake his head. A linguist, a clumsy xenotech, an Abwerhan who barely spoke trade, and an overly cocky medic walked in to a bar to do business with a hot piece skirt. Some part of Giani pondered quietly to himself as he eyed the burning embers of the cigarette's cherry, barely regarding the new arrivals with something that would be difficult to describe as a very invested glance. It wasn't until the comment from his actual employer that Giani sat up and moved to greet the others. A hand shake here, a nod of the head where appropriate, and of course he made sure to introduce himself by name: Giani Venanzio, linguist, and demolitions expert for the expedition. With the almost obligatory addition of, "But my friends just call me Gi', so you know."

Then he looked to the Abwerhan, Griselda, and offered a half smile. Pulling off his ball-cap to run a free hand through his hair before returning the cap to his head and the cybernetic hand to his cigarette.

"Sorry. We don't have any meat-shields." He shrugged, "Funny thing about archaeology: we're not lookin' to start a fight. Should be fine, I mean, unless you don't think you can handle it . . ." He gave a good-natured smile and a shrug.
 
"Hey, as long as I'm getting paid." Amelia replied to Ellen jokingly as she examined the others on the table as they arrived one after another. She rubber her hands together and took a look around the joint that the group was in, examining it with some mild interest.

"Speaking of leaving, where are we headed?" The xenotechnologist asked Ellen. She hadn't had much information other than the meeting place and that they required a someone who could handle and study alien technology.
 
He was quite enthused at his comrades to be. Although some of them seemed like the roughneck crowd he tended to dislike, they had their uses. "I have the basics of everything I should need for a usual expedition. If you intend on endangering us quite frequently, my supplies will obviously not last that long."

He had a passing thought of asking for physicals to check for "preexisting conditions," but dismissed it as he noticed the females all seemed quite well armed. He then noticed that he had somehow misplaced his handgun in his hurry to get to the meeting. "Yes, when are we leaving and to where? I try not to jump into the unknown if I'm not getting paid."
 
Helen smiled at the goings on and shook her head.

"Gi'," she began with the sound of experienced authority with a touch of bemusement, "I'm hiring you to make sense of alien languages, not beg to be perforated. Ms. Stroud, Doctor, you most certainly will be getting paid - though how much will depend on what we find."

The geologist then went around behind her chair and opened up a green canvas backpack. Some of her mid-back length hair slid down, causing her to brush it back over her ear, exposing a bit of grey that she had missed. Helen then pulled out a DataJockey and set it on the table.

"As for where we will be going," she continued, flipping through pages of files until she picked one of them, "this is the place."

The file opened up into a map of a forested foothills area, centred on a location that looked like an ancient river bed through a relatively flat terrace. The river that may have used it before seemed to be miles away now and had quite the nice floodplain of its own. A small creek now ran through the old bed that, due to its course found it's way to the main river in the area.

"This place, from what I can tell, used to be where two rivers flowed together into a marsh, before flowing over this cliff here, at the end of the valley."

She pulled up some settings and selected one of the sub-surface layers. This caused the map to change to false colour, with various clusters of bright shapes and colours.

"This is the same area looking at a scan of the metals found. Much of it is in mineral form; however there is one that seems to be quite pure, despite the fact that it is never found in that state naturally."

Helen indicated various small dots of cyan that look as if they had washed down the river more than the other colours, then zoomed in on a cluster.

"You never see Aluminium in this state unless it has been cooked by someone first. Finding out whom that someone was will be our job for the near foreseeable future. Any questions?"
 
Gris looked at Giani and frowned. She understood what he talked about, but was not sure why he was talking about. "I waz not talking about zee fighting mein freund. You haz to be tough to surviva in zee wilderness you zee? Animals do not care if you are looking for zee fight or not. Zey just wantz to eat you." She explained. The man looked like her never set a foot away from the town.

"As for stuff, i hef mein own. I am packed for zee forest travelz." Gris said to Helen and then listened to the explanation. The abwehran hunter cared little for the archeology, even though it might be a bit interesting. What she cared about was what could they meet there.

"Ach so," She then said as Helen asked for more question. "I wantz to know fef zings. I assume we will be on diz planet. Where exactly. I needz to know what I can expect. Klar?"
 
Giani shrugged, "Great. Like I never been around a hungry animal." He chuckled and returned to looking at Helen for her briefing.

Giani waited for Griselda to finish h er own question before he took the time to speak himself. His words began, as many of them so often did, with a seemingly very noncommittal shrug.

"Any ideas who they were? Local history, or legends to go off?"

A long drag on his cigarette and Giani was leaning on the table to look at the offered display. The cybernetic hand reached out for a moment and barely shifted the datapad, tilting his head. Metal deposits, depending on their density and composition, could prove to be a challenge for him if they had a need or any heavy demolitions.
 
Helen looked to Griselda and nodded, "We will be on this planet, and the area we will be in is mostly forested and full of all manner of predator and prey fauna."

She then looked over to Giani and sighed, "That also means we will not be near any settlement that has been around much longer than a few months. From the time required for the river to move as it has, as well as the depth of these unnatural deposits, this will be from thousands of years before any known colonization of this world. So no, no local legends."

The geologist then looked around the group to see if there were any other questions.
 
Nepleslia Prime - Street just outside Prospector's Pub

"You see Emmy! I told you this was the right way! You gotta listen to me above ground I got the eyes!"

A growling murr came in reply to the woman's soft scolding as claws scraped the ground, digging up concrete here and there in small gouges. Astride what could only be considered a cross between a platypus and mole, roughly the size of kodiak bear and the armored backing of a Armadillo walked through the streets, sniffing here and there, long tentacles coming from the top of the mouth brushing along the streets as if to pick up scents.

"There are to many scents around here Emmy, it's screwing with ya." The Llamnel woman said as they finally stopped in front of the doorway to the Prospector's Pub. Pursing her lips a little she let out a sigh and shook her head.

"Damn planet, no consideration for Lorath...You gotta stay out here Emmy, and no getting in trouble you hear me? Stay. Right. Here."

She said, pointing her finger at a spot on the ground. The beast, known as a Lintro, complied by taking a seat on the sidewalk. It's tail swept a small clean spot on the other wise dirty sidewalk as the Lorath woman walked into the pub, looking around for the group. Spotting them she couldn't help but grin, taking her goggles off her face and moving over to them.

"He-Hey! You all the excavation team?" Standing just over six and a half feet tall, the Lorath woman sported shoulder length pale white hair with what looked like soot and ash sprinkled throughout. She wore a pair of tattered looking worn overalls, a Lorath Hand Cannon on her left hip, and a hand held maul on the other hip. Thick sturdy boots and a dusty undershirt completed the ensemble that she wore. Her wings twitched a little as she looked around with her yellow eyes, grinning all the while.

"Sorry I'm late! My Emmy kept going the wrong way... But we're here! Oh right, my name... Uh... Digger Tro'Tin'Ta Jewel Salin'Tat Llamnel, here for duty! I was the surveyor and jewel expert you all were looking for?"

Having used precious gems for so long as currency, many Lorath were experts in the stones.
 
Helen was still checking around to see if any more questions would be asked when she heard Digger call out. "Ah, I was worried we would have to go without you," she called out to the Lorath, then looked back at everyone else.

"If there are no further questions I would like you all to get your things ready and get to the space port. We will not be leaving atmo; however due to the area, we will be reliant on vertical landing, necessitating a shuttle.

"I have it booked to take off in two hours. Is that enough time for everyone?"
 
The good doctor put his hands on his hips as yet another non-human arrived. "My my, I've always been interested in the inner workings of your race, maybe I'll get a chance to learn some new things," he said with little hid excitement to the new arrival. "I'm not trying to brag, but I'm quite the surveyor myself, maybe we can survey things together." He wasn't overly confident in his surveying skills, but if you pretend you know something long enough, people tend to believe you.

Adjusting his glasses which had slipped down the bridge of his nose, "I'll need about an hour to get medical supplies for the non-human element of the expedition, but other than that, I will meet you fine gentlemen and ladies there."

Seegar quickly reached for a datapad in his pocket, got the information for the shuttle and scurried quickly off to prepare for the grand expedition. "But first I have to find my conflabbit missing handgun," he muttered on the way out.
 
Pulling out a datajockey of her own, Amelia started to seemingly write down the location of where the shuttle would be taking off, but instead had only been punching what she would be taking with her, since that spaceport in question was not unfamiliar to her. She digested what Helen had said as she punched down the list on her datajockey.

Internally, though, she screamed; They would be going into a place with no power or running water for days. But the thing was that she was a couple digits of being flat-out broke, so the xenotechnologist had to take whatever jobs she could.

"Sure, two hours sounds... Good. I'll go fetch my things then" The raven-haired woman said, trying to keep her tone neutral, before getting up and pushing the chair back. She then made her way out of the bar, stroking her shoulder-length hair.
 
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